“There’s image display units, called curlys, which curl up for storage, then you can unroll them and put them on the wall. They usually hold a few thousand images—if you want that many pictures—and the curly displays each one in turn so you can have as many pictures as you want in the same spot.”
“What if you always want to look at the same image in the same place, and have more than one image on the wall?” Sarah wondered whether there were still metal bands to drool over, and she definitely didn’t like the idea of not knowing what she would see when she looked at her own wall. Ever-changing images sounded distracting, like when people put the TV on with no volume. She always ended up staring at the moving pictures. She liked being able to depend on the pictures on her wall to always be the same when she glanced at them.
“I guess you could only put one image on a curly,” Ral conceded.
“Great, can we get a couple of those, then, please?”
“I don’t think that would be a problem.”
Sarah yawned widely and her eyes were suddenly dry.
“That sounds like your bedtime, Sarah.” Ral got up to clear the cups.
“Aww, do I have to?” She was wide awake; it was only her eyes and mouth that were tired.
“Early to bed and we’ll have more time to spend shopping tomorrow morning,” Ral said from the kitchen area.
Sarah sighed; the weight of the world was on her shoulders, but she didn’t want to ruin the weekend by starting it off with a spanking. She went to bed with a sense of dread about the shopping trip.
Truth be told, she wanted some changes of clothes, but she was a little nervous about going shopping; her plus-size figure was going to look awful in a school uniform, she just knew it. She hadn’t seen a single person who was as rotund as she was, and she wanted to delay the time when she had to experience that familiar disappointment of looking through the clothing rails and seeing only muted, boring clothes in her size. Shopping always promised the idea of finding something to make her feel sexy and pretty, but in reality, all she ever got was unflattering disappointment.
She fell asleep and dreamed that Saturday got canceled, so they skipped straight to Sunday when they would redecorate her room.
* * *
“Sarah, you need to get up.” Ral tapped on her wall, since there was no door to her room, and waited for a response. He’d learned over the past week that if sleeping was a competitive sport, Sarah would win it. Whether that was normal for her or a side effect of the cryogenic process, he didn’t know.
“Wstflgl.” Sarah also couldn’t seem to construct even a simple sentence before she’d had her morning stroobfruit juice, a drink Ral had bought especially for her. He heard her mention coffee several times, but he wasn’t prepared to source any, because he didn’t think it was very healthy.
“That’s right, just sit up and get out of bed,” Ral coached her. He’d learned that the carrot was more effective than the stick when it came to getting her up.
“Do we have to go shopping today?” she asked several minutes later, when she was at the end of her first glass of juice.
“You make it sound like a chore.” He wondered why she was reluctant to go. Didn’t girls love going to the mall? There was an entire planet—Commercia Minor—that was a shopping mall, and Ral knew most girls loved shopping so much that they would put a trip to Commercia Minor at the top of their birthday wish list. That wasn’t where he was taking Sarah today, however, as it was a bit too far for a morning journey.
“When your butt is the size of a truck, shopping’s definitely a chore,” Sarah said.
“I’ve told you before, Sarah, you have a lovely figure. I’ve never seen a more spankable bottom than yours.” Ral couldn’t understand why Sarah had such negative things to say about her body.
“You don’t need to spare my feelings. That Doctor Tavia said I needed to lose fifty pounds.”
“Doctor Tavia spends her days defrosting old people with lots of money. She’s probably never seen an Earth human before. I think you look lovely.” Ral waved a hand dismissively, mentally adding this to the list of grievances against the unbelievably prickly Doctor Tavia.
He got her to the mall and took her to the school uniform store first. A clerk measured her, since Sarah didn’t know her size in the modern measurements, then handed her a couple of items to try. When she stepped out of the cubicle in her crisp white shirt with a black neck bow, and her adorable plaid pleated skirt, Ral’s heart skipped a beat. She looked even more adorable than ever.
