Personalias

Anxiety kept at arm's length should be the name for my brain's playlist. (When my meds are doing their job at least)

Chapter 129: Immersion Janet opened the frosted glass door and ushered me forward. “After you.” I bit down on my tongue and muscled through every instinct telling me to be difficult. “Thanks,” I mumbled and crinkled through. The ice blue walls of the ticket area stopped at the door and made way for inoffensive eggshell white. Bars of trashy pop riffs greeted my ears, and I exhaled in unconscious relief. No nursery rhymes, or diaper changing songs, or stupid little ditties that made the pleasure centers of my brain light up. Just a plain catchy four chord song that would be popular for a few months, replaced, and forgotten by the next. A bout of paranoia made me slow blink and examine the state of my pants. Still dry. My face muscles relaxed; I could still frown if I forced it. There really was nothing hinky about the music. “Oh yeah! Bay-Bay! You know you’re just making me cray-cray!” My ears pricked up and I corrected myself: The music wasn’t hypnotic or disorienting in any way. Most Top 40 hits weren’t sung by what sounded like a chorus of autotuned kids. I dug a pinky into my ear and twisted it. It wasn’t the worst thing that I’d heard, but it certainly wasn’t ‘adult’ music. Janet tapped me on the shoulder. “Do you wanna look around the gift shop first or check out the exhibits?” I inhaled sharply through my nose. Bless her, she was trying to give me a choice. “Let’s browse,” I said. The inside of my skull still felt like it was filled with fire ants. “Sure,” Janet agreed. “Maybe we can find something you like.” Her eyes darted left. “Or, maybe we can just see what there is to see and if something catches our eye, we can get it on the way out.” “Yeah,” I said, feeling a sense of dread mounting. “Sure.” When one thinks of gift shops, one normally pictures small rinky-dink segments at the end of an attraction or park, usually big enough to comfortably accommodate anywhere from half a dozen to twenty Amazons. The gift shop at the ol’ Triple-P was big enough that it could have been its own department store. If someone had knocked down the walls between my classroom, Beouf’s class, her nap room, and the OT/PT room, there still wouldn’t have been nearly enough space to fit this place in. At the other end from where we stood, a large opening bigger than Janet’s garage beckoned us deeper into the Pretend Play Preserve Proper. For reasons I couldn’t yet articulate, just looking out into it my stomach churn like it was filled with training chocolate. I did not like this place but damnit, Janet was genuinely trying and it served no purpose for me not to play along. I could at least meet her halfway. I reached up and took Janet’s hand. “Follow me,” I said, and plunge into forests of shelves filled with knick-knacks, do-dads and other useless theme park garbage. It didn’t take me long to figure out what the gift shop was all about. Bins low enough for Littles to dig around in and cubbies with helpful step stools and ladders dotted the carpet. In them were rings, necklaces, bracelets, and various other bits of costume jewelry that looked just real enough until you squinted at them. Stacks of police officer caps, firefighter helmets, crowns, and cowboy hats took up a corner shelf. This was essentially a costume shop specializing in dress up accessories because of course it was. What else would a ‘Pretend Play Preserve’ sell? “What do you think of this?” Janet grabbed a cell phone that looked almost real until she bent over and handed it to me. “Pretty cool, huh?” I looked down at the black brick in my palm and felt my face sag. No way was this a real phone. It fit in my hand too perfectly. “Yeah…” Janet took another one and looked at it through the vacuum sealed plastic wrapping.. “I think these take batteries. Maybe it makes sounds? Or the screen lights up?” I picked up a gold wrist watch from one of the lower bins. The faintest jingle rippled into my ears and the corners of my mouth shot upward and a surge of adrenaline rocketed through me. If I hadn’t just been changed I may have wet myself. I put the fancy looking wrist rattle down as carefully as I could and I stepped away. “Could you put this back for me?” I asked Janet, indicating the toy phone. If this device made any sounds, I was sure I didn’t want to hear them. “Sure,” Janet leaned down and took the mindfucking toy back from me. Suddenly, she thought better of it. “Are you sure you don’t want to do it yourself?” She gestured to one of available built-in step ladders. It was wooden and painted to match the rest of the display with rough sandpapery grips to prevent slipping and an outer rail to aid in climbing, but no inner one to prevent me from reaching into a cubby. They littered the place, too. If I had wanted to, I could have climbed up a far wall and gotten as high as Janet’s shoulder so that I could reach a silvery gray knit cap meant to resemble a knight’s helm. I looked over my shoulder and spotted a tiny makeup counter where a Tweener helped a glowing and giggling Little apply eyeshadow for what may have been the first time. If only I’d had some of these in my classroom. Looking over my shoulder revealed a kind of mini-salon. A Little girl was being attended to by a uniformed Tweener, brushing her hair and spraying it stiff. The chair didn’t dwarf the girl, and sat on a pole designed to raise and lower itself; no phone books or booster seats required. She leaned forward towards a vanity mirror and tried on eyeshadow for what might have been the first time in a very long while. All by herself. My entire face felt numb, even while my insides itched. “No thanks,” I said to Janet “You can put it away for me.” Janet put the terrible toy away for me and looked down at her diaper bag. “Any clothes or outfits you want to look at?” she asked. I couldn’t tell if that was hope or dread riding along on her voice. Did she want me to become invested in this trip, or was she worried I might get too ‘into character’ as it were? The hangers on the wall closest to the register along with several nearby racks were decked out with Little sized outfits; actual, non-childish ensembles that a self-respecting adult might dress themselves in. The kind and style that I used to wear and that I saw other Littles wearing, too. I wandered slowly over, not even blanching at the signs hanging from the ceiling: “Build a Big Girl” to the left and “Build a Big Boy” to the right. Unlike with the rest of the displays, there were no ladders to get up high or low bins to rummage around freely in. Cynically, I suspected these were the most popular item; the ones most likely to be shoplifted or destroyed by desperate and grasping Little hands. A rack of charming gray polos with yellow trim on the shoulders caught my attention. I pointed up. “Mommy, can I see that?” I threw in the M-word just in case. Janet took it down for me and checked the tag. “This looks to be about your…” she stopped mid sentence. “Well will you look at that?!” she said. She lifted its hem and shook out an extra bit of white cloth like a pouch. She kneeled and hiked the bottom up some more so that I could see. “It’s got a onesie sewn inside,” I said. My lip curled up in revulsion. “Why?” Janet touched the tip of her bottom lip, thoughtfully. “Hmmm. If you’ve got a onesie sewn into the shirt, then your diaper won’t be able to peek out. Helps with sagging, too.” I didn’t even try to conceal my disappointment at this. “How is that any different than the dress shirt onesie you got me?” Janet paused and thought for a second, running her fingers over the monstrosity. “All the shirt buttons are real,” she finally said. “And you can keep the shirt part untucked so nobody will know you’re wearing a onesie.” From a pragmatic standpoint that was true. Onesies always had a certain snugness due to the crotch snaps. I pictured myself in my ‘feast friend’ getup. There was ‘tucked in’ and there was ‘you’re wearing pants over a baby shirt’. It was a small detail, but one that was near impossible to overlook once you noticed. “Yeah,” I sighed. Janet put the polo back and took a pair of navy blue pants off a hanger. “Oh look!” she giggled. “These pants have some extra support mesh in them like a bathing suit.” She pinched her fingers and ran them along the waist band. “And there’s an extra flat layer here on the outside to disguise the elastic. And the snap buttons look like regular buttons. Oh, and the zipper’s real! That’s kind of neat.” A terrible lightbulb went off in my brain. These were likely the same kind of clothes the Littles coming in here had been wearing. Baby clothes modified to look like real ones and provide some minor bits of camouflage, but nothing else. That girl from the crosswalk’s blouse probably snapped on in between her thighs, too. A glance at the Build a Big Girl section confirmed it. The Littles I’d seen and felt such anxiety and confusion weren’t actually dressed like their adult selves; they were just being allowed to cosplay in public. The difference between a tuxedo and a tuxedo t-shirt. “So this is just…” I struggled with the words, “A costume? A better version of…of…” I pointed at my diaper bag, indicating the mock adult costume inside it. “I guess so,” Janet admitted. She put the clothes she’d pulled back and picked up a t-shirt and jeans combo that was hung up as a full ensemble “Huh. Look. This entire outfit is really just a romper. Clever!” She looked at the price tag and her mood dropped. “Do you want one of these?” Polo onesies that prevented peeks. Slacks that hit diaper bulges and sagging. Rompers that looked like.two piece outfits. Clothes that allowed me to masquerade as my old life but I couldn’t take off by myself. The barest hint of a fantasy where I broke off and camouflaged my way to freedom through an unsuspecting crowd flickered in my mind and shut itself down at the realization that I couldn’t get the disguise off by myself. “Not really.” Janet puffed her cheeks. She looked just as unsure as me. Was she blanching at the price or the thought of me looking like something other than her baby? Was she sighing in relief or worried that her special treat for today wasn’t getting me as excited as she’d hoped? One thing yet gnawed at me. “Can I see the special diapers they talked about? The ones that look like underwear?” I was not calling it ‘Fun-derwear.’ She bit her bottom lip and looked around. “Yeah. Sure.” Her head scanned around. “But I don’t see them.” “Checkout counter?” I suggested. “Yeah,” she said. She scooped me up and walked us to the register. “Excuse me,” she asked a Tweener woman in uniform. “Can we take a look at the…” she paused and bit her lip again, “…Fun-derwear?” I could practically feel Janet’s skin threaten to break out into a cold and clammy sweat. “Of course,” the Tweener said. “Boys or girls?” “Boys.” The Tweener bent over and grabbed a single puffy white rectangle from underneath the counter and placed it on top for Janet and I to inspect. At a glance, it was thinner than what I was currently wearing beneath my shorts, but not by much. Its exterior was a soft, almost-cloth material that had more in common with the papery texture of a stack of tissues than proper cotton. Its front had the drawing of the folded flap most pairs of tighty-whities had in order for the wearer to pee without pulling the underwear down. At its bottom was a slightly curved stencil around the leg gathers; fake leg holes as if the thing was thinner and less padded than it actually was. It was a poor pantomime; an obese person wearing a t-shirt with a skinny six pack drawn on the front. The back and front waistbands were thicker and more elasticized so that they didn’t look like the top of a Monkeez or a Koddles, but that was it. Catching and reflecting the light at the very top of the ‘Fun-derwear’ was a thin strip of plastic that acted as a landing zone. Janet peeled the fake undies open and found the clear Little-proof tapes tucked in the back. This was literally just Pull-Up that had been converted into a diaper. “This is our standard boys model,” the Tweener sales associate explained. “We sell them in packs of two for ten dollars, four for sixteen, and six for eighteen. We also have step-in versions where you have to pull the Fun-derwear up over their hips and then rip the sides so you can adjust the tape so you’ll get a good snug fit. We’ve got a boxer version but that’s step-in only.” “Wow,” Janet remarked. “That’s kind of expensive for some diapers.” The Tweener nodded. “Yes, ma’am. They’re not ideal as an everyday diaper, but it really helps with immersion.” Immersion…I officially hated that word. I felt Janet rub my back, trying to untense my body that I hadn’t even realized had clenched up. “They’re not required, are they?” she asked. “No ma’am,” the Tweener smiled. “All costuming is optional, just most of our costumes are two pieces and we noticed a lot of our Little guests becoming preoccupied with making sure their diapers weren’t showing. So we’re trying this as something new.” Janet turned her head to me. “We’ve got the free coupon. Do you wanna try them?” Just looking at the costume diaper made my ears burn. “No thank you.” “Are you sure?” the Tweener broke in. “Cops and firefighters don’t wear diapers.” My face turned to stone. “I’m. Fine. Thank you.” “We appreciate the information,” Janet said smoothly and carried me away. “Thanks,” I whispered in her ear. “Welcome, baby,” she whispered back, and I didn’t bristle. We passed a display of diaper bags made to mimic briefcases and some pacifiers crossed with fake beards and mustaches, and went out the cave-like entrance and into the cavernous beyond of the Pretend Play Place Proper. The gift shop was a full one stop costume shop store. The museum was an entire mall. A big one. The perimeter of the bottom floor had equally cave sized entrances into as of yet unexplored territories as well as barriered rinks boasting open air play spaces. Well above us, floors that could have doubled as four lane highways ringed the inside of the building with bridges connecting the two sides cast us in their shadow, with bits of sunlight from above streaming in and supplemental ceiling lights beneath the bridges picking up the slack. All around us and above us, Littles and Amazons milled around from place to place, going excitedly from exhibit to exhibit. Manufactured families hopped on and off escalators and elevators, excited to see the next spectacle. Some held hands with the Little chomping at the bit to get to their next stop. Other Littles were carried, pointing and directing their giant on where to go next. One or two were in wheelchairs and scooters, being pushed along or motoring carefully through crowds as dense as an airport. Many Littles walked ahead of their assigned Grown-Ups, charging forward and stopping just long enough to make sure they were being followed by their beleaguered caregivers and wardens. Plenty were dressed like me in loose fitting toddler shorts and shirts. Even more sported the camouflage costumes I’d fallen in and out of love with not two minutes before; their accompanying Amazons being the only indicator they weren’t free un-Adopted adults. I spotted one or two sulking in onesies and rompers, cheap hats and props the only accessories allowed them. Footsteps, talking, shrieks, and giggles all converged and mixed to envelop us in a kind of white noise. One could whisper directly in their neighbor’s ear or raise their voice to just below screaming volume to be heard with practically no middle ground. Janet looked up and around in awe of it all; a rarity for an Amazon. I recoiled back into her, feeling that terrible buzzing sensation well up in me a thousand times more than it did back in Beouf’s playground. I loathed being here. It made my skin crawl. I was afraid of it. And I didn’t have the words to explain why. “What do you want to do first?” Janet asked. I wanted to go home. I wanted to retreat. To scream and curse and bite. To be honest and just ask to leave because I was so suddenly overwhelmed. A thousand justifications and one question- ‘why?’- made me go against myself. There were no children to passively indoctrinate with my existence. No Amazons without their own Little to focus and vent their madness upon. I was a stranger here, my identity consumed by the crowd. No eyes boring in on me as a class-traitor turned classmate or a newcomer to a Mommy-baby lap bounce cult. No co-workers showing their true colors or stripping me of my adulthood. No ersatz in-laws telling me uncomfortable truths about myself. This? This was just a playground. I’d already endured so much worse. Grinning and bearing it would only make things easier on me in the long run. Besides…Janet wanted this. I could endure. “Let’s look around, first,” I told her. “See what’s available.” “Good idea.” With me in her arms she waded out into the sea of people, examining the harmless looking grotesqueries this circus offered. The floor and walls were painted in the same scheme as the building’s exterior. The walls and columns were a light cardboard brown with swathes, stripes, spirals, and splashes of color breaking up the dull monotony. Peeking into different entrance ways and window displays on the ground floor, we found dozens of elaborate but unconvincing prop displays. Littles played on a mock construction site and swung on girders made of sturdy plastic. A kiosk handed out tiny hard hats and shiny orange vests for them to wear. Blunted plastic drills whirred when pressed against beams and people my age were taking turns bouncing on a pogo stick made to resemble a jackhammer. If none of them were wearing pants, it could have been a Monkeez commercial. Pretend: This was all pretend and the designers of this space didn’t want anyone to forget that. From the electric hum of the play cars zooming around in a center rink, to the ears of fake corn being gathered up in wicker baskets by farmers, to the fan flapped cloth flames being doused with buckets of blue confetti, to the banking and vault playset where plastic coins were exchanged, everything was an incredibly detailed yet insincere and sanitized reproduction of the real thing it replicated. No one would look at any of these sets and think that it was anything but an adorable satire. The exterior itself had been painted to look like a cardboard box that had been drawn on with crayons and finger paints. “I want to see more,” I lied to Janet. “I can’t make up my mind.” A dark entrance ominously flashed red and blue lights. Wooden walls painted to look like stone and a barred gate prevented us from looking deeper in. Canned recordings of cell doors slamming, guns firing, and metal doors slamming played on a loop. The sign above read,“Crime and Punishment” Janet walked up to an Amazon teenager, leaning casually against the wall with his arms crossed. He wore the dapper red vest and black tie that signaled him as an employee. “What’s in here?” she asked. The guy thumbed over his shoulder. “Lots of competitive games. Hide and seek. Cops and robbers. Laser tag. Prison break.” He pointed to a small booth a few feet across to a standing booth and a row of stalls with curtains in lieu of doors. “You can get police uniforms and striped jumpsuits over there. If either of you are in a hurry, you can just get a hat or a robber mask.” Play: This was all just a game. A whimsical romp through fantasy. None of it was real. None of it mattered. This was a hobby, at best. A money sink. I bit down on my tongue and ground my teeth, feeling it much, much crueler. Amazons had created an entire society based around convincing themselves people my size were as incompetent as children and in response manufactured an industry so that they could watch us play at being adults. The barred door slid open. A lady with a sulking Little boy slung over her shoulder exited. “Mamaaaaaa!” I heard him whine. “I wasn’t done yet! I wanted to put my buddy in the ‘lectric chaaaaair!” He was dressed in a navy blue parody of a police officer’s uniform. His pants had slid down a few inches and the thick waistband of his mock underwear was exposed. Ignoring her prisoner, the woman addressed the museum employee. “Excuse me, I can’t remember: do I need to take the costume off before I change him or can I get his bottom sorted out first?” Roses blossomed on the phony cop’s cheeks. “As long as you don’t leave a dirty diaper in the dressing room, don’t go into another play area with it on, and give it back before you leave we don’t really care, ma’am.” “Awesome,” she said. She patted the Little’s bottom, causing him to squirm, his own mess likely being further pressed with him. “Mama!” the poor bastard begged. “Can we get more Fun-derwear? Pleeeeeease?” “No sweetie. That’s too expensive.” “But I wanna be a big boy!” He sniffled, his lip quivering and his eyes tearing up. This idiot had really bought into the concept. She pulled the cop-player away from her and dangled him by his armpits. “How about after we change, we go upstairs and you can be a knight? Get a big shiny suit of armor. They didn’t wear underwear back then, either.” All embarrassment went away from the schmuck. “Okay!” I made eye contact with Janet and quietly shook my head, begging her not to go in there. “Yeah,” she mouthed. “Me too.’ Walking around, the sound of giddy giggles caused me to turn my head around. Not quite ten feet away, Littles sat giggling on tall wooden stools at a carnival style face painting stall. Their Mommies and Daddies leaned in and showed the painters pictures on their cell phones, likely specific designs and patterns to replicate. No paint went on the Littles’ faces; only clear shiny lacquer and only on their lips, cheeks and chins. Janet was still walking when I caught sight of one of the employees opening a drawer and then pasting fake beard hair on a Little boy’s face. Facial hair! Fake facial hair put on top of some kind of spirit gum or skin glue! Littles already had to lose their hair once. Now it was just a costume! I had neither the words nor the vomit to express myself. “What if we started here?” Janet grabbed my attention. I followed her outstretched index finger all the way to another large open storefront turned exhibit playground. Plaster Ivy columns flanking either side were covered with artificial ivy. The sign above in royal blue lettering read “Little’s University: Home of the Fighting Naked Mole Rats.” The only saving grace was that the cardboard cutout mascot right by the entrance didn’t have a diaper on. Out of the dressing stalls came Littles wearing letterman sports jackets and cheerleader costumes. Another burst through the curtain in a graduation cap and gown. Yet another strolled in with comically thick rimmed glasses and dorky plaid bowtie; a prop bundle of books under his arm. What might have been the girl I’d seen at the crosswalk took an apple in with her. Whether it was a gift for the teacher or an indicator that she was a teacher herself I still do not know. Preserve: This place was a museum, but we were its exhibits. It was a zoo and we were the animals; too stupid to realize that we were in a poor facsimile of our old lives or too starved of stimulation to care. See real Littles in recreations of their native habitats! View how they lived before we took them into captivity for their own safety! The buzzing in my head went away and replaced itself with an awful, painful focus. Nothing was safe or sacred here. Everything was a bastardized fun-house mirror version of the real thing. Even my old passion that I’d poured so much of my time and identity into. “Maybe we could find a classroom?” Janet said, innocently. “You could be a teacher again for a while.” A beat. “I could be your aide.” “No thank you,” I said curtly. Avoiding eye contact. “You don’t have to,” Janet said. “It was just a suggestion.” She didn’t move. A longer, awkward beat. “I know I’m not as good an assistant as Tracy, but-” “I SAID NO!” My roar was drowned out among the cheers and chaos, but Janet more than heard it. Her face struggled as she wrestled with what to do. “Okay. You choose where.” “What?” “Up? Second floor? Third? Tip top? Somewhere we’ve already walked past?” “I don’t know!” I practically shrieked. “How should I know? I’m just a-!” “Pick one place to play in,” Janet promised, “and then we’ll go home.” My head cleared. The buzzing came back, but not nearly as bad as it had been a moment ago. “Just one?” “For fifteen minutes. Then we can leave.” I twisted around in her grasp and practically climbed over her shoulder. I wanted to get as far away as possible from anything resembling a school. Nearest the gift shop, opposite of the construction site, a big red cross glowed. “Okay,” I grumbled. “Let’s play doctor.” We circled around and went to the hospital section. A model ambulance was parked right outside. Littles dressed up like EMTs took turns pushing each other through the entrance way on a gurney whose wheels were fixed to track that only went as a few feet past the entrance. The Ambulance had a ramp coming out the back, making it look more like a moving van than a proper emergency vehicle, but would this place be accurate here? “MAKE WAY! COMING THROUGH! CARDIAC ARREST VICTIM!” “SHUDDUP! YOU’RE DYING REMEMBER?” The girl on the Little sized gurney was wearing the same kind of costume as the others. Her playmates gave her a push and rushed her all the way to the end of the track. Then she rolled off of it like she was rolling out of bed (likely a forgotten sensation by now) and helped them push the rolling bed back up the track into play ambulance’s cab. “Can I just do that for fifteen minutes?” I asked Janet, still on her hip. “Depends,” she smirked “Can you stand the constant repetition and glaring inaccuracies for that long?” I stammered and stuttered, not believing what I’d just heard. How did she know me this damn well? “Yeah, I couldn’t either.” The hospital play place’s costume booth was nearby the ambulance without it being directly in the way. “Doctor, nurse, or patient?” The employee manning the booth asked. “Doctor, please,” I said as politely as I could. “I figured,” they smiled, and handed me a set of blue scrubs, a stethoscope, and a white doctor’s coat. “Sorry we just had a run on surgical scrubs.” “Got anything in my size?” Janet asked. The clerk snorted, then stopped when he realized she was being serious. “Sorry ma’am. We don’t carry adult sizes. You could be one of those hot-shot doctors that doesn’t need a white coat like on T.V. if you wanted.” Janet nuzzled my forehead and replied. “I was thinking of being a patient.” The employee smacked their forehead. “Oh yeah! Duh! People do that all the time. Just be a walk-in.” They reached under their counter and handed Janet a wooden clipboard with a blank piece of paper. “Here’s a prop.” “Deal.” Janet took it without thinking and frowned, slightly confused. “It’s your chart,” I guessed. “Somebody definitely graduated med pre-school,” the clerk said. They shot finger guns at me and flashed a toothy smile. My sour expression suddenly became impossible to maintain. “Dang,” I swore. “That’s actually kind of funny.” Five minutes later, my real clothes were crumpled up inside my diaper bag and I was decked out like the Fall Festival version of an E.R. doctor, prop stethoscope and chart at the ready. I’d say that I looked and felt ridiculous but that would be a lie. I’d already worn so many more embarrassing outfits, and it’s hard to look silly when everyone is doing what you are. “Just to be clear,” Janet said, taking my hand and leading me out to the medical play area, “costume changes don’t count towards that fifteen minute “Just to be clear,” I retorted, “you’re the patient, so I should be leading you there.” My pace doubled like I was running late for bus duty and Raine Forrest was stalking behind me ready to catch me sprinting as an excuse to Adopt. Janet had to stoop over awkwardly just to stop from trampling me. “Right this way ma’am,” I bantered on. “Right this way, we’ll have you all set and ready to go in no time flat.” I raised my voice. “MAKE WAY! MAKE WAY! COMING THROUGH! I’VE GOT A VERY SICK WOMAN HERE!” The group turning the gurney into a very short roller coaster paused for us to enter and dragged Janet past a tiny waiting room filled with Amazons looking at their phones while their so-called children yelled “CLEAR” and placed vibrating paddles on each other’s chest. “Oh dear!” Janet feigned distress like a B-movie starlet, “what’s the prognosis, Doctor?” “How should I know?” I playfully snapped back, “I haven’t even had time to examine you, yet.” Janet tittered. “Got me there, Doctor. Got me there.” “Worst case scenario is you’ll die,” I quipped, “but at least you won’t be sick anymore.” “Clark!” Janet wasn’t mad. I’d heard her mad. This was just politely appalled. “Clark?” I said. “Who’s Clark? My name is Doctor Schadenfreude. Doctor Hans P. Schadenfreude.” I nudged her on the kneecaps and she sat down on a padded examination table that would have made a better ottoman. “Now please remove your clothes so that I can examine you. Don’t worry, you don’t have anything I haven’t seen before. I’m a doctor.” Janet’s expression flattened. “No.” Damn. Worth a shot. “Very well, but I’ll have you know you’re making my job difficult and this is going on your chart.” “Doctor Schadenfreude…” she warned me. She was playing along with the bit. I was going to get away with everything. I caught sight of a plastic cup filled with black crayons. I snatched one up and then scribbled pure chicken scratch onto the clipboard. “Patient…refuses…basic…examination…” I said in a stage whisper. New idea! I flipped the clipboard around and showed her my swervy lines. “Ma’am could you please read what I just wrote on your chart?” “Patient refuses basic examination,” she parroted back. “You’ve really got the doctor’s handwriting thing going on.” “That’s not what I wrote, just what I said, Ms. Grange.” I said back to her. “It seems you’re having difficulty reading.” Janet snorted and fell back into character. “Oh dear, Doctor Schadenfreude! Am I going blind?” “Worse,” I said. “You’ve lost your ability to read.” Lickety quick I grabbed my diaper bag, unzipped it and started digging around. “What are you-?” “Ma’am! Please! I’m a doctor!” I dug and grabbed hold of something slick and crinkly. “Care to explain these?” My Mommy cocked an eyebrow. “Explain what? It’s a diaper.” “Why are you walking around with a diaper bag and no baby? Remember,” I cut her off,, “I’m Doctor Schadenfreude! Don’t ruin my immersion!” “My baby is with a sitter,” Janet said, confidently. “Playing silly games with his teacher. Melony Beouf.” She thought she had me. Thought I couldn’t contradict her without breaking character. But I had the power here. I was the Grown-Up. I was the Amazon. Black crayon darted wildly across the paper. “Patient…suffers delusions…has…imaginary baby.” I flipped the mostly black paper around to her. “Now what does this say?” Lashes fluttered coyly. “I’m sure I don’t know, Doctor.” “Why? I just said it out loud.” Giant shoulders slumped cartoonishly. “I can’t win this, can I?” “Nope!” Nevertheless, she persisted. “My baby boy is very real, Doctor. I expect to be giving him a call in less than fifteen minutes.” Ha! Now who was clock watching? “Oh,” I said. “So you agree?” Lips puckered. “Agree about what?” “You’re here. At the Pretend Play Preserve. By yourself. Without any Little to supervise or care for. And you’re hiding diapers that don’t even fit you.” Brows knitted suspiciously. “Yeah…? And…?” I let out a dramatic sigh and placed my hand on her thigh. “Ma’am. There’s no easy way to tell you this. But you have Maturosis.” My eye twitched. My lips retreated inside of me. Must. Not. Smile. Must. Not. Laugh. Can’t break. Can’t break. Can’t break. We stared at each other, unblinking. Our faces were intense masks incapable of scrutinization. Finally, Janet threw back her head and laughed a full on belly laugh. “Okay!” she cackled. “You got me, Doc! I have Maturosis!” She looked back down at me and her smile became devilishly malevolent. “So does that mean you’re gonna take care of me?” A bead of sweat on my forehead. “I didn’t say that.” “But Doctuh Schadenfweude!” Her voice turned into a near squeaking falsetto. Her words took on an exaggerated lisp. “You said I have Matuhwosis. Awen’t you gonna change my poopy diapuh, and take me home and feed me and cuddle me and give me wuvs?” Wow, that gave me feelings I did not expect to feel. “I DO NOT SOUND LIKE THAT!” My foot stomped down in a fit of mock rage. I wasn’t that mad, truth be told. Turnabout was fair play as far as I was concerned. . “No,” she spoke. “But my Little boy sometimes does…” “I do not, Mommy!” “Mommy?” Janet joked. “Sounds like I’m not the one with Maturosis.” She scooped me up onto her lap and wrapped her arms around me. “Good thing I’ve got a diaper bag on me.” I pouted half-heartedly. “I hope you’re happy.” “I am,” She chirped. “You?” A voice from behind an examination curtain interrupted my attempt to verbally evade her. “Nurse, nurse,” a deep masculine voice boomed. “I fell down and I think I broke my femur. What do I do?” Another Amazon-Little pair had taken up play next to us, their scene separated from mine and Janet’s by a thin green curtain. “Don’t worry, Mister Ellis,” a strangely familiar voice answered. “We’ll just need to get some X-rays and then put you in a cast.” Mister Ellis? Why did that sound familiar? “Please hurry, nurse!” The man moaned. “It hurts so bad? Ooooooh.” “No, Daddy,” the familiar voice said back. “You have to moan better than that. Like this…” A low, breathy whimper squeaked out and turned into a moan and then meandered its way into a muffled sob. Why did that moan sound so damn at home in my ears? It was a Little girl behind that curtain. Cassie? “Like this.” The Daddy Amazon tried and failed miserably to replicate her sounds of pain. That wasn’t that surprising, honestly. “No, no, no, Daddy,” the pretend-nurse said. “You gotta be like you’re hurting but you’re trying to be brave so you start out quiet, and then get loud because it’s getting worse, but then you quiet down because it hurts so bad and you’re scared to scream.” Where did I know her from? I was almost too afraid to guess. “Clark?” “Shh,” I hissed. “I’m listening.” My arms went rigid, tensing up in case we’d been heard. “I’ll get you some morphine to help the pain, Mister Ellis. Go ahead and put that I.V. on while I run and get it.” “Okaaaaaay…” The man’s moaning improved considerably. I’d definitely heard that moan before. Just not in this context. If I closed my eyes I could almost place it. I tended to hear it in my crib. Except not my crib at home. My usual crib at Beouf’s. Normally the moan wasn’t that loud. Muffled. Like somebody was having a wet dream, or trying to quietly masturbate. “Annie?” Silence. The curtain ripped back. “Clark?!” Annie the would-be slut. Billy’s padded prison girlfriend and much better half. Arguably the best bullshit detector of my crew and my sole ally amongst Oakshire’s more feminine persuasion. Her nurse’s outfit was a stark white dress with a red circle and white cross on both the round cap and the apron. The hem of the dress would have been too short if not for the matching tights to make up the difference. Let’s just say I could tell she wasn’t wearing Fun-derwear. As soon as we locked eyes, her entire body started to flush and tremble. “Annie,” an Amazon man with graying hair and a widow’s peak said. “Is this a friend of yours from school?” Janet unwrapped her arms and stuck one out. “Hi, Janet Grange. I’m Clark’s Mommy.” “Victor Ellis,” the man said. His smile broadened and his eyes sparkled. “Did you say Clark?!” He looked at me. “This is Clark? Oh wow, have I heard some things about you.” “Good things, I hope…” Janet said. If only I could have been a fake surgeon and been given a face mask. I pushed off and slid off Janet’s knee. “Nurse, I require a uh…status update on your patient. In private.” “Yes, Doctor,” Annie said. “Right away.” We stepped away to a corner, my brain overloading with every footfall. One of my gang had been mere feet away from me while I’d been playing a stupid kids’ game with my Mommy, and I wasn’t exactly making her life hell for it as prescribed. If Annie told Billy and the others my ears would need Ivy as a bodyguard. “Annie,” I said. “Listen…” “Please don’t tell the others!” She blurted out first. Her voice was shaky. Her eyes were tearing up. “Please don’t tell them. Nobody has to know! Okay? Please?” I leaned back, shocked. “Okay. Yeah. What are you even doing here?” “My Mommy and Daddy take me here every other weekend. It’s the one place I can have some fun and not worry about anybody making fun of me. It’s the one place I can sort of be myself. Please don’t tell anybody.” Holy cow. This was unexpected. “Annie. Chill. I already said I wouldn’t.” She shook a little less. “Yeah?” Her hands unknotted themselves. “Yeah.” I took in the sight of her. “I’m here too. I can’t tell on you without you telling on me.” Nervous hands unbunched and wiped themselves off on a skirt. “Oh. Oh yeah. I hadn’t thought of that.” She brushed some hair off of her forehead. “What are you doing here?” “I was good for my first Unification Day, so my Mommy brought me here thinking it’d be a treat.” “Cool. Cool.” she said, her breath slowing back down. “Did I hear you diagnose her with Maturosis?” Air puffed out of my nose and my chest swelled up with pride. “Yup.” “Same old Clark. Always gotta find a twist.” It sounded like a compliment so I took it as one. “Thanks. Nice costume.” “Thanks,” she blushed. “It’s mine. From home. My costume, not my uniform. It um…it makes me feel pretty.” A random factoid from my earliest days in Beouf’s burrowed out of my brain. “Weren’t you a nurse or in nursing school or something?” Annie bowed her head. Her foot started tracing circles on the floor. “Yeah…” My voice lowered back down, afraid someone would hear my next question. “Then why is this place fun to you? Doesn’t it piss you off? Insult you and everything you worked for?” Her shoulders bobbed up and down noncommittally. “Not really.” “Why not?” I demanded. Again, she shrugged and avoided eye contact. “I don’t know. I just like it. It’s just a game. It’s fun. It’s good to pretend. Less stressful.” I had no words, but my incredulous expression said enough. “Sometimes it’s fun for me to pretend that I never lost anything.” “NURSE!” her Daddy called out. “IT HURTS! SO BAD!” Annie straightened her posture and cupped her hand to her mouth. “COMING, MISTER ELLIS!” More softly, she said, “I gotta go. See you tomorrow?” I looked around for my own patient and found Janet standing up and waving me down near the play place’s entrance. “Okay,” she said. “Deal’s a deal. We’ll get your regular clothes back on and hit the road.” My arms raised above my head. Janet picked me up again. “Thank you.” “You liked it, though, right?” “Kind of.” Just before we were out of earshot, I heard a nauseating, “Do you still want to be a nurse someday?” “Yes, Daddy. When I’m a Grown-Up.” A few minutes later, I was dressed like a toddler again instead of a toddler pretending to be a doctor. “That was quick,” the attendant at the costume booth said. “Yeah,” Janet said wistfully. “I think he just burned himself out early.” “It can be a lot,” the attendant agreed. “That’s okay though. I hope he had fun.” A question danced on my lips and tickled my brain enough that I asked it. “Why’d you say you figured I wanted to be a doctor?” From the looks of them, I had at least a decade on this person, but the way their lips curled back into a toothy grin. “Most boys wanna be doctors. Girls like playing nurse. Almost none of the kids want to be patients.” A dissatisfied frown flashed on my face for half a second. Of course Littles wouldn’t want to be patients. We’ve lost enough autonomy as it is. “Oh.” My nose wrinkled at the thought of something so obvious and predictable. “Thanks.” Janet took a sharp U-turn away from the gift shop and exit. “I need to go potty before we hit the road.” The public restroom was clean and relatively quiet when we went in. No lingering smell of used diapers in the trash cans or evidence that we weren’t the first occupants of the day. The stall we went into- all the stalls I’d guess-had small foldout seats on the inside of the doors. Janet closed the door, unfolded one and strapped me. Now I had an involuntary front row seat to an Amazon going to the toilet. “Can’t I sit in your lap?” I complained. She pulled her skirt and panties all the way down to her ankles. “Trust me, bubba, I don’t think you’re going to want to be at ground zero. She took a deep breath and air echoed out the other end of her. “EWW!” I pinched my nose and scrunched my face up. “What? Grown-Ups poop, too, baby. If you don’t like it, close your eyes and think of something else.” My internal blinds shut immediately. “Fine. Just try to go quietly.” I could hear her roll her eyes. “Yes, master.” Sitting in the bathroom, trying to tune out bowl muffled farts, recent words mingled with the persistent buzzing in my skull. Why pretend to be a kiddie corral version of the real thing? It just didn’t sit right with me. Annie wasn’t stupid. Her last words continued to resonate uncomfortably: ‘Yes Daddy, when I’m a Grown-Up.’ My eyes opened in more ways than one. I’d had the Pretend Play Preserve all wrong. So had the Amazons. On the surface, playing dress up was a reminder of things I’d never be allowed to be again. It was Pop-Pop’s sentimental present on a macro level. We were in a vacuum, though. There weren’t any actual children or free Littles to serve as reminders of what we really were and what we’d really lost. Whether they consciously knew it or not everybody was in on the act and engaged in a complex web of collective group play. These weren’t Littles pretending that they’d never been captured and had a second infancy forced upon them. They were pretending that they were still in their first childhood and were playfully practicing for the real world. Pretending could be fun if you were actually a kid. So why not pretend to be a baby playing dress up? That’s why Annie was so embarrassed and terrified. She wasn’t worried that I’d caught her pretending to be a nurse. She didn’t want me to tell the guys at school that she was pretending to be a baby! The buzzing in my head stopped, the toilet flushed and circuits sparked in my brain in the best way. I was starting to see possibilities. Maybe I really could have some fun here. “Mommy,” I piped up while Janet washed her hands. “Do we have to leave right away?” Janet dried off with rough brown paper towels. Her posture subtly changed from holding back disappointment to cautiously hopeful. She wanted her gift to be appreciated and enjoyed. She wanted me to play. “Of course not, sweetie. Do you want to be a doctor again?” I’d play alright. Just on my terms. “No. I’ve got a better idea. Let’s go to the construction site.” Back on the precipice of the construction play area, Littles in hardhats and orange vests played at building something that would never get done. In actuality, the place was closer to a jungle gym. “Do you want to go get a costume?” I had a better idea. “No thank you, Mommy.” “No costume?” Janet asked. I didn’t say that. “Can you help me take my shorts off, please?”

