I didn't even see the spoon coming; Rob moved too quickly for me to follow. I closed my mouth automatically when I felt the warm pressure on my tongue, and then there was no way I could have resisted swallowing.
It wasn't quite porridge. It was more like some kind of rice pudding, thick and soft. It tasted like chicken, though there were no pieces of meat in it, and slightly nutty. Any other time I would have said it was delicious, and I'm sure I would have asked for seconds. But I'd decided I was going to have the same stew as Daddy, and I wouldn't betray my decision by eating what I was given. I wasn't a little kid now, I was grown up enough to know that was a pretty dumb line of thinking, but I wanted that stew with its enticing smells. So when the spoon appeared in front of me again, I kept my mouth firmly closed.
"Open up, sweetie," Daddy prompted. I answered with a shake of my head, and a determined "Uh-uh," lips firmly pressed together.
"What's wrong?" he asked, and the spoon vanished to the side of my vision. "Is there something wrong? Do you not like..."
As soon as he paused I turned to look up at Rob's face, and it seemed he was helping himself to some of the porridge from my bowl. He had a thoughtful look on his face as he returned his fork to the tray, and he started into space for a long heartbeat before he carried on speaking: "Some kind of turkey congee, I think?"
"What's a conjee?" I asked, trying to remember if I'd ever come across the term before. I immediately discovered that even when he was trying to identify what he was eating, Daddy still gave me his full attention. The spoon was back in my mouth, carrying another load of poultry-flavoured mushy rice. I closed my mouth and bit down on the spoon this time, to hold it still while I thought about how I was going to get some of the stew. It smelled so good, I knew I had to have some. Even if Daddy wanted me to have baby food, and even if the baby food was surprisingly tasty, I'd got my heart set on having the same lunch as Daddy now.
"You don't like it?" he asked, and I shook my head just a little, still trying to hold on to the spoon.
"What'sha..." I started, trying to speak without opening my mouth, but I was as helpless as a real toddler. Daddy was stronger, and he easily pulled the spoon out as soon as I started talking, leaving me with a mouth full of rice. He was probably right, I could tell. This tasted like turkey more than chicken, but I really wouldn't have been sure if he hadn't said it first.
"Congee?" Daddy asked, "It's a kind of Chinese gruel, made with rice boiled in broth until it soaks up all the water. It's delicious, keeps all the flavour that the soup had to start with, and it's perfect for giving little babies like you a balanced diet, even when you're too young to chew properly. You don't need teeth, you see, because it's all mushy. But you've got all the flavour of a roast dinner, with chicken and veggies, and all the carbohydrates, protein and vitamins from the veggies as well."
I nodded slowly as he said it, and then opened my mouth to protest that I was old enough to eat proper food. Of course, that was just the opening he needed to put the spoon back in my mouth. We repeated the same pattern several times, ande Daddy never missed his chance. Every time I spoke, I'd be cut off by a spoon in my mouth. And every single time, he seemed to know what I was saying even without me finishing the sentence. That was the really amazing part. There was nothing I could do to stop him, but he wasn't ignoring what I was saying either.
I tried keeping quiet, folding my arms and just shaking my head to his questions. But he was so charming, he always managed to come up with questions that I felt I needed to answer, or say something interesting enough that I was responding before I even realised.
The red-orange spiral in the middle of the bowl turned out to be a slightly vinegary redcurrant and cranberry jelly. I wouldn't have known that, I just knew it tasted like berries, and it was sweet and bitter at the same time. But Daddy sampled a little bit by dipping his finger in the empty pot, and he said he was confident in recognising the taste.
I kept on protesting that I wanted to have some of his dinner, but I couldn't stop him feeding me. There was no middle ground between obeying and throwing a real tantrum, so I just let myself enjoy it. And it really was pretty good, like a proper roast turned into a paste. I guess that's what babies have to eat all the time, but I'd never realised it could be appetising.
"Okay, Emma," Daddy's voice got my attention, just as I was expecting another mouthful of turkey mush. "You've been a good girl today. So do you want to finish off my dinner too? Do you think you can do that without making a mess?"
I nodded vigorously, and only a second later realised how childlike that must be making me look. He was right, I was finding it easier to slip into little space even without the hypnosis, and when he decided to he could push all my buttons so hard. I kept on nodding, overjoyed that I could finally have some of the fancy food that smelled so good.
