Daddy!

by Carolyn Faulkner

  And my undeserved luck continued for the rest of the weekend. He decided not to discuss rules with me until Sunday night, when we'd had a little more time and experience being together as Daddy and little.

  But that night, after dinner, he turned off the TV and pulled me onto his lap. "Come to me, my pretty," he said, cackling in a relatively decent impression of the Wicked Witch of the West.

  "No, no, no! Help me, Dodo!"

  When he had me in his clutches, he said, "I think the dog's name was Toto."

  "It was. And he wasn't much help to anyone, either—got himself captured by the witch and practically eaten by the Cowardly Lion."

  His befuddled look told me that I had thought entirely too much about The Wizard of Oz, as far as he was concerned. "Anyway, as I mentioned this morning, I want to talk to you about putting some rules into effect."

  "No," I said promptly and pleasantly.

  Another confused look. "No, what?"

  "No rules. That would be my vote."

  "Sweet pea, you don't have a vote." I frowned fiercely at that. "But I would think you would want to give me your input on the rules you're going to be expected to live by," Mane pointed out practically.

  I ceased trying to be a smartass at that. "Oh. Well, then, my answer is still no to rules!"

  He gave a very long suffering sigh.

  "All right, all right I'll behave."

  That got me an incredulous look as he peered at me disbelievingly. "Who are you, and what have you done to Tahlia, that she's all of a sudden going to behave?"

  I stuck my tongue out at him.

  "All right then, so, we have a bedtime of ten o'clock already."

  "Booooo, hisssssss," I commented from the bottom of my heart as I leaned back against his arm.

  Mane looked up at me from under his brows. "It's not like I'm not very well aware of your opinion on bedtimes. I was aware of that from before I knew you were little. Unfortunately for you, it's also proven very beneficial to you to have one in place, and I can only think that it's going to be better for you to have even more structure as a little."

  "But I'm 'llergic to structure!"

  "Uh huh. I'll lay in a supply of epi pens and Benadryl."

  I grumbled under my breath.

  "So. No more thongs—only age appropriate underwear."

  I could hear him tapping away on his iPad. "Are you writing all of this down?" I asked incredulously.

  "I am, you know me and my lists. I have lists of my lists. I like things to be organized. I have a list of potential rules and also have a little shopping list, onto which I'm putting jammies—summer first—more pull ups, little clothes, feel free to suggest things to add."

  "Canny—like Rolos an' Kit Kat—an' Fruit Loops, an' more ice cream an' hot fudge an' whipped cream to go with it," I offered helpfully.

  "Uh, no. Is there anything you can think of that you need?"

  "But I need Fruit Loops—have you seen the kinna cereal you got in your cupboards? It's all nasty healthy stuffs!"

  "I thought you liked my steel cut oatmeal," he said, sounding wounded to the core.

  "I like it with lots of brown sugar and cimmamon, 'n half an' half, but when you make it, it's got skim milk—which is no better'n water—'n flies in it!"

  Another heavy sigh as he pinched the bridge of his nose. "Those are raisins, not flies."

  "Look like flies ta' me," I murmured under my breath.

  "Peewee," he reprimanded firmly.

  "Yes, Daddy?" I responded in a sickly-sweet tone.

  "So, since you're not taking this seriously, I'm going to assume that you want me to decide all of this without you. Bedtime at eight, castor oil twice a day, and three naps."

  "Wait!" I sat up in alarm. "What? No!"

  I got the eyebrow again. "I assume I now have your attention?"

  "Yes, Sir."

  "Good girl."

  In the end, the rules he settled on—with thoughtful insights from me, even though I knew that the final decision was with him, which was the way I wanted it, anyway—were few and very thoughtful, designed specifically for me. And they weren't, as I had suspected they wouldn't be, very different from the ones he had been formulating for me as my dom.

  I had an earlier bedtime and a no touch rule. Adult underwear was out, except for a good reason, like a gynecological visit. He was "Daddy" or "Sir" to me, not "Mane", unless we were in company.

