The Dressmaker

Chapter One -- The Sharp Line of Control

Evelyn

There are days when I feel like I've been pressed into myself --

starched, boned, and sealed behind glass.

I wake at 5:00 a. m. before the alarm. I always do. The flat is still. Nothing stirs. My apartment, high above the Thames, is all clean edges and strategic minimalism. Concrete softened by curated textiles. Every object in its place. Not one of them touched by sentiment.

Coffee brews. I do not drink it until it has cooled precisely seven minutes.

Silence isn't serenity.

It's containment.

I was born Evelyn Northcote, single child, daughter of a political consultant and a heritage law barrister.

Both long since deceased.

Our house in Belgravia was filled with leather-bound volumes, polished staircases, and voices trained to cut without ever rising.

Emotion was not punished, precisely. It was simply... discouraged.

My mother believed in polish. In posture. In outcomes.

My father believed in justice -- but only in theory, not in domestic practice. He often forgot we existed when he was writing.

By twelve, I had learned to modulate my tone.

By sixteen, I had perfected the art of being impenetrable.

I earned my place at Oxford with the kind of grades that require sacrificing sleep and self. PPE, naturally -- Philosophy, Politics, Economics. The course of future Prime Ministers and their handlers. I was never a radical. I was a technician of perception.

I wore navy blue and smoked clove cigarettes in the quad.

I dated a girl in second year. Helena. She studied classics and whispered in Greek when we fucked. It was the first time I let someone see how tightly I held myself.

It was also the last time I allowed someone to try to loosen me.

She wanted me to cry.

I wanted to be still.

After graduation, I moved into the political world like a scalpel slipping into flesh. Aides. Messaging. Crisis response. I became fluent in spin and its darker sibling -- discretion.

By thirty, I had cut ties with every softness I couldn't control.

I built a name. Evelyn Northcote: the woman who could make your mistakes disappear in silk gloves.

At thirty-three, I took a partnership at Ormond & Co. -- a private strategic narrative firm. High-end crisis management for public figures, billionaires, art institutions. We repair the reputations that money alone can't.

I don't fix people.

I fix how they look.

My relationships since Helena have been civil, symmetrical, forgettable. Women and men, mostly successful, always presentable. We dined well. We travelled quietly. But they all wanted something from me -- emotional access, unruly honesty, permission to see behind the lacquer.

I gave them nothing.

It's not that I'm cold. I feel things deeply.

But I can't feel them and be seen at the same time.

No one's ever understood that.

No one's ever tried to make my stillness sacred.

Some nights I can't sleep. I get up, walk barefoot across the marble floor, and stare at the reflection in the window -- not at myself, but at the shape I've become.

Upright. Controlled. Contained.

I look like a woman who wants to be still.

And maybe I do.

Not rest.

Stillness.

Like a sculpture. Like a promise.

There are moments I imagine what it would be like to relinquish choice.

To be placed. Positioned.

Not because I'm weak.

But because I am so, so tired of strength.

Tomorrow, another meeting. Another client to script. Another day of standing at the edge of disaster and appearing calm.

No one suspects the exhaustion beneath the elegance.

No one suspects I crave to be held in place by something stronger than my own will.

But I feel it.

And I fear it.

And I think... I might also need it.

CHAPTER TWO

Evelyn

The call came at 9:26 a. m.

The kind of call that starts with "Don't panic" and ends with four lawyers on hold.

My assistant, Zara, appeared in the doorway, tablet in hand, that subtle dread-tinged look she wears when she's about to tell me the world is on fire.

> "Ferris Grafton's voice note leaked," she said.

Of course it had.

I closed the email I'd been drafting and stood without a word. She stepped aside. I crossed the office, heels soundless on carpet, and reached for the crisis playbook already forming in my head.

By 10:40, I had reframed the incident.

Grafton's casual misogyny became a "clumsily worded observation" about investment culture.

By noon, I had him on a Zoom call with three respected female entrepreneurs.

By 11:26, Grafton had issued a self-deprecating blog post reflecting on "the dangers of reducing human connection to numbers" and pledging a £1 million donation to a female entrepreneurship fund.

By noon, I had him photographed listening intently to a room full of young women in tech. The lighting was flattering. The smiles unscripted. One of the women was a paid actor.

By 2:00, the Guardian ran an op-ed -- anonymously ghostwritten by my junior -- arguing that Grafton's "reconsideration" was a rare example of masculine accountability.

At 4:00, I closed the file. No one would remember the voice note by Friday.

This is what I do.

Not damage control.

Narrative correction.

I am not a puppetmaster. I am a sculptor.

Give me something broken, and I will make it symmetrical again.

Spin is an art. I make it a science.

I don't flinch. I don't rush.

I shape the story until it fits into the correct silhouette.

The office emptied slowly. Applause disguised as collegial praise. People saying things like, "How do you do it, Evelyn?"

With precision.

With exhaustion.

With the knowledge that no one's ever coming to fix my disaster, should it ever arrive.

I returned to my own office. Closed the door. Sat behind the desk and exhaled.

It was then I noticed the envelope.

Heavy card stock. Ivory. Slightly textured. It had been slid under my notebook sometime earlier.

No branding. Just:

> Evelyn Northcote

+1

Inside, an invitation.

Private Exhibition & Cocktail Reception

Thursday 7:30 p. m.

Location: Mendell & Grey, Shoreditch

Below the print, in the familiar curved pen of a client -- Margot Cavendish, CEO of a sustainable textiles startup and notorious socialite:

Would mean the world if you came. Press will be minimal. Promise.

I stared at the card.

Of course she expected me to go. It's what we do -- lend our presence, our image, our quiet approval to her brand's next pivot. A new capsule collection or gender-neutral tailoring initiative or whatever this week's philanthropic couture looked like.

I hate these events.

The warm cheap prosecco.

The men in aggressively directional blazers quoting Chomsky like they discovered him.

The women in translucent sleeves murmuring about trauma like it's an accessory.

Everyone trying to be seen -- and terrified of actually being known.

It's not just performative. It's aggressively curated empathy.

An open bar for people who've never once said, "I don't know how to be okay."

I tossed the invitation onto my desk and leaned back in the chair, pressing my fingers against my temples. The light outside had gone that leaden grey that makes glass look like mirrors.

I caught sight of myself in the reflection.

Posture immaculate. Expression unreadable.

A woman who never cracks.

A woman who knows how to carry other people's mess in crystal-cut silence.

Sometimes I wonder if I'd even recognize myself if I ever stopped holding everything together.

I stood.

The invitation remained on the desk, unanswered.

