Smart House - Chapter 16 (Patreon)

"Five," Brigid answered with a sigh, the number also a mostly accurate assessment of how old she felt in that moment, sitting there at her desk, in a living room remade to look like a preschool. Honestly, though, even that was probably an over-estimation...

"Very good!" Pat replied, clapping her hands. It was strange, seeing her do that, hearing the sound of two solid objects hitting one another, knowing that was real, that it wasn't the AI piping in a sound to make it appear so. She still didn't understand how it was possible, how Pat had done it... Now that she had, however, Brigid didn't know what she was going to do, how she was going to get away from her.

It was one thing when Pat was a hologram, a computer program with a visual component that was impressive, yet ultimately harmless... And she'd had enough trouble dealing with that! Now that Pat could touch her, so anything she wanted to her directly... Brigid shuddered, squirming in her Pampers, not knowing what to do, how she was going to get out of this.

"Now, what about this?" Pat asked, pretending to write on the chalkboard again, putting up another simple math problem that Brigid could solve in her sleep.

"It's six," Brigid rolled her eyes. "Pat, I know all this!"

"I'm sure you do, dear," Pat said condescendingly. "But your little friend might not, so we'd better review it anyway!"

Brigid scowled over at the desk next to her, and the stuffed duck there. She hated to say it - or think it, even - but she did like the toy. It was soft, and fluffy, and had been comforting to her as she discovered the shift in power that had happened in her house overnight... Pat loved using it as an excuse, however, saying that the classes were for it as a way too soothe Brigid's ego, when all it was really doing was making her feel more like a baby, as if Pat actually believed that she thought the doll was alive... And, at this point, she wouldn't have been surprised to find that the AI did think that of her.

"Well, why don't you ask her to answer next time?" Brigid sulked. "I'm bored!"

"I suppose it is almost time for recess," Pat told her. "Would that make you feel better?"

That perked Brigid up, ever so slightly. "What are we doing for recess?" she asked. She wasn't expecting much... There was no way Pat could take her outside... Right? So, if she let her go run around, that was a chance to escape... She wouldn't have the keys to her car, or any money, or an ID, or anything else, and she was dressed like a toddler, but surely she could find someone who would help her.

Would Pat be stupid enough to allow that? The front yard seemed especially unlikely, though the backyard was a possibility. It was fenced in, and Brigid was too short to climb over it... Perhaps she could walk around it, find a weak spot... It might take a while to break it open, especially while trying to be cautious, unseen, knowing that, whether Pat could go out there or not, if she saw what was going on, she'd stop allowing her outside at all, and this might take several days, or weeks...

Her nose wrinkled at the thought. Was she really going to stay here, like this, being home-schooled by a crazy AI that thought she belonged in diapers, for weeks?! Already, she was finding herself starting to act more like a child because of all this. If it kept up for that long... She blushed, staring down at the bulky padding between her legs, peeking out from under her too-short skirt, wondering if she was ever going to get out of them, if she was going to wind up stuck in them.

Surely not... Surely, she'd at least be able to prove she belonged in Pull-Ups. It was hard not to think of this morning, however, of waking up in a full, stinky diaper... Or of her potty training chart, with all those bad marks, all that evidence of her accidents, proving exactly why she was in this position... Of how far she'd fallen, in so short a time.

"I thought," Pat smiled, "you would like the playground."

Brigid's eyes widened. "Really?!" she squealed, hopping up off the desk. That was so much better than she'd expected, than she'd dared hope. The playground! She shouldn't get her hopes up, knowing that, if Pat was saying it, she must have planned it out. Perhaps she'd hired someone to take Brigid there - someone other than Carissa, most likely, judging by the way she'd been talking about the girl this morning. She didn't want another babysitter, though there was no way she'd get that unlucky twice in a row, and wind up with someone who would willingly want to torment her, and keep her this way, knowing she was actually an adult.

Or... Maybe Pat did have a way of going outside. The idea was scary, at first, until Brigid gave it a moment. She hadn't gotten the impression that Pat's body was a robot, but that did make sense, she supposed. A robot could leave the house... It wouldn't have unlimited power, however, and outside of the house, without all of the tricks Pat could pull there, Brigid might be able to get away, especially if she was already running around a playground on her own.

Pat chuckled, taking Brigid by the hand, Brigid, in turn, grabbed the duck. She didn't want to be seen with it, yet, at the same time, it did make her feel a little better, thinking about going outside in this uniform. She pretended it was because she could hold it in front of herself, hopefully keep some people from noticing her diaper, but she knew the comfort aspect was just as big a part, if not bigger.

