Giant chunks of chicken nuggets were put on the table beside me. There were only four of them, but they were almost the size of my hands. “Do you want me to feed you, or do think you can be a big boy and use your hands?
“I can do it myself!” She giggled at that. Damn, but I must’ve sounded like a toddler. I should have refused to eat, but I was so caught off balance. “And I was poisoned. You know! Like Raine is always trying to do?”
“Ms. Forrest wasn’t even at school today, Clark. She was out sick. So don’t go blaming it on her.” As she talked, Janet was ripping up the Amazon sized nuggets into smaller pieces. It reminded me of how my sister-in-law got in the habit of cutting up food for her toddler. My stomach growled a little more, and my bladder stung and extra pinch.
I did my best to ignore her hands as she dipped the little chunks into a tub of honey mustard before placing it on the tray in front of me. “I’m not saying she did it,” I said. (Actually Raine was at the top of my list…) “I’m saying that someone LIKE her did it.”
“Or,” Janet said, “There’s the much more reasonable and rational explanation that you’re turning into a baby again.” Honey mustard dripping from her fingers she pointed to the pieces on my tray. “Eat your nuggies.”
I didn’t give up. “Think about it Janet! Amazons do this stuff all the time! You saved me just a couple months ago from one, remember? Do you think I’d go from full adult to baby, just like that?” I tried to snap my fingers, and the sound just wouldn’t come out. Damn. That really hurt the effect I’d been going for.
My captor popped a fry dripping with chili spice in her mouth. “Eat your nuggies,” she repeated. “Eat your nuggies, or Mommy’s not gonna talk to you.”
“But-”
“Eat.”
I wasn’t going to get anywhere unless I gave something, it seemed.
I picked up one of the meat chunks and popped into my mouth. Damn. It actually tasted pretty good. Even the honey mustard was alright. My cheeks were puffed out from the size of the slab. Too big of a bite. Far too big. But I wasn’t about to spit it out.
“Ooops!” Janet said, seeing my face. “I forgot!” She got up from her seat at the actual table and started rummaging through kitchen drawers. “Whereisit whereisit whereisit?”
She pulled out of the drawer a disgustingly pink bib and held it aloft like King Authur at Ocelot pulling the sword from the stone.
Barefoot, she rushed back to me and tied the thing around my neck. “Gotta get in good habits,” she said. Mouth full of chicken I read the cutesy print to myself. “Mommy’s Princess” it said. Had a little tiara and everything.
Now more than my bladder was aching. I was starting to get phantom pains before anything had been amputated.
I chewed and chewed and chewed just so I could keep talking. After a few swallows, I’d finally managed to form coherent words. “Do you really think that I just turned into a baby today?” I repeated myself.
Janet was already halfway done with her Am-Mac. An Amazonian monstrosity with entirely too much beef, pepper jack cheese, and jalapenos instead of pickles. It’s quite sweet by Amazon standards as I understand it.
Before she answered me, she brushed some crumbs off the bib and used it to wipe a glob of honey mustard off the corner of my mouth. “No, I don’t think you turned today.” I felt a slim glimmer of hope. At least she wasn’t referring to herself as “Mommy”. “Personally, I think your Maturosis might’ve been manifesting back then. That woman at graduation just noticed it before we did.”
“Wha-?”
“Nuggies.”
I picked at another one and took a bite. A smaller bite. A daintier bite. A princess sized bite. One small enough so where I could chew and talk without stuff tumbling out of my mouth. “I’m eatin! I’m eating!”
“I’m glad that I got you, though.” I bet she did. “I don’t think she would’ve been a very good Mommy for you.”
“Was it you?” I asked. “Did you do it?”
Janet giggled again, but this was less cute. “If it helps you adjust, then yes.” I almost bit through my own tongue. “You can pretend that you were poisoned, and that Mean Old Mommy did it to you.”
