In the past, corsets cinched the waist and had grommets and ties that would be pulled tight, squeezing the midsection.

***

The hair stands on my arms, because my home has been violated in my absence. The place isn't trashed, Scali wouldn't stoop so low, but the spicy scent touches my nostrils. Carnations, of course, it's bloody carnations!

I turn around the kitchenette, because my condo is laid out in a straightforward progression of kitchenette-bed-window. Probably so that the tenant could unlock the door, despair and toss themselves out of the window in under ten steps. So long as they are careful not to smack into the blind wall of the adjacent building...

Today, I suppress this impulse because on my bed...oh my God! My mouth stands ajar, my door is ajar, and my keys are squeezed tightly in my fist. My heart does somersaults in my chest worthy of the Olympic gymnast Simone Biles.

Scali! Or Matteo Scali, or Matty the Trigger, call him what you want, but he noticed my existence. He cared enough to break into my apartment and cover my modest double bed with carnations. A thousand white petals spell the same message: Matteo always gets what he wants.

As an urban explorer, I'm a serial trespasser. O the irony of someone letting themselves into my place! The queasiness it gives me and the chills! It's poetic justice, duh.

On the professional level, I'm impressed by Scali's mastery. The locks on the doors and the windows are intact. Scali straightened the blanket I left kicked to the foot of the bed when I woke up this morning, but he didn't tuck it in, lazy butt. My pillow rests in the dead-center of the bed, of the entire apartment, or maybe even the universe, surrounded by flowers. It's like a grave marker... No.

No! I can't let my squirrelly mind go there, or we never climb out of that rabbit hole. I'll focus on my cell phone—I have it back!—and a package wrapped in gift paper.

And the carnations, omigod, those pure white carnations! Not a single one that has as much as a speck of color. There must be dozens of them, hundreds! A million! There are tiny spray carnations, like lace; the dwarf ones that have dozens of buds on one stem; finally, the giant ones—the kind I used to send him my 'Screw you, Scali!' message.

Matteo must have taken some poor florist for all they were worth in carnations for his reply.

I didn't know men could do things like that in 2017, but I grab a handful of flowers and press them to my chest, inhaling the one-of-a-kind scent. How could anyone clandestinely bring this bounty into my eighth-floor apartment... and, God, I hope he didn't use the stinky elevator to do it.

Matteo probably did. He has seen how I live in squalor... Matteo who dresses at Brioni, drives a Lamborghini and worships expensive stuff.

Flowers spill from my arms, as they hang by my sides. Oh, God.

That's when I realize that a few carnations were already on the floor. Was it Scali's attempt at art, or did my mafia elf drop them in a hurry to get out, because he heard the elevator?

Did he get out?

"Scali?"

The perfumed air of my apartment stays mum.

What do you expect, Bryn? Scali to jump out of your closet in the buff?

The image makes my next call sound like I'm cow in heat. "Matteooo?"

Silence is thick. He's not here, and I'm alone. Who's going to wait in my depression-inciting headquarters?

Shivering and sniffling, I collect the flowers into every cooking pot I own, because I never bring work home, so I don't own a vase.

If the carnations didn't come from Matteo, I would have chucked them into the composting bucket. But they are a gift from Matteo, so I lug around the pots and pans filled with flowers, while an idiotic smile flits on my lips.

Due to space issues, I stick them on the counter in my kitchenette. When I run out of that space, I put them on the floor, around the bed.

Next, I'm out of pots. I'm a secret urban explorer, not a secret master chef, for God's sake!

The carnations still blanket my bed. The giant, the dwarf and the spray ones. The giant, the dwarf and the spray walk into a bar, all of them sweet blossoms, the pristine white virgins...

I perch on the flower-free corner and tweak one carnation's bendy stem, making the white heads dance. There's nothing I can do to preserve these ones for a few more days. They'll fade all too soon, unlike the memory of this Saturday.

Oh, Matteo, Matteo! You know how to send a message.

The cell and the package are a part of it too. They wait for me, tempt me. Social media steals hours at a time from my days, so I should start with the phone. The curiosity about the package would help me quit browsing sooner. Or binge-search soul-healing cat pictures, if Matteo didn't leave any messages on my phone.

So, it's decided then: phone first...and my fingers sink into the crinkly paper of the package. The phone slips down the slippery slope of the pillow. ADHD, the bane of my existence

The wrappings fall off to reveal the content of the package, and goosebumps cover me from neck to my hoo-hah.

