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

[Moon3ye]

7 hours ago, bobindiapers said:

At first I thought that an Amazon student was spiking Clark's coffee to get back at him for reason, or maybe Tracy did it to take over his class, or an Amazon did it because they wanted to adopt him but now I have a new theory: Ivy did it!

How would she do it? Clark mentioned that she is super strong, so she would easily be able to climb up to the coffee pot in Mrs. Boeuf's class and put something in it. Being in the classroom gave her plenty of access to the coffee.

Where would she get the poison? Because she pretends to be the perfect Little, Mrs Brollish or Mrs Forrest wouldn't notice her stealing a supply of poison from their own stash when Mrs Zoge was meeting with them and brought Ivy along, or just stopping in at the front office in the morning. At least I assume they have poison that makes Littles poop themselves.

Why would she do it? She mentioned that she always wanted to be his friend but that she was "a-scareded" and now they get to be friends. But that "perfect baby" act is all a load of crap. She is planning an escape but needs Clark's help. She figured that he never would have helped her when he was a teacher but now that she has forced him into this he has no choice but to help. There was no guarantee that Janet would adopt Clark, but Ivy would have had inside knowledge because Janet told Beouf about cosseting Clark who then probably let it slip to Zoge while Ivy was right there playing with a doll, blending into the background. So Ivy knew that Beouf would contact Janet to adopt him when the accident happened. Ivy had access to the diapers that went missing, framing Clark for stealing them. So she poisoned Clark and got him adopted by Janet and now she can get Clark in on her escape plan. She will reveal herself to be faking all of the baby stuff, she works out every night in her crib every night so that she can do some of the things that Amazons can but most Littles can't (open a diaper, for instance, with her "grip as strong as an Amazons"), she and Clark know the layout and inner workings of the school, I bet she has a plan and she just needs a second competent Little to pull it off.

Wow, when I started writing this it was kind of as a joke, but when I started thinking about it more I realized it kind of fits. My initial joke thought was that she wanted Clark as a boyfriend but then I started wondering why she would be super strong, and now I kind of think this might be plausible. 

Did I mention I'm really good at coming up with conspiracy theories? Usually I don't believe them though.

 

I really like the idea and if I remember correctly the author once said at the very beginning (somewhere in the first 10 chapters) that we shouldn't underestimate Ivy.

But I still have the theory, which I wish was true, that in this DD story this maturing that the Amazons take as an excuse to adopt Littles really exists and Clark really suffers from it. It would be such a funny plot twist.

[Panther Cub]

19 minutes ago, Moon3ye said:

I really like the idea and if I remember correctly the author once said at the very beginning (somewhere in the first 10 chapters) that we shouldn't underestimate Ivy.

But I still have the theory, which I wish was true, that in this DD story this maturing that the Amazons take as an excuse to adopt Littles really exists and Clark really suffers from it. It would be such a funny plot twist.

Same! He doesn't believe in portal littles and other dimensions after all, so maybe Maturosis could be a real thing!

... Maybe not as prevalent amongst the vast numbers of littles adopted, but still!

[Moon3ye]

3 hours ago, Panther Cub said:

Same! He doesn't believe in portal littles and other dimensions after all, so maybe Maturosis could be a real thing!

... Maybe not as prevalent amongst the vast numbers of littles adopted, but still!

No no see that is the joke about this dimension. 

Maturing IS an absolute problem and every adopted Littles has this problem. 

The free Littles and also the adopted ones just don't want to admit it. 

For a silly example try to explain to a person with alcohol or drug problems that he has this problem, he will not believe you and say he has everything under control and it is the same with the Littles here. 

There is MATURING as a real diagnosis and Littles can get that and they need that care, but because it is a problem that only affects the Littles a collective blindness has developed among the Littles to the problem so all the help from the Amazons is seen as enslavement, degradation and humiliation and not what it is the help they need. 

Littles can't help it that they don't realize that there is maturing. 

And the Amazons who only want to help this time are in their reality just as evil and mean as in most other DD stories.

Probably the story goes into a completely different story in the end, but I would find it funny if the Amazons for once are not the bad guys, but are just misperceived by the Littles.

[Personalias]

Chapter 43: Just Like The Little Kids

I felt the two fingers pull back my pants, checking my diaper.  Last time this had happened, I had the instinct to be very still.  To freeze.  To blush and slam my eyes closed in shock. To be a good and scared Little Boy and hope the big bad Amazon didn’t see any skid marks in my undies. 

Months later, my instinct was to slap the hand probing into the back of my pants as hard I could. To stand defiant and assert my authority as an adult.  To again yell “EXCUSE ME! DO YOU MIND?!” and make the giant woman startle and stutter and cower because of how surprised she was.

It’s weird. Times like this make me think that there’s no such thing as “instinct” where people are concerned.  “Instinct” is just whatever anger or fear or lust or gluttony screams in our brain at any given moment.  This time I went with it.

This time, I listened to “instinct”.  Immediately, I regretted it. 

THWACK!

I pivoted on one foot.  “EXCU-!”

A finger was wagging in my face. “No, no, no!”  Mrs. Zoge interrupted me.   “Don’t be naughty, Clark!  We do not hit in this classroom!”  She was leaning over me, looming.  The fight or flight clashed with itself and I didn’t know what to do.  “Turn around so I can check you.”  She pointed to the ground and made a twirling gesture, as if I didn’t understand.

I should have turned around and complied; pretended to be a good Little Boy. I wanted Zoge to lean over just a bit more so I could slap the hairspray off her head.  I knew doing so would be a bad idea. Not even half-an-hour in and I was already risking losing my chance to see Cassie come day’s end.  

Damn.  I really was an adrenaline junky.

What did I do?  I froze.  Not out of intentional defiance.  Not even stubbornness.  I was just too caught up in the moment to react one way or the other.  When adults pause, they can say they’re processing or considering their options.  When kids do it, they’re being rebellious and defiant.  I wasn’t an adult anymore.

“Fine,” Zoge said.  “Have it your way.”  

Floor zooming away from me.  Quick steps and then I was horizontal.  Staring again at the floor.  I was face down.  Across Zoge’s lap.  One arm against my back.

Spanking position!

I inhaled and flashed back to the baby shower.  Like an opera singer getting ready to perform I got ready to belt out a litany of excuses and apologies.  The Adopted Little’s Greatest Hits: No! Please Don’t! I’m Sorry! I’ll Be Good! I Promise!  I Was Just Joking!  I’ll Never Do It Again If You Don’t Spank Me! (And Many More…!)

I never got a chance.  Zoge’s free hand came down, but not to slap my bottom.  For the second time, she pulled the back of my pants open and took a good long look inside.  “Hmmmm…” she said.  “You’re not messy.”   She picked me up and rotated me on her knee and bounced me up and down for a few seconds.  “You’re a little wet,” she said.  “But you don’t need changing.”

“I…” I stuttered.  “I...no?  I…?” 

She noticed my frustration.  My fear too.  “Don’t worry,” she told me.  “I told you we don’t hit here.  ‘We’ means everyone; grown-ups too.”
 
She moved me from her lap and sat me in a chair.  It was a tiny wooden one, small enough for a Little or an Amazon Pre-Kindergartener to sit in and have our feet touch the floor.  “This is how I check squirmy and fussy babies,” she said.  “If you just let me check you next time, you’ll have more time to play.”

“I…” I flustered.  “But…”   Zoge was already standing up and going to her supposed daughter.  As far as she was concerned, I’d been sorted out.

Bullet dodged.  Correction: Gun not even loaded.  Yet no wave of relief came to me.  I was too busy fuming at her misdiagnosis.  I was not wet! My pants were perfectly clean and dry!  Rationally, it shouldn’t have been a big deal.  I knew they wouldn’t let me use the toilet today. Between my increasingly tender guts and just being pumped full of liquids with no alternative, I WAS going to defile myself at least once before school ended today.  

I just wanted it to be on my terms…

And for some reason having Zoge of all people- Zoge who I’d reduced to tears and had bowed before me last school year and in no uncertain terms acknowledged my adulthood-  think that I was playing around and fussing in wet pants drove a nail straight through my brain!  But what was I supposed to do?  Demand she check me again?  Tell her to not bounce me on her knee to see if I squished and squelched, but to grope me between the legs and really get in there?

That was futile.  That was madness.  So all I could do was cross my arms and huff as Zoge lifted up the back of Ivy’s dress and checked her.  Ivy didn’t flinch.  Like a good girl, she stayed still and sucked her thumb while her Mommy peeked down the back of her diaper and reached around to check the leg cuffs for wetness.  “Good girl,” she told Ivy.  “So mature!” 

Another example of the double-sided standards by how Amazons used the word “mature”.  Ivy was somehow more mature than me for letting someone else stick their hand in her underwear and tell her if she was wet or dry.  I was the bad one for wanting to assert my own agency.  “Mature” is really just a word that Amazons use to describe a Little who meets their expectations from moment to moment.  

Typical.

Ivy said something I couldn’t understand.  Zoge replied.  It was all gibberish to me.  They were speaking Yamatoan.  Yamatoa, where all Littles are diapered and babied by law.  A stray thought jolted into me just then.

What must it be like to be taken to a foreign land where literally everyone your size was treated like a baby without exception?   Where all the “adults” spoke a language you didn’t understand, and your own language could be ignored as “baby-talk”?  

It was bad enough here; but at least people my size not drinking from bottles wasn’t a foreign concept.  That type of immersion in a place like Yamatoa would be just as toxic and mindfucking as any hypnotic cartoon, and infinitely more insidious.  

 No wonder Ivy was so broken, so full-native.  Here, Littles like me were closer and closer to exceptions to the rule.  Ivy had been stolen away to a place where there were no exceptions and she’d literally had to be indoctrinated to communicate with people bigger than her.

Goodness help Littles everywhere if Yamatoan culture ever became typical.

My own reverie was interrupted by the sound of the first bell ringing.  The buses were coming in.  Teachers had to be ready to accept students into their classrooms.  Beouf’s class and mine (they were still MY students) would be gathering at the bus loop to go to breakfast.

Ivy waddled up and took me by the hand.  “Time to go, Clark.”  That gave Zoge a good chuckle.  She’d trained her slave well.  She took Ivy’s other hand and started to lead us to the door.

“What were you just talking about?” I asked. “With your…” I swallowed, already hating the taste of the word before I’d said it, “Mommy?

“I wanted a new diaper,” she said, casually.  “A pink one to match my dress.  Mommy says I’m still clean and dry.  I have to wait.”  My stomach churned again, this time threatening to eject topside.  Is that really what Littles like Ivy cared about?

A shadow went by the door, and I froze.  A kid!  A student!  The first buses were already unloading and students were walking on campus to their classrooms!  Right past Mrs. Beouf’s!  If we walked to the bus, they’d see me!  So many of them would see me!

Logically, this couldn’t be avoided.  Logically, a man in the middle of the ocean surrounded by sharks should just dunk his head and take a deep breath.  Better to drown before getting eaten.  Just get it over with.  Logic has very little to do with how things work out.  Sometimes you just gotta tread water and hope you can punch that Great White in the nose.  That or try and make him choke as he swallows you.

I dug my heels in and leaned back.  Right at the door, Zoge and Ivy stopped.  I tensed as I saw another blur- maybe a second or third grader- go by.  I felt their strength right then and there.  Even Ivy felt like she could drag me along if she wanted to.  They were stopping, but not because I was slowing them down at all. The two of them could crack me like a whip.  Only simple courtesy kept me from being dragged along.

 “Clark?” Mrs. Zoge asked.  “What’s wrong honey?”  I was still being given the benefit of the doubt.  Time to use it.  

“Um…” I looked around.  Had to stall.  Delay the inevitable.  The more time I stayed inside, the fewer people would see me crinkling around in a sailor outfit. “Can you show me around the classroom?” I asked.  “Give me a tour.”

