Chapter Nine:

I had always hated baby food. I did shoots with it all the time, but I could barely keep it down. Abe made sure I always had my favorites - tutti frutti or banana - but it was still a tough compromise. Lucky for me, most of the baby food never made it to my mouth. I shoved the spoon into my mouth and the banana goo dripped down my chin onto the bib. I giggled happily for the camera.

I watched her eating the baby food - or rather, doing every single thing in her power to not eat the baby food, and clicked another set of pictures in succession. I couldn’t stop thinking about the way she’d been outside, how it seemed so much more like Baby Luvs than Leona. Then again, I wasn’t acting like myself either.

"No, no, honey. Like this."

Betsy bent down on her knee and scooped the baby food off my chin and pushed it into my mouth. I pouted and swallowed the mush. I already felt sick - I didn't need help. But Betsy was insistent. After I had finished the jar of banana baby food, she went into her diaper bag and fished out a jar of strained peas. She didn't expect me to eat that stuff, did she?

There were times when I saw Leona and it was obvious she was having fun with this, and others - like now - when it was so clear how much she wanted to break character. Of course, what baby actually wanted to eat their vegetables? Maybe it was an act after all.

"It's important for our little Baby Luvs to eat all her vegetables, otherwise she might have trouble using her diaper and her fans would be so unhappy, wouldn't they? Now open wide for the train, poppet."

I shook my head and knocked the spoon out of her hand as playfully as I could. I didn't want to eat that! And why did she bring her own food - we had food on set! I looked to Abe to put an end to all this, but he was barely paying attention to me. Seriously?

"I dun wan' it! Wan' 'nana!"

"Oh now, don't you make a fuss little Baby Luvs, unless you want to be given a spanking right in front of the camera? Mommy made this just for you, so be a good girl. Unless you think you're too young for foods, perhaps?"

What did that even mean? Ugh. Abe was busy talking with a couple of guys in suits - sponsors, maybe? I didn't even know.

I glared at Betsy and she smiled brightly down at me. She had all the power in the world, and it was hard to contend with her. Especially sitting in a diaper and covered in banana baby food... I looked down at my feet and opened my mouth. This was so stupid...

There was a bitter taste to the strained peas, beyond the already notoriously reprehensible taste associated with the stringy mush to begin with.

Watching her eat it, just out of frame, capturing each moment? It made me queasy just to imagine how awful that had to be - and I liked peas!

"There's a good little poppet, doesn't it feel better to set a good example for your fans? It feels good to be a good girl, doesn't it now?"

I almost threw up. Peas dripped down my chin and onto my bib, but even then, Betsy would scoop it up with the spoon and push it right back between my lips. By the time I'd finished the entire jar, I could hardly move. Even thinking about food made me feel ill... I fell back onto the soft carpet and curled up to my teddy. Stop thinking, Leona... it's over now.

Who were they?" I asked Abe, once he was free, and the portly man sucked on his cigar and looked at me with a greasy grin.

"Profit, Jackie, profit, that's who they were."

“Right... uh, so you know Betsy's giving her baby food right? Like, not the kind she likes?"

"Well, Jackie, let me tell you how it is and how it is is that I don't tell my oil change guy how to do his job, because he's a grease monkey, Jackie, he loves oils. He’s passionate about it, that's his heart and his soul, Jackie, that's what it is."

I wondered how long I waited for that explanation to actually go somewhere useful, but despite my best hopes, it went about as nowhere as nowhere could go. "Right..." I was worried about Leona..

Betsy got me cleaned up a few minutes later - nothing but a t-shirt and a large bow on the top of my head. Of course, I still had on the same vibrant pink diaper from earlier. I had to pee, but I could hold it. I was more concerned with the constant feeling of nausea. Those peas really did a number on me. What if I got sick? Could I call this whole thing off? But I was already two days in...

"It's time for your afternoon story, and then Mommy will get you down for a nap."

From her bag, Betsy produced a little bound book, and without any struggle, she leaned down and picked her young charge up, and sat down on the plush armchair as part of the set. Book in one hand, adult-sized (mostly…) baby girl on her lap, she began to read some stupid kids story about a mouse and a... buffalo? I guess? I felt almost bad about getting paid to be a part of this, because I was legitimately concerned about what it was actually doing to Leona!