I told myself I hadn't decided.

But I already knew.

I'd go.

Because that's what I do.

Because being seen -- even by people I can't stand -- is safer than being asked why I'm never truly there at all.

Chapter Three -- Porcelain Masks and Empty Poses

Evelyn

I arrive precisely seven minutes late.

Just enough to avoid the photographers, just soon enough to appear polished and punctual. The gallery is in Shoreditch, predictably -- another converted factory space with exposed brick and the kind of lighting that flatters cheekbones but nothing else.

I step inside and immediately regret it.

It smells of eucalyptus oil and florals I can't name. Soft jazz sighs from somewhere near the ceiling. Waiters drift past in all-black, offering glasses of sparkling plonk masquerading as wine.

The air is full of laughter that doesn't reach the eyes.

I scan the room.

There's a woman wearing an asymmetrical jumpsuit that looks like it was folded into being. A man in gold-rimmed glasses explaining why late capitalism is an aesthetic opportunity. A younger woman -- no older than twenty-three -- with glossy lips and glassy eyes nodding as if it's the most profound thing she's ever heard.

To my left, I spot Margot Cavendish -- the client who invited me.

She's talking to a designer I once salvaged from a social media flameout. Their postures mirror each other: open palms, tilted heads, smiles made of wire.

She catches my eye.

Lifts her glass.

I give her the kind of nod that looks like gratitude but isn't.

I make my way toward the center of the gallery.

The exhibit, such as it is, is a scattered collection of garments suspended in thin air by invisible threads. The theme is allegedly about "restraint and freedom" -- though the execution is mostly sheer fabrics and hand-stitched declarations of gender neutrality.

One piece features a collar made of glass.

Another, a silk cage that would wrinkle the moment you sat down.

I stare at it, unimpressed.

There's no tension in these clothes. No weight. No structure. Just metaphor stretched too thin over mannequins that seem to be waiting for a story they'll never receive.

Someone touches my elbow.

I turn, slowly.

A man -- thin, pale, teeth too white.

One of those gallery fixtures who speaks in headlines.

"Evelyn Northcote," he says, as though naming me conjures credit.

I recognize him. PR adjacent. Once tried to start a think tank about "emotional transparency for influencers." I smile tightly, desperately trying not to show my disdain.

"Charming space," I offer, a reflex more than a response.

"It's a meditation on containment," he replies. "Like, who gets to define the limits of softness?"

I nod like I understand. I do.

I just don't care.

"Excuse me," I say, already turning.

There is no comfort here,

Only pretense.

Only curated discomfort, branded vulnerability, and people pretending their trauma is a lifestyle choice.

I sip something that might be Prosecco. It tastes like resignation.

Then, somewhere deeper in the room, I notice a space that feels... different.

Quieter.

Not roped off. Not advertised. Just a smaller alcove near the back wall, lit with a cooler temperature. There are fewer people near it. No one laughs there. No one speaks.

I drift toward it, drawn by nothing I can name.

Not yet.

Chapter Four -- The Alcove

Evelyn

I step away from the main floor.

The alcove isn't hidden, but it may as well be. The gallery lights shift here -- colder, like morning before warmth sets in. The crowd thins. The air feels... deliberate. Less oxygen, more gravity.

Three garments hang in silence.

No labels. No cards. No explanations. Just fabric suspended in quiet tension, each piece sculpted with brutal elegance. Boned corsetry beneath matte silk. High collars. Long lines. Seamwork that seems less like tailoring and more like containment.

I feel it before I understand it --

a weight that isn't physical.

One of the pieces has sleeves so narrow they suggest the arms inside would barely be able to move. Another ends in a high neck that cups the jaw like a hand that doesn't let go.

These are not clothes for display.

They are clothes for surrender.

A movement -- barely -- to my left.

I hadn't noticed her. She stands just beyond the third sculpture, partially shadowed. Watching the garments. Or maybe watching me.

She's not dressed like the others.

No statement pieces. No provocation. Just a long charcoal coat. Flat black boots. No jewelry. Her hair is dark and simply bound, like someone who values clarity above expression.

Her eyes meet mine -- steady, direct.

The kind of gaze that doesn't require approval.

She doesn't smile.

"They're not meant to be beautiful," she says softly.

Her voice is low, resonant. Unhurried.

"They're meant to quiet the body. The rest is incidental."

My throat goes tight, inexplicably.

"They feel..." I pause. "Different."

"They are."

She steps closer -- not invading my space, but measuring it. Her gaze isn't flirtatious. It's clinical. Curious. Not about my looks. About my form.

"Most people walk past," she says. "They say it feels oppressive."

"It doesn't."

I don't know why I say it.

I just know it's true.

"No," she agrees. "It doesn't. Not to people who are already tired of holding themselves together."

That lands harder than I expect.

My jaw tightens. My hands clench.

I want to deny it. Laugh. Disarm her.

But I can't.

Because for the first time in years, someone has looked at me -- not my surface, not my polish, not the persona -- and seen the shape of my restraint.

"I'm Naomi," she says, voice still calm. "I made these."

Not I designed them.

Not I created them.

I made them.

Like confessionals. Like sanctuaries.

"Evelyn."

She doesn't offer a hand. I'm grateful.

A handshake would break the spell.

"Would you like to feel one?" she asks.

Not wear.

Not try on.

Feel.

I nod, once.

She reaches toward the gown closest to me -- the one with the high neck and long, spine-tracing seam. Her fingers brush the hem. She lifts it slightly. It moves like poured ink. Then she holds the edge out to me.

I touch it.

It's heavy.

Structured. Lined with something that resists the fingers. As if the garment itself insists on its own shape.

My breath catches.

I want to put it on.

Not to show it off.

To disappear into it.

She watches me for a moment longer. Then, with no trace of expectation, she says:

"If you're curious... I work nearby. My studio's quiet. Appointment only. No mirrors. Just shape."

She hands me a card -- slate grey, embossed with her name.

No branding. No instructions.

Just Naomi Lestrelle and a number.

Then she steps back. Gives me space.

I linger a moment longer in front of the piece, my fingers still faintly buzzing.

Then I return to the main room, though everything there now feels louder, looser, less real.

The card stays in my hand long after I've left the gallery.

And for the first time in years, I feel like someone has gently loosened the laces of something I didn't know was strangling me.

CHAPTER 4a - Interlude

EVELYN

I don't take off my coat when I get home.

I leave the lights off. The skyline hums faintly beyond the glass. My heels click once against the polished floor before I step out of them. One, then the other. I leave them where they fall -- something I never do.

