Sunday morning both Fran and Anita came in the nursery to rouse Howard from his slumber. He was appalled at how they looked; their hair was in an even worse shape then when they came to visit him before going to bed. The corneas of their eyes were so bloodshot from the aftereffects of the booze they had drunk the night before that they appeared as if their eyes were going to begin to bleed at any minute. They talked together in quiet tones and lurched unsteadily on their feet while they grinned down at him in obvious amusement at his plight. It was painfully apparent to Howard that both of them were suffering from the toxic effects of a massive hangover. While Howard was distressed to see his wife in such a condition, he couldn’t really blame her. After all, the strain of having her husband turn into an infant before her eyes must have put her under terrible stress. She had done her best to take care of him, despite his objections. If she needed to go out on the town with one of her friends and make a little whoopie to relieve the strain, that was alright with Howard. At least she hadn’t brought some man home with her to spend the night. He was relieved to see that it was Fran at her side instead of some strange man.
If the situation had been reversed, Howard wasn’t altogether sure he’d have done the same thing in her place. He suspected that he’d have given into his baser instincts and sought solace in the arms of another woman as soon as possible. If he had been in her place, it would have been all too easy to put her in a Daycare Center each day while he was at work and forget about her. If it would have been left up to him, he’d have hired a babysitter and gone out every night while leaving poor little Anita in the care of some stranger.
Anita hadn’t been like that at all, aside from the single outing she had had that evening, she had been with him every minute after she had when she wasn’t working. She even made a special effort each day to take a break from work every few hours to come down to the Daycare and see how he was doing. Never once had she even looked at another man in his presence. If Anita had been in the crib instead of him, he’d have probably brought some woman home with him to take care of his “infant daughter”. On the other hand, if he had spotted Rose first, he might have inveigled her into “teaching” him how to take care of his “baby” daughter. Then he could have put Anita to bed early while he put the make on Rose. If she went for a clumsy immature teenaged boy like David, she’d be a pushover for a real man.
Howard had been a bit surprised to see Fran in his room that morning and thought that Anita must have decided that Fran was too inebriated to allow her to drive. He concluded that Anita had invited her to spend the night on the couch. Anita changed his diaper in front of Fran, then gave him a bo ttle of formula which made him drowsy and confused. The excitement of the night before which had awaked his adult personality was over and he slipped back into infantine patterns of thinking and existence without even realizing what was happening to him. His memories slipped away rapidly until all that was left was the infant Bri-Bri who had occupied his body for the preceding two weeks. After he was burped, he yawned hugely in Anita’s arms and rested his head on her shoulder. Within seconds he fell asleep again and Anita put him back in the crib to nap while Fran and she had their morning coffee.
Later that morning Anita had her regular Sunday bunch. She gave Bri-Bri his morning bottle and changed him before the guests arrived. Anita dressed Bri-Bri in a disposable diaper and a clean white infant’s T-shirt for the party and put him in his playpen to keep him out from underfoot while she finished making preparations for her get-together. As the guests arrived and deposited their babies in the playpen with Bri-Bri, they asked whose baby the cute little one in the playpen was and where was Howie. Anita explained that little Howie had gone to live with his grandmother while she was taking care of his baby brother Bri-Bri. As the women filed back into the living room with their coffee and rolls, Bri-Bri noticed that he was surrounded with infants who were about his age. They drooled and cooed as they sucked their thumbs or mouthed the toys in Bri-Bri’s playpen. Bri-Bri sat in the back of the playpen with his blankie tightly gripped in his fist as he sucked on his thumb. He made little sucking noises in-between the unconscious sighs of contentment as his eyes wandered vagrantly over the assemblage of mothers arrayed on the couch before him. Bri-Bri’s interest in women had become purely practical in the past month. Women were no longer prey for his sexual cravings. Bri-Bri had no lusts to satisfy. His needs were more prosaic: Would they wrap him in his blankie when he was cold? Would they check his diaper and change it if it was wet or dirty? Would they feed him when he was hungry? When he was thirsty, would they bring him his ba-ba? Bri-Bri had no desire for the huddlings of sex, if a woman picked him up and cuddled him in her arms while making agreeable mothering noises, he was content. Drool dripped from his chin and ran down to form a large wet spot on his T-shirt just like the other babies in the pen. No one present had the slightest suspicion that the infant in the back of the playpen was a man of some forty-odd years. Bri-Bri completely blended in with the other infants in the pen. There was no difference in either his behavior or his appearance between him or any of his diapered playmates. After descending only slightly in his behavior to match the demands of their shared social position, Bri-Bri had finally discovered his true peers in life.