Unfair: Chapter 128- P.P.P. (Patreon)

Chapter 128: P.P.P.

It was too damn early when I opened my eyes for the second time that Sunday morning. It wasn’t quite nine o’clock. I’d have been awake and scheming by now on a school day, but a night of tossing and turning next to Janet, the atrocious hour at which we got up, the slow humming rhythm of Janet’s car on the highway, and the milk that washed down the breakfast granola bar had me conked out in the car seat as soon as I’d put down the bottle.  

“We’re heeeeeere,” Janet half-sang, cutting the engine.

“Where is ‘here’?” I yawned.

Janet leaned and twisted around to unbuckle me.  “It’s a surprise, silly.”

I suppressed something between a groan and a growl.  “Janet,” I said. “You promised me you’d stop these surprises.”

“I said I wouldn’t spring anything on you and I very clearly asked if you wanted to come here, yesterday.”

“But you didn’t tell me what ‘here’ would be.”

Her finger gently booped me on the nose.  “That’s part of the surprise.”

My right eye twitched. “I don’t like surprises.”  The funny part is, I legitimately couldn’t tell how much this bothered me.  This early in the morning, I’d have been hard pressed to say how much of my whining was from genuine insecurity and trauma processing versus trying to be difficult out of habit and principle.

Janet erred on the side of caution.  “Hey,” she said softly, taking both of my hands in hers and looking me in the eye. “It’s gonna be okay.  I’m not trying to embarrass you.  I’m not trying to talk down to you. I just want to show you something fun. I want to surprise you in a good way.”

“But…” The rest of my argument caught and tripped up over my lips. After everything that had happened this week I wanted to trust her. Yet, I hated that I wanted to.

She cut my feelings off at the knees.  “Say the word and we’ll walk right out and go home. I just want to surprise you first and for you to give it a chance.”

I half yawned and half sighed in resignation.  “Okay.  Sure.”

Her hands gently gave mine a squeeze and released. “Good.”  She grabbed the diaper bag from the passenger seat, then got out of the car.  Normally she would have walked all the way around the front of the car to open up the back passenger side and dig me out of my seat.  This time she only went one door back and climbed into the back seat with me.  “So,” she said. “Before we go in…” I braced myself between the beats of her carefully placed patter.  “...do you want to wear that outfit?”

Without thinking I looked down at myself in today’s chili pepper red toddler shorts and lime green shirt. My Monkeez had yet to swell or sag enough so that anybody could see its outline beneath the relatively baggy shorts,  but the top of it was still poking out enough over the waistband and the shirt wasn’t long enough to effectively conceal it when I raised my arms and such.

All things considered, I still preferred this very basic and simple outfit to most of the other things I was routinely dressed in.  My legs were mostly covered and there were no cartoon characters or disgustingly cute slogans anywhere on me.  The complete absence of Amazonian strength snaps in the ensemble meant that the only clothing I was trapped in was my diaper.

For herself, Janet had picked out a conservative yet attractive blouse with a thin subdued gold necklace. Her legs were covered with a not-quite salmon colored skirt that stopped at her shins and open toed platform heels. Her thick peach hued belt probably didn’t serve a function other than to visually bridge the gap between her top and her skirt.

She looked like she was dressed for a formal classroom observation, and I was dressed like I was being prepared for a slightly more bearable day in Beouf’s class. In my surveying, I realized my eyes were going back to Janet’s breasts a little too often. “Yyyyes…?” I cringed. “Why?”

“Because if you wanted to, I brought along another outfit.”  She opened the diaper bag and pulled out the complete mockery of adult clothes I’d worn when picking her parents up from the airport: The baby shower bomb that had been repurposed as a Feasting Friend disguise.   I thought I’d relegated that mistake of gaslighting to a one and done.

My lips twisted and my nose crinkled up like I’d just swallowed my own vomit back down.  “Why would I want to wear that?”

“I can’t tell you or it would ruin the surprise,” Janet said.

“Then I’ll pass.”

Janet stuffed it back down into the diaper bag.  “That’s fair,” she said. “I’ll keep it with us just in case you change your mind.”

Fat chance of that happening.

“Second question,” Janet said. “Do you want me to change your diaper?”

My lips puckered and I cocked my head in confusion. The fact that I’d been asleep meant I was probably wet. No annoying aching feelings in my bladder begged to be let out.  I poked at my crotch and barely felt the squish. I was hardly what one would call ‘soaked’.  

Asking whether I needed a change wasn’t exactly Janet’s style, either. “Is this to see if I’m ready for potty training or something?”

