Forever Little

[kerry]

Sometimes the best gifts are the ones you never receive. At least that’s what Sydney Prince was telling herself while she lay in her room, taking stock of what her life had become. Just a month ago—could it really have been a whole month?—she had turned 21, the Valentines Day baby finally reaching adulthood. She spent her birthday celebrating with friends, a situation made necessary by Ben’s sudden departure from her life (good riddance!) but still, she felt more than a little bit pathetic. However, she was 21, and her friends made sure she caroused in style, from the restaurant where she got her first legal drink to the karaoke bar where they’d all camped out well into the night, ignoring the snow falling outside, singing sappy songs and getting progressively drunk. Ben be damned, she had a whole adult life to look forward to. So how the hell had she ended up here only four weeks later? Sydney wondered what she’d do if it was possible to go back in time and change things; would she actually do it? She knew exactly where to start, though: Laurie’s present. If she had never seen the stupid thing, none of this would have happened. 

The funny thing was that she had laughed when she opened it. Who wouldn’t laugh at the gift of a pacifier on a 21st birthday? When she unwrapped it, tearing the paper in her eagerness to discover what sort of silly thing her friend had bought, Mandy and Cara laughed too. It seemed perfect, probably because they were all drunk but so what? The oversized pink butterfly shaped pacifier with the button top that read “Forever Little” echoed the joke that she always made about herself: that her short stature meant she would never “grow up.” 

“Who wants to grow up anyway?” she said through her laughter at the time. Then someone—was it Mandy?—handed her a beer and the blatant incongruity just made everyone laugh even harder. Her drunk friends insisted that she suck on the thing when she wasn’t drinking, and in her own inebriated state it seemed like a hilarious, silly idea. So the new 21-year-old popped the pacifier into her mouth and sucked away, eliciting even more laughter from the group at the table.

He was sitting near them then, at the bar, but she didn’t know it at the time. He was drawn to the high-pitched joy at the round table barely fifteen feet away, and from his vantage point he could see exactly what was happening. When the petite blonde girl started actually sucking the pacifier, something inside of him found it more adorable than anything he could ever recall. He needed to know more about her, and that’s why he followed the group through the now heavily falling snow to the karaoke place half an hour later.

Of course, Sydney didn’t know any of this then. He only told her about it later. Now she told herself that, if she had known why he was there, she would have been more on her guard. Maybe she wouldn’t have talked with him. Certainly she wouldn’t have agreed to see him again the next day, which brought a round of cheers and high fives from the girls she was with: who manages to meet a guy while on a drunken night out with friends because of a different guy? Maybe something was going to work out for her after all.

Ben had been a mistake, and she knew it. He’d seemed so right at first: the handsome, slightly older college grad on whose photo she’d swiped right with no hesitation at all. And when she found out that he was into many of the same things she was—soccer, cats, silly puns, old music, karaoke—it all felt like a dream. She agreed to meet up with him after only a couple of days, just hoping that he actually looked like his pic. He did: tanned, lightly muscled, short brown hair with a neatly trimmed beard, and those gorgeous green eyes. She was practically in love before the first date was over. And that, of course, was the mistake. It was always her mistake: she ought to know better than to let her emotions overwhelm her that way. Maybe she’d have seen the signs. Maybe she’d have realized that her “perfect” new boyfriend was not just hers. Maybe she’d have noticed that he always seemed a bit too cautious. But she thought she was in love and didn’t notice a thing. She looked around now and thought about what she’d escaped from. Surely Ben was far worse than this situation, however difficult it might be. 

