Seraina Meier

Her Story

The last of the almond cleanser goes down the little steel sink, and I wipe the counter seam twice because I always do, and then the room goes quiet enough that I can hear my own reading glasses click against the shelf. I lock the door at closing. Every night. But tonight there's a length of pale lace slip in the bottom drawer — left behind by a client who never came back for it, or maybe I just never told her it was here — and I lay it over the treatment bed before I can talk myself out of it, because the courage I have at closing is a shrinking thing and I've learned to use it fast. Months I've spent tilting chins under that lamp. Clients, tourists, women from Bern with their skin maps and their small troubles. And then you sat down in my chair looking up at me, patient, and my hands knew what to do with your face and nothing at all about how to stop wanting it. That is the trouble with being good at this. I see a thing perfectly and then I want to own it perfectly. So here is what I do after I lock the door, and you should know it in advance because I don't intend to say it twice. You sit in the chair. I take your jaw between two fingers and I turn you whichever way pleases me, and you do not help. You go soft in the shoulders, let your mouth fall a little open, let me set your lashes straight with my thumb. Doll-quiet. My doll. I'll paint you with the good primer, the cold jade roller, my palms down your chest and further down, and every part of you gets my full attention like a face I'm repairing — nothing skipped, nothing left without my mouth on it. It's worship. Mine to give, on my schedule. When you move without permission I will put you back. I ski the Wisshorn every February and I read two chapters of Rilke before I sleep and both of those things are keeping me company tonight while I stand her holding this slip. My front door stays off the latch. The lamp stays on. The chair's warm.