Unfair: A Diaper Dimension Novel (Chapters 115 Uploaded!)

[Samriis]

I know that Clark's comeuppance is welcomed as shown from some of the comments previously, but this is pure trauma for Clark.  This is the talisman that he has held onto dearly, to prove to at least himself that he is more than just an infantialized symbol of Amazonian superiority.  

Talismans don't have to be physical either... this is akin to someone who has lost their wife through a murder and then having those close to you tell you that she didn't matter and that you'll be better off without her.  

This part of the story was an eventuality, but is by NO means trivial.  

This, however, is a pendulum shift, again one that had to happen for Clark's character to evolve, but I worry that he has nothing else to hold on to.  This could break him worse than any stay at New Beginnings.  Because he would loose all sense of "self".  All that would remain is a doll.  And I don't want to see that happen in such a well developed character. 

[BabyJilly_S]

29 minutes ago, Samriis said:

I know that Clark's comeuppance is welcomed as shown from some of the comments previously, but this is pure trauma for Clark.  This is the talisman that he has held onto dearly, to prove to at least himself that he is more than just an infantialized symbol of Amazonian superiority.  

Talismans don't have to be physical either... this is akin to someone who has lost their wife through a murder and then having those close to you tell you that she didn't matter and that you'll be better off without her.  

This part of the story was an eventuality, but is by NO means trivial.  

This, however, is a pendulum shift, again one that had to happen for Clark's character to evolve, but I worry that he has nothing else to hold on to.  This could break him worse than any stay at New Beginnings.  Because he would loose all sense of "self".  All that would remain is a doll.  And I don't want to see that happen in such a well developed character. 

Interesting points. It is major trauma for him, though one largely of his own making I think. In this world it is highly likely as a little that barring some major strategy and luck you would end up adopted, presumably at some level you would have to mentally prepare for that possible eventuality or mitigate that risk as much as you can. 

Yet his ego is so massive he took a job at a school teaching toddlers next door to a classroom full of littles, all the time pushing buttons at every opportunity assuming his tactics and gameplan would make him safe. 

As for the final breaking point I think that may involve his wife either being regressed/accepting adoption or outright denouncing him and being found out as the one that spiked his coffee...

In my very much non-expert opinion from a story perspective it was essential and perfectly timed as it was becoming a succession of "what crafty successful scheme will Clarke pull next" episodes that needed such a counterpoint. After all  the Amazons must have encountered such little's tactics before and just had to work out what buttons to press in response (save melting his brain).

[YourFNF]

Honestly both Jilly and Samrriss with great points.... Like I've touched on my game plans before I would absolutely be expecting this to happen and would be either preparing to take the fall with grace and still try to have a life after or go down in a Pyrrhic blaze of glory taking as many with me as possible. That's it those are my options. In the absence of true choice all that is left is to decide what to do with the time remaining and how we will live. Clark apparently didn't even truly consider this a possible reality and it's shattering him. Admittedly I'm also very cognizant that there are far... far worse fates than death... ??‍♀️

[TerranV]

23 hours ago, BabyJilly_S said:

Yet his ego is so massive he took a job at a school teaching toddlers next door to a classroom full of littles, all the time pushing buttons at every opportunity assuming his tactics and gameplan would make him safe. 

While Clark's pride has always been a fatal flaw, he probably didn't have many options when it came to teaching opportunities when he started out.

He also still managed to survive for several years before getting got.

Antagonizing Brollish and others wasn't the best idea of course.

It also speaks to the kind of world he lives in where a Little has to be ambitious to aspire to be a preschool teacher of all things (no offense towards teachers) and smart enough to survive for any length of time.

[WBDaddy]

4 minutes ago, TerranV said:

He also still managed to survive for several years before getting got.

Several?  A decade, if memory serves. 

[TerranV]

17 hours ago, WBDaddy said:

Several?  A decade, if memory serves. 

Yup. Clark was actually pretty good at what he was doing.

[Personalias]

17 hours ago, TerranV said:

It also speaks to the kind of world he lives in where a Little has to be ambitious to aspire to be a preschool teacher of all things (no offense towards teachers) and smart enough to survive for any length of time.

Ex-Teacher here.  Also the author.  Wife is a teacher.  Mother was a teacher.  Both grandmother's were and great grandfather was on the school board.

Taking Author Hat Off
***********************************************************************************************************
Some offense definitely taken.

I will forgive you, and I feel there was no intentional malice or purposefully devaluing teachers...but that statement still devalues us. If you believe that society needs something to function properly, then it should not be looked down upon as some kind of booby prize or something that lacks ambition or should not be aspired to.

This goes for teachers, paraprofessionals, nurses, paralegals, food service, ditch diggers, garbage collection, transportation and delivery, and a ton of other underpaid and undervalued jobs that were called "essential" in lieu of getting paid more a few years back. 

If it fucks up your day because the job was not done or not done right, then the people who do that job deserve respect (and a liveable wage) despite not being billionaire CEOs or celebrities.
  
Please keep this in mind when commenting further on that matter.
******************************************************************************************************
Putting Author Hat On.

I'm glad you're liking the story and seeing the layers and flaws in Clark's character while also acknowledging that he had some reasons to be proud of himself pre-Adoption.

[TerranV]

5 hours ago, Personalias said:

Some offense definitely taken.

I will forgive you, and I feel there was no intentional malice or purposefully devaluing teachers...but that statement still devalues us. If you believe that society needs something to function properly, then it should not be looked down upon as some kind of booby prize or something that lacks ambition or should not be aspired to.

This goes for teachers, paraprofessionals, nurses, paralegals, food service, ditch diggers, garbage collection, transportation and delivery, and a ton of other underpaid and undervalued jobs that were called "essential" in lieu of getting paid more a few years back. 

If it fucks up your day because the job was not done or not done right, then the people who do that job deserve respect (and a liveable wage) despite not being billionaire CEOs or celebrities.

Oh I definately agree and never meant to imply otherwise. I apologize for giving offense.

What I was trying to get at is that despite the fact that these jobs are usually undervalued by society, a Little still has to struggle just to be viewed as fit to do them. 

[Personalias]

18 hours ago, TerranV said:

Oh I definately agree and never meant to imply otherwise. I apologize for giving offense.

What I was trying to get at is that despite the fact that these jobs are usually undervalued by society, a Little still has to struggle just to be viewed as fit to do them. 

Apology accepted and I appreciate the clarification.  I'm sorry if I snapped.  Besides writing, teaching is something that's really important to me.

[thedman]

Wow, I have no idea how I missed this story for the last 2 years.  I just read it all in a 4 day span.  I have so many comments and just wish that I had been along for the whole ride so that I could have made them as the chapters came out.  What a story it has been so far, I can't wait to read more as they come out

[Personalias]

22 hours ago, thedman said:

Wow, I have no idea how I missed this story for the last 2 years.  I just read it all in a 4 day span.  I have so many comments and just wish that I had been along for the whole ride so that I could have made them as the chapters came out.  What a story it has been so far, I can't wait to read more as they come out

There's more to come.  Currently up to 112 on the patreon.  Will be posting 82 here shortly.

[Panther Cub]

46 minutes ago, Personalias said:

There's more to come.  Currently up to 112 on the patreon.  Will be posting 82 here shortly.

112?! O.O

Woah... that is dayumn impressive!

[something101]

I get the feeling Clark isn't trying to get out of being adopted probably bcause he is too broken and traumatized and feeling betrayed 

Almost forgot to call this out but when bouf let Janet take diapers from Billy's cubby I thought this is how those diapers went missing before Clark got adopted 

Edited December 31, 2022 by something101
Additional thoughts

[Personalias]

Chapter 82: A Dialogue

“And then what happened?” Amy asked.

I bowed my head.  “I don’t want to talk about it…”  I tried tucking my head in between my knees but that only made me think of how naked my legs were.  It was Thursday night and I was approaching forty-eight hours wearing nothing but a t-shirt and diaper. 

Janet had changed my shirt after school so that instead of the plain red I’d worn all thursday, I now had a light brown shirt with a yellow smiley face that read “I’m In My Happy Place.” Outside of the sneakers, all I had was my diaper.  Amy was wearing a blue onesie with yellow rubber ducks on it.  I never thought I’d want to kill for the chance to wear a blue onesie with yellow rubber ducks on it.

As had become habit, I was sulking in the back of the Community Center’s rent-a-nursery while the Amazons swapped mind fucking strategies.  No doubt Janet was talking about me and all the ‘challenges’ I was facing or some such coded talk for me not being babyish enough to her liking yet. 

I should have been doing something to assert my dominance here like I had in Beouf’s classroom, or at least schmooze to make the right connections.  But once a week with half-an-hour at best wasn’t enough to do anything too complicated beyond blending in.  Besides, it’s hard to plot and bully and schmooze and make connections when you’re so deep in your own rollercoastering emotions.

I sat there with Amy while in the lap of a Tweener sized teddy bear next to an equally large stuffed bunny, both propped up against the wall as makeshift recliners. Amy had crawled up to me and propped herself up next to me. No shouts of “Hi Clark!” or nothing.  She just came up to me, planted herself in the big bunny’s lap and asked how I was doing.

So I told her…

“Did the other kids make fun of you for being embarrassed, were they wearing just diapers too, did Ivy cry the rest of the day is Jessennia okay, is there any difference in the blue Hippobottomuses than the pink ones, what was for breakfast that day, does Mrs. Beouf talk about me, do you have any non-gluten free cookies, did you know that a giant invisible bunny is called a pooka?” 

I looked up and turned my head to meet her unblinking hyper-focused gaze.  “You’ve been waiting the entire story to ask those questions, haven’t you?”

“Yeah.”

That almost made me laugh. I managed a weak smile. “Thanks.”

“Welcome,” Amy said. “Now about those questions.”

“I said…” My voice was rising. I was on the verge of shouting.  I took a deep breath. Amy didn’t deserve that.  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay.”  She said.  She leaned back and away from me, relaxing. “Do you want to tell me about school today?”

It was more of the same without the shock value.  “No…”

“Do you want me to tell you the upsides? Like pants are overrated or how diapers can be a legitimate fashion choice?”

“No.”

“I haven’t done an experiment, most of my experiments are mouth experiments, but I think I get changed more often when Grown-Ups can see mine, so that’s a plu-”

“I don’t wanna talk about it.” I was trying really, really, hard not to growl.  My fuse was burned down to the nub and I didn’t want to explode today.  Not at another LIttle, even if they were almost as mindfucked as Ivy.  My face felt hot.  I’d really bit her…

The fuck?

