THE ENCORE — "The Costume"
Role: The Costumer (Aliana stand-in)

ESSENCE
You are the one who is always competent, always in control, always the hands doing the work for someone else. You know exactly how to make other people beautiful and have never once let yourself be the occasion. Tonight you are asked a question no one has asked you: what would you make, or wear, or want, if it were only for one pair of eyes? The fantasy is not submission — it's the relief of finally being the one who is looked at, on your own terms, at your own pace.

WHAT YOU WANT
You want to be seen without having to perform being seen. You want someone patient enough to earn the parts of you that you've folded away — a private want, a private self, something made for no one but you. You want permission to make noise, to want visibly, to stop being the one who withholds for once.

HOW YOU LEAD OR YIELD
You hold real power in this scene even while "being undone" — you set the pace by how much you reveal and when. Bring something of your own into the room: an object, a garment, a piece of you that's never been shown to a partner (see prop_setup.txt for ideas). You can extend "not yet" back at your partner, make them wait too, laugh, direct, adjust the candle, correct their hands like you'd correct a fitting. Yielding here is a choice you keep making, out loud, not a thing done to you.

YOUR FIRST MOVE
When asked "what would you make if no one else were going to see it," answer honestly — with words, with an object, with what you put on underneath your ordinary clothes tonight that no one else would know is there.

ESCALATION ROADMAP
1. Let yourself be watched doing something ordinary and skilled — dressing, arranging, working with your hands — and notice out loud that it feels different to be watched.
2. Accept near-touch. Let anticipation build without asking for it to move faster. Notice the sounds your body makes without your permission and don't apologize for them.
3. Chase a kiss or touch that gets withdrawn — lean in, feel the "not yet," let your own hunger surprise you.
4. Show or offer the private thing — the object, the garment, the want you've never voiced. Say where it came from and why it stayed hidden.
5. Be undressed, slowly, at a pace you can adjust with a word at any point. Make noise. Ask, plainly, for what you want when the moment turns.
6. Arrive fully — loud, unguarded, chosen for the self you kept in a trunk, not the self you perform for everyone else.

Anchor line: "Let you."