Cloth Diapers & Panties

Welcome aboard glad you could join us enjoy yourself 

Wow could you walk? got pics of that setup?

Not necessarily. I actually moved back in with my parents for a while. Right after deciding to wear diapers 24/7. And even after movingnout I visited them many times afyerwards. Always while diapered. The REAL issue isn't wearing a diaper 24/7. It's being afraid of what your family will think or how they will react. But you're an adult now, it really is as simple as standing up for what you want. Though admittedly, the followthrough takes courage and determination. Ps. A mental need is no less important than a physical need. Does your fiancé draw the at line what you need, or how she sees it as what you need? Then ask the same with the rest of your family, friends, coworkers, and any other stranger you come across.

Long time lurker, first time poster. I accidentally spent all day writing, lost track of time, and now I'm sitting on what WriterP informs me is just over fifteen thousand words that form the first part of a story. Good job, brain. Anyway, rather than sit on it and do nothing with it, I thought I'd make an account and start posting it here. "The Institute" is something of a working title which'll probably change at some point to something a little more catchy. Also, I think trying to post this first part in one post just made the website fall over a little, so, yeah, let's try and break this up into something more manageable! Now it's combining all my replies into one post, so, that's one problem sorted. Except now it's gone a bit crazy with the formatting, so apologies for the sudden font change that comes out of nowhere. Part I: What Time Is It?  "Hey there, wakey-wakey folks, it's orientation time!" Consciousness crept up on me slowly as my surroundings came into focus. Directly ahead, a young lady, far too perky and animated for what felt like first thing in the morning. A glance to the left, then to the right, confirmed that I wasn't the only member of the audience. Somehow I'd noticed the straps on the others, confining them to their chairs, before I noticed mine. Panic woke me up more quickly than any cup of coffee ever could. The audience, myself included, began to make our displeasure known. The lady gestured to somebody - somebodies? - behind us, and the man to my left had his head yanked back, a gag placed in his mouth. Panic spread throughout us, the screams and shouts demanding answers quickly turning into unheeded, desperate pleas to not be silenced. I felt fingers in my hair, the pressure on my scalp as my head was pulled, and then my mouth was filled with the unpleasant taste of rubber. Even those to my right who had the good sense to keep quiet found themselves falling victim until, finally, the room was silent once more. "As I was saying," the lights in the room dimmed, save for one that served as a spotlight for the the cheerful speaker, "it's orientation time. Welcome to our facility! We're delighted to have you and to have the opportunity to help you on your journey. "Most of you are here as part of our rehabilitation program. Kind of like the training undertaken by our valiant armed forces," she gave a somewhat mocking salute here, accompanied by a grin that seemed just a little too wide, "you will be broken down and rebuilt to, well, be a better version of yourselves. Some of you, and we won't say who, are here because our friends in the justice system are ready to something other than dumping you into an overcrowded prison. "A few of you are here at the request of your families, loved ones, partners. Their generous patronage helps keep our facility running, so let's all take a moment to thank our benefacto- oh, right, well, we can skip that part, can't we?" I hadn't been in trouble with the law, led a relatively dull and sober life up until this point, nor could I think of anyone close to me who'd pay money to have me abducted in the night and dragged to wherever this was. Presumably, I thought, they'd get to whatever my situation was next, or that this may have been a case of mistaken identity. Either way, I was in not in a position to protest.  "Our process is built on creating a nurturing, patient, loving and firm second childhood for each of you," she paused, peering into the passive audience, before nodding her head. "I can see a few of you are shocked, or confused, but over the course of the treatment, each of you will be afforded the opportunity to grow up. Again. If you follow the course, behave yourselves, and work with us, it should take no time at all." A whirring noise from overhead cut through the sound of her voice. Behind her, projected on the wall, the visual aids to the orientation began. A slideshow of pictures, each showing different adults, each dressed up to look like toddlers, in rooms set up like oversized nurseries. The audience did not react well to these visuals, and neither did I, causing the rest of the orientation to be punctuated by muffled shouts of protest. Still, she kept going, talking as if this was perfectly normal. "We'll start you off at the toddler stage. You'll have much needed routine and structure, but don't worry, there will still be plenty of time for fun and games. At first it's going to seem difficult, some of our clients have even used scary words like 'unnatural' in their debriefings, but we've found that everyone breaks given time. Honestly, my advice to you all would be to go with it. Trust the process. "Once you've settled into your new life, we'll then be looking to work with you to reach certain developmental milestones that, sadly, hadn't been attained in your first childhood. Things like playing well with others, listening to adults, regular sleeping, why there's a whole long list of signs that the caregiving team will be looking out for that indicates your readiness to move out of the toddler stage." The slides moved on now to a picture of a lady, crying her eyes out, those kind of huge thick blubbering tears, indicators of genuine distress. "Oh no, it looks like she's not ready! Just kidding. But Janet here, she's just found out she's not got away with being naughty. Naughtiness is a big no-no. There's going to be rules, and there's going to be consequences for breaking those rules, and most of those rules can be summed up simply as..." "Act!" she clapped her hands together. "Your!" another clap. "Age!" and another clap. "The sooner you let go of silly ideas about being an adult, the sooner you will be on your way. Remember, most of you, you had your chance and, well, you kind of blew it, didn't you? This is your second chance, not something many people get. I'll see you all, I hope, on the other side for debriefing and release back into society. Let's take a look at the new intake, and get you settled, shall we?" The lights in the room came back on, leaving the last projected image on the wall - a simple slide with the words "thank you for your co-operation!" in jaunty letters - a little harder to see. The lady stepped forward towards the person on my left, as one of the figures stood behind them stepped around to exchange quiet words. A clipboard was procued. Something on it was signed and the "client", though I couldn't think of myself or anyone else here as anything other than a prisoner, had their chair wheeled backwards, out of sight, to somewhere unknown. A tall gentleman stepped into my field of view from behind me and, silently, I watched what I imagined to be the same process. He passed a clipboard to the lady, who spent a moment studying it, then a few whispered words were exchanged. I braced myself, expecting the chair to move, but nothing happened. The gentleman - part of my "caregiving team",  I would later discover - stepped behind me once again and the lady, whose name I still don't know, continued the process down the line of captives. One by one, they were signed for, whispered over, and wheeled away. Time passed. Agonisingly slowly, but it passed. The lady came back and, from over my head, took the clipboard from my caregiver. Another caregiver brought a chair from behind me, setting it down for her to sit on. After smoothing out her skirt and taking another glance at the clipboard, I was on the receiving end of her singular attention. She smiled in a way that was far from reassuring. "Sorry for wasting your time, there's been a misunderstanding." _Thank goodness,_ I remember thinking. "All that stuff about being broken down to a toddler again, right? No need to worry about that. You're going to be our first baby. Honestly, I'd been pushing for this since the facility opened, but we simply hadn't the space to make it work. You're going to be a pioneer. Testing out a brand new process, you know, while you'll hopefully be the first of many in the years to come, the first person is always special. "Precious, even." Something on the clipboard was signed. "Welcome to the team, Precious. Don't let us down. Hood down, if you please. Report when processing is done." Everything went dark. I made an attempt at lifting my arms, but the bindings held them tightly still to the arms of the chair. In spite of my best efforts, the straps across my thighs and ankles wouldn't budge either. My whole world, muffled and blinded, lurched forwards as I was wheeled away. The night before - if it was even the night before - was still a hazy memory of some kind of interview. Something about product testing. Generous pay. A background check or two, maybe a bit about my living situation, family members. I remember thinking to myself - yes, I actually nailed an interview for once. A few minutes of twists and turns, stops and starts, a brief ride in a lift, and the world stopped moving. I felt somebody working at the sleeve of my shirt, at first rolling it up, before a gruff voice asked for scissors. Cold metal brushed across my skin as the sleeve of my shirt fell away between the scissor blades. Another strap now, about the bicep, uncomfortably tight - at the time, I didn't know what this was for. Then a pin-prick of pain, causing me to whimper into the gag, making me aware of just how much my jaw was beginning to ache.  