Exchanged (Diaper Dimension)

Chapter 16
Aftermath

FRED HAD TAKEN the driver’s seat after he hugged Amanda for a moment and I couldn’t help but feel terribly sorry for her.

“I’m sorry,” I said to her when her sobbing calmed a bit.

“Not your fault baby, not Neville’s fault, and most certainly not Klara’s fault!” Amanda said.

“Let’s just go home and eat the rest of our dinners,” Fred told us both as he pulled away.

I sat patiently in the car seat during the lengthy drive home. I was growing kind of bored and impatient… not to mention my stomach began grumbling! ‘Why couldn’t she have been a witch AFTER I had chance to eat…’ I groused to myself.

Back home Amanda exited and picked me up out of the car seat to cuddle me. I had a feeling she just needed the equivalent of a teddy bear or a doll to hold, since she kept carrying me while throwing our dinner leftovers into the microwave. While she swapped out meals she didn’t say anything, and neither did Fred.

Once our dinners were done, she sat down with me in her lap at the table and handed me one of the now soggy pieces of grilled cheese.

“I’m sorry that’s not nearly as good now…” Amanda said as she looked at it herself.

I shrugged, “I saw how much worse it could be,” and wrinkled my nose at the paste that Neville and then Klara had been forced to swallow.

She hugged me and said, “Sorry about that…”

I turned towards her and gave her a hug, “You didn’t do anything. In fact, you’re amazing! You stuck up for me!!! And you stood up for Klara and Neville, two people that are totally unable to alter their own situations! From what I can tell, you two and Megan, may be the only three sane people in this world!” I paused for a second and realized some tears had fallen out of my own eyes, “Thank you for being the ones to take me in!”

She gave me a squeeze of her own and handed me a piece of sandwich, “If that’s not edible anymore be honest with me, I’ll cook something else if I need to.”

The three of us ate in silence for a few minutes before the phone rang. Fred grabbed the cordless and looked at what I assumed was Caller ID on it. “It’s your mother,” he said.

She sighed, “Of course it is. Cassie always goes crying to her… you would think she was the baby and not Megan!”

For my part I just sat carefully in her lap as she sat her own sandwich remnants down and answered, “Hello?”

“Hi pumpkin,” I heard Granny’s voice quietly over the phone.

“Hi Mom,” she replied.

“So… what’s your side?” I heard from the too loud phone.

I forced myself to take a bite of sandwich while Amanda shifted uncomfortably in the seat. “Well…” I listened to Amanda recount the horrible affair that was dinner for nearly ten minutes while her mom said, ‘uh-huh,’ ‘really?’, and other one-word replies leaving complete doubt in how she was responding. “So, Mom, that’s what happened…”

“Didn’t you overreact just a bit?” I heard.

“What?!?” Amanda cried.

“Did Klara throw a tantrum and her food to the ground?”

“Well… yes…”

“And weren’t you just telling me a few days ago ‘your little, your rules?’”

“Yes…” Amanda said meekly.

“Then how can you blame her for disciplining her daughter?”

“It wasn’t discipline Mom… it was abuse, the way she did it. Okay Klara was wrong, and yes, she just had an accident. But given the fact we were all going out to eat, meeting a new cousin, seeing her aunt, and everything else… is her having an accident surprising? If Cassie is really trying to potty train her, she should have taken her to the bathroom as soon as she ordered. She’s only two!”

I heard her mother sigh, “I guess I wasn’t there so maybe it was that bad. I don’t know what to do with you two… or you and Chloe for that matter… The three of you haven’t fought like this since you were all living at home.”

“I don’t know Mom,” Amanda said and I looked up to see the tears on her face.

“Well, do you still want to come for Sunday dinner tomorrow?”

She looked down at me, having finished the sandwich piece she had given me and said, “We’ll come for dinner just so Dad can meet Stacy… but I’m not going to make Stacy eat baby food…”

Her mother laughed, “Don’t worry, we’re having a barbecue and she can have a hotdog like little Klara.”

