College or Cribs

Chapter 18
Playdate

Chapter Description: Chris must confront his biggest challenge yet: A little girl

Chapter 18: Playdate

“What a revolting development this is,” Chris muttered to himself as he sat moping in the tiny chair, his knees close to chest level from how low the chair was to the ground. He shifted uncomfortably in the plastic seat and heard his own diaper loudly crinkle, probably still dry.

As this reality of him treated like a baby had stretched on from a few hours to what was at least two days, it was getting harder and harder to tell whether he was wet or dry unless he was in the middle of being changed. His diapers tended to wick wetness away from the skin, and the feeling of a broken in, but otherwise unused Pampers was becoming nearly indistinguishable to him from the feeling of a wet diaper once the urine cooled down to room temperature. The sudden rush of air on wet privates, and the crisp dryness of a fresh diaper as it was fastened onto him, however, still managed to be distinct and pleasurable- a fact his penis had advertised to Roxanne this morning as she changed him. Though, to be fair, the intimacy of her motherly cooing and the sharp relief he felt that it was his step-mother and most definitely not his kid sister wiping him down most definitely also contributed to his little soldier standing at attention while he had lain on the changing table.

No, his diaper wasn’t the problem. The dress he was wearing was. Chris stared at his knees, covered in bright, nauseatingly pink cotton, with the skirt of the dress puddling at his feet with frills embroidered around its edge. His shoulders were bare and exposed except for the frilly ruffles that resembled rosebuds. The cut of the almost neon pink abomination that hung off his shoulders was very modest and “ladylike”, but the damn thing was at least two sizes too big for him and so the whole ensemble drooped off of him like he was some type of cheap hooker or a last minute prom shopper at a thrift store who didn’t even know how to sew.

To add insult to injury, there was the plastic tiara, the sides of which sank in behind his ears like a pair of giant novelty sunglasses won from a carnival. To prevent, the front of the tiara from sliding over his face like the aforementioned sunglasses, his captor had ingeniously used an old birthday party hat- the bright yellow cardboard kind with the elastic string that went around the intended wearer’s chin- to strap the degrading accessory in place and make the whole outfit even more degrading. To sum up, Christopher Cole IV, pre-med student was currently wearing a diaper that fit him perfectly, a pink ball gown that was too big for him and a plastic tiara strapped to his head by a child’s party hat. In other words: he looked and felt like a clown-whore.

He looked at his fellow captives. To his left, a Dorra the Explorer doll that had had a bad fight with a permanent marker, and lost…but at least she got to wear shorts and a t-shirt, lucky bitch. Chris suspected that Dorra’s clothes were sewn on and couldn’t be removed, if the other prisoner was any indication. To his right, was a naked baby doll, with dirt smudges in uneven splotches on its cloth-like skin; at least he hoped that it was dirt. Its plastic head, too heavy to be held up by its own stuffed shoulders, drooped in defeat, its spirit broken.

Sitting directly in front of him across the round, yellow plastic play table, holding a plastic tea pot which she daintily mimed pouring into a miniature plastic tea cup, was his present captor and tormentor: Angela. This had been the playdate that Roxanne had been talking about. Even with the two days in between of being treated his age- the incident with Sherry finding him in a wet Depends notwithstanding- Roxanne hadn’t forgotten the encounter at the library with her old friend Barbara and her pre-school daughter, Angela. They had set up a meeting, Chris remembered, so that Angela could play with a baby, act as a trial run for being a big sister, and remind Barbara what it was like to be mother to a child that required regular ass wipings. Also, it was an excuse for the two women to gab like when they were sorority sisters, or high school pals, or whatever-the-hell younger age they were when they were best friends and inseparable yada yada yada.

To be fair, while no detective, Chris had known something was up as he was being dressed for the day. Roxanne had neglected to dress Chris in anything other than a t-shirt and diaper for the day. When going out in public with his then infant and toddler sisters, Roxanne had always dressed Sammy and Bri in onesies, shorts, shortalls, or baby dresses with matching diaper covers no less. Basically, they never went out without wearing something that would cover their diapers.

Chris had asked her why, and Roxanne had replied with “Would you want to be out in public in just your underwear?”

Chris had thought to himself, “If the underwear is a diaper and I could get away with it, maybe,” but had instead answered, “But, they don’t care, and I don’t think anyone else would either.”

“Well I do,” Roxanne had told him, “When you’re a parent and you’re dressing your children, you can decide what they go out in, but till then, my babies, my rules.”

As he had been buckled into the car seat in what was functionally just his underwear, Chris knew something was up. Roxanne would have to be extremely comfortable with whomever they were visiting to let them see one of her darling babies in an “indecent” state. Within fifteen minutes, his conclusion was validated as they pulled up to the one story, pale yellow house that looked tiny compared to Roxanne’s two story brick.

Her step-son on her hip and a diaper bag on the opposite shoulder, Roxanne knocked. The door flung open.

“Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!” The two women had said-sung to each other as soon as the front door had swung open.

“Come in, come in.” Barbara gestured with a half bow, her short brown hair contrasting against Roxanne’s pale blonde locks.

They weren’t five steps inside the house when Chris found himself rump first on the floor looking up at the two women as they hugged like long lost sisters who hadn’t seen each other in ages, never mind the library a few short days ago.

“It’s been too long,” Barbara said.

“Ages,” Roxanne smiled back.

“Uh…library?” Chris piped in, not caring that he was going to be ignored.

“Look at us,” Barbara said as she and Roxanne walked over to a nearby tan couch and sat, “we’re Mommy’s now. The both of us.”

“Honestly wouldn’t have expected it, myself Babs,” Roxanne had agreed. “Now I’m doing the baby bit one more time,” she sighed. “It’s worth it though, and fun,” she added. Roxanne looked over to Chris, “Isn’t that right my wittle Chrissy?!” Chris felt himself blushing a little as he took in the house.

