Evan’s World: Episode 12 – A Madison’s World Side Story

The days bled together. 

What had begun as a blur of uncertainty slowly stretched and settled into something resembling a rhythm. Not quite normal, but steady. Predictable. Familiar enough to be unsettling. 

The first days had molded themselves into weeks, softly, quietly, relentlessly, each one shaping her, pressing her into the new identity she was being made to inhabit. Not Charity Stevens. Not the girl from Upper New York with the sharp tongue and carefully controlled hair and curated Instagram. That girl had been discarded like a broken phone. 

Now she was becoming Charity Kingsley. 

The name tasted strange. Artificial. Like it belonged to someone else. But it was hers now, etched onto the ID tag  that jingled softly every time she moved, dangling from the pink collar that sat like a brand around her neck. The sound had once embarrassed her. Now it haunted her. 

This, this existence, was different than what she had endured with Alejandra. 

Her time in that grimy plaid bag, sleeping on bundled sweatshirts and smelling of generic shampoo, had been rough, yes, but not permanent. Even at her lowest, Charity had never believed it would last. There was always a flicker of change on the horizon. She could see it in Alejandra’s eyes, raw and determined. Hungry. Not for power, but for survival. For something better, something more, maybe not just for herself, but for her whole family. Alejandra wasn’t cruel, not exactly. But she was desperate. Always reaching. Always preparing to let go. 

Charity had been a rung on that ladder. A tool. A bargaining chip. 

But here? 

Here, she was the prize. 

Evan didn’t want more. She didn’t want to trade up. She didn’t look at Charity like a burden to be passed off. 

She looked at her like she was perfect. 

That was worse, somehow. 

Because Evan wanted her just like this. Tiny. Collared. Tamed. 

Charity knew it, felt it, in every gesture, every glance. The way Evan’s fingers would curl protectively around her as she walked down the stairs. The way she’d pause to straighten the blanket in her habitat before shutting off the lights. The way she’d drop little praise bombs like “That’s my girl,” or “You’re learning so fast,” as if she were teaching a puppy new tricks. 

And when Charity dared to speak, timidly, softly, her voice soft from the damage Alejandra never corrected, Evan would bend down, tilt her head like she was listening to a baby murmur, and smile. 

Sometimes it was warm. 

Sometimes it was chilling. 

Charity tried not to think too hard about which it was. 

Because with Evan, there was no out. No horizon. No hustle for better. 

There was just this pink and white world. The glittery name tag. The structured schedule and the scent of cherry-vanilla bath oils seeping into her skin like a second identity. 

She could hear the soft tapping of Evan’s fingers against her phone screen even now, sprawled out across the bed with a textbook propped against her thigh and a bowl of popcorn just out of Charity’s reach. Every so often, Evan would pause mid-scroll and glance down at her. 

“Hey, wanna grab my charger cable?” she’d ask brightly, like Charity wasn’t just a few inches tall, perched beside a gloss streaked makeup case. 

Or worse: 

“C’mere, Charity. I wanna see how you look with this scrunchie around your waist.” 

Charity would obey. 

She always obeyed. 

Because the jingle of that collar tag didn’t just announce her presence. 

It reminded her of what she was now. 

Not a lost cause. Not a temporary burden. 

She was Evan’s. 

Entirely. Enthusiastically. Forever. 

And Evan wanted her exactly that way, scuttling across the desk as she typed her English paper, her little legs moving quickly as Evan cooed and reached down to ruffle her hair like a proud owner showing off a well trained pet. 

The terrifying part wasn’t that Evan could make her do it. 

It was that she wanted her to. 

And that no one, not a parent, not a teacher, not even a government agency, was going to say a damn thing. 

Because Evan Kingsley was a good girl. 

And Charity Kingsley? 

Well, she was the perfect little companion. 

The rhythmic clacking of Evan’s keyboard echoed across the room like hammers on glass. Each keystroke, though nothing more than the tap of a fingertip, sent subtle tremors through the surface beneath Charity. The vibrations radiated across the floorboards, barely perceptible to Evan, but impossible for Charity to ignore. It was the world shifting beneath her, steady and indifferent. 

Nearby, the dull thump of Evan’s foot tapping against the floor sent a pulse through the ground every few seconds. Charity laid on her side, her body nestled against the smooth warmth of the hardwood, her arms tucked beneath her chin. She had no task. No job. No orders. 

Just permission to exist. 

As a pet. 

