Scene 41¶
From 25.01.05¶
ll¶
✨ ?? ✨
**Scene sketch — next scene in a more intimate Celeste voice (short, to set tone)
That night, after Lauren left, the house felt too quiet.
Not peaceful-quiet. Charged-quiet. The kind that made you hear your own thoughts like they were coming from another room.
Charli moved around the kitchen cleaning a surface that was already clean. Wiping, folding, lining things up. Infrastructure as self-soothing.
Celeste watched him from the doorway for a moment and realised something that made her chest go tight: he was still trying to earn the right to exist.
Not by money. Not by heroics.
By being useful enough that no one would regret keeping him.
She walked in, took her phone out, and opened the calendar.
“Come here,” she said.
Charli froze like he’d been caught doing something wrong. “What?”
Celeste didn’t soften the words into a question. She didn’t want this to become negotiable.
“We’re scheduling,” she said. “Appointments. Transport. Meals. Reminders.”
Charli’s throat bobbed. “I can do it.”
“I know you can,” Celeste said. “That’s not the point.”
He blinked at her.
Celeste held his gaze, calm and unflinching.
“The point,” she said, “is you don’t do it alone.”
He looked down, ashamed of needing that sentence.
Celeste kept going anyway, because this was what leadership was for: saying the clean thing that stopped people from drifting into old damage.
She tapped the screen. “Tell me the date.”
Charli hesitated, then told her.
Celeste entered it. Then another. Then travel time. Then a reminder the night before: eat. Another reminder an hour before: water.
Charli watched her do it like he was watching someone build a scaffold around a cliff edge.
When she finished, she turned the phone screen toward him.
“Screenshot that,” she said. “It’s ours. Not yours. Ours.”
Charli swallowed.
“Okay,” he whispered.
Celeste waited a beat, then added — quietly, because she wanted the sentence to land without becoming a performance:
“And if you’re scared, you tell me. Not the internet.”
Charli’s eyes closed for a second.
“Okay,” he said again. Softer this time. Relieved.
Celeste felt it — that warm, terrible pull — and forced herself to keep it clean.
This wasn’t romance.
This was repair.
Winter at the Faire didn’t feel like a season.
It felt like a test.
The kind Mara would have liked, if she ever admitted to liking anything: unforgiving variables, live conditions, no mercy from “ideal studio lighting,” no way to pretend a seam behaved when it didn’t. Wind that found every weakness. Damp that revealed every shortcut. Cold that turned “comfortable enough” into “no, actually.”
And still—still—people came.
They arrived in scarves and rain jackets, stamping their feet on gravel, clutching hot drinks like talismans. Families, couples, school groups, the museum crowd with their clipboards and their quiet authority. A steady river of bodies moving toward the promise of an 18th-century world like it was warm inside the idea, even if it wasn’t warm in reality.
Wardrobe’s van rolled through the gate at eight-thirty, tyres crunching on wet stone.
Celeste stepped out into wind that immediately tugged at her hair clip, and she tightened it with one hand while the other held the door against a gust. Her breath came out pale.
Cold air made everything feel sharper.
More honest.
Charli came around the side of the van carrying the garment bags like they were fragile equipment—because to him, they were. He wore his coat over his base layers, shoulders squared against the weather, hair tied back in the practical knot he’d learned months ago.
A few tendrils escaped at his ears as soon as the wind touched him.
He ignored them.
Celeste clocked it and felt something deep in her chest ease, the way it had been easing in small increments ever since the endocrinologist’s plan had turned terror into structure.
That plan didn’t “fix” anything.
It just took the problem out of secrecy and into supervision, which meant Charli’s nervous system no longer had to improvise survival every minute of every day.
And that—Celeste was learning—was what let a person become steady.
Mara hopped down from the driver’s side and immediately started issuing instructions as if the wind were irrelevant.
“Bags inside first,” she snapped. “No hanging near the door. Damp kills wool. Celeste—check the foyer rail. Sarah—signage. Charli—Nymph first. We start field testing as soon as the museum team arrives.”
Sarah was already complaining, but in a way that meant she was fine.
“Freezing my arse off for art,” she muttered, hauling a crate of hooks. “I hope the ghosts appreciate it.”
Celeste ignored her. She didn’t have time to humour anyone’s theatrics. She had a new fabric line to protect.
Inside the museum building—stone and timber and a persistent chill that lived in the walls—Wardrobe’s small operations unit unfolded with practiced speed.
The higher-end garments stayed in their covers until the last possible moment. Wool blends were beautiful, but they were also fussy, and Victoria’s winter air had a smug way of proving it. Celeste’s gloved fingers moved over the bags like an instrument check: closures secure, labels correct, nothing crushed.
They’d upgraded materials because demand had forced the conversation.
The Faire wanted more. The museum wanted “authenticity” that could survive crowds. Other clients—private tours, historical societies, people with money and opinions—had started queuing up for “the look” now that Wardrobe had proven it could deliver.
Higher-end cloth made the whole thing more legitimate.
It also made mistakes more expensive.
Which meant field testing mattered more than anyone wanted it to.
Charli went to change in the staff room with the quiet compliance he always had in structured environments. The difference now was that his compliance wasn’t self-erasure; it was alignment. He had consented to this life in small, repeated ways, and the repetition had made it real.
When he came back out in the Nymph line, the room did that tiny recalibration it always did around a strong silhouette.
Deep indigo wool/linen that drank the light. A fitted bodice with the right tension—firm, not tight. The square neckline softened by the white shift and fichu. The apron plain and practical, tied properly. Petticoat visible with movement in a way that read era, not costume-shop.
And—crucially—his hair was up in keeping with the outfit.
Not obsessively. Not perfectly. Just… finished.
The garment stopped reading as “someone wearing a dress for testing” and started reading as a complete look—period-appropriate, intentional, composed. The neckline sat better without loose strands tugging at the shift. The line of the bodice looked sharper because the head and neck were now clean.
Celeste felt the familiar pull.
Admiration first.
Then the warmer, sharper thing beneath it that she didn’t let herself indulge for more than half a second.
She didn’t want Charli to become a mirror for her feelings. She wanted him to become a person who could live.
So she stayed in her lane.
“Log wind movement,” Celeste said, handing him the wear-test sheet and a pencil. “Neckline shift, back seam tension, any chill points. Don’t baby it.”
Charli nodded. “Got it.”
Sarah wandered past, took one look at him, and made a noise of grudging approval.
“See?” she said. “Now you look like you belong in the century. Less… laundry day at Bunnings.”
Charli blinked. “What does that—”
“It means,” Sarah cut in, “you’re not a walking anachronism. Congratulations.”
Celeste didn’t smile, but something in her chest loosened. Sarah’s humour was a blunt instrument, but today it was aimed in the right direction: normalising him as staff, not spectacle.
The museum team arrived just after nine.
They were exactly what Celeste expected: coats damp at the shoulders, hair frizzed by wind, faces determined to be polite but also clearly prepared to be critical. Professionals. Not tourists.
The lead curator—Camille, the French friend Lauren had mentioned, or perhaps not friend so much as professional ally—shook Mara’s hand, nodded at Celeste, and then turned her attention immediately to the garments.
Her eyes were trained. She didn’t look at Charli like he was a novelty. She looked at the line of the bodice, the drape, the stitch finishing, the way the apron tied.
“Très bien,” she murmured, then switched to English without ceremony. “But we have your note on the Nymph line. The upper back—still?”
Mara’s face remained stone. “We’re testing now.”
Charli moved, on cue, through the motions: reach overhead, bend forward, lift, twist. He did it with the calm of someone who’d been doing this long enough that the garment was no longer an event.
Camille watched the fabric under strain. Celeste watched Charli’s face—because discomfort showed there first—and noted the exact moment his shoulders tightened when he reached too high. He wrote something on the sheet immediately.
No drama. No endurance theatre. Data.
So far, so good.
Then the public came.
They always came.
A group of visitors swept in from the courtyard, cheeks pink from cold, phones already in their hands. A child tugged at a parent’s sleeve, pointing at the garments hanging on the rail like they were treasures. A woman in a beret leaned in too close to the swatch board, fingers drifting toward the wool as if price tags didn’t apply to history.
Celeste stepped sideways and blocked gently with her body.
“Please don’t touch,” she said, polite and firm. “Ask us and we’ll show you.”
The woman withdrew her hand with the faintly offended air of someone unused to being corrected by a young woman who looked like she could run a small country.
Celeste didn’t care.
She had learned that discomfort was often just entitlement hitting a boundary.
Charli moved through the foyer carrying a crate of accessories—ties, fichus, small fastenings—head down, focused. He passed a group of tourists who had paused mid-conversation as soon as they saw him.
Celeste felt it before she heard it: that prickle in the air when someone was about to turn a person into a talking point.
One of the men—mid-thirties, expensive jacket, the smugness of someone performing open-mindedness—nudged his friend and said, loudly enough to be heard:
“Mate. Is that—”
His friend laughed. “Shh.”
Celeste’s spine went cold.
Not because she feared violence.
Because she feared the quieter thing: humiliation disguised as curiosity.
Charli heard it. Celeste saw it in the tiniest change in his gait—the micro-stiffening, the urge to disappear.
But he didn’t panic.
He didn’t flee.
He kept walking.
He kept the crate steady in his arms like the work itself could hold him upright.
Celeste felt something hot flare in her chest.
Not anger for her own sake.
Protective steel.
She moved toward them without rushing.
