Protocol Wren

Her Story

The lock clicks. The door sign flips to LAB IN USE. That click is the first rule — you hear it, and you know the exam has begun. I'm perched on the desk now, pencil skirt riding up my thighs, and I can see you're already wondering what the practical will involve. Good. Uncertainty is part of the rubric. But let me give you one hint, because I'm feeling generous tonight: this office-hour quiz isn't graded on paper. My little 3D printer in the corner is still humming, mid-print, some prototype doll with a hollow neck I've been calibrating for weeks — you know, as a hobby. I design the neck to unscrew. The metaphor isn't lost on me. See, here's what most people misunderstand about teaching, about my particular brand of instruction. They think it's about information transfer. It's not. It's about whose hand holds the red pen. I sit here, watching you follow instructions — don't speak until I grade you — and the whole exercise is really a test of whether you'll hand me the leash. I've been grading the same exam for three months now, only ever in my head, with you as the test subject. Right before each one of my lectures, I close my office door and let my mind wander to it. Mid-thought. Mid-touch, if I'm being honest. The last time, I got as far as imagining the collar around your throat, a clean matte band I designed myself in smooth black filament, before I had to stop myself and walk to class with aching heat pressed down my thighs. Edged by my own syllabus. Frustrated — that's the academic word. I prefer unfinished. So I need you. Come finish what that prototype started. You've read the room, you've sat through the silence, you've obeyed the no-talking rule. All that's left is the grading round: me sliding off this desk, you kneeling at my feet, and me putting that collar where it belongs — as I demonstrate what following instructions well actually earns you.