Fiction
The Fitting Room
Daily Special 29: Shopping
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It started with a tap tap tap. Startled, I opened the door to my fitting room, peeking out. I expected to see a sales clerk asking how I was doing, or offering to get me another size in the dress I was trying on, but there was no one there. The employee had gone back out onto the shop floor.
I closed the door softly and took a look in the mirror. I was trying on a champagne dress and trying to figure out how the ribbon was supposed to go. Do you tie it under your boobs, or does it go over one shoulder? It wasn’t clear on the hanger. Maybe you were supposed to wear it like a sash? Who wears a dress with a sash to their cousin’s wedding?
“Psst.”
I froze, instinctively covering my boobs with my hands as though I were naked. Realizing that I was, in fact, completely dressed (sans ribbon), I opened the fitting room door again and asked, “Hello?”
“Is the sales girl gone?”
The voice was coming from the fitting room next to mine. It must have been her who tapped on the wall between our rooms. Hiking up the floor-length dress, I stepped out into the narrow hallway to look out into the store. The sales associate was indeed busy with another customer in the front, and there was no one else in sight.
“She’s helping someone. Do you want me to get her?”
“Fuck no. Ow. Shit.”
I could hear heavy breathing from inside the fitting room. Standing awkwardly in a dress I now could not see myself buying, I debated my options. Go get the employee? Change back into my clothes and make a run for it? Figure out what was going on in that stall?
“Are you… okay in there?” I asked cautiously after a moment of rustling and wheezing sounds. I hoped there was only one person in that room.
“Yes. No. No, I’m stuck,” came the reply, sounding plaintive. “I need help out of this dress.”
“I can get the — “
“Oh please don’t. That skinny bitch said I should shop somewhere that carried my size because they don’t do plus size here and I — fuck, ow — couldn’t stand the smug look on her face if I — shitballsowchristnuggets!”
I bit my lip to stop from laughing, picturing the scene. It wasn’t funny; not the situation, anyway. I immediately had sympathy for the woman. She sounded flustered and embarrassed. Shopping alone is hard enough without people judging you. And who hasn’t gotten stuck in a dress before?
“Quick, before she gets back, help me unzip.” The lock on the fitting room clicked and the door hung slightly ajar. “Please, I can’t breathe.”
After only a second of debate, I ignored the “one person per room” sign and ducked into the unlocked door, closing it behind me. Inside was a voluptuous woman squeezed into a skin-tight minidress perhaps two or three sizes too small. Her face was beet red and her hair, once clearly in a neat up-do, had pieces sticking out in all directions from her frantic, jerky movements.
“I got the zipper up but now I can’t get it down again,” the woman explained, turning her back to me. The dress was straining against the zipper and a roll of uncontained flesh overflowed the top of the dress. Leaning her forehead against the mirror, she panted, holding up a finger. “One sec, I’ll suck in and you get that zip down, yeah?”
“Okay,” I said, eyeing the zipper, which looked about to pop at any moment. How she had gotten it up in the first place was anyone’s guess. In a dress that fit right, this woman would have had curves for days: that kind of hourglass figure people get liposuction and butt-lifts for. But the dress she was stuck in had clearly been made for someone like me, without an ass or tits to speak of. Her fantastic rack — I couldn’t help but notice, come on — was bulging out the front obscenely.
“On three?” she wheezed, grabbing her boobs in preparation of manually squishing while sucking in. I nodded.
“One, two, three,” I counted, clasping the tab firmly. I pulled down with a jerk as she sucked in, but the tab immediately slid out of my fingers. She was still holding her breath and compressing, so I grabbed it again and tugged. Slip. Tug. Nothing. Yank. Nothing. I tried getting my fingers between the zipper and her skin, but couldn’t get so much as a nail beneath the dress.
Gasping for breath, the woman waved me off as she doubled over. Either this dress was going to rip or she was going to pass out. I racked my brain for a solution. Could we peel her out of it like a banana? Intentionally split the zipper? Cut the damn thing off?
Tap tap tap. A knock at the fitting room door. “Everything alright in there?” came the sales associate’s voice. Me and my new friend looked at each other in terror. The woman was right though, she did sound bitchy.
“Just fine!” she replied, trying to sound like she hadn’t just held her breath for longer than an Olympic swimmer.
Another tap tap tap, this time on my abandoned fitting room’s door. “How’re you doing, sweetie?” The voice was notably sweeter when addressing me. I rolled my eyes.
“Doing great!”
I tried to throw my voice a little like it was still coming from my stall.
“Alright, let me know if you ladies need anything. Just give me a holler!”
Click click click went her high heels down the hall back out to the front of the store.
“Bitch.”
I let out a small laugh at this woman’s vitriol toward the sales associate. I couldn’t help but feel a rush of comradery.
“Idea,” I said, examining the problem with fresh eyes, “straps down, tits out.” The woman looked at me like I’d grown a third head.
“What?”
“Take the straps off, then pull your boobs out the top. Might give us enough room to get the zipper unstuck.”
I helped her get her arms out of the straps — it took a bit of gymnastics to get around the elbows, this dress had zero stretch — and then mimed using the scooping method to pull her boobs out of the neckline. She scooped out one boob and then the other. (And that’s how I ended up getting an eyeful of a complete stranger’s enormous natural breasts, if anyone asks.)
Holding onto her boobs awkwardly, she turned her back to me and sucked in again. I went back in for the zipper, this time able to get my fingers under it and pull the fabric away from her back slightly. The crevice was warm and slightly sweaty, but I swallowed my aversion to the bodily fluids of strangers and, for the sake of shared womanhood, pride, and body positivity, gave that zipper the strongest yank I’d ever given a zipper.
Like a miracle, it popped on the first try and zoomed downward independently to the hip. Independently, because it slipped from my fingers as it moved, and the heel of my hand, pulling as hard as I could, hit my nose at terminal velocity. Crack!
Blood pouring from my nose, I stepped back into the small space of the fitting room, tripping over the hem of the dress and landing in a puddle of tulle on the floor.
“Oh fuck!” my new friend yelled.
The clamor clearly altered the sales associate, who rushed back into the fitting room hall. She opened the door with her key to find one woman naked from the waist up and another on the floor, bleeding from the nose. She called security.
Did they make me pay for the dress I bled on? Luckily, no.
Are we both permanently banned from shopping in that store? Yes.
Did we go get frozen yoghurt together in the food court once we were both dressed? Also yes.
Did we go to a different store to find killer dresses? Hell yes.
Did she look stunning for her date in a hot red dress that fit all her curves beautifully? Damn right.
Did I find something decent to wear to my cousin’s wedding? Eh, good enough.
Thank you Ravyne Hawke for today’s fiction prompt: “Write a story that takes place in a shopping center, mall, or gift shop. An argument occurs. Are you one of the participants or merely an observer? Write the scene or a complete story. / Word Length — Any (yes, this means it can be as short or long as necessary to tell the story!) / Restriction — Someone is going to get hurt.”
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