Professional Help - Part 8 (Patreon)

Shelby felt the tiniest twinge of relief when Hailee dropped her off at the daycare, although it didn't last for long. Even just as she stood awkwardly by, while Hailee gave the workers instructions, and she looked around, she felt immediately unsure that dealing with the humiliation upstairs, at the office, would have been worse than this.

If nothing else, the smell, the scent of baby lotion, powder, the faint odor of used diapers, took her immediately back to her childhood, when she'd last, legitimately, been taken to a daycare. Her parents had made her go much longer than she needed to, because of her occasional accidents, to try to scare her straight, as if she were doing it on purpose... If the workers caught her while her trainers were even the tiniest bit damp, they'd put her in diapers and send her off to play with the babies.

Now, she was starting out there... There was no getting to hang out with the older kids, who she could maybe at least talk to - if she didn't have that pacifier, anyway - she was taken, right away, to the baby room and sat down in front of some toys. Thankfully, the worker released her pacifier, giving her a chance to exclaim, "You have to help me! I don't belong here!"

"Shh, this isn't time to play make-believe," the woman told her. "Drink you ba-ba, sweetie."

"B-But..." Shelby pouted.

"If you aren't thirsty, I can put this back in," she lifted the pacifier, "and try again later."

Reluctantly, Shelby drank her bottle, then, when she was finished, the paci was re-inserted, and re-inflated, anyway, rendering her silent, sitting among the 'other' babies. It didn't take long to see that she was the only Betweener here, which made the whole ordeal, somehow, even worse. She spent the whole day squirming in her diapers, sucking alternately on her pacifier and her bottle - which she was given more times than she could recall, no doubt to keep her hydrated, and her diaper damp - other than when she was being fed huge bowls of disgusting babyfood mush at breakfast - a second one, since she'd eaten at Hailee's house, not that anyone listened when she'd said she wasn't hungry - lunch, and snacktime, bored out of her mind, wondering what Hailee was telling everyone upstairs about why she wasn't there.

She found out the answer that afternoon, after naptime. She'd woken up to an absolutely soaked diaper, despite not being a bedwetter normally, and, worse than that, a wet spot on her outfit. It had to be because of the bottles, either the sheer volume of them, or something inside them... She'd not only peed in her sleep, she'd done it so much that she'd actually leaked! To add insult to injury, she was the only one there it had happened to, to only one who'd had to go through a wardrobe change after naptime. Hailee had apparently only packed her a spare shirt, so, when she returned, she was wearing only a fresh diaper and a t-shirt. Even her pacifier had been changed, replacing after she'd tried to tell the worker that this wasn't normal, that she didn't do this, ever.

"Your Mommy warned me about your lying," the girl told her, shaking her head. "I guess we'll have to use this now..."

The bulb of this pacifier didn't expand nearly as much, but the mouthguard had some kind of temporary, super-strong adhesive holding it in place anyway. The whole center of the pacifier was removable, other than a ring holding the wearer's mouth open, allowing a caretaker to pull it out, taking the nipple with it, and replace it with a bottle, without ever having to remove the entire paci, giving Shelby no chance to talk.

Snacktime came right after that, so that, when she returned in her new garb, she was taken right to a high chair, force fed through the pacifier's ring, unable to even try to tell anyone she was full. By the end, she was stuffed, ready to burst... Before she'd even been let down from the chair, she could feel the cramps starting. Luckily, she'd seen one of the Littles ask for a potty, and be given one. It was pink, and plastic, and plopped down right in the middle of the room, but it was better than the alternative.

Of course, she couldn't ask for anything at the moment. She toddled up to a worker, tugging on her sleeve, trying to communicate with her eyes. "Yes, sweetie?" the woman smiled down at her. Shelby tried patting her diaper desperately, which earned her a check and a declaration of, "You're just a little wet, dear, you can wait." Shelby grumbled behind her pacifier, stomping her foot - getting a harsh glare in return that quickly put an end to that - feeling increasingly desperate, the cramps growing stronger by the second. She spotted the potty chair, dragged the woman by the hand over to it, the Amazon moving agonizingly slow. Desperately, she pointed, sure there was no way that could be mistaken.

It wasn't; it still didn't matter. "Oh, silly," the worker chuckled. "Your Mommy told us you're too little for that."

Shelby whimpered, staring at the potty chair, back up at the worker, then, slowly, at her diaper. She was the biggest 'child' here, much bigger than the girl who had used the chair earlier... Yet, despite that, despite having made it the the chair without an accident, and communicating what she wanted, it didn't matter. She was still going to have to use her diaper for that, for the most humiliating thing she could imagine.

"It's all right," the worker told her gently, bending down and wiping the girl's eyes. "We don't mind... We expect it from little girls like you. Now, go color, sweetie... It'll make you feel better."