Pastel Mirror: Pay Up, Baby!

[Personalias]

Pastel Mirror:  Pay Up Baby!

“Credit card payment due”, the first email said.  Ryan scrolled down his inbox.  “Internet payment due.”  “Electric bill due.”  “Late rent notice.”  “Water bill is late.”  “Loan payment due.”  Another “Credit card payment” notice.  ANOTHER another “credit card payment due” notice.  Oh, and look at that: a low balance notice on his bank account.

Looks like he’d have to dip into his “savings” again.  “Why do I even bother putting stuff in there?”  Ryan wondered to himself.  “It’s not like I ever actually get to save anything.”  Oh, to be living in a long bygone age where one could just rip up a paper bill and claim that it must have been lost in the mail.  Truth be told, though, Ryan wasn’t sure that ever really worked short of a sitcom joke.

Everything was digital these days. Deleting the email would do nothing to rid himself of any kind of paper trail or responsibility.  Shit.  These days?  They’d always been digital for Ryan.  He wasn’t THAT old; not old at all, in fact.  (Twenty-five was’t old, was it? No.)  Just living with all this worry made him feel old.

Not enough money.  Too many credit cards.  Not enough support.  It was getting to (truth...had already gotten to) the point where he was choosing which bills to pay, and which ones to pay late.  Far too soon he’d be at the point where he was figuring out what goods he could go without.  Would peanut butter and jelly with tap water to drink be enough to get him through the month?  Or would even that be too much?  Did he really need to go to the dentist again or could he live with that dull toothache for a little bit longer?  Maybe he could cut his own hair?  Or would a set of electric clippers set him back too much this month so that the long term investment wouldn’t be feasible?

It didn’t seem to matter what he did, or which expenses he cut, or how many hours he worked.  Some new expense always took its place, or some special occasion demanded money or he’d go crazy and make some impulse buy that he really didn’t need but DAMN IT he needed it right then!  

On a personal level Ryan lacked the financial resources, the emotional strength, and enough self- control to make it so that he had money left over at the end of the month.  More often than not, he had a lot more month at the end of the money.  It wasn’t his fault though. Not really.  He just had young people money in an old people economy.

“The fuck am I gonna do?”

As if in response, something made it past his spam filter and into his inbox:  “GAME SHOW OPPORTUNITY: CLICK HERE FOR YOUR CHANCE TO WIN HALF A MILLION DOLLARS!”

Ryan rolled his eyes.  Spam.  Virus.  Obvious trap was obvious.  At the very least he could get the satisfaction of clicking delete on this piece of shit garbage trick.  (Too bad he couldn’t delete his loan payments; those were the real traps.)  

And yet...

Ryan hovered over the email for half a second longer than common sense dictated.  It HAD made it past his filters and all. And despite everything Ryan thought he knew about how the world worked, he knew nothing about game shows, contests, reality T.V. shows or anything with real people in it that didn’t require an acting degree and an audition.  Maybe a big chain all-call WOULD be the way to get contestants...

Ryan did a quick check of his computer to make sure that all of his anti-virus software was up to date and running.  Things looked okay...but….Ryan opened up a new tab in his browser and checked his bank account again. Shit.  If this was anything worse than JUST a Nigerian Prince scam, Ryan was going to be shit out of luck getting it fixed. 

Then again, if it was something that’d dox him or drain his bank account...good luck fuckers. He couldn’t be blackmailed or stolen from because he had nothing worth stealing or blackmailing.  Technically, didn’t that mean the odds were in his favor? Sure it did..

Arrow hovering over the email, Ryan sent out a little prayer into the cyber cosmos. “Please don’t fry my computer,” he whisper-chanted. “Please don’t fry my computer, please don’t fry my computer, please don’t fry my computer.”

He clicked.

Good news.  His computer didn’t immediately break down and burst into flames. Soooo...probably not a virus.  Bad news? If it was a scam, it looked like a halfway decent one.

“Alma Mater International (AMI) is launching a brand new Web Channel and creating top quality content! Among those is the soon-to-be hit new Game Show: “Pay Up, Baby!” Where contestants can win up to half a million dollars by answering a series of increasingly difficult trivia questions and performing “High Chair Dares”.  If you or someone you know is at least eighteen or older and has a high school degree and is interested in being a contestant please click the link below to register and see if we’ll be filming in a city near you!””

Not fancy.  Not exactly professional looking, either.  But it didn’t look like a complete hack job, either.  Okay.  So maybe this wasn’t a scam.  There were a billion new web series and Youtube Channels these days.  This could very well have been a new startup or a Go Fund Me that had reached a modicum of success.

But half a million dollars? And language implying that this was some kind of national tour?  Ryan puffed out his cheeks as he blew out his mouth.  If something seemed too good to be true, it probably was.  There was a good chance that this was a virus or something, and that if he clicked on the link, it’d go...poorly.  But what if it wasn’t?  Also...half a million?  If this was a scam or a practical joke, why not just make a nice even million?  As ridiculous as half a million dollars sounded, it still sounded feasible...reasonable...oddly attainable.  Then again, isn’t that the kind of psychology that some internet troll would use?

Idea!

Ryan opened another tab and looked up Alma Mater International.  Well, how about that:  Such an organization did exist!  For some reason the main site was behind a login paywall, but at least it existed!  Not only that, but the tour site was promoting an upcoming Web Channel AND a game series!

Just to be sure, Ryan backed out and looked up reviews and info about the site.  “Re-education and Re-training Opportunities,” one board said.  “Paradigm shift” another spoke of.  “Resources and supplies for success when the system has failed you.”  “When the world has let you down, AMI is there to pick you back up.”

Apparently, this was some kind of charity education foundation, or something.  That made sense.  Wasn’t somebody’s school often called an Alma Mater?  And even though all of the reviews seemed to have been written by women, (based on screen names like MamaJo and MissMary), most of AMI’s success stories were focused on men.

“My husband”, one review said, “couldn’t hold down a decent job to save his life or our house.  Thanks to AMI, our house is secure and so is he!  I couldn’t be happier, prouder, or more content!”

“Holy shit,” Ryan thought aloud.  “I might actually be in the target audience for this thing!”  

Another testimonial read, “Couldn’t find a boyfriend that met my needs.  Alma Mater International found, educated, and trained him.  We’re a success story, now!”

“Then again…” Ryan frowned, “Maybe not?”  He squinted at the screen, as if that would somehow make the words make more sense.  “Is this a dating site or something?”

“My little man didn’t have a job before I met him.  Now we’ve both got the best jobs in the world.  Thanks AMI!”

“Or is it promising I’ll get chicks if I make big bucks?” Ryan asked himself.  Coded language aside, the message was all kinds of muddled.

Still might be worth the money. He did a little more digging before he clicked on the link.  Advertisements lied and misled.  It was practically their job.  It might not be half a million all at once. Lots of shows with that kind of cash paid out slowly over twenty years. That’d still be an extra twenty five thousand a year that he didn’t have.  Not quite quit-your-job money, but it was definitely quite-your-least-favorite-job money.

 Even if it was just college debt relief, that’d be one less bill he’d have to pay.  One less thing to stress over and one more excuse to justify eating out when he really should have been sticking to store brand PB&J.  All said, Ryan’s brain- though influenced by desperation and greed- came to a fairly logical conclusion:  Couldn’t hurt.  Might help.  Worth a shot.  

Right  hand on the mouse; left hand clenching his inner thigh; the young man gritted his teeth. “Fuck it.”  He clicked.

He clicked.  And it worked?  He was redirected to the sign up site for “Pay Up, Baby!” and it had all the same logos and design style (or lack thereof) that AMI had.  

“Sign up to join us for some good clean fun and a chance to change your life forever!” Ryan read aloud.  “Holy shit!  This is real!”  Quickly, on the verge of a manic breakdown, Ryan started filling out the information. Name. Gender. Age. Highest level of education. Yearly Income. Height, Weight, and Hair Color. City of Residence.  Name and Email.”

No red flags.  No overly identifying personal information. No birthdates or social security or credit card numbers.  Not even a mother’s maiden name type of thing.  He didn’t care that “waist size” was one of the questions or that parts of the application sounded more like a dating app.  It took him no time at all to take a quick pic of himself and download it.

“And here. We. Go.”  With those last few clicks and clacks, Ryan hit “Send”, waited for some sort of confirmation. Almost immediately, the screen redirected to a rather bland page saying “Thank you for registering with Alma Mater International’s Re-Programming Initiative.  Should you qualify, you will be contacted.”