Chapter 128: P.P.P. It was too damn early when I opened my eyes for the second time that Sunday morning. It wasn’t quite nine o’clock. I’d have been awake and scheming by now on a school day, but a night of tossing and turning next to Janet, the atrocious hour at which we got up, the slow humming rhythm of Janet’s car on the highway, and the milk that washed down the breakfast granola bar had me conked out in the car seat as soon as I’d put down the bottle. “We’re heeeeeere,” Janet half-sang, cutting the engine. “Where is ‘here’?” I yawned. Janet leaned and twisted around to unbuckle me. “It’s a surprise, silly.” I suppressed something between a groan and a growl. “Janet,” I said. “You promised me you’d stop these surprises.” “I said I wouldn’t spring anything on you and I very clearly asked if you wanted to come here, yesterday.” “But you didn’t tell me what ‘here’ would be.” Her finger gently booped me on the nose. “That’s part of the surprise.” My right eye twitched. “I don’t like surprises.” The funny part is, I legitimately couldn’t tell how much this bothered me. This early in the morning, I’d have been hard pressed to say how much of my whining was from genuine insecurity and trauma processing versus trying to be difficult out of habit and principle. Janet erred on the side of caution. “Hey,” she said softly, taking both of my hands in hers and looking me in the eye. “It’s gonna be okay. I’m not trying to embarrass you. I’m not trying to talk down to you. I just want to show you something fun. I want to surprise you in a good way.” “But…” The rest of my argument caught and tripped up over my lips. After everything that had happened this week I wanted to trust her. Yet, I hated that I wanted to. She cut my feelings off at the knees. “Say the word and we’ll walk right out and go home. I just want to surprise you first and for you to give it a chance.” I half yawned and half sighed in resignation. “Okay. Sure.” Her hands gently gave mine a squeeze and released. “Good.” She grabbed the diaper bag from the passenger seat, then got out of the car. Normally she would have walked all the way around the front of the car to open up the back passenger side and dig me out of my seat. This time she only went one door back and climbed into the back seat with me. “So,” she said. “Before we go in…” I braced myself between the beats of her carefully placed patter. “...do you want to wear that outfit?” Without thinking I looked down at myself in today’s chili pepper red toddler shorts and lime green shirt. My Monkeez had yet to swell or sag enough so that anybody could see its outline beneath the relatively baggy shorts, but the top of it was still poking out enough over the waistband and the shirt wasn’t long enough to effectively conceal it when I raised my arms and such. All things considered, I still preferred this very basic and simple outfit to most of the other things I was routinely dressed in. My legs were mostly covered and there were no cartoon characters or disgustingly cute slogans anywhere on me. The complete absence of Amazonian strength snaps in the ensemble meant that the only clothing I was trapped in was my diaper. For herself, Janet had picked out a conservative yet attractive blouse with a thin subdued gold necklace. Her legs were covered with a not-quite salmon colored skirt that stopped at her shins and open toed platform heels. Her thick peach hued belt probably didn’t serve a function other than to visually bridge the gap between her top and her skirt. She looked like she was dressed for a formal classroom observation, and I was dressed like I was being prepared for a slightly more bearable day in Beouf’s class. In my surveying, I realized my eyes were going back to Janet’s breasts a little too often. “Yyyyes…?” I cringed. “Why?” “Because if you wanted to, I brought along another outfit.” She opened the diaper bag and pulled out the complete mockery of adult clothes I’d worn when picking her parents up from the airport: The baby shower bomb that had been repurposed as a Feasting Friend disguise. I thought I’d relegated that mistake of gaslighting to a one and done. My lips twisted and my nose crinkled up like I’d just swallowed my own vomit back down. “Why would I want to wear that?” “I can’t tell you or it would ruin the surprise,” Janet said. “Then I’ll pass.” Janet stuffed it back down into the diaper bag. “That’s fair,” she said. “I’ll keep it with us just in case you change your mind.” Fat chance of that happening. “Second question,” Janet said. “Do you want me to change your diaper?” My lips puckered and I cocked my head in confusion. The fact that I’d been asleep meant I was probably wet. No annoying aching feelings in my bladder begged to be let out. I poked at my crotch and barely felt the squish. I was hardly what one would call ‘soaked’. Asking whether I needed a change wasn’t exactly Janet’s style, either. “Is this to see if I’m ready for potty training or something?” “Oh baby, no.” Janet snorted. “I just thought you might want to start today dry.” Stranger and stranger. “Oooookay…? Sure….” What else was I going to do? Admit that I was comfortable if not ‘fine’ in wet pants? There was some kind of trap coming, but I had no idea how to dodge it. If it couldn’t be avoided, best to charge in and brazen through it. I held my breath when Janet lipped the shorts right off of my sneakers but held my tongue until after the fresh Monkeez was taped on. The shorts went right back on and the alarm bells in my head silenced themselves. It wasn’t like I was going to explode in rage or dissolve in embarrassment at having my diaper in full view; I’d been successfully numbed to that particular source of indignation. Part of me was just suspicious because of the circumstances. “Do you want to walk or do you want me to carry you?” Janet asked, balling up the diaper. “Carry…?” What strange algorithm was my Mommy running in her head? Janet put me on her hip and I automatically steadied myself by hugging her around her neck. Her opposite shoulder holstered the diaper bag and its corresponding hand held onto the old diaper. “I’m pretty sure there’ll be garbage cans near the entrance.” “Entrance to where?” In reply Janet turned us around and looked up. “There.” The parking lot we were in was an open air field made of asphalt. Its sole purpose was to give people a place to leave their cars while they wandered off to more interesting locations by foot. Off in the middle distance, just across the street, was a tremendous building. It was wider than it was tall, but was easily five stories, and was painted soft cardboard brown with accents of blue, yellow, and red streaks across its profile. “What is it?” I asked Janet had already started walking towards the structure. Her gait had a giddy bounce in it that I could just feel. She slipped the used diaper into a can positioned near the crosswalk. “You’ll see.” My skin crawled with anxiety. Waiting for the light to turn, a shadow came up beside ours. “Going to Triple-P?” A voice asked. “Hm?” Janet and I said in unison. Janet turned her head and I leaned sideways to see past her. An Amazon woman wearing a baggy shirt and jeans was standing next to us. Her face was slightly thinner than Janet’s, but not unflatteringly so. Her hair was dark like Janet’s too, but kept loose and down. “I asked if you two were going to Triple-P?” .”Triple-?” I heard Janet say. “Oh yeah! We are.” So that’s where we were going. The name meant nothing to me, though. “First time?” the stranger asked. “Yeah,” Janet nodded. “How did you know?” “Call it a hunch.” She looked at me and waved. “Hey cutie.” I waved meekly back and gave the thinnest, most noncommittal fake smile that I had the energy to muster. Because Janet hadn’t turned her whole body to speak with the other woman I had one whole Mommy between me and this newest threat. I flexed my fingers and resisted the urge to dig my nails into the side of Janet’s neck. Oh if only I hadn’t left Lion at home, I’d be murdering him again. “Mommy!” A new voice burst out. “The sign turned on! Let’s go!” Closer inspection of the newcomer revealed a bright yellow diaper bag on the woman’s shoulder closest to Janet and a second, much smaller shadow beside hers. I wasn’t the only Little with an Amazon shield between me and a stranger. “You two go ahead,” the stranger said. “We’re both walking today.” Janet sped ahead, her bounce only increasing after the brief encounter. I looked back behind her and got a better look at the other Little. From head to toe, the Little girl looked more like a young woman than any Adopted Little I’d ever seen. No pig tails or frilly bows in her hair, she wore it down like her Amazon and had been dressed in a gray pinafore dress that went all the way down to her ankles and long sleeved white turtleneck. Had I seen her around Misty Brook or shopping at J-Swift I wouldn’t have thought anything of her. Just another Little that had so far dodged the mad giants by appearing mature enough so that the soft monsters wouldn’t feel the need to ‘help’, but not so much that the spiteful ones felt they were being challenged. Indeed, the dress billowed just enough to completely conceal the form of the diaper underneath it and mask the toddling walk of the person who wore it. I wouldn’t have even noticed the wider gait and slightly waddling strides if I hadn’t been specifically looking for evidence. The white sneakers that peaked out from her hem were nothing to factor in, and the ruby red lipstick could have been applied better, but nothing about her outward appearance signaled that she was mindfucked, broken, dollified, or otherwise Adopted. On a more charitable day in my past, I might have given her the benefit of the doubt holding an Amazon lady’s hand. Littles and Amazons could be friends and equals in this day and age, or so I’d once told myself. There was a certain practicality in holding hands while crossing the street when many Littles couldn’t be seen over a car’s hood from the wrong distance and angle. Only calling her Mommy by title and the diaper bag slung around the taller woman’s shoulder gave away their true relationship. Janet and I crossed the street and into a courtyard out in front of our destination. Well mowed and maintained lawns greeted us, perfect for picnicking while providing picturesque views of trees and hedges trimmed to look like trains, planes, and automobiles along the lawns’ far perimeter. Beige colored walkways guided us through and the clip-clopping of Janet’s heels went slightly faster, as if drawing strength from the manufactured whimsy surrounding us. Elizabeton was a bigger city than Oakshire, but it wasn’t exactly a sprawling multicultural capital of class and diversity. If the two cities were people, Oakshire would have been the guy who peaked in highschool, took over the family business and wouldn’t shut up about the good old days when they were third string running back and almost made state. Elizabeton was that guy who graduated college but seemed to make his Alma Mater his entire personality up to and including still crashing frat parties. Better? For some, yes. Good? I didn’t say that. The differences were there though, and Elizabeton generally had a cleaner, crisper, more sophisticated metropolitan aesthetic than its poorer, less elegant sister town. We walked around a circular area in the courtyard ringed with cement benches. Crystal clear jets of water shot up out of the ground like graceful geysers and then spouted in a patterned sequence giving the illusion that a single stream of water was bouncing from spot to spot. I spotted a nearby sign that read, “ALL ADOPTED LITTLES MUST WEAR DIAPERS WHILE PLAYING IN FOUNTAIN.” Adopted Littles? Not just Littles in general? Leave it to Elizabeton to be just progressive enough. A handful of Littles wearing only diapers stood in the middle, bracing themselves. When a jet of water had arced from spot to spot in a complete circle, a tremendous gent of water shot up beneath them, sending them shrieking and giggling back to their giants. “Daddy! Cold!” one of them said, holding himself and shivering. “I told you,” the Amazon man chuckled. “It starts getting too chilly this time of year to splash around. “Do you want to get dry and go inside?” “Uh-huh!” The Little boy ran back to the center of the fountain just in time to get sprayed in the face again. “Okay…” the boy’s Daddy cupped his hands and called out.. “But you get two more minutes before we towel you off and go inside anyway. The other Amazons followed his lead and put similar time limits on their charges. I looked back over Janet’s shoulder to try and spot the Little girl who had been walking hand in hand across the street. Adopted Littles oddly enjoying themselves while indulgent Amazons looked on was just a regular Thursday night for me. One of us who still dressed like an adult: Now there was something to write home about. Janet was walking way too fast. We were over halfway across the courtyard and the more interesting pair were still lingering behind us, practically tiny dots on the horizon, made harder to spot because they were still backlit by the sun. I rubbed my eyes and turned my head in the opposite direction so that I was looking forward. A few of Janet’s trotting footsteps later I almost had to rub my eyes again. Walking in from the sides were half a dozen other Littles dressed in pleated pants, button up shirts, polos, and dresses that completely covered their diapers. The only thing giving them away were the Amazons who held their hands and the diaper bags they all carried. Evidently crosswalk girl wasn’t a unique occurrence here. “Almost there,” Janet said to herself as much as me. “I think we’re in the back. Need to walk around.” “Mommy,” I said. “Can I walk too?” I wasn’t going to be the only Little here. No need to be the only Little being carried. Janet slowed and set me on my feet. “Sure, honey.” She took my hand and started half-pulling me along. Along the side of the building was a small empty playground; a jungle gym with a slide and a swing set. Beouf’s was objectively better. This was barely a playground; just a playplace to distract small children away from a site’s main attraction. The Gardens had a similar set up near its lion exhibit. This particular structure didn’t have a sandbox, but it did have another warning sign: “NO CHILDREN UNDER 18 (UNLESS ACTING AS CAREGIVER).” No kids allowed on a playground? With Adopted Littles being specifically mentioned around the fountain? Why? Kids loved fountains. Kids loved playgrounds. They certainly would at least point and smile at trees and bushes made to look like other things. The back of my skull felt like it was buzzing again. “Are there any kids allowed in this place?” Janet looked down at me. “Do you count?” “No.” “Then, no.” Janet said. A beat passed before her willpower ran out. “But you’re still my baby.” Damn, I loved this woman. Otherwise I would have likely bitten her or done something else awful right then and there. We rounded the outside corner and ducked under an overhead walkway. A small cluster of Amazons with surprisingly adult looking Littles opened up a frosted glass door and went inside the building. There was no second guess where we headed next. To our right, was a row of strollers separated by. They were of all different makes, models, and sizes; all of them personal strollers, and not the kind of generic models that got rented out in malls and theme parks. “PLEASE CHECK YOUR STROLLERS WITH VALET.” The sign instructed. The valet was a gangly Tweener kid with acne wearing a black tie and red vest. If he was old enough to have graduated high school his body hadn’t quite caught up with his birth certificate. “Hello! he waved. His voice had a raspy crackle to it; maybe he parked strollers because he wasn’t allowed to park cars. “Welcome to Triple-P!” Janet smiled and speed walked us the rest of the way. A blast of chilled air hit me in the face as the frosted glass door closed behind us. Wide ice blue walls and arrows on the floor directed us to a wall of ticket booths. The path was less than twenty steps from the entrance, but velvet ropes forced people to zig and zag at harsh right angles. The walls sported plaques that made something perfectly clear in no uncertain terms:“ADOPTED LITTLES AND THEIR CAREGIVERS ONLY”. With no branding or labeling on the back of the building, I had missed what Triple-P stood for initially. All guesswork was removed when I looked down at the ticket booths and read the red, green, and yellow letters above. “PRETEND PLAY PRESERVE.” We wound around the last rope right as the cluster of maturely dressed Littles and their Mommies and Daddies shuffled off through a door to the side. I tugged on Janet’s skirt and half-whispered up to her. “Is this associated with Little Voices?” “Not directly, but a lot of the people there like it.” We finished our trek to the ticket booth. “Hi, welcome to Pretend Play Preserve. Is this you and your Little one’s first time at Triple-P?” A middle aged woman wearing a similar uniform to the valet spoke from the other side of the glass. From where I stood, it was difficult to tell if she were an Amazon or a Tweener, standing on a stool. “Is this you and your Little one’s first time at Triple-P?” “Yes ma’am,” Janet said. “Okay, do you want me to go over the rules, features, and layout with you?” “Just a second,” Janet said. She bent over and picked me back up. “I want him to hear too.” She booped me on the nose. “Okay. No more surprises. We made it.” The attendant in the booth grabbed a stack of papers and slid them through a slot on the underside of the glass partition. “Okay. Please look over and sign these. Page one is you affirming that your Little has been legally Adopted and that you are their primary caregiver or that you have permission from the primary caregiver to be here.” Janet picked up a pen chained to the counter. “Sure thing.” “The second page is you absolving us of all liability in the event of an injury or tantrums both past and future.” Janet looked up from the page and echoed what I was thinking. “Injury or tantrums?” “We’re a museum with interactive exhibits,” the ticket taker clarified. “Littles laugh, Littles run, Littles trip, Littles bonk their heads. We just don’t want to get sued if somebody is having too much fun.” She gave me one of those playful winks I’d become all too accustomed to and I felt the buzzing in my skull travel up to my temples. “And tantrums?” The ticket taker let out a good natured chuckle. “We’ve had crazy parents try to blame us for their Little one’s bad behavior. Sometimes Littles get overstimulated or take silly ideas too far, and sometimes Mommies and Daddies want to blame us for providing the stimulation in the first place.” “Gotcha.” She signed the second page, and slid it back with the first. “I’m a teacher. I know how that is.” “Third page is just a quick reminder of certain items we don’t allow here. Please no leashes, strollers, or pacifiers that they can’t remove themselves. If your Little one normally needs a stroller to get around quickly, we can get you a modified wheelchair.” Janet winced So did I, but I suspected it was for a different reason. “Is crawling not allowed or something?” she asked. . “Yes ma’am, it’s allowed,” the lady behind the glass explained. “You can carry him, hold hands with him, or let him walk away freely. He can crawl, walk, run, roll, scoot, or whatever. We just discourage those items in particular because they tend to break immersion.” While Jannet had busied herself signing paperwork and getting us an explanation of what was allowed, the Little and Amazon from the crosswalk caught up to us. They went through the line and got their tickets rather quickly. Evidently they needed no explanations. “Anything else prohibited?” Janet asked. “No ma’am. Diaper bags, bottles, clothes such as onesies and rompers are all perfectly acceptable. Strollers clog up the exhibits, inflatable pacifiers make it harder to play along, and leashes slow down costume changes. Immersion is important, but it’s also a matter of practicality.” The buzzing in my brain intensified and wormed its way to the top of my skull. “Immersion.” I repeated. I don’t remember if I intoned it as a question, a scoff, or a smidge of both. Probably both. “Costume changes.” “I love it when they’re curious,” the ticket taker looked at me and gushed. “Best part of this place!” My face went hot. If someone didn’t talk plainly in the next sentence I knew I was going to do something incredibly stupid. “This is a dress-up museum,” Janet saved me from myself. “It has all sorts of models and play sets that you can mess around with, like a fire engine, or a doctor’s office.” “Mhm,” agreed the lady. “And every center has costumes you can try on to get into character.” The buzzing had progressed to a kind of inside out itching, but my emotions had stabilized. “Pretend Play Preserve.” I said, things finally clicking. I found myself nodding. “I get it.” “You’re going to have a lot of fun,” the ticket lady promised. To Janet she bragged, “A lot of our repeat customers like to come already dressed up in more Grown-Up looking clothes. That way they can pretend like they’re clocking in and out of work. It’s so cute!” Janet was riding the high of her own pretend game called ‘Mommy’. “Yeah. A friend mentioned that part to me.” She turned her head, kissed me on mine, and giggled. “This is gonna be so cool!” That girl at the crosswalk and the others I’d spotted made so much more sense. As did Janet packing my ‘teacher costume’. Same for the signs. Yet the relief of knowing dissipated with a dull aching pressure right behind my right eyeball. “Everything seems to be in order,” the lady said. “That’ll be eighteen dollars even. Sixteen if you have any sort of I.D. proving you’re a teacher.” “I’ll get in on that,” Janet said, digging around and getting out her faculty I.D. along with her credit card. “Everything seems to be in order,” the ticket taker said, sliding Janet her things back as well as two paper armbands and a folded pamphlet. She took a deep breath and rattled off, “Here’s your wristbands and a map. First floor has scale models for everyday jobs and professions. Second floor has houses and homes from around the world and different cultures. Third has fun Science exhibits and fourth has just good old fashioned pretend play like cowboys and just some more silly stuff like ball pits and trampolines.There are costuming stations and dressing rooms nearby the exhibits themselves, and there are bathrooms, changing stations, and nursing stations on every floor at the North and South ends. The dressing rooms are for Littles only, but of course you can help them get dressed and undressed. They are there for your convenience and privacy, but they are not required as diapers stay on. Please do not confuse the purpose of the dressing rooms with the changing stations, especially if you’re going to leave your Little’s dirty diaper behind.” Janet laughed into the palm of her hand. “Tell me that hasn’t happened before.” “I wish I could, ma’am.” Janet clicked her tongue and set me back down on the floor. She needed both hands to peel the adhesive strip off of the first paper bracelet and place it on my wrist. “How’s that? Not too tight, right?” I experimentally tried to peel it off. It might as well have been a diaper tape. “It fits” She put her own on and fiddled with it a second. “Gonna have to break out the scissors when we get back,” she mumbled. The ticket lady wasn’t done with us, it seemed. “Because it’s your first time visiting us, I also included a coupon for Fun-derwear.” “Fun-derwear?” Janet and I said together. Did I even want to know? “The first thing you’re going to see when you go through the main doors there,” the ticket lady pointed to our left, “is the gift shop. Our most popular item is a special kind of diaper. They’re made to look more like regular underwear and come in several convincing styles, including boxers. They crinkle and swell up less than regular diapers, and have excellent odor control. They can be pulled up or down, or taped on like a regular diaper if your Little one doesn’t want to put them on standing up or if it would make it easier for a change.” Janet nervously bit her lip. “Is there some kind of toilet exhibit or something?” “No, just some Littles get a kick out of the extra bit of costuming. It makes it easier to pretend that they’re Grown-Ups when even their diapers are part of the costume. It’s fun-derwear. Underwear, but fun.” “Typical.” I hadn’t realized I’d said it out loud until it came out of my mouth. Neither Amazon reacted. Janet just awkwardly took me by hand and walked me over to the frosted glass door entrance. “Ready to have some fun, Clark?” I couldn’t figure out why- more like I wasn’t willing to admit to myself- but I felt my throat starting to tighten. “I guess so…” “Awesome! You’re going to love it.” Neither of us had any idea just how wrong and how right she was with that prediction.

