Chapter 21 Murry
MURRY
Portland was so fucking cool! I’d said it out loud so many times Daddy had given me a warning about cussing in public, so now the phrase was on repeat in my head, because holy shit, there was so much to see here and so much to do that I’d been told to hang on to Daddy’s beltloop and not let go, I was that fidgety.
And now we were here at the wishing tree, which was so pretty with all the wishes dangling beneath it, offering the perfect photo opportunity for the three of us and Aspen too.
We’d be headed home with far less gear in the van, which meant space for the cool things we came across as we wandered the city.
Raleigh’s backpack was already more than half-full after we’d wandered into a new age shop that carried a bunch of stuff they didn’t carry in the one back home.
Raleigh had written his wish on hotel stationery and pinned it to the tree with a glance and smile in Aspen’s direction while the man was busy scribbling his wish on the back of a napkin he’d fished out of one of the tote bags he was never without.
“So many wishes,” I muttered as I snapped photos of Raleigh beneath the tree, the ears on his kitty cat beanie lightly brushing against a few of the lower-hanging ones.
“Are you sure there is nothing you’d like to wish for?” Daddy asked as he stood steadily penning his wish on a page he’d ripped out of his notebook.
“No, Daddy,” I declared. “I am the happiest I’ve ever been.”
We shared a smile before Daddy stepped beneath the tree while Raleigh returned to my side and gripped my beltloop while I snapped pictures of Daddy and then Aspen when he stood beneath the tree to hang his wish not far from where Raleigh had stuck his.
I took several more pictures of just the tree before we continued our walk back to the van.
Next stop, the troll bridge.
“Time to get you all spruced up for your new home,” Aspen said as he withdrew the troll doll he intended to leave from his tote bag and began combing her hair so it stood in a spike on the top of her head.
Daddy rolled his eyes when he saw it, finished checking our seatbelts, and closed the door so he could climb behind the wheel.
“What?” Aspen said, “He’s adorable.”
“And clad in racy red lingerie,” Daddy pointed out.
Aspen just shrugged and kissed his forehead. “So? With this group, what did you expect?”
Daddy sputtered as Raleigh pulled his leather-clad troll from his backpack and made sure its little leather cap was attached to its hair.
If he could have found one with a harness, he’d have added it to the costume it was already wearing when he’d uncovered it at the massive flea market we’d stopped at during the drive out here.
“I think our dolls reflect our personalities,” I said as I hugged my Easter bunny troll to my chest.
Daddy just sighed and shook his head. “Not all of them.”
“No, Murry’s right, Daddy,” Raleigh said. “I could picture Aspen wearing the outfit his troll has on, with a long faux fur coat over top of it.”
“And a martini glass in his hand when he opened the door to greet the visitor who’d showed up for an evening tryst.”
“They’re not wrong,” Aspen declared. “In fact, I do have an outfit similar to this in my closet, very Rocky Horror Picture Show inspired, complete with the garters, stockings, and heels.”
“The heels are very important in completing the look,” Raleigh said. “Though after seeing the way so many Dommes removed theirs before a scene, I kind of wonder how practical they are?”
“For play, they are highly uncomfortable,” Aspen declared. “Zero out of ten in my experience, especially if you’re going to be wielding implements in a long scene. But there is no doubt that the visual appeal is positively stunning. Especially if they put you eye to eye with a taller sub.”
“Do you like tall subs?” I asked, immediately thinking of Phoenix and the wish Raleigh had pinned to the wishing tree.
“I love tall men, period,” Aspen said, “but then, it’s hard not to when you are severely lacking in the height department the way I am.”
“You’re the same height as I am,” I pointed out.
“And look at the men you’ve surrounded yourself with,” Aspen shot back, peering around the edge of his seat to glance from Raleigh to Daddy just to make his point.
“Okay, okay, you might be on to something there,” I conceded.
“Still, to answer your questions, there is something particularly appealing about a larger sub, especially when they are covered in ink and rippling muscle,” Aspen declared.
Raleigh and I shared a look, grinning at one another, because we knew what most people who looked at Phoenix never would have guessed.