Ryan sank a little in his chair.  “Yeah,” he muttered.  “Yeah, that tracks.” It’s not like he was instantly going to be selected.  He might not be selected at all.  His name just got added to a digital pile that was probably hundreds of pages deep, at least.

Still...that hope, that feeling that he might even get the opportunity to win some money had filled him with energy.  And now that he’d taken all the steps he’d been allowed to, he’d have to do the hardest part:  Wait.  

It was hard for someone like Ryan to wait.  Waiting sucked.  Waiting took patience and worse; discipline.  Instead, Ryan did the next best thing:  He forgot.  He clicked out of the redirected website, opened youtube, clicked on a video essay with a passingly interesting clickbait title...and forgot.

Imagine his surprise the next day when after waking up and going to the bathroom, he checked his inbox.

“CONGRATULATIONS!  “PAY UP, BABY!” IS COMING TO YOU!”

Heart thudding his chest, Ryan opened the email and started reading.  No hesitation this time. No worries about viruses or scams or Nigerian Princes.  Inside his mind was a battle of desperate hope that this was what he thought it was and the pessimistic realism assuring him that it couldn’t be.

This might just be another advertisement.  It wasn’t.  He might just be invited to be an audience member.  Nope.  Contestant.  It clearly said contestant.  It might require an entrance fee.  None of that, either.  An audition or pre-round? None mentioned. The filming location might be too far away? Not according to the driving directions it wasn’t.  Just a little over an hour’s drive.  It was coming up soon!  He might not be able to attend the taping?  Nope.  He actually had that day off, too.  There might be a limit or term of condition as far as prize money?  There was none that Ryan could see.

RIght there in black digital ink on a white digital background were the words,  “You have been selected as a contestant on ‘Pay Up, Baby!’ and will be eligible to compete for up to five hundred thousand dollars in prize money.”  Calling it five hundred thousand dollars made it seem even bigger than just calling it half-a-million. “Just RSVP and arrive on the address listed below, at the given time.  We look forward to meeting you!  There is no entrance or participation fee required.  Just be ready to Pay Up, Baby!”

“This is it,” Ryan said to himself.  “This is how I could change my life forever!”  He didn’t even feel stupid that he was talking directly to his computer screen and that no one else could possibly hear him.  “This could be a new beginning!”

Little did he know that he was right.  Just not in the way he expected to be...

*************************************************************************************************************
Ryan didn’t wake up as much as he came to.  Ideally, waking up is a gentle process. Slow. Gradual.  Even by alarm clock, it feels like one has been dreaming.  Coming to is your brain turning back on after it has been starved of oxygen.  Incredibly jarring.

The young man didn’t sit up.  He didn’t have to because he was already sitting up.  All three of them were.  Next to Ryan were two other men.  To his left was a scrawny, meek looking fellow with thick rimmed glasses.  To Ryan’s right, a guy who was muscled up enough to be a bouncer at any number of clubs Ryan wasn’t cool enough to get into.  

Both of them seemed just as disturbed and groggy as Ryan felt.  Ryan might have waved to one of them to get their attention, but none of them were capable of waving.  All three men sat restrained in what Ryan could only describe as giant highchairs.  Big white things, with trays that slid up to their chests and pinned their arms to the sides.  He might have called out to them, too, save that his voice couldn’t be heard over the roar of the audience.

Audience?! 

Women. So many women!  All of them applauding like crazy.  A wall of women, roaring at him like he was a chip and dale dancer. Dozens, if not more!  They were screaming! Whistling! Clapping.  Some were even blowing kisses and making pouty faces.   It was like Ryan was on stage at an old Elvis concert...and he was Elvis!

STAGE!  That’s right.  He was on a stage!  All around the stage and floor were giant replicas of baby toys and furniture:  Stacking rings that could double as hats.  Strollers that could be wheelchairs.  Baby swings that could double as ski lifts.  Even a barrier separating them from the gaggle of insane women looked more like a series of giant baby gates.

To his far left was a Jeopardy style question board that resembled a giant refrigerator. It even had crayon drawings and baby pictures strewn about with fake magnets.  Something was off though and it didn’t take him long to realize:  Those weren’t actual baby pictures, but pictures of grown-ass men dressed up as babies.  How much had someone had to pay those models, and more importantly where’d they get diapers that big?

As if in mocking answer to his own question, Ryan noticed a not-so-small tower of diaper boxes next to the clue board.  Being in his mid-twenties, Ryan had had a few friends who’d bitten the bullet and had a family despite lack of finances and wild oats yet to sew.  The stacks of boxes reminded him of cordial visits to check in on the condemned man; and how the cardboard containers littered the apartments, from nursery to living room.

These boxes were practically crates, however.  Obviously props.  And although they still had the labels of “Huggies”, “Pampers”, and “Luvs” on the boxes, the models on them were far too old to be in diapers.  

Just as he was starting to put the pieces of his new situation together, Ryan had the clues solved for him. 

“AND NOW,” a lady’s voice blared out over speakers so loud that even the wailing audience  “IT’S TIME FOR THE GAME SHOW WHERE BETS ARE PLAYED, BEDS ARE MADE, AND THE COMPETITION GETS WIPED AWAY! IT’S TIME FOR…!

The crowd of women joined in.

“PAY!”

“UP!”

“BABY!”

Deafening game show music was piped into the room.  If the onlookers on the other side of the baby gate were excited before, they were in a complete frenzy, now.

Game show!  He was on that game show he’d signed up for! But how did he get here?  What day was it? Who were these other guys stuck in the highchairs?  The fuck was happening?!

“AND HEEEEEERE’S YOUR HOST,” the announcer continued over the theme music. “THE MAMA MIA WHO MAKES THOSE BABIES BOOM-BOOM! THE THE ONE, THE ONLY MISS MOLLLLLLY CAWWWWWDLE!”

The waves of cheers and excitement coalesced into a cult-like chant

“MOLLY! MOLLY! MOLLY!”

They were the Ancient Romans in the Colosseum and the woman who just entered was their Caesar.  This was no ordinary game show host. This “Molly Cawdle” (that HAD to be a stage name ) looked like Jessica Rabbit crossed with Betty Crocker.  Reddish brownish hair that was somehow both smooth and curly, cut into a June Cleaver do;  a blue v-neck dress that was nipped at the waist; a string of pearls around her neck; and baby blue heels on her feet.  Dainty hands with perfectly polished nails held lightly onto a thin Bob-Barker microphone.

And her measurements: What was the phrase 36-24-36.  Big tits. Skinny waist. Big hips.  It was almost uncanny valley territory; but only almost.  Looking at this 1950’s goddess not ten feet away from him snapped Ryan out of what little stupor remained.  Primal Lust can sometimes accomplish what raw fear and confusion can’t.

“Thank you! Thank you!” A new voice on stage said.  “You’re too kind. Too kind!”

“No, you are!” A random lady shouted from the audience. “We love you Molly!”

“And I love you all too,” the new voice- Molly Cawdle, apparently- said. “But I know who you’re really here to see.”  The pause lingered and grew pregnant. “LET’S MEET OUR CONTESTANTS!”

Another near deafening roar.  “Tell us who is playing today, Nancy!”

The announcer took back over.  “FIRST UP, ON YOUR FAR LEFT, THIS CUTIE IS TWENTY-FIVE YEARS YOUNG AND THE STRONG AND SILENT TYPE! HE ONLY HAS A  G.E.D. AND A BACKGROUND IN CONSTRUCTION!  HE LIKES SHAPE PUZZLES AND WEARS A SIZE TEN! PLEASE WELCOME LIIIIIIITTLE SAMMY!”  Big dude looked confused as hell and even a bit offended. Definitely wasn’t “little”.  Probably wasn’t “Sammy”.  Maybe “Samuel” or “Sam”.  Probably “Sam”.

“NEXT UP, TO THE FAR RIGHT,” the announcer continued, “HE’S TWENTY-SEVEN AND WORKED SUPER HARD TO GET HIS MASTER’S IN SOFTWARE ENGINEERING!”  Ryan blinked. Yeah...that tracked.  Small body, big brain.  “HE LIVES AT HOME WITH HIS PARENTS, BUT HE HOPES TO CHANGE THAT TODAY!” That almost made sense, too. Guy looked afraid of his shadow; forget about Mom and Dad’s doorstep.  “HE LOVES STACKING RINGS AND NEEDS A SIZE EIGHT! PLEASE WELCOME LITTLE TOOOOONY!”  Okay, yeah. This guy was “little”.  “Scrawny” would have been an even better adjective. Definitely a “Tony”.

