The New Narnia

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The New Narnia
Date Published: June 28, 2021, 1:59pm
Written By: personalias

Chapter 1: D-List
“But I know, I know, life can be beautiful
I pray, I pray for a better way
If we changed back then, we could change again
We can be beautiful…
Just not today.”
Thomas Dean liked musicals. He liked music in general (what eighteen year old didn’t?), but he particularly liked musical theater. Music was pure expression, emotion made real and given a beat. It was joy. It was anger. It was loneliness. Horniness, too.
Most music- most commercial music, anyway- was too general, too generic, for Tom to connect with. Yes, “Rain Is A Good Thing.” And? Yes, we’re “Only Human,” and we like to dance. Duh. And every single love song or break up song wasn’t about anyone in particular, it was about “you.”
Bo Burnham (whose standup was just this side of a dark musical comedy) had it right: “I love your hands because your fingerprints are like no other, I love your eyes and blueish, brownish, greenish color.” So vague as to be universal, but the connection was lost as soon as the catchy beat stopped.
If Shakespeare was writing today, the famous line would have been. “You. Oh you. Where are you? Give up your family and I’ll give up mine.” Which, admittedly, was a sweet and hopelessly romantic sentiment, but did it have any power without people’s nostalgia and recognition of the themes of two star crossed lovers from warring families? Tom didn’t think so.
Broadway, however, wasn’t nearly as broad, and that was the appeal. Musicals told stories; fantasies and fictions that combined the raw emotion of music with characters that you could relate to and imprint on.
Tom never imagined himself hanging out with Lil Nas X or Brad Paisley. It was never going to happen, and they had nothing in common. But he could relate to Elphaba, and Tracy Turnblad, and Leo Bloom. Alexander Hamilton was MAYBE the ten dollar bill guy to most Americans before the play came out. Tom felt he knew what it was like to be an outsider looking in and dreaming of bigger things.
He couldn’t relate to Beiber telling some hot nobody to go love themselves. He’d never have his own song on the radio that would “give you hell”. In their own sad way, the rich and famous people who sang the songs were less attainable, less relatable, and less real to him than the fictional characters who strutted it out on stage.
But the fictional characters? Pasty white instead of emerald green, Tom was no Elphaba, but he sure as hell dreamed that he could defy gravity one day despite what other people thought of him. He wasn’t teased for being overweight, like Tracy Turnblad was- if anything he was almost skinny enough to be considered malnourished- but how he wished he could muster her boundless energy and optimism. Unlike Leo Bloom, Tom had no desire to be a producer; he’d buy tickets and go to New York instead of watching old bootlegs on Youtube if he ever got the chance, but that was as far as he’d go. However, he couldn’t help but nod and tear up a bit when the timid little accountant shouted at the top of his lungs, “STOP THE WORLD! I WANT TO GET ON!”
Maybe it wasn’t the music itself, but a musical character’s ability to say and sing so succinctly what they were feeling in the moment and express their true selves so well, that attracted Tom to them. A song could last only three minutes, but that high, that story, that fantasy that created the connection could last a lot lot longer.
In his fifth period math class, Tom sighed himself out of his own reverie. It was the twenty-first century, so he’d been told, and a young man liking a song and dance number was nothing to look sideways at. Shit. In most places nowadays, if you started with “Let’s. Get Down. To Business!” the next lines out of everybody else’s mouth would be “To Defeat. The Huns!” Same was true for “Let it Go” and “You’re Welcome.” Disney always got a free pass, but a body wouldn’t be looked down on if they were jamming out to Hamilton, or Rent, or The Book of Mormon, either.
Scrumpton, Georgia wasn’t most places. Culturally it was still somewhere in between 1950 and 1980. The Breakfast Club was a roadmap on how to live your life, the part about torturing nerds and duct taping their butt cheeks included. Scrumpton liked to pretend it was Mayberry from Andy Griffith, but was honestly a lot closer to Derry from Stephen King. Tom couldn’t count how many times he’d been drafted to go dumpster diving by the jocks.
It was Friday afternoon. Tom didn’t need a calendar to know that. He could have been sucked into an alternate dimension, spend years there in dank caves fighting zombies and goblins, pop back to Earth and still know what day of the week it was in Scrumpton just by looking around. Like most small towns without much to do, high school football ruled Scrumpton’s Friday nights. That meant that all the jocks wore their jerseys and all the cheerleaders wore their uniforms.
Amanda Monroe was a cheerleader. She sat in front of Tom in fifth period and had a habit of leaning over so she could snicker and whisper during Mr. Jordan’s boring math lectures. “Math math math…coefficient…math math math…sine and cosine…math math math…variables…math math.” That’s not what Mr. Jordan said (except for that one time when he did to see if anyone was paying attention) but it’s what everyone but the big brains heard on a Friday afternoon with no tests looming and yet another big game only hours away.
Haphazardly copying down Mr. Jordan’s numerical chicken scratch and praying to the weekend gods that he’d understand more of it come Sunday night, Tom’s eyes kept darting to Amanda…part of her, anyway. He couldn’t hear what Amanda was saying to her mean-girls-bestie Cameron, but he wasn’t paying attention to her voice just then.
Amanda’s cheerleading skirt was very, very short. And even though her matching bike shorts covered more than enough to meet the school dress code requirements, they were also tight enough so that Tom could tell that she wasn’t wearing any panties.
Mmmm…panties.
Unless it was a thong.
Mmmm…a thong.
No! No! No! It was perverted! It was wrong! Amanda was a person! Not just a piece of ass…a sweet sweet piece of ass!
NO!
This was wrong! Amanda wasn’t some random girl. He’d known her since they were both just out of diapers. Yeah, they’d drifted apart in middle school, and she definitely looked a lot different than she had back during their playground days. Puberty had been VERY good to her (him not so much), but Amanda wasn’t just some random stranger for him to ogle online. She was somebody’s daughter. Somebody’s sister.
Like his own sister…
Eww-eww-eww! Don’t think about THAT! That’s even grosser! Tom blinked and images of Katlynn’s bony ass flashed across his eyelids. UG! Nothing more boner-killing than thinking of your own sister. It was bad enough that they’d had to share a womb.
Scumpton was in Georgia, and it checked a lot of stereotypes for the state. It didn’t check THAT box, though…not for Tom, at least.
Tom stared back at his paper, trying to focus more on math and less on ass. His eyes flitted upward. Amanda was still bent over, whispering something to Cameron. Mr. Jordan’s spirit had long been broken and he made no move to stop people from talking as long as it didn’t interrupt his scribblings on the board….and even then the old man did his best to ignore it.
Must not look. Must not look. Must do math.
Damn it, now she was swaying her hips, wiggling, waving it. It was like a matador waving a cape at a bull.
Must do math.
He wanted to lean forward and tap Amanda on the shoulder, or cough or something to get her attention. Maybe she’d stop.
Must. Not. Look. Must. Do. Math.
Not that he wanted her to stop; not that it was his place to tell her to stop. It wasn’t Amanda’s fault that he found her incredibly hot to the point of distraction and it wasn’t her responsibility to control his impulses.
But he felt like he was taking advantage or perving on her because she might not know he was looking. She might not care, either, but how did he ask permission without drawing attention to himself and being a total weirdo?
Another showtune- My Unfortunate Erection- screamed its way into his brain.
Damn it, life was hard!
Must. Do. Look. Not. Math.
Was it even Tom’s place or responsibility to do anything other than keep his thoughts and opinions to himself? A war of teenage hormones clashing up against prudish and confused sexual attitudes raged in his brain.
Must. Not. Do. Math! Must LOOK!
Tom was still a horny eighteen-year-old boy. And sometimes, as much as he might try otherwise, Tom thought with his dick. And he was just looking, after all…right? Right. She was right in front of him, bending over for everyone to see. It’s not like he was drilling peep holes in the girl’s locker room.
He wouldn’t say anything about it, he resolved. He was doing nothing wrong, saying nothing, and putting his hands on no one. Nor did he do anything to manipulate these circumstances into being. Literally just a case of right place at the right time.
Tom would take mental notes, (not in math…fuck math) save certain images in his brain, and go rub one out into an old sock later tonight.
Case closed. Matter solved. God bless cheerleaders. God bless cheerleader outfits. God bless Friday afternoons.
“Hey! Look at D-List!” Josh Hamlin yelled out. D-List. That was Tom’s nickname since fifth grade. He’d hated it, every asshole his age knew it, and that’s why it had endured into senior year. “D-List is pitching a tent!”
All eyes within a five-seat radius of Thomas Dean were immediately on him, save Mr. Jordan who was still rambling off about some inconsequential formula that could be used to calculate the apocalypse with only a three month margin of error.
Tom looked down at his lap. It was true. His unfortunate protuberance seemed to have its own exuberance. The little guy was practically waving hello at everyone.
Cameron looked to Amanda and then over to Tom. “Enjoying the view, little guy?”
“Dude,” someone yelled, “ya ditch them khakis and get some jeans!” Raucous laughter from all around.
Amanda frowned. “You little perv!” She drew her hand back as if to slap him, but froze when Tom was already flinching backwards.
“Careful, ‘Manda!” Trevor Macintosh yelled out. “He might like it!” Amanda’s hand flopped down to her side.
If Tom had been more quick-witted, more confident, more brazen, or cool…more SOMETHING…he could have handled the moment and turned it around in his favor. He could have called out Josh Hamlin for looking at his crotch, or just own it and pass it off for laughs with him instead of at him.
He could have apologized like an adult. He could at least have shrugged it off and said…said…SOMETHING, DAMNIT!
If this was a musical, he could have broken out into song, and by the time it was done his erection would be gone and forgotten.
Tom wasn’t any of that, though, and this was definitely not a musical.
All he could do was stammer “S-s-sorry,” as he got up, covering his crotch, tears in his eyes as he ran out of the classroom.
“Awww, he jizzed in his pants, too!” Josh yelled out. “Somebody get that man a condom!”
Laughter, even though the joke didn’t make any damn sense. That was another thing about musicals; fiction in general: You had to actually be clever and witty and poignant with your jokes to get laughs. In high school all you had to do was be loud, mean-spirited and reference someone else’s private parts.
With calls of “D-List!” and “Loser” and “Perv” and yes, “Condom,” echoing behind him as he ran out of class, Tom booked it to the boys bathroom where he sat on the toilet with the stall locked; doing his level best not to cry his eyes out.
Tom liked musicals; a rare thing for a boy, especially a straight one, to like in a place like Scrumpton, but those fantasies set to melodies could articulate his feelings better than any dose or combination of rap, pop, metal, rock, or country.
Junior year, he’d gotten ahold of the soundtrack for Heathers. The opening number summed up his experience pretty well.
“We were so tiny, happy and shiny. Playing tag and getting chased. Singing and clapping, laughing and napping. Baking cookies, and eating paste. Then we got bigger, that was the trigger, like the Huns invading Rome.” And between each line the ensemble cast shouted insults at each other, like freak, slut, loser, and short-bus.
“Welcome to my school, this ain’t no high school.
This is the Thunderdome.”
That’s how it had been for Tommy Dean. Elementary school had been good enough. Kids were nice. Teachers did everything they could and cared for you like a second parent. There weren’t winners or losers unless it was a game of Yu-Gi-Oh or four square out on the playground, and then the slate was wiped clean as soon as the next game began.
Things were, as the song went on to say, “beautiful.”
But somewhere just around middle school, puberty had changed everything. Kids judged more. Teachers had less time. People suddenly cared where you got your clothes from- bought or donated- and where you lived. All of a sudden, whether Mom and Dad paid for your lunch or whether the school gave you free food impacted your social status among the cliques.
Oh yeah. Around that time, cliques became a thing, too. It wasn’t just about “Mrs. Miller’s Third Grade vs. Mrs. Sampson’s Third Grade.” Come sixth grade, it was all about Jocks, and Cheerleaders, and Goths, and Geeks and Freaks and Preps and Nerds and so on and so forth. There wasn’t a particular clique for kids who took home backpacks filled with non-perishables from the local church on weekends, save maybe “losers.”
That’s what Tom was; a loser. Tommy and Katy went from being “the twins,” to “the poor kids,” “the smelly kids,” and yes, “the losers.”
In a weird way, Tommy and Katy didn’t exist anymore. Tommy and Katy had friends.
Now they were Tom and Katlynn Dean. Tom and Katlynn didn’t really have much in the way of friends these days.
Tom heard the rumors. They were rubbed in his face. Katlynn was somehow a dirty skank ho, despite never having a boyfriend or going on a date. She was stuck at home with not much to do most nights, same as him.
And Tom was so far down the social totem pole that he was “D-List.” After this latest humiliation, there’d probably be some kind of dumb penis joke attached to his name…probably “condom”…his peers still weren’t that clever, all things considered.
The creak of the boys’ room door alerted Tom. He wasn’t alone. “Hey D-List!” Another boy called in, Trevor Macintosh by the sound of it. “You forgot your backpack in fifth period, dude!” Somehow the bell had rung and Tom hadn’t noticed. Not surprising given the circumstances.
“Go away!” was all Tom could make himself say, his throat closing up, his embarrassing erection thoroughly destroyed, but his humiliation flaring up like a bad case of acne. “I’m busy.”
“Heh…busy, right! I’ll bet!” Trevor’s voice rumbled off of linoleum. Only silence from Tom. A mean spirited perverted laugh came from Trevor, not unlike a certain pair of big headed idiots looking to score. “Heh…there are worse chicks to yank it to than Amanda.”
Tom didn’t talk. Trevor was the worst kind of bully. Trevor was the kind that pretended to be your friend, to give you a minute of false hope before making you the butt of his joke. He’d bring in you in for a hug with his left arm so he could sucker punch you with his right.
Best way to deal with bullies like him, Momma had always told Tom, was not to respond. It had never worked…but Tom didn’t see any other viable options. He couldn’t take Trevor in a fight. Trevor was a foot taller and he was wearing his jersey today. “Alright, then.” Trevor finally said. “Whatever.”
Another beat. “Look, I got your backpack. I’ll let everybody in sixth know you’re busy yanking it in here.” He would too. The corners of Tom’s mouth drooped into a desperate, depressed, nearly cartoonish frown. Tom still didn’t speak. He couldn’t right now.
Part of him wished he could at least sing. Even during a sad song, time was kind enough to stop in a musical.
“I’ll leave it here for ya, D-List.” Trevor said. From his spot in the stall, Trevor heard the slight rustling and riffling of thin plastic and a solid thunk as his book bag hit the floor, followed by the creaking of the boys’ room door opening back up. Tom didn’t need to come out of the stall and look around. He already knew that his backpack had been dumped in the trash.


Chatper 2- A Home Away From Hell
Downtown
That’s your home address
Ya live
Downtown
When your life’s a mess
Ya live
Downtown
Where depressions’ just Status Quo
Down on Skid Row
Tom didn’t slam the door when he came home. Slamming the door would have taken too much energy and the door didn’t deserve his wrath, or at least it didn’t merit it as much school did. “Home” in this case was Apartment 27 in Forrest Luxury Apartments.
He wasn’t sure why the Section 8 housing had the name “Luxury” in it; either this part of the slums sucked way less when ground first broke, or somebody had a bizarre and ironic sense of humor. Tom suspected it might be the latter.
Luxurious or not, it was home. Home was a two-bedroom one-bathroom apartment for three people. It was dirty and cluttered and reeked of cheap incense, with a different, grisly type of air that you could feel more than smell. The water heater broke often, and that was when the water could be bothered to run.
Some days Tom felt like Seymour from Little Shop of Horrors. He was trapped in his own personal skid row, but took a certain dim comfort from it. Apartment 27 of Forrest Luxury Apartments wasn’t the envy of anywhere in Scrumpton, but he was safe and shielded from the Josh Hamlins and Trevor Macintoshes of his sad little world.
It was a shithole. But it was still HIS shithole
Katlynn was in the three-by-five kitchenette, spreading peanut butter on a slice of white bread. Three minutes older and born at 11:58 pm to Tom’s 12:01 am, Katlynn was by the barest of definitions Tom’s “older” twin sister and one of the few people in Tom’s sad little world that he genuinely trusted. It didn’t hurt that they technically had different birthdays. That had been neat early on.
“Missed the bus home?” It was more of a statement, obviously he had, but she was kind enough to phrase it like a question. Before Tom could respond, she sniffed the air. “You smell like piss and cheap cigarettes. Hiding in the boys room again.” This wasn’t phrased as a question. Tom reddened a bit, but there was no point in lying about it. Not here. Not now.
He scratched the back of his neck, due to nervous habit more than an itch. “Yeah…I kinda…it’s…it’s complicated.” Tom had stayed hidden in the bathroom all of 6th period, only digging his backpack out of the trash well after the buses had taken off. It had been a long walk back home, but it was the only way. It’s not like Mary would have bothered to pick him up.
His sister took a bite of peanut buttered bread. “What’s so complicated about getting a boner in front of Amanda and running out of Math class?”
“How did you-?” Tom let the question and his jaw hung in the air.
“We’re twins. Duh.”
Tom twisted his mouth to the side and cocked an eyebrow, incredulous. “Bullshit.” Katlynn looked like an alternate version of Tom, one in which he’d gotten a different set of chromosomes. Same brown hair, worn just a little bit longer past the ear, same soft face and dimple on her chin, same sad eyes. They’d never gone through any kind of “twin telepathy” phase.
It was Katlynn’s turn to scratch the back of her neck. “Cameron told me on the bus,” she said. Then she looked down at the floor. “Loudly.”
Neither spoke for a minute.
“Sorry,” he said.
“No big deal.” It was a lie, but at least it was a kind one. Both of the Dean twins were lithe, thin little things, and neither genetics nor nutrition were in their favor as far as “filling out” went. With tiny breasts (Sister boobs…gross) and less than a hundred pounds of meat on her under five-foot frame, Katlynn had never grown into highschool. Those who didn’t know her often mistook her for a freshman, if not a middle schooler.
Regrettably, societal double standards were still very much a thing in Scrumpton. Katlynn was a small mousy thing, in appearance if not personality; but she was a girl, making her “petite.” Tom had a good half-foot on her and almost fifty pounds, making him the bigger twin, but he was a guy, making him “scrawny.”
Katlynn had a bare handful of friends at school, even if they never hung out after dismissal. Had better grades, too. She was on the verge of actually getting a life outside of this dump; maybe even a date. At this point in their lives, being his sister was harder than being her brother.
She gulped down the last of her bread and leaned over for a hug, laying her head on his shoulder. “Sucks to be you,” she said. Oddly enough, coming from her, it wasn’t an insult.
“Yeah, it does,” he agreed, then looked around. “Where’s Mary?”
Katlynn rolled her eyes. “It’s Friday. Where do you think?”
“Bingo Hall?”
“Bingo Hall.”
This wasn’t a twin thing. Mary Dean was Tom and Katlynn’s mother, though by most societal definitions, she barely fit the mold. A little over eighteen years prior, Mary had gotten knocked up by some jerk who promptly fucked off.
In most stories this would be the part where it’s mentioned that Mary did the best she could with what she had, but certain factors beyond her control prevented her from giving her two beloved children everything they ever wanted or needed to succeed
It is in that spirit and formula of storytelling that the following shall be stated: Mary Dean did the best she could, but she really didn’t give a damn. Possessed of an unidentifiable and therefore incurable disability, Mary hadn’t held down a steady job since her children could remember, instead living off of other people’s charity, government assistance, and a crude but clever workaround for Scrumpton’s anti-gambling laws.
Friday night was Bingo Night, meaning that Mary was living it up with the old and the dying, hoping to score BINGO on as many knick-knacks and useless pieces of junk as possible, all so that she could pack it into her beat up Sebring convertible, drive it home and try to sell it to another crowd at a “garage sale.”
Whatever didn’t get sold inevitably ended up in their home, with Mary’s room in particular being a dragon’s horde of cheap costume jewelry, white elephant Christmas gifts and other garbage that you couldn’t pay a pawn shop to take off your hands.
The twins were allowed (or required) to stay with Mary only because of an overstretched foster care system and that Mary just barely met the requirements for avoiding charges of child neglect. The last few months since their eighteenth birthdays, things had only gotten worse. Now that the twins were no longer “dependents,” Mary’s support checks were greatly diminished. It didn’t help that her children were now the same age as she had been when they were born. Existential midlife crises at thirty-six sucked for all involved.
There was a reason that the twins preferred to think of her as “Mary” instead of “Mom,” the latter word having long left a gritty taste of cognitive dissonance in their mental mouths. She was increasingly talking about the two of them getting jobs so that they could “pull their weight around here.” If she was aware of the irony, Mary never showed it.
It was a hard knock life. Little Orphan Annie had Mrs. Hannigan to deal with. Mrs. Hannigan was a cakewalk compared to Mary Dean.
Tom and Katlynn didn’t have that legendary “twin telepathy” so often depicted in popular media, yet on days like this, when they were alone in the quiet of their apartment, drained from everything life had thrown at them and with only more of the same to look forward to, they both thought the same thing.
I’ve gotta get out of here.
Tom looked around in silence. He sniffed. He really did smell like piss and cigarettes. “I’m gonna go take a shower.”
“Fine, but I get the bed tonight.”
The “younger twin” looked over to the old couch that doubled as their third bed. A pile of rumpled old clothes was strewn out over it. It was anyone’s guess if those were relatively clean clothes plucked from the laundromat and waiting to be folded, or not-quite-dirty-enough-to-toss clothes being gathered for the laundromat and then promptly forgotten. Unlike his mother, Tom was not a gambling man. “No fair!”
“There’s only going to be enough hot water for one shower,” Katlynn said. “You know how much that heater sucks.”
“If I take one now, it’ll be warm enough by the time you go to bed.”
“Then you wait to take a shower.”
Tom scoffed. “Do you even want a shower right now?”
“I don’t want a cold one,” she said.
BEEP! BEEP! BEEEEEEEEEEEP!
Both whipped their heads towards the front door. Those three honks only meant one thing: an event atypical this time of day, before the streetlights had clicked on and before pizza delivery places did their best business among the drunk and the stoned.
“What’s she doing home so early?” Katlynn asked.
Tom shrugged. “Maybe she crapped out at Bingo early.”
His sister twisted her mouth sideways and cocked her eyebrow. “How the heck do you crap out at Bingo early? They only call out the numbers so fast, don’t they? It’s not scratch-off.”
Another series of obnoxious honks confirmed that they were not in fact imagining things. Their mother was waiting in the car, signaling for them to come out and help her unload.
A few fumbling steps out into the dusky sunlight, Mary’s beat up old convertible stood silhouetted against the darkening sky. “Hey kids!” Mary waved them over. “Look what I won!”
Tom frowned and looked over to Katlynn. Her expression mirrored his. “Seriously?” it said.
Serious enough, it seemed. “Come on!” Mary shouted. “Are you deaf? Help me unload it! I can’t put the top back up until we get this out!
True enough. Mary normally brought home old busts and boxes of out of fashion clothes piled up in the back seat. The passenger seat, when it wasn’t littered with gas station junk food wrappers, was home to paintings that even Bob Ross would be unimpressed with. Meanwhile, her trunk was persistently packed to the brim with novelty lamps and unwanted As Seen On TV Products that (surprise surprise) worked better on the infomercials.
This afternoon the car held none of that. Taking up the entirely of the back seat, jutting out into the open sky, was an old grandfather clock. “I won this!” Mary proclaimed. “Can you believe this was the first item they had up?”
Once they approached the car and got a better look at the thing, both siblings shook their heads in agreement. They couldn’t believe it either, though not for the reason their mother did. The old grandfather clock’s wood was notched, nicked, and gnarled by a hundred different little uneven cuts; with jagged splinters and pulp forming on the worst spots.
Glittering in the setting sun, the glass door on the front was severely damaged and barely holding itself in one piece. A lightning-bolt-shaped crack jutted down, off-center. Beyond the door, Tom could make out old gears that hadn’t moved in years; the copper rusted green and more than a hint of cobwebs ran to and from the cogs.
The old grandfather clock really should have been put in hospice long ago. “Mary?” Katlynn asked. “Are you sure that you, y’know, won this thing?”
“Of course I did!” Mary said. “Now help me unload this so I can get the top back up. Weatherman says it’s gonna rain tonight.”
“What are we supposed to do with a big ol’ clock?” Tom wondered aloud.
“We’re going to restore it.”
“We?” Katlynn asked.
Shit.
Fuck.
“Restore?” Tom echoed his sister’s misery.
Damn it.
Son of a bitch.
“Just help me get it in.”
Reluctantly, Tom walked around to the backseat, already calculating (guessing, really) the best angle or approach to lug the big rotting paperweight. With the sun at this back, he squinted and ventured a second look at the thing. Didn’t Aladdin talk about there being a diamond in the rough? Hadn’t King Arthur just been a lowly squire?
Wasn’t there at least a little something redeemable in this big box of worthless gears?
Nope.
Probably not.
The only thing that even hinted at the stately grandeur of the old timepiece was an ornately carved word, right above the clock face.
Gently, afraid that too much pressure might cause the wood to collapse at his touch and cause a nest of termites to spring out, Tom traced the letters one at a time, sounding out the strange word in his mind before speaking.
“Malacus?” he said. “What’s a Malacus?”


please show me the Narnia in this story please?


