The truck beeped a warning and a tiny yellow figure glowed to life on the dashboard. Bill flicked his eyes down and to the right, checking on the diminutive figure in the passenger seat. Nicole had unbuckled her seat belt and the cloth was retreating back into the wall of the truck. Without thinking, Bill chided his daughter, “You know we keep our seat belts on until the car is parked, honey.”
“Sorry.” Nicole pulled her eyes away from the store in front of them and looked up at Bill. She did not look at all apologetic; the smile that had been on her face since they had left their house ten minutes ago was still tugging at her lips. Her brown hair was pulled into a tight ponytail that swished over her shoulder as she twisted to look at him.
“It's okay.” Bill swallowed a sigh, feeling hypocritical for enforcing the rule today. They were already in the parking lot anyway and the speedometer was hovering around zero as he crept along, finally choosing a space. Nicole had her her door open as soon as the gear shift slid into park. Bill turned off the ignition as she jumped down from the seat, ignoring the safety step on the truck. With much less energy, Bill exited the truck as well and walked around the back to meet his daughter.
“Can I go ahead?” Nicole asked, apparently not inclined to wait for her father over the 70 foot stretch that separated their car from the store.
“Watch for cars.” Bill reached out and patted her head, which she endured for a moment before turning on her heel and scampering across the parking lot. Bill watched her critically as she ran off. She was wearing a loose red shirt, stitched with a few pink butterflies around her belly. She also had on worn blue jeans that hugged her skinny legs. Puberty seemed undecided on whether it was ready to pounce on her. Bill had noticed her chest had begun to puff outwards slightly and there was a little curve to her hips, but overall the skinny eleven-year-old was still made of mostly straight lines.
Bill watched Nicole disappear into the store. He had crossed a little over half of the distance and was close enough to hear a bell chime as she pushed the door open. The store was unassuming, one of the many niche stores in this shopping complex. A large white sign above the door proclaimed “Kiddy Pets” and in smaller text below, “Pet Store and Obedience School.” The store name was spelled out in colorful cartoon animals whose bodies were bent in the shape of each letter.
The bell at the door announced Bill's entrance into the pet store. The shop was dimly lit compared to the glaring sunlight outside and it took a moment for his eyes to adjust. A flicker of motion drew Bill's attention to his daughter at the East wall of the store. The entire wall had massive shelves holding row upon row of aquariums, all filled with different varieties of fish. Nicole was currently flattening her nose against a tank housing a school of clownfish.
There was a young man standing behind the counter was at best in his early 20s, although he looked closer to a high school student. The man gave Bill a friendly chin-jerk of recognition but did not say anything. Bill returned the nod somewhat more awkwardly and approached the counter just long enough to extract a lollipop from a jar of the multicolored sweets sitting by the cash register. Bill quickly shuffled away to join Nicole, his paranoia telling him that spending too long at the counter would make the eleven-year-old suspicious for some reason.
“What're you doing?” Bill asked, stopping next to Nicole. She had moved on to a snake tank and was looking intently at the creature inside, as if she were trying to win a staring contest.
“Staring contest,” Nicole said. Well, that answers that.
Bill swallowed, finding his throat a little dry. He held the lollipop out near his daughter's cheek. “The sign at the counter said these are free for customers, so I grabbed one for you.”
Nicole turned, either having lost the staring contest or having found the candy to be more interesting. The lollipop had a plain white stick and a solid pink wrapper with no logos or other text. Nicole straightened up and took the sucker from Bill with a murmur of thanks. She twisted the wrapper off and pressed the lollipop between her lips. With the skinny tube protruding from her mouth like a cigarette, Nicole moved on to the caged animals. Bill dutifully followed his daughter in a circuit around the store as she cooed over the various furry animals and squealed about the insects. It was not until she stopped making noises that Bill paid attention. When Nicole remained quiet for a record-breaking 15 seconds, Bill hunched down a bit to get a look at her face.