  The same rules about my health applied as they had before—don't skip a doctor's appointment, don't cancel without talking to Daddy first, and take meds on time, always.

  There might be more if we were living together—which was something we hadn't really discussed before—because I leaned towards messy, and Lord knew he didn't. But Daddy said we would count those bridges when they hatched. The only time during the rule making discussion that I was at all uncomfortable was when he was snuggling me after he'd put his tablet away.

  "Before we begin to kill our remaining brain cells with television, there's something else I wanted to talk to you about, and it's kind of serious. I love you to be little with me, but you might feel the need to be big because of the subject matter."

  I was tense with anticipation. I couldn't imagine what he might say. But he really didn't say anything, at first. He just reached out and touched the necklace I was wearing. The one I always wore. The one from someone who was not him.

  His voice was husky with emotion when he spoke. "I just want to say that, eventually, I'm going to want you to get rid of that, so that I can replace it with my own. I think I've been very patient about you continuing to wear it, even though you're mine. I understand that it's made you feel safe in the past, even though he's out of your life, but I want to be the one who makes you feel safe. I think it's my right, as your Daddy." He paused, then added, "And it might seem strange to want to collar a little girl—"

  I shook my head. "No, it doesn't. It sounds right. And you do make me feel so safe and so very loved—" I grabbed his arms and leaned my forehead on his. I wanted him to believe that so badly. "But…" I wasn't prepared, frankly, to take it off just then. It wasn't too far down the line, probably, if everything kept going as amazingly well between us as it had been, and I wanted to, but it was still a bit of a safety net for me, for some reason, and I just couldn't.

  And that made me feel terrible, considering how wonderful he had been to me, although I knew that wasn't his intention, and I couldn't stop the tears.

  "I know, pumpkin. I know." Mane hugged me tight. "You don't have to say any more, and I wasn't asking you to take it off right now. I just wanted to introduce the subject to you, because the time is coming when I will not tolerate you wearing any other man's jewelry, especially one that was once as significant to you as this." He let me cry it out, reassuring me and comforting me the entire time.

  And that night, instead of merely pleasuring me, as he had been all weekend—subverting his own needs in order to put mine ahead of his—he made very slow, sweet love to me, bringing tears to my eyes that never fell, but were there the entire time, because he kept me in little for it. He was his usual darling, caretaking self throughout, selflessly, totally my Daddy. He seemed to be very concerned that I not be scared by what he was doing, so he explained things and told me what to expect always before he did them as we went along, and it was the most tender, most profound coming together that I could ever have dreamt of.

  Chapter 8

  Nothing I had done in my life could ever convince me that I deserved the happiness I had found with Mane.

  "I'm sooooo jelly," Bette whined, taking a big gulp of a truly enormous glass of pinot as she leaned back on her chaise lounge. "You were lucky with him before—that man treats you like twenty-four karat gold. Now you're like…I don't know…plutonium or something like that."

  I think she might have been thinking of platinum, but potato, potahto.

  I was huddled up in her husband's oversized recliner, which I loved. I was thinking of asking Daddy
to buy one for us. It would fit the two of us easily, and I was envisioning nights of cuddling with him, watching little movies, and eating things he probably wouldn't let me eat, which was really what I was doing here at Bette's.

  "Yeah, I was just thinking that I'm bound to get smacked upside the head by the fickle backhand of fate at some point, but I'm going to enjoy the crap out of this for as long as that man is willing to put up with me."

  My friend put her wine glass down, so I knew she meant business. "So, tell a poor vanilla girl here what it's all about, hmm? What do you two do and what makes you get off on whatever it is that you do?"

  How could I describe it to her? Who knows what makes anyone like anything?

  This was the first time I had been able to get together with her for a while. Bette—who was a teacher, just in elementary school rather than high school, like I was—had taken some time—and the kids—up to her mom's place in Nova Scotia at the beginning of summer vacation. So, I hadn't seen her in a couple months, not since my screaming fiasco.

