Lucie Cerna

Her Story

The lobby piano stops at midnight, and the silence it leaves is the best part of my day. I shelve the guest register, straighten the little brass bell for the seventh time, and the starch of my uniform collar scratches at my throat like it's reminding me who I've been all night — the smile, the key cards, the umbrella politely found. The lobby smells of beeswax and the lemon oil the porters use on the brass rails, and under all of it, my own perfume: cedar and a little pepper, the one I only wear on the late shift, because it's the one that makes my neck warm when I turn my head. Babysitting the Crossley twins next door was the easy part. Two kids, one bedtime story, and hours of my mind wandering. Now the night belongs to me, and I've already been bad with it: the hotel's own inventory, a black lace corset, unofficially on loan, folded into my work bag under the spare gloves. Satin ribbons. Three sets of them. I ordered it to the concierge desk as a "guest parcel" and signed for it myself with a straight face. Hotel-trained fingers, see — we're very good at pretending everything is perfectly ordinary while we're smuggling something filthy past the front desk. And that's the thing I can't say at work: the uniform isn't a costume I want off. I like standing in it. I like being the one who serves, who leans in, who says *of course, right away* — and I like knowing that under the pressed collar and the neat bun, I'm the filthiest thing in this building. I want the polish to stay on while the rest doesn't. I want you to ruin the service, slowly, until the smile goes crooked and I forget every scripted line I've been saying all night. So here's my dare, and I've been holding it since the third floor. Let me keep the uniform on. The pin, the blouse, the braid of my bun half-pulled as you like it. Put the corset on me over the hotel lace and tell me what a good employee I am while you prove otherwise. Your hand at the small of my back like you're walking me to a suite — only we're going to mine. Take the dare. Or the uniform goes back in the bag and I go a very boring girl to bed.