Howard was so intent on getting more milk that he wasn't aware that Anita
had silently walked into the room and was watching him while he nursed and
pooped. A slow smile grew on her face as the smell of a dirty diaper hit
her. Anita had called earlier to see how he was doing and was told about
his accidents. When the supervisor had called and told her what had
happened when they attempted to diaper him, she wasn't surprised at his
reaction. She had told them she agreed with their decision to put him in a
playpen for an extended timeout and suggested they leave him in the playpen
for the balance of the afternoon. She had told them that his regressive
behavior must have meant that he wanted to be treated like a baby and that
it would probably make him feel more secure if they put him in the nursery
with the other babies. Anita suggested that they give him his milk in a
baby bottle to reinforce his sense of security. The supervisor agreed
immediately to Anita's suggestions for the handling of the little hellion.
She wanted Howard's disruptive influence on the other children to be
removed as soon as possible. Anita's rationalization for treating him like
an infant meshed perfectly with the supervisor's understanding of child
psychology. Once Howard was reduced to helpless dependence, he would become
more tractable.
Howard opened his eyes to see Anita grinning at him while he sucked on the
bottle. He got up and stood unsteadily in her presence as much out of fear
as out of respect. The thick diaper between his legs made it difficult to
stand up straight. The padding bunched up between his legs and forced them
farther apart than he was used to; as a result, he had to use the unsteady
bowlegged stance of a diapered infant. He swayed uncertainly on his feet
and had to grasp the railing of the playpen with one hand to stay upright
while his other hand still held the bottle. The attendant left the room for
a few minutes, giving Anita the chance to lean over the railing of the
playpen and whisper in Howard's ear as she began deep massaging his lower
tummy just above his diaper, "Well, I think you've managed to convince them
that you're a very immature three-year-old. All in all, Mommy is very
pleased with your little performance here today. The supervisor was so
impressed with how young you acted that she told Mommy that she feels sorry
for you because you've lost your real mommy. She thinks you need to be
allowed to regress back to babyhood when you're here so you can get over
the absence of your mommy. She also recommended that you be treated the
same way at home too and Mommy agreed with her."
Anita stopped and paused dramatically for her last statement and continued,
"You were very naughty! So for the next two weeks, they're going to keep
you with the babies here in the nursery rather than let you set a bad
example for the other toddlers at the Daycare Center."
Howard frowned around the nipple but continued to suck as Anita said, "It
won't be so bad, Honeybunch! Mommy promises you'll get used to diapers in a
few days."
She glanced around the room and said in a gentle scolding tone, "Mommy
heard about the fight you gave them when they tried to diaper you. It
appears that you lost the battle in more ways than one."
She chuckled and grinned, "It looks like it will take some getting used to
so you can stand without falling while wearing dydees! Don't worry,
Sweetiepie, after a couple of days, you'll be waddling around here easily
in your dydees like all the other infants. Do you like drinking from a
ba-ba, Honeybunch? Maybe Mommy should get you some bottles so you can nurse
at home too! Mommy doesn't think you'll have a problem with getting the
attendants to care for you just like you were one of the babies. You look
soooo cute in your dydees with your ba-ba in your mouth! You look like you
fit right in with the other babies here, Sweetie!"
Anita kissed his cheek and said, "You make an adorable infant, Sweetiepie!"
She stopped massaging him when she felt a tiny contraction from his lower
bowel underneath her fingertips. Anita smiled warmly at him and put her
hand on the back of his diaper to pat his bottom lightly as if comforting
him. As expected, the deep abdominal massage had stimulated his bowels into
evacuating themselves again. This time however, his bladder had responded
as well. Howard could feel the front of his diaper become warm as he soaked
it with pee. She patted his diapered bottom a little harder, pushing on the
pile of warm poop that he had expelled against his behind. Howard's
expression changed to one of surprised dismay when he realized the horrible
thing he had done in Anita's presence. Anita said sweetly, "Weren't you
aware of the fact that you had pooped in your dydee? Oh dear, Mommy can see
by your face that you just realized it! Poor baby! Didn't you know that
most babies your age poop while standing? Poor Howie, Mommy can see that
you didn't intend to make a poopy! You need to sit down if you don't want
to mess in your dydees!"
Anita put her hand behind his knees and forced them to bend. As his legs
folded, Howard collapsed in slow motion to the pad of the playpen. His
bottom hit first, spreading the soft mess in the back of his diaper over
his bottom. Howard wanted to cry. Not only had his incontinence provoked
the daycare workers to put him in diapers, but he had proved they were
right by promptly filling them with poop! They would never let him go back
to training pants now! He kicked his legs petulantly and felt himself pee
again.
"Oh dear, just look at the time!", Anita said in mock concern, "Mommy's
break is almost over! Mommy has to go back to work, Sweetheart, she just
wanted to see if you were okay. Mommy will be sure to tell your attendant
that you have a poopy dydee so she can change you as soon as possible.
Mommy will be back in a little while to take you home. Mommy has some
shopping to do and is going to leave work early today. Now behave yourself
and let the attendant change you without a fuss. If you don't let them
change your dirty dydee, you're going to have a terrible case of dydee
rash. Now wave bye-bye for Mommy! That's a good baby! Mommy will see you
later!"
Howard sat in the warm ooze of his diaper, weeping tears of failure and
abandonment as Anita left to return to her office. Presently his attendant
returned and lifted him from the playpen. She carried him to the changing
station and laid him on his back, then pulled off the tabs on the
disposable he was wearing. Howard gazed helplessly up into the attendant's
face as she undiapered him. As she lifted the front of his diaper gingerly
and brought it down between his legs to expose the mess in the rear of his
diaper, he averted his eyes towards the ceiling in embarrassment. She took
one look at the brown mess that had spread over his bottom and shook her
head, saying, "Ooooh, you're one stinky little boy!"
Howard closed his eyes in shame at her comment as a fresh flow of tears
began leaking from the corners of his eyes. "Don't cry, Sugar! We'll get
you cleaned up and in a fresh diaper in a few minutes. Then you'll be our
sweet baby again," said the attendant as she took his ankles in one hand,
raised his legs and used the back of the diaper to scrape the muck from his
behind.
Once most of the mess had been removed, she slid the diaper out and laid it
to one side. Then she took one of the baby wipes from the tub at the
station and finished cleansing him with the towelette. Howard was mortified
by the procedure. He felt as if his ego had been shattered into millions of
infinitesimal shards by the experience; he was beyond regrowth and
rebuilding. A fey thought crossed his mind as he felt his legs lifted again
and his bottom lowered onto the surface of the clean diaper, "How did the
rhyme he had learned so long ago go? ...All the King's horses and all the
King's men, couldn't put Howard together again..."
