Ink

Chapter 6
Part 6

Chapter Description: Part 6

(Wednesday)

The rest of that Wednesday was a blur to the girls.  A complete and utter existential crisis laid at their feet that defied concepts of theology, psychology, neurochemistry, and possibly physics, the girls reacted as most anyone would.

They screamed.

They yelled.

They threatened.

The man who’d given them the (if he was to be believed) magical tattoos merely shrugged.

They left.

They ran.

They called 911.

They were laughed at.

They attempted to circle back and find the dingy little tattoo parlor.

They failed.

They did find a liquor store, however.

Well into that night, they put all of the information and resources they had at their disposal to use. Getting drunk had gotten them into this, maybe another layer of plaster could get them out. Best not to think of it, anyway.  At the very least, if a kind of mental oblivion awaited them (as it had the dog-man in the parlor), then they could at least attempt an oblivion of their own choosing instead of some broken down old-world god.  (What kind of god would use magical tattoo ink, anyways?)

It was a Shen.  A Chinese god embedded in mystical tattoo ink; or its power, anyway.  It was responsible for the strange way they were behaving: Margaret’s roller coaster of emotions with a side of petulant bratty behavior (not to mention the slipping toileting control), Molly’s sudden organization and need to bring about a nurturing and caring (yet strict) routine for someone who had been all but a stranger before this (as well as her complete lack of disgust regarding someone else’s bodily fluids), their combined nocturnal activities of sleep walking, Molly’s productive sleep paintings and business dealings and Margaret’s destructive impulses of lighting fire and turning off her alarm clock…All of it was their respective tattoos’ fault.

The tattoos themselves were particularly jarring.  To know that “truth” had been written on their skin, and it magically changed to the equivalent of “Mommy” and “baby girl” respectively; as if proclaiming that this was their “truth,” hurt them on a level far deeper than some mystical curse.  The young women were not only losing their minds, but their very identities were being called into question.  Were they really being altered, or was some piece of them buried deep on the inside now being brought to the outside? Anyone could get bitten by a werewolf or a vampire and turn into one.  That was the curse.  But to be told that you’d always been a freak and just didn’t know it; that really hurt.

Sadly, “magical markings that change overnight and assign you a new role in life” doesn’t hold up in court; not even small claims. With nowhere left to run, they hid at the bottom of several bottles of vodka. And with no other enemy within reach, they fell upon each other.

“I’m not a baby,” Margaret whined. “I was making my own bed by the time I was two!”

“You think I’m anybody’s ‘mommy?’” Molly retorted.  “I’ve never even baby sat before. I’ve killed cacti. MULTIPLE CATCUSESESES!”

Already half a bottle in by this point, Margaret snorted. “You’re less nurturing than a desert!”

“Yeah…” Molly spat. “And just like a desert, I’m dry.  You?”  Margaret reached down between her legs and gave her final Goodnite a squeeze.  It was sopping wet and sagging to boot; likely about to burst.  Even more distressing, Margaret wasn’t exactly sure when she’d wet or how many times her bladder had let lose without her explicit permission.  She’d been dry at the tattoo place, right?

The look of disgust and confusion on the other girl’s face was enough of an apology for Molly.  “Sorry,” she said.  “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, there.” Her tone was becoming more clipped and hurried, as if she were searching for the right words against a ticking clock.  “That just hit a nerve for some reason.”

“Yeah?” Margaret asked, tacking on another unspoken question.  Is it because you’re thinking more like a Mommy?

Wordlessly, Molly answered the first question with a nod, and answered the unspoken one out loud.  “I’ve been feeling not like myself, either.  I’ve just been sneaker about it.”  She had meant to say “sneakier” but a even a seasoned drinker like Molly (or at least like she used to be), flubbed her words after more than a couple of shots.

“Like how?”

The artist bit her lip and admitted, “I started by sprinkling baby powder in your room.  I really liked the smell.  Then I added it to your panties.”

“I knew it.”  Margaret’s tone wasn’t accusatory, or surprised, or even angry.  It was more thoughtful than anything.  It was almost as if the big little girl had been lying to herself, pretending not to notice it, and hearing the truth from someone else had opened.  At least she hadn’t been crazy about THAT.

