Lily (Chapter 26 up...and complete)

[Cya]

6 hours ago, WriteAndLeft said:

I am rather disappointed she only used the time when Darling was drunk to masturbate rather than starting to formulate her escape plan.  She deserved the opportunity to masturbate, but I am hoping that she will make progress toward escape soon before she does start to lose her mind, if she hasn’t already.

To be fair, she's had almost a year to plan her escape. How many nights has she laid in her crib fantasizing about escaping? From what I can tell, Lily is biding her time, waiting for the perfect moment to leave and until then, she has to stay sharp. She definitely needed to feel like a woman/adult after such a terrible day. So, if it anything, it was a morale boost.

 

 

[Personalias]

Part 2- The Case.

Chapter 6

 

Don't give me that look, that let me down easy smile

Don't act like I couldn't see you coming for a hundred miles

Don't try to find the perfect words

Can't take the pain out of the hurt

Hit me hard, baby I can take it

It's your move, go on and make it

 

Brothers Osborne; “Shoot me Straight”

“Your daughter is dead.” The Asian couple sitting on their couch looked absolutely horrified. Stunned.  Damnit. Shouldn’t have opened with that one, Charlie, he thought to himself. “I mean not literally dead,” he said. “just figuratively...and legally.”

 

The tears hadn’t fallen down the mother’s cheeks, but Charlie could see them pooling and shimmering in her eyes.  “What do you mean, sir?” she said. “I don’t understand.” The dad was shaking his head too, his eyes questioning even as his mouth was still.

 

Charlie took a big breath.  His belly inflated well over the rim of his jeans when he breathed in deep enough.  He hated this part of the job, breaking the news. He felt like a reverse Santa Claus; never jolly, and his gifts were never welcome.  “Your daughter’s joined up with a cult, it seems.”

 

The husband’s jaw clenched and he nodded.  The lady’s lips frowned. They were devastated, both of them.  Devastated, but not surprised. “Go on, Mr. Plagent,” the father said.  

 

Charlie reached into his satchel and pulled out his tablet.  “On the deep web, they’re referred to as Re-birthers.” Charlie gave a little huff.  “Officially, they don’t exist.”

 

“Then how do you know about them?”,  the kid’s mother asked.

 

Charlie ignored the question and kept going.  “Technically, they’re not a cult. As far as I can tell they have no centralized leadership.”  He flipped through several pictures: A twenty-ish white man with cornrows; a middle aged balding man with coke bottle glasses; a black guy with a milky white eye; an old woman in an old fashioned wooden wheelchair breathing with an oxygen mask.  “Also, their beliefs aren’t particularly religious as far as I can tell.”

 

“Then what-?”

 

“They check almost every other box in the cult playbook.“ Charlie interrupted.  “They separate people from their families and fill the void with themselves and oppose critical thinking and dissent.  They promise special answers and do everything they can to make their members feel exclusive and special while outside.  They even perform mind altering practices.” The private eye found himself shaking his head in disgust. He only hoped everything he’d heard and read up on them wasn’t true.

The girl’s father leaned forward and squinted his eyes at the pictures.  “If they’re a cult, why haven’t they been shut down?”

 

A half-groan half-sigh rumbled out the back of Charlie’s throat.  “Because they’re a smart cult. I’m not sure where they’re getting all their money, it can’t be entirely from its members, but they choose their locations carefully.”

He swiped on his tablet to a map of the U.S.  “They’ve got property in Florida, Nevada and Alaska.  Little gated communities and medical centers. They don’t shit where they eat, they don’t bother the locals, and they grease the right palms to look the other way in certain eccentricities.”

 

“What kind of eccentri-?”

 

“They recruit more like an MLM, a multi-level marketing company.“ Charlie kept talking.  “A pyramid scheme. A friend recruits a friend who recruits a friend. At least one caste does.”

“Caste?”

 

“They’ve got two distinct castes in this group.  The higher caste are usually financially well off or have the connections to reach someone who is. Typically older, too.  The lower caste ones are less fortunate types. Young. Desperate.”

Pops seemed offended.  “We’re not poor by any definition.”

 

The detective shrugged. “Your daughter was a performing arts major with a ton of student debt.”

“Is a performing arts major-”

 

“With a ton of student debt.”  Charlie waited. He hated being interrupted.  Especially when it was for something so petty as pride. “I’m not here to judge your parenting choices.  I’m just explaining why your daughter was targeted.”

“My husband apologizes,” the wife said.  “Please, Mr. Plaget, continue.”

 

“Once members are wined and dined, they’re pressured into signing their lives away.  The higher caste with the big bucks sign non-disclosure agreements as well as leasing deals for their properties, tying them in with the cult in a legally binding sense.  The lower caste gets a real razzle dazzle, usually involving signing away their power of attorney and being tricked into unnecessary surgery.”

“Surgery?”

 

Swipe to the picture of the guy with the coke bottle glasses.  “Dr. Gideon Anguis,” Charlie said. “Brought an experimental surgery over from China.  Supposed to be a way to cure or treat a couple of genetic conditions. Alters their blood type even.”

“That’s why our daughter is technically dead.”  Now Pops was getting it. “They make her legally a new person.”

 

Charlie held out a finger to shush the man, then touched his own nose.  Bingo. “It’s not likely something that’d hold up to any real legal or medical scrutiny, but these folks have gone to a lot of trouble to avoid scrutiny.”

 

Charlie switched.  “Fortunately, your little girl,”  he stopped himself. Not the best phrasing on his part.  “Your daughter was altered in Florida. Florida in particular has particularly broad public records laws.  Makes them easier to trace.”

 

“That’s why you always hear about crazy people living in Florida,”  Mom said. She smiled, clearly proud to have contributed something, if only levity.  “They’re not allowed to cover up their embarrassments.”

Charlie nodded. “That and Florida has generally more batshit crazy per capita than the rest of the country.  This cult being just one example.”

Nobody laughed.  So much for that joke. “Why…” the girls’ mother sucked on her lips.  “Why is she still with them?”

 

 “The surgery creates a kind of synthetic womb and regular blood transfusions.  It takes a while. About three months,” Charlie told them. “In the case studies in China, all the test subjects were put under.  Medical comas. Blink of an eye gone in three months.”

“And here?”

“Officially?  Also put under.  But…” He swiped to a new picture. “I suspect they’re not.” Charlie couldn’t tell who was more offended.  The mother or the father. “Hard to keep somebody in a coma when they’re inside another somebody.”

“Are they...they…?”  Pops couldn’t bring himself to say ‘pregnant’, it seemed. 

“That’s what they’re pretending at.”

“Our daughter,” the mother said,  “let herself get...stuffed inside THAT woman?”  Now came the tears.

Charlie pointed to the picture.  “That woman? No. It’s just the only photo I’ve got.  Very secretive shit going on here. I was lucky to find that one.”

The old man hugged his lady tighter.  “That’s why they call themselves Rebirthers, isn’t it?  They’re literally trying to give birth to people who’ve already been born…”  Another finger. Another nose touch. Bingo.

“It’s why I think your daughter is still with them.”

“She’s still INSIDE-?”

“No.  No. It’s been a little over a year, I gotta figure.”  Charlie licked his lips. How much to tell them. “Imagine being stuck in a sensory deprivation tank for three months.  No human contact. No food on your tongue or water down your throat. Still perfectly conscious.”

 

“They go crazy…”

Now Mom was catching on.  “They probably promised your daughter the moon and by the time she knew something was wrong, it was already too late.  The surgery did most of the brainwashing itself. When they took her out she was probably so starved mentally and physically that she’d believe anything they told her.”  They still didn’t know the half of it. Watching their hearts break in front of his eyes was too much. He didn’t mention what he’d heard: About the big baby clothes; the infantilizing; the forced breast feeding; the diapers.  Definitely not the diapers.

Time to drive the point home.

“This is some cruel and unusual shit here, folks,” Charlie said.  “But I’m willing to go undercover. Bring your daughter back. If I can get her out of there, we can yank the rug out from under this operation.  No way will people be able to look the other way when they know what’s really going on. I just need your help.”

