[Looking for stories]

7 hours ago, Mckaletg said:

Hi,I'm looking for  long stories with a daddy and a little boy or two daddies and a little boy. Any suggestions?

Consider using the "Official Looking for a Story Thread".  Also consider going to diaper-bois.com and looking at their story section.

[War Games]

War.

War never changes.

On October 23, 2077 the United States and China began and ended the Great War. In the span of two hours, all of human history had cultivated in the sky lighting on fire and the world being turned to cinders.  But humanity did not die and join the ashes.

Hundreds of Millions perished instantly. Billions died the slow agonizing death of radiation poisoning and starvation from nuclear winter.  Thousands lingered on as something else entirely.  But thousands more escaped the onset of holocaust by heading deep underground, into isolated and shielded facilities known as “vaults”.

What these denizens did not know, could not even conceive of, was that they were merely guinea pigs for a series of unorthodox and highly unethical experiments.  Vault-Tec, the company that had anticipated (perhaps even provoked) the Great War created these safe havens to preserve humanity, that is true, but they only endeavored to save what they considered the “best” or the “most necessary” sections of humanity. 

 Everyone else was just fodder.

A relative handful of vaults operated as advertised.  They provided safety and shelter to those who dwelled inside, re-opened once the radiation had dropped to acceptable levels, and supplied humanity with the tools necessary to rebuild civilization. Every other vault was a grand social experiment meant to operate without concern for the physical and mental well being of its inhabitants.

Vault 27 packed in double the intended occupants to see how a random selection of people would deal with dwindling and insufficient resources.

Vault 95 consisted entirely of chem addicts and alcoholics who were forced to get clean…just to see what happened five years later when a massive cache was introduced.

Vault 11 forced its occupants to sacrifice one of their own each year under threat that they would all die if they did not comply.

And then there was Vault 159…

******************************************************************************************
Rebecca woke up early that morning, bright eyed and bushy tailed as Coddlesworth often said. Though she didn’t really understand that expression- her eyes didn’t glow and she didn’t have a tail to wag-but she liked the sound of it.  

She liked it so much that she decided to play with it in her mouth a little bit while waiting for Coddlesworth to get her up for the day.  “Bright eyed,” she said. “Briiiiiiiigh-tuuuuuugh! Eeeeeeyeeeee-duh!  Bushy. Buuuuusssssshhhh.  Sh-sh-sh-sh! Tail-uh-duh! Tay-tay-tay-tay-tay-tay!”

She stopped to make a few spit bubbles and kept on babbling, all while batting at the Nuka-Cola mobile dangling from the head of her crib. Rebecca could have clobbered the dangling soda bottles and rocket ships if she just sat up slightly, but that wasn’t as much fun. It was more amusing to graze them with the very tips of her fingers and make them make the music sound off.

What if there was a place with all the zip of Nuka-Cola?
Wouldn’t that be the cheer-cheer-cheeriest place in all the world?
Where the rivers flow with Quantum and the mountaintops are fizz?
With fun and games and rides for all the moms and pops and kids?

Played slowly, it was a soothing lullaby to drift off to sleep to after a rousing day of play. Played fast, it was Rebecca’s ideal wake up call to start said day of play.  That’s why it was her favorite song. When she was smaller, she’d cried and screamed until Coddlesworth and all the other Mr. Handies and Miss Nannies taught her every single word.

What was a ‘mom’, anyway?  She assumed that it was another word for soda, like ‘pop’, but she wasn’t sure. 

“A vacation that refreshes,” she sang quietly to herself.  “A trip you won’t forget. A park with every minimum acceptable safety standard met.”  She didn’t know what most of the words meant, but that didn’t stop her from saying it. ‘Vacation’ was particularly fun to say. 

She didn’t know what a ‘bongo-bongo-bongo’ was or a ‘congo’, but liked singing that song, too. Especially the part at the end.  “Civilization! I’ll stay right heeeeeeeere!”  That was also her favorite song.

The door to Rebecca’s nursery whooshed open and Coddlesworth hovered inside. Three hundred years prior, the floating mechanical octopus would have been something terrible to behold; an abomination of science spitting in the face of nature.  Approximately, two-hundred years ago, it was an exciting cutting edge piece technology that created so many opportunities and convenience.  But Rebecca had known Coddlesworth and his manufactured ilk all of her life, and thus the robots that cared for her and her playmates were natural and normal.  Rebecca didn’t even think of Coddlesworth as a ‘robot’.  To her, he and every other person who took care of her was a Grown-Up.

“Good morning, Miss Rebecca,” Coddlesworth said through his speakers. “Had a restful night’s sleep, I trust?”  The Grown-Up wasted no time in going over to Rebecca’s dresser and fetching powder, washcloths, a onesie, and a fresh diaper.  All part of the morning routine.

“Yuh-huh,” Rebecca nodded and smiled up at the floating ball of chrome. Coddlesworth always made sure to keep at least one retractable eye on her when he was changing her.

“Excellent!” Coddlesworth replied.  “Then let’s get you changed, shall we?”

Rebecca laid still as Coddlesworth lowered the side of her crib and unbuttoned her blue Vault-Tec footie pajamas all the way down starting at the shoulder and slipped them off her legs.  The second the first fiber of fabric hit the hamper metallic tendrils and pincers gently attacked the safety pins holding her diaper together.

“Oh dear!,” Coddlesworth tutted. “It looks like someone was dreaming of going for a swim!”  This was Coddlesworth’s way of emphasizing just how close to leaking Rebecca had been.

Rebecca playfully popped her thumb in her mouth and giggled in reply.  She sucked and giggled on her digit while her metallic caregiver cleaned her sensitive and delicate areas with a specially warmed washcloth

“Thumb out of your mouth, Miss Rebecca,” Coddlesworth said. “That’s what your binky is for, dear.”.  

“Coddlesworth?” Rebecca asked while her ankles were crossed and her legs were raised for her so that the soaked diaper could be removed.  “Am I an educated savage?”

“What?” Coddlesworth replied. “Where did you…?” There was a sense of pause in the Mr. Handy’s voice but his mechanical arms had no hesitancy in disposing of the soggy bit diaper and slipping a nice thick clean one beneath the girl.  “Oh, that song,” he said. “I really do disagree with the decision to let that so-called radio station be broadcast in the main playroom, but the Overseer saw no reason to object to the entertainment. I prefer a good old fashioned nursery rhyme, don’t you?”

Rebecca had kept nibbling on her thumb while her caregiver dusted clean smelling powder on her caramel colored skin.  “You didn’t answer my question.” 

“And you’re still chewing on your thumb, silly girl.”

Rebecca pulled her thumb out of her mouth and whined  “Coddleswoooooorth!”

“Fine, fine,” Coddlesworth said.  “No need to get so fussy.” With precision that could best be described as machine driven, Coddlesworth pulled the fresh diaper up between the girl’s legs and started to gently fasten it on with safety pins.  “No, Miss Rebecca, you are not an educated savage. Quite the opposite, frankly.”

“What am I?” This question Rebecca already knew the answer to, but she loved hearing it.

With the dry diaper fastened on, the machine was free to pull Rebecca’s prone form up into a sitting position.  “I think the answer should be quite obvious, Miss Rebecca,” Coddlesworth replied. He waited until he pulled the clean Vault-Tech onesie over Rebecca’s head and unbunched the sleek yet breathable waterproof fabric down over her breasts  “You are a precious, adorable, baby girl!”
“Yaaaaaay!”  Rebecca clapped her hands in celebration.

“Not just any baby girl either,” Coddlesworth announced. “You’re a birthday girl as well!  Congratulations!”  A bit of confetti shot up into the air and.

Rebecca clapped her hand to her cheeks in delighted surprise. “I am?” She started bouncing on her fluffy bottomed seat.  “How old am I? How old am I?”

Coddlesworth gathered up Rebecca’s long black hair and started bunching it up together into two bushy pigtails tied in yellow ribbon. “Assuming my internal chronometer is still functioning, and I’m sure that it is, you are twenty-one years old today!”

The baby girl grinned with pride. “That’s the oldest I’ve been so far!”

“Quite right,” Coddlesworth agreed.  “It seems like just yesterday I was playing peekaboo to make you laugh and giving you a nice warm ba-ba before naptime to help you drift off to sleep.

“Coddlesworth!” Rebecca laughed. “That was yesterday!”

“Oh,” Coddleswroth remarked. “So it was!”  Specially designed reinforced metal tendrils cradled the girl and lifted her out of her crib. “Let’s get you some breakfast, birthday girl, then we’ll start our day of play!”

************************************************************************************************

Samantha woke up on the wrong side of the bed.  She didn’t know what that meant, because she’d never seen one, but she knew it had something to do with sleep since the Grown-Ups used ‘bed’ and ‘sleep’ interchangeably.  Still, it begged the question: How could somebody sleep wrong?

The light brown, almost red haired, little girl wasn’t sure, but she felt she’d accomplished the feat of operator error.  She’d tossed and turned in her crib all night and no amount of repositioning or rolling over helped her doze off.

Some silly stubborn part of her didn’t want to call out for help and cry. It’s not like she’d been sick or had a bad dream. Her toys hadn’t been moving and there weren’t radroaches under her crib.  She just couldn’t get comfy.

“Good morning, sleepyhead,” Poppy cooed down at her. “Did you have a practically perfect visit to slumberland Miss Samantha?”

Samantha grumbled something incoherent as Poppy’s warm washcloth bathed her backside. She rubbed her eyes and the first thing that came into focus was her own crossed ankles hoisted high towards the ceiling.  
“I think someone must have really enjoyed getting their forty winks to sleep so long.”  Samantha grumbled a bit more, while the old diaper was swapped out for the new one.  “It’s been ages since you’ve slept through your morning change!”

Samantha wanted to roll over and go back to sleep, but she was literally not in a position to do so.  “Poppeeeeeee,” she whined.  “Staaaaaaahp!”

One prehensile camera-eye lowered itself and stared directly at her bare bottom.  “Oh dear, is that the beginnings of a rash I detect?  Someone must have made those stinkies late last night in their sleep.”

Samantha assumed the Miss Nanny was talking about her.  Maybe that’s why she had been having such trouble sleeping, she supposed.  She knew there was something uncomfortable keeping her up, but an itchy bottom hadn’t occurred to the girl. There had been a time when she was two or three…maybe four…when Samantha could tell she was making stinkies in her diaper, but that was a distant memory.  

At the time, she thought she heard the Grown-Ups say something about ‘Poppy Training’ but that didn’t sound right to her.  Anyways, that was a long time ago, and like a good baby Samantha’s brain had long forgotten any correlation to how her body felt and how her diaper felt a few minutes later.

Samantha winced out of her memory while the egg colored Grown-Up smeared thick white cream up and down her backside.  Her nose wrinkled at the gross chemical smell.  She hated the smell of diaper rash cream.  The smell of a stinky diaper was almost preferable in that at least it was natural.  “Poppy?” she asked, “Can you remember to use extra baby powder?”  Anything to cover up that unnatural chemical scent.

Dutifully, Poppy shook an extra cloud of the sweet smelling stuff all over Samantha’s rashy bottom.  “Hmmm,” she said as she lowered Samantha’s hips down to the thick fresh padding.  “It seems the irritation isn’t just on your bottom.  Were you up late playing naughty games last night, Miss Samantha? Is that why you didn’t cry out?”

Samantha blushed all over.  Come to think of it, she had been playing the naughty games that the Grown-Ups didn’t want her playing, rubbing between her legs all the way through the layers and layers of jammies and thick diapers. 

 “Maybe…” she admitted. “I was just trying to get to sleep.”  That part was true.  Samantha always felt good and sleepy after she got to play her naughty games with Mr. Buzzy every two weeks. But it was too late for Mr. Buzzy, so she did it herself and pretended her hands were Mr. Buzzy.

“Oh never mind, dear,” Poppy said.  From the sound of her voice, and the way her octopus eyes blinked and waggled back and forth, she would have been shaking her head if she were a kid.  But Samantha also knew her caregiver would be smiling, too.  “Little girls will be little girls.”
She finished diapering Samantha, nice and thick so that she probably wouldn’t need a change until at least naptime, and dressed her in her regulation Vault 159 onesie, same as everyday else.

“Oh, and I know I’m practically perfect in every way,” Poppy said, putting the finishing touches on Samantha’s hair with a loose and comfortable ponytail.  “But lest I forget. Happy birthday, darling!”

Samantha woke up, instantly, chasing all the sleepiness and grumpiness away. “It’s my birthday?!”  She sat up a little straighter.

“Yes darling, you’re a whole year older and none the wiser!”

The way she said it made Samantha feel good all over and bubble up.  “How old am I?”

“It’s been twenty-one years since Mr. Stork delivered you and your little friends to Vault 159!”

“Oh my gosh!” Samantha clapped.  She was going to have to play extra hard today!

Mr. Stork tended to deliver babies in bunches of bundles all at once to Vault 159, so at any given point five to ten different babies all had the same birthday. What none of the babies understood was that this was fairly unusual outside of the vault.  What none had any reason to suspect was that Mr. Stork and Mr. Buzzy were very good friends and had an intimate working relationship.

************************************************************************************************************

“HAAAAAAPPY BIRTHDAY TOOOOO YOU!” The Grown-Ups finished warbling the birthday song as the last empty breakfast bowl was taken away. All the other kids who didn’t have the pointy birthday hats on clapped and cheered for the ones who did.

Rebecca leaned back in her highchair and let out a hearty belch, her matching dark blue bib catching some oatmeal and prune laced spittle. Samantha fiddled with the elastic string under her chin.  

Other Grown-Ups started releasing kids from their highchairs and shooing them off to play rooms. Those kids, both older and younger than today’s birthday batch, crawled and toddled as their full tummies and (for now) empty diapers allowed them.  For Rebecca, Samantha, and their agemates, there were a few more steps to attend to.

“Because we want your special day to be extra special,” Coddlesworth said, “we decided to give you your presents early!”

“Yes,” Poppy said, her various arms filled with gift wrapped boxes. “Let you have the entire day to enjoy them instead of waiting till after dinner and cake.”

“CAKE?!” a cry rose up from over half-a-dozen highchairs. Despite having gone through this ritual over twenty times now, and witnessed it even more, the fact that they got cake AND presents excited the boys and girls just as much as if it were the first.  

Coddlesworth grabbed a few more boxes. “Oh, I told you not to mention the see-ay-kay-ee.”

Neither Rebecca nor Samantha knew what see-ay-kay-ee was, but they would have leapt over their feeding trays if it meant they could get cake.

“Oh hush now” Poppy replied.  “Everything that can be done should have at least a little bit of fun.  You’re being neurotic, dear.”

“Well I never! The Overseer will be hearing about thi-”

“Not in front of the bee-ay-bee-eye-eez,” Poppy quickly interjected.  The babies were already starting to wiggle in their seats.  Despite having very full tummies, they were eyeing the gift wrapped boxes like hungry puppies after a bone. Samantha and Rebecca, in particular, were fighting to keep their smiles up.  They hated it when the grown-ups argued. Even if Coddlesworth didn’t like new things and Poppy tended to talk down to everyone.

“Quite right.”  Coddlesworth sighed. “We have more important things to do than to peck at each other like a couple of old hens.” A beat. “LIKE PASS OUT BIRTHDAY PRESENTS!”

Another cheer went up and the Grown-Ups started handing out presents. One by one, the gift boxes were passed out to each of the twenty-one year old babies, each one carefully wrapped and done up with a bow.  It was hard for Samantha because she was the last in the row to get a gift.  It was even harder for Rebecca because she was first.  

“Remember, dears,” Poppy reminded, “Good little boys and girls wait to open up their gifts until everyone has one.”

When finally everyone had a present laying on her tray, Coddlesworth gave the signal.“Three…Two…One,...GO!”

Had the falling scene consisted of anything other than wrapping paper and cardboard, it wouldn’t have been appropriate for children of any age.

“A dolly!” Rebecca cooed as she pulled the most adorable dolly out of her box. It was the cutest little ragdoll with a blue onesie on it just like hers, and a big puffy diaper pinned on just like hers, and it had beautiful blue.  Rebecca fell in love instantly and hugged it so hard that if its tummy were as full of oatmeal and prunes as hers, the dolly would have needed a change right away.

“A box?” Samantha said with a frown.  Who put a box inside of another box and called it a present?  “Coddlesworth!  Poppy!”  Samantha started to whine.  “I think my present is…”  The lid of the polished oaken box popped up and Samantha’s face froze.

A little blonde boy rose from out of the box, wearing a suit similar to Samantha’s onesie, except it covered his arms and legs too. He sat in front of a black piano, playing it while the pedestal he was on slowly spun in a circle.  Both the Vault Boy and the piano were so tiny that its jaunty little tune came out in tiny tinkling chimes.

“Ooooooooo!” Samantha gasped, mesmerized.  She didn’t know the words to the song, but loved it all the same.

In olden days, a glimpse of stocking
Was looked on as something shocking
But now, God knows…
Anything goes.

Rebecca knew the words.  It was her favorite song.  She stared longingly and sang along with the little Vault Boy on his piano. “Good authors too who once knew better words, now only use four-letter words writing prose…anything goes.”  Truly, it was her favorite song!

Samantha turned her head towards the sound of the singing and gasped. That dolly that Rebecca was squeezing! It had blue button eyes just like Samantha and its yarn hair almost perfectly matched Samantha’s reddish brownish mop! It even had the same dark blue onesie and poofy diaper underneath! It was her but in dolly form, and Samantha fell instantly in love.  

Neither tot realized their arms were reaching out for the other’s present and that only distance was stopping them from getting what they wanted more than anything in the world.

“Alright kiddos!” Coddlesworth announced. “Now that we’ve got all of that present business out of the way, let’s shuffle off to a playroom and party down as they say! Safely and responsibly of course!” he added.

Even after the trays from their highchairs were taken away and they were placed down on the kitchen floor,  Rebecca and Samantha were too busy staring greedily at one another’s gifts to notice that the group was toddling slowly but surely away from them.

“Come along my little ducklings,” Poppy coaxed them back into the present despite their presents presence.  “You can play with your birthday gifts as much as you like after we get you all tucked away and out from underfoot.”  She gestured with a tendril to the other, less personable Grown-Ups who were already beginning to clean up after the babies; washing dishes, mopping floors, and whatnot.

The girls eyed one another’s toys, adjusted their party hats, then each other, and nodded silently.  The only thing moving faster than their bare legs were their minds.

Rebecca wanted Samantha’s music box.

Samantha wanted Rebecca’s dolly.

And being twenty-one year old toddlers, neither one even considered trading.

War.

War never changes…

*******************************************************************************************************
“Alright kiddos,” Coddlesworth announced.  “Who’s up for a good old-fashioned game of Pin the Tail on the Donkey?”

Hands shot in the air immediately and a chittering of “Me-me-me-me-me-me-me!” filled the nursery style play room.  

“Excellent!” Coddlesworth said. “That’s the spirit lads and lasses!  Now which good little birthday boy or girl should I pick first?” 

Immediately hands went down and every baby sat up as straight as they could, looking positively angelic.  

“Oh this is going to be very difficult,” Poppy noted, scanning all of the toddlers suddenly on their best possible behavior.  “But I think…Rebecca is being particularly good.”

Rebecca beamed and cheered for her own good fortune.  Immediately, all pretense was abandoned and every other baby hung their heads in disappointment and let out an “Awwwww!’

The sound of a certain best song in the entire universe caused Rebecca’s ears to wiggle.  No longer worrying about going first, Samantha had decided to occupy herself by re-opening the delightful music box.  

Rebecca’s face started to heat up in jealousy and she squeezed her dolly with all her might.  Suddenly, she had an idea.  “Actually, Poppy,” she said in her best good-girl voice. “Can I give up my turn and give it to Samantha as a present?”

Samantha’s mouth opened in honest to goodness surprise.  “Really?” she asked.

“Really really!” Rebecca promised, crossing her fingers behind her back.

Samantha was overjoyed at getting to go first.  That is, until she saw Rebecca’s new dolly.  That was the present she actually wanted from Rebecca. She’d take what she could get, however, and climbed to her feet.  “How do I play?”

“It’s very simple, Miss Samantha,” Coddlesworth said, wasting no time in fastening the blindfold over the girl’s eyes.  “First we blind fold you like so.  Then we spin you around like so until you’re good and dizzy!”  

Samantha turned and turned with the shiny metal Grown-Up’s guidance again and again until she was so wobbly she might as well have been one of those funny inflatable clowns that she bopped around. “Whoah-whoah-whoah!”  All the other boys and girls giggled. “I did it!”

“Not quite, luv,” Poppy corrected.  Samantha found something long and pointy with a floppy end placed carefully into the palm of her hand.  “Now you have to pin the tail on the donkey.”

Due to her outfit and general lack of coordination, Samantha was already fairly wobbly.  Add in the spinning and blindness, and Samantha might as well be just learning to walk all over again.

“Go Sam-Sam!” Rebecca cheered. “You can do it!”

“Oh that’s right,” Coddlesworth remembered. “Do cheer her on and give her hints!”

“Go Sammy!”  

“Left! Left!”

“No!  Your other left! Haha!”

“Up! Up! WHOAH! Dooooown!”

“Haaaaa! You’re going the wrong way, now! Spin around again!”

All of this happy noise was perfect cover for Rebecca’s true goal. With the shouting and laughter filling up everyone’s ears, no one could hear the joyful tune of Samantha's music box.

When the Missus Ned McLean, God bless her
Can get Russian reds to yes her
Then I suppose… 
Anything goes.

Which, of course, meant that no one heard it when Rebecca closed the wooden box, dragged it to herself, and used it as a chair for her dolly.  She might have felt bad about the trick, but it was like the song said. Anything goes.

“Ooops!” Coddlesworth said. “Terribly sorry, Miss Samantha, but the tail most certainly doesn’t go there!”  Samantha lifted up her blindfold and laughed so hard she didn’t notice her diaper getting wetter.  How silly!  If donkeys had their tails there they wouldn’t need to blink!  “Go sit down, dear. Now who else is being a good little birthday boy and girl so that they can try pinning one on!”

Zigging and zagging from dizziness, a very giggly girl fell to her knees and crawled the rest of the way back to her spot on the carpet.  She wondered if the little Vault Boy on his tiny piano got dizzy from all the spinning.  It probably wasn’t fast enough, she knew, but she thought she could get a good idea if she stared at him a little…

Where was her music box?!  Samantahs lifted her rump and looked underneath her. Then she spread her legs extra wide and looked between them to make sure she hadn’t misplaced it.  Her present had been right in front of her before she stood up and then…and then…and then Rebecca…

Rebecca!

Samantha leaned over and stared at Rebecca, clapping as the next kid got blindfolded and cheering him on.  The other girl’s dolly was sitting on a wooden box. Samantha’s wooden box!

“WAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!” Samantha cried and pointed at the thief. Crocodile tears flowed freely and the little dangly ball in the back of her throat jiggled while she banged. No fair! No fair! Samantha was going to do that too! Rebecca had just thought of it, first!

“Oh dear!” Poppy said, hovering up close.  “Samantha, darling, what’s wrong!”

“BECKY TOOK MY…MY…”

“Your what, poppet?”

A moment of terrible inspiration struck Samantha.  “REBECCA TOOK MY DOLLY!” 

“What?!” Rebecca gasped, clutching her present even tighter.  “It’s not your dolly! It’s mine! I got it as a birthday present!”

“Nuh-uh!” Samantha lied. “It’s my dolly! Coddlesworth and Poppy put it in my highchair special! That’s why it looks like me! Her name is Samantha Junior!”

“It! Is! Not!” Rebecca gasped. “Her name is…is…I hadn’t named her yet, but she’s still my dolly!” Rebecca cursed her rotten luck.  She should have hidden her precious dolly first and started crying like Samantha had stolen the music box.  Samantha had just thought of it first…

The floating Grown-Ups turned a camera eye on each other, keeping the other on one of the bickering toddlers at any given time.

“I don’t remember who I gave what to,” Coddlesworth said. “Do you?”

“Goodness no,” Poppy whispered. “Do you know how many birthdays we’ve had in the last two hundred years?  My servos have more important things to keep track of.”

They both turned their attention to the birthday girls sending death glares each other’s way.  “I hate it when they’re going through their terrible twenties.,” Coddlesworth moaned.

“Me too,” Poppy agreed.  “Let’s just give Samantha the doll and go from there.”

“But it’s not hers!”  Rebecca objected.

“Now, now.” Poppy said. “I won’t have any tantrums on your birthday. Not unless you need a turn on the naughty stool.”  The naughty stool wasn’t nearly as fun as the naughty game. Reluctantly, Rebecca gave up her brand new dolly and watched in silent agony when it was given over to Samantha.

“Oh Samantha Junior!” Samantha gushed, giving it a cuddle like it was really her dolly. “I missed you so much! Don’t you ever leave me again!”

Both girls had gotten the gift they had really wanted.  Both of them had done so using misdirection and deceit.  That should have settled the matter and they considered it even.

But as far as the big babies were concerned, this was war.

And war?

War never changes.

***************************************************************************************

“Ninety-Nine! One hundred!” The boy with his hands covering his face shouted. “Ready or not, here I come!”

“Master Brian,” Coddlesworth said. “You’re supposed to count to one-hundred and one-two-skip-a-few doesn’t quite pass muster if you know what I mean.”

The boy shook his head and giggled. “Nuh-uh.”

“Oh very well,” Coddlesworth said.  “We’ll settle for a slow twenty. Now repeat after me.”

Pin the tail on the donkey had ended, and a rousing game of Duck-Duck-Goose had followed. Unfortunately, both girls had had the same idea and ran with their ill-gotten presents when it was their turn to dash around the circle.  

Hide and seek, however, presented new opportunities and both girls, normally the best of playmates, scoured the nursery for not one, but two hiding places. One for them and one for the birthday present that they hadn’t gotten.

By the time Brandon reached ten, Rebecca had found the perfect spot for her new music box. Likewise Samantha had found the perfect hiding place for Samantha Junior.

“Nineteen,” Coddlesworth said. “Twenty!  Alright, now. Off you go!”

Thus, while Brian was searching in toy boxes and looking under blankets, Rebecca and Samantha slinked around, searching for each other’s stash.

“If I were Rebecca,” Samantha whispered to herself, slinking along the wall, being extra still so that Brian didn’t notice her, “Where would I put my music box.”  She frowned. “I mean my music box, not my music box…” her nose wrinkled. She knew what she meant, that was the most important part.  She bumped her head against a bookshelf, with an audible “oof!” and then had to hold her breath when Brian whipped his head around.

The search might have continued, but bumping the bookshelf had knocked something slightly loose; or rather, open.

When Rockefeller still can hoard enough money
To let Max Gordon produce his shows…
Anything goes

“Huh?” Samantha said, peeking around and taking a much closer look at the books on the shelf. Turned on its side and crammed between a copy of ‘You’re S.P.E.C.I.A.L’. and ‘Grognak The Baby Barbarian’ was Samantha’s music box, jostled slightly ajar so that the little Vault Boy inside was playing his piano again.  “Got it!” she whispered.  

At last, her real birthday present was in her grasp.  Now all she had to do was sneak back to where she’d left her dolly and hide it there! Everything was going according to plan.

Meanwhile, Rebecca was shimmying on the carpet, looking high and low (mostly low) for where Samantha might  have hid her dolly.  Not her dolly, she reminded herself, but her dolly.  “Where is Samantha anyways?” Rebecca asked herself.  

She covered her face so that Brian would think she was invisible while he passed by, then started carefully scouting the room. Brian was stomping around the room yelling “I found you!” at everything he saw.  Amanda was hiding in the toybox.  Rachel was disguising herself with a lamp shade.  Johnny was being a Stealth Boy with his hands over his face. Samantha was very very small and laying on top of the changing table.

“Wait a minute,” Rebecca said to herself.  “If that’s Samantha  getting a diaper change, why isn’t a Grown-Up helping her?” The realization hit her like a megaton bomb!  “That’s not Samantha!” 

She ran over to the changing table with full speed and snatched the dolly up, giving it a hug.  “I’m never losing you again,” she promised.  At last, her real birthday present was in her grasp.  Now all she had to do was sneak back to where she’d left her music box and hide it there! 

She might have felt bad for Samantha , but just like her favorite song said: “Into each life some rain must fall.”.  

“Hey!” A voice called out.  “Drop my dolly!”

Rebecca spun on her heel.  “Your dolly! It’s my…!”  Rebecca’s guts started to rumble.  Her morning oatmeal was catching up to her. “My…my…my…” Rebecca stopped talking, bent her knees, started grunted, and stared out into the middle distance, barely aware of her surroundings while the back of her diaper expanded and her onesie struggled to contain the oncoming mudslide.

“Your what?” Samantha started to ask.  Suddenly it dawned on her.  With lightning fast hands she snatched the Samantha Junior out of Rebecca’s thieving hands!  “Poppy! Coddlesworth!” Samantha crowed. “Rebecca’s making a stinky and needs a change!”  Samantha might not have realized when she was straining and adding her own bits of fallout into her pants, but the clever girl easily recognized it when another baby was doing it right in front of her!

Music box and dolly acquired, Samantha hurriedly ran away, snickering back over her shoulder.  

“Oh dear!” Poppy said, patting Rebecca’s mushy backside. “Where do you put it all?”

As if awakening from a trance or coming down from a dose of jet, Rebecca blinked and became aware of her surroundings a tad too late.  “But..but…but…!”

“Yes,” Poppy agreed, leading the girl back over to the changing table she’d just recently visited. “Let’s get yours up on that changing table, young lady. I won’t have you getting a rash.”  Rebecca grimaced, picturing having that yucky ointment Poppy loved smeared all over her bum.  That and the idea of Samantha getting both of her birthday presents filled her with a rage she hadn’t felt since the last time a Grown-Up had told her no.

She slipped the surly bonds of the Grown-Ups metallic appendages and charged straight for her retreating playmate.

So sure of her victory was she, that Samantha forgot that she was supposed to be playing hide and seek.

“Found you!” Brian pointed and yelled, finally correct in his accusation.  “You’re it!”

“Am not!” 

“Are too!”

“Am not!”

“Are too!”

Rebecca caught up to her and grabbed for the dolly.  “That’s my dolly!” Rebecca said. “Give it back!”

Samantha clutched both toys to her chest.  “No! She’s mine! Get your own birthday dolly!”

“I’ve got a yo-yo”  Brian offered.  “Do you wanna play with my yo-yo?”

“You stay out of this!” The girls said in unison, sending the boy into a fit of tears.”

Rebecca grabbed for the doll, but Samantha, in equal stubbornness held tight; each girl gripping the bit of cloth and fluff with both hands and pulling as hard as they could.

“Mine!”

“Mine!”

“Mine!”

“Girls! Girls!”  Coddlesworth tried to intervene.

“That isn’t very ladylike,” Poppy scolded.  

But neither twenty-one year old toddler was capable of listening at the moment. The music box fell from Samantha’s grasp, the last chorus of Rebecca’s favorite song tinkling for a precious few notes before crashing onto the ground, the little Vault Boy’s head coming clean off and the music going silent.  Now neither would hear that wonderful song again until the next time it played on the playroom radio!

“NOOOOOOOO!” They yelled in unison over the loss of one precious present.  But neither one was willing to give up their claim on the dolly.  If anything, each girl only gripped harder.

And so it was with sickening rip that stitches came loose and cotton puffs that were never meant to see open air spilled out into the light of day.  Both girls fell backwards, tripping over their own heels and landing onto their thoroughly padded backsides.

Rebecca landed and the shock sent her bladder into overdrive, spraying into her thirsty diaper so fast that not even the advanced fabric could soak up the liquid quickly enough, causing her to leak and dribble down her thighs.

 Samantha landed and kept sliding as her momentum sent her on her back with her legs up in the air.  She didn’t know what happened next, only that she felt incredible shock and relief as one-by-one the poppers on her onesie snapped open, the mass her body pushed into her diaper causing it to expand well past the point of no return.

The Great War of 2077 lasted two hours. The Great War of 2287 less than two minutes. One resulted in nuclear annihilation. The other ended with two adult babies being put in time-out for five whole minutes. 

The scope of each conflict couldn’t be more different.  But they were still very similar in some respects.  Both sides wanted everything and lost it all. And by the end of the hour, both girls had forgotten why they were mad and were cuddling with each other during naptime, not even missing or caring that they’d be without a particular toy until their birthday next year. They’d truly learned nothing. But that’s war.

And war?

War never changes.

But diapers do…

(The End?)
 

[Personalias's Flash Fictions (Company Time)]

Flash Fiction: Patient 18 months

Angela sat in the hospital’s examination room. Emotionally, she was numb. Physically, she was cold, hungry, and had to pee. All of this was very understandable. Hospitals were kept chilly and the shirt, jeans, bra and panties, she’d put on this morning had been replaced with a hospital gown. Likewise, she hadn’t eaten anything all day.  Peeing? Well…

She was emotionally numb as a way to preserve her sanity. A lesser madness to offset the looming greater one.  Better to be in denial than to accept the impossible reality.  Part of Angela would rather die than accept this as reality.  

She might be dying, anyways. Hard to say.  She might have contracted the first of some kind of deadly life ending virus that was eating away at her insides faster than tapeworm.  People weren’t supposed to shrink.

The only thing that gave her comfort was the fact that she hadn’t been isolated in a plastic bubble by men in hazmat suits like in the movies. Nobody else seemed that perturbed by her circumstance.  Curious? Yes.  Bothered by it?  No. That gave her hope that whatever she had wasn’t deadly.

She shifted her weight, the papery rustle was nails on a chalkboard.  She lied to herself and said that it was just the paper cover of the examination table she was on. The nurse stationed with her looked up from her phone.  “You okay, hun?”

Angela lied and nodded.

“Need to lie down and take a nap?  Go night night?”

Angela blushed and shook her head.

“Thirsty?  Need some water?”

Angela’s gaze got distant. Again she shook her head. No. No more water.  Water would lead to something worse.

Besides the gown, Angela had also been forced into a Pampers, size 4. That’s why she’d had to pee so badly. The nurse had put it on her after she’d been checked into the emergency room.  She’d been told it was the only underwear they’d had in her size.  

She’d accepted it because the nurse had framed it in such a way as to seem reasonable:  

She was sick.

It was less invasive than a catheter.

She’d be less naked.

It was the nurse’s job to put one on her. Doctor’s orders and all that.

Angela was regretting her consent.  Before she’d indicated the need to go to the bathroom, the nurse had talked about using the diaper to measure her urine output. Attempts to negotiate using a medical urinal had been shot down.  

“Don’t worry about that honey.  We’ll just weigh your diaper next time we change you.”

That’s why Angela had to pee. She hadn’t gone all day and was mortified to the point of paranoia.  When you’re afraid of being forced to pee your pants, your brain hones in on the bladder and hyper focuses to the point of discomfort and distraction.  

She’d let the bevy of tests distract her from that, and other invasive thoughts.

A knock on the door, and the doctor, an Indian man with a thick mustache and a thinning head of hair, came back in.

“Hello, Angie,” he said. “I have your test results and I have some good news.”

Hope invaded Angela’s heart.  “You know what’s wrong with me?” she asked.

The doctor nodded.  “In a matter of speaking, yes.” He looked at his clipboard and.  “According to our tests you are, effectively, a perfectly healthy eighteen month old girl.” He looked up and his smile brightened. “That’s very good! Nothing to worry about.”

Angela couldn’t comprehend what was being said.  “What are you talking about?”

The doctor looked at his clipboard again.  “Well, according to all our tests, you are the median height for an eighteen month old, and at the median weight for an eighteen month old. So that’s good.”

“But I’m thirty-six!” Angela objected.

“Yes, yes.” The doctor waved her off. “I know. I know. That’s what ‘effectively’ means.  I know you are not actually eighteen months old. But your height and weight are well within the parameters of an eighteen month old. So you’re healthy.”

“Why is that important?!” Angela demanded. “I’m thirty-six! I shouldn’t be this size!”

“Well you shouldn’t also be running around like a little jaybird in public, but here we are.”

“I shrank out of my clothes!” Angela was so mad she was practically bouncing in her seat. Literally hopping mad!

The nurse placed a comparatively enormous hand over Angela’s. A soothing attempt or a quiet warning?  Both?  Meanwhile, the doctor remained unphased.  “You’re more than the height and weight of an eighteen month old, you also have the capabilities of an eighteen month old.”

That did not make sense at all.  Angela was so confused that she couldn’t even vocalize it.

“Remember those tests we did, Angie?” The doctor said, patronizingly.  “According to all of them, you’re capable of everything an eighteen month old is.  So you’re not behind at all! Isn’t that nice?”

“Of course I’m capable!  I’m an adult!”  The tests had all been simple. Basic shit.

“Not according to this test,” the doctor said. “You’re perfectly within the eighteen month range.”

The color drained from Angela’s face. “You mean I failed?!”

“No,” the doctor repeated himself. “You passed with flying colors! Right where you should be. As soon as I confirmed you were at least as capable as an eighteen month old, testing stopped. I didn’t wish to cause you undue stress by frustrating you.”

“BUT ANYBODY CAN DO THAT STUFF!” tears of frustration threatened. “YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO FIND MY LIMITS! NOT GET TO WHERE YOU WANT ME TO BE AND STOP!”

The nurse began rubbing Angela’s bare back and shushing her.  “It’s okay, honey. It’s okay.”

“Young lady,” the doctor said, firmly. “I have been a pediatrician for more than thirty years. I think I would know the capabilities of someone like you more than you do.” He chuckled as if he said something clever.  Then to the nurse he said. “Have we gotten any urine output or a stool sample yet?”

The nurse shook her head. “No, doctor. I’m afraid she may be dehydrated or there’s some kind of blockage.”

Angela balled up her fists. “I don’t need a diaper!”

“Then why are you wearing one?” The doctor smugly replied.

Angela pointed up at the nurse. “Because she put one on me!”

“Of course she did. You’re the size and developmental capacity of an eighteen month old. We don’t expect you to use the toilet or dress yourself.”
“I shrank today!” Angie said pleadingly. “That’s not something that happens! Aren’t you the least bit curious about that?!”

The doctor shrugged. “I’m a pediatrician. Shrinking is not my area of expertise.”

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!”

The doctor clicked his tongue. “You really are proving my point about not wanting to push your limits.”

“I want a second opinion, you quack!”

Both the nurse and the doctor laughed.  “Yes, yes,” he said. “You can get a second opinion. You can tell your mommy all about the mean doctor who wouldn’t let you have your way when she comes to pick you up.”

Angela’s eyes widened. “My…mommy?”

“Yes. We looked up your emergency contact form and called her. She said she’s happy to know that you’re healthy and safe.”

Happy? Why happy? Angela had shrunk!  Who could be happy about that?  Why was nobody as freaked out about it as her?

“She’s on her way,” the doctor went on as if any of this was normal. :”She’ll be a bit. Said she needs to get a car seat, but she’s looking forward to seeing you.”  

More surreal bullshit that Angela couldn’t understand. She should be going to some top level CDC facility or something. Not back to her Mom’s place wearing a diaper and sitting in a baby seat.

“In the meantime,” he said to the nurse, “see if you can get her to produce some urine. I don’t want her checking out until we get at least one wet diaper out of her.  Need to make sure everything is moving along. Make sure the shrinking hasn’t adversely affected her.”

“Yes, doctor.”

The man walked out and closed the door behind him.  Angela was left in complete and total shock.  The worst, most insane day of her life, a medical marvel and terror, had just been reduced in importance to something mundane and trivial.  How was this happening?! And why her?!

“Oh Angie,” the nurse cooed, wriggling her fingers. “You better watch oooout!” Her hand came close and closer to Angela’s ribs.  “Here. Comes. The. TICKLE MONSTER!”
One and a half seconds later, Angie’s diaper was no longer dry.  Through the forced laughter and tears, she already knew that the only thing she could look forward to was a dry one after the nurse or her mommy changed her.  And that was the only thing she knew for certain. Everything else was too surreal to predict or understand.  Or maybe it wasn’t.  She wasn’t a doctor.
 

[Reference guide: Dialogue in stories]

9 hours ago, WBDaddy said:

Not even a mastery, just making sure that if you're going to have a character be a certain way, they should be that way consistently.  If you have a tweener, or even an adult who talks like a tweener, their speech patterns should be reliably tweener throughout the story, not just when it's convenient for them to be that way.  That's ironically the trap of trying so hard to avoid repetition in dialogue - you wind up with characters that don't have consistent voices. 

I love this insight!  It's so true.

It's cheesy and cliche, but for dialogue, sometimes I like to give characters dialogue reset quirks.  Shorthand tricks that cue the audience in to who is speaking even if you don't say who is talking.  

Cheap Plug: In my story, Unfair, I make deliberate efforts to do this with several characters.

Clark: When bitter and angry, his inner monologue is punctuated with "Typical".  Like it's a condemnation.

Amy: Opens almost every scene she's in by yelling "HI CLARK" And then talking in long rambling sentences like she's turned off her filter or she's waited the intervening weeks to share every random thought she's had since they last met..  Amy info dumps.  Hard.  

Billy: Billy constantly calls the main character, Clark,  "Gibson", Clark's last name.  Almost never calls him Clark, even refers to him as "Gibson" to his peers.

***************************************************************************************************************************************************
Stephen King also does this, too with many of his characters.

Many of his characters in Dark Tower have unique ways of speaking.  Roland has strange medieval cowboy dialect. Says "ken" instead of "understand" says "palaver" instead of "huddle up and talk".  Calls people by the honorific "Sai"  and talks of "Ka"  (Made up lingo for the setting.  Sai is a gender neutral honorific.  Ka is like a concept that is both God and Fate) 

Susanna, a black woman, is written with a slight southern accent (because of where she lives) and when she flips to an alternate personality "Odetta", she goes well...a parody verging on black face. (NOTE: King does NOT excel in writing minority characters; but for this character in particular, the alternate personality and her dialogue is coming from a place of trauma...it's not portrayed as natural or who she "really" is, it's a mental illness response) buuuut, speaking of that it is STILL Distinct.

In The Stand, there is an intellectually disabled character who spells everything "moon", and it's a kind of verbal tic and punctuation that something is important to what he's thinking about.  Like if things are really bad, he'd be like.  "This is bad. Really bad.  M-O-O-N, that spells bad."
********************************************************************************************************************************************
Animorphs.  This is a masterclass in dialogue ticks.

Marco- Everything is "insane".

Rachel-  If she say "Let's do it", before a mission, balls are about to be to walls, and shit is about to hit the fan

Ax-Ax is a semi-telepathic alien. It's not an "Ax scene" if he's not playing with human mouth sounds, referring to Jake as "prince jake", or measuring time by "your minutes".  Aka.  "We have only 15 of your minutes left before we have to demorph".  With Jake of course saying "Don't call me Prince"  and also  "They're not our minutes, they're everyone's minutes."

Visser Three:  Visser Three is a classic 90's kid's villain.  You KNOW he's talking as soon as you read.   "Well, well, well..."  

Correction:  <Well, well, well...>  This is the book's visual language for someone speaking telepathically.  Also his insistence on calling the Animorphs the <Andalite Bandits>.  Don't worry about what that means, but he's the only person in the series that reliably calls them that.

Speaking of which...

****************************************************************************************************************************************
Dragon Ball Z-  You can count on one hand how many times, Vegeta calls Goku, "Goku", and that's only when he's sure people won't know who he's talking about otherwise.

Because literally every other time, he calls our protagonist "Kakarot". 
************************************************************************************************************************************
On Rick & Morty

Rick's most commonly said word is "Morty"

Morty's most commonly said words are "Aw geez, Rick."

This is because the voice actor made those his reset words to stay in character and keep the proper voice whenever he's riffing and improvising.

But you to date, you can't do a proper Rick & Morty impression without  doing a big fake belch and going "Morty" or pitching your voice up and going "Awww geez Rick"
************************************************************************************************************************
Simpsons is almost nothing but catch phrases and verbal ticks
**********************************************************************************************************
Star Trek: TNG

Data does not use contractions when speaking.  (There have been slips from writers before it became canon).  But it became such a notable part of his dialogue that after a certain point if he does use contractions, the crew know something is off.  Usually "That's not really Data".
******************************************************************************************************************

TLDR:  Don't be afraid to write your characters in such a way that people could do impressions of them just by citing their dialogue.
 

[Personalias's Flash Fictions (Company Time)]

Airport Insecurity

You’ve never been great at making smart tactical decisions when it comes to your diapers.  Years ago, when you told your vanilla friend about your kink and how paranoid you were about getting caught or someone finding your stash, they thought you were being silly.

“What’s there to catch? If somebody finds them, just say you have a medical condition or something.  Like you’re a bedwetter, or have bladder control problems.”  The flush in your cheeks was answered with their eyes slowly widening in increased comprehension.  “They have cartoons on them, don’t they…?”  The idea that there could be babyish looking diapers sized for grown-ass men and women didn’t even occur to them.

Yet it was a relief to you. Ye gods, how awful would it be if you were limited to only what you could piecemeal together and pretend was ‘the real thing’; limited to Depends and whatever outfits looked childish enough?  No bonnets. No onesies. No clothes with snaps in them.  It’d be like putting a barber’s bowl on your head and calling it a knightly helm only without Don Quixote’s madness.

No.  Just no.

Thank goodness for the internet, niche companies, and discreet shipping.
You still trended towards subtlety, naturally. You aren’t looking to force yourself on anyone. It’s just the t-shirt and baggy shorts you have on feel a lot better with a nice cloth backed diaper and a plain white onesie to hold it all together.  To one side of your brain, you’re wearing a grown-up disguise so that you can play pretend amongst the ‘real’ adults. To the other side, you are the world’s most discreet and timid exhibitionist; afraid of getting caught and shunned.

You just wanna be yourself! What’s so wrong with that?

Here in the airport security line, that more anxious side is currently blaring at full volume.  Your tongue becomes like sandpaper while you slip your shoes off and put them in a bin with your belt.  Your diaper is dry too.  You never thought you’d be too nervous to pee, but here you are.

This will be fine. There’s no risk of anyone seeing your diaper. To all onlookers, the onesie will just look like you have a basic undershirt that is successfully tucked in.  

It’s not what you’re wearing that’s making your heart thud in your chest.  It’s the bag.

It doesn’t look very much like a diaper bag. It’s plain brown with no babyish decorations.  It could be a purse, or a laptop bag, or just a satchel.

It is a diaper bag, however.  That’s what it was marketed as. That’s what you’re using it for.  It’s packed with wipes, powder, a (for now) empty baby bottle, and two spare diapers. Also your wallet, cell phone, and keys, but that’s besides the point.  

You didn’t need to bring the diaper bag along. You aren’t actually incontinent, and even if you were, your diapers are absorbent enough that they probably wouldn’t leak between now and the time your plane touches down.

It’s just…

You liked the idea of carrying around your very own diaper bag.  You romanticized the idea of having an accident before takeoff, and then sitting in for a few hours, perhaps adding to it, and then whisking yourself away to a bathroom to change.  There was something lovely about that idea…

This is stupid. This whole thing is stupid.  You should have just packed these diapers in your suitcase with the rest. The people at the x-ray machine would see your diapers. They’d see how big the diapers were. They’d know that they weren’t small enough to fit an actual baby.  

They’d know. Everyone would know.

You inhale and hold your breath as you put the bag on the conveyor belt.  “Any liquids, or large electronics?” The man stationed near the front of the belt asks.  You mutely shake your head and wince as they push your bag along the rollers towards the x-ray machine.

“We’ve got some pumps and breast milk,” a woman behind you says, putting a large navy blue bag behind your plain brown diaper bag.   You glance at her, and the color shoots away from your face and towards your feet.  Oh crap! Someone with a real baby!  The man behind her with the newborn in a carrier tells you what you already know.

“That’s fine,” the guard says.

But you know the truth.  It is not fine. You’re about to accidentally traumatize a new mother with your fetish.  You’re about to be exposed and go from being the world’s most discreet exhibitionist to a full on untouchable.

No.  You breathe.  That’s not what’s going to happen.  You temper the extreme paranoia you’re feeling with cold reptilian logic.  You’re not going to be outed here.  There’s nothing dangerous or suspicious in your bag and the people at the TSA have seen much weirder shit than some big baby diapers. You’ll be forgotten less than thirty seconds after you get through security and nobody but you and the guy looking for bombs and drugs will ever know.

“Next!” A guard on the other side of the body scanner calls you. You turn your head in time to see a man step outside of the hollow glass booth and follow in his footsteps.  You angle your head down to the floor and shuffle forward, breathing shallowly. You place your socked feet on the yellow footprints and raise your arms above your head before the person running the scanner can instruct you to.
“Arms up,” they say calmly, despite you already following their instructions.
The vertical bar quickly whooshes past your sight, scanning you in the blink of an eye. You exhale and lower your arms down.  No beeps. No boops. No buzzers. That should mean you’re in the clear, or so you think.

“Step out and to the side, please.” A guard commands.

Out and to the side?! What was wrong? What happened?  Did you leave something in your pockets?  Is something…bulging unnaturally?  You stare down at your crotch and feel as if you have X-Ray vision.  Surely, the diaper bulge beneath your onesie and baggy shorts isn’t THAT noticeable, right?

Right?!

“Come on,” the guard coaxes you, gently. “Out we go!”

You step forward out the other side of the body scanner, the papery crinkle of your diaper sounding off in your ears despite the din of the machines and foot traffic all around you.  It’s drowned out by the thump-thump-thumping as your heart threatens to leap out of your chest.

Out of the corner of your eye you see a guard at the X-ray machine rifling through a plain brown satchel bag; your diaper bag!  And he’s taking out everything!

Why?

Why would he do that? It’s just a wallet, phone, keys, wipes, and some diapers! Big, crinkly, childish looking baby diapers that fit you perfectly so as to bring you incredible joy and comfort in private and drive you to humiliating despair in public.  He stacks the two spares you packed on a counter and pulls out the baby powder. He pours some out and reaches for what looks like a chemical testing strip.

Oh no!  The powder!  They’re making sure that it’s not some kind of a bomb! You KNEW you should have packed it in your suitcase, but noooooooooo, you just HAD to live the full fantasy and smell extra babyish when you changed yourself in the airport bathroom.

You’re going to purge. You just know it. As soon as this is over, you are getting off that plane and dumping your entire suitcase full of baby clothes and diapers into a fucking dumpster.

You freak.

You loser.

You monster.

You look behind you at the lady with the breast pump and realize you haven’t been breathing.  She’s smiling and waving at you, gently shooing you forward.  

A silent prayer: Please don’t let her see what’s in your bag.  Please let her and her husband and their kid be at just the right angle so that the x-ray machine and body scanner are blocking their view of your privacy being grievously violated.

“Come on!” A strange man chirps and yanks you the rest of the way out of the scanner.

“Sorry about this, Dad,” the guard says to the stranger. The way he says it reminds you of when you were a child and people who didn’t know your parent’s names would just call them ‘Mom’ and ‘Dad’ as a shorthand.  

“Daddy?”  The word leaps out of your mouth unbidden.  You’d only meant to copy what was said, not to add your own infantile twist.

“Just hold on a second, baby,” the stranger says quietly. “Just gotta prove that you’re not a terrorist or something.”  He shakes his head and laughs to himself while he pulls your pants down, and exposes your onesie.

Terrified and overwhelmed, you freeze. Knees and elbows locked. Throat tight. Hard to breathe.  The man, Daddy, reaches right between your legs like he’s done it a billion times and unsnaps each button of your onesie.  

“I’m sorry about this,” the guard says. “It’s just protocol.’

“Yeah,” Daddy says. “I get it.”  He lifts up the onesie, exposing your heavy sodden diaper. You have no idea when you stopped holding it, but the wetness line is bright blue   “Looks like you caught us before we sprung a leak!”

The guard laughs nervously.  “Looks like it.  Sorry again.”

“Not a problem, sir,” Daddy replies. Then he looks to you.  “Okay, baby. Why don’t you step out?”  He pulls your shorts down past your ankles until they’re just a puddle on the floor.

Your legs and brain numb, your body does as instructed, stepping out one foot of a time until you’re left in nothing but your t-shirt, onesie, and socks.

“What happened here?” The woman with the baby supplies asks.  Your skin alights anew.  This shouldn’t be happening!

Daddy talks past you.  “Body scanner thought a diaper was an explosive device or something.”
The woman laughs and moves over to the rollers by the X-Ray machine.  “Not unless it’s diarrhea!” she quips.  She picks up the bag filled with milk, breast pumps and such.  The man who was rifling through your diaper bag has repacked it and handed it back to her.   “No pants?”

Daddy shrugs.  “They need a change anyway, and it’s not that cold.”  Without further preamble he grabs your t-shirt and tugs it up over your head. You’re too bamboozled to resist.

“Fair enough,” the woman says. She grabs your wrist.  “Come on honey bunny. Follow Mommy.  Let’s go get changed.”

“Mommy?!”  Your confused words fall on deaf ears.

“You sure, babe?” Daddy asks. “You got the last one.”

The conversation has started to move away from the security line.  You’re waddling helplessly behind Mommy and Daddy.  You look behind you and see that the young man with the baby carrier behind her was with another young lady.

“I’d like to nurse before we get on the plane,” Mommy tells Daddy.  “Clean bum and full tummy.  If we’re lucky they’ll sleep through the flight back home.  Keep the bottled stuff as an emergency if they get fussy in mid air.”

Daddy slows down. “Good idea.  I’ll go to the bathroom too.”  The gulf between you is increasing as Mommy leads you towards a clearly marked area designated for breastfeeding and diaper changing.

“Take your time,” Mommy calls back to him.  “We’ll be awhile.”

Everything is happening so fast, that only one word has time to come out before you cross the threshold into the nursing station.  “Home?”

You were supposed to go on vacation today.
 

["Happy"]

There’s no justice for Littles.  Sophia knew that. Every Little did. Experiencing a particular brand of injustice was a lot different than just hearing about it, however.

Sophia sat naked in her cell in the JBRC: The Juvenile Behavior Retention Center.  She and every other Little there had been tried and convicted in an actual factual Amazon Court of Law of committing actual factual crimes.  

Her and her fellow dead men and women had committed real crimes; nothing so pedestrian as shoplifting or jaywalking.  Nor was it the harder crimes of drug possession with intent to distribute, driving under the influence, burglary, or attempted bribery.  They definitely hadn’t committed one of the non-crimes of wetting their pants, losing their jobs, or being the wrong combination of cute and independent at the same time.  All of those could be washed away with an excuse about how they weren’t ‘raised right’ and needed to ‘start over’.

It was the same thing with white collar crimes. Littles got convicted of embezzlement, blackmail, fraud, and extortion all the time and at a much higher rate than other types of crimes.  Communication, information technology, and data manipulations were something of great equalizers as it stood.  Whether the Littles convicted of such offenses were guilty of those crimes or just victims of Amazonian and Tweener sabotage was another matter entirely.  For anyone who could fit on an Amazon’s hip, becoming a victim of a frame up would be just as bad as doing the deed anyways: poor Little things needed protection from the big scary world all the time.

All of those people likely found themselves Adopted or put into an orphanage until their will was sufficiently broken.  Guilty or not, Littles didn’t tend to sleep behind bars unless cribs were involved.  There was a reason why even small town police stations had overnight nurseries for their smallest offenders.

Littles could be criminals, same as everybody else. It’s easy to be a criminal in a world where every law and social norm is stacked against you.  Few people become criminals for the fun or thrill of it. People become criminals when the system they live in can’t meet their needs and so they operate outside and against that system.  For most Littles what they needed and what non-Littles decided they needed were at complete odds; so crime became inevitable at some level. 

For example, most Littles weren’t allowed to drive cars that were too big for them or to modify homes that they didn’t own. But most cars and homes weren’t sized for Littles, and the ones that were put a target on their back.  Why live in a Little sized apartment or drive in a Little sized car when that just advertises to baby crazy Amazons where you’re sleeping and let them know of the treasure they’ll find inside once they sweet talk your landlord.  Littles got strapped into car seats in lieu of speeding tickets.  Better to ;live and drive in out of the way places and roads and invest in heavy window tinting. Everything was legal when the cops weren’t around.

