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

[TerranV]

1 minute ago, Moon3ye said:

I lost my sympathy for Clark after he went back to school after almost being kidnapped at graduation.

After that, he and Cassie should have gone to Cassi's parents and stayed among their own for the time being.

Clark is getting what he deserves. He who plays with fire must live with getting burned.

Except he isn't getting burned for playing with fire, he's getting pushed into a volcano by the one person he loved more than anything. 

She could have left Clark (she had good reason to) and whatever consequences he suffered from then on would be on him alone. Instead she stabbed him in the back. She chose the worst way to do this.

This is all assuming it was Cassie of course.

[BabyJilly_S]

I think I am going to have to re-read it more slowly and with an analytical eye to see if there are any other clues  

I usually cant help myself and whoosh through...

[Personalias]

Chapter 29: Preparing for Trial
I woke up before I opened my eyes.  A stiff plastic mattress cover rustled as I unconsciously shifted my weight.  Even stiffer, my muscles ached as I rolled over, my hand grasping around the wooden bars that caged me.  I was in a crib. Fuck.  Slowly, my eyes opened as my stomach dropped.  

Above me, fluorescent lights hummed and cheery anthropomorphic alphabet letters stared at me along the ceiling’s border, all rictus grins and dead shark eyes.  Beneath me, diapered zoo animals paraded around on faded fitted sheets. I was in the Nap Room. Double Fuck.
Pulling myself up to a sitting position took most of my strength. That damn outdated bug zapper they’d stuffed me into had taken a lot out of me.  My body was already trembling at the thought of standing up on an old overstuffed mattress.  

I was still a little pink, but the lotion that I’d been lathered in before I lost consciousness had done its job.  I wasn’t peeling, and the terrible burning sensation had been reduced to a light heat that only surfaced when I thought about it.  It was very likely that within a day or so, my skin would be back to normal.

No.  Not normal.  Never normal. Never again.  My hand brushing against my chin told me as much.  I didn’t have a single trace of stubble.  My arms, chest, legs; everything that that damn bathing cap and goggles hadn’t covered, basically; were all completely smooth.  
Baby smooth.

I looked down between my legs.  What had been crisp white plastic when I had been sealed into it bulged and sagged away from me, forming a tiny lump in the front.  Experimentally, I squeezed my thighs together.  My knees didn’t even come close to touching before the padding inside the diaper stopped them with a squish that I didn’t hear as much as felt.

Wet.  I was wet.  I’d wet my diaper in my sleep.  Triple fuck.  

Some combination of whatever poison had made me shit myself and the trauma of getting all of my skin cells burned off had weakened my bladder. And it was poison, I told myself.  It had to be. Contrary to Amazonian belief, Little didn’t just poop their pants for no reason.  Naively, I hoped that this wouldn’t be permanent.  I wouldn’t want to have to diaper myself before bed every time I crawled in with Cassie.  

Yes, even then, I was still planning on getting back to her.  The first stage of grieving is always denial.

“Hey, hon.”  I looked up from between my legs to find Mrs. Beouf standing over me.  Two Amazon sized hands reached down, snaked under my armpits and lifted me out of the crib.  No warning.  No asking.  No preamble.  Just an “Up ya go,” while I was already being hoisted onto her hip, my diaper drooping slightly away from my own.

A brief transition and I was back in my mentor’s lap with a bottle being shoved in my face.   “It’s just water.  Drink up.”  Just water.  Just water?  What had been in the coffee that morning?
I tried to object, but it just came out as a whine.  “Mrs. Beoufphhhhhh.”  My protest was cut off by the nipple.  

“Drink up first,” she said.  “That hair remover packs a wallop on Little Ones, and I can’t have you getting dehydrated.” Her hand reached down and squeezed my crotch. “Definitely dehydrated.”  I was shocked enough that I bit down on the nipple, causing a bit of the cold refreshing water to squirt out onto my tongue.  Damnit.  I was thirsty.  You know you're thirsty when plain water from a rubber nipple tastes so good.  

Reluctantly I began to sip, taking the bottle in my own hands as Mrs. Beouf slipped her fingers inside the front of my diaper and felt around inside.  “Definitely dehydrated.”  My penis would have retracted inside me if such a thing were physically possible.  

I looked up at her, waiting for her to make eye contact with me as I suckled.  When she did, I didn’t like what I saw.  It was that same madness that I always saw in an Amazon’s eyes; the same madness that presented itself every time one of those giants looked at me, and instead of seeing “Mr. Gibson”, they saw “baby Clark”.  “Mr. Gibson” if he’d ever been alive to Mrs. Beouf was now dead to her.  Dead and buried.

Slowly, we began to sway back and forth in the rocking chair while Mrs. Beouf pushed off with her feet.  “I know you must be confused,” she began, “so you just drink and listen.”  Her tone reminded me of a nurse giving a terminal diagnosis to a patient.

“You had an accident.”  We rocked a beat as she let that sink in.  I stopped suckling long enough to bite down on my own tongue.  I hadn’t had an accident. I had been poisoned.  How and by who, I didn’t know, but it was the only logical explanation.  “You got caught.”  That much was true; but our definition of “caught” varied greatly.

“Mrs. Zoge and I figured it out,” she continued.  “You didn’t want to buy your own diapers, so you started borrowing them from the other kids to cover up your accidents.  That’s why you pretended to go to the big boy potty last week.  I had a hunch but I didn’t want to say anything.  But when the nurse called me during lunch...?   Yeah. That did it.” 

Pretended?!  She thought I was stealing diapers?!  How would that even work?  The tapes on Amazonian diapers are so strong there’s no chance a Little would be able to peel them off!  What, did she think I was stuffing them down my underwear.?

“Slipping diapers in your pants, doesn’t give you the same protection though,” she cooed.  “That’s why you ran out of underwear.  You kept leaking and had to throw your undies out.  Or did you think I wouldn’t notice that while I was cleaning you up?”  Beouf’s voice was so syrupy sweet that my pancreas was shutting down.

Helpless in her lap, it was all I could do to close my eyes and look at the inside of my own skull.

“I don't know how long your Maturosis has been expressing itself,” Beouf told me, “or how long you’ve been sneaking diapers out of my room, but you got caught.”  Her voice had evened out again.  Even Amazons can’t baby talk forever.  “I’m not mad at you, though.  You were just doing your best to look like a big boy.  I forgive you.”
Bubbles burst out, threatening to break the bottle and erupt out into the air as I exhaled, a growl rising in my throat   Forgive me? Forgive me?!  Not only was I being talked down to as if I was some kind of child, I was being accused of stealing diapers!

Why the hell would I do the one thing short of shitting myself that was a surefire way to attract attention and get caught?  If Maturosis were real, why would I even think to cover it up? Even more infuriating, I couldn’t prove or disprove Beouf’s theory because the only evidence that was required was her connecting dots that weren’t there and a temporary loss of bowel control! 

TYPICAL FUCKIGN AMAZON!

“I know,” she half-whispered in calming tones.  “I know.  You’re upset. I understand you’re upset. I’d be upset, too.”  She started rubbing my back, and I was too weak just then to flail or slap her hands away.  “I’d be upset too if I was trying my best to be a grown-up and I couldn’t.  But sometimes we do everything we can and things still don’t work out the way we want them to, and that’s okay.”

I stopped drinking; holding my tongue up against the little whole in the bottle’s nipple to stop the water from leaking out.  Sadly, or perhaps fortunately, it prevented me from talking.  “You’ve helped me out for a long time now,” Mrs. Beouf went on.  “You’ve been someone who has been really good to talk to and you’ve been very good at helping other children start to grow up.” 

I felt like I was hearing my own funeral. The funeral for my adulthood.  “No matter what anyone else says, I know that you helped all those pre-schoolers get potty trained and learn their ABC’s and 123’s.  You did a good job of that and you helped take care of them.”  Mrs. Beouf was giving the eulogy for my career.  In her own Amazon way, maybe she was mourning too.  “Now it’s my turn to help take care of you.”

I sucked in another gulp of water, trying to cool the lump that was forming in my throat.  “What’s going to happen to me?” I asked, the air hissing back into the bottle.

“It’s after school,” Mrs. Beouf said, guiding the nipple back into my mouth and tipping the bottle upward.  “You were asleep for a couple hours.  All the other kids have gone home, and it’s just us.”  I shuddered when she said “other kids”.  “You don’t have to be embarrassed.”

I gulped, turned my head away and repeated my question.  “But what’s going to happen to me?”
Still rocking, Mrs. Beouf reinserted the bottle with one hand and rubbed my back with the other.  
“A lot of us stayed late.  We’re having an emergency I.E.P. meeting for you.”  I gulped and some water almost went down the wrong pipe.  “We’re going to set some goals for you and fill out some paperwork.  We’re going to go as fast as we can and get it over with, but I need you to try not to be fussy, okay?”  

