Scene 53¶
Notes26-01-23e¶
Scene 50¶
[26-01-23]
Scene 50 — “Where It’s Safe” (Celeste POV)
Charli came home like someone returning to a house after nearly losing it.
Quiet. Careful. Eyes too bright, posture a fraction too controlled. She took her shoes off by the door with obsessive neatness, as if straight lines could prevent mistakes. She hung her bag on the hook and stood there for a second too long, hands hovering, waiting for permission the way she used to.
I watched her from the kitchen.
Not hidden. Not testing.
Just… observing the new shape of her caution.
“Hi,” I said.
Charli’s gaze snapped to mine with a kind of hungry relief that she tried to swallow back immediately.
“Hi,” she whispered.
She didn’t move toward me.
That was the first sign she’d understood.
Not “I’m in trouble.”
Not “I’m unworthy.”
But: this matters enough to protect.
I set two mugs on the table, poured tea, and kept my movements ordinary on purpose. Normality is a signal. It tells the body: no danger here.
Charli came to the table and sat in the chair opposite me like she was afraid the space between us was an exam.
She folded her hands in her lap.
Her eyes didn’t linger on my mouth.
Her shoulders didn’t soften the way they had last night.
She was trying so hard to be careful that she’d turned careful into distance.
I let her sit in that for a moment. Let her prove she could.
Then I said, gently, “You can look at me.”
Charli blinked, startled—as if she’d been caught doing something wrong in reverse.
“I—” she began.
“Charli,” I said, calm. “Looking is allowed.”
Her eyes lifted slowly to my face. They were still red-rimmed from the day, but steadier now. Present. Listening.
“I’m proud of you,” I said.
The sentence did something to her. Her breath caught. Her chin trembled once, just once, before she contained it.
“I messed up,” she whispered.
“Yes,” I said. “And then you learned.”
Charli swallowed. “I didn’t… I didn’t understand. Not really. I thought—” She stopped, frustrated, then tried again. “I thought it was… little. Just… us.”
“It was us,” I said quietly. “And it was also a room full of women who have paid for men’s stories about them.”
Charli nodded, small and precise, like she was writing it into her bones.
“I saw Sarah,” she murmured. “When she looked. Not… angry. Just…” She searched. “Alert.”
“Yes,” I said.
“And Mara,” Charli added, and the name came out with a little shiver of respect. “Mara didn’t even need to say anything.”
“No,” I agreed. “Mara is a boundary with legs.”
Charli made a tiny sound that might have been a laugh if she’d allowed herself more oxygen.
I waited until her shoulders lowered a fraction. Then I placed my hand on the table—palm up. Not reaching for her. Offering.
Charli’s eyes dropped to my hand like it was a doorway.
Her throat moved.
She didn’t take it.
Not yet.
“Remember what I said,” I murmured. “Careful doesn’t mean distant.”
Charli’s eyes flicked up to mine, questioning. Worry threaded through her expression.
“What if I—”
“You won’t,” I said, and the certainty in my voice made her go still. “Because now you understand.”
Charli exhaled shakily.
Then—slowly, as if approaching a skittish animal—she lifted her hand from her lap and placed her fingertips into my palm.
The contact was so light it barely registered as pressure.
It registered as trust.
Her touch was even gentler than last night, if that was possible—like she was handling something fragile and beloved.
My chest tightened in a way I didn’t fight.
“Like this?” she whispered.
“Yes,” I said, and my voice came out softer than I intended. “Exactly like this.”
Charli’s thumb moved once across my palm—one careful stroke—and then stopped, waiting for the rule.
I let my fingers curl around hers.
Not tight.
Not claiming.
Answering.
Charli’s breath hitched, and this time she didn’t apologise for it. She simply let the feeling exist.
Good.
I drew her hand up slowly and pressed my lips to her knuckles.
It wasn’t sexual. It wasn’t dramatic.
It was… reverent.
Charli made a small sound in her throat that nearly broke me.
Her eyes shone. She blinked hard and held on.
“Celeste,” she whispered.
“Yes,” I replied.
“I… I want to be good at this,” she said, the words careful but urgent. “At… us. I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to hurt Wardrobe.”
“I know,” I said.
Then I said the part she needed, the part she’d be too afraid to ask for.
“And you didn’t,” I added. “You created risk. We corrected it. That’s what adults do.”
Charli’s shoulders eased, the tension turning into something softer, more livable.
I stood and held my hand out again.
“Come here,” I said.
Charli rose immediately—obedient reflex—then checked herself, slowed down, as if remembering she was allowed to want without rushing.