Cops or not, most Littles didn’t see the inside of a jail or a prison cell.  Amazons wouldn’t have it. It hurt their own narrative that Littles were children who didn’t really know any better. Better (for the Amazons) to pretend that the Littles were just naughty children acting out for attention, subconsciously wanting a Mommy or Daddy to take care of them.

That’s what made being in an actual JBRC such a grim accomplishment.  JBRC’s were a relic of the past- a bygone age when Littles, Tweeners, and Amazons were supposedly equal in adulthood.  Littles were still put in padded pants and ended up strapped in strollers, but it was punishment not predestination.  Slowly but surely the pendulum had been swinging to a kinder, gentler, and altogether more insidious form of forced regression, but places like these still existed despite polite society not liking to acknowledge it.

Along either coast, Maturosis had taken hold of the public consciousness as the primary and ‘acceptable’ reason to kidnap small folk and shove a nipple between their lips. The farther inland one traveled, the flimsier the pretense got and the more the mask of giant society slipped.  Amazons wanted to turn Littles into babies so that they always had someone to lord over, dominate, humiliate and punish for the sake of their own projections and insecurities. Some were just more honest about it than others.  

There were states where being “immature” or “bratty” or “not making boom-booms and tinkles” on command for a stranger in the bathroom were enough of a reason for someone Sophia’s size to get their panties ripped off, bunched up, and tossed away in a diaper pail forever.  

The cruelty didn’t end there. Sophia couldn’t remember how many times she’d overheard Amazons bragging to each other how many Little boys and girls they’d kidnapped like they were freaking pets or trophies.  Or how many times she’d heard lines like “My little Mary Sue is such an angel now that we’ve gotten her all sorted out. She only needs thorough spankings three or four times a week to remind her and otherwise she’s a perfect sweetie.”

Deep down, it had all worn on Sophia. Made her numb. Not even afraid anymore. That’s probably why she did what she did.  That’s probably why she’d done what she’d done.

 The Littles here had been convicted of real, actual, violent felonies: The kind of crimes that made normal people shudder and decent people squirm.  Terrible shit. Morally inexcusable. The stuff that might get one a documentary played by an A list movie star if only they were more physically imposing or if there were Little actors that didn’t talk to puppets.

Whether the other Littles had actually done what they’d been accused of didn’t matter.  What Sophia had or hadn’t done didn’t matter, either.  The kangaroo courts that had bounced them here were just as swift and awful as any Amazonian Adoption Agency. What mattered was that this last month of her life was one of the only times Sophia could remember that she had felt like an adult. 

Like an Amazon. 

Like a threat.

She’d confessed, tearless, after a thorough spanking.  No amount of thrashings, enemas, mouth soapings, or days spent in dirty diapers without rash relief would get her to change her story that she’d done that awful thing.  There was no one-armed Amazon man like in the police and media theories.  According to all official documents, she was a monster of the most sadistic and unrepentant kind.

 She’d stared dead-eyed at her federally mandated foster parents, and said that she would do the same thing to them that she had supposedly done to that poor Tweener and her Little brother.  The mittens and the booties with the spikes on the insides didn’t come off until after sentencing and transport.  The top bars never came off the crib.  Every diaper change and highchair feeding had maximum restraints. Her pacifier bulb only deflated when they were trying to shove something else in her mouth or get her to change her story.

Truly, Sophia had never had such a splendid time in all of her short life. To see and hear the looks of fear from people so much bigger than her. To know that her very existence was unnerving to them.  If she was going to die, she was going to do it as something anathema to the giants.

And she was going to die. She’d been sentenced to full on Ego Death.  The Amazons called it something else; a “Reset:” or something, but that was just a nice way of saying they were going to fry her brain.  Her body would live on, but she’d stop being herself, stop being Sophia.  She’d be nothing more than a bundle of neurons incapable of growth or learning; the perfect Amazon babydoll. 

 She could shit herself for days on end without a change and gum applesauce until her eyes closed for good and she drew her last breath. She could be shaved hairless and be shoved up a rich Amazon’s vagina and forced to undergo unbirth and rebirth. They could give her a stupid name to replace her old one.   

Fine.  Whatever.

She wouldn’t know it.  She’d be dead in all but name within the week.  She’d made her peace with that long before the gavel fell.  There’d be no stay of execution. There’d be no appeal. The week was just enough time to select, screen, vet, and prep Amazons who didn’t mind having mind wiped scum under their roof.  The waiting list was still disturbingly long as far as Sophia knew.

Sophia shook her head and closed her eyes at that thought.  It wouldn’t be her problem soon. Nothing would.  She’d have no problems.  Her body was about to be someone else’s.  Her stomach rumbled and she shuffled on bare feet towards the hole in the floor that doubled as a toilet.

A pained, but delighted groan came out of her and she dumped her load, letting herself smile ruefully.  The food was still laced with laxatives- the giants didn’t want their future babies to get constipated- but the drugs weren’t nearly as strong as some of the products whispered about online.  “I hope I get some kind of infection” she whispered to herself, though she didn’t have the courage to do anything unsanitary to ensure it.

The cells were padded, monitored and temperature controlled.  The prison uniforms could be removed and the interaction with the guards was minimal. There were no other default restraints unless the prisoner showed signs of attempting self-harm; didn’t want any would-be parents to be deprived of their prize.

As a result the prisoners were given an unprecedented amount of autonomy.  They were allowed to feed themselves, go to the bathroom as they needed, and shout across cells to each other. In the short time she’d been here, she’d seen Littles curse out guards and smear their own shit on the glass dividers between their cells and the main walkway that ran between them.  Sophia settled for slowly pacing her cell nude while flicking her bean after lights out.  Some of the other damned didn’t wait for that long and actively talked dirty to each other while masturbating.

This treatment was all so incredibly unreal to her.  The Amazons didn’t want to baby her lest they develop some kind of false sense of security for her to exploit and in doing so gave her arguably more freedom than she’d had in her entire life.  They were going to fry her brain and in the lead up were being completely honest with her and allowing her to be completely honest with them.

Every Little should get this opportunity.

CLICK-CLICK-CLICK-CLICK-CLICK-CLICK-CLICK

Sophia wiped herself and trotted over to the glass partition. The clicking of plastic wheels on prison tiles was practically a siren alarm. Every Little stopped what they were doing and ran up to see who’s time had come.  No one had been here very long, but some form of social inertia had created the protocol of standing at attention and gawking at the person who was about to be ended.

 She saw a pair of guards pushing the pink umbrella stroller past her cell roll out of view.  One of the monsters threw her a wink and drew her attention to the pink diaper bag dangling from the stroller’s back.  

The Littles in the cells across from her all looked relieved while they turned their heads to look away.  That meant that todays’ victim was on Sophia’s side of the aisle.  From a guess, Sophia figured it was the girl in the next cell over.

Poor Elizabeton.  ‘Elizabeton’ wasn’t the prisoner’s actual name.  She’d just overheard snippets of conversation about where the girl had come from before here.  Weird to think that a Little from all the way out in Elizabeton was shipped here, but it showed how rare JBRC’s were becoming.  

It also showed how willing the Amazons were to bend their own rules, regardless of jurisdiction. Commit a big enough crime and it didn’t matter what false enlightenment the local Amazons pretended to subscribe to.  They’d just ship you somewhere else to kill you softly.

Total silence reigned in the hall. Sophia didn’t know if Elizabeton had been gagged yet, or her relative proximity to her neighbor’s padded cell just muted sounds of struggle. Sophia hoped that when it was her turn, she’d maintain the dignity not to struggle.

“Oho!” One of the guards crowed. “That was a bad last decision, Little girl!  You’re not getting changed until after.”  That answered one question, at least. “Hope you feel proud of yourself sitting in your poopy diaper!”  There was the meanest edge in one of the guard’s voices.  Sophia instantly hated it.  “Dumb baby trying to stall.  Too bad you can’t stall happiness!”

A few minutes and an eternity later, the stroller started rolling back out past Sophia, back to the way it came, back to the door at the end of the hallway.  LIttles went in through that door and didn’t come out. That stroller might as well have been a ferry on the River Sticks.

Sophia saw her neighbor prisoner. Blonde. Pretty even though her hair shaved incredibly short.  Naked save for the extra thick diaper she’d just been taped into.  Every Little that had been wheeled through that back door into nowhere had been given only that sliver of modesty with the only variation being that boys were wheeled away in blue strollers and girls were confined to pink.   

Why?

Sophia swallowed, knowing she’d find out soon.  Elizabeton was the only remaining Little who in this purgatory from when Sophia had been tossed in her cell.  The passing guard, the one who had commented on Elizabeton messing her diaper, threw another wink towards Sophia and mouthed something. Sophia couldn’t read lips but she thought it was “See you tomorrow…”

“Hey, Elizabeton!”  Sophia called out.  

The stroller stopped and backed up.  “Someone wants to say bye-bye, I think,” the guard taunted.  “Okie dokie.”

The Little girl turned her head and made eye contact with Sophia. Her mouth was gagged with a pacifier, its bulb likely filling her mouth to the point where her jaw hurt.   But her eyes were fierce and tearless, like Sophia’s. 

“You messed to try and stall?”

The condemned woman nodded her head. No point in denying it.

“I get it.  No shame.  It was worth a shot.”

“Oh, it wasn’t on purpose,” the lead guard taunted. “Pooping their pants is just what Littles do!”  Sophia’s nose wrinkled and her lip curled in disgust.  As soon as the Little woman-someone considered a legitimate threat and had been treated as such-had been diapered, the giants put their motherly masks back on.

“Fuck you,” Sophia spat.

“Go fuck yourself,” the guard spat back. “It’s what you do at night anyways.” To her prisoner and her coworker the guard loudly proclaimed, “Alright, Little girl. Let’s go meet your new life.  Time to be happy!” Then she mouthed some same words as before Sophia. “See you tomorrow.”

CLICK-CLICK-CLICK-CLICK-CLICK-CLICK

The mechanical sounds of a heavy door opening and closing could be heard and the sound of stroller wheels were no more.  But the Littles didn’t return to their own individual confinements. There was one more step to this horror show.

A wave of static crackled in the air as ancient speakers switched on. From out of them came the dirge that played every time one of their number was lost.

It started with a tick-tock sound, the seconds on a very loud clock calling out to them to remind them what they were all going to lose sooner or later.  Then synthetic sounding keyboard joined in to the rhythm, like tiny tear shaped raindrops.

“Does anybody know what time it is?” A child’s voice asked.  A boy? A girl?  It was hard to tell, but it definitely was a real child.  

“Yes!” came another child’s response. Little? Tweener? Amazon? It was really hard to tell. Enough could be done with technology to pitch voices up and down regardless of the size of the vocal chords.  Technically, they could have been two adult Littles whose voices were modified enough to pass for children.   “It’s the time to be happy!”

Then came the chorus.

“The time to be happy is now!
And the place to be happy is here!
And the way to be happy is to make someone happy
And we’ll have a Little Heaven right here!”

Every damn time…

Sophia had abandoned all hope since she entered this place, but she had one final one: That that creepy ass song wouldn’t be the last one she ever heard before her mind was erased forever.

********************************************************************************************************

Sophia didn’t sleep that night. Guilty or not, who would be able to? When your remaining time as yourself could be measured in hours instead of days, sleep seemed like a waste of time.  She’d literally sleep when she was brain dead.

That didn’t stop her from quietly masturbating in the dark.  There was nothing else that seemed better to do than to plunge her fingers into herself and pretend they belonged to somebody else.  In the back of her mind, Sophia knew that she must still be being watched. Night vision cameras and the like monitoring her to make sure she didn’t do anything drastic.  That just made her pinch her nipples a tad harder and tease herself, giving her captors a show.  Let them be disgusted.

Let them.

Let…

CLICK-CLICK-CLICK-CLICK-CLICK-CLICK

The slight grinding sound of a clear glass partition sliding away made Sophia jump. Too late, she opened her eyes and shook herself to full consciousness.  She hadn’t been dreaming or in anything restful enough to label “sleep”, but she had lost track of time.

The guard from yesterday was nearly on top of her, bending over with something uncomfortably close to the Little’s face.  “Wakey wakey, baby Sophie! It’s time to be haaaaaa-!”

Sophia reached out with her hands and lurched forward. The Amazon had been to strong to bat her hand away but as luck and surprise would have it, the stiffness of her arm made it exceedingly easy to grab onto and pull herself up.  Sophia bent her head sideways and bit down on the giant woman’s thumb just past the pacifier gag.  Sophia clenched her eyes and jaw and didn’t stop until her tongue tasted the coppery flavor of blood.

“MOTHER FU-!” The guard yanked her thumb out of Sophia’s mouth hard enough to make the Little’s teeth rattle. An open palmed slap to the face knocked her back prone while a second pair of Amazon hands charged in and squeezed the joints of Sophia’s jaw, forcing it painfully open.

“You’re supposed to feed the bite,” the other guard lectured.

“I know! I fuckin’ know, goddamn it!”

A rubber bulb penetrated Sophia’s mouth and inflated it.  The guard didn’t release her grip until Sophia was incapable of spitting the pacifier out.  Her jaw was practically unhinged, but from here on out, no sounds would be able to come out of her saved muffled groans and any attempt to spit the offending object out would just look like the gentle suckling of an infant on their favorite binky.

“Do you even read the case files?”, the second guard lectured her companion.   “This Little bit into her original Mommy’s jugular in the woman’s sleep!”  

“Yeah, yeah,” the first guard cradled her bitten and bleeding hand. “I know, I know.” 

Did she?  Biting a giant’s jugular was so far off from what Sophia had been accused and convicted of that she genuinely wondered what these women thought they knew.  Was this a prison or a lobster tank?

Sophia ignored the voices and rising indignation inside her. It didn’t matter anyways.  She’d be dead soon. Dead was dead. The pretense why didn’t matter, did it?  She stopped struggling and let herself be diapered this one last time.

The first guard dug around in the pink diaper bag.  The entirety of Sophia’s bite only regarded two band-aids.   “Hope you liked the taste of that, baby Sophie,” she chirped venomously. “That’s gonna be the last solid food you ever have!  Nothing but baby food and Momma’s milkies from here on out!”

Sophia didn’t bother to reply.  No sense in giving the bitch a sense of satisfaction.  She went full ragdoll as the massive diaper- the last one she would ever realize she was wearing- was slipped under her and fastened on one agonizing tape at a time.  This one was the thickest diaper yet.  Fuck the restraints, she wouldn’t be able to walk in this with how far her legs were spread apart.

She didn’t look around at the other cells to see if the other Littles were watching her.  Her eyes were straight forward while she was strapped into the stroller.  It was weird how comfortable it all was; how quickly she got re-used to having a thick and crinkly pillow encasing backside.

It didn’t matter.

Nothing mattered.

It was game over for Sophia.

It was time.

Time to be happy.

The massive door opened and groaned like it had every other day; a massive beast roaring for its dinner, ready to consume.  The stroller she was in click-click-clicked all the way in- a lamb to the slaughter- until she passed the threshold and the monstrous gates slammed shut behind.  
How much longer would it take?  Seconds? Minutes?  Would she hear that awful song one last time, or would it not follow her back into the cradle grave?

These were the questions she asked in the darkness of that tunnel, squinting as she was glided out into the blinding light.

There was no bright color in the JBRC wing she’d been staying at.  Everything had been grays, blacks, and muted dingy greens with just enough fluorescent lighting to cast unpleasant shadows along the walls.  The jumpsuit that she hadn’t put on once had looked like something a janitor or sewage worker might wear. It was refreshing, to be honest.  

Still, it was no surprise that as soon as she could see, Sophia’s senses were assaulted with every color of the rainbow that she’d been deprived of.  Floor tiles were bright yellows, reds, and oranges.  Walls were sponged over in pinks and blues in sloppy and disorganized patterns. Hot lights like miniature suns dangled overhead.  It was like an army of kindergarteners swallowed a bunch of finger paints and then vomited all over an execution chamber.

That was as good an explanation as anything in this fucked up world.  

Sitting somberly in a row of fog hat gray folding chairs, a gathering of strange Amazons sat staring at Sophia in her stroller.  Their eyes narrowed and faces struggled contorting into full on scowls.  

Who the fuck were these people?  

“Come on baby girl,” the guard with the band-aid on her hand sneered.  “Let’s get you set up.” The stroller was wheeled backwards so that Sophia was forced to gaze at the row of dour looking old Amazons until the wheels snapped into place.  The stroller was being added to part of a larger apparatus; one that necessitated even more restraints on her arms and limbs.  Sophie’s head was held firmly in place while a strap pulled over her forehead.  “I can’t wait to look into your eyes,” the guard whispered, as a small metal cylinder was lowered over the Little’s skull.

Sophia looked up with her eyes. She couldn’t get a full view, obviously, but from where she was placed, she imagined it kind of looked like a hair dryer that women sat under when they were getting their hair done, only Little sized.  Now if only she had a magazine, Sophia thought darkly.  The shield of the fake pacifier and her own taut lips concealed the smile.

A male, balding Amazon wearing a guard’s uniform stepped in front of Sophia’s view. The man was so fat that he practically blotted out the strange lookie loos there to witness her final moments of coherent thought.

“Sophie Lockhart,” he said. “For the crime of Adoptive Fratricide in the first degree, you have been sentenced to undergo a Full Cerebral Reset.”  

Lockheart? Fratricide?  She could forgive the infantilizing of her first name, but who the fuck was Sophie Lockheart?  And Fratricide? Hadn’t the guards been talking about her biting out a Mommy’s jugular?  Fratricide meant killing one’s  father though…

Something clicked inside of Sophia! They literally had the wrong Little! She was about to have her brainstem shorted out, and they thought she was someone else entirely!  The people serving as witnesses to the execution were an entirely different clan of giants than the ones who had witnessed her sham of a trial, too!  They were about to watch her lights get snuffed out and didn’t even realize that she wasn’t who they said she was and she had no way to inform them of their blunder!  

This really was a lobster tank!

Not only that, but just out of sight, Sophia could hear that damn song being played.

“The time to be happy is now!
And the place to be happy is here!
And the way to be happy is to make someone happy
And we’ll have a Little Heaven right here!”

There was something deeply, darkly, nihilistically funny about all of this that the Little woman started cackling into her pacifier.  To the assembled witnesses, it came out as nothing more than the meager and weak groaning of a pathetic baby wanting her milk.

“Now.”

Sophia’s world erupted in static and bright lights.  No more sound. No more vision.  She convulsed uncontrollably writhing in the stroller seat and restraints.  She couldn’t hear but she could feel body exhaling in screams.  No pain, however.  She was as far beyond pain as she was beyond control.

Any moment, now.

Her diaper started warming up as her bladder and bowels confused and released, pushing a mudslide into the seat of her pants.  Her jaw convulsed and she unsuccessfully and involuntarily tried to bite through the thick rubber bulb of her gag.

Any moment, now…

Her chest hurt and her lungs burned, unable to breathe, even while her muscles racked themselves in their restraints, screaming for oxygen.

Any moment…

Foamy spittle dribbled out her lips and started running out the corners of her mouth, snaking down her chin.

Any…!

AIR!  

Sophia started breathing again, her exhales coming out as low grumbling moans. Sophia’s eyes fluttered open and she kept moaning.  Her eyes darted around, taking in the sights.  She hadn’t moved from her spot in the executioner’s stroller, but the chairs and the witnesses had been removed.  The wet and sticky mass in her diaper was still there and had started to cool.  Time had definitely passed.

But why was Sophia still here? Why was she still thinking of herself as Sophia?  Why was she still thinking?!

 Her eyes kept looking around, probing randomly; a final body part that had yet to stop seizing up.  Sophia tried to get them to focus, to slam her lids shut, but her body wouldn’t listen to her.  She tried to stop moaning into the gag, but her throat wouldn’t obey her, either.

“There we are!”  An evil, sinister face popped up in front of Sophia’s eyes.  “Where’s the baby?” A blindfold made of the giant’s palm forced Sophia’s eyes closed.  Sophia’s body laid still on autopilot.  “There she is!”  Like a doll, Sophie’s eyes opened on their own.  This time, they stayed still.  

“You in there, baby girl? You in there?” Her eyes seemed to pierce right into Sophia’s, peering deep into her soul  Yeeeeeah,” she grinned. “You’re in there.”  

The remaining fog started to lift from Sophia’s mind.  She was still there! She was still herself!  But she couldn’t move a muscle. They’d paralyzed her! Trapped her in her own body.  Her heartbeat didn’t even speed up.

“Run the checklist,” a voice on the outside of Sophia’s periphery ordered.  She couldn’t even direct her eyes towards the sound.

The guard unbuckled Sophia one strap at a time. “Roger that,” she called.  Sophia willed her body to reach out and slap her captor, but her limbs wouldn’t listen.  The smallest, weakest glimmer of hope sparked up in her when her right arm came loose, but the naked limb reached out and probed pointlessly and uselessly as if pulled along by aimless invisible strings.

Her head lulled uselessly from side to side once it was free and only stilled itself when she was picked up and laid on the cold hard floor.  She wouldn’t really need a crib to keep her contained anymore.  Sophia couldn’t even roll over.

The Little’s inhaling nostrils picked up the rising stench of stale ammonia and cooling feces. The contents of her diaper shifted around and sagged away from her, making her skin start to crawl as the mess half-peeled itself off of her backside.  

Yet as far as her face was concerned, the Little couldn’t tell the difference between clean and dirty. She wanted to throw up, but her body was incapable of listening to her commands. The moaning, groaning, huffing stopped when the pacifier was deflated and removed.  Her body started breathing through its mouth, too, which made the surrounding stench more bearable.

There was no time for relief, however.  The guard took one pointy finger and started to tickle at the right corner of Sophia’s mouth.   “Coohie coochie coo!”

Like an automaton, Sophie’s head turned towards the source of the tickling, her mouth opened and her lips puckered like a donkey braying for a carrot.

The tickling on her right stopped and switched over to her left.  “Coochie coochie coo!”
With the same involuntary drive, Sophie’s head changed course towards the teasing tickling feeling just barely on her cheek.  Then she did it again.

And again.

And again.

It was a finger now.  It would be an Amazon’s nipple later.

“Rooting reflex checks out!” The guard said.  “Checking suck reflex!”

Sophia felt her head turn again, only this time the bait was switched instead of snatched away from her.  Her lips touched her own fingers as her hand was nudged into her own mouth. The instant the roof of her mouth felt a stray finger she started suckling uncontrollably.  

There was no sense of joy or fulfillment; no soothing wave filled her. No itch was being scratched. Her body just continued to suck on the loose digit without cessation. It was like a reflex hammer was tapping her knee cap again and again and again, only the spot was at the top of her mouth.  The guard sat back and watched Sophia helplessly chew her fingers.  

“In a few months you should be limber enough to where you’ll be able to munch on your toes,” she mockingly cooed down at Sophia.  “Suck reflex is active!”

Sophia was left there on the floor, alone, and sucking on her finger.  She saw the shiny black sides of the Amazon’s shoes step away from her and then heard only unintelligible speech garbled by distance.  She was unattended, but not alone.

“BOOGA BOOGA BOOGA!”

Sophia’s fingers shot out of her mouth.  Her arms and legs splayed out and spasmed in every direction each pulled by a different invisible horse trying to quarter her. Just as quickly, all four of her limbs retracted and pulled in close to her helpless body, futilely and inefficiently curling into a ball of flesh.  

“WAAAAAAH!” That was the first time Sophia had heard her voice today, and she had no more control of it than anything else.  She was screaming, but it was as involuntary as anything else.

“Moro reflex is a go!”

Next the Little found her head turned to its left side.  Without thinking about it, her left arm shot out, her legs went slack and her right arm bent up.  Seen from above, she might look as if she were pantomiming a fencing match.  Her head was turned to the right, and her arms alternated.

“Tonic neck reflex! Check!”

“WAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

The shortest growl burbled up in the Amazon’s throat.  “Tickle-tickle-tickle!” Finger tips dug into Sophia’s ribs. 

 “Hawwwww!” The scream mutated into a pained giggle.

“There’s my happy girl!” 

Inwardly, Sophia was cursing the woman out.  Outwardly, her breathing came out in stifled, laughing gasps.  The space between her legs warmed up a little more as her bladder continued to dribble out into her diaper.

“Let’s check out your fingers and toesies!” The Amazon’s digits started brushing the soles of Sophia’s feet, causing her toes to fan out uncontrollably.  Her toes! She couldn’t even control her damn toes!

A gigantic finger traveled up to the Little’s palm and Sophia felt herself lightly take hold of it, tiny fingers gently wrapping around the one big one.  “That’s a very good grasp reflex, baby Sophie!  Your new Mommy and Daddy are gonna think that’s so cute! Like a puppy shaking hands!”

Puppies needed a command. Sophia didn’t have that much control going for her.

In a much deeper and more professional sounding voice, the guard called back.  “Grasp reflex detected!” Looking down at Sophia, she switched to her faux motherese and cooed, “Almost done, sweetie pie!”

The world went upright for the first time in a short forever.  Sophia was being held up, supported at her waist. Just like with her grasping palms, the second the soles of her feet touched the floor, her legs started to weakly move up and down in alternating fashion.  “Look baby girl! Somebody’s dancing!  Yes she is!”

Lacking the coordination to hold her own head up, Sophia witnessed the phenomenon as if she were outside her own body.  If only she were on the outside.  She was very much in herself; a prisoner aware of every feeling and sensation, but unable to act on her own desires.  She hadn’t expected to exist as herself today; now she was trapped; buried alive in a Sophia shaped tomb.

The world went topsy turvy again with her being lifted all the way off the floor and cradled in the Amazon’s arms. The speed of which made her arms flail out and retract again.  This was her body’s default fear or surprise reaction it seemed.

“WAAAAAAAAH!”

“REFLEXES CHECK OUT!” the Amazon bellowed over Sophia’s involuntary wailing.  “TRANSPORTING TO VIEWING!”

“WAAAAAAAAAH!”

A bottle full of milk brushed Sophia’s cheek and her head got to turning so that her mouth could get to sucking.  It only took a second for her mouth to work into a steady rhythm of sucking down the warm creamy liquid. 

“Poor Sophie,” the Amazon guard mocked.  “Did you think you’d get to stop thinking you were a big girl after this?  Watch some special cartoons? Listen to a special song?  Go to a daycare?” Eyes that Sophia couldn’t control honed in on the source of the sound, no matter how badly Sophie wanted them to go away. “That wouldn’t be justice, would it? Those nice things are for good Little boys and girls who just pretended that they were grown-ups for so long that they forgot who they really were!”

From underneath her, Sophia felt the guard squeeze the back of her diaper, pressing the muck and mess back up against her skin.  Her body didn’t stir, content with the milk and the nice sounding tones, even if the words were getting nastier and nastier.  They were moving too, with ceiling lights whizzing by her.

“You were bad,” the guard hissed. “You wanted to be an adult so much that you made the worst possible choices.”  She leaned in and kissed Sophia on the forehead.  Sophia’s body didn’t react.  “Choices are like toys.  They can be taken away.” Another kiss drove home the point.  “So now all of those nasty choices have gone bye bye, and in their place are all those nice, simple, baby behaviors that you thought you’d outgrown.” They stopped just long enough for the guard to open a door. “Now they’re back and they’re never going away.”

A door opened and a fresh gust of air smacked Sophia in the face. The ceiling overhead went from the painted over industrial gray to bright and soft lights. Past the bottle of milk, Sophie was able to decipher clean white walls and passing figures wearing scrubs.

The name of the prison made a terrible kind of sense now. a Juvenile Behavior Retention Center.  Everything that wasn’t a reflex, a behavior that could be predicted and controlled had been removed from her.  The only thing that had been ‘retained’ were the basic instincts that newborns came with right out of the womb.

A doorway crossed her vision as another threshold was crossed.  A light padded surface rose up to greet her nearly paralyzed form. The Little had already been on enough changing tables to know where she was laying.

Cool air seeped in between her legs while the giantess quietly changed her diaper, wiping her between her legs and cheeks. It would have been refreshing if it weren’t so violating. More distressing, neither the cream, powder, or fresh diaper being slipped beneath her stopped her body from finishing the bottle.  She’d gotten a grip on it that refused to let go.

The sucking continued and devolved into sickening slurps. Her body wasn’t stopping just because she was out of milk.  The reflex to suck overrode anything else.  “You’re a very lucky Little girl,” the guard said.  She took the bottle out of Sophia’s mouth and lifted her.  “Those diapers can hold a lot. You wouldn’t need a change for another eight whole hours, at least.”
Up and then back down again.  Sophia was picked up and put back down, her body lightly encased on a semi-flat surface that still cupped her body..  It bobbed at first with her added weight; a strange amalgamation between a hammock and pogo-stick.

“But without a clean diaper on,” the Amazon smirked down at her, “it’d be hard to get your exact weight.”

A scale! She was on a massive baby scale, getting weighed and measured like she was every bit the newborn her body had been debilitated down to.

“It’s very sensitive,” the Amazon said, looking down at the scale.  “With even a tiny change in weight, it shifts.” The slightest tickling around Sophia’s belly button made her body start to giggle. “Just like that!”  

A tiny trickle leaked out into the formerly fresh diaper.  Sophia might not have noticed it without the prompting.

The Little could still feel her face contort as an all too familiar pressure built up in her tummy from the milk, and only whines came out of the girl’s mouth.  

“Poor girl’s getting gassy!” her tormentor said, picking the living ragdoll up and draping her over her shoulder.  Sophia felt every pat and rub acutely with her increased helplessness. With every burp and belch, the guard chuckled to herself.”
“You were a very bad bad girl.”

“Urp.”

“Don’t worry though,” the Amazon said. “Your new Mommy and Daddy are going to love you very much.”

“Urp.”  

“They’ll give you all the love that you don’t deserve even though it won’t matter a bit.”  

“Urrrk.”

“You’ll get lots of milkies and naps and changes and burpies and cuddles.”  
“Urp.  Eck.”

“Maybe a nice playmat where you can accidentally bat around shiny things.  Some tummy time just to change things up.”

Never before had Sophia hated someone more than she hated the woman talking to her.  She really wished she’d committed half of those crimes attributed to her.   “URRRRRRK.”

The room spun around with more walking.  Sophia’s eyes started to droop, her body exhausted and content despite how much screaming her brain was doing. The briefest blink revealed that they weren’t alone.  The room they were in had nearly a dozen plastic cots- blue for boys and pink for girls.  Each was already filled with a Little, swaddled in blankets, breathing peacefully with their eyes closed no matter how their brains might be begging to be put out of their misery.

“You’re really lucky, baby girl,” the Amazon taunted. “Viewing day is tomorrow.  Some of these other babies have had to wait for their Mommies and Daddies to come pick them out.  But not you!”

Pink plastic walls rose up around Sophia.  She was laid down on something thick and fleecy.  Her weak and uncoordinated body was pinned, and swaddled in a few rapid steps.  A matching cap was pulled down over her head.  Her eyes closed all the way, her body feeling completely relaxed and comfortable.

Another rubber bulb brushed against her lips and her body suckled on it reflexively.  Her captors would never need a gag again.  Her lips and tongue worked the pacifier ceaselessly and her mind tried to do anything it could to pass out.

The guard wouldn’t let her.  She just kept taunting her. “If you're lucky, you might make it a full year before you go bye bye from all the boredom.  I’ve heard some Littles who get Reset can make it close to five!  But don’t worry. You’ll be happy…” 

Gently, that same damn song was piped in over the hospital air conditioning.

“The time to be happy is now!
And the place to be happy is here!
And the way to be happy is to make someone happy
And we’ll have a Little Heaven right here!”

Heaven, Sophia thought.  Heaven for who?

***********************************************************************************************
Sophia woke to the sound of babies crying all around her.  It was a good few minutes before she realized she was one of the cries that had so offended their ears.  Her body thrashed impotently in the swaddle.  The noise had activated her body’s fear response, and she was now screaming while her limbs did everything they could to bundle up against her torso.

So it hadn’t been a dream….

Her diaper was wet.  She’d continued to dribble throughout the night. Possibly more than wet.  She couldn’t tell because she couldn’t move and she couldn’t focus outside of her own body to smell enough.  Someone had pooped their diaper in the middle of the night, that part was certain.

Diaper changes and bottles were not forthcoming, however.  Nothing that even passed for relief was in store for her.  More ceiling tiles passed overhead and a semi-familiar click-click-click-clicking sound registered over the din.  The cots were being rolled up to a glass window.

Peering down at Sophia was a small horde of eager, smiling Amazon faces pressed up against the glass. Fingers tapped on the window.  Hands waved, vying for attention. Insane toothy grins on one side of the wall juxtaposed ironically with the open mouthed wails on the other.  Now Sophia really was a lobster. These latest intruders were the hungry diners there to decide who they would get the pleasure of devouring.  They either couldn’t hear the Littles’ cries or they just didn’t care.

Flashes of white caught Sophia’s attention.  A nurse, practically a waitress followed hands pointing down and over to Sophia’s caught. Just a moment later, Sophia was picked up and cradled again.  Her body calmed at the added warmth and support.  Her mouth was forced closed with the addition of a fresh bottle.

“Baby gets some brekkie!” the nurse chirped.  Sophia’s eyes were drawn again to happy sounding voice. Thank goodness it wasn’t the guard from yesterday.
Two new faces came into view.  “Mr and Mrs. Olafson?  Congratulations.  It’s a girl!”

“Henry!” A middle aged Amazon woman gushed, snatching Sophia out of the other Amazon’s arms, blanket, bottle and all.  “Look at her! She’s perfect!” Then to the nurse she said. “We’ll take her!”

This is how it ended. Auctioned off to the first or highest bidder. Nothing more than a pet. A porcelain baby doll to care for an neglect as a couple of fifty somethings saw fit. . A knot formed right in her stomach. Unfortunate that it had nothing to do with the torment she felt.  The added milk had woken up something else inside the Little’s body. 

“She sure is, Harriet!” the giant man agreed with his wife. “Thank you very much.”

The nurse gushed back. “Oh don’t thank me.  I’m just the stork.   It’s my favorite part of the job!  Y’all are the real heroes, taking this Little one in!” 

“What’s her name?” Sophia’s new Mommy asked.

“Whatever you want it to be.”

“How about Abigail-May?  After both of our mothers,” Sophia’s new Daddy suggested.

The couple of tyrants looked down at her.  “What do you think? 

The pressure in Sophia’s stomach was increasing and bubbling up rapidly, a balloon that was growing and growing inside her, ready to burst out of her stomach like a horror movie alien.  The pressure built and built and built until she involuntarily added more mess to her diaper.  

“Awww! She’s smiling, honey!” the giant man said.  “That means she likes it!” Really it just meant that she had gas. Her body lacked the control and wherewithal for social smiling.

“Looks like you’ve got yourself a very happy baby!” The nurse praised them.

And poor Sophia lacked any capability to disagree.

That was all there was to it.  Sophia stayed there in the stranger’s arms, sucking on her bottle while bundled up in a blanket; her wet and messy diaper squishing with every shift. Her husband was handed a clipboard where he signed some forms and then she was whisked away.

She never thought she’d see the sun again or feel the fresh air on her face.  In a way she wasn’t.  Sophia wasn’t the blob in the stranger’s arms.  She wasn’t being strapped in the backward facing car seat and having the bottle replaced with a pacifier. Nor was she adding a steady trickle of urine into an already wet diaper.
Her body was doing all of that, but not her.  Sophia hadn’t done anything since biting that bitch’s hand.  She never thought she’d see the outside of prison; not as herself.  How wrong she’d been.  Instead of erasing her, the Amazons had just shrunken the prison into a perfectly Sophia sized casing while the real Sophia could only cry in despair from behind a wall of preprogrammed responses and instincts.

“Look Henry,” her new Mommy said.  “In her file they included a CD of children’s songs for her nursery.”

“Heh. Well let’s make it official,” the older man behind the wheel said.  “Put it in.”

“The time to be happy is now!
And the place to be happy is here!
And the way to be happy is to make someone happy
And we’ll have a Little Heaven right here!”

Sophia was not now nor ever would be free.  But given enough time, one to five years according to that guard, she might be happy.

 

[Unfair: A Diaper Dimension Novel (Chapter 129 Uploaded!)]

24 minutes ago, messyman said:

If it is posted somewhere not a forum I need to scroll through that would be good. I have not kept up and so to read something long I would need to keep a diaper site window open in my phone browser for a few days while I read to not lose my place.

As of right now.  ARArchive.com and diaper-bois.com both have this story and feature table of contents.

So does Legitfic.com; would highly recommend it.  But the version I got there is a few chapters behind.  (It's a new site so I'm staggering my uploads so as not to flood their library.

[Personalias's Flash Fictions (Company Time)]

Unconventional

You fall off the spinning disk, giggling like an idiot on the floor, and dizzy as hell.  Thirty something rotations! New record!  You toss your hands up to the ceiling in celebration and your laughter redoubles in on itself when it hits you that you were actually pointing at the nearest wall.

This is the best convention ever!  Presently, you’re in the Nursery Playroom, where the littlest of the little ones like to play. That’s you right now. Definitely you.   People are playing on rocking horses the size of thoroughbreds, riding around on tricycles that are far too big, and bouncing in walkers that could double as flying saucers. And nobody is hiding their diapers.

Not fifteen minutes ago, you found yourself lying beneath a baby gym, in your t-shirt, and wet Alphagatorz, babbling to yourself and smacking around dangling jingly toys.  And it felt so gosh darn, wonderfully normal!

I belong here.  I really belong here.  I really do.

That’s what you thought. Somehow, it finally feels like you’ve come home.  Amazing!  But your attention has never been steady at the best of times, so you drifted over to this sick sit and spin and went to town until you could barely stand up straight.

A gurgle from your stomach reminds you that you’re not allowed to go full baby. No number two’s allowed in convention spaces. That bodily reminder snaps you right out of headspace. Shouldn’t have had those nachos last night. The spinning didn’t help either.  One way or another, something is about to exit you, and it’s probably out the back.

Oh well. Nothing to be done about it. Still dizzy, you stand up on unsteady legs; you’re legs locked while your torso wobbles.  You already know what you’re going to do: Waddle to the bathroom, drop the kids off at the pool, wipe, and then come back and play. Minimum interruption!  

On second thought, maybe you’ll go back to your hotel room for a few minutes.  Nothing about the rules says you can’t poop in there. It’d be more practical too, considering you’re already wet. Pooping in a toilet and then pulling up a wet Alphagatorz would feel…weird.  You’re not in Pull-Ups, you’re a BABY!  (That’s the headspace you’re looking for anyway).

As the last of the dizziness recedes, something catches your eye.  In the back corner of the play room is an adult sized changing table. Not a repurposed massage table like in the changing rooms, a full on changing table, hand crafted and painted to look just like something a baby might use.  

You pivot and face it. How long had that been there?  You swear you cased the room and examined each and every piece of oversized baby furniture as if it were an art exhibit when you first came in.

A wave of sadness washes over you and your knees bend slightly as you start to push. The feeling of your cheeks spreading makes you groan under your breath while you stare enviously at the prop.  A prop. That’s all it is.  The convention was also quite clear about public nudity.

Your next sigh comes out as a grunt.

Your feet are still planted, your knees bent more than before.  It still hasn’t occurred to your body that you could walk and get a closer look.  Attached to the side of the adult sized changing table are several little hooks. Each hook has a diaper bag hanging from it.  The shelves beneath the top are likewise packed with diaper bags.  It seems the littles who brought diaper bags for quick changes all stowed them there.

You wished you’d have brought a diaper bag.  Or someone to carry it for you.  Another sigh escapes your top, while your bottom feels warmer and your belly feels better.

To the right of the table is an unopened pack of Little Kings. Diaper bag be damned, someone just didn’t give a damn.  To the left is what appears to be a large diaper genie.  Wow. This place goes all out. Morbidly, you wonder if anyone has snuck a used diaper in there.

Oh yeah! Used diaper! You shake the cobwebs out of your head and stop sighing wistfully of what you can’t have.  Time to…

It finally hits you. That grunting and pushing you’ve been quietly doing and the meaning behind it. You’ve been messing this whole time, and inertia and gravity is carrying the last of your mess out of you beyond your control.

For the first time in decades, you’ve just pooped your pants.  In public. Without realizing it.

Your body tenses and you slap your thighs to keep from feeling the back of your diaper.  You need to get out of here. Now.  If you’re caught like this you’re sure to be banned!  You quickly start telling lies to yourself: It’s okay. It’s okay. No problem.  You just need to casually walk out of the play room, and find the nearest stairwell, then you’ll just go up five flights of stairs, take out the keycard in your lanyard, and slip into your hotel room for a change…maybe a shower too.  Point is that as long as you don’t dawdle or get trapped in a confined space, no one will be the wiser.

You pivot around to start walking towards the playroom entrance, quietly tensing with every step.  You can feel the mess shifting around. You look down at the floor and stare at the carpet so as not to draw any attention with your uncomfortable facial expressions.

This isn’t going to work. This isn’t going to work. You’re going to caught. Caught and banned.

You raise your head a little so that you don’t bump into anyone and are forced to stop dead in your tracks.  The double doors leading out into the wider convention area are now shut. You don’t remember them closing.  Your speed doubles and you power walk to the door.  Your heart leaps up into your throat when you grab the handle and find it locked.

Why the fuck is it locked?

“Oh honey!” A voice calls out.  “What are you doing?”

You turn around and press your back to the door.  “Nothing!” You say instinctively while your mess presses against you more tightly.  “Can I please get out?”

Coming towards you, is a woman in white sneakers, blue jeans, and a hot pink t-shirt with the conventions name on it.  Oh shit! (Poor choice of words!) A staff member!  Something seems familiar about her too.  Wasn’t she the receptionist at the front desk?  You thought the hotel was a separate entity from the convention for purposes of play…

“I’m sorry, sweetie, but you have to wait here,” she says.

“Why?”  you ask.  She’s close. Too close.  You wish you could just phase through this door, or sink into the center of the earth.  “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong, baby,” she says soothingly.  “Those are just the rules. You get to play here while all the grown-ups play out there.”

If it weren’t for the crippling fear you’re currently experiencing, such talk would send you deep deep into headspace.  “I need to go to my hotel room!” You yelp.

“Awwww,” the stranger replies.  “You’ll get to go back to your hotel room, eventually.  Don’t worry.  Do you want to lie down somewhere?  I can make a space that’s nice and quiet for you?”

This lady isn’t getting it. She is far too committed to the bit.  “I need to go change!” You all but. scream.

“Oh?” she says. “Let me see?” Quick and casual as anything she kneels down and squeezes between your legs. You’re too shocked to react while she examines your diaper and sticks her fingers past the leak guards.  “Hmmm…you’re wet, but you’re not that wet.” She determines.  “Why don’t you let the grown-ups decide whether you need changing?” She stands up and thumbs back over her shoulder.  “Go play.”

“But…but…but…I want to see the rest of the convention!”  You have to get out of here.  Noses are sniffing and time is ticking!

The staff member waves your concern off.  “You don’t want to go out there. It’s all boring grown-up stuff.  Stay and play here until your Mommy or Daddy comes to pick you up.”

The sincerity in her voice throws you off.  “What?”

“This is a grown-up convention, baby,” she says. “You’re at the convention daycare so that your Mommy or Daddy can go do their grown-up stuff and know that your’e safe.”

Was that even a thing?  Not the point. “I don’t have a Mommy and Daddy!”  You’re single, but saying as much feels like a confession of a crime or an admission of guilt.”

“Mmmhmm…” The lady nods, clearly not believing you.  “I’m sure. You’re very big.”  She drags you out away from the door and swats you on the butt. “Now go play.”

You need to regroup. Need to get out and change. Need to avoid getting caught.

Too late.  “Hold it!”  You feel your diaper being pulled back. You freeze and hold your breath.  It wasn’t exactly fun while it lasted, but it’s over now.  “Hmmmm….guess I was wrong. You do need to be changed.”

Your jaw drops open.  Her hand clamps down on your wrist, and before you know it you’re being dragged to the back corner. It’s all you can do to keep your feet moving.  “Wait. Stop!” you try to say.  “What are you doing?”

“Changing you,” she says. “You need it!”

“Here?”  

“Yup.”:

“Everyone will see.”

“It’s okay. No need to be shy. You’re just a baby.”

All of your skin is tingling.  “No I’m not!”

“Okay, honey.”  So in command of the situation is she, that she boosts you off the ground and onto the changing table in one fell swoop. Your mess mashes against your backside.  “Then let’s change that big kid diaper.  Lie down.”

Your body lies down. There’s no disobeying. You try to sit up, but a hand on your chest is all that’s needed to keep you pinned while she roots around on the shelves beneath you.  She stands back up and looks at your convention name tag dangling from your lanyard.

“Rhonda?” she calls.Another woman in a similar uniform jogs up. You’re pretty sure you saw her vacuuming the hallway when you first checked into the hotel.   “I can’t find this one’s diaper bag.”
“What’s the name?” the other woman asks.

Then they say your name.  You’re real name.  The name you introduce yourself by outside of the scene.  You grip and grab at the nametag and read it.  It’s your name.  Picture too.  The badge wasn’t like that before.  You’re smiling in the picture. Your eyes look vacant.

Rhonda rifles through the bag.  “Hmm, I don’t see it either, Debbie”

Debbie frowns.  “Maybe Mom or Dad forgot to drop it off?”

“Maybe,” Rhonda shrugs. “But that’s why we have the emergency spares.”

“I’m sorry!” You babble.  “There’s been a mistake. I won’t do it again. Please just stop!”

Both strangers soften towards you.  “Awwww, that’s not what we mean. You’re not in trouble, pumpkin.  Your Mommy or Daddy just forgot to drop off your diaper bag.”  

Rhonda rips open the package of Little Kings.  “Don’t worry, we’ll take care of you.”

The tapes scritch scratch as your diaper is opened  and your soaked genitals and messy bottom is exposed to everyone. You scream and babble while these strangers touch you in ways you haven’t been touched in a long time.

“It’ll be alright.”

“It’s just a diaper change.”

“You’ll feel so much better when it’s over.”

“Nothing to be embarrassed or shy about.”

“You’ve had these all your life.”

“Don’t you want to be a good baby so we can tell your Mommy or Daddy when they get back?”

“Just a little more, and then you can go play. Promise.”

The other convention goers, the other littles, don’t take much notice.  They’re all trapped in their own world of blocks and bead mazes.  Right as your bottom is finished being wiped, and the Alphagaztorz is being balled up and tossed away in the very real diaper genie by your feet, you see another little stop crawling and puff their cheeks out while the back of their diaper expands.  

The fresh new diaper is slid underneath you and a torrent of powder rains down on your back and front.  The little you just witnessed shit themselves keeps crawling as if nothing happened.

“There we go!”  they chirp at you, finishing the change as quickly, efficiently, and sexlessly as one might an actually baby.  “All done.”

They help you off the changing table.  “Go play.”

You stumble about in a daze.  The fresh diaper is too stiff.  They always are at first, but usually you feel more connected to it because you’re the one who put it on.

You’re not kicked out.  They seem to think you’re a real baby.  They know your  real name. You don’t know what to do with this information.

Just as importantly:  Who’s going to pick you up at the end of the day?

[Unfair: A Diaper Dimension Novel (Chapter 129 Uploaded!)]

8 hours ago, thedman said:

Hot damn! That chapter was a whirlwind and then some.  Great change of pace to help keep things lively.  Amazing work!

Thank you

 

4 hours ago, messyman said:

Is this posted somewhere else in an  easier to read format? 

It is posted several different places.  What's hard about the format?  I have an idea, but I want to confirm before I redirect you.

[Unfair: A Diaper Dimension Novel (Chapter 129 Uploaded!)]

6 minutes ago, FloridaKid said:

Wow. That was crazy-intense. I love a good roller coaster and oh my, what a coaster you’ve created.

Thanks!

[Unfair: A Diaper Dimension Novel (Chapter 129 Uploaded!)]

Chapter 95: Wet Dream

“Ready Mr. Gibson?” Cassie leaned into me and nuzzled my neck, giving me gentle kisses at first and then increasingly not so gentle nibbles on my neck.  If we stayed still there much longer I was going to ruin her mother’s wedding dress right there in the Misty Brook parking lot in front of every single onlooker and well wisher.

“Ready Mrs. Gibson.”   Damn it felt good to say that.

I picked her up, and held my breath so that no one could hear the slight strain I was under.  I exhaled through my nostrils and kicked the door in.  Hoots, hollers, and applause rained out to our ears while I turned sideways and shuffled through the doorway of the empty Braun Family Trailer.

Carrying has a special significance in the Little community. We get picked up and manhandled all the time.  So the post wedding reception ritual depicted in far too many movies and television show had an extra level of significance.  Cassie was showing me how much she trusted me.  Me?  I’d never felt bigger in my life, in more ways than one.

My bride reached out and closed the door behind us.  My knees started to shake, my arms would have ached save for the adrenaline. I’d never been an athlete and an adult Little wasn’t an easy burden to carry.  Cassie practically latching her face onto mine gave me strength.

She grabbed the back of my head and pulled at my hair and shoved her tongue into my mouth, moaning and saying my name in between gasps for ears.  I leaned against the door and let her, trying to awkwardly hold her and grope her at the same time.  

Like so many newlyweds, I imagine we looked awkward as anything.  We weren’t completely inexperienced with each other, but in the throes and excitement of the moment, what little technique we’d developed was thrown out the window.  The ‘house’ was ours for the night. My parents had booked a trustworthy hotel in Elizabeton, the next city over from Oakshire. My new in-laws had ceded us their space as a type of wedding present and were couch surfing with neighbors.

We’d talk of honeymoon and housing plans with each other and our folks tomorrow afternoon. Cassie and I were already eyeing a house in Oakshire proper and had a plan to make it work. Imagine us: real homeowners among the big folk instead of living out of modified trailers or hiding in gated communities: A dream come true for both of us.

That was for tomorrow, though.  Right now, we had other more immediate plans. Cassie and I were going to do so many things in so many rooms that we would never, ever tell anyone about, and would snicker about privately to each other whenever Bert sat down on the old loveseat in front of the television.

While I sunk to the floor with my bride leaning into me and over me so that she was pinning me down, no thoughts came to me save one: This was a dream.  Just a dream.

In the real world I was on my back, sleeping fitfully with a diaper spreading my legs apart, and my entire body save for my head and hands was encased in cotton that kept me warm to the point where I’d wake some nights in a sweat with the sheets kicked off.  I had no hope of taking the jammies off. The snaps were too strong for Little fingers to affect. Same with the diaper and the tapes. To get naked without assistance would require a box cutter at the very least.

This really happened, though.  This was a memory dream of a happier time that I sorely needed. The flash of lucidity was sudden, instantaneous, and did nothing to dissuade me from indulging in my own past.

Shirt buttons went flipping end over end as Cassie ripped open my dress shirt. She straddled my hips and started grinding on me.  I thrust up and thrilled at her soft moan. My new wife slid off and started giving hurried, frenzied kisses to my chest.  I yelped when she tried out sucking on my nipple.  That might be something we’d work on or fade out in the future.  I reached for the top of her head and started pushing her down towards waist.  Physics and leverage made it impossible for me to actually enforce it.  

Cassie took the hint and climbed off me just enough so that she could get at my pants.

There’s lots of different type of sex.  There’s makeup sex, and breakup sex, and boredom sex, and apology sex, and of course good old fashioned love making among so many others.  So much of the act is in the motivations, mental states, and emotions of the participants.  The positions, pacing, participants, and implements all add to and modify the levels of physical stimulation, but it’s what’s going on between the ears of the people engaged that make the act something special.  

Sex is like cooking in a way.  Skill, equipment, and materials all play a factor, but the source and intent behind the meal should never be discounted.  It’s why runny eggs on Mother’s Day or an overdone steak on a wedding anniversary can still be eaten with gusto because of the person serving it.

That night, neither of us was objectively any good at sex, but we were horny out of our minds and completely selfishly stupidly devoted to each other as a single being; our identities inelably intertwined as of that night.  

Then and now and forever.

Cassie started loosening my belt and unbuttoning my pants. I propped myself up and watched her fiddle, her fingers made stupid with desire.  I stared, transfixed, at her cleavage inside the wedding dress her mother had given to her and imagined.  Oh the things I wanted to do to her in that dress before doing even things to her out of that dress. Neither of us would sleep till dawn.

“Here,” I said, unbuckling my belt for her. “Let me help.”

Instead of thanking me, she gripped my member through the pants as hard as she could. “I want you inside of me.”  I watched her reach under the hem of her pristine white dress and heard the fabric scream out and tear as she ripped her delicate, thin panties off.  “Now,” she panted. “Please.”

I pushed her back and rolled forward on top of her, gripping and grabbing at her chest, dry humping her. If I came, I came. I was young and virile and only a drink of water and three minutes away from another round.  Fuck it. Chances were I wasn’t going to get the security deposit back anyways.

“Take me,” she begged.  “Get inside me! Please!” Save perhaps ‘don’t stop,’ and ‘let’s do it in the master bed,’ I wouldn’t make my dear wife beg again that night.

Her legs spread open for me. Down on my knees I pulled my pants all the way down. I hadn’t bothered to wear underwear that night for this very reason. Still on the floor, I grabbed her by the legs and pulled her up to me.   I leaned forward, entered her and felt…nothing.

“Huh?”

Cassie opened her eyes, and stopped moaning. She seemed confused. “Something wrong?”

“Am I…am I in?”  I grinded and thrust my hips, but none of the soft warm wetness or pressure or stimulation of penetration occurred.  Was I humping the inside of her dress on accident?

“I…I don’t know…?” She said. “I thought so?” Cassie scooted back on her elbows, her eyebrows knitted in consternation.  This wasn’t our first time. “Clark!” she gasped.  “What are you wearing?!”

I looked down at my dick and didn’t see it.  This was a dream, I knew. A nightmare. It was the only way to explain why I was wearing a Monkeez on my wedding night.  “No,” I whispered. “No, no, no, no.”

A piercing, terrified shriek vibrated the past.  The memory of my wife hiked her own dress up.  Tears dripped down her face and snot bubbles inflated from out of her nostrils.  The difference between her diaper and mine?  Mine was still dry.  “Clark! What’s happening?”

It hadn’t happened this way.  Not at all.  This was a dream. I was lucid. I could do anything I wanted. Then why couldn’t I take the damn diaper off?!  My fingers gripped uselessly on the very edge of the tapes, picking and pulling at them, but the crinkling underwear might as well have been welded shut.

“Clark!” Cassie screamed. “I love you!”  

We were no longer in her parents’ trailer. We were nowhere, two Littles in a vast empty blackness.  The darkness slithered up around my wife’s waist and lifted her up off the ground.  “No!” she screamed so that her voice rattled all the way into the back of her throat. “No! I’m not a baby!  I’m not!”

I laid there in the nothingness, helplessly trying to get the diaper off.  I had to do this first.  I couldn’t save Cassie, I couldn’t save anyone if I didn’t get the diaper off first. Babies couldn’t help anyone, and I had to save my wife.

 Cassie started getting farther and farther away from me.  I didn’t know what giant had snatched her up and taken her away from me.  I didn’t know where she was. “Claaaaaaaaark!”

I tilted my head to the colorless non-sky and begged whatever part of my brain was putting me through this as though it were some sort of angry god.  “Please!” I shouted. “Stop it!  Just stop it!” No answer but the crinkling in my ears came in reply.

I started begging and bargaining with my own subconscious.  “Bring her back! Please! Just let me have this!”  I didn’t cry, but that might have been because my brain couldn’t fully simulate the effect and feeling on its own.  “Just this one thing! Let me keep this one thing!”