Beouf’s assistant clicked her tongue.  No dice.  “You’ve been here enough times, Clark.”  Her free hand went back to the handle.

“But I never really paid attention before…!” I lied.  “I never needed to.”

Hand still on the handle, Zoge said, “Ivy can show you around if you want after we pick your classmates up and come back from breakfast.” She started to turn the handle.

“I’M WET!” I yelped. “REALLY WET!”  It’s all I could think of to stall.

Zoge narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips. An adult trying to sus out if she was being lied to.  “You’re fine.”

 “I know you just checked me,” I said, “but I think I went pee-pee even more!  I don’t wanna leak!” I pouted my lip out and made big saucers out of my eyes that a puppy dog would envy. “Pleeeeeeease!”

More hesitation.  Her hand was off the handle.  She was wrestling internally.  She’d put Ivy in a fresh diaper just before going to the bus loop I don’t know how many times.  If she really thought I was a baby, it’d be hard not to give me the same consideration.  Amazons hated looking like hypocrites. I turned over my shoulder towards the bathroom. As usual, the door was wide open, the changing table in easy view.  “The Little’s bus won’t even be here for another five minutes.” I said.  “We’ve got time…”  A bit of truth to add icing to the lie.

I could see it in her face.  I was winning. Even then in the doorway I was winning.  Every second I  was concealed from the general campus was a Little victory.  Add in the time it would take to change me- pants down, diaper open, frown because the diaper was clean all along (bonus!), diaper back on, pants up...maybe even a bit longer if she debated on whether or not to get a fresh diaper or hope that the adhesiveness of the old tapes would do the trick- and the bulk of students headed straight to class would have passed us by.  Damn, I might actually be getting good at this.

Zoge took the third option.  Releasing Ivy’s hand, she took a knee and wormed her hand up the baggy leg of my shorts.  I locked my knees when she snuck her fingers past the leakguards of my diaper.  My genitals wanted to retreat inside me when the back of her pointer brushed up against them.  The fact that Ivy still held my hand firmly in her grasp didn’t help.

“Hmmm…” Zoge said.  “You’re still dry.”  She rubbed some baby powder from her fingers onto her thumb. “Completely dry.”  She reached over and grabbed a wet wipe from the cubbies by the door and cleaned off her fingers.  “I guess we both made a mistake, huh?”

Damn.  I’d never figured Zoge for the “measure twice, cut once,” type.  Or in this case, the phrase was “check twice, change once”.

Just my typical luck.  

No more time was wasted. Door open.  Fresh air.  Full exposure. Nothing to do but be led around by a super-strong thirty year old toddler and her psychotic Mommy while pretending that the cement beneath my shoes was the most interesting thing in the world.

No eye contact was made.  Bodies went by in a blur.  My heartbeat was in my ears with every Amazon footfall.  “No running!” I heard Mrs. Zoge call after some kids.  At least she didn’t stop.  I didn’t try to see any faces along the way.  I couldn’t recognize any voices.  Not even I could recognize someone by their shoes.

We reached the end of the building, and walked that terrible distance in the open to the bus loop.  The majority of the buses were in the midst of unloading.  The kids getting off and mingling and mixing on their way to class or the cafeteria.  Their voices and conversations mixing into a high pitched garble that even a chipmunk had no hope of deciphering.

And still I heard everything...

“Is that Mr. Gibson?” 

“He’s with one of the baby teachers!”

“Why is he dressed like that? Is he wearing a diaper?”

“I heard he always wore diapers. He just hid it good.”

“He pooped his pants last week! He’s a baby now!”

“Toldja he was a baby.”

“Every Little’s a baby.”

I heard it all...even though none of them actually said anything like that.  Paranoia is a hell of a drug.

What I actually heard was the tired screeching of brakes as the last two buses pulled up.  Mrs. Beouf walked up.  “You go ahead and unload,” she told Zoge.  “I’ll watch Ivy and Clark.”

Mrs. Zoge nodded.  As always, she leaned over.  “You be good.”  This time, it was addressed to both Ivy and me.

“Yes Mommy.’

I made no reply.  No reply was good enough.  Zoge went to the bus to unload the other prisoners; unbuckling them from harnesses and baby seats that none of them had a chance of undoing on their own.

My left hand still trapped in Ivy’s grip, I looked to my right and saw the Pre-school bus just behind the Little’s transport.  Dressed up like she was coming into a job interview and just far enough away that I couldn’t hear what she was saying over the engines, a certain Tweener stood straight and tall.

It hurt to see Tracy like that:  Not the school-marmish blouse and brown skirt combo, though that was still unusually formal for her.  It was the way she stood there; waiting for the doors to the bus; not looking at me.  

I could have stared holes in her.  There was a deliberateness in how she ignored me, how she didn’t even shift her gaze over to Beouf.  She was practically a soldier at attention, waiting for the bus doors to open.  She knew what had happened last week.  There was no way she didn’t.  She knew I was standing there, looking like a resentful toddler; there was no way she didn’t.

She wouldn’t even look at me.  I had expected to see something from her; anything.  A look of guilt that she’d abandoned me to the giants. A sad and sympathetic smile, perhaps; to indicate that she hadn’t but there was nothing she could do to help.  She didn’t even go along with the gaslighting and give me a cheery smile and a friendly wave.  

It was like I didn’t exist to her.

That hurt. That really hurt. 

My gaze shifted up.  Standing behind Tracy was an Amazon; another teacher...my replacement, perhaps.  She was heavy set, even for an Amazon, with middle-aged wrinkles and a piggish nose and multiple chins.  She was dressed almost identically to Tracy; or more likely Tracy was dressed as a miniature version of her.  

Janet wasn’t the only Amazon who liked matching her outfit to someone smaller than her. 

The doors to the last bus opened, as just like the old routine we’d set in place, it was Tracy who climbed the stairs to escort our students off the bus.  Routine, and perhaps the fact that the intruding teacher would have a hard time in those heels.  Seriously...who wore heels when working with three and four year olds?

Something about her bothered me, and it wasn’t just her mean mug.  Where had I seen her before? I scanned her carefully, wracking my brain.  It was the purse!  I’d seen that purse before!  

The last time I’d seen this stranger, her purse had been filled with a rattle, a bottle of juice, and a diaper that had just barely managed to poke itself out.  This was the woman who had tried to help Brollish set me up!  I’d just been too sleep deprived and quietly terrified to take anything else about her sink in.  And now it looked like she had my job...

 Beouf squatted down in front of me, obstructing my view.  “I talked with your Mommy, Clark.”  I blinked and focused on her.  “She told me that you’re getting a special treat at the end of today, but only if I tell her you were good.  Do you understand?”

Sullenly, I nodded.  Yeah.  I understood.  Beouf was in on the plan. If I pushed too hard, too fast, or made any big scenes today, I’d never get to see Cassie ever again.  The pain still fresh, even the hope of seeing her was the thing keeping me afloat.

  I made myself look away: Away from the pretender who’d taken my place. Away from the fair weather friend who refused to acknowledge me.  Away from the two-faced traitor who had just been waiting for me to fail. 

 I had to keep calm.  I had to keep my shit together.

For Cassie.

Zoge came out with two Littles, one on each hip. The boy had a gray onesie with a cartoon cactus on it that complimented his eyes.  “Free Hugs” it read.  For some reason, his bare legs stood out even more because of the socks and sneakers on his feet. The girl’s nearly white blonde ringlets spilled over her face.  Her checkered romper dress looked every bit the infantile mockery of the real thing as my own sailor suit.   Unlike Ivy’s outfit, hers at least covered her diaper once Zoge set her down and pulled it straight.

“Billy, Annie,” Mrs. Beouf said to them, “link up.”  

Billy took my hand.  Annie took his.  Now I was well and fully trapped.  Cold comfort that I’d trapped Billy with me and Billy took Annie. 

A double take.  Billy looked at me and his mouth hung open slightly.  He didn’t speak, but I saw him move his lips.  “Gibson…”

I’d been made.  Recognized.  I saw the shock in his eyes.  The anger.  The hatred.  The cold satisfaction.  I felt a hard squeeze. Not painful. Just rough enough to let me know it could be..  I didn’t dare call out.  Didn’t whine.  Didn’t flinch.

Billy jerked his head away.  Gave Annie’s hand a squeeze and jerked his head.  Another double take.  Another look of recognition.  Shock.  Anger. Hatred. Grim pleasure.

“Shauna. Mandy, link up.”

So the chain continued.  In hushed whispers and hurried looks, every Little that had more than a week of experience in Beouf’s care was alerted to my presence.

“Jesse and Tommy. Link up.”

Some looked sad for me. Some seemed morbidly curious.

“Link up, Sandra Lynn.”

None of them seemed happy to see me.  I wasn’t a new classmate. I was fresh meat.

Chaz came out last, still stroller bound and diaper uncovered.  At least it didn’t look like he’d worn it overnight. “WHOAH!” he shouted.  “DUDE! THEY GOT YOU, TOO?”

My face filled up with red pokers.  I almost wanted a pacifier just then so I’d have something to bite into.  

Almost.

“Yes, Chaz,” Beouf said calmly and loud enough so that everyone- even the actual children right behind us- could hear.  “We have a new classmate today.  We’ll make introductions after breakfast, but I’m sure you’ll all get to be good friends together.”

“YAY!” Ivy, of course.

No one else said anything. The silence was answer enough.  This was going to be a long day.

Zoge handed the stroller off to Beouf and took Ivy’s hand. “Okay, boys and girls,” she said; her voice still had that odd and irritating musicality to it.  “Let’s go get some num-nums in our tum-tums.”

This was going to be a very, very long day...
 

[BabyJilly_S]

 

It's like death by a thousand cuts...still think he may be in for a shock when visit time comes...

 

[Moon3ye]

I would have already lost my mind or I would have done something that would have justified hypnosis with my short line, as far as my nerves are concerned.

[Sarah Penguin]

+

 

[Moon3ye]

On 9/4/2021 at 4:00 PM, Personalias said:

“Now you realize,” the hairstylist said, “that he won’t have any more hair after this, right? No more growing back.”

“Oh that’s alright,” the Amazon said.  “My widdle Percy-Wercy doesn’t need any hair to be cute as a button!”  She pinched his cheeks and was actually given a squeal and a peel of laughter.  God I hoped this was an act...or at least that this guy was so mind-fucked that no part of who he actually was remained.  It’d be the closest thing to being out of his misery...

“And if we want more hair, we can buy wigs.  Isn’t that right Percy?  Or maybe we could make you into a Priscilla!  Yes we could!  Yes we could!  Would you like that?”  The woman got more babbles and giggles from Little man.

 She stopped and stared into his eyes, perhaps gauging.  Perhaps feeling a flash of empathy.  Maybe even seeing into the man’s soul.   “If he’s going to have that blonde patch there, I think his eyes should be blue.  Can we get that done today?”

“Sure,” hairstylist number two said.

I always read stories again from the beginning, especially when I like them.

And I must say, just like the first time, this passage leaves me with a feeling of absolute discomfort.

I think this lady is a perfect example of the madness of the Amazons.

First wiping out his mind and then permanently removing his hair so she can turn him into a girl with wigs, because apparently in the land of DD where this is set it's not so easy with nanites.

Normally I would say get a doll but she has already made this poor Littles her doll.

[Personalias]

Chapter 44: The Most Traumatic Meal of the Day
There’s a big difference between breakfast service and lunch time in an elementary school cafeteria.  Lunch time is organized.  Every class has its own scheduled time and it’s own scheduled table with teacher assistants and cafeteria monitors keeping a close eye on the students. Students want nothing more than to sit, eat, destress and chat with each other about anything other than what they’re learning.  