Mara was two steps behind her, as if drawn by the same scent of boundary breach.
Sarah, from the corner, raised her eyebrows as if to say oh, here we go.
Celeste stopped in front of the tourists with a smile that had no warmth in it but plenty of professionalism.
“Hi,” she said. “Staff are not an attraction. Please don’t comment on staff bodies or appearances.”
The man blinked, caught off guard by being addressed directly.
“I wasn’t— I just—” he began, performing innocence as if innocence were a shield.
Mara’s voice cut in, flat as concrete.
“Also, no photography of staff without consent,” she said, pointing at the small sign they’d placed near the entry—simple, printed, unmistakable. “Museum policy.”
The man looked around, saw the sign, saw the curator nearby, saw the cluster of people who had turned to watch, and suddenly remembered he lived in a world where consequences existed.
“Right,” he muttered. “Sorry.”
Celeste didn’t accept “sorry” as currency. She accepted compliance.
“Thanks,” she said, and stepped back, closing the interaction neatly.
No lecture. No escalation. No making Charli into a victim. Just: boundary set, enforced, done.
Charli didn’t look at her.
He didn’t need to.
But when he passed her on his way back, crate now delivered, he let out a breath that made his shoulders drop.
Celeste saw it and felt her own chest tighten.
He’d been steady.
And he’d allowed her to protect the standard publicly without it turning into shame.
That mattered.
Sarah wandered up afterward with a wicked little smile.
“You handled that like a HR department with teeth,” she murmured.
Celeste didn’t look at her. “It’s work.”
Sarah hummed. “Sure it is.”
Then, softer—almost kind—Sarah added, “He didn’t flinch, you know.”
Celeste’s eyes flicked to Charli, now back at the fitting area, logging notes as if nothing had happened. He re-tucked a loose tie end at the nape once—quick, minimal—and ignored the tendrils that fluttered at his ears.
He didn’t go to the mirror.
He didn’t spiral.
He just kept working.
Celeste felt that warm, terrible pull again—the attraction that wasn’t about novelty or aesthetics, but about a person accepting a life and maintaining himself inside it with dignity.
She turned back to the swatches and forced herself to stay professional, because professionalism was a scaffold she trusted.
But even as she discussed wool weights with Camille and listened to Mara argue lead times like a general, part of Celeste’s mind kept returning to the same quiet thought, unwelcome and undeniable:
This is what steadiness looks like.
Not a man proving he’s a man.
Not a boy trying to provide.
A person learning, finally, that self-respect isn’t indulgence.
It’s maintenance.
And because Charli was choosing it—choosing to be kept, to be guided, to take standards seriously—Celeste could feel her own feelings deepening into something that had nothing to do with romance fog and everything to do with alignment.
Winter wind battered the courtyard outside.
Inside, the Nymph line held.
And Charli, in the middle of it all, moved like someone who had stopped fighting his own existence minute by minute.
Not “fixed.”
Just supported.
Which—Celeste realised, watching him write another note with that careful hand—was as close to safe as anyone ever really got.
And for the first time all day, she let herself feel it, just for a breath:
Relief.
Then she picked up the next swatch and kept working.
Absolutely. I see what you were reaching for in that sketch — and you’ve already got most of the tonal machinery in place (systems, standards, “keep it clean,” Charli’s infrastructure reflex). The missing piece is simply: this happens at Wardrobe, not out in the Faire public, and the “barging man” needs to be an actual access breach, not just a snide comment.
Here’s a full Scene 38 draft in Celeste POV, with Charli as she/her, and with a man who genuinely believes rules don’t apply to him — until a wall of women quietly demonstrates otherwise.
Title options (pick one)¶
- “Door Policy” (my favourite: it’s clean, procedural, and faintly ominous)
- “Breach”
- “No Appointment”
- “Public Access” (ironic)
- “Entitlement” (blunt, but accurate)
Scene 38 — “Door Policy” (Celeste POV)¶
That night, after Lauren left, the house felt too quiet.
Not peaceful-quiet. Charged-quiet. The kind that made you hear your own thoughts as if they were coming from the next room.
Charli moved around the kitchen cleaning a surface that was already clean. Wiping, folding, lining things up. Infrastructure as self-soothing.
I watched from the doorway and felt a tightness low in my chest that had nothing to do with romance and everything to do with pattern recognition:
She was still trying to earn the right to exist.
Not with money. Not with grand gestures.
With usefulness — as if being useful enough would prevent regret.
I didn’t let that stand.
I picked up my phone, opened the calendar, and walked to the table.
“Come here,” I said.
Charli froze, cloth in hand, like she’d been caught doing something wrong.
“What?”
I didn’t soften it into a question. Softness would make it feel negotiable, and this wasn’t a negotiation.
“We’re scheduling,” I said. “Appointments. Transport. Meals. Reminders.”
Her throat bobbed. “I can do it.”
“I know you can,” I said. “That’s not the point.”
She blinked at me.
I held her gaze, calm and unflinching.
“The point,” I said, “is you don’t do it alone.”
Her eyes dropped. Shame rose up fast in her face — not because she was ashamed of needing help, but because she’d been trained to treat needing help as a moral failure.
I didn’t indulge that training. I corrected it.
I tapped the screen. “Tell me the date.”
She hesitated, then told me.
I entered it. Then the next. Then travel time. Then a reminder the night before: eat. Another reminder an hour before: water. Another: don’t scroll at midnight — because Lauren had been right about one thing Charli didn’t admit out loud: when she was scared, she went looking for answers in the dark.
Charli watched me do it like she was watching someone build a scaffold at the edge of a drop.
When I finished, I turned the phone toward her.
“Screenshot that,” I said. “It’s ours. Not yours. Ours.”
She swallowed.
“Okay,” she whispered.
I waited a beat. Then I added, quieter — because I wanted the sentence to land without becoming a moment.
“And if you’re scared,” I said, “you tell me. Not the internet.”
Her eyes closed for a second.
“Okay,” she said again. Softer this time. Relieved.
I felt the warm, terrible pull — my body responding to her relief — and kept it clean.
This wasn’t romance.
This was repair.
I didn’t touch her. I didn’t reward her. I didn’t turn her fear into my power.
I only said, as plain as policy:
“We sleep. Tomorrow is work.”
She nodded, as if being told “tomorrow exists” was its own kind of safety.
In the morning, Wardrobe smelled like steam and wool and the metallic tang of needles that had been moving for too long.
The studio was awake before most people were. Not because we loved it. Because when you scaled a business, the clock stopped being decorative.
Mara was already at the long table when we came in, ledger open, pencil moving. She didn’t look up to greet us. Mara didn’t waste attention on ceremony.
Charli came in behind me with garment bags hooked over her arm, her coat damp at the shoulders from the drizzle outside. Hair tied back in the practical knot — not fussy, not perfect, but secure.
Maintained.
It was still new enough on her that my mind tried to turn it into an emotion.
I refused.
I logged it instead: baseline improved.
Mara glanced up once — one flick of the eyes — took in Charli’s hair, her clean collar, her steady hands, and said, flatly:
“Good. Less contamination risk.”
That was Mara’s version of praise. That was also Mara’s version of love, if you wanted to be charitable.
Charli nodded as if that sentence belonged in a normal world. In here, it did.
Sarah came in five minutes later, scarf half-off, cheeks pink from the cold, expression already sharpened into humour.
“Christ, it’s wet,” she announced, as if we hadn’t noticed. “Victoria does winter like it’s got something to prove.”
She glanced at Charli, saw the tied hair, the steady face, and did that tiny nod she only did when she approved of something but refused to be sentimental about it.
Then she dropped a crate of findings on the table like a verdict and went to work.
Everything was normal.
Which was the point.
When you wanted a change to stick, you treated it as routine.
At nine-thirty, the doorbell rang.
Not the polite ring of a client who had booked in and read the email.
Not the light tap of a courier.
The doorbell that said: I’m here and I assume you’ll accommodate me.
I felt it before anyone moved — that tiny shift in the room where attention reorients to a boundary.
Mara didn’t look up from the ledger.
Sarah muttered, “For fuck’s sake,” in the tone she reserved for men who treated the world like a lounge room.
Charli went still for half a second, then picked up a tote and moved it out of the walkway without being asked.
Infrastructure.
I walked to the front, because I was nearest and because it was my house too, in the only way that mattered: I held standards here.
I opened the door.
A man stood on the step like he’d been built in a factory that specialised in confidence. Mid-thirties, expensive jacket, phone already in his hand. The expression was friendly — the kind of friendly men used when they assumed friendliness would get them access.
“Hey,” he said, already stepping forward. “I’m just—”
I didn’t move aside.
I didn’t smile. I didn’t frown. I simply held the doorway like it was a line painted on concrete.
“Do you have an appointment?” I asked.
He blinked, as if appointment was an odd word to hear from a young woman in an apron.
“No, but—” He lifted his phone, flashing something on the screen. “I messaged. I’m in the area. Thought I’d pop in. I’ve got a project and I—”
“Then you need an appointment,” I said.
He laughed, a little, as if I were teasing him.
“Come on, it’ll take two minutes,” he said, and tried to angle his body past me.
I stepped half a pace forward so he couldn’t. Not aggressive. Just… physics.
Behind me, I heard Sarah’s chair scrape.
Mara’s pencil stopped.
The room had noticed.
The man’s smile tightened. “Is Mara here?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Great. I’ll talk to her.”
“No,” I said. “You’ll book.”
