Abruptly, Mary stopped flailing his bottom. She pulled his diaper up again and sat him on her lap, cuddling him to her bosom in a complete reversal of her behavior that simultaneously mystified and confused him. In a fraction of a second, Mary had transformed from a vengeance-bent Fury with the attributes of a Grecian demigoddess to a consoling, comforting mother-figure. Thomas’s mind couldn’t compass the sudden change so it retreated to a behavior that he had used when he was utterly baffled by the adult world when he was a small child; he wept, sniveling like a small child while he rested his head against her protective breasts. “Are you going to do what I say?”, Mary demanded gently as if she was speaking to a naughty child.

Thomas nodded his tearful, red-visaged agreement and tried to hide his face in her bosom as he began to wail again. She tenderly pushed him back and said, “Here Honey, suck on this! It will make Aunt Mary’s baby feel all better!”

Thomas allowed her to shove the nipple of the pacifier she held into his mouth. A few muffled sobs escaped the infantile gag, but it effectively shutoff Thomas’s incontinent blubbering.

“Suck on your binkie, Baby!”, Mary commanded with a creamy smile of victory over her former husband.

Thomas meekly began pulling rhythmically on the latex nipple with his mouth and tongue and was surprised to discover that Mary had been right; it did make him feel better. He nuzzled his nose deeper into her bosom in an attempt to find solace in human nearness.

“I think we can forego the video tape, Sweetheart,” Mary said consolingly as she pulled him free of the safety of her chest and put her bent forefinger under his chin to raise it in a display of her adult prowess. When he was looking directly into her eyes, she continued, “You’ve been punished enough for one day! Remember the spanking Aunt Mary gave you, Honey. If you’re ever defiant or naughty again around Aunt Mary again, she will spank you so hard you won’t be able to sit down for a week. Do you understand me?”

Thomas nodded his head woefully.

Mary smiled at his defeated demeanor and said patronizingly, “Little Tommy is only an itsy-bitsy baby now. If he doesn’t want his sweet bottom spanked, he’ll listen to his elders. Does Aunt Mary’s baby understand me?”

Thomas nodded tearfully and tried again to hide his face in her bosom like a small child. This time Mary allowed him the privilege of being succored by nestling his face in the cleavage between her breasts. She patted his back affectionately as she said, “Aunt Mary is going to ask your Mommy if she can babysit you sometime next week. That will give you and Bobby time to play together. Won’t that be fun?”

Thomas moaned weakly behind his pacifier, thinking of how demoralizing the experience would be. She had totally destroyed his sense of self-worth with the spanking. He suddenly realized that he had never loved or trusted his wife with the same diligence that he had shown his mother. Somehow Mary had always seemed like an outsider who was trying to interfere with his relationship with his mother. Thomas realized the that he had invited her severe treatment because of his lack of trust when they were married. Thomas whimpered a bit more and wished that his mother was there. She would take care of him. It didn’t matter if she babied him and kept him in diapers. All he wanted at that point was to be cared for lovingly and without imposed psychological distress.

Thomas wanted to go home. He was ready to return to the arms of his mother no matter how smothering her love was. Whether he was in diapers or not had become a moot point. He no longer cared about how he was dressed or where he peed or pooped. Thomas didn’t even care whether he drank from a glass or sucked on the nipple of a nurser. He just wanted the assurance that he was loved and would never be punished in the same way again. His punishment at his ex-wife’s hand had both astounded him and completely demoralized him. His absolute helplessness had been made perfectly clear by the punishing paddling his ex-wife had given him. Thomas had been made acutely aware he could no longer defend or take care of himself. He had become dependent on the love and good will of the adults who ruled his life. All he could think about was how much he wanted his Mommy!

When Thomas peed and pooped his diaper again a half-hour later, he bawled like an infant in distress. He couldn’t help himself; his self-control had completely vanished. After a few minutes, Mary took him out of the playpen and carried him to Bobby’s nursery for a diaper change. When she put him on the changing table to remove his dirty dydee, he was like a limp rag in her hands; his ability to resist had been irrevocably shattered. Thomas had ceased to care about the image he projected to his ex-wife. The spanking had reduced him to a sniveling, whimpering shell of what he had once been. She babbled maternal babytalk down at him as she taped the clean diaper in place and tickled him on the stomach to lighten his mood. When that failed, she sat down in the rocking chair with him and nursed him at her breasts. Thomas suckled hungrily but without any joy or sexual excitement. Until his mother came to reclaim him, the world was only a sequence of meaningless grey shadows that had once had importance. Without his mother’s presence, it didn’t matter what happened to him. As far as he was concerned, none of it was real.

The afternoon dragged on slowly with him indolently playing with Bobby’s baby toys in the playpen. Although Thomas desperately wanted Mary to call his Mommy, there was no way to message his need to her. From the sneer on her face as she watched him play in his son’s playpen, she seemed disinclined to give up her control of her former husband prematurely. Mary wanted him to experience what it was like to be her baby in the smallest detail, so he would know and regret his actions to the fullest.

Every once in a while she would come and stand by the playpen and make disparaging comments about his manhood. Fortunately for Thomas, his partial escape into unreality inured him to her petite humiliations. He ignored her statements as meaningless adult gibberish. The intense boredom of his confinement to his son’s playpen made him fall asleep frequently, causing hours to pass without notice. The phone rang and Mary went to answer it, hoping it was Marge telling her she discovered the mixup and was coming over to exchange babies. She had tired of the game of humiliating Thomas. It wasn’t much fun if the victim acceded to one’s every demand and mortifying whim. Instead, of it being a call from Marge, it was a call from a man who identified himself as a police officer was on the line, asking her she was Mary Burns and if knew a woman called Marge Burns. Mary answered carefully that she did and there was a long pause at the other end of the line as if the caller had something to say but was reluctant to put into words. The policeman finally said, “We found a card in Mrs. Burns wallet that indicated you and your husband are her next of kin. I regret to inform you that she and a child who remains unidentified were struck by a pickup truck this evening while turning onto Mulberry drive. Both occupants of the car were killed instantly in the crash.”

Mary turned white as a sheet, saying, “Oh Dear God! No! This must be some kind of mistake!”

“No mam,” the male voice on the phone said with conviction, “The picture on the driver’s license and the fingerprints that were taken from the woman’s body positively identify her as Mrs. Marge Burns, who lived at one-‘o-one Martindale Drive. The vehicle she was driving, a light blue ninety-two Chevy sedan, was also registered to her. We’d like your help in identifying the baby boy who died in the accident with her. Legal papers in Mrs. Burn’s purse seem to indicate that the boy in question was her son, but the police department is unsure of the identification. The papers seem to indicate that her son was forty years of age and she had recently been made his legal guardian. They also indicate that her son was recently divorced from you, is that true?”

“Yes…”, Mary whispered into the phone. The world had suddenly become surreal to her as if she was actually having some terrible nightmare from which she would soon awaken. Her baby couldn’t be dead! He just couldn’t!