Fifteen Steps Down: An AR Anthology

Chapter 1
Having It All

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Chapter Description: Content Warnings: Diapers, Masturbation, Gay (Male/Male), Humiliation, Strong/Offensive Language, Nudity

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With morning comes the bloody sun. It crests the San Gabriel mountains and floods the valley below with its unfeeling light, providing to some a beacon of the new day and to others an unwelcome cast on the sins of the evening prior.

For Tristan, it was very much the latter.

He groaned and turned away from the piercing rays that had dragged him sluggish and stupid from his sleep. His slumber had swaddled him from the ache and thirst of his inevitable, grinding hangover, but now he had no recourse but to wish the agony away and curl deeper into the sofa’s embrace.

It was, in his agonized stupor, a moment before Tristan realized that said sofa was not his own. Its fabric felt far too clean.

With reluctance he creaked open his eyes and pulled himself upright, looking around blearily at the high-end, tasteful furnishings of the spacious living room he had found himself in. This was by no means the 19-year-old’s first time waking up in an unusual place, and as such it didn’t really concern him that he didn’t know where he was or how he got there. What did concern Tristan was that this was, by far, the nicest place he had ever ended up after a night of drinking, drugs and partying.

Tristan, being among their class, was deeply suspicious of rich people.

‘How are you feeling?’

Tristan jumped and turned in the voice’s direction. In the doorway stood a smiling, square-jawed man with piercing blue eyes and short black hair so strenuously stylized that every strand seemed individually shaped and sculpted. Tristan scowled.

‘Like shit,’ he mumbled as he returned to examining the details of his unbearably tasteful accommodations. The older man – Tristan would’ve put him in his late thirties if he had to guess, the coming ravages of middle age seemingly held at bay by meticulous self-care – chuckled and moved into the room. He extended the glass in his hand towards Tristan as the younger man eyed it warily.

‘Homemade hangover cure,’ the older man explained, smiled widening at Tristan’s obvious disgust. ‘Works every time. I’m Gabriel, by the way.’

Tristan met Gabriel’s eyes for a moment before snorting and very purposefully rising to his feet, making the older man wait as he stretched and cracked his neck.

‘Didn’t ask.’ Tristan brushed his chin-length, dishwater blonde hair away from his smaller, paler blue eyes. ‘You wanna show me the way out?’

Gabriel cocked his head slightly, seemingly amused by the question.

‘You’re not curious as to how you got here?’

‘Not for nothing dude, but I’ve been waking up in the apartments of twink-chasers since I came of age. Your place might be a little nicer than most…’ Tristan said this as he cast a disdainful hand at his surroundings, ‘…but you’re still just some creepy old perv who, for all I know, probably felt me up or worse while I was sleeping. So no, I don’t want to know who you are or where I am. Just point me to the front door. Now.’

Gabriel’s smile grew even wider.

‘You’re right about one thing,’ he began, ‘I did take you back here because I’m attracted to you. You’re lucky that the drugs and the alcohol you seem intent on destroying yourself with haven’t marred those good looks of yours yet.’

‘You don’t know a goddamn thing,’ Tristan spat. ‘You roll up on me having a good time at the club and just assume that I must be popping pills and slamming booze twenty-four seven?’

‘There’s no sense in being coy about your habits. When you get to be my age, people become a lot easier to read.’

‘Oh, word? Something to look forward to when I get decrepit and desperate like you, I guess. Here’s hoping I’m half as smart when I hit forty.’

‘Well, I’m not quite there yet.’ Gabriel laughed. ‘Not physically, anyway. Though technically I have been alive for nearly two hundred years now.’

Tristan froze, hairs standing on end as his booze-soaked senses shifted into survival mode. Though he didn’t know what Gabriel was playing at, he was entirely certain that he didn’t want to spend another second in the house of this lunatic.

‘Right. Cool.’ The young man put on a tight smile as his eyes scanned the room for escape routes, as his fingers crept downwards towards the smartphone he always kept in his back pocket. ‘I’m just gonna, uh…’

‘Looking for this?’

Gabriel casually held up Tristan’s phone. A cold pit opened up in the young man’s stomach.

‘Give that to me.’ Though he tried to make his voice as forceful as possible, there was something about Gabriel’s presence – something about his unnerving confidence and horribly calm demeanor – that made his demands sound timid even to his own ears. ‘I’m not fucking around, dude. Just toss it my way so I can get out of here.’

‘And go where? Back to your gaudy shithole of an apartment so you can sleep off your hangover and start the cycle all over again?’ Gabriel shook his head and sighed. ‘I’m not going to let that happen. Please just listen to what I have to say.’

Tristan stared at Gabriel for a moment before groaning and throwing up his hands in surrender.

‘Alright man.’ He shrugged as he stepped towards Gabriel. ‘Let’s just talk this out and – ’

The young man suddenly lashed out with his right fist. Though it came close to connecting – so close that he could swear his knuckles scraped against Gabriel’s stubble – the older man was too fast. In an instant, he had captured Tristan’s arm and pulled him into what felt like an unbreakable full nelson, the young man crying out in surprise at the astonishing strength Gabriel had kept hidden until now.

‘One of the benefits of being immortal.’ Gabriel’s voice did not waver in the slightest, not even as Tristan kicked and bucked beneath him. ‘Plenty of time to work out and maybe even master a few martial arts while you’re at it. Are you going to calm down, or do I need to tighten my grip?’

‘FUCK YOU!’

Gabriel sighed and wrenched the hold tighter. Tristan gasped and then went still, suddenly very aware that this man could easily break both of his arms.

‘That’s better,’ Gabriel chuckled. Tristan shivered as the older man drew closer, brushing his cheek against Tristan’s and smothering the younger man’s senses in his manly, intoxicating scent. ‘Immortal isn’t exactly the right word, by the way. I’m just able to control the age of any person I want – myself included. Settled on thirty-one for myself because I appreciate the authority that comes with the age. Plus I just look damn good like this. Wouldn’t you agree?’

Tristan grit his teeth but said nothing, words swallowed by the indignant rage swelling hot and tight in his heaving chest. Even if he wanted to say something, the deep, rippling shame he felt – shame that, on one level, he was enjoying being so thoroughly dominated by this creepy old fuck – was more than enough to keep his lips clamped. He could feel the smile Gabriel wore as he peeked over the young man’s shoulder, as he locked his eyes on the unmistakable bulge in the fly of Tristan’s $700 jeans.

