Bespoke

by Megan McFerren

  "Do I––"

  "I can recommend an excellent shop for them if you don't."

  Vance stares at Ethan, astounded.

  "No," he says finally. The younger man clicks his tongue, makes another note.

  "Seems like an oversight but can't account for taste even if you have money, I suppose."

  "No," Vance repeats, "I do not want a Christmas red tie. Nor do I want a Tiffany blue suit. You didn't once ask me my preferences when I came in."

  "I don't need to."

  "You don't." Vance bites his lip, releasing it with a slow breath. He wonders if he is perhaps in the middle of a cosmic joke, something so ridiculous that no one would believe should he even attempt to tell it. No. This is too much. A man who denounces proven and age-old style, who claims to sew better than men who make tens of thousands per suit, a man who wants to put Vance in Tiffany Blue in 2015––

  No.

  Enough is enough, for any man.

  He turns to go.

  "Excuse me."

  "Thank you for your time, Mr. Adler," Vance says carefully, turning just enough to be polite. "It has been most enlightening. I bid you a good day."

  There's a little snort of amusement, enough that Vance pivots a stitch more towards the sound of it.

  "Evening," Ethan says. Vance blinks. "Good evening at this point, really, but never mind. You'll need to come in again so I can check it on you, so I can't just send it to your hotel. If you don't have a number for the US, I can just call there and have them let you know when it's ready. Where are you staying?"

  It's enough. It's too much, in fact, and with an acrid spite alight on his tongue, Vance tells him the name. Let him make the monstrous thing, if he insists on it. Let him waste his time and learn the penalty for being so shockingly rude.

  "And your name?" Ethan asks, jotting down the hotel on his little notepad.

  "Vance Hayes."

  He sounds out the name and writes that down as well, seemingly blithe to the irritation all but humming in Vance's veins. Pencil behind his ear, Ethan turns and offers his hand, and something like a smile.

  "Give me a few days, and I'll give you a call when it's ready." He squints a little, and then his verdant eyes open wide and he nods once. "Definitely Tiffany blue. With the amount of work I've got in right now, it'd usually take me longer but––"

  "But?"

  "I'm eager to get started," Ethan answers, lowering his hand back to his side when it's not taken, and shrugging into a crooked smile. A dusky blush warms beneath his eyes. "It's best not to fight inspiration when it strikes."

  Vance just watches him, the smiles, the pliancy of his body when before he had been uptight and less amicable. He is too tired to parse through the possibilities of the meaning behind it all, so he doesn't bother, just nods.

  "So I've heard." A moment more and Vance sighs, rolling his shoulders and nodding once. "Good evening, Mr. Adler."

  "Mr. Hayes."

  Vance doesn't correct the title.

  "It's easier to get cabs a block over. There's a no stopping zone over most of this street."

  "Thank you." Vance hesitates a moment more before sighing and taking his leave. He just wants to go to his hotel, take a hot shower and remember what it feels like to not smell like recycled air, fall into bed and not wake up until he absolutely must.

  At least when he wakes, this entire nightmare will be behind him.

  chapter two

  Ethan can't help but watch him go. Rising to his toes a little as the bell clangs behind the closing door, he lets his eyes follow the contours of Vance's long legs, all too briefly felt during their measurement. He looks higher, then, to the pert curve of his ass, along the sweep of his lower back and its graceful arch up to the broad swell of his shoulders. Ethan allows himself the guilty pleasure of imagining Vance unbuttoning his jacket and working loose his tie; how the lines of his body would appear as he spreads across his stomach in bed, bare.

  Despite his industry, it's a surprising and rare delight to see a handsome man in a fine suit. He sees men. He sees suits. But there is a man, now taking a particularly long lean into a cab so as not to step in what remains of a pigeon, who cares as much about his own body and behavior as his clothing. Neurotic, perhaps––no, not perhaps. He is certainly that, but it isn't as if he hasn't earned the privilege. Ethan watches Vance sweep a hand through ashen hair and rest his elbow against the door of the taxi before thinking better of it.

