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“And everything that happened was okay? You can change your mind anytime and I want you to always feel like you can talk to me. I apologize if I crossed any boundaries. I honestly lost my head and I’ll be more conscientious in the future.”
“Everything was great,” she told him in a dreamy tone.
“Right on. Everything was great for me too. And now I want to make sure I do what I can to make it stay that way. If you’re going to be my Little girl—”
He felt Cricket stiffen in his arms.
“If?” she asked, looking up at him like he’d just kicked her puppy.
The panic and hurt in her eyes broke his heart.
“Oh, Cricket, baby. I want you to be mine, I just didn’t want to assume you wanted the same thing.”
“I do,” she pronounced, and he gave her a squeeze.
“Okay. Then I’ll say, ‘Now that you’re my Little girl.’”
Her frown turned upside down and she beamed at him. “Much better.”
“Good. So now that you’re my Little girl, you have a responsibility to me to let me know if anything I say or do makes you uncomfortable. I take my obligations to you very seriously and I expect you to do the same. Clear?”
“Yes, Daddy. Crystal.”
“Good girl. You remember I told you I can be very strict and demanding?” Cricket nodded seriously. “I’m going to have a lot of expectations for you. Part of my job as your Daddy is to help you meet those expectations, and to discipline you when you don’t. Have you had punishments before?”
Cricket chewed on her bottom lip. “Not really. More like funishments. I’ve always wanted to try having more real consequences. I just…”
Where her expression had been so open just a moment ago, a piece of her closed off. He’d let it lie for now, but Owen noted the change in his mind; there was something there.
“…haven’t,” she finished.
“Good to know. Hopefully you won’t have too much practice with ‘real’ punishments but I’m sure there will be some. You won’t like them, which is the point, but I promise I will have always considered how to keep you safe while still making a point and to prevent you from making the same mistake in the future. And I’ll never punish you when I’m upset. Punishment isn’t about revenge or reprimanding you for my feelings. If you ever feel unsafe, you’re going to tell me.”
“Yes, Daddy.”
* * *
Cricket was hard pressed to imagine ever feeling unsafe with Doctor Pierce but she appreciated his encouragement to talk to him. That was a good reminder since so often she’d been told she was too much, to keep it to herself, and that no one had time for that.
“Do you have a certain age you like to play?”
“I’ve mostly done school age into Middles. But I think in my heart I’m younger. Maybe a lot younger, I don’t know for sure.”
“Right on. You don’t have to know everything right now. It’ll be fun for us to explore that together. I really enjoy younger Littles and Babies but if that turns out not to be for you, then we’ll find a space we both like.”
This was so different from the conversations she usually had, and it was a nice change. There were still some ugly voices in the back of her mind whispering that Doctor Pierce didn’t mean it, but she tried not to pay too much attention to those. They were big meanies with barnacles for brains and meanies lied a lot.
“Do you like sleeping with your Daddy or do you like sleeping in a crib?”
Oh, that was a touchy question, and her answer felt stuck in her teeth like saltwater taffy. “Is it going to hurt your feelings if I like sleeping by myself?”
“No, not at all. Can you tell me why though?”
“Before I started being so tired all the time, I was a really light sleeper. When I’ve shared beds with people, I would wake up when they moved the blankets or turned over or made a noise. It’s much easier for me to sleep in a dark, quiet room in my own space. And…”
“Yes, babygirl?”
All of her insides turned to slime when he called her that. Like the fancy, colorful, glittery slime with charms and figurines that YouTubers and TikTokkers made, not gross like what Pacific hagfish made.