Nicole was staring into a tank that held a litter of five eight-week-old rabbits. Normally when faced with this level of cuteness, Nicole would have been crooning over the bunnies with an excitement that would have frightened the little critters half to death. Instead, as Bill bent forward, he saw that she was simply staring at the tank. Her brown eyes were glassy, staring vacantly at the little balls of fur without registering them. Her almost-gone lollipop threatened to slip out of her slack mouth as her head tilted forward a little.
“All set?” a voice behind Bill asked. He sprang up, nearly smashing his head against the glass bunny tank. Twisting, he saw the young man from the counter a few feet behind him, watching with a raised eyebrow.
Mentally trying to force his heartbeat to slow back to normal, Bill croaked out a “Yes.”
The man stepped forward and Bill noticed belatedly that his nametag said that his name was Jason. The man, Jason, reached out and pulled Nicole away from the tank so that she was facing him. Her lollipop fell out of her slack lips as she turned, stumbling a little as if the simple motion made her dizzy. Jason bent down, much like Bill had done, and looked closely at her face. After a moment, he straightened up and reached into a pocket of his shorts, pulling out a lollipop identical to the one that Bill had given to her earlier, except that the wrapper was blue. Jason unwrapped the sucker and simply held it against her parted lips until she opened her mouth wide enough to let it in. He tucked a finger under her jaw, closing her mouth.
“Keep that sucker in there,” Jason said to the girl. Nicole was staring at his chest with blank eyes and did not respond except to keep her lips closed. Apparently satisfied, Jason turned to Bill and started talking as if Nicole was no longer in the room. “She got pretty close. Her pupils aren't quite dilated enough - that's the only way to tell - but another dose of the drug'll be more than enough. Might be time to up the concentration; I keep having to give them a second one lately.”
“Uh, oh,” Bill said, unsure of what the appropriate response would be. His part in this was to provide the cash. He definitely did not understand the in and outs of the process. But Jason seemed to expect as little response from Bill as he had from Bill's drugged daughter. Already the young man was turning and walking towards a door labeled “Storage,” leaving Bill the task of bringing Nicole along. Hesitantly, Bill reached down and took Nicole's hand. He led her forward, looking back at her over his shoulder. She stumbled along after him as if completely drunk, and after she nearly fell over, Bill fell back with her and steered her forward with an arm around her slender shoulders.
The room that they walked into was not quite as well-lit as the front of the store, since it lacked windows, and it was less than half as big. There was a space of only about five feet by ten feet for Bill and Nicole to stand with Jason. The rest of the room was segregated by chain link fences than came to about waist height on Bill and created three decently sized enclosures. The fenced off space nearest to the door was empty except for two dog bowls. The middle space held a naked boy who was maybe a few years younger than Nicole. He was wearing a white headband sporting fluffy bunny ears that made the delicate features of his face seem more feminine.
Jason waited patiently for Bill to gawk at the room. Until today, Bill had not been allowed back here and he was under the impression that children were rarely kept here for any length of time. He had seen pictures of past projects while he had been negotiating a fair fee. But there was a difference between seeing a picture and hearing a cottontail-topped buttplug vibrating in the ass of a nine-year-old boy. For his part, the boy did not seem overly affected by the tail-plug. He was mostly looking curiously at the new faces. Silent, of course, because bunnyboys do not make noise. Bill stepped around Jason, leading Nicole to the last cage so that he could see the occupant. It was a naked girl who appeared to be uncurling from a nap. When she turned her small face toward Bill, his arm tightened around Nicole's shoulder in shock.
“Katie?” Bill asked, choking on the syllables. The girl, blonde-haired, blue-eyed, and about ten-years-old, was a dead ringer for Nicole's sometimes-playmate. Katie only lived two blocks away, so she and Nicole often played together even though Nicole was a grade ahead. A few months ago Katie had mentioned that she would be moving soon. Well, if this was Katie, she certainly moved: she moved into a pet store and became a puppygirl, if her brown headband and bushy tail-plug were anything to go by.