‘I’ll take that as a yes,’ Gabriel chuckled. ‘I don’t know why you’re so insistent on pretending that you’re not interested. Your body’s more honest than you are.’

‘Fuck you,’ Tristan repeated with far less conviction than before. ‘I’m no fag.’

At this, Gabriel went quiet. It felt to Tristan as though his grip loosened ever so slightly, though not nearly enough for him to escape.

‘I see.’ Gabriel finally said. ‘The drugs and the drinking and the partying aren’t just you being like every other trust fund brat out there. A sober moment means a moment alone with yourself. And you hate yourself, Tristan. You hate that people only like you for your money. You hate that your parents gave you an inheritance instead of an upbringing. You hate that nobody ever taught you to accept yourself.’

Tristan snarled but said nothing.

‘You poor boy,’ Gabriel sighed. ‘Truthfully, I was hoping that you’d be interested in joining this little life I’ve created for myself. You’d get to stay nineteen and beautiful for eternity – you’d always have someone by your side to love and care for you. But I can see there’s work to be done before you’re in a position to accept such an offer.’

Tristan had allowed himself to slouch in Gabriel’s grip, too worn down emotionally and physically to even stand up straight. That changed, however, when he suddenly felt…it could only be described as an energy…flowing from Gabriel’s fingertips into his shoulders. Its warmth flooded his slight form and granted him a sort of bewildered calm – a calm that lasted until he realized that his feet were no longer touching the ground.

‘What the fuck?’ Tristan whispered. His voice rose in time with his panic as he watched his $800 loafers grow looser and looser on feet that were being pulled further and further from the ground. ‘What the fuck?!’

‘You have to learn that it’s okay to be taken care of, Tristan.’ Gabriel’s words resonated within Tristan’s mind, each one horribly distinct despite the unnerving softness of the older man’s tone. ‘Just relax. You’ve needed this for a very long time.’

Tristan would’ve laughed had he not been scared out of his mind. It was ludicrous to think that he could relax while experiencing this terrible impossibility – that there was anything he could do but stare down at himself in stark, strangling horror as his loafers clomped unceremoniously to the floor, as his meticulously-torn jeans and fitted baby-blue briefs started slipping from his slimming waist. It was not until they slipped down his thighs – his increasingly roomy shirt unable to provide any cover due to being bunched up by Gabriel’s vise-like grip – that Tristan, with a choked gasp, realized what was happening to him.

‘No way.’ Tristan whimpered with pitchy petulance as burgeoning tears burned at the corners of his eyes. "No way. No way."

His chin quivered and his throat constricted with oncoming sobs as he numbly studied the immature organ dangling between his smooth thighs. The girth and length that had served him so well on all those one night stands had all but disappeared, leaving him with a slender, abbreviated penis protected by nothing more than a few straggling strands of curly blonde hair. Tristan could do nothing but blubber as they too soon sank back into his softening skin, as his shaft slimmed and shrank, as his testicles pulled up tight and tiny against his baby-smooth groin. Overcome by this greatest of losses, it barely registered with Tristan that his impossibly immature genitals were but one part of a form he had not occupied since fifth grade. Skinny all over, except for the stubborn pockets of baby fat in his thighs and tummy that were not shed until puberty. Round, soft cheeks embarrassingly prone to blushing. Bright blonde curls bobbing above startling blue eyes in a horrifyingly girly haircut foisted upon him by the walking bottle of merlot that called itself his mother.

A real cutie, as his boarding school classmates had derisively put it.

"There we are." Gabriel set Tristan down on his bare feet and gently turned him by his slender shoulders, over one of which slung the collar of his $900 limited edition t-shirt. Tristan, through tear-filled eyes, saw Gabriel kneel before him. "I didn’t want to do this, Tristan, but I can’t send you back into the world knowing that you’re just going to piss your life away.’

‘T-this is insane,’ Tristan blubbered through his tears. He cringed at the pitch and whininess of his insufferably childish voice, at the mild lisp that had been so relentlessly mocked and imitated during his first childhood. ‘People will be looking for me. They’ll…they’ll find you and then – ’

‘Tristan?’ Gabriel gently lifted the boy’s quivering chin and met his watery, miserable eyes. ‘Who would look for you?’

Tristan fought the urge to break down bawling, as Gabriel’s simple question was somehow nearly as devastating to the boy as being turned back into a girly little ten-year-old. In five words, he had gotten to the heart of the manner.

Simply put, no one cared enough about Tristan to search for him.

Overwhelmed in so many different ways, could do nothing but stare at the floor and sniffle. Gabriel smiled and heartily rubbed the boy’s forearms.

‘It’s all right, Tristan. I said that this was for your own good, and I meant it. I promise to let you go the instant I feel you’re ready to take back control of your life – that is, of course, unless you decide to join me in mine. Is that fair?’

Tristan saw little choice in the matter. He offered the tiniest of nods.

‘Alright then!’ Gabriel clapped his hands and put on a bright smile. ‘Who’s up for some shopping?’

***

‘How do you like this one? I think it’ll fit you perfectly.’

Tristan scowled at what Gabriel had plucked from the rack. The unbearably cheap and tasteless t-shirt was a personal affront to every tenet of style Tristan held dear – the smiling face of the ridiculous cartoon animal plastered on the chest seemed to be specifically mocking his growing humiliation and indignity.

It probably wasn’t even 100% cotton. The boy shivered at the thought.

‘Put that shit back,’ Tristan snapped, feeling a tinge rise to his cheeks at how ridiculous the profanity sounded in his squeaky little lisp. ‘Why are we shopping in this disgusting place, anyway? The least you can do is take me to the H&M so I can get an outfit with some semblance of style to it.’