Chapter 127: Like Hair The Saturday after Janet’s folks got on a plane and out of our hair I sat in a barber chair at L’Enfant Magnifique getting my own done. The top of my head peaked up above the leather backed chair only with the aid of a booster seat. The crinkling under my bottom was mirrored by the crinkling on top of my head; one from my diaper’s plastic backing and the other was from the tons of tinfoil that had been plastered on my head. Janet had finally found the time and followed through on getting me a haircut. Good thing too. My hair was getting so tangled and heavy that a more paranoid version of myself might worry that Janet wanted a baby girl after all and was playing the long game. No pigtails and ribbons for me! The tinfoil was to help with my hair bleaching and recoloring. My precious gray hairs had started to re-emerge at the roots and the dye was starting to fade into a less natural seeming color, and we couldn’t have that, now could we? “Welcome back, lil’ carrot top,” the boney old beldam that reeked of cigarette smoke greeted me. But it was to Janet she asked, “What’ll it be?” Typical. “Dye and a trim,” Janet had told them. “Don’t make it too short. I still want to be able to comb his hair and have people tell, but keep it from getting into his face or tickling his ears too much.” So I sat there, staring straight in the mirror while giant hands painted my hair, and I contemplated what my next move would be in the coming days, weeks, or dare I even think it…months. I’d already written an entire essay on what my life used to be like pre-Adoption. It was the kind of thing that any non-captured Little would likely nod their head and give them anxiety just knowing what likely came next. I’d hesitated on sending it because I wasn’t certain that it would drum up the appropriate response. When I’d been in the habit of doom scrolling in with Cassie, I’d read plenty of ‘sucks to be you’ replies and had quietly nodded in agreement while shaking it in complacency. This poor person really was fucked but there was no way I was going to lift a finger to help them. Considering about eighty percent never had a follow up post or got deleted weeks after, I could only assume that their Mommies and Daddies found the post or that original poster was no longer in a situation where they could reply, be it physically or mentally. I needed something that spurred people to action and inspired them to take a chance on me. Considering my opportunities for extraction, there was no small amount of risk involved. Get caught breaking a Little out of their babyhood and you were likely to end up in the carseat next to them. I didn’t want another classmate at Oakshire or another person to play with and vent to at Little Voices. If the act was considered heinous enough, they might get sent to New Beginnings as a matter of ‘safety’. Maybe if I told prospective readers about Beouf; explained my old process and how I navigated the minefield, they’d see the in and be able to figure something out with me. My way was really only dangerous if you trusted the wrong people and exposed yourself to them over the long term. That, or I’d seem like even more of a Helper and disqualify myself from rescue in the court of public opinion. Or if anyone saw my increasingly large manifesto, would they realize who was posting it and cut off my escape by informing Janet, Beouf or any of the other benevolent dictators that controlled my life. Decisions, decisions. Speaking of decisions, ol’ smokey’s cohort, the not-quite pleasantly plump woman, took a break from gabbing on the telephone Janet to squint at me and pinch my cheeks. “Oh yeah,” she said “Do you want us to give him freckles, ma’am? His skin’s more than healed enough from the hair removal.” Oh yeah. The last time I’d been in this chair, it had been a technicality that had kept me from being even more dolled up. Janet looked up from her phone, she herself roused into a dreamlike state. “Up to him,” she said. “It’s his face.” The chair and my world spun around so that I was staring up at the crone. “So how about it, sugar booger?” the old giantess rasped. “Do you wanna get some cutie spots today? It’ll make your Mommy happy and it won’t hurt.” Her breath reeked of tobacco and denture cream. She was Brollish if her smile was less plastered on and had more of a twang in her voice. “It’ll make me happy if it makes him happy,” Janet carefully butted in. “Right,” the flesh sculptor agreed. “So will it make you happy? Wanna try it?” I tilted my head in consideration, but not for the offer being made. What I was actually thinking of was whether or not Brollish should take up smoking. She’d smell worse and it would rot her teeth, but it might improve her disposition and give her a personality beyond the drive to make my school something besides a hollow sterile dystopia. I’d heard somewhere that nicotine caused a loss of appetite so all the downsides might be worth it if it curbed her desire for the souls of the innocent. A giggle at my own absurd thought escaped me but I clamped down on it. I slowly shook my head, oddly confident. “No thank you,” I said. “But thank you for asking.” “Awwwwww!” the skeleton squealed and clapped her hands. “He’s so polite! Such a darling!” “Yeah,” Janet agreed. “He’s going through a phase.” My face flushed hot. “Mommy!” I protested the teasing. “That’s not fair!” “Well, here’s hoping he doesn’t grow out of it,” the hairdresser agreed and I was spun back around. “When you get one of the good ones, you do what you can to keep ‘em that way.” Janet’s face flushed to match mine, but her expression was more subdued. “I’d keep him even if he was the naughtiest Little boy in the world.” “Unconditional love. Now that’s a good Mommy,” her pudgy companion called over from behind the counter. “Not like some people.” If I’d had any money to my name I’d have bet it all that despite their praises and talk of unconditional love they’d have turned my skin to plastic if the money was good enough. I zoned out again and let the time and process go by, not thinking anything in particular. My hair was rinsed and re-colored. Then clipped. Then, to my mild surprise, re-clipped. “Shorter please,” Janet instructed them. “I don’t want it to curl too soon.” She remembered to ask, “right Clark?” “Right,” I parroted absentmindedly. I took a look in the mirror while my hair was finished and trimmed. My hair was wet and slick, almost like it was when I coated it in gel. I had no facial hair- would never have facial hair again- but there was no pacifier between my lips or freckles dotting my cheeks. The tarp-like apron engulfed me to the point where I might as well have been a mannequin head on a stand. It was the most adult I’d looked in months. “Want me to blow it?” “No,” Janet said. “Let it dry naturally.” “Then I think we’re all done.” And just like that, the illusion was whisked away along with the apron. I sat in my sailor suits, my diaper swollen beneath the pristine white shorts. My bladder was empty and I’d lost track of how many times I’d released it over the passing hours. Hadn’t even thought to count. Lion was in my lap. I’d been absentmindedly fiddling with his paws and posing him beneath the apron as a way to keep my hands busy and to stop myself from messing with my hair. I hadn’t crushed his ribs or mangled his limbs, or given him any traumatic brain injuries today, poor thing. “Perfect,” Janet beamed. Her eyes wandered down to my crotch. “Mind if we use your bathroom?” Boney fingers pointed to the single occupant bathroom right by the chairs. “Yes ma’am. Be our guest.” She took me into the bathroom, flipped two switches, and closed the door. The lights flickered on and a droning fan kicked into gear. Janet placed me on the changing table- an inferior version of the one we had at home, not a wall mounted one- and took my pants down for me. She folded them up and placed them out of the way before digging through the diaper bag and getting out the necessary supplies. I stared up at the ceiling, thinking about nothing in particular beyond how my scalp suddenly felt slightly itchy and significantly cooler. There was no unnerving need to crane my head and watch myself get changed. No need to agonize over every tiny detail and indignity. Been there. Done that. In fact, I almost wished this place had a ceiling mirror like Beouf’s so I could continue to study myself above the neck. I ran my hand through my hair, and marveled at the lack of lumps and tangles. So crisp and new, yet unfamiliar. Kind of like a new diaper, ironically enough. They always started out stiff and took a few minutes of moving around and breaking them in before it felt like I was fully wearing them. My hand brushed against the tiny bald spot near the back and my eye twitched. It was the kind of thing no one but me would notice or care about unless they were specifically directed to. I’d seen balder. Still didn’t make me feel better. I didn’t want to go full shaved like Chaz. Even with the loud low hum of the bathroom’s fan, the sound of diaper tapes being ripped off the landing zone was thunderous and unmistakable. I didn’t care. Had heard it too many times before to care who knew. Wipe in hand, Janet started singing again. “The wipes on the butt go swish, swish, swish-” “Mommy!” I groaned, pulling Lion up over my face to hide. “Cut it out!” I watched her smile through the fibers of Lion’s mane. “You’re no fun,” she smirked and continued to wipe me between my legs. “And you’re not being accurate,” I replied. My thighs remained spread eagle and my ankles were solidly planted on the cushioned changing mat. My butt was one of the last things she could wipe from this position. “Oh, so you want me to sing about wiping your penis?” she teased me. Lion moved away from my face and back towards my chest. I didn’t squeeze him harder than usual. “I did not say that!” “It’s cute,” Janet went on, “It doesn’t bother me.” She continued crossing my ankles and actually started wiping my butt. The woman still had a job to do, even if it was a largely self-appointed and unnecessary one. “Just didn’t think you’d want me singing about it.” It’s a good thing the wipes were so cold. “I just don’t see why you’ve got to sing about it,” I complained. Then thought to add. “Neither does Lion.” Janet kept wiping me. “You don’t want to do lap bounces. You don’t want to do highchair games. You don’t like diaper changing songs.” Her lips were drawn into a thin, satisfied smile. “What else am I supposed to do with all the stuff we’re learning at Little Voices?” “File it away and use it on an actual baby,” I suggested despite knowing the futility of the effort. My Mommy balled up the used diaper and tossed it in the garbage. “You’re still my baby!” she bantered on sliding the fresh one beneath me and reached for the baby powder. “And I think Lion agrees with me too.” Damnit, he kind of did. “I’m thirty-two!” I whined as the cloud of powder cascaded down onto my upturned backside. “I’m older than you.” “That doesn’t change anything,” she chirped. “No matter how old you get ,you’ll always be my baby.” I shook from more than just the dry chill of the powder. The thick padding came up over me before anything more embarrassing happened. “Yeah, yeah,” I huffed. “Just get my pants back on.” She took my shorts and unfolded them. “Oops!” she said, the first bit of actual stress coming to her. Still on the table I cocked an eyebrow. “What’s up?” “The backs of these are kind of wet.” She held them up to the light and I saw the barest crescent moon outlines along the legs. “I think you might’ve leaked. I’m sorry, baby.” I felt…nothing, actually. “It’s alright.” I’d had blowouts in a crowded restaurant and had stood in front of former students in wet pants. This was nothing in comparison. “We’re going right back to the car and home, right? “Right,” Janet said. “I’m gonna have to make sure to change you before errands instead of after from now on,” She wadded up my wet pants back inside the diaper bag and picked me and Lion up on her hip again. “Too many leaks and close calls otherwise. Remind me next time, okay?” A sly grin tugged at the corners of my mouth. “Do I get to do it and embarrass you? Make you look neglectful?” I asked. She had the grace to roll her eyes and concede the minorest of defeats. “Sure if you want.” Her own tigress grin flashed. “You’ll be talking about how you need me to take care of you.” “Not what I said…” “But that’s what it’ll mean….” I threw my head back and stared at the unforgiving ceiling.“Why me?” I groaned. “Because you’re a cutie.” Damn. I didn’t know what to say to that, so I shut up. We exited the bathroom, me sans pants and not even close to red faced about it. Janet carried me up to the counter and paid an exorbitant amount for a so-called child to get their hair cut. “Thank you very much,” the stouter Amazon said once the card cleared. “We hope to see you again.” “I’m sure you will,” Janet said. “Oh, I almost forgot, Clark leaked into his pants, I thought you might want to know.” Ol’ Smoke an’ bones didn’t seem bothered. “Don’t worry about it. Comes with the territory. We wipe down the chairs and boosters after every visit no matter what.” “Okay, thanks.” Janet blushed. I didn’t. We exited the tacky painted building, me on her hip and dressed like a toddler. I could have walked around like this and the outfit would have seemed normal and complete. I barely noticed. “I bet that feels so much better.” Janet chirped. She opened the back door and slid me into the baby seat. “It was a diaper change, Janet,” I droned. “They happen all the time.” Janets’ eyes flickered. The verbal acceptance of my diaper rammed up against me using her real name now that we were out of public earshot. “No, not that,” she said. “I meant the haircut, silly.” I caught my reflection in the mirror. If I ignored the sailor top and didn’t take the time to bemoan that I’d never have a hint of stubble on my chin, I looked more like ‘Mr. Gibson’ than ‘Clark’ in a long, long time. It had been forever since I’d seen him, and when he realized I was watching he tossed Lion off to the side so as not to be seen with him. “Yeah,” I admitted. “Looks good.” I hoped I looked like this when I finally got around to getting away from all this. “Yeah,” Janet agreed. “No more brushing hair out of your face or fidgeting with it to keep it off your ears. I bet it’ll be easier to sleep, too.” The restraints clicked into place and I shot Janet a curious look. “What are you talking about?” She bathed me and fed me, and shoved quasi-toothpaste foam into my mouth. Unless my mop was getting particularly atrocious she rarely took a brush or a comb to it. “I just thought your hair was bothering you,” Janet explained. “You kept pushing it out of your eyes, and tugging at it, and messing with it to keep it out of your ears.” My face twisted in confusion. “I did?” Now it was my Mommy’s turn to look confused. “Yeah, you did.” “When?” “All the time.” Was she gaslighting me? No way. Couldn’t be. Amazons like Janet gaslit themselves more than anything. They didn’t need to gaslight Littles. I quickly pantomimed brushing my hair out of my eyes, off of my forehead, and back behind my ears. I raked my fingers across my scalp and came up short; my fingers practically expecting the pullback from knots of unruly curls and being disappointed when it didn’t happen. “Oh wow…” “Yeah,” Janet agreed. “Don’t feel bad. That’s just how hair is. It kind of creeps up on you so you don’t notice it.” She closed the door and circled around to the driver’s seat. I stared long and hard at the rear-view mirror, doubling back inside myself. Maturosis regression, getting mind-fucked, going full-native; whatever you wanted to call it, it was a lot like hair. It was slow and subtle. It crept up on you. You see it every day, and every day it’s a little longer, curlier, and more tangled. You adapt and adopt behaviors to compensate, brush it off and function and get through the day. It happens so slowly that you don’t notice it, and no one says anything about it. You brush it out of the way and play with it in nervous ticks. You stop being embarrassed by it or angry about it and find ways to live with it while it slowly grows and overtakes you. It goes on and on and on until before you know it, you look in the mirror or at an old picture of yourself and you don’t even see the person who used to be there. You’ve spent so long looking one way that the old way seems like a different person. And getting it cut can be such a hassle that you never make the time to do it so it just slides on by out of control. There’s so many more immediate things to get taken care of that you forget until you’ve gotten kind of used to it. Damn I looked so mature back then; so adult. So Grown-Up. I really hoped that I wasn’t going to have to potty train all over again when I finally escaped. I was going to escape, right? My chin felt very cold. My mood plummeted. “You okay, Clark?” Janet jolted me out of reflection. “You pooping or something?” We’d been driving for several minutes by then. My nose wrinkled in disgust and embarrassment. “Pooping?” “Yeah,” she replied as if talking about my bowel movements were the most normal and natural thing in the world. “You looked like you were pooping.” My cheeks flushed hot. “What are you talking about?” “You sometimes make a face when you’re making a big poop.” she said. “It looks like you’re concentrating real hard and daydreaming at the same time.” I looked every which way but between my legs. “I do?” “Yeah. I’ve seen it a couple times,” Janet laughed. “So has Mrs. B. She says you tend to get it when you’re in the reading nook at centers” That part of Beouf’s classroom didn’t offer as much privacy as I’d assumed. “Eww ew ew ew ew!” Janet giggled. “Sorry,” she said. “If it makes you feel any better, I think most people do it. You can watch me in the potty next time and see for yourself.” I bemoaned tossing Lion so far out of my reach right then. “I think I just want a nap when we get home,” I said. “So soon?” Janet frowned. I wasn’t supposed to be here. “Yeah. I’m tired.” I was supposed to have gotten out by now. “Are you feeling sick?” Janet asked. If she could have she would have stretched her arm to feel my forehead. “I don’t think so,” I said. “Just tired. I think I’m still recovering from Nana and Pop Pop.” “Yeah,” she softly agreed. “They mean well, but they’re a lot.” “Yeah.” I just wanted to feel sorry for myself, turn my brain off, and not have to think about the never ending list I’d made for myself, or the possibility that it would never be done with more and more just piling on. I just wanted to rest. Didn’t even care if unconsciousness meant I’d go to sleep dry and wake up soggy. Unconsciousness was still an escape. Increasingly it felt like it was my only escape. Coffee with Beouf didn’t help. Playtime with Amy didn’t help. Writing a stupid manifesto didn’t help. A new haircut sure didn’t help. Everything was a battle and the only victories were Little ones. Inconsequential ones that no one but me would feel good about or notice. I could revel in them and take satisfaction, but those were no more than brief reprieves before I went back to being on edge and miserable. Neither a grown man or a baby boy should have to feel this way. “For a week off of school,” Janet offered to my silence, “this hasn’t been particularly restful.” “Yup,” I sighed. “Wanna do something fun tomorrow?” Janet asked. “Before we have to go back into the grind?” “Like what?” “There’s this place in Elizabeton. It’s made specifically for Littles. Amy’s Mommy told me about it. She swears by it.” Another place made specifically for Littles. That buzzing static in my brain, the same that was in the background every afternoon at Beouf’s playground. “Will Amy be there?” “I haven’t invited her,” Janet said. “If you want me to invite her for a playdate, we can.” “No, that’s okay.” I said. “I was just curious. Wanted to know if you’d already made plans.” “Not without telling you.” That made me smile. She really was trying. “I’ll go if you wanna go,” I conceded. “I wanna go,” Janet said. “Hopefully it’ll be fun.” She quickly added. “And if it’s not, we can leave right away.” “What is it?” I asked. “I can’t remember the exact name of it,” Janet said. “It’s something like P.P.P., or Triple P, or something. I’ll need to check the name. It’s a bunch of interactive stuff. Kind of like a children’s museum but only for Littles. No Amazon or Tweener kids allowed.” That should have made me feel better; no Amazon brats asking embarrassing questions or talking over me. No chance of Tweener kids being threatened with diapers lest they straighten up and fly right. The thought only made the buzzing louder. I could feel it in the back of my eyeballs. “No hypnosis?” I asked. “No hypnosis. Promise.” “Alright,” I grumbled. “Wanna do some yoga after you nap?” “Yeah.” I said. “Will you do it with me?” “I’ll just watch,” Janet said. She let out a sudden loud yawn. “I’ll take a nap with you if you want.” “In the crib?” I joked. “No, silly. In my bed.” “Okay. Just checking.” I paused. “Tonight?” “As in you want to sleep next to me tonight, too?” “Yes please.” “It’s not a school night, so I don’t see why not.” She sucked on her lips for a moment. “Do you want something to help you sleep? Something to drink, maybe?” I shouldn’t. Feeding my addiction, psychological or otherwise, would only make it harder in the long run. “Yes, please.” Our mutual tension and relief see-sawed. “Okay,” she said. “Good. That means that I don’t have to pump right away.” “I guess not,” I blushed. How long before that stopped being mortifying and I was grabbing at her chest in public the same way Amy did with Helena? How long before I was loudly shouting it loudly and proudly in front of company, like Ivy? Fuck me I didn’t care. “Okay, so home.” Janet said. “Then I’ll feed you, and we’ll take a nap. Then yoga and lunch. And we’ll just take it easy for the rest of the day.” “Yeah,” I said. “That sounds good.”

I have some questions. Message me here?

Nope! That was "Wishes Do Come True" @bbykimmy But I love putting references from other stories that have inspired me into Unfair. I wanna say this was one that really influenced me by portraying Amazons acting the way they do because of misplaced empathy, social conditioning, and perhaps a hint of instinct. And I KNOW I picked up on her idea that littles like sweets and bigs like spicy. (A beat present in her non-DD works, as well.) P.S. Not saying our universes or continuities are connected, but hopefully there's nothing wrong with a little wink at the fourth wall.