“Aaaaand I was enjo-“ Molly hiccupped, “enjoyeee…almost masturbating at the idea of taking care of you.”

Even though she was stripping her pants off to expose her wet diaper- there was no point in calling the thin bed-wetting pants anything else- Margaret frowned. “Eww…tee-em-eye.”

Cheeks flushing, Molly apologized.  “Sorry,” she said. “It’s just that lately I’ve had this little voice in my head.  It keeps telling me things.”

“-And at the time, it seems like a good idea?” Margaret finished the thought as the last of her clothes hit the floor.  “Like bein’ dwunk but itssss not you?  Not even dwunk you?”  Neither girl knew how much of Margaret’s speech was magically induced regression and how much good old-fashioned booze.

“Yeah.” Molly replied.  “It’s a little like bein’…wha’ you shed.”

“Iss wike…I mean like…” Margaret paused.

They spoke the next word in unison: “Shen.”

The alcohol (and maybe something more) caused their marked skin to glow pleasantly.  It was as if the third person in the room had just been acknowledged and was thanking them.

The former customer service rep (a text on her phone had confirmed she’d been fired) started to stumble towards the bathroom.  Looking over her shoulder, she stopped for a moment, and leaned against the wall. “You’ve got that voice too?”

Too drunk to stand at the moment, Molly smiled dumbly.  “Uh-huh.”

“Mebbe we do deserve this.” Margaret slurred.

“Mebbe.”

“I’mma go potty,” Margaret announced a bit too loudly.  “But I don’t wanna stop drinkin’.  Thish is fun.”

“Kay kay,” Molly agreed, with eyes closed. “You sit and potty.  I’ll bring ya more.”  The petite dark-haired girl cracked open an eye.  “Not cuz I’m yer Mommy or nothin’.  Cuz I’m yer friend.”  This was good, she thought.  This was how it should be.  Two drunk chicks getting wasted, not worrying about what would happen in the morning.

“Okie dokie,” Margaret said, stumbling back to the safety of the bathroom.  Drunk as they were, they almost didn’t notice how their tattoos buzzed with renewed intensity.  Molly almost didn’t notice the sounds of the diaper ripping open, causing the little voice in the back of her head to tell her she’d be hearing that sound a lot more in the coming years.  Margaret almost didn’t notice the squelching plop of the wet padding being tossed into the waste basket, making her own little voice tell her that that she should flush while she could- because the sound of a balled up diaper plopping into the garbage would be the closest thing she’d have soon enough.

Almost.

Almost.

Ever the pragmatist, Margaret spent the rest of the night getting drunk on the toilet.  She was pleasantly surprised each time she heard the sound of urine hitting water, and hated it at the same time, realizing that she hadn’t willed it so.  She blamed it on the alcohol.  She liked that thought better.  The poison she was drinking would be out of her system soon enough.  Then it’d be over and everything would be back to normal.  It was a most pleasant lie.

Meanwhile, Molly did everything she could to get back to her old, unorganized, carefree and whimsical self.  Paints and brushes were dragged out of drawers and strewn about the floor.  Nothing more liberating than a good old wall mural, perhaps something with lots of skulls and black paint…something dreadful and completely inappropriate for a child (or the mother of a child).  Even strewn about the room, though, Molly’s chaos took on a pattern of organization, and her attempts to be grim devolved into downright cutesie when her skulls started to become little Jack Skellingtons, and little pink bows started showing up on her vampire bats.

Great. Goth Baby.  But what was the point of trying to do forced creativity and going against one’s muse?  Molly wasn’t sure if that was her or the thing that was turning her into a freak-nanny, and that part scared her more than the smiling man in the moon she’d painted on the wall

Between brush strokes and switching colors, she’d check on her cohort, and freshen up her drink.  Each time she handed her a refilled shot glass.  She’d say “for a friend,” before turning about face and going back to her own drinking.  She did her best to resist a proud grin whenever she heard Margaret go tinkle in the potty.