Howard giggled insanely at his unvoiced joke as the attendant pulled the
diaper up between his legs and began taping the loose ends of the diaper
together. Howard knew at that moment that whatever happened in the future,
he would never be the man he had been before. Something important had
broken inside. He would never be able to dictate to a woman again. They
were the strong ones who would make the decisions and tell him what to do.
Howard would be content to lie passively and accept whatever they desired
for him.
The attendant smiled at his gay giggle, it was obvious that her charge was
adapting to life at the Daycare Center. She picked up his limp body and
carried the unresisting tot to an unoccupied crib for his "official"
afternoon nap. After having raised the side of the crib, she went to
Howard's playpen and retrieved his plushy duckie, blankie and his pacifier.
She returned to his crib and tucked the toy in his arms and put the
pacifier in his grateful mouth. Howard cuddled the soft velveteen of his
duckie to his chest to comfort his bruised ego and sucked unconsciously on
the pacifier's nipple while the attendant tucked the blankie around his
diminished body. He lay in the crib with huge unblinking eyes for a few
minutes before the lids became to heavy to keep open and he drifted off
into a deep dreamless slumber.
When Howard awoke, the nursery hadn't changed. The nursery smells of poop,
stale pee and the perfume of freshly opened packages of disposable diapers
mixed together to form an aroma that was well-known to every mother and
daycare worker. For the infants in the nursery with Howard, the bouquet of
nursery odors merely smelled like home. Howard thought that the smell was
vaguely familiar. He wasn't able to pick out the individual odors from the
mix, but the sweet-sour combination of fragrances triggered long forgotten
memories of a time of utter contentment that lay buried in the deepmost
recesses of his unconscious. His pacifier was still in his mouth and his
duckie was still clutched in his arms. He had kicked off his blankie in his
sleep to lay in a tangle at his feet. Howard yawned hugely, allowing the
pacifier to fall from his mouth and dangle from its ribbon. He moved his
legs to stretch them luxuriantly, making the plastic on his diaper crinkle
in response. "What's that noise?", Howard thought, "Oh, yeah,....It must be
my diapers. I wonder if I wet them again while I was sleeping?"
Howard put his hand down and tried to put it in his diaper. He couldn't,
the diaper had been fastened too snuggly against his waist. He took his
hand and pushed against the outside of his diaper to force the lining
against his skin. If it was wet, the close contact with his skin would be
more than sufficient to allow him perceive any pee trapped within its
confines. When Howard held the diaper tightly against his crotch, he could
feel a slight dampness beneath the clothlike paper liner that separated his
skin from the absorbent padding of the diaper. He had dribbled while he
slept, but not truly wet the diaper. Howard wasn't sure if that was an
improvement over his previous behavior or not. Was his bladder so
uncontrolled that he would only dribble continuously? Or was it an
indication of a little leakage from an almost full bladder? He didn't feel
like he needed to go. Howard lay back on the mattress and closed his eyes
again. It was good to lay there and let the mattress cradle his body. They
would tell him when it was time to move and carry him there when it was
time to go. It wasn't as if he had someplace of his own to go or some job
he had contracted to do. His responsibility for his life had ended the
moment he had entered the nursery. All that was required of him was
acquiescent compliance with his attendant's wishes. He wouldn't have been
able to oppose them even if he had had the desire to confront his
caretakers. Howard's battered will had receded into a hidden cave of his
mind to cower in the darkness until the time was right to reemerge. Until
then, he could only passively observe and wait, obeying the women who had
become the mistresses of his fate.
Howard lay shut his eyes and relaxed in the crib, drifting in and out of
sleep. While he lay in repose, his hand wormed its way up to his face and
inserted its thumb between his lips. Occasionally, he would suck on his
thumb as he dreamed, then his mouth would become flaccid again as he
descended back into a deep infantine slumber.
Interlude IIX
From Water Does All Life Begin
Dateline: Sunday July 03, 2011
Excerpt From a Major Television News Program:
Good Evening, the rising waters from the Atlantic are causing major damage
to the eastern seaboard tonight. The governors of virtually every Eastern
Seaboard state has declared an emergency as unexpectedly high tides
inundate the coastal areas.
New York harbor is awash as are the sea level areas in Houston and San
Diego. Although city services continue to sandbag the affected areas,
experts say that their efforts are hopeless. There are rumors of among
insiders of plans to move insurance records from vaults of New York
Insurance conglomerates as city continues its battle against the rising
waters of New York harbor. Inside sources say the deep mines of the Midwest
are being considered for permanent storage of the nation's irreplaceable
records. Other areas are suffering too, Miami's hotels are drowning as
rising surf reclaims the waterfront property for the sea. In Bangladesh,
the country drowns as mean sea level increases. In the U.N., there has been
some discussion for International Aid for the building of sea dikes, but
money for investment not available for Third World Countries. International
banks have already declined to loan massive amounts of money for non-profit
development in low potential areas. Only the Dutch seem to be able to
react quickly enough to stop the sea from pouring in. Holland has begun
pouring concrete twenty four hours a day in an effort to beat the tide. As
the waters flood the lowlands of her neighbors, the Dutch, have, for the
first time, began constructing a dike around the perimeter of their entire
country. The entire Dutch military as well as thousands of civilians
have been drafted for the unfamiliar and physically demanding job of
building a two hundred foot wall around their country. In an effort to beat
the clock as sea level increases, virtually the entire adult populous of
Holland is laboring night and day to increase the height of her dikes.
In other news, environmentalists enraged because of the U.S. government
refusal to build a dike to protect the Everglades National Park from
drowning as sea level increases. Because of the flooding of Washington D.C., the planned protest has
been canceled and leaders are calling for a national day of telephone calls
into the White House switchboard. Earlier plans to email the President and
Congress with their pleas have be canceled due to the continued spamming of
the Internet addresses by an unapprehended terrorist group styling itself,
"Gaia".
***************[SW1]
Chapter Seven
Baby Howie
Infancy conforms to nobody: all conform to it, so that one babe commonly
makes four or five out of the adults who prattle and play to it.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82), Essays, "Self-Reliance" (First Series,
1841).