Chapter 126: Family Planning I didn’t blink for close to twenty-four hours after breastfeeding from Janet; probably longer. At any given moment, my eyes were closed shut as I tried to hide from my own conscience and consciousness, or open and staring into some invisible middle distance whilst I relived that terrible ecstasy and berated myself for it. Helen Foster, my Nana, had hit the nail right on the head. I’d fallen in love. Somehow, somewhen, I’d gone and fallen in love with my captor. I’d gone Full Native in a way that Ivy couldn’t possibly conceive. How had I been so stupid? It was so obvious looking back. That’s why I started taking risks like Silly Sock Day. That’s why I couldn’t tell her that I hated her no matter how angry I was. That’s why I constantly thought of her as ‘Janet’ and not ‘Grange’. And yes, that’s why I unloaded with both barrels into a certain horse faced douche. All it took was the most primal, sensual, and intimate experience of my life for me to admit to myself. I was a traitor to myself and everything I thought I stood for and no amount of justification or lies I told myself would help me pretend otherwise. I’d done the worst thing I could possibly conceive of. I let myself feel something beyond hot contempt or cold manipulative calculation for an Amazon and it was goddamn mother fucking love! Cassie forgive me, I never meant to. How would I ever explain this to her if we were ever reunited? How could I find her or get my old life back without hurting Janet? I didn’t know, and for once I didn’t have the confidence that I’d find a way. The only thing I could do to stop from completely hating myself was to kick the can further down the line and to keep as much to myself as possible. Janet could never know. If she did; if I told her…I didn’t know what would happen but I knew it wouldn’t be good. To combat this, a pacifier stayed in my mouth as much as I could get away with it, just so I wouldn’t have to talk. Just so that I wouldn’t have my mouth open for any other nipples. I tried sucking on it, fidgeting with my lips or twiddling the bulb with my tongue, but quickly stopped. The measure of disappointment and then disgust at myself made me retreat deeper and deeper into silence. Janet’s parents were more than happy to talk over my head and settle for simple non-verbal communication on my part. Helen knew the score and considered it natural in the way a kindergartener might have a crush on a pretty teacher. In her mind, there was really nothing to talk about where my feelings were concerned. “This has just been marvelous, Janet. You and Clark have been amazing hosts.” Janet was completely enthralled by her parents’ approval. “Thanks, Mom.” Her mother continued to gush. “I always miss you, honey, but I didn’t realize just how much until just now.” “Just like old times, Pookie,” her dad chimed in. “Just like old times.” “In the best way,” her mom agreed. “It’s just a shame our trip is so short. We really should have taken more time off.” “Yeah, those bas-...” Bill eyeballed me and self-corrected, “I mean those jerks at the office want me back on Saturday.” He shook his head to himself. “Gosh I can’t wait to retire. Especially if it means I get to spend some more time goofin’ around with ol’ Clarky boy, here.” “Would you like that?” Janet’s Mom asked me. “Would you like your Nana and Pop Pop to visit you more often?” I startled myself as if asleep and nodded my head, only processing the question after the fact. My response earned me what felt like that ninety-eighth kiss on the forehead. The pacifier’s shield was big enough so that it was impossible to tell what way the corners of my mouth were pointed. Little victories, am I right? Janet swayed with me on her hip. No more bouncing and bumping, no more externalizing of nervous energy. There was none to externalize. She was completely in her happy place and became a boat rocking on the gentlest of oceans. “You two gotta come visit us for the summer, Pookie,” Janet’s father said for what was sure to be the dozenth time. “Don’t worry, Dad. You’ll get your ballgame with the grandbaby.” “Along with the diaper bag,” my new Nana smirked at her husband. “Just you agreeing to that feels like a miracle.” “Why wait till summer?” Pop Pop asked. “Don’t you teachers and kids get time off before then? Isn’t Spring Break still a thing?” Without realizing it I made a noise. Spring Break? Spring Break brought back all sorts of unpleasantly pleasant memories. Memories of Littles on stilts in trenchcoats and too much booze. And my wife. “You okay Clark?” Janet asked. Without thinking I nodded, but it didn’t get the attention fully off of me. “Maybe he’s hungry?” Helen suggested. “Or needs a change?” “I don’t think so,” Janet replied, checking me anyway. I didn’t so much as flinch or roll my eyes. “Not too wet and that doesn’t look like his hungry or poopy face.” My slow head shake corroborated her diagnosis. I was neither hungry, nor poopy. At the suggestion, I felt a not so strange feeling back in my throat; an itch for something sweet, warm and creamy and with no coffee in sight. I wasn’t hungry. I could eat, though. Really, I was just hoping for an excuse. Shame kept me from asking. “Anyway, Dad,” Janet said. “Spring Break could be doable, but then we’d have to take a raincheck for the summer. Travel is kind of expensive on a teacher’s salary.” Her parents gave a look to one another. Her mom nodded and her dad started digging something out of his pocket. “Maybe we could visit you more often,” her mother offered. “You could show us around town next time. Take us on a tour.” “Yeah,” Janet said. “I think we’d like that. Right, Clark?” Another nod from me. Cue forehead kiss ninety-nine. “About that salary thing,” her father said. “Your mother and I’ve been thinking.” He pulled a plain white envelope out of his baggy cargo shorts. “We figure we could help you out with that.” Janet let out a quiet gasp. “Oh, no. You guys don’t have to do that.” She reached out and accepted the envelope anyway. “We know, dear,” Janet’s mother assured her. “This is something we want. It’s not a criticism. It’s not an obligation.” Janet held me steady with one hand and the envelope to the other. “But you’ve already gotten Clark-” “Let us spoil both of you.” her father interrupted. “It’s not much, but why wait till we’re dead to give you something nice?” Still, Janet resisted. Her pride was wrestling against her humility. No one gets into teaching thinking they’re going to be rich, but it’s hard to turn down free money. That it was a gift from her parents, people with a bad habit of seeing her as a child despite all evidence to the contrary likely felt like an admission of defeat on her part. I could relate. “You already came here and helped with the feast,” Janet replied. “You already said it, Daddy, you’re not retired yet.” Her father shrugged matter of factly. “We’ve still got more money than you do, Pookie.” Her mother circled beside Janet and placed her hand on Janet’s shoulder opposite me.“Think of it like this,” she said. “If Clark were an Amazon child, we’d open a college fund and contribute to that every year. This is the same thing. A nest egg to take some pressure off.” “Diapers are expensive,” her dad shrugged again. “Spend this on that.” He flicked his wrist like he was swatting away a fly. “Or buy yourself something nice, or whatever. Whatever you want.” “Whatever I want?” The words came out of Janet as though hypnotized. She bit her lip. “I don’t know….” “Open it, dear.” Janet flipped open the unsealed envelope. Were I at the right angle, I would have been able to count all of her teeth. “Are you sure?” “Sure I’m sure.” Five-thousand bucks isn’t a lot in the big scheme of things. To a recently divorced teacher who had spontaneously Adopted a Little on pure impulse, however, it was close to two months’ salary. “Oh…oh wow! Mom! Dad! Thank you!” We were drawn in and sandwiched into an incredibly uncomfortable group hug; the most uncomfortable form of unification so far. “Think of it like Clark’s birthday present,” Nana said. Her brow furrowed. “When is his birthday, anyways?” she asked Janet. My hand hadn’t even begun to reach for the pacifier. “March twenty-eighth,” Janet answered confidently. Of course she knew. That would have been in my personnel file from work, along with the stuff that had been in my wallet. When she put her mind to something, she was dedicated. That was something that I…nevermind…. “Oh we definitely have to come back for that!” Nana beamed, wickedly. “How old is he going to be?” “He’ll be thirty-three,” Janet informed them. “Thirty-three going on two!” her mother jabbed my cheek with her index finger. “Am I right?” Janet made no effort to correct her mother. “Something like that. We’re still collecting data on his Developmental Plateau, but that’s where a lot of it is leveling out, give or take six months.” No outburst of rage came from me. Nor did she brace for one. Perfectly in sync, so it seemed. We both went back to lazily swaying in the living room. “Are we supposed to celebrate his birthday or his um…er…Adopting day?” Janet’s dad pondered. “Huh…” Janet grunted. “I’m not sure.” She finally remembered I was attached to her and asked, “What do you think, baby?” A question I couldn’t get out of with a simple yes or no. I let the pacifier drop and offered up, “Both?” That got a full and hearty belly laugh from all assembled. “He would say that, wouldn’t he? Good one, Clarky boy.” “That’s my Clark.” “That’s my grandbaby.” I went back to a feeling of defeated self-loathing despair and spent the rest of their visit blurred out. I don’t even remember if the above exchange happened early Thursday evening after my nap, or on Friday morning before we were piling up in Janet’s car to go back to the airport. It all bled together to me while I relived the wonderful yet shameful ecstasy I’d allowed myself to be subjected to. Janet drove to the airport. Her father and I teamed up staring out the window. Her mother gabbed the whole way, planning a birthday party that was still months away. “I was only half-kidding when I said ‘thirty-three going on two’,” she rambled. “One of my Facetome friends does it with her Little girl. Every year she throws a big party for her baby’s third birthday. Invites all of her Little friends. Makes a theme of it. Last year her daughter was Little Bo Peep, and all of her playmates got to be the sheep.” “What happens the next day?” Janet asked, eyes still on the road. She didn’t check the rear view for my reaction. Not that I reacted. “That’s the best part! Baby girl goes right back to being two!” I made no comment. I tilted my bottle back and drank my ‘goat’s milk’, drowning myself. My birthday. I was going to spend my next birthday in diapers. I was going to spend every birthday for the rest of my life in diapers. Suckling on Mommy’s titties when I was hungry. Playing with my classmates in the morning. Hanging out with Melony in the afternoons. Check-Ins with Amy on Thursday nights and playdates with her or Ivy on the weekends. Vacation time with Nana and Pop Pop over the summer. Was that really so bad? I’d be loved. I knew that. I’d be with someone I loved, too, even if it was a different kind of love. It was a baby’s life. I wasn’t one, but was that really so bad? Practically everyone else in my life had fooled themselves into thinking I was an infant. Why not me? It’s not like anything was ever going to go back to normal, right? Janet wasn’t going to take away the cabinet latches and socket plugs. The impossibly comfortable play mat in front of the television wasn’t going anywhere. I wasn’t going to get my tablet back. I wouldn’t be able to lie to myself and say that I hated my Mommy. No way to reach out and get help. No leads on Cassie. A half-baked plan to escape and a heart torn between two impossible goals. I wasn’t escaping. I just wasn’t. Come March, I’d have a birthday party with a big ‘2’ on the cake, and the next morning Janet would greet me as her super talkative one-year-old. If I was lucky, Nana and Pop Pop would spring for a bounce house, assuming I could hint to Mommy that it’s what I wanted. Except Amy couldn’t jump. We’d need to find some way to include her. Something that didn’t involve sticking non-food in her mouth. Maybe Zoge had some tips. She’d thrown Ivy dozens of toddler birthdays and Ivy seemed grateful. I’d have to invite Ivy, too, come to think of it. I should have been crying, or screaming, or sulking, I supposed. Instead I just felt depressed. Not even depressed, just supremely disappointed in myself. This is what the real defeat was. I’d been broken, and they didn’t need any subliminal messaging or discombobulating bells to do it. The car pulled into the airport parking garage. Janet’s folks got out and unloaded their bags. I was removed from the car seat and set down on my feet for one last goodbye. Janet’s mother took a knee, first. “Goodbye Clark!” Nana gushed at me. “It was nice to finally meet you.” “You too,” I smiled politely. I’d be seeing her, I supposed. “Who’s a good baby?” she asked, chirping. “I am.” My voice was tired and monotone, but not combative. “Yes you are!” She agreed. “Yes you are!” She gripped me tight enough to where if I hadn’t already been wearing a Monkeez I would have needed one. “Mmmmm…I just wish I could take you home with me and eat you all up!” I laughed out of a sense of bitter absurdity more than enjoyment. I never understood that particular idiom. Why was cannibalism cute when done to a small child? “Wait till summer, Mom,” Janet assured her. Pop Pop bent over and offered his fist. “Put ‘er there, Clarky boy.” I punched his fist as hard as I could and without hesitation. The results were expected. “Atta boy!” “Bill?! Again?!” Nana pinched nose and fanned the front of her face. Janet actually started coughing from the stench. “What, Helen?” The big man chortled. “It wasn’t me. It was the boy. You saw. He pushed my button.” “I ought to put you back in diapers!” Janet’s mother scolded him. Her husband picked up their bags. “As long as I’m not the one changing ‘em.” “I’M TELLING YOU!” A voice, both panicked and outraged, broke in. “I DON’T HAVE MATUROSIS!” A Little boy, naked save for the fresh diaper taped around his hips, was doing everything he could to break out of the grasp of his new Mommy. “Big boys don’t pee their pants, do they?” the Amazon clucked her tongue. “THE FLIGHT ATTENDANTS WOULDN”T LET ME GET UP OUT OF MY CHAIR TO GO TO THE BATHROOM!” he wailed. “AND YOU LITERALLY KEPT FORCING ME TO DRINK THOSE SODAS!” The giantess, so perfectly composed, seemed all the more reasonable by comparison. “I hear making excuses is a sign of Maturosis onset. If you were really ready to be an adult, you’d just admit you went pee-pee in your big boy pants all by yourself and move on.” “OKAY! YOU’RE RIGHT! I PEED MY PANTS! JUST LET ME GO!” “Why would I do that?” the Amazon asked rhetorically. “You’re obviously experiencing Maturosis. You need a Mommy to take care of you.” Even when his voice dropped down to a whisper, the acoustics of the garage let me hear every pathetic word. “But you said…” “Honey, you went pee-pee in your big boy pants. Big boys don’t pee their pants at all.” The Little renewed his screaming. “PLEASE! LET ME GO! MY FAMILY IS EXPECTING ME! MY FLIGHT GOT DELAYED AND I TOLD THEM-” A single finger to his lips was enough to silent them. “I’m the only family you need now, baby boy. What was your name again?” They walked by us. The latest local victim of Amazon cosseting and I made the briefest eye contact while he was looking over her his new Mommy’s shoulder. I broke off my gaze and saw my own warped reflection in the polish of Janet’s car. A baby stared back at me. He was barely two if that, with curly hair and a pacifier nervously shoved between his lips. He’d been dressed in a full body romper, and sneakers in case he got restless and needed to toddle around. The diaper bulge between his legs was evident, but an experienced caregiver could tell that he didn’t need to be changed just yet. Nothing about his stance indicated he was uncomfortable, so he was nowhere near ready for potty training. Probably still ate most of his meals in a high chair, assuming he wasn’t exclusively breastfeeding, (keyword ‘exclusively’). I didn’t even remember sticking the pacifier back in. The only thing I couldn’t make out in the blurred, warped reflection were the baby’s eyes. “HELLLLL-” The last cry was cut off by the slamming of a car door. Black Friday strikes again. Sorry, new kid. Tough break. At least she believes in Maturosis. If your Mommy lives close to Oakshire, maybe I’ll see you on Thursdays. “Bring back any memories?” Helen Foster asked her daughter. My own Mommy sighed wistfully out her nostrils. “Yeah. Kind of.” “If she’s half as good a Mommy as you, Pookie” William Foster said, “That’s a really lucky Little boy.” Janet bit her lip, nervously. “Yeah.” She bent over and picked me up. “I sure hope so.” The final round of hugs were exchanged, Bill and Helen Foster walked off to check in for their flight, and I was buckled back into my car seat.. “Hey,” Janet said. “Thank you.” I cocked an eyebrow. “For wha-?” I mumbled around the pacifier. “Being you.” Her smile lit up the backseat. “I’m really lucky to have you in my life.” I wanted to melt. “Nana and Pop Pop awe lucky ta haf you.” I deflected. She wobbled her head around as she considered my compliment. “Maybe,” she conceded. Out of milk to self medicate, I popped the pacifier back in on Janet’s way around to the driver’s seat. “I just want you to know,” she said, turning on the engine, “that I’m really proud of how you acted around them.” “Fankoo.” I closed my eyes, hoping to doze again. A nap away from my thoughts sounded so nice just then. Just me, my car seat, and the gentle lulling of a vehicle driving for miles on the freeway. No need to worry about waking up with a full bladder, either, so I had that going for me. It was a real ‘glass half full of burning hemlock’ situation. The car didn’t shift into gear. “I just want you to know that you don’t have to breastfeed any more if you don’t want to.” I opened my eyes, and swore under my breath. Great. Now I’d have to find a way to weasel my next fix out of her without seeming like I wanted it. It was my own white envelope with a check init. “Otay.” “I’m just glad that I got to experience it, once.” Every word was a needle. “Otay.” Please stop talking. “Did you like it?” I froze. “Sorry,” my Mommy blushed. The rosiness of her cheeks filled me with feelings best left unfelt in my situation. “I shouldn’t have asked that.” A beat. She leaned sideways and opened up the glove compartment in front of the passenger seat. “What I should ask is…do you want your tablet back?” Adrenaline and a different kind of hope kicked into full gear. “Really?” I leaned forward in my seat fast enough to almost give myself whiplash. For a fraction of a section I’d actually managed to forget the harness existed. “I said you’d get it back,” Janet grinned, amused by my childlike greed. “You were good, so you get it back.” She leaned back and placed the device in my hand. “Here you go. Fully charged and password unlocked.” She really was a good Mommy. I was shaking. Literally shaking. This changed. This changed everything! I had my window back, and with that window new possibilities were open. “Thank you!” I squeaked, suddenly on the brink of shedding happy tears. “Thank you, Mommy!” “You’re welcome, sweetie.” The look of smug satisfaction on Janet’s face was genuine. She was a Mommy who figured out a simple way to make her baby boy happy. All he wanted was his toy. The thing is, my own wide eyed and manic grin was just as genuine. Something to distract myself with. Something to do besides languish inside my own predicament. “Clark, do you mind turning that down?” Janet asked right before we hit the highway. I’d chosen the most obnoxious sounding game and had cranked the volume all the way up. “Can we have music?” I asked. “Something to listen to?” I visibly winced and tacked on. “Nothing too babyish, please.” I could only see her eyes in that rear view mirror but they smiled big enough for her entire face. She had me figured out, or so she thought. “Sure.” Brazenly, I pretended to play games on the tablet, eyeballing the main screen’s icons for signs of internet connectivity. Janet could see me, but not the screen, and she had no way to get behind me to see what I was really up to. In a way this was better than sneaking in my crib. It was my intent to get onto MistuhGwiffin then and there and start searching for some kind of escape route immediately before fate or feelings intervened. The music was just a diversion; something to distract from the distinctive lack of beeps and boops coming from my favorite new toy. This was the ultimate balls to the wall maneuver, here. Classic Clark. Yet, no matter how patient I was, there was no way to get onto the internet while we were driving. The tablet was an older model and couldn’t just switch on and off with any given data signal. I was tempted to use Emiliano’s password anyway, more out of a superstitious hope that it might just connect, but common sense tempered my ambition. No use in getting locked out and then having to answer why I left the kid approved screen to begin with. Actually playing those silly games just wasn’t satisfying, however. It felt like settling; like planning for a babyish birthday party months from now when there was still some spirit left in the tank. I needed something more. Some way to give myself another win; some way to feel like I was making steps and not just lying to myself during a positive mood swing. I opted for opening up a word processor document. There wasn’t an icon for it, but it was among the programs available if searched. If I couldn’t stuff my message in a bottle just yet, I could at least write it and make it a damn good one. I’d create myself a manifesto in advance, and then copy and paste it when the signal was coming in strong back at Janet’s house. I stared at the blank white screen and the digital keyboard, pondering on how best to start. MistuhGwiffin.web was littered with calls for aid and help. Some were traps set by Amazons who figured out just enough to be dangerous. A few were likely pleas for attention from dumb kids and trolls. Most were massive case of ‘Too Little Too Late’. Someone managing to get out one last gasp before their adulthood was dunked and the bubbles stopped coming up. This, however, would be my first words as an adult in a long long time. What would I say? How would I prove I was who I said I was? That I wasn’t a sellout? Or a troll? Or some mindfucked doll who’d gone full native? “Whatcha doin’?” Janet interrupted. “You got really still.” “Nothing,” I said. “Just thinking about what to play next.” “Do you need a change?” she asked. “I can pull over.” My eyes remained glued to the screen. My jaw remained set. “No, I don’t think so.” She snickered, albeit good naturedly, to herself. “Okay. Just checking.” Janet really thought she had me figured out, didn’t she? To a degree, she did, I’ll admit, but she had no idea of all the complexities I was dealing with. To her I was still a child in need of childish entertainment. Typical. It was sad that “typical” was such an apt descriptor for so many of the baby crazy giants; including the ones who’d been my friends. If the world was fair, the baseline state for an Amazon wouldn’t be a smug know-it-all with too much power and not enough empathy. But the world wasn’t fair, was it? It never was. That’s it! Inspiration struck and I began composing my own personalized cry for help, complete with introduction: The world isn’t fair. This was typically the first morbid thought that crept into my head every morning as the alarm buzzed me awake from whatever dreams I’d been having only moments before. The past six to eight hours had been rendered completely moot in a blur of unconsciousness, not counting a trip to the toilet around three A.M. or so… I hammered out every word, passionately finger pecking at the screen to make it as close to perfect as I could manage. Anyone who read this would see me for who I was. A Little in need of a second chance. My own personal motto reminded me of exactly how lopsided the world was so that I’d stay alert. Couldn’t get too cocky. Couldn’t get too comfortable. When the game’s not fair, you can’t afford to rest easy, and the game started every time I stepped out my front door. I remembered the mocking posts on the ‘losers’ section of the site. That attitude was extremely pervasive. I’d have to find a way to counter that. Show potential allies that I understood the score. Amazons are crazy; they’re almost determined to see Littles as babies that never grew up, at best, and their own personal dolls, at worst. But I thought that if you didn’t trigger their eccentricities, they’re otherwise very reasonable. Admittedly I rambled a bit here and there. It’s difficult to get a potential audience to feel like investing in you and helping you out in just a few words. I had to paint a picture. “I might just make it to being a silver fox, yet,” I’d think to myself. “Still having fun, buddy?” Janet interrupted my train of thought. I looked up from the tablet. “Hm? Yes, ma’am.” “Okay. We’re almost home.” I scoffed in surprise. “Already?” Sure enough, the exit to Oakshire was coming up fast. Where had the time gone? “Yuuup,” Janet grinned. “You can still play when we get home if you want.” “I’ll be fine,” I said, eyes still glued to my composition. Had to wrap it up for now. Needed to save and exit so Janet didn’t see it. Would edit and post later. One last re-read while inspiration was still hot. Holy shit! I’d started with a babbling shot-for-shot recreation of my life before Adoption, and hadn’t even gotten to my name. Hastily I added: Oh yikes. I almost forgot. Forgive my manners. Hi. I’m Clark. I’d come up with a pseudonym later. Something close enough to ‘Clark Gibson’ so that I could hint at the truth without the wrong person reading this thing and knowing who was writing it? From the front seat, Janet bounced up and down and turned up the volume on the radio. “Oh! I love this song!” It was an old, dumb, not quite country not quite pop number, long past its prime. Something meant for our parents when they were young. Janet grooved to it and sang along like it was an all time classic. “My baby takes the morning train, he works from nine to five, and then…” I stopped what I was doing and just listened to that beautiful, deep, yet feminine voice. I would have needed an entire hive worth a beeswax to do anything else. It was the milk. I was chemically bonded to her. Nothing but addiction. Addiction and perhaps some kind of nostalgia for something that never was. For the first time I felt the full brunt. of that particular lie as I thought it to myself. I really did love her. I just loved being an adult more. I hit save, titled it “Grocery List” and made sure to be feverishly playing Veggie Samurai before we pulled into the driveway. But first I wrote: My last name? It’s complicated.

Yup! I drew upon memories of when my child was nursing. Specifically how freaked out my wife was at first. And yeah about Helen. Very Yeesh.

