Chapter 142: Long Way To Go

I sat wincing and brooding at Beouf’s kidney table. My afternoon bottle of coffee was full save for a token swig. I’d been drinking like a fish all day and I still felt thirsty. All I got for my efforts was my bladder filling up and releasing to the point where I always felt like I was letting go so I almost felt like I was holding it. That and I got out of what passed for work with a few extra changes. Even Monkeez had their limits but bathroom breaks took longer when a teacher was required.

“Something on your mind?” Melony asked.

I winced, and not just because I was cramping again. That laxative the robo-nursery had shot down my throat really was super strong. Long lasting too. “Yeah,” I said. “I feel stupid.”

Real concern crossed my teacher’s face. “Honey, you’re not stupid. You-”

“I’m running out of places to look for Cassie,” I interrupted before she had the chance to remind me of my fictional regression disease.

Mel immediately changed her train of thought. “Yeah. It’s frustrating. There really should be some kind of registry. Let families know what’s happened and whatnot.” She rested her chin on her fist. “Maybe she didn’t get Adopted?” she offered. “Maybe she got away?”

A lie it may have been, but that might have been one of the kindest things my friend had ever said to me. “She burned down our house. You really think she doesn’t have Maturosis?”

“I didn’t say that,” Beouf replied. “I said that maybe she got away.”

I suppressed a snarl. “Doubtful. Protective services was involved.”

She finished her coffee and put the mug down. “Thooooough, it’s not like Maturosis makes you burn down a house. That could have been good old fashioned rage. I could see how a flare up might cause somebody to leave the oven on or something, though. Maybe they took her to jail?”

I didn’t know whether to laugh at the absurdity or cry in gratitude. For an Amazon, Melony was trying to give my wife the benefit of the doubt. “Would they do that? Take her to prison? Like an adult?”

“Probably not,” she admitted. “Would probably consider her a juvenile and send her to…” She stopped herself. We both shuddered.

“I hope not.” I said. “For her sake.”

Beouf pushed her mug away from her and wrinkled her nose like she’d just caught a whiff of something vile. “I don’t know how they’re still allowed to operate,” Beouf said. “On taxpayer money no less.”

I stared down at a blank spot on the table. “They’re the only other publicly available Maturosis unit in town. Maybe the whole county.”

The table shook with Beouf’s fist coming down. “You have no idea how much that burns me up, Clark. To have the school board compare me and what I do here to…to…to that place and say it's the same thing.”

“What goes on over there?”

Beouf shook her head, more to herself than to me. “I have no idea. I went there once for an interview. I have never seen a group of more traumatized and terrified Littles in my life. And the ones who weren’t were just…broken.”

“Hypnosis?” I wondered. “There’s somebody at Little Voices who only spent a week or two there and all he could say at first was ‘Do it cause Mommy said so’ and ‘I like to pee my pants’.”

Beouf looked like she wanted to vomit, but said. “I don’t think it’s hypnosis. It’d be more obvious if it were hypnosis. More catchable.”

“More obvious than ‘I like to pee my pants’?”

“What you’re describing sounds more like a trauma response. Pure hypnosis tends to produce a uniform response. If A, then B. I’d think something so obvious would have been caught by now.”

I grumbled. “Unless people don’t want to catch it.”

My friend either didn’t hear or want to hear that. “You going there? Try to find her?”

My face flushed hot with shame and it radiated all the way down to my feet. “Not yet.”

“I don’t blame you, kiddo. Not one bit.” She reached over and took my bottle from me along with her mug. She rose from her seat and made her way to the sink. “Where are you and your Mommy investigating today?”

“Nowhere,” I said. “I wanted to go to this one place in Elizabeton, but she said it was too far away.” Without meaning to, my voice rose into a whiny, nasally, falsetto. “We’d miss the Little Voices meeting.”

“That makes sense,” Beouf said. She rinsed out the coffee cup and the bottle so she could avoid looking at me. “You did try to run away and almost got kidnapped. Might do the people there some good to see that you’re still healthy and hap…well see that you’re still you.” I caught sight of the side of her face and saw the absolutely shit eating cheeky grin that she was trying and failing to hide.

I folded my arms over my chest and did my best to scowl at her. That only made her burst out in giggles. I was far from an intimidating sight in my mittens and powder blue onesie dotted with yellow baby chickens and the words “Chicks dig me” in white block print on the front. The knee length socks and knit beanie did nothing, save keep me warm from the morning chill.

