Compromise - Chapter 20 (Patreon)

It was amazing how much difference a few weeks made... The last time she'd been to this store with Heather, she'd barely known the woman, had been relatively certain she would be safe with her, and yet still anxious about what being around so many baby items would do, especially while Lizzie herself had the wristband and leash on to keep her from being able to go anywhere.

Now, she knew they'd be looking for far more than a key, so they'd be in there longer, going into more different aisles, and sections... But she didn't feel any nerves at all. This was, in a weird way, fun, perhaps solely because of how much Heather was bound to enjoy it. It was connected to a job, yes, and if that went wrong, it was hard to tell what would happen, to either of them... If it did, though, it wouldn't be caused by whatever happened tonight, so why not relax while they could?

"You ready?" Heather glanced over, giving the little sitting beside her a smile. 

Lizzie nodded. "Let's do this."

Heather stepped out of the car, walking around to the other side to let Lizzie out. Lizzie had reached for the door handle instinctively, then stopped herself. Today was practice, too, for both of them... She might as well get used to this. If all of this had been real, Heather would surely have her child locks on, so Lizzie wouldn't have been able to get out on her own anyway.

Of course, for those to work, Lizzie would have to be in the back seat... She blushed as Heather leaned into the car, wondering if the woman would think of that. "You unbuckled!" she observed, sounding slightly disappointed. Lizzie had not been able to stop herself from doing that... 

"Sorry," she shrugged, grabbing the buckle again and snapping it back into place. "Is that better?"

"Much," Heather chuckled, hardly waiting for Lizzie's hand to move away before pushing in the button, removing the buckle once more, scooping the girl up and lifting her out of the car, getting a hold of the leash, then closing the car door. "Although..." 

Lizzie glanced up at her, a part of her impressed that she'd figured it out. Then again, it wasn't so much that she was thinking like a private investigator; she was thinking like a Mommy, and they both knew that was what she wanted to be anyway. "Yes?" she asked expectantly.

"Should we have a car seat?" Heather mused. "I mean, an infant car seat..."

Lizzie squirmed. "Y-Yeah, I know what you meant... Th-That might be a bit overkill..."

"Really?" Heather frowned. "If we're worried about what people might hear when we get out of the car, shouldn't we also think about what they see, too?"

Lizzie had to hand it to her... It wasn't a bad argument. "I-If you let me out, that's probably good enough..."

"Is 'good enough' really what we're aiming for, Lizzie?" Heather raised an eyebrow. "I guess if I put you in the back seat, that would look better," Lizzie smiled, seeing her reach that conclusion after all, "but any good Mommy knows that car seats are safer for little ones..." Heather gave the seat of Lizzie's jeans, and the Pull-Ups underneath, a loving pat.

"Those can be kind of expensive, though," Lizzie told her, as if Heather weren't fully aware, most likely, of the price range of every bit of baby furniture she might need or want by now. "And as long as I remember not to unbuckle myself, or open the door, it will look..."

"You wouldn't have to worry about either with a car seat," Heather pointed out. "I can get one with big enough sides that you won't be able to reach the door handle... And I don't know that they even make any that you could undo the buckle on by yourself."

There were, of course, ways of breaking out of those sorts of things, but they relied on having the right sort of tools with you, and being left alone long enough to do them without your captor noticing anything was up... And, assuming you were in a car, you were probably still going to be trapped anyway, if the child locks were on. Lizzie wasn't going to do any of that, obviously, wouldn't want to destroy any of Heather's stuff... She just knew that, in most cases, the Amazon was right, and any child seat high quality enough to be sold in a store like this would be designed to keep the person sitting in it snugly secured until their Mommy or Daddy let them out, unless they were very lucky.

"Do you not trust me to be able to do it on my own?" Lizzie countered.

"Of course I trust you," Heather said. "But you'll have a lot on your mind that day already... It's easy to slip-up if you're busy thinking about other things."

"W-Well, yeah," Lizzie admitted. "But..."

"Lizzie," Heather's voice changed, gaining just enough matronly authority to send a bit of a shiver down Lizzie's spine. "Do you think that standing here and arguing is in character for us?"

Lizzie blushed... Heather was the amateur here! She shouldn't be the one noticing that! "L-Littles can be whiny," she defended herself, feeling guilty for parroting the stereotype, even if she knew there was truth to it in a lot of cases.

"But Mommies don't usually stand around and take it, do they? They let their babies pout and complain as they pull them along to wherever they need to go... Or they encourage them to stop complaining."

Lizzie couldn't quite stop the tiny gasp that escaped her mouth, seeing where this was headed. "A-Are you going to spank me, Mommy?" she asked quietly, wiggling her bottom.

Heather shook her head. "No, Lizzie... Not now." Lizzie gulped, the threat hanging over her. "This is a test run, though... And you know that, if you talked to me like that while we were on the job, I'd have to do something about it. Which means, if you do it in the store, when other people are watching..."

