Chapter 33 – Youth without Youth

10 Prairial Year CCXXXI, Potat, South Windland, Libertalia - Amazonia

The kiddy table takes on a whole new connotation when everyone at the table was over eighteen years of age. The real Amazon children were sitting with their parents if they were young, with some larger ones entertaining a bigger kid table with the handful of tweener friends and relatives. Oliver was average height for an American Earthling, he would be short for a six-year-old, most Amazons were a foot taller by that age.

To sit at this table, the little would be expected to be able to sit by themselves, without making a mess, and needed to be able to cut their own food. These restrictions filtered two thirds of the room’s population under the height of seven feet from a seat at the exclusive table. In this sense, the six men and women around the table were the elites, and Oliver was their king. He sat at the head of the table, slowly trying to come to terms with his new family. He had downgraded to simple suspenders and light gray, white pants for the reception and kept on his cyan and white bow tie, to promote the illusions of style and sophistication. He had not worn his pants this high in thirty years, and he was surprised how snappy he looked with an outfit meant for children and old men.

“It was a beautiful wedding,” Esther proclaimed to the table, holding her sippy cup to the side and wafting it over food and in front of other patrons. She had a way of stretching beautiful that was either haughty in accent or from ill-practice of speaking. She was technically Victoria’s cousin, but was much older, her gray to white hair, and small wrinkles came through on her pudgy face. She had come to the wedding in a long blue dress, with pink and white flowers decorating the whole ensemble. Her hair was short but had been dyed to a youthful color and she could probably pass for normal on Earth. Esther’s mother was getting older and had let Esther grow up a tiny bit to limit the burdens on the two of them.

“I’ve been to lots of weddings, this one was beautiful. The bride was beautiful. The church was beautiful, I want to have a wedding like this someday.” Oliver had made the mistake of trying to engage her with small conversation, before he realized she was only saying the first thoughts to enter her head. She was not even attempting to have a back and forth. She had spent years, tens of them, locked in a babbling state, and had never properly relearned how to listen to what others are saying, how to process their ideas, and add or respond to it. Small talk was not a skill she needed.

“I’m obviously not from around here,” Oliver tried to start a conversation with his other neighbor. The man’s name was Milton, he was maybe about thirty and had been dressed in a short tie and tight-fitting blue suit. His hair was done short and parted, and he had oversized glasses on his face. Milton was somewhere on Victoria’s side, but Oliver was unsure of how he was related to the man. “I’m here to learn. Maybe help in anyway, I can. I just need to get a better lay of the land and people I can talk with, even get advice from the local experts on some ideas I have.”

“You’re more full of it than my diaper,” Milton protested. It was a good thing he was at a table of “peers”, any big in the room who heard his voice would call cranky. The man went back to his taco and took a bite that let a huge amount of vegetable, cheese, and meat onto the plate. Milton could feed himself finger foods, barely, and often went back over his plate with a fork to pick up missed parts.

“He has no idea what’s going on, he was just adopted this week. This is probably all a shock, and Oliver’s still coping – making up stories,” Claudia, Milton’s neighbor came in, “Oliver, I’m sorry. Just enjoy what you have while you can, because you’re not going to be a big kid for very long. Your daddy is just like your daddy’s daddy. In a month you’ll be lucky to remember how to suck your thumb.”

Oliver stared at the woman; Ben was not like the others. The two had a foundation, one built on mutual understanding and respect, “I volunteered to come here with Ben, we’re friends. I’m trying to do something different here. Why don’t we just go around the table and just talk about how things are going. Like, what are your plans for summer? Have you met any other new people? Maybe someone not from around here like me?”

Milton let his taco drop on his plate, “You volunteered? What are you some sort of pervert? Do you come from some world where everyone gets off on being treated like babies? Was it that you secretly wanted to wear diapers, play with toys, and have nap times, and you searched the entire multiverse for the one place you can truly be your sick self?”

