A Snowball's Chance

I hugged Snowball to my chest and looked around the room shyly.  So much had changed in only a week.  Andrew - or Daddy, as I had to call him now - had turned the spare room into a nursery.  He never let me wear shirts anymore.  He cut my hair into the most childish style.  He even had me wearing diapers!  But the alternative was too much to give up... if I didn't listen to everything he said, he'd take my teddy away.  I would never give up Snowball.

~~~

"Snowball wants to sleep in the crib, doesn't he?" 

Daddy phrased most things as a question, because that way his little darling came to the conclusion on her own - even though she didn't really have any choice in the matter, decisions that seemed to be her own were always going to be the decisions that stuck with her most of all.

~~~

I looked shyly at the crib and then down at my feet, sucking on the new pacifier he had bought me.  The cloth diaper was so strange compared to the disposables I had grown used to.  I didn't want to dress like this!  I didn't want to be a baby!  But if he took my Snowball... I nodded shyly and played with Snowball's ears. 

"Yes, Daddy..."

~~~

"And do you think Snowball is big enough to sleep on his own, or will he need someone to lay in the crib with him? Maybe I could just take Snowball from you, and lay him down on his own, and you can be a big girl and sleep in your old bed? On your own?" 

More questions that trapped her.

~~~

"No!" I shouted and held Snowball tight to my chest.  My heart raced, panic filling me up. 

"I wanna sleep wif him!  I wanna sleep in the crib!" 

"But aren't you a big girl?" A trick question.  I hesitated and shook my head. 

"No," I muttered under my breath. 

"Then prove it." 

Prove it... I knew how to prove it.  With amazing ease, I felt the thick cloth between my legs grow wet and warm, holding Snowball to my chest.  Every day, it got easier. 

"See, Daddy?  I'm not a big girl."

~~~

She slept in the crib that night, and every night after. She slept with her diapers, with her pacifier, in her bedroom the nursery, and she let Daddy style her hair, and she never questioned it. Actually, she never asked questions at all - questions were how Daddy controlled her, and she was far too little be asking questions anymore, way too little to have control.