Chapter 4: To be made a lonely child.

May 10th, 2023, Creston, California - Earth

The bedroom would have been large for a family room in a normal house. There was an attached room leading to a huge Jacuzzi bath and tall shower. Oliver could swim in the bath like a kiddie pool. The bedroom itself had its closets and furniture custom built for one of the tallest men in the world, and as such these were still functional for a man over ten feet tall. The bed had a massive double king mattress. It had been placed sideways relative to the entrance to suggest a normal bed.

“It's hard to find sheets for a bed like this, hopefully it's comfortable. There are only a couple changes of clothing in the closet. Can't go shopping in your world without money.” He pointed into the closet to what looked like a couple of novelty oversized t-shirts, and a pair of stilt covers for pants, like the kind a circus performer might wear. The outfits were bright, and the colors striped like a hot dog stand. They were inappropriate for being seen as a serious adult.

Oliver continued, “Or visit public spaces, listen to the radio, watch television, or interact with other humans. Your planet is like being in a war zone. I worked with what I could here on Earth, and I had to guess the size. We'll have to go to a tailor if you want something else, but I don't know if you intend to stay here that long.”

“Intend to stay? What are you getting at?” He had made his demands clear; he wanted to go home.

“The urges are getting worse right?” The three-year-old had a point, kids were always saying the darnedest things.

“If we send you back now, you'll go grab the first little you find and ...”

“No, don't be crass. There's an adoption process, I'm sure ...” but the little had been right. He had mentally been going through the students from last semester. Surely there was one who would be as good as Collins. He would like a boy, but a girl would be nice too.

“Suppose you let this young man into your life. Then what happens? What do you do?”

Benjamin took a large breath and said it in one go, “I'd hug him and love him and make him his favorite meals and read him stories and play with him and make sure he got plenty of rest and when he was sick, I'd take care of him.”

Oliver was unsure why that answer came so fast, but he ran with it, “OK, so that's day one. You bring home this baby, what about day two? What then?”

“I'd hug him and love him and make him his favorite meals and read him stories and play with him and make sure he got plenty of rest and when he was sick, I'd take care of him.”

“And the same on day three?” Oliver tried.

“Yes.” Ben snapped off the answer.

“And day three hundred?”

“I'm sure there would be some ….” Ben was growing uncertain, a small quake in his response.

“And day three thousand? Day thirty thousand?”

Benjamin could see himself, old, sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety, still changing a diaper. Still reliving day one. Somehow it did not seem wrong, but not feeling wrong was what was wrong. He knew it should have felt bad. He knew it should have bothered him, and that he should want to not want this. The values of wanting to coddle a little were authentic, they were fulfilling, but they were in conflict with his own understanding of his thriving and deeper humanity.

“Why not just make a real baby. Just find a nice gal, have your own son or daughter, you get to have all the different parts of raising a kid. Diapers, first day of school, first tree fort, first kiss, first break up, first dance, graduating school, going to college, meeting a gal, marriage, and grandchildren. You can have it all. Why relive the baby years over and over and over?”

The urge had passed. Benjamin did not want to admit it, but the boy had a point. These values were in conflict, and he was giving preference to a kind of immaturity. He spoke an excuse, “It takes too long. It takes too long to have a baby.”

“I mean sure, finding a gal, marriage, all that” Oliver had not had much luck with dating lately either.

“No, an Amazon gestation is four hundred and thirty days. And when they pop up out, they're not cute little babies like you. Our babies can walk the day they are born. They learn to talk in a few days.”

Littles were more like cats. Domesticated cats evolved to make sounds like human babies and are better than human babies at hitting those notes. But unlike happy babies, they do not stop purring as they get older. It is the same for a little that stops getting bigger once they reach the height of a toddler Amazon. They stop getting smarter than the Amazon toddlers too. A little would still be a baby on day three thousand and day thirty thousand.

“That feels like it explains a lot more than I think it should. You know humans are baked in about nine months, right?” He did some quick math, “About two hundred eighty days, sorry I don't remember if you have thirty-day months.”

Benjamin reveled in Oliver's discovery, as a child learning the basic facts of life. With jocularity he answered the boy's question, “Of course we know! You're preemies! You need to be babies for so long just to catch up to where Amazons are on day one. Then you still have all sorts of development issues for years in school.”

Benjamin did not point out the littles popped after two hundred Amazonian days. Seven months for the littles, fourteen for the bigs. Time must flow differently here.

“Premature... wait actually, yeah that's right. Our heads get too big for our mother's bodies, so we need to pop out early.”