“One tomorrow?” Amanda asked with a sigh.

“Yes, that gives us time to get home from church and your dad to fire up the grill. You could join us at church if you wanted to…?”

“No thanks Mom, we’ll just meet you at your house.”

“Sounds good then, I love you, see you tomorrow…”

“Love you too Mom,” she said and pressed the end button.

“Well that’s a mess…” she said.

I responded by giving her a hug as best I could from her lap.

“Thanks Stacy…” she said and returned the hug. She started to hand me another piece of sandwich but touched it and realized it and her own food were cold. “Why don’t we see if there’s something else we can have for the rest of our dinner…?”

She held me on her hip as she dug through the refrigerator. She seemed to not see anything in there, but I could see some shredded cheese inside, and some flour tortillas on the counter. I tugged at her shirt, “Quesadillas?” I suggested.

“What?” She asked me.

I looked up at her, “Umm… you know, a quesadilla?”

“What’s that?”

I was genuinely shocked that item didn’t exist in this world. “Take the tortilla, put some cheese in it… well if you’re doing it right you can put meat too… but you can either cook it in a skillet with some butter, or microwave it.” I looked at her wondering if she was joking, “You really don’t have that here?”

She shook her head, “I have those for fajitas?” She said it with the ‘j’ not being an ‘h’ sound like it should be, but rather a harsh ‘j’ sound.

“Just when you think this world can’t get any stranger…” I muttered to myself.

She laughed and squeezed me, “Just kidding Princess, we have those here too. Is that what you want?”

I glared at her but nodded, “Please?”

“Sure, why don’t we have Daddy hold you though?” She said as she passed me over to Fred.

It was good to hear her laugh even if she was picking on me. Fred settled me on his lap with a hug and I watched as he continued to devour his chicken fried steak. He cut off a piece a moment later and instead of bringing it to his mouth brought it to mine. I accepted it into my mouth, and only then thought about the fact I still had the bib on from when we had sat down at the restaurant. I turned red, but chewed the steak and enjoyed the taste.

“Good?” He asked me with a smile as he looked down at me.

“Yes, thank you,” I told him.

I snagged a few more bites of the steak before Amanda finished the quesadilla and I was handed back to her. She had made one for herself too. I only managed about half of the massive one she made for me. “Hmm… I guess I have to remember we can just share meals sometimes, huh?”

I groaned a little bit but nodded, “Yeah, we probably can if you don’t mind giving up some of your meal.”

She squeezed me, “Of course I don’t mind!”

With a sigh she asked, “How about a bath and then a movie?”

I paused for a moment as the need to pee came and I gave into it before answering, “Sure…”

She smiled at me and I had a feeling she knew what I’d been doing. “Okay then, why don’t you go to the living room for a few minutes while Mommy cleans up.”

She sat me down and I did as she asked. Fred disappeared upstairs and I found myself exploring their living room some more on my own. Next to the TV there was a noticeable absence of movies sitting on a bookshelf. ‘Probably all on a server or on-demand’ I told myself thinking about the fact that we had been moving that way in our own world. I nosed around a little bit and found little baby toys that had been placed here and there for me to supposedly play with.

‘I’m sure glad I ended up with these guys…’ I shuddered and realized just how lucky I had gotten. I was just walking to the other side of the living room from the TV when I felt a familiar need and sighed. ‘This part though will never stop sucking…’

A part of me fought the idea of pooping in my pants tooth and nail still. The idea of maybe them changing their mind and letting me use a potty came to mind, but I remembered then that she had said even a potty like Klara used would be too big for me. With a grimace I squatted and let the disgusting mush come out my behind just as Fred came down the stairs. We made eye contact as I finished and I felt my cheeks flush.

“Come here Princess,” he told me as he walked to me and opened his arms up. I held my arms up and he said, “Pee-ew, you stinky!”

I felt tears come to my face as I tried not to think about the mess and appreciated the fact that he seemed to be avoiding smushing it. In my nursery Amanda saw my expression and said, “What’s wrong?”