Tristan took a small measure of satisfaction at the way Gabriel raised his eyebrows and studied the boy as though seeing him for the first time. No doubt the man was surprised by the outburst – Tristan had remained petulantly silent on the ride over to this fluorescent hell, this sprawling and filthy big-box store that he would typically never even set foot in. He did so partly because he had nothing to say “nothing he could get away with saying, anyway” and partly because he was, despite himself, fascinated by how losing a mere foot and a half of height could make the world around him so gigantic. Gabriel’s luxury sedan had felt exceedingly roomy – the cushy leather of his seat had seemed to swallow him, made his slight and boyish frame feel even smaller and more powerless. He stayed right at Gabriel’s side as they moved through the store, not because he had any desire to be close to the man but because he couldn’t help but shrink away from the surroundings and passersby that towered over him. The world had been his oyster – now it was a foreboding and dangerous place that, with every second, reinforced his unconscious instinct to be a good boy and stay close to the adult that had sworn to protect him.

‘There’s no need to be bratty about it,’ Gabriel said with just a hint of warning in his voice. ‘If you don’t like it, you can help me pick out something else. It’ll have to be from here, though – I’m not buying designer clothes for a little boy.’

‘I am NOT a little boy!’ Tristan shouted. The heat in his cheeks became a full-blown blush when he caught sight of a disapproving look from a nearby shopper, no doubt annoyed at her shopping being interrupted by some kid’s tantrum. Gabriel caught sight of her and interceded, offering the woman a smile and a shrug.

‘Just turned ten this week,’ he explained. ‘Thinks he’s all grown up now.’

The woman snootily studied the pair for another moment, paying particular attention to how the boy was dressed in clothes far too big for his small, skinny frame. The designer garments had all but lost their style swamped on the boy in that way, holding on only because he kept them clutched to his body at all times. Though Tristan held out hope that she would investigate what a casual onlooker might see as child neglect, she simply snorted and returned to her intense perusal of off-brand halter tops.

‘We’re shopping here,’ Gabriel continued, lowering his voice and training his smile on the boy, ‘because you need to learn about what’s important in life. Blowing hundreds of dollars on designer clothes clearly didn’t make you happy, and nothing about being little is going to change that.’

Tristan seethed at being called little again, seethed just like he did when he was ten the first time and spent every moment of his life being reminded that he was small for his age. This whole nightmare took being small for one’s age to a whole new level, though, and the embarrassment of everything he had endured combined with the insult of being condescended to create a righteous rage that would not be contained by the skinny chest in which it stormed.

‘Don’t. Call. Me. Little.’ Tristan balled up his unimpressive fists and set his features in a steely gaze. His adorable features didn’t lend themselves well to the expression, though, and Gabriel’s grin at his charming attempt at rebellion only made Tristan even angrier. ‘Wipe that grin off your face, you creepy old fuck!’

Silence. Tristan felt the blush drain from his cheeks, felt the entirety of his silly little body go cold as Gabriel’s expression shifted in an instant from indulgent to unforgiving. Dimly he became aware of being stared at by every shopper within earshot, of the fact they were waiting for a show – for what ‘dad’ would do to discipline his rude little boy.

Looking back, Tristan thought to himself that – if there were one thing he could be grateful for – it’s that Gabriel denied them that show. The man spoke not a word as he took hold of Tristan’s wrist and started walking towards the changing rooms, the boy helpless to do anything but stumble after him as he wailed out his apologies.

‘I’m sorry!’ The boy squealed as Gabriel pulled him into a stall and closed the door behind them. ‘I swear, I didn’t mean it! Let’s just go get those clothes you picked out and – ’

‘Be quiet, Tristan.’

Tristan clammed up at once, swallowing and trembling as Gabriel rolled up his sleeves and took a heavy seat on the booth’s cheap wooden bench. He locked his hard blue eyes on Tristan’s and patted his knee.

‘Come here, Tristan. Let’s get this over with.’

Tristan whimpered in sudden understanding.

‘You can’t…’ He whispered. ‘You just can’t.’

‘I can and I will. Now, Tristan. You’re getting ten more if I have to do it myself.’

A sob caught in Tristan’s throat as the last of his resolve disappeared. Chest tight with shame, he shuffled towards Gabriel and squeaked in surprise when the man suddenly put his right hand between his skinny shoulders, using the hold to effortlessly bend Tristan over his knee. His free hand, meanwhile, needed but one tug at the oversized jeans to send both them and his briefs cascading down Tristan’s pale, scrawny legs. The boy yelped in embarrassment and then did so again when his shirt was pulled back to expose his smooth little bottom to the open air, there now remaining nothing stopping Gabriel’s hand from swiftly coming down and –

CRACK!

Tristan howled, horrified to discover that there were yet new depths for his humiliation to plumb. He’d never been spanked as a child “who’d dare, with parents as rich as his?” and as such was wholly unprepared for just how bottomlessly demeaning the punishment was.

CRACK!

Each slap of Gabriel’s strong, manly hand against Tristan’s quickly-reddening cheeks drove home just how small and powerless he’d become, drove home just how completely this man had dominated him.

CRACK!

He was a little boy.

CRACK!

He’d been naughty.

CRACK!

And he needed to learn his lesson.

CRACK!

CRACK!

CRACK!

CRACK!

CRACK!

‘Stooo-o-o-oooop…’ Tristan moaned through his sobs. ‘Puh-please stooooop…I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry, Gabriel!’

Nothing happened for a moment. Then –

CRACK!

Tristan, surprised by the suddenness and severity of the spank, let loose with his most pitiful howl yet.

‘That’s not how a child addresses his father. Apologize correctly, please.’

Tristan squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his fists until his undefined knuckles went white, demanding of himself that he muster what remained of his determination and resist this latest indignity, this latest insult, this latest attempt to break down his will and –

CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!

‘Ahhhhh ha ha ha haaaaaaaaa…’ Tristan blubbered as he went limp, letting fat tears stream freely down his blushing cheeks. ‘I’m sorry…’

Tristan bit his lip. He did not so much say the last word as he let it sneak from his soul.

‘…dad…’

Another moment. An eternity.

Finally, Gabriel stood up and gently sat the boy’s stinging bottom on the bench. It was cool to Tristan’s reddened cheeks yet too hard to give him any real relief, and he squirmed about in search of a comfortable position as he pouted up pitifully at the man who loomed over him.

‘Okay.’ Gabriel sighed. ‘Just one last thing we have to do, and then I think you’ll have learned your lesson.’

Tristan sniffled and frowned at the fingertip Gabriel softly pressed against his forehead. His confusion was swept away by despondent terror when he felt that strange energy surging into him again, when the world began to grow around him once more.