My head finally beginning to clear, I thought about Tracy.  “Who is going to be my Mo-” I cut myself off.  “Who’s going to adopt me?”  Just saying the word “adopt” made me want to throw up a little bit.

“We’ll talk about that in the meeting.”  She seemed oddly reluctant to answer that question.   “I’ll take care of you, though.  Don’t worry.  Mrs. B. will make sure you’re okay.”  I had no idea how to read into that.  What was she so reluctant to talk about?  The only thing I was certain of was that “we” wouldn’t be discussing anything at this farce of a meeting.  “They” would.

Typical Amazons.

Trying to change the subject, I held up my left hand, weakly shoving my ring finger into Mrs. Beouf’s periphery.  “My ring?”

Still rocking, Mrs. Beouf shook her head.  “Sorry hon, can’t give you that back.  That had to go bye bye with the rest of your grown-up costume.”  My blood boiled at the notion that my wedding ring, along with my entire adult wardrobe had now been relegated to dress-up props.  “Don’t worry,” she said.  “We’ll make sure that Cassie gets it back.”  

I gulped down the last of the water, feeling the last few drops plummet down into my stomach like a rock.  I had never, not once since I’d been working here, ever said Cassie’s name out loud to Mrs. Beouf.  To every Amazon I’d ever worked with, I’d only referred to her as “Mrs. Gibson”; a vague concept with no identifying features.  

How did Beouf know Cassie’s first name?

Terrible, horrible thoughts invaded my mind. They would go to my house, the address plainly listed on the school’s personnel records.  They’d find Cassie, and then decide that a poor helpless Little couldn’t live in such a Big house all by herself.  Best to scoop her up and find her a loving Amazon family that could re-raise her to be more cute and cuddly and less independent.  Images of the two of us in coordinated blue and pink onesies popped into my mind; our eyes blank as we mindlessly sucked on matching binkies:  Two living dolls to be perpetually drooling playthings for our Amazon owners.

It’s just like Cassie had predicted.  I had doomed us both.

I must have given something away just then to my former mentor.  “Don’t worry,” she said.  “No one’s gonna adopt her.  As far as we know, she’s still grown-up enough to live on her own.  It’s just not fair to her to expect that she will take care of you.”  I released the breath I didn’t even realize I was holding in.  Amazons were crazy, but even crazy people played by their own insane logic.  That’s how I had managed to make it as long as I had.  That’s how Cassie would continue to make it.

And deep down, I told myself, that’s how I was going to escape today.    

The bottle finished, Mrs. Beouf took it from me and set it down on the small table near the rocking chair.  Again, with no warning, I found myself carried on her hip as if I were a toddler.  We exited the nap room, but instead of taking a sharp right to exit the classroom, we made a bee-line to the class bathroom.  “Where are we-?”  

“You may be comfortable sitting in a wet diaper, but I’m not going to take you into a meeting with one.”  I was still pink from the involuntary sun-burn I’d been given, but I felt like I was going three shades pinker.  In a matter of minutes I had literally forgotten that I had been stewing in my own piss.  The padding beneath me was so absorbent that it really was that easy to forget as long as I didn’t deliberately try to press or squeeze any of it. Even then, it had been more of the texture and the muted squish than any profound feeling of being wet.  

No wonder so many of my students had failed potty training until they got into my classroom.
The tiny toilet was passed by in favor of the changing table across from it, and I was laid down and secured to it with a strap across my chest and threaded under my armpits before I had the chance to register anything; the buckle was over the side where I couldn’t reach. A formality, I knew. My hands wouldn’t have been able to so much as budge it.  My former mentor had done this to Littles so many times that it was pure muscle memory at this point; second nature to her. 
While she bent over and rummaged for supplies on the shelves beneath me, I caught my first full glimpse of myself in the ceiling’s mirror.  Hairless, save for my head, wide eyed with the tiniest bit of a tummy, and with a bulging diaper encasing me.

I looked like a baby; a toddler at best.  The proportions were a tad off, my limbs were longer and I wasn’t as chubby, but I still looked like a baby.  With everything to scale, I very well could have been one of Michelle’s kids. 

Littles, in general, don’t go in much for baby pictures.  It’s almost considered a bad omen, or a sign of bad luck, a superstition passed on from generation to generation.  But I felt the strangest sense of deja vu laying there, like I was witnessing a memory instead of the present.  Watching myself in the mirror as two giant grown-up sized hands reached for the tabs of my soiled diaper.

The sound of tapes being ripped off of plastic jolted me out of my trance, the changing table beneath me holding solid as I violently shook.  This is why there was a mirror on the ceiling!  It was another form of conditioning!  They wanted me to look up and see myself from their point of view:  As tiny; as helpless; as cute.  A helpless little baby doll.

With another tremor, my hands jerked up to my face as the diaper was pulled open.  I would not look. I would not look. I would not look.  I would not subject myself to my own diaper change.  “It’s okay to suck your thumb,” Mrs. Beouf’s voice bounced off the bathroom tiles, her voice sickeningly sweet and high pitched again.  “Enjoy yourself.  You’re safe.”

THAT is what she thought I was doing?!  I slammed my own eyes shut and willed my arms away from my face. I would not give this crazy woman the satisfaction of even thinking that I was chewing on my fingers.  The smell of stale ammonia hit my nose now that the diaper was open.  How had I not noticed the smell before?  

It took everything I had to not smack at the hands wiping down my crotch, knowing that I’d only be rewarded with some kind of restraint for my trouble.  I braced myself, digging my hands into my armpits and shivering with each pass of the cold wipes.  I felt my ankles cross and be lifted towards the ceiling.  “Oh, looks like someone wasn’t done with his poopies!  Good thing you had your diaper back on!”

“WHAT?!”  I couldn’t help it.  My eyes were open and staring at my naked body in the mirror, watching helplessly as my former co-worker wiped my ass for me.  And much to my horror, I saw glimpses of brown in the mirror: In the old diaper, on the used wipes, and a bit on my bottom and between my legs.

It wasn’t a load, as much as it was a thin coating. Had I made it to a toilet, it wouldn’t have been anything at all. Clearly, the poison hadn’t completely worked its way out of my system, and my bowels had squirted a bit of an aftershock of sorts while I’d lain unconscious.  That much was obvious.  More disturbingly, I couldn’t help but wonder why I hadn’t noticed it; felt something; smelled something; known something!

My used shame was balled up single handedly and disposed of in the lidded trash can next to the changing table- a thin clink instead of a roaring flush-and a new diaper was slid underneath me. Still, my legs were held aloft.  “You got lucky,” she said, “no rash this time, Little guy.”  She grabbed for a jar filled with sickly medical smelling cream.  “Just in case.”  I winced as rash cream was spread and rubbed into my butt and genitals, followed by a cold cloud of baby powder.

I was lowered down onto my new padding, and a second cloud coated my penis before two large hands spread my legs apart and pulled the diaper up, securing it to my waist with a pair of tapes that I couldn’t hope to undo.  “There we go, alllll better.” 

I didn’t dignify her cooing with a response, but admittedly, it did feel better.  As she unstrapped me from the changing table,  I gave my legs a tentative squeeze, trying to touch my knees together.  They didn’t fully collide, but they managed to just barely graze each other, a crisp new crinkle invaded my ear buds for my effort.

Vinyl matting sucked at my skin as I was lifted up and maneuvered into a sitting position on the changing table.  Questioningly, I looked at Mrs. Beouf.  “Gotta get you dressed.”  She took out a plain red t-shirt and pulled it over my head.  “This is all we have in lost and found right now that’s appropriate.”  I looked down as my arms were guided and pulled through arm holes. 
 
Apparently, “appropriate” meant that the top of my new shirt barely covered the top of my new diaper.  I didn’t bother to ask or complain when pants weren’t provided.  Most Littles in my situation weren’t afforded such dignities.  We were diapered and Amazons wanted the world to know it.  Anything discreet enough to cover the diaper was likely “inappropriate” unless it was inherently cutesy or embroidered with some cutesy degrading slogan like “Mama’s Lil’ Stinker” or “Look Out Below”.

I was riding on her hip again, her hand under my backside to support me, leaving me no choice but to cling on for dear life.  “Come on.  Let’s go.”  As if I had a choice.

 It was with those last words that I was taken, like a man already condemned to hear the court’s verdict, even though my sentence had already been carried out.
 

[Moon3ye]

I always thought Beouf was an ally. But in the end, she's just an Amazon like everyone else. 

I'm really looking forward to seeing what happens next.

[TerranV]

She knew Cassie's name... methinks this goes deeper.

[WehavePi314]

Kangaroo court in 3…2…

[BabyJilly_S]

Well the Cassie name revelation and Boeuf's seeming lack of desire to adopt her as well certainly only deepened the mystery  She's certainly in the cross hairs of blame now....

