Ink

Chapter 8
Part 8

Chapter Description: Part 8

(Thursday)

  If Margaret had imagined her plan to get help would translate into strangers on the bus awkwardly doing their level best to not stare at the two Shen-compelled roommates, then everything was going to plan.  By any other metric, however, things were not going well.  Margaret’s idea to use the magical compulsions the tattoos were forcing on them to their advantage was a gigantic case of easier said than done.

Back in their apartment, Margaret had had visions of the two of them parading around the city with her wearing nothing more than a diaper and drool coated smile.  If she was going to go full baby, she’d do it in public.  That way she could get arrested, separated from her fellow prisoner-turned-warden and hopefully have her condition analyzed, identified, and cured.  Even the little markings on the small of her back tingled at the idea.  “Nakied”, the little voice inside of her head encouraged her.  “Nakied, nakied, nakied!”  That time, the voice had sounded disturbingly similar to her own.  When the ex-customer service rep focused long enough to realize she was mouthing those exact words, the danger of complete mental oblivion seemed to loom that much larger.

She was running out of time.

Yet Molly (or, more accurately, Molly’s tattooed arm) wouldn’t let Margaret take a step outside as underdressed as she was.  “What kind of Mommy would I be if I let you go out there in just your diaper?”  The shorter girl had gone quiet immediately after saying that. The gurgling sound coming up from her throat and the hard swallow told Margaret all she’d need to know:  Her Roommate had thrown up in her mouth a bit.

Begrudgingly, Margaret allowed herself to be led to her newly decorated closet and dressed in something positively adorable.  The little tyrannies didn’t end there- would that they did, Margaret thought.  Margaret wasn’t allowed to walk to the bus stop without having her hand held by Molly.  When they finally got on the bus, Molly’s hand became an iron vice unless Margaret was sitting on the smaller girl’s lap.  That wasn’t going to work for long, but after a few awkward tries over the course of a few equally awkward minutes, they were able to reach a kind of bodily compromise with Margaret sitting sideways on the bench and draping her legs across Molly’s lap while keeping the majority of each other’s weight off one another.

If Molly’s face wasn’t clearly agonizing alongside Margaret, she might have thought Molly was enjoying this. She wasn’t though.  Margaret’s ink was manifesting as emotional instability, peppered with bits of bratty petulance, and of course a massive dose of potty failure.  Molly’s ink gave her a set of borderline obsessive-compulsive behaviors that seemed to give her no end of torment, and short of her brief diapering fugue, no amount of satisfaction.   Molly had been on the verge of a panic attack while dressing Margaret, and her packing of the pastel pink diaper bag with little bunnies stitched on the front had seemed more akin to an addict readying their fix.

The biggest downside of their current seating arrangement was that the hairy guy sitting to Molly’s left could very easily see Margaret’s diaper peaking out from underneath the hem of her sailor dress.  Not that her diaper was particularly hard to see; the hem of her dress was scandalously short, and the crinkly padding that she’d been changed into caused her to sit in a kind of spread eagle fashion.  If she’d sat down like a normal person, she might have been able to conceal her not-quite underwear by leaning forward in her seat and casually draping a hand between her knees just in case.

Concealing it had been against the point, though, so Margaret tried to content herself by sitting spread eagle in her cute little pink-trimmed sailor dress with matching hat. Her feet ended in frilly ankle socks and shiny black Mary Jane shoes.  She was a hair’s breadth away from cosplaying as Shirley Temple.

Short of maybe one of the onesies- which might have been mistaken for swimsuits- this was the most babyish (and hopefully provocative) outfit she had left to her. Molly, by contrast was very much in “Mommy Mode”, wearing a pink blouse untucked over comfortable jeans and sneaker, her hair tied up in a little bun.  No makeup either, though the tired circles around her eyes from so much sleepwalking were starting to appear.  What really painted the image of “single mom” was the diaper bag she had slung over her shoulder.  They made quite a picture; yet even with Margaret’s diaper more or less on display for public inspection, she wasn’t provoking quite the response she’d hoped for.

Everyone on the bus had given them a good dose of shade and side-eye, but no one had said a damn thing about the girl dressed like a toddler.  If the creeper had been aghast at Margaret’s attire, everything would have been going according to plan.  Instead, he was taking pervy little glances every now and then when he thought the girls weren’t looking; a kind of cross between peeking and staring that lacked the subtlety of the former and the honesty of the latter.

A buzzing electric rush along her spinal cord made Margaret want to scream “TAKE A GOOD LOOK” at the top of her lungs, but Mommy (MOLLY! MOLLY! MOLLY!) wouldn’t have liked that. To prevent the building outburst, she chose to self-soothe by sucking her thumb a bit.

A strange, desperate giggle, rattled in the back of Margaret’s throat and stopped just short of her thumb. Just a week ago a stranger peeking at her panties would have sent Margaret into either a fit of rage or a river of tears.  Now she was banking her salvation on random passerby getting a good gander of her unmentionables.

Molly leaned in and tenderly gave Margaret a little peck on the cheek.  Where had that come from?  “We wouldn’t have been able to get on the bus if you weren’t dressed up,” she whispered to Margaret.  Her voice could barely be heard over the motorized hum of the bus.  “Don’t worry.  We’ll find someplace that’ll work for us.”

