The Exchange,

Chapter 5
The exchange part 5

Chapter Description: Sandra gets a check-up and a new friend

"....Interesting, and you haven’t noticed anything else strange?....I see..."

Sandra woke to hear a man talking, his voice deep yet soft. She rubbed at her eyes. Where was she now? She looked around but couldn’t see anything. She was completely covered in some white material, the material was thin and she could see daylight through it and grey shapes of objects beyond. It reminded her of times when she was a real kid and she would hide under her bedsheets during the summer. Under the covers used to be light enough to see. She looked down at herself, and noticed she was completely naked.

"Hey, where are my clothes?"

"Sounds like someone is finally awake" The man said.

"Oh thank goodness."

Sandra heard Anya, it sounded like she was upset. Why was her mummy upset. Sandra struggled against the material surrounding her. Why couldn’t she get out? She wanted to see why mummy sounded sad. She suddenly felt motion and guessed someone had come to help her, and sure enough a few seconds later the material was stripped away. Sandra could now see she had been in some sling type contraption and had been hooked up to a set of weighing scales.

She blinked at the sudden change in lighting and she didn’t have time to focus before she was gathered up and hugged extra specially tight.

"you little terror, you gave me such a fright!"

Sandra didn’t understand, what exactly was going on. She looked up at her mummy and saw that her face was blotchy, as if she had been crying. Sandra instinctively grabbed a fistful of Anya’s hair. Sandra instantly felt better now that she was in Anya’s arms. Anya smiled down at her and gave her a little reassuring squeeze.

"She seems to be a healthy weight for her age, she seems bright and alert now, it might simply be the case that she’s exhausted. As you well know its uncharacteristic for an Exchange subject to be aware this early on in the trip, it may had adverse side effects, the fact that we’ve started her so young means our normal rules and procedures may not apply quite so easily."

Sandra looked over to the man, abruptly aware that she was completely naked in front of him she actually found herself wishing to have a nappy put on her at least to cover up a little.

The man had almost raven black long hair,it had a bluish tinge to it and had silver at the temples, his hair had been tied back into a neat ponytail, he had stubble growing into a short goatee beard this too had flecks of silver. He was wearing a white doctors coat and had a pair of slim-line glasses perched on his nose. He noticed she was looking at him and his serious expression softened. He leant over and gently plucked her up from Anya and settled her on his own lap, she looked up at him, and noticed something odd, he had that same smell. The smell Anya had, the smell that made her think of safety and comfort. Suddenly she didn’t mind being naked on this man’s lap. He spoke, his voice full of regret

"You know I haven’t had time to really see you both."

Anya nodded slowly.

"Yes I know, but I know you’ve been really busy here. I was actually going to bring her over later this afternoon, but I guess I don’t need to now. You’ll be home later tonight though right"

The man nodded. Sandra didn’t understand what was going on, she looked between her mummy and this man, she looked back and forth between them and suddenly noticed the way they were looking at one another. The man took his glasses off and pinched the bridge of his nose, sighing.

"If I had had any indication that she would be aware today I swear I would have taken the day off"

Anya remained seated but leant across and placed a hand on his knee patting it reassuringly.

"Its okay, I managed."

She leant back and smiled. He returned the smile and then looked down at a rather confused looking Sandra, he lightly chuckled at her expression.

"And you, young lady...."

His sentence was cut off short when he suddenly jumped to his feet, holding Sandra out at arms length. His voice full of light amusement

"I should have been more careful, I was asking for trouble wasn’t I?"

Anya was confused for a split second.

"Whats wron...Ah!"

Anya started laughing, not her usual light chuckle but full on humoured laughing. It was obvious what was wrong cause it was still going on, Sandra had, and was continuing to wet herself. Being held out at arms length she continued to dribble down her little chubby legs and onto the carpet below. She looked down at the puddle that was forming underneath her, and looked at the large wet patch she had made on the man’s trousers.

She hadn’t even realised that she needed to go. It felt like the bottom of her heart had fallen out, she felt beyond distressed. She was disgusted by herself, and wanted to crawl into a hole and die, but the two adults in the room didn’t seem to think it was disgusting, in fact Mummy laughing had infected the man too as he was now laughing as well. Sandras eyes were brimming full of tears but the fact that everyone seemed to be humoured by the situation stopped her from actually crying.

Sandra had finally stopped relieving herself and the man moved to one side of the consultation room they were in and placed her on a table. Anya moved to his side, having gone into the changing bag she still carried and produced a clean disposable nappy.

