Kivarra

I pushed through the heavy silk curtains and the cold fell away behind me. Warm lantern light pooled across racks of beautiful garments — coats, robes, shirts, dresses — all of it impossibly fine, shimmering faintly in colors I didn't have names for. The air was thick and soft, dampened somehow, the clatter of the street outside reduced to a murmur the moment the curtains fell shut.

A clothier's shop. A good one. Exactly what I needed — my coat was shredded, my shirt threadbare, and the cold had been eating through both for hours.

And there, near the back, stood a woman in a heavy coat, as if she'd just come in from the street herself.

I noticed the mannequins.

They stood among the racks, posed mid-step, mid-reach, one tilting a hat like it was about to try it on. Beautiful garments draped every one of them, fitting flawlessly — as if the clothes had been grown onto the forms. Six. No — seven. Every one of them dressed perfectly, every one of them strikingly handsome, with soft, content expressions. Their clothes suited them so well I almost forgot to look at the clothes themselves.

The woman from the back was walking toward me now, shrugging off her coat as she came.

She hung her coat over a rack as she approached, unhurried, and I found myself looking at her before I'd decided to. Silver hair falling straight past her shoulders, pale skin that caught the lantern light in faint shifting colors, and a pair of glowing purple eyes — bright, with dark pupils — that took me in at a glance.

"Welcome," she said. "What brings you in out of the cold?"

I pulled my gaze together. "Clothes," I said. "A coat, a shirt — something warm. The cold's been eating me alive out there."

Already her fingers were moving through the racks, pulling free a length of dark silk that caught the light. "Then let's find you something," she said, holding it up. "This one would suit you." The shirt was elegant, and ... expensive.

"I'm not here for anything fancy," I said. "I need it practical. Sturdy. Something that'll last."

She laughed — low, easy. "You think a thing can't be both? Practical and beautiful aren't enemies." She held the silk against my chest, measuring me with her eyes. "I can make you warm and make you worth looking at. Watch me."

She turned and I followed her deeper into the shop, past the racks and the mannequins, through a curtain of hanging silks into a smaller room at the back.

I couldn't help but watch her as I followed. Her outfit was so perfect for her. It drew my eyes to al the right places, and the sheen made it almost mesmerizing.

As the curtain fell shut behind us, the world went quieter, like the walls were made of something that swallowed sound. Lanterns burned low. and it was warm. The quiet and privacy made me feel comfortable. I stared at her hips a moment longer before she turned around.

I hurriedly looked away, examining the area. A long mirror. A single padded bench. Racks of finer garments, deeper colors, fabrics that seemed to shift on their own. "The fitting room," she said. "Try not to fidget so I can get the right measurements."

She crossed to me and lifted my wrist in both of her hands, a measuring tape loose between her fingers, and began smoothing it flat against me with her thumb. Her hands were softer than they had any right to be. She worked her way up my arm, then around my chest, drawing the tape snug, her knuckles resting lightly against me while she read the number. Across the shoulders, Down my spine, her palm following the tape, warm through the threadbare shirt. Each time her skin found mine my heartbeat elevated .

"You can breathe," she said, not looking up from her work.

I let out the breath I hadn't realized I was holding

She circled me slowly, studying the thread's path across my body the way a tailor studies chalk lines, and I held still for her.

Then — a sharp sting at the side of my neck, quick and sudden, like teeth.

I turned, hand going to my neck, but she was still measuring, her expression calm, her eyes on the thread, as if she'd never moved. I looked for blood on my fingers. Nothing. No mark I could feel. The sting was already fading, and she hadn't so much as glanced at me.

Must have been nothing, I told myself. A snagged thread. A draft.

"Still," she murmured. "Almost done."

She crossed to the rack, selected a silk top — dark blue, almost black, the weave catching the lantern light in shifting patterns — and held it up. "Arms up."

I raised my arms. The top slid onto me, warm and soft and impossibly light, like being dressed in a warm breath. It fit. Perfectly. Like she'd known my shape before I walked in. She pressed her hand into my chest as if to confirm the snugness of the top.