The poor guy was practically vibrating in his highchair from all the shivering.  The audience let out a loud “Awwwwww!” as the spotlight shined on him, making him look all the more like a frightened chihuahua.

“LAST BUT NOT LEAST!” the announcer boomed, “THIS ADORABLE LITTLE GUY IS TWENTY-FOUR YEARS YOUNG AND HAS QUOTE, ‘SOME COLLEGE’ AND LOTS OF STUDENT DEBT!”  Laughter from the audience.  How did they know that?! The college thing, sure, he’d put that on the application, but not the debt!  “HE LOVES LEARNING ABOUT ANIMAL SOUNDS AND WILL BE WEARING A SIZE NINE!  HEEEERE’S LITTLE RYAN!”

Ryan blanched as the spotlight hit him.  There was the ‘size’ thing. What were they talking about when they mentioned sizes? Before the applause died down, something about the set caught Ryan’s eye:  The diaper boxes, next to the clue board.  Just like real baby diapers, there were labels to how big each baby needed to be to fit in them.  Instead of talking about pounds however, each sizing label included waist size.

Luvs size 8.  31’’-36’’
Pampers size 9. 37’’-41’’’
Huggies Size 10

Diapers.  The announcer was talking about what size diapers they wore.  Ryan didn’t say it out loud- and if he had no one would have heard over the near delirious cheering- but had anyone been able to read lips they would have known that he was distinctly mouthing, “What the fuck?”.

“Alright, contestants,” the host said.  “Are you ready to play?”

“What the actual fuck?” Ryan blurted out.  He doubted anyone heard him though over their own delirious applause.  

It was Tony’s voice that managed to pierce through the scream.  “EXCUSE ME!” he shrieked over the din.  The crowd of woman kept at bay by the giant baby gate stopped screaming, but not before a wave of cooing aws issued forth.

“AWWWWWWWW!”

The host, a so-called “Molly Cawdle”, turned to the scrawny man trapped in the highchair. “Yes sweetie?”

“What is going on here?”  

“AWWWWWWWWW!”

It seemed to Ryan that that one shout was all the courage Tony had left in his system.  The poor guy started shrinking back down, as if trying to hide in the ridiculously sized infant chair.  Like a modern June Cleaver, the host walked elegantly up to the highchair and pinched his cheeks.  “We’re playing a game, sweetie.  A game you signed up for.  Remember?”  Her tone had immediately changed from game show schpiel to preschool playful.  “Or did you already forget?”

“How did I get into these clothes?” Tony gestured with his chin to the plain green shirt he wore.  Ryan 

HOLY SHIT!  Ryan looked down at his plain yellow shirt.  Red. Yellow. Green.  Like colors on a stoplight they all wore basic t-shirts.  The problem (one of them, anyway) was that Ryan definitely hadn’t been wearing that before he lost consciousness.  Had they been abducted?  Had someone actually stripped him naked and redressed him like some kind of manakin?

Or a baby?  Size 8. Size 9. Size 10.  Pampers, Huggies, and Luvs.  

Still trapped in his highchair, Ryan sucked in his gut so he could see past the tray and down to his waste.  He was still wearing pants.  Loose fitting shorts, actually.  Good.  Shorts were good. But what about beneath?  Ryan wriggled as much as he could.  It wouldn’t help him escape- there was a codpiece between his legs preventing him from sliding all the way down- but wriggling could help with something else.  He wriggled his hips trying not to jostle the chest restraint keeping his back against the chair.

Nothing.  No extra padding.  No rustling or crinkling.  No extra bulk.  It had been forever and a day since Ryan had been toilet trained, but based on how puffy those diapers on the boxes looked, Ryan figured he would have been able to tell had he been wearing one.  Based on the chafing, he might in fact be going commando.
Oblivious or uncaring of Ryan’s self-examination, Molly Cawdle addressed the question more directly. “We couldn’t have our little contestants show up naked could we?” She gave all three a wink.  “Don’t worry though.  You might not be wearing those outfits for very long.”

More applause.

“BULL!” Sammy roared out over the clapping.  “I didn’t sign up for this!”  Ryan looked at the bigger man and mentally corrected himself.  Nope. Sam.  Definitely Sam. “LEMME GO!”

Tickling fingers skittered from one man’s leg to another until they arrived at the bigger man’s knee.  “Awwww,” Molly jeered.  “Looks like someone didn’t read the terms and conditions!”  The laughter that followed from the audience was knowing, condescending, and certainly more mean spirited than anything Ryan had yet heard.  “Does that mean you don’t want to play anymore?”

“Fuck no I don’t wanna play!”

“That’s a shame,” the host smirked.  “That means you won’t be able to get your shot at half-a-million dollars.”  She gestured out past the baby gate. “Not to mention the devoted attention of any one of these beautiful audience members!”

On cue, the horde of women all started waving frantically.   Once again, they were the headliners of a sold out stadium tour.  “Uh...uh...uh…”  Sam started to stammer.  It wasn’t the studio lights causing Sam to start breaking out into tiny beads of sweat.  Ryan wasn’t a doctor but he was willing to bet that the bigger man’s cargo shorts were starting to get smaller.  The fact that the host was slipping her hand beneath the highchair was not lost on anyone.   “Okay…” the big man panted.  “I’m in.”

“Well then,” Molly smiled.  “Choose who is going to help you.”  

Hands shot up towards the ceiling and heads and hair (among other things) bobbed up and down as women jumped for attention.  

“Pick me, Sammy!”

“No Sammy, pick me!”

“Me me me me me!”

“We can have so much fun together.”

Sam narrowed his eyes as the skinny Bob Barker-esque mic was raised up to his mouth.  “Uh...Dee Dee?”
The microphone came back down to Molly’s lips.  “You have to say their whole name.”

“Are you serious?!”

“As a week old rash.”

Sam sighed.  “Fine…’Mommy’ Dee Dee.”

The giant baby gate blocking the audience was opened long enough for a dark haired woman to trot through.   “THANK YOU!” she ran up and hung her arms over the big man’s shoulder in a kind of one-sided hug.  Molly Cawdle got a more gentle hug.  “Thank you so much!”

Polite applause- the kind that people who are being good sports about losing- followed Dee Dee all the way to the highchair. “Uh...Am I gonna be sharing the money?”  Sam asked. The dark haired woman took a place next to Sam’s highchair and his question was ignored in favor of the second contestant.  

The mic went up to the much smaller man’s lips. “Little Tony,” Molly asked.  “Which Mommy will you choose?”

Tony was quicker to decide.  “Um...M-m-m-Mommy Mona?”  A blond woman with a short pixie cut swiveled her hips past the gate to more polite and disappointed applause.  Without waiting, she gave Tony a peck on the cheek.  It had been awhile since Tony had gotten that kind of attention, Ryan guessed, but that was only due to the massive shade of pink he was turning.

Ryan was last to be consulted.  Not that it mattered.  There had to be at least (at least) fifty women if not more, all clamoring for his attention.  “So...what exactly is my ‘Mommy’ supposed to do in this game?”  He received a semi-painful pinch on the cheek for his question.

“Just like any good Mommy, whoever you pick will support you and encourage you to do your best and to give you the tools you need to succeed.  Or in big boy terms, think of them as...” the June Cleaver-ish host clicked her tongue.  “-Advisors.”

The young man scowled to himself.  That description was every bit as helpful as the info he’d found searching for this game and the company that ran it:  Comforting without actually telling him anything.  Still, if he was going to be playing blind in some bizarre dating game (if that’s what this was) he might as well have someone he’d want to go on a date by his side.

He likced his lips and scanned the nametags “Mommy Rose…?”  

Ryan hadn’t heard so many disappointed ‘aws’.  They sounded like they’d all invested their life savings into lottery tickets and no one had called their lucky numbers.

“Don’t worry ladies,” Molly said as a cute little redhead trotted her way on stage, next to Ryan. “We’re taping multiple episodes today.  Everyone else will get their chance next session.  Till then, enjoy the show.”  That seemed to settle the audience down back into their seats.

“Thank you,” the redhead, Rose, whispered to Ryan.  “I was hoping I’d get to be your Mommy.”  With all forced perspective with the props, Ryan couldn’t be too sure, but he was fairly certain that the top of ‘Mommy Rose’s’ head would end at right about his eyebrows.  The tickle up his leg was met with giggles, and flirt that Ryan was, it wasn’t entirely faked.

Heels clacking all the way stage right, Molly gestured to the refrigerator shaped board.  “So here’s the game, Mommy’s and little ones!”  She made a grand gesture.  “We’re going to put dollar amounts up on the ol’ fridge here!”  