‘Not that…’ Tristan whimpered, shaking his head as teared dribbled from his rounding chin. He sank even deeper into his tent of a shirt as he curled up on the bench, its now-billowing fabric gradually covering more and more of a body that was growing smaller and cuter and more powerless with each passing second. ‘Not tha-ha-haaaaaaaat…’

Gabriel finally removed his fingertip. Tristan sniffled and reluctantly took new stock of himself. He felt the tears bubble back up again as he peered down his shirt and moaned pitifully at his scrawny frame, tickleable tummy, and bare little dangling feet.

‘Remember…’ Gabriel murmured as he kneeled before Tristan, as he warmly enclosed the boy’s smooth palms in his massive, rough hands. The boy, despite himself, felt a streak of calm cut through his panic and despair. ‘You’ll go right back to being an adult once you’re ready. This is part of that.’

Tristan buried his face in his knees and said nothing. Gabriel chuckled and ruffled the boy’s blonde curls.

‘Okay. You hang out here for a minute, okay? I won’t be far– I’m just going to step outside and grab some clothes that’ll fit you.’

The boy did not look up until he heard the click of the door closing. Still sniffling, he raised his head and made sure that he was alone, looking around as though any prying eyes remained within the tiny booth.

It was only once he was sure that he was safe that Tristan – with a trembling hand – reached under his shirt and carefully took hold of his tiny erection.

He gasped, then sighed.

***

Three Days Later

‘You excited for Disneyland, Tri?’

‘Yeah!’

Tristan was starting to feel as though he were finally getting the better of the old man.

Shattered after his spanking, the boy reluctantly realized that petulance and indignity weren’t going to get him anywhere. What he needed was to get Gabriel’s trust – to make him let his guard down, if only long enough for the boy to slip away to the proper authorities.

That meant, unfortunately, that he’d have to act like the lame-ass little kid he’d become.

He did not, of course, do so all at once. Tristan might’ve been spoiled rotten, but he wasn’t stupid. The boy knew that Gabriel would see through his ruse if he capitulated all at once, and so he made a show of slowly growing more comfortable with his new role and status. Over the last few days he had gradually allowed the sulking and sarcasm to fade away, allowed it to be replaced by the affection and deference that Gabriel expected of him. Tristan wouldn’t dare admit that his ease in executing the ruse had been aided by the surprising rewards of obedience. A light, golden feeling fluttered in the boy’s chest every time Gabriel recognized his good behavior with a ruffle of his curls, a pat on his undefined shoulders, a hug that enclosed the whole of little boy body within the man’s reassuringly strong arms.

That feeling worried Tristan. The boy was not concerned with being taken advantage of – aside from the spanking, Gabriel had been unfailingly kind and affectionate and had never touched or treated Tristan in any sort of inappropriate way. His behavior had been naught but that of a doting father towards his son.

No, what worried Tristan was how comfortable he had become with that behavior. Though he told himself that he was simply getting into his role, it had grown harder and harder to push away the thought that perhaps what Gabriel was offering wasn’t actually that bad. Sensing that he was running out of time, Tristan decided that today – during their excursion to The Tackiest Place on Earth – would have to be the day he escaped.

He ran over the plan in his mind as he unconsciously allowed Gabriel to hold his hand and guide him up to the gates, pace quickening and mouth drying at the crowd and commotion that grew around him. Though he scolded himself for shrinking away from the surrounding giants – and the chattering, overexcited kids were no better, as being at their level only reminded Tristan of his predicament – he couldn’t entirely shake the feeling that to separate himself from Gabriel would be to lose himself in this mad whirl of people and colors and beloved copyrighted characters.

‘Something on your mind, kiddo?’

‘Huh?’ Tristan, lost in his thoughts, raised his eyes to see a bemused Gabriel looking down on him. The boy blushed and shook his head. ‘Oh, uh…I was just thinking about what I wanna ride first.’

‘An important decision to be sure. Have you come to a conclusion?’

‘Uh…’ Gripped by a mild panic, the boy vamped for a moment before being interrupted by the futuristic whoosh of the single-rail train passing overhead. ‘The monorail?’

‘Monorail, huh?’ Gabriel stared down at Tristan in sudden suspicion with the boy, terrified that he’d been caught, unable to do anything but stare back and wait for the man’s judgment. It came when he took Tristan by the underarms and whisked him into the air, the boy squeaking in surprise as he was swept off his feet and placed on Gabriel’s broad shoulders. ‘I don’t think you were thinking of rides at all. I think you just want to get to Toontown right away so you can give Mickey a big hug.’

‘Noooooooo!’ Tristan giggled, partly out of the act and partly out of relief. ‘Mickey Mouse is for babies.’

‘Well, I guess I’ll have to give him a hug for you, then – and you can just stand and watch like the big, grown-up boy you are.’

Tristan said nothing. He looked around for a moment, struck by how his new perch had put him above just about everything. Gabriel had helped him, if only temporarily, to forget just how small he was.

The boy paused before allowing himself the tiniest of smiles. He locked his hands under Gabriel’s square jaw, enjoying the way its stubble tickled the smooth skin of his stubby fingers. Things would be back to normal soon, he told himself. No sense in being miserable in the meantime.

Armed with that attitude, Tristan was able to have a morning more fun and exciting than even his wildest and most debaucherous benders. Rides that he wouldn’t have been caught dead on as an adult proved positively exhilarating from his new perspective, the thrills of the Matterhorn and the Haunted Mansion never becoming too scary thanks to Gabriel being right by his side the whole time. It was as their car on Space Mountain was pulling back into the station – after they’d both screamed their heads off in the twisting, falling dark – that Tristan realized Gabriel’s arm had been wrapped around his shoulders the whole time.

A pointless gesture, perhaps, given that the seat belt and safety bar provided all the security the boy needed. Still, there was something about the act that made Tristan – without thinking about it – snuggle up against a body that now seemed impossibly massive and manly to him, color returning to his cheeks as his senses swam within the man’s enveloping warmth and sweet, spicy scent.

Gabriel simply pulled Tristan closer and affectionately squeezed his shoulder. The boy could’ve died right then with no regrets.

