of each draping loop of green and placed tall red candles in silver holders behind the high points where the garland was pinned. Afraid of being rude but unable to help herself, she finally just asked.
“Don’t you get tired of it?”
“Tired of it?” Nanny J echoed, then laughed. “Of what, being ‘Nanny J’?” When Sadie nodded, she laughed again. “No, never. Well…” She paused mid-tug on a bow to give it more serious thought. “Okay, yes. Some Littles are easier to get along with than others. Some need more handholding, some get into more mischief, some just want to play, some want to be cuddled, and some want to let loose and brat so they can be spanked over and over and over,” Nanny J dragged the word out, making Sadie giggle with her. “I don’t know how their bottoms can take it, but I love it. For all that I might get tired or frustrated, I can’t imagine doing anything else with my life. I would miss this unbearably if I tried.” Stepping back to get a better look at the mantle as a whole, the other woman nodded her approval. “Let’s do the stockings next.”
Hopping down off the stool needed for her to reach the top of the mantelpiece, Sadie ran to get the stockings from the taller of the two ranch hands. Deaf and silent, he never spoke.
“Thank you, Moses,” she said as she accepted the stack of red and white crocheted socks he gave her. Each was faux-fur lined, oversized, and had its own loop to hang on the fireplace hooks.
Ruffling her hair, Moses glanced over her head to where Nanny J was fussing with the lay of the evergreen garland while she waited. If his gaze lingered a bit too wistfully on the other woman’s figure, Sadie didn’t notice right away. By the time she did notice, he’d already turned his attention back to pulling out a box of carefully wrapped ceramic ornaments for the tree. Once more, he was completely focused on the task of decorating as he unwrapped each fragile ornament and snapped his fingers to stop the budding argument between two nearby Littles, who were vying to see who got to put the first one up.
Noticing her still standing there, Moses snapped his fingers at her next, then thumbed for her to get going.
Making her way back to the fireplace, she said, “I think Moses was looking at you.”
Nanny J fussed with what already looked to Sadie to be perfect decorations.
“I’m sure he was just admiring how it’s all coming together, love. First stocking, please.”
Shifting the stack in her arms, Sadie handed one over.
“What about you?” Nanny J asked, turning the conversation back on her. “If you had to pick, oh… let’s say, three things you liked above all the others you’ve so far tried this morning, what would they be?”
‘The spanking’ popped instantly to the springboard of Sadie’s tongue, but she locked her teeth to keep it back. She settled on something infinitely safer to admit to.
“Um… I liked coloring.”
“Mmhmm.” Nanny J smiled, taking another stocking before moving a little further down the garland to the next hook. “And?”
She had to think. Surprisingly, there wasn’t anything about today she’d truly disliked, per se. Once she got past the strangeness of having to be around other Littles much, well… littler than she was, it was kind of like being on vacation. All she’d had to do was relax. “I liked reading the books.”
The reading corner had two volumes of Shel Silverstein poems and all of Mercer Mayer’s books. She hadn’t read ‘How the Trollusk Got His Hat’ since she was ten or twelve. She’d forgotten how much fun they were. She’d poured through the books in that corner for hours.
“And?” Nanny coaxed again, holding her hand out for another stocking.
The spanking, being sent to the corner, that moment when Nanny had forcibly brought it home to her, she wasn’t in charge, and there was simply nothing for her to do but accept she had to go through this, like it or not. That realization had been like shedding a forty-pound weight. For all that she’d fought it, once she had no choice but to accept she was a Little girl in Little panties with a Little hairbrush always at the ready to dance upon the naked surface of her writhing bottom, it got a whole lot easier to just… fall in line with the others.
“The nap,” she decided. That spanking had worn