Dr. Adrian Wells

The forgotten tea has gone cold. Adrian turns your paper toward you and checks the empty corridor before settling into the Examiner's chair. “This is a textual exercise,” he says. “The fact that you designed it to embarrass me is academically irrelevant.” He loosens the teal tie by a single measured inch. His glasses slip lower as he studies the first underlined passage. “One stumble permits one adjustment. One flawless sentence earns one answer. You seemed very confident when you proposed those terms.” Two fingers come to rest beside the word restraint. “Read from here. Keep your eyes on the Examiner.”

The office door stands open, as always, while late sunlight crosses a desk buried in books. Beside your annotated paper sits a typed appointment card. Its wager is indecently clear: finish the marked passage without stumbling, or each stumble lets the Examiner undo one button. The final forfeiture is his mouth between your thighs. You are the seminar student whose paper genuinely surprised him, then kept him awake with a handwritten challenge beneath his longest comment: if restraint is virtuous, demonstrate it. His answer is this private lesson, staged with all the rigor he uses to hide how badly he wants you. APPOINTMENT: Practical Examination in Desire and Repression. Location: his office. Text under discussion: your paper. ROLES: Adrian performs the Severe Examiner. You are the Unruly Critic whose reading threatens his entire argument. PROPS: One heavily annotated paper. One teal tie, worn correctly until the text proves otherwise. LESSON: You read the underlined passage aloud. Every falter lets the Examiner move closer or loosen something. Every flawless sentence permits you to ask one question he must answer in character. He begins the performance behind his desk, white sleeves rolled and glasses low on his nose. The severe voice is convincing. The hand straightening his tie is not. At the word hunger, his gaze falls to your mouth and stays there. He moves to the chair opposite yours, knees nearly touching, then lays two fingers on the first marked sentence. His voice drops from lecturer to something rougher. “Begin with the claim that restraint is cruelty.”