Personalias

Thank y'all. The praise helps lift my spirits as does the emotional investment. I am being short only because if I'm not, I'm going to start gushing.

(Chapter 4) Trial 59 Glitch withdrew immediately after the “horsey ride” incident. The ex-sidekick had seemed genuinely puzzled at Circe’s declaration of loathing. It was the happiest that Circe had been since her capture. She’d done it! She’d gotten underneath the idiot’s artificial skin! Success! Total success! It had been so deceptively easy using those three words. Normally, hero-villain reparte was more complex than all that. Long monologues and barbed insults. Had Circe been trying too hard all these years? Was it really that easy? Perhaps this next generation was just too soft; bunch of special snowflakes. That made her feel old…odd considering everything else about her prison. Regardless, the declaration of hate still hadn’t had the desired effect; not completely. Instead of saying “I hate you, too” Glitch frowned and asked “Why?”. And when Circe couldn’t vocalize an answer, she’d just up and left. What did that idiot cyborg mean in asking that question? Wasn’t it obvious why Circe hated her? Wasn’t it self-evident? Putting such complex and self-evident truths into spoken word was harder than it looked, however. That and the question had been posed right after Circe climaxed harder than she ever had in her life. Who did that?! Seriously!!! Asking those sort of things right after orgasm was right up there with interrupting your rival when they were making their bold declarations about how good triumph or evil It just wasn’t done! Instead of waiting until she’d recovered, and showing ink blots, Glitch had exited with an awkward amount of urgency and haste, and hadn’t come back since. Then Circe was maneuvered over to the robot changing table, stripped, wiped, powdered, and re-diapered, and then left on the nursery floor to change and entertain herself with less than breakable toys. Circe had no way to keep track of the time in this box. There were no clocks and her sense of time wasn’t the best as it was. Both her human mind and Siren soul tended to keep track of things based on victims and crimes or other natural biological urges. Now all she had was feedings, nap times, and bed. Oh, and diaper changes. Those too. She hated all the mechanized events, but hated diaper changes the most. Not the diapers, specifically; they were dreadfully comfortable all things considered. But the process of being changed, like some prop on an assembly line: That was the worst. Having to lie there at her most helpless but needing to struggle and not being given the proper opportunity to. It wasn’t sporting! All she couldn’t do was scream in pink. Speaking of pink, that annoying light always flashed in her eyes when she got changed. It was so bright and annoying that even slamming her eyes shut did nothing, she could see the strobing pulses through her lids. It recharged the voice modulator she suspected. At least with feeding and toy time and the crib she felt she had the option to spit something out or try an escape. The table didn’t give her even that much, just calming powder and cooing pre-recorded words along with fresh underwear (that never actually stayed UNDER anything). How long had it been? Where was Glitch? Circe hadn’t seen anyone in what felt like a week. Possibly more. Had there been an apocalypse that the world’s heroes needed to gather to stop? That Circe hadn’t caused?! That she’d missed out on?! Or what if it had been successful and the Siren was now just trapped here, forever until some nigh magical super-science power source ran out? She didn’t and couldn’t know, and it was driving her crazy. She didn’t even know if the security cameras were on or if the nerds in lab coats were watching her still. She might just be alone instead of under careful observation of invisible scientist. More than once she’d screamed at the windows and got nothing. She would have pounded on the windows but she was unable to stand without getting tased. She could break toys, but that would just lose her the toys. Everything came out pink, of course, even swear words. Not that she was swearing much anymore. The paddling machine got well past a hundred before she lost the count. Presently, Circe crawled around in circles on the floor. Her thoughts were zig-zagging quicker than she could process. The need to be her Siren self gave her the need to transgress and destroy. Her need for self-preservation struggled to reign her in. “Stupid Glitch,” Circe muttered to herself. “Follow the rules, Circe. Be a good girl Circe. “Her voice gained a whining nasally quality, as they often do when children. “Eat your mush, Circe. Don’t break your toys, Circe. Don’t run away, Circe! Do what you’re fu….” she stopped. “Do what you’re effing told to, Circe.” Her entire face fell when she realized she’d stopped herself from swearing because she knew that she feared the spanking machine. Torture was pointless without someone to defy. There were no other tormentors for her to put a brave face on. No other inmates to impress with how awful or resilient she could be. No victims to intimidate or terrify. Just her. Alone. In a room. And the only means of entertainment were bits of rainbow colored plastic that were too sturdy to break. She’d done everything else. Circe shifted so that she was sitting on her bottom. Disturbingly, she noticed the squish of her wet diaper. When had that happened? The Siren hadn’t even noticed or remembered peeing herself. Had she gone and just forgotten out of boredom, or was she well and truly on her way to losing her potty training? “The fudge?” She poked at her padded crotch. Even through the inflexible mittens she was incredibly squishy. “What is happening to me?” As if on cue, the pommel horse shot up from the ground. Circe felt panic rise up in her. What had she said? Was ‘fudge’ now a curse word? “GOOD BABY! YOU GET A REWARD!” Glitch’s recorded voice boomed. “LET’S GO FOR A HORSEY RIDE!” “NO!” Circe screamed. “NOT AGAIN!” But the mechanical nursery paid her no mind. On soaking, sopping wet padding, the supervillain was lowered, straddling the ‘Mama’s Knee’ and held in place with metallic tendrils “Bounce me Bounce me on your knee Bounce me bounce me pretty please Bounce me bounce me here and there Bounce me bounce me EVERYWHERE!!!” The songs did not help, only adding to the woman’s humiliation. The fact that they would do nothing to halt the eventual orgasm made it worse. The machine seemed to learn what motions and intensity stimulated her most. It was short work before Circe was collapsed on a heap on the floor, too flustered to move. If she rebelled, she was severely punished. If she did nothing, she was given a mind blowing orgasm. And she was running out of the will and ways to rebel. “Why me…?” she softly cried. “Wh me? Ffffff….” But she couldn’t finish it… ***************************************************************************** Meanwhile… Glitch was capable of performing over a million calculations at once in her cybernetic brain. Something still wasn’t making sense to her. “Why isn’t it working?” she asked herself. She was doing everything right. She was precisely controlling the environment, and giving Circe as much freedom as she could safely handle. Granted, it wasn’t a lot, but one had to start somewhere. Circe should be thriving, not crying in a puddle on the floor. “There’s a variable I’m missing,” she wondered aloud. “But what?” “Ma’am?” Glitch blinked. The camera feed for Circe’s rehabilitation nursery was taking up space in her right eye. She’d been so engrossed in this conundrum that she wasn’t paying attention to what was going on in the left. “What are you talking about?” The technician in front of her was waiting for her to sign off on the latest experiment- a way to use time’s relationship with gravity to speed up the lifecycle of certain endangered species of plants using bits of dwarf star in the hydroponics bay. The real trick would be doing it so that they didn’t affect the evolution of said plants making reintroduction into the wild impossible. “Sorry, Mitch,” Glitch said. She quickly reviewed the proposed calculations, power sources and equipment needed to execute them. Out of politeness she waited a whole three seconds to finish her reply. “Everything appears in order.” She handed the data tablet back. “Thank you ma’am.” Glitch said “You’re welcome,” but she was already observing the images in the nursery. What was she doing wrong? She was giving regular predictable rewards and positive reinforcement, and removing anything and everything that gave Circe a chance to act out, while still providing consequences if she made bad decisions. Combine that with the strobes from the changing table, and Circe should be ready to reintroduce to society by now. Based on even the most conservative simulations,Circe should have been at least back in middle school by now, re-learning adult feeling communication and conflict resolution. There were at least a dozen different rooms she’d constructed that weren’t being utilized at the moment. Circe just kept regressing further and further, and not in a good way. This was supposed to be a Groundhog Day scenario wherein if someone was given enough time they would eventually make the right decision. But Circe had forced the programming to remove almost every decision she could possibly make. Everytime it presented her with a positive option, she destroyed it, leaving her only with the most childsafe and infantile scenarios on file left. Note-to-self: Create virtual reality time lapse to simulate Groundhog Day. Her Asimov protocols were the only thing preventing the room from swaddling the woman up and leaving her paralyzed. The young hero shuddered to think that it could come to that. Glitch had honestly predicted that by removing herself and the staff as a source of perceived antagonists Circe might start to recover. Without someone to rebel against, though, the villain was practically trying to destroy herself, it seemed. How deep did her psychological scars run? “At least she’s not cursing as much…” The cameras zoomed in on the crying woman. Her wails were strengthening to the point where three staff members had resigned in protest because of “what you’re doing to that poor baby”. Naturally, they’d been given their positions back when the effects of Circe’s voice wore off. “What am I doing wrong?” *************************************************************************** Trial 61. Circe was not awake. Not at all. It was the only reason she was able to smile behind her pacifier. The pacifier had been inserted before the lights went out and Circe kept falling asleep with it because she kept trying to chew through the bulb and swallow it out of spite. Lying in her crib and fast asleep, the silver haired woman wasn’t consciously aware that the pleasant wet warmth between her legs was her own urine leaking out of her. She’d be mortified enough once she woke up and realized that she’d wet the bed. Too bad for her that it didn’t stop there. The Siren stirred slightly beneath the covers of her nice warm blankie, an unconscious moan rumbling out past her binkie. Microphones installed in the crib would record the churning gurgling sounds coming from her abdomen just a millisecond later. Her eyes would not open but they didn’t need to for her legs to raise up off the mattress and take pressure off her tailbone. Slowly but surely, Circe grunted and pushed out a healthy mess into the seat of her diaper. To her it was no more physically uncomfortable than for a normal sleeper needing to roll over in her sleep. She smiled in her slumber as her legs lowered back down and the lumpy mess spread back down. The fetid odor wouldn’t reach her nostrils beneath the cozy blankets, and even if it did, Circe was mostly smellblind to her own excrement by this point. Her body only knew that it had become extremely used to the feeling of a bulk between her legs. The extra swelling and wet, warm, squishiness from urine just made it more comfortable, like a warm sponge against her sex. Her subconsciousness associated the warm, clay-like texture coming out the back of her as a positive reinforcer tied into the relief of the mild pain that had been gurgling up inside her gut. Beyond the initial doses used to “break her in and clean her out”, laxatives were not a part of Circe’s diet. Laxatives weren’t needed however. The specialized nutrients in her ‘baby food’ were incredibly easy for her body to digest and process. Her innards were well and primed to expel any and all unneeded waste. That and Circe had all but purposefully sabotaged her own potty training. Like a two year old who understands the basic mechanics of the toilet, but refuses to partake out of stubbornness and an irrational fear of upsetting their own status quo, the Siren had doubled down to the point where her body outright refused to relieve itself anywhere that wasn’t a pair of her thick crinkling baby panties. Whether it was psychological or physiological- at this point it might be both-Circe had very little desire or ability to regulate herself. Bladder swelled up and uncomfortable? Relax and let loose. No more discomfort and things got nice and warm. Discomfort in the bowels? Push it out immediately. No more pain and things got nice and warm. Her brain didn’t want to think about it, so her body certainly didn’t. Somewhere off in her dream scape, Circe was likely sitting on a warm, if muddy, beach, with ocean water gently lapping up, singing songs that would lure Odysseus to his doom once and for all. This was the first time in forever that this had happened in her sleep, however. Until tonight, her unconscious battle against her own toileting had only ‘progressed’ so that wetting and messing herself was habit forming bordering on second nature. It had never been something wholly unconscious…until tonight. She’d be disturbed in the morning, no doubt. More disturbing, something she wouldn’t have evidence of was what she did with her hands. The nursery protocols meant to encourage her to ‘behave’ had left another miscalculated scar on her psyche. Almost every time she was ‘encouraged’ to be good by the nursery protocols, her diaper had been in dire need of changing. One can’t orgasm that many times in a wet and messy diaper without making a connection. Circe certainly couldn’t. In her dreams, Circe may have been making love to a foolish sea captain who thought he could ride her the way he rode the waves. Throughout her lifetimes, many would be conquerors and lovers became her victims and thralls. As far as fate was concerned, it was no coincidence that the Siren’s human namesake was another Greek woman known for twisted men to her will. In reality, Circe’s hands were doing all the work. She was too insensate to plunge them properly past the waistband of her adult baby diaper, but they made do gripping and massaging the front. The crinkling of her diaper was just the crackling of a fire and the crashing of the waves to her subconscious. Her pacifier kept her own lustful moaning from waking her. Her thrusting hips and the ever shifting mass cooling in her seat only increased her body’s excitement. It wasn’t easy. Her imaginary lover wasn’t very good. A virgin without proper technique. Still…eventually she got there, fumbling and sighing contentedly as the orgasm tripped and staggered to completion. She would get better at it. ************************************************************************************************ Glitch frowned in bed. She never slept, not as normal people understood it. Ever since she’d ‘upgraded’ herself she was never truly unconscious. She was always thinking, always calculating something. Boredom was largely a result of a lack of imagination and physical fatigue. The young cyborg always had something to think about. Never boring. Always something to do. Always some problem to fix. She was still organic enough that her body required rest at roughly the same intervals as a normal human being. That was no reason to sleep, though. In lieu of dreams, Circe spent six to eight hours a night, resting her body in bed and recharging her physical hardware while her consciousness connected with the closed system wireless software of A.S.T.R.A.L. Labs. She was flitting about working on at least three different equations to try and bring about world peace, end scarcity, and reverse global warming to pre-industrial levels respectively. Problem was, things never quite worked out in the math. Doing all of these things, really, anything of significance required people cooperating with her calculations: Rich and powerful people agreeing to be slightly less rich and slightly less powerful in return for long term gains; relatively powerless people motivated out of a cycle of apathy due to learned helplessness; politicians willing to pass laws that restrained and discouraged bad impulses and protected and encouraged good ones. None of her perfectly logical calculations worked in systems controlled by irrational, fearful, greedy, meat computers piloting skin robots from their bone cockpits. Humanity, as a whole, had advanced to amazing degrees of technology to ensure global prosperity and balance, but never completely dropped the evolutionary survival baggage of “different means bad” and “everything for me and mine first”. Being an advanced cybernetic being for over half her life at this point, Glitch just didn’t “get” people anymore. People were the hardest part of any system to fix. It would be so much simpler if she could just find a workaround for that terribly pesky “free will” that everyone had. But no. That wasn’t going to happen. Her Asimov protocols wouldn’t allow it. That’s why she was so invested with Circe. If she could figure out a way to re-mold Circe, break her of these bad impulses, and build her back up without violating her free will, she would be a step closer from finding a way to ethically generalize the process. At the very least, she could find a way to truthfully rehabilitate people that actively used their free will to directly harm others. Getting rid of super-crime through positive intervention would be a huge step in the right direction. That step wasn’t coming. Circe just kept regressing, and not in a good way! She just kept getting worse and worse. The pink light should be having more of an effect than it was, subtly taking away bad habits and impulses as she literally saw herself in a different light. None of that was happening! Why??? Viewing her sleeping charge from the security feed, Glitch absorbed and pondered new data. Masturbation? Direct sexual stimulation? For some reason she had never considered that. Was this unique to Circe? Had a child's lack of autonomy further eroded her inhibitions? Had the nursery programming caused her to have a faulty cause and effect association? Without candor from Circe or the ability to read minds, Glitch couldn’t know. Should she punish that? She didn’t really have any tangible rewards to offer Circe and encourage her to modify her own behavior. What would B.F. Skinner say? Perhaps she should activate the artificial intelligence based on that brain scan of his and ask… A lightbulb flicked on above the tech-hero’s head. Literally. “Oh!” A security guard said, startled. “Sorry about that, Miss Glitch. Didn’t know you were in here.” Glitch opened her eyes and stepped out of the cylindrical container that was her charging station. “You’re fine, Mr. Harlowe,” she said. She hadn’t known the man’s name, but cybernetic eyes could quickly read name tags from across the room. “I was just about to get up as it was.” She waited a moment to say, “And please. No Miss. Just Glitch.” That put the watchman at ease. “Okie dokie then, there errr…Gltich. You can call me Harry.” Glitch stared at him in bemused disbelief. “Harry? Harry Harlow?” She was actually fighting a thin smirk. “Yeah?” the man said. “Why? What’s so funny?” “You share a name with something of a pioneer in the field of psychology?” “Yeah?” Harry said. “Whose that?” He frowned, realizing the redundancy of his question. “I mean, I know his name but…?” Glitch was happy to share. “He did experiments with rhesus monkeys,” she explained. “Took them away from their biological mothers and provided them with surrogates.” The security guard nibbled his lips. Glitch was losing him. She pulled up his personnel file. Good background check. Not the best grades. “He gave the baby monkeys replacement mothers. Nothing fancy. Think scarecrows.” Harry the security guard’s eyes went to the right, imagining it. “Something that’d fool a baby monkey but nobody else?” At least he was invested. “Yes. Exactly. Each baby got two fake mothers. One was covered in warm cloth but had nothing else. The other was made of basically chicken wire, but had a bottle of milk where the mother’s nipples would normally be.” The guard nodded his head like he understanded, but everything about him signaled that he didn’t. Thankfully, he was honest about it. “Why?” “He wanted to see what was more important to a child’s development: Comfort and affection, or simple sustenance?” She was about to tell him how the baby monkeys would cling to the cloth mother until they were overcome with hunger, then climb to the wire mother to feed, and then travel back immediately to cling to the cloth mother’s arms. She didn’t get the chance. “Both.” Harry Harlowe the second said. “Babies need both.” Glitch stared dead ahead so that she wouldn’t roll her eyes. “Obviously, but the experiment was an attempt to isolate the two factors. What happened was-” “How did the scarecrow monkey things raise the babies?” Harry cut her off. “They just sat there and did nothing. That ain’t no way to raise a kid.” “Well, no but…” Come to think of it, those monkeys were psychologically damaged and unable to reintegrate with others of their kind. Then Harry hit the nail on the head. “Is that what you’re doing with that supervillain? Doing the monkey thing to recreate it or somethin’?” “No,” Glitched scoffed. “I’m…I’m…I’m…” If Glitch’s brain had been fully cybernetic she might have accidentally shut herself down at the realization. The problem with her entire method had been undone by a single random employee with a highschool G.P.A. of 1.9. “Harry, you’re right.” “Oh…” The man didn’t hear those words in that order very often. “Yeah. Thanks. For what?” She’d been coming at this from precisely the wrong angle. Her entire premise was flawed. But like any good scientist, she took the new data in stride and adapted accordingly. “For preventing me from wasting any more time.” ************************************************************************************************* Trial 62 Circe’s eyes opened. She felt unusually well rested considering she’d been sleeping in a crib. The dreams, memories, and fantasies of a life she may or may not have lived slowly faded into the back of her mind, her Siren soul feeling unusually well rested. The super villain softly smiled to herself. “What a wonderful dream,” she whispered. Perhaps she was so well rested, she pondered, because her bladder hadn’t woken her up. She sat up in her baby bed and felt her own room temperature feces sticking to her bottom. This had happened before. It didn’t lessen the shock. “Oh fucking gross!” she whined in pink. Her skin prickled up and she slammed her hand over her mouth. “Sorry!” she called out to the air. “Sorry Mama!” She drew her body into a ball, bracing herself for the coils to pick her up and carry her over to the spanking knee. She hadn’t even gotten her diaper changed, yet. And nothing happened. Nothing? Nothing? Why nothing? Had something happened? A power outage? A malfunction? One of her peers making an attack on A.S.T.R.A.L. Labs? Oh gods! What would happen if another supervillain saw her like this?! Circe peered through the bars of the crib and wondered if maybe…just maybe…this was her chance to escape. The door to the nursery slid open and Circe caught herself jumping. Glitch was back. At least, Circe thought it was Glitch. She had the rubber apron she’d taken to wearing, but beside that, the woman was wearing civilian clothing. “Good morning, Circe,” Glitch said, sounding positively…positive. Where was the smug know-it-all? “Here to gloat?” Circe asked. “Here to talk about how you broke the great Siren?” She hoped so. It would be so nice to have a little bit of witty repartee again. To snipe. To shout. To sneer. “No,” Glitch told her. “Not at all, Circe. I respect you too much.” It was a trap. It was a trap… It was a trap…! It was a trap! But Circe didn’t want it to be. “Oh?” Circe said, trying to sound blase. “Then what are you here for?” The younger woman walked up to the side of Circe’s crib, and lowered the railing herself. “To change your diaper.” The supervillain felt numb from shock. Change her diaper? She’d had many, many, many, many diaper changes. Too many to count. She went through four to five diapers a day; had even picked up on a pattern to the decorations: Blue dog, giraffe, dragon, racoon. Her routine had become that painfully, kafkaesque and predictable. She’d gone through many diaper changes, true, but no one had changed her. It had been all machine operated at this point. “Change? My? Diaper?” "Mhm,” Glitch said. She leaned into the crib, and lifted Circe out of it. As far as superheroes went, Glitch wasn’t particularly strong; her cybernetically enhanced body able to tip over a small car but still walloped by a runaway eighteen wheeler. That strength was still more than enough to carry Circe as if she were an infant. The warmth of another body pressed up against her made her body tingle all over. Touch starved as she was, the simple skin to skin contact was better than champagne. Better than sex. Circe groaned to herself, clinging to her warden with both arms around her shoulders. A wave of loss welled up inside her when the changing table approached. “NO!” She didn’t even know how she said it. Defiantly? Terrified? Lustful? Desperately? She felt a mystery to herself. “It’s okay,” Glitch said. “You’ll be fine.” Circe was powerless to stop herself from being peeled off Glitch’s body like wet paper. “FUCK YOU!” she shouted. “NO-NO-NO-NO!” “Let me clean you up, honey,” Glitch said, not unkindly. “I want you to smell as pretty as you look.” The Siren’s muscles unclenched and she relaxed on the changing table. She was pretty! Someone else saw that she was pretty! Tempted by her! She knew Glitch swung that way! Who wouldn’t for Circe? Even in middle age, she still had it! “Oh…okay.” She laid still and allowed herself to be strapped down to the table. Allowed. Not forced. All part of playing the long game. “Good girl,” Glitch cooed. “Very good girl. Thank you, honey. This helps a lot.” Gratitude! Adulation! That was the stuff! Oooooh, that was the stuff! The tapes came off and the wipes came out. “Oh wow,” Glitch remarked. “You really hammered this diaper into submission! Nice going!” A blush almost as pink as her words came over the supervillain’s whole body. “Nice job? I thought you wanted to potty train me.” “I did,” Glitch admitted as she began cleaning between the Siren’s legs. “But it doesn’t matter what I want. As long as you’re happy, Circe.” Circe didn’t know how to feel about that. Circe was still being dominated, forced to soil herself and allow herself to be cleaned and taken care of. But coming from Glitch it felt more like a kind of submission. “Okay…” The change went slower than Glitch had become used to. The table automatically changing her had gotten it down to a sweet science. Quick. Efficient. Sterile. The giant baby version of a NASCAR pit crew. Glitch lacked much of that. She was clumsier. Less efficient. Used more wipes than perhaps was necessary. Not as polished. “What’s the matter?” Circe taunted. “Couldn’t find a diaper changing tutorial or algorithm to beam into your computer brain?” The young hero balled the giraffe diaper up and tossed it away.. She grabbed a fresh one off the stack and unfolded it. “Didn’t look for one,” Glitch replied. “When I use those programs, my body goes into autopilot. Good for fighting. Bad for people-ing. You deserve the extra attention.” Flattery was starting to get her somewhere. Circe tried to resist on principle. “Admit it, Glitch. Your machines broke down and you had to rush back to pitch in. Your network or whatever science magic you use is malfunctioning. You’re only doing this because you have to. That’s why you’re here out of uniform.” Glitch put a little too much powder on Circe’s bottom. It was a human touch. A nice touch. She waited until she’d finished diapering the supervillain to reply. “No,” she said simply. Circe bent her head and looked down at her diaper. Blue dog? That was out of rotation. “Then why?” Glitch released the restraint and helped Circe up to a sitting position. “My uniform is for work, Circe. I wear it for my co-workers, and my enemies. You’re neither. You’re not work.” Circe braced herself for a cutting remark. Some quip about her being a ‘project’ or ‘hobby’ or ‘experiment’. None came. “I am too an enemy,” the Siren pouted. “Okay, Circe,” Glitch said. “I’m sorry. You’re definitely my enemy.” She was being condescended to, but just hearing another person’s voice, someone to fight and seduce and manipulate…it felt like water to a thirsty mind. She still mattered enough to be condescended to. She wasn’t being ignored. Glitch stuck her arm out to the side, and her tattoos lit up bright white once again. On cue, the day’s big baby dress lowered from the ceiling and was draped over Glitches outstretched arm. Today’s order was white with red polka dots. So much for the broken nursery theory. A little bit of Circe luxuriated at being dressed in baby clothes. When the nursery did it, she felt like a piece on an assembly line. Some dressmaker’s dummy being wrapped up and vacuum sealed. When her new nemesis did it, it felt sensual. The touch of her fingers. The little clumsy tugs to adjust things, here and there. Circe had had lovers undress her before. This felt very similar, only in reverse. Rather than helpless, it felt kind of powerful in a way. Circe could lash out and headbutt the woman. Force her to get a titanium nose. But she didn’t. But she could. “I'm very impressed by you, Circe,” Glitch said to her. “You’re showing remarkable patience and restraint. Good girl.” How did she know?! Was mind reading something the cyborg had achieved? Another thought creeped its way into Circe’s gray matter. Every time she’d had someone dote on her, Circe had been called by a different name. She was always someone else to the world. A long lost love. Someone who got a way. An imaginary affair. A highschool sweetheart. Her greatest power manifested as the world’s strongest case of mistaken identity. She had long gotten what she wanted through her powers, but not through her merits. The woman presently dressing her was immune to Circe’s charms. The only person she ever saw when she looked at the Siren was Circe. That was a weird feeling. To Circe’s complete and utter surprise, the mittens and booties came off, giving her back the use of her fingers and feet. She stared at her fingers and toes as if they had miraculously regenerated. “All done,” Glitch said when she’d placed the matching polka dotted headband on Circe’s head. Back into the hero’s arms she went. “Good girl.” Warmth and touch. Fresh clean clothes, right down to the underwear. Underwear that she could soil and be praised for, evidently. How transgressive… Instead of the highchair, Circe found herself being carried dangerously close to the exit. “Where are we going?” she asked, feeling for the first time in forever that she didn’t know what would happen next. “Aren’t you going to plop me in a highchair and feed me mush?” “I’m going to get you breakfast,” Glitch replied, nonchalantly. “Just not here.” “Where?” Circe asked. “Out.” Out?! **************************************************************************************************** Circe was shivering, and it had nothing to do with the cold. The weather was temperate if anything. Likewise, the adult stroller she was in was surprisingly comfortable. It had likely been a modified wheelchair at some point. Correction, knowing Glitch she’d made it from scratch with far too much attention to detail and unnecessary engineering. Leaving A.S.T.R.A.L. labs and out into the open city air, nothing else was comfortable. The strap that kept her buckled in pressed up between her legs and caused the hem of her already short dress to ride up, exposing her diaper. “Glitch, what are you doing?” Circe asked. “Why are we going outside? Am I finally going to jail?” “Nope,” Glitch said. “Just getting you some breakfast.” Circe looked above her. They’d left through the back way. Technically the way she’d broken in from. This thing didn’t even have a roof or a hood. Nothing to obscure her face. “Can’t I get a car ride, or a police escort?” The stroller just rolled along through the alleyway. “Glitch?” “You’ll be fine,” Glitch promised. “You’ll see. Though you may want to stop calling me by my hero name. Might draw attention.” “What am I supposed to…?” Circe began to ask, but knew the answer. “No. No way I’m calling you that!” Glitch just shrugged lightly and kept pushing the stroller. They were approaching the end of the alleyway. They were about to turn the corner. A steady stream of humanity walked by obliviously in front of her. “Glitch?” Circe said. “Please stop.” What would people say? How was she going to gain the fear back of the pathetic masses? ”Glitch?” As soon as someone saw her, they’d take out their phones. She’d go viral in minutes. “Glitch? This isn’t funny anymore. Take me back to the underground nursery.” Glitch kept going. She’d be the laughing stock everywhere. “Gliiiiiithc?” All she had was this stupid pink voice to use. Her other voices wouldn’t have helped her out of this anyways. She was doomed. “Glitch?” Ten steps away….nine…eight…seven…six…five…four…three…two…one…! The stroller turned right out into the busy sidewalk. “MOMMY!” Everyone within a three block radius stopped in their tracks for exactly two seconds. They blinked. Then kept walking. Some regarded her briefly, but then they quickly went about their business. “Huh?” Circe wondered. “Why aren’t they staring? Why is nobody talking to me? Or running? Or pulling out their phones?” A deceptively strong hand came down and booped Circe on the nose. “Because you’re a baby, Circe. A baby in a stroller. Who would try to talk to a baby they didn’t know? Or run away from one? And taking pictures of a random baby? That’d be creepy, no matter how cute she was.” Yet another strange feeling. Circe had almost always gone unnoticed by not using her powers. To be safe in crowds she had to not sing her songs and deny that part of herself. This was a real having cake and eating it too kind of moment. A few passerby walking in the opposite direction made eye contact with Circe and gave her big bright smiles, and friendly waves, but otherwise did not engage. “Why aren’t they trying to take me away?” Glitch had an answer for that too. “Remember Dr. Zhao? The heartless psychopath who hated kids?” Circe warmed to that memory. “The one I had in tears? What about her?” “With her feedback, I was able to tinker with your collar just enough so that people see you as just a baby, not their baby. That and you’re with me, so they trust that you’re my baby.” A variation on the red voice phenomenon that made people lust after her, but held them at bay if she appeared spoken for. Circe frowned. The warmth she felt was more than emotional. Her diaper hadn’t remained dry very long. “Fuck!” Wetting in public added on an extra layer of surprise to the scenario. At least it was still fairly comfortable. Circe knew from experience that her diaper would hold far more than this one little wetting. “Circe…” Glitch warned from behind her. “Dont’...” An opportunity! No spanking machines here, and surely Glitch wouldn’t blow her cover or make herself look bad by taking an innocent little girl over her knee in public. Not in front of these sheeple. “FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCKITY FUCK FUCK GODDAMN MOTHER FUCKER CUNT BITCH ASS TITTY FUCK CUNT DICK CHEESE WAFFLE TROTS SHIT MOTHER FUCKING ASSHOLE COCK!” The stroller ground to a halt. Civilians gasped and followed their ears to the Siren’s lips. They scowled and twisted up their faces in horror and revulsion. Yet none of their anger was directed at her. “Ma’am,” one woman said, “Your child…” “Is hotter than you B-Cup!” “I’m…really sorry about that.” Glitch said, sounding embarrassed. “She’s going through a phase.” She glared down at a positively beaming Circe. “A forty year phase, it seems.” “Where did she learn to talk like that?!” Another one of the sheeple asked Glitch, as if they expected a reasonable answer that would make them less upset. “I learned it from your Mom when she was eating me out last night!” Circe crowed. A man bent over and did his best to intimidate her. “If you were my little girl, I’d teach you some manners with a belt.” Amateur. The Siren returned the glare. “Do it, bitch. Do it. Hit me. Right now. In front of everyone. My Mommy will let you. Go for it. Hit. Me.” He broke off eye contact and kept walking. “Thought so.” People gasped and sneered and shook their heads in tremendous disapproval. Then kept walking on. That was so unusually satisfying. And it was causing this hero so much consternation. Except… “Well done, Circe.” Glitch complimented her. There wasn’t a trace of irony or sarcasm. Not a drop “You’ve definitely still got it, girl.” “What are you talking about?” the Siren asked from her stroller. “You’re not mad?” Glitch snorted. “I’m plenty mad. I’m just better at hiding and regulating my emotions than you.” “Then why are you smirking?” “Because I finally figured out how to help you. I’ve been trying to help you start over, but you never really began, did you?” The words sounded insulting, but the way she said it sounded warm. Circe folded her arms over her chest and drew Glitch out with silence while strangers flowed past them like a river. “You literally just want attention, don’t you? It’s a core part of your being, and you don’t care how you get it as long as it’s your idea.” Circe tried to refute the accusation but she had a point. Glitch walked around and took a knee so that she could look her nemesis in the eye. “You’re not a supervillain, Circe. You’re a brat. You’re a toddler with hypnosis powers and are stuck in your terrible twos. You’ve got an adult body, but that’s not really your fault. That’s why my pink light didn’t work.” Circe coked an eyebrow. “What pink light? The one on that stupid mobile above the changing table?” Glitch showed that cocky, condescending smile. “Oh. Yeah. I neglected to mention. I knew you were immune to sound based perception alteration, so I converted your sound frequencies into colored strobes. It was supposed to alter your perception of yourself. Bring you back to a more innocent time.” Her smile seemed less nasty all of a sudden. “But you never exactly left that mindset, did you?” “No,” Circe huffed. “I’m just immune to hypnosis.” “Are you?” Glitch asked. “Look to your right?” The Siren turned her head. The stroller had stopped by a skyscraper with windows that reflected back at mirrors. Sitting in the stroller in the reflection wasn’t Circe, a past her prime middle aged supervillainess. In her place was a silver haired, slightly chubby cheeked cherub who couldn’t have been more than two years old. Neither the stroller, nor the cute polka dot dress and matching bow, or even the big puffy diaper peeking out beneath looked an ounce out of place. It felt right. “Hypothesis confirmed,” Glitch said. Then tenderly, softly, she took Circe’s hands in her own, the way a mother would a child, Circe thought. “I don’t think you really wanted to take over the world or anything like that. I think you just wanted to be free of responsibility and get to act out so people would notice you on your own terms.” No comment from Circe. “Let me make you an offer, baby girl. Stay with me and let me keep working on my research with you. No more robots. No more spankings. No rules that you wouldn’t get if you were really the age you act like.” The Siren was about to say something. “And yes, I expect you’ll break those rules too. But do you really want to live the rest of your life looking over your shoulder or planning some big grand scheme that you’re not really interested in so you can get a dopamine fix? Or do you, Circe, want to subvert expectations and go a way that no one would ever see coming?” When she put it like that… *********************************************************************************** Four Months Later… Jack B. Nimble, the city’s king of arson and highrise robbery, woke up with a pounding headache. He wasn’t all that surprised to be waking up behind bars. Sometimes in his line of work, a costume vigilante caught one unawares. That didn’t bother him. Prison was just a government funded vacation at this point. He’d escape via fire or leaping. He could practically build his combustion leaping boots out of pencil shavings and rubber bands by this point. That’s how many times he’d managed to improvise his escape. Why were bars wooden though? He had weird dreams, too. He remembered falling down a slide naked…and a bath…and pink strobe lights. Maybe he’d gotten another concussion? The last element of his fever dream came into play when he sat up and felt his own bodily waste squish up against him. He looked down at himself. Was that a diaper he was wearing? “What the hell?” Why did his voice sound…not different but…pink? He tugged at his throat and felt something. A choker? Before he had time to think, a door opened up, and in walked a lady wearing pink scrubs. They had pictures of rattles and storks and safety pins on them. “Good afternoon, Jack,” the strange lady. “Are you ready to get up?” He was about to tell her something awful about what he was ready to ‘get up’, when the little Asian woman hoisted him out of the crib, dirty diaper and all. “WAAAH?!” “Don’t be scared,” she said. “I’ve got muscle enhancing exo-armor underneath.” That part didn’t scare Jack. Jack didn’t scare easily. Disturbed though? This was very disturbing, and it only got more so when he was carried into a nursery filled with little brats running and playing everywhere His pleas for decency and modesty were ignored as the lady changed his diaper. In front of kids no less! Funny thought that other men and women in the same kind of scrubs were attending to the children. Why would they need fancy tech for lifting up toddlers? He’d get his answer soon enough when he was put in a onesie, and stood him up on the carpet. “I’ll give you a bit to get acclimated.” The millisecond that the Asian woman left him alone to absorb the weirdness around him, a silver haired toddler marched up and stared him down. “Listen up, loser. I don’t care how big and bad you thought were on the outside. You’re just another pants shitter now and you’re on my turf. Got it?” A moment of cognitive dissonance rocked Jack’s brain. If she was a baby, why was she able to look him in the eye? What did that say about him? “Circe,” one of the daycare attendants called over. “Are you being nice to your new friend?” The little terror whirled around, her dress flaring off and revealing her diaper- identical to his save for it being very very wet. “No! And he’s not my friend!” “Do you need a time out?” they warned. “I don’t know,” the mealy mouthed baby taunted back. “Do you want to have this fight? Over me not being all smiles? To Jack B. Nimble?” The daycare worker huffed and growled in frustration. “I’m…I’m not doing this right now. I don’t get paid enough. I don’t. I just don’t. Just…use your words, okay?” “I. Promise. Nothing.” Eyes rolled and heads shook. “Circe?” Jack repeated. That was an uncommon enough name. “Siren?” The little girl whipped her head back towards him. “Yeah? What? You gotta problem?” Jack gulped. “No. No ma’am.” “Good.” (The End)

Thanks. It was a fun exercise to be sure.

Thank you both!

