Fixing Little Red Read online

  Nodding, I stared down at the innocuous steel in my hand. “I think I’m going to have it framed somehow.”

  I rested my hand, still holding on to my bolt, on my chest and felt my eyes close. “Nate, I’m sleepy.”

  “That’s fine, Red. We’re almost to the hospital. It’s best if you rest and conserve your energy. This might be a long process.”

  I drifted off into a semi-asleep, semi-awake state as the ambulance ride rocked me. I felt Nate’s hand stroke my arm, but I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want him to stop. His touch was firm and soothing in a way my hurt little side soaked up.

  We arrived at the hospital sooner than I’d expected and even though I wanted Nate to stay with me, I knew he couldn’t. He had to leave and help other people, not stay and comfort me. Nate and his partner passed me off into the waiting hands of several nurses and I knew that this was it.

  I lifted my good hand—bolt still firmly clenched in it—and waved at Nate as they wheeled me away, knowing I’d never see him again.

  I stared around my hospital room bored out of my mind. I said hospital room but it was more of a cubby made of curtains. I’d already been there for hours and had to repeat my story to nurse after nurse and doctor after doctor. I was even wearing one of those awful hospital gowns after one of the nurses had to cut off my shirt and helped me undress. Thankfully, she didn’t say anything about my fun, superhero underwear.

  After arriving at the hospital, I’d had my arm x-rayed and set. That had been scary. Luckily, they’d given me tons of general anesthetic so I hadn’t felt a thing except for some weird pressure. Afterward, the nurses had wrapped my arm, placed it in another splint, and had set it on an elevated pillow by my side. Apparently, I would need surgery to fix it, but they had to wait until the swelling went down first. It was kind of strange thinking of having a few plates and screws implanted in my body but also kind of cool.

  I would be a cyborg. I gasped, a ninja cyborg.

  Plus, I would set off all the metal detectors which sounded fun. On a side note, my ribs were fine—a little bruised—but fine.

  I was about to drift off to sleep when the sound of the curtain moving caught my attention.

  “Hello?”

  Lifting my head, I smiled when Danny walked into the room, my space backpack with its little astronauts and planets slung over his shoulder.

  “Heya, Danny,” I said with a slightly loopy smile.

  “Hi, Red,” he said with a laughing smile. “Are they giving you the good stuff?”

  Nodding, I lifted my hand and showed him my bolt. They’d had to take it away while I’d had my x-rays and other tests, but had promptly returned it to me afterward. “Look what I still have.” The drugs they were giving me for the pain were awesome.

  Danny full-on laughed as he took the bolt from me. “Oh yeah, that’s the good stuff.”

  “Hey,” I said, trying to reach from my bolt. “That’s mine!”

  “I’m going to put it in your backpack so you don’t lose it. It’ll be nice and safe right here.”

  I watched closely as he opened the small zipper pouch on the front and tucked it inside, safely away.

  “What did you bring me?” I asked, eyeing the backpack curiously.

  He opened it and started digging around, naming all the items he saw. “Your phone with an extra-long charging cord, wallet, keys, paperwork, a change of clothes for when you get out of here,” he said, then he got to my little stuff. “I brought your blankie and a pacifier. Oh, I also snagged your nightlife, but I didn’t know if you would have an extra plug.”

  I was too out of it to realize the absurdity of the situation. Instead, like an idiot, I pointed at the socket on the wall beside my bed. Without prompting, Danny plugged in my phone charger, draped the cord over the bed rail for easy access, and then plugged in the soft, glowing moon nightlight. I relaxed as the warm light filled the room.

  “Thanks, Danny,” I said, reaching for the backpack and my blankie. “Danny, you’re the best.”

  “You’re welcome, Red,” he said, handing me the pacifier, which I promptly shoved into my mouth. “I called your dad and told him what happened.”

  “Danny!” I whined around my pacifier knowing my dad was probably already on his way. He lived over five hundred miles away, but I just knew he was already in his truck, making the eight-hour drive. “Where is he going to stay?” I asked, pulling my pacifier out.

