I needed a suit for a wedding in November and I left it far too late, which is how I ended up in a back street tailor's on a wet Thursday with a man who looked at me like he had been waiting all week for exactly this.
You would have liked it. Actually, you would have wanted to be him, and by the end of this you will know why.
Why I walked into a tailor's in my work trousers
Straight off a job. Dust on my forearms, paint on my knees, boots I could not be bothered to wipe. I am self-employed, so nobody tells me when to knock off, and I had one hour between a bathroom refit and a quote across town. A smarter man would have gone home and changed. I have never claimed to be that man.
The bell went over the door. The place smelled of steam, chalk and old wool. He looked up from the counter, took in the dust, the shoulders and the fact that I did not apologise for either, and put his pen down. Slowly. Good start.
I told him what I wanted. Navy, slim through the leg, room across the chest because I am not squeezing years of training into a jacket cut for someone who has never lifted anything heavier than a pen. He said of course, sir, and did not write a single word of it down.
The first thing a tailor does is look
He walked a full circle around me before he touched anything. I stood there and let him, arms folded, boots planted, enjoying it more than I should. Some men look at you to check the fit. This one looked like he was reading me, one slow line at a time, and I could feel exactly where his eyes stopped.
I am used to being looked at. Gym, site, the pub on a Friday. But there is a difference between being looked at and being studied, and he had the patience of a man who did this for a living and a lot of confidence for someone about to be told what to do.
So I told him. Stand where you are, I said, and keep your hands where I can see them. He smiled at the floor like I had passed a test I did not know I was setting.
A measuring tape, a quiet room and a lot of shoulder
The shop went quiet when he closed the front door and turned the sign. No customers, no radio, just the tick of an old clock and the sound of him breathing a little too carefully. He put the tape around my chest and pulled it tight enough that I felt it, then looked up at me and did not say the number.
Shoulders next. He had to reach, and he took his time about it, flattening the cloth with both palms and smoothing it out long after it had stopped needing it. I stayed completely still. I wanted him to work for every inch, and I wanted you, wherever you are reading this, to picture how little I helped him.
Arms out, he said. I gave him one arm. He waited, very politely, for the other one. I made him wait a bit longer than that.
The inside leg question every man gets asked
Then came the part you have been waiting for. He crouched down in front of me, tape in one hand, chalk in the other, and asked me to stand with my feet apart. Not wide. Just enough. I did as I was told, which is not something I do often, and I want you to remember that I only did it because I chose to.
Inside leg, he said, and his voice had dropped half a note. He started low, at the ankle, and worked his way up with the back of his fingers pressing the tape against the seam, steady and unhurried. The wool was warm from the radiator. So was I. Neither of us was thinking about trousers.
He measured it once and wrote it down. Then he measured it again. I looked down at the top of his head and asked if he wanted to check it a third time, and the silence that followed was the best part of my week.
What I decided while he was down there
People think the one on his knees has the least power in the room. You know better. You have knelt before, or you want to, and you know exactly who is deciding how long it lasts. I let him believe he was in charge of the tape. I was in charge of everything else.
I could have ended it there. Paid the deposit, shaken his hand, gone off to my quote. Instead I put one hand on the counter beside him and told him to take his time, because I was in no hurry at all. He laughed, quietly, and for the first time since I walked in he did not look up.
There is a particular kind of hunger in a man who knows he is being allowed something. It is polite on the surface and completely desperate underneath, and I will never get bored of watching it. I could smell the chalk on his fingers and he could smell the job on me, and neither of us pretended we minded.
Come back Thursday and bring your patience
When he finally stood up his collar was a little crooked and his tape was a mess. He said the suit would take two fittings. I said I was free Thursday, same time, and that he should lock the door earlier next time. He wrote it in the diary with a hand that was not quite steady, and I walked out into the rain feeling about ten feet tall.
That is the thing about me. I will always leave you wanting the next appointment. If you have ever stood in a quiet room waiting for somebody to tell you what happens next, you already know whose voice you are hearing, and you already know how this one ends if I am the one who decides.
This is only the public side of me, the side I can write down where anyone can read it. There is a lot more of me, unfiltered, waiting for you on OnlyFans and Fansly, and I would love to see you there. Come on in. I will not make you wait. Well, not for long.