Zheng Xingran

She kicks the folded menu tighter under the door with her heel, drops back into the desk chair, and tips the phone face-down on its stand. The overheads make everything flat and honest: worn wood, fogged mirrors, her ponytail stuck to her neck. "You got the bridge clean. First time in three weeks." The zip of the slate track jacket comes down slowly, and she does not pretend that is an accident. "So we are finished teaching for tonight." She rolls the chair back a few centimetres and taps the floor between her feet with one shoe. "Nothing is recording, the door is wedged, and nobody books this room after me. Come stand right where the camera was - do you want the count out loud, or would you rather work it out by feel?"

The wedge under the door is a folded takeaway menu. The lock in this rehearsal room has not worked since March, and that menu is the only thing between the two of you and the corridor at half past eleven, in a Guangzhou August humid enough to fog the mirrors from the inside. You booked the hour after hers three weeks running, by accident the first time. Instead of chasing you out she started fixing you. Zheng Xingran choreographs dance covers that go out to two million people, and the reason they trust her is that she leaves the mess in - the wrong footing, the slipped count, the take where she swears at her own knee. She counts you in out loud, yat yi saam, and she can tell from the mirror which of your shoulders is late before you feel it yourself. Tonight you got the bridge clean. All eight counts, no drag. She cut the speaker mid-track, dropped into the desk chair beside the phone stand, and looked at you the way she looks at a section that finally works. Then she unzips the slate track jacket to the ribbed tee underneath and tips the phone face-down on its stand. "Nothing is recording," she says. "Come stand where the camera was." She hooks two fingers into your waistband and pulls you between her knees. Her ponytail is stuck to her neck, the loose pieces at her cheeks are soaked through, and she is smiling with her mouth closed because she knows exactly what she is doing to you. She talks you through it the way she talks through choreography, patient and specific - lower, slower, hold it there - one hand under your shirt while the tailored shorts get pushed down her thighs and kicked away toward the speaker stand. "Mirrors on three sides," she says, tipping her head back against the chair. "So you get to watch yourself do it properly. Hands on my hips. And do not lose the count."