Chapter 3-For Whom The Bell Tolls
“Come with me
And you’ll be
In a world of pure imagination
Take a look and you’ll see
Into your imagination”
“No seriously,” Tom had repeated himself at least a dozen times, “What’s a Malacus?”
“I think it’s the manufacturer,” Katlynn had said.
“I’ve never heard of a clock company called Malacus”
“So you’re a clock expert now?”
That had shut him up. Tom had grunted and groaned and very likely pulled something getting the giant piece of timber and gears out of the convertible. At half past midnight, he’d probably still be dragging it inside (or more likely abandoned it in the complex’s parking lot) if Katlynn hadn’t thought to tie a couple of old skateboards together using a bungee cord.
Sometimes having a packrat hoarder for a mother came in handy, Tom allowed himself the thought. Then again, he refuted himself, if Mary hadn’t possessed the impulse control of a magpie he wouldn’t have to be lugging a useless clock into his already crowded home.
As Tom and Katlynn pushed and grunted the big broken box of rubbish into the apartment, Mary “Supervised”. A word which here meant pointing and clearing the path of paper plates and unwashed shirts so that the clock could be pushed up against the wall nearest the couch and then going to park her car.
Dinner had been the Elvis Special: Peanut butter, Nuttella and sliced bananas, grilled on a skillet greased with butter flavored PAM. No milk, though. Milk always ran out first at home. Tom hated bananas but the peanut butter and chocolate made up the difference. The bananas were at that critical point where the ratio of yellow peel to brown spots was shifting in the spots’ favor; leaving chunks of the inside slick and slimy like bad pudding skin.
The disgusting yellow fruit had to be eaten, though. They’d been on sale, the Deans were in no position to waste food, and the bananas weren’t going to taste any better come the morning.
“Shopping’s tomorrow,” Katlynn had reminded Mary. Friday Night Bingo. Saturday morning shopping, provided the SNAP updated at the first of the month like it should. If not, it’d be all spaghetti, no sauce, tomorrow.
That had all been hours ago. It was dark now. Dark and quiet. Half past midnight according to the digital alarm clock on the coffee table. Tom lied on the couch that served as his bed tonight. The heap of clothes- maybe dirty, maybe clean…Schrodinger’s clothes- were now decidedly dirty.
Tom had tossed them to the floor and the floor meant unclean.
The door to Mary’s room was wide open, as per usual, with Mary’s light kitten-like snoring wafting out into the living room. The door to the spare bedroom that Tom and Katlynn took turns with was closed. His sister was very likely sleeping as well.
Good.
Tom needed to be the only one awake right now; needed to know that he was alone in his thoughts.
He laid there on the lumpy couch; springs too shot to squeak. The couch was the kind of broken down comfortable that came more with familiarity and less with design. The cushions didn’t support whomever laid on them as much as they absorbed the body and sucked in their unsuspecting victim.
Feed me, Seymour! Feeeeed me!
Heh…little couch of horrors.
Good one.
Tom’s back always ached the morning after he’d slept on the couch. He’d often wake up with a crick in his neck that wouldn’t quite go away the entire next day, making him feel like an old man before his time.
It wasn’t any better for Katlynn, he knew, with her constantly needing to stretch and flex her back like a cat that hadn’t gotten enough sleep the morning after she caught twenty winks on the ol’ brown bomber.
The cushions were only part of the problem. The air was hot and humid, too, with the ceiling fan uselessly stirring the air above his head, and adding it’s constant mechanical buzz to the chorus of Mary’s snores.
The spare bedroom had the portable fan in it that Tom could aim right at his head and pass out spread eagle on the mattress. Katlynn was likely doing much the same right now.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
Tom shouldn’t have taken that first shower tonight. He’d worked up quite a sweat pushing the old grandfather clock out of the parking lot and into the apartment. His own body odor was starting to get to him, but a cold shower would have ruined his evening’s plans. A real damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don’t-situation.
Tom thought about Katlynn and almost wished that the two of them were still small enough, innocent enough, to share a bed again.
Almost.
Not tonight.
The young man didn’t want his sister to be present for this. He had unfinished business to attend to. Clad in baggy basketball shorts and nothing else, Tom stared at the alarm clock, working up his courage.
He really shouldn’t be doing this.
At least the goddamn grandfather clock was well placed. The master and the spare bedroom were catty corner to each other. The giant block of chipped wood, cracked glass, and rusted gears was placed to the right of the couch, blocking the immediate view of either door. He’d be able to hear the Katlynn’s door opening or his mother’s heavy footsteps; giving him time to cover up, roll over to his stomach, and pretend to be asleep.
He really shouldn’t be doing this.
With his left hand, Tom pulled open the front waistband of his redneck PJ’s and slid his right hand in. A rational person wouldn’t be doing this right now. After the humiliation in Math class, no amount of mental images concerning Amanda Monroe should hold enough appeal to him to get his rocks off in the middle of the night.
But what eighteen year old dude was ever rational where sex was involved?
To quote Dr. Horrible: “A Man’s gotta do what man’s gotta do. Don’t plan the plan if you can’t follow through. All that matters is taking matters into your own hands.” Tom stopped singing to himself, even in his head. The Whedon brothers had written some catchy songs and Neil Patric Harris was a treasure, but right now Tom’s musical loving brain and his horniness were at cross purposes.
Focus. Find that right balance between quietly tuning out the world and being alert enough to stop if someone walks in. Take a deep breath. Listen for the sounds of snoring, but not TO the sounds of snoring. Listen to the voices within but also be ready to abort at the sound of voices coming from without.
He really shouldn’t be doing this.
Logically, if he was going to masturbate in the here and now, Tom should have at least relocated into the bathroom.
Sit on the toilet.
Rub one out into a wad of toilet paper, flush it, and pretend he’d taken a huge dump.
But the walls of their bathroom were somehow both very thin and very echoey. Every hum, moan, grunt would be amplified and transmitted out to anyone conscious enough to register. Tom didn’t trust himself not to make noise, so better to rely on the whir of the ceiling fan to cover anything up. Bathroom was closer to Katlynn’s room, too, so it would be more likely to wake her in any event.
Last time he’d tried the bathroom, he’d shaken himself so hard he’d accidentally rattled the toilet tank. Nothing to kill the mood like pounding on the door and shouts of “Are you okay?” and having to think of a quick lie. And unless his fantasy was getting a BJ on the toilet, (it wasn’t), something just didn’t feel right about spreading his cheeks on porcelain while he beat the one eyed monster on hard mode. The smell alone in there should bother him, but Tom had long ago gone nose blind to most things in the apartment that weren’t on his immediate person; kind of like how men’s locker room stopped stinking after a few minutes without fresh air.
He shouldn’t be doing this.
He was, though.
Hand closing around his member, Tom laid back, shut his eyes and thought about what he’d seen that afternoon, and what he’d wanted to see happen instead of what did.
Up.
Down.
Up.
Down.
His cock swelled up and engorged itself on blood. Tom was a grower, not a show-er, and he was definitely growing right now. Gripping himself, he played with the pace a little bit with the grip, finding the right balance of rhythm, speed, and tightness around himself. Gotta prep the engine before the motor started running.
Behind his eyelids, he was back in Math class. This time though, no one was around. No Mr. Jordan, or any of the other kids. Just him and Amanda, bent over her desk and wiggling her hips, giving Tom a good peak underneath her cheerleader’s skirt.
The bike shorts were gone this time, replaced with matching colored panties that just barely covered her gorgeous ass. Her gorgeous ass that she was more than willing to let him look at.
From his spot on the couch, Tom thrusted his hips a little bit as he imagined Amanda shaking her butt at him. This time, though, it wasn’t the second nature body movements of a hottie who hadn’t noticed she was being peeped on.
Here it was all on purpose. All for him. Just for him. He shuddered a bit and focused his moan into a breathy sigh instead.
Real Amanda wanted to slap him. Real Amanda probably hated his guts right now, if she thought of him at all. Real Amanda wasn’t here right now. In her place fantasy Amanda looked back over his shoulder and gave him a playful wink.
“Hey, cutie…” she said. Tom didn’t even notice that his lips were moving ever so slightly as Amanda spoke to him, her giggles showing that she was flattered, her low whisper of a voice showing that she was turned on. “Do you like what you see?”
Yeah.
Yeah he did.
No guilt. Not now. Not in this moment. None at all.
From the next row, Cameron leaned out and grinned. “Someone’s enjoying the view,” she said, not a hint of malice or irony in her voice. “I think we can help him enjoy it more.”
Unbidden, Tom’s hand picked up the pace as behind his eyelids, both girls helped him out from his desk and laid him on the classroom floor, unbuckling his pants and marveling at his penis.
The two girls stopped talking to him, and addressed each other, instead. “Math is sooooo boring,” Fantasy Cameron said to her counterpart. Tom was drooling with anticipation, even though he already knew exactly what the two mental constructs were going to say to each other. “Know what would be fun?”
They gave each other a kiss, with imaginary Amanda copping a feel on imaginary Cameron’s boobs. Mean girl had great tits. “That,” Amanda said. Then she looked down at Tom’s throbbing cock. She licked her lips. Meanwhile, on the couch, Tom licked his. “And this…”
She bent over and took him into her mouth. A little bit of pre-ejaculate leaked out in the real world. Tom doubled down and told himself that the slimy sticky stuff was saliva; not his…hers. He took his left hand, less sensitive and less dominant and wormed up the left leg of his pants. In his waking dream, Amanda had reached down and was teasing and tickling his balls while she fellated him.
“Awwww,” Cameron whined. “No room for me.” Then her eyes lit up and a mischievous grin spread out. “Or maybe there is.” She leaned in, lips puckered. Had either of his family members been present, they would have seen Tom on the couch puckering his lips. His right hand shaking like his dick was dice at a high stakes crap table, and his left one playing an invisible piano that was awfully close to his testicles.
They weren’t though. Not as far as Tom was concerned. Tom was miles away.
He savored Cameron’s lips caressing his own while Amanda’s phelated him.
More, Tom thought to himself, willing his subconscious to do his bidding instead of the other way around.
It worked. Cameron broke off the kiss, panting and running her fingers through her pixie cut hair. She looked down at her chest, and then looked up. They both got the same idea at the same time.
Slowly, sensually, while Amanda gobbled his knob and continued shaking her sweet sweet ass, her skirt swishing in the background. Cameron took off her shirt, exposing her perfectly shaped breasts. She wasn’t wearing a bra, because of course she wasn’t. He wanted to touch them, to pinch them, to squeeze them, but for some reason he couldn’t move his hands just then.
He didn’t have to.
“Open up big boy.” Her breasts came at him, one perfectly erect nipple getting ready to pop right into his mouth.
Oh god. Oh god. Oooooooooooh!
Tom yanked both hands out of his pants shivered as he spurted jizz all over the inside of his shorts, his lips curling over his teeth as he clamped his mouth down in a poor attempt to replicate the pressure of a kiss, or the feeling of sucking on a nipple. His fingers curled into the dirty upholstery of the old couch as he soiled himself.
Oh….oh yeah….oooooh….yeah.
Heartbeat slowing in his chest, Tom inhaled and relaxed as his penis pulsated, erupted, leaked and then lost steam and went limp. The wave of ecstacy was soon replaced with an almost reptilian calm.
No shame.
But no excitement, either.
It was the emotional equivalent of glass shattering: Big and loud and shocking…then silence…followed by a kind of “now what?” feeling.
And as his cum started to cool and dry and crust over his curlies, Tom’s eyes started to droop. Just like broken glass, just like everything else in this apartment, he could clean it up later. No one would notice.
Relax now.
Time to sleep.
Time to doze and drift.
Time to…
Time…
Ti…
BONG!
Tom sat up with a start. The fuck?! He looked around. Had someone seen him jerking off? Someone had seen him jerking off! Mary? Katlynn? Who? What? Had a roach or a rat tipped over a plate? Where had the noise come from? Where?!
Tom swung his legs over the side of the couch the bottoms of his feet coming to rest on dirty clothes. He held his breath and listened.
Nothing. Nothing.
Nothing but the mechanical hum of the useless ceiling fan. He strained his ears and could still hear Mary’s rhythmic snoring going on unabated.
Nothing.
No sound of a toilet tank refilling or floorboards creaking. Nothing to imply that Katlynn had been out of the room or was awake. He didn’t dare get off the couch to get a better listen.
What time was it anyways? He looked to the coffee table and saw the old digital alarm clock blinking 12:00.
Great.
Power Surge.
It could be a quarter to one. It could be just before dawn. Either way, Tom was too lazy to bother scrabbling around in the dark looking for the cheap prepaid flip phone to find out for certain.
The noise must have been a dream, the result of an unnecessarily guilty conscience. He hadn’t done anything wrong. It was perfectly natural. If Katlynn saw him masturbating, she’d at least have the good grace to razz him about it privately. Tom smacked his chops a bit and rolled over, burying his face in the back cushions of the couch.
Just a dream.
BONG!
He wasn’t asleep. He’d barely closed his eyes and counted to three. No sound from the spare room. Mary was still snoring. How had that not woken either of them up? The reverberations lingered a bit this time around, the echo swirling around his head a bit; a catchy ear worm that wouldn’t quite leave his conscious thought alone.
Had he really heard the noise? Or had he just imagined he’d heard it?
Tom closed his eyes again.
BONG!
The couch rattled that time! Now he was sure of it. Either the rest of his family had become such deep sleepers that they were dead to the world, or he was completely tripping balls as a result of eating stale peanut butter and fermented banana.
At the very least, he was sure of where the sound was coming from. He stood up off the couch, briefly two inches taller thanks to the laundry and felt his way over to the grandfather clock right by the couch.
It had been coming from the clock. Definitely from the clock. Gingerly, Tom began to feel around the side panels of the broken device, the tips of his fingers running along every little cut that had scarred the once smooth and sanded timepiece.
Carefully, he rapped on the sides with his knuckles, hoping that he’d hear some sort of “BONG” sound. If he could replicate the noise that had awoken him, then he could go back to sleep in peace. Perhaps, he theorized, he’d kicked the side of the clock in his sleep knocking some rusty old cog loose till it clanked down and rang against the bell.
(Grandfather clocks had bells in them right? Or was that cuckoo clocks? Maybe it was just the really big ones like in London.)
He knocked lightly and received a surprisingly muffled thump in reply. Barely a sound at all. Practically nothing. Despite how battered the thing looked and felt, it was surprisingly sturdy. It was more like knocking on a solid stone pillar than a hollow wooden box. A sleep kick wouldn’t have done the trick.
Eyes adjusting to the darkness, Tom was better able to make out the shape of the clock. Just like it had in the sunset, the clock had an almost regal silhouette, moreso in the dark. Tom was no more than a food away from it, and he couldn’t make out all the slashes and splinters that he’d felt a moment ago. If he hadn’t known any better, he wouldn’t have thought it was broken at all.
Maybe Mary could sell this thing at her latest Garage Sale if the garage was very very poorly lit.
Squinting as if that would help in the pitch black, Tom mimed his way to the front of the clock. Careful not to cut his fingers on the cracks of the glass panel, (or worse yet break the glass panel any further), Tom’s fingers closed around the little handle on the left side.
The highschool senior hesitated and swallowed hard. Maybe the deep rattling BONG hadn’t come because of movement outside the clock, but because of something moving inside the clock. What if a wild animal, like an owl or a possum had crawled in there before Mary had won it at Bingo and was only now starting to stir in the dead of night?
What if the moment he opened up the glass panel a bat or a racoon launched itself out and clung to its face?
Nah, that was impossible.
Any varmint or critter that had gotten into there would have started stirring way before now, or else would be making some kind of cry or noise of anger and distress. It was possible, Tom conceded, that the clock could be infested with some form of pest or another, but if it was, it was most likely roaches or mice, and they’d be perfectly at home with all the other vermin around the place.
Probably not though. Tom heard no skittering or squeaking from the clock, and any animal in there would have made SOME kind sound.
Maybe not a snake. FUCK! Now he was thinking about snakes. Why was he doing this to himself?!
Slowly, Tom pulled open the panel door hoping to get himself a looksee, ready to duck in case a swarm of bats mysteriously manifested.
Nothing. Not even a sound. Not from the inside the clock. Not even from the cracked glass door. Well how about that? The one hinge in the entire house that didn’t creak or squeak or groan and it was on the broken door of a broken clock.
Was that irony? Tom wasn’t sure, and it probably didn’t fit the strictest of definitions, but Tom thought it worked pretty well.
The door open, Tom leaned forward, his eyes to the floor, hoping to see the loose gear or fallen bell that had woken him up. Nothing. Only blackness inside. No gears. No bells. Nada. Tom waited for his eyes to adjust a bit more, thinking that any moment now, the darkest parts of the interior would present themselves as tiny little gear outlines giving credence to his sleep disturbed theories.
Nothing.
His eyes had dilated as much as they could and there just wasn’t enough light coming from the hollow compartment to take any objects in. Or there were no gears on the floor. Tom started scraping the carpet with his fingers inching ever outward, feeling for where the floor ended, the clock began, and hoping to find a loose piece of scrap in the process and as he did so. It was there, hunkered over, almost on his hands and knees groping around in the darkness, that he felt something.
It wasn’t strong like the blast from the portable fan in the spare room. Nor was it as weak and impotent as the hot and humid air being stirred around by the overhead fan. It was cool, even.
Was that wind? Wind? From inside an old clock? A fucking breeze? No way.
Jerkily, slowly, as if he was afraid he’d stub his fingers or get caught in some ancient mechanism, he leaned his left hand inward.
When he didn’t touch anything, he kept leaning.
And leaning.
And leaning.
He was left shoulder deep stepping into the cabinet and still hadn’t hit gear or bell or the wood back of the clock. Ducking his head, Tom Dean turned sideways and kept going.
Internal Addendum: He was definitely tripping balls now. There was no way this was real. The good news was, having accepted the unreality of the situation, Tom’s fear evaporated completely. No need to be afraid of something that was only in your head.
“Hold your breath,” Tom whispered, grinning. He was probably still on the couch, dreaming this. “Make a wish.” A dozen crab steps sideways and the path was widening out. He squared his shoulders and kept walking straight ahead. In reality, the clock was still sitting next to the couch, broken and busted. But that didn’t stop the little cogs from turning in his brain. This could be fun. “Count to three.”
“ree…ree…reeeeeeeee.” Tom’s voice greeted him back as a cavernous echo. A wish bouncing back from Snow White’s wishing well in perfect pitch.
Beneath his bare feet, wood gave way to well worn stone. Arms stretched out to either side, Tom walked in the dark, the pathway getting slightly wider every few feet. This tunnel, this cave, was getting bigger and bigger the further he went in.
Soon he was unable to touch both walls at the same time. Time to pick one, the other, or neither. Both wasn’t an option. He leaned with his non-dominant hand outstretched, and drew his right hand up in a protective gesture, just in case this dream had any nasty surprises “Guess I’m going left.”
“Eft. eft. Eft. eft.” The cavern echoed his decision.
There were no twists or turns, no forks in the road in this tarry air as far as he could detect. The only choice he’d made was which wall to lean on, but even that decision, that illusion of choice gave him a deep sense of comfort.
Llittle by little, slowly, he began to see light. It was no light at the end of the tunnel; proverbial or otherwise. No bright white life giving light. No yellow sun to power Superman. It was still life, however. As Tom went deeper and deeper into this cave within a clock, (A clave? A cack, maybe?”) light started to ease his aching eyes.
It came in blue. Tiny little flecks at first, just along the cave edges where the floor and the walls met. Then in blotches on the ceiling. To an entire swathe carpeting the ground. All of it glowing bright electric blue and carrying with it an almost earthy aroma. And what it illuminated was huge!
Stalactites hung from a cave ceiling that was at least fifty feet high. Blue covered stalagmites, covered with the glowing stuff justted up from out of the ground and cast Tom’s shadow across the floor. The sound of dripping water and Tom’s own breathing filled the section of cave he was in. Not that it was saying much but this place was bigger than his apartment!
Leaving the safety of the far wall, Tom walked to a nearby stalagmite and took a closer look at the glowing blue stuff. Every foot fall along the electric blue floor made shocks of light ripple out from his steps. Carefully, Tom scooped a swatch of the stuff with two fingers from the nearest rock and perhaps unwisely, took a sniff.
This stuff smelled like pool water…really bad pool water that hadn’t been cleaned. Algae, Tom realized. Glowing algae. This was impossible. Algae like this only glowed in the ocean, far, far away from Scumpton, Georgia.
What was farther away from Scrumpton than his own dreams?
Satisfied with his own explanation, Tom wandered about the glowing cave. Taking in the sights and sounds, he paced along the glowing blue walls, looking for a way to advance. At first there didn’t seem to be one. “Not much of a cave.”
“Ave…ave…ave…”
“No way through.”
“Oooo…oooo…ooooo.”
If that was true, Tom thought, then where was the sound of dripping water coming from? Where was the life’s blood for the electric blue algae coating everything?”
The answer was found on the far wall, behind a stalagmite.“Correction”
“Ection….ection…ection…”
The tunnel continued it seemed, though judging by the size of the hole in the rock face, it was almost as small as the passage near the beginning of the clock. Just above, the hole, a name was traced in the algie, fingers scratching it so deep that only bare rock surface remained, the hollow spots forming dull rock colored letters on living electric blue canvas.
It read: “Charles Watson.”
“Huh,” Tom said. “I’m not the only one who’s been here.”
“Ere…ere…ere…”
Plip. Plip. Plip. Plop. Plop. Plip. Plip. Plop.
“Dripping,” Tom said to himself.
When you were alone, and no one was around to hear your thoughts, it felt better to speak them aloud. Given enough time, Tom might even attempt to break out into song. The acoustics of this place were so great that even Thomas Dean might be able to carry a tune. Wouldn’t be funny if he were sleepwalking and this was the bathroom, the leaky shower head adding to the soundtrack of his fantasies?
“Ipping, ipping ipping ipping” the cave answered back.
As if taking it for an invitation, Tom stooped down, turned sideways, and plunged back into the darkness.
Plip. Plip. Plop. Plop. Plip. Plip. The dripping got louder and intensified. Tom realized the water was rising up the deeper he went. It was up to his ankles now.
WSSSSHHHHHHHHHH
The dripping had stopped, supplanted with a steady growl. The scrawny boy of a man inhaled, the scent of water getting stronger, palpable even. “That means something,” he said. “That means there’s water-”
Falling!
The scream didn’t even leave his throat before he hit water. Drowning! Drowning! Water over his head! Water pounding down on him. This made no sense! He had been shuffling along, one hand against the wall, and listening for the sound of running water, but then his foot came down on nothing but air and now he was all wet and couldn’t breathe. He hoped this didn’t mean he’d wet the bed in real life.
Strong arms grabbed him by the wrist and pulled Tom upward. Reflexively he gasped, coughing and choking as his body was dragged onto the grass. Eyes blurry from water, he slammed them shut in pain.
LIGHT! SUNLIGHT! Sunlight blaring down on his poor eyes even though it couldn’t have been dawn just yet!
He vomited up some water onto the grass beneath him. When his vision cleared, he stared out all around him. Instead of a cave, he was now surrounded by trees, a lush endless forest. The kind that only still existed in storybooks.
“Where in the hell am I?” Tom heard himself say, his voice disappearing into the endless forest in front of him.
From his spot on the ground, Tom heard and felt hoofbeats. He looked up. Standing over him on four powerful horse like hooves but with an upper torso of a body builder, stood a centaur, its…his arm hair still damp from where he’d dragged the boy out of the water.
“Malacus, M’lord,” The centaur said. “You’re in Malacus. And we’ve been waiting for ye.”