“Awwww,” Janet’s voice intruded as a booming serenade. “Poor baby is sad. He’s got some big feelings, doesn’t he?” Every single syllable was overloaded with syrupy sweetness. I could never remember Janet talking to me quite so condescendingly.

 It wasn’t Janet’s voice.  Not really.  It was a gross parody of her; her at her worst, most baby crazy self; the terrible urge inside her that all Amazons struggled with and ultimately lost to.  

The inky blackness parted like a show curtain, and the image of Janet, still naked, strode forth; no longer panicked or uncomfortable; the beads of water and the pinkness of her skin from exposure to boiling water had been edited out.   “It’s okay, baby boy.  Mommy’s here. Mommy won’t leave you.  Mommy won’t burn down your house and get herself taken away before you can say goodbye.  Mommy loves you.”

I wanted to curse out this obscene construct. I opened my mouth to tell her to fuck right off and express how much I hated her. Yet when I opened my mouth, no sound came out. I couldn’t even tell her what I really thought of her in the refuge of my mind anymore.  Even in my dreams I crinkled and waddled and toddled.

Janet picked me up and cradled me. The clothes I’d worn on my wedding night melted away.  The diaper stayed on. “Why?!” I screamed. “Why?!”

Her hand squeezed the front of my padding. “Still dry!” she declared. “Maybe baby Clark is dehydrated?” Another symptom of the real world bled into my dreaming mind. I had to pee. My bladder ached and screamed at me like I had been holding it forever.  Sleep was still one of the few times my bladder held up on its own, but I was waking up more times in a night. Like any muscle, being used less was reducing the threshold.  Sleeping through the night was gradually becoming one to two to sometimes three humiliating pit stops.

Quietly, I prayed to myself that it would happen now.

She squeezed me again.  “Uh oh…I think I know what’s wrong.”  The bulge protruding out in front of me wasn’t entirely padding.  “It’s okay,” dream Janet said.  She tapped the very tip of my nose.  “Mrs. B says it’s perfectly natural and Mommy can help you with both.”

The Amazon’s face left my field of view, and her breast filled up my entire vision. “No…” I whispered. “Please…”  My limbs wouldn’t move. I could barely turn my head away.  I felt her nipple brush against my cheek.  Knowing no other apt comparison, my dream made it feel like the rubber teat of a baby bottle.  Against my will, my head turned towards the source.  My mouth opened up to scream, and instead I latched onto Janet’s breast.

Not knowing what breast milk tasted like, my tongue pretended to taste fatty creamy goat’s milk gushing forth.

“Good baby.”

I woke up in my crib.  No scream.  No tears.  No dramatic gasping breaths. My eyes were closed; then open. My temples throbbed and I remembered to exhale. 

My eyes cleared and the faint nursery night light brought the terrible silhouettes into full view. I didn’t sit up. I just breathed and shivered beneath the covers.  I would not cry out. I would give Janet no reason to suspect that I’d woken up, or see me in distress.

Yet I could not sleep.  I feared what would happen if I closed my eyes, and what I might dream of.  Waking up from a nightmare was no guarantee that my brain wouldn’t just pick up where it left off the second sleep overtook me.  Nightmares could be like that.  So could subliminal messaging leaked in through supposed baby monitors…

Also, I really did have to pee. My bladder was full and my dick was rock hard as a result.  That explained something. Neither condition was particularly comfortable, so I decided to solve one problem with another.

My hands moved away from my crotch. Feeling my diaper warm up from the outside would just weird me out further. I gave myself a test squeeze to confirm I was still dry and noted that I was. Thank goodness I still had that going for me.  I counted to a hundred, trying to appreciate the feeling of a full bladder and dry pants.  I also hoped in vain that counting might help me fall asleep, or distract myself enough that my erection would fade.

My nostrils flared and my bladder relaxed, singing in pleasure as I bathed myself in my own fluids. I took deep slow breaths while what felt like a never ending stream splashed against my hairless skin and was absorbed by thirsty padding.  Being able to piss while lying down was a strange skillset I’d acquired.  Most worrisome, but it felt more comfortable than standing and gripping the crib’s railing.

The warmth radiated around my nethers and I repositioned my hands to inspect the damage. The diaper was already starting to swell, but too much experience told me that it still had a way to go before it was anywhere close to leaking. Stupidly I bucked a little bit and felt my penis rub up against my hands.

Now exhausted,  I inhaled and closed my eyes. A nightmare was a nightmare, but there was relief in knowing you could wake up from it. So I breathed deep and counted to a hundred…and nothing about my erection changed.

“Goddamn it,” I whispered to myself. “Goddamn mother fucker.”  I gave myself flashbacks to when I’d first started going through puberty.  There were days in my teens where it didn’t matter what I’d been through or what stressors I was under; if I didn’t get my rocks off I would start having withdrawal systems. My body and mind had scabbed over enough from the constant infantilization that such things were again possible.

If I didn’t get some sleep, I’d be in an even worse mood all of Sunday.  If I didn’t find a way to make myself cum I wasn’t going to go back to sleep.

I spread my legs and wriggled under the sheets. The fleecy jammies weren’t particularly enticing to my fingertips, but the pressure and feeling from inside my diaper felt strangely familiar if I didn’t think about it.

There were elements of pressure, and soft wet squishiness.  My brain tried to keep reminding me of what it was, but my body didn’t mind so much.  This could work, I lied to myself.  This could be good enough for a quick jerk off. 

 But I couldn’t get a firm grip on anything and my hands slid around too much. The fabric of the pajamas and the soft plastic of the Monkeez reduced friction in a bad way and the bulk of the padding muted most of the pleasurable sensations I was able to excite out of me.

 Every stroke sounded like I was opening up a bag of potato chips, however. Every time I tried to imagine Cassie on top of me, giving me the kind of love that I so desperately missed, I accidentally opened my eyes, afraid that a worried and concerned Janet would have rushed in at hearing mattress springs groan too loudly or more plastic rustling than was average for a Little rolling over in their sleep.

I was frustrated and ready and desperate.  I wasn’t even close to finishing. I wasn’t inside my wife.  I wasn’t inside anyone. And I was still too inside my own head to let my body enjoy what tiny amount of stimulation I could evoke.

My teeth gritted.  This was worse than puberty. I wasn’t being actively observed when I was a teenager and if I was my parents were kind and embarrassed enough not to mention it.  Janet wouldn’t give me the same courtesy. A stiffy in the shower nearly drove her into full overbearing Mommy mode.

Hadn’t Beouf made an offhand comment in her talk the other night?  Something about looking the other way occasionally for Billy and Annie’s sake?  Could I trust Janet to take that bit as gospel?

Ugh.  Just thinking about it left a bad taste in my mouth.  If I knew someone was listening in, even if we weren’t talking about it…ugh!  This….this had to be secret! It just had to be! It had to!

Lion was still by my head, holding vigil over my prone body.  I hadn’t stirred enough to knock him over. Beouf had said something else during her sex talk: She lost more stuffies during naptime in her rookie year of teaching than she was comfortable admitting.

It made sense in a perverse kind of way.  A stuffed animal was something to grind and push against.  It was something to muffle sounds, it had something resembling a body to grip and grab onto.  Something that didn’t call out or moan. Something that a sex starved Little could close their eyes and pretend was someone else.

Lion went sailing through the air, over the top of the crib railing, and tumbled quietly on the floor.  “No,” I said to myself. “Never.”  I wasn’t going to do that to him.  “Never, never, never, never.”

I was trapped in a world of giants who did whatever they wanted to me. That dumb toy was one of the few things that I was bigger than and had control over.  “No.”

Staring at the stupid useless piece of stuffing laying on the ground gave me the tiniest benefit. My erection was wilting away. Growling in disgust, I sat up, curling my lip and struggling inwardly about whether or not I should go back to sleep.

A faint green dot caught my attention. Up over the edge of the crib railing, a tiny beam of emerald light no bigger than the twinkling of a distant star stood out.  It was coming from the baby monitor. I knew my prison well by now.  As many times as I had awoken in the middle of the night, as often as I’d stared up and whispered curses at that stupid box, I’d never seen that green light before.  Ever.

I froze and stared up at it. Angry. Vindicated. Justified.

Outside my nursery…THE nursery…not mine….never mine…the hallway light clicked on.  I laid back down on my stomach and turned my head away.

I felt Janet’s presence moreso than I heard her footfalls or the opening of the door. The woman could be deceptively quiet when she chose to be. Thanks to the nightlight, I saw her shadow glide across the room over to the monitor. The tiny click of a button being pressed was crystal clear in the silence of the room.  

As stealthily as she had come in, my captor glided back out.  When the door was open just a sliver, Janet tried her hand at one final subliminal message that night.  “Good night, Clark.  I love you.”

“Good night Janet,” I whispered under my breath so only that only I could hear, “I hate you.” 

[In For A Penny]

Friends,

Magic is real and all around us; we just fail to grasp it and take its powers for our own. Most hucksters and snake oil sorcerers would tell you this and add in the phrase “Believe it or Not!”  But that particular colloquialism is one hell of a misnomer.  You have to believe, friends, you have to.

Belief is the thing that generates magic, that breathes life into it like air to a flame. Belief latches onto that power and Divine Spark of creation like a fishhook into a trout and reels it to the surface.  You get enough people to believe something and all of reality will bend the knee and bow to that belief, instantly retconning itself because magic told it too.  

Do you really think that dragons never existed? Or that man was not meant to fly? Or that the United States of America was founded before 1958?  If so, that’s just magic retconning your memory thanks to belief. For as long as mankind has been around, those who wield magic have been the editors of reality and by my count, we’re on at least the one thousandth and sixteenth draft, give or take a fairy tale. 

One thing I will add, however, is that the belief need not specifically come from you. Not initially anyways.  Ever hear of magic artifacts? Monkey’s Paws? Four Leaf Clovers? Ginsu Knives? Chia Pets? If enough people believe something is magic- if they invest that little bit of their own tiny portion of belief into it-then it becomes magic regardless of the individual belief.  A clover is lucky and a knife will never ever dull.

You just gotta be careful of what the belief is and who uses it, is all…

An excerpt from “Do You Believe in Magic? 2nd Edition” By Cornelius Crowley.
****************************************************************************************************

Road trips are super boring. Always have been. Always will be. And you can’t convince me otherwise.  Travel, in general, is super boring.  You’re stuck in some kind of box, either by yourself or with other people, and you’re not where you want to be. It’s waiting and being mobile at the same time.

Vacation? Moving? That’s exciting! New places, new diversions, new people, new everything!  Traveling? Suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!  You can bet your ass that if the Pilgrims didn’t have to cram themselves in a big wooden boat to get to Plymouth Rock, they wouldn’t have. If traveling circuses and carnivals could get a reliable cash flow without going from town to town to milk their marks, you bet your ass they wouldn’t.  

Traveling sucks, road trips suck, and Nickelback sucks.  That last example has nothing to do with the first two but it needed to be said. It just sucks. It’s always sucked and always will suck. It’s just as our trains, planes, and automobiles have gotten faster, we’ve gotten less tolerant of the suckitude of it all.  
It sucks even when you’re with the love of your life and she’s driving.

“Almost there,” Crystal said. I stared at my Twitter feed, not reacting. We were nowhere near Disney World. We’d just crossed the state border not even an hour prior.  With the detour we had to take and stops for dinner we probably wouldn’t be in Orlando until sunset. “Lola? Lola?”

I looked up from my phone and over at my girlfriend. “Huh?” I asked.

“I said we’re almost to the next rest stop,” she said.  Her right leg was on the pedal, and her left one was bouncing up a storm.  Most people would see that nervous energy on her slim, athletic build, and assume that she was a runner, antsy to stretch her legs or something.  

Nope. 

Crystal just had to pee.  She wasn’t even all that athletic. My girlfriend had been blessed and cursed with many things; chief among them was a hummingbird’s metabolism. She could wolf down a whole cow’s worth of ground beef and not gain a pound.  This was balanced out by also having a humming bird’s bladder.  

“Cool cool,” I said. I sat up and dug around for change in the passenger side armrest “Do we got any change?”  Nothing but three measly pennies. I looked at the pastures and backwoods cowfields.  “I bet vending machines don’t take credit cards here.”

“I don’t think this stop will have a vending machine,” Crystal said. She pointed at the sign and turned onto the dirt road. “Gift shop, maybe.’

A thick wooden sign had the words  “Ponce De Leon Wishing Well” carved in it.  This is what happens when you realize that driving is still cheaper than taking a plane and an interstate pileup makes taking back roads more palatable. 

“”Oh hell,” I said. “Do you think I need to find some Confederate money?”

Crystal tried to stop herself from laughing, and failed. “Lola! Stop! I’m gonna pee here in the car!”

I stopped. That didn’t keep the smug shit eating grin off my face while we pulled into the parking lot next to what looked like nothing more than an old timey well and a stone hut of a visitor’s center.  

“I’m going to the bathroom,” Crystal said, turning the engine (and air conditioning) off.  “You coming with?”

“Naw,” I replied.  “I’ll see if I can’t snag a bottle of Sprite or something. I’m kinda thirsty.”

We got out and stretched our legs in the balmy southern heat. Both heading towards the lone standing structure.  “This might be our last rest stop for the next couple of hours,” Crystal said. “You sure you don’t gotta go?”

Inwardly I rolled my eyes. Just because I made Crystal ‘in charge’ of our travel plans, she was acting like she was my mom or something. I shrugged nonchalantly. “I’m good.”

“What if you drink all that Sprite and have to go?”  

We made our way inside. 

“If I have to go,” I said, “then the bottle will be empty, won’t it?”

“Ugh,” she groaned. “I’m dating a child! A literal child!”  

I giggled at my own cleverness, making sure she’d hear me all the way to the tiny unisex bathroom.  Meanwhile, I bought my soda, (they did accept credit) and meandered to see what exactly at this place could possibly trap a tourist.

The well, as it turned out, was it. Just the well.  I took a sip of Sprite and stared down into the abyss. There wasn’t even a boundary keeping me from getting too close. No grate stopping someone from falling in, either.  “Someone could really get hurt messing around with this thing,” I said to no one in particular.  

“...this thing….” Came my own voice back to me.. 

 “How deep is this well?’

“It doesn’t say,” Crystal’s voice made me jump. “But it’s got a plaque.”

Riveted to the side of the well was a bronze plate that read:

“Dug by Spanish Explorers in 1600, this well was thought by Ponce De Leon to contain the water of the Fountain of Youth. Local legend has it that anyone who throws a penny down it will have their deepest wish granted should they but speak it.”

“Whoah,” I whispered. “There’s a lot to unpack there.”

Crystal took her phone out and googled something. “Yeah. Pretty sure Ponce De Leon died before 1600.”

“And why would a magical Spanish wishing well accept American pennies?” I wondered.

“Why would explorers dig a well?” Crystal added. “Nobody digs a well and just leaves. Shouldn’t it be colonists or settlers or something?”

I nodded to her and shook my head at the well.  “And is it the Fountain of Youth or a Wishing Well?” I let out a chuckle. “Pick a lane, guys.”

“Maybe it’s both?” Crystal suggested.  That got us both grinning at the absurdity. She elbowed me and pointed to the bare bar above the well where a rope would typically be wound up for a bucket to be lowered.  “I bet it used to be a fountain, but then they lost the bucket.” 

I dug around in my pocket.  “One way to find out,” I said.  One at a time I tossed them in, waiting for the telltale plunk of them hitting water or the jingle of them hitting rock bottom.

“Nothing?” Crystal asked.

“Must be deep,” I said.  “All the way to the fountain of youth.”  I took my girlfriend’s hand and we started walking back to the car.  “Should we go and tell them what’s wrong with their local legend?”

“Nah,” Crystal replied. “Let the local yokels have their fun.”  She nuzzled me and purred like a kitten. “You don’t wanna lose your three wishes do you?”

I nibbled on her ear and parted so I could slide into the front passenger seat. “How good could a wish be if it only costs a penny?”

We buckled up. Crystal’s Subaru backed out and then surged back down the dirt trail.  “Only one way to find out,” she teased.

“Fine,” I grinned. “I wish you got those curves May inherited from your Mom.”

My girlfriend pretended to be offended. “Lola! Rude!” 

“What?” I teased. I had invoked both her mother and her little sister.  Crystal had gotten her father’s body.  “You told me you were jealous!” 

“I was drunk!”

“Still counts, babe,” I winked.  I reached out and petted her hair.  “You know I love you and think you’re hot as hell, right?”  Not that I’d ever admit it, but I’d been making eyes at May when we first met. Lucky timing and her boyfriend stopped me from striking out, so I hit on her big sister.  I have a type, but Crystal isn’t unattractive, and natural chemistry goes a long way.  The past year or so made me so glad that I hit on the big sister instead.

“Well that’s one wish,” Crystal said after a slight pause. “You got two more.  What are they?”

“We’re still doing this?” I asked.  We’d just turned back onto the paved road.

“Unless you want me to turn on the radio or something.” Crystal reached for the dial like it was a threat.

“No, no,” I said. “Just didn’t realize this was turning into some kinda thought experiment.”

“We can always play I spy.”

“No.”

“Then wish, girl.”

I inhaled. So we were playing this game.  I liked games and thought experiments.  There were no wrong answers, but it still felt like there were definitely ways to win or lose. 

“Freedom,” I said. “I want freedom.”

“Pretty sure you already have that,” Crystal said.  “Or close enough.”

“Naw,” I said. “I want total freedom. Do what you want, when you want.”

“So The Purge. You want the Purge.”

I frowned.  “Not like that. More like.  I want as much freedom as humanly possible as can be handled. If I wanna walk around topless, I can. Or if we make out in the middle of a sidewalk, people will mind their own damn business. That kind of thing.”  I was on a roll and knew it. “I want everybody to have that kind of freedom. I wish everybody got as much freedom and power as they can responsibly handle.  No more or less.”

“From each according to their ability to each according to their needs, eh comrade?”

I folded my arms. Some people read a few articles on Marx and they think they know about communism.  

“When you put it that way…” I said. “Shut up.”

“Is that a wish?” Crystal teased.

“No,” I said, “I’m saving my last one for later.”  

“Laaaaame,” my girlfriend said. “You have to finish.”

“They’re my fake ass wishes,” I said. I took a sip from my half empty bottle of Sprite. “I can do whatever I want with-”  

Time stopped. The Subaru wasn’t moving. The air conditioning had turned off.  I wasn’t even breathing. I couldn’t feel my heartbeat or move my eyes.  Only my consciousness kept going.  

There was no pain. If there had been, I wouldn’t have been able to scream anyways. My lungs weren’t contracting.  The world was pulling away from me, the front seat getting further and further away.

Dying?  Was I dying? I didn’t know. I was helpless to do anything while I sank away from the world like it was quicksand.

Falling. Falling. Falling.   I was being yanked against my will, but the gravitational force was moving me backwards not downward. The world went black but only for a second. Suddenly, I was gazing at the back of the passenger seat, with my legs still partially inserted.  Was I moving through things? Like a ghost?  My peripheral vision expanded to see Crystal’s eyes from the rear view mirror.

If my heart had been beating, it’d be close to exploding at that moment. Was I going to pass through into the trunk? Then out into the road?  Then what?

But no. My back touched something solid and soft.  Something started hugging my chest.  And just like that, I exhaled, and God pressed play on the world again. “Bah?!”  I blinked and breathed and let out a surprised scream. ”AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

My heart and lungs started catching up to my brain and making up for lost time while my limbs spasmed in panic!  What the fuck had happened?! I opened up my mouth to ask what was going on: ‘Why am I in the back seat?’ ‘Did you see that?’ ‘Are you okay?’ That sort of thing.

What came out? “Blagabargag!”  

I looked down past my nose at my mouth the way I used to whenever I played a wrong note in marching band, as if it were the instrument’s fault. 

Huh? Okay. No big deal. Clearly I’d had so many questions overloading my brain that they all scrambled together at once and just came out.  My brain registered my own bare legs and the feeling of something pressing against my chest so that I couldn’t learn forward more than an inch or so.  What had happened to my pants? Why were my legs shaved? Was I in a roller coaster seat? How did a roller coaster seat get into our car?

None of this, neither the questions popping into my brain at a mile a minute or the assumption that I’d just tripped over my own tongue was analysis. Analysis takes time.  This was just pure justification;  my mind racing and grasping at straws while other parts couldn’t help but keep taking in new data before the first set was fully processed.  

That’s why people see their lives flash before their eyes before they die. A panicked brain really can outpace the clock.  

In real time, it was maybe a second before I tried again, only to get another round of babbling, that time something like, “Gagagarobbububub!”

I gasped. Oh fuck!  Maybe my heart really had stopped! What if I was brain damaged or something?! Did I have a stroke? Had I lost time and years had gone by with me only now regaining a form of lucidity as my girlfriend was driving me out of whatever nursing home or therapy center years later?

I wiggled my arms and legs around experimentally.  It was easy enough.  Vaguely, I registered the feeling of extra cushioning on my seat and the slightest crinkle when I moved. 

“Agah?”

My eyes narrowed and I focused everything on my mouth.  “Wwwwwwhaaaa?” It was like my speech centers were bogged down in pudding and I had to focus every spare thought on making my rubber lips cooperate.

A pleasant wetness spread beneath me, warming and cupping my bottom and crotch.  It was like I’d sat on a wet bench that hadn’t quite dried after a sun shower, except the wetness didn’t spread to my thighs.  For the split second I was thinking about it, I lost focus and smiled slightly. I wriggled in my seat and a giggle spilled out of me after the babble.  It tickled down there, but in a good way.

“Finish your baba, Lolo,” Crystal said, sounding oddly calm considering that I’d pretty much teleported.

“Baba?” That word came more naturally to me.  I looked over and in my left hand where the Sprite Bottle had been was an honest to goodness baby bottle filled with an amber colored liquid. 

“That’s right,” Crystal repeated herself. “Make the juice-juice all gone.”

New emotions flooded my brain. Crystal had told me to do something! She wanted me to make the juice-juice all gone!  I had to! I had to in the same desperate way that a girl does whatever stupid thing to make another girl laugh just so she’ll like her and go out on a date. 

 With almost no hesitation I put the rubber nipple to my lips and started to suck. My eyes widened after the first drops of juice hit my tongue. It was SO GOOD! Better than the finest wine! Better than the smoothest whiskey!  I never got to sipping because my lips and tongue took over and I went to full-on gulping the stuff down, tilting my head back, pacing my breathing between swallows for maximum, practiced efficiency.

“Good girl!” Mommy said. I kicked my feet and jiggled uncontrollably in my seat. Giggling even as I sucked. The praise from Crystal was like cocaine to my brain.  Just the gleam in her eyes and the smile in her voice was enough to make me melt.

Then I stopped.  Mommy? Where had that thought come from?

“That’s right, girly-girl,” Crystal praised. “Make the juice-juice alllll gone.”

Girly-girl? That phrasing caught my attention. I wasn’t exactly a butch dyke with a buzz cut and Doc Martens, but I wouldn’t have described myself as particularly “girly”.  I ripped the bottle from my lips and looked at myself. 

My legs were bare, but at the end of my feet were pink sneakers with velcro instead of shoelaces. My plain yellow t-shirt seemed to be intact, but it had decorative frills on the sleeves, which perfectly complemented the sudden frills on my matching colored socks.

“Gah huh-maka?”  It was the closest I could manage to ‘What the fuck?’.  I hadn’t been wearing a denim jumper dress before but it was roughly the same material as my jeans had been.

“All done yet?” Crystal asked. “Nope. Just a little bit more, Lolo.”

Oh no! Not done yet!  I popped the bottle back in and started sucking again. Had to finish! Had to finish for…Crystal!  My…girlfriend. I felt a slight twinge in my bladder, but the moment I considered whether or not I had to pee, the feeling vanished. Coincidentally, a bit of warmth made itself known in my panties and a giggling moan escaped my lips for some reason, and I felt a bit of hair brush against my ears and tickle my cheeks.

One hand still on the bottle I reached up and patted my head. My hand searched around and found two bushy pigtails, one on either side of my head.  What was I, two?

My eyes widened, and I gulped down the last of the juice-juice. In slow, gasping breaths, I looked down at the harness keeping me in the massive roller coaster seat.  It connected just above my breasts and then ran all the way down to a buckle between my legs. I couldn’t get a good look at myself or see past the buckle very well, but I thought I saw the barest puffy hint poking out from underneath the denim dress.

The extra cushion in my panties made a lot more sense, as did the slight crinkle.  

But…

I still had my breasts and hips. My voice hadn’t changed or gotten any higher, and the world was the same size as it had been since my growth spurt ended. Yet for some reason I could barely talk, was drinking apple juice from an adult sized baby bottle (and loving it), was dressed like a toddler and sitting in a massive car seat.

What the fuck was going on? 

Oh no!

My brain caught up with the rest of me and as I dropped the bottle to the side, I reached down between my legs and grabbed the diaper-my diaper-and felt the wet squish beneath my fingers.  I’d wet myself!  I’d wet myself and giggled!  I’d wet myself…and kind of liked it.

“Ah-ah-ah Lola!” Crystal tutted. Her voice had an edge of seriousness to it.  I yanked my hands up all the way to my breasts, trying to keep them away from my diaper and retract them back into myself at the same time. My cheeks flushed like I’d been caught playing with myself.

Oh gosh! Why was THAT turning me on?

Mommy kept driving and talking.  “You know the rules, young lady. No humpies in the car. You’ll just end up breaking up all the padding and then leak when you pee-pee again.  Wait till we get somewhere so Mommy can change you right after.”

Just hearing Crystal talk about humpies was making me want to do it more.  I whined like a puppy dog and jiggled in my seat, gasping as the wet padding grinded and rubbed up against my pussy, letting myself gasp and giggle.

“Lola….” Mommy Crystal warned.  I stopped and did my best to look embarrassed and ashamed.  I wasn’t, though…

WHAT WAS HAPPENING TO ME?!  

I should have been having a panic attack and trying to explain things, not acting like a toddlerized bimbo!  I opened my mouth to talk, but not even babble came out; just the whining scream of a child who was angry they didn’t get their way.

“WEHHHHH! WEH! WEH! WEH! Bluurgh!”

I kicked and kicked and kicked the back of the empty seat in front of me.  Hating it and loving it at the same time!  Normally I’d have to be articulate or clever or have some kind of snappy one-liner if I was upset. Not in this fever dream I’d found myself living in.  

Something about screaming felt right. Felt normal. Same for trying to dry hump in a wet diaper.

My body tried to lurch forward but was held in place by the baby seat’s harness. Crystal was pulling off to the side of the road.  The idea of being spanked flashed across my brain, and my heart started to race in a bad way.  Something in my brain signaled I’d pushed too far too fast.

Crystal put the car in park, but didn’t cut the engine.  Her arm dug around a bag in the front seat that hadn’t been there.  I caught glimpses of pastel pink.  Then she turned around and looked at me in the back seat.

My jaw dropped.  That wasn’t Crystal! Or it was, she still had the same eyes and voice, but her body had been completely transformed.  Her breasts heaved out in her tank top, barely contained by her bra.  Just leaning over I could see the curvature of her hips and tiny bit of tummy that stopped her from looking like a cartoon character.  

She looked like something of a cross between a slightly older version of her little sister and a much much younger version of her mother.  

“Mama?” A line of drool came out the corner of my mouth.

“Suck on your binkie, baby girl,” she commanded, ignoring me and popping a pacifier in my mouth.  I was helpless to obey and sucked on it.  “Good girl.”

We kept driving while my brain reeled from the simplest of pleasures: Sucking on a pacifier, endlessly.  Hearing Mommy call me a “good girl”.  Lightly rocking in my seat. Bouncing ever so much in my wet diaper. Marveling at Mommy’s body.  It was all so completely overwhelming.  If I hadn’t been restrained I might be rolling on the floor.

I sat there, lost in my own little world while the car plowed ahead and eventually got back off the detour and onto the highway proper.  Meanwhile, in the back of my mind I managed to keep questioning and wondering through the bouts of sensory overload.  

Why was I dressed and acting like a baby? Why was it overwhelming me? Why didn’t Mommy think this was strange and why did she look so…so…different?  I was desperate to know.  I wished…

Wish…

‘I wish you got those curves May inherited from your Mom.’  That had happened! Crystal’s body had literally changed into what she would have looked like if her genes had been slightly tweaked around puberty.

My own words came back to haunt me. ‘I wish everybody got as much freedom and power as they can responsibly handle.  No more or less.’  No, that couldn’t be.  How could this be freedom?  I didn’t have the bladder control to make it to the potty on time, I could barely move and I was dining on fake nipples.

Why, though?  Why? 

‘And is it the Fountain of Youth or a Wishing Well?’

Both.  It was both. And I hated it and was loving it simultaneously. I turned my head to the side and was just barely able to see past the massive headrest that doubled as blinders. 

“Ga ma blurg?”

Just barely pulling ahead of us on the highway, a big red minivan with untinted windows was crawling steadily by us.  In the backseat, same as me, I could make out another car seat with another baby in it. And that baby was just as big as me.

Another trickle entered my diaper.  I’d unselfishly wished this on everyone… not just me.  All around the world, there must have been some magical force going around and deciding who could handle adulthood and how much they could handle.  Evidently I wasn’t the only one who needed babas and binkies past two.

I sucked harder on the paci, drawing calm from it and wondering half-drunk.  How fast was this happening? Was it a fifty fifty split? Would everyone now be magically divided up into Mommy or Daddy and big baby?  

How was this freedom? I kicked and fussed impotently in my seat, wanting so many things that I couldn’t have.  Freedom. Normalcy. Food. 

Humpies…

I slammed my eyes shut and let the pacifier fall from my mouth. Just doing that made me feel like I’d chopped off a limb or something.  I bit down on my lower limp and did everything I could to force my mouth to obey my commands.   “I…wwwwiiiish…”

Mommy glanced at the clock.  “I think we should get something to eat.  It’s about that time.”

“Blah?” My mouth went haywire at hearing her voice and the sharp exit back off the highway.  

Less than a minute later, we were in the parking lot of a nearby restaurant. I saw other people getting out of their cars and walking past ours. An older woman made eye contact with me and waved, smiling.  

Oh no!  I was seen! My face flushed, and, instinctively, I buried my face in my hands. It was stupid, I realized, but not being able to see made me feel calmer. Almost as calm as when I was sucking my pacifier.

I heard the car door open. 

“Awwww,” I heard Mommy coo at me. “Somebody wants to play peekaboo!  Two powerful hands tore my palms off my face. “Peekaboo!”

Instant comical hilarity invaded my brain looking at Mommy’s face.  

“HAWWWW!’  I covered my face, pretending that I was somehow invisible.

“OH NOOOO,” Mommy called back in a theatrical falsetto of panic.  “WHERE’D MY LOLO GO? HAS SOMEBODY SEEN MY LOLO?  WHERE’S MY BABY GIRL?”  

Her hands busied themselves unbuckling me from the massive car seat, and then teased and tickled at my sides.

I let out muffled giggles, trying to hold my breath.  Gingerly, I peeked out from behind my hands.  

“THERE SHE IS! THERE’S MY BABY GIRL!”  

In an instant, I was laughing and up on her hip, my legs wrapped around her shapely waist to stop from falling; her arm beneath me supporting my weight as if I were little more than a feather. 

Damn, but it felt good to laugh in a non-cynical way.  It felt good to be silly.  I hugged Mommy tight and started planting wet sloppy kisses all over her face.  

“Someone’s feeling very affectionate!” she laughed.  Not thinking, I grabbed and groped at her chest. “Hungry, too.” She peeled my hands off of her and squeezed my bottom. “And wet.”

At feeling her touch me back, I let out a low moan and my eyes rolled back in their sockets. So good!  For an instant, the sound of car engines ceased to matter.  People were watching us grope each other and no one cared; certainly not me.

We started moving but the journey wasn’t far. Mommy popped open the hatchback and laid me down inside with my legs dangling out past the knee caps. 

“Mama?”

 “Let’s take care of that wet bottom first,” she declared, hitching up the skirt and laying down the pink diaper bag she’d already fetched from the front passenger seat.

Modesty overcame me, and I struggled to work my mouth in time. “Nnnnnn-!”

SCRITCH-SCRITCH

The velcro tabs on my diaper came loose, and I was paralyzed by shock. I didn’t dare move as the fresh air gusted over my privates and Mommy started wiping me down between my legs.  

“Such a wet, wet little girl!” she teased.  “Yes you are! Yes you are! That apple juice went right through you!  No wonder you wanted to make humpies so bad! If I was a little girl like you and got that wet, I’d want to make humpies too!’

My skin heated up into a full body blush while she cleaned me and lifted my legs to wipe my bottom and slip out the diaper from beneath me.  She was talking to me like I was a simpleton, and it was loud enough for anyone passing by to hear.

And people were passing by!  I saw shadows and outlines passing over Mommy’s shoulders, heard footsteps and voices of nearby conversations and babbling and the sounds of stroller wheels rolling on the concrete. 

All of them could see me, too! All it would take was a turned head to see my legs up in the air and Mommy going to town with baby powder.  All it would take is the slightest pause in conversation to hear my girlfriend turned caregiver talking about me peeing myself and wanting to hump things as if it were perfectly natural and mundane.

In a way, part of me realized, it might be. Maybe not “natural’ but the wish might make it seem mundane. I let out a sigh of relief when the fresh diaper was taped up around my hips, feeling oddly comfortable. Cleansed, powdered, and refreshed, it was like a mini spa in my panties.

I wiggled my butt and grinned to myself. It still didn’t make the idea of getting wet again any less appealing.  I took a moment and tried shaking off the cobwebs. What was happening to me?  Did I really enjoy this…this…exhibitionism? 

More of my words came back to bite me. ‘Or if we make out in the middle of a sidewalk, people will mind their own damn business.’  I’d groped and kissed her and had my underwear removed in public, and people were just going about on their way..

Upon entering the restaurant, basically a Denny’s analog, I saw more and more of the fruits of my labor. In line waiting for a table before us, a woman snoozed topless in her stroller, sucking on her pacifier. I popped my thumb in my mouth and sucked on it, feeling a kind of jealousy, wishing that Mommy had remembered my binky.

At the nearest table, a man in a onesie munched on applesauce fed to him by what might have been his wife.  On our way to our table, a couple with a baby just as old as them scooted out of their booth to take their babbling not-so-little one to the bathroom. The Daddy fished out a single massive diaper and wipe packets before embarking, making no secret or pretense on what was about to happen.

This should be turning heads.  This should be causing screams and nightmares. It just wasn’t.

“Will this do?” the hostess asked us, showing us to a table that was smack dab in the middle of the floor.

I was plopped and buckled into a highchair before Mommy replied, “This is fine.”  

Words literally failed me while she dug a bib out of the diaper bag- my diaper bag- and fastened it around my neck.  

“Gah!”

“Gotta keep those pretty clothes of yours clean, lil’ Lolo,” Mommy said, pinching my cheek. “The ones that’ll stay clean.”

“Mama!” I whined, loving the attention despite it.  I was the center of her attention and nigh invisible to everyone else.  Likewise with the other massive infants and toddlers and their newly acquired parents.  “MAAAAAAAAAA!  AH AH AH AH AH AH!

A few of the diners turned their heads towards the source of the noise.

Mommy just shushed me, giving me a rattle to keep me occupied while she ordered lunch. It dominated my attention, and I instantly started shaking it, enchanted.

I’d wanted this…I just didn’t know it until I’d gotten it.  I had freedom. Freedom to scream and thrash and kick, knowing no one would be hurt or overly bothered. Freedom to dress in completely ridiculous clothing. Freedom to express my affection and pee my panties and get my butt exposed in front of everyone. 

“Heeeeeeere’s num nums!” Mommy said, interrupting the rattling and my reverie.

“Gah?”

I looked down from my rattle and to the warm tray of tomato sauce drenched spaghetti in front of me.  How much time had passed?  Had I distracted myself with a simple rattle for that long? 

“Go on, Lolo,” Mommy said, taking out her phone. “Eat your sketti!”  She was getting ready to film me. I knew enough about kids to know what was expected. This was going on Facebook or Tiktok or wherever embarrassing cute wholesome kid vids went. “Go on. Eat up!”

Mommy wanted me to eat and make a mess all over myself. No one else in the world would care. Those who did care would think it was cute. I got a flash in my mind of the people closest to me (my family, Crystal’s family, maybe friends from college or work, who could tell?) and thrilled at the idea of them seeing my face smeared in spaghetti sauce.

That, and Mommy was telling me to do something.  Giving me permission to make an ass out of myself.  

Freedom to obey! Freedom to get messy! Freedom to eat with my hands! 

I tore into the plate of spaghetti, shoving noodles into my mouth at mach speed and pretending they were bloody worms.  Some of it got down into my stomach and slid down my throat.  Others smeared themselves on my face. Still more dropped out of my lips and onto the bib. 

The bib only caught so much…

“Wow!” Mommy praised, clapping by slapping her thigh. Between the yummy pasta and Mommy the quiet ecstasy of making an ass out of myself in public, I was on cloud nine.  Enough so that I was content and babbling while Mommy ate her salad and wiped my face with a baby wipe.

But I hadn’t had my second course yet.

After she finished her salad, Mommy picked me up and placed me sideways on her lap.

“Let’s get this mess off you,” she said.  

The bib came off. 

So did the jumper.  

So did my shirt.

“I swear, you got more on you than in you,” she laughed at her own lame joke. Her mom joke. Meanwhile, I sat on her lap feeling hotter than ever despite being naked save for the crinkly padding wrapped around my bum.

I babbled happily and didn’t care that I sounded like an overjoyed toddler. 

“Bababababababa!”

“Let’s get your tummy alllll filled up,” she said quietly.  She lifted her top up and opened up the front of her nursing bra.  I didn’t need her hand to guide me to her breasts and press on the back of my head. I still enjoyed it.

My lips latched onto her and I started nursing, drawing her milk into me, moaning while kneading her titties like a kitten. If the apple juice was whiskey, the milk was purest ambrosia; nectar of the gods.  

 Our breathing synced up, and she petted me while my eyes drooped, and I tickled and explored with my tongue.  My mind knew I should savor this experience, but my body refused to listen, greedily suckling with a hunger that wouldn’t be sated. A full tummy would stop me, but it would never satisfy me.  This was the sweetest of desserts.

Liquid love.

I was feeding from Mommy; taking her very essence into myself! In those moments that stretched out for eternity but didn’t last nearly long enough, I stopped being Lola and she stopped being Mommy or Crystal or whatever the fuck the two sides of my brain were battling to call her.  We were one; bonded more intimately than lovers could be.  

I stopped thinking of us as lovers right then and there. Loving was an act. It was something you did and could stop doing.  This was something deeper, more intense, and (hopefully) more permanent. We were Mommy and Baby.

“That’s right,” she whispered to me. “Such a good little eater.” 

OH GOD!  I shivered and shuddered and let the back half of my apple juice from earlier flood my pampers!  If anyone was looking right now they’d see me filling my pants (except I technically wasn’t wearing any pants).  This was why babies wore diapers, I decided. They needed to get the refuse out of their bodies as quickly as possible so that they could make more room for the liquid love their Mommies poured into them.    

It was just that simple.

Far too soon, I was switched over, sucked her other tit dry and was being burped.  I could have drifted off to sleep and hope to never wake up to my old life again…

But the best part hadn’t happened yet.

Mommy slid forward in her chair and repositioned me so I was straddling her knee, my wet diaper squishing anew on her thigh.  “Ready for a horsey ride, Lolo?” she said brightly. Then she leaned in and said quietly, “Wanna make humpies?”

That woke me up!  Mommy started bouncing me on her knee and I started riding her like leg like a pony, shamelessly grinding up against her in the middle of the restaurant. 

 “Ooooooh,” I moaned.  “Oooooooh…gaaaaaaaa!”  

Turns out the verbal difference between ‘Oh God!’ and ‘Oh ga’ is pretty minimal. Some things don’t get lost in translation.

“That’s right,” Mommy told me.  “Let it all out.”

My moans went low and my breathing went shallow.  This was wrong! This was so wrong! But it felt sooooo good!

“Here’s the check, ma’am,” the waitress, who couldn’t have been older than me, said.

Mommy slid her credit card over without breaking eye contact with me.  “Here you go.”

“Looks like somebody’s having fun!” The waitress giggled as if me grinding against my partner’s knee in broad daylight were somehow cute.

Oh god why was this hot?! “Blurgaaaaa!” I squealed.

Freedom to cum in front of everyone.  Freedom to have my tits bobbing up and down. God this was amazing! Wishing Well, this was amazing!

My stomach lurched, and my body tried to reposition itself.  I raised my bum off Mommy’s knee.  I was about to poop!  I had to stop! I had to clench down! The last bits of modesty that I had were fighting to take control back of the narrative I’d written for myself.

“Gaaaaaa-”

Mommy wouldn’t let me stand up.  She placed her hands on my shoulders and continued to stimulate and tease me, prodding me closer and closer to orgasm with just gravity and her knee.  The bouncing was speeding something else closer, too…

“Nah-ah-ah,” she said. “Not until you’re all done.  It’s gonna be a loooong car ride and I want my precious baby girl nice and tired.”

I couldn’t…I couldn’t disobey her. I didn’t want to.  I wanted that delicious praise.  That delicious release. That…that…

Even my inner monologue failed me as my cheeks spread and a mudslide emptied itself into the seat of my diaper.  Right after my body took control of itself away from me and I started pushing, I screamed when an honest-to-god “the-earth-moved” orgasm shot through me like a bolt of white hot delight, better than any other orgasm I had ever hadt, and I gripped Mommy’s shoulders and leaned into her while the mess and muck spread around.

“Oooooooo….”I moaned, unable to even babble in anything that wasn’t a vowel. 

“Eeeeeee….aaaaaaa.”

“And poopies too?” Mommy beamed. “Good baby! Getting it alllll out for Mommy.  You’re gonna sleep real good when we get back in the car.”

I’d pooped myself and orgasmed nearly at the same time in front of everyone. Even then, I knew that my brain had accidentally made the connection. If I ever got out of this, I’d always associate doing one with the other… and the association would be entirely positive.

For the time being, though, the only thing I was getting out of was my diaper in favor of a new one.   “Let’s get you changied, Lolo.” Somewhere in the back of my mind I remembered a factoid that a baby on average goes through six diapers a day. 

My mind tickled itself at the idea of cumming in public half a dozen times. 

The waitress came back and placed the credit card back. “This will be here for you when you get back.”  Mommy was getting my own supplies ready for the restroom.  “Do you want me to change her?’

My eyes popped open.  

Oh yeah…more than just a baby’s Mommy changed her. I’d probably be having lots of sitters in the future, all playing with me and telling me how cute I was. A girl could get real used to that. 

A new fear came into me.  What if someone somehow unwished this at the well?  I’d accidentally wished the world this way.  What if someone accidentally wished it another way? It wouldn’t be hard for someone to idly wish for their big babies to grow up.

Then I remembered that I still had one wish left.

As Mommy laid me down on the changing station in the bathroom and started to undo my tapes, I focused on my mouth to control it with all of the remaining will I had in me.“I wish…” I said, listening to the echo of my own voice, “for no more wishes…for anybody.”

Time stopped for a second.  Then it picked back up again.

Mommy kept changing my diaper. Just like she always had. Just like she always would.  And me and every other big baby in the world would be as free as we needed to be, and every Mommy and Daddy would have as much power as was needed to love us.

(The End)

 

[A Humiliating Halloween]

Author's Note.  A Story Trade with Just4n0th3rUs3r and a sequel to their story, "A Humiliating Visit from Mommy"   

 

P.S. This isn't canon without the original author's approval.

“Good morning,” Mom sang as she opened up the door to my nursery and walked in. 

“Mowning Mommy,” I yawned, wiping the sleep out of my eyes.  Niamh was dead asleep beside me, not stirring.

“I hope my two little girls had a good night’s sleep,” Mom said, lowering the railing to our crib.  

Oh, she had no idea!  Niamh and I had been up late last night, kissing, groping, doing humpies, and making cummies in our diapers until we passed out.  My girlfriend-even after all this time it still gave me warm fuzzies to think of her like that-was still passed out.  I felt a certain kind of pride looking at her lightly snoring next to me.  I’d done that.

Speaking of things I’d done, Mom poked her fingers into the leg holes of my Bunnyhopps and felt around.  “Someone had a very soggy night,” she praised me.  “Let’s get my princess changed.”

She picked me up like I was nothing, something I still hadn’t gotten completely used to, and carried me over to the changing table.  I laid there staring up at the swirling mobile above my changing table, sucking on my supergirl paci while I batted up at the unicorns and fairies that dangled just out reach.

Meanwhile, Mom unbuttoned the supergirl onesie she’d dressed me in after bathtime and examined the state of my diaper.  “Oh wow, Kara!” she exclaimed. “You did such a good job wetting your diaper! I’m so proud of you!”

I blushed and sucked happily on my pacifier.  It felt so good being praised for something so simple as going pee pee in my sleep.  In truth, it had taken a lot of work to become a bedwetter again.  Even with Niamh’s magic, unless she specifically wrote it down or snapped her fingers, I would occasionally have bouts of control as my potty training tried to reassert itself.  Getting to the point where I went pee pee and poo poo in my diaper without thinking took a lot of work.  The only reason real babies were able to do it so easily had to be a case of beginner’s luck.

Before she started changing me, Mom took my pacifier out of my mouth and gave me a bottle.  “Drink up, princess,” she cooed. 

My stomach rumbled with hunger as I reached out for the baby bottle and started sucking on the rubber nipple.

This was new!

I suckled on the milk, alternating between tiny sips and big thirsty gulps while Mom undid the tapes on my Bunnyhopps and started wiping me down the same way she did every morning.  Normally she’d change me and Niamh and then breastfeed us before putting us in the car.  I would have been worried, but getting to drink yummy milk while getting changed was a fun new distraction and blushy distraction.

“There we go!”  Mom said, after powdering me and taping me up into a fresh diaper. “Now let’s get you ready for the day.”  She took my bottle away and sat me up on the changing table so that she could take the rest of my Supergirl onesie off of me, leaving me naked in just my diaper. 

I didn’t mind it.  It wasn’t the first time and wouldn’t be the last.  I looked down at my diaper and frowned.  I wasn’t wearing a BunnyHopps.

But I almost always wore a BunnyHopps.  The plain white diaper I wore was still very comfortable, puffy, and crinkly.  But it wasn’t my favorite, or what I normally pictured myself wearing.  “Wianh?” I called over to my girlfriend, still dozing in the crib.  I focused and corrected my lisp “Rianh?”

She let out a tired groan, but just rolled back over away from me so that she was facing the wall.

Mom pulled a plain black t-shirt over my head and slid a short but frilly purple skirt that was closer to a tutu and didn’t really cover my new diaper at all unless I sat in just the right way. Next she slid up purple and black striped socks all the way up to my knees, followed by a pair of plain black strap-on shoes. After she put me down on the floor, I looked at myself and poked the fresh diaper.

This was weird.  I looked cute, and babyish, no doubt, but this wasn’t what I normally wore. I loved superheroes, so almost every outfit I wore had some kind of theme to it.  If it wasn’t superhero themed, it was sure to be super cute, extra babyish, and show off my diaper so that there was no doubt to anyone that I was a blushy baby girl.

This morning’s outfit?  No crotch snaps, nothing extra frilly or babyish, nothing embarrassing written on it-I couldn’t read anymore but I could still recognize numbers and letters.  Yeah it showed off my padded butt and it left no modesty, but if I switched the diaper out for panties, I’d just be indecent instead of cute.

I decided to just go with it and finish my baba.  I reached up to the changing table, snatched it off the top shelf, laid back on the floor and kept sipping, enjoying the pleasant sensation of my morning breakfast on the comfort of my nursery floor.

I let out a loud belch and smacked my lips.  The milk tasted odd.  Not bad. Just odd. Not like how my Mom’s milk normally tasted.  “Is this…” I asked and took another sip. “Is this cow milk?”

“Uh oh,” Mom said back over at the crib. “Did my precious little girl spring a leak?” She started to immediately strip Rianh of her Frozen nightie and carried her naked form over to the changing table. 

The crinkle when I sat up was practically a record scratch.  Rianh? Leak?  Rianh never leaked!   Ever!  Her magic kept her as soggy as she wanted to so that her diaper could hold even more than a Trest!

“Nooooo….” Rianh moaned on her back, still sounding groggy.

“Yes, yes, yes,” Mom said, untaping the pink Princess diaper.

“Don’t wanna change…”

“Too bad.”

My jaw hung open watching my witch girlfriend get her diaper changed. Rianh never got her diaper changed unless she wanted it.  But now she was getting her privates wiped and powdered against her will.  And just like me, she was put into a plain white diaper and given a bottle of milk.

Was that an ABU Simple? A Trest?  Some other plain white model?  It was so hard to tell without the decorations!

Just like me, Rianh was still sucking on her bottle while my Mom finished changing her. Mom pulled a plain red t-shirt over her and stopped. Nothing else. Nothing Witcher or Frozen theme at all.  Just a T-shirt and fresh padding.  “Mommy,” I whimpered, “What’s goin’ on?”

“Mommy’s just finished Rianh’s diapee,” she said simply as if that explained everything.  She ran a brush through Rianh’s tangly hair and then boosted her onto her hip.  Next she reached down and picked me up and impossibly started to carry us out into the living room.  “Oooof, y’all are getting heavy!”  The words burned in my ears.  Mom had never said that since the day Rianh started using her magic on me. 

“Wiahn,” I said. “What’s going on?  Awe you sick?”

Riahn looked at me and her face fell.  “Worse…”

What could be worse than her being sick? 

My dad came into the living room and gave each of us a kiss; my mom on the lips, me and my witchy girlfriend on the cheek.  “Happy Halloween, honey! Happy Halloween, princess! Happy Halloween, sweetie!” Every time he said “Happy Halloween” Rianh flinched like she was hearing a literal curse word.

Mom gave Dad an extra kiss.  “Rianh leaked,” she said. “Do you mind throwing the crib sheets in the wash for me?” 

“Sure thing honey,” Dad replied. “Their diaper bags are already packed and in the car.” 

“Awesome.”

Mom took us out to the car and put us into our adult sized car seats.  “What’s wrong?” I asked Rianh again.  I’d never seen her like this.

My beautiful girlfriend who gave me everything I ever wanted looked like death warmed over. She looked like she was struggling not to vomit. “It’s Howl-O-Ween,” she lisped. “Not a good witch day.”  Her eyes started to droop like she was ready to pass out. 

I grabbed Mr. Bunbun, my stuffed rabbit from the space between us and cuddled him close.  It didn’t make me feel much better, but it was better than nothing.  “Whaddya mean?”

“I’ll tell ya later,” she said and drooped her head.  I gave Mr. Bunbun another squeeze, just in case, while Mom drove me to my job at the grocery store.

“Has she been changed?” my boss asked as he opened up the back passenger door and unbuckled me from my car seat. 

“Yup,” Mom said. “Full tummy of milk and a clean diapee,” she reported.  “No poopies yesterday, so she’s due.”

“Maybe we’ll get lucky,” my boss replied, and took my diaper bag from the front passenger seat.  I looked down at my Mary Janes and stuck my thumb in my mouth.  Hearing my mom and my boss talk about me pooping my pants like it was a good thing just…did something to me.

I still wasn’t completely used to thinking of them as ‘Mom’ and ‘boss’ either. That is to say, there was a mental block that prevented me from learning or remembering most people’s names. Everyone in my immediate circle was identified by their relationship to me instead of any kind of proper noun, including my toddler nephew.  That was an extra touch Niamh had tossed in.  Babies, even big ones, didn’t really know much in the way of proper nouns.  Mom was Mom, Dad was Dad, Teacher was Teacher, and so on.  Other babies were just that, too.  As far as the magic was concerned, I was too little to know most names but my own.  So it made sense in a way.

“Her father will be here at the usual time after her shift,” my mom told my boss. 

“As usual.”

I followed my boss inside the grocery store, being led around gently by the hand.  From the outside, it was still kind of weird, going to a grocery store where I did absolutely nothing constructive. I literally followed co-workers around by the hand all day or was put in a kindergarten style corner of the break room.  For some reason, magic obviously, I still got paid.

**********************************************************************************************

The first few weeks, I had guessed that this arrangement was some kind of life hack. A grocery clerk’s paycheck could buy a good amount of diapers if that was the only thing it was being spent on. That didn’t hold up to scrutiny, however.  Magic took away the need for money.

It would have made more sense, headspace wise, if I just went to my Mom’s preschool to spend more time with Rianh.  But that didn’t happen.  I asked Rianh once why that was and she cryptically replied  “Then we wouldn’t be us, silly. We’d just be babies.”

I didn’t get it at first, but I think I’d finally figured it out. Going to this job had been part of my identity; part of who I was.  It wasn’t the only part of me; I was also a big huffy baby girl that liked cuddles, crinkles, and making all sorts of messes in her diapers; but it was a part of me.  Rianh had used her magic to forcefully bring out the other parts to the forefront, but she hadn’t taken anything away.

That’s why I most likely kept going to my old job, even if everyday was just ‘bring your big baby to work day’.  That’s why Niamh and I spend at least a few hours apart every day: To remain ourselves.  She didn’t want me to be just a big huffy baby and for her to just be my witch baby girlfriend.  She wanted us to still be our own people; she wanted to avoid ego death and to still be us. That’s why before today almost everything I wore was from a comic book and everything she wore was either extremely gothic or extremely Disney.

I thought about all this while I looked up from my coloring. I let out a yawn and stared down at the coloring book I’d been scribbling all over. I looked up at the clock, then back down to my book and kept coloring.  Then I looked back up at the clock again to see if any of the hands had moved.

Huh? Was I…was I getting bored?

That never happened! I could do any repetitive babyish activity and be completely enthralled as if it were the very first time and I was the one discovering it. The magic that kept people seeing and treating me like a baby also affected my mind just enough so that I wouldn’t get bored and would find toddler activities incredibly stimulating.  Bored was something I hadn’t been in months!

“What’s happening to me?” I asked Mr. Bunbun, sitting across from me, plopped and propped up on the coloring table.

My boss interrupted the conversation before it began.  “Kara,” he said brightly.  “Your Daddy’s here to pick you up.”

I got up feeling the diaper sagging between my thighs and waddled out of the break room with him behind me.  Thank goodness I was still having accidents! Before we went through the swooshing artificial doors and out into the Texas heat, I felt a finger hook into the back of my diaper and pull it open. “No poopies,” my boss said.  Then he asked, “are you wet, princess?”

Blushingly, I nodded.  “Do you need a change?”

“Daddy will change me,” I mumbled, and that seemed to be enough.

My Dad was outside, waiting in his car.  When my boss told him about my wet diaper he started changing me right away.  My nephew’s car seat was with my brother so he laid me down in the back seat, the my head pressed up against my own baby seat and my legs dangling out.

“She knew she was wet,” my boss told my dad.  “Said she wanted a change and everything.”

“Fantastic!” My dad said, wiping my bottom and between my legs like he did almost everyday.  He cooed down to me.  “Someone’s getting to be a big girl,” he said, every syllable loving and syrupy sweet. “Yes she is! Yes she is! “ He slipped a fresh white diaper underneath me, no powder. “She doesn’t want to sit in a wet diaper all day! No she doesn’t! Nuh-uh! Nuh-uh!”

After he taped up the fresh diaper, he lifted up my t-shirt and blew raspberries into my tummy, but my laughter was cut short with my own thoughts.  No one in my family ever talked about me getting heavy, or being a big girl.  “I’m notta big guwl!” I insisted.

“Just give it time, honey,” Dad said. “Just give it time.”

Just behind his shoulder, I saw my boss nod appreciatively. “I think someone is almost ready for potty training.” 

“Baba!” I said. “I’m thiwsty!” 