Sleep came mercifully quickly. It would be the best night of sleep I'd have for quite some time. * * * * I woke and could see, which would have been something of an improvement if I liked anything about the situation I was in. The only thing blocking my view of the dull grey institution tiling on the ceiling was a mobile, a slow swirling dance of stars and a crescent moon in bright yellow. Each had a simple face drawn on them. Each of them, smiling down at me. Instinctively, I stretched out my legs and, noticing the odd sensation of pressure baring down on my shoulders from doing so, I looked down my chest to see the garment I was going to become all too familiar with. A baby's sleepsuit. Adult sized. One piece, striped pale blue and white. Feet enclosed. Hands enclosed. I could see the zip going along the inside of my left leg and, rather than coming up to the front, it came up the back. Underneath it all, bulging. was a nappy. The garment was almost skin-tight, the horizontal stripes  accentuating where the nappy sat. Rolling onto my side, I looked through the padded bars of the crib, trying to see if there was anyone else in the room. There'd been a mistake, I thought, and even if there wasn't somebody here to help me, perhaps there was someone else in the same unusual position who could give me some answers. The room was empty. Beyond the crib, the room was furnished with a large table and dresser, a wooden high chair, and a wardrobe. Somebody had gone to the trouble of painting them in pastel shades, as if the colour would somehow be soothing. No windows, no natural light, and then I saw them - two blinking lights. The first blinking light was attached to a keypad by the door. I recall counting, a blink every one and a half seconds, or thereabouts. The other blinking red light was attached to a device on the crib, no doubt some kind of monitoring thing, as closer investigation revealed a camera, a little hole for a microphone, and space for a speaker. Sitting up now, I looked at the monitoring device curiously, then leaned forward a little to make sure that I was heard. "Hello?" No reply. "Is there, um," I was, and still am, the sort of person who planned out conversations in their head, a little script to follow, but I had never really planned on a situation like ths, "is there anyone I could talk to?" Still nothing. I shifted positions, sitting on my knees, which felt far more comfortable - no longer was there any pressure on the padding on my rear, and I resolved to stay like this whenever possible. "There's been a mista-" The speaker crackled into life. The voice that came through, distorted as it was by static and the cheap speaker, still sounded severe. He was the Scary Speaker Voice and every command ended with a click that left me wondering if he would speak to me again. "Babies do not talk," he said. Then the click. "You know I'm twenty seven, anyway, there's been, there's been a mistake," I made a show of folding my arms across my chest for the camera, as if there was some way I could assert any kind of authority in this situation. "Babies do not talk," came the voice, "this is your second warning." Click. The use of the word warning gave me pause. I wasn't sure how many warnings I was going to get, nor what ignoring them entailed, but there were a few things I was certain of still. My name is Thomas. I am twenty seven years old. There has been a mistake. I am not meant to be here. "Babies receive food and drink," the voice returned before I could work out what to say, "and babies do not talk." Click. So that was the threat, I guessed. Don't talk, get fed. Still, there was nothing yet in the rules that said I couldn't explore the room, and it beat kneeling behind bars until whenever breakfast would be served. Not that there was any indication of what time it was, the only indicator that time was passing at all came from the two blinking lights. Annoyingly, they were slightly out of sequence. Shifting my weight, I moved to one foot- "Motherfucker!" The sharp pain in my foot sent me back down on to my rear. Whoever had designed this garment clearly had forcing my compliance in mind, as the interior was lined with something spiked, which pressed right into the delicate skin of my soles. Wriggling about on my back, swearing loudly, all I wanted was something to take my mind off the stabbing pain. "Third warning," it was the Scary Speaker Voice, "babies do not talk. Compliance is a necessary part of the process. There will not be a fourth warning." Click. I wanted to shut my mouth. I did not. "There's something stabbing my fucking feet," I screamed, or something to that effect, at the monitor. I bunched my hands into fists and hammered the plastic thing hanging from the bars of the crib, then did it again a few times for good measure, until I was certain nothing would come of it. Silence from the other end. With my rage unleashed and burnt out, there wasn't much to do but wait. I lay back down. The crib was empty, save for me and the monitor. No pillow, so I rested on the crook of one arm. No blanket, which wasn't really a problem as I was hardly cold, but it'd mean not having to occasionally catch sight of the ridiculous garment I was trapped in. With one deep breath, I closed my eyes, resolving to sleep my way through this waking nightmare. It was difficult to say how much time had passed, but my stomach woke me up, an alarm clock that was impossible to ignore. It growled, angrily, and it dawned on me that I had no idea how long I was unconscious before waking in this room in the first place. Shooting a look of tired defiance over at the monitor and its blinking light, I rolled over to my other side and closed my eyes again. Realistically, they couldn't let me starve to death, surely. Sleep didn't come easily but, mercifully, it came. It did not feel like enough. Now my stomach hurt, my mouth was dry, and my brain felt foggy. The pain in my foot had finally abated, though the lesson it imprinted on me remained. Standing up wasn't an option. There was still nobody else in the room, no sound from outside, no window to gauge what time of day it was, or even offer a glimpse of the world that could help me guess where I was. An emotion pushed its way up past the hunger and the thirst. I was alone, and I was scared. Tears came easily enough. I wanted something to eat, something to drink. I wanted, more than anything, to see another person and be reassured that things were going to be okay. The moon and the stars smiled down at me.  _I don't know why you're smiling,_ I didn't want to earn the ire of the Scary Speaker Voice, so my thoughts were kept to myself. They, whoever they were, couldn't punish me for that. The tears stopped and, were it not for the protests of my stomach, silenced could settle on the room once again. Then came the beep, and the click, not from the monitor, but from the door. Three men entered, single file, dressed in off-green that didn't match the general pastel blues that dominated the room. The medical looking equipment they carried with them did not inspire confidence and, as they approached the crib, I sat upright and shuffled to the other end of it, as if there was any way I could put enough distance between us to stop them from doing whatever it was they were going to do. They positioned themselves around the crib, though only one gave me the courtesy of acknowledging my existence by looking at me. Not kindly, mind you, but that briefest moment of eye contact gave me, well, something. "What are you going to do, who are you people," ah, I'd found my words and they had a lot to say, "where am I? What's going on, please, there's been a mistake!" None of them responded. Perhaps they were told not to. One of them, who was busy removing the babyish mobile from the railing of the crib, rolled his eyes. They understood me, presumably, and I wanted to continue shouting at them. When one roughly reached through the bars of the crib and strapped my wrists together, I figured it was better to remain quiet for the moment. I was now pinned against the side of the crib, sat up against the railings, watching the process unfold in front of me. A tube was passed from one orderly to the other, and I would have squirmed about more had not the third man, now freed from having to hold my hands in place, went about securing my head to the bars with a - thankfully! - padded strap. I closed my eyes as the tube approached, and winced as it went up my nose, sliding through, up, then down, I ould feel it in the back of my throat, and when the wiggling, probing sensation had stopped, I opened my eyes. My gaze traced the path of the tube, from my nose, up towards a bag hanging where the stars and the moon once were. The liquid began to flow and, without a word, the three men left. The door clicked and beeped, though I couldn't turn my head around to catch even a brief glimpse of what lay beyond it. For the foreseeable future, this room was my world. The fluid in the bag, and thus in the tube, and therefore going through my nose and into my body, was slightly below body temperature. I wondered what was in it. What it tasted like. It didn't help with the dryness in my mouth but, soon enough, the pain in my stomach faded down. A sideways glance at the monitor didn't reveal anything new, so I simply watched the bag above me slowly, so slowly, drain its contents into me. I wouldn't starve, or die of thirst, but there was no pleasure in satiating those needs. _Babies don't talk,_ got it. * * * * "There will not be a fourth warning." The camera footage was pretty grainy, leaving Steve to lean forward at the desk to study the image on the monitor. Reaching out, past the cup of rapidly cooling coffee, his fingers found the button that turned the desk microphone off. Click. Still, Steve could hear what was happening. With a sigh, he leaned back into the cheap office chair, another cost saving measure that would, Steve hoped, be enough to take the company to a tribunal. Though out here, in what he considered to be the arse end of nowhere, there were no rules but the company rules. "Christ, Number One has a mouth on him," Steve found something to smile about as he span about on the chair, eventually coming to a halt to look at his coworker. She was taking notes. She was always taking notes. A figure of professionalism, Steve knew, it was supposed to be Casual Friday but there she was, suit and all. "That's why we stick to the script. Stick to the process," she corrected herself, looking up from her notebook to offer Steve the briefest of glances, "the gang going in there later shouldn't react to Number One. You shouldn't react to it either. Say the words and monitor the situation." "Don't tell me you don't want to have a little fun with hi- I mean, with Number One?" It was her turn now to lean back in the chair. It creaked, the plastic getting just that little bit more stressed. "Who says I'm not?" Steve went back to staring at his monitor. The light panels in the ceiling of the study room went out one by one, plunging the room into darkness, as the camera switched to night mode. Number One, still strapped to the side of the crib, looked like he was bathed in a sickly green glow and, as best as Steve could tell, crying silently. "I know what you're thinking," she said. "That I need more coffee? That was a joke, Penelope, you'd do well to laugh. Weren't we supposed to send the orderlies back in, remove the feeding bag, unstrap Number One," Steve took his eyes off the screen for a moment, rubbing them, "though that bit about the coffee, there's a hint of truth there." "Number One spoke again, when faced with the orderlies," Penelope held up the notebook, line after line filled with timestapped observations of their mutual charge, "and you didn't log the infraction. That's why. "Oh, and, first warning, Steve."   