There’s only a measly half hour, if that, per class from the time they leave their classroom door till the time their equally bedraggled teachers shamble out from the teacher’s lounge to collect them. But things are always moving at a steady clip.
Mrs. Katzenburg’s second grade class is throwing away their garbage and leftovers and leaving one end of the building, all while Miss Jeffries’s fourth graders are getting in line to get their lunches.  At the same time, there will be an aide wiping down Mrs. Katzenburg’s table, because as soon as they leave, it becomes Miss Jeffries’s table.
It’s chaos, (because kids), but it’s organized chaos.
Breakfast is worse.
Much worse.
There’s a little over half an hour from the time the first bus unloads until morning announcements and lessons start in earnest.  And well over half of the students in the school don’t or didn’t or forgot to eat breakfast at home or want a second breakfast.
There is no leisure.  There is no orderly filing in and out to the ticking of a clock.  It’s all rush in, get your single serving cereal or your pre-packaged donut or grilled cheese sandwich (yes, grilled cheese is a breakfast item according to the Oakshire school board and public school nutritional guidelines), find the nearest empty seat, shovel it in, and then get to your classroom.
Kids talk to each other, (because kids), but anything that could be construed as leisurely or conversational is frowned upon if not outright quashed.  Too many kids. Not enough time. Asinine rules about kids being allowed to take the food into the classroom.

The only exception to these circumstances were my preschool class and Mrs. Beouf’s “Maturosis and Developmental Plateau'' class.  Mr. Mann, Brollish’s predecessor, allowed me to make other arrangements and a cart was delivered for my students to eat in the classroom. Brollish grandfathered it in.
Way back when,  Beouf made the argument that since my children required so much supervision and were so young, they should get some special accommodations.  Mann and Brollish agreed to it on the condition that there’d be “serious repercussions” if my room ever developed a bug problem.
In hindsight, it’s a wonder some crazed giant in the know didn’t go to a pet store or bait shop and release a bunch of creepy crawlers in my room overnight.  I’ve got to think it’s only because they were sure I’d mess it up on my own or didn’t want the hassle of cleaning up the infestation they’d unleashed.

Beouf was the other exception.  It wasn’t ‘fair’ to expect someone with the needs of a less than two-year-old to keep to such a tight schedule.  That, and it’s not like they had graduation requirements.  ‘Babies’ didn’t take any big multiple choice exam, and the only data needed was whether or not they were happy about filling their pants and chewing on plastic blocks.  Beouf’s charges came to breakfast and stayed until Beouf and Zoge were good and certain that they’d had enough to eat.
I kept my head down, looking at the back of Ivy’s feet and biting my tongue to the point that I was sincerely wondering whether or not drawing blood might be desirable.   The highchairs, the “Little Lunch Area” as it were, were positioned at the far end of the cafeteria.  Every student exiting the building could get a good look at the Littles eating in their highchairs, reinforcing stereotypes and bullshit beliefs that this is where we belonged.
When we entered, the line to get breakfast was still backed up.  The first round of students were only just now starting to leave for class.  It wasn’t even eight o’clock and close to half the school population would see me being babied in broad daylight..

“Whoah!” a voice said. “Look at that.”  I cringed and squinted my eyes, too afraid to close them.  I was already being noticed.  Except the voice came from directly behind me; from Billy...my classmate.  Just thinking that felt weird.

The highchairs were gone.  For a decade, longer actually, the Littles in Mrs. Beouf’s charge had been forced to eat meals in a combination of barebones highchairs that were manufactured by the lowest bidder and garage sale hand me downs.  I always pretended those were from Amazons who’d decided to never adopt and just let their kids grow up, even if it was just as likely that they got a fancier highchair for their captive Little.

Denial is a powerful thing.
Those chairs had been an eyesore, and in more ways than just their purpose offending any decent person’s sensibilities, however.  I often heard custodians and cafeteria workers complaining about them.  They weren’t sturdy enough to be mopped around, and had to be moved and stacked against the wall time and time again and reshuffled for every meal.  ‘Musical highchairs’ the joke was.
I’d caught peeks of any number of until then nameless Littles letting Zoge or Beouf know what they thought of the cuisine by dumping it straight on the floor. Oops.  Baby didn’t like the spaghetti that day.  Now someone had to come with a mop...again.

They also had to be spaced a certain way, too.  With ten Littles, and two Amazons pretending to care for them, Zoge and Beouf were constantly shifting and shuffling, monitoring the behavior of adults who hated being treated like children. They couldn’t be placed too far from each other or Beouf and Zoge would run themselves ragged trying to force feed everyone.

As for too close: The ones bought specifically for the school were sturdy and weighted enough that they couldn’t be tipped over from inside.  The hand-me-downs, with a little help, such as another Little pulling while the first rocked, stood a chance of tipping themselves over.  When you’re prized for being cute and cuddly, self-harm is a form of rebellion.
I’d caught glimpses of such chaos. It was impossible not to.  Shrieks, and almost crashes.  Screams and cussing.  I’d taken mental notes.

To be clear, I never thought I’d end up in the situation I was in.  I also don’t think I’ll ever be chased through the woods by a machete wielding maniac with a hockey mask.  It doesn’t mean I haven’t given thought on how I’d survive a horror movie.
I heard Billy mumble something, but between the noise of the cafeteria and the fact that Billy was likely talking over his shoulder down the handhold chain, I couldn’t make it out.  It sounded like hope, though.  Hope never lasts long, however.  Not for Littles.

The highchairs had been removed.  That much was true.  Even from my height, it would have been easy enough to see the backs of them poking out above the heads of students and Amazon standard tables.  

In their place were something new. Something much more diabolical.  The script to my own personal horror movie had been flipped.  “Mommy!” Ivy yelled. “We got new seats!”

Zoge nodded.  “That’s right.  Mrs. Beouf’s grant finally got approved.”

Two large Amazon sized kidney tables took up the space.  The curved out middle section, the empty hole in the “C”, had an Amazon sized chair parked there.  The other chairs were built into the table itself.  Bright yellow bucket seats were installed into the table. Five to table..  

Communal highchairs.  Impossible to tip over from the inside. It’d take an Amazon really trying to flip it.  Save for the edges to the left and right of the teacher seat it would be harder to throw food on the floor, too.  Effectively five highchairs per table, and a spot for the guard to sit comfortably while still being within easy reach of the prisoners.

My heart sank.  I had intended to be ‘good’ on my first day.  But knowing defiance would be that much more difficult in the long term put a damper on any fantasies that I’d been carrying.  Not even I was feeling crazy enough to risk throwing food right in Beouf or Zoge’s face.

“Clark!” Ivy shouted back to me.  “We’ve got new seats!”

“Yeah,” I grimaced. “I know.”

One by one we were lifted and threaded into the bucket seats in the order we’d been led, leaving me sandwiched between Ivy and Billy in this giant communal highchair. We were quiet. Obedient.
Even Chaz didn’t resist or scream. He might have been loud and obnoxious being wheeled around in his stroller, but something had broken in him since we’d had that talk all the same.
We might have been lower to the ground than we would’ve been in the highchairs but the seats lacked footrests and our legs dangled. I instantly knew I hated the sensation. Not only was I trapped, but my legs were useless.  I felt more than just captured.  I felt weak. Helpless.  Small.

The other Littles had reactions that ranged from blase, to thrilled. Ivy, in particular, squealed like she was being put on a rollercoaster ride. I heard a few gasps and comments of “cool”.
Me? My head was already on a swivel.

My ex-coworkers were seating themselves in chairs facing us and away from the rest of the cafeteria.  That also meant that my seat was still facing over half the school.  And the new furniture equipment might not have been as gaudy or tall as the highchairs, but I was still facing the sea of faces.
Furthermore, the equipment was new.  People naturally take notice and give second glances at new things.  Had I been captured a week earlier, there’d have been a slim chance that students would develop a case of tunnel vision and pass by the same group of Littles that they did everyday, not taking note of the new one amongst them.

I would be noticed.  I would be recognized.
A cart similar to the one that was delivered to my old classroom was wheeled out by a Tweener cook in her fifties. I’d seen her in the lunchroom plenty of times, but I couldn’t quite grasp her name.  Save for the bibs neatly stacked on the corner, and a pack of baby wipes the contents were virtually identical to what my kids would eat every morning.

“Good morning, Mrs. Beouf, Mrs. Zoge.” she chirped.  “Good morning, Little Ones!”

“Good morning Agnes,” Beouf said.  She riffled through a few of the bibs, apparently having memorized whose was whose.  Zoge did the same and they went about tying them around the necks of their class..

“Clark...Grange?”  the Tweener asked.  She was holding up my bib and squinting at the initials sharpied on the back.  “Who’s Clark Grange?”
Meekly, I raised my hand.  I didn’t want to hear my own name, legal or otherwise, just then.  Didn’t want tiny ears to prick up at hearing my voice.  The lunch lady shuffled around and started to unfurl the bib.  Being a Tweener, she didn’t tower over the seat, but she could easily reach from behind and fasten the bib on.  

“Hi there!” she said.  I said nothing.  “I didn’t know Miss B. had a new student.  You’ll like her.  She’s a really nice lady.” I still said nothing.  I looked at her, but only out of the corner of my eye.  “Can you talk, cutie?”  Nothing from me. Her hand reached out and gave me a pinch on the cheek.  “Oh, you must be new to be so fussy.  Maybe some breakfast in your tum-tum will cheer you up.”  An image of me biting her fingers flashed across my brain.
Then a realization:  She didn’t recognize me.  She really didn’t recognize me.  With my lack of facial hair and my new status I was as much a stranger to her as she was to me.  When I was growing up, it blew my mind seeing a teacher or a doctor or any other professional out and about in public.  My parents always had to point them out to me, too.  People just don’t expect to see other people outside of certain contexts.  

The same was true for Agnes.  Word of my adoption hadn’t spread to the lowly lunch ladies yet, and for the time being I was just another Little baby on the first day of being broken down.  

Good.  Good.  Well, not good….but delayed pain is still delayed.  Point being, if word hadn’t spread to the entire faculty and staff, then the students had next to zero chance of knowing.  I’d made my career and life by being memorable and influential to Amazon children and banking on their parents looking right through me.  If I was going to last in this new life long enough to escape it, maybe I could pull off the inverse.

“Mr. G’s just feeling shy.”  I sucked in my breath and looked to my right.  Billy was leaning forward in the bucket seat.  A mop smug smile had blossomed right beneath his mop of messy brown hair.  A cruel glint in his gray eyes.  Seven days ago, I wouldn’t have been able to pick the guy out of a lineup; I did my best not to think of Beouf’s charges.  Billy’s grin made it look like I’d kicked sand in his face every day.

A look of recognition was just starting to dawn on the Tweener.  “Mister...G...?”  She looked at me with fresh eyes.

“Hi…” I mumbled.

A gasp. Then a confused shriek of “MR. GIBSON?!”  Heads started turning. Not just the Littles seated around me, but students sitting at the closest tables. Mutters of my name from prepubescent voices.  I froze, as if they were prehistoric lizards who were attracted to movement.
Fuck.
Fuck me.

A few kids looked down on the ground, as if I might be just underfoot.  Others scanned the breakfast line and looked towards the entrances and exit.  The older ones; the taller ones just starting to hit puberty and could see over their peers' heads; the ones who had had the longest time away from my example and influence; they were the ones that spotted me first.

There was no chorus of shrieks or laughter.  No ocean of mockery.  No ripping the band-aid off.  It was a smattering of eye contact and pointed fingers. An elbow to a friend.  A giggle hidden behind the palm of the hand. Like a thousand mosquito bites it kept happening and would continue to happen.  The schoolyard gossip chain had started.  By the end of the day, every student on campus would know that the one Little teacher was no longer an adult.
Ivy ripped me out of the frustrating future and back into the painful present. “He’s not Mr. Gibson anymore,” she said to the cook.  “Miss Grange is his Mommy!”