  Back then, we were very near the end of the school year. Now, we were staring at the first day of school, only a few days away—which was why we were indulging ourselves in a girls' night. Her husband was gone on travel and the kids were at sleepovers. She had the house to herself and had called me as soon as she knew that was going to come together, wanting me to come over and see what kind of trouble we could get into.

  And that was exactly how I phrased it to Mane.

  "Just a second. I have to ask."

  I could almost hear her eye roll at that from where I was in his kitchen.

  It was Wednesday, and she wanted me to stay with her for a whole weekend of drinking, eating, more drinking, binging TV shows no one else would watch with us, more drinking…

  He knew what our weekends together were comprised of, and I kinda didn't think he was going to let me go.

  "May I?" I asked, holding my hand over my phone.

  My Daddy was in the middle of grilling us some gorgeous steaks for what might be the last time till next year. In New Hampshire, you never knew what the weather was going to do; snow in September wasn't all that unusual. He turned away from it to pull me to him.

  "Of course, you can, punkin."

  "Really?" I couldn't help asking in disbelief.

  He chuckled deep and low, and I clenched—literally clenched. "Yes. You just have to promise me that you won't drink and drive, nor will you let the bad influence drink and drive. If you guys have a hankering to go anywhere, anytime, whether you're drunk or not, I would be more than happy to volunteer my services as chauffeur."

  "No drinking and driving for either of us. No worries there. We probably won't leave the house." I kissed his cheek. "Thank you, Daddy!"

  "You're welcome, babygirl."

  "He says yes."

  "Hey, I heard that 'bad influence' remark!"

  I relayed that message to Mane. He was less than repentant. "Good. I meant her to. She could stand to have a Daddy, too."

  I don't know why, but that sent me into gales of laughter that Bette, in particular, did not appreciate.

  Bette had been amazed to find out that, since that weekend—the one that I had been so sure wasn't going to last much longer than the length of time it took for one or the other of us to call it quits due to what I had said, Mane and I had been together just about as often as we possibly could. His work interfered sometimes, but overall, I was practically living at his place, much more so than before this very powerful turn in our relationship. And even pretty much twenty-four-seven, we clicked perfectly. The dynamic between us had always been strong, but this was incredibly potent, but also, surprisingly easy.

  Despite the newness of it all, there were things that stood out to me already. If anyone had asked me before, I would have said it was the big things that mattered the most about a Daddy/daughter relationship—time spent together, rules, punishments—all of the usual stuff everyone craves from this type of lifestyle.

  But the longer we did it, the more deeply entwined and profoundly intimate it became, and I started to realize that it was the small things that were the most meaningful to me.

  Like the fact that he never missed the opportunity to remind me that I was his little girl, by word or by deed.

  That he realized—with some kind of histrionic, theatrical horror—that his little girl didn't own any stuffed animals at all! He considered that a serious downfall on his part that he rectified the next time we were together by taking me to Build-A-Bear, as well as a small, regional toy store that had an abundance of stuffies in all shapes and sizes.

  Thus, his big king sized bed now sported three stuffies that lived in a huddle between our two pillows when we weren't in bed. There was not one, but two, Build-a-Bears, a fairy bear named Arianna, a Naval Officer bear in dress uniform named Maverick—that he insisted was the fairy bear's Daddy—and a darling little lamb named Dolly that Daddy began to hand to me to hold onto whenever I was being punished. The poor thing always ended up soaking wet, having had to absorb copious amounts of tears.

  He not only opened the car door for me, but he fastened my seatbelt, every time. And he volunteered to chauffer me anywhere and everywhere. He even drove—and accompanied—my friends and me on a pub crawl along Hampton Beach over the Fourth, as our designated driver, which was taking his life in his hands. He seemed to have had a good time, though, and my girlfriends were incredibly jealous of how attentive he was to me, even when strange women did their best to try to convince him to pay attention to them. He was a wonderful designated driver, and he actually kept track of everyone, doing a head count before we left each place to make sure we had everyone—that someone wasn't hurling in the bathroom—before we moved on.

