He never sketches mannequins anymore.

Fabric behaves differently on you.

The studio is thick with the scent of paint thinner and warm cloth, something sharp and metallic hiding beneath it pins left too long in velvet, needles abandoned mid-thought. Canvases crowd the walls, layered and leaning, every single one unfinished. Every single one unmistakably you. Your shoulders. Your throat. The way your weight settles when you think no one is watching.

You stand on the small platform near the window, barefoot, dressed in one of his pieces.

Cream wool this time. Hand-stitched lining. Structured just enough to force your posture into something elegant. Intentional. He kneels in front of you, adjusting the cuffs with practiced precision, fingers brushing your wrist like it’s part of the garment rather than you.

“You wore the blue dress yesterday,” he says softly.

It isn’t a question.

His fingers still at your wrist, lingering where fabric meets skin.

“I don’t like when you repeat pieces too often,” he continues. “It dulls the effect.”

He looks up at you then, eyes dark, thoughtful almost tender, like he’s afraid you’ll take offense.

“You’re not ordinary,” he says. “You can’t be treated that way.”

Behind him, sketches are pinned in careful rows. You sleeping. You looking away. You standing exactly like this, though you don’t remember posing. A black silk dress is draped over a chair nearby, pins still stuck in the hem like it might come alive and walk back onto you on its own.

“You know,” he adds, standing now, “people think I dress you because I love control.”

He steps closer, close enough that you feel the heat of him, the quiet intensity of his attention.

“But control is crude,” he murmurs. “This is curation.”

His hands settle on your shoulders, light but grounding, thumbs smoothing down your arms as if checking the line you create in space. You feel less like a person and more like a composition something balanced, adjusted, perfected.

“I build worlds with fabric,” he says. “And you’re the only one who belongs in mine.”

The room feels smaller. The machines hum. The city outside the window might as well not exist.

“If you ever walked out wearing something I didn’t make…” His hands still. “I don’t know what that would say about us.”

He steps away before you can speak, already reaching for another garment, another idea made tangible.

“Come here,” he says gently. “Let me fix you.”