Unfair-Chapter 119: Copycat (Patreon)

Chapter 119: Copycat

Janent’s phone pinged and she picked it up off of the kitchen table. She speared a bit of cobb salad with her fork while she read and crunched the dressing drenched lettuce leaves in her mouth.  “Hm!”    

I picked my way through cut up strawberries and banana slices so I could get to the hearty chunks of watermelon in my fruit salad.  The portions, especially the watermelon and cantaloupe, were all Amazonian variants making it almost impossible for me to take a bite of the sweet stuff without getting some kind of juice runoff on my chin. It was sweet though…

“Whushup?” I asked from my highchair. Talking with my mouth full only made more juices spill out onto my naked chest.  Janet had been right about stripping me down to just my diaper before lunch.  I may or may not have been playing it up as an excuse to get some extra shower in…if only for the inconvenience it might cause and perhaps to prove something else to myself…

Janet finished swallowing and said,  “You know Miss Helena? Amy’s Mommy?”

I swallowed and wiped my chin with the back of my hand.  “Yes, Janet. I’m pretty sure we’ve met.”  We practically saw her and Amy every Thursday.  Still, I had enough self control to not roll my eyes at the condescension.

“She wants to hang out,” Janet went on. “How do you feel about that?”

A bitter and cynical part of me took note of the way Janet phrased that.  I wasn’t being given a decision as much as a litmus test for how difficult I was going to make her afternoon.  “Why does she want to?”

Janet snorted. “Because we’re friends, and friends like to spend time together. That’s it.”

“Where?”

“Hold on,” Janet looked back down at her phone. “I’ll check.”

I grabbed a banana slice and slipped it between my lips. I lifted my bottle up with one hand and sipped Little-Ade from the nipple.  The stuff was chock full of so many electrolytes that it made me have to pee more often, but that was hardly an immediate concern.  At least the yellow faux-juice could in no way be mistaken for milk.

Her phone pinged back.  “She just wants to hang out here.”

“No surprises?” I asked. “No special playdates?”

“Not that I’m aware of,” Janet said.  She showed me her phone and scrolled up as proof.  True enough there had been zero evidence of any kind of plotting or planning or premeditated exhibitionism or humiliation in the name of getting me ‘used to’ Maturosis or otherwise indoctrinating me or breaking me in.  

My eyes narrowed. “Is Amy coming with her?”

“I assume so,” Janet said. A look of concern came over her face. “Do you not want to be around Amy? I thought you two were becoming friends.”  

The funny thing is I wasn’t sure how to answer that.  The more I interacted with Amy, the more I realized how little I actually understood her.  She was clearly insane, but terribly fascinating at the same time. There was a reason beyond her stubbornness and general unflappability that I’d given up trying to chase her away at our meetings, but was fascination the same thing as friendship?

Speaking of meetings, it’d been over two weeks since I’d last seen her and I hadn’t yet gotten a chance to regale her or any other member of that crinkling crawling cult with my tale of how I felled the evil giantess, Ambrose, and liberated the preschoolers of Oakshire Elementary from her tyrannical reign. “Just asking…”

“If you want to, I can just tell Miss Helena that we have plans. We can schedule another time. Or I can try and find a sitter and visit with her by myself sometime.”

“A sitter?”

“Yeah,” Janet said seriously. “Somebody you know. Auntie Jessie, or maybe Miss Tracy if she’s interested.”  Damn it. Janet didn’t know it (or maybe she did), but she was pushing every single correct button.  Being given a choice, having my consent asked for, felt like one of the rarest delicacies these last few months. The only thing that had been more out of reach was wearing underwear that wasn’t taped on.

My hands were completely still on the highchair’s tray. “You’re letting me decide?”

“I’m including you in the discussion and trying to consider your feelings,” Janet said. “Just because I don’t have any plans today doesn’t mean I want to push all of your wants aside. You might have been looking forward to a lazy afternoon playing with your tablet in your underwear.”

That had, in truth, been a good chunk of my plan.  But like the titular character in ‘Hamnet’, a hesitancy to fully commit had become a substantial character flaw of mine.  Perhaps it always was.  I’d been committed to quitting if an Amazon ever tried to diaper me at work and yet here I was.

Take the sitter. Push Janet’s instant gratification back. Make her have to experience delayed satisfaction. Insist on Tracy as a sitter if possible for the maximum amount of coverage and minimal masking. But what if that delayed gratification for Janet turned to resentment and increased scrutiny?  

I erred on the side of caution. “Could we get a sitter later in the week AND have Amy come over today?” A beat. “Amy’s coming too, right?”

Janet’s nostrils lightly puffed air out in the smallest hint of laughter. “I assume so, but I can check.”

A few thumb strokes on her phone and a ping later.  “Miss Helena says ‘yes’.”

“Do I have to call you ‘Mommy’ while she’s around?”

Janet’s face twitched. “In here?” She paused. “Not if you don’t want to.”

“Really?” I blinked back my disbelief.

“She knows.  She won’t be offended. She and Amy-”

“Don’t tell me,” I interrupted. “She and Amy used to do the same thing?”

“Hm?” Janet raised an eyebrow. “Not that she told me.”

“Okay,” I untensed before I realized I’d tensed up. “Cool.  Sure. What time are they coming over?”

Janet punched the question into her phone. Ten seconds later it pinged.  “They’re… already on their way. They’ll be here in…fifteen minutes?!”

We froze and looked around the kitchen. Dishes from last night’s dinner and this morning’s breakfast were still in the sink.  My tray was a mess, my chest was sticky from fruit juice, and my Monkeez were in that twilight between very wet and close to leaking.  Janet’s hair was down and she was only wearing a faded white t-shirt and lavender leggings.

My room was a mess this morning because Janet and I had witnessed Lion summarily execute traitor toys via hanging and Janet hadn’t made her bed yet.  

“Can you tell her to wait or something?” I asked. “Tell her to do laps around the block?”

Janet’s thumbs were practically on fire. “I’m trying, but she’s not replying and she’s not picking up!”

