Financial Aid

Chapter 5
Losing Control

Chapter Description: Ben's mother tries in vain to help her dwindling son.

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As they opened the door to the women’s bathroom, Ben began to breathe heavily.

“Mommy! I have to go!” he whined, holding his little crotch as she lifted him by the armpits and placed him on the floor. He had shrunken so much in the store that as he lifted his leg to take a step toward the stall, his feet came right out of his shoes.

Running towards the toilet out of his mommy’s reach, the now toddler-sized Ben stood before the toilet and began to relieve himself.

“Honey, your pants! Pull down your pants!” she yelled, rushing to pull down the already pee-soaked shortalls. She lifted him as best she could, Ben still streaming urine half into the bowl and half puddling onto the floor.

After removing the stained clothing he was wearing, Ben’s mother grabbed toilet paper from the stall and began to dab up her son who appeared to be a little younger than four years old. She shook her head and laughed at the scene that had just transpired.

“I think it’s about time we put you back in diapers, little man,” she stated, pulling out the package of Pampers from the shopping cart.

“No diapers! I go in big toilet!” Ben said, stamping his foot in an attempt to be serious, instead looking absurd in only his Thomas the Tank Engine shirt and socks.

“That’s not what that puddle says,” she said, pointing out the yellow pool on the tile floor.

“I get potty!”

“Come on, Ben, I’m not going to potty train you when I know you’re just going to forget how to use it tomorrow, so come on,” she said sternly, lifting her half-naked son onto the “Koala Bear Kare” diaper-changing station mounted on the wall, his bare bottom pressing against the cold plastic of the changing table.

Ben’s first diaper change in nearly two decades was one he struggled against with all his might. Crying in earnest, Ben drummed his tiny heels against the plastic table, his pulse quickening. As his mother pulled up his little yellow t-shirt and buckled the restraining strap across his bare stomach, Ben’s quickened pulse caused him to regress noticeably. His baby teeth began to recede into his gums as he passed under three years old: first his baby molars disappeared, followed by the rest. His hair became wispier and his body seemed to balloon with more baby fat. His face became rounder and his cheeks became fuller.

His mother grabbed a baby wipe from the plastic tub in her cart and quickly wiped down her son’s groin region, making sure to get in every fold and crevice of his chubby little legs. She grabbed his ankles with her right hand, easily overpowering her bawling son, and unfolded a fresh diaper under his bottom with her left. She shook a good deal of Johnson’s baby powder onto his bottom, allowing it to freckle his already snow white skin. She also made sure to dust his penis, which was now only represented by an inch-long pink nub. Taping the diaper in place, she unbuckled and pulled Ben by the hands to a sitting position.

“There we go, honey, all better?” she said, not expecting an answer from the sobbing toddler, “Now if you need to go pee-pees or poo-poos, you can just go in your pants, okay? Mommy doesn’t mind.”

Not having another change of clothes after his previous ones were ruined, she placed her toddler son back into the cart, the plastic of his diaper meeting the cool plastic of the shopping cart. Still upset, Ben continued to screw up his face until finally falling asleep in the cart as his mother picked up a few more items.