“Oh...yes…” the Tweener said.  “You’re very...lucky...Clark.”  The sound of my name looked like it left a bad taste in her mouth.  “Mrs. B. is very good at her job and I know you’ll be...happy...with your Mommy.”  She swallowed.  Now she was the one avoiding eye contact.  It was easier to baby someone when you didn’t know the adult they were once allowed to be.

“Agnes?” Beouf interrupted.  “A little help?”

“Oh! Of course.”  Breakfast trays were passed out, but the Tweener kept looking at me.  It reminded me of the way people have a tendency to stare at the corpse in an open casket funeral.  There was something both fascinating and repulsive about it.  I was the corpse.  “Frantz Toast bites,” she said, cheerfully.  “Finger foods.”  With all the grub passed out, she took that as her cue to leave.
Cafeteria food will never be gourmet, but calling fried bread bits drenched in imitation maple syrup “Frantz Toast” is an insult to all that is culinary.  Ivy, of course, dug right in, getting gobs of syrup and crumbs all over her mouth.  Others also ate quickly, if less messily.  Some even thought to daintily use their bib as a napkin.  In my mind, I started sizing the rest of the class up, guessing how broken they were based on how they ate.

Ivy was at the bottom of course.  Billy and Annie next to me seemed to have most of their dignity intact.  A guy in overalls at the other table was either halfway to toddler town or he hadn’t eaten in days from the way he refused to chew his food or wipe his mouth.  Chaz was actually nibbling his portion, going so far as to stick his pinky up in mock daintiness.  Zoge sat down at his table and said something that made him pick up his pace.

Beouf finally sat down at the table and took stock. “Don’t eat too fast, kids” she said. “I don’t want anybody getting a tummy ache.”  Then she saw my plate, untouched.  “Go ahead, Clark,” she told me sweetly.  “You don’t have to be shy.  Eat up before it gets cold.”

“We’ve got new seats!’

“Yes, Ivy, that’s right.” Then back to me. “Go ahead Clark.  Eat up.”  I hesitated.  Whether out of needing to processes, indecision, or a shred of defiance, I couldn’t say.  “Unless you want me to cut them up for you…”

I crammed the first dough ball in my mouth, chewed and swallowed.  Beouf cackled the way she had when we’d gotten one over on Brollish.  Now she’d gotten one over on me.  Real funny.  Real cute.

The second bite was easier.  So was the third. My new teacher stopped eyeballing me, satisfied that I was being good.  The adrenaline and panic of being noticed had suppressed much of my hunger, but adrenaline and panic could only go so far before basic needs had to be met.

On the fourth bite, my guts gurgled and I felt another cramp.  Oh yeah.  I hadn’t pooped last night and it was catching up to me, now.  I had nearly forgotten about it, but just as with hunger, adrenaline and panic could only go so far before basic needs had to be met.
I sat up as best I could and clenched my cheeks together.  That didn’t alleviate any of the pain as the next cramp wracked me. I let out a low groan and stuffed my mouth with more sub-par food.  I’d imagined myself making it to at least naptime after lunch before I’d need changing.  On average, I was able to make it till lunch without a bathroom break so it stood to reason the same would apply.  I’d fantasized about somehow managing to get to use a toilet.  But making it till Lunch wasn’t going to be in the cards.

I pictured myself hiding in the corner like my nephew did.  Maybe I could vomit and relieve some of the pressure that way.  Wasn’t vomiting an automatic ticket home sick?  Given the choice between Janet’s house and Oakshire Elementary, I had my preferences just then.  But then, I might not get to see Cassie…

Teeth gritted, I started to lean forward.  I might not be able to make it that long.

“Hi Mrs. Beouf,” an Amazon girl said. She had glasses and strawberry blonde hair and an almost birdlike boniness.  Girls tended to hit their growth spurts earlier than boys.  “Is that Mr. Gibson?”  Hyacinth.  One of my former students.  One of Janet’s too.

Beouf turned in her seat and regarded the girl.  “Miss Grange adopted him, so his last name isn’t Gibson anymore.”  She spoke with a matter of fact tone about it, neither good nor bad.
“Is he a baby?”  Leave it to a kid to cut right to the chase. I felt my face turn hot.  I bowed my head and crossed my arms, retreating into myself.  It helped the cramps a bit...not much...but a bit.
Beouf grabbed a baby wipe and ran it over the mouth of a woman in her late twenties wearing a Nora the Discoverer toddler shirt.  “He is now.”
The girl shuffled a bit, seeming uncomfortable.  “Was he always a baby?”
Beouf shook her head.  “No. Not always.  He grew up.  But Clark is a Little, and sometimes Littles will grow back down.”  I said nothing, knowing it wouldn’t help my case.  “So I get to be his teacher, now.”

The fourth-grader wiped her brow cartoonishly.  “That’s a relief,” she said.  Her nose wrinkled a bit.  “I was afraid that I’d been taught to read by a baby.”  The word was almost a swear coming out of the girl’s mouth.  “But if he just turned into a baby, that’s okay I guess.”
The giant woman nodded approvingly.  “Exactly.  Now quit stallin’ and get to class. If you wanna play with the babies, you gotta graduate, first.”

“Yes ma’am,” Hyacinth giggled and started off.  Before she left, she caught herself and looked right at me.  “Bye, Clark. Have a good day at school!  Thanks for being my teacher when you were an adult.  I hope you have fun being a baby!”
I stopped eating.  I clenched my cheeks even harder.  I didn’t care how hungry I was.  I wouldn’t debase myself in such a way.  I wouldn’t prove them right anymore than I had to.
“Clark?”  Beouf said.  “You stopped eating, hun.”  My plate was still about half full while the rest of the prisoners had cleaned theirs.  The two giants were grabbing fistfuls of wipes and getting at everyone else’s mouths and fingers  “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I pouted.  Another cramp made me wince.  Damnit.
There was another key difference to Beouf’s breakfast cart. The bottom rung of what used to be “my cart” was stocked with milk cartons.  No cartons for us.  Just bottles of milk.  “Here ya go,” they said to each Little.  All of them took the milk and started chugging away.  “Both hands, Shauna.  Both hands, Billy.  Good girl, Ivy.”  There’s very little one can do to look dignified or ‘grown-up’  when drinking a baby bottle full of milk.

And that was assuming that there was only milk in those bottles...my mouth went dry thinking about that.

“Pinkies in, Chaz.”  I heard Zoge say.

“Clark, if you want some milk you’re going to have to finish your toast.”

“I don’t want to finish my toast,”  I said simply.  “I don’t want milk, either.”

It must have come off as more whiny than I had intended; must’ve been the cramps. That or just as likely Beouf was looking for something that wasn’t there.  “Clark,” her tone took on an edge of warning. “I know your Mommy would be awfully sad to hear about you being a fussy eater.”
There were no more cramps by this point.  My entire abdomen was just one sharp ache punctuated occasionally by sharper aches.  Despite that, I  tried to think through the pain and reason with  Beouf, try to rebuttal in some way that wouldn’t activate her crazy.  Amazons, even typical ones, could be fairly reasonable as long as you didn’t poke at the center of their unreasoning.
But when I opened my mouth, I accidentally looked over her shoulder. My blood ran cold at what I saw next.  Toddling out of the breakfast line, last out of all the students and being escorted by Tracy, were the preschoolers.

My kids.  My students.  The four-year-olds that I’d already had a year with.  The three-year- olds I’d just started to teach.  

My students.
My kids.
My children.
My babies.

My successor had chosen to do away with eating breakfast in her classroom, and she brought up the back of the line, snarling and shooing the children to the nearest table.  “I know this is new,” I heard Tracy say. “But new can be fun!”  I imagine that her eyes gave away the lie in that statement, but I could only see the back of my aide’s head.  I only heard her because the majority of kids had already been pushed ahead to their class.  

The roar was gone, being replaced by the quiet echoes of garbage being tossed, opened mouthed smacking, and a kitchen staff starting to clean.

“Finish your breakfast, Clark,” Beouf said to my gobsmacked silence.  “Be a good boy and eat it all up.”  Then she tacked on, “If you don’t, me and you will just sit here until you do.  Mrs. Zoge will take everyone else to class without us.”  A quick glance to her aide and a nod confirmed it.

I did my own scan of the table.  My new classmates had a look that told me she was serious.  Ivy looked as though I’d been threatened with the death penalty, (as opposed to just cruel and unusual punishment).

I felt something inside me push.  My dangling feet flailed in panic.  It wouldn’t be long now.  “Okay, okay,” I said, terror tinging my voice. “I’ll eat. I’ll eat.  But please…”  I crooked my finger and beckoned her.  “Can I please...please…” I whispered when she leaned in, ”just this once...go to the bathroom?”
I hadn’t whispered quietly enough.  

“YEAH!” Billy yelled.  “I GOTTA GO POTTY TOO!”

“ME TOO!” Annie yelled. “I’M A BIG GIRL WHO USES THE POTTY ALL DAY LONG!”

A few more cries of “BIG BOY” “BIG GIRL” and “POTTY” rang out at the other table, making us seem like clucking hens...or small children who just wanted to hear themselves babble.

“I-BIG-GOTTA-BIG-GO-BOY-GIRL-POTTY!”

The preschoolers turned around, completely engrossed in the unfolding calamity. Tracy had to yank one down from the chair he was standing in.
I saw a pair of wicked smiles to my right. I didn’t know if Annie and Billy were purposefully using such childish vocabulary or whether it had just been coded into them, but I guessed at their intent.  They were trying to hurt my credibility by association.

“I know that’s a big old fib,” Beouf said to the pair.  “Billy, you pooped a few minutes ago, or did you think I didn’t notice you leaning forward and smiling like you do?”  The Little man in the gray onesie turned beet red at being called out.  “And Annie you were wet when I picked you up and put you in there.”  Annie turned pale and slinked down.  “Mrs. B. checks.  Mrs. B. knows.  Everybody here at the table needs changing except for maybe Shauna.”  

“And me…” I said, trying to keep my composure.  This was a losing battle.  The only thing keeping the back of my diaper clean was gravity and the hard plastic of the bucket seat.  Toilet or no, something was going to come out...and soon.  I’d still rather soil myself in private.

I saw my “teacher” work her jaw and mull it over for a moment.  I grit my teeth.  I didn’t have many moments left.  She looked to Zoge.  “What do you think?  Is he stalling?”

Zoge nodded, and in her oddly musical cadence said, “Most definitely.  He thought he was wet before the buses. Dry as a bone.  I don’t think he knows the difference.”
“Thought so.”  Beouf grabbed a piece of toast and held it out to me.  “Come on baby.  Eat up.”

Out of time.
Too much pain.  Too many muscles involuntary spasming. My palms slapped the table.  My body leaned forward.  “Ah.”  Beouf read that as an invitation to push the piece into my mouth.  

She pushed.
My body pushed.

The mess poured out of me into the back of my pants.  I kept my mouth open, panting as the hot mess spread, pressing up against the diaper before being smeared across my backside.  I didn’t will it.  I didn’t push it.  My body had just betrayed me.   I felt the lump grow and grow and the cramps lessen and lessen. In the back of my ear, like chewing a potato chip, I heard a nearly inaudible hiss as my bladder got in on the act and the soft crinkle as my Monkeez ballooned and expanded.  Finally, my strength gave out and I leaned back, squishing the lump in my shorts.
The whole act took less than thirty seconds.  Not quite ten, I imagine.  But for those ten seconds of agony, all eyes were on me.  Beouf. Zoge.  The other Littles.  My replacement.  My students.  Only Tracy pretended to look away.
“It’s okay, baby,” Beouf cooed at me, not a trace of guilt or embarrassment in her voice.  “Finish your breakfast and we’ll change you when we get back to our classroom.”

The preschoolers turned around and started eating their breakfast.  The few straggling older kids threw their garbage away and ran to class.  Nothing to see here.  A Little made poopy in his pants; it’s what Littles did as far as everyone was concerned.

So I ate.

I finished my Frantz Toast bites.

I got my mouth and hands wiped.