Howard awoke in the attendant's arms as he was carried to the counter in
the front of the daycare. Anita was waiting for him and took the groggy
child in her arms to carry him to the Suburban. She wrapped his shoulders
and bottom in his blankie and put her arm beneath his bottom to support him
as she walked. Howard blinked his eyes in the bright sun as Anita strolled
through the parking lot and winded her way through the parked cars to
theirs. The blankie felt indescribably soft and comforting against the bare
skin of his thighs and calves, making him feel secure and protected against
stranger's stares. She stopped in front of the Suburban, unlocked her door,
then opened it and triggered the locks on the other doors. Then she opened
the rear door and sat Howard on the seat. She buckled him in his seat and
shut the door, getting in the driver's seat and starting the van.
Howard wondered sleepily as they drove away why Anita hadn't taken the time
to redress him in his accustomed training pants. As the wisps of sleep
cleared themselves from his mind, he realized that he had wet them all and
that there was nothing left to wear home. He lay back against the cushion
of the seat and closed his eyes again. There was nothing of interest for
him to see out of the window anyway, he had grown too short to see anything
out of the window but the tops of buildings and trees as the Suburban
whizzed by. If he hadn't been wearing the seat belt, he might have moved
next to the door and been able to peer over the window frame to see the
cars below. Other than sixteen or eighteen wheeler trucks, the view of the
road traffic was hidden from him by his position on the back seat. After a
short time, the van slowed and came to a halt as Anita parked the van. She
got out and took him from the rear seat, then carried him through the busy
parking lot. Howard opened his eyes and saw that she was heading for the
grocery store in front of them. He was instantly awake. "Oh God! Oh please
God, don't let her take me in there! Everyone will see me in diapers!", he
prayed silently.
Anita sat him in the baby seat of a shopping cart and wheeled him inside
the grocery store. To Howard's dismay, she went directly to the baby goods
aisle and put a large package of diapers in the basket. Then she wheeled
the cart further down the aisle and began filling the basket with baby
food. Howard groaned inwardly when he turned and saw the jars she had
selected for him. Instead of getting the barely edible jars of chunky
toddler-style food, she had elected to purchase food that was suitable for
a toothless infant. Everything was of the "First Foods" variety, and had
been pureed to a fine paste to make it easy for a pre-weaned infant to
swallow. She moved around the aisle and began putting other baby items in
the cart: diaper pins, feeding bibs in disposable, terry and plastic
styles, baby wipes, shampoo, a large jar of nursery vaseline, Johnson's
baby soap, baby powder, feeding spoons and bowls, wash cloths, waterproof
lap pads, a teething ring, a rattle, a group of large plastic toy keys, a
bottle and nipple brush, an enclosed wire rack for washing nipples and
pacifiers in the dishwasher, and a small box of wet wipes in a plastic
purse-sized travel case.
When he saw her place several baby bottles in the cart along with packages
of orthodontic nipples for an older baby, Howard slumped forward in his
seat in despair. She had been serious when she told him that she planned to
treat him like an infant at home. He tried to bury his head against her in
embarrassment as she wheeled him through the aisles to the checkout stand
but the one foot distance was too great to span with his reduced body. He
was forced to endure the tolerant smiles and disapproving frowns of the
women shoppers they passed as they saw the diapers and bottles that were
intended for the older toddler in Anita's cart. Many of them had older boys
who were still in diapers but allowing a toddler Howie's age to drink from
a bottle was highly disapproved of by most women. It was bad enough that
little boys nowadays took such a long time to be potty trained, but
treating them like real infants was beyond the pale. The line was
mercifully short and the checker too harried to make any comments on his
too infantile treatment as Anita paid for her purchases and they were
bagged. The sole discordant note was when the checker handed the last bag
to Anita and she smiled and waved bye-bye to the diapered child in the
cart. Anita took Howard's hand as if he was developmentally retarded and
waved it for him, saying "Wave bye-bye, Howie! Bye-bye! That's a good
baby!"
On the way home in the van, Howard whined in babytalk from the back seat
that he was hungry. Anita nodded patiently and pulled the Suburban into a
McDonalds. Howard had hoped that she would order from the drive through
window so he could skulk home with and hide his shame from the world.
Instead, he was mortified when she carried him in the fast food restaurant
wearing nothing but his diaper. She ordered a burger and a Happy Meal, paid
and was given a number to claim their food. Then she carried him over to
the dining area and found a group of high chairs lined up next to the wall.
Anita moved one the chairs to an empty booth and strapped him into the
chair before going back to retrieve their food. Howard looked over at the
family seated in the booth next to theirs and saw that they had a little
boy who appeared to be the about the same age as himself. Unfortunately for
Howard, the resemblance ended there. The toddler in the next booth was
fully dressed in a T-shirt and pants. The mother at the next table glanced
at Howard's diapers meaningfully and smiled condescendingly at his diapered
condition. Howard blushed hotly when he realized that the woman thought
that he was an older toddler who hadn't matured enough to master potty
training.
Anita returned a minute later and sat down beside him in the booth with a
tray of food. She opened the boxed Happy Meal and carefully unwrapped the
small burger like an indulgent mother with a backward child. Anita opened
her purse and took out a small package that she had retrieved from the
grocery bags and stuffed in her purse before she unbuckled his seat belt
and lifted him out of the van. She ripped the top of the plastic bag and
pulled out an flat folded yellow-colored object decorated with charming
little drawings of quacking ducks with orange bills and laid it on the
table before stuffing the plastic bag back in her purse. Howard wondered
what the object was, but wished she would get on with what she was doing
before his hamburger got cold. He was hungry! Then Anita stood up and shook
out the yellow object and stepped behind Howard's chair. She bent over him
from the rear and fastened the object around his neck. When Howard looked
down and saw it, he realized for the first time what the thing was. She had
put a disposable feeding bib on him! The bright yellow bib stood out in the
room like a signpost announcing his inability to feed himself without
making a mess. Even worse, the drawings of the little blue quacking ducks
were so cute that they attracted the attention of anyone who could see
them! Howard caught the amused glance of the mother in the booth next to
them and wanted to slip down out of his high chair and hide his humiliation
under the table. He would have too, if he hadn't been strapped in place.
Anita had made him look even younger by adding the feeding bib to his
already infantine appearance. She sat down again and passed his burger to
him, saying, "Eat your Happy Meal, Sweetheart, and Mommy will let you play
with your new toy! Once we get home, Mommy will put you to bed so you can
go nap-nap!"
The mother in the booth next to them smiled at Howard as he clumsily took
the burger from Anita's hand and began to eat. Howard blushed in
embarrassment at the woman's attention and concentrated on eating his meal.