Tristan got so deep into his act, in fact, that it was not until after lunch that he remembered his mission. Even then, that recollection only occurred when Gabriel gently interrupted the boy’s chattering about how unbelievably cool Disneyland was to ask him if he needed to go to the bathroom.

‘The bathroom?’ Tristan blinked as though coming out of a trance. Though the truth was that he did have to pee, the question slapped him across the face with the much more important realization that he had been given the perfect opportunity to slip away. ‘Uh, nope. I’m good.’

‘Are you sure?’ Gabriel raised an eyebrow. ‘You haven’t gone all day.’

‘I’m sure.’ Tristan’s shrug belied his struggle to not snap at the deeply condescending question.

‘Well, alright. I’ve gotta go before we do anything else, though, so do me a favor and stand by my stall until I’m done. It’s way too easy to get lost out here by yourself.’

Exactly what I’m counting on, Tristan thought to himself as he nonchalantly followed Gabriel and took up a perch by the stall the man had chosen. The strong, sterile scent of disinfectant stung at his eyes as he nervously studied his surroundings – he had been apart from Gabriel for only a few seconds and already he yearned for the protection the man provided against the gigantic, intimidating world Tristan had been dumped into. Though he told himself that he was simply waiting for the right moment to bolt, the boy knew that his courage was failing him and that within a few seconds he might just give up – might just wait for Gabriel to be finished so he could take the man’s hand once more and let himself be led and cared for like the child he had become.

Tristan grit his teeth, balled his fists, and strode confidently out of the bathroom.

That confidence disappeared the instant Tristan stepped back out into the open, immediately overwhelmed by the whirl of activity and unable, from his low vantage point, to glean any clues about where the nearest security station might be. He had to keep walking, though, had to put some distance between himself and Gabriel even if he had no idea where he was going. The boy took one last deep breath and plunged into the teeming stream of humanity, determined to put one tiny sneakered foot in front of the other until he got where he needed to be.

Tristan was lost within minutes. Cold, constricting fear – the kind reserved to children who had lost their parents – welled in his skinny, heaving chest as he reeled beneath the cacophony of sensation that surrounded him. No matter which direction he turned, the boy seemed to find nothing but the same maddening tableau of swirling colors, high-pitched screams and the nauseating aroma of cheap fried food. Worse than all that, though, was the fact that his need to pee had grown unbearably urgent. The tightness in his reduced bladder had become so pressing and uncomfortable that he squeezed his thighs together in a desperate attempt to keep the dam from bursting, pressed his hands against his groin like any other child determined to – no matter how humiliating the pose – not wet themselves like some dumb baby. Though he looked up desperately at the happy families around him for help, none paid him the slightest attention – save for those families’ kids pointing and giggling at the lost kid who very clearly needed the potty.

Then, a hand on his shoulder.

Tristan yelped and spun around. His jaw fell and his eyes widened as they went up – way, way up – to meet Gabriel’s unamused expression.

The boy went cold all over – save for one particular spot.

Tristan – numb to everything but the terror that had struck his soul – did not realize what had happened until he saw Gabriel’s eyes fall, until his stony features melted in sympathy and pity. Tristan followed that fall, choking on a sob when he saw the rapidly-growing wet patch that had appeared on his fly. Though he tried with all his might to stem the flow, there was nothing to be done. Tristan simply stood there and emptied his bladder into his cartoon undies and cargo shorts, stood there and felt it trickle down his smooth, skinny legs in warm, itchy rivulets. Though he stared in shock at the extent of his accident, he could still hear the snickers and murmurs of those who looked on, who saw not a man but a silly little boy who couldn’t even be trusted to make it to the bathroom on time.

Finally, he was finished. And Tristan – seeing no other recourse – threw his head back and wailed like a child.

The next few minutes were a blur for the boy. Fat tears leaked from eyes he had jammed shut from shame as he felt himself plucked off the ground and effortlessly carried away. It was out of instinct that he wrapped his arms around Gabriel’s neck, that he buried his face in the man’s shoulder and soaked his shirt with his sobbing. It was not until he caught another horrible whiff of disinfectant that he opened his eyes, doing so just as Gabriel carried him into an empty stall and set him on his feet.

Tristan sniffled and rubbed away the tears with the back of his hands as Gabriel reached into the bag he had been carrying all day, the vessel from which he had pulled the snacks and water that had kept them going throughout the morning. To Tristan’s surprise, what Gabriel pulled out was not nourishment but a small packet of wet wipes, the sight of which nearly sent the boy back into another crying fit.

‘Wuh-wait!’ Tristan sobbed, aghast at the idea of being cleaned like an infant. ‘Can’t we just use toilet paper and – ’

Tristan’s protests were cut short when Gabriel – with one authoritative yank – pulled down his wet shorts and soaked undies. Though the boy squealed in shame and instinctively covered up, the man paid his outcry no mind. He simply brushed away Tristan’s hands and set about cleaning him up with stark efficiency, not saying a single word as the boy shivered at the feeling of his insignificant penis contracting even further under the coolness of the wipes. Without even the energy to cry, Tristan simply pouted and hiccupped pitifully until Gabriel finished.

Then Gabriel pressed a fingertip against his forehead.

‘NO!’ He wailed. ‘DOOOOOON’T!’

Though Tristan tried to push Gabriel’s arm away, doing so only reminded him of the chasm of strength that now sat between them. Gabriel, meanwhile, remained unflinchingly stoic and gentle – the sort of gentleness that told Tristan that the man wasn’t mad…just disappointed. Somehow that realization was even more devastating than the fact that his latest regression had left him just barely big enough to escape the infantile clutches of toddlerhood. Tristan’s rounded knees trembled beneath him as he numbly took in the details of his new immaturity, each babyish feature cuter and softer and rounder than the last. With an inward gulp, the boy realized that he was now nearly young enough for –

Gabriel pulled one more item from his bag. Tristan’s world crashed down around him.

The garment might as well have been a loaded gun for the dread that strangled Tristan as he stared dumbfounded at it. Though its colorful, cartoony design and its ability to be pulled up and down his pudgy legs may have earned it the tactful title of ‘training pants,’ Tristan knew better.

It was a diaper. And he was going to wear it.