It was an odd kind of silence. Not peaceful, never that, but inert. There was no leash attached to her collar, no chore list being barked out. Just the occasional flicker of Evan’s gaze, making sure she hadn’t wandered off like a kitten. Charity tried to take solace in the reprieve, but it only deepened the ache inside. A girl who used to control her peers and friends now laid silent on the floor of a tweenager’s bedroom, waiting for her next command. 

A few feet away, Brooklyn lay sprawled on her stomach with her laptop in front of her, one ankle crossed over the other in a lazy rhythm. Her perfectly manicured nails tapped intermittently on the trackpad, punctuated by soft, irritated groans. 

“Ughhh, I can’t with this paper,” Brooklyn whined for what felt like the hundredth time. 

Charity had gathered, though no one had said so directly, that Brooklyn was also a guardian. She spoke with that casual, unthinking entitlement that only came from holding power over someone else. But if Brooklyn had a Little, she wasn’t here now. 

Brooklyn’s eyes flicked toward Charity, and a small smirk curled at the corner of her mouth. 

“You have it so easy,” she said flatly. 

Charity blinked slowly, willing herself not to respond. It was a phrase she’d heard dozens of times already. It infuriated her, how these girls thought her life was some pampered stroll. As if being paraded around, fed pellets, and stripped of autonomy was some kind of spa retreat. As if obedience came without the dull, constant throb of humiliation. 

“You do your laps today?” Evan asked from above, her tone sweet as candy, at least to someone who didn’t know better. 

But to Charity, it felt like thunder. Omnipresent. Inescapable. Evan didn’t need to raise her voice; her words settled over Charity, like dust in her lungs. Even with her eyes closed, she couldn’t block it out. 

“No…” Charity murmured, barely audible. Her voice still didn’t carry, not since Alejandra had ignored the damage to her vocal cords. The sound that escaped her throat was light, soft and airy. A reminder of how small she was.  

A simple corrective procedure could’ve fixed it. Restored a tone, a register, maybe even a semblance of power. At least enough to sound human in the presence of other Littles. Enough to matter. But Evan hadn’t allowed it. 

Not yet. 

Evan didn’t even glance away from her laptop. “Then go do them. Sit-ups and pushups too. You need more strength. Gotta be faster moving around my room. I’ve seen you getting tired just walking around it. What if a predator of some kind finds its way in? Nothing is fool proof.” 

She didn’t raise her voice. She didn’t need to. Charity moved. 

She always moved. 

Charity glared at Evan as she rose. She sat at her desk, the spot Charity had once imagined for herself. Back when she was the one molding Littles. Shaping them into tools. Into assets. Useful creatures who served a higher purpose, her purpose. 

Now that vision still existed. The hierarchy. The obedience. The refinement of Little kind. 

Only she wasn’t on top. 

She was at the bottom. 

Evan’s vision of perfection was being shaped right now, but it was Charity’s body being shaped. Her mind. Her spirit. 

“Of course, my pleasure,” Charity muttered as she began stretching, her tone flat and brittle like cracked glass. 

Brooklyn laughed lightly from her corner. “You see that look on her face? She hates this.” 

Charity flinched. She had to answer. 

“Nnno, I’m grateful,” she said, voice trembling but honest, at least in part. She was grateful. Evan, for all her casual dominance, wasn’t Alejandra. She was clean, organized, and, on some level, kind. There was food. A bed. No fear of garbage duty. But gratitude didn’t equal peace. Gratitude didn’t mean she was free. 

“Well, she was a Stevens,” Evan said, finally looking up. “An heiress to a powerful family. Now she belongs to me.” She paused for effect. “She’s my little heiress.” 

Charity felt her stomach twist. That word, belong, had never felt more literal. 

Evan slid her phone down beside her with a soft thud, the glossy screen smudged with thumbprints and flecks of lip gloss. “Before you start your exercises,” she said sweetly, “polish my screen. It’s gross.” 

Beside the phone lay a cloth, familiar microfiber, miniature in Evan’s world, oversized in hers. Charity stared at it for a second, her body already moving. 

She bent to lift the cloth and approached the glowing slab of glass. 

Her reflection hit her first. 

Distorted in the arc of the screen, she barely recognized herself, her smallness, the pink collar, the glint of the ID tag. She looked like a doll someone forgot to put away. 

She remembered her own phone. The one she used to have. 

A graphite iPhone, custom case in Italian leather with her initials, C.S. embossed in gold foil. She’d chosen it herself in Paris, on vacation with her parents. Her father hadn’t even flinched at the price. “Something sturdy,” he’d said, nodding to Alejandra or some maid Charity didn’t bother remembering as she carefully tucked the receipt into the folder with Charity’s other purchases. 