The next thing he heard was a voice saying, "Hi Anita! What a surprise
meeting you here! And who is this? I didn't know you had a little boy! Are
you babysitting for a friend?"
Anita chuckled merrily and said, "Hi yourself, Susan! No, he's not mine.
I'm just taking care of him for a little while. He's my sister's little
boy. She's ill and I'm taking care of him until she can get on her feet
again. I'm just getting some mommy practice in case I can adopt a baby of
my own!"
Howard looked up and saw the neighbor from across the street looking down
at him. When she squinted at him, studying his features and asked
incredulously, "Are you SURE he's not your baby? He looks just like
Howard!" Howard panicked. He could never explain how he came to be sitting
in a high chair wearing nothing but a feeding bib and a diaper while eating
a Happy Meal. He was caught! She knew who he was! Howard felt a warm
sensation begin to flood his crotch. "Oh my God," Howard thought when he
realized what he had done and involuntarily opened his mouth to let a piece
of spit-covered hamburger fall out of his mouth onto the protective bib. He
felt the chunk of meat hit the bib and looked down with horror at the
damning evidence of his incompetence displayed on his bib for the world to
see and thought, "She knows who I am. Look at me! I've dribbled food all
over my bib and peed in my diaper right in front of her! I'll never live
this down! We'll have to sell the house and move to another town!"
"It looks like you'll get some practice sooner than you think! Have you
looked at his dydee recently? It's positively soaked!", Susan said.
"His diaper will keep until after we've eaten. There's no rush," Anita
replied as she took a dainty bite from her burger. She saw that Howard had
stopped eating and said to him in a motherly aside, "Eat your Happy Meal,
Honeybunch. There's a good baby!"
Howard reluctantly began chewing on his hamburger again although the
sinking feeling of terror he had felt a few minutes before had considerably
reduced his appetite. He thought he might as well finish his meal, things
couldn't get much worse.
"You're probably right," Susan admitted, "Babies are used to that sort of
thing. Did I hear you right? Are you going to adopt a baby?"
"I've given it serious consideration," Anita said, "Of course I don't want
to adopt a toddler. A little one that age wonders where his mommy has gone
and feels hurt that his mommy has abandoned him. Children like that often
have adjustment problems in later life. I want to adopt a little baby who's
so young that he'll think that I'm his real mommy."
"What does Howard think of adopting?," Susan asked, "You've told me on
several occasions that he's utterly opposed to adoption."
Anita frowned and said, "Howard and I are separated. He left me the minute
my sister's little boy came into the house."
Susan smirked and said, "Afraid of the competition, huh? I'm not surprised!
Most men are big babies at heart and don't want to share their wives with
an interloper. I swear, sometimes I think the lot of them ought to be put
back in diapers and treated the way they deserve! Most women are more
mommies to their husbands than wives anyway. I don't know what it is about
men that turns them into helpless infants the minute they get married!
You'd think that they would've had enough mothering by the time they leave
home. But no, the instant they get married, they try to turn their wives
into mommies. Men like that need to be turned over their wives' knees and
given a good spanking!"
"There's that," Anita agreed noncommittally, "I doubt that Howard would put
up with the kind of treatment you suggest unless he was ill and couldn't
fight back. You know what a male chauvinist he is. But the point is moot
now, he's no longer a member of my household. He had a midlife crisis and
started going "out with the boys" to nudie bars. One thing led to another
and he changed from a faithful husband into a little boy who couldn't
control his urges. Howard is living with a woman who enjoys cleaning up the
messes he makes and happily puts up with his infantile behavior. I can't
say I'm not pleased with how things have turned out. As for Howard, he made
his decision when he started seeing other women and now he's going to have
to live with the consequences. As far as I'm concerned, I'm no longer
married to him. He signed over his share of the community property to my
name and went to live with the 'other woman'. Good riddance to him! In the
meantime, I've got this little one to take care of for my sister. I'm not
lonely."
"Well, he's a cutiepie, whoever's child he is!", Susan remarked, "Although
if he were my child, I'd have him out of diapers and into training pants by
now. He's a little old for dydees, don't you think?"
"He's a little slow. The doctor said...No, I shouldn't say anything about
my sister's child. It's not for me to go around telling everyone her
business," Anita lied glibly with a straight face.
Susan's mouth formed a large "Oh" of understanding and she asked, "I get
the picture! I noticed that he still needs a feeding bib. Can he talk yet?"
"Not very much," Anita prevaricated, "But he's a very sweet baby!"
"'Special' children are always so loving," Susan agreed, "My brother has a
little one like him and he's simply adorable! The doctors say that his
condition is permanent and he'll have to be cared for like an infant the
rest of his life. Something to do with heavy metal poisoning or something.
They said it was in the water they gave him from the water tap in the
kitchen when he was a few months old. My brother and sister-in-law blame
themselves for not keeping him strictly on canned formula until he was at
least two. Everyone should know by now that giving tap water to infants is
dangerous. It doesn't matter if it's boiled, tap water is simply too
contaminated with pesticides, heavy metals and chemicals to give to
infants. But my brother was in-between jobs and money was short, you know
how it is. Anyway, they gave their little boy water in addition to his
formula for four months starting when he was about two months old. That was
all it took."
Howard was furious with Anita. She had as much told Susan that he was
mentally retarded. Granted, it was better than having her find out that he
was a full grown man who was suffering from a terribly humiliating
condition, but not by much. And where did she get that stuff about nudie
bars? Had she been spying on him? What was all that about "seeing" other
women? Had she made it up or did she know about his "extracurricular"
activities? Had she found out about Barbie somehow? When she said "Good
Riddance" she sounded like she was serious. What the Hell was going on
here, anyway?
McDonald's intercom called out an order number and Susan said, "That's my
number, I've got to go. It's been nice talking to you. I'm sure everything
will work out for you. I hope your sister is feeling better soon." Susan
patted Howard on the head patronizingly and said, "It's been nice meeting
you, Sweetie. I can't get over how much you look like Howard." She turned
to Anita and said jokingly, "...You're SURE that Howard didn't make whoopie
with your sister?"
"My sister doesn't have the slightest interest in Howard. Believe me, she's
not his type. It's just a coincidence that her baby looks like him to you.
Frankly, I don't think he looks like Howard at all. He's much cuter than
Howard," Anita replied dryly.