ON cue, the panels all filled up into various dollar amounts.  And they were ridiculous sums!  Thirty thousand?  Fifty?  Sixty?  All of the amounts on the board were more than Ryan made in a year!  The other two guys seemed equally as flabbergasted. 

“But behind each of the dollar signs is something you have to give up, boys.  Whoever gives up the most wins the money!”

It was Sam who asked for clarification.  “So it’s like Lent, but a game?”

“Kiiiiiiiind of,” Molly grinned like cat with a mouthful of yellow feathers.  “BUT! Don’t bid too high, because even if you’re outbid you lose what you’ve wagered.  And at the end of each round it’ll be time to…”

“PAY UP, BABY!”

Ryan jumped a bit at how loud the audience had gotten.  That HAD to be some kind of audio track, right?  For his panic. He got a comforting hand squeeze just beneath his tray.  “It’ll be okay,” Mommy Rose whispered.  “Just go with it.”

Pride hurt, Ryan would have ripped his arm away had he been able to move his arms  Instead, he just chose not to squeeze the stranger’s hand back. 

“Tony!” the hostess walked over to his highchair.  “You’ve been randomly chosen to go first.  So how much will we be playing for first in round one?”

Tony waited until the microphone was close enough for him to speak.  “Well uh...um...let’s start with thirty thousand dollars…?  Did I do that right?”  The question sparked an adoring reaction from the audience.  For her part, Tony’s ‘Mommy’ seemed enchanted with his timidity.

“For thirty thousand dollars, what are we looking for?” 
 The placard signaling 30K slid away, and in its place were the words “Hair”.

“Lucky first round pick!” Molly exclaimed A thin smile spread out from her lips. “So contestants...for thirty thousand dollars...how much hair are you willing to lose.”

Tony seemed to consider this for a moment.  “Um...so what do I…?”  His advisor leaned in and whispered something.  “Um...my armpit hair?”

“WE HAVE OUR FIRST BID!”

“Fuck it,” Sam called out.  “Pits AND the hair on my  junk.  I’ll do some manscaping for thirty-kay.” 

“ARMPITS AND PUBIC HAIR!”

Okay...so this was like a dare show.  Ryan looked down to the redhead holding his hand, her eyes hopeful, verging on mania.  “How about, pits, pubes, and butt...all of it?”  Fuck it.  He’d get a full Brazillian for thirty thousand dollars.

“OOOOOOOOOOOOH!”  Molly turned to Ryan’s ‘advisor’.  “You’re a very lucky woman.  He’s going to be so much easier to clean like that.”  The redhead nodded in complete agreement.

“All of that AND my chest...no fuckit! My torso!” Sam shouted.

“That AND my limbs!”  Ryan countered.  His Mommy started rubbing her chin in pantomime  “AND my facial hair!”  BOOM! Nail in the coffin!

“Looks like we have a bidding war between little Sammy and Ry-Ry.  This is the part where I mention that if a bid is matched but not topped, the contestant who made that bid first wins.”  

Ryan smirked.  He was in the lead and about to be thirty thousand dollars richer.  Out of the corner of his eye he saw Tony’s advisor whisper something into his ear.

“What Ryan said,” Tony piped up.  “All of that And the hair on top of my head!”  Gasps resounded from the audience as his Mommy clapped her hands.  Ryan gulped.  What else did he have to lose in this category?  Eyebrows?  A vigorous shaking of Rose’s head told him that it wasn’t such a good idea.  Not worth it.

“We’ve got a full Caillou going on!” Molly Cawdle crowed. “Going once!  Going twice!  DONE! Thirty thousand dollars to Little Tony!”  A series of bings and bongs not unlike a pinball machine rang out as Tony’s name went onto the refrigerator; 30K by his name.

The poor guy was actually tearing up in disbelief, Ryan saw.  Thirty-thousand dollars, and all it cost him was hair.  Ryan couldn’t help but feel a little jealous.

The hostess turned to face the audience.  “Now on any other, lesser gameshow,” she said, “this would be the part where I ask the lucky winner of thirty thousand smackeroos on what they were going to do next!  But the game is far from over, and we already know EXACTLY what they’re going to do next.  All three of our contestants are about tooooooo….!”

“PAY UP, BABY!”

A flash of white covered up the sight of the audience as privacy curtains were wheeled out in front of the highchairs.  People in pure white hazmat suits ran out with nasty looking implements, all buzzing and sparking. Ryan was no doctor, but the instruments looked like something out of a medical horror movie than anything that might actually show up in a hospital.

“The fuck?!” Sam cried out as the first jolt of electricity leaped out.   Was he being tazed or shaved?  Ryan couldn’t tell.  But he soon found out…

Both.  Both actions were happening.  Ryan shook uncontrollably as the smell of burning hair filled his nostrils and his muscles spasmed uncontrollable.  Sharp blades whirred out clipping and trimming while electrical current raced through his muscles in little snips and zaps.  Every single hair on his leg, on all of their legs, was being burned and lasered off.  

“THAT FUCKIN’ HURTS!!”

“WHAT THE FUCK?!”

“NO CREAM?!”

All three women stood beside the high chairs, cooing and encouraging the men as the hair on the easiest parts of their bodies was quickly zapped away.  A pair of thick gloved hands held Ryan’s head still while what felt like an electrified piece of barbed wire was being dragged over his chin, cheeks, and upper lip.

Even Samuel’s swearing lost coherence, the pain was so great, and tears were trailing down Tony’s cheeks.  This hurt.  ALOT.  Neither their pain, nor their humiliation was complete though.

As agony drove the three beyond words, Ryan was faintly aware of talking on the other side of the curtain.  Another show was going on.

“OUR THREE BOYS ARE GETTING ALL BABY SMOOTH,” Molly Cawdle’s voice rang out, “THANKS TO THE NEW AND IMPROVED LASER SHAVER!  LASER SHAVER! A FEW MINUTES OF ZAP AND A LIFETIME OF CLEAN SHAVEN SMOOTH HYGIENE.  LASER SHAVER: RENT YOURS TODAY, BECAUSE YOU’LL NEVER NEED IT MORE THAN ONCE!”

All three high chairs, as it turned out, could recline; with footrests elevating themselves so that they were parallel to the floor.  With the pull of a lever, each highchair became a kind of operating table.

Faceless, white clad tormentors closed in on Ryan, blocking his view of the others.  Still, he knew  He had wagered more than just the hair uncovered by clothing.  They all had.

“My pants!”

“My shirt!”

“MY BALLS!”

More vulnerable, intimate parts were zapped and shaved. Ryan blacked out for a moment and woke up with a gag in his mouth sitting upright; likely to muffle the screams and to prevent him from biting his own tongue off.

Ryan looked down at the gag and realized that there was a shield on it.  A gag might have been the device’s practical function, but a pacifier was its aesthetic.  Just like everything else about this madhouse, everything skewed baby.  

“There’s a numbing agent in the bulb.” Rose told him.  “Go ahead, baby.  Suck.  It’ll make you feel better.”  She was right, of course, and the burning stinging sensation began to ease the more Ryan worked the rubber teat in his mouth.  Without waiting, the three Mommies attached clips to the respective contestants' shirts...at least they had been redressed.  “Use it as much as you need it, sweetie.  Now go win some money.”

The white screen removed, Ryan let the over large pacifier drop from his mouth and surveyed the damage.  He was completely hairless from the eyebrows down.  The clothing felt weird, too. He hadn’t realized much sensory input he really got from his leg and body hair.  His t-shirt felt alien against his bare skin.  There was just something unsettling about it. 

 Sam looked rough, too.  Tony looked like a cancer patient.  And every woman in the building, including the host and three standing beside their highchairs, looked absolutely thrilled.

“Next round belongs to Sammy!” the hostess declared. 

All three men looked at each other nervously.  A new element of fear had been factored in:  Unspoken words were exchanged between the three.  If thirty thousand dollars was this kind of punishment, what would a higher dollar amount do to them?  Ryan prayed that he had developed some kind of psychic abilities, bowed his head so no one else could see his lips and whispered to himself,  “Pick low….pick low…”
  
“Twenty-thousand,” Sam bellowed. The lowest dollar amount on the board. The panel slid away, revealing the thing they’d be bidding on.

“WORDS!”  The applause swelled into a crescendo of hoots and hollers.  “The way this little bid works is that you choose what words you want to give up!  Whatever you bid, you won’t be able to say again!” 

Ryan frowned.  How the fuck could they do that?  Hair was one thing, but the ability to speak certain words...how would that work?  Shock collar?  Maybe, but unlikely.  He could always take a shock collar up.

