I read a post called “The Relief of Being Told No.” It was long, full of run-on sentences and grammatical disasters, but the feeling under it was real.
Sometimes I test him. Sometimes I say, “please, can I?” And he says, “no, little one, not today.” And I should be mad, but I’m not. I’m safe. I’m so relieved. I don’t have to make those kinds of decisions. I don’t have to choose. I just have to listen, and he willnot let me do anything bad, or dangerous, or that will make me sad tomorrow.
I didn’t realize I was smiling until I felt the muscles in my cheeks ache.
My face did something. I made it stop. But the ache lingered.
Another thread: “What My Daddy Does For Me.” This one was curated. The top post had bullet points, almost clinical in its own way:
- He notices when I’m tired before I do
- He makes me take my meds, even when I lie about needing them
- He sets bedtime for me and checks in to make sure I go
- He plans special days just for us
- He spanks me when I break rules, but only ever after explaining what I did
- He forgives me when I cry, and doesn’t tell me to stop crying
- He tells me I’m his good girl even when I feel like the worst girl
- He makes me feel like I am enough
I read it twice.
The first time I catalogued, like at work—what did he do, why did she like it, what was the real motive behind the ritual. I tried to break it down, build a model.
The second time I just read it.
At the bottom of the post was a picture. Not a nude, not even sexual. A girl in pajama pants, curled up on the lap of a man with one tattooed forearm around her waist. Her face was hidden in his shoulder. The caption was, “He lets me be small.”
I closed the tab. I opened it again. I made myself look.
It did something to me. Not just the normal warmth, but an ache. The wanting was so sharp it scared me. I wanted that—I wanted the lap, the arm, the feeling of being held in place bysomething bigger than my anxiety. I wanted it more than coffee, more than sleep.
I sat back from the table, pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes, and waited for it to go away.
It didn’t.
I tried to shake it off. I went to YouTube. Searched “ddlg couple real life.” A million hits, but most were garbage. Clickbait. But on the fourth page, there was a video: “Daddy & Little Q&A—No Sex Talk, Just Us.” I clicked it.
The video was eight minutes long. The man was quiet, hands folded, answering the questions only after she looked at him for permission. The girl glowed, literally glowed. She giggled and fidgeted and kept touching his hand. He was gentle—never raising his voice, never interrupting. When she got stuck on a question, he said, “that’s okay, you don’t have to answer.” She smiled so hard she covered her face.
I watched it twice.
Halfway through the second time, I realized my thighs were pressed together so hard my hamstrings ached. I was clenching, hard. My breath was tight. My mouth was dry.
I was so wet I could feel it, hot, slick, seeping out of me and soaking into the waistband of my sweats. I had not been this wet in two years. I had not wanted anyone this much in my whole life, not even in the dumb high school way, not even the day I’d first seen my college girlfriend walk into class in her rugby shirt and cutoffs. This was animal. This was real.
I pictured doing all of this with Pietro—his hand, his voice, his accent on the words good girl. The way he’d looked at me over the rim of his mug, the weight of his gaze like it could pin me to a wall. I pictured myself in his lap, and my heart did something it had never done before, a double-beat, a skipped gear.
I snapped the laptop closed.
I sat there, shaking.
After a minute, I stood. My legs felt unreliable, like I’d run too far, or like my blood had been replaced by something heavier than itself. I left the kitchen. I went straight to the nursery.