Lizzie's head was spinning, ever so slightly, recognizing the situation she'd put herself in. "Y-You'd have to," she agreed. 

"I wouldn't want any of the other grown-ups to think I wasn't capable of controlling my baby," Heather reasoned, Lizzie nodding, cheeks red.

"I-I understand," she mumbled. It was something she should have thought of on her own... She could have claimed that she had, jumping onto what Heather had said and pretending she was waiting until they were inside the store... She'd made such a big deal about them having to keep the act up the entire time they were at Heather's job, though, even in the parking garage... And she didn't want to lie to Heather.

"I'm glad," Heather kissed her on the top of the head. "I don't want to do it, not if you don't want me to, but..."

"But you should," Lizzie interrupted. "If you think that you would - or that whatever stricter version of yourself you want to portray would - then you absolutely should. It would look weird if you didn't, and then people might get suspicious, and... And you should do it."

What was she doing?! She was giving an Amazon permission to spank her, like a naughty little girl! The same Amazon who had convinced her to wear training panties multiple days a week, who had put her in full-blown diapers more than once... It all seemed so absurd, so surreal, that someone as independent, as mature, as her would let herself get to this point... But if she was going to trust anyone with that authority, Heather was the best - and, honestly, only - choice.

"You're sure?" Heather asked.

"Yes," Lizzie blushed. "I-I'm sure... A-And, if you have to do it... Y-You have to make it look real... I-I can fake cry if I need to, but if we're up close to somebody... It would look better if..."

She let her words trail off, and even Heather didn't have anything to say to that, her face falling a bit at the idea of having to make the girl cry. They both knew the truth, however, that Lizzie was right... It wasn't going to look like real discipline otherwise, especially if it had to happen right in their target's office.

"I-I can come up with some other forms of discipline," Heather suggested after a few awkward seconds. 

"No," Lizzie shook her head. "That makes the most sense, and it doesn't require you having to bring anything else with you to do it... And it would be the most convincing, too."

"Yeah," Heather nodded. "I guess you're right..."

"Don't worry," Lizzie told her, reaching up to give her hand a squeeze. "I'll do my best to behave myself."

Heather smiled. "I'm sure you will... But that's one area where I worry your best isn't going to be good enough."

"Hey!" Lizzie stuck her tongue out, watching as the larger woman chuckled. "I can behave myself just fine!"

"I'll believe it when I see it!" Heather teased. "Until then... We'd better go get started, don't you think? People are going to start to wonder why we've been standing out here for so long."

"Maybe... You should check me," Lizzie said bashfully. "I-In case anyone in the store has seen us... Then you can act like you thought you saw me..." Lizzie squirmed, face growing warm. "D-Doing something..."

"Are you?" Heather smirked. "Come here, sweetie, let Mommy see."

Lizzie let herself be pulled over, even closer to Heather, the woman turning her around, gently patting the seat of her pants, and the Pull-Ups underneath, the redness in the girl's cheeks growing as she was reminded of their previous conversation. "I don't know," Heather cooed, a bit too loudly, for the sake of anyone nearby who may have been keeping an eye on them. 

Lizzie couldn't contain the squeak that came when she felt the back of her pants being tugged outwards, letting Heather peek inside. "Nothing there," she declared, adding on an embarrassing, yet," to the end, to make Lizzie blush even deeper. Heather ran her hand down Lizzie's bottom, following the curve downwards, then giving a squeeze. "Not too squishy, either. You'll be all right for now."

"I-I'm not squishy at all!" Lizzie protested, partially for the sake of playing her part, and partially because it was true.

"Compared to normal for you, sure," Heather humored her, giving the leash a tug as she started to walk towards the store at last, leading Lizzie towards the store. 

Was there really anybody there to witness the whole ordeal? Anybody that was paying any attention to them at all? It was hard to say, but it was good to get some practice in anyway... At the very least, there were probably security cameras around, and if they spotted them acting too suspicious, for a supposed Mommy and baby pair, they might decide to follow the two around the store, which, while not a huge deal since they weren't planning on shoplifting anything, would be annoying.

"Hello!" the greeter chirped when they walked in, giving no signs that she had witnessed anything in the parking lot. "How are you today, cutie?"

Lizzie squirmed as the 'tweener knelt down to speak to her, using an overly-sweet, condescending voice that made Lizzie's skin crawl... But that she knew she'd need to get used to. "I'm fine," she replied, unable to totally hide her grumpiness.

"Are you?" the girl smiled up at Heather. "If she needs a change, the bathrooms are right over there."

"Thank you so much," Heather told her. "I think she can wait until we're done shopping, though. Isn't that right, Lizzie?"