Evolution had gotten stuck. If humans were the size of elephants or whales that would probably change a lot in terms of how they developed. Elephants were still pretty smart and social. Human babies were unusually dumb compared with even other primates, and the babies come out completely defenseless. More like kangaroos. Some scientists said this was a strength, more time to learn to socialize, but now Oliver was not sure.

“Quit calling yourself human to make yourself distinct from us. That's our term too. It's just archaic.” Ben chided.

Oliver was curious, “You called yourselves humans? What did the normal sized people call themselves?”

This was something he studied, an actual question related to his direct expertise, a giddy excitement built in his face. He could see the writing of the word in his mind. He began pronouncing it,

“Ni..” Benjamin started.

His face scrunched. That is weird. Just “Neheee hee” Something was not working right. Benjamin moved the tongue around in his mouth and tried one last time. “Neahhh.”

Like a command, a voice. Do not tell the outsiders the truth! It was primal. A taboo. He just knew it was wrong, without anyone ever telling him. No one needs to tell you to not be attracted to your sisters either, that rule just happens in every single culture on Earth.

Benjamin's face was starting to puff up, red, angry, confused. He was losing breath. He sat down on the edge of the bed and stared at Oliver, whose concern was genuine.

There was a block. Like the stuck zipper, it was not moving. Like when Oliver made him little. He tried closing his eyes, but he still knew Oliver was in the room and he was not supposed to hear this word. The pacing of his breaths got closer together. Just say it! “Nies” “kem.” “Ehhh”

“Are you, OK? Are you having a stroke?” Shit! Did they hurt him with that electricity? Maybe something Ben was allergic to in the mac and cheese?

Benjamin gritted his teeth, and his mouth made a noise like a meat slicer at a sandwich deli. Oliver came over and tapped his leg.

“I need to beat this. This is who I am. This is what I trained for. Just say the word.” But Benjamin could not. His fingers started to tingle as he gripped in and out. “NIIII”

“Daddy can't pronounce the funny word. Daddy, do you need help reading the word? I can help! Just write it down I'll read it for you!”

He was alone with a toddler. He will not remember anything; it was fine to say. Babies cannot remember past their last diaper change. “They call themselves Nitz Keans.”

“Don't be silly. It's pronounced Nietzscheans. Nietzscheans!”

Between fighting the mind control and now a correction from a baby. That broke him again. Benjamin gave his first command as a new father.

“Never judge a man when he mispronounces a word. That just means he is well read.”

The voice.

Oliver recognized the tone immediately. His defenses should have been better, but he was too busy pretending to be a three-year-old. There is a spot in his head where his dad gave him advice on car shopping, where his dad had told him to avoid a certain girl, or to eat the crust of his bread. The spot where he was taught to safely make a fire while camping, and then shown how to not do so when lighter fluid was brought out to assist. Do as I say! In that spot was the new command.

“Don't judge a man for mispronouncing words.” It would not be unlodged, it would become a part of Oliver's being. He would think of the advice from time to time without noticing. He would no longer find fault in others. He would dexterously introduce the correct expression that ought to have been used, like he was inquiring or confirming. Make it sound like the suggestion was not of the proper word or correct grammar, but of the idea trying to be conveyed. He would not want to judge men for this kind of error.

Oliver was pissed at himself for letting his guard down like that. He knew he could have stopped it, and he knew he could stop it still, he just no longer wanted to. He wondered if Benjamin had spotted him lowering his guard and went for a strike. A test. Oliver needed to get away from him. Just move to the next day. Benjamin was breaking the script. This was already enough to go on. The voice was dangerous, and if Benjamin was now using the voice freely, it meant the big no longer cared about that danger.

“I, uh yeah, thank you, sorry for, um.” For a moment, Oliver could not focus or center himself, but then leveled out. “I feel it's getting later; I will shower up and get myself to rest. Are you OK with unwinding here?”

A hand the size of a basketball came down and held his shoulder. To Oliver it felt like it was about to crush his bones.

“Yes, it's almost bedtime. Go ahead and get your pajamas and a towel and I'll get the bath ready for you. Then we'll brush our teeth and I'll tuck you in and we'll read until you fall asleep. Since this is a special night, our first night together, I'll let you use daddy's special bath if you want.”

Benjamin would be like this for a while. Oliver knew that the voice also did something to his da... to the Amazons. Benjamin would be in a high. Oliver could use the command, bust out of this, but it might break the trust, and set everything back to day zero. He still needed Benjamin. He would need to find another way.