Unfair- A Diaper Dimension Novel

Chapter 1
Chapter 112: Lie to Me

Chapter Description: Clark realizes the truth about "Goat Milk"

Chapter 112: Lie to me

(Years and years and years ago…)

I sat at the dinner table, shirt cleanly pressed and buttoned up, hair neatly combed with hair and face washed. I was years away from being able to grow a goatee.  I looked down at the plate in front of me.  Besides the familiar yet detestable broccoli that had been steamed without any cheese was some kind of cut up meat dish. It was pale and pinkish like my flesh, but basted in an unfamiliar brown sauce.  Some kind of chicken, obviously, but not the good kind with the skin coated in breadcrumbs so that it crunched when I bit into it. Turkey maybe?  Duck? Probably not duck. Mother never cooked duck, I just knew it was an option from T.V. and movies.

It was hard to tell when cooking with Amazon portions.  We could eat a single bird for several meals but everything was cut, chopped, diced, and pulled beyond recognition by the time it made it to the plate. Even in a fairly well-to-do Little family, we ate scraps.  Scraps were what would fit in our mouths.

Either we’d cut the food to ribbons and eat it, or an Amazon would do it for us.  Just a fact of life.

The stuff on my plate looked soft and mushy; practically baby food. Gross!  Or perhaps it’d be rubbery and chewy like a dog toy, something I’d have to chew again and again and again, grinding it with my teeth but the stuff never wanting to go down the back of my throat so that I’d have to wash it down with milk just to be able to swallow. Just like with carrots, green beans, and a host of other vegetables my seven year mouth detested unless cooked just right, I’d inevitably tank up on milk, be too full to finish, and then not be allowed to have dessert.

Such was life at seven years old.

It smelled weird, too, but I didn’t have the vocabulary to describe it. Not burnt, but smokey. “What’s this?”  I asked. I poked some of the meat with my fork and it fell apart at the touch. I recoiled in surprise, as if it were still alive and I’d just delivered the death blow myself.

“Just eat it, Clark,” my father said. He cut at a tender piece and popped into his mouth.  Balding and snowy haired, he wiped his mouth with a napkin after every bite, save when sipping from his mug of beer.  “It’s good for you.’

“I just want to know what it is,” I insisted.  False.  What I really wanted was a burger.  Something that I could grip my hands and bite into.  Something to drench in dairy and ketchup; fill up on juicy ground beef while tasting cheese and condiments.

“Chicken,” Father said.

I poked at the stuff again.  I grabbed my fork and started sawing through a piece.  The stuff melted on the fork, the knife being formality and pantomime more than anything.  “What kind of chicken?” I stalled. 

“It’s swill,” my mother said.  “Now eat it.”

“Debra…” my father looked across the dinner table.

Mother brushed a bit of frizzled red hair out of her eyes. “Ward…” she shot back at my father.  She ate some of the strange concoction and then pointed with her fork.  “Eat your swill, Clark.”

“What’s swill?” 

“Eat it and find out.”

“What is it?”

“Take three big boy bites,” she said. “Then decide whether you like it.”

“Mooooooooom,” I whined.  “I just want to know what it is!”

“Three big boy bites,” she repeated evenly.

I threw my head back and lightly bonked the back of it against the chair.

I hated it when my parents used baby talk on me. It wasn’t meant to be demeaning, but a reminder; a warning of sorts. Young men and women who didn’t listen to their mother and fathers’ sage advice would inevitably draw the attention of new Mommies and Daddies who wouldn’t let them ever grow up.

It was the same for table manners, bed wetting, thumb sucking, academics, speech impediments, household chores, and personal grooming. We developed good habits, lest bad ones become permanent in the worst possible ways.  When growing up is literally something you can fail at, it becomes a skill to be practiced like any other rather than something to let happen naturally on its own.  Grow up well so you can find a safe job, save money, get married, have kids, teach them to do the same, and retire safely away.

