Chapter 153: Dumped

“You’re an idiot,” Janet said to me, glancing at me in the rear view mirror. It wasn’t unkind or scolding. It was just a gentle bit of teasing.

“Yeah,” I sighed. “I know.” The bottom of the car floor suddenly seemed very interesting.

“We’ve been searching all these daycares,” Janet said, “looking for Cassie, and you never even considered going to her parents’ house?” She was kind enough not to chuckle at her own remark. Evidently, extreme pessimism and the fear that leading an Amazon to a veritable cornucopia of Littles would result in every one of them being Adopted was also another symptom of Matursosis.

My cheeks turned hot with embarrassment. “I sent a letter.” I looked out the window and took in the skyline and the passing trees. Out of some misplaced sense of nostalgia I turned my head to the left, half wishing Cassie to be grumpily in a car seat next to me.

“Okay,” Janet replied, “but they can’t just ‘return to sender’ you in person.”

I thought about Bert Braun’s meaty fists. I thought about my brother in-law and all their neighbors. I didn’t know how many of them it would take to kick my ass but I had a pretty good idea how many they could use. “Cassie’s not going to be there.”

The odds of Cassie arsoning our house and getting away from any Amazon authorities and making it all the way back to Misty Brook on foot were simply astronomical. “She probably wasn’t going to be at any of the other places,” Janet said. “We should still look.”

“Yeah,” I replied. “That’s true.” That and the Braun’s were still family to me. If I couldn’t find Cassie, I could at least apologize to her parents and accept a black eye or a broken nose in penance.

I wasn’t wearing what was now known as the ‘Feast Friend’ getup, but neither was I in my most infantilizing attire. Just another t-shirt and shorts that Beouf had gifted me. As long as I didn’t lift my hands up over my head and whomever I was speaking to didn’t look below my waistline, I’d be able to navigate the trailer park without causing too much of a stir.

“Turn’s coming up,” I reminded her.

Janet turned onto the winding dirt road. “I see it.”

It was Janet’s idea to drive me to Misty Brook. I felt like I was breaking so many written and unwritten rules just by telling Janet that this place existed, but she was absolutely right to suggest it. Why talk in secret with a bunch of Littles who have been mindfucked or threatened into silence and try to weedle Amazon daycare workers with a vested interest in misdirection when I could just talk to my own people face to face? Why trust a creep online when I could trust people whom I actually knew and loved? “Okay. Now slow down and stop. I’ll walk the rest of the way.”

The car stopped. “How far is it?”

“About a mile.”

The car started moving again. “Let’s get closer.”

“But Mommy!”

I saw her roll her eyes. “Baby, I’m not going to get out of the car and start cossetting and Adopting every Little I see.”

“I know that,” I told her. “You know that. But they don’t know that.”

“Do you trust me?”

“What?”

“Do you trust me?”

Well shit. Yeah. I did trust her. “Yes, ma’am.”

The car rolled on for an extra minute or too, Janet’s car kicking up dust all the way. I sucked on my teeth nervously, quietly admitting to myself just how goddamn nerve wracking this all was and wanting to destroy something to alleviate the tension. Never before have I wanted a pacifier or Lion so badly.

I reached between my legs and gave my padding a squeeze. I had no idea how wet I was or even if I was wet. If I’d peed, I’d already forgotten about it, and the diaper wasn’t heavy or full enough to produce a telltale squish or swelling. Which was better, asking for a change just in case or risk talking to people in wet pants?

I kept my mouth shut. I’d rather be slightly damp than reeking of baby powder or risk a local driving down the road and see Janet bending over by the backseat.

Thankfully, Janet stopped before the entrance came into view. “How’s this?”

A twenty minute walk had just turned into a 2 minute toddle. “This will work.”

Janet got out of the car and unbuckled me, but left the engine running. She grabbed me by the armpits but sat me down on my own two feet. “Alright. If you’re going to be more than half an hour, please come back and tell me.”

A strange shudder of surprise passed through my entire body. I looked up at her and then back to the road to Misty Brook. “What?” was all I could muster in response. I patted my chest and pocketless pants as if searching for a tracking device or toddler harness.

Janet’s lips went thin and her nostrils flared as she lied to herself. “I trust you.”

