I was beginning to understand why Ivy sucked on a pacifier. My tongue would be a bloody stump by the end of the month and my teeth would be ground into nubs if I didn’t find some kind of replacement behavior. When even an eye roll could be seen as a form of rebellion, sucking on one’s thumb or masking with a rubber bulb felt safer.
“He looks so much better this way.” Raine said. “So much more appropriate. I just wish it had happened sooner.”
“Well, his Maturosis hadn’t kicked in yet,” Janet replied dreamily.
“Thank goodness it did.” Both women appeared to be glowing; oddly content. “Finally. You’re so lucky.”
“Thank you,” Janet kept glowing. “I think both of us are. Some things are just meant to be.”
Raine slumped back down into her chair. “Yeah. I guess so.” If only I could bottle that bitter disappointment lurking just beneath the surface, I’d sell it as a cologne and be rich.
“Actually,” Janet said, putting down the pin. “Before I head out, I need to go to the bathroom. Would you mind watching Clark for a minute?”
That’s how I ended up in Raine Forrest’s lap.
Raine was already bobbing me up and down in her lap, holding me loosely by the wrists like I was her marionette. “I’d love to.”
“Okay, Clark. You be good for Miss Forrest.”
Don’t growl, don’t growl, don’t growl, don’t growl. “Yes.”
“Yes…?” It was Raine who was verbally proddingprodding me.
Damnit. I kept my eyes off my least formidable enemy.
“Yes…Mommy.” I was going to call her Janet as much as possible when we got in the car, just to counterbalance her crazy and remind her that there was more than some imagined baby riding in the back seat.
“I’ll be right back!” And she rushed off to the bathroom. If I had done it like that, Raine would be snatching me up proclaiming ‘potty emergency’, or something equally contrived.
No need now. She had me, and the only consolation I had was that her hold would last only as long as it took for Janet to wipe, flush, and wash her hands.
“Hi Clark.” I felt her smile and sneering down at me from her lap. She bounced me. “Little crinklebutt!” she cooed. “So cute.” I didn’t respond. If you can’t say something nice and can’t get away with punching them in the nose…
“This is so much better, don’t you agree?” She prodded me. “Don’t you.”
Lie. Lie for Cassie! Lie just to shut her up. “Yes, ma’am.” For once, I sounded as defeated as I felt. So that was kind of nice in a weird cathartic way.
“Aren’t you happier now that you’re in your proper place?”
“If you say so, ma’am.”
“No more having to pretend to be a big boy. You finally got what you needed!”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Comparing and contrasting my experiences, I imagined I looked like the Little girl back in the salon chair a few days ago. I certainly felt like it. It was weird when Janet Grange, Melony Beouf, and even Zoge infantilized me. I’d had good memories of them. Adult memories that made it hard to completely close myself off to their treatments.
Raine? Emotionally speaking, this was cake.
“Ohhhh Clark.” I looked up at my long time nemesis. “I have something for you.” She’d let go of my right wrist and opened a desk drawer. In her hand was a lump of chocolate. A bon bon. Something that came in a tiny pre-packaged box, possibly with a safe chili variant that Amazons might find tolerable and proof to a foolish Little that the rest was safe to eat… “A treat. A gift.”
If I ate that training chocolate, I’d be all but bowel incontinent in the space of a few hours. Possibly it might last for days. Longer, depending on how my system reacted.
“I…” I faltered. “I’m not hungry, Miss Forrest. Thank you.” I started wriggling in her lap, uncomfortable. Wanting distance. Needing Janet to get back.
“Oh, it’s just a chocolate,” she replied, ever the snake staring at its mouse. “One teensy chocolate. For being such a good baby.”
“I want to be a good baby,” I said. “That’s why I don’t want to spoil my appetite.” I felt like breaking into a cold sweat.
Her other hand coiled itself around my waist. “This won’t spoil your dinner, baby. I promise. If anything it’ll help make lots and lots of room.”
Threat confirmed. My hands started prying at her fingers. The hand with the chocolate started closing in. “Clark,” the monster woman hissed. “Do you really want your new Mommy to see you like this? Struggling and fussing? What would she think? I know she wants you to be good.”
“I don’t have to eat it!” I took a swipe trying to hit the chocolate out of her palm and onto the dusty carpet below. Missed! “Oops!”
“Clark,” she leaned down and whispered. “Be a good baby and eat it. No need to be naughty.”
Teeth clenched, I snarled, feeling like a cornered animal. “I’m. Not. Naughty.”
“Good babies don’t struggle and fuss when offered a treat by a Grown-Up.” Raine said simply. “Good babies don’t cuss and say naughty words to the Grown-Ups who are watching them. They don’t call those Grown-Ups bad names like bitch…or cunt…”
Oh fuck that noise! I had never called that fucking cunt a bitch to her face! “But I didn’t…”
“Do you think she’ll believe you?”
