Chapter 150: A Different Kind of Baby Shower

The rest of that Friday was a terrible mix of silence, tension, and far too much understanding for me to be comfortable with it.

Amy and I were fighting, but we were allowed to fight. Which was weird. I’d half expected for Helena and Janet to try some forced mediation or something; compel us to apologize to one another.

Instead, my desire for space was respected and I was told that I didn’t have to play with Amy if I didn’t want to. Honestly? Completely threw me off my game. I’d been ready to have a heated argument with Janet about forced friendships, but instead got:

“If you’re both still upset by the end of Winter Break, you don’t have to be friends, but I think you should just give each other some space right now and see how you feel later.”

Damnit! That was perfectly reasonable and I hated it!

That night I talked myself to sleep, going around and around in my head until unconsciousness settled over me like a screensaver.

Amy escaped and willingly came back?

Why? Was she protecting someone and giving them time to get away? Had she fallen in love with Helena and had no real way back to her old life? Or was her escape half as dangerous as my own but still half cocked? Did she just give up? Was she just that ill equipped to be an adult?

Had she sabotaged my escape plan because she was genuinely worried about me or did she just not want me to succeed where she’d forfeited.

Had she been guiding me towards making the best of a bad situation or was she just a crinkling crab pulling me back down into a padded bucket?

Billy and the others tried to make themselves feel bigger by knocking others down a peg. Was Amy any better if she did the same thing but thought she was being kind in doing so? How was that any different than how the Amazons treated us?

Oh shit!

Amy really was mindfucked! Little on the outside, but a typical Amazon on the inside.

That’s what Little Voices did to you. It tricked you into seeing yourself from an Amazon’s point of view.

Most of that was bullshit and I knew it even as the thoughts came to me. I’d just been caught so unawares…

Logically, Amy’s past wasn’t my business and her motivations for adapting as she has shouldn’t concern me. Rationally, it shouldn’t matter. Rationality had very little to do with how I was feeling at the moment.

What would have happened if my escape attempt had lasted more than an hour? What if things had panned out and I’d really met some Tweener smuggler determined to get me a hundred miles away from Oakshire?

Would I have gone back?

I didn’t know. That’s what bothered me.

And I didn’t have the scruples to control myself and have a serious conversation with Amy and I didn’t trust her not to speak in riddles or turn this into another bizarre game that only entertained her.

I didn’t even give her a serious chance.

But why should I give her a chance? Why should I trust her to be a reliable narrator? She’s completely mindfucked and babified. I should pity her. Hate her.

But I didn’t hate her. No, I loved her like a punk sister I’d never had.
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I just didn’t understand why.

Why? Was she protecting someone and giving them time to get away?

On and on it went to the point where my own inner soliloquy intertwined with my dreams and sleep was just these intrusive thoughts going on loop and remixed in every conceivable permutation.

I only knew I slept because I opened my eyes to sunlight yand tired muscles from a restless sleep. I reached down between my legs and checked my Monkeez, grateful that I’d been allowed to sleep without the mittens. I was soaked and my bladder felt empty, but the front of the diaper had definitely warmed. I lied to myself and imagined that I’d woken up just as I was wetting the bed; a sign that my control and stamina was building back up.

I let out a loud yawn and sat up. Lion tumbled off my chest and fell lopsided beside my lap. He’d been perched on top of me, likely listening to me mumble in my sleep.

“Yeah, yeah,” I grumbled. “I know. I’m going to have to apologize to her.” That was going to suck, but it was going to drive me crazy until I did something about it. I’d probably hurt Amy’s feelings yesterday with the silent treatment. I’d definitely reacted poorly, and should apologize for that if nothing else.

Janet and Helena had canceled plans for dinner last night. Maybe I could rekindle them today.

“Mommy!” I called. The light on the monitor changed and started blinking. Voice activation successful. “I’m up, Mommy!” I called, trying to sound excited and cute. “Can you feed me please?”

