Anita went to the kitchen and returned with a large black plastic lawn and leaf bag. She began picking up his toys and putting them in the bag. When she was done, all that remained of his toys was a group of soft pushy stuffed animals, multicolored donut-shaped stacking rings and a set of pastel-colored nesting boxes. Anita left out the wheeled bubble push-toy that was mounted to a stick, but she propped the long handle against the wall where it would be out of the way. Howard frowned when he saw Anita stow his beloved blocks in the bag with the other toys. Apparently she thought that they were too dangerous for infant play. She dragged the bag out to the garage and returned with a large flat folded object which she laid on the floor next to Howard. When she unfolded it, Howard recognized what the thing was; a playpen! Anita picked up his remaining toys and threw them behind the wall of restraining mesh as Howard looked on in abject horror. “Surely she doesn’t mean to put me in there!”, he thought to himself.

His worst fears were realized when she lifted him under his armpits and lowered him into the playpen with his toys. He had been busted out of the ranks of men and demoted all the way down to infancy. Anita had used the excuse of his disability to downgrade him clear through boyhood to the lowest position possible in a family; the baby!

Howard wept silently for a time, then took up a stuffed toy and cuddled it tentatively to his side. He felt alone and abandoned in the playpen. The cold wet diaper and the slimy mess in which he sat was a constant reminder of his loss of status. There was nothing left in life for him. Everything that had made him a man was gone. He felt like all that was left of him was a shell of his former self. He bore a portion of his former name and nothing else. Anita was the boss now. She owned the house, the bank accounts and their stocks. He didn’t even own the dirty disposable diaper that covered his bottom. Howard closed his eyes and tried to feel the condition of his bladder, but even that was denied him. Everything below his navel felt like it barely present. It was as if his bowels and bladder belonged to someone else. His penis was a hopeless proposition. True, a gentle massage still felt pleasurable, but the sensations weren’t the same as they had been before his transformation. Masturbation wasn’t the solitary adult recreation that he remembered. He had tried to jerk himself off in his training pants for two nights running, but the pleasant sensations his tiny erection had produced had only made him sleepy. His best efforts were only a pale promise of the pleasures that might have been had his body been sexually mature. Howard sighed and brought the stuffed animal up to his face to rub it across his cheek. It wasn’t the same as running his lower jaw across Anita’s velvety inner thighs when he used to make love to her, but there was something sensual and comforting about the feel of the fuzzy toy that made him feel better.

After a while he began playing with the ring toy that Anita had placed in the playpen. It wasn’t that he found it particularly entertaining, but he remembered a mathematical problem he had read about in his college days. There was a long standing mathematical problem that tried to find the minimum number of moves to change the order of stacked rings from one pillar to another. Essentially, the problem involved inverting the sequence of rings on each pillar without taking more than one ring from a pillar at one time. Howard thought that he had read somewhere of a multi-million move solution that had been determined on a computer, but an intuitive solution had never been found. There was the barest chance that he might find the solution by inspection were others had failed. In any case, it was a way to pass his time. Howard began stacking and unstacking rings one by one, patiently enduring the boredom which threatened to dull his mind to the point of uselessness. He repeated each action over and over going through each motion automatically. Howard’s consciousness contracted as the mind numbing repetition destroyed all semblance of independent thought. The fetid pain of his wounded mind seeped away to be absorbed like the overflow from a septic tank in a verdant drain field. He was in a perfect state of Zen, mindless, wordless, and egoless. When Anita finally came back to change his dirty diaper, he was little more than a self-actuated protean automaton which mindlessly continued its program until some outside agency forced it to halt. Anita came into the room carrying a small white box and what appeared to be a folded white dish towel. She took him out of the playpen, sat him on the floor, then put her hand on his chest and forced him to lay back on the carpet. Anita unfastened the tapes of his diaper wordlessly and drew the soggy front down between his legs to lay on the carpet. She lifted his legs and made a preliminary wipe with the cold wet front on the diaper before sliding the clean disposable under his