“I'm just asking a-”

“Do I need to help you practice opening up for the airplane?” she asked.

“Fine!” I shoveled the pulled bird meat into my maw and chomped down.

And smiled!

It was delightful!  The stuff fell apart in the best way on my tongue. The brownish not quite pasty sauce was even better than ketchup and had a hearty sweetness that complimented the savoriness of the meat instead of clashing with it. I actually hummed in delight.  “MMMMMMMMMMM!”

I went so far as to spear some pieces of broccoli so that it’d go down easier with the delicious, delicious stuff!  A young man could get used to this!

“What do you think?” My mother asked, sounding hopeful.

“I love this swill!” I proclaimed.

My father laughed, low and deep, then took a sip of beer. My mother nodded appreciatively.  “I’m glad you like it dear. Now eat your swill.”

So I did.

We had ‘swill’ twice a month in the Gibson household growing up.  Mother was keen to take note of meals that her picky husband and pickier son would wolf down. It was easily one of my favorite dishes of hers.

I’d never heard the word before in my young life. I’d no context for what it meant.  No clue that it was a synonym for literal slop fed to Erymanthian bred pigs. My mother was just tired from working all day and cooking for an ungrateful son, so she made a quip as her own private joke. 

Calling it what it was to my basic ass wouldn’t have accomplished her goal of getting me to eat the goddamn chicken so she picked a word out of her head; most likely reflective of how she felt I took her cooking for granted.

 When I fell in love with it, the name stuck. It was mostly because she found it funny, but also if I didn’t know what it was I couldn’t look up or find a recipe for it.  Calling the stuff ‘swill’ made it magical in a way, her own special spin on a relatively simple slow cook dish.

Five whopping years later we went out to a barbecue joint and she suggested I try the barbecue smoked chicken. I hadn’t tried barbecue before, and chicken seemed so common to my ever expanding middle school palette. Then she promised me that it would taste like ‘swill’ and it finally clicked.

“About time,” my dad said softly after the Tweener waitress took our orders. “Wouldn’t want him to accidentally tell some Amazon his parents fed him swill.  That could get all of us in trouble.”

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Wedging the bottle between my good and bandaged hand, I sucked down Beouf’s coffee in my car seat. Janet opted to sign out and go home as soon as the last of the buses had driven off but Melony cooked me up a batch of our afternoon snack and handed it to me on our way out the door. Today’s brew tasted of caramel macchiato and victory.
  

I’d committed not one but two hypothetically grievous offenses, and my friends had used their own crazy backwards logic and ingenuity to drop hints to me so that I was rewarded with a three day vacation instead of sentenced into exile. 

How cool was that?!

Even better was that I was once again a made man in the eyes of the A.L.L and the other Littles in my class.  I’d punched an Amazon in the face, drew blood, and would be back on Friday. I wasn’t even close to a cautionary tale! I was a mother fucking legend! No one there could doubt my credentials!

It also meant Ivy would be treated better without me having to give away her secret or connive an excuse as to why the most mindfucked among us should be treated with kid gloves. Enough had seen and heard her part in it, and my word would carry more weight than it ever had!

Who would doubt the dedication and judgment of Clark Gibson: Giant Killer? Maybe, just maybe, I could weasel my way back into potty training again. Oh nice it would be to walk around without the plastic rustle of a Monkeez or Koddles or Hippobottomuses around my waist.

I closed my eyes and sucked thoughtfully on what was basically hot chocolate with some coffee grounds mixed in, basking in the combination of future based fantasy and recent triumph.  There was an earthy bitterness that the creamer, sugar, and syrup, all but covered up that made them taste all the sweeter. The hint of coffee, the hint of liquid adulthood, made all the other ingredients better. 

Though there was something to be said about the almost relaxing rush of adding sweetener to something already sweet, like vanilla syrup in fatty goat’s milk. That had been an experience, I’d have to try again, I decided. Good thing Janet had some ready. I wondered if chocolate syrup would have tasted as good.