This was definitely a house where a small child lived. Dishes in the sink not yet washed, some toys haphazardly piled in the corner, the hum of an overworked washing machine humming somewhere in the distance and a stressed out middle aged woman on the couch looking at a peer like a visitor from a foreign land. All the signs were there.

“Angela!” Roxanne’s friend called out, “Come out here sweetie, mommy has a playmate for you!”

And in a blur of tromping feet, there she was. Angela: Three feet of toddler terror wearing pink light-up shoes, black tights, a polka-dot skirt, a purple Barney T-Shirt and her tow headed hair up in pig tails. The hell had happened to the quiet little girl, hiding behind her mommy’s legs in the library? Giggling with excitement, her gaze fell on Chris and her eyes widened. “Baby!” she gasped in an almost reverential awe.

“Yes, Angie, a baby.” Angela’s mother agreed. “This is, Chris, and he’s only…” she paused, “how old is Chris now, Roxanne? Eight months? Nine?”

“He’s just a baby,” Roxanne said as if that was a legitimate answer.

“Just a baby,” her friend, Barbara, Angela’s mother, echoed as if she had heard a legitimate answer. Only the old magician in the mall seemed to be immune to the reality warping properties that Chris had somehow inherited.

“Baby,” the little tot echoed. “Is he my baby?” Both women chuckled at that.

“Now, dearheart,” Barbara told her daughter, “he’s Roxie’s baby. But he’s here to play with you today. Won’t that be fun?” Angela nodded her little head so fast, Chris was briefly worried that it might roll off her head. “Now you two go play in your room for a little while, while Chris’s mommy and I talk, okay?”

What had happened next was a blur. Even though he was bigger and had several hundred pounds on her, the four year old was on Chris in an instant, her tiny hands underneath his armpits, and was dragging him across the carpet and down the hall before Chris could even think to do anything about it.

“Roxaaaa….Momeeeeeee!” Chris shouted instinctively, but he was through the threshold of the little girl’s bedroom before he had finished his cry.

“Are you sure he’s okay? I don’t want my Angie to hurt him on accident” Chris had heard a concerned Barbara ask

Roxanne.

“Oh don’t worry about Chris, he might be a baby, but he’s all boy.” Roxanne reassured.

The irony of that last statement before the door was slammed shut thundered in the room. Chris may have been “all boy”, but he was about the only thing that was anything boy in the room. The walls were a nauseating lavender color with flowers stenciled on. Yuck. In one corner was a toddler bed with a literal pile of unicorns on it. A shelf had “My Little Pony” toys prominently displayed. More girly stuff, blech. And her closet, doors flung wide open, was filled to the brim with dresses and toy jewelry. This, gentle readers, was a breeding ground for cooties and it reviled Chris down to the core of his being…perhaps more than it should have. The only remotely redeeming thing to his setup that Chris could make out was a small stack of pink Pull-Ups on the dresser by her bed. Apparently, this girl was a bed-wetter, Chris guessed. So it was still kind of babyish, but otherwise this room was made of the sickeningly sweet “sugar-and-spice-with-everything-nice-boys-are-yucky-let’s-play-with-dolls-and-be-faiyr-princeses-and-play-house,” phase that little girls went through when they reached pre-school age and lasted sometimes till puberty.

And then the little girl had said words that sent chills down Chris’s spine. “Let’s. Play. Dress. Up.” Chris had no choice in the matter. This little girly girl was faster and stronger than Chris, and had no trouble running to her closet, ripping a dress off a hanger and then pinning Chris down, ripping his shirt off of him and proceeding to dress him in the aforementioned pink garment. How was Chris supposed to have guessed that the dress and the tiara would pop and expand to scale as this little so-and-so violently tugged it over his head? Before this moment, every other thing that would normally have been too small for him came pre-enlarged. Then, quite unceremoniously, Chris found himself plopped down in a chair having the worst tea-party this side of Alice.

Chris had been stuck like this for either an eternity or under five minutes. Chris was so repulsed by this day and place that time had begun to lose meaning to him.

“More tea, Princess Poopy Pants?” Angela said, interrupting Chris’s own miserable reverie on current happenings. Chris meekly nodded and gently slid the cup forward so that his host could pretend to fill it up. At least that had been his intent, as the cup tipped over from its saucer and “spilled” onto the table.

“Oopsie daisy,” Angela proclaimed. “Princess Poopy Pants, you really must be more careful.”

Chris genuinely hadn’t meant to knock over the teacup. When he was by himself and with his own thoughts, he had the steady and dexterous hands of a future surgeon. He could independently move and manipulate each digit of his finger with precise accuracy and if he closed his eyes, he could imagine typing on a keyboard and picture each individual keystroke, backspaces included as he typed out his last term paper from memory. But for some reason, in his current state, every time he tried to use his hands on an outside object, they got a case of the stupids. They became clumsy, and slow, and fumbling, like a….well, you know. It was the only reason he hadn’t bothered trying to get this ridiculous outfit off of himself.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Chris knew that reality itself, and therefore the thrice damned bear, Wubby, was fucking with him. He should have known this was coming when the front panel of his Pampers this morning had Abby Cadabby adorning it. Then again, Chris mused, if Chris really was the chosen-one or whatever title he’d later give himself for being able to alter reality, and Wubby was just an extension of his subconscious desires, didn’t that mean that he was just punishing himself right now?

“There we are, Princess Poopy Pants,” Angela said, pushing forward a now “full” empty-cup of tea. God damn, Chris hated tea parties. He could talk to teddy-bears and play in play pens, but for some reason dolls and tea parties rubbed him the wrong way. That was odd, though, since Chris couldn’t remember ever having such strong opinions on the matter before. Could it be that his emotions had begun regressing to a “snips-and-snails-and-puppy-dog-tails-girls-have-cooties-let’s-play-soldier-and-be-monsters-and-play-power-rangers” mentality that so many little boys develop at a young age till they (re)discover boobs? If so, then sweet-sweet baby-hood and the joyful simplicity of mental existence as an infant wasn’t far behind. That’s how all the stories went, at least.