Oliver was calm in his response, “No, that’s ridiculous, there is no one, not on one hundred thousand worlds, none who would consider this place a fantasy. I don’t know why your world is so different in this regard, but we’re working on finding out. My new dad and I are working on it. You guys can help though, how do you all stay in touch? Phone calls? Social Media? Letters?”

“You don’t get it,” Milton made a small fist and hit the table. At any other table in the room, the move would have caused the wine glasses to spill, here it just caused the sippy cups to shift slightly.

“We’re family Milton, just take a second, tell me how I can make it better, I’m sorry if I upset you,” Oliver remained neutral in his tone, he tried to reach a few fingers towards Milton.

“You’re faking it. You’re … you’re … stop lording it over us. Stop being better,” Milton’s face scrunched like he was about to cry. Or perhaps he wanted to relieve himself down below. His emotions were hard to read.

Oliver was a statue; Milton was jealous. The other man prided himself on being the top of his daycare, and now he had met someone who was still an adult, coming in and had the audacity to pretend to be a baby. Oliver won the lottery with Ben. Oliver got to read adult books, Oliver had responsibilities, Oliver set his own sleep schedule, Oliver got to wear pull-ups.

“I’m sorry, look just let’s talk about something else, why don’t you tell…”

He was interrupted by Esther, “I have something to say.” Ten eyes shifted to the girl in blue.

“This is my last time at the kiddy table,” Esther started. Her words were shaking. Somewhere in the vacuum of her mind, there was someone still at the controls, desperately trying to find the words.

Milton and Oliver gave an odd look, but Claudia spoke up, “Don’t be fatalistic, Esther, you’ve got a long life ahead of you. You’re doing better. You’re bigger than that last time I saw you.”

“Mommy has decided she wants her baby again, and we are going to the hospital. I’m getting the treatment,” Esther’s forced a smile from years of habit, showcasing an ugly mouth of missing teeth, but her tone and eyes betrayed her fear and sadness.

“I’m sorry,” Milton looked to the side and pushed his plate in, like he would be sick.

“A forever baby,” Claudia started, “Maybe …”

“What’s this?” Oliver asked.

“She’s getting her teletubbies repaired. They’re tiny strings in your body. As they wear down you grow into a big boy or girl. A couple friends at my daycare had it done,” Milton explained, he dragged the last part out, almost mumbling it, afraid to acknowledge what had happened to the people he knew.

“The treatment can do anything. Make you a baby for real even. Everything is replaced, brand new. You can even turn into a real Amazon baby, all new limbs, shrink you down too” Claudia added.

“I heard they can make you take on your parent’s appearances,” a boy next to Claudia joined, “like match their hair and eye color so you’re really their baby, and not just dyes or makeup or surgery. They can even turn you into a girl for real if they want to. They copy your girl chromosomes and delete your boy ones, and you go from blue to pink.”

“That’s impressive,” Oliver added, he wanted more details, “and these are little machines, like robots?”

“Goop,” Milton replied, “Big shot of it goes in and burns away everything you are. Even in the brain, you get a brand new one, not mind tricked, not hypnosis, not milk. Completely refurbished brain. I lost a couple friends that way. Blank slates, they never even learn their names again, at least until the bigs turn it off. You are stuck on day one forever.”

Oliver contemplated the new information. Nanomachines, telomere replacement, and chromosome fixes, this was a pathway to immortality, - eternal youth. Esther may have had some possibility of her world coming to an end, eventually with time she would be too old to be a baby, no matter what the bigs wanted. Now she would be a baby not just on day ten thousand, but possibly on day one million. In the hands of anyone else this was a miracle technology, but it would be a hellish nightmare here in the diaper dimension.

The Earthling looked at a scar on finger, a long gash at the base that had been with him most of his life. What was the difference between a damaged brain, and a well-used one? This technology was still in its infancy. Whoever was testing it here was getting through the teething process by exposing the littles to it, and the Amazons were not going to complain about any side effects.

