Page 2 of Princess Josie (Littleworld)

Chapter Two

Josie

I stare at myself in the mirror and force myself to lift my chin and smile.

I’ve arranged my unruly brown curls into two buns on the sides of my head.

I didn’t do a great job, but it’s not too bad.

I’m not good with makeup, so I only have on lip gloss, but my friend Zia says I’m lucky and that with my tanned complexion, dark lashes, and smooth skin, I don’t need makeup.

I’m here for a party. Normal people smile and laugh at parties.

I glance around the locker room. No one is in here but me. The other Littles have all changed into their costumes and rushed to the playroom where the party is already in full swing.

I glance down at my dress. I look like a princess. I am a princess tonight. It’s a costume party. The Dungeon isn’t celebrating any specific holiday or even a birthday party. They simply organized a costume party because Littles like to play dress-up and have fun.

I can have fun too. My dress is pale blue like Cinderella’s. I don’t have glass slippers because that isn’t practical, but I have clear plastic jellies. They’re like sandals. They’re pinching my toes a little, and I don’t really like them, but they’re pretty, and they make me feel like a princess.

Forcing my smile wider, I clap my hands together and giggle. Sort of giggle. I’m practicing my laugh.

“Go out there and play,” I encourage myself.

Taking a deep breath, I turn around and open the door to step into the main room. I’m instantly assaulted by loud noises and flashing lights. I hate them, but if I keep my head down, I can hurry past that part of the club and get to the playroom.

I squint as I rush. My shoes stick to the floor a bit with every step. It’s getting on my nerves. Finally, I reach the playroom. The party is in full swing. It’s crowded.

For me, it’s a catch-22. I hate crowds. But I like being in my Little space so much that I force myself to endure the wall-to-wall people because Friday nights at the Dungeon are the few hours each week when I feel most comfortable in my skin.

“Josie!” someone yells.

I jerk my attention to the right to find Zia skipping toward me. I force a smile.

“You’re here!” She stops short of giving me a hug. I know she would hug every other Little in the Dungeon to greet them, but somehow she has always sensed I’m not a good hugger.

She looks up and down my body. “I love your princess costume. It’s so pretty.”

“Thank you. I like yours too.” Zia is also a princess tonight, but she has on a green dress.

“We can be princess twins together. Do you want to get some punch?” She points toward the far wall where they’re serving something red from a huge clear bowl.

I shake my head. The thought of drinking that syrupy sweet substance makes my stomach roil. However, the man currently serving the punch makes me bite my lip.

Chase. I doubt he even knows who I am, but I don’t care. A girl can dream. He’s dressed as Prince Charming tonight, which makes him look somehow larger, broader, sexier.

“Do you want to dance or play pin the tail on the donkey?” Zia asks.

I shudder all the way to my bones at the thought of putting on a blindfold, spinning around blindly, and then walking forward aimlessly. Not in a million years. “I was thinking I would color. But you can go dance or try to pin the tail if you want.”

I have social skills. Sort of. I have years of good counselling that have helped me say the right things in public. I can put my idiosyncrasies on the back burner most of the time and play with the other Littles.

Coloring is my favorite thing to do, especially at the club. I’m far less likely to get triggered by some stupid stimuli in the room if I’m focused on coloring.

Littles are mostly kind and accepting and fun. They don’t judge me. I feel safe here among them. That’s why I come every week. But I’m thinking I might have made a poor choice this week. It’s too crowded. Too loud. I don’t see anyone coloring.

More importantly, I hate this dress. It’s already itching me in about ten places. I should have tried it on at home and worn it around my apartment for a while before I arrived.

“Okay, I’m going to dance,” Zia informs me. “Come find me if you want to play together.”

I nod. She really is super kind. She’s genuine. As she bounces off, her blonde pigtails fly through the air.

I ease farther into the room, sticking to the wall where I’m less likely to run into anyone. Part of me already wants to go home.

Stay. Have fun. Loosen up .

Someone bumps into me. They don’t even know it. They keep moving forward. It wasn’t intentional. I know my social cues.

I realize the reason no one is coloring is because the tables are all pushed to the wall along one side tonight to make room for dancing and games.

