The Secret Admirer, Part 5 (Patreon)

         The benighted vehicle heaved upward from the pavement as the chimes began to spread through the air. As the tingling music grew stronger, the convulsions grew more violent, until it looked like the car was being tossed in the air by a massive invisible hand. The horn sounded, and the lights flicked on and off randomly, as though something was playing with the poor old machine's electronics. Finally, the chimes reached a crescendo, and the entire car flipped over in the air and landed back on the pavement like a pancake made of steel and cracked glass. Intense, garish color swelled up in a cloud from the driveway, and Tamika and Rene had to shield their eyes from the blast of wind that suddenly drove down on them. Soon, the chimes faded away, leaving behind the roar of enormous engines.

When Tamika risked a peek over her elbow, her driveway was empty. Hoovering in the air above it was an enormous two-prop helicopter. The body was shaped like a sleek, elongated pear of mirrored, iridescent purple, with searchlights illuminating the ground on all sides. The blades were visible only as faintly shimmering circles of sky. It looked more like something that might hang from a Christmas tree, or perhaps transform into a megazord and beat up a giant arthropod of some kind, than anything that would actually be seen flying through the air.

Tamika reached down to retrieve her keys, but her hands only encountered smooth plastic backing. She remembered that her keys were in the pocket of her jeans, which were probably in the wash by now. Oh, well. That was another little inconvenience that she no longer had to worry about.

"Forgot my keys." she said, giving the rattle a light shake.

“Vocal identification confirmed.” came an elegant electronic voice from the futuristic aircraft. "Welcome, Tamika Norris."

The voice reminded Tamika of the computer voice from Star Trek (although she would not have been able to specify which show with a gun to her head). A hatch smoothly opened in the hull of her new ride, and a slender ladder descended from above, stopping just in time to dangle above the driveway.

She turned to Rene. “After you, my dear.” she directed her toward the ladder with her rattle. 

“You've got to be kidding me! That looks really dangerous!” said Rene.

Tamika rolled her eyes. “Oh, for heaven's sake, it's just a ladder! Quit being a baby!”

Rene exhaled through her teeth. “Hilarious. Fine, I'm going.”

Rene waddled to the base of the ladder and looked up nervously. Tamika tapped her foot to indicate her impatience. With very slow, awkward steps (the thick diaper she was wearing didn't help) she began the journey up to the massive aircraft.

Once she was high enough, Tamika followed suit. No sooner had her weight settled onto the ladder, than a hidden mechanism activated and the ladder began to retract.

“You never said it could do that!” screeched Rene, as she clutched the ladder against herself for dear life.

Tamika only laughed as the two of them were drawn upward into the strange vehicle.

What they saw when they reached the top surprised both of them. The interior of the strange craft was curiously open and spacious, with no sign of a cockpit and nothing that could conceivably hide an engine. The floor was covered in luxurious thick, light blue carpeting, and sloped gently upward to meet the smooth white ceiling. Six bright purple easy chairs dominated the space. They were spaced apart and each sat on a circular platform, as they were intended to rotate. 

“Nice. Looks like a good place for a game night. Maybe a LAN party.” remarked Rene, surveying the space with hands on hips. She seemed to be doing her best to act chill after her momentary lapse, although her bulging rear rather undermined her on this.

“Never heard of it.” said Tamika, absent-minded, feeling the arm-rest on one of the seats. It felt like it was full of some kind of gel. “How do you think you're supposed to fly this thing?”

A strip of the ceiling suddenly began to slide downward, as though in response to her words. Although Tamika had been certain a second earlier that the ceiling was utterly featureless, a large flat screen gently lowered itself into the center of the room. It came to life with musical tone, filling with a blue glow. Lines of white wove through the screen, resolving into a stylized face of a teddy bear.

“Good Morning! Where would you like to go today?” asked the screen in a familiar chirpy voice.

Tamika crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes. “You again, huh?