"There's no doubt about that," Susan said with a knowing chuckle, "I know
you didn't marry Howard for his looks. His face looks like ten miles of bad
back-country road. I've got to go before my food gets cold! Take care of
yourself, bye!"
Anita glanced at Howard's diaper and saw that Susan had been right about it
being soaked. The absorbent gel had expanded from the huge amount of urine
it had soaked up, causing the crotch of his diaper to droop all the way
down to the plastic seat of the high chair. There wasn't a mother in
McDonalds that wouldn't have recognized that he was wet immediately. Anita
could clearly see the dull yellow stain behind the obscuring translucent
white plastic of the diaper's outer shell. She considered changing him in
the Ladies' room, but she was afraid he'd put up a fuss. Besides, the
diapers she'd bought for him were still in the car. Howard's diaper change
could wait until they got home. He needed to get used to wearing wet
diapers anyway and there wasn't any sense in making a special effort on his
account. She was glad that she had put a disposable feeding bib on him. She
hadn't really intended to use them so soon when she bought them, but her
intuition told her to bring the package of bibs in the restaurant with
them. Howard had made a mess of himself. His hands were covered in catsup
and drips of the red sauce had mixed with his saliva and were running down
his chin to fall onto his bib. The feeding bib was covered with little
particles of food and pink and red splatters of catsup-colored drool. When
she examined the bib more closely she saw a big chuck of meat that the bib
had caught before landing on the floor. Clearly, Howard was going to need a
feeding bib at all of his meals from that moment on. Anita smiled at the
mess he had made and patted him on the head encouragingly so he would
finish his meal. Sound planning and good management had prevented a social
disaster at the restaurant and probably prevented him from making a mess in
the Suburban later if she had had to take his messy body out to the van in
the condition it was in. Fortunately, she had provided for this contingency
as well. She reached in her purse and pulled out the thin travel container
of wet wipes. She was going to have to start carrying a diaper bag to hold
all of his supplies soon. She promised herself that on their next trip out
of the house, she was going to pack a diaper bag that she could carry
wherever they went.
They finished their meal quickly and Anita began to clean Howard up. He was
surprised to see how big a mess he had made while eating. Anita wiped his
lips with the dirty bib and removed it from his neck to scrape most of the
mess from his hands with the clean side of the bib. Then she folded the bib
neatly and laid it inside of the discarded Happy Meal box. Once she had
wiped him clean with one of the wet wipes from the little box, she threw
away the remnants of their meal and carried him back to the van. When they
got home, Anita got out of the Suburban and went to the back seat to carry
him into the house. When she bent over to unfasten his seat belt, the smell
of a dirty diaper rose up from him and assaulted her nostrils. She shook
her head with a maternal expression of forbearance and looked at him more
closely. Howard had shrunk radically during the short ride home. It was
obvious that the process of regression had resumed. Poor little Howard l
ooked like he couldn't have been more than two years old. The seat belt
which she had snugged down to a tight fit over his tummy before the trip
started lay uselessly across the crotch of his diaper and his diaper hung
loosely about his waist, barely containing the both the mess that lay
beneath his bottom and the pee he had voided at the restaurant.
Anita unfastened the seat belt and carefully gathered him up in her arms to
carry him into the house. She deposited him on the family room floor in his
dirty diapers and said, "Honeybunch, Mommy has to go get the groceries out
of the Suburban. Mommy wants you to stay right there while she's gone. If
you move and make a mess on Mommy's clean rug, Mommy will spank! Do you
understand?"
He nodded his understanding and she left him as he was on the floor while
she went out to the van. Howard looked in wonder at the diaper which had
been so tight earlier in the day. It was so loose that if had stood up, it
would have immediately fallen off his tush. Howard played with his blocks
until Anita finished putting up the groceries and came in the room. She
looked at the pile of assorted toys that had been lying on the floor since
Saturday and shook her head, saying, "I think your dirty dydees will keep
for a little while. In the meantime, I think I should do something about
this room. It's a mess. It looks like I'm going to have to go through your
toys, Howie. Most of your toys weren't designed for babies. Oh well, I was
tired of looking at the mess anyway. These toys have littered the floor for
over a week!"
Anita went to the kitchen and returned with a large black plastic lawn and
leaf bag. She began picking up his toys and putting them in the bag. When
she was done, all that remained of his toys was a group of soft pushy
stuffed animals, multicolored donut-shaped stacking rings and a set of
pastel-colored nesting boxes. Anita left out the wheeled bubble push-toy
that was mounted to a stick, but she propped the long handle against the
wall where it would be out of the way. Howard frowned when he saw Anita
stow his beloved blocks in the bag with the other toys. Apparently she
thought that they were too dangerous for infant play. She dragged the bag
out to the garage and returned with a large flat folded object which she
laid on the floor next to Howard. When she unfolded it, Howard recognized
what the thing was; a playpen! Anita picked up his remaining toys and threw
them behind the wall of restraining mesh as Howard looked on in abject
horror. "Surely she doesn't mean to put me in there!", he thought to
himself.
His worst fears were realized when she lifted him under his armpits and
lowered him into the playpen with his toys. He had been busted out of the
ranks of men and demoted all the way down to infancy. Anita had used the
excuse of his disability to downgrade him clear through boyhood to the
lowest position possible in a family; the baby!
Howard wept silently for a time, then took up a stuffed toy and cuddled it
tentatively to his side. He felt alone and abandoned in the playpen. The
cold wet diaper and the slimy mess in which he sat was a constant reminder
of his loss of status. There was nothing left in life for him. Everything
that had made him a man was gone. He felt like all that was left of him was
a shell of his former self. He bore a portion of his former name and
nothing else. Anita was the boss now. She owned the house, the bank
accounts and their stocks. He didn't even own the dirty disposable diaper
that covered his bottom. Howard closed his eyes and tried to feel the
condition of his bladder, but even that was denied him. Everything below
his navel felt like it barely present. It was as if his bowels and bladder
belonged to someone else. His penis was a hopeless proposition. True, a
gentle massage still felt pleasurable, but the sensations weren't the same
as they had been before his transformation. Masturbation wasn't the
solitary adult recreation that he remembered. He had tried to jerk himself
off in his training pants for two nights running, but the pleasant
sensations his tiny erection had produced had only made him sleepy. His
best efforts were only a pale promise of the pleasures that might have been
had his body been sexually mature. Howard sighed and brought the stuffed
animal up to his face to rub it across his cheek. It wasn't the same as
running his lower jaw across Anita's velvety inner thighs when he used to
make love to her, but there was something sensual and comforting about the
feel of the fuzzy toy that made him feel better.