Chapter 125: Unification I did not sleep. Couldn’t. My eyes wouldn’t close. Not sure I blinked. I sat up with my back against the crib rail, my eyes trained on the nursery door. I was a cat at the pound, waiting for someone to come to put me down for good. My heart wouldn’t slow down. My thoughts wouldn’t stop spinning, doing laps around my fucking skull. And those words, those stupid fucking words, kept reverberating right behind my eyeballs. “I see how you look at her, dear,” Janet’s mom had cooed down at me while she changed my diaper. “You’re not the first Little who fell in love with a Grown-Up and got Adopted instead. You won’t be the last.” So much wistfulness in the tone; like she was talking to a babbling toddler. So much cruelty in the words; like she was mocking an up jumped upstart who hadn’t yet learned his place. No. Worse. Closer to a protective parent giving a warning to a serious suitor. Break my daughter’s heart and I’ll break your spine. Or was it more like an experienced caregiver, letting the troublemaker kid know that she was onto them and only so much nonsense would be tolerated? None of them? Some? All of the above? I didn’t know. “Probably not what you were fantasizing about when you two met…” That one in particular echoed more than others. “…but you’re still one of us.” If I could have spit at her and not have the loogie land smack dab on my forehead, I would have. I should have. I might have. I just didn’t think of it until it was too late. “You’re family, baby boy. Your Mommy loves you more than you’ll ever know. Nana and Pop Pop love you, too.” Only a few simple words, lovely spat in my face with a smile in the dark. So much to unpack. And the more I did, the deeper into myself I kept digging. I clutched Lion to my chest, in turn destroying his cottony innards and then pulling him back so I could look him in the eye. My lips didn’t move, (nor did his of course) but I kept talking to him; talking to a part of myself. Not expecting an answer, but needing to cling to a liferaft to keep from drowning in a sea of emotions and dissonance. Love? Love? Where did that old bitch get off? I didn’t love Janet. I just didn’t. Not like that. Every parent wants their child to feel loved and desirable on some level, but Helen Foster was barking up the wrong tree and powdering the wrong ass. Janet was just a friend. Like Beouf. Like Tracy. Correction: She had been just a friend. A relatively recently acquired work buddy before everything came tumbling down the hill. Then she went insane and became my Mommy; a word that means ‘God’ to Amazons and ‘Monster’ to Littles. Even if I wasn’t constantly simmering, I still hated Janet and on some level I’d always resent her for what she’d done to me. Stupid, typical, Amazon bitch. Every positive interaction I had with her was either a carefully calculated move to get something I wanted out of her, or a lapse in judgment due to sheer attrition. Nothing more, nothing less. I glowered down at lion, scowling like it was his fault. All that trust. All that emotional investment, ruined because she just had to have herself a Little and get to satisfy some kind of deeply seeded savior complex of hers. Months of friendship flushed down a toilet in the name of preventing me access to one ever again. Fucking sick. Beouf made some kind of sense. Maturosis was practically her religion. I could call her a nutter, but I couldn’t call her a hypocrite. Perhaps that’s why I’d finally forgiven her. I’d had ten years to know what I was getting into with her. You play with the lion like it’s a kitten, you don’t get mad at the big dumb brute when it finally bites you. But Janet? I’d genuinely stepped out of my comfort zone for her. I came to her classroom on my goddamn lunch break to teach her brats fractions. I’d graded papers for her. I’d let her make costume clothes for me. I’d walked across campus BY MYSELF to see her. I hadn’t done any of that with Beouf and Melony Beouf was my best friend; close to a surrogate aunt or an older sister. Goddamn it, Grange. Why couldn’t you have been one of the good ones? I felt my face twist itself into knots and my brain sour at the thought. Calling her ‘Grange’ still didn’t feel right to me. Was it because she’d slapped that name onto me, too? No. That wasn’t it. The moment she’d told me to call her ‘Janet’, I’d internalized it for some reason. Meanwhile, I still mostly thought of Beouf as ‘Beouf’. Was it love? No. Not at all. I still thought of Tracy as ‘Tracy’, and I didn’t love her. Okay, I loved her, but not like that. Not like how Foster insisted I loved her daughter. Tracy was ‘Tracy’ because she’d never told me her last name, and I could still barely pronounce it. Limpy…Limp-pia…just thinking about it made me fucking Mayztepic for ‘windshield wipers’, or whatever. Janet was still ‘Janet’ because…because… It just sounded better than Grange, I guess. That’s all. If Janet had taken her maiden name back after the divorce, I’d probably be thinking of her as ‘Foster’, most likely. ‘Janet Foster’. No, that didn’t sound right in my brain either. I’d hated Raine Forrest more than I hated most giants- third to only Brollish and Ambrose- but had no cognitive dissonance about calling her ‘Raine’ inside the ol’ bone cockpit. My so-called Nana was just crazy. Part of an older generation that didn’t need the lie of Maturosis to justify knocking perfectly capable Littles back down below pre-school. To her generation, Littles just belonged in cribs and cots and no other explanation was really necessary. She’d known and interacted with me for all of eight hours, tops, and decided that to justify my treatment through victim blaming, just like they all did. Oh, he must have wanted to be babied, deep down. You know how those Littles are. They get a crush on a real adult and start following them around like puppy dogs, thinking they’re in love. They think they want careers, spouses, adult friends, and children, but they’re just going through the motions. Just playing house, really. They’re not cut out for that kind of complexity, they just need someone to take care of them and don’t know it. No better than the assholes on certain MistuhGwiffin threads. The loser didn’t play it smart. He let his guard down. DTA: Don’t Trust Amazons. He must have done something to get that kind of attention. What was he doing around them, anyway? Fucker got what he deserved. Might as well be dead. Mourn and move on if you knew ‘em. Laugh and learn if you didn’t. Don’t weep for the stupid or else you’ll be crying all day. Littles like this give us all a bad name. Typical. I stared at the baby monitor for what felt like forever. I wanted to call out to Janet, to summon her, and tell her exactly what her mother had said to me. That’d get a blush out of her, make her stomach turn inside out. She’d be so embarrassed at how cringe and out of touch her old lady was. Or would she? What if Janet didn’t say ‘Oh gosh, please Clark, don’t make a scene about it. My mother is old fashioned. I just want to have a nice Unification.’? What if instead she said, ‘Yeah. I know’? How would I even handle that? How would I feel? I didn’t know. Why the fuck didn’t I know? “You doing okay there, Clarky boy?” I roused myself up from the playmat while two sub-par football teams tackled each other on the television. I hadn’t been sleeping, per se, but I’d gotten caught up in a kind of waking dream. “Hm?” I said over my pacifier. “Yeah, Foff Foff. I’ fi’e.” Truthfully, any time I wasn’t directly engaged with another person, I had about thirty seconds before I started reliving that awful speech and talking to myself about just how fucked up everything was all over again. Janet and her mother, meanwhile, were working overtime in the kitchen, creating a traditional Unification meal consisting of a roasted bird twice the size of myself and enough heavy carbs and vegetables to knock out an elephant. One of them would pop out of the kitchen every couple of half hour or so to inform us how each course was coming along. “Casserole’s almost done.” “Stuffing is in the pot.” “Got the salad tossed. Extra dressing.” Not even an approving grunt was required from either of Janet’s dad or myself. The satisfaction came from the telling, not from our participation in listening. In the present reality going on outside of my head, I’d been changed yet again, and an old man’s oversized football jersey had been exchanged for ascaled down version designed for small children and people reduced to small child status. Chances are, I’d be decked out in University of Nemeanna Leos gear until Janet’s parents got dropped back off at the airport. Neither football jersey had come with matching pants, so Janet had opted to leave my Monkeez uncovered and completed the day’s outfit by slipping on socks and sneakers. Unification was an important holiday for the Amazons, but not so important to where they wanted me wearing pants, evidently. On the subject of remaining conscious, my new playmat only complicated matters. It was so easy to drift into quiet thought, sitting contently with Lion and sucking on my pacifier while the floor beneath me literally massaged away the aches and pains caused by obsession and fatigue. “Okay there, champ,” Janet’s father replied. “Don’t feel bad about it if you’re feeling tired. Go on right to sleep if you need an early nap or whatever. I’ll wake you when it’s time to eat.” The offer made the beginnings of a yawn start to well up in my throat. I resisted it by turning it into a long heavy sigh and strengthened my resolve by twisting my thoughts into bitter resentment. Easier to stay alert if I reminded myself exactly who it was that surrounded me. “Okay, Foff Foff,” I mumbled, and turned my back to him so I could pretend to watch the game. Mother fucker was up in my house telling me whether or not I could go to sleep on a goddamn vacation weekend. Who the fuck did he think he was? Wait. It wasn’t my house. Not my house. Never my house. It was Janet’s house. This place was my prison, not my home. My bed had the bars to prove it. ‘Pop Pop’ didn’t take the hint. “I’m probably gonna go into a big ol’ food coma right after supper. If you want, you can come into the bedroom with ol’ Pop Pop and we’ll have ourselves a siesta while your Mommy and Nana clean up the kitchen.” Offering to let me sleep next to him and getting me what he considered to be clever and fashionable clothing. Janet got her enthusiasm and baby crazy from her mother, but her love languages were directly inherited from ol’ Bill. “Mebbe…” It was the nicest response that I cared to give. I looked down at my shirt, there was something distinctly perverse and Amazonian about dressing me up in children’s sports apparel for a college team. When done to actual children, it’s mildly cute, if slightly egotistical. Plenty of people form nostalgic attachments to their Alma Maters, so it makes a certain kind of sense to want to share that with their children. Dress up the snot nosed pants poopers in costumes and take them to fun outings so that when they grow up, maybe they’ll want to attend the same college you did. It’s not entirely healthy, and in many ways has the potential to be living vicariously through one’s offspring, but it’s not so different from exposing your child to any other fandom. Goodness knows that if I’d ever been lucky enough to have a kid, that tiny crotch goblin’s room and clothes would have been decked out with Muffets gear. Probably GhostHaunters, too. Why wouldn’t I want to share things that gave me joy with my kid? It was a completely different kettle of fish where Adopted Littles were concerned. Janet’s family was never going to let me attend college again. They had no desire, yet alone an expectation for me to be a student anywhere save Oakshire Elementary, and Oakshire was only permitted because Beouf’s room was technically a form of daycare. What was more of a parody? Having my old wardrobe infantilized, or being dressed up in baby gear for an academic institution that literally no one wanted me to ever attend? Hard to say. “Supper will be ready in just a couple of minutes boys,” Janet’s mom said, popping in from the kitchen. Janet’s dad barely nodded. I bit into rubber. I felt her standing behind me just before the back of my diaper was pulled open. “Let’s see if you need a change. Hmmm…no poopies.” I was roughly lifted off the mat and cradled; a turtle on his back; so that she could check for wetness. “You’re wet, but not soggy,” she pronounced. “Good baby. Mwah!” I flinched at the touch of her lips to my forehead. Janet came into the room and flopped down on the couch next to her dad. “Table is set up and ready to go,” she huffed. “Dinner is almost ready.” Calling it ‘dinner’ before two o’clock was more than a stretch, but that was nitpicking. The ceiling passed me by as the whole family congregated onto the couch, me cradled in the matriarch. Shocking accusations aside, she’d gone directly into ‘Nana’ mode as if they’d never been made; or worse, saying that I was both a baby and in love with my Mommy was something normal to her. “Table’s all set,” Janet said, melting into her couch. “Good job, Janet,” her dad said. “Whatever’s set out smells delicious.” he patted his stomach. “I’m gonna need another notch on my belt after today.” My pacifier dropped out of my mouth. “Janet?” I grumbled. “Don’t you mean ‘Pookie’?” It’d be nice to have someone else be the center of her parents’ attention. Better Janet than me. My world went vertical with her Mom un-cradling me and setting me side saddle on her lap. “We do not call Grown-Ups by their first names or nicknames,” she said roughly. The pacifier was shoved back into my mouth and her finger waggled in biting distance from my face. “That’s your ‘Mommy’. When your Mommy was little she always called us-” “Mom,” Janet groaned. “He wasn’t being purposefully disrespectful. He was just copying what he’s heard. The ‘Pookie’ thing is new to him.” Her mother’s lips puckered. She too was picking and choosing battles. “You’re right dear.” Then to me, “I’m sorry Clark. Nana didn’t mean to snap at you. She just didn’t want you being disrespectful to your Mommy.” “He’s a scooch, but he’s my scooch,” Janet said. I was positioned so my back was to her, but I could practically feel her tired smile. Not that I cared. I did not love her. It was just best to keep the beast that was her baby crazy fed and content. Pure calculation on my part. “Nana,” I pulled out the rubber bulb and tried again. “Can you tell me more stories about when my Mommy was a little girl?” Even with me using her preferred title, she didn’t take the bait. Her will was stronger than her daughter’s. Had I been smarter, I could have wrapped Janet around my pinky if I’d been calling her ‘Mommy’ on day two. “Oh I don’t wanna talk about that.” she said. “Why not?” I tried for the puppy dog eyes. That tended to get the weary and unsuspecting. I was loading a corny ‘pwease’ into the chamber, but was interrupted. “You’ve had so much practice being a baby!” she explained. She started bouncing me on her knee. Each squish and crinkle hammered the point home. “I need more practice being Nana. Much more practice.” Wasn’t part of being a grandparent getting to tell embarrassing stories about the parents when they were children? Bits of revenge? “But Mommy-!” “I wanna focus on the now!” Her forehead nuzzled against mine and her fingers danced like spiders along my ribs. “Your Mommy was my baby girl, but she’s all grown up, now.” I did not like where this was going. “Nanaaa,” I tried to whine, “I-” “But you, Little mister,” she teased, “are my grandbaby, and you’re always gonna be a baby! I never have to worry about losing you to growing up. No driving around late at night, or flirting with the boys. We can keep things nice and simple. Just Clark and Nana. Right?” This was bad. This was really bad. She was winding up to something. This was spiel. This was totally a spiel. “Right…” “Better watch out, Clarky boy,” Janet’s dad said cryptically. “He’s coming for you.” “Who?” “Oh did I forget to mention?” The older woman asked. “We don’t have to worry about you growing up, but you do have to worry about something.” “Mom…” Janet called over from the other side of the couch. She didn’t sound nearly as reluctant as she had yesterday. Just tired. My heart started racing. “Spanking?” No it couldn’t be. This wasn’t a spanking spiel. Too many smiles. Janet sounded nostalgic too. A childhood ritual perhaps. “Noooo…you’ve met him before…’ Oh fuck. “Quit torturing him and just get it over with, Mom.” Goddamn it. I didn’t want to ask but… “Who?” “The…TICKLE MONSTER!” Sometimes it really sucks to be right. Spidery fingers dug into my flesh, and sent me into giggling convulsions. My whole body rocked back and I flailed and screamed laughter, with my limbs instinctively tucking in to try to parry the tickling tormenting digits digging into my sides. They might as well have been made of overcooked spaghetti. “Stop!” I begged, already out of breath. “Please stop!” “I’M SORRY CLARK! IT’S THE MONSTERRRRR! HE FEEDS ON BABY LAUGHS! FEEEED HIM CLARK! FEEEED HIM!” It was the inverse of spanking in that a flood is the inverse of an inferno. Opposite methods, but still the same results. My senses were overwhelmed, my mind was screaming, my body was useless and out of my control, and I was begging for it to cease. “Mom,” Janet called “stop it. You’re gonna make him leak.” I could hear the smile in her voice too. She didn’t want it to stop that much. How could that bitch think I loved her daughter, as cruel as she was? The tickling stopped, and I was allowed to catch my breath. I was propped back up to a sitting position. “That reminds me,” her mother reported, “Clark’s wet, but not too wet. Do you want him changed before we sit down?” Last I got a good look at her, she’d rammed the back of her head into the couch to the point that the cushions were enveloping the sides of her face. Presently, I was positioned with my back to her and was being watched like a mouse inside a cat’s grip. I couldn’t have sent a signal for her to say ‘no’ if I’d wanted. “Gimme,” I heard her say. Or that! That worked. It was a short, but gratifying trip from her mom’s lap to Janet’s with a brief flyover of her father’s. Janet checked me just like her mother had, and came to the same conclusion. “Naw. I think he’s okay right now.” Her mother smirked to herself. “I still got it.” Janet leaned forward enough to give a questioning look. “That is, I thought so, too, but I wanted to make sure. You’re the Mommy and all.” Janet’s arms wrapped around me and pulled me closer into her chest. Her muscles relaxed. Mine tensed. “Thanks Mom. I appreciate it.” “You’re welcome, dear.” A moment of relatively.comfortable silence passed. The devil I knew had me on her lap. The one I didn’t was on the far side of the couch, and her husband was watching football like it was a hypno-cartoon. Nothing was peaceful, but it was eye of the hurricane calm. Then that damn commercial came on. “It was the day of the big game at Monkeez stadium! But the star receiver couldn’t catch a pass! And no wonder, there was an offensive leak in his diaper!” “Can we please change the channel?” I groaned over the propaganda. “Or go sit down and eat?” A hairy mammoth hand patted me on the shin. “Yeah, I don’t like commercials either, Clarky boy,” her dad said. “The game’ll come back. Just be patient.” “ -and Monkeez leg elastics to help eliminate gaps in the defense!” “Y’know,” Janet’s mom butted in.. “They say leaving kids in wet diapers inhibits potty training.” Uh-oh. Call it a not quite atrophied danger sense, but I knew she was going somewhere with this. I just didn’t know where. “Certainly didn’t help Pookie’s,” her dad joked. “Just watch the television, Bill.” “Ten-four.” “Just makes you think,” Helen continued, “All these commercials about diapers being more absorbent, and leak proof are kind of traps as far as potty training goes.” No lies detected. Only the smell of a logical fallacy. “Hmm…I think you might be onto something.,” Janet replied. “But I don’t think Clark is ever gonna be ready for potty training again.” Like her mother, she bobbed me lightly in her lap, the less than crisp crinkle coming from my backside being enough justification for the diagnosis. I sucked in my breath. Talk about being caught between Scyllia and Charybdis. Either listen to this conversation, or zone out and replay the awful one from twelve hours prior. “Full agree,” her mother said. “It makes more sense that he learns to be comfortable sitting in a wet diaper. As long as he’s not getting a rash or leaking, he should be fine.” “Less expensive too,” Janet chuckled. “I had no idea how much diapers would cost. If he wasn’t all done growing up I might. Can you imagine diapers and growing out of clothes and extra food from growth spurts?” “Can and did, Pookie,” Janet’s dad sounded off. “Can and did. That’s why after you we decided ‘never again’.” “Bill…” “Sorry, Helen, can’t hear you. Game’s on.” “Anyways,” her mother continued, “I know diapering can be hard, but it’s what’s best for him.” There was silent agreement from Janet, and silent fury from me. Her words felt like a shark circling its prey. “Which makes me wonder…” Me and Janet’s heads turned simultaneously. Was she about to rally to put me into cloth diapers? Seriously? Janet beat me to the punch. “Mom, I am not washing dia-” “Why aren’t you breastfeeding?” The timer on the oven went off. Janet practically leapt up with me in her arms. “Supper’s ready, let’s go.” Janet rushed me to the kitchen and slid me into the highchair. She gave me a “Boop” on my nose with the tip of her index finger, tied a bib round my neck, and went to help her mother take things out of the oven, drain pots and pans and plate the final dishes. Even her father contributed something besides staying out of the way. He busied himself setting out plates, silverware and napkins, and followed up by taking the finished products over to the table before going to the sink and scraping and scrubbing a handful of cooking dishes. For about ninety seconds, Janet’s kitchen turned into the final countdown shots of every reality cooking show with the only one not actively contributing strapped into a highchair, palms flat on the feeding tray. When everything was plated and set, the spread looked like something out of the movies. Giant bird at the center with islands of stuffing, mashed potatoes, casserole, bread rolls, steamed vegetables, and salad spiraling outward. It was all positively crammed together. The decorative horn of plenty had been set aside, and only peeks of tablecloth, like shafts of sunlight in a dense forest could be seen. The only way everything fit on the table was because the highchair did not necessitate me having my own plate. The three Amazons took their seats. A crazy giantess to either side, and the pot bellied patriarch across from me. “Before we eat,” Janet’s Mom said. “Let’s all hold hands and go around the table and name one thing that brings us all together. Today is about coming together.” Janet on my left and her mother on my right reached out and blanketed my palms. Chairs scuffed and scraped across the floor and grasps tightened pulling my arms taught to connect and keep the circle whole and unbroken. “I’ll go first,” Janet volunteered. “Something that brings us all together…is family. I love this connection we all have with one another.” My once blank expression drooped slightly. Where was my family? My parents? My in-laws? My wife? What were they saying about me right now? Were they saying anything? Or was I both fallen and forgotten? “Food and feast,” her dad said, plainly. Janet’s mom frowned in annoyance. “Bill…” “What?” he said. “I’m serious. We’re all coming together and celebrating with food and feast. We’re all setting aside the time away from the rest of our lives to come together and remind each other of our connections. If we didn’t do that every once and while, we’d take each other for granted. Might as well make it special.” I thought of drinking coffee and bitching with Beouf. Of walking up front every morning with my posse. Of grading papers for friends. I’d lost some and rebuilt others. Of seeing Amy almost every Thursday night. Ritual and routine. Making something mundane and boring into something special by adding an element of predictability and ceremony. Like coffee. Like lap bounces and diaper changing songs. Janet’s mother nodded semi-approvingly “NIce save…” “Thank you, honey.” The elder giantess looked to me, then to Janet, and her husband.. “I’m going to piggyback onto what Janet said and expand.” “Oh, I can’t say ‘food and feast’ but she can piggyback…” “Daddy…” “Sorry, Pookie.” Janet’s mother rolled her eyes, shook her head and powered through. “It’s not just about family that brings us together, but it’s about the growth and change of the family. I’m not just a mother anymore, I’m also a Nana. Janet’s a Mommy. Bill’s a Pop-Pop. None of today would have happened without Clark. We literally wouldn’t be here, as our new and best selves without him being the new baby.” Almost in unison, both of my hands were squeezed. “What about you, Clark?” Janet softly asked. “What is something that brings us all together?” Coercion. Obligation. The lie of Maturosis. Homelessness and the erasure of my personhood. I was literally here, with this family, because of that. Any of those answers would have landed me in hot water, if not now, then as soon as Janet’s parents were on the plane. Time for a safe answer. One that would leave the worst kind of bitter in my mouth. “Love.” “Awwwww!” The three mad Amazons said in unison. “We love you too, baby boy,” Janet’s mother said. I wasn’t asked to expound. Why would I be? I was the ‘baby’. Generic stock answers were permitted and expected. The grips on my hand were loosening. Everyone was lowering their hands down “I’m not done!” I yelped. “Hm? Oh!” Janet stretched her arm back out. Her parents did the same. “Sorry, baby. Go on.’ “I don’t just mean love like getting butterflies in your tummies,” I clarified. “There are a lot of people who aren’t here right now,” I said. “But I still have a connection with them.” My surrogate grandmother gazed at me with curiosity. “I’ve done a lot of really dumb things lately. And people protected me, even though they didn’t have to.” Out of the corner of my eye, Janet mouthed the word ‘Ambrose’ and her mother nodded sagely. She was right, of course. It was more than that, however. It was the tablet Tracy and Emiliano had smuggled me, too. It was Amy’s ever cryptic advice. It was Beouf trying to cover up my mischief and going up to bat time and time again. Fuck it, it was Jessica doing her level best to counteract Picture Day with a shopping trip. It was even Zoge being willing to humiliate herself in recompense and then later swooping in and saving me from humiliation that I’d arguably brought onto myself. “Why wouldn’t they?” Janet’s mother broke in. “Who wouldn’t want to take care of a baby?” “No.” The word came out as a whisper. I cleared my throat. “They didn’t do it because I was a baby or because they wanted something from me. I had nothing to give them. They did it because I was me, and that was enough for them.” Puzzled looks all around. I decided to use their own mythologized history against them. “The first Unification wasn’t one group of people taking care of the other group,” I went on. “It was two separate groups seeing each other as worth helping and getting to know, as people, in of themselves. Not as a means to an end; or a prop; or an obligation.” I practically spit out that last part. “Okay, I’m done.” The people in my life who really cared about me, didn’t do it because I made them ‘Nana’ or ‘Mommy’ or ‘Pop Pop’. They got nothing out of the deal and realistically would have been better off without me in most circumstances. They weren’t protecting a baby, they were protecting me. Our hands released each other. Plates started being passed around, with heaps of food scooped on stop. The conversation didn’t end there. “That’s very mature,” Janet’s mother said, piling on stuffing and mashed potatoes. “Very articulate, Clark. Thank you for sharing.” My mood curdled. I’d told them off. and it likely had gone over their heads. I was a kid reciting verses that I clearly didn’t understand. “Articulate, nothing,” Bill said, in the midst of carving up the bird. “That was gosh darn profound. Kid should have been a poet or something before his Matur-i-ositz kicked in or whatever.” “Daddy?” Janet looked puzzled. They wouldn’t hear of my so-called condition yesterday. Now her father was almost pronouncing the term correctly. Her dad started portioning out slices of meat. “We’ve got cell phones, Pookie. We can read.” “I’m still convinced that it doesn’t exist,” her mother said. Finally, something we agreed on, if for completely different reasons. “It’s a fad. New speak lingo for the same thing that’s been happening forever.” Preach sister, preach! Janet was turning her lip into an appetizer. “Um…” “But,” she conceded. “I think it’s a good way to help Littles understand themselves.” Whelp, Janet’s mom, we had a good run. She kept prattling on with extra awful bullshit. “Almost every Little gets to a point where they can’t handle play acting like an adult anymore. It’s not a disease. It’s just how they are. If people want to call it ‘Maturosis’ instead of just ‘immature’ that’s fine with me.” “Here, here.” Janet’s father said, drowning his plate in gravy. “It’s the outcome that’s important, not how you got there.” Damn, Bill. I almost sort-of liked you. You were damn near tolerable as far as Amazons went. Janet was cutting everything on her plate up into tiny pieces. It was hard to tell if she was tensing up or relaxing; anxious or at peace. “And Clark, you’re absolutely right.” Her mother looked me dead in the eye. I braced myself for emotional impact. “All the people in your life protecting you isn’t because you’re a baby. They do it because they love you.” Like a goddamn psychic, I could have mouthed the next words out of her mouth. “They love you, and you just happen to be a baby.” Janet held out a fork to me, prongs first, a slab of meat dripping with gravy, her hand beneath it to catch the mess “Turkey?” I opened my mouth and she fed me some. “Mmmm…” I hummed involuntarily. It wasn’t barbecue, but it was good. Damn good. After months of mostly of what could most generously be described as ‘toddler’ food, this really was a feast. I swallowed and immediately opened up for more. Ahhhh!” Her mother wasn’t done with her bullshit justifications, yet. “If anything,” she went on between forkfuls, “Adopting Littles prove Clark’s point. There’s no practical reason Amazons should have to take care of Littles. If we were being logical about it, we’d just let them struggle, fend for themselves, and fail. We don’t, though, do we?” “Ahhhhh!” Maybe I could drown her out with enough mashed potatoes and green beans. I closed my eyes and luxuriated in the flavors and textures. “Mmmmm…” The only dilemma was did I chew and swallow as fast as I could so I could loudly open my mouth or did I just hum like each mouthful was an orgasm? Decisions. Decisions. “Nope,” her Dad said. “We do not.” He dabbed roughly at his lips. Fucker needed a bib more than me with all the stuffing crumbs leaking out of him. “It’s like Janet said. Diapers and bottles are expensive. Littles never grow out of them. Never get fully potty trained. Never get weaned. Not a good investment.’ “Littles aren’t an investment,” Janet growled. “That’s my point!” her mother said. “If they were, we wouldn’t bother with them. They’re people, though. Ends in of themselves. They need special care, and we give it to them and ask for nothing in return because we love them for who they are.” I swallowed but did not open my mouth for more. Take a bad thing and lump it in with the good, acting like I was being done a favor. Amazon classic. Vintage typical. “Oh,” Janet’s growl softened into a purr. From lioness to kitten in only a few short sentences. “Yeah. I guess you’re right. Right, Clark?” I gave no reply. “Here,” Janet’s mother reached across the table. “Is that Clark’s plate? Let me help feed him so you can eat.” Janet didn’t hesitate. Her mother’s words of conditional unconditional love had bought her more than enough indulgence. I tried covertly scowling or sending some sort of secret message to Janet, but the woman was busy loading up a second plate with more Amazons sized portions. Oh how we regress whenever we’re around the people who raised us. “Okay, Clark, open up.” Janet’s mother said. “Heeeeere it comes.” I kept my mouth shut. “Uh-oh. Maybe you’re not hungry,” she said. “Or maybe you just need your Mommy to feed you.” That was a threat. She wasn’t talking about spoon feeding me. I opened my mouth. The awful woman’s casserole was forked onto my tongue. At least she could cook. “Good baby!” She gave me the most devilish wink. Monster was enjoying this. I ate and simultaneously suffered and luxuriated. Holy shit the food was good! If only I’d been allowed to feed myself, or didn’t have to hear “Good baby” after every single bite. My stomach filled up quickly. Janet inhaled her food and took the plate back from her mother. I kept opening up, even as I began to get uncomfortably full. After today, it could very well be back to macaroni and cheese, cinnamon applesauce, and chicken nuggets. If my self-proclaimed Pop Pop forced the nap issue, I might just take him up on the offer. Might be nice to go to sleep again without having to worry about anyone probing my pants for poop while passed out. The plate still looked incredibly full. Amazon portions cut up into Little bit sizes was still Amazon portions. “J…” I self-corrected, “Mommy, can I have something to drink?”: “Sure, baby,” she said. She slid out and grabbed an empty bottle from the pantry. “Such a good baby,” her mother chimed in. “Using your manners like that!” “Thank you…Nana.” Another weird bit of self inventory. I felt phantom hairs stand on end every time her mother called me ‘baby’. Not so much with Janet. Probably because when ‘Nana’ said it, there was still that Amazon mania and cruelty behind it. The prejudice and bias coated and hardened in every phoneme. It was important to her that I ‘know my place’ and accept it. Every ‘baby’ from her was a reminder of who she wanted me to be. Janet was more relaxed about it by this point. It felt more natural. Just a mild pet name. Like ‘sweetie’. Or ‘honey’. Things too people who were very familiar and very comfortable with each other might call each other. ‘Kiddo’ and ‘buddy’ and ‘bubba’ too, I supposed; but those interested me less. Janet just sounded more natural with the former phrases than the latter. Maybe that was it. Janet had had more practice and so it came out more naturally to her. Helen was still in addict mode, still thrilling and practicing in her head; the difference between someone just out of dance class and a professional dancer. That or… Nope. Clearly that had nothing to do with anything. I’d just become numb to Janet’s voice over the months. New stimulus meant new irritant. That was logical. Janet returned and handed me a bottle of ice water. “Here you go. Hydrate in good health.” I took it and glugged the water down. The bottle was both a relief to my thirst and a shield against a constant onslaught of rich, savory food. “Wonderful choice,” her mother said. “Doesn’t need all that sugary soda and junk. If I had one criticism of our neighbors back home it’s that those girls drink too much of that Little-aid. Their tongues are always blue or yellow or whatever flavor is in their bottles that day. What’s wrong with water?” “Thank you, mother,” Janet agreed. “I’ve been trying to work on his dietary needs. Help his weight. Make sure he doesn’t get constipated. Water helps with that.” “Mhm,” her mother said. “All part of the job.” Her father patted his stomach. “Who wants some dessert? Some coffee maybe?” Both ladies held up their hands, as did I. “You don’t want any more casserole?” Janet asked. “Some stuffing maybe?” I took the bottle from my mouth. “I’m stuffed as is, thank you J…Mommy.” Damn it! Two slips in less than five minutes? What was in the casserole? Truth serum? “Then why do you want dessert?” Janet wondered. I had something prepared for this. “Dessert isn’t for eating, it’s for tasting.” I tacked on a giggle for affectation. Her father took my plate and several others. “Clarky boy’s got the right idea.” Janet rose from her seat and followed her father’s lead. “I don’t mind sharing some pie with you.” She started clearing the table. I resumed draining my bottle. The three Grown-Ups began the process of moving fancy dishes to the sink, to be hand washed later and put back into the glass cabinet beside Janet’s bed. Then they grabbed the uneaten remains to make room for pie. After dessert, they’d throw tin foil over the half-eaten courses and stowing them in the refrigerator. Said courses would inevitably be nuked in the microwave and eaten as leftovers tonight and tomorrow. Three Amazons quietly working as one, each knowing their appointed task without speaking or command. It was much like the setup had been, but much more relaxed. Janet’s dad, naturally, was the one to place the pie in the center of the table where the bird had held prominence. Her mother brought coffee and cups. Janet passed out comparatively tiny desert plates. “Can I have some coffee?” I asked. “To sip on? “Sorry, bud. It’s not decaf.” Her mother looked close to aghast. “You let him drink coffee?” Janet weathered the wave of surprise and disapproval. “Decaf,” she said. “After school. Made by his teacher. Watered down. Mixed with lots and lots of cream and syrup. As a treat.” “Why, though?” Had I know me drinking coffee would have been a line too far, I would have crossed it sooner. “It keeps me regular,” I said. “It’s an incentive,” Janet said. “A reward for good behavior.” Her mother poured everyone’s coffee. Everyone save me. “Hmmm.” she grumbled. “As long as it’s a reward for good behavior and not a bribe.” It totally was. If I didn’t get my afternoon coffee with Beouf I’d riot and turn that setup back into a loud and obnoxious hell. I was about to tell her as much, but Janet was quicker to talk to me. “Oh no. It’s just a reminder.” Her dad started cutting up the pie. “A reminder of what, Pookie?” “That I love him for being him. Not for being a baby.” The old married couple exchanged confused looks. “He and his teacher used to have coffee before. Did I forget to mention that?” “Ooooooooh,” they said in unison. Her mother punctuated it with “So it lets him pretend he’s a Grown-Up. Like playing dress up.” “No,” Janet said thoughtfully. “More like an affirmation that just because he can’t do everything he used to enjoy doing, doesn’t mean that his whole life before he got Adopted is gone.” “That’s very sweet,” Janet’s mother said. “Come to think of it, coffee isn’t particularly Grown-Up, is it?” “It’s just soda for adults,” Janet’s dad said, shaking up a can of whipped cream. “I think some of those Mayztepic folks give their kids coffee. Not their babies, but their kids.” He proceeded to top his slice of pie with a mountain of the stuff. He added a quirt into his coffee, too. “But it’s not like all the extra caffeine is gonna stunt Clarky boy’s growth.” I imagined Tracy’s husband, Emiliano. I have no clue what position Bill Foster played in college. I’m certain Emiliano could have bench dressed and folded the old guy into a pretzel with one hand. “It certainly doesn’t stunt theirs,” I said. My hilarious in-joke went unnoticed and uncommented on. “Speaking of keeping him regular, breast milk also helps babies’ digestion.” Janet’s fort clinked uncomfortably through the first bit of pie. “That’s true…” She eyed me, wondering whether or not I’d erupt. I eyed her back, wondering if she’d give me cause to erupt. “I just don’t think it’s for us.” “Problems producing?” her mother pried. “Different medications have different success rates. Once he starts nursing, it should come on its own easily enough.” Janet’s hands went down by her side. Her face became uncomfortably pink. She was becoming the same embarrassed little girl wanting to please her parents while being afraid of how I might react. Healing and personal growth is very rarely linear. “That’s not the problem. I started producing and expressing. But we decided to stop.” “We?” Her dad asked. “Who’s we? A doctor?” Janet’s mother glanced at me and ran roughshod over her husband’s question “You can’t just express. You’ve got to try breastfeeding him directly.” My mouth sealed itself shut. My teeth clamped down on top of my tongue. My eyes darted from left to right to left again. I was watching a tennis match with a live grenade. I was the grenade. “I tried bottle feeding him,” Janet protested. “Did he spit it out or something?” “No.” she admitted. “He liked it.” I liked it well enough when I didn’t realize I was drinking another person’s bodily fluids. I liked it before my body was forming a bizarre kind of chemical addiction. “I just…” she stammered, “I just think there are better ways to give him what he needs, nutritionally speaking.” “It’s more than just nutrition, dear. It’s incredibly bonding. I breastfed you.” If their relationship wasn’t a ringing endorsement of why I shouldn’t breastfeed, I didn’t know what was. Janet tried to resist. “He doesn’t like it.” “Did he like his diapers at first?” Her mother pivoted. A beat from Janet. A nervous glance out of the corner of her eye. “No.” “Did he insist that he was a big boy and demand you let him use the potty?” Another glance. “Yes.” “If he told you he wanted to stop wearing diapers, would you let him?” Janet paused but the pause did not grow pregnant. “No.” Didn’t even look at me. “Then why,” Janet’s mom asked with all the skill of a courtroom prosecutor, “are you letting him stop you from taking care of him in other ways?” Silence all around the table. Janet didn’t have an answer for that. I didn’t have an answer for that. As far as Amazon non-logic went, it was air tight. Once one accepted the presupposition that an Adopted Little didn’t know what was good for him- which she had- then my concerns didn’t matter so much beyond how much of a fight would I put up. Oh, I’d give them a fight alright. “I gotta side with your mother on this one, Pookie.” Her father broke the silence, but not the discomfort everyone was feeling. Everyone but Janet’s mother, that is. “Because…” was the best Janet could do to mount a defense. It wasn’t much. “Because why?” The witch pivoted her head from Janet to me and back. “Part of being a good Mommy is doing what’s best for your baby. Even if they’re resistant at first. Think of all the stuff we did that you didn’t like. You turned out fine.” Oh that was some bullshit. Time to intervene. “Jan-...” Goddamn it! I’d never gone this long without using her name! “Mommy! You said-” “He calls you by your first name when you’re alone, doesn’t he?” Her mother asked. Janet looked down into her lap, ashamed. “Yes.” “Thought so,” Helen Foster sniffed. “That explains something.” “What?” Janet lifted her head, confused, sensitive to the criticism, yet desperate for approval. “What does that explain?” Clueless too. “Why he still thinks of you as something besides his Mommy,” her mother said. “What are you talking about? We used to be co-workers but that doesn’t mean he still thinks of me like that. He’s called me ‘Mommy’ in his sleep.” “In his subconscious, sure, but what’s he dreaming about while he’s awake?” “What are you talking about?” “Isn’t it obvious? Your baby boy is in lo-” “MOMMY CAN I PLEASE HAVE SOME BREAST MILK?!” All dialogue stopped. Janet’s head whipped around so fast I thought she’d snapped her own neck. I’d just said words that were too good to be true. Practically every other time in our relationship (no not like that) getting what she wanted had blown up in her face. Her mother’s head turned slowly, more confidently. She’d found her own silver bullet to weaponize against me. Her dad finished his first slice of pie and leaned forward to get himself a second, wholly unconcerned. Time to cover my tracks. “Please let me try it. I liked the milk. It helped me feel good. I got mad because you didn’t tell me what it was.” If eyes were windows into the soul, Janet’s was filled with suspicion and temptation in equal measure. “I’d like to try it. At least once. Just once. So I know how I really feel about it.” She couldn’t know it. She couldn’t know her mother’s batshit theory. I hated her. Tolerated her at best. Manipulated her. If Janet Grange thought I was in love with her, any amount of comfort I’d managed to claw out of this miserable padded prison stay would disappear. No more showers. No more sharing a bed. No more green goop. It’s doubtful she’d ever want me to call her by her real name ever again. Not if she thought it was connected to some non-existent attraction or non-platonic love. She might even upgrade her monitoring devices; make sure I wasn’t masturbating to her. Or chemically castrate me. Or try to set me up on some weird ‘playdate’ with a girl ‘my own age’. Little Voices was oddly sex positive considering they treated us like toddlers, but would the ‘Maturosis Research’ say anything regarding Littles being attracted to their caregivers? Doubtful. Who knows what would happen? It wasn’t worth it rolling the dice and finding out. “Are you sure?” Janet asked doubtfully. “Yes!” I said. “When?” “Right now!” I was shaking, jonesing like a junkie about to get a fresh hit. I was self-sabotaging in the worst way. “Right now before I chicken out! Please! Make me do it!” Janet stared at me and then redirected her attention to her parents: A little girl, seeking permission. “Doesn’t bother me,” her dad said. “Go on,” her mother encouraged. “Do it. He’ll love it. Promise.” Trembling hands removed the highchair’s tray and unbuckled me. Shaking arms lifted me and brought me close to her. We backed away, slowly from the table. “Where are you going?” Her mother asked. Janet froze. “I was going to take him to his room.” She sounded incredibly guilty. “Nonsense,” her mother said. “We’re all family here. No need to be shy.” Twisted bitch wanted to watch. “I got an idea,” Janet’s father said. “Let’s go back out into the living room. The couch’ll be nice and comfy and I can turn the T.V. on to make some background noise. That way Clarky boy won’t feel too self-conscious or whatever.” “Good idea, honey,” Mrs. Foster said. False. That was a terrible, rotten, no good, very bad idea. Bill probably only suggested it so he’d have an excuse to watch more football. I’d given away my chance to veto, however. One wrong step, and her mother would drop the L-bomb on me. “Okay,” Janet said, voice quivering as much as her body. “Right this way, dear.” We were marched out of the kitchen straight back into the living room. Janet sat down in the middle of the couch. She positioned me so that I was cradled in her lap. Her father turned on the television and contented himself laying sideways on the playmat, blocking everyone else’s view. Not that I was going to be able to watch. I was about to do arguably the most babyish thing possible. I’d been forced back into diapers. My potty training was atrophying. My best chance of organizing an escape was being withheld on ransom of good behavior. I thought I’d hit the bottom of the barrel. To prove me the fool, I was being quietly blackmailed to do the one thing most people do before they use their diapers. Fuck it. It was better than the alternative. What was one more concession in the long run? No idea why Janet was so nervous. “What do I do?” Janet asked. “Get yourself ready. Shirt up. Bra uncupped.” Her mother twisted her lips. “You do have a nursing bra on, yes?” “Yes.” Janet lowered her head and shot me a silent apology. “I threw out all my old bras when my milk started coming in and I haven’t had time to re-replace them.” “Good,” her mother said. “You won’t need to replace them now. Isn’t that lucky? Okay, go ahead.” Janet raised her top up above her breasts. It was teal, somewhere between the color of the ocean and the sky. I’ll always remember that. She opened up a cup on her nursing bra; it was beige, the faux-skin color of a band-aid. I’ll always remember that too. The nipple was erect and at attention. “Now what?” I closed my eyes and opened my mouth. Janet’s hand grabbed the back of my head and guided it upward. I braced myself for what I must endure. “Just brush your nipple against his cheek,” her mother instructed. “It’ll sort of get your body started, and it’ll let him know that it’s time to feed.” No snarky reply came out of my lips. I felt her nipple wipe itself on my face before it got the chance. A jolt of panic. Everything tingled in the most disturbing way. My limbs seized up in fright and retreated inward. “You okay?” Janet asked. “He’s fine, just let him latch.” Nothing left to it, but to do it. I opened my mouth and turned my head. My mouth closed down around the biggest tit ever. Janet was inside me. My tongue probed outward, licking her nipple, tasting her flesh. I felt her suck in her breath. Experimentally, my jaw closed, just barely. Her arms tensed, the moment my teeth scraped against her. “Careful, baby.” She rotated me so that I was more on my side, but still cradled. This was nothing. This was going to be nothing. This was just a bottle of milk. Maybe two. I wasn’t sure how much milk she produced, but that wasn’t the point. I wasn’t going to get addicted. This wasn’t going to make me her slave. Her doll. Her baby boy. I wasn’t going to go full native. Ivy had decades of gaslighting and cultural indoctrination that Beouf’s class had no answer to or significant contradiction with. Amy was messed up for different reasons. If it was chemically induced, it had more to do with licking batteries and eating crayons. This was going to be fine. My heart ignored the calm rationalizations of my mind. thudding almost as hard as hers. My entire body followed my heart’s lead, my skin tingling in fear and excitement. I puckered my lips and sucked. And sucked. Nothing. I opened my eyes and looked up at her. Janet looked up to her mother. “Go on,” I heard her say. “Coach him through it. You have to teach him.” I felt Janet’s voice more than heard it. “Keep going,” she urged. “It’s almost there. Just keep suckling.” I sucked. And sucked. “Harder. Don’t be shy.” I sucked. And su- Something warm dribbled out onto my tongue. Shit! Was it blood?! It was blood! I’d bitten her! My jaw shot open and I tried to take my head away. Her hand wouldn’t allow that. “It’s okay,” Janet whispered. “Mommy’s fine. Keep going.” She started rubbing my back. “Keep going, baby. Almost there.” I took a deep breath and sucked again. More of the warm liquid squirted out. It wasn’t blood. Just milk. Sweet, creamy, fatty, delicious milk; just body temperature instead of chilled in the refrigerator. I was doing it. I was breastfeeding. I kept going, suckling and letting the milk flow out of her and into me. Just do it. Don’t think about it. It’s just milk. It’s just milk. It’s just milk. It’s just milk. Janet’s milk. Not cow milk. Not goat milk. Janet’s milk. Her milk. Mommy’s milk. Up against me, Janet’s body was fidgeting, and gasping, and moaning, and squirming almost as much as mine. “That’s right baby,” she cooed. “Thaaaat’s right. Just relax. Let it happen naturally.” Breathing slowly, I let everything I felt start to melt away. The milk slid down my throat in a steady trickle. My head started to fog with the same mellow calm I’d had first thing in the moring. The milk was in my system, but good. A flood emptied itself into the front my diaper. I’d been so tensed up, I hadn’t even consciously realized I’d been holding it in. Janet noticed it too. “Uh oh. Someone’s very relaxed,” she chuckled. Her mother said something, and Janet chuckled some more, patting my back and butt in the process, but my ears didn’t hear what the joke was. They were already starting to tune the other woman out. I didn’t even know what was on T.V. Just keep drinking. Don’t think about it. Just keep drinking. Let the milk fill me. Let it help me sleep and get these terrible thoughts out of my head. If I can’t have tequila, at least let me have sleep. The milk didn’t come quickly enough. No matter how hard I sucked, the flow didn’t come enough. The good stuff was body warm, but flowed as if it were milkshake thick. My mouth tired. How did real babies do this? Janet released the back of my head. “Use your hands,” she instructed. “Press against Mommy’s breast.” Her big hand guided my small one until it was making skin to skin contact. Boob! I was touching her boob with my hands. More nervous energy rocketed through my spinal cord. I was touching her! I never touched her! She touched me but I never got to touch her! Not even in the shower! I’d always been careful never to place my hands anywhere below her shoulders. Today she was ordering me to put them directly on her breast. They were so much firmer than I had anticipated. Full and swollen with milk, her breasts were rock hard. They weren’t the only ones. “Knead.” I obeyed. Like a kitten, I pressed both hands up against her and squeezed. Gentle at first, testing to see where the sensitivity lay. Every squeeze, every nudge, every suckling motion made the breast milk start to flow a little more. An iceberg was melting. Finally, the dam burst and the creamy stuff began to flow properly. “Such a boy,” Janet took to stroking my tangled messy hair. “Such a good Little eater.” I took my fill and more. Sip by sip losing both rational thought and rationalization. The act continued and with every slurp I cared less and less about how this might look, it only mattered how it felt. My Monkeez were soaked to the point of sagging, now. I had no pants. I was suckling on a woman’s nipple, and much to my surprise making grunting, slurping, mewling noises while I did so. I thought this would feel babyish. As babyish and humiliating as having to finish my breakfast while trapped in a highchair wearing a loaded diaper. This?This wasn’t babyish at all. There was something primal about it. Something natural. Instinctual but long forgotten. I was taking part of Janet into myself, taking life essence that had been made and manufactured, specifically for me. Every breath we took and every shudder brought us closer and closer together. Our breathing synced up. Her heartbeat kept pace with my mouth. My heart kept pace with hers. This was bonding. This was intimacy. This was communion. This was Unification. I was pulled away from her, and I let out a gasp. I wanted to cry out. I’d just gotten started. I wasn’t done. Had I done something wrong? Did I bite her? “Switch,” she informed me, turning me over and opening her other cup. I attacked the nipple, and started kneading at her bosom. “I think he likes it,” Janet chuckled again. I nibbled on her nipple, just enough to make her hiss and resumed suckling. My stomach filled beyond the capacity I thought possible. I wanted no more, but I kept suckling. This was dessert. It wasn’t about nutrition, it was about tasting, and I loved what I was tasting. Who I was tasting. Inside my sodden padding, my cock raged like never before. It throbbed and pulsated. Every minor jostle, sending it slipping against the slick squishiness of my diaper. No matter what my mind knew to be true, my penis had convinced itself that I was waist deep in something far better and sorely missed.. This was the green goop. This was better than the green goop. There was nothing warm to grab onto besides a pillow when it was the green goop. Here I had warmth and head fuzzies, and another heartbeat, and breathing, and nipples, and a voice that existed outside of my own head telling me how good I was at this. Can you really blame my penis? “Almost done,” she said. Already? Like a good movie, I’d gone blind to the passage of time. I had no clue how long I’d been suckling; only that my fingers and jaw ached in roughly equal measure. Like an amusement park ride, the ride was far too short compared to the wait. The nipple went dry and I moaned at being turned upright. My stomach grumbled, fit to burst. How much was in there? A gallon? It certainly felt like it. Surely, I must have been on the edge of vomiting. The feeding was done, but the ritual was as of yet incomplete. Janet lifted and draped me over her shoulder. One hand supported my soggy bottom, cupping it and pressing me against her at the same time. The other started gently patting my back. “URP!” “Good baby.” The pressure inside me decreased. The one inside my stomach, that is. My urge to vomit was simple gas. “URP!” “That’s right. Good baby. Good Little burper.” My hips gyrated, almost imperceptibly. Even the slightest graze against the front of my diaper was enough to make my pulse rocket for microsecond. What had happened to me? “URP!” “Good baby.” My stomach started to churn and pull down towards the back of me. My bottom started to feel full. The rich Amazon food and the milk conspired to jumpstart my digestive track beyond my control. In that moment I had no control that was worth having: Not over my words. Not over my actions. Not over my thoughts, nor my feelings. Certainly not over my body. “URP!” “Good boy!” Janet said. “Can you give me one more? One more burpie?” “URP!” Four things happened virtually simultaneously, or in such rapid succession that I cannot honestly recall what order they actually occurred in. The first was leaning back into the couch slightly, patting my padded bottom. The second was my willpower and pride reaching their limits, breaking to the point where I lifted my bottom up off of her hand and started pushing, filling the back of my diaper as much as completely as I’d soaked the front. The mess was sticky, and mushy, but not runny; the perfect middle point between hard constipation stool and the runny near-liquid of diarrhea or stool caused by training chocolate. It would spread and coat my bum two seconds later. The third was the wonderful slick and slimy feeling from shifting around in an already soaked Monkeez and the unnatural excitement of my stiffened steel-like erection, raging and begging for release as much as my bladder and bowels had. The fourth was Janet sighing contentedly and whispering softly, sweetly into my ear. “I love you, Clark.” That last part sent me over the edge. “Mommy!” I panted back, my own voice less than a whisper. “Mommy….Mommy…Mommy…” I came. I orgasmed right there in front of the entire family, right in Janet’s arms. My body was glowing and singing despite how much my mind reeled and just wished to undo everything I’d just done. My penis was still spurting cum when my weight settled back down and the mess I’d just made of myself spread around. I’d used my diaper for everything my body was capable of of using it for. Everything save my blood, spit, and tears, had been absorbed by the plastic-backed, crinkling monstrosity. I’d feel so incredibly, impossibly guilty later; like I’d just gone for the game winning catch and fallen right on my face. At that exact moment, though, I just felt exhausted; more so than my first time with Cassie. I lay there limply up against her, totally spent. She patted my bottom again and massaged my back. She was happy. Content. Satisfied. I’d done that. Me. I’d given her that. No one else. Stupidly, I allowed myself to feel an ounce of pride. “Time for a change and a nap,” she announced. “Want me to lay down with him, Pookie?” I heard her father offer. “After the change, I mean.” “No,” Janet said, her voice filled with almost as much warmth as the milk she’d given me. “I think I’ll clean him up and take him to my room.” “It’s so wonderful to see a proper Mommy and baby,” her mother harped. I ignored her. Janet took me to my room. When we were alone in the hallway, she whispered into my ear. “Mommy loves you, Clark.” “I love you too, Mommy,” I whispered back. In the clarity of my post orgasmic state of being I made myself another promise I knew I could never keep. There can be strength gained from unkeepable promises and unachievable goals. Janet Grange must never know that I was in love with her.