Crossing her arms, Margaret leaned forward so she could whisper back.  “Where?”  The awkward silence droned on a for bit.  Squeaking brakes and a stoplight punctuated the void that they both felt.  It felt like most everyone was purposefully looking out the window, even though nothing was going by it.  Reality had suddenly found a way to become even more cumbersome

“I don’t know,” Molly finally said.  “The park, maybe?”

The park?  The park could work.  It was big and open, sure, which was a great way to make a scene, but what if a scene couldn’t be made there?  Margaret was starting to see the fatal flaw in her plan.  As evidenced by Molly, their tattoos still had control over their behavior.  If the thing that had possessed them didn’t want something to go down, it wasn’t happening.  “What happens if we’re not allowed to go the park?”

“Why wouldn’t we be allowed to go the park?” Molly asked.  “Babies and Mommies go to the park all the time.”  A flash of guilt covered Molly’s face.  “That’s what I’m working with here.”  She tapped her head.  “Crazy voice up here isn’t complaining.”  Then the artist flicked the writing on her wrist.  “And nothing here is burning or spasming.  I think we can do this.”

Not completely convinced, Margaret bit her lip, wishing for a pacifier despite herself. The dozen or so other people in the long metal box with them were doing their best not to look.  The windows and their smart phones were their world. They registered the girls’ presence; and some were clearly uncomfortable about it based on frowns and sideways glances, but no one was speaking up.  Great; they were trying their best to get caught and the forces of politeness and tolerance were working against them.  Where was an outraged evangelical Christian that wanted to mind everyone else’s business when you needed one?

It might have just been in her head, but she could hear the dry, plastic crinkle as she wriggled in her seat. “What if we can’t make a big enough scene? What if everybody ignores us?”  She shot a look at the hair creeper sitting to Molly’s left.  The man had broken out into a sweat, had pitched a tent in his pants, and was doing a poor job of hiding both.  “Or if all of the right people ignore us?”

In answer, Molly maneuvered her diaper bag (it was Margaret’s, technically…) into her lap and took a baby bottle out of the side pocket.  A rubber nipple was shoved into Margaret’s face, and her mouth opened to accept it before her brain could reject the offer.  Both of the big baby’s hands wrapped around the bottle, obscuring the amber colored liquid within.  “Apple juice,” Molly told Margaret’s ears as her tongue confirmed the same. “A wet diaper will be harder to ignore.”  Margaret’s eyes darted down past her nose; looking at the baby bottle like it was a leech. “It’s just apple juice,” Molly reassured her. ”No additives.  Don’t need them.  Pretty sure you’ll have an accident all by yourself.”  That brought more than a little color to the taller girl’s cheeks.

Still drinking the stuff, Margaret shot her Roommate an incredulous stare.  This was stupid. Objectively stupid. Molly must’ve known what she was thinking.  “Yeah, this is dumb,” she admitted. “Boondock Saints, remember?”

A hiss of air entered the conversation as Margaret stopped suckling on the rubber nipple long enough to ask, “What if a wet diaper doesn’t get enough attention?”

A maniac grin came to Molly.  With all the flourish and enthusiasm of an action star revealing their weapons cash in the third act, Molly flipped open the top flap of the diaper bag.  The diapers peaking out of the top might as well have been a rocket launcher.  “Mommies change their babies in public all the time.”

Hairy and Horny’s eyes looked like they were going to fall out of his skull. Mommy…Molly closed the diaper bag and maneuvered it back around to her side, acting as a buffer zone between her and the pervert who was likely ejaculating in his pants.

This. Just. Might. Work.

Margaret smiled as she finished the last of her apple juice, handing the bottle to her more diminutive caretaker.  A tiny burp rumbled out past her lips.  “Good girl,” Molly said, absentmindedly as she placed the now empty bottle back in the side pocket of the pink bunny bag.  Neither of them seemed to take exception to that last remark.  Baby or Adult, everything was going according to plan, so Margaret was, in fact, being a good girl…wasn’t she?

Sweaty McPervpants had whipped out his own phone, and he was hurriedly working some app or another. The big baby girl didn’t have to wait long to figure out.  Quickly, and likely less subtle than he intended to be, the man sitting next to Molly tilted his phone to face Margaret, and his thumb tapped the screen.

Like a snake going for the kill, a slender, petite hand with an iron grip reached out and snatched the phone away from the peeping Tom.  “Do you normally take pics of little girls’ diapers?”  The man next to Molly didn’t even shout or object as she looked at the screen and thumbed through his photos.  He just kept trembling, his brow becoming drenched in his own perspiration.  “No other pictures,” Molly said, a little too loudly.   Now the other passengers were starting to take notice.  “This must be your first.”

Oliver Twist would have looked at the pathetic excuse for a man, sitting on the bus with hand out, silently begging for his phone, and been disgusted.  “Deleted,” Molly said a moment later. The neckbeard next to her leaned in a bit, meekly trying to get his phone back.  A single upheld finger stopped his advancement.  Clearly, Molly wasn’t done yet.  “Betcha don’t clear your internet history on this thing.”

Margaret couldn’t see what her Molly was gazing at in the soft glow of the smartphone’s screen, but her eyes had glazed over with a kind of familiar contempt.  Whatever she was seeing was neither a shock, nor a surprise to her.  When she was done she lobbed the phone back at the would-be voyeur. Clumsy hands fumbled the easy toss and the phone clattered to the ground.  “You’re sick.  Get help. Get out.”