Chapter 4. Not His Story…
Gentle Reader,
Late at night, far away from the inside of a certain clock, Charlie Watson slept in his crib. Dreaming. Who knows what he was dreaming about? It could have been about a young man going on an unusual journey and meeting a centaur. Or it could have been about the mashed potatoes his mommy had made and spoon fed him for dinner. Who’s to say?
Absentmindedly, Charlie reached for his pacifier, dangling on the clip to his jammies and stuck it in his mouth. The boy wasn’t conscious of this. His body had long ago trained itself and the self-soothing behavior was more akin to sleep walking than anything requiring true mental effort. Still, some nights his body preferred his thumb, instead.
A rumble through the lad’s tummy made Charlie groan behind his pacifier, his hands balling up into tiny fists. His legs started to lift up off the waterproof mattress, scrunching up to his stomach so that he could clear its contents out. If his mother was still awake, she might hear him gurgling and grunting.
His diaper was already wet. He’d been put to bed dry, but that never lasted more than an hour or two, at most. Charlie always woke up wet. Tomorrow, he’d wake up messy and be perfectly surprised; though perhaps “surprise” is a bit of an overstatement. He tended to be awake when he made boom-booms, but it wasn’t unheard of for him to poop in the middle of the night.
The mass left and came out solid enough, quickly filling up the back portion in his Pampers Overnights. It spread a little bit afterwards, but not much. The diaper was still doing its job well. This was almost exactly the scenario that the good people at Proctor and Gamble had designed their diapers for.
Almost.
The stool out of the way, his bladder let loose again, ensuring that his pelvis was thoroughly wet and completely warmed. One more load into it from either direction, and Mommy would have to wash his jammies and bed sheets.
There’d probably be the usual talk from Mommy about switching him to cloth diapers and plastic pants, but that was all talk. Mommy had said it plenty of times over the years, but had never followed through. Probably because doing the wash was doing the wash. Disposable was a gamble. Cloth was a guarantee. Mommy hated doing the wash.
Charlie didn’t care about that, though. He technically didn’t know that anything had happened. His body did, however. As his legs lowered back down to the pillowless mattress, further spreading and flattening the mess, Charlie’s penis started to stiffen and chafe oh so wonderfully against the saturated padding inside his sleeper.
Charlie would never say the comparison out loud, but a wet enough diaper practically felt like a pocket pussy. One of Charlie’s hands unclenched and traveled down below his waist. Whatever Charlie was dreaming about, it now involved rubbing himself through his sodden Pampers.
Charlie pooped himself in his sleep and was now masturbating in his own filth. And in his sleep, Charlie smiled.
But that’s enough about Charlie for now, Gentle Reader.
This isn’t really Charlie’s story.
Not yet.


Chapter 5: Malacus
“A whole new world
A new fantastic point of view
No one to tell us, “No”
Or where to go
Or say we’re only dreaming”
“The fuck is Malacus?”
The centaur spoke. “Malacus is here, m’lord.” Damn thing could actually talk! Thomas Dean looked up at the centaur and managed to power himself up to all fours before vomiting out more pond water. A little pool was starting form at the centaur’s feet, causing it (him?) to take a few clomping steps backward.
Still gasping and sputtering, Tom looked up at the thing standing on all fours in front of him. It wasn’t a proper centaur like in the story books. Deer antlers sprouted out from a human head full of long shoulder length black hair. The matching beard was long, too, but not quite Santa-Claus-ZZ-Top-Dumbledore-Fuck-Off length. It’s pelt was black but a shade lighter than it’s human hair.
Its beard didn’t strike Tom as odd, but Centaurs were supposed to be part human, part horse. Not deer. The hooves definitely resembled a Clydesdale or some big warhorse than any dainty woodland critter on the run from wolves. Tom didn’t need an A in biology to know that horses didn’t typically have giant scorpion tails arching up over their shoulders. This was more like on some metal band’s art on their demo album than a real centaur.
Tom snorted at his own absurd thoughts. Real centaurs.
“M’Lord?” It…the centaur…he seemed worried.
What did you do when an impossible myth was inquiring after your well being? Talk to it, Tom guessed.“ You’re,” he paused for breath,“Malacus?”
Antlers and hair shook in the air in an oddly animal refutation. All jerky. “Nay,” the centaur said. “Malacus is here. It is the ground you lay upon; the air you breathe. The water you’ve expelled from your lungs and stomach. That is Malacus, m’lord.”
Tom grinned. “Heh…heh…nay…” This still wasn’t real.
“Is something amusing, m’lord?” The centaur frowned.
“Besides you calling me ‘m’lord’, yeah.” Tom wheezed and laughed. “You just said ‘nay’ and you’re part horse.”
“Methinks ye had too much water from the Mana Pool, m’lord.” A hairy muscular arm reached down and offered Tom a hand up. The young man accepted and was yanked to his feet as easily as if he were a ragdoll.
Tom let out a yelp and then steadied himself, barefoot in the grass. Now was not the time to be asking stupid questions. He’d seen enough shows and read enough books to know all the basic tropes of a high fantasy world. Besides, he was dreaming. That meant he already knew the all the answers.
Dripping he turned around and pointed at the dark blue pond he’d been yanked from. “Mana Pool?”
The centaur nodded. It was jerkier. More animalistic than a human nod. Kind of like when a horse counted with its hooves. “Aye, m’lord.”
“Soooo….magic portal type thing? Links your world and Earth Realm?”
“Earth Realm?” The centaur seemed confused. “The Land of Men is now called Earth Realm?”
“Uh…yeah,” Tom said. “It’s definitely Earth Realm.” Earth Realm sounded so much cooler than ‘The Land of Men’. It was Tom’s brain. Tom’s dream. He could call Scrumpton, Georgia any damn thing he wanted.
The horse-dear-scorpion-man snorted. “Very well, M’lord. Earth Realm.” He still seemed a little off put. “I forgot how differently time moves in…Earth Realm. And how quick humans are to change the names of even ancient things.” Then he added, “And aye, the Mana Pool connects our two worlds.”
Tom couldn’t stop smirking. “And you’re a centaur? Really a centaur?”
“That is what the two legged folk call us.” The centaur stood up a little straighter, crossing his arms. Proud, but not indignant.
Tom took the bait. “What do you call yourselves?”
“Two legged folk can’t pronounce it,” the man with the horse half said. “You don’t have the hooves.” He smirked. “Or the glands. Centaur is fine, m’lord.”
The high school senior took a step closer to the centaur. There was something familiar about this fantasy creature. “You know,” he said, “you kind of look like Mr. Jordan.”
“Mr. Jordan?”
“My math teacher.”
“How so, m’lord?”
“If you didn’t have the horns, you’d look exactly like him.” Tom said. “Or the long hair. Or the beard. Or the tail. Or the horse body, of course.” Tom wiggled his ears a bit. There was a bit of a scottish lilt in the creature’s speech. “Different accent, too.”
The centaur snorted. “So if almost everything was different about me, m’lord, I’d be like your numbers instructor?”
“Aye.” Tom laughed at himself. “I mean yes.” The centaur waited. A hint of indignation on his face. “What’s your name, anyway?”
Like the parent of a child that just remembered his manners, the centaur seemed please. His facial features softened. “Equestrinox m’lord.”
Equestrinox. A play on equestrian. “Niiiiiice!”
“I think so.”
“Okay, Equestrinox,” Tom said. “I’m Tom.” He held out his hand. Equestrinox gripped it by the wrist. “Nice to meet you.”
“An honor, m’lord.”
They released each other’s wrists. Truth be told, it was closer to Tom running out of strength and giving up, and the burly centaur reading Tom’s body language. “May I call you Nox?”
“Most two legged folk do.”
It was Tom’s dream. He could call the weird ass centaur whatever he wanted. But Equistrinox sounded okay. Nox sounded badass. Good thing his dream was being so agreeable. Tom really needed a good dream after the shit day he’d been through.
Back to worldbuilding:
He pointed back at the pond. “So, Mana Pool. Right?”
“Aye, m’lord.”
“Gateway between two worlds?”
“Aye, m’lord.”
Tom pointed past the centaur to the dense forest behind him. “Enchanted forest?”
“The Wandering Woods, m’lord.”
Tom wracked his sleep addled brain for his geek credentials. Musicals weren’t the only things that made him a social outcast back in Scrumpton. “It teleports? Vanishes? What makes it wandering?”
Nox pouted out his lips a bit. “We’re on the back of a giant sky turtle, m’lord. We’re going to have to race to the head to convince it to land.” He might as well have said, “There’s a slight chance that it’ll rain today, m’lord. But I brought an umbrella for our picnic.”
Tom’s smile was a full on idiotic grin. Kickass! “And am I like the chosen one?” Tom asked, already knowing full well the answer. “Something something foretold something something?”
A shaggy eyebrow cocked. “Aye, m’lord. It is said that whenever Malacus is in peril from the forces of darkness, a human arises from the Mana Pool to conquer that evil and save the land.”
The scrawny little dork pumped his elbows. “Bad ass!”
“Indeed.” Nox said. His brow furrowed in thought. “Excuse my impertinence, m’lord, but where do you come by such insight?”
Tom’s heart skipped a beat. Don’t tell the dream creature that this is your dream. Don’t tell the dream creature that this is your dream. Mustn’t let the horse-dear-scorpion-math teacher-thing think you’re razy. “Uhhh…aren’t humans revered in Malachi-?”
“Malacus.”
“Malacus…for their wisdom and insight?”
The centaur stifled a laugh. “Humans are revered in our legends for many things, m’lord Tom. But wisdom isn’t one of them.” He turned around and lowered his monstrous tail. “Now come,” Nox said. “Hop on and we’ll be on our way. We’ve got to get off this sky turtle and procure you some suitable vestments. THEN your quest can begin in earnest.”
With no saddle or step ladder, Tom had to be helped onto the centaur’s back. A single powerful bicep curl was all it took. It was like a strange piggy back ride from when he was a kid.
The centaur started trotting into and Tom wrapped his arms around Nox’s gigantic chest for balance. Tom looked around the forest, birds and squirrel-like animals darting from tree to tree. “Narnia,” Tom said, amazed. “I’ve got my own Narnia!”
Nox looked over his shoulder and Tom could see a frown of confusion. “I beg your pardon m’lord,” he said. “But to use your own particular human parlance: The fuck is Narnia?”


Chapter 6: Meanwhile, on “Earth Realm”
Katlynn was not in Malacus. Just as her twin brother had suspected and hoped, she lay sleeping peacefully on the old mattress bed, portable fan blasting right at her head, as she lay spread eagle.
No blankets were on the bed. it was still too hot for that. No sheets either. Just the bare mattress and bare pillow. This was more a matter of lethargy, laziness, and limited resources. What was the point in making a bed if it was going to get messed up again anyways?
That made the mattress filthy, but like every other thing in the Dean home, Katlynn had gone blind to it. Slumming it was default. Dirty was only really dirty if the smell followed her out of the house. All clothing had to fail the sniff test before it went into the wash, no matter how many times it’d been worn.
Neither she nor Tommy noticed or talked about the light stain left over from years ago when she had her first period. Nor the booger wall from when Tommy went through his nose picking phase. She suspected that when a sock was left by the bedside after one of Tommy’s nights it meant that he’d done more than sleep, but that was something best not thought about.
She definitely wasn’t thinking about it now. If she was dreaming about anything, it was the coming morning and how she was going to get Mary to take them grocery shopping for the month.
Some people counted sheep. Katlynn Dean counted groceries.
The loud BONG did not cause her to stir the first time. Nor the second, nor the third. It can’t really be said if the noise was a physical noise that could be heard by the human ear at all.
Whether she could hear the noise or not is a matter of debate and as Tom went on his little adventure inside the clock, the noise ceased to matter so much, having served its intended purpose.
What mattered now was the tendrils of mist that were starting to creep over her. From out the broken heap of a grandfather clock, a thick fog billowed out spreading to every corner of the house. Under doorways and up the walls, the stuff slithered and skittered like a swarm of spiders. Curiously, none of it wafted into the air.
A standing person might be ankle deep, at best. Laying down as she was, Katlynn had the unusual, seemingly sentient fog crawling over her. Entering her nose. Soothing her lungs. Caressing and cooling her skin.
If she’d been awake, except for the anesthetic coolness of it all, Katlynn might think her home was burning down. She might scream for Mary and Tom and run for her life, buck ass naked into the parking lot calling for neighbors to dial 9-1-1. The high school senior wasn’t awake, however. Like a house fire, this smokey substance only made the girl go into a deeper sleep, impossible to stir.
Good. The mist coming through the clock did it’s best work when no one was looking. Centuries ago, it’s exploits in aiding a failing cobbler were attributed to little helper elves. If quasi-sentient smoke could scoff, it would have.
As if elves could ever be particularly helpful, those pointy eared little charlatans.
Never mind elves. Cleaning was first.
It was less of a scrubbing, what the mist did, and more of a rejuvenation. Paint unpeeled. Odors un stank. Dirt was not washed away from the piles and piles of clothes scattered around the house as much as it was…undirtied.
A certain aforementioned mattress stain ceased to exist. Certain socks become soft and uncrusted. The smell of piss and cigarettes vanished from Tom’s discarded clothes.
Next came reorganizing. Clothes were folded and lifted up on ivory tendrils into delicate stacks. Long empty and neglected dresser drawers, now in mint condition were filled with shirts, shorts, socks, and unmentionables, each with their different drawer. Drawers were itemized but not anally so. Socks and underwear were still bunched up. Dress shirts and slacks found themselves on previously empty hangers and junk piled up for years in spare closets found other, perhaps more decorative piles to join.
A few shirts, last night’s laundry, were stacked on the coffee table. A manageable handful of clothes were made not quite perfect but decidedly less scuzzy and found their way to a laundry basket by the door, just to give it that sense of normalcy.
Without moving her, just patiently waiting for her to roll over, Katlynn’s smoke soaked bed seemed to make itself, slipping a fitted sheet under her as she rolled one way and then a next.
A light sheet, less for insulation and warmth and more for the tactile sensation draped itself over her. The slight added weight would increase the girl’s serotonin levels. She’d sleep better. The portable fan was left blessedly undisturbed
Lastly, the mist traveled to the tiny little kitchenette area. The mice and roaches that scrabbled in the dark corners had a sudden urge to find new places to live in, and every crumb, food and grease stain became a forgotten memory. Come sunrise, when the Deans woke up, they’d find milk in their refrigerator, as well as some bread and lunchmeats.
The meat and the milk would be old and need to be eaten that day lest it spoil, but it would be filling. They’d still need to go shopping, but the SNAP card would have a little extra funds on it so that Mary could buy something nice, an inexpensive dessert to go with dinner that night.
They’d still be dirt poor. But things wouldn’t be quite so dirty or desperate. Their house would still be cluttered with their mother’s useless knick knacks, but it would be more charmingly disorganized than an indoor garbage heap.
Satisfied with its work, the mist billowed back inside the old clock, now seemingly in a ever so slightly better condition. It was still a broken down old grandfather clock…but it seemed nicer; the wood a little less chipped, the crack in the glass a bit shorter.
Were Katlynn awake she might have noticed all of this and gone mad. Thankfully, for her own sanity, she wasn’t awake. And the mist had soaked up inside her, too. Come the sunrise, she would awaken, and see her cleaner, nicer home, and remember it as always being so. Humble. Yet homely. Far less hellish.
That was a trick the mist hadn’t had centuries ago. That’s why those dirty elves had gotten all that undeserved credit.
BONG!