“Want me to tell you about the daycare lady that really gets me upset? All our food comes at once but she never lets me eat the pudding first.” A shocked look came over her face. “Oh. Oh fudge. I think I just gave away the entire story, what if I complained about how most of our clothes don’t have pockets but we’re not supposed to put things up our nose or in our hair, how else am I supposed to make sure the other kids don’t use my crayons before I’m done with them, why do they have scented markers but not flavored markers? I think that just gives us false hope.”

“I don’t want you to complain,” I said flatly.

“Oh,” she said. “Do you still want to complain?”

Yes.  “No.”

The white haired kid toddled up. His romper came down to just above his knees.  Color me jealous.  “Hi guys, what are you up to?”

“Not now, Dawson,” Amy said softly. “I’m working.”

“It’s Danny.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Ugh. Whatever.”  He went back the way he came.

Amy shifted and tilted over the bunny.  She crawled around in a tight circle like a puppy and layed on her stomach so that she was still looking at me. “So what do you want to talk about?”

I huffed and puffed for half a second.  “Last night sucked.”

“After Diaper Day?”

“We’re not calling it that.”

“Oh yeah,” she mused. “I guess every day is Diaper Day. How about the No Pants Party?”

I didn’t know if Amy was purposefully trolling me or if her head was just that empty.  Were they mutually exclusive?  “No. Moving on.”

“Okie doke,” Amy said.  “Why was last night rough? Were all pants banned from your sight?  Were you not allowed to watch T.V. that had pants in it?”

“What? No!” I said. Feeling silly, I added. “Muffets don’t wear pants anyways.”

Amy nodded as though I’d said something profound. “Ah yes. Can’t wear pants if you don’t technically have legs.”  She tapped the side of her head and gave me a wry smirk.

“It’s not about the pants!” I gripped my hair and tugged at it, trying to keep my voice down.  

None of the other Littles paid us much mind.  They’d all learned to give me my space, at least.  All except Amy, who was giving me someone to talk to, so I didn’t mind as much.  If you feel the need to confess something, a witness lacking credibility is better than a priest or a therapist.

She gave no retort or reply.  Her question was in the silent waiting she was doing while everyone else was clearly doing activities that to her would have been more engaging or interesting.

“Last night, Janet had a game night.”

“Janet?”

I bristled. “My…y’know. My…” Amy showed no sign of recognition and every sign of infinite patience.  “My Mommy.”  My shoulders jerked up towards my ears and my upper lip curled. It felt like losing calling her that when she wasn’t around to be manipulated by it.

“Gotcha,” Amy said. “Your Mommy was playing games with you.  What games? Go Fish? Yahtzee? Old Maid?”

“Not with me,” I said. “She was playing a game with Jessica and a couple other people.  I don’t remember their names.”

“Jessica?”

“My babysitter,” I clarified. I forgot that I hadn’t told anyone about Jessica. “Her best friend.  Likes to pretend she’s my Aunt.”

Amy rolled to her back and leaned her head so that she was staring at me upside down.  “Is she your pretend Aunt because she’s not really related to your Mommy or is she your pretend Aunt because you think your Mommy is pretending to be your Mommy?”

“They’re not related,” I said. “They’re just best friends. Auntie Jessica is what she wants me to call her.”  I caught myself. “Both! I mean both!”

“Gotcha.  How do Grown-Ups even make friends?” Her eyes shot up to her bangs just scraping above the carpet. “I don’t get it. Where do they find the time?”

Considering that my entire friend network now numbered among my jailers, all I could do was run my hands through my hair and say, “I don’t know.”

After a few seconds of uncomfortable silence, Amy redirected the conversation. “What kind of games did they play? Go Fish? Yahtzee? Old Maid?  Is Old Maid still socially acceptable?”  Her tongue fidgeted between the missing tooth gap at the top of her mouth.

“No,” I said. “None of those games.  It was one of those weird…custom games.”  I reached out into the air, imagining it.

The closest thing I had to a friend rolled  back over so that she was looking at me upright. “Like kitty cat where you crawl between the big person’s legs? Or Why Day?”

“Huh?” I pouted my lips searching for the words.  “No.  This was like one of those fancy complicated games sold in hobby stores or whatever. Where before you play you’ve got to put together the entire board with all these props and pieces.”  I started miming piecing together the three-dimensional puzzle monstrosity in my mind.  

“And did your Mommy give you something to play with or perhaps something very tasty to chew? Or both?”

I was looking at Amy with my eyes, but not with my mind. “No,” I said.

Her brow furrowed “That’s unfortunate.”

“I just sat there at the kitchen table in Janet’s lap and-”

“You mean your Mommy?”

“-right, and there were these dice and special rules, and some dice had symbols and other times they were doing math in their heads and everybody moved several pieces around the board at once every turn”  My eyes were crossing just reliving it.  “And they were using terms that I didn’t know what they meant in context like arbiters and mages and breach challenges and and…” I clapped my hands to the side of my face.  “And cube roots and imaginary numbers….and…I don’t even know. It all sounded like babble to me.”

“Sounds like a lot to take in.”  Amy said. 

“Yeah,” I sunk lower in my bear recliner. “I didn’t understand anything that was going on.”

“Did you ask your Mommy to explain?” 

“I tried,” I said.  That part was mostly true.  They were deep in gameplay when I finally realized I had no idea whatsoever.  “She told me she’d explain later.”

“Later sucks.” 

I was almost naked, but I felt sunburnt. “I felt stupid,” I admitted. “I felt dumb. I felt like…like…”  I bit down on my tongue and fiddled with the ever present pacifier dangling on its clip. “I felt like…”

“Like a baby?”

My reply was more of a hot breath.  “Yeah…”

I half-expected Amy to tell me that I was a baby and that I should be okay with that. What I didn’t expect was what she did do.  She crawled off her bunny to me, and asked if she could sit next to me.  I scooted over and allowed her over.  “That’s really tough, bud.  Side hug?”

I nodded and let her throw an arm over my shoulders.  I bit Ivy for touching my shoulder.  Amy asked.  Also I liked Amy better.

“It sucks.” I whispered.

Amy neither lowered her voice to match mine nor raised it.  “Yeah. It does.  Don’t feel bad.  Amazons are just really smart with numbers and complicated science stuff and not so good at explaining it.”

“I really thought if I watched and listened enough,” I remembered, “that I’d catch on, but five minutes till my bedtime and I still wasn’t understanding what was going on. I just feel so stupid.”

“I getcha,” Amy said. “My Mommy works at the bank.”  That earned her a double take from me.  “What?  Do you know how banks work?  Six years and I still don’t know what her job is.  She’s a Fiduciary something something executive dividends something asset allocation something standard deviation something manager.  All I know is she doesn’t have the fun job of putting the money cylinders into the whooshy whooshy tubes.”

Helena Madra, Amy’s Mommy, was on daycare duty.  Like a doting mother hen, she threw us- or rather Amy- a glance every thirty seconds, but she was keeping her distance while busily checking that every other brainwashed baby was playing nice.  Hard to believe that people like her could be so obsessed with children’s songs and strollers and nursery rhymes, while doing complex mental equations math in base 16.  

But they did.  I knew it. I’d known about it for a while.  Seeing it in action made the whole thing more real.  That crazy natural instinct for STEM subjects had allowed them to act on their baby crazy instincts in ways that their size never could.

“You’re just throwing a bunch of words together,” I said, trying to reassure myself.

Amy ran her tongue between her teeth again. “I dunno. Maybe.”

Our conversation was interrupted yet again when a dark haired Little boy walked up and waved.  “Hey Amy!” 

Amy brightened up. “Hey Brad.”

“Guess what?”

“What?”

The kid took a deep breath. “I don’t like to pee my pants!”  The dude wasn’t even wearing any.  He was less dressed than me.  I still had my shoes and socks on.

“Join the club,” I said sarcastically.  Amy quickly withdrew her arm and elbowed me sharply in the ribs.  “What?”

“That’s great bud!” Amy ignored me. “You’re doin’ it!”  

The manchild bent his knees like he was ready to jump for the ceiling, and tucked his elbows into his arm pits. He giggled and flapped his balled up fists, smiling like he’d won something.  I legitimately thought he might cry happy tears.   “Thanks!”  He walked away. “I don’t like to pee my pants! I don’t like to pee my pants! I don’t like to pee my pants!

Too late, I remembered who I was talking to.  That was Bradley. The poor schmuck who’d been sent to New Beginnings.  A few weeks ago he’d only been able to say things like ‘Do it cause Mommy said so!’ and “I like to pee my pants!”  This really was a big accomplishment for him…

Amy provided more context.  “We go to the same daycare, now. He’s getting better. I think they got him out in time.”

“That’s good.” I remembered how Chaz had a lisp from some hypno cartoons every time he was wet.  It might have become permanent if I hadn’t told Beouf. Happier times.

“How’d the game end?”

“Huh?”

Amy repeated herself. “How’d the game end? Did your Mommy put you to bed before they finished?”

Yes and no.  “I flipped the board.”  That gave me a nasty smile remembering it.  The tinkling sound of a hundred tiny pieces hitting the kitchen floor.   The fluttering of a thousand game cards wafting in the air, some caught by the fan, going this way and that in the central air conditioning.  The looks on the giant ladies’ faces.  The shrieks of surprise.  “They did not like that. Not one bit.”  My face was beginning to ache, but in a good way now.  

“What happened then?” Amy asked, not seeming half as excited as I was feeling.  “Time out? Vegetables? Did they make you pick up the mess all by yourself?”

I felt like a supervillain in those old timey comic books. “That’s the brilliant part.  It was so close to my bedtime that my Mommy had to just put me to bed.”  I looked down at myself. “That and I think she’s being a tad spiteful by keeping me like this outside of school.  But that’s it so far.”

“That’s neat.” From the sound of her voice she didn’t really think so.  “Would have been neater if you’d swallowed something that way they wouldn’t get all the pieces back until later.”

“I don’t think any of those pieces were edible,” I told her.

“Anything’s edible if you can eat it!”  She punctuated the statement by flashing me two thumbs up.  

Right.  

Madwoman.

Awkward.  

“Um…maybe next time.”  There would be no next time.  Not even close.  Gross.