I drank my bottle of milk as fast as I could.

I got my bib taken off and then lifted out of the bucket seat.

I held hands with Ivy and Billy and reformed the line.

I walked out of the cafeteria and back to Beouf’s classroom.

All for the lie that it was okay and the promise of a clean diaper.

[Moon3ye]

If I still had sympathy for Clark then I would feel more and more sorry for him with the last chapters but as already mentioned I have none left for him.

But your chapters are really excellent. This systematic in the madness of Clark is described wonderfully. I'm just waiting for him to break and go crazy.

It is especially still so that I hold on to my theory that maturation in this world of DD is a real thing. It would explain so much.

[BabyJilly_S]

Clark is really going to run out of gas if he continues to fight everything. He needs to learn what battles to fight in this long "war".

A bit of pragmatism couldn't hurt him, though I suspect from what has passed previously his ego won't allow it...

[Panther Cub]

2 hours ago, Moon3ye said:

If I still had sympathy for Clark then I would feel more and more sorry for him with the last chapters but as already mentioned I have none left for him.

But your chapters are really excellent. This systematic in the madness of Clark is described wonderfully. I'm just waiting for him to break and go crazy.

It is especially still so that I hold on to my theory that maturation in this world of DD is a real thing. It would explain so much.

Same! Absolutely there are plenty of mature Littles who have been taken, mind-f--ed (either through hypnosis or just being conditioned over time), maybe even the majority of them. But still, Maturosis makes sense as actually existing! (And it certainly makes these stories that much more compelling!)

I wonder if it's okay for anyone writing a Diaper Dimension story to incorporate Maturosis? If so, I definitely want to use it in mine!

[Moon3ye]

54 minutes ago, Panther Cub said:

Same! Absolutely there are plenty of mature Littles who have been taken, mind-f--ed (either through hypnosis or just being conditioned over time), maybe even the majority of them. But still, Maturosis makes sense as actually existing! (And it certainly makes these stories that much more compelling!)

I wonder if it's okay for anyone writing a Diaper Dimension story to incorporate Maturosis? If so, I definitely want to use it in mine!

I think maturation is such a common and frequent theme in DD stories, mostly just as an excuse for Amazons to make Littles their babies, that you can incorporate it into your story without worry.

Personally, and this is important, this is just my personal opinion, you can be inspired by other authors as far as the content of DD stories is concerned and also take over ideas, but if you want to take over characters you should ask.

If someone sees that differently please let me know would then also like to know why.

[Personalias]

3 hours ago, Panther Cub said:

Same! Absolutely there are plenty of mature Littles who have been taken, mind-f--ed (either through hypnosis or just being conditioned over time), maybe even the majority of them. But still, Maturosis makes sense as actually existing! (And it certainly makes these stories that much more compelling!)

I wonder if it's okay for anyone writing a Diaper Dimension story to incorporate Maturosis? If so, I definitely want to use it in mine!

I don't have a problem with it.  Your rules and how it works and if it actually exists may differ from mine, and that's okay.  But I have no problem with the concept of Amazons justifying treating Littles the way they do because of a perceived condition. 

Maturosis was born out of me wanting something more "realistic" in terms of excuses beyond "Littles aren't mature enough to actually grow up".   I felt Amazons would use more complex sounding terminology to justify their beliefs and actions.

2 hours ago, Moon3ye said:

I think maturation is such a common and frequent theme in DD stories, mostly just as an excuse for Amazons to make Littles their babies, that you can incorporate it into your story without worry.

Personally, and this is important, this is just my personal opinion, you can be inspired by other authors as far as the content of DD stories is concerned and also take over ideas, but if you want to take over characters you should ask.

If someone sees that differently please let me know would then also like to know why.

I have that opinion as well. 

My concepts?  They're broad enough (and some of them adapted and borrowed from those who have come before me) that it's not gonna affect me.  Go ahead.  Take them.   They're a color palette to paint your own picture with that by the nature of art is gonna look different than mine (because different artists are doing it). 

I didn't invent the concept of the DD, but I'm putting my own spin on it.

My characters? THOSE are my "babies".  Please leave those alone. 

It's also why I won't purposefully ever put a character from someone's DD story into Unfair.  I might put winks and nods in there as Easter eggs and ways of acknowledging that a piece inspired me (like I did in the rumors chapter where Clark and Cassie are searching internet threads).  

But I'm never going to, for example, determine what Dr. Bremmer is doing or if she exists in this iteration.  Same for Emily of Chasing Emily, and any of the characters that any other author had created to tell their stories.

[Moon3ye]

7 hours ago, Personalias said:

I have that opinion as well. 

My concepts?  They're broad enough (and some of them adapted and borrowed from those who have come before me) that it's not gonna affect me.  Go ahead.  Take them.   They're a color palette to paint your own picture with that by the nature of art is gonna look different than mine (because different artists are doing it). 

I didn't invent the concept of the DD, but I'm putting my own spin on it.

My characters? THOSE are my "babies".  Please leave those alone. 

It's also why I won't purposefully ever put a character from someone's DD story into Unfair.  I might put winks and nods in there as Easter eggs and ways of acknowledging that a piece inspired me (like I did in the rumors chapter where Clark and Cassie are searching internet threads).  

But I'm never going to, for example, determine what Dr. Bremmer is doing or if she exists in this iteration.  Same for Emily of Chasing Emily, and any of the characters that any other author had created to tell their stories.

I also believe that the DD stories live from the fact that the authors "help" themselves to the ideas of the other authors or get inspired.

Just a few things that come to mind now so spontaneously, which were not in the original stories of PPP.

Nanites who make changes to the Littles. The main character from the original should be operated quite classically.

Inflatable pacifiers. I think in the original it was regular or pacifier gags.

Crawling diaper. But I'm not 100% sure about that.

Etiquette schools to break the Littles. There was something I remember in the original but it was more like an asylum or something, could be the same core idea.

The addictive and incontinent mother's milk of the Amazon. It was just in the original something that was there because of the original idea of DD.

Hypnosis cartoons. Yes there were in the original but I don't remember them being as massive as they are today.

All the different countries with their different rules about dealing with Littles. Logically this was not in the original, it was only about one main character.

DD has evolved so much with all these ideas that it's really fascinating.

Personally, I even find that because of the specific theme of DD (diapers, regression, etc.) it is a real pity that probably never a broad mass will get to know these stories but it will always remain something for interested, curious and lovers.

[Panther Cub]

9 hours ago, Personalias said:

I don't have a problem with it.  Your rules and how it works and if it actually exists may differ from mine, and that's okay.  But I have no problem with the concept of Amazons justifying treating Littles the way they do because of a perceived condition. 

Maturosis was born out of me wanting something more "realistic" in terms of excuses beyond "Littles aren't mature enough to actually grow up".   I felt Amazons would use more complex sounding terminology to justify their beliefs and actions.

I have that opinion as well. 

My concepts?  They're broad enough (and some of them adapted and borrowed from those who have come before me) that it's not gonna affect me.  Go ahead.  Take them.   They're a color palette to paint your own picture with that by the nature of art is gonna look different than mine (because different artists are doing it). 

I didn't invent the concept of the DD, but I'm putting my own spin on it.

My characters? THOSE are my "babies".  Please leave those alone. 

It's also why I won't purposefully ever put a character from someone's DD story into Unfair.  I might put winks and nods in there as Easter eggs and ways of acknowledging that a piece inspired me (like I did in the rumors chapter where Clark and Cassie are searching internet threads).  

But I'm never going to, for example, determine what Dr. Bremmer is doing or if she exists in this iteration.  Same for Emily of Chasing Emily, and any of the characters that any other author had created to tell their stories.

Yay!

[Personalias]

Chapter 45: Dis-Orientation

Hand in hand in hand we walked out of the cafeteria and through the empty courtyard of Oakshire Elementary’s open campus.  I grimaced with most every step.  I’d never had to walk around with a messy diaper, but my head was on a swivel for other reasons besides the newfound mass in the back of my pants.  There was still that lingering, gnawing fear at the base of my brainstem of being seen.  One of my old students would walk by and notice me again; rubbing salt in the wounds of my soul.

Rationally speaking, I was likely drawing more attention to myself in the act of looking around.  Rationally speaking, I needn’t have worried.  It was only the second week of the school year, just after breakfast, and none of the other teachers were likely comfortable enough to allow their students to walk the campus.  Even the safety patrols, those most responsible and privileged of teacher’s pets wouldn’t be allowed to run anything up to the front office past eight o’clock.

The only students not in their classrooms were the preschoolers that I used to teach.  That damage had already been done.

I wasn’t rational, though.  I was Alice through the mirror, in a world that looked so much like what I’d been used to but behaved so differently.  That’s what I told myself, anyway, to help the shock.  Rationally, I knew the world hadn’t changed.  I was just on the wrong side of the wooden bars, now.  

Didn’t stop my heart from pounding louder than my feet on the pavement.

“Awww,” Billy snickered behind me.  “Wussa matta? Is the widdle baby sad cuz he’s got poopie in his pants?”

My nose wrinkled and my lip curled back into a snarl.  Diaper shaming?  Really?  From a guy who shat himself moments after being seated?  I really had fallen down a rabbit hole.  “Says the guy who’s incontinent,” I hissed back over my shoulder.

I would’ve preferred to cuss the sonofabitch out, but I had the carrot of Cassie hanging over my head. I had to be ‘good’. Besides, I liked the word ‘incontinent’.  It sounded smart.  Sophisticated.  Grown-up.

“Not incontinent,” bald headed Billy hissed back.  “Just unpotty trained.”

“What’s the difference?”

Billy’s smile was not friendly. “You’ll figure it out, new kid.”  I did not like the way that sounded.

Our waddling toddling parade of losers circled around the back of the building and Zoge opened the door to Beouf’s classroom, and held it open while we trudged inside.  The handhold chain weaved itself out into a semi-circle near the whiteboard.

By our feet were tiny X’s. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what we were supposed to do.  Nevertheless, I didn’t sit right down with the other Littles when Ivy and Billy released my hands.

The mush in my pants had already been spread around in my seat from the ordeal at breakfast.  Sitting back down wouldn’t spread it more, at least not significantly.  There was just something that I found repugnant about the idea of willfully sitting in my own filth: Like it was an admission of guilt or failure.  Adults didn’t just willfully ignore what was going on in their pants.

“Ivy,” Beouf instructed a bit too late, “don’t sit down, yet.  Go to your mommy in the bathroom.”

“Yes, ma’am.”  Ivy stood up and did a curtsey.  She peeled off and half-jogged to the bathroom like an excited child.   Ivy was a ‘good girl’.  Ivy got changed first.

“Don’t you sit down, either, Clark.” Beouf told me.  

I felt a faint flicker of hope. Did that mean I was getting changed next?  “Should I go wait by the bathroom door, or…?”

“No, no.” my former mentor told me.  She took my hand and pulled me into the middle of the semicircle.  I heard tapes being ripped off and amplified by the nearby bathroom walls.  “Come here.”

My mouth went dry, and Beouf pivoted me to face the other Littles.  “Boys and girls,” she said, “Class.  We have a new student with us today. I thought before we started our morning meeting, we could take a minute and get to know him better.”  She patted me on the shoulder.  “Go ahead, Clark.  Introduce yourself.”

I stood there, with at least seven pairs of unfriendly eyes staring back at me. Ivy being there wouldn’t have made me feel any better and I had no idea where I stood with Chaz.  My mouth was dry and my pants were wet.  I was acutely aware of the smell emanating from the back of me and I found myself with the most curious case of stage fright.

It was a nightmare.  I was a teacher, even if I was unemployed, it was my job to be able to talk to people.  I’d talked to kids every day as if it were the most natural thing in the world.  These weren’t kids, just people being forced to play the part against their will. And they hated me.

