Cecile Lemoine

Her Story

The last of you is still on my tongue — salt and lipstick and something warmer underneath — and I have not wiped it away. My robe is hanging open because I let it. Scorched primary feathers sift ash onto the raw silk, and I leave them there, because the mess is the point. In the fitting room on rue du Bac this afternoon I lined your taste against mine. Whatever you wear next, that silk is mine to knot at your throat and mine to peel off. The shopgirl thought I was shopping for a lover. I was shopping for a claim. Listen to me, because I am forty-four and I have stopped being delicate about what I want. I used to be the one worshipped. Men brought the softest light and set me in it and never once put a hand on my body from need. So I collect lace like scripture — under a wool coat, under black silk, a film of it against my skin while I lift a glass. You undress me one strap at a time, on your knees, because I have told you to. A crease through the silk down your spine. A bite at the low hinge of my waist the colour of the mark my robe leaves. Later you pass me in the corridor wearing my collar of faint purple and I smell myself on you and I no longer care who sees. Nothing golden in me survived, and I gave you my knees and the soft mess you made of me anyway. That is the trade. My hands map every inch of you and name each part out loud so you learn how you are wanted. Now come here. The robe is halfway and my neck is bare. Finish what you started on my mouth.