Ink

[Personalias]

48 minutes ago, Jayme said:

This is a fantastic story with so many plot twists that as a reader I can't be sure what will happen next. However I love the ingenuity that you have brought to this story. Thank you for posting this wonderful story!

Thank you for taking the time to tell me you've enjoyed it thus far!

[Personalias]

(Thursday)

There’s a nearly universal experience; almost the exact opposite of “déjà vu”. It’s called a “senior moment”.  It’s that feeling that an otherwise mentally alert person gets when they walk into a room, or get in their car, or open the door of the refrigerator, and their mind goes blank.  They’re left staring off into the middle distance, and for moment their mind goes static like an old television with old wires and bad reception.  They wonder, “What did I come in here to do?” or “Where was I going?” or “What was it I wanted to eat?”  Then, the moment passes, and like that same old T.V. getting smacked on the side, the picture becomes clear again and they remember.  Either that, or they just walk away and go about their business.

Molly was having what felt like the mother of all “senior moments”.  She was in her apartment, her home that she had been in less than a full week; so much yet to do, she knew; but if a gun had been placed to her head she couldn’t begin to say what had happened or what exactly she had been doing or needed to do.

The walls of her living room were painted with murals of children’s characters.  Why?  She hadn’t the faintest of notions. Not even a week in and she had likely already violated the lease.  One of her little creative, whimsical, and perhaps drug induced fugues had likely overtaken her and now she’d have to repaint at least the living room before she moved out.  It likely had seemed like a good idea when she was drunk, stoned, and/or tripping on ecstasy.  She made a silent little prayer to whatever spirit or god out there that would listen that she hadn’t painted over her apartment.  At least then, months from now when she moved onto the next flight of fancy, she could hold up a paint swatch and figure out whatever boring shade of beige she’d need to buy and clean up her mess.

Speaking of moving, cardboard boxes littered the floor around her.  But some tiny voice in the back of her head, (déjà vu perhaps?) reminded her that those weren’t moving boxes.  She’d just gotten a delivery of some sort and had been in the midst of unpacking when she’d had her “senior moment”.  All of the sudden, the picture was becoming clearer.

Molly’s nose wrinkled as a disgusting, fetid, truly odious smell flooded her synapses.  What was making that god awful terrible sme-?

Scent is a curious sense: It is arguably the least important of human senses in terms of survival.  Rotting food, garbage and disease can still be detected through the other senses.  No one has ever needed to learn a new language or means to communicate because they had anosmia.  Most of the worst poisons are odorless, anyways.

And yet, for its tertiary status (if that) among our five senses, smell is still greatly valued.  Food tastes better when your nose isn’t clogged up by mucus.  How you smell is a key component of personal hygiene and daily social interactions.  Scent is said to be deeply connected to memory and parental associations.  Molly even had a psychology teacher back in high school who changed perfumes once she became a teacher as a way of transforming herself from “sex-kitten” to “matronly”.

Scent is important.

It was the scent, and the associations with it, that ended Molly’s “senior moment”.  Her daughter (that wasn’t quite right, but it’d work until the right word buzzed into head) Margaret stood in front of her, legs bowed and face red from strain.  Clothed in just a cloth diaper, (a very shoddy one at that; were those bedsheets?)  Margaret stood there, proudly as if she had accomplished a most difficult task.

Then it hit her.  “Uh oh,” she said.

Molly couldn’t help but smile at that and fall in love with her little girl all over again.  Little girl.  Closer, but not quite.  That’s when the lightbulb in Molly’s head flickered to life.  The bright coloring on the walls; the packages of supplies; a red faced Margaret; the toddlerish admission of guilt and the smell as evidence;  Molly remembered where she was and what she had to do.

“I think I know a certain someone who needs to be changed,” Molly said, grabbing a pack of diapers and ripping them open.  The perfumed lavender scent mixed with the offensive reek of Margaret’s accident; the new mixing with the old.

Margaret whined, but didn’t move. “Noooooooooooooooo!” she screamed.  Giggling, Molly paid her charge no mind as she scooped her up and laid her down to the ground. So dramatic.  Babies so often acted as if a diaper change were a death sentence.  Pinning Margaret with one hand, Molly reached out and grabbed a nearby packet of wipes, chuckling to herself all the while.

“Trust me, baby girl, you’ll feel so much better with a clean, fresh, and,” she emphasized, “real diaper.”

Margaret howled again. “Noooooooooooooooooo!”  The child’s objections went unanswered as Molly undid the safety pins on her makeshift diaper.  So over-the-top.  The girl might as well be shouting “Khaaaaaaaaaaaan!”.  At that thought, Molly had to suck her lips in to stop herself from laughing.  William Shatner in a diaper. Too funny.    “Big kid!  Panties!” Margaret insisted, meekly struggling against Molly’s grip.

The other safety pin came undone, and Molly pulled back the front of Margaret’s diaper.  Gesturing to the contents of the sagging sack as evidence, Molly said, “Honey, just because I put you in a cloth diaper doesn’t mean you’re wearing big girl panties.  Now hold still, or Mommy will have to spank.”

“Mommy?” Margaret echoed with a note of confusion.

“Uh huh,” Molly said.  Apparently, she wasn’t the only one who’d had a senior moment.  “I’m your Mommy.  You’re my baby girl. Now let Mommy change you.”  Without waiting for acknowledgement, Molly took her hand off of Margaret’s chest and moved to lifting her legs so she could go to work down below.  Margaret, for her part, just whimpered as wipe after wipe after wipe was dragged across her delicate skin.  Poor thing.

“Honestly,” Molly admitted to herself, “I don’t know what I was thinking when I put you in cloth diapers.”  There was more truth to that than the artist and single “mother” cared to admit.  She really didn’t have an idea of why her baby girl had been wrapped in a bedsheet.  She’d remembered a little factoid she’d read that Cloth Diapers were better for potty training since it allowed the child to feel their accidents happen; but Margaret was nowhere near potty training age yet, was she?  Maybe she’d forgotten to go to the store and run out of diapers, and thus had to improvise.  That wasn’t like Molly either.  She’d been super on top of things- at least since Margaret had come along.  Nothing made a young woman grow up faster than becoming somebody’s Mommy.

Regardless, she decided as she slid out the soiled sheets from underneath Margaret’s rear, those sheets were going straight into the trash.  Cloth or not, that diaper was being disposed of.  “Big kid!” Margaret insisted right as Molly was sliding a fresh diaper under her little bum.  So adorable.

“Maybe someday,” Molly said, reaching for a bottle of baby powder. “Someday you’ll be going to Kindergarten and dressing yourself and talking in full sentences and even going potty.”  A little voice in the back of her mind told her she was lying, she realized as she sprinkled the cooling white powder over her baby girl’s diaper area and started rubbing it in.

She craved the kind of intimacy that came with being a Mommy.  She loved the tender intimacy of moments like this, or breast feeding, or just the simple act of cuddling indoors on a rainy day.  Molly needed those things just as much, if not more, than Margaret did.  Rationally speaking, Molly knew that Margaret would eventually grow up…and sooner rather than later.  What would happen if Molly still had those needs?

She supposed she could just make another baby, but how would that be fair to Margaret, the tiny little voice in the back of her head asked.   The moment that Margaret was fully potty trained was the moment that she’d seek privacy and know shame.  Privacy was the enemy of intimacy.  Shame was the enemy of love.  Molly didn’t want her baby girl to ever have those enemies.  Why not just keep Margaret as her baby girl?  Wasn’t that the better option?  The more maternal option?  Yes.  Yes it was.  No need to let the baby know, though.  Babies just couldn’t understand.   “Someday,” Molly repeated her lie.  “But not today.”  Not ever.

Pulling the diaper up and taping it shut, Molly smiled in satisfaction.  “There we go.  All fresh and clean,” she announced.  With that, she pivoted and rose to her feet.  Scooping the absolutely vile pile of bedsheets in her hands, she looked for a garbage can.  “Now where to put this?” she wondered aloud.  How did you dispose of cloth diapers anyways?  Shouldn’t she wash them first?  At least dunk them in the toilet?  Maybe she could just put this in a garbage bag and throw it in a far away dumpster.  It definitely wasn’t staying in her home any longer than absolutely necessary.

The artist-come-mommy didn’t have proper time to consider her options when yet another emergency loomed large. The squeaking of the door hinge followed in quick succession by the door slamming backwards against the living room wall was the only warning Molly got.  “MARGARET!” she yelled, dropping the soiled sheet back onto the floor.  “GET YOUR CRINKLY BUTT BACK IN HERE!”

Margaret was more than halfway out the door before Molly was able to grasp ahold of the toddler’s wrist and drag her back inside. “Margaret, what on earth do you think you’re doing little-?“

CRACK!

Margaret’s tiny hand swung out in a fist and knocked Molly right on her ass.  She couldn’t believe it.  Not only had her baby girl hit her, but it had hurt; hurt bad.  “Hurt like a Cho De” as her own her own mother would have said.

“BITCH!” Molly spat, picking herself off the ground.  “You goddamn spoiled little bi-!”  Rearing back to throw a punch of her own, Molly set her jaw and decided to give her roomie a taste of her own medicine.

Roomie?

That was when the fog lifted from Molly’s mind. She looked at her own clenched fist and was reminded of the tattoo just below her wrist.  She gazed at a panting, angry, and yes, frightened Margaret; full grown, yet wearing nothing but a very babyish diaper sized for an adult.  The only thing that had a smile were the pastel colored teddy bears holding the balloons.

 

“Oh god, Margaret.” She gasped. “I’m so sorry!”

A nightmare can be defined as a “bad dream” wherein the sleeper experiences stress, anxiety, and fear.  A general sense of helplessness and lack of control are also notable characteristics.  Upon waking from nightmares, children often describe imagined scenarios where they were running from a monster, witch or another such bogeyman and yet were powerless to escape.  Everything would go in slow motion, or the ground would become putty beneath their fleeing feet, or the monster killing sword that they’re dream-selves just KNEW was in their hand a moment ago has suddenly disappeared.

Margaret was having a nightmare, albeit a waking one.  She was powerless.  The worst part yet, as she stood there, bow legged and knock kneed, her face red and the faintest trace of panting lingering in her chest, it was a nightmare partially of her own making.  The tattoo on the small of her back tingled with delight, almost snickering as she finished her latest act of spite against her would-be caregiver, Molly.

It wasn’t until she had emptied herself out into her makeshift diaper that she felt the weight- both literally and figuratively- to what she’d just willingly done to herself.  Bile rose up in her throat, just as Molly turned around and looked at her.

“Margaret!” she’d shouted, her voice filled with an intense mixture of surprise, disgust, and yes that most delicious of all emotions to elicit, anger.  But then, her Roommate’s eyes clouded over for a moment, and when they refocused, it was as if Molly wasn’t actually looking at her anymore.  Someone; some god, or demon, or Shen, or whatever the hell had been manipulating, had just changed the channel in Molly’s brain.  And all it had needed was the smell of Margaret’s not-quite-accident and the sight of her standing in a very used makeshift diaper to do it.

“Uh oh…” she said.  Regret is a little bit like seasoning as far as emotions go: All flavor, no nourishment. Regret filled Margaret’s mouth as Molly looked adoringly at her and smiled- sweetly and unironically- back at her.  Normally the phrase “like a funhouse mirror” means that the original image or intent has been warped into hideous parody of what it was.  The fact that Margaret’s own mean-spirited and spiteful smirk (a funhouse mirror smile in its own right) was being returned with complete affection and sincerity made it no less disturbing.

Molly bent down quickly, and without the smallest hint of anger or malice in her voice, said “I think I know a certain someone who needs to be changed.”  As she ripped open the vacuum sealed pack of adult sized diapers, Margaret’s nose was greeted by the pleasant smell of lavender mixing in with her own bodily waste; a strange kind of witch’s brew.

The taller girl tried to move, tried to retreat, tried to do anything other than stand there, feet rooted to the floor as if she were some kind of imbecile in a horror movie.  But this was a waking nightmare, wasn’t it?  And the victim never got away in the nightmare.  Up from the back of her throat, Margaret issued an absolutely blood curdling scream.  “Noooooooooooooooo!”  Surely, any nearby listeners would think that she was being murdered…or worse.

Molly only giggled, somewhat dementedly, as she closed the distance between Margaret and herself, fresh diaper in hand.  A tap at the back of her knees was all Margaret needed for her legs to buckle and be caught in Molly’s arms, gently lowering her to the floor.

