Chapter 137: Bad Faith

(CW: Violence. Implicitly Dark Subject Matter)

My adrenaline rushed doing tight figure eights in the community center parking lot. Standing on the walkway, the gathered regulars watched me zip around putting my stroller cart through its paces. To them I was a toddler excitedly showing off a toy or special interest. Meanwhile in my head, I was making sure the toy would still handle properly.

To add some pizzazz to the performance I sang-shouted over the electric motor so that everyone could hear.

“I-am-the-very-model-of-a-fully-Grown-up-Little-boy

I'm-mostly-almost-potty-trained-and-haven't-got-a-favorite-toy

But-do-not-underestimate-the-sort-of-tactics-I-employ

Or-peace-and-quiet-are-the-things-that-I-am-likely-to-destroy.”

The Amazons laughed politely and applauded. Stupid kid tricks and stupid pet tricks fell under the social umbrella of ‘be polite and complimentary, even if it’s bad’. Being a Little I was kind of both to them. The Littles watched in their keepers’ arms with restlessness and envy. My demonstration was taking time away from them having the freedom to crawl and toddle about talking about nothing in what passed for the center’s nursery; that and I was the center of attention and getting to show off a cool toy that they had no hope of getting to play with.

Frankly, they should have been thanking me. The stupid lap bounce games got cut short because of this stunt. Like any weekly gathering with no clearly stated end goal, it wasn’t learning as much as it was making like minded connections and building community. There are only so many lap bounces, diaper changing songs, tummy time exercises and so on before the whole snake circles back around and eats its own tail. I was breaking up the monotony.

“I'm-very-well-acquainted-too-with-matters-most-hysterical

Converse-with-friends-and-foes-imaginary-and-chimerical
Sing-songs-and-nursery-rhymes-both-alphabetic-and-numerical
It's-hard-to-be-a-bard-when-all-my-singing is-so-terrible!”

Speaking of jealousy, I caught the Tweener girl who’d been Adopted eyeballing me. It must have been a special kind of awful for her. Caught in a constant middle ground between adulthood and infancy. Too big for some things and too small for others. I was lucky she and her two Daddies were here tonight. There was a good possibility that she might come in handy.

Janet smiled and laughed along with my song, but she was also extremely nervous. All it would take for tragedy to strike was one errant car in the parking lot to pull in too fast without seeing me. Traffic was dead tonight, but a good Mommy never fully let her guard down; or so she thought. Such a shame, too. Part of me really wanted her to smile and laugh one last time. Like the good old days. To be amused. To be entertained.

To be proud of me?

Still zooming, I chased the thought away. The cart was handling just as well on cement and gravel as it had on smooth indoor carpeting. Even with my song and exuberant performance, the giants’ patience would only last so long. I wouldn’t need the cart for more than a mile or two technically it was completely optional- but it was best to conserve battery. Time to bring it home.

“Although-I-am-a-clever-boy-adulthood-I-must-abdicate
My-Mommy-warned-me-several-times-that-I-should-not-self-deprecate
But-baby-life-is-surely-something-that-I’ll-never-graduate
For-how-can-I-be-big-when-in-my-pants-is-where-I-defecate?”

I slammed on the brakes to thunderous applause and hopped out of the cart. Calls of ‘bravo’ greeted me as I took my bow. Other Littles looked at me and to my conveyance as though it were a pony they might ride. Had this not been my last day in captivity I would have been sure to expect invitations to playdates outside of school, so long as I brought my stroller-cart. Cynically, the thought that I’d be inconveniencing the sellouts and quitters brought a smile to my lips.

The buttons on my onesie were fake, made to look like a proper dress shirt. The tie was just a fancy pacifier clip. The pants had snaps in the inseam and the sewed in belt served no function besides decoration. For all intents and purposes I was a toddler who had been dressed up as an impossibly dapper adult.

But my hair was short enough that neither comb nor gel was required to keep it neat, and the slacks were baggy enough that in the dim evening light with the crickets chirping in the background no one would be able to tell what I was wearing underneath lest they specifically looked for the bulbous outline or listened for the plastic crinkle.

This was the most adult I’d seemed in months. Not perfect for an escape attempt, but it was as good as it was going to get.

I tossed in the old show tune to seem extra precocious and reduce suspicion.Potential escapees and malcontents didn’t play nearly as nice as I had been. Patter singing about how I’ll never grow up because I shat my pants was humiliating, but it was either that or something from Cats.

Janet picked me up and kissed me on the cheek before the applause had fully died down. With me seemingly out of danger, she found her voice and found something to focus on besides my imagined imminent doom. “Good job, baby!”

“Thank you, Mommy,” I purred. My eyes searched for and settled on her key ring, jangling and dangling from an open pocket on my diaper bag. Had to keep track of the keyfob. My performance had ended but tonight’s work had just begun.

“Alright,” the meeting leader announced, “Good show, Clark. Let’s break out into our usual groups. Everybody get your kids to the nursery so we can get gabbin’!”

Janet stayed with me in the parking lot while everyone else came up with one last bit of praise or positive remark. “Good goin’, bud,” Amy called out in passing. “Can’t wait for the next part.”

“There isn’t a next part,” her Mommy chirped.

“There’s always a next part, Mommy,” Amy said cryptically. “Always. That’s how art works!”

I did not perspire. I did not panic. I neither looked nor felt guilt. Janet didn’t eyeball me, nor did her muscles tense, nor her heart race. The most Amy got was an ‘Oh you!’ from Helena. Amy wasn’t going to tell on me. If she was she would have done it by now.

Even if she had told on me, it changed nothing. I was getting out of here tonight or I would die trying.

That special sweet spot, that overlap between history and mythology, is full of stories and legends of people putting themselves in perilous circumstances and coming out on top despite the odds because the consequences of retreat outweighed the risks of failure. As a child I’d read that Amazon would turn their great ships into the first houses when they found new land to colonize.

The white-washed, Amazon centered narrative portrayed it as a sign of how industrious the ancient Amazons were. Before they used any part of the land they visited, they first used and repurposed everything they’d brought with them. When I was in my teens and early twenties, I took it as a matter of common sense. Of course the giants turned their ships into houses, nothing else fit them and it was exemplary of the prototypical Amazon mindset: Don’t let someone else’s intent and design stop you from getting what you want. Their descendants turned Littles’ lives upside down when they arbitrarily decided they’d be better as a baby. It made a twisted kind of sense that the original ancestors would look at boats, take them out of the water, flip them upside down and call them houses.

Both points of view were true after a fashion. There was one final element that historians and mythologists left out, however. The illusion of not having a choice. The Amazons told themselves they had no choice but to infantilize, co-opt, and conquer everywhere they went. They turned their ships into houses because there was no going back. Where they’d landed became home. Even today, they kept up this mindset: They just had to Adopt Littles. The Littles were too primitive for their own good, or too immature, or had a mysterious genetic condition, or their god told them too.

If ancient Amazons were so inventive and industrious, why didn’t they just turn their houses back into ships or build new ships when they found they weren’t wanted? Why not just leave Littles to their own devices, or educate them, or research a cure for their condition, or find a new god?

Because it’s much easier to do unpleasant things when you can pretend that you don’t have a choice.

I’d suffered countless indignities because I’d convinced myself I didn’t have a choice. I’d lost everything with no real attempt to reclaim it save for games I played in my own head because I told myself I didn’t have a choice. Bide my time. Wait for my opening. Cause as much pain as possible without the hammer falling on me.

Now the pendulum was swinging the other way. Whether Janet somehow knew of my plan tonight, whether Socko chickened out and left me high and dry, whether there was a Swat Team in place ready to take me down, I was going to escape tonight.

