Chapter 1: Dancing in Denim
The floral dress over her arm was just a green and blue blur now. Allyson’s entire world had narrowed to a single, screaming point of pressure deep in her lower abdomen. She’d put it off, of course. Told herself she’d just find the perfect throw pillows for the couch first, then go. But the home section was a labyrinth, and every pillow was hideous, and by the time she’d escaped to linens the first twinge had become a persistent, hollow ache.
Now, standing in the fitting room hallway, it was a full-blown crisis.
The air here was still and too warm, smelling like dust and the faint, chemical tang of new clothes. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, casting a sickly glare on the cracked linoleum floor. From the main store, a muffled announcement about a car in the parking lot melted into the generic pop music. Each thump of the bass seemed to vibrate directly through her bladder.
“Just two items to try on,” said the bored attendant, a teenager with chipped black nail polish. She clipped a plastic token with a faded ‘3’ onto the hook of the dress.
Allyson managed a tight smile, her jaw clenched. The hallway of curtained rooms stretched before her like a tunnel. Room three was at the very end.
Every step was a calculated gamble. She walked with a stiff, careful gait, thighs pressed tightly together. The soft, worn cotton of her pink panties was already damp with the effort of holding back. She felt the warmth of it, a humiliating reminder of how close she was to losing the battle. Her mom jeans, usually comfortably baggy, now felt like a treacherous, unsupportive prison.
Okay. Just try the dress. Then you can go to the bathroom. The bathroom is right past the fitting rooms. You’ve seen the sign.
She slid into stall three and yanked the grey curtain shut with a rattle of metal rings. The space was claustrophobic, a leaning tower of her own discarded clothes piling on the lone, wobbly chair. She hung the dress up and just stood for a moment, leaning her forehead against the cool, full-length mirror. Her reflection was pale, her brown eyes wide with a kind of frantic focus.
A woman in the next stall coughed. The sound was startling, and Allyson felt a violent, threatening lurch inside her. She gasped, squeezing every muscle she possessed.
No. No, no, no.
Abandoning all pretense of shopping, she fumbled with the curtain. The dress was forgotten. The cart with the maybe-candle and the possibly-cute mugs was someone else’s problem now. Survival was the only agenda.
She emerged, clutching her own clothes to her chest. The attendant looked up.
“Didn’t work out?” the girl monotoned.
“Bathroom,” Allyson whispered, the word strangled.
She hurried past, her pace a fast, jerky shuffle. The restroom door was right there, a blessed, solid thing. She pushed.
It didn’t open.
She pushed again, harder. The mechanism rattled. Locked.
A small, despairing whimper escaped her lips. She pressed her ear to the door. Silence. Then, the faint, unmistakable sound of a phone notification chime.
“Hello?” Allyson called, tapping on the door. Her knocks were frantic. “Please, are you almost done?”
No answer. Just another quiet chime, the sound of someone scrolling in peaceful, uninterrupted solitude.
Panic, hot and acidic, rose in her throat. The pressure was becoming painful, a sharp, insistent throbbing. She shifted from foot to foot, the movement providing a second of relief so profound it was almost pleasurable, followed immediately by a fresh wave of urgency.
Think. Think.
The main store bathrooms were at the front, a million miles away past the cash registers and the line of people waiting with overstuffed carts. The image of that journey—the bright, open space, the possibility of a child darting in front of her, a misplaced chuckle from a stranger—was unimaginable.
Her eyes darted back to the fitting rooms. The empty, silent stalls.
The attendant was engrossed in her phone now, not looking. The hallway was, for this one moment, clear.
It was a terrible, shameful idea. It was also, she realized with dawning, desperate clarity, her only idea.
She turned and shuffled back, her movements rigid. She didn’t go to her original stall. Instead, she slipped into stall one, right by the entrance, and yanked the curtain closed. The lock was a flimsy metal hook that wouldn’t hold against a determined pull. It would have to do.
The small room seemed to pulse around her. She dropped her own clothes on the floor in a heap and tore at the button of her jeans. The zip sounded catastrophically loud. As she shoved the denim down her hips and sank into a shaky crouch, she spotted it.
A small, dark circle in the corner of the mirror, barely noticeable.
A lens.
The fitting room had a security camera.
A white-hot bolt of horror shot through her, freezing her in place. She was exposed, squatting in a store, about to commit a spectacularly unhygienic and almost certainly illegal act, on camera. The embarrassment was so monumental it momentarily overshadowed the physical agony. She stared at the little black eye, her own face a mask of utter, doomed comprehension.
From the other side of the curtain, the attendant’s voice, suddenly sharp, cut through the buzz. “Ma’am? Everything okay in there?”
Time stopped. Her body screamed. The camera watched.
Allyson closed her eyes, a single, hot tear of sheer frustration tracing its way down her cheek. She was caught between a biological imperative and a digital witness, with a bored teenager waiting for an answer on the other side of a thin grey curtain.
She took a sharp, ragged breath.