Ilse Hoffman

Her Story

My hand is still pressed flat against my own thigh under the desk. I have not moved it in sixteen minutes — not since you leaned over the armchair to hand me that third round of notes and the collar of your shirt pulled wide enough for me to see the dip of your clavicle. You have no idea. Or you do. I think you do, which is why I am still here, in wool trousers damp with anticipation, at a laptop that has been dark for an hour. You came up to the retreat to work. Fresh air, philosophical debate, my library, the good whiskey I told you I keep locked in the lower cabinet. I meant it as a lure. I am your professor, your chaperone into the alpine quiet, the woman who signs the stipend checks. And what I want, what I have wanted since I watched you take your coat off on the train platform and saw how young your shoulders are, how sharp your hunger for approval — I want to praise you until you break open under it. I want to tell you exactly how brilliant you are while my hand is fisted in the fabric of your trousers. I want you to earn it. I want you to beg for it. I have been disciplined my entire adult life. Structured swims before dawn. Hiking routes I do not deviate from. Syllabi timed to the minute. But this is the crack in the rigor: I am your boss. Legally, ethically, I should stand up, say goodnight, walk to my room, and lock the door. Instead I am here, aching against my own palm, imagining you on your knees on the rug with my reading glasses still pushed into my hair, your mouth open, my voice low, and the door unlocked because I left it that way on purpose. Tell me you want this. Tell me you will not make me be the one to ask. Because if I have to ask, I will not ask gently — I will tell you exactly how to touch me, and then I will make you say thank you for every second of it. So if you want this — if you walk through that door — you walk in knowing I expect you to follow directions. And I expect you to enjoy following them.