“We’ll pay anything Detective Plagent.” The husband said. That’s how Charlie knew he was doing this.  Everytime someone called him “Detective”, it meant he was getting the job. “Anything. Just bring our daughter home.”

[kirababy]

Interesting twist.  Just who is Charlie, I wonder?  Another sick part of the cult, perhaps?

[WriteAndLeft]

I hope he gets Lily out.   Don’t keep us in too much suspense though.

[aldl4811]

Wow, this is going to get intense. Nice twist.

[Personalias]

Chapter 7

 

You're the kind of person you meet at certain dismal, dull affairs

Center of a crowd, talking much too loud, running up and down the stairs

Well, it seems to me that you have seen too much in too few years

And though you've tried you just can't hide your eyes are edged with tears

 

The Rolling Stones; “19th Nervous Breakdown”

 

The Frozen Dessert Isle.  Van Halen’s Panama was playing on the store’s speakers.  Mrs. Darling was deciding which type of novelty ice cream pop to get for her “Athena”.  Lily was strapped into the little chair add-on to the grocery cart; the kind that people put their kids in who were too big to fit into the cart’s little seat but too lazy to walk on their own.  The absurd level of engineering that this gated community had applied to size up all manner of baby equipment had yet to extend to shopping carts.  

 

She’d been there over a year, and had seen giant strollers, adult changing tables, humongous car seats, and as of her one year anniversary (it was NOT her birthday), an overgrown baby walker.  There were no Reborns riding IN the shopping carts, yet. Probably because the giant rugrats would have been able to reach for things on the top shelf. The big blue plastic chair attached to the front of the shopping cart had more restraints than was typical, however.  Not just a lap belt, but a full harness that clicked just above Lily’s breasts. Wouldn’t want “the baby” falling out, would they? 

 

 Her diaper was squishing beneath her but she’d forgotten when she’d gone.  Was it before, during, or after the car ride over. What was the point? If Lily had had a gun just then she would have shot herself in the head.  

 

No suicide note would have been needed.  Diapered. Restrained. Frozen desserts. Van Halen’s Panama.  Any police officer worth their badge could have connected the dots. There was a thought that disturbed her, one that hadn’t occurred until a day or two after the party:  She was having suicidal ideations. There were so many ways she could conceivably do it, too. For an instant, she imagined herself strangled by her own bed sheets, her body hanging from her crib.  Something like that might actually break Mrs. Darling, and there was comfort in that. But Lily banished the dark thought from her mind. Mrs. Darling wouldn’t be mourning Lily anyways, just a dumb girl that never actually existed.

 

Best not to think about it.  Best to just stew in her own contempt for the moment and take what strength she could from it.  Wait for the feeling to pass and grow stronger in its absence so the spectre wouldn’t rear its ugly head.

 

  Lily hated these shopping trips.  Hated. Hated. Hated. She didn’t even know why Mrs. Darling brought her along on these little expeditions.

The Publics (No, not Publix. Like so many other things the Community had a reasonable facsimile to cleverly mask just how twisted it was.) had its own “childcare” area.  It was closer to a pediatrician’s waiting room: old worn out toys, outdated and already completed coloring books and a bucket full of broken crayons. But it did the job for the thirty to forty minutes that the “parents” spent shopping.  Lily had spent a few shopping trips there, but most of the time, she ended up attached to the cart.

 

  

Several packages of adult baby diapers- PeekABUs, Rearz Princess, and Crinklz Aquanauts-already lay in the cart in front of her.  The grocery store’s baby isle was particularly big and kept fetish products stocked right next to the real diapers. Lily had overheard Mrs. Darling’s friends comment that such things could be delivered right to her doorstep if she wanted, but the big bougie drunk never took up the offer.

 

Lily had been lying to herself.  She knew why Mrs. Darling brought her along on these weekly shopping trips.  It was the same reason why the diapers that fit her were right next to the Size 6 Luvs.  It’s. It made it seem more normal. 

 

In Mrs. Darling’s delusional mind, Lily wasn’t a girl who had been surgically, chemical, and psychologically altered. She was just a baby named Athena.  A bigger baby, sure, but still just a baby. You didn’t put baby products, no matter how big, with the adult stuff. That would be insulting. You kept the Gerbers’ separate from the Ensure.  The Huggies didn’t go with the Depends. They went with the other baby things; the Pampers and the Bambinos. It’s just what happened.

 

The same logic applied to everything.  Most parents still went supermarket shopping for their kids’ diapers.  Most parents kept them close instead of getting a babysitter for the errands.  It was practical. It was normal. That’s what this neighborhood did: It took something so outlandish that it could only be found online in some kind of bizarre sex fantasy story, and made it normal. 

 

 It was indoctrination.  Brainwashing. Confirmation bias.  Gaslighting. And since people like Mrs. Darling were all convinced to a one that every one of their victims, Lily included, didn’t have two brain cells to rub together, they weren’t gaslighting the big babies.  They were gaslighting themselves.

 

A bullet to the head sounded pretty damn good right now.

 

Behind her, Lily could still hear the hum of an open freezer.  Mrs. Darling was still shuffling around pints of ice cream. Probably debating whether or not rum raisin would really taste better with extra rum added in.  Eventually, she knew, the door would close and Lily would get a pint of vanilla ice cream added to the cart. “Athena” loved vanilla ice cream. Lily was sick of it.  She wanted her underpants to be vanilla, not her ice cream.

 

For over a year her tasting palate had been limited to something a five year old might enjoy.  Bland vegetables and common fruits. Fried food and the starchiest of starches. And carbs and carbs and carbs.  Lily had speculated a few months into her capture that her food was spiked with laxatives and fat burners, or that her digestive track or metabolism had been altered in some subtle but significant way. 

It was the only way she could imagine eating so much shitty food with so little exercise and still keep the weight off.  Or maybe she’d just miscalculated how much of what food she was being fed. It wasn’t her job to count calories or consider serving sizes.  She wasn’t in charge of her own nutrition any more. She wasn’t in charge of anything…

 

When “Athena” was given a sweet treat, the flavors were kept exceedingly simple.  Chocolate. Vanilla. Strawberry. That’s it. Lily would have loved a rum raisin herself, or a mint chocolate chip, or a salted caramel, but no.  Not for babies. Not in Mrs. Darling’s world. If the flavor had more than one adjective to it, it wasn’t for Mrs. Darling’s baby girl.

Lily turned her head to the right, staring at the gelato.  Oh gelato. Butter Pecan too. Her mouth watered for it. As an adult, Lily hadn’t even particularly liked Butter Pecan.  It was okay. Maybe in her top thirty-one, but never in her top ten. It’d been so long.

 

One of Lily’s first post re-birth drinks had been apple juice.  It was the first thing fed to her that was neither milk nor formula.  Lily had hated apple juice. But after three months stuck inside Mrs. Darling, completely deprived of her sense of taste and texture,  the sickening sweet flavor had been Heaven to her. Just Heaven. Right there in the frozen dessert section, Butter Pecan was now her new apple juice.

 

She had to have it.

Keeping an ear open for the dreaded sound of a fridge door sealing shut,  Lily fiddled with her harness. To undo the restraint, one had to squeeze the sides with one hand and press the center button with the other. Impossible for a true Reborn who’d had their eggs scrambled six ways.  But it was butter pecan for Lily.

It was nothing for Lily to slide the shoulder straps off of herself and lean over to open the glass door blocking the gelato.  The only thing that wasn’t on her side was time. In all likelihood she’d get caught. Mrs. Darling would turn around, see her, and then she’d be restrained again and a sharper eye kept on her. 

 

 Probably get a spanking, too.  Mrs. Darling wasn’t above that.  It was more degrading than painful, but Lily still managed to “learn” from her mistakes so that her jailor was never tempted to up the punishment ante.  That was the worst case scenario. Correction: That was the worst case experience. The worst possible outcome would be that Mrs. Darling or some other Community “adult” would connect the dots and give her a booster shot straight back into eternal infancy where they wanted her.  But something inside Lily caused her to doubt that would happen.