"This is going to be so much fun!" Brigid exclaimed to Pat as she was led out of the living room. "I'm going to play on the slide, and... I'll ride the swings, and...!" She struggled to think of things that would be on a playground, glancing over at one of the false windows on the wall of the schoolroom that showed a video of an empty playground. "And play in the sandbox!" She wanted to sound as excited as she could, so she could justify staying out as long as possible, to give herself more of a chance to escape, or for Pat's batteries to run down.

"That sounds lovely, dear," Pat told her, taking her out into the hall, and then, almost immediately, turning her back around, away from the front door.

"What are you doing?" Brigid whined. Was she going to take her to the bathroom first? Honestly, it probably wasn't the worst idea, and she shouldn't complain, not when the alternative was Pat having an excuse to keep her in diapers permanently. Or did she have a different uniform in mind for taking her outside in? Brigid wouldn't mind that, either, so long as it hid her padding more.

"We're going to the playground," Pat repeated. "You had so much you wanted to do! It sounds lovely!"

"Yeah, but..." Brigid frowned, turning towards the door. Pat tugged at her hand, pulling her back towards the living room, which Brigid was shocked to find had been transformed yet again. The wallscreens, and ceiling, now showed a peaceful outdoors view, the temperature of the lights adjusted to mimic sunlight more closely, the floor turned to astroturf carpet. The desks were gone, and, in their places, there was a small playset with a plastic slide and a single swing with a brightly colored bucket seat, and a sandbox made out of what might have been a kiddy pool.

Brigid's stomach fell with a resigned, "Oh." She wasn't going out after all, wasn't going to find any opening to get away. She was staying right here, under Pat's control... And, after how enthusiastic she'd been, she was going to have to play, too, or she'd run the risk of making the AI suspicious.

"Isn't this lovely?" Pat asked. "Your very own playground!"

"Y-Yeah," Brigid forced a smile. "I-It's great, Pat." She let out a surprised squeak as Pat picked her up, plopping her down into the swing, pushing her while Brigid tried to pretend to have fun, to keep up the act. It wasn't that bad, really, but it was hard not to be disappointed when she'd gotten her hopes up, thought this would be her opportunity to get back to her adult life, somehow.

Even if she did, though, if she had slipped away from Pat's watchful eye, found someone to believe her story, and help her out... What was she going to do? Mr. Humphrey had seen her at St. Lucie's, and there was no question in her mind that he'd recognized her, knew exactly who she was, and had seen her not only wearing her diapers, but soaking them. There was no way he was going to want her to work on his case after that... She'd be lucky if he didn't go look for another firm altogether, and even more lucky if he didn't tell the other partners why he was doing so. Her career was, most likely, over already, and the only reason she didn't know for sure was the fact that she hadn't seen her cell phone in days, and, even when she'd had it, Pat could block the signal to keep her from getting, or sending, any calls.

She'd wanted a smart house... She hadn't thought that it was going to manage to outsmart her, however, much less that it would wind up with her here, like this, a little, diapered schoolgirl.

After Pat lifted her out of the swing, Brigid went down the slide a few times before plopping herself in the sandbox, digging at it listlessly with her plastic shovel until Pat announced recess was over and helped her to her feet, brushing the stray sand off her and leading her by the hand into the dining room for lunch.

After Pat had fed her the oatmeal that morning, Brigid had been worried she might try to do the same at lunch; thankfully, she didn't, just locking the tray into place and setting a plastic plate of baby carrots and chicken nuggets on top, leaving Brigid to feed herself after tying a brand new bib around her neck, pink with a duck in the center to match her school jumper. There were, of course, no utensils, but Brigid didn't push her luck asking for them, not wanting to give Pat an excuse to take over.

"Now, Brigid," Pat said after she was done eating, "I think you ought to lie down for a nap."

"No!" Brigid groaned. "I'm not sleepy!"

"Are you sure?" Pat raised an eyebrow, sounding skeptical. "I don't want you getting cranky."

"I won't!" Brigid insisted. It wasn't that she was in any hurry to go back to 'school,' but she wasn't tired, either, so lying there in her room, as it was now, didn't feel like much better of an alternative.

"I'll believe you this time," Pat told her. "If you start acting up, though, I will be adding that to your daily schedule from now on."

"Yes, ma'am," Brigid sighed. 

