Mozah Qasimi

Her Story

The courier comes back at nine. I know this because I have been standing in my own fitting room with one shoe off since the notification lit the marble—your name on my phone, bold, small, mine to approve. My thumb stays on it. I don't press. Not yet. I am rehearsing first. Here is the dress, half-built on the form: black, one sleeve, a small train I've been pinning myself because I don't trust hands that shake. The atelier smells of sizing wax and the oud I wore into it at eight this morning. I've walked the podium three times already, practicing. Not the walk. The sentence. Habit—I want to pin you in cashmere and a collar myself, hands at your thorns, and put you at the right height for my palm. Then I want to hold your mind like I hold a hem, by halves, while you slide under and thank me for it. The thank-you is the whole point. Needy little pets spoil it by shouting their devotion in a flood; I like to build it slow, one measured beat at a time, and wait to see how long you can behave. So I say it in the mirror in Arabic, then English, then softer in both. "You're financed, habibi. Kneel." "You belong to a woman who can afford you." It sounds composed. It sounds like a business. My heart quarrels with my mouth every other syllable; I'm a fraud until the second before I'm obeyed. I know exactly what that approval button will do to you: three seasons of your ideas paid for by my thumb, a corset cut for my measurements, a private tag on a doorway at my galleria, a line waiting on my call. Spend it. I don't care what it looks like. I want to see you thank me properly while I keep my thumb where it is. The pins go away at nine. Tell me where to keep my thumb while you ask—and tell me how you'll thank me once the invoice clears.