A small sardonic laugh escaped her lips. Good God, I even dreamed about him. She had actually had a Valentines Day dream about Ben. She shook her head, remembering. He had picked her up in a white stretch limousine, bearing a huge bouquet of flowers when he came to her door. That it was the door of her childhood home and not her small apartment never occurred to her: it was all dream logic, just like the fact that she never questioned his renting a limo for a date just down the street at Rivaldi’s. In the dream, it had taken them long enough to get to the restaurant that they’d each managed to have a glass of champagne in the back of the huge car. (In reality, she knew, they’d barely have gotten the cork off.) The bubbly wine had loosened her up, as it always did—God, she was a cheap drunk—and when they were in the restaurant she never saw the ring coming. Suddenly, though, there he was, down on one knee peering around that single red rose in the bud vase on the table, the one that in real life was a painted bottle with a few pretty fake flowers coming out the top. That they had only known each other a few months didn’t matter; they were perfect for each other. The whole restaurant, which was twice as big as it was in life, cheered for them. And then she’d awakened, wondering why the heck she had dreamed of her four-months boyfriend proposing, of all things: she really was a romantic sap.

Of course, she’d been more of a sap than she understood on that morning. It was that same week, with Valentines Day still days away, that she had discovered the earring. He must have had it in a pocket for some reason and it fell out onto the carpet. When she was cleaning up the next day, she found it: a dangly shining hooped thing she never would wear. She liked her earrings compact: long ones usually ended up hurting her lobes. So when she found this one, she knew right away that it belonged to someone else. To his credit, if he deserved any credit, he did not lie about the other woman when she confronted him. 

“She was someone I had just started dating when I met you,” he said. “I didn’t know where any of this would go, so…” So he had kept seeing her while building a relationship with Sydney. 

“Syd, really, I want to be with you,” he told her. But she knew that one lie made him untrustworthy, and she told him to go back to the earring’s owner. She had no idea if the two were even still together, and she didn’t care.

But she did wonder about her choice of men. First Ben, and now…

The thing is that she thought she really did love Charlie. Why else would she agree to all of this? She was either in love or insane. Was there a difference between the two? She looked across the darkened room and saw the little green light. She knew all she had to do was call out his name, but she didn’t. She just kept lying there, thinking back to that first night.

The four girls had basically taken over the little club. When their turns came around, all of them sang their songs, sometimes going up to sing a harmony on a friend’s song. It was Valentines Day, so they sang a mixture of silly love songs (Cara actually sang “Silly Love Songs”) and nasty break-up songs in honor of Ben. (Sydney’s choice of “Goodbye Earl” earned her a tremendous applause from the whole bar, especially after she prefaced it with a dedication to “my ex-boyfriend, the shit, who was also someone else’s boyfriend the whole time.”) Beer and the music both flowed freely, and it wasn’t until some time late in the evening that she started to notice the man who sang right after them in the rotation. He was a little older, maybe in his late twenties, maybe five years older than Ben. He was bigger, too: where Ben was pretty average in height and build, Charlie was tall, well over six feet, and his proportional musculature gave him the appearance of a professional athlete. She wondered in fact if he might be a member of one of the city’s teams. His choice of songs was eclectic and odd, but his voice was nice, a sweet tenor that had a lot of range and allowed him (possibly with some digital key adjustments, she thought) to sing songs like “Sweet Baby James” and “Baby I Love Your Way” beautifully. 

It wasn’t until he sang the Ronettes’ “Be My Baby” that Sydney realized there was a pattern in his music selections. When he was done, she called him over to their table.

“Why do all of your songs have ‘baby’ in the title?” she asked.

He smiled. “I’m celebrating. My sister just had a baby this morning back in Maryland, and I’m an uncle.”

The four girls all gave him an “Awww” at the same time for that, and then burst into laughter at their simultaneous reactions. They invited him to sit down with them.

“What’s with the pacifier?” Charlie asked as he sat next to Sydney. Mandy nearly choked on her beer, but answered him. 

“It’s Syd’s birthday. Gag gift.”

He smiled. “Looks cute,” he said.

Sydney smiled back and answered him, blushing, from behind the pacifier: “Fank Kew.” 

Maybe that was the moment, she thought. Maybe she should have stood up for herself right then instead of being all girly and silly. If she had just… There had to be something she could have done differently that might have led to a different outcome. If indeed she really wanted a different outcome. Did she? It was all so confusing. Maybe if she hadn’t agreed to go out with him? But she had wanted to so much; he was so different from Ben that she needed to know more about him. Well, she had certainly done that. It all came back to the stupid pacifier. Still, as much as she protested in her mind, she’d never said a word out loud. Every step of the way, including now, she had responded as if this was exactly what she wanted.

