Once the decision had been made, they had quickly become casual friends, occasionally grocery shopping together so she could teach him how to select ripe produce and help him learn the rudiments of cooking. In return, he would check the oil, water and transmission fluids on her car, even though she was perfectly capable of doing it for herself. Actually, Allie was completely self-contained. After her ill-fated marriage at eighteen which endured a stormy three years, but seemed to last an aeon , she was perfectly content to stay single. Her parents had died in the same year of her divorce, leaving her a huge trust fund which would easily support her for the rest of her life. Rather than spend the money frivolously, she elected to live a simple life in a small home which she owned outright, volunteering her free time to help at the neighborhood Daycare center for the poor.
Her only regret in life was that she wanted a baby of her own. She had formally applied to the State adoption service, but the fact that she was single counted heavily against her even though her well-documented trust fund proved that no baby of hers would ever feel the sting of financial want. They told her that with the long waiting list for childless couples, that it was unlikely that they would have a baby available for adoption for her soon. One of the councilors had felt sorry for her and had told her “off the record” that she might try a private adoption agency. Most private agencies were less concerned with placing infants with couples, then with the financial status and good record of the adoptive parent. She warned her though, that private adoption was likely to be very expensive. Allie had reminded the councilor that she had plenty of money and thanked him for the idea, saying that she’d begin looking into the prospects with a private agency immediately. It didn’t take her long to find an agency that agreed to attempt to find a baby for her.
After talking to him about his sinuses, Allie had excitedly told Andrew that morning about the discussion she had had with the young woman at the private adoption agency the day before over a cup of coffee. She had told Allie that it would take from three to four weeks to find a baby for her to adopt. The only stipulation the woman had made was that the agency only had baby boys for adoption and that oftentimes the children had congenital physical problems. She told Andrew that she would rather adopt a healthy baby girl rather than a sickly boy, but she agreed to look at the baby boy if one was found for her.
Andrew vaguely remembered going to the local Walgreen’s Pharmacy that afternoon to pick up his refill for Allegra that had been prescribed for his sinus problem. From that moment on, his dream memories seemed to have taken over. In the dream, he had been somehow changed into an infant and had spent three weeks in an elaborate escape-proof nursery in a house owned by a woman named Krystyn. In the dream, he had fought becoming a baby again, but he had lost and had inevitably come to enjoy being an infant again. He thought a moment about all the sensations and feelings he had enjoyed in the dream and was shocked to find he still felt the same way about them. Even laying there, safe in his bed at home, he had the strongest urge to put his thumb in his mouth and begin sucking. He decided that the dream must have given him cold sweats during the night because his underwear felt wet and clammy that morning. He felt his bare chest with his hand and was surprised that he hadn’t put on his pajamas the night before the way he usually did. He must have been so tired that he had gone to bed wearing nothing but his briefs. He rolled over fitfully in his half-slumber, waiting for his alarm clock to go off to tell him it was time to get up. He had no intention of opening his eyes until that moment. He struggled a bit trying to roll over, feeling an unaccustomed weakness in the muscles of his back and legs. Once he managed to turn over, his outstretched hand unexpectedly hit something furry in his bed. “What the…?”, he asked himself as he felt the foreign object with his hand.
The object was huge! It must have spanned ten hand lengths and was covered in some sort of soft-napped, fur-like fabric. He felt around a bit more and decided that the thing must be some kind of stuffed toy. He could feel a face and two arms and as he explored lower, he could feel that it had legs too. “Who put that thing in my bed?”, he wondered to himself sleepily, “I don’t own any stuffed toys!”
He took his hand and laboriously pushed himself on his side again to consider the odd happenings in his bed. As he did, heard a strange crackling, crinkling sound coming from his waist. He put his hand down to his crotch and felt a thin plastic sheathing covering a puffy feeling padding underneath. As he squeezed the fluid logged gel he felt it squish wetly underneath his fingers. “What the….” he thought to himself in rising panic, “These aren’t my briefs! Just what the heck am I wearing?”
His eyes flew open to discover that he was in the crib of his dreams. He looked down to see his loins encased in a set of very wet disposable diapers. It all was real! Everything that had happened to him for the past three weeks was real! He had been turned into a baby again! In an anguish of mental torment, Andrew let out a wail of horror. Within minutes, Krystyn was at the side of the crib and taking him out for a diaper change. “There, there, now Jimmy. Calm down,” she said as she laid him on the changing station and put a pacifier in his mouth, “Your mommy will be here in a few minutes to pick you up. We can’t have you crying and making your face all puffy, now can we? Not after all the trouble I went to last night to make you all soft and sweet smelling.”
She quickly unfastened his diaper and cleaned his pubes and bottom before giving his entire body a light dusting of baby powder and rubbing it into his skin to heighten the smell of the perfume. Then she lifted his legs and slipped a clean diaper beneath him and fastened the tapes in place. Once she had finished, she picked him up from the changing table and held him close to her chest, patting his thickly diapered bottom comfortingly. “There you go!”, she said brightly, “All better! See? Let’s take you downstairs to the family room so you can be there when she arrives, okay?”
Strangely, Andrew did feel comforted by the clean diaper and having her hold him close to her bosom. The pacifier had calmed his initial panic and her gentle pats on his rump made him feel secure in her arms. He laid his head against her shoulder and closed his eyes as she carried him down the stairs to the family room. She sat him in the playpen while she went to the kitchen to get his bottle of formula. She returned a few minutes later and handed it down to his waiting hands. Andrew immediately began suckling with the expertise acquired during the past three weeks of being bottle fed every morning. While he engaged himself with his liquid breakfast, she got herself a cup of coffee from the kitchen and waited for her client to arrive. Fifteen minutes later, the doorbell rang and she went to answer it. It was her client as expected. She ushered the young woman into the room to see her adoptive son. Andrew was so busy sucking on the bottle that he didn’t notice her at once and only looked up when he heard the sound of Allie’s voice say, “He’s simply adorable! How could any woman give him up for adoption? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more beautiful child!”
When he saw Allie standing over his playpen, Andrew dropped the baby bottle in shock and tried to shout with upraised arms, “Allie, help me!”, but all that came out was, “Allllgaaaa maaa!”
Allie smiled down at him and said, “Can you say ‘ma-ma’ for Mommy, Sweetiepie?”
“Ma-ma?”, Andrew inquired almost automatically. It was the only word he could still say.
“Did you hear that,” Allie said excitedly to Krystyn, “He called me ma-ma! What’s his name?”
“His name is Jimmy, although you can call him anything you want. He’s your baby now. Look at how he’s peering up at you, I think he’s infatuated with you. I think that the two of you where made for each other,” Krystyn said smoothly, trying to hurry the transaction along, “Now about the final payment…”
“It’s here in my purse,” Allie said as she bent over the playpen to pick Andrew up in her arms, “Let’s go sit down on the couch and I’ll pay you right now.