  He doesn't look back and is soon gone. In his wake, the combination of two extraordinary specimens such as Vance Hayes and a Desmond Merrion sends a prickle of goosepimples up the back of Ethan's neck. He brings his hand to his own hair to ease away the feeling, but finds that his heart doesn't yet settle.

  Ethan can't wait to begin work on an even finer suit for Vance.

  He can't wait to see Vance again.

  He considers the suit on the table in the back room, another bespoke piece but hardly as inspired as this one will be. He is almost done, finishing up some intricate hemming because Ethan can never let a suit go if it is just a suit. Once he's finished, however…

  Ethan stretches his arms over his head with a groan and checks the time. In truth, he had been closed when Vance had come in, Thursday being an early evening for him, but he finds he hardly cares that the man had walked in anyway. Quite the opposite. Now, though, he goes to lock the door, to put up the closed sign and tug the curtains over the little window on the front door.

  Then he goes back to his sewing room.

  This suit will not be as simple as a trip to Mood. He could, of course, find good fabric there—it's hardly a place to snort at—but something pulls Ethan away from his usual haunt to something finer. Elegant Fabrics on West 40th maybe. Or Rosen and Chaddick. In his mind, he already has the suit entirely envisioned. He can picture just how it will sit, how the colors will complement Vance's skin tone, brighten his eyes, beautifully dark as they are. As Ethan settles to the machine again, he allows the form to unfold, seeing the origami pattern he will put together from swathes of fabric.

  He considers the lining.

  He considers the shirt.

  The pocket square. The tie. The way Vance's skin will be able to breathe without feeling swaddled. He will be beautiful. He already is beautiful, but this suit will elevate him. It will elevate Ethan by proxy. He'll prove that Vance's doubts were unfounded and that he needn't spend fifty-thousand pounds for the sake of neurosis.

  Ethan charges far less for his.

  He spends the night at work finishing the previous commission and can hardly sleep what few hours remain after, waking up again and again to take down notes and sketch. In the morning, Ethan waits outside the fabric store and nurses a blue and white cup of coffee from the corner store until they open. The security gate finally rattles upward with a bang, and with glasses slipping down his nose, Ethan greets the owner and ducks inside as the lights flicker to life.

  Finishing his coffee in one long, lukewarm gulp, he surveys the terrain. Endless rows of fabric span before him, floor to ceiling bolts and folds and colors and textures. Half the stock is upholstery. Half of what remains is crap. Ethan shrugs his shoulder bag higher and goes directly forward, seeking out remainder vintage fabrics. It's a bold move, considering that the fabrics in that section must be tended carefully due to their age, and their finite quantity means that any mistake could be catastrophic. But never was anything great achieved without risk.

  Ethan's heart hangs in his throat with enthusiasm.

  Swift fingers fly across bolts of fabric, seeking out beneath, behind, pulling loose rolls to set aside. He knows what he wants. He knows it must exist, an irrational but wild certainty that there can be no other way. Wool speckles static against his arms, sleeves shoved up to his elbows. Ethan's hair stands on end from excitement as much as electricity. His fingers stop, arm shoved deep into a shelf. He pulls carefully.

  Suiting in a blend of wool, alpaca and––Ethan fixes his tongue betw
een his teeth as he pulls the bolt loose…

  "Mohair," he whispers, cradling the fabric in his arms as if it were an infant. Robin's egg blue, a touch greyer due to the blend than the aquamarine Tiffany he'd originally imagined, but one can't be faulted for the movement of Fate. And what else could it be? For him to find a discontinued material in this tone that will sit even more cleanly against cream, brought to life by bright red, by the man who will be radiant in it, warm enough for winter in London wherein he will appear as a flower blossoming in the snow.

  There is just enough weight in his arms, he knows, for the suit and waistcoat. Just enough if his work is exacting to Vance's measurements and absolutely without error. Ethan only just resists a laugh, and he wonders if this is how warriors feel arming for battle.

  Rather than carrying it around, he reserves it immediately at the front desk, confirming that he does, indeed, want the entire length there. Then he heads off towards the silks. Something light enough and warm enough that it will feel entirely effortless, with enough weight to not bunch or crush when the man moves.