“Excuse me?”  He was shaking as he picked the phone up off the humming floor, but he finally found his voice.

“Get. Out.”

A stop was pressed, the man got out, and other than few not-so-hushed whispers of “Pot calling the kettle black” things went quiet again.  Too quiet.

“Mom…ly?”  Margaret misspoke.  Molly looked up and regarded her.  Screw it. Press on.  “Was that really necessary?”

Molly reached out and drew Margaret into a hug, a maternal gesture that she did not resist.  “Yeah, it was.  That was crossing a line.  I would’ve reacted that way even if this wasn’t happening to us.”  The baby girl wanted to believe that, but she suspected there was more than a little maternal instinct at play.

A sign flashed by out the bus window.  A different kind of instinct caused a jolt of electricity to surge through Margaret’s spine, making her hand to shoot up and press the “stop” button.  “We’re not at the park, yet, sweetie,” Molly said.

“I just got a better idea,” Margaret replied.

“But the plan was-”

“I’m an adult.  Trust me.”  Molly frowned at that, but it seemed to Margaret as though she was frowning at herself.  Slowly, the other girl nodded.

The bus squeaked to a halt at the next stop, and hand in hand, the two Shen-compelled women stepped off to quiet snickers and scoffs of “finally” and “about time”.  So those people had had a problem!  A chilling notion creeped into the back of Molly’s mind: What would happen if they failed and both of them changed completely?  What would happen if they offended but not enough for retaliation?  Would they go out into the world as ‘Mommy’ and ‘baby’, forever oblivious of the scorn inches away from them while they subconsciously toed the line of tolerable behavior?  Or would they, like the Addams Family or the Munsters, be forever strange and never quite understand why they didn’t fit in?  Or like the naked dog man in the tattoo parlor, would this be their last journey into the world outside their apartment?

The pavement beneath their feet, Molly looked up to her baby girl.  “Where are we going?”

Margaret turned and pointed behind them.  “There’s something better than a park,” she said.  “Something better than a park.  Something waaaaay better.”  If Margaret’s psyche had been split into two minds by the nonsense she’d been forced to endure, both her adult and baby self thought her latest impulse was a great idea, if for different reasons.

The two walked in silence for about three blocks before what Margaret had been looking for could be seen.  It was a shopping plaza, and an unremarkable one at that.  Across the street from an old pizzeria next to a dollar store was a half-acre of concrete encircled by six rectangular cement buildings, their plain and rocky surfaces and gray color doing everything that could be done to repel the eye with banality.

The giant board at the plaza’s entrance was divided up into six equal sections, each one advertising a business that had set up shop in the parking lot.  Margaret tried to read the words off the billboards, but found that something in her brain wouldn’t quite translate the letters into sounds.  Like a glitch in a computer program, every time she attempted to read the signs, the letters seemed to blur or pixelate.

Helpfully, Molly read the names of the businesses out loud.  “Staples Office Supplies, Hobby Lobby, Shoe Carnival, a McAlister’s Deli, a discount movie theatre and-

“That one,” Margaret pointed to the last sign.

The sign had a plain white background, with the trunks of trees shooting up from the bottom and splitting off into explosions of green leafed branches, with vines dangling from the top.  Playing in the tree tops and swinging from the vines were happy, smiling, wide eyed simians in every shade of the rainbow.  All of them looked straight out at the viewer, despite their varied and dynamic poses.

“That art is so amateur,” Molly shook her head in disgust.  Margaret nudged her a bit to get her to focused.  “Monkey Mania?” She kept reading. “Indoor jungle gym and play place.”  A dawning realization lit up Molly’s eyes.  “That’s a kid’s and parents’ only kind of place.”

Smugly, Margaret nodded.  “Yup.”

“Taking you in there would likely piss a lot of people off…”

“Yup.”  Margaret felt her confidence swelling as Molly started connecting the dots that the diapered woman already had.  Now she got to be the big and smart one.

“And people can just leave a park.”

“Yup.”

“This’ll get the cops called on us for sure.”

“Especially if you change my diaper in there,” Margaret smiled.  She lifted up her dress and gave her padded undies a pat.  Too bad they were still dry.

Still hand-in-hand. Molly lead the way towards the entrance.  Before they had even covered half the distance, Molly stopped.  “What if our tattoos won’t let us go in?  What if they won’t let us get help?”

As if on cue, Margaret’s backside started to tingle and burn like hot cinders.  Her hand was immediately released as Molly slumped to one side, grunting and groaning in pain while her arm literally tried to drag her to the ground.

Margaret had to think.  The things inside their tattoos were effectively complaining.  But she dealt with complaints for a living, didn’t she?  What would she do to pacify an annoying customer who wouldn’t listen to reason?  Then the idea occurred to her:  You diffused the situation.

“We have to go, Mommy!” Margaret whined in pain as her tattoo felt more like a fresh brand.

Molly was on the verge of tears, struggling to stay upright and off the hot, dirty sidewalk; using the diaper bag as a kind of ballast for her lopsided body.  “We…can’t…”

“What kind of Mommy would you be if you didn’t take your baby girl out for some playtime?”