I rushed up and gave her leg a quick hug. “Okay. I’ll be back.” Funny thing is I wasn’t lying.

The dirt road curved around so that Janet’s car would be out of sight once rounded. I looked back several times, unsure if I wanted Janet with me or not. What I wanted wasn’t important. I had to do this alone. It was still kind of comforting that everytime I looked back, Janet was leaning against the car and looking very intensely at her phone. She wasn’t leaving me; neither was she shadowing or stalking.

Good enough.

I was already lost in my own head by the time I rounded the corner. “Mr. Braun?” I said to myself. “I lost Cassie and don’t know where she is. I’m sorry.” No, that didn’t sound right. “Bert? Irene? I got Adopted. So did Cassie. I’m so sorry.” Closer, but not there yet.

“I really fucked up and got Adopted and I have no idea where Cassie is and I hope she’s here or she’s managed to contact in you in some way and I really was a Helper and now I’m Adopted and I’m so sorry. I was an idiot and I didn’t listen to Cassie and it’s all come back to bite me in the ass and my life is over. I understand if you never want to see or talk to me ever again, but I feel I owed it to you to tell you the truth.” The words were not spoken so much as mouthed.

“And I love my Mommy, my best friend feeds me in a high chair, and most of my other friends are completely unpotty trained and their idea of a party involves Duck-Duck-Goose and smash cake.” I wiped my eyes and nose with my forearm and chuckled bitterly. Nope. Wouldn’t be telling them that part. I scratched and slapped at my face to toughen up and steel myself. It wouldn’t do to be blubbering and red faced before I even knocked on the trailer.

There wasn’t a trailer, though.

As I rounded the corner and approached the gate, it was readily apparent that Misty Brook no longer existed. The sign was still there, but practically nothing else. The few trailers that remained were up on blocks and so dented and beat up that they couldn’t hope to make the trip without Amazon attention. Windswept pools of garbage and natural debris dotted the landscape where homes and vehicles had been. My in-laws’ neighborhood had been turned into a dirty abandoned parking lot.


I wanted to stop. I didn’t. Then I wanted to sprint. I couldn’t. My entire world had become numb and I was left shambling through the wreckage of my past life like a zombie. Contrary to the season my skin was fire. There were no trees for shade and the asphalt reflected all of the sun’s heat right back up at me.

My entire body was as if in shock. I felt the heat but I did not sweat. My foot crunched down on a broken liquor bottle and I didn’t so much as flinch. Empty beer cans littered the ground like dead leaves scattered by the wind. My feet kicked them lazily out of the way, the hollow echoes from the aluminum shells didn’t even make my ears twitch. What might have been the remains of a stilt was left in my path; the wood corroded from weeks if not months of exposure to the elements. The wet plopping step left a residue on the bottom of my right shoe.

A Gwiffin Party. The whole trailer park had one last Gwiffin Party and bailed. A final ‘fuck you’ to the giants we lived beneath. Granted, if any Amazons had been around to witness the carousing and destruction, it would have been immediate grounds for a Maturosis diagnosis, but anything could be anyway. Paying rent on time for years could be used to show that one benefits from routine and structure…

The one broken down car remaining on the lot was missing a door and was looked to be down an engine and with all the glass and lights smashed. The perimeter fence had been battered down and completely run over.

I’d a very dangerous job for a Little. I’d missed more than enough visits and check-ins over the months, and the Brauns had always been of a better-safe-than-sorry mindset. When they finally figured out that I wasn’t coming back an adult, they held one last big ‘fuck you’ to whatever Amazon landlord owned this lot and trashed it before fleeing the scene forever.

When Littles feel threatened, we hide. It’s all we can do. Some of us hide behind money and sturdy walls with gated communities. The rest have to make themselves scarce and find some other dusty lot to call home. The smart ones, do anyways. The idiots just tear up apology notes and keep denying reality until it’s too late because they’re afraid to lose their nice house in the suburbs.

Beyond the reduced source of income the landlord probably didn’t care much about this place. Given enough time, a new group of Littles would come; maybe Tweeners. They’d have to clean up the mess left by the previous tenants, but they’d be given a reduced rent for the inconvenience (even though it was probably the same rate as the previous tenants). Depending on the span of time, it might even be the previous tenants; it’s not like Amazons kept track.