“She just made a big present for her Mommy,” he told me as he handed me over to her.

“Wimp…” She said before kissing my forehead, “Well I’m glad you got that out of your system before we gave you your bath, huh?” I felt more tears stream across my cheeks and she said, “It’s okay Stacy,” as she sat me down on the changing table gently.

I felt the log smash against my butt and whimpered as she took that moment to put a pacifier in my mouth. “It’s gross…” I told her.

“We’ll get you cleaned up sweetie,” she told me. My dress was pulled from my body before she laid me on my back and pulled my shoes and socks, then my diaper cover off, leaving me only wearing the messy diaper. As the tapes were pulled away I grimaced at an increase in the smell, “It’s not even that much sweetie,” she told me with a smile.

I groaned, “It’s sticky…”

She didn’t answer but just quickly wiped and cleaned me up before saying, “Let’s go pop you in the bath and finish up.”

She gingerly carried me and sat me in the bathtub before undoing the braids in my hair while I sat still in the water. Amanda handed me a squirt toy as she was doing so that I just held in my hands. I realized I still had the pacifier in my mouth and was sucking on it unconsciously. That was when the camera flash went off and I realized that Fred had his camera out again. I looked down and saw the bubbles at least obscured my lower body - but my chest was exposed! ‘You have as much to worry about being seen with your naked chest as any infant…’ I reminded myself. ‘And they’ve both seen you naked…’

I glared at him nonetheless and squirted at him with the toy.

Amanda laughed but told me, “No squirting water out of the tub Stacy!”

I nodded, “Yes Mommy” I tried to say but thanks to the pacifier it came out closer to ‘Yeth.’

Bath time was relaxing as she pulled the braids loose and then washed me carefully and gently. It seemed cathartic to her to wash me and I wondered if she would join me that night. She didn’t, instead pulling the drain plug and saying, “Come on Princess, let’s get you dressed in your jammies and go watch a movie with Daddy.”

She wrapped me in a towel and hugged me tightly in her arms like a newborn. She carried me to the nursery before sitting me back upright in her arms in front of my open closet. “How about this one?” She asked me while holding a pink sleep sack.

I shook my head.

“Hmm… Picky tonight?”

“If you’ll let me be…” I told her with a smile.

She kissed my forehead, “Sure…”

I looked around the section she had hung my pajamas in, as well as the rest of the closet. This was the first time I really had a chance to look around! It was clear she was the kind of OCD person who had to organize a closet! The section she held me to was all pajamas it seemed; organized by sleep sacks, one-piece sleepers, two-piece sets, and nightgowns. Looking to my right I saw t-shirts, onesies, skirts, and dresses all hung neatly and even organized by color. Color was my cue and I noticed a really pretty purple nightgown with pink hearts on it. It had little capped sleeves and I knew I would probably look cute in it. I pointed at it, “Dat one” it sounded like through the pacifier shield.

She smiled and hugged me tighter to her as she grabbed it and then lay me down on the changing table. One of the overnight diapers was put on me before she pulled the nightgown over my head and quickly braided my hair in a loose sleep braid. “You look adorable!” she told me when she was done.

“Of course, I do!” I told her having pulled the pacifier out of my mouth. She pushed it back in and carried me downstairs where Fred had cooked a bowl of popcorn that sat next to him on the couch. I noticed a sippy cup sat on the coffee table in front of him as well as two glasses of wine that were obviously for the ‘adults.’

Amanda set me next to the bowl and handed me the sippy cup after she grabbed the pacifier from my mouth by hooking her finger through the ring on the guard. I looked at the cup and took a long drink of the apple juice in it before saying, “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome baby,” she told me. “What do you want to watch?”

I shrugged, “I don’t know?”

She turned the TV on, and after some debate, we ended up putting on a science fiction film that was a cross between Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica. I grabbed a small handful of the giant popcorn and leaned against her with my body. She was soft and warm to lean against, which was nice since the nightgown was actually kind of chilly. After a while she said, “I’ll be back in a moment” and carefully got out from underneath me. The popcorn bowl that was empty went with her and I looked over at Fred who seemed engrossed in the movie.

