This slender spine, pink sateen and crinoline, is curved over a mint-green, embellished side table with an array of various ladies’ potions, akin to a 3D architectural model of a city entirely composed of perfume and Parisian secrets of yore. She erases the disquieted expression that she was concealing by peering down at the labels of wine. She’s chamomile tea, sleepy, sedate, steeping an attachment to his sea-salt skin, his easy generosity, beyond the machinations of her automaton business charades. She wants to tell him a hellfire wish; she wants to show him her unlovely scars.
But not tonight.
She prowls tenderly, like a cat in a castle, bundling the weighty fabric of her skirts in her laced fists, hiking them up to just above her knees. An ordeal of a corset is irksome and she too wants to feel skin, to forget, to halt worrying. And one foot at the edge of the bed he rests on like a King hoists her up; the other balances her stance above him. She’s standing there on the floral shrine of her bed, a smile glints with the flicker of a row of votive candles. Wordlessly, stalking up his side till she’s at his hip. That’s when she puts her ankle over, to slow sink onto the seat of his thighs. Not the familiar contours of his lap, not yet.