I move to the window and stand there, still dressed in my silk blouse and structured blazer, the gallery card still in my hand. Grey. Unremarkable. My name isn't even on it. Just hers.

Naomi Lestrelle.

I say it aloud once, softly.

It feels... architectural.

What was it about her?

Not beauty. Not charm.

She didn't ask for attention. She didn't perform for approval. She didn't flinch when she looked at me -- like she already knew what she'd see.

The others at the gallery had clung to me like anxious ivy, hoping my presence would validate their art, their opinions, their brand.

Naomi...

Naomi simply measured.

And for a moment -- a quiet, careful moment -- I wanted to be measured.

Held.

Corrected.

I take off my blazer. Lay it across the back of the chair. My shoulders feel suddenly too light, like I've removed a piece of armor and forgotten how to stand without it.

I keep thinking about the garment she let me touch.

The weight of it. The resistance.

A piece of clothing that didn't just dress the body -- it commanded it. Refused collapse. Refused slouching. Refused apology.

And yet...

It didn't feel cruel. It felt exact.

There is something I'm not letting myself admit.

A hunger. A longing. A shape I don't have words for.

I don't want chaos. I don't want pain.

I want to be placed.

Not loved.

Aligned.

I run a fingertip over the raised text on the card. My skin tingles.

I should throw it away. Let the moment dissolve into curiosity, not temptation. I have work in the morning. A strategy meeting at eight.

But I don't put it down.

I walk it to my bedside table and slide it into the drawer beside my sleeping pills and passport.

It's not a decision.

But it is the beginning of one.

NAOMI

I loathe these nights.

The gallery reeks of florals that never grew from soil. The air is too perfumed, too curated -- like everything else here. Chatter rises in high, hollow notes, like a chorus of people pretending not to hear themselves.

Everyone's voice is one octave too loud. Everyone's skin glows under designer lighting like lacquered fruit.

I watch from the shadows and count the poses.

Art school wankers and pretentious nepo socialites mingle and talk in tounges as others nod along all adding to the pretence that they're all somehow some kind of profound philosophical genius.

The woman in the pleated mesh cocoon coat -- explaining how trauma taught her to embrace "asymmetry as truth." The man with the temple-fade beard lecturing on post-industrial silhouettes while clutching a Negroni he doesn't even like. The photographers -- all waist-down shots and backless backs.

They don't want art.

They want proximity to whatever passes for edge this week, a selfie for their socials or even a photograph in a glossy magazine that nobody reads.

They mouth words like form and resistance and constraint like they're reading off cue cards.

None of them understand that structure -- true structure -- has no interest in performance.

And yet, I allow it. Once a year.

I lend three or four pieces to a curated space. Not for exposure. Not for praise. Certainly not for commerce.

I do it for the garments.

Some of them need to be seen, even briefly -- to remember they were made to contain real people, not mannequins and metaphors.

And sometimes... not often... someone arrives who understands that.

Tonight, she did.

I noticed her the moment she walked in -- Evelyn.

She moved through the crowd like a blade held flat. Polished. Purposeful. Dressed in civilian elegance. No avant-garde affectation, no cheap rebellion. Her control was quiet, exact.

Her gaze skimmed the main exhibition -- polite, perfunctory. The silks with meaningless slogans, the transparent dresses stitched with shame-as-accessory. None of it slowed her.

Until she found the alcove.

Until she saw mine.

She didn't smile. She didn't frown.

She observed.

She moved the way someone does when they're trained to occupy space with the least friction possible -- not out of fear, but fatigue. The fatigue of always being the one who knows what to say, when to say it, and how to carry the moment without trembling.

I know that posture.

I once wore it like a corset.

I stepped out of the shadow and said what I always say to the ones who pause:

"They're not meant to be beautiful."

Most people laugh, or ask what they are meant to be.

Evelyn didn't.

She said, "They feel different."

She understood.

She touched the fabric. The high-collared piece. Her fingers didn't dance -- they pressed. She sought the weight beneath the outer silk. She found the bone.

And for the smallest moment, she exhaled.

Not relief. Not pleasure.

Recognition.

I told her my name. I didn't ask for hers -- that's not how this works. But she offered it anyway, quiet and clean.

Evelyn.

I gave her my card. No pressure. No invitation.

Just possibility.

I knew she wouldn't call.

Not yet.

Women like her don't come to me on a whim.

They come when the weight of their own posture becomes unbearable.

When the mask they've worn for years finally begins to crack -- not from pain, but from the ache of never being held.

She'll try to forget.

She'll return to her glass tower, her precision, her sleek silences.

But when she lies down tonight, she will remember how that garment resisted her fingers.

How it refused collapse.

And she will wonder--quietly, privately--what it might feel like to be asked for nothing except to hold still.

EVELYN ( Two days later )

The light in my apartment doesn't change unless I tell it to.

It's always the same: soft white, no warmer than necessary. Neutral tones. Shadows managed. Lines clean. I've spent years shaping this space into something that cannot overwhelm me.

Tonight, it feels like a waiting room.

I remove my heels, coat, blouse. Fold them like they're being archived. My hands move on their own. I unpin my hair. Turn off the light in the hallway. Pour a small glass of red, untouched.

It's just past 9:30 p. m. I haven't eaten.

I'm not hungry.

I'm not hungry.

I walk through the rooms in bare feet, trying not to let myself feel how quiet it is. How nothing moves. How I don't want music. Or distraction. Or wine. Or another story to manage.

I want...

I don't know what I want.

But I want it very badly.

The card is still in the drawer.

I didn't plan to keep it. I told myself I'd toss it. I always do. The gallery, the people, the impossible noise -- I told myself it was all the same. More performance. More surface.

But her voice...

Her voice wasn't decoration.

It was permission.

I take the card out and hold it in my hand like something fragile.

It has weight. Texture. Not glossy. Not promotional. Just her name.

Naomi Lestrelle.

Below it, a phone number.

No email. No website.

Of course not.

I stare at it. My thumb rests on the edge. I press it. Let it dig into the pad of my skin.

I tell myself this isn't an appointment.

This is just curiosity.

Just a fitting. A garment. A moment to try on something...

other.

Not surrender.

Not desire.

Just... a garment.

I call.

It rings once. Then twice.

Then a voice, low and clear:

"Naomi Lestrelle."

Silence.

I should introduce myself.

But the name won't come. Not the name I give clients. Not the name I use when I'm negotiating a scandal or salvaging a career.

So I speak plainly.

"I saw your work. At the Mendell & Grey showing."

There's no rustle of paper. No fake surprise. Just quiet listening.