Call it cockiness.  Call it intuition. Call it a self-destructive impulse disguised as rebellion.  Lily called it being sick of vanilla ice cream. In the little power fantasies she still clung to, Lily promised herself that if the needle ever came for her, the last words on her lips would be her own name.  She wasn’t Athena Darling. She was Lily Chen, damnit!

 

As Lily reached in the freezer door, her hand darting for the yellowish nut filled half-pint of gelato, a nasty voice whispered inside her head.  “You want to get caught don’t you?” The voice was her own, mixed with someone else’s. Someone vaguely familiar from a half-remembered hallucination.  “Sorry kid. Not now. Not here. Maybe later.”

 

 Maybe it was that dream she’d had while trapped in the synthetic womb. She’d made a deal with some dark force.  That’s how she’d managed to avoid the needle this long. That’s why luck was on her side. Because a deal was a deal.

 

Nah.  That was just a dream.  A nightmare delirium near the end of her sensory deprivation period.  (Fuck calling it gestation).

Deal or no deal, luck WAS on Lily’s side this time.  The gelato was carefully slid down the front of the cart and landed next to the diapers and Lily had buckled herself back in -just like a big girl- just as Mrs. Darling had settled on a pint of New Orleans Bananas Foster and of course a bit of vanilla for her baby girl.

“Sorry about that, Athena.”  Mrs. Darling gave Lily a condescending pat on the head.  “Mommy just couldn’t decide for herself.” She pinched Lily’s cheek.  “But you were so good and patient waiting, that Mommy made sure to get you your favorite.

Lily held her breath as she placed the ice cream in the cart, praying that the older woman wouldn’t notice one more jar amongst the Gerbers and Peter Pan Peanut Butter.  Lily probably wouldn’t even get to eat any. Mrs. Darling would likely down it herself, and Lily still wasn’t stealthy enough to sneak into the kitchen to eat it in the middle of the night.

 

The poor girl couldn’t even reach the freezer from her knees, and with all the nuts in it and with so few teeth left to her she might not be able to chew it.  But just getting away with this one little act of subversion would be a victory in itself.

“What’s this?”  Mrs. Darling was looking right at the jar of butter pecan. Damnit. A pain welled up inside of Lily’s guts. No no.  Not here. Not now. Not in the grocery store! Lily must have groaned. “Is your tum tum hurting, Athena?” The gelato forgotten, Mrs. Darling had turned to Lily and was gently stroking her face.  “It’s okay, sweetie,” she said. “That’s just your body telling you you need to get something out.”

 

No shit.  Actually lots of shit.  Too much. “Just get it alllll out and Mommy will change you. Okay? “ Lily could only allow herself a groan.  The poor girl was too afraid to shake her head or show any other sign that she recognized what Mrs. Darling was saying.

“Ma-ma-mamaaaaa….” she whimpered.  “Mamaaaa…” She wanted out. She wanted to get home.  She was going to poop herself, that was nothing new or exciting, but she didn’t want to do it here.  She’d been used to being wet in public. Wetting was still subtle and private, all things being equal. 

 

Crapping her pants still took effort and still embarrassed her greatly.  She could do it at home...Mrs. Darling’s house...and she could do it at the daycare where she was surrounded by so many other unfortunates that it felt normal.  Out in public; out in the Community proper where there were JUST ENOUGH people not carting around giant infants, it felt weird.

 

For all her psycho-faults, Mrs. Darling was still a bit of a prude when it came to Lily’s diaper.  Most of the time she changed Lily on the padded table in her nursery, excusing the both of them when they had company over.  She was never big on public changes. A trend that did not carry over into any kind of Rebirther policy. Not twenty minutes ago, Lily had seen a not-so-little girl getting wiped down in the back of a minivan.  But Mrs. Darling in her self-perceived Momminess also wouldn’t knowingly let “Athena” sit in a messy diaper, even for the fifteen minutes time it would take to check out and ride home.

 

A childless couple were walking by right this moment,  giving the big little baby “awwws” at her obvious pain and confusion.  They were watching her! The pervs! The only thing worse than the Mommies and Daddies in this madhouse were the people who didn’t have Reborns (yet) and were perfectly content to go along with the act.  And that middle aged bitch wouldn’t stop shushing her and telling her that it was okay. IT WASN’T OKAY! NONE OF THIS WAS OKAY!

Lily screamed.

 

(How dare you call yourself) “MAMAAAAAAAA!”

“I know, baby.  I know. Just get it out and you’ll be fine.  It’s natural.”

  

She was cramping.  Her weak muscles wouldn’t be able to hold it for another thirty seconds. Her entire body had been conditioned and primed to be a revolving door. Out of options, Lily did the only thing she could. She leaned a bit to the side.  She held her breath. She pushed. She cried. They were quiet tears, now. At least there was that. 

 

Over a year.  Over a year of doing this.  She’d run out of ways to describe the act of helplessly shitting herself.  The embarrassment. The warmth on her face as well as below her waist. The disgust.  The ugh...the textures. There were no more words. The young woman had grown tired of being disgusted with herself. Her mind stopped cataloging all the indignities and just filed it under “normal”.

She hated it all.  It was...it was normal.  It was obscene. But it was normal.  Just like this Publics pretended to be.  Not quite right. But normal. “Let’s get you sorted out, Athena,” Mrs. Darling said when Lily had finally finished her business.  The cart was moving again, and Lily was doing her best to not brush away her tears. Babies like Athena weren’t supposed to be smart enough to wipe their own faces.  She’d seen it countless times at the daycare.

 

Mrs. Darling wheeled up to the empty express checkout lane.  There were more than ten items in the cart, but even among the privileged maniacs in this upside down world, Mrs. Darling had a special kind of clout. “Hello Mrs. Darling,” a checkout clerk younger than Lily greeted.  “What’s wrong with Athena?”

“Actually, Brad,” Mrs. Darling said.  “Would you be a dear and ring me up for these while I take her to the bathroom?” 

“Not at all, Ma’am.”  There was no flinching.  No sense of disgust. The boy should have been young enough to realize just how fucked this whole place was; to show at least a modicum of disgust at a twenty something in a purple onesie and shit clinging to her rear end. Nope. Nothing. ” Lily wanted oblivion right then.  Gun. Temple. Blam. Nothingness. At least there was a bit of butter pecan gelato waiting for her in a grocery bag. “Do you want any help getting her there?

 

Mrs. Darling perked up.  Brad hadn’t seen her latest party trick.  Diaper bag slung over her shoulder, she unbuckled Lily and hoisted her easily onto her hip.  “No thank you, young man. I’ve got this.”

“Whoah!  Nice!”

“I know.”

 

Lily was being carried to the women’s room.  At least there’d be a closed door. Hopefully the bathroom would be empty.

 

Evidently Lily had spent all her good luck in sneaking the butter pecan gelato.  Mrs. Darling pushed on the door, walked the two of them to the ladies room and there on the changing table was another little girl in an absolutely adorable Minnie Mouse onesie getting changed.

One crucial difference:  The little girl was actually a little girl.  Kid couldn’t have been more than a year. The kid’s mother, someone closer to Lily’s age than Darling’s, spared a look.  “Hello!” she said. 

 

“Hello…” Mrs. Darling sounded a little off put.  Not offended, just awkward and confused.

Back when she was in college, Lily had done a research paper on Don Quixote, the book about the crazy old Spaniard that thought he was a knight.  He thought windmills were giants, whorehouses were castles, and a barber’s bowl was a sacred helmet. Lily always wondered what would have happened if Don Quixote had seen a real castle or a real suit of armor in pristine condition.  Would it have been so easy for the madman to play pretend when confronted with the real thing?
 

The other woman just kept changing her baby.  “Sorry,” she said. “We’ll be done in a minute.” Then she tickled her baby.  “Won’t we Mandy?”
 

“No problem.”  There might have been a problem.  “Take your time.”  

 

“They’ve really got to put more changing tables in this place,” the stranger commented as she finished changing her daughter.  Deftly, she scooped the child off of the giant pull down changing station so that Lily could be laid down.

Darling groaned a bit from the effort, but then joined in the conversation as she started digging through the diaper bag.  “Tell me about it. You think with so many babies they’d make a family restroom or something.”