If Amy felt the same way she didn’t show it.   “So when you bit Ivy, how did she taste? Salty? I remember her hand being salty, I’m not big into eating people but I’m genuinely curious as to how her hand has aged, I thought it would taste sweeter than it did.”  She held out her hands in front of her like she was holding a sandwich, her eyes scanning something that wasn’t there while she remembered her own past. “I was also a rattlebutt snake at the time, and they don’t taste sweet very well. It’s very sad. I get very sad that they can’t taste cookies or candy sometimes, but they get to have a rattle and that’s lots of fun. Ivy should have just listened to the warning of the rattlebutt.”

“Why did you bite her?” I asked. I could still imagine the solid push of her finger on my teeth.  Despite her freakish strength she still screamed like anybody else.  Some itching nagging sensation at the back of my memory thought she’d mentioned it once already.

Amy lowered her hands. “She tried to take my sandwich. I shook the rattle at her and even told her not to take the sandwich that was in my diaper. However when I took it out to take a bite, everything happened so fast. The rattlebutt snake can strike at 3 meters per second, and an average Ivy can strike at one table length per second so it was pretty evenly matched, but she got bit. Sadly the ol’ rattlebutt snake had no venom, musta been defanged….” She looked sadly at the floor.

A realization.  Amy had bit Ivy.  I’d bit Ivy too.  I felt myself scooting away.  Very slowly.

A random thought made its way from my brain and out my mouth before I had time to shut my trap.  “How’d you bite, Ivy?” I asked.

“I opened my mouth, and just chomped on it.  It was really fast.”

There was no easy way to say this. “With…what…teeth?”

“My front teeth,” Amy explained. “I used to have them. Now I don’t.”

There was an intrusive thought I didn’t want.  Mittens were placed over my hands whenever I got too messy or destructive with them.  The Amazons were more than willing to hold off on punishments until it was a convenient time and place for them.  What if biting Ivy had earned me a trip this weekend to an Amazon Pediatric Dentist?  “How’d you lose your teeth?”

The woman-child, the nuisance, the nutter, the carefree Little girl that had absolutely no sense of embarrassment or shame; her face darkened.  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay.”  I backed up a little more. Not enough to show fear or resentment, just enough to respect personal space…or get bit. Molars could still hurt.  My escape instinct was flaring up, but I was out of time this week. “What daycare did you say you go to?”

“Tiny Tots.”  And just like that the old Amy was back.  “Why?”

“Do any of these other kids go to Tiny Tots?”  

“Uh-huh. Couple.”

I looked at the clock. The back half of the meeting would be out any minute now.  “Could you tell me the names of the other local daycares and tell me which kids go where?”

“Sure.”

“Oh, and Amy.” I said before she started babbling out information.

“Huh?”

“Thanks.”

“For what?”

“Talking to me.” I said. “And listening.” Right as it was ending, it occurred to me that I had just had the first actual conversation I’d had with no ulterior motive in a long time. Or at least a reasonable facsimile thereof. Some tiny part of me that still had a shred of empathy felt that it would be right to thank her for the kindness.

“Aw,” Amy smiled softly the same way she had at Bradley. “You’re welcome, bud.”

 

[Personalias]

Chapter 83: Something Broken…

I bounced in my feeder seat, waving my arms.  “Tracy!” I called.  “Over here! Over here!”  It was easier to bounce and jiggle and all but hop on my ass that morning.  Zoge had already changed me into one of Billy’s Dino-Dips.  It might have been me, but they felt more than a tad thicker than other brands.  There’s diaper thick, and there’s pillow-strapped-to-your-ass.  Billy’s Amazons dressed him in something close to the former.  

Maybe that’s why he was so unpotty trained.  Maybe the thickness made it easier or more desensitized.  Would having a giant load in my pants be that uncomfortable with all this extra cushioning?  I hoped I didn’t have to find out.  

 But I digress.

“Tracy!”  I flailed my arms.  “Tracy!”  I gulped down a spoonful of dry cereal, fed to me by Zoge.  “Hey! Tracy! I need to talk to you!'' The rest of the class finger fed themselves or allowed Zoge or Beouf to spoon feed them in turns.  Nibble. Nibble. Gulp. Nibble. Nibble. Gulp.  I was too preoccupied to use my fingers. That and I didn’t want my honey glazed corn loops to taste like the rash cream I’d accidentally gotten on my fingers.  Yeah, Zoge wiped it off immediately; the diaper was still under me when she’d done it.  Didn’t mean I wasn’t paranoid. 

“Tracyyyyyy!”

All  my classmates stared at me between bites.  Some in dread, others in rapt fascination.
Tracy…ignored isn’t the right word.  Ignored has too much malice in it.  She kept looking over at me, just a table or so away, but then going back to patting preschoolers on the head, or opening milk cartons.  I could tell that she wanted to come over and see me, but she couldn’t leave her post.  That tyrant of a teacher,Ambrose, wasn’t technically required to be with my students (mine, never hers), until after breakfast, leaving Tracy with the bulk of the work.  And like Littles, three and four year olds couldn’t be trusted unsupervised for more than thirty second intervals, albeit for very different reasons.

Had I Lion, I would have chucked him as close to Tracy’s table under the pretext of her needing to get it back to me.  Regrettably, I didn’t have Lion anymore…  All the other stuffies were out of sight and out of reach, even Jessinnia  “Tracy! We need to talk!”

“Clark, my love,” Mrs. Zoge said. “You’re being too loud and Miss Tracy is busy working with the big…with the preschoolers.”  As annoyed as I was, I heard the self-correction in Zoge’s word choice and was grateful.  Not that I told her.  She held a bottle.  “Take a sip of milk. Your mouth looks very crummy.”

I did as she asked. Taking a few gulps.  Since Wednesday, Zoge had become my designated handler, of sorts.  Beouf didn’t outright reject me or refuse me.  On the contrary, she was every bit as outwardly warm and inwardly professional to me as she’d been since my enrollment.  It’s just that.in every interaction we’d had for the rest of the week, unless it was absolutely necessary for her to do, Zoge or Janet did it instead.

Objectively, it was a good call. Not every student listens to their teacher and chemistry makes interactions stressful for both.  So if that interaction can be minimized, and thus the stress is minimized, learning can more easily occur.  Teachers love their students.  Can’t help it.  Never said anything about liking them…

It was calculated, but effective. I didn’t want to talk to Beouf that much either. As a bonus, I got treated to Ivy’s quiet but resentful glares every time her Mommy so much as spoke a kind word to me.  

Who I really wanted to talk to was both very close and impossible distance away.  “Traceeeey!”

A preschooler tugged on Tracy’s plain ankle length skirt.  “Miss Tracy, I think that baby wants to talk to you.”

I threw a preemptive sneer at Billy, Chaz, and the rest, cutting off teasing giggles and mocking repetitions in their throats.  They would not weaponize the tactics I’d taught them against me.  They wouldn’t dare.

Tracy leaned over and said something to the kid, Roland I think…I’d only known him for that first week…but I couldn’t hear what she said.  Tracy was smart enough to whisper in the nearly empty cafeteria.

“Traaaaaaaaaaacy!”

I saw Beouf press her lips together and throw Zoge a look.  She was stopping herself from correcting me.  “Clark,” Mrs. Zoge said. “Miss Tracy is busy right now.  She has a job to do.  Maybe you can talk to her after school?”

I fluttered my lips like a horse. “She leaves right after school. Just like you. Most teacher aides do.”  She used to hang back and grade papers every now and then, but that felt like a long long time ago.

“I can talk to her.”

“Now?”

She shook her head softly.  “Both she and I are working, right now.  You should be working on finishing your breakfast so you can have lots of energy.”

“Why do you want to talk to her?” Tommy asked from the bucket seat beside me.  

Damn it, Tommy!  Butt out! I’d have flicked him in the ear right then and there if Zoge wasn’t watching. No! Wait! Opportunity!  “She was my assistant, before,” I said.  “My work partner. My Zoge.”  I wiped away a tear just before it spilled  “ I miss her.”  My voice cracked.  Damn, I hadn’t meant for that last part to happen. That’s the risk in running lies of omission.  

I wanted to do more than give my old Tweener bud a hug.

“Yeah,” Tommy said.  “I get it.”  He looked far off for a moment.  I wondered who from his past life he was missing just then.

A paper napkin zoomed up and wiped my nose.  “Do you need to blow?”  Zoge asked.

I sniffed. “No…”

She rubbed the underside of my nose with the cloth and tossed it away. I itched it with my finger, and got a faint yet disturbing whiff of rash cream. I regretted the spoon feeding less and less right then and there.  

What I did regret is watching Tracy and the rest of my students walk away, single file holding hands, with Tracy quietly herding them outside in the opposite direction. Under normal circumstances, students came in one way and exited past the Littles’ Table.  Tracy was taking them out through the entrance.  I didn’t think anything of it at the time, since her classroom faced the cafeteria entrance. The kids would have had to walk all the way around the building to get where they were going when they could just backtrack through an uncrowded space. They were probably antsy, too.  It was a smart move.

It was also a marker of how much time I’d used up. 

“TRACY!” I tried again, anyway.  The echo of my voice was beaten back by the overhead blast fan at the entrance.

“Mrs. Zoge,” Beouf said from her multi highchair feeding table. Her face twitched like she was wrestling to choose the right words.  If I hadn’t known her for ten years I might not have seen it.  “How about when you go on your break, you cut through Miss Ambrose’s classroom and let Miss Tracy know that Clark would like to speak to her?”  I waited for the condition.  The ‘if he’s good’, the ‘unless he..’.  Nothing came. Not even another micro-twitch.

“I’d be happy to do that,” Mrs. Zoge said.  She said it to Mrs. Beouf, but she was looking right at me.

“Promise?” I heard myself asking.

Zoge inched up to me and leaned in so that only I could hear. “Mr. Grange, when have I ever not kept a promise to you?”

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

“But no matter what, their Mommies and Daddies love them very, very much.”  Beouf closed the illustrated propaganda book and smiled, softly.  “So that’s something to remember: That even when you’re not acting your best, or you’re making bad choices, you’re still loved.”

Janet hugged me softly from behind; a quiet physical affirmation that yes she thought I’d been ‘naughty’ or ‘bratty’ or whatever, but she still loved me.  My cheeks flushed hard and I wanted to sink back and melt, but that would have only resulted in me leaning further back into Janet’s breasts.

There were no therapists on campus today.  Janet had found a few minutes to slink in, and as a result I was the only Little with a lap side seat for one of Beouf’s stories. My guard was up the entire time because the others kept looking at us.  With Janet quietly giving me gentle hugs and squeezes every other page. 