Fully awake now, Katie had crawled forward, wiggling her butt excitedly in a parody of a dog wagging its tail. To be fair, the faux fur tail stemming from her buttplug did sway a bit as she shook her hips back and forth. She was even making eager little whining noises. Unlike the bunnyboy who had only watched them, Katie crawled right up to the fence and twined her fingers into it, rocking back on her knees as if she were a puppy bracing on her hind legs. Bill was momentarily distracted from his surprise as he was treated to a full-frontal view of the little girl who had visited his house innumerable times over the years. The excited look in Katie's eyes was not recognition, though, it was the look that any puppy would give potential new playmates. For her part, Nicole did not seem to recognize her friend either. She continued sucking contentedly on her lollipop, oblivious to Katie's antics for attention.
“You know her?” Jason asked, walking closer. He seemed unpleasantly surprised by the revelation. Privacy was a big concern for this little business so it was understandable that he was not pleased.
“She lives, er, lived near us. Nicole played with her a lot,” Bill answered distractedly. He was trying to angle his head to better see the bare slit between Katie's legs. The puppygirl was not making his job any easier by crawling around energetically, seeking to be played with.
“We got her in last week,” Jason said conversationally, in a tone that he could have used for talking about any of the authentic animals in the main room. “Turns out both of her parents wanted a boy for a pet, so we did a trade. First time we've done that. Tyler here, the bunny, is the older brother of the pet they picked. They thought they might buy Tyler on top of the trade for his brother, but they backed out. Seemed disappointed that they couldn't find the cash. I think they wanted matching bunnyboys running around their house.”
Bill stayed quiet for a few moments as he digested the news, still watching Katie. Bill tried to figure out how they could get away with it. Obviously her parents told Katie that they would be moving. They must have withdrawn her from school. He guessed that if she did not have any close relatives, no one would notice at least for a while. By then they could move far away, even out of the country. But as Bill thought about it, he could not remember seeing any For Sale signs around the neighborhood recently. Was it possible that her parents had traded Katie and continued living in their same house? That meant that a couple of blocks away from his house, a brainwashed little boy could be currently fulfilling the sexual fantasies of neighbors whom he had known for years. It was too much to take in. Bill reigned in his thoughts and went back to enjoying the sight of the child in front of him.
“You can play with her while we're getting Nicole ready,” Jason added generously. “No sex of course, unless you're going to shell out.”
Feeling guilty, somehow just as bad as bringing his own daughter to the shop, Bill asked, “How much?”
“Sixty,” Jason answered after a pause. Seeing something in Bill's face, the young man explained, “Katie has been completely 'washed. It's more complicated so it's more expensive. There's no more of the Katie you knew, it's just a puppy in that cute little head.”
Bill winced, holding Nicole against his side. His daughter had not reacted to anything that had been said but it did not stop Bill from having second thoughts. On the other hand, Nicole would not be getting the same treatment. She would still be 'Nicole' afterward, just with a little extra. Realistically, Bill knew that asking about Katie's price had been a pointless fantasy. There was no way he could keep Katie a secret from his wife, even if he could afford her. It had taken him three years to siphon enough money out of their bank accounts for Nicole without making his wife suspicious, and the price for Nicole's programming was about a third of the price for Katie. By the time he collected enough, Katie would have long since become someone else's sex toy.
Shaking his head, Bill said, “Just Nicole today.”
Jason nodded without surprise. He had to know that Bill's wife was not a part of this venture, and that would be the only way of keeping a permanent puppygirl like Katie. Jason stepped around Bill and Nicole to the far side of the room. On the wall that bordered the edge of Katie's cage there was another plain door identical to the one that had led here from the main store. Bill wondered whether there were more kiddy pets kept in subsequent rooms, but Jason did not open the door. The young man lifted off a clipboard that had been hanging from a nail mounted at head height. He turned back to Bill but kept his head bent down as he read off of the clipboard.
