Chapter 8 #2
The window display wasn't trying to hide what it was.
Adult-sized onesies in pastels and prints—clouds, stars, cartoon animals.
Pacifiers on silk cords displayed like jewelry.
Coloring books that were clearly too intricate for actual children.
Stuffed animals arranged on a small bed that looked expensive and loved simultaneously.
"What is this place?"
The question escaped even though my brain had already cataloged the evidence, drawn the conclusion, started panicking about the implications. This was a store for adults who age-regressed. For Littles. For people who found comfort in childhood things they'd been denied or lost or never had.
For people like—
"A safe space," Clara said gently, her fingers still linked with mine, warm and steady. "For Littles. For people like us."
Us. The word hit like lightning. Clara Volkov, the pakhan's wife who commanded rooms with her presence, was a Little? Eva, who'd survived the streets and married Dmitry, was a Little?
"Come on," Eva said, pulling the door open. A bell chimed—soft, musical, nothing like the harsh buzzer of the penthouse intercom. "Sarah's expecting us."
Inside, the store felt like stepping into a dream.
Everything was soft—the lighting, the colors, the music playing quietly from hidden speakers.
The space was divided into sections with hand-painted signs: Comfort Clothes, Toys & Friends, Peaceful Activities, Knowledge & Understanding.
Racks of adult-sized clothing that looked soft enough to disappear into.
Shelves of stuffed animals that seemed to watch with kind eyes.
A wall of books about DDlg dynamics, age regression, healing your inner child.
My chest felt too tight. My eyes burned with tears I couldn't explain.
This place was everything my father had forbidden, everything he'd ripped away when I turned seven and he decided I was old enough to be useful instead of young.
Every soft thing, every comfort object, every piece of childhood he'd stolen because intellect mattered more than innocence.
"Breathe," Clara murmured, squeezing my hand. "It's overwhelming the first time."
A woman emerged from behind the counter—mid-forties maybe, with silver streaking through brown hair and the kind of eyes that had seen pain but chosen kindness anyway. She wore jeans and a t-shirt that said "All Littles are Valid" in rainbow letters.
"Clara, Eva." Her voice was warm, welcoming, like honey tea. Then her eyes found me, and something in her expression softened further. "You must be Anya."
I nodded, not trusting my voice. Everything in this store was calling to some buried part of me, some seven-year-old girl who'd had her dolls thrown away, who'd been told she was too old for stuffed animals, who'd learned to find comfort in equations instead of teddy bears because numbers were the only soft things allowed.
"I'm Sarah," she said, and her smile was gentle enough not to break me. "Welcome to Little Haven. You're safe here."
Safe. The word nestled into my chest like it was looking for a home. Like maybe, possibly, it might be true.
Sarah led us through the store like a shepherd guiding lost sheep home, past racks of clothing that whispered safety, past shelves that promised comfort without judgment.
My fingers trailed along a display of stuffed dragons—purple, green, rose gold—their fabric so soft it made my chest ache with wanting.
"The back room is through here," Sarah said, producing a key from her pocket. Not a modern keycard like Ivan's elevator, but an actual brass key, worn smooth from use. "It's a special space, for special people."
She unlocked a door painted the same soft lavender as the storefront, and gestured us through.
I stepped inside and forgot how to breathe.
The room was everything my father had stripped from my childhood, rebuilt and made safe for adults who'd never gotten to be children.
A daybed against one wall, piled with blankets in soft textures—fleece, minky, something that might have been cashmere.
The pillows were mismatched but deliberately so, like each one had been chosen for maximum comfort rather than aesthetic.
And the stuffed animals—there must have been thirty of them, arranged like they were waiting for someone to need them.
A low table occupied the center of the room, sized so you could sit on the floor and still work comfortably.
Coloring books were stacked beside boxes of crayons—good ones, the kind that went down smooth and blended properly.
Not children's books but intricate designs: mandalas, gardens, abstract patterns that would require focus and let your mind drift simultaneously.
