For Helen, part of the fun was pretending that she didn't know what she was signing on for. The fun was thinking the nondisclosure agreement was just a silly precaution. There was fun in thinking that no one was seriously going to violate her. And it was fun to pretend that Emma was her friend and had her best interests in mind.
Emma emerged from the changing room, her tight athletic wear exchanged for a billowing blue dress. It seemed familiar, but it wasn't until Emma flipped her golden hair back and Helen noticed the black choker that the image slid into place.
"Cinderella," Helen nodded, "good choice."
"It was that or Aurora," Emma stared into the mirror and twirled, barely seeming to notice Helen. Helen wasn't sure who Aurora was, her education in Princess culture had been fairly rudimentary, but she kept nodding approvingly until Emma's twirl finally ended facing Helen.
"So, have you picked yours out yet?" Emma asked, seemingly addressing Helen for the first time since they'd arrived at the costume shop.
"Well, as a brunette, I guess my options are pretty limited to Belle from Beauty and the Beast," Helen said, holding up the tiered yellow dress.
"Not necessarily," Emma chided, "There's also Jane, from Tarzan."
"I don't think she's a princess."
"I look like I give a fuck?" For a split second, Emma's hard sorority leader edge emerged and Helen remembered why she'd always been terrified of the other girl. After a split second, the smile eased back into place, and Helen fought hard to mirror Emma's expression, "But Belle's a fine choice."
The young man who'd brought the two girls their costumes knocked once at the door and then let himself in. Helen was fairly sure she'd seen him around campus. Emma had mentioned something about the two of them having hooked up at a party, but at that point Helen had deliberately turned her attention elsewhere. In the girl's brief time together today, Helen had already spent more time listening to Emma's sexual exploits than she had total time spent having her own.
"Have you ladies decided?" the man asked, his courteous demeanor having the same uncomfortable fakeness as Emma's post-freakout smile. Emma paid for the dresses, daddy's money and all, which Helen thought was only appropriate given the theme of the party.
"And will you want the Tower or the Dungeon?"
Helen threw a look of confusion over towards Emma, which was not returned. Dungeon? That seemed a little extreme...
"I'll take the To-" she began.
"The Dungeon," Emma cut her off sharply, finally returning a look that bore more hallmarks of sinister than sweet, "We'll take the Dungeon."
The man looked back at Helen, someone finally throwing back the confused look, but Helen nodded meekly. The Dungeon it is.
The same courtier crossed down the hallway into the men's changing room, where Emma's boyfriend was awkwardly trying to get his tunic fitted.
"We have a number of suites available," the courtier said, this time dropping the pretense of graciousness as the boyfriend had never registered the other man's presence, "including pillory, study, dungeon, tower..."
"What?" he said, finally looking up from the mismatched gig-line. "Oh, uh... Tower. That sounds fine, put me down for that. Hey, are you sure this is the right size..."
It was, but the courtier didn't answer as he wrote the man's name down. The Tower? But Emma was... it took all of his three hours of minimum wage job training to suppress his smile. He wrote the boyfriend's name down next to the Tower, and slipped his own on the list for the Dungeon.
Emma was nearly a half hour late to Helen's house. To be precise, Emma's boyfriend was nearly a half hour late. Emma was only riding in the back. She was 21 years old and hadn't even deigned to get her driver's license. Someone else would always drive, and that was Emma in a nutshell. It did have its advantages though. Helen looked down at the yellow dress, whose bodice hugged her petite frame until it billowed out below there. The poofy shoulder pieces had almost matched Emma's, but at the last minute the other girl had decided to tailor hers so the shoulder straps were cut low, on level with the heaving breasts, and leaving her elegant collar exposed save for the black choker around her neck. Their elbow deep gloves still matched, though Emma's was silver and Helen's was yellow.
A few strands of Helen's rich auburn hair fell down in her face, but most were held back in a mix of a braid and a low ponytail. As she looked at her outfit, she realized it was probably the most "dressy" she'd ever been in her life. By now, she'd almost entirely forgotten about the contract... about the true purpose of the party.
As soon as she looked up, the Limo arrived. The door swung open and Helen saw Emma sitting inside, waving her hand frantically,
"Get in!" she shouted, "We're going to be late."
As soon as she climbed in, Emma quickly pecked her on the cheeks formally and then turned to her boyfriend in the front.
"Let's go! Don't worry about tickets, the cops here all know daddy's plates."
Emma's perky but fairly volumous breasts were almost fully exposed in the pumped up cleavage of her dress. Her blonde hair was pulled up now into a high bun with a silver tiara laced in. She'd fit her stereotype perfectly, having been a cheerleader for years until focusing more on her sorority activities, and it still carried in her body and her demeanor. There was even a slight southern twang that, in its own curious way, seemed to fit the aesthetic of the classically French princess perfectly.
Helen had almost missed it, but Emma wiped a glob of creamy white away from her lips. She turned to Helen with a faux-innocent smile when she noticed the other girl staring,
"Isn't a girl entitled to a little cake before her party?"
Helen didn't respond, though when Emma turned away, she did furiously wipe the lingering wetness away on her own cheek. After a long trip down the forested driveway, the looming castle of a home came into view. There were already several partygoers in immaculately accurate fantastical costumes. Among them Helen spotted a few members of Emma's sorority as scarily perfect Snow Whites and... the others extended past Helen's knowledge of Disney films.
The thought had occurred to Helen several times before now, but she finally couldn't put aside articulating it. This may have been her last chance. As Emma reached for the car door, Helen grasped her smooth, ivory shoulder and asked,
"Emma... why am I here?"
Emma responded with a curious look, though Helen suspected it was a delaying tactic.
"We have a couple classes together, but we've never hung out before now," Helen continued, "and I'm not in your sorority, so why am I here? In fact, I always kind of had the impression that you didn't like me..."
Helen caught most of the expressions that flittered across Emma's face: fear, coyness, even a strange moment of outrage, before the persona resumed and the cool princess demeanor smothered them. She didn't respond though, and she slid out the door her Prince Charming had opened.