As a chill came over me, I made a decision and crawled across to him and climbed onto his lap, “Well hello there,” he said to me as he hugged me and settled me in. I leaned against his arm and had to admit I was comfy there. My dad had always loved me… but I hadn’t been able to feel close to him like this since I was little. His sarcasm and humor weren’t meant to be mean, but it was tough to get past it.

‘Maybe as a daughter it will be better…’ I thought to myself. ‘Daughter…’ I added thoughtfully. Truth be told since I wasn’t sitting down on the potty anymore the different parts I had now didn’t seem real to me. I’d been dressed in dresses from the moment I’d stepped foot there nearly a week ago, so nothing had changed there…

As the movie played on Amanda rejoined us and cuddled into her husband’s side. I would take occasional drinks of the sippy cup while the scenes passed. It really was a pretty good movie, but even in a sci-fi film like this there was a bias against littles. Absolutely none existed on the movie, and it was like it was easier to just deny their existence. As the movie reached its final climax, I felt a need to pee and gave into it as there was no reason not to. Fred seemed oblivious to that fact.

Amanda picked me up as the movie wrapped up, “After earlier I don’t want you to do this if you don’t want to…” she said to me as she held me to her.

“Thank you, but I think it’ll make us both feel better,” I told her knowing she was speaking about nursing me.

Her shirt and bra were pulled out of the way and she presented me with the leaking orb that I nursed contentedly from. ‘So glad I got these two…’

THE NEXT MORNING, I woke up and stood looking out the bars of my crib. I held onto the bars to keep myself standing upright - otherwise the soaked pillow between my legs barely let me even crawl. The clock read 7:30am and the sun was peeking through the sides of the window curtains. I quietly waited for ten minutes and had yet to hear any noises making me think my two Amazon guardians were awake yet.

I sighed and looked around the crib to where Elena had been thoughtfully tucked in with me the previous night. I sat back down and held her thinking about my awkward situation. The skirt of my nightgown had ridden up to uncover the soaked night diaper. I poked at the puffed-up garment for a moment. ‘What the hell was I thinking?’ I asked myself as I looked around the nursery and the crib I was currently confined to. Back home I could have been going out and doing things, enjoyed freedom, been a boy still...’

‘Well actually that doesn’t bother me as much,’ I admitted to myself.

I sighed and wondered what the day was going to bring with crazier Amazon drama between Amanda and her psycho sisters. I couldn’t help but feel bad for the casualties in their insanity. Neville certainly was the most obvious case of abuse there, but what I had seen with Klara yesterday seemed to somehow go beyond discipline. Something in the tone…? It just didn’t feel right!

I shook my head and smiled as I saw Amanda sleepily walk in with her nightgown still on.

“Awake already?” she asked.

I nodded, “It’s weird… I never wake up before eleven at home on my own.” As I said the words, I realized I had been sucking on my pacifier all night and hadn’t noticed it still lodged in my mouth. I blushed and pulled it out, “Guess we didn’t need the nanites there…”

She laughed, “Let’s get that booty of yours out of that wet diaper.”

She carried me over to the changing table and removed the wet diaper and soon had me dressed in a new regular pamper. “Let’s figure out what you’re going to wear today,” she told me as she unstrapped me and carried me to the closet. “Pick something you want to wear,” she prompted me.

I looked up at her and asked, “I get to pick again?”

She squeezed me, “I told you before you came, I wouldn’t be able to help myself on some things… but after yesterday… and with school starting soon, I’m wanting to see if we can’t give you a bit more freedom…”

“Thanks,” I told her and leaned my head in to squeeze her. She was standing by the dress section of the closet so they were the first items that were in my view. I reached my arm out and she moved close enough for me to start sliding the dresses back and forth on the rack. “How in the world do I have so many dresses already?” I asked her incredulously.

