The Daddy P.I. Casefiles: The First Collection by Frost, J (great novels .txt) 📕

I can’t contain the chuckle. “Into the bubbles, little girl.”

She crawls on hands and knees over the wide lip of the bath and into the water. I take a minute to wipe up the floor and set a timer on my phone before I follow her in. The water’s just on the right side of hot and soothes the slight strain in my back and leg from bending and kneeling while giving her the enema. There are low, bench seats in the tub; I settle onto one, facing my scowling little girl.

“How’s it feeling?”

“Like I have a food baby, only lower.”

Oh, the pouting lower lip. So cute.

“Come here, little girl.” I spread my knees on the seat and when she scoots toward me, draw her gently onto my thighs so I’m not pressing the nozzle any deeper. I rub my palm over her tummy, which feels firmer than usual and is rounded with the water filling her bowels. “Is it cramping?”

“Yes. The crampiest cramps that ever cramped.”

I grab one of her ducks and swim it over in front of her. Waggling the duck, I say in a ducky voice, “The crampiest cramps?”

“The. Crampiest.”

I refrain from making the obvious joke about the crappiest cramps because Emily’s so sensitive to the idea of mess. Instead, I wiggle the duck towards her. “So, the next time we do this, it’s lemon juice in the water for the super-crampiest cramps?”

She grabs the duck, submerges it, and uses it to shoot water over her shoulder. I avoid getting unicorn bubbles full in the face only because I still have a hair-trigger reflex about things coming at my head. I bat the duck out of her hand and attack her ribs.

“No, Daddy!” She squeals and wriggles. “I can’t hold it!”

I wouldn’t have tickled her if I wasn’t confident the balloon’s inflated enough to keep everything inside her. And if it doesn’t and there’s a little leaking—who cares? We’re in the bath. But just the idea of leaking will send her into an anxious spiral. Tickling and playing with Daddy will keep her mind off everything.

“You can’t? You can’t hold it when I tickle here?”

I go after her inner thighs, which makes her scream with laughter and twist wildly in my lap.

“What about here?” I wiggle my fingers into her armpit, which gets her flapping her arm like a duck to try to dislodge me. I’m laughing so hard I nearly push her off my lap into the middle of the bath.

“Or here?” I attack her neck.

She grabs two of the bobbing rubber ducks and batters my hands with them. “Staap-staap, staap-staap!”

“Quaack-quaack.”

“Daddy! Stop being a giant meanie!”

“Oh, I’m the giant meanie? Who just tried to spray who with duck pee?”

“Whom.” She giggles wildly.

“That’s it. You are in so much trouble, little girl.” I tickle her until the timer I’ve set on my phone dings and she’s nearly hyperventilating.

I draw her back against my chest to calm her down. Ever attuned to me, she settles immediately and tips her head back on my shoulder, still panting a little from laughing so hard. “Am I done, Daddy?”

“You are. Ask Daddy very nicely to deflate the balloon and leave you alone to do your business.”

“Daddy, please-please-ducky please will you deflate the balloon and leave me alone to do my business?”

I kiss her damp temple. “Yes, my little duck, I will. Get back in position over the edge of the bath.”

I help her up out of my lap and step out of the bath, gathering towels for both of us. While she kneels back in place, I rub her down and drape a towel over her back before wiping myself off and winding the towel around my waist.

“Are you warm enough, sweetie?”

“Yes, Daddy.”

I reconnect the hose and bulb to deflate the nozzle, while holding it in place with my free hand. “Do you want me to take it out?”

“Please, no, Daddy.”

“Okay, little girl. Put your hand over mine and when I take mine away, hold the nozzle in place. I’ll be right outside the door. Call me if you need help. Promise?”

“Promise, Daddy.”

“That’s my good girl.”

We make the hand-swap. I grab a baby wipe on my way out of the bathroom and clean my hands just to be safe. While my little girl’s emptying out, I set up the bedroom. The bed already has a diverse selection of attachment points, so I just clip some tie downs to the four posts and set out my baby girl’s cuffs. Then I move the many stuffies off the bed, setting Peter Aloha Bunny and the inn’s teddy, who Emily has already named Professor Teddington and I can tell I’m going to have to buy because he’s coming home with us, on a chintz-covered chair. I unpack the fuzzy, blue Ravenclaw blanket I’ve brought for Emily so I can cuddle her for aftercare and set water bottles and a sports drink on the bedside table. She shouldn’t suffer an electrolyte imbalance just from one enema, but I’m not taking chances with my baby girl’s health, so I’ll have her drink the sports drink after the scene.

She finally calls for me and I find her in a spotless bathroom. I think she’s even wiped out the tub.

“Little girl, I thought you weren’t to worry about messes?”

“I just didn’t want you to have to tidy up.”

Uh-huh.

“I hate to tell you, but we’re going to have to make a little more mess. That was a soapy enema. Now you need a salty one to clean out any soap.”

She makes a face that I really need to capture. The koala, it’s so angry.

I toss two dry towels into the position I had towels in earlier and motion her down. The saline enema is quick, and I don’t make her hold it. It really is just to flush out any of the very mild, Castile soap I put in the first enema. While the saline solution’s going in, I give her lots of attention, stroking and