“What are you doing with this?” I asked, flapping the Little Voices pamphlet up at my co-worker.

Janet sighed. “Clark, maybe you should sit down.”

“No thank you,” I said. My tone was harsh and stern, even if my words were courteous.

Janet looked away, avoiding eye contact. “Mind if I sit down?”

I really did mind her sitting down. But sitting down made her less likely- less able- to snatch me up. “Go ahead.”

Three giant steps later she was sitting at a student’s desk. Not as far away as her own on the opposite side of the entrance. In that moment I couldn’t help but wonder if that was the same desk she’d sat in when we were all grading essays a couple months ago. I missed that time. “I’m looking into adopting a Little,” she said.

“Yeah,” I said. “I figured.” Neither of us said anything.

I kept looking down at the pamphlet: “Adopting a Little- What to Expect The First Year.” This shit was insidious. The phrasing was a perverse blend of delegitimizing pseudoscience and stuff that someone might give an expectant mother at a baby shower. “Digestive health” was paired with resources on “Comfort in Cribs: How to get your Little to sleep through the night.” A website about “Breastfeeding=Bonding” was right above a plug for a book called “But I USED to be a grown-up!”

One of my few Amazon friends, the one I thought I’d had the most in common with, had been taken in by propaganda. Or maybe she hadn’t. Maybe she’d always believed this and just found the right literature to echo back her own beliefs at her.

I looked up at her. Even sitting down I had to crane my neck so as not to be making eye contact with her knees. “So was it true?”

“Was what true?”

“What that Amazon said in the restroom? Were you just saving me for yourself?”

She didn’t laugh like I was expecting her too. She didn’t wave it away. If anything she looked kind of insulted. Kind of hurt. “Clark. I would never adopt you. You’re a fully functioning, mature Little. You’re my friend.”

“And friends don’t adopt friends?” I spat. “Is that it?”

“No!” she said. “That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”

I dared to place the two pieces of the pamphlet up on the desk, even as I had to stand on my tiptoes. When I had backed up to a safe distance. “I’m not sure what I know, anymore.”

Janet rubbed her forehead. She was frowning. The gears were turning in her head. “Is this about the carseat thing?”

“That’s part of it,” I said. It had started with the carseat. It might just end with this pamphlet.

“The carseat thing was stupid of me,” Janet said. “I did get it because I was considering adoption. But I wasn’t going to take you or anything.”

I dug my hands into the sides of my legs to stop myself from screaming or rolling my eyes. “Then why did you invite me out?”

“Because I genuinely wanted to hang out with you,” she said. I didn’t reply. I just kept staring at her. Sometimes silence can be more effective than any rebuttal. “Okay. And I wanted to maybe um… borrow you.”

So much for silence. “BORROW ME?!”
She held out her hand, palm facing me, to show that she wasn’t done. “Not like that! Not like that! Sorry!” She took a breath. “I mean, I was thinking of making sure I got the sizing right.” Again, she exhaled. “That was stupid and tone deaf of me. I’m sorry.”

Not sorry enough for my liking. “Let me get this straight,” I said, feeling braver than I should have. “You don’t think I’m immature. But you wanted to use me…to make sure that another Little might fit…you wanted to use me like a…like a doll.”

Janet’s eyes lit up like I’d just accused her of a crime. She started backpedaling. “I know what that word means!” she said. Apparently, Little Voices was also educating its audience on Little Slang, too. “And no. That’s not what I meant at all! I just didn’t…I’m sorry…”

“How do I know you weren’t trying to take me?” I repeated.

“Clark,” Janet said. “A couple of hours ago, I had you. We were alone. In a bathroom. And you were stuck in a diaper that you needed my help to get off. If I had wanted to, I could have taken you. Do you think Brollish would have objected?”

I didn’t have an answer to that. I didn’t want to hear it. So I gave no reply, just then.

That didn’t stop Janet. “If it makes you feel any better, I’m thinking of adopting a Little girl.”

I couldn’t help it: Images of Cassie, diapered and in some pink frilly tutu dress riding on Janet’s hip seared themselves into my brain. My blood ran cold. “It really doesn’t.”

“I’d never adopt a Little who’s Maturosis hasn’t expressed itself,” she promised. “I’d only adopt a Little that needed my help.”

“WE DON’T NEED YOUR HELP! THAT’S NOT HELPING! YOU’RE STEALING US! YOU’RE TORTURING US! YOU’RE RUINING US!”

That’s what I wanted to yell. That’s what I really wanted to do. Instead I asked, “Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?!” All of the clever little talking points I’d practiced or read about online had left me. I only had anger and fear and a sense of betrayal; none of which was making me feel terribly persuasive.

“Why what?”

“Just ‘why?’,” I said. “Why would you ever want to do this?”