[YourFNF]

Honestly I would let her have it with both barrels. I'd probably get a beating for it but worth it.... Zero fucks given. The worst they can do at this point is brain wipe me in which case I'm basically dead and out of the situation.

[bobindiapers]

If Cassie is in cahoots with Mrs. Beouf, then why would Mrs. Beouf mention the lie about Clark stealing diapers? Why give away part of your fake evidence, not that anything Clark says or does at the IEP meeting will make a difference? My guess is Tracy is tired of playing second fiddle to Clark and wants to take over his class, so she is behind things. Tracy knows Cassie so she may have volunteered to take the ring back to her and that's how Mrs. Beouf knows about her.

Or maybe maturosis is real Clark has an advanced case. That would explain his immature decisions like playing tricks on the Amazons, why he's pooping himself, why he's putting himself in such dangerous situations like going back to school after almost getiing adopted, etc.

[TerranV]

12 hours ago, bobindiapers said:

If Cassie is in cahoots with Mrs. Beouf, then why would Mrs. Beouf mention the lie about Clark stealing diapers? Why give away part of your fake evidence, not that anything Clark says or does at the IEP meeting will make a difference? My guess is Tracy is tired of playing second fiddle to Clark and wants to take over his class, so she is behind things. Tracy knows Cassie so she may have volunteered to take the ring back to her and that's how Mrs. Beouf knows about her.

Beouf seems genuine in her behavior so I doubt there's anything shady about her. Tracy on the other hand is the only other person Clark seems to trust and would let his guard down around so she might indeed be in on it. 

[Personalias]

Chapter 30: My First I.E.P. Meeting.

“Is everyone here?”

“I think so.”

“Then let’s begin with proper introductions.”

“Hello I’m Tamara Bankhead, and I’m the Resource Compliance Specialist.”

“Hi, I’m Chandra Skinner, Speech and Language Pathologist.”

“Hello, I’m Maxine Winters, Physical Therapist.”

“Hello, I’m Jasmine Sosa, Occupational Therapist.”

“And I’m Melony Beouf.  Maturosis and Developmental Plateaus.  I’m the Little’s teacher.”  There was a bit of laughter as if people didn’t know what Beouf did at school.

This is how my very first I.E.P. as a “student”, began.  The ritual was always the same, the format identical to every meeting I’d ever sat in.  Except I wasn’t “sitting in”, this time.  The meeting was about me, and I wasn’t even allowed to properly sit.  Stand either.  I was plopped right in Mrs. Beouf’s lap, her hands wrapped around my chest, and her knees bobbing me up and down like I was an impatient toddler that needed soothing.  The smell of half a dozen air fresheners and disinfected still lingered about us in the stagnant air.

  Now, the people around me sat in judgement of me, instead of with me as though I was somehow less competent, less of a person than I had been just a few hours prior.  Everyone already knew each other’s names.  And even though we weren’t supposed to predetermine anything, everyone present knew this for the farce it was.  This was all just a show.

Bankhead started things off, as per usual.  “We are gathered here today to determine the needs, and appropriate placement within our system, of Clark Gibson.  Let’s start with the initial status survey.”   There was a brief moment of silence as she clacked away on the laptop in front of her.  “I have here for the primary exceptionality being Maturosis…?”  The slight lilt in her voice phrased the question that wasn’t really a question.  They’d already made up their minds.

I mouthed to myself, “We can’t predetermine.”  Bullshit.

“Sounds right.”

“I agree.”

“Agreed.”

“Yup.”

“Clark’s age?”

I practically felt Mrs. Beouf looking down at me on her lap.  “Can you tell us how old you are, Clark?”

I folded my arms over my chest and rolled my eyes.  “Thirty-two.”  Far too many patronizing smiles grinned back at me as I recited my own age like it was some sort of accomplishment.  Among my friends and neighbors, the only accomplishment would be that I lasted as long as I did.

“What is the student’s developmentally appropriate plateau?”  That was never a question asked at one of my students’ meetings, but I knew what it meant.  Translation:  “How incompetent is he?”

Another bout of silence from the assembled Amazons.  It was Mrs. Beouf who answered first.  “Due to the recent nature of the discovery, we can’t be entirely certain of the developmental plateau, however evidence suggests that he is not at the same level of development as his similarly aged Amazonian peers.”  There was a general nodding of agreement around the meeting table.

Translation: “We don’t really know, but we’re betting he’s too stupid to function by himself.”

Such bullshit.  Such typical Amazonian bullshit.  “Same aged Amazonian peers.”  It was absolutely unthinkable that they might end up in this position, so they’d made themselves the benchmark.  But one tiny slip up by anyone else, and it confirmed all their pre-existing beliefs about anyone physically smaller than them.  

 Bankhead clicked over to the next page of the electronic document.  “Okay, let’s go down the check-list.”  A beat.  “Does the student demonstrate developmentally and maturation appropriate skill sets?”  A chorus of “no’s” and shaking heads followed as I stared daggers at them all from across the table.  “Does the student’s needs and behavior enable him to function independently relative to his chronological age?”

Another chorus of “no’s” and shaking heads for good measure.

“Does the student require specialized curriculum, training, or instruction in order to reach his appropriate developmental plateau?”  Now an affirmative chorus and nodding noggins bobbing up and down filled my view from across the conference table.  “Does he require increased adult supervision for his own safety?”  All the Amazons were now bobbleheads.  Bankhead stifled a giggle and smirked from behind her laptop.  “Is the student potty trained?”

“OH COME ON!” There was laughter all around the table hidden politely behind their hands.  It was the kind of laughter for when a small child says something that you know you’re not supposed to laugh at, for fear that it will encourage them.  

From above me, Mrs. Beouf whispered, “Make good choices.”  She bobbed me a little more on her knee.
  
“WHERE’S THE DATA?”  I demanded.  “Every I.E.P. meeting I’ve ever attended, I’ve had to provide solid data, collected over weeks!  WEEKS! MINIMUM!”

Bankhead cleared her throat.  “There was the um...incident earlier this afternoon.  That’s a start.”  More giggling, though this round was slightly more uncomfortable.  They had still seen me as an adult when that had happened.  Funny the difference that a few hours can make to an Amazon.

The physical therapist chimed in.  “Didn’t Mrs. Brollish give us that file?”  My lip curled back in disgust.   Bitch didn’t even have the courtesy to wait until I was dressed before letting me go.

“Oh yes, that’s right!”  Bankhead dug around in her satchel for a few seconds before pulling out a manilla folder, absolutely bursting with papers.  I was forced to sit there in Beouf’s lap for a three-minute eternity while every complaint or worry from a parent since I began teaching was read outloud to the room. Brollish had had such a grudge against my very professional existence that she’d logged every time a parent had worried that an “immature Little” was teaching their precious bundle of snot for just such an opportunity as this.   Miss Bankhead finished the last one and then looked at me.  “Well..?  That’s data enough for me.  Looks like you’ve been hiding your true self from us for a long time.”

I shook my head, denying everything.  “Those complaints are years old!  Some of them are close to a decade! And they were all from the beginning of the school year before they’d gotten to know me!” 

 Please let them see reason.  Please let them see reason.  Please break through that impenetrable layer of Amazon crazy.  

“Where’s all the good stuff that they say about me from the end of each school year?  The stuff that you reassure them about time and time again every time there’s a new batch of parents?  The kind of things you were telling them this…”  Morning….  I lost steam.  Silence.  Amazonian memories are short when Littles are involved.  “All of those parents loved me! Some of them even wanted to adopt me!”  I slammed my own palm against my lips.  Damn my pride.

“I wonder why….”  More quiet laughter.  Meaner this time.  They weren’t just “doing their job” now, they were putting an uppity Little in his place.  I could see it plainly.  

Wordlessly, Bankhead fished out another piece of paper from out of the folder, this one much less formal, much less official seeming but equally damning in the eyes of the mad giants.  It was written on notebook paper.  The handwriting was sloppy and unpracticed; and the words were all packed together in a giant block of text.  From my position on Beouf’s lap I couldn’t read it word for word, but I recognized the hand writing.

I’d read that essay before.

“That doesn’t prove anything!” I received something of a warning squeeze and a quiet shushing for my trouble. Screw that.  “It’s a creative writing project written by a ten year old!”

The O.T. cleared her throat.  “Didn’t you mention that you’ve been missing diapers, Mrs. Beouf?”

“That’s right.” 

“I didn’t-”

“Is it possible that this behavior has been going on longer than documented?  That Clark has been needing diapers for longer than just this past week?”  Fuck these people!  

“Very poss-”

“I WASN’T WEARING A FUCKING DIAPER TODAY!”

All the women stopped and just stared at me.  “Clark, you weren’t wearing underwear, either.”  The OT’s voice, ever clinical, ever flat, drove the point home.   “All the available evidence suggests that your maturosis has fully expressed itself and you’ve barely been able to hide it up until now.”  It was the most respectful, most adult manner in which an Amazon had spoken to me all day, and I couldn’t handle it. 

