Chapter 3: Sartorial Captivity
The click of the closet door latch was a tiny sound that vanished into the vastness of the room beyond. Alex slipped inside, the scent of lavender and cedar hitting her first, then the heavier smell of clean cotton and faint, floral perfume. Jules’ walk-in closet wasn’t a room; it was a canyon system carved from dark wood, lit by a single, dust-shrouded bulb hanging from a cord somewhere in the distant ceiling.
Mountains of sweaters, soft and colossal, spilled from shelves high above. Rows of shoes—heels like sleek artillery shells, sneakers like landed blimps—lined a wall that seemed to stretch for miles. And in the center of it all, on a broad, velvet-covered pedestal that was probably a jewelry box topper for Jules, sat Jess.
Her older sister was perched stiffly on a cushion of deep purple velvet, her arms crossed, wearing an expression of profound, bone-deep resignation. Above her, two stories tall and glittering with minute sequins, dangled a tiny, elaborately ruffled ballgown, suspended from a mammoth silver needle held in Jules’ fingertips.
“Oh, come on, sweetie-pie!” Jules’ voice was a melodic boom that shook dust from the shelves. She was crouched, a blonde-haired titan in a simple tank top and soft linen shorts, her face a mask of gleeful concentration. “Just one picture! You’d look so cute! It’s got little pearls!”
“It has a bustle,” Jess said, her voice flat and clear in the enormous space. “A bustle, Jules. In the twenty-first century. You are literally holding an instrument of historical torture over my head.”
“It’s vintage! It’s character!” Jules giggled, the sound like rippling water. She lowered the dress another few feet, the rustle of taffeta a small landslide. “Ellie found it in some specialist antique market for tinies. It’s practically a museum piece! Please?”
“My character is ‘exhausted pre-med student who would like to not be dressed as a Victorian doll.’ My desired aesthetic is ‘surviving the day without being accidentally compacted.’” Jess’s eyes, sharp and worried, flicked past Jules’ hovering hand and landed on Alex lurking by the door. Her deadpan cracked into something more actively annoyed. “Oh, great. Reinforcement.”
Jules’ head swiveled, her blonde hair cascading over a shoulder like a golden avalanche. Her eyes, chips of summer sky the size of swimming pools, lit up. “Lexi-baby! Perfect timing! Your sister is being a wet blanket about fashion history!”
“I can see that,” Alex said, grinning as she picked her way through a forest of dropped threads and sequins the size of dinner plates. The scale was always a shock, even after a lifetime. A single wool sock formed a damp, cavernous tunnel next to her.
“Tell her she’d look adorable!” Jules coaxed, waggling the needle so the dress spun, catching the dim light.
“She’d look suffocated,” Alex offered, arriving at the base of the pedestal. She looked up at Jess, who was glaring daggers. “Also really, really pissed.”
“See? Thank you,” Jess said.
“But,” Alex continued, her artistic curiosity piqued. She squinted at the dress. “The craftsmanship is insane. Look at the micro-stitching on that lace.” She pulled her sketchbook from her back pocket, a tiny thing in the vast room, and flipped to a fresh page, nubbing a pencil with her teeth.
Jules squealed in triumph. “Yes! An artist appreciates it! Jess, your sister gets it. It’s art!”
“It’s a prison made of satin,” Jess muttered.
“Hold that pose, Jess! The misery is giving your face such great structure!” Alex started sketching, her lines quick and loose.
“I hate both of you,” Jess said, but the faintest smirk touched her lips. It vanished as Jules’ other hand, impossibly large and gentle, descended from above. Fingertips, smooth and warm as polished stone, brushed against Alex’s back.
“And since you’re here and being so supportive,” Jules sang, her tone dipping into playful mischief.
“Uh oh,” Alex said, barely having time to close her sketchbook before Jules’ thumb and forefinger closed around her torso, lifting her off the floor in a breathless, sweeping arc. The world became a blur of fabric and wood grain. She was set down with a soft plop next to Jess on the velvet, the impact making her sister sway.
“Now I have two little mannequins!” Jules beamed, her face swooping down closer, filling their entire field of vision. Her breath was warm and smelled of mint tea. “A matched set!”
Jess sighed, a long-suffering sound. “I told you your ‘life drawing’ would encourage her,” she said to Alex under her breath, referring to the garden incident.
“It was for art!” Alex whispered back, still clutching her sketchbook.
“Art, she says. While Mom was naked. You’re lucky you didn’t get a fungal infection from that rose petal.”
Jules was humming now, rummaging in a nearby box that from their perspective looked like a warehouse of fabrics. She emerged with another tiny garment, this one a sleek, silver lamé jumpsuit that looked like it belonged in a retro sci-fi film. “For my more adventurous daughter!” she declared, dangling it toward Alex.
“Okay, that’s actually kind of cool,” Alex admitted, reaching for it.
“No! Bad!” Jess slapped her hand away. “Do not encourage the giantess playing dress-up! This is how it starts! Next, she’ll be building us a tiny dollhouse and we’ll never be allowed to leave!”
“It has a metallic sheen, Jess! Think of the light studies!”
“Think of your mortality, you idiot!”
Jules watched their bickering with sheer delight, her chin propped on a hand that was the size of their apartment building. “You two are so cute. My tiny, quarrelsome dolls.” Her other hand came back, this time with a different outfit for Jess—a simple, clean-lined black dress. “Fine, Doctor Gloom. No bustle. But you’re wearing this to family dinner next week. Ellie wants to see you in something other than lab scrubs and existential dread.”
Jess stared at the proffered dress, then up at Jules’ implacably cheerful face. She looked at Alex, who was already peeling off her hoodie to try the jumpsuit. Defeat settled over her shoulders, heavier than any velvet cape.
“Kill me now,” Jess mumbled, but she took the black dress.
Jules clapped her hands, the concussion of sound like a minor thunderclap in the closet, sending vibrations through the pedestal. “Yay! Okay, change, change! I want to see! Don’t make me help you!”
The threat was enough. As Jules pretended to look away, her enormous eye still peeking from behind a curtain of hair, the two sisters began, with great reluctance and muttered insults, to get dressed in the shadows of their giantess mother’s approving, overwhelming love.