Ha-ha! Sailor Moon!

That really sucks dude. So fucking scummy.

Part 11: Plateau Chapter 124: Spoiled Janet cut the engine to her car and sighed relief. The trip was over. The weekend was just begun. Unification was less than twenty-four hours, but being trapped in a moving box was done. Everyone could have their own space. Everyone except me, that is, but I’d grown used to the constant monitoring. Life as a Little was already a panopticon. Adoption just made it so that there were periods of time where you were the only cell being monitored. “Alright,” Janet’s mother groaned and opened up her door. “Let’s get settled in, right Pop Pop?” Her father chuckled. “That’s right Nana. I’ll get the bags.” I nibbled on my tongue to keep from flinching. I was going to be hearing those two words a lot over the next several days no doubt. It’s a good thing Janet didn’t snatch me up while she was still married. I don’t know that I could have withstood the feedback loop of two Amazons pumping up one another’s crazy for such a prolonged period of time. Half the reason I was able to get away with calling Janet by her proper name as much as I did was because she didn’t have a collaborator constantly reinforcing her as ‘Mommy’. Helen got out and stretched her arms to the garage ceiling. Bill exited and slid around to the trunk. Janet popped said trunk, and as had become familiar, circled over to me. “I don’t mind getting Clark out,” Janet’s mom offered. Okay, it was more of a hint. She might as well have been looking at Janet’s dessert and asked if she were getting full. Janet didn’t take the hint. “No thanks, Mom,” she replied. “Clark’s used to me getting him out of his carseat.” She opened the door, leaned in and released me from my restraints. “Come to think of it,” she said, “I think I’m the only one that’s ever put him in or taken him out of his car seat.” “Oh…” her mother said with all the sad disillusionment of a child learning they could not fly if they jumped off the roof and flapped their arms hard enough, “Routine is important.” I kept my mouth shut so hard that my teeth were grinding themselves into powder. Jessica had carted me around too, but there was no reason ‘Nana’ had to know that. Janet carried me up the garage steps and held the door open for her parents. Her father tugged and jostled the tremendous suitcase, while her mother opted to grab the extra bag that had been shoved beneath my dangling legs. “Do you want me to get Clark’s buggy thing out of the trunk, Pookie?” her father called. Janet’s eye twitched so subtly that I almost didn’t notice it despite being close enough to bite her. Someone didn’t like her childhood nickname, especially now that I knew it’s origin. “No thanks, Daddy. I don’t use the stroller often enough. Maybe it’ll get more use in toy form.” She bobbed me slightly like it was a hint. “We should take a walk this weekend,” Janet’s mom said coming through the door. “It’d be like old times as a family. You, me, your father, and a stroller.” “Only this time,” Janet interjected, “There’ll be a new baby in the stroller!” She nuzzled me gently and I couldn’t help but make a face like I’d just had mildew shoved into my mouth. “Thaaaat’s right,” Janet’s mother agreed, “One we don’t have to worry about growing up!” I suffered one final cheek pinch before she went through the damn door. The thought came to me then: Was Janet really such a late bloomer or were her parents just so baby crazy that they delayed and sabotaged her for as long as they could get away with? Zoge seemed more than content having a biological daughter who would never get past toddlerhood. What did that say about my students and their parents? The first time I’d almost been abducted, it was because an Amazon still wanted to have a baby around the house as soon as I’d gotten her kid ready for Kindergarten. How…typical. Her father was lightly huffing, lugging his suitcase. “Thank you, Pookie.” “Welcome,” Janet chirped. “Want some help?” “No thanks. I got it.” He grunted and lugged it up and over the threshold. “It was harder getting it unstuck is all. Now it’s easy street.” Janet closed the door and we watched as her parents walked deeper into the house. “Guest room where it was last time?” her dad asked. Janet followed behind a few steps into the living room. “No, that’s Clark’s room now. You’re looking for the office. I can show you if you want-” “No, I got it,” her Dad said. “I’ll just look for the room that’s got the bed without bars,” he chuckled, to himself, and kept walking. Janet seemed comfortable enough letting her father explore and slowed. More likely was that her mother yet lingered, examining with an intensity just short of drill sergeant, her mother slow rolled through the kitchen and the living room. She didn’t touch anything, but her eyes scanned all. “No baby gates,” she noted. “I don’t see a playpen, or baby gym, either.” This woman just did not have an off switch. She was my father-in-law but with childcare instead of do-it-yourself carpentry and alcohol. Janet pointed to the nigh abandoned obstacle course box. “We’ve got one in the cor-” “I’m guessing you do a lot of lap time?” Her mother brightened. Janet perked up immediately. “We do!” Janet said. “He’s a real cuddle bug.” “Thought so,” her mother commented. “Does he watch television or play on the floor?” “Sometimes, yes.” “But no playmat so his knees don’t get worn out crawling on the floor?” Janet froze. “We didn’t get one at the baby shower and it didn’t seem practical,” she said. “Good,” her mother said, oddly satisfied. “Good?” Janet and I said in unison. “I noticed the socket plugs and drawer latches so he doesn’t hurt himself trying to get things for himself,” the older Amazon reported. “But you’re still giving him a good combination of freedom to explore and personalized attention. I’m proud of you, baby girl.” It wasn’t the first time today she’d been praised like this, but Janet reacted like a camel being offered water. “Thank you?” Her mother shook her head, but kept smiling. “Really, sweetie. Take the compliment. I’m proud of you.” “Why is it a good thing we don’t have a playmat?” Helen Foster beamed. “Be right back.” She practically skipped off after his husband. “Is this normally what Unification is like in your family?” I whispered. “Kind of,” Janet whispered back. “Mom normally goes through the fridge and pantry and starts making a grocery list for the feast. Dad plops down and watches football.” “What’s going on now?” I asked. “No clue,” Janet answered. “They’re up to something.” We didn’t have to wait long to find out. The pair came back out to the living room not two minutes later. Her dad had a rainbow colored blanket tucked under his arm, with the surface divided up into different colored squares. It almost looked like a two dimensional rendering of an unsolved Rubix cube. It had a slicker sheen compared to the cottony softness of a proper blanket, but still wrinkled and furrowed from the pressure of the man’s grip. Her mom carried two rectangular gift wrapped boxes, the smaller one stacked on top of the larger. “This one is from your Nana,” her dad said to me. He unfolded it once and doubled the surface area. Then again. And again. And again. It was an infinite newspaper that doubled over on it self and folded out of his direct control. “Just a second,” he grumbled, shaking it like an over starched bedsheet. It laid it on the ground in front of the television. The factory made creases were barely visible when it was all laid out. “Every baby should have a space that’s for them,” her mother said. “Keep them safe and make them feel welcome, and it still be theirs. It’s his house too!” “Oooooh,” Janet said, clearly relieved. “That’s why you were glad he didn’t have a mat or a playpen!” “Can’t spoil my grand baby if I get him something he already has,” she said, smugly. She was proud of herself and in no way attempting to hide it. “Give it a try.” Janet took me off her hip and lowered me down by the armpits onto the thin padded mat. My bare feet touched the bright patchwork pattern and my weight settled. “It’s…” I stopped and couldn’t help but marvel at it. “Oh…” The mat couldn't have been three millimeters thick unfurled as it was. Somehow, it was the softest and most forgiving thing. I’d ever been on. It was better than my old bed. I felt aches in my feet that I didn’t know I had start to vanish. The fibers in the foam pushed back in equal measure to the weight I was pressing down on. “Oh…oh wow…” I took a knee and felt the same sensation massaging my legs back in turn. “Wow…” From a purely tactile standpoint, this was literally the most comfortable I could ever remember being in my whole life. I felt the half-slick half-stick of vinyl on my bear skin, but cushioning made me feel weightless. “I think he likes it, Nana,” the older man chuckled. “He should,” his wife said back. “With as much as that cost, I’d hope so.” “Yeah, we might have to delay our retirement by a year with how much this thing was.” “Mom! Dad!” Janet gasped. “You didn’t!” “Your father’s just being dramatic, dear.” Speaking of dramatic, I stood up to my feet, took a breath and dove straight forward into the center, belly flopping with a sickening thud. “Clark!” Janet said. “Are you alright?” “Mmmhmmm,” I buzzed between my lips. Even kissing this thing felt good. “He’s fine, Pookie.” Her dad said. “That mat is the safest spot in the house. I could powerbomb him onto that thing and he wouldn’t get a bruise.” It was true. If not for the texture beneath me I might think I was floating. I rolled over onto my back, and closed my eyes. It would be very easy for a Little to get used to this type of comfort. The world outside the thin cushioned square would seem so much harder and harsher in comparison. I was as reluctant to get up and walk around as if the perfect cat had curled up on my chest and started purring. I could nap here. I could play here. I could stay here. If only I had my tablet, I could be so bold as to lay on here and tinker all day. Tablet! I stopped breathing and forced myself to rise. I looked up at Janet and about faced, toddled in the opposite direction. The soles of my feet screamed at me upon stepping off, but I persevered. The car ride was over, but I was still putting on a show. “Thank you Nana,” I said, wrapping my arms around the woman’s legs and burying my head into her thighs. “I really like your gift.” It hurt to say because it was true. Such marvels the Amazons created. If only they came in ‘adult’. “You’re welcome, baby boy,” she said. The air whooshed by me in an instant and I opened my eyes to find myself resting on her hip. As long as she didn’t tickle me. I was carried away to the couch and sat down. The other two giants migrated towards me, and loomed, Janet to the left of her mother, and her father to the right. I was surrounded and scrutinized on a couch cushion stage. This was my baby shower all over again. “This next present is from your Pop Pop,” the Foster family matriarch said. She handed me the larger of the two gift wrapped boxes. The paper was baby blue with repeating storks carrying bundles dotting it in even geometrically precise spacing. “It’s very special.” “It’s not as fancy as the playmat,” her dad explained, “but I hope you’ll like it anyways.” “I’m sure he will, Dad.” Yup. Still performing. Gift giving as a ritual was often more about the gift giver feeling appreciated than the gift itself. Especially gifts from Grown-Ups to perceived children. I poked at the box and felt the give. Thin cardboard. I’d heard no rattling inside. This was clothing of some kind. “What is it?” “Go ahead and open it,” Janet said. “Find out.” “Yeah, you can do it Clarky boy,” her father encouraged. “Rip it up!” My so called Nana eyed me hungrily. “Or I can hel-” I ripped into the thin paper as if it were fall of the bone baby back ribs, and threw off the plain white box top as if I were a lion gutting its kill. “Never mind!” They all laughed at that one. With the gifted clothing still concealed behind a thin line of white tissue paper, I braced myself and readied to mask my emotions. I’d already had sailor suits, onesies with embarrassing slogans, and shortalls with cutesy decorations so there was no hope of passing as anything older than two foisted upon me. The onesie I was presently wearing was an infantilized mockery of my old wardrobe. Short of the sort of dress that Ivy might wear and the mandate that for as long as they were in town I would have to play the part of their granddaughter, I couldn’t imagine worse. I was correct and happy for it. Beyond the dead paper lay a flood of red, black, and gold. Sports jerseys, hockey, football, baseball, and basketball were folded inside. Some loose fitting shorts, too. All were a bloody crimson with black trim, on them a noble lion emblazoned in gold somewhere on the chest staring seriously forward. It wasn’t my goofy dead eyed lion with it’s vacant stitched on smile, of course, but it was still a very good mascot. “The Leos?” I read the team name off one of the many jerseys. “University of Nemeanna Leos,” Bill puffed out his chest. “My old Alma Mater.” He waggled his finger. “You uh…”I looked over the inventory, “Got me a little bit of everything.” I smiled as best as I could. Clothing was rarely the most exciting gift for me, especially when I was a kid the first time around. It was easy to fake the manners. “Thank you, Pop Pop!” “That’s just the first part of your present, Clarky boy. The second part is a promise.” I didn’t ask what. Didn’t have to. “I’ve got season tickets to just about every home game for every big sport,” he said. “Whenever you and your Mommy come and visit Nana and Pop Pop, we’ll have us a boys’ day out and watch a game. I got a matching outfit for every one of those, so we’ll be rolling in style, kiddo.” Janet indicated a sporty looking polyester shirt and matching pants that was second from bottom. “Even the male cheerleader outfit, Daddy?” “Ahhhh, no.” her dad fiddled with his hand on top of his head. “Your mother made me put that one in, Pookie.” “I think Clark would look very cute,” Helen said, “dressed up and helping the real cheerleaders from the stands.” My tongue worked around the back of my teeth, trying to muster some form of sincerity. I wasn’t going to be visiting. But the old guy just met me and wanted to spend time with me sharing his favorite past times. In some ways that was just as impressive as any of the gadgets. “Thank you Pop Pop.” It was easier to smile that time. “Dad,” Janet interrupted, “how are you going to do a boys’ day out if you’re not changing diapers?” Realization flashed on his face. “I…did not think about that.” A splash of color painted itself on his cheeks as he said, “Maybe one of you girls could tag along.” “You don’t wanna spend time with just me, Pop Pop?” My eyes became big and mournful. “Just because I’m a baby?” Janet was resting her chin on her hand, her fingers fanning out over her lips, forcing herself to look away lest she bust out laughing. She knew what I was doing. “No…uh…Clark..it’s…it’s-it’s it’s not that. It’s just that…” “If Mommy and Nana are gone,” I pretended to choke up, “am I gonna have to sit in my mess until they get back?” Both giantesses smirked and drilled holes into the man’s skull using only their gaze. “Yeah, Pop Pop,” Janet said. “Is he?” “Do you not know how?” my voice cracked. “Is that it?” “Yeah, Bill,” his wife drilled into him. “Is that it? Are you a slow learner?” I didn’t think the man could get pinker. Outside I was fighting back tears. Inside I was cackling. That’ll teach him to pull the old fart joke on me. “I’m sorry, Pop Pop,” I said. “I didn’t mean to. I can’t help it. I try to be big like you, but I ca-” “What I meant to say is that uh…” he took off his hat and mopped his brow with it, fighting against his own stubbornness and embarrassment in the moment. “What I meant to say is that I’m not changing any diapers here! I’m on vacation, you know.” No one interrupted him, leaving him to drown in his own quiet. “Buuuuut…when you two come visit us, I guess it’d be your vacation. So yeah, Clark. I’ll pack a diaper bag.” Any looming waterworks were turned off. Proportional revenge complete. “I’m holding you to that, Bill,” Janet’s mother said. “As long as I can get it in Leo colors, I’ll be fine,” he replied. Then to me he said, “keep digging Clarky boy, there’s one you missed.” I piled Little sized jerseys daintily one on top of the other in the reverse order that they’d revealed themselves. Down at the bottom of the clothes’ box was one final shirt. It was the same red, black, and gold design as its predecessors but its colors were worn and faded. I dug in with both hands and unfurled it. The thing blanketed me; practically a circus tent. “Dad,” Janet gasped. “Is that what I think it is?” “Mhm,” he said. “Lemme show you, something.” He reached over and gently took it from my grasp. I gave it up without resistance. It’d have been difficult to read without him holding the thing for me. He turned it around so that I could read the back. “Foster,” I read aloud. “Number forty-eight.” “Pop Pop’s old football jersey from when he was in college,” he proudly said. “For you, bud.” Janet was beside herself with surprise. “Dad, you never take that thing out of its case!” “Not true,” he said. “It’s the first shirt you ever wore. Soon as we got you home from the hospital. I got the baby pictures to prove it.” Now it was Janet’s turn to fight back tears; the difference being she wasn’t faking it. This dumb shirt from the guy’s glory days gone past really meant something to him. “Why?” she asked. “I don’t know,” he shrugged. “Seemed right. I don’t got any heirlooms or whatever that a kid would want. Figured maybe he could use it as a sleep shirt or something. You did.” “You’re not dying or anything are you?” “Ha!” he bellowed. “Pookie, I just made our Little rugrat a promise to take him to a game and pack a diaper bag. I gotta live forever if I’m gonna make that sacrifice worth it.” “Oh,” Janet laughed to herself, embarrassed. “Yeah.” She regained her composure. “Clark, say thank you.” This was not a request. Even I could read the room well enough to know there are some buttons left unpushed. Also, I’d never gotten an heirloom before. Sometimes it really is the thought that counts. “Thank you, Pop Pop! I love it!” He put the old worn jersey back in the box with care normally reserved for holy artifiacts. “You’re welcome, kiddo. And I love you too.” Janet’s mom took charge again. “This last present is from both of us,” she handed me the smallest gift. It was wrapped identically, but the case beneath was stiffer and had less give. She said to Janet, “It’s technically for Clark, but it might be a present for you too, dear.” “Probably should have let him open up this one, first,” her dad said. “But it’s kind of nice in a practical sort of way.” I tore open the wrapping paper carelessly tossing it aside, curious to see what next oddly thoughtful or convenient gift had been bestowed to me from the pair of doting would-be grandparents. My disappointment and horror showed only in my faint reflection thanks to my placing the ‘gift’ directly in front of my face. It was a DVD case, still wrapped and vacuum sealed. It sparkled in tinfoil silver. The cover was two lightly stenciled children, one girl and one boy, wearing simple pastel colored t-shirts, pink and blue respectively. They were barefoot but wore plain white panties and briefs. Yet when I tilted the case just so, the holographic cover changed. The girl and boy looked less chubby, their limbs slightly longer. Their t-shirts sized down with them, but the outline of their underwear remained the same, seeming much puffier by comparison. The frills on the waistline of the girl’s panties and the front fold panel on the boy’s briefs disappeared, each replaced with the tiny rectangles on either side representing diaper tapes. And just as quickly, moving it changed it once more. Littles in diapers turned into Amazon toddlers in undies and back again. The title at the top, changed similarly. Look at it dead on and it was “Potty Time: No More Diapers!” Tilt your head less than an inch and it was “Potty Time? No! More Diapers!” A hypno-cartoon. Three guesses to what watching it did. The first two don’t count. I slammed the door shut on any and all emotions and made my mask up. “Here, Mommy,” I said. “It’s for you.” “We know some Littles have a hard time accepting their diapers,” Janet’s Mom spoke over my muted horror. “This video is supposed to help with that.” “Yeah, it’s a potty training video,” her dad said, placing his hat back on his head. “Teaches kids all about using the potty and lets them decide if they’re ready for it, y’know.” Janet’s expression became identical to my own. “Mhm,” she said. “That’s what it says on the back.” “One of our neighbors recommended it,“ her mother went on. “He’s got three Little girls. We were there when he adopted the third. She was so fussy for that first week, but then she started getting better.” Bill tagged in. “Says he just plopped the tots down in front of the screen for an hour every day, and before he knew it, they were singing the songs and laughing like nobody’s business. No more fuss about being big girls.” Janet cracked open the case and turned it over in the way one might examine a weapon. “It’s double sided.” “Yeah,” her father nodded, oblivious to Janet’s quiet panic and outrage once more. “One for the Littles, one for regular kids. Same basic story or whatever, but different characters. Kids like to see characters that look like them, you know?” Were they really so basic? So willfully ignorant? So…so…typical? Evidently, yes. “That way parents with Littles and Amazon children can show them each a cartoon that will help them decide if they’re ready for the big kid potty or not,” her mother concluded. “Let them each develop and mature at their own pace.” Knowingly or not, what she really meant was that the video could be used to actually help potty train children, while mindfucking Littles into liking their forced infantilizations. In some instances, they could give themselves plausible deniability by flipping it over to the safe side depending on whether or not hypnosis was legal in an area or not. “Clark?” Janet’s dad broke in. “You okay there, Clarky boy? You’re lookin’ awfully red, there. Is he pooping, Pookie?” “Mom. Dad.” Janet said. “I really appreciate the gift, but Clark-” “I’m not potty trained!” I burst out. “I’m just a baby! I like my diapers! The potty scares me! It’s too stressful! I don’t wanna learn again!” I smiled, but only because I was reflexively fighting down sobbing in terror. Janet nudged her mother aside and picked me up. “I don’t think it’s needed,” she said softly. “But thank you for the thought.” She rubbed and patted my back, trying her best to soothe me “Is he crying?” her mother asked. “Clark? What’s wrong, baby?” “Knew we should have led with that one,” her father lamented. “Should have gone practical gift, sentimental gift, fun gift. Movie and clothes; jersey; playmat.” Janet answered for me. “I think Clark’s just a tad overstimulated. It’s been a big day.” The perfect lie was a half truth. “Why don’t we go get you dressed up in one of these outfits?” Janet said in a way that wasn’t exactly asking. I felt her lean forward and grab one of them. “Then you can show Pop Pop Lion and lay on the mat. Maybe take a nice nap?” “Good idea, Pookie.” “Take your time, dear,” her mother agreed. “I know how babies can be. Sometimes they just need their Mommies, right?” “Yeah. Thanks, Mom.” “Maybe give him some milk, too. That always calmed you down when you were that little. You’re breastfeeding right?” My right hand quietly snuck behind Janet’s neck and my nails dug into the back of her neck; I was a cat threatening with my claws. “We’re experimenting with formula and juice at the moment,” Janet said. “Trying to figure out what works best for him.” “Breast is best, dear.” “Thank you, Mother.” she quickly stepped away. “‘Scuse us.” “What channel gets sports, Pookie?” her dad called out. “Thirty-five, Daddy!” “I’m going to take inventory so I can make my casserole.” “Sure, Mom!” My skin boiled. I let myself forget how completely awful most Amazons could be. How callous they were in their indifference; how aggressive they were in how they smothered you; how utterly self-centered and ego-centric; how determined they were to view themselves as something other than what they were. Typical. Janet shut the nursery door behind us and locked it. “I am not breastfeeding!” I hissed. My voice whispered even though my face shouted. “I know,” she said, her face still a mask of placid calm it had been; just shy of full frigid cold. “I’m not intending to make you.” She laid me down on the changing table. “You did very well out there. Thank you.” I struggled to turn my countenance into something besides the snarl of a rabid animal. “You’re welcome. What are you going to do about that movie?” She showed me. She took the DVD, held it up I could see it, snapped it in half, and shoved both halves down the diaper pail. “This.” Witnessing the vile disc’s destruction made my pulse start to slow. “Yeah. Okay. Thanks, Janet.” “Welcome.” I was on the changing table for a reason. She repositioned herself and undid my tapes. “See why I was stressed?” I nodded, “Mhm.” “They’re good parents, but they’re like that sometimes.” That wasn’t the defense she thought it was. “I’m gonna lose it, Janet. I’m gonna lose it.” I plopped my hands on top of my face. “You’re doing great,” she said, cleansing me and powdering me as she always did. “I think the worst is over. They’re only going to be here for a couple days. They’re here tomorrow, and leave on Friday.” Friday felt a long way away after that rollercoaster of awkward. “Why are you changing me anyway?” I groaned. “I’m not that wet.” “Would you rather my mother change you? I’m trying to stay ahead of the game here.” My hands didn’t move from my face. “Honestly? I don’t care.” Almost every other woman in my life had gotten into my pants by this point. A couple men too. What was one more at this stage? “If she wants to, let her. Give me chili and coffee three meals a day. Just get her to stop tickling me, shut her up about the breastfeeding and stop being so…so…” “Herself?” Not my preferred word, but - “Kinda, yeah.” Janet finished changing me and took the last remnants of one costume off so she could swap me into another. “Hope you like being a cheerleader,” she said. “It was top of the pile. Sorry.” “Whatever.” “You can bring Lion and torture him on the play mat.” She snorted and said, “Actually, Dad might get a kick out of that.” “Can I do stupid stuff like belly flops on top of him?” “No.” “Mommy!” I whined, my hands still covering my face. “It’s comfy” “Fine,” she grunted, slipping the polyester leggings over me. “But nothing that could land you on your head. No flips or anything.” “Can I land on Lion’s head?” “Yes, that’s fine.” **************************************************************************************************** The rest of the afternoon was a blur. Janet and her mother made a grocery run. Over that hour I alternated between suplexing Lion onto the impossibly soft mat, and just zonking out and watching football with her dad. “You a wrestler?” Bill asked. “No. But I’d rather pretend that than be a cheerleader.’ “Atta boy.” Everything was draining to the point where if I did dream, I don’t remember it. Tomorrow was going to be rough. Family gatherings like Unification were always rough. That it wasn’t my family I’d be with didn’t help. What would the Braun’s be doing without us? Did they at least get my letter? I banished the grim contemplation from my mind before I realized I was awake. No nightmares plagued me, forcing my conscious mind to swim through the darkness of dreamland up into a terrible waking world to get a gulp of fresh air. My bladder was no longer in the habit of obeying me without active vigilance, so my slumber was uninterrupted by a stretched bladder requesting release. No joints or muscles ached from age that my captors would rather deny. “Fuck,” I cursed. I rolled over onto my stomach and felt the uncomfortable rock in my gut. I rolled back and felt a fullness between my cheeks and a desire to push. I had to poop. There were no sharp pangs or cramps. No terrible wave of gut racking pain to force me to violate myself. It was simple, mundane discomfort. Just enough for my conscious mind to hone in on to prevent it from drifting back off. The kind of distress that was only urgent if it was sleep I craved. Shit myself and lay in it until Janet got up. Or stay up until well past dawn with nothing to occupy my time. Alone with my shit or alone with my thoughts. What a choice. I sat up and stared at the baby monitor. Maybe not… As I had done too many times before, I crawled over and grabbed crib rails. I stood up and closed my eyes, ignoring the circus tent of a shirt draped around my body. Janet had had to safety pin the neck shut so that it didn’t slip off me at the color. Enough of that, for now. I picked a spot behind my eyelids, tried not to think about where I was, and pushed as hard as I could. A few seconds, and some muffled farts later, the mess came out of me, same as it always did. As hydrated as Janet kept me with all the fruits and fiber she made sure to make me eat, the act was literally easier than it ever had been. Any other reason was soundly rejected by my mind. A few intense pants passed while I built up the nerve to use the baby monitor for its intended purpose. Fuck it. “Mommy!” I called. The light in the darkness started blinking. “Mommy, I need changed, please.” The light kept blinking. Had she heard it? “Mommy? Are you there?” No footsteps came. No calls or voices from the monitor or the hallway. No way of knowing if the message had gone through. “Mommy? Are you there? Can you hear me?” The door opened. A familiar shadow, outlined by the nightlight crept in. “Hey hey, Clark,” a voice whispered. “Need a new diaper?” “Janet?” “Nana,” she corrected me. She walked up to the crib, the specifics of her face only becoming apparent when she was by the railing. In the dark she looked and sounded so much like my Mommy. “What are you?” “My room is closer,” she spoke softly. “I heard you crying.” Two hands lifted me out of the crib. “Let’s get you sorted out and back to bed.” The door creaked. “Mom?” Janet’s voice sleepily called from the darkness. “I’ve got him, Janet. Go back to bed dear.” She laid me down and hiked up the sleep shirt so that my diaper was exposed and ready for operation. Impressive considering the darkness. “Is he okay?” “Just a messy diaper,” her mother reported. “Nothing I haven’t handled before.” She spared a moment to lean out and press the button on the monitor to stop it from broadcasting. “You sure?” My win condition was not spending the night in a shitty Monkeez and getting off to sleep feeling dry. Didn’t matter who helped with the first objective, as long as it happened fast so I could stay groggy and achieve the second. “I’m fine, Mommy.” “Okay,” Janet yawned. “Night Mom. Night Clark. I love you.’ “Love you too,” Janet’s mother called back. That was enough for Janet to sleepily shuffle back across the house. I laid on the changing table with my eyes closed and grumbled while the strap was fastened across me. Maybe I could pass out mid change. Maybe I’d be allowed to sleep in till nine or ten. That’d be nice. Maybe I could weasel that out of Janet’s folks in the name of ‘spoiling’ me. “You didn’t say, ‘I love you’ back to your Mommy,” the Amazons said. “Why’s that?” I yawned and feigned being sleepier than I really was. “Hm? She did?” Quiet tongue clicks came in reply. “Oh, Littles. It’s a good thing you’re all so cute. Otherwise I don’t know what we’d do with you.” I suppressed a snide remark about leaving us alone so she could start to clean me up. “Don’t you wanna turn the light on?” I asked. “Not miss a spot?” “I can see well enough, Little boy,” she snipped. “Thank you.” Yikes. “Sorry.” “It’s okay, sweetie. You can’t help it.” The conversation paused only as long as it took for her to ball up the used diaper and pile it on top of the broken hypno-cartoon. “Help what?” The giantess pivoted the conversation. “I’m really happy that Janet found you when she did,” she said. “I think you’re good for her.” My eyes started adjusting to the darkness. The strangest sense of deja vu washed over me, like waves of cold ocean water splashing up against me as I was buried up to my neck on the beach. I’d heard something like this before. Not from her. Not from any Amazon. Different lyrics, same melody. “Thank you?” “You’re welcome, baby,” her voice softened an instant. She used too much cream, smeared it everywhere. “I’m glad she had the restraint to wait till after the divorce to Adopt you.” Very different lyrics. But a hauntingly familiar melody. “Why? Was he abusive?” “No,” she said. “I don’t think so. But you and Edward wouldn’t have gotten along.” Now it was too much powder. All the way to my belly button. The last time I’d heard this song, there had been organ music accompanying it. I’d been wearing a rented tuxedo. “Why?” “You’d have fought,” Janet’s mother said. “And that’s not right. Picking on a baby for something he can’t help. It’s not like you’d be an actual threat to anyone.” The diaper covered me up, feeling off, crooked. It wasn’t quite right. Needed to be realigned. “Your Mommy loves you. Just not like that. Not like you love her.” The last time I’d heard this ditty, a Little with the muscle mass of a Tweener was keeping his hand on my shoulder, and started it with ‘If you ever hurt her…’. ‘“Huh?” The strap went loose. I was lifted off and placed back down in the crib. A blanket was drawn over me. “No need to be ashamed, baby boy.” In the darkness Helen Foster’s voice sounded far more sinister; her shadow cloaked smile looked far more predatory. “It’s natural. Your Mommy’s very nice, and very pretty. I bet from your perspective, you had a crush. Thought she liked you back.” “A crush?” I echoed stupidly. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Didn’t want to hear it. Didn’t want to believe it. Couldn’t stop listening. “She does love you back,” the old woman repeated. “Just not like that.” “Like what?!” Why was I asking this? Why did it feel like there was an ice pick positioned directly above my heart? Helen Foster’s hand brushed against my tangled mess of hair. “I see how you look at her, dear. You’re not the first Little who fell in love with a Grown-Up and got Adopted instead. You won’t be the last. Probably not what you were fantasizing about when you two met, but you’re still one of us. You’re family, baby boy. Your Mommy loves you more than you’ll ever know. Nana and Pop Pop love you, too.” I’d heard this song before. Different lyrics. Same melody. Except for the last line, which they had in common. “Welcome to the family, Clark.” She left the nursery and quietly closed the door behind her. I didn’t go back to sleep.