Wait a minute…

Something about that wasn’t right. Something was off and I couldn’t put my finger on it.

“Janet?”

Janet made eye contact with me in the rear view mirror.  “Yes, honey?”

“I had a bottle of goat’s milk this morning, right?”

“Mhm. Why?”

I couldn’t put my finger on it, but something had happened this afternoon that really bothered me in hindsight. “No reason.” 

That was a lie, both to myself and her. Deep down, I had the worst feeling of something gnawing at me in the back of my brain.  It snapped at me and snarled, baring its teeth, and I was too afraid to look at it and touch it, knowing it was going to bite me.

I’d seen her pour the goat milk from the carton into the bottle.  Watched her drink some right in front of me.  Just like I’d had Beouf do for her stupid candies.  The water was always right from the tap and the coffee was straight from a shared pot!

That first sip of milk had been many bottles ago, though; many cartons.  We’d gone through that original carton quickly.  Janet had gotten others since, but they lasted much longer.  Even though she was filling the bottles up regularly out of sight…

“Janet, can I ask you something?”

Janet kept her eyes on the road. “After we get home, baby. We need to have a serious talk.”

I didn’t press it. I didn’t want to press it.

“Okay…”

On Picture Day, Jessica had taken a swig from one of my bottles and almost gagged from surprise. Janet had apologized profusely to her the next day over the phone…

To herself, Janet muttered something along the lines of “Two steps forward, one step back.”  She had no idea.

Even before the weather started to turn chilly, Janet had taken to wearing cardigans. More than once she’d hurried out of the room when Littles started shouting, crossing her arms over her chest and running out the door as if embarrassed…

I needed to break the silence in the car and the building symphony in my head.  “How mad are you?”

I’d caught myself doing double takes sitting in the grocery cart, wondering if she’d gained weight or if her boobs had always been so big. Same for when we showered together…

The car was slowing down, we were turning into Janet’s neighborhood.  “If you’re asking if you’re in trouble, you better believe it, bud. I still love you,” she added, “but that doesn’t mean you’re not gonna have consequences for what you did today.”

A doctor had written her a prescription; except the doctor was supposedly a pediatrician for Littles; one who had been particularly focused on getting me to breastfeed…

“Almost home,” Janet said, not unkindly.

Every Amazon around me said ‘goat’s milk’ with just an edge of hesitation.  Maybe guilt. Maybe code. Maybe both. They’d spoken with the same care used when adults spelled words they didn’t want children to hear….

“Yup…” I said.

But what happened when the child could spell?  You just made up a different word…

We pulled into her garage. I was unbuckled from the car seat and was trembling on her hip. Janet’s eyebrows knitted together and she placed a warm hand on my forehead. ”No fever,” she said. But she knew something was up.

How long?  How long had something been going on?  Was I even sure something was going on?

She carried me into the kitchen straight away and plopped me down into the highchair.  No restraints this time, just the tray.  She wanted to talk to me and look me in the eye without holding me. This was decidedly not a lap conversation.  She pulled her usual chair and positioned it directly in front of me so that we were nearly at eye level.

“So, a few things,” Janet began with a rehearsed rhythm. “I’m very proud of a lot of what you did today, okay?”

I was sitting as far back in that highchair as I could.  My skin was burning.  With what? I wasn’t sure. “Okay…”

“You’re a very smart boy,” Janet praised. “You knew when to be quiet, when to listen, and when to talk. You were perfect in the clinic and in the office.”

Just this Saturday, Janet had said the Yamatoan word for goat’s milk. Ivy used that same word just before suckling at her mother’s breasts…

“Hmmhmm...”

I’d already had dreams about it like my unconscious mind was trying to scream it at me…

“And you’re a very sweet, sweet, loving boy.  I know you just wanted to protect your old student.”

Fuck!  Why did she have to call Elmer my former student?  This wouldn’t be nearly as difficult if she stuck to the narrative that we’d fed Brollish.  Called Elmer ‘my friend’ or something. 