“Oh baby, no.” Janet snorted. “I just thought you might want to start today dry.”
Stranger and stranger.  “Oooookay…? Sure….”  What else was I going to do?  Admit that I was comfortable if not ‘fine’ in wet pants?  There was some kind of trap coming, but I had no idea how to dodge it.  If it couldn’t be avoided, best to charge in and brazen through it.

I held my breath when Janet lipped the shorts right off of my sneakers but held my tongue until after the fresh Monkeez was taped on. The shorts went right back on and the alarm bells in my head silenced themselves. It wasn’t like I was going to explode in rage or dissolve in embarrassment at having my diaper in full view; I’d been successfully numbed to that particular source of indignation. Part of me was just suspicious because of the circumstances.

“Do you want to walk or do you want me to carry you?” Janet asked, balling up the diaper.

“Carry…?”  What strange algorithm was my Mommy running in her head?

Janet put me on her hip and I automatically steadied myself by hugging her around her neck.  Her opposite shoulder holstered the diaper bag and its corresponding hand held onto the old diaper.  “I’m pretty sure there’ll be garbage cans near the entrance.”

“Entrance to where?”  

In reply Janet turned us around and looked up.  “There.”

The parking lot we were in was an open air field made of asphalt. Its sole purpose was to give people a place to leave their cars while they wandered off to more interesting locations by foot.  Off in the middle distance, just across the street, was a tremendous building. It was wider than it was tall, but was easily five stories, and was painted soft cardboard brown with accents of blue, yellow, and red streaks across its profile.

“What is it?” I asked

Janet had already started walking towards the structure. Her gait had a giddy bounce in it that I could just feel. She slipped the used diaper into a can positioned near the crosswalk. “You’ll see.”  My skin crawled with anxiety.

Waiting for the light to turn, a shadow came up beside ours.  “Going to Triple-P?” A voice asked.

“Hm?” Janet and I said in unison.  Janet turned her head and I leaned sideways to see past her.

An Amazon woman wearing a baggy shirt and jeans  was standing next to us.  Her face was slightly thinner than Janet’s, but not unflatteringly so. Her hair was dark like Janet’s too, but kept loose and down. “I asked if you two were going to Triple-P?”

.”Triple-?” I heard Janet say. “Oh yeah! We are.”  So that’s where we were going. The name meant nothing to me, though.

“First time?” the stranger asked.

“Yeah,” Janet nodded. “How did you know?”

“Call it a hunch.” She looked at me and waved. “Hey cutie.”

I waved meekly back and gave the thinnest, most noncommittal fake smile that I had the energy to muster. Because Janet hadn’t turned her whole body to speak with the other woman I had one whole Mommy between me and this newest threat.  I flexed my fingers and resisted the urge to dig my nails into the side of Janet’s neck.  Oh if only I hadn’t left Lion at home, I’d be murdering him again.

“Mommy!” A new voice burst out. “The sign turned on! Let’s go!”  Closer inspection of the newcomer revealed a bright yellow diaper bag on the woman’s shoulder closest to Janet and a second, much smaller shadow beside hers.  I wasn’t the only Little with an Amazon shield between me and a stranger.

“You two go ahead,” the stranger said. “We’re both walking today.”

Janet sped ahead, her bounce only increasing after the brief encounter. I looked back behind her and got a better look at the other Little. From head to toe, the Little girl looked more like a young woman than any Adopted Little I’d ever seen. No pig tails or frilly bows in her hair, she wore it down like her Amazon and had been dressed in a gray pinafore dress that went all the way down to her ankles and long sleeved white turtleneck.

Had I seen her around Misty Brook or shopping at J-Swift I wouldn’t have thought anything of her.  Just another Little that had so far dodged the mad giants by appearing mature enough so that the soft monsters wouldn’t feel the need to ‘help’, but not so much that the spiteful ones felt they were being challenged. Indeed, the dress billowed just enough to completely conceal the form of the diaper underneath it and mask the toddling walk of the person who wore it. I wouldn’t have even noticed the wider gait and slightly waddling strides if I hadn’t been specifically looking for evidence.

The white sneakers that peaked out from her hem were nothing to factor in, and the ruby red lipstick could have been applied better, but nothing about her outward appearance signaled that she was mindfucked, broken, dollified, or otherwise Adopted. On a more charitable day in my past, I might have given her the benefit of the doubt holding an Amazon lady’s hand. Littles and Amazons could be friends and equals in this day and age, or so I’d once told myself.  There was a certain practicality in holding hands while crossing the street when many Littles couldn’t be seen over a car’s hood from the wrong distance and angle.