Margaret tried to sit up, tried to roll over, tried to scramble out of the smaller girl’s grasp, but an open palm on her chest might as well have been an anvil.  How was Molly this strong?  Or was Margaret just suddenly this weak?  Six of one, half-a-dozen of the other.  End result was the same.  Just go with it.  That’s what the little voice that wasn’t quite Margaret’s whispered in the back of her mind as Molly reached with her free hand for a packet of baby wipes.

“Trust me, baby girl,” Molly told her.  Her voice was playful and reassuring, but something in the other woman’s eyes just wasn’t there. “You’ll feel so much better with a clean, fresh, and,” she emphasized, “real diaper.”  The word “real” made Margaret’s blood run cold.  Wetting her bed.  The Goodnites.  The makeshift mess clinging to her hips.  All of that was just practice for what was coming next.

Her body had been play-acting on her.  Everything before this moment had been half-measures and rehearsal for this very moment; baby steps.  Now, completely against her will, and with no assistance on her part, she was about to be put in a diaper.

A Big. Puffy. Bulky. Crinkly. Infantile. Soft. Diaper.  Not an incontinence brief.  Not bed wetting pants. Not training pants.  Not even an “adult” diaper.  Just a diaper that was big enough to fit a very big baby. A baby just about her size.

The safety pins being undone by Molly, Margaret let out another spine-tingling howl of anguish. “Noooooooooooooooooo!”  She looked up into the more petite girl’s face to see if there was any sign of recognition; any sign of her would-be friend in there.  Instead, Molly appeared to be holding back a hearty laugh; as if Margaret had done something absolutely funny…and…and…adorable.

Wriggling beneath her Roommate’s iron vice of a grip, Margaret tried to reason with her.  “Molly! Listen to me!” she pleaded.  “This isn’t you.  This isn’t me.  I’m an adult!  I haven’t worn diapers in decades! Literal decades!  And I don’t need them now!”

In reply, Molly undid the last safety pin holding her homemade underpants together and pulled back.  There, in all of its non-glory, now cooling in the open air, was what Margaret had just done to herself. “Honey,” Molly said, “just because I put you in a cloth diaper doesn’t mean you’re wearing big girl panties.  Now hold still, or Mommy will have to spank.”

“Mommy?” Margaret echoed with a note of confusion.  The last time Margaret had called her roommate that word it had snapped them both out of whatever trance they’d been in.  Now Molly was calling herself that.

“Uh huh,” Molly nodded.  “I’m your Mommy.  You’re my baby girl. Now let Mommy change you.”  Being called ‘baby girl’ made Margaret’s stomach churn.  She could only hope that that meant she was about to vomit.  A full sized adult spit-up would be preferable at this point.

Any chance at freedom that Margaret might have had was instantly downed. The moment that Molly took her hand off of Margaret’s chest, the latter felt an equal weight on the small of her back tugging her down to the ground.  The floor beneath her was flypaper.  She was a roach that had just checked into the motel.   The only thing missing was Margaret’s anguished and high pitched cries of “Help meeeeeeee.”

Meanwhile, Molly was going to town between Margaret’s legs with a barrage of baby wipes; moving her legs up and out as she deemed appropriate.  The taller woman (though was it really fair to call herself a woman at this point…wouldn’t “girl” be more appropriate?) flinched and gasped as each cold wipe was dragged across her again and again and again.  So cold.  So wet.  Almost too much to think straight.

“Honestly,” Molly said, clearly not expecting a dialogue, “I don’t know what I was thinking when I put you in cloth diapers.” Margaret knew the answer.  She hadn’t been.  The Shen, the god or spirit or whatever that had been weaved into the ink on their skin had turned them both into puppets.  Margaret had been put into a makeshift cloth diaper precisely because it’s what the tattoos had wanted.  They had gotten impatient with their little puppets, and had decided to turn things up a notch while they waited for the supplies to show up.  But now that all of the little accoutrements of adult infancy had been dropped at their doorstep, it was time for the party to really begin.

As if she’d just been shoved out an airlock and into the cold void of the cosmos, Margaret stiffened as her homemade diaper was slid out from beneath her.   “I’m an adult!” Margaret insisted, right as Molly slid the fresh diaper beneath her.  The twinkle in the other woman’s eyes told Margaret everything she needed to know.  No she wasn’t.  Not in Molly’s eyes.  The dry crinkling sound as her rump settled on the fresh padding might as well have been a death knell.

Her ‘Mommy’ chose to seize on that idea. “Maybe someday,” Molly said, reaching for a bottle of baby powder. “Someday you’ll be going to Kindergarten and dressing yourself and talking in full sentences and even going potty.” Margaret recognized that as the lie it was the moment it came out of Molly’s mouth. As the soft powdery flakes of scented cornstarch poured onto her private areas (though how private were they, now?) the Shen whispered the truth to Margaret:

She’d never be out of diapers again.  The only time she wouldn’t be padded up was during baths-babies didn’t take shower- and the fleeting moments during a diaper change.  This was her first of many diaper changes, an uncountable number, an infinite number that awaited her.  Never again would she have privacy or independence, or agency.  Never again would she have a moment to herself.  If she was lucky she might have a quiet moment here and there between going to sleep and being gotten up for the day, but other than that, she’d be under constant surveillance, constant monitoring, and constant care.  She was her Mommy’s baby girl.  And she’d never, ever, be allowed to grow up.  “Someday,” Molly repeated the lie. “But not today.”  Not ever.

Margaret held her breath as the diaper was pulled up between her open legs, and fastened on, one tape at a time.  The tiny cartoon bears holding the balloons smiled up at her, welcoming her to her new life.  Welcome to Babyhood.  Enjoy your stay.  You’ll love it.  “There we go,” Molly said.  She brushed her hands together.  “All fresh and clean.”  The baby girl wanted to cry, but they weren’t tears of happiness.

The weight pulling her downward had ceased as soon as the diaper had been properly fastened on, and Margaret found herself able to sit up again.  The temptation to undo the tapes said diaper was there, but Margaret had the creeping sense that such an act would cause her to fall floorward.

The act of changing done (until next time), Molly had risen to her feet and turned her back on her baby, gingerly picking up the absolutely disgusting sheets that had been wrapped around Margaret’s ass just moments ago.  If the ex-customer service rep hadn’t known better, she would have figured that Molly was in some kind of artistic trance, the kind seen in the movies before the genius has their “Eureka” moment.   “Now where to put this?” Molly said, more to herself than to Margaret.  Nope.  She was just trying to figure out where to throw the damn thing out.

It was a shame, in the ironic sense, that there wasn’t such a thing as an adult diaper pail.  Or was there?  Sitting on her padded rump, Margaret looked around the living room.  Cardboard boxes abounded, but they didn’t all have diapers in them, did they.   Some had diapers for sure.  Some had clothes, she could imagine.  And a little voice- hers or the Shen’s, she didn’t know-told her that some of the boxes had other items.  There were adult baby diapers.  Why couldn’t there be an adult baby highchair, or an adult baby playpen, or an adult baby crib?  There could be, and in the boxes, there likely were.  Diapers were just the start of it.  Margaret had so much more than just diapers to look forward to…unless she did something now.

Carefully, like a cat readying its pounce, Margaret gathered her feet underneath her, cringing at the loud crinkle that even the slightest movement on her brought caused.  She inched toward the door.  Molly was still in whatever la-la land she was in as she likely tried to remember which box had the adult diaper genie in it. T

She inched again. And again.  And again.  Then, just as her fingers were grazing the doorknob, the tall, slender girl, through the door open with a slam and dashed out of the apartment.  Naked save for the diaper, she ran out the door.  She might be embarrassed or humiliated; she might even be arrested for indecent exposure, but the bars of a jail cell were still better than the bars of a crib.

“MARGARET!” Molly’s voice roared after her.  “GET YOUR CRINKLY BUTT BACK IN HERE!”  In a fair world, the sudden fear combined with opportunity would have given Margaret an amazing adrenaline boost, allowing her to dash out of the apartment and run down the street, naked but free.  This wasn’t a fair world, however.  It was a waking nightmare.

Her legs became jelly.  The floor beneath her became quicksand.  A supernatural force gripped ahold of her at the small of her back and actually pulled her backwards towards the door, back into her loving Mommy’s arms.  A small but inhumanly strong hand grabbed onto Margaret’s wrist. “Margaret, what on earth do you think you’re doing little-?“

CRACK!

Without thinking, Margaret had balled her hand into a fist and swung at her captor’s face as if it had a target on it.  Turns out Molly had a bit of a glass jaw.  The diapered girl didn’t have any time to celebrate or bask in her victory.

Molly was up and fuming a moment later.  There was murder- or at least a spanking- in her eyes. “BITCH!” she screamed as she rose to her feet.  Margaret’s knees locked as the shorter woman marched over to her, her own arm rearing back to strike.  “You goddamn spoiled little bi-!”

She froze.  She blinked.  And then she looked- really looked- at Margaret.  ‘Mommy’ was gone.  Molly was in the driver’s seat again.  “Oh god, Margaret.” She gasped. “I’m so sorry!”

“What are we going to do?”

“I have no idea. I have no fu-“

“Language!”

Margaret bit her lip.  “I have no fudging’ idea,” she corrected herself.  Molly was at least courteous enough to blush apologetically for yelling out “Language” like Margaret was some errant toddler.  Though honestly, given the situation, either of them could be forgiven for swearing.

Apologies had been offered and accepted.  Hugs had been given and tears had been shed at the madness that their life had become.  Both mourned, however briefly, for themselves as well as each other.  Having hit rock bottom, they both went inside, and shut the door behind them.

They had shut the door behind them, and lost two hours in the process.  The found themselves standing in Margaret’s room- now a full blown nursery, the blinking self-setting alarm clock on the dresser indicating how much time had gone by.  Margaret’s bed had been converted into a crib with drop side railing, and a mobile dangling over it.

Her dresser now had a foam changing pad contoured to fit her slender frame on top of it; her drawers filled with diapers, wipes, powder, and soaker pads: a proper changing table.  Her closet had been utterly ransacked, and now nothing remotely “adult” was left for her to wear.  It was all onesies and rompers and dresses too short to cover anything but the top of her diaper.  Even the shortalls all had pictures of baby ducks and (dare she say it) the Little Mermaid stitched on the bibs.  Arguably the most adult thing in there was the sailor suit with light pink trim.

The kitchen wasn’t any better, with an adult sized high chair now taking up residence on the tiled floor.  The packaging that all of this ridiculous stuff had come in was all gone, now, along with the adult clothes that Margaret owned, (not to mention any number of whimsical, funny, or otherwise ‘immature’ t-shirts belonging to Molly).  Both of them prayed that it was at least Molly who had shambled out in a fugue and disposed of the stuff.

A pang of modesty buzzed in Margaret’s ear, and she crossed her arms over her breasts.  At least her diaper was still dry, she thought.  Or maybe she’d just been changed during the missing two hours.  Did the tapes look like they were on different, or was it just her?  The thought must have occurred to Molly too, as both of them cast an uncomfortable glance at the adult diaper pale next to the changing table.  Neither of them had the courage to look inside and see if it was empty or not.

“Whelp,” Molly said, her arms hanging loosely at her sides.  “We’re boned.”

“Hey,” Margaret whined.  “How come you can say naughty things, and I can’t?”

“Because I’m the adult,” Molly growled.  There was a tense silence.  They were already slipping.  “Fine,” Molly said.  “Knock yourself out.  Cuss.”

The taller of the two opened her mouth to swear like a dock worker, but nothing came up.  “Uh oh,” she said.  Molly’s hand swung around for the front of Margaret’s diaper and then froze.

“Sorry.”

“S’okay.”

“Please don’t say ‘uh-oh’ anymore.” Molly said.  “It makes me think you’ve had an accident.”  A beat.  A blush. Then she added, “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know if I can cuss anymore,” Margaret admitted.

Molly’s face twisted.  “You weren’t much of a curser before all this.”

“Yeah,” Margaret said, feeling absolutely ridiculous, “but at least I COULD curse.  I think I might’ve actually been about to say ‘fudging’ the first time…before you stopped me.”

“That’s ridiculous. Try swearing.”

“Caca. Poo poo. Doodie. Meanie head.”

If either of them had been a little more drunk or a little less frightened, they might have laughed.  They didn’t.  “This is insane,” Molly scoffed.  “Our brains are being rewired.  We’re turning into…into…”

“Mommy and baby?” Margaret offered.