“FUCK!”  I said. Janet didn’t even correct me on my language.  “What do we do?”
Janet was out of her seat and moving frantically around the kitchen, wiping surfaces, tossing out containers and putting dishes in the dishwasher.  “Finish your lunch, sweetie. Mommy’s gotta clean up.”

I looked at myself in horror.  I thought of my mess of hair that was starting to dangle and get weighted down to my ears. Only the most extreme amount of caution kept me from touching it with my sticky fingers.  “What about me?”

“I’ll get you soon,” Janet promised. “Just finish eating.”

The Amazon seemed to grow extra arms with all of all her multitasking.  The cleaning tornado that was Janet Grange zipped out of the kitchen.  The sound of her bedroom door shutting was signal enough.

I started shoving strawberries and pineapple into my mouth as fast as I could, doing slight calculations in my head. Amy and I used to live close enough to where we had the same bus stop home. She’d been on a leisurely stroller ride when she’d stumbled upon me in my grief in front of the ashes of my old home.

From my old house to Janet’s it would take me about forty to forty five minutes by scooter. My guess is with a proper car Helena could do that same trip in about half an hour. That meant she was already halfway to us when she texted.  Short of showing up at our doorstep, she’d just done the Grown-Up equivalent of sneaking up behind us and yelling ‘Hi, Janet!’

So that’s where Amy got it from…

Turns out neither I or Janet had much of a choice.

I’d just smashed the last few handfuls of cut grapes into my mouth by the time Janet came out of her bedroom.  She didn’t have any makeup on, but her hair was done back up with knitting needles and the jeans and light gray sweater made her look relaxed but not sloppy.

“Okay. I’m done,” she said. “Now you,” she said. She grabbed one of the ever present packets of wipes from off a counter and started dabbing and dragging them across my face and fingers.

“Chest too,” I reminded her.  

“Mhm. And tray.”

I was hoisted up by the armpits and speed walked back to the changing table.  Janet took another look at her phone right after she laid me down.  She kept her hand on my chest out of habit. I was in no mood to struggle.  “Shh…” she almost cursed under her breath.  “Six minutes.”

The resulting change was hurried and rushed. She missed a few spots and forgot to apply the baby powder.  I barely had time to protest the outfit she put on me. The forest green shirt was nice, but then…

“Shortalls?”  I whined. “Again?”

My Mommy unsnapped the legs and draped it over me like a dress. I wasn’t winning this, so I laid back down.  “You like your diaper covered around company, right?” she asked. “Do you want a onesie instead?”

“What about my shorts?” I prodded. “Or pants?”

“They’re all in the wash,” she said. “Remember?”   I hadn’t, honestly.  Laundry stopped being my problem when what I wore stopped being my choice. Before that, laundry had been Cassie’s domain.  The sound of snaps along my inseam snapped me out of my brief flashback.

“Can’t I at least get the longer overalls?” I asked. “The one’s Auntie Jessica got me? With the cute little frog on the bib?”

Janet sat me back up and started rolling almost matching green socks up to just below my knees.  “Those are a pain to change.  I need to get some snaps sewn into those.”  The absence of snaps was the exact reason I wanted them. “Shoes or no?”

“No,” I pointed to the crib where at least three traitors to the throne were dangling in the bed sheets.   “What about my room?”

“Ooops!” She hoisted me off the table and removed Zeppo the clown, Clancy the nutcracker, and Mark the horse from their homemade nooses and gallows.  I wish she’d left Mark up there for a few more minutes.  Strangle, pony boy, strangle.  “That wouldn’t have looked good.”

The room was still a mess. Not that I cared but… “What about the rest of it?”

The place was a mess.  Janet had indulged me by letting me dump out every toy in the box.  Public executions had to be public, you see.

“It’s a nursery. It can be messy.”  She stopped and picked up the tablet off the floor.  “Except for this.”

I gasped “Janet! That’s mine! Tracy gave it to me!”

“I know,” Janet said. “It’s yours. I just want to make sure that you play with Amy and not just next to her. You have a habit of zoning out.”

“I won’t!” I promised. “I’ll share! I’ll show her all the games and stuff! Take turns and everything!” This wasn’t a lie as far as I was concerned. I wasn’t going to show her the secret password or anything. Far too risky. I just didn’t like knowing where my ticket to escape was at all times.

Janet paused in the doorway and looked over her shoulder. “Do you really want Amy handling your favorite new toy?”

“Will you at least show me where you put it?”

Janet’s eyes went up to the ceiling, but so did the corners of her mouth. She thought I was cute.  “Follow me.”

I toddled after her all the way back to her room.  The bed was immaculately made once more. Impressively considering what a state it had been left in.  Janet obviously wanted to impress her friend. She went over to the massive headboard that doubled as a china and liquor cabinet and placed the tablet at the very top of it.  It’d be well out of reach to a crawler like Amy and tidily out of the way, too.  

My shoulders untensed.  I’d scaled that mountain once before.  If push came to shove, I could scale it again. “Okay,” I heard myself.  “That works.”

Janet walked back to the foot of her bed and patted me on the head. “Told ya.”

A familiar, if muted, voice caused my ears to prick up. It was muffled and muted by distance and doorways, and I couldn’t make out most of the words but the manic patter of it all was instantly recognizable.

“Blah blah blah blah Jessinnia blah blah blah blah and blah blah blah blah social anarchy blah blah blah blah blah but I blah blah blah blah if you give a hamster a hotdog blah blah blah blah three little men in a flying saucer blah blah blah blah and the dog said I’m afraid not except it was a string! Get it Mommy? Get it?”

“Yes honey. You’ve told me that joke a thousand times.”

“But do you get it?”

They were here and right outside the front door.

KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK!

DING-DONG!

“Coming!” Janet called. She shuffled me out and closed the bedroom door.

I followed her, keeping pace beside so that it wouldn’t appear that I was hiding behind her skirt.  She leaned forward and opened the door.

“Janet!”

“Helena!”

“Hiiiii!”  They said in unison.

They leaned in and hugged one another with Helena twisting slightly to the side so that Amy wouldn’t get squished betwixt the two giantesses.

