#2

Others said she looked like a little china doll. Except for those straight-across bangs of the '50s, scissors had never touched her white-blonde hair. Some family members and neighbors would call her "cottontop". Big blue eyes and whatever ribbon donned her ponytail supplied splashes of color to her otherwise pale countenance. She loved being called a doll. Dolls were about her favorite things. Dolls and the sky.

At night, when the day was buried in the darkness of her room, she would dream of the sky. She would dream she could fly away, through the incredible blueness, high as the clouds that softened her view of her house far down below, as she slowly spiraled above it. Sometimes in her dream, her father came out of the house, turned his face skyward and waved.

Dolls were pretty lucky. It would be wonderful to be a doll - beautiful and unable to feel anything. Except love. She KNEW her dolls were aware of her love and devotion; the great care she took of their hair and clothing; the attention paid to their tucking-ins at night and prayers said to beg God himself to keep them all safe. To be a doll sounded like a marvelous life, to her.

When she was told, she lifted herself from the lap she had been laid across, and squirmed down. Squirmy is a great word for it because that is just how it felt between her small thighs and buttocks. Squirmy is how the thoughts in her head felt. Yes, she could be such a squirmy child...

She was allowed to pull up her panties, and was sent to her room and dolls and sky.

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