“I’m Clark,” I said.  My mind went blank.  What else should I say?  My age? My education level?  Did any of my hobbies or adult life really have any bearing anymore?  Would talking about it even help my case, either with Beouf telling Janet that I was ‘good’, or with my fellow ‘classmates’?

I shuddered a bit.  There’s a reason why being called to the front of the class to give a report for a book you didn’t study is a near universal nightmare.  The whole ‘pretend the audience is naked’ trick is a psychological trick to make the people judging you seem vulnerable and less threatening.  They already looked plenty vulnerable sitting there, surrounding me wearing baby and toddler clothes.  I’m pretty sure everyone save Ivy would have preferred to be in the nude.

“Go on,” Beouf patted me on the back.  “Tell them more about yourself, Clark.  You’ve got a room full of future friends who just want to know more about you.” A look on their collective mugs put the lie to that.

“Um…”  I stopped and held my breath in anticipation.  Ivy had come back.  She skipped right over Billy and tapped a Little woman on the shoulder.  The girl got up wordlessly and went to Mrs. Zoge by the bathroom’s changing table.  They had a diaper changing order or something, and I wasn’t next.  Ivy sat down in her spot, her criss-crossing legs not doing much to hide that her new diaper was pink.  At least one of us was getting what they wanted…

Damn.

Ladies first?  Little who just got changed picks who’s next?  A preselected order or rotation?  It didn’t matter.  I wasn’t getting changed next.  Beouf and Zoge were probably going to make it so I was changed last; a petty bit of revenge for my stubbornness at breakfast or a way to condition me to getting used to staying in an unclean diaper.  

I sighed.  “I’m Clark,” I repeated.

“We know that,” Billy said back, sarcastically. “Duh.”  That earned him a warning look from Beouf.  Billy shrunk back down.  Beouf still had her ‘teacher face’ down pat.

“I’m thirty-two years old,” I said.  “I used to be a teacher here.”  Another thing they already knew, but a way to test the waters.

“Clark…”  Beouf said. She let my name hang in the air.  A bit of warning; a bit of worry.  Good Little dolls weren’t supposed to talk about their old life, evidently.

“I have a bachelor’s degree in elementary education with certification in that and early childhood education with ten years of experience and I used to be married.”  That was stupid of me, I knew.  I just wanted to say it out loud, though. To maybe get a bit of sympathy.  To rub it in Beouf’s face of exactly what she was doing to me.

Speaking of rubbing, a massive hand gave me a firm pat on the backside. Not enough to hurt me.  Not enough to even make a sound upon contact.  Just enough to remind me which of us was ‘the teacher’ and which one was ‘the baby’.  There was the line.  I was on thin ice

My nostrils flared.   “My favorite color is green…”  I switched gears. “I like the Muffets, but not the Muffet Babies or Muffet Littles or whatever they’re called.”  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a guy in shortalls; blue pinstripes and some cartoon animal on the bib obscured by his arms crossed over his chest. No one would mistake what he was wearing for anything ‘adult’.  

I watched him roll his eyes as I talked and searched for words.  I read his lips and heard him mutter.  “Helper…”

“I am not a helper!”  I didn’t raise my voice.  I didn’t stomp my feet.  I didn’t lose my temper.  I didn’t ball up my fists. But I didn’t look away, either.  I didn’t fucking blink.  

I wasn’t a Helper. Some people reading this might disagree.  I myself have waffled back and forth on it.  But standing there in a fucking sailor suit and smelling like a baby, feeling as low as I’d ever felt gave a certain kind of clarity.

I never willingly helped the Amazons hurt Littles.  I never told, nor tattled, nor set up someone who wasn’t already adopted to get snatched up.  Did I go out of my way to empty the unjust playpens and melt the ball pits of tyranny in the world?  No.  Not that I didn’t want to.  I just wasn’t in any kind of position to resist; just like a lot of us.  Just like a lot of the people (I hope) who are reading this now.

“Huh? What?” Shortalls said.  “I didn’t say you were.”

I didn’t reply. I didn’t argue. I didn’t break eye contact. The girl who’d just gotten changed came back and tapped the girl called Annie on the shoulder.  Annie got up slowly, not quite wanting to miss the unfolding drama.

It might have been just but for a solid silent five seconds, I was standing in front of the class and had caught someone disrespecting me. For one twelfth of a minute I was still a teacher.  Finally. He looked away and said “Sorry…”

“Clark?” Beouf asked.  “What’s wrong with being a helper?”

I felt a heat on me and realized my mistake too late.  Everyone but shortalls was staring.  No more bored but contemptuous gazes and instead a mixture of outrage and fear.    I’d let a bit of our lingo slip in front of the giants, broken some bit of unspoken prison code.

Whether or not Beouf already knew what the term meant when Littles used it was irrelevant.  I’d let it slip that I knew about it.  It would have been like telling her about a certain website or a certain style of party.  Some things remained secret and sacred, even when they weren’t.

I looked up at the woman who’d first betrayed me.  “Nothing, Mrs. Beouf.” I said. I smiled.  It didn’t reach my eyes and I knew it. “I said heffer. I thought he called me a heffer.  Like a cow.  I’m self-conscious about my weight…”  It was a flimsy lie at best.  The kind a naughty child concocts when he has no other options.

A lightbulb!  Change the subject! “I also like yoga,” I said to the rest of the class.  “It’s good for my weight and I don’t have to wear tights like ballet.”

Warden Beouf wasn’t having it.  “Jesse?” she said to shortalls. “What did you say?”

Shortalls looked to me and then to Beouf.  More changing and cooing sounds echoed out from the bathroom before he responded.  “I said he was a...heckler,” Jesse finally said.  “He used to make fun of me.  Before…”

Another paper thin lie. I held my tongue. For once I didn’t mind being accused of something I didn’t do.  I looked at the other inmates.  They seemed to be relaxing ever so slightly.

The teacher looked to her far left.  “Ivy?”  And just like that the tension ratcheted up a notch.  “What does ‘helper’ mean?”

The most mind fucked out of everyone put her finger to her chin and I held my breath.  “A helper is when you’re a good baby and you try to help the grown-ups as best you can, liiiiike when I bring my Mommy a new diaper when another baby is out, or when I’m going grocery shopping and not in the cart, but I get things on the bottom shelf so Mommy doesn’t have to bend over.”

“Anything else?”

Ivy shook her head.  “I don’t think so.”

I tugged on Beouf’s pant leg.  “Can I sit down...or get changed now...or...?”  Even sitting in my own filth for another few minutes would have been preferable to the amount of attention I was getting.

A hand shot up.  “I have a question!” It was Billy because of course it was. “For Clark!”

“Go ahead,” Beouf said.

“Who’s your Mommy or Daddy?” Billy asked.  He looked at me. Unblinking.  Staring me down.

This was a trap. I felt Beouf looming over me from behind. I swallowed my pride. “My Mommy’s name is Janet Grange.  But I call her ‘Mommy’.”

Annie’s hand was next.  She and Billy weren’t done trolling.  “What kind of diapers does your Mommy put you in?”

I winced.  This was a hazing; a reminder to themselves and to me that I wasn’t any better than them.  Not anymore.  “I’m wearing a Monkeez.  I need to be changed.”  My voice was level.  Soulless.  Let them get their jollies in.

“Wait..” A dark skinned woman who’d I’d later learned was named Mandy giggled. “You’re not potty trained?  I thought I heard you crying at breakfast that you wanted to go potty.”

More sounds of diapers being changed. I didn’t even notice who’d switched out with whom.  “I’m…” I chose my next words carefully, “...getting used to not being a big boy anymore.”  I wanted to choke on the words just saying them.

“Do you wanna play on the playground later?”

“Yeah, Ivy.  Sure.”

I looked up at Beouf.  Had I danced enough?  Said my lines to her approval?  Apparently.  “Good job, Clark.”

I started shuffling over to my ‘x’ on the floor.  I barely noticed the feeling or smell anymore.  “How’d they get you?”

It was Chaz calling out.  I turned around. I looked the kid in the eye.  And I lied.  “Nobody got me.  I went potty in my big boy pants and so the grown-ups figured out that I was really a baby pretending to be a big boy.”

Jesse looked up from the floor and uncrossed his arms. There was a blue elephant on the bib of his shortalls. “Me too,” he said.  

Mandy nodded.  “Me too.”

Billy didn’t say anything, but his stare wasn’t quite so intense or as mocking as it had been before.

We were all lying and knew it.  I took a certain solace in that.  A new ritual, perhaps.  Then Ivy ruined it by missing the point and saying, “I was always a baby!”

I sat down and closed my eyes, grimacing to hide my distaste for the little mindfucked wretch.   “Sure, Ivy. Sure.”  I had enough to be disgusted by anyways.

Beouf took a seat on the floor, crossing her legs. “Okay, kids.” she  said. “Time for circle time! Clap along with Miss B!”

The strangest thing had just happened: Everyone started clapping.  And singing.  Clapping and singing, and doing cutesy practiced hand motions.  None of it was in any kind of language that I understood.

“Chō, chō ha ni tomaru,

Happa ni akitara sakura to asobu,
Sakura no hana no ue de,

Teishi shite saisei shite saisei shite teishi!”

Not speaking a lick of Yamatoan, I had absolutely no idea what it meant.   It could have been a morning greeting song, or a remixed lullabye, or a foreign radio jingle for all I could tell.  But everyone else was singing it.  They knew the lyrics if not the language.  

Beouf didn’t speak a lick of Yamatoan as far as she’d told me, and so I assumed she was singing it phonetically. Of course, there’d been lots that she hadn’t told me. All I could do in that moment was sit there in my messy pants and observe.  

I started to itch just thinking about it.  I did my best to ignore how disgusting I was and focus on the singing and the accompanying hand signs. Or is that what Beouf and Zoge wanted me to do:  To deaden my disgust and become fascinated by foreign nursery songs from a land where everyone my height was confined to a cradle?  

It didn’t matter.  There wasn’t much else I could do. I admit I didn’t think of Cassie; mostly because I didn’t want to imagine her looking at me in my present state.  Besides, there was no backing track and no video so it couldn’t have been hypnosis. Not in the typical sense.

The second song seemed to be about the weather...or maybe it was the Yamatoan alphabet?  A circle and a semi-circle hand could have been an ‘o’ and a ‘c’.  Then again, it could have been a sun and a moon.  I wasn’t sure.  Did Yamatoa even use the same alphabet as us? I didn’t think so.  Maybe it was about shapes.

The next song might have been about body parts or colors.  People kept pointing to different clothes.  Maybe it was about clothing?  Hard to tell.  

The third one was definitely about animals.  That’s how I learned that not even onomatopoeias were universal.  I saw fingers used to simulate horns and noses pushed up to be snouts, but heard nary a ‘moo’ or an ‘oink’.

The whole thing was mystifying in a sense, and I suspected that was the point. How easy it would have been to become conditioned by all of it.  New rituals. New routines. New culture. Different language.

“You’ll get the hang of it eventually,” Mrs. Beouf said to me with a smile and an overly friendly wink. I had the strangest feeling that she wasn’t just talking about circle time.

The next song started, and I was caught off guard when two hands scooped me up under the armpits. “Omutsu o kōkan suru toki ga kimashita.”  Zoge had finished changing Chaz and was now picking me up.  I’d been so preoccupied trying to suss out the meaning of the songs that I’d become otherwise oblivious.  

“Is everything here in Yamatoan?” I asked once we were almost in the bathroom.  A silly question. I’d walked into Beouf’s room enough times to know that this wasn’t a language immersive classroom.  The question was more of a way to inoffensively make my displeasure known.

Zoge laid me down on the changing table, pulled the restraint over my chest and slipped my pants right off me.  The elastic waistband and the wide leggings made it so my shoes stayed on.  “Just in case you wiggle. I don’t want your nice white shorts to get dirty.”  

Great.  She was ignoring my pointless question.  Typical.

