Other Fetishes

Yes please @john131

Bambino Teddy today.     I think this marks 2 solid weeks I've been diapered all day every day (excluding a few hours on 2 different days - but one of those I was wearing training pants!).  Long weekend coming up and it's going to be nasty hot outside, so what better to do than lounge around padded up? 

I think it is a good start. It's a story and I would like to read more.

But only if he likes strudel. 

Unfair-Chapter 161: A Ring of Truth “Do you, Clark Gibson, take Cassandra Braun to be your lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do you part?” “I do.” “And do you, Cassandra Braun, take Clark Gibson to be your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do you part?” “I do.” “Then by the power vested in me, I now pronounce you husband and wife! You may now kiss the bride!” Cassie and I were still tonguing each other when he finished with, “Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Mr. and Mrs. Clark and Cassie Gibson!” to much raucous laughter. The ballroom at the Celebration Hotel was packed, even considering that it was scaled for Amazon revelry and every single attendee was toddler sized by comparison. Both sides of Cassie’s and my family came together for the event, both trying to outdo the other. My father had spent ‘a good amount of money’ to ensure that the venue that day would be private and the festivities uninterrupted. He also said, more than once, that the check wasn’t going to clear until it was confirmed that every name and number left in the guest book had made it home un-Adopted.  Not every Amazon was the type who’d ignore their prejudice and madness for a price, but the hotel manager was.  I’m pretty sure my father pushed back his retirement five years just to throw this party. Speaking of shindigs, Burt had called in ‘a lot of favors’ to get live entertainment and a fully stocked open bar for the reception. The stilts and tent-size trench coats stacked in the corner promised that my father would not be getting his security deposit back. We had a humongous potluck dinner in lieu of professional catering, but it felt safer all things considered and Cassie’s family and neighbors definitely knew how to cook. After the obligatory wedding photos and my new wife playfully elbowing me in the ribs every time I cracked a joke between snapshots, came the wildest night of my life up to that point. I still don’t remember officially consummating my marriage that evening.  We danced, ate, drank, and lived as if none of us might ever be together again.  I distinctly remember my father actually smiling.      His hair (what was left of it) was already snowy white and he’d grown out a distinguished looking mustache. On a well managed business video call, with a good background filter, no one would suspect him of being anything less than a Tweener. He wasn’t even fifty, the lucky bastard. Gods, I hoped those genes passed on to me.  Early in the reception, he reached out and shook my hand. “Congratulations, Clark. I’m proud of you.  You’ve really grown up.”  It’s only now that I write it out that I realize just how messed up a compliment that was.  “How’s it feel to be married?” “Great!” I held up my hand and pointed to the metal ring affixed around my finger. “I feel kind of lopsided to be honest. Either that or the liquor is kicking in.”  He didn’t laugh. My father never was much for jokes. I twisted the ring on my finger and slid it up and down past the first knuckle. “Seriously. I can’t stop playing with it.” Like some great old sage on top of a mountain, my father told me, “Keep it on. You’ll get used to it.”  He was right, naturally, but I kept playing with it for at least a month or two before I finally stopped noticing it.  Until then it was this thing I constantly noticed and was resisting the urge to mess with. Later on, a very inebriated Bert clapped me on the back. “Welcome to the family, son!” he roared.  “You’ve made my daughter happier than I’ve ever seen her.” “Thank you, sir!” I chuckled nervously. Briefly (very briefly) I’d wondered what I’d gotten myself into, but all it took was watching Cassie dancing with her younger sister, both without a care in the world. I’d made the right choice.  My new father-in-law pulled me in for a hug.  “Welcome to the family,” he said again. Then in a not-so-quiet whisper he finished with, “If you ever heard her I’m gonna knock all your teeth out and leave you tied up in front of a daycare.” He gave me one more big pat on the back. “They’ll never find you.” To his credit: He gave the same speech to my brother-in-law, Bruce a few years later.  