The warmth sank into my skin and spread slow across my chest, and my thoughts went quieter. Softer. I exhaled, and some of the tension went with it.

"Good," she said, smoothing the fabric over my shoulders. "It fits you."

I was warm, and the silk pulsed against my skin in a slow rhythm, steady, almost alive, and each pulse sent a soft wave of heat rolling across my chest, my back, my arms.

Something nagged at me. My thoughts were moving slower than they should, and there was a distance in my head, soft as cotton. I had the sense that something was wrong, that I should be worried about something — but the thought kept sliding away before I could catch it. I tugged at my top in a weak attempt to remove it, but it held tight to my body. So comfortable.

The spot on my neck throbbed, faint and warm, and I touched it again. There was nothing there. There was nothing to worry about at all.

She moved closer, and pulled a hood from the top over my head that I hadn't noticed was there before. Then her fingers found the sash at my waist — dark silk shot through with silver — and drew it snug, and the motion brought her almost against me, warm, and I could feel the heat of her through the fabric.

But under the warmth, my worry was waking up. The phantom sting on my neck had a warm tingling sensation from it, and I felt a slow, syrupy weight in my blood. I should leave, I thought. I should tell her to stop. These clothes didn't suit what I needed anyways, I shouldn't even be here.

The decision to leave sat in my throat and wouldn't come out. The hood felt so warm around my ears, and I could faintly hear a rhythmic pulse that matched what I could feel in the silks. Her eyes were on mine, and the silk was warm against my skin, and somehow leaving had become the one thing I couldn't do.

She knelt with a pair of silk trousers, soft dark fabric, fine weave, shimmering faintly , and slid my pants off of me. It felt both invasive, and right, but she paid no mind to my slightly exposed manhood. She then helped her own trousers up my legs, patient and unhurried. The silk slid over my skin and the warmth followed, spreading slow across my thighs, my hips, settling in close.

I should go, the quiet voice said again, and it was already fainter than before.

Then the silk pulsed — once, warm — and the word rose up through me soft and certain: *stay.*

I want to stay, I realized. The thought came from somewhere deep and warm, and it wasn't entirely my own, but I didn't fight it. I didn't want to leave. I wanted to be right here, in the warmth, with her.

She stood back and looked at me.

Not the quick once-over of a shopkeeper checking a fit. She looked at me the way a person looks at something they've made and loved — slowly, from head to foot, lingering on the line of my shoulders, the set of my chest, the way the silk fell. Admiration, plain and warm.

"Beautiful," she said softly. "You look beautiful."

And I believed her. The word settled into me with the warmth of the silk, and I found myself standing a little straighter for her, wanting her to keep looking. Wanting to be worth the look.

"One last piece," she said, and took a pair of silk gloves from the rack — fine, thin, shimmering. "Hands."

I raised them without thinking. She guided each glove on slowly, smoothing the silk over my fingers, my palms, my wrists, until my hands were wrapped entirely. I flexed them — they fit perfectly, of course they did.

I waited for something to happen. Some part of me, a small and watchful part, expected my hands to move on their own.

But they didn't. They were only gloves, warm against my skin. Nothing moved but her fingers, still smoothing the silk.

"I like to wear gloves too," she said, and she drew a pair of her own silk gloves from somewhere and worked them on — slowly, finger by finger, so I could watch.

"Do you wear jewelry?" she asked, and before I could answer she'd fastened something around my neck — a necklace, light and cool against my skin. Then she backed away and put on her own spider shaped necklace.

I stared at her. At her hands in the silk gloves, at the way the low light moved across her skin, at the calm heat in her glowing eyes. She was the most beautiful thing in the room, and I couldn't look away from her, and I didn't want to. The silk pulsing heightened my focus on her.

And then, very slowly, my hands moved.

I found myself fastening of my new silk pants and began to work it open — almost instinctually, like they were moving without my command at all.

*Relax,* the silk whispered, and the word slid through me, warm and certain. *Relax.*

I did nothing to stop my hands. I watched them work the fastening, and I let them, and some distant part of me knew I should be alarmed, but the thought was too far away to reach.