“Yeah,” I mumbled.

“And Ambrose? She deserved it.”

Hell yeah she did! Damn it! Why?!  “But…?”

“But what you did was very very impulsive and very very stupid,” she said as sternly as she dared.  Her face and voice instantly turned to putty.  This wasn’t Ms. Grange, the taskmaster of Third Grade. This was Janet. “It’s a miracle you weren’t hurt worse than you were! Do you have any idea how worried everyone was for you?!”

I lowered my eyes to the tray. I gave a half-hearted, sheepish, “Sorry…”

I chewed on my tongue, hoping, daring her to demand that I repeat myself. Call her ‘Mommy’.  Come on Janet. I’ve taken one Amazon bitch today. Two if you count Brollish.  Let me go for the hat trick.

The dark haired woman let down her hair and shook it out, seeming more vulnerable, instead.  “And if things hadn’t gone in just the right way, who knows what would have happened?!  You could have been expelled.  Do you want to be expelled? Do you?”

Back down to the tray.  “No…”  I wanted to get the out of Oakshire Elementary. Just not like that.

“Do you want to get taken away from me because they think you’re dangerous or too hostile for me to take care of?”

I answered that one more readily. “No, ma’am.”

One giant hand draped itself gently over my contritely folded pair.  “Promise me you’ll never do something that stupid ever again.”

I’d already made that promise once today to Beouf.  I’d broken it just as quickly.  “I promise.” This time it felt weightier on my shoulders. Like I was saying more than just words to stop her from worrying.  I think…I think I really meant it this time.

Janet took my hands in both of hers and squeezed them gently, just enough pressure so I could feel it, taking special care not to injure the bandaged one. “Okay.  I believe you.”  She stood up to her full height so that she was once again above me, a judge ready to hand down her sentence.  “You’re grounded.”

I looked up at her, not breaking eye contact.  “Okay.”

“No T.V. until Friday.”

“I understand.” 

“Suspended from school means suspended from friends. No friend visits until Friday. That includes Little Voices”

I twitched. That one stung. “Yes ma’am.”

“No wandering around the house unattended. If you’re not in your crib, you’re with me. Clear?”

“Yeah,” I said glumly.

“Any questions?”

Time to fight.

“When did you switch out goat milk for breast milk in my bottle?”

Right then and there I would have liked for any number of things to happen:  I would have liked for Janet to have lied and told me that I was a silly Little boy with a big imagination. I would have loved for her to try and misdirect me; act confused or use word play. Technically all milk was breast milk. We just only called them breasts on people.  I wanted her to get defensive. I wanted to present my evidence and have it batted away time and time again with easily refutable counter arguments so that I could get mad and shout at the top of my lungs what a hypocritical bitch she’d been; pretending to care about me and listen to me while still withholding basic truths about what she was subjecting me to.  

I wanted her to lie to me; for her to do it poorly so I could catch her. Or maybe for her to lie so well that I might yet believe her and let her gaslight me. Or maybe I could get in on the lie, make it a shared lie.

But like so much in my life, things were not going according to my plan and what I wanted didn’t really factor in.

Shock blasted itself across Janet’s face. She slowly sat back down and took a deep breath.  “A while,” she admitted. “Pretty much as soon as the real goat milk ran out the first time.”  She avoided eye contact.  “How’d you figure it out?”

“I asked myself why you’d have a bottle of goat milk at school and no diaper bag to carry it in.”

“Damn,” Janet hissed under her breath. At a normal volume, she said, “My production has started increasing.  And you were liking it. Seemed a shame to keep expressing and pouring it down the drain.”

“Why’d Beouf mess up like that?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Janet said, looking more and more like she wanted to crawl into a hole and die. “I haven’t had the chance to ask. I think she thought I’d told you, and we were just using code words for your pride.”