Cassie trotted up to us and pulled me away.  “Daddy!” she laughed “You can threaten my boyfriend, you can threaten my fiance,but don’t you dare threaten my husband!” “Just being a good father, Cassie!” He said jovially as I was dragged back onto the dance floor. “So, Mrs. Gibson,” I purred into my blushing bride’s ear. “How does it feel to be married?” “You tell me, Mr. Gibson.” she purred back.  The band switched to a slow song and I got to wrap my hands around her waist.  She reciprocated and draped her arms down over my shoulders. “So…” I said, my words already starting to slur. “First comes love…then comes marriage…when do you think we’ll need a baby carriage?” She playfully pressed her forehead to mine. “I don’t think you want to make a baby as much as you want to try making one.” “Making it’s the fun part.” I admitted.  “So how about we try?” I squeezed her rump.  “And try?” I kissed her neck. “And try again?” Our mouths found each other and hoots and hollers  rang out with people banging their spoons on glasses. We broke off the kiss.  “How about we start with getting settled first, Mister Amazon Whisperer?” I could smell the liquor on her breath. Had this been a candlelight affair the whole party would have gone up in flames from just the two of us. “I never settle,” I bragged to her. “I’m gonna get us a house.” One kiss. “A job.” Two kisses. “Aaaand I’m too drunk to think of a third thing but the first two are gonna happen in town. Not a trailer park, and not some gated community. We’re gonna live it up!”  We were necking all over again. “You do like to live dangerously,” Cassie mused when we came up for air.  “I think that’s why I fell in love with you.” “Yeah?” “Yeah.” “Speaking of ‘dangerous,” I said, unconsciously fiddling with my brand new status symbol. “How loud will we need to bang to make your father regret keeping us in that trailer instead of springing for a hotel room?” “Only one way to find out.” ****************************************************************************************************** Beouf came out of her supply closet in a blur and froze the moment her eyes locked on the plastic sandwich bag dangling in my grip.  The volume of my voice dropped from a raging roar to a low growl.  “What? Is? My? Wedding? Ring? Doing? In? Your? Fucking? Desk?!” The Amazon looked like the kid that got caught with her hand in the cookie jar.  She was old enough to be my mother and I was the one dressed like a one-year-old, but she looked like the idiot teenager who just got caught with a bag of weed hidden beneath her bed.  “Clark…it’s obvious you’re having some really big feelings right now.  Let’s not make any bad choi-” “Do NOT pull that bullshit with me right now, Melony Beouf!”  If I’d known her middle name I would have invoked that, too.   Beouf started visibly shaking.  She’d royally fucked up and for once she damn well knew it. “Maybe we could take this into the Wreck Room…” she suggested, taking a cautious step towards me.  I took several steps back from her, keeping the distance between us. “NO! FUCK THAT!” I shouted. “YOU DON’T GET TO TURN THIS INTO A TEACHABLE MOMENT, BITCH! YOU DON’T GET TO BE THE ADULT TEACHING ME HOW TO MANAGE MY FUCKING EMOTIONS AS IF YOU DIDN’T LIE TO ME!” She held up her hands in a defensive posture. “Okay. Okay. I just thought you’d want a place where you allowed to yell-” “I CAN YELL ANYWHERE I DAMN WELL PLEASE, BITCH! YOU DON’T GET TO PROTECT YOURSELF AND YOUR PRECIOUS FUCKING EGO! YOU LIED! YOU FUCKED UP!” My face was on fire; it was probably redder than my hair.  I was breathing through my mouth and my nose felt clogged.  I puffed once through my nose and felt the snotty pop-pop-pops of mucus bubbles inflating and bursting, dripping onto my upper lip; warm for an instant and then freezing into ice. I was crying, but my vision remained oddly clear, only blurring up at the periphery.  My feet were planted but were aching with explosive energy, ready to kick or run as fast as I possibly could the moment the opportunity presented itself. It was like my body was allowing me to express all of my anger and grief while still maintaining its defenses. I was a mouse screaming my fury up at a hydra.   