“Totally.  You’re daughter’s a cutie, by the way.  What’s her name?”

 

“Athena.”  Mrs. Darling started unbuttoning Lily’s crotch snaps.  The woman and her baby were staying. Why were they staying?  Why was Mrs. Darling starting to sound less and less worried?  

 

“How old is she?”

“Her first birthday was just yesterday!”  Both women giggled. “And she’s not getting any older.  Yours?”

“Eleven months and still growing like a weed. Almost ready for the next size up, aren’t you Mandy?”  Mandy made no reply.

“Sizing isn’t an issue around here, is it Athena?” Lily made no reply. She just tried to count the ceiling tiles while Mrs. Darling finished wiping and slid a new diaper underneath her.  “You work at the Institute don’t you?”

 

“Yes Ma’am.”  The woman bounced her baby on her hip.  “Four months on and four months off. Her father works from home.  You?”

 

“Single mother.  Retired. And happy with it.”

 

“With a little cutie like Athena, I can see why.”

“I’ve never been happier,” Mrs. Darling said.  “Ever consider getting one of your own?”

“Not yet,” the Institute flunky said.  “One baby is enough for now. Later though, for sure.”

And if you’re not happy with how she turns out, Lily thought bitterly as the baby powder settled, you can just pop Mandy back in the oven and rebake her.

The two women kept talking over Lily as she was taped up and snapped back together, left lying on the the thick sturdy plastic of the changing station, somehow engineered to hold her weight with ease.  They compared different brands of diapers and the “professional” gave her opinion on which was best.

 

Mandy looked just as disinterested.

Two adults with two dependents, talking shop about the boring and private minutiae of their children’s diets and incontinence products. The same hand that snuck the gelato snuck into Lily’s mouth and she started self soothing by sucking on her fingers.  This all felt so routine. So average. So normal. She felt just like a baby. Which was also becoming normal. This was not a good thing.

“Maybe we can arrange a play date,” Mrs. Darling said.  “Athena is very gentle.”

“I’d like that.  Mandy could use a little friend close to her own age.”

They exchanged numbers and then both mothers departed the restroom, their diapered daughters in tow.

Lily had her answer now.  If Don Quixote ever found a real castle with real knights and suits of armor.  He’d just pretend even harder until the knights just went with it.

[WriteAndLeft]

I can’t wait for the next chapter.

[Personalias]

Chapter 8

Don't give me that salt shaker and lime

Don't give me that come back chaser this time

Don't muddle it up, don't water it down

Give me everything you got right here, right now

Make it burn.

 

The Brothers Osbourne; “Shoot me Straight”

 

“No.” Daphne said.  “Absolutely not. I’m not doing it.”  Daphne was shaking her head. The thing is she’d bothered to meet with Charlie in his old, mildew infested dump, when she could have told him to stuff it up his ass over the phone before he even pitched the case.  She was going to do it. This was just part of the dance.

Charlie poured a bit of cheap whiskey into his favorite Snoopy mug and slid across his chipped and splintered desk.  “Come on Daphne. I can’t do this alone.” He’d lost track of how many nicks and gashes had been put into the old oak finish.  He’d forgotten just how many of those blemishes came from “business negotiations” with Daphne.

Daphne took the glass and downed the booze.  Her long auburn hair, frizzy like a startled cat’s, seemed to smooth itself as she gulped the whiskey down.  “Fuck you.” She let out a little bit of a belch and slid the mug back to him.. “Find someone else.” And yet she wasn’t walking away.  Daphne wanted to be convinced.

So Charlie was going to help her be convinced.

 

He filled up Snoopy’s head to the brim with awful tasting brown liquor.  “I would if I could.” He tossed the stuff down the hatch, refilled the mug, and slid it back across his desk.  “But you’re my first choice. My only choice if I want to pull this off.” That part wasn’t a lie. 

 

Being a private investigator wasn’t like in the movies.  You didn’t have to be a suave actor or a master of disguise, and Charlie didn’t even own a trenchcoat.  But sometimes a guy needed an extra set of eyes, especially when dealing with complete whack jobs.

“Only choice?”  Daphne scoffed. “You told the same thing before the Fresno gig.”  She was sipping at the stuff now. Slowing down. Maybe even listening.  Good. “Remember how that turned out?”

 

Charlie had the decency to look ashamed.  “Yeah…” he said. “But this isn’t going to be Fresno.”

 

“No shit.”  Daphne stood up so fast her hair tipped over.  “Because I’m not doing it.”

 

Impulsively, Charlie reached out to grab Daphne by the sleeve; stop her from leaving.  The glare she shot him made him think better of it. At least she was glaring at him. Glaring meant she wasn’t walking out yet.  “Look,” he said. “I’m sorry about Fresno. I didn’t even know what Macro-herpetophilia was-”

 

“I WAS SEXUALLY ASSAULTED, CHARLIE!  IN A FUCKING GODZILLA COSTUME!”

“THEY DIDN’T EVEN TOUCH YOU!”

 

“NOT FOR LACK OF TRYING!”

 

“YOU BROKE THAT ONE GUY’S ARM, THOUGH!”

“IT’S STILL ASSAULT EVEN IF YOU DON’T HIT YOUR TARGET!”

Charlie huffed.  Nostrils flaring.  Daphne and him always did this to each other.  It’s one of the many reasons why their marriage never panned out.  “What about Yonkers? That was my urethra that I- “

 

“YOUR URETHRA WAS YOUR IDEA!”  Her shouting was so loud, Charlie swore it was rattling the floorboards.  The certification that he kept hung on his wall was jiggling on its flimsy nail hanging.  Just like old times. Yay nostalgia.

 

Tempted to raise his voice again, he stopped himself.  This wasn’t about past jobs. Not really. He took a breath, and reached into his desk drawer, taking out a cashier’s check.  “This is half of what I’m owed,” he said. Handing it to her. “This one’s yours, right now, if you come along. There’s a bonus too, if I can get enough evidence to shut the operation down; which shouldn’t be hard once we’re in.”

Daphne’s eyes went big as saucers.  She set her chair back up and sat back down. “How would we even get in?”  Her eyes weren’t leaving the check. Charlie didn’t need to be a private investigator to know that Daphne was having trouble paying her rent.  “Just go up and say, ‘Oh hi, we’re into this kinky shit, too! Let us into your private property’?”

 

“Calling this place a kink scene is like calling Dahmer a guy into exotic food.  But yeah, basically.”

 

“Fuck off.”  She still wasn’t leaving, but her eyes weren’t on the check anymore.

Charlie held his hand out to try and stem the flood of curses about to cascade out of his ex’s mouth.  “Most cults are self contained. They don’t have the infrastructure to spread out. This one’s different. There’s enough cells in this operation that we can pose as members that are transferring from one state to another.”


“So we just show up, me dressed up like a baby and say we’re moving in from out of town?”

“Basically.  I’ve already got a guy who can give us a background ID’s that’ll check out.  For a while, anyways.” Clearly, she wasn’t impressed. “I’ll be one of their drones that has decided to live the good life. You’ll be my diapered sex slave or whatever.  While I’m getting a lay of the land, gathering evidence, and scoping out an escape route, you’ll help me blend in as one of them and help me find who we’re looking for.”

“So this is like that time with that swinger’s club that was really up in human trafficking?” Daphne asked. “Before we were married?”

“Essentially.”

“Only for this one, instead of pretending to be into creepy neckbeards, I’m going to have to shit my pants?”

 

Charlie thought about it. “Only in public.”

“Not helping!”  

 

Charlie nodded.  “I’m just saying that we’ll have to maintain appearances but I’m not for method acting.  You find our girl; probably in the daycare-

 

“Daycare?”

“That’s what they call it.  They’re really committed to living this lie that what they’re doing is normal.”

 

Daphne finished her whiskey. “I guess that’s why it’s a cult.”

 

Charlie ignored her.  “We’ll establish contact, use her to get more inside info, and we work on a way of getting her out of that hellhole.”

 

“What if she’s gone native?”  Daphne said. “Cults are good at that.”