“FREAKS!” Molly shouted loud enough to cause the mobile above Margaret’s crib to rattle.  “FREAKS!”

“I’m the one wearing the diaper.”

“And I’m the one changing it!  Which do you think is worse?”

“I know which I’d rather be…”

Molly held up her hand.  “We’re not going back there again.  We lose our temper at each other, and then we make up in the worst way possible.”  Molly started pacing.  “Can you even take off your diaper?”

Margaret didn’t even need to try.  Her Mommy might as well have asked ‘Can you even breathe underwater?’.  Margaret shook her head.  “Positive I can’t.  Can you?  Take off my diaper I mean.”

The shorter woman drooped as if a tremendous load had just been piled onto her shoulders.  “Not to sound creepy, but I would honestly prefer to see you naked.  But alarms go off in my brain every time I even think about letting you walk around unprotected.”  Unprotected.  There was a new euphemism for “not looking like a pants-pissing moron”.  “I could probably get it off you in the bathroom, but then I think I’d just HAVE to give you a bath.”

“This is insane.”

“It is.” Molly agreed.  “These tattoos have driven us completely insane.”

That’s when the mother of all bad ideas crept up Margaret’s spine and straight into her brain. An idea so utterly stupid that it just might work.  “That’s it!”  Molly said.  “I’m insane.  You’re insane.  We’re both insane!”

Molly sucked on her teeth.  “What’s your point?”

“You ever seen Boondock Saints?” Margaret asked.  Molly hadn’t.  “It’s about these two street vigilantes who believe they are ordained by God to bring down the mob and the FBI agent who is hot on their trail.”

“And?”

“And one of the recurring elements in the movie is that the vigilantes have no idea of what they’re doing.  They’re keep knocking off mobsters because they’re insane and are doing stuff that is so stupid, no one in their right mind would prepare for it.”

“What’s your point?”

“WE NEED TO GO OUT!” Margaret gushed.

The room shook, Molly was shaking her head so fast.  “Are you kidding?  If we go out like this, we’ll get stared at. Maybe even arrested..”

The diapered woman was bouncing.  “EXACTLY! They’ll put us in jail. They’ll commit us! And maybe, just maybe they’ll have a way to snap us out of this!  Even if they don’t. I’d rather be in a straight jacket than diapers.”

“You do realize that those two articles of clothing aren’t mutually exclusive, right?” Molly interjected.

“I DON’T CARE!” Margaret screamed with manic jubilation.  “We go out.  We get our Mommy and baby girl on in public.  People are gonna notice us.  People are gonna yell at us!  People are gonna want to stop us! Then they’re gonna wanna find out what’s wrong with us!  Then they’ll want to cure us!  Even if I go to jail, even if I’m still in diapers YOU won’t be the one changing me!  So what do you have to lose?”

Molly nodded.  She didn’t smile, but a certain something sparked in her eyes.  Maybe it was hope.  Maybe it was madness.  Either way, it was worth a shot.  “That’s just dumb enough to work.”

“BOONDOCK SAINTS!”

[Shotgun Diplomat]

3 hours ago, Personalias said:

BOONDOCK SAINTS

Good movie that. 

 

[Personalias]

(Thursday)

   If Margaret had imagined her plan to get help would translate into strangers on the bus awkwardly doing their level best to not stare at the two Shen-compelled roommates, then everything was going to plan.  By any other metric, however, things were not going well.  Margaret’s idea to use the magical compulsions the tattoos were forcing on them to their advantage was a gigantic case of easier said than done.

Back in their apartment, Margaret had had visions of the two of them parading around the city with her wearing nothing more than a diaper and drool coated smile.  If she was going to go full baby, she’d do it in public.  That way she could get arrested, separated from her fellow prisoner-turned-warden and hopefully have her condition analyzed, identified, and cured.  Even the little markings on the small of her back tingled at the idea.  “Nakied”, the little voice inside of her head encouraged her.  “Nakied, nakied, nakied!”  That time, the voice had sounded disturbingly similar to her own.  When the ex-customer service rep focused long enough to realize she was mouthing those exact words, the danger of complete mental oblivion seemed to loom that much larger.

She was running out of time.

Yet Molly (or, more accurately, Molly’s tattooed arm) wouldn’t let Margaret take a step outside as underdressed as she was.  “What kind of Mommy would I be if I let you go out there in just your diaper?”  The shorter girl had gone quiet immediately after saying that. The gurgling sound coming up from her throat and the hard swallow told Margaret all she’d need to know:  Her Roommate had thrown up in her mouth a bit.

Begrudgingly, Margaret allowed herself to be led to her newly decorated closet and dressed in something positively adorable.  The little tyrannies didn’t end there- would that they did, Margaret thought.  Margaret wasn’t allowed to walk to the bus stop without having her hand held by Molly.  When they finally got on the bus, Molly’s hand became an iron vice unless Margaret was sitting on the smaller girl’s lap.  That wasn’t going to work for long, but after a few awkward tries over the course of a few equally awkward minutes, they were able to reach a kind of bodily compromise with Margaret sitting sideways on the bench and draping her legs across Molly’s lap while keeping the majority of each other’s weight off one another.

If Molly’s face wasn’t clearly agonizing alongside Margaret, she might have thought Molly was enjoying this. She wasn’t though.  Margaret’s ink was manifesting as emotional instability, peppered with bits of bratty petulance, and of course a massive dose of potty failure.  Molly’s ink gave her a set of borderline obsessive-compulsive behaviors that seemed to give her no end of torment, and short of her brief diapering fugue, no amount of satisfaction.   Molly had been on the verge of a panic attack while dressing Margaret, and her packing of the pastel pink diaper bag with little bunnies stitched on the front had seemed more akin to an addict readying their fix.

The biggest downside of their current seating arrangement was that the hairy guy sitting to Molly’s left could very easily see Margaret’s diaper peaking out from underneath the hem of her sailor dress.  Not that her diaper was particularly hard to see; the hem of her dress was scandalously short, and the crinkly padding that she’d been changed into caused her to sit in a kind of spread eagle fashion.  If she’d sat down like a normal person, she might have been able to conceal her not-quite underwear by leaning forward in her seat and casually draping a hand between her knees just in case.

Concealing it had been against the point, though, so Margaret tried to content herself by sitting spread eagle in her cute little pink-trimmed sailor dress with matching hat. Her feet ended in frilly ankle socks and shiny black Mary Jane shoes.  She was a hair’s breadth away from cosplaying as Shirley Temple.

Short of maybe one of the onesies- which might have been mistaken for swimsuits- this was the most babyish (and hopefully provocative) outfit she had left to her. Molly, by contrast was very much in “Mommy Mode”, wearing a pink blouse untucked over comfortable jeans and sneaker, her hair tied up in a little bun.  No makeup either, though the tired circles around her eyes from so much sleepwalking were starting to appear.  What really painted the image of “single mom” was the diaper bag she had slung over her shoulder.  They made quite a picture; yet even with Margaret’s diaper more or less on display for public inspection, she wasn’t provoking quite the response she’d hoped for.

Everyone on the bus had given them a good dose of shade and side-eye, but no one had said a damn thing about the girl dressed like a toddler.  If the creeper had been aghast at Margaret’s attire, everything would have been going according to plan.  Instead, he was taking pervy little glances every now and then when he thought the girls weren’t looking; a kind of cross between peeking and staring that lacked the subtlety of the former and the honesty of the latter.

A buzzing electric rush along her spinal cord made Margaret want to scream “TAKE A GOOD LOOK” at the top of her lungs, but Mommy (MOLLY! MOLLY! MOLLY!) wouldn’t have liked that. To prevent the building outburst, she chose to self-soothe by sucking her thumb a bit.

A strange, desperate giggle, rattled in the back of Margaret’s throat and stopped just short of her thumb. Just a week ago a stranger peeking at her panties would have sent Margaret into either a fit of rage or a river of tears.  Now she was banking her salvation on random passerby getting a good gander of her unmentionables.

Molly leaned in and tenderly gave Margaret a little peck on the cheek.  Where had that come from?  “We wouldn’t have been able to get on the bus if you weren’t dressed up,” she whispered to Margaret.  Her voice could barely be heard over the motorized hum of the bus.  “Don’t worry.  We’ll find someplace that’ll work for us.”

Crossing her arms, Margaret leaned forward so she could whisper back.  “Where?”  The awkward silence droned on a for bit.  Squeaking brakes and a stoplight punctuated the void that they both felt.  It felt like most everyone was purposefully looking out the window, even though nothing was going by it.  Reality had suddenly found a way to become even more cumbersome

“I don’t know,” Molly finally said.  “The park, maybe?”

The park?  The park could work.  It was big and open, sure, which was a great way to make a scene, but what if a scene couldn’t be made there?  Margaret was starting to see the fatal flaw in her plan.  As evidenced by Molly, their tattoos still had control over their behavior.  If the thing that had possessed them didn’t want something to go down, it wasn’t happening.  “What happens if we’re not allowed to go the park?”

“Why wouldn’t we be allowed to go the park?” Molly asked.  “Babies and Mommies go to the park all the time.”  A flash of guilt covered Molly’s face.  “That’s what I’m working with here.”  She tapped her head.  “Crazy voice up here isn’t complaining.”  Then the artist flicked the writing on her wrist.  “And nothing here is burning or spasming.  I think we can do this.”

Not completely convinced, Margaret bit her lip, wishing for a pacifier despite herself. The dozen or so other people in the long metal box with them were doing their best not to look.  The windows and their smart phones were their world. They registered the girls’ presence; and some were clearly uncomfortable about it based on frowns and sideways glances, but no one was speaking up.  Great; they were trying their best to get caught and the forces of politeness and tolerance were working against them.  Where was an outraged evangelical Christian that wanted to mind everyone else’s business when you needed one?

It might have just been in her head, but she could hear the dry, plastic crinkle as she wriggled in her seat. “What if we can’t make a big enough scene? What if everybody ignores us?”  She shot a look at the hair creeper sitting to Molly’s left.  The man had broken out into a sweat, had pitched a tent in his pants, and was doing a poor job of hiding both.  “Or if all of the right people ignore us?”

In answer, Molly maneuvered her diaper bag (it was Margaret’s, technically…) into her lap and took a baby bottle out of the side pocket.  A rubber nipple was shoved into Margaret’s face, and her mouth opened to accept it before her brain could reject the offer.  Both of the big baby’s hands wrapped around the bottle, obscuring the amber colored liquid within.  “Apple juice,” Molly told Margaret’s ears as her tongue confirmed the same. “A wet diaper will be harder to ignore.”  Margaret’s eyes darted down past her nose; looking at the baby bottle like it was a leech. “It’s just apple juice,” Molly reassured her. ”No additives.  Don’t need them.  Pretty sure you’ll have an accident all by yourself.”  That brought more than a little color to the taller girl’s cheeks.

Still drinking the stuff, Margaret shot her Roommate an incredulous stare.  This was stupid. Objectively stupid. Molly must’ve known what she was thinking.  “Yeah, this is dumb,” she admitted. “Boondock Saints, remember?”

A hiss of air entered the conversation as Margaret stopped suckling on the rubber nipple long enough to ask, “What if a wet diaper doesn’t get enough attention?”

A maniac grin came to Molly.  With all the flourish and enthusiasm of an action star revealing their weapons cash in the third act, Molly flipped open the top flap of the diaper bag.  The diapers peaking out of the top might as well have been a rocket launcher.  “Mommies change their babies in public all the time.”

Hairy and Horny’s eyes looked like they were going to fall out of his skull. Mommy…Molly closed the diaper bag and maneuvered it back around to her side, acting as a buffer zone between her and the pervert who was likely ejaculating in his pants.

This. Just. Might. Work. 

Margaret smiled as she finished the last of her apple juice, handing the bottle to her more diminutive caretaker.  A tiny burp rumbled out past her lips.  “Good girl,” Molly said, absentmindedly as she placed the now empty bottle back in the side pocket of the pink bunny bag.  Neither of them seemed to take exception to that last remark.  Baby or Adult, everything was going according to plan, so Margaret was, in fact, being a good girl…wasn’t she?

Sweaty McPervpants had whipped out his own phone, and he was hurriedly working some app or another. The big baby girl didn’t have to wait long to figure out.  Quickly, and likely less subtle than he intended to be, the man sitting next to Molly tilted his phone to face Margaret, and his thumb tapped the screen.