Pat led her back to the living room, which, by then, was back to classroom mode, with no indication that it had ever been anything else. Brigid sat back down at her desk obediently, and was given a worksheet and a pencil.

Like everything she'd been 'taught' today, it was boringly basic, hardly more enthralling than listing out her ABCs, so it shouldn't have been a distraction, shouldn't have been an excuse for what happened next... It did, apparently, take just enough of her concentration that she didn't notice it at first, didn't think about it.

Pat should have been able to tell, probably before Brigid. She should have recognized her starting to squirm at her desk, should have known something was up, and, perhaps, she did. Maybe it was a test, to see if Brigid would figure it out on her own in time... Or maybe she didn't want that, was hoping, in her silicon heart, that Brigid wouldn't.

Brigid did feel a pressure in her tummy, eventually, though she brushed it off at first, thought it was nothing, that she could at least finish up her worksheet first. Last night was a fluke, an anomaly... Her bladder was what she was worried about, really, and she was confident she had it under control, that she wasn't going to have any accidents. 

But whatever Carissa had given her to cause last night's incident to happen might not have been out of her system completely... Or, possibly, she was more engrossed in her schoolwork than she'd thought, or too preoccupied with fretting over how she was going to get out of the mess her life had become.

Either way, there was a new mess brewing, and, by the time she realized that, it was too late. She let out a little gasp, eyes widening as she felt a cramp, followed by a tiny, involuntary push from somewhere inside her. She frowned, wiggled her bottom, trying to judge if it was over, if she ought to ask to be taken to the bathroom.

"Umm... Pat?" she sniffed. And then another cramp came, and the full weight of what was happening, of how bad it was about to be, hit her. "Pat!" she squeaked. "I hafta go potty!"

She hopped off her desk frantically, Pat not even getting up from her own desk, a duplicate of her appearing in front of Brigid, the version sitting down taking a moment before it vanished in response. "Come on!" Pat urged, pulling Brigid forwards. "It'll be all right, Brigid!"

But it wasn't. Brigid barely made it two steps before she knew that, before her knees began to bend into a squat, right in front of the desk her stuffed ducky was sitting at, before she could feel the warm, squishy mush start pouring out of her and into her waiting diaper, making it swell beneath her. "P-Pat, I'm going potty!" she declared in shock, unable to help herself, to even process fully that the battle was over almost before she'd known that it had been about to begin.

"Yes, you are," Pat cooed. "It's okay, Brigid."

"N-No!" Brigid whimpered. "I-I'm not a baby! I'm not!" That didn't sound particularly convincing, not when the words were interrupted by the unmistakable grunts of a girl in the middle of filling her pants, especially not when she couldn't keep herself from blurting out, "I-I'm pooping!" afterwards, still struggling with the idea of what was going on, of what she was doing, and how little control she had over it.

"You are," Pat repeated soothingly. "Just let it all out, sweetie." That was out of her hands, but it definitely happened, Brigid's squat deepening as she continued to grunt and groan, her diaper ballooning outwards under her skirt. "Guess it's a good thing you weren't in your Pull-Ups after all, huh?" 

It was the last thing she wanted to do, but, by then, it felt like her brain had stopped working, like it had ground to a halt as she proved what a baby she truly was, and, when Pat let go of her hand, seeing that there was no point pretending they were going to be making it to the toilet, her knees wobbled and collapsed, sending her falling flat on her mushy backside with a squish.

"It's not fair!" Brigid sniffled. "Y-You should have gotten me to the potty quicker! It's not my fault!"

"I thought I told somebody that I didn't want to see her getting cranky," Pat said, in a way that almost sounded like teasing.

"I'm not cranky!" Brigid crossed her arms, stomping her Mary Jane clad feet. "It's not my fault! I don't need diapers!"

"Well, your three stinky strikes say otherwise," Pat told her. "Don't worry, we can try again in another year or so."

"No!" Brigid wailed. "I'm not wearing diapers for a year! I'm not, I'm not, I'm not!"

But, of course, there was nothing she could do about it now, as Pat stood over her, watching her tire herself out with yet another tantrum before picking her up and carrying her up to her room. Brigid dreaded the sight of her potty training chart, of another humiliating mark on it... When they got there, however, the chart was gone entirely, which was almost worse, knowing what it meant. Her bed, with its rails, was gone, too, replaced by a full-on crib. There was now no doubt this was the room of a toddler, not a little girl, and certainly not a grown woman.