It stopped.  The pain in Margaret’s back, and by the look of it, the wait in Mommy’s arm.  Good.  Mommy righted herself, straightened out the diaper bag, and once again took hold of Margaret’s hand.  “Come on, sweetie,” she said.  “Let’s go play.”

Given recent events in her life, Molly had every reason not to believe her senses.  Just earlier this morning she’d looked at her roommate and saw a small child- her small child- in need of a fresh diaper.  And despite herself, she kept fretting over the poor little thing, wanting to provide love and nurturing care for her little-

DAMNIT!

Case in point: derailed trains of though such as that were good enough reason for her not to completely trust herself.

Before an extensive makeover, the place might have been a storage warehouse of some sort, with wide walls and high ceilings, that was effectively one big room.  Arrows marked “Birthday Parties” and “Restrooms” pointed to a small passageway that likely used to be a collection of offices.  Whatever purpose the building had been built with in mind no longer mattered, however. At present, this place was very obviously an indoor playground.

The walls were clean and white, with the same swinging rainbow hued monkeys shown laughing and playing and swinging from vines everywhere she looked.

The closest corner had a little barrier that came up to about Molly’s hip; forming a sort of pen.  Large foam blocks and tinker toys littered the ground within it.   A sign nearby read “For children 2 and under, with parent accompaniment.”

The front right corner had a large wooden steam engine style train painted bright blue.  It obviously wasn’t meant to be mobile, but big enough to enter, with wide enough entryways that the carved in rows of benches on the inside could be seen.

At the very back of the mammoth space, the wall was spackled with rock climbing ledges and footholds, with unoccupied safety harnesses clearly visible.  A small concession stand and ticket counter was visible in the back corner.  Make the kids and their parents walk the perimeter and see what there was to see first; clever.  But the aforementioned spaces were hardly the main event.

In the center of the room, a tangle of shiny steel, pastel foam padding, brightly colored plastic, and  black mesh netting wound and twisted together to create a fairly impressive structure.  The term “jungle gym” didn’t even do it justice.  From the entrance way that led to the trampoline floor, or the maze of interconnected crawling tubes, or the monkey bars that dangled over the tremendous ball pool, or the slide that exited the structure; it was closer to a funhouse or an obstacle course.   Based solely on how much space was dedicated to it, this was the place’s main attraction.  Molly looked to Margaret and saw that her charge was similarly taken aback by the sheer enormity of everything.

Pre-packaged, manufactured, auto-tuned kid covers of Top 40 pop songs played from unseen speakers.  The music was loud enough that it could likely be heard from anywhere in the big open play space, but not so loud as to where Molly felt the need to yell to be heard, and the walls were well insulated enough so as to not cause an annoying echo.  The cold air of the central air conditioning was a welcome relief from the heat outside.

Molly had seen this type of place advertised before- perhaps even passed this particular establishment-many times before and vaguely wondered how such places could exist and make ends meet when every McDonald’s with a Play Place could accomplish the same effect.  The sheer grandiosity of the place showed Molly where she’d erred in her thinking.  McDonald’s was a cheap burger joint that also had a playground.  This was a premium playground that had some snacks.  There was a difference.  The utter lack of that signature grease trap smell tainting everything was a nice bonus too.

A place like Monkey Mania would be a great way to spend an afternoon…if you were a kid.

With all the safety equipment, the air conditioning, semi-familiar tunes, and accessibility, Monkey Mania could be a good place to let your kids wear themselves out…if you were a parent.

As impressive as the entire setup was, there was something very, very wrong about this situation:  There wasn’t a single parent or child around.  No one was around.  The Playground Rapture had happened and Molly and Margaret had arrived too late.  Someone struck gold in the next playground over and now Monkey Mania was a ghost town.  The colonists of this playground had all disappeared, and Molly half-expected for the word “Croatan” to be scratched into one of the foam posts on the Jungle Gym.

Margaret was the first to say something.  “Where is everybody?”

“I don’t know,” Molly said.  “You don’t see anyone, either?”  She was glad that if she was deluded, at the very least, it was a shared delusion.

“Maybe they’re closed…?” Margaret said, her lack of confidence evident in her own tone.

“With the door unlocked and everything running?” Molly asked. Then she chirped, ”Is this even going to work if people aren’t here?” She crossed her arms, shaking her head.  “Someone’s here.  And we don’t need to creep out a bunch of people with our crazy.  Just someone who will ask us to leave and call the cops when we don’t.”

“Yeah,” Margaret agreed.  “This might be better.  It’ll be easier to have fun and…” she paused, “you know… if I’m not worried about creeping a bunch of kids out.” She pointed to the back. “Ticket counter?”

Linking hands, it didn’t occur to Molly until a few steps towards the counter that she’d finally managed to release her grip on Margaret’s hand.  Probably best to not mention it now that their freedom had been so easily and thoughtlessly relinquished.

“Hello?” Molly called out once they reached the cash register.  “Is anyone there?”  She looked around for a little bell or something to ring for service.  “Hellooooo?”  The flush of a toilet and hurried footsteps from the back hallway signaled the arrival of the building’s only other occupant.