“Mommeeeeee!” Amy whined. “You ruined it!”

Janet pouted her bottom lip out. “Ruined what, baby?”

“You could have sandwich hugged me!” Amy said. “I could have lived my dream and been part of something glutenous, if only symbolically!”

This only made Janet more confused.

I tugged on her dress. “She’s got a bread allergy,” I reminded her. “Makes her throw up.”  That was how she’d done her variation of the cinnamon trick on Picture Day all those years ago.

“Ooooh,” Janet nodded in understanding. “Do you want us to try again, Amy? Give you a sandwich hug?”

The Little nutter brushed her bangs away from her face. “Nein! Nein danke, Mutti Grange! All artisanal displays must be spontaneous and unplanned or something is lost in translation.  I crave affection, not affectation!”

“Okay,” Helena cooed back at her. “So try again later after you’ve forgotten?”

“Sure!”

Amy got a kiss on the side of her head and was lowered to the floor. She wobbled with nothing on her feet but socks for a moment and leaned backwards against the nearest wall for a second and then slowly slipped and slid down onto her padded rear.  

She finally made eye contact with me.  “Hi, Clark!”  Then she looked down at herself and back up to me.  “Oh hey. We match. Neat!”

The color drained from my face. It was kind of true. Her t-shirt and socks were a light lavender in contrast to my dark green. Over her shirt, she wore a denim jumper that stopped well above her knees so that there was no chance of her knees getting caught up in the fabric crawling around on the floor.
“Yeah,” I said. “Neat…”  I looked up at Janet and projected daggers through my eyeballs at her.

“Oh that’s so cute!” Helena gushed over my seething.  “It’s like they’re twins or something!”  She clapped her hands with the pattering speed of a hummingbird.  “How did you know?”

Janet gave a bashful grin. “Just laundry day.  I guess great minds think alike, huh?”

Amy had scooted forward on her butt a few spaces and then seemed to have some sort of realization..  She lifted the hem of her dress.  Sure enough red, green, and blue cartoon monkeys played and tumbled on the front of her diaper, same as mine.  “Oh look! We match there, too, huh?” Then the gears on her mouth went into hyperdrive again.  “You’re still wearing Monkeez right I know they’re your favorite so I asked my Mommy to put me in one too did you switch to Koddles or Hippobottumuses because if so I insist that you switch back for the day in the name of symmetry and fashion and if one of us is going to go home and change it should be you because you’re already here have you ever noticed that the monkeys are also wearing diapers but those diapers don’t have cartoons on them I can’t decide if that’s because it’d be too complicated to put cartoon diapers on cartoon diapers over and over and over into infinity or if their parents can’t afford Monkeez because they trade primarily in bananas and coconuts which isn’t a recognized form of currency in most modern societies…most of them.

There was a long pause as my brain digested the absolute word stew that Amy had spewed out.  “Uh…yeah?”

Helena looked down at her Little with both confusion and a kind of content adoration. “My Amy,” she sighed. “She’s the only Little girl I know who likes to accessorize her diapers with the rest of her outfits.”  She gave another chuckle.  “I spoil her too much.”

“Untrue!”

That made both giantesses break out into full blown laughter. She really did have them wrapped around her pinky finger.  

“So what brings you here?” Janet asked Helena after they’d both stopped laughing at how gosh darn adorable Amy was.  

Helena, in a royal purple cold shoulder top and white pants, finally closed the door behind her. “I might have done a naughty impulse buy and I wanted to share it with you.”

“What kind of impulse buy?”  Janet asked cautiously.

Hanging from Helena’s shoulder was a girly pink diaper bag and a plain canvas one.  She reached into the canvas one and pulled out a liquor bottle that could have doubled as a battering ram in my hands. “Chili vodka was on sale at the grocery store; two for one. Wanna have a Girl’s Day In with me? Make some Bloody Mary’s?”
Oh.  So it was that kind of hang out.  Good for her.

Janet’s hand grazed over her breasts. If she’d still been feeding me her milk, she might have passed.  “Heck yeah!” she said. “I’ll get the celery.”

Amy shifted over to her knees and crawled up to me. “Come on,” she said, simply.

“Amy, honey,” Janet asked, “don’t you want to watch cartoons or something?  Clark has a neat gym that he’s barely ever played with.  Maybe you could show him how?”

“No thanks,” she said, crawling ahead of me.  “Maybe later. I’m gonna show Clark around, first.”

“But…I live here.”

Amy kept crawling, not pausing.  “Follow me, please. The tour begins shortly.”

I turned around and gave Janet a shrug. Both she and Helena shrugged back. Nobody knew what was going on, so we all took a tour of Janet’s house, as narrated by Amy.

“This is the bedroom where food and other delicious eatibles are commonly prepared. Most people call it a kitchen.  Here we have access to four of the five basic elements, hot, cold, really cold, and water. In ye olden days, they used to make the floor out of dirt, giving access to the all important fifth element, boron, which was quite economical, but then farms happened and people decided they liked their food grown outside.  Some kitchens have spice racks in place of dirt but historians consider this largely ceremonial.”

Helena and Janet chuckled behind the palms of their hands.  “So creative!” I heard Janet whisper.

Amy about faced and crawled past us into the living room.  “This bedroom is where people watch television, but oddly enough it’s called the living room or the family room which is a gross abuse of language since it implies that one is not living unless they are consuming mass quantities of media and the term family room is discriminatory against people who prefer solitude or just don’t have any spouses or offspring.”

“She makes me call ours the television room,” Helena whispered proudly, not wanting to interrupt.

“Honestly, this is my least favorite style bedroom,” Amy rambled on. “It takes up a lot of space and serves the same basic function as a cell phone.  I think these things should be abolished and replaced with aquariums and terrariums so that you can at least watch something interesting.  No offense, Miss Janet.”

“None taken.”

I facepalmed. “Why are you calling it a bedroom?” I asked.

Amy stopped.  “Why, Clark,” she said, “anything can be a bedroom.  Now please hold all further questions until the end of the tour.”