The punch and some cookies are being served from the tables.

They have black plastic tablecloths, the kind that can be thrown away at the end of the night.

I step on something that crunches, and when I glance down to see what it is, I pick up my clear shoe to discover I’ve landed on a yellow lollipop. It’s broken now into lots of tiny fragments, and my shoe is all sticky.

I look around, wondering what to do. I shouldn’t just leave the lollipop on the floor. Someone else will step on it. But I don’t have the first idea about how to fix the problem. I’m certainly not going to bend down and pick up all the shards of candy off the floor.

“You okay, Little one?”

The deep male voice has me tipping my head back and back and back. It’s coming from Chase. He’s standing right in front of me. I’m only five feet tall. He’s at least six feet, so he towers over me, making me feel even Littler than usual.

Chase is the sexiest Daddy I’ve ever seen, and he’s talking to me.

He’s a police officer. Sometimes I’ve seen him wearing his uniform before he’s had a chance to go change in the locker room.

He’s not a policeman tonight though, he’s Prince Charming.

A little shiver crawls up my spine as I let myself think of him being my prince.

He squats in front of me, which puts his face slightly lower than mine. I find it oddly calming. “Did you step on something?”

I nod.

“Let’s see what it is. Can I help, princess?”

My eyes widen when he calls me princess. “I think it’s a lollipop,” I murmur. “It’s broken now. I-I-I didn’t know what to do.”

“No worries. Daddies know how to clean up messes. How about if you lift up your foot for me? Let’s see if any of it is stuck to your shoe.” He pats his shoulders. “You can balance yourself on my shoulders.”

I swallow hard. Touch him? The alternative seems… I don’t even know what the alternative is at this point. He’s going to help me. I need to accept his help.

When I set my hands on his broad shoulders, I find myself relaxing. He didn’t touch me first. He let me make the decision. I’m much better when I touch people on my terms.

I lift my foot, surprised when Chase doesn’t touch my ankle or even my shoe. He carefully picks the slivers of candy off the bottom of my shoe and the floor, piling the sticky mess in his other hand.

“There,” he declares. “I think I got it all.”

When I set my foot down, I wince. He definitely didn’t get it all. I’m not sure it would all be cleaned up even if I put the shoe in the sink.

It’s just a little sticky. You’re fine. The soles were already sticky in the first place.

Yeah, but now they are unevenly sticky. The right shoe is tackier with every step. Not that I’ve gone anywhere. I’m still in the same spot, but I’m testing the shoes by lifting and lowering them several times.

“Still sticky, huh?” Chase asks.

“It’s okay.”

“You sure? I could get a wet paper towel if you’d like.”

I shake my head. Asking him to wash the bottom of my shoe is not what my counselor, Melissa, would consider regular social behavior. “It’s fine.”

I realize I’m still holding on to Chase’s shoulders, and I release him immediately, my face heating as he rises to his full height.

“I’m going to put this in the trash. Wait right here, okay, Little one?”

I slowly nod, though I don’t know what I’m agreeing to. Why would I wait for him? He surely didn’t mean it. He was just being polite.

I take several steps back until I’m flattened against the wall next to the row of tables. But the wall feels like it’s vibrating to the music, and the texture of the drywall makes my hands feel funny when I touch it.

Crap. I recognize I’m about to be overloaded with stimuli, and there’s nothing I can do about it. I can tolerate any one or two things at a time, ignore them, stuff them to the back of my mind. But this party is hitting all my hot buttons.

I need a chance to regroup. I’ll never make it to the locker room. I’d have to walk through the flashing lights to get there, and I’d probably end up having an anxiety attack and making a spectacle of myself.

I glance around as the rate of my breathing increases. Finally, I stare at the table. It’s my best option. I immediately drop down onto my hands and knees and crawl under it. I keep crawling along the wall until I get to the corner of the room three tables away from where I entered.

The beauty about being Little is that if anyone saw me, I could just say I was playing hide and seek.

When I reach the corner, I turn around, sit on my butt, pull my knees up to my chest, and wrap my arms around my shins. I take several deep breaths. I feel better already. Now I just need to sit here until my anxiety subsides. It might take a while. No one will probably notice I’m missing.