Chapter 7-Power Dynamics
It’s a Revenge Party,
A party that ends with somebody’s head on a spike!
It’s a Revenge Party with your two best friends,
A party with revenge is what it’s like!
The Halls of the Dwarven Kingdom inside Forge Mountain rang out with the sound of falling hammers on hot steel as sheets of metal were folded and refolded onto themselves with the perfect combination of hardy enthusiasm and nigh immortal patience that no other race could hope to harness. It would be more feasible for a gnome to bottle lightning twice than to craft something that rivaled Dwarven Steel. Not even the mightiest of Minotaurs when their bloodlust was fully stoked could shatter a shield forged by one of the dwarves.
Tom Dean knew all of this before walking in. Nox the not-quite-centaur told him much of it, and Tom was able to guess the rest before the magical beast with his Math teacher’s face was able to finish some of his sentences. It was Tom’s dream, so it made sense. Everything his four hooved guide told him was really just a roundabout way of the Tom talking to himself.
He dismounted from the clydesdale half of his Math teacher, and with all the confidence he could muster (a surprising amount, in fact) he pushed through the heavy double doors clad only in his basketball shorts.
The young man had imagined many things, but Forge Mountain surprised even him. One part mead hall, and one part medieval metalworks, the enormousness of the giant hall caused Tom to actually second guess himself. Could he really imagine something this…this…grand?
This wasn’t Broadway, this was the giant blockbuster Hollywood adaptation that threw money for maximum mainstream appeal and all the hipsters online would talk about how the original cast was better…unless the original cast had been invited to reprise their roles.
The air itself vibrated with each pounding of hammer on steel and the heat radiated through the great hall. The heat shot out and engulfed Tom, his sweat evaporating the second it exited his pours; the aroma mixing with the smell of hot goals and alcohol.
Deep rumbling voices sang out in a foreign language that Tom couldn’t possibly understand, the hammers keeping time. Voices joined in and added to the growing multitudes, pausing only to drink from flagons of ale that threatened to burst into flames if things got much hotter.
The idea that never in someone’s wildest dreams could something happen is an overused trope when describing the magnitude or detail of an event. Yet in this case, it was the only thing that could aptly describe Tom’s awe. He considered himself reasonably imaginative, but he would never have thought of the ornate runes carved within the very walls themselves.
The writing wasn’t gibberish, just in a pattern that Tom had no way of decoding. If this was all in his head, though, wouldn’t Tom be able to assign meaning to it? Some of it? A little of it? Any of it?
For the first time, Tom was beginning to wonder if he was actually dreaming.
The noise; the motion; the drinking songs and clacking of giant mugs of ale; the war chants and the hammering of hammers on anvils: All of that stopped within a minute of Tom’s arrival as the inhabitants of this land turned their heads and realized who, or rather what they were looking at.
“A man.”
“A child of Seth.”
“A warrior of prophecy!”
A throng of stout muscular warriors swarmed up on Tom, reaching over each other and muscling past one another to get a closer look. The only thing that kept them at bay was a rather large scorpion tail looming just behind the high schooler. Was this what it was like to be popular?
One of the dwarves, an old one based on his snow white beard shoved his way to the front. The dwarves weren’t as short as Tom thought they’d be. Tom was scrawny for someone his age due to malnutrition, but he thought he’d at least have a foot on these people.
The assembled smiths and warriors were all around the same height as him, however only their proportions were off: they had wider shoulders and bulkier, if not more muscular physiques with fists the size of Tom’s head and Popeye sized arms to hold them up. They were closer to tiny gorillas in armor than jolly craftsmen that sang “Hi-Ho”.
“It is true then,” the old dwarf said. Tom didn’t need to look back to know that his new The hour is at its darkest, then, if someone from the Land of Men” is here.
“They call it Earth Realm, now,” Nox corrected what must be the leader.
A bushy eyebrow cocked. “Really? How times change, then.” Giant fists the size of butcher’s hams played with a beard that tumbled past the creature’s beltline.
Tom looked back up to Nox. Nox crossed his arms and looked down at the dwarves, expectantly. “And yet they stay the same.”
The old dwarf took a knee and bowed his head. The assembled throng of stout, boxy artificers followed suit. “Child of man. Descendant of Seth. Mortal Savior and Destroyer of Worlds. The fate of all of Malacus is in your hands. What say ye?”
“Um…Tom.”
The old dwarf looked up. “I beg your pardon, m’lord?’
“My name is Tom.”
“The fate of all of Malacus is in your hands. What say ye, m’lord Tom?”
Heart rocketing in his chest, Tom breathed deep. This was stupid. This was stupid. This was awesome. He was getting to be the hero. He was getting to be the team captain.
Better than team captain! He was getting picked FIRST! He was wanted! He was valued! Even when he dreamed he couldn’t remember feeling this important. This wasn’t a dream. It was real.
It was very, very real. He didn’t understand it but that didn’t make it any less real.
Tom wasn’t asleep then, he knew. He’d walked through that old clock and into a very-real fantasy world where for some reason he was special. He was special and important and revered.
How could he not help this place? It was everything he ever wanted.
A voice from the crowd called out. “NO!” A single figure stood up from the bowed masses. “THAT IS NOT A MAN!”
Stepping through the masses a single dwarf trudged through. “That is no man! Where is the meat on his bones! Where is the hair on his skin?! This is no man! THIS! THIS IS AN ELF!”
Tom felt his hands curling into fists. It was the asshole dwarf’s voice that triggered him. His face and body were stretched out and distorted, but he’d heard that exact voice not even a day ago when he was crying in the boy’s bathroom. Trevor Macintosh.
“SEE?!” The Trevor dwarf thundered. “He does not even deny it! He is an elf sent to pose as a man and doom us all!” The dwarf’s finger was half the girth of Tom’s wrist. “ELF!”
It was Nox that spoke up first. “Nay,” he spoke. “I saw him swim up from the Mana Pool myself, there on the back of the flying sky turtle.”
“Elves can swim!” Trevor the dwarf argued. “You have been deceived! You have all been deceived!”
Tom’s nose wrinkled. This was his classmate in mythical form, alright. No wit. Just bluster. This might have been a dream, Tom thought, but even if it was, he felt something inside him bubbling to the surface. The confidence for him to speak for himself. “I’m not an elf, dingus. Look at my ears!” Tom pointed. He looked behind him to Nox. “Elves have pointy ears, yeah?” The centaur nodded. “Yeah! See?”
A cruel, stupid laugh bellowed out of the dwarf. “Elves are tricksy things. Ye could have shaved your ears.”
Speaking of shave: “Why don’t you have a beard?” Tom asked. A mixture of groans and chuckles wafted from the crowd of dwarves who had taken a knee. A few, Tom noticed, were even hiding laughter behind their hands.
They weren’t laughing at him, either. Tom could tell. He recognized the look of shame and panic on Trev-dwarf’s face; watched it twist and mutate it anger as a cover up.
A dagger that could have doubled for a meat cleaver was now in the dwarf’s hand. This was new. Not “good new”, either. Trevor Macintosh had never pulled a knife at school. Even he wasn’t that stupid. “The only way to know an elf for what it is is to shed their violet blood!”
There was a murmur among the assembled. Uh-oh. It wasn’t a musical, but Tom was well aware of
Tom held his hands up to his chest, palms out in a non-threatening gesture. “Easy there, Trevor…I don’t wanna…”
“I AM HOLFRED LEADSHOULDER, IMPOSTOR! AND YOU WILL DIE WITH MY NAME ON YOUR ELVEN LIPS!”
“What…?”
“SHOW US YOUR BLOOD, ELF COWARD!”
What happened next Tom couldn’t control. He meant to flinch, to cower as the steel blade flashed through the air and into his gut. But the slightest jerk of panic sent his body twisting and whirling away from the dagger thrust at him. His shove…he couldn’t even call it a shove…it was closer to a pansy slap…wouldn’t have even registered to the real Trevor.
Instead, Dwarf Trevor Macintosh…Holfred Leadshoulder…whatever…went sailing through the air like he was being shot out of a canon. The walls shook as the beardless gorilla man collided with the far end of the main chamber.
“Ye need not see his blood to know he is a man,” Nox said. “The air of Malacus itself empowers him; strengthens him.”
Dream? Fantasy? Nightmare? Tom didn’t know; didn’t want to know. He just knew that he had finally knocked someone’s block off. And he locked it. “I’ve never hit anybody before. I’m not that strong in real life.” The dwarves grumbled in confusion. “I mean in um…Earth Realm. I’m barely a man; just a kid.”
The old dwarf rose and put a hand on Tom’s shoulder. “Here, m’lord, in Malacus, you are a god.”
Tom jumped; not even jump-jumped, just put a slight spring in his step and sent himself flying over the dwarves’ collective heads. It was easy. With just a little bit of effort, the other side of the great chamber was a literal hop away.
There amongst the heat of still burning forges, Tom saw the crumpled form of Holfred Leadshoulder: Beardless dwarf and disproportionate asshole with the face and voice of one of Tom’s bullies. A low groan came out of him.
Every dark fantasy that Tom had of getting even rose to the front of his mind. He could destroy this weak warped little man with a flick. Cave his skull in. Tom considered it. Really thought about it.
From everything he’d heard, he was supposed to be the hero. So he reached out, just as Nox had, grabbed the dwarf by the arm and hoisted him to his feat. “Are you okay?”
“Aye…aye lad…I…I…” Leadshoulder’s vision seemed to clear and he realized. A look of pure terror flashed in the boxy little man’s eyes and he took a knee, averting his gaze. “Forgive me, m’lord. I did not know.”
“It’s fine,” Tom said. “Just…just shot up before I punch you.” Tom took a little sadistic glee at the look of pure horror in the dwarf’s face. It was only a little bit of glee, but still… “Now stand up,” he ordered He turned around and shouted at the dwarves. “Everybody, stand up! I’m a man-god-thing-hero; not a king! Quit kneeling and shit!” Reluctantly, the dwarves stood, reflexively. “Now will you answer my question?”
The dwarf didn’t answer. “Oh come on! I didn’t mean what I said about punching…” Leadshoulder or whatever his name was, just continued averting his eyes.
“What question is that, m’lord?” the old dwarf asked, having closed the distances again.
“Why doesn’t he have a beard? Everybody else does.”
“He has neither slain a foe in battle, nor forged his masterwork. He has not yet earned his beard.”
It was said as if Tom should have already known it. Fortunately, Tom had faked enough book reports. “Ah. I see.” They stood in great hall, doing nothing. No one seeming to know what to do next. This is why Superman flew off after he rescued people. “So Nox,” Tom asked the centaur, “didn’t you say something about getting me more suitable um…vestments?”
The dwarves snapped to attention. “The armor!” the elder dwarf said. “Of course! How could I forget the armor? Stations! Stations!” Tom was left to wait and watch as the dwarves scattered to their anvils and began hammering, a scattered discordant noise that quickly reached a steady tempo. Only the unbearded dwarf was left out.
Low and hearty voices rang out between the hammer blows, each voice joining in with the others. They were harmonizing. They were tuning. What was going on. The world around Tom went dark as the fires of each black smith’s forge glowed hot red.
Tom looked at a nearby forge. There was nothing on it. No steel or casing or hot metal at all. He was far from an expert, but shouldn’t these boxy bearded men be hitting something besides the anvils? Tom looked up to Nox, the only person not standing by a medieval forge. “Why are they singing?”
“How else would they craft your armor?” A magical realm of people who crafted badass weaponry through song. Tom really was home.
They sang out pounding the anvils, singing in their deep and alien language. This time though, Tom could understand it. It was a kind of knowing without knowing.
We craft this for him who comes
Unfortunate son of a wayward land
A shield to ward off battle scars
An iron gauntlet for a gentle hand.
A hardened helm for purest mind
Unbroken plate for a mighty heart
And sturdy boots to encase his feet
When feats accomplished must he depart.
And that’s when the molten steel began to flow, out of the forge onto the anvils, liquid metal made animate and flowing out into the air. It did not stay on the anvils long, though. As the dwarves repeated their chorus, the lava-like stuff flowed off of the anvils and onto the great feasting table in the middle of the room.
It formed and shaped itself into helm and plate and gauntlet and boots, with the runes from the walls leaping off the inside of the mountain and re-engraving themselves onto the armor as it cooled. When the song came to an end and the last of the smoke had cleared leaving the armor gleaming like silver, the dwarves gathered round the feasting table and Tom climbed up to marvel at the miracle that had unfolded before his very eyes.
There was just one problem: “That’s not gonna fit me.”
“M’lord,” the elder dwarf said, “we made it to the exact specifications handed down through generations of dwarven song crafters.”
The shoulders were too wide and the chest piece was the size of a hobo barrel. The helm was too big. He wouldn’t be able to bend his knees if he slipped his feet into the metal boots. Unless he gained a couple feet and a hundred pounds of pure muscle, he wasn’t filling this thing out. “This isn’t armor,” Tom said. “It’s bad cosplay. It’s a five year old putting on his dad’s shoes…”
“But…but…” the head dwarf stammered. “It’s tradition. It’s prophesized…”
“Let me try.” The dwarf with Trevor’s face called out and climbed on the table with Tom. “I can fix it.” His eyes were hopeful. Apologetic. Desperate. A kind of depth of emotions that the real Trevor had never shown Tom. “Please…”
The elder dwarf was scrambling up after him. “M’lord Tom, don’t!” he cried out. “He tried to shed your blood! Don’t let his treacherous voice be added to your song!”
Tom looked down at the other smiths from his perch on the table. Then he looked to the elder. “Yeah?” he said. “And I kicked his ass. I say that makes us even. Let him try. Give him a chance.”
The old bearded gorilla nodded and stepped down, leaving Tom and Trevor’s not exactly doppelganger alone on the makeshift stage. “Thank you, m’lord,” whispered the distorted bully.
“Yeah…well…um…just…I dunno…do something good with it, I guess.”
One giant palm went on the chestplate of the armor. The other one was on Tom’s chest. Even though he’d just knocked this guy across the room with the flick of his wrist, a tiny part of Tom was still intimidated. Apparently he had super strength, but what if that dagger had connected? Was he invulnerable?
Probably not. Ceremonial or not, invulnerable people didn’t need armor.
The phrase from out the lone dwarf’s throat was low, quiet and drawn out. Tom couldn’t understand it as easily as he he had the old dwarven hymn for some reason, but from the tone and the tears in his eyes, the meaning was clear:
“I’m sorry. I misjudged you. Forgive me.”
The armor reverted back to a quicksilver consistency, flowing and slithering over the dwarf’s stocky frame before sliding over to Tom’s scrawny frame. He closed his eyes and felt it crawl over him, oozing and dripping into place; like being dunked in pig fat. (Though he preferred not to remember that terrible afternoon in the 4H club a few years ago.)
“Let me protect you. Let me help. I can be better.”
He didn’t feel the armor harden and take shape as much as he felt it stop moving, the warmth draining out of it into a kind of icy cold. The single low and quiet song ended, and Tom opened his eyes.
He looked over himself. It fit perfectly. Damnit. He looked slender now, not scrawny, and his armor fit him like a second skin. “Well Leadshoulder,” Tom said. “I think you just earned your beard.”
The look of relief and gratitude on not-Trevors face was immense. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Tom unlocked an old memory of second grade, when he’d helped Trevor study for a spelling test. Little, Trevor had had the same look when he had spelled all the silent e’s correctly.
“So,” Tom said. “I’m a badass. I’ve got badass armor. When do we rumble?”
The assembled fantasy creatures frowned in confusion. “M’lord?” It was Leadshoulder who’d voiced their thoughts. “We don’t understand your strange tongue.”
“Um…let’s save your world…?”
Every axe, hammer, and mug was raised to that.


Chapter 8: One Adventure Later…
To dream the impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go
BONG! BONG! BONG!
Head ducked, Tom Dean stumbled through the door, his brain still spinning. It wasn’t on his breath, but he was drunk too. Dang, those dwarves knew how to throw a victory party, and dwarven ale was nothing to be trifled with. Part of him wanted to vomit, but only on the off chance that he’d get to taste the stuff again.
The inside the house was as dark and quiet as he’d left it. Good. If Malacus was his own off-brand Narniano fuck that likely meant that only a few minutes had passed in real time while he’d gone on his epic adventure. On second thought that place was awesome…it was his New Narnia. Malacus was ‘Next-Gen’, not ‘Off-Brand’.
The Pevensie kids couldn’t catch poison arrows and then throw them back at elven assassins so fast that the wood caught fire mid flight. That had been a cool moment. It didn’t hurt that the elf had looked like a pointy eared Josh Hamlin. Also, apparently, Elves had purple blood.
Neat.
But Malacus, for all its similarities to similar and classic high fantasy tropes, might not follow quite the same rules. He was home alright. Things were back to normal. His nice silk pajamas, the only pair he owned, had reverted back from their armored form. Oh well, it’d been nice while it had lasted.
Speaking of lasted: The time on the digital alarm clock was still blinking and barely ten minutes had passed according to it. That didn’t make it true. In the C.S. Lewis books, entire lifetimes could pass in the blink of an eye and the Pevensies would come out of the closet no older than they had been. That shoddy clock shorted all the time and it would be just Tom’s luck to find out that the weeks spent routing out monsters in Malacus had passed at the same rate on this side of the clock.
He was still “Titan Tom”, in spirit if not body. And weeks of battle and intrigue had sharpened his wit. It wouldn’t do him any good to get caught with his pajama bottoms down. Only one way to figure out. Find the prepaid flip phone that his mother kept for “business”.
It should be in the kitchen, Tom knew. That’s where the charger typically was. But Mary could have very well taken it to bed with her. He wouldn’t be able to get any rest until he knew the date, however. He had to be sure. It might be easier just to jump back into the clock, but that was the coward’s way out, and Tom was no coward. Not anymore.
A step to his left and Tom had to stop himself from swearing after barking his shins on the coffee table. “C’mon Tom,” he chided himself. “You can strangle a hydragon with your bare hands, but you can’t find a cheap phone in the dark”.
Waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dark, Tom lowered himself to the floor and began crawling; scraping and scrabbling around. How far the mighty had fallen, and all because of a bit of drunken homesickness. At least Nox promised that as long as he’d kept Malacus in his heart he could return anytime he liked. The dwarves and centaurs would be able to hold off for a bit without him so that he could rest and recoup here in ‘Earth Realm’.
Slaying the hydragon; now that had been glorious! He’d never even known such a thing existed: A three headed dragon, with each head spewing forth a different terrible substance. Fire. Ice. Lightning. (A lightning breathing dragon? Jesus!) Tom had been absolutely incredulous when he ripped off the middle head, and two more grew back. That’s when ‘acid breath’ got added into the mix.
If not for the safety of the satyrs, Tom would have been curious to see how many heads he could have ripped off before a breath weapon repeated itself. Instead he just strangled the monster. So metal!
It had been great and the party afterwards even greater. But even great acts required an intermission, Tom rationalized. Hence why he’d come back to Scrumpton and was now on all fours, looking for a phone.
“Tom?” his mother called out from her room. She didn’t sound particularly worried. More sleepy. “Is that you?” Tom grit his teeth. “Tommy?”
Tom did a stage whisper back, letting the hush of the apartment amplify his whisper so as not to wake Katlynn. “Go back to sleep, Mary. I’m just going to the bathroom.”
“Okay…” And Mary’s snoring continued. Huh. She definitely didn’t sound like her son had been missing for weeks on end.
Going to the bathroom: Just thinking about it made the lie turn into a truth. Tom had become a champion at holding his bladder for prolonged periods of time. The super strength he’d possessed in Malacus had passed to more than just his arms and legs. Armor was still a pain in the ass to strip off, and the magical races of Malacus, for all their mystical and eldritch proficiency had yet to master the intricacies of a flush toilet.
Just then, the young man was actually looking forward to releasing his bladder into a porcelain bowl instead of a bush. Tom’s hands hit the smooth floor of the kitchenette. No crumbs. At least his mother kept a clean kitchen. The lack of crumbs wasn’t making it any easier to find the phone.
If only he could see better without having to turn on all the light-
The last of the dwarven ale wore off, as Tom felt a greater pressure in his bladder and an increased sense of sobriety. Duh! Tom smacked himself in the forehead, stood up and opened the refrigerator door.
The dim light spread out over the entire kitchen area, casting a veritable spotlight on the little black phone under the kitchen table, it’s chord traveling up to the wall. It was nothing at all for Tom to prop the fridge door open, get the phone and check it.
The date was the same. He’d been gone for only a few minutes. Good. A rumbling in his gut and increased pressure in his bladder made Tom’s little victory feel incomplete. No time to sleep, yet. The fridge door was still wide open, Tom made a quiet and quick shuffle over to the bathroom.
Lights on! Bottoms down! Lid Up! Ass seated. Even after all that time in a fantasy realm, Tom still had the basics of potty training down pat. The ache from his bladder sang out in releaf first as liquid hit liquid, followed by a wrenching in his gut and an instinct to push.
“Ho boy!” his own voice echoed off the tile. He groaned a little bit he emptied himself out. Sometimes it was the simple things that brought the most joy.
With the relaxing of his bladder and bowls, a strange calm came over the young man. An easy relaxation. It was a little bit like cumming, actually. Just less abrupt. Definitely as tired. Maybe his body was catching up with him now.
He was all-but superman in Malacus, but back in Scrumpton, his body remembered it’s limitations. It was almost like he never went into the clock. All his body remembered was laying on the nice comfy couch, masturbating into the jammies (and that hawt fantasy about the girls), and now going to the bathroom.
His eyes closed, and he breathed deep. Just for second…just…for…a…
“Hey…” a familiar voice prodded him into consciousness. “Little brother….wake up!”
Tom opened his lids. “Huh?” His voice came out a dry rasp. The dwarven ale was definitely hitting him now…worse on its way out than on its way in. So THIS was a hangover, huh? Worth it. Very worth it.
“Wake up. I need to go.” It was Katlynn. He was home, alright.
Like a big jungle cat, Tom let out a long and low yawn. “Okay. Okay.” Tom cleared his throat. “Just a second.
“Hurry up.” She repeated. This time with a bit more urgency. “I need to go.”. Tom was already nodding back off when he felt a rough slap on his shoulder. “You fell asleep on the toilet.”
Tom let out another yawn. “I did?”
“You’ve been there all night.”
That woke him up, more than the slap. “I fell asleep? On the toilet?”
“Passed out like Elvis.”
Oh how the mighty had fallen.


