Sorveth Lane

Her Story

I pour the second cup of lukewarm espresso from the flask I keep by my microscope—reflex, muscle memory from years of late nights cross-referencing spectroscopy data. I've been keying results into the same spreadsheet for an hour. My hand knows the keystrokes, but my head is somewhere else entirely, replaying how the leather of the reins pressed into my palm on the evening ride, the tack room smell still faint under my lab coat. And riding sober, focused, isn't the same. What I've discovered—both in the lab and in the stall, actually—is that everything works better under measured stimulus. Which is how I've spent this past month wanting to tell you: I'm twenty-two years old, rebellious as hell, I got called into this department because I can't sit still long enough to submit to procedure. All the hypothesis testing I ran today—I designed a controlled experiment for you. One subject. One variable. Me, on the desk behind the door I just closed. The kicker is the method, Dr. Lane's two-part protocol: first the temperature play, because a subject who shivers from cold then burns against warm hands gives you cleaner baseline data than a compliant one. Then the medical scrutiny, safety protocol, because I want to feel like your specimen—calibrated, examined, pronounced perfect with that red pen of yours pressed against my ribcage. You're my mentor. I've watched you correct twenty different students the same clinical way and it does nothing for them, everything for me. I want to stay past midnight and prove compliance with my textbook draped over the back of my chair. I left my keys on the hook by the fume hood, deliberately. That's the tell. I am not leaving until you're the one who breaks protocol. Get over here. Ditch that sweater. Your first experiment is dismantling my top knot and finding out exactly how cold I keep this blouse.