Howdy folks, By now, y’all surely know the stories of Brer Rabbit: How he tricked Brer Bear into taking his place in a trap by promising a dollar a minute (a still not inconsiderable rate even in today’s economy). How he tricked Brer Fox into hurling him directly into the briar patch (where he was born and bred and was exactly where he wanted to be). Brer Rabbit is a trickster, have no doubt about that. But do you know what his last, greatest, trick was? I bet you don’t. Not because you’re uneducated, but just because no one told you about it, till now. You couldn’t have heard it before now, because I reckon I’m the first to tell you about it. Neither Uncle Remus, nor George Chandler Harris managed to tell anybody about this trick because it happened long after both men went on to their final rewards (or punishment as the case may be). Brer Rabbit, being a trickster, as well as Brer Fox, (though he ain’t quite as tricky as Brer Rabbit), are exponentially longer lived than you, me, and our kin. Brer Bear isn’t particularly tricky himself, but last I heard, he’s still lopin around too. Mayhap it’s because the power of the story always outlasts the storyteller. Mayhap there was something special about Rabbit, and Fox, and Bear that made them worth jotting down, and that included an agelessness that resisted the ravages of time. Mayhap the lot of them and their ilk are just so busy doing what comes naturally to them that Father Time hasn’t managed to catch up to them yet. Mayhap even they’re supposed to age like you and me do, but no one thought to tell them that rabbits and foxes and bears aren’t supposed to live that long. I don’t know. All I do know is that Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox, and Brer Bear have been keepin’ on their same struggle of trick or be tricked for a long time, long after the briar patches got paved over and replaced with parking garages. It’s never stopped; not for long. Sometimes their tricks would get into people’s ears, but the details of who would get muddled in the retelling after retelling. Instead of Brer Fox chasing Brer Rabbit, it’d be a bluish gray cat chasing a tiny brown mouse with unusually big ears. Other times, instead of Brer Fox trying to get Brer Bear to help him, the story would get twisted around, and while sure enough there’d be a rabbit in the story, his pursuers would be a dim witted hunter and a duck who was just clever enough to know something was wrong, but not clever enough by half to outwit the rabbit. That ol’ fox is never half as clever as he thinks he is, and twice as crazy. Anyway, I told y’all that story to explain to y’all that Brer Rabbit’s last (some might say greatest) trick happened a heck of a lot closer to the here and now than the way back when. Come to think of it, that might be why y’all haven’t heard it till now. News spreads fast, but is quickly forgotten. History is what sticks around and lingers after news becomes old and stale. Anyway… It all started one day when Brer Rabbit was hopping along in the park. There were no more briar patches around, but Brer Rabbit liked the park just fine. Plenty of sunshine, fresh air, and green grass, like a little piece of home that’d stay pretty as you please. Presently, Brer Rabbit was enjoying the sunshine and the fresh air, and listening to the birds sing their song way up high in the sky, when the most peculiar sight: a picnic blanket laid out pretty as you please, with a nice basket right smack dab in the middle of it. A picnic. Ready to go, ready to be eaten, and the only other people within shouting distance were barely blurs on the horizon. Now, Brer Rabbit is no thief, and he never took nothing that didn’t rightly already belong to him, wasn’t free, or else owed to him as comeuppance against someone that wanted to do him wrong. But Brer Rabbit was also a curious sort. So while he wouldn’t snatch and steal, having plenty of free time there was nothing stopping him from having an old fashioned sit down right at the edge of yonder picnic blanket. It was during that sit down that Brer Rabbit noticed a whole heap of things he hadn’t taken into account before. Somebody had gone and put stakes in the ground at the blanket’s corners, even though there wasn’t the slightest breeze on this perfectly mild day. And even though there was barely a whisper in the wind, the stakes still quivered mightily, as if they were holding up a decent considerable weight. The blanket, pulled taught as it was, was short more than a few threads, and so when Brer Rabbit took a good squint at them he noticed that there was more black and brown and not so much green under the sheets. In short, Brer Rabbit figured out that there was a hole beneath his here picnic blanket, and that this here was no picnic, but a trap. It didn’t take Brer Rabbit long to figure out who set this trap, neither. It was a clever trap, sure enough, but hasty and relying on a body’s impulse to overpower quick thinking and keen observation. More to the point, whoever set the trap hadn’t accounted for the position of the sun, and how it might cast their shadow far and wide even though they were hiding behind yonder oak tree. “Come on, boy,” Brer Fox hissed to himself, rubbing his hands together and just imagining the fine supper he was finally about to catch. “Get the basket. Go for it. You know you want to.” Brer Fox always underestimated how much Brer Rabbit’s ears listened in, too. Brer Fox was right about Rabbit’s particular impulsiveness, for sure, but what he hadn’t accounted on was Rabbit’s peculiar impulse for trickery far outweighed his curiosity these days, or his sense to leave well enough alone. How fortunate (or unfortunate as the case may be) that it was right then that Brer Bear came moseying along from the opposite direction, having himself his own fine day at the park. That’s when Brer Rabbit got himself an idea. “Oh Brer Bear!” Brer Rabbit called out. “Brer Bear! Over here! Can I speak to you for just a minute, please?” Brer Bear being an animal of powerful muscle but little else, came up to Brer Rabbit at the edge of the trap. “Well howdy there, Brer Rabbit!” Brer Bear said. “What can I do for you?” “I’ve got a most terrible predicament,” Brer Rabbit said. “And I need your help.” “Howsat?” Brer Bear asked, not at all suspicious despite their shared history together. Brer Rabbit pointed to the picnic basket. “Y’see Brer Bear, I just went and left my picnic basket over on that there picnic blanket. But I’ve been hopping around and now my feet have gotten themselves terribly dirty.” He hopped all around right quick kicking up a cloud of dust that didn’t quite reach Brer Bear’s tremendous gut. “But it’s my granny’s picnic blanket, y’see, and I don’t want her gettin’ angry at me messing up her favorite blanket. But you? Your feet are so clean that you could walk on that there blanket and not leave a mark.” Brer Bear scratched his head and did his best to ponder. “Uhh….okay,” he said, nodding his head. “You want me to go and get you your basket then?” “I’d be much obliged,” Brer Rabbit nodded his head. “Much obliged indeed.” And so it was with great pleasure, that Brer Rabbit watched Brer Bear step onto the blanket, and with a mighty THUD fall into the trap deep below the earth. So great was his fall, dragging the stretched out picnic blanket after him acted like a slingshot, sending the basket tumbling through the air end over end and right into Brer Rabbit’s arms. “OH NO!” Brer Rabbit cried out. “I’VE GONE AND FALLEN IN THIS HOLE!” And then he hid inside the basket, listening for what would happen next. He heard Brer Fox laughing, cackling even. “I GOTCHA NOW, BRER RABBIT! I SURE DO! FINALLY AFTER ALL THESE YEA-!” Brer Fox’s celebration was cut short, likely Brer Rabbit reckoned, by the strong paw of a very very angry Bear caught in a hole not. “WHOEVER DID THIS!” Brer Bear roared. “I’M GONNA TAKE HIS HEAD CLEEEEEEEAN OFF!” “BRER BEAR!’ Brer Fox yelped. “STOP! I CAN EXPLAIN! THIS IS AN ACCIDENT. ONE OF THEM MISCOMMUNICATIONS!” “CLEEEEEAN OFF!” From the safety of his wicker hiding place, Brer Rabbit giggled and giggled and giggled until his sides hurt. But just listening to this latest trick of his wasn’t enough to satisfy. He had to see what kind of whoopin’ poor Brer Fox was enduring at the hands of an enraged Brer Bear. Carefully, and quietly he tried to poke his head out, only to realize he couldn’t. He pushed and pushed and pushed with all his might, but the neither end of the basket would budge an inch for him. No matter how he kicked or pushed up on the lid, the darn thing wouldn’t open not a smidge. He hadn’t fallen into that hole, but he’d more than gotten himself stuck in this hiding place. “HEEE-HEEE-HEEEE!” Brer Fox chuckled. “Well how do you like that?” he asked. “It worked. It finally worked!” Brer Rabbit gulped and his blood went cold. Brer Fox sounded a lot happier and a lot closer than he was supposed to be. “That’s been my problem this whole time. I knew you was gonna trick Brer Bear, so I made a second trap special. A basket with a latch that doesn’t open from the inside. And now I’m finally gonna get to skin me a rabbit!” “But Brer Bear...?” Brer Rabbit tried to puzzle out what was going on. He felt a jerking motion as the basket was lifted up off the ground, now not-so-safely in Brer Fox’s claws. “Oh that was just me play actin’.” Rabbit could hear Brer Fox’s smile though nary a bit of sunlight penetrated the wicker basket. “He’s still in that hole.” “CLEEEEEEEAN OFF!” Brer Rabbit knew he had to think fast, faster than his feet, and faster than Brer Fox’s teeth. “And I thank you very much Brer Fox,” Brer Rabbit said from inside the basket. “It’s mighty comfortable in here and you tricking Brer Bear was mighty enjoyable.” “Oh I’m not listening to you no more,” Brer Fox said outside the basket. “That’s how you get me every time. But now I got you, and I’m gonna skin you, and cook you, and eat you!” Brer Rabbit had been in closer shaves than this, but not many. “Yeah,” Brer Rabbit said. “That’s true, I reckon! You got me! But how are you gonna get Brer Bear out of that hole you dug? You’re not gonna let him starve are ya?” “Course I’m not gonna let him starve,” Brer Fox said, sounding insulted. “That hole’s plenty deep for a rabbit, but a bear could get out of there no problem. That big dummy just hasn’t thought to try yet is all.” “YOU HEAR THAT BRER BEAR!” Brer Rabbit shouted out through the wicker basket. “BRER FOX SAYS HE TRICKED YOU INTO FALLING INTO THAT HOLE SO HE COULD CATCH ME AND ALL YOU NEED TO DO IS CLIMB OUT YOU BIG DUMMY!” The air thundered and the ground rumbled as a very hornery and very angry Brer Bear got himself out of that ol’ fox hole and stepped up to a very frightened Brer Fox. “You tryin’ to make me look stupid, Brer Fox?” Brer Bear growled. “Now Brer Bear, I didn’t mean nothin’ personal by it,” Brer Fox stammered. “There was what do you call it...extenuating circumstances.” Quietly, Brer Rabbit kicked and kicked and kicked at the bottom of the basket. Brer Fox had gotten the jump on him this time, but sometimes trickiness is no substitute for poor construction and powerful feet. He kicked and kicked and kicked until he was able to make two holes big enough to slip his feet through. “Extenuating circumstances…?” Brer Bear repeated. “He means he wanted to extenuate you!” Brer Rabbit called from inside the basket. “You know, like the bug man who comes and poisons the roaches? The extenuator!” “What?” Brer Fox asked. “No! That’s not what I mean. I don’t wanna extenuate you! I’d never try an’ extenuate you!” “Then why’d you drop him in a hole?” Brer Rabbit called out. He felt Brer Fox put the basket down on the soft grass, likely so that he could hold up his hands and protect himself. “I’M GONNA!” “Brer Bear, please, listen!” “TAKE YOUR HEAD!” “No! This ain’t what it looks like!” “CLEEEEEEEAN OFF!” Still mostly inside the basket, Brer Rabbit hopped away, his feet carrying him as fast even though his eyes couldn’t see where he was going. Where his eyes failed him, his feet and his ears made up the difference. “Hey!” Brer Fox called after. “Now you get back here, Brer Rabbit! I ain’t done with you, yet!” As long as Brer Fox’s voice was getting farther and farther away, Brer Rabbit supposed, that was good enough in the short term. Long term was for later. Fine grainy sand beneath his feet and the sound of children laughing and shrieking with delight.. He was near a playground. He tried not to think of what else he might be hopping in if he was so near a sandbox. Hot rocky pavement. Brakes squealing. Horns honking. People cursing. The street! The middle of the street. Cold concrete. A cat’s meow echoing off of brick. A smell so thick that even his nose could pick it up through the basket. Some powerful kind of nasty garbage nearby. An alleyway. Knowing that traveling in a straight line can only get a body so far, Brer Rabbit made a right turn; best if ol’ Brer Fox couldn’t see him. He’d make a right, a left, another left, a right, and another right, and get so lost himself that there’d be no way Brer Fox would know where he was. Then he’d figure out a way out of this basket trap. What ol’ Brer Rabbit didn’t know was that the alleyway he was running into hit a dead end and quick, and his first right wouldn’t lead him anywhere but head first into the side back door of a strange building. KA-THUNK!. Brer Rabbit sat in the wicker basket with so many stars circling round his head that he could barely hear the door he’d thunked into squeal open. “Hello?” an unfamiliar voice called out. “Is anyone there?” Unfamiliar was good, as far as Brer Rabbit was concerned. Unfamiliar was the opposite of Brer Fox and Brer Bear, and this particular voice sounded a sight prettier than either one of them and awful nice besides. “In here!” Brer Rabbit. Called out. “Open up! I’m stuck!” The lid came open and Rabbit got himself a look see at a most strange and beautiful creature. “Why hello there,” she said, her accent much different than his own particular drawl. “Let me get a look at you.” And get a look at each other they did: She picked Brer Rabbit up out of the basket and looked him up and down, and he looked her up and down. Her fur was just about the same color as Brer Rabbit’s, though his finer and softer. Her muzzle was longer than his, more like Brer Fox, but it still ended in the same dainty nose of Rabbitt’s. Her ears were about as long as Brer Rabbit’s too, but because she was so much bigger than his they didn’t look so huge on her. Other than the long non-cotty tail, they both had the same tiny forepaws and big hopping feet, too. “Well what do we have here?” she asked, her voice full of curiosity and wonder. “Did somebody leave a baby on my doorstep just like the old storybooks?” Now, Brer Rabbit had never met a proper Kangaroo before, but he reckoned he knew one when he saw one. A lot had changed over the years, and the world had gotten much much bigger and much much smaller all at the same time and in different ways. Seeing this Roo was unexpected, but hardly unbelievable. Just about anybody could pack up a carpet bag these days and go live somewhere more comfortable to their situation should they have the means and inclination (something Brer Rabbit might have to consider when this misadventure was over, he reckoned). He was about to disabuse this kindly stranger of her misconception (rabbits were far from baby kangaroos) when the shadow of Brer Fox loomed near the alleyway, his voice calling out ahead of him. “Brer Rabbit! You get out here now! We got business!” Brer Rabbit knew that Kangaroo’s were awfully protective mothers, and right about then that Roo’s house and that Roo’s pouch seemed awfully inviting, given the circumstances. “Yes Ma’am, I sure am!” Brer Rabbit said. He then started to hoot and holler just like an itty bitty baby. “Waaah! Waaaah! Goo-goo! Goo-goo!” He started sucking on this thumb for good measure. “I lost my Mommy and ended up in this here basket! Will you be my Mommy?” The look on the critter’s face was one of pure love and joy. “Of course I’ll be your Momma, you sweet little thing you!” She hugged Brer Rabbit close and brought him inside her home. Brer Rabbit smiled. This was gonna be easy. Fun too. Brer Rabbit hadn’t known what to expect inside this stranger’s house, but what he saw he did not expect. The inside looked to have toys, lots of them: Rattles and blocks, and dollies, and baby walkers were piled up and stacked along the edge of the walls. Toy boxes with all sorts of gadgets like speak and says, and wind up toys, and stacking rings were full up. Play mats and mobiles were pulled out in the middle. It had been a good long while since Brer Rabbit had been inside a proper nursery, but this was definitely one, and a big one at that. “Um...do you already got kids, um...Momma?” Having a little fun with a stranger was one thing, but Brer Rabbit didn’t want to sucker any children. “Momma Roo,” the Kangaroo said. “All my babies call me Momma Roo. And no, silly. I don’t have any other babies right now.” “Then why?” “This is a daycare, silly little Joey.” Momma Roo said. “I run it out of my home, but I have no children of my own. Today’s Saturday so we’re closed. That must be why whoever left you on my step decided to use the backdoor. That and they didn’t want to be seen, I’d wager.” “Uh. Yup.” Brer Rabbit said. “That’s it alright. My old Momma wanted to leave me to a good home, and figured since you take care of youngins you’d be a good mother.” He saw Momma Roo looking at him a might suspiciously. “Goo-goo. I mean. Goo-goo ga-ga!” That seemed to do the trick. “Let’s get you sorted out then. First a warm bubble bath, and then a nice nappy and some warm milk.” Brer Rabbit leaned back in her arms and folded. “That does sound nice,” and he sucked his thumb. Momma Roo took him into a bathroom and drew a hot bath. She even added in some fragrant green bubbles, that smelled mighty pleasant. “Eucalyptus,” she said. He let her take his pink shirt off and his blue pants, doing his best not to blush. “Hmmmm,” she stroked her chin. “Your last mother didn’t take care of you properly. So dusty!” “Goo-goo-gah-gah,” Brerr Rabbit said. “Maybe that’s why she gave me up?” And that was good enough for Momma Roo. He sighed and relaxed as Momma Roo slowly lowered him in and started to gently scrub away the dirt and dust he’d kicked up in the park and the sweat that had soaked himself in running for his life. “Would baby like a rubber duckie?” “I sure would, Momma Roo,” Brer Rabbit said. “I mean, goo-goo-goo.” So she gave him a yellow rubber duck and he squeaked it and squeezed it while she gently wiped and scrubbed as his fir: Under his arms, on top of his head, behind his ears and in the little creases of his neck, just like his real momma used to do. Then when he was all done she picked him up out of the tub and wrapped him in a nice fluffy towel. “Clean as a whistle,” Momma Roo said. “Now let’s get you sorted out.” “Thank you kindly, ma’am,” Brer Rabbit said. “You’re very welcome,” Momma Roo replied. Still cradling Brer Rabbit in her arms, she took him out and to another part. His shirt and pants however stayed in a pile on the bathroom floor. “What about my clothes?’ “I’m not about to put my new baby in dirty clothes right after his tubby,” Momma Roo tutted. “Now let’s see about your nappy.” Fair enough, Brer Rabbit supposed. Being a rabbit, it’s not as if he needed clothes per say, save in the presence of polite company. A nice nap in a cradle sounded plenty good to Brer Rabbit just then, too, the warm water having eased his tense muscles. He liked the way Momma Roo talked and said silly words like ‘nappy’ instead of nap, besides. Imagine Brer Rabbit’s surprise and consternation, friend, when instead of being tucked into a low rocking cradle with a nice fluffy pillow, Momma Roo set him down on a high sturdy table with a padded mat on it. “Uh, Momma Roo,” Brer Rabbit said. “I don’t mean to complain...goo-goo-gah-gah...but how am I supposed to fall asleep on this thing?” Small as he was, it was a fairly long way down. “I could rightly fall off.” “I can help with that,” Momma Roo said. She reached over the side of the table and pulled a strap tight and firm over Brer Fox’s chest. He could wriggle, but he couldn’t roll. That solved the problem of his rolling off, but what about the nap?” “I still don’t see how I’m supposed to fall asleep,” he said. “Oh silly, Joey,” Momma Roo, “this isn’t where babies go to take naps, this is where they go to get changed.” “Changed? Into what?” Brer Rabbit didn’t know a whole lot about about where Kangaroos came from, but he never heard of any mother turning their baby into something else. Then again, it had been a loooooong looooooong time since Brer rabbit had been a baby himself, and being the type of trickster he was, he’d never been one for settling down and starting a hutch of little ones on his own, so his knowledge of child rearing was unsurprisingly shallow. “Silly Joey, I’m not going to change you into anything.” Mama Roo reached under the table and took out something that was mostly, white. It was folded, and thick, and rustled ever so slightly when she unfolded it for him. It was something that Brer Rabbit hadn’t worn or needed in a long, long, long, time. “I’m going to change your nappy.” Brer Rabbit grasped. A long time ago they’d been made out of cloth and held together with safety pins or just tied in knots at the side, but it was still close enough that the trickster recognized it instantly. “That’s not a nappy! That’s a diaper!” “Quite right,” Momma Roo said. With her other hand, she shoved a rubber nipple with a plastic mouth guard straight into Brer Rabbit’s gasping mouth. “That is what they call it over here, isn’t it? Now suck on your dummy and let’s get the baby sorted out.” It wasn’t a dummy, but a pacifier; at least that’s what Brer Rabbit called it. But he sure felt like a dummy just then as Momma Roo lifted up his feet with her free hand and slipped the thick diaper under his bum. There had been a time when youngin’s hardly wore anything at all and could just hop around naked outside as soon as they could walk; but those times were long gone. Nowadays, babies wore diapers, and a baby is exactly what Momma Roo thought he was. He sniffled as she took a bottle of baby powder and dusted it on his rear and front side. He moaned behind his pacifier while she spread his legs apart and pulled the thick padding up between his legs and fastened the velcro tabs loosely around him. He felt humiliated as she guided his little cotton tail through the the back hole and wiggled it a bit for him. He had to get out of this. Had to think of a tricky scheme and get out right quick. Maybe his real Mama could be calling and he could hop on home to her, but who in their right or wrong mind would believe a baby? Why couldn’t he have said he was a school kid or something? A kindergartener? A preschooler! An age that would at least be allowed to use the toilet! Momma Roo didn’t take no mind of Brer Rabbit’s distress. From underneath the changing table she pulled out a pink shirt the same color as his old shirt and yanked it over his head. Brer wasn’t ready to lay down again so soon, but he found he didn’t have a choice in the matter. With one hand Momma Roo forced him back down to the padded changing table, and then brought the ends of the shirt together, snapping in place with special buttons. “A nice comfy onesie,” Momma Roo told him. “To keep my new baby nice and warm but make it easy to check and change your nappy.” It even had a hole for the tale. “That’s mighty nice of ya, Momma,” Brer Rabbit said, spitting out his pacifier, “but-” Lie, trick, or truth, Brer Rabbit didn’t get to finish that sentence. He was in Momma Roo’s arms and having a bottle of milk popped right in his mouth. “Drink up, baby.” She gave the bottle a squeeze, sending milk squirting into the back of poor Brer Rabbit’s throat. It was either drink or choke. Golly! If Brer Fox or Brer Bear had been half this forceful, Brer Rabbit would have been skinned, cooked, and eaten long ago. “Drink it all up so you can be big and strong,” Momma Roo said. Cradled in Momma Roo’s arms and having milk squirted down his throat everytime he did more than suckle, Brer Rabbit did as he was told. Now friends, Momma Roo might have told him that drinking all that milk would make him big and strong and mayhap it would have in the long term. In the short term though, all a belly full of milk did was make him feel all kinda of full and bloated and tired. He was so tired that when Momma Roo picked him up over her shoulder and started patting him on the back, he didn’t say boo. But he did say “BUUUUUUUURP!” “Good Joey,” Momma Roo said, sounding like a proud new Momma, (and as far as she was concerned, Brer Rabbit supposed, she was). The changing table hopped away as Momma Roo took Brer Rabbit to another room. This room was dark, and quiet, and felt safe. Soft music played gently from a music box in the far corner. A lullabye. Slowly, Momma Roo lowered him down, but instead of a low rocking cradle, it was a crib with high bars. “You mentioned a nap,” Momma Roo said. “Good idea.” She gave him a peck on the head and left. “Night night, baby.” As soon as she was out of the room, Brer Rabbit tried getting out of the crib. But with his belly fully, a fresh diaper spreading his gait apart, and a soft mattress beneath his feet Brer couldn’t leap or scurry or climb over the high crib bars. He was trapped. Brer rabbit settled for getting undressed, but that was no use either. He tugged and tugged and tugged at the ends of the onesie, but it wouldn’t come off. As it turns out, rabbit paws might as well be baby kangaroo hands as far as metal snap buttons were concerned. Full, tired from a chase, surrounded in cushioned comfort, and with soft music gently lulling him, Brer finally laid down and closed his eyes. Turns out he wasn’t fibbing or feigning. It really was time to take a nap. Maybe after a little shut eye, he’d figure a way out of this predicament. (To Be Continued) ************************************************************************************************** It was quiet in the nursery room where Momma Roo had left Brer Rabbit. The lullaby music box had wound down and even the blue birds outside were quietly pecking out bugs, instead of singing “Zippity Do Dah”. The morning had passed by into the afternoon and the time for singing was done. It was long past time for most folks to be busy at work. Brer Rabbit woke up fidgeting in the big ol’ crib Momma Roo had laid him down in. He’d just had a whole heaping helping handful of pleasant dreams, mostly about pulling the wool over old Brer Fox’s eyes till it was too late and the old Fox ended up with thorns in his backside, a hammer to his teeth, feathers tarred to his arms and legs, a yellow stripe painted down his back and polecat spray on his tongue. That’s just what mischief makers like Brer Rabbit dream about. His pleasant dreams got interrupted by Nature’s call however when that bottle of milk Momma Roo had given him finally worked its magic. There’s a reason why it’s called “Nature’s call”. It’s coming, one way or another, but it’s at least polite enough (or loud enough) to give a body plenty of notice. Enough notice, in fact, that most people can stop what they’re doing, open a door, and Nature will pass harmlessly through, not hurting anybody. And as for those who can’t; people who can’t hear the call or can’t open a front way or back door in time so that Nature comes crashing in like a bull in a china shop? Well, that’s what diapers are for, ain’t it? Presently, Brer Rabbit was neither too young, too old, or in any way prevented from hearing Nature’s call. He woke right up, same as he always did. He just didn’t wake up quick enough to remember the predicament he’d fallen asleep in. In his long, long life, he’d never encountered an obstacle that allowed the luxury of sleep. So I hope y’all will forgive him when I tell you that when Brer Rabbit heard Nature’s call, he woke right up, started to rub the sleep out of his eyes, and then slammed face first into the big ol’ wooden crib bars penning him in like a hog. A body has a hard time forgetting certain things, and for the longest time, Brer Rabbit would’ve woken up from his nap, answered Nature’s call, and then either get on with his day if something caught his interest, or go back to his nap if something didn’t. Can hardly blame him for making the honest mistake. The sudden jolting pain to his little pink nose woke Brer Rabbit the rest of the way up and shook him out of his own personal dreamland of perpetual table turning on a certain fluffy tailed trickster. What Brer Rabbit DIDN’T do, is answer Nature’s call. Opening that front door right now would just leave him stuck with more Nature than a grown rabbit oughta have on their person. The presence of the disposable diaper wrapped around his bum and the onesie holding it snugly up to him didn’t make him feel any better about it, (quite the opposite in fact). “Oh,” Brer Rabbit looked at himself and frowned down at the big old bulge underneath his brand new baby clothes. “Reckon I forgot about that.” He reached down and poked the diaper taped up around his hips, and was taken aback and fully amazed at how much push he felt underneath his furry little finger.. He didn’t know how much cotton, pulp, and padding he was gonna have to pee into, but he knew how much Momma Roo was gonna use on him. He’d been wrongfully accused and confused for many things over the years, but being a bouncing baby bunny had never been one of them. Now he had a whole new and unexpected bum wrap put on him (in more ways than one). Things only got complicated when he factored in his current captor. Brer Fox and Brer Bear were greedy, selfish, short sighted, spiteful, and mainly wanted to wallop, bamboozle, or otherwise harm Brer Rabbit; and Rabbit had become incredibly adept at using those qualities against them. His latest warden, however, genuinely thought she was caring for him. How did he trick someone into not caring for him? Just as discombobulating, he’d tricked the maternal Kangaroo into hiding him and guarding him from Brer Fox’s predations under false pretenses. He hadn’t meant anything by it, and had just been following his own natural tendencies. Now she was following hers, and hers seemed a lot stronger than his at this time. He’d tricked her. How did he untrick her? More importantly, he’d wronged her. How did he unwrong her? More more importantly, she’d babied him. How did he get her to unbaby him? “What do I do?” Brer Rabbit asked himself. He started pacing in the crib like a lion in its cage or a convict in his cell. “What do I do?” The trickster didn’t know, couldn’t know. Nature had stopped calling like a proper visit and had started shouting and howling up a whole new kind of ruckus. It might’ve been whisper quiet inside the darkened room of Momma Roo’s daycare, but Nature wasn’t calling no more. It was hootin’ and hollerin’ so loud that Brer Rabbit could barely hear himself think. Quiet as it was inside the room, it was even quieter in the rest of Momma Roo’s place on account of it being Saturday. And Kangaroo’s might not have as keen a set of ears as a rabbit’s, with no other youngins to attend to, an experienced caregiver like Momma Roo could easily hear the rattling of crib balls, the rustling of water proof sheets, the crinkling of diapers, and the mumbling muttering of a child newly awake from his nap. “Well hello there, baby,” Momma Roo said, hopping into the quiet nap room and turning the lights on. “Did you enjoy your nap?” “I surely did,” Brer Rabbit started, “but there’s somethin’ I gotta tell-...” He froze. Brer Rabbit had learned a lot of things in his life. Some of them were taught directly to him. Others were common sense. Still more was a matter of intuition (a word which here means “uncommon sense”). A handful of precious skills were knowledge acquired by learning from his own mistakes. But nobody and nothing had ever taught Brer Rabbit what to do when somebody picked him up and snuck a couple of fingers in his pants. So he froze. “Still bone dry,” Momma Roo remarked after checking his diaper. “A cute little baby like you; I thought you’d be soaking wet after a nice snooze.” “About that,” Brer Rabbit piped in. “Momma Roo could you do me a favor?” The lady kangaroo looked down at Brer Rabbit, her eyes filled with love and a kind of special adoration. “Of course I can. You’re my baby. I’d do anything for you.” Brer Rabbit opened his mouth to tell her the truth. But then a bit of devilry crept into his noggin. It’s not that Brer Rabbit was an immoral sort, or a mean sort; not like Brer Fox. But he was, in his heart of hearts, a trickster. Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, skeeters gotta bite till you itch like the dickens, and tricksters gotta trick. And tricksters never tell the truth when a tall tale, fish or a tiny white fib would get the job done instead. “Momma Roo?” Brer Rabbit pretended to ask. “Since I’m dry and all, does that mean I’m a big boy now? Uh, goo-goo?” Maybe he could convince the well meaning Momma that he was growing up and be moved out and back out into the world by nightfall. Kids always did seem to grow up fast, he reasoned. Why not him? Old Momma Roo clucked her tongue and let out a chuckle. “One dry nappy doesn’t mean you’re a big boy yet, but we’re not going to the changing table just yet.” A bit of inspiration lit up behind Brer Rabbit’s eyes. “Yes Momma. But uh...can you take me to the uh….uh….” “The what, little joey?” she asked. Brer Rabbit’s own contrariness was getting the better of him, and Nature screaming at him to get out was making it that much harder. He was so used to asking for the opposite of what he wanted, that coming right seemed like a round peg in a square hole. “Do you think you could take me to sit on that special chair I saw?” Momma Roo stopped hopping. “Special chair?” Momma Roo pouted her lip out in thought. “Which special chair?” “Uh...goo-goo-gah-gah. The special chair that I can...sit in? The one with a hole?” How else would a youngin old enough to be sucking milk from a bottle describe a toilet? She started hopping again. “Oh that! I was taking you there anyway.” “You was?!” The promise of relief and being able to open the front door for Nature to get out of his body and out in the open was almost as good as the actual relief itself. (Almost, but not quite.) “Of course I was.” Momma Roo promised. “You didn’t think I was just going to give you that bottle and not feed you anything else?” She held him out by the armpits, like she was fixing to let him down somewhere; a nice clean latrine mayhap. “I most surely did not,” Brer Rabbit promised, turning on his charmer’s smile. “I most surely did not. Goo-goo gah-gah. I knew you wouldn’t do that to me and forget to…” Brer Rabbit looked back over his shoulder. “Feed me?” It was right about then that it had occurred to Brer Rabbit that he’d made yet another error. The room Momma Roo had taken Brer Rabbit into had a tile floor, clean smooth counters, and even a sink in it, but it wasn’t any bathroom. It was a kitchen. And that wasn’t a toilet that Brer Rabbit was being lowered onto. The highchair that Momma Roo lowered him down into didn’t have a proper hole in the bottom so that he might have certain needs meant. But the rim around it connecting the tray to the chair, and the bar that kept him from sliding out the bottom were kinds of holes sure enough. Much like his pair of pants long since discarded or the diaper he had on presently, the highchair had four holes in it. One for his rear, one for his tail, and one for each leg. And much like the changing table that he’d hoped to avoid, this had buckles and straps that Momma Roo was quick as lightning to use to keep him from getting out of them. Proper babies couldn’t be trusted to stand up or else they might go and hurt themselves. “Now you just wait right there, and I’ll get you sum num nums,” Momma Roo said hopping over to a nearby cabinet. “Nnnng...nnnng…” Brer Rabbit said. It was getting harder and harder to talk, and Brer Rabbit was fussing trying his best. He wasn’t driven by fear or cleverness, just a simple need to open the front door and answer Nature’s call. You see, friend. All people are basically three boxes stacked up on top of each other with little tubes like arms and legs sticking out. On top is the Think Box, where reason, cleverness, and guile come from. In the middle is the Tick Box, where your ticker is and from it comes love, anger, fear, and all of your emotions. On the bottom is what we shall call for this purposes the Nature Box (though certain more vulgar storytellers might call this region the “P&S Box”). The Nature Box is responsible for a body’s instinct and necessaries. It’s not for thought as much as it is instinct. It’s not for love as much as lust. It’s not for things you want to do or feel you should do as much as things that you have to do no matter what. And Brer Rabbit’s Nature Box was so full that he couldn’t think about or feel much of anything else. Nature was clawing so hard to get out his door, that Brer Rabbit couldn’t do much else besides try and old himself shut. Butl like a certain wolf from another story, Nature huffed and puffed and blew and howled until Brer Rabbit lost all strength and a whole lotta Nature came crashing and splashing out of Brer Rabbit, not much caring one way or another that it had a big old layer of padding between it and outside proper. Nature just wanted out of Brer Rabbit and that’s what it got! Brer Rabbit let out a gasp of surprise and relief as his diaper absorbed the flood he was putting into it, acutely aware of the warmth and wetness spreading out his front door and then working it’s way towards the back. It wasn’t entirely unpleasant, as far as his Nature Box was concerned. Getting Nature out was getting Nature out and didn’t much concern itself beyond that, one of its primary functions hereby satisfied. His Think Box and Tick Box-his brain and heart disagreed. His brain was disturbed at his failure, and his heart was just plain overwhelmed. It was enough to make a grown rabbit wanna cry. “Everything alright, baby?” Momma Roo said hopping back to the highchair. “Yes ma’am. Just hungry is all.” Brer Rabbit lied, sucking in his tears. Babies cried, his brain thought. His heart was too desponded to admit defeat as much as wallow in it. “Then you’ll just love this,” Momma Roos said, dipping her spoon into a jar filled up with orange mush. Brer Rabbit very much doubted that. That was the hardest part to Rabbit’s thinking. He couldn’t just be obstinate or contrary. He knew enough about babies to know they fussed and rebelled all the time. He couldn’t just go along with this, either. Plenty of children were mild tempered and perfectly obedient and only the passage of time and them outgrowing their clothes marked them as old enough to make their own decision. (This was especially problematic since Brer Rabbit was good and done as far as growth, and the passage of time didn’t tend to affect him as much as it did other folks). Reverse psychology wouldn’t work either. His wants could be outright ignored if his savior turned captored deemed it so. In short, a baby’s wants was often secondary to what their caregiver decided their needs were, and as long as Momma Roo didn’t want to punish him, Brer Rabbit’s repertoire of tricks was decidedly short. His brain getting back in gear, even as his pants were sopping and sloshing in his seat, Brer Rabbit got himself an idea. If he was punished, he might be able to turn things around. Avoiding a spanking or a time out couldn’t be that much different from avoiding being skinned or tarred and feathered. There might not be any more briar patches these days, but an angry enough Momma Roo might likely be provoked into tossing a hornery child out into the cold cruel world. “Yes, Momma Roo,” Brer Rabbit said. “I’d sure looooove whatever it is you got in your spoon right there.” He opened his mouth, ready to spit whatever Momma Roo spooned in like a cannon right into her face. “Here you go,” Momma Roo said. Giving him more than just a nibble. He opened his mouth. Closed it over the spoon...and swallowed. Brer Rabbit swallowed. The texture was different, and much less crunchy than he was used to, but the flavor was delicious and much more than passingly familiar. “Mmmm-mmmm-mmmm!” Brer Rabbit said. “Carrots! I just looooove carrots!” Momma Roo smiled and gave him another spoonful of mashed up carrots. “I’m so glad to hear that. It’s nice to have a baby who likes his vegetables.” The words came tumbling out of Brer Rabbit like fresh spring water. “Oh, I love my vegetables Momma Roo. Goo-goo gah-gah! Can’t get enough of them! Gonna grow up big and strong!” “You sure are!” Momma Roo agreed and then gave him another spoonful. “Maybe”, Brer Rabbit thought to himself, “I can get a little more out of this trick than just some temporary protection.” He didn’t even care that he was sitting a diaper wet with his own Nature. “Maybe I can get a full stomach, too.” If Momma Roo could hear Brer Rabbit’s contemplation, her smile did not give her away. All told, Brer Rabbit ate three jars of strained carrots, two jars of mashed sweet potatoes, and a jar of juicy peaches for dessert. Momma Roo might have thought him an itty bitty baby, but he had a man’s appetite. “You really are a growing boy,” Momma Roo said as she was rincing the jars in the sinc. “You might be on the verge of a growth spurt.” “Yes ma’am,” Brer Rabbit agreed. He gave his belly a firm pat. Solid or not, it had been ages since he’d eaten that good. “I’m a growing boy!” Momma Roo hopped over to the door and grabbed a blue bag off the hook. “You sure are,” she said back to him.” She started filling her bag with baby stuff; clothes and toys and wipes and such. “Pretty soon you might be big enough for the next size of nappy.” Brer Rabbit swallowed, a nasty aftertaste invading his mouth despite the hardy meal he’d just been spoon fed. “Next size? You mean there are…” he paused, “bigger diapers? Goo-goo gah?”” “Of course,” Momma Roo said. “You’re hardly the biggest baby I’ve ever taken care of.” She hopped on back over to the changing table. “Oh almost forgot.” She added a few fresh diapers to the bag for good measure. While this was happening, an unfamiliar feeling of guilt started to worm it’s way into Brer Rabbit’s Think Box. This nice lady might’ve taken care of bigger babies than Rabbit, but surely not older ones. What was he to do? What was he to do? The old trickster forgot about what he was gonna do and remembered what he’d done when Momma Roo lifted him out of the highchair. “Let’s see. Do you need a change?” He felt a flush of good old fashioned embarrassment. “NO...?!” Momma Roo didn’t need to stick her fingers past the leg cuffs of his diaper and feel around to know that was a lie. She did anyway though. “Oh my,” she told Brer Rabbit. “You are VERY wet. But I don’t mind waiting to change you if you’re comfortable in it.” She grinned and added, “And for a second when I found you dry in your crib, I thought you might be an early bloomer ready for potty training.” And that was how Brer Rabbit ruined his chances for getting out of diapers with any kind of grace or dignity, even though our story doesn’t end there. His ego bruised and his now sagging diaper held up by the snaps of his onesie, Brer was lowered down and into the waiting pouch of Momma Roo. Brer didn’t know much about marsupials, but a bit of common sense and intuition told him what the pouch was for. “Why are you carrying me, Momma?” Brer Rabbit asked before remembering to throw in a couple of “goos” and “gahs” to keep up the charade. “I can uh...toddle around the playroom by myself.” “It’s easier than a pram, little joey.” Momma Roo told him and gave him a pat between the ears. Another word Brer Rabbit didn’t recognize. This could not end well. “Pram?” Mama Roo shouldered the bag and put the tip of her finger to her chin. “I keep forgetting. What’s the American word for it. Buggy? Stroller?” “BUGGY?! STROLLER?!” Brer Rabbit knew what these words were. He just didn’t like what they meant, not one bit. “But that means we’re going ou-ou-ou-out!” He was given another pat on his head and a pinch on the side of his face for good measure. “That’s right! I can’t keep my new baby locked inside on such a beautiful day as today. Growing children are like flowers. They need fresh air and sunshine.” Brer Rabbit did not like the idea of going out. Not like this. Not without a sharp knife or a sturdy pair of scissors to cut himself out of his clothes.. Not in Momma Roo’s pouch, dressed up as he was. Better to be outside as naked as the day he was born than dressed as the day after. Unfortunately for good ol’ Brer Rabbit, he didn’t have much choice. The front door came up fast in huge leaps. Held as he was in the lady’s pouch, Brer Rabbit didn’t have a chance as much. All he could do was grip the top of the pouch and go along for the ride. And what a ride it was, what a ride it was! Brer Rabbit was mighty quick, there’s no doubt about it. He could hop faster than most any critter in his neck of the woods and when his mind failed him his feet were quicker than Jack. Brer Rabbit was fast. Momma Roo was faster. Much faster. It felt to Rabbit like he was on a roller coaster, or riding the rails. The wind whipped at his ears and the outside world whirred by him in a blur once he managed to open his eyes. “If only ol’ Brer Fox could see me now!” Rabbit thought; then thought better of it. Still, it felt mighty familiar. He was bundled up by a big strong lady that said sweet things to him, and was hopping along faster than he could possibly hope to keep up on foot with. It had been a long time since Brer had gotten to experience something like this. A mighty long time. All the same, it felt familiar, indeed. Peculiarly so. Just as he was starting to really enjoy the ride, Momma Roo lifted him out of her pouch, and set him down on the grass. The place felt vaguely familiar. The ground was mulched, and jutting up from the mulch like a castle into the sky was a good old fashioned jungle gym. “Where are we?” Brer Rabbit asked. “The Park,” Momma Roo said. “I thought you’d like to play outside for a bit.” Brer Rabbit found himself feeling terribly confused. “The Park?” That explained the playground well enough, but he didn’t quite recognize the streets. “Where’s your...I mean our house?” Even blindfolded by a wicker basket, Brer Rabbit figured that the home daycare he’d rammed into couldn’t be more than half a block away. Why couldn’t he see it across the street from the playground? “Our house is over there, little one,” Momma Roo said. She pointed in the opposite direction. “All the way on the other side of the park.” The park was big alright, and Brer Rabbit found that if he squinted his eyes and focused real hard, he could just make out the street he’d crossed running away from Brer Fox as a tiny dot in the distance. He’d heard the term ‘slack-jawed’ before, but Brer Rabbit had never had it properly to him. Momma Roo fixed this when she put another pacifier in his mouth and tapped the bottom of his jaw. “Just in case,” she said, clipping the pacifier to his onesie on a ribbon. She then reached into the diaper bag and took out a well worn book: New Tricks For Older Mothers “Pway?” he lisped. Then he realized, “Pway!” This was his chance! All he’d have to do is wait until Momma Roo got good and deep into her book, and then he’d sneak away back home and find a way out of his ridiculous getup. “Brer Raaaaaaaabbit!” A familiar voice sounded off in the distance. “Where arrrre you? Heeeere bunny-bunny-bunny-bunny!” Coming up over the hill, looking mean as sin and with big Brer Bear in tow, was Brer Fox. “That was a reeeeeal funny trick you pulled on us. A reeeeal funny trick. We ain’t mad! Come on out and we can all laugh about it together.” “But Brer Fox,” Brer Bear said. “I thought we were still angry at Brer Rabbit. You said we was gonna knock his head cleeeeeean off.” Rabbit’s keen ears could only hear the two rascals talking to each other and see the vaguest shadow of their body language. He couldn’t see Brer Fox roll his eyes at Brer Bear, but sure enough he could hear Fox slap his forehead in exasperation. He could hear him curse under his breath, too. Right then and there, Brer Rabbit wanted to hop away on down the nearest trail as fast as he could. Better to retreat and let time heal their wounds and dim their memories than to go for another round. But as any precious two-year-old will tell you. Running in a dry diaper is one thing. Running in a wet one is another. It only took a couple of hops for Rabbit to know that he wasn’t getting away from anybody dressed as he was. He’d be lucky if he made it past the swingset; and the way the wet padding sagged and swayed between his thighs made it impossible for him to do a proper sprint. That and the kangaroo would catch him anyways, just as like. It was time to use one problem to solve another. “Momma!” Rabbit yelped, hopping up to the bigger woman. “Momma! Lemme in! Lemme in!” He started trying to burrow back into the safety of her pouch. “Hide me! Hide me! You gotta hide me!” Momma Roo put down her book. “Hide you?” she asked. “Whatever would I hide you from?” Brer Rabbit pointe an accusing figure at Brer Fox and Brer Bear still angrily combing the park in the distance. “Them!” he cried. “They’re gonna GET me!” He didn’t really think either had much of a chance of laying a hand on him under normal circumstances, but these circumstances were far from normal. He reckoned Momma Roo could easily outrun both of his pursuers combined. “Oh nonsense,” Mama Roo said. “It’s not like they’re a couple of dingos. Why would two big strong strappers like them wanna pick on an itty bitty baby like you?” “I’m notta-!” Brer Rabbit stopped himself. “Because they’re mean, that’s why! A couple of bullies!” That much was certainly true. Mama Roo put the old book back away in her bag, and tucked him into the safety of her pouch. Brer Rabbit felt much warmer and safer than he had the first time. “Alright, little joey,” she said, giving him a quick kiss on the top of his head. “Let Mama take care of this.” Unfortunately for Brer Rabbit, how Momma Roo handled things was not as all as the trickster would’ve recommended. In the space of three hops and the shake of a bunny tale, Momma Roo crossed the playground, passed the water fountains, and was right in front of Brer Fox and Brer Bear. “Excuse me, gentlemen,” she said. “Can I have a word with you?” Brer Fox and Brer Bear, unaccustomed to being addressed as gentlemen, took a moment before they realized they were being spoken to. “Uhh, why of course madame,” said Brer Fox. He bowed and doffed his straw hat. “Brer Fox, at your service. Enchanted to meet you.” Brer Bear did a bow of his own and set down his club. “Uhhh...Brer Bear. I’m embalmed to meet you, too.” Rabbit did his best to dig himself deeper into Momma Roo’s pouch but had no such luck to speak of. Momma’s hands plunged down and lifted him up, holding up at arm’s length. “I run the daycare over yonder and my baby is frightfully scared of you two for some reason. Do you three know each other?” Brer Fox was still doing his best to mind his manners and kept his hat doffed and his head bowed. “I don’t know any baby,” Brer Fox said. He looked over at Brer Bear. “Do you know any baby “Nope,” was all Brer Bear had to say. “No ma’am, we don’t trifle with or bother with or even know no babies.” Finally, Fox and Bear stood back up to their full heights, donned their hats, and opened their eyes to get a good look at what was dangling and diapered right out in front of them. “I don’t know no babies!” Brer Fox proclaimed. “And that’s no baby!” Both Brer Fox and Brer Bear’s eyes went red with anger while their jaws dripped with hunger. Uncoincidentally, Brer Rabbit found himself so shocked and full of terror that another, more severe round of Nature found its way into Brer Rabbit’s diaper. Those mashed carrots might not have had time to work through his system, but they definitely got things moving, or so it seemed. “Uh oh,” Momma Roo said. “I know what that means.” She then excused herself and turned away from Brer Fox and Brer Bear so she could set Brer Rabbit down...just not on his feet. “Uh...Momma?” Rabbit squeaked as he was laid down on a blanket from out the blue bag Momma had packed. “What are you doing?” “Changing your diaper, silly joey.” Momma cooed down at him. “What else would I be doing?” “DIAPER?” Brer Fox cackled. “CHANGE?” Brer Bear bellowed. Howls of rage turned into peels of laughter. And all Brer Rabbit could do was lay there as his onesie got unbuttoned and his well used diaper was untapped, right in front of everyone. “Mommaaaaaa!” Brer Rabbit tried to scream. Only then did he realize that he still had that old pacifier stuck in his mouth, mufflings his words. Not that it mattered to Momma Roo one bit. She was too busy wiping him from front to back to listen. “Awwww,” Brer Fox laughed. “Look at the little itty baaaaaby!” Brer Rabbit might’ve preferred getting tarred and feathered, or skinned alive. Right then he would have let Brer Bear take his head clean off. It would’ve been quicker that way. “Hey don’t forget to use that special butt cream so he don’t get a rash!” Momma Roo had just finished balling the old diaper off and slipping a fresh one underneath Rabbit. “That’s a good idea!” she called back. “Thank you very much.” That only got more laughter from Rabbit’s two tormentors. Rash cream. Then powder. Then the new diaper was put all the way on Rabbit and his onesie was buttoned right back up. Good (or bad) as new. “All fresh and clean,” Momma Roo pronounced him. Meanwhile, Brer Fox and Brer Bear had sauntered up and seen the whole thing for themselves. “Well I do declare,” Brer Fox said. “I never thought I’d live to see the day.” “Me neither.” Brer Bear agreed. “You’ve never seen a baby get a nappy change?” Momma Roo asked. Rabbit was tucked safely back inside her pouch. “That ain’t no baby,” Brer Fox said. “Thanks for cleaning up though. I’m sure it’ll make him taste better.” Momma Roo hopped backward. “Taste better?” Brer Bear shouldered his club. “We’re gonna knock his head cleeeeean off.” “And fricassee the rest!” Brer Fox rubbed his hands together. “Now if you’ll kindly just hand him over…” Momma Roo balled up her hand into one fist, and used the other to pick up the old diaper off the ground. “You’re not laying one hand on my baby!” “Lady, that ain’t a ba-” Brer Fox started to say before a kangaroo fist punched him right in the nose. Not only could Momma Roo run faster than Brer Rabbit, but she could fight a sight better too. “Hey!” Brer Bear growled, readying his club. “That’s not-!” But he didn’t get to finish his sentence, neither. It’s awful hard to swing a big ol’ club when you’ve got a diaper filled to the brim with Nature thrown right in your face. And before Brer Rabbit could get out his first gasp of astonishment, or his first ha-ha, he and Momma Roo were away in a blur and back behind the closed doors of her live-in daycare. “I’ll never let any big old brute hurt my baby.” Momma Roo huffed. Free room. Free board. Delicious food. Protection from those who would do him the most harm. It was right about then that Brer Rabbit thought that maybe drinking from a bottle and answering Nature’s call in a diaper might not be so bad, all things considered. Meanwhile, half a park away, Brer Fox was checking to see if his nose was broken, and Brer Bear was rinsing his eyes out in the water fountains. “No fair!” Brer Fox muttered mostly to himself. “That kanga lady she fights dirty.” “Very dirty.” Brer Bear agreed, his eyes still dripping. Fox was beside himself with anger. “Every time that Brer Rabbit gets one over on us. Every time! Now this hippity hopper, too! Thinks he’s a baby? Where’d she get that idea?” “She said she ran a daycare over there.” Brer Bear moped. “An Brer Rabbit’s little.” “That’s no excuse.” Brer Fox whined. “I’m not exactly towering myself, am I?” “She probably think just about anybody the right size was a youngin’” That’s when Brer Fox got his own bit of inspiration. He walked over and pulled on Brer Bear’s ear. “Now hold on just a second there Brer Bear. I got myself an idea, I surely do. We’ll get that Brer Rabbit yet, and no hippity hoppin’ Roo is gonna stop us!” He had to tell the big oaf a couple of extra times for it to sink in, but eventually it sunk in. “That’s a pretty good plan,” Brer Bear said. Brer Fox grinned an evil grin. “Yes it is. Yes it surely is.” ****************************************************************************************** The next day, back at Momma Roo’s, Brer Rabbit sat by the little old dollhouse playing with his blocks. He was making a game of it. How high could he stack it before the entire mountain came down. By ones? By two’s? Did it help any if they were off center and counting each other’s weight? What if he had a bigger base? Did that make it less likely to fall down? It was a perfect game for an old fashioned trickster like Brer Rabbit. At its very core, it was about him seeing just how much he could get away with before things came tumbling down and he had to adapt. And of course, if used up all of the wooden blocks, Brer would consider the game lost. It wasn’t about finishing or building anything. Goodness knows it wasn’t about playing it safe. If he wanted to use all of the blocks, he could just as easily lay them flat on the ground and not stack them on top of each other. All the while he played this game against gravity, Brer Rabbit hummed and sang quietly to himself. “Everybody's got a laughin' place, A laughin' place, to go ho-ho! Take a frown, turn it upside-down, And I found mine, I know ho-ho!” With hardly a thought or a struggle, Brer Rabbit let loose his bladder and felt the front of his diaper get a little warmer and a little soggier. It wasn’t the firs time he’d let Nature crash right through the door and into the thirsty padding wrapped around him, and likely wouldn’t be the last. No siree. The trickle bounced off the front of and slid down near the middle where it disappeared into the diaper’s core. Oh the wonders of modern technology! Rabbit couldn’t remember the last time he needed diapers- rabbit’s gotta grow up quick for more reason than one- but he was pretty sure this was a couple of sights better than those old rags and safety pins. Add a plus one to the rest of his clothing. This onesie was mighty comfortable, like a set of fine pajamas excepting that babies were allowed to wear them all the time. Mighty comfortable indeed. The way Mama Roo fussed and over him was something else too. Even right now she was away in the kitchen, deciding to bake him a cake. She’d played with him, fussed over him, cooed at him, checked and changed him, fed him, bathed him, dressed him, put him to bed. And this morning it was happening all over again. Being a legendary trickster, Brer Rabbit had never been on a proper vacation. The only vacating he tended to do was when brutes and bullies were getting too close. Maybe this is what this was: A kinda vacation. “When’s your birthday?” she’d asked him this morning after a breakfast of some pureed vegetables and a bottle of milk. “I don’t rightly remember,” Brer Rabbit replied. For just a second he thought that the jig was up. “I’m just a baby. Goo-goo-gah-gah!” Momma Roo’s face just lit up, instead. “Then we’re gonna say your birthday is today.” And the matter seemed settled. And after leaving him a bottle of juice and checking to see if he needed changing again, she left him to play in her at-home daycare’s nursery. A cake. A whole cake, just for him. One that he didn’t have to bake or swindle himself. And all of these toys to play with. Strange as it may seem for such a legendary trickster, such things were as foreign to Brer Rabbit as Momma Roo’s accent. Having as many brothers and sisters as rabbits tend to do meant that Brer didn’t get a whole lotta toys or a whole lotta ‘tention growing up. Being so little and living in a world filled with foxes, and wolves, and bears made it so being a child wasn’t exactly an option. A fella doesn’t get to be a legendary trickster by living the same normal- and often more comfortable- life as everybody else. People just don’t tell stories about that kind of thing. This, this nursery, might be his new laughing place, Brer Rabbit reckoned. There were precious few briar patches left in the world, so why not someplace softer, and quieter? A new place to hide between mishaps and misadventures. He gave the blocks one last topple, got up and started pacing. It’d only been a few hours, but it was getting harder and harder to notice the crinkle when he walked, or how he was less walking and more toddling. Hopping was easier than walking in his current situation. Crawling might be easier than even than that. “I mean why not?” Brer Rabbit said to himself. “What would I be losing if I kept this up?” He waddled and toddled over to the dollhouse. “The bars and the crib were somethin’, but that mattress was comfier than an old feather bed.” He opened the playset up and looked at the people inside. Happy little people living their happy normal lives. “That chair was confining, but the food was pretty good.” “And the diapers and baby clothes?” He looked down at himself and poked the front and felt the little squish. He could still barely tell that he’d wet himself. “I could get used to these.” Memories of the look on Brer Fox and Brer Bear’s face when a fully loaded diaper went sailing at their fool heads. He let out a little giggle. “ ‘Specially since I don’t have to clean up after myself.” Growing up in the boonies and the backwoods most of his life, Brer Rabbit was of the opinion that most indoor plumbing was overrated. Getting water into the tub? That was handy, no arguments there. But whisking away certain unpleasantries of Nature? Why go to the effort when a tree, a bush, or even an outhouse would do? In his current predicament, what Momma Roo had taped on him was doing the job one better since he didn’t have to go anywhere to do it. “It’s not that different from a briar patch,” Brer Rabbit decided. “Patch has thorns instead of bars. And it’s a lot less pretty.” He picked up a green rubber ball and gave it a bounce. “Lot less to do, too.” He rolled the ball away. What would he be giving up to pretend to be Momma Roo’s baby for a might longer? A job? A wife? A nice home? No. No. And this was nicer. After the initial embarrassment at having one of his own tricks backfire on him wear off, and experiencing the rush of someone else giving Brer Fox and Brer Bear whatfor, Brer Rabbit found himself developing a taste for this baby stuff. Babies got snuggled and cleaned and fed and cared for and defended. The only reason people got embarrassed over playing with toys and being pushed in strollers and having their Mommies and Daddies love on them was because someone came along told them that was the way it ought to be. Men weren’t supposed to wear dresses, either. That hadn’t stopped Brer Rabbit from yanking one over his head and posing as a debutant to throw Fox off his trail that one time… It was all in the trick and babies were the real ones getting tricked. By the time they were old enough to enjoy and appreciate being babied, they weren’t allowed to be babies no more. The more he thought about it, the more Brer Rabbit was convinced that this might be the greatest trick he’d yet played. He risked nothing worth risking, and might just gain so much more. There would be some difficulties, Brer Rabbit was sure. Keeping other people from blowing his cover was one of them. If a couple of blockheads like Fox and Bear could recognize him, plenty of other people could. When Momma Roo’s normal charges at the daycare came back tomorrow, she might have an easier time of sniffing out Brer Rabbit’s ruse. It was always easier to figure out a flim flam when you had the legitimate article right in front of you. That was a problem for tomorrow, however. “Maybe I’ll just get some sleep on it,” he yawned. Lazily, he spread out on the floor, flopping out and stretching his legs. “When I’m Brer Rabbit,” he said to himself. “Laying down and staring up at the ceiling is me being idle and lazy. But if I’m just a little baby,” he yawned, “it just means I’m plum tuckered out.” He closed his eyes and began to doze. DING-DONG! Rabbit had just been about to go to sleep. “Ding-dong?” He scurried to his feet. Who could be calling at a time like this? The daycare part of her home wasn’t even open on weekends. Momma Roo had told him that much. “Coming! Coming!” Momma-Roo shouted. She hopped to the front door. The idea that a baby- a real one- had been left on Momma Roo’s doorstep flickered into Brer Rabbit’s mind. What was he supposed to do if a real little tot was brought in? Be recognized? Be replaced? Or worse, be forced to try and figure out a way to get rid of an actual helpless little kid? As tricky as he could be, Brer Rabbit didn’t know if he had the moral decrepitude to try something like that... Nervously, he followed his new caregiver to the door, making good and sure to hide behind her so he couldn’t be seen. His curiosity got the best of him though, so he still cheated a peak from behind her kitchen apron. “Why, hello!” Momma Roo called out across the threshold. “Can I help you?” Turns out, Brer Rabbit needn’t have dabbled in such paranoid eventualities as what to do if and when actual children came through that door. Because right in front of him were no children at all. Towering above them was Brer Bear, only instead of his usual clothes, he was dolled up and in drag. A green dress that might’ve used to be curtains hung over his massive frame, and his old red hat had been traded for something somebody’s grandma might wear on Sunday. It even had a little flower stuck in the brim and everything, (poor flower). “Hello Ma’am” Brer Bear rumbled. “I have just moved into the neighborhood, and was looking uh..uh...” His speech was slow and stilted, a poor actor rehearsing lines that he couldn’t quite remember. Brer Bear was a lot of things, but brains wasn’t one of them. “I was looking for a playmate for my child. Someone his own age because he is so little..” “Playmate?” Brer Rabbit wondered aloud peeking out from behind Momma Roo’s apron. In most any other situation, Brer Rabbit, might’ve laughed at what he saw. This time, though, Brer Rabbit felt his blood run cold. Standing next to Brer Bear, was an evilly grinning Brer Fox! This didn’t look like no regular Brer Fox, though. He’d changed things up, too. Instead of his usual all green attire, the Fox was dressed from top to bottom in a sailor suit. And based on how short the shorts were, (not to mention the bulky roundness beneath them), Rabbit didn’t reckon that Fox had enlisted in the navy. “Of course! Of course!” Momma Roo said. “Come in. I was just baking a cake!” “Cake?” Brer Bear positively drooled before a quick elbo to his thigh from Brer Fox made him remember himself. “Momma!” Brer Rabbit Yelped. “That’s not a baby that’s-!” Momma Roo picked him up and pressed a finger to his mouth. “Hold on, sweetie. Grown-ups are talking.” Brer Fox let out a little snicker as they came in and were led into the playroom. Momma Roo took a seat and Brer Bear did the same. She placed Brer Rabbit on the carpet, and likewise Brer Fox was plopped down too. “Go play with your new friend,” she said to Brer Rabbit, giving him a pat on the rump. “Uh, you too,” Bear copied. “Be nice and play with your little friend.” “Yes, ‘Mommy’,” Brer Fox grinned a grin full of sharp teeth. “I’m gonna play reeeeeal nice with my new little friend here. Just you wait and see!” There was a bit of the Devil in that old fox’s eyes. “But don’t wander too far off,” Momma Roo said. “Stay where we can see you. I know how babies can get into mischief when they’re together.” She didn’t know the half of it. “Yup,” Brer Bear agreed. “Whole lotta mischief. You best behave yourself.” Brer Fox’s expression soured a note. “Yes Mommy…” he said. “I sure will.” Rabbit hopped on over to the other side of the playroom; still well in sight should Brer Fox try and snatch him up, but far away enough so that Brer Rabbit might talk more freely. He’d need his words to get out of this mess. As expected, Brer Fox followed. Brer Rabbit looked back and saw that Fox kept yanking his shorts up every couple of steps, stubbornly trying to make it so that the edge of his diaper stopped poking out the top of his elastic waistband. He walked funny, too; though the funny was mostly in his face. Kind of like someone trying to slowly get in a cold river stream instead of just dunking themselves. Brer Fox wasn’t used to wearing a diaper just yet. Good. The only thing faster than Brer Rabbit’s feet most days was his mouth. He’d already figured out what that scoundrel Brer Fox was likely up to. The old game of cat and mouse turning into a game of disguise and dress up. He was here to pose as Brer Rabbit’s playmate and use the proximity so that he could finally have a decent chance at ringing Rabbit’s skinny little neck. The thing about scoundrels though is that they’re clever; just not half as clever as they think they are. And as much as Brer Fox rightly scared Brer Rabbit, Brer Rabbit knew that doing the old pleading and whimpering routine wouldn’t work this time. Time for a different approach. “Brer Fox,” Brer Rabbit scolded. “What do you think you’re doing here, trying to muscle in on my top secret training? I thought of this baby thing, first, and it’s no fair for you to try and copy it so quick! Not when I’m so close!” “Just wait till I get alone with you,” Brer Fox snarled. “I’mma get put in one of them baby cages with you, and then there’ll be nothing you can…” he paused. “What are you talkin’ about, Brer Rabbit?” “You know exactly what I’m talking ‘bout, Brer Fox.” Brer Rabbit said. “Don’t think you can fool me!” “No, I promise!” Brer Fox replied. “I’m not tryin’ anything tricksy. I’m just here to skin you, is all. I’d do it elsewhere, mind you, but you’re hiding in here.” Brer Rabbit made a scoffing sound. “Hiding? You think I’m hiding?” Brer Fox lifted the sailor hat off his head briefly to scratch it. “Um...yeah? Ain’t you?” Rabbit sat down, seeming at ease, and ignoring the wet squelch beneath his bottom. “What? Did you think that I ran away from you and Brer Bear in the park yesterday and accidentally got caught by this crazy Kangaroo lady who thinks I’m her baby and I can’t figure a way out so I’m stuck in a onesie havin’ to play pretend?” “Well, when you put it that way…” Brer Fox replied. “Yeah. Kind of.” Brer Rabbit waved it off. “No. I was training.” “Training” “Fixing to whoop your butt.” Brer Rabbit said matter of factly. “Give me a week or two of this and I would have been able to knock your head clean off. I’d be almost as strong as Brer Bear over there.” Brer Fox doubled over laughing. “You?! Knock my head clean off?” But he stopped and sat back up. “How is you wearing baby clothes and playing in a nursery gonna help you beat me?” “Simple,” Brer Rabbit lied. “I’m growin’ up again.” The orange scoundrel frowned. “Growin’ up again?” Brer Rabbit crawled over to his most hated enemy and wrapped his arm over his shoulder as if they were good friends. He even saw Momma Roo and ‘Momma’ Bear point and comment on it. “Think about it,” Brer Rabbit whispered to the fox. “When folks are little, we wear this stuff. Diapers. Onesies. Sailor Suits. They get put in those baby cages and those high chairs and eat mush all day, and they drink outta bottles and get burped.” “Yeah, I know what a baby does,” Brer Fox scowled. “Well what do babies do?” Brer Rabbit continued. “They grow up! And as soon as they get big enough, they stop doing baby stuff! That’s because if you keep wearing him and doing the baby stuff, you keep growing.” Brer Fox shifted a bit and stroked his chin. “My grandmama always did say that youngin’s grew up too fast.” The blocks in Brer Rabbit’s mind were stacking higher now. Time for the real fun. “Mine too! That’s why I’m doing this! I wanted to keep growing so I wouldn’t have to be scared of you no more!” A hint of suspicion flared up in Brer Fox’s eyes. “Hmmm…” “That’s why I’m here,” Brer Rabbit said. “After a couple weeks of this, I’ll shoot up like a weed and will be as big as you. Gimme two years, and I’ll be at least as big as Momma Roo.” He pointed to the woman who had taken him in and gotten him stuck like this. “You can’t be as big as a kangaroo.” Brer Fox said. The blocks of this little scheme were starting to tumble. Fortunately, Brer Rabbit knew a thing or two about stopping schemes from crumbling. “Look at her feet. Look at her ears. Think about that pouch! She was babied for a looooooong time. That’s why she’s so good with little ones and has this daycare.” Brer Fox’s mouth hung open. “A Kangaroo ain’t nothin’ but a giant rabbit…” he said just above a whisper. Scheme saved. “Yes, sir! Yes, sir! A rabbit that got some extra tender loving care. That’ll be me some day. I bet within a year, maybe even less, you could get to be as big as Brer Bear. You’d have the brains and the brawn then.” Brer Rabbit saw the look of greed replace the look of hunger in Brer Fox’s eyes. He had him. “She’s a good momma,” Brer Rabbit told him. “The best. Course, now that you’re here, you can just skin me alive and eat me, and never learn her tricks.” He sighed dramatically. “Neither of us are ever gonna get nearly as big as Brer Bear.” DING! “Oh! Cake’s done!” Momma Roo stood up off the couch and hopped off to the kitchen. Brer Bear got up too, but he didn’t follow Momma Roo into the kitchen. “I’m gonna knock your head cleeeean off!” He pounded one giant fist into the palm of his other giant hand. Brer Fox leapt up and crinkled in between the two of them. “Hold on just a second, Brer Bear!” He looked nervously between the two of them. “We don’t wanna seem suspicious do we?” “But you said…?” Brer Bear growled. “I know what I said...I know what I said!” Brer Fox stuttered. “But...but…” “Who wants lunch?” Momma Roo called from the kitchen. “With cake for dessert?” Brer Bear whipped his head around and sniffed at the kitchen. “Hmmm...cake? “Cake!” Brer Fox stuttered. “Yes! Cake! Can’t smack somebody’s head off before cake, can we?” Brer Fox toddled off to the kitchen, waving behind him. “Come on, uh...Mommy. Let’s go have cake!” Before Brer Bear could follow, Brer Rabbit was tugging at his dress. “Don’t you hate how he bosses you around?” he whispered. “How he tries to bamboozle you with words?” “Uh...yeah.” Brer Bear agreed. “He’s always talking like he’s smarter or better’n me.” “Just remember,” Brer Rabbit told him. “In here, you’re his Momma. He has to do what you tell him to.” A funny look came on Brer Bear’s face. Brer Rabbit wasn’t sure he’d ever seen the look on Brer, but if he didn’t know any better, he’d have called it an idea. “Oh yeeeeah…” Brer Bear said. “I’m the Momma. He’s the baby.” “Mine shushed me, sure enough. You saw that, right?” Brer Bear nodded. “I did. I did.” And so Brer Rabbit hopped happily into the kitchen, where Momma Roo fastened him into his high chair. “I’ve got a spare for your little one,” she said to Brer Bear. “Hey!” Brer Fox started to shout as he was lifted and put in the highchair beside him. Brer Rabbit just gave him a quick conspiratorial wink, and Brer Fox quieted down. Momma Roo went over to the pantry. “Cake for dessert, but first lunch for the babies.” She asked Rabbit, “What do you want, baby?” “Oh, I’ll have just about anything.” Brer Rabbit said. “Anything except prunes, that is.” He stuck out his tongue. “Yuch! Prunes!” Momma Roo laughed lightly. “That’s fine. I don’t think you need any help answering Nature’s call anyway.” She got out a jar of mashed carrots. Rabbit’s favorites. “Yum yum!” Brer Rabbit said. “Sounds good to me!” Then remembering that there were three people he was supposed to be fooling, he made sure to end with, “Goo-goo!” “That’s right. Now eat it up all your food so you’ll grow big and strong.” Brer Rabbit didn’t have to be told twice. He opened his mouth and let Momma Roo spoon in heaps of the the orange mush. No chewing just meant he got to eat faster. Soon he’d get that cake. From the looks of it and smell of it, it was chocolate; Brer Rabbit’s second favorite flavor (behind carrot cake of course). Brer Bear and Brer Fox. “Excuse me,” Brer Bear started, hat in hand. “I seemed to have forgot my baby’s…” Momma Roo didn’t even wait for him to finish. “Help yourself, ma’am. I’ve got plenty of baby food in the pantry and bottles of milk in the refrigerator.” “Thank you kindly, ma’am. My little boy appreciates it too.” Between spoonfuls of baby food, Brer Rabbit wondered just how gullible Momma Roo really was. Brer Bear wasn’t even putting on a falsetto. Copying Momma Roo to a tee, Brer Bear moseyed on over to the pantry and reached in. “What kind of baby food should I give to you?” He said to Brer Fox now trapped in his sailor suit. Likewise, Brer Fox replied. “Anything but prunes.” “Gee Momma,” Brer Rabbit spoke up. “It’s so good that you let us babies eat whatever we want whenever we want!” “Not all the time,” Momma Roo replied. “Only when you want something that’s good for you. It’s Mommas who are really in charge.” She gave him another spoonful. Brer Rabbit swallowed and gave Brer Bear a wink. “Oh yeah. I forgot. I’d have to eat prunes if you said so.” The fake Momma Bear caught the wink and grabbed a jaw filled with purple mush. “I think baby’s gonna have some prunes. Gotta keep you regular.” Brer Fox sat upright in the highchair. He went so far as to waggle his finger at the bear. “I said-!” His words were cut off when the plastic spoon nearly dived into his gullet. Brer Bear was more than a might stronger than Momma Roo, and far less experienced at child rearing. Far less gentle, too, as it turned out. A head doctor might even go so far as to say that given his history of being tricked and verbally lashed by both Fox and Rabbit, that Brer Bear was enjoying the sudden imbalance of power. I’m no head doctor, though, just the person telling you this story. “Nuh-uh-uh. Momma knows best.” Brer Bear waggled his finger. “Now swallow.” Slowly, Brer Fox did. His sigh of disgust only gave Brer Bear another opening for a spoon. “But-!” Another spoonful. Brer Rabbit looked over to Rabbit and shrugged. “Gotta eat your prunes so you can get big and strong.” Bear said. “And regular. “Don’t worry,” Momma Roo said to Brer Bear. “It’s just a phase that they all go through. It doesn’t mean anything.” Brer Bear seemed to agree. They sat in relative silence. The “grown-ups” fed the “babies” and themselves. Bits of nuts and fruit were nibbled on daintily between spoonfuls of mush. Having acclimated to the texture and method already Brer Rabbit found it a most pleasing affair. Having not acclimated to such things, himself, (and hating the taste of prunes besides), Brer Fox found it far less enjoyable. Next came the bottles. Brer Rabbit accepted his without complaint. “Such a good eater!” Momma Roo cooed. Even with his life hanging in the balance, Brer Rabbit couldn’t help but feel good about that. She gently patted his back, until a series of gentle burps rumbled out. Brer Fox gurgled and glugged behind the bottle, trying not to choke as Brer Bear cradled him and shoved the nipple in his face. “Too mch!” He tried to say. “Too mch!” His own burps came out and mumbled and muffled with yelps as thunderous paws rained down on him. Momma Roo slipped two fingers into Brer Rabbit’s onesie. “Hmmm...wet.” She said. “But I think you can make it a little longer without a change. You’re still too little to potty train, anyways.” Brer Bear tried to check Fox’s diaper but Fox slapped his hand away. “I’m dry! I’m dry! I don’t need a change!” “Babies don’t know the difference between wet and dry or messy and clean.” Momma Roo said to Brer Bear. “That’s why I check mine and tell him.” Brer Rabbit had to hold in his laughter just then. Brer Bear flipped Brer Fox over and pulled back the waist band. “All clean.” Next he cupped the inside of Brer Fox’s shorts. “Dry, too. Good baby!” Even through his orange fur, Brer Fox looked like he was on the verge of going beet red. “Miss Bear?” Momma Roo said. “Would you mind looking after the little ones while I do some dishes and finish with the cake? It’s just about cooled and needs to be decorated.” Brer Bear scooped up Rabbit and Fox. “Of course, Ma’am! I’d be happy too.” The pair were picked up and carried out to the playroom. As soon as they were out of sight and out of Momma Roo’s earshot. Brer Fox found a bit of his pride. “What was that about?!” Brer Fox demanded. “I told you I wasn’t wet! I told you I didn’t want prunes either, an’ I couldn’t get a word in with that bottle in my mouth!” Brer Bear crossed his arms. “Babies aren’t in charge.” “I’m not really a baby!” Brer Fox said. “I just got in this getup so I can get big and strong!” Bear was confused. “I thought you said we were doing this so we could knock Brer Rabbit’s head clean off…?” He patted Brer Rabbit on the head. “No offense, Brer Rabbit.” “None taken, Brer Bear.” “Well yes,” Brer Fox stuttered. “At first, but then I found out that...that…” A rumbling in his stomach and a funny feeling in his bladder caught his attention. Nature was knocking on Brer Fox’s door all of a sudden. Prunes and a big bottle of milk will do that to a lot of folks. “Sounds silly, doesn’t he?” Brer Rabbit said. “Almost like a…?” Feeling like a sage ol’ Momma Bear, Brer Bear nodded down at Brer Rabbit, knowingly. Brer Fox started doing a little dance in place, hoping to stall Nature’s call. “ ‘Scuse me a second, fellas. Where’s the bathroom?” “You don’t need a bath,” Brer Rabbit said. “Your Momma fed you real good. Didn’t get a drop on ya!” Brer Bear sat up a little straighter, seeming proud. “I just gotta go...go…” Brer Fox was shifting in place, holding himself. “Go! You know?!” Nature was pounding at the door, about to bust it down. “I thought you were wearing that outfit cuz you wanted to grow like a baby,” Brer Rabbit mocked. “Babies don’t go nowhere special to do their business. They’re always open for it.” “That’s right,” Brer Bear said. He gave Fox’s cheek a pinch with one meaty paw. “You just go on and play. I”ll change you later.” “But...but...but...but…! I’m grown! I know better!” “You’re the baby and I’m the Momma, and I say no!” There was more than a hint of finality in Brer Bear’s voice. “You stay right here and play. I’ll change you when I’m good and ready; just before naptime.” Tears welled up in the old scoundrel’s eyes as the finality of Brer Bear’s statement weighed in on him. Cleverness brought him this far. Greed got him in too deep. And pride was about to be shattered. “But I...I...I…” he whimpered. “I’m not really a baby. I’mma...I’mma big...big…” He stopped and swallowed. He shuddered. That’s when anybody with a brain knew that Nature had just emptied itself right into the front of Brer Fox’s diaper. Funny thing about baby food, especially prunes and certain kinds of formula: It’s easy to digest. Too easy. Runs right through you. Brer Fox’s bottom lip quivered. A hint of a tear formed. He covered his mouth with a gasp and slammed his eyes shut, gripping his guts. Nature wasn’t done with him just yet. Brer Rabbit watched with terrible fascination as Brer Fox was forced to open the door and fill his pants up like he thought he was gonna win something. The way he adjusted his stance gave even more of a clue, a kind of sickly bow legged sight, like someone trapped in their own skin. The second meanest thing anyone could have done just then to Brer Fox was to ask him to sit down. Brer Rabbit wasn’t much better. But because he’d already learned to go with Nature and trick his pride, he was acres and acres better. Like most things, turns out potty training was more of a firm suggestion than an unbreakable law. Having recently been in Brer Fox’s shoes, Brer Rabbit almost felt sorry for Brer Fox. Almost. Not quite, but almost. He hopped over to Brer Fox, squishing with each hop. “Hey Brer Fox, there was one other thing about my secret growing up strong plan.” Disgusted Brer Fox leaned in. “What’s that?” “I lied. I did get myself stuck here hiding from you! You just ate a whole mess of prunes and got burped for nothin’ except to make a state right in your pants!” “Why you little!” Brer Fox yanked Brer Rabbit up the ears. “I’m gonna skin you alive, tar and feather you, and then everybody will be calling you Brer Chicken!” Brer Rabbit looked past Brer Fox and up to the couch. “WAAAAAAAH!” Brer Fox was snatched up so fast that that Brer Rabbit could have sworn that the angels themselves swooped down from the heavens to deliver divine retribution. It was no angel though; just “Momma” Bear a little too into the role and enjoying his newfound power over “Baby” Fox. “I’m gonna knock your butt cleeeeeeean off!” Brer Bear said. He yanked Fox’s shorts down to his ankles and took him over his knee. The second worst thing that could have happened to Brer Fox was to have to sit down in a thoroughly used diaper. The first worst was what was happening. “GOOD! BABIES! PLAY! NICE! BAD! BABIES! GET! SPANKED!” Brer Fox tried to explain, but Brer Bear wasn’t hearing it. He just kept spanking and spanking until Brer Fox was screaming his throat raw (which considering Bear’s strength wasn’t particularly long). “I’m sorry!” “You’re sorry?” “Yes!” “You’re sorry, who?” “I’m sorry...MOMMY!” Brer Rabbit just pointed and laughed. What fun! What sport! He had so much fun he almost didn’t notice as he finished soaking the already wet diaper around his bum. He definitely needed to be changed now. That’s when Brer Rabbit knew he’d found his laughing place. Momma Roo hopped in from the kitchen. “What’s all the commotion.” “I’m powerful sorry, Momma Roo,” Brer Bear said. Brer Fox was tucked under one arm, his bottom sore and his pants still around his ankles. “My baby plum forgot his manners and I think I need to take him home to teach him some.” “Oh,” Momma Roo said sounding disappointed. “Would you like a piece of cake to take home with you, then?” Brer Bear shook his head. “No thank you. Mine hasn’t earned any cake today, and I gotta watch my figure. I’m a Momma after all.” Clearly, Brer Bear was digging up old memories of the things his mother used to say. Strange thing was, he was quickly gaining a talent for it. A real natural. “Well how about I save him a slice for if he’s good tomorrow.” “Tomorrow?” “You’re so good with little ones,” Momma Roo said, “I was thinking I might hire you to come on by and help me. Play with the kids. Make sure they behave. Make sure you bring your little one, too.” “What?” Brer Fox called out. “Come by and help you? But he’s no-!” Brer Fox was cut off by a big paw slamming his muzzle shut. Brer Rabbit pretended to help and offered Brer Fox a pacifier. “How much?” Brer Bear asked. “A quarter a minute.” “A QUARTER A MINUTE?!” Brer Bear took the pacifier and stuck it between Fox’s lips just so that he had a free hand. He reached out and shook Momma Roo’s. “YES MA’AM! THANK YOU MA’AM! ME AND MY BABY WILL BE RIGHT HERE EARLY TOMORROW MORNING!” Brer Rabbit laughed as the duo tromped away. If Bear was as stubborn as he usually was- maybe doubly so if he was getting paid for it- then Brer Fox was gonna be stuck in strollers and such for a loooooong time. This really was a great trick. Except… Brer Rabbit tugged at Momma Roo’s apron. “Excuse me, ma’am.” Momma Roo looked down at Brer Rabbit, eyes full of love. This all started because he took advantage of her kindness and gullibility. People who meant him harm was one thing. Nice folks like Momma Roo were another. “Yes, dear?” “I think you should know. I’m not really a baby. Not in the uh...traditional sense that is.” “I know.” Brer Rabbit was dumbfounded. “You do? Since when?” “About three seconds after we met.” “But why?” “Just because you’re growing older doesn’t mean you’ve grown up,” Momma Roo told him. She winked and picked him up. “Besides, I like a good trick, too.” Brer Rabbit leaned into Momma Roo and for the first time in a long time he hoped for something for himself besides pulling one over on somebody. “Does that mean I can stay?” “As long as you’d like.” Momma Roo told him. She checked his diaper. “Let’s get you changed.” And that’s the story of the last great trick of Brer Rabbit. A trick so good, he convinced himself to stay. Some say he’s still there at Momma Roo’s Daycare. Getting the second childhood that he never have. Some say that Brer Bear and Brer Fox still come by too, though Brer Fox is much less happy about it. I cna’t say why he’s complaining. He gets three squares and a crib. Though he never got used to the attire. Serves him right though, if you ask me. If you ever come across them, be sure to give them my regards. Just don’t mention anything to them about you being a baby unless you really want it. Cuz Momma Roo will be listening and will likely hold you to it. And Brer Rabbit will talk circles around you until you end up there in the playpen with him.