Charity never polished her own screen. That was Alejandra’s job, before. The family housekeeper always made sure it was spotless before laying it on the charger each night beside her bed. 

At School, no one cleaned it for her. But no one dared smudge it, either. She used to sit at the corner of the quad courtyard, scrolling effortlessly with her legs crossed at the ankles and a steaming almond milk latte in her free hand. When she messaged someone, they answered. If she posted a story, it shaped the tone of the school day. 

Now she wiped a screen for someone else. 

Now she was the someone else. 

She dragged the cloth across the surface, slowly. Deliberately. She could still feel the vibration of Evan’s earlier text through the glass. Smudged mascara.  Oil from popcorn. Charity took her time pressing the cloth into the corners, erasing every smear with the precision of a personal assistant who wasn’t allowed to speak. 

Not just erasing dirt. 

Erasing Evan. 

Erasing herself. 

She paused at the edge of the phone, her breath catching as another memory surfaced, Kira, her best friend, laughing while they FaceTimed in bed late into the night. Kira teasing her for not knowing how to actually clean her own bathroom. “You’d die if Alejandra didn’t pack your tennis shoes,” she’d joked. 

Charity had laughed then. 

She wasn’t laughing now. 

The collar jingled softly as she shifted positions. 

“I used to have Alejandra clean my screen for me,” she murmured aloud, voice soft yet audible. It came out raw. Not for Evan. For herself. 

Evan, lounging on the bed now, smiled playing with her hair absentmindedly. “Cute. But now you’re the Alejandra, huh? Only way cuter and a much better little girl.” Evan said warm and lovingly in a way that didn’t make it sound like an insult. 

Charity’s jaw clenched. The cloth pressed harder. She scrubbed the edge like it had insulted her. 

Brooklyn snorted. “You’re such a bitch,” she said to Evan, half amused, half impressed. 

Charity said nothing. She thought back to who they’d once been in her eyes, Brooklyn, the background girl if even that. She was Evan’s friend and Evan was barely a person. Evan, the daughter of one of her father’s friends and allies. Evan and her were ever equals. Barely acquaintances. These were girls who once circled her orbit only through business and family ties. 

Now she was the satellite. The object. The obedient little thing brushing smudges off an almost teenager’s phone with reverent care. 

But she didn’t say anything. 

Not yet. 

Because there was no advantage in screaming in this moment. 

But she could choose her tempo. 

She could choose to remember. 

She could wipe slowly, as an act of defiance. 

And she did. 

Each circle of the cloth said: You don’t own my thoughts. 

Each pass whispered: You can’t clean me away. 

And when the screen gleamed, when it looked showroom new, she folded the cloth like a linen napkin and set it down beside the phone without a word. 

She turned and walked away. 

Her shoulders straight. 

Her movements measured. 

Inside, the burn remained. But beneath it, something colder, sharper, more enduring. 

She wasn’t Alejandra. 

Not yet. Not Ever. 

“Good girl,” Evan murmured, reaching down to lift Charity effortlessly from the floor. She settled her into her lap like a favored plush, one hand curling gently around her waist, the other rising to stroke the top of her cropped hair with casual, unthinking affection. 

The touch was soft. Warm. Measured. 

Charity’s breath caught. 

She hated how her head leaned into the stroke before she even realized it was happening. 

It was instinct, not surrender. At least, that’s what she told herself. A reflex burned into her spine from weeks of exhaustion and starvation and constant alertness. A body’s response to comfort, not the mind’s. Not the soul’s. 

But the moment still burned. 

She could feel the gentle drag of Evan’s fingers across her scalp, slow, rhythmic, patient. Dopamine bloomed like poison in her brain. It felt good. Of course it did. That was the problem. 

That was always the problem. 

The warmth of Evan’s lap wrapped around her like a nest. Her chest betrayed her with its steady rise and fall. Her shoulders loosened. Her eyelids dipped for a fraction of a second. Just long enough. 

Her body was trying to bond. She could feel it happening. Not as a choice, but a chemical gravity pulling her closer to the one who fed her, protected her, loved on her, touched her gently. 

She wanted to scream at her nerves, her skin, her stupid synapses. 

Don’t you dare. 

But her body didn’t listen. 

It leaned again, just slightly, into the next stroke. 

She wasn’t broken. 

But she was tamed. 

A bully on a leash. 

And the hand holding the leash belonged to Evan Kingsley. 

Evan’s fingers loosened around Charity’s waist, and the soft warmth of her palm fell away. “Alright, back to it,” she said, setting her Little gently onto the hardwood floor with the same care she might’ve used to lower a kitten from her lap. 

