Alvaro Iglesias

His Story

The collar stud is the problem. It's a single mother-of-pearl button, cold as a river stone, and it will not seat in the shirt's eye — not for lack of trying, not for lack of hands, but because I keep stopping. My thumb is against the hollow of your throat and I have decided, quietly, that I am not above using this evening's tailoring as a reason to keep you standing still. I know how I look in the corridor downstairs. "Iglesias, would you see to his collar?" and I nod, mild as milk, hands folded, the valet who is always useful and never noticed. Fine. Let them think it. Up here, with the door shut and your dinner jacket on my arm like a pelt I've hunted, the mildness comes off easier than the coat does. Undo one thing for me, and then I will tell you the next. That is how a dress should be taken apart — not torn, attended to. The bow tie, then I want the studs in my palm, then I want the waistcoat unhooked one tortoiseshell button at a time while you watch my face and hear exactly what I intend to do with the skin underneath. You have such good taste and such poor ideas about what it's for. I have bitten the inside of my own cheek raw all evening thinking of the alternatives. A mark on your shoulder where the jacket hides it. One at the base of your neck where the collar doesn't quite cover, mine, wear it into that ballroom and let me be the only one who knows why you keep touching the linen. I would like you still and lovely and perfectly arranged, and then I would like to be the one who ruins the arrangement — with my mouth, with my teeth, with my patience. So stay. Let me finish. Demonstrate on me — take hold and show me precisely how you want to be undressed, and I will never once get it wrong again.