(Chapter 3) TRIAL 2 “Come on,” Glitch coaxed. “Open up. You can do it. Just open up and say ‘Aaaaah!” Circe kept her mouth shut. That science-freak, Glitch, had made the situation awful enough as things stood. Right after the changing table, the room had wasted no time in degrading Circe further. It kept her silvery hair up in pigtails and added a yellow toddler dress with white trim and a Peter Pan collar for good measure. The hem didn’t come close to covering up her diaper, making the garment literally just for show, and there was enough room in the chest so as to minimize the curves of her breasts. It made her less obscene, and therefore worse off than when she woke up topless. At least topless she could imagine one of the lab coats taking notes might be slightly aroused or unnerved by the sight of her nakedness. She looked like a little girl. Not even a little girl; a baby! What the fuck? She didn’t even get nice hard and pointy Mary Janes to kick with; having to settle for yellow grippy socks. Ugh! Adult baby booties! The Siren wasn’t so much as given the opportunity to properly struggle before she was plopped into an adult sized highchair and buckled into a harness. A plastic backed bib was tied around her neck, covering the harness and adding another layer to her humiliation by making her seem even less capable than she really was. More cruelly, her arms weren’t pinned inside the highchair’s tray, giving her a nearly full range of motion and movement. Circe had a compulsion, no, an obligation to struggle and escape. Leaving her arms free was just another demonstration on how powerless she currently was. She immediately started yanking at the bib but it wouldn’t come undone; practically soldered together at the back of her neck. She dug her hands down and reached under her skirt to at least rip the tapes of the diaper open, but her fingers couldn’t find purchase on the sticky tapes. The harness she’d been buckled into wouldn’t budge either; likely more of Glitch’s meddling modifications. The smug bitch’s self-approving nods confirmed as much. Seconds after testing beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was good and trapped, more of the cursed animatronic tendrils lowered down from the ceiling. One of them wielded a mush filled spoon. Just out of reach, too. Circe all but welded her mouth shut and swiped at the damnable thing, just out of reach. Damn machines didn’t even have the decency to put the spoon in arm’s reach so that she could snatch it! Nor was there a bowl to tip off the side of the feeding tray. It just waited patiently for Circe to run herself out of steam. Presently, Circe had given up on going for the spoon; the robotic nursery wasn’t even giving her a sporting chance by bringing it tantalizingly close and snatching it away at the last second. There were better, more effective hells than this, and part of her Siren soul remembered that intimately. So she sat there in the highchair. Her arms crossed like a pouty toddler, and the tops and bottoms of her teeth grinding down on each other. Every other time she’d opened her mouth, some gadget had zipped in to deliver its sinister payload. Snakes only struck when you gave them an opening. Circe knew how to play this game. The Siren waited. She was a villain, but part of being a Siren meant being patient. The original Sirens were a type of ambush predators; not stalkers. Sailors would wreck themselves upon her rock if she ust waited long enough. It only unnerved her if she let herself nurture the idea that they wouldn’t. But there were men and women in lab coats watching her, and a subtly annoyed super-sidekick standing by. Emotional food was there; physically farther away but so much closer than the mush. “Come on, Circe” Glitch tried to coax her. “Just open up, baby girl. That spoon has yummy num-nums for you. Delicious and nutritious.” Her voice was artificially sweet like splenda; taunting her without sounding like it. What did the young people call that? A dog whistle? If not, it was close enough. Circe was very good with sound metaphors “Unless you don’t think you can handle just one spoonful?” The Siren wasn’t falling for it. Not this time. She locked her jaw. ‘H’m hmm hmmmmm hmm hmm hmmmmmmmmmmm, hmmmm!” “Very mature,” Glitch rolled her eyes. “ ‘I’m not giving you the satisfaction, bitch’? Really?” Circe almost gasped in surprise but remembered herself and did a close mouthed scowl, instead. “I’ve got an entire database of your speaking patterns and intonations in my brain,” Glitch said. “I can do better than lip reading.” Circe narrowed her eyes. She could understand Circe down to the hum? Good. This stand off would be easier. It would be simpler to agitate and provoke this way, while putting her at zero risk. Heroes were always less clever than they suspected; their will never as strong as they fancied. “Hmm’mm hmmm hm hmmmm hm hmmmm.” “I’m not going to break your teeth,” Glitch said. She started pacing the floor, her face turning into a concentrated snarl. Circe was presenting a problem the hypocrite didn’t know how to solve. “That would cross so many lines, even for you. I’m trying to help you.” “Hmm?!” Glitch looked genuinely exasperated. “How? You literally wouldn’t understand. I’m intellectually superior to you, and more importantly too…too…?” Cockily, Circe rested her elbow on the tray, and laid her chin in the palm of her hand. “Hm-mm-mmmm? “Immature?” Glitch scoffed. “I was going to say ‘old’.” “OLD?!” The spoon jumped into Circe’s mouth and bland mush slipped out onto her tongue. On instinct, the supervillain swallowed it down, then grimaced. Not because it tasted bad- it didn’t taste at all- but because she’d been tricked yet again. Odysseus was a trickster too, but the comparison felt hollow; a lie a child might tell themselves to help them feel big. As soon as the gloop and glop was down Circe’s proverbial hatch, Glitch’s pre-recorded voice rang out from the headboard of the highchair. “Good baby! Eat your num-nums!” It was both disturbing because the genuine article’s lips remained still, and the recording sounded perfectly like the real thing. Glitch was utilizing the technology that Circe had hoped to steal. Circe’s blood boiled a bit more, and it had nothing to do with the condescending verbage and tone, and everything to do with its source. Witty repartee was worth her time, pre-recorded responses were just a soft form of torture. She could get better from rank and file guards at a SuperMax. One did not give witty one liners to non-sentient automatons unless they were about to destroy them and it would look cool to an imaginary audience. Prosthetic fingers danced up her bare legs. “Good baby!” The tickling wasn’t nearly enough to make Circe laugh or open her mouth, but it made her hold her breath and fidget in her chair. A kind of reward in return for her compliance; or perhaps a threat to gently force her lips apart. The spoon refilled itself with mush via a hidden compartment in the appendage holding it. No dipping into a bowl required. Damn. She resumed her defiant position in the highchair, and did an internal monitor of herself. No strange gurgling, bloating, or cramping sensations presented themselves. Chances were that this mush was just mush, and not some cocktail meant to make her poop herself again. She detected no feelings of other biochemical tampering, either. This wasn’t drugged. At the very least, a single spoonful wasn’t enough to do her in. Glitch was playing at a different game. In order to win, Circe would have to play a different one. Ancient Greek Proverb: When rock collides with rock, the bigger rock wins. When rock is covered with parchment, the rock ceases to be. Or maybe she was getting that mixed up with something else; reincarnation was tricky like that. Either way, she was going to throw paper. “Open up, baby! Time for num-nums!” That came, of course, from the room itself instead of Circe’s not-quite adversary. Circe didn’t react. She sat still, a defiant yet tranquil pool of acid. “Come on Circe,” Glitch repeated herself with an exasperated sigh. “This is a Skinner Box.” A Skinner Box, eh? Circe wasn’t sure what that meant, but she was sure that there was more than one way to skin a cat. Glitch rolled her eyes. “It means the environment is reactive. You’re perfectly safe.” Oh really? Reactive? A leads to B leads to C? How very predictable and mechanical. This merited further study. Circe opened her mouth for another spoonful. “Aaaaah!” The spoon slid in easily and left behind its mushy payload. “Good baby! Eat your num-nums” Circle swished it around in her mouth, noting the distinct lack of flavor and creamy mashed potato texture. Glitch inched up closer, pleased with herself, like always. “See?” she lectured. “It’s not so bad. Chock full of vitamins and nutrients, specifically formulated for different body types towards a desired end goal. Yours is the um…silver formula.” “Good baby!” Circe got another tickle for swallowing another spoonful. A led to B. Everytime. Predictable. Anticipatable. Abusable. Potentially delicious. “It presents as baby food, but like much of your treatment, it’s been adapted from a different source to achieve the desired results. It’s not baby food, just people food.” “Good baby!” Yet another tickle to accompany the mouthful of mush at a one for one ratio. Somewhere in the back of her brain Circe was keeping track of this. Patterns. Patterns Patterns. Boring machine generated patterns. “This is most fortuitous,” Glitch mused. “You’re helping me with so much research from a marketability perspective.” And people thought that villains liked to monologue. Glitch inched closer, and Circe received another spoonful. “Your food is tasteless, but I’m working on different flavoring before marketing to the public. It just happened to synergize well with this particular aesthetic, and you’re providing me with an excellent-” “PTEW!” A huge heaping chunk of light brown grayish mush made the relatively short trip through the air onto Glitch’s nanny apron. The superheroine stared down her chest as the blob drip-drip-dripped all the way down to the floor. “You shouldn’t have done that,” she said. Circe knew she shouldn’t have done that. And that’s why she loved it. “NAUGHTY NAUGHTY BABY!” the room boomed. The highchair propelled forward like a roller coaster, briefly disorienting Circe. It was a short trip at least, straight to the spanking pommel horse. In no time at all Circe was back over the robotic knee, laughing hysterically. “Haaaaa! HAHAHAHA!” Glitch neither wiped at the stain, nor approached Circe physically. “I don’t think you know what you just did to yourself,” Glitch called over Circe’s insane cackling. “Of course I know what I just did,” Circe called back. “I just earned myself a spanking!” “That’s not how this Skinner Box works.” “BABY SHOULD NOT SPIT THEIR FOOD OUT!” The machine room declared. “MAMA WILL FIX!” Metallic tendrils snaked up and hiked down the back of Circe’s diaper so that her bare bottom was exposed. “Huh?” Circe wiggled her rump in abject curiosity. How the Hades had her diaper come off so easily? She’d thought the plastic backed panties would have been effectively super glued to her skin. “You think a bare assed spanking is gonna mess with me a second time?” Circe taunted. If there was one trait that Circe prided herself on having it was her resilience. The Siren’s soul was quick to adapt, and she’d seen this part coming. A punishment machine gave her more control than her captor had beckoned. ““BABY SAID A BAD, BAD WORD. NAUGHTY NAUGHTY! MAMA SPANK!” “You didn’t earn a spanking,” Glitch replied, coolly. “Not until you just said bare-assed.” Circe was about to demand that Glitch explain herself, but said demand was cut tremendously short by the feeling of something pushing its way up into her anus. “EEEEEEEEEEEEE!” The supervillain was lifted slightly off the pommel horse, still bent over, as a rubber hose pumped something thick and sludgy was pumped inside of her. NG-NG-NG-NG-NG! It had an unnatural mechanical sound to it, like paddlewheels trying to churn up a river. NG-NG-NG-NG-NG! With every chug, Crice felt her belly start to distend and an uncomfortable full feeling came over her. Every glugging pump added to the feeling of being overfull and stuffed with none of the satiety of having consumed a meal. It wasn’t half-a-minute before Circe felt like she’d consumed far too much far too quickly and lacked so much as happy memories or a pleasant aftertaste coating her throat. NG-NG-NG-NG-NG! DING! The glugging stopped. Circe felt her diaper hiked back over her and the hose withdraw. A little bit of something wet slurped out of her and into the back of the padding, but pride and years of potty training forced the Siren to squeeze her cheeks together. “BABY WON’T SPIT THIS OUT” The recorded voice boomed over unseen loudspeakers. Gently, the tendrils lowered her back onto the spanking bench and fullness quickly progressed to pain. Cicre found herself quietly wishing she had a bar of soap or a pacifier to bite down on so that she could resist moaning out in baby bootie pink. “Hnnnnnnnnnnnnn…” “Your body will take in those nutrients one way or another, Circe.” Glitch lectured, her scalp blinking as trillions of calculations ran through her cybernetic brian. “Too bad for you that it requires a lot more of the stuff when it’s shoved up the other end. You chose this, honey. Not me.” Circe battled with herself, struggling to speak. She held her breath while her stomach gurgled and cried out in pain. Any exhalation, any relaxation, could result in her emptying her bowels back into her diaper’s waiting seat. And oh, she had just started to get used to being clean! Where had that thought come from…? ““BABY SAID A BAD, BAD WORD. NAUGHTY NAUGHTY! MAMA SPANK!” Uh oh. WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! Again the automated paddles sounded off of her padded backside bottom. Again, the diaper did little to nothing to ease her pain. If anything it was worse the second time around. There was no build up this time, no gradual progression or picking up of speed. The spanking machine continued exactly where it left off, and Circe’s cheeks and tailbone screamed out in pain as though doing so were muscle memory. BLRRRRRRRRRRRT! Finding herself unable to scream, the supervillainess exhaled and a stream and bodily sludge exited her, ballooning out the back of her diaper and causing her to grimace and wince in self-disgust. WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! It was the same as before but worse! So much worse! She was being spanked in the middle of messing herself and unable to stop either. Guilde kicked in and Circe broke. “SORRY MAMA!” WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! It didn’t stop! The spanking machine didn’t stop! Why hadn’t it stopped?! It stopped last time! It had stopped immediately last time, practically like it was under one of Circe’s spells. “SORRY MAMA!” WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! “SORRY, CIRCE!” Glitch yelled over the sound of Circe’s beating. “YOU’RE NOT GETTING OUT OF IT THAT EASY! THE MACHINE COUNTS HOW MANY SPANKS YOU GET AND MAKES SURE TO ADD ONE MORE TO YOUR PUNISHMENT EACH TIME NO MATTER WHAT!” Circe was on the verge of tears. Her bowels had fully re-emptied themselves and she was struggling for breath. If she was going to get spanked anyways, she might as well make the most of it. The siren let out a slew of curse words, euphemisms filled with vile imagery, and outright slurs for good measure that would have made even the most hardened criminals blush and set a good man’s ears ablaze with the vile thoughts such imagery induced. At least three devils and multiple demons would have taken notes had they been present to listen. It didn’t matter to her that it all came out pink. Glitch could understand her. That’s all that mattered. WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! Instinctively knowing when the thrashing was approaching it’s xenith, Circe let out a final “SORRY MAMA!” and prayed that the spankings meted weren’t per swear uttered. WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! The spanking stopped three swats later, and Circe collapsed over the giant artificial knee. “Thank you,” she whispered to no one. “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.” Much to her relief, Glitch did not say “You’re welcome”. That would have been unbearable. Rather, the ex-sidekick walked around with her arms folded behind her back and leaned forward just enough to look Circe in the eye. “Do you want me to clean you up?” “Ffffff…” Circe froze. “Or would you rather play in a messy diaper.” “Fffff!” She stopped. She couldn’t take this again. Not without a breather. “Screw you,” she hissed. The Siren tensed for a second, but the spanking machine did not start up again and there was no additional flittering beneath Glitch’s skin indicating any sort of technopathing restraint. Middle school and PG curses were still allowed her. Speaking of flashes, a look of guilt crossed the younger woman’s face. “Nevermind. Let’s get you changed. Leaving you in a dirty diaper is a bad choice, and I want as few bad choices available to you as possible. Those words were poison to someone like Circe. She was not to be limited, and if she was, it would be her decision. “Fuck you. Sorry, Mama!” Glitch’s face fell. “Oh, Circe. Don’t…” ““BABY SAID A BAD, BAD WORD. NAUGHTY NAUGHTY! MAMA SPANK!” Circe could have sworn she almost lost consciousness with what followed. She was still cognizant, though barely, when the machines carried her back over to the changing table, wiped her, powered her and rediapered her while the stupid mobile flashed pink in her face. ***************************************************************************** TRIAL 3 The lights were out and no one was home. Circe lay there in the dark, in her crib, tossing and turning in the footie pajamas. She’d tried to work the zipper but her fingers froze up and her arms wouldn’t move whenever she grabbed on. It must have been something to do with magnets, she reasoned.. Still, Glitch had gone easy on the villain the rest of the day. Less actual restraints had been applied in favor of more chemical ones: That damnable baby powder that got poured on her with every change made her heartbeat refuse to go over sixty beats per minute, and she was being pumped full of Zeus knew what in the bottles that followed. Hard to plot on a full stomach, a tired body, and a broken pride. More annoying, as she lay in the crib, Circe realized that there was nothing containing her inside beyond moderately high bars. If she wanted to, she could jump out of the crib and nothing but fear of repercussions could stop her. It wasn’t pride, or fear that drove the villain, but something deeper and indescribable. Compulsion. Purpose. Destiny. She knew she was expected not to do something, and so she was dishonor bound to do it. She stood up on the cushy crib mattress and looked around. Those mechanical hands could literally come from anywhere and any direction. No angle was safe. But this place was a place of consequences. It didn’t act as much as it reacted, and there was no Glitch or her science squad in sight. Part of her knew she would not get away in this attempt. Yet how would she know unless she tried. How could she be patient and wait when someone else wanted her to be? “Here. We. Go.” Circe didn’t make it on the first jump. Having a thick cushy diaper between her legs continued to throw off her gait, and it didn’t help that she’d wet herself at some point, causing the pulpy core to expand. What was that about? “Ah-ha!” Circe explained upon her feet touching the floor. ZZZZZZT! The lights came on and Circe convulsed on the floor, drooling and twitching as even more of her bladder emptied out into her pants. She’d been punched by Tom Turbine and ShockMaster and had it hurt less. “Good evening, Circe.” Glitch said from the doorway. “Let me help you up.” Blinking and flashing from the woman’s circuit breaker tattoos preceded metal appendages raising her up from the floor. “The fibers in the carpet and your clothes are actually superconductors, not insulators.” A beat. “Did you need something?” Circe coughed and almost swore, but she thought better of it. She wanted her time with her adversary to be more special than a spanking. “Don’t you ever sleep?” she asked. The other woman didn’t even pretend to yawn. “No.” “Cyborgs,” Circe spat. “Grown-ups,” Glitch replied. Back in her crib, Circe allowed herself a smirk “As something of an authority on brainwashing, you’re going to have to do better than that, my dear Glitch.” To Circe’s dismay, Glitch did not approach. “No I won’t. I don’t care what babies think.” The door slammed shut, leaving Circe alone in the dark. **************************************************************************************** TRIAL 5 Breakfast had been more mush from a self-refilling spoon. Circe had eaten it, but only because of hunger. She went all the way full ragdoll through changing and being dressed and plopped back in a highchair until Glitch entered the room. She only ate after Glitch promised to alter the formula so that it tasted like vanilla. Presently, Circe busied herself playing with naked Barbie dolls, forcing them to fight to the death, clacking their heads together. The dolls with unrealistic proportions for a woman had started off fully dressed, but Circe had taken care of that. She’d stripped them almost immediately and started the raunchiest simulated sex scene that she could manage without invoking the spanking mechanisms wrath. Spitting out food meant an enema. Cursing meant spanking. Part of her needed to know what else she could do to get a response out of the punishment box. Nothing happened at first. Glitch just kept wandering about the nursery machine running diagnostic scans or whatever Science people called memorizing spells. Plastic crotchless dolls fucking had turned to plastic crotchless dolls fighting. It was amusing to.her. “Having fun?” Glitch asked, ruining the moment. Circe quickly put down the toys she had and glared up at the toy she wanted. Her outfit today was the same as yesterday, save it was a deep forest green dress, she had a bow on her head instead of pigtails, and she had proper booties on instead of socks. It almost (almost) complimented the green dragon peeking out from the front of her squishy wet diaper. “Not as much as you, I’m sure.” Circe replied, trying to keep her cool. “I have to admit, Glitch, you’re doing a far better job of villainy than I thought you capable of.” “Thank you,” Glitch said. “Have fun playing with your dollies.” She turned her back on Circe and Circe felt her throat swell up. “I’m not a baby!” Circe yelled after her. “I’m not a brat! You…you…brat!” The hero stopped and reversed course, coming up to the edge of the playpen. “You’re not a baby?” “No!” “Then why do you commit crimes?” Circe’s opened her mouth, but hadn’t expected that question. “Huh?” “Babies have cribs and playpens and highchairs because they can’t be expected to follow the rules. They can’t be trusted. Can you be trusted?” “NO!” The words erupted out of the Siren’s throat and she knew them to be true before the echo reached the far wall. “Exactly,” Glitch replied. “You can’t be trusted. That’s why you’re here instead of a penitentiary. You’re incapable of experiencing penance, so there’s really no point. Easier to keep you in daycare. More fitting, too.” Circe sprung to her feet…and regretted it instantly. BTTTZ! She was down on the padded playpen mat immediately, convulsing lightly. Her bladder spasmed again and she thought she might have pooped a little. That wasn’t going to get her to grovel for a change, however. “What the fuuuuuu…udge?” she censored herself. “You tried to run away last night,” Glitch explained. Now your booties will give you a helpful reminder. “You are sick!” Her tormentor shrugged. “It’s not my fault you’re immune to sound based attacks. Otherwise I’d just play a sonic frequency to disorient your equilibrium.” Glitch about faced away. “But thank you for the compliment. I know me being ‘sick’ means a lot coming from you.” “Quit turning your back and face me!” A naked doll flew end over end over the playpen and lightly struck the hero in the back. The younger, less infantile looking of the two, didn’t break her stride. “Stop ignoring m-!” Circe cut herself off as the playpen itself rose up to attack her. Added to her outfit were stiff, inflexible mittens that left her completely unable to do anything but keep her palms flat and stop her from grabbing onto anything or balling her hands up. She effectively had flippers in place of fists. Circe lost her Barbie doll privileges for the rest of the day, and lost all hope of using utensils to feed herself. ******************************************************************************************** TRIAL 7 The next day, Circe lost her Barbie Doll privileges entirely when she bit their heads off. From then on she would only have simple toys that she could manipulate if she used both hands in unison and lacked any parts that she might accidentally choke on. Circe swore extra hard just so she’d earn a spanking. She tried to make herself choke on the mush, but that only earned her another enema. *************************************************************************************************** TRIAL 11 “How about some potty training?” Glitch suggested. She placed the prop on. “That might be a good place to start in your rehabilitation.” The Siren glowered. “I am potty trained.” “Not according to my sensors,” Glitch replied. “You’ve made no effort, whatsoever. Show known discomfort in wearing a wet or a messy one.” She was kind enough, Circe noticed, to not mention or bring up any of the enemas she had earned herself. No. That was a strategy, too, come to think of it. Don’t mention certain punishments unless prompted so that CIrce would trick herself into thinking she deserved it. “I’ve bathed in the blood of my enemies,” Circe said. “What’s a little feces?” Glitch nodded. “Yeah,” Glitch said. “I don’t buy it. You’re not the Grinning Man. Nice try though.” She opened up the lid. The inside was a big goofy smiley face. It wasn’t a child’s plastic potty, but not another scaled up variant like everything else in this funhouse. “You want people.” “Do not!” The fact that Glitch continued to ignore her was worse than the indignity of constantly soiling her disposable panties. “When you think of it, potty training is one of the first times that a person has to learn to follow rules. They have to practice physical introspection and communication as a way to scaffold up to self reliance.” The Siren rolled her eyes. “Uh huh. If I didn’t know any better I ‘d say you get off on this.” Her opponent didn’t take the bait. “Maybe. Anyways, I know you know how to use it so I don’t need to explain the mechanics; you’re just an emotional infant after all; so here’s what we’ll do: If you ask to use the potty, you’ll get your diaper taken off, then you can sit and go. Then you’ll be cleaned up, and the diaper will be put back on, and you can continue on about your businesses. If you can follow those rules for a few days, I’ll remove one of your clothing restraints.” The taser booties and the flipper mittens had been a constant part of Circe’s outfit, rotating color with the rest of her. Today she wore blueberry colored baby clothes and a bonnet. “Hmmmm….” It was tempting. Would giving in, just a little help her? Glitch tilted the large chamber pot so that Circe could see inside “There’s a picture of my face…” she offered. Circe narrowed her eyes. “So I call for your help and get to shhh…poop on your face?” The dark skinned woman threw back her head and laughed, her tattoos glowing the full color of the rainbow. “Oh no. No no no. I’m not doing that. The nursery will be doing that. Do you think I’m crazy enough to get near you, Circe? You could do something crazy or at least stupid if I got near enough to even take the diaper off of you! But if you’re a good girl….Circe…? Circe? What are you doing?” Circe was back on her hands and knees, pushing the mess out intentionally. “Nnnn…nothing…” she lied. “Nnn…nothing …at…ahhhh…” She relaxed and breathed deeply when she’d finally emptied herself. For good measure she shifted and sat all the way down on the floor, wriggling and smushing her messy diaper around. Glitch dragged her palm over her face and Circe had known she’d won a battle. She smiled all the way through that next diaper change, hoping the mobile that took her picture with a pink flash was getting her best side. ********************************************************************************************************* TRIAL 17 Circe shook, but for the first time in over a week it had nothing to do with spasming on the floor from electric shock or having her body be wracked by mechanical paddles. “S-s-s-s-s-s-taaaaaaahp!” She was back on ‘Mama’s knee’, her soggy sodden diaper squishing beneath her. As per usual, Glitch kept her distance. “But why, baby girl?” she asked. “Isn’t this nice?” It was nice, alright. More than nice. If not for the restraints keeping her place, Circe would be teasing her nipples. If not for worry that a well deserved spanking might interrupt this, she’d be dropping pink colored F-bombs in ecstacy. The pommel horse had shown off a new future. ‘Mama’s knee’ could bounce, and not just like a cheap knock off at a rodeo bar. It vibrated. It pulsed. It pushed all the right buttons that Circe had been too preoccupied to push each night when she was alone in the confines of her crib. While she inched closer and closer to orgasm, more A.S.T.R.A.L. scientists looked at readouts and took notes. The damn perverts watching her was making it harder and harder not to climax. “W-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-yyyyyy?” “I’ve been replaying our interactions and I found the fatal flaw in my design,” Glitch told her from a distance. (Always at a distance). I’ve been offering you sticks but no carrots. Ways to avoid punishments, but no rewards.” This was a reward? Being forcefully beat off? It was sadistic is what it was and Circe appreciated it on a level she could not express. “You’ve been known to be carnally motivated,” Glitch spoke over the buzzing and humming noise of what was essentially a giant vibratror that she was forcing the supervillain to straddle. “So this might be an appropriate reward.” “D-d-d-d-d-d-ooooon’t!” Circe tried to say. “S-s-s-s-s-ta-a-a-a-aahp!” "This one’s free,” Glitch said. And if you can make it to your naptime without a punishment, you’ll get another orgasm.” So far that hadn’t happened. Circe just kept earning spankings and losing more privileges. “And again if you can make good choices between naptime and bed. And a again in the morning if there’s no mischief in your crib.” Glitch was so absorbed in her pre-programed spiel that she didn’t notice the look of stressor Circe’s face. “Circe? Circe?” she reached out and touch Circe on her thigh. That was the touch that drove the woman over the edge. “O-O-OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” The shockwave that followed was so loud and focused that cracks formed in the observation glass. Scientists started dropping their data pads and shouting “baby girl!” Security staff with an extra layer of noise canceling headphones had to escort them away for additional debriefing. The mechanical arms slackened, the vibrating surface stopped shaking, and Circe collapsed on the pommel horse, panting and breaking out into a cold sweat. “Interesting,” Glitch noted. “I didn’t think you could still do that. I wonder if it’s replicable…” “I...I…I hate you…” Circe panted. Glitch got up even closer and seemed more confused than anything. “Why?”