Like a snake going for the kill, a slender, petite hand with an iron grip reached out and snatched the phone away from the peeping Tom.  “Do you normally take pics of little girls’ diapers?”  The man next to Molly didn’t even shout or object as she looked at the screen and thumbed through his photos.  He just kept trembling, his brow becoming drenched in his own perspiration.  “No other pictures,” Molly said, a little too loudly.   Now the other passengers were starting to take notice.  “This must be your first.”

Oliver Twist would have looked at the pathetic excuse for a man, sitting on the bus with hand out, silently begging for his phone, and been disgusted.  “Deleted,” Molly said a moment later. The neckbeard next to her leaned in a bit, meekly trying to get his phone back.  A single upheld finger stopped his advancement.  Clearly, Molly wasn’t done yet.  “Betcha don’t clear your internet history on this thing.”

Margaret couldn’t see what her Molly was gazing at in the soft glow of the smartphone’s screen, but her eyes had glazed over with a kind of familiar contempt.  Whatever she was seeing was neither a shock, nor a surprise to her.  When she was done she lobbed the phone back at the would-be voyeur. Clumsy hands fumbled the easy toss and the phone clattered to the ground.  “You’re sick.  Get help. Get out.”

“Excuse me?”  He was shaking as he picked the phone up off the humming floor, but he finally found his voice.

“Get. Out.”

A stop was pressed, the man got out, and other than few not-so-hushed whispers of “Pot calling the kettle black” things went quiet again.  Too quiet.

“Mom…ly?”  Margaret misspoke.  Molly looked up and regarded her.  Screw it. Press on.  “Was that really necessary?”

Molly reached out and drew Margaret into a hug, a maternal gesture that she did not resist.  “Yeah, it was.  That was crossing a line.  I would’ve reacted that way even if this wasn’t happening to us.”  The baby girl wanted to believe that, but she suspected there was more than a little maternal instinct at play.

A sign flashed by out the bus window.  A different kind of instinct caused a jolt of electricity to surge through Margaret’s spine, making her hand to shoot up and press the “stop” button.  “We’re not at the park, yet, sweetie,” Molly said.

“I just got a better idea,” Margaret replied.

“But the plan was-”

“I’m an adult.  Trust me.”  Molly frowned at that, but it seemed to Margaret as though she was frowning at herself.  Slowly, the other girl nodded.

The bus squeaked to a halt at the next stop, and hand in hand, the two Shen-compelled women stepped off to quiet snickers and scoffs of “finally” and “about time”.  So those people had had a problem!  A chilling notion creeped into the back of Molly’s mind: What would happen if they failed and both of them changed completely?  What would happen if they offended but not enough for retaliation?  Would they go out into the world as ‘Mommy’ and ‘baby’, forever oblivious of the scorn inches away from them while they subconsciously toed the line of tolerable behavior?  Or would they, like the Addams Family or the Munsters, be forever strange and never quite understand why they didn’t fit in?  Or like the naked dog man in the tattoo parlor, would this be their last journey into the world outside their apartment?

The pavement beneath their feet, Molly looked up to her baby girl.  “Where are we going?”

Margaret turned and pointed behind them.  “There’s something better than a park,” she said.  “Something better than a park.  Something waaaaay better.”  If Margaret’s psyche had been split into two minds by the nonsense she’d been forced to endure, both her adult and baby self thought her latest impulse was a great idea, if for different reasons.

The two walked in silence for about three blocks before what Margaret had been looking for could be seen.  It was a shopping plaza, and an unremarkable one at that.  Across the street from an old pizzeria next to a dollar store was a half-acre of concrete encircled by six rectangular cement buildings, their plain and rocky surfaces and gray color doing everything that could be done to repel the eye with banality.

The giant board at the plaza’s entrance was divided up into six equal sections, each one advertising a business that had set up shop in the parking lot.  Margaret tried to read the words off the billboards, but found that something in her brain wouldn’t quite translate the letters into sounds.  Like a glitch in a computer program, every time she attempted to read the signs, the letters seemed to blur or pixelate.

Helpfully, Molly read the names of the businesses out loud.  “Staples Office Supplies, Hobby Lobby, Shoe Carnival, a McAlister’s Deli, a discount movie theatre and-

“That one,” Margaret pointed to the last sign.

The sign had a plain white background, with the trunks of trees shooting up from the bottom and splitting off into explosions of green leafed branches, with vines dangling from the top.  Playing in the tree tops and swinging from the vines were happy, smiling, wide eyed simians in every shade of the rainbow.  All of them looked straight out at the viewer, despite their varied and dynamic poses.

“That art is so amateur,” Molly shook her head in disgust.  Margaret nudged her a bit to get her to focused.  “Monkey Mania?” She kept reading. “Indoor jungle gym and play place.”  A dawning realization lit up Molly’s eyes.  “That’s a kid’s and parents’ only kind of place.”

Smugly, Margaret nodded.  “Yup.”

“Taking you in there would likely piss a lot of people off…”

“Yup.”  Margaret felt her confidence swelling as Molly started connecting the dots that the diapered woman already had.  Now she got to be the big and smart one.

“And people can just leave a park.”

“Yup.”

“This’ll get the cops called on us for sure.”

“Especially if you change my diaper in there,” Margaret smiled.  She lifted up her dress and gave her padded undies a pat.  Too bad they were still dry.

Still hand-in-hand. Molly lead the way towards the entrance.  Before they had even covered half the distance, Molly stopped.  “What if our tattoos won’t let us go in?  What if they won’t let us get help?”

As if on cue, Margaret’s backside started to tingle and burn like hot cinders.  Her hand was immediately released as Molly slumped to one side, grunting and groaning in pain while her arm literally tried to drag her to the ground.

Margaret had to think.  The things inside their tattoos were effectively complaining.  But she dealt with complaints for a living, didn’t she?  What would she do to pacify an annoying customer who wouldn’t listen to reason?  Then the idea occurred to her:  You diffused the situation.

“We have to go, Mommy!” Margaret whined in pain as her tattoo felt more like a fresh brand.

Molly was on the verge of tears, struggling to stay upright and off the hot, dirty sidewalk; using the diaper bag as a kind of ballast for her lopsided body.  “We…can’t…”

“What kind of Mommy would you be if you didn’t take your baby girl out for some playtime?”

It stopped.  The pain in Margaret’s back, and by the look of it, the wait in Mommy’s arm.  Good.  Mommy righted herself, straightened out the diaper bag, and once again took hold of Margaret’s hand.  “Come on, sweetie,” she said.  “Let’s go play.”

Given recent events in her life, Molly had every reason not to believe her senses.  Just earlier this morning she’d looked at her roommate and saw a small child- her small child- in need of a fresh diaper.  And despite herself, she kept fretting over the poor little thing, wanting to provide love and nurturing care for her little-

DAMNIT!

Case in point: derailed trains of though such as that were good enough reason for her not to completely trust herself.

Before an extensive makeover, the place might have been a storage warehouse of some sort, with wide walls and high ceilings, that was effectively one big room.  Arrows marked “Birthday Parties” and “Restrooms” pointed to a small passageway that likely used to be a collection of offices.  Whatever purpose the building had been built with in mind no longer mattered, however. At present, this place was very obviously an indoor playground.

The walls were clean and white, with the same swinging rainbow hued monkeys shown laughing and playing and swinging from vines everywhere she looked.

The closest corner had a little barrier that came up to about Molly’s hip; forming a sort of pen.  Large foam blocks and tinker toys littered the ground within it.   A sign nearby read “For children 2 and under, with parent accompaniment.”

The front right corner had a large wooden steam engine style train painted bright blue.  It obviously wasn’t meant to be mobile, but big enough to enter, with wide enough entryways that the carved in rows of benches on the inside could be seen.

At the very back of the mammoth space, the wall was spackled with rock climbing ledges and footholds, with unoccupied safety harnesses clearly visible.  A small concession stand and ticket counter was visible in the back corner.  Make the kids and their parents walk the perimeter and see what there was to see first; clever.  But the aforementioned spaces were hardly the main event.

In the center of the room, a tangle of shiny steel, pastel foam padding, brightly colored plastic, and  black mesh netting wound and twisted together to create a fairly impressive structure.  The term “jungle gym” didn’t even do it justice.  From the entrance way that led to the trampoline floor, or the maze of interconnected crawling tubes, or the monkey bars that dangled over the tremendous ball pool, or the slide that exited the structure; it was closer to a funhouse or an obstacle course.   Based solely on how much space was dedicated to it, this was the place’s main attraction.  Molly looked to Margaret and saw that her charge was similarly taken aback by the sheer enormity of everything.

Pre-packaged, manufactured, auto-tuned kid covers of Top 40 pop songs played from unseen speakers.  The music was loud enough that it could likely be heard from anywhere in the big open play space, but not so loud as to where Molly felt the need to yell to be heard, and the walls were well insulated enough so as to not cause an annoying echo.  The cold air of the central air conditioning was a welcome relief from the heat outside.

Molly had seen this type of place advertised before- perhaps even passed this particular establishment-many times before and vaguely wondered how such places could exist and make ends meet when every McDonald’s with a Play Place could accomplish the same effect.  The sheer grandiosity of the place showed Molly where she’d erred in her thinking.  McDonald’s was a cheap burger joint that also had a playground.  This was a premium playground that had some snacks.  There was a difference.  The utter lack of that signature grease trap smell tainting everything was a nice bonus too.

A place like Monkey Mania would be a great way to spend an afternoon…if you were a kid.

With all the safety equipment, the air conditioning, semi-familiar tunes, and accessibility, Monkey Mania could be a good place to let your kids wear themselves out…if you were a parent.

As impressive as the entire setup was, there was something very, very wrong about this situation:  There wasn’t a single parent or child around.  No one was around.  The Playground Rapture had happened and Molly and Margaret had arrived too late.  Someone struck gold in the next playground over and now Monkey Mania was a ghost town.  The colonists of this playground had all disappeared, and Molly half-expected for the word “Croatan” to be scratched into one of the foam posts on the Jungle Gym.

Margaret was the first to say something.  “Where is everybody?”

“I don’t know,” Molly said.  “You don’t see anyone, either?”  She was glad that if she was deluded, at the very least, it was a shared delusion.

“Maybe they’re closed…?” Margaret said, her lack of confidence evident in her own tone.

“With the door unlocked and everything running?” Molly asked. Then she chirped, ”Is this even going to work if people aren’t here?” She crossed her arms, shaking her head.  “Someone’s here.  And we don’t need to creep out a bunch of people with our crazy.  Just someone who will ask us to leave and call the cops when we don’t.”

“Yeah,” Margaret agreed.  “This might be better.  It’ll be easier to have fun and…” she paused, “you know… if I’m not worried about creeping a bunch of kids out.” She pointed to the back. “Ticket counter?”

Linking hands, it didn’t occur to Molly until a few steps towards the counter that she’d finally managed to release her grip on Margaret’s hand.  Probably best to not mention it now that their freedom had been so easily and thoughtlessly relinquished.

“Hello?” Molly called out once they reached the cash register.  “Is anyone there?”  She looked around for a little bell or something to ring for service.  “Hellooooo?”  The flush of a toilet and hurried footsteps from the back hallway signaled the arrival of the building’s only other occupant.

He appeared to be in his mid to late thirties; right on that precipice between youth with vigor and age with experience.  His blonde hair was neatly combed, but not so much as to imply he was a perfectionist or anal about his appearance.  His light blue eyes peered curiously and welcomingly into her dark brown ones.  A strong chin highlighted his friendly smile. And while he wore black slacks with a Red Polo shirt, the words “Monkey Mania” emblazoned on the breast, it did nothing to hide his tall, muscular physique.   “Hi there,” Welcome to Monkey Mania.  “Can I help you?”

Molly was at an immediate stupefying loss for words.  He was gorgeous.  Oh the things she would do to him if given half a chance.  “Uh…I…um..I…yeah…”
Her baby girl was kind enough to help.  “What my Mommy means is we’d like to play here, if that’s okay.”

“Sure thing.”  The man behind the counter said with no hint of hesitation. “Just the two of you?”

Molly looked around, as if expecting a crowd to have formed behind her.  There was no crowd, but Margaret was already twisting around, peering at the massive obstacle course.  “Yeah. I guess.”

“That’ll be five dollars, even,” he said evenly.  Molly dug into the pockets of her jeans and produced a Lincoln.  He accepted it and rung open the cash register. “You can stay as long as you like,” the hunk said.  “Normally I’d give you a stamp so I knew you’d already paid, but we’re kind of having a slow day.”