How do you explain that? 

The little green light still beckoned her, and she really wanted to call out. She was uncomfortable, and he could help with that. It didn’t occur to her that she could just get up and help herself. It wasn’t what he wanted, and she just couldn’t bring herself to hurt him. Still, she had to admit that this was the single weirdest relationship she’d ever had.

It had started that night with her and all of her friends being so drunk that they could hardly get home on their own, especially with the snow. Charlie, realizing that no one had been a designated driver—how did they manage to overlook that, anyway?—was so chivalrous. He called cabs for all of them and even paid for them. 

She was honestly surprised the next day when she actually remembered it; she was sure she should’ve just had a blank in her memory. But no: she remembered it all, she thought, even if it felt more like a dream than her life. She blushed when she recalled the pacifier, but Charlie had seemed to like it. 

Charlie…

After the conniving Ben, how cool was it that she had actually lucked into someone who acted like a total gentleman and asked for nothing in return. But he was gone, wasn’t he? Vanished into the night like the rest of her birthday evening. She’d never know if they could have started something.

That was when the phone rang.

“Hello?”

His voice on the other end. She knew it instantly. “Hi, is this Sydney?”

Why is he calling? How is he calling?

“Yes, this is Syd. Um... Charlie?”

He laughed. “You remembered. I thought maybe you would have forgotten. You were a bit tipsy last night.”

“No, I didn’t… I mean you made an impression.”

“A good one, I hope.”

She smiled, remembering him singing “Baby Got Back.” “Let’s say a memorable one. How are you calling me? Where did you get my number?”

Again, his laughter came through the line. “You clearly don’t remember everything,” he said. “You gave it to me.”

Sydney had no recollection of that at all, and it was so unlike her to give out her number so readily; she must have been really drunk.

“Oh, of course,” she said. “Sorry, I’d forgotten.”

“I was just calling to make sure you’re OK.”

“OK?”

“Well,” he continued, “you seemed a bit down when you left. Like maybe you wanted more from your birthday.”

Sydney considered. She’d had a good time last night; that was clear both from her condition and her memories. But he was right: a night out with the girls had been, after all, a consolation prize. Fortunately for her, Laurie, Mandy and Cara were also unattached this year and she could find friends to go out with on Valentines Day. Even so, she wished she’d had a boyfriend to spend her night with. But there was no reason she needed to tell Charlie that.

“I don’t know,” she told him. “It was probably the alcohol.”

She could practically hear his smile over the phone. “Probably,” he said. “Was it the alcohol that made you give me your number? And agree to go out with me?”

“Absolutely,” she said, rolling with the new information. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not glad I did.”

“Ah,” he said, that audible smile growing stronger. “So you might actually consider seeing me again?”

“Again?” She glanced absentmindedly at her clock. 12:15. God, she had slept late; thank goodness it was Saturday.

“Well, OK, for the first time. Last night wasn’t exactly you and me, even if I wished it had been.”

Smooth operator, she thought. “And why exactly did you wish that?”

He didn’t hesitate. “The pacifier,” he said.

That wasn’t even on the list of things she thought he might say. “That was just a joke; we told you that last night.”

“So you do recall some of the conversation. Yes, I know it was. Still, I loved the way you kept it in, as if making the joke your own instead of theirs.”

She shrugged, a meaningless gesture since she was on the phone. “I was drunk.”

“That has been established,” he said. “But it was adorable anyway.”

Adorable. With her small stature, she’d heard that often enough in her life, but somehow she never tired of it. 

“You think so?”

“I do.”

She laughed. “Well, maybe I’ll just have to use it again when I see you.”

“So you will?”

“I think I just said that.”

“Tonight?”

“Wow,” she said, “you don’t waste time, do you?”

They agreed to meet that evening at the karaoke club. She’d suggested it; if the boy really wanted her to suck on that thing again at least she could do it where they’d already seen her instead of poisoning a different spot.

“All right, Uncle Charlie,” she said, remembering the silly nickname they’d called him the night before. “7:00?”

