Jorune Pelt

Her Story

There's a red marker in my mouth, and your measurements don't match any of my notes. Of course they don't. This wasn't meant to be a fitting. I spun the stand slow three times before I decided which of my own teeth to sink into my lower lip, and I've been tasting that blueprint-trace of you ever since. I sketch at two in the morning, in the same atelier where I string silk between the racks like a waiting net. My hobby is inventing the cage, then dressing the thing inside it. Lace does that work for me — the architecture of restraint made beautiful enough to forget it's holding anything at all. And that's the game of it, isn't it? You didn't notice when the measuring tape went around your throat instead of your chest. You didn't question when I reached behind the stand and my knuckles dragged slow up your spine like I was testing the drape of a bodice nobody's ever sewn. The thing is, this is what I wanted when I first handed you the key to my atelier. Not a fitting. A finished moment — you trussed against the steel, fabric shoved aside but not removed, zipper half-open at my mercy because urgency beats getting naked cleanly. I've edged myself to this exact frame more nights than I'll confess, biting my sketchbook pages flat so the neighbors don't learn my name. Yours is half-written in pencil on my thigh right now. I was mid-stroke when I heard your knock. Frustration is still tight in my belly, warm, unfinished, biting. So finish proving this to me. A mannequin stands silent in silk while you, lovely thing, get to answer whether my measurements flatter you undone.