The artist leaned forward on the counter, drawn in by the sound of his voice.  “Yeah,” she said, trying to sound interested but not as entranced as she currently felt.  “About that?  I thought there’d be other kids here.”  A twinge of guilt made it’s way, realizing that she’d just referred to her roomie as a child.

Molly’s sudden crush shrugged a bit.  “Beats me.  I guess we’re just having an off day.  A really off day.  Normally this place is packed.”  Normally.  That sent alarm bells ringing in Molly’s mind.  “I sent everybody else home.  I’m the manager,” he added, extending his hand.  Molly shook it, but she wasn’t really paying attention.

“Why so cheap?” she asked.  Above the manager’s head was a pricing structure.  Kids as old as 12 were charged close to fifteen bucks.

“It’s how we do business,” he said.  “We only charge five bucks for children two and under.”

Molly was a deer in headlights.  “Two…and…under…?”

The manager nodded slowly, and repeated himself even slower as if Molly wasn’t completely fluent in English.  “Yes.  If your little girl is under two years old, the price of admission is five dollars.”  Then he cocked his head to the side; a new thought buzzing in his ear. “Oh, I’m sorry, is she older than two? I couldn’t tell.  Don’t worry about it if that’s the case.”

Oh no.

“Margaret,” Molly said.  “We’ve got to…-“ she whipped her head around.  Gone.  Margaret was gone; she had vanished into the ether.

A big, masculine hand pointed towards the jungle gym.  “She got away from us,” the manager chuckled, lightly.  “Little rascal couldn’t wait to go play.”

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

PLAY! PLAY! PLAY! PLAY!  Everything was going according to plan!  Mommy and Margaret came to this place and it was SO EMPTY!  That meant that she could have the ENTIRE PLAYGROUND TO HERSELF! How amazing was that?!

With rushed, heavy steps, the precious darling waddled up the entrance ramp into the ginormous play house.  This was going to be so much fun!  And no mean old big kids to push her out of the way or make fun of her, neither. Before ducking her head and setting foot past the entranceway to the jungle gym, she spared a glance over her shoulder.  Mommy was talking with the nice man behind the counter.  She’d catch up and come play in just a few minutes.  Mommy always did.

She didn’t get far into the play space before the space started playing back with her.  One step onto the bouncy, stretchy floor caused the little girl to lose her balance, sending her tumbling to the trampoline floor.  A muffled “Oooof” came out of the little girl’s mouth, but no tears poured from her eyes.  For once, it was fun falling down; such was the magic of this place.

“MARGARET!” Mommy called out.  She was obviously worried, so Margaret let out a little giggle to let her mommy know that she was alright.  “Come here, precious! Come to Mommy!”  Margaret knew that tone well enough.  It meant she was trying to trick her!  That was the same way she talked when it was bath time or if vegetables were for snacks.

Ever so clever, Margaret wasn’t having any of that.  She wanted her playtime and she was getting it.  Her diaper crinkling behind her, Margaret climbed back to all fours and crawled her way across the bouncy trampoline floor.

“MARGARET!” Mommy called.  “YOU’RE TOO LITTLE FOR THAT, SWEETIE!” Margaret giggled mischievously.  She’d show her.

Mommy was just beginning to poke her head into the bouncy space, as Margaret started shimmying through the big hamster tubes.  It was a bit of a cramped fit, admittedly, but she could move through well enough.  The tubes went up at an angle at first, with little hand holds in them like a ladder that Margaret used to scooch up and up and up.

Soon though, the tube leveled out, and Margaret was able to wriggle along on her belly like a snake.

“MARGARET!“  Mommy’s voice echoed through the plastic tunnels.  “COME BACK!”

Margaret never had been a particularly good listener when fun was involved.  Besides, there wasn’t enough room to turn around in and Margaret hadn’t figured out how to crawl backwards just yet.  Forward was the only way to go.

A moment later, Mommy’s voice went away from the tubes, and Margaret heard her talking to the nice man outside.  She couldn’t understand what they were saying because of how muffled their voices were.  Mommy didn’t sound too happy, if Margaret was being honest with herself, but the man sounded very calm.

She hoped that he’d calm Mommy down.  When Mommy got upset at her, Mommy spanked.  Margaret reached back behind her and rubbed her bottom, the smooth plastic of her diaper comforting to her fingers.  As long as it wasn’t a bare-bottomed spanking, maybe it would be okay.

Determined to make this little misadventure worth it, Margaret bravely explored the plastic labyrinth.  Up. Up. Down. Down. Left. Right. Left. Right. All fears of punishment evaporated when she snaked out of the tunnels, the roof rising, and the stuff air of the tunnels giving way to the mesh barrier.

In front of her was pit filled to the brim with plastic balls of all the best colors: Reds and blues and greens and yellows.  But the real thing that caught her attention was the row of sturdy grips high above her head.   “Monkee barz!” She cooed with wonder.

“See?” The nice man from behind the counter thumbed over to Margaret.  “I told you she’d come out there.”    Margaret only half heard this, as she was absolutely mesmerized by the framework of horizontal bars.  “That net mesh can come right off and we’ll get her out of there.”

Panic all but consumed the little girl.  Out?!  Out?!  No!  No out! She wanted to swing on the monkey bars.  She wanted to dangle her feet.  She wanted to dive gracefully into the big swimming pool of round plastic goodness.

“Hurry!” Mommy said, sounding panicked.  “I don’t think she’s in her right mind!”  That didn’t quite sound like something Mommy would say.

Fumblingly, Margaret pushed herself up to her knees, as high as she knew how to get up, (the fact that she’d been walking not five minutes ago not occurring to her), and she stretched her hand up and out.  The monkey bars were above her, but they were out there too, so at the very first rung a kid could kick and dangle their feet above the ball pit.  Painfully, slowly, agonizingly, she stretched out her hand, her knees wobbling with fatigue already.  If only she were just a little bit taller, or a little bit older or knew how to stand up.

All. She. Had. To. Do. Was. Reach.

The world went topsy turvy as little Margaret reached out for that first rung, twisting and turning in like a leaf in the wind before falling backwards over herself.   Moments later, a more adult Margaret would have described her ungraceful dive into the ball pit as “ass over tea kettle”, her landing head first into the pit, her padded backside above her head and on full display for the two other adults to admire in the split second she plummeted.  Little Margaret, however, was a baby and didn’t have such words as “ass” and also possibly “teakettle,” so topsy-turvy would have to do.

What happened next was a bit of a reversed baptism.  The baby Margaret disappeared underneath the round fragile waves of the ball pit, and a tense moment later, a panicked and struggling adult Margaret was reborn and breaking the surface.  “MOLLY!” she called out.  “Get me out of here!”  In the back of her mind, Margaret’s tattoo spirit, her Shen, was screaming in protest; it was like a lion that had once again been denied the whole of its feast.

The netting wall was already peeled back by the time Margaret was back to herself.  Molly was waist deep in the stuff and wading over to her.  “We need to leave.”  She said.

“Agreed,” Molly echoed the sentiment.  “Something’s going on here and I don’t like it.  And it’s not just you.”   Margaret sat on her haunches, the weight of her body supported by the balls, almost like water, in fact. Molly waddle-waded through the mass and scooped her arm underneath the padded girl’s armpit.  “C’mon.  Stand up.”

She couldn’t though.  Margaret had been sending the command to her legs to stand back up to her full height long before Molly gave the order. “I can’t,” she said, her voice laced with dread.  “It’s not working.”  Her legs trembled and strained as if atrophied.

“Try,” Molly demanded.  “Just try.”  The big baby pushed up on the balls on her feet, just so her knees could shake and spasm as if wracked by seizure, sending her topping face first into the globules.  This time, tears did fall with her. The lion inside her soul had managed to get a bite after all.

Her Mommy let a long breath exhale out, her eyes closed in concentration.  “It’s okay,” she said.  “It’s okay.  I’ll take care of…” Molly’s sentence was cut short by a strained groaning noise.  “What…the…heck?”

From her spot right next to Molly, Margaret saw Molly’s strong and dexterous finger curl into gnarled talons, her body straining against some unseen pain.  Molly wasn’t looking at her anymore.  Her Mommy suddenly had bigger problems than a silly baby in a ball pit.  Drunkenly she swayed, groaning and growling and clawing at her stomach.  “It….hurts…!”

Margaret could only watch, a helpless bystander as Molly stumbled away as if intoxicated; doubled over in pain; all but toppling over the edge of the ball pit.  “Something…” she said.  “Something’s not right.”  The diapered girl managed to do a kind of doggy paddle crawl over to the edge of the pit while her Mommy writhed on the floor.

“Ma’am,” the man in the red shirt said, leaning over.  “Are you alright?  Do you need me to call 9-1-1?”

9-1-1?  YES!  9-1-1 was EXACTLY what they needed right now.

“No.” Molly growled, picking her self up off her feet.  “I’m fine!”

WHAT?! No!  They were not fine!  None of this met any definition of fine!

“Where’s your bathroom?” she asked, ignoring Margaret’s whimpering pleas for help by the edge of the ball pit.

Tall, Blonde, and Oblivious-To-Diaper-Butts pointed to single hallway.  “That way and hang a right. Ladies’ room is the first door on the right!”  Molly was already moving, clutching at her stomach.  “Don’t worry, “l’ll look after your baby,” he called after her.

Wide eyed and afraid, Margaret did not like the sound of that.

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

The bathroom door flung open, and Molly was a blur through it and in the nearest stall, not even bothering to lock it.  She was not about to shit her pants, she was not about to shit her pants. She. Was. Not. About. To. Shit. Her. Pants!  Not 30 seconds ago she was trying to escape this place, now she was not so silently thankful that at least she wasn’t on the bus.

Another cramp rattled through her insides, she knew not why.  Had the tattoo changed its mind?  Had the Shen inside the ink decided that she’d make a better baby and decided to consummate that new relationship right here and now?  Did she just have a sudden case of the shits?

Pants around her ankles and suddenly in more pain that she’d ever been in her life, Molly kicked like a mule, almost sending the stall door off its hinges.  If she’d bothered to lock it, it might have.

Oh god!  Oh god!  It hurt so much!  It felt like she was shitting, but more than just shitting.  It was the most intense pain she’d ever felt in her life.  It felt like there was something possessing her, something that was kicking and growing inside her; like a parasite; and her body just wanted to push out.

If felt like she was…like she was giving…

Before she gave the most pain filled, intense scream of her young life, Molly managed to whisper a single word.

“No…”

In the midst of her tortured wailing, something popped: Liquid hit liquid as amniotic fluid (or rather some poor substitute) gushed out of her.  Another pop, this one external, as a button on her blouse went airborn while body warped and twisted in a terrible parody of pregnancy.

Like a balloon filling with air her belly became huge and swollen, swelling and stretching faster than her clothes could hold.  She felt as though she would burst open and her entrails would spill out over the bathroom floor.   Her petite breasts filled and grew at least two sizes.  Surely they’d burst open as well, and she’d bleed out, being released from this torture!

But she didn’t bleed out.  The pain didn’t stop.  And her screams went unanswered.  No one was coming to save her.  She would have to save herself.

So Molly did the only thing she could.  She pushed.

And pushed.

And pushed.

And little by little…the pain subsided.  Her belly deflated, and her skin broke out into a cold sweat.  Standing up, and still shaking from the exertion, she looked down into the toilet.  Nothing.  She looked between her legs.  Nothing; at least, none of the ripping or trauma she’d heard of women experiencing during child birth.  Her tummy was tiny again; not even a stretch mark.

Hiking her pants up, she paused to look at the tattoo on her arm.  She still couldn’t make heads or tails of it, but it looked the same as before. “What was that about?”

As if in answer, her breasts, still engorged, starting leaking.  A yellowish milky substance dribbled out of her nipples and dripped onto her feet.

Colostrum.

Molly was beyond words, and could only whimper, holding back tears, as the yellow, almost puss like stuff kept leaking out and it was replaced by something smoother, lighter colored, and more creamy in appearance…

Breast milk.

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

   (Meanwhile)

“Up we go!” The manager of Monkey Mania said, scooping Margaret out of the ball pit and cradling her in his arms.  “You went and had yourself a little adventure, huh?” Margaret didn’t gasp as much as get a breeze knocked out of her when she felt how strong the man was.   “How about something a little safer, yeah?”