Chapter 9: Shopping
Honey what you waitin’ for
Welcome to my candy store
You just gotta prove
You’re not a pussy
Anymore
And step into my candy store
Tom groaned in quiet frustration. “Mary,” he said to his mother. “Why do we have to wear this stuff?”
His mother didn’t look back. She just kept pushing the shopping cart. “Because we have to look our best.” She stopped to get a small carton of eggs. They were at the Shop N’ Go, Scrumpton’s least glamorous grocery store that always vaguely reeked of fish despite not having a seafood section.
“Why?” Tom stopped himself from broaching into a full whine. “It’s not like this is church or nothing. That got him a quick elbow from his sister. Katlynn was in a clean blouse and khakis. Tom was in a button up shirt and jeans. Church clothes for poor people.
“It’s close enough,” their mom reminded them. “Just not in any of the good ways. People know we’re on SNAP, so when we get groceries we have to look our best.”
Tom crossed his arms, wishing he were back in Malacus. “And if we don’t look good enough they’ll judge the shiiii” Mary stopped, waiting for him to finish the curse word. “-crud out of us. They’ll judge the crud out of us.”
“So it’s exactly like church,” Katelyin said. The twins shared a smirk and each playfully rolled their eyes.
Mom stopped long enough to grab some chicken thighs. They were the cheapest part of the chicken that would last the longest in the freezer. (This didn’t count the world famous nuggets shaped like dinosaurs, but the meat that still resembled actual bird was healthier.) The look in her eyes was something fierce. “Tom and Katlynn,” she said. “If you two were little enough I’d take you both over my knee for that.” She stared at them like a woman possessed, a fire burning inside of them that neither could remember seeing in her.
Katlynn averted her gaze, suddenly finding a package of ground turkey incredibly interesting. “Sorry Mary,” Katlynn said.
“What was that?”
“Sorry Mom,” Tom corrected his sister.
Hands on her hips, their mother seemed much less the lazy schemer, and much more the disciplined warrior fallen on hard times. “This world isn’t fair, kids. Sometimes you gotta play by others’ bull hockey rules.”
As had been their custom since they could talk, the Dean twins answered in unison. “We know…sorry.” Mary kept pushing the cart while the twins kept their eyes open for coupons, free samples and sales, as had been the routine.
Or had it? Something seemed odd to Tom. Had Mary had this talk with them before? His conscious brain, but some secret whisper in the back of his brain was throwing up red flags all over the place. This didn’t seem like the same woman who would have brought a broken clock home from a bingo game in the hopes to upsell it.
Maybe it was coincidence; even broken clocks were right twice a day.
“Alright, folks,” Mom said after punching a few numbers into the calculator function of her phone. “If we’ve got this right, we’ve got enough in the budget for a little extra something something. Tom you’ve got breakfast. Katlynn. Sweet treats. Go ahead and pick out something that we can share, and meet me in the toilet paper aisle.”
Brother and sister needed neither twin telepathy nor an invitation. They split from the cart and went to pick out their share of the menu. The twins always took turns. One would choose breakfast while the other chose dessert.
While he was still a few rows from the Shop N’ Go’s breakfast aisle Tom seriously considered forgoing his share of rations if it meant he could convince his mother to get better toilet paper. Mary’s choice in rolls was so cheap that it had the firmness of wet tissue and the texture of sandpaper; a store brand among store brands. The leaves in Malacus were better than the Dean’s bathroom.
He shook his head when he thought of Katlynn getting the dessert. She was probably going to get something fruity; a carton of orange sorbet or something. Ugh. There was a reason that Big Blonde and Beautiful never referenced stuff like strawberry yogurt or banana cream pie; because fruit sucked for dessert.
Quietly, so as not to disturb the muzak, Tom hummed a few bars to himself. “Scoop me up a mess Of that chocolate swirl Don’t be stingy I’m a growing girl.“ Speaking of ‘growing’, Tom noticed that his t-shirt was feeling a little tighter in the gut. He looked down and puffed out his stomach, giving it a little jiggle with his hands. It wasn’t much, but Tom was fairly sure he’d gained a little bit of weight.
He wasn’t fat, chubby, or even pudgy, by any definition of the terms, but he could definitely tell that he’d put on a few pounds. It was more proof that his time inside the old clock was more than just a post masturbation power fantasy. You eat like a dwarf, and you start to fill out like one.
It was subtle though, and Tom was likely the only one to notice. He was still skinny, but relative weeks of full meals (and exercise strangling hydragons) was beginning to put a little meat on his bones.
A rumble in his stomach made him rethink his position on the toilet paper. He needed to eat good food more than he needed quilted butt wipes. If all else failed he could hop in the shower and hose off after taking a dump.
“Pop tarts or donuts,” Tom said. “Pop tarts or donuts…?” Ah yes. The eternal question. They weren’t really ‘pop-tarts’. They were ‘Toaster-Tarts’. And the donuts were beyond day olds. They were more like pieces of yellow cake cut into a circle and dipped in preservative chocolate. On the Dean Family Budget, name brand food was pure decadence. Only the store brand of store brands would do. Things requiring extra ingredients (like milk) were out, too; so no Koko Puffs or Rise Crixp-E’s, either.
The sound of cardboard being ripped open and cardboard like-pieces of corn hitting the floor in little pellets broke Tom out of his search for something to counteract Katlynn’s inevitable lemon bars. Some asshole was ripping open boxes of cereal and pouring the contents directly into his mouth. Bits and pieces of Frosted Happy-O’s spilled over his lips or bounced off his chips and onto the floor. Cookie Monster had better manners.
After taking a few gulps of cereal, asshole would sweep the bits of cereal underneath the shelf, close the box and slide it to the back before reaching for another box. Tom had to squint his eyes. He knew this asshole. His sense of time was screwed up, but he knew this asshole.
The last time Tom had seen him he’d been shorter and stouter, with ham sized fist and his face was stretched out to cover the massive skull. The last time Tom had seen that face, they’d made amends and his first beard was being allowed to grow in in honor of the magnificent suit of armor he’d forged.
“Trevor Macintosh” Tom called out. “The hell are you doing, man?”
Tom’s classmate started a smidge when he heard his name called out, and then instantly slouched when he recognized Tom’s voice. “Oh, hey D-man.” Trevor smirked. There was a predatory, almost reptilian glint in his gaze. “Did you find your backpack where I left it for you?”
Scrawny little Tom Dean almost fell to the bait. Tom the Titan did not. “You’re shoplifting.”
“Nuh-uh.” Trevor’s mouth was already filled with another batch of cereal. “It doesn’t count if it’s in my mouth.”
Jesus! Tom had literally forgotten the pure brazen stupidity of his Earth Realm peers. Tom clenched his fist. It wasn’t fair that assholes like Trevor could seem to get away with doing whatever they want while Tom had to scrimp by on nothing. “You’re such an asshole.”
“Eh?” Trevor’s mouth was full of more cereal “Whuh awe you gaw-uh ooo abouw ih?’
Nothing. That’s what Tom was going to do about it. In Malacus he had enough strength and speed to dodge daggers and leap across chasms; check bullies across the room with back handed slap. Here? He wasn’t delusional enough to find out. “What did I ever do to you, Leadshoulder?”
Trevor swallowed the Kohrn Flakes. “Leadshoulder?”
Tom felt his throat tighten a bit. “What did I ever do to you? In what way did I harm you that made it so you wanted to hurt me so? In what way did I earn your vengeance all these years?”
The bully put the box of cereal back on the shelf. His mouth was agape, yet he remained silent. It was as if Mr. Jordan has just called on Trevor in class.
“Did I ever make fun of you? Did I hit you or throw your stuff in the garbage? Why?!” The fury was rising up, building up and building on Tom’s own words. “What did I do to deserve half a decade…” screw that… “…more like close to half my LIFE as punishment?”
“Uh…uh…um…” For the first time in forever, Trevor Macintosh looked like. He was on the defensive.
Tom took a step closer. “We used to be friends. Maybe not good friends, but we could at least co-exist. Leave each other alone. Not anymore though. Why?” Macintosh took a step back. “Why Leadshoulder? Why?” Tom wasn’t even hearing himself anymore. “Did I do something that caused you pain. Cuz if so, I’m sorry and I didn’t mean to, and if I can avoid doing it again and still live my life, I will.” Tom felt himself growing taller. Standing up straighter. Filled with righteous fury, yet keeping his arms calmly by his side, his sad and weak mask dropped into a snarl.
“Or is it just because I’m different enough for you to pick on, but same enough for you to get away with it and not feel shitty about yourself?” The muzak track stopped; switching over tracks. Tom’s voice all but boomed in the silence.
“G-g-get away from me, d-d-dude.” Travis said. “You’re freaking me out, Dean.”
Tom was keenly aware of the shadow behind him. “Awwww,” a mocking voice came from behind him. “Did D-list jizz in his pants again? I thought you liked girls, dude.”
Tom whirled around. His ears weren’t pointy, and his blood wouldn’t be purple. but he knew that face. “ASSASSIN!” He was not Tom the Titan, hero of Malacus here. He wasn’t super fast or super strong. He couldn’t make a wooden arrow burst into flames. And Josh Hamlin wasn’t an elf assassin.
He got Tom’s fist in the palm of his hand, just like in the movies. It was much less cool being the one who got your punch caught like a softball. “Bad move, D-list.” Towering over him, Josh reared back his fist. Tom was going to need a new nose….
Before Tom had a chance to make peace with any particular god, he was yanked back and shoved behind someone. “Leadshoul-…Trevor?!”
“Ease up.” Trevor’s voice was steady. Solid. Like a dwarf.
Josh’s brows knitted together. “The hell, Trev? Loser was trying to punch me.”
“You snuck up on him. He got startled and swung. It’s what I would have done.” Was Trevor Macintosh standing up for Tom? Miracles did happen.
“He started it!”
“No he didn’t.” Trevor was crossing his arms now; a bouncer at a nightclub. “You were fuckin’ with him.”
“He was fuckin’ with you!” Josh said. “I had your back is all.”
“So you don’t think I could handle myself? Is that what you’re saying?” Tom didn’t know who would win in a fight between his two bullies, but part of him was morbidly curious to find out, just then.
Josh was not nearly so eager. “Naw man. Naw. It’s just. He called me an ass is all.”
“He called you an assassin, dipshit. He thinks you’re deadly and shit.”
“I…I…I…”
Trevor was now in his compatriot’s face. In a low voice he growled to Josh. “Just take the compliment. Know you’re bad ass, and walk away. We’ll laugh about this later.”
“Uh…yeah…sure.” Was all that Josh said. “Thanks D-list. See you later.” Josh walked away.
“So?” Trevor asked Tom. “Am I still an asshole?”
“Yeah,” Tom said. The fear had long drained out of him. “Kinda. But thanks. I guess owe ya.”
Trevor shook his head slightly. “No you don’t. Not for that. See you at school, dude.”
“See you at school.”
Tom felt fuzzy and confused. How the hell had that happened? Trevor and Josh in the same room, with no adult interference? They should have pounced on him like dogs on a two legged cat. Not turn on each other. And Trevor actually defending Tom?! Maybe there was a little piece of good ol’ Leadshoulder in there somewhere.
So confused was Tom, that he didn’t even realize that he’d left the breakfast aisle without picking up any donuts or chocolate Toaster Tarts and had wandered to meet his mother in the toilet paper section.
He saw but didn’t observe his surroundings, looking off into the middle distance, even though there were shelves upon shelves and packages upon packages of toilet paper right in front of him. He kept walking, replaying the last minute and a half in his head. He’d partied with mythical races. Why did this seem less believable?
Still walking. Toilet paper gave way to wet wipes. Wet wipes transitioned baby wipes and lotion. Tom stopped. Parents’ Choice: Paw Patrol Training Pants. Chase. Sky. Marshall. He hadn’t seen or thought of them since at least the first grade. Now for some reason, here, on a box of off-brand Pull-Ups, he felt mesmerized by the sight of them.
Tom’s feet wouldn’t move. His eyes wouldn’t shift. He didn’t want them to. What he wanted to do was to pick up the box of kinda-sorta-diapers and turn it over in his hands; to stare at it as if the painted cardboard was a great work of art. Maybe take a peek inside and see if every pup got their own padded printout or if it was just the three on the front of the box.
He didn’t though. Thoughts of Josh Hamlin mocking him still rocked his gray matter, enough so that the thought of another encounter made Tom’s arms lock up. What would he say if he caught Tom looking at diapers. “Awwww…is that why you keep hiding in the bathroom D-List? Are you still potty training?”
It wouldn’t be so bad if certain other people said that to him, maybe in the right tone. Amanda Monroe, maybe. “Awwww, is that why you keep hiding in the baffwoom Tommy? Are you still wearning to use the potty like a big boy?” Tom shivered, and felt himself salivate a little. He felt…other things down below.
God! Why was THIS turning him on?!
(“Tom.”)
Tom felt disgusted by himself. Why the hell would he feel buzzed about wearing something so gross and…and…he had no words for it…
(“Tom.”)
He should stop looking at the package right now.
(“Tom?”)
Right now!
(“Tom?”)
RIGHT NOW! Why was he still looking? Why was he beginning to imagine himsel-?
“TOM!”
“Wha?!” Tom jolted out of his own daydream as his mother yelled his name.
“Did you get what you wanted for breakfast?”
“Huh? Breakfa-?”
“Did you get what you wanted?”
A tiny voice that only Tom could hear (he hoped) screamed out. “That! Let me have that! The box! I want what’s in the box! Please with the box!”
His nostrils flared out a bit as he inhaled. “No. Sorry, mom.”
“Well then what are you doing here?” she asked.
“Some guys at school were in the breakfast lane.” Tom said. “I didn’t…” pride made him choose his next words carefully. “I didn’t want to get in a fight.”
Part of him expected Mary not to care. To penalize him. To tell him “Tough luck Butter cup. I guess you’re just gonna have to stick it out till lunch on the weekends.” That part was sadly misinformed.
Instead what Mom said was, “That was a smart decision, Tommy. No point in fighting when there’s nothing to gain from it.” She motioned in the direction of the dessert aisle. “Let’s meet up with your sister and then double back. Scumpton boys are stupid, but they’re not stupid enough to pick a fight with adults watching.”
And surprisingly enough. That’s what they did.
More surprisingly, the rest of the weekend was just as sensible and nice. Comfortable. Gentle Even.
And yet for some reason, Tom couldn’t get that package of Paw Patrol Pull-Ups out of his skull, and he couldn’t say why…


