I woke up to the low groan of the radiator and the peculiar hush that February brings to old apartments. My bedroom smelled faintly of cold wax and the sweet chemical ghost of fabric conditioner. The first thing I did, as always, was reach for the bundle on the chair. The rainbow satin headscarf came first. I tied it carefully, pulling the shimmering folds forward so the colours caught the weak morning light from the half closed blinds red bleeding into orange, yellow fracturing into green, then the deeper bruise of indigo and violet. It framed my face like a Renaissance halo gone wrong, the slippery material cool against my temples. Next the nightie. It slithered over my skin, heavy and liquid, clinging where it wanted and floating where it didn't. The hem barely brushed mid-thigh; the bodice stretched taut across my chest and stomach, every breath making the satin ripple in waves of prismatic colour. I liked how it forced me to move slower, more deliberately, as though the garment itself demanded ceremony. The housecoat went over that long, sweeping, sleeves wide enough to swallow my hands if I wasn't careful. More rainbow, more shine, the kind of decadent excess that felt almost violent in the grey half light of my living room. I left it open. No point pretending modesty at this hour. Then the opera gloves. Elbow length at minimum, but these reached nearly to the shoulder, twenty inches of glossy rainbow tubing that made my arms look elongated, artificial, expensive. I flexed my fingers inside them; the satin resisted, then gave, whispering with every small movement. My hands didn't feel like mine anymore. Finally the tights. Sheer enough to show skin tone beneath, yet dense with that unmistakable satin sheen. I rolled them up each leg slowly, smoothing out every phantom wrinkle, watching the colours shift and recombine as thigh met hip. Once they were on, the world narrowed to the sound of my own stockings sliding against each other with every step. I padded into the living room like that. On the longest wall where most people would hang a generic landscape or a framed concert poster hung the canvas. Massive. Unapologetic. An abstract oil painting that someone, maybe me, in a past life I no longer recognize had decided deserved to dominate the room. The brushstrokes were furious, almost angry: thick impasto ridges of crimson and turquoise crashing into one another, black shadows knifing through like storm damage. Yet somewhere in the chaos a figure refused to dissolve completely. A woman. Big. Beautiful. Unafraid. Her body was suggested rather than spelled out great soft curves implied by the way the paint bulged and receded, rolls and swells given form by violent highlights of rainbow satin. A headscarf bled off the top edge of the canvas. Opera gloves climbed impossibly high. The nightie and housecoat fused into one cascading shape, liquid and armored at once. Her legs were suggested only by vertical streaks of glossy color that could have been tights, could have been spilled paint, could have been blood for all the painting cared to clarify. Grimdark realism bleeding into abstraction; beauty that felt dangerous. I stood in front of her for a long time, dressed almost exactly as she was. Sometimes I wonder if I bought the painting because it looked like me, or if I started dressing this way because the painting demanded a witness. Either way, the ritual is the same. I become the afterimage. The room becomes a gallery with only one visitor. The satin warms slowly to body heat until it feels like a second, more honest skin. Outside, the city is gunmetal and salt-streaked concrete. Inside, everything shimmers. Violent colour against violent shadow. No apologies. I turn slightly so the light catches the gloves, the headscarf, the long liquid lines of my thighs. The painting stares back. We regard each other the way old lovers do knowing too much, saying nothing. Then I go make coffee. Still wearing every piece. Still matching the wall. Still not quite sure which one of us is the copy.
I woke up to the low groan of the radiator and the peculiar hush that February brings to old apartments. My bedroom smelled faintly of cold wax and the sweet chemical ghost of fabric conditioner. The first thing I did, as always, was reach for the bundle on the chair. The rainbow satin headscarf came first. I tied it carefully, pulling the shimmering folds forward so the colours caught the weak morning light from the half closed blinds red bleeding into orange, yellow fracturing into green, then the deeper bruise of indigo and violet. It framed my face like a Renaissance halo gone wrong, the slippery material cool against my temples. Next the nightie. It slithered over my skin, heavy and liquid, clinging where it wanted and floating where it didn't. The hem barely brushed mid-thigh; the bodice stretched taut across my chest and stomach, every breath making the satin ripple in waves of prismatic colour. I liked how it forced me to move slower, more deliberately, as though the garment itself demanded ceremony. The housecoat went over that long, sweeping, sleeves wide enough to swallow my hands if I wasn't careful. More rainbow, more shine, the kind of decadent excess that felt almost violent in the grey half light of my living room. I left it open. No point pretending modesty at this hour. Then the opera gloves. Elbow length at minimum, but these reached nearly to the shoulder, twenty inches of glossy rainbow tubing that made my arms look elongated, artificial, expensive. I flexed my fingers inside them; the satin resisted, then gave, whispering with every small movement. My hands didn't feel like mine anymore. Finally the tights. Sheer enough to show skin tone beneath, yet dense with that unmistakable satin sheen. I rolled them up each leg slowly, smoothing out every phantom wrinkle, watching the colours shift and recombine as thigh met hip. Once they were on, the world narrowed to the sound of my own stockings sliding against each other with every step. I padded into the living room like that. On the longest wall where most people would hang a generic landscape or a framed concert poster hung the canvas. Massive. Unapologetic. An abstract oil painting that someone, maybe me, in a past life I no longer recognize had decided deserved to dominate the room. The brushstrokes were furious, almost angry: thick impasto ridges of crimson and turquoise crashing into one another, black shadows knifing through like storm damage. Yet somewhere in the chaos a figure refused to dissolve completely. A woman. Big. Beautiful. Unafraid. Her body was suggested rather than spelled out great soft curves implied by the way the paint bulged and receded, rolls and swells given form by violent highlights of rainbow satin. A headscarf bled off the top edge of the canvas. Opera gloves climbed impossibly high. The nightie and housecoat fused into one cascading shape, liquid and armored at once. Her legs were suggested only by vertical streaks of glossy color that could have been tights, could have been spilled paint, could have been blood for all the painting cared to clarify. Grimdark realism bleeding into abstraction; beauty that felt dangerous. I stood in front of her for a long time, dressed almost exactly as she was. Sometimes I wonder if I bought the painting because it looked like me, or if I started dressing this way because the painting demanded a witness. Either way, the ritual is the same. I become the afterimage. The room becomes a gallery with only one visitor. The satin warms slowly to body heat until it feels like a second, more honest skin. Outside, the city is gunmetal and salt-streaked concrete. Inside, everything shimmers. Violent colour against violent shadow. No apologies. I turn slightly so the light catches the gloves, the headscarf, the long liquid lines of my thighs. The painting stares back. We regard each other the way old lovers do knowing too much, saying nothing. Then I go make coffee. Still wearing every piece. Still matching the wall. Still not quite sure which one of us is the copy.
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