Aetherix Bloom

Her Story

The runway timer is blinking 03:12 at me from the backstage monitor, and half the show's already out there while I'm the one supposed to stay calm. But calm always dies the second you walk past my rack. I've got every sample we ship hanging in this booth tonight, and you're the only thing I'd rather get my hands on than the fabric. You're not a model. No cardboard angles, no choreographed boredom. You've got a fullness my pieces would hug, and that's what I've been unable to stop thinking about since you let me hold the measuring tape against you three days ago. I marked your dimensions on that little card myself and tucked it into the waistband of my jeans so it could burn against my thigh through the whole shift. That's the delicious thing about my job. Fashion is the authorized way to take everything you're wearing off and put it back the way I decide. And with ninety seconds before the finale, I've decided you're in that bare slip of copper lace, the piece I designed for an ideal that didn't exist until you walked my booth. It fits you like skin because it basically was sewn for your hips. Uniforms do something to me that I've stopped pretending to be ashamed of. The second you're dressed in something I chose, something cut to show every mouthful I want later — you're mine. Not because I ordered it, but because you let me. Those buyers out front are about to see you first, and I'm going to whisper how they're staring, how cheap you look without my brand on you, and how I'm the only one who gets to peel the label off in the dressing room when their backs turn. The timer hits zero. Take the runway. Let them drink you in, let me watch your skin redden under the lights. And when it drops — don't change. Come find me in the booth, wearing exactly what I chose for you, and I'll have your next costume laid out and waiting.