She laughed, “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure you have triple that by the time next summer comes.”

I shook my head knowing she probably wasn’t joking. I looked through each of the ones and decided to ask, “In my world they have a saying you should ‘dress for success,’ after yesterday and our time with Chloe… umm…”

“How are we going to handle them?”

I nodded.

“I don’t know. I think there’s a couple ways we could do it. You could wear a very infantile dress with a built-in bodysuit, and I could keep you cuddled up to Daddy or me all day. I imagine that would probably be how Chloe or Cassie would expect us to handle you.”

“Or?”

“Or… I think there’s a couple of options that you could wear that would keep your diaper hidden except when I want to check it or it needs changed… We could pretend you’re more like Kristina?”

I nodded, “Is there another option?”

“Well, you have several cute sundresses that we could put you in and as long as you don’t flip them up, they wouldn’t show your diaper, but then you wouldn’t be pretending to be a big girl either.”

I sighed and thought for a moment, ‘I’m not going to pretend they’re not diapering me… I might think about that for school, but it’s pointless today. The infantile dress doesn’t seem like it would irk Chloe and Cassie enough though…’

I looked at the options chose something that matched her third option, “That one,” I pointed towards a dress that had an alternating almost quilt like appearance. The top part of the bodice was yellow with a crochet overlay, the next section began under a yellow ribbon and bow with mostly blue flowers and an occasional yellow one. Below that section was a mostly yellow fabric with green leaves on flowers and light blue flower petals. The final section was a white background with almost water colored flowers in various shades of blue.

“I like that one too,” Amanda told me as she took it and the hanger down before grabbing another dress with a bodysuit attachment.

“Why’d you grab that one?”

“Well we want to keep the other dress pretty for when we leave, don’t we?” She smiled at me.

I nodded, “I guess.”

She dressed me in the bodysuit dress, which was cute, but a quick view in the mirror meant it looked like I was the three-month-old baby everyone seemed to be expecting. I sighed as she patted my back and said, “Let’s get your latte bottle…”

Her nightgown was thin and I could see she was beginning to leak through it. I thought for a second and asked instead, “Can I reserve an extra day instead…?”

She looked at me oddly, “Why?”

“You need to get rid of some?” I asked shyly.

She looked down and laughed, “Alright, I guess we can hold that one off. But don’t cry later about caffeine withdrawals!”

I smiled at her and expected her to sit down in the glider, but instead she just moved the gown out of the way and put my mouth to her breast right there where she stood. It was a little odd at first, but she was supporting me solidly and I knew I was in no danger of falling. She rocked back and forth and I found myself growing more relaxed as my stomach filled. I was burped between breasts and discovered we had moved outside to the backyard on a porch swing as I began on her second breast. By the time I finished I was feeling pretty full and Amanda looked like she was in a good mood as well. The air outside felt like the perfect temperature and I enjoyed the breeze against my exposed skin.

“Okay baby girl, why don’t you study in your playpen while Mommy gets her shower,” she told me with a smile while feeling the state of my diaper. “That diapee should be good until I get done.”

I blushed but nodded. She carried me back inside and left me in the playpen with all of the books on the test and I began cramming information in my head again. When I began hearing noise in the kitchen a little while later, I started a bit and realized that Fred was making breakfast. He stopped when he saw my gaze and came over to pick me up. “How about you keep Daddy company in the kitchen?” he suggested kindly.

He gave me a hug that I returned and brought me to my highchair, buckled me into the harness, and then left to grab my books. He kept working on pancakes, sausage, and eggs while I made it through another section of a practice test. I suddenly felt my stomach cramp up a bit and let the fart loose… only it wasn’t a fart. Wet mushy poop went into my diaper and I froze, shocked by it.

Fred had just scraped the eggs into a bowl and looked at me before sniffing. “Uh-oh, did some make a poopy?”

I felt tears going down my face and he said, “It’s okay, come on, Daddy will get you cleaned up.”