He dragged his thoughts away from how she managed to look adorable and sexy at the same time when he saw the expression of uncertainty on her face.
“You look amazing,” he said. “Have you seen yourself?”
“Yeah, I’m a hippo.” She looked down at her legs.
“New rule, you are not allowed to say things like that about yourself. Your opinion is very important to me, sweetheart, but you are being really mean to yourself. Look at how perky your chest is, and how you curve out here…” he traced his hands around the cleft of her breasts, “then in here,” he came in for her waist, then traced the curve of her stomach, “then out again, like a three-dimensional person instead of a line drawing of a stick figure; then your ass curves like this,” he slid his hands down to her bottom and gently caressed it, “before finishing with your delightful legs, those tiny ankles, and your perfect feet.”
Sarah looked up at him, seeming to search his face for something, then she broke into a smile.
“You mean it, don’t you?” She wasn’t really asking. “I have always liked my feet…”
Ral decided that was a good enough start on the road to her loving her own beautiful figure.
“Okay, you better change out of that school uniform so we can find you some other things to wear. You like jeans, right?”
“Do they still make them?” She went back inside a changing room to put her usual clothes back on.
“Sure do; there’s a chain store called Earth Retro. Its whole business is reviving Earth fashions, and they always have jeans.”
“Oh, cool, when I used to picture the future, I just thought everyone would wear silver mini-dresses or white playsuits or something.” She reappeared in the shirt she borrowed from Ral.
Ral looked at her in confusion.
“Why would you… but you’ve already seen what people look like!”
“I was joking, silly! On the TV when I was growing up there were always reruns of sci-fi shows from the sixties, and the women always wore silver mini-dresses or white playsuits. Some of the men did, too. ‘Specially when the networks moved on to seventies reruns.”
“I didn’t understand most of the things you just said. Are these obscure cultural references?”
“Yeah… obscure. Right.” She looked frustrated, and Ral felt slightly bad that he had no idea what she was really talking about. He put a hand on her shoulder to reassure her. When she looked up at him, she was wistful.
“You must travel a lot as an astro-archaeologist. Have you ever been so far away from anything familiar to you that you started to wonder if any of it even happened?”
“Yes, sweetheart. I have. When I was fresh off my doctorate, I got sent to excavate a Mulo-Mulo on the planet Sporg. Their atmosphere’s mostly chlorine gas, so I had to wear an atmo-suit for the six months I was there. I never realized how much all the humanoid races have in common until I saw how differently the Kangarks did things. They don’t eat food, they absorb nutrients from the air around them, so nobody understood the humanoid social activity of eating. They thought my hair was a parasite and kept suggesting ways to get rid of it. As for the language… well the Speakeasy chip translated fine, but I wished it had blocked out the sound of them trying to talk. Nails down a chalkboard would have been less jarring.” Ral spotted the store he wanted to take her to, and headed in that direction. “I got more migraines on Sporg than I’ve ever had in my life. But your situation is worse, and I get that.�
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“How is mine worse? That sounds terrible.”
“Ah, but I always knew I would go home eventually. You can’t ever go back, and that’s why it’s worse, sweetheart.”
“Don’t they have a time machine or something?”
Ral shook his head. “One of the biggest advances in physics in the last hundred years was that someone conclusively proved time travel only worked on an atomic level. There’s no way to get even a single-celled organism back in time; it just turns into a collection of random atoms.”
Sarah sighed heavily and looked thoughtful. For a moment, Ral worried that she was going to cry again, as she followed him into Earth Retro.
A couple of hours later, Ral was carrying several heavy bags containing new clothes, underwear, and other important items she needed. They got some lunch at the food court then headed over to the Rolling Alley.
“You have to try and get your ball to touch the colored squares on the floor in a particular order, but if you’re too slow, the colors change and you lose points,” Ral explained.
“Wait, so you said you go inside the ball and it rolls around… how do you direct it?” Sarah was shaking her head at the people rolling around in their giant balls.