In a way, that’s kind of what they were doing.  In a way, I kind of already knew. I just hadn’t wanted to know for sure.  “Yeah,” I nodded. “That makes sense.”

“Do you wanna know why?” Janet asked.

My shoulders slumped and I slowly shook my head.  “Not really. I think I figured it out.”

“Do you wanna tell me?” she offered.

I took a deep breath through my nose and puffed it out through my mouth.  Then again.  “Doctor gave you pills. You started lactating. You started slipping it in and replacing it until I couldn’t tell the difference.” I paused and shuddered again. “Probably didn’t even plan it like that. Just had the idea out of nowhere and tried it.”

“Thank you,” she whispered, grateful for the benefit of the doubt.  “Clark I…”

I stopped her. “Don’t. I was making your life miserable. You were tired. You thought you were helping me. I get it.”

I would have been overjoyed if she had taken the opportunity to list the supposed benefits of Amazon breast milk.  I would have taken snippets about oxytocin, or digestive health, or bonding, or whatever and shoved them right up her nose. No such luck. I was swinging and she was taking every hit right on the chin.

“You’re right.”  Janet said. “I’m still sorry.”

“Sometimes saying you’re sorry isn’t enough.”  I threw back her words right in her face.

My Mommy nibbled on her bottom lip.  “What do you suggest?”

I looked her right in the eye and told her the truth. “I don’t know.”

“I’m not changing your punishment.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “That’s fair. I screwed up.”

“I did too,” she undid the tray, and reached forward  “Hug?”

“No, thank you.”

She took her hands back.  “Sorry.”  She reached forward again. “I’m gonna put you down on the floor.”

“Okay.”

“It’s okay to be mad,” Janet said.

“I know.” I waited until she planted me back down on the kitchen floor.  “I’m just disappointed.”  It was true too.  Both of our faces fell. No tears though.  Just an awkward silence that built throughout the night no matter how much we talked and a growing cacophony in my brain every second we weren’t. I felt an ache inside me that had nothing to do with my guts.

************************************************************************************************************
I paced my crib, gritting my teeth and muttering to myself.  “You can do this,” I grunted and growled. “You can do this.” 

My eyes remained fixated on the baby monitor just out of reach.  “She hasn’t heard you. You’re not hypnotized. You’re not mindfucked. You’ve just been working harder, not smarter.”  The subtle squeaks of the mattress and the loud crinkling of my nighttime diaper filled my ears while my pulse quickened.

“She fucking drugged you!” I said. I gripped the rail with my fingers, and dug my toes into the mattress. Both were done through mittened gloves and feet. Not a punishment, supposedly. Just extra thick jammies for an incoming cold friend.  “Shoved her own bodily fluids into your mouth! That bitch!”

In the far corner, Lion sat passively, completely unimpressed with my theatrics.  She was just an Amazon. Baby crazy to the core with layers and layers of benevolent narcissism.  Should I really feel that surprised? That betrayed? This is exactly what Amazons did. This was just another check on the bingo card.  I was fortunate that she didn’t take me to the nearest public playground and pop her tit in my mouth for all to see and gawk at.

“It’s not like I’d confirmed it! It’s not like I knew knew!  It’s not like if she’d asked I would have said ‘yes’!”

It would have been nice to have been asked though.  Maybe even tempting.

Lion went sailing over the top rib.  “Fuck you…” I growled at the traitor.

“And this fucking monitor!” I said. “Make me have to call her…call her that word to get her attention.  Even though we had a deal that I wouldn’t have to do that in private.  So much for that!  Typical!” 

To be fair, she had forgotten to tell me that part. An honest mistake.

JUST LIKE SHE’D FORGOTTEN TO TELL ME ABOUT WHAT THE MILK REALLY WAS!

I planted my feet and leaned hard at the foot of the crib. She wanted me to use the monitor. She was going to get what she wanted.  I now had seventy two hours alone with her to sleep deprive her and break her will and make her existence as miserable as possible.

