Howard woke to find himself being lifted out of the crib and carried down the hall by his wife. He blinked his eyes blearily and saw that Fran was walking beside them and chatting amicably with Anita. Apparently Fran was one of the researchers at the company; she was wearing a white lab coat over her dress and was leading the way down the hall to her office. They stopped in front of a door while Fran took a ring of keys from the pocket of her lab coat. She unlocked the door and held it for Anita as she carried Howard into the examining room. Anita laid him on the exam table and proceeded to remove his onesie. Anita was all smiles as she placed his onesie aside and began to unfasten Howard’s diaper. As she lifted his legs to slid the diaper from beneath his bottom, she joked with her friend about how cute Howard had become. Howard glanced over at the sound of ripping plastic and saw Fran pulling a diaper open that she had taken from the stainless steel storage cabinet just to the right of her head. She laid the diaper down on the examining table as a soaker pad while Anita held him up. Once the pad as in place, Anita gentle sat him back down on the pad and backed around the table so Fran could work. When Fran took a stethoscope out of the pocket of her lab coat, Howard dimly realized that Fran must be a doctor of some sort. Fran bent over Howard’s naked body and gave him a thorough examination. Howard was mildly uncomfortable being nude in the unfamiliar woman’s presence, but he had gotten too used to being undressed by strange women to put up a fuss. After a few moments, Fran pronounced, “Well, aside from a mild case of diaper rash, he’s in perfect health. The Landau reflex has reappeared, have you noticed?”
She laid him out again on his stomach and ran her finger a few inches over his spine to demonstrate the convex upward arc his entire body formed. Then she put her hand on his head and applied a gentle downward pressure to cause his neck to flex and reverse the arc. Fran took a pen out of her pocket and ran it along the sole of his foot. Howard’s toes immediately contracted in response. Fran smiled in evident satisfaction and said, “As you can see, the Plantar reflex has reappeared. That’s an indication that his reflexes have regressed to the developmental stage of an infant not older than eight months.”
She smiled at Howard as she picked him up under his armpits and easily lifted his tiny body. She sat his bottom on the examination table again as she said, “I recommend that you put him in cloth diapers and plastic pants rather than disposables until his diaper rash has improved. The rash should be only temporary anyway, once his body makes the adjustment to its new environment it should disappear.”
Anita nodded her understanding and said, “The diaper company has promised to begin making deliveries to our home tomorrow morning.” Fran nodded in professional agreement to Anita’s decision to put him in cloth diapers and patted him on the head saying, “Good! I’m sure he’ll be a much happier, healthier baby in cloth diapers. I wish that more mothers felt like you and used cloth rather than disposables.”
Fran told Anita as thy walked over to the other side of the examining room and Fran picked up the wall phone to place a call, “Bri-Bri’s regression is nearly complete. He may get a little younger, but I think he’ll only lose a month more at most. From now on, the only major changes in him will be psychological.” She dialed a number and spoke briefly to the person at the other end, then hung the phone up. Fran told Anita, “I just called Dee to tell her the results of the experiment. She’ll be right down to meet us here.”
Fran returned to Anita’s side and put her arm around Anita’s waist, then whispered in her ear, “We’re on for tonight, right? Just a little celebration for the two of us at your house after work. I’ll be over at seven o’clock. We’ll tuck little Bri-Bri into his crib at seven-thirty and we can make some whoopie. I have the most darling negligee to show you. We’ll spend the weekend together. I’m so glad you changed your mind about having a relationship with me. I always knew we were sisters under the skin.”
Dee put him in the company Daycare facilities so he could be unobtrusively monitored by our researchers posing as childcare workers.” She laughed and said, “You should have seen how depressed he got when he had to give up his floozy. The investigator I hired put a voice actuated tape recorder on our home phone so I heard the message his mistress left on the answering machine when she dumped him. He sulked and pouted like a little boy. I was half tempted to tell him what I’d done to him just to see how he’d try to defend himself, but the security of the project was more important than any petty revenge.” She shook her head and smiled at Howard’s diminished body, then said, “This really was all his fault. I’d have never considered him as a candidate for the formula if he hadn’t poisoned himself with those toxic chemicals he was dumping illegally. Once he was cured, he could have gotten a job with an honest company and risen to the top. If he hadn’t been so deceitful I would never have never given him the second dose of the formula that turned him into an infant. He just couldn’t resist the opportunity to play around like an oversexed teenager.” Anita patted him on the head condescendingly and said, “He’ll be faithful to me now. It doesn’t matter that he can’t work. Once we get the formula on the market, his sacrifice will make us all rich. In the meantime, now that I’ve been promoted, we don’t need his income.”