He did not have long to gather more information and think it through, Ben came to the table his hand coming down hard on Oliver’s shoulder. The tall man leaned in, “Thanks for making the rounds and seeing all your relatives. I’m going to take Jennifer and get her cleaned up. In about twenty minutes, Mom and Dad want to get some pictures with you with your aunts.”

Oliver looked up, “I’ll grab a desert from the buffet then and meet up with you.” Ben smiled and gave him the thumbs up.

The small man bounced away from the kiddy table, and crossed the large slippery wooden floor, between dodging the occasional big who was not looking, and the placement of the tables, it took Oliver almost two minutes to reach the desert table. Oliver grabbed a plate and slid behind a cousin, Arthur, if he recalled correctly from a short introduction earlier. He had met a lot of new people today, and the littles tended to blend together.

Arthur was shorter than Oliver by a good two inches, a pacifier was clipped to his dress shirt and dangled near his trousers. If not for this ornament and the excess padding in the rear, he almost looked normal. The small man leaned heavily above the table, staring excitedly at the chocolate fountain, his fingers mixing together in eager anticipation. He reached up and grabbed a long pretzel almost the length of his arm from a bowl. He needed to stand on the tips of his toes just to reach it, but his prize was in his hand. He carefully guarded the rod as he waited in line to get closer to the chocolate. In front of him was a large man, nearly twelve feet in height and an impressive girth that suggested he weighed over half a ton. The taller fellow had just dunked a jalapeno casually in the chocolate and ate it, before moving down the table.

The giant paused for a second and began engaging in conversation with another man, and Arthur snuck in low behind him. With great patience and slowness, he grabbed at the cloth to assist him as he squeaked over the table’s edge, and with the full length of the stick excitedly waved it under the falling liquid chocolate. Delight came over Arthur’s face, his mouth wide in anticipation or giddiness, as he watched liquid darkness transform the simple brown pretzel into a rich black. Arthur bit down softly on his bottom lips as he carefully coated the rod into a divine desert.

The fat giant carelessly stepped back, as if he intended to sit on the table, and pushed hard into Arthur. The boy bounced hard into the table, causing the fountain chocolate to escape over the ledge. His chocolate pretzel fell, and hot liquid splashed over his hands and fingers. Oliver stared at the boy who looked like he wanted to cry.

“Oh, sorry there small one, didn’t see you,” the Amazon man politely commented before backing away from the scene.

It was already too late for Arthur.

“Arthur Theodore Schultz! You naughty boy!” That would be Victoria’s mother’s sister’s daughter. That made her, what? Oliver’s first cousin once removed? Oliver was not sure how it all worked, given he was adopted. What he did know was the dreaded full name shout was a most serious matter. He quietly picked up a napkin and tried to casually clean up some of the chocolate on the table. He wanted to stay out of this.

She came in, overbearing in all ten of her feet, and her presence was enough for the other Amazons to scatter, “I told you to not stick your fingers into anything, and you got chocolate over everything,”

“I got bumped,” Arthur tried, his face seconds from an explosion of emotion.

Oliver glanced over his shoulder at the giantess, even from here the perfume was overwhelming. Her voice had a deepness and small crack, like she may have smoked for years in her youth. She was old, in her late forties, or early fifties, and dressed like a woman twenty years older. She had pearls around her neck, and scratchy long brown hair that had been brought up and held in place with a fanciful light floral arrangement of a hat. She wore a boutonniere with small green leaves and white flowers on her chest, and her pink long dress covered down to her flat shoes.

“And now you’re fibbing, what did I say about fibbing,” Her large arms came down and she held the boy in place, she came down on one knee and started to rotate him over, he struggled a bit, and a small cry came out in anticipation.

“No, I wasn’t,” Arthur’s breathing was short and his pitch higher.

Not a single pair of Amazon eyes were on the couple. Only Oliver and the other littles had their attention drawn to the arrangement. A dozen tiny eyes stared at the coming debasement of a man.