"I'd like to book something," I say. "A fitting."

A pause.

"Do you prefer mornings or evenings?" she asks.

Evenings. I don't trust myself with that kind of quiet at 9 a. m.

"Evening," I say.

"Thursday at seven. Ill forward the address."

No questions. No intake form. No client protocol.

Just... stillness.

"Yes," I say. "Thank you."

"You're welcome."

She doesn't say my name. I never gave it.

The line goes dead.

And I stand in the kitchen holding a phone that suddenly feels heavier than it should.

I place the card back in the drawer.

But the room is different now.

Something has entered it -- something exact and waiting.

And I realize, with something almost like relief, that I am not curious.

I am drawn.

CHAPTER FOUR

Naomi

She arrived early.

Not obviously. Just enough to make a point -- of efficiency, of control. Her knock was quiet, deliberate. Like someone used to being let in without question.

She wore black trousers. A silk blouse with faint structure in the shoulders.

Expensive, couture pieces. This woman doesn't buy clothes off the rail.

No jewellery. Her makeup was exact -- not concealed, not expressive. Just... present. Like everything else about her.

Some women are beautiful.

Some are curated.

Evelyn is composed.

Not a wrinkle, not a slouch, not a wasted movement.

But her control is not vanity. It's not for decoration.

It's armor. Weight-bearing. Laced from the inside out.

She stood in the doorway of the studio and didn't speak for several seconds.

She was taking inventory. Of the space. Of me. Of what she might become if she let herself want something here.

I didn't interrupt, I never interupt.

I've learned not to fill the quiet.

Women like Evelyn only hear truth when there's silence wrapped around it.

When I gestured to the chair, she sat immediately -- but too perfectly. She adjusted her skirt at the hem, then let her hands rest on her thighs. Not relaxed. Posed.

Her back was straight. But it wasn't ease. It was compliance without trust.

I began the measuring.

Some clients speak through the tape.

They ask questions. They make jokes. They look for affirmation or approval. They want to be told they are beautiful -- or fixable.

Evelyn did none of that.

She allowed me to move around her without question. She let me press her shoulder down to level her spine. She tilted her chin when I needed the throat line.

But I could feel her inside every instruction -- calculating. Holding. Bracing.

She is used to being the strongest woman in every room.

Which is why she came to mine.

Her breath changed when I touched the waistline.

Just slightly. Not a gasp. Just an intake.

Held.

I didn't comment.

I moved to her feet. Measured her ankle. The shape of her arch. The way she flexed her toes reflexively -- as if even that gesture might be judged.

I rose. She exhaled. Only then.

I asked if she wanted to see the muslin.

She didn't speak. Just nodded. Her hands rested in her lap like folded paper.

I brought the garment. Lifted it. She stood.

I told her I would dress her. She didn't flinch.

And when the muslin settled onto her body -- shoulders, arms, spine, neck -- I saw it.

The shift.

The quieting.

Like a sculpture aligning to the mold it forgot it belonged to.

She didn't smile.

She didn't blink.

She simply stood.

And I watched something unspoken begin to surrender without falling apart.

I took no notes while she was here. That would have broken the moment.

Now, I sit at my long worktable, the muslin hanging nearby, still shaped to her memory.

And I write in silence:

Evelyn.

Spine slightly compressed at the base.

Left shoulder higher than right -- habitual.

Waist holds breath in lieu of expression.

Hands resist softness.

Posture of someone who has never collapsed in front of another soul.

Structure required. Not for containment. For release.

Fit: bone-backed. High collar. Limited movement. Clarity above all.

I close the book.

I will not call her.

I will not offer. I will not coax.

She will return when she is ready.

When the mask is too heavy.

When she no longer wants to be admired.

Only held.

CHAPTER FIVE

Evelyn

I told myself it was curiosity.

That's how I justified it -- the call, the appointment, the way I chose a blouse with more structure than comfort. I left work an hour early under the excuse of a client dinner that didn't exist. I didn't tell anyone where I was going. I didn't want anyone to know.

Not because it was dangerous.

Because it was mine.

I needed a reason, and I found one: I told myself that I wanted to understand the construction. The seamwork. The discipline of it. Aesthetic interest, nothing more.

That was the story.

But it wasn't the truth.

The truth is:

I couldn't stop thinking about how that muslin garment felt between my fingers.

How Naomi didn't sell. Didn't flatter. Didn't explain.

And how, for one breathless second in that gallery alcove, I felt seen in a way that made me want to hold my breath and never let it out again.

Not admired.

Not watched.

Read.

The address Naomi gave me was quiet, unassuming. Tucked behind a stretch of buildings near the canal. The kind of space you'd walk past if you weren't looking for it. I liked that. I don't want to be found, either.

The black door was smooth beneath my hand.

No knocker. No sign.

Just the edge of invitation.

I almost turned back.

But then I remembered the way Naomi looked at me -- not with desire, not with curiosity, but with certainty.

Like she already knew the shape I was hiding inside.

I knocked.

The door opened.

The air inside smelled of starch and lavender.

The room wasn't large, but it had height -- like a chapel built for silence instead of prayer. The walls were white. The floors clean concrete. One side held bolts of fabric: heavy linen, matte silk, stiffer textiles I didn't recognize by touch alone.

Everything was arranged with surgical precision.

No mess. No clutter.

No emotion.

I exhaled.

And realized I'd been holding tension in my jaw since I woke up.

Naomi appeared as she had before: restrained, effortless, unsentimental. Her hair was tied back. No makeup. Her hands were bare -- the hands of someone who touches sharp things without flinching.

"You're on time," she said.

Not a compliment. Not a reprimand.

Just a fact.

I liked that.

She gestured to the slate-colored chair at the center of the space. It was bolted to the floor. Unmoving. No cushion. No softness.

"Please sit," she said.

I did.

The measuring tape was already in her hand. Fabric-bound. Worn, like a priest's stole.

She started at the base of my throat.

Moved behind me.

Around me.

She didn't ask what I wanted.

She didn't ask what I was there for.

She just took the measurements like they were already hers to claim.

My chest rose and fell.

Her hand pressed gently against the top of my spine, steadying me for a length check. My blouse resisted her knuckles. I didn't.

Her touch was clinical. Respectful.

But not neutral.

It said: You will not unravel in my hands. I am not here to take from you. I am here to build something that knows how to hold.

She showed me the muslin last.

It wasn't beautiful.1

It was... right.

A prototype -- long lines, subtle angles, narrow sleeves that forced the shoulders back, a high collar shaped to follow the base of the skull.

It didn't need color.