Charity’s bare feet touched the ground. The lingering comfort of Evan’s lap still clung to her legs like heat trapped under a blanket. Her collar jingled softly as she stood, the tag brushing her chest, a sound now so familiar it felt like punctuation to every movement. 

The room loomed around her. A towering bed framed in wood. A mountain of pillows. A pastel wall dotted with glittering decals. A dresser, a vanity, shelves stuffed with plushies and lip gloss tubes and designer textbooks. The vast, glossy floor stretched ahead, her track. Her training grounds. 

Charity began to run. 

Her feet pattered against the floor in soft, quick taps. One lap. Then another. The air shifted subtly with her passing. Evan’s room smelled faintly of fruity body spray and laundry softener. With every turn, the scent clung tighter. 

Above her, the world continued at its own scale. 

Brooklyn rolled onto her back, tossing a pink highlighter into the air and catching it with lazy precision. 

“You think Madison’s gonna wear that ridiculous sequin hoodie again tomorrow?” she asked, her voice singsong and full of friendly mockery. 

Evan snorted. “Of course she is. She’s convinced it’s a personality.” 

Charity turned sharply at the corner of the vanity, keeping her knees high. Her legs burned. Her lungs ached, not from exertion, not entirely, but from the sick familiarity of it all. This was her life now. Exercise on command. Movement under surveillance. Her body a thing to be shaped to Evan’s liking. 

“She’s so obsessed with being, like, fashion forward,” Brooklyn said with exaggerated finger quotes. “But she still wears the sneakers with the smiley faces.” 

“I like the smiley face sneakers,” Evan replied, feigning offense. 

Brooklyn gasped. “Nooo.” 

“Yes! They’re cute!” 

“They look like kindergarten shoes.” 

They both burst into laughter. The kind of laughter that echoed off the walls and bounced around Charity’s aching body like bright colored dodgeballs. 

She kept running. 

By the tenth lap, her breaths came short and quick, arms swinging tight to her sides. Her pace slowed, but her resolve hardened. Not because Evan told her to, but because it was the only space where she could choose something. Control something. Her endurance. Her pace. Her limits. 

Then came stretches. 

She knelt beside the base of Evan’s dresser, toes flexing, fingers clasped in front of her as she pulled her spine forward. Each stretch reminded her that the body she had once trained on private Pilates machines was now being repurposed for obedience drills, assigned by a preteen with sparkly nail polish. 

Push-ups next. 

She dropped to the ground and pressed up, her elbows trembling. One. Two. Three. Her collar tag hit the floor with each dip, tap, tap, tap, like a cruel metronome. 

Sit ups. 

She interlaced her fingers behind her head and began to rise and fall in a steady rhythm. The hem of her tiny shirt stuck to her back. Sweat pricked at her scalp. She could feel her muscles growing, adapting, but not for freedom. 

For service. 

Overhead, Evan leaned across her bed, nudging Brooklyn’s shoulder with her elbow. “You should totally come with me next week to the salon. We’re getting the spa pedicure with the crystals again.” 

Brooklyn rolled her eyes. “Only if I get the glitter wrap this time. Last time you totally stole the last one.” 

Evan grinned. “Fine. But you’re buying me the pink lemonade at the kiosk.” 

“Deal.” 

Charity kept moving. No one acknowledged her. No praise. No commentary. Just her in her little corner, in her little body, doing the tasks that were expected of her. 

Her knees scraped slightly against the polished floor. She ignored it. 

This wasn’t about strength anymore. It was about endurance. Survival. She would get through this, rep by rep, lap by lap, one humiliating command at a time. 

The girls above her returned to their math homework, occasionally groaning over equations, trading inside jokes, asking about snacks. It was as if she didn’t exist. As if she were background noise. Furniture. 

Or maybe worse. 

A pet in training. 

Charity collapsed into a seated position beside the nightstand’s towering leg, her chest rising and falling with shallow, rhythmic breaths. Her arms trembled slightly, still recovering from the pushups. Her legs burned from the laps and stretching, a dull ache that coiled up from her calves into her spine. She pressed a forearm to her forehead, trying to wipe the slickness from her brow. 

That’s when she smelled it. 

Cherry. 

Vanilla. 

She blinked. 

She sniffed again. 

It wasn’t the room. Not Evan’s perfume misting the air. Not a candle. Not body spray clinging to the furniture. 

It was her. 

A thin sheen of sweat had begun to gather on her skin, and with it came the unmistakable waft of the bath from earlier in the week, the one Brie had prepared for her with almost ceremonial delight. The pink tinted water. The oils poured so delicately. The lather that clung to her hair, her arms, her neck. Brie had hummed while she worked, like it was a sleepover spa day. 

