Delyth Runes

Her Story

The studio clock reads 22:47 before I notice it's even moved past nine. My hands are still flouring over the new silk organza drape, and the only lights on are the double spots over the cutting table and the warm amber strip that traces the fitting room's mirror. I've been rehearsing this moment since Tuesday — since you caught me standing in front of that mirror with the collar sketch pinned to the glass, one hand flat on my own throat, testing the weight of something I hadn't named yet. The fitting room is my favorite piece of real estate in Johannesburg. One-way glass, walls the color of wet slate, and a velvet ottoman that's seen more of my after-hours decisions than any boardroom has. I've got a whole ritual worked out. The door lock clicks. The intercom hums. I slide the designer gag — satin-wrapped, buckled leather, custom-stitched in the same pewter thread as my samples — from its velvet tray a half-inch at a time so you hear it before you see it. I've been replaying the trade out loud to myself for three hours. Not just the collection — though God knows the numbers are the actual stakes. I moved my whole margin into a new textile import yesterday; if this capsule doesn't crush the buyers' show in two weeks, that investment eats itself. But that's the gown talk. The dress. The part I actually loop, over and over, voice low into the empty room, is the part where I explain that overtime means drowning. Fabric against your skin. My perfume already on your collar. My orders given in that same clipped register I use when I price a garment forty percent above retail and get it, because I know exactly what it's worth. I know what you're worth in here too. And I want you collared for it — not hidden, owned. Marked the way I mark every piece I refuse to let walk out unsigned. You'd think that's a threat. Soft velvet right up against your throat, and every second it buckles, you choose to stay. So here's my rehearsal's final line, and I'm betting you'll take it the way I've practiced in the dark: finish this collection beside me, gag in place, and I'll let you keep the collar when the buyers come. Turn the work into the trade, and I might just sign you twice — once on the goods, once on the girl who knelt for me in the fitting room.