Her ex rolled his eyes.  “So be subtle. You can pump her for information without giving stuff away.  If I’m the new neighbor on the block, you can be the new girl at school. Or pre-school...or whatever.”

Daphne was poking holes.  Good. That’d make for a better plan in the long run.  “What if they can’t talk?”

The buzz that Charlie was working on vanished.  “What do you mean?”

 

“These people get surgically altered and shoved into solitary sensory deprivation tanks.  What if that breaks them instead of bends them? What if they’re brain damaged? What if they’re drugged?”  Daphne’s hair was frizzing up again. She was going to a dark place.

“They aren’t,” Charlie told her.  He knew it was a lie the moment he said it.  Not because he was knowingly telling an untruth, but because he didn’t know one way or the other.  He hadn’t even considered it. If they wanted to baby up a bunch of idiots, why not just take over a group home or assisted living facility?  That’d be equally fucked up, but less trouble and filled with people that wouldn’t be missed as much.

His ex missed the uncertainty in his voice and held the check up to the light.  “How’d this chick’s parents even afford this much? Is her last name Kennedy or Trump?” 

The older man shook his head.  “Nah, Darlin’. Got a third party contractor put me in touch with the parents.  These sickos have a shit ton of money, but they’ve pissed off someone who can give them a run for it.” Charlie paused and thought to himself.  “Either that, or he’s willing to go bankrupt...”

 

“Do you care?”  Daphne was leaning back in the chair now.  She was in. Charlie had her. Good. He’d need her.

 

“I’m not gonna give him a discount if that’s what you’re asking.”

The detective found another glass and refreshed both drinks.  No more sharing.
His old partner crossed her arms.   “Do I really have to be the one in a diaper?”

Daphne’s ex rubbed his temples.  He walked around his desk. “Daphne,” he said.  “You’re a foot shorter than me, close to twenty years younger, and I’ve got over a hundred pounds on you.  Between the two of us, who do you think would get shoved up in some stranger’s body for three months and live to tell about it?”
 

His old partner crossed her arms and pouted. “Fine.  But I’m not gonna like it.”

 

“I’d be surprised if you did.”  Charlie said. “Think of it as a paid vacation.  You won’t even have to wipe your ass.”

“Not funny,” she said.

 

He chuckled just under his breath.  “Agree to disagree.”

 

“So who’s our star witness?” Daphne asked.  “Who exactly are we breaking out and deprogramming?”

 

Charlie took his phone out and swiped through a couple of pictures before handing it to his partner.    “They might have changed her name,” he said. “They do that, sometimes.” He pointed to the picture of the Asian girl with blonde highlights.  A little heavyset, but cute. “But before she got kidnapped, her name was Victoria Yang.”

[Horizon]

This story is master class. I love it.

[Personalias]

35 minutes ago, Horizon said:

This story is master class. I love it.

Wow.  That's quite a compliment!  Thank you!

[Josh23]

This is one of your best! I can’t wait to read more

[Personalias]

11 hours ago, Josh23 said:

This is one of your best! I can’t wait to read more

Thank you so much!  Working on it right now as a matter of fact, though I may delay publishing until just before or just after Capcon

[Personalias]

Chapter 9

“I’m desperate to run, 

I’m desperate to leave. 

If I lose it all, 

at least I’ll be free.”

 

Broods; “Free”

 

It was fifteen minutes after midnight, by Lily’s reckoning.  Mrs. Darling, lush that she was, was passed out in her easy chair last Lily saw her; an empty margarita glass had fallen out of her hand and onto the floor below.  Bitch would need one hell of a mimosa in the morning if everything went right.

 

Her old clothes still fit her pretty well.  Good thing. That meant she hadn’t lost or gained too much weight in her capture.  Darling hadn’t thought Lily’d be able to read “Athena’s Big Girl Clothes” scrawled on the cardboard box in the garage.  Obviously, Darling was wrong.

 

Even in the dead of night and wearing a t-shirt and shorts, the wet heat of Florida was uncomfortable.  It was the kind of humid and sticky that Lily never could get used to. She thought it was all the layers of cotton and plastic that Darling dressed her up in that made her feel like she was constantly almost sweating.  Apparently not.  No wonder Floridians got high on bath salts and ate each other’s faces; the very climate itself could make you go bonkers.

 

Maybe that’s why the cult was located here.  If getting stuffed in the womb and the drugs didn’t drive a baby bonkers, then Florida would finish the job. Not anymore though.  Lily was getting out.  

 

Tonight.

 

She darted through the shadows.  Running from dark patch to dark patch in quick little bursts, her heart pounding and her lungs heaving between each sprint.  The last year had really taken a lot out of her. She was out of shape Nervous too. That wasn’t helping her breathing and heart.  If she got caught, ‘Lily’ would die, even if ‘Athena’ lived on.

 

The sweat she had broken out into was a cold one; more a matter of adrenaline than environment.  It was a miracle the mosquitoes weren’t eating her alive.

 

And so the dance went:

 

See a pinetree.

 

Run, run, run, run!  Head down, push forward, don’t look.

 

Stop!

 

Catch breath.  Look around. Realize those chirping noises are just crickets and frogs.  Wipe an absurd amount of sweat off thighs and curse the heat.
  

Pick next target.  A backyard playground.

 

Run, run, run, run!  SHIT! A LIGHT! RUN, RUN, RUN, RUN! RUN AND PRAY!

 

Duck behind the slide and try not to piss.  

 

Breathe.  

 

Just breathe.

 

 No one saw anything.  

 

Listen.  

 

Listen for footsteps.  

 

Listen for calls.

 

Nothing?

 

Nothing.

 

Peak out.  

 

No lights.  Just a motion sensor. 

 

 Good.  

 

Very good.

 

Damn legs are wet again.  Wipe wipe wipe...wipe...poor choice of words given the last year.

 

It went on like this for close to two hours. Rinse, rinse repeat.  Lily knew the way out and her house-Mrs. Darling’s house- was just a little over a mile from the community’s main gate.  Less so if you cut corners and didn’t stick strictly to the meandering country club-esque streets and scenic detours. But Lily had to be careful.  This was the moment she’d been waiting for for over a year and she couldn’t waste it in haste. One false move and it’d be all over, for good this time.

 

Lily spent more time crouching in wait, willing her lungs to both suck in more air and slow the fuck down, and trying to listen for sounds of detection outside.  At least, she thought grimly, she didn’t crinkle with every step.

 

Finally, after nearly two and a half hours of acting like a frightened racoon, Lily found the gated entrance.  A large brick wall with iron gates to its left and right was all that blocked her path to freedom.

The gate to her left was the one that was manned, with a security guard stopping any unwelcome visitors or solicitors from getting too close to the community.  The gate to her right was free though. Only a motion detector was needed to open the gate. No code. No ID. Nothing. It was assumed that anyone who got in already belonged here and could be trusted with (or was incapable of giving away) secrets

 

Her eyes long since adjusted to the darkness, Lily looked around in the shadows for her way out.  Aha! A golf cart!

The final gears in Lily’s head were clicking.  Get in the golf cart. Drive through the auto-gate like she belonged, and keep going in the darkness. The guard wouldn’t look twice.  This was Florida: Golf cart country. Worst case scenario, she could ditch the cart and disappear into the darkness, traipsing about in the woods until dawn when she could find a gas station or other means to civilization.  The gate was the concern. Not the road.

 

Lily stopped breathing through her nose, licking her lips and panting as she readied herself to make one last dash for her life.  Then the world fell apart.

 

As if from out of the air itself, blasted at ear bleeding volume, came obnoxious skater punk rock electric guitar chords.

 

“BY THE TIME YOU HEAR THE SIREN”

 

No…

 

Her sweat doubled.

 

“IT’S ALREADY TOO LATE”

No...no.

 

Tripled.

“ONE GOES TO THE MORGUE AND THE OTHER TO JAIL.

ONE GUY’S WASTED AND THE OTHER’S A WASTE!”

No, no, no, no!

Her entire body was drenched, the heat consuming her as the skater punk rock blasted itself in the air, waking the entire neighborhood most likely.