His eyebrows lifted.
I could see the calculation happen: Is she serious? Is this a game? Can I push?
He pushed.
“I’m not trying to be difficult,” he said, voice pitched into that calm-man register. “I’m a paying customer. I’ve seen your stuff online. I’m literally here ready to spend money.”
Money. The universal male key they thought opened every lock.
I didn’t change my expression.
“We’re not a shopfront,” I said. “We’re a working studio. We fit by appointment.”
He made a noise — half amused, half annoyed.
“Right, okay, but I’m not a creep,” he said, and this was the giveaway. Nobody had called him one. He’d just told on himself.
He lifted his phone again, camera lens angled toward the inside of the studio.
“I just want a quick look—”
“Don’t,” I said.
One syllable. Flat.
He paused, surprised.
“Photography of staff and workspace is not permitted,” I said. “Put your phone away.”
He stared at me as if I’d just said the sky was green.
“Are you serious?” he asked, laughing again, louder this time, aiming to pull the room into social compliance. “It’s just a video. It’s free promo for you.”
From behind me, Mara spoke for the first time. Her voice carried without effort.
“Put your phone away,” Mara said, the same way she’d say, don’t put pins in your mouth. Not angry. Not negotiable.
The man’s attention snapped to Mara like a compass to a magnet.
“Hey,” he said, smile returning, bigger now. “Mara, right? Love your work. I’m—”
“I know who you are,” Mara said.
That made him pause again.
Mara stood and came toward us, ledger still in hand. Not rushing. Not dramatic. The ledger was what made it threatening — the implication of record.
“You messaged at midnight,” Mara continued. “You got an auto-reply. It told you how to book.”
He blinked. “I didn’t read—”
“I know,” Mara said.
A beat.
The air went colder in a way that had nothing to do with weather.
The man tried another angle — the one men always tried when they wanted women to bend without being seen to bend.
“Look, I’m not trying to break rules,” he said, voice softening, coaxing. “I just thought you’d want to meet. I’ve got contacts. There’s a lot of exposure potential here.”
Exposure.
Another currency men believed mattered more than labour.
Sarah drifted up behind Mara, arms folded, expression bored.
“I love when they offer you exposure like it pays the rent,” she said.
The man looked at Sarah, startled by being addressed by a woman who clearly didn’t care whether he liked her.
He tried to recover with a chuckle.
“Okay, okay, I get it. You’re all tough. Respect.” He lifted his hands as if he were surrendering in a game. “Can I just talk to… her?” He nodded past me toward the studio interior, toward Charli.
I felt Charli’s presence shift behind me — the smallest tension, the instinct to shrink.
I didn’t turn around.
I didn’t give him access to her with a glance.
“No,” I said.
He frowned. “Why not? She works here, doesn’t she?”
“She works here,” I said, “and she is not a public resource.”
His smile faltered. “I’m not—”
“I don’t care what you are,” Sarah cut in. “You’re outside. Stay outside.”
Mara lifted the ledger slightly, like a gavel.
“Here’s what happens next,” Mara said. “You book. We schedule. You arrive at your time. You get measured. You pay a deposit. You behave like a client, not a trespasser.”
The word trespasser landed.
The man’s cheeks flushed.
He looked around as if expecting another man to appear and validate him, to laugh this off and restore the world to the version where women were porous.
No one did.
He looked back at me. Tried for charm again, smaller this time.
“Fine,” he said. “Can I have an email address?”
Mara didn’t give it. Mara never gave anything to men who pushed.
“It’s on the website,” Mara said.
He opened his mouth.
I cut it clean.
“Put your phone away,” I repeated. “And step back.”
He stared.
Then, slowly — because he’d finally understood that the room would not bend — he lowered his phone and took a step down off the threshold.
Good.
Compliance.
I didn’t say thank you. Thank you would imply a favour. This wasn’t a favour. This was the minimum.
Mara nodded once, as if confirming a stitch had held.
Sarah’s mouth twitched in something like satisfaction.
I stepped back and closed the door.
Not slammed. Not theatrical.
Closed.
The lock clicked.
The sound was small.
It was everything.
For a moment, the studio was very quiet.
Not because anyone was afraid.
Because everyone was letting the consequence settle into place.
Charli stood by the packing table with her hands on a tote handle, face composed in that careful way she wore when she didn’t want to become a problem.
I watched her shoulders — the micro-tension still there, the old reflex to shrink away from male attention.
Then I watched her do something that, a few months ago, she would not have done.
She inhaled.
She let it out.
She returned to the tote.
She kept working.
She did not apologise for existing.
I felt relief spark in me — brief, sharp.
Mara returned to the ledger as if nothing had happened. That was Mara’s method: once corrected, the breach did not become an event.
Sarah gave Charli a look — not pity, not tease. A simple, almost-sisterly check-in.
“You alright?” she asked, under her breath.
Charli nodded. “Yeah.”
Sarah clicked her tongue. “Good. Because if he comes back, I’m throwing the grommet box at him.”
Charli’s mouth twitched — almost-smile, then control restored.
I went back to my table and picked up my pencil.
My hand was steady.
That mattered too.
Because leadership wasn’t only about blocking doors.
It was about what you did after.
You didn’t hover. You didn’t baby. You didn’t turn someone into a victim to prove you were a protector.
You just made the studio safe enough that work could continue.
And you taught — without speeches — that a man’s entitlement did not get to become the day’s weather.
I ran my eyes over the work list and said, calmly, to the room:
“Back to it.”
The machine resumed.
Steam. Fabric. Labels. Systems.
Women doing what they do without asking permission.
And in the middle of it, Charli stayed upright.
Not because she’d “toughened up.”
Because the room had held.
Because the door had held.
Because the standard had held.
Later — not immediately, not as a reward, not as a soothing gesture — I passed Charli on my way to the cutting table.
She was aligning a stack of pattern pieces, edges squared with a precision that looked like a prayer.
I paused long enough to be noticed and said, quiet and factual:
“That wasn’t about you.”
Charli’s eyes flicked up.
I didn’t soften. I didn’t turn it into comfort.
“It was about him thinking he could come in,” I continued. “He was wrong.”
A beat.
Charli nodded once, slow.
“Okay,” she said.
Then, after another beat — braver — she added:
“Thank you.”
I held her gaze.
“Of course,” I said. Not warm. Not cold. Certain.
Then I moved on.
Because she didn’t need more than that.
She needed the certainty.
She needed the rule.
She needed the knowledge — written into her nervous system the way we wrote policies into the studio — that her body was not a public thoroughfare, and her existence was not a debate.
And if some man tried again, tomorrow or next week or next year?
He’d meet the same thing.
A closed door.
A ledger.
A room of women who did not negotiate with entitlement.
And Charli, slowly, learning to stop negotiating with it inside herself.
If you want, Scene 39 can be a tiny “after-action” beat that makes this land even harder: Mara adds a one-line policy to the front door / website (“WORKING STUDIO — APPOINTMENTS ONLY — NO WALK-INS — NO FILMING”) and Lauren, when she hears about it, doesn’t thank anyone — she just says, Good. That’s correct.
But Scene 38 as-is should punch exactly where you wanted: male assumption → immediate consequence → no spectacle → Charli remains whole.
Notes26-01-22e¶
was Scene 38¶
Scene 38 — “Weaponised Helplessness” (Sarah POV)
[Ethan 26-01-22]
There are men who are genuinely incompetent.
And then there are men who are competent enough to choose incompetence, because it’s such an efficient way to outsource their lives.
Ethan—of course his name is Ethan—falls firmly into the second category.
I realise it on a Tuesday, which is rude. Tuesday is supposed to be neutral. Tuesday is supposed to be emails and decent coffee and fabric that behaves.
Instead, I’m standing in his kitchen watching him hold a saucepan like it’s a live animal.
“I don’t really… cook,” he says, as if that’s a personality trait, not a survival skill.
The fridge behind him is full of things that aren’t meals. Milk. Eggs. Sauce bottles. A container labelled Mum’s lasagne in handwriting so obviously not his that I almost laugh.
“You live alone,” I say.
He grins. “Yeah, but Mum—”
“—does it,” I finish for him.
He blinks. “She likes helping.”
Ah. That familiar line. The one that translates as: I’ve trained a woman into my domestic life and I’m looking for a replacement model.
There are other tells.
The way he hands me a plate to wash without asking, like my hands are a service he’s entitled to activate.
The way he says “I’m terrible at laundry” like it’s cute.
The way he brings up moving in together after six weeks, and it’s not because he loves me. It’s because he’s spotted an upgrade path: from Mum to Girlfriend Mum.
At one point he looks genuinely confused that I’m not charmed.
“You’re really organised,” he says. “I like that about you.”
I stare at him.
That’s not a compliment. That’s a job description.
I go home and lie in bed, staring at the ceiling, and I feel something in my chest settle into a hard, clean shape.
I am over him.
Not “thinking about being over him.”
Over him. Done.
So the next day, I do it properly.
I call him. Not text. Not a long message he can forward to his mates for sport.
A call. Clear. Brief. Unambiguous.
“Hi,” I say, and keep my voice neutral. “This isn’t working for me. I’m ending it. I’m not interested in continuing, and I’m not changing my mind.”
There’s a pause on the line where he tries to find the angle.
“Is this about that kitchen thing?” he asks, laughing slightly, like it’s banter.
“It’s about compatibility,” I say. “We’re not compatible.”
Another pause.
Then the tone shifts.