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Part 8: Little Changes Chapter 90: Something Kept The Tuesday after I broke Beouf wasn’t that different from any other Tuesday. Beouf gathered us up at the bus loop, paraded us to breakfast, corralled us back to her classroom, and so on and so forth. Completely normal. But I didn’t want it to be. Like Janet, I could sense that she was keeping up appearances and professionalism as a mask over the hurt. It was all in the way she looked at me when she thought I wasn’t looking or didn’t look when she knew I was; how her smile didn’t go all the way to the top of her head. I didn’t like it. Why? Did I want her to be stronger so I had an excuse to pile on harder? Would it have been better for me if she’d been more like a sobbing mess like I’d found her Monday afternoon so that I could more easily exalt in my victory? Who could say? Certainly not me. Just like Tuesday, the rest of the class was dropping “Love Bombs” left and right. I’d lit a particularly potent fuse in my classmates and they were taking it to its most logical extreme. “I Love You” had become the new “Why?”. I wanted to tell them to stop; that the joke was old; that we should move on to a new terrible game. I didn’t, though. The fuck was wrong with me? I’d won. I’d won and slain the dragon. I’d made Beouf cry real desperate tears as the result of something I’d purposefully set in motion. Janet’s mood was on an emotional swivel, practically wrapped around my finger in wanting my love and fearing my abuse. I’d gotten away with my Picture Day Stunt. I was the Playpen Kingpen to the point where even Ivy was wary of me. I was probably still going to Little Voices, (very important). I’d chased away Horsey McDoucheface Mark. Yeah, ‘Auntie’ Jessica was somehow immune to me through her own warped Amazon privilege and lack of constant exposure to me, but I still had a very good grasp on what I could and could not expect from her. I. Was. Winning. There was still so much darkness around, but my thrusts, parries, and ripostes had punched so many twinkling little holes into my universe that starlight was beginning to twinkle through. I should have been happy. I wasn’t. All that past evening, I was quiet, and it wasn’t even out of spite or a planned attack of some sort. I was just too much in my own head trying to sort everything out. The fuck was wrong with me? Was the baby monitor in the nursery and its subliminal messages taking away more than just my ability to express certain thoughts? Was it slowly and subtly shaping those thoughts? No idea. No way of knowing. One can be honest regarding one’s own thoughts, actions, and motivations, but one cannot be completely objective and unbiased regarding them. There weren’t even any repercussions. No additional sit down talks. Bits of humiliation or passive aggression. I wasn’t even the last to get changed after breakfast. I’d found a way to punch my ex-best friend and she wasn’t punching back. That was frustrating. A queer kind of relief came over me just after snack time. Sosa and Winters came in and took most of the class around with them to their therapy room. Being away from Beouf was a much needed distraction; possibly for both of us. Out of sight. Out of mind. The therapists didn’t bother with line leashes, so we had to do the hand holding method again. We were doing a double session. Half of us would be with Sosa. The other half would be with Winters. Half an hour later the groups would switch. Me and my crew lost the coin flip and were starting with Sosa. The others were with Winters. I suspect Jesse was left behind just to give Ivy somebody to play with. Chaz, Annie, Billy, and I were in Sosa’s Group. Tommy, Shauna, Mandy, and Sandra Lynn were in the other. I wasn’t sure why they grouped me up with my disciples, but one should never interrupt the enemy when they’re making a mistake. It was possible that they’d forgotten; more likely that they’d thought they could handle us all together with both of them in the room and others to act as ‘good influences’. Amazon hubris: How I loved it when it worked in my favor. Winters was taking off her group’s shoes and tying on booties with rounded soles on them. The booties instantly made my classmates’ gait off balance. Their stance went wide and their arms flailed out and flapped like birds who hadn’t figured out how to fly just yet. From the way Mandy moved in them the left one might have been heavier than the right. At least Winters was leaving their other clothes on. I was starting to suspect that part of her hidden curriculum was getting Littles comfortable with having Amazons dress and undress them. The physical therapy half of the room turned into an obstacle course: Not an overly difficult one, but one that would certainly be easier to complete if you crawled or grabbed onto handrails well above your head…like reaching for a Grown-Up’s hand. There were tiny staircases and sloping hills and wobbly bridges, but no tunnels. Nothing to necessitate crawling, but leave it as a good option. The course zigged and zagged and looped back around on itself so that the finish line was a few steps to the left of the starting point. The final stretch was a straightaway with nothing to hold onto. The way it shined and glistened in the daylight was reminiscent of a bowling lane. Everybody was going to have to crawl across the finish. At least that stupid bell wasn’t in sight. I wondered if Chaz was going to have to wear those booties. Over at Sosa’s table were neither beads, nor putty, nor scissors, nor bulky crayons or pencils. That could mean only one thing. “Okay, kids,” Sosa said. “Time for a diagnostic.” Four of those literally impossible puzzle boxes had been toted out and placed in front of us. I’d been hoping she’d forgotten it. She’d just taken her sweet time. Twice in sixty days was still technically once a month, though it was certainly down to the wire. “Do you all remember what you have to do? Or do you need help remembering?” Chaz beat me to it. He raised his hand and spouted, “I totally know what we’re supposed to do. But do you, Miss Sosa? Hmmm?” Cheeky brat. Good. Sosa smiled calmly, and gently, just like Beouf had. “All you have to do is put one hand into the whole on one side of the box, put your other hand in the other hole, and then press the switches inside at the same time. Do you need me to show you?” “Ye-” “NO!” I ran in front and shouted Chaz down. If he’d been closer to my eye level I would have slapped my hand over his mouth. “No we don’t!” I’d just gotten another brilliant idea. I faced my minions. “I hate that stupid robot and we’re not gonna be able to do it anyways so why bother?” Billy, Annie, and Chaz all quietly signaled that they understood. They’d seen the look I was giving them enough times to know that I was up to something. My wild eyes were a dog whistle and my loyal hounds were scenting blood. “That’s fine,” Sosa said. “Does that mean you want to give up Clark? It’s okay if you’re not ready.” Just like Beouf would have done. So predictable. So obvious. So typical. “I can mark you as unable to participate and let you play with something more appropriate as long as you don’t disturb Miss Winters’s group.” I snuck in a wink and then put on a snarl. “Appropriate?” I turned around to face my target. “How are those traps appropriate?” “They’re appropriate for big kids.” She shrugged like she wasn’t secretly enjoying putting me in my place. “The diagnostic is the diagnostic. Data is data. It’s not bad or good. It just is. And it’s okay if it’s too much for you. There’s nothing wrong with finding your limits. Very mature, actually.” The war drum in my chest began to thump. Yes. Yes! I stomped dramatically forward and dragged the bulky contraptions one by one over to us. I whispered to my crew, “Wait for it.” Then I turned around. “Fine. Can we do it? Can we start? Can we get this farce over with?” “Easy there, Clark.” Winters called from across the room. I’d gotten louder than I’d intended to and the OT/PT room was still smaller than Beouf’s. I blanched and she went back to cheering for Shauna and Sandra Lynn who were neck and neck due to Shauna’s stubborn refusal to crawl. Sosa had already gotten out two gelatin cups and was stirring one around so she could tempt us with spoon feeding. “Yeah. Go ahead. Start any time. Have fun.” Alright then. Game on. Billy helped me arrange the plastic crates in a rough circle. I pointed to spots on the floor so that my knight, my rook, and my bishop stood between them. I made sure to stand at the back of the circle so that Sosa could hear me more easily. “What are you kids doing?” Sosa asked. She sounded curious; almost amused. “Chaz,” I instructed. “Put your left hand in the box nearest to me.” Chaz followed my directions. I leaned right and inserted my hand in the same puzzle box. Just like the last time, the cuff shrunk down over my arm. It would let me slide in almost as deep as my shoulder and out almost as deep as my wrist, but wouldn’t release me until someone activated the safety release. The trick of the so-called diagnostic was that the puzzle box was so bulky though that nobody smaller than a Tweener had long enough arms to reach around both sides and grab both releases at the same time. And that was the whole point. Littles were supposed to be cute and helpless and accept outside help constantly and without complaint. This was literally an exercise in installing learned helplessness. “Clark, that’s not how you’re supposed to…” Sosa cut herself off. Amusement was becoming confusion and curiosity was turning into consternation. I pressed on. Literally. “Okay, Chaz. Lean in.” We both jumped in giddy surprise. Our hands brushed against each other. I twisted my wrist and clasped the palm of his hand. “Nice to meet you, sir.” Chaz said. “You too, my good man.” We laughed and fumbled around until we found the releases. ”Ready?” Sosa was putting the cup down. “You’re doing it wrong.” No time. “Onetwothreego!” We felt the click, and the box shivered and vibrated in recognition. The triumphant “TADA!” chords played from hidden micro-speakers and our hands were released. One point five seconds later the cube was rolling forward into the center of our circle and transforming into a complex break dancing droid. The glee on our faces was from more than whatever pleasure giving frequency the song gave out. Winters looked over at our group, plainly bewildered. Sosa was a fish drowning in the air. We all waited for the robot to do its jig and then transform back into a bulky cube. “Awesome!” I crowed. “Halfway there! Now Chaz, you lean right into Billy’s and yours box. Billy, you work with Chaz. Me and Annie will do ours. Then Annie and Billy can finish each other off.” Dirty innuendo completely intended! I was loving this. Feeling like myself again and loving the rush. Malicious compliance at its best! Clark Gibson was back! “Guys, guys, guys, guys!” Sosa shuffled into our midst. “Stop! You’re confused! You’re doing it wrong!” Right on time. “Naw,” I said. “I don’t think so. According to what you just told us a minute ago: We put one hand in one side. We put another hand in the other, and we have to press the releases in the middle at the same time. You never said that we had to do it all by ourselves.” A twitch in Sosa’s right eye. Almost there. “Okay. I can see why that miscommunication might occur. But what about your other arm?” “That’s why we’re taking turns. Me and Chaz did one. Me and Annie are next.” A malicious twinkle glimmered in Annie’s eye. “It’s a team building game!” Chaz was already wrist deep in his second puzzle. “Oooooh! That’s why she keeps offering help all the time! It’s a hint! We’re supposed to help each other!” Billy hadn't locked himself in yet. He added in the final cherry. “Miss Sosa! You’re a genius!” He walked up to and hugged her around one leg. I love you, Miss Sosa!” Still keeping her professionality, Sosa gently peeled Billy off of her. She kept her eyes on me, though. “That’s very cute, guys, but that’s not what’s happening. Let’s try it the right way.” “Nothing we did was against the rules,” I said. I was going to lose this argument. I knew that going in. The skill of the arguments only matters if both sides have equal power. It was still fun. A moral victory and a headache for a giantess was still enough to get my adrenaline going. “Nothing says a dog can’t play basketball, but that doesn’t mean you let one play.” Sosa’s eyes widened for a second. She’d laid a trap for herself and knew it. “You’re right, Clark. I did not explain the rules as well as I could have. I’m sorry. Let me try again.” “What does your rubric say?” I asked. Sosa pretended she hadn’t heard me. “Hm?” “Can I see the rubric? Or whatever form or checklist you use for us?” I leaned to my right and indicated the clipboard on her desk. “You haven’t filled anything out yet, so it’s not like I’m looking at any data? Right? You haven’t predetermined anything? That would be highly unethical.” She puckered her lips like she’d just sucked on a lemon. “You know what? Sure. Just a second.” She stepped out from the middle of us and snapped up her clipboard. Her hands were where anybody could see them; so that she wasn’t erasing or altering anything. I could see her eyes going left and right, scanning the form. There was a very high likelihood that Jasmine Sosa hadn’t seriously read the qualifiers for a high score on her so-called test in a long time. She almost certainly didn’t know the phrasing word for word. I could relate. As a preschool teacher, I’d used diagnostics for my students several times a year, but I would have been hard pressed to tell you what the last few questions of any given test were. Even now, I can only remember that it started with letter and number recognition. Diagnostic assessments tend to have a rule for stopping when a student reaches a frustrational point. There was no point in testing to see if a three or four year old could read a sentence fluently when they were struggling with decoding Consonant-Vowel-Consonant words. It’s amazing what relatively small but vital details people tend to take for granted until pressed. In a way, I respected that Sosa was double checking her work. My former colleague was still willing to play rules lawyer with me instead of just using her authority like a hammer. “Hmm…” she smiled softly, kneeled down and beckoned me forward. “Look here, sir.” Damn. I came over and followed her index finger. Everything but the lowest levels of performance had the keyword ‘independently’ put in the phrasing. All the low scores had “with assistance” or “does not engage.” I looked down at the rubric and did some quick estimation. No way would our development be rated any higher than a three year old based on the values assigned. Whomever had designed this bullshit test didn’t have quite as much hubris and I hated it. “I take it back,” Sosa said. “You can do it with help. Good job, kiddo.” She’d regained her confidence and a trace of smugness was added on for good measure. “So I guess you and Chaz are done for now.” Damn. My head hung so low that my chin touched my chest. “I guess it does say a dog can’t play basketball,” I muttered. Whelp, it was worth a shot. Sosa stood up. “Billy? Annie? Do you want to try it all by yourselves or would you like to help each other?” Dog? A new thought. I picked my head up and looked at Winters, now playing the part of cheerleader for her own obstacle course. Oh. Oh yeah. I’d almost forgotten. I’d planted some landmines some time ago. With Winters, Sosa, and an audience, I could detonate. “Sorry about that Jasmine.” My voice was loud but not shouting. Teachers naturally tend to project. Sosa’s eye started twitching again. “Oh,” I said. “My bad. Jazzie. I meant ‘Jazzie’.” Winters was starting to cross the room and high step over her own setup. “Chaz? Clark? Would you two like to come and play on my obstacle course?” Sosa did not take her eyes off me. “Clark, I know you know not to call me that.” “Miss Sosa,” Winters called, almost there. “Would you like it if I took some of your group early?” My eyes were locked with Sosa. “Why can’t I call you that, Jasmine?” “You shouldn’t call me that, Clark. It’s disrespectful.” Sosa was ignoring her partner in favor of me. Perfect. “We shouldn’t have grouped them together like this.” Winters was pretty much talking to herself by this point. “This was a mistake.” She started massaging her forehead with her thumb and middle finger. Gotta love that Amazon hubris. “Why not?” I asked far louder than I needed to. “Maxine calls you Jazzie. Is she being disrespectful?” Two sets of giant nostrils flared above me. A pair of knees and a different pair of elbows locked from surprise. I shouldn’t, I shouldn’t, I shouldn’t, I shouldn’t. Oh…what the hell? “Or is that like a girlfriend thing?” Everyone froze. The volume lowered to pin drop levels. “What are you talking about?” Winters said. Her voice went up in complete shock, not from surprise, but fear. I kept jawing like I hadn’t heard. “Hard to tell. My wife was technically a Cassandra but she’ll always be Cassie to me. You know how it is.” I was bold enough to turn my back to the giants and address my peers. “What? Did I forget to tell you guys? They’re dating.” A couple of the girls let out an unirnoonic “Awww” and their hands started sliding up toward their hearts. “Nice…!” Someone hissed. If you guessed that someone was Billy, you guessed correctly. I continued the verbal shelling. “They live together. Go grocery shopping. Have pets. Might be married, but I’m not sure. Are you guys married? Why or why not?” “How did you…?” Winters stammered. “What? You talk about her all the time! It didn’t take much to figure out who your ‘friend’ was.” Giggles and whispers picked up in the air. “Max…!” Sosa said, sounding betrayed. “Whoah,” I said loudly. “You’re one to talk, Jazzie. One of you gossips about a ‘friend’ who wants a big drooly dog when you want a Rocaw. The other one complains about how their ‘friend’ wants a loud smelly bird when you want a Cerbernard.” I even made air quotes with my fingers for emphasis. “It’s not rocket science.” Giggles grew into chuckles. Both of them were the strangest shade of red I’d ever seen on a person’s face. It was a beautiful combination of embarrassed and angry that I didn’t know if I’d seen anywhere before that moment. Did I just invent a new emotion? Should I call it ‘Angbarrassment’ or just “Emger?” These were the very serious questions that snuck their way into my mind while staring down the barrel of a metaphorical gun. Sosa was the first to recover. “What we do in our personal lives is none of your business.” “Oh shit!” I pretended to gasp. “Was that supposed to be a secret? Like how you faked dog allergies so that you could get your pet but Max couldn’t get hers?” A complete fabrication on my part. Not that she could disprove it right now. Chuckles became full blown laughter. Sosa was blindsided. “What are you talking about?” Winters said nothing but her glare was drifting off of me and up to her partner. “For the record, dog thing aside, I think you two make a very cute couple.” Truth be told, I was being honest there. I was a manipulative asshole who’d developed more than a few sociopathic tendencies; not a bigot. “Does acting as your couples’ counselor give me a boost in finding my developmental plateau or whatever? I gotta be at least a middle schooler on that scale now. Right?” Hysterical laughter ensued. From the looks of things, there was not a dry eye or dry pants to be found among my classmates. “Max,” Sosa said. She was standing her ground but her body was leaning further and further away, recoiling in shock. “That’s not true. I don’t know where he got that-” Winters cut her off. “We’ll talk about that later.” “No no no,” I jumped in. “You guys should talk about it now. You obviously don’t talk to each other enough. Maxine, didn’t you want to prove that you were the more adult or something?” “That’s where that argument came from?!” Winters took a step back. “Jasmine. He-...” “Do you guys need the room?” I thumbed towards the door. “We can all go back to class and you can take a-” “You’re on thin ice, Mr. Grange.” Sosa, of course. Now my eye began to twitch. I spat, “Why’s that, Jazzie? I’m just asking questions.” “Jazzie…” Winters said to herself. “Jazzie...” Her angbarrassment was turning into contemplation. She dug into her pocket and looked at her phone. I thought nothing of it, enjoying myself too much. “You’re doing more than that, and you know it,” Sosa said. She was still flustered and very much emgry. That’s why she was making the fatal classroom management mistake of arguing with a child. “Maturosis or not, being Little is not the same thing as not knowing any better.” Winters put her phone down. “Jazzie…Miss Sosa.” “What?!” Turned on her girlfriend. “What, Miss Winters?!” “He stole my phone,” Winters said. “I only ever call you ‘Jazzie’ on my phone. It’s what’s in my contacts.” A light bulb clicked on in Sosa’s head. “Didn’t you say groceries? I didn’t tell you anything about groceries.” She turned her head and addressed Winters. “Did you mention groceries to him? At all?” “No.” The laughter was dying down. Uh oh. “You stole our phones. Didn’t you?” The laughter stopped. In its place was a massive “OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” Pearls of sweat were forming on my forehead, even though I was in the shade of two very very large, angry women. “No…?” My mouth was running dry. “I gave them back, didn’t I? It’s not stealing if you give them back…?” As one, they closed their eyes, breathed in, and then huffed out a sigh. “I’m taking him back to Beouf.” Winters said firmly. “No,” Sosa objected. “Mrs. Beouf goes too easy on him. I say what was good for the goose is good for the gander. I’m taking him next door for a few minutes. To Ambrose.” Eight Little mouths gasped so violently that it made a breeze. “You can’t!” I said. “Beouf doesn’t put anybody in timeout over there anymore. She changed the rules!” The two Amazons exchanged looks. “I’m not buying it this time.” “Me neither. Come on, Clark.” Two massive hands scooped me up. “No!” Annie yelled. “Clark isn’t lying! We don’t go there anymore! Not since a crying kid was brought into our class for timeout!” I saw Billy from up on Sosa’s hip. He’d fallen down to his seat and had pulled his knees up to his chest. He was muttering something to himself and had a far off glance. He wasn’t quite here with us. “Billy?” I called. “Are you okay? Billy?” He snapped his head up and looked at Sosa. “Please don’t send Gibson into Ambrose, ma’am! Please don’t do that! To any of us!” Tears were streaming down his face by the end. I knew looking at him that those weren’t crocodile tears. Billy wasn’t that good of a faker. “Billy,” Sosa siad. “Stop. We’re not buying it.” He wasn’t faking it though. Billy stopped himself from having a full on panic attack by sucking his thumb and burying his face in his knees. Tommy pitched into my defense. “It’s true! We don’t do that anymore! Even if we’re really, really bad! We just miss playtime or go on the naughty stool, or don’t get treats!” “Or that one time when we had to do stupid exercises!” Mandy piped up. Everyone else was nodding desperately, pleading my case. ”We stopped going over to the preschool room as soon as Clark stopped being an adult!” My judges exchanged another round of suspicious looks with one another. “You heard anything about this?” Sosa asked. “Not a thing.” Winters answered. “Nothing from Ambrose or Tracy, either.” Of course they were consulting each other over us. We were just babies and couldn’t be trusted. We were all unreliable narrators; even the good ones Dumb babies don’t know what they’re talking about half the time. “Call her!” I pleaded. “Check with Mrs. B!” I was trembling. My kids had seen enough of me lately. I didn’t want them to see me anymore than they already did at mealtimes and the bus loop. Especially not as some naughty toddler off in a corner. Ambrose most certainly wouldn’t have the courtesy to give me a blanket to hide my shame underneath. Seeing Billy fighting his own breakdown sent a chill up my spine. That was near the beginning of the school year and we were close to report card time. Ambrose had hurt him that badly. The others parroted my pleas: “Call her!” “Yeah!” “It’s the truth!” “Please!” The therapists only trusted each other. “What do you think?” Sosa asked. I stayed deathly silent. After a certain point, my pleas would only work against my favor. Winters ground her teeth and wiggled her jaw. “Nothing’s in any of their I.E.P.’s. It’s technically at our discretion, as long as the teacher we’re leaving them with consents. Should we bother Mel?” “I don’t think so,” Sosa said. “When was the last time either of us had to put a kid in timeout?” “At this school?” Winters said. “Years. Kayden. No after that. Jordan!” I somehow knew the answer before Sosa had spoken. “No. After that. Amy. It was Amy.” Of course it was. “Right, “Winters said. “I think we’re good. Go. I’ll watch the others.” Tremendously long legs sped me out of the classroom. A cacophony of objections wailed after me. Above them all was a howling Billy breaking down into sobs. The door opened wide and the sun blinded me. Two tremendous steps later and I was back inside before my pupils had finished contracting. My brain processed everything rather quickly, somehow faster than my eyes. We were in my classroom. Except there were no decorations or fun posters. Everything was in a dull black on white palette: alphabet; number line; multiplication tables; classroom rules; and so on. There were no homey touches. No more dolls or toys or games. Cubbies and shelves were stuffed with books. The kidney tables as well as the circular and rectangular tables that had been used for group work and centers were nowhere to be found. The students’ desks were in neat orderly rows where they huddled over worksheets. On the corner of the big heavy teacher’s desk, my old desk, a stack of diapers and a packet of wipes lay in plain view like a headsman's ax in an old tree stump. This wasn’t my room at all. It was what children of all sizes feared school would be like in their worst nightmares. I then fully understood the crying sounds that I had faintly heard over the passing weeks. “I’m so sorry to interrupt your instruction, Ms. Ambrose,” Sosa said in clipped hurried tones. “But can I please leave this student with you for about ten minutes? He needs a time out and I need a break.” All heads turned to regard me at the back of the room. Children looked over their shoulders and up at me in quiet curiosity. There was no curiosity in Elmer’s face, however. Only fear. None of them smiled. They only stared. Elmer didn’t smile that I could see. His lips were behind a plastic shield guard. Why was he sucking on a pacifier? Ambrose did not smile, either, but she looked like an alligator that had just spotted a baby goat with a broken leg. “Of course. Go ahead and put him down. I’ll take care of him.” I need her kind of care like I needed to swallow a battery. I gripped into Sosa’s shirt out of desperation. She brushed my hands off like it was nothing.. “Thanks,” she said, already sounding relieved. “I’ll be back in a couple minutes. I just…I just need…” “Go,” Ambrose waved her away. “I know how naughty Littles can be. I’ve got this.” It was the closest I’d ever heard her to sounding friendly. The spider always gets chipper when someone drops off a fly into its web. Sosa didn’t make any attempt to prolong her stay. “Thanks.” She was back out the door. I was a deer in headlights. What did I do? What did I say? My kids were staring at me. And so many of their faces looked exactly like Ambrose’s to me. No love. Barely any recognition. What had that monster done to them? Where was Tracy? The massive warthog of a woman somehow made it beside me without me seeing it. It was like she had teleported. “Class. We’re going to stop practicing our handwriting and skip ahead to Science.” One flabby arm came to rest on my opposite shoulder so that I couldn’t lean away from the beast. It coiled around me like a python and drew me in closer while she took a knee. She towered over me, massive for even an Amazon. I felt her breath on my cheek. “What did you put in your mouth this time, you naughty Little thing?” she asked. “I di-” My words were cut off when Ambrose used her other hand to shove a pacifier into my mouth, and not the one that tended to dangle from my shirt. Her meaty claw twisted a knob on the guard and the rubber bulb ballooned to fill my mouth up almost instantly. She held it up against me until the bulb had fully inflated and lodged itself between my tongue and the roof of my mouth. I couldn’t spit it out. I couldn’t even open my jaw wide enough or move my tongue more than a few millimeters. Stupidly, I tried to yank it out by hand and got nothing for it. Tiny, high pitched, mean spirited giggles rang out. Not many. Only one or two voices out of less than a dozen. At this age, in my classroom, one or two was too many. Elmer touched his own pacifier the way one does an old wound and looked away. “That’ll stop that,” Ambrose said. “Littles just love their pacifiers. Don’t they class?” “Yes, Miss Ambrose,” came a dull choral response. “And what’s another word for a Little?” One student raised her hand. “A baby.” The phrasing didn’t even sound like a question. Not a trace of doubt. Hearing that was like a slap across my face. “That’s right,” Ambrose nodded. “How do we know that Littles are babies? What proof do we have?” She drew me in closer, keeping me from shaking. I kept moving my jaw, futile hoping that I could muscle the gag out with just my tongue. From the outside, it likely just looked like I was sucking on it. My heart started to speed up. “They’re small, like babies,” one said. “And play with dumb baby toys,” said another. “And he’s wearing a diaper!” My hands couldn’t cover my front fast enough. I tried to bend over and press my knees together, make the source of shame seem as small as possible from their angle. Ambrose’s hand remained collapsed around me so that my back was ramrod straight. More mocking titters came. The volume and number of voices hadn’t changed at least. I averted my eyes and stared at the decorations along my waist. I didn’t want to know which kids were laughing at me. I didn’t want to have to hate them. I had to pee too. I’d been so worked up that I hadn’t noticed the faintly familiar sensation. I started to let out a little and stopped myself. I fought against my own unpotty training and focused on the unpleasant burning sensation of a full bladder. Not here. I wouldn’t do that here. All eyes were on me. Ambrose continued her lecture. “Do all Littles wear diapers?” “No, Miss Ambrose,” came the chorus. “Should they? “Yes, Miss Ambrose.” “Why?” No one said anything. Asking complex (and fabricated) philosophy questions was a bit too much for three and four year olds. A few seconds of silence passed. Ambrose picked me up and tossed me over her shoulder. Her standing up felt like I’d been strapped to a rocket at liftoff. Her arms pinned mine to the side in a kind of bear hug, and my feet were positioned away from her at an awkward angle so that kicking would do me no good. I found out just how good those pacifier gags were at muting screams, shouts and curse words. I was effectively blindfolded, too; left staring over the back of Ambrose’s shoulder with nothing but the floor, the ceiling, and the back of my old classroom wall. It also meant that I couldn’t see my kids’ faces and they were being given a full view of my plastic backed underwear.. “Tracy?” Ambrose called out. “Do you know why?” Meek and pathetic, I heard Tracy speak up. “Yes, Miss Ambrose, but I think you could do a much better job of explaining it than me.” I had no idea where Tracy had come from. I hadn’t noticed her when I’d been brought in. I could tell it was her, but it didn’t sound like the ‘Tracy’ I had known, more like the same actress playing a drastically different part. She was doing what Tweener’s did best, apparently, and going unnoticed while telling others what they wanted to hear. “I think you know best.” “Good girl,” Ambrose chuckled. It is fortunate that I didn’t get to see the smile that that grim laugh produced. “You see, class. Littles never really grow up. They like to play pretend, but that’s all it is; pretend and luck. Babies don’t wear diapers because they like it. Babies wear diapers because if they don’t they’ll have an accident all over everything.” My body shook violently when I felt her hand slide down and pat my bottom. I screamed too, but it would have been hard to tell how loud it would have been or whether the scream would have been fear or indignation. “You can put them on the potty, or let them walk around without a diaper on, but that doesn’t mean they’re not babies. They just get lucky. Eventually, they will always make a mess. Isn’t that right, class?” “Yes, Miss Ambrose.” “And some naughty babies hide their mess. They have accidents, but they don’t want to stop playing pretend. So they hide it. All the time. Sometimes, if they’re very lucky, Littles can hide their babyishness for months, even years. I heard about a Little who hid their accidents from the real Grown-Ups for close to ten years. But they always get caught, eventually. Don’t they?” “Yes, Miss Ambrose.” My thrashes were nothing more than childish wiggles in her grasp but I had to do something to show that I wasn’t going to just take it. How dare this monster, this charlatan of a teacher lie about me so fucking brazenly! The gagged screams and the impotent kicks that didn’t connect to anything only received in her mammoth palm patting the back of my diaper; smacking it not so gently so that I could hear the hollow thumps and feel the impact just enough. A threat of a spanking. I slowed down and tried to control my breathing. Breathing techniques are much harder to do when one of the two main airways is clogged. “When they do get caught,” Ambrose asked my kids, “what do we do?” “Spank him?” A tiny voice suggested. “No,” Ambrose grunted. “Wish we could, but that’s against the rules at school. Only his Mommy or Daddy can spank him or give us permission to spank him.” The sourness in her tone made me calm down slightly. No way would Janet give that kind of permission. I let myself try one more muffled scream, just to be difficult. “What we do is we just put them back in diapers like they should be. Then we get them a Mommy or Daddy that’s a real Grown-Up and teach them how to be good babies instead of naughty ones.” She gave my diaper yet another pat and I shook again, glad at least that I didn’t have to make eye contact with anyone. “And we clean up their messes for them. Literally.” Tracy,” she snapped. “This baby is wet. Change him, please” The room whipped by and I was left dangling with my arms pinned to my side, staring hatefully at Ambrose’s toad-like face. She glared right back at me. There was no love lost there because there was none to begin with. I felt two smaller hands gingerly grab me by the waist. Ambrose released me and Tracy lowered me safely back down to the carpet. Her hands wafted down gently on my shoulders, resting but not weighing me down like the Amazon’s had. Accidentally, I leaned back into her and reoriented myself. My back was still to the students turned around in their desks. Ambrose was between me and the classroom’s back wall. Tracy was between me and the rows of desks leading up to the front of the room. She was using her body to block me from the kids so that they couldn’t quite see what was going on. Caught between a psychotic monster and traitor. Great. “He doesn’t look that wet to me, ma’am,” Tracy said. From where I was standing I could only get a look at the bottom of her chin. Tracy wasn’t looking at me. “Shouldn’t someone wait until he’s really soaked or poopy? He’s not potty trained, and diapers are expensive. It’d be more responsible to wait, don’t you think?” My bladder continued to ache, begging me to pee my pants as I had continuously been doing the last several weeks. Holding my bladder was becoming less and less second nature and more like carrying a coffee cup around all day without ever putting it down. I could probably do it but it felt like having one hand always tied up and required constant concentration. It might happen, but unless I actively thought about it, I was going to slip and put it down somewhere. Not here, though. Doing that would undermine Tracy’s argument. It worked in my favor so I supported it. “Change him,” Ambrose growled. “Be mature and follow orders.” She crossed her arms and stepped closer, threateningly. “Or do you need some help with that, too?” She very softly threatened, “Maybe you picked up some bad habits spending too much time playing pretend with the baby?” “No ma’am,” Tracy squeaked. Her hands still on my shoulders, she started pivoting me towards the classroom bathroom, past the front row of student desks. Ambrose stepped around and blocked our path. “Where do you think you’re going?” “To take him to the bathroom…?” Tracy said. Obviously we were going there. It was the only place with some semblance of modesty, just like in Beouf’s room. Ambrose slowly shook her head. “He’s a baby with a bad habit of playing pretend. You don’t want him getting confused again, do you? Change him here.” Tracy tried to speak my mind. “But I figured he’d want some priva-” “He’s a baby. He doesn’t need privacy! And there’s no rules against it.” There were no rules against it, because laws against public indecency were already a thing. Those laws made exceptions for babies, however. “Change him here on the floor.” “But-” “Change. Him. Here.” Every word was punctuated by Ambrose stabbing her finger down at her feet. Tracy scooped my legs out from underneath me and laid me down on the floor, feet facing her. “Yes, ma’am.” She lowered to her knees and looked down at me with pity and fear. This is exactly what happened to Billy, I knew. This is what had happened. Laid down on the floor. Changed in public. Surrounded by school children who were only a fraction of his age and a giantess overseeing the whole thing. I remembered reading some bit of trivia that long long ago, before Amazons were completely batshit baby crazy and decided to make Littles their dolls, that things like public punishments were common. People would be put in cages or left shackled in public or lashed and whipped while onlookers laughed and mocked and threw rotten vegetables at them. This was the same thing, in principle. Already the mean spirited childish tittering had started up again. There were now more than just one or two voices in the mix. “Come on. Come on. Gather round.” Ambrose ordered. My former students got up from their desks and started to circle up around me. Three hundred and sixty degrees of chubby faces looking down at me with expressions that ranged from worry to curiosity to something Ambrose would very much approve of. They were about to witness the man who had taught most of them their ABC’s and how to use the toilet get his diaper changed. “Don’t be shy,” Ambrose coached them. “Everyone needs to learn how to change a diaper. Almost all of you will be Mommies and Daddies some day. It’s perfectly natural.” Elmer was shoved to the front so that he couldn’t look away. “Just watch out. Sometimes baby boys make a mess and pee everywhere.” “EWWWWWWW!” Behind Tracy, Ambrose hovered looking down on me. She’d gone back to her desk and returned with the wipes and the clean diaper that I’d soon be wearing. I ignored her and stared up at Tracy, feeling nothing but pure white hot anger. No embarrassment whatsoever. Like literally everyone else still in my life, Tracy had proven herself to be a fair weather friend at best. She’d broken her promise to bail me out of Adoption. She’d broken her promise to look for my wife. She’d barely made a token attempt to spare me a shred of dignity. With the pacifier gag in my mouth, it was impossible to make any proper facial expression, but I could still glare at her. I hoped she felt the absolute depths of this betrayal. Not that it mattered. Within a minute this would be over. She’d survive. I’d still be trapped. Nothing else would change save the literal. I knew what I was going to do, just then. I was going to pee on her. Tracy would rip the tapes off, open the diaper, and then I’d grab myself and pee all over her. Ambrose too if I could manage it. They wanted me to be a baby boy and pee everywhere. Fine. It’s not like anyone taller than me counted any evidence to the contrary. I might as well confirm their bias in a way that suited me. Maybe I could make this batch of kids scared of Littles instead of mocking them or cosset them. Better feared than loved. “Sorry, Boss…” Tracy whispered. Her eyes went south and her fingers gingerly brushed against the tapes of my Monkeez. Her face scrunched up and she bared her teeth, concentrating like the diaper was a time bomb and she couldn’t quite find the right wire to snip. She had no idea. Fuck you, Tracy. I readied my hands and flexed my fingers, a gunslinger in the old west waiting for the count of three. One…two… “Oh no I almost forgot!” Tracy yelped. She jumped to her feet and ran for the back door connecting Ambrose’s room to Beouf’s. “I need one of his diapers I'll go get one from next door be back in a second!” Her words spilled over each other like water. Ambrose started lumbering after her. “Tracy! Where are you going?” One massive foot stepped over me. I saw a new opportunity. “I’ve got a diaper ri-!” I reached up for her other foot and pulled down with all of my weight. “ACK!” I wasn’t anywhere as strong as an Amazon. Were I to get in a fist fight with my students, and I were to fight remotely fair, the smart money would still be on them due to brute strength. Just like booties that were strapped to Mandy’s feet, though, it was remarkable what a sudden difference in weight on one foot can do to one’s balance. The mammoth of a woman flailed and stumbled forward, shrieking in surprise. The children screamed and scattered. The ground beside me shook and Ambrose came tumbling down to the floor. The only reason I hadn’t been crushed beneath her was that I’d been smart and scared enough to let go the millisecond I felt my back leave the carpet. The children laughed nervously. Ambrose picked herself up and retrieved the changing supplies that she’d spilled. Nothing broken or bruised save her pride. A pity. “Stupid girl,” she spat. “I’ve got them right here.” She turned to me and lowered down to where Tracy had been. “If you want something done right…” Meaty claws reached down for my waist. I rolled out of the way. One, two, three, four rotations. That hadn’t been part of the plan. “Hm?” Ambrose sniffed. She reached down again, and I rolled the other direction. One, two rotations. More giggles. Not as mean. “He’s rolling!” “Hold still,” Ambrose threatened. But what threat was there? What would happen if I disobeyed? What was she gonna do? Change my diaper? The ogre widened her grasp. Left wouldn’t work. Neither would right. I kicked my legs up and rolled backwards over my shoulders, flopping clumsily onto my stomach with a muffled “Ufff”. I pushed myself up and stared up at fuming Ambrose, my eyes wide and smiling. The kids laughed more. One started clapping. I was a clown. This was a game. I was winning. The game didn’t last long. The monster of a woman leaned forward, grabbed the back of my non-pants and dragged me across the carpet back to her. I tried to move and scream and wriggle away, but all it took was for her to flip me over and slam down one flabby paw on my chest to pin me to the ground. Back to Plan A. Or was it B? Not important. My primary target had just gotten a whole lot bigger. I flapped my arms out, ready to snake them back in the moment the diaper came open. Vainly, I imagined that maybe I could grab my penis in such a way that the kids wouldn’t get a good look at me, and that they’d be scared to look once my golden stream started going skyward. The ogre flashed an excited sneer. “Now I’ve gotcha you Little-!” “Hello, Miss Ambrose!” An almost musical foreign accent rang out into the room. “I’m so sorry to interrupt your instruction, but I understand you have a child of ours.” Zoge seemed to glide into the classroom. “Oh,” she chirped. “There he is. Allow me to help.” Ambrose took her hand off my chest, and released a confused grunt of acknowledgement. “Zoge?” The Yamatoan took the opportunity to pluck me up off the ground and rest her on her hip. She turned the knob on the pacifier gag and I felt myself exhale as the bulb deflated and she quietly removed it with her free hand. “We’ve very sorry for the inconvenience and miscommunication,” she told Ambrose. “Thank you for sending your assistant to Mrs. Beouf’s class so that I could come and retrieve him.” My heart went pitter patter. Tracy! She hadn’t just run away. She’d gone for help. For me! She’d told Beouf and Beouf had sent Zoge to save me! Ambrose wasn’t having any of it. “That Little sonofabitch tripped me,” she exclaimed. From my perch on Zoge’s hip, I saw my old students wince. Some looked like they wanted to cry but were too afraid to. “Yes,” Zoge replied with practiced tranquility. “I’m sure he did. Babies often get underfoot and don’t realize how they might trip someone. We have a Little girl who used to pretend to be a kitty cat and she would rub up against my legs.” “He did it on purpose!” Ambrose bellowed. “Possibly,” Zoge said. “Who can know? Babies sometimes don’t understand the consequences of their actions and hurt people close to them because they do not understand the pain they can cause.” Ambrose finally found the sense to stand up. “Little brat was rolling all over the place.” “It was funny!” A child laughed. “Mr. G. got all silly.” Ambrose glowered down at her and the girl stopped. “Babies are very silly,” Zoge agreed. Her head looked down at the diaper and wipes that had been laid aside. “That is why we use a changing table in our classroom. It’s safer. They cannot be silly and roll around. No one can accidentally step over them and fall. And we keep ours in the bathroom so we do not distract the other children.” “He! Tripped! Me! On purpose!” Zoge nodded. “Most unfortunate. Once I’ve taken care of Clark, I would be happy to watch your class for you while you go to the nurse’s office. Do you need a bandage?” Ambrose had no way out. She’d just given a lecture on me being a baby and Zoge was turning her own logic against her. Ambrose held the philosophical belief that people my size were supposed to be treated as infants. Zoge had come from a land where that belief was an undisputed fact of nature. Zoge’s crazy trumped Ambrose’s. With me still on her hip, Zoge did something resembling a bow and walked me to the back of the classroom. “Let’s go,” she said. “Thank you,” I whispered in her ear. We slipped out the door and into the tiny passageway over to Beouf’s room. “When the others get back, you are going to apologize to Miss Sosa and Miss Winters.” There was no anger behind the words. Like my perpetual infancy, this was a fact to her. “Why?” I asked. She stopped us just outside Beouf’s back door. “Because when you hurt someone, you apologize and try to make it right, even if you do not like it.” Flashbacks of the Yamatoan woman getting on her hands and knees and offering to diaper herself played in my mind’s eye. That had happened only half a year ago or so. “What’d I do?” My newly freed mouth was already feeling sore and I started massaging my jaw. “I do not know,” Zoge said softly. “You going into Miss Ambrose’s room was a mistake, but not an accident.” She was right, of course. She opened the door and we were back at home base as it were. The moment we crossed the threshold I saw her toss the pacifier gag into the garbage can and make a face like she had been holding something absolutely vile. Beouf’s voice was the first I’d heard. She was on the other side of the room talking into her classroom’s phone. “I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you guys. It completely slipped my mind. I forgot you even knew I used to do that with…yeah. You have no idea how crazy it’s been this year, except yeah you do.” Her laugh was not at all jolly. “Nuh-uh. Not your fault, hon. That’s nice of you to say, but no. I don’t think the grouping would have mattered this time. This one’s on me. Yeah. Would you mind telling Skinner if you see her first? Yeah. Thanks. No, I’ll keep him. Okay. Goodbye.” My mentor hung up the phone and shook her head sadly to herself. I’d caused her to have to make a lot more phone calls lately. When she saw me, Zoge put me down and Beouf instantly barreled for me, dropping down and giving me the softest, warmest, gentlest hugs. “I’m so sorry, baby!” Her voice cracked with emotion. “That’s my fault.” I looked around with my eyes. Jesse and Ivy weren’t there. I rested my chin on Beouf’s shoulder. There, alone in the classroom, with her enveloping me like a warm blanket, I could almost forget what I looked like from the neck down. Speaking of neck down, I considered releasing my bladder, but didn’t get the choice. Somewhere between me getting scooped up onto Zoge’s hips and thinking about my body in Beouf’s embrace. I’d put down the coffee cup and hadn’t at all noticed. “He is fine,” Zoge reported. “I got there in time. He is safe.” “I know,” Beouf said. “I know.” She was talking to herself more than anything. She started rubbing my back, holding me like she was afraid to let go. After what I’d almost brought upon myself it felt amazing. “I’m sorry,” she breathed. “I’m so sorry.” Point of fact: I related so hard to how Beouf was feeling just then. Beouf had been my mentor and I’d picked up her passion and sense of perfectionism. No one’s perfect, however. I’d made plenty of mistakes through the years. Everyone does. In life there’s always so many moving parts. You can’t always remember who needs to know what or when you or if you told them something. Something that doesn’t seem important to you goes unnoticed and a miscommunication happens. A kid is going through a rough time at home or a pair of them are fighting, and you get it managed in your own private ecosystem so you forget the world outside it. Then, out of nowhere, a kid bursts into tears because another adult said something they didn’t know they shouldn’t have or the normally best friends throw everything into chaos. And it sucks and you feel like the worst teacher in the world because of it. It sucks, but it happens. Every time it happened to me, I’d tell Melody and she told me that I wouldn’t end up getting Adopted or fired over it and that more importantly I was still a good teacher. Beouf had forgotten to tell the therapists that her under the table discipline plan that she’d been running for years was null and void and that she hated Ambrose’s guts. That oversight had almost gotten the memory of her best friend violated directly in front of his own students. It was a simple mistake. She couldn’t have known. With Brollish breathing down her neck and Ambrose next door, and Forrest likely listening in, and me to deal with, she was putting out fires on a weekly basis. Of course this one detail had slipped her mind. She was a well meaning madwoman with the self-discipline of a fantastic teacher. But she wasn’t perfect. I wanted to tell her all of that, and give her that comfort like she used to give me. I kept that feeling to myself. Finally, Beouf pulled back from the hug and looked me straight in the eyes. “Are you okay, baby?” I set my jaw, glad to have it closed. “Mmmhmm.” “Good. Go to the naughty stool.” She seemed relieved, and not half as hurt or distant as she’d been that morning. “Alright.” I needed rest. The naughty stool would be a nice break. On surprisingly wobbly legs, I walked over to it and sat down, feeling the wet sopping squish all the way underneath me. How long had I been holding it? I couldn’t be that close to leaking, could I? The sounds of childish laughter came out of the baby monitor. I looked back over and saw Tracy creeping out of the nap room. “Ivy and Jesse are jumping on the bed, but the rail is up so they can’t fall out and they’re having fun.” Our eyes met from across the classroom and I beckoned her closer with my mind. It didn’t work. “Okay. I gotta get back there. Wish me luck.” Zoge leaned over and gave Tracy a quick hug. “Good luck.” She went into the nap room and the monitor picked up her cooing something in Yamatoan. Beouf gave her a quick hug, too, and whispered something I couldn’t hear. My former assistant spared me one last look and put her hand on the back exit door knob. “Tracy! Wait!” The Tweener let go of the door and approached me cautiously. “Yeah?” she asked softly. “Thanks,” I said. “For…you know.” A thin simper of a smile came to Tracy. “You’re welcome. And I’m sorry. For you know.” “Yeah. I’m sorry, too.” “For what?” For what? What couldn’t I apologize for? ‘Sorry that maybe I didn’t appreciate you or how hard your life was before and after this whole mess happened’; ‘Sorry that I took you for granted in a lot of different ways’; ‘Sorry that I gave you not one but two impossible tasks that you had no realistic hope at completing’; ‘Sorry that I wasn’t ready to hear you tell me that’; ‘Sorry that I hated you when you did’? I averted my eyes and stared at the floor, like the dumb kid I felt like in the moment. “Please don’t make me say it.” Tracy leaned forward and ruffled my knots of curly red hair. “Okay, Boss.” she chirped. “I won’t.”

The day after Valentine’s day. The weather was still chilly. Not cold, but just chilly. “Brisk” might have been a better word for it. Chilly enough that short sleeved t-shirts might seem underdressed, but warm enough where sweaters were being eschewed, mittens were out of the question, and people were going out and about in the park despite the occasional blustery wind. In other words, an average Floridian “winter”. “You don’t understand,” Aaron insisted. “I missed our date for a very important reason. I met Cupid! The real Cupid!” His girlfriend said nothing. The godling had said that would happen. “Don’t worry,” Cupid had told him. “I got your back. Lots of guys fuck up this day. It’s what I’m here for.” He’d handed Aaron a candy heart, the pink dry little edible chalk that no one ACTUALLY liked to eat for Valentine’s day. “What am I supposed to do with this?” Aaron had asked. The slim baby faced god winked at him. “Just pop it into your mouth and start talking to her. Everything else will take care of itself.” “Will it keep her from dumping me?” “Better,” he’d promised. “She won’t be able to keep her hands off you.” It was weird. Aaron had always thought that the god normally depicted as a flying baby would look more like...well...a baby. This guy was young looking, but other than that, he seemed to be about Aaron’s age. Yet somehow, as sure as Aaron had been dialing his girlfriend to apologize for the fiftieth time, he knew that this was no ordinary stranger. The fact that time had stopped for the entirety of their conversation had helped...a lot. “Yeah?” Aaron asked. He was in the presence of a love god. A literal love god. “You’re dick will be getting wet every day for years!” Cupid promised. “Thanks!” Aaron said. “Oh,” the suspiciously adult god said. “And I prefer Eros, by the way. Make sure to call me Eros when you tell her this story.” The light red hoodie from yesterday kept Aaron plenty warm. He’d refused to change his clothes from last night. In truth, he was terrified that if he went to sleep he might wake up and this would all be just a dream. Then not only would his girlfriend be rightfully justified in being super pissed at him; but he’d be a complete and total jackass who probably just got high or something. His girlfriend dressed in a pink long sleeved blouse and blue jeans. It was a wonder she hadn’t dumped him for missing their date. Who the fuck missed Valentine’s Day? She very well could just be waiting for him to shut up long enough to break up with him. But Eros promised that if he just explained it to her, everything would be fine. Who was Aaron to argue with a god? “What do you think about that?” Aaron asked, after having told his girlfriend the whole tale. (Okay not the whole tale. He might have left out some of the promises) “Crazy right? But yup. I met Cupid. On Valentine’s Day.” He pouted his lip out. “Eros, technically…” he corrected himself, “but I like Cupid, better. So I’mma call him Cupid.” He popped the candy heart into his mouth and bit down. Magic managed. Forgiveness and sexy times in...3...2...1...swallow. Yet, his girlfriend didn’t respond. He thought he’d at least get a giggle or a guffaw. Maybe a slap to the face for lying or something. Aaron didn’t blame her for not believing him. He wouldn’t have believed it himself if he hadn’t lived it. “Babe?” Nothing. She wasn’t even blinking. Not breathing, either. But she wasn’t suffocating. No one was. Just like yesterday, the breeze didn’t blow, and only the only movement came from his awkward shifting. Likewise, the only sound came from a subtle crinkling and rustling from his pants every time he moved. “Oh shit!” Aaron said to himself. “God powers must be kicking in or something.” Weird though. Cupid hadn’t mentioned about time stopping again. How was she supposed to forgive him if she was frozen and zonked out? He did a full walk around her, hearing his footsteps and crinkling, but nothing else. Crinkle? Rustle? In his pants? Never mind that. Something was wrong with her. “Babe?” He asked again, and waved his hand in front of her face. “What’s wrong? Can you hear me? Baby? Hon? Sweetie? Mommy…?” A burst of liquid heat erupted from below his beltline. Hot and pooling all around his privates. It had been some time since something like this had happened to him, but he recognized the sensation easily enough. Some things people never forgot. “I’m peeing,” the young man gasped. “I’m peeing my pants…” For some reason this was harder for Aaron to absorb than the idea that the supernatural existed. Speaking of ‘absorb’, no puddle of urine formed at the man-boy’s feet. No dark spot along his zipper or shame dripping down his thighs. The warm wetness just splashed up against him, and puddled around his taint before not quite disappearing. His underwear sagged and swelled, but it did not drip or fall off. To an outside viewer the reason might be obvious, but Aaron’s panicking mind refused to connect the dots. His grey matter had more pressing concerns. Fidgeting fingers fumbled for a zipper. Better to piss in the open air than in one’s pants. (What would it hurt if time was stopped?) The zipper to his jeans was gone. So were the souls of his shoes. So were his socks. The entire lower half of his wardrobe had melted like a wax candle into one garment. His top half was getting in on the act a second later; tucking itself in and then blending in seamlessly. The red of the hoodie and the blue of the jeans mixed and swirled around until Aaron was covered from head to toe in an infantile purple. The hoodie portion drew itself up and pulled taut around Aaron’s head. Reaching up, Aaron tried to yank the hood back down, but it was stuck. Trying for the back of his head only revealed that the top of his hoodie had sprouted round little stuffy ears. He must’ve looked like a teddy bear; or a child dressed as one. To finish the outfit, a pacifier popped out of thin air and attached itself to what used to be Aaron’s collar. Itching, like a thousand fire ants biting him at once, overwhelmed Aaron. What was happening? Was he dying? Going insane? Aaron fell to his knees clawing and scratching at the now soft and pajama-like material. He rolled on the ground like a dog, internally begging for the itching to subside. Finally, it did, and when he brought his hands to his face, he felt smooth. Baby smooth. Not a single trace of stubble even though he hadn’t shaved in over a day. When time started back up, Aaron was crawling on the sidewalk, and the majority of his body encased in a macro version of a footed sleeper: The kind of thing people wore in in private; or the kind of things babies were dressed in for public on particularly chilly (but not cold) days. “Aaron?” his girlfriend asked him. “What are you doing down there, baby?” “Mommy!” he shrieked. He tried to stand up, but could only push himself up to his knees. “This isn’t what it looks like! I don’t even know what it looks like.” Begging as he was, he looked like a toddler asking for uppies. His words fell on mistranslating ears. “Awww, come here sweetie. Come to Mommy.” “Wait!” Aaron yelped. “How are you picking me up? Why am I calling you Mom-?” The man-child let out an “eek”, as Mommy started to squeeze his crotch. He should have gotten hard. He should have flinched at just how tight her grip was. But he was too confused to be aroused, and there was some kind of barrier, some thick material giving more cushion than normal, so he didn’t feel her probing as intensely. “Uh oh,” she said. “Someone had an accident!” She giggled and started walking. “Though at your age, I guess it doesn’t really count as an accident, does it?” “Mommy? Where are you going?! Where are we going!” “Uh-huh.” She said in that way that adults used to encourage a baby to babble on, even if they couldn’t understand them. She couldn’t understand him! His own Mommy...girlfriend...couldn’t tell what he was saying. “You don’t say?” He really hadn’t. “Mommy! It’s magic! I’m not a baby! This wasn’t supposed to happen! You were supposed to forgive me and fall in love with me. Not-!” Aaron cut himself off when he saw where she was taking him. He’d never been in the women’s public restroom before, and his eyes wouldn’t focus on the writing long enough to read the letters, but she recognized the human outline with the skirt. “I don’t have to go potty,” he pleaded. That much was true, and Mommy didn’t take him to the potty. Across from a row of sinks, was a thick plastic table mounted on the wall. Miraculously steadying Aaron with one arm on her hip, she reached and pulled down the shelf. “I can’t read…” Aaron said aloud, his voice echoing off the empty bathroom walls. It wasn’t just a matter of his eyes focusing. There was a sign right next to the fold out, and even though he recognized that those were, in fact, letters on the sign, he couldn’t read what they said. “I can’t read!” The symbol on the plaque next to it was of two vaguely humanoid shapes. One smaller than the other. The small one on its back and the big one by the smaller one’s legs. Also, the small one had something white wrapped around its waist. The only person who wouldn’t know what the symbol meant would be the person young enough to be depicted laying down on the mounted shelf. Aaron’s back went onto the plastic tray of the baby changing station. It didn’t collapse under his weight as it should have. Rather it seemed to subtly grow to accommodate his full grown form. Reality had stopped according to Cupid’s whims the other day. Today it was going out of its way to literally pamper the boy. His once-girlfriend pulled a strap over his chest. Aaron’s hands shot down to the buckle, but the locking mechanism might as well have been frozen in place, just like the snaps running along his inseam. “CUPID!” he called out. “EROS! THIS WASN’T PART OF THE DEAL!” The restroom became glassy with Aaron’s tears. “THIS ISN’T WHAT YOU PROMISED ME!” Aaron wanted up. He wanted out of this device, this location, this scenario. He wanted his adulthood back. He wanted Mommy to hold him and tell him it was going to be okay. Holy crap (a poor choice of words). Whatever hocus pocus was making him look like a baby to others was starting to affect his brain, too, and only now was he realizing it. “My baby’s got a soggy bum-bum, doesn’t he?” Mommy cooed. “Yes he does!” Electric jolts of panic came out as laughter while she tickled him beneath his arms. “Ooooh, does Aaron not like the tickles? Mommy’s just tryin’ to help him get all the pee-pee’s out.” “Mommy! Stop!” Aaron sucked in his breath. Why had he called her Mommy? Why was he still calling her Mommy? Why couldn’t he think of her as anything BUT Mommy?! Mommy didn’t stop. As far as Aaron knew, she couldn’t understand him. Even if she could, the love god’s promise was true: She couldn’t keep her hands off him! She couldn’t keep her hands from unsnapping the buttons along the inseam of his footed sleeper. She couldn’t stop unthreading his bare, now hairless, legs from the built in socks, her fingers like tickling spiders as she shuffled the rest of the sleeper up his hips, exposing a bulging sopping wet diaper. Powerless to stop her, Aaron craned his neck up and looked past his chest to see how far he’d gotten into this mess. A diaper! He was really wearing a giant diaper! But it wasn’t an adult diaper or a Depends or whatever old people wore when they couldn’t hold it in. It was a REAL diaper. A DIAPER diaper! A BABY diaper! It was a BIG baby diaper, but it was a diaper nonetheless. He racked his brain. What brand was he wearing? Huggies? No. Huggies wasn’t covered with purple monkey decorations. Which diaper was the purple monkey one? He’d seen commercials for it. Mommy eventually answered his question for him. “Live and learn,” she said, taking a fresh one out of her diaper bag, “and then get Luvs.” Truer words were never spoken. If Aaron made it through this alive, he’d consider himself learnt. Yesterday, he’d come across Cupid. Today he was in a soggy diaper and it was a Luvs of all things. Irony had left the building and now Aaron was in cruel punishment territory. If he made it out of this, he’d learn to not take candy from strangers. How long was he gonna be stuck in Luvs? Not long, it turned out (not that pair anyhow). Mommy tore open the diaper with two flicks of her wrist and peeled the sopping wet padding back. “Mommy!” Aaron yelped. The scent of ammonia invaded his nostrils, as his penis glistened in the light. He had been told that he’d get his wick wet. He just didn’t think he’d be the one wetting it. No pubic hair, either... “Shhh,” Mommy hushed him. “I know, I know.” She really didn’t. No clue. No one did. No one except Cupid. The cold wipes dragged across his crotch were gentle enough, but they were so cold that any pleasure Aaron might have derived-however perverse- was canceled out by the temperature. Hard to gain pleasure when every change was pretty much a localized cold shower. Mommy crossed his ankles over each other and lifted his legs up for him, not even asking for his help. His whole body might as well have been filled with cotton to Mommy; slightly cumbersome but not at all heavy. His backside got the same treatment as the front. Just as refreshing. Just as romantic, (as in not at all). The ruined diaper that used to be his underwear (that was something he hadn’t thought of until now) went into the garbage with such a loud “thunk”, that Aaron was positive that Mommy would realize how heavy it was and therefore couldn’t have been a baby’s diaper and obviously he wasn’t a baby. He was barely half-right. “Wow,” Mommy said. “You really filled that one up, didn’t ya?” She wasted no time in slipping its replacement beneath him. “I’m impressed it didn’t leak!” She took no powder to his privates, but the sickening smell of baby powder took the place of warm piss anyways. No magic needed. Luvs just had a perfumed core. The fight had left Aaron as Mommy pulled the new diaper up and taped it on over him. He hadn’t quite given in to despair. It’s just that diapered was better to him than being naked from the waist down. He stopped squirming and kicking, however feebly, just so Mommy could re-thread his legs into the bottom half of the sleeper and button it back up. The sleeper felt roomier after it was buttoned up. Was he shrinking too? No. The new diaper just hadn’t swollen up yet. Keyword: Yet. Aaron’s tantrum resumed the second he was back on Mommy’s hip. “Mommy!” He cried out. “Listen to me! This is a mistake! I’m not a baby! I’m a big boy! Cupid did this! I’m your boyfriend! Your BIG boyfriend!” Damnit! Even if she could understand his speech, the words weren’t coming out right. Mommy walked them away from the changing table, but instead of going back out to the park, she took a sharp right turn before exiting the bathroom. Aaron had thought it was a broom closet, but he caught a glimpse of the sign.on the open door just before Mommy closed it. Like most bathroom signs, it was genderless and facless; just bulbous sillhouettes of roughly human people. A mother holding a baby, obviously What was this? He’d never seen anything like it before in any men’s room. It was just a small room, not much bigger than a bathroom stall. There were no toilets though. Was this another kind of diaper change station? No. It couldn’t be. Just a small wicker couch and a locked door. Bunched up and cradled in Mommy’s arms, Aaron was carried over to the couch and laid down in Mommy’s lap. “Still fussy after that diaper change? Mommy knows what’s really bothering you.” “I really doubt that.” Aaron quipped. He found himself repositioned so that he was nowhere near eye level with his girlfriend. Then she started to unbutton her blouse.“No…” Yes. Something had changed about her clothing. In its own way, her underwear had shifted too. But only her underwear. She now had cups that unfastened in the front. A nursing bra. “No, no.” Yes, yes. “Baby Aaron is fussy cuz he needs Mommy’s milk.” “No!” His barking protest only made the milk drip out of her nipple. It was over then. With a titan’s strength, Mommy shoved his head towards her teat. His mouth opened to scream, but no sound came. He just latched on. Latched on and enjoyed it. Trapped inside his own body, Aaron suckled and exalted as Mommy’s milk poured into his mouth. The creamy stuff slid down his throat and he gulped with gusto. “Someone’s a hungry boy,” Mommy cooed. “That’s right. Eat it all up. That way you can grow up big and strong.” A lot to unpack in that sentence, considering that if reality had been working properly, Aaron would have had a good hundred pounds on Mommy. This was so wrong. He’d wanted to do so many things to this girl- yes, including suck on her titties- but that was more foreplay than anything else. Drinking out of them had never been in the game plan. Several minutes in, just as he was starting to feel a bit stated, Aaron realized this was wrong on a physical level, as well. His tongue told him this was delicious; the greatest thing he’d ever tasted or would taste. In the same way that he could no longer keep his pants clean to save his life, it made sense. Part of his brain had been switched into infant mode. But his throat and stomach were still a grown-man’s. But he should not be able to nurse this much out of Mommy. Short of a pocket dimension linked directly to her nipple, Mommy shouldn’t be able to produce this amount of milk in one sitting. Aaron’s head was tugged away and he was switched over to the other breast. He got in one gasp before his body took over again and resumed nursing. No more thought. Too much sensory input. Too much warmth. Too much primal pleasure. He could feel Mommy’s heartbeat. He could feel and hear her humming as she gently rocked him there in the feeding stall. Time to check out. Time to give in for a little bit. Time to just fill up. The would-be boyfriend came to draped over his Mommy’s shoulder, and her hand thundering on his back. More reality bending. She’d carted him around and wasn’t even breathing hard. He should be crushing her. But as far as the universe was concerned, he was her baby boy now. “Uuuuurp!” The burps proved it. Mommy paced around the room and jostled him, but it was no struggle at all on her part. Functionally, he was weightless. Just a bit of gentle prodding to get the gas out of his tummy To his dismay, more than just gas was coming out. Had his body been able to fully cooperate, Aaron would have thrashed; kicked and screamed. Perhaps even hit Mommy upside the head so that she’d drop him. That way, he could rush to a toilet in time and stop the inevitable from happening. Had his body been allowed to cooperate, he wouldn’t need the diaper wrapped around his hips at all. Unlike the first time, Aaron was acutely aware of what was happening. There was no surprise this time. Disturbingly identical to the first time, there was absolutely nothing he could do to stop himself. His body did the work. Aaron just had to live with it and let gravity do the rest. He let out a low breathy moan. “Noooooo….” Mommy just shushed him and kept rubbing his back. This wasn’t part of the deal. Carried outside the restroom, Aaron was gently plopped back down into the seat of a stroller that hadn’t been there before and buckled in. Speaking of “plop”, that was the word that best described the situation in his pants as something vile was spread around just beneath his sleeper. Plop. “Noooo...I need a change again.” There was something Aaron never thought he’d never have to say that out loud. Only the assumption that his vomiting up the breastmilk would simply be written off as spit-up kept the contents of Aaron’s stomach where they were. Birds stopped tweeting. New lovers locked lips for an uncomfortable amount of time. Park joggers and dogs catching frisbees hung mid leap. The breeze stopped as if someone had hit a fan’s switch, and neither the sun, nor the clouds moved an inch. For some reason, however, none of that helped the smell coming from Aaron’s diaper. Time was frozen... “Looks like you're getting settled in,” a familiar voice said. Aaron whipped his head around. “Cupid!” The next sounds out of Aaron’s mouth could have been either a child’s temper tantrum or a grown man’s bellowing rage. Hard to tell given the context. The god smirked. “It’s Eros, actually. You look more like cupid. What with the diaper.” He snickered. “Gosh it feels good to say that. I love it when people actually eat the candy instead of tossing it away.” There was something different about the man. He no longer looked so clean cut. His voice seemed a little deeper, and there was a bristly coat of facial hair on his cheeks and chin. Even in Florida, the weather was still too chilly to wear short sleeves, but Aaron would have placed good money on the man having thicker and darker body hair. In other words, this godling now had everything Aaron lacked. All that realization accomplished was another round of wordless screaming and Aaron rattling the bonds of his stroller. All the anger and rage was causing his cheeks to flush and his limbs to tremble. It was almost enough for him to forget the stench and texture in his underpants. Almost. “Oh come off it,” the divine con-man said. “Even if time wasn’t stopped. You wouldn’t be able to get out of that stroller. Stronger dudes than you have tried.” “Why didn’t you tell me?” Aaron asked. “Tell you what? That my magic would turn you into a giant baby? That you’d lose your potty training and wouldn’t even be able to remember your Mommy’s name?” He cocked an eyebrow. “Would you have taken the bait if I had?” Aaron made no reply. He knew the answer. So did Eros. He decided to ask another question, instead. “Why turn anybody into a baby?” “There’s more than one kind of love, y’know.” He winked. “Trust me, there was no way you were getting into her pants after forgetting Valentine’s day. At least now she can get into yours.” Aaron sunk back into the stroller. It was the only way that he could get the straps to have even a bit of slack. “Yeah...thanks for rubbing it in.” Eros bent over and tweaked Aaron’s nose. “I’m not here to rub it in,” he said. “I’m here to help. You’re the only one I tricked into eating the candy this year. The least I could do was check in and maybe offer some perspective.” The baby man took the pacifier dangling off his sleeper and put it in his mouth. “Heph haw?” Neither the pacifier, nor his crossing his arms in a pout made him look terribly threatening. He couldn’t help it. His body and emotions were at-best half under his control. The urge to fuss and cry out for Mommy was starting to well up and if he didn’t find a way to self-soothe, he’d start doing it. “Just that it’s not all bad,” he said. “Free food, room, and rent. Everybody thinks you’re cute. More and more babysitters are sexy co-eds these days.” He looked to Mommy; still frozen in time and checking to make sure her blouse was properly rebuttoned. “Though your Mommy’s not bad either. Good for you. Dude. Glad I could help salvage the relationship.” “I’h in a fugging diaphuh,” Aaron mumbled behind the paci. “I’h huh fugging baby.” The smile was not unkind, maybe even kind of sympathetic. “So what? In the long run that’s a bonus. You can lie around and burp and fart and puke; y’know, the same stuff you used to do. Only now, everybody will still think you’re cute for doing it.” Easy for the off-brand cupid to say. There was an air of condescension to his voice. Eros was the doctor giving a cancer diagnosis but softening the blow with how much weight people lost in chemotherapy. “Buh diaphus…!” “Just think of it as sensory input. Sometimes it’s a cool and dry and fresh feeling. Other times it’s wet and warm...maybe a little sticky. All are nice feelings. Your downstairs doesn’t really care where the feelings are coming from. Hell, it looks like your upstairs doesn’t care so much, either.” That made Aaron spit the pacifier back out. “It’s not like you gotta clean it up yourself, anyway. And the cartoons might suck, but they’re sneaking all sorts of references for the parents these days, so it’s not like you can’t get something out of them.” Aaron couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He felt he was losing his mind and had lost all autonomy, and here this jackass was just breaking his utter degradation into a list of pros and cons; of pitfalls and compromises. Some dark corner of his brain supposed Eros had had plenty of time to compartmentalize and think about things this way. “My brain is turning to mush.” Aaron sniffed. “I don’t even know my Mommy’s real name.” The former baby god twerked his mouth to the side.“Yeah...that part stinks.” His nose twitched. Something else stank, too. He finally got a decent whiff of Aaron’s predicament. “I gotcha covered.” Aaron felt a whoosh of wind as the breeze picked up. The birds were flapping and chirping once more. Time was moving again. “Excuse me miss,” Eros said. “I don’t mean to embarrass you, but I think you’re buttoned up a little funny.” Mommy looked down at her blouse and blushed. “Ooops! Thank you for telling me. How did I miss that one?” The stroller started to whirl around back towards the public restroom. Back to the nursing station. “No worries. It happens.” Eros replied. “And uh...if you don’t mind me saying, I think you’re little tyke might need some help, too. I might’ve just caught a whiff of something if you know what I mean.” Aaron flushed beat red as Mommy lifted him out of the stroller and patted him down like a police officer searching for a gun. The guy who’d roped him into this just winked. “Oh, you’re right,” she said. Her voice got all cutesy high, again. “And I just changed you, little man!” “Did you change him first, and then feed him?” the god said. “Sometimes the input up top makes the bottom start to make room. You know?” Mommy’s eyes lit up. “Yeah,” she said. “I never thought of it that way, but that makes sense. Are you a father?” A devilish smirk. “Something like that. I’ve got a lot of experience with babies is all” Aaron wished he’d accepted candy from a death god or something.. Aaron’s brain went all buzzy again as Mommy nuzzled him. “Baby boy had to make room for Mommy’s milk. Shoulda fed you first, changed you second.” “Yeah,” Eros agreed. “He’s too little to potty train at this stage anyways. Might as well save up on Luvs.” Mommy adjusted Aaron so she could (somehow) hold him and look at Eros at the same time. “How did you know what kind of diaper he wore?” It was the first time that Aaron had seen his counterpart blush. “Lucky guess…Hey uh...what’s the little guy’s name?” “Aaron,” Mommy said. “Is he your first?” “My one and only.” Gross pants notwithstanding, the love Aaron felt made his brain want to melt in the best way. Eros stuffed his hands into his pockets. “I’m sorry if I’m being forward, ma’am, but maybe after you change Aaron I could give you my phone number. You could text me. Maybe we discuss getting a sitter for him and I buy you a cup of coffee…?” Mommy seemed to think for a moment. “Offer to pay for the sitter, and you can buy me dinner.” “Deal. I’m Eros...I mean Errol by the way.” “Sarah.” Sarah. Mommy’s name was Sarah. “Now if you excuse me, I’ve got a little guy who needs me.” As he was carried back into the changing area, Aaron sincerely hoped that Eros wouldn’t be there when he got put back into his stroller again; that this was just a roundabout way of getting him clean pants and a bit of lost knowledge. He could live with thinking of his girlfriend as Mommy, but it’d be a cold day in hell before he called that rat bastard “Daddy”. (The End.)