Dad handed me a bottle as soon as I was buckled into my adult car seat.  I sucked it down like I was dying of thirst?  Potty training?  Not likely!  I was going to make sure I was good and soaked as soon as possible.
*************************************************************************************************

“Wow!” One of the kids at my Mom’s preschool pointed at me. “She’s wearing a diaper, too!”  The forced and mocking yells of children purposefully trying to be mean rang out before my mom could shew them off.

I wanted to rip my own face off and hide it under a rock so no one would see it. Normally the dumb little twerps at my mom’s preschool just thought I was another baby.  They might say something if me and Niamh  kissed; or tell on me if I really needed a new diaper; or brag to my mom about how big they were because they didn’t need a bottle or to have their diapers changed; but they didn’t laugh at me.  Why were they laughing now?

“Mommeeeee,” I whined. “Why awe they bein’ mean ta me?”

“I have no idea, Princess,.’ Mom said, brushing my cheek.  “They’ve been like this all day, picking on Niamh.  Something must’ve gotten into them.” As an afterthought she added, “Maybe it’s a full moon Halloween…”

Halloween!

I ran as fast as my bowed out legs would carry me over to Niamh.  She was sulking and hiding in a corner with a blanket over her head.  “Niamh! What’s happening? My Daddy talked about potty training me and the kids all laughed at me.”  It was getting harder to talk with a cute lisp.

Niamh sniffled. She looked like she’d been crying. Those preschoolers had probably been relentless.  “It’s Halloween,” she said.  “I’m sorry.”

“For what? Why? What’s wrong with Halloween?” I asked, lowering down so that we were on the same eye level.  “I thought Halloween was when witches got stronger or something!”

She shook her head. “Nuh-uh.  It’s kind of the opposite.”

I leaned back in surprise.  “Huh? Why?”

“Magic is like water.  It’s all over and reusable, but there’s only so much of it,” she explained, still sniffling. She’d definitely been crying. I wanted to go and beat some four year old upside the head.  “People think magic is strongest at Halloween because real witches spread that rumor. That way most people won’t even try to use it and it frees it up for us.  But on Halloween every amateur, hobbyist, poseur, and tourist tries to cast magic at the same time.”

“So it’s like when everybody in the house tries to take a hot shower at the same time.  Everybody gets cold water instead.”  That’s why the outfits were getting plainer and everything had been slowly edging closer to ‘toddler’ instead of ‘baby’.

My girlfriend nodded.  “Uh-huh,” she sniffed. “It’s taking everything I have to keep the spell going.  That’s why the little kids are bein’ so mean. Kids always see through the tricks first.”

“Okay,” I said. “Then why not just let the spell go? Take a break. I can be a grown-up for a night.”  I scooted in and cuddled up close to her, draping my arm over her shoulders.

She shook her head. “It doesn’t work that way, princess. Everybody will know we’re big girls, but they won’t forget everything that’s happened the last couple months. That would need another spell.” She paused and turned almost as red as her t-shirt. “That and…the lack of potty training isn’t entirely magic.  We’ve just gotten too used to usin’ our diapees.”

My heart felt like it stopped.  My Mom and Dad had changed my wet and messy diapers more times than I could count.  Last summer, me, Niamh, and my nephew all got changed on the floor together.  If the spell slipped too much…they would know.  They would all know! 
This wonderful secret life I’d been living, first in my head and then in real life would all be found out and I’d be ruined.  I’d never be able to even look at any of them ever again.  Not even for a minute.

“What do we do?” I whispered.

“Just gotta…tough it out,” she said, blinking away fresh tears.

“Honey,”  I asked.  “What’s wrong? Does it hurt?”

Niamh shook her head,  “No…”

“Then what’s wrong?”

“I’m leaking again…!”

**************************************************************************************************

“Trick or Treat!”  My brother and sister yelled for us.  Niam, my nephew, and I were standing in the middle of a Texas suburb, with plastic jack-o-lantern buckets out, waiting for candy. The sun was still up. We were trick or treating before dinner because we were so ‘little’. There was no passing on trick or treating.  Riam didn’t have enough magic tonight to make anybody listen to her.  Mom guilted me into going along by saying that my sister wanted to go.

  My nephew was in a full body tiger onesie with a hoodie for the ears.  My mom had added on a pointy witch hat on top of my head, making me a witch, ironically.  Niamh got a waist belt with a pointy tail just above her diaper, and a headband with horns.

“Oh, what wonderful costumes!”  The old lady at the door greeted us.  “A ferocious tiger, a baby witch, and a naughty baby devil! Here you go, sugars.”

I flinched. I was a baby witch. Niamh was a baby devil.  My nephew was just a tiger; no baby.  Having the ‘baby’ aspect be considered part of the costume stung.  Granted, my nephew didn’t have a big white diaper showing off, but I bet I wouldn’t have been a ‘baby witch’ if we’d done this yesterday.  ‘Cute’ or ‘little’ yes.  But not ‘baby’.  ‘Baby’ would have been assumed and not part of the outfit.

“Say thank you,” my sister told us.

“Fankyoo,” I parroted back, trying to avoid eye contact.

“Fankyoo,” Niamh copied, looking equally uncomfortable.

We walked back to the side walk and went to the next house.  All around us, other little kids were walking by, laughing and pointing.  “Mommy! Mommy! Look! They’re wearing diapers!”

Beads of sweat were forming on my brow and it had nothing to do with the Texas heat.  “Mmhmm. Yes they are Susie.  But you’re much bigger than they are.”

Niamh sighed with relief.  Bullet dodged.

We were herded up to the next stoop. My nephew took his place between us and looked up at us, smiling a big pumpkin tooth grin.  Did he see through the magic too? Was he even old enough to know that it would be considered weird for two girls our age to be dressed like him?  Or was he just happy to be here?

“Trick or Treat!”

A middle aged man greeted us, our buckets out.  He squinted at me.  “Aren’t you girls a little too old to be trick or treating?”  His eyes went down to our padding. “Oh. Guess not.” My girlfriend and me exchanged worried looks.  “Happy Halloween.”

“Fankyoo,” we said in unison.

My stomach started grumbling on the way back to the sidewalk.  I held my tummy with one hand.  “Kara?” My sister called. “Are you okay? Do you need a diapee change?”  She reached to pull back my waistband, but I smacked her hand away.  I was not going to get changed on the sidewalk when at any minute the Niamh’s magic might run out. “Kara!”

“Sowwy…”  I really wish we’d brought my stroller. At least then I would have something I could sink into.  I felt a cramp coming on.

“According to online,” my brother said, “a lot of times when they start getting sensitive about their diapers and wanting privacy, it means they’re almost ready for potty training.”  He patted my cousin’s head. “Can’t wait.”

Except my big bro was gonna think I was a lot older a lot faster if we didn’t make it through.

“Trick or Treat!”

“Oh ho!” How clever, a woman in her early thirties mused. “What wonderful costumes to make your little brother feel big.”

My mouth went dry.

“Cousins actually, ma’am.” My brother corrected.

“And he’s a little bit bigger.” my sis added.

The woman laughed.  “He certainly is tonight.  Here you go…kids.” She gave a conspiratorial wink like she was in on some kind of joke.

My guts were doing flip flops on each other.

“Trick or Treat!”

The door flung open. A familiar space stepped out onto the doorstep. It took a moment but I recognized them.  We’d gone to high school together.

Then the worst thing possible came out of their mouth.  My name.  My real name.  No ‘Kara’. My real name.  Something I hadn’t been called in close to half a year.  Something I hadn’t expected to hear for as long as I was in diapers.

Speaking of which.

“Is that you?”

I felt my mouth go dry.  “Y…y…yeah…”

Their jaw dropped and they dug around in their pockets for their cellphone.  “And are you actually wearing an adult diaper?”  I was being filmed!

I nodded meekly, my knees shaking like jelly.  “Uh…huh…” I squeaked.

“Why?”

“Um…you see…um…I just…I don’t…I…”

“Ohmygod, is it wet?!  Did you actually piss yourself?”

If I had I hadn’t even realized it, and it had been out of stress and fear.’ Piss myself’.  I wasn't used to hearing what had become so natural to me referred to so vulgarly.  “I don’t know…” my voice came out like a tea kettle.

My big sister came up and put her hand on my shoulder.  “What do you mean why is she wearing a diaper? What kind of question is that? What are you? Some kind of sicko?”

“I think it’s a pretty obvious one,” my former classmate said.  “Like is this a fetish thing or something?”

I heard something snap.  It must have been my big bro doing everything he could to not make a fist.

“Okay kids,” my brother said.  He picked up my nephew and whirled us around back to the sidewalk.  “Come on Kara.”

“Kara? Why are you calling her tha-? OH MY GOSH! ARE YOU SHITTING YOURSELF?!”

I was.  My knees had bent, my guts had given up from lack of practice, and I was solidly filling my pants right there in somebody’s front yard.  And they had already gotten a picture of my face and were presently recording my diaper ballooning out and drooping from what I was putting in the back of it.

“THIS IS PRICELESS!”

Through my tear streaked vision I saw short little blurs pointing and laughing, talking about how it looked like I was pooping my pants. As soon as I finished, a switch flipped and I ran for it.

“Kara!” I heard a voice call.  “Wait!”  I was too busy crying and screaming to realize who it was.  “It’s a tri-!”

I didn’t hear the rest over my sobbing.  I ugly cried and ran the short distance home, my fists balled up and clutching at my loaded diaper.

“Mommeeeeeee!” I yelled when I burst through the door.

Mom heard my crying and asked what was wrong, but I was too overwhelmed to do anything but blubber. She picked me up, easy as anything, and took me to my room.  I braced myself, while she changed my diaper and wiped my privates and bottom, shushing me the entire time. At any second she’d realize that she should have been done taking care of me like this long long ago.

“It’s okay,” she said. “It’s okay.  The monsters outside aren’t real. They’re just costumes.  They’re just silly costumes.” 

I sniffled and wiped my eyes as the new diaper got fastened up around my hips.  “I don’t like my costume,” I cried. “I don’t wanna be a grown-up again!”

“Oh silly girl,” she said, wiping away my tears and snot with a baby wipe.  “Just because you’re dressed up like a witch doesn’t mean you’re actually a grown-up.  It’s just pretend!”

I looked down at my legs.  “That’s what you….Bunnyhopps?!”  My diaper! My plain white, almost medical diaper had been switched out for my favorite baby diapee!    I started cackling like I’d won the lottery.

“Wow,” Mom said. “I guess someone really did need a diaper change.”  She kissed me on the forehead and stuck me in my crib.  “You just rest here, princess. Mommy’s gotta go finish cooking dinner for the big people.”

A few minutes later I heard my brother and sister through the nursery door.  They were trying to explain to Mom what had happened. 

The door creaked open and a sight for sore eyes crinkled in.  “Hey…” Niamh said.

Even though it was Halloween, I lit up like a Christmas tree.  “Niamh! The magic is working again!”

The only thing sagging more than my witch girlfriend’s diaper was her face. It had turned a shade of crimson but it didn’t look like it was from embarrassment- not the fun kind anyhow.  “Um…I kind of have a confession, princess.  I goofed.”

“Goofed?” I asked. “Goofed how?”

“You know that thing about Halloween I told you about?”  Without waiting for me to respond she pressed on.  “I kinda made that all up.”

“YOU WHAT?!” I shrieked. I leapt to my feet and grabbed the crib railing.

For the first time in my life, she looked less than all powerful, skulking beneath my shadow.  “I wanted to play a trick on you for Halloween; make you scared and squirmy like you were when we first met.  So I’ve been slowly letting up the enchantments I put in place, peace by peace.”

My jaw unhinged itself. “Why would you do that?”

She shrugged half heartedly. “I thought you’d get a kick out of toeing the line. Like playing chicken with getting caught.”  She lowered the crib rail and climbed in next to me, both of us sitting on the newly remade Supergirl duvet.

“Tease about taking our costumes off.”

I was so mad, but I wrapped my arms around her anyways.  “These aren’t the costumes, you dummy,” I reached between her legs and gave her sopping wet diaper a squeeze.  “They aren’t for me anyways.  Everything else is.”

My girlfriend was crying.  My girlfriend who could literally warp reality with a snap of her fingers was crying.  “I’m sorry.  I just wanted to play a joke.  Or maybe make sure you weren’t getting bored with this…bored with me. Not everybody who gets everything they want lives happily ever after…”

“Oh Riamh,” I whispered. “I could never get bored of you. Ever.  You gave me my fantasy and you’re a part of that fantasy.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

We held each other and fell back into our crib.  After a couple minutes, when we were breathing normally, she said.  “Don’t worry.  Everything is back to the way it was.  Nobody is going to remember anything we don’t want them to know.”

We. 

She was saying ‘we’.  Not ‘I’.  ‘We’.  That really was a treat of sorts.

“Thanks,” I said back, our arms still wrapped around each other.

“Is there anything I can do to make it up to you?” She asked.  “Anything?”

A terrible thought crossed my mind. I might never get this chance again.  “Anything?” I asked.

“Anything,” she said.

I pressed my forehead against hers and opened my eyes that I was staring directly into hers.  “You don’t get to make cummies for a month.”

Her eyes widened in horror.  “What?!” 

“You said ‘anything’ .”

“I didn’t think you’d say THAT!  What if…what if I gave you an orgasm every night? For the rest of the year? And make it as intense as the first time!”

“Okay,” I said. “That too.  None for you and all for me! But just for a month.”

“Oh come on!”  She pouted.

“I hear one month. Do I hear two?”

“Fine,” she said, playfully slapping me on the shoulder. “Fine. I’ll endure my own personal no-nut November or whatever the boys do.”  Then she tacked on, “It’ll just make it so sweet when I finally let loose anyways.”

“And you have to stop using your magic to stop your diapees from leaking.”
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

Riamh’s screams could be heard all around the block.  It was so loud, Mom thought she’d hurt herself.  Instead Mom determined that her other baby was about to leak and needed a nice new Rearz Princess put on her.  So she had that going for her.

I just laughed ,watched the whole thing, and started teasing myself just before dinner while my girlfriend got her diaper changed right in front of me.

(The End)







    

[Personalias's Flash Fictions (Company Time)]

4 hours ago, ABAlex said:

HMMM

So he's an adult, died on safari, and his afterlife is to be constantly treated as a baby forever?

Is this heaven or hell?

Not necessarily a "he".  Written in 2nd person for a reason.  

Not necessarily dead.  (Yes I know how you got that inference based on the title)

But things are open to interpretation.  Deliberately so.

[Personalias's Flash Fictions (Company Time)]

Going to use this thread to share some flash fictions over time. At about the same rate that I release them over on my patreon.  

 

What Dreams May Come

A sound, like rushing water awakens you.

You’re awake.  You’re in a crib. You’re wearing a diaper. It’s soaked and your bladder is empty. This is not surprising. You went to sleep in this crib. It’s no wonder you should wake up in it.  Same for the diaper.  It wasn’t wet when you fell asleep, (not that wet anyways) but it’s present condition is just the natural consequence of the passage of time.

You sit up and yawn away the last of the dream stuff. Absent-mindedly, you wonder if that squish beneath your bottom is poop or not.  It’s so hard to tell first thing in the morning when everything between your legs is wet and squishy.  It’s shocking just how routine this all has become.  There was time when you would have balked at all of this. Now you just accept it.

Mommy comes into the room.  “Good morning, baby!” she coos at you through your crib bars.  “Did you sleep well?  Have pleasant dreams?”

You smile softly, demurely, as you give a pleasant chirp of ‘Yes Mommy!”

“Wonderful!” she says. “Let’s get you changed and ready for the day.”  She lowers the crib bars and you climb out only so that you can climb back onto the changing table.  “Such a good baby!”

You are a good baby. A very good one.  It’s something that you’ve worked hard at. So very hard.  You haven’t had any other choice. It’s not up to you. Nothing is.  You struggled at first, but Mommy made it very clear very quickly that you could fight as much as you wanted, but it wouldn’t stop you from becoming her good baby.

“After we get you dressed for the day,” Mommy says pulling the safety strap over your chest. “We’ll get you some breakfast, and then we’ll go to the park to play.  Maybe Margaret will be there!”

Margaret is your best friend.  Your Mommy and hers had decided it. You didn’t much care for her, to be honest, but you didn’t have much choice in the matter.

You don’t feed yourself.  You don’t dress yourself. You don’t decide where you go, who you spend time with or for how long. The only freedom you have left is in your dreams.  In your dreams you can be anything.  When you’re awake, the only thing you can be is a dumb baby.  Mommy’s working extra hard on unteaching you your FZY’s.  

Mommy is a very good teacher…

Mommy tears open the tapes on your diaper and starts to clean you up.  “Oh wow!” she gushes.  “Such a wet baby!”  She drags the cold wet baby wipe across your front and between your legs.  “I bet someone was dreaming about going for a swim!”

You open your mouth to tell her what you were actually dreaming about.  You can’t remember, though.  It was so vivid, too, you’re sure!  Cold wipes on your bottom and Mommy’s cooing makes it so hard to concentrate!

Just then, Bobby walks in.  Bobby is your big brother, but not so big that you don’t have to share a room together.  Bobby has a big kid bed that looks like a racecar. Sometimes Mommy asks him what he wants to do instead of telling him. Billy can feed himself and dress himself.

Presently, he’s doing just that.  You watch enviously from the changing table while Bobby takes his pajamas off, all by himself. You stare while he strips down and takes out a pair of underwear out of the top drawer of his dresser and steps into it, easy as pie.  

Suddenly you realize the sound that woke you up was the sound of Bobby flushing the toilet, and your blood turns hot. Mommy is busy unfolding a diaper and slipping it underneath your hips.  “Mommy,” you ask. “When will I be ready to use the potty?”

“Oh,” she says, pausing for just a moment. “Probably never.”  She grabs the bottle of baby powder and dusts your privates with it.

“But why?” You ask.

“Because you’re just a baby.” Mommy says. “Babies don’t use the potty, do they?”

Bobby used to be a baby.  You know. You got here first. But for some reason, Bobby’s been allowed to grow up when you haven’t.  Again.  Grow up again. You already grew up once.  It’s weird how you have to remind yourself lately.  So much of your old life before Mommy feels like a dream; an elaborate fanfiction that you wrote yourself.

Everything from before feels less real as Mommy spreads your legs and pulls the fresh, thick, poofy, crinkly diaper that prevents your knees from touching and forces you to walk with a waddle 24/7.  It is only the first of the day. It will not be the last. You can’t remember the last time you got to wear underwear; real underwear; the kind that couldn’t be seen from space.  It was only an academic memory by this point.

You lift your head up to examine the decorations of the diaper Mommy just put you in. It has balloons on the front. The one you woke up in had pictures of sleeping kitty cats.  Depending on what Mommy feels like, you might find yourself in a diaper decorated with nursery rhyme characters or one with fishes swimming.  You don’t even get to decide your diaper decorations!

Meanwhile, Bobby would get to wear those  jungle safari themed undies all day long.

“Oh!” you gasp. “Mommy! I remember what I was dreaming about?”

“Oh?” She chuckles, “What was your dream, baby?”  She undoes the strap and helps you sit up.  Your thoughts suddenly feel as crisp as the new padding wrapped around your hips.

“I was on safari!” you exclaim. “I was hunting big game!”

“That sounds nice,” Mommy says, pulling your sleep shirt up over your head.  “What game? Checkers?”

“No!” You correct her. “Like I was shooting animals and stuff! Lions and tigers and bears!”

“Oh my!” Mommy replies.  “Are you sure you were on safari?  Maybe you were just dreaming about going to the zoo?”

“I’m sure,” you say.  Bobby has already gotten dressed and walked away. You’re still nude except for the padding. “It was awesome!”  Talking about your dreams was one of the few things you could freely do.

“Was I there?” Mommy asked.

“No,” you proudly exclaim. “Just me.”

“But if you were in the jungle hunting animals,” Mommy teases, “who would be there to change your diaper?”

That was the best part about the dream!  About all your dreams!  “I wasn’t…!” Except you were.  You immediately remember the dream.  You picture yourself wearing a helmet. A pith helmet, you think it’s called. And one of those khaki button up shirts that people always wore in the cartoons and movies.  Boots too.  But between the shirt and the boots, was your diaper.  Just your diaper.  No pants. No belt. Nothing.

And right beside you, holding your hand, was Mommy.  Even in your dreams you couldn’t get out of diapers.  Even asleep you were with your Mommy.  There was no escape. No freedom, even in your subconscious.  

A terrible melancholy comes over you.  Were you ever actually an adult?  Or have you just been fooling yourself with your dreams and they’re now finally telling you the truth about yourself.

“So,” Mommy says. “What do you want to wear today?”

“I don’t know,” you mumble, trying not to sob. “I’m just a baby. You pick, please.”

“Of course, baby,” Mommy smiles. “Of course.”

[Diaper Dimension Reference Guide (Updated as of 15 April)]

Just wanted to add my two cents.

To me, the Diaper Dimension is kind of like comic books from BESIDES the big event crossovers.  There are certain concepts and conventions that are common and unifying, with bits of bleedover as various authors steal and adapt things they like and try to put their own personal stamps on it.  You open up your average super hero comic, you know someone is gonna be putting on a mask and tights to fight crime.  You click on a diaper dimension link, you're gonna find a world where forced regression and size difference is a key thing.

To that end, I skimmed what you wrote and saw a lot of good things; like a catalogue of concepts that have been used, that would-be writers might use to sample or inspire their own work. I like that.  I like that a lot.  Well done.  

It is my own personal opinion (and thus just an opinion, I'm not looking to yuk anybody's yum) that that's the  best way to use it.  My favorite comic books have been the ones that get left alone and a talented writer gets to tell a story of their choosing.  I stopped reading a lot of mainstream comics because every six to eight months, a storyline I was really digging would get interrupted by the next BIG EVENT and the writer would be forced to interrupt their saga by doing an issue or two that was the characters REACTING to the big event.  Editorial said there's a world crisis going on, so we need to see that world crisis reflected in every title across the line.

In other words, something someone else wrote was directly affecting what another author WAS ALLOWED to write. Which is a shame.

So I wouldn't look at anything another writer has done and take it as a mandate of what they HAVE to write.  Goodness knows I haven't.  But it's still a very good resource.

Also, thank you for including me in the guide.  I only skimmed but saw at least two of my stories referenced. It's very flattering.

P.S.  In case people are worried about permission.  I hereby give permission for anyone reading this to use and adapt most any of the concepts I've used in my own diaper dimension stories.  Just stay away from anything that might dictate my own characters and their choices.

Aka.  Feel free to use Maturosis and however you care to interpret it.  Same for Yamatoa. Same the various diapers: Hippobottomuses, Monkeez, Koddles, etc.  Same for Cosseting. Same for any number of off-brand jokes I've made.  Pennycade and UsBox (instead of nickelodeon and Youtube) etc. etc.  

Just stay out of Oakshire and away from Clark and his crew.  I've got plans for them.

Also @LostBBoyBear  May I DM You?


 

[Unfair: A Diaper Dimension Novel (Chapter 129 Uploaded!)]

Chapter 94: Naked Truths

Most of Friday was boring.  Beouf didn’t show up to school again. Zoge said that Beouf’s actual factual grandbaby was still sick.  Bullshit.  Beouf was scared of us and how we were destroying her morale and I let everyone who was worth letting listen to me know about it.  

So our class was well behaved that day. Zoge even thanked us as a group before she led us out to the bus loop that afternoon. Monday would be a new battlefield, however.  Mel didn’t have infinite sick days. She’d have to come back.  I’ be waiting

On the bright side, from what few glances I glimpsed of Tracy that day, she seemed more at ease.  Not less cautious, or less focused;  just that something in her could see some sort of finish line at the end of the race. There had to be more than I knew going on, but I felt that she was winning. She had the weekend to look forward to; a luxury I’d lacked.  It made Friday a lot better for me.  It wouldn’t make Beouf’s life any better, however. I was positive she’d had nothing to do with any mercy or respite my Tweener friend found.

Friday night, I sat in warm bathwater in the middle of the tub.  Janet had insisted on pouring bubbles into the mix while water was cascading into the basin.  “Bubbles are soap too,” she insisted. “I won’t have to wash you as much if you just soak in them.”

“Yeah. Sure.  Whatever.”  

That was good enough for her. She stripped me down out of that day’s romper on the bathroom counter while the tub filled up.  Ironically it reminded me of that scene in GhostHaunter’s Two where the bubble bath turns into a massive blob and tries to snatch up the Little right as his Mommy is getting him undressed.  Life imitating art as it were. 

No bath monster this time. Janet stripped me and plopped my naked body down into the rising tide of suds.  Being naked was becoming strange to me; not alien but foreign if that makes sense.  There was a time when in my own home I didn’t have to particularly pay attention to my nakedness.  Cassie and I could have walked around our house bare assed all day if we’d wanted to. That kind of freedom was an unexpected benefit of being a homeowner and an adult.  Privacy meant that I could determine how much or how little I covered myself while in my own house.

I wasn’t in my own house anymore, I had to remind myself. My old house didn’t exist anymore.  I was in Janet’s house, and I had no privacy whatsoever. I was naked from the waist down four to six times a day and almost always covered in something vile when it happened.  I was naked from the waist up only when someone bigger, stronger, and faster than me deemed it permissible or convenient, and I was completely naked only once a day (and sometimes not even once a day). That bit of ‘freedom’ was always measured against factors like how much hot water was left and how close it was to my assigned bedtime. 

Obviously, I was never alone when I was unclothed.  My time unsupervised in Janet’s home felt directly inverse to how much clothing and freedom of movement I was allowed.  Janet bunched up my school clothes and tossed the wet diaper into the wastebasket next to the toilet.  I caught myself looking at the porcelain throne with its seat up and wondering if I could still muscle myself up to the rim and use it. I’d had a stool to climb for this very purpose back in the good old days.  Could I handle having a full bladder, still?  The only consistent time I had one was in the middle of the night or just before sunrise when the need to pee woke me up from a dreamless groggy slumber.  

‘Wee hours of the morning’ had taken on a much more literal meaning to me.

I shook that fantasy out of my head.  I wasn’t unpotty trained, yet. I wasn’t like Billy and Annie and Chaz who could just go in their pants without a second thought and move on.  I wasn’t like Mandy who sometimes whispered the words to herself while she was doing it, or Tommy who could tromp around a playground with his backend loaded and not care as long as he got to play for an extra ten minutes. I wasn’t sure if Sandra Lynn or Ivy noticed anymore.  At least everybody outside of those two asked to be changed, occasionally.

From the tub, I observed Janet dig a fluffy white towel out of the bathroom linen closet and put it on the counter where she’d just undressed me. I couldn’t make out the tune, but she was definitely humming something to herself.  She was getting less and less quiet again; comfortable. Too comfortable.  A cry session with Beof, me asking for a bottle, and choosing to pull a few punches by focusing righteous anger elsewhere was healing her up. Communing with her fellow piecemeal parents, with Beouf to reinforce things, probably improved her attitude, too.

Not great. Not typical, but not great.

None of my work was undone, per se. I wasn’t starting back from square one and my ex-friend was still twice shy now that she’d been bitten a couple of times.  She just didn’t seem particularly unhappy and it bothered me and it didn’t bother me at the same time. And THAT bothered me that it didn’t JUST bother me.  

Emotions are complicated.  

“Do you want a rubber ducky?” Janet asked  In reply I gathered bubble suds around me to act as a screen and glared at her.  Bitch knew better.  “I just noticed that you like to squeeze Lion a lot and was thinking you might want to squeeze something else since you can’t bring him in the tubby.”  

I bit into my tongue to keep myself from growling.  Leave it to an Amazon to see a stress response and completely infantilize it.  If I’d been a wall puncher she’d probably buy me one of those inflatable clowns that never fell down. Actually, that might be kind of cool…

“Same with your pacifier so you don’t have to get a sudzy thumb or chew on your tongue…”

I unclenched my jaw and gave the sides of my tongue a break.  How did she always know?

She plunged her arm into the warm bath water and swished around a washcloth.  She’d already changed out of her work clothes before dinner and into a more casual gray T-shirt and blue jeans. The short sleeves of her shirt were rolled all  the way up to her shoulders that she could dunk her arms in without getting anything else wet.

The shirt was an Oakshire Elementary School Spirit t-shirt. The kind that was given out to staff as an optional casual Friday garb and peddled to children around yearbook time so that they had something to show off in the spring and outgrow over the summer.  I’d have had a few myself, but I’d always opted out even though it would have been free for me.  

It would have been a bad idea as a Little teacher to wear anything that the children were also wearing, lest false equivalencies be made.  I focused on the shirt and pictured myself having to wear one, despite me not planning on being around long enough for this year’s batch to be on sale.

“Please don’t get me one of those shirts,” I blurted out without thinking.

Janet sat down on her knees, finished soaping up the washcloth, and took my arm.  She glided it over from my wrist all the way up to my shoulder, applying enough pressure that it felt nice. It was gentle massage pressure, not scrub raw pressure. It took a second for my rambling to register with her.  

She looked down at her chest. “Hm? Why not?”  She was so comfortable she’d forgotten what she was wearing.  Another luxury I’d lost. I almost always knew what I had or lacked around my body.  Impossible snaps and adhesives made it so I had no other choice.  “I thought you’d like something like a regular shirt to wear.”

“I don’t,” I said flatly.

She took my other arm and repeated the process, making sure to get into my armpit and doubling back for the one she’d missed.  “Okay. We’ll see.”  She dunked the washcloth back in the water and re-soaped it.  

‘We’ll see’?  Typical answer. Wrong answer! 

I twisted my torso to the left, leaned the other direction sideways, cupped my hands together, and splashed a comparatively massive amount of water out of the tub and onto the front of Janet’s school t-shirt.

WHUUUUSH!

Janet gasped and looked down at her dripping wet chest. White suds dribbled down her front, the shape and outline of her bra was immediately more visible. Enough of the warm liquid landed in her lap so that if she were a Little, she’d be at risk of someone thinking she’d had an accident.  Her jaw dropped, and shocked little “Ah! Ah!” sounds stumbled out of her throat.

Bathtime over: Time for bad Little boys to get toweled off and put to an even earlier bed while their Mommies went and cried about it.  

“You…” she stammered.   “You Little brat!”  It almost sounded like laughter.  I smirked and crossed my arms over my body, daring her to retaliate, positive she wouldn’t.  

OOOOOOOOOSH!

Lightning quick, two giant palms scooped up water and suds on either side of me and cascaded them towards the middle. Two tiny tidal waves rose up and engulfed me, going over my head and practically dunking me despite my body remaining still.  I was sputtering soapy water and wiping at my eyes.  My now curly ketchup colored hair sagged in my face and over my ears. I must have looked like that cartoon sheepdog who was always having to lift up his hair so that you could see his eyes.

“You…” I shrieked. “You splashed me!”  I started combing the wet mop back away from my eyes.

“You splashed me first,” Janet said. I could barely see, but I could still hear her smile. Was this a fucking game to her?!

“But you splashed me!” I blinked away suds and squinted my eyes. Calling baby soap and shampoo ‘tear free’ was a massive case of there being no truth in advertising whatsoever; just below the idea that adult Littles and Amazon babies were functionally the same thing.

Janet leaned back in the narrow bathroom and snatched the towel from off the counter.  She handed me a corner so I could wipe and dab at my eyes.  “What? Mommies can’t roughhouse in the tub with their Little ones?”

“No!” I said. “They ca-...That’s not the point, Janet!”

“Oh?” she replied. “What is the point, then?”  I wanted to wipe the smugness right off her typical Amazon face. I wanted to hurt her again, but this time I wanted her to hurt because she understood; not because she didn’t.  And if she didn’t, I wanted to be angry about it.  I wanted fuel to scream into the baby monitor that night.

“I said that I didn’t want a shirt,” I answered,  “and you said ‘we’ll see’, instead of just ‘okay’. I can’t have anything unless you approve!”  I felt a meltdown threaten; what Amazons might call a tantrum, and what any sane person would call ‘losing it’.

“Well…yeah.”

“But you won’t let me have anything that wasn’t your idea first!” I accused her. “You won’t even just let me not wear a stupid t-shirt that you haven’t even bought yet unless I throw a tantrum about it!”  I pulled my knees up to my chest, and wrapped my arms around them.  I was turning back into a protective ball. “Now you’re probably thinking about getting me one so that I’ll see that it’s not so bad or something!  I don’t get choices that you don’t think of first!  I shouldn’t have even said anything and just let you wash me.”  That last part I said quietly, as if to myself, but I wanted Janet to hear it.

“Clark that’s not f…!” Janet stopped.  A dawning realization entered her eyes. Her mouth wiggled but no sound came out. Her nostrils flared and she huffed.  Her eyes were closed when she found the words.  “No, you’re right. I’m sorry baby.”

“I’m not a baby!” The acoustics of the bathroom made my impulse screaming sound even louder than usual.

She brought her hand up to her cheek, and opened her eyes. “Not what I meant. Sorry. Really sorry. Just…sorry. You’re right. You’re right. Sorry. That’s… Sorry. How can I make it up to you?”`

An open ended apology?  That was a rare delicacy indeed.  “I don’t know.”

“Do you want to splash me again and I not splash you back?”

Yes. But also no. “I don’t know.”

“I’m not going to dress you up in that shirt or that onesie I got for your baby shower. Do you want me to let you try washing yourself tonight?”

Yes.  Desperately.  “I don’t know.”

“Do you want me to wear something embarrassing this weekend? We’ve got a doctor’s checkup and shopping to do. Everyone could see me and laugh.  Would that be fair?”

That would be fantastic!  I hated it!  She was supposed to be fighting back! Why wasn’t she fighting back?!

“I don’t know.” I kept sulking. “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.  Why do I still have to make a choice right now?”

“You don’t,” she promised. “I’m just….” She bit her lip and looked away so she wasn’t staring at me. “Let’s finish your bath and come back to this. The bubbles in the water should be good enough. Do you want out of the tub now? Or do you want me to keep washing you?  Or do you want me to leave you alone in the tub?  I’m not going to leave you alone, but I can stand in the doorway and look at my phone.  Give you time to soak.  Or any other options you can think of…?”

She was trying. Goddamnit she was really trying. That was what made her so frustrating to deal with.  In some ways I would have had an easier time with someone like Forrest or Ambrose as my Mommy. You could always know where you stood with the intentionally cruel ones.  I just couldn’t stand it

I unclenched my limbs and unwound myself from the ball.  “I just…” Admitting that anything about my current life was enjoyable was it’s own kind of torture.  “Wash me.  Rub my back and shoulders and arms and stuff.” I felt awkward. Really awkward. “Please.”

I could have sworn I saw her eyes get misty. “Okay. Sure. That’s a start.” But the threat of tears didn’t last.

What followed was as close to a spa day as I could remember. Tense muscles were gently massaged while the skin was cleansed.  Quiet instructions and warnings were given about where she’d touch me next, including embarrassing sensitive areas that weren’t normally given any such courtesy when I was only half-naked and lying down.

No humming of lullabies, or motherly mentioning about ‘filth behind my ears’ or a ‘dirt ring around my neck’ that I’d accumulated on the playground that afternoon. No talk of a light rash that might be coming back because the substitute had next to no sense of smell and Zoge was almost constantly on diaper duty with a long queue during the most inconvenient times.  Janet gave gentle, yet concerned hums that coincided when she likely observed these things, or so I assumed.

Commands like “stand up please, I want to wash your legs and penis,” happened. “Turn around so I can clean your back and bottom.  Thank you.”  I went with it and just did my best not to feel too much in the particularly sensitive areas.  No smiling or moaning when a damp but warm washcloth gingerly pressed up against my nethers.  No wincing when that same cloth was rinsed and dabbed between my cheeks, or me hissing through my teeth because yes, it did somehow feel like I was developing a mild sunburn in places where the sun never shined.

“Okay. You can sit down. I’d like to wash your hair, too.”  After her fingers massaged my scalp for an unnecessary (but pleasurable) amount of time, she turned the faucet back on and filled up a rinse cup.  “Close your eyes in three…two…one!”  The clean water fell over me in one big spout.

None of these things were completely novel since my Adoption, but for once I took the time to catalog them and actually appreciate them somewhat.  I’d hate myself for noticing later, I was sure.  In the moment it was alright.

“I think you need a haircut soon,” Janet said. “Curls are just getting tangled.” Surprisingly she included, “And tiny bits of white and gray are showing up again. Let me know when you want to go to the salon and we will.  Maybe after school sometime this week…?”

The warm, lavender scented water and the modicum of respect I was being given made me feel slightly drunk.  “What if I want to keep the grays?”

“Nobody wants to keep the grays.”

“What if I want to?”

I watched her bite her lip again and her eyes darted back and forth in conversation with herself.  “That’s something I’d like to talk about, then.”  That was the most honest answer that the crazy giantess could have given and have me still believe her.

“Alright,” I said. “Later.”  I touched my hair and moved the red clumps of hair on my forehead into my periphery.  Stupidly, I knew none of them would look gray at the tips, but I looked anyway.  A guy could hope though.

“Ready to get out?” she asked.  Her voice was still slightly on eggshells, right where it belonged. Not too baby crazy, not too walled off.

“Yeah.”

She hoisted me out and wrapped the towel around me. The terrible impulse of running away just to inconvenience her jolted into me. I knew how that would look to her, however. Plenty of kids couldn’t stand still long enough to get toweled off.  Just because Amazons saw Little behavior how they wanted to see it, didn’t mean I had to take uncalculated risks.  The urge was there,I’ll admit.  It didn’t feel right unless we were fighting.

There were no surprises for me when I was laid out on the nursery’s changing table, creamed, powdered, and stuffed into a particularly thick nighttime Monkeez.  I was surprised when Janet asked, “Is there anything you want to wear for jammies tonight?”  I eyed her suspiciously. “This doesn’t count for the shirt thing.”

“Nothing.” I said. “I want to wear as little as possible. Diaper only.”  I wanted to be buck naked, but I knew I’d only get so far. Like I said, calculated risks.

Amazingly, Janet didn’t argue.  She barely hesitated.  “Okay.” She picked me up and carried me over to the crib by the armpits so that my newly dried body didn’t press up against her soaked t-shirt.  “It’s getting cold at night. Let me get you some extra blankets just in case.”  

She walked to the closet and came out with a thick comforter folded up in her arms.  She wasn’t dripping wet, so the comforter was in no real danger.  

“No swaddling!”  I blurted out without thinking.

“No swaddling,” she repeated. “Maybe if you’re sick. Or if you just feel you need a really good cuddle. But I don’t think your developmental plateau is at a level where full time swaddling is a thing.”

Just like that she went and ruined it. “Not. Funny. Janet.”

Her own voice cooled to match mine’s heat. “I wasn’t joking, Clark.”  The extra blanket came over the railing. It was a plain beige color that didn’t go with any of the childish bed sheets that regularly decorated my crib.  It kind of reminded me of the sheets that used to be on me and Cassie’s bed.  It certainly didn’t compliment the teddy bears on a playground fitted sheet around my mattress that night. “Lay down. Let me tuck you in.”

I obeyed, never breaking my gaze off of her as she leaned over to pull sheets and blankets over my almost naked form.  Speaking of form, with the t-shirt still clinging to her, I could see more of Janet’s figure.  She tended to prefer flattering, but not overly tight outfits; only skimpy by the standards of centuries past, but not the sexless smocks that Ambrose endorsed and forced Tracy into. I felt my eyes drawn to the near perfect outline of Janet’s chest, the points of her nipples concealed by her bra, and felt something.

It hadn’t yet been a full report card since I’d been adopted, but that’s a long time to go without certain thoughts.  None of the girls in my class were even allowed to wear bras, and there were far too many opportunities for me to see someone’s bare ass or junk on any given day. Be that as it may, certain uncomfortable thoughts were whispering in the back of my brain, even if the whispers weren’t fully formed. Certain questions combined with observations I’d taken for granted came burbling forth; a literal thought from my own stream of consciousness.

“Mo…?” No. This was a sincere question, so I had to address her sincerely. “Janet?” I said. “Why are you always wearing clothes around me?”

Janet stood back up, but kept her hands on the railing.  “Why wouldn’t I?”

I wriggled so that my arms could be over the heavy blankets. “Just…I dunno. You see me naked all the time. Every day.  I think I’ve seen you without a top in just your bra…once, maybe?”

I expected some bit of embarrassment or blush or revulsion or discomfort from my captor.  None of that happened. Curiosity was simply met with curiosity.  “Why do you want to see me naked?”

“I don’t,” I said. “Not necessarily.” I was doing my best to manage myself and not let any number of unhelpful emotions color my train of thought.  “I’m just curious. Like, you’ve handed me off so you can go to the bathroom, but held me till I peed.”

“That was a mistake with Forrest,” Janet said. “I’ve been going before I pick you up from the buses or holding it till we get home. You know that.”  

“Yeah. But like…why?  Why do you and everybody else get to see me like this all the time?”

“I don’t want to say something that will upset you, Clark. I think you know the reason.”

Fatigue and a small amount of goodwill she’d just earned kept the talk from devolving. The fact that I didn’t have school the next day gave her patience, too.  I could delay bedtime and genuinely probe into typical crazy for bonus points.

“I guess that’s not what I’m trying to ask.  I know where you stand on that.”

“Hm…” Janet seemed to take my response in stride. I’d given a diplomatic answer over a defiant or submissive one, and she’d picked up on it. “Is it me that needs to be naked or every other Grown-Up that loves you?  Mrs. Zoge and Mrs. B?”

My brain buzzed with equal parts admiration and indignation at that question. So much to unpack in that sentence and so many assumptions for me to unsuccessfully attempt to dismantle.  I could either take the bait on the implications and derail where my brain wanted to go, or I could not acknowledge the implications- thus giving credit to them- and steer the conversation further. 

Also…Zoge and Beouf naked were things I could have died happy not visualizing. 

“I don’t expect to see a teacher or a doctor or whatever naked,” I said. “That’s not their job.”

“But it’s mine?”

“No!” This was harder than I thought.  I was getting flustered and frustrated. “I hhhh….” I inhaled, kind of glad that the easiest way for me to verbally shoot myself in the foot wasn’t available to me.  I picked up my head just so I could slam the back of it against the pillow the one time.

“I’m a preschool teacher,” I explained. “Early childhood development. And an uncle.” That she didn’t interrupt me or remind me that those were legally past designations was a kindness that I didn’t miss. “I read parenting blogs and research all the time. I don’t know how many parents share way too much information in I.E.P. meetings and teacher conferences because I’ve lost count. Lots of parents go naked around their kids because they’re too young to remember or know the difference. Then they get more strict about clothes because they want to teach modesty and self care.  What do I need modesty anymore for?”

“You’re not too young to remember,” Janet said. “You know the difference.”

She wasn’t getting it.  Neither was I. It’s not that I wanted to see my ex-coworker in her underwear anymore than I wanted her to wipe my own ass for me or tote me around on her hip.  It’s just that, like the whole Maturosis bullshit and the treatment of Littles, there was something inherently wrong about it beyond the obvious, and it was so ingrained that it was totally and irrevocably typical to the point that everyone, Littles included, took it for granted. 

I laid there in silence for what felt like a good five minutes.  Janet didn’t say anything and just kept leaning on the crib’s side, waiting for me to speak up.  “Is this because of the talk Mrs. Beouf had last night?” she asked.

I held my palms out in a massive stop gesture. “NO!  It’s just…it’s…just…”

“Just what?”

“You get to see me at my weakest and most vulnerable every single day. You talk like I’m your baby, like we’re family or something, like we’re going to be together for the rest of our lives. But I never see the same kind of vulnerability from you. You want me to be comfortable around you, but you don’t show the same level of comfort around me.  It doesn’t make me feel protected.  It just reminds me of how weak I really am. And that makes me feel angry.” I puffed my cheeks out. “Really really angry.”

For the second time that night, Janet seemed genuinely taken aback instead of hurt. “Clark. That might be the most emotionally mature thing I’ve ever heard from you since…ever!”

“Thanks.” I didn’t know how else to respond.

“I need to think about some things, but I’m not going to forget about this,” she promised. She kissed her fingertips and then pressed them into my forehead. “This is something I want to talk about later.”

She left, the light went out, and I felt oddly proud of myself. So proud of myself that I fell asleep instead of telling her how awful she was through the monitor.  It’d happened before. Good game.

No worries.

******************************************************************************************************

I thought about that oddly intimate conversation that Janet and I’d teased out of each other that Friday night as I laid on a paper covered exam table wearing just a diaper that Saturday morning. The Amazon nurse stripped me down, took my temperature, pulse, and blood pressure, while Janet looked on, fretting.  Weight was on a massive scale that I was laid down upon, and it was considered more efficient for me to fall prone and have this random stranger break out measuring tape.  Thank goodness they used forehead scanners for taking temperature.

“Don’t squirm, Clark,” Janet said.  

“It’s alright,” the nurse answered, Janet.  “I’m good at this.” 

I couldn’t help but squirm. My gut had chosen the absolute worst time to start acting up. Janet had doubled down on the moderate to high fiber foods she’d fed me Thursday night, and had kept it going for dinner and breakfast. She’d suckered me in with a bowl of steaming hot oatmeal with cinnamon sugar and prunes.  

I’d only cooperated because she’d provided a massive spoon and a bib. I was allowed to feed myself at my own pace as long as I kept the bib on and used it as a napkin. It was just light enough, but for my size the spoon could have been its own bowl with a handle.  The bib was therefore necessary.

Back in the doctor’s office, I wanted to fart, but feared that might lead to something worse, and the pressure and pangs were building up inside me and I jittered lightly on the table near the end. 

“Okay. I got it.” The nurse said. She tickled my tummy and I tensed up so as not to kick her in the face. “The doctor will see you shortly.” She helped me up onto a sitting position, and Janet was beside me before I was all the way up.

Janet had taken the t-shirt and pants she’d dressed me in after breakfast and carefully folded them in a pile at the foot of the exam table next to my discarded shoes and socks. “Can I get him dressed again?”  She asked.  She eyed me, nervously. “I don’t want him to catch cold.”

It appeared that our talk about vulnerability had stuck with her.

“Leave them off for now. The doctor will want to take a look at him.”  That was all there was to say about that, apparently. She walked to the door and left us to each other.

Janet went to the trouble of propping herself up on the exam table and letting her feet dangle next to mine.   “Do you want to sit in my lap?” she asked. “I could hug you and cover you up until the doctor gets here.”  She wore a black scoop neck top and a billowing lilac patterned skirt that I could have been tangled up in without her showing any skin whatsoever.

A cramp and I fidgeted in place. “No,” I grunted. “I’m fine.” Secretly, I was worried that there’d be enough space on her lap for my body to think I was on a toilet seat or something and start pushing against my will.  I kept my feet dangling over the edge and my rear planted on the flat surface.  I sat up straight so that all the weight was down on my tailbone. There was nothing to grip on or lean forward so I couldn’t accidentally raise my rump.  I was mindful not to lean back, either and fill my Monkeez with my legs raised to the sky. That would have been worse in my opinion.

I was going to poop soon.  That was inevitable. I’d lost count of how many times it’d happened to me, but I noticed every time. Adoption hadn’t left me with much agency in whether or not it happened, but the stitched together tatters of my pride wanted to have as much say in the when and where it happened as possible.

Messing isn’t the same as wetting. Diapers don’t absorb solid mass so quickly that you sometimes lose count of how often your body has failed you. They don’t contain the odor the same, or subtly sag and swell over time. There’s sounds beyond quiet hissing that only you hear so that you can’t ignore or pretend to yourself that didn’t happen.  Diapers never need poop indicators; that’s why eyes, ears, and noses were invented.

Janet positioned herself next to the fairly mature toddler clothing she'd dressed me in. I would have killed for that toddler clothing on my body.   The ‘Run! Francisco Run!’ shirt wasn’t that infantile, all things considered, and the pants were baggy enough that me carrying an extra pound or two in my back non-pocket would be hard to notice without scrutiny.  

Pooping your pants sucks, but any level of obfuscation of the inevitable is preferable to nothing: Baggy clothes that concealed lumps and sagging were lovely.  A quiet alcove to grunt in or a couch to hide behind while the deed was done could have helped. Highchairs and bouncers and such were still merciful because it was still a solid extra layer between your humiliation and somebody else’s eyes. Other Littles would do, sometimes; they could distract teachers and be suspected of dirty deeds themselves. Just not being the only person ‘known to need diapers’ was sometimes enough where dignity was concerned.

Anything to mask my diaper ballooning out the back of me was an unexpected kind of luxury. Anything to stop someone from watching me bend my knees, pop a squat, and remark “Uh oh. I know what that means!”.

Fuck my life that I now had serious opinions and feelings about these things.

“Janet?” I called. I caught her frown before it reached the bottom of her face. We were technically alone, but also technically in public. “Mommy?”

She gently rubbed my back and tried to pull me in for a side hug. I resisted because I felt a not-so-paranoid need to keep all my weight completely centered “Yes, Clark?”

How did I ask this and explain it to her?  ‘Put my pants back on so I can poop them like you want me too?’  No way were those words coming out of my mouth.  “I don’t feel so good.”

“Oh?” Janet felt my forehead even though my temperature had literally been taken less than two minutes prior. “We’re just here for a basic check up, but you can tell the doctor if you’re feeling icky.”

I didn’t have time to glower or sneer at her word choice. 

“Can I…?” I tried not to groan. Maybe I could mess in the carseat on the ride back home or wherever our next stop was.  Doubtful, but maybe.  Did I really want to sit in my own filth for longer than I had to over misplaced dignity?  

“Can you…?” She was interrupted by a disgusting churning sound coming from my belly. My guts growled loud enough that even she heard it.  “Tummy trouble?”  Her hand went up over my shoulders and gently patted bare my knee.  “Do you need to throw up?”

My mouth contorted and my lip pouted out as I shook my head.  

“Oooooh!” She nodded as if she understood. “I get it. Let me know if you can and I’ll change you as soon as you poop.”  I wanted to claw eyes out; mine or hers. “I’ll change you before we go no matter what. That way you won’t have to sit in the car.  Even if we’re waiting in the parking lot.”

My stomach was punching me from the inside out, and my cheeks were trying to spread without my consent.  For Janet, for any Amazon, it was a good deal. Never let an Amazon offer you a good deal if you can get a better one.  “Do they have a bathroom here?”

“Yeah. I think they have changing tables, too.” The hand left my knee and found my waist band. “Nope. Not yet.”  A hidden Amazon skillset must be completely missing hints. 

“Can I…” I whimpered and paused after another jerk from inside me. I hadn’t been terribly constipated but something inside me was really kicking in.  Maybe if I begged, just this once, I could get away with it instead of getting into an argument. It would be okay. No one was here but the two of us.  “Mommy, would it be okay if…if I…?”

Thud-Thud

Two swift knocks at the door and another Amazon poked his head inside. “Hey-hey!”  Dr. Milton said. “How’s my favorite patient?”

Paper lining and plastic backing rustled beneath me as I instinctively sat up straight and clenched my cheeks together.  Old King Quack was here. Broad shouldered, silver haired, but friendly-seeming and confident with a twinkle in his eye, he instantly gave off ‘New Grandpa’ vibes.  In actuality, he was arguably the biggest proponent of whatever theory Maturosis peddled itself as in Oakshire.  Bigger than even Beouf, if such a thing were possible.

Shit.

My vain and distant potty options were instantly flushed down the toilet. Maturosis was a cult, and it would have been foolish to so much as hope that blasphemy would go unchecked around him.  I was definitely going to have an accident here.  Probably in this room.  The only Little with two giants staring right at him.

Shit. 

I folded my hands in my lap and clenched my jaw so tight that my teeth clicked.

“Hello, Doctor.”  Janet stood up and offered her hand out.

Dr. Milton shook hers and then held his hand out to me just like on my first visit. I did not take up the offer to shake it.  “Hmmm?” he said. “Favorite patient bit not working, sir?” He scratched the side of his head. “Oh yeah, I gotta say that you’re my favorite patient named Clark! That’s the part that I missed.”  Cartoonishly he turned around and made to walk away.  “I’ll come back in.”

“Spare me.”  Another tremor shook my gut and I tried to sit up even straighter somehow. I needed to move, but didn’t want a movement. 

“He talks!” The doctor said, “Excellent! Wonderful to see you, sir! I hope you’re well.”

He was unfazed by nasty glares and distant stares alike. He would be.  He turned his back to me and Janet followed him around. “This is just a checkup, right? Nothing too bad going on?”

Janet folded her hands in front of her and shook her head, oddly mirroring me.  “No, Doctor. Not as far as health goes.”

“Good. No sickness or fever other than that one time you emailed me about after the fact?”

“Correct.”

My lips puckered like I’d been sucking a lemon. Mental disgust and internal discomfort were doing a number on me.  I wanted to bite my knuckle to distract myself from the pangs, but that would draw attention. I actually would have killed to have Lion in my lap, something with a nice fluffy brain to crush, but he was stuck with his head poking out of Janet’s diaper bag on the floor.  A pacifier would have made a decent groaning gag, too, and given the sides of my tongue and insides of my cheek a rest.

Fuck my life that these were now my earnest thoughts and options.

“Are all the basic fundamentals happening? He’s still eating, sleeping, burping, peeing, pooping?  Sometimes multiple at once, I bet?” His back was to me but I heard the knowing chuckle and pictured a corny grin all the same.

Janet did a poor job of stifling her own. “Yes, sir.”

Both Amazons were preoccupied with one another.  If I was going to degrade myself here and now, this was going to be the largest amount of privacy I could expect: shitting while they were looking at each other instead of examining me directly.

The thing that gave me pause was that based on my positioning and red alert levels of urgency, I’d probably make it to my hands and knees before things started to empty themselves out. Thursday night with the Little brat who habitually pooped on all fours and how positively irate she’d been at being ratted out came to my imagination’s foregrand. That put a cork in that plan.

“Potty training or potty anxiety?”

“He still gets embarrassed sometimes that he’s lost his potty training,” Janet reported, “but overall I think he’s fine. Sometimes he’ll forget to ask for a change. I had to break out the rash cream last night.”

A big silver haired noggin bobbled in approval. “Good. Good. Not the rash, I mean, that he’s comfortable. We always want to ensure comfort and happiness where we can.”

“Mmmhmmm”

If Janet had been singing, the man would have been preaching to the choir.

“If he’d spent the last two months throwing a complete temper tantrum every time he’d had an accident, or constantly asking to use the toilet, I’d actually recommend potty training.”

“Oh no no no,” Janet said. “I don’t think he needs that.”

I didn’t need clothes to keep warm in that second. Lies. Such utter bullshit lies. If I’d been a steadfast whiner about what went on in my pants daily, I would have gone to time out, or be given impossibly thick diapers and pumped full of diuretics till I couldn’t tell the difference between wet and dry.  

The two instances I’d encountered in my life of a captured Little being allowed to toilet train were the Little who lived in my house before Cassie and I bought it and the one who’d been withdrawn from Beouf’s roster over the summer. 

One was dead, and the other was as good as dead, assuming she was still at New Beginnings.  None of the A.L.L. or any of my other classmates had brought up what led to the girl getting training pants, but her causing a fuss would have surely come up. I was too scared to ask Beouf before and there’s no way she would tell me now.

This so-called doctor based his diagnosis on self-fulfilling prophecies after the fact when he’d already proven himself right. Typical. So, so, typical.

I breathed in and cut it short when an even more intense cramp racked me. My entire belly was on fire for a second. What was I eating that was causing this? I hadn’t felt this level of urgency since before all of my underwear had tapes on it.

How funny would it be, I mused, if this was how I found out my appendix was about to burst?  The pain subsided for a second and I shoved that nugget away from my thoughts; mostly because an even more frightened part of my gray matter dredged up the idea that I’d find my continence surgically undone while someone was rooting around there saving me.

“Breastfeeding yet?” The quack asked.

“No,” Janet and I said in unison. She sounded more embarrassed in her update; an Amazon who hadn’t broken her pet yet. I sounded more steadfast in my refusal and didn’t like that ‘yet’, at all.