My face sagged.  She was right. It did look that way; to an Amazon at least.  “And we’re not mad at you, Clark.”  I felt Mrs. Beouf hug me again.  “We still love you.  You were doing the best you could to be a grown-up.  And maybe we were being a tiny bit selfish by not seeing it, by ignoring your needs.”  My body was getting hotter and hotter with anger.  I was absolutely fuming.

Anger: The second stage of grief.  This had nothing to do with my needs.  Not at all.  What I needed was to be let go.  What I needed was to get back home to Cassie.   What I needed was Tracy to get in here and “adopt” me so that I could run away like we’d talked about.

Where was Tracy?

 I shook my head.  One thing at a time.  Keep it together.  “I wasn’t though…I’m...I didn’t...I know how...I don’t need...” I stopped, swallowing hard and closing my eyes so that tears of frustration wouldn’t leak out onto my face.  What do you say to a jury that has already rendered their verdict before the trial even started?

Beouf hammered the final nail into my argument’s coffin beforeI could finish my statement.  “Baby, I just changed you a couple of minutes ago.”  That shut me up.  Her saying it out loud, in front of everyone, made it more real to me than when she’d actually been powdering my balls.  I wanted to scream.  I didn’t even want to curse at them.  I didn’t want to use words.  Words were hard just then.  A primal, guttural shout would best express how I felt in that moment.   I started huffing and puffing, my breath becoming audible.

Where was Tracy?

Skinner, the speech therapist,  had taken the time to worm her way around the conference table.  I opened my eyes up to a stuffed lion that was held far too close to me for comfort.  “Hey Clark.  Maybe this will help.  Would you like the lion?” She wiggled it in my face, trying to distract me.   I stared back at her, unblinking; my eyes as dead as the little beads that made up the teddy-lion’s.  If looks could kill, I would have been a murderer.  

“Make a good choice,” Beouf warned me again.  All eyes were on me.  “You can either take the lion, or I can give you a pacifier.”  It was stated as fact, not a threat.  I was given two bad options.

I didn’t think that my old mentor used those gags that Amazons called pacifiers, the kind with the inflatable bulb that filled your whole mouth so that you couldn’t talk or spit it out.  I didn’t think I’d have shit my pants in front of everyone, either.  I wasn’t ready to be wrong again, but I didn’t want the damn stuffie.

I inhaled through my nostrils.  “Neither.”

“That’s not an option, hon.”  I was no longer in control at this point.  That’s what this was all about:  Not choosing would not be accepted as a choice; and if I couldn’t or wouldn’t play along with their little charade, they’d choose the option that was the most effective at silencing me. Without saying anything else, I reached my hand out and took the lion into my arms.

“Good choice.” 

I buried my face in the plush lion, mumbling to myself as the meeting progressed without me. It was all just so...wrong.  I kept taking looks up as Bankhead typed on the laptop and “surveys” about me were conducted and my “least restrictive environment” was determined.  All I got in return were flashes of pearly whites and little hand waves, along with the occasional knee bounce if Mrs. Beouf noticed.  I was cute again...fuck...typical Amazons.

Then we got to the goals:

“By the I.E.P. Review Date Clark will engage in developmentally appropriate play with peers.”

“By the I.E.P. Review Date Clark will seek out appropriate aid and attention from adults.”

“By the I.E.P. Review Date Clark will express his wants and needs through developmentally appropriate vocabulary such as but not limited to diaper or diapee; bottle or ba-ba; pee-pee; poopie or boom-boom; num-nums; and so on.”

“By the I.E.P. Review Date Clark will aid adults in feeding him by handing them the correct utensil or by self-feeding using a palmar supinate grasp.”

“By the I.E.P. Review Date Clark will transition from standing to all fours and use reciprotive crawling to travel between two points not longer than twenty feet.”

Clark will do this.  Clark will do that.  Clark will suck tits.  Clark will sleep in a crib.  Clark will piss and shit himself without a second thought and like it.  Clark will never have sex again.  Clark will turn into a dumb mindless doll for his giant overlords to play with whenever they feel the slightest lingering bit of maternal instinct welling up inside them or they just need to get their jollies.

On and on it went. I lost count of how many regressive goals were made and listed, all of them supposedly on such short notice.  Every academic goal I’d ever written for one of my students was aimed at taking them to a place that was beyond their present level of mastery. They were made with the intent of pushing them to a higher level of knowledge and skill.  All of these goals were aimed at pushing me backwards.

Where was Tracy?

And they were all using the pretext and language of my own damn profession to do it; a profession that they admitted that I was damn good at! But because I didn’t fit into their cookie-cutter definition of what an “adult” was- a word that was synonymous with Amazon as far as they were concerned- then I needed to be stuffed and contorted into another mold, no matter how much shoving and pushing and what else broke inside me so that I could fit neatly into their categories.  

Where was Tracy?

I just kept shaking my head, though to their eyes, it must have looked like I was nuzzling the stupid lion.  I even heard one of them whisper. “Someone’s made a new friend.”

Anger wouldn’t serve me just then, and if nothing else, the stuffed lion gave me a chance to wipe away unformed tears, dig my fingers into something, and cool down.Things were moving on toward the end of the meeting. “Wait!” I said, as voices were beginning to overlap and mingle with each other; the surest sign that any meeting was beginning to run too long.  Predictably, I was ignored.  Time for a different tack.  “Excuse me…?  Excuse me, ma’ams?”

Just that little spoonful of sugar, that bit of conforming to their preconceived notions got me their attention.  “You’re not sure about my developmental plateau?”  I felt like I was going to throw up a little bit. I hated using their term, their made up excuse as to why I should be infantilized and denied my rights. 

“That’s right, Clark,” Skinner assured me.  “But don’t worry buddy, we’ll find it after a couple of weeks.”

“Does that mean that the goals can be changed to…” damnit...I couldn’t think of a better, less grown-up way to ask… “does that mean my goals can be changed to reflect that?”

“That’s right!”  Bankhead beamed.  “You get it!” 

I didn’t dare say it just then, but I felt a bit of hope well up inside me.  In actuality, I was already at the “bargaining” stage of my grief.  Maybe I could resist long enough and maneuver the social minefield they’d thrown me into so that I could make things better on myself.  I’d done it all my life before.  Maybe I could do it again and get a toddler bed, or a pair of Pull-Ups.

But what was I talking about?  I wasn’t planning on being here long. 

Where was Tracy?

“Now comes the hard part,” Bankhead said.  “What do we do about guardianship?”

There was an uncomfortable silence.  Each of the Amazons in turn looked to one another.  Their faces and body posture changed instantly.  They all wanted to see me put back in diapers.  But none of them wanted to take me home.  And there was something else there; something that I didn’t want to recognize: They all had bad news that they didn’t want to break.   “Um...what about Tracy? Miss Tracy, I mean.  Couldn’t she adopt me?”

There was hemming and hawing around the table, and uncomfortable exhalations; but no one actually spoke.  

“Where’s Tracy?”

The world jumped up a little bit as Beouf turned me around and sat me down on the edge of the conference table, staring me in the eye.  “Clark, sweetie….” she took a breath.  “Tracy already went home.  She can’t adopt you.  She’s not here.”

I felt nothing.  Completely numb.  Not disbelieving.  Not misunderstanding.  As my last grain of salvation slipped away, I was beyond feeling anything in that tiny moment.  Tracy had abandoned me.  I was fair game.  

“Can you adopt me?”  I don’t know if it was cunning or desperation that made my voice come out so tiny and pathetic.  “Please, Miss B.?”  Better the mad devil you know...

Beouf shook her head.  “Sorry baby. I don’t think I can.  You know I’m going to be a grandma soon.  I can’t have two babies to take care of.”  

I’d never seen Beouf look so unsure, so discomforted.  A dark part of me was glad about that.  “But I thought you said you’d take care of me.  I thought you loved me.”

“I do, Clark.  I do.  But I can’t take care of you all of the time. I sent an email out while you were sleeping but-”  I was done listening to her.

I twisted and looked around the conference table, the polished wood sliding easily underneath the plastic covering of my diaper.  “Then who?”

No response.

Then, “There’s always New Beginnings.”  It was Bankhead, of course.  “They’ve got an overnight program for um...Orphans.”  New Beginnings was worse than any scenario I could have prepared for.  

I was going to be murdered but still have my body intact.  

“I…” I felt my throat tightening; getting harder to breath.  “I don’t wanna…”  I was dying.  They’d just sentenced me to death, and even Mrs. Beouf knew it.  “Please don’t...please…”

Mrs. Beouf looked like she might be about to join me in my impending breakdown.  “I’m sorry, baby.  I don’t think there’s a choice.”  Lies.  There was always a choice.  I just wasn’t the one allowed to make it.  “I promise I’ll check up on you.  Maybe whoever adopts you will enroll you back in my class...”  Even that was a lie, and I could tell that Beouf knew it.  You didn’t need a fully brainwashed Little to be enrolled in anything more than a daycare.

