Chapter 42: Perversions of Old Rituals
The sun wasn’t up yet when I got to school. Just like always. I wasn’t yawning, though. I’d had nothing to eat or drink since my highchair feeding the night before, but I was more awake than if I’d chugged fifteen espressos.
My head was on a swivel. To my right was the empty P.E. field and playground. To my left was the school building; most of my co-workers…ex coworkers…just turning their lights on. I was just short of having a full on panic attack, only the grim reminder that I was already functionally dead…that Clark Gibson was functionally dead…kept me from a complete and utter freak out.
No rubbing the sleep out of my eyes. My hands were too busy flexing and grabbing at the air. That and fiddling with the absolutely humiliating outfit Janet had dressed me in this morning. In lieu of wearing any number of babyish onesie, Janet had selected to dress me in the sailor suit.
“Gotta make sure you look proper for your first day back!” She’d told me. Any arguments I’d had were cut off by the reminder that she’d only promised not to dress me up in that horrible mockery of my old teaching outfit. Bound by my word, my pride had to take a back seat.
Speaking of back seats: Soft smooth plastic and loose waisted pants with elastic waistbands are like oil and water. Every few steps I took I kept reaching back to hike up the white sailor shorts so that the top of my diaper was properly covered. That, or yanking the shirt down. Nothing did much good. No matter what I did, it was going to be obvious to any passerby that my toilet and my underwear had been combined.
The crinkle with every step I took kept me on my toes, too. Janet and everyone else had toted me around so much (not to mention my screaming) over the last few days that I’d yet to fully account just how much the sound of my state would be following me around. It was like I’d had an empty potato chip bag stuffed into my pockets…except that these shorts didn’t have pockets.
Between the sound and the constant paranoid feeling that SOMEONE SOMEWHERE could see the top of my diaper poking out of my shorts, it was the emotional equivalent of picking at a scab. At least it kept me distracted from messing with the hat. Yes, the stupid hat was included in the outfit.
“Clark, if you keep playing with your clothes, I’m going to hold your hand.” No threat there, from Janet. No malice. Just fact. That almost made it scarier.
I turned my head around and looked back to Janet. She was walking a few steps behind me, a box of Monkeez tucked under one arm and her cell phone in the other hand. I heard a few clicks and dings from it. She was taking pictures and posting them already. Baby’s first day of school, no doubt.
I’d been allowed, trusted even, to walk ahead of Janet, because of the talk we’d had sunday. Also, I was a diapered Little at a school where everyone on faculty knew my face and had longer legs than me. The first waves of buses hadn’t arrived yet, so only “Teacher’s Kids” were on campus. No crowd of anysort to slink off into.
Also, where the fuck was I gonna run to? My old house was a fifteen minute to twenty minute ride away by scooter; not on foot. I stuck out like a sore thumb. I MIGHT have stood a snowballs’ chance of slinking off if I had any of the plain and conservative outfits Beouf had gifted at the baby shower…not in this getup though.
I could strip off the white shorts and navy blue trimmed shirt, but no Little stood a chance of taking off an Amazon manufactured diaper. I’d done all of these calculations before I’d been unbuckled from the car seat.
“Yes, Jan-…” I stopped myself. We were technically in public. “Yes… Mommy.”
Janet squealed a little bit at that, but kept her stride. Yikes, she really liked being called that. I was almost eighteen months older than her, but she absolutely thrilled in me calling her that…
Typical.
Her long dark hair was tied up in a bun. Her pristine white blouse and ankle length navy blue skirt matched the color scheme of my sailor outfit. That was nothing new for Janet. She always dressed at the height of professionality, form over function. But in Amazon society, form was function. The more “adult” you dressed, the more “adult” you were. Outside of picture day, Beouf got away with her more relaxed attire because her job involved having to chase around Littles all day. The fact that she was regularly drowning in “babies” made her more than adult enough by the giants’ standards.
