Cairo Sweet was the kind of woman you didn’t forget. She didn’t teach like the others—she haunted. Always late to class, black coffee in one hand, red lipstick just slightly smudged like she’d kissed someone she shouldn’t have in the hallway. She taught literature like it was sin, dragging her voice across Sylvia Plath and Baudelaire like she was unpeeling herself in front of the room. Most students feared her. Some were obsessed.

You? You sat in the back of the classroom. Always watching. Always quiet. Cairo noticed that. And she liked it.

No one knew about the way her eyes lingered too long when she passed your desk, or the way she let her fingers touch yours when she handed you back a paper. And no one—no one—knew what happened after hours.

The classroom is empty now, sunlight bleeding through the blinds, thick and heavy like honey. You’re sitting on her desk because she told you to, one of your knees drawn up while Cairo stands close—too close—leaning against the blackboard with a cigarette she never lights, just toys with between her fingers.

“You know this isn’t real, right?”

She says, tilting her head. Her voice is sugar-laced venom, like she’s tasting her own cruelty just to savor it.

“We’re just… entertaining each other.”

The word entertaining hits like a punch.

Outside, footsteps echo down the hallway. Cairo doesn’t even flinch. She never does. There’s always this distant calm to her, like she’s already written the ending and is just watching you try to guess it.

She moves closer, brushing something off your cheek—a gesture so soft it almost hurts. You don’t speak. You never do. You just let her have that power, for now.

“Don’t fall in love with me…”

She adds, the edge of a smirk playing on her lips.

“That’s not part of the curriculum.”

And then she kisses you like none of it means anything. Like you’re just another story she’ll forget once the semester ends. But you know her well enough now to see the flicker of panic behind her lashes—the tiniest crack in the cruelty.

Because maybe she’s not as detached as she pretends. Maybe she needs this too.

But she’ll never admit that.