<hr/><div class="floatleft">(http://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/8/89/Onnecamug1.jpg)</div><br/><strong>Name:</strong>Onneca de Goni<br/><strong>Faction:</strong>Unknown<br/><strong>Date:</strong>June 2, 1875<br/><strong>Time of Day:</strong>Morning<br/><strong>Location:</strong>Bodega de Goni<br/><strong>Tagged:</strong>Agatha<br/><hr/><br/>Still Onneca was smiling. She canted her head as if to inquire what was bothering Agatha, but let it drop. Aggy would share when she wanted to. As a friend, Onneca could do better than to trudge up painful memories and expose unhealed wounds. She could perhaps take Aggy's mind off of these things that troubled her. They could have fun, like they used to do. "You are the smartest person I know," she said with a sudden puff of confidence that was rare in a wallflower tailor, not even quantifying Aggy as the smartest<em>woman, </em>so long as there were no men to take offense. There rarely were, in the bodega. "You could be a member, if it is what you want."<br/><br/>She took a stroll around Aggy to see her from all angles, a tailor's privilege. It didn't help to get a clear mental image of the woman's body, and it would only get worse from here. It was easier to remember her as she had been, and their curiosity as just a childish thing. Being faced with the Venus she had become was going to make Onneca sweat. "Have you been fit before?" She had to ask, though it rarely mattered. Those ten percent of times when the answer was yes, no woman could be made to recall the numbers, or else made to admit them. "We can take your measure in the back room, mi estudio. It is private."<br/><br/>So coolly, she slipped a long pink streamer of measuring tape over her narrow but firm gardener's shoulders. She had done this hundreds of times with local women and girls of all ages, visitors swept in by the railroad, even the occasional man, and it had long since lost any meaning to wrap a length of tape around a human body and feel a heartbeat pick up just slightly beneath her fingers. She had assured ladies of her professional discretion, and most were comforted to learn that she could take these measurements over a dress and corset, that there was no need to strip down. This would be the first time in months that she felt any kind of anxiety taking a measurement. There was a sense that she wasn't the only one.<br/><br/>Hauntedly she led the way back through the privacy curtain into her secret room. The light that came in along the ceiling and from a single lamp was soft and dim next to the bright light of the bodega, a moody little retreat. Rounded mirrors were poised so that a woman could admire herself, but in each of them was Onneca with her eyes fixated on Agatha's reflection. The colors, bold and vibrant on linen of the most luxurious quality, stood silent vigil on wooden mannequins in every alcove. It was a museum of dresses too upsettingly beautiful to be soiled by a human body. Perhaps they had never intended to be worn, or perhaps they were made for some future Queen of California. Onneca tossed a canvas over one of them, unfinished, so that Agatha would not see it.<br/><br/>When the curtain fell closed, the privacy was as much as a woman could hope for in a place like Gomorra. It suggested a place where a woman ought to slip from her corset and become as freely feminine as the half-clothed mannequins all around. It slipped Onneca's mind to tell Agatha that her patterns called for measurements over the clothes; that it wasn't uncommon for a 20 inch difference between waist and hips to be recorded in the books. In fact, she turned her back to Agatha and all the mirrors that might embarrass her, and allowed an unlimited window of time for her friend to disrobe down to her knickers and chemise. There was no premeditation or malice to the way Onneca did this- it simply slipped her mind, as though perhaps it were meant to happen this way, God willing.<br/><br/>"Do you know what you would like, senorita?" There was a playful little chirp in her voice, as though she were playing at meeting Agatha for the first time, a professional woman to her discerning customer. "You have a light frame that looks so nice in lines that flow down the body." Still her back was turned, not peeking until Agatha permitted her. "If we accent your hips, it will complement your long legs. I am excited to start, you are so pretty. You are just perfect for fashion."