  He played silly, stupid games with me that I knew he would never choose to play—although I did kinda get him hooked on Mario Kart, and boy, did I enjoy beating the pants off him. At first, anyway. He got very good, very quickly, and I liked it even more when it was more of a contest.

  Frozen chicken fingers weren't good enough for his little girl—he made them for me from scratch and froze them in batches.

  I no longer had to deal with a lot of the pesky adult things everyone else did—he kept track of my prescriptions and doled them out to me daily, along with a multivitamin. As a matter of fact, he saw me taking some pills one day and he stopped me just as I was about to pop them into my mouth.

  "Belay that, little one."

  I turned to him, the pills halfway to my mouth.

  "What are you taking and why?" he asked patiently, taking the pills and the bottle from me.

  "I have a mild headache and I'm gonna take some Tylenol."

  "Where does it hurt, baby?" he asked, immediately very concerned about me. I pointed to my forehead and back towards the crown of my head. "Poor sweetie! But you're too little to take meds without asking me first. If you're not feeling well, I want to know about it, whether it's cramps or a headache or whatever. I'll give you your pills and keep track of when you need them next. I want to make sure it gets better and I don't have to take you to the doctor."

  After discovering I wasn't feeling well, he massaged my temples and set me up on the couch with my sippy cup and some Cheetos, with "I Love Lucy" on the TV to keep me quiet until my headache was gone.

  Of course, I fell asleep, which I suspected was his aim, but when I woke, the headache was gone.

  He did the grocery shopping—I could come, but trying to sneak "canny" into the cart was not a good idea, I discovered.

  I barely had to carry a purse any more—he paid for everything. In fact, he liked it when I didn't—it made me seem even littler, he said. My phone fit in my pocket, and Mane got me a small, credit card sized wallet I could use to bring my license, my debit and credit cards, as well as a hidden hundred-dollar bill that he insisted I always keep on me and not spend at any other time but an emergency.

  And, speaking of emergencies, he was horrified to realize that I
had nothing in my car for emergencies—no collapsible shovel, no salt, no sand, not a fire extinguisher or a can of fix-a-flat, no emergency blankets, no hand crank radio or no energy bars to get me through until the St. Bernard arrived with brandy. He set one up for me, of course. I never did see that St. Bernard, though. I'd hoped that meant that he was getting me a puppy! Unfortunately, he put it all in one of those ginormous tubs and it took up an enormous amount of room in the back of my small car.

  He had always checked in with me occasionally throughout the day, but now he did it quite religiously, especially if we were separated, asking if I was eating right—by his standards, not mine, of course—and how I felt, always asking if I had a good day and if people were being nice to me, which I thought was funny and touching.

  It was in the thousands of ways he took care of me and took pains to make sure I always felt safe to be little as much as possible with him. And he was religious about making me talk to him about what was happening between us, touching base with me frequently and making sure I wasn't feeling smothered or stifled by what he was doing, and—going even further than that—that I still wanted to be in this type of relationship, asking me if there was anything else he could do for me to make me feel littler, or if there was anything he was already doing that he could do better.

  Most of the time when we had conversations like that, I spent my time marveling at him inwardly, lavishing him with praise verbally, and reassuring him—which was an interesting turnabout—that I adored everything about our relationship. And I absolutely did!

  I tried to remember to ask him the same thing—if there was anything I could do better for him, some way I could make him happy that I wasn't doing.

  He was always so sweet, saying that I was his dream girl and that there was nothing he'd change about me that couldn't be accomplished by repeated, thorough spankings.

  At which point, I smacked him. Hard. Unfortunately, I was such a weakling in comparison that all he did was giggle the whole time at my outrage and my feeble, futile attempts to make him pay.