The group had arrived at the park and set forth on the winding walking trails. The car, the roads, the buildings and indeed nearly any other human beings had passed far out of sight before long.
For Cassie and Rachel, this long walk was a time to get more properly acclimated with their regressed bodies. Taking more steps to cross the same distance as before was tricky to get used to. The subtle differences in muscle mass and bone structure made them have to adjust their stride ever so slightly. Most notably, though, the sweat being built up from the stuffiness of their diapers, and their chafing against the skin of their inner thighs, were getting pretty uncomfortable.
Rachel asked if they could stop and have the picnic now, and the adults decided that was a good idea. The group walked over behind a very large array of bushes and sat down on a picnic mat.
Rachel ended up pushed against one corner of the mat. She tried to scoot around and take in the scenery, but all she got was some leaves in her mouth.
"Ah! Plhtltllhh--" She yelps, spitting them out. "We put our picnic mat too close to the bushes..." She comments.
As she says this, Grace reaches her arm out, places her fingers under Rachel's dress and flips it over for a second, exposing the front of her diaper.
"Alright, you look clean." She says, nodding and getting ready to assemble the sandwiches.
Meanwhile, Cassie is tuning all of this out and staring off into space. She's watching the giant, distant trees rustling and bending against the wind; the sky's desaturated blue color it has right now, covered in somewhat dark clouds, giving the outdoors a gray tint.
Suddenly, Cassie feels a hand going down the front of her pants. She lets out a startled yelp; somewhat taken aback by how high-pitched her screams sound now.
Nathan has dived his left hand onto Cassie's crotch, and is feeling the front of her diaper with his palm. She wants to ask him what he's doing, but a second later she can figure pretty well what he is probably doing.
"Alright, you feel dry too." Nathan says, pulling his hand back.
"Uh, yeah. Don't worry. I'll let you know when I need a change, thank you." Cassie says.
"Well I know, but it's helpful to have someone checking up on you, just in case you don't notice, you know?"
"I guess." Cassie looks away from him and rolls her eyes.
Grace had put together a sandwich for Rachel; one slice of white bread, crust removed, cut into two triangles to form a half-sandwich; 2 slices of chicken; 1 slice of cheddar cheese; a thin layer of mayonnaise.
"Thanks mom!" Rachel says as she takes the plate and gives it as big a bite as her little mouth can take. She grabs her juice packet, pops the straw in and sips away at that as well.
Grace then got to work on Cassie's sandwich. She took two slices of bread, knowing Cassie is big enough to eat a full-sized sandwich. She started to tear the crust off of the edges.
"Wait," Cassie interjected, "hold on. Leave the bread crusts on please."
Grace held the bread in her hands for a second.
"Are you sure about that?"
Cassie nodded.
Grace shrugged and put the bread down, with most of its crust intact. She applied the mayonnaise, chicken and cheese as before, then cut the thing into two triangles, and handed the plate to Cassie along with a juice pack.
"Thanks mom." Cassie says, biting into the sandwich.
Immediately, the bread crust destroys the taste and feeling of the entire piece. Its toughness; its density; it's uncomfortable just trying to bite it off. When Cassie gets into the chewing, the bitterness of the bread crust just ruins her enjoyment. Cassie is trying to wrap her head around this realization; that she suddenly hates bread crusts again. Her mom notices her struggling with the crusts, and just softly giggles at her.
"Hey mom, can you put a little bit of mustard on this?" She holds out her sandwich.
"But sweetie, you hate mustard, don't you?" Grace picks up the mustard container and wonders what to do with it.
"I wanna see if I still hate it." Cassie explains. The truth, however, is that she wants to find out if she has gone back to hating it, as she did as a child. "Just a little drip on one bite is all I want."
Her mom obliges, and squeezes a tiny dab of Dijon mustard onto one corner of Cassie's sandwich.
Putting that corner in her mouth, Cassie almost feels her eyes rolling back into her skull from how repulsed she is. It tastes like a sweaty, moldy sock to her. This is tripping Cassie out on a level unprecedented by anything else that happened today. Just yesterday, Cassie probably had some meal with a liberal quantity of mustard, and now she can barely put a dab of it on her tongue.
Cassie realized then, that she is going to have to return to her ten-year-old diet as well: the same bland, processed meals all the time, and she's probably going to gobble them up happily. All the rich and challenging food she had been learning to appreciate had all gone out the window.