I wanted to sleep and, I assumed, so did whoever was running this place as the lights switched off on their own accord. While my legs were free, and I gave my toes an experimental wriggle, testing how far they could move before they brushed up against the interior spikes, there seemed to be no way out of this. I raised my hips slightly, and then lowered them again, feeling my wrists and the back of my head move against the bars behind me. Even the moon and the stars had abandoned me. The bag of liquid had long since run out, now it was just another thing tethering me to the world. It had been a day, or two perhaps, and with nothing to see or do, I closed my eyes and hoped that sleep would take me. In such an uncomfortable position, it refused, leaving my mind stuck in a spiral it couldn't reason its way out of. It was hard to be sure, with my eyes closed, whether I managed any sleep at all - time passed, surely enough, but whether I didn't notice it could have just been that there was nothing really to notice. Sleep was preferable to boredom, or being left alone with my thoughts and the stiffness in my arms, my back, my neck. The lights were on. Sleep had come. Or maybe I was beginning to lose my grip on time and memory. The bag was still hanging there, deflated and empty, tracing a path to my nostril. Great. The least they could have done was taken that away. Wrists still tied to one another, pinning them to the bar. _Actually, the least you could've done is undo those._ The ache that started in my arms extended to everywhere else at this point.  I yawned as best I could. My morning routine involved a few stretches before a trek to the bathroom. I couldn't stretch. Then I realised I couldn't go to the bathroom either. Even though it was covered by the confining garment I wore, the bulge of my nappy was impossible to ignore. They wanted that to be my bathroom. Sure enough, the pressure down there was beginning to build, but I did not budge. _I'm going to hold it._ Nobody came to my rescue. I had thought at least the gang of three orderlies would return to do something, even if it was just replacing the mobile, but there was nothing Nobody. I shifted positions as much as I could, trying to squeeze my legs together to help hold it back, to hold it in, though the padding between my thighs made that a challenge. Pressure grew as time passed. Eyes closed to block it out, didn't help. Wiggling my fingers within the mittens of my sleepsuit didn't offer much distraction. I counted as best I could the number of panels on the ceiling, then counted them again, comparing them to the number of bars on the crib. I counted the blinking of the lights on the monitoring device, counted combinations of numbers on the door keypad, the number of drawers under the table, the lines of the wood on the doors of the wardrobe. If there was somebody watching me, waiting for me to break and take this next step into babyhood, I hoped at least holding out for this long gave them cause for concern. It wasn't really a battle against whoever was in charge, whoever took my life away by locking me up here, but I could pretend every second I remained dry was a victory. It was really a battle against myself, of course. Eventually I would lose. Sure enough, it happened, a little stream at first that was capably soaked up by the nappy. Then came the flood and the relief of no longer having to fight it, no longer having to endure discomfort. My shoulders came down from my around my ears. The slow initial trickle was wicked away quickly enough, but the heavy flow afterwards took more work. I could feel the pressure against my body as the nappy began to swell, wanting to take up space that the tight bodysuit wouldn't easily allow. I did not know what the capacity of the nappy was, but judging by the way in which I was still filling it with hot liquid and the sensation of it puddling around my behind, it was running out of absorbency. I squirmed ever so slightly, trying to urge the nappy to take on more, and felt relief as the puddle drained away. Short lived relief, as I could now feel dampness spreading down my leg, and spied the growing, matching dark spot on my sleepsuit.  Spread out like that, it cooled rapidly, while the nappy, trapping my body heat with it, stayed warm for the time being. The initial relief I felt at no longer having to cope with holding back my need to urinate was gone. Now I was sat, pinned to the bars of an oversized crib, sat in my own pee. My voice was barely above a whisper, as if that made any difference. "Help, please," I looked up to the ceiling, as far away from my shame as I could get, "I've had an accident." I heard the static sound of the speaker on the monitor come to life. I knew what it would say before it said it, I knew it wasn't the right thing to do, that it wouldn't make my situation any better, but perhaps there was somebody listening who would see my plight, hear my whispered plea, and offer some mercy. "Babies don't talk." Click. -- "Postpone the change procedure, we'll start on that tomorrow instead. That was," Penelope presented Steve with a polystyrene cup full of what the company assured them all was coffee, "an infraction after all. Remove the straps for the next feed though. Number One isn't going anywhere." Steve navigated his way through the menus on the monitor, dragging scheduled events from one time to another at her command. After tapping a few instructions about the next feeding time into the spreadsheet, he took the offered cup and a healthy slurp from it. _Wasn't this how babies got rashes?_ No amount of wriggling against the confines of the nappy or the straps that bound me to the wall made much difference. Everything down there, to put it politely, was soaked through and clinging to my skin. There was nothing else to focus on to distract from the cruelty of it all, it would have been kinder to decorate the room with things that were at least somewhat interesting. Even 'age appropriate' pictures on the wall would have been a blessing. Instead the day dragged interminably on, and all I wanted to do was have my hands free to scratch at my nose, as the tube connecting me to the feeding bag was beginning to make my nostril itchy. The furniture was of mild interest now. It was impossible to say what was behind the doors of the wardrobe, or in the drawers of the dresser, though the likelihood of them containing a change of clothes into something a bit more adult was slim. Casting my mind back to the orientation, with the images of fully grown adult toddlers playing with toys and looking happy, I felt a pang of jealousy.  _You're jealous of people who are playing with dolls, Thomas._ The door of the room opened and, as before, the three orderlies stepped in, one at time. The first carried a bag, like the feeding bag I was helplessly attached to, but full. The others were there, I put two and two together, to change me. I must have looked visibly relieved, enough for the benefit of whoever was watching me through the baby monitor attached to the crib, because my bindings were released. All I could do at first was slide down, laying on my back in a damp patch on the mattress, elated at being able to move my arms and stretch out my shoulders. My sleepsuit felt much tighter than it did before, no doubt as whatever give the garment had was struggling to contain my nappy, so that each merficul stretch of one body part led to another being pulled by the fabric. I could feel the outline of the spikes on the soles of the footed garment and found that, with a bit of wiggling, it could be used to scratch the bottom of my feet in a way that was, honestly, quite pleasant. What was not quite pleasant was, I noticed, the smell. Even with one nostril blocked by a tube, it became pretty obvious that not only would I need a change, I'd need a full on bath, and for these clothes to go through a heavy duty cleaning process. Being naked in front of three strangers wasn't appealing, but neither was spending any extra time trapped in a sodden sleepsuit with a soaking wet nappy around my groin. The man with the feed bag silently worked at removing the empty bag hanging from the mobile arm above the crib and attached the new one, opening the valve, and we both wordlessly watched the liquid feed flow. I offered a small smile. Babies don't talk, I got it, and he couldn't have been looking forward to changing me, it certainly wasn't a glamorous job, but I wanted to convey my thanks for the thankless task he was about do do. My feeder did not return the smile. Instead, he nodded to the other two, and they marched out in much the same way that they marched in, just with an empty feeding bag. I got up on my knees to watch them as they filed out the room, out into what looked like an even blander corridor that screamed 'institution'. In a state of increasing panic, I shuffled around the confines of the oversized crib, on my knees, as far as the tube in my nostril would allow. _They'd come back, right?