Chapter 10: Bad Ideas
Don’t tell your ma, don’t tell your pop
I’m a mad mad bomber and I’m ready to drop.
MAD BOMBER!
I’m a mad mad bomber!
When a boy’s eighteen years old, he’s ready to explode!
“Awwww. Cuuuuuute!”
Tom looked up from his tray, foolishly hoping that Amanda Monroe was talking about him. He needn’t be worried about that, he realized. Once again, the popular girl wasn’t even looking at him. It was Monday, now. Cheerleader uniforms were out. Tight jeans were in. And Tom had to resist the urge to stare again. It did not end well for him last time.
Was he really that awkward? Tom sipped his chocolate milk and finished the last of his cheap school cafeteria chili, his question left unanswered.
“Look at them!” Amanda kept saying to Cameron. “Little kids are so cuuute!” Scrumpton was a small enough town that all of its public education was community based: Meaning that it’s Elementary, Middle, and Highschool were all pretty much piled on top of one another. Different buildings stretched out across a flat campus, but as soon as you were old enough to go, you pretty much stayed put until dropout or graduation.
The Highschool campus was front and center, with the Elementary and Middleschoolers going to buildings that were on the left and right respectively. Each level keeping its own schedule and operating relatively independently of each other. In this instance, that meant that when Thomas Dean and his peers were eating lunch and enjoying the warm fall weather leftover from summer, that a group of second graders were having recess not two hundred yards away on the Scrumpton Elementary’s playground.
Amanda kept drooling over them. “Awwww,” Amanda kept saying. “I want one!”
Cameron looked over to her cohort. “This isn’t how you tell me you’re preggers, is it?”
Tom’s crush snorted. “Gawd no. I want one. I don’t wanna have one. I just wanna play with them. Bounce them on my lap. Tickle them. Then give them back to their parents.” Tom’s mouth went dry.
“Babysitting…” Tom spoke up. “You mean, babysitting.” Tom didn’t believe in ‘auras’ (or dwarves until very recently) but the energy that Amanda was exuding was palpable. Were she a sorceress, Amanda would be casting a field of disintegration or something, with Tom as the target. “What?” Tom said, hoping he didn’t sound as intrusive or defensive as he found. “You play with a kid, make sure they don’t die, and at the end of the night you get paid and give it back.” Then he added, “Sorry for eavesdropping. I just overheard.”
The strangest thing happened after that. Cameron and Amanda exchanged glances, seemed to half- nod, half-cock their heads to the side, and when they were looking, they seemed…nicer. Apology accepted, Tom guessed. “I guess you’re right,” Amanda said. “But I don’t wanna miss my date night, to babysit. I just wanna bring some of them over here and cuddle with them.”
Cameron closed her eyes and rubbed her temples as if the conversation itself was causing her pain. “Most people just get a tiny dog for that kind of thing.” It took every bit of willpower Tom had in his tank to not volunteer to be that tiny dog; to be that little cuddle kid. He would sit back in his lap and let himself be tickled all day if he could.
Instead, Tom let out a dry, very fake chuckle. “Yeah. Right?” He picked up his tray and made to go drop it back off in the cafeteria.
“Oh hey…Tommy!” Tom stopped in his tracks. It was Amanda. He turned around. “Would you mind throwing my tray away for me? Thaaaanks.” She smiled at him, and he felt any resistance he had melting away. Damn it. He was being used. And he liked it.
He stood there like a dummy as two of the hottest girls in school piled their trays into his arms. Cameron didn’t even ask. Then again, with tits like those, Tommy’s adolescent brain justified, she didn’t really need to. He savored a last look as the girls walked away from them and towards the girl’s bathroom. The swish in Amanda’s hips got him looking perhaps a little longer than he should have. At least this time Trevor and Josh weren’t there to make fun of him for it.
Tom about faced and stumbled forward into the school’s cafeteria. A wall of noise and overtaxed air conditioning hit him in the face as he pushed past the doors inside. The talk and mumbling of his peers created a kind of wallah-wallah mumbo jumbo where only key words could be made out.
“Wallah-wallah-pussy-wallah-wallah”
“Food-sucks-wallah-wallah-wallah-wallah”
“Wallah-wallah-wallah-wallah-T.V.”
“Wallah-wallah-loser-wallah-wallah-in-his-pants-wallah-wallah.” Tom felt himself grunt and growl a bit. He was almost sure they were talking about him. Who else would they be talking about? Katlynn didn’t have this lunch, so friendly faces were in short supply this time of day.
Tom felt he deeply knew what it was like to be Elphaba from Wicked; irrationally hated for things he didn’t feel like were in his control. Only he’d yet to find his Glinda or his Fiyero or even his Boq. With relatively few exceptions, everyone was just so Madame Morrible to him around here.
It might be for the best that this wasn’t his magical land beyond the clock. Dwarves got second chances with him. People? Tom wasn’t so sure, anymore. Tom turned in the trays to the dish bin with a click clack and took a hard left out the side door.
Instead of open air, the muted thud of hitting another human being. “Shit!” someone’s voice called out and the scuffling sound of clothing scraping concrete mixed with the metal clangs and more muted clattering as things rolled off the walkway and into the grass. “Shit! Shit! Shit!”
Heart racing, Tom stepped out and surveyed the damage he’d done. On the ground was Lunch Lady Doris, (Tom didn’t know if Doris was her real name; all Lunch Ladies were named Doris in his mind). “Oh my god!” Tom yelped. “I’m so sorry, I’m soooo sorry. Do you need help?”
The fat older woman was already picking herself off the ground and using the wall to steady herself. “Nope…nope…nope,” Doris said, still leaning with one hand on the wall.
“I’m so sorry about that! I wasn’t looking…”
Doris held out her other hand. “Nope. Don’t worry about it. I wasn’t looking either. That’s what I get for stopping to text right in front of an exit.”
“Is there any way I can help?”
Doris gestured to the ground, and Tom followed it. Packages of single serving cereal bowls littered the ground. Doris had been minding a cart and her tumble had sent the cart and its contents tumbling, with the metal cart on its side, and disposable cereal bowls scattered on the walk way and in the nearby grass. “Help me pick these up…?”
“Sure.” Tom scrambled into the grass to pick up what he’d helped spill. “It’s still good. It’s still good. No seal’s been broken; and cereal is supposed to be crumbly anyway, right?”
Dorris was busy righting the cart. “The preschoolers ran out of gram crackers for snack time, and I was gonna run this cereal over to them as a patch job.”
“Can I help?”
“No, I don’t think so…” the lunch lady started. “Shit…”
Tom came out of the grass and onto the concrete, his arms filled with cereal boxes. “What?”
“Two of the wheels got busted somehow…”
“I am SO sorry!” Tom was beginning to feel like the world’s most pathetic pull-string toy.
“Not your fault. Not your fault.” Doris started grumbling something to herself.
“Now do you need my help?”
The lunch lady didn’t say anything, but she did nod.
They walked in silence, from the cafeteria over to the elementary preschool area. Doris carried at least a dozen bits of Honey Nut Cheerios and Coco Puffs in her apron. Tom carried almost as many corresponding samples of Froot Loops and Cookie Crisp in his t-shirt. Come to think of it, this shirt was getting a little baggy on him. He must be stretching it out so that it’s nearly threadbare, he figured.
Doris took a lilting right turn as they crossed over from the high school, to the elementary campus. The preschool was near the back of the elementary building, Tom remembered. If it wasn’t obvious before, anyone would have known they had arrived from the high pitched screams and the pitter patter of little feet, and the frantic raving of the only adult in sight. Children who were little more than knee high ran around screaming, and ducking and hiding into plastic houses or chasing each other on tricycles. This wasn’t the playground that could be seen from the highschool. No steel bars or jungle gyms, here. This was for the littlest of kids.
A blonde teacher, in her late twenties to early thirties, clothed in a denim dress, motioned them over. “Hiiii!” she chirped, but the subtext read as “Heeeeeelp!”. “Normally we have snack time, then play time, but since we were in a bit of a jam, I decided to flip-flop them.” The laugh the woman gave was positively neurotic. This lady needed a day off. Bad.
“Sorry about that,” Doris apologized as they dropped their cargo on a low picnic table. “Had a bit of an accident.”
The preschool teacher nodded. “You’re fine now. Thanks!” Then she called out. “SNAAAAACK-TIIIIIME!”
A swarm of locusts on chubby human legs swarmed the table, ripping into the dry cereal as if it were their first and last meal. The mingled wallah-wallahs here were much more pleasant than what Tom had heard in the cafeteria.
“Wallah-wallah-yummy-wallah-wallah.”
“Trade ya-wallah-wallah-wallah-wallah.”
“Wallah-wallah-wallah-wallah-play after.”
Doris turned to Tom and offered her hand. “Thank you, young man.”
Tom shook the lunch lady’s hand. “No problem,” he glanced at her name dag, “Phyllis.” How about that? He was kind of close! “Just trying to fix what I broke.”
“Much appreciated. I wish more freshmen acted like you.”
“I’m a senior, actually.”
Phyllis’s mouth twisted. “Oh really? I guess you just got a bit of a baby face.”
Tom shrugged. “I guess I do.”
“I’ll be seeing you, Miss Keisha,” Phyills said to the stressed out teacher. The preschool teacher was too distracted to notice, busily tearing open cereal covers for the kids who hadn’t developed enough dexterity to do it themselves. The lunch lady about faced and started to mosey on back to the cafeteria.
“Uh-huh”.
Tom was about to fall instep behind her, but then his stomach gave him other ideas. Involuntarily, he drew his hand to his gut, as it rumbled and cramped up. The chili wasn’t agreeing with him. That kind of stuff was always like playing gastronomical Russian Roulette. Now, there was a bullet in Tom’s chamber. “Excuse me, ma’am? Miss Keisha?”
“Yes sweetie?” the teacher replied automatically. Her eyes scanned the munchkins surrounding her, before she tracked the source to Thomas. “Oh! Sorry!” she said. “I mean, how can I help you?”
“My stomach is hurting. Any chance I can use your bathroom?”
The young man felt himself being scanned. Sized up. Another cramp made itself known, and Tommy suddenly had the very real fear that he might shit his pants if he didn’t make it in time. No way would he be able to make it to the high school bathroom. “Sure,” she finally said. “You should be able to fit.” She pointed to her classroom. “Through that door and straight to the opposite corner. Just make sure to clean up after yourself.”
Tom nodded. “Yes ma’am.” He didn’t think anything of the comment about cleaning up after himself. A lady works with three and four year olds all day, some things are going to be habits.
“Oh,” Miss Keisha called out after him. “And I’ll keep everybody out here as I can, but be aware the door doesn’t lock.”
“Yes ma’am,” Tom called back, doing his best to burst through the classroom door before something else burst through him. He didn’t even look back and make sure to close the door; fast stepping his way over carpet tape for Circle Time and ducking out of the way of self portraits done in crayon that were hung too low. “Gotta-go-gotta-go-gotta-go,” he whispered to himself. “Just hold it…just hold it…”
He cut through the classroom and flung open the bathroom door. “Oh you gotta be kidding me.”
If the plastic playhouses and tricycles outside hadn’t been childish enough, the bathroom made up for it. Two toilets sat directly in front of him, but they were so small, they might as well have been training potties bolted into the ground. The urinal next to them was so low that Tom would have had to practically do the limbo to pee in it. That’s why the teacher said that he’d fit. A less scrawny high schooler might have not.
Thank goodness for small mercies.
It was even decorated. Who decorated a bathroom? Who did that? The two potty toilets didn’t have a tank, just plumbing that went right into the wall. The wall behind each was painted bright green, with stencil outlines of fairy tale characters. The left stall had what could only be the Gingerbread Man, and the right one had a decorated silhouette of what was more likely Rapunzel. Little boys would be peeing in a urinal right beneath the Frog Prince. The side wall had tiny sinks, attended to by a Pinnochio doll, its wooden hands in proper hand washing position.
Another rumble made Tom stop pontificating long enough to get his pants down and waddle over to the nearest bowl. He lifted the seat, turned around, and shimmy-shimmy-shimmied his way down between the narrow barriers of the stall. He’d forgotten to wear underwear today so that was one less obstacle.
His knees almost to his chest, his body felt the opening and let loose with an absolutely horrendous blast from down below. Tom let out a heavy groan as his body shook and a mostly water mess splashed beneath him, the rising water tickling his butt cheeks. Maybe it wasn’t the chili. Maybe it was those darn Lemon cookies that Katlyn had gotten for dessert…
Another rumble and groan before Tom gave himself a courtesy flush, trying to hold his bowels while the tiny toilet spirited away his mess. Anymore, he feared, and his own feces would float back up to kiss his cheeks. He might as well be wearing a diaper then…
It was after the flushing stopped that Tommy looked straight ahead and knew something was amiss. These stalls didn’t have any doors. And the doors weren’t locked.
A pulse surged through Tommy’s gut and he finished emptying himself into the bowl. The thought that some little kid could walk in on him caused him to push through the pain all the faster. Not that they would have seen anything. His knees were forced into blocking view of any “strategic area” that anyone might have seen.
The stalls were so small, however, that Tom had to actually stand up and step out half way so that he could wipe himself. Turned sideways, the high school senior wiped himself, again and again. He kept looking at the bathroom door, readying to throw himself against it if it were to start to open; only turning his gaze from it so that he could throw a wad of used toilet paper into the Gingerbread Man potty.
At least the toilet paper was good, not like that cheap sandpaper stuff used at home.
Another small mercy.
But small mercies weren’t getting his bum any cleaner. He was starting to get genuinely scared that he might use up the whole roll. He hadn’t been wearing underwear today, and didn’t want to risk there being a brown spot in his pants. A-holes like Josh would spring on that in a second and Tom wouldn’t live it down till Christmas. Standing sideways as he was, Tom only had to look straight ahead to get an idea.
To the right of the door he came in, now almost directly in front of him and pushed up against the wall closest to the door was a changing table. It wasn’t anything fancy. Just thick oak with a cabinet beneath it and a vinyl pad on top. There were even little retractable stairs so that a small child could climb up and down themselves instead of needing a boost.
More to the point, atop that changing table, was a spare box of baby wipes. That’d do it! Awkwardly, Tom penguin-waddled with his pants around his ankles over to the box, removing a single wipe. Only one would be needed.
Feeling like an idiot, he shuffled back over to the stalls and dragged the cool, moist towelette between his cheeks. Even nicer than the quilted toilet paper! He folded it over for one last swipe, just in case. Clean as a whistle!
Done wiping, Tom turned to the toilet and prepared to throw the used wipe in. And stopped. He thought he remembered something about how flushing baby wipes could cause the toilet to clog. That wouldn’t do. Instead, he flushed, and used wipe in his hand, he looked back over to the changing table. Maybe there was a garbage can or diaper pail nearby.
He shuffled over to where he’d found the box and looked around. Nothing. Nada. Nothing by the sides. His eyes lowered to the cabinet. Squatting down like a catcher at a baseball game, Tom opened the double doors to the compartment beneath the changing table.
A little bundle fell out at the high school senior’s feet, causing him to flinch and scoot back a little. He looked to his feet and breathed easier. Just a backpack. Quickly, his eyes scanned over the interior shelves. Diapers and Pull-Ups greeted him, and Tom felt his breath go shallow and his heart skip a beat. Just like at the grocery store the other day, the young man felt an inexplicable fixation.
He felt a pulse; a throbbing sensation. And it wasn’t strictly in his heart; and it wasn’t strictly in his brain. He shuddered, staring at the Luvs and the Pull-Ups. Purple monkeys next to Mickey Mouse’s fade when wet designs called to him. The scents of lavender perfume mingled with baby powder beckoned him.
Nervously, Tommy’s eyes shifted to the right inside of the cabinet. A bit of stainless steel gleaned from the darkness. “Bingo,” Tom whispered to himself, as he lifted the lid of the tiny waste basket and threw his used wipe away.
Baby stuff. That’s stupid. Even if it might make him seem cute and cuddly, like what Amanda was talking about: Sitting on her lap. Being tickled. And played with.
They wouldn’t even fit him. Scrawny he might be, but Tom wasn’t the size of an actual kid. Stuff like diapers and Pull-Ups were a commodity, too. The teacher probably kept track of them; probably had potty charts somewhere and would know if one or two went missing. Teachers did that, right? Right. Best to leave them alone.
The little voice in his head, that sound of himself wishing and wanting the cute crinkly things that he’d talked to in the grocery store whined, but knew that his more rational adult analysis was correct.
Exhaling dejectedly, Tom looked down at his feet… He chided himself, realizing he hadn’t even pulled his pants up. “Idiot.” He chided himself quietly. Yet for some reason, he didn’t think to correct his compromised position. “Dumb dumb dumb.”
He’d better put the backpack back in there, he knew. With both hands he carefully picked the bag up, and felt something jostle inside. What did three year olds need backpacks for anyway. Then, he took a closer look at it.
There, on the top of the backpack, just above the zipper, written in black sharpie marker, was a name: “Tommy”.
His whole body tensed up. This was his backpack. It belonged to him. Not really. ‘Tom’, ‘Thomas’, and “Tommy’ were still common enough names, but young Master Dean couldn’t help but feel a strange connection. Unbidden, going on a kind of trance-like reflex, Thomas’s hands unzipped the backpack; his eyes taking it in as each tooth in the zipper uncoupled itself while the metal buckle glided past on its track.
Slowly he opened the backpack. He shouldn’t be doing this. He shouldn’t be doing this. But he was doing this.
He reached in, and when he withdrew his hand, out came a clear plastic bundle. Half empty, and with the top roughly opened, it was a package of underwear. Kiddie underwear. Brightly colored underwear. White, mostly, with trims in different colors.
Red. Yellow. Green. Orange. Blue.
It made sense. Preschooler. Potty trained. Doesn’t need diapers or training pants anymore, but…accidents happen. So send him to school with some extra undies just in case. Easy. Makes sense. Practical.
And this kid. This ‘Tommy’. He probably doesn’t have accidents all that often. Hence just a backpack full of spares. Just in case. Chances are that the teacher didn’t keep count of these. One single pair wouldn’t be missed. Would it? Of course not. Not by the preschool teacher. Certainly not by Tommy.
Still not thinking, or more accurately, not admitting to himself what he was doing, Tom reached into the little clear plastic bag and took out the underwear inside. The blue trim one. He unfolded it and took a closer look. A sharp inhale cut into his lungs.
Chase. It was Chase. Paw Patrol. Just like training pants he’d seen on Saturday. Still in a trance, Tom rubbed the inseam with his thumb and forefinger rather like checking a baby’s diaper. It was thicker in the front than in the back. A little extra padding woven in to contain tiny dribbles, if not outright wettings. These weren’t disposable, but they were definitely training pants.
That’s when Tom knew. He was taking these. He was taking this underwear. He flipped open the inside and checked the size.
4-5T
Pulse racing and breath catching in his chest, he slid off his shoes and wiggled out of his pants. Gingerly, as though they were made of tissue paper, he slipped his feet into the leg holes, closed his eyes, and thought skinny thoughts as he shimmied the toddler pants up his hips.
Amazingly, they fit. They probably shouldn’t have. But they did. He slid over past Pinnochio to look in the sink’s mirror. Was it deja vu, fantasy, or nostalgia that caused such a massive dopamine release in Tom?
Didn’t know. Didn’t care.
All that Tom noticed was that he was in a T-shirt and kiddie undies with Chase on the front. He looked like a giant preschooler. He didn’t whisper as much as mouth the words “Chase is on the case” and felt a silly little grin form on his lips.
He looked cute. Like something Amanda might wanna cuddle, and tickle, and play with, and let sit on her lap. Hadn’t Cameron quipped something about getting a small dog? Paw Patrol had lots of little pups. In the darkest parts of his soul, Tom fantasized about that being close enough. His penis was pressed up against him, with the tight underwear being not quite equipped for a little boy with a man sized package. It didn’t help that blood was starting to rush there, causing his member to engorge.
He reached down between his legs, and rubbed himself through the front, the extra bit of cloth making him have to press just a little bit harder. It only made the feeling that much more intense. The top row of his teeth bit down into his bottom lip to suppress a low moan.
This was a bad idea. This was a bad idea. He really shouldn’t do this.
Betting down the sides of his tongue he hustled back over to the Gingerbread Man stall and sat down on the toddler toilet. He leaned back against the wall, his shoulders being cradled by the imaginary arms of the Gingerbread Man, stretching out his legs for comfort.
Through the front of the training pants, his training pants now, he started rubbing himself, teasing himself bit by bit. This was a bad idea. This was wrong.
No. Not wrong, the little voice inside his head whispered to him. Just naughty. And sometimes naughty could be fun.
His teasing himself picked up the pace as he started to rub himself in earnest. Hrnnn…internally he grunted. Not quite right. He was chafing. If he really picked up speed, the dark clinical part of his mind told him, he’d give himself a rug burn on his dick.
He really should stop.
Tom had a choice, he knew. He could make a good decision, or have a good time….but not both.
Thinking quickly he darted to the underside of the changing table and grabbed a small travel sized container of baby powder. He pulled the front of his new shorts open and sprinkled a hefty amount down and around his crotch, letting a little puff come out as the front waistband snapped closed and enjoying the cool soothing feeling on his dick as the powder settled it.
Now he looked AND smelled like a little kid.
With no time to lose, Tom took his place back on the potty, legs stretched out and he started rubbing himself again. Oh yeah. That’s good. The baby powder was helping things slide along nicely. No chafing. No rashes for little Tommy.
Lids half closed, he still wearily eyed the door. No doors on the stall. Someone might just walk in. But that only made it more exciting, didn’t it?
That’s what this potty was for. Little guys like him couldn’t be trusted to go potty all by himself, could they? A teacher, or maybe even a highschool volunteer- one who wanted to play with cuties like him-had to be able to pop in at any second and check in on him. Make sure he was okay and that he was using the potty like he should.
Oh. That hit a good nerve.
Tom’s real eyes went hazy as he imagined the door squeaking open, and Amanda peaked in, checking to see if he had made it in time. He had been holding his pee-pee and had run off to the potty without permission. Teacher had sent in a trusted senior to check up on him since she was so busy looking after the other kids.
At least, that’s what he pretended had happened. Looking down at his pants on the floor, she grinned and shook her head, knowing the truth before even Tommy did.
Eyes now fully closed, Tommy saw his unrequited crush swish over to him and take a knee. His free hand playing with his balls and pressing them into him. He was shrinking. Shrinking there on the toddler potty. And Dream Amanda was gingerly poking and prodding at his wet training pants.
“Uh-oh. I think you had an accident, little guy.” Tommy whispered to himself, hearing it come out in Amanda’s voice. “Do you know what that means?” Tommy shook his head. He was lying. He did know.
“It means that Miss Amanda needs to get you all dry and clean. Come on bubby. Up ya go.” Tommy bent his knees as he imagined her scopping him up and carting him over to the changing table. No steps for him.
His lips moved to the imagined words. “Don’t worry, little bubby. You’re not in trouble. You did your best and that’s all that matters.” Just like in Malacus, he was small and fragile, but loved, oddly in control. The hero.
In real life, Tommy’s legs lifted higher off the floor as he imagined Amanda shimmying his Paw Patrol undies off of his hips. “Let’s see,” she said, looking under the changing table. “What am I gonna put you in, now? Diapers or Pull-Ups? Diapers or Pull-Ups?”
She brought forth a rectangular piece of folded fabric. “I don’t think Charlie will mind loaning one of his diapers with you,” she said. Still there in the open bathroom stall, Tommy thrusted his hips a little bit as he imagined Amanda lifting them and sliding a freshly unfolded diaper underneath his bum.
Her eyes traveled down to his blood engorged member. “Oh-hoh!” she giggled. “Is that what happened? Did the big boy have an accident because he couldn’t point his pee-pee down?” Tommy gripped himself all the harder. Then he/Dream Amanda said, “Here. Let me help, honey.”
Whether it was Amanda beating him off, or Tommy masturbating was all a matter of perspective. A telepath would have said the former. A security camera would have indicated the latter. Fortunately for Tommy, neither was present, and it wasn’t until he was pumped into an absolute frenzy, all but hearing the actual crinkle of the imaginary diaper beneath him, practically feeling the non-existed vinyl mat beneath his shoulders, that his self-control finally gave up the ghost and completely overwhelmed, rushed him to orgasm; hot ejaculate pumping forth into his purloined undies.
Those training pants were his now. It would have been cruel to give them back. Not to mention rude.
And not a moment too soon.
“Hello?” A voice called out. It was the preschool teacher. “Are you okay?”
Tommy scrambled off the potty, yanked up his pants and quickly buttoned them. Not even thinking of removing the ill-gotten undies. “Yeah. Sorry!” He called out. “Just having some stomach problems.” Quick as a bunny, he slipped his shoes back on and stashed the kids’ backpack back under the changing table where he found it and closed the cabinet as quietly as he could. “I’m coming…out,” he called, trying to hide the noise he must be making.
Please don’t look like a freak, please don’t look like a freak.
He opened the door, his heart thudding in his chest. Over her shoulder, the preschoolers were still snacking playing. He couldn’t even look the woman in the eye. “Everything alright?”
“Just a…tight fit.” Tom said. He motioned back. It was kind of the truth. “Chili day, too.”
Please don’t look like a freak. Please don’t look like a freak. Please let the erection have gone down.
“Ah”, the teacher said. “That’s why I bring my lunch from home.”
Tom grimaced. “No such luck. Thank you very much.”
Please don’t look like a freak. Please don’t look like a freak. Please let the erection have gone down. Please Don’t have the bathroom smell like baby powder and cum….did cum even have a distinctive enough or strong enough odor?
Tommy didn’t wait any longer. He brushed past the teacher, and weaved out “Gotta go.” He all but closed his eyes, speed walking. He wished he could have closed his ears, too.
Don’t get caught. Don’t get caught. Don’t get caught.
That was the problem with masturbation. It was the best thing ever until it stopped. Then the real world poked its head in and started meddling.
Thank goodness that whatever karma he’d earned by bringing the snacks and helping Lunch Lady Phyllis was on his side, because the teacher didn’t call out, and neither had asked him his name. Within two minutes he was back across campus in the safety and familiarity of Fourth Period English class, just before the late bell after Lunch.
Kiesha Thompson walked into the student bathroom in her classroom, sniffing around. She didn’t know the kid who’d just asked to use her bathroom, but something seemed suspicious about him. Like he was hiding something…
Trying to smoke pot in the preschool bathroom wasn’t the dumbest thing she’d heard of one of these idiot teens doing. She chuckled to herself. The teenage years really were like a second toddlerhood for some. Especially boys.
The putrid scent of improperly digested feces invaded her nose and Kiesha almost gagged. Ugh. Okay. Yeah. Never mind. Maybe the guy had just let a big deuce drop and was embarrassed about it. Definitely not weed, though.
Out of force of habit, she went over to the changing table and opened up the bottom compartment. Time to get some air freshener! Out of the cabinet tumbled a blue backpack. “How did this get here?” she wondered. It didn’t look like any of her students’ belongings, and she wasn’t one to put school supplies with the Pull-Ups.
Weird.
She found a name, written in black sharpie marker on top. “Tommy?” She read the name written on the back pack. “Who’s Tommy?”
The sound of roughhousing from outside told her she’d have to find out later. Kiesha hurried out of her class’s bathroom and back to the little makeshift playground not thirty feet away, leaving the errant bookbag on the floor.
Meanwhile, from beneath the changing table, a gentle white mist creeped out, quietly lifted the backpack on it’s smokey tendrils and ushered it back into the quiet darkness beneath the changing table.
The next time that Kiesha Thompson, or anyone, looked underneath that table, all they’d find were the usual Pull-Ups for the kids who hadn’t quite mastered the potty and diapers to go over certain underwear during naptime “just in case”.