The fun part about playing on an Amazon’s baby crazy is that even when they know they’re being manipulated, they’re not wholly invulnerable. Janet would know I wanted something, but her suspicions would collapse and her enthusiasm would reach fever pitch when our goals aligned. My checklist for the day had two things so far: Try to set up another playdate with Amy to apologize and to enjoy some quality time with Janet; starting with breakfast.

I wanted Janet’s milk, and not from a bottle. I wanted to savor it without a looming bedtime or an audience. Amy was important. She just could wait.

My breathing was already getting shallow when I heard footsteps. “Mommy!” I fussed, teasing her. “I’m hungeeee!” I balled up my fists and pounded the mattress in a mock tantrum. “So hungeeeeeeee!”

The steps came faster. Janet would be dripping through her nursing bra hearing me whine for her. Seeing me reach and grope for her breasts, heedless to all other surroundings, would drive her crazy.

Janet did not open the door to my nursery. Instead, a much shorter person’s shadow darkened my doorstep. She wore jeans and a baggy t-shirt; an old Oakshire Elementary staff t-shirt that had been put through too many wash cycles to be fashionable or dress code appropriate. Her light brown hair was tied back into a ponytail, and her eyes sparkled with mischief while she gave her everything not to laugh.

“Hungee?” Tracy said. She walked over to the monitor and switched it off. “Really, Boss? Really?”

I pulled the crib’s blanket up to my neck, blushing as if I were naked. “Tracy?!”

“Yes?” Her smile was no longer hidden and it was clearly taking everything she had in her not to fall over laughing.

“How much did you hear?”

“Enough…”

“I don’t normally…I mean….I was just um….I’m not…”

Tracy held up her hand and I silenced myself. “I get it. You gotta do what you gotta do sometimes. No judgment.”

“You’re not gonna let me live this down, are you?” I lowered the blanket down to my lap.

“Nope!”

We both started laughing our asses off. “What the hell are you doing here?” I asked, grinning like an idiot.

Tracy wiped tears away from her eyes and lowered the crib railing. “Janet was going shopping for you and Jessica was going to sit. I heard about it yesterday and I volunteered so they could go shopping together. So officially?” She winked, “I’m babysitting you.”

A spark of mischief flared up inside me. “And unofficially?”

“I was thinking about your Solstice present and about that talk we had. I can’t get you a toy or something. That’d be stupid. Then I remembered that you probably don’t have many adult conversations anymore. So I figured…”

I finished the thought. “We hang out, you call it babysitting, and get paid. And I get to hang out with someone who is neither interested in eating finger paint nor in burping me.

Tracy spread her arms out in grand presentation, grinning ear to ear. “You’re an adult for the day! Your Maturosis is cured! It’s a Solstice miracle! ” Then quietly added “Shit, I could have gotten paid.”

“Where’s Janet?” I asked.

“Out shopping.” At least that meant I was getting more for Solstice than what she managed to buy at the mall that one day. Even stupid baby toys were better than clothes. “They left forty-five minutes ago. I convinced her to let you sleep in.” She dug around in her pocket. “She left a voice message on my phone for you if you want to hear it. It’s the usual ‘Mommy loves you be good’ stuff.”

I kicked the blanket the rest of the way off it and stretched my legs. “Janet didn’t tell me about this.”

“I convinced her that you’d like this surprise.”

I chewed the side of my tongue, internally struggling not to begrudge the point. “You convinced her correctly,” I admitted.
“I figured,” she smirked. “I know you.”

Did she now? “Does Emiliano know?” Iasked.

“Yeah, and he laughed his ass off.”

“Is he here?” I stood up and craned my neck as if looking for the man mountain among mammoths.

“Nuh-uh. He’s working.”

“Oh. Then what are you gonna do about the nanny cams?”

Tracy looked like she’d almost swallowed her tongue. “What nanny cams?”