Only calling her Mommy by title and the diaper bag slung around the taller woman’s shoulder gave away their true relationship.

Janet and I crossed the street and into a courtyard out in front of our destination. Well mowed and maintained lawns greeted us, perfect for picnicking while  providing picturesque views of trees and hedges trimmed to look like trains, planes, and automobiles along the lawns’ far perimeter. Beige colored walkways guided us through and the clip-clopping of Janet’s heels went slightly faster, as if drawing strength from the manufactured whimsy surrounding us.

Elizabeton was a bigger city than Oakshire, but it wasn’t exactly a sprawling multicultural capital of class and diversity.  If the two cities were people, Oakshire would have been the guy who peaked in highschool, took over the family business and wouldn’t shut up about the good old days when they were third string running back and almost made state.  Elizabeton was that guy who graduated college but seemed to make his Alma Mater his entire personality up to and including still crashing frat parties.  

Better? For some, yes. Good?  I didn’t say that.  

The differences were there though, and Elizabeton generally had a cleaner, crisper, more sophisticated metropolitan aesthetic than its poorer, less elegant sister town.

We walked around a circular area in the courtyard ringed with cement benches.  Crystal clear jets of water shot up out of the ground like graceful geysers and then spouted in a patterned sequence giving the illusion that a single stream of water was bouncing from spot to spot.

I spotted a nearby sign that read, “ALL ADOPTED LITTLES MUST WEAR DIAPERS WHILE PLAYING IN FOUNTAIN.”  Adopted Littles? Not just Littles in general? Leave it to Elizabeton to be just progressive enough.

A handful of Littles wearing only diapers stood in the middle, bracing themselves.  When a jet of water had arced from spot to spot in a complete circle, a tremendous gent of water shot up beneath them, sending them  shrieking and giggling back to their giants.

“Daddy!  Cold!” one of them said, holding himself and shivering.

“I told you,” the Amazon man chuckled. “It starts getting too chilly this time of year to splash around.  “Do you want to get dry and go inside?”

“Uh-huh!”  The Little boy ran back to the center of the fountain just in time to get sprayed in the face again.

“Okay…” the boy’s Daddy cupped his hands and called out.. “But you get two more minutes before we towel you off and go inside anyway. The other Amazons followed his lead and put similar time limits on their charges.

I looked back over Janet’s shoulder to try and spot the Little girl who had been walking hand in hand across the street.  Adopted Littles oddly enjoying themselves while indulgent Amazons looked on was just a regular Thursday night for me. One of us who still dressed like an adult: Now there was something to write home about.  

Janet was walking way too fast. We were over halfway across the courtyard and the more interesting pair were still lingering behind us, practically tiny dots on the horizon, made harder to spot because they were still backlit by the sun.

I rubbed my eyes and turned my head in the opposite direction so that I was looking forward. A few of Janet’s trotting footsteps later I almost had to rub my eyes again. Walking in from the sides were half a dozen other Littles dressed in pleated pants, button up shirts, polos, and dresses that completely covered their diapers.  The only thing giving them away were the Amazons who held their hands and the diaper bags they all carried. Evidently crosswalk girl wasn’t a unique occurrence here.

“Almost there,” Janet said to herself as much as me. “I think we’re in the back. Need to walk around.”

“Mommy,” I said. “Can I walk too?” I wasn’t going to be the only Little here. No need to be the only Little being carried.

Janet slowed and set me on my feet. “Sure, honey.”  She took my hand and started half-pulling me along.  

Along the side of the building was a small empty playground; a jungle gym with a slide and a swing set. Beouf’s was objectively better. This was barely a playground; just a playplace to distract small children away from a site’s main attraction. The Gardens had a similar set up near its lion exhibit.  This particular structure didn’t have a sandbox, but it did have another warning sign:  “NO CHILDREN UNDER 18 (UNLESS ACTING AS CAREGIVER).”

No kids allowed on a playground?  With Adopted Littles being specifically mentioned around the fountain?  Why?  Kids loved fountains. Kids loved playgrounds. They certainly would at least point and smile at trees and bushes made to look like other things.

The back of my skull felt like it was buzzing again. “Are there any kids allowed in this place?”

Janet looked down at me. “Do you count?”

“No.”

“Then, no.”  Janet said. A beat passed before her willpower ran out. “But you’re still my baby.” Damn, I loved this woman. Otherwise I would have likely bitten her or done something else awful right then and there.

