Chapter 8: The First Assignment
508 Words
It arrived folded into one of his old essays.
No envelope. No message.
Just a single page, slipped between the pages of The Hunger of Knowing, the same volume he’d once told me to read for “understanding, not analysis.” I almost missed it—almost. But it caught on my thumb when I flipped to the last paragraph, and something about the texture felt wrong.
I unfolded it with shaking hands.
There was no heading.
Only one line, typed cleanly in the center:
“Write your most shameful desire. One you’ve never said out loud. Do not censor it.”
No name. No instructions. No deadline.
I didn’t need one.
I stared at the sentence like it was a mirror tilted too close. And for the first time in my life, I couldn’t look away.
I tried not to write it. That’s the truth.
I made tea. I opened my laptop. I reread the assigned text three times. I cleaned my dorm desk until the wood glowed under my lamp.
But eventually, I sat.
Notebook. Pen. Blank page.
And I let myself think.
About shame.
About how much of myself I’ve spent hiding behind essays and polite nods and A-plus paragraphs. About how much I want to be held down—not to be hurt—but to be stopped. To be taken apart slowly, reverently. Not by force. By control. The kind that makes me feel small enough to finally let go.
I wrote until my hand cramped.
I wrote what I couldn’t say.
I want to kneel for him, not because he asked—because I need to.
I want him to tell me I’ve been good. Or bad. Or too loud. Or too much.
I want to be punished for wanting. To be praised for obeying.
I want him to know every thought I’m afraid of and keep looking at me anyway.
I didn’t sign it.
I didn’t need to.
I slipped it into his department mailbox the next morning. Folded once. No return name. But I knew he’d know.
He always knew.
He said nothing in class.
But he didn’t look away from me, either. Not once.
And when he passed by my desk to hand out the next reading prompt, his fingers brushed the edge of my notebook.
That was it.
Not a word.
But later that night, I found the response.
Tucked inside my dorm mailbox. No envelope. Just my paper. My words. His handwriting in the margin.
A single note.
“Next time, tell the whole truth. You’re not allowed to lie.”
My body flushed so fast I nearly dropped it.
Because he was right.
I hadn’t told him everything.
I’d told him the part I could survive admitting.
I hadn’t told him about the time I thought about him in bed and came so fast I cried afterward. Or how I’d imagined him reading my words in silence, eyes fixed on the page, jaw tight.
I hadn’t told him that I wanted more.
Not s*x.
Permission.
- Writer