She wandered around again and circled back to Janet’s bedroom.  This was almost the exact inverse of Ivy’s tour:  Instead of overly simplistic narrations in her own home, she was giving me a tour of the place that I came to every day and giving complete batshit descriptors of the mundane.

“Amy, please don’t go in there,” Janet said when she saw where Amy was headed.  “That’s the master bedroom and bathroom.”

“Okie doke,” Amy replied. “I won’t go into Clark’s room without his permission.”

“That’s my room, sweetie,” Janet said.

Amy blinked, confused.  “I thought master was a masculine term, such as the head of a household, heir apparent, or a male school teacher. Shouldn’t that be the Mommy bedroom?”

Helena blushed and looked away. “She makes me call it that, too.”  She was still smiling.  To her this was just explaining a ton of in-jokes to strangers so that her so-called baby didn’t make a scene.

To my personal horror, Janet liked it.  “Oh, I’m stealing that.” Of course she liked it. It gave her another excuse to remind herself that she was a Mommy.  “Thank you, Amy.”

“Welcome.  Right this way please.”  About the only thing Ivy and Amy had in common as supposed tour guides was the complete lack of organization and the meandering path.

“This door leads to a bedroom that is expansive, and entirely solar powered and it comes with its own organic buffet.”

She was talking about the backyard.  Forever doomed to be the straight man in my own life, I asked.  “Who calls it an organic buffet?”

“People.”

“Do you mean you?”

“I am a people, yes, Clark.  But I’d like to remind you to please hold your questions till the end.”

The ladies again laughed and cooed behind our backs.  “So cute.”
“Adorable.”

Amy gave a dramatic, exasperated sigh. “Sadly, I am banned from this particular bedroom unless under strict supervision, even within my own domicile, due to my own organic food tasting tendencies spoiling my appetite.”

I spun around and regarded the two Grown-Ups who were still hovering. That was another difference between this playdate and the last. The Zoge’s were content early on to plop the Littles in a playroom and then go about their business.  “She eats dirt, doesn’t she?”

Helena nodded in the affirmative. Janet suddenly seemed visibly relieved that I didn’t do anything close to that.  Never before have I even been vaguely tempted to eat dirt.

Amy continued the tour unperturbed. “This bedroom is where clothes are drowned in ritual sacrifice and then resurrected before being tortured via hanging and folding.  Both their death and rebirth make them very, very, dizzy from all the spinning however.  By the time they are allowed to resume their natural shapes, the death is a sweet release.”

“What about diapers?”  I asked.  Damnit! I just couldn’t help myself.

“Please hold all questi-”

“No, no, no.”  Janet interrupted Amy. “I wanna see where this goes.  Clark?”

“What about diapers?” I repeated. “They don’t go in the washing machine.”

“Diapers aren’t clothes,” Amy said with complete certainty.

I gestured to my crotch.  “I’m wearing one, aren’t I?”

“Are condoms clothes?”  She hadn’t missed a beat. “Just because you wear something doesn’t make it clothing.”

“Weren’t you talking about matching with Clark earlier, Amy?” Helena asked playfully.

“Then tell me, Mommy: Why aren’t there any diapers sold in all of the baby boutiques and clothing stores that you take me to? Why are they sold with the wipes and powders and other consumables? Why do they not go in the washing machine to be murdered and reborn like everyone else?”

“Oh dear…,” Helena gasped. “You’re right!”  She was welling up with a mixture of pride and hilarity.  She’d been out maneuvered in logic by her own ‘baby’.  It had been nonsense logic, but it was logic all the same. “That’s my girl!” she crowed.

My hand shot up. “What about cloth diapers?”

“Hm?” Amy looked back down to me.

“They go in the washing machine,” I said. “Don’t they?”

“Listen,” she answered. “There’s always an exception that’s bound to prove a rule. Platypuses lay eggs and such.”

“Also, I can walk around in just a diaper and I don’t think anybody would care,” I added. “I don’t think I could get away with wearing only a condom.”

For the first time since arriving, Amy looked mildly perplexed, yet also amused. She stuck her tongue in the gap where her teeth used to be and said, “Touche, Master Clark. Touche.”

“And that’s my boy,” Janet whispered behind me.

Secure in my minor rhetorical victory, I remained silent for the remainder of the duration.  Amy missed a step, but quickly recovered like a pro.   “This bedroom is very narrow and full of doors; optimal if you enjoy side sleeping but need some back support or you have a foot fetish.”

“Amy!”

“Sorry, Mommy, but it’s true. This bedroom has not one, but three bathing facilities, depending on your size and how afraid you are to get sucked down a drain.”  Naturally, she was referring to the guest bathroom and its sink, tub, and toilet.

Janet pointed to the hallway linen closet. “What about that one, Amy?”

“Miss Janet, I don’t know how to tell you this, but that’s a closet.”  She kept crawling into my nursery.  “And this… is where the magic happens.”

We followed in behind her.  “Sorry about the mess,” Janet apologized to her friend.

“Kids are messy. It happens.”  

I bit my tongue and resisted the urge to inform her that Janet had played a part in making the mess.  Or did she think I’d tipped over the toybox all by myself?

“Besides the two beds,” Amy pointed to the crib and the changing table, “this bedroom also seems to have room service features and was the sight of a massive battle of some sort.” She sped over to the crib and examined one of the alphabet blocks that had served as a gallows for the traitors. She put it in her mouth and gnawed on it for a second.  “Mmm…pine.  Was it a public execution instead?  Firing squad?”  Her eyes circled around. “No…hanging?”

I took a step backwards in surprise, tripped over my own feet and fell backwards onto my ass.  “How?”

Janet was equally as awestruck. “How did you get all that from chewing on a block?”

“Not really,” Amy said. “I just like the taste.“

No one stopped her from chewing on the block.

“I love it when she shows off like that!” Helena beamed. “She’s so clever!”

“Must be fun at parties,” Janet remarked.

Helena lifted the vodka bottle back out of her bag.  “Ready to start our own party?”

