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 stepsister was the lighting designer.
Sloane was twenty-seven. A theater tech who worked in black cargo pants and a fitted black t-shirt, with a tool belt that hung low on her hips and a habit of looking at me like I was the only thing on stage worth illuminating. We’d been stepsisters for two years—ever since her mother married my father—and in that time, we’d perfected the art of avoiding each other at holidays, at dinners, at the forced “family fun nights” that her mother insisted on.
Until the production.
She’d shown up at the first tech rehearsal, her eyes darkening when she saw me in the corset and skirts. She’d adjusted my spotlight. She’d followed me with the follow spot. And she’d started finding reasons to be in my dressing room—”fixing the light,” “adjusting the mic,” “checking the costume.”
Tonight was opening night. The house was full. Her mother—my stepmother—was in the front row with a bouquet. And I was sitting at the makeup mirror, trying to remember my lines while my hands shook.
“Curtain is in five minutes,” I whispered, looking at Sloane in the mirror. She was behind me, her hand on my bare shoulder, her thumb tracing the strap of my gown. “Your mother is in the front row. She bought a bouquet. She’s going to want to meet me after the show. And my lipstick is already smudged.”
Sloane didn’t speak. She just leaned down, her cheek brushing my bare shoulder, her hand sliding from my shoulder to the neckline of my red velvet gown, her fingers dipping inside the fabric with a confidence that made my breath hitch.
“If the stage manager walks in,” I breathed, my eyes fluttering closed as her fingers found my breast, my nipple, pinching through the corset, “she’ll see the lead actress and the lighting tech in a compromising position five minutes before she has to go on stage and pretend to be in love with someone else. She’ll see your hand inside my costume and your mouth on my neck and she’ll—”
Sloane turned my stool around. Her mouth found mine. A kiss that tasted like stage makeup and adrenaline and the exact moment when the show becomes real. It was slow, urgent, completely consuming—her tongue sliding against mine, her hand inside my gown, her body pressing between my knees.
The intercom crackled.
“Places in two!” 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 my gown, her thumb circling my nipple with a precision that made my vision blur.
“Quiet,” she whispered against my ear, her fingers pressing deeper, finding me wet and ready and completely at her mercy. “The walls are thin. And the mic is live.”
She made me come in the dressing room. Her fingers inside me, her mouth on my neck, my cue cards scattered on the floor, my red velvet gown pushed up around my waist. The orgasm was sharp, silent, completely devastating—swallowed by the sound of the orchestra tuning up, by the audience murmuring beyond the curtain, by the hand she pressed over my mouth to catch my cry.
After, she fixed my gown. Reapplied my lipstick. Kissed my forehead.
“Break a leg,” she whispered. “And when you come off stage, I’m going to finish this in the prop closet.”
I went on stage. I said my lines. I kissed my co-star with a passion that the audience called “transcendent.” And when the curtain fell, Sloane was waiting in the prop closet—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 six 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 closet, the lighting booth, the catwalk above the stage where the audience couldn’t see us but the city could.
Her mother never found out. She just said the show was “magical.” She had no idea that the magic was her daughter’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.