I was in the tube all over again, clutching the last remnants of my old life and staring up at a monster wearing my best friends’ face. The tiny sandwich bag with my ring felt like a morning star in my grasp. As much as I wanted to put my ring back on or to scrunch the whole bag up in the palm of my hand, right then I’d have whirled it around like a sling and chucked it right between Beouf’s eyes if there was even a sliver of a chance that the ring would have buried itself in her skull. The slightest creak from the back door made me look back over my shoulder. My so-called temper tantrum had been heard all the way through the walls over at my old classroom.  I skittered several more steps backward, prepared for an ambush.  None came.  Beouf’s feet stayed planted and whichever tall person had been eavesdropping backed away from the door before I saw anyone. Beouf reached a hand out towards me, willing me to come closer into her cosseting manipulative grasp. “Clark…”   I ran to the middle of the room, keeping my eyes on her the entire time.  “WHAT?!” She started to say something but no actual words came out. She stayed frozen. She didn’t sit down or kneel to make herself seem less threatening.  She didn’t try to rationalize it away or try to cite some bullshit Maturosis ‘fact’.  She just looked angry, then sad, then scared, then angry again. The heads of the hydra were fighting one another.     Then she said the last thing I expected. “You’re right,” she said. “I’m sorry.” “Did you even try to contact…her?”  I had meant to say ‘Cassie’ but the word got stuck in my throat. She was gone from my world and missing from my vocabulary. “Did you even try?” The giantess looked like I’d sucker punched her in the nose. I’d called her a bad mother and aired out dirty laundry in front of a bunch of co-workers and this hurt her even more. “Of course I did. I called her several times that day, and the next, and the next, and the next. She never picked up.” “Did you leave a message?!” She almost looked like she was going to be insulted and then checked herself. “Yes.” “What did you say?!” “I just said that I was Melony Beouf calling from Oakshire Elementary and I asked her to call me back.” “Did you say that I had-?” I stopped myself from completing the thought. “Nevermind…it doesn’t fucking matter.”   Cassie had known about Beouf.  I pictured my wife, sitting at her computer in our bedroom or doodling something on a piece of paper, drafting up one of her art projects, and the phone ringing.  She would have screened the call and heard Beouf’s voice. Unlike me she wouldn’t have given Beouf the benefit of the doubt. She wouldn’t have needed to hear explicitly that I’d been captured to know that my luck had finally run out.   After hearing the message the first time, she’d be headed for the hills; back to Misty Brook. I still didn’t understand why she’d light the house on fire. Missing a single mortgage payment was enough for a Little to lose their rights. Arson would just cement any accusation; possibly make authorities search harder for her.  Had her name even been on the mortgage or had I taken all of that particular risk?   A terrible thought: What if Amy’s Mommy had been mistaken?  What if Cassie hadn’t been captured and instead had taken a more desperate, more final approach?  What if I’d lost my wife in a way that not even an Amazon and a lifetime of deprogramming could ever get back? I ripped open the top of the baggie and dug my old ring out. Beouf reached out across the distance, willing me to stop. “Clark…” she cautioned. “I don’t think that’s such a good choice.” I held the golden band between my right middle finger and thumb.  “Why?!” I spat. “Why is this a bad choice?  Do you think I’m going to swallow it or something?” My words were pure venom. “I have no history of oral fixation or putting things in my mouth that I shouldn’t! You told Brollish yourself that my Developmental Plateau was  somewhere between one-and-a-half and two-and-a-half! That’s well within the range that most kids stop putting random shit in their mouths!” I was an early childhood education teacher, damnit!  “Or do you just think that I’m stupid enough to think this is candy?” Beouf had no immediate answer for that so I kept laying into her from the center of the classroom. “Just this morning you told some kid that I knew what I was talking about and how smart I was!” I barked. “I’m not a blank slate, remember?  I’m an adult and a baby!  You said!”  I palmed the ring and clenched my fists again.  “What part of me gets to be an adult, huh? Am I just an adult to you because my balls dropped?! Or am I an adult when it’s convenient to you or you want to explain away something I said or did as some kind of…” I grasped for the words through my adrenaline fueled haze.  “...some kind of vestigial husk or stupid party trick?” She was softly shaking her head, trying to deny my accusations and coming up short. “No, honey. Not at all.” “DON’T ‘HONEY’ ME, BITCH!” The bridge of her nose wrinkled up but she stopped herself before it became a snarl.  As loud as I was getting, she was only getting softer.  “I didn’t want you to hurt yourself.”                   “I’M! NOT! STUPID!”  I opened my palm, wiggled it over to the tip of my thumb and slipped it over to my left ring finger.  “SEE?! I’M NOT GONNA HURT MYSELF!” I jammed it all the way down my finger as if to prove a point. “Baby Clarky no chokey!” “I meant emotionally…”  Emotionally? Beouf was worried about me hurting myself emotionally? I was in love with a woman who would only ever see me as her child, I’d given up on ever being able to find my real wife, my oldest friend wanted nothing more than to reduce me to playing patty-cake for the rest of my life, my closest Little friend swam in a pool of mind fuckery and was constantly telling me that the water was fine, my family had disowned me and disappeared, my co-workers and students had moved on from me, I looked at a stuffed animal for counsel, and day after day I’d been forced to return to a place where I’d been once been respected so that I could be reminded of just how far I’d fallen! And Beouf was worried about me hurting myself emotionally???  Why? Was everyone in my life allowed to hurt my heart besides me?   I held my left hand up in front of my face, and I stared at my wedding ring as if it were my very soul. It felt strange again sitting there on my finger; no more tan lines or creases from years of wearing it. For some reason it wasn’t as shiny as I remembered, either.  My hand dropped to my side and still I felt it there, poking at me, the smoothed metallic edges softly grinding against my flesh, reminding me of its presence. No matter how I moved my hand or wiggled my fingers, I felt hyper aware of the foreign object I’d slipped back onto my hand. It wasn’t always like that, I knew. When I first got married, it had also felt intrusive. I’d fiddle with it; constantly twisting it or sliding it up and down those first few months. After a while, though, I got used to it. It got to the point where I barely thought of it most of the time, it just became another piece of clothing; another part of me. You want to know what held that spot now?   Diapers.  Unless I actively thought about it, I barely noticed them anymore but I certainly noticed when I wasn’t wearing them. My co-workers and friends had all been replaced with teachers and other babies. My wife had been replaced by my Mommy and my diapers - my diapers- had filled the void left by my fucking wedding ring. I broke down and started laughing. I crumpled to the floor and fell to all fours cackling hysterically. I howled. I sobbed. I felt my throat going raw and gargling hacking.  My head hung down and my body shook with every emotion I had left inside of me. I stared down at my wedding ring and winced as cold tears dripped down off my face and onto the back of my hand.  But I kept laughing.  Or maybe it was crying.  Hard to tell. Was there even a difference at this point? “Clark,” Beouf said just loud enough for me to hear.  “I’m so sorry.”  She was still standing just a few steps outside of her supply closet.  “I never meant to hurt you.  I just thought…I thought…” the back door swung open.  “It doesn’t matter right now.” A shadow fell over me. Janet had come in the back and made a beeline for me.  Jessica or Tracy (likely Jessica) had witnessed my outburst and put a call out to Janet’s room.  Now, my Mommy was crouching down beside me and fretting like my behavior was the result of a stubbed toe or a bad fall on the playground. “Clark?” she asked.  “What’s wrong, baby? Why were you shouting? What happened? What’s wrong?”  I felt her hand start to tentatively rub my back; gingerly at first, afraid that I’d snap at her. I sat up on my knees and leveled an accusing finger at Beouf. “Ask. Her.”   “He wants his old ring back,” she said. It wasn’t lost on me that she didn’t call it my wedding ring. “His old…” Janet looked down at my left hand.  “...oh.” My brain and body fried itself out going into overdrive. “No! It’s mine!” I made a fist and clutched it to my chest. “You can’t have it!”  “Clark…” Her hand started inching out ready to snatch my most prized possession- my only possession- away from me. I immediately reverted to begging. “You’ve already taken everything else! My freedom! My clothes! My hair! My house! My potty training! Please, Janet! Let me have this! It’s just a ring! Please! Just let me keep this!”   I braced myself for a bevy of corrections and technicalities. Reminders from Beouf or Janet or both on how they were just taking care of me, or that they had nothing to do with the flames that engulfed my old home, or how in the eyes of the law I technically wasn’t married and was never married, or how my Maturosis was responsible for my decreasing toileting ability and not constant overhydration, bowel loosening foods, and a complete lack of options. “Okay,” Janet said softly instead. “You can keep it.  It’s yours, baby.” Beouf, still some distance away, consented. “It’s yours, Clark. You can wear it as much as you want.”  She sighed. “I’ve had Little girls in my class with pierced ears. I can have a Little boy with a ring on his finger.” The last bit of fight welled up and I said, “I’m not a baby!” The two Amazons exchanged looks. “You’re right,” Janet said. “I just meant it as a term of affection.  I can stop calling you that if you want.” Fear gripped me by the gut. “No…just…I don’t…please don’t…I don’t know what I want.”  Damn. The truth coming out of my own mouth burned both my throat and ears.  “Please just let me have this.” Janet leaned in and gave me a hug.  “I’m not taking anything away from you, Clark. I swear. Neither of us are. I love you.  We love you.”  She stood up and carried me into the sky with her.  “You’re not in trouble. You didn’t do anything wrong.” “She’s right.” Beouf said. I opened my eyes to confirm that she was staying put, then closed them again.  “I messed up.  I meant to give it back to you, but there was never a good time.  Then I just sort of… forgot.” “That’s no excuse.” I said, still keeping my eyes shut. “I know.  You’re right. I’m sorry.”  She took a deep breath. “If anyone says anything, I’ll explain it.” “Even Brollish?” “Especially Brollish.” Janet was wearing a cardigan that afternoon. I remember because I wiped my nose on it.  I opened my eyes and looked at Melony again. “I’m still mad at you.” My giant friend bowed her head in submission. “That’s fair.” “I’ll figure out a way to forgive you…but until I do I’m going to be pissed.  That’s allowed.” “It is.” Fuck. She wasn’t making it easy, was she?  I stared at the ring on my finger. Out of some renewed habit I twisted it around nervously, and slid it up to the first knuckle then back down again.  “Thanks for keeping it.” I sniffed. “Thanks for not throwing it away or whatever.” Beouf sniffled. “Of course. I would never…I….I…” she stopped herself and went to her desk for a tissue. “You’re welcome.”  She dabbed her eyes.  “See you tomorrow, Mr. Gibson?” I felt Janet shudder. She shifted me from a full body hug to sporting me on her hip as usual, but didn’t say anything otherwise. “Yeah, Melony. Yeah. I’ll see you tomorrow.” ******************************************************************************************************** In a more perfect world- a more fair world- that would have been the end of it.  I’d have put the ring on my finger, felt more whole, and gone about my life feeling more like the man that I used to be, confident about my place in the world and how I saw myself. Instead I kept staring at my left hand; not in admiration or relief, but with a kind of growing emptiness. I’d gotten my ring back. So what?  It didn’t bring Cassie back.  It didn’t make anyone see me differently or give me any kind of special status. Having proof that I used to be married before Adoption didn’t matter. I was neither the first nor the last Little to have my world hijacked and padded up despite being married and having a family that needed me.  More ‘progressive’ Amazons would just think more highly of Janet. Typical ones wouldn’t notice or would think I was playing dress up.   It was just a metal ring. Why did I care so much about it?  Not for the first time, I felt like the dog who’d caught the car and didn’t know where to go from there.  Would I even have been upset at Beouf if she’d returned the ring earlier as she said she’d intended? If she had just offered it to me, would I have accepted it? Fuck.   I didn’t know.   At home I didn’t watch any Muffet reruns or lay on the playmat or put on elaborate revenge fantasies with my toys like I usually did.  