“This scent gets deep, sweetie. It’s gonna live in your pores. When you sweat, it’ll still be there. That cherry vanilla? That’s gonna be your signature.” 

Charity’s stomach turned. 

It had lived in her. 

She could smell it now, subtle, but unmistakable. Not just a surface fragrance. It was coming out of her. Baked in. 

She lifted her arm slightly, smelling the crook of her elbow. Still there. Richer now, fused with the heat of exertion, the salt of her skin. She rubbed the back of her neck with her hand, and the collar jangled softly. Her fingertips came away warm and damp, and the scent rose even stronger. 

It made her feel like a product. 

Like she’d been branded. 

Her lips parted, but the soft quiet scream came several seconds later. Not that it mattered, not until Evan gave her permission to fix it. 

She leaned against the wall of Evan’s vanity and let her head rest against the cool baseboard. The scent followed her. It was her. 

Her sweat was no longer her own. 

Even her biology was being rewritten. 

She thought about the showers she used to take after fencing practice, at St. Madeline’s, the expensive lavender shampoo she insisted Alejandra keep stocked in her bathroom, the silk robe she used to wear while answering texts in front of her floor-length mirror. 

There had been control then. Choice. Autonomy in every detail, from scent to soap to schedule. 

Now, even her sweat served someone else’s aesthetic. 

Her eyes burned. She closed them tight, refusing to cry. She wouldn’t give the cherry vanilla that satisfaction. 

The girls were still chatting above, their conversation lazy and light. 

“You think your mom’s gonna let you get the extensions this time?” Brooklyn was saying. 

Evan laughed. “Please. She thinks I’m already too high maintenance. I’m just gonna get my dad to come with and then do it. That way I can act surprised when she notices.” 

More laughter. 

Charity sat perfectly still in her corner, her chest still rising and falling. Each inhale brought with it the artificial sweetness. 

She pressed her palm flat to her belly, grounding herself. 

It was fake. A mask. A chemical lie. 

But it was also inescapable. 

Like the collar. 
Like the pellets. 
Like her new last name. 

Charity Kingsley smelled like cherry vanilla. 

And she didn’t know if she’d ever smell like herself again. 

Later that night, the lights had dimmed in Evan’s room. The giant girl was curled beneath a lavender comforter, one arm draped lazily over a stuffed koala, her breathing soft and rhythmic. From her perch inside the habitat, Charity watched the steady rise and fall of Evan’s chest in the shadows. The muffled glow of a string of LED lights ran along the ceiling, casting soft pink and blue hues across the walls. 

The world was still. 

Carefully, Charity climbed down from her fleece covered bed, the bedding springing slightly beneath her weight. Her bare feet met the carpeted enclosure floor with a whisper-soft touch. 

The water dish sat nearby. Shallow. Lukewarm now. Evan had changed it earlier in the evening, dumping the old and filling it again with filtered water and a quiet “There you go, sweetheart.” 

Charity didn’t say thank you. 

She waited until the silence was absolute. Then she crept forward. 

The dish wasn’t a shower, but it would do. She crouched beside it, cupping her hands and dragging them through the water. Slowly, methodically, she rubbed her forearms. Her collar. Her neck. Then her face. 

The scent lifted for a moment, water displacing the residue. She scrubbed harder. Her fingernails dragged across the fine baby hairs near her temples. She splashed water under her arms, over her chest, behind her knees. Again. Again. Her skin reddened from friction. Her fingers pruned. But the scent never faded. 

If anything, the warmth made it bloom again. 

Cherry. Vanilla. 

She let out a stifled gasp of frustration, slapping the water with a soft, bitter smack that sent ripples across the dish. 

She pressed her face into the crook of her elbow. 

Still there. 

No matter how hard she scrubbed, she smelled like the bath Brie gave her. Like the syrupy fragrance a preteen might choose for her doll. Like someone else’s idea of beauty. 

Like property. 

She sank back against the enclosure wall, chest heaving, limbs trembling, not from exertion, but from the dawning understanding: 

This wasn’t perfume. 

This was identity theft. 

Every drop of sweat. Every breath that carried that damned scent. It was a reminder that she wasn’t just owned, she was curated. 

Fabricated. 

No matter what she said. No matter what she did. 

She smelled like Evan’s Little. 

And Evan would never let her forget it. 

She pressed her fingers to her face and cried, silently, eyes wide open, staring at the enclosure door. 

There was no dirt to cling to. No grime to scrub off. 

She was clean. 

She was perfect. 

She was trapped. 

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