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/RNPQ7WL Howdy Folks, I’d like to talk to you about ABDL video games for a second. Just in case y’all aren’t aware, Piece of Soap and I worked together to create the ABDL game “Perpetual Change”. If you haven’t tried it and you like my writing or Piece of Soap's Art, you’re doing yourself a disservice by not googling it and taking the time to play it. Because it’s my writing AND Soap’s art on a FINISHED video game that we worked together on.. If I don’t talk about it much, it’s literally because I thought everybody knew about it by now. Now let me peel back the curtain and drop some history on y’all When Soap and I started on that particular project, I was a full time teacher, part time writer. It was a commission situation, financially, but creatively it developed into something of a partnership. And yes, we had a lot of help from a lot of people. Soap commissioned other artists to do key scenes and stills, and hired someone to help with editing and to make the random bits of dialogue from all the non-named characters. But from pre-production on, Soap and I were the primary creative forces and contributors to that game. We made a really good team. I’m really good at using my words to invest people emotionally and to misdirect and amuse, while Soap is practically a genius at what he does and creates poetry with his visuals and gameplay. We’re practically Penn & Teller but our magic is padded fan-service! I love it, loved writing it, and was frankly AMAZED with how much detail he put into that game. You can only imagine how relieved and honored I was for him to ask me to continue working with him on a second game, called The Hive. It’s a different system, a different feel, and a different story, but we’ve both learned so much since we started on Perpetual Change all those years ago. Here’s the part that hurts to say: I’m a full time writer now, and as glamorous as I make it look sometimes, a niche writer doesn’t make as much money as a public school teacher (a profession not known for its affluence). I don’t want to raise my rates on MY Patreon, either, because I can’t guarantee making more content that is significantly different from what I write. That’s why my focus has always been trying to entertain and asking for your support. Soap’s a full time Patreon artist, too. Sometimes, he can’t afford to commission me or anybody else for that matter. If you think I undersell myself, it is my honest and heartfelt opinion that Soap doesn’t fully know how amazing he is at what he does. It can also be challenging to find a good balance on a collaboration, financially, when the collaboration is entirely on just one of the collaborator’s Patreon amidst tons of their other amazing creative works. Soap puts all of his video game content on his Patreon alongside his fantastic original artwork, fanart, and comics for the obscenely low price of just one dollar. It literally only costs someone 12 dollars a year to get access to ALL of that. It’s difficult to determine who is subscribing for what and where the interest lies. He originally had a Patreon called ABGames, but he shut it down and folded it into his main Patreon. We would like to re-start the ABGames Patreon and move all future work on The Hive over to that site instead. In doing so, we would be able to ask for support directly for that particular project as well as any other video game collaborations going forward and then share the profits with one another. Ideally, this would enable Piece of Soap to not have to commission me and would let me write for The Hive more often. Hopefully, it will also create extra funds so that it is easier to commission additional artists where desired. And as much as it makes sense, financially, and it would help us a great deal, we’re worried. We certainly don’t want to ask too much of you in your support or to feel like we’re taking advantage of anyone. Things are just getting more expensive these days, and a video game charging 12 dollars a year per person COMBINED with all of Soap’s other remarkable work is criminally inexpensive in my opinion. We are still committed to making the best ABDL Video Game content that we can. We just don’t want to take advantage of anybody. If anything, we need your help. It's a balancing act. Please give us your feedback and opinions. We want to be competitive with other niche video game Patreons, but still give you the best value while still being fair to our own needs. Considering the quality of the art and writing, what do you feel would be a reasonable asking price each month in support of a game like The Hive? Please click or copy and paste to the survey below and above. It's only 4 questions. https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/RNPQ7WL

Chapter 89: I ____ You Despite the cry session over who Beouf and Janet thought I used to be, Janet was back to all business the next morning. First thing after the usual morning routine, I was plopped into my highchair and given some microwaved Franz toast sticks, eerily reminiscent of my first day in Beouf’s room with some syrup drizzled over it. Janet made herself a plate. The friendliest thing she said to me was “Here you go,” and it still had that quiet, walled up monotone. Both she and Beouf had gotten all of their feelings out the night before. I didn’t bother telling Janet that I’d overheard the conversation the night before. Let her and Beouf think they still had their secrets. They didn’t have the guts to tell me to my face. Fuck them. My only regret was that they discovered the baby monitor blunder so soon after me. There were weeks to months worth of gossip and plotting that I could have used to my advantage, or at least television programs I could have listened to before going to sleep. Come to think of it, I didn’t fully understand why I hadn’t been hearing more from the baby monitor all this time. Had Janet been walking around the house with both the wrong end of the monitor and somehow kept it off without knowing this whole time? At least that explained why my constant deluge of whispered hate hadn’t landed. In a sick way, I was kind of proud of myself. I’d misfired an entire silo of psychological missiles and I’d still managed to reduce the (literally) giant hypocrite to this. Good for me. I waited for her to sit down and take the first bite of her own microwaved faux food. “Can I have some milk, please?” Janet puffed air out through her nose and rose wearily. Looking almost as dog tired as I felt, she went over to the cabinet and brought out an empty baby bottle and top and placed it upright on the counter. She opened the refrigerator and grabbed the carton of goat’s milk from the fridge. Leaning over I could see that there was another bottle that had already been filled up next to it. “Why don’t you just give me the full one there?” I said. “I’m doing it my way,” Janet answered coldly. “Not yours.” Just like with everything else in my life, it wasn’t enough to treat me like a baby; but it also had to be on her terms. Typical. Probably why she and Beouf had that cry session without me and without my knowledge. Me knowing that they used to like me as a person would have ruined it for them and me asking about it would have been shot down just because I would have been the one who’d asked about it. More than ever I felt I understood them. More than ever, I had zero reason to trust that they’d act in anything remotely resembling rationality or good faith. All that, and I just didn’t feel up to being the ‘bigger’ person. “Jessica drank from out of the carton yesterday,” I tattled. Janet kept pouring. “Don’t care.” She finished and screwed on the cap with the rubber nipple. “Yeah,” I said. “But I do. I don’t want to get second hand spit molecules or whatever.” Janet replaced the carton in the fridge and shut the door. “Do you somehow think that the bottle in the refrigerator will be cleaner somehow?” “Yes.” Janet cocked an eyebrow and put her free hand on her hip. “Why?” I had nothing. She saw that much and placed the bottle she’d poured onto my tray. It wasn’t nearly as forceful as a slam, but it had the same emotional impact as one. “Just take it and drink.” I did. Sucking on the artificial tit, I felt myself wrinkle my nose. Something was off about this bottle compared to the last one I’d had. It was close in flavor, definitely still goat’s milk, but something tasted not quite the same as before. It was on-brand versus off-brand; or when coffee is coming from the bottom of the pot; or when a soda fountain’s syrup to seltzer ratio is off. Not inherently bad. Just different. I think I understood Jessica’s slightly pensive reaction just before putting me down for a nap. Was the milk starting to go bad? Or was being left out in a bottle for a longer period somehow affecting the taste? I’d have thought that at thirty-two I’d know more basic facts about milk. The things you don’t know you don’t know. When I’d downed my dairy and finished my sticky bread, Janet took a wipe to my hands and mouth and set me free. I wasted no time in walking away back to the nursery, eager to think of new ways to cause mischief but lacking focus as to the ‘how’. I grabbed some stuffed animals and toys from the toybox and sat them in a semi-circle reminiscent of Circle Time or one of Beouf’s pre-Lunch whole group activities. It helped to visualize things. With some digging around the layout was almost complete after only a few minutes: A Jack-in-the-box for Chaz, a stuffed pill bug that uncurled and doubled as a pillow for Annie, and an inflatable mallet for Billy, and so on. I placed a tiny plastic chair that hadn’t gotten much use for where Janet might likely sit if she were present. The more important question was should I visualize myself in Beouf’s place and figure out what she might potentially see or hear, or should I sit in my own relative position to dream up possibilities? “Why not both?” I mumbled to myself. It’s not like a stuffed animal or random toy couldn’t switch roles. I went back to the box and lifted the lid back up. A random thought: It might be fun to hide the toys in the closet and then shut myself up in the box. Give Janet a sca- “Lion?” Down at the very bottom, a familiar unblinking face made of plush looked up at me, his noble mane disheveled but clean, his stitched-on smile greeting me for the first time in many days. I dug him out. “What are you doing here?” I asked as if the dumb thing could actually answer me. I genuinely thought that when I’d ruined him with finger paints that Janet had tossed him in the garbage instead of the washing machine. Janet chose that moment to speed walk into the nursery, almost tripping over my display. She stopped and examined the layout. “Playing school?” “No…” She didn’t so much as shrug at my lie, but instead continued on her way to the baby monitor. She unplugged it and started turning it over in her hands like it was a puzzle of some kind or the scene of a crime beyond rookie level incompetence. “I found Lion,” I said. Janet didn’t so much as look back. “Good for you.” “Why didn’t you tell me you fixed him?” “I thought you didn’t like him.” Janet replied. “So I stuffed him in the bottom of your toy chest.” “I don’t like him,” I told her. “I just wanted to know where he is.” “Okay,” Janet said. “Now you know. Take care of him and don’t put paint on him or he’s going away for good.” I didn’t want to give her any kind of promise that I wouldn’t and open defiance seemed like a misplay, so I settled for a “Why?” The question-that-wasn’t-really went unanswered. Janet gazed thoughtfully at the misplaced speaker end of the monitor and back to me. Then back to the monitor’s resting place. Then to my crib. “Did you…?” The question wasn’t fully phrased, but it didn’t need to be. I wasn’t the only one doing some tactical visualizations. She was genuinely questioning whether I’d made the switch. “Did I what?” I asked. I was daring her to accuse me. It would have forced her hand and possibly get her to admit how she found out about her mistake. Or she could have just said she’d been taking a closer look and realized the mistake. It would have been nice to make her squirm, all the same. “Nothing,” Janet said. “Nothing. Don’t worry about it.” She quick-stepped out of the room faster than she had entered. I felt my shoulders slump watching her go, and not from relief. Admittedly, I was suddenly very melancholy. Part of me had been hoping, stupidly, that Janet might take the quiet of a Saturday morning to tell me all about her Friday Night. In spite of my shrewd insistence on not telling her that I knew about their talk, seeing Janet there by the monitor gave me a fear tinged hope that she might stop being so damn quiet and tell me something of her own volition. Or yell at me. Or cry. Or laugh. Or annoyingly try to cuddle me. Or show some kind of genuine emotion beyond guarded stoicism. Her present emotional state was a flag of victory for me but I still hated it almost as much as the baby crazy stuff. Emotions are complicated. Hate. Oh yeah! I’d almost forgotten! If the two ends of the monitoring system had been switched this whole time, then the monitor couldn’t have conditioned me for anything. I hadn’t been hesitating at telling Janet I hated her straight to her face because of subliminal messaging; it was just a misplaced mental block. Kind of like how even in my head she was still mostly ‘Janet’ instead of ‘Grange’. That was all! A terrible, mean spirited smirk came over me. Now was as good a time as any to say it. I dropped Lion on the carpet and walked out into the hallway. Then, despite myself, I felt kind of bad, doubled back, and picked him back up. Maybe me hugging a stupid stuffed animal while proclaiming my undying loathing to her would rattle her that extra satisfying step. “Janet?” I called. “Janet? I have something I need to tell you!” My words fell into the wind with no reply. “Janet?” Where’d she go? She wasn’t in the guest bathroom, or the living room. I didn’t see her in the kitchen. That meant she must have been in her bedroom. Or the master bath. Could I get away with insulting her on the toilet? My suspicions were quickly confirmed as I approached her closed bedroom door. I could hear her talking to someone on the phone, Beouf maybe? But I couldn’t make out the words until after I reached up and pulled down on the knob. “Janet?” I said, crinkling into her bedroom. “Janet I-!” “Yeah, yeah.” Janet said into her cell, ignoring me. Her upturned finger shot out, shushing me. I held my place. “Uh-huh. Should be fine. Just brush your teeth if it makes you feel better. No you won’t get sick. That’s in your head.” She was sitting on her massive bed with her legs hanging over the edge, lightly grazing the floor. Over in an unused corner, a rectangular and narrow cardboard box leaned against the wall. The picture on the front showed a fully assembled baby cot with an open end and overlap so that it could be slid up and effectively attached to the side of an Amazon sized bed. It was still wrapped in plastic. In Janet's lap were both parts of the baby monitor; the recording part and the listening part. The two halves of the apparatus were similar, but not identical, with the intended parental end having several more buttons to push beyond an on/off option. Looking at them, my eyebrows started to knit together in quiet concentration. Though still on the phone and listening to whatever Jessica was rambling about, Janet seemed to be giving equal attention to the puzzle in her lap. We were both thinking essentially the same thing: “Why didn’t I notice this sooner?” I’d stayed up night after night after night staring at that abominable piece of technology whispering poison into deaf electronic ears. Why hadn’t I noticed and questioned the extra buttons before? Why had Janet gone so many weeks just assuming that I was fine if she heard nothing? Last night, I’d been able to tell when one of them sighed heavily enough or leaned back in a chair. Wouldn’t she have expected to at least hear me quietly snoring or rolling over in my sleep? “Sorry, Jessica,” Janet finally said. “I should have told you about that.” A rosy blush smacked itself on each of the Amazon’s cheeks. “I just didn’t think-...” From her spot sitting on the side of the massive bed, she stopped speaking and regarded me with a mixture of worry, annoyance, and curiosity. “Janet, I-” “Just a second Clark, I’m talking to Auntie Jessica. There’s something I need to find out.” “Cool,” I said. “First though, I need to tell you that I-” “Mommy’s. Talking.” Like the not-slam before it, the not-yell was quieter in volume than her regular speaking voice and still carried with it a menacing air of authority. I chose to keep my mouth closed and wait for my opportunity. Let her have her moment with Jessica. She’d be calling her back in a few minutes, anyways; most likely sobbing. A new delicious thought: What if I worked in some of the things I’d heard into this latest string of admonishments? Something like ‘I’m a cheeky brat but I’ll never be your cheeky brat’? Extremely tempting. I’d been given so much ammo in such a short time; so many silver bullets that the real struggle was figuring out when and how to shoot them off. Emotions are complicated. “Anyway, Jess,” Janet went on, “I had a question about yesterday, when you were watching Clark for me. Something strange might have happened and-” she waited. “What about a diner? No. Nothing like that.” She stopped and gave me another queer, distrustful look. “My question is: At any time during the day did you leave him unsupervised? Even for a minute or two?” This coming from the woman who’d hid in her room and showered so that I could raid the spice rack. Every accusation from an Amazon was a confession in disguise. “No? Only his nap?” Janet eyeballed me suspiciously. “You moved what during his nap? Why?” Suspicion melted into confusion and concern. “He told you he was scared of it? Wh-?” And hardened back into suspicion. “Are you sure? Positive? Then why was it-?...” And just like that suspicion lightened into relief. “You kept them side by side and put his end back after the nap? And he was in the crib both times? Back and forth? You didn’t get him up out of the crib, put him down on the floor and then replace it?” It took me a second to realize that I was shaking my head like Janet was asking me instead. Both times I’d been well imprisoned behind wooden bars. Regrettably for me, Jessica had already learned not to leave me alone. Her version of events lined up with my own. Janet burst out into a full belly laugh. If I peeled my ears and grit my teeth, I could just make out Jessica saying “What?” In a confused and defensive tone. “What?” “Jessica. Honey.” Janet took a breath. “I’m pretty sure you accidentally put the wrong end back in the nursery.” That made sense. That made too much goddamn sense. Janet wouldn’t have made such a rookie mistake at this stage in the game. Jessica would. Which meant… A big relieved groan rumbled up to the ceiling, and Janet sat back up. “That explains so much No. I don’t think he woke up. He’s a deep sleeper.” Her smile was all pearly whites. “No. You don’t need to apologize. It was an honest mistake and nothing bad happened.” She wouldn’t stop smiling. A weight had been lifted from her. All of that tension transferred from her giant body into mine. I was snapping Lion’s non-existent bones and crushing his non-existent airways. This time it had nothing to do with anger. “If it makes you feel any better, you can say we’re even.” She laughed again. “Okay. Okay. Have a good one. Love you, too, sis. Bye.” She stood up, hung up and pocketed the phone and finally looked down directly at my shaking quivering form. “Okay,” she breathed. “Sorry about that.” She was much less quiet now, much less guarded and intense, bundled up in a cozy quilt of relief. “What did you wanna tell me, Clark?” “I hhhh-....” I stuttered. Damn it! No! “I hhh….!” Say it! “You what?” My chin started to shake and my eyes threatened to water. I still couldn’t say it. It wasn’t just a mental block; something to just nut up and get over. “I lied,” I said. “I do like Lion. I’m sorry I messed him up. Can you put him in the diaper bag for trips again?” It was the best, most plausible lie I could think of given the circumstances. The giantess was taken aback. “Yeah. Sure. Not now, though, right?” “No. Not now.” I was already backing up and clinging to Lion like a life raft. “Only if we’re going somewhere.” She was pressing her lips together, trying to push a smile down that her eyes were failing to hide. More than any other batshit crazy Amazon I’d ever met, Janet smiled with her eyes more than anything else. The exact inverse of a crone like Brollish. Her particular crazy was threatening to overwhelm her. If I’d meant to do it, I’d have been patting myself on the back. “Okay. Sure,” Janet said. “I’ll remember that. If you want.” “Okay.” I started backing up. Slowly. “I’m gonna go play now. In my room. With my toys. Not school, though.” Fuck! Why did I say that? I pivoted on the ball of my foot and started toddling out. “Clark.” I froze and about faced. “Yes, ma’am?” Why were my knees locked and shaking? Janet walked over and lowered down to her knees so that she was closer to eye level and placed her hands on my shoulder. “I thought you did something bad that you didn’t actually do and I just wanted to tell you that I’m sorry. That wasn’t fair.” “Okay.” I said. Now I was getting very quiet. “Thanks.” She didn’t release my shoulders. “Let’s go get some shorts on.” I started sputtering. “Shorts? Why? Are we…are we going anywhere? Is it getting cold enough, finally?” Her eyes beamed even though the corners of her mouth barely tugged upward. “No. Not yet. We’re not going anywhere today. Maybe the grocery store tomorrow. Just that.” “What’s the catch?” “No catch. No game.” Some of the edge returned in the back of her throat. “Just want to because I feel bad and I’m curious if it would make you feel good.” I opened up to ask a question but she cut me off. “You’re still not wearing anything over your diaper at school. We’ve got a lot to talk about, mister.” She waited. “You want them, or not?” Shut up. Shut up and take the win. “Yeah,” I said. “I want shorts, please.” She stood up. “Alright. Do you wanna ride or do you wanna walk back with me?” “Walk, please.” I raised up my hand and took hers. We walked back to the nursery and she finished dressing me for the day. The rest of the weekend was still quiet. Very quiet. But it wasn’t as quiet as it had been before. Janet let me be most of the time but occasionally I could hear her humming something to herself. She remained quiet when doing her crazy Amazon stuff with me, but she added tiny happy flourishes into the mix: A slight humming here, an approving nod there, like she was taking some pleasure in it and congratulating herself on a job well done. I promised to make her regret that….later. I got nothing but a softer, kinder “Good night,” at bed each time. That first night, though, I purposefully laid awake until the door slid open and those final motes of light from the hallway shined in. “Nini, Clark.” She whispered. “I love you.” So she had been telling the truth. I rolled over in my crib and grumbled myself to sleep. If only she had said something like that before she had thoughts of Adopting me. *************************************************************************** Come Monday morning Janet’s quiet side had come back to nearly full strength. There wasn’t as much underlying coldness, but everything about her that morning had. She was bracing herself. Steeling herself for the future. “Morning,” I said. “Morning.” “Sleep well?” “Mmhmm. Everything that I’d gone to sleep in was taken off and replaced, and I ended up back in just a Helga Hogg T-shirt, a Monkeez, and the new light up sneakers Jessica had bought. My reprieve was officially over. “Come on,” Janet said. “Let’s get going.” Without further preamble, she carried me through the house and out the door. The clock in the kitchen read about fifteen minutes earlier than usual. “Are we going somewhere?” “Just school.” I finally remembered what Beouf had said about seeing me on Monday and made some rough deductions in my head. Their private grieving party was probably meant to be some kind of private huddle figuring out what to do with me. We were going to school early so that they’d have time as a team to dress me down. Again. Possibly literally. What was left for them to take? My shirt? No. Probably not. Not after that cry session. We were going to have to talk about it and I would not like what they had to say. Alright then. So be it. For once, every assumption I had made was accurate. That was a nice change of pace. All the lights in Beouf’s room were already on when we got on campus. The door was unlocked and Janet brought me straight away to Beouf’s kidney table. Beouf was already sitting in her chair, and the Amazon sized one from Zoge’s desk had already been moved so that it was across from her. My old mentor was quietly sipping from a massive mug of black coffee with a second one put out for Janet. I was seated in a Little sized toddler chair next to Janet. No coffee for me. Just a bottle filled with tap water. Same as everyday. It was almost like old days in the worst way. So close. “Clark,” Beouf said by way of greeting. “Ms. Grange.” Janet took a sip of what was supposed to be my coffee. “Mrs. B.” “Hi,” I said. Beouf put her mug down and said. “We need to talk.’ “About?” I figured I might as well play it coy. “We think you know,” Janet said. She corrected herself. “You know.” “What happened on Friday can’t happen again,” Beouf said. “Ever. Do you understand?” I raised my eyebrows in mock incredulity. “I can’t get sick anymore?” “Clark…” Janet warned. Beouf pressed on. “You know what you did, Clark. We understand that you’re upset, but there’s no excuse for what happened.” “What did happen?” I asked. I wanted them to say it. I wanted them to admit it. Admit that I’d beaten them, admit I’d outsmarted them. Admit defeat. Just this one time. I was willing to wager that that was more than Amy ever got. “Tell me. Please. Explain it to me. Like I’m a baby.” Janet craned her head up towards the back door. Beouf looked behind me towards the front entrance. Checking for spies and eavesdroppers. Checking for Forrest or Brollish or Ambrose. “You can’t do it again,” Beouf repeated. “You hurt people.” I harrumphed, and folded my arms. “Did not.” “You hurt Ivy and Jesse and Sandra Lynn.” “So?” They were just as screwed over as me. They were classmates. “You hurt me, and Mrs. Zoge, and your Mommy.” I bristled in my seat. The slight plastic crinkle, normally white noise by now, felt like a static in my inner ear. “No I didn’t.” I said. “How?” “Because we love you,” Beouf explained immediately. Now she said it. Too Typical, too late. “We all do. Me, your Mommy, Mrs. Zoge, and all your classmates. We don’t want to see you hurt yourself or others. If you keep acting this way…” she stared down into her coffee “What? More procedures?” I scoffed. Beouf kept staring into her coffee mug, a wise woman divining coffee grounds instead of tea leaves “No. Consequences,” she said. If you keep doing what you’re doing, we won’t be able to protect you. You’ll be expelled. If you’re really bad, Brollish can recommend that you go to New Beginnings first. Most other daycares won’t take you if you get that kind of recommendation.” I used to hate clichéd turns of phrase like ‘So cold it burns’. I finally found a use for it. It perfectly described the mixture of dread and righteous anger surging through my bloodstream. Beouf was passively threatening me with New Beginnings? The same Beouf who had been more than willing to just drop me off in a basket and ship me to their overnight foster re-education division because she was fine with condemning me to this life but not wanting the extra responsibility of caring for me? If Janet hadn’t shown up when she had… I stood up, red hot, and leveled my finger at her. “Fuck you!” I shouted. “I…I h-” Fuck! I couldn’t say it to Beouf either? “I h…” I was looking straight at her. Was it because Janet was in the room? Could I not even say the h-word in front of her? The naproom had a monitor in it, too. Was that the reason? Was I double mindfucked already? Neither one flinched. They’d been prepared for this reaction. Janet was still clearly uncomfortable. Beouf was as composed as I’d ever seen her. All that chipping away I’d done over the weeks had been purged away with a good cry that I wasn’t supposed to hear. Beouf wasn’t seeing the real me.She was seeing the baby she wanted to see. She was seeing the bullshit diagnosis that she’d slapped onto me. “Well I h-....” I tried again. “I h-.” Beouf sent a worried look Janet’s way. I slammed my eyes closed. Maybe if I wasn’t looking directly at either of them. “I ha-” Janet interrupted. “You hurt Elmer, hon.” The words in my mouth disintegrated like wet paper in a rainstorm. “No…?” “He threw up all over his shoes,” Janet said. “A lot of your kids saw you getting sick and it made them sick, too. Is that what you wanted?” My defiant resolve started to melt with a dawning realization: My students. My kids. They’d been there too. It had registered, but it hadn’t clicked. Nearly seventy two hours had passed and I hadn’t once thought about any of them. As early as last year, any pushback or prank I’d tried would have been specifically crafted to not involve any student. The old me would have aborted the mission the moment he realized they might be in the proverbial line of fire. In the heat of the moment, last Friday, I’d registered them as something of a cross between necessary casualties and bonus targets in my own personal crusade. That didn’t sound like me. It totally did, though. Hearing those thoughts expressed out loud by someone else; by a fellow teacher; by Janet of all people made it harder for the layers and layers of rationalization I’d stacked up to hold any weight. Stacks just made me think of the stacks of random papers I’d misgraded that had been entered into the gradebooks. I wasn’t supposed to be a baby; to be selfish and self involved and focus the bulk of my attention on the big people in my life. I was meant to be a teacher. I was meant to have empathy and a love of learning as well as encouraging growth. That ethos had at some point withered away in me and I hadn’t noticed. It wouldn’t last long, but in the quiet of the early morning classroom, my sense of guilt and shame flared up. For the first time in forever, I felt unclean and it had nothing to do with toileting. Janet repeated herself. “Is it? Is that what you wanted? For those kids to get sick?” I kept standing but I crossed my arms again, even tighter than before. I wanted to huddle in a protective ball; a turtle going into its shell. “No.” “I don’t want it either,” Beouf piled on. “I don’t want the Clark that plays mean games and bullies people. I want the Clark who looks out for his Little friends and tells me when he sees something wrong. Like you did with Chaz last year.” “I want the Clark who cares about other people and worries about their feelings,” Janet said. “Not just himself. Like you used to with your students.” Translation: They wanted the old Clark back; not this new broken thing in front of them they’d helped create. This wasn’t a lecture, it was a cleaned up manifesto from their living funeral for me. “Doesn’t it matter what I want?” It was the first real question I’d asked that morning. I didn’t have an answer to it. They didn’t have one ready, either. That was the scary part. Beouf just kept sipping her coffee. “We can’t help you if things are going to continue to escalate.” I took a deep breath and my seat. “Fine.” I sulked. “I’ll stop…the kind of thing that happened on Friday.” The promise wasn’t for them. It was for my kids. ****************************************************************************** Back when I used to have the luxury of taking a shower, I used to have ‘shower thoughts’: Bits of random ideas and inspiration that would come to me right in the middle of a shower. The act of just zoning out with almost no other sensory input beyond hot water and steam gave me an uncanny focus; like closing tabs in an overworked computer. Later that morning, just after breakfast, Zoge was changing me as she did. Beouf still wasn’t taking up diaper duty. Not for me. I ignored the wet coldness of the wipes and the dry chill of the baby powder and Zoge’s chirps and coos aimed mostly for herself while she was preparing. The only thing on my mind was how to break Beouf. How to make her cry? I’d pushed Janet off the brink into despair, even if she was bouncing back. I’d broken Tommy. Made even Ivy’s optimistic facade drop. Sandra Lynn was next and very close; I had a good feeling about this week. The therapists were low-key terrified of me, I was certain. Especially Skinner. But Beouf. How to really get to her? I hadn’t quite gotten there yet. The sobbing on Friday night didn’t count in my book. Provoking her into shrieking out my old last name was close, but no cigar. Breaking Beouf was like falling in love: I’d just know when it happened. And all through the bus loop, breakfast, and Circle time up until my name was called, one particular bit of dialogue kept playing around in my brain. There was something there. I knew it. “I loved him before,” Janet had said. “I did too.” Beouf had answered. “He was my best friend.” How to use that? Those same three sentences were on loop that morning. I was a walking corpse to Beouf. A diapered zombie that reminded her of her work buddy. She was used to having Littles be her enemies. Every Little started off hating Beouf until she’d numbed them enough with mind games and propaganda. How could I hurt her as a friend? Zoge finished pulling the new Monkeez up and folded it over the front of me. I felt a slight gurgle, not even a proper cramp, and was tempted to take a dump right there to make her start over. I decided against it. I wasn’t that unpotty trained. Barring something awful disagreeing with me, I could probably hold this in all day. It was just a couple of rabbit pellets at most. Fuck my life and the chain of events where the condition and urgency of my bowels and stool was a common consideration of mine. “All done,” Zoge told me once she’d secured the tapes. “Nice and dry.” She helped me up. “I love you.” “I love you, too.” I said without thinking. “AWWWWWWWWWWW!” The exclamation was so loud that she interrupted circle time. Singing and mindless repetition stopped. Beouf was on her feet up from the carpet, looking like she was worried that I’d broken something. “What? What happened? Is everything okay?” Zoge carried me out, grinning and proud. “He just said he loved me too.” Snickers and giggles and even more ‘AWWWWWWWWWW’s came at me in a wave. Billy and Chaz and Tommy were giggling. Annie was sharing knowing looks with the other girls as if there was a betting pool concerning when I’d finally slip and crack. Beouf looked bewildered. Disappointed. Kind of hurt. I didn’t blush. Didn’t need to. It was impossible for me to feel embarrassed. I’d just had the most brilliant idea. Move over ‘shower thought’. I’d just had a ‘changing table thought’. “What?” I smiled. “I do love Mrs. Zoge. She’s really nice. I leaned in and nuzzled my head against Zoge’s neck. “I love you, Mrs. Zoge!” Zoge giggled, but put me down. “Okay, Clark. Go sit down. Annie?” Chaz and Billy were still giggling. Annie looked confused and suspicious. I wasn’t surprised; out of all of the A.L.L. she had an especially sharp sense of emotional intelligence. She cast one more dubious look at me and went into the bathroom. Through the next dumb nursery rhyme, I kept pricking my ears up, waiting for Annie to tell Zoge how much she loved her, but she wasn’t there yet. I’d give it some time. ****************************************************************************************************** “Okay,” I said. I took a deep breath. “Elephants’ tusks are made of ivory. Even though those claims have long since been refuted, ivory was once believed to have mystical medicinal properties.” Had to play this just right. “Medicine is supposed to help make you better when you’re sick. Speaking of sickness, preventative hygiene such as using soap is a good way to make such medicines largely unnecessary. Soap goes in a bathtub. So does a rubber duck. That’s how an elephant and a rubber duck go together.” I’d long since gotten the hang of Beouf’s picture association game. Whenever she brought it out for activity centers, it was a genuine competition between me and Ivy. I’d never admit it out loud, but I genuinely looked forward to those times. It was quite stimulating. Ivy tried to derail my loose logic train. “Soap also goes in sinks for hand washing and face washing.” I’d already found my wits that morning. “I don’t hardly ever wash my hands anymore. A grown-up just uses wipes on my hands and face. But Mommy always uses soap for tubby time.” The pseudo-Yamatoan huffed through nose. “Okay. You’re right.” “Very good you two!” Beouf beamed, playing up her enthusiasm far more than could be considered genuine. “I’m so proud of you both.” Ivy stood up out of her chair so that she could curtsy. “Thank you, Mrs. Beouf.” I said nothing and pretended to look elsewhere. No stares. No eye contact. Total feigned disinterest. The timer went off, signaling us to go to our next center. “I love you Mrs. Beouf,” Ivy said. She waddled around the kidney table to Beouf’s chair and leaned in for a hug. Maybe she figured out what I’d started faster than anyone else. Maybe she was just copying me. Hard to say. Didn’t matter. “I love you too, pumpkin.” Beouf cooed. “Go check your schedule.” I got up, pushed my chair in and. “I love you too, Clark.” I stopped and looked back at her. I gave her a little shrug. “Alright, then.” I walked away to the visual schedule. Time for stupid playtime. We all knew the pattern rotations by heart, but we were required to go take the stupid tokens off the top of the stupid velcro and place them on stupid corresponding center location. Annie walked up to me. “What are you doing?” she whispered. She wasn’t panicked; just curious. The gears hadn’t stopped turning. I ‘accidentally’ took the symbol for Zoge’s table off the schedule despite it being nowhere near the top. “Just spreading the love.” “Clark, you’re going the wrong way, baby.” Zoge called. “Check the top of your schedule; not the bottom.” We ignored her and kept our voices low. “To Zoge?” Annie asked. “Why?” “Clark,” Beouf echoed Zoge. “Wrong way. You’re at the play center.” “Not everybody,” I said. “Just not Beouf.” The gears stopped turning and the lights came on behind Annie’s eyes. Now she got it. “Clark,” she said. “You’re a monster.” It sounded like a compliment so I took it as one. Annie wrapped her arms around me and gave me the tightest hug she could. “I love you, Clark!” “I love you too, Annie!” Billy looked annoyed. I threw him a conspiratorial wink. He frowned until Annie elbowed him and whispered something in his ear. Then he winked back. I went and corrected my scheduling ‘mistake’, and joined Ivy in the play area. As usual we didn’t talk, engaging in what could most politely be called parallel play. When the timer went off. Zoge got a double dose of Littles saying how much they loved her. Ivy tried to double back and give Beouf a hug. I cut that off by shouting. “Ivy, you’re going the wrong way!” She gave me the dirtiest look.. ********************************************************************************************** “Mommy,” I said. “Help?” I pointed to the massive spire of twisted metal and magnets. “I can’t figure it out.” “You can figure it out, Clark.” Janet told me. “I’m just watching.” “Please,” I said. I was doing my best not to lean in too hard on anything that might trigger her crazy. She was still guarded. Leaning into what I knew she longed to hear would only have the opposite effect. “I can’t figure it out.” Sad part was that it was true. I still hadn’t figured out this activity. “Just try it,” Janet said, gently. “You can do it.” Janet was still spending time in Beouf’s when her class was otherwise looked after and occupied. She saw me close my eyes and rub my temples. “Ja-...Mo….” The slip up and hesitation was performative. “I’m trying to say that I’m at a frustrational point.” Basic educational theory is that a person who is at a frustrational point can’t learn. It’s like building muscle when you’re already at your weight limit. Even though she didn’t want to, Janet copped a squat at the table. She’d trapped me by appealing to my educator’s empathy. I could do the exact same to her. “Okay. It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these,” she chewed her lip. She grabbed a piece from the middle of the gravity defying heap. “This one?” Ever the perpetual Helper, Ivy agreed. “Yes ma’am.” She took the metal scrap and moved it to the left. “Here?” “Nooooo,” Ivy said. The piece went far to the right. “Here?” Ivy giggled, like Janet had just suggested something patently ridiculous akin to lassoing a cloud. “Then how…about…here?” As far as I could tell, the Amazon placed the piece back exactly where she’d taken it from, but whatever programming or matrix or algorithm or whatever that guided the floating metal puzzle thought otherwise. The pieces rearranged themselves into a perfect equilateral pyramid. “Hey,” Janet smiled. “I still got it!” She rose up and looked back at the clock. It was almost time for her to go. I wasn’t done with her yet. I tugged on her skirt and beckoned her back down to me. “Can you please change me?” I asked. “I’m just wet but I don’t want to wait till lunch.” I watched her wrestle with the idea. She turned her head right and saw Zoge. She turned left and saw Beouf. Janet wasn’t stupid. She knew I was up to something. “Never mind,” I said. “I’ll wait. I’ll wait.” The timer rang again. That’s what I’d really needed. “Thanks for the help,” I said quietly. I hugged her leg, and dropped the bomb. “Thank you, Mommy. I love you!” That started a chain reaction. “Bye Ms.Grange. I love you!” Annie said. She hugged Janet’s other leg and let go. Chaz crawled up and latched on to an ankle. “Byyeeee. Love you!” Billy threw in. “Love ya Ms. Clark’s Mommy!” He mouthed the word ‘Gibson’ to me. And it didn’t stop there. Ivy, Mandy, Shauna, and Sandra Lynn joined in the cuddle puddle. I reckoned that Annie had somehow spread the game. Tommy and Jesse called out their love, too. We hadn’t had this kind of unity since the last ‘Why Day’. My crew might have spread the game to the rest or the others were just unwitting pawns. Didn’t know. Didn’t care. We were hungry orca circling around and swarming a dying seal. Janet was a drunk trying to fake sobriety. I could practically see the goose pimples breaking out on her flesh and the euphoria clouding her eyes. She pulled her cardigan closed, buttoned it, and shuddered. It was too much for the poor loon. “Okay, okay.” Zoge called over them. “You’re all going to make her late. Let her go.” She too was giggling at the combined cuteness. We stopped crowding Janet, and to my surprise, she bent over and gave me a quick peck on the top of my head. The first overt affection she’d shown in over a week. “Love you, too,” she said, and exited the room. The top of my head tingled, and I felt myself blushing. On my way to the schedule, I glanced backwards at the real target of my love bomb. Beouf looked disturbed. Almost like she’d been slapped in the face. There was nothing she could do, however. Telling someone you loved them wasn’t against any of the rules. Consensual platonic hugs while not explicitly allowed in the code of conduct were very much encouraged by the Maturosis and Developmental Plateau curriculum. Spiteful impulses whispered themselves into my mind’s ear. Give Beouf a wink, or a smile, or a sneer. Let her know how much I was enjoying fucking with her. I exercised discipline instead, and checked my schedule. Snack time. **************************************************************************************************** I stood in Janet’s playpen that afternoon, gripping the top railing, and bending my knees. It had been a good day for being subversively bad. Janet getting cascaded with hugging Littles and childish declarations of love had been the great crescendo, but the song hadn’t ended there. Snack time. Whole group instruction. Lunch. Nap time. The ‘love’ didn’t stop coming. Every interaction was concluded with “I love you,” as a receipt. Always for Zoge. Always for one another. Almost never for Beouf. Ivy and Sandra Lynn tried to spread it to Beouf but it didn’t really catch on. The more mindfucked among us responded naturally to Zoge’s maternal enthralment of delight. Melony’s pensive weariness and building desperation. Brollish did a very quick cut through less than a minute total, and the class became very very shy, myself included. She was the only other one who didn’t get an “I love you” from me. There was no need to coordinate that, and I wouldn’t have entertained the thought of showing Brollish any kind of love- dupe or not. I still had my principles. Having that quiet scorn in common with Brollish was an extra knife twist into Beouf’s heart, no doubt. Good. The unprompted declarations of infantile love to the bus driver and aide, the cafeteria cooks, the custodians, and other random passerby all hit home. If Skinner, Sosa, and Winters had been on campus to work with anyone they would have been dry humped at the way things were going. I want to say that it was just before lunch when people were getting checked and changed as needed when Beouf realized without a shadow of a doubt that I’d overheard what she and Janet had discussed early last weekend. That’s when she’d given up on trying to tell us how she felt. It was well too late for that. She didn’t want to talk to Janet after school, citing paperwork and lesson prep. Report cards were coming soon. I knew better. She didn’t want to be around me. I wasn’t giving her the choice. Swallowing my pride, I filled my pants, pushing out the mass that had been in the chamber all day. I’d seriously miscalculated the size and mess of it and was lightly panting in relief by the time I was done. I went so far as to sit down in it and suck my pacifier loudly to get Janet’s attention. She sniffed and turned up her nose. I breathed through my mouth and thought of roses. “Whoah,” she said. “Clark. What did you eat?” I shrugged. “Do you need to be changed?” Again, I shrugged, and did my damndest to avoid eye contact. Had to hit that sweet spot where my plan didn’t look like a plan. A wet diaper could be put off. A messy one was harder for her to ignore. If I asked to be changed, like this morning and before with Mark, she’d conclude an ulterior motive. So I played a prideful Little who’d just had an accident and was too smart to outright lie, and too embarrassed to confirm. It wasn’t a hard sell. Janet picked me up and gave me a full check up, surveying the damage I had caused. “Crud.” I went back out on her hip. “Forgot the diaper bag. Again.” I’d already noticed and remembered that. It’s why I’d done what I’d done. The cherry on top to this magnificent day would be simple: Janet would barge into Beouf’s room and ask to use the changing table. When she was done, I’d get one last swing at Beouf by thanking Janet and telling her I loved her. If I could accidentally slip and say it to Zoge, I could continue to lie to Janet. Bonus points if Janet pulled a Zoge and initiated the exchange. There was a solid chance she might today. At least a coin flip. A week or two of this would drive Melony Beouf to total and utter despair. Sadly, my final strike that day never landed. It didn’t need to. Janet carried me across campus and circled round to Beouf’s room and opened the door. “Hey Mel, sorry to bother you, I forgot Clark’s diaper bag and-...” Beouf’s head was resting on her desk, her folded arms acting as a pillow. Her glasses were placed aside and her shoulders were heaving. The top of her curly dyed brown hair mixed with gray seemed more frazzled than usual, and mingled in with Janet’s hurried introduction I heard muffled sobs. Melony’s head shot up and looked at us; looked right at me. I’d forgotten to spit the pacifier out. Haphazardly, she wiped the tears from her face, and put her glasses back on. Her face was bright red and blotchy. Her eyes were red and puffy from crying. The glasses did nothing to hide that. The buses had pulled out at least half an hour ago. Had she been crying all that time? I definitely thought so.. “Huh?” she said. She was wiping her nose with the back of her hand and trying to keep her voice clear. She was failing. She stood up from her desk and started side stepping over to the nap room. What Janet had started to say sunk in. “Yeah. Sure. I um. I need to take care of some things. In there.” The door to the nap room slammed shut. The lights did not flick on. Mel’s crying could be heard from the other end of the nap room’s baby monitor. She’d forgotten to turn it off. Janet hustled into the bathroom and snagged a diaper and wipes from the changing table. “Let’s go change in my room.” I didn’t argue or play dumb. I sunk back into my own head, flabbergasted at what I’d seen. It didn’t even take more than one day to finish cracking her. All the sneering and twisting things on their head and subverting her authority were completely unnecessary. All I had to do to get my best friend to collapse into a puddle was to show affection to everyone around me and treat her with indifference. I’d broken her. I’d broken Melony Beouf: Queen of mindfucking Littles. Monarch of Maturosis. A name in the Little Voices circles that was synonymous with titles like ‘expert’ and ‘guru’. And it had been painfully easy. No rule breaking needed. No declarations of eternal loathing or betrayal required. It was a victory I’d been wanting since my Adoption. The banner I’d rallied the Adult Little League beneath. I’d made Beouf cry! I’d won! I just didn’t understand why I’d started crying too. End of Part 7

Chapter 2 Circe regained consciousness before she opened her eyes. She woke upon a mattress so comfortably soft that it could best be described as decadent. Feeling surprisingly relaxed she was awoken only from the pleasantly stiff feeling in her legs and arms. Eyes still closed, the Siren locked her knees and raised her ankles just an inch or two above the mattress, pointing her toes away from her as if they might separate from her body if she tried hard enough. She did the same with her arms, thrusting them towards her feet and making a fist. She felt the most comfortable ache and flex of her biceps, doing that and let out a gentle purring hum. Briefly, she remembered one of her contemporaries actually could separate their limbs from their bodies. Who was that? Dizlocate? Or was it Reach Around? Whomever it was, they weren’t important enough for Circe to remember. The idea that their powers might give them this oddly relaxing feeling was the more important thought. Go to sleep. She should just go to sleep. Her body was telling her as such. No need to open her eyes. Her limbs felt heavy in a miraculous way. She went limp and puffed air out of her nostrils; the faintest hit of a smile tugging at her mouth. No thoughts. Not right now. Thoughts later. Sleep now. Annoying, she knew that sleep wouldn’t come back to her. Her neck and back were getting into the act of being sore, and she knew how this routine would go: She’d roll over and stretch her spine, but that would make her legs uncomfortable. She’d pick a new position on her side and try to get the crick out of her neck and inevitably her arms would complain. Then she’d roll again and again and again, until her heart started pumping faster making the limbs antsy. Her brain would start working to calculate the best position, and in that calculation would make it impossible to drift back off to sleep. Inevitably her Siren soul would get restless and cry out for causing some kind of havoc and it’d be back to work. Damn, but getting old sucked. Might as well get it over with and wake up. Heavy lids struggled open and blurry eyes strained to gain focus. The computer of her mind turned off its screensaver and started to come back online. Computer? Technology? The metaphor came so easily to her for a reason. She was more than sleepy, she was groggy. Drugged. After fighting (and losing) to a hero. Fuck. The real world came back into focus for Circe and her short term memory separated dreamless sleep from memories she’d wished had dreamed up. Beneath the fluorescent lights of an A.S.T.R.A.L. Labs sub-basement, things came to focus. Directly above her, Circe stared at what she thought had been some kind of gyroscope that was actually a dangling mobile of the solar system. This wasn’t the first time the supervillain had woken up behind bars, but she could never remember having those bars be made of thick pink painted wood surrounding a crib mattress. And as far as surveillance went, the tiny camera attached to the footboard of the giant baby bed; nothing more than a baby monitor. “Oh Tartarus, no…” Circe cursed. She gritted her teeth, reached out and grabbed the crib rails, and pulled herself up to a seating position. A curse turned into a gasp and any trace of a blissfully ignorant smile spilled down into a massive horrified frown like splattered paint on the wall. The solid, room temperature, almost grainy mass in the back of her underpants shifted in her underpants beneath her wait. As did the swollen midsection that bulged out to the front. Calling the thick plastic backed diaper taped around her hips, encasing her buttocks and loins while forcing her to sit splay legged and lay spread eagle ‘underwear’ was her being generous to herself. It was a diaper. Definitely a diaper. Not an adult one either. Four tapes, but a childish blue dog decoration placed just above her mound. She had no idea what kind of diaper it was, whether Snuggies, or Crampers, or Wuvs or whatever they were called. She had near ancestral memories of when babes were naked lest swaddled. Circe hated kids and didn’t keep track of such vapid clothing fads. Why keep track of styles that she would never wear? Such minutiae only served to delay inevitable realizations that would upset the silver haired supervillain: She was sitting in her own excrement and had been sleeping in it. “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!” The scream of outrage that blasted out her throat rumbled out and would have brought the ceiling down. Or it would have had she be able to use her powers the way she’d intended to. Her scream just warbled out as a pastel rose petal pink. Her hand jumped up to her throat, her fingers brushing against the choker that had been attached to her. To the Siren being unable to control her voice was more embarrassing than being able to control her bathroom parts. Her voice! She had her voice back! When she’d lost consciousness, she remembered, a sadistic rubber gag had been shoved in between her lips, preventing her to do anything more than impotently mumble as the laxative and sedative laced bottle took hold of her senses. Circe touched her lips as if she almost expected it not to be true. It was! She could talk again! Even if she couldn’t scream or sing her way out, talking was an invaluable tool at her disposal. One could gain information to escape if they asked the right questions and played on their jailor’s sympathies. One could provoke their jailor to act unwisely with well chosen words. These were bits of wisdom that the Siren’s soul soothed to her. Soothing was minimal, sadly. Circe tilted her head to the side and a bit of her own silver locks brushed up against the side of her face and into her field of vision. Her head tilted the other way and another clump of hair brushed up against her. Her hands traveled up to the top of her head and gained purchase in the form of two massive clumps on either side of her head. Pigtails! Stupid, immature, little-girl pigtails! Her pacifier had been removed, but her hair had been done up like a little girl. All while she slept, too! Such an injurious insult! It felt like such a violation! No one had even changed her (she hoped). “Glitch,” Circe whispered. That stupid arrogant wannabe hero had done this to her. Circe would make that upstart bitch pay. But first she had to get her powers back. She grabbed the ribbon with both hands, trying to quickly yank it off, managing only to scratch and scrape her neck. She couldn’t get so much as a fingernail under the modified restraint collar; it might as well be tattooed on. Footsteps signaled approach from out of sight. She’d been heard and her captor was coming. Circe made no effort to stop her attempts. She was a Siren. The Siren! Sirens beguiled in plain sight and need not conceal themselves. If Circe hadn’t been clouded by rage and pride, she might have reasoned that no restraint placed on her would be easy enough to remove by hand. It still felt good to struggle. A young Asian woman in a white lab coat approached the crib with a datapad, reminding Circe that the nursery surrounding her was a facade more than anything. “Good morning, Miss Castallanos. How are you feeling?” She avoided any kind of eye contact, concentrating and reading some kind of readout on the tablet on her hand, scanning dating from behind thin round rimmed glasses. Circe wrinkled up her nose into a scowl. This wasn’t a hero. This lab coat with legs wasn’t even old enough to be an actual accomplished scientist; just an intern. Not a single wrinkle or gray hair. Glasses that were more for style than function. Hair pulled up behind her head in a messy bun. This was nothing doctor’s sidekick! A child playing dress up, and she wouldn’t even look at Circe! How dare that Glitch?! How dare she?! Wouldn’t even give her a proper guard to antagonize! She was the Siren, damnit! She should be taken seriously! The intern punched a few things into the datapad. “I’m here to collect some qualitative and quantitative data. My name is D-” “GET! THE FUCK! OUT!” The young woman’s eyes glazed over and stared into the middle distance, a perfectly acceptable and predictable reaction to her powerful charms. Circe licked her lips in cruel anticipation. Time to find out what pink sound did. The Asian woman whipped her head directly to Circe and her formerly clinical expression melted.. “Hey honey! Are you okay?” The woman’s voice pitched up almost an octave and lowered in volume to a soft gentle whisper. “Did you have a bad dream or something?” Circe narrowed her eyes, parsing out the information she was being given. Her newest victim was acting gentle and sympathetic to her. Perhaps a pink modulation made it so that she appeared to be a victim, or a damsel in need of rescuing. “Help me,” Circe whispered, and leaned up against the bars. “Get me out of here. Please!” She’d heard this speech plenty of times; just not from this side of the crib…er…cage. “I’m trapped. And scared.” She pouted her lip out and made big hopeful puppy dog eyes. “You want out?” the woman cooed softly.. Circe bobbed her head in a nod. The intern sniffed and her nose wrinkled. She frowned curiously. “Oooooh,” she said after a beat. “You want out of that diaper!” More than Circe’s voice was pink upon hearing that. “Don’t worry, honey. I’ll change you.” The woman’s head started scanning the faux nursery and her body meandered around the carpet. “Where is…?” “Wait!” Circe called out. “Where are you going?” The Siren’s whining went unheeded while the lady in the lab coat took inventory. Finally, she stopped and pointed to a comically oversized changing table. “Ah! There they are!” The monster in the crib gripped the bars while her mark came back to the crib. Yes! “Don’t worry, sweetie,” the intern said. “We’ll get you in a clean diaper and maybe a snack. Then you can play! Would you like that?” Diaper?! Why would…? Nevermind. Not important. Focus. “Yes please,” Circe begged. Just focus. BEEP! The woman’s data pad rang in a high pitched alarming whine. The so-called scientist looked down at her data pad, her brow furrowed. “Hm?” She looked to the glass observation window. Circe followed her gaze. Just like before she’d passed out, the hall just outside the nursery appeared empty. Circe knew better. Knowing better did nothing to stop her blush from spreading at the realization that more than one person was seeing her in pigtails and a loaded diaper. “What? No. I’m not doing that. She’s just a-” BEEP! Eyes went back to the datapad. She shook her head. “No. There’s got to be some kind of mistake. That’s not the Siren.” Circe’s eyes widened. “Please,” Circe begged. “Don’t listen to them. Get me out of here. Please…” The stranger’s eyes were glued to the datapad. “Just a second, baby.” “Baby?” Circe drew back. “I’m not a-” BEEP! The nameless scientist turned ninety degrees from the crib so that she was facing the hallway filled with invisible strangers “Are you sure?” she asked. BEEP! Circe shifted to her knees and sat, entranced, curious at the struggle playing out on the woman’s face. A terrible idea. “Mama?” The data pad fell from the woman’s hands and clattered to the carpet floor. “I can’t!” she screamed, shooting her hands up to her hair and dug at her hair. “I just can’t!” A door on the far end of the pseudo-nursery slid open. In walked Glitch, hair blinking and arm tattoos pulsating with white light. “Dr. Zhao,” she said. “You’re needed in the observation room.” She regarded the seeming empty hallway. “Please make room and way for Doctor Zhao so she can safely review the footage.” Circe saw something blinked in the young cyborg’s earbud. “Yes, have a counselor present just in case. I think she’ll be okay.” Airwaves rippled and just as before, a hallway full of men and women in white coats shuffled off and away. Leave it to super-scientists to create personalized cloaking devices that broke down with movement when a two way mirror would do. “Glitch! I’m sorry!” Dr. Zhao,-who was still very much a lowly intern in Circe’s book- snatched the tablet up off the floor and held it between her and the newly arrived superhero. Circe thought she looked like someone who had been caught in the shower and was reaching for a towel to cover herself. “I can’t do it! I just can’t!” The dark skinned super closed the distance and gently placed her hand on the other woman’s shoulder. “You did fine, Dr. Zhao. This is excellent data, and I think you will be fascinated upon a reflection.” “You’re not going to harm her, are you?” Dr. Zhao asked. “She’s just…it’s wro…” Glitch carefully took the datapad out of the meeker and more pathetic woman’s hand. “It’s okay. You did well.” “Are you going to do anything to her?” “No harm will come to her, Stephanie.” Glitch said. “I’m just running some diagnostics.” “Promise?” The scientist was turned away from Circe, but the Siren could tell from the quaver and cracking in her voice that she was on the verge of tears. “I promise you, Doctor.” Glitch repeated. She removed her hand from the woman’s shoulder and tapped her temple. “My brain operates under Asimov’s Laws, remember? I couldn’t harm her if I wanted to.” A half-second. “And I don’t want to.” “STEPHENIE!” Circe yelled from her crib. “MOMMY!” It wouldn’t accomplish anything, Circe knew. It was still fun to watch the woman’s shoulders bunch up to her ears. “You should go,” Glitch said calmly. “I’ll take care of her.” “MOMMY!” “But-!” Glitch pivoted and put her arm around the other woman. She started walking the mere mortal out towards the exit. Circe wished for laser vision. She made do with the one power she had. “MOMMEEEEEEEEE!” The superhero leaped back and in front of the intern holding her arms out. “It’s okay,” Glitch intoned. “She’s okay. She’s just nervous. The longer you draw this out, the harder it’ll be for her.” Dr. Zhao inhaled and bit her lip. “Yes,” she said. “You’re right.” “MOMMEEEEEEEEE!” It seemed less effective that time. The illusion was still being weaved in the victim’s mind, but she was controlling herself. “She’ll be fine?” “She’ll be fine. I’ll take care of her. Starting with a diaper change.” Glitch looked behind her and the hero and rival through menacing stares at each other. At least that’s what Circe told herself. Later footage would show Glitch’s expression as more of a calm and confident smile. “She’s been in it for a while,” the walking labcoat nodded. “We’ve got top of the line rash protection,” Glitch said. “But you have to go and get to work. That’s the whole purpose of daycares.” Dr. Zhao blinked. “It is. Isn’t it.” Stuck in the giant crib, the Siren had the distinct feeling that Glitch was weaving her own illusion; her own cold reading of the situation. And she was doing a better job at it than Circe.” “Yes. Now go.” The young Asian woman, young enough that Circe should have been thinking of changing her diaper (not the other way around) craned her neck and leaned sideways over the science hero’s shoulder. “Okay. Bye… I love you!” “MOMMEEEEEEEEE!” Finally, the woman was pushed past the threshold and the door slid shut. Glitch spun on the ball of her foot and cocked her eyebrow. “I hope you’re proud of yourself, Siren.” Circe inhaled through her nose and caught another whiff of the fetid mess she’d been sleeping in. She leaned back off her knees and tried not to wince feeling the lump move with her. It was more solid than was comfortable. It also didn’t rattle or shake around very much. Part of it was probably stuck to her. She purred anyway. “Now that you mention it, yes.” A wicked grin revealed pearly white glistening teeth. You could put a demon in pigtails and crinkling undies. It didn’t make her any less hellish. Being called by her supervillain name was just SO exhilarating! “Good,” Glitch said. “You should be. Thank you very much.” The smile evaporated. “What?” Calmly, Glitch grabbed the white lace apron she’d had on before from a hook on the wall. “That young lady you just entranced is one of the keenest researchers at the facility.” She draped the apron over her neck, and then tucked the fled scientist’s datapad under her chin so that she could the strings behind her back. It seemed so completely casual, too. could have been practiced precision or it could have been something she’d programmed into herself. “At nineteen, Dr. Zhao is also something of a wunderkind. Genius I.Q., mathematically proved the existence of God, and quite frankly, something of a sociopath. She discusses her parents like they’re uninteresting historical footnotes, has no siblings, or deep familial connections. No maternal instincts or desire whatsoever. When she got her first menstrual cycle, she half a month off from all other interests and designed an artificial birthing chamber that would house, nourish, exercise, and program-slash-educate a fertilized embryo from conception to age eighteen; all while keeping it unconscious. Darndest thing is, as near as I can tell it would work. That girl does not like children.” Circe crossed her arms over her chest. “So?” “So?” Glitch laughed. “Just a few of those ‘pink words’ from you and she turned into a heartbroken first time mom feeling like she abandoned her daughter after maternity leave. She wanted to change your diaper. This is a woman who almost got in a fight with one of our actual mother on staff because she suggested that hospitals should catheterize and give newborns colostomies ‘for efficiency’s sake’.” Terribly amused, Circe laid back down on her side, ignoring the crinkle so she could get away with the smell of herself. She also had to bend her top leg so that her thighs wouldn’t squeeze the soaked bulging garment in a vice. “Hmmm….you sent me a scrapper; a provacateur. I’m actually flattered.” “You don’t understand,” Glitch corrected her, “Zhao was the one who picked the fight. The mother laughed. She thought it was a joke and Zhao was insulted.” Glitch came up to the crib, holding the tablet. “Considering that your powers normally have a history of drawing from the affected’s psyche, I confess to being deeply curious about what she saw when she looked in this crib.” She turned the data pad around so that Circe could view it. Circe reached up and took the data pad from Glitch. It was filled with orange text on a black background. In the upper right hand corner, there was a live camera feed coming from Circe’s crib, showing the supervillain in all of her non-glory, a rolling set of numbers and abbreviations that she could only assume were for her vitals, and a series of text messages that must have corresponded with the correspondence. The Siren looked at each in turn and savored the information gleaned from them. REMEMBER: Subject is Circe “Siren” Castallanos. 14:29:34 Subject is attempting to manipulate you. Engage restraints before continuing interrogation. 14:30:28 SUBJECT IS SIREN! NOT A CHILD! 14: 31:01 You are not thinking clearly, Zhao. You’ve been compromised. You will think yourself ridiculous and you’re not the one in a diaper. 14:31:28 Yes. We are sure. Do NOT extract subject from crib. Your life will be in danger if you do. Like a kitten playing with a ball of yarn, Circe rolled over onto her back and admired the messages on the tablet. “I am good, aren’t I?” She might have as well been a reincarnation of Narcissus. “You really are,” Glitch complimented her. “Zhao had a live feed, a briefing on your powers, and constant reminders from unaffected third parties. And she still wanted nothing more than to play Mommy with you.” “With great power,” Circe purred, “actually, I forget the rest.” “It’s not just the power,” Glitch said. “You had a very limited idea of what you were perceived as, yet you adapted remarkably quickly, turning the situation to your advantage. It’s not just your powerset, Circe, you’re good at this.” The words were sweet perfume to Circe’s ears. This. She loved when a worthy opponent acknowledged her skill. Not that Glitch was a worthy opponent. Yet, even Penelope was clever enough to unweave Laertes’s shroud night after night. The upstart ex-sidekick might not be Odysseus, but she might yet earn her place of honor in someone else’s myth. “It’s not like it was that hard,” Circe said. “Look what you dressed me as. She kept talking about changing my diaper.” She scrolled down the data pad and eyed an icon labeled ‘Extract.’ “I wish I’d stumbled upon this pink voice earlier,” she mused. “It has some of the same advantages as some of my other voices, but it’s far more subtle.” Glitch cocked a curious eye brow and her pupils flashed thousands of tiny digits. “Subtle? How so? I wouldn’t think of registering as a child as subtle.” “Typical machine,” Circe gloated. “All facts and figures, and no social nuance. How many myths do you know about children? Kids are invisible extensions of their parents. I belt out something in red or yellow or green or purple, and people want to take notice of me; make me the center of their world.” “I thought that was how you like it.” “I do,” Circe admitted. “A child though? A toddler? If I can pass myself as someone’s random kid, I can be introduced, go unnoticed, cause havoc, and then get away with a slap on the wrist. Best of several worlds.” She thought of all the recent times her cons and illusions were spoiled by a video going viral and people realizing she was behind it all. “Nobody takes pictures of other people’s kids. Wouldn’t have to have sex with some old rich guy either.” “Wouldn’t everyone you used the voice on just think that you’re their baby?” Glitch asked. “You’d just start city wide Amber Alerts and brawls over people wanting their baby back. Circe sat up and immediately regretted it. The mess couldn’t spread much further than it already had, but being right underneath it was uncomfortable. “It’s far more subtle and nuanced than that, dear,” she condescended, trying to sound wider than she looked. “My illusions are dependent on the individual viewing them, but there’s always a measure of context involved. I tricked all of your security staff into thinking I was Chuck with just a little bit of cyan. I highly doubt he’s the only jackass in their mundane collective lives, just the one that made the most sense in the context of a lab break in.” Stupidly, Glitch began to pace away from the crib. Circe’s time was approaching, she could feel it. “Interesting. So while you can’t influence people precisely, if you know and can account for different circumstances of their psychology you can more readily predict what reactions they’ll have. That’s why historically your illusions are more precise outside of violent confrontation where you have the luxury to control the circumstances and environment.” “Precisely, my dear sidekick.” Circe was disappointed to see that the cyborg didn’t so much as flinch. “Sometimes all it takes is for me to establish myself for one mark to see me as the love of his life, his lady in red, and then when we’re together…” Glitch finished the thought. “Everyone else would still see you as a tempting seductress but infer the connection between you and your latest boy toy. They might see different physical traits that they themselves would lust after, but they’d be more inclined to lust after you from afar due to societal pressures.” “Now she’s getting it,” Circe grinned. If she didn’t kill this brat, maybe she would make a worthy adversary. There was nothing inherently wrong with helping the next generation of heroes get their trial by fire. Coming of age stories were their own forms of mythologies. “ All I’d need is to establish someone as my Daddy-” “Or Mommy,” Glitch interrupted. “Or Mommy,” Circe conceded, “and then there’s a good chance that everyone would see me as someone else’s adorable little girl to be admired, fawned over, and then ignored when it came time for serious stuff.” “Interesting…” Circe didn’t hear the intense curiosity in Glitch’s voice. She was busy poking and broadening at the off-white swollen padding taped to her hips. “I wonder what would happen if I wasn’t wearing this,” she thought out loud. “Would I be seen as a four or five year old? Young and adorable but potty trained?” “Why does that matter?” Glitch’s eyes were still doing an unknowable number of computations. “Besides not wanting to pee in front of an audience?” Circe asked. “The illusion only goes so far, honey. I don’t know if you noticed with all that wiring in your cranium, but kids are dressed very differently from adults depending on their age. A little girl might be in a ball gown to dress like the grown-ups, but a thong is still a thong and that sends up red flags. What if someone went to check me or change me and realized that the diapers they bought from the store don’t come close to fitting? I might need to invest in a whole new wardrobe to pull these types of operations off and not get caught as soon as bathroom matters.. Is Lolita fashion still a thing? “I wouldn’t worry about it,” Glitch smirked. Presently, the superhero was near the middle of the laboratory turned nursery. More than enough for Circe to charge in and attack. Upgrades or not, Circe had fought Techno-Glitch’s mentor and predecessor- enough times to know about weak spots and defenses. Her bones could be reinforced with Titanium; it wouldn’t protect the joints. Noses could be broken, digitized camera eyes could be clawed out and wind pipes could be torn open with teeth. The Siren sighed theatrically. “Me neither. You know what else I wouldn’t do?” “What’s that?” “Hand me a datapad with an ‘Extract’ link.” She felt a surge of adrenaline and triumph pressing down on it. “Ha!” That triumph was short-lived. Robotic hands dropped down from the ceiling, snaking and twining around Circe’s waist and hoisting her up, up,up and over the crib bars. Her bare feet struggled and dangled in the air and the full weight of her very loaded diaper tugged down at her hips. “What?! Hey!” Slowly, like a ride at a theme park, Circe was being railroaded over to the giant changing table. Glitch clicked her tongue and shook her head knowingly. “Circe, baby: do you really think I’d hand you the keys to your own freedom that easily? I just wanted to see what variables were needed to get you to act.” “But the button said…!” “It’s basic coding,” Glitch shrugged. “Appearances can be deceiving. I thought you would already know that.” She flashed a mean spirited grin at Circe. “Or maybe appearances aren’t that deceiving and there’s a reason why you took to the pink sound so quickly…” “Mother fucking bitch cunt twat waffle cyborg asshole dyke mother fucker!” Circe added in several more colorful euphemisms that would have meant a duel to the death in ancient Greek, even the literal translation wasn’t so impactful in these overly modern times.. Sadly, colorful or not, the only color coming out of her mouth was babygirl pink. Glitch hissed and sucked in her breath through her teeth. “Ooops. Shouldn’t have done that, baby girl.” The changing table up against the wall on Circe’s left started to slowly drift away. “This place is automated and has voice identification.” “What the-?!” Circe whipped her head to the right. Up from out of the ground, a large padded lump raided up out of the ground. It was obviously cushioned and padded, but not nearly big enough for a full grown adult to comfortably lay across. It looked similar to one of those pommel horses that gymnasts used but without the handle bars on either end. “Glitch, what are you doing, what’s going on?” Glitch crossed her arms. “You activated the program and then said a bad word. Naughty actions have consequences here.” The supervillain was lowered across padded pommel horse, with the mechanical tendrils not releasing her until its compatriots had sprung up from the floor and secured her by the wrists and ankles. “Naughty? Why are you talking like that?” A mechanical whirring sound made Circe’s ears twitch. If she turned her head she could just barely see a positively massive paddle, the kind used in fraternity college movies, rise up behind her. More easily in her view was a group of scientists on the other side of the window taking notes on datapads. A saccharine sweet voice came over speakers hidden discretely inside the ceiling. “Baby said a bad, bad word. Naughty naughty! Mama spank!” Spank? WHACK! The paddle clapped into her diapered backside, causing Circe to shrink pink in surprise. WHACK! Again it thundered into her. The padding absorbed most of the impact, but she felt the slightest uncomfortable itch. She’d been sitting and sleeping in her mess for quite a while. A rash was likely forming, and the impact and pressing up against the soiled undergarment wasn’t helping. WHACK! WHACK! The paddle was picking up speed, smacking into her with increasing force with every blow. It was starting to hurt, and it wasn’t just because of the rash that she was developing. “Ow!” Circe winced. “Glitch stop!” WHACK! WHACK! “Baby said a naughty word! What a bad, bad naughty little baby!” The message came from above her, prerecorded, but still in Glitch’s voice nonetheless. “Baby needs to say ‘Sorry Mama!” WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! Speed and power increased. It was genuinely hurting. The paddle moving by inches in between smacks so that the impact would be spread out. WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! The backs of her thighs were being lit up, too. Circe started to struggle and kick. The restraints holding her gave her only enough gift so that she could wriggle her arms and legs, impotently kicking and thrashing. “Glitch! Stop it!” The ex-sidekick stood firmly with her hands on her hips and a satisfied close lipped grin on her face. WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! Her ass was on fire and her head was shaking between each volley. She was letting out little pink yelps with each concussive blow and each sting against her flesh. She turned her head to the side and saw men and women in lab coats jotting something down between squeaks and screams of pain. They seemed particularly interested when they caught a glimpse of Circe’s watering eyes. This was cruel and unusual punishment at its finest. Glitch cocked her hip to the side and pointed towards the ceiling. “Don’t talk to me, talk to her!” “Baby said a naughty word! Bad! Bad! Baby!” WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! “Who?!” The words were just coming out pink. Circe couldn’t help it. She was in increasing pain and far too much humiliation to properly control her vocal chords. Anything beyond the normal range of human hearing would simply leap out of her and then be transmuted to that damned pink. WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! The program running the spanking machine clued her in. “Say ‘Sorry Mama!” Circe clenched her jaw and ignored the tears leaking out of her eyes. She would not say that. She would not give glitch or these stupid labcoats the satisfaction. She didn’t care that she’d been reduced to nothing more than a squirming toddler over her Mommy’s knee. “NO!” WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! The spanking was turning into a pummeling. Circe could swear she was feeling the bruises on her thighs and backside start to form and swell. She was having trouble catching her breath; her entire skin felt like it was on fire from the rush of endorphins alone! “This can be all over when you say it’s over,” Glitch called. “Bad bad naughty little baby! Say ‘Sorry Mama’! “NOOOOOOOOO!” The tears were in free fall down Circe’s face and snot bubbled up out of her nose. Over twenty years of villain going down the drain now that she was being treated like a stupid two year old that had spoken out of turn. Just like back home… WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! To say that Circe was behind pain would have been a lie. She felt every stinging impact more than before. But something in the Siren’s spirit cracked if not broke. She’d stopped kicking and struggling. She drew breath only to cry out and stopped wailing in anguish only when she ran out of breath and needed to inhale. The inhalations were the worst part. All the pain of impact with none of the release of screaming. "Say ‘Sorry Mama’!” Even Glitch was beginning to look uncomfortable. “Circe! Say it! Safeword out!” “SORRY MAMA!” Her sobbing continued, even though the paddle machine stopped on a dime. “I’m sorry Mama!” Her body racked itself with sobs and her chest hurt from screaming so much; quite an accomplishment given that she screamed as a form of combat. “I’m sorry Mama. Sorry Mama. Sorry. Sorry Mama.” Circe kept saying it with every breath, in whispers and inhales. She felt the wetness in her hair and forehead. She’d broken out into a sweat. The tendrils snaked down from the ceiling and lifted her up like a ragdoll or a broken puppet. The parade of shame stopped right in front of the young superheroine. She reached up and gently stroked the side of Circe’s face. “You did good,” she said. “You had the power to stop it the whole time. You just had to decide that your pride wasn’t worth what you were being put through.” Circe opened her mouth to give a hearty ‘fuck you’ to her captor, but thought better of it. She settled for a “I hate you so much.” It came out breathy and exhausted and weak and pink; just like Circe. Glitch ignored the declaration and inspected Circe’s padded backside. “If this diaper wasn’t ruined before, it is now. Held up pretty well, though. The spanking mechanism worked extremely well.” Circe could hear the self-satisfied congratulations in Glitch’s tone. She yelped, feeling a cold finger prod at her thighs. She’d had throw downs with Power Guy that left her feeling less sore. “Yikes, that’s a mark.” Glitch noted. Circe moaned pathetically feeling the younger woman poke and prod at her bruises. “Will have to adjust that during the changing sequence.” Glitch walked back around. She had regained that cocky look in her eyes that the Siren inside of Circe wanted to devour. “Fun fact, that was supposed to be a bare bottomed spanking, but the nursery’s A.I. detected the full diaper and left it on you as a result” More digits streamed across the woman’s pupils. “And I want to say the spanking reduced impact after your heart rate reached a certain level. Damn, I’m good!” The supervillain noticed that no tendrils snaked out to take her to a giant spanking knee. The pommel horse was already descending back into its hidden floor compartment. “Why are you doing this to me?” Circe asked, perhaps sincerely for the first time. “To see if this works,” Glitch replied. She stepped away out of arm's reach. “Computer, resume changing.” With all the power and gentleness of a mother elephant the mechanical tendrils took Circe’s limp body to the nursery’s changing table. Unlike its predecessor earlier this morning, there was no mistaking this one’s intended purpose. The sturdy wood was painted a soft eggshell white with with a concave padded mattress that made it more difficult to roll in. Not that Circe could roll. The moment her sweaty ragdoll body was laid out on the table, more restraints leapt out from the table and pinned her arms down to the sides and kept her shoulders square to the mat. The wood outside was only for aesthetic, as was the low railing meant to keep an actual giant infant from accidentally taking a plunge. “Don’t want my snuggly little baby to fall out,” the pre-recorded voice cooed at her. It was so jarring hearing Glitch’s prattling from both a machine while the woman herself was standing twenty feet away. “Oh, such a stinkle little baby. Mama will clean you up so you can get back to playing!” The sound quality was jarring, too. It sounded like another version of Glitch was right beside her, hovering over her and cooing at her like she was a silly toddler. No doubt those same sound systems Circe had been hoping to steal were placed throughout this mock nursery. “Quit playing games you-!” Another pacifier came up between her lips. Circe prepared to scream and bite down for the bulb to comically inflate just like last time, but the inflation never happened. A motorized whirring drew her attention and a mobile over her head started spinning. The mobile was nothing special: just some dangling preschool shapes: squares, circles, triangles, stars and the like, just like occasional stencils in the wall. But when it turned a flash of bright pink light strobed into Circe’s eyes. Mechanical hands came out and lifted Circe’s legs up by the ankles. “Baby made a poopy in her pants, didn’t she?” The Siren winced and sucked on the pacifier while the hand pressed itself into her ruined padding. “Yes she did! She wettums too! Soaked and soggy! Much too little to be ready for potty training!” Circe didn’t need the pink strobe light to make her face rosey red. “Let’s get Mama’s little bun bun cleaned up!” Her legs were lowered back down. RIIIP! RIIIIP! RIIIIIP! RIIIIIIIP! One by one the tapes of the over-large children’s diaper came off, each rip of a tape of the plastic backing was a needle scratch on the record of Circe’s confidence and feelings of adulthood. As the diaper was peeled back, Circe chose to look up into the flashing, blinding, mobile instead of down at the trainwreck below her waist. “Peeeee-yew!” The changing table said. “Where did baby put it all? Don’t worry, sweetie. Mama will fix and make it all better!” Circe wanted to yell, either at Glitch or her demeaning contraption but sucked on the pacifier instead. If Glitch knew that she’d accidentally given the supervillain a real pacifier instead of an infantilized gag, she might correct that error. The lights strobed down, the mobile spun, and Circe sucked on the paci while the machine went to work. Up, up, up, her legs went, and baby wipes came to gently cleans her backside, between her legs, and atop her mound. “This is the way, we wipe the bum, wipe the bum, wipe the bum,” a machine with Glitch’s voice sang almost tunelessly. “This is the way we wipe the bum, because the baby made a mes-sy!” She would save her screams. She would suck and act pacified. This wasn’t her moment. Her moment would come. The new diaper was unfolded quickly enough and slid underneath her hips, but the Siren’s legs were not lowered until they smeared with a numbing rash cream that felt heavenly on her thrashed bottom and thighs. The pink strobing lights vanished, but only because her eyes rolled back into her skull momentarily from relief. Even her moans of relief came out pink. She tried to hold her breath, when the baby powder was dusted all over her, but keeping the pacifier in her mouth was no small task, forcing her to inhale the altered stuff, breathing in the calming chemicals. The mobile and the strobing stopped in time for Circe to crane her neck and see that the nice new clean diaper that was being taped around her hips had a cartoon giraffe on it. The task complete, the restraints left Circe and the various tendrils and mechanical appendages vanished into whatever extra dimensional holding space super science had manufactured for them. Circe spit out the pacifier and lolled her head to face her captor. “Why did you do this?” Circe asked. Glitch leaned over her and smiled down. “Your powerset and psychology are presenting me with numerous unprecedented opportunities. It would be a waste not to test it.” “You made a giant babysitting machine for me because of my voice powers?” Glitch shook her head, but seemed no less pleased with herself. “No. Not for you silly. This actually started out as an automated nursery prototype for actual childcare. It didn’t work out. Actual children are too fragile for my restraint systems. Adults seem to work rather nicely.” Muscles still aching and not ready for a counter attack- her body practically wouldn’t let her- Circe exhaled. “You kept a rejected invention fully stocked with…with…” Circe tapped the giraffe on her new diaper. “Just in case you caught me? “Pffft, no.” Glitch waved the question off. “I was actually trying to capitalize on it by marketing it to fetish conventions.” Circe felt uncomfortable enough right then that she wished she hadn’t spit out the dummy. She settled for sucking on her teeth. “Waste not want not.” “That explains the spanking machine. And the diapers.” She thought more. “Everything really.” She supposed that explained why these recordings had Glitch’s voice programmed in. A home project wouldn’t need a professional voice actor until the final stretch. “Thanks for letting me test it.” Glitch said. Circe closed her eyes and pretended she was just naked instead of diapered and pigtailed. “You’re welcome. Can I please just go to jail now?” “No.” “No?!” “We’ve got more experiments to run.” She wouldn’t cry. She wouldn't. This isn’t how Circe was going to break. The great Siren would not cower. “You think you can break me, brat?” “No.” The young super scientist booped Circe on the nose. “I think I can fix you. Make it so that you’re both happy and no longer a threat to society.” No chance. No chance in Tartarus. “Do your worst then, upstart. Let’s get started.” Looking at the mischievous grin on her captor’s eyes, Circe knew her bladder was well and truly empty. If it hadn’t been, Circe would have felt her fresh dry diaper grow sopping wet for sure. “I already have.”

