Page 27 of Daddy!

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.

Whenever we went into a store together—a supermarket or department store or a flea market, it didn't matter—he would pause outside of it and hunker down in front of me. "Now, you're my good girl and I know you already know how to behave correctly in there, but I just want to remind you that you are to stay right by my side, no wandering away. And you're not to touch anything. If you want something, you're to ask me for it, and I'll get it for you if I want you to have it. Yes, Daddy?"

"Yes, Daddy."

And he was great about doing what he'd said he do and not just in situations that meant he had to remember to punish me when we got home. He'd suggested we use flea markets and Goodwill types of places—which we wisely expanded to include garage and yard sales, too—to collect little movies, and by the end of the summer, we had amassed a pretty decent collection of them. He'd also started buying me little books—without me ever having said anything—so that he could read to me at bedtime. The Wind in the Willows and Stuart Little and Where the Wild Things Are and Winnie the Pooh books began to occupy a small bookshelf he'd put in the bedroom, just for me.

One of the ways he'd managed to make me feel incredibly loved was not what one would expect to trigger that feeling in me. I have a bad habit. It was one that he'd noticed before but hadn't gotten to the point of doing anything about. It wasn't overly bad for me or anyone else. Instead, it was a kind of insidious naughtiness, one that most Daddies would never have noticed, few would bother to comment on, and only one in a million would actually bother to threaten to do anything about it.

Especially in this case, because this situation was fraught with negative emotions and terrible insecurity. And yet he didn't hesitate to address it with me, even though it was quite likely to result in him holding me as I dissolved into a puddle of bodily fluids of varying sources.

I had been going to join him in the bedroom as he got out of his uniform and into civvies, walking into the bedroom behind him, saying, in a timid tone, "Is it okay if I come in here and talk to you while you get undressed?" Then, when he didn't immediately say, "Yes, of course," I immediately began to backtrack, verbally and physically.

"It's okay if you don't want me to. Sorry."

But not before he replied, in a manner that stopped me dead in my tracks as I tried to duck out of there as if I'd never been there at all. "I can see, little Miss Tahlia, that I'm going to have to paddle that particular naughty habit out of you," he drawled at me, low and deep as he turned to give me a jaundiced look.

"What? But…" was about all I could get out.

He crooked a finger at me, and I came over to him as if the paddling was imminent—slowly and reluctantly, knowing the fate of my backside was in those big hands of his.

When I got there, he hugged me tightly, saying, "You're not going to be punished. I just wanted to make you aware of a habit you have that drives me crazy."

He gaveth and tooketh away in the same sentence. It was nice that I wasn't going to be paddled, but I hated hearing that there was something I was utterly unaware of doing that he hated so much!

"What is it?" I asked, fearing the answer greatly.

Mane smiled at me, leaning over to kiss me gently. "I love you something fierce, little girl."

"I love you, too, Daddy."

"I know that, angel. And I'm not upset at you. I'm just mentioning it because it's something I'd like you to work on, and if a paddling will help, I'm certainly willing to deliver one."

I swallowed hard but didn't say anything. It seemed safer, somehow, at least until I learned what the transgression was.

"Sometimes, I worry that you don't really feel my love in here." He touched my breastbone.

"Why?"

"I don't think you're even aware of it, but you apologize to me all the time, when I want you to know—I want you to feel safe enough and secure enough in my love—that you know you don't have to do that." He lifted me onto his lap. "Like just now. I always want you around me. I would duct tape you to me, if I didn't think it would give you a rash. I love it when you come into our bedroom to talk to me, especially after I've been at work all day and you've been left home all by yourself, with no Daddy to look after you. I like reconnecting with you like that—me, talking about my day and, you, talking about yours. I like the intimacy of it, and it just feels right to me to keep my little one, who is prone to getting herself into trouble without adult supervision, in the same room with me."

He gave me a peck on each cheek. "You are never a bother and never a burden. You never could be either one of those things to me. You don't need to say that you're sorry for wanting to be with me. I like you shadowing me, knowing that you want to be with me."

I worried my lip and kept quiet.

"Like I said, I don't even think you're aware that you're doing it, really. It's automatic to you. But I'm going to try to bring it to your attention when it happens. Not to scold you or make you feel bad in any way. No, not at all. Just the opposite, in fact." He squeezed me again. "To help you feel good. I want you to feel secure in my love and in our life. I know that won't happen overnight; I do. But it's something I want you to work towards, because it hurts my heart when I hear you being so timid and apologetic about something that is exactly what you should need and want from your Daddy."

Mane began to rock us, just slightly, before he continued. "The only time you have to say 'sorry' is when you've done something wrong. And wanting to be with me, waking me up when you don't feel well, needing to cry or wanting a hug, you never need to apologize to me for any of those kinds of things, little love. They're what this very intimate relationship is made up of—needing and wanting very special, precious things from each other that I will only ever find with you, and you will only ever find with me."

Tears were streaming down my face by the time he said the last word, and he fell back with me in his arms, turning to hold me against the entire long length of him, literally the embodiment of my safety and security.

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