February Flash #1 - "Fuzzy"

West Village, New York City

He says I’m his fuzzy girl.

I’m not. I’m absolutely not.

But maybe I should be.

A

Danny approached me in Dante’s last night. I was sitting on a stool at the bar and he offered to buy me a drink. He was good looking, but I said no. I wasn’t mean about it. Just not my type, no big deal. I like guys who take charge, and Danny looked like he had too many manners.

Besides, I never say yes first time. I’m not cheap. I’m a lot of things, but I’m definitely not cheap. I looked over his shoulder, catching my reflection in polished bronze. Not a blond hair or black lash out of place, I am immaculate. I can wait for the right guy.

“That’s cool,” he said. “Have a good night.”

Yeah. Wasn’t trying very hard. Now, if he’d offered to buy me dinner at that moment, I might just have said yes. Dante’s signature burger, fingerling potatoes on the side. But at twenty-two, I was more than old enough to know that men don’t pick up hungry girls with greasy fingers.

He doesn’t make the offer. He reached into his suit pocket, and I knew without looking that he was retrieving his phone.

I swiveled on my stool, turned my attention back to my Ginger Chai Spritz, which should be the last drink I had to buy that night.

So I didn’t see what he did, just a glitter in the palm of his hand. I caught it in the corner of my eye, but I thought it was just the reflection of his watch.

“Yeah, have a good night,” he said again.

Said it weird. Like we weren’t strangers in bar, he sounded like…well, it made sense in the end.

I turned back to him and he held up his palm and blew the glittery something into my face.

“Night-night,” he said, the two words see-sawing, and that’s when I thought to myself, after just a split-second of panic, that he wasn’t a Danny. He was a daddy.

I fell forward and he caught me.

“Ni-nights,” he whispered in my ear, and I had to agree. I was able to walk, with his hand on my waist, with my head leaning into his shoulder. I could walk out of Dante and then Danny folded me into a waiting car.

Danny got money, I thought to myself, smelling leather and feeling heated seats. Daddy’s loaded.

I slid down the leather upholstery, and then he was setting me upright, buckling me in like child.

I looked blearily, smokily towards the front of the car. Dark glass dividing us from the driver as he took us along Hudson and then onto 8th Ave.

“Sleepy-head,” Danny said. “Right?”

Went without saying. I wasn’t about to put up a fight, my hands were heavy stones in my lap. So I closed my eyes because Danny wasn’t about to assault me. He had too many manners.

Even though he had drugged and kidnapped me. Even though I was now a prisoner.

B

I wake up in a crib, wearing pink-striped footed pajamas. I’m fat, a chunky thing, just like I used to be.

“I’m your daddy,” says Danny. “And you’re my fuzzy girl.”

He lifts me out of the crib and carries me though to his living room. As soon as I’m on the ground, I toddle to the window and catch my reflection.

Two years old. I run chubby fingers through dirty blonde hair, and I turn around and ask for a brush.

Well, kind of.

“Buff.” I point to my head. “Heh-buff!”

Danny nods and smiles from the couch. He’s wearing pajamas too; probably silk, expensive looking like the rest of the apartment.

“Daddy will take care of it,” he says, showing a smile I remember from last night. Shiny, white teeth.

I point at my fuzzy chest. “Me,” I say. “Me do it.” Words are clumsy on my tongue; they are like foreign objects.

He shrugs. No big deal. He points towards the window. “Look.”

I turn, putting my palms on the glass.

“Pretty day. We can go for a walk later. There’s a park, do you see it?”

I nod. About the park, about the pretty day. Not about the walk. I don’t want to go.

I look down into the street. There are people walking, and I could bang on the glass, cry for help. But they won’t see me, I know that. They’ll see a red-faced toddler, crying because she didn’t get her way. A tantrum over a messy diaper, or toast cut into the wrong shape. They’ll see Danny pick me up, and no one will come to rescue me.

“Want breakfast?” asks Danny. “Hungry baby?”

I can see Wogies, and my belly gurgles as I think of their garbage bread, the one with stuffed with salami, pancetta, and speck. I think of having marinara sauce on the side. And then I think back to Dante’s and their brunch ricotta pancakes.

“Hungry?”

I turn and walk to the couch, lamenting the diaper bunched between my legs. I look up at my captor. “Doan wan baby fooh.”

Danny laughs. “I know,” he says. He winks. “You’re a big girl.”

I twist my lips because he is teasing me. He’s looking at a toddler and wondering how best to patronize her. Coddle her.

“Bih…giwl.” I rest my hands on my hips.

“You are,” agrees Danny. “My sweet, fuzzy, big girl.” He lifts me effortlessly onto his lap. “I’ll fix us some eggs. Scrambled.”

My stomach gurgles again. “Eggth…an’ bay-con.”

Danny makes a so-so gesture with his hand. “Little bit.” And then he strokes my hair. “Fuzzy girl, all I have to do is boop your nose and you’ll be sweet and innocent.”

I frown. “Booh?”

“Like this.” He taps his own nose with his forefinger. “Boop.” He says it funny, high-pitched, and the smallest of giggles escapes my lips.

“And after I boop your nose, you’ll forget everything except your daddy.” He strokes my back and says, “And I’ll make you eggs, and just the best food, and I’ll dress you up in just the best outfits.” He laughs. “And don’t worry, I’ll brush your hair so it shines.”

He kisses me lightly on the cheek. “What do you say?”

I think about it. I think about his money, and I think about all his manners. I think about the gentlest man I’ve ever met. Who kidnapped me. Who put a spell on me.

I like eggs.

I look down at my pajamas. “Doan wike thipes. Doan wike futhy.”

“Huh,” says Danny. “We’ll see, won’t we. I think you’ll love being fuzzy, and you look adorable in stripes.” He runs a fingernail up my zipper, tickling my belly and making me giggle properly this time.

I cover my front with splayed fingers, knowing that all I want is for him to do it again.

He shows me his forefinger. “Are you ready?”

Ready for tickles or ready for boop?

I shouldn’t want either. I screw up my face. I could scratch his skin; I could poke an eye.

I nod my head.

Danny smiles. “Good girl.”

And then he taps my nose.

“Boop!”

THE END