  Ethan closes his eyes as he chooses this one, because as much as color is important, it has to feel right, it has to be just the perfect smoothness without the shine. Ethan lingers on two, finds one to be a rich rust orange, a color he would usually immediately grab, but not for this. The other, to Ethan's dismay, is emerald green. He laughs, a single breathed note. Fate is sometimes kind, but Fate is hardly one for easy outs and quick answers.

  He regards the fabric before him a moment longer, tugs down a few bolts that match the color he wants. Still nothing. Still not the vision he has in his head.

  So Ethan turns to the silk blends next. He faces a daunting wall of ivory, cream, off-white, slightly-less-off-white, eggshell, ecru, on and on and on until he presses his fingers to his eyes and just sees darkness with spots of light instead. Humming into his palms, Ethan sighs long and thinks of the orange again.

  No. Much too daring for someone already opposed to blue.

  He chooses a cream with shimmery undertones of gold, sleek against skin and smooth against linen. If it's seen, it will flatter with its movement, rather than a showy color. Ethan seeks out a large cut of fabric for the shirt in turn that will parallel the lining. From side to side, he crosses the store, again and again, checking each alone and together in different lights, laying them against his woolen holy grail of blue. Piece by piece, it comes together. He spends half an hour seeking through buttons for the perfect beige horn. He spends another half with his fingers pressed against the bridge of his nose selecting just the right subtle pattern for the pocket square, which then has to be coordinated to the tie that he's elected to make as well.

  In a few days. It will take him, he said, a few days.

  Bold moves, indeed.

  Ethan sets his hands to the counter to steady them as his purchases are rung up and bagged. A yellow cab caught outside zips him downtown again, and he doesn't bother to swap the sign on the door to open, instead locking the door behind and delving into his workspace. Switching on the lights, he forces himself to slow his breath and behind closed eyes imagines how Vance will appear when he sees the suit and cannot help but smile.

  He pulls over the form, sliding three colors of tape onto his wrist as he turns the knobs to adjust the suit form to the measurements he had taken. First, the shirt. It will be what rests against Vance's skin, the first thing he feels when he puts this suit on. It has to be perfect. It has to lie against him like a second skin.

  Ethan allows his hands to run over the form. He imagines that Vance has hair where his fingers follow across a wide chest. Warm and thick enough to be worth a handful, dark but not black. Ethan shivers, shaking one of the tapes from his wrist to start marking out the pattern. Vance is broad-shouldered and strong, though––Ethan bites his lip as he settles the tape straight against the torso––not overly muscular. He is comfortable, caring enough for his appearance without falling into stupidity.

  At least, Ethan hopes not.

  He follows Vance's shoulders with his palms, leaving a trail of tape in his wake. Smooth skin, always a little warmer than most, with the hint of golden sun within. Up to his throat, gracefully stretched with a chin uplifted in careless pride, Ethan sees where the collar will align crisp to the angle of his jaw. Buttons down the center to a stomach soft to the touch but with a secret strength. Ethan imagines that Vance is strong enough that he need not show it by carving out his body to muscular definition.

  Mark by mark, careful cut by careful cut, Ethan begins to compose the clear melody of the man before him, and the suit that will be his symphony.

  His hips jut, pointed sharp and pulled in narrow; Ethan was surprised by the measurement when he took it, and secretly delighted to discover that the bespoke suit he wore to the appointment was cut a fraction too wide. Vance does not need his curves and angles balanced, he needs them emphasized with subtlety. A suit should flatter the beauty of the form that wears it, whatever its shape, not compensate for variations outside the unrealistic norm.

  Ethan lets his hands rest where Vance will bring up his trousers in the morning, laying smooth along lean legs. When he kneels to pin up the cuffs, he resists a torrid little sound, despite being alone, with the thought of kneeling before such a refined man as Vance Hayes. He lifts his eyes, watching upward above his glasses, imagining a bulge within the confines of the trousers that Ethan now makes.