It didn’t matter that my own parents had disowned me. It didn’t matter that Cassie’s folks had figured out enough to not even bother opening my letter. It didn’t matter that tonight was only step one, that step three was me reclaiming my life back and that I had no clue what step two looked like. I was getting out of this life once and for all.

I had no choice.

“Whelp,” Janet groaned. “Let’s get the stroller back into the trunk.” Janet started to lower me down to the ground.

“Or…” I hinted up at her.

“Or what?”

“Or you could not put it back in the trunk,” I hinted.

A thin smile hinted on Janet’s face. “Why would I do that?”

I twiddled my thumbs and coyly avoided eye contact. “I mean…hypothetically? If you wanted to…and I’m not saying you have to, mind you.”

“You want to play with it some more before we go home, don’t you?”

My face lit up like a Christmas tree. “Hm? What? No! But if you insist!”

“Clark…” It was a warning, but not really.

“Look,” I said, “hear me out.”

Janet’s smile stayed even as her eyes did a loop-de-loop. “Here we go.”

“I did the first two verses of that song and then skipped to the end,” I pretended to plead. “There was no chorus interaction or audience participation of any sort. Nothing. It’d be a crime not to finish it.”

She started walking with me towards the building. The cart obediently followed, homing in on the keyfob. “So you want to make everyone stay after the meeting so they can watch you do laps and finish the song?”

“It wouldn’t have to be everybody,” I tempted her. “Just you and me.”

“I don’t know the words to that.”

“You can look them up on your phone”

“You just want to play longer.”

“Not just…”

“You also want attention.” She held open the door and ushered in the cart.

“If I admit that,” I lowered my voice, “will you let me play longer and give me attention?”

“I think you just did,” she quipped.

“Did it work?” Still on her hip, I looked up at her with sad puppy dog eyes and mewled like a kitten.

She huffed. “You know it did.”

I wrapped my arms around the back of her neck and nuzzled her as hard as I could. “Thank you, Mommy,” I whispered. “Thank you,” I repeated and I mouthed ‘Janet’ so that only she could see it. “I love you.”

“I love you too, “ she giggled and nuzzled me right back.

All of what had just transpired was by design, intention, and a pinch of good luck and adaptability on my part. Phase one was getting her to dress me up and bring the cart sans stroller. Everything after had merely been step two. Getting her to keep the damn thing out and drop me off in the most minimally secure location that I was aware of.

Phase two had been easier than I’d anticipated. I was sufficiently charming and Janet had been tired. Wedging my little song and dance between the lesson and social segments had been a stroke of pure luck that left Janet looking for an excuse to postpone the inevitable lest she miss out on juicy gossip and cringey stories about other people’s Littles. It also meant she wasn’t she wasn’t going back for her purse.

Me begging to play with her after the meeting was a misdirect infinitely more insidious than simply calling her ‘Mommy’ when I wanted something. It presupposed that I was going to be waiting for her when she came back to pick me up. If there was an Adopted Little equivalent to going out to the store for cigarettes and never coming back, I’d just set it up.

Even my hug had been calculated. In this more ‘enlightened’ slice of giantess paradise, people saw what they wanted to see and not what was in front of their eyes. I wanted any passerby to see an adoring and helpless Little cuddling up and clinging to their Mommy. Never mind the suit. Don’t hear the voice.

Janet took a moment to park the cart with the other strollers by the entrance and took me over to the nursery. I took those precious few seconds to smell her hair one last time. I shouldn’t have done that; it made it so much harder when she handed me off over the split door.

“One more,” she said, passing me to the Amazon on guard duty.

I passed from one giantess’s hands to the next without seeing who my jailor was at first. “Bye baby,” Janet said, and turned to walk away.

“Mommy! Wait!” I blurted out. No, no, no, no, no. Things had been going so well! “WAAAAAAIT!”

“Mommy will be back,” the Amazon said. I was turned around and brought face to face with tonight’s glorified nanny-guard. The dark-skinned woman with the ‘twins’. A familiar face whose name I had yet to bother to memorize. From what I’d seen and remembered, she wasn’t much for discussion. “Now’s the time to play.”

I started to panic. Had to think quickly. I needed that diaper bag and its contents. “NO!” I started to bawl. Had to think quickly! Had to act even quicker! “You don’t understand!” I’m about to leak!”

“That you miss your Mommy?” I was being lowered to the floor, touching carpet and being dismissed meant doom. “I understand. But making friends is important, too.”

“NO!” I howled. “I’M ABOUT TO LEAK AND SHE HAS MY DIAPER BAG!”

I started to go back up, but the words out of her mouth were anything but comforting. “That’s no problem. I’ve got some spa-”

“I WANT MY LIIIIIIION!” I howled, my voice cracking. “LIIIION!” I kicked and squirmed impotently in her grasp, as a mix of crocodile and sincere tears leaked out from the corners of my eyes.

The entire room went silent, and then immediately erupted into raucous laughter. I’d accidentally chosen just the wrong beat in the ebb and flow of conversation and now all of my so-called peers just witnessed my wailing and proclamation about the state of my pants and my longing for a stupid stuffie. They cackled like hyenas and pointed at me as the object of their derision. How good it must have felt for many of them that their one time tormentor had joined them in the proverbial muck and mud.

The funny thing is it worked. The woman cocked an eyebrow at the assembled Littles, immediately stifling laughter and lowering fingers. “Janet!” She called. “Miss Grange! Wait!”
Eager to get back to her friends, Janet had already rounded a corner, out of sight. For a fraction of a second, my escape permanence became closer to an actual infant’s object permanence. Without Janet around it no longer existed.

Shuffling, quick-stepping footsteps and a flash of movement lifted my hopes up when my Mommy rounded back the corner. “Crud!” she said. “Forgot the diaper bag!”

“Forgot the diaper bag,” the attendant echoed. “Don’t worry,” she bobbed me slightly. “He wasn’t going to let me forget, either.” She looked down at me. “Better?”

“Better,” I sighed, feeling my diaper warm and swell as my body involuntarily relieved itself. It turns out panic is a great way to accidentally clench one’s bladder. I’d have to remember that for tomorrow when I started re-potty training. On the sunnier side, no one would be able to accuse me of lying as far as leaking went.

“Here you go,” Janet took the bag and passed it over the great divide. To tonight’s inept guard.

“Is Lion in there?” I asked, more to keep up the lie than anything else.

“Yes, honey, he is.” She reached out and pinched my cheek. “I know you love your Lion even if you say you don’t.”

“Oh, he was asking for it,” the other Amazon said. “I’m surprised you didn’t hear it.”

“Heard the cry but not the words,” Janet admitted. “It’s what got me headed back.”

“Okay,” I huffed. “You can go.”

Predictably they laughed. “Littles. They are so like cats sometimes.”

“So true,” Janet agreed. “Especially this one.”

She turned to go again. “Mommy!” I blurted again.

This time, Janet stopped. “Yes?”

“I’ll miss you…” No idea why I said that. Shouldn’t have said that.

“I’ll miss you, Clark.” Janet said, oblivious to the meaning behind my words. “Now go play,”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Janet walked away out of my life and I did my best to keep my anxiety in check. At least the last thing she’d ever hear from me wasn’t a lie.

“Okay, Clark,” the babysitter said. “Let’s get you sorted out.”

I was laid down on the changing table in front of everyone, stripped down, wiped, powdered, re-diapered, and re-dressed in plain view of everyone. No one, myself included so much as batted an eyelid. We were all long desensitized to it; that and the social construct of invisibility kicked in. Someone like me was supposed to have his legs up on the changing table so no one took notice and I blended into the background. I did my best to turn my head and peer around the giantess tending to my crotch only so that I might spot Amy. One hiccup was enough.