In the corner sat a rocking chair that looked vintage, painted white but worn at the edges where countless hands had gripped the arms. A bookshelf beside it held picture books mixed with young adult novels, the kinds of stories that were adventures and comfort at once.
Fairy lights strung overhead cast everything in warm, gentle light. Not the harsh fluorescents of my father's office or the calculated ambiance of Ivan's penthouse. This was light designed to soothe, to make shadows soft instead of sharp.
"Sometimes Littles need a space to just be," Sarah said, reading my expression with the practice of someone who'd seen this reaction before. "No judgment. No performance. Just permission to regress."
My throat closed entirely. Permission to regress. Like it was something you could just do. Like you could choose to be small and vulnerable and that would be okay instead of weak.
Eva had already moved to the cushions arranged around the low table, folding herself down with easy grace. Clara followed, settling beside her like this was routine, normal, something they did regularly. After a moment of paralysis, I joined them, my legs shaky as I lowered myself to the floor.
The cushion was memory foam covered in velvet.
It cradled my body, supported my back, made sitting on the floor feel luxurious instead of punishing.
Clara reached for one of the coloring books, flipping through until she found a mandala design that looked like a flower blooming in geometric patterns.
"This one's good for anxiety," she said, setting it between us. "The repetition is soothing."
She dumped a box of crayons onto the table—sixty-four colors spilling across the wood like a rainbow had shattered. Without discussion, she picked up purple and started coloring one section. Eva grabbed green. They worked in easy silence, like this was meditation, prayer, something sacred.
I picked up blue. Cerulean, according to the wrapper. Started filling in a petal with careful strokes, staying inside the lines because that's what you were supposed to do.
"You can go outside the lines," Clara said gently. "There are no rules here."
No rules. The concept was so foreign it might as well have been spoken in a language I didn't know. There were always rules. Stay quiet. Be useful. Don't want things. Don't need things. Don't be childish.
But I kept coloring anyway, and slowly something in my chest began to loosen.
Eva had picked up a stuffed elephant from the daybed, cradling it against her chest while she colored one-handed.
The casualness of it—a grown woman holding a toy without shame—made my eyes burn.
Clara hummed something soft, maybe a lullaby, maybe nothing.
The sound mixed with the fairy lights and the soft cushions and the careful scratch of crayons on paper to create a bubble outside of time.
"I never had this."
The words escaped without permission, barely louder than the crayons on paper.
Clara and Eva both looked up, but neither spoke. Waiting. Giving me space to continue or stop.
"My father—" My voice cracked. I set down the cerulean and picked up midnight blue, needing my hands busy.
"I wasn't allowed toys after I turned seven.
He said they were childish. Distracting.
He threw away my dolls while I was at school.
Came home and my room was just—empty. Bed, desk, computer. Nothing soft. Nothing mine."
The blue crayon shook in my hand. I pressed harder, needing the resistance.
"I spent my childhood studying instead of playing," I continued, the words flowing now like blood from a wound. "Useful things. Valuable things. By ten I was decoding intelligence. By fourteen I was running entire operations from my father's office. By eighteen I was—"
Drowning. Disappearing. Dying inside while performing brilliance.
"I never got to be little." The admission scraped my throat raw. "Never got to be young. He stole that from me. Took it and sold it for leverage and now I'm twenty-six and I don't know how to play. Don't know how to be soft. Don't know how to—"
The tears came without warning. Not gentle tears but the ugly kind—body-shaking sobs that felt like they were ripping me apart from inside.
Twenty years of suppressed grief flooding my system all at once.
The seven-year-old crying for her dolls.
The ten-year-old who wanted to play outside instead of decode messages.
The teenager who wanted sleepovers and boy band posters and all the silly, precious things that make up a childhood.
Clara and Eva moved immediately, flanking me, arms around my shoulders. Not restraining. Anchoring. Holding me together while I fell apart.
The sobs turned violent, like my body was trying to expel twenty years of grief through my throat.
Each breath scraped raw, caught on something sharp in my chest, came out as sounds I didn't know I could make.
Animal sounds. The kind of crying that happened when you finally stopped holding the door closed and let everything crash through at once.