On the following day, his stools would have no odor at all. The combination of his regression and his wife’s milk would return the absolute innocence of infancy to Thomas. His wife/mother would cuddle the sweet-smelling little baby who had become the center of her existence on an hourly basis in her arms and adoringly pamper him. He would be loved and accepted no matter what he did. Nothing he did would be wrong. Quite literally, his shit wouldn’t stink!

Thomas was half-drowsing when Mary picked him up again. In the interim, he had lost the ability to focus his eyes precisely and he saw her in a haze that made her appear as if she was dream that he had wished for all of his life. All the horror of the past two weeks had distilled itself in his subconscious and it had made a decision on its own. As far as his subconscious was concerned, he was an infant. While he slept, the adult templates of memory and behavior had been overwritten with the more primitive and reliable templates of infancy.

Mary smiled down at her and he smiled back; it was obvious to him that she adored him with all of her heart. He reciprocated her feelings without thinking. When she began to speak to him in a motherly babble, he listened with his soul. To Thomas’s reduced intelligence, somehow things had changed, but the important things had remained the same. Mommy loved him!

The timber of Mary’s voice became indistinguishable from what Thomas remembered of his real mother as his wife’s face melded with his childhood memories of a maternal visage looking down at him with love. The two personages were blending themselves in his mind until he couldn’t demarcate a difference, if there ever had been. Suddenly, Thomas was filled with a sense of absolute trust and love for his wife/mother. His mother hadn’t died, she was right there, holding him in her arms with breasts full of milk waiting for him to suckle when he was hungry again. The memories of being alone in college faded as he snuggled closer to her ample breasts and basked in the glow of maternal love.

Thomas decided that his mother had always been at his side and had never once left his side or abandoned him. At one time his mother seemed to have changed slightly as she briefly became his wife and mistress, but then their world had changed again to allow the two of them to return to their proper relationship.

Mary stroked Thomas’s thin baby hair affectionately, lulling him into blissfully complacency. His vision of the future evaporated as his mind dimmed and returned to an earlier state. Slowly, Thomas’s psyche slipped into a wordless rapture which would keep him securely cocooned until the sad day his mother left him forever. Until that day, however, he would be utterly content with his life as a perpetual baby. When Mary died, his mind would reawake to face the horror of being an adult mind trapped in an infant’s body for eternity. The realization that his work had caused the loss of his mother, wife and infant son as well as the capacity to act like an adult would draw his psyche back into adulthood kicking and screaming at his fate. Then the adult infant’s whimpers and wails of sorrow would start and go on…endlessly.

Mary sighed with evident regret and said sadly, “I wish your father was alive to see you grow up, Bobby. I miss him so much!” She looked down at the beguiling infant face peering back up at her with love and concern in it’s wide innocent eyes. Mary cuddled him closer to her breasts as she said tenderly, “I love you, Sweetheart, and know you love me too. I can see it in your eyes.”

Drool rolled down Tommy’s chin as he smiled winsomely and began to blow delighted bubbles of spit. He snuggled against mommy’s warm body and cooed his commitment to Mary inarticulately. There was no doubt in his mind that his mommy loved him. Tommy loved his Mommy with all of his heart; he always had.