‘I don’t know what I’m going to do with you, Tristan.’ Gabriel sighed as he relieved Tristan of his now-oversized shirt, the boy – numbed by the impossible shame of the moment – not so much as whimpering at the full exposure of his silly little body. ‘I really thought we had a turned a corner – I thought you had started to realize that I’m doing all of this for you.’

Gabriel held open the pair of disposable underwear at Tristan’s knees. The boy looked up at him with the most sorrowful and apologetic expression he could muster, searching the man’s eyes for any hint of mercy.

He found none. Tristan took one last, deep, shuddering breath – and then the boy, one trembling little foot after the other, stepped into his training pants. He squirmed and sniffled as Gabriel cinched them around his waist, reminded with every movement of the puffy padding and soft crinkling that marked him as too little to even use the bathroom on his own.

‘That’s enough excitement for one day.’ Gabriel said as he pulled Tristan into his arms, the boy whimpering at the realization that he’d be carried through the park in nothing but his Pull-Ups. ‘I think a certain someone needs a nap and some time to think about what he’s done.’

There was no discussion, no debate. A preschooler, after all, doesn’t get much say in how he’s disciplined. And as they made their way to the gates – padded bottom bouncing on Gabriel’s muscular forearm, chubby cheeks blushing at those who smiled or snickered at the adorable pants-wetter – that’s exactly how Tristan felt. His mind may have still been that of a man’s, but his feelings were that of a frightened, shamed little boy.

Exhaustion overtook Tristan. He rested his tired head on the rock dragging him into the deep.

***

Four Days Later

Tristan was starting to feel as though he were losing his mind.

It seemed to him a natural consequence of the many different directions in which his psyche had been tugged. Tristan, after all, was still committed to getting Gabriel to drop his guard – which meant cheerfully going along with all the insufferable activities and outings the man felt appropriate for his new age.

At some point Tristan resolved to fling himself from a balcony if he had to fingerpaint even one more time.

The boy – despite the lameness and repetitiveness of his preschooler’s life – was unsettled by how easily he’d slipped back into the ruse after the devastating events at Disneyland. During the car ride home, his shock and anguish had given way to a fury so great that he trembled in rage within the confines of his car seat. But when Tristan awoke from his required nap “exhausted emotionally and physically, the boy told himself that he would’ve napped even without being told”, he did so to find that Gabriel had been holding him in his sleep. The man had cuddled Tristan close to his broad, strapping chest, had used his powerful arms to lovingly enclose the whole of Gabriel’s childish, dozing form in total comfort and warmth.

When Gabriel realized that Tristan was stirring, he simply smiled down at the boy and asked if he felt better. Dumbstruck by the surprising re-emergence of the fluttery golden feeling in his chest, Tristan could do nothing but nod. Gabriel kissed the boy’s soft curls – giving him another hit of that wonderful feeling – and held Tristan for a long time, both silently appreciating the simple pleasure of each other’s company and closeness.

It was an undeniably lovely moment – one that had been ruined by the persistence of certain adult thoughts.

Tristan couldn’t say when he had become attracted to Gabriel, or why. The more suspicious part of his mind insisted that the man had carefully instilled these feelings in the boy to help break down his will, to make him more amenable to the idea of an eternity by this maniac’s side. Those accusations, however, seemed silly in the face of just how unbelievably kind Gabriel had been through this whole experience. He had, at all times, treated Tristan as a beloved creature in need of affection and security. All distributions of discipline had likewise been carried out with reluctance and restraint, each instance treated as a grim duty that Gabriel had to carry out if Tristan was ever going to grow.

To be fair, Tristan had – as Gabriel annoyingly declared at the time – been physically attracted to the man since they first met. There was something about his regression, however, that had changed that attraction from a surface-level crush into a full-blown infatuation. It might have had something to do with his immature body not knowing how to respond to these very adult thoughts. Or maybe it was because the massive difference in size allowed Gabriel to make Tristan feel amazing with something as simple and chaste as a big, warm, full-bodied hug.

Whatever the reason, Tristan just could not stop popping wood.

It was as they sat snuggled up together on the sofa that the boy suddenly widened his eyes and inhaled sharply, yanked out of the tender scene by the mortifying sensation of his growing stiffy poking at the puffy cotton in which it had been trapped. Tristan had once wielded his dick as a weapon, as a tool he had used – mainly through drunken and clumsy application during countless one-night stands – to proclaim his manhood and fight away the truth of his sexuality. Now he possessed noting but the most piddling of pre-adolescent insults, a wiggly little toy whose strain against its padded confines served only to remind the boy that he no longer even held power over his own pudgy, undeveloped body.

Though Tristan had hoped that he could simply will it away and pretend nothing was happening, he had been betrayed by the searing intensity of his full-body blush.

‘Something the matter, kiddo?’ Gabriel asked with that maddening sensitivity of his. ‘You look upset.’

‘I’m fine,’ Tristan squeaked as he ran feverishly through a cavalcade of deflating mental imagery.

‘Are you sure? You look upset.’

‘I said I’m FINE!’ The boy twisted out of Gabriel’s embrace – mournful, for an instant, that his shame had driven him from such warmth – and stormed down the hall to his room, knowing even as he slammed the door behind him that he was indulging in a tantrum befitting his age. Even though Gabriel was wholly responsible for his transformation, Tristan’s confusion and embarrassment over what had just happened made him believe that he was the creep. It was, after all, his inability to manage the adult thoughts that his unprepared body had responded to, the boy still a slave to his desires even after being stripped of his ability to pursue them.

Still, none of that was enough to prevent Tristan from exploring a little. Even that, however, proved unsatisfying. With his back pressed up against the door and his chubby hand plunged down the front of his Pull-Ups – so ashamed was the boy at the thought of being caught that he dared not even take them off – Tristan fruitlessly toyed with his tiny hard-on, looking away so as to not meet the judgmental eyes of the cartoon animals adorning the fly of his puffy undies. He was simply too young to explore with any sort of dexterity, though, unable to derive from the act anything greater than a mild, pleasant tingle.

Tristan was nothing if not stubborn. He persisted in his attempts whenever he found a moment alone as though proving that he was still a man inside could be achieved by haranguing this preschooler prison of his to climax. Those attempts had universally ended in disappointment, either because Tristan eventually realized the pointlessness of the act or because Gabriel’s sudden presence forced him to cut things short. As this extended exercise in frustration stretched on, the boy’s inability to attain any sort of release only added to the growing mental strain that he feared was driving him mad.