The fastening gave. My hand found me — already hard, flushed warm — and began to stroke, slow and steady. She watched, and a bright little laugh escaped her, delighted.

"Inappropriate," she said warmly, like she was scolding something precious. "This is a public store after all."

She watched me a moment longer — my hand moving at her pace, my breath hitching — and then she stepped close, so close I could feel the warmth of her. Her purple eyes were glowing now, brighter than before, bright enough to fill my vision, and I couldn't look away from them.

"I can help you with that," she said softly, and her gloved hand closed over mine.

She was better at it than the silk had been. Slow, then quick, then slow again, her glowing eyes on my face, reading every flicker of me. Alarming thoughts came and went in waves, each one flushed out by the brushing of the silk. "This can't really be happening" I would start to think before thoughts like "Stay" and "Enjoy" overwrote it.

The orgasm built like a tide — slow, warm, irresistible — and when it broke I moaned, and the silk drank it from me. I felt the energy leave my body in a long, aching pull, flowing through the fabric, through her hand, into her.

She giggled with satisfaction. "I'm glad I could help with more than just your outfit," she said, smiling.

She got up and took a step back, clearly satisfied with her work. She looked me over, still smiling, and there was something new in her eyes now — a hunger, warm and unhurried. "You look fantastic in that," she said. "I'd get so many more customers with you out front."

Her eyes glowed, and the glow pulled at something in me. My delightful tingling from my neck. The soft silk touching every part of my body. It all rose up warm through my chest, and the silk whispered — *go to her. Go to her.*

I went. Not forced — guided, body and mind together, my feet carrying me forward of their own accord while the warmth pulled me the rest of the way.

She backed up until the silk-draped wall met her shoulders, and her arms opened for me.

"Good boy," she said softly. "Come."

My silk outfit opened.

The seams parted — not torn, not ruined, just opened, like the silk had decided to expose me. The front of my shirt split, the trousers loosened further, and my bare chest, my stomach, my cock pressed against her. She wore a smooth silk gown that covered every inch of her, and against my bare skin it felt perfect — cool, slick, sliding against me without friction.

I saw it now — thin threads of silk running from the ceiling, the walls, the floor, suspending her at just the right height, so that when my hips pressed into hers, my cock slid against her silk-covered sex and then — inside.

She held me close, arms around my neck, and her hips shifted to take me in fully. "Mmm, you're so gorgeous. I can't wait to show you off at the front" she murmured into my ear.

My hips moved. Faster. Harder. Not at my own pace — at the silk's pace, her pace, her will threaded through the fabric and through me. I fucked her in long, deep strokes, my bare chest sliding against her smooth silk gown, and she held me and talked to me in a soft, contented voice.

"Such a strong jaw. Good shoulders. I'll dress you in the deep green, I think — it'll bring out your eyes. And you'll stand right by the window, where the light catches you." She tilted her head, admiring. "You'll be the one that makes them come in."

The words didn't register as language anymore. They were warmth, rhythm, part of the silk's hold on me. The second climax built behind the first like a wave behind a wave.

"You're going to look so beautiful," she whispered, and I broke.

I came inside her, hard, shaking, and the silk pulled everything out of me — energy, will, self — through my cock and into her body. She shuddered against me, drinking deep, and the orgasm went on until there was nothing left.

She tilted my head back, looked into my unfocused eyes, and kissed me — long and deep. The venom went through me a second time, sinking past the warmth, past the haze, into the places underneath. The places that remembered how to leave.

When she pulled back, I was barely thinking at all, and I was so, so happy.

The clothes moved me again — body and mind together — and I went gladly. The silk walked me across the shop floor, past the racks, past the other mannequins in their perfect poses, and settled me into my spot by the window. My arms lifted, my hands turned, my chin tilted up. The outfit guided me into a pose, and I held it, and it felt right.

She adjusted my cuff once. Stepped back. Admired.

The door chimed as someone new pushed through the silk curtains. "Oh, come in," she called, bright and welcoming. "We're open!"