I looked at myself in the mirror, fully knowing that this would be the last time I ever saw my real reflection; my adult self looking back. I looked pathetic there sitting in the booster seat, and it would only get worse.
The booster seat bothered me, and not just because it wasn’t nearly as comfortable as the leather cushioning beneath my feet. Why bother with a booster seat at all? Why not get a Little sized chair if they were the only subjects?
The answer was as obvious as the bulge between my thighs: To remind me and reinforce my status as something that was small and helpless. That and it was probably cheaper than getting anything custom made that might actually fit someone my size.
The previous inhabitant of the chair and her jailor came out. I saw in the mirror that Caroline had been changed into a new diaper, but it was still far too puffy- and her dress too short- to anything resembling privacy.
The hairdresser stepped away to cash them out. Dollification wasn’t free, after all. I caught Janet staring at me in the mirror. “You’re going to be so cute!”
“I thought I already was cute,” I said.
Janet opened her mouth a second before clicking her teeth shut. She hadn’t expected it. “Well you are, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have a little fun and have you look your best.”
“So I’m not good enough?” I practically spat out the words. “Cassie thought I was cute…” I shouldn’t have said that. I immediately regretted it, and it had nothing to do with Janet. I’d just made myself incredibly sad. Remembering Cassie was like picking at stitches. I felt my own face fall with a dull ache that seemed to be pulling the corners of my mouth straight down.
Janet, for her part, just kissed me on the top of my head. “I love you,” was all she said.
I sniffed rather than reply. Another mistake. Without the nicotine aroma of the old woman, I caught a whiff of something else. The man-child in the other seat had shit himself, and based on the dopey expression he had, didn’t care too much about it.
“Okay,” the crone said, coming back. “Let’s take a look.” I’d never been so relieved to smell cigarette smoke in my life. Big boney fingers ruffled through my hair. “A redhead!” she said. “A cute little carrot top.”
“I know, right?” Janet agreed.
“Hmmm…” I felt a slight sting as a hair was plucked out. “Got some gray up in here. How old is he?”
The question. “Go on, Clark,” Janet said. “Can you tell her how old you are?”
“Thirty-two.” It came out as a bit of growl and a bit of a pout. I couldn’t help it.
The fingers went back to work, scratching my scalp. “Only thirty-two and so many gray hairs? Oh you must’ve been stressed!”
“Oh you have no idea,” Janet said. “So stressed.” She laughed. Actually laughed.
Skeleton digits prodded at my cheeks. “Ooof,” the old woman said, close enough that I could smell the tar on her teeth. “What did they do to your skin Little boy?” She looked to Janet. “Did the adoption center you got him from use an Epidermatic Series Ten-Seventeen?””
Janet blinked. “A what?”
“Epidermatic Series Ten-Seventeen.” The fossil repeated. “Cannister? Big old tube? Kinda like a bug zapper?”
“Oh yeah,” Janet said. “I think so.”
The hairdresser clicked her tongue and looked down at me. “I bet that hurt like the dickens, Little guy.” The dickens didn’t even begin to describe how bad it hurt. I bit my tongue and nodded. “Poor thing. I can’t even believe they still allow those deathtraps!”
“We got it from the high school,” Janet said.
“High school?”
Janet made eye contact with me. My eyes softened. Wordlessly, I begged. Please. Please don’t make me relive it again…
“It’s a long story,” was all she said.
The hairdresser shrugged. “Fair enough. I only brought it up because it means we won’t be able to do anything like freckles or dimples until his skin has healed up a bit more.”
Janet quirked her mouth to the side. “That’s a shame,” she sighed. “Maybe next time.”
The older gianted nodded. There would definitely be a next time. “So what do you want done, Mommy?”
Janet practically swooned at being called Mommy. Her eyes lit up as if I had been the one to say it. She bit her lip and then finally said. “So um…let’s take care of the gray spots first, obviously.”
“Obviously. We’re keepin’ him a carrot top, right?”
“Most definitely,” Janet said. Then she bit her lip. “Maybe a shade or two lighter?”