All of that would’ve been stressful enough were it not for that baths.

The nightly ritual had become by far the most dreaded part of Tristan’s new infantile routine, somehow even worse than having to listen to nosy old ladies gush to Gabriel – talking over Tristan as though the boy weren’t even there – about how adorable his ‘sweet little girl’ was “commonly being mistaken for the opposite gender was another element of childhood Tristan had been happy to leave behind”. It wasn’t because Gabriel went out of his way to make these experiences unpleasant. On the contrary – it was because the baths felt so good that Tristan hated them so much.

Sure, there were elements of it that were just out and out annoying, such as Gabriel’s insistence on filling the tub with bubbles and bath toys. Just the same, the man didn’t seem to mind if Tristan ignored both – so long as he was a good boy and stayed still while Gabriel got him all squeaky clean. Already indignant at being denied the right to bathe himself, Tristan simply sat in the tub and scowled at the request, indignantly resigning himself to this fresh humiliation.

He was rewarded for doing so with the most serene experience of his life.

It wasn’t as though Gabriel had been especially gentle or anything like that. As far as Tristan could tell, the brisk playfulness with which the man went about his task was the same any loving father would exercise with his young child. Just the same, there was something so unexpectedly soothing to Tristan about being encouraged to simply sit and relax as he was scrubbed from head to toe. He cooed quite without meaning to as he sank into a pleasant, half-lidded stupor. A tiny smile played on his lips as the popping bubbles tickled his smooth, slippery skin, as his button nose twitched at the soft, sweet scent of gentle soap and baby shampoo.

It should go without saying that Tristan’s arousal reared its ugly head here as well. As with the moment on the sofa, the beauty of the scene vanished the instant the boy felt himself growing beneath the long strokes of the soft, soapy rag. Even this most peaceful of moments had been tainted by the darkness of his adult desires, by his inability to enjoy chaste and adoring affection on its own merits. If there was any solace to be taken, it was that the bubbles on top of the water shielded his stiffy from sight – that his mortification had allowed him to grow soft well before it was time to drain the water.

The scene had repeated itself with minor variations several times since, the boy growing more and more conflicted as the week passed over how savagely he warred with himself every time he was plopped into the tub. This, more than anything, had brought into relief the conflict between his child and adult halves. The child yearned to surrender to Gabriel’s care and affection but could not do so with these maddening desires picking at the corners of his consciousness. The adult’s single-minded focus on these desires could not be satisfied so long as he looked and was treated like a little boy.

Not that Gabriel seemed to know any of this. The week drew to a close with the man bathing the boy with as much apparent obliviousness as ever, going about the fatherly task with his typical measure of cheerful expertise. Tristan, meanwhile, fiddled half-heartedly with a toy boat to keep Gabriel from asking if there was anything wrong. Though he longed for some relief from the hot turmoil sloshing within him, his tight pride choked off any attempts he might have made at letting those feelings out, at giving Gabriel the satisfaction of knowing that he had broken the boy.

Tristan was snapped out of his self-conflict by a ringtone sounding out from somewhere in the house.

‘Shoot.’ Gabriel stood from the tub and sucked his teeth in annoyance. ‘Hang tight, kiddo. Won’t be a minute.’

And then he left. Even though he couldn’t bring himself to bare his soul to Gabriel, the man’s sudden absence still instilled a sort of cold emptiness within the boy. His need to have the desires of at least one of his halves fulfilled had grown so great and so all-encompassing that the child despaired at being denied Gabriel’s affectionate presence. Now, even the potential to surrender was gone.

Tristan’s adult half saw this and decided to take charge.

His little hands reached slowly down into the bathwater as though moving of their own accord, the boy’s eyelids fluttering and a tiny coo escaping his lips when they found their target. He knew immediately that this attempt that was different, his strangled libido so desperate for release that it made itself known even through the immaturity in which it had been trapped. The entirety of his tiny form shivered with an anxious, desperate energy as he felt familiar feelings slowly – so slowly, so unbearably slowly – building within him. Tristan whimpered and squirmed, twisting and turning as impulses demanded, something like relief creeping into his feelings as he realized he would finally get there…!

A cleared throat. Tristan looked up.

Gabriel was staring down at him.

There was no question as to what the boy was doing. Stunned by Gabriel’s sudden appearance –so absorbed in the act that he hadn’t even noticed the man’s return – he sat frozen in the tub with his hands still plunged beneath the water, his soft round cheeks still flushed with exertion and excitement. Trapped beneath the giant’s unwavering gaze, Tristan could do nothing but wait what felt like eons for Gabriel to pass judgment on his shame-faced ward.

When Gabriel finally reacted, he did not shout, lecture, harangue or discipline.

No, the man did something far worse.

He laughed.

Tristan’s unmatched humiliation quickly gave way to a roaring, indignant fury, the heat within him cranked up from the low burn of embarrassment to a wild firestorm of rage. It wasn’t just that he was laughing – it was that his laughter was the sort you’d expect from a father who’d caught his son doing something innocently precocious. He covered his mouth as though Tristan were actually too naïve to recognize Gabriel’s amusement, as though this whole scene were nothing but a funny little moment – a tale of good-natured humiliation to tell Tristan once he’d grown up, a tale of how curious and incorrigible he’d been as a boy.

To Gabriel, Tristan was not a man.

‘Stop it.’ The command leaked from Tristan’s lips in little more than a teary whisper, his anger building up so great and hot within him that nothing else could make it out.

‘Aw, buddy, I’m not trying to make fun of you.’ Gabriel chuckled as he knelt by the tub. ‘There’s nothing wrong with what you were doing. Once you grow up – ’

Tristan clocked him in the jaw.

He had not done so consciously, of course. Already brimming with shame and hate, Tristan needed only that last condescension to lash out at the source of his conflict, to strike with what little power he had against the man that had tortured him so. The satisfaction he felt at the clean impact – at the way Gabriel, surely more out of surprise than pain, reared back at the blow – made Tristan feel more like a man than he had all this past week.

Gabriel’s hard eyes met his. Tristan became a little boy again.