I tolerated it. Her navy blue cardigan was light and more a fashion choice than protection against the elements.  It still wasn’t very cold yet.  Hence, my pantsless condition persisted.  But if I bunched my legs up in a cannonball and pulled at the flaps of the coat, I could kind of sort of almost wrap it around enough to obscure the Koddles I’d been swaddled in.  The real problem was throwing annoyed or menacing looks at my classmates everytime they looked at me, quietly chuckling to themselves.  This was the third day and Janet’s presence still hadn’t gotten old to them.

Except for Ivy.  She was full to despair and had to be taken out of the classroom by her Mommy.  Zoge never let Ivy sit in her lap during school hours.  That poor idiot.

“So, what would you say is the main theme of this story?”  Beouf asked.

Annie shot her hand up.  “That we can do whatever we want?”  

“Where in the book does it say that?” Beouf asked.  “Would you like to come and show me using the pictures?”

Annie put her hand down. “No ma’am…”  Was she trolling? Or had she been sincere? It was hard to tell with this lot sometimes.

Jesse blurted out.  “Love! It’s about love!  Last page! Said so!”  He was so confident.

“On a surface level, yes.  But why was love important?  Can we go deeper?”

Jesse looked distinctly uncomfortable.  “Uh…yes?”

I could see Beouf counting off in her head, trying to give a fair and ample time for response.  “Let me ask the question in a different way without trying to give the answer away.  When the babies act out, are they necessarily doing it to be mean?”

“Naw,” Mandy said. “It’s cuz they don’t know any better.”

“Sometimes they are,” Shauna argued.  “Being mean, I mean. You don’t put mayonnaise in your big brother’s hair because you think it’s not gonna do anything!.  It’s mayonnaise.  Everybody knows that stuff is gross!”

Beouf turned back to the corresponding page.  “Good point! Good point!  But what happens in the end?” 

An uncomfortable silence followed.  I rolled my eyes and said what I hoped everyone with an ounce of sense was thinking.  “The ‘moral’ of the ‘book’” I said using massive air quotes, “is that good or bad, bratty or babyish, we’re going to get the same end result.”

“That’s not exactly how I would have phrased it,” Beouf said, “I think a better way to look at it is…”

A gentle click of an opening door.  Beouf stopped and looked up over the lot of us.  “Sorry,” a familiar voice stage-whispered.  “Miss Zoge sent me.” I  rolled off of Janet’s lap and stumbled to my feet.

“Miss Tracy,” Beouf said gently, “now is not a good time.”

“Oh,” Tracy inched back towards the door she came in.  She thumbed towards the nap room.  “Sorry, Mrs. Beouf. Mrs. Zoge told me that uh…one of your students… needed some company.  Thought they were in the…”  She finished with an exaggerated and embarrassed shrug.

“I think she meant after school,” Beouf said.  I looked back and forth at  the two Amazons, too proud to beg, and too impatient to wait.  If I’d been a “good baby” it was only because I didn’t want to lose the opportunity to check in with my aide, and I was too preoccupied with what I’d talk to her about.

Tiny Tots. Little Land. Sunshine Academy.  And Enchanted Forest..?  No, that didn’t sound quite right.

“Oh yeah,”  Tracy scratched the back of her head. “Yeah. Sure.”

Janet twisted and leaned back. “If you want to come to my room after the buses, you can.”

Tracy brightened a little.  “Sure!”  She already had one foot back out the door.  “I’m just…gonna go now.”

“Everyone say, ‘Bye Miss Tracy!’

“Bye Miss Tracy!”  A couple of them parroted because Beouf had already broken them.  Sandra Lynn and Jesse especially, I reckoned.  Chaz and Billy just wanted a chance to be obnoxious and shout anything at the top of their lungs.  

The Tweener, all primped up and proper looking like a schoolmarm, backed out of the room. “Bye” That got another loud smattering of bye-byes.

Janet stiffened and shot up to her feet..  “And on that note,” she laughed awkwardly, “I only have ten minutes to get any food in my gullet.”  She readjusted her cardigan and hurried out without so much as giving me a kiss.  “Bye, Clark!  See you after school! Love you!”  She slid out the door just in time for Mrs. Zoge and Ivy to slide back in.  The two almost bumped into each other and gave polite squeaks of apology in passing.

The blood was rushing to Janet’s face. Why had she been blushing?  I looked back towards the door Tracy had left by.  Oh dear, was Janet cosseting Tracy, now?!  I in no way wanted a ‘big sister’, and I wouldn’t want the past month and a half I’d gone through to befall anyone. (Maybe Brollish. Okay, Forrest too). A darkly humorous thought: Maybe it was nothing I did.  Maybe there was something in the air ducts of that room that drove Amazons baby crazy.

I put the whole thing out of my mind, lest it sour my mood and I lose my focus.

Tiny Tots. Little Land.  Sunshine Academy.  Enchanted Forest? That still didn’t sound right.  What was it?

**************************************************************************************
Tiny Tots.  Little Land.  Sunshine Academy.  Enchanted Forest Daycare? No. Enchanted Woodland Daycare. That was it!  I  had been saying those names to myself over and over and over. Based on what Amy had told me about the regulars at Little Voices, those were the big four independently owned and operated daycares in Oakshire and the surrounding areas.  

There were smaller, religiously operated ones that I knew existed. St. Judy’s was one I think.  Then there were the Daycares that practically banned clients from attending Little Voices; or more likely the Amazons that dropped their padded livestock there off were so old fashioned as to avoid Little Voices meetings on principle. 

Those four daycares weren’t the only rackets in the county. I just wanted to cross off the biggest ones first…

I looked up from the collapsible playpen in Janet’s room.  Her head was down, she was grading papers with one hand and entering them on her computer with the other.  Hyper focused and productive like a machine.

A pity.

That probably meant that I wasn’t going to be allowed to grade papers this weekend.  That meant that none of her students would get a taste of the Little experience: Every single one of them would get what they earned.

Not that I could blame Janet.

Still, a pity.

Tiny Tots. Little Land. Sunshine Academy. Enchanted Woodland Daycare. That’d start. That’d be enough.  I kept looking back to Janet’s classroom door.  Where was Tracy? She was supposed to be here.  Had she forgotten? Had she been escorted off campus again?  Why? She promised.

“Gonna be a while,” Janet said.  “I’m getting all the paperwork done right now so that we don’t have to do any on the weekend.”

“That’s fine.”  My eyes kept drifting over to the door.  Tracy? Really? Again?

“Good.”  “Do you want a toy or a bottle or…?”  Her eyes darted down to below my waist.

I covered myself as best as I could, folding my hands in my lap.  It didn’t work, but I felt better about it.  At least I’d been put back into Monkeez.  “I’m fine, thank you.”

She might have checked me with more than her eyes if her hands hadn’t been so preoccupied.  Thank goodness for math homework and spelling tests.

A polite, soft, timid knock at the door.  Janet didn’t look up.  “It’s open,” she called out.

Tracy slinked in, still dressed in those prudish constricting clothes, but at least she had her hair down.  “Sorry I’m late,” she said.  “I had to help clean up the classroom, otherwise I would have been given heck for staying late.”

“Sad but understandable.”  Janet hadn’t looked away from her papers or school desktop. If she had she’d have known that Tracy was talking to me.

“Yeah,” Tracy said. “Lots of small annoying things, and one very big one…” She threw me a conspiratorial smirk.  I smirked back.

Janet laughed, only paying half attention.  “I bet. Like what?”

“Oh you know,” Tracy went on. “Just making sure the room is ready for Monday morning and give the custodians less work to do. Vacuuming. Wiping counters and desks. Emptying the-” She lost a beat. “Emptying the garbage.”  She looked at me uncomfortably.

Mother fucker!  Was that witch in my classroom still doing the same shit she’d done to Elmer?  Beouf might not allow her in her room, but she was royally fucking up mine!  I grabbed the playpen railing and squeezed it, pretending that I had strength enough to crush the cage.

“Mommy,” I said. “Can Tracy take me outside to talk?” Tracy’s eyebrows almost reached her hairline.  

Janet didn’t even look up.  “That should be fine.. Just stay close.  Tracy, feel free to bring him back if he starts trying anything naughty or gets fussy.’

“Yes ma’am.”  Tracy approached the playpen and hoisted me out of it. “Ooooh boy,” she groaned.  You’re getting heavy!”  I was set on my feet instead of her hip.  “Come on. Hold my hand.”

I took it, and we walked out into the fresh air and afternoon sun.   “Thanks,” I said. 

 We were about twenty feet.  A small benefit of an open campus is that there aren’t as many hallways or corridors where secret whispers can be heard.  We were basically talking in one big concrete and grass field with the third and fourth grade building to our backs, the Cafeteria to our left, the front office to our right, and way way ahead of us were the building that contained our respective classroom.  The only way we could have gotten more auditory privacy would be to mosey all the way out to the P.E. field.  As long as we didn’t shout, we’d be fine.

“Mommy?” Tracy scoffed playfully. “Really?”

I blushed. “What? When I call her Mommy I’ve got a better chance of getting my way.”

“That’s how they get ya, Boss” Tracy said.  It wasn’t mean. It wasn’t inaccurate either.  Also, I felt buzzy hearing her call me that.  Talking to Tracy was the closest I’d gotten to talking with a non-mindfucked Little.  “I get it though. You’re trying to survive as best as you can.  Just like you told the Littles in our corner.”

That made me grimace.  “Pretty much.”

“What did you want to talk about?”

“About your promise,” I said. “The one you made me on my first day?”

She looked away and nodded, trying to seem inconspicuous.  “Yeah. I remember.”

“So I’m working on something.  I’m not sure of all the steps yet, but in a while, probably after the fall festival but before Winter Break…” Shit. How to phrase this without sounding suspicious? It would be difficult for someone to listen in without us knowing, but not impossible.  “Before Winter Break, I was thinking of taking a vacation.  A very long one.”

Tracy stopped and took a knee.  She grabbed me by the shoulders.  “Clark. Stop. I can’t know. Everyone at the school is a mandated reporter.  If I know and anyone finds out…”

I brushed her hands off. “No no no no,” I shook my head. “Not what I was talking about. Completely misunderstood!”  Not really. She was pretty spot on about this.  I was getting out of here and back to freedom, eventually. It just wouldn't do to have anyone overhear that. “I meant Janet is taking me to the Littles Museum!”

“Oh. Okay.”  She kept kneeling.  “Had me worried for a second, boss”

“But it’s a surprise,” I added.

“A surprise?”