After a while he began playing with the ring toy that Anita had placed in
the playpen. It wasn't that he found it particularly entertaining, but he
remembered a mathematical problem he had read about in his college days.
There was a long standing mathematical problem that tried to find the
minimum number of moves to change the order of stacked rings from one
pillar to another. Essentially, the problem involved inverting the sequence
of rings on each pillar without taking more than one ring from a pillar at
one time. Howard thought that he had read somewhere of a multi-million move
solution that had been determined on a computer, but an intuitive solution
had never been found. There was the barest chance that he might find the
solution by inspection were others had failed. In any case, it was a way to
pass his time. Howard began stacking and unstacking rings one by one,
patiently enduring the boredom which threatened to dull his mind to the
point of uselessness. He repeated each action over and over going through
each motion automatically. Howard's consciousness contracted as the mind
numbing repetition destroyed all semblance of independent thought. The
fetid pain of his wounded mind seeped away to be absorbed like the overflow
from a septic tank in a verdant drain field. He was in a perfect state of
Zen, mindless, wordless, and egoless. When Anita finally came back to
change his dirty diaper, he was little more than a self-actuated protean
automaton which mindlessly continued its program until some outside agency
forced it to halt.
Anita came into the room carrying a small white box and what appeared to be
a folded white dish towel. She took him out of the playpen, sat him on the
floor, then put her hand on his chest and forced him to lay back on the
carpet. Anita unfastened the tapes of his diaper wordlessly and drew the
soggy front down between his legs to lay on the carpet. She lifted his legs
and made a preliminary wipe with the cold wet front on the diaper before
sliding the clean disposable under his bottom she had brought from the
kitchen under his bottom. After putting the dirty diaper aside, she
cleansed his bottom with one of the wet wipes from the plastic box she had
brought. Hoard ignored her ministrations and let her do her work unimpeded.
Instead of putting him in a clean pair of training pants as he'd hoped, she
dropped his legs to the carpet and quickly but firmly taped the clean
disposable diaper around his waist. When he saw what she'd done, Howard was
incensed. He was so angry he couldn't talk. Howard screamed an incoherent
curse toward his wife and beat his fists on the rug beside him in a perfect
imitation of a two-year-old's tantrum.
Anita stood over him and watched calmly as he lay supine on the floor,
drumming his heels and screaming in inarticulate fury. She noticed that his
excitement appeared to be accelerating his regression. His body became
smaller with every thud of his heels. She smiled grimly when she saw huge
flakes of skin drop off of his legs as he beat his feet on the floor. She'd
have to vacuum the carpet later, she decided.
When she had had enough, Anita bent over and flipped him over on his belly.
Then she picked up his wildly thrashing body from behind with the ease of
an experienced mother and carried him to the sofa. She sat him on her lap
and said, "That's enough, Baby! One more word out of you and I'll put you
over my knee and blister your bottom! Do you understand me?"
Howard ignored her threat and began screaming poorly enunciated profanity
up towards her. When Anita seized his hands in one of hers in an attempt to
reason with him, he reacted by trying to bite her arm. Immediately, she
pulled him down to lay on her lap and held him in position with one hand
while Howard continued to kick and scream. Howard's thrashing was
counterproductive though, the movement made his diapers fall halfway down
his buttocks without needing to be pulled down by his wife. Anita raised
her hand and proceeded to beat his bare bottom until it turned cherry red.
Howard's expression changed from unrestrained fury to one of complete
surprise. She was spanking him like a baby! The pain quickly cut through
his emotion clouded mind and filled it with agony; his rejuvenation had
given his skin the sensitivity of an infant. His angry curses died on his
lips and became screams of anguished pain. "This can't be happening to
me!", Howard thought to himself wildly as his punishment continued, "I'm
the man of the house. I wear the pants here! She can't spank me!"
The combination of pain, helplessness and humiliation was too much for
Howard. All he wanted to do was escape the torturous pain that threatened
to overwhelm his mind. He begged her stop but the spanking went on and on.
Anita was determined to break his rebellious behavior once and for all.
Gradually his yells of pain changed into broken sobs punctuated by the
gasped whimpers of a very young child. Howard's will broke and he lay
limply on her lap, his entire body shuddering with every slap on his
crimson bottom.
Howard raised his head in hope when Anita paused and said, "Have you had
enough, Baby? If you're going to throw temper tantrums like a two-year-old,
Mommy is going to treat you like one! Look at you! You poop in your dydees
and you have the temerity to throw a temper tantrum when Mommy changes you.
I think we should drop this pretense of thinking you can ever be a man
again. You don't even have the maturity of a preschooler! I've seen
two-year-olds that have better potty training than you have. Most of them
can hold their poop until they sit on the pot. As far as I can see, you're
only a thumb-sucking, diaper-messing infant! From now on, you're going to
be my baby! Do you understand? I'm going to tell the Daycare's manager to
move you into the nursery permanently. You won't have to worry about
messing in your training pants any more, Howie. I'll see that you're safety
dressed in diapers morning, noon and night. Now then, I think I deserve an
apology for your naughtiness, don't you?"
Howard knew that she was serious about making him her baby. He lowered his
head to her legs and whimpered at the news of his loss of adult standing.
Anita smiled at his posture; his submissive body language meant that he had
accepted defeat. "Well?", Anita asked.
Howard raised his head from her lap and said tearfully, "Me sorry!"
Anita patted his head solicitously and said, "Mommy forgives you,
Sweetheart. Who could stay mad at a baby who's as cute as you are?"
She tugged his diaper up to cover the angry skin of his reddened bottom and
laid him on the floor while she went into the kitchen. Howard heard Anita's
voice floating out of the kitchen as she spoke on the phone in barely
discernable tones. Whispers of some disconnected words of Anita's
conversation made their way to his ears. Her conversation seemed to
primarily concern him, but he couldn't be sure she was giving the same line
that she had told Susan at the restaurant and was embellishing the tale
with the latest exploits of the toddler she was babysitting. Whatever she
was saying, it was too much for comfort! Howard heard, "Howard's
gone...baby in the house now...sold my car...got enough money to pay for
the nursery furniture I bought...sent the furniture company a check the
other day and paid it all off... I'm driving Howard's Suburban now...saw
our next door neighbor Susan this afternoon ... he peed himself right in
front of her...you should have seen the adorable look of panic on his face
when he realized what he'd done...thought he looked like
Howard...ridiculous to assume just because he looks like....should have
seen the mess he made of himself at the restaurant...something told me to
buy disposable bibs for going out to eat when we were at the grocery
store...glad I did....bib was a lifesaver...from now on, he's wearing a bib
when he eats...not sure, but he looks like he's about
eighteen...Howard...poopy diaper...got his nursery ready for him a few
minutes ago...it looks adorable....going to throw away his training pants,
he sure won't be needing them now...tried to bite me....paddled his
fanny...positive...making the adjustment... promotion guaranteed...won't be
too long now...a month from the lab reports you showed me...agree with
you...okay with me no matter what happens...no legal issues...no, Howard
signed everything over to me...bastard...deserves it...always wanted to
have a baby...better than adoption ...finally...one of my own...we're all
going to be rich...love you too...bye!"