I looked like (maybe) an eighteen month old, dressed up to match his Mommy.
“Ah-ah-ah.”
I hadn’t even realized I’d been trying to hike my shorts up again… My hands instead went to my stomach as an overdue cramp made itself known. I hadn’t pooped the night before. Tossing and turning in the crib hadn’t done anything to speed up the inevitable. This time last week, I would have simply excused myself and gone in my own private bathroom in the classroom, and caught up just in time for clocking in.
That wasn’t in the cards, today. I wasn’t ready to say “anymore” in place of “today”. I said a quick, vain, silent prayer that I could hold it in; knowing just how unlikely it was. My classroom wasn’t my own anymore, and the bathroom I had available was personalized, but far from private.
Part of me told me that I’d get used to all of it. A bigger part was still turning gears on how I would escape this situation. I didn’t need to get used to it. I just needed to get through it. I just needed to get through today. If I was “good” today, I’d get to see Cassie again.
I didn’t know what I was planning to do; maybe slip a note to her? Maybe give her my blessing to run back to her Dad’s? Maybe find a coded way to get her to start finding a way to bust me out? I don’t know what I was thinking. Desperate times called for desperate thoughts. I was desperate. Cassie was the one thing that was keeping me going.
So yeah. If that meant having to poop my pants and pretend to be okay with it…
Okay, no.
Still not there yet.
So yeah. If that meant not screaming my head off for close to seven hours and not try to break toys and flip tables and punch every person taller than me right in the nose, so be it. If that meant having to humor Janet and call her “Mommy”, sure; I’d play along. I might have to fold a few hands before it was even time to ante up. I might have to even fold when it was my turn to be the big blind, but I still had a place at the table as far as I was concerned.
The front door of Mrs. Beouf’s room opened up a few steps before I got to it. “Helloooooo!” Beouf practically sang. “Good morning, you two. Come on in!” Obviously, she’d been waiting. Ten years. I’d known Beouf for ten years, seen her almost every morning, and I could count on one hand the number of times, I’d walked through the front door. Almost always, my morning ritual was me going through to my own room and sneaking in the back. It was the difference between visiting prison and being frog marched through the front gate.
If anyone thinks I’m exaggerating, think of it like this: Littles don’t get to go to prison; even in movies. We just go to places like Beouf’s room. Gaslighting daycares or re-education classes or etiquette schools or whatever the trendiest name is for everyone knows is essentially the same thing.
I felt another light cramp in my gut. Hopefully it was just anxiety. Hopefully I’d vomit.
“It’s okay, baby. Go on in.” Janet gently nudged me. “Go to your teacher.”
Beouf stepped aside for me to cross the threshold, and held the door open for Janet. I looked around the room. So familiar, but I’d already noticed changes that had been made. There was still coffee, but the pot was more than half-empty. The bevy of sugar and creamers and flavors that I liked were conspicuously absent. The pot was pushed all the way to the back of the counter. I’d have had a hard time reaching it even if the step stool hadn’t been removed. The morning java had been poured; but none of it was for me.
With just a few minor modifications stripped away, Beouf’s preschool nursery had been completely Little-proofed. Me-proofed. The backdoor was closed, but it would have been an easy bet to say that the pull-chords I used to gain access on the other side were also things of the past.
“Here’s his diapers,” Janet said. She handed the box to Beouf. “Oh, and a couple bibs on top. He can be a messy eater. I didn’t think he’d need a backpack, since any papers he has can just be sent to me when I pick him up. Oh, how are we gonna do pick up? I haven’t even thought of tha-?”
Beouf cut Janet off with a knowing head shake and an even more knowing laugh. “Oh, you first timers. So worried about every tiny thing that you forget the basics. It’s a good look for you.” Janet blushed. “For both of you. It’s cute.” Was it possible to blush and be angry at the same time? I think so. “I’ll just keep him with me after his classmates get back on their bus. You can pick him up here after you drop off your students in the loop.”