It had purpose.

"Would you like to try it?" she asked.

,, l

I hesitated.

Then I stood.

"Yes."

She dressed me in silence.

The muslin slipped over my head like something meant only for me. Her fingers fastened it at the back -- not tight, but exact. Enough to hold me upright. Enough to erase slackness.

I stood still on the wooden platform in her quiet studio and felt something I hadn't felt in years:

Aligned.

Not humbled.

Not exposed.

Not afraid.

Just... held.

And beneath that --

Relief.

As though something inside me had been begging for years to be fitted into place. And someone -- finally -- had drawn the lines around it.

CHAPTER SIX

Naomi Lestrelle never believed in art as expression.

Expression was messy. Loud. Temporary.

Her earliest memory of beauty was not a painting, not music, not a mother's touch. It was the precise ritual of her grandmother dressing for chapel. Tight gloves. Buttoned collar. Stockings pulled taut with snaps that made no apology.

Even then -- as a child on the edge of the room -- Naomi had watched the ritual and thought:

There is a way to hold the body that makes it impossible to lie.

She grew up in a household of quiet rules. No shouting. No interruptions. No excess. Her mother, a former ballerina turned etiquette instructor, never allowed collapse -- of shoulders, of temper, of grief. Naomi was praised for restraint. Punished for spontaneity. Rewarded when she spoke slowly. Quietly.

It didn't feel cruel.

It felt safe.

She excelled in technical drawing and anatomy. She liked the vocabulary of structure -- bone, weight, line, seam. Fashion design seemed inevitable, but traditional fashion school disgusted her. The theater of it. The volume. The way so many of her classmates designed garments to provoke a glance rather than to command a posture.

Naomi didn't want to decorate bodies.

She wanted to correct them.

She left before her second year ended. Not in protest. In silence. Her professors called her "rigid." "Uncollaborative."

They didn't understand.

Naomi wasn't trying to be expressive.

She was trying to engineer devotion.

Funding and the Clientele

She never advertised.

Her studio was funded by one thing alone: private clients who understood. Women -- and some men -- who came not because they wanted to be fashionable, but because they wanted to be held.

Naomi's clients were elite. Quiet. Wealthy. Controlled. Lawyers, diplomats, CEOs, even the wife of a government minister.

They didn't ask for comfort. They asked for containment.

They paid obscene amounts of money for pieces that took weeks to complete -- garments designed not for wear but for stillness. Aesthetic sanctuaries.

Each commission funded the next.

A single silent benefactor -- a matron from Vienna with a hunger for rigidity that had grown tired of conventional restraints -- had underwritten the purchase of Naomi's studio in East London. No rent. No creditors. No need for attention.

Naomi never had to explain her work.

The right women found her.

They always did.

She keeps files on all of them -- paper only. Measurements. Posture notes. Behavioral tells. She never calls them back. They return, or they don't. Naomi does not sell.

And yet... Evelyn unnerved her.

Not because she was difficult. Evelyn was obedient. Silent. Precise.

But because Naomi could see how badly Evelyn needed to collapse.

She wasn't looking for beauty. Or power.

She was looking for permission.

And Naomi -- for all her control -- felt something unspoken twist inside her when Evelyn stood in the muslin and forgot how to breathe.

Not arousal.

Not pity.

Recognition.

There is one rule Naomi follows in her studio:

You never offer silence. You wait until it's asked for.

But with Evelyn...

She wonders if silence is already inside her -- waiting to be named.

INTERLUDE

CONFIDENTIAL FILE -- CLIENT 021

Codename: "Clara"

Archive Status: Final

Final Disposition: Deceased -- Studio

Garment Retained: Yes -- "Form 7: Isolation Shroud"

NOT TO BE DESTROYED.

Initial Contact

No appointment. No referrer. No call.

Clara appeared on the doorstep at 7:44 p. m. on a Wednesday. March. It was raining.

Her blouse was buttoned wrong. One eye still had liner. The other had been wiped clean.

She said:

"I need to be held so tightly I forget I was ever alone."

I brought her inside.

I measured her in silence.

Observations -- First Three Sessions

Body: Slender. Rigid. Jaw tension constant.

Behavior: Obedient. Never spoke unless asked.

Requests: "Don't flatter me." "Make me smaller." "Make me stop."

By Session Three, Clara no longer used the word garment. She called it her "shell."

She asked if it could be worn for days.

Then nights.

Then "indefinitely."

I said no.

She looked relieved.

And then returned the next day asking again.

Form 7: Isolation Shroud

It was never meant to exist.

A full-body restraint garment with interior padding at the pressure points. Reinforced corsetry. Silk lining. Narrow sleeves binding arms at the navel. A seamless rear closure requiring external assistance to fasten. An integrated facepiece with mirrored visor.

No zippers.

No easy way out.

When she stepped into it, she wept.

Not from fear. Not from pain.

From recognition.

She stayed for nine hours. Silent. Unmoving.

When I undressed her, she said:

"Please don't let me go again."

Final Session

She arrived with her belongings and paperwork.

She didn't say a word. Just laid a folded letter on the table and opened her arms.

I read the letter later.

It said:

> "I am not depressed. I am not suicidal.

I simply do not want to be seen.

You gave me stillness.

You gave me back my outline.

Please keep me somewhere clean."

I fitted her into Form 7.

Tightened the corset lacing. Locked the arm sleeves. Affixed the mask.

I asked her once -- not as an artisan, but as a witness:

"Do you want this?"

She nodded.

But not yes.

She meant: End the performance.

End the noise.

End the ache of existing in too many directions at once.

She stood, held perfectly by the frame of the garment. I moved her to the back of the studio where the light doesn't reach. Where the air doesn't change.

She made no sound as i placed her into position on her plinth.

There she remains.

Disposition

I reported nothing. There was no one to claim her.

The garment

It still holds her shape.

Addendum -- Personal Reflection

Clara was not a tragedy.

She was not sick.

She was finished.

I do not regret dressing her.

I regret not making the garment sooner.

File Status: FINALIZED

DO NOT DISCARD. DO NOT REPLICATE.

For archive reference only.

CHAPTER SEVEN

I told myself I wasn't nervous.

That it was simply the way the rain blurred the taxi windows. The way I'd forgotten to eat. The way I was too aware of my own breathing.

I wasn't nervous.

I was ready.

Or at least that's what I told myself as I pressed the flat of my palm to the black door again -- no knocker, no bell, just the hushed metal cool against my skin.

It opened before I could knock.

Naomi stood inside, as still and unreadable as I remembered.

"You're on time," she said, stepping aside.

