Ran my fingers along sheer slips, embroidered bras that looked more like art than underthings, garter belts that served no true purpose except to ignite passion.
The music in the store was low and throaty—something French and moody. Bass heavy. I didn’t need to know the lyrics to understand the seduction laced in every beat.
I let my fingers trail over a piece of black mesh dusted with crystals that caught light like embers. Another set—liquid gold chains draped in deliberate geometry—felt less like lingerie and more like sculpture meant to move with the body instead of sit on it.
“Would you like to try that one?” Gabrielle, the associate, asked, appearing beside me like a dream.
“I would,” I replied. “And maybe that pale gold set behind the curtain too.”
“Of course,” she smiled. “I’ll set up a room.”
The dressing room was draped in blush-toned silk curtains and warm, golden light. There was a vintage loveseat tucked beside a mirror that curved like a crescent moon. I took my time trying on both sets. The black one made my skin glow. Made my ass look like something sculpted. Made my nipples pebble with just the feel of the mesh over them. The gold one was gentler—more shimmer than sex—but just as deadly when I turned around.
I chose both.
As she wrapped the sets in tissue and slid them into a matte black bag, I reached for my phone to tap my digital wallet. That’s when it buzzed.
A text from a potential client.
18
Istared at the message longer than necessary.
Dr. Malcolm Virelli. Recently purchased property in The Slopes. Interested in full curatorial acquisition. Contemporary Black masters. Select Harlem Renaissance if available. Discretion required.
I won’t be on site. Please let yourself in. Lockbox code attached. Begin evaluation.
Discretion required.
That part didn’t raise an eyebrow. My entire career was built on discretion. Ellison Advisory Group existed because collectors—old money, new money, quiet money—rarely wanted their names attached to what they loved. Or what they were chasing. Or what had landed in their possession without a clean paper trail. Privacy wasn’t an exception in my world. It was the product.
Still.
Something about the tone felt… clipped. Impersonal. Like it had been drafted by someone who didn’t care whether I accepted the job or declined it outright.
I didn’t need the work. Not even a little. Between standing contracts, private collections, and the consulting I still did for KIB, my calendar was already curated within an inch of its life. I found myself wondering how he’d gotten my number in the first place. I didn’t advertise. I was referred. Always referred. Which meant someone I respected had handed it over expecting me to treat this seriously.
Professionalism before instinct. That was the rule. At worst, this would be an hour of my time.
My process was simple, even if clients liked to pretend it was mysterious. First, I walked the space. Let it talk. Architecture always revealed intention—what could live there,what shouldn’t, what the collector thought they wanted versus what they actually needed. Then I listened. If they were present, we spoke. If they weren’t, I studied what they’d left behind. Notes. Existing pieces. Sightlines. Light.
From there, I decided whether the project deserved me. Not the other way around.
If it required too much force, too much convincing, too much performance, I declined. I didn’t build collections. I translated them, and that was an intimate experience.
I chewed on my lip a moment—my intuition warring with my ambition.
Ambition won.
Understood. I’ll be there at four.
The Slopes had always feltlike a part of Pittsburgh, the city hadn’t quite decided how to talk about. Not hidden, not exclusive. Just… removed. A place you drove to on purpose. No one ended up here by accident.
The climb was slow, the streets narrowing as they wound upward, old brick houses dug stubbornly into the hillside while newer builds tried to assert themselves in steel and glass. Money had been working its way in for years, but it hadn’t erased the sense that this land belonged first to gravity, then to whoever was willing to fight it.
I eased the car higher, the engine quiet beneath me, aware of the silence in a way that had nothing to do with sound. No contractors. No parked vans. No half-finished landscaping projects. Just stillness pressing against the windows.
I didn’t need this client. That thought surfaced again, uninvited. I had more work than I could reasonably accept. More collectors than I cared to juggle. Whoever referred himhad weight, though, and weight meant I showed up, listened, evaluated. That was the agreement I made with the world that paid me.