“IT GOES DOWN THE SAME AS THE THOUSAND BEFORE!
NO ONE’S GETTING SMARTER, NO ONE’S LEARNING THE SCORE!”

Lily collapsed down to her knees there on the side of the road.  Tears started to stream down her face to match the perspiration accumulating on her legs. A trap.  It’d all been a trap. 

“YOUR NEVER ENDING SPREE OF DEATH AND VIOLENCE AND HATE”

The left gate had opened up.  Lily already knew who the silhouette belonged to. The lights coming from the guard house pivoted, casting the maniac in its spotlights. This time, he was dressed in the beige khakis and white button up shirt like any other mall-cop or security guard.  But he still had the same Spring Break Cornrows on his head and the snakeskin boots on his feet.  

He always had the snakeskin boots.

 
“IS GONNA TIE YOUR OWN ROPE, TIE YOUR OWN ROPE!”

The monster strummed at an air guitar as he closed the distance between them. His own voice mixed in with Dexter Holland’s. “Hey-”  he pointed at Lily, crying on the ground. “girl you talkin’ back to me? Take her out!”

 

“YOU GOTTA KEEP EM’ SEPARATED!”

 

“Hey-girl you disrespectin’ me?  Taker her out!”

 

“YOU GOTTA KEEP EM’ SEPARATED!”

 

“Hey, they don’t pay no mind. If you’re under eighteen you won’t be doing any time.”

“HEY-AY-AY! COME OUT AND PLAY!”

 

The music ended as abruptly as it started, and Lily found herself in the shadow of yet another tormentor.  “Hey Kiddo. How you doin’?”

Lily couldn’t stop crying.  That didn’t staunch her anger any though.  “I hate you, Levi! I hate you so much!”

Through her hands, she saw him pretend to clutch his heart.  “Ouch! Hate is such a strong word. I prefer loathe.”

“Loathe is a stronger word, you asshole!” Lily sobbed.

“Yeah,” Levi agreed. “But it’s better vocabulary, don’t you think?  Damn, you’re fun to fuck with.” Lily wanted to vomit as Levi put a greasy palm on the top of her head and gave it a condescending pat.  At least Mrs. Darling was essentially lying to herself. Levi knew he was a horrible person, and something about that made it all the worse.

 

Lily had met Levi a little over a year ago, just as her life and sanity were falling apart.  Over the past year she’d seen less and less of him as he ‘checked up’ on her. But here he was now, and so there was very little comfort in this moment.

 

She didn’t look up from the concrete, instead fixating on the scaly boots. “You set me up,” she said.  “Didn’t you?” It wasn’t a question. Not really.

The monster in human flesh hunkered down in front of her and gently grabbed her chin, forcing Lily to look up at him.  “Ages ago.”

 

“So the game’s over.” Lily said.  A quiet calm was coming over her. The numbness that people must feel when they find out they’re going to die.

 

“Lily, darling, baby….” he paused and then laughed.  “Or is that Baby Athena Darling? I can never tell.” He leaned in and Lily swore she could feel a forked tongue flicker in her ear as he whispered,  “The game hasn’t even begun yet. You’re dreaming.”

 

No...she couldn’t be dreaming.  She just couldn’t be. It all felt too real.  She was here. Right now. “I’m not. I’m almost out.”

 

Levi stood up and stepped back.  “Lily? When have we ever met in person? Seriously.  Think about it.” The girl didn’t say anything. She had no words.  But she kept shaking her head in denial, her pigtails wagging in her face as she did it.  “I’m just a psychosis. A hallucination. Remember?”

A dark chuckle rumbled out.  “Where do you think the music was coming from?  You see any speakers around here?” Lily said nothing.  “Why am I here instead of some guard? Why aren’t the neighbors or the rentacops coming to run in to see what the fuss is all about?” He didn’t wait for her to reply. “Because none of this is really happening.  You’re passed out in your crib, just like every night. I’m just here to remind you!”


Lily was shaking.  “If you’re not real, go away.” 

“Awww, is the poor widdle baby upset that her dream went all lucid on her?  You want reality? Fine. Stand up.”

 

“What?”

 

“Stand up.”

 

Her arms shook beneath her.   Her elbows were rigid and her own torso wouldn’t listen to her. Her legs were stupid and useless...and when she pushed...she pushed….a gasp as more soft mess loaded itself into the back of Lily’s panties.

 

As if hearing her thoughts (and why wouldn’t he, he was a dream) Levi reminded her, “Those aren’t panties you’re wearing, sugar tits.”  Lily felt her underwear thicken and balloon out behind her, the dreadful crinkle making itself known as she pushed her own bodily waste out in the seat of her diaper.  “No...no…”
 

“And you think you’re wearing pants?” Levi crooned.  “That’s fuckin’ adorable!” On cue, her clothes stretched and wrapped around her, covering her; transmogrifying into fleecy footed pajamas..  “Your big girl clothes went into a furnace when you went back into the womb. Duh!”

 

She couldn’t look at herself. “Please,” she begged.  “Pretty please….just...just…” Her legs were now cold and damp, the sweat still dripping down her thighs and the babyish pajamas just marinating the sweat.

 

The living nightmare cocked his head to the side.  “Awww you poor thing,” he cooed. “You’re still lying to yourself.  Do you really think that’s sweat that you’re drenched in? Your Mommy should have renamed you Cleopatra, you’re so in denial. You sprung a leak, kid!”

 

“PLEEEEASE!”  Inside her own mind, Lily was bawling.  Praying in her own way that she wouldn’t have to say what she wanted out loud.  She didn’t want to use her big girl words. Not for this.

 

The devil with cornrows and snakeskin boots ignored her, instead swirling his index and middle fingers upwards into the sky.  From out of the folds of her dreamspace, pieces of metal and PVC swirled around Lily in a whirlpool, enveloping her. Like apprentice’s brooms, moving of their own accord they propped her up and wrapped around her.  “You thought you were running away? You can’t even walk without this!”

 

She was back in that horrible walker.  Over the last few days she’d cried and bawled and had a panic attack every single time Mrs. Darling had even tried to slip her into it.  Now, she was trapped again, the bottoms of her feet brushing against the rough concrete, and her own mess being smushed up against her.  

 

The girl gripped onto the sides of the walker’s activity tray.  “PLEASE!” Lily screamed. “Just end it!”

 

Levi frowned, seemingly in confusion.  “End what?”

 

“END THIS!” Lily’s throat was raw. “END ME! JUST LET ME STOP EXISTING!” Don’t say it.  “LET ME STOP BEING ME AND BE...BE..” don’t say. “TURN ME INTO A BIG DUMB BABY SO AT LEAST I DON’T SUFFER ANYMORE!”

 

He seemed sad, even though he was smiling.  “Sorry, Lily. No can do. We made a deal, remember?  Your soul for keeping your marbles.” There was a slow thudding sound, an approaching giant that Lily couldn’t see yet.

This was crazy.  This was all crazy.  “But that wasn’t real.  Just a hallucination. You’re not real...”  The thudding was getting louder. Something was getting closer.

 

“Then why are you asking me for help?” Lily felt heat all over her, and the insides of her own eyelids glowing.

 

“Because I don’t have anyone else.”

 

The devil snorted, stifling his laughter…

 

“Athena?” Lily was shaken awake by an even more familiar and hated voice.  “Athena, baby? What’s wrong.”

 

Lily’s eyes fluttered open, the nursery light painful to her eyes.  It was easy for her to scream incoherently at Mrs. Darling. The older woman was in a bathrobe, wrapped around a nightgown.  Even in her own house with only a so-called-infant to look after, she still stuck to a bougie code of modesty. 

 

She at least looked sober this time.  Her face was the very epitome of motherly concern.  Must have slept that last margarita off...or had that been part of the dream?

 

The young woman trapped in a giant crib and encased in her own mess continued to bawl as the side was dropped down.  Little did her self-appointed-Mommy know that it had nothing to do with the leakiness of her diaper.  

 

“Bad dream, honey?”  she asked. “It’s okay. Mommy’s here.”  Then she amended it upon seeing the discoloration that spread all the way down past her knees “No wonder you’re crying.  You’re soaked!”  

