Chapter 34: Dolled Up
Janet cut the engine and took the keys out of the ignition. “We’re heeeeeere,” she sang just before getting out of the car and walking around to the back. Trapped in the car seat, I looked to the stuffed lion that I’d been forced to take with me.
In the three seconds of silence that followed so many impulses flashed in my grey matter: Reach out and topple the stupid lifeless thing so that it tumbled to the floor. Punch it. Squeeze it till its nonexistent cotton ribs broke. Yell “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU LOOKING AT?!” at its unblinking eyes and stitched on mouth. Bite into its felt throat until fibrous blood gushed forth and the life drained out!
I had so much anger, so much fear, so much desperation and resentment and the only thing that I had any agency over in that moment was a stupid stuffed animal made for Amazon children (or people forced to pretend they were Amazon children). But even that agency was limited. Interacting or acknowledge the stupid stuffie in any meaningful way would have validated and reinforced Janet’s bucket of crazy. I’d be “playing” with it. Best case scenario, I’d be seen as being “fussy” or “naughty”.
The back door opened, and Janet unbuckled me from my restraints. I didn’t even try to help. Why bother? Before lifting me out, she stuck two fingers inside the front of my diaper. “Still dry,” she said. She actually sounded a little disappointed.
Did she really expect me to be THAT incontinent? Already?! The car ride had been maybe twenty minutes! Twenty minutes of Janet singing The Wheels On The Bus, The Farmer In The Dell, This Old Man, and any number of inane children’s songs that I hadn’t heard in decades. I didn’t even put my preschool students through this…
Typical Amazon.
“Do you want to take your lion with you?” she asked, reaching down for me.
My tongue retreated to the back of my mouth in revulsion. “No…” then for my own safety I added, “…thank you.”
“Okie dokie,” she chirped. “Your choice.” That was an eye roller.
Speaking of eyes, I closed mine and gritted my teeth as I was hoisted onto Janet’s hip. Being carried around is not something you get used to within twenty four hours. I opened my eyes when I heard the car door slam shut and looked to our first stop that day.
L’enfant Magnifique: Second only to New Beginnings, it was the worst place for any Little in Oakshire to be. One usually preceded the other. I’d never been within a hundred yards of the place, but I knew exactly where it was just to avoid it.
Gaudy periwinkle brick walls and a turquoise shingled roof, the place was an eyesore in downtown, just at the edge of the historic district. The big window in front allowed passerby- which at this hour meant mostly elderly Amazons walking to pass the time- to get a glimpse at whatever poor Little was being worked on. If not for the “services” provided there,
Oakshire’s not a particularly big city. It’s not so small where everybody knows everybody else; not quite so humdrum and podunk where every Little knew every other Little or everyone knee high to one of the giants waddled instead of walked, but it was small enough. Unfortunately, it was just big enough to support a Little’s Salon.
“Little’s Salon.” I never liked that term. It’s like calling it a “Cow’s Slaughterhouse” or a “Tuna’s Cannery”. Littles aren’t the customers in Little’s Salons; we’re the product. I’ve read that in some cities, there are Salons that double as cafe’s. Hip “Mommies” pack diaper bags and go and sit and chat and gossip and drink disgusting and overpriced coffee while their permanent babies get dolled up.
Janet toted me inside and my hearing went out. I could feel my pulse in my head. My ears were ringing. Inside my own head I was screaming. No grenade had gone off, though. No deafening explosion. Just the little tinkling of a bell as the door pushed inside the tacky house of horrors.
I should’ve brought the lion. At least then I could have something to squeeze and put force into when I tensed up. I ended up squeezing Janet instead.
“Don’t be scared, sweetie,” she whispered to me. She tried to comfort me, patting my back. “It’s just a haircut.”
Just a haircut? Just a haircut?! Bullshit. Little’s Salons were always more involved than “just a haircut.”
We took a seat- or rather Janet took a seat while I was forced to sit in her lap- while the two stylists worked their craft. The wait wouldn’t be long, I knew. It was still early enough in the day that we were the only ones left waiting. Bitterly, I hoped that whatever was being done would take a long time. A loooooong time. Maybe even long enough to where we’d miss out on another one of Janet’s appointments unless we left.
Already sitting in the two chairs in front of me were a Little man and woman; both of them buried up to their necks in barber’s smocks. The Little woman on my right sat perfectly still, her eyes dull and staring straight ahead.
I knew that look. I’d seen it in passing on plenty of Beouf’s Littles. It was likely a look I’d be mastering myself. When the only place where you could be a grown-up was in your own head, that’s where you tended to stay.
Her hair was being molded into a pixie cut, while her Amazon captor fawned and cooed over her. “You’re going to look so cute with your new hairdo, Caroline”
“Yes, Mommy.” Her voice was submissive, but distant.
“And Mommy will still get to comb it but it won’t get all tangled up when you sleep. Won’t that be nice?”
“Yes Mommy.”
The old, wrinkled Amazon behind the barber’s chair commented too. “And so well behaved, too!” Her voice sounded like her insides were literally coated with ash. “You’d be surprised how many Littles get all squirmy or screamy.” Frankly I was surprised at just how old the giant skeleton appeared. I would’ve thought that someone who is in the business making Littles look more like babies might use some of the products on herself.
Apparently, looking young was just a thing for Littles. Young meant immature. Immature meant less than. Old and gnarled and wrinkly and smelly therefore meant wise.
Typical.
The Amazon Mommy took the compliment for her captive. “Thank you! Her father and I have been working really hard to get her to behave in public.”