I just kept staring at the ring on my finger. My whole body felt lopsided; weighted down by the last remaining artifact from my past; made heavy by obligations and promises I’d made that were now impossible to keep. I tried rolling up my sleeves so that I couldn’t see the alphabet and animal pattern of my romper. It didn’t help. Actually, it exacerbated the strange feelings of cognitive dissonance I was experiencing.  It was like I’d lost my left arm and had a completely new one grafted on.  I was an adult again all the way up to about my left elbow. The rest was pure baby. Shit. I couldn’t even masturbate properly and pretend I was rubbing one out when Cassie was in a bad mood.  Not that that would have worked. My ‘new’ arm was still as smooth and hairless as the rest of me. The metallic band burned against my finger whenever I thought about it; a vampire walking on holy ground. Yet I couldn’t stop looking.  Every time I held a bottle I’d be staring at it.  Every time I was getting changed or dressed I’d be staring at it. Every round of hokey pokey or duck duck goose, I’d feel its weight, reminding me of its presence.  I’d get used to it again, eventually.  But what was the point? “Hey.” I was shaken out of my haze and saw Janet leaning against the entryway of my nursery. “Hey,” I said back. “Happy you got your ring back?” “Yeah,” I heard the lie as I said it. “Kind of.” “Good.” “Thanks.” She stepped in the room and took a seat in the rocker. “Sit in my lap?” I stood up, waddled over to her and climbed in.  “Sure.”  I laid back against her and felt her arms wrap ever so lightly around me, yet I couldn’t take my eyes off the ring. “You were really upset back there, you know?” “I know,” I said. “But that’s Maturosis for ya, right?” She squeezed me tighter, trying to reassure me. “You don’t believe in Maturosis.”  It wasn’t a question. “You just feel like your friend lied to you and you’re hurt.” My eyes stayed glued to the little metal circle.  “Yeah.” “You still mad at her?” “Gimme a weekend,” I sighed. “I’ll get over it.”  Or knowing my luck, some new minor crisis would need addressing and distract me from my current feelings. Maybe I’d run out of Monkeez on a play date with Amy and I’d be forced into one of her pink hippo diapers. Or one of my classmates would have a fourth second birthday party and I’d end up harassing a clown and ruining a perfectly good cake. You know, the usual. “It’s okay if you don’t.” Janet said, still rocking. “I understand.” She meant well, but I very much doubted it. “Thanks…” “Do…” she stopped rocking. “Can I…? Can I share something with you? A feeling?” Not like I could really stop her.  “Sure.” “Do you know why I never changed my last name back after the divorce?” “Too much paperwork, right?” Janet did something of a half chuckle. A ‘chuck’ if you will.  “Heh. I did say that, didn’t I? But that’s just an excuse.” My eyes left my ring and I looked into her eyes. “Why then?” “Because I didn’t want to forget.” My face twisted up in incredulous knots. “You didn’t want to forget the douche who cheated on you and left?” “No. That’s not it.” She gave me another squeeze. “I got married young.” “Pfft,” I interrupted. “You’re still young.” She gave me a kiss on the top of my head. “You’re sweet, but I’m not done talking yet.”  “Sorry.”  I closed my mouth and listened.  I got married young,” she repeated. “Right before I graduated college. I’ve been ‘Janet Grange’ for as long as I’ve been a teacher.  And when everything went down last year…I held onto the last name because it had become a part of me. I’m not married anymore, but I decided that being ‘Janet Grange’ shouldn’t have to be attached to something I couldn’t control.” We rocked in silence for about half a minute.  “I’m never going to find her.” “I know,” she whispered, her voice cracking. She gave me another kiss and I felt a tear drip onto the back of my neck.  “And I’m sorry. But that doesn’t mean you have to give up the parts of yourself that blossomed with her.” Damn if that didn’t make so much sense then and there.  I stopped looking at my hand and placed them on top of hers still gently clasping around my belly.  “I love you.” “I love you, too.” My fingers brushed against something rocky and metallic. My hands parted and I gawked at the twin bands around Janet’s ring finger and the diamond that was literally big enough for me to choke on.  I let out a surprised gasp. “Is that your wedding ring?!” “Wedding and engagement,” she said. “I had them fused into one after the honeymoon. Just for convenience.”  