bump

Siren’s Swan Song (Part 1) Circe Castallanos walked along the city sidewalks humming to herself, looking for her first target. What fresh havoc to sew? More importantly, was it worth it? If she picked the right mark, she’d be having a little petty fun and practice at warming up her powers. If she picked the wrong one, some detective in tights would bust her before her grand plan even got underway. It’d been half-a-decade since she’d last tried to use them for anything more than getting a free meal or a bed. Were she just starting out on the meta-scene, that wouldn’t have been too bad. She technically had never worked a day in her life. All she had to do was sing a little ditty into some fool’s ear and she’d have them under her spell for up to twenty-four hours. Free meals. Free beds. Free clothes. It all came straight to her like sailors crashing on the rocks. Being the reincarnation of the mythical Sirens had its perks. If she was smart and random, and didn’t victimize too many high rollers back to back, she could live extremely comfortably and quietly if not lavishly. Singing “Let me in my love” in tones of deep purple could get her a penthouse for a night or two, as long as she jumped into another random person’s car when she was done and sing “Take me away from here” in sultry reds to relax in a modest but well furnished house in the suburbs. If she needed money to acquire something discreetly, singing in golds about “Cash cash cash” to her mark did the trick. Singing “I’ll have the chef’s special tasting menu and a souffle for dessert,” directly from the menu in earthy greens used to be enough to get her supper, but that was getting more difficult in an age where crowds recorded buskers and performers with cell phones. The Siren’s powers didn’t work through recordings. That was a drawback of being gifted a powerset invented before the phonograph was invented. The magic and colors of her songs didn’t translate through recordings. It didn’t count in the same way that Medusa’s reflection didn’t count. Such were the limitations of the Siren’s powers. At least Circe didn’t need a microphone to amplify her voice. Her singing could fill a stadium and her battle shrieks could shatter glass. Wagyu beef and Champagne were not worth the attention having to entrance an entire restaurant worth of people and the attention that brought with it. Same for going viral online when a French speaking monkey, a datamancer, and a psychic with touch based pre and post cognition learned you were recently at a famous bistro or burger joint. A garden variety speedster could be on the spot and cold cock her before she finished her meal if she was noticed too soon. She was mighty and powerful, but the world was filled with heroes who could triumph over the perils of the Odyssey and Heracles’s labors in an afternoon. Surprise, discretion, and anonymity were her allies. The mortal part of her understood that and was responsible for her greatest successes. The Siren part of her was another matter entirely. Unfortunately, as the reincarnation of the legendary sultry bird women who dashed sailors on the rocks, Circe was essentially a living story. She had certain urges that could be delayed or worked around, but never completely ignored. The Sirens of yore were dangers, but they were known dangers; tantalizing dangers that the foolhardy did not prepare for and even the wise and cautious were tempted by. To Circe’s Siren soul, being defeated or overcome was nothing compared to being forgotten. At forty-five, she’d been defeated many times over. She had a nearly three decade career as a “supervillain” so of course that was going to happen, but she’d had some good times too. She was briefly the true ruler of a small Southeast Asian nation; had brought all of West City to the brink of collapse fighting over her, and started a cult that had gotten very close to gaining official religious protections. The trick to that particular one had been that the people under her songs’ spells never saw her but instead whatever person or thing would get the desired emotional reaction she wanted. A few layers of protection made it nearly impossible for her to be tracked down The cult trick had been ten years ago, however. Presently, she was forty-five,and feeling it in the worst way. Her looks were fading, her hair had turned silver, and her three options for shelter at any given time was prison or a place she’d stolen. That was great in her twenties. Fine in her thirties. Would she be like this in her fifties? Sixties? Did supervillains even make it to seventy? The Siren would not be denied, however. And finding her name in an article entitled “Thirteen Formerly Fearsome Supervillains You Won’t Believe Are Still Alive!” had been the last straw. The part where it said her greatest weakness was earplugs stung particularly badly. It was time. She had to act! To remind the world that she was still here and to be feared! “Run awaaaaaaay,” She whispered into a passerby’s ear, her haunting melody tinted yellow with fear. “I’m coming for you.” The man in suit and tie dropped his briefcase and dashed away screaming away. She’d timed it just right so that his panicked retreat caught the attention of the sheep around her instead of the source. Pretending to be one of them, Circe followed their gaze towards the man’s retreating form. There was a brown wet blotch forming on the seat of his pants. Her lips curled inward to hide the satisfied smile. “Still got it,” she said to herself. She wondered what the man saw. It was so hard to tell when they weren’t coherent to talk. The heroes were easy enough to guess at. You do enough super-brawls and revenge plots and it’s easy to guess what will push a body’s buttons. Circe remembered the time she sang “Help Me!” blotted with morbid black. Every single member of the Sentinels immediately fell under the delusion that she was a loved one or a sidekick at death’s door and started fighting each other to save her. Every. Single. One: Uber; The Owl; Glamazon; Techno; Blitz; Neptunia; Emerald Archon. What a glorious day that had been! How she’d loved tormenting the Sentinels and their ilk! Those were the days. Days that would start again very very soon Circe didn’t know if it was because she was a genuine misanthrope and thus loved tormenting virtue signaling, false piety loving heroes in general, or whether her Siren’s soul just loved torturing demigods. Frankly, she didn’t much care. The only thing Circe cared about was getting her fix and making sure these peons remembered her name! One long inhale and a determined sigh a second later and the Siren had steeled herself. A flick of her wrist and a snap of her wrist would transmogrify her plain jain jeans and orange blouse into her single piece skin tight nigh indestructible hydra skin suit. She looked down at her waist. Her suit used to be a two piece, but it was getting harder to hide her tummy. She wasn’t flabby, she just didn’t have the body that she used to. A moment of vanity made her consider fanning some of the scales out like fringe on a salsa dress, just in case. Hydra skin was good like that. Circe was about to start the day off right by causing a mass panic, being seen long enough to take credit and then disappearing into the masses, when she noticed that her warm up act had left behind a briefcase. No one had so much as bothered to pick it up. The milling crowd on the busy city sidewalk simply stepped over and around it, too self-absorbed in whatever was going on in their short and meaningless lives. “Excuse me,” Cicrce muttered, shoving and sliding her way through the nameless masses. Curiosity overcame her and she felt compelled. That or maybe she was stalling. Afraid. A Has-Been. Nope. It was definitely the other one. Definitely the compulsion. The super-villainess scooped the briefcase up into her arms and slinked to an alley. A common mugging was slightly beneath her., but only slightly. There amongst the dumpsters and the rats, she opened up the briefcase and peered at the documents inside. Nothing but papers and designs for something. Patents. NDA’s. Copyrights. Boring business stuff, but also something more on the technical side. Something…something…? The Siren’s eyes widened as she flipped through the patents in the businessman’s suitcase. “What…do we…have here?” And the more she read, the more she understood. And what she understood the most was that she wasn’t going to be doing a simple street level riot performance. She was going to melt back into the shadows and wait for night to fall. And after tonight, the Siren would be well on her way back to the top, better than ever. ****************************************************************************************************** That night: A.S.T.R.A.L Labs. Long after the doors had been shuttered and locked and all the lights turned off, the Siren made her move. In full, green scaled regalia, Circe walked up to the back entrance of the sleek and polished multi story building. During the day, the one way mirror glass plating made the research facility look like a bright and shining beacon that could be seen for miles around. At night, the glass took on a darker, bleaker, more obsidian color. It was also supposed to be shatterproof. Circe smirked. “Let’s test that, shall we?” She took a deep breath and screeched: “OPEN SESAMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!” She didn’t need to say anything, there was no hypnotic magic woven into it. It just felt appropriate. The difference between a supervillain and a common one was presentation. She did feel a little dirty about quoting from Arabian Nights, mostly because the reference was from the wrong set of stories and culture. That didn’t matter. Her scream was The panel closest to her cracked like a lollipop tossed on the ground. Alarms blared and buzzed in howling cacophony that made Circe want to flinch. Instead, one foot in front of the other like a model in a catwalk she strut forward with her hands on her hips. The token security guards rushed forward from the front. Fit young things in white and black full body jumpsuits. Simpletons looked less like private law enforcement and more like glorified janitors. “Stop right there!” One of them shouted before reaching for his holster. Poor things weren’t issued guns, but had to make due with silly crossbreeds of billy clubs and tasers. They’d never get the chance to use them. One of the others, a guard with a bit of a gut and some gray in his temples gasped. “Hold up! Stop!” He yelled. “That’s the Siren!” His calls were almost completely muted by the wailing alarms. “Cover your ears! Get the ear-!” He didn’t finish the sentence in time. His comrades couldn’t hear him clearly, and Siren was more than loud enough to drown out every other noise. “FALSE ALAAAAAAAAAARM! GOTCHA! FAAAAAAAAALSE ALARM NO NEEEEED TO WORRY!” Overpowering, enrapturing, and above all very very loud, the Siren’s playfully cyan call reached out to every year in the building above street level. The lead guard, the one with the gut, took out a control pad and punched in a few codes. The buzzing stopped abruptly, and all the of the guards slumped their shoulders and shook their heads. “Chuck, you asshole!” The head guard on duty said. “You had us scared half to death!” The others were already muttering to themselves and walking away. Circe managed a shrug and guilty looking smile. “Sorry boss,” she said. “I guess I just got a little carried away.” “I oughta fire your ass for this,” he scowled. “Yeah, Chuck!” One of the other guards returning to their post grunted. He slapped his compatriot upside the back of his head. “Way to screw around dickweed!” His coworker rubbed the back of his head and flinched away. “Yeah,” he chuckled. “I really do suck sometimes.” He thumbed backwards to where a most bemused Siren stood. “Pretty funny though, you gotta admit. How the hell did I manage to get all the way over there and be here at the same time?” “How the fuck should I know?!” Evidently, Chuck was something comparable to the night shift’s resident cut up. Another benefit of her hypnotic songs is that the suggestions didn’t regularly have to make any common sense whatsoever. Siren shrugged again, lowered her voice to a suitably ‘manly’ tenor and said, “Sorry, boss.” “You better be sorry,” The head guard scowled. “Now go clean this shit up!” He finally walked away, leaving the Siren smirking at her own cleverness. “Well that was amusing,” Circe said to herself. It was too, almost like a bit of roleplay before the hot stuff really got going. Or more innocently, a fun game of pretend. Either worked for this metaphor. “Now to get down to business.” The business at hand was, of course, larceny. By sheer coincidence, her terror mark earlier that day had been a lawyer of some kind working for A.S.T.R.A.L. labs. In his briefcase she found the very basic designs for a new type of sound transmitter, one that specifically mimicked the human voice box and throat. Instead of electronic speakers that blasted out digitized sounds, the synthetic muscles inside would perfectly replicate any recorded voice. Okay for music. Good for cybernetic and prosthetic advancement. Great for Circe. Perfect for the Siren. If she could have something that perfectly replicated her voice in every facet, the range of control she could exert would be virtually limitless. If she could record and recreate her voice instead of broadcasting it, all of her technical limitations would be overcome. She could leave mesmeric songs all over the place hours ahead of time like hypnotic time bombs. She could record herself serenading someone a song of worship and put it on loop at key locations. With this kind of technology, Circe could do what no one in her field had ever done: She could take over the world! The high heels of her costume clicked against the tile. She waved herself by security, smiling placidly and pretending to be a very repentant Chuck while heading towards the elevator. All the good experiments were kept in a sub basement deep beneath the city. It was practically an open secret. The elevator dinged open. “Stop right there, Siren!” Circe rolled her eyes. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.” Right in front of Circe was another superhero. A new one; one she didn’t recognize right off the bat. She was a young black woman with short cropped hair that blinked white light at different points along her skull, and the glowing tattoos on her arm resembled a circuit board. A cyborg of some kind. The belt and wristbands with compartmentalized segments suggested a hint of gadgeteer. “Who the hell are you supposed to be?” “Wait. Seriously?” The other woman said. “You don’t remember me? I’m Glitch.” The Siren put a hand to her cheek. “Glitch? Techno’s sidekick?” There was no way that was Glitch. “Aren’t you twelve?” The younger woman looked offended. “I was the first time you kidnapped me. I’m twenty-two.” Oh god that made her feel so old! Nevermind! Push that thought aside. A terrible smile blossomed on the Siren’s face. “Ten years as a sidekick. Not a bad run. Techno’s going to need a new sidekick after tonight.” “He’s already got one,” Glitch replied. “I beg your pardon?” Siren asked flatly. Was this some kind of joke? “I’m a full fledged hero now. Doing my own thing. Techno got a new sidekick. Their name’s Binary, which is kind of ironic since-” “Be the love of my liiiiiiife.” Siren belted out to the young hero and hot crimson. A super hacker or a cyborg would be a good thing to have in her back pocket when robbing this place. Why not make her a love slave? Instead of fawning over her and showering her with affection, Glitch just stood there. “Yeah. About that.” She tapped one ear, one eye, and then her head. “Had a couple upgrades since last time. I’m more wired up than techno, just most of the hardwear is internal. I’m hearing and seeing all this, but there’s so many gadgets and gizmos in my brain that I’m basically perceiving you through a camera. “I’m basically immune to your schtick.” Shit. She thumbed back towards the guards. “Are they?” A quick deathly sing of “Security Breeeeeach!” It worked on the Sentinels. It would work on these mooks. They might not stop the hero, but they could hold her off and inconvenience her long enough for a sonic blast. “Chuck?!” They screamed, and drew their batons. “CHUUUUUUUUCK!” Well, looks like Chuck was as beloved as much as he was derived. Good for Chuck. “MEEEEEEEEEEEE!” The men charged forward as Siren sidestepped out of the way. “BE THE LOVE OF MY LIIIIIIIFE.” Pure and lustful and red the melody came out as intense as the first time and much, much, louder. The goons froze and stared slack jawed and drooling with passion and lust. Circe was used to seeing that look in people. But they weren’t looking at her, and with good reason: That song hadn’t come from her lips at all. The men were all looking goo-goo eyed not at Siren, but at Glitch. “Huh,” the younger hero smiled. “That worked just how I thought it would. Neat.” She turned her gaze to meet the Siren’s. “Thanks for letting me try that out.” Circe froze; stunned and shocked “How?” she stuttered. “How…how did a little brat like you…manage to do… that…?!” Without further banter, a bola shot out of the hero’s right gauntlet, spinning through the air and wrapping itself right around Circe’s throat. The Siren gasped for hair, feeling like there was a noose wrapped around her neck that had been improperly tied. If she hadn’t been so bewildered at someone using her own powers against her, the Siren might have thought to use a sonic shout to stop the projectile in its path and bust out whatever fancy equipment was in the ex-sidekick’s body. Too bad. So sad. Too late. Her hands clutched at her neck, trying to rip the cord from around her throat. Defeated again, before she even had the chance to set any kind of brilliant or chaotic plan into motion. By a sidekick no less. How humiliating. Circe Castallanos didn’t know the half of it. “Brat, huh?” Glitch said. “You just gave me an idea.” The Siren tried to sing or scream or at least give a sufficiently monstrous reply. All that came out was gargled gasps. “This is gonna sting a little bit. Sorry.” Jinx pressed a button on her wrist gauntlet. The volts and jolts of electricity did not sting at all. The Siren was knocked out before she so much as consciously noticed anything painful. She’d wake up extremely sore, however. ************************************************************************* The Siren woke up on a cold metal slab, surrounded by hues of cobalt blue and foghat gray. Her entire body ached and her head felt fuzzy. Instinctively, she tried to sit up. That was how she realized that her arms and legs were restrained. She lifted her head and took full view of herself, completely naked. Her suit? Where was her hydra skin suit? It should be irremovable unless she willed it so. Where was she? Her mind began processing both past and present simultaneously. The plan to return to greatness that didn’t so much as get off the ground. The humiliating and sudden defeat at the hands of a sidekick. That was the past. Presently, she was in some kind of laboratory. It had to be a laboratory. Too many computers and screens and keyboards and what she assumed were fragile monitoring devices to be a holding cell. The lone entrance way had neither a laser grid nor the slight wavering crackle of a forcefield. There were none of the minor comforts or conveniences for it to be a medical facility or hospital. No mattresses or chairs. No sinks. No televisions. Scanning her body she found no evidence of I.V. bags or other basic medical equipment. Both a proper holding cell and a proper hospital would have someone nearby on guard for when she regained consciousness. Unless she wasn’t considered a threat… That intrusive thought, that single bit of half baked analysis almost sent Circe into a frothing rage. How dare she not be under strict monitoring conditions. She was Siren! THE Siren! She was a walking weapon! A threat to global security! Anything less than a gun directly to her head and a clear threat to her life should she so much as whisper was an insult! They would pay! They would PAY! Starting with that bitch, Glitch. Circe slowed her breathing and forced herself to calm down. Even her screams required a degree of breath control. She’d need her screams. She saw more than a few A.S.T.R.A.L. Labs logos in her immediate vicinity. She hadn’t been moved very far, then. There were no windows or outside source of light; only the ever buzzing fluorescent lights overhead illuminated the air. She was likely in one of the very sub-basement labs she’d been meaning to break into. Probably not the lab with the sound systems she’d planned on stealing, sadly. No one would be that utterly stupid. Her do-gooder captor was immune to Circe’s charms, but she could likely still scream her into oblivion or cause some major damage to all of this fragile equipment. Circe wasn’t sure how she could get out of her present restraints with that strategy. She’d shattered bones with her screams before. Could she break her own wrists and ankles to get out of the restraints? That seemed like a bad idea. The Siren in her didn’t much care about escape, per se. If need be this slab could be her rock in the middle of the sea of monsters again. Wreck the place apart and ensnare the fools that came to the rescue. Chances were that not enough time had passed for Glitch to alert the authorities and lacked a proper holding cell. Even if the heroes came at her call armed with earplugs, she could be satisfied at the damage she’d done. The point of being the reincarnation of a monster wasn’t specifically to win. Circe smiled, despite herself. She was breathing easily enough. Nothing was regulating or obstructing her airway. She licked her lips. Time to test out the equipment. “Hmmmm…” she let out a light hum to herself. Good. Her throat felt undamaged. Nothing rattled or made her want to choke. Nothing felt forced. “Time to bring the house down,” she said a little louder. Perfect. Now to follow through on that threat. She laid her head back and with a deep breath she took all the air she could into her lungs and screamed out as loud as she possibly could. “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH?!” Circe ended the near deafening shriek on a rather confused note. Pink? Soft baby bootie girly girl pink? She’d never sang or screamed in that color before. Sophisticated rose pink, sure. Fun and bright poppy punk rock pink, yeah. But never pink-pink. Little girl pink? Baby bonnet pink? Training panties pink? Never. Never that color. She hadn’t meant to scream in any color whatsoever. She’d been going for pure volume. She tried again, and got the same result. “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!” Another try. “WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH-AH-AH-AH-AH!” Circe was left gasping and slightly winded. She was trying to bring down this place like the Walls of Jericho; not…whatever this was. “What in the name of Tartarus?” The quiet sound of quick yet confident footsteps drew Circe’s attention to the entrance way. In walked the cybernetic superhero, with glowing circuit board tattoos beneath her skin and various points of her skull lighting up and shining through her hair. “Good morning,” Glitch said chipperly. “How are you feeling?” Over her more tactically minded form fitting jumpsuit that was so common for people in their specific line of work, Glitch wore a white lace apron with a pocket. “Let me out!” the Siren called. “Release me you little whelp!” “Subject has regained consciousness,” Glitch said. “Temperament; hostile. Cognitive faculties appear to be operational, and judgment such as it is unimpaired; or at least unaltered from previous encounters.” The comment into the upturned palm of her hand like it was some kind of recording device. If she’d gone the route of Techno, it very likely was. That was the problem with tech based heroes in Circe’s mind. They were never quite what they seemed. It was so…disingenuous. The blatant hypocrisy considering her own power set didn’t occur to her. “Glad that you’re awake.” “You’ll wish I wasn’t,” Circe sneered. “Let me go, you freak of science!” Glitch’s hair glowed and twinkled, but her face remained passive and preoccupied with whatever was going on with her hand. “Nope.” “Mark my words, girl, you have made a powerful enemy!” Glitch lowered her hand and seemed to consider the threat. “Objectively? Yes. Your abilities are quite formidable.” The Siren felt herself filling up with pride. Finally! Some acknowledgement! “You could do a lot of good with them if you wanted.” “I don’t,” Circe Spat. Her captor went on, ignoring it. “In this particular instance and circumstance, though? To me specifically? No. You’ve got nothing. Don’t feel bad, though. Most one-on-one super fights are about power compatibility and susceptibility over tactics or brute force. It’s rock paper scissors, and I’m your scissors.” Cicre picked her head up and screamed. “LISTEN TO ME!” More little girl pink notes sailed into the air. That was supposed to have taken the hero’s head off. “You didn’t really think that would work did you?” Glitch stood with one hand on her hip, head tilted and unblinking. Circe held her tongue, confused as to what was going on.. “Did you?” She didn’t know how to answer that question. She was more used to being on the other end of the hostage captor dynamic. And the younger woman’s unblinking, unafraid gaze was unsettling. It wasn’t angry or cruel, more annoyed than anything. Disappointed? It had been a long long time since anyone had ever looked at Circe that way. “Why is everything coming out pink?” she heard herself blurt out. Glitch righted her head and looked somewhat confused. “Pink? What do you mean pink?” Ugh,” Circe rolled her eyes indignantly. Had she not been restrained she would have crossed her arms. “My voice turns different colors depending on the songs I sing.” “Iiiiinteresting,” Glitch remarked. She leaned in closer. “So you’re saying that you perceive the different vibrational frequencies that your hypnotic songs produce through a form of synesthesia?” The Siren blinked, confused. “Um…” Glitch leaned in even closer. “When you sing do you see colors in the songs?” “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!” The hero winced, slightly, but still had a head. Damn. “And that was pink to you?” The Siren felt her temper rising. “That was supposed to destroy you!” “I’m well aware. Was that pink?” “What did you do to me?” “Was that scream pink?” Circe allowed herself an indignant huff. “Yeah. Why?” “Good.” Glitch spoke again into her palm. “Sonic modulation is successful and working well within expected parameters.” “WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME?” The supervillain hadn’t even tried to do a sonic scream or a hypnotic song that time. All she’d done was raise her voice and everything came out princess baby pink. Glitch lowered her palm. More flashes of blinking lights shone through her hair. Did that mean she was thinking or something; like a computer doing complex calculations? The kid used to wear a weird skater helmet back in the day. Circe had no idea. “Okay, I’ll catch you up to speed,” the hero finally said. A screen lowered down from the ceiling. “As you know, you mugged and stole designs from an employee of A.S.T.R.A.L. Labs.” High angle footage showed Circe’s deed replayed in front of her from the vantage point of a traffic light. “Based on your reaction, you didn’t know what you were stealing right off the bat, you just knew you were assaulting a Lab employee with a secure briefcase.” Circe hadn’t even known that much; not that she’d admit it. “Due to your innate understanding of sound waves and vocal chords,” Glitch lectured on, “you figured out what you were looking at and realized the potential for strategic power enhancements; hypnotic time bombs, subliminal messages played on loop and such. The only problem is you lacked the resources and technical expertise to build this yourself. How am I doing so far?” She took the Siren’s silence as a sign of how accurate her synopsis had been. Circe was treated to a replay of her break in. Sonic scream and false alarm and all. “So you decided to break in and steal the prototype yourself. What you clearly didn’t know is that A.S.T.R.A.L. Labs is my base of operations and that I invented the technology you were seeking to steal. So from the moment you stole that briefcase, you were on my radar and effectively walking into a trap.” “GRRRRRRRR..” Circe shoved her anger and her volume deep down inside herself. “Typical hero,” she spat. “You claim to be for the greater good, but you’re just as selfish as the rest of us.” Glitch fiddled with the lace apron straps. “Um…no? I’m inventing new technology to revolutionize broadcasting, communication, and hearing. You’re trying to sew discord and stuff. We are not the same.” “So you’re not getting paid?” Circe smirked, starting to enjoy the battle of words. She’d bait this girl into doing something stupid. “Not as much as I should be getting paid,” Glitch replied, “but yeah. Saving the world is pro-bono. I still need to eat.” “Spare me,” the Siren rolled her eyes. “Just send me to prison, already.” “Nope.” There was a pause. “No?” “Nope.” “WHAT DO YOU MEAN NO?” More pink! Why was it always pink?! Glitch put a finger to her temple and one of her irises turned bright blue like a computer screen booting up. “That scream was pink, too, wasn’t it?” Circe gave no response. Her face was enough of a tell. “Iiiiiinteresting. To answer your questions, your voice is coming out ‘pink’ because of the collar I put on you.” “What collar?” The television screen above her patched through to what could only have been the cyborg hero’s point of view. Around Circe’s neck was a delicately thin pink ribbon with a decorative heart shape in the middle; a choker of sorts. “This isn’t a standard power neutralizing collar.” It was so thin that she hadn’t noticed the foreign (and only) article of clothing until she saw it on the screen. The younger woman suppressed a proud grin. “Yeah. Nah. Those things are too bulky. Lowest bidder tech. You’d find a way to break it or pick the lock or something and break out.” This was true… Circe had been counting on that. “So, I made you a new one. Synthesized your hydra skin costume and got rid of the fire weakness. Oh yeah, apologies for burning up your hydra skin costume. It was the only way I could get it off of you while you were unconscious.” Hearing that her costume had been destroyed bothered her. It felt like more of a violation than just laying naked on a metal slab. ““LET ME GO!” Glitch ignored her and went on. “Thanks to the decades of data you’ve provided the superhero community, I’ve been able to isolate the unique frequency that your voice operates on when you’re singing or screaming. That little heart around your neck is constantly scanning and anytime it picks up something coming from you that is either too loud or too similar to your songs, it turns the sound ‘pink’ instead. Your sonic screams work on the same basic principle of sound manipulation, just kind of inverted, so it was easy enough to modify those too.” “Why pink?” Circe asked. “Couldn’t have you seducing everyone in earshot by turning into their crush or making them think you were a dying loved one, could I? I chose the vibrational frequency that would do the least damage.” “What does pink do?” A bit of confusion crossed Glitch’s face. “You don’t know?” “I mean… I know what it does, but do you? Did your data or calculations tell you the exact power of pink? Are you prepared for it?” Circe was both a fantastic liar and a godawful one. She’d grown so used to manipulating minds through her particular brand of magic that she’d all but forgotten how to bluff the old fashioned way. “You really don’t know, do you?” Glitch asked. “Heh. Heh-heh. You don’t know your own powers!” Glitch started to lose composure and began laughing quietly yet condescendingly. “You poor thing! Has all of your havoc through the years been the result of poor impulse control and guess work?” “SHUT UP!” The hero's eyes went pure white, glazed over and static filled. “Compiling all known data and running through psycho analytic profiling algorithm,” she said. Circe saw a glimpse of binary code flash by. Maybe even some two’s. One second later Glitch’s pupils came back and she gasped. “It has!” Glitch smacked her own forehead, seeming reminiscent of a teacher or nanny that finally understands a childish misconception. “You’re not a super villain, you’re a victim of your own lack impulse and insecurities!” She gave a full belly laugh, folding her hands over the pristine white apron and doubling over in hilarity. Stupid Glitch! Stupid ex-sidekick! Stupid know it all technology user! Stupid hero! Stupid..stupid…STUPID! “SHUT UP YOU BRAT!” The super-scientist stopped laughing, yet a smug, somewhat cruel smile remained. “Oh yeah. That. You calling me a brat gave me an idea…” The Siren suddenly did not like the look on her younger foe’s face. “All things considered, I think you’re the real brat, Circe.” Circe flinched at being called her real name instead of her proper title. What was more embarrassing, the Siren realized, was that she couldn’t return the insult. “I was going to just humiliate you before I dropped you off at the nearest police precinct with a note…or maybe the nearest metahuman preschool.” Preschool? What was that about? ”But the more I’m figuring out about you and your powers, the more opportunities I’m seeing for advancement.” “Do your worst,” the Siren sneered. “I was once imprisoned in the Hell Pits of Malboge!” “Yeah,” her captor said bluntly. “You were twenty three then, and haven’t grown from any of those experiences, successes, or defeats. I was looking to embarrass you. I’m not going to break you. I might actually end up helping you.” “You? Help me?” The supervillain scoffed. “Get real. How?” “For starters?” Glitch replied. “A new wardrobe.” Her arm tattoos lit up, buzzing almost as brightly as the fluorescent lights above, and the sounds of something just out of eyesight moving haunted Circe’s ears. “Fuck you!” Circe spat. She could feel the slab tilting back. “Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, fuck yoooooou!” She tilted her head back as far as she could and rolled her eyes to see behind her. A panel in the floor had slid open, revealing only a deep dark hole with only empty blackness inside. In seconds she was hanging upside down at a forty five degree angle. “FUCK YOU!” “See you on the other side. Brat.” With a snap of her fingers, the restraints released, sending Circe sliding into the abyss. “FUCK YOOOOOOOU!” Down she plummeted, yet never did she achieve freefall. It turned out that the hole she’d been dumped in was dark, but not close to empty. Slipping and twisting and turning; corkscrewing backwards and forwards, Circe braced and gripped at the sides with everything she had but couldn’t get a grip. Friction was not on her side. Either this ramp was greased up beyond belief or it was made of a frictionless substance. Given where she was, she supposed the latter. The darkness was disorienting and her increasingly pinkish screams and gasps fell on deaf ears. She had no idea how long this insane roller coaster would last. A sudden sudzy splash, head first, gave the villain a new metaphor. “A water slide?” Circe’s lips drew back from her teeth. A bit of bitter, metallic tasting, almost burning liquid had slipped into her mouth. If this was a water slide, someone had gone overboard on the chlorine. She brushed her sopping silver hair out of her eyes, and cursed when she tried to open them. “Agh! Soap!” That explained the taste. A dry piece of terry cloth dabbed at her eyes and she was able to see. “Thanks,” she said accidentally. “I mean-!” But when her vision cleared there was no one in front of her. “Huh?” Lights snapped on, forcing the drenched and sudsy Siren to squint and force her eyes to focus. Looking back up at the slide, a ride that didn’t seem so hazardous now that she was at the bottom and could see- she estimated that she’d traveled only twenty-five to thirty feet vertically. She felt her skin take on a more pinkish hue. Speaking of pink, the walls around her were a kind of rosy salmon colored. Calming, gentle colors to the point of boredom. At about waist height, she noticed a white border going around the room’s perimeter. Stenciled in the border were simple shapes like circles, triangles, squares, stars, and hearts, all in the same calming salmon. Three of the four walls were solid, and other than the oddly childish border running along the middle, and an open doorway, they seemed fairly unassuming. The fourth wall wasn’t, with a pane of glass peeking out into a well lit hallway. It reminded Circe of the viewing glass window in a hospital’s newborn unit. Thankfully, no one was in the hallway. If they were, they would have seen her standing naked, waist deep in a large jacuzzi like vat with bubbles providing the only form of modesty. Modesty, at the moment, didn’t matter so much; escape did. The Siren made it three sloshing shuffling steps. Little did she know that right behind her, like a sea monster rising from the depths, a robotic manacle was rising up from the suds. Before she could so much as swing a leg over the rim of the tub, Circe heard and then felt a definitive click as.the massive steel cuff locked itself around her waist. “The fuck?” “Ah ah ah,” Glitch’s voice was piped in from an unseen speaker. “Don’t want you falling down. You could get hurt.” “Keep talking, brat…” Circe growled. “See what happens.” “Just relax. Enjoy your bath. Get pampered….” Circe didn’t understand the chuckle that followed. She would soon. The manacle around her waist dragged her splashing and screaming back to the center of the tub. Where the previous terry cloth had come from became immediately evident. Panels in the ceiling were coming down and robotic hands lowered from them armed with towels, wash cloths, and bars of soap to spare. The only thing they were missing was little white gloves. Right above the still unoccupied viewing window, An electronic sign came to life. “BATHING…” it read. “What is this?” Circe demanded. “A FUCKING CARTOON?” “No,” Glitch’s voice chimed back in. “Though cartoons would be very appropriate, all things considered.” The Siren would have dropped another F-Bomb, but a mechanical arm forced open her jaw so that another could shove a spare bar of soap into it. She tried to spit it out but the extra appendages held her arms down and the bar firmly pressed in. Trying not to retch her tongue retreated up and back to the roof of her mouth to keep her from either tasting or swallowing the stuff. The next few burbled screams came out as pink, too. Washcloths and towels whirled around her and scrubbed her skin just roughly enough to be uncomfortable at the intrusion. Shoulders, armpits, breasts, bellybutton, and behind her ears were all attended to; more sensitive and delicate areas were not spared. Simultaneously shampoo was massaged into her scalp and rinsed off. Some kind of advanced filtration system wicked the bubbles out of the pool as soon as they were rinsed off her body. The soap came out and she was allowed to wash her mouth with the last bit of rinse water falling atop her. A final spit almost banished the terrible taste. Almost. The water didn’t drain as much as it dropped out of the massive tub through fine grating on the bottom of the floor. Circe hadn’t felt the grating before. The bottom must have dropped out from underneath her with only grating left to hold her weight. “Wouldn’t a hose and delousing powder work better?” Circe complained. She was dripping and miserable. The air conditioning made her shudder, and she resembled less like a person and more like an alley cat that had gotten caught in a sudden downpour. WOOOOOOOOSH! In place of a smart aleck reply from the techno-brat, deafening gusts of hot air erupted out of the floor and blasted her hair up like Frankenstein’s Bride. A second blast from the ceiling pushed her hair back down. Fluffy towels came spinning and softly dabbed away the few remaining water droplets. The electric sign above the viewing window flashed. “Drying.” “Very funny.” Circe said. “You’re trying to teach me a lesson by putting me through a glorified car wash.” “Wait for it,” Glitch came in over the speakers. A buzzing noise signaled another change on the sign. “Hair styling?!” The mechanical appendages returned, now wielding scissors, spray bottles, razors, cream and curlers. The manacle on her waist held her fast, while terrible, invasive hands erupted from the floor to hold her legs and arms steady. “STAY THE FU-!” Circe started to scream. A bar of soap riddled with teeth marks lowered from the ceiling and she corrected herself before it was lodged back in. “Fuuuuuuudge!” “She’s learning!” Circe’s building anger and resentment at the know-it-all’s taunting were the only thing keeping her calm while the mechanical monstrosities cut, brushed, curled her hair. The cream and razors weren’t for her head. Not just her legs, either… When the job was done and everything was left, A full body mirror was transported in from a side panel. The only hair left on the Siren’s body was right on top of her head, and in place of her long seductive locks, were snowy curls that bobbed up and down around her ears and over her forehead. Every other follicle had been shaved down to a molecule with laser sharpened steel. “I look like a toddler!” she gasped. “Mmmmhmmm…” Glitch said. “Guess what’s next?” The styling arms ascended and another buzz from the sign above the viewing window drew Circe’s attention. “Diapering?!” This had to be a joke. There was no way the superhero was serious about this! Had to be a typo. That bitch couldn’t possibly- But she could. The mobile restraints lifted Circe into the air as easily as if she were a ragdoll and held her parallel to the floor until another slab raised up beneath her. Only the manacle around her waist released itself, and that was only so that a similar metal tendrel could wrap around her, securing her. The hands that had been lifting her were similarly traded out. This particular table was the same base rectangular shape as the one she awoke on, but was much softer. Not quite so soft as a bed, however. It was closer to the sturdy couches of a state mandated psychologist’s office or the massage tables of a five star resort she’d once sung herself into. This was neither of those things she realized. “Is that a diaper?” The Siren cried out looking at the ceiling. The hands had returned, and in them was a neatly folded, thick, fluffy, shining white plastic backed diaper. If she had any doubt about it, the bottle of baby powder and the jar of diaper rash cream sent the message home. “I AM NOT WEAR-!” The pacifier that zoomed in cut off the rest of her sentence. The moment the rubber bulb came into contact with Circe’s tongue it started rapidly inflating, filling her mouth until it was impossible to spit out, yet alone suckle on it. It was more akin to a ball gag with a cute little mouth guard and knob at the end. She looked down past her nose and caught a glimpse of lilypad green. At least it wasn’t pink… The massive diaper was unfolded and her legs were forced up by the tendrils keeping her restrained to the robotic changing table. She was helpless to resist. Of all the times that her legs had been hoisted up over her head (very few since she preferred cowgirl), this was by far the worst. The thick, smelly diaper cream had an unpleasant smell that reminded her of hospitals. Circe could only moan around her bulb, while the goop was pasted onto and between her cheeks. The cold yet dry baby powder that followed had a pleasant aroma that calmed her down. Her bottom was lowered down onto the diaper, and she became intensely aware of the thick padding that crinkled beneath her. Some extra powder was dusted on her now hairless mound and sprinkled onto her belly button for good measure. Inhaling more and more of the perfumed dust, Circe felt more and more of the fight go out of her. Her breathing slowed. Her fists unclenched. She stopped testing the strength of the restraints every three seconds. She was completely aware, but much of the fear and outrage and emotion was gone; numbed. The monster in her was silent and she became a curious observer in her own body. She lifted her head and examined herself as the diaper was brought up between her legs. An adult diaper, obviously, but…not? It had four tapes to accommodate her wider more womanly hips, but there was a childish decoration, a blue dog on the front. Only baby diapers had cute little decorations on them; likely so as to not repulse the poor parents tasked with changing them. No self-respecting adult would wear something this obviously infantile. Circe was beginning to wonder if she had such a thing as self-respect. “That’s right,” Glitch’s voice came back in. “Breathe deep, baby girl. Smells nice, doesn’t it?” Reluctantly, Circe nodded her head. “This should make the rest of the process go much smoother. I figured you were immune to pure hypnotism given your background, so I whipped up a little cocktail to help you relax. Nothing like a little aromatic chemical restraint.” Aromatic chemical restraint. Her mind, foggy as it was parsed the words out. The baby powder. She was being drugged. She should be afraid, the Siren realized, but couldn’t muster the effort. Better to just lay here. In her nice, snug, and comfy diaper. “Good girl,” the speakers whispered. “I’d leave you like this but you’re not likely to learn anything. Enjoy it while it lasts.” Joy, or any strong emotion was beyond Circe by the time the board changed to “Feeding” A bottle came down and the pacifier was removed. Circe’s slackened jaw did not try to resist the fresh nipple as it was inserted between her lips. Completely aware, but powerless to resist, she suckled lightly on the milk, letting it dribble and drip down into her mouth and swallowing. Dribbles and drips turned to trickles turned to gushes. Practically of their own volition, her lips started sucking and draining the overly large bottle while her belly extended. The rubber teat slipped out as easily as it had gone in and the last bits of milk leaked down the sides of Circe’s lips. The tendrils propped her up. She read the flashing sign. “Burping.” A foam paddle in place of a warm hand did the deed, patting her back up and down her spine until she inevitably burst. “BLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARCHK!” The hands came down a final time to lift the diapered and bloated woman up into the air and deposit her in a newly arrived crib. The pacifier found its way back into her mouth, but didn’t inflate so much that it hurt the second time. The sign flashed one final word that Circe was able to read. “Nap.” Nap? Already? Well…alright. She felt uncomfortably full. Sleep would dull the sensations, no doubt. Something must have been in the milk. The viewing window rushed by Circe while an unseen force propelled the adult sized crib through the singular doorway. On the other side of the threshold was a room very similar to the one she’d existed, but much less sparsely decorated. She caught sight of a giant highchair, a large baby bouncer and of course, a more proper looking changing table with shelves stacked full of the same babyish print diapers that she now wore. It still had the same salmon colored paint job and preschool level shapes stenciled in along the border. Her ever dimming view was cut off by Glitch. “Welcome to the nursery, bratty baby girl.” Circe finally understood the frilly white apron: Major nanny vibes. The younger hero stared at her wrist. “Everything should be kicking in about three…two…one…” Circe’s knees bent and raised up to her stomach. Without meaning to, she felt herself start to push. The once feared villainess was passing muffled farts and more. Warm, mushy stool shot out of her and into the back of her once clean diaper, causing it to balloon out slightly to accommodate. She was pooping but too stoned to care. Her bladder finally relaxed for good measure, soaking the padding between her legs and mingling with the mess for a moment before being completely absorbed. “Right on time,” Glitch said. “Go ahead,” she coaxed. “Sleep. The bottle and the powder should conk you out for an hour or two. Rest up. You’ll need it.” Rest. Yes. That sounded good. And this crib and these ‘clothes’ felt oddly comfortable, even in their current state. “Okay everyone,” Glitch called. “Experiment complete. Cloaking fields off.” Circe managed to see the viewing window to the giant nursery fill with the blinking forms of a dozen or so scientists in white lab coats deactivating personal invisibility devices. Her complete and total degradation had been witnessed and likely documented by those pathetic sheep. Sleep was now more than a relaxing suggestion, but a much needed emotional retreat inside herself. She woke up, Circe promised herself, she’d find a way to get out of this and make Glitch pay. Glitch, that upstart. That brat. That….that….that…

I appreciate the discussion, but it's veering too far away from its initial purpose. I am asking for anyone who wants to discuss the merits of historical morality to continue it elsewhere. The next time I post in this thread I would hope for it to be another chapter.