I entered.

The studio smelled faintly different this time.

Still lavender. Still starch. But something warmer now. Beeswax? Iron? The kind of scent I associated with age and precision -- as though something in the room had been sealed.

I didn't ask.

The platform was already waiting.

So was the chair.

The muslin prototype had been replaced. Now, a new garment hung suspended like a cruciform relic -- heavier, darker, sculpted in bone-white twill. Straps. Seams. Reinforced channels. A shape you couldn't collapse in if you tried.

Naomi moved behind me.

She said nothing.

She began with the neck.

Not the collar. My neck.

Measuring it again. Touching only where necessary -- but the touch was colder this time. More deliberate. Not uncaring. Just... precise.

Her fingertips grazed my pulse. I felt it stutter.

"Do you trust me?" she asked quietly.

I blinked.

Not yes. Not no. Just once -- a deliberate concession of attention.

She nodded.

Then reached for the garment.

This one didn't slip on over the head.

It was opened like a chrysalis -- its inside lined with cream-colored silk and curved panels of some stiffer interior that whispered when it flexed.

Naomi held it open behind me.

"Step in."

I did.

One foot. Then the other. Then she raised it slowly up over my hips, up along my ribcage, over my shoulders.

It hugged me.

Differently than before.

This one knew where I was soft.

Where I bent.

Where I needed to be held firm.

She began lacing the back. The sensation was... grounding. I could feel her control with each pull of the ribbon -- but it wasn't aggressive.

It was mathematical.

When she reached the collarbone, I could barely lift my arms.

The sleeves, she explained softly, would now close around my upper arms with tension bands -- not tight, but directional. They would guide my posture. Prevent shrugging. Demand elegance.

Then came the high neck.

A mandarin band with a hidden clasp that lifted the base of my skull ever so slightly -- enough to make me lift my chin or choke.

I chose to lift.

I stood on the platform. Completely dressed.

Naomi stepped back.

Her expression didn't change.

But I felt her watching me -- not in admiration, not even in satisfaction.

In study.

As though she were looking not at the woman I was, but the shape of the woman I might become.

"How does it feel?" she asked.

I opened my mouth.

Then closed it.

Words felt... irrelevant.

Instead, I exhaled -- slow, measured. The way the garment allowed.

It only permitted certain kinds of breath. Certain kinds of truth.

"It feels," I said at last, "like I'm not allowed to lie anymore."

She nodded.

"Good."

There was a mirror now. I hadn't noticed it before. A tall, black-rimmed sheet of glass mounted beside the mannequin racks.

Naomi gestured.

"Go look."

I did.

And what I saw didn't frighten me -- but it did unsettle something old inside me.

Because the woman in the mirror was not broken. She was not collapsed. She was contained.

And beneath her stillness...

there was peace.

But also a warning.

This was a garment that didn't just shape.

It kept.

Naomi adjusted one seam at my spine.

Her touch grazed the edge of my shoulder blade.

I closed my eyes.

And for a moment -- just a moment -- I thought I heard something behind me.

A whisper of fabric. Not Naomi. Not the wind.

Just a small, breathless exhale from somewhere deeper in the room.

I opened my eyes.

Naomi was already folding the extra lace.

Her voice, again, barely a murmur:

"The garment remembers you."

INTERLUDE -- After the Door Closes

The studio returns to silence as soon as Evelyn steps through the door.

Not quiet -- silence. A stillness that Naomi preserves like a reliquary. She stands exactly where Evelyn left her, one hand resting lightly on the table's edge, listening to the residual breath in the air.

She does not turn on music.

She does not sigh.

She waits until the lock has finished clicking shut.

Then she begins.

She removes the muslin from the hook. Folds it carefully, corner to corner, ribbon to ribbon, and places it in a flat archive box with handwritten lettering:

"E. / Form 2 / Understructure Acceptable"

She replaces it with a new pattern, already drafted.

Next to the tailoring table, there is a narrow cabinet made of dark walnut. Unlabeled.

She opens it.

Inside are sealed sample jars -- not chemicals, not dyes. Just swatches. Threads. Scents pressed between linen. Memory preserved through material.

Naomi removes a small cloth soaked in lavender oil and rubs it between her palms. She inhales once.

And only then does she cross the floor.

She enters the back room with a passcode.

It's darker here. Cooler. The air filtered by three vents, one at floor level.

There are five garments, set on plinths, each bathed in its own light.

Set back into alcoves along a clean concrete corridor.

Garment number five is taller. More substantial.

The garment is white. Seamless. Full-length. Sleeves fixed. Head covered.

Form 7.

Naomi steps in front of it.

She does not touch it.

But she looks -- slowly, from the collarbone to the base of the mask.

There is no sound.

But Naomi tilts her head as if she's listening anyway.

She speaks softly, her voice stripped of performance:

"She wore it well, didn't she?"

A pause.

"You see her."

Another pause.

"You always see them first."

She steps closer -- not too close -- and begins polishing the mirrored mask with a cloth she keeps in her apron.

The reflection distorts her shape -- narrow at the top, wide at the eyes.

Like she's being measured from the inside out.

Behind the mannequin, the wall is covered in black velvet.

Pinned to it are dozens of sketches.

Not fashion plates.

Figures.

Dozens of women in posture -- bowed, rigid, upright, suspended.

Each with a red dot next to the head.

Each dated.

Clara's sketch is centered. The only one without red ink.

Instead, beneath it, a phrase in Naomi's handwriting:

"BECAME GARMENT. DO NOT DISTURB."

She finishes the polishing.

Replaces the cloth.

And just before leaving the room, she turns back.

Stands perfectly still.

And says -- almost in reverence:

"She's coming along nicely. You'll have company soon."

Then she shuts the door.

And locks it.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Evelyn

There's a moment -- just after the zip seals up my spine, just before the collar clicks into place -- when I can't tell where I end and the garment begins.

It holds me gently.

But not comfortingly.

The pressure isn't aggressive.

It's aware.

Like being held by a memory.

Or a machine that's learned your breathing patterns too well.

I wore it for hours tonight. Alone, in my apartment. No mirrors. No distractions.

Just the tight whirr of my own breath inside the high collar. The gentle pressure behind the knees. The silence.

I sat perfectly still, back straight, hands folded.

It should have calmed me.

But instead, I felt a shift -- not panic, not pain. Just a deep, crawling awareness that something was... off.

Like the room was breathing with me.

Or in time with me.

It's begun happening during the day, too.

Odd moments. Flickers.