“You have handholds and you just sorta wiggle. You’ll get the hang of it. Here, they’re rolling ours up now.” Ral pointed to the balls being pushed toward the counter. He handed their shopping bags to the assistant, then helped Sarah inside and fastened her in.
* * *
“Daddy? I’m scared.” Sarah watched Ral fasten the Velcro straps around her with trepidation.
“It’s going to be fine, sweetheart; I’ll be in one too. We’ll be in our own lane like everyone else.” Ral was trying to be reassuring but Sarah wasn’t convinced. What if the straps came unfastened or she got stuck upside-down? She tugged on the bindings. They didn’t move. These balls would be a disturbingly good way of immobilizing someone when they were waiting for a punishment. Wait… what was her brain doing, thinking about spanking when she was doing a nice wholesome activity in public?
“All safe,” he added, then closed the side. Sarah waited helplessly while he got into his own ball, with the help of one of the Rolling Alley’s assistants.
A short while later they were rolling around a twenty-foot-wide lane just for the two of them, trying to roll over light-up squares in the floor before they changed color. Sarah had kept bumping into the wall at first but after a few false starts she started to get a sense for how to make it move where she wanted it to go. Sort of. But it was a start and she didn’t think she was doing worse than the person in the next lane, who was just sailing up and down the length like a bowling ball that couldn’t make up its mind which way the pins were.
“Time’s up, princess,” Ral said after the lights all went out on the floor under them. Sarah watched him extricate himself from the ball with ease. She looked down and wondered how to get out.
“You stuck?” Ral stood next to her, his rolling ball was empty. Sarah glared at him, embarrassed.
“No,” she answered too quickly. Now he’d know she was stuck. Trying to prove she could do it, she yanked at the foot straps so hard it sent the ball rolling and she landed at the bottom with a thud.
“Let me help you.” Ral caught up with her again, opened the entrance, and hoisted Sarah out of the ball.
“I was doing it!” she protested. He gave her a sharp look.
“Would you like a spanked bottom to top off a perfect day?” His voice was soft.
“No, I’m sorry!” She shook her head and hoped he’d forgive her.
“You’ve been so good today, it would be a shame to spoil it.”
“I’m really, really sorry! Thank you for helping me, Daddy.” The memory of that solid wooden spoon made her rear wince at the thought of meeting it again. Sitting down had been uncomfortable all day.
On the journey home, Sarah began to form a plan. That spoon had to go, then he’d have nothing to spank her with, and she could do what she liked.
Chapter Seven
The housewares store opened at eight, and Ral took an extra sturdy bag to carry paint. Of course, Sarah might not want paint; she might want wallpaper or holographic projections, tiles, or one of those new living walls made out of plants, but a good daddy was always prepared, and Ral prided himself on always being a good daddy.
In the end, Sarah picked paint in her favorite color—magenta—or as she liked to call it, pinky-purple. Maybe it wasn’t quite red enough to be a true magenta, Ral conceded as they bagged two tins to take home. In addition to the paint, he’d bought her a couple of medium-sized curlys, so she could choose pictures to upload onto them and display on her walls. He wanted her to be at home in the apartment.
He lifted the bags of decorating supplies easily and Sarah skipped along beside him.
“Sure I can’t carry anything?” she asked.
He shook his head. “I got this.”
“I feel kinda redundant.”
“Tell you what, why don’t you press the buttons on the navigator in the cab so we get home?” He nodded toward the street, where flying cars occasionally dipped to the ground to collect or drop off passengers.
“Sure. I can do that.” Sarah waved for a cab then held the door open for him. Ral got in and steadied the bags while Sarah fiddled with the screen, then they were on their way home. Ral resolved to make the most of this daddy-little relationship.