Anita’s expression sobered and her voice took on a businesslike tone as she said to the two women, “Since the formula has been proven to be safe, we can proceed with test marketing with the wealthy of Third World countries. We’ll be able to charge enormous fees for permanently rejuvenating clients to any age they desire.”
“You’re absolutely right. And on that note, I have to leave,” said Dee, “I have to contact our broker in Bern and advise him that the experiment was a success. I want him to prepare the groundwork for our new Third World marketing program in the European financial centers. Our common stock is going to go off the charts when the insiders get wind of this. I want him to be ready for the onslaught. I hope you ladies have been investing in our company steadily for the last six months. I wouldn’t want any accusations of insider trading by our employees from the SEC! Don’t forget the director’s meeting at four!”
Dee walked to the door and stopped as she opened it and said, “Oh yes, one more thing. As a bonus, I want each of you to have a free youth treatment from the company. You can be any age you wish. I’ve already cut orders authorizing the expense. Just think, Anita, you won’t have to be a middle aged woman with a baby. You can be twenty-four again and have all the energy of youth to take care of your little one. The two of you can go on together indefinitely. Your baby will have a young, healthy mommy to take care of him the rest of his life. What a blessing this will be, you’ll be young and rich and have the baby you’ve always wanted.” After having made her final statement, Dee smiled at the two women and the naked infant on the exam table and left the room, closing the door behind her. The baby was looking up at them while his ex-wife explained his fate and scowled in anger at what he heard. The shock of Anita’s confession had temporarily restored his ability to understand adult speech. So his regression wasn’t caused by the toxic chemicals his company produced! Anita had deliberately turned him into a baby! He opened his mouth to scream profane curses at the bitch, but all that came out was an enraged infant’s wail. He was horrified at the high pitched howl that emitted from his mouth. He had never felt so helpless in his entire life. The self-satisfied expressions on the women’s faces didn’t hide the contempt they felt for his lost manhood. Waves of emotion broke over him, threatening to drown him in their intensity. His infant mind could not contain itself. His control b roke and he found himself awash in anger. He was overwhelmed by his emotions. The scarlet blush of anger turned into purple rage and started crying in tight-fisted frustration. The three women looked down at the naked infant and chuckled at his discomfiture. His wife smiled down at his contorted, tear-streaked face and said with a grin, “You know, Sweetiepie, you’re adorable when you’re angry!”
Then Anita put her hand on his chest and pushed him down flat on his back so she could rediaper him. Howard struggled vainly as his ex-wife’s hand compassed his chest and gently forced him to lay down. He gurgled incoherently as she pulled the diaper up between his legs and fastened it around his waist. Then Anita picked him up and held him to her chest saying, “He’ll be mommy’s little baby forever and ever”.
The doctor smiled and said in her “professional” voice, “We need to have a talk about little Bri-Bri. First of all, I wouldn’t worry about him suffering the rest of his life with an adult mind in an infant’s body. I was fairly sure about what would happen to an adult mind if the brain was regressed into infancy and our experiment with Howard has bourne out my predictions. You read what I thought would happen in my original request for a test subject. There are two components to his mental regression: psychological and physiological. I’d like to discuss both with you in detail. In a month at most, he should make the psychological adjustment to his role and begin to enjoy being your baby.” She smiled and added, “No matter what his conscious mental age, his subconscious will begin regressing. Human psychology demands it. Men define themselves with their surroundings and work, while women define themselves by their relations with others. In his case, both methods of self-definition will be working against him. His wife has become his mother and his clothes, food and surroundings are the same as any infant’s. Have you ever read of how normal adults react when they’ve had a terrible accident and have lost control of their bodies and can’t speak? Grown men weep and cry in frustration like little babies when they wet or mess their diapers when they’re unable to talk. Now that his physical abilities have been regressed into infancy, he’ll be subject to the same emotional pressures to revert to earlier methods of asking for help. His hypothalmus has shrunk to the size of an infant’s while his frontal cortex is rapidly becoming undifferentiated.