“I don’t think a ball pit is that dangerous, actually,” Margaret said, looking up into his dreamy blue eyes.  He smiled softly down at her, not saying anything.  “It’s just a ball pit.”

Again, he nodded. “Uh-huh.” In his arms, she bobbed up and down a bit, hyper aware of every step he took as she was carried over towards the front corner, where the two-and-under area was.

“Seriously though,” Margaret said.  “Thanks.”

“Yup.”  He wasn’t looking at her anymore.  Just nodding as a little tuft of blonde hair nodded with him, just slightly out of place.  Who was this guy, who was just so effortlessly lugging her around? Lugging wasn’t a good word for it, actually.  Lugging implied strain and effort.  There was none.

Mr. Monkey Mania was being short with his responses, but it seemed more out of bemused disinterest rather than strain.  Big strong arms cradling her barely seemed to tense.  He was so strong.  Very cute…handsome actually.  A lifetime ago, sometime between being dumped and getting her new roommate, the old Margaret might have blushingly fantasized about flirting with him.

He was big and strong, like Superman.  She was Lois Lane, being flown away to safety.  She felt so tiny in his arms; so helpless, so little.  “Is there a ‘Mrs.Monkey Mania?”

“Mmmhmm.” Was his reply as he brought her into the padded play pen, littered with cushions and foam blocks and tinker toys.

Bummer. “Sorry,” the baby woman replied. “I didn’t see a ring. I didn’t mean to embarrass myself.”

“Oh yeah?” the manager said, setting her down on her bum.  “Tell me more.”  Margaret noticed a distinct squishy wetness beneath her as she was set down.  When had that happened?  More importantly though, was the tone in which her new company spoke.  He wasn’t speaking to say anything, but to keep her talking.

She looked down at herself and was reminded of the sailor dress and hat she had been dressed in; the wet diaper starting to swell and peek out even further from the hem. Her bewildered, juvenile-seeming face reflected back at her in the tops of her black patent leather shoes.  She looked up from her spot on the floor to the man standing next to her. “You can’t understand a word I’m saying, can you?”

“Interesting…” he said.  This wasn’t a conversation.  It was talking to a pull string toy.

Her breath made a hiccupping noise on her.  “Nothing at all?”

“Go on.”

“The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.”

The man nodded.  “Okay.”

Words escaped Margaret as the implications of this new information sunk in. The real question was whose perceptions were being tampered with?  Was the Shen-tattoo on her back scrambling this stranger’s hearing, or was she only under the illusion that she was speaking real words?  She needed more data.  She needed more time.  She needed answers.  She needed –

“MOMMY!  MOOOOOMMMY!” Arms flailing in the air and the backs of her heels slamming against the soft ground, Margaret went into a full-on panic induced temper tantrum.

“Uh-oh!  I know what that means!”

Strong, comforting arms snatched her up from the floor.  Her soggy bum was boosted up and came to rest in the palm of this stranger’s hand as he gently patted her back and shushed her.  She buried her face in his shoulder, muffling herself, and soothing herself as he rubbed her back.

“It’s okay,” he said.  “It’s fine.  Your Mommy’s just in the bathroom.  That’s where grown-ups go when they have to go potty. She’ll be back in just a couple of minutes.”

The ex-customer representative didn’t feel herself peeing, but she did feel her diaper become wetter and warmer as the apple juice finished its journey through her body.  Her cries died down to a whimper, despite herself.  She just felt so helpless.  She didn’t want to be a baby.  She didn’t want to be a little girl.  She wanted to be a woman!

“I know a fun game we can play,” the stranger who held her said, brightly.  Margaret didn’t open her eyes to see where she was being taken, as much as she felt her newest captor back up and sit down on a nearby bench so that parents wouldn’t have to get on the ground with their rug rats.

As his lap began to form, Margaret felt his too-strong hands pushing her hips backwards.  His idea was sitting down and getting her off?  No, she realized. Her journey backwards stopped once she reached the edge of his lap.  He wriggled and disentangled himself from her so that she was left straddling one knee.  Carefully, almost daintily, he took her hands in his.  “Horsey time!”

“Whoah!” she balked as he began to bounce her up and down on his knee.

Undeterred, he began bouncing her, jostling her up and down, rhythmically simulating (or so he thought) the motions of riding a horse.

He sang: “Clip, clip, clop little Shetland Pony

Swish your tail and toss your mane

Clip, clip, clop little Shetland Pony

Bounce in the saddle and hold your reign!”

A wave of pleasure shuddered through Margaret as the bouncing went on.  Even more so when he declared “Faster!” and picked up the tempo.  “Isn’t this fun?” he asked.

She nodded and let out a breathy, “Uh-huh,” before holding on tight as he bounced her again. The diapered woman felt something well up in her.  What was going on, here?  The squishy padding between her legs, combined with the smooth, forceful rhythm of him bouncing her up and down on his strong legs was having a very different, decidedly un-childlike effect on her.

He might not have been trying to get her off of his knee, but she was getting closer and closer to getting off on his knee.

“Faster,” she whispered, biting her lip.  “Faster.”

“Yeah?”  She didn’t know if he understood her, but he went faster anyways.  Sang louder too.

“CLIP CLIP CLOP LITTLE SHETLAND PONY

SWISH YOUR TAIL AND TOSS YOUR MANE

CLIP CLIP CLOP LITTLE SHETLAND PONTY

BOUNCE IN THE SADDLE AND HOLD YOUR REIGN!”

So good!  Each squish a tension, each bounce a tiny release.  Now she was getting wetter and wetter, and not in a babyish way.  And with each little thrust upwards, she felt herself inch towards a point of no regrets.   He smelled great, too

“Oh, fuck me…” she whispered.  “Just fuck me.  I need this.”

“ClipclipcloplittleShetlandPony

Swishyourtailandtossyourmane

ClipclipcloplittleShetlandPony

Bounceintthesaddleandholdyourreign.”

Closer. Closer. Closer.  She was helping him now (more like helping herself), thrusting her hips a little bit with each successive bounce.  Closing her eyes, she placed one hand on his shoulder to keep her balance while the other hand balled up into a fist.  With abandon, she popped her thumb in her mouth.

To keep her from falling, he had to adjust his grip on her, moving from her hands to hips.  They were grinding now.  Dancing.  Living in the moment.  This!  This is what she had been missing.  This is what she had been denying herself.  This is what she had never really gotten to experience with her ex-boyfriend.  It had seemed like ages since she had felt so alive, so womanly, so turned on and overcome with passion that she wanted to fuck somebody’s brains out! “Oooh…oooh…ooooh.”  Then she couldn’t hold it any more.  “DADDY!”

“Did you call me Daddy?”  He stopped.  Damnit!  Why did he stop?!  She was so close just then, and he’d gone and ruined it!

Great. Just. Fucking. Great.  Every word came out as baby babble except “Daddy,” and like every other man in history, the D-word was the universal anti-aphrodisiac.  She leaned in, pressing her face against his chest, and moaned pitifully.  “Daddy…..”

“Margaret!” Molly’s voice rang out, snapping her from her trance.  “We have to go. Now!”

Margaret looked up, watching her Roommate stumble out of the bathroom, her clothes and hair a complete and utter mess, as if she had been mauled by something.  Her blouse wide open, and with no bra to speak of, Molly looked as if she had been bleeding from her chest.

Only it wasn’t blood, and the white, creamy liquid pouring out of her and onto the floor was coming from her nipples.

“Mommy?”

[Scarlet]

Wow, that was an amazing chapter. I laughed, I got disgusted, amused, sad, horrified, wow. That bus pervert was something else. From what he sounded like, the entire seat must've been flooded in sweat ??. Seriously,  though that picture was too far and I was happy that Molly shut him down.

I laughed at the genius that was going to Monkey Mania, I got worried at the way the manager responded, especially given that Margaret answered for Molly when they entered. I was horrified, at what happened to Molly. Seriously, what was that?!!! That came out of left field. I liked it for the suspense and how suddenly it was but oof, it got intense. And Margaret legs not working anymore is very worrying. Although happy that she got some adult fun for once. I found the contrast of the guy doing horsie for "Baby" Margaret and Margaret getting off from it hilarious.

Overall, great chapter. Very worried for the characters and looking forward to seeing what happens next.

[Sarah Penguin]

[Personalias]

7 hours ago, Scarlet said:

Wow, that was an amazing chapter. I laughed, I got disgusted, amused, sad, horrified, wow. That bus pervert was something else. From what he sounded like, the entire seat must've been flooded in sweat ??. Seriously,  though that picture was too far and I was happy that Molly shut him down.

I laughed at the genius that was going to Monkey Mania, I got worried at the way the manager responded, especially given that Margaret answered for Molly when they entered. I was horrified, at what happened to Molly. Seriously, what was that?!!! That came out of left field. I liked it for the suspense and how suddenly it was but oof, it got intense. And Margaret legs not working anymore is very worrying. Although happy that she got some adult fun for once. I found the contrast of the guy doing horsie for "Baby" Margaret and Margaret getting off from it hilarious.

Overall, great chapter. Very worried for the characters and looking forward to seeing what happens next.

Things are escalating very quickly, I"ll admit.

4 hours ago, Sarah Penguin said:

[Jayme]

Wow the Shen is moving faster and faster... I wonder what will happen next?

[Personalias]

(Thursday)

 

“Mommy”.

There was that word again.  That deviously simple word kept repeating itself into eternity between Margaret and Molly’s collective psyches, like a signal bouncing and forth between their brains; gaining strength with each bounce.

Neither ‘Mommy’ nor ‘baby’ knew how they had ended up together, writhing on the floor of the indoor playground in some bizarre amalgamation between what mothers and infants do and what two lovers do; whether they both lost consciousness while their bodies spurred them forward, or whether the universe itself folded space and time to bring them together between two ticks of the clock.  Right now, neither one of them much cared.

Molly was on her back, her blouse ripped open, her bra nowhere to be seen and her eyes rolled up into the back of her skull as her hand held the back of Margaret’s head to her bosom, the ink on her wrist humming all the while.  Like a spider ice-skating for the first time, her free hand spasmed on the floor; her fingers never quite finding purchase or stillness as she let out low breathy moans of contentment.  She made no sounds other than the low groans of ecstasy, but every time she inhaled so that she might whisper-sing her own pleasure and contentment again, she’d smile a bit and mouth the word “Mommy,” as if trying the word out on herself for the first time.

Straddling her left leg so that her saturated, sagging, puffed up diaper was grazing past the bony part of Molly’s knee, Margaret had buried her face into the other woman’s breast, latching onto an erect nipple and sucking at it as if her caregiver had been bitten by a venomous snake.  Along with Molly’s low moans, Margaret added in her own muffled rendition of “Mnmmy. Mnmmy. Mnmmy,”.

At present, “Mommy’ was the only word that Margaret truly knew.  Her mind on a constant feedback loop so that time became meaningless, it was the only word that mattered to the girl.  Like a vampire, the taller girl was sucking the sweet nourishing life out of her Roommate.  A never-ending stream of sweet delicious milk cascaded out of Molly and past Margaret’s groping lips in such volume and speed that little white speckles snuck out the corners of the diapered woman’s mouth and dribbled back down onto Molly’s exposed breasts.

The baby-woman loved it.  The milk completed everything.  It was the missing piece of the puzzle.  With Mommy’s very essence flowing through her, the circuit in little Margaret’s soul was complete.  It filled her up in a way video games, or cartoons, or alcohol, or would-be spouses and sexual partners never could.

This was happiness.  This was love.  This was security.

Except it wasn’t.  Such things as happiness and love and security only existed in theory because it was possible for them to enter a state of non-existence. You couldn’t have happiness without sorrow, nor security without danger. And deep down inside Margaret, she didn’t want to be happy.  She wanted to be THIS- neverending THIS!  All of her needs taken care of, never wanting for anything, and never having to pass someone onto her manager because she could not, in fact, help them with their problem, ever again.

She didn’t need this feeling to be an experience, she needed it to be a constant. Unbeknownst to her (though frankly she couldn’t care less at this point), her diaper swelled and discolored, finally clashing with the pristine colors of the white sailor suit with pink trim.  Not caring that what should be her shame was all but on full display, she continued to suckle, grunting greedily with each pull from her lips.  “Mnmmy!” She mumbled between sips. “Mnmmy!”   All the while she continued to wet herself and didn’t know it.  The tattoo on her back, the “Shen,” sang out in a glorious melody that ran up her spinal chord and into her brainstem as the warmth in her diaper spread out back and front and threatened to leak out onto the floor.