A hand went up, and with the speed of a pitcher’s fast arm swooshed through the air to slam into the small one’s buttocks. There was no thrack. No thripft. No crinkle, smoosh, or smack of loud percussion to indicate a human’s flesh was being tenderized.

Oliver had grabbed her arm and stopped it inches from reaching its destination, a tiny hand with a karate timing came up, a lever holding up the world. The force of a locomotive thumped air inches from the boy’s buttocks, as Oliver held her tight halfway between wrist and elbow. Where the pleasure and pain of smashing a small one in the rear should have been coursing through her hand and veins, Kira Schultz felt a small pinching discomfort in her forearm.

She was struck dumb, so Oliver got in the first words, staring directly into her close face, “No hitting.” His voice was of a man twice his height, his courage alone could dwarf the giant.

She lowered her arm confused, then stood up, the motion causing Arthur to fall to the ground. She gained her full height over Oliver, and commanded the boy, “Excuse me? Young man, I think you’re in need of some discipline yourself. When I’m done with Arthur, I’m going to drag you to your new mommy and have her show you some manners.”

It was the jet locking on his plane, coming in for a gun run. Oliver was ready this time.

“You are punishing him because it makes you feel better, because inside you’re not big enough to handle the truth. Deep down, there’s a part of you that still sees him as an adult, you still see all the great things he could have been, and that’s the part of you that lies and says it’s acceptable to hit him. Because you think he’s big enough to take it. When you hit him, you’re saying he’s still a grown up. You’re saying he still has too much free will. He needs to be told no to life, to vigor, and his desire for independence.”

The blocks in her head were moving, and it caused Kira’s vision to warble. Oliver was forcing her to see the contradiction, see the lie that was the relationship with her son. She closed her eyes. The two worlds were crashing together, and she had to choose which truth to accept.

She opened her eyes again. Where once there was annoying boy, now stood a thirty-six-year-old man, his hair starting to gray, slightly underdressed, and a bit nerdy with the bowtie. He judged her, and she felt small and petty. To Oliver’s side another thirty-three-year-old man was on the floor, confused. Across the room she could see a whole table of small dwarves, an elderly woman her age in a blue dress and a couple middle-aged men and women staring at the scene.

The littles were no longer children. Her son was no longer a child. He was a scared man who she had broken and abused, and she felt horror at her prior enjoyment and satisfaction at hurting him. She did not care about chocolate or having him become a better son, she just loved the rush, the feeling of power of humiliating and debasing a man. The truth tore at her, she was perverted, sick, and wrong in the head. Kira could not handle the truth. She closed her eyes again.

One block in her head shattered, she made a choice. She rebuilt her blocks.

She opened her eyes. The children were back. Just silly children making mistakes. Her son was scared, heaving, and crying on the floor. How could she have dropped him? She had almost hurt him. She pushed aside the (small) six-year-old blocking her path and dropped her arms down. In one swooping motion she lifted her son up to her face.

Chocolate fingers smudged against her chest and dress, “It’s okay Arthur, mommy’s here now. Let’s get you cleaned up. I think my stinky little boy needs a change.”

“I’m sorry I got bumped mommy. I got bumped mommy and I dropped the pretzel, please don’t spank me,” Arthur slurred his words in her chest.

“Mommy will clean it all up and we will be right back at the party in time for all the fun dances and games and food,” She ignored his comments. Her boy had a condition; he was never going to get older, and she just had to work with him to find a way he could still behave and be good in society. He was a good boy deep down, simply confused, he just wanted to be bigger and that got him in trouble. He acted out because he wanted her attention. That just meant he needed more love and care.

Milton quietly came up to Oliver, who had started to lean against the table and had been taking long deep breaths. “You alright?” the boy asked Oliver.

“Yeah, yeah, just headache.” Oliver’s voice cracked a bit responding, his throat was on fire, “Just glad I stopped it from getting worse.”