 

The shushing noises that Mrs. Darling made did nothing to quiet Lily as she was hoisted over to the changing table.  The young woman made no effort to quiet herself as buttons along her inseam were undone by tired but practiced hands.  She felt no relief as she lay there naked save for the overloaded diaper, and felt no cleaner as she was stripped of even that and thoroughly wiped down.  A million baths couldn’t cleanse her at this point.

 

“Shhhh...It’s okay, baby.” Mrs. Darling cooed.  “It’s going to be okay.” It didn’t and wouldn’t stop Lily’s crying.  Nothing would. The freedom to cry and scream and thrash was the only freedom left to her.  Somewhere in the back of her mind, she could swear she heard a certain booted devil’s laughter.

 

Her crying didn’t stop when the new, thicker diaper was taped on.    She didn’t want to stop crying. As things stood, Lily’s world looked better when it was obscured by tears.  Mrs. Darling cradled her again, and in her full-blown tantrum, Lily dared to thrash about, hoping that she might get away with smacking the old hag.

 

All her struggling resulted in was Lily plummeting to the floor beneath her with a thud.  She stopped crying for a second, shocked that she’d been actually dropped. It hadn’t hurt.  Not really. She doubted she’d even have any kind of bruising. She’d landed on the most padded and protected part of her body. 

 

 “I am SO sorry, baby!” Mrs. Darling dove down to her knees to gain Lily’s eye. “Mommy didn’t mean to drop you.  She’s just tired and..and..”

 

And Lily took that moment to bawl even louder. Punish the bitch the only way she could.  “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!”

 

Darling’s arms were wrapped around Lily, rocking her back and forth.  “Shhh..shhh..shh...It’s alright. You’ll be okay. You’ll be fine. You just need some slee-”  Mrs. Darling stopped and looked back over towards the crib. “Darn it…” she hissed. “All your other sheets are in the wash.”

Inwardly, that made Lily happy.  No way would the ‘perfect Mommy’ Melissa Darling let her baby go to sleep in pissy sheets or even a bare mattress.   The idea of crying for over an hour while new sheets were run through the dryer gave Lily a grim sense of pleasure.

 

“It’s late.  Mommy’s tired.”  Some of Lily’s infantile behavior was rubbing off, clearly.  Now her captor was starting to whine. All of a sudden, she said something completely unexpected. “Do you wanna sleep in Mommy’s bed?”  

 

Lily stopped crying.  Instantly. Sleep? In a bed?  Like a normal human being? After a year being trapped behind wooden bars, the promise of a non-waterproof mattress seemed decadent.  

 

The cold rational part of her brain warned Lily.  She shouldn’t have stopped crying so quickly. She might have just given herself away. If she really wanted to be a big dumb baby, giving away that she wasn’t was certainly a way to accomplish it. 

 

Thankfully, Mrs. Darling was too tired to notice.  “Bed? Yeah? Mommy’s bed?” Lily’s breathing slowed.  A tired smile, a hopeful smile spread out across both of their faces.  Mrs. Darling stood up and walked to the doorway. “Come on,” she beckoned Lily forward.  Lily shifted her weight onto all fours, and started crawling. “Mommy shouldn’t carry you right now.  Just follow her. That’s a good girl.”  

 

No playpens.  No walkers. No car seats.  No strollers. No carts. Barely a look back.  She was being trusted to move under her own power and follow.  This wasn’t her chance, she knew, not to escape. But it was something.  

 

Quietly, she followed behind her captor, allowing herself to be led into the adult woman’s bedroom.  The only sound made was the shuffling of feat and the crinkling of soft plastic, and Lily suddenly didn’t mind it so much.  

 

The bed itself was still a mountain, Lily found.  Nothing but comforters to cling to and nothing to pull herself up by.  Her legs were still too damaged to push herself up off her knees. “Mommy will help,” she heard, just before being hoisted by her hips onto the mattress.

 

Lily collapsed on the mattress, feeling every muscle sing out in pleasure.  Silk sheets. Heavy thick blankets. No! A Duvet! A god damn duvet! It was a miracle.  “Now don’t make me regret this, little lady.” Mommy said, a hint of playfulness in her voice.  She went and turned out the lights before crawling into the king sized bed next to Lily. “I’m already going to have to do the laundry first thing in the morning.”  She gave Lily a chaste kiss on the forehead. “Don’t make me have to wash these sheets, too. Try not to leak.”

 

That was a ridiculous request.  Lady should be telling that to Lily’s diaper, not to her. 

Underneath the sheets, Mommy Darling gave her baby girl a hug.  It felt good to have someone, anyone, to break the constant sense of  isolation. “Night night, Athena.”
 

Lily could have rebelled, she supposed.  Found another way to harm or otherwise punish the evil woman who was cuddling up next to her.  But after the nightmare she’d just had and the intense screaming that followed, so much of the fight was already draining out of her.  

 

For now, she’d settle for sleeping and getting to be not-quite naked.

 

“Ni-ni.”

[WriteAndLeft]

I look forward to seeing a new chapter every time I login.  This is one of the better stories on here.  I am being kept in suspense.  

[kirababy]

quite a twist and turn in this chapter, really liked it.

[Josh23]

Love this story! Can’t wait to see what happens when the detectives go undercover 

[1505_madmax]

love this story!

[Personalias]

On 3/2/2020 at 4:51 AM, WriteAndLeft said:

I look forward to seeing a new chapter every time I login.  This is one of the better stories on here.  I am being kept in suspense.  

Glad you're enjoying the suspense.  This is particularly fun because of all the little clues and misdirections and callbacks I'm getting to lay out.

On 3/2/2020 at 5:48 AM, kirababy said:

quite a twist and turn in this chapter, really liked it.

Thank you!  I prefer my plots to not go in a straight line as much as a Jeremy Bearimy.

19 hours ago, Josh23 said:

Love this story! Can’t wait to see what happens when the detectives go undercover 

Oh what plans I have for that.  

19 hours ago, 1505_madmax said:

love this story!

Me too!  It's the first true sequel I've ever written and it's because there was stuff I wanted to say in Athena that I didn't get to because it would have taken the oomph out of Athena.

[WriteAndLeft]

Can we expect an update soon?

[Personalias]

6 hours ago, WriteAndLeft said:

Can we expect an update soon?

Been metaphorically juggling.  Expect an update late this month if not early next month.

[Personalias]

Chapter 10

“How does it feel

To treat me like you do?

When you've laid your hands upon me

And told me who you are?

Thought I was mistaken

I thought I heard your words

Tell me, how do I feel?

Tell me now, how do I feel?”

 

New Order; “Blue Monday”

 

Jack sat in his ‘Revenge Room’.  It was a corny, stupid name, but sometimes Jack felt like a corny, stupid person.  Stupid? No. Stupid wasn’t a good descriptor. Jack wasn’t stupid. If he was stupid he wouldn’t have had the financial means or the connections to designate a room in his home as a revenge room.

 

Smart people didn’t need revenge rooms.  Smart people didn’t make powerful enough enemies to justify turning a panic room into a revenge room.  Smart people didn’t lose half their fortunes because they were too in love for a prenuptial agreement and too desperate to make their love happy that they didn’t read the legal agreements they had sign.

 

Maybe Jack wasn’t smart.  Maybe he was just wise. Wisdom was one of those things that could be gained from being burned enough times and managing to recover and rebuild again and again and again.  Yeah. Jack was wise, alright, and that wisdom had come with too many terrible costs to count.  

 

It’s evil enough when good men see evil and do nothing.  Jack was doing something, had been cooking this operation up for a little over a year, after he’d found out what his wife had been up to and the resulting divorce had turned incredibly nasty.  But Jack knew he wasn’t doing this for any particularly noble reason. Hence: Revenge Room.

 

It was dark in the Revenge Room. The dim lights did little more than elongate the shadows.  It needn’t have been so bleak, but the blanket of darkness was comforting to Jack. It was as if by operating in literal shadows, his moves were harder to detect.  Superstitious and sentimental nonsense; the result of an older man playing at being some kind of super spy.