My mind had almost conjured the worst possible scenario but Janet nipped it in the bud.  “Don’t worry, I’m not getting re-married.” “Then why?” She let go of me and let me pivot around on her lap so that I could at least look at her sideways. “Because I like it and I think it’s pretty. It’s still a nice ring. And if I wear it, guys like Mark will stay away. Win-win?” “I hate you so much.”  My blatant lie was met with the slightest bit of closed mouth laughter and a conspiratorial wink. “It’s just a ring,” she said. “And I like it. So why should I throw it away just because I’m not married anymore? It doesn’t change how I feel about you. And I was wearing it when we first met.”  A slight blush rose to her cheeks making her glow. “And I was probably wearing it when I first realized I was cosseting you.”   She glowed when she blushed. Whenever I blushed, I just boiled. “Probably?” “The timeline’s a little hazy on my end,” she admitted and seemed to glow all the more because of it. The stupid, jealous, possessive part of me didn’t want to see that ring on her finger. It was almost as unpleasant a reminder of our rocky past as the one on mine. “I…I appreciate the show of solidarity, Mommy, but don’t want you to feel like you have to wear that.” She gave me a tender squeeze. “Likewise. But this is my choice, too. I don’t want to forget everything I’ve been through, even if I’m not exactly how I used to be.” I laid my head against her bosom and listened to her heartbeat.  “Likewise.”  When all was said and done, I didn’t really want this ring anymore; not in the way that I used to. I’d lost the person and the life that it was connected to. It really was just a hunk of metal.   But I just couldn’t let it go, either. It would have been a crime to throw it away, or bury it in my toy box, or tuck it under my pillow. Lion didn’t have thumbs so I couldn’t trust him with it.  There was no way I was going to stuff it down in the bottom of my diaper bag; that would have been anathema.   “Too bad, Littles don’t have poc-...” I froze mid sentence when inspiration struck. I grabbed my pacifier and tried to remove it from its clip. It only took a few rapid unsuccessful attempts to confirm that the snap latch that kept it tethered to the string was the same as the snaps on my clothes.  “Help?”    Janet took the pacifier and released it from the clip’s hold with barely a flick of her fingers.  “Why?” To answer her question, I slid my old wedding ring off my finger and threaded it onto the clip. “Okay. Put the paci back on.” Janet beamed and reattached the pacifier. Now, dangling from my romper, always within easy reach, was a pacifier. And dancing on the string with every movement and swing, was my old wedding ring, shining brightly whenever it caught the light in just the right way.   I wasn’t in denial about my situation. I wasn’t playing ‘dress-up’. I just had a small but cherished keepsake back in my possession, there to remind me that everything I’d been through had really happened and the hope that it wasn’t all for naught.   A ring on a string. A bridge between my old life and the one I was building back up.   It didn’t feel quite so heavy now, dangling from my collar. Janet beamed. “Baby! You’re a genius!” She shot up, still with me in tow, and raced through the house all the way to her bedroom.   “What’s going on?” I yelped as she was practically galloping through the kitchen. “I’ve got an idea!” she said.  She set me down on the bed. “Wait here!” I sat upright on the massive mattress, Janet’s back to me before I had a chance to reply.  She started rummaging through a jewelry box on her dresser drawer. “Which one? Which one?”  she muttered digging through baubles and bracelets.   “Janet?” I asked. “Mommy?” “Just a sec!” she chirped, not turning around.  “Aha! Perfect!”  She took out a slender silver chain necklace and held it up to herself. “This’ll work!”  She wriggled her old wedding band off her finger and threaded it onto the chain.  She about faced, bright eyed and grinning just as she finished fastening it around her neck. “Voila!  What do you think?!” I was at a loss for words.  Well…except for one.  “Why?” “Because we’re in this together,” she replied. “And if anyone asks about it, I’ll just tell them I did it for you.” Again, I asked, “Why?” “Because it’s true.” I stood up and shamelessly leapt into her arms.  “I love you, Janet…Mommy!” “I love you, too, baby…Clark.”    She took a seat on the bed and unbuttoned her blouse for me.  I wouldn’t forget latching on and suckling her dry.