Despite herself, Molly started watering down Margaret’s drinks, giving just enough Vodka to give the girl a taste, before filling up the rest of the glass from the sink.  They’d already both drunk enough by that point to where they should be going to the emergency room, or at least engaging in some very epic projectile vomiting.  No sense in making it worse.  A dark thought occurred to her that it wouldn’t matter how much they drank; the Shen wasn’t letting them off that easily.

In a moment of weakness, when she was refilling one of her roomie’s drinks, Molly grabbed a particularly sharp steak knife and cut her finger with it.

Damn!  That hurt like a mother fucker! (Language!) Great. Now she was internally chastising herself for just thinking of naughty language. The fu-…the he…what was up with that?  But the strangeness didn’t end there.

Teeth gritted, and the flushing of a toilet covering her pained sighs, Molly pulled the knife across her arm.  If she could change the symbol on her arm, drunk her reasoned, she could change the meaning.  The pain was intense and searing as she pulled the blade across her flesh, yet no blood came.  The markings on her flesh remained intact.

Worth a shot.  Fruitless, but worth a shot.  The Shen definitely wasn’t going to let her off that easily.  No.  They’d had their fun, and it was about to have its time.

After that, Molly stopped watering the drinks down for either of them.  She didn’t even mind it so much when Margaret said “Thanksh Mom-…Mowwy…Mol..Molly.”

Neither one could have known it, but they both lost consciousness at the exact same time.  Also, they both blacked out with the same thought.

"Please don’t let me wake up."

(Thursday)

THU-DUD!

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

Eyes clenched shut, Margaret woke screaming in pain and panic as her head banged against the floor of the bathroom, and her arms rag dolled behind her back, and her legs twisted with seemingly agonizing and contortionist levels of flexibility.

Her last thoughts from the night before screamed back at her through the pain.  She’d woken up.

Damnit. So much for that wish.

“MOLLLLLLLY!” she cried out, relieved despite everything that she could still call her Roommate by her first name.  Hot tears streamed out across her cheeks, drying themselves on the floor beneath her as the lanky girl thrashed about like a fish out of water.

Something was wrong, though.  The floor hurt, but her voice didn’t echo off of the bathroom tile as it had last night when she’d been calling out for more Vodka.  The floor didn’t have the slick and cool feeling.  She wasn’t in her bathroom.

Still sobbing from shock, Margaret wiped away the wet tears off her face, trying to piece together the last few hours of her life.  Speaking of wet: Margaret’s hands shot down to her waist.  Instead of her own naked flesh, her palms brushed against cloth- soaking wet cloth.

Immediately, through her own screams, she began to assemble the information.  She’d fallen asleep.  She’d gone to bed, (or rather, was taken to bed).  She’d wet her bed.   She’d fallen out of bed, and was currently screaming her eyes out, hoping she hadn’t broken anything, and was tangled up in her own pissed in sheets.

Something didn’t sit right with her analysis, though.  There was something she was missing.  Before she’d switched to “protection” at night, her accidents had been messy and trickled down her legs.  And while Margaret’s crotch was certainly soaked, her legs felt white hot and flushed.

As she began to open her eyes, Margaret noticed that her chest was bare.  Her legs too, from the feel of it.  But her butt, her waist, and her crotch?  They were wet and covered in wet cotton.

Oh God. No!

As her vision cleared enough for her to make sense of the world, Margaret went mute.  Whether it was because of the horror that flooded her very core, or whether she’d simply run out of breath with which to scream, it’s hard to say.  What can be said was that wrapped around her were her bed sheets folded up in multiple layers and then pulled up between her legs and secured with big metal safety pins at the sides on her hips.

In other words.

“A DIIIIAPER!” The words came screeching out of her mouth the moment she had enough breath to speak.

Through it all, the small of her back burned and buzzed as if fresh markings were being applied to the tattoo on her back as she wailed.  Patronizingly, mockingly, the little voice in the back of her brain, the one that didn’t quite belong to her, the voice of a god, told her the truth of the situation: The little baby had fallen out of her big girl bed.

The heavy pounding of footsteps rattled the floor as Molly came running.  Moments later, Margaret’s head was in the other girl’s lap.  “Shhhhh,” Molly whispered.  “It’s okay. It’s okay.  You just fell out of bed. That’s all.  No big deal.”