I wasn't really tired, but I pretended to get sleepy and cuddly all the same. After all, this was an act. Right? I closed my eyes near the end of the story and pushed my face into Betsy's arm. A soft, even breathing. Quiet, still. It was easy to pretend to be asleep. And the longer I pretended, the sleepier I felt.

It wasn't clear to me how much footage the camera crew wanted to get of the sleeping girl - at first I thought they were looking to wrap up for the afternoon, but they were setting up, getting into position. For what, though? I got closer and took a few snaps, a few for Abe and a few for me, because despite everything, despite how beautiful she was at all times, Leona was especially gorgeous when she was asleep.

"Why are we taking footage of her when she's asleep?" I whispered to one of the crew, and was told that they were setting up for a time lapse shot. Which... I guess made sense. Seeing her like this, so calm and so peaceful... well, it made me think about a life in which she was like this all the time. And I took care of her, not that bitch Betsy. Way to be a weirdo, Jackie. Just take pictures, you perv.

I woke up feeling sick. Sicker than when I went down for a nap. But it wasn't the peas - it was something else. I climbed up from my spot in the stuffed animals and rubbed the sleep from my eyes. "Abe, hey... can you come here a sec?" I was not feeling very babyish anymore.

There was a look of annoyance on Abe's face as he sighed and made a 'cut it' motion across his throat to the girl for breaking character, but she didn't seem any less determined and Abe knew enough about her to know she couldn't really be told no when she wanted something.

"Baby, this had better be life or death because every minute of footage I can't use because you broke character is costing me money, Baby, that's what it's doing. And money doesn't grow on trees - when you grow up, you'll learn that."

"You know I'm twenty years old, right?" He scoffed and rolled his eyes, just like I knew he would. We'd been in this business a long time together. I knew the things that annoyed him, and none so much as when I told him I was an actual adult. It was sort of like a game. But right now, I had more pressing issues. "I need to use the bathroom."

"And you're a baby, Baby Luvs, it's in your name, Baby, it can't get any more clear than that." Like that was the single most obvious thing in the world, but when he went to go back to the sidelines, she grabbed him by the fabric of his jacket until he turned back around.

I gave Abe a stern look and crossed my arms over my t-shirt - something Abe got off an ABDL site, marked in glitter with the words "Big Baby" written across the front. And despite standing in front of him wearing only that and a diaper, I was not backing down.

"No, I need to use the bathroom."

"Then you should use it, Baby, in your diaper like a good girl." That was Abe's serious voice, the one he used with investors, clients, people associated with his ability to turn a profit. "I'm paying you a lot of money, Baby, a lot of money, more money than I'd be paying anybody else because you're the best. But Baby you better understand it well that you're not an adult until this week is over."

I looked up at him in awe. He... he didn't talk to me like that. He knew better than to try to play chicken with me! Half the reason I even made it in this industry was because I wasn't a pushover! But his words left my cheeks pink.

"You can't stop me,” I told him, and I walked past Abe and toward the restrooms in the back of the studio.

Indeed, Abe didn't try to stop her; long before she reached the doors, the girl was swept up in the arms of Nurse Betsy, less a woman and more a forceful act of nature; one smooth motion to pick her up, to pop the pacifier between her lips and for the soft liquid on the underside of the guard to bind with her skin and fasten it - even if only temporarily - in place.

"Oh now, Baby mustn't run away now, we've got a big moment planned for your fans, Baby Luvs, and they're going to love it."

She shoved the pacifier in my mouth and on instinct I started to suck. I've had a pacifier in my mouth so often the past couple years that I'd developed a habit. So by the time Betsy put me down on set, in front of the cameras, the pacifier was stuck in my mouth. I shoved the woman off me and tried to argue with her, but not a word could make it past the large bulb. Suddenly, I felt very uneasy...

"Ladies and gentleman, fans and friends, for the very first time ever on film, Baby Luvs is going to be doing something for only her most dedicated followers.”

Betsy circled the girl like she was prey, and from the edge of the room, Abe watched, and so did I - it was pretty clear that neither of us knew what was happening, but nobody said anything either. Nobody but Betsy, nobody but the muffled sounds coming from Leona.

"Baby Luvs has been shy about this, shy for so long, but she's truly a baby, and she doesn't like people thinking otherwise. So today, with you, as a very special treat she might never do again," although the tone Betsy used seemed to indicate otherwise, "our little Baby Luvs is going to mess her diapers."