“Really thought I was going to be number two,” I lamented. “Second Beouf alumnus to successfully run away for more than a block.”

Beouf hung her coffee cup up and placed the bottle on a drying rack. “Oh wow. You still remember that?”

“I was brought into Brollish’s office and interrogated as though I was an accomplice, remember? You had to mediate for me as Union rep.”

“Oooooh yeah,” she said. “I did, didn’t I?” She walked over to my seat and picked me up on her hip. “Still, I’m glad you didn’t get away. I like you. I like your Mommy, too. I think I’ll keep both of ya.”

“Who was it?” I asked. “I didn’t do a good job of keeping track of the roster back then.”

She strode with me into the bathroom. “Hmmm…I don’t remember, either.”

“It was Amy, wasn’t it?”

“No comment.” She laid me down, grabbed some gloves, and started unbuttoning my snaps. “So, Elizabeton? Tomorrow then?”

I looked at her instead of my reflection above me. “Probably…” I waited for the tapes to rip. “...not. We did some more digging last night. Turns out the place was just a coffee shop with a gimmick. They cater to ‘babies of all sizes’.”

Beouf did not maintain eye contact. She was too busy wiping me down while staring at my penis like it was a loaded gun ready to go off. “Ooooh yeah. There’s reaching and then there’s reaching.”

My legs went up. “Yeah. They’re not gonna have guest records in the same way that a daycare would either. That and Cassie hates coffee.”

“Because she thinks it’ll be poisoned?”

“Because she thinks it’ll be poisoned.”

The absolutely ruined Monkeez- courtesy of lingering effects from yesterday’s laxative- was balled up and tossed into the pail. “I’m really glad you drink coffee with me, Clark.”

I turned my head sideways and looked at the tiny toilet I’d likely never be allowed to use. “If it happens now, what have I got to lose? More diapers?”

The fresh Monkeez was slipped beneath me, and globs of thick rash cream were spread on and between my cheeks like peanut butter. As gross as it felt, it was a small mercy that it was regular rash cream than the green goop in my nursery. “Ugh, that’s not what I mean, you booger,” Melony replied. “I meant all the times before your…before you were in my class.”

I looked away from the toilet. “Of course I did,” I told her, offended. “You were my friend. I trusted you.”

“Do you still trust me?” Sweet smelling powder rained down with the question.

“Yeah. If I was poisoned, I don’t think it was you who did it to me.”

“If?!” Beouf finished putting my diaper on me, making sure it was nice and snug. “What’s this ‘if’? I remember cries of betrayal from someone. “It was you! It was Forrest! It was Brollish!” She tossed the gloves away on top of the balled up diaper.

I set my jaw whilst she finished buttoning me up. “I just noticed you changed your wording to give me the benefit of the doubt so I thought I’d give you the same courtesy.”

That earned me a peck on the forehead before being picked up. “You always were such a sweetie.” We walked over to the new reading nook and nap mat storage area. She sat down in the remaining open crib and plopped me into her lap. “In your own way. I’m glad you get to show it more, now.”

“Can we try potty training again?” The words came like a reflex.

There was a pause. “We’ll see.” That was Grown-Up for ‘No, but I don’t want to deal with a whining tantrum.’

“I’m serious,” I said.

“So am I,” she told me. “How about when my granddaughter is potty training.”

I craned my neck up at her. “That’s gonna be for at least two years! Maybe longer!”

“You planning on going anywhere?”

I wasn’t. Not right then. But admitting that would be like admitting defeat. “Why?” was the only thing I could muster while keeping my dignity intact.

“Clark Gibson Grange,” she clucked her tongue. “I just picked you up, took you to the changing table, wiped you, creamed you, powdered you, and taped you back up. You were completely comfortable in that dirty diaper and would have kept on gabbin’ with me whether I changed you or not. You’re not potty trained and that’s okay.”

I blushed. Something about hearing both of my last names, legal or not, made me feel called out. “Getting used to and liking it are two different things.”

“Whoever said ‘liking it’?” she asked. “You ever notice that you only care about being a big boy when you get self-conscious?”

I slid off her lap and stood up. “Hey! That’s not true!”

“Oh really?” she cocked an eyebrow. “You suck on your paci until someone points it out. You love your Mommy’s milk until someone finds out about it and then you turn beet red. You’re gung ho about potty training until your friends start teasing you.”

