Little Dancer

by Brianna Hale

  Because it’s Monday and the middle of the day I practically have the cinema to myself. I take a cupful of pick ‘n’ mix in with me and chomp my way through it as I watch the film, taking up a whole double seat to myself. I have to shift about a little because my behind is sore, but it makes me smile every time I feel it. When the film is over I am buzzing from all the sugar, but I still get myself a cup of soft-serve and eat that while I wander and window shop. In a stationery store I buy some pretty notepads and glitter pens with feathers on one end, just because they’re pretty, and in another I choose some pastel-colored hair clips and a pink velvet ribbon choker.

  Later, on the train ride home, I’m still smiling. I haven’t been able to enjoy the silly things I do on a day off in a long time. It’s such a relief that I haven’t had to lie about any of it. Everywhere I go I can smell Mr. Kingsolver’s scent, and feel his strong arms around me.

  * * *

  My office after the show.

  The note, exactly the same as the last one, makes my heart pound. Have I broken any rules? I think back over the past few days. I haven’t been late. I haven’t bitten my nails. I haven’t been worried about anything. In fact, I’ve been relaxed and happy, as well as horny in a way that I’ve never been before. Every night I’ve gone straight to bed, rubbing between my legs until I come, thinking about Mr. Kingsolver’s tongue or the feel of his hand on my behind.

  The smallest things are enough to set off dirty thoughts. Seeing Mr. Kingsolver with his shirtsleeves rolled back. Watching him fix a stage light with a smut of dust on his cheek. Feeling his hand briefly caress my ass in the wings.

  Even his note is enough to make me pulse with heat. I tuck it into my bra, liking the papery rasp against my nipple.

  No, I haven’t broken any rules, so perhaps he just wants to see me. I grab my bag and trip lightly up the stairs. I’m about to knock when a thought occurs to me. I lay my bag to one side and kneel. Then I knock.

  “Come.”

  I wait where I am.

  “Come.”

  I can hear the irritation in his voice but I stay where I am. A moment later the door is yanked open and he glares out. Then his gaze falls on me, sitting at his feet, looking up at him. He smiles. “Well, well. Come in. On your knees.”

  I crawl in and then kneel again, sitting back on my heels.

  He sits on the edge of his desk, arms folded and legs crossed at the ankles, watching me. His eyes rove over my bare shoulders, the white camisole top I’m wearing and my blue-and-pink flowered miniskirt. He spies the pink choker and his gaze sharpens. “Fuck. Don’t you look a picture. Do you like being in my office even though I spank you?”

  I nod, a smile creeping over my face.

  “Do you like being in my office because I spank you?”

  And it’s easy, admitting it now, after the last time. “Yes, Mr. Kingsolver.”

  He makes a growling sound in the back of his throat. “Holy hell. Just look what you do to me.” He rubs a hand over himself, and I see the hard rod of his erection, tight in his trousers. My eyes widen. I thought that he liked touching me but I didn’t realize how much I could arouse him just by being in the room.

  “Do you want to be a good girl and come for me?”

  I whimper. It’s all I want. “Yes, please.”

  He holds out his hands to me. “Come here, kitten.” He pulls me up onto his lap so that I’m straddling him and my knees are on the desk. “Rub yourself against me,” he whispers. And his hands guide me, holding my hips. I rub myself along the hard length of him, unsure of what I’m doing, and worried that I’m doing it wrong. It feels slutty, but in a good way, and Mr. Kingsolver seems to be liking it, too. The intense look in his eyes encourages me to rub harder. We look into each other’s eyes as the hot, tight sensation inside me builds, our breaths mingling. His eyes are becoming dark with desire.

  “Does that feel good, babygirl?” he asks, when I’m whimpering and clutching at him and I can feel I’m close to coming.

  “Yes.”

  He catches my jaw between his thumb and fingers and squeezes hard. “Say, yes, daddy.”

  I stare at him. Yes what? But I’m so close to coming and I want to give him what he wants because he’s making me feel so good. My throat is tight with my approaching orgasm. “Yes, daddy.”