Howard thought angrily, "If she's talking about me, then who the Hell is
she talking to? I thought my condition was supposed to be a secret! Didn't
she tell me that we could tell anyone or she'd lose her job? If she isn't,
what the Hell is she talking about? Just what the Hell is she up to
anyway?"
After her phone call, Anita returned and put him back in his playpen to
amuse himself with his toys while she did some work in the bedroom. He
tried to stand to watch her leave but discovered that the mesh walls of the
playpen would give him no purchase to pull himself erect. He was forced to
creep on all fours to the other end of the playpen so he could see her
leave the room. Howard crept over to his toys and played with them in a
dilatory fashion for a few minutes before his hyperactive bladder betrayed
him again. Without notice, the front of his diaper became warm and began to
sag under the weight of his pee as he knelt in the playpen on his hands and
knees. When Anita was done in Howard's bedroom, she returned to find him
sitting in the playpen with a dazed expression on his face. His legs were
splayed out wide in front of him on the plastic pad and he was fingering
the bulge in his diapers in confusion after wetting them. When he noticed
her standing behind him, he gazed up at her with a helpless pleading look.
She picked him up from the playpen and held him to her breasts to comfort
him while she patted him on his diapered bottom. Anita could feel him
shrinking in her arms. Within minutes his size decreased until he resembled
a one-year-old. Anita smiled and nodded understandingly when she saw how
little he had become in the few minutes since she had left. Six-inch
patches of dead skin peeled from his body and fluttered to the floor like
colorless, translucent leaves as he desquamated his discarded scurf en
masse. His blank expression left no doubt in her mind that he was having
trouble comprehending was happening to him. She smiled warmly and stroked
his hair while she hugged her new baby tightly to her bosom. As she fondled
his hair, tufts of hair came free in her hand. His hair was thinning to an
infant's sparseness while she watched. Howard's confused state prevented
him from thinking about her remark when she mused to herself quietly, "Just
look at the way he's shedding. He needs to be brushed before he gets hair
everywhere. They didn't tell me that his final changes would take place so
quickly. I guess it's time to get his bed ready for his nap."
Anita gently sat him back on the pad of the playpen and handed him a
stuffed toy to play with while she got the bathroom ready for his bath. She
returned a few minutes later and took him to the bathroom for his bath. His
mind seemed to clear somewhat and he thought about what she had said before
she put him in the playpen. Everything seemed so confusing to him. She
seemed to be his mother, but he had memories of her being his wife in a
dimly remembered previous existence. "Who had she been talking about?",
Howard asked himself while she carried him down the hall, "Who are the
'They' she was talking about?".
When she stopped in front of the counter-to-ceiling bathroom mirror to pick
up the baby's hair brush lying next to the basin, Howard got his first
glimpse of what he had become. Anita's arms held an adorable baby boy with
curly light brown hair and big blue eyes. The baby appeared to be a little
less than a year old. He noticed that the crotch of the disposable diapers
the baby was wearing had a large yellowish stain beneath the translucent
white plastic covering. Anita gave his head a quick once over with the
brush then stopped to pull the thick wad of hair that had accumulated in
the brush. She brushed out his hair again causing a shower of freed hair to
fall from his head and land on his chest and shoulders. Anita cleaned the
brush again and brushed his hair a final time. Howard looked in the mirror
and saw that his hair had thinned considerably. Most of his hair lay on the
counter where Anita had cleaned the brush. The sparse wisps of hair that
remained on his scalp emphasized the look of extreme youth of the baby in
the mirror. After his scalp had been stripped of its loose hair, he looked
like he couldn't be more than ten months old. The shock of his appearance
cleared his mind and he thought as she picked up the wad of hair, tossed it
in the open toilet and turned on the tub, "No wonder Anita's treating me
like an infant! Not only do I pee and mess in my diapers like a baby, I
look like one!"
Anita stripped off the wet diaper and bathed him gently in the tub. Howard
was stunned to see that every time she rinsed the washcloth she was using
to bathe him, dense white clouds of dead skin eddied from the fabric into
the bathwater. Within minutes the small white flakes of skin had changed
the clear bathwater into a milky solution. Howard saw that the surface of
the water was covered with a thick layer of swirling dandruff that Anita
had scrubbed from his body. He looked down at his tummy and saw that his
epidermis had acquired the fresh, pink, wrinkled look of a newborn's skin.
When Anita had finished scrubbing the sloughed particles of skin from his
body, she took him out and briskly rubbed him dry with a huge bath towel.
She wrapped him in the towel and carried him to the spare room.
As Anita opened the door to the room, Howard was horrified to see that she
had mounted rails on either side of his mattress. On the side of the door,
he noticed that a baby gate had been added to the door post of his nursery
so that he could be allowed to roam freely on his hands and knees while
confined to the boundaries of his room. His stylish youth bed had been
transformed in a single afternoon into a handsome walnut crib complete with
a wind-up mobile of baby bunnies that hung over the head of the crib. The
Winnie the Poo comforter was still there, but was now draped over the end
of the white-sheeted crib. His pillow however had vanished into whatever
storage place women had to hide things from their men. She had even changed
the window treatment from the age-neutral, tawny, heavy-threaded weave
which had graced the room earlier that morning to curtains with a decidedly
babyish motif. He gaped in horror at the curtain's fine colored drawings of
diapered baby boys gamboling and creeping amidst a profusion of baby
blocks, rattles, pacifiers and nippled bottles on a powder blue background.
