The boutique was on Fifth Avenue, the kind where a single dress cost more than my monthly rent. I’d been dragged there by my mother and my new stepmother—Richard’s wife, Linda—who thought that a “girls’ day out” would help us bond.
I was twenty-four. My stepsister, Sloane, was twenty-six. We’d been avoiding each other since the wedding, since the moment I’d caught her looking at me across the reception hall with an expression that had nothing to do with sisterhood.
Linda had left us in the fitting room area with her best friend, Patricia, who worked as a personal shopper. “Try on the red one,” Linda had called out. “It’s perfect for the gala.”
The red dress was perfect. And perfectly impossible to zip without help.
I was in the fitting room—the large one at the end, with a three-way mirror and a velvet curtain that didn’t quite close all the way. The zipper was stuck at the base of my spine, my back exposed, my reflection showing a woman who looked like she was about to make a terrible mistake.
Sloane appeared in the mirror behind me. She didn’t knock. Didn’t ask. Just stepped into the fitting room and pulled the curtain almost shut.
“It won’t zip,” I whispered, though we both knew the zipper wasn’t the problem. “And your mother’s best friend is right outside the curtain.”
Sloane didn’t speak. She just placed her hands on my waist, her fingers warm against my bare skin, and slowly pulled the zipper up. Tooth by tooth. Inch by inch. Her knuckles brushing my spine, her breath hot against the back of my neck, her face reflected in the mirror with an expression that was completely predatory.
When she reached the top, she didn’t step back. She turned me around by the waist, her hands sliding to my ribs, her thumbs brushing the underside of my breasts through the silk.
“She saw the curtain move,” I breathed. My heart was hammering. The gap in the velvet was an inch wide—enough to show the shadow of Patricia’s heels outside, enough to let light in, enough to expose us if she looked closely. “She’s going to pull it back any second.”
Sloane leaned in. Kissed my cheek. Her lips were soft, warm, completely at odds with the violence I could see in her eyes. She pulled back just enough to look at me, her hand sliding from my waist to the front of my dress, finding the neckline, dipping inside.
The curtain twitched.
“Everything alright in there?” Patricia’s voice. Muffled by the velvet, but close. Too close. “Need another size? Different color?”
Sloane didn’t remove her hand. She just pushed it deeper inside my dress, finding my breast, my nipple, pinching hard enough to make me gasp. She pressed her mouth against my ear, her lips moving silently against my skin before she whispered:
“Hold still. She can’t see in. And if you make a sound, I’ll stop. But you don’t want me to stop, do you?”
I bit my lip. Hard. Sloane’s fingers rolled my nipple between her thumb and forefinger, her other hand sliding down my back to pull the zipper back down. The dress fell open at the front, held up only by her hands, my breasts exposed to the mirror and the gap in the curtain and the shadow that was Patricia.
“We’re fine!” I managed, my voice high, strange, completely unlike my own. “Just… adjusting the fit!”
“Take your time, honey!” Patricia’s footsteps moved away. The shadow retreated.
Sloane didn’t wait. She pushed me back against the mirror—the cold glass against my bare back, her mouth on my neck, her hands inside my dress, pulling the red silk down until it pooled at my waist. She kissed my collarbone, my shoulder, the place where my neck met my jaw, each kiss leaving a mark that the dress would hide but I would feel for days.
“Turn around,” she whispered.
I did. I pressed my hands against the mirror, my breasts reflected in triplicate, my face flushed and desperate. Sloane dropped to her knees. She pulled my underwear down—slowly, deliberately, her eyes watching mine in the mirror. And then she put her mouth on me from behind, her tongue finding me with a precision that made my knees buckle against the glass.
I came with my palm pressed against the mirror, my reflection showing a woman who was completely undone, and Sloane’s blonde head buried between my legs from behind. The orgasm was sharp, devastating, completely silent—swallowed by the fitting room, by the velvet curtain, by the boutique that was too expensive to care what happened in its private rooms.
After, she zipped me up. Fixed my hair. Kissed my cheek one more time—a soft, almost sisterly peck that was completely at odds with what she’d just done.
“You should buy this dress,” she said, her first words since entering. “It looks good on you. And every time you wear it, you’ll remember my mouth on you.”
I bought the dress. I wore it to the gala. Linda said I looked beautiful. Patricia said the fit was perfect.
Sloane didn’t attend. She texted me a photo from the fitting room—the mirror, my handprints on the glass, my face in the reflection. She’d taken it while I was coming, while I was completely lost, while I was hers.
I still have the photo. It’s my lock screen. And every time I wear the red dress, I remember exactly how it felt to be unzipped by my stepsister while the world shopped outside.
