A Human Lab Rat's Adventure

Chapter 1
Meet Bob, the human research subject

Chapter Description: Bob is a participant in a human research study. His latest clinical trial is quite successful. Perhaps it's too much of a success?

A young boy wearing a hospital smock, with a baggy pair of tidy whiteys underneath, stood in front of a mirror to marvel at the change that occurred in his body after just a few hours.

Bob, a human research subject, always knew that he could get stung by participating in human clinical trials, but what had happened to his former sixty-year-old frame was far and away the last thing he could’ve expected.

Not only had his health improved because of the most recent round of experimental rejuvenation drugs, “THX-1148A”, it had also drastically changed his appearance. The Research Institute's goal of taking off a few years ended up taking off several decades instead.

The amused prepubescent 9-year-old made faces at the mirror, performed a few mock muscle poses, and watched as the pudgy-cheeked little boy in there aped him back.

“They even got my milk teeth to come back!” he muttered as he ran his tongue over a space where an adult bicuspid had just pushed out its tip. Pulling up his baggy underwear in exasperation for the umpteenth time, he stepped out of the woolly socks that had fit his size 12 feet as an adult and turned to the room’s other occupant.

“Say, Maggie, is there any place I can get a proper-sized pair of underwear? It's a real drag having to yank these up all the time!”

Maggie, a student nurse attending the local university and part-timing as an assistant to the head researcher of the project, turned towards Bob to shrug her shoulders.

“I’m sorry Bob, there’s no underwear in your size to be had at present,” she had a flash of inspiration and suggested, “We have these, though,” she pointed to a well-stocked changing table with various sizes of diapers that would fit everyone from newborns to adults on its various shelves.

Bob weighed her idea and determined that anything would be an improvement on what he had on. He casually tossed the loose undergarment on the floor and walked up to the table to inspect its contents.

Various powders and cremes for protection and dryness occupied one entire shelf while pacifiers in plastic cellophane wrapping and sterilized bibs and a few baby onesies occupied another.

True to hospital fashion, all the diapers on the changing table had one thing in common: They were all white, plastic-covered, and sported bright blue tabs for fastening them to one’s waist. The adult ones sported four while the youth and below had two.

Bob picked up one of the young adult ones and could smell a faint whiff of baby powder coming from it. He stroked his fingertips across the crinkly plastic and felt a smooth surface with a firm softness underneath it.

Holding it towards Nurse Maggie, he asked, “Any idea on how to put one of these on?” as he opened it for further inspection. The compact diaper flopped open, spanning from his waist to his ankles. “This one looks too big for me.”

Maggie smiled and put her romance novel down on a nearby cabinet. “You’ve never changed a baby’s bottom? Were you an only child, by any chance, Bob?”

Grabbing the diaper from Bob and folding it back up neatly, she grabbed a youth diaper that looked about the right size and motioned Bob to lie down on the examination table. She helped him up with a quick boost.

“Um, you don’t have to do this. I’m certain I can figure it out, myself,” protested Bob meekly as she pulled his gown up quickly before he could make a further objection. She was delighted to do something related to her job since they'd asked her to observe Bob as he changed from a senior to a child over a long, drawn-out morning.

At the sight of his hairless, immature crotch, Maggie’s clinical expression slipped for a moment. She pushed the idea of a man in his sixties out of her mind and instead concentrated on helping a young boy.

She lifted his legs, put the unfolded diaper under his bottom, and noticed that Bob’s face had reddened considerably. “Let's engage the patient and try to lift him out of his depression,” she thought.

“C’mon Bob! Who’s fooling who here? Just relax and let me show you how it’s done. You can do the next one and I’ll supervise. Would that be okay?”

“Fine!” said Bob with some exasperation in his voice. “Please show me how and let’s get this over with!”

She could see that he had steeled himself and was now ready for the change. She grabbed a container of baby powder and dusted his pubes with it. Bob experienced the gentle sensation and coolness of the powder as it landed and fussed as she finished up her job by fastening the tapes in place on the diaper’s landing zone.

“All done, little man!” chirped Maggie, and instantly regretted it. While Bob wasn't angry, his face was quite red.

She lifted Bob from the table with ease and set him on the floor feet first. Bob crossed his arms and stared into the distance for an awkward moment of silence, processing everything that happened today, ending up with him romping around in a pair of kiddy briefs.

A friendly butt slap that made a loud popping noise on the plastic of the diaper woke him from his reverie.