  His cock aches in response, coiling tight up into his belly that roils not in hunger for food––despite the hours and hours passed in a daze––but for satisfaction of another sort entirely.

  Ethan forces himself to stand, to stretch the kinks out of his spine, to arch back until he groans from the pleasure. It has been too long without a partner, without any warm body near him at all that wasn't one of his dogs at home. Ethan misses the contact, he misses that intimacy and closeness with another person. Or so he tells himself; Ethan is honestly prepared to accept that it is merely his body responding to a very attractive man in a very attractive suit who is hard––no, not hard, impossible––to get.

  Ethan snorts when instead the thought surfaces: perhaps he wants to be gotten?

  No. Chances are that one Vance Hayes has his partner of choice already, and those chances are much higher of that partner being a woman than anyone like Ethan Adler.

  Reluctantly––knowing he won't last much longer without some sort of sustenance, even if that just happens to be several cups of coffee––Ethan leaves the pattern pinned to the form and steps back. He'll have to close up shop, go home to tend to the dogs, force himself to sleep before he can return to this once more—

  Or.

  Or he could get something to eat now, phone it in and pick it up and bring back enough to have leftovers. Hell, he could get it delivered. He could make coffee. He could stretch his legs and walk off his energy, feed the dogs and come back and pull an all-nighter.

  Ethan's got the phone in his hand before he thinks twice about it. Shouldering it to his ear, he dumps stale grounds into a filter to start the coffee machine as well, stationed at a back table safely away from his work areas. If he's only got a few days to do this, Ethan's going to get it done.

  It doesn't hurt to think of seeing Vance again so soon, either.

  He pays for food and finishes two cups of coffee. It's enough to keep him going until the streets outside begin to fill with the noise of weekend revelers. Beneath his fingers form folds and creases, steady seams laid in place by his beloved machine when there is need to keep them perfectly straight, and by his hands when a more particular delicacy or flourish is required. Ethan hand-stitches the parts that will lay closest to Vance and be the most visible against his neck and against his wrists, at the front of the jacket that already, even pinned together, sings with promise.

  Before midnight, he goes out for a quick walk, twenty minutes by foot further south. All three dogs, though he's only supposed to have one, bound to him at the door, a
nd he greets each in turn, scooping up the littlest and wiggliest of them to carry into the kitchen. His walk out is shared with them to tend to their business, to play a bit in the park, and it's past midnight when Ethan returns.

  His thoughts begin to wander as the hours reset and grow in number once more towards dawn.

  So long as he bears in mind that his interest will not be reciprocated, as it was not when he tried weakly to flirt during the appointment, there's no harm in imagining, right?

  Ethan circles the suit on the form slowly, two pins between his lips, arms crossed with the countless more in the pincushion on his wrist. He considers the lines and how the shadows will fall, he considers the way it will move and how it will complement the Vance's form. He removes the jacket and begins pinning the vest, one foot curled around the long leg of his stool as the other jiggles against the floor.

  All the stitching is done in pearl-white, just enough to see were one to look closely, not enough to bring attention to the work from an unpracticed eye. It is subtle, the pinstripes he will create in the final design will be just the same. Beauty in subtlety, exquisite craftsmanship and patience. A suit that is entirely one of a kind.

  Ethan peels the vest from the form with a soft sigh, imagining he is undressing, instead, the man he made this for. Perhaps Vance will let him when he returns for the suit. Perhaps he will stand just there, by the mirrors, and allow Ethan to work open his buttons, to take the jacket from him to hang up, to slide the vest from his shoulders, to press his palms to his warm chest before he—

  Ethan shivers, moans, and takes a deliberate walk around his studio before returning to sit before the machine and make quick work of the seaming.

  He hardly has to think, now, when the shape of the suit and the body for which it's made are so clear in his mind. It's as though Ethan is watching himself work, pieces assembled with effortless detail and precise care. The pocket that will rest above Vance's heart. The square that will fluff from it and stand luminous as flame against the blue backdrop. Ethan imagines the sleek material removed from its home and folded thrice, set against his eyes and tied behind.