We rounded the outside corner and ducked under an overhead walkway.  A small cluster of Amazons with surprisingly adult looking Littles opened up a frosted glass door and went inside the building. There was no second guess where we headed next.

To our right, was a row of strollers separated by. They were of all different makes, models, and sizes; all of them personal strollers, and not the kind of generic models that got rented out in malls and theme parks.   “PLEASE CHECK YOUR STROLLERS WITH VALET.” The sign instructed.

The valet was a gangly Tweener kid with acne wearing a black tie and red vest. If he was old enough to have graduated high school his body hadn’t quite caught up with his birth certificate.  “Hello! he waved. His voice had a raspy crackle to it; maybe he parked strollers because he wasn’t allowed to park cars. “Welcome to Triple-P!”

Janet smiled and speed walked us the rest of the way.  A blast of chilled air hit me in the face as the frosted glass door closed behind us.  Wide ice blue walls and arrows on the floor directed us to a wall of ticket booths.  The path was less than twenty steps from the entrance, but velvet ropes forced people to zig and zag at harsh right angles.

The walls sported plaques that made something perfectly clear in no uncertain terms:“ADOPTED LITTLES AND THEIR CAREGIVERS ONLY”.

With no branding or labeling on the back of the building, I had missed what Triple-P stood for initially.  All guesswork was removed when I looked down at the ticket booths and read the red, green, and yellow letters above.  “PRETEND PLAY PRESERVE.”  

We wound around the last rope right as the cluster of maturely dressed Littles and their Mommies and Daddies shuffled off through a door to the side. I tugged on Janet’s skirt and half-whispered up to her. “Is this associated with Little Voices?”

“Not directly, but a lot of the people there like it.”  We finished our trek to the ticket booth.


“Hi, welcome to Pretend Play Preserve. Is this you and your Little one’s first time at Triple-P?”  A middle aged woman wearing a similar uniform to the valet spoke from the other side of the glass.  From where I stood, it was difficult to tell if she were an Amazon or a Tweener, standing on a stool.  “Is this you and your Little one’s first time at Triple-P?”

“Yes ma’am,” Janet said.

“Okay, do you want me to go over the rules, features, and layout with you?”

“Just a second,” Janet said.  She bent over and picked me back up.  “I want him to hear too.”  She booped me on the nose. “Okay. No more surprises. We made it.”

The attendant in the booth grabbed a stack of papers and slid them through a slot on the underside of the glass partition.  “Okay. Please look over and sign these. Page one is you affirming that your Little has been legally Adopted and that you are their primary caregiver or that you have permission from the primary caregiver to be here.”

Janet picked up a pen chained to the counter.  “Sure thing.”

“The second page is you absolving us of all liability in the event of an injury or tantrums both past and future.”

Janet looked up from the page and echoed what I was thinking.  “Injury or tantrums?”

“We’re a museum with interactive exhibits,” the ticket taker clarified. “Littles laugh, Littles run, Littles trip, Littles bonk their heads. We just don’t want to get sued if somebody is having too much fun.”  She gave me one of those playful winks I’d become all too accustomed to and I felt the buzzing in my skull travel up to my temples.

“And tantrums?”

The ticket taker let out a good natured chuckle.  “We’ve had crazy parents try to blame us for their Little one’s bad behavior. Sometimes Littles get overstimulated or take silly ideas too far, and sometimes Mommies and Daddies want to blame us for providing the stimulation in the first place.”

“Gotcha.” She signed the second page, and slid it back with the first. “I’m a teacher. I know how that is.”

“Third page is just a quick reminder of certain items we don’t allow here.  Please no leashes, strollers, or pacifiers that they can’t remove themselves. If your Little one normally needs a stroller to get around quickly, we can get you a modified wheelchair.”

Janet winced   So did I, but I suspected it was for a different reason.  “Is crawling not allowed or something?” she asked.
.
“Yes ma’am, it’s allowed,” the lady behind the glass explained. “You can carry him, hold hands with him, or let him walk away freely. He can crawl, walk, run, roll, scoot, or whatever. We just discourage those items in particular because they tend to break immersion.”

While Jannet had busied herself signing paperwork and getting us an explanation of what was allowed, the Little and Amazon from the crosswalk caught up to us. They went through the line and got their tickets rather quickly. Evidently they needed no explanations.

“Anything else prohibited?” Janet asked.  

“No ma’am. Diaper bags, bottles, clothes such as onesies and rompers are all perfectly acceptable. Strollers clog up the exhibits, inflatable pacifiers make it harder to play along, and leashes slow down costume changes. Immersion is important, but it’s also a matter of practicality.

