Published: April 28th 2021, 2:01:02 pm
Of course, curiosity was one thing... Getting Vivi to act on it was something else altogether. How, exactly, was Danielle going to make that leap? She'd hoped she wouldn't have to, that Vivien would do it herself, but it didn't seem like that was going to happen.
She had plenty of opportunities, after all. She was in Dani's bedroom plenty of times per day, and it wouldn't have been hard for her to snatch a diaper for herself, if she wanted to give it a shot. Anytime Danielle was playing with Tessa in the living room, and she saw the sitter head down the hallway, she half expected to see a slight bulge beneath her pants when she returned, or for her purse to be just a little fuller. As far as she could tell, however, the girl didn't try anything.
To try to entice her a bit more, Danielle began leaving diapers out, scattering them around her room. She wasn't sure why she hadn't done it before... It wasn't like she invited friends over to hang out. She didn't want them to see the way she let herself be treated, and, besides, by the time her babysitter left for the day, it wasn't long before she was put to bed anyway, and that time was usually filled with dinner and bath time.
Perhaps the problem, she reasoned, was it would be too easy for someone to tell that a diaper was missing from her former underwear drawer. They were all stacked up, nice and neat... And, to be honest, she had been peeking inside to see if any of the stacks looked shorter than it should. If she had spare diapers sitting around her room - on top of the dresser, on her bookshelves, wherever - it might be more tempting to think she didn't know where all of them were, and snatch one.
Of course, she did know, had all of the spots memorized so that, any time Vivi had been in there, and had a chance to take one, she could see if she had. They did vanish from time to time, but, as far as Dani could tell, that was only because Vivien used them to change Danielle, instead of going into the drawers. And, after a week or so, Vivi made her pick them all up and put them away as part of cleaning her room.
"I don't know why you have them scattered all over the place," she'd lectured, "I assume you're putting your stuffed animals in them, so you can pretend you're a babysitter again, instead of just a baby. But they need to go back where they belong before you spill something on them, or rip them, and ruin them."
"I won't!" Dani pouted. "I'm not that clumsy!"
Vivien smirked. "Sure you aren't. But you're going to do as you're told anyway, aren't you?" She still hadn't come up with a good enough excuse to spank Dani, and, from the way she was looking down at her now, arms crossed, Danielle suspected that was the unspoken threat.
Dani sighed. "I guess," she gave in, marking another plan off her mental list.
Had she been wrong? She couldn't help wondering that as she picked up the diapers, sliding them back into the drawer, under Vivien's watchful eye. She wished the girl would go bother Tessa for a while... She could be done with this in no time, if that was the case, since she'd mentally catalogued each diaper's placement, so she'd know when or if they vanished, but didn't want to go right to them, or else Vivi might suspect something. She had to wander around, pretending to look for them.
"You walked right past one," Vivi rolled her eyes. "No, turn the other way, dummy."
It was an incredibly mild insult, especially compared to a lot of the ones the girl had used on her back in high school, though, now that Vivi was her babysitter, not just a bully, it did cut a little deeper. "I'm not dumb!" she sniffed.
"You're the one who's been leaving your diapers all over the place," Vivien shrugged. "You know those things cost money, don't you? They aren't toys."
"I know." Did she really think Dani was stupid? Of course, it was an easy thing to forget, now that her parents were buying them for her... They always had plenty ready to go, and at daycare, she never had to worry about them, either. All she had to do at either place was toddle up to someone and ask for a new diaper, and there was always one ready to go. It was so much better than when she was handling it herself at home, despite how humiliating it was to have her mother, or Vivien, change her.
"And there's one under your desk," Vivi informed her, as Dani wandered off in the opposite direction.
Was she just spotting them because that was all she was doing, standing there looking for them, or was there something more? She certainly seemed to be spouting off their locations pretty quickly... Even if she hadn't taken any, was it possible that she'd been tempted, and that was why she remembered where all of them were?
Dani could feel the spark of hope returning as she dawdled, making Vivien tell her where the rest were, one by one, taking her time and waddling back to the dresser to put each up. That was giving the sitter a lot of time to spot them, she realized after a couple trips, but it felt like she was watching Danielle instead, like she was afraid she was going to trip and hurt herself as she walked across her room, not trying to see where the next diaper was.
"Wait," Vivi ordered, as Dani made the final trek to her diaper drawer. "Bring that over here."
Danielle's eyebrows raised, though she tried to hide it. Was this it? Had seeing her with all of those diapers been too much for Vivien? Dani hadn't expected her to share it with her when she did decide to experiment, but the girl knew that she'd been a babysitter, too, once upon a time, so she'd know how to diaper someone else... Maybe she was afraid her own skills wouldn't translate to being able to put one on herself.
"You're looking a little droopy," Vivien took the diaper, patting Dani on the head. "We might as well get this one on you before you start leaking."
Danielle wasn't going to give up yet, though. She might not have seen any real signs of interest from Vivi after that first one - and, the more she thought about it, the more she wondered if even that one had been her reading too much into it - but she knew there had to be a way to push her just a little harder, to make her take the plunge.