 I was all out of outrage.  Tears hadn’t come yet and some part of me wouldn’t allow a full breakdown.  

I grimaced.

I was going to die.

My mouth opened; I couldn’t breathe through my nose suddenly.

I’d be mindless.

A churning in my stomach, similar to yet distinct from the sensation that had been sneaking on me prior to my accident.

Drooling.

I tasted it in the back of my throat.

Wet.

I wanted to spit.  I wanted ro rinse.  Anything to get the awful taste out of my mouth.  Anything except swallow.

Doll.

I vomited.  Clear water mixed with stomach acid came out of me, spilling outward and onto my shirt. It was strong enough to hit open air, but the force of my stomach emptying its meager contents back out wasn’t enough to spill the vomit on anyone else but me.

A wave of gasps mingled with the familiar gargling noises coming from my throat as I sat there, paralyzed in despair as I heaved up the bottle I’d just guzzled down less than an hour ago.

“Oops!  Spit up!”  Mrs. Beouf was the first to act.  The world became a sudden blur again as I was picked up by my armpits and rushed towards the nearest trash receptacle.  “It’s okay Clark.  It’ll be okay.  Just get it all out.”  I continued retching and heaving bits of my stomach into the nearest wastebasket.  All out!

In the back of my mind, I took some grim satisfaction in how uncomfortable everyone suddenly seemed to be.  Good.  Let them be.

Just as I was starting to pant, and taste the rancid sting in the back of my throat, snot building up in my nose, a new complication entered the mix.

Positioned as I was, I heard the approaching thudding and clacking footsteps, more than saw who they belonged to.  I heard the door to the conference room swing open, knocking against the bumper, and felt the cold climate controlled air spill out into the lukewarm atmosphere outside.  I sensed, more than saw all heads turn towards the intruder. 

Tracy?

“WAIT!” Janet stood there in the doorway, breathing heavily as if she had just sprinted a marathon.  Everyone froze. Her hair was wind whipped, her eyes wild and panicked.  Her stance was tilted; she was missing a heel, apparently losing its twin on her mad dash across campus.  “I just got the email!”   

Bankhead looked over her laptop.  “What email?”
   
“I’ll do it…!”  Janet walked, hobbled really over to the trashcan where Mrs. Beouf was still holding me. Two new hands wrapped around my waist and drew me in; holding me as if they were afraid I might evaporate into nothingness.  “I’ll take him.”

“Are you saying-?”

“Yes!  I’ll adopt him.  He’s mine. I want him.  He’s mine!  Please!”

(End of Part 3)
 

[YourFNF]

So this wasn't about any one Amazon wanting him this was a hit job.....

I think?

I doubt it was Janet.... She wouldn't have been so I'll prepared if she  new....

I think Tracy was involved in some way judging by her conspicuous absence... My money is on black mail or coercion

Fuck that feeling of helplessness hit like a familiar gut punch though....

[TerranV]

Awesome chapter!

Well that went about as well as I suspected. Most of those IEP meetings probably go the same way. Sham of a hearing then send the Little off to whoever wants them.

I guessed Janet would be the to take him, though. If Beouf was going to she would have at the start. 

Maybe Tracy was the one stealing the diapers.

Edited July 31, 2021 by TerranV

[Sarah Penguin]

52 minutes ago, YourFNF said:

So this wasn't about any one Amazon wanting him this was a hit job.....

I think?

I doubt it was Janet.... She wouldn't have been so I'll prepared if she  new....

I think Tracy was involved in some way judging by her conspicuous absence... My money is on black mail or coercion

Fuck that feeling of helplessness hit like a familiar gut punch though....

Maybe he has food poisoning. Diarrhea, vomiting. I once totally messed my pants without warning in college in the middle of a bridge going to class.  Had vomiting later on. My worst birthday ever. Though think he would have a fever they would notice.

[TerranV]

Janet said she received an email but Bankhead had no idea about an email...

Someone told Janet what was going on.

[bobindiapers]

47 minutes ago, TerranV said:

Janet said she received an email but Bankhead had no idea about an email...

Someone told Janet what was going on.

When Clark asked Mrs. Beouf to adopt him, she said something like "sorry, I can't watch two babies at once, I sent an email but-" and then Clark cut her off. I think Mrs. Beouf knew Janet was thinking about adopting and sent Janet an email asking if she wanted to adopt Clark. I think Mrs. Beouf was trying to help both Clark and Janet.

[TerranV]

4 minutes ago, bobindiapers said:

When Clark asked Mrs. Beouf to adopt him, she said something like "sorry, I can't watch two babies at once, I sent an email but-" and then Clark cut her off. I think Mrs. Beouf knew Janet was thinking about adopting and sent Janet an email asking if she wanted to adopt Clark. I think Mrs. Beouf was trying to help both Clark and Janet.

Ah yes, missed that.

[bobindiapers]

Assuming some kind of poison is causing Clark to have accidents, what if the effects of the poison are temporary and Janet doesn't feed him anything designed to make littles lose control and Clark suddenly stops messing and wetting his diapers?  What if she doesn't regress Clark and has actual adult conversations with him?  Will she believe that he wasn't stealing diapers and try to figure out who set him up?  Will she set him free if they find out someone set him up?  When she saw him in diapers when he was almost adopted she didn't seem to be "baby crazy" like other Amazons so maybe she'll be a "reasonable" mommy to him.

[BabyJilly_S]

Great stuff again. So Janet is off the hook, if she had done it she would presumably have been at the meeting or at least very close by to adopt him. She appears a good choice for Clark or a least bad one...

Interesting that none of the others wanted to adopt, so it appears that if it were one of them, they just wanted him "gone", a different take on the usual Amazon, of course that assumes he was poisoned.

I did love the idea that @bobindiapers had earlier that maturosis could be real, that would be a curveball of epic proportion  

I suppose Tracy going home would be normal, the meeting was after hours?   

[YourFNF]

6 hours ago, Sarah Penguin said:

Maybe he has food poisoning. Diarrhea, vomiting. I once totally messed my pants without warning in college in the middle of a bridge going to class.  Had vomiting later on. My worst birthday ever. Though think he would have a fever they would notice.

That's actually an interesting theory... Stress also triggers IBS.... I would know.... ?

[Moon3ye]

I need some help, because I have read a lot lately due to hospital stay and being sick it is hard for me to sort all the characters.

Is Tracy the person who asked Clark that if something happens she should adopt him?

Is Janet more of an ally to Clark or would that be dangerous for him to end up with her?

[TerranV]

9 minutes ago, Moon3ye said:

I need some help, because I have read a lot lately due to hospital stay and being sick it is hard for me to sort all the characters.

Is Tracy the person who asked Clark that if something happens she should adopt him?

Is Janet more of an ally to Clark or would that be dangerous for him to end up with her?

Tracy was the one he asked to adopt him if this went wrong. 

Janet was the coworker he had the falling out with due to her wanting to adopt. I don't think she would really hurt him but she did sound like she had the Amazon crazy there at the end.

Hope you feel better.

Edited August 2, 2021 by TerranV

[Moon3ye]

1 hour ago, TerranV said:

Tracy was the one he asked to adopt him if this went wrong. 

Janet was the coworker he had the falling out with due to her wanting to adopt. I don't think she would really hurt him but she did sound like she had the Amazon crazy there at the end.

Hope you feel better.

Thanks for the answer.

Then it will be very interesting with Janet.

And yes, I'm doing a little better, I've had stomach and intestinal surgery and I'm currently either sleeping an incredible amount or reading a lot.

Thanks for the quick reply. The community here is always so incredibly helpful that makes me personally very happy.

[BabyJilly_S]

2 hours ago, Moon3ye said:

Thanks for the answer.

Then it will be very interesting with Janet.

And yes, I'm doing a little better, I've had stomach and intestinal surgery and I'm currently either sleeping an incredible amount or reading a lot.

Thanks for the quick reply. The community here is always so incredibly helpful that makes me personally very happy.

Get well, soon

I think of all the possibilities in that meeting Janet seems quite the best option for Clark. 

[Personalias]

PART 4: Janet

Chapter 31: It’s a Boy!

The car ride to Janet’s house was easily the longest car ride in my life.  It wasn’t because Janet lived particularly far away from school.  Distance had little to do with it, though sitting in a pink backwards facing car seat didn’t help my sense of spatial orientation.  

It wasn’t because I suddenly had to pee despite throwing up a ton of water.  My bladder had little to do with it, though when a toilet is strapped around your ass, you suddenly become hyper aware of every rumble and twinge.  Had I been in underwear, I probably wouldn’t have registered the slight need to urinate.  