The second I was set down I crinkled to the diaper bag and started digging. “Where is it? Where is it?” I whispered. I could have sworn I’d seen Janet slip the keyfob to the stroller into the diaper bag. Don’t tell me she’d slipped it out! My hands shook while I probed, my mind’s eye flashing a thousand bad scenarios in front of me and then jumping ahead to what that might mean.

Did Janet know? Had Amy already spilled the beans? Was this all a plan to break my spirit? A test to see if I’d really escaped?

My fear was unwarranted. I’d simply started with the wrong side pocket. Adrenaline and the sense of a ticking clock just made every single action feel exaggerated and every second go by too slow and too fast all at once. Emotionally speaking, I’d gone back to the night after discovering Jeremy’s terrible accusation. High alert and determination with a fear that something would go wrong that I couldn’t wholly shake. For all my confidence and bluster a few minutes ago, one close call had made me more than weary.

I found the keyfob intact as anticipated. If Janet or any of the others suspected anything, they hadn’t manipulated the environment to show it. I unzipped the top compartment of the bag and picked up Lion; once again holding onto my pretense. Clinging onto the stuffie also gave me cover so that I could jam the keyring into the pocket located on the back of my tie. It was a tight and awkward fit, cramming it in there with the pacifier but it was the only pocket I had access to for the time being.

I took a few deep breaths to slow my pulse and refocus myself. Stick to the plan. The plan was good. The plan allowed for improvisation. Everyone else was just a puzzle piece that needed to be slotted. Phase one was to ensure access to the cart. Phase two was to ensure preoccupation so I wouldn’t be missed until it was too late.

“OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOKAY!” I hollered. “WHO’S FOR A GOOD OLD FASHIONED GAME OF CLARK SAYS?”

Every head turned towards me. Lips pouted in consideration. Nostrils flared in competitive anticipation. Bodies shifted listlessly. And in the end, I got a resounding ‘meh’.

“No thanks.”

“We’re good.”

“Maybe later.”

All the overlapping refusals were polite enough, but they were refusals all the same.My nose wrinkled in irritation.

Damn.

I’d overplayed my hand with the car. Me being the center of attention was fine in the short term, but asking to command the room twice in one night was asking too much. Watching me show off wore thin after a while. This was fine. I had other hands I could play.

“Hey Danny,” I said. Crinkling up beside the white haired boy.

“It’s-!” Danny stopped. I’d actually gotten his name right. “Oh. Hi, Clark. I liked your song.”

“Thanks,” I shrugged noncommittally. “Just a ditty I learned back in the day. It’s good for elocution. Talking fast and pronouncing everything really crisp and clear so that you don’t accidentally slip and trigger a Grown-Up’s maturosis.”

Every Little I knew growing up had that friend of a friend of a friend who said their r-words too softly to sound like a w-word, or their s-words to sloppily so they sounded like th-words, or stuttered or stammered until one day one of the Amazons decided they shouldn’t be trying to talk so much at all.

A school yard rumor? Perhaps. But every rumor had its basis in truth.

Flattered by me referencing his pet theory, Dilbert nodded, as if in understanding. “Yeah. That thing was like a tongue twister, wasn’t it? Like ‘Billy-Baker-bought-a-batch-of-better-butter-batter-biscuits?” As hoped, he rattled it off super fast in an attempt to impress me. The poor guy desperately wanted to be something in my eyes. Too bad for him I didn’t have any more time for charity cases. The only room I had on my dance card was for useful idiots.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “But more lyrically complex. Lots of iambic pentameter, instead of simple alliteration. No offense.”

“None taken,” the regular said. From the way his face twitched, some had clearly been taken. Good. That’s what I wanted. “I bet I could learn it.”

“Yeah?” I said, doing my best to sound slightly doubtful. “You think?”

My false rival stood up as straight as he could. “I mean, I’d have to learn the lyrics first, obviously.”

“I could teach you…” I pretended to offer.

“Maybe later, like a playdate?” Darren said. “I don’t think we have that much time.”

My face showed the lightbulb I was pretending to have. “Or…!” I said grabbing his hand and guiding him back towards the front of the nursery.

“Yes, Clark?” the volunteer said, smiling politely if vacantly. “What do you need sweety?”

“Miss lady! Miss lady!” I said, bouncing. “Can we borrow your phone for a second?”

As hoped, the Amazon woman indulged and probed instead of outright refusal. “Why?” she asked, unsuspicious.

“Donny wants to learn the song I was singing but it’ll be easier if he can see the lyrics!”

“It’s Danny…”

“So you want to sing karaoke?” the Grown-up said.

“Yes!” I shot my finger skyward! ”It’s not screen time! It’s learning and singing! And culture!” That last part sealed the deal. She picked her purse up and dug out her phone, unlocked it. Rightfully distrustful, she went to UsBox and pulled up the lyric video for us. “Here you go.”

I took the phone and shoved it into Durwood’s hands. The music was already starting. I started snapping my fingers obnoxiously in tempo. “And five-six-seven-go!”

“I-am-the-very-model-of-a-fully-Grown-up-Little-boy

I'm-mostly-almost-potty-trained-and-haven't-got-a-favorite-toy

But-do-not-underestimate-the-sort-of-tactics-I-employ

Or-peace-and-quiet-are-the-things-that-I-am-likely-to-destroy.”

Heads started turning, not to me but to the white haired Little’s clumsy warbling. The video was suboptimal with lyrics of one line appearing only a split second after the ending of the previous line. Dylan had to hyperfocus all of his attention just to keep up.

“I'm-very-well-acquainted-too-with-matters-most-hysterical

Converse-with-friends-and-foes-imaginary-and-chimerical
Sing-songs-and-nursery-rhymes-both-alphabetic-and-numerical
It's-hard-to-be-a-bard-when-all-my-singing is-so-terrible!”

Others started to waddle and crawl closer. The white haired Little was kind, charming, comforting, well meaning, genial, and had a certain amount of charisma about him without knowing it. In other words, he was everything that I was pretending to be. People would play with me to see if they could best me or outwit me. They thought I was fun and entertaining, but on some level they all wanted to see me fail. Darwin was someone you wanted to see succeed on principle.

Meanwhile, our guard loomed over us, intent to monitor the use of her technology, lest mischief

The song caught up with him where I had skipped over.

“It’s-hard-to-be-a-bard-when-all-his-singing-is-so-terrible!
It’s-hard-to-be-a-bard-when-all-his-singing-is-so-terrible!
It’s-hard-to-be-a-bard-when-all-his-singing-is-so-terrible!”

His tone wobbled and warbled awkwardly and he slammed his thumb on the screen. “What was that?” He asked.

“That was the chorus,” I said.

“You didn’t sing that part!”

“It’s a long song,” I admitted. “I skipped to the end.”

“I get to start over!”

“Sure,” I said. “Take your time. I didn’t get it all at once either.”

That lit a spark inside him. Just me telling him that much was throwing a gauntlet down. His victory and my defeat. Without warning, he slid his thumb to the left, and started the peppy little patter song over. “Come here,” he motioned to the onlookers. “When it gets to the chorus part, you guys sing. I’m guessing that it’s mostly just repeating the last part of each verse.” He looked to me for confirmation. I bobbed my head and slid back to make room for the growing entourage.

The show and challenge started anew, now with group participation. More and more attention was being foisted in the right direction. Phase two was well underway.

Clutching Lion, I scooted back, scanning for my Tweener mark. Just like the last time she’d been brought, she sulked in the corner, too good to play with the Littles, but not nearly good enough to hold court with the Adults.

“Hey,” I said, quietly, so as not to interrupt Dylan’s show. “Joanie, right?” Miraculously I’d been correct. “Can I ask you a question?”

Dressed like a second grader at best, the Tweener looked down on me, imperious despite the fact that her stretchy pants still showed the subtle outline of training pants. “Sure, kid. What’s up?”

