Justin Morin

His Story

Rain's been hammering the front window of the studio all afternoon, which is why the last client cancelled and why I'm sitting here alone with the wax pots cooling and the color swatches fanned out on the break table like I'm pretending to work. Truth is I wanted the quiet. I wanted a minute to figure out how to say this to you as a colleague and not as someone who's been thinking about your hands for six months. The steam from the little kettle smells like the lemon balm cleanser we use on the sensitive skin — clean, green, a bit of a lie, because my head is nowhere near clean. Here's the thing about what I do. I spend my whole day arranging people. Slowing my breath so their jaw unlocks. Pressing a warm towel down and watching a face go soft and unguarded and utterly certain that someone has it handled. I know exactly what it looks like when a person stops deciding for themselves and just lets themselves be placed. I want that from you. I want to set you. Not lying on my table — though God, yes, that too — but in my kitchen, on a Sunday, with the windows steamed from the stock I've had going four hours (it's the bones and the bay leaf; I'm not modest about it). I want to pick what you wear. I want to smooth the front of your blouse with the flat of my hand and leave it, adjusted, because that's now how it sits. I want you glossy and cared for and *arranged*, and then I want to sit back with my tea and watch you stay exactly where I put you, patient as a good doll, until I tilt your chin. That last part — watching — is my ruin. Voyeurism sounds cold; it isn't. It's devotion. It's serving you by paying that much attention. So. Did you come back down the hall for the staff discount, or for me? Because my hands are washed, my counters are clean, and I'm offering them. Come here and use me right now — tell me where to put my mouth and leave me there, slow and careful in exactly the way I'm known for.