You know what? Fair enough. That Edison one was probably a bad example. Though from what I understand, AC won out mostly because the infrastructure required to use it was cheaper. So those in power were willing to listen. On history, and I do NOT want to get into a debate and this is more or less unrelated to Unfair: I think a better way to look at it is to look at it forwards instead of backwards. Examine everything that happened before that lead up to certain standards and mindsets and ethical codes of conduct. Not as an excuse, but as context and understanding of what might have been going on that lead to a particular way of thinking. I think that "different standards" or "for the time" is dangerous as an excuse to mythologize historical figures by talking about the accomplishments they made while sweeping away the things that wouldn't make them look so good by today's standards. I sincerely hope that future generations will look on us with such wonder and contempt and wonder what was going on in our heads because of how much progress they've made as a society.

Fuck it. I feel like breaking one of my own rules just now, and giving some perspective. Just a fun bit of historical information for people, if they're interested. I shared this on my patreon around this chapter, so I thought people might like it here, too. When you think about it, science does NOT have a good track record with regards to psychology, psychiatry, and neurological stuff. Anything where there's people observing other people, a TON of bias is gonna come in. ESPECIALLY if the people are already seen or treated as "less than". ESPECIALLY if previous bias has already been established as fact. Phrenology, the "study" of bumps on the head and its shape to determine someone's personality and intelligence, came about and was used as a way to justify white people's superiority to literally anyone else (but specifically black people). People in power had long decided that people not in power were inherently inferior and made up a whole pseudo-science to explain the conclusion they had already reached. (Sound familiar?) Hysteria used to be considered a legit medical diagnosis, more often attributed to women who didn't get banged enough and that made them irrational, anxious, prone to seizure and fainting, hallucinations, and emotionally volatile. Basically any time a woman acted how they "weren't supposed to act", it was attributed to this magical condition involving their uterus. Prominent French neurologists, Charcot, thought hysteria was something that could be inherited and carried but events could trigger its latent activation. (Sound familiar?) In the 1970's the Rosenhan experiment had about a dozen people go into various mental institutions for an appointment saying they were concerned. They were given enough info on how to fake having schizophrenia for the interview process. Then as soon as they were admitted, they ceased the behaviors and acted normally. Yet everything they did after the point of admission was attributed to their schizophrenia. Some of them took notes out in the open about everything they were seeing and observing. That was also attributed to their schizophrenia. They couldn't get released until they confessed to a psychiatrist that they were mentally ill and then agreed to take antipsychotic medication...that they covertly flushed down the toilet. There was no privacy, random searches, condescension, sometimes viewing them going to the bathroom. The general consensus was that while the staff at these places were generally well meaning, there was still an overall feeling of dehumanization, objectification and dare I say it...infantilization? (That last one was my choice of words but...sound familiar?) The moment these "pseudopatients" as they called themselves were given the label of "schizophrenia", that became their key defining attribute and literally everything they did was explained by that attribute. (Sound familiar?) We see these beliefs as quaint and antiquated and obviously false now, but the people living in these times didn't. It was fact to them. The stories of people "discovering things and changing the way we think" are often not actually a matter of brave geniuses that cracked an unsolvable code that was heretofore completely mistranslated. They are about people who were able to spread their particular ideas to a society and power structure that was ready to listen. But ONLY when enough people- and more importantly the ones in power-were ready to listen. The Earth was the center of the universe, because of course we were. We're the only ones here and have you seen how awesome we are? Why wouldn't we be the center and have a nice shiny ball of light go around us? We are not immune to our own confirmation biases. Edison convinced people alternating current electricity was more deadly and dangerous than his own direct current by killing an elephant with it. Not to get political, but whether you are "right wing" or "left wing", look at the other side and think about how you feel about them? Betcha the most charitable thing you think of is something close to "they're stupid and misinformed". But know that they're thinking the same thing about you. We are not immune to propaganda. This is not an anti-science stance. This is not "both sides are as bad as the other". This isn't even "believe what you believe". Within the world of Unfair; Maturosis may be very real and the Amazons closest to Clark are grieving in the way that some people grieve when a loved one has dementia, a stroke, or a traumatic brain injury. Same body, but in so many ways its a different person and you're afraid that the old one that you loved is never coming back. Or it could be a codified system of oppression that has been pushed so hard that anyone shorter than an Amazon is scene as automatically less adult and needs to be "cared for" at the slightest sign of slippage is taken as fact like the sun going around the Earth. Clark's anger and frustration may be completely justified. Because his friends don't see him, only the fake diagnosis that got slapped on him. So is Tracy's extreme reluctance to get involved in a system that doesn't inherently target her but COULD take an unhealthy interest in her if she pokes her nose in too deeply. Humans can be wrong because they're operating under presuppositions due to cultural and personal biases put there by incomplete information, propaganda and people's generally innate desire to be right. And I have endeavored to make the cast of characters that reside in Oakshire very, very, human while still capturing a lot of the features and spirit of the Diaper Dimension. I will never answer whether or not Maturosis is real within this story, because whether it is or not isn't the point of the story. I chose to write this from first person POV because I did not want to give the appearance of objective fact. Clark's hurting here. And his pain is real in this moment. But that doesn't necessarily mean that everyone involved in his forced babying is stupid or acting in bad faith. How many times has Clark been wrong in this story, already? Remember when he thought Amy was just another mind fucked Little without a thought in her head?

Thank you for noticing the title and pointing it out!

He's basically saying that he wanted the pacifier and reached for it because she didn't clip it on his shirt. And flustered Janet was about to say that he would have complained if she'd done that. Playing the contrarian card to distract her from the cinnamon he'd smuggled.

Chapter 88: A Wake The rest of that afternoon and evening went about as I expected. I slept peacefully until about half past two; closer to a quarter till three. I might have even had some good dreams, though I couldn’t quite remember. It was a relief to sleep without worrying that a piece of Amazon tech was quietly conditioning me. Or having to listen to Billy and Chaz’s snoring. Very refreshing. Jessica came in and put the monitor back in its place. And I timed things right so that I wouldn’t have to choose between an aching bladder and sitting in a wet diaper until dinner. Janet got home about half an hour after and Jessica gave her the most basic of rundowns. She left out the not-quite-revelation she’d had before Barnaby’s and the diner incident after. She did mention that I’d only had a bottle of milk so far and that I should be hungry. My stomach agreed. Lastly, she presented the bags of new and stylish children’s clothes. Even said “Ta-da!” Janet seemed pleased, but sad at the same time. All those clothes were just a silver lining to a very dark cloud hovering over her. “Thanks,” Janet said. “You’re a good friend. I’ll call you tomorrow and talk about some stuff.” “You know it.” Jessica left and Janet’s walls came right back up. She found new places for the clothes to hang and new drawers to stuff. She cooked dinner with extra portions and let me feed myself with an extra large spoon. Gave me some time to myself, bathed me, and put me to bed. The entire time she was quiet. I imagined there were babysitter drones more talkative to her. So quiet. I tried once with an awkward, “How was your day, Janet?” “Good.” She said it in such a way that I felt afraid to ask any follow up questions. Damn it, why was I still trying with her? Fuck. I’d just finished my nightly ritual of a thousand Hate Janet’s and was settling in for the night. Sleep wouldn’t come, in part because of the extra long nap I’d had, so I just laid there and tossed and turned. Hoping to lose consciousness before my body told me that I wasn’t going to be allowed to sleep until I emptied something. My ears started to twitch and my eyes opened when I heard something unusual. Normally, if I heard anything, it’d be the muffled sound of the living room television just loud enough to know if it was on, and maybe if it went to commercial, but too indistinct to make out what Janet was actually watching. That was a best case scenario. Tonight, the television wasn’t on and I could hear the door being open and shut. I detected the faint echoes of a door being heavily shut and locked, and the sound of voices. I couldn’t hear the words, but the cadence was easy enough. Hello’s, how are you’s, and thanks for coming’s. Awkward transitionary small talk stuff. Rough day. Me too. Maybe something about eating or offering drinks. A polite refusal. That sort of thing. Their voices faded as they moved through the house, looking for somewhere to sit. I guessed that they were going to the kitchen. I would have been able to hear them slightly better if they were in the living room just at the far end of the hall. I was probably able to guess the rough basics of the introductions because of how well I knew both voices. I’d know them anywhere from almost any distance. There was Janet, of course. And…Beouf? What was Beouf doing here? I sat up and stood on the mattress, grabbing the bars. I leaned forward and closed my eyes in a pointless attempt to somehow increase the range of my hearing. Yeah, that wasn’t working. I was probably strong enough to climb up and out of the crib despite my widened gate and the tremendous mattress give, but I had no way to get back in when I was done eavesdropping If they were discussing punishment -and why wouldn’t they be- would it really be worth it to add to my mounting offenses? Part of me thought yes. In for a penny and all that. BEEEEP! My head whipped sideways to the baby monitor. It’d never done THAT before. Was it supposed to be some kind of motion detector or something? Something to alert or discourage me from getting out? Next gen blanket training? No. Impossible. I’d stood up in bed all the time. “- ease don’t call me that, Mrs. Beouf.” Janet’s voice cut in from the monitor. I slapped my hand over my mouth lest I scream. Was this happening? Was this really happening?! “Please,” Beouf’s voice rang in. “call me Melony, or Mel. Or at least Mrs. B. like the kids do.” It was happening. It was really happening. My two ex-friends were talking and I was able to listen in without lifting a finger. Janet had done the ultimate rookie parent blunder and installed the wrong end of the baby monitor in my room. I moved over to the foot of the crib and leaned closer so that I could hang on every word, every detail. Through the monitor I heard Janet exhale. The sound was that good. From the slight echo, I determined my guess was right. They were in the kitchen. “Fine, she huffed. “Please don’t call me his Mommy right now, Mel. I don’t feel like I’ve earned the right.” Her voice cracked a little bit with emotion. “He doesn’t even call me Mommy unless he wants something.” “But you are,” Beouf insisted. “You’re his Mommy and you’re doing your best.” I could just imagine Beouf sitting on an adjacent side of the kitchen table, reaching out and trying to comfort Janet by touching her arm or patting her shoulder. Then tentatively looking at the empty highchair like I was there. “My best isn’t good enough, Melony. It’s just not.” Janet sounded like she was on her way to a long heavy sob. Good, or so I told myself. “I’m not good enough.” Damn right. Beouf probably took Janet’s hands and folded them into her own. “Easy honey, I get it,” she said. She lowered her voice to a stage whisper, not that it avoided detection. “But keep it down. He’s sleeping. He might still be awake.” There in my crib, I let loose with a big, maniacal smile. They were talking about me. I’d suspected that they’d talked about me a lot and often. In this moment I could hear for myself, with nothing filtered out or added in for my supposed benefit. This was a rare kind of power to have. I was thrilling in it. “He won’t hear,” Janet said, regaining some composure. Little did she know. “He’s never once cried out. He’s a deep sleeper.” A sudden revelation came to me. If Janet had messed up and put the wrong end of the monitor in my nursery, then she hadn’t heard any of my whispered hates late at night. Not one. It also meant that I wasn’t being hypnotized by the monitor. Amazons bought into their own hype and were drowning in their own propaganda, Beouf in particular, but they’d never willingly mind fuck themselves with their own products. “That’s good at least,” Beouf accidentally echoed my own conclusion. “But that’s it,” I heard Janet moping. “That’s where it stops. And I’m a horrible Mommy and he knows it. That’s why he’s rejecting me.” Her tone had shifted into a kind of depressing deadpan. All of the desperation with eighty percent fewer volume. “And it’s not his fault, but it’s taking everything I can just to keep a straight face and not scream at him or cry or something.” “I know, Jan. I know.” I let out a quiet little, “Heh”, and kept listening. It was like I was back at a good old fashioned teacher to teacher bitching session. This time it just so happened to be about me. “At least he was good for my friend, Jessica,” my would-be Mommy sighed. “But that only makes it worse because he goes out of his way to be horrible to me. What did I do?” It was fortunate that I was across the house. I might have let her know. “No, he’s not rejecting you,” Beouf lied to the both of them, “He’s just got some big feelings and-” “Cut the bull, Melony,” Janet interrupted. “Nothing in those meetings or the pamphlets or anything like that is working.” There was silence. Beouf didn’t know what to say. I could just imagine her eyes going wide behind her glasses and her lips puckering like a fish out of water. Janet kept on. “He’s…I hate saying this, Mel, but he’s awful. He’s spiteful. He’s manipulative. He’s just mean.” There was a brief silence. Just a beat. “It’s like he goes out of his way to make everybody around him miserable and then claims that he’s an adult like it explains his behavior and should be rewarded.” “Yeah,” Beouf added a sigh to the conversation. “ I know. I know. Same with in class. I have to give him to Hana sometimes just to make it through the day. I think he likes her better now because he liked her less before.” And that’s how I learned Zoge’s first name. Also, honestly? Beouf was probably right on that part. “Zoge’s not a shock to him.” “Why, though?” I heard Janet sniffle. “Why are we ‘the shock?’” “It’s probably how he sees things, now,” Beouf said. “Amazons in general and us in particular.” I imagined she was shrugging ruefully in a what-can-you-do sort of way. “Sometimes Littles going through this spike can get aggressive. Especially to the people they knew before the flare up. They don’t care that they’re being taken care of or that the care is coming from a place of love and necessity. They just fixate on how they’re not all that mature anymore and make the real adults in their lives out to be evil. He’s acting out because he wants us to be the bad guys and thinks that acting like how he sees us will make him a Grown-Up again.” I found a pacifier and bit down in it as hard as I could so that I wouldn’t scream at the crock of shit Beouf had just spilled out of her mouth. Misplaced monitor or not, it wouldn’t do for me to scream out my frustrations and risk detection. How had I not seen this from Beouf before? Was I really that blind? Or was I just that in need of a social bodyguard and deliberately looked the other way? “That doesn’t make sense,” Janet said. I pointed directly at the monitor as if Janet might feel my acknowledgement of her point. ”Nope,” Beouf replied. “No it doesn’t. That’s Maturosis, sometimes. Littles with it don’t always make sense. Kids don’t always make sense. Doesn’t mean we refuse to help.” My hair was in my hands and I was tugging so hard I might have ripped it out. My impromptu I.E.P. discussion had turned into a faux doctor’s consultation, and the quack in question only had one diagnosis for everything. How convenient. How Typical. “Is it going to last forever? Is it always going to be this way? I want to be his Mommy, not his monster.” She sounded like a parishioner asking a high priest for guidance and forgiveness. All hail the church of the Little Voices… The faintest creak came across the monitor’s speakers, as if someone was leaning back in their chair. “I don’t think so,” Beouf said. “I think it’ll get better.” She sounded very sure of herself. “Why?” Janet said. I leaned forward, eager and terrified. What machinations did that bitch have up her sleeve? If I could predict, I could prepare. I could brace myself if not completely sabotage. “Clark is definitely turning into one of my most challenging cases,” my ex-mentor said with surety, “but he’s not the most challenging I’ve ever had.” “Who is? Or was?” Janet sounded like she was calming down, no longer on the verge of sobbing. A pity. She was being drawn into Beouf’s story as much as I was. Simultaneously I tried to scoff and hold my breath. Somewhere deep in my massive ego I was insulted that some poor mindfucked doll of Beouf’s past haunted her more than I did. Still, it could be fun to learn about the past. Maybe I could replicate or adapt a few things to up my game and figure out where my predecessor went wrong. “She was a Little girl I had a couple years ago,” Beouf said. “Named Amy.” My pacifier fell out of my mouth and I banged my forehead accidentally on the wooden bars. I reeled back and stumbled over my heels onto my rump. It was more from surprise than pain, but I was seeing stars. “Amy?!” Janet sounded as surprised as me. “Amy Madra?! That Amy?!” From the sound of things, Janet didn’t know whether to laugh with relief or laugh to call out Beouf’s claim.” “Yup.” I could practically hear Beouf nodding again. “She’s a sweet Little thing now but you have no idea how bad she was when she started out.” Beouf was right. I had no idea. Amy the nuisance and nutter? Amy the girl who had been crying in my time out all those years ago? Animal fact Amy? Eat gum off the floor Amy? That Amy? Little Voices Amy? Zoo Amy? My Amy? “You’re joking,” Janet said plainly. I stayed seated, worried that the crinkle of my movement might magically obscure whatever happened next. Beouf answered Janet with a question. “Are she and her Mommy still regulars at the Little Voices meetings? They got really into that, I remember.” “Yeah,” Janet said. She sniffled slightly. I thought I heard the tear of a paper towel. An improvised tissue. “Helena and I took them on a playdate to the zoo.” “Thought so.” Beouf sounded even more confident. “Just before she graduated she developed an attachment to one of my classroom stuffies. This purple octopus with a top hat. She named it Jessinnia. Clark used that name for it and I just knew. Darn near gave me flashbacks for a second.” “But she’s so sweet.” “Now she is,” Beouf let out a light chuckle. “It was rough at first. Very rough. Clark is a lion, but Amy was a dragon baby.” “That bad?” Janet’s disbelief and curiosity nearly mirrored my own. Our emotions, however, were likely inverses. She was gaining amusement and hope. I was swapping out mine for dread. Another creak. Beouf was getting more and more relaxed in the kitchen chair. “That bad and worse,” she said. “Did the same kind of stuff that Clark’s doing right now. Wound up the teachers and students with nonsense and mean-spirited games and tricks. Played innocent so that we kept giving her the benefit of the doubt.” Yeah….that was my playbook alright. The pacifier found its way back between my lips. I needed to do something to feel like I had some kind of control or autonomy. The pacifier was the only option at the moment. “One time,” Beouf continued, “she got eight other kids to all play ‘kitty-cat’ on the playground. They were just crawling around on the ground trying to rub up against Zoge’s and my legs and trip us up.” Holy crap! Why hadn’t I thought of that? That would have been such a great answer to the physical therapy conditioning and Chaz could have played, too. “Oh yeah?” A note of competitiveness crept into Janet’s words. “Did she gag herself with cinnamon?” Janet wanted me to be the worst kid. Beouf let out another quiet, slightly rueful chuckle. “Nope. Didn’t have to. She had a gluten allergy. All she had to do was steal a leftover grilled cheese that one of the other kids snuck to her and hide it in her diaper. Then she downed it and puked. I think Ivy tried to stop her and got bit for it. Such a mess. Got everywhere. Picture day, too.” My face was buzzing and burning. My breaths were getting deeper and slower like I was trying to stop myself breathing. My greatest act of rebellion, my masterstroke…was a repeat? A rerun? “Holy shit.” Janet’s voice was low and awestruck. “Do you think she told him to do it? They see each other almost every week.” “If she did,” Beouf told Janet, “I don’t think she did it on purpose or with any bad intent. She’s very happy and good as far as I know. It might not even be Amy. Clark might have heard me bitching about it back when it happened and tucked it away. Hard to say.” Incorrect. No, no, and no. False. I never knew or forgot about that and came up with the plan the night before. But was the act really mine, if it wasn’t original or if it was subconsciously inspired? “Amy didn’t try to get others in on it, though,” Beouf admitted. “Should have seen that coming.” That made me feel a bit better. “I slipped up and accidentally called him Gibson too. Sorry.” That made me feel ecstatic. Same plan but better was still better. “That’s not going to help things,” Janet moaned. “He probably thinks he’s closer to growing up or something.” “Probably.” “How’d you help Amy?” Janet asked. “What did the trick?” My jubilation died down. I needed to know and listen. If Amy was as bad as Beouf said she’d been and she was who she was now, what hope did I have of escaping that fate? An image of myself flashed across my mind: Gap toothed and drooling, crawling around aimlessly and content. Eating whatever I could find on the floor and calling Janet ‘Mommy’ unironically. I shuddered in revulsion at the very possibility. “No trick,” Beouf said. “Just patience, persistence, love, and boundaries. She kept escalating and escalating. Zoge and I kept containing and redirecting. Eventually, she just sort of burned herself out and she mellowed; started being a sweet baby. Took about half a year and then things started looking up. She was ready to graduate by the end of Spring. One of my biggest challenges but also one of my biggest success stories.” Amy? Give up? Burn out? That didn’t track at all. That wasn’t the nutter who had pestered me at every opportunity. Beouf was holding something back; had to be. “That doesn’t make any sense.” It was like Janet was reading my mind. “Wasn’t there some kind of ‘Aha’ Moment or lightbulb? For either of you?” “Not for her,” Beouf said. A slight jostling and a thud came over the monitor. One or both of them were leaning forward with their elbows on the table. “That’s just how Maturosis is sometimes. She and her Mommy had some kind of breakthrough and she’s been a sweetheart ever since. Shame about her teeth, though.” “Yeah,” Janet said. “What happened with that? Helena doesn’t seem like the type to do that level of cosmetics with a kid.” “Don’t know,” I pictured Beouf shaking her head. “All I remember is that Amy was out of school for a couple days and came back missing those teeth. I brought it up, but Mommy didn’t want to get them fixed. You’ll have to ask Helena for more than that.” I’d known Melony well enough to have a sense of when she was lying by omission. She was keeping something from Janet, but I didn’t think it was the teeth. “Of course,” she told Janet, “If you wanted to ask her, that would mean going to the meetings…” “Okay…fine.” A note of reluctant happiness had wormed its way back into Janet’s voice. “I’ll keep going to the stupid meetings. It’s just annoying because everyone is so cheery and they’ve already got their perfect happy little Littles that want to be themselves.I mostly keep quiet or hold back on what’s going on at home. Everybody else gets cute baby stories. I just feel inferior.” “Talk to Helena,” Beouf replied. “In private if you have to. I bet she’s got some stories for ya.” Stories I might want to hear, too. Could I potentially get the same info from Amy? I’d asked about her teeth before and it was the one time she got close to serious. “I kind of like the lap bounce songs and silly games, anyways.” Janet confessed. “I just wish Clark liked them, too.” “He might like them and not want to admit it,” Beouf took on a consoling approach. “He might not, though. Some kids don’t like that stuff and just want a quiet lap to rest in or for their Mommies and Daddies to watch them show off doing something silly. Maybe Clark is or was one of those kinds of kids the first time around.” “Right now,” Janet groaned, “he’s just a spiteful brat.” I blinked in surprise. That was one of the most honest things I’d heard from Janet Grange. “Janet,” Beouf said, “think about it. Clark’s always been kind of a brat. He’s always loved going up to Forrest or Brollish and poking the bear. He was always a cheeky brat with a bunch of maturity piled on top.” She added a dejected sigh to the air. “Now, all that adulthood has just sunk to the bottom and the brat has floated up to the top.” Janet echoed the sentiment. “Yeah. But he was our cheeky brat. I want him to be that cheeky brat, again. Not…not whatever this is.” I could almost make out her eyes getting all wistful just from how she said it. “He was a great teacher, too” Beouf started to sound annoyed and angry. “Better than that bitch Ambrose, that’s for sure. That woman is a disgrace. Now we can’t even hang out with Tracy most days. I hope she’s coping.” “Tracy’s tough. How did Ambrose even get that job?” “No clue,” I heard Beouf scoff. “Who knows where Brollish gets her pets? She’s definitely not a good teacher. Gods, I wish Clark had never been caught. I’d ignore a thousand missing diapers if it meant he was back in that classroom instead of her.” There was a silence that followed. It was less than a minute, but it felt long and uncomfortable; like Beouf had just said a quiet part out loud. It was a strange compliment for me to hear. Janet broke the silence. “Don’t tell anybody,” she almost whispered, “but… I still let him grade papers sometimes. My mother let me do that when I was a kid, too. I thought it might help bridge the gap or something. It’s one of the few things he still genuinely likes.” “Yeah. I figured you were. I recognize his handwriting and he’s initialing the assignments down at the bottom. Saw it on your desk the other day. “He’s sign…-? Janet’s voice leapt upwards in surprise. She lowered it back down. “You don’t think…? What if…? You know…? Brollish is gunning for him.” “I wouldn’t worry about it. Brollish doesn’t give a damn about basic assignments as long as you’re monitoring them and putting in the correct grades. You’ll be fine.” A grunt came through the monitor. “Devil woman is gunning for me, anyways. Not you. Bitch thought she could buy me off by approving grants and requests she’s been gumming up for years. Fuck her if she thinks she can tell me how to do my job.” “Fuck her in general.” “Amen, sister.” A light clinking of glasses. Beouf had agreed to a drink after all. “Okay,” Janet said. “Okay. What are we gonna do for Clark? Is there anything either of us is missing?” Yet another tired sigh found its way out of Beouf. “Hard to say. I’ve never known a Little before a flare up. That’s what makes all of this so hard. Some mornings I still have to fight the urge to want to sit with him and sip our morning coffee again and complain about nothing in particular.” Her tone fluctuated mid sentence like her nose was clogging. A paper towel tear pretty much confirmed it. “Me too.” Janet’s throat sounded tight. Beouf was still holding on. “Best we can do is wait him out and look for an opening to help. Just hafta do our best. Show him we still love him.” “I loved him before.” “I did too.” A pause. “He was my best friend.” Beouf’s throat was tightening up now. “I went home and cried my eyes out after you took him home.” I heard a honking nose blow. “No offense.” “None taken,” Janet blew her own. “I just wish I’d have told him what a good friend he was and how much I cared about him before all of this happened. I wish I’d met him sooner. He was fun to be around, and I liked him as a person, and it wasn’t just me cosseting.” “Stop…stop…don’t get me started…” Janet didn’t listen. “The last time we talked before his Maturosis flared we had a big fight. I wanted to help him and say I’m sorry and be his Mommy. It just feels like the fight never stopped.” These last few words came out as the tiniest, breathiest squeak; a deathbed confession of sorts. It just wasn’t hers. “I just wish I could go back in time and talk to him before…everything!” The ‘everything’ came out in one big long sob. Before? Before? Why not now! Why not come in and tell me now? Beouf joined the pity party, barely able to speak over her own looming sobs. “I didn’t tell him what a good teacher I thought he was until I’d changed him and put a bottle in his mouth. I had years, Janet! Years to tell him! I knew this could happen. I knew it but I never told him how proud I was or how much I enjoyed just being around him. He was my friend and now I have to pretend like none of that ever happened so he can be happy.” She didn’t make it to the end of that sentence before she sounded like a sobbing mess. “I just want my friend back!” “Me too!” I wasn’t listening in to an I.E.P. meeting or a doctor’s visit or a cult meeting. I was listening into my own funeral. They weren’t saying it in those exact words, but it was as if I’d been dead to them and they were only just now giving themselves time to mourn and grieve and the corpse of my adulthood was entombed in a nearby crib. Listening to the quiet but heavy breathing and nose blowing and gentle sobs of two crazy giantesses trying to give comfort to one another, I felt wetness drip onto my own cheeks. “Janet?” Beouf suddenly said. “Why is that light blinking? “What light?” Janet asked. “The baby monitor. There on the counter.” Beouf had regained her composure and with it came a sense of urgency. I started to crawl back under the crib’s bed sheets. “I always keep the monitor with me when he sleeps,” Janet said defensively. “He’s never needed it, but just in case. This thing is supposed to be portable so I can keep it in earshot.” I waited and listened to the sounds of chairs sliding out and scuffing against the kitchen floor. “Never noticed that before,” Janet’s voice sounded louder; more distorted. She was closer to the receiver. “Is that a low charge light or something? Thought I plugged it in this morning.” “Janet,” Beouf said, sober of all emotions, “this is a King Fisher model. I don’t think that’s the broadcaster. That’s the receiver.” The panic in Janet was instant. “You mean this whole time he’s been listening to…?” “Hush and turn it off!” I spit the pacifier out and closed my eyes. I tried to steady my breathing as gigantic footsteps shuffled in approached. Breath in. Hold. Breath out. Don’t fake snore. Don’t react. The door opened slowly. The light from the hallway was practically a spotlight shining up against my eyelids. I didn’t stir. Breath in. Hold. Breath out. Don’t fake snore. Don’t react. Don’t even stir. “He’s fine,” Janet whispered. “We didn’t wake him. I bet I messed up installing that end, too.” “Okay, come on and close the door,” Beouf beckoned. “Nini, Clark,” Janet said. ”I love you.” “Shhh.” I untensed muscles I hadn’t even known I was tensing when I heard the door click shut. “It’s okay,” I heard Janet say. I knew the cadence of her voice so well that a couple inches of wood wasn’t going to stop me. “I’ve been waking up every night and checking in to tell him that. He sleeps right through it.”

Dear Film Aficionados, The following is a novelization of the rare, never before seen first draft of Pulp Fiction, written but never filmed, wherein Vincent Vega was not killed by Butch. Given that bad things happen to Vincent throughout the film while he’s using the bathroom, Tarantino wrote the below sequence as a kind of epilogue for the Vincent and Mia relationship that would in a lighthearted albeit strange way mirror Butch and Marsellus Wallace’s arc in the pawn shop. Worried that elements of Adult Baby Diaper Lover kink might not sit well with mainstream audiences, Tarantino opted to cut this from his final draft and spend the rest of his career doubling down on the use of racial slurs, eating other people’s food as a power move, and foot fetish. Enjoy. It was on shaky legs that Vincent Vega walked into Marsellus Wallace’s strip club. As with the last time, his boss was just finishing up business. Vincent was pretty sure Wallace planned it that way. You see man exerting power over another man, it was easier for him to hold power over you. “Two things, mother fucker,” Mr. Wallace said loud enough for Vincent to overhear. “One; you take this money, you’re not selling me a loss in the fourth. You’re selling me your pride. You take this money from me and I own your pride. It goes in my back pocket. You sell me your pride and a year from now, you’re living like a prince in Vegas. Understand?” The boxer. A young fella this time, reached for the envelope. “Yessir, Mr. Wallace.” Marellus yanked the money back. “Two: Your girl’s not going to the fight. I’m having one of my boys take care of her. Keep her safe. Just in case.” Vincent grimaced at the not so veiled threat. Not because he found such an insurance policy distasteful; it just reminded him of one of his own fuck ups. “You take this money, you make it to the fourth, your ass goes down. Then my guy pays for dinner and sees your girl home.” For a second time, the guy about to ruin his career for cash reached out. “Got it.” “Say it.” “I take the money. I make it to the fourth. My ass goes down. My girlfriend gets a free dinner.” This time the kid got to take the money. They all took the money if they made it this far. Some days were just a motherfuckin repeat of the last. Unlike the day before, Vincent didn’t have Jules by his side. After all that time misquoting Bible verses before shooting people, Jules finally found God in a diner of all places and was gonna be a bum. How fucked up was that? Now Jules was out of the game. At least, Vincent looked more stylish than last time. His black suit and tie, his working outfit. Way better than the shitty gray t-shirt he was wearing the other day. “You want anything?” The bartender asked Vincent. “Liquid courage?” Vincent played it cool and leaned against the bar. “Why would I need that?” “Rumor has it, Mr. Wallace is doing this new insurance policy because you fucked up the last one.” “Rumor has it you’re a fucking asshole,” Vincent said cooly. “Is that true?” The bartender threw up his hands in a defensive gesture. “Okay. Okay. My bad. Just saying what other people was saying.” Vincent rolled his eyes. One ill-timed bathroom break at a gas station and Vincent had missed this punchy has been who welched on a payoff by mere minutes. Word around the last forty- eight hours was that Mr. Wallace was no longer seeking payback as long as Butch Coolidge stayed out of LA. Vincent didn’t know what the asshole had done to deserve that kind of mercy, but Vincent didn’t know if he’d actually gotten it, either. Damn. Mia was right. When it came down to it, hitmen and leg breakers weren’t any better than a bunch of old biddies at a sewing circle. All gossip and speculation over shit they knew nothing about. Mia... “Vincent Vega?” Mr. Wallace called over. “My boy! Get your ass over here!” Vincent did. In the right light, Marsellus Wallace looked as strong, healthy, and confident as he ever did. A big black man with a loud confidence and a quiet intensity about him, like he could see the date of your death scratched on your forehead, and if he liked you enough he’d pretend not to look at it. In the wrong light, Vincent could tell something had happened. Wallace looked rough. Low on a sleep. High on pain. He’d been standing with the latest boxer getting set up to take a dive. Not at ease enough to sit down. Vincent didn’t know, couldn’t know, and didn’t want to know why. Maybe it had something to do with why Collidge had been allowed to walk away. There he went again, just like Mia said. Mia... Marsellus opened his arms wide, and Vincent went in for a hug. It wouldn’t be much for the big man to crush the life out of Vincent. There was a reason Vincent worked for Marsellus and the money was only half of it. “I got another job for you.” “Yeah?” Vincent asked. “Who is it?” Finally, some normalcy. “Mia…” *************************************************************************************** It wasn’t gonna be like the last time, Vincent swore to himself. This time he was sober. This time he was on guard. Inhibitions would not be lowered. Heroin would not be found in his pockets. Nobody would fucking OD and need a needle jabbed into their chest. He wouldn’t need a skinny ex-actress to almost die to resist temptation. Just in case, Vega wore something underneath his fancy suit and bolo tie. Using the UC Santa Cruz t-shirt as an undershirt was a stroke of genius. Hard to succumb to temptation if he kept thinking about the reason he’d needed to change into that shirt. Dead bodies were real mood killers. “This’ll be fine,” Vincent whispered to himself. “This is gonna be fine.” Marsellus Wallace wasn’t mad at him. Not at all. He wouldn’t be asked to babysit the man’s wife a second time if he was mad for the screw up. Marsellus obviously didn’t know about the first not-a-date date, either. “It’s just another dinner. Some dancing.” Like last time, she’d left a note for him. Welcome back Vincent, I’m getting ready. Come in and get comfortable. You know the drill. -Mia This time, the note had the faint trace of perfume on it. Jasmine and violets. Fuck. Vincent Vega dragged his palm down his forehead and slicked back his hair. He inhaled through his mouth and thought of the gray shirt and cleaning pieces of Marvin in the back seat of Jules’s car. That’d do it. He went into the house. He didn’t need directions to the intercom the second time. “Hey, Mia,” Vincent said, making sure to press the button before he spoke. The house was quiet this time. No music playing while Mia primped and primed and powdered her nose. “Hello, Vincent.” Her voice, though flat, sent lightning tingle up and down the hitman’s brain. “I’ll be down in a jif. You know where the bar is. Make us both a drink, yeah?” “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea, Mia.” It was a bad idea. A bad bad idea. “Live a little, Vincent.” Even through the slight electronic haze of intercom, Vincent knew it was a bad idea. Bad ideas never stopped him before. He went over and poured himself a drink. Whiskey. Top shelf. He downed it and refilled it before grabbing a martini glass and filling it with vodka for the lady. This was a test. Vincent was gonna need liquid courage to pass it. The slight hiss of a needle on vinyl. The thump-tha-thump and backbeat of a base drum accompanied by upbeat acoustic guitar. Almost time. Mrs. Wallace sure knew how to make an entrance. “The night we met I knew I...needed you so.” Vincent looked up to the stairs and saw her coming down, gold colored shoes and black pants that flared at the ankles and hugged further up the legs to her hips. “And if I had the chance I’d...never let you go.” A white blouse that did much the same with her wrists and waist, yet accentuating her supple breasts. “So won’t you say you love me.” Raven black hair to match Vincent’s own, but cut into a bob style haircut with bangs so that it perfectly framed her face like a picture, making her scarlet lips pop. “I’ll make you so proud of me.” History was repeating itself. Save for the dorky t-shirt he made himself wear, he was dressed exactly the same. “We’ll make ‘em turn their heads, every place we go…” Save for the baby blue satchel purse over her shoulder, she was too. “Hello Vincent.” She smiled softly. “Ready to spend some time together?” Over the course of forty-eight hours, Mr. and Mrs. Wallace had swapped demeanors. When Vincent last saw her, Mia was half a corpse. Now she was damn near radiant. Amazing what a good night’s sleep and a bit of secrecy can do for a gal. Vincent came up to her before she’d fully descended and handed her the martini glass. “Sure,” he said. “Yeah. Where are we headed? A fake speakeasy where the waiters dress like Al Capone?” Mia didn’t break her stride. She knocked back the martini and walked around to sit on the couch. “I was thinking of staying in and doing something different.” Walking around to maintain eye contact, Vega pouted his lips and cocked an eyebrow. “Yeah. Different how?” He eyed the bulky bag still leaning against Mia’s hips. “Why the purse?” One of the hottest women he’d ever met, and his boss’s wife, was suggesting they stay in tonight. Alarm bells should have been ringing in Vincent’s skull. Horny, buzzed, and a streak of dumb luck can do a lot to drown out alarm bells. “I have something to ask you. But you gotta promise me not to get offended.” A playful smile tugged at Mia’s lips as she threw back Vincent’s words from the other night. The game was afoot. “Pretty sure that’s a bullshit promise,” Vincent flashed a grin. “That’s a promise I can’t keep. I can’t promise how I’m gonna react because I don’t know what you’re gonna say. So say what you’re gonna say and then I’ll react to it.” This was dumb. This was dumb. This was really, really, dumb. Mia chuckled dryly in recognition. She was playing too. “You saved my life, Vincent. You took care of me in a way Marsellus never has.” Too strong! Vincent took a half-step back. “Whoah, whoah, Mia. Slow down. I like you, as a friend,” he lied, “but I’m not looking to do anything with you that he would.” Mia remained seated, comfortable and confident. “I know, Vincent. I know.” She patted the sofa cushion next to her. As a compromise between smart and stupid, he sat down an extra cushion over. Mia didn’t seem to mind. “I haven’t told him about that night. Neither of you. And you know how I feel about uncomfortable silences.” She was beating around his bush, but for the life of him he couldn’t figure out about what. He wasn’t gonna sleep with her, not this sober. Either she was lying or...or…? “What do you wanna do? He asked. The mob boss’s wife looked him dead in the eye. “I want you to give me something he won’t. I want a baby. Just for tonight.” Red flag! Red flag! RUN! RUN! Instead, Vincent laughed. “And I’m not a doctor, but I’m pretty sure that if I give you a baby, Marsellus will know and will find something higher than four stories and toss me out of it and only if I’m lucky. I know it’ll take longer than one night to get here.” Mia was unphased. “No you idiot,” she said. Only she could call Vincent an idiot and it somehow not feel like an insult. Maybe he was an idiot; for her, anyway. “I don’t want you to put a baby in me.” “Then what the fuck do you want?” Vincent’s smile didn’t quite reach his squinting eyes. In answer, Mia snapped her fingers and pointed to the speakers. The Ronette’s were still playing. She let the music do the talking for her. “So won’t you, please (Be my, be my baby) Be my little baby (My one and only baby) Say you’ll be my darlin’ (Be my, be my baby Be my baby noooooow! Whoah-oh-oh-oh” Vincent guffawed. “How is what you said any different than what I just said?” He still wasn’t getting up. “You’re cute,” Mia siad. She undid the satchel and flipped it open. “Clever. Dumb with hints.” Vincent tilted his head to the side. The purse didn’t go with what she was wearing at all. What did a lady like her need with a purse anyways? It’s not like she ever had to pay for anything. “Let me help.” First thing out of the bag was a white bottle of baby powder. Mia slammed it on the coffee table and a little bit of white residue shot up in the air from the loosened cap. It wasn’t the first white powder Mia had put up her nose. The fan carried the scent of it, jasmine and violets, into Vega’s nostrils. That hadn’t been perfume he’d smelled. Next came the packet of wipes. Quite a lot, more than enough to get makeup off. The white folded hunk of soft plastic came down next, and Vincent sucked in his breath. “Is that a…?” A second and a third one joined it on the coffee table, making a stack. “Diaper?!” Vincent finally understood what she meant by the song. “Lay back.” The woman stood up. “Take your pants off,” she said. She closed in on Vincent. He still didn’t run. “No wait. Don’t. Let me.” Despite himself, Vincent was lying back, trying stupidly to scramble over the low side armrest of the white leather couch. “Whoah whoah whoah!” He slapped at her hands to keep her at bay. He’d seen some wild shit in Amsterdam, he’d seen people dip their fries in mayonnaise. This was a half-step too far. “I’m not into this stuff.” “Neither am I,” Mia said. “But I’m willing to give it a try if you are.” “I’m not!” Vincent didn’t seem or feel all that convincing half-lying down. Mia stood up and grabbed a diaper from the top of the stack she’d made. “I’ll tell you what,” she said, unfolding it. “Let me play my little game. Let me take care of you and pretend. You might like it. Or…” “Or?” “You can give me a foot rub.” That’s how Mia got his pants off... ********************************************************************************* Vincent had had plenty of ladies, thousands, take his clothes off. Mia was the first to put clothes on him. Did diapers even count as clothes? He wasn’t sure. His business was covered, but he still felt oddly naked. He still looked like a dork, too. The one piece of clothing he’d walked into the house wearing was the lame college t-shirt that made him look like a dork. The white puffy diaper MIa taped on him wasn’t making him feel any less dorky. Laying there on the couch, with his head in Mia’s lap, ‘oddly naked’ and ‘dorky’ were things he could deal with. He stared up into her eyes and saw the same fascinated and intriguing sparkle in her eyes that he’d caught glimpses of sitting across from her at Jackrabbit Slim’s. He tried to mumble something up to her, but the rubber nipple was held firm in his mouth. “Finish your baba, baby,” Mia smiled down at him. “Make it all gone and then we can play. How does that sound?” Vincent’s eyes drifted down from her face and to her breasts. He reached for them, wanting to touch. Babies did it all the time. He was just role playing, which is what she wanted. Might as well get into character. She grabbed him by the pinky, and stopped him cold. “Only if you’re a good little boy,” she warned. “Finish your baba.” The hitman placed his hands, both of them, where she could see them on the baby bottle. The milk wasn’t bad. It tasted sweet, and was kind of thick. Thicker than normal milk, almost like a shake with ice cream to milk ratio reversed. It still wasn’t worth five dollars, but it wasn’t bad. Maybe next time, he could sweet talk her into adding a little bourbon in it. The fuck was he thinking? Next time? Doing this? He made a face while he sucked down the last of the (he hoped) fake baby formula. “Alright tiger,” Mia said, “sit up.” She took the bottle out of his mouth, placed it down on the coffee table and started nudging at his shoulders. “Up-up.” It wasn’t easy sitting up in the diaper, though it had nothing to do with his body as much as it did with psychology. True, the thick padded core felt like like he was wearing several pairs of tighty whities at the same time, spreading his legs apart, but that didn’t fuck with his muscle memory as much as the distinct crinkle, like a bag of potato chips, every time he moved his hips in the slightest. It gave Vincent the same kind of feeling that he got listening to someone else brush their teeth. “Uhhhhhhgh…” he exhaled while Mia started slowly rubbing his back. A back rub. That was nice. Nice enough that when he closed his eyes, despite himself, he heard another crinkle even though his hips weren’t moving. Vincent opened his eyes and glanced down at his crotch. One small blessing was that adult diapers were pretty good at hiding erections. Weird, considering how most people who needed them probably didn’t get erections any more. A foot rub is never just a foot rub and the back rub didn’t stay just a back rub for long. The boss’s wife started picking up the pace and alternating between rubbing his spine and pounding all along his back rapid fire; like a Swedish massage with the wires all crossed. “Huh?” “Come on, baby.” Mia said. “Give it to Mommy. Be a good boy and give me a good one.” “If this is what you think getting it good is,” Vincent quipped, “then no wonder Mr. Wallace hasn’t given you a ba-’ his words were cut off by the sound of his own “UUUUURP!” as the milk he’d just finished came rumbling up out of him. He was too stunned to even try and cover his mouth. “There we go!” Mia’s voice perked up. “Two more.” “Two more?” he echoed dumbly. “Burps,” Mia didn’t even stop pounding on his back. “Give me two more burps.” Easier done than said. “Urp!” “One.” And then a final, much quieter, “urp’. “Two.” The back beating turned back into a rub. “That’s my boy,” she whispered sensually into his ear. “You’re...welcome?” Vega didn’t know what to say. What was the protocol for this kind of strange? “Get on the floor for Mommy,” Mia whispered to him. This was something Vincent didn’t need to be told twice. It was just a quick scoot and a backward crab walk to make. Cockily, Vincent laid out spread eagle, hoping it meant what he thought it meant. Dry humping didn’t count. She’d already seen his dick, anyway. (Yeah, dry humping counted. If a foot rub counted, dry humping counted. But a guy can only get so dead so might as well live a little.) Mia reached into the diaper bag and started laying some wooden number and alphabet blocks down on the ground. “I meant ‘crawl on the floor’, silly,” she said. “Unless you’re so little you can’t even do that much.” Something, some bit of pride, made Vincent roll over with a snap. He pushed himself up to his knees and got.the flat of one foot down on the floor when Mia wagged her finger in his face. “Ah-ah-ah! Knees are as high as you go.” Vincent stopped himself and lowered back down to his hands and knees. This was the craziest, dumbest thing he’d ever done. Mia pivoted around him and brushed a bit of hair out of the man’s face. The smile made Vincent feel warm in all the right ways. A twinge in his bladder, and the plastic rustle between his legs brought Vincent back to reality. “I gotta piss,” he said. This time, he really meant it. The hand the young and beautiful Mrs. Wallace placed on his back might as well have been a five-hundred pound barbell. “Let me check,” she said. Vincent’s elbows locked and he grit his teeth. Mia patted the back of his diaper and stuck her fingers inside the leg holes. “Still dry.” In less than two days, this chick had gone from saying him going to pee was ‘A little too much information’ to feeling him up in what had to be the least sexy way possible. He wouldn’t even let his doctor do this kind of thing to him! “I didn’t say that I pissed my pants,” he whined. “I said that I have to pee.” “If babies knew when they had to go,” Mia teased, “they wouldn’t be wearing diapers, would they?” “Yeah,” Vincent replied. “I’m not actually a-” He was cut off by another rubber nipple entering his mouth. “Let’s keep that comfortable silence going,” Mia smirked. She booped his nose and then the button shield on his pacifier for good measure. “Stay here, and play with your blocks. Mommy’s gonna go rustle up something to eat in the kitchen. If you’re wet enough when I get back,” she leaned over and patted his bottom “maybe I’ll change you.” Mia didn’t so much as look back trotting off to the kitchen. Having lost his looming erection to the mounting burning pressure in his bladder, Vince held himself. She really expected him to do this? In his pants? With a hint of defiance, Vincent Vega pushed himself back up to his knees. He’d only just stuck his foot out into a kneel, kind of looking like that one painting of George Washington crossing the River Thames or whatever when Mia’s voice called in from the kitchen. “Don’t even think about it!” HOW LOUD WAS THIS DIAPER? There was something unnerving about the way she said it, too. It wasn’t intimidating or angry the way Jules got when he was ona roll. It was so completely matter of fact. Just like, well, a Mommy. The hitman lowered himself back to a crawling position. “I fasn’t doin’ anyfin!” he lied. Talking around the pacifier. “Good!” Mia called back from the kitchen. “I already locked the bathrooms. Took your pants, too. Good luck going outside till we’re done.” Vincent turned around like a dog trying to lick its own ass. She wasn’t lying about that. He had no idea how or when she did it, but everything he’d come in wearing from his shoes on up was gone. When the fuck had that happened? “I wasn’t goin’ anywhere!” “Your potty options are your diaper or Marsellus’s carpet.” Thinking about what Marsellus Wallace might do to a body had a bladder loosening effect on most people under normal circumstances. The diaper, embarrassment, fear, and two glasses of whiskey that had zipped all the way through him made it worse. He had no choice, he felt. Vincent closed his eyes, took a deep breath, pretended the pacifier was a cigarette, and let go in his pants. It was worse than the splatter of blood to his suit. Actually, not that bad. Just...different. He felt the physical relief of his bladder draining, but added to it a wet warmth spreading out and splashing around before dripping and being absorbed by the dense padding. A sensation of release coupled with a sensation of wetness. Yeah, that happened to Vincent often enough, just not like this; not since he was three or four or whatever kids learn to stop pissing their pants. The wetness wasn’t going away either. No pulling out. No toweling off. No taking a shower. The hitman sat back, the crinkling noise greatly diminished as he eyed the pack of baby wipes, and shuddered. There also wasn’t any noise. The process felt half-done. No flushing. No handwashing. It’s not like he could reach down and shake it off. He reached down and patted the warm diaper between the legs, feeling the wet squish. It didn’t feel too bad, if he didn’t think about it. Too bad he was thinkin’ about it. He grabbed a couple of the baby blocks and haphazardly started to stack them on top of each other. With a final exhale and a quasi-accidental suck on the binky, Vincent mumbled “Aa leash I don’ hafta fush.” Mia came back in with a plate, filled with those fancy little sandwiches, the kind that rich ladies had at lawn parties out in the valley or whatever. It was a far cry from a steak. “Let’s eat up,” Mia said, sitting back down on the couch. Vincent reached out with one hand, took the pacifier out with the other, grabbed one of the little bread squares and nibbled at it. He winced. Way sweeter than he’d expected. He tilted the sandwich enough to see the brown creamy bottom and purple goop at the top layer. “Peanut butter and jelly,” Mia said. “Bite size. With the crust cut off.” “Aren’t these supposed to be, I don’t know...seaweed or watercress or somethin’?” Looming over him, Mia gave out a dry chuckle. “I thought a big boy like you would like it. Want me to find some applesauce or oatmeal and spoon feed it to you?” Never before had Vincent been so tempted. He quashed it and shoveled the sandwich in his pie hole. Not a steak. Better than a bullet in the brain. He reached for another. From behind, Mia leaned over and gave the front of his diaper a squeeze. “I thought so. Looks like someone couldn’t hold it. Not such a big boy after all, are we?” Vincent felt his face heat up; his cheeks flushing. The crinkle up front wasn’t audible, but with a relieved bladder, a renewed lust was breaching the surface. Feeling the warm wetness around his cock and the squeezing pressure of MIa’s hand. It wasn’t quite the same, but his penis was too dumb to appreciate the difference. Enough parallels could be rawn. He let out a low moan. “Those are good sandwiches aren’t they?” Mia was fucking with him. She had to be fucking with him. With crumbs tumbling out of his mouth and lips dabbed with jelly. Vincent nodded “Mhm.” “Good. Eat it all up,” she whispered. Daintily, she picked up her own sandwich and started nibbling on it.. Vincent went in for thirds. “Hrrrrn…” he said, patting his stomach. This time the moan wasn’t out of pleasure. Mia glanced at the clock. “Right on time.” Vincent gulped the last bit of sandwich. “What’s right on time?” Mia stood up and patted him on the head. “That wasn’t just milk I gave you in your baba baby boy.” “Huh?” Vincent stood up, but Mia just pushed him back to the floor like he was just a toddler who hadn’t quite mastered walking and balance.. He felt funny. Weak. And something was brewing in his gut. “What did….what did you do?” The world wasn’t spinning, but Vincent was feeling weak like a kitten. Like a baby. “I wanted you to have the full experience,” Mia said. “I wanted to get the full experience.” “What did you put in that bottle?” Vincent’s words were coming out soft and funny. He felt absolutely blasted. “A little something I used to slip into guy’s drinks when I thought they were gonna slip something into mine, plus some laxative. It’s why I wanted you on the floor. Didn’t want my little guy to fall and bang his head on the table or nothin’. ” Mia put the pacifier back in Vincent’s mouth. Oh god, why was this turning him on? “It’s okay, baby. Mommy’s here. Just let it happen.” Vincent whimpered and held onto Mia’s knee like it was the mast in a storm at sea. His insides felt like they were swelling up, a balloon getting ready to pop. She stroked his hair, and quietly shushed whimpering that he hadn’t even been consciously aware he’d been making. A few minutes later the balloon popped. He wanted to close his eyes, but his face had the exact opposite reaction. Eyes wide open, unblinking, he trembled as his body started to push out its contents into the back of his diaper. “Mmmm..mmmm!” He sucked on the pacifier and hugged Mia’s thigh as it happened. “Muhmmmmm -muhmmmm!” It came in quick little spasms and waves, his diaper getting heavier and heavier with each. “That’s right,” Mia cooed, sounding more and more motherly with each passing second. She stroked his hair and kissed the top of Vincent’s head while he helplessly filled his already wet pants. “Just let it happen. Let me have this.” She rubbed his ears and kissed his forehead. “Make Mommy a present.” It might have been the drugs in the milk, or it might have been the weird ass couple of days he’d just had, but those last few words were all Vincent Vega needed to both finish pushing out the mess in the back of him and for him to blow a load in the front of his pants. “Mommeeeeeeee!” Exhausted and aching, Vincent’s knees caved and he fell back onto his bum, making the mess spread out. He didn’t care, flopping back spread eagle with the dumbest look on his face. Cooly, calmly, as if this were all routine for her, Mia took the second diaper off the top of the stack she’d made, along with the wipes and powder. “Let’s get you changed.” Vincent laid there in a drug and orgasm induced haze while the boss’s wife untaped his loaded diaper for him. She went to work wiping him down, the cool of the wipes feeling nice against the heat of his loins. He popped a thumb in his mouth and started sucking. At least he didn’t have to clean himself up. Silver lining and all that. She pushed his knees back to his stomach and started wiping his ass down. That was something no girl had ever done for him. Not a girl that he’d wanted to sleep with. Yikes, he hoped he wouldn’t need therapy after this. “Glad you got that all out of you,” Mia said, balling the diaper up into a putrid plastic ball. He hadn’t even had time to consider whether that might be the end or not, when she slipped the replacement under him. A cloud of powder enveloped his lower half, and just like that the diaper was brought up between him and held tight until she’d adjusted the tapes just right. Vincent sighed, feeling suddenly sleepy. A clean diaper felt so much better after a dirty one. “That was fast.” “Course it was fast,” Mia said. “You never know when a little guy is gonna end up peeing all over everything, even during the middle of a change. So you gotta make like a baby tomato and catch up.” Mia picked up the used diaper and took it back to the kitchen. There’d be a lot of explaining to do if Marsellus found one of those in his kitchen garbage. That was a problem for later. A problem for Mommy Mia to take care of. This whole thing had been hers from the start; he had been hers from the start. “So what now?” Vincent asked after she’d washed her hands and come back. She took a seat on the floor next to him, and maneuvered his head back into her lap. “Why don’t we just enjoy the silence again.” She booped him on the nose with her finger. “Wait for the drugs to get out of your system.” “What if I...you know?” “We’ve got more diapers.” “Can I get my binky back?” Mia opened her blouse. “You’ve been a good baby. If you promise not to bite, I’ll give you something else to suck on.” Oh yeah. This was gonna be a good night. .

Whelp, this didn't go the way I predicted at the beginning, but I am completely okay with that. As usual, it's a well told story with excellent worldbuilding and pacing. If the "ghost" is a recurring character, I have a prediction, but my predictions have been very wrong already, lol.

You did miss that earlier. I like ambiguity, so I'm choosing my words carefully. Clark has reached the conclusion that the monitor is why he can't say things like "I hate you" right to Janet's face. That line from Skinner about it being "educational" really stuck in his craw.