“Can do. What else? Style? Are we keeping it straight or…?”
“Before…I mean normally…I’ve noticed.” Janet stopped. Even with the clever pseudo-science excuse of Maturosis, it was difficult for her to reconcile who I was to her to who she wanted me to be. “When his hair gets long it starts to show signs of curls. I think he’d be really cute with them.” She blushed and giggled at the thought.
I looked at my hair in the mirror. Curls were already starting to form, in fact. I was on the verge of needing a haircut anyways. I’d just never envisioned it’d be in a place like this.
Thin, corpselike hands petted and smoothed back my hair. “Oh I can do that, no problem! I’ve got juuuust enough to work with right now. I also have something to promote hair growth. You can use it in the tubby.” I felt a point poke the back of my head. “Get rid of this tiny bald spot that’s starting right here.”
“BALD SPOT?!” I yelped. Cassie had never said anything about a bald spot! Both of my tormentors hid their mouths behind the palms of their hands.
I got my scalp patted condescendingly in reply. “It’s not a big one, don’t worry. And with your Mommy’s help, it will be all gone in just a week or so.”
“See Clark?” Janet smiled. “This won’t be all bad!”
“So we got the hair,” Old Smokey ticked off on her fingers. “Lighter red with cute baby curls. Freckles and such can wait until the pink in his skin goes down a bit more; maybe we can schedule you for Sunday,” she added. “What about his eyes?”
Janet swiveled the chair around and knelt down. I held my breath. Her dark eyes looking directly into mine. The eyes, I’d heard, are the window to the soul. I don’t know if that’s true, or if there’s such a thing as a soul. But if it were, what would that say about someone who would change the windows on a whim.
I accidentally glanced over to the Little boy giggling as the other hairdresser finished sticking needles into his irises. Maybe the numbing agents in the needle gun were powerful. Maybe the poor bastard had been mind-fucked and conditioned into where laughter was the only response he could give to pain.
“No,” Janet finally said. “Leave the eyes. I love them.” I blinked. I finally blinked.
She didn’t deserve it, but managed to mouth a quick and quiet “Thank you”, and got a peck on the forehead as a reward.
A mammoth smock draped over my body, burying my body from the neck down. “This won’t take too long at all,” the skeleton woman told Janet. The world spun around and went topsy turvy. The feeling of warm water pouring over my scalp told me that my head was in the sink. “Just keep still, baby, and we’ll have you out of this chair in a jiffy.” I was engulfed with the stench of burnt cigarettes.
“Clark’s always been very patient,” Janet bragged as if she had anything to do with it. Even so, she had no idea how patient, how fucking stubborn I could be.
“Clark,” the old skeleton said. “If you be a good boy, I’ll make sure to give you a lollipop.” Silence was my only reply.
As my hair was rinsed and washed for the second time today, the other chair was emptied. “All done and cute as a button!” I heard one of the other two Amazons say. I couldn’t tell which one was talking. The boy who had been mutilated to the point of caricature cooed and laughed and babbled.
“Ooops. Smells like someone had an accident,” the pudgy butcher said. “We’ve got a changing table in the bathroom.”
“No thanks,” the other woman said. “Percy only needs to be changed twice a day. Once when he gets up, and once just before bed. His diapers are THAT good!”
I threw up in my mouth and had to swallow or gag. I chose to swallow. A moment later, tilted back up, away from the mirror just in time to see the pair walk out. “I’m going on break,” Pudgy said from behind the cash register.
“Sure thing,” Smokey called back.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Janet shaking her head. “Some people…,” I caught her muttering. Even among maniacs there were degrees of crazy. Even among monsters there were levels of atrocity.
A monstrous towel finished drying my hair and then goopy foul smelling chemicals started to be brushed and rub in. “Tell me about it,” Smokey said. “I know what diapers she’s talking about, too. They’re designed for long trips or airplane flights where you can’t get a chance to change them as often or if they’re really sick with a stomach bug. Not for everyday use.”
“And was she talking about gender reassignment?” Janet added. “You’re only supposed to do that if it’s for the good of the child.”