He appeared to be in his mid to late thirties; right on that precipice between youth with vigor and age with experience.  His blonde hair was neatly combed, but not so much as to imply he was a perfectionist or anal about his appearance.  His light blue eyes peered curiously and welcomingly into her dark brown ones.  A strong chin highlighted his friendly smile. And while he wore black slacks with a Red Polo shirt, the words “Monkey Mania” emblazoned on the breast, it did nothing to hide his tall, muscular physique.   “Hi there,” Welcome to Monkey Mania.  “Can I help you?”

Molly was at an immediate stupefying loss for words.  He was gorgeous.  Oh the things she would do to him if given half a chance.  “Uh…I…um..I…yeah…”

Her baby girl was kind enough to help.  “What my Mommy means is we’d like to play here, if that’s okay.”

“Sure thing.”  The man behind the counter said with no hint of hesitation. “Just the two of you?”

Molly looked around, as if expecting a crowd to have formed behind her.  There was no crowd, but Margaret was already twisting around, peering at the massive obstacle course.  “Yeah. I guess.”

“That’ll be five dollars, even,” he said evenly.  Molly dug into the pockets of her jeans and produced a Lincoln.  He accepted it and rung open the cash register. “You can stay as long as you like,” the hunk said.  “Normally I’d give you a stamp so I knew you’d already paid, but we’re kind of having a slow day.”

The artist leaned forward on the counter, drawn in by the sound of his voice.  “Yeah,” she said, trying to sound interested but not as entranced as she currently felt.  “About that?  I thought there’d be other kids here.”  A twinge of guilt made it’s way, realizing that she’d just referred to her roomie as a child.

Molly’s sudden crush shrugged a bit.  “Beats me.  I guess we’re just having an off day.  A really off day.  Normally this place is packed.”  Normally.  That sent alarm bells ringing in Molly’s mind.  “I sent everybody else home.  I’m the manager,” he added, extending his hand.  Molly shook it, but she wasn’t really paying attention.

“Why so cheap?” she asked.  Above the manager’s head was a pricing structure.  Kids as old as 12 were charged close to fifteen bucks.

“It’s how we do business,” he said.  “We only charge five bucks for children two and under.”

Molly was a deer in headlights.  “Two…and…under…?”

The manager nodded slowly, and repeated himself even slower as if Molly wasn’t completely fluent in English.  “Yes.  If your little girl is under two years old, the price of admission is five dollars.”  Then he cocked his head to the side; a new thought buzzing in his ear. “Oh, I’m sorry, is she older than two? I couldn’t tell.  Don’t worry about it if that’s the case.”

Oh no.

“Margaret,” Molly said.  “We’ve got to…-“ she whipped her head around.  Gone.  Margaret was gone; she had vanished into the ether.

A big, masculine hand pointed towards the jungle gym.  “She got away from us,” the manager chuckled, lightly.  “Little rascal couldn’t wait to go play.”

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

PLAY! PLAY! PLAY! PLAY!  Everything was going according to plan!  Mommy and Margaret came to this place and it was SO EMPTY!  That meant that she could have the ENTIRE PLAYGROUND TO HERSELF! How amazing was that?!

With rushed, heavy steps, the precious darling waddled up the entrance ramp into the ginormous play house.  This was going to be so much fun!  And no mean old big kids to push her out of the way or make fun of her, neither. Before ducking her head and setting foot past the entranceway to the jungle gym, she spared a glance over her shoulder.  Mommy was talking with the nice man behind the counter.  She’d catch up and come play in just a few minutes.  Mommy always did.

She didn’t get far into the play space before the space started playing back with her.  One step onto the bouncy, stretchy floor caused the little girl to lose her balance, sending her tumbling to the trampoline floor.  A muffled “Oooof” came out of the little girl’s mouth, but no tears poured from her eyes.  For once, it was fun falling down; such was the magic of this place.

“MARGARET!” Mommy called out.  She was obviously worried, so Margaret let out a little giggle to let her mommy know that she was alright.  “Come here, precious! Come to Mommy!”  Margaret knew that tone well enough.  It meant she was trying to trick her!  That was the same way she talked when it was bath time or if vegetables were for snacks.

Ever so clever, Margaret wasn’t having any of that.  She wanted her playtime and she was getting it.  Her diaper crinkling behind her, Margaret climbed back to all fours and crawled her way across the bouncy trampoline floor.

“MARGARET!” Mommy called.  “YOU’RE TOO LITTLE FOR THAT, SWEETIE!” Margaret giggled mischievously.  She’d show her.

Mommy was just beginning to poke her head into the bouncy space, as Margaret started shimmying through the big hamster tubes.  It was a bit of a cramped fit, admittedly, but she could move through well enough.  The tubes went up at an angle at first, with little hand holds in them like a ladder that Margaret used to scooch up and up and up.

Soon though, the tube leveled out, and Margaret was able to wriggle along on her belly like a snake.

“MARGARET!“  Mommy’s voice echoed through the plastic tunnels.  “COME BACK!”

Margaret never had been a particularly good listener when fun was involved.  Besides, there wasn’t enough room to turn around in and Margaret hadn’t figured out how to crawl backwards just yet.  Forward was the only way to go.

A moment later, Mommy’s voice went away from the tubes, and Margaret heard her talking to the nice man outside.  She couldn’t understand what they were saying because of how muffled their voices were.  Mommy didn’t sound too happy, if Margaret was being honest with herself, but the man sounded very calm.