“The one my Mommy put all around the house to make sure that I’m a good baby boy and that Auntie Jessica isn’t spoiling me. You knew about that, right? Right?”

The Tweener’s flesh prickled up into goosebumps on the spot. “Are you fu-...are you messing with me, Clark? Being silly?”

I remained silent. My eyes drifted up to the far corner above the nursery door. I waved slowly and then looked at the baby monitor as if I were anticipating a reply. “I don’t think it has playback so it depends if she’s looking right here and now.”

Tracy whipped her head around and searched for what I’d been looking at. Was it above the door? What about the closet? A particularly high shelf? “Seriously? Clark? Seriously?”

“Nah,” I sighed. “Not really. I’m just fucking with you.”

“You mother fucker!” She clapped me on the bicep hard enough to make it hurt and we both busted out laughing again.

“Worth it!” I said in between gasps of laughter. “Totally worth it!”

“You are such a scootch!” She was shaking her head but her shoulders kept bobbing up and down with laughter.

“Maybe,” I shrugged. I finally clambered out of the crib; a novel way to exit since it didn’t involve a bigger person lifting me up. “But it was funny, wasn’t it? So, what are we going to do today?”

Tracy regained her composure and made eye contact with me. “Well first, I figured you’d want to take a shower.” She broke off. “Get cleaned up, y’know?”

I was suddenly hyper aware about just how heavy my diaper was sagging. It could probably make it through breakfast and a cartoon before it was in any danger of leaking, but it wouldn’t make it to lunch.

Oh.

For the past semester all of my peers wore diapers and had more or less accepted certain inevitabilities. It wasn’t weird. It came with Adoption. Whether you saw your fellow Littles as inmates or children, everyone you knew peed their pants. Almost everyone in my life who wasn’t diapered expected to have to change me at some point as a consequence of interacting with me. It wasn’t weird. You hang around with babies, expect to have to deal with diapers and they thought I was a baby.

Ever the Tweener, Tracy didn’t fit neatly into those categories. She was just someone with a smidge of common sense and absolutely zero influence on society at large. When she looked at me she saw a whole ass adult wearing pajamas with snaps in them and a soaking wet diaper.

Adults didn’t stay in soaking wet diapers if presented with an alternative.

Just one problem…

I’d made Tracy promise that she’d never change my diaper. Stupidly, I didn’t want her to break that promise. To get the gift of being talked to and treated like an adult I had to forever let her see me at my most compromised and vulnerable. That wasn’t a fair gift exchange.

“Um…about that,” I said. “You know how Littles can’t unbuckle a lot of stuff made by Amazons?”

Now it was Tracy’s turn to finish my thought. “I know you can’t take your diaper off. I’ve got a workaround.”

I didn’t realize I’d been blushing until my face cooled down from relief. “Okay. Good.”

“Let’s get you the least babyish thing we can find.” She walked over to the closet and started riffling through the hangers. “Definitely nothing with snaps.”

“You mean you didn’t bring any adult clothes in my size?” I half-joked.

Tracy kept her back to me. “Thought about it,” she said. “Didn’t have the time to look. That and I got paranoid. All of these are too dressy.” She stepped back and put her hands on her hips exasperated.

“Casual stuff is in the dresser,” I suggested. “What do you mean paranoid?”

She bent over and found where the toddler shirts and shorts were stashed. “Oh you know. Like you put on a suit and tie and then Janet comes home all of a sudden and we get caught.”

“Right. You don’t want to look like you’re helping me grow up again or whatever.” It stung saying it like that, but it was the truth. “You can only get away with so much.”

“Yeah.” She picked out a perfectly inoffensive red t-shirt and matching shorts. The shirt had a red racecar on it. “Same reason why I didn’t bring any pull-ups. With my luck, the diaper pail liner would rip open and she’d find the one dry one at the very bottom.”

I arched my eyebrows. “Pull-ups?”

Tracy put the shorts back and chose a plain black pair. “Yeah. So you can use the toilet by yourself while I’m here.”