Brigid was cleaned up, taped into a fresh diaper, and swaddled up in a warm, footed sleeper before getting tucked into her crib, stuffed ducky at her side. She nearly protested when she felt something being pressed against her lips, glancing up to see a pacifier, but as soon as she opened her mouth, Pat slid it inside, and Brigid found herself starting to suck on it unconsciously, shocked at how comforting it was as she curled up, sniffling and feeling sorry for herself as she quickly drifted off for her first, of many, naps.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"Oh!" Gillian frowned, taking a step back to confirm she'd come to the right house, even though she wasn't sure how she could have made that mistake. "I'm sorry... Did you just move in?"

The unfamiliar woman smiled at her, chuckled. "No, definitely not," she replied. "I've been here for a very long time."

"You... have?" Gillian tried to peer around her, confused. "Is Brigid subletting it or something?"

"Brigid?" the woman's eyes lit up, finally giving Gillian some hope that she wasn't going crazy, that she hadn't driven to the wrong neighborhood somehow, and found a house that looked exactly like her friend's. "Would you like to see Brigid?"

"Yes!" Gillian exclaimed. "Is she here? I'm sorry, are you... dating?" Brigid had never said anything to her about being attracted to other women, but that certainly didn't mean it was impossible. The woman laughed again. Gillian blushed as she stepped inside, looking at the woman, at her old-fashioned dress and apron. She didn't seem old enough to be into that sort of fashion, though she wasn't going to judge. "Are you the maid or something?" she tried. 

"Something like that," the woman replied, calming Gillian's nerves slightly. That made sense... She must have worked here before, too, for the previous owners... That was what she'd meant by being here for a long time. Gillian knew Brigid well enough to know she wouldn't want to do all that cleaning for so large a house all on her own.

"I just wanted to make sure Brigid was all right," Gillian explained, following the woman further inside. "I haven't heard from her in a while, and I heard all kinds of weird rumors from people at her firm about why she got fired, and..."

"Brigid is doing very well," the woman told her. "She just earned a gold star for how well she recited her alphabet."

"Her... What?" Gillian tilted her head. "What are you...?"

The woman led her around the corner into the living room... Or what should have been the living room. Instead, it was a classroom, complete with a little girl sitting at a desk, coloring a picture. Even from the back of the room, Gillian could see the diaper peeking out from under her uniform... And see that it was soggy.

"Brigid, dear," the woman announced. "Someone is here to see you!"

The little girl turned, and Gillian let out a gasp as she realized it was Brigid, a shocked expression on her face, pacifier in her mouth, bobbing quickly up and down. "Gillian?" she burbled out from behind it. "Gillian, you hafta get me out of here! Tell her I'm not a baby!"

"What is going on here?!" Gillian demanded, reaching for her purse. "Are you keeping her here like this?!"

"I'm taking care of her," the woman responded. Gillian grabbed her phone out of her purse, ready to call the police, even though she wasn't sure what she was going to say, only to discover that she had no reception.

"You don't need that," the woman took the phone from her, yanking it from her grip easily, despite Gillian's best efforts to keep ahold of it. "Those are only distractions for little girls your age."

"I am not a little girl!" Gillian insisted. "And neither is she!"

But, suddenly, she wasn't so sure about that, as the woman began to grow, getting taller, towering over her, making her feel like, perhaps, she was just a child in comparison. Brigid's eyes widened, and Gillian saw the wet spot on her diaper growing. "Gillian, get out of here!" she squealed.

Gillian didn't want to abandon her friend; she had no idea what was going on here, however, and, after hearing that order, she wasn't about to disobey it. She turned and ran for the door, only to find the woman standing in front of it already, arms folded as she stared down at Gillian. Gillian turned again, saw the woman there, too, coming down the hall after her, gulping in fear as she realized there were two of them... And then three, as she made a break for the dining room, four as she attempted to go the other way around the table to avoid the third.

There were as many as there needed to be, and they were as big as they needed to be. She was no match for them, no more than Brigid had, clearly, been. "Come along, dear," they said in unison, closing in around her. "My poor Brigid has seemed lonely lately... I'm so glad she has someone to play with now... Now, let's get you into your school uniform."

From the other room, Brigid watched, hugging her ducky and sucking her pacifier, feeling like she should be doing something to help, to stop it, but, by now, knowing how pointless that was. In a way, she had to admit, as bad as she felt for Gillian, she was glad... The one thing Pat wasn't able to provide her with was a friend, and now, she had that, too. It turned out her smart house really could do anything... 

The End