Great. Sarcasm. Condescension. There was a lot to unpack there. I chose to latch on to the most absurd statement. “I’m older than you!”
“But I’m still bigger, baby boy.” She booped me on my nose. If her finger had been slower I might’ve tried to bite it just then. “And I’m not talking about size. You going full baby explains sooo much.”
“Explai-?”
“Nuggies.”
So fucking Typical. I wanted answers. I know it’s crazy to expect sane answers from a crazy person (Read: Any Amazon that sees a Little in diapers) but I needed to make sense of the world just then, even if my world was through a kaleidoscope.
I took another dainty bite. “Explain wha-?”
“Nuggies.”
“I just did!”
“Nuggies.”
“But-!”
“Three more bites.”
“But-!”
“Three more big bites.”
“I’m tryin’ to-!”
“Three more big boy bites.”
I stared pure hate at her from the highchair as I ate three more huge pieces of chicken. She ate her food with gusto. I was getting full fast, and feeling better, but my needle was in the yellow. If I had much more, I’d feel sick, I was sure of it. My stomach just wasn’t expanding fast enough from being empty to suddenly stuffed.
I was still chewing and trying my darndest to swallow when Janet finished her burger. “It makes sense now, why you ripped up my pamphlet that day.”
Mouth full of honey mustard and chicken, I could only make faces to communicate my confusion. What was she talking about?
“You were jealous.”
I erupted chicken. “Chairuff!” Bits of pre-chewed meat tumbled down the bib and into the.
“Littles going through Maturosis develop a psychological need for a caregiver,” she said. She popped a fry in her mouth. “You saw the pamphlet and you started getting jealous that I was going to adopt somebody besides you.” Another fry. “It worked out, though, didn’t it?”
Bullshit. Such fucking bullshit. “I was NOT jealous!”
She laughed through her nose, smiling as if I had just said something adorable. “Are you suuure?” she teased.
“Yes I’m sure!”
Another finger tickled me under my chin. “Are you suuuuure?”
“Goddamnit, Janet!” I smacked away her hand as hard as I could. “I WAS NOT FUCKING JEALOUS! I DIDN’T WANT THIS! AND I’M NOT A -…”
She was staring at me. Her gaze and countenance had mutated completely. Gone was cute and cuddly and doting baby crazy Janet. And in her place was a wrathful titan gazing down at a sinner. “Clark. We do NOT use that kind of language. EVER!” Her voice literally BOOMED.
I was used to living in a world not meant to fit me. I’d already crapped my pants, been shoved in a tube, been diapered and changed and carted around. I’d been forced to cuddle with a stuffed animal and eat in a high chair. But then, just then, with Janet staring at me, her eyes full of fire and her voice full of thunder…that was the first time that day that I’d actually felt small instead of just Little.
“Yes, ma’am,” I whispered.
Her expression softened a little bit. Her heart was still beating and her adrenaline going, but she was calming down. In a weird way that was comforting. If she’d been able to turn her emotions on and off like a switch…
I shuddered to think what that might mean.
“Good,” she said. She took the juice box out of the cardboard box and poked a straw in it. “Do you want your juice?”
No. No. No. No. It was probably a diuretic. Or a laxative. Or both. But I was thirsty. And dehydrated. Beouf had been right about that.
“Can I…?” I stuttered a bit, still shaken. “Do you have anything else? Water? Milk?”
Janet’s eyes lit up. “Milk!” Bad idea, Clark! Really bad idea! Asking an Amazon for milk was a one way trip to full time breastfeeding!
Not this time though. She got up and opened up a cabinet next to the fridge. A (of course) pink-bottle came out of the bottom shelf, and Janet began rapidly unscrewing it. “I just sterilized this! Perfect timing, huh?” Great. She was bragging, now. Typical.
At the very least, the milk was coming out of a jug. Anything powdered would’ve definitely been poisoned. Janet must have seen me eyeballing her. I caught a hint of a smile, from her. “It’s not poisoned, Clark. Mommy puts this in her morning coffee every day.” Just talking about coffee made me cringe. She made a show of opening her mouth and squirting some milk in. “See? Mmmm…milk. Yummy.”