“When you pee your pants, why doesn’t the teacher lady put you on the changing table?” I baited her. “Is it because you don’t fit? Because I think you could fit if you scrunch your legs up enough.”

Her face turned an extra shade of pink. The problem with being an adult ‘big kid’ instead of an adult ‘baby’ was that the stigma of being treated like a small child never fully went away. “I don’t pee my pants.” She quietly hissed at me. “I’m not a baby.”

“You’re wearing a diaper, though,” I pointed out.

“No I’m not!” the Tweener’s voice raised. Heads turned to the corner. Some out of curiosity, others for concern. “No I’m not,” she whispered again.

“In-short-in-matters-sorrowful-as-well-as-those-of-fullest-joy
I-am-the-very-model-of-a-fully-Grown-up-Little-boy”

The chorus, unprepared, stumbled over the repetition. I’d neglected to mention that the pattern and length of repetition wasn’t wholly consistent. In fact, I’d fully pulled the parts about it being in iambic pentameter out of my ass as a way to make it sound more sophisticated than it was.

“Start over!” Dickinson said, flustered. Many hands reached out and patted him on the back. “I-am-the-very-model-of…”

My attention returned to patsy number two. “Look,” I said. “I’m unpotty trained too. No shame in it. I just don’t understand why you have to squelch around in wet pants all night when everybody else gets changed.”

“I’m not unpotty trained,” the Tweener insisted. “My Daddy and Papa just make me wear these.”

“My Mommy makes me wear diapers, too,” I pretended to agree. “Grown-ups? Am I right?”

“No. I mean I’m potty trained. I just have to so my dumb Little sister doesn’t feel bad.”

“Sure,” I said. “That’s the sort of lie my Mommy fed me too. First she put me in a pull-up because she said it’d be a long car ride…straight to the courthouse. Me being in pull-ups was enough to Adopt me.” The Tweener’s eyes stopped blinking. “Then it was Pull-Ups at night because I’d mysteriously started wetting the bed. Then it was diapers at bed because I was a heavy wetter and pull-ups during the day,” I held my fingers up for air quotes, “just in case.”

The girl was positively starting to boil. Enough of my fabricated origin story was hitting close to home. “Then she ran out of pull-ups and switched me to diapers during the day, but she promised she’d take me to the potty if I asked.”

“Sucks to be you,” the Tweener said, pivoting away from me and avoiding eye contact. “Sounds like you fell for it, hook line and sinker.”

“Let me guess. You were Adopted first, then your sister?”

She turned back to me. “Yeah.”

“And your Daddies are just loving on her, right?”

“Yeah…”

“You weren’t here when I first came. You used to go somewhere else?”

Joanie looked distinctly uncomfortable, like I was looking into her soul. I wasn’t, but I was living rent-free in her head. “Yeah…”

“Why are you back here? Maybe it’s because they both still have the baby fever and don’t want Adopt again.”

THe seed had already been there, I could tell, but I was giving it plenty of water and sunshine. “No…”

“Better to get you used to it and ease you back into diapers. Have a big baby and a Little baby. Does your sister go to a nice daycare?”

“It’s not a diaper.” I’d hit a nerve, evidently. “It’s definitely not a diaper.”

“Why not? It still crinkles. It still holds pee. It still goes in the garbage can. It’s a diaper without tapes.”

She was three seconds away from freaking out. “It’s not! It’s just in case I have an accident!”

Time to seal the deal. “Prove it.”

“Fine!”

Joanie did not run. Nor did she bother to disguise her exit. With a huff and a puff she marched right up to the divided door, swung it open, and slammed it shut. Safety knobs were nigh impossible for a Little to fiddle with, but they were nothing to a focused Tweener determined on proving her bigness.

The dark-skinned Amazon snapped her head up away from the pod of Littles trying to sight-sing archaic show tunes. She had a runner. Her gaze lingered for just a precious second, deliberating on whether or not to grab her phone and call the girls’ Amazons. Wary of the chaos it would cause she charged to the door and called out. “Joanie! You come back here right this instant!”

Over the musical din, I could barely hear the reply. “No! I’m going potty!”

With no one to watch the rest of us, the volunteer nanny had next to no recourse. Did she let a petulant child get away with disobedience or did she abandon a gaggle of toddlers and leave them unsupervised with her phone? “Your fathers are going to hear about this young lady!”

“I’ll be right back! I promise!”

“You better!”

I licked my lips in satisfaction and anticipation. Perfect! Just perfect! Phase two was almost complete! Adulthood here I come!

A finger tapped me on the back of my knee. My leg jerked and I spun around, glaring down at the intruder. Amy Madra did not shout at me this time. She did not scream or yell or bellow. She did not babble or rant or rave. She simply gave me a small wave, smiled, and said “Hi, Clark.”

Fuck. This was one conversation I’d hoped to avoid. “How much do you know?”

Amy shifted back so she sat on her knees. “Enough. Gonna slip out while the big people are arguing?”

Damn. She’d seen right through me.

“Let me guess,” I said bitterly. “You’ve done that too?”

Her head waggled, somehow both whimsical and sad. “Naw. I never tried to break out of here before. But if I did that’s one way I’d do it. Pretty good for a second act. Real curious to see how the third turns out.”

Third act? Still standing, I bent over hoping no one else could overhear us. “You’re not going to tell on me?”

Her lips went side to side, as if she was a cow chewing on a piece of cud, considering the possibility of ratting me for the first time. “Probably not,” she said. “Not unless someone I like better than you asks. Snitches get stitches and whatnot.”

“How many people do you like better than me?” Such a weird question! I found myself doused with a mixture of both emotional and practical insecurity.

Amy’s answer was more immediate. “A couple. Not a lot, but a couple.”

“Why?” I asked.

She started crawling towards the door, edging around the perimeter of the room where people were either playing by themselves or enjoying the spectacle of Little karaoke. I didn’t realize it until later, but I was right next to her, sneak-crawling so that we could continue our conversation. “You’re fun to talk to,” Amy said. “Keep things interesting. You’re a pretty good listener when you want to be. Not a lot of people I can say that about.”

I scoffed. “No, I mean why aren’t you telling on me?”

“Oh,” she said. “I dunno. You gotta do what you gotta do. I’d rather you fuck up and get it out of your system than hate me, y’know? Can’t spend the rest of your life wondering ‘what if Amy hadn’t stopped me?’. That’s just bad mojo, mah guy.”

We came to a halt a few feet away from the door. “And if I pull it off?”

My strange friend and unpredictable ally blinked. Again she looked like she hadn’t really considered the possibility. “I guess I’ll be happy for you. I don’t agree with it, but I get it.”

How the fuck could any Little not agree with what I was doing? For all her mystique, Amy really was just a brainwashed Full Native. Not that different from Ivy. Different journey, same basic result. “What don’t you agree with?”

“I’ll tell you later,” she said.

The bottom half of the door thundered open. “I did it!” shouted the Tweener in pull-ups. “Ha!”

The Amazon Mommy was on her in an instant! “Joanie, that is highly inappropriate young lady!”

I rushed for entrance and grabbed the side of the open door. “I’ve got it!” I announced. “I’ll close it!” I needn't have. The second biggest person in the room was preoccupying the first biggest by being chewed out and causing a scene. All I needed to do was to step out over the threshold and quietly pull the door closed behind me.

So I did.

I held my breath for a second. Waiting for shrieks and giggles to come my way. For people to shout that Clark had run away or had shut the door incorrectly. I doubled over in my mind, preparing excuses about how it was an accident and that I hadn’t meant to. My tear ducts were already preparing the first wave of defensive reptilian tears. Only the sounds of a Grade-A chewing out session and a Little trying to patter sing came out.

It worked!