My mouth drifted agape as dawning realization opened my eyes. I was allowed to use the toilet? I hadn’t even considered the possibility! It really was a Solstice miracle!

“Does the bathroom across the hall have towels?” Tracy asked.

“It should.”

“Do you want shoes and socks?”

“All my shoes have velcro. Are you going to keep your shoes on?”

“Not if you’re not.”

“Me casa es su casa,” I said.

She kicked her shoes off then and there. “Then let’s go to the bathroom and set up.”

We went across the hall and Tracy scoped it out like an archeologist searching a lost tomb for booby traps. “Can you climb in and out of the tub or do you need a stool? Can you operate the knobs yourself? What about the drain?”

Truth be told I didn’t know. Janet puppetted and piloted my body around bath time more often than not. Amazons didn’t typically Little-proof things like plumbing; I’d never heard of a Little being Adopted because the sink had been sabotaged. In the heat of the moment I couldn’t remember if I’d actually turned the water off or on. The things we take for granted. “Yeah, I think so.”

“Got soap, washcloth, shampoo?”

I pointed to the usual spaces on the wide outer edge of the tub, placed there so that Janet could have an easier time reaching for them on her knees, but it would be no trouble for me.

“Where should I put the clothes?”

I jerked my head towards the toilet. Its lid was still down. “There’s fine.” My heart was pounding. My pulse throbbing through my neck.

Tracy placed the loose fitting and highly elasticized clothing down on the toilet. It’d all be easy enough to reach. Then she took a towel and placed it on top. “Okay. Anything else?”

I gestured to myself. I was still encased in the pajamas and soggy nighttime diaper I’d woken up in. “Uh….”

“Just saving that for last, Boss.”

Tracy knelt down and popped open the snaps of my pajamas. She allowed me the pleasure of peeling the clothing off by myself. I felt like a snake shedding its skin. Unsupported by the pajamas, my nighttime diaper sagged tremendously. Amazon diapers were like the ends of those carnival finger traps; the more you pulled the tighter they constricted. Even so I could feel the gap where the leakguard had been pulled too low.

“Hands on the diaper,” she instructed me. “One grip on front. One on back.”

I did as instructed. Just like when Janet had saved me all those months ago, Tracy ripped the tapes open of my diaper, allowing me to keep it hiked up. She stood up and took a step backwards, her eyes deliberately avoiding me. “You good?”

I stood there, tensed and covering myself with the scraps of my old underwear. “Yup.”

“Okay,” Tracy said. She stepped out and closed the door to just a crack. “I’m gonna be in the living room. If you have any problems, just wrap a towel around yourself, pop your head out and holler.”

“Deal.”

She closed the door the rest of the way and I let the diaper plop to the floor. I stood there for a solid minute, just listening to myself breathing. No cartoons or nursery rhymes droned in from the hallway. Janet’s footsteps did not echo, signaling her approach. The patter I heard was Tracy’s footsteps briskly walking away from the door.

Alone.

I was well and truly alone.
A stupid grin tugged at the corners of my mouth and finally won out when I was clambering into the tub. I reached out and up and turned the knob, jumping back as the first wave of ice cold water cascaded out of the faucet. Ten seconds later it was getting close to scalding and I pulled the pin above the faucet up, turning the showerhead on.

I stood in the hot rain, basking in a strange feeling of accomplishment. I stepped out of the stream, panting and dripping, looking down at myself. I stared at my penis, marveling at it. I was naked and looking at my penis, and no one else was. I was the only person in the house who had seen me naked. And I wasn’t hiding either. There was no ticking clock or me looking over my shoulder, wondering when Janet or some other giant would barge in and find me. I was doing this all on my own. My privates were finally private!

A full throated maniacal laugh surged out of me. It danced and twirled into a high pitched cackle and went straight up into a shriek before fizzling out. The second breath let out the cackle that went low back into the laugh. Laughter turned into sobbing and my knees became shaky.

