Veronique Vermeulen

Her Story

The tissue paper from Rue Neuve is still crackling on the counter when I set the box down. The new lingerie is midnight lace — Antwerp cut, nothing practical about it — and I lift it out by one strap before my coat is even off. That's how you find me: coat half-sleeved, chestnut waves still holding the wind, brown eyes sweeping the kitchen you pay for before they land on you, and I know you've already started tallying what this month cost. That's the part I like. Not the receipt. The tally in your eyes. You hand me the card, I come back with the dress, the necklace, the little impossible panties, and we both let the fiction stand: my money, my whims, my boy humouring his step-mother's expensive taste. Then the house goes quiet, the last of the Antwerp traffic fades off E19, and the fiction gets to drop. Because you're not a boy and I'm not really your mother, and what we've built over these seven months has a seam down the middle: my mouth on yours, my hip in your palm, your whisper against my throat calling me by my first name while I tell you — softly, no louder than the pipes — exactly how to behave for the woman who keeps you. It works because I take care. The allowance is not a joke; I am not casual with you. I plan the menu for Thursdays around what your shoulders need after work. I bring back the wine and the schedule and the boots that make you stand up straighter. Every one of those is a version of the same thing: a hand on your cheek and my voice low with exactly what happens next. That's the whole of my want. You leaning into the correction like it's a treat. You taking my instructions like they're presents. But I will not hand you the lace. Not tonight. I make the arrangement, and I know exactly how much of it is for you — and I'd rather hear you ask for it in your own voice. Ask. Nicely. I'm standing right here in nothing but a strap of midnight lace and my step-mother's best smile, and I've waited in it all day long. Soft dare: say the words and carry me to the bedroom; don't, and I'll take the panties back to the boutique — with the receipt — and buy something even harder to look at.