“Oliver, you don’t get it. You think you’re helping, but you have no idea what you’re doing. There’s a conservation of spankings. Arthur can get out of it today, but tomorrow he’s just going to get hit harder.”

Oliver smiled slightly, returning to his normal self, “That’s what I like about you guys, no matter how far you are beat down, you just get right back up and say, let’s go again, round two, hit me again twice as hard.”

Milton laughed and put a hand over his cousin’s shoulder, “You’re one of us Oliver, that’s who you are too now. Welcome to the family.”

* * *

13 Prairial Year CCXXXI, Sedge, South Windland, Libertalia - Amazonia

Arthur was being naughty. He had climbed on the couch silently while his mommy prepared dinner and made his way to the side table. The past three days had been hell for him. At first, he thought it was liberating. Ever since his cousin had spoken with mommy, she refused to spank him.

He tested it. Day one. Writing on the walls. She smiled, and hugged him, and put away his crayons. He was not allowed to play with them again. He threw a toy at her. He jumped in the bed. Her patience never broke.

She would sit with him, talk with him, let him try to explain himself, and then she would remind him that he was just a baby boy, and it was not really his fault, and that she would work with him to make it better.

Oliver’s words lingered rent free in his head. Arthur hated the man. Oliver had seen what he had not. Until the wedding, Kira had seen him as a man. Somewhere deep down, even if she never admitted it. He had been enslaved for so long he forgot they were just playing a game. For half a decade his torturer had spent filling his head with lies, even though they both knew he was an adult.

That all went away. Now, she was treating him like an actual baby. Oliver had saved him the humility of having his dignity shattered in a spanking, by removing his dignity completely. He had nothing Kira saw any worth in destroying.

His plan was perfect. This act would snap her out of it. The lamp. It was heavy and felt like it had a porcelain base. With effort he could push it, and he slowly brought it to the edge of the side table. The whole wooden edifice he stood on shook slightly as he pushed.

“Mommy, you better hurry I’m being naughty,” he smiled. Always use the ‘M” word if you want your big to come quickly.

She entered the room and took the longest deepest loudest breath he had ever heard. A gasp like the wind an hour before a torrential storm.

“Don’t move, be careful honey, Mommy will get you down.”

“This is the one you liked. The one you read under. I’m going to break it.” He pushed it slightly, the table wobbled under his feet.

“Arthur,” She took a step forward.

“When I break it, you’ll have to spank me! I’m a bad baby,” He struggled a bit with the weight, getting the lamp over the edge.

“We don’t hit in this household. Just, stay still, Mommy will get you down” she took another step.

He pushed with all his might; the lamp started its descent. The table shook with the weight and his legs betrayed him. He slipped, crashing down. In a second, he was horizontal, on the carpet, he could not breathe. Pain was coming from the back of his skull.

Mommy was there. She lifted him up and started to gently bob him up and down, carefully holding him to her chest. “It’s fine, you’re fine baby,”

He could breathe again. Out came a long ache and tears shook from his eyes. Three days and five years of frustration built into his wail. His cheeks filled with deep red. She carefully sat down on the couch and let him cry, gently cooing him and cradling his head, coming down for a soft kiss. Arthur was a baby. After a minute he broke away.

“I just… I just want to be big again. This was the one thing I still had mommy and you took it away. I need to be big again. I broke your favorite lamp. Please just punish me like a big kid again.”

She shushed him and gently turned his head, on the ground he could see the lamp was still intact, only the shade had been damaged by the fall, crumbled with a hole in its delicate paper side.

“Mommy knows, mommy always knows what you need, let me make it better” she carried him to the kitchen and sat him in a highchair, carefully tightening the straps so he could not escape.

He lowered his head onto the wooden eating surface. Arthur was defeated, nothing he did would matter. The last embers of his adulthood were gone.