“Preaching to the choir, honey.” Smokey let out a long hacking cough, then started rolling my hair up into little curlers. “Some people shouldn’t be allowed to adopt.”
“Couldn’t agree more.”
“Then why don’t you refuse service?” I asked.
“What?” The hairdresser stooped. She seemed confused.
“If you think she’s a bad mother, why not refuse her service?” I asked point blank. “Make it known that what she’s doing is unacceptable? It’s not like Percy has the ability to advocate for himself anymore.”
Both of the giants stared at me in confusion and discomfort. If the other Amazon hadn’t left to go on break, I might have a trio of gawking heads.
Janet hemmed and hawed before giving me a muddled volley of half-hearted, hackneyed and uninspired rebuttals: “Just because she shouldn’t…I mean…it’s not illegal to…different Mommies and Daddies have different ways of…We can’t tell people how to…if the Little’s Developmental Plateau is…”
It was Smokey who finally shut me down… “You’re just a Little baby,” she said. “Grown-Up stuff is confusing sometimes; even to grown-ups. Don’t worry about it and just be glad that your Mommy is one of the good ones.”
I couldn’t argue with that. Not because it wasn’t true, but because it was so untrue. For arguments to work, you have to have people willing to listen to you. A plastic bag was slipped down over my forehead. I shifted uncomfortably in the chair, closing my eyes in a vain attempt to not hear the crinkle beneath me.
For a moment, I lost myself as a pair of hair dryers started heating up the chemicals in my hair. It wouldn’t be long now. I retreated within myself and imagined Janet giving me an honest answer. One that not only was honest with me, but with herself.
“I’m afraid to criticize her too much,” she would say, “because then I would have to admit that what I’m doing to you is just as wrong. It’s just easier to pretend you’re a baby. It’s what I most want.”
“And there are more Amazons like her than like your Mommy,” imaginary Smokey chimed in. “We’d lose too much business if we had anything resembling standards.”
“And you just want to feel intellectually and morally superior to a bunch of tyrants that never intended on listening to you to begin with.” An imaginary Cassie scolded me; mocked me. “How’s that working out for you right now?”
My eyes shot open. I hadn’t even realized I’d closed them. I must’ve dozed off. The humming and the heat combined with sleep deprivation and total emotional exhaustion did a number on me. The bag was off my head, and spindly spider-like hands were busy taking the curlers out of my hair.
A twinge of fear wriggled through me. Beneath the voluminous smock, I reached between my own legs and gave my diaper a squeeze. The complete lack of squish and the start of a dull ache in my bladder told me that I hadn’t wet yet.
My hand was still on my crotch when I was whirled around to face the mirror. Were this an Amazon fantasy, this would be the part where my hand felt the slow warmth spread across the front of my Monkeez because of how surprised (propagandists would say “delighted”) I was.
But this was real life. Everything in me recoiled at what I saw. The changes weren’t much: My hair was still red, albeit a lighter shade than I’d seen in decades. The curling in my hair was subtle. It didn’t look like a perm as much as a messy and wild tangle of childish curls. I knew from past lazy summers that another month would have had the same end result, more or less.
My mouth gaped as the smock was removed. Supposedly, I’d been brought in for a haircut. Now with the onesie and diaper bulge showing I looked closer to a kid who was ready for his first.
“Oh?” Janet noticed my hand still between my legs. I ignored her as she checked me and patted the top of my head. “Still dry.” Again, she sounded vaguely disappointed.
The chemicals had done more than just change the color. My hair didn’t feel as thick as before. It was finer. Wispier. Softer even. Baby soft. I looked like a giant toddler; not so giant, given my surroundings. But then again, that was the whole point, wasn’t it?
Old Smokey, as I’d taken to calling her, leaned over the chair and used her bony fingers to force my cheeks into a smile. “Oh, doesn’t he look precious?!” she cooed. Even with her manipulating and squishing my face, I felt the corners of my mouth involuntarily strain and tug downward. “Someone just earned hisself a lollipop!”