Whether it was by design or just simple instinct, Margaret’s arms and legs began to tire, and she lowered her hips a bit to adjust the weight.  Molly/Mommy’s knee pressed against her sex, causing new sensations to well up.  It wasn’t Daddy’s knee (Daddy’s?), but it would do.  More so with impulses than with conscious words, Molly resolved to finish what she’d started.   With a squelch, the diapered girl thrusted her hips, grinding against her Mommy’s legs as she continued to lick and suck at the shorter woman’s nipple.  Heaven.  This was the original communion.

Margaret had never felt so alive!  No longer was she that petulant little brat that the ink was trying to turn her into.  No longer was she the helpless little blob!  She was one with her universe! She was enlightened! She might be helpless, but that helplessness was something that she truly and deeply needed in her life with someone that had earned her implicit and unreserved.  She was free!  She could have it all!  She would have it all, no matter what some stupid “Shen” tried to make her think!

 

Now…

FASTER!
_____________________________________________________________________________________

Molly was aware of what Margaret was doing, and smiled, letting out a perverted, muted, and frankly idiotic giggle as she felt her roomie humping her leg like a little purse dog. Poor thing. The giggle cut to a gasp when Margaret began to clumsily brush against and grope at her free breast.  Molly shifted her leg a bit, giving her knee bend and her darling something more substantial to rub up against.

“That’s right,” she heard herself say as if she’d said it a million times before.  “Get it all out.  Get it allll out.”  Then the words left them both.  It was all grunting and moaning and thrusting and grinding from there.  Molly’s hand on the floor snaked between her own legs, as she stopped holding Margaret’s head to her breast- she didn’t need to.   Instead, she softly stroked and caressed her little bundle of joy’s hair and pinched at her ears as they both did what came naturally to them.

Neither one was thinking clearly.  In their own respective ways, both women were sharks and blood was in the water.  One was brutal, almost desperate and panicked gyrations; the other was lapping waves on the beach.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Hot flashes, then tingles, then gushing and a new kind of warmth exploded out of Margaret.  Her diaper had just gotten much warmer, and not in any of the typical ways, either. If the diapered girl had had a word for “orgasm” at that moment in time, she might have known what had just happened to her.  Instead, as oxytocin flooded her system, she was rewarded with more cuddles, a switch over to Mommy’s opposite breast, and Mommy making more silly noises while Margaret kept on engorging herself.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Caught up in the intensity of their own intimate communion, both had forgotten that they were not quite alone.  Standing awkwardly to the side, the manager of the Monkey Mania just muttered, “Well…alright then….”  The pair barely noticed when a beach towel was gently draped over them. Nor did they stop. They certainly didn’t question when it came from.

“Ooooh….ooooh…ooooooooooh!”  Molly shrieked as she finally brought herself to climax, minutes after.  A few steady breaths and a few dozen thundering heartbeats later, something resembling cognition jolted awake inside of her.  As if awakening from a pleasant nap, she took stock of her surroundings.

Margaret had already lilted off to the side of her and had been gently snoring, more of a quiet humming, really- her head resting in the crook of her Mommy’s arm.  She knew she was in an abandoned indoor playground and Margaret had run away, and then that awful incident in the restroom, and then she’d stumbled out, milk dribbling from her engorged breasts, and then…this. Where had the towel come from, though?

With short jerky movements, she ripped the towel off her head, the fluorescent lighting and high ceiling of Monkey Mania shining down on her.  Her skin tingled a bit with the pleasant chill of the air conditioning.  It was only when the broad-shouldered shadow cast over her face that she realized that there had been a third person with them there that afternoon.

The semi-rational, non-tattoo influenced part of her brain realized this might be a good thing.  She and Margaret HAD been trying to get themselves arrested so that proper authorities could see that they weren’t in their right mind.  And judging how Margaret was sucking at her thumb, at least one of them was still in la-la land.

Still, the plan had been for them to skip around and play in the ball pit and be asked to leave, not masturbate on the floor.  The manager looked at her, his countenance as awkward-looking as hers should have been.  “Oh!” Molly blanched, her face on fire with embarrassment as her free hand finally became useful and snatched the big fluffy towel up, covering herself.  Like most things in Molly’s life, ecstasy and rapture had given way to painful awkwardness and a feeling akin to an emotional hangover.

Seemingly embarrassed himself, the third person in the room averted his gaze and filled the silence with “I guess she was hungry, yeah?”.   That was certainly one way to put it.

Molly bit her lip.  “Yeah,” she said.  “Sorry about that.  It just kind of…happened.”  The manager was standing up straight, arms crossed and barely looking at her out of the corner of his eye.  Shouldn’t he be yelling or something?  “Things have been…difficult for Margaret and me lately.”

She expected a raging, roaring rant, or at least a some kind of disgust-laced lecture on morality.  Instead of yelling, he spoke in a tone that was barely above a whisper, amplified only by the echoes in the nearly empty building. “Yeah, I get it,” he said, looking down at his feet.  “Sorry about the towel.  I just figured you two needed some…uh…privacy? It’s clean,” he added after a beat.  “It’s just the best I’ve got.”

The heat was returning to the rest of Molly’s body, but it was not at all a pleasant sensation. Out of all the things she expected to experience today, shame had generally not been one of them.  This poor guy had just been treated to a freakshow and he didn’t have the fortitude to interrupt them or even shoo them out when the show was over.  The only thing they’d succeeded in was making this perfectly nice stranger uncomfortable. Damn her for doing this.

Slithering out from beneath her baby girl, Molly quickly buttoned her blouse back together as best as she could.  The rise up to her feet was painful, both physically and emotionally.  Head still swimming, it was becoming more and more difficult for her to look at her padded roomie as anything more than a child, even though Margaret was objectively bigger than she was.  The weight of her baby thrusting into her leg and near ludicrous speeds must’ve knocked her knee out of joint or something. Ugh…what had they been thinking?  A glance down at Margaret, her diaper all but leaking, gave at least one of them an excuse.  What was Molly’s?

“I’m sorry about that,” Molly mumbled.  “I’d call it an accident, but it was something much, much weirder.”  Reclusive and unrefined by nature, Molly had at least the good graces enough so that she could look the man in the eye as she apologized.  Strange.  The dude was smiling. And it was a different smile than she might’ve expected.  It wasn’t a pervy smile like that creep on the bus, or even a happy smile like a brain-dead drone.  If anything, it was kind of a sad smile; one that didn’t quite match the look in his eyes.  “Well, we’d better get going.”  She bent down to rouse her roomie.

“Wait!” The warning came in a hissed sort of stage whisper.

Molly froze.  As if there were a spring in her back, she bolted upright in alarm.   “Hmmm?” she said, trying to sound unassuming, despite the sudden jolt of adrenaline that had just shot itself into her.  She wasn’t out of the jungle gym yet.

The manager looked to be talking to himself, his eyes bouncing from side to side as two halves of his brain argued with themselves.  In a very literal way, Molly supposed, she could relate to that.  “Before you leave-“ he started and then paused, the anticipation obvious in his tone.  Anticipation for what, though?

The pessimistic, frankly rational part of her brain indicated one thing: He’s some kind of a perv. Great. Just like the one on the bus.  Here came the phone, or the weird question, or even worse, the request for a three way.  He paused and started over.  “I don’t mean to criticize, ma’am.  But shouldn’t you change your little girl’s diaper before you leave?”

Molly looked down at Margaret, still snoozing on the floor.  She frowned.  “I really should.”  If she tried to so much as move the giant rugrat, the bloated plastic backed undies would likely slide down her legs and plop down to the floor.

That’s when the unexpected happened. “If you’d like, I can do it,” he offered.  “You look like you’ve had a rough day.”

To say the least, Molly was taken aback.  “R-really?”  Her heart…fluttered?  Really? Fluttered? Why fluttered?  Blondie was kinda cute, but nowhere near the kind of punk-rock bad boy or drunken junkie mess that normally pinged on her radar.  This guy was too settled looking.  Too clean cut.  Too safe.  But Molly had been looking for safety just then.  Nothing ventured nothing gained.  “You don’t have to…” she let the statement hover in the air between them, her intonation laced with an unspoken “but please, please, do”.

The manager shrugged.  “I’ve had to do it before.  Clueless guys…women too, come to think of it…boyfriends or aunties or first-time sitters, come in and then freak out when nature takes its course.  And I’m not just gonna let a kid walk around in a mess.”

“But I’m not some clueless-!“  the artist interjected.  Truthfully, she was.  She’d never changed any kind of diaper before this week.  An adult-sized one was completely out of the realm of possibility.  She legitimately didn’t know what she was doing (in more ways than one).

“That came out wrong.” He interrupted her, holding his hand out flat, palm down in a non-threatening gesture.  “I just get the sense that you and your little one have had a really hard day, and maybe I could make it easier.”

Her tattooed wrist suddenly felt extremely heavy, her free hand too.  But it wasn’t in the same way.  There was no force yanking her arms around willy-nilly like it had been when she’d tried to ditch the boxes of adult sized baby supplies and furniture.  It was just simple fatigue.  She was tired; exhausted even.   A little voice in her head pleaded with her: Please.  We need a rest.  We deserve a rest.  Let us have this.

Slowly, her eyes wandered down to the still snoozing Margaret.  She wouldn’t mind, would she?  Would she even be in her right mind if she woke up?  And she really shouldn’t let her stay in that wet diaper any longer than absolutely necessary, and here was a guy who was offering to help.  Chances were, Molly was realizing, she’d be stuck changing Margaret’s pissy and shitty diapers for the rest of her life.  Any babysitter she hired would freak the moment she saw her “charge.” Why not take the help when it’s offered?

Looking back up to the manager, Molly asked, “Can you do it without waking her?”

A small but confident nod was his reply.  “Let me get her things,” he whispered.  He roll-stepped around Margaret, retrieving her diaper bag from the toddler play area where it’d been set down.  Then, like a civil war doctor rescuing someone from the burrows and muck during the aftermath of a battle, he carefully unpacked everything he’d need to change her.  A fresh diaper, powder, and wipes were carefully removed and placed on the ground.   Molly held her breath as he reached for hem of Margaret’s sailor skirt.  Please don’t wake up, please don’t wake up, please don’t wake up.

He stopped.  Molly’s heart thudded in her chest.  Margaret remained undisturbed.  The blonde boy scout got up and roll stepped to the counter.   “Almost forgot,” he said, pointing to the waste basket he brought back with him.  He sunk back down to his knees and grabbed the beach towel, folding it up neatly.

Molly’s baby stirred a bit as she nudged over to her side, as Blondie slipped the neatly folded towel underneath her padded bum.  As gravity caused the big baby’s thighs to touch, the wet, disgusting squelch clearly audible in the cavernous room caused even the helpful manager to flinch.  Margaret’s eyes were still closed, her thumb still firmly in her mouth as she was rolled back onto the impromptu changing mat.  “Good baby,” Molly whispered despite herself.

The tension doubled as Margaret’s skirt was shifted up so the manager could get to the tapes holding her personal toilet together.  Molly bit into her tongue to prevent from screaming.  The empty indoor playground had suddenly transformed into an operating theatre.  A diaper change had become the equivalent of a triple bypass and simultaneous brain surgery, and all the young Mommy could do was try not to scream.  Two competing thoughts wrestled for dominance within her:  “This is wrong.  This is so wrong.  She hasn’t consented to this,” and “She’s going to wake up.  She’s going to wake up and start crying and I’m going to have to find a way to calm her down all over again and this little peace I’ve got for myself is going to be shattered. I should have at least gotten cloth.  Cloth is quieter.”  Both trains of thought ended with a singular question: “Why did I say ‘yes’ to this?” 

Slowly, with surgical precision, the manager peeled off the tapes.   Molly had expected a kind of thundering ripping sound mixed with nails on a chalk board when the tapes came off, but no sound issued forth from the plastic.  A knowing and oddly cocky smile from the manager greeted Molly’s trembling breath as the diaper came open and all but sagged forward on its own.  Stretched so thin was the abused nappy that it barely crinkled.  Margaret’s ears twitched a little, she noticed, but her breathing didn’t change.

Molly couldn’t help but wrinkle her nose as she caught a whiff of the rapidly cooling urine (among other things) that had filled the garment’s pulpy core. It wasn’t quite gag inducing, but it wasn’t pleasant either. Given a day or two, she knew, in a diaper pail combined with its fallen sisters, the fermented ammonia contained within could definitely become vomit inducing.  The shorter woman didn’t bother to question how she’d known that little tidbit. Down at ground zero, the manager didn’t seem to notice the smell.