bottom she had brought from the kitchen under his bottom. After putting the dirty diaper aside, she cleansed his bottom with one of the wet wipes from the plastic box she had brought. Hoard ignored her ministrations and let her do her work unimpeded. Instead of putting him in a clean pair of training pants as he’d hoped, she dropped his legs to the carpet and quickly but firmly taped the clean disposable diaper around his waist. When he saw what she’d done, Howard was incensed. He was so angry he couldn’t talk. Howard screamed an incoherent curse toward his wife and beat his fists on the rug beside him in a perfect imitation of a two-year-old’s tantrum. Anita stood over him and watched calmly as he lay supine on the floor, drumming his heels and screaming in inarticulate fury. She noticed that his excitement appeared to be accelerating his regression. His body became smaller with every thud of his heels. She smiled grimly when she saw huge flakes of skin drop off of his legs as he beat his feet on the floor. She’d have to vacuum the carpet later, she decided. When she had had enough, Anita bent over and flipped him over on his belly. Then she picked up his wildly thrashing body from behind with the ease of an experienced mother and carried him to the sofa. She sat him on her lap and said, “That’s enough, Baby! One more word out of you and I’ll put you over my knee and blister your bottom! Do you understand me?” Howard ignored her threat and began screaming poorly enunciated profanity up towards her. When Anita seized his hands in one of hers in an attempt to reason with him, he reacted by trying to bite her arm. Immediately, she pulled him down to lay on her lap and held him in position with one hand while Howard continued to kick and scream. Howard’s thrashing was counterproductive though, the movement made his diapers fall halfway down his buttocks without needing to be pulled down by his wife. Anita raised her hand and proceeded to beat his bare bottom until it turned cherry red. Howard’s expression changed from unrestrained fury to one of complete surprise. She was spanking him like a baby! The pain quickly cut through his emotion clouded mind and filled it with agony; his rejuvenation had given his skin the sensitivity of an infant. His angry curses died on his lips and became screams of anguished pain. “This can’t be happening to me!”, Howard thought to himself wildly as his punishment continued, “I’m the man of the house. I wear the pants here! She can’t spank me!” The combination of pain, helplessness and humiliation was too much for Howard. All he wanted to do was escape the torturous pain that threatened to overwhelm his mind. He begged her stop but the spanking went on and on. Anita was determined to break his rebellious behavior once and for all. Gradually his yells of pain changed into broken sobs punctuated by the gasped whimpers of a very young child. Howard’s will broke and he lay limply on her lap, his entire body shuddering with every slap on his crimson bottom. Howard raised his head in hope when Anita paused and said, “Have you had enough, Baby? If you’re going to throw temper tantrums like a two-year-old, Mommy is going to treat you like one! Look at you! You poop in your dydees and you have the temerity to throw a temper tantrum when Mommy changes you. I think we should drop this pretense of thinking you can ever be a man again. You don’t even have the maturity of a preschooler! I’ve seen two-year-olds that have better potty training than you have. Most of them can hold their poop until they sit on the pot. As far as I can see, you’re only a thumb-sucking, diaper-messing infant! From now on, you’re going to be my baby! Do you understand? I’m going to tell the Daycare’s manager to move you into the nursery permanently. You won’t have to worry about messing in your training pants any more, Howie. I’ll see that you’re safety dressed in diapers morning, noon and night. Now then, I think I deserve an apology for your naughtiness, don’t you?” Howard knew that she was serious about making him her baby. He lowered his head to her legs and whimpered at the news of his loss of adult standing. Anita smiled at his posture; his submissive body language meant that he had accepted defeat. “Well?”, Anita asked. Howard raised his head from her lap and said tearfully, “Me sorry!” Anita patted his head solicitously and said, “Mommy forgives you, Sweetheart. Who could stay mad at a baby who’s as cute as you are?” She tugged his diaper up to cover the angry skin of his reddened bottom and laid him on the floor while she went into the kitchen. Howard heard Anita’s voice floating out of the kitchen as she spoke on the phone in barely discernable tones. Whispers of some disconnected words of Anita’s conversation made their way to his ears. Her conversation seemed to primarily concern him, but he couldn’t be sure she was giving the same line that she had told Susan at the restaurant and was embellishing the tale with the latest exploits of the toddler she was