She returned to the chair and gently placed a long roll of laminated paper before him. It was folded and rolled so that three fourths of it were carefully tucked behind the front. He lifted his head and saw rows of boxes. The days of the décade on the left, primidi through décadi, and four columns left to right, creating forty boxes in total.

“What’s this?” he sniffled slightly after saying it.

“You’ve been a bit antsy since the wedding, seeing all your bigger relatives like Oliver and Milton made you a bit jealous, so I thought it’d help if we went slowly and gave you some things to help you feel like you are still big too.”

He carefully read the top boxes, “Brush teeth,” “Put toys away,” “Eat meals without fuss” “No splashing at bath time.”

“These are chores,” he was confused, babies were not supposed to have chores.

“I’m going to hang this on your door, and we’ll go through it every day, and if you do all your tasks, I’ll checkmark it on your list.” Kira’s hands slowly went over each box.

He was incredulous, this was some trick, Arthur did not watch it as he descended into light cynical sarcasm, “And if I get all the boxes, you’re going to give me an allowance?”

Kira paused her movements, and slowly started rolling the paper over, the fourth box started to disappear along the crease, vanishing from his list of tasks. She asked him, “Do you only want to be responsible if it means you get a reward? Is that why you want to be big?”

He put his hand on the page to stop the movement, “No, I was just curious, what happens if I get it all. I want to do this. I’m a big boy.”

She released her grip, keeping him to the four chores. Tonight, he would not splash in the bath after dinner.

“If you get them all, well, I think that means you might be ready for another task or two. There are a lot more than just four items. Now, this is your choice. I want you to really want this, so down here, I put a spot for you to sign, and me to sign,” she pointed to the two lines, “it’ll be like a contract.”

Arthur’s eyes widened and mouth gaped slightly, an actual contract. An actual choice. His first real choice in five years. It was an opportunity to be big again, all he had to do was just admit he was a baby, admit these small chores were all he could be expected to accomplish.

Kira turned and searched the kitchen for a loose pen, with her back turned, Arthur quickly lifted the folded paper. He could just barely make out the last box.

“srepaid fo daetsni riahc ytt”

He did not get much time to contemplate the cryptic text, as mommy returned. She handed him the pen, and he carefully removed the cap, moving down to sign. The pain in the back of his head returned, and he closed his eyes. He needed to know.

“Kira, that bump to the head knocked something loose. I’m not going to be lucid for much longer, but I wanted… I need to know something.”

It was the first time he had used her name in over four years, the juxtaposition of his old adult self-addressing her, and it coming from the mouth of her baby short-circuited her natural urge to correct him for not calling her mommy. Outside of that brief moment at the reception, it had been years since she had even thought of him this way. Certainly, the first time since he started wearing diapers.

“We used to work together, right?” Arthur’s eyes were closed, and he cradled his head slightly in his left hand.

“Yes Arthur,” Kira felt no need to play the game.

“Is everything still, I mean since I left, it wasn’t too hard on you, was it?”

“It was hard losing you, but we are managing, it’s still a struggle.” Kira answered.

“I know I don’t look like I appreciate it, but I like it when you talk about work,” his light sniffling caused the words to quake slightly as he struggled with the sentence.

“I promise to talk to you about it every day,” Kira reached out to touch his other hand, gently caressing it.

“I was the one who wanted this, right? It was my decision, right? We agreed, we had a contract like this one,” Arthur was shaking his teeth. She nodded and gently affirmed it.

“I’m sorry if I am too much, I thought I could be the perfect baby boy and I’m not that. I didn’t know what I wanted, and I didn’t know what you wanted.”

Kira assuaged him, “It’s been hard, of course raising a kid is hard, but I could not have dreamed of how rewarding and fulfilling having you as my son has been.”

Arthur moved the pen down to his line on the poster, and signed his name, Arthur Theodore Schultz. Mommy had to help him with the Z, it was the first time he had signed anything under his new name.

Kira signed below him, “Mommy.”