"B-But I'm not even...!" Lizzie pouted, automatically wanting to defend herself, getting silenced by a pointed look from Heather. "Yes, Mommy," she finished instead.

"It's so adorable when they don't even remember when they've gone potty in their pants!" the greeter giggled. "Don't you worry," she booped Lizzie on the nose. "I'm sure your Mommy will take care of everything, when the time is right! Now," she stood back up, leaving behind a blushing Lizzie, inching closer to the protection of Heather's leg, "do you need a cart?"

Lizzie opened her mouth to answer, then closed it, having to remind herself that she wasn't in charge here... So much not so that the question hadn't been directed at her at all, and any attempt she would have made to answer it would certainly have been ignored, laughed off as another cute instance of babyishness, a little girl who was pretending to be a grown-up like her Mommy.

"I think we'd better," Heather said. "You can never tell, right? There are only a few things we need, but once you go in..."

"There's so much great stuff!" the greeter grinned. "I totally get it! What kind do you want? You can get one with a seat up top, so you can keep an eye on her, or we have some left with a seat down front, so she can feel like she's steering, or..."

"Oh, I don't know," Heather paused. Lizzie's eyes darted upwards nervously, tearing them away from the options. Neither was exactly ideal... The former had what looked essentially like a car seat, which she could be strapped securely into. The other was, for all intents and purposes, a toy car with a shopping cart attached behind it, complete with a steering wheel, though Lizzie doubted it did anything. There were plenty of straps on that seat, too, so, while it might not look as restrictive, a naughty baby would be just as unlikely to be able to escape, despite being much closer to the floor, and further from their caretaker's immediate attention.

She wasn't sure which would be more humiliating, honestly... The car seat was awfully infantile, of course; the toy car was, too, as was the implication that the person sitting there was silly enough to believe they had any control over where the cart was headed, where their Mommy or Daddy was taking them, what wound up in the cart behind them...  

Heather wasn't going to let this choice trip her up, would she? They hadn't discussed it, hadn't thought to... "I think one without the seat would be fine," she continued after a moment, only barely missing a beat, enough for Lizzie to notice, but probably not for the greeter to find odd. "It's almost her bedtime, so if I let her run around, it'll help wear her out for it... Hopefully."

"Aww," the greeter cooed. "Are you getting ready for beddy-bye, cutie?"

"Y-Yeah," Lizzie mumbled, looking out the doors to the sun still shining brightly, even if it was starting to approach the horizon. There certainly were littles, she knew, who were unfortunate enough to be put to bed at this hour... 

"I can tell," the greeter nodded knowledgeably. "Poor, sleepy baby. She probably doesn't even know how tired she is!"

Lizzie could have forced herself to stay silent again, but let out a petulant, "I'm not!" anyway, letting the two bigger women exchange a look. 

"You sure?" the greeter asked, though the question was aimed at Heather, not Lizzie. "As soon as she sits down, I bet she'll be out like a light!"

Lizzie pouted, but judged that as far enough, not wanting to test the agreement they'd just made in the parking lot yet. One more protest likely wouldn't have been enough to justify a spanking... It would be too easy to fall into a pattern of denying everything, though, and from there, it was a slippery slope...

"We need to get some new clothes, and I want to see how they fit her when she's squirming around, so I don't want her to sleep quite yet," Heather shrugged. "Besides, if I keep her up and moving around a bit longer, maybe she'll sleep past seven tomorrow morning." She crossed her fingers.

The greeter chuckled. "Good luck with that! Well, if you change your mind, you can let any worker you see know, and they'll get you a different cart." She wheeled one of the plain shopping carts out, moving it in front of Heather. "Have fun!" She waved down at Lizzie.

"Go on," Heather encouraged. "What do you say, Lizzie?"

"Th-Thank you, ma'am," Lizzie said obediently, waving back. Heather smiled and nodded, satisfied that Lizzie had been polite enough, and putting her hand on the cart's handle, giving Lizzie's leash a tug to tell her it was time to get moving.

"Thank you," she repeated, bobbing her head at the greeter since she had no free hands to wave with, between the one she was using to push the cart, and the one holding the leash. 

"Of course!" the greeter called as they headed into the store. 

"That wasn't so bad, now, was it?" Heather said as they moved away from the 'tweener, Lizzie choosing not to answer. "Where should we start?"

"That's up to you," Lizzie reminded her.

"I suppose it is," Heather replied happily, beaming as she peered around her, looking like a kid in a candy store. "In that case, I know exactly where we're going."

"Where?" Lizzie asked, although she knew there was a chance Heather wouldn't bother to tell her... Mommies didn't need to explain things to their babies.

In this case, however, Heather didn't mind at all. "Oh, Lizzie," she grinned, steering the cart, and the girl at her side, towards the clothing department, "you have no idea how long I've wanted to play dress-up with you..."