“Okay, so just to check, I have one order for a Collared Cutie,” Jason began in a clinical voice. “That includes a headband, tail, and collar. Standard order, so the collar is the trigger. Offer her the collar and she will always put it on. When it's on, she's a pet. When you take it off, she's back to normal and forgets everything.”
Bill felt a bit of color creeping into his face at how blunt Jason was being. But it was all correct and at his side Nicole was unconcerned about the upcoming changes to her brain.
“That's twenty grand,” Jason continued. “And you also wanted a custom trigger to make her fall asleep, whether she's collared or not. Ignoring any time lapses. That's another three grand.”
Jason paused and looked up expectantly. After a moment, Bill unwrapped his arm from Nicole's shoulders and pulled out an envelope that felt surprisingly small for how much work he had put into it. He passed over the 230 one-hundred dollar bills to Jason, who pocketed the envelope without looking inside. The young man returned his attention to the order form and looked back up. “It looks like you haven't chosen an actual pet, yet.”
“Uh, no,” Bill said. “I'm not entirely-”
Jason started speaking, rattling off options with the air of someone who has dealt with many indecisive customers before. “Puppies, kitties, and bunnies are the favorites. Puppies are playful and energetic. Kitties enjoy petting and cuddling. Bunnies are submissive and, well, love fucking. You know the other nine options. Ponies for that niche... pigs for filthy stuff... monkeys... mice... and the rest.”
“Right, right,” Bill said, shifting awkwardly. “About the bunny-”
The young man jumped in again and Bill had the suspicion that he was expecting another customer later in the day and wanted to make sure Nicole was done in time. “Like I said, submissive and love sex. She won't make noises, which can be good if you're looking to be discrete. She'll also think your cock is a carrot, minus the desire to bite it.”
Bill turned Nicole to face him and gently tilted her head back. To convince himself more than anything, he said, “You- you'd be okay with being a bunny.”
Nicole looked up at her father vacantly. Her lips puckered and relaxed as she continued to suck placidly on the lollipop. Bill could see now what Jason had been looking for in the main room. Nicole's brown irises had been pushed out to become thin bands around her dilated pupils. Her glassy eyes showed complete indifference, but in his lust Bill was willing to accept anything other than rejection. He patted her head and nudged her towards Jason, who caught her by the shoulders as she stumbled.
“Bunny,” Bill said with finality, watching Jason let go of Nicole to tick a box on the form. Jason smiled and said reassuring words that Bill missed as Jason turned and opened the backdoor behind him. Bill craned his neck, trying to see into the next room. It was impossible to judge the size of it because there was no light on inside and after a few moments Bill realized that the walls and floor had been painted black. The only thing that he could see as Jason led Nicole farther into the room was a simple chair. Jason pushed Bill's unresisting daughter down onto the chair and she sat facing a wall that Bill could not see from his vantage point. Just as Bill decided to move closer to the half-open door, it swung shut, leaving him alone with the caged kiddy pets.
Jason's voice, muffled through the door, called, “It'll just take a minute to set up. Then a couple of hours to program. You can play with the pets while you wait.”
Feeling a little lost, Bill turned his attention back to Katie. The puppygirl had stopped bouncing around when the humans had ignored her. With Bill watching her again, though, Katie started wiggling her butt and yipping happily. Bill leaned over the short fence and petted the small blonde girl's hair. She bobbed her head, rubbing back against him as she whimpered contentedly. The playful girl was an entrancing sight and Bill briefly regretted the choice not to make Nicole a puppygirl. The barking had stayed his hand. If he took Nicole to a hotel or something, other guests might wonder why they were hearing a child barking. He could have customized the puppy programming, but that cost more and he had decided he would rather have a sleep trigger instead.