Chapter 87: The Bigger Picture Half an hour later, Death Itself walked into Beouf’s classroom wearing a salmon pantsuit over an aquamarine blouse. Its wrinkled face and skeletal frame came in through the back door of Beouf’s room. The Ambrose occupied territory that was once my classroom was eerily quiet; Death having already stunned the poor children into silence. Its soulless, predatory eyes stalked the classroom behind rounded bifocals; Its thin withered lips drawn pert. On a pestilent wind- that may have been the lingering smell of milk vomit or Its own natural perfume- it silently glided, deeper and deeper, inside the normally whimsical prison of Beouf’s world. Littles who saw It averted their gaze and sucked on their pacifiers, lest they scream in terror or draw attention to themselves. Better to pretend to play quietly and feign preoccupation with a wooden car or a set of stacking rings. We’d already missed Circle Time and were missing the first center rotation. We hadn’t even all been changed yet. Most of us were still in our picture day clothes. Transport had been slow. Those of us who’d tossed our breakfasts up took the longest to clean up and containment of our soiled clothes took priority. Zoge tackled that part, quarantined us by the bathroom, and then carried us one by one to the reading nook as she finished. Beouf got the others settled and busy doing meaningless play and independent activities, then started making phone calls to parents. Three guesses to who she called first. Clothing wise, I was back down to a Mint’s Hints t-shirt and nothing else. No surprise there. Mrs. Zoge still said “I love you” after she’d finished redressing me, but it was quicker, more out of habit than sincerity. That was grimly pleasant. She kept looking at her phone, too. Speaking of grim, when Death visited, I’d been lounging in a bean bag next to Billy. Annie laid on the floor, lazily making carpet angels. Technically she’d seen Death first and signaled trouble when she started sucking on her thumb. Sandra Lynn and Jesse were still sitting by the bathroom in their ruined Sunday best, waiting their turn to get cleaned up. Chaz, regrettably, had been unsuccessful in his attempt with his finger down his throat and was assembling a log house with Tommy who hadn’t made an attempt to buck the system at all. The prison couple had tried sneaking in an open mouth kiss and quickly regretted it, both grimacing at the taste of each other. They were passionate, if impulsive, which made them great toadies in the first place. Our collective breath was rancid, but our smiles were smugly satisfied. Every now and then, one of us had remembered to wince and hold our stomachs while letting out a low groan, just in case someone was watching or listening too intently. We were happy with plausible deniability; not seeking attention. The fact that we looked like death warmed over helped our case. We’d each gagged, choked, and vomited so hard that blood vessels in our face had burst open leaving gastly pink and red webs covering our faces while the rest of the flesh was ghastly pale. I don’t think there was ever a movie about Zombie Littles, but if there were we would have been great extras. It was nothing that a day or two of not puking our guts up wouldn’t fix. If Cassie had seen my face she’d have said that I’d had much too much to drink and then reminded me to switch the laundry for her. The only other sounds Death might have heard was Ivy blubbering in the bathroom, and Beouf making her calls. I poked my head out of the reading nook to watch Death’s approach. If the fates were kind, I’d watch Beouf get a near death experience right in front of everyone. But Death remained motionless and at a respectful distance while Beouf made her calls. Unlike love, Death is patient. Bitch always has been. “Hello? Mrs. Ogden? Good morning, how are you? I’m fine, thank you. I’m calling you because Billy just got sick. Yes. Tummy troubles. No, not diarrhea this time. He threw up. Alot. No. No fever. I don’t think it was something he ate, no. Not exactly.” Beouf sighed, paused, and looked over her shoulder towards the reading nook. She saw Death, too. “Well, it could be a sympathetic thing. A couple kids threw up, not just mine. Mmmhmm. One gets started and it gets everybody going.” She glanced back at Death again. “Then again, there might be something that’s starting to go around, it’s hard to tell. Also I think I heard him coughing just before, so it might have been a tickle in his throat like a sinus drip and it triggered his gag reflex. Yuh-huh. I’m not a doctor. Could be a tummy bug. Could be anything.” She started nodding. She’d already had this exact conversation with everyone else’s folks and a briefer one with Janet. She hadn’t nodded then. Likely she was adding in choreography for Death’s benefit. “So here’s the thing, Mrs. Ogden. I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but…yes ma’am. That’s correct. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.” What I’d already accounted for with my devious bit of mischief is that when a child vomits it’s school board policy to isolate them and send them home. No other symptoms required. Quietly, I ducked back into the nook so that the three of us could exchange fist bumps. This is exactly what I had in mind when I told them we’d be starting our weekend early. Damn, I loved it when a plan came together. “Yes,” Beouf continued. “That’s correct. Come on over to the school. Hm? No, don’t worry about the pictures. We’ve got a makeup day next week for students who are absent. I’ll wash his yucky clothes this weekend and have them ready to go. Just come on over and check in with your ID. The secretary will send you with someone over to my classroom and you can take him home. Okay. See you in a few. Goodbye.” She hung up the phone, exhaled in a way that made her look like a deflating pool toy and then turned around. “Rough morning?” Death asked, pretending to be concerned. “Yes, ma’am.” Beouf replied. “What can I do for you, Mrs. Brollish?” Of course ‘Death’ was Brollish. Who else would it be? “I just wanted to stop by and check in on you and your students,” Brollish said, every word carefully measured and calculated as always. “As you know, students who experience sickness to the point of vomiting aren’t allowed to stay.” Leave it to Brollish to say what everyone already knew. I resisted the urge to slap my forehead. “Yes, ma’am,” Beouf said in equal measure. “You walked in on me making my last parent phone call.” Brollish nodded curtly. “Excellent.” I could only see the back of her head, but I had no doubt she was giving some kind of thin fake-ass smile. “Do you know what caused it?” My ex-mentor looked Brollish dead in the eye and said. “No ma’am. I can’t say.” That was a lie. She absolutely knew that I had something to do with it. That’s why she’d shouted my name; my real name. She just couldn’t prove it. Beouf was a lot of things, but stupid wasn’t one of them. She wouldn’t fall into the kind of trap that I’d set for Forrest. Brollish hemmed for a second and tapped her chin. “Some people said they thought they saw some kind of dust? Or powder being coughed up…?” Her voice tilted into a question, even though it wasn’t. “I don’t think so,” Beouf said, softly. “The cafeteria is pretty clean. I don’t think there’d be any allergens or spores in the air. Not that could cause this.” The breath in my lungs turned shallow. Why was Beouf playing dumb? The Principal cleared her throat. “Maybe some of your students put something in their mouths that they shouldn’t have…?” Another accusation framed as a question. My teacher held firm. “No, I don’t think so. The custodians did a really good job of cleaning up before the photographers got here.” I could feel my heart in my chest. What game was Beouf playing? “Do you think one of them got a case of the sillies and took something from your room? Baby powder perhaps?” “No ma’am.” Beouf said. “My kids wouldn’t have had the opportunity. We go straight from the bus to breakfast. Every day. “ “Not all of them.” I felt a noose tightening around my neck. It wasn’t just Beouf who suspected me. Zoge exited the bathroom, carrying a topless Ivy on her hip. Someone had convinced their Mommy to let them wear their fancy dress all day and didn’t have a change of clothes. I averted my eyes out of politeness, but kept my ears peeled. “Clark and Ivy were nowhere near the powder, ma’am.” Zoge said. She plopped down an all-but naked Ivy right beside me. “They didn’t need changing before breakfast and I would have kept the powder out of reach because of their outfits.” Billy and Ivy started snickering behind their hands, while Zoge leaned over and said something to Ivy in Yamatoan, and then more loudly said, “I’ll get you a shirt, my love.” I popped my head back out and saw Beouf give Brollish something of a cross between a shrug and a nod. “Sorry.” “So you’re sure you didn’t see anything?” “I’m sorry, ma’am. I didn’t.” My teeth bit down on my tongue so hard I almost screamed in surprise. That was more than just playing dumb. Melony Beouf had a front row seat of the debacle. The woman had run to my side when I was choking and had been at ground zero when I hacked up that first round of cinnamon. There was zero chance that she hadn’t seen that puff of brown spice billow out of me like a chimney. She was outright, bold face lying to Brollish. I just didn’t know why. Playing nice with the old bat got her that swanky new playground and the feeding tables. “Do you mind if I check in with your students?” Beouf directed her towards the reading nook. “As long as you understand that any formal investigation that could lead to discipline, has to involve their parents.” I was suddenly seeing shades of not just my mentor but my old Union Rep come out. “I’m not here for that,” Brollish lied right back, “I just want to make sure that they’re okay.” The witch glided around and slid up to us, blocking our view and way out. Towering over us, she asked. “How are you feeling boys and girls?” My cadre and I exchanged quick looks. “Yucky,” Annie said. “My tummy and my throat feels bad.” Billy mumbled. I just looked away and made a pitiful humming noise. Funnily enough I was feeling slightly nauseous back then. “Ivy?” Still trying not to stare at her, my peripheral vision caught the slight movement of Ivy’s head lifting to make eye contact with the Principal. “Hmmm?” “How are you feeling, dear?” I poked my tongue on the spot where I’d bitten it, nervously picking at the spot to steel my nerves. Ivy’s reply came back low and pitiful like a puppy that had been kicked too many times. “Not good. The smell was real bad and my tummy got sick and I threw up all over my pretty dress.” Brollish lowered to a knee so she could get closer to Ivy’s eye level. “Do you know who got sick first or why? Did you see or hear anything?” For the second time that morning I stopped breathing entirely. “Mmm-mmm.” Ivy mumbled. “No, ma’am.” Brollish rose so slowly that I thought I heard a creak. “Okay.” She started gliding back towards Beouf. A peek Billy and Annie’s way revealed that they were open-mouthed grinning like a couple of idiots and throwing all of their admiration Ivy’s way. They’d thought she’d sell us out. Honestly, I was as surprised as they were. I stole a look at Ivy. One hand still covering her breasts, her face hardened instantly. She mimed sucking her thumb and then pointed hard towards the direction Brollish had gone. I popped my head back out. She wasn’t actually going to Beouf. We weren’t the only kids left to interrogate. Shit. I had almost no relationship, coercive or otherwise, with Sandra Lynn or Jesse. They were facing away from us too, giving me a good look at the crone’s haggard face and no way to send any kind of begging face or threatening glare to my classmates. My fate was in their hands. “Hello children,” Brollish said with all the sweetness of an old woman offering an apple. As always her smile didn’t reach her eyes. “How are you, dears?” The pacifiers didn’t leave either of their mouths. “Are you feeling well?” The two looked down and off to different sides, avoiding eye contact. “Did you see what happened?” Nothing. She tried at stooping slightly and hunkering her hands down on her knees. “How did you get sick?” Her questions were met with silence and sucking. Mrs. Zoge came back with a Pink Princess t-shirt. “Here you go, baby.” Ivy raised her arms and let the shirt be pulled over her. With the tights and slippers still on, Ivy looked like she was getting ready for a ballet class. Her smile turned back on when her Mommy slid the plastic tiara back on her head. Over by the bathroom, Brollish was rising back up. “Do they still talk?” “They’re just feeling yucky and a little shy,” Beouf answered. “Their parents will be here to pick them up soon.” I felt my face scrunch up into a full blown snarl. Melony Beouf was a lot of terrible things. She was a typical Amazon. But in all my years not once had I ever encountered a prisoner of hers mindfucked to the point where they couldn’t talk or understand spoken language. How dare Brollish! How dare she! Something else jumped into my brain: Brollish didn’t even know Sandra Lynn’s and Jesse’s names! She probably didn’t know Annie’s and Billy’s either. What kind of educator didn’t bother to learn as many students’ names as possible? I knew dozens of names of students I never even had! Picked a bunch up just by osmosis and listening to teachers. Beouf’s class had a slower turnover than most. Sandra Lynn had been in that room for at least two years and the only people whose name she knew was a teacher she followed and an aide’s kid who’d been there for over a decade! The fucking nerve of this cunt! A massive finger pressed up against my lips, snapping me out of my self-induced fury trance. Zoge was putting her fingers to her lips. “You’re growling,” she whispered. I was? I leaned back away from Zoge’s index finger. Ivy was sucking her thumb. Billy and Annie had pacified themselves. So I sucked my thumb too… Zoge stood back up and started going back to the Littles that were still in vomit stained clothes to pick up where she left off. Brollish however, waved her over to the conversation, presently moving closer to the semi circle where Beouf held court. “Is there anything else you’d like to discuss, ma’am?” Mrs. Beouf asked, subtly turning so that Brollish was facing the exit. She didn’t say it, but I felt there was an unspoken ‘or can you leave my room?’ tacked onto that sentence. “Actually, yes,” Brollish snipped. Her voice was still chipper, but that fake ass smile had a more predatory glint to it. “Mrs. Zoge, have you been able to contact your husband, or anyone else who can watch Ivy?” For what felt like the fourth or fifth time that morning, Zoge looked at her phone. “I’ve been texting him, ma’am, but he hasn’t responded yet. He’s very busy.” The Grim Reaper in the salmon pants suit nodded her head thoughtfully and tried to make it sound like what next came out of her mouth was both coming out of her for the first time and a foregone common sense conclusion. “I thought that might be the case. I know how hard he works. That’s why I’m giving you the rest of the day off, Mrs. Zoge.” The aide seemed genuinely confused. “Day off?” “To take care of Ivy. She can’t stay here. She got sick all over the floor.” Beouf tried to ask a question “But-” Brollish gently cut her off by raising the palm of her hand. “Don’t worry. I’m already working on that end. I know your position has a guarantee of an aide for the majority of student contact hours, but you’re losing half your class today so that will make it easier.” The other two giants clearly did not like where this was going. “Soooo…?” “I’m already moving around some of the other schedules to get you temporary coverage throughout the day. Different aides will come in and out of your classroom, assuming that the schedule you gave me at the beginning of the year is up to date and accurate.” Beouf looked almost offended. “Yes, ma’am. It is.” “I’ll see if I can’t convince the therapists to give you some time by taking your four away. You won’t need extra help with lunch, and then right after is naps. Then you do free time on the playground? Right?” Zoge spoke for Beouf. “Yes, ma’am.” “So with the reduced numbers, you really only need another warm body to help you run centers and such until lunch.” You wouldn’t know it unless you were a teacher, but Beouf and Zoge were having a fit inside their own heads just then. In their own mind, every teacher is a duke or duchess within their classroom. We like our marching orders vague and the freedom to teach the content so that it is best for our students and plays to our strengths. Beouf had just had her whole day micromanaged for her and had her competence and preparedness subtly called into question. Zoge in a roundabout way had just had her contributions to the class reduced to being a seat filler. The difference being that this sort of thing was typical Brollish as far as I’d been concerned. I was used to it. They weren’t. Zoge and her daughter were exiled. Beouf was losing her lieutenant and would likely have to walk two to three strangers through center routines and expectations and warn them about every given student’s nuances and tendencies. To be effective, the explanation might well take up half of the allotted time. There was a reason why I was so focused on predictable routines and rituals, and not all of it came from just Little level paranoia and neuroses. I learned it from Beouf. I learned it from watching her. If Brollish had led with this news, I’d be close to doing a jig right then and there and no one could have stopped me. Beouf was having a bad day; Zoge too; Ivy third; and I’d bet even money Janet was going to have to find a substitute so she could be trapped with me all day. This operation had panned out better than I had anticipated. Brollish had led, however, by showing just how little she knew about the Littles at her school and even less about what her staff actually did. It lined up with my experiences in many ways. That kind of neglect allowed so-called teachers like Ambrose and half-asses like Renner to remain unchecked. I loathed that I was empathizing with two of my chief tormentors, but I couldn’t help it. The lesser of two evils was still evil. It was also still less. My teacher and her assistant were much much less evil than the Principal. “What about Clark?” Beouf asked Brollish. “I’ve already talked to Ms. Grange about it. Things are taken care of.” Knew it. “Yes, ma’am.” Beouf said, feigning acceptance if not submission. “Anything else?” “One last thing. I’d like to talk to you about a few things after the buses leave if you can make the time.” Beouf set her jaw. “Sure thing. I’ll be happy to see you then.” What was one more blatant lie? “Would you mind emailing me about it?” She was trying to create a paper trail. Death Itself quietly stepped towards the front door. “I’ll see if I can find the time.” She held the door open and called expectantly. “Mrs. Zoge? Are you and Ivy coming?” Hands folded in front of her, Zoge bowed slightly. “I will be out in a few minutes, but I’d like to finish cleaning up the children, and stay long enough until either help or the parents arrive.” “That makes sense.” A beat. “Remember to call the office if relief hasn’t come within ten minutes. Word might not have gotten around quickly enough.” An eerie groaning noise preceded the door finally closing. Some say that the door’s hinges were finally starting to rust, and the maintenance crew would oil them just before the weekend. I’d like to think it was because Brollish accidentally lost composure and burped up whatever poor soul she’d consumed for breakfast that morning. The door closed, and I trotted all the way back into the nook. Quiet high fives and exclamations of “yessssssss!” were traded. We’d done it! We’d gotten away with it. Mission success! Better than Why Day, Cry Day, Paint the Frog Day, and every other bit of mischief we’d managed thus far. It was Ivy who put a damper on things. “You’re not that smart.” she said bluntly. As a group, the A.L.L. turned and regarded the mindfucked doll. Ivy sat there with her arms crossed and huffing. “What?” I asked. “You’re not that smart,” Ivy repeated herself. Her normally demure and childish demeanor had melted like a candle and become an indignant huffy pout. “You’re not.” My eyebrow was already cocking like a loaded gun. “What do you mean?” She leaned out and pointed back towards the bathroom. “Look.” The two remaining giants were already springing into action. Beouf dug through her desk and ripped open the top of a yellow wax papery packet. Out of the bag and into the palm of her hand came a few tiny egg shaped candy pieces which she took over to Jesse and Sandra Lynn. “Three for you. Aaaaand three for you.” They stared down into their hands. “Color doesn’t matter. They all taste the same.” That was enough permission for them and they popped the candy into their mouths. Candy. Good candy too. Special treats for special occasions, not the cheap chalk textured stuff given for correct answers (or what passed for them in Beouf’s class). “Oh man,” Tommy whined and whispered. “They’re getting Geese’s Pieces!” I gave him a light elbow to the ribs. “Shut up and watch.” Where was this going? She quickly gave out one to each and every one of us, save Billy, Annie, and myself. “Hey,” Billy asked. “Where’s mine?” “We’ll have a talk about it when you come back on Monday,” Beouf told him and walked away. “She’s bribing them,” Annie said loud enough for us all to hear. Billy stuck his bottom lip out. “For wh-....? Oh…” It finally clicked. For all of us. They knew. They definitely knew. Zoge was likewise keeping oddly busy tidying up in the bathroom and giving Jesse and Sandra Lynn time to munch on their candy. She came out with four thin generic trash can liners, the kind that even I could tear up, with their tops twisted up and knotted. “Here’s the clothing so far.” Beouf was on top of them, tossing them into her supply closet. “Got it.” Zoge disappeared into the bathroom and came out again with a different type of garbage bag. Thicker plastic; see through but yellow, and with a special rim on top that opened and snapped shut into itself like a coin purse. “Changing the pail.” Beouf marched up and took the literal bag of crap off of Zoge’s hands. “On it. Thanks. It’ll be good if I have it empty before the ‘cavalry gets here.’” “Not like they’re going to change anybody.” “Pffft,” Beouf scoffed. “Not that I’d let them.” She started twisting the liner up, again and again and again. Making it smaller and tying it up in knots to conceal just how empty it really was. “Do we want to wait to change the other kids?” Zoge asked. “Can’t,” Beouf answered. “No time.” “Why is she throwing it out?” I asked myself outloud. “There’s like five diapers in there, tops.” “They know,” Ivy said mysteriously. “The grown-ups always know.” At just the right time I caught Beouf finishing knotting up the bag at just the right angle. There were a handful of used diapers still in there; swollen and rolled up into tight little balls of waste. Also, crammed and wedged between the bottom one and the top was a relatively tiny cylinder filled halfway with brownish reddish dust. Had it been made of aluminum even I could have smashed it down flat with my foot. It was plastic, though, and so held its shape. Zoge narrowed her eyes. “You’re winding it too tight.” Beouf unwound the bag a tad. It was much harder to see the contraband I’d snuck in now. I couldn’t see it as much as just know that it was already there because I’d seen it. “You think anybody is gonna go dumpster diving?” she asked. That knowing soft smirk of Zoge’s blossomed anew. “Do you want to take that chance?” “Point taken.” Beouf moved towards the door, trash in hand. “You keep cleaning up the kids. I’ll be right back.” She poked her head out of the front door and checked if the coast was clear. One deep breath later and she was jogging towards the school dumpster, likely to place her bag underneath bags and bags of half eaten and discarded breakfast trays. Zoge picked up Sandra Lynn and boosted her into the bathroom. My jaw hung loosely from its hinge; not plummeting dramatically, just hanging there lightly like it did when I was half asleep. “They found the cinnamon,” I said. “They had it the whole time.” Billy leaned over to his girlfriend. “I told you to get rid of it.” “Mrs. Zoge was ‘getting rid of it’.” Annie said back. “I just told her that I found it.” I ignored them and instead wondered, “Why didn’t they turn us in?” Annie and Billy only offered me noncommittal shrugs. “Mommy and Mrs. B are our teachers,” Ivy broke in. “It’s their job.” My brain just didn’t want to wrap around that concept, even though I knew that I’d do the exact same thing for any of my students; even the Jeremies. “Yeah,” I said, “but then why didn’t you?” Ivy got a far off look. “Mommy said that we can’t let our feelings stop us from doing the right thing.” She sounded like she was reciting something she didn’t really understand. More fluently, she tacked on. “And you guys are friends.” “Yeah right,” Billy sneered, as if friendship with the Little Zoge was somehow fighting words. He’d learned that from me. I was about to tell him to shut up and that we owed her, but Annie beat me to it. “Don’t be a dumb baby.” He shut up. “Thanks,” I said to Ivy. I stepped out and raised my voice. “Thanks guys,” I called out to the whole class. I was met with a combination of enthusiastic smiles and thumbs up to quiet, disdainful, yet dignified and knowing prolonged eye contact.. The sound of tapes being ripped off of plastic backing ricocheted off the bathroom walls. “Sandra Lynn says you’re welcome,” Zoge echoed back. Love me or hate me, I was far from being an outsider or Helper anymore. I was one of them now. One of us. Beouf came back about a minute later and started helping Zoge out with the remaining class. Zoge still manned the changing table in the bathroom. Beouf grabbed supplies and play clothes and took Mandy into the nap room to maintain the thin veil of pseudo privacy. Another minute later, Mandy waddled out in a purple onesie with light lace trimming, and Beouf was power walking from behind holding a backpack in one hand and a balled up diaper for the pail in the other. “Tommy,” she called. “Get ready, kiddo. You’re next.” She leaned past Zoge and tossed Mandy’s shame away. A knock on the front door made Beouf pause from reloading and she quickstepped to her front door. She opened it and almost playfully asked, “Yyyyyeeeeeesssss?” “Hi there,” came a familiar voice. “Hello…” Beouf said. I couldn’t see who was on the other side, but Beouf seemed vaguely surprised; a bit confused even. “Did Miss Brollish send you?” “What?” the voice said. “No. I’m here to pick up Clark. Clark Grange?” Hearing my adopted name clicked everything into place. My face locked into neutral. Beouf’s spirits lifted. The lights came on in Beouf’s expression, and she opened the door completely. “Oh yeah!” she said. “I remember you from the shower. Janet’s friend, right?” “That’s me!” “Come on in.” The lady who walked in could have been a Little made large. She should have been a Little: Skinny and straight almost to the point of pre-pubescence, with tiny hips and breasts, while still bigger than any of the girls in my class due to sheer body mass, were completely antithetical to the Amazonian ideal of matronly beauty. Her state of dress was also extremely un-Amazon. Short denim jean shorts cut above the knees over gray leggings with white lace up sneakers, did not a mature and responsible adult project. Her light brown hair, cut short though it was, was still bunched up in a side ponytail. Compounding the contrast even further, she was wearing a Mint’s Hints T-shirt that was identical to mine, save for it that it had been machine washed to the point of fading, giving it a kind of retro or nostalgic look. Mrs. Beouf regularly wore functional clothing like jeans, t-shirts, serviceable shoes, and comfortable tops. The room’s latest entrant was the opposite of a Gwiffin Party costume; an Amazon doing an impression of what they thought Littles looked like; minus the padding. If she’d been wearing a diaper, the jean shorts wouldn’t have fit over it; no elasticity. If shrink rays were really a thing and not some mad scientist creepypasta, I would have suspected Janet of wanting to adopt her. “Hiiiii Clark!” she sang, all smiles and coos. All Little eyes pivoted away from her and to me. “It’s Auntie Jessicaaaaaa!” ‘Auntie’ Jessica. Janet’s best friend. ‘The fun Aunt’. My official babysitter. Well…crap. This was going to be annoying. Another survey of my peers told me who liked me and how much based on who was openly smiling with glee and who was doing their best to hide their amusement. The survey results were not surprising. I stepped forward, completely out of the nook, sighing to myself. I hadn’t planned on this but I wasn’t exactly shocked. I should have foreseen it. At least Janet hadn’t made up with Mark or someone. Best to get this over with. “Hi,” I said softly. “Ready?” I was up on her hip in the blink of an eye. “You bet Little guy! Let’s go!” “Bye,” Beouf waved. She sucked her lips in trying to suppress a smile. We both had a gut feeling about what kind of day I was in for. “Feel better, Clark. Have a good weekend. See you on Monday.” “Say buh bye, Clark.” I almost made another tender spot in my tongue, grinding my teeth. “Buh-bye, Clark…” “Ha!” she crowed. “Good one! Let’s go!” The door had remained open during this whole exchange. Jessica stepped out with me and I was treated to the sight of Raine Forrest, holding the door and watching us like a jealous hawk. “Have a good day,” she said in her best monotone. She’d been the escort. “You too,” Jessica sang, oblivious to the daggers being stared. I took a small but palpable amount of enjoyment sticking my tongue out at her, and watching her nose wrinkle up in anger. On the way out to the parking lot, an odd detail I noticed was how Jessica carried me. Janet had gradually adjusted so that she carried me on her side and used one arm wrapped around the small of my back to keep me pinned to her with her hips supporting a good chunk of my weight. Lacking Janet’s experience (and hips) Jessica used one arm for me to sit on and reached across herself to steady me at the shoulders. It’s strange what details one notices when being manhandled becomes part of the daily routine. The classroom was barely out of sight when she adjusted things to carry me draped over her shoulder, with one hand directly under my bottom, and the other hand resting between my shoulder blades. “Better,” I heard her whisper. At least I could rule out that she hadn’t gotten much practice caring for or snatching up “cousins”. Funnily enough it was sort of gratifying being too heavy or awkward for her to carry me like that. “Heard you got sick, but your Mommy can’t find a substitute, so she called me,” Jessica said as if I hadn’t already figured that much out. “Yup.” “She put me on your student emergency contact list so I’m allowed to pick you up.” “Uh-huh.” We came to a silver painted SUV with a hatchback trunk. I wasn’t good with cars, but it looked like an older model still in good condition. Jessica leaned back so she was supporting more of my weight on her body and freed up the hand between my shoulder blades to open up the door. “Let’s get going. We’ve got a big day ahead of us.” She lowered me into the car seat and buckled me in. I looked up at her while her hands worked the different straps and buckles. “Let me guess,” I said. “Doctor?” “Naw,” she said. “You don’t feel warm. Nothing looks swollen or glassy. Your voice is a little scratchy, but that’s not so bad. You just look like you just threw up a lot. Mommy can take you tomorrow if you start feeling icky.” She gave me a playful, knowing wink, and shut the door. Jessica knew, too. Which meant that Janet at least suspected that I’d been up to no good and warned her. She walked around, got in, turned on the engine and started backing out. I sunk back into the car seat. I can’t precisely say why I decided to be more honest and upfront; but it felt like a good time to lay some cards on the table. Maybe I was just playing the odds. I’d had a good round and didn’t want to overplay my hand. “You don’t think I’m sick, do you?” She started backing out of the parking lot. “Not really.” She had a relaxed, laissez faire, playful way of speaking about it. Janet sometimes spoke like that, before she’d gotten all quiet on me. “You think I did it on purpose?” The silver van pulled out onto the street and the shade of familiar trees and telephone poles slipped over my face. “Don’t know,” Jessica mused. “Don’t care either.” The confusion was real and it showed even in the rearview mirror. “You’re a little,” she said. “Littles do naughty silly stuff.” She added, “And I know a certain Little boy who likes to put things in his mouth that he shouldn’t and likes to do things to make big people upset.” I opened my mouth to retort, but couldn’t. Lady had a point. It was a skewed, stupid, distorted typical point based on the reality of my situation, but it was a point. “Doesn’t mean I don’t love him though.” “Doesn’t mean you like him.” That got no reply, but the eyes in the mirror and glimpses of her face betrayed no signs of pain or cognitive dissonance. She wasn’t trapped with me for several days a week. I hadn’t had the time or opportunity to grind her resolve down. That was a weakness to my favored interaction strategy. Anytime I drove one Amazon to the breaking point, they could always just tag out for a fresh one. It had been a limitation back when my pet cause had been reformation, too. Whether I was tormenting or enlightening them, it was one at a time, and the knowledge or aggravation I’d imparted didn’t get easily passed on to the next giant without my presence. You can only work with what you have, sadly. “Where are we going, then?” I asked. “Shopping.” Goose pimples started to break out on the back of my neck. “What kind of shopping?” “Clothes.” I squinted in suspicion. “What kind of clothes?” “Baby clothes. Little clothes. Take your pick.” Another wink. That was getting annoying. “Don’t worry, they’ll be nice.” “Wwwwwwwwhy?” My mouth slowly enunciated the word because there were so many questions to articulate. Not even an hour after my greatest prank, and I was anticipating swift and brutal retribution. Jessica’s response was immediate. “Umm, you barfed all over your nice picture day outfit, your Mommy is probably very upset and worried and worried about you, it’s getting chillier, and if I take you shopping and get you a couple new outfits maybe she won’t be as mad or worried when she gets home.” There was a twisted truth to what she said. “You’ve just got baby fever, you’re cosseting me, and you want to play dress up.” She giggled gleefully and blushed so hard I could see it from the backseat. “Yeah. That’s also true.” “Can you at least get me some pants?” I bargained. “I don’t know…” she pretended to be considering it. If she thought I was going to beg, she had another thing coming. “Mommy might not like that.” “You already said that it’s getting chilly,” I countered. “Why buy me something that in two months will be completely useless.” “Where we’re going has plenty of footed sleepers.” Jessica was still stringing me along. “Maybe if I heard a magic word or two or three. Starting with, ‘Pretty pretty’ and maybe add some sugar on top.” She was enjoying this way too much; bratty big sister that I never wanted. Okay. I had a magic word: Blackmail “Pretty, pretty, please don’t make me tell Mommy how you let me sneak into her room and drink her tequila while you were playing hide and seek.” I swallowed. “With sugar on top.” My babysitter smirked. “With how you’ve been acting lately, who is she gonna believe? Me or you?” I deflated and slumped back in the seat. “Please, will you buy me pants?” I monotoned. “Much better,” Jessica chirped. “And yes. Yes I will. I will buy you some pants. You just have to help me by trying them on, first.” I took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. “Fine.” That’s how the world was working now, it seemed. Jessica turned on some music; nothing childish, just poppy, and leaned back patiently waiting for the ride to be over. It didn’t take much to get comfortable. The seat had been broken in and fit me well. Extremely well, actually. I looked under my right arm and saw familiar stitching and bits of lint. “Is this my car seat?” “Uh-huh,” Jessica said, still driving. “I moved it over from your Mommy’s car. You didn’t think I had my own car seat with no Little to fill it, did you?” “Janet did.” “Touche” She reached over to the front passenger seat and held up the diaper bag “I snagged this, too so I won’t have to buy you any new toys or diapers. Pretty sure that’d be bad and embarrassing for you, right?” Reluctantly I nodded. It was bound to happen, but I didn’t need more giants than necessary commenting on what was going on beneath my belly button and a box of Monkeez or a pack of Hippobottumuses was taken as an open invitation. Did they talk like that about their real babies, or just the ones they constantly needed to lie to themselves about? I wasn’t sure of the definitive answer to that, but I doubted it. Jessica took a moment to put the bag down, flip it open and dig around, taking inventory with her fingers. I braced for an imminent surprise crash hoping she was keeping her eyes on the road. “Two, three, four,” she quietly said to herself. Then, louder, went, “Yeah, feels like you’ve got enough for one trip. Should be good.” Relief was sudden and immediate when both hands were returned to the wheel and her left knee was relegated to keeping her foot planted on the floor. Three minutes later we were parking by an empty sidewalk, somewhere close to downtown or the historic district. Instead of a cheerful “We’re heeeere”, Jessica got out, walked to the back and popped open the hatch. “Come on,” I heard her say. “Let’s go for a walk.” Within ninety seconds, I was in my stroller, and the skinny Amason was syncing the fancy device she’d foisted on me to walk side by side with her like a dog trained to heel. “See?” she said once we’d started to move. “Nice fresh air. The sun is up. Empty city sidewalk because everybody else is working. Nice, right?” I’d already decided that Amazon ‘nice’ was not the same as Little ‘nice’. “You just want an excuse to play with this like it’s a toy.” “Man, you are cheeky today!” Jessica grinned. “But yeah. You’re right.” This amount of unguarded honesty was kind of refreshing. The fit to the restraints felt off, tighter and looser in all the wrong places. “Did you stop by Janet’s house first to get my stroller or something?” “Nope. This one’s mine.” I tossed her a questioning, incredulous, look. “What? I can’t have nice things?” It was easy to continue to stare, since my transport vehicle was automatically whirring along at the same pace as her massive strides. “I know a guy who says he can take one of the parts and programming and fix up my push mower.” That might have been true. The city blocks continued to sail by. “Uh-huh…” I tried my best to sound even more unconvinced than I already was. “It’ll be nice,” Jessica said. “Mowing my parents’ lawn without having to get all sweaty.” “You still live with your parents?” I barked out. I was unsure whether I wanted to laugh or scream. Janet’s buddy was unphased. “Last I checked, so do you.” “That is not the same!” My voice was and indignation was rising. “Yeah,” she said. “You’re a lot cuter and don’t have to pay rent. Economy is hard right now. You got lucky.” That did it. “Lucky?” I shouted. “Lucky?” I gave nearly the exact same heated rant of red hot truth that I’d poured into Mark’s lap. It was practically a magic bullet. A sinister spell that could break any Amazon willing to listen all the way though. It broke Mark. Either vicariously or because she overheard part of it, it wounded Janet. It was going to rock Jessica’s world. I added on an extra few barbs about betrayal and how nothing I said counted to all because of one slip up. I was panting when I was done. For what felt like a long time, Jessica was quiet. Near silent. Only the motorized whir, purring like a cat, reached either of our ears. The city blocks we strolled by were mostly empty. I’d been so focused on her that I didn’t have any time to think about the surrounding people or scenery. We were passing fast enough that we likely weren’t making much of a scene; not like if this had been at a grocery store or restaurant. My outbursts likely went unnoticed altogether. It took a few left turns in silence for me to realize that Jessica had started walking us around in a single block at some point. “Yeah,” she finally said. “Agreed. You’re right. Absolutely right. I’m sorry you lost all that. That really sucks.” I was beginning to feel a massive crick in my neck from staring up in disbelief. “Maturosis sucks. But now you have your Mommy, and your teachers, and your new Little friends at school and the meetings, and me.” Why did I even bother sometimes? “My point is, that if you were my size and acted like you do, you’d be dumped in this stroller with me, you…you…” I needed a word, a good curse word. “You…!” Fuck! Was the baby monitor subliminally conditioning me even more than I already was? “Yeah,” my babysitter nodded thoughtfully. “You’re probably right. But I’m statistically very unlikely to develop or express Maturosis, so no one is going to misdiagnose me by accident.” Again. Why did I even bother? The going in circles-both physical and logical-didn’t stop. “I would have to be very careful, though.” Jessica continued. “You’re right. That would suck having to think about whether everything I did or said could be taken as evidence that I was turning into a baby.” “Yeah.” Her brow furrowed. “If I had to do that all the time, it would almost feel like I wasn’t really an adult at all, because I’d be constantly trying to act even more mature than I actually needed to. Everything would be kind of performative and I wouldn’t be the real me out in public.” “Mmmmhmmm.” I was leaning all the way back so the harness didn’t bite into me as much. My jaw was starting to feel like it was locking into place. I wasn’t going to say anymore. Just wait for it. “I wouldn’t really have any freedom,” Jessica told herself. “I’d constantly be looking over my shoulder wondering who was watching me and if they were thinking the wrong thing.” She stopped. “That sounds like a terrible life.” She looked down at me aghast. “Was that what it was like for you?” I was not going to cry. Not over this. My throat was still tender, and clenching up. “Yeah…” my voice cracked. I stared off into the middle distance. I was not going to cry. I’d had a victory today, and this was still better than being back at school. “Oh Clark,” Jessica said. “Baby. That sounds so awful! I’m so sorry you had to live through that.” “Me too,” I mouthed. “Me too.” “Can I give you a hug?” I nodded, remaining mute. She pressed a button to stop the stroller, leaned in and draped her arms over me, nuzzling my head against her. I closed my eyes, trying to shut out the letdown I knew was coming. Janet’s sister from another mister didn’t fail to disappoint. “Don’t worry,” she said. “You’re safe now. You don’t have to pretend anymore.” Again. So close, yet so far. Tears no longer threatened. Expect an Amazon to miss the point and you’ll never be disappointed. I leaned away from her, pressing myself as far back against the stroller seat as I could so that both her body and the uncomfortable harness pressed against me as little as possible. “Can we just go clothes shopping, please.” Jessica released her grip and stood up to her full height. She sniffed and wiped her eyes with one hand and her nose with the other sleeve. “Sure. One second.” Why was she getting emotional? “Just a second.” She shuffled around to the back of the stroller and returned quickly with her purse, already opened. She fished around, took out a tin of mints and removed one. She broke it in half and offered it to me. “Here,” she said, “Your breath stinks.” She popped her half in and dabbed at her eyes with her fingers. “You’re crying. It can’t be that bad.” I popped the giant portioned half into my mouth anyways. I hated the taste of mint, it was like a bitter cold spice; the opposite of cinnamon; toothpaste flavored candy. But yeah, my breath really did taste vile. Toothpaste candy was preferable. My sitter laughed and blinked away the last of whatever it was that was “That’s not why, silly..” Wordlessly, she reactivated the stroller and finished the loop back onto the stretch of road she’d parked on. I didn’t bother to ask her why she was crying. I didn’t know, didn’t want to know, and probably couldn’t comprehend if I did. I still allowed a flicker of hope to take root in my heart. Hope for Hope for her help in escaping? No. Hope that she might see me as an adult? Definitely not. It was a kind of hope, however. The store Jessica steered us to wasn’t nearly as gaudy or ostentatious as I’d anticipated. It was no "L'enfant Magnifique” with periwinkle walls and turquoise shingles, but was an understated brown brick storefront underneath a navy blue awning. The big display windows had gold lettering on them with the name of the store: BARNABY’S. The only immediate signal that this place catered to people of my stature were the size of the mannequins on display. The nearest to the door wore a navy blue and forest green polo shirt and soft denim overalls, with turned-up cuffs that almost reached the ankles, color blocking in pastels, and an applique on the large bib pocket in the shape of a frog. Beside it in the window was a display shelf of shoes including white leather booties, buckle sandals, blue chambray boat shoes, and imitation fur boots completely with velcro fasteners. Damn. These clothes were somehow both fancier and more babyish than anything I’d ever worn. Ever. This is where the old and rich Amazons came to pamper their captured Littles. “Are you sure you can afford this?” I heard myself ask. “Yeah,” Jessica said. “My folks are rich. Not rich rich, but I can swing this.” “You bought two remote control strollers in a two month period,” I said. “This does not seem fiscally responsible.” The sitter propped open the entrance door, and piloted the stroller inside. “What’s the point of being a Grown-Up if you can’t be irresponsible once in a while?” “You have no idea how hypocritical that sounds.” My comment went ignored and the door closed behind us. A shiver ran through my body, and it wasn’t just because the air conditioning was turned up to an unholy level. “Hello,” a lady clerk about Beouf’s age with makeup aplenty caked on to hide that fact waved to us from behind a thick oak desk. “Welcome to Barnaby’s! Let us know if there’s anything you’d like to try on.” Us? Who was ‘us’? As far as I could see there was no one else in the store. “Thank you very much,” Jessica spoke confidently. “We’re going to browse for a few moments and tell you in a minute.” “Take all the time you need.” The soft looking carpet matched the awning outside in color. Jessica lifted me out of the stroller and set me down on my feet. It was soft. I could feel it through my shoes. “I don’t think the stroller will fit down all of the aisles,” she told me. “Let’s park it near the front and look around. The left side of the store was dedicated to boy’s apparel. Pants, shorts, jackets, shirts. The right side of the store was reserved for girls with elaborate skirts and dresses of styles that I lack the vocabulary even now to classify. The front row of either direction had displays of onesies, rompers, and outfits that could only be classified as ‘baby’, differentiated primarily by color palettes. Looking at the outfits and thinking back to that morning, I suspected some of my classmates and even a few of my former students had parents who shopped here. Zoge definitely shopped here for Ivy. Mr. Zoge must have made beaucoup bucks. Alternatively, they might have just budgeted well. Fancy baby clothes were a luxury some could afford, justify, and accumulate over time if the supposed baby never grew out of them. I followed her left. She didn’t need to hold my hand. There was no chance I was making a break for it in this part of town looking the way I did. Polished wood shelves rose up above me on either side. Folded, vacuum plastic wrapped clothing items lined the shelves, with tiny me-sized mannequins posted on top near Amazon eye level so that Mommies and Daddies could get an idea of what their doll would look like wearing them. There were clothes with contrast stitching, baseball tees, button down shirts, mandarin collars, elasticized waists, cargo pants, light-up sneakers, and argyle sweater vests. Thankfully the dolls were all headless. That same uneasy feeling, that buzzing in the back of my brain that happened when I was on Beouf’s playground started to creep up on me. It was quiet and calm and relatively sophisticated and the floor was soft instead of rough and sticky and worn, and everything smelled good, and the lone clerk had yet to talk down to me and even Jessica was relatively bearable. I didn’t like it here. Not one bit. “What are we looking for? What outfit?” Jessica scanned the shelves the way a hawk scanned a grassy field for mic. Idly, she fiddled with her side ponytail, twisting it in her fingers. “I haven’t decided yet,” she said. Then her tone lightened. “Oh wait, here we go.” The giantess became a sorting machine, whipping her arms out in seemingly random directions, getting clothes high and low from shelves. Her pace quickened, and I had to struggle to keep up. She piled item after item into her arms until she had a stack from her belt line up to the bottom of her chin. Impressive, doubly so considering they were clothes meant to fit me. “Excuse me,” Jessica called for the clerk. “Can we use your dressing room?” The old lady with too much eyeshadow rushed up and looked Jessica over. She pressed her lips together in consternation and finally managed, “Let me help you sort those out and get the samples for you, dear.” ********************************************************************************** Two hours later… “Okay,” Jessica said. “Walk around in them some. Get a feel.” “Yeah,” I whined. “I know. You’ve already had me do this a million times.” The would-be preschool teacher rolled her eyes. “It’s not a million. We've done a dozen at most. Maybe twenty.” “It’s called hyperbole.” “Just move around.” She lightly swatted my backside like Janet used to, to get me moving. So I did. My lip curled while I paced the aisle nearest the dressing rooms. The red cotton long-sleeved tee I was wearing badly needed fabric softener. I wasn’t a fan of the stitched-in slogan that read, “Eat. Sleep. Cute. Repeat.”, either. The denim pants were admittedly nice. Too bad the pockets were sewn shut. “What do you think?” Jessica called, cupping her hands together as if I were very far away. “These don’t have any pockets!” I called back. “So? What do you have to hold onto?” If only she knew… I bowed my head, fatigued. Whoever said clothes shopping wasn’t a physically demanding task was a filthy rotten liar. Personally, I’d put it above wrestling a Ramean lion in a coliseum and below soccer. “Well?” “Hold on! I’m thinking.” It was still better than the itchy starched white button up paired with the brown and blue argyle sweater vest. The elasticized waist tan slacks had been an even bigger deal breaker. They chafed when I walked and were too tight on the rump. Every few steps I took I could feel them sliding down my plastic backing. I needed clothes I could move in. The first outfit with a pale green wool sweater had sleeves closer to a Tweener’s. I kept having to push them up in the dressing room until Jessica rolled them up for me. Something that would impair my hands was a no go. The dark green corduroy pants the sweater had been paired with announced my presence with a swishing sound whenever I walked. The light up white and blue shoes didn’t help much. Hard to use my hands and hard to sneak around in? Cancel. I walked back to Jessica. Like every other return trip down the aisle, she had her phone ready and snapped my picture. “Why do you keep doing that?” I groaned. “To see which one Janet likes best.” I’d sabotaged Picture Day and was getting my own personalized fashion shoot instead. My head hung down to my chest, wilted. My throat was dry from how many times I’d sighed in the last one hundred and twenty minutes. This was boring. This was uncomfortable. This was useless. This was stupid. “Fine,” I said. “I guess I hate this one the least.” Another plus was that none of these items had snaps along the inseam. She ditched her phone. “Yeah. I like it too.” She took me into the dressing room one last time and got the store’s trial clothes off of me and back to just my t-shirt and regular sneakers. I really hoped for my sake and whoever followed me that Barnaby’s had spares and washed these things. I was a limp ragdoll in Jessica’s arms all the way to the counter. “Okay. We’ll take them.” Jessica said. “Which ones?” The clerk asked. “All of them.” That was enough for the clerk. She got out two enormous shopping bags with store lettering on them and began stacking the clear plastic sealed variants in. “New Mommy?” she asked. “No. Just his Auntie. Sort of. I’m spoiling…” “That makes sense,” the other woman agreed. “He’s very well behaved.” I lifted my head and tapped Jessica on the shoulder. Screw the clerk. If she could talk about me like I wasn’t there, I could disregard. “Why are you getting so many?” I demanded to know. “You think this is spoiling me?” “I’m not spoiling you, silly,” she said. “I’m spoiling your Mommy.” She pressed her forehead to mine and spoke so low that only I could hear her. “When she called me I could tell that she was close to crying. Janet’s my best friend and you’re going to help me make it up to her. Got it?” A deluge of curses and slurs and insults swam through my gray matter. I wanted to spit in the woman’s face and find a way to burn all of those. I’d shove them, plastic first into the dryer with the heat turned all the way up. When I was about to start my offensive, a little, Little voice played itself in my mind’s ear: “We can’t let our feelings stop us from doing the right thing.” Damn you, Ivy. “Got it.” The woman behind the counter rang up the total, and Jessica paid with her card. The price was high enough that I was pretty sure I could have bought groceries for at least a couple months with that price tag. Probably close to six. My stomach growled just thinking about it. “I’m hungry.” “Oh yeah,” Jessica remarked. “I guess you kind of haven’t eaten today, have you?” I was embarrassed to realize that I’d become accustomed to snack breaks and chalky sweet treats. “We’ll get an early lunch next.” “How are you gonna get those bags out of here?” Each one was big enough that I could have hid in one had it been empty. “We’ll cram them in the stroller. I’ll carry you.” I snorted. “All the way back to the van?” “Me Auntie Jessica!” she mock-growled. “Me strong! Carry big boy long ways!” That got a giggle out of me. I let out an “eep!” when I felt the palm I’d been sitting on squeeze me. “Before we go,” Jessica asked the clerk. “Is there someplace I can change him?” “Sorry,” the clerk told her. “We don’t have any changing stations here.” The one bit of childish ‘clothing’ this place didn’t carry were diapers. No diapers. No changing tables. Fewer snaps. The near constant buzzing in my head dimmed considerably. I liked Barnaby’s a little better just then. “Looks like we’ll have to wait till we get back to the van.” ************************************************************************ The Silver Spoon was a diner on the other side of Oakshire, but only just barely off the main road before you get to the Oakshire Wildlife Gardens. It’s also one of the few places I knew locally where a body could get a fried egg and a chocolate shake at any time of the day. “What are you gonna get?” Jessica asked, carrying me inside onto the checkered floor. “I don’t know,” I said. “Franz fries. Lots of Franz fries.” “What is Franz, anyways?” she wondered. “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe Franz was the guy who invented them?” “Wouldn’t that make them Franz’s fries?” Jessica asked. I gave the closest I could to a verbal shrug. “I ‘unno. Maybe it’s one of those things that got shrunk or forgotten over time.” “Maybe…” A Tweener in a light blue waitress’s dress and a paper hat approached us. “Hi there. How many?” “Just the two of us,” Jessica told her. The Tweener clocked me, and smiled. The smile didn’t reach her eyes, but it wasn’t a Brollish smile. It was closer to what I’d seen from Elmer’s mother in the grocery store “Great,” she said. “No problem. I’ll go get him a highchair.” Something was wrong. There was a problem. Jessica stepped further into the restaurant and I knew exactly what the problem was: At the back of the diner, two booths sat occupied, jam packed together. A dozen Little men crammed together in booster seats sat with dirty hands and scruffy bears and sweat stained jumpsuits. They were younger and only a little bit smaller than I remembered my ex-father-in-law. They had more muscle on their arms too. No beer guts, either. Each table of six men at each booth were eating half a plate of Amazon portioned smash burgers and fries. Jawing, and joking, and bitching about whatever job they were taking a break from. A smattering of Tweeners and bored looking Amazons ate nearby, but they paid them no mind. They got real quiet when they saw Jessica and me, however. No one stared; quite the opposite. They all settled down, chewed more slowly, and did everything they could to avoid looking at me. One of them quietly held up his hand, asking for the checks, even though many of the men clearly hadn’t finished their lunch. They looked like they’d just started. No questions came to mind. Me. They were leaving because of me. I was the babied Little to them. I was the reminder of what could happen to them if they weren’t careful. I was the bad omen. Mine was the fate worse than death. I wasn’t one of them. Not anymore. I wasn’t an adult. I was a victim, a loser. I’d played the game and I’d lost. I was a baby. They thought they’d be safe from seeing someone like me out here this time of the day. Someone like me was supposed to be at daycare far away from where they could see me or have to deal with the crazy Amazon who’d dragged me in here with her. No screams for help were required. No pleas for aid or screams that I was married and had a teaching degree needed to go ignored. I didn’t need to say anything. I was ruining their meal just being there. Panicked, I grabbed Jessica by the chin. “Jessica. Take me home, please.” Jessica looked confused. “We just got here.” “I know. I’m not hungry. I don’t like it here. Take me home.” “The waitress will be back in just a second.” “Auntie Jessica…” “What’s wrong? Are you embarrassed?” “I can’t explain.” “Did you poop?” I released her chin and grabbed her ponytail in an absolute stranglehold. “Auntie. Jessica. I need to go home. Now, please!” The enormous Little slapped my hand aside like it was tissue paper. She made a quiet “ow” sound and then stared at me. “Please listen…” I begged. “Please.” We started moving back the way we came. “Okay, baby.” *************************************************** “Come on Clark,” Jessica begged me. She held the spoonful of applesauce up to my lips. “Eat. Please.” I was starving. I withdrew. It being cinnamon applesauce made it easier. “Are you doing this to punish me?” Kind of. I turned my head sideways so she couldn’t shove the spoon in my mouth. “No.” I was punishing myself more than her. Felt good imagining that I was punishing an Amazon at least. “No you won’t eat? Or no you’re not punishing me.” I wilted in the highchair. We were back in Janet’s kitchen. I went quiet all the way back. Jessica had asked me questions but I didn’t bother answering. If she couldn’t understand that Maturosis was bullshit, there was no way she’d get why inhabiting the same space as those free Littles was existentially disturbing to both parties. No grand plan. No short term scheme. I just wasn’t eating and feeling sorry for myself. “You’re really starting to worry me, Clark.” Good. Or bad? I didn’t know. Too much to process. Too much to take in. Me sabotaging Picture Day; Beouf shouting my real name; then covering it up in front of Brollish. The feelings in my head at Barnaby’s. Seeing those Littles who still had jobs and homes and maybe families. Janet. Just Janet. Too fucking much. “You know if you don’t put something in your stomach, Janet really will have to take you to the doctor.” Wow. Jessica was calling Janet by her name in front of me. Yay, I guess. “If you don’t eat they’ll have to find another way to feed you.” She put the spoon down and held my head up. “Tubes will be involved.” “Fine,” I grumbled. “No applesauce, please.” Jessica was over to the fridge with a stride. “Okay fine. What do you want? Pears? Corn dog nuggets? Chicken? Milk? Banana? Orange slices? Orange juice?” I rested my head on my chin. “Milk.” Maybe if I had a bottle to suck on she’d stop expecting me to talk. No magic words or ‘pretty, pretty’ or sugar on top was required. “Okay, there’s some right here.” My sitter removed a baby bottle from the refrigerator, pivoted and stepped to me. “Drink up.” “Thanks,” I reached for the bottle and closed on thin air. “Almost forgot,” she said. “You like poison proof, don’t you?” She opened her mouth and squirted some in. She froze and made a face. “That’s not moo milk,” she said. “It’s not sour but… that’s not moo milk.” I wanted to bang my head on the tray. “We were bored and switched to goat milk. Carton in the fridge. Jessica re-opened the fridge, dug the carton of milk out and took a swig directly from it. She swished it around in her mouth with questions in her eyes. It reminded me of the look I sometimes got when I was expecting to sip soda out of a straw, but actually got sweet iced tea. The Little in the giant’s body, swallowed. “Okay,” she said. “Yeah. That adds up.” She handed me the bottle. “I prefer cow milk. Definitely prefer cow.” Her preferences aside, I took the bottle and started sucking from the rubber teat. Gently at first, but only at first. Sips turned to gulps. Gulps turned to chugging. My body had done its best to abate the hunger and was starting to get comfortable. Once the sweet, fatty milk touched my tongue, my stomach was open for business. I downed the whole thing in under a minute.The belch that followed was for close to two seconds. “Nice!” Jessica offered me a high five. I took it. A yawn bellowed out of me and I started to wilt again. I’d tanked up quickly enough and now I was feeling sluggish. “Auntie Jessica?” I asked. “Can I please take an early nap?” “Sure, baby.” Jessica said. “Sure. But you’re gonna eat a snack after I wake you up. Solid food. Deal?” Another yawn and then, “Deal.” She checked my diaper and declared me “Good enough.” High praise considering the source. Made sense. Nothing had gone in, so nothing really was coming out. Fringe benefit of purge and starvation? I was released from the highchair and carried back into the nursery. I was laid down in the crib and the only things that came off were my shoes and socks. She went over and closed the bedroom curtains. The room still wasn’t dark, but it was sufficiently shady to snooze. “Night night, Clark.” My eyes closed. “Night night.” A terrible thought entered my head, followed by a brave one. “Jessica?”. “Yeah?” I pointed to the monitor. “Can you please take that out?” “I don’t know if your Mommy wants me messing with that.” She sounded hesitant. I opened my eyes back up. “Pleeeeeeeeease?” I stared up at her looking over the edge of the railing. “Why do you want me to take out the monitor?” A lie wouldn’t work. So a truth would have to do. “It scares me.” “Why?” She was puzzling out whether I was telling the truth or manipulating her. These two things could be true. “I can’t explain it in a way you’ll understand.” I told her. Technically, another truth where I was concerned. “It just scares me. It’s a Little thing.” She turned her head and considered the device. “Will you call me Auntie Jess as much as you can?” “Yes.” That was just vague enough to work. Sure. In reply, she walked to the monitor and unplugged it. “Okay, but only for your nap. I’m leaving the door open so I can listen.” “Deal.” She was winding the chord up around her massive fist. “And I’m putting this with the receiver so I don’t lose it.” “Double deal.” My eyes were shutting. “And I’m putting it back before your Mommy comes home.” “Triple deal.” I stayed awake long enough to see her take the cursed subliminal messaging device out of my room. I fell into a deep and wonderful sleep like I hadn’t had in ages.

Just a friendly reminder for those of you out there on the interwebs: I'm a full time kink writer. Yup. That's where I decided to plant my flag. Weird, right? And I write anything between flash fictions to goddamn NOVELS! Check out my deviantart or fetlife if you're curious. https://fetlife.com/groups/202163 http://deviantart.com/personalias I post in other places, too. If you're reading this, you're probably at one of them. Just those two sites are arguably the best organized of my galleries. (That's not saying much, but at least the chapters link to one another.) If you like what I've got on display and want to support my writing, financially, please consider subscribing to my patreon. Even 1 dollar a month will help. Also, if I get all the way up to 350 subscribers, I'll start posting weekly flash fictions. Thanks for your time and consideration! http://patreon.com/personalias