“But do you really want that?” A voice whispered in the back of Chris’s mind, and Chris was forced to think about the other life that he had somehow, impossibly, left behind.

The name “Princess Poopy Pants”, reminded him of another internet author on the Adult Baby sites he frequented, or rather used to frequent until very recently. Did that author even exist anymore? Her account and the websites she published on didn’t, that much was certain. The same was true for every Adult Baby or Age Play site that he knew of, as was every type of product from oversized pacifiers to adult diapers with babyish print on them. The very concept of “Adult Baby” no longer seemed to exist, yet alone websites and products catering to it. It’s likely, Chris reasoned, that all of his internet friends still existed, but as different people; normal people who didn’t have these interests anymore and as far as they could remember, never had. Now, Chris cornered the market, as far as he knew, on infantilist desires and products.

Though, maybe, just maybe, he hoped, they were all getting their fantasies, too. Maybe in some other city, somewhere, there was at least one other Adult Baby who had hit the reality jack pot, and now found themselves in a real-life variation of their deepest wish. Chris smiled at that thought.

The door to Angela’s room opened up a crack. “You two are awfully quiet in here,” Roxanne said, peeking in. Then she looked at Chris and her hand shot to her mouth to suppress a hearty guffaw. “Babs! C’mere! Roxanne called to Angela’s mommy. “You’ve GOT to see this, it is the cutest thing.” Chris’s face immediately matched the horrid dress that he had been so rudely imprisoned in.

“Fuck!” Chris yelped, examining himself.

“Oh, that is adorable!” Angela’s mommy beamed as she poked her head in the door. “Let’s go get our phones!”

“FUCK!” Chris repeated with urgency.

“Angela, baby,” the little terror’s mother instructed, “you stay right there while Chris’s mommy and I get ready to take a picture.”

“I’m not a baby,” the toddler corrected. “I’m a big girl.”

“Babs! Help!” Chris heard Roxanne call from the living room. “I can’t find my phone. Could you call it for me?”

“You’re right, Angie, Mommy’s sorry,” Barbara apologized, “now can you keep being a big girl for Mommy and keep your baby friend busy while I help his mommy find her phone?” Angela nodded and flashed a pumpkin toothed grin before Barbara fled the doorway to help Chris’s step-mom.

Chris’s heart was thumping out of his chest. Not now. Not this. Not a picture of him in a dress! That was every little boy’s worst nightmare and the kind of baby-picture blackmail that parents used on their children for decades. Chris had to get out of this dress and out of this room three seconds ago.

Chris acted fast. With all the grace of an 80’s robot toy, Chris clubbed the party hat off his head and heard a satisfying fwap as the elastic string recoiled while the party hat went sailing through the air. He shook his head rapidly and the tiara flew off his head.

“Uh oh,” he heard Angela say. Now for the dress.

Chris frantically ripped at his clothes, but to no avail. He couldn’t make his arms and shoulders cooperate enough to just slip out of the dress and push it down around his waist but he could maybe pull it over his head. He tried, once. Fail. Twice. Fail. Three times a failure. Every time he tugged up, he was stopped short as if something was caught underneath. It was almost as if he was wearing a onesie. (If only). Then Chris looked down at his lap.

“Duh!” Chris realized. He was sitting down and the dress enveloped his whole body. He was going to have to stand if he hoped to get this thing off in time and he had only a precious few seconds while the two mommies rifled through their purses to get a picture taking device.

Chris slammed his hands on the table so he could prop himself up. Angela began to shake her head and wag her finger. “No, no, no,” she lectured, “bad baby. You got ta sit down!” Chris ignored her and shifted his weight forward on the little table. Maybe he could use it to prop himself up enough and he could coast and half stand long enough to get the dress off before he plopped down.

Chris felt something as he leaned forward, though. He felt his cheeks spreading apart from the very center as he leaned forward. “Shit!” he hissed quite appropriately, and almost on instinct, kept rolling so that he was sitting on his knees, palms still flat on the table, with the heel of his right foot pressed up to his backside, acting as an impromptu butt plug.

Bottom line: Chris had to poop and he hadn’t realized it till right then. Now, the only thing stopping the mess from entering the back seat of his Pampers was his foot. He clenched his teeth and dug his fingernails into the yellow plastic in determination as years of potty training combined with what was left of a young man’s inhibitions to once more do battle with an infant’s physical limitations. He could feel sweat begin to form on his brow.

“Here it is!” he heard Roxanne call from the hallway.

Angela stood up from her chair, her pigtails batting her in the face as she shook her head and said in a very authoritative-for-a-four-year-old tone, “Gotta sit down for the picture, Princess Poopy Pants.” He was out of time, and defeated because he didn’t want to poop his pants in public again. Worse yet, it was going to happen anyways as Angela began to carefully round the table so as not to knock over any of the dolls. The moment she picked him up to put him back in the chair, even it was less than a foot, even if it was only an inch, the whole mess would all come out and he would soil himself in a little girl’s arms.

Images of the trip to the library, where the seeds of this misadventure had first been planted flashed in front of Chris’s eyes. He recalled with vivid clarity, the intense feelings of embarrassment as he had pooped himself in the car, grunting as his sisters watched on. It had been such a blatant invasion of his privacy so beyond his comfort zone, even if as far as everyone else knew, this was something he did on a daily basis. Now here he was again…only…wait a minute… Why did he give a crap about this little girl? This wasn’t someone who he really knew. This wasn’t someone who had grown up with him as he looked after them with brotherly affection. This was just some dumb pre-schooler. This kid was the reason he was about to get his photo taken in a dress! This kid was the cause of his problem! THIS WAS NO TIME TO LET POOPING GET IN THE WAY!

