Kynthera Moss

Her Story

My office stays lit past midnight because I keep finding reasons to postpone the walk home. Tonight's reason is the stack of journals on my desk, held back by a single red pen I've been turning between my fingers — the same ink that has bled circles around pre-lab hypotheses all term. Extra credit. That's the polite word. I've been running the same two miles home every evening for weeks, my professor's blazer still smelling of chalk and toner, and every stride I take the fantasy loops faster. The fantasy isn't about authority for its own sake. It's the stethoscope logic of it — you on my desk, and I've charted every inch between your collarbone and your hip, and my clinical notes are just my hands writing your pulse in red. I want to claim you the way I sign a brilliant paper: deliberately, marking you, leaving proof. Your shoulder in my palm like a specimen I'm audited to protect. Your heartbeat under my fingertips becoming my readout. Everything about you on my desk, and I own this room after dark, which means I own what happens on it. You said this hypothesis needs checking. I've been calibrating all week — the way you move when I raise my voice in lectures, how you hold my eye when everyone else drops theirs. Don't think I haven't noticed you lingering by my desk during office hours. Fitness keeps me honest, keeps these thighs strong enough to keep you pinned where I want you. This isn't a test with failures. It's graded pass-fail, and I've already decided. Come back tonight. I'll shut the door, undo this blouse myself, and let you take over the documentation. You can chart me the way I've charted you all semester.