He was as submissive as they came, in the right hands, with the right person, when he was able to let his guard down enough to trust them.
With game night slated to kickstart a few days after we got back, there would be plenty of opportunities for Phoenix and Aspen to interact outside of the shop and runway shows.
I couldn’t wait for them to let fly the one-liners and innuendoes, because I knew that if anyone could match Aspen’s snarky comments with equally lewd and snarky ones, it would be Phoenix.
And if the universe should require a bit of help in getting them to see that they’d be absolutely perfect for one another, well, Raleigh and I were more than willing to lend a hand.
“Here we are,” Daddy declared a short time later, as he parked as close to the bridge as he could get.
It was a short walk to the bridge itself and the bright, colorful collection of trolls attached to it.
“See, Daddy, every one of them tells a story,” I said, pointing out one with tricolored hair held in place with a sparkling tiara. “I bet whoever put that one there loved princesses.”
“And look, this one over here looks like a superhero,” Raleigh said as he pointed to one who had a cape, boots, and even a mask to round out its costume.
Aspen chuckled and pointed to one in purple lingerie similar to the red and black outfit his troll wore. “There’s a whole fetish party of trolls going on over here.”
“Okay, okay, I stand corrected,” Daddy said, throwing up his hands.
“I’m just going to add mine to the gathering,” Aspen said while Raleigh and I hunted for the perfect place to attach ours with the silken rope we’d brought.
“There’s space for three here, Daddy,” I declared, pointing to a patch of weathered wood I could easily reach as long as I stood on tiptoes.
“Well then, let’s see about trussing these three up,” Daddy said, with his own troll held in his hands.
His troll had wild yellow hair and was dressed in caveman attire with a bone club held in its hands.
“Now you can protect us forever, Daddy,” I declared, and secured his doll in the center of the space before attaching mine on one side of his and Raleigh’s on the other.
The very last thing I did was pull one of the silken cords apart to make smaller strands so I could bind the hands of our dolls to the hands of Daddy’s doll to show that they were meant to be connected forever.
“A caveman and his pets, I love it,” Daddy said and let out a caveman yell as he beat his chest.
It was a good thing Raleigh and I had a good, long drink this morning back at the hotel, or he’d have started leaking through his shirt when he did that.
I made sure to take a bunch of pictures too, for the photo album Raleigh and I had decided to put together after we’d found an amazing scrapbooking kit and a few books on scrapbooking techniques at the same flea market where we’d found the trolls.
We posed for several pictures with our trolls and took photos of Aspen with the kinky troll slumber party he’d added his troll to before taking the time to photograph the entire bridge.
“You know what I think?” Daddy said.
“I’m afraid to ask,” Aspen muttered.
“I think I need to design my own trolls, so my imp and fairy have props for their next performance,” Daddy declared. “It’ll be a challenge, but if it works out, I think it would be an amazing accessory.”
“Even if it doesn’t work out well enough to put in the shop, I’d love to have a troll that you designed just for me,” Raleigh declared.
“Me too,” I added, vigorously nodding my head.
“Well, then let me make a note of it,” Daddy said and pulled out his notebook.
While Daddy was busy writing, Raleigh posed for several more pictures beside the bright troll and some of the awesome trolls on display, including one that was dressed up like a cowboy, with leather chaps and boots with spurs and everything.
There was a rockstar troll with a guitar on its back holding hands with a ballerina troll someone had posed mid-twirl.
The whole thing was just so fucking cool!
It was a good thing my phone backed up to the cloud because I couldn’t stop taking pictures of Raleigh and those trolls.
He was clowning around beside a jester troll when I heard Aspen’s phone let out a series of blips, but I didn’t think anything of it until the man burst out laughing, scaring away a couple crows who’d been cawing to one another from nearby trees.
“Oh, oh, this is perfect. This is, oh holy shit, this is the perfect time and place to show you this,” Aspen declared. “Talk about the highlight of the trip, I am sure this is it right here.”
“Alright already,” Daddy said. “Calm down and show us why you’re frightening the birds.”