The insane woman running the game show went over to the biggest of the men and offered him the first bed.  “Well...um...I guess….” he paused and winced, struggling with himself.  How did one bid something as intangible as a word? “Fuck!”

“You heard it, folks!” Molly crowed.  “After today, little Sammy will no longer say the dreaded ‘F-word!”

“Huh?” Sam shouted. “That’s not what I meant, I-”  But it was too late.  The sadistic woman in the 1950’s housewife garb just walked away. “How about you, baby Ry-Ry?”

“What if I don’t want to bid any words?” he asked.

The microphone snapped back to Ms. Cawdle.  “Contestants who fail to participate are disqualified and will lose any winnings they might have accumulated….”

Great.  So if he dropped out now, he’d have nothing to show for it beyond ridiculously smooth skin.  Might as well test the limits of what these people were willing to hear.  Boldly, Ryan leaned forward in the highchair as high as he could and let out a string of expletives that would have made any burgeoning middle schooler proud.  “Shit, cunt, fuck, bitch, ass, damn, piss, tits, cocksucker, motherfucker, pussy, dick, asshole, dickhead, bastard, choad, twat, crap, hell, prick, slut, bullshit, blowjob, beat off, clit, cock, jizz, and taint.”  Might as well go for the kill.

“You could have just said ‘every swear word’ you know.”  Molly said.  She was not amused.

Ryan couldn’t help but smirk.  “I did…”  A little pinch on his leg and stern look from the stranger he’d picked from the audience let him know that while he hadn’t technically broken any rule, he was toeing a line.  Fudge it.  Rules are rules.

The two seconds it took to go to the last highchair was a tense silence.
“And you?”

Now bald headed Tony sighed, and closed his eyes.  Ryan had put him in a pickle.  Everyone had to bid at least once or lose.  And every bid had to top the previous one.  That’s why Ryan had done it, to be honest, (that and it was fun to let loose a random string of profanities). 

 “All words commonly associated as curse words,” Tony said calmly.  “As well as racial, ethnic, sexual, or any other kind of phobic slur designed to other another human being.  I won’t need them anyways.”

“And once again, Tony takes the lead!”  

Ryan gritted his teeth and clenched his fists beneath the highchair tray.  Why hadn’t he thought of that?!  Tony’s so-called “Mommy” seemed pleased.

“So, Sammy?” Molly walked back round.  “I think the bid moves to you.”

Sam just gritted his teeth.  “Nope.  I’m out this round.  I need my swear words.”

The “AWWWW that came from the audience was one of disappointment.  Such disappointment seemed mirrored tenfold in his personal helper.  Molly even spared a second to pat the woman on the shoulder consolingly.

“Ryan?” There was something menacing in her tone.  “What about you?  Got any words left for us?”  Oh that was a dare, alright!

The redhead was whispering in his ear before he could reply with something suitably snarky.  “Go all out,” she hissed.  “Say all words except...and then choose which words you want.”  Ryan pictured himself, shock collared with only the ability to say whatever handful words he could think of.   No.  That wasn’t the way to go.  He didn’t want to lose THAT much.  That being said, he didn’t want to lose either.  Twenty thousand dollars might be worth getting shocked for swear words et. al.

“Everything that was just bid...aaaaand…” Ryan thought for a second, “the letter “R”.”

“MMMM?” The confusion rippled through the audience all the way up to the host.

“What do you mean?” Molly asked.

“I mean,” Ryan said, “I promise not to pronounce my R’s.  I’ll talk with a speech impediment.”

The shriek of delight from the random redhead he’d picked was contagious.  “Thank you!” She said to him.  “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!  That’ll be so cute!”  Ryan felt an unexpected flush of blood to his face.  Was he being hit on?
  
The microphone was moved back to Tony.  Bald boy was already shaking his head.  

“Looks like we’ve got a winner this round! That’s twenty-thousand dollars for Ryan.”  She gave a wink to him.  “Or as he’ll be pronouncing it from now on, ‘Wyan!”  

The bings and bongs as Ryan’s name and twenty thousand dollars were added to the board.  Quietly, Ryan wondered how much it cost to get a high quality shock collar turned off?  Probably less than twenty thousand, right?  Right.

“But now!” Molly gleamed.  “It’s time to…”

“PAY UP, BABY!”

The second time Ryan was ready for the white privacy curtain to separate them from the crowd.  As the people in all white rushed from backstage, Ryan held his head up a little higher, smirking over at the two men he’d just beat.

What Ryan wasn’t ready for was when white gloved heads put both sides of his head into a death grip.  The pain killing pacifier gag was lodged back between Ryan’s teeth.  “Just suck,” Mommy Rose said.  “This won’t take but a minute.”  She grasped his hand and held it, patting it gently and making comforting shushing sounds.  Ryan saw the look in the woman’s eyes and saw the the glint of steel.

It was then, combined with the telltale whirring of power tools that Ryan realized how wrong he’d been.  There was no shock collar coming.  Only the dull whir of a drill pressing into the back of his skull.

“LADIES,” Molly shouted from her end of the curtain. “DOES YOUR LITTLE GUY LIKE TO TALK UP A STORM BUT HAS NOTHING TO SAY? DOES HE CURSE AND NO AMOUNT OF SOAP WILL FIX THAT FILTHY MOUTH?  THEN TRY VERBO-CHIPPING HIM. VERBO-CHIPS CONTAIN CUTTING EDGE TECHNOLOGY THAT ZERO IN ON THE NEURONS CONNETED WITH PARTICULAR WORDS AND THEN CUTS THEM OFF AT THE SOURCE!  IT’S LIKE SOAP BUT FOR HIS BRAIN.  V-CHIPS! WHEN LESS IS MORE!”

Brain surgery.  They’d just had brain surgery done on them.  With fudging power tools!  It didn’t hurt thanks to whatever heavy duty stuff was in the  pacifier gag.  It didn’t stop Ryan and the others from crying as their skulls were burrowed into and chips were grafted into their brains.  

“It’ll be okay,” the redhead promised. “That’s what I’m here for.”

As if NASCAR had a team of neurosurgeons, the people in white disappeared backstage seconds later, just as the white curtain was lifted.  Any blood or other signs of violation had been cleaned up.  What hadn’t been removed were the men’s tears. 

“This…” Ryan realized out loud.  “This is puhmanent.”  A final tear leaked out onto his cheek. He would have sworn...but he just couldn’t anymore. 

Molly Cawdle turned back to them. The glint in her eye wasn’t anything short of terrifying.  “Who’s ready for round three?”  
************************************************************************************************************

Possibly due to the brain trauma Ryan was still in shock when the game started up again. “Looking a little light on the scoreboard boys,” the hostess said as a stagehand wheeled a cart out. It was silver and upon it were three bottles filled with clear liquid. If their distinctive shape weren’t enough, the rubber nipples on top were dead giveaways.  “How about another round to rack up the points?”

“No.”  It was Sam who spoke.  “No more bets.  No more bidding. I’m done.  Get me out. I quit.” Everything about his body spoke of someone not used to confinement.  Even with the highchair harness and restraints, his muscles bulged. His highchair started to shake and rock a bit from side to side.  His so-called ‘Mommy’ and a few stage hands rushed out to steady the chair.

In truth, Ryan was mildly surprised to see the big man break.  Ryan would have thought that either himself or Tony would have been the first to have a major freak out.  Goodness knows Ryan was toeing the line.

The show’s host held up her hands, palms out, in a calming gesture. “Betting?  Betting?  Who said anything about betting!  We like to change it up here every now and then.  It’s time for a physical challenge!”

A renewed wave of energy rippled through the crowd.  “And this is one that EVERYONE CAN WIN!”  More applause as Molly Cawdle grabbed one of the bottles.  “All each of you has to do is drink one of these down.  First one to drink theirs gets one hundred thirty thousand dollars.  Second place gets ninety thousand dollars, and third place gets eighty thousand!”  

“Excuse me,” Tony said as the applause died down.  “One hundred thirty thousand dollars?  For drinking a bottle?”

“That's correct!”  Tony got another pinch on his cheek for his trouble.  “Isn’t he a smartie, ladies?”  The cheers and coos seemed to agree.

“How are we supposed to do that while restrained?”

A cheeky grin blossomed on the leading lady’s face.  “Why, your Mommies will help you, of course! And you thought they were here just to look pretty for you.”  That got a knowing chuckle from everyone not trapped in a highchair.