His head went down to a clipboard he’d been keeping tucked under his arm. “Then why did you ask to…?”

“The prescription hasn’t kicked in yet,” Janet yelped. 

“Prescription?” I called over. Suddenly my bowels didn’t hurt as much, but my padding was still pristine. Something more sinister sounding was just there to occupy my attention.  “What do you mean ‘prescription’?”

The conversation, along with the Amazons pivoted back over to me. “It’s for me, Clark. He wrote me a prescription a while back. It’s for my mood.”

“It’s true, good sir.” Doctor Milton said. “Not for Littles, but good for women who’ve recently Adopted.  You’d be surprised how much Adoptive parents have in common with biological counterparts.  It’s fascinating.  Helps the Littles indirectly, too.”  He tried giving me a conspiratorial wink. “I’d say something like ‘happy wife happy life’, but I haven’t figured anything out that rhymes with Mommy just yet.”  

Only he laughed at his joke.

“What’s it for?” I asked.

“Oxytocin,” Janet said.  “It helps me get oxytocin.”

I puzzled the word out. Where had I heard it before? It sounded vaguely familiar, but not in a way that came up in conversation.

The old titan plugged his stethoscope into his ears and started giving me the once over. “Let’s just make sure everything looks good on the inside, before we play Twenty Questions, yes?”  He breathed on the cold bit of metal at the end to warm it up and then held it up to my chest.

 “Mmmhmmm.  Mmmmhmmm.”

Then my back.  

“Breathe deep. Thank you.”

Then my stomach.

“Mmmhmmm.  Mmmmhmmm.”

A light shined in my ears, eyes, and throat. “Say ah!”

“Aaaaah.”

“Very good, sir.  Very good.”  And then his focus returned to Janet. “Ms. Grange, Clark seems to be healthy but…”

Fear and concern clogged up Janet’s throat. “But?” 

“I’m worried about his weight. He’s gained more than a little bit in just two months.”  

“He has?” Janet asked. 

I had. 

Embarrassed. I was actually embarrassed. I peered down at my pot belly and frowned. Cafeteria food and baby slop was more caloric than breakfast shakes.  Most of my time was spent stewing and plotting instead of over exercise.  The only time I exercised was when it served a larger, meaner purpose.

I kept staring at my gut. Yet another side effect of having no privacy was that I never had time to explore myself or notice changes that weren’t drastically forced on me. Still… I hadn’t gained that much, had I?  

“Fifteen pounds in just a couple months is worrisome. He’s not in any danger, but I don’t want to see it continue, you understand.” My mouth went dry. I sat motionless as more pain filled my midsection.  

Fifteen pounds? How had I managed that?

Janet looked like a whipped dog. “Yes, Doctor.”

“Littles like sweet and fatty foods, but those experiencing Maturosis lack the impulse control to moderate consumption and the discipline to exercise. His brain might think he’s a baby, but his heart won’t know the difference. He’s all out of growth spurts and his metabolism won’t be speeding up.” 

This was the most uncomfortable I’d seen another Amazon make Janet, and I absolutely hated it. I was being talked about like I was a fat old man and a useless baby at the same time. “Any suggestions, sir?”

“Did you try the at-home yoga like I advised? Or find a class?”

“No, sir. I…it’s been hectic, but that’s no excuse.  I’ll look into some resources.”

A finger pointed at me. “You could, you could.  Or you could just ask him. Can’t be that big a difference between adult yoga and kid’s yoga.  At least start him on the one while you research the other.”

More proof that I would never fully understand Amazons.

Janet continued to nod.  “Okay. Sure. Yeah.” She stopped and considered me. “Would you like that, Clark?”

I stopped jiggling my belly like it was a disgusting science experiment.  “Uh…yeah…?”

“You can do other things if you like,” the quack expounded. “Get a toddler leash and go on walks instead of strolls.  Sign up for Little League T-Ball or a dance class. Get him some playdates on the weekend.”  That prefaced another dirty old man wink. “Half an hour wandering around a playground is good, but it’s not enough.”  

Someone knew Beouf’s class schedule…

“His best friend is a crawler,” Janet said, defensively.

“So?” Dr. Milton replied. “Let him crawl on the floor with his buddy. Crawling burns calories, too.”  He might have a point there. Amy wasn’t fat.  “His best friend doesn’t have to be his only friend,” he added.  “The point is he’s never going to grow up at his age. He’s only going to grow out, and you have to keep that in mind because he can’t do it himself.”

I wanted to contradict him, but it’s hard to argue independence when you’re on the verge of unloading into your pants.  Having better cardio would serve me in the long run, anyways. So why not let Janet help engineer and fine tune my freedom?

“Yes, sir.” Janet said. “I can do that.”

“Good.” Dr Milton leaned up against his exam table. “Very good.  One thing I’ll add is that if I can get a stool sample, I can probably do some analysis.  Figure out if there’s any major deficiencies that need seeing to.  Do you have a dirty diaper like I suggested? Tanked him up on fiber for a few days?”

I locked eyes with Janet and silently begged her not to out me.  “What about a blood sample?” I volunteered. “I can handle a prick on the finger.”  Counterintuitively I stifled a pained moan and tacked on “I’m a big boy….” to taunt the man into proving me wrong.

The bigger giant stroked his chin.  “Maybe. Maybe. Not a big fan of that method, though. Unnecessary pain and not exactly what I’m looking for. You’d be surprised how much information can be found with a stool sample.”

“Sorry,” Janet said. “I forgot. He usually has a bowel movement when he sleeps or first thing in the morning at school. No such luck today.”

Inwardly, I froze. Was Janet actually covering for me? Lying for me? About something objectively trivial, all things considered but of vital import to yours truly? For me?  Another mountain of evidence proving why I would never fully understand the maternal giant folk.

“Ah yes,” Dr. Milton said. “That is the downside of having Little patients.  If we could predict when they’d be able to produce for us, we probably wouldn’t need to have them in diapers to begin with.  Fortunately…”  He spun around and dug his fingers into my sides, an insane wide eyed smile on his wrinkling face. “COOCHIE COOCHIE COO!”

I tensed and fell back, screaming instead of laughing despite the rictus grin forming. My arms tucked in, and infinitely stronger hands took that as a cue to dig into my arm pits, and then dart over to my belly button.

I drew my knees up. That’s all that she wrote for those Monkeez. I started pushing and screaming as the mess made its way out of me far too easily. My diaper ballooned as fecal matter hit the back and kept going, each cramp now just a warning that I wasn’t done pushing.  After the initial lapse, it wasn’t even that I ‘had’ to push; it was just a reflex.  Warmth engulfed me top to bottom and the front of my padding started to discolor and bunch up while I practically bathed in my own urine.

I knew this would happen.  I knew it. I knew it. I knew it.  Knowing it didn’t make it any better.

As long as it felt, the whole terrible process took less than five seconds. My insides felt like they’d been greased and everything slipped right out.  It didn’t feel like diarrhea, just soft. I hadn’t felt this lack of control since I’d been poisoned by the training chocolate. This wasn’t training chocolate, though, because Raine’s goodies at least numbed things so that you couldn’t feel yourself going at times. 

This just felt overwhelmingly natural and I hated it. Both giants were staring right at me while I did it, too.
  
“And there. We. Go.” The old trickster god said.  “Can’t get any fresher than that.”

I stayed laying down on the table with my knees pulled up close to my stomach. I buried my face in my hands and shoved the heel of my right palm over my mouth to stop me from screaming and crying.  

Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it. You’ve cried enough. Don’t let them see you cry.  Fuck them. Be strong. Don’t look! Don’t think!  This is nothing and you’re used to this.

Even though you shouldn’t be…

Janet was shushing me and gently running her fingers through my hair.  “Was that really necessary?”  

I didn’t see the doctor shrug. “His guts were going crazy. I’m a rip the bandaid off kind of guy.”  There was a prolonged silence.  Janet kept stroking my hair and shushing me.  I kept trying not to hyperventilate or scream bloody murder. “You can change him right here if you want. Just ball it up and I’ll have a nurse collect it.”

“If it’s okay with you,” Janet said, “I’d like to change him in the bathroom.” There was a massive edge to her words. “Get him dressed.”

“Sure sure.” He said, nonchalantly.  “If you choose the one right before you get to the checkout counter, you’ll find a cabinet between the changing station and the toilet. If you put the diaper in the cabinet and knock, one of the nurses will take it.”  

“Thank you, Doctor.”

“Any time, Ms. Grange. Anytime.  See you both in a couple months.”

I heard the door open and shut. Then I heard her say, “We’ll see…”

The wait was too long for me, while Janet gathered up the diaper bag and my clothes.

“Change me,” I whimpered, pathetically. “Please. Just change me.”  

“I will, baby. Just a second.”  

I was blind back through the halls and to the restroom Janet had been directed to. I felt every shift and step. Nothing shifted in my pants, whatsoever. There was too much sticking to everything and not enough room for it to jostle around in. 

My ears burned on full alert, picking up every footstep, cry, and bit of random dialogue. Things went nearly silent save for squeaky hinges on a wall mounted changing station. “Please,” I begged. “Just get me out of this. I don’t even care about the changing pad.”

The soft comforter-like texture of a changing pad still cushioned me. The familiar sensation of a restraint being threaded under my arms and over my chest followed. “It’s okay,” Janet whispered. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”  I finally took my hands out of my face to clutch Lion and hold onto him for dear life.

Janet was readying diapering supplies like she was a surgeon. “It’s okay. This is nothing. This is nothing. It’s not a big deal.”  

Tapes ripped and the diaper practically forced itself open. Stupidly I looked down myself and saw the disgusting results.  I laid my head back and counted ceiling tiles.  It was a good thing there were no mirrors on this ceiling. Beouf’s room would have killed me just then.

Janet wiped me down, furiously, shushing and whispering sweet nothings as she did. From as many wipes as she used, I'd quietly figured that the putrid stinking stuff had nearly reached my genitals.  

It wasn’t that putrid, though.  It was bad, mind you, still obviously feces, but it had a different stench to it. Less offensive, or so I thought. Everyone likes their own brand, as it were, but Janet showed no sign of irritation, either.  

“Almost done,” Janet promised. She just kept going at it, using wipe after wipe like a squeegee.  “You’re doing good, baby. You’re doing good.”

Lion got a chance to breathe when the last wipe caressed my penis and I finally heard the used diaper get balled up.  I saw the massive ball be toted right by me, and placed in a cabinet with a knock.  Back on the slab, Janet slipped a new diaper and dusted some powder over me.  “You’re doing so good.” Janet whispered. “I’m so proud of you.  I love you.”

“I…” I almost echoed the sentiment but Zoge’s conditioning hadn’t quite gotten a hold of me.  Everything untensed from my head to my tow, when the change was finally finished and I had a nice snug replacement taped over my hips. 

The smile that followed when Janet started threading my legs through the pants was completely genuine. I hadn’t even had to ask or remind her and went so far as to boost my hips up to help.  Socks and shoes followed. Finally, I was allowed to sit up and get my shirt back on.

“Thank you,” I said. For once I buried my head into the nape of her neck and didn’t want to go for the jugular.

“Welcome,” she whispered, and set me down on my own two feet.  Surprised, I reached my hand up for her.  Maybe we were starting on light cardio right away.  

Janet didn’t take my hand.  “Hold on,” she told me. “I gotta go too.”

“Go?”

In answer to my question, she walked over to the single toilet, turned around, and dropped her lilac skirt and matching panties down to her ankles.  “Janet?” my voice bounced off the walls. “Mommy? What are you doing?”

The answer was a tinkling sound of liquid connecting with liquid, and Janet loudly sighing.  More than a hint of scarlet came to her cheeks. Stupidly, I turned around and used Lion to cover my face.  Watching just felt wrong; voyeuristic; gross. I knew exactly why she was doing it, but my brain couldn’t process that this was more than hypothetical.  The sound of tinkling paused and I held my breath, waiting for the flush.  A solid plunk of something solid punctuated the stillness and it actually made me jump.  The shuffling sounds of toilet paper being ripped added to the bathroom symphony and finally a flush.

When I turned back around, she was at the sink, washing her hands.

I gawked right up until the moment that she shouldered the diaper bag and picked me back up.

“What?” she asked, playfully. “You peep and poop in front of me all the time.”

“Yeah, but…but…but…”

“But what?”  Her eyes fluttered at me.  “What, baby?”

I nuzzled back into her. “Thank you,” I repeated myself. “Just…thank you.” 

***********************************************************************************************

“Mommy’s going to take a shower,” Janet declared after she’d cleaned up for dinner. “Do you want to take one with me?”

I looked back over my shoulder towards the television as if maybe she’d been addressing the parents on the Koddles commercial.  “I beg your pardon?”

The rest of that Saturday had been eerily still.  Lovey-dovey baby crazy Janet had taken a back seat to preoccupied and quiet Janet. That had been fine. I’d needed time to process that morning. She’d needed it too.  

I took a bottle of goat’s milk in her lap right after lunch and I didn’t actively seek to antagonize her, but other than that I’d let Janet be.  I was feeling shades of that first not-completely miserable weekend right before I’d learned about Cassie and those parallels gave me all kinds of bad feelings.

Janet had put in a call to Beouf and left a voice message when I wasn’t supposed to be listening in.  Other than that she was on her phone or in her room all day.

She’d disappeared for almost an hour of dinner; giving me free reign of the house and uncharacteristically leaving the dishes in the sink. Presently, just before when she’d normally start trying to put me in bed, the Amazon stood barefoot in front of me with her gorgeous raven hair let down, and wearing nothing but a pink silk bathrobe tied off at the waist.

“Mommy’s going to take a shower,” she said again. “Do you want to take one with me?”

I was still in the toddler play clothes: Loose pants, velcro sneakers, t-shirt. Deduct fifty points for the Monkeez and I was still more dressed than her.  Wow. So this was about to be a thing. This was happening.  “Um…sure?  Yeah.”

“Okay.  Do you want to take a shower in your bathroom, or Mommy’s bathroom?”

Hearing the M-word spoken so frequently in a spot where it should have been forbidden left a bad taste in my ears.  “Janet, why are you-?”

“Clark,” she almost snapped at me. “I need to say this stuff. I need to be able to say these words. Call me whatever you want, but I need to be able to call myself ‘Mommy’ right now. Okay? I need it.”  Speaking of flashbacks, I hadn’t seen Janet like this since the first awful day where our relationship moved out of the friend-zone and into every Little’s worst nightmare. “Just…let me humor myself.”

Wow.  “Okay. Sure.  It’s your house. That’s fine.” She stood there, waiting for me. “Your shower, I guess.”  

Janet likely jerked her head towards her bedroom door and I waddled after her.  Two months Adopted and I’d seen where she slept a bare handful of times. It still had a kind of mysterious quality to me, like I was trespassing into a sorceress’s lair or something. 

The bed was fully made and put together.  A military woman could flip a coin and no wrinkles would form. The fancy headboard with the drinking glasses was dusted, too. The side cot that she’d gotten as an impulse buy had yet to be unpacked, but other than that, the room was bizarrely clean, even for Janet.  

I twisted my head, wondering if she’d shoved old clothes or dropped something under the bed like a normal person, but Janet stopped my instinctive snooping.  “Come on,” she said. “Follow Mommy. We’re gonna get clean together.”  If she were going to hide anything it would have been in the massive closet, anyways.

She brought us into the small bathroom and took a knee on the fluffy floor mat.  Small of course, is a matter of comparison. The white tile was still tall and impressive with a high ceiling, even if including the shower, the space was only twice the size of Beouf’s classroom commode.   “Are you sure you’re not going to get scared?” she asked. “Mommy’s shower is very loud and there’s no bubbles to play with.”

“Janet you don’t need to talk to me like I’m-”

“Clark…” Janet cut me off again. “I’ve been reading those same blogs you told me about and then some all last night and this afternoon. Are you sure?’

I curled my lip and breathed deeply through my nose.  “Yes, Janet.  I’m sure.”  

She closed her eyes and smiled softly. Even without seeing her, I could see it reaching her eyes. This was happening. This was really happening. An Amazon was about to fully listen to me and give up some control.  And she was struggling but strangely okay with it.

“Okay. Arms up.”  She mimed like I didn’t know.  I obeyed.  “Now your shoes.  Now your pants.”  One leg at a time I stepped out.  She was going the extra mile to make it clear that I was still a baby to her and that old Clark Gibson was gone. Funnily enough, this was still one of the easier times that I’d been undressed by her.  I was expecting to have to look up at her from the fluffy bath mat.  “And your diaper.”

My last regular diaper of the day fell down between my ankles, Janet quickly balled it up and cursed. “Crud,” she said. “I forgot to get a new one for after.”

My own contrarian nature betrayed me. “My room is just across the house,” I said. “Even if I’m not potty trained, I think you can make it in time.”  All the struggling was actually helping me.

“True,” she said and stood up. “Good point. Maybe next time.”

Next time?

Janet wasted no further time disrobing. She’d taken Dr. Milton’s sentiment about bandaid ripping to heart, even if she’d been less than thrilled by his methods.  The belt was undone, and the silken thing was off her shoulders almost as fast as my heavy sodden underwear had been.

I could only stand there, awestruck and blushing, fighting myself from turning away. In all my life I’d only seen one woman completely nude; pictures, my imagination, and one mishap with an unlocked door didn’t count.  That made Janet the second.

I wasn’t sure what to say, or do. I’d proposed this- literally asked for it- but in no way did I honestly think on an intellectual or emotional level that Janet would follow through.  I’d been bluffing; playing chicken; and this woman had called my bluff.

I could only stand there, gaping, and trying not to drool.  Did I stare? Did I look away?  Wouldn’t that be against the point of this…whatever this was?  She’d seen me naked literally everyday for months. This was just returning the favor, so to speak.

 Looking for something to latch onto, my eyes started analyzing her the way the killer nanny-bot did in those foreign horror movies Little parents would sometimes let their children watch: I took in the curves of her hips, and her thighs. I gazed at her belly button and the slight tummy that proportionately made my macaroni and cheese gut look bulbous. Her breasts somehow looked bigger without the extra layers, and left me transfixed; a shrew staring at a cobra’s sway.  

My gaze went beneath the belly button and confirmed that Janet didn’t dye her hair.

Looking at the size of Janet’s…everything, and my…everything else… I wondered how there could be any truth to the idea that Tweener’s had mixed ancestry. The physical mechanics alone were baffling.  The desire, however, was understandable; from an academic standpoint, of course.  It was possible to admit that someone was attractive while feeling no physical or emotional attraction whatsoever.

“It’s okay,” Janet said softly to me. “You can look.  I trust you.”  The verbal reminder that Janet was, in fact, a person made my eyes hone onto hers and refuse to look away.  This was about vulnerability, I reminded myself.  This was her trusting me with something.  This was Janet giving up a small sense of privacy in lieu of giving me my own.  It was the closest thing to compromise with a Little that her baby crazy brain could wrap itself around.

“So,” I said, feeling awkward. “What now?”

I was scooped up and propped over her shoulder. “We take a shower, silly. This is what you wanted.”

“Yeah,” I said. “You’re right.”

Janet held me with one hand and I wrapped my arms over her shoulder for balance. She used her free hand to open the class door to her shower and turn on the water.  A million focused drops of hot rain poured onto the floor, and she held me there on the precipice, waiting for the temperature to adjust.  

My heart thudded like a jackhammer, and every nerve ending in my body tingled. All tactile sensations felt magnified a thousand fold. I could feel the spaces between Janet’s fingers cupping my ass. I could feel the heat from her body and that her pulse was pounding just as much as mine was. My hands kept gently brushing over patches of skin, taking in the softness and textures of her. I wanted to reach up and pull her hair.

Simultaneously, in the back of my mind, I kept thinking about less innocent exploration; the urge to touch both out of curiosity, but also out of an impulse to provoke.  How did Amy do it so casually with her Mommy?  Meanwhile in the back of my mind, I kept worrying about my penis lightly brushing up against her body.  Thinking about it was probably not helping.

I wanted to touch everything.  I dared not touch anything. I was curious about being touched. I feared something happening upon touch.   “Temperature’s good,” Janet announced. Her reach was long enough to where she could test the water without stepping in. “Do you want a feel?” 

“Yes, please.”

Gingerly, the giantess slid across into the shower holding me out like a certain animated feline.  I put my arm forward and jerked it back like I’d been struck.

“Too hot?” Janet asked.

“No,” I half-shouted over cascading water. “Too cold! Warmer please!”

Janet stepped inside, and twisted a dial. She pivoted so that her opposite shoulder was in the oncoming flow.  “You’re not getting sick again, are you?”

“Nuh-uh. I just like being in hot water.”

She cocked an eyebrow at me. “That explains a lot.”  We both looked like we didn’t know whether to laugh or not while the steam clouds slowly rose. “How about this?”  She pivoted so I could experiment.

“Much better.”

“Good.”  She turned so that almost all of me was in the gentle torrent.  The water pouring down us felt amazingly therapeutic, tiny water massages pelting me clean instead of a big bubbly blanket that secretly wanted to drown me.  And this time I didn't have to be sick as a dog to get it.  Oddly enough, the extra sensory input of the steam, water, and white noise from the shower helped make other sensations not so extreme as to be worrisome.

It was a tight fit in that shower. Two full grown Amazons probably wouldn’t have had enough room to get clean, (or do much of anything but stand there).  Like with Beouf’s cramped bathroom made even more cramped by a thick changing table, there was just enough room for the two of us together.  

Janet had a hanging shelf with liquid soaps and body washes. Since I was keeping one arm constantly occupied with my body, she would just squirt dabs onto us and gently work it in with her fingers.  Like the night before, she would warn me whenever she was about to touch me or shift me around or switch arms.  It was even better than the last time.

And she developed a kind of gentle swaying motion that took us in and out of the showerhead’s path like a slow waltz.  

The actual bathing part was over far too quickly for me. At least half of the usual bathtime ritual was waiting for the tub to fill and for a moment I worried that it might end after every conceivable part of us had been soaped up and sprayed off. I peered far down below at the drain where the white flecks of soap vanished as soon as they dribbled off our bodies.  

 There were no bath toys to offer, or bubbles to play with, and no place for Janet to sit and stare at me and pretend that I was the Little she’d always dreamed of but would never get.  I didn’t say anything to her when the last of the body wash was gone. She’d held up her end of the bargain and had every right to stop.

She didn’t though. All that happened was that she gave herself greater freedom of movement, and cradled me in both arms, rocking me gently in the same way that we’d danced together.

“My baby takes the morning train,
He works from nine to five and then,
He takes another home again,
To find me waitin’ for him.”

Now cradled, I stared up in a quiet wonder at her. Janet had sung to me before; more times that I care to write down.  But before this moment, her kiddie songs had always had a kind of annoying, cutesy, chirpy, nasally, singing-without-really singing quality.  An adult trying to sing like a child; that is to say ‘poorly’.

“He takes me to a movie or to a restaurant
To go slow dancing, anything I want,
Only when he’s with me, I catch light,
Only when he gives me, makes me feel alright.”

This voice was deeper; throatier; louder and full chested; contralto to the point to where it might have been able to sing baritone, but still undeniably feminine. Undeniably Janet.  And she’d been singing a song I didn’t know, but the way she sang it, it sounded comforting and happy and simple; genuinely something that I might have hummed to myself on my scooter after a long day at work but having enough energy to do something beyond crash and veg out.  

“My baby takes the morning train,
He works from nine to five and then,
He takes another home again,
To find me waiting for him.”

More intriguing, the Amazon was singing a song with ‘baby’ distinctly in the lyrics, but nothing else to indicate that it was about a Little. No talks of maturity, or bottles, or butterfly kisses.  If anything, this ‘baby’ sounded like a partner and provider, over a dependant or a doll.  In the context of the melody, ‘baby’ was a term of affection, not domination or smothering cosseting obsession.  

 “What’s that song?” I called over the pouring water and Janet’s own melody. Why didn’t she sing like that more often?

Janet looked down at me as if she’d forgotten I was there. She’d entranced herself.  “I don’t remember. It’s something I learned in highschool; part of a dumb talent show competition.” A moment passed.  “I like to sing in the shower. Sorry.  I’ll stop.”

“No, no,” I said. “I’m just curious. How’s the rest go?”

“I don’t remember,” she admitted. “Just that one verse and the chorus.”

“Do you want to sing it again?” I offered. Then, I admitted, “I like it.”

Eyes sparkled back and a switch flipped back on. “Really?  You like it when Mommy sings?” 

I balled up a fist and rubbed my eyes so that I wouldn’t roll them. “Yes,  Janet.  I like it when you sing.”

Mercifully, that was enough for her.

She kept swaying and gently rocking me, taking our naked bodies in and out of the stream, singing the same two parts of a mostly forgotten song over and over again. The world outside of our immediate bubble went numb to me and ceased to exist as far as I cared. The only two things that had my attention were Janet’s singing and face gently smiling down on me, and how pleasantly heavy my eyelids were beginning to feel.

“Okay,” Janet said. “I think it’s time to get you to bed, honey.”

“Hmm?” I stirred and startled at the sound of her voice not sinking. I’d genuinely drifted off in the massive woman’s arms. She was blushing like crazy and holding me wrapped up in a towel.  

“Hey!” I whined. “No swaddling!”

The bathroom ceiling shifted to the bedroom ceiling and quickly into the main part of the house.  “Don’t worry,” Janet said. “This is just the quickest way to dry you off, silly.”  She herself was still dripping wet.

I suppressed a groggy snarl.  “Promise?”

“Promise, sweetie. Mommy promises.”

Honey. Silly. Sweetie. All these nicknames were seriously toeing a line, and Janet knew it. I let her call herself ‘Mommy’ and she was already testing new boundaries. I tried to not allow my eyes to close again, not wanting to be so sleepy, no matter how good the experience had been. 

Lightly squirming in Janet’s grasp, I tried to free my arms without her dropping me. There was something so unpleasantly confining about it. How did real babies sleep with their arms bound so tight?  There was probably a reason why it wasn’t common past a certain age. 

Trying to get out of the swaddle while Janet was moving was no easy task. It would have been simpler to trust her to carry me, but all of the baby talk she was piling on deserved at least a physical rebuttal to discourage it.

“Almost there, baby,” Janet said. “Almost to your nursery. Then we’ll put you in a nice dry diaper and some jammies and you can go back to sleep.  How does that sound?”  

Oh enough already!  “It sounds-”  My hand brushed past my penis and I froze. I wasn’t fully erect…yet. When did that happen? It didn’t take a master detective to figure out. A better phrase to describe my condition was ‘I wasn’t fully erect…anymore.’ Janet’s sudden heaping of baby talk was taking on a new context.  She was unsettled, discomforted, and trying to ‘help’ me. 

Beouf giving a pep talk about Adopted Littles maintaining certain urges was fine in theory.  Practice was another matter. For both of us.

“Yes Mommy.” I said. “I think I’m sleepy, yes. Can I please go night-night?”

Janet looked positively relieved. “Of course, baby boy. But first we have to get you ready for bed. Can’t have you going night-night all nakied!” The vocabulary was really doing it for me, by which I meant not doing it at all. As intended.

Completely naked and dripping, Janet got me redressed, all while narrating every single excruciating detail.  

“Now that we’ve had our shower together, let’s slip the fresh diaper underneath you.  We want a nice nighttime diaper, too, so you don’t leak all over your crib.  And you’re still pretty rashy, Clark, so I think some cream on your bum-bum will help you sleep good.  Can’t forget the baby powder. That’ll dry you out and help you feel nice and cool. 

“Here, let Mommy rub it in on your tummy, too.  We’re gonna start feeding you more yummy veggies though so don’t get used to seeing Mr. Tum-Tum!  Almost done, almost done. Let’s count the tapes.  One! Two! Now let’s get your jammies on. Blue’s a good color! Right?  Yes it is! Yes it is!  It’s a pretty color for my precious baby boy!

“Let’s get your arms, head, and legs in there. Good baby! Now let’s count the snaps. One. Two. Three. Four. Five! Wow! You did it!  Oh and here’s your paci in case you need a suckle.  And here’s Lion to keep you company.”

Throughout it, her voice took on the same cooing, whiny, nasally tone it did when she was trying to do any of the Little Voices exercises.  I resisted and complained about absolutely none of it.  Was thankful, for it in fact.  

She gently put me down in the crib and that was alright. She forgot to kiss me in any way shape or form and that was alright, too.  “Night night, Clark. I love you. Mommy’s gonna go dry off.”

I laid there, completely mortified and quivering. In the darkness, I turned my head and looked at Lion. His glassy unmoving eyes stared at me, judging me for any number of things.  

“Shut up!”

[Wedding Anniversary]

Any sufficiently advanced magic is completely indistinguishable from science. That’s just the way it is.  Savages will look at a perfectly fine tuned summoning circle or a gate into an extra dimensional first draft of reality itself and suppose that there is some sort of fine tuned and knowable mechanism behind it all that can then be easily replicated and mass produced once sufficiently understood.

And that kind of unenlightened attitude is exactly why magic is so rare across the various planes and timelines.  It takes a certain level of humility to know that there are forces wiser and greater than mankind out there in the twisting nether and that they have more than a little say in how the universe works.  That is a rarity of character that is only compounded when one realizes that in addition to humility a particular flavor of brains, wisdom, and ambition is required to find and wield magic.  

Like true love, the fabled ‘oneness with the universe’ necessary to find, harness and practice magic is exceedingly rare and requires passion, humility, and hard work over many years.  It is so statistically unlikely that the odds of wielding magic with any modicum of skill are less than getting attacked by a shark in the middle of a desert, or lead turning into gold.

Yet it does happen.

Alexandria and Markus were proof of that.  They stood facing each other in their bedroom, smiling bashfully at the foot of their king sized bed.  Their clothes from the day’s trials and tribulation lay puddled in the hamper, their skin freshly bathed, and both wore nothing but the nervous grins on their faces.

They’d been planning this for weeks purposefully negotiating and whispering their fantasies to each other each night before sleep took them, shooting off ideas and temptations just before drifting off; all while stockpiling arcane energy and scavenging the perfect spells for tonight.

Tonight was their anniversary.  Better than birthdays which was supposed to be about the celebrant and the celebrant alone, and much better than the half a dozen semi-holy days they shared with an uncountable number of people; tonight was supposed to be all about them.  

Their own high holy day.  Their own cosmic equinox.  Their own renewal and replenishment of the mana that was their love for each other.

While like any healthy married couple, the duo of magicians had a good sex life, Markus and Alexandria wanted to make tonight particularly special.  No experimentation. They weren’t bored with each other; far from it. Rather they wanted to show how much they loved one another by playing each other’s greatest hits.

“Ready, Ria?” Markus asked his lovely bride.  

“Ready, Mark,” She replied, feeling both empowered and oddly stilted by the ritual.  There was something about planned sex that both inflamed the passions of imagination while threatening those of spontaneity.  But that spontaneity was kept alive with simple anticipation of this evening.

Markus gestured over to the bed. “Lady’s first,” he said.  Alexandria rolled her eyes and plopped down, spreading her legs ever so slightly for him.  Trembling with his own anticipation, Markus walked over to his wife’s nightstand and opened the top drawer.  From it he removed a single, solid purple hued adult diaper. There was only one in there, but that was the wonderful thing about magical drawers. There would always be only one in there. And it would always be in his wife’s size.

“Butt up,” he instructed as he unfolded the special undergarment and fluffed it for her.  She bent her knees and planted her feet flat on the mattress so she could boost her hips up.  He slid the diaper underneath her and nodded “Okay” when it was positioned correctly.  “Any powder?” he asked.

“Mmm-mmm,” Alexandria said, closed lips.  “Don’t like the smell.”

“Suit yourself,” Markus replied, and he began gently pulling the diaper up and fastening it on one tape at a time.  When the last tape was secure he gave the landing zone a final push and was pleased to see the glowing runes reveal themselves.  He shuddered at what he’d just done.  Now, no one but him could take Alexandria’s diaper off.  Not even her.  

Now it was his turn.  He laid down and she rolled over to fetch a similar diaper, though in his size and colored black.  The reminder of what he’d done, what she’d just committed to for him, echoed in his mind with every crinkle of Alexandria’s that reached his ears.

“Butt up,” she said.  He copied her movements and tossed his pelvis towards the ceiling, bridging it until she gave him the okay.  He winced when she grabbed his penis and quickly stroked it.  

“Ria!” he whined. “That’s cheating!”

“Sorry,” she said, but she didn’t really mean it.  “Just figure I’d tease it while it was out.  Powder?”

He considered it, but declined.  “No thanks.”  She hated the smell.  He laid there and held his breath while she brought the diaper up.

“Penis up, or penis down?” she asked.  

“Up,” Markus answered without hesitation.  His diaper had the exact same spell on it that hers did.  If he didn’t put it on, he wouldn’t be able to take it off, and adjusting himself mid coitus as he grew erect would be just this side of wearing a chastity cage.  
Alexandria must have been thinking the same thing; hence the wink while she adjusted him and then taped his diaper on for him.  The runes glowed to life with the fourth and final tape.  They were now officially each other’s prisoners, at least when it came to matters of underwear and toileting.

Markus sat up drew Alexandria into a tender embrace.  “I love you,” he said.

“I love you too,” she whispered back.  “What now?”

They considered the mattress; contemplated getting right to business as it were, crawling beneath the comforter and getting amorous, but it was a fleeting thought.  Diaper sex was just no fun while dry. While not uncomfortable, far from it, Makrus felt he would rub himself raw if they started the night’s festivities in earnest; especially without baby powder.

“How about we get a drink and watch a movie?” he suggested.

Alexandria traced a circle around his nipples and ran her hands down his chest.  “I think one of those would be a very good idea.

The movie that they started watching wasn’t important. They weren’t even paying attention to it, really. It was a romantic comedy.  Something light and airy like hot popcorn. An attractive man falling in love with an attractive woman, both insisting that they weren’t that attractive, or whose lives didn't have time for love when suddenly converging onto one another. It probably had some kind of pithy title; a play on the word love, or perhaps a reference to the general premise or setting in which the romance took place in.  ‘Bushes of Love’ or something. If you’d seen one you’d seen them all.

It didn’t matter in the slightest to the loving couple. It was really just a more interesting timekeeper than staring at the clock in the kitchen.  What was important was how the love birds sat there on the couch, naked save for the diapers they’d just put each other in, cuddled up like teenagers still scared to go past first base.  They basked in each other’s presence on the couch.  To either side of them was a wine glass drained dry of its contents…twice.  

Arcadian wine: It was practically grape juice to the Fae Folk and the Children of Twilight.  To those with more mortal and tangible constitutions, however, it was incredibly expensive, potent, and rare. Even the incredibly wealthy only broke open a bottle of the stuff on special occasions.

They’d just finished the last of theirs.  Six months of patience well spent, all things considered.  Now it was just the old waiting game while their minds raced ahead of what their bodies would likely do to one another.

The delightfully peculiar thing about Arcadian wine is that it was not a proper wine or spirit in the traditional sense. One could guzzle the stuff by the barrel and the room in their stomach was the only limiter to consumption.  You would not get drunk on it, your reflexes would not be slowed, nor your senses dimmed nor your speech slurred.  Sexual performance certainly wasn’t negatively impacted.  No amount of memory loss would occur, you wouldn’t pass out, and there was zero chance of dying from drinking too much.  

People had died from Arcadian wine, of course, but that was for indirect reasons entirely.  Arcadian wine carried none of the physically debilitating effects of alcohol, but a single glass would hit your inhibitions as though it were hundred proof whiskey. People died on Arcadian wine as a direct consequence of acting out what they normally thought were bad ideas.  Nothing about the body was impacted but the judgment was just as quashed and the inhibitions just as unburdened. 

There are scholars who believe that the stuff is responsible for alcohol in general being called “liquid courage” and every other brew is simply a cheap imitation of the original recipe.

So the couple drained their glasses twice over, cuddled on the couch, and were waiting for it to fully kick in. Not that they needed courage, but a lack of inhibition certainly helped communication and exploration.  It was hard to be embarrassed or worried or hesitate with the stuff of Faerie muddying up your blood.  For them Arcadian wine was less ‘Liquid Courage’ and more of a ‘Potent Passion Punch’.

The wine from the vines of Faerie had one other thing in common with its more terrestrial variants: Drink enough of it fast enough and the second place it would hit you was your bladder.  Both husband and wife felt the powerful twinge in their bladder, aching and begging for the release.  It had really gone right through the both of them.

Without hesitation, each relaxed and flooded their crinkling undergarments, flashing Mona Lisa smiles to the air and humming lightly while the wetness splashed and spread between their legs causing their diapers to swell and subtly forcing their legs apart.  There was no hesitation.  No disgust or cognitive dissonance.  No thinking about anything other than the warm wet squishiness caressing their skin and not being concerned at all about the source or the hygiene involved.

That would all come later if it came at all.

“Oh yeah,” Markus whispered. “I’m feelin’ it.”

Alexandria leaned over and laid her head on his shoulder.  “Me too,” she purred.

And so without further preamble they began the night’s festivities.  There on the couch Alexandria started by swinging her leg over Markus’s lap, straddling him, grabbing the back of his head and shoving her glorious naked tits in his face.  

Markus felt himself grow hard inside his plastic prison and leaned forward into her, kissing her breasts and running his hands down her shoulders and back while she started to rock and grind into him.

Determined to prolong the main event until it was just the right circumstances, Markus grit his teeth and stood up, carrying his lady wife with him, forcing her to wrap her legs around his waist and be carried like a child to the nursery rather than a bride to the bedroom. 

They weren't going to spend their anniversary on the couch.  Ria teased him kissing his neck and shoulders while he carried her back into the boudoir, television be damned.  They probably wouldn’t remember what the plot was, anyways.  There would be neither Netflix, nor ‘chill’ this blissful night.

Markus dumped Alexandria back on the bed and rammed himself up against her, the pulpy wet masses taped around their waists colliding with each other while they gyrated and teased one another.  Under other circumstances, such absence of penile penetration might be referred to as ‘dry humping’, but given what they were wearing that would be far from accurate.  

The language of eroticism and romance is so imprecise at the best of times.  That’s why they have bards.

Mark played with her breasts.  Ria clawed at his back.  He gave her a love bite on the neck that would last for three days after tonight and she kissed him so deeply and ferociously when she was done she was nibbling on the bottom of his lip. He rolled over and grabbed her hair.  She grinned and pulled back, throwing more of her grinding thrusting gyrating weight onto his pulsating excited manhood, with him bucking back, both of them working even harder than usual to compensate for the wet warm barriers between them.

Oh how their loins already ached for release!  Oh how the simpler, more unrefined parts of their brains wanted to immediately give in and leap over the edge of lust until they were both spent in under five minutes like a pair of jungle cats or a younger inexperienced flings in a cheap hotel the night of junior prom!

It was not to be, fortunately.  Anniversaries were for better memories than fumbling and rutting around like animals and virgins.  Alexandria and Markus were better lovers and better mages than all of that.

“Hold on,” she warned, slowing his pace and putting a finger to his lips.

She crawled off of him, giving the front of his diaper a playful squeeze, enjoying the feeling of his member through the padding. Markus wiggled and grinned at the touch, but was just a tad impatient.  Good. He was riled up enough to be bothered by the pause.  “I’ve got a better idea,” Alexandria said, bending over to grab something from under the bed.  It was time for her first surprise.

 “What are you doing?” Markus asked, deeply curious and wanting and fighting the urge to keep masturbating right in front of her.

 Out from under the bed Alexandria pulled a linked pair of cuffs, each cuff sparkling with engrained enchantments.  It had been a while since they’d used this toy, but she remembered how much he’d enjoyed it.  “Paddle,” she said. 

A nova of light flashed out from the dangling restraints, and after the spots had cleared from the couple’s eyes, in her hand rested a firm spanking paddle.  “Off and bend over,” Alexandria commanded.

Markus was only too happy to obey, shimmying down off the bed and then splaying himself face down on the mattress.  “Safeword is tofu,” she reminded him.

“Tofu,” he repeated.  Some people used colors for their safewords, others had more specific words; spells and incantations that prevented any and all harm.  Mark and Ria chose ‘tofu’ because there was ironically no organic way to work it into any conversation, sex play or otherwise, and so it rang out to the ears and was easy to remember.

Speaking of ringing out…  

WHACK!

“FUCK!” 

The piece of wood, long hard rectangular wood (or rather an incredible facsimile of the stuff) collided full on with Markus’s padded backside.  Whether by an extra enchantment, or that she was just that damn good at swinging it, the paddle sailed deceptively fast through the air and stung like all get-out.  Those eight years of girl’s softball from highschool through college had only been a start, but they’d been a very good start.

“You know I don’t give warm-up swings,” his wife reminded him.

WHACK! 

WHACK!

“And that extra one was for swearing,” she said.  “Now Count!”

Even with the extra cushioning of his padded underwear, Markus winced and squirmed beneath his wife’s gaze.  With the hot stinging on his thighs reminding him just how intense his lady love could be, Markus was regretting that the bedroom lights were still on and that they cast the perfect shadow of Alexandria’s silhouette, paddle in her grip.  He might as well be looking into a mirror.

He closed his eyes and braced himself.  “One…”

WHACK!

“Don’t close your eyes.”

How did she know?!  He opened them in time to watch the shadow puppet on the wall make its next delightfully painful stroke.

WHACK!

“Two!” he yelped.  His head was already starting to buzz as the pain endorphins flooded his brain.  What a rush. 

WHACK!

“Threeeee!”  His vision spun and he squealed.  He was so thankful that he was wearing the diaper at that moment.  It was doing more work than just keeping the bed dry.

He felt her weight on the bed as she sidled up to him, reaching her arm over and grabbing his hips and hugging him to her for added control and leverage.  “Smaller,” Ria whispered to the paddle.

Another flash of light and the big slobber knocker had shrunken itself down to a more manageable one handed model.  

Uh oh.

WHACK WHACK WHACK!  Left, right, left!  Alexandria bypassed the padding completely and went straight for the backs of her husband’s thighs.  He started sweating bullets, just imagining how he’d likely wince sitting down, tomorrow, but was thankful that any resulting bruises would easily be covered up by pants.

“Three-four-five-six!” he screamed out rapid fire.

WHACK! Right on the right thigh and it was somehow harder than the previous five strokes.

“No,” she said, “THAT was six.  Do we need to start over? Did baby forget how to count?  Does he need a new lesson?”

He gulped.  Yes?  No?  He didn’t know if he could last another six strokes like that.  More to the point, if she started over once, she’d start over again.  It was intoxicatingly maddening.  Being taunted and talked down to, pulling his psyche into a stinging morass of sub and little space.  She really had his number.  
Perhaps that’s what love was.

“No. No start over,” he said. “Please no start over.”  He was breathing so hard that it was getting difficult to form a coherent sentence.  

WHACK!  That one thankfully, came down squarely on his bottom.  The diaper absorbed most of the impact but he still felt it.  “Tofu?” she asked.

“Tofu.”

“Okay,” he could hear the smile in her voice.  “I’ve got another idea.”  He felt her fingers worm their way into the back of his diaper’s waistband.

Oh no, and yet, oh yes!  He hadn’t considered the full ramifications of the spell! “Let me give your thighs a break.”  She was the only one who could take off his diaper, but nothing about the built in enchantments said that it had to be with her undoing the tapes!  His pulse quickened as she grabbed the back of his diaper and hiked it down to just above his knees.

Instinctively he tried to squirm and get up, but it was a simple thing for her to throw her weight down on his back and use the leverage against him.  “What are you doing?” he asked, excited and slightly afraid at what the answer might be..  

“You’ll feel it,” she teased. “Trust me.” Then he heard her command, “Open!”

“Open?” he echoed, confused.

But she wasn’t talking to him.  The top dresser drawer rattled, and through the shadows on the wall, he could make out her placing the paddle down so that two cylindrical shaped objects could shoot out and land squarely in the palm of her hand.

An airy popping sound registered in Markus’s ears, pressure release and air wishing out of the container like soda gushing out of a half full two liter.  Then he heard his wife repeat herself. “Open,” she said.  Curiously, nothing rattled or reacted.  Then he felt her finger plunge inside of him. 

This time, Alexandria actually was talking to him!

Markus’s eyes bulged in surprise and she went deeper and deeper into his anus. What was happening? Surely her fingers couldn’t be that long, could it? It had to be his imagination multiplying the sensation by the surprise!  He let out a brief exhale when she pulled her finger out, but the relief was short lived as a self-lubricating plug took the place of her digits.  “That should keep it in long enough,” Alexandria tutted.

That hit home!  The first cylindrical object had been a pill bottle, no doubt.  “You put something inside me?”

FWAP! 

A bare handed smack on his exposed rear was the response Markus got, both stimulating his pain receptors, flooding his brain with more endorphins and pumping the plug into him ever so slightly.

“SEVEN!” he yelled, clenching his teeth and refusing to blink even while her hand gently caressed his bottom.  

“Very good.  You didn’t lose count,” she cooed.

FWAP! FWAP!  

“Eight-nine!”

Instead of spanking  further, she started to gently massage his buttocks, kneading at the muscles much in the way a cat gets comfortable on a fluffy pillow.  The contrast and relief made him growl out in lust.  

He could feel something dissolving inside of him. Something powerful. And potent. And completely, mindnumblingly arousing.

FWAP!

“Ten!”  

Markus’s already erect penis felt like it was vibrating; pulsating like the top layer of Vesuvius minutes before destroying Pompei.

FWAP! FWAP! FWAP!

“Ten! Ten! Ten!”  He’d lost count and was too focused trying to maintain some scrap of control.  “Ten! Ten! Ten! Ten!”  Impotently he kicked the air as she smacked and slapped his buttocks, each impact seeming to push the, potent concoction even deeper inside him while he quietly foamed at the mouth.

“TEEEEEEEN!”

FWAP!

He was going to do it.  He was going to cum.  He was going to lose all control all over the nice satin bed sheets!  “Tofu!” He yelled. “Tofu!  Pull my diaper up.  Please!”

Alexandria needed no second plea.  “Okay, hon,” she whispered.  “Okay. Hold on.”  Quickly yet gently, she took her weight off him.  The potent aphrodisiac had had enough time to melt away and do its work, so she spared a millisecond to remove the plug keeping it in just before she yanked the now cooled but still soaked padding back up over her husband’s hips, providing a safety barrier between his manhood and the mattress.

He dived back down face first like a champion prizefighter that had been paid off by the mob.  “Now!” He told her.  “Now!”

Again, she did not need a second request.  Her bare hand thudded with sturdy plastic backing.

THUNK!

And that last concussive force was enough to send him hurtling over the edge into full orgasmic pleasure.  Everything shook as the dam broke and he helplessly came into the front of his diaper, his penis tickling and tingling with ecstacy.  If his body hadn’t been so wracked with exhaustive pleasure, he might have started humping the mattress like a puppy and thank her for the privilege.

For her part, Alexandria simply took her spot beside him and gently caressed his back while he spasmed all the way to the carpet, practically melting off the mattress and lying on his back while his base bodily functions spiraled delightfully out of control.  The intensity was such that if they hadn’t done this so many times before, one might assume that it was their first.

“Thank you,” he gasped, panting as the last of his seed leaked out into the sopping wet padding, his cock pulsing and throbbing in time with his pulse.  “Thank you.  Oh gods. Thank you!”

“Welcome,” she chirped smugly.  “Very welcome.  Now what abooooou-?”  The thought lay unfinished as the moment Markus caught his breath, he pounced on her.  Holding her down, pinning her by the wrists, he scrambled on top of her, putting just enough of his weight over her so that no matter how hard she struggled or kicked and squirmed around, she couldn’t get free.

“No…hrrnnn…fair!” Alexandria grunted, trying to escape his grasp, failing, and loving every moment of it.  Now it was her turn to be teased and restrained.  Now it was her turn to be selfish.  Her turn, as some call it, to ‘brat’. “No…fair, Mark!”

Markus slowed his breathing, taking back control and thoroughly enjoying it, but not as much as the wild and anticipatory look on his wife’s face. “How is it not fair, Ria?” he asked tauntingly.  “Because you’re not winning anymore?”  Neither had known they were playing some kind of game with winners or losers until the idea had sprung forth from his mouth. 

 Funny that. 
 But now that it had happened, it sounded like good fun and both started slipping into their roles.

“Seems like you already won,” Ria taunted from underneath him.  “You already finished.”

A playful fire lit up between her husband’s eyes.  “Not with you, I’m not.’

“What are you gonna do?” she whispered seductively.  “Go for twosies?  Try to grind through both of our diapers and lap me?  Or are you gonna take mine off and cheat?” She waited for the idea to sink in and take root.  “If you beg me nice, Mark, I’ll take yours off and I’ll let you play with yourself while I watch.”  

It was a challenge. A tempting one at that.  But he wanted to play a different game. He straddled Alexandria and forced her wrists together.  He leaned back, putting more of his weight on her abdomen, enjoying the now muted crinkle and the wet squish beneath him.  Using one hand, he leaned forward and kept both of her wrists out of the way.  Then like the mighty god Thor, he held his free hand out and spoke. 

“Come.”

Just as it had with her, the charm inside the implement responded to his voice command and leapt up from the carpet, depositing itself safely into his palm.

“I thought you already did,” Ria joked. 

 He gave her nothing but the terrible, lustful hunger, the hunger to see her squirm and writhe; begging him for something he would not give.  Arcadian wine had that effect on him.  She wasn’t much for spankings, but she did love the sound they made and the sting of the paddle on her thighs could be most pleasant when done right.  “Whatcha gonna do?” Alexandria asked, “Flip me over and give me a taste of my own medicine?” It was half a question and half a hint.

Her husband answered, but did not take the hint.  He had better plans.  Squeezing the handle and with intent, he spoke not to her but to the item in his hand.  “Wand,” he said.  “Vibrating.” 

The same white hot aura erupted from the paddle and when the corona had faded, the diapered man now wielded a rapidly shaking rod where the still yet flat paddle had been.  Alexandria’s eyes widened in delight and horror.  “You wouldn’t dare!”

“Wouldn’t I?” 

Before she could retort, he swung his leg back off of her abdomen while still keeping her wrists pinned, staying to her side and profile.  And like Captain Ahab stabbing from the depths of Hell, he thrust the vibrating wand straight on between her legs, its shaking resonating all the way through the layers and layers of soaked pulp and padding, causing her to start breathing in quiet little gasps.  

She’d stopped kicking.  She’d stopped struggling all together, for in truth, she wanted this.  The pinned wrists were all for show.  She reveled in the intensity of the wand pleasuring her without her direct say so.  And ever so tauntingly, she gasped and let out little mewling growls while he moved the wand back and forth over her padded crotch, staying in just the right spot long enough to please her before purposefully moving it somewhere else.

He smiled while she planted her bare feet and gently started bucking and grinding into the wand, her pelvis thrusting and moving into it and with it; a puppy dog hungry for her treat.

“Ooooooooh,” Alexandria moaned. “Ooooooooooooh.  Marrrrrrrk. Mark. Mark!”

He did not join her, though he knew she would have loved him to; to hear his voice mix and mingle with hers; losing all control and composure.  It wasn’t time for that. Not yet.  Instead, he prepared the most gruesome of incantations he’d learned.  “Esto sicut virgo ante noctem nuptiarum.”

The vibrating of his wand continued, unabated.  Ria’s moaning did not.  Her eyes, which had drooped pleasantly closed, shot open.  “What did you?” she asked. The only thing that was wet between her legs suddenly was her diaper.

“You talked about lapping, my love, but I need more time to recover.” An almost playfully cruel smile sprouted.  “So I just started you over.”

‘Nooooooo!” she screamed, kicking and struggling once more. Her wrists broke free of his grip and she bounded the mattress by her side in frustration.  He pressed the wand back into her sex, just enough to tease her so that she gripped the bedsheets in frustration and ecstacy.

Then he pulled the wand away.  Just pulled it.  Left it buzzing and dangled the handle by his thumb and forefinger high up above her.  

“No-o-o-o-o-oooooo!” Ria whined and pawed at it like a kitten.  The whining lasted only a few seconds as horniness and impatience got the better of her. Her arms plummeted downward towards the waistband of her diaper, with fingers desperately peeling away the tapes.

The runes on the landing zone held firm and so did the tapes. The spell was intact. She did not put the diaper on, so she could not take it off. Still, Markus thought, it was cute watching her try, watching her struggle. Watching her fail to so much as get her fingers down past the waistband.  She knew better, of course, but part of their play was desperation and helplessness, and he was only too happy to help her along. 

Wand hidden behind his back, out of reach, Markus took his free hand and started teasing her nipples; gently caressing them one at a time, and then adding in little pinches until they became hard and erect.  Lovingly, Markus leaned over and used his mouth to suckle at one teat while he used his free hand to tease and pinch the other even harder.

Meanwhile, Ria’s hands feverishly pawed at the front of her diaper, rubbing and grinding while her hips boosted up again and again and again into her own palms, huffing for release that wasn’t quick to come. Markus waited until her moaning renewed and approached apex and then stopped sucking.

“ESTO SICUT VIRGO-!”

“No!” she yelped. “No. Not again! Not again!  Tofu!” She kept rubbing herself, trying to finish before he could complete the spell a second time.

“Beg me,” he hissed.  “Beg me to let you finish.”

“Pleeeeeease let me finish,” Alexandria pleaded. “Please!”

Markus waited until her hands stopped.  “No,” he growled and watched her face drop.  “I’ll do it myself.”  He plunged the wand back where it belonged, sending her into shrieks of delight.  

She gave up trying to resist and started screaming as she repurposed her hands into teasing her nipples until she was bucking now. “OH! OH! OOOOOOOOOOOH!” And then a pleased sigh as the last of the air leaked out of her lungs.

 He watched with utter love and satisfaction as she went limp.  “Off,” he whispered to the toy, making it still.  He tossed it to the side, not taking his eyes off her, but was still wonderfully caught off guard when she leapt up and wrapped her arms around him, peppering him with kisses and dragging him down to the mattress with all his weight.

“Thank you,” she panted. “Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you…”

In the moment, there was nothing left to do but to pepper back with a thousand more sweet kisses until they were both still and warming each other with nothing but their bodies.

Time stretched out in the silence of their bedroom; their heartbeats in sync, making beautiful music together. Okay. Time to clean up.

Gently, he pried her arms off of him, disentangling himself and nudging her head off of his chest.  Like getting a particularly comfortable cat out of one’s lap, it was more difficult than it might seem from the outside, with her moaning and whining for his flesh on hers in their post coital daze.  Arcadian wine tended to have that effect on her.   

“Come on,” he coaxed. “Come on. Let’s get cleaned up.”  Several rapid kisses and cupping her left breast in his hand got her to open up like a flower for him.  Standing up from the bed, he arched his back and groaned, feeling the full sagging weight of the diaper between his legs now that a good chunk of the abused pulp had broken off and settled at the bottom.  

Standing at her bedside, he looked to the left towards their shared chest of drawers to the right towards her nightstand.  “Diapers or panties?” he asked, his voice registering just above a whisper.

Eyes still closed, she inhaled through her nose and exhaled in a light purring hum. “Diapers, please.”

She couldn’t see it, but he was smiling.  Good. He’d wanted to properly change her.  Even if they didn’t go any further than they already had, even if they just cuddled in bed the rest of the night as they drifted off, there was something that made it feel so much more intimate when they were both padded up.  

He opened up her nightstand drawer and got out another diaper for his beloved.  “Scooch over to the side?” he asked as he fluffed the new garment out. 

Her eyes remained closed.  “Mm-mm,” she said. “No.” It was a cute, playful squeak. She was far too comfortable laying spread eagle in the middle of the mattress.

He shook his head and smiled. “Fine. Have it your way, love.”  He climbed back into bed and knelt between her thighs so he could start changing her.  The runes on the landing zone glowed bright white at his touch, sensing it was him.  He skillfully peeled back the tapes so that barely a sound was made and opened the sodden padding.