  He groans, pressing his forehead against mine and closing his eyes for a second. “Do you like that, babygirl?”

  “Yes, daddy,” I say, moaning, nearly over the edge.

  His thumb rubs hard over my lower lip. “Good girl. Come for daddy.”

  I come, my head thrown back, his hand fisting my hair and the other holding me tight against him.

  When I return to earth I shift position so that my legs are wrapped around him as well as my arms. We hold each other, breathing in unison.

  * * *

  On my way home the strangeness of what just happened sinks in. I’ve heard silly jokes about Who’s your daddy and Your daughter calls me daddy, too, but I didn’t know people actually said that to each other. I mean, did they say that to each other? Mr. Kingsolver seemed to like it. Like, a lot. I remember the intense, hungry look in his eyes. When I think about it, I like it, too. It feels like a pet name, like the ones he calls me. Kitten. Babygirl. Daddy. Except that daddy sends an erotic thrill through me that the others don’t, and makes me want him to touch and caress and hurt me all at once. Most of all, though, it makes me want to please him.

  Was it weird, though? Or was it a...thing?

  On the train I take out my phone and open the browser. Then I’m at a loss. What do I even search for? I don’t know what we are to each other, or what we’re doing. Thinking for a moment, I type, I call m—

  And I don’t even finish typing the sentence when the suggested search appears. I call my boyfriend daddy.

  I stare at my phone, my heart beating faster. All right, then. It’s definitely a thing.

  I start browsing the links. There are dozens of articles about what it means to call your boyfriend daddy. If it’s weird to call a man daddy during sex. Girls asking why it feels so good to call their boyfriend daddy. I spy something about daddy dom/little girl relationships, and I click on that. I might be a virgin, but even I’ve figured out that there’s something dominant and submissive about the things that have been happening between Mr. Kingsolver and I, and that I like it. I like it a lot.

  I scroll through post after post about collars and “stuffies,” littles and doms. I’m assailed by hashtags. #daddydom #daddykink #ddlg #daddydomlittlegirl #ddlglifestyle #ddlgrelationship #littlespace.

  This idea of “little space” intrigues me. I search it on Instagram and find dozens of photographs of girls my age clutching giant teddy bears, sitting in pink rooms, doing coloring in, dressing up as princesses or in white stockings and panties. They use phrases like “going into little space” and talk about needing rules and someone to take their worries away from them. They call themselves littles.

  I think about how exhausting it is functioning in the real world sometimes, and the things I like to do to soothe myself when I’m stressed. I thought they had to be kept secret because no one would understand, but here are literally hundreds of girls my age bravely proclaiming who they are, some showing their face, some posting more anonymously.

  Later, lying in bed in the dark, staring at the ceiling, I realize something. I am a little.

  Tears come into my eyes. It’s such a relief to know that there are other people like me. I’m not strange, or weird, or stupid. I just never grew out of the things that everyone once needed to make them happy.

  I stare around my blank room. No wonder this doesn’t feel like me. It isn’t me.

  * * *

  “Oh, Abby.”

  I can hear the dismay in my mother’s voice as she looks around my
room. My toys are back on the shelves and my bed is a mountain of stuffed animals and frilly cushions. There aren’t as many of either as there used to be because my mother culled them periodically over the years, but there are still enough to make me happy.

  “I thought we put all these things away.”

  “No,” I say, yanking a ruffled pillowcase over a pillow, “you put them away.”

  She flinches, and I’m instantly ashamed. “I’m sorry.” I take a deep breath and say, “I just mean I’ve decided I want them around me again. I have to do things my way, especially now I’m going to be leaving home.”

  Sighing, she says, “All right.”

  No arguments? Really? I’ve managed to convince her of something I need and I haven’t broken out in a cold sweat doing it. “Okay... Great.”

  “How’s the new part coming along?” she asks, watching me arrange my “stuffies” as the other littles call them, in order of size. “Your father and I can’t wait to see your first night.”