The door was left open.  Always open. That way any administrator or Amazonian adult could peek in and see that the Little on the changing table wasn’t being abused by their caregiver behind a closed door.  At least not abused in a way Amazonian society didn’t approve of.

It was very likely that the last time that bathroom had offered any form of actual privacy to its occupant was two weeks prior when I’d had my close call during teacher pre-planning.  I didn’t know when it had served that function before or it likely wouldn’t be serving that function again for a long time.

Shit. Had it only been two weeks ago...?

“Let’s clean the baby up,” Zoge cooed at me while she pulled at the tabs on my absolutely putrid padding.

I kept my mouth shut and made the mistake of staring up past the cooing and smiling face directly above me.  I saw myself in the ceiling mirror, again.  I still looked like every bit like a baby.  More so with a brown lumpy smear in my diaper and a sailor suit top just above.

The reflection did more than to hammer home how the giants now saw me.  It also caused me to well...reflect:  When you’re an adult, there’s something that feels fundamentally off about laying down and getting your ass wiped for you.  

I stopped staring at my privates and found myself staring more and more at my hands of all things.  What did I do with my hands?  If I had been allowed the simple autonomy to bend over, I could have at least rested them on my knees.  What now?

Looking in the mirror, leaving them by my side felt awkward for some reason.  I tried crossing my arms, but the mirror showed me just looking like a sulking child, to be taken no more seriously than pouting Jesse in his shortalls.  I put them behind my head but that looked like I was luxuriating as the old diaper was disposed of and its replacement unfolded.  Resting them on my stomach just looked compliant and comfortable, something I was decidedly not.  Pulling on the straps would have been an exercise in futility besides being definitively ‘bad behavior’.

My pulse quickened as my frustration built.  I couldn’t stop looking at myself!  It was either look at my own bum as Zoge’s gloved fingers dipped in a jar of rash cream and spread them on my cheeks, cooing at me in a foreign language, or cover my face in shame...which of course would have been interpreted as me playing peekaboo.  I was too wound up to close my eyes.

The thought of Mrs. Zoge dangling plastic keys over my head and me gleefully reaching up just to keep my digits busy bust into my brain. I curled up one knuckle and bit down as hard as I could just to chase the terrible thought out.   “Do you want a pacifier?”  Shit!  I should have seen that coming.

“No…”

She finished by powdering me and taping the new Monkeez on.  “Mrs. Beouf told me a few things over the weekend,” she said to me.  “I bet it’s much easier having a grown-up change you than having to hide it and try to change yourself.”  She gave the front of my diaper a pat.  “Don’t worry.  Ivy went through a similar phase.”

I ground my teeth and grumbled, “I bet Ivy did…”

Zoge ignored my mumbling, and tossed her gloves in the diaper pail.  She booped me on the nose and said.  “All done!  I love you!”

I wrinkled my nose as if the phrase was equally foreign coming from her as any number of Yamatoan nursery rhymes..  She loved me?  Yeah….no thank you. Needless to say, I did not say ‘I love you’ back.

The restraint came off and I was quickly scooped back up onto Zoge’s hip.  Alarm bells started ringing in my head Zoge hadn’t put my pants back on!  “What about my-?” I started to ask.

“We’re not going back outside until lunch,” Ivy’s Mommy told me. “I’ll change you right before we go to the cafeteria and put them back on, then.”  Then she added.  “If you need it.”

So it was either let myself be paraded around pantless or give up on holding it in until at least after lunch.  There went any delusions of me having the slightest choice this day.

Typical.

Zoge sat me down on my feet back in the semi-circle she’d plucked me up from. My hairless legs were exposed down to my socks and the white and navy trimmed shirt barely skimmed the top of my diaper.  Foolishly, I yanked down the front, even though I knew it would accomplish literally nothing in terms of modesty.  At least I’d found something to do with my hands...

A few of the girls looked at each other knowingly, and giggled behind their palms. A few of the boys, too.  They’d all been there.  We’d all been here. “You look very cute, Clark.” Mrs. Beouf said once I’d sat down. “And I bet that new diaper feels a lot better, too.”

I reeled inside and failed to contain the shades of pink blossoming all over my body. “Yes, ma’am.” This was how Beouf must work: Keep her students off balance. Shake our worldview.  Keep us disoriented so we compromise themselves again and again and again until ‘compromised’ becomes the new normal.

“We’re going to break into our center rotations and use our visual schedules.” Beouf told all of us.  “Ivy? Can you show Clark how to use his visual schedule?”  Ivy nodded and then grinned at me.  “Okay everyone.  Let’s go!”

I got up from the floor and tugged my shirt down.  It was stupid but it made me feel better.  “Come on, Clark,” Ivy said, gently but firmly tugging at my wrist.  “This way!”

I started to follow and then stopped as the fresh crinkle of the new diaper slapped my earbuds.  “Fuck,” I whispered to myself. “I just accidentally thought of us as students…”

[Sarah Penguin]

[BabyJilly_S]

Love the details, love the reality of the situation

[bobindiapers]

On 11/13/2021 at 12:59 PM, Personalias said:

“Fuck,” I whispered to myself. “I just accidentally thought of us as students…”

Uh oh, Clark will be going full native within a month at this rate.

[Personalias]

Chapter 46: Off-Center

“This is our schedule,” Ivy told me pointing to the painter’s stick hot glued to the far wall.  “It tells us what we’re gonna do an-”

“I know, Ivy,” I interrupted.  “I know.”  Ten painter’s sticks were glued to the wall.  A strip of fuzzy Velcro going from top to bottom.  At the top of each stick was a given Little’s picture.  Beneath the picture from top to bottom were laminated card symbols stuck to the Velcro. Unlike the Amazon grade tapes holding my diaper on, even a Little could pull the laminated shape off.

I ripped the upper most symbol above my pouting face.  It took me a second to realize where the photo had come from.  It was close cropped, laminated and the background was cut out, but from the look on my mug, I guessed it was from my first morning in Janet’s bathtub.

Lovely.  Just lovely.  Typical.

“So this is a red circle,” I continued.  “That means I’m supposed to go to the table or work station with a red circle, right?”

Ivy grabbed her own red circle, beneath her smiling portrait. The card stock was thick enough and laminated enough that even a Little who’d lost most of their fine motor skills could manage to peel the shape off without doing too much damage. “That’s right!” she beamed.  “How’d you know?  Do you got sidekick powers or something?”

I didn’t know whether the malapropism was a weird language barrier leftover from her time in Yamatoa, or whether her vocabulary had been that far regressed to the point where she couldn’t say ‘psychic’.  

“No,” I told her. “I just already know.”

A visual schedule is a great tool for young children.  The student doesn’t need to be able to read since they’re just matching up an emblem from the paint stick to the emblem at a table, workstation or play area. They don’t have to be time or number literate either or have great tracking skills.  Just take the top emblem off first, and when it’s time for the second activity, it’s the new top emblem.  And because of that, a teacher had the ability to move children around in differentiated groups depending on the activity, and once trust was ensured, students could work independently and in small groups.

“Who told you?” Ivy asked. “It’s my job to help you out today.  Mommy said so!  Was it Chaz? I bet it was Chaz!”

I frowned.  “Mrs. Beouf taught me,” I said.  “Years ago.  Back when I was...”  

Damn.  I’d  just made myself sad.

Speaking of which, “Ivy! Clark!”  I looked past Ivy and saw a too friendly Beouf waving us over to her kidney table.  

Great.

Awful.

I walked from the schedule wall over that was adjacent to where the circle time area had been and over to the kidney table. A plastic mesh basket waited for us, and I threw my card inside, grabbed a chair and sat down.

So weird. Unsettling even.  Different and similar.

Her room was nearly identical to mine in how it was set up.  She had her table to work with ‘students’.  Zoge had hers.  Between them and off to the side was an unmanned table with some kind of independent activity to work with.  To Beouf’s left was a built in toy shelf with painters tape marking the boundaries of a play area.  To Zoge’s right was a nook filled with bean bags, stuffed animals and well worn books for quiet reading.  

Up on the board where circle time was held, was a timer: A red circle that gradually wound down before beeping. To know how much time was left was just a matter of glancing at the slowly expiring circle.

Speaking of time, the room had a kind of clockwork precision. Billy and Jesse dumped out some collection of puzzle pieces at the independent workstation. Mrs. Zoge was doling out clay to who I would learn was Shauna and Mandy.  Tommy and Sandra Lynn made themselves comfy over by the books and beanbags, preferring to cuddle and snooze than actually read.   Chaz and Annie crawled and played with dolls, blocks and toy trucks to my right.

People talked, but it was that organized non-disruptive talk that you only get in a well structured setting.  It was only the second week, too.  If I could have gotten my own children to be this disciplined by the end of October, I’d have called it a miracle.  

But oh yeah, many in Beouf’s caseload had been here for several years; more than long enough to internalize routines and expectations.  Oh yeah, and we weren’t actually children.  Oh. And my students were actually learning, not being forced to pantomime the steps so that insane Mommies and Daddies could play house with us forever.

My so-called mentor only had to pretend to do what I actually did for a living.  That made me angry.  Good. Angry felt stronger than sad.

Angry or not, sitting down at the teacher table was weird.   I felt weird and out of place, and for once it had nothing to do with the diaper...though just thinking that made me scoot in more.  I’d lost count of how many times I’d sat in one of these chairs, almost directly across from where Beouf was now sitting.  But the things we talked about wasn’t colors and alphabet sounds or whatever she was about to shove down my throat...  

“Here you, go.”  Ivy slid a plastic bottle over to me.  “For you.”  

I looked at it.  True enough, it had my name written on it in permanent marker.  Might’ve been the bottle that had been shoved in my mouth last week.  “Thanks?  But I just had some milk at breakfast?”

“You carry it with you,” Ivy giggled.  “Our bottles are at our first tables every morning. We carry them with us.  It’s so we can have a drink whenever we get thirsty since we can’t reach the sink.”

I looked to Beouf.  She was busy sorting cardboard squares into even rows.  A memory game of some kind.  She nodded without looking up.

That was something different.  I didn’t have that equivalent in my room.  I shifted and heard soft plastic rustling beneath my bottom.  I wasn’t trying to get my kids to pee themselves on the regular, either.

Ivy took a sip.  So did I.  I wasn’t getting pants put back on me until my diaper was changed again.  And I had the lingering suspicion that it was possible to be wet but not ‘wet enough’.  How awful would it be, being marched back out in public with a drooping diaper swinging between my thighs with every step?

Might as well load up. That and some part of my own muscle memory associated having something in my hand when sitting at this table.  It was no coffee cup, but...

“Ready to play connection?”  Beouf asked.

Ivy bounced in her seat and clapped her hands.  “Yes yes yes yes!  I love this game!”  
I took another sip from the bottle and swallowed my disgust.  I had the distinct feeling that Ivy would love everything we did today.  

“Is it like memory?” I asked.  

The Amazon nodded.  “Yes.  A lot like memory.  You flip over a card and look at it.  Then you flip over another.  If you find a picture that goes with the first, you get a point.”

I spared Ivy a glance.  She was  still in her own world, excited to find a game to play.  “So...like a postal worker and an envelope?”  I asked.  I’d done similar games when teaching basic community social studies.  Fireman went with a hydrant.  Police officer went with a squad car. An EMT went with a hospital.

“That’s one example.”

“Or a  choo-choo train and a bird!” Ivy said.  “Or a rocketship and a trombone!  Or a dog and the color green!”   Ivy was proof that you don’t have to be good at something to like it.

“Clark? Would you like to go first?”

Nothing left to it but to do it.  “Sure.”  I reached out and flipped over the first cardboard tile.  My skin started burning.  “A safety pin…”  It didn’t matter that babying technology had well advanced beyond the old pin and folded cloth, the association was still there.  I hadn’t seen what the other tiles were, but I had the sinking feeling that I’d be forced to sort through rattles, and cribs, and cartoon babies whose ages were counted in decades…

I grumbled to myself and flipped another tile over.  A bright yellow wedge of cheese greeted me.  How about that?  Satisfaction at losing.  “Nope.  No match.”  I flipped them back over and shrugged at Beouf.  