The opportunity finally presented itself the next week, when Vivien checked her phone in the middle of breakfast, her eyebrows raising as she read whatever had made the device chirp at her. "What is it?" Tessa asked curiously.
"Oh, nothing important," Vivi said. "My first class just got cancelled today. And my other one for the day was already pushed for one on one meetings with the professor."
"Wow," Tessa's eyes widened. "That can happen?"
Dani smiled, watching her sister's reaction. Of course, given her limited experience with school - having only gone to kindergarten, and for just a couple months - it wasn't a surprise that she didn't have experience with that. At this point, she might not have even encountered a substitute teacher yet!
"Sometimes, if your teacher is feeling sick," Vivien explained. "I don't think you'll have to worry about that for a while, though, sweetie."
Tessa still had to go to school, obviously, but, once she was dropped off, Vivi seemed unsure of what to do. "Do you still want me to take you to daycare?" she asked, before rolling her eyes. "I don't know why I'm asking you... I wouldn't ask any other toddler."
That wasn't an answer, however, and Vivien hesitated at the stoplight, the debate clearly not resolved in her mind yet. She had the whole day in front of her... In most other cases, she'd probably keep her charge out of daycare and take them to do something fun, or at least hang out with them at home. This wasn't a normal babysitting job, though.
There were a few ways Dani could see this going... Some of them weren't great. Vivi could take her to college anyway, show her off, or just find some other humiliating place to take her. Others, though, might help Danielle with her plan... If they went home, without even Tessa there, it would probably be easier to get her to play 'dress-up', and try one of her diapers, and maybe a cute outfit...
Of course, there was another possibility, the same one that had ultimately landed Danielle in this position in the first place. Would Vivien fall for it as easily as she had? Probably not, since she obviously didn't see Dani the same way Dani saw Tessa... But, if Danielle had been right, that she'd been making some progress, however small, with the girl, it might just work anyway.
"I wanna go to daycare," she spoke up.
"Of course you do," Vivi sighed. "They don't make you clean your room or do chores there, do they?"
"No," Dani shook her head. "They don't make me do that... Or anything else. It's so nice, and relaxing..." She paused short of suggesting Vivien try it herself, not wanting to sound like she was pushing the girl into it.
"Sounds great," Vivien mumbled, Dani not quite able to tell if she was being sincere or not. "Sure, I might as well get rid of you so I can have a few hours to myself."
Danielle hoped, when they got to the daycare, that Vivi would change her tune, that she'd voluntarily go inside on her own, but it didn't seem like she was quite ready for that. Dani squirmed in her seat, staring out the window as Vivien waited for her to get out. This was the moment of truth... Did she try to push her plan forward, or wait, and lay some more groundwork first, and just hope another perfect opportunity like this would come around again someday?
"Vivi," she said after a moment, "can you walk me in?"
"What?" Vivien sighed. "You do that by yourself every day, Dani, come on..."
"That's because I don't want to make you late for school," Danielle told her. "You don't hafta worry about that now... Please? Just come in and drop me off... And maybe you can talk to Miss Katie. She's so nice! She always takes such good care of me here, like you do at home..."
"What, do you want her to try to tell me you're a good girl, and I shouldn't punish you?" Vivien rolled her eyes... But she did take her car out of park, and start heading towards the parking lot. "I guess I could stop by for a couple minutes," she shrugged reluctantly. "If it'll make you feel better."
"Oh, so much better," Dani grinned, heart thumping loudly in her chest. "Thank you so much, Vivi!"
"I'm just going in to introduce myself," Vivi insisted. "So they know who it is that's been dropping you off every day."
But Danielle knew they had no clue Vivien had been doing that... All they'd see was another girl, not much bigger than her, holding her hand as they walked in, like Dani insisted they do.
"Hello, Dani!" the worker at the front desk smiled down at her. "Who's your friend?"
"She's Vivi!" Danielle answered, before her sitter could speak.
"Well, hi, Vivi. Nice to meet you!" Dani could see Vivien blushing, hearing the woman use the same tone with her that she'd just used with Danielle, clearly seeing her as no more of an adult than the girl in the diaper next to her.
"Umm, actually, my name is Vivien," she glared down at Dani. "And..."
As she looked away from Danielle, probably planning how she was going to make the girl's life miserable for this, Dani could see her spot the play room, with all its fun toys and bright colors, and she could practically hear all the good things she'd said about it echoing through her babysitter's mind. She hesitated, cheeks turning ever so slightly pink.
"And she's here to see if she wants to come here, instead of her old school, right, Vivi?" Dani interrupted.
"Wh-What?" Vivien's cheeks flared up even brighter. "N-No, I..."
"Wonderful!" the worker beamed. "I'm sure you'll love it here, Vivi! Go on, Dani, be a good girl and show her around."
"Yes, ma'am," Danielle nodded, tugging Vivien's hand. For a moment, she resisted, keeping her feet planted... And then, still blushing, she took a step forward, slowly following.
"This is just for today," she hissed at Dani, once they were out of the worker's sight. "That's it! And I am not wearing diapers!"
"Of course," Dani grinned. "Whatever you say, Vivi..."