It wasn’t because I was panicking and bemoaning my very new existence as a captured Little.  That would come later.  In any catastrophe, the shock and numbness comes first as mind and body flails desperately to protect themselves.  The real pain always comes later, assuming you’re lucky enough to survive.

What made that particular car ride seem so incredibly long to the point of it being its own tiny eternity, was that Janet wouldn’t get off her damn phone almost the entire ride.

“Hello? Jessica?  I’m a Mommy!”  I winced as she squealed and her friend on the other line screamed.  How could people so big manage to get their voices so high?  “I’m so happy, you have no idea!  His name is Clark!  Yes! That Clark!”  I looked in the mirror mounted in front of me.  It was angled so that I could see the reflection of Janet in the rearview mirror.  Our backs were to each other, but eye contact was still feasible; almost unavoidable.  Hers were sparkling with delight.  Mine were all but obfuscated by the fuzzy main of a stuffed lion.  “Yeah!  Yeah! He’s soooo cute you have no idea!  Okay! I’ve got to make more calls!”

She hung up.  Giddily, she waved in the mirror at me.  I just buried my face in the stupid stuffie, while she “Awwwwed” and squealed like a girl with her first kitten. It made sense.  Littles were pets. Dolls.  And I was one of them, now.

“Hello, Shiela? Guess who’s a Mommy?!”  Again.  More screaming.  You’d think she won the lottery.  “No. No. I didn’t need an agency.  Not a girl.”  My blood ran cold.  When Amazons wanted baby girls, they got them….one way or another.  “Poor Little thing just fell into my lap!  I’m SOOOO happy!  Thank you!  Okay, talk to you later!  Love you! Bye!”

I’d never seen Janet this happy.  I don’t think I’d seen any Amazon this happy before.  She was a wino getting her first sip.  What was going to happen to me?  “Janet?” I called out.  Through our reflections, she made eye contact with me, but didn’t respond.  “Janet?” I called again.
There was this strange anticipation in her eyes. A bizarre kind of hope.  It was the first time I’d opened my mouth since she’d taken me in her arms.  I was too shocked to say anything when she signed the custody papers promising to take responsibility for me.  I was terribly mute as she strapped me in the car seat.  “Can I ask you a question?”

“Of course you can, sweetie!”  Her voice was still a stack of giddy pancakes, now with extra sweet syrup.  “What can Mommy do for you?”  There was that word.  She was trying it out, seeing how she liked it on her tongue.  But more importantly, she was hoping to try it out and see how it felt coming out of my mouth.

“Why are you making so many phone calls?”

My ex-friend turned captor giggled like I’d said something particularly precocious. “Because Mommy wants to tell all of her friends how excited she is and how happy she is to have you!”

Right then I prayed to whatever might listen:  Please don’t ask if I’m happy. Please don’t ask if I’m happy.  Please don’t ask if I’m happy.  Please don’t ask if I’m happy.  Please don’t ask if I’m happy. Please don’t ask if I’m happy.

I was terrified that I might answer truthfully.

Thankfully, she didn’t just then. All praise whatever angel doles out small miracles.
“Why don’t you just send out a group text?” I asked.  If nothing else I wouldn’t be forced to have to listen to the same giddy screeching about my lack of personhood over and over again.

“Because silly,” Janet said, “I’m so happy that I want to experience it again and again and again!”  She was trying to draw the moment out.  Making the buzz last for as long as she possibly could.  Teasing out her own masturbatory fantasy.  “And if Mommy sent out a group text, her friends would still be calling her to congratulate us.”

Us.  Congratulate us.  As if I had any say in this.  Any at all.  I wanted to scream.  I also wanted to avoid being gagged, so instead I just buried my face into the lion stuffie.  

“Awwwwww!”  Her eyes went back to the road and her auto dialer.

“Hello, Chelsea?  Guess who’s a Mommy?! EEEEEEEEEEE!  Ohmygod! Ohmygod! Yes!  You should see him!  He’s in the car seat right now and cuddling with his stuffed lion!”

My face flushed with I can’t even tell you what emotion.  Janet continued on, oblivious.  Typical. “Clark!  Uh-huh!  He just pooped his pants today!  I mean, he’s a Little and I think he might’ve had one or two accidents at school before; but somebody noticed and checked him today!   No! He wasn’t a student!  He’s all done growing.”  Whatever the Amazon on the other line must have said something particularly funny, because Janet was practically cackling.  “Oh you know what I mean!  You’re bad!  You’re so bad!  Okay.  Love you too. Bye.”

It was at least another four phone calls before we came to stop.  Each time, the details got more and more explicit:  How cute I was. How I’d pooped my pants in front of everyone.  How I used to be a teacher...and that was only for the ones who didn’t know.  I counted at least two times where I was “that Clark”.  Meanwhile I kept praying into my lion: Please let us crash.  Please let her be so overwhelmed with pseudo-maternal.

The car came to a stop, but I had next to zero chance to be able to see out the window positioned as I was.  The engine didn’t turn off.  Ride wasn’t over yet. Heck if I knew where we were.

“Thank you for choosing MacDonell’s, can I take your order?”  Great. Drive through.  I’d never used a drive thru-I was always afraid I’d get run over on my scooter.  This was probably the worst introduction to it.

Janet cleared her throat, “Yes, I’d like a number 1, medium, with extra pepper on the fries, a diet cola to drink and...” I saw her bite the bottom of her lip and fail to suppress a grin. “A Little’s Meal!”

The voice on the drive through speaker came back.  “Am-Mac meal and a Little’s Meal.  Would you like the girl’s toy or the boy’s toy?”

“Boy’s toy!” Janet gushed.  “I’m a new Mommy!”  The woman actually clapped; she was so excited.  I could have called out for help, I suppose.  But what would have been the point?

Janet’s car lurched forward and pulled up to the first window. “So that’s a Am-Mac Meal and a Little’s Meal.”  I couldn’t turn my head around enough to see the person at the window, but sounded like a guy; maybe even a teenager.  “Where’s your new baby?”

“He’s in the back,” Janet gushed.  More squeals wiggled their way out her throat.  I tried (and failed) to squirm deeper into the cushions of the car seat.

“Heh.  He’s a cutie alright.”  In the reflection I caught the reflection of a young man with more acne than chin hair.  He waved at me and smiled.  I was on parade.  I was on one long humiliation parade.

Janet paid for the food and took the receipt. “Excuse me? I don’t think you charged me enough.”

“Little Meal is on the house,” the cashier explained.  “First one’s free.  Store policy.”

“Thank you!”

“Congratulations.”  I saw the hand reach out and wave to me.  “Later, Little dude.”

The car lurched forward again, and I closed my eyes.  Please let this be over.  Please.

A woman in the second window handed Janet a paper bag and a brightly colored pink and blue cardboard box: An Am-Mac and a Little’s Meal.  “Do you want barbecue sauce or honey mustard for your Little Meal?”

“Honey mustard.”  Janet answered before I even had a chance to give any input.  No input was expected of me though.  Part of me was glad, I didn’t say anything.  I liked barbecue sauce.  But a big part of me didn’t want to be even remotely comfortable just then.  If I was going to be doomed and miserable, I should be completely doomed and completely miserable.  If I had expressed a preference, the Amazons would have probably done the opposite anyways as a show of who was in control.  

It would’ve been typical.

“Thank you!” Janet said.

“You’re very welcome.  And congratulations!”  Was business that slow that yet another Little being enslaved was a cause of celebration or were Amazons just that crazy?!  Both maybe?!
The ride was just one more humiliating phone call.  “Mom? Dad?  Or should I say Grammy and Pop-Pop!  That’s riiiiight!”  The rest of that call was drowned out by my own anxiety and the growling in my stomach.  I hadn’t eaten anything solid all day, and as much as I hate to admit it, the food in the front seat smelled good.  Lots of things smell good when you’re hungry enough.  Even something specifically marketed as a Little Meal.

The car came to a stop, and Janet cut the engine.  We were “home”.  The belly of the beast. I heard Janet pad around the car and open the passenger door, likely to get the food out.  Then I watched as she opened the back seat and leaned in.

“Welcome home, Clark!” I looked in my old co-worker’s face for any sign of recognition, any sign that she might be seeing me as a person instead of a plaything.  No such luck.  Only manic glee.

As she unbuckled me from the pink carseat, I tried one last futile attempt at reasoning with her.  In a weird way I felt I owed her that much. “Janet,” I said.  “It’s not what you think.”

Two fingers slipped into the leg cuffs of my diaper.  “Still dry,” she said, as if I couldn’t tell the difference.  

“I’m not a baby,” I tried to tell her.  “Somebody poisoned me or something!”

She picked me up out of the carseat and draped me over her shoulder.  “Uh-huh.”  She pulled back the waistband.  “Still clean.”  She gave my backside a little pat.  Was that praise?  Encouragement?  If anything she sounded kind of disappointed.