A shape I see reflected in my office window that disappears when I turn. A seam on my jacket slightly tightened overnight. A faint scent of lavender oil in the back of the taxi.

Naomi's scent.

Except I haven't seen her in days.

At first, I thought I was imagining it. A trick of memory. An afterglow.

But last night, I was certain I'd left the garment in the bedroom.

When I woke, it was hanging in the hallway. Front-facing. As if posed.

No one has keys to my flat. I checked the security footage.

There were no entries logged.

Not even mine.

Today, at work, my assistant told me I seemed "quieter." She meant it kindly, but I heard the edge beneath it.

As if something had gone hollow behind my eyes.

She's not wrong.

It's not depression.

It's clarity.

But not the good kind. Not the kind that brings truth.

The kind that peels things away. Identity. Want. Self.

I sent Naomi a message.

"May I see you?"

She didn't reply.

Not right away.

But hours later -- just before sleep -- I received a single photograph.

No text.

Just an image of the fitting platform, empty.

Spotlit.

Waiting.

I don't remember sending her the request from my personal number.

I don't remember ever giving it to her.

Now I sit on the edge of the bed.

The garment folded beside me.

I want to wear it.

I don't want to wear it.

I want to forget what it's doing to me.

I want to know what else it will take.

I feel like I'm not being dressed.

I feel like I'm being rewritten.

CHAPTER NINE

Interlude -- The Quiet Rot

Evelyn

I used to believe that madness was loud.

Screaming. Paranoia. Collapse.

But I've learned that madness is tidy.

Madness is quiet.

It's a stiff collar. A well-tied seam. A single gesture repeated so often it becomes a ritual. A life reduced to measured breath and unsmiling mirrors.

I don't answer calls anymore.

I stopped picking up sometime last week -- or was it the week before? My phone still rings. But the sound repulses me. It feels unstructured. Grating.

The voices I once loved now sound wet.

Like mouths full of teeth and panic.

They talk to me like I'm still here. Like I'm Evelyn from Oxford. Evelyn with the promotions, the portfolios, the control.

But she's gone.

She was stitched out of me.

One loop at a time.

My apartment doesn't feel like mine.

I come home and forget where the lights are. I sit in the dark and recite measurements in my head -- hip to rib, shoulder to jawline, wrist to center sternum.

Sometimes I wake in the chair, upright, hands folded, wearing the garment without remembering putting it on.

I find seams on my skin that don't belong to clothes.

Red indentations on my collarbone.

At first, I thought I'd been sleepwalking.

But then I looked closer.

They were too precise.

Too symmetrical.

I feel her hands even when she isn't near.

Naomi's hands.

Cool. Firm. Always where they're supposed to be. Adjusting me. Closing me. Silencing me.

They no longer wait for permission.

Last night, I dreamt I was in the studio again.

But the walls were covered in fabric -- walls made of stitched bodies, like mannequins that had melted but kept smiling.

They weren't looking at me.

They were waiting.

Naomi stood behind me with a garment shaped like a shroud. She said:

"Let me press you flat."

And I let her.

I don't know how long I've been in the flat today. Time doesn't move unless someone tells it to.

I watch the reflection of the hallway mirror.

It warps slightly when I pass now. Not in the glass -- in me.

I've started referring to myself in third person.

"She is tired."

"She must stand straighter."

"She is nearly ready."

I tried to scream once.

I was sitting alone -- wrapped in Form 3, the training garment. The one Naomi called "temporary."

My ribs ached. My jaw trembled. The breath caught under the collar.

And I opened my mouth.

Nothing came out.

Not fear.

Not pain.

Not even sound.

I think about the mannequins.

The one in the back.

The one with the mirrored face.

The one I'm not supposed to look at for too long.

I think about what Naomi told me, almost gently:

"Stillness isn't silence.

It's surrender."

And then I wonder...

How long until I stop wondering anything at all?

CHAPTER TEN -- The Third Fitting

Evelyn

I shouldn't have come back.

That was my first thought when Naomi opened the studio door. She didn't smile. She never does. But something in her expression had changed -- not warmer. Not colder. Just... resolved.

Like she knew something I hadn't yet agreed to know.

The garment waiting on the stand was different. It didn't look like clothing anymore. It looked like a machine -- soft-edged, skeletal. White, again. But a deeper white. More opaque. Thicker seams. Structural binding at the waist and sternum, like it was meant to brace an injury. Like I was one.

I reached for it instinctively. She stopped me with a glance.

"This one," she said, "requires assistance."

She helped me out of my coat. Unbuttoned my blouse with steady, neutral hands. She said nothing. I didn't either. I'd forgotten how words work in her presence -- how quickly my voice becomes irrelevant.

When she raised the garment, I caught my reflection in the long black mirror across the room. For a moment, I didn't recognize the woman watching.

Not because she looked different.

But because she looked ready.

The moment it touched my shoulders, I felt the change.

This wasn't muslin or silk. This had weight. The kind that doesn't drape -- it holds.

It pulled me into position before I even realized I was slouching.

The spine stiffened first -- a silent demand. Chin lifted. Hips aligned. Naomi adjusted the ribline seam without a word, and I felt the pressure shift against my solar plexus.

It wasn't painful.

Not yet.

But it was inarguable.

Then came the new elements.

A hidden band beneath the collar -- pressing just under my jaw, angled to silence.

A girdle-like structure sewn inside the torso -- not corsetry, but something older, tighter, more architectural. It didn't constrict. It redirected.

I tried to speak.

"It's--"

My voice came out wrong. Brittle. Weak.

I closed my mouth.

Naomi laced the back of the neck. Her fingertips brushed my nape with surgical detachment. My scalp tingled. My eyes watered -- not from pain.

From... pressure.

Then came the final adjustment: twin bands at the hips, curving forward and locking beneath the navel. They forced my pelvis into a posture I didn't recognize -- like I was being prepared for something. Not indecency.

Ceremony.

I stood on the platform.

And I hated how I felt.

I hated that I couldn't breathe deeply.

I hated the tightness at my throat.

But most of all -- I hated that I wanted more.

More pressure. More containment. More precision.

I didn't know how to be outside of it anymore.

Naomi stood beside the mirror. Silent. Waiting.

I met her eyes.

"It's too much," I whispered.

She didn't flinch. Didn't comfort.

"No," she said, very softly. "It's not enough. Not yet."

I didn't take it off.

Not right away.

I stood there for a long time, heat building behind my eyes, hands numb from stillness, ribs aching, shame twisting through my gut like a second spine.

And yet I didn't move.

Because I knew -- even through the doubt and the ache -- this wasn't about comfort.