Breath forced its way into Margaret’s lungs.  Instead of breathing, screamed out “MAAAAW-!” her body wracked with sobs, unable to add the second syllable.

“Molly,” the petite, dark haired woman continued to whisper.  “That’s right.  It’s me. Molly.  Just Molly.  We’re friends.  We’re friends.  That’s all.  I came running because I was worried about you…a friend.”

Like a particularly redundant pop song, the same chorus kept playing again and again, with one screaming at the top of her lungs, and the other one speaking just barely above a whisper just a few inches from the other’s ear.

“MAAAA!”

“Molly.”

“MAAAA!”

“Your friend, Molly.”

“MAAaaa?”

“It’s just Molly.  That’s all.”

Margaret tried to slow her breathing, and to her great relief, she found that she could.  The pain was fading.  Her thoughts, wretched and pain filled as they were, were her own.   “Hey…Molly,” the greeting came out in tired, labored pants, now just above a whisper themselves.

Looking up into Molly’s face, Margaret saw the relief wash over her Roommate.  “Good that you’re still with us,” Molly said, a little louder than before.  “You had me worried for a second.  I thought I’d have to start changing diapers already.”

Margaret’s smile melted.  “Um…about that.”  Her eyes guided Molly’s down to her hips, the yellowed drooping sheets now very obvious to the both of them.

“Whoah!” the smaller girl’s hands shot up to the ceiling. “How did THAT get there?”

The taller woman’s whole body burned with embarrassment. “I…think you put it on me.”

Molly’s head vibrated more than shook, the denial was that strong.  “No way did I…” then she stopped.  “No, wait.  Those are my safety pins.  Yeah. I might’ve done that,” she admitted.

The diapered girl sat up, taking her head out of the comfortable nest that Molly’s lap had become, and examined her makeshift diaper.  “Why do you even have safety pins this big?” she asked, touching the metal fasteners.

“I am, or at least used to be,” Molly admitted, “a bit of a hoarder.  You come across something weird in a flea market, like big safety pins, you buy them on the cheap and stash them away because…yeah…you never know when you’re gonna need big safety pins.  Y’know?”

Margaret didn’t know. She couldn’t even fathom a normal, boring, non-artsy, non-diaper usage for safety pins this big.   Before now, Margaret had assumed that safety pins this big only existed on giant cartoon ducklings. The safety pins must have been three to four inches in length, and there were two of them pinned on each side, keeping the cloth snug around her waist.  Part of her wanted to play and fiddle with the metal things.  Another part told her to not meddle, lest she tear or break something.  And then there was the tiny presence telling her that she didn’t know how to undress herself anymore anyway, so best not to try.

“Oh dear,” Molly’s call caught Margaret’s attention.  “What happened to your room?”  The diapered girl’s head jerked up and took in her surroundings for the first time since she got up.

The plain, boring, white walls of her room- a grown-up’s room- were gone.  Instead they were replaced with light pink and baby blue hand prints.  There was no discernible pattern, no alternating motif other than hand shaped paint splattered from corner to corner.  In some portions, fingers and thumbs overlapped to create technicolored butterflies.  Other spots had lines of blue hand turkeys doing the conga over a line of pink hand turkeys going the opposite direction.  There was no rhyme or reason beyond a general color scheme, but what it did not look like, was adult.

“Nnnnnnoooooo!” Margaret’s crying began anew.  “My room looks like a nursery.”  Arms wide, Molly moved in for another hug.  Forcefully, Margaret shoved her back. “No!” she said. “No! I don’t wanna hug right now!”  She then leveled a finger at the other girl.   “What did you do to my room?”  It wasn’t shouting, but it definitely wasn’t friendly.

Molly held up her hand in protestation.  “I didn’t do anything,” she said.  “It wasn’t me!”

“How do I know that it wasn’t you?” Margaret leveled a finger squarely at Molly’s chest.  Sure enough, Molly had been painting last night, Margaret remembered.  It only made sense that in her drunken frenzy or her sleepwalking stupor, her ink influenced efforts might bleed over into Margaret’s boudoir. Granted, it wasn’t the most organized arrangement, but there was decidedly a kind of artistry to it.  Kinda.  Almost.  Maybe.