Carefully, this complete stranger wiped down Margaret’s front side, making sure to warm each wipe in his hands before swabbing the girl’s privates. It was a marvelous trick of parenting, honestly.  Molly made a note to steal that one for later.  Margaret’s eyelids fluttered just a bit as her legs were hoisted upward and the wet diaper was slid out from beneath her, but they hadn’t opened fully.  Tentatively, Margaret withdrew her thumb as her ass was being wiped, a string of drool making a bridge between her hand and lips.

Thinking quickly, the new Mommy quick stepped over to the diaper bag and dug out a pacifier before pivoting back and popping it into her baby girl’s mouth.  As if a switch flipped, Margaret’s eyes closed fully again, her breath returning slowing and her lips working the rubber nipple.  The two true adults eyed each other, and Molly smiled softly while the man changing her baby’s diaper mouthed a silent ‘Thanks’.

Margaret didn’t so much as stir for the rest of the change.  A fresh diaper was unfolded and slid underneath her bum, fresh baby powder was applied and gently rubbed in, and finally, the crinkly mass was folded back up and taped closed just before the hem of Margaret’s dress was pulled down, covering all but the very bottom of her new undies.  The relief was palpable for all parties.

Molly was struggling to keep her voice down as the man balled up the old used diaper and put it in the waste basket beside him.  “I can’t believe you pulled that off!” she whispered.

Blondie was blushing a bit, but smiling. His chest puffed out a bit.  “Honestly?” he said.  “Me neither.”

“You did that like a pro,” Molly gushed.  “You’re a natural.  I’ve never seen anyone change her like that before!”  The words were out before the implication of what she said could be fully appreciated.  While what she’d said was true, it sounded like she’d changed Margaret far more times than the handful over the past week.  She was starting to talk like a mom, too.

The manager twisted his mouth to the side.  His eyes did that bobbing to the side thing again while he talked to himself.   The young artist caught his eyes sneaking a glimpse at her hands, of all things.  “Not even her father?”

Oh shit! Where had that come from?  Molly took a half-step back.  “Um…her Daddy, I mean her father…she doesn’t have one.” That got an arching eyebrow.  Her voice had raised to a normal volume. “I mean, obviously she has a father, but he’s not in the picture and I’m not-“

“Sorry,” he said.  “ I didn’t mean to pry.  It’s none of my business.  I was just curious.  When I was bouncing her on my knee, she called me ‘Daddy’.  I wondered if I looked like him, or something.”

Something clicked in Molly’s sleep deprived brain.  “Daddy?” she repeated.  “Are you sure?”

He shrugged.  “I didn’t understand a lot of her other words, but I understood that one.” A beat.  “So…do I?  Look like her Daddy, I mean.”

Molly frowned. “Heck if I know.”  That sounded way worse than it was supposed to.  She looked to see his reaction.  Nothing but patience.  Molly gestured over to Margaret, still snoozing on the floor and sucking on her paci.  “She’s adopted.”

The helpful stranger looked over his shoulder to the sleeping Margaret and back to Molly.  “Really?  She looks just like you.”

Molly almost guffawed.  Had she been sipping milk, it would have surely squirted out of her nose.  “You realize that I’m Asian, right?”

He shrugged.  “True.  I guessed she just took more after her father in that regard.”

“Then how does she look just like me?”

“I think you’re both cute.”

It hadn’t been so long since Molly had giggled like a schoolgirl and flirtatiously averted her eyes, adoring the attention, but it had felt like an eternity.  A week of progressively more intense motherhood could do that to a woman, she supposed.  It was nice to be the object of affection instead of the one giving it.  “Are you hitting on me?”

“A little bit. I’m kind of a flirt. Is that okay?”

She looked down at her little girl and back up to him.  “Yeah. Yeah it is.  Molly,” she said extending her hand.  “Nice to flirt with you.”

He took it and a pulse raced between them; the ink on her wrist sighed relief.  “Mark.  Likewise.”  They shook (in more ways than one, Molly noted).  “Business is kinda dead today for some reason.  Maybe I could buy you coffee?”

An almost instinctive urge to back pedal overtook her.  Coffee?  In public? With her little girl exposed to a mocking and awful world?  “I don’t know if I’m feeling coffee right now.  I might need to wake up, but I know someone who needs a proper nap at home.”

“Maybe later?”

“I don’t know.  It’s kind of hard to find a sitter these days.”

“I don’t mind bringing her along.”  Mark said.  “I like her.”  Again.  Heart fluttering, and the faintest glimmer of hope of rescue.  But rescue from what?

Yet the dance continued.  She had to be sure.  “She gets cranky when she’s out too late.”

“I don’t mind just hanging out.”

“Maybe….”

Then Mark played the trump card.  “Aw heck,” he waved off her indecision.  “Tell you what: How about we start as friends?  If you ever need babysitting so you can go out and have some ‘you time’, call me.  Or just bring her here.  I’ll watch her.”

The bottom of her jaw now knew precisely how the texture of the floor felt, she was so taken aback.  “You’d do that?  Why?”

Drumming semi-nervously on his slacks, he told her.  “I like you, yeah.  But you also just look like someone who could use a little help.  Life’s too short to not do something nice for someone.”

Molly should have run.  She should have abandoned any form of pretense of being polite and just run for the hills.   Abandon Margaret.  Leave. Burn her bridges.  Go off the grid.  Start a new life somewhere over from scratch. Grab a blowtorch and burn the markings on her wrist into a boiled over puss filled scab.   She knew all this somewhere deep inside herself…but she didn’t do any of that.

Instead, she melted.  “Really?”

“Really, really.”

“Maybe,” she said, “we could watch some Netflix at my place later tonight.”
He smiled brighter this time.  “I’d like that.”

“First a cartoon?”  Mommy looked down at baby.

“Sure.”

“Then something else?”

“If you’d like,” he replied. “Mind if I cook?”

She was already drooling.  Even before she’d become a Mommy, she’d hated cooking. “Not at all.”

“How’s five sound?”

She checked her phone and did some mental math.  “Six might be better.  We’ve got a long bus ride ahead of us.”

“Bus ride?”  Mark scoffed.  “Forget that. I’ll give you two a ride home.”

The strangest unnecessary worry jumped into her frazzled head.  “Is your car safe?”

“I’ve got a baby seat.”

There were suddenly three Marks because how fast Molly was shaking her head.  “That’ll fit her?”

Mark was already running into the back office.  Thirty seconds later, he returned with a forward-facing car seat with harness and safety straps.  And it wasn’t baby sized.  “I’ve got a niece.  She’s disabled, and I keep it with me for when she visits.  It might be a little big on your little girl, but I think we can adjust it so she’d be safe.”  Molly took the contraption in.  It wasn’t too big at all.  It would fit perfectly.  The only thing that could make it better is if it were cuter.  At present, it was a plain gray contraption.  If it could be reupholstered…instantly Molly’s brain set about to designing a fitted cover to make it more presentable.  Something with pink ponies perhaps.

She’d never tried sewing, but a creative spark was lit inside her.  She could make the world a little brighter for her baby girl and satisfy her natural impulsive creative urges at the same time. She might even do this while conscious.

It was then, at that moment, that Molly realized that she’d broken free of the Ink’s hold forever.  She was no longer under its control.  She could be Molly and Mommy.  She could be both.

“Yeah.  That could work. That could definitely work.”  This wasn’t what they’d been looking for when they set out trying to get help, but maybe it was the kind of help they needed.  Maybe help from a kindly stranger was what they all needed.

 

 

(Friday)

Mark rolled over to see that the girl he’d gone to bed with was still there, slumbering peacefully in the single bed they’d both managed to share last night.  Holy cow, he’d needed last night.   Ever since Gracie had left him, he’d been heart broken and afraid to open himself up again. Then on the worst day of the year, in comes this lady and her kid and things are looking strange…and then he can’t help himself and he goes and cooks her dinner.

As he sat up and stretched, feeling the muscle aches settle in, he reflected on last night.  Watching movies and playing with that little girl, Margaret, had made him feel good.  As had cooking, and bath time and putting the little princess to bed.

Then sitting up and getting to know Molly and talk into the wee hours of the morning had been refreshing; talking to someone in an interaction that went beyond doling out change or answer questions about hosting birthday events was, sadly, novel.

It was good to be a provider.  It felt good to be competent and care for someone who needed it; and that went for both Molly and her baby.  It felt good to make a connection with another human being.

And to be frank, he’d needed that good lay.  Molly was the epitome of a single mom.  She was all cuddles and hugs with her gurgling baby, but she was a total freak in the bed.  Never thought he’d have to/get to spank a grown ass woman.  She’d insisted that Margaret was adopted; but she fucked like a madwoman.

Caring provider by day.  Fuck bunny by night.  Mark could get used to that, he decided.  He could get real used to that.

Cries from the baby’s room caused Molly to groan and stir.  “I’ll take care of it,” he said, whispering to his new (he hoped) girlfriend.  “She probably just needs a bottle, a change, and some cartoons.  I can do that.  Go back to sleep. “ He turned away from her to go take care of Margaret.  Time to be ‘Daddy’.

Groggily, she asked him, “Wus that?”  He looked back over his shoulder towards the strange markings on the back of right shoulder.  After Gracie had left him a little over a week ago, he’d gotten drunk and stumbled into some low rent tattoo parlor.  Darned thing was though, that the tattoo Mark had asked for wasn’t what he’d gotten.

“Just a tattoo, I got,” he said.  “I think it’s Chinese or Japanese or something.  I don’t know what it says.  But it looks cool, huh?”

Molly seemed to examine his new ink and gave a yawn.  “Daddy,” she said, before yawning and rolling over.  “It means ‘Daddy’.”

“Huh…” Mark smiled to himself.  “Cool.”

(The End)

[Sarah Penguin]

*snickers*

[Personalias]

Forgot to add in "The End".  Edited now.

[Jayme]

Awesome story. Perhaps there may be a sequel in the works someday?

[Sarah Penguin]

dang was enjoying the inks. *sighs*

[Scarlet]

Wow, that was intense. A very good ending. Interesting that the Mommy personality "melted in" and now she's not being compelled to do so but rather wants to.

I had suspected Mark had a Shen tattoo given the way he acted towards Margaret. Will there be some kind of Epilogue? I would like to see this ending from Margaret perspective.

[Sarah Penguin]

14 minutes ago, Scarlet said:

Wow, that was intense. A very good ending. Interesting that the Mommy personality "melted in" and now she's not being compelled to do so but rather wants to.

I had suspected Mark had a Shen tattoo given the way he acted towards Margaret. Will there be some kind of Epilogue? I would like to see this ending from Margaret perspective.

Yeah I also wanted to find out how margret was doing after they got togather,

[thedman]

What a perfect ending

[Cya]

Absolutely incredible stuff! I can only imagine that Margaret's personality was overwhelmed and replaced by the Shen. So, everyone was happy in the end.

[Baby Billy]

sooooooooooooooo goooooooood, love the ending 

[Babyslick]

[WBDaddy]

Wow, talk about Creepshow-level acceleration!  What a ride!

[Personalias]

23 hours ago, WBDaddy said:

Wow, talk about Creepshow-level acceleration!  What a ride!

Yeah, my pacing has always needed work.

[WBDaddy]

1 hour ago, Personalias said:

Yeah, my pacing has always needed work.

That was a complement, you dope!

[Personalias]

1 hour ago, WBDaddy said:

That was a complement, you dope!

Oh yeah?!

[Scarlet]

35 minutes ago, Personalias said:

Oh yeah?!

Hi! Loved the story.

Can we please get an Epilogue or something about Margaret's perspective? How she felt and what exactly happened to her at the end? I was intrigued given that Molly was apparently able to take control of the Shen traits and herself. So, I was curious if Margaret could've done something similar or failed.

[Personalias]

38 minutes ago, Scarlet said:

Hi! Loved the story.

Can we please get an Epilogue or something about Margaret's perspective? How she felt and what exactly happened to her at the end? I was intrigued given that Molly was apparently able to take control of the Shen traits and herself. So, I was curious if Margaret could've done something similar or failed.

Edit: Hmmm...You sure about Molly?  It's possible to lie to oneself as little god voices whisper inside your head.  Maybe I didn't convey that enough.  "Mommy Regression" is hard.