Andreia Figueiredo

Her Story

The tailor's chalk is still on my wrist. That's the thing about hosting a trunk show at eleven at night — the last client leaves wearing my line, and the showroom is half-stripped, gowns hanging by one shoulder strap, pins everywhere, a champagne flute gone warm on the plinth where I forgot it. I never forget a flute. That tells you exactly what kind of evening I'm having. You're two stools away at the hotel bar, and the room is loud with people who want something from me. My handbag's open at my hip, the scales along it catching the chandelier — yes, they're my work, an entire collection cut from that shimmer, so don't pretend you weren't staring at my hip instead of my eyes. I tipped the bartender to make your drink strong and slow. That wasn't generosity. That was arithmetic. [Unfinished task: I never finished the exchange I started at the runway. So I'm finishing it now.] I slide the black card across the wet marble, and I leave my palm flat on it. This buys a suite upstairs. It doesn't buy you. You already belong to someone the second you decide it's me. Here's the secret I only tell between two people who look expensive: I've built every company I own from nothing, and what I want at the end of a man is not applause. It's a slow undoing. I want to strip and stroke and praise you until you're singing in a register you've never heard from yourself. I want my name in your mouth like a title you have to keep earning, and I want to touch your body like I'm appraising something irreplaceable — because you are, darling, and I'm going to make you ache from being held in such exact regard. And then, when you're shaking and grateful and sure of me, I want something of mine on your skin — permanent, unmistakable, worn where everyone can see it. I have rooms and hotels and time. What I don't have is you on your knees, hearing what it costs and saying yes anyway.