The buzzing in my brain intensified and wormed its way to the top of my skull. “Immersion.” I repeated.  I don’t remember if I intoned it as a question, a scoff, or a smidge of both. Probably both.  “Costume changes.”

“I love it when they’re curious,” the ticket taker looked at me and gushed. “Best part of this place!”

My face went hot. If someone didn’t talk plainly in the next sentence I knew I was going to do something incredibly stupid.

“This is a dress-up museum,” Janet saved me from myself. “It has all sorts of models and play sets that you can mess around with, like a fire engine, or a doctor’s office.”

“Mhm,” agreed the lady.  “And every center has costumes you can try on to get into character.”

The buzzing had progressed to a kind of inside out itching, but my emotions had stabilized.  “Pretend Play Preserve.” I said, things finally clicking. I found myself nodding. “I get it.”

“You’re going to have a lot of fun,” the ticket lady promised. To Janet she bragged, “A lot of our repeat customers like to come already dressed up in more Grown-Up looking clothes. That way they can pretend like they’re clocking in and out of work. It’s so cute!”

Janet was riding the high of her own pretend game called ‘Mommy’.  “Yeah. A friend mentioned that part to me.” She turned her head, kissed me on mine, and giggled. “This is gonna be so cool!”

That girl at the crosswalk and the others I’d spotted made so much more sense. As did Janet packing my ‘teacher costume’. Same for the signs. Yet the relief of knowing dissipated with a dull aching pressure right behind my right eyeball.

“Everything seems to be in order,” the lady said. “That’ll be eighteen dollars even. Sixteen if you have any sort of I.D. proving you’re a teacher.”
“I’ll get in on that,” Janet said, digging around and getting out her faculty I.D. along with her credit card.

“Everything seems to be in order,” the ticket taker said, sliding Janet her things back as well as two paper armbands and a folded pamphlet. She took a deep breath and rattled off, “Here’s your wristbands and a map. First floor has scale models for everyday jobs and professions. Second floor has houses and homes from around the world and different cultures. Third has fun Science exhibits and fourth has just good old fashioned pretend play like cowboys and just some more silly stuff like ball pits and trampolines.There are costuming stations and dressing rooms nearby the exhibits themselves, and there are bathrooms, changing stations, and nursing stations on every floor at the North and South ends.  The dressing rooms are for Littles only, but of course you can help them get dressed and undressed.  They are there for your convenience and privacy, but they are not required as diapers stay on. Please do not confuse the purpose of the dressing rooms with the changing stations, especially if you’re going to leave your Little’s dirty diaper behind.”

Janet laughed into the palm of her hand.  “Tell me that hasn’t happened before.”

“I wish I could, ma’am.”

Janet clicked her tongue and set me back down on the floor.  She needed both hands to peel the adhesive strip off of the first paper bracelet and place it on my wrist.  “How’s that? Not too tight, right?”  

I experimentally tried to peel it off. It might as well have been a diaper tape.  “It fits”

She put her own on and fiddled with it a second. “Gonna have to break out the scissors when we get back,” she mumbled.

The ticket lady wasn’t done with us, it seemed. “Because it’s your first time visiting us, I also included a coupon for Fun-derwear.”

“Fun-derwear?” Janet and I said together.  Did I even want to know?

“The first thing you’re going to see when you go through the main doors there,” the ticket lady pointed to our left, “is the gift shop. Our most popular item is a special kind of diaper. They’re made to look more like regular underwear and come in several convincing styles, including boxers. They crinkle and swell up less than regular diapers, and have excellent odor control.   They can be pulled up or down, or taped on like a regular diaper if your Little one doesn’t want to put them on standing up or if it would make it easier for a change.”

Janet nervously bit her lip. “Is there some kind of toilet exhibit or something?”

“No, just some Littles get a kick out of the extra bit of costuming. It makes it easier to pretend that they’re Grown-Ups when even their diapers are part of the costume. It’s fun-derwear. Underwear, but fun.”

“Typical.”  I hadn’t realized I’d said it out loud until it came out of my mouth.

Neither Amazon reacted.  Janet just awkwardly took me by hand and walked me over to the frosted glass door entrance.  “Ready to have some fun, Clark?”

I couldn’t figure out why- more like I wasn’t willing to admit to myself- but I felt my throat starting to tighten. “I guess so…”

“Awesome! You’re going to love it.”

Neither of us had any idea just how wrong and how right she was with that prediction.