Tense with excitement, Bill swung his leg over the low fence and into Katie's pen. The girl crawled around his shin, barking excitedly. The brown ears on her headband flopped up and down as she circled around his foot. Bill climbed the rest of the way over the fence, ungracefully, and stood in the cage, watching the top of her head and her bare back. Then Katie pushed herself back onto her knees and pressed her curled hands against Bill's jeans, pawing at his crotch. Bill lifted her away gently and the puppygirl fell back onto her hands and knees, making a low whining noise. Stiffly, Bill sank down to his knees as well and Katie instantly darted forward to lick his face. Bill's mouth parted in surprise as he felt the girl's tiny tongue running along the stubble of his cheek. His whole body froze a moment later when the girl moved to his lips and pressed hers against his in a french kiss.
With a herculean effort of will, Bill gently pushed Katie back and she sank back to her hands and knees again. She looked at him with big eyes and made a curious sound, and Bill wished strongly that she had enough brainpower left to understand the situation. Whether she did or not, in a moment she had turned in place and padded over to the far corner of her pen, where two empty and bright pink dog bowls sat. Using her nose, rather than hands, Katie started nudging one of the bowls back over to Bill, crawling along behind it as she worked carefully to keep it going in the right direction. Bill watched her without understanding. She reached him, nudging the bowl against his left knee, and looked up. She barked, once, and waited. Bill knit his eyebrows together in confusion and shrugged helplessly.
“She's thirsty,” Jason said. Bill whipped his head around and saw the young man stepping out from the third room. From his new position in Katie's cage, Bill could see a bit of the wall that Nicole had been positioned to face. Unlike the other walls, this one was painted bright white. The effect was furthered by some kind of solid white light bouncing off of it, which gave Jason a corona as he stepped through the door and closed it behind him. Seeing Bill's look, Jason said, “I started everything up. I gave her two more doses so that we can cut the time down. It'll take about four hours now.”
“Er, right,” Bill said. He felt like a kid caught breaking the rules, being in the pen with Katie.
Jason ignored the naked puppygirl whining at Bill and explained his first statement. “She's thirsty. I haven't had a chance to fill her bowl since this morning. You can, if you want. I'll be in the front of the shop until Nicole's done.”
Jason started to walk past Katie's cage towards the door leading to the respectable part of the shop. The bunnyboy looked up as Jason passed his cage, but did not rise. Jason rattled off a few last minute thoughts that came to mind, with one hand on the doorknob. “You can play with both of them, but keep them in separate cages. Tyler spends all his time humping her if you put them together. You do any kind of penetration and you buy them. If you can't afford it, well...”
The young man let the threat hang in the air and Bill filed the information away. When Jason was about to open the door, Bill said hurriedly, “Wait! Do I get her water from the front?”
Jason glanced back briefly. “She gets water during breakfast and dinner. During the day she drinks piss.”
Bill was still trying to form a response when Jason left, swinging the door closed behind him. For a moment the only sound in the room was the steady quiet buzzing of the vibrators from the children's tail-plugs. Then Katie barked again, moving closer to Bill's face. He met her wide blue eyes and wondered how much she still understood. He guessed very little, if this was part of her programming. Watersports was another non-standard feature. It also helped explain why she cost so much more than Nicole. The more Bill thought about it, the more certain he was that someone had already bought Katie and chosen her programming, sparing no expense. Jason had only offered the price because he knew that Bill could not pay it. Bill wondered how much other custom programming Katie had in her head.
Feeling disconnected from reality, Bill reached down and unzipped his jeans. He had never been interested in this fetish before but the idea now held him in its grip and he wanted to see it for himself. As Bill extracted his semi-hard cock, the bunnyboy moved for the first time. He crawled from the middle of his pen to press his face against the chain links that separated his cage from Katie's. The boy crouched with his bony butt in the air, as if simulating the large rump of a rabbit. The white cottontail spread his ass cheeks a little, looking less natural in its position than Katie's dog tail did. In a situation that Bill could never have even imagined, he knelt and started peeing into the pink dog bowl while the two children watched.