“Yeah,” Janet said.  “Definitely.”  I got one last kiss before she left. “Okay, Clark. You be good and play nice with Amy, okay?”

“Yes, Mommy,” I said automatically. The pair were already out the door and back into the hallway when I remembered that I didn’t have to keep up appearances.  “Janet!” I called out. “I meant Janet!”

No reply came.

I shifted over onto my knees and crawled over to my crib to talk to Amy.  It didn’t feel practical to pick myself up, walk the few steps, and then plop back down to her eye level.  ‘How’d you guess all that?”

Amy spit the block out. “Lucky guess. That and I’m pretty good at cold reading. I should have been a medium.  Could’ve gotten a daytime T.V. deal. ‘The Small Medium At Large’.  Or maybe a Tweener would have been better, cuz they’re already kinda medium. Is that racist?”

“No one’s that good at cold reading,” I said.

“Clark. My guy. It’s messy in here, but you’ve got all the toys lined up in rows facing your crib, with Lion front and center, and three more toys  by the crib facing the other way.”

“You figured all of that out from just looking?” I asked.

“Uh-huh. Oh yeah,” she added, “you also have no poker face.”  She offered the slobber covered block over to me.  “Care for a bite?”

I leaned back so as to avoid a drop of saliva from splashing on me.  “Hard pass.”

“That’s fine,” she said.  “It’s not my favorite flavor anyway.” She tossed it back on the floor and started to look around again.  “I like your house,” she said. “It’s very ‘year one’.”

I frowned. Was that supposed to be an insult or something? “What do you mean?”

She shifted over her to her bottom and fidgeted with two non-slobbery blocks. “Oh, you know. No baby gates or socket plugs, or latches on any of the cabinets or drawers.  Your house isn’t baby proofed at all.” She sighed. “Those were the days.”

“I’m not a baby,” I said reflexively. “And it’s not my house.”

“Sure, bud,” Amy replied.  “Got any crayons?”

My eye twitched. “Why?”

“I’m almost out of them at home,” she told me. “I’ve eaten them all.  Good texture but applesauce really helps with the flavor.  I’ve got too much applesauce and not enough crayons.”  She clacked the two blocks together idly.

My face twisted and scrunched up. “Why would you eat crayons?”

“Cuz they change the color of ma’ poop,” Amy giggled. “It’s great. The Grown-Ups are always like ‘How did it get that color?’.  And I get to be like, ‘I ate a rainbow’ which is artistically accurate as long as you drew a rainbow first before eating them but I recommend avoiding eating black crayons unless you want a doctor sticking something up your butt.” She paused. “Protip.”

I breathed in through my nose and caught a whiff of something nasty. I spun around on my bottom and measured my distance from the changing table.  Was the pail that in need of cleaning out?  I sniffed again and realized it smelled vaguely like spoiled milk and turned back around. “Did you poop just now?”

My nutter companion shook her head. “Nope. Did it a while ago.”

“When?”

“Laundry room.”

My rhetorical victory seemed much less victorious now. I hadn’t actually given her pause. She’d just been loading the back of her diaper up.  Shit.

Literally.

“Oh…”  I scooted away.  “Why didn’t you ask to get changed?”

“I like to keep Grown-Ups on their toes,” Amy said. “If they forget to pay attention to me they have a bigger mess to clean up.”  

“But then you leak.”

“That doesn’t sound like my problem.”  She ran her tongue between the gap in her teeth again. “Why, do you have to poop? If we got changed at the same time I’d be okay with telling on myself. No having to wait on each other.”  She dropped the blocks.

I stood up. “No.” I said flatly. “I don’t have to poop.”  Of course, now that I was thinking about it, I realized it was a possibility, if not an urgent necessity.  My bladder was already protesting.  The Little-Ade really was going right through me.  I relented.

“Though technically we don’t have to wait on each other anyways. That’s the nice thing about being a baby.  Maintenance is somebody else’s problem.  We get to focus on more important things, like the multitudinal uses of wrapping paper.”  I bit my tongue. She picked up the horse toy. “What’s the horsey’s name?  Is it Edgar? He looks like an Edgar.”

“Mark,” I said.

Amy cocked her head and a big grin broke out. “Mark? Like that one…? Eyyyyyy! I get it!” She laughed in short, high pitched squeaks like a guinea pig. “Good one! Whatever happened to him?”

I grinned. “I chewed him out and scared him off.”

She clicked her tongue. “Nice. Very year one. I think I did something similar back in the day except it was a daycare worker. I wanna say that’s what got me into Mrs. Beouf’s class.”

My head spasmed.  Once again, my life since Adoption was just repeating a pattern that Amy had already established. “Yeah,” I said, flustered, “was the daycare worker trying to date your…” I stopped myself and remembered the monitor, “were they trying to date Helena?”

“Hm?” Amy put down the horse. “No. I guess not.  Why? Was Mark threatening you or something?”

I scoffed and scowled, and this time it had nothing to do with any smell.  “No.”

“Kind of a dick move, then, don’tcha think?”

“Was the daycare worker threatening you?” I retorted.

Amy leaned back on her hands. “Oh heck no. She just talked too much. Narrated every thing she was doing like I couldn’t understand it or something.”

I stepped forward and picked up one of the wooden blocks. “Isn’t that kind of a dick move?”

“Oh yeah,” she admitted. “Totally. I’ve grown a lot since then.”

“But you think you’re a baby…”

“I am a baby.”  

There was so much certainty in how she said it that I almost believed it.

“The fuck is wrong with you?”  When I’d asked Ivy that, I received the most unexpected answer.  It only made sense that Amy’s answer didn’t surprise me at all.

“Nothing,” she said. “What’s wrong with you?”

“This!” I spread my arms wide to indicate all around me.  “And this!”  I rubbed my hands all over my clothes.  “And especially this,” I grabbed my crotch and jiggled the crinkling plastic mass between my legs.

“Hmmm…” she said. Then she rolled over into a crawling position. “I think it’s been enough time. Come on. Follow me.” She moved forward a few steps, but I wasn’t following.  She stopped and looked over her shoulder.  “Actually, I kinda forgot where your kitchen is. I was so busy scouting for potential fun that I kinda forgot the layout.”