That much money being offered was enough to stoke Ryan’s greed over any sense of self-preservation. That was a combined three hundred thousand dollars all told! “What’s in them?  They’uh cleah, but I’m bettin’ it’s not watuh in them.”   The young man grimaced at his own newly acquired speech impediment.  He’d known three year olds who talked better than him!

In reply, the hostess quickly unscrewed the caps on each (very large) baby bottle, took a sip, gargled, swallowed, then replaced the nipple. “Just water,” she said. “Look, I even gave you each a head start.”  More laughter.  “So boys.  Ready for the easiest money you’ve ever made in your life?  Or do you wanna go home hairless and broke?”

The three trapped men didn’t look at each other.  They didn’t need to.  Desperation, financial or otherwise, must’ve been a qualifier for contestants.

“Alright. I’m in.”

“Sure.”

“Bwing it on.”

The bottles were handed off to the audience volunteers and held up to each of the boys’ lips.  “On your mark,” Molly said.  “Get said. Drink!”  

Ryan’s lips reached outward as his Mommy pushed it closer. The audience erupted, cheering and chanting.  “GO! GO! GO! GO! GO!” Furiously he began to suckle as the water trickled into his mouth.  For the first few pulls from the bottle, Ryan’s tongue braced itself for the bitter taste of some kind of chemical additive or nasty trick.  

None came, however.  It tasted like...water.  At the confirmation Ryan suckled even harder, afraid that he’d lost time with hesitance.  For over a hundred grand, Ryan could deal with a speech impediment.  “That’s right, baby!” Mommy Rose cheered.  “Drink it all up!”  She angled the bottle up a bit.

And he did.  Quickly, he worked out a rhythm of breathing suckling and swallowing so that there was a steady flow gushing into his mouth at all times.  He only stopped once, when his stomach insisted he must long enough to let out a massive belch. 

“Looks like we’ve got a self-burping baby!” Molly joked.  Ryan just tried to ignore the lady’s taunting and doubled down on his nursing.

Something felt off when Ryan was approaching the bottom of his bottle. He felt good.  Really good.  Almost like he was glowing.  Everything felt fuzzy and edges of his vision developed little rainbows on the periphery.  Such...pretty...colors...  

Ryan had been drunk enough times in his life to draw the comparison, but it wasn’t an apt one.  This wasn’t quite like that.  It was both subtler and stronger.  When Ryan’s appendix had burst he’d been rushed to the hospital.  They’d given him the good shit there; better than morphine and infinitely harder to pronounce.  This was more like that.  A lot more.

“But how?” he wondered even as he kept drinking. The host had sipped from all three bottles before screwing the nipples back on.  Just as he was gurgling down the last of the water did something click.  There was nothing in the water.  But what if there was some kind of film or dust or chemical component inside the nipples?  Just add water.

The thing about chemical alterations to one’s brain is that it makes bad decisions much easier to make.  Even as the rational part of his brain screamed out drowning in the euphoria, Ryan let out a silly grin, letting the last few droplets dribble out the corner of his mouth.

“You like that, don’t you baby?” Ryan’s Mommy asked.  “Ry-Ry loves his bottle.”  Ryan didn’t respond, but only because he was so focused on trying to finish.

“Looks like little Sammy was super thirsty!”  Molly announced.  “We have a winner!”

“I WON!” Sammy screamed.  “I WUUUUUUUUUN!”  Ryan turned his head to see Sammy bouncing up and down in his highchair, craning his neck like a cock crowing at dawn.

Ryan drooped a bit, sagging his shoulders.  He still felt amazing, but decided that he should at least look dejected...y’know...to be a good sport.  It was just so much easier to emote right then.  He got a peck on the cheek for his troubles.  “Don’t worry,”  Mommy Rose told him. “You’ll have another shot.”  

That’s right, his drug added brain realized.  He would.  Game wasn’t over yet.  And even coming in third place put him at a hundred thousand dollars.  Now he just had to make it through this game.

More bings and bongs and scores were updated.  For some odd reason, (not that odd come to think of it) Ryan didn’t care too much about how much money he’d earned.  He’d already earned enough as it was.  All he had to do for the rest of the game was bid low, not get disqualified and walk out of here as whole as possible.  

It didn’t seem so bad in the moment that he had a speech impediment, couldn’t swear, and was almost completely hairless.  Mommy Rose certainly seemed to like him better as the game continued.  Why?  Maybe she was a gold digger or something.  Ryan didn’t much care just then.  He didn’t have to.

“Now that we’ve all had some refreshments,” Molly joked, “Let’s go back to bidding.  Shall we boys?” All three lazily giggled and nodded their consent.  This was some good shit!  “Okay then.  Then the amount we’re bidding on passes toooooooo….” she paused.  “Baby Ry-Ry!”

Ryan was so stoned out of his gourd he didn’t care that his entire name had been butchered and infantilized.  “Fohty...thousand,” he slurred.  The money amount slid away as the Ryan read  “Potty twaining?”  Had his vision become as fucked up as his speech?

Thunderous cheering erupted from the audience.  “First bid goes to Ryan!” 

Ryan blinked.  His entire face felt kind of numb, not to mention the rest of him.  “What am I bidding?”

“How potty trained do you want to be?” Molly asked. “A simple bed wetter? Daytime accidents? Pull-Ups?”  Of course, you could always opt out and lose all of the money you just won by drinking your ba-ba all down.”

A tap on Ryan’s shoulder alerted him to the beautiful redhead he’s handpicked to be his Mommy.  “Bet big,” she said.  “Scare them into being too afraid to escalate.”

Mommy Rose has a point.  That’s how Ryan had won before.  Now that he was first to bid, he could up the ante from the very beginning.  Besides, based on the audience reactions and the decor, this is what everyone was looking forward to most.  Not a single enlarged box of Pull-Ups was on stage.  That meant something.

 Fuck it. “I wanna be unpotty twained!” Ryan declared.  Give the people what they want. “Diapuhs twenty-foh seven.”  The gasp from the assembled women was one of pure delight.  
 
“I’m so proud of you!” Mommy Rose cooed seductively in his ear.  “You won’t regret this I promise.”  That promise was almost immediately broken.

“The fudge?!” Sammy cried out. “That’s no fair!”

“How can we lose MORE than everything?” Tony added.

Molly Cawdle pressed a finger into her ear.  “Judges?” she asked.  Her gaze went into the middle distance as someone in a booth told her what to say next.  Her mouth twerked in amusement at what she heard based on whatever the producer/judges were telling her.

“Because of Ry-Ry’s...unorthodox bid…” Molly said into her microphone. “Little Sammy, and Tony are going to be allowed to match the bid.  If they do, they’ll split the fifty thousand dollars among them.”

“Alright,” Tony said, earning a kiss from the woman he’d picked to Mommy him.  “I’ll do it.”

“Fudge it...I’m in.”

“Congratulations.  All of you split the pot!”

Now it was Ryan’s turn to shout “No fair!”

“It might not be fair,” the show’s host said, “but it’s what we’re going with! Now, it’s time tooooo…”

“PAY UP, BABY!” 

The privacy curtain didn’t come out this time.  The quasi-medical crew rushed the stage again, tilting their giant high-chairs back.  Instead of an operating table, it was officially a changing table. He heard a muted click as the barrier between his legs was slid out, leaving him laying down spread eagle.

Drugged out of his mind and with a highchair’s feeding tray separating his chest from the rest of his body, Ryan felt almost completely divorced from the bottom of half of his waist.  He wasn’t quite numb enough to notice that his pants were being taken off for him.  The hoots and hollers from the audience didn’t help matters either.

“Now,” Molly Cawdle said, addressing the three women who’d been selected, “Here’s the question that we’ve been dying to find out.  What kind of diapers will your baby boys be wearing?”

Each of the women took their turn at the microphone, giving answers that could have doubled as commercials; their tone and tempo of speaking like something out of a beauty pageant.  (Which made sense enough; everyone in the audience seemed like they might have experience in such things)

“I want Huggies for my little Ry-Ry,” Mommy Rose could be heard saying.  “They’re very good on leaks and they’re perfume free.”

“One Huggies, Size nine!” Molly ordered with all the flare of a circus ringmaster.

Tony’s Mommy said, “I think Tony would look absolutely adorable in Pampers.  I especially like how they have a filter for keeping messies away from his skin so he doesn’t get a rash.”

“Get her a Pampers size eight!”

“You know what they say.  Live and learn.  Then get Luvs.  I think Sammy looks good in purple and Luvs holds everything in just fine.”

“You heard the new Mommy!” Molly called.  “Luvs, size ten.”