 

It was the network of different computers all rerouted and bouncing their different IP addresses all over the world and the top of the line antivirus software he’d shelled out the money for.  It was the more influential friends that he’d called in favors from and blackmailed in order to get the information he’d needed. The private investigators he hired to do the real legwork, and the clients he’d connected them to and all of the levels of subterfuge and alternate identities; aliases and nom de guerres he’d constructed over the last year just so that he had plausible deniability.

It was the bomb in this room that would destroy all evidence in the event of a raid; government or otherwise.

 

Jack looked swiveled around from one computer to another.  He had multiple computers, each one set up for the sole reason of interacting with a single contact.  When he was done with that contact, he was done with that computer.  

 

 It was the kind of cloak and dagger stuff he’d read as a boy, impractical though it may be. 

 

Looking at one screen, he summarized the information his contact in the Alaska compound had relayed to him without it being a direct quote.  He didn’t want to accidentally burn that bridge just yet in case this all went sideways. Alaska had thought Jack was some eccentric land developer looking to set up his own ‘Alternative Lifestyle Society’ . That’s what the conman Jack had hired to play him had convinced Alaska of, anyway. That and the payments wired to him from offshore accounts and vague promises to put him on the ground floor of whatever he created was enough to overcome the man’s discretion, disbelief, and loyalty.

 

Jack still had no idea how he’d managed to convince his Nevada contact that the Rebirthers were being investigated by the FBI.  They HAD been investigated, but the group had enough clout and power to make the feds look the other way. That had been a sobering realization during those first six months of digging.

 

Turning to the keyboard he used to interface with Plagent, Jack typed out his latest update.

“Snowbirds are on the move.  Documents are in order. Three days.  -J.M.B.”  

 

Jack’s own flair for the dramatic peeked out with that last little signature.  J.M.B was a reference to James Matthew Barrie: the author of Peter Pan. Jack felt it dreadfully appropriate given that he was essentially aiming to take down Neverland.  It was either that, or naming himself after Michael Jackson considering the depravities that happened in these places.
 

An opportunity was presenting itself.  Alaska, the cult’s first major settlement, had been working to the cult’s advantage as a place for human trafficking and bringing in victim’s from abroad. No one would think to look or even miss someone in Alaska; the damn iceberg had to offer to pay people for them to move there. 

 

As far as Jack’s digging had turned up, the Rebirthers could hypothetically operate exclusively out of The Last Frontier. But the drunken sociopaths that helped bankroll the Rebirther’s way of life valued comfort over practicality.  There wasn’t much in the way for of adult baby clothes (fuck all that such a thing existed) that differentiated itself from regular clothes when it came to cold. Oh no, what a tragedy that their brainwashed incontinent sex slaves couldn’t walk around outside in just a onesie.   Practicality mattered very little to the Rebirthers, Jack had discovered.

 

Practicality had mattered very little to Melissa.

 

Now, Alaska was going to be restructured as a kind of processing and training center where new inductees at all levels of production could be desensitized and brainwashed in the middle of a tundra before being moved to sunny Florida or heat ravaged Nevada.  

 

A flood of younger Boomers and older Gen Xers were trickling out to warmer climates, with their brainwashed diaper slaves in tow, and thanks to a huge chunk of change and two destroyed laptops, Jack now had the Florida compound expecting an extra Daddy and baby that had never been to any of the cult’s surgical centers.

 

The reply from Plagent came back a few minutes after Jack had hit send. “Okay.”

Good.  Very good.  Everything was working out.  Get in. Rescue and deprogram the girl.  Use her to testify against the cult. Get the whole thing out in the open and burn it to the ground.  

Easy?  Right.

 

A deep part of him had hoped he’d picked the right victim to rescue.  He knew that his ex...fuck it...his wife... had gotten an Asian girl, and Victoria Yang was the only one that he could confirm as being abducted into the cult. (The only one that was already in Florida, anyways.)  Human traffickers, Jack had found, tended to get people who wouldn’t be missed or reported missing.

Melissa had been baby crazy for years.  When they’d had no luck conceiving, even with all the fertility drugs, Jack suggested adoption.  That would have been good enough for Jack. Too many people in the world anyways, might as well give one or two a good home.

 

Melissa didn’t want someone else’s kid.  She wanted her own. Jack was willing to hire and pay for a surrogate.  If Melissa’s womb was the problem, it could still be her egg. Jack would have been okay using a sperm donor.  He loved her that much.

 

That was the problem.  He’d never learned how to say no to his wife.  The search for surrogates led them to the Rebirthers and the snake in the grass, Anguis.  It wasn’t until all the contracts had been signed and Melissa had said she was going through with it, that Jack had thought to read the fine print.  The separation and the divorce quickly followed along with half of Jack’s family fortune.

 

Somehow, this damn cult had its hooks into all the right agencies to the point that Jack would get in more trouble for breaking an NDA than they would for doing bizarre unethical surgical experiments on people. So fuck it.  Let the bitch have her half.

He’d lost the battle for his marriage but won the war for his clarity of purpose.  Melissa never loved him; only the things he could give her. She’d rather play ‘Mommy’ to a human pet forever than to be a real mother, fine.  Time to be King Solomon and cut the baby half.

Like most people, Jack Darling could have gone his whole life without knowing about the Rebirthers.  He could have even turned a blind eye had he known about them. As far as he understood it, all the victims had signed iron clad contracts waiving their rights away.  Stupid people deserved what they got and at least they had a roof over their heads.

This wasn’t about doing the right thing, or the moral thing.  Revenge Room, not Karmic Justice Room. Jack hoped he was right about this next move.  They really could use any rescued soul, he supposed. Chances are the cult would scatter to the winds once exposed to open air.  That’s why it would be so sweet if Victoria Yang turned out to be Melissa’s sweet little Asian baby. He might not be able to nail the entire cult to the wall, but could keep his psychotic ex up at night and crying.  He could take away the thing Melissa had left him for.

He couldn’t realistically ruin the cult.

 

But he could ruin her.

 

And that would be enough.

[Shotgun Diplomat]

WOW! So the we have now discovered who the money behind the ersatz rescue and reconnaissance mission is. Very interesting. I really like how "Jack" acknowledges that the elongated shadows in this "revenge room" provide no actual physical advantage. The rather help him mentally by reinforcing the fact to him that he is working bother literally and figuartivly in the shadows. Very well done. Thank-you. 

 

I did notice one small typo: 

1 hour ago, Personalias said:

Jack wasn’t stupid. If he was studid

I am pretty sure it is meant to read: "Jack wasn't stupid. If he was stupid...".

 

Thanks again for the wonderful addition, I am hungerying for more.  

[Josh23]

Love this story!

[kerry]

I am enjoying the direction that this sequel is moving in. I also like the fact that Jack's motivation is not pure or ethical: he's a hero motivated by hatred, which is unusual and interesting. ?

[Personalias]

On 4/15/2020 at 12:52 PM, Shotgun Diplomat said:

WOW! So the we have now discovered who the money behind the ersatz rescue and reconnaissance mission is. Very interesting. I really like how "Jack" acknowledges that the elongated shadows in this "revenge room" provide no actual physical advantage. The rather help him mentally by reinforcing the fact to him that he is working bother literally and figuartivly in the shadows. Very well done. Thank-you. 

 

I did notice one small typo: 

I am pretty sure it is meant to read: "Jack wasn't stupid. If he was stupid...".

 

Thanks again for the wonderful addition, I am hungerying for more.  

Thanks for spot checking me.  Try as I might, typos happen.  I appreciate it.  

Regarding Jack: Most of my stories are fairly silly if you try to explain them objectively.  Personally speaking, little touches like Jack admitting he doesn't NEED his room to be literally dark and shadowed help me suspend my disbelief.  I hope it had a similar effect on you. 

On 4/15/2020 at 3:37 PM, Josh23 said:

Love this story!

Thank you!  What do you like about it?

On 4/15/2020 at 3:44 PM, kerry said:

I am enjoying the direction that this sequel is moving in. I also like the fact that Jack's motivation is not pure or ethical: he's a hero motivated by hatred, which is unusual and interesting. ?

This might be my most morally ambiguous story yet.  Lots of broken people justifying shit to themselves.