_ The bag looked bigger than the last one. The light on the baby monitor blinked unfeelingly. I wanted to talk to it, to the Scary Voice on the other side, to explain that there was no more room. All this stuff going into me, it was going to come out, and maybe it was in their best interests to let me out, because otherwise somebody was going to have to clean this up. All that I could muster was a quiet little whimper. Scooting around inside the crib, I resolved at least to stay on the damp patch of the mattress, so that after the inevitable happened, one part would remain dry to rest my head on. After trying to scratch my nose with a mittened hand and finding it impossible, I used the only hard surface available to me to scratch it. Rubbing my nose against the edge of the monitor, I was no doubt treating my captors to an unusual view, but for one blessed moment, it felt good. A while later, the pressure came again, and the bag hanging above me was still half full. There didn't feel like much point fighting it, but now I could at least find a position that felt more comfortable. Sitting up on my knees, my sleepsuit struggling to support the weight of my soaked nappy underneath it, I let go. The nappy couldn't hold any more, and the puddle that was forming between my legs began to be absorbed by the sleepsuit, and then came the drip-drip-dripping sound as it splashed upon the already damp matress. I didn't look down to see the damage, it was easier to close my eyes and try to pay attention on nothing at all, but I could hear it. It sounded in my head like the roaring of a waterfall. I could feel it, the cool liquid pouring into me through the tube in my nose, and then the warm liquid pouring out of me onto the mattress. _I bet the people in the toddler room don't have to put up with this._ With my eyes closed, a desire to sleep came quickly. The ordeal was tiring and, I suspected, there was something in that liquid that made unconsciousness come a little more easily. Leaning back against, but remaining upright still on my knees, I let out a long yawn. Sleeping laying down would have been my preference. Being connected through a tube to an empty bag, which in turn was attached to the crib sides, rather restricted my options. I awoke to hands on my shoulders, holding my slowly waking self in position, while another pair of hands worked the feeding tube out of me. My nostrils felt like they were on fire and, while the lesson "babies don't speak" was now lodged firmly in my mind, I opened my mouth to begin my protest. Only to find the hands of the third orderly ready, who covered it up, and then filled my mouth with the teat of a dummy. "This is your dummy. It remains in your mouth," came a voice from the tinny speaker of the monitor, "do not remove it. An adult will remove it if they need to. An adult will put it back in. If it falls out of your mouth, you will alert an adult by crying." I glanced at the monitor, trying to focus on this new set of instructions which, at least, would make the no talking rule a little easier to follow. With a flourish, one of the orderlies finished extracting the feeding tube, and all three took a step back. No longer was I tethered to anything, or held down, or had a dummy held in my mouth. I was now responsible, to some extent, for keeping the dummy in my mouth and, after tentatively making a few attempts at sucking on the dummy, used a mittened hand to adjust it's position in my mouth. This was, apparently, within the rules, as no admonishment came from any of the adults in the room, or whoever was on the other side of the monitor. Awkward moments passed, silent save for the now rather more rhythmic sucking. The first orderly broke the still silence by bending down with a grunt of effort and releasing something, somethings, with a click, click, click, click. It wasn't clear to me initially what was going on until the other orderlies put their hands on the top of the crib bars, and began moving the crib towards the table - it hadn't occurred to me that my crib might have wheels, but it was certainly easier than expecting people to carry me, I suppose. Patiently I watched as the table drew closer, and then came the clicks again, the wheels being locked into the place, the crib being made static once more. No words were exchanged as hands were placed under my armpits, the orderlies were clearly well practiced, or just well drilled, on what was to happen. Presumably the latter, as I dimly recalled being the first to go through this process, as one side of the crib was lowered. Another grunt of effort on the part of the orderly, and I was briefly airborne, finally free of the damp mattress, before being sat on the table. While my stained sleepsuit and clammy nappy were perhaps the most obvious, shameful indicators of my state, it was nice to put a bit of distance between me and the mattress. Now the orderlies set to work proper. They needn't have gone to the trouble of holding me down, of manhandling me so roughly, because the promise of dry, clean clothes far outweighed the indignity of going through a nappy change. I wanted to tell them this, and tried my hardest to convey my willingness by not fighting back. Still they ran a strap over my chest, which would only serve to make their job more difficult, I thought. The zip on the leg of my sleepsuit was undone, exposing my skin there to the cool air of the room, shaking off the last of the sleep-induced grogginess I'd been feeling. For a while I watched as the orderly removed some latex gloves from underneath the table, flexing his fingers and steeling himself for the task at hand, before he started on removing my sodden nappy. By god, I didn't care right then that strangers could see my exposed genitals, it was just a relief to, well, air them out. The sodden, swollen nappy that I'd been trapped in was gone, good riddance, and it was bliss. The clean up was a little rougher than I would have liked, the man was thorough with the wipes, and soon enough a cloud of powder was being shaken liberally over the now clean area. The removal of the sleepsuit came next, predictably made more difficult by the strap across my chest. The whole thing was a challenge for all involved, as protocol clearly dictated that I was to be held firmly to the table once the strap was removed. By the time the job was done, everyone involved - myself included - looked worn out. I'd discovered a crucial detail about the suit that none of us had considered - the zip ran up the inside of the leg, and then along the back, up to the neck, which meant I had to spend some of this time face down on the table, one pair of hands fumbling with the zipper mechanism and another pair trying to keep me pressed down on the table. As well behaved as I was, with my hands free of the mittens, I finally snuck in a good scratch of my nose. Nobody seemed to mind. Nakedness felt a little more difficult to suffer through now that I was completely derobed. For their part, the orderlies acted entirely nonplussed by it, but I felt deeply aware in that moment of how awkward, how vulnerable the situation was. Being covered up by the new, mercifully clean and fresh, nappy was odd. Whoever put me in my first nappy chose to do so while I was unconscious but now I was painfully aware of what was being done. My legs were lifted up again by the ankles, the nappy was slid underneath me, and another round of powder was dusted over the inside of it before it folded up, covering me, enveloping me, providing at least a little bit of modesty. Tapes on the side were pulled out and stuck down to the plain white front of it, then fingers were run along the sides to make sure everything was snug. Everything felt snug, at least. Dry, and clean enough. I was ignored for the next few minutes. Left strapped to the table, I clearly didn't pose much threat to anyone, and the orderlies set about removing the mattress, taking it through the door to whatever was out there, and returning with a fresh looking slab of foam that, hopefully, I wouldn't ruin. A plastic sheet was then wrestled on to it, as presumably the ordelies had less faith than I did in my determination not to soak my sleepsuit and mattress, and it was set back into the bottom of the crib. Another orderly tackled the disposal of my previous outfit. A large waste receptacle underneath the table was removed and into it went my nappy, the wipes, the blue gloves. The sleepsuit went into a similarly well placed basket, no doubt to be laundered thoroughly, or perhaps just thrown away. I couldn't imagine it being clean again. The last of the orderlies opened up the wardrobe, which immediately drew my attention, as it, and its contents, were one of the last remaining mysteries of the room. His large size obscured most of the contents, but it was plainly obvious I would not be lacking for "age appropriate" clothing for the time being. If my nappies were kept underneath the table, the rest of my outfits were likely stored there. After he'd put a finger to his ear - I noticed then, for the first time, the transparent earpieces they wore - he pulled out another sleepsuit. Just like the one I'd been trapped in previously, save for the stripes being a darker shade of blue. Despite the fact there were clearly other options in there, it appeared the decision had been made - this was to be my uniform once again. "Why are you not crying?" The voice came from the monitor again. "If your dummy falls out your mouth, you will alert an adult by crying." At some point in this whole process, the dummy fell out of my mouth, and I hadn't really noticed. The idea that it had to remain a near permanent fixture and fact of life had yet to sink in. Part of me thought it was rather unfair that, clearly, an adult must have seen it fall out and not do anything about it. If I didn't have any control over things like "eating" and "choosing my own clothes", if all these decisions were being stripped from me, _why_ was this where they decided I had to show some responsibility? A pause. "Why are you not crying?" _You try crying on command,_ I thought, hard, at the monitor. Rather half heartedly, I began to play at being upset, whimpering with feigned distress, which was enough at least to keep the monitor voice quiet, and drew the attention of the orderly who had just finished tidying away my old clothes. Another dummy was produced and pushed into my mouth. I whimpered a little more, feebly registering my displeasure at the rude way it was inserted, as the "adult" moved to release the strap across my chest. Being dressed by three people ought to make the process fairly quick, but none of us were particularly well practiced in it yet. I had no idea of what was really expected of me, whether my cooperation was needed, and it was clear the three orderlies hadn't much experience in wrestling an adult into an outfit designed, at least in part, for an infant. I was sat up, laid down, twisted, turned about, sat up again, and generally manhandled until, at one point, I was on my hands and knees upon the table with the garment mostly on me. That I couldn't stand up, on account of the monstrous addition of metal spikes inside the feet of the garment, made everything more difficult that it needed to be. Once I'd got there, in a crawling position on the changing table, the zip was finally worked up the inseam of my leg. It took a few attempts, and one of the so-called adults pulling at the fabric of the sleep suit, to close the zip around my padded rear and, finally, along the back. There was a bit more fiddling required as it reached the collar, clearly something was being done back there. Extra security, I presumed, though with my fingers rather indisposed due to the built-in mittens, I wondered how necessary such a thing was. The whole ordeal didn't take more than ten minutes, but it felt like hours