“See? That wasn't bad at all, much better than constantly hoisting up your drawers! It’s nice and snug, right?”

Bob had been one of those babies that went from the anal to the oral stage with little thought. When the time had come, he obediently went from diapers to the potty and never looked back. Now he felt the thick, soft diaper as it rubbed and caressed his powder-laden skin and wondered why he'd never noticed the absence of it.

“Yeah, I guess,” relented Bob. “I’m hungry. Is it time for lunch?”

She smiled at his response. You can’t be too depressed if you’re hungry, after all!

“It’s a quarter to noon. Let’s go to the cafeteria, my treat!” She nudged him, grinned, then asked with a sparkle of amusement in her eyes, "Fancy some chicken nuggies and fries for lunch?"

Children's fare!? He laughed and smiled, diffusing the waves of anger inside him, as it hit him that Maggie was doing what nurses often do for those in a depressive state.

“Maybe a cheeseburger instead,” he replied as Doctor Friendly, the staff researcher, walked into the room.

“Oh, thinking of lunch, eh? Good idea, Bob. You’ll need the calories after what your body’s been through. But I’m afraid I can’t let you enter the cafeteria. You’ll have to order in for a little while.”

“Is there something wrong, doctor?”

Doctor Friendly thought of how to phrase what he was about to impart to Bob. It took a few moments before he answered, “Yes and no. Your body seems stable, but we don’t see any of the compound degrading or diluting. It seems to maintain itself at a fixed rate.”

Bob’s face took on a perplexed look. “Am I excreting compound THX-1148A in my urine, feces, or sweat? Is it contagious?”

“Not that we can tell. It’s good that you’re wearing a diaper. That should help us contain any excessive compound, should your body excrete it. On the good news side, your stay will be free for the next month and we’ll be paying you double as per your contract! You’ll be making six figures easily this year!”

Bob’s face grew red at the mention that the doctor knew what he wore. “Is it that easy to tell what I’m wearing?” he thought in a panic. “Calm down!” replied his inner voice. “There’s nothing bad about it and it’ll only be a little while. Think of the money you’re making!”

After the blood normalized in his face, he asked, “How long will I be in quarantine, then?”

“About a week to a month. If nothing changes during the week, you’ll be able to roam the area freely,” his tone changed slightly, as the doctor became more serious, “You can do this, Bob! It’s only for a short while and I don’t want to have you locked up in one of our more secure rooms.”

“No problem, doctor! Is it too early to ask if my condition is permanent? Will I eventually grow back up to at least adult age?”

“We can’t say for sure, but as the results roll in, you’ll be the first to know.”

Turning to Maggie, the doctor said, “Nurse, I need to speak to you privately. Would you come with me?”

“Certainly doctor!”

Bob boosted himself up on the single hospital bed in the room and watched as the pair left. For a few seconds, they paused outside the door, and Maggie took a quick, anxious look at Bob through the small glass window on the door before they went on out of view.

“Huh! They didn’t ask me what I wanted for lunch,” said Bob as his stomach gurgled. He considered using the attendant buzzer to order and hesitated, thinking about how awkward it’d be for a 9-year-old to order his heart’s desire from the wait staff.

After staring at the wall for all of 10 minutes, he started swinging his restless feet and hummed a little. Bob felt like a kid again and began experiencing the glacial passage of time that children do. The feeling of the diaper as it pressed up against his diminished adulthood felt comforting somehow. The swinging of his legs caused them to rub more vigorously, allowing for a pleasurable distraction from his boredom.

“I’d better stop this, it could be habit forming,” thought Bob as his hand rubbed his member unabated while building up to a climax.

“Yep, I’d better stop soon!” he thought as His sweaty body shivered with an electric thrill of climax without ejaculating.

"Thank goodness I won't be doing that a lot!" He murmured to himself as he collapsed backward onto the bed, taking quick breaths and feeling the desire to do it again. The adult in him took hold and suggested he do something else.

He grabbed the TV remote and browsed from one dull channel to the next. When stopping on something that he had the patience for as an old man, he found he couldn’t watch for over five minutes before looking for something else.

In the 30 minutes after the doctor and nurse’s departure, Bob now had the patience of a, well, nine-year-old.

What to do? What to do?

The door opened and Maggie reentered the room. Finally! Maybe he could get some food! He impulsively jumped off the bed and ran a short distance from it toward Maggie. She put her hand on his shoulder to prevent him from getting any closer to her personal space.