“Well I’d say it’s working,” the hairdresser replied.
“Awwwww! Thank you!” The bigger woman looked down at her prisoner. “Say thank you, Caroline!”
“Yes, Mommy.” She paused just long enough to not seem snippy. “Thank you, ma’am.”
“Such a good baby!’ the Mommy gushed. “Daddy will be so proud!”
“Yes, Mommy.”
A flash of recognition came over me. I knew that voice. I’d seen this woman before. She’d been crying and screaming in the restaurant! The Realtor. The Mother. The Wife. She was thirty five…maybe thirty six now.
She was thirty-six and getting her hair done in a Little’s Salon. Poor woman. I’d have felt sorry for her, but I was in no position to give pity to anyone but myself. Just like before, I averted my eyes, too uncomfortable to look. I was afraid she’d see me and remember; remember the free Little that did nothing as she was carted away over a giant man’s shoulder, humiliated in front of strangers.
If she noticed me or remembered me, she gave no sign. Between the restaurant and now, something had broken inside her. Everything was just “Yes Mommy” and “Yes, Daddy” and “Thank you, Ma’am.”
“I think someone is going to earn themselves a lollipop!”
“Thank you, Mommy.”
Sensing my discomfort, perhaps, but completely misattributing it, Janet wrapped her arms around me and bobbed me lightly on her knee. “It’s okay,” she quietly chirped. “Haircuts don’t hurt. You’ll see.”
Bullshit. When the person holding the scissors was an Amazon, bullshit.
The man in the chair to my left was broken, too, but a different kind of broken. He babbled and mumbled to himself as the stylist, a dumpy woman rubbed something blue and goopy into his scalp. Puddles of hair littered the perimeter of the chair, and were sporadically brushed off the front of the apron by his Mommy. Guy had lost a lot of locks, not that he seemed to be bothered.
Bright, uncomprehending eyes stared back at me, a toothless, drooling smile my reward for making eye contact. The only hair left on his head was in the very front and had been gelled and moused and sprayed or whatever into a little blond spit curl right on his forehead. He didn’t look like a baby to me. He looked like a living cartoon parody of one. A doll.
“Now you realize,” the hairstylist said, “that he won’t have any more hair after this, right? No more growing back.”
“Oh that’s alright,” the Amazon said. “My widdle Percy-Wercy doesn’t need any hair to be cute as a button!” She pinched his cheeks and was actually given a squeal and a peel of laughter. God I hoped this was an act…or at least that this guy was so mind-fucked that no part of who he actually was remained. It’d be the closest thing to being out of his misery…
“And if we want more hair, we can buy wigs. Isn’t that right Percy? Or maybe we could make you into a Priscilla! Yes we could! Yes we could! Would you like that?” The woman got more babbles and giggles from Little man.
She stopped and stared into his eyes, perhaps gauging. Perhaps feeling a flash of empathy. Maybe even seeing into the man’s soul. “If he’s going to have that blonde patch there, I think his eyes should be blue. Can we get that done today?”
“Sure,” hairstylist number two said.
So much for that theory…
This is why I so often use the word “dolls” to describe captured Littles. Babies don’t get their hair removed or teeth pulled or dimples added or cheeks injected so they looked chubbier or the color of their eyes changed or their gender reassigned on someone else’s whim. Nearly everything that goes on inside a Little’s Salon is illegal to do to an actual child. Babies, real ones, aren’t even allowed inside. Littles though? Dolls? Yes please. Even the awful decorature of L’enfant Magnifique made it look more like a dollhouse than anything a self respecting person would be caught dead in.
The Little girl from the restaurant, Caroline I guess, was finished first. Her smock was taken off, and she looked at herself in the mirror. Honestly, looking at her, I wouldn’t have pegged her as older than twentyish. In any other circumstance it might’ve been polite to say she looked good for her age. Not here, though. Not now.
She didn’t frown or pout, but anyone with a soul could tell she died a little inside. And I knew why: There wasn’t any mother or wife in that reflection. No realtor either. What looked back at her was a baby wearing a pinafore dress, whose diaper badly needed changing. It was ballooning out from underneath the hem from everything it’d absorbed.
Her Amazon picked her up and patted her on the diaper. “Oh you’re a soggy little thing, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know…” That was a lie.
“Of course not, baby.” The “Mommy” looked to the old bag of bones. “Do you mind if we…?” She jerked her head towards the bathroom- just a single toilet and sink…probably a changing table on the inside wall, too.
“Oh go on,” the old woman said. “I’ll ring you up when you’re out.” And just like that, the Little was carted by the Amazon into the bathroom.
The floor became even more distant as Janet stood up with me. “Looks like we’re next!” I exhaled. Yeah. That it did.
The gray haired woman behind the chair patted the seat. “Oh, what a cutie! Looks like we’ve got a new customer!”
The sound of tapes ripping off of plastic thundered out of the bathroom. I startled, and for the stupidest reason looked down at the crotch snaps of my own plain white onesie. I heard the mumbled motherese of the Amazon woman through the bathroom door, but nothing else. Evidently, Caroline had gotten used to being changed in public.
“That’s right!” Janet cheered. She set me down in the booster seat. “Just got him, yesterday!”
“Yesterday?” The old Amazon smelled like cigarette smoke up close. “I never would’ve guessed. He’s so well behaved. Normally new ones are so fussy!”
“Thank you!” Janet beamed above me.
Two giant hands pulled a strap over my chest and under my armpits. I heard the dull click of a buckle just behind the chair. “This is just in case. Babies sometimes get squirmy for their first haircut.”
“Oh, sure.”