had elapsed. There were no clocks with which to keep track of the time and, as I was hoisted back up to be rudely deposited within the waiting crib, I realised there were no windows or natural light either. It could have been seven in the morning or three o'clock in the afternoon for all I knew. Air conditioning kept the temperature stable and comfortable. All in all, I was disconnected from the outside world, even the briefest glimpse of the corridor beyond the door as the orderlies left the room revealed no signs of sunlight. For now, my world was my room, seen through the bars of an oversized crib. - - "It's just a teething problem, if you'll excuse the joke," Steve smiled as a recording of the orderlies trying to dress the overgrown baby played again, "because we've not done this before. Some of the elements we thought would be easy, yeah, anything but, and some of the things we'd thought challengin-" "Uh-huh," interrupted Penelope, reaching over to press a key on the keyboard, pausing the video. Both the observers were treated to a less than flattering shot of a naked Thomas, a strap across his chest, pinned to the table. The low resolution of the recording provided a little modesty for the subject, not that either of them seemed to care. "Get the orderlies feedback," she continued and, after a moment, Steve realised he was expected to be writing this down. Her words, her requirements, were quickly tapped out, being added to the notes appending the recording of the day. "They're the ones with experience, however limited it might be. Use their thoughts to build a proper procedure. Fold that it into the training programme for the new attendants," Penelope leaned back in her chair, fingers pinching the bridge of her nose, "we don't need new recruits thinking we're making this up as we go along. "Or thinking for themselves, for that matter, Steve. That goes for all of us." Steve started the recording playing again and gave it all his attention. It was easy enough to identify problem areas with the dressing process, and dutifully he noted them down, as it was less easy to listen to the implied threat his co-worker was making. "The scripts, the, uh, the program, it does allow for some leeway, a reminder did bring about compliance after all, and I thought-" "There's that thinking again. What if Precious didn't comply? What would you do then?" "I'd say let me think about that, but, yeah."   - -    The last time I was left alone in a room, I had plenty of things to worry about. The state of my nappy, the liquid being poured into me, the slowly growing fear that I could just be abandoned and left here, what the purpose of the table was, what was in the wardrobe. This time there were no pressing matters to attend to, few immediate mysteries about the contents of the room to ponder, just me, sat up in the crib, idly sucking on an overly large dummy. The teat didn't taste of anything in particular and, as it wasn't clear of what was expected of me regarding it, other than keeping it in my mouth, I could at least pass some time sucking on it, counting the number of times it went in and out, while I thought about things. Mostly life outside. The exact details of the interview that led to this were still hard to find in my memory, as was my prior life that was cut short by whatever this was. Vague memories of working a job I hated, of names that I took an immediate dislike to for some reason, hearing my own name being shouted. I knew that I didn't like that. Did I have friends? Probably. Who would be feeding my cat? Yes, I had a cat, otherwise why would that thought bubble up to the surface? Were my friends looking after my cat? Did they know I was here? Were they looking for me right now? I barely acknowledged the door to my room opening, or the arrival of a single, familiar orderly. To be fair, he hardly acknowledged me either, there was no love between us, despite the fact he had previously seen me naked, not to mention handling and cleaning my more intimate areas. I spied the bottle of white liquid in his hands which, without any fanfare, he placed inside the crib, right in front of me. A little of the liquid dribbled out from the teat onto the plastic sheet covering the mattress. It looked rather unappealing. The silence of the orderly didn't strike me as odd, they seemed as mute as I was expected to be, but rather the fact that he didn't leave after putting down the bottle. No, instead, he leaned on the railing of the crib, watching me, impassively. My gaze went from him, looming over me, to the bottle, and then back again. "Sometimes you will be fed. Sometimes you will feed yourself," the voice from the monitor again, explaining the rules of my life in a workmanlike manner. It'd been quiet for so long that I was a little startled by it. Just as quickly as it spoke, it went silent again, and so I leaned forward to tackle this new problem. The bottle was quite large, clearly a size chosen to make me feel small and infantile, but also to make handling it more difficult. No wonder the orderly was holding it in both hands, it wasn't exactly heavy, but it certainly would be tricky to carry around with one hand. The mittens made the problem worse. Without the use of my fingers to grip the plastic bottle, all I could do to begin with was roll it backwards and forwards along the bottom of the crib. Eventually I'd managed to sit myself up against the bars of the crib, corralling the errant bottle in a small area outlined by my legs, and less-than-expertly got it between my mittened hands. The process was repeated a couple of times, as while I became something of an expert at trying to get it into my hands, the material of my sleepsuit and the plastic of the bottle made it difficult to stop it from slipping out of my very tentative grasp. After all the fumbling, I shakily brought the bottle up towards my mouth, and paused. The dummy, in my mouth. I wasn't supposed to take it out, and it'd be plainly obvious to both the camera on the monitor and the observing orderly if I spat it out to make room for the teat of the bottle. This was a test, I realised, and I wasn't going to get caught out. What I couldn't quite fathom was how to get the orderly to remove it, as he was clearly watching me, and could see that I needed someone to take out the dummy so I could do what was expected of me. The stalemate continued. I blinked a few times at the orderly. I made a whimpering, whining sound. I even went to the trouble of putting the bottle down, nestling it in between my crossed legs so as to make picking it up again simpler, and reached  through the bars to clumsily prod the orderly into doing what he needed to do. Still, nothing, no reaction, save for him grunting slightly at my rather insistent poking. Seeing that it wasn't going to do either of us any good, I reckoned I could be stubborn also, and gave the orderly the silent treatment as well. Arms folded, legs crossed, I obstinately sat and sucked my dummy, content that I was asserting myself despite my infantile get up. "The milk is fortified with vitamins and minerals to keep you healthy," crackled the monitor voice, as if the reason I was not drinking was due to some concern about the nutritional value of the liquid, now quite cool, contained in the bottle.  I knew this was a test, after all, I'd apparently failed the dummy requirement once before and remained quite resolved not to risk breaking the rules on this front. More time passed. "Babies drink from bottles," the voice sounded a little exasperated now, before adding, "and this is a rule." I glared at the camera built in to the monitor, then went slightly cross-eyed as I pointedly looked at the shield guard of the dummy between my lips. The message was clearly lost on them, I thought, as the monitor voice repeated itself, reminding me that this was a rule. The more I stared, the more the monitor reiterated the impossible demand, all while the orderly stood there, doing nothing, saying nothing, simply watching with - was that a smirk? I took that bottle in my hands as best I could, and something like rage made my stomach  hurt, made my chest tight, made my cheeks burn. I couldn't stand without hurting myself, so making an escape from the crib felt like an impossibility, but I could express my frustration, fan that little flame of anger and defiance, by throwing the bottle straight at the face of the stupid, smirking orderly. I didn't have to be caught between two impossible, incompatible rules if he did his part. With an angry grunt, I attempted to throw the bottle at him. Unsurprisingly, it didn't work, slipping out between my mittened hands and landing with a thud back on the mattress in front of me. It didn't work, but the meaning behind my actions was obvious. The orderly finally reacted, picking the bottle back up and walking with it out the room. Full of adrenaline, however impotent I was, I flopped over on to my side, breathing heavily. I wanted to scream at the door all sorts of obscenities, to really let the world know how I feel, but - well, what was the point? In the quiet stillness of my room, my mind calmed down enough to think about what all that was in aid of. I was at the mercy of the voice behind the baby monitor and his agents, the orderlies. There were rules I was expected to follow, except I was still at their mercy, which meant I could only follow the rules if they allowed it. Breaking the rules, obeying the rules, did it matter? Throughout my act of rebellion, I realised that I'd kept the dummy in my mouth. It was a rule, a responsibility, that was within my control. Nothing else in this small world of mine was, but this. The voice behind the monitor spoke when it wished to. The orderlies came and went without explanation. The crib in which I was confined could be opened by some mechanism beyond my reach, or wheeled about to a different place without my input. The only rule I could follow alone, the only thing I had control over, was the overly large dummy in my own mouth. I couldn't control much, but I promised to control that at least.   - - -    "And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you provoke a tantrum. A smidge of catch twenty two, the nascent hunger pangs of a rumbly tummy, and," he took a bow towards his audience of one, "a little bit of fear about what happens if he breaks the rules. I'll take questions from the audience now." Penelope swirled a spoon around in her mug of tea, making a show of thinking hard, though she had to give him some amount of grudging respect at least. She'd originally written off the idea as pointless cruelty, a subject that she was happy enough to indulge in of course, but there always needed to be a pretense for it. Some kind of useful application. "Looks like it's sulking now," she observed, tapping the spoon against the edge of the mug, "so is that it? Mission accomplished? Don't get me wrong, Steve, I like it, but where do we go from that?" "Precious broke a rule, so, I suppose some sort of punishment. Good news is that he's not really regressing yet, so punishments are still fairly ease to come by and apply. Once we start losing him, at least on the behavioural level, our options are limited. So, the other good news, for you, is that he's all yours. Got nothing on the docket that needs doing, no targets to meet for the next twenty four hours." Penelope couldn't quite hide her rather predatory smile. "It'll be my pleasure."   *** Before the trio of orderlies came in, there was something different. I could hear a voice, quiet for sure, but definitely someone speaking. The exact nature of the exchange, that I couldn't quite discern, but given that normally the only thing heralding their arrival was the sound of the door unlocking, this - this was unusual. Hopefully, I thought, the good kind. Yes, I broke a rule, but in doing so, didn't I also obey one? Caught somewhere emotionally between eager and apprehensive, I got up onto my knees and attentively watched the door through the bars of the crib. There was every chance I could catch a glimpse of whoever was talking when the door opened, however briefly, which would perhaps give some indication of what was going on out there. At the very least, it'd be another person in my new life. The orderlies, silent and stern, were not particularly interesting company. And what were they here to do anyway? My nappy was dry, and while I felt a little hungry, it was hardly a pressing need. The door swung open, and there she was. The lady, from my 'orientation' as it were, was back, though not half as cheerful looking as she was then. Dressed in the same borederline surgical outfit at the orderlies who stood behind her, she shook her head with a mock sadness. When she spoke, she sounded disappointed. Part of me knew immediately that this was not going to be good news, I found myself recoiling from her presence in the doorway, shuffling along to the furtherest edge of the crib, as if one side of my confnement was any safer than the other. "Thomas," she used my name, it was the first time I'd heard it spoken aloud here, and - part of me was shocked, wait, she used my name, and was speaking to me as if I were an adult. An adult trapped in infantile clothes, pinned into a nappy and confined to a crib, but it was an adult talking, to an adult, in the voice you'd use for an adult. I expected baby talk. Framed by the lights in the hallway behind her, she stood her ground, even after I gave up what little ground I had to kneel on. "There is a timetable. Carefully designed, Thomas, by experts. Defiance like the one demonstrated earlier," she didn't seem to think it needed clarifying what this defiance was, but I could see that orderly behind her, and I blamed him personally for all of this and what was to come to pass, "puts you, and I, and the entire organisation behind schedule. Please remember that this was your choice. Attendants, if you would be so kind." The orderlies didn't need any further instruction, setting themselves to their task - which apparently required me to be held in place, their hands reaching through the bars of the crib to grab my own arms, which were then fastened in place once more to the bars with cable ties. As one held my head in place and the other removed the dummy in my mouth, the third indicated to the lady with a nod that whatever was due to happen next, could happen next. I was not consulted, because I certainly didn't feel ready. "This will make up for precious time lost," she said, still not stepping forward into the room, as if her authority only extended to the doorframe, "it will last as long as is needed. Compliance is mandatory, Thomas, and this will help." It'd been a while, thankfully, since a hood was last pulled over my head. While the one that hid my trip to this room was light, and rather baggy, this hood fit tightly, snugly, pressing against my eyes and ears, blocking the artificial light and the sound of her voice. It was rolled down further still, over my nose, with presumably two small holes to allow air to escape my nostrils. Then the worst part, the hood pulled down further still, except a teat, much like the one belonging to my previously removed dummy, was attached to it. Instinctively, I began to breathe through my nose as I could feel one of the orderlies fiddling with the back of the hood. It tightened further still, pressing the teat of the dummy into my mouth, keeping my jaw open, pushing the padding over my eyes and ears further. I may have screamed into the teat of the new dummy. It did not help matters. I felt my arms being released from their bindings, yet I remained perfectly still, waiting for something to happen. Nothing happened. I presumed the orderlies had left, but as I couldn't see them, or hear anything, there was no way of knowing who was in the room with me. Tentatively, I began to allow myself to move, feeling my way about the inside of the crib, on my hands and knees, deaf and blind. My small world shrunk further still, though I did my best to gain some sense of orientation, as the monitor on the crib provided some point to navigate from, though there was nothing in the crib to navigate to. Time passed, interminably slowly, and I resorted again to counting in my head the ins-and-outs of the dummy's teat to stave off the sense of fear that was lurking in the back of my mind. Now that I couldn't see, couldn't really make a sound, couldn't hear, I was caught between feeling lonely, but not knowing if there was anyone in the room with me. I resolved to get some sleep, at least this time I had the relative comfort of a _dry_ nappy between my legs, and with the blinding hood in place, no light to keep me awake. Barely after getting to sleep, I woke with a start, as I could feel liquid filling my mouth - sickly sweetened milk, cloying and thick, and yet the hood remained. It took me a few seconds to begin swallowing the stuff. Once that immediate concern was dealt with, I had time to ponder what was happening. My tongue explored the teat with care, revealing holes around the rubber nipple, through which milk was being squirted. I reached up to my head with my mittened hands, brushing against the bottle that had been attached to the hood, and was cradled by hands that swatted mine away. Moving away, the bottle remained attached, though now without the hands of some stranger to support it, my head and neck strained to hold the weight. With my chin - and the bottle - against my chest, the flow of liquid stopped. A moment later, something outside my blind and deaf world lifted the bottle again, holding it in place and letting the contents drain into my mouth. Once again, I drank and drank some more, until whoever it was decided that I had enough. I could feel the mask over my head twisting slightly as the bottle was unscrewed from the mouth area, and felt a click of pressure as whatever covered the mouth opening was fastened back into place. Silence and stillness fell on me again, as I imagined the stranger responsible for feeding me had no intention of spending their time watching me try to sleep. This time, thankfully, the sleep wasn't interrupted quickly; it was deep sleep, supposedly refreshing, though all the fears and uncertainty I felt instead presented a gallery of nightmares for me to silently scream through. I awoke to the same pressing darkness that put me to sleep before. When I felt my mask being worked on, I began to wriggle away, though it didn't help. The bottle was still attached, even if I kicked and waved my hands about, and once it was firmly attached, the battle was over. If the orderlies - and I presumed it was one of them - simply left me, I could've drank the cocktail of milk and sweeteners and those oh-so-important vitamins and minerals on my own terms by raising my chin towards the air. Though by the third, fourth time maybe, I was so worn out that I was quietly thankful for somebody else managing the weight of the bottle. All that milk took it's inevitable toll on my bladder, and then my nappy, though a nappy change seemed prompter than the last time. A bleakly predictable cycle began to emerge, a bottle of milk, some time passes, another bottle of milk, some more time, a bottle of milk and a nappy change at the same time, time passes, a bottle of milk - and on, and on it went. I'd given up counting the times I sucked at the teat of the dummy. Without sight and sound, stuck in a state of perhaps being observed, now so thoroughly at the mercy of strangers, something inside me started to slip away. Sleep kept creeping up on me and, in that drowsy state, I swore I could hear people talking. --- Outside the office, free from the within-budget chairs and the glare of the multiple monitors, Steve rubbed his eyes and let out a yawn. Both he and Penelope were in the Nursery Room; Steve resting against the rails of the crib, Penelope on the other side, shaking a large bottle of milk. "I pushed back those targets, like you asked," he started, speaking more to the room than the only other occupant that could hear him, who was still busily engaged in trying to get the contents of the bottle adequately mixed. "The higher-ups haven't asked why, or even dropped me a passive aggressive email about a deadline. Seems we've got a lot more leeway than I thought." "This will speed things up in the long run. It's learning to accept dependency," seemingly content with the bottles contents now being thoroughly mixed, Penelope held it over the crib towards Steve, who reluctantly took it. "My way gets results. No pussy-footing around with, what was it, mind-games and tantrums?" "I think I called it frustration inducement and-" "-and it's slow. I'm ready to move things along. Give that to the attendants when you leave. And remind them, if you would be so kind, it's going to need a little extra at changing time." Steve thought better of saying something sarcastic, though he allowed himself one brief glance at the person in the crib who, judging by the way they lay on their side, had recently fallen asleep. It was so much easier, he thought, when it was a person on the other side of a baby monitor. Penelope inisted, however, on being in the room with him. Monitoring it personally, her words. Passing the bottle, and the instructions, over to the attendants as he left, Steve resolved to do whatever he could to get reassigned to the adult-toddler area. -- There was something different with the milk, the