“Janet,” I begged while she toted me and the greasy fast food inside.  “I’m serious.”

The door opened behind me, and I didn’t get to see the color until she kicked it closed behind me.  Red.  My new prison had a red garage door. “I know you are, hon,” Janet said.  “And I believe you.”  

Janet’s gait got much steadier as she walked, and I saw her broken heels a few steps in the house.

“You do?” I asked.  In terms of grief I had arrived at bargaining.  If Janet was willing to listen to me, maybe I could convince her to let me go.  I don’t know how I’d get to somewhere safe, but I was in one-step-at-a-time mode.

“I do believe you,” she said.  “I believe you’re telling yourself stories, really convincing and creative stories, to convince yourself that you're still a grown-up.”  I saw the beige floor of the kitchen after we’d crossed the threshold.  Backwards.  My entire life was being carried backwards, both literally and figuratively.  “It’s a behavior common in Maturosis Littles who haven’t found their Developmental Plateau.”

I was put down in a highchair.  Also pink.  I barely managed to lean forward about an inch before Janet single-handedly pushed me back and strapped me in.  The tray clicked in, separating my top half from my bottom half; sealing the deal.  “Janet! That’s ridiculous. Listen to yourself!”

She sat down at the table and started unboxing the food right next to me. She reached over and took my lion from me, sitting him on the table.  “So he doesn’t get messy,” she said.  “What’s his name?”

The dead eyed thing sat out of reach staring at me.  “I don’t know and I don’t ca-”

“We’ll name him later, then.”

“Fine.”  It wasn’t fine. Not at all.  Some stupid, petulant part of me just wanted to get the last word in on something.  

Giant chunks of chicken nuggets were put on the table beside me.  There were only four of them, but they were almost the size of my hands.  “Do you want me to feed you, or do think you can be a big boy and use your hands?

“I can do it myself!”  She giggled at that.  Damn, but I must’ve sounded like a toddler. I should have refused to eat, but I was so caught off balance.  “And I was poisoned.  You know!  Like Raine is always trying to do?”

“Ms. Forrest wasn’t even at school today, Clark.  She was out sick.  So don’t go blaming it on her.”  As she talked, Janet was ripping up the Amazon sized nuggets into smaller pieces.  It reminded me of how my sister-in-law got in the habit of cutting up food for her toddler.  My stomach growled a little more, and my bladder stung and extra pinch.

I did my best to ignore her hands as she dipped the little chunks into a tub of honey mustard before placing it on the tray in front of me.  “I’m not saying she did it,” I said. (Actually Raine was at the top of my list…)  “I’m saying that someone LIKE her did it.”

“Or,” Janet said, “There’s the much more reasonable and rational explanation that you’re turning into a baby again.” Honey mustard dripping from her fingers she pointed to the pieces on my tray.  “Eat your nuggies.”

I didn’t give up.  “Think about it Janet!  Amazons do this stuff all the time!  You saved me just a couple months ago from one, remember?  Do you think I’d go from full adult to baby, just like that?”  I tried to snap my fingers, and the sound just wouldn’t come out.  Damn.  That really hurt the effect I’d been going for.

My captor popped a fry dripping with chili spice in her mouth.  “Eat your nuggies,” she repeated.  “Eat your nuggies, or Mommy’s not gonna talk to you.”

“But-”

“Eat.”

I wasn’t going to get anywhere unless I gave something, it seemed.

I picked up one of the meat chunks and popped into my mouth.  Damn.  It actually tasted pretty good.  Even the honey mustard was alright.  My cheeks were puffed out from the size of the slab.  Too big of a bite.  Far too big.  But I wasn’t about to spit it out.

“Ooops!” Janet said, seeing my face.  “I forgot!”  She got up from her seat at the actual table and started rummaging through kitchen drawers.  “Whereisit whereisit whereisit?”
She pulled out of the drawer a disgustingly pink bib and held it aloft like King Authur at Ocelot pulling the sword from the stone.

Barefoot, she rushed back to me and tied the thing around my neck.  “Gotta get in good habits,” she said.  Mouth full of chicken I read the cutesy print to myself.  “Mommy’s Princess” it said.  Had a little tiara and everything.  

Now more than my bladder was aching.  I was starting to get phantom pains before anything had been amputated.

I chewed and chewed and chewed just so I could keep talking.  After a few swallows, I’d finally managed to form coherent words.  “Do you really think that I just turned into a baby today?” I repeated myself.

Janet was already halfway done with her Am-Mac. An Amazonian monstrosity with entirely too much beef, pepper jack cheese, and jalapenos instead of pickles.  It’s quite sweet by Amazon standards as I understand it.  

Before she answered me, she brushed some crumbs off the bib and used it to wipe a glob of honey mustard off the corner of my mouth.  “No, I don’t think you turned today.”  I felt a slim glimmer of hope.  At least she wasn’t referring to herself as “Mommy”.  “Personally, I think your Maturosis might’ve been manifesting back then.  That woman at graduation just noticed it before we did.”

“Wha-?” 

“Nuggies.”

I picked at another one and took a bite.  A smaller bite. A daintier bite. A princess sized bite. One small enough so where I could chew and talk without stuff tumbling out of my mouth.  “I’m eatin! I’m eating!”

“I’m glad that I got you, though.”  I bet she did.  “I don’t think she would’ve been a very good Mommy for you.”
“Was it you?” I asked.  “Did you do it?”

Janet giggled again, but this was less cute.  “If it helps you adjust, then yes.”  I almost bit through my own tongue.  “You can pretend that you were poisoned, and that Mean Old Mommy did it to you.”

Great.  Sarcasm. Condescension. There was a lot to unpack there.  I chose to latch on to the most absurd statement.  “I’m older than you!”

“But I’m still bigger, baby boy.” She booped me on my nose.  If her finger had been slower I might’ve tried to bite it just then.  “And I’m not talking about size.  You going full baby explains sooo much.”

“Explai-?”

“Nuggies.”

So fucking Typical.  I wanted answers.  I know it’s crazy to expect sane answers from a crazy person (Read: Any Amazon that sees a Little in diapers) but I needed to make sense of the world just then, even if my world was through a kaleidoscope.

I took another dainty bite.  “Explain wha-?”

“Nuggies.”

“I just did!”

“Nuggies.”

“But-!”

“Three more bites.”

“But-!”

“Three more big bites.”

“I’m tryin’ to-!”

“Three more big boy bites.”

I stared pure hate at her from the highchair as I ate three more huge pieces of chicken.  She ate her food with gusto.  I was getting full fast, and feeling better, but my needle was in the yellow.  If I had much more, I’d feel sick, I was sure of it.  My stomach just wasn’t expanding fast enough from being empty to suddenly stuffed.

I was still chewing and trying my darndest to swallow when Janet finished her burger.  “It makes sense now, why you ripped up my pamphlet that day.”

Mouth full of honey mustard and chicken, I could only make faces to communicate my confusion. What was she talking about?

“You were jealous.”

I erupted chicken.  “Chairuff!”  Bits of pre-chewed meat tumbled down the bib and into the. 

“Littles going through Maturosis develop a  psychological need for a caregiver,” she said. She popped a fry in her mouth.  “You saw the pamphlet and you started getting jealous that I was going to adopt somebody besides you.” Another fry.  “It worked out, though, didn’t it?”

Bullshit.  Such fucking bullshit.  “I was NOT jealous!”

She laughed through her nose, smiling as if I had just said something adorable.  “Are you suuure?” she teased.

“Yes I’m sure!”

Another finger tickled me under my chin.  “Are you suuuuure?”

“Goddamnit, Janet!” I smacked away her hand as hard as I could.  “I WAS NOT FUCKING JEALOUS!  I DIDN’T WANT THIS! AND I’M NOT A -....”

She was staring at me.  Her gaze and countenance had mutated completely.  Gone was cute and cuddly and doting baby crazy Janet.  And in her place was a wrathful titan gazing down at a sinner.  “Clark. We do NOT use that kind of language.  EVER!”  Her voice literally BOOMED.  

I was used to living in a world not meant to fit me.  I’d already crapped my pants, been shoved in a tube, been diapered and changed and carted around.  I’d been forced to cuddle with a stuffed animal and eat in a high chair.  But then, just then, with Janet staring at me, her eyes full of fire and her voice full of thunder...that was the first time that day that I’d actually felt small instead of just Little.

“Yes, ma’am,” I whispered.

Her expression softened a little bit.  Her heart was still beating and her adrenaline going, but she was calming down.  In a weird way that was comforting.  If she’d been able to turn her emotions on and off like a switch…

I shuddered to think what that might mean.

“Good,” she said. She took the juice box out of the cardboard box and poked a straw in it.   “Do you want your juice?”