  My dad was the epitome of a man’s man. He drank beer and likes sports—had tried to get me into little league until that failed spectacularly when I’d been too afraid of the ball to swing the bat at it—was a mechanic that could fix any machine on the face of the earth, and wanted steak and potatoes for every meal. I couldn’t imagine him in my baby cute house. As a single parent, he’d done his best for me but had never understood my… differences. He’d known I was gay from a young age when I’d confidently told him I wanted to marry Steve, the neighborhood boy I played with, after watching My Big Fat Greek Wedding one too many times, also, musicals were the shit. I can’t sing or act or dance but I love me a good musical. By the way, I counted all cartoons with awesome soundtracks that I could sing along too as musicals.

  After discovering age play online during my junior year of high school, I’d figured out why my room was still childlike with my various stuffed animal friends, why I kept my baby blanket at the foot of my bed, and why I still had all my toys organized in cubbies and shelves around my room. Of course, when he asked why I didn’t throw them out, I’d said they would be worth something someday, but I knew the truth—I was never getting rid of them. Eventually, he’d just accepted it as one of my many quirks he didn’t understand. Well, at least I hoped. No one wanted to think about their parents thinking about their kinks and lifestyle. Just the idea he knew about littles was enough to give me hives.

  Danny laughed and gave me a knowing look. Oh god, what had his dad said? “Your dad asked if you still had all that kid’s shit everywhere. I think he took me choking on my laughter as a yes because he said he was staying at a hotel nearby and would be in as soon as possible, which will be tomorrow morning.”

  I collapsed against my bed in relief. “Oh, thank the universe.”

  Danny laughed even harder as I yawned. “Why don’t you take a nap? Visiting hours are over at eight so I can stay here for a while. I’ll wake you up in a bit.”

  “Thanks,” I said, snuggling back into my bed. Danny helped me spread my blankie across my chest since I couldn’t do it very well on my own with my one working hand clenched around my pacifier. Hopped up on drugs, cuddling my pillow, I stuck my pacifier in my mouth and, knowing Danny was watching out for me, felt as safe as I possibly could and was asleep within seconds.

  Chapter Two

  Nate

  I sat in the front of the ambulance, devouring my cheeseburger—not the healthiest dinner, I know, but at least it had some vegetables in it—and stared out the window, my thoughts still on Red. I couldn’t stop thinking about the way he’d look at me. The way he’d whispered he was scared… and with such trust and honesty. It wasn’t something I saw every day. In fact, the way I’d acted with him was more in line with how I behaved with scared, hurting children.

  It didn’t hurt that he was cute as fuck. He was only shorter than me by a couple of inches and he wasn’t quite a twink but not a muscle head either—just your average guy. His face was roundish with amazing green eyes, light brown hair that looked like he never brushed it, a smattering of freckles across his nose and cheeks, and a cute button nose.

  I shook my head. A cute button nose? When had that become a sign of attractiveness for me? Furthermore, when had cute replaced sexy in my dictionary? And fuck if cute wasn’t doing something for me.

  I shifted in my seat to make room for the interest that was making itself known. Shit, I could not get a boner in the ambulance with Dave next to me.

  “So,” Dave said from the driver’s seat. “That Raymond guy, Red
, whatever. What a weirdo, am I right?”

  “What?” I frowned in confusion. Red hadn’t come off as a weirdo to me. He’d been sweet and innocent, definitely gay if my guess was right. Sure, most grown men didn’t cry when they broke an arm, but he was obviously more in touch with his feelings than most. Sensitive.

  “Seriously, Nate? Didn’t you get a look at that guy’s house?”

  I thought back and shrugged. I’d been so focused on helping Red that I hadn’t really taken the time to look at my surroundings. In my experience, most houses tended to blend together so I’d stopped really registering the interior decorating choices of the people who needed my help. What I could picture was splashes of color everywhere. Was that what Dave was talking about? So, the guy wasn’t the most tasteful decorator, that didn’t make him a weirdo.

  “Not really,” I replied, taking another bite out of my burger.

  “Are you kidding me? It was kind of creepy like there’s someone in his basement creepy.”