She came to me and stopped just within reach, waiting.
I placed my hands lightly at her waist and guided her closer. The pressure was minimal. The intention wasn’t.
Charli’s hands hovered near my ribs, careful, as if she was afraid to touch the wrong place.
I took her left hand and placed it gently on my shoulder.
“Here,” I said.
Then I took her right hand and placed it at my waist.
“And here.”
Charli’s fingers curved, tentative at first, then steadier as she felt I wasn’t going to pull away.
Her touch was… exquisite.
Not because it was skilled.
Because it was pure. Because it carried no entitlement. No demand. Just devotion and awe and careful joy.
I leaned down and kissed her again, slow and clean.
Charli responded immediately, softening into it like she’d been thirsty and didn’t know it.
Her hands tightened a fraction at my waist—still gentle, but certain now—and I felt my body go warm in a way that had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with being wanted safely.
I broke the kiss and rested my forehead against hers.
“Tonight,” I murmured, “you don’t have to be careful like you’re handling glass.”
Charli’s breath trembled. “But I—”
“You can be careful in the right way,” I said. “Careful like you are with fabric you love. You don’t avoid it. You learn it.”
Charli nodded, eyes wet.
“Yes,” she whispered. “I can do that.”
I guided her to the couch.
We sat close, hips touching, shoulders touching, and I pulled a blanket over both of us, not because we were cold but because the weight of it made the world smaller.
Charli hesitated, then leaned into me.
Her head found my shoulder like it belonged there.
Her arm slid around my waist, cautious at first, then settling as my body welcomed it.
I kissed the top of her head.
Charli’s breath shuddered, and she whispered, barely audible, “This is safe.”
“Yes,” I said.
She shifted slightly, turning her face toward my neck, and I felt the faint brush of her lips against my skin—more like a question than an act.
I answered by tipping my head gently, giving her access without words.
Charli kissed me again, still careful, still sweet, and her hand—her unbelievable hand—traced a slow line along my forearm.
Bliss arrived in my body like a quiet flood.
Not fireworks.
Not urgency.
A deep, easing warmth, the kind you feel when something inside you stops bracing.
I held her there, letting myself want without fear, letting the floodgates stay open because the river had found its proper bed.
After a while, Charli whispered, “I won’t do it at work again.”
“I know,” I said.
“And if I forget,” she added quickly, anxiety flaring, “if I get… carried away—”
I turned my head and kissed her temple.
“Then I will correct you,” I said. “And you will learn again. That’s what this is.”
Charli went very still, then nodded against my shoulder.
“Yes,” she breathed, and something in her softened—something old, something frightened.
A girl learning that love doesn’t vanish because you make one mistake.
A girl learning that consequences aren’t rejection.
They’re care.
We stayed like that for a long time: no talking, no plans, no big declarations.
Just touch.
Hands. Breath. Quiet kisses.
A woman letting herself be held.
A girl discovering that her gentleness wasn’t a liability—it was the very thing that made her irresistible.
And when Charli finally drifted toward sleep, curled against me with her fingers still resting lightly on my wrist as if she couldn’t bear to lose contact entirely, I stared into the dim room and felt the calm settle into place.
Wardrobe was safe.
Charli was safe.
And here, in the private hush of our home, where no one could turn tenderness into gossip or leverage, love was allowed to be what it wanted to be:
soft.
steady.
and growing.
So, what you don't see in that first image are the undergarments: dollars to donuts she's wearing stays. The second is classic Flux (dimpled chin) and yeah: Flux doesn't know about the chemise, which the first girl was wearing (layers: drawstring chemise; stays; overdress) so it does the lacey square neckline. I'm not sure, but your third girl (painting?) looks like Regency. And Stable Diffusion, bless its pointy little head, missed it by centuries: very Henry VIII. Again, the girl in green isn't wearing a chemise with stays... she's wearing a coset dress with a lace square neckline. Pretty, but it says "costume".
Kontext has the overdress shape sort-or right but no chemise, again.
I ran the next girl image (outside, bonnet, book) by Emily... I was guessing Regency. Emily replied:
Yes — Regency / late Georgian is the right call 😊 What you’ve got here is very “Jane Austen era,” roughly 1805–1818 (give or take a few years): High empire waist sitting just under the bust Long, slim skirt that falls straight rather than bell-shaped Narrow shoulders with only modest puffing (not the huge gigot sleeves of the 1830s) Bonnet with ties that fits the early-19th silhouette beautifully
So: Regency (early 19th century) rather than Victorian, and definitely not the 1830s+.