Clark Gibson was officially a genius! I looked myself over one last time: Baggy slacks. Onesie that looked like a button up shirt. Pacifier caddy tie with a stroller keyfob jammed inside it. It was a poor imitation of who I used to be and would be again, but cocoons were always ugly compared to the butterfly that emerged. Only one thing stood out that I couldn’t hope to hide.

With more reverence than was needed, I left Lion propped up against the door, my inanimate confidant and punching bag. “Bye buddy,” I mouthed, not daring even a whisper. “I’ll miss you, too. Be good.” I rubbed my eyes and refocused my thoughts, lest the fake tears become real ones.

Phase 2 complete. Now for the real escape.

Before my untimely fall from grace I had become a master at bluffing and confidently walking from place to place as if I was the adult I wanted to be perceived as while attracting the least amount of attention possible. Almost every Amazon that saw me instantly recognized me and then disregarded me as someone not in need of their not-so-tender ministrations.

The Community Center was such that it would have been impossible to sneak around unseen. The hallways and common areas were too wide. The staff too numerous and attentive. The obstacles breaking line of sight too few. Going unseen was a fool’s errand. Going unnoticed? Doable. Very doable.

With my eyes straight ahead, my eyes darting from side to side, and my feet rolling heel to toe, I made a beeline towards the front lobby like I owned the place. I hummed ‘I am the very model of a fully Grown-up Little boy’, seemingly unafraid of being heard and doing my best to cover up the sound of my fresh Monkeez. I sped along briskly, making up for the natural waddle forced upon me with a kind of confidence that was unexpected from someone of my stature and station.

Littles on the run pressed themselves up against the walls and poked their heads around corners. They tried too hard to disguise themselves and jerked in surprise and fear every time someone bigger than them laid eyes upon them. I kept to one side and walked confidently towards my end goal, bored but with purpose.

I passed by several sweaty giants on their way to the showers, one of them with a basketball tucked under their arm. I nodded curtly at them in recognition. “Evening.”

They nodded back, not so much as breaking their stride. The same happened with a janitor mopping up an adjacent hallway.

No one stopped me, or asked if I was lost or if I knew where my Mommy was. I didn’t look lost or like I was running, so no one thought to. When their particular brand of madness isn’t active, Amazons are incredibly reasonable and reasoning; meaning that they were all too preoccupied with their own lives to worry about anything else.

The pulse in my ears could not be heard. As much as it physically pained me, my breathing was under control and steady. Muscle memory kept my face a placid mask under pressure.

The only complication came when I finally reached the lobby. Travel from the nursery to there had been the longest two minutes of my life and the next step to freedom was just beyond the glass door and into the parking lot.

The doors looked awfully heavy, though. Possibly heavier than a Little could comfortably push. The doors were partially mechanical, capable of opening by themselves if need be for the physically handicapped. That also meant that they were partially restrained by the levers and gears that opened and closed them. They definitely looked heavier than the simple wooden door of the nursery or my old classroom. Decidedly too heavy for me to get the cart out all by lonesome.

I gambled on pushing the wheelchair access button. The large circular disk clicked beneath my touch easily enough, but the doors did not cooperate. Fuck. I wasn’t pushing hard enough, the signal had been cut, or the cheap thing was broken and not yet repaired. Unacceptable.

My mind went into overdrive. Did I just push as hard as I could and barely slip out? Even if that went unnoticed by the staff, I’d have to run as fast as I could to the pick up zone and pray that Socko hadn’t lost her nerve. A running Little attracted the wrong kind of attention no matter where they were.

Fuck!

I couldn’t go back. I just couldn’t. Going forward was being caught off from me. What did I do? Did I wait patiently on side until someone bigger came in or out while avoiding suspicion from sudden idleness? Did I even have that kind of time?

Crap! What time was it? I looked at my wrist, expecting there to be a watch. I patted my thighs for a phantom cell phone. The meet up place was just far enough that I needed the damn cart.

Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!

All of this careful manipulation and preparation, slowly building up expectations by my captors and cashing in unearned goodwill from my fellow captives only to be undone by a goddamn door.

Typical, Clark! Fucking typical!

I turned around in a circle, feeling suddenly lost and abandoned. I accidentally made eye contact with an Amazon sitting behind the greeter’s counter. An older man, slender by Amazon standards, with a bushy white mustache and thick glasses. A retiree, or part timer passing away the boredom of his final years.

At present he wasn’t so bored. A strange Little was fighting off a panic attack just in front of him.

“Can I help you, son?”

I almost swallowed my tongue. ‘Son’. He’d called me ‘son’. I’d triggered his crazy and any moment I’d get captured and my ruse discovered. Even a geriatric giant would notice my diaper if he picked me up.

No. No, no, no. Wait. Hold on. He’d called me ‘son’. Demeaning and diminutive but not necessarily infantilizing. It could just be how the old man talked. His glasses made his eyes seem three times as big. There wasn’t a chance he could see my dress-up for what it was. That wasn’t any kind of security monitoring link in his ear, that was an old out of date hearing aid. I could be doing jumping jacks and twerking in complete silence and he wouldn’t hear the plastic backed crinkle coming from underneath me.

I was Clark Gibson: Trickster. Teacher. Giant killer. I could do this. I would do this.

I had no choice.

I took all of my panic and stuffed it back down into the pit of my stomach. I grabbed the last few months of my life and forcibly jammed a dividing wedge between past and present. I’d done this sort of difficult social navigation since at least college. I’d gotten around professors and principles that had wanted my head and pants full of mush for years. I’d avoided prime Amazons on the prowl for their next victim on the daily. This dinosaur was just another mark, not even deserving of a name in the amazing narrative of my life.

“Actually, sir, I’d appreciate some help if you could spare the time,” I said cordially. “It looks like the access button isn’t responding so I’m having some trouble.”

Realization came to cloudy eyes. “Oooooh, that!” The giant rose up from his seat, bones creaking. “That thing again. Sure. Let me help with that.”

He ambled over and I forced myself to maintain composure. He couldn’t really see me. He couldn’t really hear. To his ancient senses and dull memory I’d be a muffled blur.

“I’d force the door open,” I said gesturing to myself, “but I’m about to go see a lady friend and I don’t want to break a sweat.”

The old man nodded and smacked his lips. “Been there, my friend. Been there.” He gestured to the button I’d unsuccessfully pressed moments before. “Let me see if I can fix this. Sometimes it needs a special touch.” He balled up his fist and swung it like a hammer over the large silver panel. The door opened up at a snail’s pace, but it opened. “There ya go, young feller! Just needs some elbow grease.”

“Appreciate it, sir. Thank you!” I turned and walked to the threshold humming to keep the raw excitement off of my face. The door was starting to close again, but it was more than slow enough for me to slink by. “Actually,” I called back, “do you mind holding it open for a second more?” I couldn’t afford to slink.

The old giant scratched his mustache and jammed the button again, reversing the doors’ progress. “How’s that?”

I strolled across the threshold and pressed the keyfob on my tie. My getaway cart buzzed to life, spun around and sped towards me with reckless abandon. Other strollers were knocked over in the process, the less sturdy ones clattering to the ground. I maintained my composure and held my breath; even dodged out of the way when the damnable thing almost hit me like I’d meant for it happen that way. In reality, the front bumper could have broken my knee caps if I’d stayed in place. Evidently, the homing

The greeter followed me across the threshold and into the parking lot. Through thick bottle glasses he squinted at me, showing the first signs of actual suspicion. “That your cart?”

“Yessir,” I said as casually and calmly as I could manage.

“You just made a mess, y’know?”

“Putting it with the strollers isn’t ideal,” I answered. “But my last one was run over when I parked it in a regular spot.”

He scratched his mustache again, examining me, measuring me up.

I calmly folded my hands in front of me, praying that it would sufficiently cover any additional evidence of my diaper. “Yes?” I said, expectantly.

