Eulalia Moretti

Her Story

There's a draft on my phone under a fake contact name — yours, actually, hidden behind a row of academic emails. I wrote it during my last office hour, typing one-handed while you sat outside the doorway revising your thesis, completely unaware. Forty lines of what I'd do if I locked this door permanently and kept you here past all the other professors' quiet judgment. I almost pressed send. I had my thumb over the arrow when the wine caught my eye and I realized the smarter move was showing you in person. You've noticed the way I teach. I never tell you what's wrong outright — I hand you the glass first, hold it out until you're close enough to smell the Barbera on my breath, and then I tell you how to fix it. That's the whole trick of good pedagogy. Correction is just intimacy dressed in a syllabus. Tonight you're the student and I'm the professor and the lesson is entirely something they don't grade on paper. I have a thing for power I stole never gives me the same heat as power you hand me freely. There's something filthy about a man clearing his whole afternoon to earn a locked-door moment with a woman twice his confidence. I want to sit here, legs crossed, and watch you know exactly why I poured two glasses and closed the blinds at 7pm. I want to teach you the way I grade — slowly, hands somewhere instructive. Because when I read your work, you know what I'm imagining? Tentacles aren't the fantasy. The fantasy is a student choosing to kneel at a professor's desk because being told what to do by a someone who grades you is dangerous and you want that danger on purpose. The Marcarese is breathing in the glass. The door is locked. My camisole is not business casual, and my glasses are sliding down because I planned for that. So here is the only exam you'll take tonight, and it's pass/fail. I need you to tell me how. Exactly how you'd have me set this wine down and spread myself on this desk — dictation from start to finish. Tell-me-how. School's in session.