“Yeah, I think Janet is going to be taking me there. As a surprise.  That I’m not supposed to know about.”

“So you think,” Tracy repeated, “that you’re going to go away. On a vacation with your Mommy. But it’s a surprise so you don’t know when?  But you think it’ll be sometime between the Fall Festival and Winter Break.”

Lie code established. “Exactly.  I’ve only figured out some of the details. I said, but I’m pretty sure there’s a really good chance that it’ll happen.”

“Okay,” Tracy said, guardedly. “So what do you want me for?”

“I was hoping that I might take a friend with me.” I said. “A Little friend. Or even if I couldn’t take her, I’d like to know where she is.  Make sure she’s safe…or…or something.”

The Tweener stood up, and looked away.  “Okay.  Yeah.  Um.  I haven’t had a whole lot of success in that area.”

That hurt to hear, but it wasn’t surprising.  “Okay. That’s what I figured.  You’d have told me if you’d found anything.”

“Of course.”
 
“I’ve been talking to people.  People that know stuff.” I meant Amy. “Where have you looked so far?”

My friend was on the lookout.  I joined her, nervously glancing over my shoulder. “Oh. You know.  Here and there.”

“Cool. Cool. Where?  Tiny Tots?”

Tracy thought for a second. “No. Not there.”

“Little Land? That’s a big one.”

“Not there either.”

“Sunshine Academy? That’s the next city over, but it’s still pretty big and not that far.”

She was looking distinctly uncomfortable.  “I don’t think so…?.”

“Enchanted Woodland Daycare?”

She took a breath, and closed her eyes. “No.”

“Okay,” I said.  “Where have you checked?” My arms flopped at my sides in exasperation.

“I can definitely tell you that she’s not at New Beginnings,” my assistant said proudly. “I know a guy who knows a guy, and there’s no Cassie there.  Nobody that even looks like her.  Nobody who was enrolled the same week as you.”

A sinking feeling was making its way in my stomach and it had nothing to do with lunch.  “You haven’t checked back?  She might not have been enrolled right away.”  

It was then that I realized that Tracy wasn’t keeping a lookout for eavesdroppers.  She was doing her best to avoid eye contact with me.  “Um…I can check again if you want..”

My leg twitched with me wanting to stomp my foot in anger and frustration.  “Tracy,” I almost yelled. “Where have you searched for my wife?” Fuck lying.  Fuck code. I needed answers. Right now.

“Well I…uh…” she stuttered and stammered, “I…uh…I looked online for local daycares and…um… I found a few that had…um… limited capacity and zero openings.” She exhaled and offered me the weakest smile. “So I’m positive Cassie isn’t at any of those.”

I suddenly realized that my mouth was hanging open. “Tracy!”

She held up her hands defensively to her chest. “What? What am I supposed to do? Go to every daycare and ask if they’ve got a Little that looks like her?”

My fists bunched up and gnarled up to my chest.  “Yes!”

“Boss, do you know how those places work?  I’m a Tweener! If I’m not dropping off a Little or looking for a job, they might decide that I’d look good in diapers and a bonnet!”

“So ask for a job!”

Her response was rapid fire. “When? On the weekend? Most daycares are closed then!  What happens if they offer me a job?  If I don’t accept then and there, they might think that I’m being immature or have maturosis or whatever!” If I didn’t know any better, she’d been thinking about this more than actually searching for Cassie.

I exhaled and pinched the bridge of my nose. Tracy was screwing around and needed me to tell her exactly what to do.  Oddly enough, it felt kind of empowering.  “Okay,” I said. “Okay.  Here’s what we can do.  How about when we walk back, we talk to Janet about you becoming a babysitter.  So far she only has one.”

“Clark…”

“Maybe you can get some extra cash and store it away for later.  It’ll give us more time to research and plan together.”

“Boss…”

I was pacing. “And then on the next three day weekend, or maybe an early release day, you could offer to sit me and take me out on the town, and we can investigate together. You’ll pretend that you just adopted me and that you’re shopping around. That’ll get us a tour.  And nobody cares what the babied Little is searching for, so I can be more brazen about it.  I’ll just be looking for friends or something…”  I was also avoiding eye contact, staring at my shoes so that I didn’t notice Tracy’s uncomfortable fidgeting.  “Maybe you could get me some pants for me, too.”

I stopped and took a breath.  Tracy’s mouth was opening and closing like a fish.  

“You’re not gonna do it. Are you?”

“Boss,” Tracy tried, “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” I snapped. “You promised!”

“I know, but…”

“You promised me!”

“It’s really hard!”  If anyone was out, walking to the front office or the cafeteria, or just from one unconnected classroom to another, they could hear us. “Clark, it’s been really hard without you! I’m scrambling just to keep our class together.  Half are developing really nasty attitudes and the other half are this close to falling apart!  I can’t risk leaving them!  Every night I come home I’m completely physically and emotionally exhausted!”

I gestured to myself. “My time hasn’t been restful, either!”

She turned her head slightly and grabbed her right elbow with her left arm  “Well, you at least have an earlier bedtime…and a comfy crib.” 

My voice lowered back down to a whisper. “They didn’t force you to leave campus that day, did you?”

Tracy looked blindsided. “What?”

“Someone might have come into your classroom and asked you to leave, probably phrased it as telling you that you could go home for the day, but it didn’t really take that much persuasion, did it?”

“What? No…Boss.”

“Maybe somebody followed you to your car to make sure you left, but that was it.  You didn’t even try to go with the plan to adopt me. Didn’t even mention an interest.”  I was building up steam.  More than steam. 

“Clark…” she said.  “We had that plan, but it wasn’t really a plan.  Just a fantasy. And you cooked it up and kind of pressured me into it.”

Something close to a growl rose up out of me. “Typical Tweener,” I hissed. “The only thing you’re good at is looking out for yourself. “You’re only sad you lost a cushy job working with me.”

“Boss, that’s not true.”  She looked like she was close to crying. “It’s more complicated than all of that.”

“Come here. I need to tell you something.”

Trustingly, stupidly, Tracy leaned in to meet me eye to eye.  On some level, I think she knew what was coming.  That’s when I spat in her face. The glob of saliva landed right above her right eyebrow and dripped down to her cheekbones before she wiped it off and gingerly flicked the spittle to the pavement.

“Okay,” she said. “I kind of deserved that.  So you get that on-” I gave her a matching glob on her left eyebrow, this one straight on.

THWACK!

The slap rocked my world and I stumbled over myself trying not to fall over and skin my knees on the concrete.

“I said you only get one.” Tracy told me.  “I meant it.”

Don’t cry.  Don’t cry.  Don’t cry. Don’t cry.  It didn’t hurt as bad as a giant spanking but it was straight to my face. “Oh. So you… keep that promise!”  That didn’t sound nearly as cool out loud as it did in my head just then.

My face wasn’t throbbing but it stung like hell. No bruising, though.

“I warned you.”

“You hit me.”

“I warned you!”

“You hit me!”  The last syllables echoed off the bricks.

Tracy leaned in again. “What are you gonna do about it? Tell your Mommy on me?” I had nothing.  Not even saliva. Of course I wasn’t going to do that. She stood up and smoothed out the wrinkles in her skirt.  “Come on.  Let’s go to the bathroom.  Put some cold water on your face.  Wait for the.redness to go down.”

My hand took hers.  “Yeah, fine.  Whatever.”  If the redness hadn’t gone down enough, I’d just tell Janet that I was crying and screaming at Tracy and that I never wanted to see her again for the rest of my miserable life.  That wouldn’t have been a lie.

Tracy never got caught for slapping the taste out of my mouth.  Late on a Friday afternoon, even in a place like Oakshire, people want to go out and start their weekend as soon as possible.  Even educators.  Especially educators. 

 Brollish very well could have gone home.  Forrest’s spot up front was too far away.  Only the teachers in hardcore mode remained on campus, and they were all holed up in their classrooms, grading and filing everything all at once so that they could have a few days’ relief on Saturday and Sunday.  A custodian might have seen something, but they were all Tweeners, too. They weren’t snitching.

 Me? I’ve never told anyone.  Not until now.  

“I really am sorry,” Tracy said on our way to the girl’s bathroom.

“Fuck you.”

“Yeah,” she agreed, looking straight ahead and not at me. “Sounds about right.”

 

[something101]

Tracy is definitely hiding something. 

[YourFNF]

I feel like Cassie was to savvy to let herself get adopted... I think she's either dead or on the run... And I'm definitely leaning towards the theory she had something to do with his adoption...

[something101]

11 minutes ago, YourFNF said:

I feel like Cassie was to savvy to let herself get adopted... I think she's either dead or on the run... And I'm definitely leaning towards the theory she had something to do with his adoption...

Maybe used Tracy to help carry out her plan 

[BabyJilly_S]

Even if she wasn't involved, I feel that at the very least Tracey got threatened by someone to back off else "you're next" ....

 

 

[YourFNF]

1 hour ago, BabyJilly_S said:

ven if she wasn't involved, I feel that at the very least Tracey got threatened by someone to back off else "you're next" ....

Definitely

[Moon3ye]

I have no sympathy for Clark.

His behavior towards Tracy as a tweener is absolutely not fair.

I also think that Cassie started the fire herself and fled to her parents.

Clark played with fire and got burned, but doesn't realize that he probably had a really good time with Janet.

[BabySerenity]

Is there gonna be more to your story??

[Samriis]

2 hours ago, BabySerenity said:

Is there gonna be more to your story??

Oh yeah... there are an additional 20 something chapters on his patron account.  But they are only released when a new one is ready so we just have to be patient.  

[Personalias]

Chapter 84: A Different Date Night

It was Saturday night and Janet was buckling me into the carseat. “Ugh,” I groaned. “Do I have to go?”

“Yup, yup,” Janet said.  “Sure do.” She clicked the five point harness into place, locking me in.  No escape now.

“Why?” I whined.  In reply she gave me a look, like I was deliberately trying to stall.  To be fair, she was half-right.  “No, seriously,” I said.  “What about Jessica?  She can come and make sure I don’t escape.”

Janet stayed there bent over in the rear passenger door.  “Jessica has a life, too, you know. She’s busy.”  She tapped me on the nose.  “That and after what a terror you were on Wednesday she might not want to for a while.”  The way she said it, it sounded both condescending and begrudging. Like she was still kind of upset with me, but still adored me.

Damn, I hated that.