"Are you going to dress her?" Anya asked in disbelief.

"Sure. how hard can it be, I mean i’m a qualified doctor of genetics, dressing a baby should be a breeze" the man shrugged the question off lightly as he took the disposable from Anya and lifted Sandras legs to place the disposable underneath.

"You need to clean her up first" Anya quietly suggested.

"Yes, yes I knew that. I was just getting her ready." he said, trying to cover up his mistake.

Meanwhile Sandra wasn’t sure if she wanted to get off the table or whether she wanted to co-operate, currently she was naked, was being diapered better or worse? Considering the mess she had just made, perhaps it was for the best of all those concerned that she was thoroughly padded. If she had a choice she’d rather go in the confinements of a nappy than make a mess all over the floor again.

She decided, even though she felt ashamed of herself, that she’d be better off wearing nappies, at least for the time being. The man had cleaned her up using a baby wipe and was struggling to fold the disposable round her waist properly. It wasn’t helping that Sandra was squirming a little so every time he thought he had her in the right place she would move. Eventually he got her taped in, albeit slightly lopsidedly. Anya had just stood back and watched. A flicker of a smile on her face. The humour was still in her voice

"not so easy huh Blake?"

The man shook his head. "not so easy." he confirmed.

Sandra looked up at the man as he grinned down at her. At least she knew his name now. It had been annoying that she had been naked in his company for quite some time and hadn’t even known his name. He lifted Sandra back up to view his handy work.

"You might as well put her clothes back on too, she’s probably getting cold"

Anya handed Blake her yellow denim monster outfit and onesie. Popping Sandra down onto her back Blake nodded, he’d done the tricky part surly this couldn’t be any harder. 10 minutes later he was visibly sweating.

"My god it’s like putting an octopus into a string bag."

He said as he tried for the third time to thread one of Sandra’s flailing arms into the onesie. Sandra was getting visibly upset, she had decided to try and help Blake dress her to get it over with quicker but she seemed to be doing more harm than good. Her body didn’t really want to cooperate and she found that helping was simply hindering the progress. This was the first time she’d been awake whilst being dressed, every other time she had woken up to find herself in a new outfit. Anya gently pushed Blake out of the way. She’d seen him suffer enough.

"Here let me finish up here, why don’t you go find yourself a dry pair of pants and some towels to mop up the mess on the floor you cant see any other patients today with that wet patch there."

Blake admitted defeat, mumbled something under his breath and disappeared off. Anya worked quickly and efficiently, carefully guiding one arm, then the other through the onesie and doing the poppers up between the legs. Sandra didn’t like the way the onesie pulled the nappy up tighter between her legs, it made it difficult to ignore that it was there. Gently Anya pulled the yellow overalls on and fastened the shoulder straps. Lastly pulling Sandra up into a sitting position she pulled on her booties just as Blake returned with some spray cleaner and sporting a new pair of pants, he’d taken off his white doctors jacket. Sandra thought he didn’t look quite so intimidating with it off.

He smiled when he saw that Sandra was fully dressed.

"Clearly i’m no match for the pro here."

He haphazardly sprayed the cleaner over the wet patch and threw a towel down on top of it.

Anya watched him for a moment then gathered Sandra up in her arms. Sandra instinctively clung to her.

"Well I guess we’ll see you later then. I want to take Sandy back to the shopping plaza there’s some stuff I need to get for dinner and I promised I’d take her some place special."

Blake nodded but kept his focus on scrubbing the wet patch.

"Okay, take her there but after that I would suggest going home. I’m unsure as to why she collapsed it could be nothing but then again we want to be careful, so don’t over do it"

Anyas lips fixed in a thin serious line. As she stuck Sandras pacifer back into her mouth.

"Ok i’ll be careful. See you later"

She walked over to him, bent down, kissed him on the cheek and then left him scrubbing Sandra’s mess. Leaving the clinic she turned a few corners walked a few corridors and came to a lift, soon they were back at the shopping plaza.

"Right where were we?" She said cheerfully to Sandra. Sandra had been carried in Anya’s arms the whole way and she’d been thinking heavily about Blake. She didn’t know peoples customs here but the way Anya and Blake interacted seemed to suggest they were a couple. Sandra wondered if that made Blake her paternal carer. It would explain why she recognised that familiar safety smell from him, and how they would be seeing him later. Why hadn’t Anya mentioned that Sandra had a father figure too? She felt anxious, having one person fuss over her was bad enough, but now it looked like she was part of a whole family unit. Were there brothers or sisters she hadn’t found out about yet?