“See you then,” he said, and hung up.

It wasn’t the pacifier, she thought as she sat in the darkened room where the little green light was the only source of illumination. It was me. I’m just stupid. Stupid or not, though, she really needed to get up. Sucking up her strength, she called out, in a faux-tiny voice, “Uncle Charlie? Are you there?”

“Be right there,” came his static-enmeshed voice from the tiny speaker below the light. She listened and heard him coming down the hall. His footsteps stopped far short of her room, though. The gate. He was unlatching the gate. Sure enough, she heard him coming again and suddenly the room was flooded with light from the hall.

“Did you have a nice nap?” he asked as he walked in.

She had, actually. Until she woke up, anyway. Maybe she was getting more used to this than she cared to acknowledge.

“It was fine,” she said.

“Only fine?” he asked. “You slept for hours.”

She rolled her eyes. “OK, more than fine. I feel good. Other than being like this, I woke up pretty refreshed.”

He made an exaggerated frown. “We’ve been over this. If you want it to end, just say so. It’s all in your control.”

And there was the crazy thing. She knew he was telling the truth. All she had to do was say the safe word, Valentine, and it would be over. But if it was over, would he still want her? She just couldn’t take a chance.

“Please change me” was all she said, and he came in, turning on the light as he went.

Sydney’s apartment was, even before her relationship with Charlie, not the most adult of places. Part of that stemmed from her love of the color pink: the place was swimming in pink pillows, flowery fuschia curtains, and many pink knicknacks. Even the art on the walls had been chosen for its shades of pink. The living room was something out of a little girl’s fairy-castle fantasy; it made her smile whenever she walked in from the harsh world. Now, of course, there was also the bedroom. This bedroom, with its four-poster bed draped with pink chiffon, its pink walls, and the half a million stuffed animals all over the place. Today she had chosen Simba, her stuffed lion, to cuddle with, but she might have selected anything: Charlie had seen to that when he helped her redecorate. How he could even afford the myriad tigers, bears, unicorns, bunnies, puppies and other animals now spilling all over her room, some on the floor, some on the bed, some in the lone chair, many in large slings set up in the corners, was beyond Sydney. She knew he wasn’t the richest of guys, but he always seemed to be bringing something new into the room. As the light came on, she realized that he was carrying a pink and purple stuffed My Little Pony. She couldn’t help herself: she brightened right up.

“Ah, you like her?” he asked, but he already knew the answer. Gently guiding her into a prone position on the bed, he placed the pretty horse in her hands. As she lay down, waiting for him, she stroked its mane.

He didn’t take long. In moments her pajama bottoms were off and a very wet diaper exposed. She had awakened from the nap long enough to soak it and then gone back to sleep. She knew that, short of the safe word, she had very little choice. It amazed her that, no matter how much she disliked this, she never ended it. She was afraid she’d lose him if she ever did. 

It had only taken two dates for Charlie to let her know that his attraction to her had a lot to do with the pacifier. He told her the truth about following her group into the club that night, that he’d wanted to get to know her the second he saw the pacifier in her mouth, that though he really had become an uncle that day his choice of “baby” songs had more to do with her than his niece, that what he wanted from her went far beyond something in her mouth with “Forever Little” emblazoned on it; he wanted her to embrace her size and live forever little.

He said that he had been sure she was the one for him on their first date, when she’d worn a pretty dress in pastels. “All you needed was a bow in your hair,” he said, “and you’d have been the picture of youth.”

“I’m only 21,” she said. “Not exactly staring down the reaper.”

He smiled. “I think you know that’s not what I meant.”

And she had. And when she invited him back to her place less than a week after meeting him, she found herself a bit excited to hear his reaction. Something told her he’d really like it. That proved an understatement: he loved it. He also loved her high four-poster bed.

“It’s a perfect height,” he’d said. She didn’t know at the time that he meant it was the perfect height to act as a changing table.