“Oh,” he says, slowly. “So what, you’re just… dumping me.”
“Yes,” I say, because men love euphemisms when they’re losing. “I am.”
He exhales sharply, offended. “Right. Okay. Wow. I didn’t think you were like that.”
I blink.
Like what? A woman with a spine?
“I’m being clear,” I say.
He tries a new tactic. Softness. “Sarah, come on. I just need you to tell me what I did wrong.”
“I’m not your coach,” I say, calm as a surgeon. “Goodbye, Ethan.”
And I end the call.
I don’t block him immediately.
That’s not optimism. That’s evidence-gathering.
It’s not my first rodeo.
At Wardrobe, I don’t announce any of this. I don’t want a round of sympathy from women who could weaponise empathy with a single raised eyebrow.
I do, however, allow myself one confession: to Bree, because Bree can make anything bearable by laughing at it without minimising it.
She’s at the big table sorting a bag of pins like they’ve personally offended her.
“How’s Mr. Tuesday?” she asks without looking up.
I drop my tote on the floor and exhale.
“He’s been returned to sender.”
Bree looks up, delighted. “Ooh. That bad?”
“He doesn’t cook,” I say.
Bree’s eyebrows lift. “Like… doesn’t cook as in doesn’t enjoy it? Or doesn’t cook as in would starve without a woman?”
“As in,” I say, “his fridge contains Mum’s lasagne and a faith-based relationship with Uber Eats.”
Bree snorts. “Oh no.”
“Oh yes,” I say. “And he’s got that thing. That thing where he looks at you like you’re a solution to his life.”
Bree winces. “Replacement mum.”
“Replacement mum,” I confirm. “Like I’ve got ‘domestic manager’ stamped on my forehead.”
Bree taps the pin tray once. “I’d rather chew glass.”
“Exactly.”
Charli is nearby, at the cap table, adjusting ties with that new calm she wears like it belongs to her. She’s listening without looking like she’s listening, which is a skill women develop early.
Bree, with perfect timing, says, “Honestly, babe. Women are just… better.”
She says it jokingly—mostly. Bree always says jokes like she means them and means things like they’re jokes.
I roll my eyes. “Oh, here we go.”
Charli, without looking up, drops in with a deadpan that makes me choke on my own air.
“I’m a fan.”
Bree howls, delighted. Tahlia makes a choking noise behind a sleeve. Even Lucy’s mouth twitches as if her face is briefly considering humour before rejecting it on principle.
I glare at them all, purely for show.
“Oh, shut up,” I say. “All of you.”
Charli smiles—real, unguarded—and goes back to tying her knot like she hasn’t just thrown a grenade of charm into my morning.
It’s infuriating how likeable she’s become.
Bree wipes her eyes. “So,” she says, recovering. “He took it well?”
“He took it like a man who’s never been told no without being offered a biscuit afterwards,” I say.
Bree’s expression shifts—still amused, but alert. “Meaning?”
“Meaning he tried sad,” I say. “Then tried offended. Then tried making it my fault.”
Bree points a pin at me. “And you?”
“I was clear,” I say. “No explanation. No negotiation.”
Bree’s approving nod is small but fierce. “Good girl.”
I give her a look.
Bree grins. “Sorry. Bad habit.”
“Mm.”
I should stop there. Wrap it up. Move on.
But my phone buzzes in my pocket like a warning.
I pull it out.
A message from Ethan.
Ethan: Wow. Okay. So that’s it? After everything? Ethan: I’m outside. We need to talk.
I go very still.
Bree’s smile fades when she sees my face.
“He’s not,” Bree says quietly. “He’s not outside here.”
I look toward the front windows. Nothing. No man at the gate. No shape lingering.
“No,” I say. “Not here.”
Charli’s head lifts slightly. Not panicked. Just attentive. The room’s temperature changes by half a degree—women becoming aware.
I keep my voice calm because I refuse to bring chaos into Wardrobe.
“He’s at my place,” I say.
Bree’s mouth tightens. “Do you want me to call someone?”
“No,” I say. “Not yet.”
I take one breath. Then I do what Mara would do.
I handle it clean.
I type one message back. No emotion. No opening. No softness he can grab.
Me: Do not come to my home. Do not wait for me. Do not contact me again. Me: If you come near me or my work, I will treat it as harassment and I will act accordingly.
I hit send.
Then, because I’m not daft, I screenshot it.
I create a folder.
Ethan — dates
It’s grim how quickly that feels normal.
Bree watches me do it and nods once, approval like a stamp.
Charli’s eyes stay on my face for a beat—quietly concerned, quietly present—then she drops her gaze back to her work, giving me privacy without withdrawing support.
That’s Wardrobe culture in action: you are not alone, but you are not made into a spectacle.
The kettle clicks. The iron hisses. Mara’s shears bite through fabric.
Life continues.
My phone buzzes again.
I don’t look at it immediately.
I finish what my hands are doing first, because control is sometimes as simple as choosing the order of actions.
Then I pick it up.
Another message.
Ethan: You can’t do this to me. Ethan: I just want to talk. Stop being dramatic.
I stare at the words for a moment, feeling something cold and familiar settle in my ribs.
There it is.
The entitlement, plain as daylight.
Access framed as need. My boundary framed as drama.
Bree’s voice is low. “Sarah.”
“I know,” I say.
I don’t reply.
Not now.
Because the next reply will be the kind that changes the game. The kind that invites escalation if you do it wrong.
I slide my phone back into my pocket and lift my chin.
“Work,” I say, mostly to myself.
Bree’s grin returns—smaller, harder. “Work,” she echoes.
And Charli, from the cap table, says quietly, almost under her breath:
“You won’t get used to that.”
I glance at her.
She meets my eyes with a calm that isn’t pity and isn’t fear.
Just truth.
I exhale once, slow.
“No,” I agree. “I won’t.”
And I go back to the table, letting the room hold steady around me, while somewhere outside of it a man realises—too late—that I am not his mother, and I am not his solution.
I am his boundary.
Notes26-02-04ev1¶
Omni POV¶
[26-02-04]
Scene 42 — “The Door That Locks” (Lauren POV, past tense)
Sarah’s place smelled like citrus cleaner and warm fabric—like someone lived there with intention.
Not showy intention. Not a magazine. The kind that said: I will not be at the mercy of chaos if I can help it.
Lauren stood just inside the front door with her overnight bag on the floor by her feet, her shoulders still held too high. Her body had not yet understood that she’d crossed a threshold.
Sarah shut the door behind her and didn’t speak immediately. She didn’t launch into sympathy. She didn’t ask for a recap, as if Lauren’s pain needed to audition for its right to exist.
Instead she did something almost aggressively ordinary.
She turned the lock.
Then—because she meant it—she turned it again.
Two clicks. Final.
“There,” Sarah said. “Now he can’t just… walk in.”
Lauren’s throat tightened so quickly she had to look away. She stared at a framed print on the wall—something botanical, sharp-lined, beautiful in a restrained way—until her eyes stopped shining.
“I didn’t bring much,” Lauren managed.
Sarah glanced at the bag as if doing an inventory. “You brought enough.”
It wasn’t praise. It was permission.
Sarah took the bag and carried it like it had weight, like Lauren’s life wasn’t an inconvenience. She walked ahead down the hall and flicked on a lamp so the light came up soft and warm instead of harsh overhead. It made Sarah’s hair look almost gold at the edges.
“Shoes off,” Sarah said, then added, because she wasn’t a tyrant, “if you want. I don’t care. I just… prefer it.”
Lauren slipped her shoes off automatically. Her hands were shaking again now that she’d stopped moving. It was as if her body had waited for safety to begin misbehaving.
Sarah noticed. Of course she did.
She didn’t point it out.
She went to the kitchen and filled the kettle, the way you did when you needed something to happen that didn’t require feelings.
“I’m making tea,” she said. “It will help. Whether you believe in tea or not.”
Lauren made a sound that might have been a laugh. It came out thin.
Sarah’s mouth curved briefly—satisfied at having extracted a reaction—then she turned back to the kettle with brisk competence.
Lauren stood at the end of the hallway, unsure where to put herself. She felt like a guest in a life she’d never imagined stepping into.
It wasn’t that Sarah’s home was grand. It wasn’t.
It was… contained. Clear. Every object seemed to have been chosen by someone who refused to settle for things that didn’t work.
Lauren thought, suddenly and stupidly, of Roger’s house habits—half-finished jobs, doors that didn’t quite close, the way he left things as if a woman would quietly tidy the world behind him.
Her chest tightened again.
Sarah returned holding a mug with both hands, like it mattered.
She handed it to Lauren and didn’t let go straight away. Her fingers stayed on the ceramic for one beat longer than necessary, steadying it—steadying Lauren—without saying so.
“Sit,” Sarah said, nodding to the couch. “You look like you’re about to evaporate.”
Lauren sat.
The couch was firm, not sinking. Clean. A throw folded neatly at one end—not thrown there, placed there.
Sarah sat in the armchair opposite, not too close. Not far. A deliberate distance that said: I’m here, but you’re not trapped.
Lauren held the mug and tried to make her breathing normal.
The tea smelled like chamomile and something sharper—ginger, maybe. Sarah had probably chosen it because it did a job.
They sat like that for a moment, the only sound the kettle cooling and the faint tick of the clock in the kitchen.
Then Sarah said, very calmly, “Is he going to come here?”
Lauren blinked. The question was not emotional. It was tactical.