She offered me the bottle. It was inches from my face, but she wasn’t . Her eyes looked hopeful. “Can you take it?” she asked. “Can you take it like a big boy?”
Oh fuck me.
Stuck with a damned if you do and damned if you don’t, I reached out, grabbed the bottle and started sucking down the milk. Whole milk. Fat and sweet whole milk. I sucked on the bottle. Turns out it’s hard to glare while nursing on a rubber teat. Fun fact.
The bottle drained, Janet removed the dirty tray and unbuckled me. “I think we’re gonna have an early bedtime,” she declared. We? Yeah right. She’d be up till dawn texting someone or making posts on Facelog about her new “baby boy”. I didn’t have time for my outrage to re-manifest as she yet again checked my diaper.
“I can tell you if I need to be changed,” I said. Oh fuck. Why did I say that like it was an option? “Or go to the bathroom.” It was impossible to meet in the middle when someone kept moving farther away.
“I know,” she said. I didn’t think she really meant it. I didn’t think she was trying to seem like it though. She just wanted to stop my yapping.
My yapping stopped promptly when she carried me into the nursery.
Pink! So much pink! The pink crib and matching changing table was decorated in lace and frills. Dolls and pink stuffies were in a decorative pile in one corner. A pink unicorn rocking horse in another. A Little sized dressmaker’s dummy had a medieval princess gown. From the ceiling a banner hung. The words “Welcome Home Baby Girl” broadcast for any Little that still knew how to read.
The only thing that wasn’t a shade of pink were the diapers in a supply net above the changing table.
“Janet…” I stuttered as she took me over to the changing table. “Janet?”
“Yes baby?”
I was down on the mat, her hand pinning my chest while she reached for a new diaper. “You told all those people on the phone…” I paused when I saw just how thick the new one was. Forget walking! No way would I be able to stand in that thing. “That you got a boy…right?”
“Hold on,” her voice seemed teasing. She ripped open the tapes to my diaper and looked down. “Yeah. I think so.” She slipped the old diaper out. “Why? Are you a girl?” Her question seemed genuine.
“NO!” I yelped. “No, no, no, no. It’s just that…” I looked around the decidedly VERY feminine nursery.
Janet finished taping the nighttime diaper onto me. On the waistband, cartoon monkeys all snoozed with little nightcaps and pajama tops. “What do you,” she stopped and I practically saw the lightbulb go off. “OOOOOOOH!”
I almost got whiplash from the hug. “What?”
I was plopped down in the crib, seat first. My hands fell back to break my fall. If I fell down on my back, I’d be a turtle with the bulk of what I was wearing. And that was when it was dry. I shuddered to think about how bad it would be when I wet it…
IF I wet it! IF I WET IT! NOT WHEN! IF!
Janet booped me on my nose again. “Wanna know a secret, Clark?”
Afraid of her answer, I nonetheless played along. “What?”
“I did want a Little girl. But fate gave me you, instead.” Fate? The hell was she talking about? “If I had gotten pregnant, I wouldn’t have gotten to choose if my baby was a boy or a girl.” Her eyes took on a kind of dreamy quality. “With everything that’s happened today, I feel more like a Mommy than ever. And I have you to thank for it.”
I just stared up at her in complete disbelief. What did she want me to say? You’re welcome? Not likely.
“I promise that we’ll turn your room into a proper nursery for a Little boy. You’ll just have to be mature and patient about it.” She pushed me down onto my back and draped a pink blanket over me. I was physically exhausted, emotionally drained, and had a full stomach for the first time all day. I wasn’t getting out of this crib. Not yet.
Before she raised the rail up, trapping me, Janet leaned over, kissed me on the forehead and whispered, “I love you so much.” And the worst part; the scariest part; was I knew she thought she meant it.