She hoped that he’d calm Mommy down.  When Mommy got upset at her, Mommy spanked.  Margaret reached back behind her and rubbed her bottom, the smooth plastic of her diaper comforting to her fingers.  As long as it wasn’t a bare-bottomed spanking, maybe it would be okay.

Determined to make this little misadventure worth it, Margaret bravely explored the plastic labyrinth.  Up. Up. Down. Down. Left. Right. Left. Right. All fears of punishment evaporated when she snaked out of the tunnels, the roof rising, and the stuff air of the tunnels giving way to the mesh barrier.

In front of her was pit filled to the brim with plastic balls of all the best colors: Reds and blues and greens and yellows.  But the real thing that caught her attention was the row of sturdy grips high above her head.   “Monkee barz!” She cooed with wonder.

“See?” The nice man from behind the counter thumbed over to Margaret.  “I told you she’d come out there.”    Margaret only half heard this, as she was absolutely mesmerized by the framework of horizontal bars.  “That net mesh can come right off and we’ll get her out of there.”

Panic all but consumed the little girl.  Out?!  Out?!  No!  No out! She wanted to swing on the monkey bars.  She wanted to dangle her feet.  She wanted to dive gracefully into the big swimming pool of round plastic goodness.

“Hurry!” Mommy said, sounding panicked.  “I don’t think she’s in her right mind!”  That didn’t quite sound like something Mommy would say.

Fumblingly, Margaret pushed herself up to her knees, as high as she knew how to get up, (the fact that she’d been walking not five minutes ago not occurring to her), and she stretched her hand up and out.  The monkey bars were above her, but they were out there too, so at the very first rung a kid could kick and dangle their feet above the ball pit.  Painfully, slowly, agonizingly, she stretched out her hand, her knees wobbling with fatigue already.  If only she were just a little bit taller, or a little bit older or knew how to stand up.

All. She. Had. To. Do. Was. Reach.

The world went topsy turvy as little Margaret reached out for that first rung, twisting and turning in like a leaf in the wind before falling backwards over herself.   Moments later, a more adult Margaret would have described her ungraceful dive into the ball pit as “ass over tea kettle”, her landing head first into the pit, her padded backside above her head and on full display for the two other adults to admire in the split second she plummeted.  Little Margaret, however, was a baby and didn’t have such words as “ass” and also possibly “teakettle,” so topsy-turvy would have to do.

What happened next was a bit of a reversed baptism.  The baby Margaret disappeared underneath the round fragile waves of the ball pit, and a tense moment later, a panicked and struggling adult Margaret was reborn and breaking the surface.  “MOLLY!” she called out.  “Get me out of here!”  In the back of her mind, Margaret’s tattoo spirit, her Shen, was screaming in protest; it was like a lion that had once again been denied the whole of its feast.

The netting wall was already peeled back by the time Margaret was back to herself.  Molly was waist deep in the stuff and wading over to her.  “We need to leave.”  She said.

“Agreed,” Molly echoed the sentiment.  “Something’s going on here and I don’t like it.  And it’s not just you.”   Margaret sat on her haunches, the weight of her body supported by the balls, almost like water, in fact. Molly waddle-waded through the mass and scooped her arm underneath the padded girl’s armpit.  “C’mon.  Stand up.”

She couldn’t though.  Margaret had been sending the command to her legs to stand back up to her full height long before Molly gave the order. “I can’t,” she said, her voice laced with dread.  “It’s not working.”  Her legs trembled and strained as if atrophied.

“Try,” Molly demanded.  “Just try.”  The big baby pushed up on the balls on her feet, just so her knees could shake and spasm as if wracked by seizure, sending her topping face first into the globules.  This time, tears did fall with her. The lion inside her soul had managed to get a bite after all.

Her Mommy let a long breath exhale out, her eyes closed in concentration.  “It’s okay,” she said.  “It’s okay.  I’ll take care of…” Molly’s sentence was cut short by a strained groaning noise.  “What…the…heck?”

From her spot right next to Molly, Margaret saw Molly’s strong and dexterous finger curl into gnarled talons, her body straining against some unseen pain.  Molly wasn’t looking at her anymore.  Her Mommy suddenly had bigger problems than a silly baby in a ball pit.  Drunkenly she swayed, groaning and growling and clawing at her stomach.  “It….hurts…!”

Margaret could only watch, a helpless bystander as Molly stumbled away as if intoxicated; doubled over in pain; all but toppling over the edge of the ball pit.  “Something…” she said.  “Something’s not right.”  The diapered girl managed to do a kind of doggy paddle crawl over to the edge of the pit while her Mommy writhed on the floor.

“Ma’am,” the man in the red shirt said, leaning over.  “Are you alright?  Do you need me to call 9-1-1?”

9-1-1?  YES!  9-1-1 was EXACTLY what they needed right now.

“No.” Molly growled, picking her self up off her feet.  “I’m fine!”

WHAT?! No!  They were not fine!  None of this met any definition of fine!

“Where’s your bathroom?” she asked, ignoring Margaret’s whimpering pleas for help by the edge of the ball pit.

Tall, Blonde, and Oblivious-To-Diaper-Butts pointed to single hallway.  “That way and hang a right. Ladies’ room is the first door on the right!”  Molly was already moving, clutching at her stomach.  “Don’t worry, “l’ll look after your baby,” he called after her.