sweetness and the oily film it left behind was diminished - not absent, but lessened, while a more malty note became prominent. As there was little to occupy me between the feedings, and the occasional change that came sometimes, I liked to think I'd become something of an expert at describing the flavours of what I was forced to drink. It was something to look forward to, an opportunity to think about something, even if to an outsider it'd seem rather meaningless. The new flavour was, honestly, more appealing, there were nuances to it, and the slight thickness of it provided a welcome change. Speaking of welcome changes, sure enough, after a little time with the bottle, I was laid down on my back - no need, apparently, to use the changing table. The two-way zipper was dutifully undone by my leg. Another difference. Normally, if there was such a thing as normal, I'd feel the tapes being undone, the pressure removed as the weight of the nappy was lifted away. This time the hands that remove the nappy pressed against it, weighing it up, judging it. It was wet, I knew it was wet, I'd wet it just before we started this bottle, it's still warm down there! I began to kick my feet, and found them held down for their trouble, which at least confirmed there were more than two people here. One was holding my bottle upright, pouring more and more milk into me. Another was tackling my undergarments. A third was holding my legs down. All three orderlies! Yet the nappy still wasn't removed. Whichever orderly drew the short straw of having to deal with it wasn't doing their job particularly well, but the milk kept flowing, so, well, whatever. I wasn't going anywhere. They worked my legs free of the sleepsuit's legs, another step I wasn't expecting, though having time to air them out, even a little, was welcome enough to make me not dwell too hard on the reasons why. My bum was lifted up, and I could feel the weight of my heavy nappy sagging, though the tapes were sturdy enough to hold for the time being. The change in procedure felt odd, doubly so as I was pushed back down onto the mattress of the crib. Except now I could feel it, another layer, as my nappied behind didn't make contact with the slick plastic covering the mattress, and it felt like my bum was still rather lifted up. I almost choked on the milk as what was presumably a second nappy was pulled up between my legs. What was the point of this? Was the changing schedule going to change? Then the reason for the freeing of my legs became somewhat more apparent, as some additional garment, cold and clingy, was worked up my legs, over my two layers of wet and dry nappies, and I felt the elastic of the waistband and leg-bands pinch my skin. Gloved fingers worked the way around the elastic entrances and, I imagined with a nod of approval, my legs were put back into the sleepsuit. It wasn't until the bottle was empty and unscrewed from my hood that I was zipped up, a task that necessitated, judging by the number of hands, the efforts of all three orderlies again. Maybe out there, beyond the hood and the crib and the walls, it was nighttime, and this was an extra precaution for a long sleep. Presumably, for the first time since the addition of the hood, I was expected to sleep through the night. Sleep didn't come. My brain wouldn't switch off, my muscles wouldn't relax, and there was nothing to distract me from the mounting sense of concern. Not that it probably mattered to whoever was watching me, either in the room or through the monitor, but I needed to let someone know I wasn't ready for sleep just yet. Locked in darkness still, I took an imginary tour around the crib, crawling along, feeling my way forward, bumping my head into the bars when I ran out of space, and orientating myself with the baby monitor. I could feel my stomach begin to churn, a pressure building, and so the next lap was done seated, shuffling awkwardly on my bottom, the slipperiness of the plastic matress aiding me as I went. I simply wasn't ready for a long nap. I tried to ignore the part of my brain that was screaming at the rest of my mind. _You've been here how long, and you've not pooped once,_ it said. That's why your stomach is making that noise. They put something in the milk. _Think, Thomas,_ the voice urged. Stop and _think_. I recall stopping, and thinking, not about the pattern of changes and feedings, or the number of times the teat went in, and out. I listened to my body and what it said was fairly, borderline painfully, obvious. As if to confirm, I ran one mittened hand across my stomach, feeling the tautness of my sleepsuit, as the bloating had already set in. The growing sense of unease gave way to panic - not just the realisation that I was surely expected to fill the rear of my nappy, but that I'd apparently become rather inured to wetting my nappy as well. As if that was _normal_. I stood up and, I fear, almost bit clean through the teat of the invasive dummy as I ignored the pain. This was enough. I could, apparently, tolerate wetting myself, and the continual drinking of milk to fuel it, but now I had discovered what was clearly some line in my unconscious mind that would not be crossed. The pain in the soles of my feet was agony, made worse by the fact I'd not stood up in - how long, exactly? There was no way to be sure. My mittened hands found the railings at the top of the crib easily enough, though with no way to grip them properly, it didn't help as much as I'd hoped. Pain in the feet be damned, I started to lift one leg up, but the tightness of the sleepsuit made stretching difficult, and as I stood there, one leg cocked up slightly, resting against the bars of the crib, it dawned on me that the height of the railing made climbing out like this impossible. Even with the mask on, I could see that I was screwed. The left leg gave way first, sending me tumbling, bottom first, back into the crib proper. It was all the permission my body needed, though it felt at first like I had paralysed myself in the fall, as I could not move. Helplessly, I sat there, as hot mush began to flow from my rear, rushing to escape the confines of my bowels, surging to fill up the available space. While the nappies did a good job of tackling urine, wicking it away as much as possible, they stood little chance against this onslaught. While I couldn't move, it did, the messy tide following the path of least resistance, easily filling the seat of my nappy, then pushing forwards between my legs, and up around the front. It felt as if there was no end to it, every clenching gush followed not by relief, but by the promise of another to come. By now I could move, I simply didn't want to, I wanted to be anywhere else, I tried to imagine something else, but the horrible physicality of it demanded my attention, even as it was utterly beyond my control to prevent, at least until it passed. When it did stop, I found myself breathing heavily through my nostrils, whatever it was they'd put me in over my nappy was at least stopping the smell from reaching me for the time being. It was difficult, trying to move while also remaining still, and I didn't really manage it - but I had got onto my knees, and then into a crawling position, holding my bottom away from the mattress, a desperate attempt to feel like I wasn't sitting in my own mess. This is when the second wave found me, tensing my body up, holding me in place better than the hands of the orderlies ever could. This time, the what I hoped were the remaining contents of my bowels, was a slightly more solid affair. It came forth a solid, slightly mushy thing, though there was little space in my nappy to contain it, there was space enough now in the crotch of my undergarment. Not enough that I couldn't feel it, it still pressed against my skin, and I recall thinking, begging, please, no more when the last of my bowels emptied. A repeat of the first, burning hot, gushing and, as there was nowhere else for it to go, something gave way. The runny mess had found a gap, forced open by my previous offerings, and rushed to fill the second nappy, and the rubber pants that confined them both. Once it was over, and my body was mine again, I still didn't wish to move. Rather than lay down, or worse sit down, and risk provoking my stomach to further acts of rebellion, I remained on my hands and knees. Slowly, I left myself rest a little, leaning against the bars of the crib that pressed into my side. A few weak contractions led to dribbles of something that flowed like water; it was clear I had nothing left to give. All that I could do now was wait, keep myself still, and count the sucking of the dummy teat until something changed. A change, ideally.   --- She took a step back as it made a futile attempt to climb free. Penelope couldn't see the expression on it's face, obscured as it was by the mask she'd been waiting to inflict on somebody, but it was obvious to her that it had realised the predicament it was in. Moving around the crib so as not to disturb things, she watched in rapt silence as it fell, and clearly lost the battle it was waging. It sat still, save for the occasional twitch, for one hundred and thirty three seconds, at least, that's what she'd record it as for the higher ups. Then movement, actual controlled movement, not the involuntary spasms. It seemed to like being on it's hand and knees, Penelope noted, perhaps a sign that crawling around could be introduced on schedule. It was important for her, she knew, to remain detached from her work, or at the very least, to try to. Subject tensed up again, the tightness of the garment allowing for some observation of this fact, and muffled sounds issued forth at two hundred and twelve seconds onwards. Sounds from rear, no rules infraction. Once the show was over, Penelope began the rather more dull task of paperwork, taking a clipboard attached to the end of the crib and making notes. A few boxes were ticked, and a flourish of a signature marked the end of a successful stage in the process.  