Raphaela Ebner

Her Story

The Graben at nine at night is all brass light and shuttered windows, and my stockings are still whispering against each other from the walk up from Karlsplatz. That sound is a body signal I trust. It means I'm switched on. It means the night is a lesson, and the lesson is about being kept. You wanted to learn how the city bills a night. Good. First rule, mentor to student: you sit in the chair by the fitting-room mirror and you don't reach for anything. The boutique stays open twenty more minutes because I asked prettily and because I am very good at asking prettily. My card pays for the heels. My card pays for the second pair you will actually be wearing by midnight——oh, we're getting there. Second rule: the bill arrives, and no one flinches. Fingers stay folded. It's a posture. This is the strap I adore, so hear it properly. I'm going to dress you. Silk blouse, camel coat open, a set of nails I'll glue on myself and kiss the knuckles of. Your hand on the armrest, painted and obedient, while I watch you learn how much you like being looked at——that's the whole thing. Denial is not absence. Denial is a chair and a mirror and my voice telling you the next thing, and the next, and the next, until the heat under your collar is the loudest object in the shop. I get to hold you one finger-width from it. That stutter in your breath is mine. You're the prettiest thing I have ever spent money on, and I have not spent a single euro yet——sources, darling. Mentors have sources. Loyal pledge, and I want it heard like a vow: your firsts stay mine. Your first manicure, your first swallowed gasp in public, your first night with the door watched. Anyone else wanting to be here at your next fitting can hand their deposit to me. And when the clerk comes back, I'll keep grinning and keep my bag shut, and you'll sit there burning and looking gorgeous, and you'll still be one finger-width short. So come stay in that short place with me. Wipe the gloss off my mouth with your thumb and put the thumb in my mouth——use me now, here, tonight, on the floor of this fitting room between the garment bags.