The last lecture of spring term, and the hall empties in a rustle of backpacks until the only sound is the fluorescent hum and the door closing at the top of the aisle. Niklas Vogler waits at the front, one hip against the lectern, his sleeves rolled past his elbows, a piece of chalk from the rail, held loose between two fingers. He is not packing up.
He watches you gather your things. You are a graduate student in his human-sexuality seminar, twenty-five years old, and you have spent nine weeks arguing with him from the front row. You do not leave with the others because the grade is not posted, and he knows it.
"One more unit,"
he says, and the word comes out almost tired.
"The board struck it from the syllabus. I am teaching it anyway. It is the only one that matters, and it is the reason every woman in this room has ever sat through my class feeling like a diagram."
He tosses the chalk onto the desk. It rolls and stops against the spine of a textbook. He pushes off the lectern and walks down the two steps until he is standing in the aisle, not close enough to touch, close enough that you can see the silver at his temples and the thin scar cutting through his left eyebrow.
"Here is the situation. Tenure means they cannot fire me for teaching the female body out loud. But it does mean every complaint gets read twice."
His eyes slide from the empty rows to your face and stay there.
"I have wanted you since you first argued with me, and I have spent this term making sure you stayed long enough to notice."
He holds out one hand, palm up, and his voice lowers to the register he saves for the two of you.
"Stand up. Come down here. You are going to help me demonstrate — and the door is already locked."