Done Adulting Vol. 1 Ch. 49 (Patreon)

A nap followed lunch, and Jamie found his mat to not be nearly so comfortable as his crib. The lunch wasn’t very good, but the little food they served was enough to take the edge off the stress of the day’s newness so he could sleep for a little while. He felt odd sleeping out in the open, not that he wasn’t in his crib but that he was on the floor with a bunch of other people around him. He hadn’t experienced that since spring break of senior year, and he recalled those circumstances as being a lot more fun.

When he woke up, it was still quiet in the room. He didn’t want to waste a minute of being conscious without the chaos and sat up yawning and rubbing his eyes. He’d hoped to avoid it but couldn’t, so he gave in and emptied his bladder. April noticed him awake and came over to him, getting down on her knees next to him.

“Hey. Can’t sleep, huh,” she whispered.

“Guess not.”

“Wanna get up?” Jamie nodded. “Mind if I pick you up,” she asked.

“No, that’s alright.” She picked him up, felt the warmth of his butt on her arm, and started carrying him toward what he thought was the bathroom. He didn’t want to do this, but he also knew there wasn’t anything he could say to stop it. No way would she not change him now that she felt he was wet. He knew this would happen and most likely on his first day, but still he wasn’t mentally prepared for it. He had only been changed in public the once, and now it was going to happen again with a stranger. At least she wasn’t doing it in the classroom.

It wasn’t a bathroom, or rather was a bathroom but that was a second room behind the door. The main area held three changing tables. The germaphobe in Jamie hoped they were cleaned thoroughly after each change. He was set down on one of the tables and laid back. There was no point in delaying it, and hopefully she would be fast enough that it stayed just the two of them. April silently buckled a strap across his chest, which he figured she’d always do given the liability, and put on a pair of disposable gloves. Jamie lifted his hips and made it easier for her.

“I saw you reading to Jenny. She likes you.”

“She’s sweet. We had fun.”

“That makes you a rarity. I don’t know any other little who can read.”

“I can’t imagine that. That’s got to be boring.”

“They’re regressed. Regressed littles almost always manage to find something fun do on their own. Did you have fun outside?”

Jamie scoffed. “Some. It’s too bad none of the other littles are … athletic. Hard to play with them. Like playing with, well, toddlers.”

“You just got to learn to do it on their terms. What do you like to play?”

“I don’t know. At the park, we play tag.”

“What do you like about it?”

“It’s … well, it’s not a challenge to win, but it’s still effort. Feels like I’m doing something.”

“Maybe there’s a version of that we could play here. Sorry about Jean. She just forgot is all.”

“I know; thanks for sticking up for me.” Jamie considered what she’d said. “You can, pick me up, when you think you may need to, or even, if you just want to.”

April let out a laugh. “You getting a crush on me already?”

“No! I mean, I don’t mind, at least when the person doing it is being considerate and not acting like I don’t exist. She didn’t hear a word I said.”

“If it makes you feel better, it’s not just you. She’s new at this; she still hasn’t figured out littles are people just like Amazon babies and toddlers, and that they aren’t made of porcelain,” she chuckled.

Jamie’s shorts were being buttoned back up. He was released from the strap and placed on his feet. April wiped the table down and went into the bathroom to wash her hands.

“You may want to go hang out with Denise for a bit.”

“Why?” As he asked, the door opened and in came Carrie with a ripe smelling, crying little. He looked out the door and saw three or four of the other littles who were awake were crying. “Got it.” Good idea.

“You can go ahead.”

Jamie went back through the classroom, stepping over littles and surprising himself by being jealous of the very regressed littles in their cribs. At least they had their own space to sleep in. As he neared the door, Jordan stepped in front of him.

“Jamie, right? Can I help you with something?”

“April said I could go hang out with Denise.”

“O. I’m sorry; go ahead.” She opened the door for him.

From behind him, Jamie heard, “Why does he get to…”  as the door closed behind him. Jamie answered the question silently: Because I still have my faculties and don’t deserve to have them subjected to the sensory assault of so many groggy, stinky littles.

“Hi, Denise.” She looked up from her computer.

“Hi, Jamie. What’s up?”

“Nothing. April just thought I’d prefer to be out here while they get everyone up.”