As this bit of pageantry was going on in the forefront, the real work was going on in the background.  Ryan saw his feet for the first time since he woke up when they were lifted up past the feeding tray.  A sense of fullness invaded him as a rod entered his behind, causing his toes to curl.

He felt, more than heard, the whoosh, like a pneumatic tube as something-some kind of pill maybe-was shot directly up his anus.  The slaps to his ass didn’t sting in a way he could feel, but they did cause his buttocks to clench and his asshole to pucker in.  Whatever they put in wasn’t coming out.

Ryan and company were given the mercy of not seeing the medical implements for the first part.  They weren’t lucky enough, for the second part.  Was that a roto rooter? For what?  His penis?  The claw at the end of the strange little contraption held a tiny little rock, no bigger than a kidney stone.  Only it’s translucent gel like surface told Ryan that it wasn’t a kidney stone.

“No-no-no-no!”  Tony screamed.  “STOP! STOP! I TAKE IT BACK!”

Sammy was no better.  “I CHANGED MY MIND!”

“Too late for that, boys! There’s only a few things that are going to be changed in your future, and your mind isn’t one of them.”  Everyone BUT the three men loved that line.  Ryan screamed.  Not because it hurt-it was a numb discomfort like at a dentist’s visit-but because his drug addled brain just realized what was happening to him.

“SOME OF YOU MAYBE WONDERING HOW WE’RE UNPOTTY TRAINING THESE THREE SO FAST.  THE ANSWER IS SIMPLE: BETTER LIVING THROUGH CHEMISTRY. ALMA MATER INTERNATIONAL’S UNIQUE BLEND OF PROPRIETARY CHEMICALS HAVE BEEN INSERTED INTO THEIR RECTUMS AND DOWN INTO THEIR BLADDERS, DISSOLVING, NUMBING, AND WEAKENING THEIR SPHINCTERS.  THESE FAST ACTING INGREDIENTS MAKE IT SO THAT THESE LITTLE DARLINGS WILL HAVE NO CONTROL OVER WHEN THEY MAKE PEE-PEE’S AND BOOMBOOMS! THEY WON’T EVEN KNOW THEY’RE GOING UNTIL IT COMES OUT OF THEM!

More music piped in over the speakers combined with Molly’s schpiel to cover up the sound of steel cables snaking into and down the victim’s genitals and their crying shrieks.

By the time everything had been inserted, each of the three women invited on stage had a very large looking baby diaper in their hands.  “Now ladies,” Molly said get those diapers on, stat!  You’ve got three tykes who are no where NEAR potty trained...anymore.”

“The heck?” Ryan gasped as the strange redhead came over and lifted his ankles back up to the ceiling.  “How awe you so stwong?!”

“Hold on, baby boy,” Rose said.  She was focusing intently on slipping the gigantic Huggies beneath him.  “Mommy’s new at this.  Don’t want any leaks.”  The feeling was just starting to return to Ryan’s backside as his rump came down on the soft padding.  “You’re doing so good.” she cooed.  

A stagehand offered a bottle of baby powder, which she accepted.  The feeling in his skin was returned enough that he felt the cold puff of scented cornstarch as it was added to his crotch.

“WHOOPS!” Ryan heard Molly exclaim over the microphone.  “LOOKS LIKE OUR FAST ACTING INGREDIENTS WORKED REALLY FAST WITH TONY! CAN WE GET ANOTHER PAMPERS OVER HERE? SIZE EIGHT? THANK YOU!”

 Ryan felt the brittle crackling as the diaper shifted beneath him.  He followed Rose’s arms as she yanked up the front of the diaper over his waist.  Had those patches been on her arms beforehand?  Ryan didn’t think so.  He felt the diaper wrap around him and take shape as the tapes were fastened to the landing zone.   He’d been right.  He could definitely tell the difference between wearing shorts and a diaper.  

“Do I at least get my pants back?” Ryan pleaded when the deed was done.  

His new Mommy giggled.  “I don’t think they’ll fit over your diaper, baby.”  Then she leaned in and gave him a kiss.  “I’m so proud of you.”  The drugged bottle out of his system, neither the kiss nor the words had the same effect.

“That was exciting, wasn’t it folks?” Molly asked.  Everyone not confined to disposable underwear for the rest of their lives enthusiastically agreed. The three who were just sulked as their highchairs were tilted back up. 

“I quit!”  Tony roared.  Barefeet thrashed and kicked. “I quit! I quit! I quit!  I’m not bidding! I’m not playing!  I don’t want the money!  I can’t even control when I go pee!”

“That’s what diapers are for, Tony.”

“I DON’T CARE!”  Bald and trapped in the highchair as he was, Tony didn’t look like he was having a meltdown to Ryan as much as he was throwing a temper tantrum.   “The rules say that if I quit, I lose all the money.  Fine.  I quit!  Get me out of this thing!”

“Someone sure is fussy!” Molly joked to knowing laughter and applause for the audience. 

“STOP IT!”

“But Tony,” she replied with a wink towards the camera.  “If you give up now, you won’t be able to bid on our biggest prize so far.”  She motioned.  “Our last prize.  And our last prize...is priceless.”

She gestured over to the clue board.  All other monetary values were replaced.  Only one category remained.  

JACKPOT

“If you opt out now, Tony,” Molly said menacingly, “You go out on your cute little tushy.  If you manage to find your way back home, your Mom and Dad will a tastefully edited tape of this episode in their inbox.  Think they’ll take you back with no money?  They’re already considering evicting you….”

The front of Ryan’s giant sized Huggies became wet as his bladder released in time with the game show host’s sudden change in demeanor?  Coincidence?  Perhaps.  As promised he’d had no idea that the bottle had worked its way through his system until his bladder released it gushing and without hesitation into his crinkling baby pants.  

Right then another thought occurred to Ryan:  He couldn’t go home, either.  Not like this.  He was barely making rent and eating.  How would he manage to afford diapers for himself?  Long story short; without the money, he couldn’t.

Sammy bowed his head and just kept sucking on his pacifier.  Tony did the same.  It appeared as if they were all in the same sinking ship with nothing to do but try and tread water.

Another cart, this one with oversized jars of baby food was wheeled out.  “But before we go to our, final round.  I think it’s time for a little snack.  Don’t you?”  Nobody said anything.  All just kept quiet, sucking on their pacifiers, letting the numbness fill them again.  Ryan knew they’d need it.

Bibs found their way across all three’s chests.  And the three women who’d been picked out of the audience took the jars and placed them on their respective feeding trays.  “Be good boys and finish your num-nums. Whoever finishes first gets the first bid!  And you all know how important that can be!”

“You can do this,” Rose whispered to him.  “I know you can!”  Small comfort.

“On your mark! Get set! Goooooo!”

The audience set to clapping as spoonful after spoonful of reddish brown mush on plastic spoons made their way into the boys’ mouths.  It wasn’t tasteless either, Ryan discovered.  More like a burning jalapeno cinnamon.  

Each spoonful caused his mouth to burn in agony.  Still, he swallowed.  Ryan looked to his periphery to see that Tony and Sammy were reflexively spitting the stuff out, letting it dribble out of their mouths.  

It did them no good.  Their dribbles were caught by their Mommies’ spoons and reinserted back into their mouth.  Their pain was only slowing them down.  “You’re such a good eater!” Rose praised. It took everything he had not to roll his eyes and just keep muscling through the pain.

The pain didn’t last long, however.  Instead a kind of numbness, like anesthetic, spread all through Ryan’s mouth.  Flaming hot and spicy, replaced with a cold numbness.  The exact opposite of icy hot.  Something was definitely in this stuff.  “Careful,” Mommy Rose cooed. Ryan felt the spoon scoop up some of his own numb mouth dribbles.  “Make sure you swallow one bite before you open your mouth for the next.”  Damn it.

A dozen more spoonfuls and a new pain worked its way into Ryan’s system.  Whatever had been injected into him made it so that he wouldn’t be able to hold anything in; but that didn’t mean he couldn’t feel the cramps.  The express train to the backseat of his diaper was pulling out of the station.

Ryan couldn’t stop.  He didn’t have time to stop.  He had to win.  He had to get this first bet...aim high enough on whatever they were doing so that he might actually be able to walk away!  Another wave of cramps hit Ryan and he leaned forward, right into the next spoonful.

“Good baby!” Mommy Rose said.  “Such a good eater.” 