My former friend seemed bemused.  Leave it to an Amazon to think that random chance meant lack of skill.  How typical.

“Awww,” Ivy said.  She gave me a pat on the back that almost hurt.  “That’s okay Clark.  You’ll do better next time.”

She reached for the same tiles that I’d just flipped over.  “Safety-pin! Cheese!”  It was a common mistake that my three year olds made the first time they played memory match games.  They’d just copy whatever one of my four year olds did instead of experimenting with new options.  This was going to be a long game.  “I got one!”

I did a literal double take as Ivy took the pair of tiles and stacked them together as if they were a match.  “Good job, Ivy!” Beouf said. She took a chalky tablet from a nearby candy dish and popped it right into Ivy’s mouth.  “You’re so clever!”  Ivy practically purred and chomped down on the pill.  She grabbed her bottle of water with both hands and took some gulps.  

Like the Vye-king god Thore, she practically slammed down the bottle back on the table.  She might as well have been spiking a football and doing a touchdown dance. I raised my hand slightly above my head, but didn’t wait to be called on.  “How is cheese and a safety pin connected?”

Bouef looked over to the mindfucked Little doll.  “Ivy?”

Ivy picked up the tiles and practically shoved them in my face. “See the holes in the cheese?”

I jerked back.  “Yeeeah?”

“See the pointy end of the diaper pin?”

“Yeah…”  

“The pointy part poked the holes in the cheese!”

“That’s right!” Beouf beamed.

“But why didn’t I get to keep those?” I asked.

Beouf explained to me.  “You didn’t make the connection.”

A new dawn of understanding came to me: Bullshit.  This game was utterly bullshit.  It was a game of bullshit that encouraged you to make bullshit up and bullshit with the utmost confidence.  Which in a weird way made sense to me.  Why teach Littles facts and object permanency and memorization exercises when they’d never get to use those facts.  

“Can I try again?” I asked Beouf. “Or is this a make it take it situation?”  

“It’s your turn,” she said. “If it was make it take it, Ivy would never stop and get allllll the candies.”

“Oh..” I said.  “Yeah.” Duh.  Shame.  Would’ve been nice not to play.  Not an option though.  Janet would get a report at the end of the day.

I flipped over two tiles.  It didn’t matter which two.  “A sponge and a vacuum cleaner…”

Ivy’s hand shot up. “Oh I know, I know!”

“Wait your turn, baby girl.”

The sponge and a vacuum cleaner.  Something that I might’ve wished for during the first round. Easy enough.  Both were household cleaning implements. But now that I knew the rules...I wondered.

I licked my lips and faced Mrs. Beouf. .“The household cleaning sponge is based off the oceanic variety whose filter feeding system could be argued to be a basis for a vacuum cleaner’s own filtration.”

“Very good, Clark! Two candies!”  Two more chalky bits; one white and one pink came to me and I reared back.  Beouf paused.  “Okay okay.  One for me. One for you.” She popped the pink one into her mouth and bit down.  Wincing a bit like she’d just taken a bad pill.  

As if to prove something to me (which she did) she stuck out her tongue and showed me the dusty residue left on the middle of her tongue.  I held out my hand.  The white one.  “Pink one, please?” Beouf rolled her eyes and picked a pink one out of the dish of treats.  “They all taste the same.”  

It wasn’t the taste I was worried about. I was going to pee my diaper before lunch if I wanted to get my shorts back.  Didn’t mean I wanted some kind of spiked candy to make me completely incontinent by daysend.

I bit down on the pink and just like Beouf, I winced.  It was somehow both sugary and bland at the same time.  The chalky aftertaste wasn’t great either.  Beouf didn’t wince just because this was sugary and her Amazon tastebuds hated it.  She winced because it was just generally bad candy.  I grabbed my bottle and took several pulls from it.  The cool water washing the aftertaste away was a bit akin to drinking milk after eating a pepper.  It lessened the aftertaste, without completely getting rid of it.

A way to ‘reward’ Littles with sweetness while encouraging them to hydrate.

“You got two?”  I put down the water and looked back to Ivy.  There was a fire in her eyes that I couldn’t remember seeing before.  Not angry. Just intense. She looked back to her teacher. “My turn?”

“Yes, dear.”

Ivy flipped over the tiles. “The color green aaaand a tuna sandwich.”

I crossed my arms, sat back in my chair and waited to be regaled about lettuce or something or how tuna turned green if left in the fridge too long.  I was wrong.  “Algae is green and plankton feed on algae and tiny fish eat the plankton and the tuna fish get gobbled by us as a sandwich.” Ivy exhaled. “The circle of life.”

“Three points!” Beouf praised.  Ivy opened her mouth and let the three little tablets be dropped right in her mouth.  She crunched down and chugged at her bottle. Her eyes looked past it and to me.

She hadn’t said it. But the message was obvious.Game on.

“Okay Clark, your turn.”

I chose two more..  “A blackbird and a desk?”  I chewed my bottom lip.  “A blackbird and a desk…”

“Anything?” Beouf asked.

I threw a look at Ivy.  She was giggling behind her hand.  “I’m thinking...I’m thinking...is there a time limit?”

“Not really but-”

“Mrs. B?”  Ivy interrupted.  Her hands were by her stomach. Her face was contorted into a harlequin frown.  She hadn’t been giggling, after all.  She made a fist by her belly button and pointed up to her face; sliding her hand up until her pointer finger touched her chin.

Beouf stood up and reached across the table.  “Drank too fast, huh?”  She picked up Ivy off the ground.  “I gotcha.”  She started to pat Ivy’s back and sway a bit.  “Come on.  Let’s get it out.”

Burping.  A woman almost my own age just asked to be burped.  I looked away and forgot the glimpse of an adult I’d seen with her food chain answer.  A discomfort that had nothing to do with my intestines grew with every little ‘urp’ I heard.

Over at Zoge’s table, some kind of arts and crafts project was being done with clay and what looked like food coloring.  The puzzle that Billy and Jesse were working on seemed magnet based and three dimensional. For the longest time, I’d suspected that the Littles in Mrs. Beouf’s room did the exact same thing as my own students.  And to a degree they did...but to a degree they didn’t...

At least Hell wouldn’t be boring...

“Clark?” Beouf called me back to reality.  She’d finished burping Ivy, and added a pacifier clip to Ivy’s dress.  “Did you make a connection yet?”

Shit! Black bird? Desk! Black bird...desk.  Bird? Wood? “The bird sits in a tree that gets turned into a table..that...?”  It didn’t sound good coming out of my mouth.  I hated it.  It was like a riddle that I couldn’t quite solve, and like any good riddle, you knew.

A shadow fell over me.  “How is everything going Mrs. Beouf?”  My heart stopped beating for an entire three seconds.  I’d heard that voice too many times before.

I looked up.  Towering over me was a grim gargoyle, a skeleton of a woman.  Even her smile, prim, proper, and polite as it was, didn’t hide a barely simmering malice just behind the eyes.

Even now, on what might be the worst day of my life, I hated being so close to Principal Brollish.  Her legs were touching my chair, practically pinning me up against the kidney table.  And I couldn’t even vocalize that disgust because of the faint bit of carrot dangling over my head.

Melony Beouf seemed unphased.  “Doing well,” she said “just getting into the routine, ma’am.”  It was the second week of school.  Teacher observations, scheduled or otherwise didn’t happen nearly this early.  “Anything I can help you with?”  Beouf’s smile didn’t quite reach her glasses, either.  And while polite, her tone had an implied ‘quit interrupting me and let me be’ to it.

Like as not, I was just imagining that particular bit of subtext.  Amazons were Amazons, through and through.  Yet better the monster I used to like than the one I’d always loathe.

“How did the new cafeteria equipment work out?” Brollish asked.

“Very well, thank you.” Beouf said.  “Thank you for managing to get it for us.”

“Of course.” More phoney smiles from Brollish.  “Your students deserve all of the support that their same maturity peers get. We’ve got new playground equipment too. I think I can have maintenance deliver and set it up for you during their naptime.”

“Thank you very much.”  Again, I could swear there was an implied ‘go away’ in there somewhere.  Maybe I was just projecting….

“It’s been something I’ve been meaning to do but just got wrapped up in other things.  You know how it is.  Testing. Organizing. Meetings. Union issues.  All the little distractions.”  Translation: “I’m bribing you now that Clark is a baby and not your coworker.  Let’s keep it that way.”

Beouf nodded, noncommittally. “Of course. You’ve got a lot on your plate” She tilted her head and called over.  “Mrs. Zoge? How much time do we have left before center rotation?”  Hint hint hint!

“Timer’s about halfway through, ma’am.” Hintety-hint-fucking-hint!

“How’s Clark adjusting?” If I’d had any hair on the back.of my neck it would have stood on end.  I hated having my name on that witch’s lips.  “I heard that he might have had a tantrum in the cafeteria this morning.”

I wanted to have a tantrum right then.  Or at least open my mouth and advocate for myself.  Ivy tapped me on the hand.  She was sucking on her pacifier, her eyes alight with panic, and her finger pressing where her lips would be.  Grown-ups were talking to each other...or the boogie woman was in the room.  Best to shut up when someone wouldn’t listen.

Beouf made a show of looking thoughtful. “Not really,” she said.  “No more of a tantrum than any of my kids on their first couple of days. Better than a lot.”  I wanted to erupt at that.  Ivy kept sucking on her pacifier and pantomiming with her thumb on where I should stick mine.

Self-soothe.  Keep quiet.

“No throwing food?”

“None. Ate up all of his breakfast and he’s drinking from his bottles.”

“Has he been changed yet?  Any resistance there?  Any escape attempts?”

My ex-mentor put her hand to her mouth.  “Mrs. Zoge?  Any problems changing Clark this morning?”

“No ma’am.  He was a perfect Little Angel once I laid him down.”

More pacifiers being popped into mouths all around me.  Thumbs substituted where manmade soothers weren’t available.  Snickers were muffled and blushes of sympathy were distracted from.  Self Soothe. Keep quiet.  Don’t let the giant grown-ups know what you were thinking.  A purposefully taught behavior or a nervous tic quietly encouraged and reinforced?  I didn’t want to find out.

“Good,” Brollish said.  “I’m glad everything is going smoothly.  I’ll leave you to it.”  She didn’t leave through the classroom’s front, however.  Quietly, she opened the back door, the one that used to lead to my classroom.  It still did; it just wasn’t mine anymore.

A shrill scream from a child pierced the air before she managed to close the door.  One of my kids was crying, though for the life of me I couldn’t tell which.  I wasn’t used to hearing children cry; least of all mine.

I reached over and drained the baby bottle of water, wishing it were vodka..

“How is a raven like a writing desk, Clark?”  Beouf asked, refocusing on the game.

My head wasn’t in it.  “Pass.”  And I’d be damned if I wouldn’t have welcomed a hug from either Ivy or Beouf just then.  But I’d be double damned if I’d have asked for one.  “Ivy’s turn.”

[Moon3ye]

Torture for poor little Clark how do I feel sorry for him (actually not that you know)

Still curious what happens in his old class that one of his kids cries.

[Babyqtboy]

I noticed it switched from blackbird to Raven at the end there. Makes me wonder if there is an Edgar Allen Poe in the DD? Lol

[Sarah Penguin]

:)

[bobindiapers]

21 hours ago, Babyqtboy said:

I noticed it switched from blackbird to Raven at the end there. Makes me wonder if there is an Edgar Allen Poe in the DD? Lol

Probably, but of course his works would be slightly different from the ones we know: The Tell Tale Diaper, The Playpen and the Pendulum, The Purloined Picture Book, A Descent into Maturosis...