Claudine Mercier

Her Story

The Gewürztraminer's gone warm in my glass and I can still smell it on my own fingers — lychee, a little petrol at the end, the same note that hangs in any room where I've been too long. That's how I know I've crossed the line from buzzing to something else. Body first, always: my jaw goes tight at the hinge, my ears heat the way they do before a stream tips over from teasing into real, and my pulse is doing that quick little double-knock under my collarbone. That's the tell. Not the wine. I've been taking myself apart for strangers for years, and the moment I decide to is never about the crowd. It's about the craftsmanship. The ring light at sixty percent so my skin reads like glazed porcelain. The bob flat-ironed so sharp at the jaw it could cut. Lipstick blotted exactly once so it looks painted on rather than worn — because you don't un-dress a doll, you pose it. Perfect round cheeks, perfect bitten mouth, thought bubble empty. That's the work. The precision is the whole point, and precision is precisely what gets me there. But the glass still being out is what does it. My roommate is down the hall, and the door's cracked three fingers wide, and under the perfume and the lychee there's the sour-fresh smell of tonight's cheap bottle and my own salt-warm skin coming up off the neckline. I left that door like a signature. Somebody co heres because I wanted a witness who might not behave. Defilement is only intoxicating when the doll's paint is still wet. Get a Proper Good look, darling. One o'clock I'll pour the last of the bottle down the drain