Re: Dante’s Infanzia
Chapter 9: Of Anchors and Epiphanies.
After spending the better part of a day in Limbo Nursery 1017AB, Dante found the following truths to be self evident: A clean diaper felt comfy. A warm, wet diaper felt pretty good, too. A cold wet diaper felt uncomfortable. A really wet, warm diaper was practically a pocket pussy. A poopy diaper felt disgusting and was made of fail; it was just this side of water-boarding.
Speaking of torture, while the Judy’s had in fact drawn attention to Dante’s predicament over by the television, they weren’t the one’s who had made it worse. They had ignored his please for the potty as he made a bowel movement right in front of them, but once he had given in to their demands- like a pet chimpanzee learning a new trick- a Judy picked him up and carried him over to the changing table.
The only really big difference between a wet diaper change and a messy diaper change, Dante found, was that the wiping was much more thorough and the process took longer. Still, it had been embarrassing. Dante now sat up against the wall and sulked in his public humiliation. Experimentally, Dante poked his finger ever so slightly into the leg hole of his diaper. He pulled his finger out quickly and it came back a shade whiter. The Judy’s had really overdone it with the baby powder.
Another baby about his age, a black guy in a green romper, crawled up and tried to console Dante.
“First time pooping your pants?”, he asked. Dante nodded. “Hey don’t worry about it,” the guy said. “Everybody goes through something like that the first time.” Dante felt a little better about that. “Hey,” the guy said, “what was with you shaking your fist while they were surrounding you? You tryin’ to fight them off?” Dante shook his head and briefly explained the incident – minus a few of the more intimate details: the learning sign language, the need to go potty, the caretakers’ demands, and him having to acquiesce .
When Dante had finished, the new guy’s eyes looked as if they were about to explode, and his lips had vanished inward from a failing attempt to stifle a laugh. “And…whuh…heh, heh. Sorry…what were the signs you had to use?”, the guy asked. Dante showed him.
The stranger’s head bobbled up and down more than nodded. “Fuckin…awesome. Thank you for the story, sir.” Then without another word, Dante’s new acquaintance crawled off towards a cloister of prisoners. Within minutes, Dante could hear laughing from across the play area. THAT ASSHOLE WAS POINTING HIS WAY AND LAUGHING AT HIM. Dante could even make out a pantomime of sorts. They were reenacting his whole horrid ordeal.
Dante’s eyes darted around the room. Several other kids were doing the same, instantly hiding their smiles as soon as they realized Dante was watching. A few were even more brazen. Making the signs for “all done” and “diaper” right in front of his face. Dante slumped down, his face growing hotter by the moment.
Before he knew it, Lysa was practically on top of him. “What were you doing talking to Jamal Adams?” she asked, indicating the black kid in the green romper- seemingly infuriated.
“He said he wanted to know why I had been so upset…when I…you know….popped my butt cherry,” he winced. There was an awkward moment of silence before Lysa palmed herself in the face.
“First of all,” she began in a tone what was quickly becoming a recognizable trademark, “don’t ever call it that again. Second of all, that’s Jamal Adams, one of the biggest assholes in this place. I think he gets off on demeaning people like it’s his anchor or something.” Dante nodded in agreement. Hindsight being 20/20, the jerk seemed the type that liked making jokes at other people’s expense. Lysa was right, that probably WAS his anchor. Wait…what?
“Anchor….?” Dante let the word fall into the air.
“Yeah, anchor,” Lysa said as if it were the most obviously apparent thing in the world…something so utterly simple and understandable that to give it a definition to it would only overly complicate its meaning. Dante might as well have said the word “Chair…?”. Dante heard her swear under her breath and saw her bite her lip when all she got was a blank stair.
“Look,” Lysa said, “It’s your first day in Limbo, and I didn’t want to overburden you with information, but I guess there’s no point in not telling you. Besides, with the Judy’s paying special attention to you, and jackasses like Jamal having put a bull’s eye on your butt, you’ll need to know sooner rather than later.
“Every person here who’s lasted more than a couple of weeks, has an anchor.” she explained. “An anchor is a hobby, or a talent- a passion really-that helps that kid hold onto their sense of self. It’s something they can do or cling onto that helps them feel more grown-up when the only options seem to be growing down. You know, something to keep them anchored to who they are instead of what this place is trying to turn them into. Yes, going with the flow and keeping your emotions in check is what’s going to make you last in here, but that anchor is your emergency break when you find yourself careening off that cliff”
Dante took this all in. It made sense, really. If you had nothing at all to look forward to or enjoy in this place, you were better off just giving up and becoming a full baby.
“Like painting portraits or making clay dolls?” Dante asked, looking for clarification.
“Just like that,” Lysa answered.
“Or checking up on a little sister?” Dante continued.