“Eh,” he grumbled. “Don’t worry about it, young feller. Have a nice night.” Then quieter, but likely louder than he’d intended, I heard, “I’m too damn old to Adopt anyways.”

I didn’t need a second warning. I hopped into my cart, pushed the accelerator pedal and sped off into first the parking lot and then into the bike lane on the street where I belonged.

A few seconds passed, the evening air whipping past my head. The sound of passing traffic whooshing past me and crickets blending with the electric motor.

“Heh,” I stifled a giggle. “Heh-heh.” I did it! I was out! The horizon was in front of me and the Community Center was becoming a dot in the distance. “Heh-heh-heh!” And the old man had considered Adopting me. “Hahahaha!” That meant he thought I wasn’t already! “BWAHAHAHAHA!” I was an adult to him! Some punk that needed to be taken down a peg or two! I deserved to be a child but I wasn’t one! I was an adult! I wasn’t Adopted! I was free! “YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSS!”

I threw back my head and howled in all my glory, not caring what random passerby might think. I was out of here! I was only a few more minutes away from complete and total adulthood! I’d done it! I’d done it, I’d done it, I’d done it!

Take that Amy! Farewell Ivy and Zoge! I’ll miss you Melony!

Good-bye Janet…

I wasn’t fool enough to think that I’d make it all the way to Misty Brook by stroller cart. This thing likely didn’t have the battery life to get there. Being stranded out in the middle of some back road was only slightly better than being strapped into a car seat.

It wouldn’t surprise me if there was some sort of tracking device on the cart, too, in case of theft (or a Little absconding with it). I had Janet’s keys, but over a long enough chase over a long enough timeline that wouldn’t matter. How fortunate it was, then, that I didn’t have far to go before I ditched this thing. Not quite a mile and a half all told.

Amy had given me the idea for the rendezvous, albeit indirectly. When she’d first crossed my path last school year, it had been on a public bus after Cassie and I had had our date night ruined. Helena Madra had blathered on that they’d just come from a Little Voices meeting. That meant that the Community Center was relatively close to the barbecue joint where Cassie and I had eaten. About a mile and a half all told; just far enough to justify stealing this contraption.

In so many ways this whole traumatic experience started with that barbecue joint. It was fitting that it should be where it would all come to an end. Poetic even. I wondered if anyone besides me would notice or appreciate that. Amy probably would, but I couldn’t remember if I’d told her specifically about that date night or not. Probably not. I thought she’d at least notice that my escape route almost traced the bus route we’d taken in reverse.

If only life were so neat and tidy.

I parked my stroller cart in a dark alleyway behind the restaurant. I climbed out and did the same confident walk that I’d started at the beginning of tonight’s escapades. It was a Thursday night, meaning it was slow. The weather was crisp and getting colder, but Socko had agreed to meet me outside the restaurant. The last thing either of us wanted to do was go inside a building and have even more witnesses to remember us. A Tweener eating alone was wholly unremarkable. A Little walking, meeting the Tweener and walking out with her without sitting down or ordering anything might just stick in somebody’s memory.

Looking at the scant few tables on the sidewalk outside the restaurant proper, there was no one waiting. No one that is, except for a fat, bald Amazon man. He wore thin rimmed hipster glasses that looked a size too small for his face. His face was pocked with eczema, making it look like he hadn’t left puberty all the way behind. His several chins were covered up with wispy light brown facial that didn’t quite match his bushy eyebrows. What little hair left on his head was anywhere but the top,, rimming the back of his skull and coming out to a pitiful tail that fell over the back of his neck.

Munching on a full rack of ribs, he seemed lost in his own world; possibly trying to figure out where he could find a proper fedora so that he could tip and call women ‘m’lady’. I didn’t need to look under the table to guess that his gut hung far out over his beltline or that he wore socks and sandals. I didn’t need to hear him speak to imagine him referring to Janet as a ‘female’.

Where was Socko? There was no way I could be late. Stupidly, I patted my sides again, aping for pockets that didn’t exist hoping to feel for a cell phone that didn’t exist. Gingerly I walked past the restaurant and craned my neck, hoping to see if she’d sat inside. It was stupid, I realized. I was looking for a Tweener woman that I’d never seen from afar in a space she’d never agreed to meet me at.

My would-be rescuer probably got cold feet. I started going back towards the back alley. I could probably get another mile or two before I ditched the cart completely. Maybe I could hoof it over to Tracy’s place. It’d be a dick move to put her on the spot like this but I was running out of options. On the off chance that Emiliano was there I could probably convince her. Hide in the back of the man mountain’s truck or something. At least get one of them to take the diaper off of me…

I froze and doubled back. Maybe I was just early. Maybe Socko hadn’t come yet.

No. No way. Socko had chickened out. The second I started seriously discussing active escape and not just passive resistance, she’d started getting froggy. Fuck you, Socko. I didn’t need you anyhow.

No choice now but to-

A gargantuan palm slapped over my mouth! An anaconda-like arm wrapped around my midsection and yoinked me off the pavement! I let out a scream of surprise but the second my lips parted a rubber bulb pushed its way between my lips and started inflating.

“Hey there, Griffin.” A soft voice buzzed into my ear. “Almost didn’t recognize you with how big you looked all dressed up like this.” The arm that had grabbed me pinned me to the Amazon man’s chest, hooking me so that I was dangling helplessly from my armpits. The hand that gagged me traveled down and started groping me between my legs. “That’s you, right? Oh yeah, that’s you. Good baby, still wearing your diapers so you don’t make a mess…”

The man at the outside table! Somehow, he’d snuck up behind me and grabbed me! I was being abducted! Again!

I kicked and screamed as loud as I could, all of it for naught with the paci-gag turning my protests into muted mumbles and humming. I threw my hands back, fingers trying to scrape, scrap, scratch, and gouge wherever they managed to find purchase. Tug at beard hair. Gag the throat. Plug and rake the nostrils. Poke the eyes!

No, no, no, no, no!

“Shhh…shhh…” the voice said in a decidedly confident, oddly calming tone. “It’s okay, buddy. It’s me. It’s Socko.” There was something soft, reassuring, and terrifying in that voice. This was what a snake said before it squeezed the life out of its prey. One squeeze knocked the wind out of me, my lungs emptying, my chest feeling like it might cave in at any second “Calm down. It’s just me, buddy .It’s just me. I’m here to rescue you, remember?”

Even with all the pain I was in, I was keenly aware of his hot breath huffing on top of my head. My neurons registered and cataloged every touch of his fingertips whilst they continued to probe up and down the inside of my legs. Meaty digits popped open the snaps on my faux pants one at a time and poked at my soft, vulnerable flesh, withdrawing when they felt my warmth. His fingers danced and tickled the inside of my shins and worked their way up to my inner thigh and beyond. “Oh-ho!” I heard him whisper. He smelled like meat sweats, and sounded like a plague. “A onesie! Clever! I bet your old Mommy took you to that pretend place. Gosh you’re so smart!”

There was no one walking outside to notice us. The cars that whizzed by on the street took no notice. The people inside the restaurant didn’t look out. Even if someone saw us, no one would notice. It was just another Amazon taking a Little. Just like the first time, this was the most horrible day of my life, but to everyone else it was Thursday.

“Don’t worry, buddy,” he whispered, his words like chloroform. “You’re gonna be fine. I’m gonna get you out of here. I’m here to rescue you.” He dug his fingertips into the waistband of my pants, stripped them off my legs, shoes and all and tossed them into the street. “Just gotta get these off so your kidnappers don’t recognize you.”

Lies. He was lying to me. Saying whatever he could so I didn’t struggle or make more of a scene. Everything had been a lie. The rescue. Socko being a Tweener or a woman. I was being kidnapped.