Cassie always told me that if she were ever captured I should just forget about her and she would do the same. Til death or diapers do we part. Cassie’s parents had taught her that rule, and they lived by it.

On the bright side, I couldn’t hear the crinkling coming from my shorts over the sound of my own breathing and the shuffling of debris. So I had that going for me.

Naw. On second thought, it probably wasn’t just me. More likely, the Littles who’d lived in the few remaining trailers disappeared suddenly and close together so everyone else got while the getting was good. At most Cassie and I chummed the waters for the frenzy that followed.

This is why my letter never got through. Anyone who would have read it was long gone before it arrived. A laptop looked to be broken in half, only its cracked and broken screen remained to be found. This is why I never thought to reach out when I had my tablet. Every phone, electronic device, and email was essentially a burner to be discarded at the first sign of danger.

Cassie had burned down my home. My parents were barring me from my own past. Bert, Irene, and company had taken care of the rest.

I’d never find Cassie or the Brauns, or any other free Little ever again. I had no life now. No past that didn’t start with enrollment in Beouf’s class. I was well and truly dead to everyone I’d ever known or cared about. No one was coming. No one was looking. And they damn sure didn’t want to be found.

I stopped moving, my feet melting into the patches of hot cement right where the Braun’s trailer used to be. The only thing left behind was a clear orange diaper pail bag half full of used Monkeez sized for an actual toddler and several black garbage bags filled to bursting.

Garbage was all that was left for me. Fitting. I was garbage. I was used up. I was useless. I belonged here.

“Come back.” I whispered to myself. “I’m still here. Please. Please just give me a chance. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to go away. I just…” Just what? Wanted more for myself than living in constant fear? Wanted to prove that I could make it and be the exception to the rule about Littles? Wanted to be proud of something?!

My entire body burned from the inside out. I was angry. Angry the way an orphan is at his parents. Only I was the dead one. Their lives went on. Mine stopped right here with the garbage.

At some point I took a seat next to the garbage bag. I started petting it like an old dog in need of comfort and company.

“Please…please…I’m sorry…don’t leave me…please say something…anything.” My throat closed up and my words came out as pitiful squeaks. “I love you. I love you all. And I miss you so damn much! Please give me another chance. Please…”

“Please…”

“Please…”

“Clark?” Janet’s voice broke into and interrupted my spiral. It had been longer than I thought. “Clark? What are you doing, honey?” Her hand rested on my back. I never heard her coming; no cans rattled, the ground did not shake with her approach. I thought a merciful cloud had come and blocked out the sun.

“Hey,” I said, still fighting for control of myself. “Time to go?”

Mercifully she did not take the bait. “What happened?” She knew what happened. Even an Amazon couldn’t rationalize this away to something timid and mundane.

“They’re gone,” I blinked back tears. “They’re all gone.” All the words in my mind jumbled together, creating a scribbled cacophony of despair in my brain that no amount of spoken words could properly convey. “All of them. Without me.”

A look of genuine concern and terror overcame Janet’s calm and patient exterior. “All of them? Adopted?!”

I shook my head. “No,” I managed to choke out. “Just gone.” All gone. Everything gone. Everything I’d ever worked for and built up for myself was definitively gone. And just like all Littles, it took only one slip up for it to happen. I knew this already, academically speaking, but seeing it all like this made it really hit home. I was dead to them. I was really dead to them. I just wanted to crawl into one of the garbage bags and asphyxiate myself.

My Mommy didn’t immediately respond. She just kept rubbing my back and let me fight off my approaching breakdown.

“I knew this would happen,” my voice cracked. “I just knew it.”

“Knew what?”

I held my breath a second and puffed it out in one big burst. “Nothing. Nevermind. Let’s go home. Thank you.”

“Hey.” She stopped rubbing my back and stood. “C’mere.”

Like a good Little boy I looked up at her, her smile sad but understanding, her eyes filled with love and sympathy for me. I did not stand back up. I lifted my hands up towards her and she bent down and lifted me into a soft embrace.

“I’m sorry,” I whimpered. “I’m so sorry.”

She started patting my back again and I buried my face back into the nape of her neck. “Shhhh…it’s okay.”