Wide eyed and afraid, Margaret did not like the sound of that.

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

The bathroom door flung open, and Molly was a blur through it and in the nearest stall, not even bothering to lock it.  She was not about to shit her pants, she was not about to shit her pants. She. Was. Not. About. To. Shit. Her. Pants!  Not 30 seconds ago she was trying to escape this place, now she was not so silently thankful that at least she wasn’t on the bus.

Another cramp rattled through her insides, she knew not why.  Had the tattoo changed its mind?  Had the Shen inside the ink decided that she’d make a better baby and decided to consummate that new relationship right here and now?  Did she just have a sudden case of the shits?

Pants around her ankles and suddenly in more pain that she’d ever been in her life, Molly kicked like a mule, almost sending the stall door off its hinges.  If she’d bothered to lock it, it might have.

Oh god!  Oh god!  It hurt so much!  It felt like she was shitting, but more than just shitting.  It was the most intense pain she’d ever felt in her life.  It felt like there was something possessing her, something that was kicking and growing inside her; like a parasite; and her body just wanted to push out.

If felt like she was…like she was giving…

Before she gave the most pain filled, intense scream of her young life, Molly managed to whisper a single word.

“No…”

In the midst of her tortured wailing, something popped: Liquid hit liquid as amniotic fluid (or rather some poor substitute) gushed out of her.  Another pop, this one external, as a button on her blouse went airborn while body warped and twisted in a terrible parody of pregnancy.

Like a balloon filling with air her belly became huge and swollen, swelling and stretching faster than her clothes could hold.  She felt as though she would burst open and her entrails would spill out over the bathroom floor.   Her petite breasts filled and grew at least two sizes.  Surely they’d burst open as well, and she’d bleed out, being released from this torture!

But she didn’t bleed out.  The pain didn’t stop.  And her screams went unanswered.  No one was coming to save her.  She would have to save herself.

So Molly did the only thing she could.  She pushed.

And pushed.

And pushed.

And little by little…the pain subsided.  Her belly deflated, and her skin broke out into a cold sweat.  Standing up, and still shaking from the exertion, she looked down into the toilet.  Nothing.  She looked between her legs.  Nothing; at least, none of the ripping or trauma she’d heard of women experiencing during child birth.  Her tummy was tiny again; not even a stretch mark.

Hiking her pants up, she paused to look at the tattoo on her arm.  She still couldn’t make heads or tails of it, but it looked the same as before. “What was that about?”

As if in answer, her breasts, still engorged, starting leaking.  A yellowish milky substance dribbled out of her nipples and dripped onto her feet.

Colostrum.

Molly was beyond words, and could only whimper, holding back tears, as the yellow, almost puss like stuff kept leaking out and it was replaced by something smoother, lighter colored, and more creamy in appearance…

Breast milk.

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

  (Meanwhile)

“Up we go!” The manager of Monkey Mania said, scooping Margaret out of the ball pit and cradling her in his arms.  “You went and had yourself a little adventure, huh?” Margaret didn’t gasp as much as get a breeze knocked out of her when she felt how strong the man was.   “How about something a little safer, yeah?”

“I don’t think a ball pit is that dangerous, actually,” Margaret said, looking up into his dreamy blue eyes.  He smiled softly down at her, not saying anything.  “It’s just a ball pit.”

Again, he nodded. “Uh-huh.” In his arms, she bobbed up and down a bit, hyper aware of every step he took as she was carried over towards the front corner, where the two-and-under area was.

“Seriously though,” Margaret said.  “Thanks.”

“Yup.”  He wasn’t looking at her anymore.  Just nodding as a little tuft of blonde hair nodded with him, just slightly out of place.  Who was this guy, who was just so effortlessly lugging her around? Lugging wasn’t a good word for it, actually.  Lugging implied strain and effort.  There was none.

Mr. Monkey Mania was being short with his responses, but it seemed more out of bemused disinterest rather than strain.  Big strong arms cradling her barely seemed to tense.  He was so strong.  Very cute…handsome actually.  A lifetime ago, sometime between being dumped and getting her new roommate, the old Margaret might have blushingly fantasized about flirting with him.

He was big and strong, like Superman.  She was Lois Lane, being flown away to safety.  She felt so tiny in his arms; so helpless, so little.  “Is there a ‘Mrs.Monkey Mania?”

“Mmmhmm.” Was his reply as he brought her into the padded play pen, littered with cushions and foam blocks and tinker toys.

Bummer. “Sorry,” the baby woman replied. “I didn’t see a ring. I didn’t mean to embarrass myself.”

“Oh yeah?” the manager said, setting her down on her bum.  “Tell me more.”  Margaret noticed a distinct squishy wetness beneath her as she was set down.  When had that happened?  More importantly though, was the tone in which her new company spoke.  He wasn’t speaking to say anything, but to keep her talking.

She looked down at herself and was reminded of the sailor dress and hat she had been dressed in; the wet diaper starting to swell and peek out even further from the hem. Her bewildered, juvenile-seeming face reflected back at her in the tops of her black patent leather shoes.  She looked up from her spot on the floor to the man standing next to her. “You can’t understand a word I’m saying, can you?”

“Interesting…” he said.  This wasn’t a conversation.  It was talking to a pull string toy.

Her breath made a hiccupping noise on her.  “Nothing at all?”