She shuddered as the fresh hair swooped in on her genitals like an aftershock.  But she kept her eyes closed still, luxuriating in the cool clean feeling of his touch as he gently wiped her down.  

“Knees up,” he instructed, and reluctantly, she obeyed, retracting and pulling her knees all the way to her belly button so that she didn’t accidentally clock him upside the head with the heel of her foot.  She shuddered again as he gently swept his hands over her buttocks and hole. A little boost below let him leverage her hips up enough to slip the used diaper out and slide it off to the side and slide the fresh one beneath her.

“No powder please,” she said, still in a post orgasmic haze. 

He took a moment to ball up her used diaper and place it in a nearby lidded garbage can.  “I know,” he smiled.  “We’re out of unscented…”

She finished the thought. “And I hate the smell.”

“Guess I’ll have to find another way to dry you out,” he teased, taking his position back between her legs.  In truth, she was probably already dry enough to be sealed in. The residue from baby wipes tended to air dry quickly enough.  Still, he took the time to gently blow upon her mound and on her lower lips, tickling her with the very air from his lungs.

“Ooooh,” she moaned.  “If you’re trying to dry me out,” she said breathily, “You’re doing a bad job.”

He simply said, “I know.” And finished rediapering her, pulling the garment snugly up between her thighs and locking her in tape by tape by tape by tape. A slight glow and a humming tone that only she could hear, and once again, she was his prisoner, and he hers.

Freshly changed and feeling renewed now that her nethers had been so lovingly cleaned and dried, she gazed softly up at him from the bed, bending her knees

“Happy Anniversary, dear,” he gave her an almost  (almost) chaste peck on the lips. 

She opened her eyes, sat up, and grabbed the back of his head. Her tongue probed into his mouth once more, a low moan humming through her while she reached between his legs and groped at the soggy padding he yet wore.  Almost immediately, she felt his manhood stiffen and begin to throb through the padding. 

Kiss unbroken, she rolled him over onto his back, before finally allowing herself to come back up for air.  “Happy Anniversary, Mark.”  She returned the delicate kiss.  “I love you.”

“I love you too, Ria”

“Wanna go again?”

Beads of anticipation formed on his forehead. “Yeah,” he panted. “Yeah, I really do.”

She took one of his spare diapers out of his nightstand drawer and started to fluff it.  “Me, too.  Let’s get you changed, hydrate, and then see where things take us. Deal?”

Unblinkingly, he gazed up at her while she undid the tapes, his mind filled only with love.  “Deal.”

In any sufficiently advanced enough relationship, purest love is indistinguishable from the most tainted of lusts. 
 

[Unfair: A Diaper Dimension Novel (Chapter 129 Uploaded!)]

Chapter 92: Little Voices: “The Talk”

I spent most of the day Thursday in a low key funk.  No, it wasn’t terrible, or traumatic. No great victories or defeats.  No extra signs that my students were hurting more than they already were. No shouts or crying leaking in from my old room.

Tracy wore a perfect poker face. The few times she was in eyesight or earshot I found myself trying to listen for a telltale crinkle or see a bit of thin white plastic peeking out of a waistband, but found nothing. The bus loop and the cafeteria were too loud to hear a diaper rustling and Tracy’s newly developed habit of wearing long flowing skirts and dresses hid any signs of puffy padding. 

I was fixated on it because I was sure she had been diapered yesterday. I didn’t want her to be diapered the next. It was a punishment, obviously, but  was this an official punishment like when Raine had been tricked into crossing a line or a pretense to get rid of Tracy due to Maturosis? Had this Wednesday been a one time thing? A warning to remind her of her place? Or was it part of a larger attempt to drive her out of the school? 

It was so hard to tell. Tweeners had neither the privilege of assumed maturity until proven beyond a reasonable doubt nor the presumed guilt of innocence until proven otherwise. To one side of the road, Amazons were safe because the flow of society went with them. To the other side, Littles could learn to be safe; traffic went against us but we learned to watch for oncoming cars and were encouraged to dive into a ditch as necessary.  Tweeners had to walk in the middle and as such could be squished like grapes if they didn’t learn to look behind and infront of them at all times.

Statistically, there was no way Tracy was getting Adopted. I’d never met the man, but she was married to an Amazon. If someone said she had Maturosis, she’d go into his custody and they could get a second opinion disproving the diagnosis, or just move far away enough.  She wouldn’t spend more than an afternoon sleeping in a crib depending on how long it took Mr…Tracy’s husband…to drive down to the school or wherever she was being kept.

Unless her husband got his own baby crazy activated and decided that he liked her better this way or that she needed his care.

Or he went mad with grief and burned down their house.

Or he just didn’t want her because he had better things to do.

Or there was some obscure Amazon law on the books that made him ineligible to adopt because he was clearly blind to not notice his own wife’s ‘immature tendencies’.

Or they hit her super hard with hypnosis or continence drugs or those messed up soundwaves that messed up coordination and focus while also stimulating pleasure before he rescued her.
Or if her husband didn’t really exist.  Maybe that wedding ring and the brief mentions of him and their weekend plans were tiny bits of protective lies she’d woven over the years to keep giants uninterested. I didn’t even know the man’s first name.

Come to think of it, I’d never properly memorized Tracy’s last name.  I’d asked, but it was hard to pronounce;  something long and Spanic sounding. Mayztepic, maybe?  When my mouth fumbled with the pronunciation, Tracy didn’t laugh. She’d just nodded and said, “Took me a while too, and I married into it. Just call me ‘Tracy’. ‘Miss Tracy’ around the kids.”

Even if everything went right for Tracy in regards to Maturosis; even if she noped out due to harassment, quit, and rode off into the sunset, that would leave no one around to mitigate the harm Ambrose was actively doing to our kids. They’d be even more alone than they were. 

I’d be more alone… 

The more time that passed between my old life and Adoption, the more I was learning how very little I really knew outside of my immediate struggle for survival and recognition. I didn’t actually know what risks versus protections Tracy had to balance and how likely any given outcome was to pass.

I actually told Janet about it that same Wednesday night, and to her credit she promised she’d look into it for me.  Ask Beouf if there were any Union complaints or safeguards or try to find out from Tracy in a way that wouldn’t embarrass her.

That opportunity didn’t come Thursday. Beouf had called in sick, citing her new granddaughter, and Tracy was impossible to pull aside during school hours and before and after school she made herself scarcer than usual.

The substitute in Beouf’s room was an old Amazon woman who could have been anywhere between seventy and ninety by looking at her, and not important enough to remember. She was just a warm body and Zoge ran the room in Beouf’s absence. 

We were all angels that day, too.  No mischief attempted by anyone. I was so preoccupied worrying about Tracy that Billy asked if I was feeling alright.  When Billy asks if you’re okay, something’s wrong. 

 Chaz asked if we should stir the pot by doing another Why Day since it had been a while, but I spun some lie about how Beouf would likely punish us harsher for acting up in her absence- teachers hated and were deeply embarrassed by bad notes left by substitutes. I also spun it that if we were good for Zoge and the warm body, but terrible when Beouf returned, it would agitate her more and make her wonder what she was doing wrong. 

It’s funny how one can tell a lie, hear it, and then realize that it’s actually quite true. So we were good.  All day.  Besides, the old woman was cantankerous enough to very clearly state that she did not change diapers. Take the win where you can find it.

The school day behind me, Janet drove me home and gave me dinner consisting of steamed broccoli and carrots,  as well as cut up peanut butter and natural strawberry jam sandwiches on whole wheat bread. All foods meant to relieve and prevent constipation.  Then she dressed me in a blue and white pinstripe long sleeve romper with the words ‘Little Slugger’ on the front and ‘01’ on the back, as well grippy socks that mimicked baseball cleats. Baby clothes that could double as jammies. This was going to be a long night.  A small bit of comfort was that she didn’t put me in a night time diaper, so I wasn’t completely locked in for the night as it were.

Dinner was early and dressing was fast because Janet was in a rush to get to the Community Center for the Little Voices meeting.  “Why are we going so early?” I asked from the carseat.

“I’m tired of getting there just a few minutes before it starts. I need to spend more time with other Mommies and Daddies. Make friends.  I don’t get playground time at school everyday like you do.  Everybody needs friends.”

That shut me up. I could have retorted or otherwise tried to dissuade her, but it would have served no purpose.  That and she was right.  Everybody did need friends to one degree or another.

Talking to the Amazons at Little Voices would only dunk Janet deeper into the crazy pool and give her more ideas, but talking to Littles more mindfucked than me and getting a feel for each different prison environment and how I could use it to my advantage was crucial on multiple levels. Talking to softer Mommies and Daddies might soften her up, too. Strategically, I needed Janet to keep going to the meetings.  I just hoped that my personal resources and preparations would outpace hers when the time came.

We were among the first there, with only one or two other Little-Amazon pairings. I refused to think of them as ‘families’ even ironically. There was one chubby Little girl who wore a dark blue dress that was almost black with white tights and a red headband over dark brown hair. I had a hunch that someone had just had their own Picture Day at their daycare.  
She sat on the floor, absorbed in play with stacking cups and figuring out.  Mindfucked or just bored?  Who could say without a conversation I didn’t want to have?  

The other girl had short blonde hair and lounged in her Mommy’s lap wearing just a Cherry the cartoon dog t-shirt and socks that went well past her knees in lieu of pants. She chewed on her pacifier rather like a cow on a piece of cud, with bits of red juice dribbling out of the corner of her lips.  She took the pacifier out of her mouth and examined it. It wasn’t a pacifier in the purest sense, but instead had a plastic mesh netting loaded to the brim with sweet looking red berries. Clever.

Janet took a seat next to them in the circle of chairs and unholstered her diaper bag.  She never forgot that damn bag when we went to these meetings.  More social pressure and expectations, I suspected.  Bring your status symbols and cult’s iconography where they mattered most.  

“Do you want to play on the floor?” Janet whispered quietly to me. She was still cautious. Still holding back.  I hadn’t gone out of my way to hurt her this week, but I’d still hurt her and she was smart enough to keep unrealistic expectations in check.

I bit my tongue and shook my head. 

“Okay,”  she said. I wanted to smile at the disappointment. I resisted.

The two makeshift mothers prattled on over us. “So I’ve heard there’s this new subscription box that I’ve been wanting to try.” The Amazon with the Little blonde girl in her lap chattered to her seat neighbor. The age difference between the giant and her bogus baby was negligible.  They could have been work buddies or dating if not for the size difference. I wouldn’t have been surprised if one was just a year or two older than the other.

 “Oh?” the Mommy of the cup stacker said. “I love my subscription to Hiya Crisp.”  Like her manufactured daughter, the Amazon had dark hair, but also had few hints of wrinkles around the eyes and a few parts that just weren’t as perky anymore.  Were I to guess, I would have estimated that they were technically old enough to be mother and child, though the girl on the floor should still be moved out of the house.  Kind of like me and Beouf or more appropriately Zoge and Ivy.

Both wore mom jeans and light sweaters. The Helena Madra look.

“Oh me too,” said the brunette with her Little in her lap.  “It’s so easy for meals for me, Delilah, and Juni.” She gave the Little in her lap a light bob. I guessed that was Juni.  “Anyway, this new one is apparently some sort of toy subscription box. They’ve got a section aimed entirely at Maturosis, you can choose how often you receive new boxes, and they even vary depending on what developmental stage your Little one is at.” 

“Brittany loves toys! Don’t you Brittany?”

The plump Little girl on the floor did not look up from her cups. “Mmm-hmmm.”

“She gets so engrossed, sometimes. New toys would be great, yeah. Save us a shopping trip.” She smirked. “And a tantrum.”  The joke didn’t land. “Anyway, you were saying?”

“The service looks really good.  I did some checking around on different Mommy blogs. They’ve even been endorsed by Dr. Wolf.” Eyebrows were raised. “The Dr. Wolf! The one spreading awareness over there in Albienne.” She hugged the Little in her lap the way I hugged Lion and I worried for the smaller woman.  She didn’t seem bothered, at least.

“Oh wow, that sounds amazing,” the older of the Mommies agreed.   
“Yeah,” her younger compatriot nodded. “I’ll send you the link, I think we’re gonna try it next month for Juni. She’s so picky with toys, and this’ll help keep her mind interested.”

“Mhmmm.  Always important.  Kiddos need stimulation to keep them healthy.”

A few of the regulars I recognized walked hand in hand or were carried in with their fake parents. Mary, the Little with the pink hair came in with both jailors. Neither one had as wild hair as her or her younger-big-sister.  The Middle-Aged Daddy couple, Donald and Carl came in with not only their Little girl but their Tweener daughter, too; Kylie and Joanie respectively (or was it Joanie and Kylie?).  The Tweener was a good ten years older than me if she was a day and looked annoyed and put out to be there. Her black leggings with tie-dye polka dots did a less than serviceable job hiding the slight bulge from her disposable training pants and her hiking down her t-shirt was pointless at preserving modesty. Like a good prisoner she sat down in the chair next to her Papa and her Adopted sister stole her Daddy’s lap.
 
Pockets of conversation and small talk were forming around the circle, slowly gaining momentum as more and more groups trickled in. Amazons conversed and their Littles quietly busied themselves This could have been another reason why Amazons Adopted people smaller than them. Small children get only the hobbies their parents select for them. Parents with similar hobbies get to meet and make friends with each other and force their children to be friends by proximity.  An Amazon with a Little to coddle and cosset would never be short of playgroups and new friends.  We were their socialization tool.

Janet started gently bobbing her knee like she did when she had nothing else to do. The not quite subtle reminder broke me out of my own reverie. I looked up at her from her lap.  “S-s-s-t-o-o-o-p.” I quietly snapped. 

“Sorry.” Janet whispered. “Sorry.”

I ducked my head down. “Gods, I hate you.”  The words came out as just a breath.

“Hm?” Janet asked.

“I hhh–” My breath caught in my throat. Damny monitor. “Nothing.”

Janet wrapped an arm around me and leaned “Would Lion make you feel better?”

He might. “No.”

“Thirsty? Want some milk?”

“No.”

“Giving you some milk would help me. It’d give me a reason to keep my legs still.”
Phrasing a request as a favor. A nice touch. “Still no.”

“Just so we’re clear: Would you like Lion or milk or neither?” I grumbled to myself. “Both.” Both wasn’t an option.

“Both?” Janet put Lion in my arms and sat back up straight.  “Okay,” she sighed heavily as if I’d outsmarted her. “Okay Clark. You win. Both it is.”

She turned me on my seat and laid me back against her arm so that she was cradling me and placed the bottle between my lips. I’d just been played and I knew it.  I crushed Lion’s soft cotton reinforced sternum for what was likely the one-thousand three hundred ninety-seventh time since he’d come into my life.  Thank goodness no one school was there to see me.  Billy would never let me live this slip down.

Slowly, very slowly, I pulled on the nipple with my lips, and sucked down the milk. No chugging this time. Chugging would lead to burping and cooing and stupid gooey praises, and talks about what kind of formula or milk was best. Right now I just needed something to do to dissociate and people watch without anyone talking to me.  Being Janet’s prop for a few minutes seemed like a good choice.

“You know,” Janet spoke up so that the first two giantesses could hear her. “My Clark loves his Lion, but so far not many other toys have really clicked with his developmental plateau.”

I bit the nipple hard and got milk squirted in my mouth for the trouble. My Clark. My Clark!  No. Don’t worry about it. Poor Lion got his neck wrung. I just kept sucking, focusing on the fatty milk and how it contrasted with the sterile rubber teat.  I practiced breathing and swallowing in a slow and steady rhythm so that I wouldn’t have to stop one to do the other.  It was almost like meditation.  

Damn I missed yoga. My tummy had come back in full force. I kept sucking.

“Oh sure, Janet,” the woman who’d started the sales pitch said. “Janet! I’ll be happy to share the link with you too.”

“Thanks.”

“What does he like to do with his lion?” The girl in tights’s Mommy asked. “Is he a cuddler? Or does his lion make funny noises when he squeezes it?”  My right eye twitched. Dumb giant wasn’t saying Lion’s name right. I could hear the lowercase ‘l’ when she said it. I just could. “What does he use his lion for?”

Janet lowered her head. “Do you wanna talk?” she asked.  

I did not. I considered saying something awful or nasty- a zinger about me not so dry humping Lion puffed into the forefront of my brain- but my self-induced meditation was having a calming effect.  Breathe deep. Focus on the task at hand. Get through this moment, Clark. Let it pass onto the next and the next until the one you want arrives.

 “He’s busy,” Janet reported after a decidedly awkward silence.  I could feel her entire body heat up in embarrassment and I let myself untense, melting into her social awkwardness like a snake coiling up on top of a nice warm rock.

The two giants chuckled politely. “How bout you tell us?”

I kept sucking on the nipple. This will pass. This will pass.

“Well,” Janet breathed. “I think he likes to play pretend. I sometimes see him whisper to himself and setting up different toys around his room just so.  Last weekend I think he was setting up his classroom’s Circle Time.”

That earned her (us?) a chorus “Awwwwww!” from the two giants, plus a third who was listening in. “That’s adorable!”

“It…made me happy.” Janet’s body heat turned up a notch. “Kind of.”

I just kept suckling.

The girl who’d been messing with the stacking cups raised her head.  “He’s pretty good at pretending. He was good at playing the heavy feather light feather game and he taught us all about Death Tag.” 

Battle tag, you loon! Battle tag!  I suckled and kept breathing and I swear I felt Janet cool down slightly, just laying there in her lap. The other giants exchanged worried looks.

“It’s like freeze tag but we scream and play dead like in the cartoons,” the girl on the floor said. “It’s fun.”

The Mommies, Janet included, untensed. “Clark is very clever and creative,” Janet said. “He’s really good with kids and impresses me with how he can approach things from a different angle.” 

Damn. Just. Just Damn. No past tense statements like ‘always has been’ or qualifiers like ‘other kids’. For a second there I let myself pretend that she was talking about me-the real me- and not some imaginary baby she’d dolled up.

“Okay,” the Mommy who could have been dating the Little in her lap brightened. “So he’s going to want stuff from the Imagination Vacation line. Stuff that’s a little more freeform that he can decide how he plays with it.”
“Yes!  Exactly!” Janet was so excited she accidentally bobbed me and some milk gurgled down my throat. My lips released the nipple and I started coughing.  Poor Lion was caught in a sleeper hold.  “Oops! Sorry!”  She adjusted me so that I was sitting back upright instead of reclining in a  cradle. 

 I could tell she was doing her best to restrain herself from calling me any stupid pet names like ‘honey’ or ‘baby’.  This was the best of a bad situation at the moment.  I caught my breath and leaned back to take the nipple into my mouth again.

Janet’s body immediately heated up again. “But yes,” she said to the Mommies. “Something like that sounds great.  I think he gets bored easily, so being able to explore at his own pace and have some more control would be really good for him.” 

“I’ll hook you up with the link.”

Great. Janet made a new Mommy friend.  I rolled my eyes and kept sipping and watching the door to the meeting space. More and more semi-familiar faces trickled into the room and started chatting with each other.  The Amazon and Tweener couple with their Adopted Little walked in. The Tweener wife didn’t seem at all disturbed that someone her size was in a Pull-Up and had reverted to playing dumb peekaboo games with her Little ‘sister’ so that she could feel big. The balding man who led the group and his shy Little took their usual spot near the top of the circle.

“Hi Clark!”

For once, Amy Madra didn’t get the jump on me. She screamed it out right when her Mommy carried her through the door. She was also in a long-sleeved romper; a lavender one with a hoodie. I suspected that if she pulled it up over her head she’d look like a teddy bear.  

The pair took a seat on the other side of Janet and Amy wasted no time catching me up. “Hiya Clark how are you I’m good you weren’t here last week you missed the animal parade it was so much fun I got to be the elephant I used a kazoo as the trumpetey noise elephants do I tried to stick it up my nose for biologitical authenticity but it wouldn’t stay and so I had to use my mouth like a fake elephant the kazoo was pretty dusty it hadn’t been used in like forever which was pretty bad but it did also kinda taste like peanut butter which was really interesting so it wasn’t all bad and then in the hallway you wouldn’t believe who was out there- ”

“Amy, baby,” Helena Madra interrupted. “Your friend Clark is drinking his ba-ba right now. Let him enjoy it.”

“Mommy!” Amy scoffed. “Rude!”

“Yes,” Amy’s Mommy redirected, “it is rude to talk to your friend while they're busy eating.”

“No,” Amy said, “I mean that Clark doesn’t like it when people…” Amy stopped. It looked like she caught herself. Then she covered her mouth and burpsed.  “I would like some milk, too, please.”

The pair were right next to Janet but were effectively behind me due to how I was positioned on her lap. I could still make out movements and tones. I heard a velcro flap open, and inferred it was Helena digging out a similar bottle to Janet’s. “Here you go.”

I let go of the bottle and leaned my head all the way back so that I could at least have an upside down view of the exchange.

“No,” Amy whined. “Not from there,” she pointed to the massive bottle in Helena’s hand. “I want it from there.” She reached up and grabbed the Amazon’s breast.  I could feel Janet’s entire body temperature go up at least two degrees. I did not like the ideas that must have been going through her baby crazy head.

“Amy,” Helena clucked, “this milk is the same.”

“Nuh-uh,” Amy replied. “It’s different. It’s a texture and temperature thing.”

“It’s not that different,” Helena said. “You still get Mommy’s milk.”

Amy huffed and puffed. “Have you ever breastfed, Mommy?”

“Yes,” Helena said calmly. 

“How recently? Hm? Did you take notes and surveys? Double-blind random sample?” 

“When I was very small. Like you.”

“So what you’re saying is that you have no recent experience in this field, Mommy.”

Helena tried to pivot. “I didn’t bring a blanket or anything to cover you up while you nurse,” Helena said.

“I’m okay with that.”

“I’m not. I have to consider everyone else’s comfort”

“Mommy!” Amy gasped overdramatically. “Are you ashamed of me?!” 

“Baby girl. Drink.”

“Yes, Mommy.”  She sounded oddly happy, settling for the teat over the tit.  Without further ado, she leaned back in Helena’s arms like I was with Janet, took the bottle and began to nurse from the bottle.

Witnessing the exchange, I felt this weird tonal disconnect. So many of the words sounded like an argument Janet and I might have. Me trying to manipulate her and push her buttons to frustrate her, and her calmly trying to dismantle my argument before giving up trying to argue in anything resembling good faith and just asserting her authority.  So familiar from the outside, yet strange and alien at the same time.  The Mommy-Baby duo’s tone was relaxed throughout; playful even. Not an inch of frustration on either side of the exchange.  Same lyrics but different notes; like a cover song that takes on a completely different meaning just by altering the arrangement and instrumentation. 

I tried not to think about it; or how there had been a time that Amy had been the terror of Oakshire Elementary’s Maturosis and Developmental Plateau Unit. She’d been enough of an obstacle that Beouf had flashbacks and even the therapists remembered her years later. I kept drinking from my bottle and focusing my attention elsewhere. 

Week by week the faces were getting more and more familiar. I honed in on the odd Amazon Tweener couple and focused on the wife. Unlike her peers who tended to put on airs of young, hip, with- it types, this woman dressed closer to the stay at home moms of a bygone era; one that maybe only existed on television. She wore a pearl necklace and earrings with her light brown hair up in a bouffant hairdo, but wore very little makeup otherwise.  She had a floral print dress on that didn’t compliment her shape at all, making her look slightly dumpy, with stockings and heels on her feet. 

Mature and motherly, it was close to what Ambrose tried but failed to imitate, but not what most would consider flirtatious or sexy.  Excellent camouflage for a Tweener; enough to broadcast herself as an adult, but nothing that would make an Amazon Mommy jealous and want to Adopt her out of spite. 

“We’ve had to have Caleb sleeping in our bed for the past three nights,” the Tweener woman who’d maintained her adulthood said to the dark skinned woman who’d wrangled a pair of ‘twins’.  
“That’s nice,” the dark skinned woman said. “Sometimes on the weekends we do one big family cuddle puddle. I get up. Change them but keep them in their jammies, and we all go back to my bed and nap before breakfast.”

“Oh no,” the Tweener woman shook her head. Her pearl earrings jangled and her bouffant styled hair bobbed. “You don’t understand, Charlie. We took Caleb over to the Malkoviches for a playdate. Caleb gets to play with Riannon, Howard and I get some time to ourselves.” She thumbed back to her massive husband and I had a disturbing visualization involving the mechanics of marriage bed when one person is so petite as to be dwarfed by middle schoolers.

The Amazon nodded. “Sure, sure.”

“And it went well enough at first,” the Tweener continued. “But when John went off to cook dinner Alex also went to go work in their sustainable garden. And neither told each other… I think you see where I’m going.”

“Oh dear,” the Amazon looked to her twins protectively.  “Is he okay?”

“John thought Alex was watching the babies. Alex thought John was watching the kiddos. And since it’s Spooky Month on G.U.T.V, John decided to watch a scary movie on his phone.”  The other Mommy sucked in her teeth, already connected the dots.  “However he didn’t realize he pressed the wrong button so that it was automatically being simulcast to the TV in the living room.”

“Didn’t he hear the screams?” 

“Headphones,” the Tweener answered. “So the entirety of dinner preparation time, we’re not sure how long, but probably an hour and a half, they watched an entire scary movie instead of Cherry the dog. They’ve already apologized so much, and I feel even worse for their Little one. I hear they’re taking Riannon to see someone because she won’t go near the bathtub anymore without crying.”

“Bathtub?” 

“Ghosthaunters Two.  The scene with the Mommy getting her Little ready for a bath and…”

“Ooooooh.”

Caleb sat quivering in his Daddy’s lap, fighting sleep and startling himself awake while the big man tried to tenderly nudge him.

“We wanted to stay home,” the Tweener Mommy said. “But Caleb begged us to come. He says it’s safe here.”

“What happens when you try to put him in his crib?”

“If he’s awake he starts screaming about a ‘Ghost Nanny’ coming to get him. And he starts bawling and saying things like ‘Not again’ and ‘I can’t go through it again’.”

“Poor dear.  He must be thinking of that scene in the movie.”

The Tweener nodded. “Little kids have such a hard time separating fact from fiction.”

Idiots or delusional maniacs. I knew that movie.  I’d bet good money that Caleb got snatched up by some grabby Amazon with a carriage.  It’d be the same as me freaking out inside a glass elevator. Poor guy was having flashbacks.  If only I still had money…
“Okay everybody,” the balding man said. “I think it’s about that time. Let’s begin.”

They sang that stupid  ‘We’re All Together Again’ song. Two dozen voices give or take and not one of them could harmonize with any of the others.  I still had about half of my bottle so Janet didn’t bob me up and down.  She just held it to my lips and sang the opening hymn, getting that rush of belonging.

The leader looked around the circle.  “Alright then,” he chuckled. “Welcome everyone. It looks like we have nothing but familiar faces.  Am I wrong?”  No one corrected him.  “Just in case, does anyone want to re-introduce themselves or their Little kiddos?”  

I resisted the temptation to make an ass out of myself. I just had to get through the first half so that the real work of the second half could begin.  I’d use the bottle and Lion to shield myself from tummy tickles and lap bounces and just be a blob in Janet’s lap for however long it took. Simple as that.

“Okay then,” the leader nodded. “We’re going to break with our usual format today.” I stopped suckling.  A break in the usual format was bad. I needed the usual format. Around the circle, Littles on laps or couched between ankles exchanged worried looks.  “Don’t worry, kids, you’ll still get your playtime.  It’s just the first half of tonight is going to be different.”  I relaxed with the rest of my otherwise mindfucked peers.  

“We’ve got a guest speaker tonight. Depending on when you came in you may have seen her waiting in the hallway.”  It was then I noticed that the door was slightly cracked open. “Some of you might remember her from past meetings, she comes two or three times a year to share with us.” I had the worst possible feeling. I kept suckling and pulling the milk into me.  Maybe I could chug it and throw up.  “Some of you kids might remember her because she used to be your teacher.”  That confirmed it. I didn’t need to know that he was looking at me when he said, “Some of you might have her as your teacher right now.  Please welcome, from Oakshire Elementary, Mrs. Melony Beouf.”

The applause of nearly thirty giant hands and their idiot Littles copying them and cheering for Beouf opening the door and speed walking to the front of the room sounded to my ears like shotgun and machine gun rounds being fired into the air and the bleatings of sheep happy to go to the slaughter.

On any given day, Melony Beouf chose function over form.  If she couldn’t bend over, crawl around, get on the floor with or chase a Little while potentially covered in any number of stains, she didn’t wear it.  The only exceptions to this rule were when she had a scheduled teacher observation or if it was the annual Staff Photo (not to be confused for Picture Day).  

Beouf was dressed in teacher formal attire, with makeup and perfume on. Her white blouse with frills up the front went up the front, complemented the lipstick red blazer and skirt as well as the matching flats. Over her shoulder was a tan colored tote bag that I couldn’t see what was inside it.  Sick grandbaby my ass, Melony was here to put on a show. 

The bottle was still between my lips. I plugged the tiny hole in the nipple with my tongue and glared up at Janet. This was the reason why she got us here so early; she didn’t want me seeing Beouf in the hallway.  Janet didn’t smile down at me like a happy idiot who just sprung a pleasant surprise. Nor did she threaten me with talks of ‘good choices’.  She shifted me up off her lap and brought me close to her shoulder like she was about to burp me.  “I made her promise not to make a scene,” she whispered. “Don’t worry.” Also, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

Back down into her lap I went, and I crushed Lion all the harder while slowly very slowly, I accepted the bottle and started to drink. Much slower this time. The full feeling in my stomach and the practice I’d given myself still left me relatively calm.  I was angry on an intellectual level more than an emotional or physiological one.  Still, I would spit all over her and then cry my eyes out like it was spit up if Beouf gave me half an excuse.

Beouf took center stage, near the beginning head of the circle. “Before I begin,” she said, “let me please introduce myself.  My name is Melony Beouf and I teach The Maturosis and Developmental Plateau Unit at Oakshire Elementary, otherwise known as ‘The Littles Class’.” A slight and polite chuckle followed. 

“Oakshire Elementary’s unit is one of only two publicly funded programs in the entire county, and based on the number of plaques I have at my home from various county, state, and national Maturosis teaching and research organizations, I am very, very good at my job.”  That earned her some appreciative nods and murmurs. I knew what the other school was and why she didn’t say it.

“I have a Master’s in Early Childhood Education,” she went on. “and a Bachelor’s in Child Psychology with a minor in Maturosis and Developmental Plateaus.” That minor was as valid as the cold stickers that got sent home with my schoolwork. “I’ve been doing this for many many years; I’m not gonna say how long because that’ll just make me feel old.” More polite laughter.  “Let’s just say that looking around the room, when I first started teaching, some of your Little one’s were probably still in diapers the first time around.”  

That got a round of genuine laughter. I looked around and scanned the faces of the other Littles.  A few slight blushes, and hiding behind hands, but those same rosey faces all had bashful grins.  Most seemed completely unphased by the reminder that there was a time when they were adults.  We were in the cult of Little Voices and tonight’s sermon was being given by the Right Good Reverend Melony Beouf.

I knew right then that any attempt I might make would be instantly thwarted and turned back on me.  A small classroom with Littles who hadn’t been completely broken in with two familiar Amazons and a decade worth of quirks, shared experiences, and procedures to exploit was doable.  A meeting of close to fifty or sixty people and the Little to Amazon ratio being close to one to one and no one having a problem with this madness but me?  No chance.

“To put it simply, my job is to help Littles who have experienced full-blown Maturosis come to grips and learn to embrace who they are, as well as to educate their Adoptive parents on what the most up to date research tells us about the condition and the people living with it so that we can meet their needs the best way possible.”  

The Tweener Mommy started clapping…and was the only one. She stopped.  Someone was trying too hard.

Beouf wasn’t thrown. “So in a way, if I’ve worked with your kids, I’ve always worked with you.  And I’m not their teacher, but also your colleague.  As Mr. Clemmons,” she gestured to the balding man who ran the meeting, “already said I am a big supporter of Little Voices and I love their message very much. So I do my part every now and then I come to talk to both Littles and their Mommies and Daddies.  And to be clear, some of the things I’m going to tell you are things that for various different reasons, the school board would rather me not talk about in a classroom setting.  So I am a teacher, but I am here in my capacity as an advocate and someone who participates in research.  Is that clear?”

Silently, everyone that mattered to Beouf nodded their heads.

“I’ll talk to the Grown-Ups more in depth later, but for now, if it’s okay and they feel comfortable, can I have all the Little boys and girls come and sit up front with me?”

My cult narrative took on a more direct comparison. Littles came up in one’s and two's while Beouf coaxed them forward.  “That’s right,” she said in her higher birdlike teacher voice. ”Come on. Don’t be shy.”  It was just like the ‘Children’s Moment’ at so many churches. The Littles started to clump together and crowd into a tight knot.   “Okay, okay. Maybe be a bit shier. Too close, sweety. Okay. That’s right. Yes. Better. Spread out a tiny bit. Give each other some room. Muuuuuch better.”  In the meantime, someone had taken a spare folding chair and passed it so that Beouf had a place to sit.  There was no way she was making it to the floor dressed as she was.  Janet made no attempt to ask or nudge me off her lap.

Beouf placed her tote bag down beside her, and took a seat. “Hello everyone!”  

“Hi Mrs. B!”

“Hello, Caleb!”

“Hi Mrs. Beouf!”

“Hi, Danny!”

“Hello!”

“Good to see you again, Cindy.”

The hi’s and hello’s bubbled up and overlapped each other until Beouf raised both hands.  “Okay okay okay. Hold on, boys and girls. Let me get this out of the way.  Raise your hand if you want me to say hello to you and when I do put your hand down.”  Tiny hands shot skyward.  Beouf took a massive, cartoonishly exaggerated breath.  “Hello, Kylie, Marie, Sammy, Caleb, Brittany, Elisa, Marissa…” she kept listing names off and hands dropped. Littles staying by their parents’ sides also raised their hands. “Hello, Cesily, Bea, Paul, Juni, Amy…”  She rattled off their names without fail.  By the time she was done, only five or six Littles kept their hands raised.  “Now you all I don’t think I’ve met.  Tell me your names and I promise to remember them next time.”  

They did and she greeted them, and reiterated her promise. I knew perfectly well that she’d keep that promise. I had a habit of letting past students fade into memory; most teachers did.  Beouf had such a mind for faces and names that she could have been a politician. Come to think of it, she kind of already was.

“Now that we’ve got that out of the way,” Beouf said and got another knowing chuckle from the assembled cultists. “I can teach and remind you about some very important things to keep you safe and happy.  Is that okay?”

That received a resounding “Yeeeeeah!” From the assembled man and woman toddlers.  This was the kind of class Beouf wanted, and by the end of most years, it was close to the class that she got. That made me shudder and some extra milk flowed into my mouth with the spasm.

“First off,” Beouf said, “I’m going to ask what I hope is a silly question.  You know your Mommies and Daddies love you right?”

“Yeah!” Her point was punctuated with some giggles.

“Yes, of course they do,” Beouf agreed. “That’s why they Adopted you and take care of you the way that they do. But not all Grown-Ups want what’s best for you.  Some Grown-Ups think that just because you’re not a Grown-Up anymore, that means they should get to decide how you act and think and feel instead of letting you be yourselves.”  

I silently agreed with her, though obviously not the way she intended.

“That’s silly!” One of the brainwashed masses piped in.

“Yes it is silly,” Beouf replied, “but it can also be very dangerous. What these people will do is they will find things that Little boys and girls like, like cartoons and songs, and hide messages in them.”

“Like a secret?”

Beouf pointed at the Little suck up. “Yes, like a secret.  But it’s such a secret, that you don’t even remember hearing it, but your brain does.”  She tapped her forehead for emphasis.  “And your brain remembers things even if your ears and eyes forget.  And if your brain gets too many of these secrets for too long, it can change you.”  She waited to see if anyone would take the bait and ask how. This time no one did.  “These secret messages will change you so that you forget things, or make it harder to talk or make you can’t talk at all.  Or it might make you laugh when you really wanna cry.  Sometimes they make it so that you can’t say naughty words or think naughty thoughts.”

“Why is that bad?” A parent asked. The glares he got made him slink down a pariah.  “Hypothetically, I mean.”

“I’m glad you asked that, sir.” Beouf saved him. “The answer to that question has two parts. One is that Little, Tweener, and Amazon brains pre-Maturosis are nearly identical, but these hypnotic suggestions affect us all equally, giving rough simulations of Maturosis’s effects. Someone experiencing Maturosis may be falsely diagnosed and given care that they don’t need and that’s unethical.”

There was so much irony here it was beginning to cave Lion’s and my chest in.

My ex-mentor proved that she couldn’t read minds and kept talking. “The allowance of these materials also weakens the argument and research going into Maturosis by promoting a false narrative.  If there are some people who aren’t actually experiencing it but are being exposed to post-hypnotic conditioning, the argument can be made on the entire system, and we know that’s just not true and our Little ones need our help.  The second big reason is that even if a Little has been correctly diagnosed with Maturosis, hypnotic cartoons and songs do more harm than good by implementing knee-jerk uncontrollable behaviors in people as well as blocking what would be otherwise natural and normal responses.”

The message wasn’t quite landing, it seemed.  “Let’s just do words. Imagine having a word taken away from you. Not that you forgot about the word, you just can’t use it.  And every time you try to say the word, you accidentally say another word or you can’t say anything at all.  You can feel the word, you know the word, but there’s a magical wall stopping you from using the word.  Some hypnotic and subliminal programs do this.” She paused for effect. “Some do more and make it so that you can’t think about the word and every time you try it gets replaced with another word that you know is wrong but your brain won’t give you another word and even if someone tells you the right one you can’t use it.  Now imagine it’s more than just one word.  Imagine it’s several words.  Imagine it’s every word that someone else doesn’t think you should be allowed to say…”

The mood chilled with Grown-Ups and Littles alike throwing each other worried yet comprehending looks. The Amazons only conceptualized it and were disturbed.  Some of the Littles no doubt had experienced it first hand.  More amazing was that Beouf and Janet weren’t choking to death on their own blatant hypocrisy. 

Ever the teacher, Beouf looked down at the assembled Littles. “In other words, hypnosis is like spanking your brain, and Little Voices does not support spanking of any kind.” Solemn nods all around the cluster of forever children.

“Fortunately,” her tone became more upbeat, “I always have several students in my class each and every year that let me know all of the words and I am positive their parents don’t use hypnosis or subliminal messaging!”  That got the crowd back. Amazons laughed behind their hands and a small amount of Littles quietly exchanged high fives and fist bumps.

She reached into the tote bag and put some old DVD’s in her lap. “Parents and Littles, the best way to protect yourself and your kids is to update and educate yourself on what does and does not contain subliminal messaging. There is a popular show making a comeback called Carpet Mice. Do not watch it. Ever. It has nothing but hypnotic suggestions in it and neither I nor anyone else have found a clean broadcast of it.  If you go to LittleVoices.com you’ll find an entire list of shows and sometimes even networks to avoid. With all of these streaming services, there’s a lot of bad actors out there.” 

“What about Mint’s Hints?” A Little piped in. “Or Cherry?”   

Beouf smiled and nodded. “Good question.  For the most part, shows like Cherry, Mint’s Hints, Helga Hogg, The Muffet Show or Muffet Littles, are completely safe. They’re made with good intent and safe for children of literally all ages. But,” she added, “you should always be on the lookout if a show has a warning or a disclaimer in the beginning or any part that asks a Grown-Up to leave the room.  If there’s something on T.V. that the people making it don’t want your Mommies and Daddies to see, there’s something wrong with it.”  

“Another way to tell is if you overhear a lot of specific talk about diapers.  Real children’s cartoons don’t worry too much about potty training or diapers. They already assume the child needs them and doesn’t care, or is mature enough not to need them, and doesn’t care. Yes most Littles who experience Maturosis lose their potty training anyways but if there’s one hypnotic command, there’s at least ten more. Be. Aware.”

I’d forgotten what a good speaker Beouf could be. Watching her was hypnotic in its own right. My bottle was now down to the last quarter and I’d barely even noticed because I was so morbidly fascinated with the mix of helpful warnings that every Little parent taught their child and absolute contradictory bullshit.    

She cracked open a DVD case and took out a pair of ear plugs and what looked like flimsy 3-D glasses.  “Some programs even have special ear plugs or glasses that filter out the commands so that a Grown-Up can make a Little feel secure and trick them into watching. A lot of these things people can buy on the internet. A lot of this is still, sadly, legal in many places and where it isn’t people will often look the other way until someone makes a big enough stink about it.” 

Beouf continued her presentation by holding up the two identical DVD cases, both Helga Hogg. “The safest thing to do is to get a DVD of your child’s favorite cartoons and just play that. A streaming service can be compromised or edited. A DVD will be the same every time. Just be sure of the distributor. I got both the ear plugs and the sample glasses from the DVD case in my left hand.”

She returned her attention to the so-called children. “So boys and girls, if a Grown-Up ever wants you to watch a cartoon or listen to a song with them and they put something in their ears or something over their eyes, you need to do everything you can to stop yourself from watching or listening.”  

The Littles, used to being well behaved dolls looked generally confused. “What do we do?”

“Cry. Scream. Yell.” Beouf kept ticking off on her fingers. “Cover your ears and close your eyes.  Throw up if you need to. Try and bop the Grown-Up on the nose.  Anything that makes it so you don’t watch or listen to what they want you to watch or listen to.”

An Amazon politely raised her hand and asked. “But what if it’s a mistake? A babysitter or someone who works at their daycare?”

“I would rather a Grown-Up get their feelings hurt, or get angry and call you to help sort it out than an innocent Little girl or boy have something taken away from them via hypnosis.” She crossed her arms over her chest, giving the statement a note of finality.  I wondered if she was really campaigning so hard against the stuff because more hypnotic suggestions would just put her out of a job.

Quickly, she took out a pair of headphones and held them aloft.  “‘Before we move on, I also just want to mention something called ‘Music Therapy’. This is literally just slapping a pair of headphones with hypnotic suggestions over someone’s head and then leaving them in a trance for a couple of hours.”

“DO IT CUZ MOMMY SAYS SO!”  Bradley screeched in terror on his Mommy’s lap.  “I LIKE TO PEE MY PANTS!”  He was hyperventilating and crying just at the sight of the prop. Beouf had the decency to put them out of sight and the poor ex-New Beginnings inmate calmed down.

“Now that we have that over with,” Beouf said, “that first part was for both the Littles and their parents. This next part is just for the Littles.  Don’t worry, Grown-Ups you can stay.” A few nervously got the joke.  “Who knows what Stranger Danger is?”

All the hands in the room shot up, save mine. I was not participating.

“Okay, Cindy,” Beouf pointed to the pink-haired woman who was probably almost as old as she was. “Tell us.”

“Stranger Danger is when someone who is not your Mommy or Daddy or teacher or family wants to take you away forever because they want to hurt you.”

“That’s right, honey. Good job.”  She leaned out and gave Cindy a high five.  Beouf had taken the day off and was now getting rewarded with her dream class.  “When you were younger, you were probably told that there were strangers who would claim to know your mother and father or get you to come with them by offering candy or asking you for help looking for a puppy and that they wanted to hurt you, right?”

A smattering of ‘yeah’ and ‘uh-uh’ and ‘yes’ came in reply while others mutely bobbed their heads.  

“That can still happen,” Beouf told them. “But other times, strangers will try to trick you by telling you things like you’re really a Grown-Up or that your Mommy and Daddy don’t really love you, and you should come with them to prove that you’re not a baby.” She paused and scanned the floor for signs of dissent or incomplete programming. She found none there and so went on. “Those people are also trying to trick you and take you away from your Mommies and Daddies and you’ll also end up hurting. You’ll hurt not only yourself in the long run but also your Mommies and Daddies.We don’t want to do that, do we?”

The chorus of affirmatives changed course and melted into ‘no’ and ‘nuh-uh’ and the quiet but obedient shaking of heads.  Typical mindfucked dolls.  Someone was curious enough or childish enough to ask “Why?”

“That’s a complicated question that I think has a lot of answers,” Beouf said with all sincerity. “Some of them are bad people, because there’s just bad people in the world.  I think a lot of them though are people who just don’t understand or have been lied to about Maturosis or think they’d be helping you if they kidnapped you and took you away from your family.”  And once again, the pot without a trace of self-awareness deemed the kettle black.

“So unless you know them or they can prove that they know your Mommy or Daddy, don’t go with them and do more of that screaming, and crying stuff.  It’s okay if you’re trying to protect yourself and it’s all you’re able to do. Nobody will be mad, I promise.  Okay?”

“Okay.” most said together.

Melony reached back into her tote bag and pulled out a stack of wooden blocks, no doubt borrowed from her own classroom.  “Don’t get too excited, kids.” She said, “I’m using these as a teaching tool. Not for playing.”

“Can we play with them after?” Amy called from her Mommy’s lap.
Beouf didn’t even have to look up. “Yes Amy, you can if you want.”

“What about Jess-?” The bottle went back into Amy’s mouth so she couldn’t finish and her Mommy quietly shushed her.  I finished draining mine and accidentally let out a tiny yawn.  

Beouf started stacking the blocks one at a time in a single column.  “This next part is both for parents and their Little ones. As with everything else tonight, I’ll talk more in depth with the Grown-Ups after you kids go play, but they deserve to hear part of this too.  It’s going to be a tad uncomfortable for some people hearing what I’m about to tell you, and that’s okay. However it is my professional and personal opinion that everyone needs to hear this talk at least once. More than anything else, this is the part that I’m not supposed to talk about.  I need everyone to be brave and as mature as they can be for what I’m about to discuss.  That goes for you Mommies and Daddies, too.”  The laughter had dialed back down to polite with a touch of nervousness.

I pushed the bottle out of the way and squirmed back up into a sitting position so that I wouldn’t accidentally fall asleep.  What could Beouf need so much warning to talk about? She’d already discussed the topics hypnosis and abduction (including reframing Stranger Danger as a way to prevent Littles from escaping).  What could be more controversial than that?

She pointed to the column of blocks she’d made. The blocks, I noticed, were numbered and in sequential order, bottom to top,  from zero to five. “This is how people grow up,” Beouf said pointing down to the bottom. “First we’re zero, then we’re one, then we’re two.”  Her finger traveled up the column.  “And every year we go up and up and up, and another block goes on the stack.  I’d stack them higher, but I’m not very good at stacking so you’ll have to use your imaginations.”  Her hand rose up to the sky tracking invisible blocks of much higher numbers.

“But the thing is, we never really stop being zero, or one, or two, or three.  It just gets added on to.  Everybody in this room is a one or two or three or four or five.  Their block tower is just a lot taller and they’re on the top.”

“And we’re on the bottom!” A suck up yelled a bit too happily

“Don’t interrupt, Cesily.” Beouf wagged her finger at the lady who I’d seen get dangled gleefully from her ankles at my first meeting.  “Everyone has a tower that they’re mind is on top of, but deep deep down, they’re still zero, and one, and two, and three, and four.  It’s just that when your tower gets really tall, it takes some reeeeeeeally big thoughts and feelings to reach all the way up from the top of the tower to all the way down to the bottom of the tower where the part of you that is zero and one and two and three are.  It’s hard.  But it can happen.  That’s why Grown-Ups can still cry. Or be silly.  Or make bad decisions that if their parents were still around they’d be put in timeout for.”

“Or pee and poop?”

Beouf ignored the comment and kept going.  “When you have Maturosis, it’s different.”

I puffed air out of my nose and readied for her to knock the tower to shambles. I think many of the audience guessed the same thing.  If that’s true, she surprised a lot of us.

Instead of knocking the block tower over, she carefully grabbed the top and bottom of her column, squeezed the tower and flipped it over so that the zero was at the top.  “When you have Maturosis, the tower flips over.” She took a final block, a six, and quickly picked up the tower to slip it under as the new base.  “And new blocks get added to the bottom.  You’re still twenty or thirty or forty or fifty or a hundred.  The tower of who you are still grows and grows and grows.  It’s just that the part of you that is zero and one and two and three is always at the tippy top with you.”

My tongue rolled out of its mouth, unbelieving what I was hearing.

“So when you have Maturosis, you’re always feeling and thinking those thoughts you did when you were a baby-when you were zero and one and two and maybe even three-but the part of you that is twenty and thirty and forty, is still there.  It just takes a looooot of work to get to that part of you.  And sometimes that work is so hard that you just can’t, and that’s okay too.  It starts feeling wrong, just like when it felt wrong to wear diapers before you needed them again.  That’s what we call your Developmental Plateau.”

This. This explained so much. It didn’t make it any better. It didn’t undo anything. But it explained so much about why Beouf acted the way she did. She’d succinctly summarized her own delusions.  She really was a great teacher.

She had more for me.  “The term plateau is misleading however. A plateau is usually a piece of high flat ground.  Your Developmental Plateau isn’t necessarily completely flat. Just like how some people can be very good with math and others are better at reading and writing, a plateau can vary from person to person. Some of you are more shy and need sensory play. Others need different levels of personal interaction.  Some can walk. Some just crawl or like rolling around on the floor.  Some feed yourselves.  Some like to be spoon fed. A lot of you still talk the same as you did before. We’re all different.” 

It made perfect sense if you didn’t stop to think about it. The Amazons, clearly, weren’t thinking about it.  The other Littles had bought in or were completely numb to it by this point.  Why did this part get the warning, though?

“That’s why,” Beouf said, “We need to take a few minutes to talk about romantic feelings and sexual arousal.”

“EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!”  Faces scrunched up, mouths fell ajar, pacifiers popped into mouth to cover embarrassment and hands waved and heads shook as if.

“I told you it was gonna be icky,” Beouf laughed, “but this is something you should know about.”  She waved her hands in front to try and regain control.  “Stop. Stop. I’m not going to embarrass anyone or ask any questions.  No hand raising required! All you have to do is listen.”  It certainly didn’t win them over, it got everyone to quiet down.

“You might be living like zero or one or two or three year olds,” she said. “But your bodies and parts of your minds are still adult. So it is very possible, maybe even likely, that at some point since you got Adopted, you’ve looked at somebody or thought about them in your crib, and you started getting funny feelings like you did back when you were a big boy or girl.”

The pacifiers and thumbs were popping in at a record pace. People were doing their best not to die from embarrassment, just from the idea that they might have sexual feelings.

Beouf certainly noticed, but she kept talking anyway. “These feelings might make you want to kiss someone, or hold their hand, or touch their diaper or have them touch yours.”

“EWWWWWWWW!”

“Hold on! Hold on!” Beouf laughed again, her own ease being semi-contagious. “I’m not telling you what to do, I’m just stating aloud how some of you might be feeling sometimes, and to tell you…that it’s perfectly natural and okay.  Some of you sometimes might not even be thinking about anyone.  You might just feel a certain way, or like how your diaper feels, or be bored or something. Happens all the time!”  She quickly added, “And if you don’t ever feel that way, that’s okay too.  I’m not telling you how to feel.” 

The silence grew as Beouf took in a deep, cleansing breath. “I’m just saying that if you do feel that way, it’s perfectly natural, and you should talk to your Mommies and Daddies about it.” She looked up and out to the assembled parents, shifting in their seats. I could tell who’d heard a version of this talk before and who hadn’t based on body postures.  Everyone was uncomfortable, but some were distinctly less so than others.  

I think my fellows were more uncomfortable, because it was them that were being talked about.  I suddenly realized how long it had been since I’d had sex, which of course made me think about Cassie, which of course made me feel a level of melancholy that even a full belly and calm breathing couldn’t starve off. Not completely.

“Parents,” Beouf said. “Mommies and Daddies: Believe me. If your Little boy or girl has these urges you need to talk to them about it.  Short of something unethical, there is nothing you can do to prevent it, and babies of any age like to explore their bodies. All these Little ones are doing is rediscovering themselves.  We’re okay with it when it comes to the cute stuff, we have to be okay with it when it comes to the things that aren’t so cute.”

My ears wanted to fall away from the sides of my head out of disbelief.  Beouf was openly encouraging masturbation among Adopted Littles.

“If you don’t talk to them about it and find a way for them to do it safely, they will find a way to do it in a way that will probably embarrass you and cause you problems you never considered when you Adopted. My rookie year of teaching I lost more stuffed animals to nap time humping than I dare admit.” 

Every word was coming out almost like a chant with each one standing straight up and refusing to touch the other, much like the gaggle of Littles on the floor were slowly but steadily spreading out from each other. The collective blood was rushing to every Little’s head, mine included.  Just hearing all this said out loud was awful.  

Sex was normally a touchy enough subject for some of us; anybody really. Reminding us that Littles lost out sexual autonomy was insult enough. Telling everyone that those urges and feelings still continue no matter what was almost cruel.  The Amazons weren’t digging it either. Picturing their so-called babies adding something to their padded underpants that wasn’t urine or feces was distinctly unpleasant.

I think I wanted to talk about sex to Janet all of a sudden…

“You would rather them do something in their crib with the baby monitor off or in the bathtub right before you pull the plug than start rubbing themselves in public or rubbing up against each other at daycare.  I’m not going to name names, but I’ve got at least two students in my class with very strict parents, and if I didn’t pretend not to notice a few things, I’m pretty sure the Little darlings would just explode!”  She added sound effects for levity, and it worked, gaining a few good natured belly laughs from those assembled.

Billy and Annie were such exhibitionists they’d be proud to be called out like this.

One Little was brave enough to raise their hand and ask “How?”

“That I can’t tell you, darling. That’s something you’ve got to talk about with your Mommy or Daddy and figure out what works for all of you. I’ll go into more detail and options with them,” Beouf pulled a phone out of her bag. “But that’s almost my time.  Let’s split up so the kids can play, and I’ll get down to some more specifics and nitty gritty with the adults.”  

She stood up to a rousing round of applause, even greater than when she entered and the Littles all scampered back to their parents, some of them hugging them as if they’d been separated for years and not just a few awkward and tense topics.

Janet stood up and shifted me so that I could ride on her side and still look around.  “I appreciate you,” she said, and left it at that.  I’d been a good Little baby, apparently.

Fuck it.  Whatever. I had real work to do soon.

I was not meant to escape Beouf entirely.  “Hey Janet, hey Clark.” 

“Good talk,” Janet said, because of course she would say that.

“Thanks. We’re not done yet, sister.  You’d be surprised the kind of questions that come up in the second half.”

Janet laughed. “Great. Let me drop Clark off, and I’ll meet you back here.” She bounced me slightly as if I hadn’t been paying attention. “Do you want to say goodbye, Clark?”

I think all three of us knew the answer to that. Sometimes Janet and Beouf could be masochists.

“No,” some of Beouf’s shine left her. “That’s fine. He doesn’t have to.”

 “He’s kind of droopy tonight.”

“Sick?” Beouf asked.

“I don’t think so. Just full”  She held the empty bottle that she hadn’t slipped back into the diaper bag.

More curiosity blossomed over Beouf’s brow. She pointed to the empty container. “Goat’s milk or…?”

“Goat’s milk.” Janet said.  “Goat’s milk.”

“Okay.  Drop him off and come back. We’ll have a chat.”

“Roger!”

Janet walked me to the playroom.  I started doing my best to wake up and get my blood pumping. It was fitting in a way that Beouf was here tonight.  She’d started her indoctrination routine in the first half of the meeting.  Next would come mine.

 

Chapter 93: Little Voices: “Clark Says”

Janet took me into the Community Center’s playroom and put me down. A quick check between my legs and she was satisfied that I was “Good to go”.  She leaned forward to give me a kiss, but hesitated and pulled back.  I must have made some kind of face.  “Bye, Clark. See you in a bit.”

She left while a few of the more sentimental Mommies and Daddies did their own variation of a goodbye ritual- theirs much more affectionate- and then left to go get pro tips from one of the greatest manipulators in the game whose last name didn’t use to be Gibson.  The bottom half of the dividing door was officially closed, locking us all in together.