“It’s not,” I moaned. “It’s just not. I’m sorry I wasted your time. I’m sorry I brought us out here.” I wanted to apologize for telling her about this place, of confiding in her, about writing everything down so she got the idea of coming here, but that would have been a lie. “I’m sorry I’m such a brat. I’m sorry that I’m such a burden. I’m sorry for all the hurt I’ve caused you. It was wrong of me.” I’d come all the way out here to try and make peace; I was apologizing to somebody.

“It’s okay.” She whispered in my ear. “I forgive you. You’ve never been your worst day to me.” Right then it felt like she was the only one who could say that and have me believe it.

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“Get me out of here,” I croaked. And that was that.

The walk back to the car felt longer than all the time I’d spent wallowing in filth. Janet kept hugging me and petting me the whole way, trying her best to soothe me without disturbing me. I didn’t resist. It felt good to be comforted in my grief; like I wasn’t just blowing everything up in my head and making a mountain out of a molehill. It was all strangely validating.

Janet buckled me back into my car seat and then walked back around to the driver’s seat. “Let’s get you home, then.” She sounded far less satisfied than she should have. She was an Amazon, and every Little in my life before her had vanished or abandoned me so that she and the rest of her cult were all I had left. I was a prisoner that had fallen in love with my warden and every possible co-conspirator had bailed on me. I was defeated. I was regressed. I was hers.

However, it wasn’t satisfaction I saw in the rearview mirror as much as it was pain and anxiety. Her eyes flicked from me to the glove box and back again. Her right hand reached to the side and then withdrew like she was trying to stop herself.

I watched her hand dart back and cover her chest. She was leaking; her milk pouring out into her nursing bra after hearing my cries. Time for a snack. I resigned myself to a peaceful oblivion after drinking from her. Janet had other plans.

“Clark?” she asked, her voice soft and trembling like my own. “I think I’d like to give you one of your Solstice presents early. Would that be alright?”

“Fine,” I said. “Whatever.” I lifted my head and saw her wince. “I mean…if you want to. If it would make you happy.” It was probably just an Amazon trap in toy-form. Something that jingled and made me pee my pants giggling or something.

Slowly, she leaned and opened the glove box. “I did a lot of thinking when I was out shopping for you,” she said. “I wanted our first Solstice together to be perfect.”

I sniffed and wiped my nose again. “Uh-huh.”
“I looked all around town and bought you a lot of cute outfits and fun toys, but I still felt like something was missing.”

“Yeah?” I didn’t actually care- I was beyond caring- but the cadence of the conversation demanded it.

“Yeah. I went all the way back to Elizabeton to get it for you.” She took my gift and handed it over to me. “I was going to save it for last, give it to you at Mrs. Beouf’s party. But I think it would do you some good right now.”

I opened the gift and -not for the first time that day- found myself at a loss for what to say. “Wha-...huh?”

Janet wrung her hands together, a chef awaiting judgment from a most discerning customer. “I hope you like it…”

“I…I do…” I managed. “I love it! But…why? You didn’t have to do this. You didn’t have to give me this!”

She shrugged meekly. “I know. But I wanted to let you know that I love you and see you. All of you.”

Attached was a blank card with my name on it. On the inside, in royal blue were her words:

“I’ve loved you from the moment I met you.
I can’t picture a future without you in it.
I’m not really your mother.
You’re not really my child.
But I will always be your Mommy and you will always be my baby boy.
You’ve made my life worth living.
Thank you.

-Mommy”

Objectively, it wasn’t that great a gift. It didn’t grant me any additional freedoms or give me my old life back. It didn’t make me seem like any less of a Full-Native Mindfucked Helper Doll. It didn’t give me back any of my potty training or make me feel any less ashamed for all that I had become and all the mistakes I’d made.

Reading that card and looking at the present she got me still made me feel more whole than I’d allowed myself to feel in a long time.

“I love you, Mommy.”

She looked confused for a second, as if I had mispronounced it or something. “I love you, too, baby.”

“Did I do something wrong?”

She shook her head and finally started driving. “No,” she smiled, seeming completely at peace. “Not at all, baby. Not at all.”
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Oh.

I suppose you’d like to know what the present was attached to the card.

That’s a story for a different time, dear reader. That’s a story for a different time.

(END PART 12)