“That’s not fair,’ I interrupted. “Billy and Tommy-”

“Pfft,” my teacher cut me off. “Billy and Tommy have the combined willpower of a four year old. Annie could boss both of them around just by waving her pinky finger and you’re meaner than her. If you wanted to-”

“I do want to!” I insisted.

“Why haven’t you tried to unscrew the cap on your afternoon coffee?” she prodded. She was smiling good naturedly. I still felt like I was being attacked. “Or asked for it in a sippy cup?”

“Like you’d listen…”

“I’d take note of it,” Beouf said. “You filled your classroom with your favorite toys from when you were a kid.”

“They were for the kids! Teacher’s salaries are tight. You know that!”

“You blew your top the one time Mrs. Zoge accidentally checked your-”

“I was in slacks! With a belt! That was not an accident! She was treating me like a baby!”

“What about me?” she retorted. “I helped you move stuff around your room. You weren’t too proud for that kind of help. Or to dump all that sugar and syrup in your coffee every morning.”

“That’s different!” I said my loudest without yelling. “Just because I’m small and like sweet stuff, doesn’t make me a kid.”

“That’s true,” Beouf agreed. “You wanna know what I think, though?”

“Not really,” I half-growled.

“I think that you only care about being treated like a baby when you think people are judging you for it. I think you liked the idea of being an adult more than actually being one. I think even before a couple months ago, you were looking for excuses to get a taste of what you needed without giving up what you had. Even though you didn’t like what you had.”

“Yeah…well…shut up, Mel.”

She didn’t shut up. “There have been moments this school year where I’ve gotten to see you happier than I ever did when we were coworkers.” She was smiling. Beaming. Proud of me. Gross.

Typical.

“Lady, I made you cry!”

She shrugged. “Same. Worth it.”

“Teachers bitch about paperwork and stuff,” I tried. “That’s how we vent. That’s how we bond.”

Beouf didn’t take the bait. “I think you’ve got a long way to go, bubba.” She patted me on the back. “But I think in the end you’re gonna be happier for it.” She leaned sideways and gave me a hug. “I love you.”

Damnit.

“I love you, too.”
**************************************************************************************
My experience at Little Voices was decidedly different this time around. Besides there being a new lap song- this one an adaptation to a dated pop song- I did not accompany the other Littles to the playroom this time. A blanket was laid out for me in the corner, I was checked and changed, and I was given some paltry toys to amuse myself with out of Janet’s diaper bag. The other faux-parents left with their faux-children and then came back for the back half of their gossip and pow wow.

It did not go unnoticed when I saw the leader lock the door after checking to see if everyone had come back. I’d lost a lot of trust and they didn’t know what to do with me. I stewed on the blanket and started looking for places to hide just to give them a scare after they got too involved with themselves. Even one “NOT AGAIN!” would’ve been delightful.

I probably wouldn’t act on the idea, but a bit of revenge fantasy never hurt anybody.

Just when the proverbial wagons started circling up, there was a sharp knock at the door. “Sorry,” Helena Madra said. “Amy wanted to come back and play with Clark. Is that okay?”
A tidal wave of “AWWWWWWWW” mixed in with approving nods and “Good idea,” flooded the room. Of course they’d approve of the tattletale to keep an eye on me. Not that I was that upset with her. Her gabbing saved me.

“Cla-ark!” Helena sang. “Look who came to pla-ay!”

“Mommy,” Amy said as soon she was sat down on the blanket beside me. “I’m fairly certain that Clark has object permanence. Fairly certain.”

“Alright, alright,” the Amazon chuckled. “You two be good, now.”

“No promises!” Amy called back. It was remarkable that she was somehow more trusted than me. “Hi, Clark.”

“Hey, Amy.”

Her lips fidgeted and her brow knitted. “Um…this is terribly awkward, but do you mind turning around and pretending you don’t know I’m here yet for a second?”

Seriously? “Fine…” I huffed and turned around.

And waited. And waited. And wai-

“HI CLARK!” Amy shouted into my ear, making me jump. Someone really needed to put a bell on that girl. She was already gabbing at full motormouth speed when I twisted and turned around to face her. “Oh look I see you’ve got new mittens and those don’t look like the fashionable kind not that they’re unfashionable mind you do the Grown Ups who don’t know about your escape attempt last week think you’ve taken up chronic masturbation, it’s really weird when you think about it us having the mittens but the Grown-Ups clearly thinking more about our genitals than we are do you think that’s because they’re constantly wiping us or are all Grown-Ups just really repressed perverts deep down with dirty minds?”

“Better?” I asked.