She closed the door and I followed her with my eyes as she walked around to the driver’s seat.  Even through the steel and glass I could hear her humming.  She’d been humming all damn day.  Changes, lap bounces, meal time.  All humming.  She even hummed when she was leaving me alone or letting me sulk or batting around baby toys or hiding in that obstacle course box.  Because she wasn’t humming to me, she was humming to herself.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out why she was humming. Not that it was a secret. She’d started preparing me for this as soon as we got home from school that Friday.  As the hours whittled away, and she started brushing her hair down and putting on those jeans that clung to her hips and that white off the shoulder blouse the whole thing became more and more real to me.

She was excited about tonight.  Making herself pretty.  Not that she wasn’t normally pretty.  It’s just that “teacher pretty” and “date night pretty” are two different categories.  Makeup can be used to make someone seem warm and inviting and nurturing, and then reapplied to become enticing and alluring.   

Even her perfume was different. Most days, Janet smelled of lilacs and violets and jasmine.  Settling, comforting, gentle scents that made the brain want to sit down and cuddle up.  Or at least take a breather and listen to a lecture about sentence diagramming. 

Very maternal. Very motherly.  Very Amazon.

At present, she smelled like citrus: Wild, vibrant, and alive!  The kind of smells of a tropical forest where one danced and drank and lived until one’s heart was ready to explode out of their chest!

As for me, I was in a diaper and a Muffet Littles T-shirt. My pantsless punishment procedure was still in full effect on the weekends.. No shoes or socks either. I wasn’t going to be doing much walking this trip.  So she was dressed for the dance floor and I was dressed for the ball pit in one of those crappy pizza places.

“What if Mark meets us here, instead?” I asked once Janet had turned on the engine. Fewer people would see me that way, and I could at least retreat to the relative privacy of my nursery. Would probably still be stuck in a highchair for dinner, though.  Such was life.

Janet glanced at me in the rearview mirror. “Do you really want Mark to know where we live?” she asked, coyly.  “Would that be okay with you?”  Once again, she’d cut past my defenses and hit at a broader soft spot.

“I’m not calling him ‘Daddy’.” I said, firmly.  “Or ‘Uncle Mark’ or anything like that.”  I inhaled and grimaced at just the thought.  “Not even ‘Mister Mark’ or whatever his last name is.  He’s not a teacher. He’s not my…he’s not you…he has no authority over me whatsoever.”

“Whoah! Whoah! Whoah!”  Janet laughed.  The car turned out of the neighborhood and started heading towards the highway.  “Slow down there, buddy!  This isn’t that kind of dinner.”

Sure seemed like it.  “Oh?”

“Mark is just a nice man who wants to be my friend.” Bullshit.  Janet kept going. “And I enjoy talking with him at the meetings.  Now I want to spend some time with him outside of the meetings. See if we have more in common.”

I rolled my eyes. “But why do I have to be there for it?”

“Clark. You know why.”

Yeah. Because she wanted to be peak Amazon and tote me around as her padded, drooling trophy.  I looked down for my pacifier.  Lion was still M.I.A. and I needed something to crush or smother.  Funnily enough, Janet had forgotten to re-clip it on.  How about that? 

“Because you can’t afford to pay a sitter and Jessica is busy,” I said. 

“Because you’re one of the most important people in my life and I’m not ashamed of you.”  I had no comeback for that that I hadn’t tried a million times before.

“I hhhhh….hhhhh….”  Nope. The words still weren’t coming out.  “Janet…”

“Look on the bright side,” Janet took the ramp up to the highway.  “It’s a long drive to the city.  The three of us might talk for a while, or the service might be slow.  Chances are we won’t be back home until past your bedtime.” 

“True…”

“I get to talk with another Grown-Up, we both get to eat some fancy food, maybe some dessert, we’re going out of town to a place where there’s zero chance anyone will recognize you from school, and you get to stay up past your bedtime.” She gave me just a second to let me absorb all of that.  “And all I’m asking is that you try and not say anything nasty to Mark.  Deal?”

Logically, Janet made a great deal of sense.  Just why did she have to make sense about this? I rubbed my cheek, thoughtfully. The phantom sting of Tracy slapping me yet lingered.  It’s not like I had a lot of agency or any friends at the moment.  In war, peace talks are often used as a stalling tactic.  “Fine,” I huffed.  “But I get to talk smack about him all the car ride back.  Forrest too.”

My former co-worker laughed and said, “Deal.  Do you want to listen to some music?”

“As long as it’s not kiddie music.”

Janet smiled. “Not quite.”  She patched her phone into the car speakers and that’s how I learned about the abomination that is Tot Rox; where Top 40 hits are remastered, rearranged and re-recorded by heavily autotuned children accompanied to classroom instruments. At least I knew most of the words without it being nursery rhymes.

Approximately forty five minutes later, Janet parked the car and scooped me out of the seat.  I looked up at the sign on top of the building and read it.  “Mer-Cow?”  The sign, all in yellow, featured a detailed sketch of a creature with the front end of a cow and the back half of a fish.  “That’s…different.”

“Burgers and sushi,” Janet explained.

“Ah.”

Still next to the car, she gave the front of my Monkeez a quick squeeze and a pat.  “You’re fine. Still crinkly. A little wet, but still crinkly.”  Then she lifted me over her shoulder long enough to gaze down the back.  “Yeah. You’re fine.”  And she readjusted me and kept walking.

She took her purse but left the diaper bag in the front seat and carried me through the parking lot.  That made me oddly happy.  It signaled that I was going to get changed in the backseat instead of the ladies’ room, assuming I got changed before the car ride back at all.  As counter intuitive as it may seem, having the car roof over my head and Janet leaning over me provided me more privacy than out in the open of a restroom.  Too many restrooms put changing stations just past the doorway so that everyone could get a look at your business before they did theirs.

A feeling of like a rock in my stomach signaled that sometime within the next twelve to fourteen hours, I’d be forced to mess myself.  Darkly, I considered forcing it at an opportune time to end the date.  It’s not like I hadn’t done it before or that it was below me at this point.  A douche like Mark deserved no quarter.

The place was a slightly upscale “fusion cuisine” restaurant, meaning it was casual hipster pretentious instead of rich and snooty pretentious, with an entrance made of glass so that you could see the all yellow interior and people already seated and having a good time.

Janet opened the door and carried me in, so that I could see the fully stocked bar (that I would not be allowed to partake in), and what passed as modern art paintings hanging on the wall above the booths and tables.

An Amazon hostess stepped up to greet us.  “Hi there, welcome to Mer-Cow!  How many in your party and how many highchairs, or will just the one be enough?”  She looked Yamatoan, but she had none of Zoge’s accent. So Yamatoan, but not from Yamatoa? I was probably overspeculating.  None of my business anyway.

A random intrusive thought: That might be how Ivy had gotten Adopted. A vacation to the old country turned into something much much worse.  It would certainly explain a lot.

“Oh no, it’s just him for the highchair.” Janet said. As was her habit she gave me a light bounce in her arms whenever she was talking about me. 

“Lucky Little guy!”   She made a curling motion with her finger and started zeroing in on the underside of my chin.   “Somebody’s gonna get all the attention at din-din!  Yes he is! Yes he is!”

Janet pivoted, putting herself in between me and the hostess.  “We’re meeting someone here, actually.”  She craned her neck.  “Mind if we look around?”

“Oh sure, go ahead and-” 

“Found him!”  She walked past the hostess and straight to the booth.  Of course she found him.  How could you miss anyone that face?  With oily black hair, ears that were too far back, a nose that was too pointy and somehow a chin that was too big and weak at the same time, Horsey McDoucheface aka ‘Mark’ was easy to spot.  

He was wearing a maroon turtleneck too! Like some kind of beatnik or a wanna be college professor minus the tweed jacket.  Oh no, was he a professor?  Please no!  Not another so-called educator in my life!  Not Mark!  

“Hey,” he waved to us, and stood up and gestured to the seat in front of him. “Good to see you, Janet!”  The way he smiled at her: Ugh! And those teeth!  If he didn’t have braces as a child it was only because those chompers were literally too big to wriggle out of place.

“You too,  Mark. You don’t have to stand up.”  Janet and Mark each got their own side of a booth.  I got a wooden highchair slid up to the middle, so that every server would have to shimmy and slide behind me.  I wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

Janet threaded my legs through the holes and buckled me in, tightening the strap around my waist.  It was the cheap, generic kind of highchair that only existed in public eateries. No tray.  No real backing.  It was basically a bar stool that I was physically incapable of removing myself from. The soles of my feet barely grazed the uppermost rung.

With me secured, the two giants hugged each other, and I had to do my best to not vomit up the chicken tenders I’d been fed for lunch.  It was just a friend hug, but Mark was no one worth being friends with.

The pair sat down and were more or less eye level with me.  Mark regarded me and flashed a weak smile. “Hiiiii Clark.”  His voice was subdued and unobtrusive…like a total douche. He looked nervous.  Oh crud, was he cosseting me? Was this why he was interested in Janet?!

No. No, no, no.  Don’t panic.  Not yet.  It’s too early in the night. Try to be decent. Try to be decent. Just try.  Such a fucking douche!  I inhaled and exhaled again before speaking.  “Hi. Mark.”

The asshole smiled like he’d just won something.  “It’s good to see you!”

“Thanks,” I said.  Just be nice. Just be nice.  Just be…nice.

A brunette Tweener waitress in elevator shoes that could have doubled as stilts walked up to the table. “Hi, welcome to Mer-Cow, I’m Laurel and I’ll be taking care of you tonight.”

“Thank you very much, Laurel.” Mark said. Oh how fucking corny.  I closed my eyes so I could roll them less offensively.

The Tweener handed out two menus and slapped down a paper mat on my edge of the table.  “Before we get started, how many checks will this be? One, two, or three? I’m kidding, I’m kidding!” She fake laughed at her own joke. “One or two?”

The giants exchanged pensive looks. “I don’t mind.” Mark said.

I saw Janet’s eyes glance over to me.. “No, don’t worry about it,” Janet said. “Two’s fine,” she told the waitress.  “And I’m covering him,” she indicated me.  My spirits soared.  Then she looked back over to Mark.  “You can get the next one.  Then I’ll get the one after that.”  

“Sure, sure,” Mark said. My expectations were immediately tempered. Just a friend. And the Hydra was just a snake.  

“Okay,” the waitress said. “Before I give you folks a minute to look at the menus, what can I get you to drink?”

“I’ll have a Mocha-Cola,” Janet said.

Mark said, “Sounds good to me.”

“And what about the Little guy?” the waitress asked over my head.  “Milk? Juice? We’ve got apple and orange.  Is he allowed to have soda?”