The rail raised up. Thick, pink blackout curtains by the window were closed. “Night night.”
I didn’t answer.
The door was closed. And for the first time all day, I was left alone with my thoughts. Not a good place to be.
As my lids started to get heavier and heavier, my mind started to race.
No job.
Beouf had turned on me.
Tracy had abandoned me.
Janet had adopted me.
And Cassie. What about Cassie? Was she safe? Worried? Panicking and afraid for her own life?
I wasn’t going to sleep. Not with Cassie out there.
But I was so tired. Every muscle in my body was aching from a day of humiliation and thrashing about; struggling against the inevitable as my body was abused and altered in front of people who used to be. I might’ve cried so much that I was literally out of tears.
And there was another problem. Now I really did have to pee.
“Janet?” I called. “Janet?! I have to pee!” No answer. “JANET??!” I called louder. “I have to pee!” Nothing. “I have to go potty!” I tried. Maybe using vocabulary she’d accept would get me somewhere. Typical Amazons thought that SOME Littles could be potty trained. Nothing.
I counted to a hundred. “Nooooooo!” I bluffed. “I wet my pants! Please change me, Janet! I need to sleep!” At the very least I could try peeing in open air mid change.
No luck though.
A minute went by. A minute turned into fifteen. Fifteen became a half hour. Then an hour. The only thing that kept me from thinking about my filling bladder was terrible thoughts about what might’ve happened to my wife. And the only thing that distracted from those were the growing urgency in my bladder.
And shamefully, I just wanted to sleep. I wanted to block the world out and close my eyes and cease to exist in this world for a few hours. As the pressure increased, the instinctual, lizard part of my brain came to one inevitable conclusion: I was going to either wet my diaper and then pass out from exhaustion. Or I was going to pass out from exhaustion and then wet my diaper. The only choice I had in the matter was the order of operations. I wasn’t going to be allowed to make it through the night dry.
Sitting up on my elbows, I stared at the padded lump beneath the blanket. Despite what the giant loonies thought, I was still potty trained, and on some level that meant that I couldn’t do this lying down. I had to “see” it. I had to will it to happen. I had to focus.
My tongue retreating to the top of my mouth I stared at my padded crotch. “Do it,” I whispered to myself. “Just do it. Get it over with. You’re going to lose this battle anyway, so lose it on your own terms. Do it so you can go to sleep and start fresh tomorrow. This isn’t the end. This isn’t the war. It’s one battle out of many to come. You can do this. You can do this.”
It didn’t feel like victory when my bladder finally gave out and I felt the hot splash of urine on my privates a half second later. It didn’t feel wet either. A flash of warmth, and a slight dripping sensation as the thirsty padding soaked up my not-quite accident almost as fast as I was making it.
It felt kind of nice actually…
I sighed and laid back as my body took over. It felt like a lot of things. Kind of nice. Like a sponge bath. It definitely felt like relief; my body let out an involuntary sigh in time with my stream. It felt so weird feeling myself pee, and not seeing it come out of me, though.
“I’m sorry Cassie,” I cried. Ah. There were the tears. “I’m so sorry.” I wasn’t done whimpering yet. “I’m so so sorry.” I called out to the air. “I didn’t mean to!” Even I wouldn’t have recognized my own voice through all the croaking and whining I was doing. I definitely didn’t sound like a teacher anymore.
I didn’t sound like any adult I’d ever met either.
I sounded closer to a…
Well…
You know…
“I’m S-S-S-S-S-S-ORRRRRRRRY!” Wet face and wet diaper, my sobs lost all words as I called out to my wife like she was a distant and forsaken goddess.
My wife didn’t hear me of course. But I swear as I lulled my head to the side-the closest I could manage to rolling over-that the light changed underneath the nursery door. Almost as if there were a very big person who’d been listening in the whole time, and had just now moved away; satisfied that her Little Baby had been properly broken in.
