Click.
By all accounts, you should feel scared or at least frustrated. You’ve had your body transformed into that of a four-year-old girl, you’re being taken to a stranger’s house by someone claiming to be your mother, your thoughts are all jumbled with those of a girl named Kim, and now? And NOW? You’ve been buckled snugly into a toddler’s car seat. Everything about this should feel wrong.
And yet… and yet you feel fine. It would be easy enough to blame the new personality painted over yours, sure. If you let your thoughts turn off and just ride the fairy princess girl, this is all perfectly normal for her… you. Kim is four, you are four, and kids need to be protected. Yet when you snap back to lucidity… you don’t feel threatened at all.
This is what you signed up for, isn’t it?
There’s a solid “clunk, clunk” as you buck and squirm against the locked, Y-shaped seatbelt. The padded straps press down on your shoulders and wrap close between your legs, fitting a bit awkwardly over your skirt. Your belly is the only part of your torso which can wiggle freely, so that’s what you do. Your hands are free, and you could unbuckle the seatbelt at any time. It would be easy as pie to open the car door and roll away, disappear from sight, maybe find the police- or a priest, perhaps.
And yet you’re not doing any of that, because this feels oh so right.
“Home again, home again, jiggity jig,” Mommy says. The adult buried somewhere in you can’t bear the corniness, yet a four-year-old girl doesn’t know any better. “Dinner’s going to be ready in a flash!”
The meal goes by in a blur, vague notions of macaroni and cheese with breaded chicken, and a pile of gross mixed vegetables which taste way more bitter than you’d think they would. Your stocking feet dangle from a tall chair; it feels like you’re at the top of a skyscraper, even though you know the fall won’t hurt you. The TV is making noise in the living room, probably some boring news stuff kids don’t care about.
“Mooooom?” you ask. “Can we watch the grownup cartoons after the news?”
“Sorry Kimmy, if you stay up past your bedtime, you’re going to make yourself feel sick. You don’t want to be sick on Halloween, do you?”
Curses, foiled again. “No, I don’t wanna be sick…”
“Then after your cookie, you’re brushing your teeth, getting dressed, and going RIGHT to bed.”
The cookie makes it all worth it. It feels like no time at all before you’re in your bedroom, surrounded by great big piles of plush dolls and plastic toy bricks. You yawn and dig your toes into the carpet, mesmerized by how your knees are just barely visible through your tights. How are you tired already? Maybe Mommy was right, you do need to go to bed.
Your tiny hands begin to fumble with the buttons on your blouse, but Mommy stops you. “Mmm-mmm, not yet. You still don’t know how to do that, remember?” Of course you remember… or rather don’t. Kim is such a blank slate that everything feels new again.
Mommy unbuttons your blouse so gently, it’s as if nothing is touching you at all. You lift your arms and your top slides right off, followed by your skirt pooling around your ankles. Soothing nonsense words float through your ears as she tugs the waistband on your tights and rolls them down into a little sock-ball you step right out of. She then grasps at your panties, and you groan in protest.
“Kim…” She looks concerned, and just a little bit tired. “I know you’re a big girl, but until you get good at going to the bathroom before bed you need the diaper.”
“But I just went, mom, right after brushing my teeth.” Both halves of you are in agreement here. You don’t need to be babied!
“Tell you what. If you can stay dry for a whooole week, you can leave the diapers forever. Is it a deal?”
“Yeah, forever!” Three days is nothing. You already pulled it off in another life, didn’t you?
Naked and vulnerable once again, you’re helped up onto your bed and laid on your back. Something soft and plush slides under you. Rustle, rustle, goes the outside of it. Fluff, fluff, goes the inside. Your Mommy folds the diaper over your front, just below the belly button, and tapes up the sides. You try crossing your legs to test out the limits of your new garment, only to find that the diaper is so thick that it doesn’t quite work. You see Mommy coming back with more clothing, and you instinctually raise your knees and lift your legs like… like a good girl.
There’s a wobble, a creak and a squeak as a pair of pink rubber pants slides between your legs. You feel a tight, solid rubber waistband snap closed around your belly button, and a pair of high pant legs seal shut right at the top of your thighs. The diaper was hard to ignore before, but now the cushiness is pressing down on you from every side. A warm blush creeps over your face, partly out of embarrassment and partly out of comfort.
The waistband cinches just a little bit tighter, and Mommy shows you the itty-bitty, teensy-weensy key to your locking rubber pants. “I’m sorry, Kimmy, but you keep ripping them off and then wetting anyways.”
The lock really works- your delicate little hands can’t pry the pants off. “But I’m getting hot…”
“I’ll turn the fan on, Kim.” Mommy unfolds a fresh, warm, staticky pair of footie pajamas in pale yellow fleece, with a baby duck embroidered on the lapel. As soon as it’s unzipped, you wiggle your way into them. A pair of white vinyl soles covers your feet up and over your toes, crinkling as you flex them curiously. There is a bit of a struggle as you hip-wiggle your way past the waist of the jammies, squeaking and creaking the rubber pants into them. These kinds of pajamas can have zippers going all the way down to the ankle, but this pair’s zipper stops right above your swimsuit area.
With your sleeves on, Mommy zips you right up in a jiffy… then SNAP, a popper button clasps right over the zipper pull. “Don’t want you eating that zipper, you’ll choke,” she says as if it is a joke.
“Mom, I don’t need all thIIPTH. MMPH?”
Without even missing a beat, you find a carnation pink pacifier stuffed into your mouth. Maybe you’re just smaller than you’re used to, but you could swear this thing’s rubber nipple is way bigger than it needs to be, nearly touching both sides of your cheeks. There’s a hole in the center so you can breathe easy, but it still muffles everything you say. “RRF MMPH!”, you protest behind the obstruction. You try to spit it out, but it just wiggles.
Wait. That feeling… nuk, nuk. Your eyelids droop and the world swims around you. Is this… no, this isn’t magic, this is just how little girls feel. Nuk, nuk… oh… nuk… mmm.
“Time to tuck you in,” Mommy says, and she means it. Your jammies slide right under the covers as they crackle with static. The bedsheets get tucked in, and they wind tight around you, pinning your arms and everything below your shoulders beneath. All you can do now is suck on your pacifier and crinkle your diaper, both of which are making it hard to be anything other than Kimmy. “Mr. Bear’s going to bed too. Boop!” She presses your favorite teddy bear’s nose against your face in a fluffy “smooch”, then she kisses you for real. The lights turn off- except for a green nightlight of course- and the door closes, leaving only a thin crack of light. Nothing else to do except be a good girl and go to bed, you suppose.
“Mmm-mm… nuk… mm-mm… nuk… m…”
Nuk…