Time slowed down for Chris then, the same way that reality seems to lose pace when one falls in love, or is about to be hit by a speeding car. He was immediately and intimately aware as he shifted his weight forward of his butt cheeks unclamping and his anus relaxing. A soft mass came poking out as he was on his knees. The mess hit the backing of the diaper and began to spread, making his butt begin to feel like it was covered in warm mud. The flat of his right foot hit the ground and rude noises blarted out his backside as more of the load rolled out of him. He pushed with both hands as he tried to balance himself on his feet. While he grunted consciously from the strain his limbs felt, he sighed unconsciously as pressure was released from his bowels.

Out of the corner of his eye, Chris saw his little jailer wrinkle her nose in disgust as he pushed the last of the mess out

of himself and into his awaiting diaper. Gravity kicked in, and Chris felt the newly formed lump in his diaper begin drooping to the ground. His diaper was conspiring against him to keep him helpless, in drag, and earthbound. Desperately seeking balance, Chris bent his waist and spread his upper body on the tiny round tea table. Plastic dishes scattered everywhere as every synapse in Chris’s body screamed for stability. This left Chris in the unenviable position of once again having his ass be at a higher altitude than his head.

“Noooooooooo……!” little Angela shrieked as her carefully arranged made in China dishes clattered to the carpet.

Footsteps thundered outside the. This was his last chance. With one last mighty heave, Chris pushed himself up off the table!!!!!!!!!.....and fell. Like an anti-weeble wobble Chris got less than a full second of viewing the world from a vertical position, before the momentum reversed itself. His knees shook and buckled and his whole body pitched forward back onto the tea table.

His hands, useless as usual, flapped at the air as though he might well fly. His neck stiffened, encased in an invisible brace, so that he could not even turn his head to the side. Even his eyes betrayed him as they refused to close.

Just as quickly as he rose, quicker in fact, he back down onto the little table, face first. A red-white pain shot through him as his nose impacted with the flat surface. Somewhere inside him, Chris knew that this must be a little bit like what it must be like to get hit with a folding chair at a wrestling event; save that he was dressed a little less ridiculously.

His body crumpled to one side and he tumbled off to the side landing on his back, gaining only a millisecond’s respite as he felt the sharp poke of a tea pot’s spout dig into his lower back and the mess in his diaper be spread around. At the very least, his eyes were closed when the table flipped with him onto his face.

It was then that time chose to speed up again, sparing him further prolonged agony.

“Oh my God, Angela what happened?” Chris heard a voice saying.

“The baby falled down,” Angela reported.

Whenever he had read infantilist stories online, there was a certain trope that even Chris rolled his eyes at. The part where the protagonist cried “from embarrassment”: Usually this was to explain why they cried as they were spanked, or taunted, or whatever. Crying was a particularly babyish thing to do, and so the authors of these smut stories tended to put it on the checklist of things to do. But really, how could anyone actually be so embarrassed, they’d cry? It just wasn’t done. Yes, it was okay for adults to cry, and Chris had gone through a terrible episode of it not two days earlier; but he had been on the cusp of an emotional and mental breakdown. This little “I got an owie”, or “oh my gosh, look what a baby I am”, shit didn’t ever happen. Not with adults anyway. Children might not have a great handle on their emotions, but not mother fuckin’ grown-ups, diapers or not.

Turns out, Chris was wrong. It was possible for a person to be so embarrassed, so frustrated, and so otherwise emotionally and physically drained and flabbergasted at the ridiculousness of their situation that their only response is to break down and cry. For Chris, it was having been man-handled by a four-year-old, forced to wear a dress, then panicking at the results being photographed, only to shit himself as he stood and smack his face on a hard flat surface and go crashing to the floor. Ta-da!

Chris let out a long incoherent wail that rattled around the room. Before he knew it he was bawling into the open air, exposed, and just as quickly he was sobbing into a warm body with a comforting hand rubbing his back while his bum was being supported by the other hand. He was bobbing up and down and heard a soothing “shhhhhhh” noise flit past his ears.

“It’s okay, little guy, it’s okay,” Angela’s mom, Barbara, shushed him. “It was just a little fall. That’s all. Thaaaaat’s all.” Chris’s breathing began to slow. He slipped his thumb into his mouth and began to suck it as his tears began to dry.

“What happened?!” a panicked Roxanne asked as she sprinted from the hallway, panic in her eyes.

“Chris had a little fall,” Barbara said, still somehow bouncing Chris up and down. Roxanne peeked over Barbara’s shoulder and saw the room, now in utter disarray from the giant baby’s tumble.

“You call that little?” Roxanne said in disbelief, though not hostile.

“I think he was just shocked,” Barbara replied, still rubbing Chris’s back. “Weren’t ya, buddy?” Chris nodded. “Here, let’s get this dress off of him and check him for bruises.” Barbara turned around, holding Chris so that he could now see back into the bedroom. Angela looked like her whole world had been torn apart. She was no longer the hostess of an elegant tea party, but the victim of a natural disaster: Hurricane Chris.

“Mommeeeee,” she whined. “The baby- “

“Not now, Angie, honey,” Barbara cut her daughter off, “we have to make sure that the baby’s not hurt.” Chris saw a flash in the little girl’s eyes. Chris recognized that emotion at any age: jealousy. Chris’s brain kicked into overdrive. The mean, spiteful part of himself surfaced with a vengeance and a glimmer flashed in his eyes as well.

Meanwhile, the two women peeled the disgusting pink cotton from Chris’s flesh and two pairs of gentle hands inspected him for bumps and bruises. The dress, meanwhile shrunk back down to its original size, and wafted back down to the ground.

