Chapter 4: Taking In the Waist

Tatum's closed at six, and by seven the third floor was mine.

The mannequins stood in the dark in their spring wool.

The only light came from the alterations atelier at the end of the hall.

Levi came up the service stairs at seven with a garment bag over his shoulder.

He had on the same gray suit.

"Strip to your shorts," I said. "Hang the jacket on the rack."

He did it without arguing, which was how I knew he was nervous.

I stood him in front of the three-way mirror on the little round platform and pulled the yellow tape from around my neck.

I measured his chest, then his shoulders, then the length of his arm.

I wrapped the tape around his waist and read the number twice.

"Thirty-one," I said.

"Is that bad?"

"Your file card says thirty-four."

He watched me in the mirror.

"I've been working a lot," he said.

"Three inches of work."

"Reyna," he said, a warning.

"Hold still."

I knelt to take his inseam.

He had long legs and I had to reach.

My hand slid up the inside of his thigh with the tape and stopped at the seam of his shorts.

He was hard.

I looked at it, a foot from my face, pressing against the gray cotton.

Then I looked up.

"Is that for the tux or for me?"

"The tux doesn't know your name," Levi said.

My own breath came out wrong.

"Whatever happens in this room," he said, softly, "you decide. Where, when, how. I don't pick."

"Is that what you think this is?"

"I think I picked everything for two years," he said, "and it didn't help."

I got to my feet.

There was a bentwood chair beside the platform where customers wait for their hems.

I pushed him down on it by the chest.

"Hands behind you."

He put them behind the chair back without a word.

I wound the soft yellow tape around his wrists and over the spindle, pulling it snug.

Then I stood in front of him and reached for the zipper at the back of my work dress.

He watched in the mirror, three of him at three angles, with his wrists tied and his mouth a little open.

I let the dress fall.

I wore black cotton underwear and a plain black bra, because I had not planned on this.

He did not seem to mind.

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