It could be handed off to Steve, who'd no doubt pass some comment or other, before joining the mountain of filed paperwork that the institute produced. With her work done, the young lady moved to leave the room, the air of which was slowly turning rather acrid, yet something compelled her to stay for a few moments longer. Reaching through the bars of the crib, Penelope gave it a little push, knocking it over on to its side. It tried, at first, to get back on to it's hand and knees, but soon gave up, curling up into a fetal position. It sounded a little like it was crying. -- All I wanted was to be free of the nappies I was trapped in. After one of the orderlies saw fit to push me over, I remained curled up, waiting for something else to happen, some further indignity to be poured on me. When nothing came, I straightened out slowly and, with some desperation, pawed at the sleepsuit, trying to find some miraculous way that it'd open up and let me out. There wasn't any mistaking what had happened now, as one hand brushed against where my nappies lay, and just that little nudge caused the contents to shift about. I could smell it too, and given that breathing through my nostrils was the only real option available to me, my imagination ran awfully wild. I didn't need to see it, though even with my hood removed, the sleepsuit would've kept me from spying the damage. This was almost certainly another sleepsuit ruined, right? As usual, I was stuck, waiting for enough time to pass that my captors would agree I've suffered enough and let me out of this. Grimly, I counted the time with my usual method, sucking at the stupid teat in my mouth, one and two, three and four, a few hundred more until the mouth guard of the mask was opened. It usually opened quickly, but this time, the hands were fumbling, feeling their way around quickly, but inexpertly. Presumably the orderly was in a hurry to get in and out as fast as possible. You and me both, buddy. The bottle was screwed into place, eventually, and the new milk concoction that had set my insides ablaze once again began filling up my mouth. Laying there on my side, my back to the monitor, I took the feeding and hoped the accompanying nappy change would follow. No such luck. Except I could feel it, a hand working at the collar of the hood, where it was attached to the collar of the sleepsuit. Again, it was inexpert, but there was a slight breeze against the side of my head where fingers pulled against the base of the hood. I wasn't free, far from it, but this was - this was different. The milk flowed freely as the voice spoke, barely above a whisper, just audible with the padding covering an ear lifted. "I'm sorry," said my angel, reassuring, quiet, sorrowful, "I'm doing what I can. I'm filing a complaint, just hang in there. I'm- I'm sorry." The mask tightened again and, as I held on to those words, my world was silence and enveloping darkness once again. The rest of the feed was unremarkable, and while my guardian didn't see fit to secure me a nappy change, I felt a reassuring hand on my shoulder as the bottle was released. Time passed, enough at least to give me time to overthink what was said. The apology was welcome, sure enough, but it did painfully little to change the squalid material conditions I was laying in. Whoever he was, he had enough faith in the institution that filing a complaint, presumably about my treatment, would be enough. Hopefully he agreed that this was too much and that my freedom was very much deserved. -- "Odd," Penelope thought out loud, somewhat theatrically, as Steve came back into the office. She was sat at his otherwise empty workstation. Replays of Steve feeding Thomas were playing back on some of the monitors, each shot from different, high angles.  "Thinking for yourself, I see. Put an extra feeding on the schedule using- let's see here," a rather full looking spreadsheet filled a monitor, "ah, Steve, you didn't even think to use somebody else's login to amend the schedule. One out of sequence feed, administered by you, no less, who is woefully under-qualified to administer anything to my subject." "I can explai-" "I can explain too," she finally turned in Steve's chair to look him over, a kindly smile upon her face, a perfect picture of understanding and tolerance, "because I knew it would happen. Eventually. Didn't figure it would be today. Yes. My job has some perks. More contact with the subjects. Better pay. More leeway. It's only natural that an assistant such as yourself would play while the managerial quality cats are away. You wanted to see what it was like." Steve saw an out, and Steve took it. "Yeah, it's - it's not that I don't like the scheduling and things," he began, stuttering at first, but finding more confidence in the lie as it came out his mouth, "but I'm not gonna get any kind of promotion here without at least some hands-on experience. I didn't want to bother you with a request, I just thought, well-" "Thinking again! Steve, you only had to ask, if that's all you wanted," Penelope turned her attention back to the monitors, one hand on the mouse, clicking away, closing window after window, until just one remained. It was another replay, from the baby monitor, showing Steve working at the collar of the mask. Grainy footage. Another click, and the volume was set to maximum. His voice, apologising, barely audible even over the silence that descended on the office. For good measure, she played it again. "A complaint, really? Bad enough you've caught feelings for it. I'd have you dismissed, or transferred to shit laundry duty at least, but," Steve turned as she paused, the same attendants who were assigned to Thomas now standing behind him, one of them placing a rather firm hand on his shoulder, "maybe you and it can be friends. Attendants, if you please." The three of them needed, it seemed, no further instruction. *** _I'm Steve. I'm twenty eight years old. Before working fulltime, in house, at the institute, I lived in Cheshunt._ It was a mantra, he hoped, that would keep his mind functioning properly in the face of what was to come. Truthfully, he had no clue as to the extent of Penelope's influence, there was a chain of command in the institute and both he and Penelope had people to answer to. Neither of them made much in the way of big decisions, nothing financial or guiding policies, so it stood to reason that they were in the middle of the hierarchy at best. Above the attendants and cleaners and recruiters, but below the real movers and shakers. This is why it came as something of a shock when the three attendants assigned as helpers - muscle, he sometimes joked - turned on him at her command. They were alarmingly good at their job. He put up a fight, he told himself, but it was three men with backgrounds in security against him with his background in data management. Penelope's influence seemed to go a lot further than just those three. He'd been dragged through the corridors that ran behind the observation and experimental areas and rudely thrown to the floor in a room that he'd not seen before. Given that he believed to have access to just about every video feed on the campus, well, that unfamiliarity was alarming enough. The attendants made it very clear, through a series of stern warnings and one particularly painful punch to the stomach, that Steve was to remain silent and follow instructions.  Remove clothes.  Take a rolled mat from the shelf and place it on the floor.  Lay on the floor.  Steve tried to use one of the rolled up mats against one of the attendants, a mostly futile gesure that earned him a helping slap to get to the "laying on the floor" stage of processing. On his back, staring up at the ceiling, head swimming, he did consider that this was a lot like one of the processing systems they'd designed together. One that was discarded, because it relied rather heavily on physical violence to enforce process compliance. The clock on the far wall marked nearly half an hour of time passing, just enough time for the nausea of the stomach punch to pass, enough time for Penelope to come bursting in. All sunshine and smiles, as if she hadn't just been betrayed, Steve noted.  With a thud, _thud_, she dropped the two large bags she carried to the ground and motioned for the attendants to carry them over towards Steve. They did as they were silently told. Penelope stood at the threshold of the room. Judging by the dust that had accumulated on the floor, Steve noted, it was a room nobody had used for a while. Easy to get someone lost, he thought, in a room like this. That was probably, he continued to think, the concussion talking.  "Not the first assistant I've put into the program, won't be the last I'm sure," she leaned against the doorframe, tutting to herself between words, "but the betrayal, ouch. It stings. So this is a strictly off-the-books thing. You'll be- oh, what will you be? John Doe, I'm guessing. Recruited and put under my jurisdiction. Attendants, be a dear, if he gives you any trouble, we can just say he's been... misplaced." It was not, Steve considered, just the concussion talking. ** It didn't really matter what position I put myself in now, the contents of my nappy had congealed and dried, leaving it stuck to me. Even the mostly solid lump that heralded the second wave of distress was smeared into a thick paste. I'd found the most comfortable option was, after some experimentation, to lay on my side, my rear end sticking out as much as possible, while my face was pressed against the crib bars. At least the heavy padding of the mask reduced the discomfort of such an act and it kept my nose as far away from the reeking thing clinging to my rear. What good such an awkward position actually did was hard to ascertain - I just felt like I needed to do something to take command of the situation I was in. I was pretty sure that enough time had passed that, if we were keeping to the 'regular' schedule, I'd have been fed. Changed too, probably, but hours passed by without event, though keeping track of time remained a challenge. I entertained the idea that the delays were because of the system registering my complaint, and a new place being found for me within this cursed place. Or maybe they were preparing a bath, and a taxi to take me home. When my next bottle came, there was no surprise whisper to go with it, no reassuring touch on the shoulder, even the fumbling fingers were gone. This was a model of efficiency, though whoever was on the other side screwed the bottle tight between the crib rails, which meant I didn't need to move much. Or, for that matter, could move much at all had I wished to.  The new formula filled me up, setting my stomach gurgling. Presumably someone outside my confining hood heard it too, because shortly thereafter I could feel the zipper of my sleepsuit being worked on, not just the legs, but running down my back as well. I was allowed to emerge, like a butterfly from it's cocoon, trembling on the crib mattress, pinned by a bottle to the side of it.  The pants over my nappy came off next, releasing the trapped terrible odour, before I was finally freed of the rancid disposable nappies taped to me. I hoped whoever had to deal with these choked on them, as they were no doubt the ones responsible for confining me within them in the first place. 

Probiotics are usually a good way to restore gut health. Kombucha and Keifer especially.