“Were you hoping for Oscar the Grouch?” asked the bear, the white dots of its eyes pulsing mischievously. Rene ignored the discussion, and instead chose to settle into one of the chairs and began spinning herself around, as tradition demanded.

“I'm not finished with you, you know. I'll get a straight answer out of you yet.” said Tamika, still standing.

“You do that! Good Luck! So, where would you like to go?” asked the bear, as cheery as ever.

There was a long pause. The ribbons of light that comprised the bear's face pulsed gently on the screen.

“The zoo.” said Tamika finally. Rene was still spinning.

“Cool!” exclaimed the bear, shrinking into the top left of the screen. Behind it was a map displaying an aerial view of the surrounding towns. It zoomed in a on a large area of public park, where the icon of an elephant indicated the location of a small local zoo. “This is the closest one! I can have you there in just a few minutes!”

“Great...and you're flying?” asked Tamika.

“Of course!” replied the bear from the corner of the screen. The map zoomed out, showing their route as a long streak of gold between a house icon and the elephant icon. “You don't have a pilot's license!”

Tamika scoffed. “And you do?”

“Don't need one! This auto-pilot system is fully licensed and approved by the Federal Aviation Administration!” The eye icons briefly turned into a pair of half-circles.

“Uh-huh. And how exactly did that happen?” asked Tamika, arching an eyebrow.

“Couldn't tell ya!” said the bear, without a flicker of irony. “I guess that's just how the world is!”

Just the way the world is. Tamika rolled that phrase around in her mind. She had quite a bit of use out of it herself over the years. She slowly knocked the rattle against her thigh, listening as whatever mysterious things were inside jingled around. It was one of those phrases that was completely self-evident and true on its own, which made its suppressed clause “so there's nothing I can do about it” seem perfectly reasonable by association. But now, the way the world was could be what she decided it should be. The idea made her pulse race. It wasn't just her own life that she could change with this power. She wondered how far she could go before she hit something, some limit to what this little toy was capable of.

Then she noticed that Rene had stopped spinning and was now rather forcefully rubbing her padded rear against the upholstery. It was so funny-looking that she was jerked entirely out of her thoughtful mood.

“What are you doing?” asked Tamika.

“It just feels funny! The way the plastic rubs together, and the thickness on my...anyway, where are we going? Zoo, right?”

Tamika smiled. She leaned forward and patted Rene's head affectionately. “Awww, I think somebody's happy to be back in her dipees, isn't she? Does the diaper feel nice on your cute little tushie?”

Rene winced and her cheeks flushed. “Look you...you don't have to make a big thing out of it.”

“I think I do.” said Tamika. She took Rene by the hands and pulled her gently out of her seat. Then, using her weight to her advantage, she tugged her upright, spun around like a ballet dancer, and sat down in her chair, pulling Rene into her lap.

“I...hey! There's plenty of seats!” protested Rene.

“But I want this one!” said Tamika, bouncing Rene up and down in her lap. “Don't you think I should always, always get I want, Rene? I mean, I wanted you to be my little toy, and to wear diapers all the time, and you like that, don't you?”

Rene let out an exasperated sigh. “Yes, Mistress. You're right.”

“Oh? About what?” asked Tamika, still teasing.

“I don't know! Everything, I guess?” she said, turning her head and dropping her voice. “Keep bouncing me. That felt nice.”

“Umm, excuse me? Ladies? Still awaiting confirmation on our flight plan!” said the bear from the screen.

Tamika shifted from her teasing voice to a commanding tone. “To the zoo! You weird...bear person. Chop-chop!” She punctuated her order with a golf clap.

Only the gentlest rumble and a slight downward pressure indicated that the craft was on its way.  “Heeeere we go!” announced the bear.

Tamika happily bounced Rene up and down in her lap as they flew. The screen showed exterior shots of the surrounding area, presumably from cameras spaced along the hull, although one could not be certain in a helicopter generated by unknown magical forces.

“Damn, you were right about the seats!” said Tamika, now rubbing her own heavily-padded  rear against the cushion below her. Rene's added weight compressed the padding of her diaper under her. She rocked herself back and forth. “This feels great!”