Molly’s eyes narrowed a bit as her eyes focused on Margaret’s hands.  “Uh…I think it was you, honey.”

“Me?” Margaret asked, pointing back to herself.  “Why, I didn’-” Margaret stopped.  The blue paint on her right index finger was dried and already starting to flake, but it was obviously still there.  The diapered girl stared at the pink and blue palms of her hands as though they belonged to someone else.  “No way.”

Their tattoos began to sizzle like a bad sun burn; causing them to groan in discomfort.  The little voice in their heads chuckled, offering to show them the truth; but it wasn’t truly an offer.  Offers are things you can say no to.  Their moans mixed with the mocking laughter of a long forgotten god as their eyes rolled back into their heads.  They didn’t so much remember the previous night, as much as they re-dreamed it; the fleeting images of their actions flitting across their minds’ eye, seeing each other and themselves as they had truly been.

Both women saw the other move with the strange mixture of fluidity and rigidity in all the wrong places belonging to marionettes. With heavy steps and wobbling knees they had moved throughout the house, working together to transform Margaret’s walls into a child’s canvas; both of them moving with purpose but with far off stares into the abyss.

Molly gawked in horror as she relived bundling up her roomie’s bedsheets and, with practiced care and precision, folding them over each other again and again.

Margaret’s jaw clenched, her teeth grinding as she momentarily relived laying herself down on the homemade diaper, helping Molly finish the transformation.

Molly broke out into a sweat as she witnessed herself pull the sheets up between the other woman’s legs and pin them on with her with her long-since-forgotten pins. What had been a random fifty-cent purchase two years ago now seemed like a cog in the wheel of destiny.

What neither of them expected was what happened next.  Molly remembered the warm smile that crossed her lips.  Margaret remembered licking her own in anticipation.  Molly remembered lifting up her shirt and deftly removing her bra, exposing her tiny breasts.  Margaret remembered leaning in and opening her mouth….

Back in the world of the now, the two women leaned back from each other, repulsed by what they had done.  Please let that last part have been false, they both thought without speaking to each other. Feeling as though she might retch, Margaret turned away from the smaller woman, pivoting onto all fours; the sheets pinned around her buttocks blocking the view as she began to cough and gag at the thought of suckling at Molly’s teat.

Rising to her feet, Molly draped her hand across her chest, shielding it from onlookers, despite being fully clothed.  Clenching fingers felt no familiar padding of a bra across her bosom.  Yet another thing she hadn’t noticed until now.

Their entire world was collapsing around them, and they were only now noticing the depths to which they had sunken.  Both wanted to simply curl up in a corner and die.  Better to die than to be cursed by the markings on their skin.

Mercifully (or not), a pounding at the door interrupted their near panic attacks.  “DELIVERY!” came the muffled call from outside their apartment.

Moving faster than either of them had any right to, considering how much alcohol they had each imbibed the night before, the two lept to their feet, the living room blurring by in an instant.  “Tell me you didn’t order pizza,” Margaret quipped.

“Pizza is the least of our worries,” Molly replied, leaning up to the peephole. Through the fish eye lens, she made out a man in a brown uniform and matching cap; a clipboard in his hands.

Margaret asked. “Who is it?”

“Looks like a delivery driver.” Molly answered, looking back.  “Packages. Not Pizza.”

“What did you order?”

“I didn’t….” Molly stopped. “Oh wait…I might have a couple days ago.  Sleepwalking. Get it?”  She looked back to the girl in the diaper- the girl she’d diapered- hoping to get some kind of understanding.  She didn’t.

“Sleep walking?”  Margaret understood, but didn’t.  She wasn’t connecting the dots.

Molly shot her roomie an indignant look and explained. “What?  You oversleep, unplug your clock, and set fire to your big girl panties,” she said.  “I go on extended drawing sprees, make business deals to get clients that I couldn’t get in a million years,” she took a breath, “and buy things online…apparently.”

The lightbulb went on in the taller girl’s head as she looked from Molly to the door and back again. “What did you-?” Margaret’s question was cut off as Molly opened the apartment door, sending the taller of the two women leaping sideways to avoid line of sight.  “EEEP! NAKED!”  Her fall was cushioned and muffled by a nearby love seat.