"First off I need to get some groceries, we’re running out of baby wipes and if that happens god help us all right"

She grinned and ruffled Sandras hair. Sandra blushed

"And I need some bits and pieces for dinner tonight."

She was heading for a large shop that had people bustling in and out. It was obvious it was a supermarket. They walked in and Sandra looked around, it could easily have been just a normal Wal-mart store except the shelves were lined with really random things she had never seen before. The place looked neater than a normal Wal-mart though and Sandra couldn’t quite place her finger on why that was. The odd thing was, everyone’s shopping baskets were empty. People were walking up to shelves picking items up putting them in the basket then taking them out and putting them back on the shelves. There was the occasional item staying in the basket but other than that everyone’s baskets were empty. Sandra’s curiosity was piqued. She was interested to know what was going on here.

Anya walked over to some shopping trolleys there were a couple of specially designed trolleys and Anya picked one of only 5 that had a child seat and threaded Sandra into it. She also placed the white changing bag in the trolley. Sandra looked down at her legs dangling as Anya pushed the trolley down the vegetable aisle. Like everyone else Anya picked things up, let them drop into the trolley and then retrieved the item and put it back. It seemed on closer inspection of the shelves that there was 5 of each item and that was it. Sandra grinned, that was why the place looked neater, there wasn’t giant stacks of cans, just 5. 5 of everything. She surmised that if no-one was actually buying the stuff there was no reason to stock large quantities of goods.

Sandra watched in fascination as Anya walked through the store repeating the strange process with even stranger items. Anya at one point looked down and saw the stern concentration on Sandra’s face. She laughed light-heartedly.

"Are you watching what mummy is doing? Or are you filling your pants again?"

Sandra averted her gaze feeling embarrassed for the umpteenth time today, she didnt think she was filling her pants as her mummy put it, but then she wasn’t overly confident that she would be aware if she was or wasn’t until either she felt wet or she smelt bad.

Suddenly Sandra went cold. She hadn’t thought about that. So far she had only wet herself, she was not looking forward to the prospect of it coming out the other end. Clearly a new level of humiliation was awaiting its chance to jump out and bite her. She clung onto the bar of the baby seat feeling dread in the pit of her stomach. She noticed on the bar on the right hand side was a strange indentation. She went to touch it.

"ah ah ahh sweetie, no touchy"

Sandra looked at the button and went to touch it again and this time Anya’s voice was more stern.

"Sandra I said No!"

Sandra decided it was probably best left alone, it was weird hearing her mummy call her by her full name, it sounded more authoritative. More like she shouldn’t push her luck. She stared at the button and pouted.

Soon they were in the baby section of the store. This part of the store was really quiet which was a stark contrast to the rest of the store. Anya picked up some baby wipes and some bottle steriliser a couple of cute new pacifiers with random animals printed on them, Sandra didn’t recognise the animals, but she assumed they were animals because they had eyes. Then Anya swivelled the trolley over to the baby clothes and let out a little squeal.

"Oh look how adorable this is"

She plucked the outfit up off the shelf. Sandra recognised it as that weird red pineapple fruit she had seen at the veg shop earlier. It even had a little hat with the leaves that jingled like wind chimes. Sandra was reminded of Halloween where parents would dress their babies up like pumpkins. She really didn’t want to wear that.

"You would just look too edible in this. It’ll be perfect for the party next week."

Sandra could see her mummy was just adoring the outfit, she resigned herself to the fact that she was going to end up looking like a red wind chime pineapple at some point in the not too distant future. Again the outfit went in the basket and then came right back out again.

Soon they approached the checkout the queues weren’t too long, other people in their queue kept looking at Sandra and she felt self conscious. Every so often someone would comment on how cute she was or make some random babyish noise in her direction. Sandra wanted to sink into the seat and hide, but her mummy was loving it. Her chest puffed out proudly she was positively radiating happiness. Sandra enjoyed seeing her mummy this happy and she felt herself becoming slightly less shy as a result.

Soon it was their turn at the cash till and Anya pressed the little button on the bar that Sandra had noticed earlier and a credit card popped out of a slot Sandra hadn’t even seen. She handed the card to the cashier he swiped it handed it back and Anya placed it back in the slot. She then put her palm on a small flat screen and there was a short beep and a green light and the cashier simply bowed and said

"Thank you for your custom"

With that Anya pushed the trolley out the other side of the checkout and the next person in the queue repeated the process.