He pulled me back out of the highchair and carried me upstairs. About the time we reached there I felt another cramp and pushed more mess out. “Shhh…. He said, it’s okay.” He rocked me for a moment in his arms and then lay me down on the changing table. “You done?” He asked.

“I think so,” I whimpered.

“Well if not I guess we can always change that diaper too, huh?” He said in a good-natured voice. As he opened it up he asked, “You fed from Mommy this morning, right?”

I nodded, “Yes.”

“How many times yesterday?”

I shook my head, “I don’t know a few?” I had a sudden fear, “Is there something wrong with me?”

He shook his head, “No sweetheart, but your stool is more like an all breastfed baby right now. I wasn’t expecting that. Nothing wrong with it, but I’ll make sure Mommy gets some good solid foods in you today too.”

I shuddered a bit as he cleaned up a diaper that seemed to be among my messiest yet. He was quick about it though and pulled the snaps of the bodysuit closed quickly before giving me a hug, “There you go baby girl. Let’s go wash our hands and then we’ll have breakfast.”

He carried me back down to the kitchen and washed his hands and mine in the large kitchen sink. It was the first time I’d been so close to it and I knew without a doubt if they were any other pair of people, I would probably be getting my baths in the sink for ‘my safety.’

“You’d fit in that sink just fine, huh?” He smiled at me, obviously reading my mind.

I sighed, “Hard to even think of people taking me seriously as a college student sometimes.”

He hugged me and carried me back to the highchair. “Not everyone is going to take you seriously Stacy, but just remember there are in fact two people in this world who will always have your back.” He kissed my head before saying, “Still have some room after Mommy’s milk?”

I nodded and he returned with a cute decorated child’s plate and a soft plastic baby spork that he gave to me. The plate had a mutilated part of a pancake, some eggs, and a piece of sausage. I looked at it all and laughed, “You all would starve in my world…”

“Huh?” He asked as he took a bite of a sausage.

“This is a full meal for me… and it’s not even full portions…” I shook my head, “Well hopefully your food bill isn’t going up too much on account of my stomach.”

He laughed as Amanda came down in a cute dress that matched one of the panels of the dress, we had picked out for me later. She looked and saw the plate in front of me and said, “There is no way she’ll ever finish all of that Fred,” she told him.

I giggled, and she said, “Oh and what are you going to do, finish it to prove he’s right?”

“I doubt it,” I told her with a smile, “but he’s still right.”

She gave me a kiss on my forehead and said, “Honey you forgot something for her.”

“What?”

“A bib?” She said while holding one up in her hands.

“I think she’s doing just fine without it,” he pointed out.

She sighed, “Oh well, we’re changing her outfit later anyway,” she lay it back down on a stack of them and gathered her own plate of food. “Thanks for making breakfast,” she kissed him on her way to the seat next to me.

For my part I had been eating on my own and kind of hoped to continue that. I hoped if I could do it without making a mess of my clothes maybe she’d let me do it more often. I ate carefully and daintily through the breakfast and managed to avoid making a mess with the spork. It was an awkward utensil that even as something sized for a baby still felt more like a long teaspoon to me. I finished all that I could eat and suddenly burped, “Excuse me,” I said aloud and realized they both had been watching me.

“Well, don’t we have a dainty princess,” Amanda said as she came over to me and used a baby wipe on my face and then my clean hands. “I don’t think you got a single drop on your outfit!”

“I don’t have to have a bib…” I told her with a smile.

“Sometimes no,” she agreed, “but you will later in that pretty dress.”

I sighed as she picked me up and nodded. She carried me to her lap where she was still playing with her own plate a little bit. I could tell her mood was about as in the pits as mine so I gave her a hug and leaned into her. She responded by putting her arms around me and kissing the top of my head. “How in the world did we end up with the perfect little girl?” she asked Fred.

“We responded to an online ad for a deranged lunatic,” he said with a smirk.

“Hey I resemble that remark!” I told him.

Just then Amanda decided to launch a tickle attack on my side and didn’t let up for several long moments until I was out of breath and more than a little bit wet.

