We open on a bedroom, the woman seated cross-legged on her bed, a pair of silky pantyhose in her upturned palms. Her eyes are closed, her face an expression of questioning, anticipatory curiosity as she brings the nylon to her face.

She breathes in, and the memory fills every sense; the delicate top notes of her perfume, joining the more intimate notes of three days’ wear. Whenever she breathes deeply, it takes her back there – to the giggles, the secrets, the desires she never actually voiced.

She slides her fingers over the pantyhose’s seams, imagining curves where it held milky thighs. She presses the material to her face, feeling the softness and its faint warmth.

At the sound of footsteps knocking on her door, the woman stuffs the pantyhose under her pillow, ready to tell her friend she was scratching her nose, or ready to admit her guilty pleasure and keep a door shut to fear, loneliness and the ghosts of past guilt.