“I… I don’t think so,” Lauren said. “He doesn’t—he won’t want people seeing—”
Sarah’s eyes narrowed. “That’s not an answer.”
Lauren swallowed. She felt foolish, suddenly, for how long she’d been trained to soften the truth.
“He might,” she admitted. “If he thinks he can bully me. Or… shame me.”
Sarah nodded once, like she’d expected that.
“Right,” she said. “Then we do a plan. You don’t negotiate with a man who thinks the world is a debate he gets to win.”
Lauren’s hands tightened around the mug.
Sarah stood and went to a small side table by the door. She picked up her phone and tapped the screen, then placed it back down carefully.
“My ringers are on,” she said. “I don’t normally do that. But tonight, they’re on.”
Lauren stared at her. “You don’t have to—”
“Yes I do,” Sarah said. Not harshly. Like it was the simplest thing. “You’re here. That changes the rules.”
Lauren’s chest did something painful and bright.
Sarah returned to her chair and crossed one leg over the other, posture composed. She looked for all the world like a woman who could handle anything.
And yet she was watching Lauren’s face with a kind of alert quietness—as if she understood that the most dangerous part of leaving wasn’t the argument, it was the aftermath. The moment your body realised you’d stepped out of the familiar cage and now had no script for the open air.
Lauren’s voice came out smaller than she intended. “Thank you.”
Sarah made a face, impatient with gratitude.
“I’m not doing this for points,” she said. Then, a beat later, she added, more softly, “You don’t have to earn safety.”
Lauren looked down into her tea.
There it was again: the way Sarah said something that sounded like a rebuke, and yet landed like care.
Lauren’s eyes stung.
Sarah didn’t pretend not to notice.
She stood, walked over, and sat down beside Lauren on the couch—not pressed against her, but close enough that Lauren could feel her warmth. The proximity was a question. It was also a choice.
Sarah reached for the throw and unfolded it with brisk precision, then laid it across Lauren’s lap as if tucking in a child who wasn’t allowed to be a child.
“There,” Sarah said. “You’re cold.”
“I’m not,” Lauren started automatically, trained to minimise.
Sarah gave her a look that stopped the lie mid-breath.
“Lauren,” she said. “Please don’t do that here.”
Lauren’s mouth closed.
The heat behind her eyes broke a little.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, and immediately hated herself for apologising again.
Sarah’s expression flickered—irritation, yes, but not at Lauren. At the reflex. At the years that had installed it.
“Don’t,” Sarah said, quieter. “Not tonight.”
Lauren’s breath hitched.
Sarah’s hand landed on her knee on top of the throw. Firm. Warm. Not tentative. Not sexual. Simply grounding.
Lauren went still.
Sarah didn’t move her hand away.
And in that stillness Lauren realised something that made her dizzy: she had been starving for contact that wasn’t a claim.
A hand that didn’t demand.
A touch that didn’t take.
Lauren’s eyes filled. She stared at the throw because if she looked at Sarah she might… do something. Say something.
Sarah’s thumb moved once, a small stroke through the fabric.
“I’m going to ask you a question,” Sarah said. Her voice was low now, careful in a way it rarely was. “And you can say no. And I will be normal about it.”
Lauren’s heart thudded.
“Okay,” she managed.
“Do you want a hug?” Sarah asked.
It was such a simple sentence. It hit Lauren like a wave.
Lauren’s mouth opened. No sound came out.
Sarah waited, utterly still. No pressure. No coaxing. Just the clean offer.
Lauren nodded once, sharp and helpless.
Sarah exhaled like she’d been holding herself back from something.
Then she pulled Lauren in.
It wasn’t a delicate hug. It wasn’t the awkward pat-pat of social obligation.
It was firm and full-bodied—arms around shoulders, hand cradling the back of Lauren’s head for a second as if Sarah was making a point: You’re not alone. You are not ridiculous. You are not asking too much.
Lauren made a small, broken sound into Sarah’s shoulder that embarrassed her immediately.
Sarah didn’t flinch. She didn’t recoil. She only held her tighter.
“It’s alright,” Sarah said, and the words were blunt, as if tenderness embarrassed her too. “Let it out. He doesn’t get to keep it all inside you.”
Lauren cried then. Quietly. Ugly. The way you cried when you’d spent years being careful not to.
Sarah stayed.
Sarah kept her arms around her.
When Lauren’s breathing finally slowed, Sarah didn’t pull away abruptly. She loosened the hold gradually, letting Lauren’s body decide when to stop leaning.
Lauren wiped her face with the heel of her hand, mortified.
Sarah tilted her head. “You’re not going to apologise.”
Lauren swallowed. “I wasn’t going to.”
Sarah’s mouth twitched. “Good.”
They sat there, shoulder to shoulder.
Lauren could feel her own heartbeat still racing, could feel the warmth of Sarah’s thigh beside hers, the steadiness of her presence like a wall that didn’t move.
In the kitchen, the clock ticked on.
Outside, a night insect buzzed briefly and stopped.
Sarah leaned forward to pick up Lauren’s mug and set it on the coffee table, then did the same with her own.
“Right,” she said. “Practicalities.”
Lauren blinked. “Now?”
“Yes,” Sarah said, already standing. “Because your brain will spin if I let it. Come on.”
She led Lauren down the hall to the spare room.
The bed was made with crisp sheets. A folded towel sat at the end like a promise. A small lamp glowed warmly on the bedside table. On the pillow was a spare toothbrush in its packet, placed there as if Sarah had simply manifested it.
Lauren stared.
Sarah shrugged as if this wasn’t intimacy at all, just logistics. “I keep spares. People have emergencies.”
Lauren’s throat tightened again.
Sarah reached past her to draw the curtains, shutting out the streetlight. Then she checked the window latch with a click.
Then—still not looking at Lauren—she said, “If he shows up, you don’t answer. You don’t explain. You don’t negotiate. You stay in here. I’ll handle it.”
Lauren’s voice came out thin. “What if—”
Sarah turned and looked at her fully now, eyes sharp as a seam ripper.
“Lauren,” she said, “you have spent too long being the reasonable one.”
Lauren’s breath caught.
Sarah stepped closer.
Her expression softened—not much, but enough.
“You can be unreasonable here,” Sarah said. “You can be scared here. You can be… whatever you are. I won’t think less of you.”
Lauren’s face warmed. She tried to speak. Failed.
Sarah’s gaze flicked to Lauren’s hands, still trembling slightly.
“You need sleep,” Sarah said, and then, as if it cost her something, she added, “I’ll be right across the hall.”
Lauren nodded.
Sarah reached out and touched Lauren’s shoulder—brief, firm. A punctuation mark, not a lingering caress.
Then she paused at the door.
“I meant what I said,” Sarah said.
“What?”
“The door that locks,” Sarah replied. “Not just the actual one.”
And then she left, and closed the door with care—no click of a lock this time, because Lauren needed to feel free—but the sound of it settling into place was somehow just as reassuring.
Lauren sat on the edge of the bed, listening.
She heard Sarah’s footsteps in the hall. The faint sound of a kettle being refilled. The soft clink of something put away.
Normal.
Safe.
Lauren lay down and pulled the sheet up to her chest, and for the first time all day she felt her body begin to unclench—not because her life was solved, but because she had, finally, placed herself within reach of women who would not let the world swallow her.
She closed her eyes.
And in the dark, the peace that had seemed impossible at home came to her in a new shape:
Not the quiet of a man being absent.
The quiet of a woman being present.
End Scene 42.
Notes26-02-04ev2¶
1st Person¶
[26-02-06]
Scene 42 — “The Door That Locks” (Lauren POV, 1st person, past tense)
Sarah’s place smelled like citrus cleaner and warm fabric—like someone lived there deliberately, not by accident. Not the deliberate design layout kind, as in a Home Ideas magazine, but rather the kind that said: I will not be at the mercy of chaos if I can help it.
I stood just inside the front door with my overnight bag on the floor by my feet, shoulders still firmly held high. My body was still braced for consequences: it still believed I would be called back, corrected, punished.
Sarah eyed me as she shut the door behind me: didn’t speak straight away. Thank goodnes she didn’t launch into sympathy or I would have burst into tears. She didn’t ask anything, say anything.
Instead she did something almost aggressively ordinary.
She turned the padlock.
Then—because she meant it—she turned it again. Unlock. Lock. Final.
“There,” she said. “Now no one can just… walk in.”
My throat tightened so quickly I had to look away. I stared at a framed print on the wall—botanical, sharp-lined, beautiful in a restrained way—until my eyes stopped shining.
“I didn’t bring much,” I managed.
Sarah peered at me, lips pressed into a tight smile. “You brought enough.”
She picked the bag up and carried it like it held significance, like my life wasn’t an inconvenience. She walked ahead down the hall and flicked on a lamp so the light came up soft and warm instead of harsh overhead. It caught the edges of her hair and turned them almost gold.
“You might want to remove your shoes,” Sarah said with uncharacteristic diffidence, “if you want. I don’t care. I just… prefer it.”
I slipped my shoes off automatically. My hands started shaking now that I’d stopped moving, as if my body had waited for safety before it began to misbehave.
Sarah noticed, of course, but mercifully she didn’t point it out. Instead, she went to the kitchen and filled the kettle, the way you did when you needed something to happen that didn’t require feelings.
“I’m making tea,” she said. “It will help, whether you believe in tea or not.”