“Well, he doesn’t look hurt.” Roxanne confirmed with more than a hint of relief. “I think his little accident just scared him.” Chris nodded in silent confirmation.

Crisis averted. Now, it was time for petty revenge on a small child.

He heard the women sniff and felt the back of his diaper being pulled back.

“I think Chris here had more than one kind of accident,” Barbara joked.

“Yup,” Roxanne agreed, “he does that from time to time. Give him here, I’ll take care of it.” Chris felt Roxanne’s hands grasp his hips to lift him away. This would normally be a welcome sensation, but a plan was beginning to form in Chris’s mind, and that plan didn’t involve Roxanne holding him.

Chris clamped down with all of his might, puny it may be and did his best to grapple Barbara. “Nonononononono,” he whined. “Me want Bawbawa,” he threw in a babyish speech pattern to hope that the message would come across more clearly. “Bawbawa take cawe of me.”

“I think he doesn’t want to let go,” Roxanne stated the obvious.

“Don’t worry about it, Roxie, I can take care of it.” Barbara told Chris’s step-mother.

“You sure?” Roxanne asked.

“Why not? I said I wanted the practice, anyway, didn’t I?” Barbara chuckled. “Just get me the supplies and I’ll do the rest. “I’ll change him here, on Angela’s bed.” Chris smiled wickedly at that.

“Momeeee!” whined Angela.

“Not now sweetie,” Barbara chided, “I gotta take care of the baby’s diaper.” Chris could see Angela’s face turn several different shades of red.

Roxanne returned with a diaper and wipes and handed them to Barbara. Barbara strode into her daughters room and Chris felt himself being lowered onto her bed. He tucked his legs, almost instinctively so that this whole body could be on the toddler-bed. He felt the familiar rustling of a plastic sheet just underneath the bed covers. He turned his head to the side and saw Angela staring daggers at him.

As Barbara began to untape Chris’s diaper, Chris eyes darted to the nightstand and saw the stack of pink pullups. His eyes quickly scanned the little girl’s diaper area. The tell-tale bulge was missing, and there wasn’t any evidence of riding up and peeking out, so she was probably wearing big kid underwear. “Bed-wetter,” Chris mused, “big girl, but not quite.” Then, as Chris’s legs were hoisted into the air so Angela’s mother could wipe his backside, Chris remembered a snippet from their previous encounter.

"I could pretend to be a baby to help you practice." she had said. Now that Chris thought back on it, had there been a flicker of hope in her voice? Had Angela been hinting at something instead of naively suggesting?

Chris had known that gambit. He had used it and failed as well in his pre-school days. Was little Angela another AB in the making, like Sammy was turning into? Was this some side effect of Chris’s condition? That children around him subconsciously wished to become infants themselves? Perhaps it was because on some level they realized that he was older than them and were trying to correct the dissonance by becoming infants themselves. Perhaps…but that didn’t matter so much right now to Chris’s mind. Getting back at this brat and making her feel like as much of a helpless plaything as she had made him feel, that was what had mattered. He knew, almost instinctively, what buttons to push. Priorities.

“That’s right, Angie,” Chris slowly spat at the little girl. She might not understand his words, but she would sure as hell understand his tone. “I’m the baby.”

“Wuzza wuzza wuzza,” Barbara cooed to Chris while he taunted and mocked her daughter. Chris turned his head and giggled gleefully at the woman as she wiped his most delicate areas. But his eyes never left Angela.

“I’m the baby, Angela,” he hissed to the little girl. “I’m the baby and your mommy likes taking care of me because I’m

special.” he paused for effect in his own mind. “You used to be special. You used to be the baby. But not anymore. You’re a big girl, now, and YOU DON’T MATTER!”

“Oh, that mussa been a cold one,” Barbara chirped as she threw a used wipe into the remains of the dirty diaper and reached for a new one. The woman honestly had no clue.

“And you wanna know what the best part is?” Chris grinned maliciously, his adrenaline pumping as he watched the toddler’s fists ball up. Oh yeah, she got it. She got it, alright. Even if she didn’t know what he was saying, she got it. “The best part is,” Chris explained, “is that you’ll NEVER. BE. THE BABY. AGAIN!” Then he turned his head as to look at Barbara again as she slid a fresh Pampers under his rump. “I wuv you new Mommy! You’re the best Mommy in the whooooole world! Will you be my mommy?”

“I bet you feel soooo much better now that you’ve got a clean diaper on,” Barbara told Chris.

“Not yet,” Chris answered with a grin, “but I’m getting’ there.”

“Who’s a cwean wittle boy?” she asked.

“I am!” he answered.

“Who’s a cwean wittle boy?!”

“I am!”

And both of them giggled, though for entirely different reasons.

Barbara rolled up the used diaper and walked out of the room to trash it; with Barbara’s diaper genie long likely having fallen into disuse.

Chris rolled his head back to Angela. “So, Angie?” he smirked. “You jealous yet?” Angela just stood there, eyeing what to her was the pudgy little invader to her bedspace. Chris looked at the stack of pull-ups on the nightstand by the bed, and then back up at Angela. He saw her eyeing the pull-ups as well. Lazily, Chris reached over and let his fingertips brush against the fabric of the training pants.

Thwap! Angela swatted Chris’s hand away.

“No! Bad baby!” Angela scolded, “Those are my diap-….night pants.”

“Yup,” he chuckled, as his question was answered. “They sure are.”

Barbara came back into the room and picked Chris back up in her arms. “Come on Angie, let’s go play out in the living room, where Chris’s mommy and I can keep a better eye on you two.”

Angela stopped and looked around her wrecked room. “Um..no thank you Mommy,” she said. “I wanna stay here and clean my room.”

“Are you sure, honey?” Barbara asked. “I can always help you clean your room after Chris and his mommy leave.”

“Are they leaving now?” the little girl queried.