  I debut in two days’ time and I am so excited. I had a costume fitting yesterday and tried on my new dress and silver dancing shoes. The makeup is something else, all glittery and silver, with a pale pink wig to top it off. I can’t believe I’m paid to dress up like this every day.

  “It’s great,” I say, grinning. “I feel so lucky they chose me.”

  “Did that man have anything to do with it?” my mother asks, and something about the casualness of her question makes me stop and look at her. “You know, the one who drove you home?”

  “Mr. Kingsolver? Well...” I don’t want to tell her anything about him but she’s going to guess that something’s up from my face. “Yes, he watched my audition. He’s the owner of the theater so he gets a say, if he wants it. But it was the director’s final decision.”

  She nods and says, “I see,” in a way that tells me that she sees, perhaps not everything, but more than what my words are saying.

  I turn and look at her, and she’s got a funny expression on her face. “What?” I ask.

  Shrugging, she rubs an imaginary speck of dirt from the light switch. “Nothing. I just wondered if you might be dating him.”

  I feel a stab of panic. What has she seen? What does she know? Has she been going through the search history on my phone? What if she’s seen all the weird things I’ve been Googling? I stare around at all the stuffies on my bed and suddenly wish I’d left them where they were. Each one seems like a beacon that’s blaring aloud my weirdness. If anyone finds out what Mr. Kingsolver and I have been doing I will die. I’m not like those girls on social media. I need this to be a secret because I still don’t understand it myself. If my parents find out that I called him daddy... I shudder. It doesn’t bear thinking about. I’ll never say it again, just please, please, don’t anyone find out. I don’t know who or what I’m begging to. Anything and everything in that moment.

  My mother hasn’t noticed I’m having an internal meltdown, and continues. “He’s very attractive and he seemed attentive when he brought you home. He went out of his way to tell us how proud we should be of you.”

  I let out the breath I’ve been holding, slowly and calmly. She doesn’t know. It’s all right. If she did know she wouldn’t be speaking about him in such a kindly way. She’d be calling him a pervert.

  “He’s a nice man, that’s all.” He was attentive, wasn’t he? I feel a warm glow as I think of it.

  “Do you like him?”

  I turn to her with a smirk. “You’re awfully nosy all of a sudden.”

  She smiles. “I know. It’s just that you’ve never shown much interest in boys before. Not real-life boys who walk and talk and, you know, exist. Unlike Jareth the Goblin King.”

  I laugh. I’d forgotten about Jareth the Goblin King. I was terribly in love with him when I was fifteen. “Mr. Kingsolver is interesting,” I say, hedging. And he’s not a boy.

  She nods knowingly. “Well, if he hasn’t asked you out on a date yet, I think it’s just a matter of time before he does.” Then she frowns and becomes more like the mother I’m used to. “But if he’s a little like your boss, then don’t let him take advantage of you.”

  Once my mother’s gone downstairs I turn her words over in my mind. Ask me out on a date? It’s just about the last thing I expect Mr. Kingsolver to do. He hasn’t shown the slightest interest in seeing me outside the theater. How different my mother’s expectations are to my reality.

  The only thing I want is for whatever we’re doing to continue, and I assume he does, too. But am I wrong to assume that? He’s never even kissed me. Kissing means the sort of closeness people share when they like each other. That he hasn’t kissed me or even looked like he might seems significant.

  I snatch up Chubbles from my bed and bury my face in his fur. Everything suddenly seems off-kilter and I wish that I could have my good mood back.

  Chapter Five

  To the audience, there’s nothing special about tonight. It’s just the night that they see Amarantha. Which, I suppose, might be special to them, or it might just be a night at a musical in the West End. But to me, it’s huge.

  My dances go off without a hitch and the other performers whisper their congratulations to me in the wings. At the end I don’t get a special curtain call like the stars, but I do move up a rung, coming out for the applause after the chorus, instead of with them. I hear someone cheer loudly as I take my bow, which might be my father, and I see the outline of someone tall and broad standing at the back of the stalls.

