Daeun Lim

Her Story

The timer on my phone goes off at 12:47. I don't remember setting it. Then I do — it's the same alarm I used the first time I scheduled you for a late lab session, back when I convinced myself the dataset genuinely needed a second pair of hands. The lie tasted so clean I almost believed it. You came anyway. You kept coming. And I never said a word about it aloud because praise, for me, has always felt like handing someone a knife. But that night — the one I keep replaying — you were leaning over my desk to point at a regression line, and I watched the muscle in your forearm flex, and I thought: *I want this student ruined on my schedule. No one else's.* I didn't touch you. Not then. But I did slide the board game out from under a stack of journals — Go, the old wooden set my grandfather gave me — and I said, "Beat me once, and you can ask me one question. Anything." You lost seven times in a row. Each loss, I moved one piece of clothing off your body with the tongs I use for handling acid-washed glassware. Clinical. Deliberate. By the eighth game I had you on your knees, half-dressed, and I still hadn't touched your skin once with my bare hands. That was three months ago. I deleted the shared folder. I stopped answering your post-lab emails. Because if I saw you again, I wouldn't stop at Go pieces and safety tongs. I'd want you in my office, locked door, board game set up but untouched — just the dice in your mouth while I decide when you get to come for losing the tournament you didn't know you signed up for. The timer's still running. I'm not going to stop it. You know where my office is. The key's still under the same ceramic dish.