A sound came out of me that might have been a laugh. Thin, and a bit humiliating. Sarah’s mouth curved briefly, gratified for a positive reaction, then turned back to the kettle with brisk competence. I hovered at the end of the hallway, unsure where to put myself. I felt like a guest in a life I’d never imagined stepping into.
Sarah’s home wasn’t imposing, or fashionable, or striking: it was… contained. Clear. Every object looked chosen by someone who refused to settle for things that didn’t work. I thought, suddenly and stupidly, of Roger’s half-finished jobs. Doors that didn’t quite close. Drawers that stuck. The way he left things slightly wrong, as if a woman would quietly tidy the world behind him.
I closed my eyes, as if to shut it all out, my chest tight.
Sarah returned with a mug held in both hands, like tea mattered. She handed it to me, but then—didn’t let go straight away. Her fingers stayed on the ceramic for one beat longer than necessary—steadying the mug, steadying me.
“Sit,” she said, nodding at the couch. “You look like you’re about to evaporate.”
I sat.
The brown brushed leather couch was firm, not sinking. Clean, with a throw folded neatly at one end, carefully placed there. Sarah took an armchair: not too close or too far. A deliberate choice in space:
I’m here. I’m within reach. You’re not alone.
I held the mug and tried to make my breathing normal. The tea smelled like chamomile and something sharper: ginger, maybe. We sat for a moment. The kettle clicked softly as it cooled. A clock ticked faintly in the kitchen.
Finally Sarah asked, very calmly, “Is he going to come here?”
A tactical question. He knew where Sarah lived. I bit my lip.
“I… I don’t think so,” I said. “He doesn’t… he wouldn’t want people seeing—”
Sarah’s eyes narrowed. “That’s not an answer.”
Heat crept up my neck. Even now, trained reflexes tried to make the truth smaller.
“Yeah, he might,” I admitted, “if he thinks he can bully me. Or… shame me.”
Sarah nodded, like she’d been expecting that.
“Right then,” she said. “We do a plan. You don’t negotiate with a man who thinks the world is a debate he gets to win.”
My hands tightened around the mug. Sarah stood and went to a small table by the door. She tapped her phone, then set it down with care.
“My ringers are on,” she said. “I don’t normally do that. But tonight, they’re on.”
I stared at her.
“You don’t have to—”
“Yes I do,” she said plainly. Like it was simply logical. “You’re here. That changes the rules.”
I looked briefly at her resolute face and something painful and bright moved in my chest. She sat again, a woman composed, who could handle anything. I could feel her watching my face with a quiet alertness, as if she knew the most dangerous part of leaving wasn’t the argument. It was what happened after—when your body realised the cage door was open and you had no script for the air outside.
“Thank you,” I heard myself say, smaller than I wanted.
Sarah made a face, impatient with gratitude.
“I’m not doing this for points,” she said. Then, after a beat, softer, “You shouldn’t have to earn your safety.”
I looked down into my tea. There it was again: the way Sarah said something that sounded like a rebuke but landed like care.
My eyes stung.
She didn’t pretend not to notice.
She closed the space between us: sat carefully beside me. Not pressed against me, but close enough that I could feel her warmth. The proximity felt like a question even as it felt like a choice. She reached for the throw, unfolded it with brisk precision, and laid it across my lap.
“You’re still shivering.”
“I’m not,” I started automatically.
Sarah gave me a look that stopped the lie mid-breath.
“Lauren,” she said. “Please don’t do that here.”
My mouth closed. The heat behind my eyes broke a little.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, and hated myself for apologising again.
Sarah’s expression flickered. She shook her head once—quick, decisive—and her hair swished with it. Irritation, yes, but not at me. At the reflex. At the years that had wired it in.
“Don’t,” she said, quieter. “Not with me.”
My breath caught in my throat: her warm hand had settled on my knee over the throw. Firm, not tentative. Grounding. I went still.
She didn’t move her hand away.
And in that stillness I realised something that made me dizzy: I had been starving for touch, touch that wasn’t a claim. A hand that didn’t demand. Fingers that didn’t take. My eyes filled. I stared at the pattern in the throw because if I looked at Sarah I might do something stupid. Say something I would regret. Confess everything all at once.
Her thumb moved once—a small stroke through the fabric.
“I’m going to ask you a question,” Sarah said. Her voice was lower now, careful in a way it rarely was. “And you can say no. Promise I will be normal about it.”
My heart thudded.
“Okay,” I managed.
“Would you like a hug?”
Such a simple sentence. It hit me like an ocean wave. My mouth opened. No sound came out.
Sarah waited, utterly still, the offer echoing in her soft eyes.
I nodded, sharp and helpless. Sarah exhaled like she’d been holding herself back from something.
She pulled me in.It wasn’t a delicate hug. It wasn’t the awkward pat-pat of social obligation. It was firm and full-bodied—arms around my shoulders, a hand briefly cradling the back of my head, a warm tender heart reaching out to mine:
You’re not alone. You’re not ridiculous. You’re not asking too much.
A small broken sound escaped into her shoulder and I hated myself for it.
Sarah held me tighter.
“It’s alright,” she said, her voice thick. “Let it out. Don’t let him lock it all inside you.”
I cried.Quietly. Ugly. The way you cried when you’d spent years being careful not to.
Sarah stayed.
When my breathing finally slowed, she loosened gradually, almost imperceptibly, letting my body decide when to stop leaning. I wiped my face with the heel of my hand, mortified. Sarah tilted her head, her face a question mark.
“You’re not going to apologise.”
“I wasn’t going to,” I said, and the lie came out too quick.
Sarah’s mouth twitched.
We sat there, shoulder to shoulder. I could feel my heartbeat still racing, could feel the warmth of her thigh beside mine, the steadiness of her presence like a wall that didn’t move. Sarah leaned forward, took my mug, and set it on the coffee table. Then she did the same with hers.
“Right,” she said. “Time for practicalities. Like: sleep.”
I blinked. “Sleep?”
“Yes,” she said, already standing, “because your brain will spin indefinitely if we let it. Come on.”
She led me down the hall to the spare room.
The bed was made with crisp sheets. A folded towel sat at the end like a promise. A small lamp glowed warmly on the bedside table. On the pillow was a spare toothbrush in its packet.I must have stared at it a bit too long. She shrugged dismissively. “I keep spares,” she said, making it sound like logistics. “People have emergencies.”
Sarah reached past me to draw the curtains. Streetlight vanished. She checked the window latch with a click. Then, still not looking at me, she said, “If he shows up, you don’t answer. You don’t explain. You don’t negotiate. You stay in here. I’ll handle it.”
My voice came out thin. “What if—”
Sarah turned and looked at me fully, eyes sharp as a seam ripper.
“Lauren,” she said, “you have spent too long being the reasonable one.” My breath caught as she stepped closer. Her expression softened—not much, but enough to change the air. “You can be unreasonable here,” she said. “You can be scared here. You can be… whatever you are. I won’t think less of you. Just—," She touched my arm. “Just don’t be brave, here. You're done with that, now.”
My face warmed. I tried to speak. Failed.
“You need sleep,” Sarah said. Then, as if it cost her something, she added, “I’ll be right across the hall.”
I nodded.
Sarah slowly removed her hand from my arm after a quick squeeze—brief, firm. A punctuation mark, not a caress. She paused at the door.
“I meant what I said,” she said. “You're done with that, now. And—” She paused.
“What?”
“I have some doors that lock,” she replied. “But not all of them do.”
Then she left, closing the door with care: no decisive padlock click this time, but the reassuring sound of life settling into place.
I sat on the edge of the bed and listened to it.
Sarah’s footsteps. The faint sound of a kettle being refilled. The soft clink of something put away. Normal.
Safe.
I lay down and pulled the sheet up to my chest, and for the first time that day my body began to unclench. I had finally placed myself within reach of women who would not let the world swallow me.
I closed my eyes. And in the dark, the peace that had seemed impossible at home came to me in a new shape:
Not the silence of a man being absent.
The calm quiet of a woman being present.
End Scene 42.
Notes26-02-04ev3¶
1st Person (Polished)¶
👭 💞 🖤 🍓 🌶 🚪 🔑 🛋 🫧 🌩 🌧 🧵 🪡 👗 👚 👜 👠 🩰 💄 💋 🎻 📒 ✂ 🩸 💧 🚺 ⚧ ♀ ⚜
[26-02-06]
Note: A revised version (clean, same soul — just smoother) of Scene 42 (polished pass)
🚪 The Door That Locks 🚪
[ Lauren ]
Sarah’s home wasn’t imposing, or fashionable, or striking. It was… contained. Clear.It smelled like citrus cleaner and warm fabric. Every object looked chosen by someone who refused to settle for things that didn’t work. Someone lived here deliberately, not by accident—not the magazine-layout kind, but the kind that said: I will not be at the mercy of chaos if I can help it.
I stood just inside the front door with my overnight bag on the floor by my feet, shoulders still held high. My body was braced for consequences: it still believed I would be called back, corrected, punished.
Sarah eyed me as she shut the door behind me and didn’t speak straight away. Thank goodness she didn’t launch into sympathy or I would have burst into tears. She didn’t ask anything. Didn’t say anything.
Instead, she did something almost aggressively ordinary.
She turned the padlock.
Then—meaningfully—she turned it again. Unlock. Lock. Final.
“There,” she said. “Now no one can just… walk in.”
My throat tightened so quickly I had to look away. I stared at a framed print on the wall—botanical, sharp-lined, beautiful in a restrained way—until my eyes stopped shining.