Ryan didn’t feel his backside pushing out the mess, but he felt everything else: He felt the bottoms of his feet push against the foot rest a little more as his body automatically reacted to the discomfort and cramps. He felt the cramps and pressure in his gut subside.  He felt his cheeks spread and the hot mess push out into the back of his diaper; pushing and pushing until the Huggies had no more give, then spreading out.  He felt his knees buckle as he swallowed another spoonful of mush and his backside come all the way back down onto the seat, spreading around.

“Makin’ room?” Mommy Rosie asked.  “That’s fine!  I’ll change you later, baby!”

He wasn’t done either.  Again.  And again. And again.  Ryan leaned forward as far as he could just to get that spoonful of faux baby food into his mouth.  Time and again, he’d lose strength and be yanked back into his mushy diaper.  A few times, the cramps came again, and another load was added to the pile.

By the time he was done, Ryan had felt he was sitting an entire inch higher than he had been. He wasn’t alone, either.  Tony had let out a wailing “NOOOOOOOOOO!” and fortunately for him, big bad Sammy had maintained his ability to say “Shit”.  

Ryan had only opened his mouth to take in more of the numbing food.  Worth it.

“WE HAVE A WINNER!”  

Rose held her clean jar as proof.  Ryan leaned back in his chair and groaned.  The stuff he’d just eaten had all sunk to the bottom of his stomach, like a rock.  He let out a low groan that started to turn into a drone.  This stuff...it did more than numb his mouth it seemed.  The world was no longer looking so bright and happy.  More like dark...and quiet…

More than anything, shitty diaper or not, Ryan wanted to sleep.  Groans from the runners up, confirmed it.

“Uh-oh...looks like somebody’s ready for naptime.”  Molly Cawdle declared.  She sniffed loudly into her microphone. “And a change!”  It was the manic, cackling laughter from the audience- Romans watching slaves fed to the lions- that kept Ryan conscious.  He’d been experimented on...bottle and spoonfed...even shit himself in front of these strangers.  He wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of passing out in front of them.

Molly gestured back to the faux refrigerator.  “So let’s see how we’re going to wrap this game up.  What do our baby boys have to bargain with to get their Jackpot to make this all worth wild?”  The “Jackpot” sign moved, and it’s place was a single word.

Teeth. 

They were bidding on teeth.  Reflexively, Ryan ran his tongue along his mouth; or at least thought about it.  He couldn’t tell at all, he was so numb.  And no wonder.  They were made high to think that bargaining away their continence was a good idea.  “So here’s the game, baby boys.” The hostess said.  “You’re bidding on teeth.  BUT there’s a twist.  IF there’s a tie, everyone who ties, loses.”

The microphone made its way to him.  SHIT!  Now if he bid high out of the gate, he was at a disadvantage.  Then an idea came to him.  It might have been madness.  It might have been his drugged drowsiness, but Ryan thought he might have a way to win.  First to get everyone on the board.  “All but two teeth,” he said.  “Foh gwaham cwackuhs.”  Then he let out a long yawn.
“AWWWWWWWW!”  Perfect.   Rose was applauding loudest of all.  She was already imagining him as a buck toothed toddler.  They were buying it.  The rules didn’t matter.  The crazy people did.   Ryan hoped anyways.  Damn it was hard to keep his eyes open. 

“All but one tooth,” Sammy said.  

A smirk came over Tony.  “All my teeth.  Take them.  I’ll get dentures.”

“Looks like we have a winner!  So get ready to-”

“WAAAAAAAAAAIT!” Ryan yelled.  “I wanna bid again!”  The words came out drunken and slurred.  It was taking everything he had to get the words out intelligibly.

Molly Cawdle arched an eyebrow.  “You want to tie?  If you tie you’ll lose everything.  You know that, right sweetie?”  

Ryan nodded.  “Uh-huh.” He said.  “I bid all my teeth too!”  

“So it’s a tie.”

Ryan shook his head.  “Nuh-uh.  I have extra teeth!”  He opened his mouth wide.  He never did have the money to get his wisdom teeth removed.  “All thirty two!”

“B-b-b-but!” Tony stuttered.  “That’s not fair!”  It wasn’t.  At no other time had how much lost counted; only what was left.

Molly seemed to consider.  “Hmmm….”

“And I’ll give up solids! Liquid diet!”

“WE HAVE A WINNER!”

Good.  Baby Ry-Ry lulled his head to the side, his eyes drooping even as his chair was laid back.  The sounds of Tony and Sammy screaming became so much white noise as he was swarmed by med-teams wielding pliers and power tools. He closed his eyes.  He was sure he didn’t want to be awake for this….

************************************************************************************************
“Good morning,  Ry-Ry!” Mommy cooed.

Ryan’s eyes fluttered up.  The side of the crib was already down.  “Mohnin’ Mommy…”

“Did you sleep, well?” she asked, unbuttoning his onesie for him and hiking it over his hips.  She didn’t wait for him to reply before lifting him up and plopping him on the adult sized changing table.  Mommy was strong now.  All the steroids and muscle enhancements they’d given her thanks to the prize winnings had made it so.  

Mommy undid the tapes of his Huggies, Size 9 and started wiping his bottom for him.  “You were mumbling something in your sleep.  Was it a nightmare?”

Yes.

“No.”  It was a memory.  An awful memory that plagued him everytime he could bother to remember his dreams.  He’d won everything alright.  Half a million dollars wasn’t THAT much compared to Gates and Bezos.  But it was enough to furnish the nursery he woke up in every day.  It paid for at least the first year of diapers, though the one being slid under his bum was far removed from that.  And it paid for the final few bits of surgery that he and Tony and Sammy hadn’t been greedy or desperate enough to get coaxed into. Bye bye inner ear balance.  Ry-Ry was a full time crawler now.  He really did need to sleep in his crib.

What Ryan never had noticed...what he should have noticed...that under the terms and services of signing up for the show, carefully couched in coded legalese, was the “understanding” that he had no right to spend.  His “chosen guardian who had complete power of attorney” over him had all the spending power.

As Mommy finished powdering and taping up the umpteenth million diaper, Ryan relived that horrible incident forever burned into his memory. He always wondered what happened to those guys.   He’d never seen them again.  Not at the adult baby daycare he’d been plopped into.  None of the playdates with Mommy’s friends or their “little boys”. Nowhere.  Part of him hoped they’d been let go...but he knew otherwise.

No one ever really won “Pay Up, Baby!”.  Not unless they were selected from the audience.

“Ready for your breakfast?” Mommy asked, picking Ry-Ry up and taking him over to the nursery’s rocking chair.  

No.

“Uh-huh.”  It wasn’t just the muscle enhancers, Ryan admitted.  He’d lost weight too.  A lot of weight.  It was hard to keep weight up on a liquid diet, no matter how caloric it otherwise was.  

“Say please.”

“Pweeeash.”  It was hard to say the “s” and the “l” sounds with no teeth.

Mommy was already opening up her nursing bra.  “Say pretty please.”
“Pwetty pweash.”

“Good baby.”  Mommy’s milky tit came straight for Ry-Ry’s face.  And Ry-Ry did what he’d always done.  He had no other choice. And besides, he was hungry. He suckled.  Suckled and cried.

(The End)

[YourFNF]

It's like "Saw" by way of Japanese game show.   ??

[Personalias]

11 hours ago, YourFNF said:

It's like "Saw" by way of Japanese game show.   ??

You're not wrong....

[Shade_Koopa]

Heha, cute. Nice twist of a ending. 

[Personalias]

2 hours ago, Shade_Koopa said:

Heha, cute. Nice twist of a ending. 

Thank you.  What did you like most?

[WBDaddy]

16 hours ago, YourFNF said:

It's like "Saw" by way of Japanese game show.   ??

This is exactly what I was thinking.  All it was missing were the foam batons knocking them into pools of water. 

[Personalias]

5 hours ago, Hopsalot said:

Very well written as always, but ahh I wish I didn’t read that ?I love happy endings and I couldn’t really stop reading once I got started. Horror kink isn’t my favorite genre, but overall very creative ??

I getcha.  I do happy endings.  Bittersweet.  Full on horror.  The "Pastel Mirror" ones tend to be full on horror.

[Shade_Koopa]

Non-consent scenes are a fav of mine. I guess with it would how it ended was the part I liked the most.

That and the diaper stuff of course.

[ABAlex]

Well that was a very fun idea that turned very dark lol Thanks for sharing

[Babypants]

Very well written.  The game show format was a great choice because the vast majority of readers will have at least a passing familiarity with the setting, and can draw upon their own imaginations to fill in the blanks.  And early on, you did a terrific job of taking us inside Ryan's head, so that the choices he later makes seem inherently plausible.  The balance that you have struck here between character and plot development is the hallmark of good fiction writing.