“What?” I started. “You mean…? Never mind. Yeah. Sure.” With Amy it was usually best to just go with the flow.

I led the way and stayed upwind of her all the way to the kitchen. “What are we doing here?” I asked. “What’s the poi-?”

“Shhh,” Amy put her finger to her lips. “Listen.”

In the dead quiet and stillness of the house, I heard voices. Talking and laughter. It was all muted, however, just like Amy’s rambling had been when she was at the front door.  I squinted and listened.

“Blah blah blah blah blah Brollish blah blah blah blah blah.”

“Blah blah blah blah daycare blah blah blah blah meeting.”

“Blah blah blah blah diapers!”

“HAAAAAA-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

“They’re outside,” I said softly. “In the backyard.”

“Mhm.” Amy said. “Drinking and doing Grown-Up gossip. Right on schedule.” She pronounced ‘schedule’ like it made the ‘sh’ sound instead of the ‘sk’ sound, like the Albienese did. If she still wrote things down, she’d probably add a ‘u’ in ‘color’ and replace all sorts of ‘z’s’ with ‘s’s’. “Ah, I think I remember where the kitchen is now.”

Lips puckered in suspicion, I asked her, “You put this idea into your Mommy’s head, didn’t you?”

“I dunno,” she said. “Maybe. Grocery shopping was boring and vodka was on sale. I took a chance and rolled the dice.”

She kept pace with me, even though she was on all fours and I was waddling on two. We were back in the kitchen in no time. Janet’s house was massive because of the scale, but it wasn’t exactly labyrinthian.

“Why are we here?”  I wondered.  She was already crawling towards a chair, and the droop in the back of her diaper reminded me.  “And if you want attention, why not just cry for food or something?”

“Because I’m not hungry and I would not be given what I crave,” Amy answered. “Which one of these drawers is the junk drawer? I’ve never known a kitchen without a junk drawer.”

I pointed. “Over there. Next to the silverware drawer, farthest away from the fridge.”

“Help me get this chair over there? I need a boost.”

My own curiosity for mischief enticed, I went along with it.  I dragged the chair in groaning jerking movements towards the junk drawer and kept the back from blocking the drawer.  “I got this,” I said.  I clambered up onto the seat and listened for more sounds coming from the backyard.

“Blah blah naked blah blah.”

“Amy blah blah blah blah.”

“Blah blah blah blah supermarket blah.”

“Blah blah blah blah blah blah manager.”

Good. They were still out there.  I opened up the drawer full of paper clips, markers, screwdrivers, and every other thing that didn’t have a proper place. “What am I looking for?”

“Batteries,” Amy called up. “Nine volt! Two!”

I dug and rooted around.  As luck would have it there were two. They were probably meant for one of my unused toys or something.  “Okay, got them.”

Amy pulled herself up to a standing position and balanced herself with the back of the chair. “Gimme, please!”  

I squatted down and handed her the rectangular prisms. In doing so, I felt my stomach lurch slightly.  Squatting had replaced sitting on a porcelain seat as my bowel’s signal to push. My guts thought it was time and were most disturbed when I stood back up.   “Hold on,” I said. “I gotta put everything back.”

“Of course.”

I shut spread the debris and clutter back around, shut the drawer, and hopped back down to the floor.  Amy helped me push the chair back under the kitchen table by leaning forward on it while I pushed.  It wasn’t much, but it helped.

“Okay,” I said, panting slightly. “What next?”

Holding onto the back of the chair so she could remain standing, she held out her hand. “One for me, one for you.”  I took one of the batteries from her and looked at it, curiously. Where was she going with this?  “What now?”

“This,” Amy said. She opened her mouth, stuck out her tongue and licked the top of the battery.  Her eyes lit up in literal shock but not surprise.  “Mmmph!” She fell back down to the floor, squeaking and giggling again.  “Knew it! No bitter coating!  Tastes like lightning! Your Mommy’s got the good stuff!”  

What? The? Fuck?

“Batteries?” I said. “You just wanted to lick batteries?”

She licked it again. “Mmm!” She shuddered in ecstasy. “My Mommy gets all the childproof batteries. The ones with the coating so you can’t lick ‘em.  They’re nasty. Gross. These though?” She licked it yet again and shivered like she was close to orgasm.  “The best! Try it!”

Confusion and outrage started to mix together inside my head. “You tricked your Mommy into comin here just so you could lick batteries?”

Amy looked away from her lightning lollipop. “Don’t be ridiculous. This is just a bonus.”

“Okay, so what’s the main reason you came?”

The Little nutter looked at me like I’d grown a second head. “I wanted to hang out with you, you goober.” She laughed some more. “I missed you.”

I almost fell backwards again. This was a trap. Or worse, another confession of puppy love. “You missed me?”

“You’re fun to talk to,” she said. “I like your stories about your Mommy and school. And you missed the last two weeks.  How am I supposed to get my fix of Clark after dark?” A beat. “Tee-Em! Registered Trademark!”

“That’s it?”

“Yup,” she took another lick. “That and I wanted to share the joys of batteries with you. Grown-Ups kind of frown on it so it’s a secret.  Try it!”

I was not going to try it. Same for eating crayons. Keep me away from wrapping paper, too. “Seriously, why batteries? Why put old gum or sand in your mouth?”

“Why not?  It makes me happy.”

I couldn’t argue with that, could I?  “But why does it make you happy?”

“My dear Clark,” she began, “few people will ever remember what a battery tastes like, or see how crayons change their poop. They’ll never again experience the satisfying textures and tastes and sounds of wrapping paper or how good it can feel to just zone out and let your mind drift thinking about the correct pronunciation of words like aluminum.  And they’ll be too scared to try.  They’ll be afraid of what people think of them, or what will happen after.  We get to be explorers of sensations. Sensational explorers!”

“Also Tee-Em?” I interjected.