When I managed to get my breathing under control, “Mommy you might want to change my diaper…”

“And why is that missy?”

“It’s going to leak probably otherwise?”

She laughed, “Fred you want the baby or the dishes?”

“I’ll take the dishes, she looks happy to be in your arms,” he said with a smile towards both of us.

Amanda carried me upstairs and I did feel comfortable in her arms. I was changed into a new diaper and she asked, “It’s still a few hours until we go, what do you want to do?”

“Study?” I suggested.

“I was thinking maybe something else?”

“What?”

“Well, I thought we could go for a walk?”

I laughed, “Somehow I have a feeling that doesn’t involve me walking much.”

She smiled at me, “Well… we’ll probably take your stroller.”

I thought for a moment about how little I could see out of the stroller… “Could you take me in the sling instead?”

“Really?” She asked me, “Why?”

“I can see better,” I told her.

“Okay baby, we can do that.” She looked at me and said, “Wait in your crib for me,” and deposited me without a warning.

‘Why am I in a cage…?’ I asked silently. She returned a few minutes later with the sling carrier and began getting it set on her shoulders. Before she came to pick me up though she walked over to a drawer of my dresser and looked for a moment before saying, “Aha!”

For my part there was nothing I could do but look like the helpless baby I felt like. She came back over to the crib and picked me up to set me into the carrier. She seated me in it facing just to the side to where I could turn my head and see where she was going, but I could also see to her side. I felt very safe in the sling and said, “Thanks, this is way better than the stroller.”

“You’re welcome, as long as you keep being as skinny as you are, I don’t have a problem using this,” she said with a smile and a kiss to my head. “Now let’s get this hat on your head!”

I saw the cloth pink hat with a wide brim and the only real words that could describe it were cute and adorable… She fiddled with my hair for a moment into a scrunchy before putting all of my hair up inside of it. A moment later she kissed my nose and said, “Take a look at you!”

She walked in front of a mirror and I watched a baby with her mouth open in shock. With my hair hidden in the hat, sitting in a sling, with my new face, there wouldn’t be anyone treating me like a little. Anybody who saw us would think I was the three-month-old baby that Amanda never told them she was having!

“You look adorable!” She told me.

I nodded, “You could pass me off as your actual baby…”

“I think we might just do that sometimes,” she told me with a little hug, “for now let’s go for a walk!”

Fred joined us downstairs and we went for a nice walk to the university and then back with the two of them holding hands most of the time. Seemingly every time we ran into someone, they would make cute faces at me or come tell Amanda how cute her baby was. It seemed to me that as long as they thought I was an actual baby they were just friendly to me. The second there was a suspicion I was a little though, then they felt the need to rub in my inferiority.

As we walked and they talked I thought a lot to myself about the dynamic of this world. I knew from my studies in school about the history of minorities fighting to have the same rights as whites in America, or even women having opportunities, that there were a lot of parallels. A power imbalance had been created that meant those with power, the Amazons, had something over everyone else… and of course they wanted to keep it that way. By not only taking care of their maternal urges, but also keeping competition down in their work forces they were benefiting themselves in a lot of tangible ways. By that same token though I couldn’t grasp why they would let littles even try and attend middle school, high school, or college if they just wanted drooling babies. There had to be some sort of ultimately sick twisted mindset that had caused this dimension’s issues. ‘Almost like someone dreamed it up…’ I thought to myself.

“Sweetie, you okay?” Amanda asked me.

“Huh?”

“You haven’t heard a word I’ve said, have you?”

“Umm… honestly no?”

“Let’s try this again then, I’d like you to take a quick nap before we go over to my parents… Actually, I want to too,” she told me with a smile as I realized suddenly, we were back in the living room.

“Oh… I don’t know if I’ll sleep but I’ll lay down,” I told her.

“Would it help to nurse first?” She asked me.

I thought to myself about it for a moment but shrugged, “Sure…”

Whatever was in her milk might as well have been sleeping pills most of the time, because I was out before I knew it.