His confidence vanished as he suddenly realized what he’d done, the boy squealing out an apology as he sprung to his feet in a sudden slosh of soapy water. Unconcerned with his nudity – unconcerned with anything but getting away from the colossus he’d awoken – Tristan tried to leap from the tub and dash past Gabriel. There was no thought as to what he’d do after that. If he’d had a moment to analyze his feelings, he boy may have realized that he was behaving just like any other child desperate to avoid their punishment.

Gabriel, of course, caught him in mid-air anyway – and no sooner had he been caught than Tristan felt that same energy seeping into him once more.

‘NO!’ Tristan screamed as he desperately, fruitlessly clawed at and struck any part of Gabriel he could reach. His flailing became clumsier and weaker with each passing second, what little strength he retained vanishing as he tumbled helplessly into infancy. In truth, he fighting lasted only until Gabriel was able to get a good grip on the wet, shrinking little boy, until he could clutch Tristan tightly to his chest – careful, at all times, to never hurt the child – and leave him without recourse. Already bawling, Tristan jammed his eyes shut to try and shut out any sensation that could remind him of what was happening. There was nothing, however, he could do to not feel himself being carried down the hall as he shrank, feel Gabriel’s arms and chest grow even grander and more secure around him, feel his remaining coordination disappear from powerless limbs that had plumped with pudge.

When Tristan opened his eyes, he realized that he’d been laid out on Gabriel’s bed, the soft fibers of its blanket almost unbearably tickly against the new sensitivity of his porcelain skin. That, however, was the farthest thing from Tristan’s mind as he stared down at himself in detached horror, in numb awe of how impossibly small and immature he’d become. Now a year old at most, every bit of him had become smooth and soft and small and squishy, his tiny butterball of a body now good for nothing but being carried and cuddled. Tristan was so far removed from his stolen masculinity that the very feeling of being a man had become foreign to him.

The tears were coming on once more, and almost certainly would have burst through had Gabriel not been there. Tristan had been so lost in his own despair that he didn’t even realize Gabriel had been sitting beside him the whole time, his spiral into a fresh bout of bawling cut off when the man gently laid his big, strong hand on the boy’s flat, flabby chest. Tristan gasped at how quickly and thoroughly he was calmed by the simple gesture, the rough warmth of Gabriel’s palm seeming to radiate throughout the whole of his infant form. In meeting the man’s eyes, Tristan found that that familiar hardness – the kind he dreaded seeing every time there was discipline to be distributed – had returned. But behind it was a new compassion that made Gabriel, in all his power and stature, seem almost…sad.

‘Just to be clear,’ Gabriel began, his voice soft and serious, ‘this is because of you hitting me, not because of what you were doing in the tub.’

Tristan pouted as he clumsily, unconsciously closed his stubby fingers around Gabriel’s thick wrist. Though he might not have been thinking straight in the moment, he couldn’t help but feel silly for believing – however temporarily – that punching Gabriel would have changed anything.

‘I only have one question, and I promise that you won’t get in trouble so long as you answer honestly.’ Gabriel paused as if giving the query the weight it deserved. ‘Why were you doing that?’

Tristan didn’t know what to say. Could things really get any worse if he were to lie? Was there some power, yet unrevealed, that Gabriel could use to make Tristan even more miserable than telling the truth would?

He felt so pathetic. So small. As though his life had been one silly little secret after another, the deceptions piling and intertwining around him like the rotting vines and twisted branches of some black and foreboding forest. And at the center sat Tristan, curled and hiding like a child.

There was nothing left to lose.

‘Wuv…’ Tristan screwed up his face in concentration, determined to make his thick tongue cooperate. ‘Wuv you…daa-dee…’

In that moment, it was hard to tell who was more surprised – Gabriel at learning the truth, or Tristan at realizing it was the truth. He wasn’t just attracted to Gabriel. He loved him. He loved his kindness. He loved his compassion. He loved the way he spoke and dressed and laughed and cuddled.

Tristan loved Gabriel. And as the seconds passed – the man seemingly too stunned to respond – the boy began to fear that that love was unrequired. The mere thought of it was more devastating to Tristan than anything he had ever before experienced, the events of the week prior included. He started to cry but had barely begun when Gabriel swiftly and gently pulled the distraught baby into his arms.

‘Oh, Tristan…’ Gabriel cuddled the boy close and kissed his golden, silken curls. ‘I love you too, baby. I’m so sorry, sweetie. I’m so, so sorry.’

There would be time later for apologies and recompense, to unpack what had been the most terrible and wonderful week of Tristan’s life. Right now, all the boy cared about was snuggling deeper into the embrace of the most loving and wonderful man he had ever known.

He had Gabriel. He had Daddy.

***

One Month Later

‘So – how old do you think you’d like to be today?’

Tristan pondered the question as he lay in Gabriel’s embrace. He twisted a strand of the older man’s hair around his finger, smiling in the knowledge that he’d be indulged in his contemplation. It had now been a month since he had returned to his old self, awakening full grown the morning after his brief stint in infancy. Stumbling into the living room – it took him a moment to reaccustom himself to legs he could actually walk on – he found a sheepish Gabriel pretending to read a newspaper while clearly waiting for the younger man to awaken. What he had done to Tristan had gone way further than he had ever intended, Gabriel explained, and he wouldn’t blame the younger man now if he just walked out the door and never looked back.

Tristan threw himself into Gabriel’s arms before he could even finish his apology.

Things weren’t perfect between them – there’s no such thing as an ideal relationship, after all, not even among immortals – but whatever difficulties they faced were meaningless before the deep and abiding love they held for one another. A love that was fatherly when it needed to be and romantic when it needed to be – depending, of course, on how old Tristan felt like being on any given day.

‘Hard to say,’ Tristan sighed in mock indecision. ‘What’s on the slate for today?’

‘Hard to say,’ Gabriel parroted. ‘I think Tri might enjoy a trip to Disneyland without getting lost and wetting his pants. Tristan, meanwhile, might be happier if we just stay in bed and make love all day.’

‘Tough call.’ Tristan smiled and gave Gabriel a playful peck. ‘Mind if I take some time to think about it?’

Gabriel chuckled and pulled Tristan closer.

‘Baby,’ he grinned, ‘we’ve got all the time in the world.’

 

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