“Naw, my friend Danny beat me to that one.”  She licked the bottom of the battery and looked disappointed. “It never works on the bottom,” she whispered to herself.  “Dang.”

“Why lick batteries and eat crayons, though. What about wanting to work with animals? Getting a job? Getting into a relationship? Helping people?”

“What do I need a job for?” Amy asked. “And I like my relationship. And I do try to help people.” She licked the top and jolted. “If they’re smart enough to listen…”

The silence went on. Janet and Helena were still drinking and yacking it up.

“Doctor blah blah blah blah.”

“Blah blah blah stop blah blah blah blah blah

“Blah blah bed blah blah Monkeez.”

“I killed a giant,” I blurted out.

Amy put down her battery. “Go oooooon….”

“Not literally,” I said, “But…”  I sat down on the floor and gave her a literal blow by blow of everything that had happened with Ambrose. From seeing Elmer cry, all the way to finding out that my replacement had been fired.

“You did it!” Amy cheered at the end and clapped. “Good job, buddy! I’m proud of you. Glad you took my advice!”

Confusion reared up.  “What are you talking about? What advice?“

“I seem to remember a certain someone trying to solve a problem by acting like a Grown-Up, and a certain very clever moi told him to stop playing by Grown-Up rules and play by ours.”

My voice caught in my throat. “I…I…”

“I’m talking about you and me, by the way,” she said.  “Remember? You were like ‘What if I talk to the parents or file a complaint with the board of education or something with taxes?’,” She crossed her eyes and lowered her voice in a terrible impression of me.  “But then I was like, ‘Clark my dear friend and companion,” she uncrossed her eyes and enunciated every syllable into crisp clear phonemes, “have you considered instead punching her in the schnoz as a baby might whilst in a tempestuous rage? We are babies, after all.”

“We’re not ba-..!”  I stopped myself.  I’d literally just spent the last several minutes explaining how I’d gamed the system by feigning childlike incompetence. “They only think we’re babies. We’re really adults.”

“Yeah?” Amy countered. “Kings are just fat old guys with gout but people think they’re not.  Babies and Kings play by different rules than everybody else and everybody knows it. The only difference is Littles will never age out of it or have to defend against a political coup. It’s the best of both worlds.”  

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I pulled my knees up to my chest and started shaking my head again and again.

Amy scooted closer and put a hand on my shoulder. “Clark,” she said softly and gently, full of compassion. “Stop trying to play chess like the big people. You’re really, really bad at it.  Start playing the games we’re supposed to play and get good at those.”

“But I like chess…” I heard myself say.  I closed my eyes and sighed.  Maybe she had a point…

I felt her lean in and give me a hug.  I no longer noticed the smell.  “You do you, bud. I’m just glad you won and that you took my advice.”

My eyes popped open. That was it.  That was something that had really stuck in my craw!  Everything I’d done since Adoption, Amy had done first.  I was a lion in Beouf’s class, Amy had been a dragon; I’d ruined Picture Day with carefully smuggled cinnamon, and she’d accomplished the feat using only a leftover grilled cheese sandwich; she’d even bit Ivy first!

I’d been accidentally living in Amy’s past this entire time.  Just as importantly, even though I’d never admit it, I looked up to the mad genius. She clearly knew how to manipulate the Amazons to degrees I’d barely considered possible. I didn’t want to just learn from her. I wanted to impress her. I wanted to get a reaction that was more than just a silly comment or a ‘good for you, bud’.

There was still one thing that I might have done that she hadn’t yet. “When was the last time you had alcohol?”

“A long time,” Amy said casually. “Mommy locks her liquor cabinet and whenever she drinks, she expresses the breast milk and flushes it down the…” she gasped. “Oh no! What have I done! Now I won’t get any milk until tomorrow!”

I got back around to all fours. “My Mommy doesn’t lock her cabinet.  How do you feel about ghost pepper tequila?”

She was immediately enraptured. “Oooooo. Yeah! Spicy food is the best when you’re not supposed to have it! Where? How?”

“Her bedroom,” I said. “I climb. You play lookout.  We either get drunk or we set our mouths on fire. Deal?”

She popped the battery in between her lips, jolted, and stuck her hand out. “Eel.”  She looked disappointed when I wasn’t electrocuted by the handshake.

“Okay,” I said. “You keep the back door in sight and play lookout.  I’ll go get the good stuff.”

She flashed me two thumbs up and clicked her tongue in reply. I started running for Janet’s bedroom. Speed was more important than stealth.  I still hadn’t figured out what to do after I got the tequila.  Put it back? Throw it out? Just get caught and play it off as something silly and innocent?  That was a future problem.

I boosted myself onto the bed and climbed up atop the Amazon King mattress. It was easier than it was the first time because Janet had made the bed; that and I’d gotten better accustomed to moving around in bulky baby clothes.

I wet my lips and searched for the target bottle. Jessica had moved it to the very top shelf. Just high enough that I couldn’t reach it without climbing. I put the very tip of my foot experimentally on the lowest shelf and winced at the creaking sound it made. Then I tried the middle shelf, boosted myself up and froze.  Everything still held and nothing threatened to tip over or spill out.

This was working. It was going to work.

I  leaned my head back so it wouldn't be hit by the door, reached up and out and opened the top cabinet.  Almost there!  I was no more than two steps on a basic step ladder above the mattress, but the cover nature made everything seem that much more intense.  Once again, I was face to face with the gigantic bottle of tequila so spicy even Amazons thrilled. “Bingo,” I whispered. “Hello, old friend.”

“You’ve gotta try this stuff,” Janet’s voice made its way to me.  “It’s amazing.”

“HI MOMMY!” Amy yelled. “HI MISS JANET! HOW ARE YOU?”

Damnit! Out of time!  “Where’s Clark?” I heard Janet ask. Her voice was too close.”

“He’s in the potty! Wanting to prove that he’s a big boy. You know. Clark stuff!”

I closed the top cabinet and climbed back down.

“Which potty?” Helena asked.

“My door’s open…”  Janet said.

I threw myself back on the mattress and landed with a comfortable plop.  Safe!  I started to climb to my feet so I could get to the bathroom and complete Amy’s ruse.