Yes!
Maybe….
Not really…
No. Probably not. Not with the incident at the shower fresh in her mind and the nasty things I spouted off to everyone. Not with my history with Raine and my obvious disdain for her.
I didn’t verbally reply. I just opened my mouth. Accepted the candy. The worst part of it all? It was delicious. Sweetest poison I’d purposefully tasted. A terrible, near illegal laxative, coated in the most decadent chocolate I could imagine.
I swallowed. Reminding myself that if the rumors were true, this wouldn’t hit me until close to dinner or bedtime. If nothing else, I might sleep through the night.
For Cassie. I’d do anything to make sure I saw her this one last time.
Janet came back too late to stop it, and was seeing the world through mad Mommy eyes. “Okay. Back!”
Raine released me into Janet’s slightly more tolerable grip. “He was a perfect Angel,” she said without prompting. “You’ve got a good one, Janet.”
“I know, thank you. “ Janet blushed. She actually blushed. We were starting back towards the door. To my reward. To seeing Cassie that one last time. I was Orfeus escaping the underworld. Or maybe I was Eurodice and Janet was Orfeus. Her leading, and me following. The point being that I was just a few Amazon sized strides to being out of that particular hellscape for the day when…
“If only he was this well behaved last week.”
Like Orfeus before her, Janet stopped and turned around. “Why? What happened last week?”
“Clark locked me in the staff bathroom.” Raine was trying to act nonchalant about it, but I could see the spite simmering just beneath the surface. “It’s okay though,” she said. “It was probably just his immaturity or Maturosis or whatever kicking in. Playing with the potty.”
Janet glared at me. “Is this true?”
“No!” I said. “It’s not like that! Not like that at all! She was trying to lock me out!”
“I just went into the men’s room,” Raine replied coolly. “The bathrooms are unisex, and it’s cleaner because we have so few grown men on campus. If I had known it would have upset him so…”
Like a quantum yo-yo I was back behind the front desk, now on my feet, and with Janet behind me crossing her arms over her chest. “Clark,” Janet said. “That wasn’t a very nice thing of you to do. Say you’re sorry.”
I wasn’t sorry. Not one bit. “But Janet-!”
“What did you call me?”
“Mommy!” I strained. “You know how she is!”
“How is she?” I was walking myself into a trap and I couldn’t stop it.
Raine spoke up behind me. “Janet, it’s fine. Really. Clark didn’t know what he was doing. He just thought he was playing a funny joke. He didn’t stop to think about all the calls I missed.”
“I-!”
“He’s just a baby. They do these things from time to time. They can’t help but be naughty every once in a while.”
“Not my baby.” Janet insisted. “Clark, apologize.”
“I-!” I was shaking. Of all the days for Raine Forrest to figure out how to best me!
“Clark…”
I turned around to face Janet. “You helped me dress up for silly sock day!” I pointed my finger up at her accusingly. My face felt like it was swelling. My gut was tying itself up in knots.
“And that was my fault,” Raine said oh so gently and condescendingly. “I shouldn’t have lost my temper. You were following the rules the only way you knew how, and you did nothing wrong. I’m sorry about that, but that was last school year. You hurt my feelings just last week.”
“She’s right Clark,” Janet said firmly. “You should apologize for what you did.”
I couldn’t take it! Apologize?! To literally one of the worst people I’ve ever had the displeasure of knowing? No. Never.
“Janet! She tried to-”
“CLARK! GRANGE!” My back went stiff and my ears burned as Janet boomed my new name. She knelt down and wagged her finger in my face. “You apologize to Miss Forrest right now or no treat, and you know exactly what I mean.”
My bottom lip started to jut out. For Cassie. I’d do it for Cassie. “Yes Mommy,” I rasped. I turned around and looked at the floor, staring at my shoes and grinding my right heel into the carpet like the naughty Little boy. Standing there, in the front office where I used to be one of the faculty passing through on my way to work. I was stuck and dressed like an eighteen month old, wearing underpants that I now had zero chance whatsoever of either keeping clean or so much as making dirty on my own terms. “I’m sorry…Miss Forrest.”
It wasn’t loud. But it was loud enough.
“It’s okay, baby.” Came the cooing reply back.
It wasn’t.
Janet reached down and took my hand. “Good job,” she said. “Thanks for telling me about it,” Janet said.
“No problem.” I heard Raine say back. “It takes a village and all that. Let me know if you ever need a sitter. I’d be happy to look after him for a few hours.”
“Sure,” Janet said. She tugged at my hand. I was being allowed to walk to the car instead of carried. “Come on, Clark. Let’s go.”
“Home?” I sighed in defeat.
She waited to respond till we were out of the front office and well out of earshot “Yeah,” she said. “Home. Your old one. To say goodbye. One last time.”