“Mmm-hmmm,” she replied.
“Or teaching new fish the ropes around this place?” he asked, very pleased with himself
Lysa just signed sighed resignedly. “Yeah…”, she said.
“Well the thing is, Lysa,” Dante smirked, “I’m way ahead of you on that. That’s why I kept watching T.V. in the first place.”
“Oh?” Lysa asked. “Do tell.” Dante proceeded to tell her the whole story, intimate and embarrassing parts included. (It was only fair, he had already seen her vulnerable in the Newborn Room.) By the time Dante was done, Lysa was laying flat on her tummy, her chin resting in one hand, while the other one drummed the carpet floor.
“So let me get this straight,” she began, her sarcasm building with each syllable. “You’re watching Baby Signing Time. You’re thinking about how cool it is that you don’t have to stop playing to go potty anymore. Then you get the brilliant idea that you can stay comfortable in a wet diaper if you just keep wetting it again and again, so you sign to a Judy to bring you a bottle of water and you start chugging. Then you get cold feet about taking your first dump, and so you beg and plead them to take you to a potty. They refuse, so you shit yourself, and then sign for them so that they’ll go change you. That about right?”
“Uh-huh” Dante sheepishly confirmed.
“Now what about anything in that whole scenario makes you feel like something remotely resembling an adult?” Lysa scolded.
“Well,” he answered, “I was learning a new language.”
“Pfft,” she snorted, “a language designed so that babies can tell mommy when they need to be changed, or that they’d rather eat a banana than crackers.”
“Well, I was getting an erection.” Dante said a little too loudly, as the timing for Jamal Adam’s latest round of laughter was just too well timed to be anything else.
“I already told you,” Lysa hissed, “Sexual arousal is just as much a baby thing as it is an adult thing. From the moment he’s born, a man wants to get his pecker wet. It’s just that here, your only regular option is getting it wet au natural.” She sat up and crossed her arms. “Hell, if babies don’t think about sex, then where does Oedipal complex come from?”
“That’s been disproved by now,” Dante shot back, “besides, if babies have anything resembling a sex drive, then how come you don’t hear about babies having sex, or even dry humping?”
“Because they’re still just babies and they wouldn’t know what to do anyways!”, Lysa sneered. “If they did, I’m sure you’d hear about it!”
“Oh yeah?!” Dante growled back, “Then why don’t we put that to the test? We might as well be babies, and I’m sure you know what to do so-”
WHACK.
Dante just sat there, stunned that Lysa had just slapped him. Lysa did not. She immediately threw herself into his arms and wrapped herself around him before any Judy could turn around see what happened. She pressed her cheek against his, masking the handprint that she had just left across his face. Her mouth was positioned perfectly across his ear.
“Don’t you dare scream,” she hissed in his ear, “or I swear I’ll bite your fucking ear off and swallow it! They’ll kiss it better, but it will hurt like hell before that and you’ll have to wait for them to sift through my shit before they can reattach it.” Dante didn’t dare move. “I like you, really I do, and you have some potential, but if you EVER talk to me like I’m some kind of whore, I will turn this place into hell for you. Got it?!”
Dante slowly nodded his head, paying very close attention to the feeling of her breath on his ear. “Good”, he heard.
Lysa detached herself, and scooted away to. Dante was left completely speechless. He made a note in his head. It read: Do. Not. Fuck. With. Her. “Okay then,” she said as she smoothed over her dress, composing herself. “I’m gonna go give Jamal Adams the business to make sure he doesn’t mess with you anymore. I’ll just pretend that he’s you and take my frustrations out on him. See you when I’m done venting. In the meantime, try and come up with an anchor that doesn’t directly involve your genitalia.”
As Lysa crawled away, her dress didn’t even pretend to cover her diaper. Dante allowed himself a look, as the clouds on her ass got farther and farther away from him. She didn’t smell bad either. The perfume and baby powder in the diapers were strangely intoxicating if you didn’t automatically associate them with babies. All of the padding made her butt look bigger too, in a good way. Maybe if –
DO. NOT. FUCK. WITH. HER. The message in his head flared. Damn! Had his mind really wandered back to sex so quickly? Was he like that before when he was alive, or was that just another affect of being in Limbo? He needed something of a turnoff; and with no Mrs. Applegate around to disgust him, his sights landed on Midori. Please Midori, do something unattractive, or at the very least something awkward and unsexy. Midori did not disappoint.
Midori was on her back, grunting with her legs curled up in the air. A nauseating wave of déjà vu hit Dante. The only difference was that Midori didn’t seem nearly as distressed as Dante had been. In fact, her hands were occupied and her grunts muffled because she was simultaneously drinking a bottle of milk. Yeah, she was drinking and pooping at the same time. Midori was nothing if not efficient in her infancy, a regular multi-tasker that one.