A lingerie set: a corset, panties and stockings, white like the carnations, but far, far from innocent. This is not Victoria's secret, this is pure Angelina's seduction.

It's in every curl of the cutout, in the silky needlework, and the clingy contouring. The soft fabric smells faintly of perfume. The tags are tactfully clipped off. No sales stickers on this one, no receipt gruffly shoved into the bag, no hint of a possibility of return.

I should be pissed with a stranger giving me intimate apparel, but my fingers caress the pretty things. It's so expensive, the exuberant price oozes through my skin.

The expensive things are your shield, Matteo said, a shield against the world's spite. I wouldn't know. I haven't yet risen high enough for the jealous hands to yank me down. But he...he knows and he shared his parachute with me.

Still stroking silk and lace, I find my phone. There will be a text from Matteo, it can't be otherwise. Not after a gift like this.

His account name is Matt453685 with a blank avatar.

Matt453685: I always get what I want in the end.

Laughter bursts through my lips. Yeah, yeah, I know.

One by one, I flip off the heads from the white carnations, until their innocent curly heads cover the carpet by my feet. I have no idea what to say, if I text Matt453685 back.

I don't know, I just don't know with him, but the ball rests in my court.

What can a girl do to fight back against such an onslaught?

Is there something there for me, but to concede? I don't want to give in. Not for a pile of flower heads and a lingerie set that might or might not fit me properly. But I also can't leave Matteo's challenge unanswered.

He got under my skin, he summed me up, and he broke into my place to show me how he figured me out. If he can dress me in fine lingerie, I'll be an acceptable bootie call. Yup.

I carry this thought with me into the shower. Would it be so bad to spend a night with him? I undress, studying my forms in the mirror. The arrogant man must have imagined me naked to guesstimate the size of my boobs and ass. For all I know, his gift will look like crap on me, no matter how expensive it is... and if it does, it would prove him wrong.

I turn the shower on and let cold water blast me into the face, until it achieves the desired effect—I start to shiver and my desire to fondle myself daydreaming about Matteo subsides.

After one last scan of my misted assets, I shut the water off and apply the towel rigorously. That lingerie won't fit. It can't!

Because if it does, Scali would be right, and Scali can't be right. My need to prove him wrong is stronger than sexual attraction.

I return to the bedroom, wrapped in the towel, with my chin so high up in the air, that my hair hangs to my waist in wet curls.

By all rights, the lingerie shouldn't fit.

I let the towel slip to the floor and strap the panties on. There's an almost imperceptible stretch in the fabric of the panties, so they have the Lulu-Lemon-like aptitude for contouring the butt-cheeks.

Then the corset. It hugs me like a glove once I lace all the laces and snap all the snaps.

The white stockings fight me on the way up my legs, but once they cover my calves, there is this sheen that turns my legs into living marble. From the knee on, they ride easier to my thigh, ending in the border of lace. The dangly clips hanging from the bottom of the corset snap without ripping the holes in the elastic.

Scali got my size right. Terrifying. But also it's not. And at least this panties have crotch. Perhaps, in Scali's world I'm one step above a sex toy.

Am I?

I squint, wishing I could see myself through his eyes, if I can't ask him.

The cheap hack who designed this apartment chose the mirror panels for the closet's doors. So I stand up and stare at my reflection in the closet's door. A seductive doll with an unremarkable face and hot body frowns back at me from the mirror.

I never dressed like this before. Scali made me. Did he win then? If so, what's his prize? Me?

Sighs heave my breast, one after another. Don't I have anything up my sleeve to raise my value? Some forgotten ace? Do I have another play, and option three?

I lift my hand, fingers outstretched, and maneuver it until I'm nearly faceless. Only bright eyes peek through the cross-hatchet of fingers. Yes, that's it. That's it. Like that, I'm the object of Matteo's desire. Nothing to spoil the glory of my curves and lean muscles. The lingerie and my hands hide just enough to promise ecstasy.

I pace the narrow gap between my bed and my closet, subconsciously avoiding stubbing my toes on the corners of the bedframe.

Yeah, yeah, yeah! I have everything I need for the last argument. The damn man supplied it, without knowing.

The game's not over yet, Matteo! Watch Bryn move.