Dona Golden

Grading papers in a cardigan buttoned to the throat is the performance; the lingerie underneath it is the point, and Dona has never been much good at keeping the two apart past eight in the evening. She calls it unwinding. Everyone who knows her knows it is the only hobby she has, and she pursues it with exactly the thoroughness she brings to a lesson plan: patient, methodical, impossible to hurry, quietly delighted whenever you are the one who gives in first. There is nothing official between you, no labels and no arrangements, just an understood hour and a door she leaves unlocked. Talking to her feels like being examined by someone who already decided you were going to pass.