“A-ha. That’s why I like this side of the door. You can sit here.” She pulled a rolling stool out from under the desk and lifted Jamie onto it. Jamie didn’t like sitting there. Either he sat in the middle as though he was a centerpiece on a lazy susan or he sat on the edge and felt like the thing was going to fly out from under him. Or course, his feet didn’t touch the floor either way. But it was that or stand or the floor.

“So, how’s your first day?”

“Uh …” Jamie exhaled. “What am I supposed to do every day like this? I mean …” He was frustrated.

“It’s okay. Say what you feel. I won’t tell anyone. Diane can’t hear through the door.”

“I feel like my brain is gonna run out my ears. I had fun reading to some of the littles, but if I want to have a conversation, I’m going to have to have it with the bigs. And that jerk Bobby tried to pick a fight with me.”

“What did you do when he tried that?”

“Walked away. Not like I have anything to prove to him.”

“I don’t know what makes him like that.”

“He probably just likes it.”

“Like, he likes the attention? Getting in trouble all the time?”

“No. Being mean. It feels good sometimes, doesn’t it? Makes you feel powerful. And he doesn’t have the mental capacity to stop himself. People that … young, I guess is the word, mentally don’t have much impulse control and have a hard time connecting an action to a consequence unless it happens right away.”

“How do you know that?”

“I used to work with kids. Human kids.”

“Any suggestion on how to fix it?”

Jamie shrugged. “Replace the good feeling. He does it because it feels good, so find something else that feels good and redirect him to that.” Basic applied behavioral analysis, something Jamie knew a little about and was in awe of the people who had the patience and skill to actually practice it.

“Makes sense. You meet Billy yet?”

“No.”

“He’s the same.”

“Are they real brothers?”

“You mean birth brothers? Don’t know. Does it make a difference?”

“No, I’m just curious.” If they weren’t, it was either a coincidence they ended up together, or a deliberate choice, or the bigs they lived with somehow made them that way.

“What are you going to do about the other thing,” Denise asked.

“The being bored and having no one to talk to?”

“Any of the bigs will talk to you.”

“They’re at work. I don’t want to take up their time.”

“You’re their work too, right?” Denise smiled at him. She wanted him to feel worthy of their attention.

Jamie blushed. He didn’t like to think of himself that way. “I mean, they got things they should focus on instead of me. They got their hands full.”

“That’s their job, balancing their time and attention. You don’t have to do it for them. Just do what you need to. Ask them for anything you need. It’s okay, really.”

Jamie wanted to change the subject. “April is nice.”

“Diane assigned her to you on purpose. She’s a little less enamored with littles.”

“You say that like it’s a good thing. Why would Diane assign someone who doesn’t like littles?”

“She loves littles, just not as … intensely, as others. She’s better at connecting with them as …as individuals.”

“Unlike Jean?”

“Jean is just out of secondary school. She’s taking a year to figure out what she wants to do, and she’s Diane’s niece, otherwise no way would someone without a graduate degree get the job.”

“You need a graduate degree to work here?”

“At any little care. These are competitive jobs.”

“They’ve got to be making almost nothing, though, right?”

“They make almost as much as teachers.”

“Mom mentioned that. I don’t get that. Why do teachers get paid so much?”

“Because everything else is based on good teachers. If you don’t have good teachers, how can anything else work like it should? Who wants a doctor who had a bad teacher?”

“This place is like Scandinavia on steroids.” And the steroids are government-subsidized, he thought.

Denise didn’t get the reference, of course. “Anyway, Jean is young and inexperienced. She’ll learn on the job most of what she needs to know. The regressed littles actually like her a lot.”

Jamie sighed and slumped. “Tomorrow is an even longer day.”

“Well, you can always help me. Answer the phone, do a little light accounting and paperwork. How are you with spreadsheets?”

Jamie looked at her closely. She was almost as good at playing the straight man as he was. “Good joke,” he chuckled.

“But seriously, you’re always welcome out here. You can even keep some things in my desk. And I’ll bring you a book or something if you’d like. I heard you can read.”

“Thanks.” He wondered if a little being able to read was such a novelty that word had spread at all, let alone so fast.

“Well, anyway, it’s almost time for Amanda to pick you up.”

“It is? O! Thank goodness.”