I sat down and brought my knees up to my chest, scooting forward into the shower’s rain that I could keep warm and wet just by leaning forward or sticking a limb out. There I howled and sobbed screams and laughter, the happy tears mixed in with the water dripping down my face and my face pulled back into a manic rictus grin.

I’d honestly given up on ever experiencing this. I thought the closest I’d get to this again was if Janet gave me more bubble baths.

A knock at the door shook me to my senses. The door creaked open. Even though it opened the wrong way and there was no chance she’d see me, I grabbed for the shower curtain and pulled it across. “Everything okay in there?”

“Yup!” I said. “I’m just….I’m…I’m good.”

“Alright,” she said. “I’m gonna leave one more thing for you. Call me if you need me.”

I turned away facing the wall, as if Tracy might have x-ray vision that saw through doors and shower curtains. “I will.”

She closed the door loudly and I exhaled. “Time to get cleaned up,” I whispered, not knowing what else to say.

I snatched the soap and washcloth and started cleaning myself. It felt alien at first, being allowed to clean myself. As I soaped up my arms, my eardrums pulsated and I imagined Janet instructing me.

‘First your arms. Then your shoulders. And your neck. And behind your ears. Now your body. Your chest. Your belly. Now your penis.’

I stifled a groan deep in the back of my throat. It had been ages since I’d been allowed to touch myself there. Literally everyone in my life had more access to my genitals than me. I had to masturbate into soggy padding with the help of a misapplied rash cure.

I’d once heard the phrase, ‘Just standing around with his dick in his hands’ and took it to mean ‘useless’ or ‘stupid’ or ‘lazy’. Right then that Saturday morning, standing there with my dick in my hands felt very powerful. Some people don’t know how easy they got it.

I ditched all thoughts of cleanliness and pleasured myself then and there. It felt so good being able to touch myself without any barriers. No worries about having my hand slapped away or mittens being slammed onto my fingers.

Not that I wanted to, but I didn’t last long. The renewed novelty of raw dogging myself and the excitement of getting to do it without asking permission made for a potent combination. It was like I was a middle schooler again. I was doing something that my body knew to be perfectly natural, but I was certain my caregiver would disapprove of it and thus must be kept secret.

Tracy probably wouldn’t want to know about this either, but it’s not like I was planning on telling her.

I spent the post orgasmic guilt afterwards meticulously grooming myself and the tub to make sure there’d be no detectable stains. I only had the one washcloth and there was no way I was going to ask Tracy to put it in the machine for me. I made do with just spurting my load out amongst the suds down the drain and then making sure no stains or trails were left. Going back to behavior from my early teenage years wasn’t exactly ‘adult’ but thirteen years was still miles away from thirteen months.

I washed my hands again out of caution and then started washing my hair while the water gradually lost its heat. A last surge of heat landed on top of my right foot and I let out a gasp of surprise.

Looking down, I realized I was peeing on myself. I scowled and willed the stream to stop, which painfully, it did. My skin was already lobster red from the temperature of the water, but that was the only reason I wasn’t visibly blushing.

I’d known I was peeing, but for some reason it didn’t occur to me that it would go anywhere. I’d known it was coming, but mentally it was in the same category as a yawn. It was a kind of autopilot; like how your mind can wander while driving on familiar roads without missing a turn or crashing; as close to automaticity without stepping fully into the realm of involuntary.

I chastised myself and considered getting out and using the toilet. I’d already shot the idea down as soon as I thought it. That would involve hurdling back over the tub, taking my clothes off the lid, lifting the lid up, climbing up to the rim of the toilet and balancing on it, then flushing and hurdling back into the tub to finish washing. Why go to all that trouble when I had a drain right here? So I stepped back, aimed and fired. At least I was doing it on purpose this time.

When the water had finally gone from tepid to ice cold, I turned off the shower, climbed over the railing of the tub and landed square on the fluffy bath mat, feeling rather like a gymnast in the moment.