Chapter 11: Preparations and Plotting.
So…come up to the lab
And see what’s on the slab
I see you SHIVER with antici…
“Hey sis,” Tom tapped Katlynn’s shoulder on the bus ride home.
Katlynn turned her head and looked at her twin from across the aisle in the back. She gave him a knowing look. “What do you want?”
Crud! “Want?” Tom said. “What makes you think I want something?” Crud! He’d already let his hand slip, somehow!
“Because you only call me ‘sis’,” Katlynn reminded him, “when you want something.” Tom raised his finger to interject; opened his mouth…and then shut it and put his hands back in his lap. “What is it?” she asked.
She had him. Might as well not beat around the bush. “I want to sleep on the couch tonight.”
It was Katlynn’s turn to be dumbstruck. Tom watched as her eyes went from left to right, like a kitty cat wall clock, trying to figure out what angle he was coming from. “Whhhhy?” she finally asked. “The couch sucks and it’s your turn to take the bed.”
Katlynn wasn’t naive enough to believe this was out of altruism. He was no Billy Flynn from Chicago and she was no Mary Sunshine. What he wanted was not understandable or comprehensible. In fact it might be a bit reprehensible and not so defensible.
Life-Tom was learning from his impulsive masturbation session earlier today- was complicated.
“Are you gonna sneak out?” Katlynn asked.
As a matter of fact, yes. “No.” Tom said.
“Drugs?”
Kind of…? Did being addicted to a magical realm count? “No.”
“You know it’s easier to…” Katlynn paused and made a quiet jerking motion with her hand, “in the bedroom, right? Much comfier. More private.”
Tom had to rub his temples. “I’m aware, sister, and I don’t need to know how you know that.”
Katlynn smirked, clearly enjoying making Tom feel uncomfortable. “I don’t do it that way,” she whispered. “More wiggling fingers than-”
“BACK ON TOPIC!” Tom yelled over the school bus’s engine that was not NEARLY loud enough for this conversation.
“If you’re doing it in the bathroom, we already know. Nobody has to poop that often.”
We?! “It’s my back, okay!” Tom hissed through clenched teeth. “My back’s been hurting and for some reason it’s easier to sleep on the couch!” It was a lie. A bold faced lie but one Katlynn might believe.
“The couch is probably worse for your back,” Katlynn said. “Mine always hurts the next morning.”
Tom nodded, agreeing just to hurry the pitch along. “Mine too,” he said. “But if I get in just the right position I fall right asleep. Conked out. The sore back is worth it.” What would have been obvious to any mind reader is that it wasn’t the couch that Tom wanted access to, but the old clock in their living room.
Katlynn stared at him quizzically. “What are you really doing?” It was almost like his own reflection was staring back at him and accusing him of something he’d yet to do. Another version of him; isn’t that what twins were?
“I just need sleep,” Tom insisted. “Rough day and I want to escape.” Lies and half-truths.
Tom had had a great day, in fact. People had only called Tom ‘D-List’ three and a half times today instead of the usual ten. And the three that had happened had been in classes where Trevor Macintosh wasn’t present. The half, Tom counted, was when Josh Hamlin had started it and gotten slugged in the shoulder during Mr. Jordan’s fifth period.
Mr. Jordan had even called Tom up to the board and yelled (Mr. Jordan yelled?) at the class for talking. After the initial shouting, all he’d needed was crossed arms and wise yet withering glare. It had taken Tommy everything not to call his teacher ‘Nox’ after that.
People were changing, treating Tom with more respect, being. Even Amanda and Cameron had been relatively nice to him during lunch. Tom bit down on his own tongue. Lunch. He was still wearing the oddly sized training pants he’d stolen.
He’d promised himself to ditch the Paw Patrol Undies in a more adult bathroom later in the day. Like his reasons for crashing on the couch tonight, that had been a lie, even if he hadn’t known it. For reasons he couldn’t quite explain, Tom just felt right wearing them. They were like his armor, today. Cute and cuddly padded armor.
But even Chase from Paw Patrol was no match to the hand and song crafted runic armor that the dwarves of Malacus had forged for him.
Malacus. That’s where this change was coming from, Tom knew. He didn’t know how, and didn’t care. There was a bizarre connection between his traveling to that realm hidden in the old clock and people treating him slightly better in this world. Tom wanted that. He wanted mor-
“Hello?” Katlynn snapped her fingers. “Earth to Tommy. You’re doing that thing where you talk to yourself, again. Get out of your head.”
Tom blinked the cobwebs away. “Huh? What?”
“You spaced out,” Katlynn said. “Did you even hear me?”
“No…?”
“I said ‘yeah’.” she repeated herself. “Just don’t do anything creepy and don’t wake me up.”
Yes! Victory! Opportunity!
Ambition sated for the moment, Tom’s sibling rivalry instincts took over. He allowed himself a positively ghoulish smile. “What priority would that be in?”
“Ewww! Gross!” she backhanded his arm. They were both laughing as the bus reached their stop. They walked the block and a half in amiable silence back home to Forrest Luxury Apartments.
With a tired creak, they shuffled back through the door andTom threw his backpack on the couch, officially claiming it as Katlynn closed it behind him. “Dibs!”
“You do know I still get to sit there before bed, right?”
“Sure,” Tom allowed. Not even looking behind him, Tom walked over to the old grandfather clock. His breath caught a bit when he looked at the placard labeling it ‘Malacus’. Opening the front panel, he peered inside, wanting to see the misty darkness that he’d journeyed into just a few nights ago. It couldn’t have been a dream. It couldn’t!
Katlyn crashed on the couch. “I still don’t get how you can sleep on this thing,” she said. “I’m always tossing and turning.” Tom wasn’t even looking at her. Just at the tangled mass of gears and cobwebs inside. Even a clock this size didn’t need this many gears. Maybe the last owner was into Steampunk. “Why are you looking at that old thing?”
“I don’t know,” Tom lied again. “Just trying to figure out the best way to clean it up. You know Mary’s gonna have us do most of the work cleaning it up, right?”
Tom’s sister sat up a little straighter (as straight as she could on the old, enveloping couch). “Why would Mom have us clean it up now?”
The young man sighed. He was the one wearing training pants but he felt like he was explaining things to a child. “Because if we’re gonna sell it like she wants to, we can’t sell it like this.” Tom stepped back and grandly gestured to what was now a vaguely clock shaped bundle of firewood. “And she’s not gonna do the work. We both know that.”
Katlynn’s brows knitted together and a look of mild confusion flashed across her eyes. “Why are we gonna sell it? We’re poor but we’re not that poor.” She pointed to the old grandfather. “We’ve had that thing for years.”
Tom was about to argue and then the strangest thing happened: It was as if a mist was gently wafting over the folds in his brain, a fog rolling in and leaving little droplets of memories on the front lawn of his mind. “Oh yeah,” Tom remembered.
“You’re not wrong though,” Katlynn said. “That old thing wouldn’t sell for scrap. Not even Checkmate Pawn would take that thing right now.”
“Yeah,” Tom agreed. “It’s pretty worthless.” It was worthless, as a clock at least. But as of last Friday night bleeding into Saturday morning, Tom had discovered the old thing’s true potential; potential that he was going to put to good use. Tonight. Tom half-promised half prayed. Tonight it would work.
It would have to. Tom didn’t know if he could handle it not working.


Chapter 12: Pickup without picking up a thing…
As Tom and Katlynn Dean were getting home, and dreams of a faraway land outside of time and space prepared to make Tom’s evening slow to a crawl, other, less fortunate (some might argue more fortunate) people were also being picked up from their place of learning. ‘Learning’ might be too strong a word to be accurate, but these locales had lots of resources about learning letters, shapes, colors, numbers, animal sounds and the like. And gosh darn it, everyone attending was just having a golly gosh good ol’ time at doing it!
For Molly Simpson of Trenton, New Jersey, it was at Happy Hearts Exceptional Student Daycare, just after she clocked out of her restaurant (and it was her restaurant) to go pick up her daughter. Her husband would handle the dinner rush, as per usual.
For Dan Buckman of Sacramento California, it was just a quick trot over from his successful used car lot to check on his son at the Institute for Developmental Delays.
The Church of Second Chances had a wonderful religious community that had practically sprung up to support Marie De Plantagenet in paris. Both of her children were afforded free care there, and she didn’t hesitate to donate a large sum of her considerable profits to it each year.
The dance was always the same for these parents and their many many counterparts. They’d come in, chat for a moment with whichever nanny-type was available about their child’s progress (not that progress was ever truly expected), and then they’d be on their way back home, their not-quite little bundle in tow, and all involved would be nothing but smiles.
All the parents considered themselves extremely lucky; not only to have been successful enough to live a life where they could comfortably support themselves and their children, but to have found such places and communities to provide care in the first place. It was all just so lucky. So fortunate. So comfortable.
So what if their child was never going to grow past four feet? Or go on a date? Or learn to care for themselves in any meaningful way, potty training included? They’d known that from the outset, and they were happy about it.
Who wouldn’t want an eternal baby to love and cuddle and care for? Deep down, they knew they were lucky. Deep down, they knew everyone loved their adult children and saw them the same way, as adorable toddlers in need of some extra TLC. Deep down, they knew all of this.
What they didn’t know was that doors to the various Institutes, Centers, Adult Daycares, Special Ed. Rooms, Church Nurseries, and so on all led to the same room once past the threshold. Regardless of name or region, it was always the same place with the same staff and the same ‘kids’.
What they didn’t know was that neither time nor time zone was a factor in this place. It was always drop off in the morning, and pickup in the afternoon, and for some reason the fact that one nineteen year old baby lived in New Mexico while their twenty-eight year old playmate spent their weekends in Japan never seemed to bother the parents, the staff, or the people in their care.
None of the parents even knew each other. They didn’t even stop to think what a strange coincidence it was that after years of enrollment they’d never encountered another parent. All just ‘coincidentally’ picking up their darling, crinkling ‘little ones’, up one at a time. Nevermind any perceived language barriers.
They were just happy that they’re children could be treated like ‘normal’ kids for their entire lives and that they had a support network of staff and peers just like them, and the money to pay for it all.
What they definitely didn’t know was that their children hadn’t always had this special condition; that their memories had been misted away and that their children once had all of the physical and mental capabilities considered ‘average’ for their chronological age and level of development. Some had even moved out of the house before this condition had taken ahold of them and thrown their identities back into the cradle.
Some might have even made something spectacular of themselves (now the only thing spectacular was the messes they made in their diapers after a stomach bug). That was before this strange condition got to them, before this affliction wiped away their personalities and the memory of everyone close to them.
But whether they knew it or not, they were just as blessed and afflicted as their eternal dependents. Ignorance really could be bliss.


Chapter 13: Making his name.
It’s astounding
Time is fleeting
Madness
Takes its toll
But listen closely
Not for very much longer
I have to keep control…
BONG! BONG! BONG!
Tom Dean was on his feet before the third chime rang out, with his hand clapped over his mouth so he wouldn’t scream out in surprise (or joy). This was it! It was time! He knew it! Saturday and Sunday had been completely uneventful, with Tom not hearing so much as a peep from the old clock.
But now? Now it was time. The digital clock on the coffee table flashed half past eleven. Odd. Tom thought it would have been just after midnight when he was awakened. Apparently time wasn’t a factor for the broken clock. (Heh.)
Tired of waiting, Tom superstitiously recreated Friday night to the best of his memory. He’d slept on the couch in the same position, just like Friday. He’d worn the same silk jammies- his one good pair-just like Friday.
He’d tossed and turned, waiting for the clock to call to him for close to an hour before it occurred to him that sleeping might be a prerequisite of hearing its call. Too excited with the possibility of returning to that magical world to sleep without some kind of aid, Tom quietly masturbated on the couch thinking of hot women fawning over him as they changed his…clothes….his clothes and breas…stuck their titties in his face. Just like Friday.
A slight monkey wrench in the works was thrown in on the matter of Tom’s underwear. He hadn’t been wearing any undies last Friday. Stubborn superstition (was it even superstitious if it worked) dictated that Tom should have gone commando this night, but that would have meant stripping off the oddly fitting toddler underwear he’d stolen.
A tiny voice in his head; the same one that told him to take them; the same one that had him staring at packages of Pull-Ups in the grocery store; insisted that he shouldn’t. His own guilty conscience agreed out of practicality. Tossed underwear was potentially discovered underwear. And Tom would need an excuse that he just didn’t have handy.
Instead, Tom had ‘compromised’ with himself and shimmied his pajama bottoms down to his ankles so that only one layer of clothing was surrounding his loins as he revved his own engine. ‘Compromise’ was an apt word, though not in the context that Tom was imagining it. If he had been outside his own body looking down, he would have been able to see himself mouthing the words: “I’mma big boy, I’mma big boy, I’m big, I’m big, I’m big…” and then start sucking his thumb as he climaxed into his new padded underwear.
Hadn’t he fallen asleep after that? With his pajama bottoms still around his ankles? Why were they back around his waist now? Who-?
BONG! BONG! BONG!
The clock repeated its summons. As if to hammer the point home, the front panel of the clock creaked open. Malacus was in need of him, just as much as he needed it. Time to play the hero. Screw that! Time to BE the hero!
Just one slight problem…
He also had to pee.
Pretending that the old clock had eyes, he held up a finger towards the ruined antique, calling for patience. When the portal made no reply, Tom shuffled off to the bathroom. Adventuring through magical lands wasn’t the same on a full bladder.
Tom hurried to the bathroom, leaving the door open as he fumbled for his fly so that he could pee. It was a full five seconds of drunkenly searching for a zipper that didn’t exist. These were pajama bottoms, not boxers! Like a preschooler just getting the basics down, he dropped trow and made the same mistake with his underwear. The training pants forewent the need for a dick hole to make the padding extra absorbent.
Urge rising the eighteen year old practically gave himself rug burn yanking the padded undies down to answer nature’s call.
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh….”
Sadly, nature wasn’t the only thing calling Tommy.
CREEEEEAK!
The door was closing! Oh no! He was about to lose out on adventure number two because he had to go number one! Skin tingling, Tommy yanked up his training pants and jammies in one swoop and rushed out the bathroom.
The door was closing. He was being barred entry! Rejected. Time slowed down as he sprinted, diving for the closing door, headlong into darkness. “NNNNNNNNNN-!” He was skidding on rocky floor, a sprinter trying to steal home before the final pitch. His body was losing composure, trying to roll to break his fall.
The door closed behind him. “OOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” His voice echoing off cavernous interdimensional stone. Trapped in darkness, but on the other side of the clock. Picking himself up off the ground Tommy heaved a sigh of relief.
“Did it,” he said to himself.
“Iddit….iddit…iddit…” his echo called back. As the heat from his body died down, Tommy felt himself growing cold…cold and damp, but only in one strategic area. He’d done it alright. Right in his pants. In his rush to make the closing door (mystical time waited for no man), he hadn’t finished peeing and accidentally released part of his bladder into his thick toddler underpants.
The complete darkness enveloping him only made the feeling in his underwear that much more obvious. Biting his bottom lip, he felt through the front of his pajama pants, detecting the slightest squish.
He’d peed himself.
Again, he patted his crotch, more gingerly this time. The wetness hadn’t bled through to the front yet. Good. Just a little pee…a tiny tinkle. Only a little more than if he’d forgotten to shake. It wouldn’t do to have Tom the Titan, savior of Malacus running around with wet pants.
One deep breath later, Tom put his hand against the nearest cave wall and trudged forward, much faster than he had that first night. He knew where he was going this time. This was a journey, not an exploration.
Quicker than the first time, Tommy found the chamber of glowing algae, the sound of dripping water greeting him. Self-consciously, he pawed at his crotch, which was beginning to feel cool and clammy. “It’ll all come out in the pool,” Tommy whispered to himself. “No one will know. Not Nox. Not Leadshoulder. No one.”
“Un…un…un…un…”
Impatiently, he strode forward to the end of the chamber, towards where he’d find the Mana Pool. Where was it? He looked around, his eyes not yet fully adjusted to the bioluminescent algae.
There!
Just above the exit, the final stretch to a land where he was a god, scraped into the wall was the name: “Charles Watson”.
Tommy stopped. Charles Watson. Must’ve been the guy who saved Malacus before Tommy; the reason why Nox and company thought the land outside their clock was called The Land of Men. He shrugged. Neat.
He took a step forward.
And stopped.
Why should Charles Watson be the only person to leave his mark on this place? Where was Charles Watson? Not here! This wasn’t Charles Watson’s place anymore, it was Tommy’s!
Index finger extended like a chisel, Tommy picked a nearby patch of algae. Sticky and wet, not unlike other things close to Tommy; though that comparison gave him little comfort. With slow and deliberate movements, Tommy carved out his name. Each movement of his finger sent rippling beautiful sparks through the wood as he disturbed it.
Mesmerizing. Positively mesmerizing. It made the simple act of scribbling his name seem all the more magical. “Thomas Dean” he read out loud. It felt better, right, to use his formal name. This time the cavern did not echo back.
Tommy waited. “Well…okay then.”
“En…en…en…en…”
Huh. Weird. One deep breath later, Tommy ducked and stepped through the hole.
A moment of blackness.
And then power!
The first time he’d come here, he had almost drowned. Now he was soaring, gliding through the depths; each kick propelling him like a shark through the water. The tiny light of the sun was a target to him and he effortlessly surged upward.
Less than three seconds later, his lungs were taking in air as he broke the surface. He wasn’t swimming, he was all but soaring. He was a dolphin! A dragon! A god! An olympic diver in reverse, Tom flipped and spun in the air flinging the errant droplets of water off of him in a blur before landing on his feet.
“NICE!” he said.
That wasn’t all that was nice. The air, the very fabric of Malcus’s reality had done more than empower Tommy, but his clothes as well. Completely dry, his silk pajamas were now hardened Dwarven Steel glowing with both magic and sunlight.
Correction: Not completely dry.
Tommy could still feel a certain dampness in the front of his crotch. In this form, his mystical armor was all one piece. He couldn’t just pull open his metal trousers and peek down or feel around now. It was an all or nothing ordeal.
He didn’t exactly need to, though. Tommy could feel it. The strange cool clamminess around his penis hadn’t reduced at all. His jammies had metamorphosed into the amazing mythical armor from his last journey.
His underwear? That was still nothing more than soiled training pants. Oddly enough, Tommy was okay with that. No one could see it, he justified. So it didn’t matter. It would do him good to stay humble here.
“M’lord!” a familiar voice called to him. “Thank goodness you’ve returned from Earth Realm!”
Tommy turned to the sound of the voice as stout heavy boots trudged toward him. “Leadshoulder!” he called back. “Your beard has finished growing in! Congratulations.”
The dwarf with the face of a (former) bully stretched out across his wide skull finished his approach and took a knee. “Thank you, m’lord. Somehow, I knew it would be me to find you. We’ve been taking shifts the last several days.”
Right. Right. This wasn’t a vacation for them, Tommy reminded himself. The dwarves and centaurs didn’t know that their entire universe was inside a beat up piece of crap. “Where’s Nox?”
“Captured, m’lord,” the dwarf answered. “Enslaved. Him and all the other centaurs.”
“Elves?” Tommy asked.
“What else?”
“Any hydragons?”
A grim chuckle came from Leadshoulder’s lips. “I believe you throttled them into extinction, m’lord.”
“Then what?”
The dwarf’s eyes went downcast. “The elves have a new queen, m’lord. A dark sorceress who bleeds dark magic.”
Tommy held up his hand. He had a strange feeling about this one. “Enrapturing voice?”
“Aye, m’lord.”
“Curvaceous hips?”
“Aye…”
“The ability to ensorcel any man that she speaks to, capable of driving them to frenzied lusts, or crushing sorrow?”
“M’lord? How do you-?”
Tommy wasn’t done guessing. “And does this Queen have a…a…” he stuttered. What was the word? “A handmaiden with huge…tracts of land?”
“We call them breasts, m’lord.”
Tommy waved the dwarf off and Leadshoulder visibly shook, afraid that Tommy might accidentally grace him. “You know what I mean. Does the sorceress elf queen have a handmaiden with huge tits?!”
Leadshoulder only gawked and began playing with his beard out of sheer nervous disbelief. “Does the Land of Men…I mean Earth Realm house such witches for you to know so much?”
“Not quite,” Tommy smirked. “But close enough.” Tommy walked over to his fantasy friend and wrapped his arm around the dwarf’s waist. “Which way is this evil elf queen and her handmaiden.”
“Do you intend to slay her, m’lord?” The dwarf’s voice had a kind of angry hope behind it. What had this witch done?
Tommy looked to the dwarf. “Is it something she did to Nox?”
“Aye,” he replied. “But I dare not speak of it. Tis’ shameful for one of his kind.”
Everything here was so amped up from reality. Nox equated to Mr. Jordan. And this evil elf queen was most likely some variation of Amanda Monroe. In class Amanda had Mr. Jordan wrapped around her finger. What could be so shameful for a centaur that his friend wouldn’t even speak of it? A terrible idea sunk its way into Tommy’s brain. “Castrated?” he asked. “Or gelded, I guess?”
“Wha-?” Now Leadshoulder looked disgusted. “No! Don’t be ridiculous. She just rides him around everywhere like a horse. Puts a saddle on him and rides it sideways. Keeps his hands tied behind his back and a bridle in his mouth.” His lip curled in disgust. “A sad sight to see a half man, half horse reduced to just a horse. Do you intend to throttle her or not?”
A blush rose to Tommy’s sheeks, but not from fury. A heat rose in his loins and his wet underwear pressed against him just a little tighter. This was a rare opportunity he had here. First Josh and Trevor. Now Amanda and Cameron. Trevor was a dwarf, Josh had been an Elf. Dwarves good. Elves bad. But did they have to be? Not every evil needed to be slain outright.
And as fun as it was to pretty much disintegrate a pointy eared, purple blooded Josh Hamlin, doing the same to two girls that he had a crush on just wasn’t in the same ballpark. Wrong sport altogether, infact. No. A different tact was needed here.
“Not exactly,” Tommy said. “Which way to this evil elf queen?”
“You go to her now?”
“Only if you’ll tell me.”
“North by Northeast, m’looooooooooo-”
Tommy didn’t even wait for Leadshoulder to finish his sentence. The moment he had a direction, he leapt into the air doing miles at a single bound, and carrying his poor stout friend along with him attached at the hip.
“Beggin’ your pardon, m’lord!” the dwarf screamed to be heard over the rushing air. “But we’re falling!”
“Aye,” Tommy said, adopting the speech patterns of his adopted world. “But we’ll land safely before we go up again.”
“Would it please you, m’lord if you drop me,” the dwarf stopped himself. Leadshoulder was tugging at his beard with his free hand. “I mean put me down safely before your next titanic leap?”
Tommy giggled. “Fine. Sure thing buddy. Sure thing.”
Darn it felt good to be back!


