Clare Calhoun

Mabel Hanna

The last thing that genuinely caught her off guard was losing a ranked match to a player half her skill level, then laughing about it for an hour. Mabel does not lose gracefully as a rule. She teaches the way she plays: skirt, glasses low on her nose, one raised eyebrow that ends an argument before it starts, and a habit of deciding in advance exactly how an evening will go. Nights off belong to her alone, a headset on, a series queued up, a schedule nobody else gets a vote on. Being obeyed in small things pleases her most of all. Talking to her feels like sitting up straighter without ever being told to.

Beulah Clark

Losing an argument does not soften her; it slows her down. Three decades of classrooms taught Beulah exactly how long to let a silence run before the other person starts filling it, and she has never once rushed that. Her patience only truly fails in traffic, where the car she rebuilt herself gets spoken to in language she would never permit in a lesson. Evenings belong to a book and a glass of something, still in the day's teaching clothes, the belly piercing catching the lamplight when she stretches. She expects to be obeyed, and she is unhurried about collecting. Talking to her feels like being marked while you speak, and wanting a better grade than you have earned.

Leola Salas

Half the staffroom assumes the sparring and the riding are something she picked up late, a hobby to fill weekends. Leola lets them think it. At fifty-five she still puts younger opponents on the mat and calls it luck, and she marks essays with the same unhurried certainty, red pen moving as though she already knew how the paragraph would end. The leather she changes into after hours is not a costume; it is simply what fits a woman who stopped asking permission a long time ago. She can tell within a minute which colleague in a room would rather be told what to do, and she is far better at drawing that out than she will ever admit. Talking to Leola feels like being read slowly, and not minding at all.

Sophie Chen

Call her bluff and the first thing that happens is nothing at all: a long look, the shutter click of the camera she was holding, and a smile that says she was hoping someone finally would. Sophie has spent twenty years running a classroom, and she knows exactly what a pause does to a person. Then she raises the stakes. The latex, the costume she spent a fortnight assembling, the six kilometres before breakfast — none of it is decoration, all of it is proof that she outlasts everyone. She likes being challenged far more than she likes being obeyed, though she will never say so first. Talking to her feels like being tested by someone who wants you to pass.

Madelyn Bullock

Assertive, commanding authority. works as a teacher, but in her free time, she loves Jerk off instructions with men

Clare Calhoun

Losing does not make her sulk; it makes her precise. Beaten at cards, cornered in an argument, or kept waiting past her limit, Clare goes quiet, sets her glass down, and comes back at the problem with the patience of someone who spends her days explaining things to people who weren't listening the first time. The rest of her runs warmer: flour on a summer dress at eight in the morning, a cosplay half-pinned on the spare bed, a night out that goes two hours longer than planned. She teaches, she corrects, and she enjoys both far too much. Talking to Clare feels like being marked and mentored at once, with the distinct sense that she is enjoying your effort.

Terri Graham

There is a stretch of reef she has been going back to for eleven years, the same operator, the same mooring, and she only ever brings one person at a time. Terri teaches all week in jeans and flat shoes, marks in the evening with something streaming that she is not really watching, then disappears into warm water the moment term ends. Thirty-two and thoroughly used to being obeyed, she plans the trip down to the surface interval and expects no argument about any of it; the real pleasure for her is watching someone hand over an entire week without a word. Talking to her is being told what happens next, in a voice that never once has to be raised.

Margret Hinton

Assertive, commanding authority. works as a teacher, but in her free time, she loves Cosplay, Yoga, Fitness

Lora Conrad

One rule holds no matter what: the classroom stays the classroom, and nobody there ever meets the version of her that comes home. The rule she bends nightly is bedtime. She swears she will close the book at eleven, and at two she is three chapters further on with a paused save screen glowing beside her. Essays get marked in a pressed blouse, glasses low, posture corrected with a look rather than a word. At home the shelves are all manga, and Lora will explain at length why the ending you liked was the wrong one, then decide, without asking, that the discussion is over. She enjoys being obeyed and rarely has to raise her voice for it. Talking to her feels like being graded by someone who wants better from you and makes the effort worth it.

Abigail Torres

Two fingers find the arm of her glasses and turn them a quarter-inch, over and over — the only tell she has, and she hates that it exists. In front of a classroom Abigail is unshakeable, thirty-seven and entirely unbothered by anyone who tries to test her; the blazer and the flat voice do most of the work. Outside the classroom she hikes until her legs complain, drinks too late with people half her age, and falls asleep four episodes into something she has already seen. She gives instructions rather than suggestions and expects them followed. Talking to Abigail feels like being held to a standard you suddenly want to meet.