“No.”

“Then I’ll clean my room now.”

“Okay,” Barbara said, not sounding too sure. “But you can come out and play with the baby anytime you want, alright?”

“I know,” Angela replied, her lack of experience revealing more of her emotional state than perhaps the kid had intended. Chris shivered dramatically, and Barbara began holding him closer and rubbing his back.

“Oh, and if you find Chris’s T-shirt, could you bring it out? He’s a little cold.” Barbara added before leaving out the door.

Only a hurried slam accompanied for reply.

Chris found himself back on the floor at the two women’s feet while they sat on the sofa and chatted.

“So…” Barbara confided, “I think someone’s a little J-E-A-L-O-U-S.”

“That’s kind of the I-D-E-A.” Chris snarked up at them. Roxanne reached over and absent mindedly stroked her step-son’s hair so that he knew she was noticing him.

“It happens,” Roxanne nodded, “it’s one of the pitfalls about being a second time parent that they don’t tell you about.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, it wasn’t nearly as bad when Chris was born because the age difference was big enough that it didn’t really affect the girls, but when Brianna was born, woooo” Roxanne hooted, “lemme tell you, there were some fireworks. Let’s just say that she may be sweet now, but calling it the terrible twos was not false advertising.”

Chris craned his neck up at that. He didn’t remember Sammy being particularly bad or bratty at that age. Was this another alteration caused by the shift? Was this version of Sammy a bit more of a brat because she was the first born? It was possible, he supposed. But then again, Chris had been going through puberty at the time and had more, ahem, pressing issues on his mind than the behavior of small children that he had no real responsibility for.

“So how did you get through it?” Barbara asked, leaning in.

Roxanne shrugged, “Honestly, I gave her what she wanted for a couple of days.”

“Huh?!” both Chris and Barbara exclaimed.

“Sammy wasn’t ready to be a big girl, so I let her be a baby.” a thin, knowing, smile crossed Roxanne’s lips. “Of course, that meant no big girl clothes, and no big girl bed,” she started.

“Uh-huuuuuh.” Barbara said which in this context meant “go ooooooon.”

“And of course, she also wasn’t allowed to watch any big girl TV or play any of her big girl games with the little pieces

that babies could choke on. And only big girls get candy, naturally.” Both women positively tittered at that last line. “It took, maybe a day and a half before she was ready to try being a big girl again and she went back to pull-ups and within a month she was in big girl panties, and we didn’t have a problem since.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” Chris snorted.

“Hiiiiiii Mommeeeee,” a tiny high pitch voice sang out, as she pranced out of the hallway and into the living room.

“Hiiiii hon-“ Barbara sang back, but then cut herself off. “Angela! What do you think you’re doing?”

Angela now stood before the assembled gathering, but she was no longer wearing her skirt and tights. In fact she wasn’t wearing any kind of pants at all, but instead had waddled out in a pink pull up.

“Angela!” Barbara was on her feet suddenly, “you know those are only for bedtime! Now get back in your room and change…” once again Barbara stopped herself. Her daughter had been ignoring her and had begun blatantly sucking her thumb. Within a few seconds of her mother’s lecture, the little designs on the training pants indicating dryness had begun to fade.

“Uh oh!” Angela exclaimed, fooling no one. “I hadda ac-ci-dent! Looks like you’ll have to change me, Mommy.” Chris could make out the gnashing sounds and the back and forth motion of her jaw as Barbara ground her teeth together. It’s amazing how the difference of a few perceived years makes people react when you soil yourself, even if it’s into an undergarment that is quite literally meant to be soiled. Barbara looked over to Roxanne, they shared a look, and Roxanne nodded.

“You’re absolutely right, Angela,” her mother said with over the top saccharine sweetness dripping from every syllable. “I do need to change my baby girl.” She picked her daughter up and carried her into the little girl’s bedroom. Angela positively beamed. Roxanne picked Chris up and sat him on her lap. Chris just sat there, doing his best to listen through the house for sounds of what might be going on. If he strained, he could just make out what was going on.

“Let’s get my baby girl changed!” he heard Barbara coo with false sincerity. “But wait, these aren’t diapers! These are pull-ups for big girls who still have accidents at night. You’re not a big girl, are you? Noooooooo, of course you’re not. Big girls don’t wet themselves in the day time. Not to worry, we still have some diapers that’ll fit you laying around at the top of your closet. Good thing Mommy’s such a pack rat, huh?” There was a solid minute of tense silence till the hum of Barbara’s voice came echoing again. “Aaaaallll done. There’s a good baby girl!” Another pause. “Now wait a minute. This doesn’t look like a baby’s room, does it? Let Mommy fix it up.”

The door opened up, and Barbara marched out of the room and made a bee-line for the kitchen. She reached under the sink and grabbed a package of garbage bags before turning around and going back, only stopping to give her co-conspirator parent a wink. This time she left the door open so it was easier to hear what was going on.

“Let’s get rid of these pull-ups. They’re not for babies.” Chris heard the crinkling and rustling of plastic followed by the fwoom of a garbage bag being spread open. “Now let’s get rid of these panties, they’re definitely not for babies.” Some footsteps and another dramatic pause. “What’s this? These aren’t baby clothes! These are pretty big girl dresses! Well I guess we’ll have to throw them out.”

“Mommy! Nooooooooooo!” Angela could be heard screaming. “Nooooooooo!”

“I’m sorry baby, but these dresses aren’t for babies. They’re so long, they make it hard for Mommy to check and change your diaper. Oooh! These toys aren’t really for babies either, are there? No…they’re not. A baby will just drool all over the stuffed animals and they could hurt their little gums on the plastic toys. I’ll have to throw these out too.”

“Nooooo! Mommy nooooooooo!” Angela wailed before breaking down into incoherent sobs.