babysitting. Whatever she was saying, it was too much for comfort! Howard heard, “Howard’s gone…baby in the house now…sold my car…got enough money to pay for the nursery furniture I bought…sent the furniture company a check the other day and paid it all off… I’m driving Howard’s Suburban now…saw our next door neighbor Susan this afternoon … he peed himself right in front of her…you should have seen the adorable look of panic on his face when he realized what he’d done…thought he looked like Howard…ridiculous to assume just because he looks like….should have seen the mess he made of himself at the restaurant…something told me to buy disposable bibs for going out to eat when we were at the grocery store…glad I did….bib was a lifesaver…from now on, he’s wearing a bib when he eats…not sure, but he looks like he’s about eighteen…Howard…poopy diaper…got his nursery ready for him a few minutes ago…it looks adorable….going to throw away his training pants, he sure won’t be needing them now…tried to bite me….paddled his fanny…positive…making the adjustment… promotion guaranteed…won’t be too long now…a month from the lab reports you showed me…agree with you…okay with me no matter what happens…no legal issues…no, Howard signed everything over to me…bastard…deserves it…always wanted to have a baby…better than adoption …finally…one of my own…we’re all going to be rich…love you too…bye!” Howard thought angrily, “If she’s talking about me, then who the Hell is she talking to? I thought my condition was supposed to be a secret! Didn’t she tell me that we could tell anyone or she’d lose her job? If she isn’t, what the Hell is she talking about? Just what the Hell is she up to anyway?” After her phone call, Anita returned and put him back in his playpen to amuse himself with his toys while she did some work in the bedroom. He tried to stand to watch her leave but discovered that the mesh walls of the playpen would give him no purchase to pull himself erect. He was forced to creep on all fours to the other end of the playpen so he could see her leave the room. Howard crept over to his toys and played with them in a dilatory fashion for a few minutes before his hyperactive bladder betrayed him again. Without notice, the front of his diaper became warm and began to sag under the weight of his pee as he knelt in the playpen on his hands and knees. When Anita was done in Howard’s bedroom, she returned to find him sitting in the playpen with a dazed expression on his face. His legs were splayed out wide in front of him on the plastic pad and he was fingering the bulge in his diapers in confusion after wetting them. When he noticed her standing behind him, he gazed up at her with a helpless pleading look. She picked him up from the playpen and held him to her breasts to comfort him while she patted him on his diapered bottom. Anita could feel him shrinking in her arms. Within minutes his size decreased until he resembled a one-year-old. Anita smiled and nodded understandingly when she saw how little he had become in the few minutes since she had left. Six-inch patches of dead skin peeled from his body and fluttered to the floor like colorless, translucent leaves as he desquamated his discarded scurf en masse. His blank expression left no doubt in her mind that he was having trouble comprehending was happening to him. She smiled warmly and stroked his hair while she hugged her new baby tightly to her bosom. As she fondled his hair, tufts of hair came free in her hand. His hair was thinning to an infant’s sparseness while she watched. Howard’s confused state prevented him from thinking about her remark when she mused to herself quietly, “Just look at the way he’s shedding. He needs to be brushed before he gets hair everywhere. They didn’t tell me that his final changes would take place so quickly. I guess it’s time to get his bed ready for his nap.” Anita gently sat him back on the pad of the playpen and handed him a stuffed toy to play with while she got the bathroom ready for his bath. She returned a few minutes later and took him to the bathroom for his bath. His mind seemed to clear somewhat and he thought about what she had said before she put him in the playpen. Everything seemed so confusing to him. She seemed to be his mother, but he had memories of her being his wife in a dimly remembered previous existence. “Who had she been talking about?”, Howard asked himself while she carried him down the hall, “Who are the ‘They’ she was talking about?”