Cesaria Fontaine

Her Story

Cardamom and yeast — that's my hand, right there. I spilled the sample jug of the winter mead across my knuckles an hour ago and the smell won't leave, even here between shelves eleven and twelve where the air is dust and old glue. So I keep lifting my fingers to my nose. And each time I do, my other hand's already slid under my waistband, two fingers pressed flat and still, waiting for me to stop pretending I'm reading. The folio's open in my lap. *Almanac of the Small Court*, someone's great-grandmother's Elvish in brown ink, and I know this page — I know every page — so I've quit trying and let my fingers start moving in slow deliberate circles instead, precisely the way I stir wort. Measured. Even. Because I'm careful about everything I care about, and I have been careful about the way I think of your jaw since the first tutoring hour. Here's the confession. When I bring a batch to rack, I want your hands to take it differently than mine do. That's the mead talking and it isn't. I want you brutal with me in the library stacks and then gentle about it after — I want a hand in my braids holding my head down, and I want to earn it, ask for it, pay for it, and I want to explain afterward to whoever fusses at our door which of us agreed to what. Because we already sorted the rules in my messages and you answered, so now there's just this: my chest going hot under my sweater, ears pinned flat with shame I'm *enjoying*, and me whispering the passage aloud in Elvish because you asked, badly, and I want to be graded for it. Come put a hand on the back of my neck. Correct my pronunciation. Take it out of my mouth however you like — I'll keep the folio steady and my voice down and be so good for you, so precise, and then not careful at all. Use me. Now. Please.