“I didn’t bring much,” I managed.
Sarah peered at me, lips pressed into a tight smile. “You brought enough.”
She picked the bag up and carried it like it held significance, like my life wasn’t an inconvenience. She walked ahead down the hall and flicked on a lamp so the light came up soft and warm instead of harsh overhead. It caught the edges of her hair and turned them almost gold.
“You might want to take your shoes off,” Sarah said, with uncharacteristic care, “if you want.”
I slipped my shoes off automatically. My hands started shaking now that I’d stopped moving, as if my body had waited for safety before it began to misbehave.
Sarah noticed, of course, but mercifully didn’t point it out. Instead, she went to the kitchen and filled the kettle—the way you did when you needed something to happen that didn’t require feelings.
“I’m making tea,” she said. “It will help, whether you believe in tea or not.”
A sound came out of me that might have been a laugh. Thin, a bit humiliating. Sarah’s mouth curved briefly, gratified at the sound. She turned back to the kettle with brisk competence.
I hovered at the end of the hallway, unsure where to put myself. I felt like a guest in a life I’d never imagined stepping into. The gentle, human warmth from Sarah’s home settled slowly through me. I thought, suddenly and stupidly, of what I had just left. Of Roger’s half-finished jobs. Doors that didn’t quite close. Drawers that stuck. Things left slightly wrong, as if a woman would quietly tidy the world behind him.
I closed my eyes as if I could shut it out. My chest tightened.
Sarah returned with a mug held in both hands, like tea mattered. She handed it to me, but didn’t let go straight away. Her fingers stayed on the ceramic one beat longer than necessary—steadying the mug, steadying me.
“Sit,” she said, nodding at the couch. “You look like you’re about to evaporate.”
I sat.
The brown brushed leather couch was firm, not sinking. Clean, with a throw folded neatly at one end, placed there. Sarah took an armchair: not too close, not too far. A choice in space that said:
I’m here. I’m within reach. You’re not alone.
I held the mug and tried to make my breathing normal. The tea smelled like chamomile and something sharper—ginger, maybe. We sat for a moment. The kettle clicked softly as it cooled. A clock ticked faintly in the kitchen.
Finally, Sarah asked, very calmly, “Is he going to come here?”
A tactical question. He knew where Sarah lived. I bit my lip.
“I… I don’t think so,” I said. “He doesn’t… he wouldn’t want anyone witnessing—”
Sarah’s eyes narrowed. “That’s not an answer.”
Heat crept up my neck. Even now, trained reflexes tried to make the truth smaller.
“Yeah,” I admitted. “He might. If he thinks he can bully me. Or… shame me.”
Sarah nodded, like she’d been expecting that.
“Right then,” she said. “We do a plan. There’s no negotiating with a man who thinks the world is an argument he can’t lose.”
My hands tightened around the mug. Sarah stood and went to the small table by the door. She tapped her phone, then set it down with care.
“My ringers are on,” she said. “Normally I don’t do that. But tonight—” She pressed her lips together. “They’re on.”
I sighed and briefly shook my head.
“You don’t have to—”
“Yes I do,” she said, like it was simple logic. “You’re here. For a reason. That changes the rules.”
I looked at her resolute face and something painful and bright moved in my chest. She sat again—composed, a woman who could handle anything. I could feel her watching my face with a quiet alertness, as if she knew the most dangerous part of leaving wasn’t the argument.
It was what came after—when your body realised the cage door was open and you had no script for the air outside.
“Thank you,” I heard myself say, smaller than I wanted.
Sarah made a face, impatient with gratitude.
“I’m not doing this for points,” she said. Then, after a beat, softer: “You shouldn’t have to earn your safety.”
I looked down into my tea. There it was again: the way Sarah said something that sounded like a rebuke but landed like care.
My eyes stung.
She didn’t pretend not to notice.
She closed the space between us—sat carefully beside me. Not pressed against me—close enough that I could feel her warmth. The proximity felt like a question even as it felt like a choice. She reached for the throw, unfolded it with brisk precision, and laid it across my lap.
“You’re still shivering.”
“I’m not,” I started automatically.
Sarah gave me a look that stopped the lie mid-breath.
“Lauren,” she said. “Please don’t do that here.”
My mouth closed. The heat behind my eyes broke a little.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, and hated myself for apologising again.
Sarah’s expression flickered. She shook her head once—quick, decisive—and her hair swished with it. Irritation, yes, but not at me. At the reflex. At the years that had wired it in.
“Don’t,” she said, quieter. “Not with me.”
My breath caught: her warm hand had settled on my knee over the throw. Firm, not tentative. Grounding. I went still.
She didn’t move her hand away.
And in that stillness I realised something that made me dizzy: I had been starving for touch—touch that wasn’t a claim. A hand that didn’t demand. Fingers that didn’t take. My eyes filled. I stared at the pattern in the throw, because if I looked at Sarah I might do something stupid. Say things I would regret.Confess… feelings.
Her thumb moved once—a small stroke through the fabric.
“I’m going to ask you a question,” Sarah said. Her voice was lower now, careful in a way I had never heard before. “And you can say no. Promise I’ll be normal about it.”
My heart thudded.
“Okay,” I managed.
“Would you like a hug?”
Such a simple sentence. It hit me like an ocean wave. My mouth opened. No sound came out.
Sarah waited, utterly still, the offer echoing in her soft eyes.
I nodded—sharp, helpless.
Sarah exhaled like she’d been holding herself back from something.
She pulled me in.
It wasn’t a delicate hug. It wasn’t the awkward pat-pat of social obligation. It was firm and full-bodied—arms around my shoulders, a hand cradling the back of my head, a warm tender heart reaching out to mine:
You’re not alone. You’re not ridiculous. You’re not asking too much.
A small broken sound escaped into her shoulder and I hated myself for it.
Sarah held me tighter.
“It’s alright,” she said, her voice thick. “Let it out. Don’t let him lock it all inside you.”
I cried.
Quietly. Ugly. The way you cried when you’d spent years being careful not to.
Sarah stayed.
When my breathing finally slowed, she loosened gradually, almost imperceptibly, letting my body decide when to stop leaning. I wiped my face with the heel of my hand, mortified. Sarah tilted her head.
“You’re not going to apologise.” It was half-question.
“I wasn’t going to,” I said—and the lie came out too quick.
Sarah’s mouth twitched.
We sat there, shoulder to shoulder. I could feel my heartbeat still racing, could feel the warmth of her thigh beside mine, the steadiness of her presence like a wall that didn’t move. Sarah leaned forward, took my mug, and set it on the coffee table. Then she did the same with hers.
“Right,” she said. “Time for practicalities. Like: sleep.”
I blinked. “Sleep.”
“Yes,” she said, already standing, “because your brain will spin indefinitely if we let it. Come on.”
She led me down the hall to the spare room.
The bed was made with crisp sheets. A folded towel sat at the end like a promise. A small lamp glowed warmly on the bedside table. On the pillow was a spare toothbrush in its packet.
I must have stared at it a bit too long. She shrugged dismissively. “I keep spares,” she said, making it sound like logistics. “People have emergencies.”
Sarah reached past me to draw the curtains. A streetlight vanished. She checked the window latch with a click. Then, still not looking at me, she said, “If he shows up, you don’t answer. You don’t explain. You don’t negotiate. You stay in here. I’ll handle it.”
My voice came out thin. “What if—”
Sarah turned and looked at me fully, eyes sharp as shears.
“Lauren,” she said, “you have spent too long being the reasonable one.”
My breath caught as she stepped closer. Her expression softened—not much, but enough to change the air.
“You can be unreasonable here,” she said. “You can be scared here. You can be… whatever you are. I won’t think less of you. Just—” She touched my arm. “Just don’t be brave here. You’re done with that now.”
My face warmed. I tried to speak. Failed.
“You need sleep,” Sarah said. Then, as if it cost her something, she added, “I’ll be right across the hall.”
She slowly removed her hand from my arm after a quick squeeze—brief, firm. A punctuation mark, not a caress.Paused at the door.
“I meant what I said,” she said. “You’re done with that now. And—” She bit her lip.
“What?”
“I have some doors that lock,” she replied carefully. “Not all of them do.”
Then she left, closing the door with care: no decisive padlock clack this time—just the reassuring sound of life settling into place.
I sat on the edge of the bed and listened to it.
Sarah’s footsteps. The faint sound of the kettle being refilled. The soft clink of something put away. Normal.
Safe.
I lay down and pulled the sheet up to my chest, and for the first time that day my body began to unclench. I had finally placed myself within reach of women who would not let the world swallow me.
I closed my eyes. And in the dark, the peace that had seemed impossible at home came to me in a new shape:
Not the cold silence of a man being absent.
The calm quiet of a woman being present.
Published¶
[26-02-13]¶
😄🧵💛👭 💞 🖤 🍓 🌶 🚪 🔑 🛋 🫧 🌩 🌧 🧵 🪡 👗 👚 👜 👠 🩰 💄 💋 🎻 📒 ✂ 🩸 💧 🚺 ⚧ ♀ ⚜
--
🚪 The Door That Locks 🚪
[ Lauren ]
Sarah’s home wasn’t imposing, or fashionable, or striking. It was… contained.
It smelled like citrus cleaner and warm fabric. Every object looked chosen by someone who refused to settle for things that didn’t work. Someone lived here deliberately, not by accident: not the magazine-layout kind, but the kind that said—
I will not be at the mercy of chaos if I can help it.