“Mommy,” I said.  Instantly the tiny light on the monitor blinked on, a beacon in the darkness of the room.  “Mommy, I hate you!.  I hate you, Mommy.  I hate you.  I hate you, Mommy.  I hate you, Mommy. I hate you Mommy..” 

I started building up steam inside myself, smiling wickedly.  “I hate you, Mommy!  Mommy I hate you! Mommy! I hate you! Mommy! Mommy! Mommy! I hate you, Mommy!” 

Oh it felt good to be saying it again! To be saying it and knowing that Janet was hearing it! Saying a stupid password so a machine would click on was worth it!  Especially because it meant Janet was hearing the word she most wanted to hear combined with the phrase she least wanted me to be able to say.

“I hate you Mommy!”  I wasn’t whispering anymore. Screw subtlety. Brash impulse had carried the day so far!  I started counting on my fingers and toes, wiggling them through the jammies, keeping track in sets of twenty. My left hand was just starting to hurt again, but that was a plus in my book.

Just like I’d intended, I’d drive that Amazon bitch to the brink of despair and hypocrisy. I’d either keep her up all night or force her to turn a blind ear to me.  She was no friend! She was an addict posing as a caregiver!  But I wasn’t going to give her her fix!

After a hundred rounds, I started marching around the crib. “I! HATE! MOMMY!...I! HATE! MOMMY!... I HATE! MOMMY!”

I was on strike! I was picketing! Clapping my muffled hands and repeating those words until I didn’t know where the end of one phrase started and the other began.  “MOMMY! I! HATE! MOMMY! I HATE! I!” I was grinning like an idiot and feeling like a superhero. “HATE! MOMMY! I!...HATE! MOMMY! I!”

The nursery door winged open. A familiar outline entered the room and flicked on the light. “Mommy?!”

Standing in front of me was Janet in all of her non glory. Her wet hair from our shower was combed and down and everything about her body language reeked of quiet guilt. She wore loose fitting pink pajamas that almost complimented my fuzzy blue ones.  Her eyes were puffy and tired, her smile nervous and self-deprecating.

“Hey,” she said. “You called?”

I clenched my good fist. Now or never. “I hate you, Janet!” There! I said it! Ha! Take that mental block!  “I hate you so much!”

She stood up tall for a second and then slumped back down. “Yeah. That’s fair.”

“What?”

She walked over to my crib and lowered the rail.  “You sound like you need some company. Would you like some?”

“Janet,” I said, completely discombobulated. “Didn’t you hear me? I said ‘I hate you, Mommy’.”

She picked me up and cradled me so that I was still sitting up.  “I heard you, baby. I still love you, though. No matter what.”

“Nonononononononono!” I started to kick and struggle away from her rapidly approaching bosom. “Not again! Not again!”

The Amazon put me down on the floor, holding my arms immobile just so I wouldn’t hit her.  “I’m  not gonna do that!” she hushed. “Sorry! Sorry! I’m not gonna do that! I fucked up! Sorry!”

I regained control of myself.  “What?”  Had she just dropped an F-Bomb?

“You heard me.”

Back to the game, then. “I hate you.”

“I know,” she chirped. ”That doesn’t change how I feel. I still love you.”

“I hate you, Mommy!”

She picked me up again.  “Do you want to tell me you hate me here, or do you want to keep Mommy company in her bedroom?”

“Bedroom?” I parroted. Why was she taking me to her bedroom? “I…I…bedroom?”

Janet took that for consent. “Okay. I’d like that. Come on.”  She took three steps and stopped beside my stuffie.  “Oops! Almost forgot Lion.”  She balanced me on one hip so she could lean down and pick him up.  “Do we leave him here or bring him with?”

“What’s going on?” I asked. “Why are you doing this?”

“Okay,” she said. “Let’s leave him here to guard the room.”

“NO!” I shouted.

“Okay. He can come with us.  We have room.”

“I hate you!” I repeated. “I hate you, Mommy!”