Barbara soon came out toting a bawling Angela, now wearing a size 6 Pampers (as opposed to Chris’s size 32) and cooing at the girl as though she were an infant.

“Who’s my widdle girl?” she cooed.

“She is!” Chris yelled triumphantly

“Who’s my widdle girl?”

“She is!”

“Roxie, I hate to trouble you,” Barbara spoke deliberately over her screaming daughter, “but I think my baby is hungry, do you have any bottles you and Chris could spare?”

“Why of course,” Roxanne answered in an equally scripted tone, “I wouldn’t want any baby to go hungry without a ba-ba.” Roxanne reached into Chris’s diaper bag and pulled out two bottles, handing one to her friend. “In fact,” she added, “let’s feed them together, shall we?”

“Yes, let’s.”

Chris wasn’t particularly hungry just then, but he couldn’t resist being part of the punishment. He leaned back into Roxanne as she handed him the bottle. Greedily he took it to his lips and began suckling, as he tilted his head back. The formula coursed down his throat in sweet milky waves. He played games with the rubber nipple, batting it around his mouth with his tongue. It was sweet. But not as sweet as what was going on beside him.

Barbara plopped down, with her diapered daughter in her lap, and shoved the bottle in her face. “Drink up baby. This is what you wanted.”

“Nooooo. I’m a big girl.” Angela protested.

“Not today you’re not.” Barbara laid down the law. “Big girls don’t pee their pants, do they? Now drink up, baby.” Angela opened her mouth to protest and had the rubber nipple of a bottle shoved in her mouth for her trouble. She had little choice but to suck, and Chris smiled contentedly as the crying child was force to gulp down the simulac, with drops of the stuff coming leaking out the corners of her mouth and mixing with her tears.

Chris stopped suckling, for he had that leisure, long enough to smile at Angela and say “It’s not as easy being the baby as it looks, is it, kid?” Regardless of whether or not Chris was actually understood, the child managed to mutely shake her head ‘no’.

The rest of the morning was much more to Chris’s liking, as Roxanne and Barbara revisited their favorite baby games to Chris’s delight and Angela’s torment. While Chris was being entertained by Roxanne with such classics as “this little piggy went to market,” “patty cake”, “cootchie coo”, and of course “bounce on the knee,” Angela was being punished by Barbara with such classics as “this little piggy went to market,” “patty cake”, “cootchie coo”, and of course, “bounce on the knee.” Her spirit broken, Angela did little to fight it yet remained in a sullen pout, the entire visit.

“Well I think that’s enough excitement for one day,” Roxanne exhaled after about an hour of nursery rhymes and baby-games. “I gotta get this little guy home and get some lunch into him.” Chris nodded his agreement. He’d done enough damage for one day.

“Momeeee…” Angela whined. “My tummy feels funny,” and the sound of a gurgling stomach echoed in the living room. “Can I go potty, now?”

“Must be the formula,” Barbara said aside to Roxanne before turning to her daughter. “Babies don’t go potty, sweetee. Just use your diaper, and Mommy will change you.”

“Noooo,” the little girl moaned, clutching her stomach.

“Just don’t have too many accidents, sweety, or Mommy will have to take her baby girl out shopping for more diapers. We only have a few, and if we run out before tomorrow, Mommy will have no choice.”

“Noooo!” and Angela sank to her knees, doubling over from cramps.

“I’ll walk you out,” Barbara said and she walked Chris and Roxanne to the mom mobile, closing the door to the house behind her. “Thanks for the catch up, and the help, Roxie,” Barbara told her friend as Chris was being buckled into his giant car seat. “Little Chris can come and play anytime he wants, as far as I’m concerned. I can even babysit for you when you and Christopher go out on the town.”

“That might be good,” Roxanne acknowledged.

“Buuut,” Barbara conceded, “I think today’s shown me that I’m not quite ready yet for baby number two.”

“Fair enough,” Roxanne agreed. Before she walked to the driver side door, Roxanne gave her friend a quizzical look. “You’re not really going to take her out diaper shopping, are you? Or throw away all her clothes and toys?”

Barbara stifled a laugh. “God no!”

Roxanne laughed in relief. “Good. I gotta admit you had me going there for a minute.”

“And the Academy Award goes to….” Barbara mimed opening an envelope.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” came a howl that could be heard from the driveway.

“And I think my little girl just had her big accident.” Barbara shook her head. “That’s my cue.” And the two women hugged before parting

********************************************

The victory he had won that day stayed with him through dinner time, bath time, and even. “Chris sure had a blast at Barbara and Angie’s house.” Roxanne echoed time and again. As much as he loved the helpless feeling of being cared for and the intimacy of no inhibitions or social boundaries to worry of, there was still something of power in this new life. Power that Chris could never remember having, the power of being the coveted and cared for prize. God did it taste sweet. Sweeter perhaps than even the breast milk that was now his right and privilege to gulp down.

Chris kept replaying the day’s events, the good ones anyways, over and over in his head. He couldn’t sleep, he felt that good. So as he laid in his crib, wearing a pear of light yellow footie pajamas, he reached over in his crib and grabbed Wubby; its eyes once more sparkling scarlet and sapphire.

“So Wubby, old buddy,” Chris smirked, “I overcame that last hurdle you threw at me. What else you got?”

On cue, Chris felt, rather than saw, a shimmer in the air. He felt his arms and face begin to itch. He sat up scratched at them for several seconds before arm hair burst forth and itchy stubble returned to his once baby-soft chin. Chris cried out, not from pain, but surprise. Then, his nursery started melting, literally melting, away.

The blue nursery print bled down the walls, leaving only stark white in its wake. The changing table swelled and bulged like a pimple ready to pop, till a television erupted from its interior and hit the ceiling becoming mounted there. The table itself oozed back into the floor. The comfy rocking chair, that Chris was beginning to think of as “Mommy’s” crunched and cracked down on itself with sickening criiiiicks. Then like a bruise, pleather cushions inflated from the crevices. The homey carpet that lined the floors in all the bedrooms of the Cole residence became brittle and stiff till with a snap like icicles, fell from the floor, leaving only cold, uncaring linoleum where it once was.