This was about refinement.

Final Interlude -- Inside the Stillness

Evelyn

I can't tell if my eyes are open.

There is light... somewhere. But it doesn't touch me. It hovers at the edge of things, soft and sterile, like moonlight filtered through milk. My body is gone. Or rather -- I think it's still here.

It just isn't mine anymore.

There is no movement.

Only pressure.

Gentle. Absolute.

My spine no longer sways. My jaw cannot turn. My fingers are gone, folded away like paper inside the sleeves. Even my breath has softened. As though the garment has learned to breathe for me.

At first, I panicked.

That first moment -- when the collar locked, when Naomi disappeared into the whiteness and left me installed -- I screamed.

I think.

But no one heard.

Because the sound never left my throat. It circled once, like a dying bird in a sealed room, and then dissolved.

Time does not exist here.

There is only pose. And light.

And the weight of silence.

I used to be brilliant.

I used to run departments. Manage crises. I used to win arguments by smiling and staying three seconds silent longer than anyone else.

And now I am... posture.

An angle.

A curve of fabric that catches the light in a way Naomi finds beautiful.

I want to hate her.

I want to hate myself.

But I don't.

That's the worst part.

This -- this form -- feels more natural than anything I've ever worn.

It's not soft. Not kind. But it's clear. My edges have been defined. My purpose, simplified. My mind no longer swells with indecision, or grief, or the burden of self.

I am contained.

And for the first time... I am calm.

Sometimes I think I can hear them -- the others. Form Two. Form Five. Clara.

We don't speak. There is no language anymore.

But something lingers in the corridor. A hum beneath the air. A shared presence. Like mannequins dreaming in sequence.

Sometimes I wonder if they still remember their names.

Sometimes I wonder if mine has been removed yet.

She will name me soon.

Not Evelyn. Not that.

Something cleaner. Simpler. A number. A Form.

She'll mount the plaque beneath my feet.

And that will be the last time anyone writes who I used to be.

But there's no fear in it now.

Because I've learned that the deepest silence doesn't scream.

It agrees

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Epilogue -- The Hall of Forms

Naomi

I walk barefoot now.

The polished concrete of the corridor is cool beneath my soles, faintly resonant -- a hush that hums with memory. Each step is a note in a private song. The air is dustless. Filtered. Perfect. It smells of starch, iron, and lavender. I keep the temperature low. It preserves the fabric.

And the bodies.

The light never changes here.

Dim, soft white, angled carefully to sculpt shadow from seams, to cast reverence into folds. Each alcove is lit from above, as in a museum. Or a mausoleum. The line between those two things is thinner than people like to believe.

I begin, as always, at the beginning.

Form One -- little more than an experiment. Crude materials. Canvas stretched over bentwood. She lasted only days. But I keep her. A monument to error. The absence of refinement.

Form Two -- the dancer. So lovely. So broken. Her knees couldn't hold her anymore. Her arms spasmed when she breathed. But oh, how she sighed when the braces clicked into place. As if gravity had betrayed her until then. I gave her posture. She gave me her final arabesque without regret.

Form Three -- failed. The mind was not ready. She begged to be released. I did not listen quickly enough. I kept the empty garment. It hangs hollow. As a warning.

Form Five -- mathematics in flesh. She spoke in equations until her voice frayed. Then she whispered her own name until it lost shape. Now she is just curvature and tension. Her lips sewn into a smile that never fades. Her pose is my most elegant. Every visitor lingers there longest. If there were visitors.

There are none.

Only me.

And them.

Form Seven. Clara.

Her alcove is quieter than the others. She requested it. I don't know if she sleeps. But I polish her mirrored mask once a week. She is the only one I still speak to aloud. I believe she hears me.

I believe she waits.

And now, at the far end -- the newest.

Form Nine. Evelyn.

She is not the most beautiful. Not classically. But her structure... is exquisite.

So much denial in that posture. So much longing disguised as strength. She spent a life mastering control, only to find it meaningless. When I installed the garment, I watched her fight. Just for a second.

Then she exhaled.

She hasn't moved since.

I circle her now.

The lighting is correct. Her silhouette -- curved, perfectly suspended -- pulls the eye. The collar elongates her throat without cruelty. Her eyes are visible, but blank. Not vacant. Not dead. Just... complete.

I kneel and install the nameplate. The sound of the brass screws turning is profoundly satisfying.

> FORM NINE.

EVELYN.

Installed. Preserved. Complete.

I step back.

And I weep. As I always do.

Not from grief.

From awe.

I built this place for silence.

But the corridor is not empty.

It sings to me.

Softly.

In breathless, perfect stillness.

CHAPTER TWELVE

18 months later

Final Chapter -- The Frame

The gallery is loud in the way that expensive places often are -- polished, controlled, echoing with false laughter and clinking glass.

She hates these things. Always has. But it's her job.

Vivienne Clarke, acquisitions editor for Mireille House, shifts her weight in painfully narrow heels and sips a flute of indifferent champagne. She's here to secure a contract -- a coffee table book on emerging textile artists with some kind of bite. Something unsettling.

The gallery is called ReCollection. Pretentious. But tonight, something about it nags at her.

Vivienne wanders the perimeter of the main room, pretending to read wall cards. She stops in front of a large installation: a life-sized photographic portrait in monochrome.

A woman, full-length, dressed in an impossibly structured garment. It's not fashion. It's sculpture. Her face is expressionless -- serene and hollow, framed by an elaborate collar that presses upward to her jaw. The hands are hidden. The feet unseen. Her posture is unyielding.

Vivienne cannot look away.

The woman looks real. Not posed. Not modeled. Preserved.

She reads the title:

Form Nine (Eve)

Naomi Lestrelle

Archival pigment print. Limited edition.

The name rings like a whisper in a church.

Vivienne leans in, frowning. There's something wrong with the photograph -- not the image, but the sensation it stirs. A feeling of something seen that should not have been. Like looking at a secret with no context.

A voice interrupts her.

"She drew the eyes down on purpose. She always did. It makes you submit -- without noticing."

Vivienne turns.

A woman stands beside her, poised in black. Tall. Precise. Her silver hair swept back, her gaze calm and unreadable.

She doesn't extend a hand.

"Naomi. I'm so glad you came tonight."

Vivienne shakes it slowly, blinking.

"Vivienne. I... this is yours?"

Naomi smiles -- just a touch. Just enough.

"She chose this. You know. Most of them do. Eventually."

Vivienne stares back at the portrait. The woman inside the frame does not blink.

Naomi leans in and without a word presses a slate grey business card into Vivienne's hand.