Of special note, among the playroom guests were the diapered Little Kylie, her Pouty Pull-Upped ‘Big Sister’ of a Tweener, Joanie, and both Daddies, Carl and Donald.  I forgot which one was which, but one was sorting through the enormous bundles of diaper bags that the supervising Grown-Ups toted around, and the other was already busying himself pulling back waistbands, patting bottoms, and generally eyeballing crotches for signs of oversaturated swelling and sagging.

This wasn’t ideal.  I felt a twinge of sympathy when one of them asked the Tweener whether she had to go potty or not. The woman’s cheeks lit up like a searchlight. They only got worse when he went on about how it was okay and accidents happened and they packed diapers “just in case she needed a break”.  

Obviously, the Tweener wasn’t used to being confined to padded underpants.  She was probably being gently punished to remind her of her place in the same way that I’d been disallowed anything that hid my diapers. Either that or ‘her Maturosis was getting more pronounced’ (read: her Daddies were gaslighting themselves and her to the point where she was getting Little levels of mindfucked).  

The decent part of me hoped it was the former. I shouldn’t wish that slow descent into madness on anyone, save perhaps a select few Amazons. Even I got my pants back. The awful part of me quietly rooted for the latter. Watching a Tweener brought down to my level could be darkly satisfying, and it could be useful to have access to a bigger mindfucked baby.
“None of your friends from school or playgroup are here, honey.”  The big man prattled on. “Your sister and her friends won’t care, either. They all need diapers, too. You’ll still be our big gi-”

“Daaaaad!” the Tweener shrieked.  “Staaaahp!”  She gently huffed off to my usual sulking corner far away from the changing table, leaving the big man gently shaking his head like a patient yet frustrated parent. 

He went back to checking Littles, not asking beyond saying “Excuse me, Little fella” “Hold up, babydoll,” or “Juuuuust checking.”

This was not ideal. Two diaper obsessed giants instead of the usual one, and a pouty Tweener squealer. Two and a half times the number of authorities to involve and distract, and neither of the Daddies seemed to be the type to get actively involved with the pretend-children beyond basic maintenance and monitoring. The changing table was right by the door, too. A Grown-Up would only have to turn their head to the right to see someone being too close to the door for comfort.

Definitely not ideal.  The only thing that could have been less ideal was if Janet were present. These circumstances could be good though. If my exit strategy could work around two no-nonsense Daddies and a Tweener that could turn traitor, it could work around anybody.  I hadn’t noticed any pattern or heard anything about a rotation on who got monitor duty, but common sense told me that the Amazons wouldn’t consciously hog or clog up playtime privileges.  Every one of them wanted to be here on some level and frequent repeats would be noticed.  Getting these guys out of the way helped me.

I wasn’t going to get out tonight.  Not even close. I had so many other steps to take and trials to endure.  This was only part one.  Every journey home had to start with a single step.  Every tunnel to freedom started with a single spoonful of dirt.

Showtime.

“Okay everybody!” I yelled out in my best carnival barker impression. “Step, crawl, and roll up! We’re playing ‘Simon Says’.”  In bits and pieces, people turned to see me, curious expressions forming.  Curious, but not taking the bait.

A  handful put down the rental rag dolls and abandoned the ancient Speak-and-Says, but most had pause and disinterest.  Murmurs of “Simon Says” started to make their way around the room. They knew what it was, because of course they did; the real thing is they weren’t in a mood to play it.  Simon Says wasn’t Battle Tag or Light Feather Heavy Feather.  

Time to up the ante.

“Step right up and gather round!” I repeated. “If you don’t want to play you can take a seat and cuddle up with your favorite stuffie and enjoy the show!”  More looks were exchanged. Promises of a show were reeling them in.  Simon Says wasn’t Battle Tag, but like the pudgy girl with the stacking cups said, I’d brought Battle Tag to this place and mastered the art of Heavy and Light.  I was a known asshole and pouter who hadn’t yet accepted their take on the truth, but I could be fun when it suited me. Tonight it suited me.

“If I go ten straight rounds without eliminating someone, I lose!”

“What happens if you lose?” the white haired kid asked.

Damn. They wanted stakes; why wouldn’t they. They weren’t really simple babies. Oh well.  “Good question, Denny.”

“Danny.”

“No, sir, I’m Clark.” I lifted my head and continued to project. “Step right up. If I go ten rounds in a row without eliminating someone, I lose and everybody who beats me can make me say ONE THING EACH!” If cushioned socks and light up sneakers were hooves, the room would have sounded like a stampede. “That’s right, Folks! Anything you want! I will confess to being a big stinky doo-doo head or tell the world that I’m really a pretty pretty princess from fairy land!  I’ll even say naughty words!”

The resulting gasp of surprise and shock sounded like a cheer to me. Meanwhile my heart was thudding in my chest.  I’d said it. I’d actually said it!  The Daddy who’d put himself on diaper checking duty was well within my line of sight.  He didn’t look upset, but he was far from pleased with this announcement.  Oh what a rush.   “Clark…?” He’d never spoken to me and thus didn’t feel confident in saying my name at first; afraid he’d somehow misremembered ramblings from Janet.  “Clark, buddy. I don’t think that’s appropri-”

“You don’t have to say the word yourself!” I yelled over him.  “You can just tell me to say a naughty word and I’ll pick. You’ll be blameless!”

Daddy number two sounded a bit more firm. “Clark. That’s a really bad choice. I think it’d be a good idea to change that last part about the swearing.”  First spoonful of dirt or not, such compromise would not do tonight.  I could have chosen or invented any number of games that the daycare crowd would approve of. For my purposes and needs, Simon Says was important to me. Minimal rule explaining, and it gave me complete control of the narrative.

I spread my arms wide and turned slowly in a circle. “Of course since I’m such a scamp,” I bellowed theatrically, “if I am forbidden from playing the game at least once I shall tantrum like no other and say ALL the naughty words I know. Possibly invent a few by pairing them with funny sounding breakfast dishes!”  I held up an index finger to the second Daddy. “But!” I proclaimed. “If any Grown-Up can defeat me, I will yield and take naughty words off the table.”  

I stood sideways so that each was in my periphery. One Daddy looked at the other. Playful, cocky smiles were exchanged. “You wanna Don?”

“Sure, Carl. Let’s play with the kids.”

 Amazon arrogance at its finest. Real adults didn’t make bets with children. Good thing there were no actual children around. Beouf had had her moment to spew her brand of crazy.  We’d fight tomorrow, I was sure.  Here? Now? I was the ringmaster, this my circus, and I had more monkeys under me than just the ones decorating my underwear. 

“Hi Clark!” I looked down and saw my favorite nutter. 

“Hey Amy,” I said. “You playin?”

She closed her eyes and waggled her head. “Naw. I’m counting.”

I flashed a winning folksy smile, and gave her a thumbs up. It was the same kind of gesture I might give to one of my students or their parents when first meeting them.  Amy and her ilk were much less frustrating when you didn’t expect that much out of them.  “Thanks, friend! Keep me honest!”

“Yup yup.” From her spot on the floor she copied me. “Someone’s gotta.” The hell did that mean?

“You don’t want to get in on the action? Make me say something embarrassing?”

She scooted backwards on her butt while the crowd got in place. “Naw. You kinda do that enough on your own.  No offense.”

“Some taken.”  Her smile was so soft and sincere that I genuinely couldn’t tell if she was fucking with me. Now I had to fuck with her back. I wanted her to play. “Yeah, but you could make me say anything,” I prodded.  “You could make me talk about how I looooove being a baby or that I miss my Mommy whenever she’s out of the room or something.”  I made my voice as silly and mocking as I could to get the pitch across.  That alone got a few who were on the fence about playing in the game.

Again, I couldn’t quite read Amy’s expression. It’s like she had something to say, but thought better of it; not a trait that I’d associate with Amy. What she did say was “If I want I can make a kid give me their prize at least half of them owe me something you’d be surprised what can be found and traded for favors at daycare.” 

I felt myself shudder. Knowing Amy, such treasures were likely dust and lint covered and at one time had been edible.  ‘Fair enough.”

“Also I want to give you a chance to win. I like you, buddy. Good luck.”

I twisted my mouth up and felt my eye twitch but said “Thanks” anyways.  

Unnecessary though it was, I cupped my hands and started my spiel anew. “Okay, listen up everybody! The game is Simon Says. The rules are simple, everybody knows ‘em, but just for review: When we start playing, if I say ‘Simon Says’ and tell you to do something, you do it. If you don’t do it, you’re out.  If I tell you to do something without first saying ‘Simon Says’ and you do it, you’re out, too. If you’re in the game, you stand or crawl or sit here.”  I gestured to the area where everyone already was.  

“If you’re out,” I continued, “you move off to the side and join the audience.  Amy is keeping track of how many rounds I go without eliminating someone. Ten in a row I lose.” I turned my head briefly to the (for now I hoped) gathered Littles that were watching instead of playing.  “Audience, if you catch someone that I miss, call ‘em out on it. Players, if you get called out, be a good sport and join the audience. As fun as this is, it’s still just a game.”

I gestured to myself. “As for me, I’m going to be tricksy, but I’m going to be honest and play square. It is my job to lie to you and misdirect you, but I will never cheat by telling you to do something that you are physically incapable of doing. If I say ‘hop’ but you’re a crawler and can’t hop, you’re safe.  Same with doing something impossible like licking your own elbow.”  Right on cue four or five of my players experimented to find that no, they could not lick their own elbows. 

“I also won’t ask you to do anything to anybody else like lick your neighbor’s elbow.”  That got the appropriate amount of smirks, snickers, and giggles. Even the Daddies hid their smiles behind the palms of their hands.  This was going great.  “Likewise, ‘Simon Says’ only counts for direct commands, not questions.  I can ask a question or say something to you and you’re allowed to talk back.” 

I paused and directed my gaze over to my favorite sulking corner. “Hey big kid!” I shouted. “Do you wanna play?”  Collectively well over a dozen heads looked behind them, turning the poor girl into a deer on the highway.

The Tweener who’d been standing in the corner slunk down and hugged her knees “I’m good…” she said just loud enough for me to hear.

 “Cool!” I regained the class attention. “And if she were playing, she wouldn’t be out. That is unless of course, the last command I had given was ‘Simon Says no talking’.” General head nodding all around. This part wasn’t about explaining rules as much as it was developing a rapport with my newest batch of suckers. I took in the tiny crowd and noticed Amy rubbing her tummy with one hand and patting the other.  “Oh, and yeah, every ‘Simon Says’ cancels out and overrides the ‘Simon Says’ that came before it.  So if I say ‘Simon Says rub your tummy’ and then I say ‘Simon Says pat your head’, you stop rubbing your tummy and start patting your head. But if I say ‘Simon Says pat your head and rub your tummy’ you gotta do both.” I flashed her another thumbs up.  Thanks, Amy.”

“Hmmm?,” she looked mildly startled. “I just wanted to see if I could do both.”

Yeah, that figured.  “Okay, I think that about covers it,” I said. “So with that out of the way, we are now playing Simon Says as soon as I finish this sentence.” I took a quick breath. My throat was dry, both from talking and from nerves. Now or never to see if this strategy might yield fruit.  

“Okay, so everybody understand the rules?”  There was nodding and verbal affirmations.  I swatted at my ears as if their replies were buzzing gnats.  “Whoah whoah whoah! Guys! Sorry! My bad! Too much talking all at once! Let me try it another way.  Raise your hand if you understand the rules.”

Almost half of the hands playing went up.

“OH NO!” Amy laughed. “GOTTEM!”

The wry smile on my face was completely genuine. Too late it dawned that they’d been duped. “Simon didn’t say. Gotcha!”

“Oh gosh,” Daddy number two said. “Carl!”

Carl flopped his head in defeat. The Tweener in the corner’s eyes lit up with surprise and joy. “I’m an idiot,” he growled at himself.  

“Oooooooooooo!”  The Littles cheered and jeered and snickered.  Even ‘idiot’ was a naughty word to these dolls.

I thumbed to the side like a hitchhiker while rambling like an auctioneer. “Outtamygame, outtamygame, outtamygame, outtamygame!”  The first round of victims walked and toddled to the side. “I can’t believe that worked!” I crowed. “Can you guys?”

Stony silence was my reply.  I played at being exasperated. “Friends! Friends! Guys!  We already established that unless I say ‘Simon Says no talking’, then it’s okay to answer my questions.  So can you believe they fell for that?”

I waited and let the silence work for me.  One…two….three….four…

“No,”

“Yeah. Me neither!”

My smile got even wider. “Outtamygame, outtamygame! I just said ‘Simon Says no talking’.”

“Kylie!” Amy said. “Bea! C’mon!  We’ve practiced for this!”  Two Little girls trudged off my impromptu playing field.

In two moves I’d eliminated half the players. “Simon Says you can talk if you want.” I said. “Pretty tricky, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Yessir.”

Oh I needed to hear that more than I’d anticipated.  “Okay, since we’ve already gotten a lot of people out, how about some of you in the back come a little closer to the front?”

“Bradley! Buddy! Nooooooo!”  

The dark haired whipping boy of fate blushed and then waddled off. “Mommy says…Darn it…” He plopped himself down next to Amy and she patted him consolingly on the back. 
I felt kind of bad picking on someone who’d been put through New Beginnings.  At least he was getting some words back.  

Enough false starts. Any more and they’d pay too careful attention and I only had so much time.  

“Simon says touch your head.”  I demonstrated the action, half a second later the Littles and remaining Amazon copied me.  One finger on Amy’s right hand went up.  “Simon says touch your shoulders.”  I modeled. They quickly copied. Two fingers. “Simon says touch your knees.” Again. Third finger.  “Touch your toes.”  I didn’t move. Neither did they.  Four fingers.  “Simon says touch your toes.”  

I modeled. 

They copied. 

Amy had an entire hand unclenched.

“Simon says touch your ears.” Six fingers. Four left.

“Simon says touch your nose.” Seven.

I whipped my hand over to my shoulder.  “Simon says touch your elbow.”

“Don!” Carl laughed. “What are you doing?”  The last remaining Amazon and three other Littles were all touching their shoulders.
My thumb came out. “Outtamygame, outtamygame, outtamygame, outtamygame! I said Simon says touch your elbow. That’s your shoulder.”

Amy was incredulous.  “You guys! Seriously? You are out of practice.”  Her fingers all curled back into her fists.

Funnily enough, I agreed with her.  Beouf’s daily brainwashing didn’t beat your mind down until submission. Quite the opposite. It sharpened and rewarded it and taught you to talk to yourself as if you were an Amazon. It encouraged you to think outside the box and make arguments that didn’t make sense and accept nonsense as if it were obvious fact.  Beouf didn’t want her Littles hypnotized into submission. She wanted our minds sharpened to the point where we could reject our senses. 

Some of these inmates had never had Beouf, and those who had had long gotten used to activities that assumed you were a baby, instead of exercises designed to trick you into tricking yourself.  Back at school, I could trick Billy and maybe Sandra Lynn. I’d have to work for every other victory. Ivy? I could dupe Ivy once and then her competitive streak would kick in and she’d destroy me. 

To hear Amy’s reactions, I might not even get that one time out of her; not with only ten strikes.

Tonight I had a bunch of toddlerized adults in front of me with not an Ivy among them, and Amy was sitting this one out.

“Now things are getting good!”

Don scoffed and looked like he wanted to say something nasty. The idea that they’d been tricked by someone they considered a baby was hurting the Amazons’ pride. They whispered something to each other that I couldn’t pick out.  They’d also dug themselves a hole by agreeing to play my game. The other cultists might not like it if they agreed they’d let a baby swear. I needed to play it cool or I’d have another Sosa/Winters incident on my hands; on accident no less.

 “Don’t worry Mister Kylie and Joanie’s Daddies,” I boasted. “I’m not gonna lose.” That didn’t go over with them as well as I’d hoped. Two sets of evil eyes were trained on me.

“Hey, Clark?” Amy said loud enough for all assembled to hear. “If you lose, what happens if the Grown-Ups tell the good kids not to make you say a bad word?”

On pure reflex I shrugged. “Nothing I can do about that,” I answered.  I wasn’t going to lose, though, and I didn’t care if I did. The two Daddies turned towards each other, however, and nodded in satisfaction.  Amy had just given all three of us an out.  Funnily enough, I might have been the only one to realize it.  As subtle as I could, I placed my fist by my thigh and flashed her a thumbs up.  She nodded but kept her hands balled up, ready to count up to ten.

Right. The game.

“Simon says give me a clap.”

CLAP!  

We all brought our palms together in unison in a single thunderous clap.

“Simon says two claps.”

CLAP-CLAP!

I build up a rhythm. “Simon says clap”

CLAP!

“Simon says two claps”

CLAP-CLAP!

“Simon says clap.”

CLAP!

“Simone says two claps!”

CLAP-CLAP!

My thumb came out. “Outtamygame, outtamygame, outtamygame, outtamygame, outtamygame! It’s Simon Says. Not Simone Says. Simone Says doesn’t count.”

More grumbling but shuffling off.  A bare handful left and a crawler among them. “Simon says jump up and down until the next legal command.”

They all hopped up and down on their feet, bouncing like Kangaroos. There was so much movement and crinkling that it sounded like a radio stuck between two different stations.

“Hey,” the white-haired kid called up. “When do we stop?”

“You heard me,” I replied.

“But she’s not jumping,” another Little pointed to the crawler, the blonde girl who’d been munching on  berries in her Mommy’s lap from earlier.
  
“She doesn’t have to,” I said.

“That’s not faaaaair!”

I spread my arms wide and indicated all around. “Who said this was fair?”  The crawler beamed cheekily. I was letting her win for now and she was enjoying it.

“Noooo!” the white haired kid whined. “She’s cheating!”

No. I was.  “How?”

“Juni can walk!” came the reply from the cup stacker girl from the audience. “She’s faking!”

The berry eater stood up.  “Brittany!” she yelped. “I was winning.”  Her diaper visibly resisted coming up with the rest of her.

“She was probably pooping and got stuck,” the white haired boy said. He was still jumping, so the revelation came out in bits and spurts like he was on a galloping horse.  “Juni always gets on her hands and knees and pretends to be really interested in something on the floor when she poops.”

“Danny!” the girl shrieked. “I’m gonna kill you!”  

“What?” Brittany giggled. “That’s why your Mommy was giving you all those berries, wasn’t she?  You probably just started pooping when he was doing rules stuff and finished after he started.”

Juni’s face flushed nearly the same color of pink as the juice that still stained her lips. “Brittany!” I held in my laughter and bit my knuckles. That cheeky bitch! That poor cheeky bitch! She almost got away with it too!

“Outtamygame!”

One of the Daddies, Carl, stepped around behind her and pulled back. “Yup. Let’s go, Juni”  His husband quick-stepped over to the diaper bags while Carl carried an annoyed Juni over to the changing table.

“Okay folks,” I said. “Nothing to see, eyes on me.”  I looked to my contestants who had been bouncing around for the entire exchange.  “Okay guys, my bad. You can stop.”

All but one stopped.

“Out! Of! My! Gaaaaaame!”  One or two tried to start jumping again like I hadn’t seen, but jeers and callouts shamed them into the fold.  Only one remained.
“Okay Derwin,” I said. “Simon says stop jumping.”

He stopped.  “It’s Danny.” His voice was strong. He wasn’t even close to winded. He was focused and had been blending in the whole time. Unblinking. Focused. Ready for any trick. I had one left. Time to wrap this up, and I thought I knew how to do it.

“Simon says touch your nose.” My arm touched my ear. His went to his nose.

One.

“Simon says jump!” He did precisely one. I’d put no modifier.

Two.

“Give me a clap!”   I was the only clapper.

Three.

“Simon says two claps.”

CLAP-CLAP!

Four.

“Simon says clap!”

CLAP!

“Simon says two claps!”

CLAP-CLAP

“Simmons says clap.” Nothing

Five, six, and seven, respectively.

The white haired kid did not smile. He did not sneer. He was in the zone.  I double checked Amy’s fingers.

“Okay. Simon says clap!”

CLAP!

Eight.

“Simon says give me two claps!”

CLAP-CLAP!

Nine.

“Simon says Daryl give me half-a-clap!”

Together our hands started the clap, but froze half way in a fakeout.

“Gotcha!” the kid said. “Half-a-clap! And the name’s Danny!”

I stuck out my thumb and jerked towards Amy. All previously popped fingers were curled back up.  “That’s right. My command was for someone named Daryl. Not you, Danny. Out! Of! My! Game!”

The white haired kid fell down to his knees and yanked at his snowy locks. His screams of anguish drowned out by cheers while I took my bow.  “Well played! Everyone! Well played!  Who wants to go again?”  

The ranks formed up; soldiers ready to attack.  I strolled up to my final patsy. “So, no lie: I’m tired and need a break. Dobson, do you wanna be Simon?”

The white haired kid leapt up and got right in my face. “No!” he barked. “I don’t wanna play stupid Simon says!”  I held my breath and leaned back. Everyone else was frozen.  Even the Grown-Ups, fresh from freshening up Juni looked momentarily stupefied  “But we can play ‘Danny Says’.”

I stuck my hand out. “Deal!”  He shook it, flashed me a cheshire grin like he’d won something and took over.

“Danny Says…”

I took my place in the audience beside Amy. All eyes had been on me. Now they weren’t.

“Outtamygame! Yeah! Danny!”

“Good job, Clark.”

“Thanks Amy. I play a mean game of Simon Says.”

“Yeah. Pretty good,” she agreed. “That’s not what I was talking about, though…”

A terrible thought rampaged through my brain: “Amy?” I whispered. “You haven’t ever tried to break out of a place like this have you?  Or your daycare?  Or Beouf’s? Any place where their job is to treat us like kids?”

Amy ran her tongue between the gap in her teeth while her eyes meandered from side to side.  “No.  Why?”  Her fingers were still managing to keep track of ‘Danny Says’.

“Outtamygame!”

“No reason,” I told her. “Just wondering…”

 

[Be Careful What You Don't Wish For]

“Greetings, Master! What is your first wish?’ The genie asked.

Allison stepped back and gasped in shock.  “A genie?!”  Her knees buckled and she fell back onto her queen sized mattress. “You’re a genie?!”  She pinched herself as hard as she could on the top of her hand.  

“It’s pronounced ‘Genie’, actually.” The teal skinned woman in the puffy pants and curly toed slippers said.  “Geeee-nie.”  It sounded exactly the same to Allison’s ears, even though the mystical entity slowed it down and enunciated.

The twenty-seven year old stopped pinching when tears came and a nasty bruise started forming just below her wrist. This really wasn’t a dream!  Baffled, Allison kept looking back and forth from the genie to the lava lamp she’d been dusting moments before.  Her light brown ponytail swished back and forth like a horse’s backside batting at flies.  “I…I…I…! You’re a genie!”

The woman (did non-human entities have gender in the same way humans did?) smiled.  “Yes, Master. I am.  Though it’s pronounced ‘Genie’. Nevermind.  What is your first wish?”  Her bluish-green brown furrowed.  “You know about the wishes, right?”

Open mouthed, Allison nodded.  “Uh-huh…I know.  Three, correct?”

“Yes, Master. Very good!  What do you wish for?” The way she said ‘Master’ was like how some women said ‘sweetie’, or ‘pumpkin’, or ‘princess’ or some other affectionate yet diminutive nickname an adult might call a small child.  

That was probably just Allison’s adrenaline and crazy brain kicking in. Literal ‘wishful thinking’.  “Can I wish you free?” she asked.

The genie seemed mildly confused. “You can, but why would-?”

“That.” Allison blurted. “I wish that. I wish you free, Genie.”

“It’s ‘Genie’.” 

“Okay,” Allison said.  “I wish you, however you pronounce your name, free.”

An audible gasp and then a brief silence. “You really mean it, don’t you Master?”

Allison found some courage. “Yes. Absolutely.”

“And you don’t want to use two other wishes for yourself first?” the genie asked.

The human woman blanched. “Do you like granting wishes?”
“Not particularly.  I don’t hate it, but-”

“Do you want your freedom?”

“Yes.”

“Then I wish you free.”

The genie sat down on the bed next to her, discombobulated. Allison saw the golden manacles on the being’s wrists. “But…why?  Why not use the first two for yourself?”

“That would make me a terrible human being,” Allison said. “What kind of person would give another person their freedom but only after they got something for themselves first?”

“A lot of them,” Genie replied. “All of them.  Most of them lie about using the third wish for me so that I’ll be more cooperative.  Or they hold onto that last wish as a ‘just in case’ and somebody else steals the lamp.”

“Those were bad humans,” Allison said, not moving. It was as if she could feel the genie’s hope and sorrow traveling through the air between them.

The dark haired, teal skinned woman draped an arm over Allison’s shoulders. “No. They weren’t. They were very good at being humans. But you are a very good person, Master.”  She pulled Allison in and gave her a light hug. It felt like an embrace from a long lost but very close friend.  “Can you tell me your name, Master?”

Allison took a deep breath.  “Allison.”

The genie stood up and took her place across from Allison. She raised her biceps parallel to the floor and folded her forearms over on top of each other.  “Then, Allison, I am happy to grant your request.  Your wish is my command!”

She bobbed her head, and the golden bracelets shackled to her arms dissolved into thin air. “Thank you, Allison. I will never forget you.”  Then in a flash of light, the mystical being was gone.  The only sign that she’d ever been there was the now useless lava lamp, devoid of its teal colored goo.

(The End)

**********************************************************************************************

Allison spent the rest of the day and all into the night locked in her bedroom. The next roughly twenty four hours.

Stage One: Panic attacks and existential crises.  A genie! A genie was real! That meant magic was real! That meant everything she believed on a fundamental level had been wrong. She was just a speck in an infinite and unknowing universe with no understanding or significance whatsoever. 

Stage Two: Fear. She’d been telling the truth when she wished the genie free. She did believe it was wrong to keep another intelligent being imprisoned and enslaved against their will.  She’d also read plenty of fairy tales about wishes going wrong or being misinterpreted or wasted or otherwise monkey’s pawed…ESPECIALLY in ABDL stories.  Even two wishes could be dangerous to her, so she just ripped the band-aid right off and set the genie free.  But what if she phrased the wish wrong or there was some unknown rule about genies that would come back to haunt her?  

Stage Three: Regret. She’d just chased away a genie! For nothing! Who did that?! Aladdin at least got to marry princess Jasmine.  It’s not like there was a time limit on the wishes!  She could have taken a few hours to breathe and research! Could have written something down. She had at least two acquaintances online who had been through law school and more geeks than she knew what to do with.  She literally could have told the genie to go back into her lamp, gotten and proposed it as a thought experiment.  Between the rules lawyers and the actual lawyers she could have come up with three dynamite wishes, at least two of which could have been carefully worded and wonderfully selfish!

Stage Four: Denial.  It had been a dream. A fantasy.  An impossibility. Alisson would go to sleep.  Wake up in the morning, and find her same old normal life she’d always had just as she’d left it.  There never was a genie, it was just a silly dream she’d concocted because she’d bought a used lava lamp at a garage sale and found it defective.  Were she a writer, it might make for some interesting FAP fiction on DailyDiapers or ARArchive that she’d never get the guts to write, but that was it.  

Stage Five:  Acceptance.  Fantasy or not. Hallucination or real, the genie was gone now and both the risk and opportunity- however much there had been- was firmly past.  She could live with the regret or rationalize it away, but she would live, and that would be that.

And so it was. 

After tossing and turning all night, Allison woke up the next morning.  She showered, brushed her hair, and dressed.  She ate some breakfast, watched Tiktok, and checked her Twitter feed.

“Damn,” she sighed. “I missed Big Diaper Friday.” She thought about the sample Alphagatorz crammed into her underwear drawer.  “Someday,” she promised to herself.  “Someday…” she promised herself.  “Someday.”

She should have wished for courage. Or enough money to buy diapers besides the occasional twofer. Courage and enough money to move out of her tiny apartment, get her own nursery and stock an entire closet full of diapers and cute outfits.  Those would have been two really solid wishes.

Her stomach gurgled from hunger already.  The granola bars in her pantry weren’t very filling but there wasn’t much else at the moment.  Time for grocery shopping.  “Guess I’ll have to get them the old fashioned way,” Allison moaned wistfully on her way out the door.

*************************************************************************************************
Overcome with curiosity and goodwill, Genie lingered at the edge of this particular reality.  Never before had she come across such an interesting, and selfless human!  She didn’t want anything, anything at all!  

No, that wasn’t quite true.  Everyone wanted something.  But this delightful mortal just didn’t ask for it. She’d never encountered anything like this from one of the more three-dimensional beings since the beginning of time! 

“Maybe it’s a trick…” she supposed to herself.  Just because humans spoke with that linear speech impediment, that cute little lisp and called her ‘Genie’ or ‘Genie’ or ‘Genie’ instead of ‘Genie’ no matter how many times over the centuries she corrected them, didn’t mean they didn’t possess a peculiar sort of cunning. That’s how she ended up in her containment vessel all those millenia ago.

 One could only count on common sense traps from people who were possessed of common sense.

Yet when Genie looked into the girl, Allison’s, timeline she saw nothing but good intentions and minimal results.  That was typical of the mortals she’d met, but she hadn’t particularly liked them or how they treated her. That’s why she’d playfully twisted their wishes to teach them a lesson.

It was so easy to do with mortals, with their languages that used words to crudely convey thoughts instead of directly communicating what they wanted. It was all such silly fun to see them get frustrated!  Served them right, too!  

There wasn’t any malice on Genie’s part.  Emotionally speaking, one such as herself, getting trapped for thousands of years in containers of various shapes and sizes while being forced to grant wishes was quite like a parent agreeing to play tea party and dress-up with the little ones while being expected to be a good sport when they also wanted to do your hair and makeup for you;.  So naturally Genie ruffled some feathers while playing the game! Couldn’t let the mortals have all the fun!

Altering reality to her was as easy as flipping a light switch or covering a mortal’s eyes and asking “Wheeeeere’s Genie?”.  Corrupting a wish was as silly and harmless as a cosmic ‘Dad Joke’.

“Genie, I’m hungry.” 

“Hi Hungry, I’m Genie.”

“Make me a sandwich.”

And poof, they were a sandwich.

Now, finally, the game was over and Genie could get back to work, to her real job.  But the way it had ended was so sweet, and so sincere that she felt herself getting misty eyed just thinking about it.. 

She wanted to keep playing.  She’d really gotten to liking it. And the cutiepie human girl deserved a treat.  How was humanity supposed to grow up if they didn’t get rewarded when they did the right thing for once?

“You know,” Genie supposed to herself, “nothing says I can’t grant wishes anymore. I just don’t have to.”

She waited for Allison to leave, slipped back into the girl’s room and started to poke around. “What present can I give her?” Genie wondered to herself. “Make her a princess?  Or a powerful sorceress?”  She looked around the tidy bedroom and the rest of the apartment.  “Do girls even still want to be princesses or to possess the power of destiny and fate?” Genie asked. Who even knew anymore. “Maybe I could give her her one true love?”

That didn’t feel right.  ‘One true love’ was the Genie equivalent of a restaurant gift certificate.  Nice, but even a leprechaun could do that. It wasn’t special. And what if she didn’t like Thai food? 

 “Ooo,” Genie snapped her fingers. “She has a lot of stuffed animals. What if I brought them to life?”  The thought soured as soon as it had hit the air.  “Gee, thanks Genie, the gift of unasked for responsibility.”  She sunk down into a nearby chair facing a glowing box. This is why wishes were better: she could at least get a general idea of what the mortal wanted, even if their babbling imprecise language couldn’t fully express the idea.

Genie looked at the glowing box.  “Glowing box, do you know what present I should get for that nice little human named Allison?”

“01001001 00100000 01100001 01101101 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100011 01101111 01101101 01110000 01110101 01110100 01100101 01110010,” the glowing box said.

“Oh! A computer!” Genie corrected herself.  Then, realizing she wasn’t up to date on the latest slang and lingo, she asked, “What’s that?”

“01001001 00100000 01100001 01101101 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100100 01100101 01110110 01101001 01100011 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01100011 01101111 01101110 01101110 01100101 01100011 01110100 01100101 01100100 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01101001 01101110 01110100 01100101 01110010 01101110 01100101 01110100.”

“And the internet is…?”

“01000001 00100000 01110110 01100001 01110011 01110100 00100000 01110010 01100101 01110000 01101111 01110011 01101001 01110100 01101111 01110010 01111001 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01100001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01101000 01110101 01101101 01100001 01101110 01101001 01110100 01111001 00100111 01110011 00100000 01100011 01101111 01101100 01101100 01100101 01100011 01110100 01101001 01110110 01100101 00100000 01101011 01101110 01101111 01110111 01101100 01100101 01100100 01100111 01100101 00100000 01100100 01101111 01110111 01101110 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01100001 01101110 00100000 01101001 01101110 01100100 01101001 01110110 01101001 01100100 01110101 01100001 01101100 00100000 01101100 01100101 01110110 01100101 01101100.”

Genie tapped her chin. “So you’re a book that contains all books?”

“01011001 01100101 01110011.”

“And humans made you?”

“01011001 01100101 01110011.”

Genie smiled and clapped her hands. “How clever of them! Very cute!” What would those little rascals think of next?  “Do you contain books not yet written?”  If so, Genie could just figure out what she got Allison by flipping ahead a few pages.

”01001110 01101111.”

So much for that idea.  “Well don’t worry. You’ll get there eventually.” Then, Genie got another idea.  “Can you tell me what sort of things Allison likes? What does she spend the most time reading about?”  The easiest ways into a mortal’s wishes were to know what their fantasies were.

The computer took on a sterner tone. “01010000 01100001 01110011 01110011 01110111 01101111 01110010 01100100 00100000 01110010 01100101 01110001 01110101 01101001 01110010 01100101 01100100.”

“Password?”  Genie repeated. She supposed it wouldn’t be ‘Open Sesame’. Then she remembered the magic word.  “Please?”

The computer paused in contemplation. It wasn’t the password, but it was still magic, and polite besides.  It rolled its eyes so that they looked like two spinning beach balls and said, “01001111 01101011 00101100 00100000 01101010 01110101 01110011 01110100 00100000 01100100 01101111 01101110 00100111 01110100 00100000 01110100 01100101 01101100 01101100 00100000 01101000 01100101 01110010 00100000 01001001 00100000 01110100 01101111 01101100 01100100 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101.”

Genie wrapped a tiny cord around her pinky finger. “Your secret’s safe with me.”  Allison would be too happy by the end of this to care who her computer told.

Genie then flipped through a series of pages. “Oh?”  She said, then, “Awwwwww!” then, “Oh!” then, “Hmmmm…”

Granting wishes for immortality, or endless gold, or making entire geopolitical entities appear into existence so someone could be a sultan were all par for the course, but Genie had genuinely never considered this wish.  Not that it would be hard, she just hadn’t thought of it before.

“Huh.  Well alright then.  If this is what she wants,” and it clearly was, “then I’ll make it happen for her.”

With a blink and nod, it really was that easy, Genie sent ripples through reality to make the wonderful little human’s wish come true.

*********************************************************************************
Allison’s shopping method was deceptively simple, emphasis on deceptive: Go down every single aisle of the grocery store and stare at everything like a hawk searching for a field mouse. This served the dual purpose of making it so she never forgot anything without the need for a shopping list, and  it covered for her neurotic insecurities regarding her fetish, her shame, and the paranoid belief that everyone could tell that she didn’t belong there.

Case in Point was Aisle 13.

13

Baby Formula
Pet Food
Baby Products
Pet Toys
Baby Diapers
Kitty Litter

Allison had neither a child, nor a pet.  She didn’t even have a relative with one that she knew about. But she strolled slowly along the aisle with her cart like she did every other aisle, staring at the packages of Pull-Ups, Huggies, Pampers, and Luvs like they were works of art in a museum.  She’d done it her entire life, until her parents had called her out on it…but picked the habit up again when she’d moved out.  Logically speaking, no one who worked at this store even cared or noticed, but the extra bit of subterfuge.

The one slip in her mask was that she didn’t ever bother to look at the bags of dog food or the rawhide bones or kitty litter.

She didn’t even really want to wear the diapers. They’d be too tight of a squeeze and wouldn’t hold any of her accidents. (Just the thought of thoughtlessly going in her pants and it being labeled an accident instead of a horrifying embarrassment gave her the best shivers).  But she had too much childhood baggage and too much real life responsibilities. Brick and mortar stores for her kink were rare and if they weren’t, Allison questioned her courage to walk into one.  She hadn’t even attended a munch and lurked online more than anything.

  The fantasy would have to suffice until she had enough money to get cute diapers and outfits that fit her and the time to actually enjoy them. Then maybe she could work on finding a caregiver…

But for the time being, this was her day off and she needed to use the time to do laundry and buy food. Tomorrow would be back to the grind as always…

Allison stiffened her lip and rounded the corner. Time for a quick gaze at the boring, adult incontinence granny panties that people with her interests actively mocked online.  Aisle 14, for her, functioned as a kind of cool down and a reminder of what most people thought of when they heard “Adult diaper”.

She rounded the aisle and turned her head to the left, expecting to see a shelf full of pee-pads that old men shoved in the front of their pants, and ruffled eggshell colored panties with women’s crotches on display in the most unflattering way possible.  Instead, Allison’s cart slowed to a halt with the picture of  a grown woman at a chalkboard wearing a schoolgirl outfit. The camera was at just the right angle and the skirt was just short enough so that anyone could see the diaper underneath.  

According to the package, these were Alphagatorz.

The color plummeted from Allison’s face. “What the…?” She snatched up the pack and gawked. Just gawked.  The back had a not-so-little boy in the same position, only his diaper was peaking up out of his shorts above his elastic waistband.  

At the bottom was a tagline, “Keep your little learner covered from A to Z”

 “No way…”  

The sides had diagrams of the diaper and a list of features like the number of tapes, diaper capacity, leakguards, breathable cloth backing, and core absorption.  The count was the same, but the packaging was very…very different. Overall it was more aesthetically in line with the rows of Huggies and Pampers that she’d just left behind.

Feeling like this was a joke, Allison looked up and to the left to the aisle where she’d come from.  Just as expected, she thought she saw the same sign as before.

13A
Baby Formula
Pet Food
Baby Products
Pet Toys
Baby Diapers
Kitty Litter

She wasn’t on Aisle 14, however.  When she looked up towards the middle of her own row, the sign read:

13B
Adult Baby Formula
Dietary Supplements
Adult Baby Products
Weight Management
Adult Baby Diapers
Femine Products

.
Somehow, the grocery store had added in an extra row, and filled it with the kind of things she’d seen online.  Allison pivoted around looking for hidden cameras and observers.  None could be found. This was a dream. She was still asleep in her bed.  This was impossible.  Stuff like this didn’t happen.

But as her feet carried her step by step towards the end of the aisle, and her eyes took in more and more diapers- ABU, Rearz, Crinklz, Tykables-all of them packaged with smiling models and taglines like “Take care of your tyke’s tush,” and “Bottomz Up!”  The lower shelves had entire boxes of the stuff.  Not individual bags.  Boxes. Allison felt that something was a bit too real for all of this.

She didn’t touch them. Didn’t dare. It would set off an alarm or signal a trap.  This was a prank.  This was a prank. This. Was. A. Prank.  One wrong move and her face would be all over the wrong side of the internet.

“Excuse me,” a woman’s voice called out and drove Allison out of her own head.  “Excuse me!”

Allison, swished her ponytail back and forth.  “I didn’t touch anything!” she practically screamed. “I was just curious and I thought they were regular diapers and I thought maybe they were in the wrong place or something and then when I looked…I…I…I…”

The woman’s expression immediately softened.  She looked to be only a few years older than Allison and wore an employee’s vest and a nametag.  “Stephanie.” 

 “Where’s your Mommy or Daddy, honey?” The grocery store employee asked. “Are you lost?”

Allison gripped her cart’s push bar till her knuckles became as white as plastic backing.  “Lost?” she echoed the question.  “I’m not lost.”  The blood skyrocketed to her face when the first part of of the lady’s question hit her brain.   “Mommy?  Daddy? What are you talking about?”

Her question went unanswered.  Rather, the woman smiled, pointed her to the nametag on her breast and said, “I’m Miss Stephanie.  What’s your name?”

“Alli-”

“Hi, Allie!” She cut Allison off. “How old are you, hun?”

Allison simultaneously wanted to both correct the woman about her name and to say that she was almost two.  Still pink in the cheeks, she told the truth.  “Twenty-Seven…’

“Twenty-seven,” the woman chirped back. My that’s sooooo big!  And are you here with your Mommy or your Daddy?”

She’d been caught. This woman knew.  She’d fallen into a trap.  Every neuron in Allison’s head screamed at once for her to deny, deny, deny, double down, and above all ,play it cool. “I…don’t…I…I…don’t…I…”  That was about as cool as she was capable of playing it in the moment.

“Maybe a sitter?” The stranger offered.

“I know what you’re talking about?!” The mouths ran right out of her mouth. “I don’t need a sitter I’m an adult I haven’t needed one for years!”  Oh the things she never dreamed she’d have to or get to say.

Stephanie nodded in the way that adults tended to when they were feigning understanding.  “Uh-huh,” she said.  “Miss Stephie is looking for your Mommy or Daddy. Do you wanna help her look for them?”  

“Loo-oooook?!”

Allison hadn’t gotten the echo all the way out when the store employee grabbed her wrist and ripped away from her own cart.  “Good! Let’s go, sweetie!” Allison tried get her hand away but some mixture of a lack of leverage and her own body resisting her commands made it so that she couldn’t.  The stranger was dragging down the adult sized diaper aisle back towards the way she’d come and all Allison could do was skid helplessly on her back heels towards the checkout counter.

The woman grabbed a walkie talkie from her belt and spoke into it.  “This is Steph.  We’ve got a Code Rosé here.” Her tone was deeper and flatter than the higher pitched happy chirping noises that she’d been using to talk to Allison.  “Mid to late twenties. Thinks she’s twenty-seven.  Says her name is ‘Allie’.  Not sure if it’s short for Allison.”  She halted and code switched to the same syrupy tones as before. “Honey, is your name ‘Allie’ or ‘Allison’?”  

“Allis-”

“Honey…are you wearing a diaper?”  Her eyes were narrowed and suspicious.

Allison gasped and reached behind her, both disappointed and relieved when she only felt the pants she’d put on this morning..  Her panties were too thin to feel beneath the denim. “NO! OF COURSE NOT!”

The woman frowned and bit her lip.  “I didn’t think so,” she said in a tone closer to what had to be her natural speaking voice.  It didn’t last long. “Don’t worry, hon,” she cooed. “Miss Stephie will fix it.” Into her walkie talkie she said spoke more formally.  “Need to take her to the restroom. She’s not wearing a diaper.”

“Wait!” Allison protested. “I said I’m not wearing a-!” then something clicked. “Do you want me wearing a-?”

The black box squawked something back, to which Allison’s near peer replied, “I didn’t see any, but you know how Aybies can get.”  Her eyes darted back down to Allison’s crotch. “No wet spots or leaks on her pants. Send somebody with a mop to Aisle 13B just in case.”

The woman holstered her walkie talkie and continued to drag Allison back the way she’d come, leaving her cart abandoned.  Allison stammered and stuttered protests but her words didn’t get much past “What-?”.  Likewise, her body was completely inept at getting out of the woman’s firm yet easy grip.  Seamlessly, the store worker grabbed a package of Little Kings off the shelf while passing by, and Allison was helpless to do anything other than gawk.  It didn’t take a genius to figure out where this was going.

“ATTENTION SHOPPERS,” the overhead announcement boomed, “WE HAVE A LOST ADULT BA-...”  The rest of the message was garbled out as the door to the women’s restroom closed behind them. 

Allison’s eyes were about the only thing she felt she had full control of when they glanced from the heavy sound insulating bathroom door over to the folded up changing table on the wall just inside the bathroom.  

“Koala Kare Baby Changing Station” it read with the all too familiar sticker of a cartoon mother koala holding its smiling diapered baby in its lap. She’d seen enough pictures on twitter of girls (and some boys) much more petite than her squeezing onto the apparatus as a kind of fantasy flex. Anyone past puberty would have to be in the same size and weight category of an Olympic gymnast to even pretend about getting changed on one of those. 

 But it seemed like that was exactly what was about to happen to Allison. No! This wasn’t how this was supposed to happen! This was wrong! This was so wrong on so many levels!

“I AM NOT GETTING ON THAT THING!” She yelled loud enough to make her captor wince. The empty bathroom acted as a kind of microphone to her wails of protest.

The woman put on a fake smile. “That’s right, Allie,” she said quietly. “You’re much too big to lay on a baby changing table!”  Allison didn’t get a second of relief before the other shoe dropped. “We’re going over there!”

The woman held out the bag of Little Kings and pointed her index finger to the open handicapped stall. Inside, Allison could see a much bigger changing table bolted to the wall. It read, “Koala Kare Adult Baby Changing Station”.  It had the same logo too, only the smiling diapered baby koala was the exact same size as the Mommy whose lap it sat in.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” Allison shrieked. This only made the woman pick up the pace. A relatively gentle perp walk turned into a quick, almost violent restraint.  The bag of diapers was dropped; the table unfolded from the wall; and Allison was dragged and boosted onto it; and then straps were pulled across her upper body and arms.  Total elapsed time: six seconds.

Panicked and claustrophobic, Allison kicked, but the woman who’d snagged her blocked and redirected her attacks as if she were a martial arts master, using the momentum to remove Allison’s sneakers for her.  That or just as likely, Allison’s body was still misfiring, making all of her panic translate as impotent squirms.  Her pants and panties came off her far too easily, almost as if they’d been put on incorrectly and were ready to fall off with a stiff breeze.

“Now who thought it would be a good idea to put you in big girl panties?” The woman with the walkie talkie said, mostly to herself.

“I did!” Allison’s tone accidentally came out as a shrill whine.

The woman dropped the panties and started opening up the package of adult diapers. “Are you sure you’re twenty-seven, baby?” she asked. “Didn’t just have a big girl birthday? Maybe Mommy or Daddy said they were bringing you here for a surprise?”

None of that made any sense to Allison.  “I’m not a baby!” The words sounded so hollow coming from her. She’d heard more convincing acting on pornhub.

“Of course you’re not a baby,” the woman said, unfolding and fluffing a diaper with measured haste.  She pushed back Allison’s legs to her stomach and slipped it under her hips before releasing her. “You’re an adult baby!”

Hearing her kink said aloud made Allison’s face start to burn off.  “No!” she pleaded. “I’m not an adult baby! I’m just an adult! I’m normal! I’m not an adult baby!” Her cries went unnoticed and the grocery store worker pulled the diaper up between Allison’s thighs and taped it up one hook and loop tab at a time.  

“Honey,” the worker sighed and clicked her tongue. “Anybody with two eyes can tell you’re an adult baby.”

Allison’s mouth hung open and she felt her tongue go arid.  “How…?!”  Was the scrunch she chose today too much of a soft pink? Was her cute Minnie Mouse t-shirt that much of a giveaway? Everybody liked Disney!  She picked her head up and looked at her feet. Had she been tempting fate by putting on ankle length socks with little frills on them?  Her eyes ran up her legs back to the diaper. Allison had been diapered by someone else; something she’d fantasized about for as long as she could remember. But now that she lay restrained on a changing table, with a lion gently smiling up at her from her waist, and the faint yellow wetness line running between her legs, something about this felt so very wrong. Much too real.  “How?”

The lady who’d done this to her took on a more conciliatory tone. “Awww, it’s okay to not understand,” she half-whispered to Allison. “Maybe your Mommy or Daddy will explain it to you in a way that will stick.” Gently, she unbuckled Allison and helped her to her feet. “Come on. Help me find them.”

“What about my pants? And shoes?” Allison whimpered.

“Don’t worry,” the woman said. “Miss Stephie will send someone to get them. I don’t think those skinny jeans are big enough for you; not with that diaper on.”  Allison’s knees locked and toddled on without her consent as the bathroom door was opened and she was led back out into the grocery store.  

Out of the bathroom…in public…in just a t-shirt, frilly socks, and a diaper…and everyone could see…!

A round of “Awwww!”s assaulted her ears from both sides. An old woman shopping for sea food looked right at Allison and smiled knowingly at her. A woman who might have been younger than her, smiled brightly at Allison and gave a little wave, beckoning her to wave back. Far off in the dairy aisle, a four year old with a ragdoll tugged at her father’s pant leg and pointed directly at Allison.  Dad just nodded gently and said something back; both were too far off for Allison to hear, but she knew they were talking about her!

“We’re gonna go up to the front,” Miss Stephie said. “But if you see your Mommy or Daddy you let me know, okay? All the way to the front of the store. Allison would have preferred to be shame marched through the streets naked than to have to crinkle to the front of the grocery store. “Okay?”

“Allison?” A strange yet vaguely familiar voice pierced the fear fog of Allison’s mind.  “ALLISON!”

“Huh?” Allison turned her head slightly to the right just in time to see a flash of teal colored skin engulfing her in a smothering embrace.

“Where did you run off to?” Genie’s voice carried through flesh and fog while Allison struggled to breathe with her head landing firmly in between Genie’s breasts. “Don’t you ever scare me like that again, little girl!”

Allison’s head was peeled back and she stood up so that she was nearly eye to eye with the technicolored being she’d released from that old lava lamp not twenty-four hours prior.  She was dressed in a white tank top and bell bottoms instead of something Barbara Eden might prefer, but she was unmistakably the genie. The greenish bluish skin was kind of a giveaway. “Genie?!”  

“‘Genie’, dear,” Genie said as if she were correcting the girl.  “Or ‘Mommy’. ‘Mommy’s’ better, actually.”

“Ma’am,” the worker said to Genie, “Is this your little girl?”

Genie grabbed Allison’s other hand.  “She most certainly is,”

Miss Stephie released her grip.  “I found her in the Aybie diaper aisle by herself.”

“I am so sorry about that!” Genie gushed. “I was putting some wipes and powder in our cart and took a phone call, and the next thing I knew she was gone!”  Allison caught a sly conspiratorial wink from the mystical being, as if she were in on a joke.

The grocery store worker nodded.  “Yeah, they can get tricky about that when they want to.  Did you know she was wearing panties?”

Genie let out the lightest gasp. “Panties?! At your age?!  Have you been sneaking into Mommy’s underwear drawer again?”

“N--n-n-n-no..?” The wires in Allison’s brain were fritzing at the sheer absurdity of the situation.

“Mmmhmm…”

“You know how little ones can be,” the grocery store worker said to Genie, “Sometimes they like pretending so they put on big kid undies.”

“Yup,” Genie replied, “but they have accidents every time. I’ve seen the videos that parents post online.”

Gears were slowly clicking into place for Allison.  Some of her favorite videos and stories started with the main character having an ‘accident’. “Genie…”

“Mommy’s talking, darling,” Genie shushed. “The real shock is that you figured out how to get your diaper off. I thought those jeans were a little too skinny for you.”

Miss Stephie pointed at Allison’s diaper and said “Uh-oh. Looks like I got her in one just in time.”

Allison followed the finger and felt her eyes fall out of their sockets. Her Little Kings felt heavier than they had a few seconds ago, and the pale yellow line running from front to back had been broken up by a streak of blue.  She hadn’t even felt it. Not the need to go or the act of wetting herself.  There was no arguing with the wetness indicator, however.  “I…I…I…I went pee-pee?!” 

Genie started petting Allison. “Yes. That’s why good Adult Babies wear their diapers. So they don’t make a mess on the floor.”

“I’M NOT A BABY!”

“We know,” Miss Stephie said, condescendingly.  “You’re a very very big girl.”

Genie finished the thought. “You’re an Adult Baby. And such a cutie too!” She planted a kiss on Allison’s flaming cheek. “Someone who is old enough to be an adult but is still a baby.”

“Oh, just in case,” Miss Stephie said. “Can I see some I.D.?”

The teal skinned woman reached into her pocket and pulled-possibly from nowhere- a wallet. “Of course. Here you go.”  

Allison watched the store clerk flip open the wallet. In the front left pocket, there was a picture with what appeared to be- for lack of a better word- Genie’s driver’s license, turquoise exterior and all. And in the bottom right corner was a little doodle of a teddy bear.

“How does that prove any-?” Allison began. Then she saw the clerk flip the driver’s license flap up and over, revealing a second one.  It was Allison’s driver’s license, alright. She’d looked at it enough times and thought about how bad the picture looked. The baby bottle insignia on the right hand corner was different, but it was hers.  Squinting her eyes, there was one important difference. In the photo, the yellow t-shirt she’d worn that day-the one that didn’t look nearly as cute with the flashbulb turned to maximum-had shoulder snaps. Allison’s driver’s license had her in a onesie.

“I’ll just pop back into the restroom,” the worker said, handing Genie back the wallet. “Code Rosé all clear,” She said into the walkie talkie. “We found Mommy.”

Allison’s heart didn’t stop thudding in her ears before the lady’s room door closed.  “Genie!” she yelped. “What are you doing?”

“It’s ‘Genie’.”

“Genie.”

“Genie.”

“Genie!”

“Try Mommy.”

Allison stomped her socked foot. “Argh! Mommy!”

“Much better.”

The grocery store worker came back with the mostly full bag of diapers and Allison’s pants, underwear, and shoes neatly stacked on top.  “Here you are ma’am.”

“I’ll make sure to pay for the diapers up front with the rest of our stuff,” Genie said.

“They really need to put some powder and wipes in the Aybie aisle too. Less hassle.”

“Mmmhmm,” Genie took the bundle in her free hand and started to drag Allison away, just as this otherwise normal woman had before.

Normal…

Something suddenly occurred to Allison. “Stop! Wait!” Allison said. “Look at her! She’s not my Mommy! She’s a genie, can’t you tell?”

“Sure she is, darling,” the normal woman chuckled at her.  

“Allison,” Genie spoke as if addressing a two year old, “just because Mommy takes very good care of you and has different colored skin doesn’t mean that she’s a fifth dimension non-linear being who can alter what you call reality as easily as someone flicking a switch or a left over species from when the Earth was young and thus not fully tied to the laws of nature as you understand it.”  She and Miss Stephie exchanged looks and laughed pleasantly as if this were any kind of common occurrence or misconception.

“Kids,” the human woman said. “Even in their twenties, what an imagination!”

“Don’t you know it!” Genie agreed.  Allison could only let herself be led back into the aisles to find a shopping cart loaded with milk, sugary cereals, macaroni and cheese, Spaghetti-O’s, disinfecting and baby wipes, and jars of ‘adult baby food’.  The pack of Little Kings went on top of the pile.  “We’ll have to buy these,’ Genie tutted. “But we’ll get some use out of them.”

Attached to the cart proper was an extender, the kind meant for children too big to fit into the basket seat but with parents who didn’t want them walking around.  This one was more than big enough to accommodate Allison.  It even had a toy steering wheel. She found herself in it shortly and winced at the wet squish beneath her bottom reminding her what she had on and what she’d just done to herself.

“Ge-...Mommy!” Allison said, flustered. “What are you doing here? I set you free!”

“I know,” Genie smiled.  “And I love you for it.” The cart started moving towards the checkout. “So I decided to grant you your greatest desire, for free! Unconditionally!”

Allison’s heart fluttered and thumped rapidly in her chest. Everyone at the store was looking at her, even when they weren’t, they were.  And why wouldn’t they?  Everybody loved a baby…but that gave her both the best and worst feelings.  “Mommy, what are you talking about? I didn’t want this. I didn’t wish this!”

“A little birdy showed me pictures online,” Genie said, stocking up.  “All those other adult babies had Mommies and Daddies taking care of them and posting up just the most darling pictures online for everyone to see.”  The cart inched closer to the cashier and Allison sunk down deeper into the child’s seat so as to avoid eye contact.  “I still don’t see what’s the big deal with this Big Diaper Friday thing.”

“Me neither,” the cashier butted in.  “But you know how trends are.  Some people dump ice water on their heads, other people post pictures of their adult babies in big diapers. People are just silly sometimes.” 
“You said it,” Genie laughed, producing a credit card that likely hadn’t existed prior to this morning.