“Hi, Bob! I stopped by the cafeteria on my way back and you’ll never guess what they ran out of today!” she said as she offered a well-packed Styrofoam clamshell that looked quite full and filled the room with the smell of salt, grease, and…

“Chicken nuggies and french fries!” exclaimed Bob happily as he accepted the clamshell with enthusiasm and began scarfing them down with as much ketchup as he could squeeze out of the little packets that came with the meal.

“Yep, they were out of all hamburgers. Something about a salmonella scare at the packing plant,” said Maggie as she watched Bob devour his meal with high fascination. Watching him eat filled her with an odd feeling of maternal pride.

He finished his meal feeling full and realized he’d not been polite to Maggie.

“Thank you for the lunch, Maggie! Sorry, I forgot my manners!”

“Don’t you worry about that, Bob! You were so famished, you forgot to drink your soda. Here you go!” said Maggie as she presented him with a liter-sized container.

Bob quickly drank as much as he could before his taste buds kicked in. “Root Beer! My favorite! I haven’t had this since I was a kid!” he gushed with pure gratitude at Maggie for giving him such a fine meal. He sipped on the rest, savoring every high-fructose corn syrupy hit.

“O-o-o-h! So much food!” said Bob as he attempted to climb into the hospital bed and had to be helped by Maggie. She almost popped his diapered rump because it just looked so darn smackable!

He laid on his back with his distended belly sticking up. “Oh-h-h! I shouldn’t have eaten all that! I’m stuffed!”

Maggie was very understanding and tried to comfort Bob regarding his "ailment". She rubbed his tummy in circular motions while making shushing sounds at his animated groans. After a few burps, Bob’s system settled down into digestion mode, causing him to become sleepy as all the blood in his body tried to circulate in his stomach and colon area.

Maggie marveled at how such a small body could take in so much food and not get sick. She watched over her minor charge with a motherly smile as he slowly fell asleep while digesting.

“Don’t you just want to take him home with you?” said a voice behind her back that startled her out of her reverie. “He is, without a doubt, a very cute kid. He’s the model kid that they use for those wholesome hot dog commercials. Shame that the hot dogs are so full of fillers and preservatives that they’re not healthy!”

“Hello, doctor Nick! Are you on the team as well? How was your trip to France?” Maggie was happy to see the doctor after a long term of absence researching Resveratrol extracts from a special region there.

“Hello, Maggie!” he said and gave her a friendly hug. “The trip was uneventful, and I provided at least six new supplemental additives to the development of THX-1148A, so yes, I’m on the team.”

Pulling Maggie into him for a friendly side hug with his hand on her hip, he continued his observation of Bob, who slept blissfully on, unaware of their presence.

“Did you know this guy was a Veteran of Desert Storm? That he was present for the fall of the Berlin Wall? That had the car he was driving not broken down, he would have experienced the terrors of 9/11 firsthand at the World Trade Center?”

“Those are all interesting things, Nick. But why bring them up?”

“That he went through those things and a lot more and now he’s a 9-year-old boy sleeping off a large greasy meal in a research institute. Life’s kinda funny that way, ya know?” He finished lamely. If Maggie was aware of the actual motive behind his words, she didn’t show it.

“Better that way,” he muttered.

“What’s that?”

“Nothing, everything! Just trying to make some sense of it all!” That was better and more convincing, he hoped.

“Um, okay. What’s your field of research concerning Bob here?” Maggie didn’t know what to make of Doctor Nick’s observations. She steered the topic toward a comfortable conversation topic.

“I’m trying to see if the process is stable and if I can extract some of Bob’s unique composition of THX-1148A. The hypothesis is that once his body stops making it, he’ll rapidly age back to his sixties within a matter of days. I’ve got the lab rats all lined up and just need to extract a few milliliters of plasma.”

“He needs to rest for another 30 minutes. Can you do it then? If you leave the equipment, I’ll do it for you and give you a text. Would that be okay?”

“Absolutely!” teased Doctor Nick, “I wouldn’t dream of impeding your private enjoyment of your new boy toy! See you later!”

He left just as abruptly as he came. Maggie turned her attention back to the almost angelic features of her sleeping patient. He turned over on his side and smiled at some experienced dream fragment.

Gently, Maggie brushed her hand across his cheek. He responded by gently sucking on her finger as it approached his mouth. Taken aback, but letting it continue, she felt more happiness as Bob suckled on her finger and gently wet himself while blissfully continuing to sleep.

(End Chapter One)