By the time Tamika and Rene dropped the retractable ladder and began climbing down, the chopper had already been hovering above the park for several minutes. Tamika wondered for a moment why a crowd wasn't gathered to see her bizarre aircraft, but then she recalled that that was consistent with the other wonders the rattle had created. The pair laughed as they came down the ladder. They both knew that everyone was about to see the two of them running around in their thick diapers like a pair of overgrown toddlers. Rene's face was glowing red and her hands trembled as she climbed down behind her new mistress. “Oh my gawd! I can't believe we're doing this!”

“Not nervous, are you?” asked Tamika, giving Rene's foot a playful tickle as they climbed down. 

Rene giggled. “I mean...sorta...but come on! This is sooo exciting! We get to run around peeing our pants in front of everybody and nobody can do squat!”

Tamika wondered how much of Rene's attitude was the result of her “no fun” complaint, and how much was simply Rene's party-girl persona and love of minor social transgressions. She had never actually spoken of a desire to run around in a park wearing an obvious, bulky diaper, but it didn't sound totally out of the question for her, even in her previous life. It wasn't too important, she decided. Helping Rene down and setting her bare feet on the grass, she decided that she should focus on enjoying herself and put aside all her questions for now.

Tamika was pretty nervous herself, but the anticipation of utter liberation was too strong to ignore. She wanted to run though open fields, in front of everyone, safe in the knowledge that her every whim would be instantly catered to. She took Rene by the hand and began charging across the grass.

“Ow! Dammit! My foot!”

She made it ten feet before she stepped on something that made her reconsider the entire operation. The grass was patchy and dotted with thorny weeds, cigarette butts, and crumbled plastic bottles. Running around in bare feet had almost immediately lost its appeal. Tamika looked around, and grimaced. Hardly anyone was walking around the park except for a few dozen homeless people, who crowded the few benches and dozed under the unhealthy-looking trees. Trash was scattered almost everywhere. There were trash cans, but they were themselves surrounded by a carpet of random refuse, making them inconvenient to use. The zoo was surrounded by a wall of cement blocks topped with a loop of barbed wire. A giraffe wandered slowly into view, its head just visible above the wall. It's eyes looked downcast and unhappy, although that impression might have just been created by the barbed wire.

Tamika wrinkled her nose at what she was seeing. Why did the world have to be like this? People were being left to sleep in the open while there were plenty of homes for everyone, animals were living in cramped conditions, and no one even seemed to care. The park was here for everyone to enjoy, and not only was no one taking any real care of it, some people seemed to be taking a perverse delight in destroying it further. There was nothing in sight to suggest that the world had any future except a steady slide toward even greater decay and even more pointless, callous cruelty.

Narrowing her eyes, she raised the rattle. She didn't have to put with things like this. Not anymore.

“This place is depressing!” she stated in an exaggerated, whiny voice.

Tingling music spread through air, and the magic struck the beleaguered public space like a hurricane. Thousands of random pieces of trash lifted into the air as the wind whipped around. The grass and weeds seemed to shrink back into the earth like retractable claws. Even the crowds of men and women in filthy, tattered clothes began to levitate off the ground and into the air. Tamika were forced to shield her eyes against the wind.

When the roar died down, she gasped at the transformation. The park was scarcely recognizable. The grass was clear of debris and neatly mowed, so much so that it looked ready for game of cricket or bocce ball. The few scraggly trees has grown into towering pillars, covered in bright green moss. A few stands of lilacs and daffodils were scattered about, as though they had grown without any human intervention. In the distance, the wall of cinderblock had become a towering cliff-face of jagged stone. A small waterfall ran from the cliffs and cut across the verdant glade, reflecting the sunlight against the branches and cooling the breeze.

Tamika was almost overwhelmed by the beauty around her, until a horrible question crossed her mind. “Wait...where are the people? The ones who were just here! The homeless people?”

