The image was bizarre, even to me. My worst enemy and I, sitting in my dorm room together, throwing back beers as if we were old friends.
His name was Ted. He was a 22-year-old senior who cared more about having fun than doing anything worthwhile. Unfortunately, his idea of having a good time frequently involved tormenting me. And I’m not talking about harmless pranks… I’m talking about full-fledged humiliation and beatings. Either the whole seniors-tormenting-freshmen trend wasn’t relegated to high school as I had originally suspected, or Ted was having a tough time growing up.
My name’s Robert, and I’m an 19-year-old freshman. I’m not a nerd, or a loser, or an outcast… things you may expect me to be after hearing of my troubles with Ted. I’m a small guy, though – five foot six, a hundred and fifty pounds – and more smart than tough, which is a recipe for disaster. Ted’s an imposing guy, besting my height by a good foot and my weight by around fifty pounds.
Getting Ted into my dorm room was a surprisingly easy task. He had been stumbling around campus, bouncing from party to party, getting increasingly loaded with each stop on his grand tour. By the time I ran into him, he must have had nearly a dozen beers pumping through his bloodstream. Fortunately, he was one of those guys that becomes amiable while under the influence, and he was more than willing to stop by the dorm room of his favorite victim. The promise of free beer didn’t hurt, of course.
I looked at Ted from across the room. He was sitting on the floor, leaning up against the wall, his legs spread out in front of him. Ted was burning through my beers pretty quickly, but he was handling them remarkably well. His well-maintained blond hair was only slightly messy, and his black t-shirt and baggy blue jeans were devoid of any telltale beer stains. He could even be mistaken for sober, until he opened his mouth.
“’Nother beer, Rob?” he asked, jerking me away from my thoughts.
“Nah, that’s okay,” I replied. I had only had one beer, but my limited intake was a calculated decision. As kind and well-meaning Ted was for offering one of my own bottles, I had big plans for that night, and I wanted to enjoy the fruits of my labor.
I stood up and walked towards my closet. “Let’s play a game,” I suggested.
“What kinna game?”
“A board game,” I said. “One I made earlier today.”
Ted gave a snort of derision.
“I was bored.” From my closet I removed a large sheet of cardboard, two playing pieces, and a pair of dice. Upon the board was a crudely-scrawled ring of squares, most of which were blank, some of which had numbers drawn inside them: -1, -2, and -3. I placed the game board between Ted and myself and handed him a playing piece and a die.
“’Sit have a name?” Ted asked.
“Not yet,” I replied.
“What’re the numbers for?”
“Uh… score,” I said. Without missing a beat, I grabbed a pad of paper and a pen from my desk and set them beside me. “They’re negative numbers, so they reduce your score. After both of us make one trip around the grid, whoever has the lowest score wins the game.”
“That’s retardated,” said Ted, scrunching his face up. “Slet make it interesting. Twenty bucks?”
I sighed in frustration. “Twenty it is.”
I rolled my die and landed on a blank square, as expected.
“I gotta piss,” said Ted.
I rolled my eyes. “Can’t you wait until the end of the game? It’s short.”
“Fine,” he replied, throwing his hands up defensively. Ted rolled his die and it took him to a square marked -1. “Okay, so what does that mean?”
“Negative one score, remember?” I said. “You’re winning.” I picked up the pad of paper and the pen, but I didn’t write -1 under Ted’s name. I wrote 21.
“Great,” he said, and took a swig of his beer. “Go.”
I rolled again, and landed on another blank square. It had been difficult locating a pair of specially-weighted, custom-made dice, but you’d be amazed at how willing a novelty and prank store is to satisfy a customer when offered the right price. And since I had paid it, I was assured that I would always land on blank squares, and Ted would always get the numbers. He was going to win, all right.
Ted’s next roll took him to a -2, and I put a 19 under his name. I decided it was time to see if my plan was working.
“You’re taking Physics 2 this semester, right Ted?” I asked.
Ted looked up at me as if I had just said something incredibly stupid. “Course not, you idiot. Freshmen can’t take Physics 2.”
Ted wasn’t undergoing any physical changes… it was all in his head. At that point, I knew that he was merely a 19-year-old trapped in a 22-year-old’s body. Everything was working out perfectly.
We kept playing. Blank space for me, -2 for Ted. Another blank space for me, -1 for Ted. After one more turn – which left the scoring area underneath my name empty and the area under Ted’s reading 14 – I realized he had dusted off another beer.
“Want another beer?” I asked Ted.
Ted blushed, scratched the back of his head, and looked at the floor. “My parents would kill me if they found out I had a beer.”
I chuckled. “Well, if you won’t tell them, neither will I.” I handed him another bottle, and the game went on.
One turn later, Ted’s so-called “score” was 13. “So, how’s school going?” I asked him.
“It’s going good,” he said, taking a sip of his beer. “Gonna be in high school next year.”
“Really?” I said, rolling my die. Blank square.
“Uh-huh,” replied Ted. -2.
I had Ted mentally regressed to the status of an 11-year-old, but he was already more than halfway around the ring. Fortunately, the odds went up considerably in the final stretch, with only a few squares blank – and the numbered ones ranging from -2 to -3.
Blank square for me. -3 for Ted.
“Rob, I REALLY have to go pee now,” whined Ted. “Can I go now? Please?”
“We’re almost done,” I said. “Can’t you wait a few more minutes?” Ted squirmed and nodded weakly, readjusting his legs and clutching feebly at his crotch.
Ted rolled again. -1.
“My teacher says I’m a good student an’ I got an A on my last writing thing an’ I won the spelling bee well almost won cause the word was Tuesday and I spelled Tuesday right but I forgot to say ‘capital’ before the first letter so I lost but I actually won cause that wasn’t fair.”