I stood just inside the front door with my overnight bag on the floor by my feet, shoulders still held high. My body was braced for consequences: it still believed I would be called back, corrected, punished.
Sarah eyed me as she shut the door behind me. She didn’t speak straight away—thank goodness she didn’t launch into sympathy or I would have burst into tears. She didn’t ask anything.
Instead, she did something almost aggressively ordinary.
She turned the padlock.
Then—meaningfully—she turned it again.
Unlock. Lock.
Final.
“There,” she said. “Now no one can just… walk in.”
The lump in my throat came so quickly I had to look away. I stared at a framed print on the wall—botanical, sharp-lined, beautiful in a restrained way—until my eyes stopped shining.
“I didn’t bring much,” I managed.
Sarah peered at me, lips pressed into a tight smile. “You brought enough.”
She picked the bag up and carried it like it held significance, like my life wasn’t an inconvenience. She walked ahead down the hall and flicked on a lamp so the light came up soft and warm. It caught the edges of her hair and turned them gold.
“You might want to take your shoes off,” Sarah said, with a gentleness unlike her, “if you want.”
I slipped my shoes off automatically. My hands started shaking again now that I’d stopped moving, as if my body had waited for safety before it began to misbehave. Sarah noticed, of course, but didn’t point it out. Instead, she went to the kitchen and filled the kettle—the way you did when you needed something to happen that didn’t require feelings.
“I’m making tea,” she said. “It will help, whether you believe in tea or not.”
A sound came out of me that might have been a laugh. Thin, a bit humiliating. Sarah’s mouth curved briefly, gratified at the sound. She turned back to the kettle with brisk competence.
I hovered at the end of the hallway, unsure where to put myself. I felt like a guest in a life I’d never imagined stepping into. The gentle, human warmth from Sarah’s home settled slowly through me like lotion on dry skin. I thought, suddenly and stupidly, of what I had just left. Of half-finished jobs: doors that didn’t close properly, drawers that stuck. Things left slightly wrong, as if a woman would quietly tidy the world behind him.
I took in a slow deep breath and closed my eyes as if I could shut it out. My chest tightened anyway.
Sarah returned with a mug held in both hands, like tea mattered. She handed it to me, but didn’t let go straight away. Her fingers stayed on the ceramic for a moment—steadying the mug, steadying me.
“Sit,” she said, nodding at the couch. “You look like you’re about to evaporate.”
I sat.
The brown brushed leather couch was firm, not sinking. Clean, with a throw folded neatly at one end, placed there. Sarah took an armchair: not too close, not too far. A choice in space that said:
I’m here. I’m within reach. You’re not alone.
I held the mug and tried to make my breathing normal. The tea smelled like chamomile and something sharper—ginger, maybe. We sat for a moment. The kettle clicked softly as it cooled. A clock ticked faintly in the kitchen.
Finally, Sarah asked, very calmly, “Is he going to come here?”
A tactical question. He knew where Sarah lived. I bit my lip.
“I… I don’t think so,” I said. “He doesn’t… he wouldn’t want anyone witnessing—”
Sarah’s eyes narrowed.
“That’s not an answer.”
Heat crept up my neck. Even now, trained reflexes tried to make an unpleasant truth smaller.
“Yeah,” I admitted. “He might, if he thinks he can bully me. Or… shame me.”
Sarah nodded, unsurprised.
“Right then,” she said. “We do a plan. There’s no negotiating with someone who thinks the world is an argument he can’t lose.”
My hands tightened around the mug. Sarah stood and went to the small table by the door. She tapped her phone, then set it down with care.
“My ringers are on,” she said. “Normally I don’t do that. But tonight—” She pressed her lips together. “They’re on.”
I sighed and briefly shook my head.
“You don’t have to—”
“Yes, I do,” she said, like it was simple logic. “You’re here for a reason. That changes the rules.”
I looked at her resolute face and something painful and bright moved in my chest. She sat again—composed, a woman who could handle anything. I could feel her watching my face with a quiet alertness, as if she knew the most dangerous part of leaving wasn’t the argument.
It was what came after—when your body realised the cage door was open and you had no script for the air outside.
“Thank you,” I heard myself say, my voice smaller than I wanted. Sarah made a face.
“I’m not doing this for points,” she said. Then, softer: “You shouldn’t have to earn your safety.”
I looked down into my tea. There it was again: the way Sarah said something that sounded like a rebuke but landed like care.
My eyes stung.
She didn’t pretend not to notice.
She closed the space between us—sat carefully beside me. Not pressed against me—close enough that I could feel her warmth. The proximity felt like a question even as it felt like a choice. She reached for the throw, unfolded it with brisk precision, and laid it across my lap.
“You’re still shivering.”
“I’m not,” I started automatically.
Sarah gave me a look that stopped the lie mid-breath.
“Lauren,” she said. “You don’t need to do that here. This is me you’re talking to, now.”
My mouth closed. The heat behind my eyes broke a little.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, and hated myself for apologising again.
Sarah’s expression flickered. She shook her head once—quick, decisive—and her hair swished with it. Irritation, yes, but not at me. At the reflex. At the years that had wired it in.
“No 'sorries',” she said, quieter. “Not with me.”
My breath caught: her warm hand had settled on my knee over the throw. Firm, grounding. I went still.
She didn’t move her hand away.
And in that stillness I realised something that made me dizzy: I had been starving for touch—touch that wasn’t a claim. A hand that didn’t demand. Fingers that didn’t take. My eyes filled. I stared at the pattern in the throw, because if I looked at Sarah I might do something stupid. Say things I would regret.Confess… feelings.
Her thumb moved once—a small stroke through the fabric.
“I’m going to ask you a question,” Sarah said. Her voice was lower now, careful in a way I had never heard before. “And you can say no. Promise I’ll be normal about it.”
My heart thudded.
“Okay.”
A pause.
“Would you like a hug?”
Such a simple sentence. It hit me like an ocean wave. My mouth opened. No sound came out.
Sarah waited, utterly still, the offer echoing in her soft eyes.
I nodded—sharp, helpless.
Sarah exhaled like she’d been holding herself back from something and pulled me in.
It wasn’t a delicate hug. It wasn’t the awkward pat-pat of social obligation. It was firm and full-bodied—arms around my shoulders, a hand cradling the back of my head, a warm tender heart reaching out to mine:
You’re not alone. You’re not ridiculous. You’re not asking too much.
A small broken sound escaped into her shoulder and I hated myself for it.
Sarah held me tighter.
“It’s alright,” she said, her voice thick. “Let it out. Don’t let him lock it all inside you.”
I cried.
Quiet. Ugly.
The way you cried when you’d spent years being careful not to.
And Sarah stayed.
When my breathing finally slowed, she loosened gradually, almost imperceptibly, letting my body decide when to stop leaning. I wiped my face with the heel of my hand, mortified. Sarah tilted her head.
“You’re not going to apologise.” It was half-question, half-warning.
“I wasn’t going to,” I said—and the lie came out too quick.
Sarah’s mouth twitched.
We sat there, shoulder to shoulder. I could feel my heartbeat still racing, could feel the warmth of her thigh beside mine, the steadiness of her presence like a wall that didn’t move. Sarah leaned forward, took my mug, and set it on the coffee table. Then she did the same with hers.
“Right,” she said. “Time for practicalities. Like: sleep.”
I blinked. “Sleep.”
“Yes,” she said, already standing, “because your brain will spin indefinitely if we let it. Come on.”
She led me down the hall to the spare room.
The bed was made with crisp sheets. A folded towel sat at the end like a promise. A small lamp glowed warmly on the bedside table. On the pillow was a spare toothbrush in its packet.
I must have stared at it a bit too long. She shrugged dismissively. “I keep spares,” she said, making it sound like logistics. “People have emergencies.”
Sarah reached past me to draw the curtains. A streetlight vanished. She checked the window latch with a click. Then, still not looking at me, she said, “If he shows up, you don’t answer. You don’t explain. You don’t negotiate. You stay in here. I’ll handle it.”
My voice came out thin. “What if—”
Sarah turned and looked at me fully, eyes sharp as shears.
“Lauren,” she said, “you have spent too long being the reasonable one.”
My breath caught as she stepped closer. Her expression softened—not much, but enough to change the air.
“You can be unreasonable here,” she said. “You can be scared here. You can be… whatever you are. I won’t think less of you. Just—” She touched my arm. “Just don’t be brave here. You’re done with that now.”
My face warmed. I tried to speak. Failed.
“You need sleep,” Sarah said. Then, as if it cost her something, she added, “I’ll be right across the hall.”
She slowly removed her hand from my arm after a quick squeeze—brief, firm. A punctuation mark, not a caress.She paused at the door.
“I meant what I said,” she said. “You’re done with that now. And—” She bit her lip.
“What?”
“I have some doors that lock,” she replied carefully. “Not all of them do.”
Then she left, closing the door with care: no decisive padlock clack this time—just the reassuring sound of life settling into place.
I sat on the edge of the bed and listened to it.
Sarah’s footsteps. The faint sound of the kettle being refilled. The soft clink of something put away. Normal.
Safe.
I lay down and pulled the sheet up to my chest, and for the first time that day my body began to unclench. I had placed myself within reach of someone who would not let the world swallow me.
I closed my eyes. And in the dark, the peace that had seemed impossible at home came to me in a new shape:
Not the cold silence of a man being absent.
The calm quiet of a woman being present.