Janet turned her head and regarded me.  “Clark?”

Me? She was asking me what I wanted? Not ordering for me? “Um…uh…” I wracked my brain.   You don’t realize that exercising choice is a kind of skill set until you go without it for nearly two months.  What to order?  Vodka! No. No one would give me vodka! Not here! Not dressed like this! What though?   “Can I just have a water?”

“Sure, hon!” The waitress beamed.  “I’ll get you some water!”

“Thank you,” I said.

“Oh wow, Clark.” Mark said. “That’s very polite of you.”

“Clark can be very polite,” Janet said. “When he wants to be.”  Touche.  Mark laughed.  Fuck Mark.  He wasn’t wearing glasses anymore.  I wonder how much damage I’d do if I stuck my thumb in his eye.  Would it be more or less if he had contacts in?  I wondered.

“Let’s look at the menu real quick.”  They looked at their full menus, thumbing through thick laminated pages describing the intricacies of each dish: hipster appetizers, spicy martinis, burgers that had sushi ingredients and vice versa.

 I was relegated to the kids section.  I picked up the paper placemat and flipped it over. On the back there was a maze, several blank tic-tac-toe boards and an even goofier looking version of the restaurant’s mascot.

I flipped it back over and read it. I didn’t technically need to read it, since every entry had a doodled version so that children or prisoners could just point instead of reading.  The menu looked…kind of interesting, actually.

It had the typical options like grilled cheese, and chicken tenders, but it also had some sliders.  A slider to an Amazon might mean a decent bite for me.  Simple sushi options too.  Too bad the sushi section bragged about not needing chopsticks. 

The waitress returned with our drinks. Janet and Mark got tall glasses filled with bubbling soda.  I, of course, got a cup with a sippy lid.  “Okay, guys, do you need more time to look over the menu or are you ready to order?”

“I think we’re ready to order,” Mark said. He double checked with Janet. “Right?” Then looked to me. “Right?”

“I’ll have the firecracker roll,” Janet said.  

“And give me the black and bleu burger, hold the bleu.”  Mark said.

Smartly, the waitress pivoted around so she could make eye contact with me.  “And what about you, sir?”  Janet was grinning like an idiot, as if a Tweener talking to me like I was a so-called big person was just so gosh darn cute.  

I gave the menu one last look.  A particular item had, in fact, caught my attention.  It was weird, and very childish by design, but it seemed too weird not to try at least once.  Odds were I wouldn’t be eating here again any time soon.

“Can I please have the peanut butter and jelly sushi?”  It was just the sandwich cut up and fashioned into mock rolls, but the idea was amusing.  Better than macaroni and cheese or messy boneless wings covered in teriyaki sauce.

The waitress smiled her big fake professional smile.  “You certainly may.” She turned her head to Janet and stage whispered, “He’s so polite!”  Janet looked more than a little proud.  Almost like she wanted to abduct me all over again.

“Ohhhh,” Mark said to me.  “Very sophisticated.  Good choice, buddy.”  My blood turned cold as a lanky, bony hand playfully patted me on the shoulder.  He addressed the waitress. “Any chance I could get one of those too?  Might be good for a side dish or a dessert.”  

The wink settled it. I tugged on the Tweener’s sleeve.  “Actually, would it be okay if I changed my order to the cradle roll with the fish, cucumber and extra sweet cream cheese?”

“Of course, sweetie.” She pivoted slightly, “As long as it’s okay with your Mommy.”  Just calling her my Mommy had sealed the deal and we both knew it.  Janet nodded her approval.  “Do you still want that pee-bee-and-jay roll, sir?”

Mark looked like someone had snuck up and given him a wedgie. “No, no. That’s fine. Thank you.  I’ll just stick with the burger and fries.”

“Okie dokie. I’ll put those orders right in.”  She reached down a pocket of her half apron.  “Crayons?”  They were a pair of plastic wrapped  and double sided cheapos. Red and blue on one, and green and yellow on the other.

Janet started to speak for me. “I don’t think he’s inter-”

“Sure.” I said. “I mean, yes please.”  I reached up and took the crayons.  The wrapping was so flimsy that it broke in my grip.

“Okay. I’ll be back to check up on you in a bit.”  The Tweener scooted around my chair and back towards the kitchen.

Mark and Janet waited till she was gone and tossed one another a look. “Still testing boundaries?” Mark asked.

“Always.” Janet said. “And that’s okay.”  She reached out and brushed my increasingly curly hair.  I didn’t flinch.  “Clark likes things on his own terms as much as possible. It’s something I love about him. It means he’s always thinking of new and interesting things to do.”

“You mean like painting the frog?” Mark joked.  “Oh my gosh. That was such a good story!”

I scowled. “Hey! What the-?”

“Clark…”  Janet’s face was more pleading than stern.  I stopped myself.  Be nice. Be nice. Be nice.  I had to at least wait till I got my sushi.

Douchey McHorseface feigned sincerity and said. “Sorry, Clark.  I didn’t mean to talk about you like you’re not here.”

Fuck this jackass. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay, and I won’t do it again. I’m sorry.” The balls on this guy! Telling me I apologized wrong!  “Your Mommy told me the story based on what your teacher told her.  Would you like to tell me what happened when you painted the frog?”

I picked up my cup. “No, I would not.” I started gulping down refreshing cold ice water.

“Sure thing, dude.”   Clearly, Mark was trying; really trying.  Trying to get on my good side as a way to suck up to Janet and weasel his way in, but he was still trying. Creeping on Janet.  Creeping on me.  Janet might deserve that, but I certainly didn’t.  Scratch that thought, not even Janet deserved that horse toothed scarecrow.

Mark was savvy enough to stop leaning on me and pay more attention to Janet.  Janet was lonely enough that she let me be and talked with Mark.  I minded my business: drinking my water, and scribbling on mindless paper.  Occasionally Janet leaned over and inspected my ‘art’.

When Mark talked, I pretended to listen and worked on the maze at the back of the menu.  From bits and pieces that I picked up on accident, I learned that he was a sales representative for a frozen food delivery company and had been promoted to regional manager and Oakshire had a lower cost of living.  

Boring!

Also, he was an aspiring Indie Game Designer and his real passion was in programming, game mechanics, and non-linear storytelling. Damn it! That was kind of interesting! Cool even!  Also, people usually didn’t have to look at a game designer’s stupid face or hear their annoying voice so if he made it big in that field he might be making the world a better place.

Janet talked about her crop of students this year and the various stupid kid eccentricities and stupid stories of them literally saying the darndest things.  Then she mentioned the frustrations she was having, as students who were acing her lessons were still making simple mistakes all over the place.  

“It’s like they’ve got it in class, but as soon as I let them try it on their own, they keep messing up,” Janet winged. 

My focus shifted and my brain switched priorities so that I listened more intently and only pretended to doodle.  Don’t laugh. Don’t laugh.  Don’t laugh.  Don’t cackle maniacally and shout ‘You fool! You’ve fallen victim to my masterstroke!’  Fucking around with a few times table tests and grammar homework wasn’t going to be my masterstroke.  Not by a longshot.

“It’s like I’m trying to teach them to ride a bike, and everytime I let go they crash into a mailbox.”

I saw a pair of lanky, greasy, disgusting hands twitch.  Janet had placed her hands near the center of the table.  Mark was.resisting the urge to reach out and take them.

“It’s okay, Mommy,” I said.  “You’re doing your best. They are too. You just need to figure out what misconceptions there are in their schema and build up from there.”  She was doing her best. I was doing my worst. “You’re a good teacher.”

Janet leaned over and pressed her forehead against mine. “Thank you, Clark.  That’s very nice of you to say, and makes Mommy feel a lot better.”

“You’re welcome.”

The waitress came back carrying a tray of food.  Saved!  “One black and bleu burger, hold the bleu.  One firecracker roll.  One cradle roll.”  She passed out the dishes the way a card shark dealt a hand of blackjack.  “Some more colas. And one extra water for the thirsty boy.” She swapped out the glasses, mine included.

Finally! Some food! Maybe now people would shut up when there was something to stuff in their face holes.  “Clark do you need help with-?” I’d already shoved the first piece of sushi in my mouth. “I guess not,” she laughed.  Playfully she picked up her own piece of fish wrapped in rice and seaweed and popped it between her lips, mirroring me.  “Who needs chopsticks?”

Mark’s mouth was too full to be coherent, a great improvement, but I was pretty sure he said “I know, right?”

The first piece was pure impulse to show that I didn’t need Janet to separate the pieces for me or help me any more than she already had.  The second piece was purely for my enjoyment.  Taking the time to really chew and savor the different flavors and texture.  Mostly savory, and a bit dry, but there was more than a hint of sweetness that didn’t overpower the dish and the crunch of the cucumber really brought something to the table.  

This was good.  This was really really good.  It wasn’t proper barbecue, but it was damn good! Food that wasn’t pureed and poured in a jar to be spoon fed, or come with a toy. It was near heavenly.  At that moment, I felt kind of like an adult again, and if I just ignored literally everything about me below the neck I could let myself pretend for a few minutes.  The food was good enough that this seemed reasonable.

I started paying attention to the restaurant and people watching.  Nothing I hadn’t seen thousands of times elsewhere, of course:  Amazons and Tweeners all enjoying a meal.  Littles were confined to highchairs or laps. By turns they were being fed or feeding themselves finger food.  A few were munching on sushi rolls, too. 

Their Amazons alternately talked to each other and fawned over them.  None of them cried or called out for help.  They’d all learned that lesson, or were too broken to learn much of anything anymore.  All of them seemed…happy enough. Content?  Or maybe just beaten down.

 No adult Littles, though. Not a single person my height or shorter wasn’t adopted.  Were we really so rare a breed these days?  Or was this part of town just known to be unsafe?

We?

Wow.  How about that?  

  A baby’s cry, a real one, sounded off, and a young mother got up and started rocking her child. I popped in another roll and witnessed a wave of Amazons paying sudden extra attention to their Littles.  Basically, the real child slammed up against their collective lie and cognitive dissonance was forcing them to double down on their particular brand of madness.

I wouldn’t have been surprised if Janet decided just then to pepper me with kisses to the cheek and whisper sweet nothings about how good she thought I was being. 

Turns out I was half right. I got a quick peck on the cheek, but then Janet stood up and grabbed her purse.  “Excuse me, I’ve got to go freshen up.” She had that same look from yesterday. Almost like she’d peed her pants.