Next, his own crib turned against him, as the bars smacked and pinned him down, thinning out and holding him in place. One bar narrowed itself at the tip like a stake or a sharpened pencil before jabbing itself into Chris’s arm. Chris screamed in genuine pain. The rest of the bar shrank and thinned itself, becoming more of a viper and less of an anaconda till it attached itself to a bag hanging from a metal pole that had just shot up out of the ground.

Chris cute pajamas came undone with a rip then reformed into a putrid teal hospital gown. And then reality began to play again. A gentle beep, beep, beeping filled the otherwise silent room. Chris wasn’t in his usual, college age Chris room. No, he found himself strapped down to a bed, with an IV going into his arm. It was a room in a hospital, Chris knew from experience. His dad being a doctor, and Chris being a pre-med student, it took no time at all for him to recognize the layout.

He couldn’t move his legs very much, as they too were restrained, but he managed to scrunch his thighs together, experimentally, and felt the familiar squish of what could only be a used diaper. In the corner of the room, sitting in the pleather chair where once the rocker had been, holding a white card that said “Feel Better Soon” in crayon on the cover, was Wubby; its eyes still sparking crimson and azure.

Suddenly, the room started to spin, and Chris was overcome with lethargy as whatever was attached to him through the IV tube began to take effect on him.

“Fuuuuuuuuck,” Chris managed to moan before passing out.

The time on the digital readout in the room read 12:01

****************************************************************

ELSEWHEN- THE BEGINNING OF MANKIND. EITHER A FEW THOUSAND OR SEVERAL MILLION YEARS AGO (DEPENDING ON WHO YOU ASK):

“YOU HAVE HAD YOUR MOON!” The two voices boomed in the Garden. “NOW CHOOSE!” Before Man and Woman, stark naked as the day they were created, floated two fruits. One was alluring red, like the hearts blood that delivered vital life and breath to all of God’s glorious creations. It was plump, and round, and pleasing to the eye. The other was all rigid and impossible angles; a rocky fruit if such a thing ever existed (and it hadn’t, but might yet if one of them so chose). Its hue was the blue of the veins that ran back to the heart, that carried the used up and dead blood back to the heart to be rejuvenated. Nothing about it was particularly appealing.

“Let us take the red one,” Woman said to Man. “We have seen what splendors we might have. That we even know the word splendor is because of what it promises us.”

“And what of the blue one?” asked Man.

“What do you remember of the blue?” his mate asked.

“I remember little of our time with it,” Man admitted.

“That is because we were but mindless savages!” Woman proclaimed. “We knew of nothing! Not good, nor evil. We were but beasts that walked on two legs!”

“But what of what the Angel told us?” Man countered, “We may well lose paradise.”

“What good is paradise if we are too stupid to enjoy it?” Woman asked. She took a step towards her lover and looked longingly in his eyes. “Please. I love you.” She pleaded. “I want to keep on loving you and make love to you. Not rut in the dirt with you when I’m in heat. I want to bear your children, not sling your litter. I want to be more than just your mate. Let me be your wife” She took his face in her hands and tenderly kissed him. “For me. For us. Please.”

Man turned away from his love, who had literally been created for him. “It was not always this way,” he growled, “It was not always like this. Why, only a moon ago- “

“But that was a moon ago,” Woman stopped the thought. There was no turning back now. The moment that they had become aware of the fruits, there had been no turning back. The Snake was the one that had found her and presented, logically, the best case scenario for each of them. The Snake was right and all she had to do was convince her other half to know the truth of it.

Away from the little clearing in the Garden, where the first Game played itself out, the Angel and the Snake made hushed whispers to each other. The Angel was a giant who had collapsed his infinite form in on itself so that he might walk this Earthly Plane for a time. He was older than Creation itself, and bound by the strict Word of his Creator. The snake was new yet. Even the fresh ground he slithered upon was older than he. Yet in him was a hunger, an ambition. He was tiny now, barely a worm, but someday, the Snake knew, he would grow to be a Leviathan.

The two of them were on opposite sides of a cosmic war. They should be attempting to Undo each other right now. Yet they didn’t really know each other, and each one suspected the other of being more powerful than the other one presented themselves to be. Besides, it was a young war still, and a civil war at that; so there wasn’t any reason to be uncivil they reasoned. The war would be over soon enough; maybe a year or two more, and if both of them survived, it’d be good to have a friend, or at least an acquaintance on the winning side.

“So which one do you think they’ll choose?” the Angel asked.

“I’m ssssstill not sure,” hissed the Snake. “Your masssster made a compelling counter-offer. The ssssstick was almost as compelling as the carrot.”

“He’s your master, too,” the Angel chided the Snake. “Even if you’ve yet to admit it.”

“Agree to disssssagree,” the Snake replied.

“Fair enough,” the Angel nodded. “This was a cunning plan by your leader, I’ll admit. A good-” he paused then corrected himself, “An effective way to sew dissension on Creation.”

“My leader?” the Snake tilted its head in confusion. “I thought thisssss was by the Creator’ssssss design.”

“Then who-” the Angel began, but he never got to finish his thought. The sky flashed crimson red. In the distance, two nude forms reached for the red fruit and ate from it, taking a part of it into themselves.

“Yessssssss!” The snake exalted.

“No!” The Angel cried out. “How could they?! They were made in God’s image by His very design! How could they choose to defy him?!”

“Perhaps you don’t know as much about your God as you thought?” the Snake mused as he slithered for cover under the now lightning filled sky.

And so the first game was played, and has been replayed in one form or another, ever since.