“Go on.”

“The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.”

The man nodded.  “Okay.”

Words escaped Margaret as the implications of this new information sunk in. The real question was whose perceptions were being tampered with?  Was the Shen-tattoo on her back scrambling this stranger’s hearing, or was she only under the illusion that she was speaking real words?  She needed more data.  She needed more time.  She needed answers.  She needed –

“MOMMY!  MOOOOOMMMY!” Arms flailing in the air and the backs of her heels slamming against the soft ground, Margaret went into a full-on panic induced temper tantrum.

“Uh-oh!  I know what that means!”

Strong, comforting arms snatched her up from the floor.  Her soggy bum was boosted up and came to rest in the palm of this stranger’s hand as he gently patted her back and shushed her.  She buried her face in his shoulder, muffling herself, and soothing herself as he rubbed her back.

“It’s okay,” he said.  “It’s fine.  Your Mommy’s just in the bathroom.  That’s where grown-ups go when they have to go potty. She’ll be back in just a couple of minutes.”

The ex-customer representative didn’t feel herself peeing, but she did feel her diaper become wetter and warmer as the apple juice finished its journey through her body.  Her cries died down to a whimper, despite herself.  She just felt so helpless.  She didn’t want to be a baby.  She didn’t want to be a little girl.  She wanted to be a woman!

“I know a fun game we can play,” the stranger who held her said, brightly.  Margaret didn’t open her eyes to see where she was being taken, as much as she felt her newest captor back up and sit down on a nearby bench so that parents wouldn’t have to get on the ground with their rug rats.

As his lap began to form, Margaret felt his too-strong hands pushing her hips backwards.  His idea was sitting down and getting her off?  No, she realized. Her journey backwards stopped once she reached the edge of his lap.  He wriggled and disentangled himself from her so that she was left straddling one knee.  Carefully, almost daintily, he took her hands in his.  “Horsey time!”

“Whoah!” she balked as he began to bounce her up and down on his knee.

Undeterred, he began bouncing her, jostling her up and down, rhythmically simulating (or so he thought) the motions of riding a horse.

He sang: “Clip, clip, clop little Shetland Pony

Swish your tail and toss your mane

Clip, clip, clop little Shetland Pony

Bounce in the saddle and hold your reign!”

A wave of pleasure shuddered through Margaret as the bouncing went on.  Even more so when he declared “Faster!” and picked up the tempo.  “Isn’t this fun?” he asked.

She nodded and let out a breathy, “Uh-huh,” before holding on tight as he bounced her again. The diapered woman felt something well up in her.  What was going on, here?  The squishy padding between her legs, combined with the smooth, forceful rhythm of him bouncing her up and down on his strong legs was having a very different, decidedly un-childlike effect on her.

He might not have been trying to get her off of his knee, but she was getting closer and closer to getting off on his knee.

“Faster,” she whispered, biting her lip.  “Faster.”

“Yeah?”  She didn’t know if he understood her, but he went faster anyways.  Sang louder too.

“CLIP CLIP CLOP LITTLE SHETLAND PONY

SWISH YOUR TAIL AND TOSS YOUR MANE

CLIP CLIP CLOP LITTLE SHETLAND PONTY

BOUNCE IN THE SADDLE AND HOLD YOUR REIGN!”

So good!  Each squish a tension, each bounce a tiny release.  Now she was getting wetter and wetter, and not in a babyish way.  And with each little thrust upwards, she felt herself inch towards a point of no regrets.   He smelled great, too

“Oh, fuck me…” she whispered.  “Just fuck me.  I need this.”

“ClipclipcloplittleShetlandPony

Swishyourtailandtossyourmane

ClipclipcloplittleShetlandPony

Bounceintthesaddleandholdyourreign.”

Closer. Closer. Closer.  She was helping him now (more like helping herself), thrusting her hips a little bit with each successive bounce.  Closing her eyes, she placed one hand on his shoulder to keep her balance while the other hand balled up into a fist.  With abandon, she popped her thumb in her mouth.

To keep her from falling, he had to adjust his grip on her, moving from her hands to hips.  They were grinding now.  Dancing.  Living in the moment.  This!  This is what she had been missing.  This is what she had been denying herself.  This is what she had never really gotten to experience with her ex-boyfriend.  It had seemed like ages since she had felt so alive, so womanly, so turned on and overcome with passion that she wanted to fuck somebody’s brains out! “Oooh…oooh…ooooh.”  Then she couldn’t hold it any more.  “DADDY!”

“Did you call me Daddy?”  He stopped.  Damnit!  Why did he stop?!  She was so close just then, and he’d gone and ruined it!

Great. Just. Fucking. Great.  Every word came out as baby babble except “Daddy,” and like every other man in history, the D-word was the universal anti-aphrodisiac.  She leaned in, pressing her face against his chest, and moaned pitifully.  “Daddy…..”

“Margaret!” Molly’s voice rang out, snapping her from her trance.  “We have to go. Now!”

Margaret looked up, watching her Roommate stumble out of the bathroom, her clothes and hair a complete and utter mess, as if she had been mauled by something.  Her blouse wide open, and with no bra to speak of, Molly looked as if she had been bleeding from her chest.

Only it wasn’t blood, and the white, creamy liquid pouring out of her and onto the floor was coming from her nipples.

“Mommy?”