Chapter 37: Saturday Morning Insight

I sat there on the plush carpet of Janet’s living room, wearing nothing but a diaper. A bottle filled with apple juice sloshing in my hands. At least she told me it was apple juice. My paranoid brain nagged at me that there might be something more swirling around beneath the rubber nipple.

It was the first day since my official “adoption”, and I was quietly dreading what torments Janet had prepared for me. Yesterday had been enough; almost too much. The fact that my prison cell was now decorated as a boy’s nursery gave me little comfort. The closet now had empty hangers; with dozens of pink and frilly dresses boxed and hauled away. No new clothes yet; hence just the diaper.

I hoped that meant that I was being kept inside today. A day of quiet, private indignation might be nice for a change. Either that or she might trot me out in public one bad tape away from being starkers. Show the whole town what a “baby” I was now. For all I knew, she’d get off on that kind of thing. For all I knew, I barely knew the woman at all.

Every Amazon seems to have a bucket list of “Mommy” stuff that they can’t wait to jump into as soon as they manage snatch up some unfortunate Little: Forced breastfeeding; enemas and suppositories; hypnotism, and at least half a dozen different unnecessary surgeries. Amazons love that kind of stuff.

I’d been saved from a new batch of freckles yesterday only because my skin was too raw to tattoo. My luck wouldn’t hold out that long. Same thing went for my clothing situation. Sooner or later, I’d have to get more clothes than just the solitary white onesie I’d been trapped in yesterday.

My first day back…as a student…was Monday.

Ugh…school. That was going to be hard. It was like death. You know it’s going to happen someday, you know it’s coming, but you do your best not to think about it… A LOT of my thought processes have reverted to that lately. Don’t think about the next thing. Or the next. Or the next. It wasn’t going to be good. Just try to be in the now; even if the now wasn’t very good, either. Because it was only going to get worse. It was the only way I could keep myself from going into a total raging panic breakdown.

Color me surprised when after my morning change and surprisingly tolerable high-chair cereal breakfast, I was unbuckled, plopped on the carpet, and given a bottle of juice. “Here ya go, Clarky.” Great…she was trying out nicknames. “I don’t want you getting dehydrated.”

From my spot on the carpet, I swished the bottle and I eyed her wearily. “What are we doing now?”

“Yesterday was a really hectic day,” she said. “For both of us.” She reached over my head and grabbed a remote. “I figure we could just spend the morning together and watch a little T.V.”

An electric shock wormed its way into my nervous system. Had I any body hair left, the little bits on the back of my neck would have been standing on end. Was this how my mind died? Eyelids pried open and my adulthood seeping out into hypnotic animation. “Cartoons…?” I asked.

Janet chuckled, as if there had been hope in my voice (there hadn’t been). “Maybe later, hon, but I was thinking something a little less frantic.” She turned on the television, and I reflexively slammed my eyes closed.

“It’s a beautiful day in this neighborhood,
A beautiful day for a neighbor,
Would you be mine? Could you be mine?”

I opened my eyes, more confused than anything. I knew this show. I’d watched it for years when I was an actual child. It was one of the few bits of local children’s programming that Little parents allowed their kids to watch. There was no animation for high grade hypnotics, the sound quality was serviceable, but there wasn’t a trace of subliminal messaging, and most importantly the message was unbiased towards race, creed, sexuality, gender, or size.

From my spot on the carpet, I looked up at Janet. “Mr. Frederick?” This time my voice did have something similar to hope. “You watch this show?”

Again, Janet smiled as if what I’d said was adorable. “Not for a long while,” she said, “but I’d love it if we watched it together.”

My head on a swivel, I scanned the living room- couch, coffee table, T.V. set; everything. Amazons were just as susceptible to their brainwashing methods as a Little, but they often used devices to filter the unwanted stimulus out. I squinted looking for any signs of ear plugs or glasses laying around. I stood up, tried to look in her eyes. Hypnosis resistant contacts weren’t a thing? Were they? Not that I’d read about…

“Together?”

She nodded. “Yeah. Do you wanna sit on Mommy’s lap?”

I bristled at Janet calling herself “Mommy”, but held my temper. I’d only encouraged it yesterday when I called out in the courthouse. Now I was kicking myself for it. If you’d asked me even a week prior whether I’d call an Amazon “Mommy” or “Daddy” or any other stupid cutesie thing, I would have steadfastly denied it.

I would say that I would have gone catatonic first. Keep my mouth shut and endure it to the bitter end. Give your enemy nothing; not love or hate or fear or pain; and especially not satisfaction. Such was my pride. Pride’s a funny thing. Not only does it come before the fall, but it’s also one of the first things to up and leave when it’s not convenient.

“No thank you,” I told her. “I’ll stay here.”

Her nostrils flared as she exhaled, but she kept her smile. “Okie dokie. I’ll be on the couch if you change your mind.” I’d settled on a middle ground for the time being. Resolved that I would avoid pushing that particular button unless I felt I really needed to; and instead stopped verbally referring to her as anything at all. She’d get “yes, ma’am” and “no, ma’am”, and I’d be polite enough. Avoid calling her by her first name to her face….

But she wouldn’t get “Mommy” either. I doubted I could keep that promise for long. Janet wasn’t stupid, and noticed the absence of the big M word from my vocabulary. She’d likely try and turn up the heat in some way. Yet it felt empowering all the same that I could make it to myself.

I needed to do that.

“Won’t you please, won’t you please,
Please won’t you be my neighbor?”

And so I sat there, on the carpet, my guard fully up, ready to slam my eyes shut, cover my ears and scream out whatever programming that was going to be beamed into my brain. But the moment didn’t come. All that came was an old Amazon man talking about feeding his fish and a puppet show.