“Yes. Much. Thank you.” She pointed back to the mittens and cataloged the toys left for me. “A board book. A rattle. A tiny bead maze. Yet you still can’t use your fingers. Your Mommy really did not think this through, did she?”

“No. She did not.” I said.

“You know,” Amy told me, “if you bite into those mittens really hard in the exact same placethree thousand fifty six times, you’ll be able to gnaw a hole in it.” She nodded to herself, approvingly.. “It won’t be enough for your fingers to go through, but it’ll make your Mommy get new gloves. Technically you only need to chew through one. She’ll just take the other one and toss it away. Grown-Ups. Amiright?”

“Speaking from personal experience?” I asked.

“Of course I am. Eventually they just give up and ask you nicely not to touch things.”

“That how you lost your front teeth?” It sounded meaner coming out of me than I had intended to.

Amy’s tongue shot up to the gap between her teeth. “No.” She stared at me, not blinking. A deer in the headlights. Shit. Did I break her? This shouldn’t bother her. Fuck.

“What are you doing here, Amy?” I asked.

“Felt like hanging out,” she said. “Just had to touch bases with the others and spread the word.”

“What word?”

“That you’re looking for your wife.”

It was as if a bucket of cold water had been dumped over me. “What?”

“You didn’t know?” Amy said looking suddenly uncomfortable. “Did I…did I ruin the surprise?”

“No I…I…” One of the Amazons looked over their shoulder to make sure we were still present. I lowered my voice. “Explain, please.”

“Your Mommy talked to my Mommy. My Mommy talked to me. Nobody like that in my daycare. So I wanted a second to spread the word among the others. Grown-Ups aren’t always the most observant. Then I came here to tell you. Eventually.”

Something akin to shame and gratitude blended together in my heart. “You’d do that? For me?”

Amy leaned forward and gave me a hug. “Of course, bud. Everybody’s lost somebody. You deserve to know she’s safe.”

We broke off the hug. “Or doomed.”

The nutter didn’t contradict me. “Knowing is still better than not knowing.”

“Who’d you lose?” I asked.

She scratched her head. “I dunno. Must’ve forgotten. Or they weren’t that important. Who’s to say?” I stared at her, unblinking. I had already gotten a lot wrong about the nutter, but for some reason I absolutely certain that Amy had just lied to me. “So what are you getting your Mommy for Solstice?”

The question caught me off guard. “Solstice…?”

“Yeah,” Amy said as though it were obvious. “Winter Holiday? Tradition of gift giving to celebrate…I dunno…not being dead another year? Fat man in a red suit does reverse burgling?”

“Yeah yeah,” I said. “I know what Solstice is.” I just hadn’t thought that far ahead. A week prior I envisioned myself being on the run from an oppressive regime dedicated to breastfeeding me and forcing me into incontinence.

“So what are you getting your Mommy?” she asked again.

“Getting…her?” I echoed, confused. “I’m…I’m a baby.”

Amy smacked her forehead dramatically. “My guy,” she said. “You’re over thirty. You’re college educated. You’re married. And yet you’re still living with your Mommy? And you’re not even getting her a gift?”

“I’m. A. Baby.” I said, more firmly than before. “Isn’t that what you’ve been trying to teach me this whole time?” Another head popped up from the Grown-Up’s discussion circle. I waved. Yeah, dude. We’re still here.

“We’re babies,” Amy agreed. “Not mooches.”

“So what?” I said. “I should make her macaroni art or finger paint something?”

“If that’s what your heart leads to you, sure.”

I grit my teeth. “What are you going to do?”

“I was thinking of getting her a boyfriend,” Amy said with far too much confidence. “Or a girlfriend. Or just a date.”

“A date?” I almost laughed. “You’re serious?” Of course she was serious. Even when she was joking she was serious. “Why a date?”

“It’s been close to seven years and the woman hasn’t gone on a single date-date. That girls’ night out was the closest thing she’s had to a social life outside of bank people in a while. It’s time. She’s not gettin’ any younger and I’m not gettin’ any bigger.”

I sidled up to her so that both our backs were to the Amazons. I wouldn’t see them sneaking up, but they’d have a harder time hearing me. “A date, though? I thought um…you and…” Was I projecting? I was probably projecting. “Wouldn’t a date make you um…jealous?”

“Like you were with what’s his face?”

“Mark.” I said. “Yeah. Exactly.”

