The theater was a converted warehouse in the Arts District, the kind with exposed brick and a stage that creaked and dressing rooms that were closets with mirrors. I’d been cast as the lead in Dangerous Liaisons — a community production that was supposed to be my big break. What I hadn’t known was that my costume designer was going to be my undoing.
Sloane was the designer. Twenty-eight. She’d worked on Broadway, off-Broadway, and every regional theater in between. She wore black fitted tops and had a measuring tape permanently around her neck, and she had a habit of fitting me herself — “the corset is tricky,” she’d say. “It needs a personal touch.”
Tonight was opening night. The house was full. The director was on stage giving notes. And I was in my dressing room, in the corset and skirt, sitting on the makeup stool while Sloane stood behind me.
“The director is on stage,” I whispered, looking at her in the mirror. My corset was already tight — too tight, making it hard to breathe. Sloane’s hands were inside it, adjusting the stays, her fingers brushing my skin. “Curtain is in ten minutes. The audience is seated. The orchestra is tuning up. And your hands are on my corset, not the laces. You’re supposed to be tightening the stays. Not sliding your palms over my ribs. Not pressing your thumbs into my spine. Not—”
Sloane didn’t speak. She just leaned down, her cheek brushing my bare shoulder, her hands sliding around to the front of the corset, finding the edge, dipping inside.
“If the stage manager walks in,” I breathed, my voice trembling as her fingers found my breast, “she’ll see the costume designer with her hands inside the lead actress’s corset. She’ll see your measuring tape on the floor and your mouth on my neck and the vanity bulbs showing everything and she’ll know that the show is about to start without its lead. She’ll know that while the audience waits in the dark, the actress is being unmade in her dressing room—”
She turned my face toward her with a hand on my jaw. Her mouth found mine. A kiss that tasted like stage makeup and opening night nerves and the exact moment when the curtain rises on something that can’t be performed in front of an audience. Her tongue slid against mine, her hand sliding down my stomach, under the skirt, into my underwear, finding me wet and ready and completely miscast.
The intercom crackled.
“Places in five!” The stage manager’s voice, sharp, echoing through the dressing room speaker. “Lead to stage left!”
Sloane didn’t pull away. She just pressed her other hand over my mouth, her fingers still moving inside me, her eyes locked on mine in the mirror.
“The show must go on,” she whispered against my ear, her thumb circling my clit, her fingers pressing deeper, finding a rhythm that matched my racing heart. “But first, you will. So hold on. Be quiet. And let me give you the only performance that matters tonight.”
She made me come in the corset. Her fingers inside me, her mouth on my breast, the vanity bulbs showing every angle, the intercom crackling with countdowns. I came with her hand over my mouth, my cry swallowed by the speaker static, my body shaking so hard the makeup stool creaked.
After, she tightened the laces. Fixed my skirt. Applied my lipstick.
“Break a leg,” she whispered. And then: “And when you come off stage, meet me in the prop room. I have another fitting.”
I went on stage. I said my lines. I received a standing ovation. And when the curtain fell, Sloane was waiting in the prop room — a narrow space filled with fake swords and velvet chairs and the smell of dust.
She made me come again. And again. Until I couldn’t remember my character’s name, until the only name I knew was hers, until the show became a distant memory and the only performance that mattered was the one she demanded from my body.
The production ran for eight weeks. Every night, Sloane found me five minutes before curtain. Every night, she made me come in a different backstage location — the dressing room, the prop room, the lighting booth, the costume storage where the racks hid us from the world.
The audience never knew. They just said the show was “electric.” They had no idea that the electricity was Sloane’s fingers inside me, her mouth on my skin, her voice whispering “places” in a way that made me forget every line except her name.
We still work together. Different shows. Different theaters. But every opening night, she finds me in the dressing room. She tightens my corset. She kisses my shoulder. And she whispers: “The show must go on. But first, you will.”
And I do. Every time. With her. Forever.