"Do you want to eat by yourself?" he asked, sliding his bowl onto the tray in front of me. I had a couple of little pots that must have side dishes, or dessert, ort something in them, and it was quite a squeeze fitting Daddy's big bowl on the tray, but somehow he managed it. I reached out right away for the fork that was still resting on the side of the bowl, but a gentle smack on the back of my hand was enough to make me pull it away again.
"Don't be greedy," he said, wagging a stern finger. "You're not a big girl yet, so you'll have to use the right utensils." Then he took the fork away, and replaced it with the rubbery plastic spoon he'd been using to feed me. I pouted and looked up at him, fighting back the urge to yell and demand adult cutlery. Daddy was offering me real food, I knew, and he didn't have to. This was a treat, and there was no sense risking it by demanding more. I wanted so badly to eat like a grown-up right now, but I knew that at the same time, this was what I'd always wanted.
The spoon was an odd size. I think it was thicker at one end or something, so it felt too big in my hand and the end wasn't quite where I thought it was going to be. But I managed to scrape up some potatoes and gravy from the bottom of the bowl, and a little scrap of crispy cheese. Daddy's dinner was as delicious as I could have hoped for, and that should have been no surprise when I thought about how good mine had been.
After dinner, Daddy decided to make a little game out of feeding me dessert. He had a set of little bowls, each large enough to hold a couple of jelly sweets, or a slice of some soft vegetable, or a handful of nuts and raisins. Daddy told me I could have one at a time, and repeated that instruction in a lot of different words until he could be sure I got it. Then he put some sweets in one bowl, some slices of carrot in another, and some nuts in a third. He shuffled them around on the table, and then asked me to point out the one I wanted.
It should have been an easy game, when the bowls were all different colours. But after I'd managed to get the sweeties once or twice, somehow I managed to pick a bowl of peas. I wondered if I'd just been a little bit careless, and remembered which colour the sweets were in last time by mistake. It was easy to imagine a little kid making a mistake like that, but I thought I was too smart for that, unless I was getting in touch with my baby brain again. The peas were nice, anyway. I sulked when Daddy said I had to eat them all before I could try again, but once he started spooning them to my mouth (and maybe spilling a few on the tray as I tried to eat them too quickly), I realised that they were small and sweet and just a little bit crunchy.
I thought that if more mealtimes were like this, nobody would ever have trouble getting kids to eat their veggies. They were different from the sweeties, but they were just as nice. And I was sure that between all the different coloured things I'd been fed so far, there were enough flavours that you'd never run out of new things.
"Okay, dear?" Daddy spread out three bowls in front of me again. The pink one held a bunch of raisins, the blue one a couple of slices of orange, and the green one was filled with Smarties. They were all tasty treats, but I wanted to get the Smarties just to prove that I could find chocolate if I wanted to.
"Green, green, green," I whispered to myself, making sure that I didn't actually make a sound so Daddy couldn't hear me. He snapped the tiny plastic lids back onto each bowl, and then his hands moved in circles to send the different treats dancing across the tray. He was like a conjurer challenging me to find the lady, but I was sure that this time I would be smart enough to pick the right one. Unlike some magician's cups and balls, these bowls were all different colours, and that should make it easy enough for anyone.
I pointed proudly at the green bowl. Daddy opened it, and showed me a little selection of nuts inside. Delicious and healthy, and with a slightly spicy coating on them, but they weren't what I was looking for. As Daddy spooned them to my mouth a few at a time, I tried to understand where I'd gone wrong. I hadn't followed the little bowls with my eyes, but I was sure the green one was the one I wanted.
Then Daddy was opening a couple of containers to fill up the bowls again. This time, the sweets on offer were little chocolate teddies with tiny pieces of coloured sugar for eyes. I really wanted to try them, so I could find out if they were all fizzy like popping candy. They looked like they might be. So I watched him put them into the pink bowl, and put the lid on. And then I did my best to keep my eyes on it as the bowls whirled and blurred in circles.
"What do you think, baby? Can you find it this time?"
I looked up into Daddy's eyes, and I knew he was testing me. I knew this was a game, even if there was no prize here. Maybe if I could see through his tricks, I might get to be older this afternoon. Or younger. I had no idea which I would even prefer, but I was sure it would be something to look forward to. As long as Daddy was here, I'd be happy no matter what he wanted to do with me.