"Right with that done we can go onto the fun stuff right kiddo!"

Anya pushed the trolley back to the trolley bay, lifted Sandra out of the seat and walked off back into the main shopping precinct. Sandra really didn’t understand what exactly had just happened. they didn’t have any shopping, what exactly was going on.

"Where’s the food?"

She asked confused forgetting that here, right now, she was simply talking baby babble.

"wa sa wa, wa sa wa!, what ever are you trying to say. I wish I could understand you, it would make mummys life so much easier." Anya cooed at her baby. "yes it would, yes it would"

She stopped momentarily to tickle Sandra and Sandra burst into rapturous giggles, a few people that walked past smiled as they watched the public display of parental affection.

Anya had left the supermarket and was walking down the main shopping precinct once more, she approached a shop and walked in. Sandra looked at all the colourful displays. Toys as far as she could see. Was this where her mummy was so keen to take her? She was 28, why would she love a toy store. The shop keeper came up to them, he had blonde hair short and messy, little grey eyes and was exceptionally thin, his face full of enthusiasm, a large grin plastered on his face

"Oh welcome, welcome" he rubbed his hands eagerly. Sandra was reminded of the villain in pantomimes. "if you need anything don’t hesitate to ask" With that he retreated back behind the safety of the cashier desk.

Anya lowered Sandra to the floor, not completely though. She held onto Sandra’s hands so Sandra’s feet were on the floor but Anya was holding her up.

"Come on Sandy, you’ve been such a good girl you deserve a treat. You can pick out a toy and I will buy it for you"

Sandra toddled very unstably along the first row of toys. She didn’t know what she was looking for and nothing really took her interest. To be honest she was concentrating more on staying upright than looking at what was on the shelves, although Sandra was under no pretence that the only reason she was staying on her feet was because her mummy was holding her up.

She toddled down one aisle and then the next. The third aisle was the stuffed animal section and as Sandra walked down it she stopped. She had decided she didn’t want a toy, she might look like an infant but she wasn’t planning on acting like one any time soon, she wasn’t a baby and playing with toys was just pointless, but that had been her conviction before she had seen ’It’.

It looked like a stereotypical dragon. It had a happy face and was large and green. Its wings were yellow and it had a yellow belly. She didn’t know why, but she needed it. It seemed to be calling to her, maybe it was its happy face, maybe it was the bright colours. She had never needed anything more in her entire life, even back a couple of years ago when she had seen a new computer for a really good price she hadn’t been ’THAT’ impulsive. She headed for the toy and plucked it from the shelf giving it a squeeze. She hadn’t realised that the tail had a jingly bell embedded into it, and it jingled as she hugged it. The yellow wings crinkled as she hugged it. She realised it was one of those sensory toys for really young children. She had picked something in her age bracket, she felt odd about that. How strange that she hadn’t felt any inclination towards anything else in the store until she’d gotten into the preschool section. Anya was positively beaming at her daughters choice.

"Do you like him sweetie? He’s a very happy friend to have"

Sandra clung to him as if her life depended on it. She felt strange for wanting a toy, she hadn’t expected this sort of reaction from herself at all and it confused her somewhat. Absent mindedly she chewed on one of his ears. Anya plucked the toy from her grasp.

"Wait until mummy pays for it kiddo"

She chuckled, but was instantly met with a loud wail. Sandra was crying, inconsolably crying. Sandra felt strange, her adult self was confused but the baby side was overpowering her, and it really really wanted that toy. She felt terrible having it taken off of her and she really needed it back. Anya quickly put the toy back in Sandra’s grasp and almost instantly the crying subsided.

"Okay Sandy, can you carry your new friend to the shop keeper?"

Sandra nodded. Now she was a conundrum though as holding tight with one arm to her new toy she couldn’t hold her Mummy’s hands to stay upright. Anya realised the problem and scooped Sandra up into her arms and carried her to the checkout. The man there smiled at the mother and daughter and Anya waved her hand over the small palm sized grid and he went to take the dragon away from Sandra, but Anya stopped him.

"No it’s quite all right we’ll take it now"

Nodding he retreated his hands "okay thank you for your custom" he bowed as they left.

Sandra hugged her new toy, she felt really happy. Happier than she had done since she was a real kid, the feeling of elation almost made up for the feeling of humiliation she had felt earlier. Currently she felt really lucky. She was warm, dry, well fed and well looked after, what more could she ask for.

Anya could feel her baby squirming happily in her arms. Life was good, no life was better than she had ever dreamed possible. Together mother and child headed home.