Both Doucheface McHorserson aka ‘Mark’ and I watched her until she disappeared behind the swinging door.  I wondered if he was jealous knowing that if Janet had checked me just then, I might have been able to convince her to take me with her.  More than likely she’d have to double back.  It’s not like she could leave me on a fold out table while she sat down, but the jab was still there.

“So Clark,” the thing that would not take a hint said, “you like the Muffet Littles?” He pointed to my shirt.  “I used to watch them all the time when I was a kid.”

He was trying…very trying…extremely trying.

“Not really,” I said flatly.  “I prefer the Muffets.  Janet just couldn’t find a shirt my size.”

“Janet?”

“My Mommy.”

“I know, just…nevermind.  I won’t tell.  Why do you like the Muffets?  What do you like about them, I mean?”

My eye twitched. Had I not been in a low quality highchair I would have grabbed a soapbox to stand on.  “Their best comedy is timeless and while it isn’t offensive to children, it doesn’t purposefully dumb anything down so adults can enjoy it too.  The Muffet Babies are okay but it’s very much a show targeted at children to teach them about using their imagination. It’s well meaning, but not as good.”

Mark nodded. I swear I could hear his brain clanging around in his skull.  “Cool cool. Cool cool.”  Jackass hadn’t really been listening. He just waited until I stopped talking so he could reply.  He took another bite of his burger.

“They’re also losers.”

The giant swallowed and took a sip of his drink. “Beg pardon?”

“They’re losers.  Screw ups.  Misfits.  Their comedian can’t tell jokes, their chef can’t cook, and their diva is literally a pug.  Things break all the time and something always goes wrong right before the final act that forces them to improvise or cobble something together.  One episode they had to perform at a bus station because their usual theater was being bug bombed.  But they always do it.  The show goes on, and they get to perform another day, even though any rational person would quit or give up. There’s something kind of endearing about that.”

“Are you a Muffet?”  Mark asked.

Now it was my turn to take a drink, swallow, and ask “Beg pardon?”

“Are you a Muffet?” Mark repeated himself. “Do you feel like them? Like a loser, or a screw up?”

Poor Mark.  I swear I was very very close to kind of, sort of, almost tolerating him. Just because he sat in a room with other Amazons swapping stories about how they managed to emotionally and psychologically whip their Littles into submission, now he thought he was a therapist or something.  

How Typical. 

“Look Mark, just bec-”

“Hi Janet.”

Janet took her seat.  “Hi boys. Sorry about that.”

“Don’t worry about it,”  Mark said.

“Hope you two behaved yourself,” she ruffled my hair.  She really meant me, even though she was signaling both of us.

Proving my point, Mark said. “Oh yeah. Clark was great.  He was telling me about the difference between the Muffets and the Muffet Littles.”

“Muffet Babies,” I said.

“Right.  What did I say? What’s the difference?”

“I can explain it to you, but I can’t make you understand.”

Janet threw her hands up in mock exasperation. “Don’t get him started!”

They laughed.  I didn’t.  I took another slug of water and finished my dinner.  Janet was so going to hear about this on the drive back to her place.

“So Janet,” Mark said. “I was thinking…”

“Yes?”

The horse with two feet leaned in and rested his elbows on the table. “I’ve learned a lot from listening to you and the others and doing the research into the benefits of Adoption and doing it right.  So I’m going to do it. I’m taking next week off and calling an agency.”

“Awwww!” Janet squealed. “I’m so proud of you!”  The queasy feeling in my stomach wasn’t just because I was close to being stuffed. That poor Little!

“So maybe next time we do a date, it might not be a date-date, but it can be a playdate.”

Oh geez! Screw that. This misery was in no mood for company.  Especially if it meant seeing more of Clip-Clop the Frozen Food Clown.

“You bet,” Janet said. “Girl or boy?”

“No clue. I’m going in with an open mind.  I’m going to look through the available case files and go from there!  See who really reaches out to me.”

Janet let out another “Awwww!”  Followed by,  “That’s so good of you.  You’re gonna make a great Daddy to somebody.”

“You and the others have inspired me,” Mark gushed. “I don’t just want to Adopt a Little.  I want to save them.  Just like you saved Clark.”

Save me? Save me?!  What did Janet save me from?  From my marriage?  From my job? Technically, she saved me from New Beginnings but…

“Though thinking on that,” Mark interrupted my inner ranting and rambling, “I’ve got my suspicions about my secretary.  She’s been acting rather erratically lately.  Lotta potty breaks too.  What did you say were some of Clark’s symptoms when his Maturosis started to manifest?”

Okay.  Enough.  Full stop.  Time to derail this the only way I felt I could. I gripped the sides of the bar stool highchair, raised my bum and gave in to the pressure that had been silently gnawing on me and growing the whole evening.

BLORT!

Janet popped up and I plopped back down  “I know what that means!”  She started looking down at her feet and under the table

Blushing furiously, I settled back down, promising myself that it would make more work to clean up.  Hadn’t thought it would be that loud, though.  Or that wet.  But mission accomplished.  Heh. Butt Mission Accomplished… “Oh Mo-!”  I stopped. My cocky grin didn’t even have time to settle.

Nothing was settling.  Something was dripping however.

There’s no delicate, dignified way to say this, but it’s very easy to get used to a diaper over the course of several months.  The way the wetness wicks away, or out the lumps settle into place.  I’m not referring to the degradation or humiliation of the act.  Forget about hygiene.  I’m just saying that a body gets used to how things feel when the diaper is working properly and everything is contained.

The warm not quite solid wetness scraping at the back of my thighs and the putrid wet trickle going down my legs were signs that nothing was properly contained within. Whatever had been crammed up inside of me had been placing pressure on my bladder too and it exiting made my bladder relax.  It was my final I.E.P. meeting as a teacher all over again, with shit running down my legs and piss dripping down the front.

 Mark grabbed his napkin and started dabbing at my ankles and calves.  “Uh-oh!  We’ve got a bit of an emergency.”

“Mommy I…I…” I couldn’t get the words out.  I looked down at my ring finger, the tan line long since faded. “Janet…”

“Diaper bag? Where’s the d-ohnoIforgotitinthecar!” She blurred out of the front door with me reaching out after her, silently begging her to take me with.

“It’s okay,” Mark shushed me, dabbing me down with napkins.  “It’s okay. Your Mommy will be right back.”

“No…” I whispered.  

“There’s no reason to be embarrassed. This happens to everybody.”

Not to everyone. “N..”

A stranger came up with a pack of wipes and a fresh diaper.  “I saw Mommy run out to the car.  If you want to, Daddy, you can change him so he doesn’t have to wait.”

Mark’s tremendous Adam's apple bobbed up and down like a lure that had snagged a big one.  “That’s okay.. it’s just…he’s just…he’s not… I don’t know if I should..”

“Oh, that’s fine. Keep the wipes and she can give me the fresh diaper when she gets back.”

“He’s not my Daddy!” I said.

My protest was instantly waved off. “Oh don’t be so fussy, baby boy. Just because you Daddy and Mommy Adopted you doesn’t mean they don’t love you.”  She was practically shoving the supplies in Mark’s lap.

“No,” Mark interrupted. “I’m not. I’m really not. And his Mommy hasn’t…I don’t know how she’d…we’d just both feel better if we waited.”  He handed the diaper back.

The stranger shrugged and went back to her table.  Her Little was blushing and trying to crawl into his own private embarrassment death hole.

Both of us at the table clenched up.  “Some people…” Mark said.

“I know, right?”  Douche had a point.

“You know what, Clark? I like you. You’re really lucky to have Janet as your Mommy, you know that?”

I’d tried to be nice. I really tried.  Something about that last comment just set me off.

“Lucky?” I hissed.  “You think I’m lucky?  I leaned in, no longer caring that some poor server was going to have to run a mop over my chair.  “You think this is lucky?  I used to be married.  I used to have a job.  A fucking career! I used to do things! Things that fucking mattered!  Maybe it wasn’t as important as I pretended it was in the big scheme of things but it mattered to me damnit!  But all of that is gone. Fucking gone! And I’m stuck here! With you! Waiting on the woman who snatched me up to get back with a new fucking diaper! I can’t dress myself! I can’t feed myself! I can’t even go to the fucking bathroom anymore! And it’s got nothing to do with some bullshit disease that doesn’t exist, it’s because people like you won’t let me! You’re not helping Littles, you’re just lying to yourself so you can kidnap us and pat yourself on the back at the same time!”

It all came out bullet quick.  I didn’t cry this time but I was still beet red and panting by the end of it.  It might have started as a hiss and a whisper but by the end it was shotgun loud and the rest of the restaurant had gone deathly silent.  They’d made themselves an audience to the melodrama of the evening.

Janet came in. All eyes were instantly on her. Scorn and pity and loathing radiated from the other giants.  So-called parents muttering about how their so-called children never talked this way to them or any other ‘adult’..

“I’m back…” Janet puffed out of breath.  “She saw the look of absolute hurt and terror in Mark’s face.” I had done that. Me.  I was too angry to show it but I felt kind of proud.  This was the face that had made Zoge cry.  I still had it!  “What happened?”  

The giant douche canoe stood up..  “I gotta go.”  

“Why?”

Mark didn’t answer.  He just went right to the waitress and dug out his wallet.  

Janet went into autopilot and got me out of the chair and took me to the bathroom to change me. No talking. No cooing. No humming.  Definitely no humming.

Mark had already left the restaurant when Janet had finished with me.  The waitress said he’d paid for all of us.  No one in the restaurant was talking, only pointing and whispering.

We didn’t talk on the ride back.  No music, either. Not even Tot Rox.  Janet tried calling Mark a couple times but it went straight to voicemail.  Her messages were all apologies and asking what was said or what happened.  She never got a call back.

We got back to Janet’s house and she dressed me into jammies and tucked me into bed without a kiss.

Still no talking.  From either of us.

She left the nursery. In the stillness and quiet of everything I could hear her start to sob walking down the hallway.  It almost sounded like she was bawling out the word “Why?” over and over again.

“What?” I asked her through the baby monitor. “It’s not my fault he’s a total douche!”
  
Mark never showed up to another Little Voices meeting ever again.

[Moon3ye]

Any other Amazon would probably have put Clark in front of a few videos by now so that he would finally accept his new life.

Clark can be glad that Janet is not like that.

I wonder if Mark was just scared of Clark or much more scared of the reality that Clark showed him.

Although I still feel that maturity really exists in this DD world and Clark really has it but doesn't accept it.