Gross sweaty hands fumbled and ripped off the false buttons on my onesie, not yet understanding that it didn’t actually button that way. “I’m sorry about the pacifier. I just needed to make sure you wouldn’t panic. I’m sorry I fibbed. Couldn’t take the risk you’d gone Full Native. But you’re safe now. You’re safe….” Every breath smelled of rot and every syllable sounded of sweet cyanide and barely contained rage.

I did not stop struggling. I could not stop struggling. Not if I wanted to get out of this.

The wedge I’d shoved in was coming undone and a new type of existential panic was bubbling up and drowning my brain cells.

“If you’re good, I’ll take the pacifier out…” It sounded more like a threat coming from Socko than an empty promise. What if I wasn’t good? No. It didn’t matter. Good or bad I was in danger. I felt the snaps of my onesie loosen. Again he started groping me, fondling me in a way that Janet never had. “Yup. That’s a diaper. Good. You didn’t lie to me. Good boy. I’m so proud of you. You’ll be a Grown-up again in no time. Promise…”

He started taking me away from the restaurant. My struggle doing nothing to stop him while he slowly but surely stripped me down to nothing but my diaper. Stupidly, desperately, I clung to the tie like it was a life vest, only to have the clip come off and the rest of the faux-shirt end up in the nearest garbage can.



Amazons adopted Littles every day. This guy didn’t need to scour MistuhGwiffin to find a Little. The only reason someone might take someone else’s Little is to help them escape…or otherwise make sure they were never seen again.

I fought back dark thoughts of what was about to happen to me. I couldn’t think like that! I had to escape! I had to keep fighting! Except fighting wasn’t doing anything. My body was little more than an obstacle; barely an inconvenience.

An irritable buzzing noise rang out from somewhere; pure dissonance; a thousand hummingbirds angrily flapping their wings. “Damn it!” the gargoyle swore. I looked down and saw him pat his pocket; stopping the sound coming from his pocket. His phone? Yes, his phone. “Okay. Not a big deal. We’re gonna go for a ride, okay buddy? Then we’ll get this all sorted out. Your best buddy Socko is gonna get you somewhere safe and then we’ll figure it out from there. Okay? Okay.”

His steps picked up the pace; becoming more erratic. His breath became heavier and more ragged. Something had spooked him, though I don’t know what. A beat up old tan truck was parked across the street. If I got into that car I’d never see anyone again.

I grabbed and squeezed the tie tight, gripping it as hard as I could, pretending it was Lion. I don’t know if I was praying or making peace or just preparing myself for some kind of long unknowable end or what.

I did know one thing though…..

I wanted out of here. More than anything I wanted out. Not to freedom but to Janet. I wanted Janet.

I wanted my Mommy.

The quiet humming of an electric motor barely registered in my ears, as did the sound of gravel crunching beneath plastic wheels. The sound of something snapping, like high pitched thunder or a whip, registered and the world topsy-turvy for me. There was a pained groan from behind me and then beneath me and what sounded like a tree branch snapping from plastic breaking and lightweight steel warping. Then I was rolling, my skin being scratched by rocky ground as I skidded and stopped.

Everything hurt. Every cell in my body screamed in protest and went silent as adrenaline kicked in anew. No time for pain. Only escape. Had to get away. I pushed myself up. Wet, sticky warmth on my elbows and knees. I was bleeding. My head throbbed and my ears rang, hearing the sound of those hummingbirds again and again.

It was through a haze that I saw the creep who had snatched me, groaning and moaning in pain. Beneath him, my stroller cart lay crushed beneath his weight. In clutching and clasping at my tie I’d activated the stroller’s homing device and my cart had picked up enough speed that it plowed into the monster from behind with enough force that he’d tripped off balance and dropped me.

It didn’t immediately register that he was getting up. The monster was down but not out. It was like watching a zombie dig its way out of its grave in a movie. I stood there, frozen in horror, indecisive, unsure of what to do.

I wanted to run. I wanted to fly. I wanted to hide.

Again, I wanted my Mommy.

The whining screech of brakes that needed tending to whipped me awake. Headlights shone like guiding stars and an empty carapace with no one inside, save the vessel’s pilot. A bus! Not thirty feet away was a bus! All but naked I charged across the street waving my arms frantically, hoping that I could be seen.

Don’t leave don’t leave don’t leave! Please don’t leave me!

Every step felt like tiny spikes of gravel were poking on my feet but that would be a tomorrow problem should I make it that far!! I bit into the bulb of my pacifier, huffing and puffing through my nose and pumping my legs as fast as I could manage!

I mumbled screams and pounded on the glass door, leaping in the second it slid open.

Safe! I’d made it! I’d made it!

But my chariot did not take me away. The doors did not close. The wheels did not go round and round.

“Sorry kid,” the Tweener driver said. “No unaccompanied um….you.”

I violently shook my head and pointed to my pacifier! I begged with my eyes, pleading “Please, let me explain! This isn’t what you think! Just let me talk!” But with the bulb lodged firmly in my mouth everything came out as mumbled gibberish.

A shadow fell over me. “Gregory! There you are!” I was lifted off the ground by the back of my diaper and then tucked under Socko’s arm like a football. “Naughty boy! Don’t run away from your Dada like that!”

I restarted my struggles, for all the good it did me. In looking for an out or escape or some kind of hope to cling onto, I realized that the bus wasn’t completely empty. Just the two other people riding the bus were too short to be seen from the outside.

Two Little men stood near the front, holding onto a pole with one hand for balance and clasping each other’s remaining hands for comfort. They looked ready to run at a moment’s notice, neither one comfortable enough to sit with their feet dangling.

Things really had come full circle. Now I was ruining someone else’s date night. Only I wasn’t going home with a loving Mommy who thought the world of me.

I reached out to them, gesturing, pointing, signing, anything, hoping they’d say something. I wasn’t just some Little that had gotten snatched up. I had a home. I had a Mommy. I’d run away like an idiot and now I was being taken away from her forever. And if they somehow got me out of this I knew without a shadow of a doubt that Janet Grange, Helena Madra, and everyone else at Little Voices as well as nearly the entire staff at Oakshire Elementary would consider them heroes. If there was any kind of special medal or certificate indicating that a Little was off-limits for Adoption, they’d get it, and if it wasn’t, somebody I knew would invent it! They’d be the first Littles to be declared ‘Maturosis free’!

Psychic promises fell on deaf ears. The couple looked away from me, pretending to be interested in something in the row of empty seats across from them. They weren’t going to help. How could they? Why would they? I was the one that’d fucked up. I was the loser. I’d had my chance and I’d thrown it all away.

I was in Socko’s grasp again. My body went limp. Giving up before I did. “I’m so sorry about that,” Socko said, sounding oddly reasonable. “I don’t know what’s gotten into him. Bad Gregory. Bad, bad, baby!”

The Tweener didn’t seem particularly bothered. “Meh. It happens. You two have a good night.”

“Oh, we will.” I saw Socko’s greasy smile reflected in the rearview mirror. He grabbed my wrist and squeezed so hard that it almost went numb. He forced my arm to move from side to side in front of my face. “Say ‘bye-bye’ Gregory.”

Bye-bye Mommy.

I’m sorry.

SCREEEEEECH!

Tired squealed and brakes screeched. Horns blared and honked.

A minivan had pulled out in front of the bus. An SUV had saddled up beside it. A third car had almost rammed it from behind. We were completely boxed in.

Bodies poured out of the vehicles and charged into the bus. The old balding man who normally led the meetings stomped up the stairs, pushing Socko further inside. The two Daddies who’d adopted the Tweener I’d manipulated and her Little sister stormed in from the back exit, cutting off any chance at escape.

“Pardon me sir,” the Little Voices leader said to the driver, his voice a barely contained roar. “Are you aware that a missing Little Alert just went out?”