Amy tapped just below her lower lip. She stuck her tongue out like she was trying to lick her nose. “I mean…not really. Also yeah. Kind of. But I want my Mommy to be happy. And I can’t give her everything she needs. Aaaaand I don’t think she’d let me try to find out if I could.”

Something inside me told me that I would never attempt to get Janet a date with any other Amazon, man or woman. If not for my own confused feelings of insecurity, then for the fact that I was sick and tired of replicating and stumbling through paths that Amy had already blazed. “Wow,” I said. “That’s…. incredibly…mature.”

“Yeah,” Amy’s smile was soft but reflective instead of boastful. “I know. Is Janet into girls by any chance?”

“The fuck?!”

“Probably not, because she adopted you,” Amy plowed ahead. “Zigmund Frood once hypothesized that Amazons Adopt Littles that remind them of the parent whose gender they are most attracted to. But he also did a lot of cocaine, so…maybe not the most reliable resource.”

“She originally wanted a girl, I think.” Why was I participating in this conversation?!

Amy seemed genuinely intrigued. “Oh really? Do go on.”

I slammed the breaks immediately. “Buuut she also told me she was looking for a girl to get over wanting to Adopt me.”

“Ah. Well, that’s a bummer.” Amy shrugged. “Can’t be helped. I guess we’ll just have to stay friends.” She leaned over and hugged me, much in the same way that Melony had a few hours prior. “You would have made a good baby brother, though.”

Unlike Beouf, I was able to playfully shove this particular friend away. “I’m not the baby! You’re the baby!”

“Ah-ah-ah,” she tutted. “Remember, I’ve been doing this a lot longer than you and I’m better at it. I’m bigger than you.”

“You can’t walk anymore.”

Her eyes lit up and her jaw dropped. “Wow! Way to be ableist, Mr. G!”

Shit! “Sorry!” I said. “Sorry, that was messed up I-”

I would have babbled out half a dozen apologies but Amy interrupted me with her own shove and a, “Ah, I’m just messin’ with ya. I did this to myself.”

I practically slapped myself to make sure I hadn’t heard wrong. “You what?”

“Aren’t you gonna ask how I’m gonna get my Mommy a date?” Amy asked, trying to change the subject.

If there was one thing I’d learned about Amy Madra at that point, it was that if she didn’t want to tell me something, there was nothing I could do to get her to divulge that information. Whether it was because it amused her or some crazy way her brain worked, I couldn’t be certain. My only option was to play by her rules and carry on.

“No,” I said as kindly as I could. “Generally speaking, when you want something you tend to find a way to get it.”

That got me another hug and a head laying on my shoulder. “Aw, thank you buddy. I really appreciate you noticing. I think that’s why we’re such good friends.”

This time I returned the gesture. “I figured out you were the one from Beouf’s class who escaped that year.”

“Awwww,” she whined. “Who told? Was it Ivy? I bet it was Ivy?”

“It wasn’t Ivy,” I promised. “Beouf.” My own sly smile crept up unexpectedly. “Technically, she just declined to comment. You just confirmed it.”

Amy’s face lit up in genuine surprise for once. “You goober!” She slapped my bicep with the back of her hand.

“Congratulations,” I said. “You played yourself. Wanna tell me what happened?”

“I do not.”

“That’s fair,” I said.

Amy’s ears wiggled. “Uh oh. She said. I think our time is up.” I looked over my shoulder. Chairs were scraping. People were rising from their seats. Our Mommies were coming to get us.

“I guess so,” I said.
“Good talk kiddo,” Amy said.

I did a double take. “Really?”

“What?” Amy asked. “That’s what you’re supposed to say after a heart to heart.”

“Can’t argue with that logic,” I chuckled.

“I don’t make the rules, I just make them up.”

By the end of that ridiculous sentence I was back on Janet’s hip and Amy was on Helena’s.

Everyone said their goodbyes and within five minutes I was being strapped into the car.

“Janet,” I said. “Thank you for helping me look this week.”

“You’re welcome, Clark.” she chirped, and put the car in reverse.

“What can I get you for Solstice?” I asked.

“Get me?” Janet said. “You don’t have to get me anything, silly. You’re a baby.”

“Still…”

She put the car in drive and pulled out onto the street, headed home. “What can I get you?”

That was an even harder question. “Take the mittens off?” I suggested. “Let me have my fingers back full time?”

“We’ll see…”

Damn.

Beouf was right. I really did have a long way to go. A long way to earning back Janet’s trust. A long way to finding Cassie. A long way to figuring out what I was doing with my life.