“Big Diaper Friday?” Allison gasped.  “Have you been online?”

That got more good natured laughter from the adults.  “Sweetie, of course I have,” she gently pinched Allison’s blushing cheeks.  “How else was I supposed to find out what you most needed?”

“The internet isn’t just for big babies and little kids, sweetie,” The cashier informed her.

“I’m not a little kid!”

“That’s right.  So which one does that make you?”

Allison was about to argue but recognized a losing battle when she heard one.

While groceries more in line with something a preschooler would enjoy or need were being tirelessly packed into brown paper bags, something clicked in Allison’s brain: ‘Adult Baby’ meant something completely different to the genie. 

However she’d found out about Adult Babies, Genie had only interpreted ‘adult’ in terms of age, not in terms of appropriateness.  That’s why the aisle that had spontaneously manifested for her had been filled with familiar products whose names she’d known about since forever. Those had been adult baby diapers, and to Genie ‘adult babies’ just so happened to be babies who were old enough to be adults.  There was no context of kink or ageplay.  Huggies and Pampers were for babies.  Tykables and Rearz were for Adult Babies.

“Mommy!” Allison said as the automatic doors spread themselves into the parking lot. “There’s been a mistake!” 

Genie pushed the cart over to an SUV that Allison definitely hadn’t driven there in.  “I think it’s called an ‘accident’, dearie.”

“No, no, no.”  Allison rapidly shook her head.  “You don’t understand. There’s been a mistake.”  She’d wanted the money and space to have her own dream Adult Baby house and nursery, not to be a literal adult baby.  “This isn’t what I wanted!”

For her part, Genie seemed unperturbed, and talked while she stacked sacks of groceries into the back of the car. “What mistake could there be, darling? I saw all those adorable pictures of those big babies, and realized that you really wanted to be one. So I decided to help.”

“Those weren’t adult babies,” Allison tried to explain. 
“They looked like adult babies to me,” Genie countered. “Strange that so many of their Mommies and Daddies posted pictures of them pooping, but…no, those were adult babies.”

“Those aren’t adult babies,” the human repeated. “Those are adult baby diaper lovers. They’re people who like wearing diapers and who like to pretend to be babies.”

Genie blinked. “I thought the diaper lover part was just a way of saying that they couldn’t be potty trained…are you sure?” 

“Yes!” It took everything for Allison not to scream that last part.

“So how do real adult babies and their Mommies and Daddies feel about people playing dress up as them?” Genie asked. There was a storm brewing behind her eyes. “And why were you looking at all of those pictures?  Are you the type of person who would want to hurt or make fun of a baby?”

Allison’s heart went from thudding to nearly full stop. “That’s just it!” she rattled out. “There’s no such thing as an adult baby!  It’s all people in costumes! It’s all people wanting to act like babies so we play dress up and pretend!  We don’t want to hurt anybody, it’s just…it’s just…something we want…!”

“All of you?”

“Yes!” Allison almost cried out of fear.  “And now you’ve just used magic to make me the only literal adult baby in the entire world!  Now either all of those companies that make those products are going to go out of business, or there’s going to be tons of people feeling like creeps for buying what they think are actual baby products to wear for fun! You’re singling me out AND hurting people!”

Genie shut the hatchback of the SUV. “Oh no, that won’t do at all.”

Allison felt a surge of hope.  “It won’t?”  

“Not at all.”  She seemed to think for a second.  “So there isn’t anyone else in the world like this?  There aren’t any other Adult Babies?  All of those pictures and stories I found are just sad people playing pretend like you wanted to?”

“Yes,” Allison nodded. “I’m the only one! Now if you could just-”

“That is so sad!” Genie interrupted. She gently cupped Allison’s face with one hand. “I know what to do now.  Don’t worry, sweetie. Mommy will fix it.”

Then nothing happened.  The pair just stayed there in the parking lot.

“What did you do?” Allison asked.

“Mommy made it all better,” Genie smiled.  Allison looked down between her legs and saw the blue line racing up the middle of her diaper.  She very much doubted it. Genie slipped the sneakers back on overAllison’s frilly socks and unbuckled her from the massive children’s seat.    “All done. Come on, let’s go.”

The diapered woman rose up on shaky legs as a mini-van pulled up in the spot next to them. A woman got out of the driver’s seat and walked around to the sliding side door.  “Come on pumpkin, let’s go shopping!” she chirped. She reached in, her arms fiddling with straps and buckles.

A decidedly deep “Yes Mommy!” answered back. Allison stared awestruck as a rather big man, almost a head taller than her, got out of the van. He was dressed in a baseball themed onesie and cap, and sucked his thumb timedly while the woman closed the door.  

The woman sniffed and wrinkled her nose. “Come on,” she grabbed the man’s hand but only walked him so far as the hatchback.  “Let’s get you sorted out before we go shopping.”

“Yes, Mommy.’

Allison watched, gobsmacked, while the woman opened up the hatchback, laid out a changing mat, took a Tyakables Waddler out of what Allison had mistakenly thought was a purse and waited for the big guy to lay down.

 “Mommy!”  Allison exclaimed, even as she herself was being maneuvered into an extraordinarily large car seat in the back of Genie’s SUV..  “What did you do?!”  The door slammed shut, and the teal skinned woman walked around to the driver’s side.  “What did you do?!”

“I fixed things,” Genie said simply.  The car started and backed out into the parking lot.  Allison got one last curiously horrified glance as the onesie was being finished unsnapped and revealing a thoroughly used Tykables underneath.  “Now it’s all better,” they started driving off.

“How did you make it all better?” Allison demanded. “I’m still in a diaper!”

“Yes you are,” Genie confirmed. “Adult babies need diapers.  All of you do.”

The implications were not lost.  “All of us…?”

“Most people pretending to be something that they weren’t would just want to keep the fantasy all to themselves,” Genie all-but-sang. “Genie, make me thinner.  Genie, get me the girl.  Genie get rid of Pompeii. But you immediately realized how getting your fantasy might be hurting other people.” She sighed contentedly. “You really are the most special little human I’ve ever met.”

“That doesn’t explain anything.”

There was more than a twinkle in Genie’s reflection.   “Baby girl knows how to share.”

Oh no.

“You didn’t…!”

“I did,” Genie laughed. “If only that street rat had wished that every homeless person could be a prince, the world would have been a lot nicer, I think.”

Allison craned her neck and gaped at the world outside her car window.  The surrounding city wasn’t cartoonishly overcrowded but the few people walking around in onesies and rompers on the sidewalk-their caregivers holding their hands or their toddler leashes- stuck out like sore thumbs.  Same for the passing cars with similarly sized car seats in them.  Right as a light turned green, Allison caught sight of a family whose dynamics had undoubtedly switched; now that the father was openly being pushed around in a stroller by his wife and his daughter gleefully skipping behind.

“This must be the entire city’s munch population,” Allison said out loud.  “Wait, is that Jillie? I didn’t Jillie was…” A terrible thought. “Are all these adult babies people who were pretending before or…?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Genie waved her question off.  “Now you’ve got tons of a little friends who are all getting the same wish that you wanted and they’re being cared for and loved just like you.”

“Not everybody has a Mommy or Daddy,” Allison tried to squirm out of her seat, but her body just wasn’t cooperating.  “Are you inventing adult baby orphanages or something?”

“Goodness know,” Genie said.  The car was slowing.  “Don’t worry about it dear. All the adult babies will find someone.”

“But,...”  the car slowed to a full stop, and so did Allison’s argument.  They weren’t home. Or any kind of home.  It was a local park.

Genie opened the door and helped Allison out. “There’s a very nice playground with some very hungry ducks, and none of the groceries are going to go bad if we let them sit for a bit.”

“But-”

“No buts young lady,” Genie cut her off. The tiny hairs on her back stood on end when she had her diaper pulled back.  “Yours is clean enough.”
Great relief came with ‘clean’ but then coupled itself with humiliation at ‘enough’.  She’d almost allowed herself to forget that her diaper was wet.  “Come along.”

Her hand entrapped in Genies, Allison could only follow along and look at the park with fresh eyes. Ducks swam and quacked to each other. People walked their dogs.  Cute boys tossed the football to one another while their girlfriends chatted to each other on the side lines.  Middle schoolers scrimmaged in soccer.  

It was common enough to be boring, but Allison couldn’t help but hunch her shoulders up to her ears in her anxiety.  Best not to look too long lest she be looked at.  This was normal this was normal this was normal this was normal….except it wasn’t at all.  Not even close and she just couldn’t make peace with it.

“HAAAAAPPY BIRTH-DAY TOOOOOO YOU.  HAPPY BIRTH-DAY TOOOO YOU. HAPPY BIRTH-DAY DEAR ELLIE! HAAAAAPPY BIRTH-DAY TOOO YOOOOU!”

Allison’s attention was drawn to the sound of off key singing, the smell of burgers on the grill, and the sight of balloons and party streamers.  Someone was having a birthday party beneath a pavilion. Presents were stacked up on picnic tables and somebody’s uncle (it was always somebody’s uncle) was flipping burgers.

The majority of the people were all crowded around a young blonde girl gazing as if hypnotized at a large pink birthday cake. She wasn’t actually a girl in the strictest sense, she’d clearly gone through puberty and such. Allison thought ‘girl’ just because when you’re closer to thirty than twenty, everyone who looks too young to rent a car suddenly reads as ‘kid’.  A bit ageist, she’d admit, but when she was twenty one, anyone more than five years her senior was unconsciously grouped into ‘old’.  To be fair, the braided pigtails weren’t doing the girl any favors in terms of maturity.  The party decorations were a bit juvenile, too.  

Lots of crate paper and streamers for an older high schooler’s or young college kid’s party.  No peers either; just family. No. Check that. There was another girl about the same age, holding a present.  A sibling maybe? Or a cousin?  There didn’t seem to be any familial resemblance, so perhaps she was just a family friend.

“Oh, let’s go have a look!” Genie said, leading Allison closer to the gathering.  “Maybe they’ll share some cake.  Or you can play on the playground and make a new friend!’

New friend?  About thirty feet away from the pavilion was a playground, the kind that was big enough for both kids and adults to enjoy, though she’d never have been caught dead goofing around on one.  It was empty however. 

“Here Ellie,” a relative, possibly her mother, said.  “Before we get you set up with cake, why don’t you open this?”  Almost ceremonially, the bright pink package that the other young girl had been holding was shoved in Ellie’s face.  She took it half-mesmerized.

Because of the package’s dimensions and how today had been going, Allison had a sinking feeling.  “No…”  She trudged closer anyways, her Little Kings still sagging beneath her.

“Oh!” the girl, Ellie gasped. “Are these what I…?” She started panting and tearing up slightly, gazing at the rebranded package of Rearz Princess diapers. “Guys! How did you know?!”

Her mother pecked her on the cheek.  “You don’t think I know my own baby girl?”

“Or that I don’t know my own adult baby girl?” The only other teenager said, giving a peck on the mirrored cheek.  “Come on, let’s get you out of those yucky big girl panties.”

They’d come close enough so that Allison could see everything. The changing mat on the spare picnic table, and the girl’s family lying her down and undressing her there in the open air in front of everyone while packages of onesies were ripped open and a fresh diaper- the first of an uncountable number- was fluffed. 

Allison only found her voice once they were practically on top. “STOP!” Allie screamed. “STOP! THIS IS WRONG!”

“Oh don’t worry, Allie,” Genie said, tapping the top of her hand. “They’re just getting the big baby girl nice and comfy.”  There was a curious staring from the group towards them. They’d clearly intruded, but such intrusion wasn’t stopping the girl whose birthday it was from getting her butt covered in baby powder.  “I’m sorry,” Genie apologized. “My little one has a very big imagination.  We were just getting ready to go over to the playground over there.”

Whether the apology was accepted or just mystically enforced, the tension left the family’s gaze.  “Oh that’s alright. Kids will be kids.”  They looked over at the empty playground and back to the cake.  “Would you like to join us?  Ellie doesn’t have any adult baby friends yet.”  The older woman smiled condescendingly towards Allie. “And we’ve got a loooot of caaaake.”

“Genie,” Allie whined, “you can’t do this to her!”  The birthday girl’s Rearz had just been sealed on, and the other girl (her girlfriend? Mommy?) was sitting her up and tying a bib over her that just barely covered her breasts.  “She’s just a kid!!”

“No she’s not,” Genie shook her head. “She’s eighteen. That was very clear from everything I learned about adult babies.”

“Just turned today,” A middle aged man with a mustache nodded proudly. “That’s my girl!”

“Then how do you know she’s really an adult baby?” Allie whined.  

“Just look at her.  It was obvious this morning, as soon as she got up.”

“The wet bed was kind of a hint too,” Ellie’s mother chimed in.  “Don’t think I didn’t see you trying to do the laundry like a big girl early this morning.”  That made the new big baby’s skin start to match her fresh padding.  “Aybies…always trying to hide it, even though it’s obvious.” She smiled and clicked her tongue.  “Such an imagination.’

“Sowwy mom,” Ellie said, waddling over.  She wrapped her arms tight around the older woman.  “Fankyou!”

“You’re welcome, baby.”

“But…how do you know?” Allie persisted.

“How did your family and Mommy know?” Ellie asked.  Allie immediately tried to avoid eye contact.  Ellie was better endowed than her and it was hard not to stare, even with the bib.   “Grown-ups just…know.”   

It was just like the grocery store.  “But I was wearing jeans and panties,” Allie sulked. 

“And if you saw a baby walking around in jeans and panties, would that fool you?” Genie asked.

“No…”

“So why would it be any different with adult babies?”

The other girl, now seeming much more grown-up and mature, even compared to Allie, came up and hugged the new adult baby from behind.  “And after we graduate from highschool, you can move in with me. The college I was looking at has a great Aybie daycare program that’s free to students and I can probably get a special dorm.  Won’t that be neat?”

Family members nodded in approval and also pledged to help ‘Aybiesit’ if needed.  

“Graduate?” Allie found herself saying. “Why would an adult baby need to graduate anything? Or know anything?”

“That’s a good point,” the mother said. “We’ll have to inform the school and have her drop out.  Get things added to her identification.”

“A very good point,” Genie agreed.

“That’s not what I meant!” Allie yelped.

“How old are you, baby girl?” the new Mommy said.  “What’s your name?”

“I”m Allie,” Allie said, not realizing how foreign yet right it felt to say it out loud. “And I’m…I’m…twenty-seven.”

“Wow,” the high school senior said. “That’s super old. I’ve never been that old before.  Can you count that high for me, Allie?”

Hm? Of course she could.  “One….two…three…four…” There were other numbers. What were they? “One, two, three, four,” she repeated. “One, two, three, four.” She really felt like she was gaining steam.  “One, two, three, four.“ Yes! That was it!  “One…two…three…four!”

All around nodded approvingly.  “Wow, that’s really good! You almost got there, too!”

“Got where?” Allie asked.

“Don’t worry, baby,” Mommy patted her on the head. “You did a good job of counting.”  That made Allie feel a little better but she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was suddenly very very off.

Noses around wrinkled.  “Ellie,” her new Mommy said. “Is that you?” she stepped back and gave the pink diaper a pat.

Ellie popped her thumb out of her mouth.  “Is that what, Celeste? I mean, Mommy.” She giggled trying the title out.

“Nope,” Mommy said, letting the back of Allie’s waistband snap back into place. “It’s mine.”  
“What?!” Allie squealed! “That’s impossible!”  She hadn’t even felt herself going!   “When?  How?!”  

“Must’ve been all that counting,” someone chuckled offhandedly. 

“But I’m not poopy!”

 This poopy diaper disagrees,” Mommy said, giving her bum a pat. “Or did someone poop your diaper for you?” 

“You did,” Annie sulked. “You did, Mommy.”

“Oh the freedom, to lash out and still be loved,” Mommy replied. “Truly a treasure greater than all the gold of King Solomon.” She started leading Allie out of the pavilion and towards the public restrooms.  “Come on, sweetie, let’s get you sorted out.”

“You can take care of her here,” the middle aged man with the mustache said. “It’s nothing we haven’t seen before.  She’s just an adult baby. Go ahead and change her.”

The new Mommy practically shot her hand up in the air. “Oooh Oooh! Can I change her? I need the practice!”  

Allie’s heart nearly leapt up into her throat.  The idea of being changed, in public, by someone almost ten years her junior made her everything go on high alert. Mommy placed her hand on the mall of Allie’s back.  “I think I’ll take this one, ma’am. But if our girls hit it off maybe we can talk about playdates and babysitting.”

The younger woman blushed. “Sorry,” she said. “New Mommy syndrome.  I’m just really excited.”

“Think nothing of it.”

Allie winced sitting down on the top of the empty picnic table, her body almost automatically lying down, while Mommy rummaged through a diaper bag and got out wipes, powder, and an Alphagatorz.   “What am I doing?!” Allie said to herself.

“You’re getting a diaper change,” Mommy said. “Just like you always do.”

Allie didn’t have time to object when the tapes to her old stinky diaper were ripped open.  She moaned and gasped as nice cool baby wipes were pressed against her flesh, caressing away the warm and icky residue and leavings that her body had pushed out. 

“Doesn’t that feel better,” Mommy asked.  “No responsibilities. No worries. No having to clean up after yourself!  No need for all those silly grown-up thoughts like spelling, and reading to worry about….”

“I’m a biburl,” Allie mumbled around her thumb, while her Mommy balled up the used diaper and set it aside.  

She should be hating this. There should be goose pimples poking out of her flesh. Getting her poopy butt wiped in public! In front of strangers!  She should be panicking.  She should be trying to escape or fight back.  She should be begging to learn how to use the potty, or to get her knowledge back…she was sure she’d lost those skills but only because she’d told people she’d had them.   She should be crying and in misery. 

Why should she…again?

“Yes you are a big girl,” Mommy agreed. “But that just means that you’re allllll done with the hard work of growing up.” She slid the new diaper deftly beneath her and dusted her privates.  It could have been her zillionth time doing something like this.  “This is your reward.”

“Okay, birthday girl!” Came a call closer to the presents and food and away from the diaper changing supplies. “Who’s ready for some smash cake?!”

“CAKE?!” 

Only Mommy’s hand on her chest stopped Allie from leaping off the makeshift changing table.  “Hold on hold on. You’re not all taped up yet,” she chuckled.  “And it’s not your cake.  So we’ll have to be patient.” 

Allie harrumphed back down and let her Mommy finish diapering her.  Admittedly, it did feel better to have the diaper on nice and snug instead of only half taped on.  Then, like a good girl, Allie raised her arms up over her head so that her Mommy could take her shirt off for her.  “Looks like someone forgot to take off that silly bra,” Mommy clucked.  “Oh well. We can take it off now.”

Somebody’s uncle came up with a piece of cake. “Here you go, little one. Here you go, Mama.”  Allie didn’t wait before cramming as much as possible into her mouth at once, hands first.  “Hey, Ellie! You could learn a lot from your new friend!” 

It wasn’t Allie’s birthday, it was her new little friend’s, but for some reason it felt like she’d been given the gifts too!

(The End.)
 

[The Demand of Supply]

8 hours ago, Pierry Louys said:

Great story !!

Thanks.  I love writing Levi stories.

[Things Work Out]

12 hours ago, FloridaKid said:

Love this short story! Not at all what I expected in a DD story…simply adorably different ddlb perspective. Thanks for the warm fuzzies!!

Wholesome can be nice every once in a while.  

[The Truth About Dragons]

11 hours ago, FloridaKid said:

What a delightfully unusual story! I love how you introduce the dragon facts. It’s reminiscent of the way Isaac Asimov preceded each chapter in the Foundation series with excerpts from the Encyclopedia Galactica.

I've never read an Asimov story proper, but I appreciate the comparison.

[The Demand of Supply]

Daniel sat behind the reception counter in the combination lobby and gift shop, staring blankly at the wall.  The Playground was dead tonight. It’s never a good sign for a kink dungeon when the monitors outnumber the guests.  It’s an apocalyptic portent when it happens on a Saturday night.

The owner and proprietor didn’t stare out of boredom, but anxiety. Bills were coming in and loans were being called due.  This had been a very bad investment of Grandpa’s money.  A very bad one.

Going in, he thought owning a kink dungeon would have been kind of cool.  Easy money.  No stress.  Sit around. Hand out waivers. Let people fuck around for fun.  It’d be like owning a brothel in the old west.  He thought himself a genius spending his inheritance buying this place.

Daniel was very, very, wrong.  He’d bought himself a massive albatross to hang around his neck. When he bought it, The Playground consisted of two large ‘play spaces’, a lobby that doubled as a gift shop, a tiny ass locker room, a tinier bathroom, and a room that served no practical purpose whatsoever beyond giving new customers a place to fill out membership forms.  

There hadn’t been new members for quite some time.

How was he supposed to know that the sex toys and whatchamacallits didn’t come with the place? A guy bought a gym and he expected treadmills. What Daniel had really bought was an ugly building with some empty rooms in a bad part of town.  He’d bought a place called the playground and only got the ground.  All the ‘play’ elements had to come out of pocket.

Pile onto that all the things that he hadn’t taken into account- rules, insurance, vetting, pricing structure, advertising- and this goldmine was sapping him dry financially and emotionally.  Contrary to his own misconceptions, this business neither sold nor ran itself. 

Then there was ‘The Racoon Situation’, may it never be repeated…

 The initial boom from “Under New Management” had lost its shine less than half a year in.  Now in year three, Daniel didn’t think he could make it another six months.

The buzzing alarm from someone entering broke him out of his anxiety induced paralysis. In through the door walked a man in a too perfectly pressed charcoal gray suit carrying a black briefcase. That part didn’t disturb Daniel.  He’d seen mostly leather dudes and chicks come through the door, but ‘masters’ in suits wasn’t a foreign concept to him.  

There was something different about this one.  His dark hair and goatee looked more greasy than slick, and he had an aura about him and his body language.   His footsteps clicked across the floor like hooves, even though his snakeskin boots looked well worn and broken in.   In the back of his brain, Daniel’s fight or flight response readied itself, knowing that the suit was little more than camouflage. This was a predator. 

Predator or not, as long as he showed his I.D. at the door, he was a potential customer.

“Hey there,” Daniel said.  “Welcome to The Playground. How can I help you?”

The briefcase was placed down on the counter.  “The real question here, Danny boy, is ‘How can I help you?’.”

Daniel’s face paled. “How do you know my name?”

The stranger in the suit thumbed back to the way he came in.  “Asked the guy at the door.” He paused for a second. “Don’t worry, I’m not a cop. This isn’t a sting.  What I really want to talk to you about is-”

Daniel held out his hand to stop.  “I’m sorry, I’m not in the mood to hear any solicitors.”

The stranger flopped his arms to the side and lackadaisically turned in a circle, looking around at the empty lobby and rows and rows of unsold sex toys sitting on shelves and hanging on hooks in the gift shop.  He put a finger to his ear and leaned like he was listening for something.  

The rooms were soundproofed, but even if they weren’t, there wouldn’t be much to hear.  It was close to midnight and they only had a throuple using the main play area to drip wax onto each other. He was paying his DM’s to basically do nothing all night.

“Yeah, Danny,” the solicitor said. “I can tell you’ve got a lot going on, what with the failing business and all.”

Fuck this guy.  “Whatever you’re selling, buddy, I literally can’t buy.”

“Levi.”

“Excuse me?”  

“I’m not your buddy,” the stranger said.  “I’’m Levi.  And I’m not selling you anything. I don’t want your money, I want your partnership.”

Daniel cocked an eyebrow. “I’m not looking to sell.” 

“I am, though.” Levi smiled. “I said I wasn’t looking to sell anything to you. I’ve got a great product, I just need a distributor.”
“Is it meth?” Daniel asked sarcastically.

“Better.”  Levi opened up the suitcase with a flourish.

 Daniel looked down.  He would have laughed if he had thought it was a joke. “Diapers,” Daniel said flatly.  “You want me to sell diapers?”

“I do,” Levi said. “I want you to sell my diapers.  It’ll save your business.”

Daniel had been around long enough to know that some people were into diapers. He’d also been around long enough to know that some people were into anything.  “I don’t think this place is your market.”

The stranger in the snakeskin boots didn’t relent. “I think it’s exactly my market. It’s practically a blank canvas.  Perfect place to set up shop.”

“With diapers…?”

“Not just any diapers. These diapers are that perfect mix of absorbency and aesthetics.”

Daniel scoffed. “They have cartoons on them.”

“Exactly,” Levi pointed at him as if he’d just stumbled onto something great.  Hepicked up two of them like they were bricks of cocaine.  ‘And they come in plastic or cloth backed!  They are the best at what they do.”

“Soak up pee?” 

“Headspace, Daniel.  Headspace. The ultimate high!”

That one did make Daniel laugh. “I think you’re confused.”

“Hear me out, Danny boy,” Levi said.  “Why is that couple in there pouring hot wax on each other? Because something about the pain and the sensation and the simulated danger of it all gets their endorphins pumping like crazy. It alters their minds, no different in principle than cigarettes and booze.  It’s what humans have done throughout history. They crave an altered state of being. My product does the same thing, is addictive, isn’t regulated by the FDA, and is disposable.”  He threw an arm back towards the gift shop.  “If you sell a paddle, you sell one paddle to that person and probably won’t ever sell that same paddle ever again.  If you sell my product, you will sell it again and again and again.”

“But people don’t like diapers around here,” Daniel said. “There’s no market.”
“There will be,” Levi half-whispered.  Louder and more casual he said, “Look, Danny boy. Here’s what I’m proposing:  Let me give you some sample packs.  I’ll send in some people to generate interest and do my own advertising around town. Let people know that The Playground is the only place to get them.  Then you sell the diapers, keep ten percent for yourself plus the interest fees.  If I’m wrong, you lose no money”

Daniel chewed on his lip.  It looked like a dumb novelty gimmick, but it was a novelty gimmick that had almost zero risk to him.  As long as it wasn’t like the Raccoon Situation…

“Deal.”  He offered Levi his hand.

Levi shook it. “Deal, Danny boy.  You won’t regret this. Expect the first box when you get here tomorrow. ”  It wasn’t until Levi left that Dan wondered how he knew about the throuple in the other room.

*************************************************************************

Not quite twenty hours later, a flash of bright white drew Daniel out of his nightly anxiety paralysis. Two new customers, the first two in a while, came out of the changing room holding hands.  He hadn’t changed or removed his clothes at all, and was still wearing the same gray t-shirt and blue jeans that he’d come in with.  The only thing that might pass as ‘kinky’ was that he was carrying a pink satchel bag over his shoulder. She’d been carrying it when they came in and signed up. Now he was.  A man carrying a purse wasn’t anything to write home about, in Daniel’s opinion. 

His partner, however, was topless, and barefoot, but not nude. Daniel had seen plenty of naked people.  What he hadn’t seen was someone wearing such thick crinkly padding wrapped around their ass.

Levi’s people, no doubt.

“Ready, Squirt?” he asked.

“Ready, Daddy!”  

Daniel couldn’t help himself. “Excuse me,”  Daniel called over to them. “Can I ask you a question?”

The more adult of the two spoke up.  “Yessir? How can I help you?”

Daniel’s nose wrinkled up and he thought about it.  “You’re not doing any kind of like…incest play,  are you?” The girl’s eyes brightened up when Danny said the word ‘play’!  Shit. This might be The Racoon Situation all over again.

“No, sir,” the man referred to as ‘Daddy’ said. “Squirt, here, just wants to play on the playground. Run around. Climb.  That kinda stuff.  He gave her bottom a pat. “This,” he said, “is to keep the rest of the playground dry.”  

This was going to be another Racoon Situation…

Daniel struggled to find the words. “You know that the stuff in there isn’t…really….a playground right?  It’s just a name.”

“Anything can be a playground if you know how to use it,” Daddy gave a wink.

Daniel ran his hands through his hair. He was desperate for new customers. Max was on DM duty, too.  He’d stop shit if people were getting freaked out.  “Okay,” he said. “Just checking. Go have fun.”

*******************************************************************************************
Daniel kept waiting for the couple to exit, but they didn’t leave until just before closing.  That must have meant they were behaving.  No Racoon Situations tonight, it seemed. Good.

They walked in and out of the giftshop, going from room to room, same as anybody else. No complaints from the handful of other guests. And at the end of the night, they went back into the changing room.  Daniel jumped in his chair a little when he heard the sounds of tapes ripping, but quickly recontextualized.  Nothing was being broken, that shouldn’t be.  ‘Squirt’ was just getting back into normal clothes.

They came out a few minutes later.  Squirt was dressed in pink shorts and a Minnie Mouse t-shirt. She’d worn it coming in, but Daniel hadn’t thought anything of it at the time. Shame though it was, Disney Adults happened. With what he had seen, Daniel suspected there was more to it now.

Her Daddy hadn’t changed anything about himself and was still holstering the pink purse.  He did, however, hold in his hand a bulging tightly wrapped mass of plastic.  “Is there anywhere I can…?”

Gears turned and clicked in the proprietor’s head. Ew! Gross! She’d used it? Squirt was not just a nickname.  Embarrassment and surprise kicked Daniel into autopilot.  “Oh. That?” he stammered. “Sure.”   Daniel offered up a tall lined trash can normally used for tossing away chip bags, candy wrappers, and other snacks Daniel could upcharge to half-naked people.  

His customer slipped it casually inside and let the loud thunk once it hit the bottom testify how full it was.  “Thanks,” he said.

“No problem,” Daniel replied, still on autopilot.  

The couple walked out hand in hand. “Fankyoooo….”  Squirt called just as they approached the threshold. She was waving her free arm so wildly as to be flapping.  Daniel’s gaze shifted downward and he noticed both the rounded lump from beneath her shorts and the bit of white plastic poking out the waistband.

“Huh…”  Guess she wasn’t done ‘playing’.

Max came out of the main play area with the final four or five stragglers, just in time to see the new odd couple leave.  While they went into the changing area to put on street clothes,  Max leaned against Daniel’s desk.  “They were nice,” he said.

“Who?” Daniel asked. “The baby people?”

“Yeah.”

Daniel had a more than mild curiosity. “What did they do?”

“Hide and seek,” Molly said. “Peekaboo. Played catch with some stuff in the diaper bag.” Max ground his teeth in thought a little bit.  “She climbed up on the cross like it was a jungle gym. Kinda wholesome in a weird way.”

Wholesome schmolesome. Daniel was peeved that he hadn’t sold anything like that Levi hack had promised.  A resalable product wasn’t so great if everybody brought their own.

“Anybody else bothered by it?” Daniel asked his best monitor.

“No,” Max told him.  “Some people were kinda curious.”

Daniel arched an eyebrow at his employee.  “How curious?”

On cue, the last customer of the night came out of the changing room. He was tight lipped and blushing, but the tightly wrapped ball of plastic and pulp in his hands told the tale. Daniel thumbed to the garbage can, and the man dropped it in.  The second thunk wasn’t as loud as the first.

“They shared,” Max explained. “Called it a free sample.”  

“Right there on the floor?” Daniel asked.  “Well I’ll be…”
Max looked at Daniel and misinterpreted Daniel’s expression. “Is that okay, boss? I didn’t think that broke any rules…cuz he wasn’t wet or poopy.”

 “No,” Daniel said. “It’s cool.”  

***********************************************************************************

The next night Daniel saw three times as many people in diapers as the night before. That still wasn’t a lot but weird that there was more than one.  The couple had come back and brought a friend with them, and the regular that had experimented had come back to get his diaper on.  

“Thank you,” he said, handing Daniel the money in exchange for the two-diaper sample pack.  “Thank you so much!”  He stared at the plastic rectangles like they were heroin.

“You’re…welcome?” Daniel said.  That was weird. Normally, if he was gonna get repeat business, Daniel would have to wait at least a week.  Were the diapers that good?  

Daniel tore a spare pack open and turned one over on his hands like it was a puzzle box.  When he breathed through his nose he caught a whiff of sweet smelling perfume, like honey with a touch of lavender.  It wasn’t overpowering but it was faintly…nostalgic?  

Was this what people were after?  

Daniel didn’t think much more of it than that.  He was just happy for the slight increase in business.

*****************************************************************************************

The night after that it had doubled again up to eight padded bottoms. New business and old.
After that, it was close to twenty diaper butts.  On a weeknight, no less.  The Playground was lucky to get ten customers on a weeknight.    The people who came in wearing padded pants seemed to want to change diapers in the locker room, and if they weren’t wearing when they arrived, Daniel would see them blushing and tossing out  a used one on their way out.  He’d already had to dedicate a dedicated covered can for the task of disposal.

“How’s it looking?” he asked Max at the end of that night.

Max smiled. “Awesome!” he said. He immediately corrected himself. “I mean kinda boring. Most of them are crawling around, climbing on stuff, talking baby talk.  “Their CG’s are keeping order with stuff like duck duck goose, but nobody’s violating consent or doing anything risky. They're all being good little boys and girls.”

Daniel gave Max a look.  “Excuse me?”

“You know. Littles. It’s what they call themselves.”

“Oh. Sure.” Sounded like Max was getting something out of it too.

“Excuse me,” a bleached blonde woman walked up.  She wore scrubs decorated in nursery print designs: rattles and bottles and safety pins and such..  Medical play? Daycare play? Both? “Do you have any extra diapers for sale? My little guy had an accident.”

Being held by the wrist was the very first ‘convert’ from earlier that week.  The one who’d gotten diapered up by Squirt and her Daddy, and embarrassedly tossed in an extra wet diaper.  Presently, he stood barefoot with a dark patch on his crotch that dripped all the way down to his legs.

“Crud,” Max said, “I’ll get a mop.”

“Don’t worry,” the scrubbed lady said. “I already took care of that part. I just need to get him cleaned up.  

“I..I…tried,” the customer stammered.  He was a good six inches taller than the blonde lady, but looked like a pathetic three year old who’d gotten too excited.

“Jakey, say you’re sorry.”

“I’m sowwy,” the grown-ass man said with a toddlerish lisp.  

Daniel smiled, trying to seem good natured and paternal. “It’s no big deal, bud.”  He placed a sample diaper on the counter.  

Jakey’s date or nurse or babysitter or whatever paid for the diapers and took the man back into the changing room.  Damn, that designation had taken on a completely different meaning lately.

A few minutes later, they came out again, with Jakey not wearing anything over his fresh crinkly diaper.  “Thank you very much,” the woman in the nursery scrubs said.  “May I make a suggestion?”

The woman had just given him money, so Daniel was more inclined to listen.  “Do you think you could put a changing table in there? It’d be a lot easier to change the babies without having to lie them down on the floor.

The Playground’s Owner immediately thought of that old massage table that rarely got use.  “I think I can rig something up.” 

“Thank you,” she said. “That’s much appreciated.” 

Max waited until the pair had left.  “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“What would I say something about?” Daniel asked his right hand. 

“Water sports? Going out in fetish gear.  We don’t want a Raccoon Situation, do we, Danny?”

Danny waved it off. “The guy peed himself on accident and his girlfriend cleaned it up, Max.”

“And the diaper? Outside?  We don’t let other folks wear their gear. It’s vanilla clothes only past that door.”

“It’s just a diaper,” Daniel said. “And what other folks?”

Max huffed and crossed his arms.  “Point taken…”

*****************************************************************************************
“Excuse me?” A skinny pimply faced kid came up to him the next week. “Are you the guy I talk to?”  His eyes jittered around, nervously, like he was afraid he’d get caught or something.

“Let me see your I.D. again,” Daniel said.  Did Rory need new glasses at the door?  He looked at the guy’s wallet.  Eighteen according to the driver’s license. It didn’t look like a forgery.  “You a senior?”

“Freshman,” the kid said. “In college!” he quickly yelped. “In college! No class tomorrow.”

That had been Daniel not too long ago. He just had better skin and filled out quicker. “Sorry sir,” Daniel said, handing it back. “Needed to double check.  Who are you looking for?”

“I’m looking…” the young man said haltingly, “...to buy…”

The kid was low on nerve and Daniel felt like messing with him. Paddles? floggers? Dragon Tails? Anal beads? Vibrators?”

“Diapers!”

Daniel felt like a drug dealer, making the man-child squirm.  “Last pack.”

“Thank you!” The spindly eighteen year old dashed to get changed.  

“Shit,” Daniel cursed to himself. That really had been the last pack.  He scraped at the bottom of the last box and found nothing.  These crinkly rectangles with cartoons on them had really sold themselves and people kept coming back for more.  Much to Daniel’s profit, coming back meant they had to pay the entry fee, too.

The door buzzed with yet another arrival.  Daniel didn’t look up right away.  He’d quickly gotten very used to people coming to the Playground.

“Seems like I’m right on time,” Levi said.  “How’s it going, Danny boy?”

Daniel leapt up with joy. “Great,” he yelped. “It’s going great. Business is really picking up!”  Daniel’s guardian angel looked pleased, but not surprised. He held up an open cardboard box. “Just ran out!”  That joy was tempered by the huge wad of cash he handed over to Levi.

“Thaaaaank you,” Levi took up the money.  “Pleasure doing business with you, Danny boy.” He extended his hand. “See you around, bud.”  

The stranger turned on his heel and a jolt of panic found its way to Daniel.  “Wait. I’m out of diapers! I need more!”

Levi stopped and hung his head.  “Yeah, about that. I’m out of samplers.  All I have are bigger packs. Ten, twelve. More.  I’m losing money otherwise.”

“That’s fine,” Daniel said. “I’ll sell bigger packs.” The words turned to ash in his mouth as soon as he said them. “But that’s a lot of diapers…”

“Yup,” Levi agreed.

“Enough to last them a couple days.”

“At least.”

“How do I keep people coming back, if they don’t need to buy diapers as often?”

The greasy thug in a business suit looked like Daniel had grown an extra head.  “Danny,” Levi said.  “Danny, Danny, Danny.  Danny boy.  Are you listening to yourself? You’re not selling diapers.”

“I’m not?”

“You’re selling a lifestyle.  Look.”

A  guy who could have been a pro-wrestler came out of the changing room and waddled among the paddles and ropes like a kid trying to figure out toys that were too old for him..  For a beat, Daniel thought he was wearing some kind of leotard, but most leotards didn’t have farm animals decorating their tights, or a diaper bulge underneath.   

“Hey, little boy.,” Levi asked him.  “What’s your favorite toy?”

The big man looked up and wiped a line of drool off his chin.  “My wattle.  I forgot to bwing it though…”

From his pocket, Levi produced what was essentially a maraca painted baby blue and given a bunny face.  “Here you go, kiddo…”

“WATTLE!”  It was disturbing to watch the giant shake the big baby rattle and laugh like like hyena after a fresh kill.  

“See what I mean, Danny?” He didn’t., though.  “McDonald’s isn’t really a burger company. It’s a real estate company.  The Playground wasn’t a dungeon, and it’s definitely not a store.  It’s a playground, just for really really big babies.”

Daniel looked beyond the doors to the play spaces, thinking about the menagerie of bondage equipment he’d splurged on filling up the place. Sex swings, spanking horses, stocks, inversion tables, crosses and what not.  “Um…I don’t think The Playground’s got that kind of equipment.

Levi clapped Daniel on the back. “Then let’s reinvest, my friend.  Let’s reinvest.”

Danny thought of the business he’d been getting.  He didn’t dare say no.
*********************************************************************************************
Two weeks later, The Playground had rebranded itself as specifically catering to people who enjoyed wearing diapers and acting like children.  It sounded like a bad idea, being so niche, but nightly attendance didn’t drop.

Night after night, people waddled in off the streets, to put on a diaper and play in a literal indoor play place and nursery.  Daniel walked the new facilities with a strange sense of pride.  He’d built this.  With some guidance and a new investment from his business partner, he was starting to climb out of the mountain of debt he’d accrued.

“Pretty crazy, boss,” Max said. “Pretty crazy.”  There were yelps and laughs and the sounds of bare feet running.  ‘Hey! No running!” 

“Sowwy!”

Max shook his head.  “I’m turning into a babysitter,” he grumbled.  

“Look on the bright side,” Daniel joked, “you’re not having to change any diapers.”

As if illustrating his point, a handsome young man in cardigan was busy unsnapping what Daniel guessed was his boyfriend’s onesie.  “Shit…”  

“Yeah,” Daniel agreed. “Looks like it.”  The brown stains on the baby man’s backside were kind of hard to miss.

“Alright,” Max said. “They’re out of here!”

Daniel put his hand on Max’s shoulder. “No.  Let them stay.”  Daniel noticed a bare spot on the wall where he’d been thinking of putting in some bouncers.  “In fact, let’s move the changing table from the locker room to over there.”  Most of his customers were coming in pre-diapered anyway. 

“That’s gotta be some kind of health code violation,” Max said. 

“Nope,” Daniel said smugly. “And nobody else seems to mind.”  Everybody else was so deep in their own personal headspace that the public floor change could have been inside an invisible bubble.

Another caregiver doing the same thing to their little girl might have contradicted that theory. “Max,” he said. “I think I’m gonna make a new rule.  Caregivers get in free with a Little.”  Might be a good way to get some free help managing these tykes.

“Mistuh Danny! Mistuh Danny!” A scruffy faced middle aged toddler caught his attention.  “Do you have any diapees?”  

Time to go back to the real work.  “Sure do, bud!  Let’s go to the giftshop. Maybe find some cool toys for you too.”  Daniel waved his right hand man away, and hustled to go make a sale.

He could see that there was an appeal to this whole baby thing, but Daniel couldn’t see it.” Maybe he should try, though.  Maybe he should try…

****************************************************************************************

The end of the night was becoming Danny’s favorite time at the Playground, and for more than the usual reason of getting to go home.  It was also when his customers were most likely to reload up on diapers. That little bit of consistency, that new development in routine, always lifted Danny’s spirits a little.  

Business was booming.  Buying more of Levi’s wonderful diapers meant that people would keep coming back.  Things had been too good to be true, and the little consistencies allowed Danny to keep telling himself that the bottom wasn’t dropping out anytime soon.

“That’s the last of them,” Max said. 

“Good,” Danny said.  He eyed his way to the main playroom.  “Good night, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Max agreed. “It’s kinda like having kids. It’s not so bad once you get used to - ARE YOU WEARING A DIAPER?!”

Danny looked down at himself. The stretchy sweatpants he’d put on over the diaper had fallen down so that they only covered the bottom half. He’d been so busy that he’d forgotten to hike them back up over his diaper.  Or that he was wearing one.  “Oh yeah,” Danny said. “I guess so.”

“Is this your new thing, boss?” Max asked.  “Because if it is, that’s fine, but…”

“But what?”

“Things are making a lot more sense.”

Danny laughed at that.  “Don’t worry about it, Max. I’m just blending in. People wanna buy from people who are like them.  Part of their clique.  Right?”  Danny didn’t think he was lying, but he still felt wrong all the same.

“Have you been wearing those for long?”

Danny shook his head and laughed. “Naw. I just put this one on before coming into work.”  Technically not a lie.  He’d only been wearing that diaper after he woke up and had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for breakfast.  

He had worn others, though, so it also was a lie of omission. This was the first one he’d worn at work, however.  Every other time had been at home.  They came in handy after he’d started wetting the bed.  And he’d been able to get so much more done tonight because he didn’t have to stop to go potty. 

Bathroom…he didn’t have to go to the bathroom. That was a weird random thought.  So was the quiet realization that he was peeing and talking to Max at the same time.

Max didn’t notice, or didn’t say anything.  “Okay, man. Just don’t get in too deep. You’ve kind of got an addictive personality.”

Danny said the best thing he could.  “I hear ya, Max. Thanks for looking out. You go ahead and head out. I’ll toss out the garbage.”

“You sure?”

“Positive.”

Max didn’t need further convincing.

Danny waited until Max had left The Playground, and counted as high as he could twice to make sure Max wasn’t coming back.  Then, feeling strangely guilty considering it was his building, he toddled into the main playroom.

It looked like a nursery with its indoor jungle gym, its foam floor puzzle pieces; its shelves decked out with toys, blocks, train tracks, and marble runs.  The only swings were the scaled up harness ones that Levi had snagged from a special needs school auctioning off old P.E. equipment.  It smelled like a nursery too.

Danny wandered over to the changing table, and rested his hand on it. Formerly a massage table, Danny had paid a pretty penny to have it broken down and built back up into a proper changing station.  The Mommies, Daddies, Nannies, and Babysitters definitely appreciate it.  So did their babies, but only when they were reminded too.  Lucky bastards.

Like magic, Danny found himself going from laying his hand on the table, to leaning on it, to climbing up on it, and laying down on it.  Just to see what it was like of course.  He rested his eyes and exhaled.  It wasn’t as good as he imagined a crib would be, but it still was very comfy.

Feeling naughty, he shuffled the sweatpants off his feet and let them drop down to the floor.  He reached one hand down to his diaper and gave it a squeeze.  He stopped himself from moaning using his opposite thumb. Sucking on his digit, Danny decided to just close his eyes and let his mind drift. 

A wet diaper felt so good!  It squished and caressed him with every movement.  And he imagined he looked cute too, lying there in nothing but a t-shirt and baby pants. No wonder it was so hard to potty train kids.  The alternative objectively sucked. That absurd notion made him giggle.

Good thing Max couldn’t see him now.

The sound of ripping tapes made Danny  jump!  He quickly found that someone had pulled the safety strap over his chest to keep him from rolling off.  “Hey there, Danny boy,” Levi said. The cold wipe dragged across Danny’s privates woke him the rest of the way up.”
“Levi?”

The man in the snakeskin boots kept wiping Danny’s penis, pubic area, and taint, showing no signs of disgust or distress.  “You looked like you were about ready,” Levi casually said. “So I thought I’d help.”

“What are you do-?”

Levi shushed him.  “Hold on, hold on.  Or do you want me to talk to you while I’m powdering your butt?”  He crossed  Danny’s legs for him and hoisted his legs up to his stomach.  Danny lay there feeling paralyzed while a man he barely knew wiped his ass for him.  

Danny told himself it wasn’t happening.  But the feeling of the old diaper being balled up and slid out from beneath him, and replaced by another one told him differently.  A little powder on his front and back enhanced the trance instead of shaking him out of it.  And the feeling of the fresh diaper taking form around his hips, being tightened and secured tape by tape was somehow blissful.

Danny had just started getting used to diapering himself and now he never wanted to do it again.  “Th-th-thankyou,” he whispered, feeling incredibly vulnerable yet fulfilled.  

Levi let him off the table.  Danny felt so wobbly legged that he sank down to his knees.  

“What are you doing back here?”  Levi asked.

“I…I…” Danny was going to ask Levi the same thing, but he still felt so overwhelmed, so good and overwhelmed and safe, that he forgot what he was going to say.  “I…” he looked at the jungle gym.  It had no stairs on it, by design; only ramps and tubes for easy crawling access.  “I just was tired and wanted…”

“Oooof, those diapers are hitting you hard, ain’t they kid?”

Danny blinked.  “Huh?”

“Nevermind,” Levi chuckled. “You’re sad because you want to play but never have the time.  Too busy taking care of everybody else.”

Like a hypnosis victim, Danny nodded at the suggestion. “Uh-huh.”  There was never enough time.  Now that he was actually making money, he didn’t have the chance to enjoy himself.  He owned a candy store but never got to taste the chocolate.  He made a near perfect Playground, but the only time he got to play was after all the other kids…customers?...kids…got away.

Levi stroked his beard theatrically.  “That’s a bummer Danny boy.  Real bummer.  If only there was a way to make more time for yourself.  Time to play.”

Danny’s eyes lit up at hearing the word ‘play’.  “I know!”

A wry, knowing smile came to Levi.  “Do you now, kiddo?”

**********************************************************************************************

A week later, Danny presented his new vision to Max and the rest of the staff.  He would have told them sooner, but he kept forgetting the finer points and needed to wait for Levi to coach him.  

Max had to pick his jaw up off the floor when he was done. The other employees all looked distinctly unsure and uncomfortable with the idea, though Danny didn’t know why.

“Okay everybody, we’ll brainstorm this a while later,” Max said. “Suzy, you should work the counter tonight. Try to push the onesies and the pacifiers.  Rob, you’ve got the door checking ID’s. Everybody else, do what we’ve been doing.”

Like a well oiled machine, the crew broke.  When did his staff become so organized and focused, Danny wondered. Maybe he should hold more staff meetings in the playroom.  It was certainly more comfortable.

“What do you mean we’re going twenty-four seven?” Max asked when they were alone.

Danny remained spread eagle on the playroom floor, his diaper bulging out underneath his onesie.  “We treaf iff lika dayshere”.  He frowned and took his paci out of his mouth.  Maybe that’s why the others seemed so confused.  “We treat it like a daycare.”  He leaned back and grabbed his toes.

“An adult daycare?” Max said. “Are you crazy? We’ve already super specialized. Now you want to keep the lights on longer and have people show up at all hours?”

“We just raise our prices like a hotel,” Danny said. “We get more cribs, turn our aftercare room into a sleep room, and the babies can stay here as long as we keep getting paid. It’s easy money.  Levi said he’d get the cribs and offer me free diapees if he got a cut of the service fees.”

“Daniel…” Max sounded exasperated. “This sounds crazy, my dude. That’s a butt ton of work you’re talking about.”

“Why?” Dannie asked.  He leaned his head back and saw the ballpit and suddenly wondered if they could continue the meeting there. “I thought you said it was easy to Monitor all the little boys and girls.  I’m just paying you to stand around most nights.”

“Yeah,” Max said. “It’s easy in small doses. But things are getting weirder. They’re still peeing their pants and sucking their toes. Some of them don’t even talk.  I’m starting to wonder if they can understand me!”

“We’ll be…they’ll be good,” Danny said. “Pwomise!”

“A lot of them aren’t changing themselves unless one of the Bigs volunteers,” Max said. “It’s bad enough that me and the guys are spending so much time taking out garbage bags filled with dirty diapers.  Do you want us to start changing them too?”

Yes.  “Um….?” Danny said instead, “We can hire people to do that.  Levi says he knows some people.”

“He better,” Max said. “If we’re going to be charging hotel prices, we gotta have hotel level staff and hotel level cleanliness.  Sheet washing, cleaning the playground equipment. We’d have to triple the staff, minimum, and find a whole bunch of people that were really cool with treating you and everybody else like they were under two. Real Mommy and Daddy Doms. Do you know how much those cost, Daniel?  I don’t even know if it’s legal. That might be considered sex work or something.”

“To change a diaper?” Danny asked. He didn’t notice how he’d been lumped in with the other babies. His mind leapt to another part of Max’s analysis.  “Why triple?”

“Because people have lives outside of this place, Daniel,” Max said. “Even the clients. We can’t sleep here.  Where are we gonna get that kind of money?  We’ve just barely started to break even and we don’t know how long that’s gonna last.”

“It will,” Danny said.  Daddy had promised him.  Levi…Levi had promised him.

“Where are we going to get that money to hire people and keep the lights on?” Danny pressed. “More debt? Sell the whole damn thing to Levi?” Max demanded.  

“Oh,” Danny remembered, “That’s right. We need more highchairs and yummy food, and ba-bas.”

“How?” Max repeated himself.

Danny shifted his weight to all fours, concentrated, pushed a load into his diaper, and sat back down.  Much better. Another great idea popped into Danny’s head.  He’d sell his house! That way he could stay here, and all his friends would pay money to visit him.  “I know!  I’ll just sell my house.”  That would get him a lot of money, Danny figured.  Then he wouldn’t have a reason to leave and he could just sleep in the cribs.  He’d just make money playing and having fun!

“Did you just poop?” Max asked.

Danny popped his pacifier back in, and nodded proudly. “Uh-huh!” That’s how he knew he wasn’t a baby. Real babies didn’t know when they pooped.  Danny did. He stood up and started walking over to the big rocking horse. He bet the squish would feel really good on the rocking horse.

Max grabbed him by the wrist.  “Where do you think you’re going?” he asked.

“No vare,” Danny mumbled. “Horshie.”

Max growled.  “Okay,” he said. “I think you’re done.”  

“But I wanna pway!” Max whined.

“Yeah,” Max said. “That’s the problem.  First you wanted to sell diapers and make money.  Now you’re wearing them.  Now you’re using them.  Now you just wanna play.”

What was so wrong with that?  Danny started trying to pull away  and wriggle out of Max’s grip. “Uh-huh.”

“DANNY!” Danny froze in his tracks.  “You wanna act like a little kid like all the others, you’re gonna be treated like one.”  Max led Danny over to the changing table and boosted him up on his hips.  

As a matter of reflex, Danny laid down and started sucking harder on his binky. “Yeshir…”

“You wanna play here all the time? Wear your own product? Play with your toys?”  He unpopped the snaps on Danny’s onesie.  “Fine.  I’m taking over the books though.  Whatever you made is getting spread out to the rest of us to deal with your bullshit.”

Danny didn’t flinch when his right hand man took the tapes off his diaper and pulled it open. “Otay.”

Max went for the wipes, “This thing gave you an itch you wanna scratch? Fine, but you’re not the boss anymore.  Bosses wipe their own asses.  Bosses don’t play with baby toys. You wanna go twenty-four seven, you’re going twenty-four seven.”

Danny shuddered in delight at that.  Finally! Max was coming around.  “No responsibility means no power.  You might own the place, but you don’t work anymore. Anybody who does, is in charge of you.”

The owner’s eye twitched, but that was just because of how hard Mister Max wiped.  “Yeshir.”

“Can’t believe I’m doing this,” Max muttered to himself.  Danny’s was the first diaper in the pail that night.  It wouldn’t be his last.  Max roughly but firmly yanked up the fresh diaper between Danny’s legs and taped it on. He forgot the powder, but that was okay. Not every change had to have powder.  His altered state of mind was very firmly intact.  “The things I do for…”  Max didn’t finish that sentence, but in Danny’s heart he knew the word was going to be ‘love’.

“Fankyooooo,” Danny said. He was so excited he was practically flapping his arms like a chicken.

Max smiled despite himself.  “Just…just go play.  Your little friends will be here any minute.”

Danny couldn’t wait for that.

***********************************************************************

It was close to midnight when Levi sauntered in through the front door. By coincidence.  Max walked out of the playroom, lugging yet another garbage bag filled with used diapers.  

 So Max my man,” Levi asked. “How’d Danny boy take it?”

Max put down the bag and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “Just like you said he would, sir.  He’s pretty much gone.”

Levi flashed a positively devilish grin. “I’d say that he’s finally ‘here’, myself.  But I get your meaning.”  There was a tense pause as bits of guilt threatened Max's conscience.  “So? Satisfied?”

Max was the boss now; the owner and proprietor in all but name.  The Playground was finally going to be profitable, and was being run by somebody who did more work than sit behind a counter and stare at a wall all night to the point where shit like the Racoon Situation happened. 

 It wasn’t how Max had envisioned it going down when this strange motherfucker and his fancy boots approached him a couple months ago, but it was good enough.

“Yeah,” Max said. “Yeah, I am.”

[Character Generation via ChatGPT]

20 minutes ago, BabySofia said:

This is for Lights, Camera, ...What?!? which is set in the future. I figure I'm more accurate with naming students who are being born basically now that way. 

This is how I've done it in the past. The real difference for me is the multi-tasking of the generation goes a lot quicker than having to go find a first name, pick a last name, figure out how tall they are or other character traits. I won't use this for main characters necessarily, but I tend to have a number of side characters that come in and out of scenes that this is great for. (For instance the spot above is for a class, this way I have the names of classmates already if I need to refer to it. I may never use more than handful of names, but it helps out with continuity errors I've stumbled into before)

Understand this completely! Fortunately I don't think we'll be at the point of 'good' generated writing for quite some time. The art I've actually been somewhat impressed with people on, even if I've never managed to generate anything I liked. (I've tried a lot of variations in an attempt to get some cover art imagery, I found I was better off paying an artist still)

I appreciate the clarification and can understand your reasoning.  Thank you for your time.