The bus driver stiffened and went pale. He dug his phone out of his pocket and pointed to it. A chorus of angry flapping hummingbirds rang out of everyone’s collective pockets. I felt fresh sweat from my kidnapper start to drip out from his armpit down my back. “Yessir…”

The leader’s finger leveled at me. “That’s him.”

“What?” Socko said, feigning disbelief and confusion. “I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about. This Little and I are friends! He felt his Maturosis kicking in and asked me to adopt hi-”

I still have no idea how Janet made it onto the bus without me seeing or hearing her. I don’t know which direction she came from or how long she was on board before acting, though I’d bet good money it wasn’t long.

“GIVE! ME! MY! BABY!”

The next thing I knew, I was smelling Janet’s perfume and was clinging to her hip for dear life. Socko’s glasses were broken and he was clutching at his balls with one hand, his eye with the other and coughing wet phlegmy gasping breaths trying and failing not to keel over.

“The fuck is wrong with you!” Socko choked, his eye starting to swell. If anything it was an improvement. “Fucking bitch! I’ll sue! I’m fucking pressing charges you cu-”

The two Amazon men behind him each put a hand on one of his shoulders. “No. You won’t.”

“I don’t want any trouble,” the driver said. “But…how can I be sure this is your-?”

Space folded around itself and I was back at the front, watching Janet shove her phone into the Driver’s face. “Here! Here’s pictures! Of us! Lots of them! Bath time! Nap time! Adoption! School pictures! Happy?”

The driver swallowed. “Yes ma’am.”

“We’ve already called the police,” the group leader said. His hand clapped the Tweener on the shoulder. “Thank you, sir. You’re a hero! If you hadn’t lured him in like you did, we might not have caught up to him in time. The tracker on the boy’s stroller went dead just a minute or two. If you hadn’t been here to protect our Clark and stall for time, who knows what would have happened.”

“Oh…” the Driver laughed guiltily. “Yeah. I thought there was something off about that guy. Littles don’t normally act like that if they’re with their Mommies and Daddies.”

Shaking and on the verge of completely breaking down, I looked around the bus for the two other Littles. They were gone. Somehow they’d managed to slip off into the night while the Amazons feuded and fought around them. They’d be nobody’s prize tonight. They didn’t need a Grown-up’s protection if they were never here.

“Come on,” Janet said to me, her voice gentle and soft. “You need air.”

She took me out of the bus and I clung to her. Despite the chill, I was burning up, hotter than I’d ever been. A cheer went up and applause drowned out my thoughts when people saw me with Janet. It was real applause; true jubilation at an evil vanquished and a so-called innocent saved.

As soon as I had been missed, people had piled into cars, called the police, and gone on the hunt with all the fervor of a hornet’s nest that had just been kicked. Yet as dark and cold as the night air was, something still felt off to me. I didn’t know what time it was, but it felt like there should at least be another five to ten minutes left in the meeting, even with everything that had already happened.

Even if I’d been noticed missing, it stood to reason that a thorough search would be done inside the Community Center first before chasing me down the road was considered. I was Clark the mischievous scamp to them. I could have been hiding anywhere just to give them a heart attack.

How did they know where to start?

“HI CLARK!” Even in the darkness, illuminated only by headlights, I could still recognize Amy’s voice. “Sorry I told on you but Mommy said that it wasn’t tattling if it was a safety thing and I like her more than I like you no offense.”

The paci-gag was still inflated and lodged in my mouth. I couldn’t talk and Janet was making no move to deflate it. I’d fucked up. I’d fucked up so bad. Fucked up beyond belief. There in the darkness with only our silhouettes and expanding pupils to identify each other with, I did my best to thank Amy for helping save me. That and apologize to her.

“I know, bud.” Amy said simply, understanding me despite me not being able to say anything. “I know. Don’t beat yourself up too bad. We all make mistakes. Oh, and you’re welcome.”

**************************************************************************************
It was almost midnight by the time Janet took me home. There were police reports to file. A terrible person, even by Amazon standards, to arrest. Witness statements to take. Supervisors to be called and so on and so forth.

Lots of Amazons had left their Littles back at the community center and rushed back to them, each one of them fretting as if their bundle of joy had been the one that ran away.

Nobody asked me anything. I just clung to Janet, terrified that if she let me go I’d fall into the abyss. An EMT swung by and looked me over. Nothing but scrapes and bruises. A little bit of road rash from my tumble, easily cleaned up and numbed with some ointment then and there.

Janet didn’t talk to me the entire time. Not really. She shushed me, and cooed at me. Chirped gentle nothings like “It’s alright. Mommy’s got you. You’re safe.” She gave me kisses and hugs as though each one pumped oxygen into my brain and kept me alive.

She didn’t talk to me, though. When we finally went back and got into her car, she was shaking as she buckled me in, pulling the straps extra tight across my chest so that I couldn’t move. I mumbled around the pacifier, begging her to pull it out but she left it in.

I sobbed pathetically the entire ride home. Janet kept looking at me, staring at me in the mirror; keeping an eye on me more so than on the road. I’d done it again. I’d found a way to shatter her confidence in me. I found a way to hurt her in ways she’d never expected.

She couldn’t understand me and I couldn’t talk, but I must’ve screamed “I’m sorry” at least a hundred times between the parking lot and home. I meant it too. It stupid and selfish. I knew doing this would hurt her. But in the bizarre fantasy I’d cooked up, I’d quietly promised myself that I’d find a way to make it up to her. Maybe send her a postcard from some far off place letting her know that I was alright and that she wasn’t the reason I left.

I just hadn’t given myself a choice. I had to escape. I just had to.

That was all just a stupid childish fantasy. I knew that now. What I didn’t know was whether my regret was coming from hurting her, or from not getting away with it. I’d find out in time, I was sure.

Janet didn’t take me to my bedroom. She carried me straight into the master bathroom. She sat me down on the counter, keeping one hand on me at all times while she peeled the clothes off herself one at a time. When she was naked, she looked at me, really looked at me. “I’m going to take that pacifier out,” she said, her voice as gentle as ever. “I need you to listen and not talk, okay?”

I avoided eye contact, but nodded reluctantly.

A finger on my chin forced me to look at her. “Okay?”

I nodded again, locking eyes with her.

A twist of a knob and the pacifier came loose. My lips retreated inside my mouth, sealing themselves together like glue.

Janet looked over my body one last time, inspecting me with a tenderness that the EMT couldn’t hope to replicate. Every salved scrape was met with a sucking hiss or a gasp or a disapproving click of the tongue but nothing else.

I didn’t flinch or jerk when she reached between my legs and gave the front of my Monkeez a gentle squeeze. The sound of her peeling the tapes loose was almost a chorus of angels. The fresh air flooding over my urine soaked privates for once was a relief instead of an indictment.

She told me to listen, but she didn’t say a word for the longest time. Not until she picked me up and stepped into the shower.

Over the sound of the rushing water and the heat of the cleansing steam, Janet took a wash cloth and lathered it up with her free hand. Rocking me from side to side she cleaned me, gently, careful not to scrub too hard on fresh semi-self-inflicted wounds.

I laid there, letting myself be held, the both of us as naked as the day we were born, while she alternated soaping and rinsings her own body and mine. It wasn’t the first time we’d done this. Nor would it be the last. Yet even now something about this night still resonates in my mind.

It was a sweet relief to me when she put the washcloth down and rinsed us off. The water was still warm, gently beating down on us like a massage. She adjusted me again and guided me to her swollen heaving breasts.

My eyes closed, my mouth latched on, and I began nursing from her, letting the world go. Her voice rang out, soft and low, and it echoed off the tiles in the most relaxing way.

“My baby takes the morning train…”

I dozed off then and there, absorbing the notes but losing the words. Not like there was anything I could do anyways.

I had no choice.

(End Part 11)