Oblivious to Margaret’s squeaking, the delivery guy just looked at his clipboard and said. “Yeah, got a couple of packages here. Is this the correct address?”

Swallowing hard, Molly took a step outside her apartment and looked at the large cardboard boxes. They were various shapes and sizes, and if Molly remembered the receipts, weights too. Most stacked on top of each other, one or two as long and bulky as they were leaned against her outside wall. Considering what had already happened, did she want this junk- this soft and fuzzy and cute and crinkly and absolutely damning junk- inside her house? More importantly, was there really any way she could avoid it?

A thought occurred to Molly.   “What if it isn’t? My address, I mean.”

The delivery guy motioned with his head towards the assembled packages; almost enough to make a fort, some might say. “I take it all back and it probably gets tossed in a dumpster.  What’s in it anyways?”

“I couldn’t begin to tell you,” Molly half-lied.

“Does that mean this is the wrong place?”

The young woman’s mouth went completely numb. “No,” Molly said. “You’ve got the right place.  Where do I sign?”  Her mouth moved.  Her voice spoke the words. But she wasn’t the one saying it.  She wasn’t getting out of it this easy.  Flipping her forearm over, the young artist looked at her tattoo that effectively read “Mommy”.  She swore she heard the tiniest hint of laughter in the back of her mind.

“Just sign here,” the man said, offering her the clipboard and a pen.  Her arm, the inked one of course, obeyed, despite her own internal protests.  The laughter inside her head was replaced with a kind of hungry purring.  The Shen was about to get what it wanted.

Digging her fingernails into her forearm, Molly found the strength of will to speak up. “Um…thank you,” then she added, “I guess.”

“Do you need help bringing this in?” the delivery man gestured to the almost dozen boxes stacked outside the apartment.  “It took me a couple trips just to get it all out of the truck.”

“NAKED!” Margaret interjected, her voice ringing out from behind the not closed door.  “Also…drafty!”

Nervously, Molly glanced back over her shoulder. With things escalating as they had been, Molly would have bet good money that Margaret could no longer dress herself.  Letting this man into her house, no matter how briefly, would only complicate matters. “Yeah sorry, my ba-…my bae is naked,” she corrected herself. “People still say bae right?”

“Sure, I guess,” the delivery guy shrugged. Then he looked over Molly’s head and into her living room. “Huh…cool decorations on your walls.  You have kids?”

Molly didn’t dare look back.  “Nope.  Not planning on having any, either. Ever. Actively trying to avoid it, in fact.”

If the guy was hitting on her, he took the hint.  If he wasn’t, at least he was still leaving.  “Okay, well if you don’t need any help, I’ll just be on my way. Have a nice day.”

“Yeah,” Molly called back meekly. “You too, I guess.”  Like a statue, she stood straight and weary until the delivery guy got back into his truck and drove off.  Only then did she allow herself the luxury of a full breath.

Timidly, like a prairie dog emerging from its hole, Margaret leaned out of the apartment, using the door to shield her bare body. “What happened?” she asked.

“I signed for the stuff,” she pointed to her forearm.  “Kinda got put on autopilot back there.”

“Ugh…” Margaret’s face disappeared behind the door.  Soon there were a series of thudding noises as she banged her head against the heavy wood.  “So what do we do now?”

“Help me throw it out?” Molly offered.

“Uh…naked.” Margaret reminded her Roommate.  Then she added, “and wet.  Any chance you can run to the store and get some more Goodnites, or something?”

Molly frowned and cast a thumb back at the boxes.  “If we don’t get these out of the way soon, there’ll be more people pounding at our door.  Go get dressed.”

The taller girl’s lip trembled a bit. “I’ve been trying.” Her head drooped a bit.  “I snuck into your room while you were talking to that guy to try to find some clothes.”  Molly felt a lump form in her throat as Margaret said, “I can’t dress myself. I…forgot?”

Molly threw her head up to the sky. “Called it,” she said. “I friggin’ called it.”

Clearly, Molly’s words struck a blow to Margaret’s already dwindling.  She seemed smaller somehow, cowed by it. “Help me get dressed?” Margaret mewled.