Chapter 123: The Purpose of Children. The peace I’d earned from Janet’s Mom lasted only as long as it took for the four of us to get back to the car. “You’re not going to make him wear this stuff all the way back, are you?” Her mom said. “Of course not,” Janet replied, sounding slightly offended. She popped the trunk. “How long has he been wearing it?” her mom pressed, “Your house is quite a drive. He looks hot.” Her Dad got in on the action. “Hey Pookie,” he said, “I’m having trouble getting our suitcases and Clark’s buggy thing into your trunk.” Janet bit her lip and looked at her mother and father, unsure of which fire to put out. Her Mom added more pressure when she stretched her arms out. “Hand him over, sweetie. Go help your father.” It was subtle but I felt Janet tense up. In the space of just a few minutes her mother had acted and sounded very much like a typical Amazon; closer to Raine Forrest than Melony Beouf. She was still ‘Mom’. Fuck it. “Are you going to tickle me, again?” I asked. She shook her head slowly in almost the same way Janet did when she thought she was letting me down easy. “Not right now, baby. Nana just wants to clean you up so you’re comfortable on the car ride home.” A smile creeped out of her. Oh yeah. ‘Nana’ was her auditory addiction. “We’ll play later. Promise.” I gave Janet’s neck a quick hug. “Okay Nana. I trust you.” My Mommy immediately untensed. She just didn’t want a fight. I leaned out of one Amazon’s arms and into anothers. “Diaper bag?” she asked Janet. “He should still be dry,” Janet said, still handing it over. “Or only a little wet.” “I believe you dear,” her mother reported, “But I still need the wipes and a place to stuff everything after I got it off him.” “Oh,” Janet chuckled. “Oh yeah.” Mrs. Foster clicked her tongue, and chuckled to herself. The back door opened and I was back to staring up at the car ceiling with. “Your Mommy,” she said, “So neurotic! Always worried about doing things just so. Ever since she was your size.” I held my tongue and tried to find something to distract myself with while the slippers and pants were taken off. She took my socks and the bits of straw grass around my ankles for good measure. “Uh-oh! Look at these widdle piggies! Look at ‘em! Coochie coochie coo!” Her fingers tickled at my toes and my muscles spasmed fighting laughter. “Nana!” I said, trying to do my best not to squeal, “You said you wouldn’t tickle.” “Sorry, baby,” she grinned like a cat eyeing a canary. “Nana couldn’t help herself.” Witch couldn’t control her impulses for fifteen minutes, but I was the baby? This was going to be a long couple of days. “Does that feel better? Less hot?” “Getting there, ma’am.” Naturally, she stuck two fingers past my onesie and the leakguards of my diaper. “You don’t need a change,” she sounded slightly disappointed and I stared into the middle distance to prevent my eyes from rolling. This was Day One all over again. “My Mommy already told you,” I lifted my head and reminded her. No point in invoking my own reason or authority to someone who wouldn’t listen. “Just checking,” the older woman chirped. “Mommies are always right, but babies are full of surprises, aren’t they?” Was that a wink? I couldn’t tell because by the time I processed it the makeshift wig was being tugged off my head and shoved into the bag. “Awwwwww!” Janet’s mother gushed. “Cuuuuuuute!” I had a very bad feeling I’d be hearing that noise a lot. She leaned back and stood up. “Janet! Clark is such a cutie carrot top! Why’d you put that wig on him?” The garage was quiet enough that I could just make out Janet’s reply as more than garbled tones. “I’ve sent you pictures, Mom.” “Not in a while,” her mother nagged. “I thought you did the wig cuz you went and dyed his hair black to match yours or something. Why’d you do the wig?” “It was my idea,” I said even though I thought I knew better. “I wanted to keep the homemade artificial aesthetic going and-” Mrs. Foster bent over and leaned back in. “What was that, baby? Nana couldn’t hear you.” “Nevermind,” I sighed. “Ohhhhhh,” she giggled. “Somebody is all tuckered out from puttin’ on a show for his Nana and Pop Pop and is gettin’ grumpy, isn’t he?” I declined to comment and quit while I was behind. She dug out the baby wipes. “You can nap all the way home if you want to. Just hold still and let Nana get all that gunk off your face.” A torrent of baby wipes dragged their way over my forehead, nose, cheeks and chin, scrubbing off the dried makeup. I grinned and bared every comment and condescension. “Where’s my grandbaby? Oh there he is! He’s coming out!” “Why did your Mommy even paint these cute little cheeks? You didn’t need it! Nope nope nope!” “Buh-bye big boy beard! Buh bye!” That one hit particularly hard. “Hm? What’s wrong?” she asked. “Was I bein’ too rough?” On face? No. She was surprisingly gentle. It’s strange what words can do to open up wounds thought scabbed over. I was going to be stuck in a car for the next two hours with this lady who made Janet cringe yet she deeply wanted to impress. I couldn’t afford to make things worse. “No, Nana.” She leaned in deeper so that she was practically on top of me. “Just seeing if I missed any big spots,” she told me. Then paused, staring at me for I don’t know what reason. A kathunking sound signaled that the luggage problems had been worked out. The passenger side back door clicked open. “Okay, Helen, I think we’ve about got it sorted out,” Janet’s father said. “Let me just check. On my periphery I saw movement and heard something being set down. “Alright! Good thinking Pookie!” Janet opened the door and climbed into the driver’s seat. “Mom, since your bag is smaller and Clark’s feet don’t reach the floor, we’re just going to put it there for the drive.” Mrs. Foster didn’t look up; just kept staring at me. “Janet,” she said. “Clark has very pretty eyes. Did you know that?” “I did!” Janet agreed. “It’s one of my favorite things about him.” My temples buzzed and my face flushed. Where was this going? “You didn’t get them altered at one of those Little salons, did you?” her mother asked. A hint of disgust was present in her tone. “Nope,” Janet said. “That’s all him.” She buckled her seatbelt, but waited to turn the engine on. “Good,” her mother said, still looking my way. “Don’t change them.” This was definitely Janet’s mother. She scooped her hands up under my armpits, lifted me off one seat and sat me down in the car seat. “Those places are total rip offs if you ask me anyway,” Janet’s father volunteered. “Especially for the boys.” He slid into the front seat with Janet. “Boys don’t gotta worry about stuff like split ends or having their hair done up all pretty in pigtails. Ain’t that right Clarky boy?” I was unable to respond because the other new Amazon had squeezed herself into my line of sight and was picking and pawing at me. “Hold still, baby,” Janet’s mom said, taking the last bits of straw grass from my neck and wrists. “Almost got you.” A swift yank saw the removal of the pacifier clip posing at a tie. She held it between her thumb and middle finger and looked at it with a special kind of revulsion. It went on the floor, and she finished buckling me in. “If ol’ Clarky boy here needs a cut,” her dad continued, “ just sit ‘em down, break out a pair of buzz clippers and start fresh. That or a bowl.” A rock of disgust fell from my throat all the way down to my tailbone. Me? Bowl cut? No thank you. I had enough grief in my life. “He does need a haircut,” Janet admitted. “Combing his hair is just so hard.” She quickly tacked on, “And not because he’s fussy or cranky first thing in the morning.” With me secured, my so-called Nana took interest in the conversation. “That’s not the point, Bill. Those places are basically drive through plastic surgery centers. If someone Adopts and then changes literally everything about their Little, then they never really wanted that Little to begin with.” Perhaps I’d misjudged this woman. Beneath the beige mittens my hands were sweating up a storm. Janet’s mom forgot to remove them. Luckily they were just regular mittens. I peeled them off. “No-no-no-no!” Amazon hands lurched forward and tugged them back down over my wrists. “We keep our mittens on, do you understand?” Nope. I’d very much caught the measure of her right on the first go through. Janet looked back over her chair. “They’re just mittens, Mother. Part of the costume.” “What? Really?” Color rose up in Helen Foster’s cheeks. “I’m sorry, Janet. I thought those were no-no mittens,” she explained. “I know how a lot of Littles go through a phase where they like to touch themselves down there.” “Clark doesn’t do that, Mom,” Janet said, “He’s very good about that.” I thought I’d become immune to Amazons talking about my bodily functions as if I had neither control nor care. Whether or not I spontaneously masturbated in public was unexplored territory. “We have a system at home for helping him if he feels the need to express certain urges.” The majority of my clothing had been stripped off, but I was starting to feel hot in the worst possible way. If Janet brought up the green goop, I would die right then and there. I held my breath hoping that no one would ask for specifics. “I’m sorry, dear,” Janet’s mother replied. “I didn’t mean to question your parenting.” “Don’t apologize to me,” my Mommy said evenly, “Apologize to Clark. I think you hurt his feelings.” “Don’t be silly,” her mother almost laughed. “It was just a misunderstanding.” She stared back at me. “Nana didn’t hurt your feelings, did she baby?” Now or never. “You kind of did, actually.” I looked away, afraid of the wrath that might rain down. “Oh…” came a soft reply. My hands were taken up in hers. “I’m sorry, baby. Nana didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. Do you forgive me?” I looked past her and looked to Janet, sympathetic but afraid of what I might say. It’s amazing what power our loved ones have over us. How we desperately want to impress them even when they’re in direct opposition to us. Somehow I had as much if not more power than I’d ever had with her. “Clark?” Janet repeated. “Do you forgive Nana? She said she was sorry. Do you forgive?” I weighed my options. Long term strategy, dignity, and petty base instinct all battled for supremacy. I settled on, “Maybe…” Her mom’s face went blank. Her lips puckered like she’d just sucked on a sour lemon and worked side to side like there was something stuck in her teeth that she just couldn’t get out with her tongue. “Janet? Are you sure Clark’s Adopted? I thought you could only get sass like that if you inherited it.” She laughed through her nose and ended things with a “Mwah” on my forehead. “Kids.” She pivoted back into the backseat and buckled up. The fear of reprisals dissipated all around. Her father offered up a friendly nudge and said “She’s got you there, Pookie.” He thumbed back towards me. “You were a sassy little thing when you were tiny enough to fit in one of those.” “I’m two years older than her,” I grumbled to myself. The comment went ignored. Janet bit her lip and started backing out. “Driving, Dad. Thankyoooou.” Peace and quiet ruled the car all the way home until about five minutes after Janet successfully pulled out of the airport and onto the main highway. “Hey, Clark.” Janet’s dad turned around in the passenger seat. “Wanna see a trick? He stuck out his index finger and stretched his arm out. “Pull my finger.” “Daddy!” Janet whined. “No! Don’t!” “Oh, Bill!” her Mom huffed. “No…” “Hey, you two get to do Nana and Mommy stuff. This is Grade A Pop Pop material right here!” He brushed them off and reasserted his gaze. “Go on, son. Pull my finger!” If I could have retracted my hands inside of myself, I would have. “No, thank you. I’d rather not.” His face became a harlequin mask of disappointment. “You sure? You don’t wanna pull Pop Pop’s finger?” He switched to the kind of smile normally reserved for clowns and strangers with unmarked vans. “Something reeeeeally funny will happen!” “Daddy…” “Bill…” He winked at me. “It’ll make your Nana and Mommy really upset and you won’t get in trouble. Right Nana? Right Mommy?” Neither one answered. Now this was tempting. Did I really want to turn the entire car into a gas chamber, though? There were times when my own brand still bothered me. An old man’s crop dusting would be so much worse. “No thank you,” I replied. For bonus points I also said, “I’m making a good choice today.” “Thank you Clark,” Janet’s eyes smiled in the mirror, grateful. “Good boy,” Mrs. Foster said, showing tremendous restraint by not patting me on the head. “Awwwww, you’re no fun,” Mr. Foster sulked. “Fine. You win, Clarky boy.” He retracted his single digit and offered up his fist. “Put it there.” I leaned as far forward as the harness would let me to give him a fist bump… “Clark! No!” Too late… Our fists tapped, and the loudest smelliest wettest sounding fart I’ve yet heard sounded off like a cannon. It was less than half a second til I was awash in a stench so bad that even Billy would retch. It was like being dunked in Beouf’s diaper pail at the end of a day where the entire class had the runs. “Oops! Pushed my button!” I grabbed a discarded mitten and shoved it up to my nose and mouth, praying it would act as a sort of filter. “Ugh!” I groaned, “Son of a…got me.” The windows rolled down immediately. Immediately was not nearly fast enough. The stuff was rancid enough to give birth to new microscopic civilizations and then kill them. Janet’s dad faced forward and tossed his arms up in celebration. “HA-HA! POP POP WINS AGAIN!” “Darn it, Bill!” “Daddy! Gross!” Several other, less polite sounding things were said that were difficult to interpret over the roaring wind of the highway and Bill’s maniacal laughter. “Really,” Janet’s mother huffed as soon as the windows were rolled back up and the stench was (mostly) gone. “I swear, Bill. Sometimes I think you should be in diapers, too.” “As long as I don’t have to change ‘em.” her husband chortled. “As long as I don’t have to change ‘em.” Things died down for a few minutes, Janet driving, her father infinitely pleased with himself, her mother probably fantasizing about bouncing me on her lap, and me kicking myself for falling for one of the oldest tricks in the book. Janet’s mom was the one who next broke the silence. “Tell me again how you Adopted Clark.” That same sneaky smile mounted herself on Janet’s face. LIke a pouty teenager, Janet whined. “Mom, I already told you.” This was all for my benefit. Despite all the fighting and fussing that had gone on, the events leading up to and immediately preceding my capture took on a strangely nostalgic charm for my caregiver captor. “Tell me again,” her mother said. “It’s Unification weekend! We’ve got our feasting friend right here! You should tell the story of how our family grew!” Janet checked my expression in the rearview mirror. I pretended to not be looking, unconcerned. Bored. That was good enough for her. “Clark and I used to be co-workers and…” I tuned out this story, in no mood to relive the trauma through rose colored glasses… ************************************************************************************************ “So Clark, are you and Cassie still having sex?” Bert Braun asked out of the blue one summer visit; I honestly can’t remember which. My nephew, Olliver, had either just been born or was about to be, so it wasn’t that long before my life was derailed in the big scheme of things. We were outside, grilling on the Misty Brook blacktop. Bert had managed to saw and weld down a grill so that we could reach it. We were doing the traditionally prescribed manly pastime of looking at meat and nodding appreciatively. Cassie was inside. Using the bathroom? Talking with Michelle? My Brother-In-Law was working, I remember that much. His call center job didn’t give him summers off. I swallowed my beer wrong, spit the rest out onto the parking lot and bent over into a coughing fit. In all the years I’d been with Cassie, her family had never broached the subject of children “Bert!” Ida scolded him. “Stop it!” “I’m just asking,” Bert said “when are they gonna get us some grandkids? Mishelle and Bruce are doing it. You two got married before them. What’s the hold up?” My mother-in-law slapped him on the shoulder. It didn’t hurt but he still flinched.“That’s none of our business!” “Whaaaaaat?” Bert almost laughed, “I’m allowed to be curious about being a Grandpa.” It wasn’t a visit to the Brauns unless Bert was antagonizing me about something. Thank goodness the flavor had gotten more and more jovial over the years. I don’t think I would have lasted with year one Bert. “Bert…” Ida warned. I was still catching my breath. I’d lost count of how many times Cassie and I had banged under their very roof. I thought we were stealthy. I didn’t think we were that stealthy “If it helps they can use Cassie’s old room like when they were in college.” Okay. So not that stealthy. “Stop it.” “I’m just asking the boy, Ida. Having kids is something they should be doing at their age.” From a purely strategic social survival point of view, my father-in-law was correct. Besides generally being something people did, walking around pregnant or holding an actual baby was a kind of psychological Amazon repellent. Dollars to donuts, changing diapers was a reason why Ida had made it to her fifties without wearing them. Even for a Little she was petite. Her carrying around Cassie and Michelle, being as motherly as possible likely kept her safer than most. Cassie and I talked a couple times a year about when would be the right time for us, and the answer was always the same: Ready. Set. Not yet. Every time we talked about it, the discussion inevitably came around to wondering what would happen if one of us-probably me- got snatched. What was she supposed to say to our hypothetical child if one day they went to Oakshire Elementary and saw me sitting in one of those rickety high chairs being force fed by Beouf or her Yamatoan assistant? I never had an answer to that because I knew deep down it’d never happen. Cue Fight. Cue Crying. Cue make-up sex. “I’m um…we’re…doing it…just something…isn’t taking…I guess.” “Is it you?” Bert smirked. “Got trouble getting the soldiers out?” He flipped the burgers casually. “Because I bet it’s not Cassie.” “You really want me to go into the details of how I rail your daughter?” I asked. Brazen needed responding to with brazen. Bert grunted and thought better of it. “Fair.” “We’re gonna have kids,” I said. “We want to. Eventually. Just the time isn’t right. Babies are expensive. You know that.” “Aw, come on, Clark.” Bert’s meaty paw rested on my shoulder. “I know you’ve got it pretty good working with Amazons, but you can’t let the humongous sons of bitches control every aspect of your life.” Damn. Maybe his near Tweener size gave Bert some kind of psychic ability. “Just take off the rubber, tell her to get off the pill, and put one in her.” “You sound almost like an Amazon…” I warned. “All that baby talk.” Bert took his hand off my shoulder. “Amazons don’t obsess over babies, son. You know better.” I’d gone too far. He favored me with a forgiving smirk. “That’s not why I want you and Cassie to have kids, though.” “Why?” “I want both of my daughters to experience what parenthood is like. If it were easier to adopt, I’d say do that if you wanted to.” The taste of beer on my tongue was bitter but I swallowed the swig. “I think I got an idea of what it’s like to be a parent. Being a teacher and all.” To my surprise, both Brauns chuckled. “Nah,” my father-in-law replied. “You’ve got an idea of what it’s like to be a Grandpa. You see the kids. You play with them. You send them home.” He waggled his spatula. “To be fair, you do teach them, and you probably change a dirty diaper or two, but that’s being a Grandparent too.” “Okay,” I said cautiously. “What’s the difference?” “When you’re a parent,” Bert explained, “you get to experience all the joys and torments that you put your parents through. Especially the torments.” He smiled wickedly. “And we get to watch.” I did a look back to the trailer to make sure no one was coming out. “And you’d wish that on your own daughters?” “Darn tootin’!” Bert laughed. “They did it to us first!” “Children are a blessing,” Ida told me. “Grandchildren are revenge.” ************************************************************************************************ “So his name is Clark…Grange?” Janet’s Mom said. “Not Clark Foster?” I snapped out of my stroll sans stroller down memory lane when Mrs. Foster interrupted. “Correct,” Janet said. “It was my last name when I Adopted him, so I wanted it to be his last name, too.” “So what happens if you change your name back to Foster?” her dad asked. “Would he still be ‘Clark Grange’?” “Unless I changed his name too, I think so,” Janet answered. “But I’m not planning on doing that.” I couldn’t see the consternation in her dad’s eyes, but I could hear it. “Why not, Pookie?” “Pookie?” I whispered. So weird hearing Janet be infantilized. “It’s not like Edward had anything to do with Adopting him,” her mom added. “He’s not Clark’s Daddy.” “And the paperwork reflects that,” Janet said. “I just didn’t want to change my name.” Her dad kept at it. “Why not, though?” “Mom, would you change your name if Dad died before you?” Janet asked. “Of course not.” “Well…Edward’s dead to me.” “But I would still love your father,” her mom said. “Do you still love Edward?” Her father answered for her. “After that two-timin’ son of a bitch-” “Bill. Language. The baby.” “Right. Sorry.” His voice softened. “After what he did to you? He doesn’t deserve you having his last name. Or our grandson.” “I’m not doing it for him, Dad,” Janet said. “I’m doing it for me. Married or not, I like being ‘Janet Grange’. It’s not about who I’m married to, it’s about who I am.” I looked over and saw her mother’s brow furrowed in disbelief. “I don’t know about that…” We were going ten under the speed limit and in the far right lane. Janet’s eyes were focused forward but her attention was anywhere but. “Am I any less your daughter just because my last name is still Grange?” “No.” “Is Clark any less your grandson?” “Of course not, Pookie. We love both of ya.” “Then it doesn’t matter,” Janet said firmly. “Names aren’t about connection and family trees. They’re about identity.” I didn’t feel it right away, but those words lodged themselves deeply into my brain. “So what happens if you marry somebody else, Pookie?” An innocent question. “That’s a bridge we’ll cross if and when we come to it.” Janet said. “Does that mean you’re not seeing anyone, dear?” “We are not having this conversation right now, mother.” Holy shit, these two were just as bad in some ways as mine or Cassie’s parents. Prying. Snooping. Judging. Asking uncomfortable questions. Saddling her with their own expectations and life goals. It wasn’t even mean spirited in nature. It was just annoying and condescending. Care that was disrespectful because she was presumed to need such care. And her boundaries came second because they felt they knew better than her. Because they’d raised her they still felt they knew more than her; knew her better than she knew herself. It was almost as if they still saw Janet as a child. They’d changed her diapers, burped her, stayed up late nights with her, walked her to school, and took care of her when she was sick. Those days were long past, but that’s how they still saw her. Even though she was a grown woman with her own life, job, house, and supposedly baby, they still felt both a responsibility to her life and a sense of entitlement that gave them a say in how it was run. They’d known her as a child and on some level she’d always be a child to them, in need of nagging and managing, her protests just suggestions because they always knew best. The block tower of her personal growth and life was still right side up, but her parents couldn’t help but still look at it from the bottom of the stack first. And Janet, flustered, annoyed, and still afraid on some level could only bristle, protest, and whine. Her putting her foot down was about as effective as me getting red faced and stomping my feet. It was almost like she had Maturosis. A terrible smile broke out over my face like hives. A rare opportunity for mischief had presented itself. None of my long term goals would be served, but they wouldn’t be hindered either, and no one would be hurt. That and it would be fun. Time to give my Mommy a taste of her own medicine. “Okay,” I broke in, “I gotta know. Why ‘Pookie’?” Both of her parents immediately brightened. “Oh gosh, I love that story!” Janet’s head stiffened and her eyes glared at me. I had found a button. A big shiny red button begging to be repressed. “Well let’s see,” her mother tapped her chin in thought. “Janet was something of a late talker.” “Had the cutest little speech impediment,” her father said. “It was almost like a foreign language. If you didn’t train your ear and know what she was already talking about, it’d sound like complete baby babble.” “Mom…Dad…” Janet was clutching the steering wheel. “We don’t have to talk about-” “Mommy!” I gasped. “Don’t interrupt Nana and Pop Pop! You’re being rude!” I saw her lips retreat inward and her nostrils flare. Oh this was so going to be worth it! “Please, Nana and Pop Pop; tell me what Mommy was like when she was little…like me.” Her mother’s hand reached sideways and roughed my hair. It had to happen sooner or later. “Awww, such a good Little boy!” “So anyway,” her Dad continued, “One time we took her out to a fancy restaurant. We were meeting up with some of my old Sorority brothers. Kind of a reunion thing.” “And Janet is the only child at the table, the waitress sees Janet and is trying to talk to her,” her Mom tagged in. Janet stared in the middle distance. “I hate this story…” “Yeah, that’s right,” her dad kept talking. “And she goes, ‘What’s your name, little girl?’” “And our Janet, sweet little thing gets all glossy eyed, kind of like she is now actually,” her mother said, “and blinks a few time, and out of nowhere she says…” the couple looked at each other and in unison shouted.” “I’M POOOOOOKIE!” They laughed. Janet turned the deepest shade of red. I didn’t get it. “Pookie?” “‘Pookie’ is how your Mommy said ‘Poopie’ way back when,” her mother said. “She wasn’t saying her name.” “Our baby girl had just dropped a load in her pants and was telling a stranger about it.” “And I had left her diapers at home on accident.” “So she had to sit in her messy Monkeez all through dinner. And the waitress kept calling her ‘Pookie’ all night! And we didn’t want to embarrass her, so we kept pretending that was her name.” “So it stuck.” Oh this was too good. “Awwwwww!” I cooed. “Cute Mommy! How old was she? One? Two?” “Clark…” “Five!” her mother howled. “Mommy!” I covered my mouth just enough to suppress my own peels of raucous laughter. “You weren’t potty trained when you were five?” “We almost didn’t get her into Kindergarten!” her father roared. “Good thing you had that birthday that missed the cutoff. Gave you the extra year to mature!” Speech impediments and toileting delays? “Mommy!” I squealed, “You could have been in my class!” Naturally, I was thinking of myself as a teacher. Her folks took it another way. “Come to think of it, that’s right,” Janet’s mother said. “We threatened that if you didn’t stop going ‘pookie’ in your pants, you’d have to go back to daycare with all the Littles.” The stretch of highway we were on was open and flat. I truly believe in that moment, if we had been on a bridge or an elevated platform, Janet would have steered us off. “It worked, too!” Her dad agreed. “Cleared it right up. ‘Cept for the bed wetting, but that stopped around second grade.” “Dad! Please…!” Her mother balled up her fists and scrunched up her face in a pantomime of a child’s tantrum. “She was like. Nooooo! I don’ wanna be a Widdle! I wanna be a Mommy and take cawe of the Widdles!” “Mother!” “She wanted to take care of the Littles?” I half-shouted. “Really?” “Oh yeah, she went through a looooooooong Littles phase,” her mother remembered. “From about age seven to right about when she started getting her period, she was obsessed with Littles. Which I want to say was about fourteen. Bit of a late bloomer.” I rubbed my hands together like a cartoon villain. “Oh really?” “You don’t know the half of it, Clarky boy. She had all these Little dolls, the kind that ate and peed and pooped like the real thing.” “Mhmmm…” “Mom? Dad? Can we not?” “Oh it was cute, Janet,” her mother shrugged. “She used to draw all of these pictures of herself, holding a baby. Do you remember the pictures, Janet?” A low growl from Janet. “I do.” “She was such a talented artist for her age. And everytime someone asked, she’d make it very clear that she was holding a Little, not a baby.” Her dad nodded. “She always said, I want a Little. I want a baby that doesn’t have to grow up.” “I’m honestly surprised it took her this long to Adopt,” her mother mused. “I thought she would have Adopted a Little right out of highschool.” “I thought she’d have three or four by now.” Janet had gone from bright pink to ghostly pale. She was sniffling, trying not to cry and hiding it. Her parents too lost in their own bullshit to notice. She was looking at me. What was that? Humiliation? Fear? This was supposed to be embarrassing, not traumatizing. Not that traumatizing. Why was she looking at me? So she was a late potty trainer? That doesn’t affect who you are. So she was a typical baby crazy Amazon when she was a kid? That was the environment she grew up in. She was completely professional up until she wasn’t. Why did it look like it was hurting her for me to know this? She was an Amazon. I already knew she was a hypocrite. I was hurting her! Things were going too far. “I guess she was looking for the right one,” her mother concluded. A dull pain on the left side of my face registered with the pinching of cheeks. “And she found him,” her dad agreed. “Hey, Mommy,” I said, pitching my voice up slightly higher. “I wasn’t paying attention to your story. Did you tell Nana and Pop Pop about Raine and her giving me those chocolates.” Janet shook herself out of whatever personal torment she’d plunged into. “Hmm? No. I hadn’t got that far yet.” “What’s this about?” her father asked. “An ex-coworker that I had to put the fear into.” Janet said. Her grip on the steering wheel loosened. “She was trying to force feed him laxatives behind your back.” Enthralled and outraged, her mother leaned forward. “Excuse me? She fed him laxatives? Behind your back? That could make him sick!” “Don’t worry,” Janet said. “She’s not a problem anymore.” The car started going the speed limit. “Atta girl, Pookie.” Her dad patted her on the shoulder. She blushed again, but it was a good blush. “Did you tell them about Lion?” I asked. “Lion?” her dad smiled. “Now we’re talking! Who’s Lion?” “His favorite stuffie,” Janet said, her surety increasing. “Why didn’t you bring it?” I spoke up before Janet had a need to play defense. “Did you tell them about the time you saved me from that mean lady who wanted to take me?” Her mother gasped. “Really?!” “The one who spanked me and wanted to make me her daughter’s brother?” “What?!” her father roared. “Who the heck is this? Nobody hits my grandson and gets away with it!” “Oh,” I beamed. “then I need to tell you about Mrs. Ambr-” “It was before I Adopted him,” Janet cut me off and explained. “I don’t care!” her old man punched his fist into his open palm. “Give me names. I want names!” “Oh Bill, hush.” I tried to say “Her name is-!” “Clark,” Janet interrupted. “Shush. It’s Mommy’s turn to talk.” I laid back. “Yes, Mommy.” “I first met Clark when he was still a teacher. Preschoolers, a lot with developmental disabilities. I knew who he was, had seen him around campus, but we hadn’t really talked besides saying hello…” Janet went to tell the whole story of us all the way back home. It wasn’t the same as my story. She got some of the events out of order, or had to double back. A lot of the crying and the shouting matches were omitted. A lot of my motives were gravely misattributed and I wasn’t nearly as cute and childish as she made me seem. The things that made me cringe or made her look good were embellished. The things that made her look bad were glossed over or omitted entirely. Her parents hung on every word, enraptured by the telling of it all. Her, the hard working teacher jumping in headfirst to parenthood. Me, the fun loving but mischievous Little who she found and took into her home after being a proper Grown-Up got to be too much for him, fighting all the way despite everything. Brollish was of course still the villain. As were Ambrose and Raine. Painting the frog was a hit. Mark was reduced to just a bad date. Picture Day got laughs, but only from her father. Mercifully, she left out both my house burning down and the green goop. It wasn’t entirely accurate. Much artistic license was used. But it was a good story. Truly the stuff of Unification. Real crappy made for T.V. movie junk. And it all ended with a car ride home from the airport. “Why didn’t you tell us any of this in your emails?” Her mother asked just as we were pulling into the neighborhood. Janet shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I wanted you to think I was a good Mommy.” Her mother unbuckled her seat belt and leaned forward just so she could give Janet a hug. “Oh, honey. If there was one thing in the entire world I think you were born to be, it was this.” “Yeah,” her father agreed. “Getting in trouble is just what kids do.” He mean mugged right at me. “Little hell raisers.” “If anybody was going to be able to handle a child that never gets past their terrible twos, it’s you.” Janet put the car in park and wiped away a single tear. “I don’t think he’s so terrible.” [End Part 9]

I mean...I feel like anyone who would argue that things like spellcheck count as AI for the purposes of asking "Is this writing AI generated" is just acting in bad faith and adhering to the letter instead of the spirit of the law. And that sort of person would probably lie about using a chatbot anyway. @spark I don't think there's a way to enforce the rule without it becoming a witch hunt or gatekeeping along the lines of perceived quality. The most that can reasonably done is being done. A standard is being set and people are being asked to abide by that standard in good faith. "Put this product here separate from the other products for purposes of media differentiation." We just have to assume that people will be honest because anything less would be an invasion of privacy. I think there's a lot of things where "proof" is needed beyond a reasonable doubt, but this isn't one of them.

Okay. Yes. Me too. Same principal, though. HARD AGREE on that last sentence.