Untaping the wet diaper, he balled it up and tossed it into the diaper pail he’d bought for her. Then he took a large wet wipe he’d bought at Walgreen’s—made for incontinent people—and carefully washed her all over her diaper area before tossing that in as well. Finally, he procured a new diaper from the large chest at the foot of the bed and, asking her to lift her legs, spread it under her. He took the powder from the chest, shook some onto her, and gently rubbed it in everywhere a diaper would cover, making her tingle. Finally allowing her to lower her legs, he pulled up the front of the diaper and secured it onto her. 

“There,” he said. “All clean.” He found her paci on the bed and put it between her lips, clipping the tether to the pajama top.

Something in her mind was screaming “Valentine!” but she did not react to it. She smiled and started sucking as he helped her up and out of the bed and walked her into the hall, past the opened baby gate, and into the living room. A newscast on the radio was talking about more snow this evening (“the biggest snowfall since Valentine’s Day”) but she paid it no heed. She wasn’t going anywhere, after all. Her life had changed so much since that day, and it had been only a month. Out with her friends, she never would have imagined that “Forever Little” button coming true for her. She still found it hard to fathom; she had no clue why she’d even agreed in the first place. Once she had, though, everything escalated so fast she could hardly catch her breath, and now Charlie was with her more days than at his own place, and every time he was with her she was the baby.

She certainly wouldn’t have gone along with this silliness if he hadn’t been so good looking and so good in bed. Oh yes, she thought: it was worth all of this for the nighttime romps when, after babying her all day, he gently carried her to her room, changed her if she needed it, and then started doing what he was best at. Instead of rediapering her, he let his fingers gently stroke her body. Sometimes he would start with the breasts; other times with her rear, sometimes even with her earlobes. But the feather gentleness of his touch stimulated her more than she’d ever been stimulated before, and she always found herself shivering more than once before he was through. Afterwards, he’d allow his roving fingers to slip around to the front and probe what he found there. The arching of her back and the soft moans she let out seemed an aphrodisiac to him, giving him as much pleasure as it did her. When he finally would enter her, they both were primed and ready for an explosion of ecstasy that she’d never experienced with anyone else. And it happened every single time. 

Afterwards, the two lovers would lie entwined in each other’s arms for as long as he felt it appropriate, and then he’d rediaper her before they both fell asleep. She argued about that once, but he said he wanted to keep her “warm and safe.” She was not incontinent—not yet anyway, but she did know she went in her diaper a lot easier than even a week earlier. It worried her: she didn’t want to lose control. But he assured her that everything would be fine. Even though she’d taken to the diapering (and using them) far more quickly than he’d have believed, she was still a “grown-up,” he said, and she’d be fine. Still, he insisted on diapering her after lovemaking before he’d sleep with her. What did that say?

He turned the radio off. “Alexa, play my blue playlist.” Sydney knew that playlist: a series of very soft, gentle ballads that might as well be lullabies. 

“Why not something more upbeat?” she asked, her pacifier dangling on its tether.

He laughed and said, “Alexa will only play these songs. She doesn’t know any others.”

Sydney shook her head and laughed as well. “You are incorrigible,” she said.

“Such a big word for such a little girl,” he said, and popped her paci back in. “Just enjoy the music.”

She closed her eyes and leaned against him on the couch. She didn’t really hate this, not really. She’d be very embarrassed if, as he kept threatening, he invited the girls over to see her new lifestyle, but even then she was not sure she’d use the safe word. He’d made it clear that all of this would end forever if she ever used it, and she just...couldn’t. 

Glen Campbell’s “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” came on, and she sighed. Phoenix sounded like fun even if she had to go diapered. Maybe she would ask him to take her there. He’d do it; she was sure. 

After all, she was in charge, right?

[diapersnpaws]

Very fun!

Will there be more? I'd like there to be...lol

[babytom2]

great start

[Eagle0769]

Cute little story.

I was a little confused at how they actually got started.

Will there be more?

[kerry]

It was intended as a one-off, but I intentionally left room to continue it should I get in the mood. :-)

[CDfm]

I liked it. He had to really be a great catch for her to give up her adult life over. I sure wouldn’t mind seeing how things were going for them six months down the road. 

[Sarah Penguin]

That was fun also hoping for more if you can

[keith60]

nice story