Bill shook his cock dry but those last drops landed in Katie's hair because the petite puppygirl had already bent forward to lap at the half-filled bowl. Stained by the pink bowl holding it, Bill's urine did not look any different from how pure water would have. But the knowledge that his daughter's friend was licking up his piss stupefied Bill and he listened to the sounds of her tongue with fascination. Dumbly, Bill tucked his cock away and zipped up his pants. To his side, the bunnyboy relaxed back into a normal crouch, no longer pressing his face against the fence. The rattling of the chain links brought Bill back to reality. He reached out and patted Katie on the head. She did not turn away from the bowl and Bill wondered how thirsty she was. Was it healthy to drink urine like this, even if you had water at other times? Of course, Bill supposed, it was possible that her programming had simply made Katie enjoy the taste so that she would drink even if she was not thirsty.
Bill stood up, his knees popping in protest at the change in position. He looked down at Katie and saw that almost two inches of pink plastic protruded from her butthole before the tail part of the buttplug began. Bill did not want the plug to fall out, and he did not know how long it was, so he stooped again and pressed his fingers at the base of her tail, watching the pink plastic disappear inside of her until her tail appeared to grow from between her pert butt cheeks. He pushed it in quickly and Katie stopped drinking to squeal pleasurably. Apparently that also made her decide that she had enough, because she left the partially-filled bowl and crawled around Bill's legs, begging to be played with.
Entranced by the playful little thing, Bill reached down and stroked his hand along the soft skin of her back. She collapsed under his touch and Bill thought she had hurt herself. But Katie was just rolling over onto her back, like a real dog would do when it had succeeded in capturing a human's attention. Katie cupped her hands near her shoulders, exposing the pale flesh of her belly. She also spread her knees apart in a “v” that presented her tiny pussy to him. Bill knelt down, rubbing his hand over her barely-there breasts and along her ribs. As Bill slid his hand further down, along the soft skin of her belly, he began to seriously consider the benefits of divorcing his wife so that he could keep this child around the house.
When Bill reached the tiny wrinkle of soft skin that was Katie's pussy, she shivered and panted, sticking her tongue out of the corner of her mouth. Bill rubbed, first gently then more firmly, amazed at the reactions he could elicit from the little girl with a few fingers. Initially, she kept her “paws” up by her shoulders and her knees held up like a dog's hind feet. But as Bill worked her closer to an orgasm, Katie's body reacted more strongly, trembling and thrashing around his fingers. She hugged her hands close over her puffy nipples but let her legs splay wide and flat, in a position that a dog could never manage. Slowly, steadily, Bill sent more and more waves of pleasure through her small body until she climaxed, tensing in an orgasm that shook her all over.
Hours later, the door from the main shop opened. Bill looked up. He was sitting on the floor with his back against the wall of the room. Katie was lying on her side next to him, her arms and legs curled up close to her body, and her head resting on Bill's thigh as she slept. He was petting her, from her head to the middle of her back. He wished that he could reach lower but he had to admit that if he started playing with her pussy again she would probably wake up. Katie had lasted almost the whole time, playing and being played with for hours. Finally, Bill had noticed her tiring and had sat down against the wall, petting her as she fell asleep.
“Had fun?” Jason asked blandly as he stepped into the room.
Bill nodded but did not say anything for fear of waking Katie. It had been a strange bonding experience with the girl he had known for years. With mixed emotions tugging at his heart, he lifted her head as gently as he could and moved out from under her. She made a sleepy noise and moved a bit as he set her head on the floor, but she did not wake up fully and quickly sank back into sleep. Jason had disappeared into the far room while Bill was extracting himself. As Bill was stepping over the fence of Katie's pen, the back door opened again and Jason walked out.
