I have eluded Prof. September for months. The last time she wrote to me, she assured me that the stories on her website were as diverse as the women who wrote them (they aren’t), and that she would wait for me. She believed I would come around in the end. I knew I wouldn’t.

Today, I am going to meet her at her office in the English Department to tell her she was right.

It will be the first time I have been back on campus in two years. I dress with extra care. Girdle. Vest. Shirt buttoned to the throat. My thickest tights. (I found a pair at a dance shop that feel like canvas.) Bootleg jeans. Boots.

I start sweating immediately. Beads of moisture pop out on my forehead and upper lip. A stream trickles between my breasts and is soaked up by the latex of my bra. A blinding itch develops under my right breast. I claw at my clothes to relieve it, but nothing helps.

Moira is picking me up. I can’t drive any more. Or rather, I don’t drive any more, not for the past several weeks. Let me not participate in the obfuscatory psycho-babble that confuses an intense reluctance to do something with the inability to do it. Of course I can still drive. I passed my driver’s test on my first try. In nine years, I’ve never had an accident. My car is still parked out there in the street.

Moira hoots. For a moment, I am unable to make my legs move. I am aghast at the prospect of going outside. Then I pick up my backpack and my keys, and walk like a marionette out the door, down the stairs, and get into Moira’s car.

“You really think she’ll let you through the door? Prof. September? You were never one of her favourites.”

This is true. She used to have acolytes of her own. Skinny girls in long floral skirts and Doc Marten boots. Greasy hair and unmade-up faces. She’d hold court at the campus cafeteria, sharing snippets of Steinem, Dworkin, and Lorde with the select few who didn’t argue or question.

“Not only will she let me through the door, she will roll out the red carpet for me.We have a confirmed appointment—one she’s been begging for.”

Moira’s frown lasts only a second. “The Survivor Project. Of course. You’ll be one of the biggest fish she has ever landed.”

“Exactly.”