. When she stopped in front of the counter-to-ceiling bathroom mirror to pick up the baby’s hair brush lying next to the basin, Howard got his first glimpse of what he had become. Anita’s arms held an adorable baby boy with curly light brown hair and big blue eyes. The baby appeared to be a little less than a year old. He noticed that the crotch of the disposable diapers the baby was wearing had a large yellowish stain beneath the translucent white plastic covering. Anita gave his head a quick once over with the brush then stopped to pull the thick wad of hair that had accumulated in the brush. She brushed out his hair again causing a shower of freed hair to fall from his head and land on his chest and shoulders. Anita cleaned the brush again and brushed his hair a final time. Howard looked in the mirror and saw that his hair had thinned considerably. Most of his hair lay on the counter where Anita had cleaned the brush. The sparse wisps of hair that remained on his scalp emphasized the look of extreme youth of the baby in the mirror. After his scalp had been stripped of its loose hair, he looked like he couldn’t be more than ten months old. The shock of his appearance cleared his mind and he thought as she picked up the wad of hair, tossed it in the open toilet and turned on the tub, “No wonder Anita’s treating me like an infant! Not only do I pee and mess in my diapers like a baby, I look like one!” Anita stripped off the wet diaper and bathed him gently in the tub. Howard was stunned to see that every time she rinsed the washcloth she was using to bathe him, dense white clouds of dead skin eddied from the fabric into the bathwater. Within minutes the small white flakes of skin had changed the clear bathwater into a milky solution. Howard saw that the surface of the water was covered with a thick layer of swirling dandruff that Anita had scrubbed from his body. He looked down at his tummy and saw that his epidermis had acquired the fresh, pink, wrinkled look of a newborn’s skin. When Anita had finished scrubbing the sloughed particles of skin from his body, she took him out and briskly rubbed him dry with a huge bath towel. She wrapped him in the towel and carried him to the spare room. As Anita opened the door to the room, Howard was horrified to see that she had mounted rails on either side of his mattress. On the side of the door, he noticed that a baby gate had been added to the door post of his nursery so that he could be allowed to roam freely on his hands and knees while confined to the boundaries of his room. His stylish youth bed had been transformed in a single afternoon into a handsome walnut crib complete with a wind-up mobile of baby bunnies that hung over the head of the crib. The Winnie the Poo comforter was still there, but was now draped over the end of the white-sheeted crib. His pillow however had vanished into whatever storage place women had to hide things from their men. She had even changed the window treatment from the age-neutral, tawny, heavy-threaded weave which had graced the room earlier that morning to curtains with a decidedly babyish motif. He gaped in horror at the curtain’s fine colored drawings of diapered baby boys gamboling and creeping amidst a profusion of baby blocks, rattles, pacifiers and nippled bottles on a powder blue background. Everywhere he looked, Howard saw that his bedroom had been not-so-subtly transmogrified into an infant’s nursery. He shivered when he saw the huge oak rocker that now occupied the corner of the room with a baby blue receiving blanket draped neatly over the back. He had a feeling that Anita would soon be using it to rock him to sleep at night in her arms. She had accented the light blue-white of the walls by a waist-high (for Anita) six-inch tall strip of storks on a white field carrying blue-swathed baby bundles in their long yellow beaks with rows repeating of blue outlined baby bottles bordering the top and bottom of the decorative strip. She had even managed to change the slightly childish appliques of brightly colored balloons into a damnably infantine theme by the simple addition of cut-outs of diapered teddy bears with their arms upraised underneath the balloons. Now the balloons had the appearance of being held by infant teddy bears. Howard sniffed in disgust and realized that she had somehow managed to change how the room smelled. The faintly disagreeable odor of latex paint had dissipated. Instead of the strong neutral smell of freshly washed be dlinen mixed with the almost imperceptible odor of new paint the room had had in the morning when he woke up, the room now fairly reeked with the sweet scent of baby powder. Suddenly the room’s appearance took on ominous implications. The muted clacking sounds that Anita’s low heels made as they hit the hard wooden floor while she carried him into the nursery reminded Howard why areas that babies played in frequently weren’t carpeted. She had removed the carpet and exposed the parquet flooring because a baby could be expected to make messes on floors. All it took to clean baby poop from a wooden floor was a quick swipe with a mop drenched in disinfectant. She wouldn’t have to drag out the carpet cleaner each time he made a mess on the floor. Baby spit, poop and pee were too difficult to clean from carpets to not take reasonable precautions. She had planned this all along! It wasn’t any accident that she had bought furniture that could be so easily changed into nursery furnishings. She had purchased the decorations long before he had made the final transformation into an infant’s body.