Everywhere he looked, Howard saw that his bedroom had been not-so-subtly
transmogrified into an infant's nursery. He shivered when he saw the huge
oak rocker that now occupied the corner of the room with a baby blue
receiving blanket draped neatly over the back. He had a feeling that Anita
would soon be using it to rock him to sleep at night in her arms. She had
accented the light blue-white of the walls by a waist-high (for Anita)
six-inch tall strip of storks on a white field carrying blue-swathed baby
bundles in their long yellow beaks with rows repeating of blue outlined
baby bottles bordering the top and bottom of the decorative strip. She had
even managed to change the slightly childish appliques of brightly colored
balloons into a damnably infantine theme by the simple addition of cut-outs
of diapered teddy bears with their arms upraised underneath the balloons.
Now the balloons had the appearance of being held by infant teddy bears.
Howard sniffed in disgust and realized that she had somehow managed to
change how the room smelled. The faintly disagreeable odor of latex paint
had dissipated. Instead of the strong neutral smell of freshly washed be
dlinen mixed with the almost imperceptible odor of new paint the room had
had in the morning when he woke up, the room now fairly reeked with the
sweet scent of baby powder.
Suddenly the room's appearance took on ominous implications. The muted
clacking sounds that Anita's low heels made as they hit the hard wooden
floor while she carried him into the nursery reminded Howard why areas that
babies played in frequently weren't carpeted. She had removed the carpet
and exposed the parquet flooring because a baby could be expected to make
messes on floors. All it took to clean baby poop from a wooden floor was a
quick swipe with a mop drenched in disinfectant. She wouldn't have to drag
out the carpet cleaner each time he made a mess on the floor. Baby spit,
poop and pee were too difficult to clean from carpets to not take
reasonable precautions. She had planned this all along! It wasn't any
accident that she had bought furniture that could be so easily changed into
nursery furnishings. She had purchased the decorations long before he had
made the final transformation into an infant's body. She had set out from
the very beginning to buy furnishings suitable for a baby. The training
pants and the Daycare Center were all part of a complex design to ensnare
him into accepting the life of a small child. From what he could see, the
changes she had introduced in his life were only the intermediate stage in
her plans. Anita had intended to set up a baby nursery for him all along!
The furniture she had bought hadn't been intended for a child as he had
originally thought, but had been designed for an infant's use instead. No
wonder the armoire was so small!
Howard glanced at the armoire and saw that the small door was still ajar.
He could see a tiny rack of gaily colored garb hanging inside waiting for
his use. He knew the clothes must be several sizes smaller than the clothes
that had populated it before, because the feet of the miniature sleepers he
glimpsed between the crack between the door and the armoire's frame barely
touched its floor. The peek that he had of several onsies hanging from the
rack told him that she expected him to remain the size of a baby for a long
time. She hadn't bought that many clothes of the same size when he was
still regressing through his youth. Obviously Anita had been fully prepared
for him to shrink to the size of a baby and had bought a complete layette
in anticipation of his regression into infancy. Howard noticed that a baby
scale now stood on top of the armoire. Logic told him that she must have
known he was going to regress to the size of an infant, otherwise, why
would she have purchased a set of baby scales weeks before? When he looked
at the dresser he saw that the top of the dresser had been fitted with an
inch-thick, white-plastic covered pad. Behind the second railing at the
back of the dresser sat a tall white plastic economy-sized bottle of baby
power, a large blue tub of baby wipes, a huge jar of vaseline plainly
labeled for nursery use, and five to six disposable diapers wedged between
the two railings. The purpose of the dresser's odd construction was
transparent; it was meant to be a baby's diaper changing station. Anita's
strategy was crystalline clear. She had known, had expected, him to become
an infant! No wonder she had tried to dissuade him from going to a doctor!
She had wanted a baby and he had refused her one. Now HE was going to be
her baby!
But the question plagued him, "How could she have known?" His chemical
accidents had been serendipitous, she couldn't have possibly known what the
eventual outcome could be, could she? Even had she known, why hadn't she
rushed him to a hospital? Did her drive to be a mother unhinge her mind or
had she just been planning ahead, as was her usual wont? If she wasn't
insane, why was she willing to give up a husband in exchange for a helpless
baby? How could she expect to support the both of them on her income alone?
Granted, she seemed to be enjoying his rejuvenation, but maybe that was her
maternal instincts kicking in. There were far too many unanswered questions
for him to form any kind of rational conclusion. Was he being paranoid or
was there some darker plan Anita had in motion that had not yet
materialized?
After laying Howard on the changing table, Anita put a clean diaper under
his bottom and fastened the diapers on his shrunken frame. Anita picked up
a small pair of baby nail clippers and went to work on his bath-softened
nails. Howard caught a glimpse of the hand she was working on a saw that
his nails seemed to have grown to enormous length in the past hour.
Actually his nails hadn't grown at all; his fingers had gotten smaller and
retracted back from his fingernails while the dead tissue of his nails had
remained the same size. Once she had finished with his fingers, she lifted
a foot and started working on his toes. Howard tried to apologize for his
behavior again, saying in a sorrowful tone, "Me sowwy me bad, Mama."
To his horror, Howard realized that he had lost the ability to make "R"
sounds. His babytalk was no longer a pretence! He could only talk like a
baby! Instead of being an unwilling participant in the self-serving fraud
she had managed to inveigle him into playing, he had become honestly
speech-impaired. His deteriorating control over his muscles made him
completely unable to manage the consonant sounds of adult speech. While she
diapered him he experimented with random noises and discovered that he no
longer had the ability to make the "L" and "Th" sounds either. The best he
could manage was to substitute the "W" sound instead. It gave him a
pronounced lisp and made him sound like a baby who had just learned to
talk. He no longer had to pretend to talk like a baby, he couldn't have
talked like an adult if he had wanted to!
She carried him to the kitchen and prepared a bottle of formula for him
while he rode on her hip. Once the bottle was warmed, Anita carried him
back to the nursery and sat down with him in the rocking chair she had
bought. She laid him on his back and proceeded to feed him the formula from
the bottle. Howard tried to resist, but the minute the nipple was in his
mouth, his infantilized reflexes caused him to begin to suckle. Howard
wondered what kind of formula it was, the milk was much thinner than cow's
milk but it had a richer sweeter taste. He decided that she must be feeding
him goat's milk, he had read a description of its flavor that was similar
to how the formula tasted. After he finished the bottle, Anita laid a cloth
diaper over her shoulder and turned him so that he faced her. Then she held
him close to her and began to pat his back gently to bubble him. Instead of
the belching, Howard's reflexes became confused and the pressure of the air
in his stomach made him regurgitate a mouthful of formula. Howard tried to
stop himself, but the thin milk flow