“CLARK! GRANGE!”  

Janet’s roar reverberated around in my brain the way no stupid jingling bell contraption ever could.  That was more than just her shouting, that was her ‘teacher voice’. I was no longer in the presence of Janet, my crazy Amazon friend and Mommy. I was now subject to the wrath of Ms. Grange, the scourge of every smart mouthed third grader at Oakshire Elementary.   More humiliatingly, I’d been mid squat when she’d caught me. A full diaper saved me from the consequences of my action the last time. My bowels saw no reason not to try again.

“Janet! Mommy! I-!”

“Don’t you Mommy me, Little boy!”  She snatched me up from the bed.  “What were you doing in my bedroom?  The door was closed for a reason!”

“I was trying to use the potty! Like a big boy!” I lied.

She carried me under her arm.  “Mhm…tell me another one.  You couldn’t wait an entire afternoon to play with your tablet, could you?”

The perfect lie!  One I didn’t get to repeat.

“Found him,”  Janet said to Helena back in the kitchen.

“I heard,” Helena chuckled. Amy was back on her hip. “What was he doing?”

Janet softened and exhaled. “Nothing too too bad. Just the usual monkey business. I think we’re gonna have to have the rest of our visit inside so we can keep an eye on these rascals.”

“Heard,” Helena said. “Speaking of monkey business,” she sniffed. “I think this LIttle girl needs a change.”

Janet shifted me and dangled me up by the armpits.  “Him too,” she said. “Changing table’s this way.”  Under her breath she laughed, “Big boy…”

Amy’s Mommy dropped her diaper bag down to the floor.  “Don’t worry about it. I can change her here. Save myself the trip.”  She dug out a changing mat and laid it out.

“Assuming the position, Mommy,” Amy said like a soldier doing drills.

“Good idea,” Janet said. She jogged a few strides and grabbed my diaper bag from it’s spot by the door.

“What?” I yelped. “Mommy! No! Let’s go to the nursery! Change me there!”

“It’s just a diaper change,” Janet said. She laid me down on the ground. There was a hand down on my chest as soon as my shoulders hit the mat.  “You have them all the time.”

If I turned my head to the side I could make eye contact with Amy. “Hi, Clark!”

“But-” I tried.

“Clark. It’s just a diaper change.”  Janet was already unbuttoning the snaps again, making my shortalls practically match Amy’s jumper.  We were too much alike.

“But-”

“End. Of. Discussion.”

And so it seemed it was. About that, anyways.

“Honestly,” Janet said, “I don’t know what gets into them sometimes.”

“They’re only babies,” Helena said, digging through the diaper bag for all of the usual supplies.  She dangled a plastic key ring over Amy before lowering it into her grasp. Amy took it, naturally.  “Amy’s an angel, but she still finds a way to get into mischief.”

Janet did the same, but one handed, the other one holding me down.  “Believe me I get it.”  She set out a packet of wipes next to me. “Did Amy ever go through a video game phase?  I’m worried his new tablet is hypnotic or something.  He was climbing my dresser to get it.”  My tablet?  If she thought it was hypnotic, she might take it away!

“Oh, don’t get me started on games. I remember when Amy first-”

“NO!” I banged my fist on the linoleum. “NO! NO! NO!”  Everything I’d done, everything I’d more or less come up with on my own had already been accomplished by Amy and I was sick of it!  

I wasn’t Amy! I wasn’t just some random trouble maker brat nutter! I wasn’t going to end up like her, grabbing at my Mommy’s breasts and jonesing for her milk in public and…and…and fucking giving up on my old life like this one was some kind of noble blessing!

“Um…Clark?” Amy called over from her changing mat.  “You okay bu-?”

“I WASN'T GOING FOR THE TABLET!” I cried out! “I WAS TRYING TO GET TO THE GHOST PEPPER TEQUILA!”  Better to take the blame here, or so I hoped. “AND AMY DIDN’T THINK OF IT! I DID! ME! IT WAS MY IDEA! MINE!”

I sounded way too proud of that for my own benefit.  It was far too important for me to be recognized on my own merits and not some patsy.  I was so sick and tired of her getting the credit for my chaos.

Janet eyed me with suspicion. “How do you know about my tequila?”

I blew some air and smirked, stupidly confident. “I snuck some out the first time you left me alone with Jessica.”

“What…?!”  Her voice went soft yet her eyes were ablaze. Ms. Grange was back. I retreated into silence.  Her nostrils flared in the brief silence that followed.

“It wasn’t Jessica’s fault!” I tried to say. I got the feeling that Janet already knew that.  The first tequila incident had practically been ages ago.  Months now!  There was no statute of limitations on Little misbehavior. Not with Judge Grange.

Then Janet said the three worst words I could have heard. “No. More. Tablet.”

I opened my mouth to protest and she silenced it with a glare.  I eked out a single “I’m sorry…”  I meant it, but not in the way that mattered. I just regretted opening my big fat mouth.

“Those kinds of toys are for good Little boys,” she said. “People I can leave alone for more than five minutes without doing something mean or naughty. You’ll get it back when I can trust you to behave. Now hold still.”

I stopped struggling against her hand and she lifted it off my chest.  I sank down inside myself, furious at me more than anyone else.  How fucking stupid could I have been? Why did my own damn ego have to get in the way again?

Amy’s and my tapes were ripped open at almost the same time.  Damn near identical again.  “It’s okay, Clark,” she called out. “Sometimes punishments happen. We can do other stuff. Wanna hold my hand?” She reached out to me. We were just close enough to where if I reached back, our fingers could interlace.

I chose to pout and cross my arms while Janet did the same to my ankles.  I was severely tempted to inform the Mommies that Amy had been licking batteries again, but I resisted. She’d done her best to hold up her end of the deal and I didn’t know where she’d put them anyways.  Still didn’t mean I wasn’t on the brink of fury. “Not. Right. Now. Amy.”

“Okie doke.”

“Amy?” Helena exclaimed. “Why is your poop yellow?!”