* * *
Sarah looked at the tins of paint with a mixture of excitement and apprehension. She kind of expected paint to come in some magical special applicator system in the future, something that made it go on easy with no spills. Instead, she was looking at two tins that could have come from Target.
“C’mon, sweetheart, you need a plastic apron to keep your clothes clean then we can get painting!” Ral was unsettlingly enthusiastic about this whole paint day, and Sarah had been as well, until the time got closer when she would actually have to paint.
She hated being bad at anything. Her mom had let her paint her room when she was eleven, and she remembered how disappointed she’d been that the spearmint paint had ended up patchy, thicker in some places than others. Her mom had repainted the entire room, covering over the yellow and blue sponge paintings that Sarah had added, and making it all a uniform green color.
The idea of going through the humiliation and disappointment of failing to paint a wall again was giving her stomach butterflies. It was one of those very basic skills in life that she’d never achieved. She fastened the plastic apron around her, noting that Ral had bought size ‘large,’ and turned to face him.
“Do you know how to paint?” he asked her.
She wondered how to answer. Technically, she knew exactly how to paint; it really wasn’t a complicated theory. In fact, with her minor in chemistry, she even knew why paint worked the way it did. But in practice? She had no idea how to get a wall to all be the same color.
“Uh…” She closed her eyes, wishing she could just do it by herself, and was about to tell him that she would need help getting started, but something changed her mind in the split second between opening her mouth and actually saying any words, so instead she told him, “Sure, I can paint.”
“Great, have a roller then.” Ral passed her a roller and a tray. Sarah held them and waited to see what he was going to do with his.
“Ladies first.” He held out the tin of paint.
“Oh, no, uh… you can go. You look way more excited than me, I’d just slow you down,” Sarah babbled. Ral raised an eyebrow but levered the lid off the paint and gently poured some into his tray. She copied what he did, and put the paint down on the protective covering he’d laid over the carpet and bed.
“I’ll do these walls, you do those ones?” he suggested. Sarah nodded, and took her paint to the correct walls. She dipped her roller in the paint, then dipped it again to make sure there was lots of paint. When she pressed it against the wall, it made a nice pinky-p
urple color. The tin called the shade ‘butterflies,’ although Sarah had never seen a butterfly in that color. Rolling the roller slowly and deliberately left to right, she coated the first strip in a very thick layer of paint. When the roller was empty, she dipped it again and started on the next strip. Where they overlapped, it came out a lot thicker than where they didn’t overlap. Sarah frowned at it. If she hadn’t overlapped, there’d be a space. What was worse, a space or uneven paint? She went over it again but the overlap just looked worse.
“Seriously, this roller’s not working or something!” Sarah complained. She felt Ral’s eyes on her.
“That’s… interesting.” His voice held veiled amusement as he regarded her work. Sarah glared at him.
“Like you could do better.” Her tone seemed to rile him up because when he next spoke, his voice was sharper.
“Sarah, when I asked if you knew how to paint, you said yes. You outright lied to me. When were you planning to learn? Before or after we redecorated your room?”
“Look, I’m sorry, okay? I thought I knew what I was doing but it didn’t work out.” She blushed red, feeling so furiously embarrassed that this hadn’t worked.
“First, you roll the paint up and down, not left to right. Second, put less paint on your roller, and dip it often. Look.” Ral put his roller in a tray of paint then came over and covered up some of Sarah’s mishap. In under a minute, it looked like nothing had ever gone wrong. How did some people have this magic skill with paint rollers?
“Thanks, I guess,” she conceded very reluctantly.
“That’s the third thing you’ve lied to me about this weekend, Sarah. You keep telling me you can do things that you don’t know how to do. You need a spanking, young lady,” he said sternly.
“No!” Her eyes widened in horror. If he tried to spank her, he’d find the spoon was missing and she hadn’t figured out how to dispose of it yet without him knowing. “I’m really, really sorry, I didn’t mean to lie, can you just let me off this once?”
His Little Earthling Page 7