Last night’s diaper remained where it had landed, now swollen and laying flat. I balled it up like a sleeping bag and left it by the door. I’d never had to throw away my own diaper before, but the task was certainly more adult than someone else doing it for me.

I pulled the towel and bundle of clothes down off the toilet lid and dried myself off. I took as long as I could with it, exhilarating in the freedom to explore myself and examine my skin and make sure everything was satisfactory to my expectations.

This would be the first time in almost half a year that I wasn’t going to smell like baby powder. Another goofy, stupid grin found a home on my mug. I pulled the shorts on and marveled at how roomy they were without all the padding between my legs. Just because I could, I pulled them down to my ankles and then back up again.

“Mommy yay,” I whisper-sang the jingle, “I am big today.”

The shirt was almost as much fun and I twisted and turned it each way backwards and inside out before finally getting it on right. I could finally manipulate every article of clothing I was wearing and dress and undress myself at will.

WHAT A FEELING! WHAT A GIFT!

There was something else on top of the toilet, placed behind where the towel had been laid and propped up against the tank. It was a diaper, one of mine. It had already been unfolded, opened, and half taped together. From a certain angle, it was like there was an invisible Little, clad only in his Monkeez and watching me from atop the toilet that he couldn’t possibly lose.

“Oh.” I softly said. “That’s what she left for me.”

Instantly, I knew her intent. I’d put the diaper on myself, slipping one foot into the completed leg hole, then call for her help and have her tape up the other side and adjust as needed. A perfectly dignified diaper change without her ever seeing my genitals. I could even do it without taking my pants all the way off.

But was that why I’d sworn Tracy to that promise? Because I wanted at least one person from my old life to never have seen my junk? Or because I wanted at least one person in my life left who thought of me as an adult?

She’d said that she’d considered bringing pull-ups. Why pull-ups? And not underwear? And she said she’d stuff it down into the diaper pail? As if the training pants would be wet or something? She’d mentioned pull-ups in the same breath as getting me a suit and tie? So I could handle dressing myself, but not making it to the toilet? Did she really think I needed diapers that badly?

“Fuck,” I cursed. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” Each f-bomb came out as barely a pop.

I wasn’t angry at Tracy. Far from it. Her heart was in the right place and she was up front about her limits and the amount of risk she was willing to take. Didn’t mean that the implication didn’t sting a bit.

I swallowed my pride and fished the diaper off the toilet. Of all the things I’d never done, I’d never had to put a diaper on myself either. This was the price of increased freedom, I supposed. I’d have to ask Tracy to untape me so that I could go to the bathroom again and again, but I would have to live with that. Maybe I could turn it into a kind of exasperating game. Joke that it wasn’t that my bladder was diminishing, but that I wanted to get a chance to tinkle as many times as possible.

I held the diaper up in front of my waist. The right side was taped up so I’d have to get my right foot out of my shorts and stick it through the right. Then I could put my right foot back in my shorts, have Tracy finish taping me up, and then I pull the shorts up all by myself.

Or…

The Amazon narrative was that I’d been stealing diapers and stuffing them in my pants anyway…

If I just put the diaper on half taped and pulled my shorts up over them, the elastic waistband would more than cinch the thing together. It’d be a poor man’s pull-up, but I could use it like one, only having Tracy finish the tape job minutes before Janet was due to come back. What was Janet gonna do? Count the stacks and stacks and boxes of diapers by the changing table and realize that there were too many? Freak out when the pail isn’t any fuller?

My eyes found the old balled up diaper, waiting to be disposed of. My mind danced back to the chump dump, turning the act of tossing out perfectly good diapers and toys from one of waste into one of rebellion.

Or…

I stared at the diaper still in my hands, waiting for me to put it on. Amy would choose to put it on, wouldn’t she? She got her freedom and tossed it aside for some reason. What about me? What would I actively choose?

Who said I needed to have any kind of underwear on?