Before she could contemplate just what might have befallen the dozens of people who had disappeared, Rene absent-minded pointed upward. “Hmm? You mean them? They aren't homeless. They live right here.”

Tamika looked up. The trees were not only thicker, but much taller than they had been, and their branches spread to form a natural ceiling. The branches were heavy with broad leaves, so much so  that it was possible to miss the many, many tree houses they now boasted. They were elegantly carved structures of dark lacquered wood, like small fairy-tale cottages suspended in the air. They were connected by an elaborate set of walkways, gazebos, and arches with spiral staircases running around the thick trunks and down to the ground. . Here and there, Tamika could see some of the former residents of the park benches. One was sitting on a rocking chair on his front porch, another leaning against the railing and enjoying the warm spring air. They seemed happy, or at least content. They certainly weren't at all surprised or even startled by suddenly finding themselves living in an urban Ewok village. Why would they be? That had been just the way the world was, and now, this was how the world was. 

Tamika was relived to that she hadn't accidentally erased dozens of people from existence, but she still felt uneasy. Looking up at the Rivendell-like structure that her complaint had created, she felt a sense of vertigo at the sheer scale of it. She was pleased, of course, but she hadn't intended such a large transformation. She resolved to be more cautious about her use of the rattle, and not give it such an open-ended assignment again. She didn't want to accidentally make some horrible mistake.

"Mistress! Look at me! Look!"

Rene, evidently having grown bored with staring at the idyllic arboreal  village that, as far as she was concerned, was just as much a normal part of the world as a fire hydrant or stop sign, had turned her attention to turning cartwheels on the neatly-trimmed grass. Her pigtails were tossing this way and that as she tumbled across the lawn. The sight of her diapered rear spinning through the air instantly pulled Tamika out of her funk. She pushed her serious thoughts out of her mind and focused on enjoying her day. There would be time to work on the rest of the world later.

She reached down and felt the grass. It was incredibly smooth and soft, like fur. She took a deep breath, steeled herself, and tried a cartwheel.

Rene laughed as Tamika immediately lost her balance and planted her face on the springy turf. Tamika laughed too, and tried again. She did no better, this time landing square on her padded rear.

"You're hesitating, Mistress!" said  Rene, after several more unsuccessful attempts. "You have to let go throw yourself into the motion! Like this!"

Tamika couldn't help but feel that being about twenty years younger would also have been helpful. She briefly considered using the rattle to make herself some sort of amazing acrobat, but she thought better of it. She didn't care for the idea of unleashing the rattle's powers on her own body. Besides, she was having fun, and life was only fun with challenges to overcome. If she couldn't manage a cartwheel today, she would simply have to work on getting herself into shape After a few more unsuccessful attempts, she settled for simply rolling around in the grass, grabbing onto her feet like a toddler. Rene began chasing her on hands and knees, and soon the pair of them were crawling around the park, chasing each other and laughing uproariously. Tamika still wanted to go to the zoo and see the animals, but she hadn't anticipated just how much joy could be had in a big open field, with no one around to shame her or make her feel self conscious.

Which was why she was so miffed when, after tumbling across the grass until she was dizzy and lying on her back giggling beside Rene, a uniformed police officer stepped menacingly into view.

"What do you two think you're doing?" she said in a stern, affectless tone, hands on hips. She was a stocky woman, only a little younger than Tamika, with a her blonde hair in a ponytail. The austere blackness of her sleek uniform seemed out of place in the beautiful surroundings. She regarded the two woman lying in the grass with a withering stare.

Tamika was taken off guard by the harsh bark of the voice. This was not her first encounter with an officer of the law, and for a brief instant, she had felt that sinking sensation of of feeling utterly powerless in the face of a suspicious, domineering individual with the power to arrest her on some pretext or another if she failed to show adequate deference to authority. It took her an instant to remember that she was now in a position in which she no longer had to take such an encounter quite so seriously. She smiled at the scowling officer. That didn't please her one bit.

"We're enjoying a lovely day at the park! Why, what do you think you're doing?"