“Yup.”

Nursery gave way to hallway, hallway bled into living room. Living room passed by kitchen and entryway to the dark, peaceful bedroom.  “Mommy! Stop! I hate you!”  I tore Lion from her grasp and clung to him.  More like she handed him over to me, but still…

Janet let out a big yawn. A lioness in the heat of the savannah. “I’m tired,” she said.  “Keep me company in bed? Tell me you hate me while we fall asleep?”  Over by the gargantuan bed, so similar to what I’d slept in back in my old house was the detachable infant cot.  She’d finally put it together.

“I’m not sleeping in that!” I pointed as best I could to the baby bed attached to the real one.

My Mommy considered it for a second and then responded with, “Okay. How about Lion sleep in it tonight?  You can cuddle with me.”

“This changes nothing!”

“Okay.”

“This doesn’t make up for the milk thing!”

“Agreed.”

“Then why…?  I hate you!”

My padded bum made contact with the massive mattress. So soft! Softer than I even remembered.  “Okay,” Janet said, plucking Lion from me and putting him in the bassinet.  Keep me company?”

“I…I…” I froze.  “Yeah.  Yeah.  Okay.”

“Thank you, sweetie.” she pulled me in close to her and worked her way to the head of her bed, gently tugging me along and tucking us both under the covers, burying us each under the massive duvet on her perfectly made bed.

The covers!. Heavier than anything than had been put in my crib thus far, but the deep pressure provided a sense of regulation. I was practically swimming! Floating in a warm bathtub where I had no hope or fear of drowning.

“Okay,” she told me softly. “Tell me that you hate me.  I’m ready.”

The warmth from another person’s body!  Another sensation I did not expect to relive any time soon. I’d sat in Janet’s lap and been carried to the point where she was almost a living piece of furniture where my body was concerned, but this was different.

Damn did she smell good, too. Like so much more than lavender and piss. “I don’t want to,” I grumbled. “Not right now.”

“Okay,” Janet said.  “Can I give you one last kiss before I fall asleep?”

This was a trick. Or a trap. Something about her smell was conditioning me. Pheromones or something!  Or the blankets had something in them that was draining my energy away.  Or there was a subliminal message playing in the room that only affected me!  “Okay,” I whimpered. “Kiss me.”

She gave me one soft kiss right between the eyes.  “I love you,” she cooed and then nestled down, cradling me in the crook of her arm right beside her,

No escaping it. Not tonight.  I was hurt and exhausted; physically and emotionally drained. Confused beyond all reason and deep down I just wanted a tiny taste of peace that didn’t feel like burning oblivion or hurting someone who truly, madly, deeply, loved me.

So I closed my eyes.
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Janet’s soft coos and probing fingers woke me.  “Morning, sleepy head.”

“Hrn?” I groaned.  I turned my head to the side. We were back in the nursery. I was on the changing table.  Janet was still in her pajamas, and my snaps were undone all the way up to my waist. 

Morning birds were singing and the first shafts of sunlight were shining through the window, but it was still incredibly early.  Zoge and Ivy were meeting Beouf at the bus loop right about now.   “Mommy’s just gonna change you and take you back to bed.”

“Huh?” I groaned, rubbing my eyes. “Why?”

“We’ve got the day off. Remember?”

“But…”

Janet ripped the tapes off the landing zone and the cold chill of morning air on urine soaked privates and colder chill of a fresh baby wipe made their way over me, same as every morning. That’s not what surprised me, however. I’d woken up wet, messy, or on the verge of exploding every day since my life had been turned sideways. Yet this was the first time I didn’t remember waking up in the middle of the night to relieve myself. I had legitimately peed myself while unconscious.  I was a bedwetter!

“Go back to sleep, Clark.” Janet shushed me, taping up the fresh diaper so that it was nice and snug. So dry. So clean. So comfortable. “I just didn’t want you to leak. Go back to sleep.”

End Part 9