  I frowned, not liking what Dave was implying. “One, I’m pretty sure we don’t have basements in this part of the country and two, that’s a little harsh, don’t you think?”

  “Did you really not look around? Nate, his house was filled with toys and stuff. I got a peek into his bathroom when we were leaving and it was covered in rubber ducks. And there was a mound of stuffed animals all over his couch.”

  I shrugged, not really seeing the issue Dave was having. “So? Maybe he’s a collector or something.”

  “Nate,” Dave said with an exasperated eye roll. “There were blocks on the floor that had obviously been played with recently.”

  I sighed. “And maybe he has a niece or nephew who likes to come over and play. You know, it was you who told me not to make assumptions about what we see in people’s homes.”

  Dave waved his hand in the air and ignored what I’d said.

  “What if he’s one of those adult babies? You know, the kind that likes to wear diapers and do kids stuff,” Dave said in a scandalized tone. “What if it’s like some kind of weird sexual fetish?”

  I rolled my eyes and sighed at Dave’s dramatics. “So what if he is? What business is it of ours? If he wants to play on the floor with his blocks and watch cartoons on Saturday morning while wearing a diaper, who is it hurting?” I asked, subconsciously imagining the scene as I said it and surprisingly, finding it somewhat cute. Fuck, there was that word again. “Besides, how do you know so much about adult babies and shit like that? You got something to tell me, Dave?”

  “What? No.” He blushed and stammered when I turned the tables on him. “No!”

  I raised a brow and turned my entire body towards him. “I think you protest a little too much there, Dave.”

  He sighed and slumped against the steering wheel. “Sarah likes reading gay romance novels.”

  I laughed, thinking of Sarah, Dave’s younger sister, telling her straight brother about her gay romance. “And there are adult babies in them?”

  Dave shrugged. “I don’t know. Sometimes? She started talking about littles and diapers and Daddies, and I couldn’t get her to shut up. To tell the truth, I didn’t really think people like that actually existed. After seeing that guy’s house, I’m not so sure anymore.” Dave frowned and studied the other cars in the parking lot. “Am I too vanilla?”

  I choked on a piece of onion and coughed until it dislodged from my throat. “Jesus, Dave, why’d you have to ask me that? Are you trying to kill me?”

  “I don’t know. After all the strange, kinky stuff Sarah’s told me about from her books, I’m kind of boring,” he said, turning and giving me a grin. “Besides, I tell you everything.”

  “Well, maybe you shouldn’t,” I replied, not really meaning it. Dave and I spent so much time together that we’d formed this strange bond over literal life and death. He’d seen me at my lows and I’d seen him at his. After that, there wasn’t much we couldn’t talk about. “And I think if you have to ask if you’re vanilla, that means you’re vanilla.” At least, I assumed if you were into kinky stuff and knew it, then you wouldn’t need to ask someone else if you were vanilla.

  “Now I feel kind of bad for calling him a weirdo,” Dave said with a small frown. “And implying he was a creep who had someone in his non-existent basement. From what Sarah told me, littles are very sweet and trusting.”

  “Then get him some apology flowers.”

  “Nah,” Dave said sincerely to my insincere suggestion. “I’m thinking a teddy bear or some shit, maybe some walkie talkies. Kids fucking love walkie talkies.”

  “Dave, you know he’s not a kid and he isn’t an adult baby or a little or whatever they’re called, right?”

  “You didn’t see his house,” Dave said, ignoring me… again. “I’m telling you if littles or adult babies exist, Red’s one of them. I’d bet my next paycheck on it.”

  Okay, now I was intrigued. “And what do littles do?”

  Dave puffed up as if imparting his words of wisdom on to me. “Well, Sarah said that littles like to color and play with toys, they have pacifiers and bottles, and they like to wear little clothes and pretend to be kids. They also have Mommies or Daddies that take care of them.”

  “Mommies and Daddies?” Okay, so I was a little more than intrigued. I told myself it was because it was so different from anything I’d ever heard of before, but I kept picturing Red in my head. It wasn’t so strange when I thought of him with a pacifier in his mouth or playing on the floor with his blocks.