The officer was clearly on the back foot by Tamika's blithe response, but she soon recovered. She returned Tamika's smile, although only with her mouth. "I'm watching a pair of obviously intoxicated women expose themselves indecently in public. I'm afraid you two will have to take a little trip down to the station. Immediately."

Tamika scoffed, which did not improve the officer's mood. "Intoxicated? We're not on drugs. What you have here is what's known as "happiness", my dear. I'm sorry if you haven't encountered it before, but it isn't illegal in this state as far as I'm aware. And as far as exposure goes, I'm fairly sure what I'm wearing covers a lot more than a bathing suit, and my playmate here is in her pajamas. You're talking nonsense."

"Yeah!" said Rene. She stuck out out her tongue at the officer. Neither woman made any effort to rise from their position on the grass.

"That is clearly some kind of fetish gear you're wearing, not a bathing suit." said the officer, retrieving a pair of handcuffs from her belt and dangled them in front of her like a talisman. "Stand up. Put your hands on your heads and face away from me. You're both under arrest."

Rene blew a raspberry. "You can't arrest her! She's a billionaire! She's basically above the law!"

Tamika favored Rene with a annoyed glare. Rene merely shrugged. She looked back at the officer, who was suddenly looking far less certain of herself.

"Billi...wait, what is your name, Ma'am?"

Tamika rolled her eyes. "Wow, really? You're suddenly worried that you might have to respect my rights and obey the law if I have money? What a poser."

"I asked you for your name, Ma'am. Still waiting." Her tone was no longer calm and professional. Clearly, the thought of a small horde of lawyers being unleashed on her made her nervous.

"We don't have to tell you anything! Piss off!" jeered Rene. This earned her another dirty look from both the officer and Tamika.

"I'm Tamika Norris. And you?"

She blanched. Tamika had been wondering if the rattle had made her famous as well as rich. It wasn't reasonable that someone at her level of wealth could fly under the radar entirely. There were good odds that not everyone had heard of her, but the local police would certainly know about extremely wealthy people living in the area.

"Er...I think there's been a misunderstanding." stammered the woman. She looked like she was on the edge of passing out.

"I did ask you for your name." pointed out Tamika.

"Name and badge number!" said Rene, rolling her diapered rear back and forth across the grass. "You have to tell us! That's the rule!"

"Rene isn't sucking her pacifier." complained Tamika. With a tingling chime, Rene felt a bulb of soft rubber pop into being on her tongue, swelling to fill all available space. She was annoyed at being silenced like this, but she made no effort to remove the oversized soother. She drew it back and forth in a steady rhythm, as she now habitually did. Her shoulders drooped, and she settled backward onto the soft grass, confident that her Mistress would take care of things.

The officer was clearly panicking now. Her hand shot up to obscure her name badge.

"I'm...I'll just...I'll be right back." she sputtered, turning and fleeing across the immaculate lawn. Tamika was tempted to simply take the win and let her go, but she was on a roll.

"Aww, she's running away."

Tinglingling...

The officer wove around a tree, figure-eighted around another, and seeming to lose her sense of direction, ran back toward Tamika and Rene. She reacted with horror when she realized what she had done, although of course, she saw nothing odd about it. She took a step back, but her leg seemed to spasm and return her to her position in front of Tamika.

"No!" she whined, still trying to shield her badge. Her sidearm hung at her hip, but she certainly wasn't going to pull that out in front of a billionaire. She danced back and forth, but her feet were unable to carry her away from the situation.

"What is your name, Little Missy?" said Tamika, rising to her feet. She never would have imagined she could feel so powerful, standing in a public park in a bulky diaper with blue teddy bears on it.

"Leave me alone! I didn't do anything!" she said, still struggling to escape. Tamika was surprised to find that she suddenly felt sorry for the woman. This was exactly like something that might happen in a nightmare. She softened.

She pressed a lip to the police officer's lips. "Shhhh. It's okay. I'm just going to talk to you for a little while."