“Is she...?” Bill started to ask whether it had been enough time, half-hoping that he could spend more time with Katie. The question died when he saw Nicole step through the door after Jason. His daughter looked the same as when she had gone in, except that there was no longer a lollipop stick dangling from her lips. Her expression had only changed slightly. Instead of the completely vacant look that she had while sucking the candy, Nicole merely looked tired right now. She followed Jason very much like a sleepwalker, trudging after him with small steps.
With a jerk of his head, Jason led Bill and Nicole together back to the main shop. Jason closed the “Storage” door and locked it. He bent down and whispered something into Nicole's ear. When he walked to the front door of the shop and unlocked it, she did not follow him. While Jason was opening the shop back up again, Bill was examining the eleven-year-old for signs of a change. Nothing, except for this sleepiness.
Jason walked behind the counter and pulled out a brown paper bag which he passed across to Bill. Glancing inside, Bill saw a white bunny-ears headband, a bright pink buttplug capped with a white cottontail, and a simple black cloth collar. There was also a scrap of paper at the bottom that Bill pulled out. The handwriting on it said, “Sleep, bunny foo foo.” Bill dropped the paper back in, not sure whether he should be insulted that Jason did not think Bill could remember the trigger that Bill himself had chosen. Deciding to ignore that, Bill opened his mouth, prepared for the awkward task of thanking the young man for turning his daughter into a sex toy. Before he could get a word out, though, Jason lifted his hand and slammed it loudly against the countertop.
As if she had been stung by an electric shock, Nicole jerked upright, no longer slouching with fatigue. She looked up at Bill, who was relieved at the energy animating her face. He never thought he would be so glad to see his daughter looking perfectly normal. Jumping into the middle of a conversation that she obviously thought she had been participating in, Nicole said, “Sorry, Dad. Maybe another store will have something I want.”
Oblivious to Bill's lack of response, Nicole walked to the exit. She passed Jason, who winked at Bill over her head and took no offense at her statement that Kiddy Pets did not have anything that she wanted. Holding his paper bag at his side, Bill followed Nicole out of the store, listening as she chattered away about exactly what she wanted, and exactly why none of the animals in that store were good enough. Nicole climbed into the passenger seat of the truck and Bill circled around to the driver's side with the distinct impression that the past few hours could only have been a fantasy.
Nicole was running through a list of pets that her friends had and mentioned that in second grade Katie had a gerbil, until it died. At the mention of Katie, Bill felt himself give an involuntary guilty twitch. He had to know if it had worked. He had to know if it was real. In a hoarse voice, Bill said, “Sleep, bunny foo foo.”
Nicole stopped speaking mid-sentence and slumped in her seat, asleep almost instantly. For almost a minute Bill waited, letting the engine run, watching his daughter's small chest expand and deflate as she took steady breaths. He reached out with his right hand, watching it shake as he approached Nicole's waist. He brushed her shirt up a few inches, exposing a strip of belly skin. His eyes were riveted to her face but he saw no reaction. With no ceremony, he wedged his thick hand under the waistband of her jeans and wormed his fingers under her panties. The pressure to her lower tummy, with her jeans still buttoned, must have been uncomfortable, but Nicole continued to breathe deeply. His throat dry, Bill brushed his middle finger past her tuft of peach fuzz and felt the top of her slit. He pulled his hand out as if it had been burned. It was real. All of it. She was his.
“Wake, bunny foo foo,” Bill said softly. Nicole opened her eyes at the last syllable but gave no indication that she had heard. Instead, she picked up the thread of the sentence she had been starting before her trigger.
“Katie thinks it's her fault it died, but I told her gerbils don't live long anyway. She still gets sad about it today,” Nicole said. Her face fell a little as her thoughts brought her to the present. Sadly, Nicole added, “I wish she didn't move away. I miss her.”
Bill reached out and put a hand on Nicole's head. “I miss her too, sweetie.”