And again. -3.
On the scorepad, beneath Ted’s name, I wrote the number 4. When I looked up, Ted was sucking his thumb.
“Ted, what are you doing?”
Ted looked embarrassed. I almost felt guilty for calling him on it. “Suckin’ my fumb.”
“Aren’t you a little old for that?” I asked.
“Mommy said it was okay if I stopped on my next birfday.”
I nodded and smiled at my handiwork. Ted had transformed from a vindictive, unlikable college senior to an absolutely adorable little boy. It almost made me like the guy. The game was almost over.
Ted rolled his die one last time… dropped it, actually, as he was losing control of his motor skills. He moved his playing piece to the appropriate square. -2.
On my scorepad, there was a small note which read “GOAL: 2.” Beside it, I placed a checkmark.
Ted whined and started pawing wildly at his crotch. I could tell his bladder was about to burst.
“What’s wrong, Ted?” I asked in my kindest, warmest voice.
“Me no wearing dipee,” he said in a weak voice. “Me need dipee.”
“I think I may have just what you need.”
I congratulated myself on my foresight and pulled a diaper from my closet… one large enough to fit Ted’s 22-year-old body. Ted started clapping childishly when he saw it. He must have really liked his diapers.
Ted needed help getting out of his blue jeans and boxers, and I was more than willing to assist him, provided he didn’t lose control all over me. He must have been a smart kid, since he managed to hold his bladder as I took off all of his clothes, wrapping up the process by pulling his t-shirt over his head and tossing it aside to join the remainder of his clothes.
Ted obediently laid his naked body down on my bed, spreading his legs in preparation for his diapering. I unfolded the diaper, powdered Ted’s crotch, lifted his legs up, and slid the soft, warm diaper under his bottom.
“Ah, I almost forgot something.” I reached into a nearby bag and removed a small, baby-blue pacifier. On the knob of the pacifier was an adorable yellow bear driving a speedboat. When Ted saw this, he clapped energetically once again, and practically snatched it from my hands before I inserted it into his waiting mouth. Ted sucked peacefully on the pacifier, letting his eyes fall shut as I nestled a stuffed doggie into his arms.
Ted cuddled the doggie and sucked on the pacifier as I pulled the front of the diaper up between his legs and held it to his tummy, taping up either side securely. I guided my hands along Ted’s thighs and tucked in the legbands of the diaper to prevent him from leaking all over my bed. A few moments later, Ted was diapered, and I sat back to admire my handiwork.
As if on cue, Ted began wetting his diaper. I glanced up at his face and found that his eyes were still closed, and a small smile was curling up around his pacifier as he emptied his straining bladder. As the front of Ted’s diaper quickly changed color from virgin white to yellow, I could see him squirming in pleasure at the feeling of his hot piss coating his genitals and absorbing into the thirsty fabric. He even let out a little giggle. The kid was adorable.
When Ted finished, his diaper was completely saturated, and he quickly dropped off into blissful, infantile slumber. I was tired, too, but before I decided to curl up on the floor to catch some sleep, I had one more thing to do. Perhaps the most important step of all.
-=-=-
When Ted woke up the following morning, I was sitting at my computer, organizing some files. I had already cleaned and redressed Ted in his street clothes while he was asleep, and if everything had gone according to plan, his mind had returned to its original 22-year-old state.
The first sentence out of Ted’s mouth was “What the ***** am I doing here?” He was back to normal.
“Have a good sleep, Ted?”
Ted leapt up and walked towards me. He was fuming. “I said, what the ***** am I doing here? In YOUR room?”
“You came here last night, man,” I said. “We had a few beers together.”
“I don’t remember that,” huffed Ted. “Did you drag me in here to rape me or something, you little faggot?”
I sat back from my computer and turned to face him. “Listen, Ted, I think it would be a good idea if you laid off me for a while. The insults, the beatings, all that stuff. Just stop, alright?”
Ted laughed. “Yeah, right.”
“I’m just warning you, man.”
“Or what?” Ted asked, advancing on me. “What the ***** are you gonna do about it?”
I turned back to the computer monitor and clicked through a few folders. Suddenly, a picture of Ted popped up on my computer screen.
A picture of Ted, cuddling a stuffed dog, sucking on a pacifier, and wearing a very, very wet diaper.
I clicked through a few more pictures which I had taken with my digital camera while Ted had woken up in the middle of the night. A picture of Ted sucking on his toes. A picture of Ted rolling onto his back, his hands clutching the skin behind his knees. A picture of Ted sucking his thumb with one hand and playing with his penis with the other.
“What, you don’t remember this stuff?” I asked. I didn’t even bother trying to hide my grin.
Ted balled his hand into a fist and wheeled back to strike me.
“Ah-ah-ah,” I scolded. “You do that, and I print out copies of these pictures and hand them to everybody I know. Every last one of my friends. Every last one of YOUR friends. Maybe even post a few extra copies around campus, just for good measure.”
“How—”
“Remember our little board game last night?” I asked, motioning to the cardboard on the floor. “You’d be amazed at how willing an occult store is to satisfy a customer when offered the right price.”
I reached into my pocket and took out a $20 bill, which I handed to the fuming Ted. “Oh, and you won the game, by the way.”
Ted’s hand was still balled up into a fist. I rose up from my chair and faced Ted, standing about two inches away from him.
“Go ahead,” I said. “Take a swing. I can’t wait to show off my adorable Baby Teddy to the entire campus.”
I stared at Ted. His face was flushed with crimson. I thought his head was about to explode.
He stared at me, too. Then he stormed out the door and slammed it behind him.
Ted hasn’t tormented me since. Every once in a while, I e-mail him the picture of him enjoying his pacifier and soaking wet diaper.
Just to be sure.