Instead of turning into a drooling dolt, I breathed a sigh of relief and watched the show, stealing occasional glances at Janet. Sometimes she didn’t see me, instead glancing down at her phone or texting something. Other times she did, and she gave me a friendly little wave. “Hi!” she’d say. “Mommy’s right here!”

Poor deluded Janet. She told herself I was a lost cub looking for its Mama bear. Emotionally though, I was a mouse in a cobra cage, checking to make sure that it was still coiled up on the other side.

The show ended uneventfully, and then, right on its heels, came another old favorite from long ago.

“It’s time to sing all the songs, it’s time to laugh and play, it’s time to get things started on the Muffet Show Today.” Kremit, Miss Puggy, and Fuzzy all danced across the stage as Gongzo wound up his giant mallet- which would inevitably backfire when he tried to hit the giant gong at the end of the theme song.

Astonished, I whirled my head around and gawked at Janet. “This channel has the Muffets?!”

For the first time since snatching me, Janet smiled with something besides mothering condescension, or madness. Once again, I saw flashes of my old friend. “Of course this channel has the Muffets! It’s how I found out about this channel in the first place! It has re-runs of all these great old shows from when we were kids!” She slipped! She slipped and I couldn’t help but feel a glimmer of victory. A Little victory. “Do you wanna watch it?”

I knew that I was giving her what she wanted, that I was feeding her madness. Still, this felt like a nice gesture, all things being equal.

I completely let my guard down and watched one of my favorite shows; a comfort from another lifetime. Once again, thank goodness for small mercies. The entire broadcast, I’d forget myself, up until I’d slouch or shift my weight and I’d hear the tiny crinkle of my diaper. The awareness of my diaper at least let me tell myself that I wasn’t being brainwashed just then. There were Littles in the world who started tinkling their trousers the second the hypnotic theme song of their “favorite” show came on.

The thing is, objectively speaking, Dr. Milton had been right. Wearing a diaper wasn’t that bad. It was comfortable enough, and as long as I didn’t consciously try to squeeze my legs together, or think about what I’d inevitably use it for, it wasn’t bothersome. It was clothing. Underwear…kind of. It was bizarre just how much it didn’t bother me, too.

The Muffet show went to commercial and I closed my eyes and went back inside my own head. Even going so far as to pull my knees up to my chest. This was wrong. This was so wrong.

Sitting in a diaper, with a bottle, watching the Muffet Show on T.V., with a mother figure watching me watch T.V. In a weird way it all seemed so plain…so ordinary…so normal. Long ago, I mused, I very well may have been in this exact scenario. Only I would have needed the diapers, then. I would have actually been a baby, not a prisoner and in my thirties.

The pleasant memory erased by the bizarre present, I felt a twinge in my bladder and shifted uncomfortably, crinkling more. My bladder wasn’t particularly full, but knowing that my toilet was wrapped around my waist had made me more self-conscious about it. Diapers were actually making me pay more attention to how much I needed to pee. Ironic considering the flimsy justifications used to keep me in them. “You okay, hon?”

I was still looking straight ahead, avoiding eye contact. “Uh-huh.”

The waistband of my diaper was pulled back. Damn, Janet was fast! Her hand snuck around and squeezed my crotch, eliciting a dry rustle. “Still clean,” she said, (as if I didn’t know). “Don’t forget your juice.” Inwardly, I groaned. Typical Amazon.

I looked at the bottle I’d been holding suspiciously. Get them incontinent: That’s the first thing Amazons did to Littles that they’d captured. Made it harder for them to escape; harder to go back to a normal life. Easiest way to do that was to pump them so full of liquids that their bladders were revolving doors instead of waiting rooms. I’d already gotten a taste of that treatment.

Then of course, were any number of unnaturally strong laxatives and diuretics, to help things along. I’d already been poisoned once. That’s how I ended up in this mess- had to be. And even though Janet hadn’t been the one that had slipped something into my coffee, (she never had the opportunity), would my “Mommy” really have any qualms about “helping” me get over my potty training now that I was all padded up for her?

Bottle still in hand, I shimmed around on the carpet to face her, again texting on her phone. “So…” My voice came out as just above a whisper, drowned out by the Muffets rerun. “I was wondering…” Still nothing. I shook the bottle. “Hello?”

The only thing I managed to do was catch a glimpse of my ring finger. Not even a tan line; zapped right off with every other major marker of my life past age two.

Cassie forgive me, I thought. I’m not giving up. Just lying.

So much for promises to myself.

“Mommy?”

Janet’s ears twitched, and she looked up; hopeful and maybe even a little bit surprised. “Yes, sweetie?”

I picked myself up and waddled over to the couch. “Would you like some apple juice?” I offered the bottle. Easiest check for poison. If Janet wouldn’t drink it, then the amber liquid was spiked. I did my best to make my eyes seem wide and innocent; a stupid silly Little doll who just wanted to share.

“No thank you. Grown-ups don’t like sweet stuff very much. That’s very nice of you to want to share, though.” I suppressed a growl. Grown-ups didn’t have a predisposition to bitter and spicy foods. Amazons did. I must have let some sign of my anger show; let my facade slip, because I immediately found myself cradled in her lap. “No need to be cranky about it. Some things are just for Mommies.” A giant finger booped me on the nose. “And some things are just for babies. Here, let me help.”

The bottle was out of my grip in an instant, my jailer too strong and too quick for me to resist. My gasp of surprise became all the opening needed for the rubber nipple to find its way between my lips. I wriggled frantically; instinctually; somewhere in between clawing at my naked thighs and wanting to thrash until I drew blood.