No.  No. No. No.  It was probably a diuretic.  Or a laxative.  Or both.  But I was thirsty.  And dehydrated.  Beouf had been right about that.

“Can I…?” I stuttered a bit, still shaken.  “Do you have anything else?  Water?  Milk?”

Janet’s eyes lit up. “Milk!”  Bad idea, Clark!  Really bad idea!  Asking an Amazon for milk was a one way trip to full time breastfeeding!

Not this time though. She got up and opened up a cabinet next to the fridge.  A (of course) pink-bottle came out of the bottom shelf, and Janet began rapidly unscrewing it.  “I just sterilized this!  Perfect timing, huh?” Great.  She was bragging, now.  Typical.

At the very least, the milk was coming out of a jug.  Anything powdered would’ve definitely been poisoned.  Janet must have seen me eyeballing her.  I caught a hint of a smile, from her.  “It’s not poisoned, Clark.  Mommy puts this in her morning coffee every day.”  Just talking about coffee made me cringe.  She made a show of opening her mouth and squirting some milk in.  “See?  Mmmm...milk.  Yummy.”

She offered me the bottle.  It was inches from my face, but she wasn’t .  Her eyes looked hopeful.  “Can you take it?” she asked.  “Can you take it like a big boy?”

Oh fuck me. 

Stuck with a damned if you do and damned if you don’t, I reached out, grabbed the bottle and started sucking down the milk.  Whole milk.  Fat and sweet whole milk.  I sucked on the bottle. Turns out it’s hard to glare while nursing on a rubber teat.  Fun fact.

The bottle drained, Janet removed the dirty tray and unbuckled me.  “I think we’re gonna have an early bedtime,” she declared.  We?  Yeah right.  She’d be up till dawn texting someone or making posts on Facelog about her new “baby boy”.  I didn’t have time for my outrage to re-manifest as she yet again checked my diaper.

“I can tell you if I need to be changed,” I said. Oh fuck. Why did I say that like it was an option? “Or go to the bathroom.”  It was impossible to meet in the middle when someone kept moving farther away.

“I know,” she said.  I didn’t think she really meant it.  I didn't think she was trying to seem like it though.  She just wanted to stop my yapping.

My yapping stopped promptly when she carried me into the nursery.  

Pink!  So much pink!  The pink crib and matching changing table was decorated in lace and frills.  Dolls and pink stuffies were in a decorative pile in one corner.  A pink unicorn rocking horse in another.  A Little sized dressmaker’s dummy had a medieval princess gown.  From the ceiling a banner hung.  The words “Welcome Home Baby Girl” broadcast for any Little that still knew how to read. 

The only thing that wasn’t a shade of pink were the diapers in a supply net above the changing table.

“Janet…” I stuttered as she took me over to the changing table.  “Janet?”  

“Yes baby?”

I was down on the mat, her hand pinning my chest while she reached for a new diaper.  “You told all those people on the phone…” I paused when I saw just how thick the new one was. Forget walking!  No way would I be able to stand in that thing.  “That you got a boy...right?”

“Hold on,” her voice seemed teasing. She ripped open the tapes to my diaper and looked down.  “Yeah.  I think so.”  She slipped the old diaper out.  “Why? Are you a girl?”  Her question seemed genuine.

“NO!” I yelped. “No, no, no, no. It’s just that…” I looked around the decidedly VERY feminine nursery.

Janet finished taping the nighttime diaper onto me. On the waistband, cartoon monkeys all snoozed with little nightcaps and pajama tops.  “What do you,” she stopped and I practically saw the lightbulb go off.  “OOOOOOOH!”

I almost got whiplash from the hug.  “What?”
I was plopped down in the crib, seat first.  My hands fell back to break my fall.  If I fell down on my back, I’d be a turtle with the bulk of what I was wearing.  And that was when it was dry.  I shuddered to think about how bad it would be when I wet it…

IF I wet it!  IF I WET IT!  NOT WHEN!  IF!  

Janet booped me on my nose again.  “Wanna know a secret, Clark?”

Afraid of her answer, I nonetheless played along.  “What?”

“I did want a Little girl.  But fate gave me you, instead.”  Fate? The hell was she talking about?  “If I had gotten pregnant, I wouldn’t have gotten to choose if my baby was a boy or a girl.” Her eyes took on a kind of dreamy quality.  “With everything that’s happened today, I feel more like a Mommy than ever.  And I have you to thank for it.”

I just stared up at her in complete disbelief.  What did she want me to say? You’re welcome? Not likely.

“I promise that we’ll turn your room into a proper nursery for a Little boy.  You’ll just have to be mature and patient about it.”  She pushed me down onto my back and draped a pink blanket over me.  I was physically exhausted, emotionally drained, and had a full stomach for the first time all day.  I wasn’t getting out of this crib.  Not yet.

Before she raised the rail up, trapping me, Janet leaned over, kissed me on the forehead and whispered, “I love you so much.”  And the worst part; the scariest part; was I knew she thought she meant it.

The rail raised up.  Thick, pink blackout curtains by the window were closed.  “Night night.”

I didn’t answer.

The door was closed.  And for the first time all day, I was left alone with my thoughts.  Not a good place to be.

As my lids started to get heavier and heavier, my mind started to race.  

No job.

Beouf had turned on me.

Tracy had abandoned me.

Janet had adopted me.

And Cassie.  What about Cassie?  Was she safe?  Worried?  Panicking and afraid for her own life?

I wasn’t going to sleep.  Not with Cassie out there.  

But I was so tired. Every muscle in my body was aching from a day of humiliation and thrashing about; struggling against the inevitable as my body was abused and altered in front of people who used to be.  I might’ve cried so much that I was literally out of tears.

And there was another problem. Now I really did have to pee.

“Janet?” I called.  “Janet?!  I have to pee!”  No answer.  “JANET??!” I called louder.  “I have to pee!”  Nothing.  “I have to go potty!” I tried.  Maybe using vocabulary she’d accept would get me somewhere.  Typical Amazons thought that SOME Littles could be potty trained. Nothing.

I counted to a hundred. “Nooooooo!” I bluffed.  “I wet my pants!  Please change me, Janet!  I need to sleep!”  At the very least I could try peeing in open air mid change.

No luck though.

A minute went by.  A minute turned into fifteen.  Fifteen became a half hour. Then an hour.  The only thing that kept me from thinking about my filling bladder was terrible thoughts about what might’ve happened to my wife.  And the only thing that distracted from those were the growing urgency in my bladder.

And shamefully, I just wanted to sleep.  I wanted to block the world out and close my eyes and cease to exist in this world for a few hours.  As the pressure increased, the instinctual, lizard part of my brain came to one inevitable conclusion:  I was going to either wet my diaper and then pass out from exhaustion.  Or I was going to pass out from exhaustion and then wet my diaper.  The only choice I had in the matter was the order of operations.  I wasn’t going to be allowed to make it through the night dry.

 Sitting up on my elbows, I stared at the padded lump beneath the blanket.  Despite what the giant loonies thought, I was still potty trained, and on some level that meant that I couldn’t do this lying down.  I had to “see” it.  I had to will it to happen.  I had to focus.

My tongue retreating to the top of my mouth I stared at my padded crotch.  “Do it,” I whispered to myself. “Just do it.  Get it over with.  You’re going to lose this battle anyway, so lose it on your own terms.  Do it so you can go to sleep and start fresh tomorrow. This isn’t the end.  This isn’t the war.  It’s one battle out of many to come.  You can do this.  You can do this.”

It didn’t feel like victory when my bladder finally gave out and I felt the hot splash of urine on my privates a half second later.  It didn’t feel wet either.  A flash of warmth, and a slight dripping sensation as the thirsty padding soaked up my not-quite accident almost as fast as I was making it.  

It felt kind of nice actually…

I sighed and laid back as my body took over.  It felt like a lot of things.  Kind of nice.  Like a sponge bath.  It definitely felt like relief; my body let out an involuntary sigh in time with my stream.  It felt so weird feeling myself pee, and not seeing it come out of me, though.

“I’m sorry Cassie,” I cried.  Ah.  There were the tears. “I’m so sorry.” I wasn’t done whimpering yet.  “I’m so so sorry.” I called out to the air.  “I didn’t mean to!” Even I wouldn’t have recognized my own voice through all the croaking and whining I was doing.  I definitely didn’t sound like a teacher anymore.

I didn’t sound like any adult I’d ever met either.

I sounded closer to a…

Well…

You know…

“I’m S-S-S-S-S-S-ORRRRRRRRY!”   Wet face and wet diaper, my sobs lost all words as I called out to my wife like she was a distant and forsaken goddess.

My wife didn’t hear me of course.  But I swear as I lulled my head to the side-the closest I could manage to rolling over-that the light changed underneath the nursery door.  Almost as if there were a very big person who’d been listening in the whole time, and had just now moved away; satisfied that her Little Baby had been properly broken in.