  So he’s here. I haven’t seen him since he asked me to call him...that, and ever since the conversation with my mother my anxiety has shot through the roof. I tell myself that if I want to see him I should seek him out. But what would I say? Every time I imagine how the conversation would go my courage flees. I don’t know how to ask him what he wants from me. What’s worse, I’ve woken up two mornings in cold sweats from nightmares. In them my parents find my phone history and a diary that I don’t actually keep and confront me with them. They’re so angry and disgusted and their faces make me cry and I’m so ashamed of myself.

  Until now I’ve managed to focus on my new role and how much it means to me, but as soon as I step offstage all my happiness vanishes, and there’s only the lead weight of worry and loneliness in my chest.

  Gregory has allowed my parents to come backstage just for this special occasion and they’re there to meet me outside my new dressing room, which I share with just three other girls. I force a smile and accept their kind words and kisses, and they admire my costume up close.

  When I go inside to change I find a note in my shoe.

  Tell your parents you are busy and stay with me tonight.

  I clench the paper in my hand. Just like that I’m supposed to ditch my parents? The lead in the center of my chest begins to burn white-hot.

  “Do you mind just giving me ten minutes?” I ask my parents when I step out into the corridor with my bag. “Mr. Kingsolver wants to see me.”

  I stomp up the wooden staircase and push his door open without asking. He looks up in surprise, and then frowns.

  Throwing the note down on his desk, I ask, “What does this mean?”

  He looks at the note, and then back up at me. Then he carefully caps his pen and places it to one side. “Don’t be bratty, Abby, you know what it means. I wanted to see you.”

  “Bratty?” I snap. “I’m not being bratty.”

  He narrows his eyes. “Yes, you are. What’s got into you? Has something upset you?”

  “Yes,” I say, and the word is a hiss. “You have. You can’t just tell me to send my parents home on the night of my debut. What am I supposed to tell them? That we have a date? That you’re going to put me over your knee and spank me? What are we even doing?” Even though I’m furious, my heart has climbed into my throat and I can
’t get my leg to stop shaking. He’s going to lose his temper now like he did when I was just that girl in the chorus who made two mistakes.

  But he doesn’t. He just sits there, watching me.

  “My parents are downstairs waiting for me and I’m going home with them, all right? You can’t just tell me what to do and expect me to do it. You can’t just tell me to call you...that, and then leave me to figure out for myself what it means.” Tears spill over my cheeks and my voice cracks. I swipe at the tears with my fingers, angry that I can’t get my feelings out without being reduced to blubbering.

  He sighs, then nods and gets up from his desk and comes around it toward me. He doesn’t try to touch me, though. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I should have explained things first but I got carried away in the moment. I just really wanted to hear you call me that.”

  I sniffle and look up at him. “Why?”

  There’s a glimmer of a smile around his lips. “Because I like it.”

  “But it’s weird.”

  “Yes, it is.” He rubs a hand over the back of his neck. “You’re upset because you don’t know what I want from you, is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m sorry, that’s my fault. Look, your parents are waiting and we haven’t got much time, so I’ll give you the shorthand version now. I like you. You’re sweet as hell, Abby. I want to be your dom, I want you to call me daddy, but most of all I just want you to be yourself. All right? Now, I know that’s a lot to take in,” he says, going over to his desk and pulling a tissue out of the box, “so I don’t want you to say anything now.” He wipes the tears from my face, then puts the tissue over my nose. “Blow.” I blow. “Good girl.” He tosses the tissue in the wastepaper basket and turns back to me. “But let’s talk about this soon, okay?”

  The shaking has stopped. I’m not crying. I wonder if it’s shock. Partly I feel disbelief that I have just burst into his office and been so rude to him and he’s not angry with me. I almost feel like crowing about it, but tamp the impulse down. And partly it’s such a relief to hear him tell me what he wants after so much uncertainty, even if I have no idea what him being my dom actually means. There’s something reassuringly weighty about the phrase, though. “Okay.”