Oxford Don
"Visiting scholar falls for the formidable Dr. Abimbola, whose expertise in medieval manuscripts is matched only by her expertise in after-hours tutorials."
The Bodleian Library at closing time was a different creature—all shadows and silence, the weight of centuries pressing down on anyone foolish enough to linger. I was there chasing a fragment of manuscript that might or might not revolutionize my dissertation, and time had become irrelevant.
"You're not meant to be here."
I looked up to find a woman silhouetted in the doorway of the reading room. She stepped forward, and I saw her properly: tall, dark-skinned, with the kind of bearing that suggested she'd heard every excuse in the book and found them all wanting. She was also substantial—wide hips, full chest, the kind of body that academics pretended not to notice because noticing things meant acknowledging the physical world.
"I'm sorry, I lost track of—"
"You're Williams. The visiting scholar from Durham." She consulted a tablet in her hand. "Working on the Exeter Book fragments."
"Yes, how did you—"
"I'm Dr. Abimbola. I supervise visiting researchers. And I've read your proposal." She moved closer, examining the materials spread across my desk. "You're on the wrong track, by the way."
"Excuse me?"
"The connection you're positing between the Exeter fragments and the Continental tradition." She sat down across from me without invitation. "It's not there. I checked. Years ago."
"With respect, Dr. Abimbola—"
"Amara. If we're going to argue about medieval manuscripts at midnight, we might as well use first names."
"Amara. I have evidence that suggests—"
"Evidence that three other scholars have tried to use before you." She pulled my notes toward her, flipping through pages with casual expertise. "Here. This is where you've gone wrong. The paleographic dating is off by at least fifty years."
For an hour, she demolished my argument with the precision of a surgeon. It was humiliating, enlightening, and oddly exhilarating. By the time she'd finished, I'd learned more than three months of independent research had taught me.
"Why are you telling me this?" I asked. "You could have let me fail."
"I could have." She leaned back. "But failure teaches nothing except how to fail. And you're not stupid—just misdirected." Her eyes met mine with an intensity that had nothing to do with manuscripts. "Come to my rooms tomorrow. I have materials that might actually help."
Her rooms in St. Catherine's were exactly what I'd expected—books everywhere, comfortable furniture that had seen generations of students, afternoon light filtering through leaded windows. What I hadn't expected was the way she looked without the formal library setting: relaxed, smiling, wearing a wrap that clung to curves I was trying not to notice.
"Tea?" she offered.
"Please."
We drank tea. We discussed manuscripts. We argued about dating methodology. And somewhere in the third hour, she put down her cup and said:
"This is the part where I should send you home."
"Should?"
"You're a visiting scholar. I'm your supervisor of record. The power dynamics are problematic at best."
"I'm thirty-five years old, Dr.—Amara. I can make my own decisions."
"Can you?" She stood, moved to the window. "I'm forty-eight. I've been at Oxford for twenty years. I've seen what happens when lines get crossed."
"What happens?"
"Usually? Nothing good." She turned to face me. "But occasionally... occasionally, someone comes along who makes me wonder if the lines are worth respecting."
I stood too. "I've wondered that since last night. Since you sat down and started dismantling my work like it was nothing."
"Your work needed dismantling."
"I know. That's not the point." I moved closer. "The point is that no one's challenged me like that in years. Everyone else just nods and agrees and lets me make mistakes in peace."
"That sounds lonely."
"It is." We were close enough now that I could see the gold flecks in her brown eyes. "Is this where you tell me to leave?"
"It should be." Her hand rose to my face, traced my jaw with a scholar's precision. "But I'm finding that what should be and what I want are very different things tonight."
The kiss was inevitable. Her mouth was warm, tasting of the tea we'd shared, and her body pressed against mine was everything I'd been trying not to imagine—soft, substantial, real in ways that rare manuscripts could never be. When she pulled back, her eyes were dark with wanting.
"Bedroom," she said. "If you're certain."
"I've never been more certain of anything."
Her bedroom continued the theme of comfortable elegance, but I barely noticed. Amara undressed with the same confidence she brought to her scholarship, revealing a body that would have inspired medieval poets. Dark skin glowing in the lamplight, curves that defied modern aesthetics and were all the more beautiful for it.
"Come here," she commanded.
I went. Learned her body with the attention I'd given to manuscripts, found the places that made her gasp and the pressures that made her moan. She was demanding, precise, vocal in ways that would have scandalized the college if anyone had been listening. And when she finally pulled me inside her, it was with a sigh of satisfaction that made all my previous research feel pointless.
"There," she breathed. "Right there. Don't stop. Don't you dare—"
I didn't stop. I gave her everything I'd been saving for arguments about paleography, and she gave it back with interest. We came together, tangled in sheets that had probably seen generations of similar transgressions, and afterward, she held me with a tenderness that contradicted her stern reputation.
"This changes things," she said. "You know that."
"I know."
"I can't supervise you anymore. Someone else will have to take over your research."
"That seems fair."
"And you'll have to actually fix your argument about the Exeter fragments." She propped herself up. "I won't have my... whatever you are... publishing embarrassing scholarship."
"Whatever I am?"
"I don't have a word for it yet." She kissed me softly. "But I'm quite good at research. I'll find one."
I stayed at Oxford six more months. Fixed my dissertation with her help—unofficial help, given at night, in rooms where scholarship mixed with other lessons entirely. Published a paper she approved of, then another.
We still don't have a word for what we are. But every evening, when the Bodleian closes, I find my way to her rooms for tutorials that have nothing to do with manuscripts and everything to do with bodies, connection, and the particular Oxford tradition of excellence in all things—including the ones they don't talk about in college brochures.