  “Yeah,” Dave said, really getting into it. “Sarah said it’s like some kind of dominant and submissive thing. Like the Mommies and Daddies take control because littles can’t make decisions and do the same stuff that adults can. So, Daddies make their food, tell them when they can play and what they can do, change their clothes and diapers, give them baths, punish them if they break the rules. Stuff like that. Sounds kind of high maintenance to me,” Dave said, but I heard something in his voice that said he didn’t mind as much as he was implying.

  I shifted in my seat, finding the idea of controlling Red to that level arousing and kind of shocking. Did littles actually want someone to control them like that? Did Red want that? Were littles an actual thing? Was Red one?

  “Do you think girls can be littles, too?”

  “What?” I asked, looking at Dave.

  “Sarah only talked about boy littles and their Daddies, but that’s because that’s what she reads. Do you think girls can be littles, too?”

  There was too much interest in his voice to let me tease him like I normally would have. Besides, I was busy having an existential crisis of my own over Red. “I don’t see why not. If boys can do it, then so can girls.”

  Dave nodded and looked out the window. “Do you think Red might have little friends that he plays with?”

  Okay, there was no way I was ignoring it now. “Do you want a little? To be a Daddy?”

  Dave screwed up his face and shrugged. “I don’t know. The way Sarah talked about it, it was all so sweet and caring—intimate. She said littles tend to get very attached to their partners. They like to cuddle and shit like that. It sounded nice when she was talking about it. What do you think?”

  “It does sound kind of nice,” I said, looking at Dave in a way I’d never expected. “My last boyfriend threw a hissy fit when I accidentally used his toothbrush one night after a really long shift. I can't imagine him taking a bath, let alone letting me bathe him. They really want their Daddies to give them baths?”

  Dave nodded, a new light shining in his eyes. “Bubble baths and their Daddies have to wash them. Littles don’t really have very much privacy from their Daddies. Carrie got pissed at me and told me off because I asked her to go to bed one night because it was getting late and she was just watching TV while she had an early meeting the next day,” he said, mentioning his last girlfriend.

  The rest of the words went unspoken. A little would never dare talk back to their Daddy like that unles
s they wanted a spanking.

  “Huh,” I said, collapsing back into my seat.

  “Right?” Dave replied, mimicking my pose.

  A couple of minutes passed in silence as we thought about what had just happened.

  “So, are you going to do it?”

  I turned and looked at Dave. “Do what?”

  “Ask Red out?”

  I looked away, staring into nothing. “I don’t know. He might not be gay and there was that guy there, Danny. He said they were friends, but they seemed awfully close to me.” If I felt a little disappointment, I tried not to let it show.

  “Nate, he was totally checking you out.” Dave wiggled his eyebrows in a completely lewd way. “He’s cute, he’s little, and he was totally into you. You should ask him out.”

  I didn’t say anything to Dave until he reached over and poked me.

  “Okay, I’ll ask him out, geez!”

  “Yes,” Dave said as if my agreement was some kind of accomplishment for him. Then he opened his mouth and I realized why. “And you’ll see if he has any cute, single, little-girl friends, too?”

  “Oh my god, Dave! Are you trying to use my future date, maybe-boyfriend to score yourself a girl?” Sometimes the man amazed me.

  “Hey, you can’t keep all the littles to yourself. Help a brother out.”

  I burst out laughing at the absurdity of our conversation. Dave, thinking back on the last few minutes, joined in as well. How I went from perfectly vanilla and happy with it to contemplating some kind of kinky Daddy/little, Dominant/submissive relationship in the space of a few hours was completely beyond me. Red had obviously done something to my brain. Maybe I had an infection?

  I was about to ask Dave more about littles when our scanner went off, sending us out on our next call.

  I smiled and thanked the head nurse and headed off towards Red’s room. Visiting hours were almost over, but I didn’t worry about that, the rules were a little different for me. I technically didn’t work for the hospital, but I was around enough that all the staff knew me and I even had my own locker in the locker rooms with an extra change of clothes if I needed them.