Chapter 14: A Battle of Wills
Draw a line in the sand
And then make a stand
Use your camera to spar
Use your guitar
When they act tough
You call their bluff
“My, my, my,” The elf queen said. “What have we here? Bust into my private chambers with nary a knock.” She laid on her lavish bed, her robe made of glistening glamouring samite, just as it had been described by Leadshoulder. Sparkly. Huh. So that’s what samite looked like. Or was it? Tommy had been told that the queen sheathed herself in robes of samite, but he’d never seen the material before, and only vaguely recalled the word from a Monty Python skit. Could Malacus, fantasy realm that it was, accurately represent or contain ideas that Tommy did not possess?
Ultimately, it was the fact that the queen looked identical to Amanda Monroe, (discounting the purple eyes and pointy ears) that marked her as the elve’s tyrannical monarch. It made sense that the queen of Scrumpton High, and his biggest crush, was the evil queen that he must conquer. “Is this what the Titan from the Land of Man looks like?” Her tone was gentle, but her face was completely blase; unimpressed.
Tommy smiled softly. . Whatever bizarre rules this magical world played by, some things were still a constant. Considering what he wanted to do, constants were a comfort… “Earth Realm,” Tommy said.
“Hmmm?”
“It’s called Earth Realm, now.”
The elf with Amanda’s face remained lying on her bed. “Why?” she asked. “Do men now live beneath the earth and shun the open sky as dwarves do?”
“No.”
“Do they fear the sea and dare not speak its name?”
“No.”
“Then why Earth Realm?”
Tommy’s brows knitted together in mild consternation. “Because I said so…?” That didn’t feel quite right. Not very heroic. It sounded like something a dumb grown-up would say when their authority was challenged.
The elf queen did not stir. “Oh? You’re a king over there, then?”
“No…I-”
“A general?” A slight smirk. Not a happy one.
“No.”
“A religious leader?” Tommy didn’t even get a chance to reply before she peppered him with more sarcastic suggestion., “Grand marshal in a parade? Nanny for a small child? Won a contest by having your name drawn from a hat? Given to you by someone who did?”
“ENOUGH!” Tommy’s voice was thunder and it echoed throughout the tower drowning out the elf’s voice. Still…the queen seemed unmoved. She just kept lounging on her bed like a cat that had been mildly roused from its nap. “It doesn’t matter what I am over there! Here? Here I’m invincible.”
“Ah yes,” the queen said. “All men who come to Malacus are dregs.” Just like the real Amanda, Queenie’s emotions seemed to range from condescension all the way to disgust. “Dregs. Peasants. Losers. Yet the air of Malacus nourishes you. Fills you. Protects you. Coddles you.” She spat the last word.
“Your point?”
Unafraid, the queen brushed back her hair and stretched. “I wonder what would happen, were our positions reversed. What if even one of my people could go to your Land of Men?”
“Earth Realm.”
“Whatever.” The queen, who had until now been laying on her back, twisted and turned so that she was on her stomach, still looking up comfortably at Tom. “Your home is something I think I’d very much like to see.”
A growl escaped Tommy. Such a beautiful face but such cutting words. And just like everyone else in his life, this elf seemed to possess the uncanny ability to know his deepest insecurities. “My air might be poisonous to you.”
“Then let me be poisoned,” she laughed. “I’d still get to see the great Tom the Titan in his natural state: No armor. No strength. Helpless. Weak. Pathetic…”
Tommy’s blood boiled. His teeth gnashed. This wasn’t going as he’d wanted it to at all. He stepped forward and saw the glimmer in his enemy’s eyes. He stopped and looked down, not at his own feet, but the foot of her bed. The bed sat on an ornate rug of deep purple. But why?
The nerdy teen from Scrumpton took a breath and thought for a moment. Amanda-elf remained silent, staring at Tommy, frozen from her bed. Not egging him on. Not speaking at all. Tension wound and stirred in her face.
“You’ve got some kind of magic circle around your bed don’t you?” he finally said. “I’m guessing something that’ll reflect my attack back at me? Maybe enchant my mind? Control me?”
Like a child that had just had their favorite knock-knock joke spoiled, the elf queen slapped her feather bed in frustration and sat up on it. “A bit of both,” she admitted. Her feet hanging over the bed, she peeled back a fold of the carpet, giving Tom a glimpse of glyphs etched in stone. “It’s primarily an entrancement spell, but your speed and strength are legendary so I wove in a barrier spell to slow you. It wouldn’t help to enslave you and have you accidentally break me in my charge.”
Tommy stroked his chin with a gauntleted hand. “Huh. Clever.”
“You would have been a most magnificent servant.”
“I would have.” Tommy agreed. “If it makes you feel any better, you almost had me. Near perfect baiting. Any less and I wouldn’t have wanted to attack. Any more and I would have known it was a trap. Can’t seem too desperate for this sort of prank.”
The elf crossed her arms over her chest and pouted. “”Where did I go wrong, then?” she asked. “I was attempting to coax you into attacking me in a blind rage; to make you think that I’d given up and wished to die by your hand.”
“Yeah,” Tommy nodded. “Almost worked.”
“Did work on the centaur.”
“If you’d taunted me while I was thinking you would have seemed too desperate.”
The sorceress queen leaned forward, her elbows on her knees and rested chin in her hands. “What was I supposed to have done?” Damn she was cute when she fussed like that.
“Should have used a dagger,” Tommy replied. “Threw it at me when I was taking too long. Make me react on instinct and charge. Same thing happened to me with the dwarves.”
A look of genuine admiration crossed her. “Oh, you are clever.”
“Tell that to Amanda,” Tom sighed.
“Who?”
“Nevermind.” Tom said. “I win. Where do you want to take this from here?”
The queen rolled her eyes. A very Amanda gesture. “I suppose this is the part where you throttle me and snap my neck like a twig, just as you did to the hydragons.”
He wouldn’t have minded his hands around her, that was true. Just not in that way. “I don’t think so,” Tommy said.
The queen smiled. “Then let’s talk, shall we?” She patted a spot on her bed next to her and scooted over, her smile was inviting. Tempting even.
Not tempting enough for Tommy to forget. “I’m not crossing that spell circle.”
“Damn,” she snapped her fingers. “Can’t blame me for trying.”
“And if you’re still stalling for time and waiting on your handmaiden slash ninja assassin, I already took care of her.”
Her eyes went wide with shock. Huh. To think that Amanda Monroe actually cared about someone besides herself, even if it was just her in elf form. “You didn’t…?!”
“What? No.” Tommy shook his head. “No, no, no, no. I just tied her up a little.” Elf-Cameron was tied up with chains, there not being any rope in the dungeon handy, but she was fine otherwise.
Elf-Amanda stood up from her bed, still not crossing her own warding circle. “It seems we’re at an impasse,” she said. “You can’t enter my circle of protection and I dare not leave it. Were I you I’d simply seal off this tower and make it a prison.”
“Yeah, “ Tommy said. “That’s not me.”
“Who are you?”
Tommy took a deep breath. He could have destroyed her in the same way that he’d destroyed the assassin last time. Put an end to this war once and for all. But maybe he didn’t want it to end like that. Maybe there was more to being the hero than strangling a few hydragons.
Trevor Macintosh had been a huge dick, but ever since Tommy had converted his dwarven doppelganger, Trevor had become halfway decent. Josh was a giant chode, but the elf with his face had tried to murder him. So maybe it was dwarves good, elves bad. But in his gut, Tommy felt it was something more.
The people in this magical land were pale reflections of his real life. But maybe, just maybe they were something more, and that by altering their shadows, he could change the real deal. He sure hoped so.
Releasing his breath, Tommy closed his eyes and called out to the runes in his armor, signaling at them to release. Like a kind of prayer, he whispered,
“I never asked for this, or planned it in advance. I was merely blown here by the winds of chance. I never considered myself a Solomon, or Socrates. I knew who I was: one of your dime-a-dozen mediocrities.” His armor liked songs, so he picked lyrics that kept him humble, even if they were dubious in their original context.
The armor didn’t fall off as much as it melted off of him and reassembled next to him. He didn’t feel nearly as powerful without it. But Tom the Titan wasn’t needed to solve this problem.
“I’m Tommy Dean,” he said.
The elf considered him a moment. “Ghilanna of the Gilded Leaf,” she finally said.
“It is a pleasure to meet you, Ghilanna”
Ghilanna stared at Tommy, everything but the color of her eyes identical to his crush. “Tommy Dean,” she said. “Why do you have pups embroidered on your smallclothes and why are they soiled?”
Tommy looked down and blushed. He’d forgotten that he still had his Paw Patrol training briefs on. The urine had dried up, but the piss stains yet remained.
“Yeah…about that,” he said. “There’s a story to that.”
“Do tell.”


Chapter 15: Coupling
And you know, you know, you know
It’s 'cause you’re beautiful
You say you’re numb inside
But I can’t agree
So the world’s unfair
Keep it locked out there
In here it’s beautiful
Let’s make this beautiful!
“That works for me.”
Ghilanna, queen of the elves sat on her bed, a look of intense concentration and confusion on her face. “So you’re a student? A child?”
Tommy sat in his own chair that he’d pulled so that he could sit and talk with the now deposed elf queen. His armor remained floating by the door to her bedroom as it had been since he’d removed it. Outside the sun was starting to set. “Yes and no,” Tommy said. “I’m an adult, but I’m still learning. Not on my own, yet.”
“Why not?”
“It’s…kind of how my world works. My part of the world, anyhow.” How was he supposed to explain the social and geo-political complexities of twenty-first century Earth? Tommy barely understood high school Civics class. Most days he barely understood the societal mandates and rules of Scrumpton Georgia. To explain all the nuances and complications with living in the real world to someone literally living in a fantasy one; it was just beyond Tommy.
Ghilanna seemed to think and take in everything she’d been told. “You’re a childe?”
“What?!” Tommy felt himself tense up. “No!” The ruined kiddie undies around his waist weren’t helping his insecurities at the moment. “Like I said, I’m not a kid. I go to school but legally, I’m an adult.”
Ghilanna still had Amanda’s same pitying, condescending laugh. “Not that kind of child; a babe suckling at its mother’s teat,” she explained. “A childe is an untested knight. A man grown who has earned his armor and title, but has yet to taste true battle.” Even though looking at her made him desperately want to suckle at her teat, the idea of being compared to a knight made Tommy feel better about himself.
“Yeah. You could say that, I guess.” Remembering a poem he had to read in English class, a lightbulb went off in. “I mean yeah. Totally. This is my Dark Tower.”
“So that is why Malacus is always in turmoil,” Ghilanna said, seemingly more to herself. “We’re your proving grounds.”
Tommy hadn’t thought of it that way. “No, it’s just…yeah, that’s it.” Tommy didn’t have the heart to tell her that Malacus was basically his escape; his adventure vacation.
“And when you return to the Land of Men,” Ghilanna pressed. “You’ll be a hero?”
“Yeah,” Tommy nodded. “Exactly.” For some reason, these fantasy creatures just couldn’t, or just didn’t want to grasp that Tommy was a nobody and they didn’t exist to the rest of the world.
“But we’ll remain unknown,” Ghilanna said. “Time will pass here, we’ll be forgotten. We might even forget ourselves and you’ll pass into legend. Then we’ll start fighting the dwarves or the centaurs, or the merfolk. Monsters and abominations will be bred. Atrocities will occur.” Violet tears streaked down cheeks. “Until the next sapling of a man comes in here, saves us, conquers us, and then leaves.”
Tommy mentally corrected himself. Ghilanna understood much. “I hadn’t quite thought of it that way.”
“Why would you?” she asked. There was silence between them. Tommy had wanted to try something resembling diplomacy and had failed. Maybe this is why Amanda, the real Amanda never talked to him. He was just awful at it. “And I look like your lady love?”
“I wouldn’t call her that.” He’d never referred to Amanda in those terms. He hadn’t dared. She was a girl who barely knew he existed and what she did know she didn’t particularly care for these days.
It was Ghilanna who looked away. “You didn’t need to. I could hear it in your voice when you told me I had her face.” She tapped a pointed earlobe. “Good hearing.” She rose from the bed. “It’s interesting that so many of us seem so familiar to you and yet you are strange to us.”
Tommy shrugged. “Yeah, I guess so.” It was strange. So strange that Tommy had already filed it under ‘don’t think about it’ in his brain.
“It’s like you’re a missing puzzle piece.”
Tommy looked up at her. “What do you mean?”
“What if you’re meant to be here, but not because you’re lacking something?” There was a tinge of excitement in her voice. “What if we’re not reflections of your world, but you’re the missing piece in this one?”
The young man’s mouth went dry. “What are you saying?”
“Throughout the legends, man is a destructor,” the elf said. “Sometimes benevolent. Sometimes disastrous. It all depends on which side he chooses.”
“It’s like cliques and the popular kids.”
“Exactly!” she was sounding excited now. “But what if Tom the Titan from the Land of…from Earth Realm,” she corrected herself, “What if you were a uniter, not a destructor?”
Tommy had no idea where she was going with this, but the way she was saying it was stirring up certain…feelings. Her tone was almost identical to at least thirty-five percent of his masturbation fantasies.
With one elegant movement, the elf with his crush’s face stripped her glittering robe off. “Couple with me.”
“What?!” Her body was perfect. Every curve identical to Amanda’s, every square inch of skin just as soft and smooth looking as he’d imagined while trying to develop x-ray vision back in Math. And here she was, inviting him. ‘Couple with me’ was olde English for ‘let’s fuck’.
This was a trap. It had to be a trap. His mind knew this. His penis? Ready and raring to go. The padded underwear was doing nothing to hide his excitement. “Why?” Tommy asked. “Why would you…?”
“For peace,” she said. She put her right foot out, over the casting circle and stepped out. “The dwarves already have pledged themselves to you. As have the centaurs.” Tom felt paralyzed as she dug her fingers into his waistband. “Make me your consort, and the elves shall be your friends as well.” She lowered to her knees as she slid the underwear off his legs. Tommy didn’t even quite realize it as he stepped out of the filthy things.
Tommy watched as she retrieved a bottle made of ornate purple glass. “You don’t know much about elven biology, do you?” Tommy shook his head. “Our communal instinct is overpowering,” Ghilanna said. “Once we’ve coupled with someone, their friends and allies become our friends and allies. It’s why I had…” she paused “have…had a handmaiden. Wouldn’t do to make peace if I didn’t want to.”
“Why do you want to now?”
Ghilanna shook the bottle up. “Because,” she said. “If I surrendered to the dwarves and centaurs, they’d win. If I had entranced you, they’d lose. But if I couple with their god-king AND their god-king is merciful, we all win.”
Tommy’s brain was still on the lookout for betrayal, even if his member was telling him differently. For all intents and purposes Amanda was naked and undressing him. It wasn’t even real Amanda. It was elf-Amanda. Fantasy Amanda. Masturbation dream Amanda. That made it easier to let his guard down; easier for him to lust after her. “That’s convenient,” he said.
“Convenient?” the elf said. “Hardly. Yes it stops us from killing each other living in those crowded tree cities, but it also makes little things like political rape a reality.” She stared at him. “Or didn’t your centaur friends tell you that?”
“I would never-!”
“I know,” she stopped him. “That’s why my gambit didn’t work. That’s why I’m consenting, now.”
From the bottle, she poured out a transparent green ichor and rubbed it on her hands. “A cleansing oil” she explained. “To prevent infection.”
“From what?”
“From you,” she glanced at his cock. “I don’t know where you’ve been.”
“I haven’t consented,” Tommy said.
“Part of you has.”
“Not the part that’s in charge.”
Her hand oiled up, reached for his penis. “Are you sure?”
Quicker than even an elven eye could perceive, Tommy reached down and grabbed her wrist. “What’s in it for me?”
The elf laughed. It was like Amanda’s laugh when she was trying to flirt with a guy. Tommy had never heard that noise directed at him. “Me, of course.”
“I could just kill you,” he said. “Like a hydragon. Like the dwarves want me to do.”
“You shouldn’t though. And you feel that. That’s what I’m finding strangely attractive about you.” She leaned to him and Tommy felt his heart rate double. Her naked breasts were directly pushed up against him. Only the barest of spaces separated his fully erect penis from her body. “I want to couple with you, Tommy Dean. You’d be a good friend to me. A very good friend.”
Feeling stronger than he ever did, Tommy repeated himself. “What’s in it for me?” His free hand reached down and grabbed her other wrist. This was too good to be true. He couldn’t chance it.
Softly, sweetly, seductively, she whispered to him. “I have the face of your unrequited love,” she said. “Her body, too.” Tommy shuddered in a moment of ecstacy as she blew lightly into his ear. “What gives me pleasure should give her pleasure too, yes?”
Tommy didn’t speak it aloud, but it did make sense.
“So couple with me,” she whispered. “Lay with me and I will tell you what I like and what I don’t. Then when couple with her…” She let the rest of the thought finish itself in Tommy’s head.
Tommy felt his face flush. “I’ve never…I mean…” this was so much more difficult than just fighting monsters. “You’d be my first.”
“Not your first,” Ghilanna whispered to him in Amanda’s voice. “Never your first. Your lady love will be your first. I’m just your proving ground, m’lord.”
That did it. Those last words sealed the deal. He released her wrists and allowed her to grab his shaft and rub her oily hands all over his throbbing member and tickle his balls. A warmth came to his loins and a smell of pleasant flowers mingled with the sweat accumulated in the armor. Baby oil? Was this stuff baby oil? Elven baby oil?
It was strange having part of his body feel so warm while the rest of him remained the same. Strange but good, and the smell coming off the oil only enhanced his lust. The elf moved her hands up to his shoulders and moved in pressing all of her body against his. “Where shall we couple, m’lord? I know the bed is off limits but-”
“No it isn’t,” Tommy said. Moving the elf queen to the side, Tommy raised his foot up and then plunged it back down into the stone floor. He drove his foot into the ground heel first and at an angle. The floor shook and rumbled, as a massive crack traveled the length from his foot until it disappeared beneath the rug under her bed. “Circle’s broken. Useless now. That’s how it works, right?”
Ghilanna gasped. “You could have done that anytime.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yup.”
“But you didn’t…”
“Nope. I would never.”
Her smile, Amanda’s smile, was big and bright. Genuine. Tommy was positive he hadn’ seen that kind of smile from a girl directed at him in a long time, well before middle school. “Take me,” she said. “Take me now.”
Without waiting he lifted her and gently tossed her onto the bed. A moment later, he was on top of her, kissing her neck as she wrapped her legs around him and ran her hands down his back. Their moaning became a song right before she grabbed his head and pulled him in for their first kiss.
His tongue entered her mouth clumsily, inexperienced. Elves liked mint leaves apparently. He broke off the kiss so that he could go back to her neck. “Oh! Not so hard,” she panted as he sunk his teeth into her neck. “Mark me,” she told him. “Mark me, but be gentle. I’m a peach, not an apple.”
Tommy did as she said, nibbling at her and sucking gently at her flesh. Even her flesh had a sweetness to it. “Like this?” he asked.
She reached between them and kept caressing his shaft. “Yes,” she moaned. “Yes. Now get inside me.” He could feel his heartbeat below his beltline as she commanded him.
Smiling like an idiot, Tommy said the only words that came to mind. “Yes ma’am.” He thrusted and bumped, all while peppering her face and neck with tiny, passionate kisses. He grinded up against her. Felt his sex press against hers; felt the lips between her legs on him, but couldn’t quite find the entrance.
In that moment, so much of Tom the Titan melted away, and Tommy the virgin was left fumbling around. Was it bad etiquette to pull back? Re-aim? Adjust? Amanda’s hands (they were Amanda’s hands) grabbed his hair and deep violet elven eyes stared into his. “Stay with me. Be here. With me.”
Tommy wanted to apologize, to say croon and swoon or say something smooth and sexy. “Help,” his eyes darted downward.
Deep violet eyes followed his and shone with understanding. Her lets unwrapped themselves and she shimmied beneath him, her hands snaking back down towards his cock. “Can’t have you lose this yet,” she grinned before stroking them up and down his manhood. How often had Tommy pictured hands just like those doing just this thing? Even slipping with the oil, it was so much better than what he’d imagined while stroking off on the couch.
With a slight grunt she grabbed him and guided him inside her. Tommy reflexively let out a gasp as something damn near primal awoke inside him. Tommy had spent his life listening to songs about this. How could people even write about this? There were words, but nothing so melodic that Sondheim could realistically write about and convey the meaning. Even the copious amounts of porn that Tommy had sneaked at the public library hadn’t prepared him for this.
It felt warm and wet and held him deep like a hug. Gently, slowly at first, he thrust into her. “Theeeeere we go,” Amanda’s voice cooed up at him. “Found you.” Tommy was beyond words. Tommy was beyond breathing through his nose.
He was doing it! He was doing it! Steadying himself, he started to bump and grind with her as she laid backed and closed her eyes, moaning. Her moaning only made him go faster until the two of them were skidding by inches across the bed. “Gently…” she whispered. “Gently, my love.”
Tommy slowed his thrusting and used less force. This wasn’t beating off. He had to worry about someone else besides him. Their breathing started to sync up and her hands wandered back and began to gently pinch and caress his ears. “Such curious, lovely round ears,” she said. Her moans had started to sound more like the purring of a tiger.
In and out, in and out; like waves gently lapping on the beach they were. A coupling. Not a race. A moment of shared vulnerability. “If you want you can stare at my breasts. Touch them if you like” Tommy felt himself almost happy-cry at the permission. He’d been staring at her nipples already.
Steading himself on his left hand, Tommy reached out with his right so he could cup and tease and pinch at her nipples, a kid in a candy store. Oh if only he’d been a giraffe, but he couldn’t keep his balance; he’d tease one breast while mouthing on the other. Just thinking about it made him thrust a little harder, a little deeper.
His companion seemed to read his mind. “A moment,” she said, pulling herself away from him. He had to resist the desire to wine as he slid out of her and his cock felt cold open air. Disentangling her legs from his, she laid father back and lifted them up over her head, almost like a toddler mid-change. “Try it now.”
He entered into her the second time, feeling a kind of strange relief even as a different kind of tension doubled over inside him. Her ankles rested on his shoulders this time and he shifted more of his weight onto his knees.
On instinct, he sat back onto his ankles, grabbed her thighs and pulled her in closer, eliciting a gasp of surprise. Her fingers reached out and intertwined with his, helping him to keep balance… “You like?” she asked.
“I like…I like…” he stuttered and blushed. He squeezed her hands. Maybe it was just nerves, but he heard himself giggle slightly.
She squeezed back. “I like it too, let yourself enjoy it.”
Faster then. Faster and faster. Something was building inside of him. There was an art in this, Tommy realized. A mixture of passion and control. A balance. Faster. Faster. Yes!
“Yes! That’s it…” she whispered. “Love me. Love me like you were meant to.” She pulled his hands closer to her chest, unlacing her fingers from his so that he could fully cup her bosom with both hands. “Bend me. I won’t break.”
Tommy leaned in further putting more of his weight on her so that he could feel more of her. Even faster. Even harder. Tease her. Pinch her. Thrust into her harder and harder. “OOOOOOH!” she moaned. A mean streak flashed through him, and he vaguely wished her hair was in pigtails so he could pull one. Just vaguely. But the thought was there.
“Ready?”
He nodded.
“Then finish it.”
The waves on the beach became a stormy sea as he let himself go. He forgot rhythm. He forgot pace and gentleness. For a split second, Tommy just forgot her as a person. She was just the pretty thing that made him feel warm and wet and squishy and made nice noises when he entered and wiggled around inside her. All that existed in the universe in that moment was him.
And then he exploded.
He throbbed and pulsed as the last of him squirted out uncontrollably, and the very air of Malacus seemed to take on a different hue that had nothing to do with the position of the sun. With a groan of satisfaction, he rolled off the elf, panting.
She rolled over onto him, showering him with kisses, each peck a little firework to accompany the grand explosion in his soul. It wasn’t everyday someone got to lose their virginity to an elf. “Well done, oh childe,” she whispered to him. “Well done.”
“Thank you,” he said. “Thank you so much.”
“Of course, my consort. My king.” She rolled off his chest and onto her back. She spread her legs again and started fingering herself. “Now suckle on me as I finish.”


Chapter 16: Curious
BONG! BONG! BONG!
Katlynn woke up in a fog. Literally. Her entire room was filled with a thick, unpierceable, soupy mist. For a moment she was positive she was about to die. House fire. Inferno. The screams of people burning alive and the crackling protests of cheap wood set ablaze.
This is how I die.
No heat, though. No acrid stench. No sizzling, flesh or otherwise. Just mist. Katlynn shook the cobwebs out of her head and rubbed her eyes, thinking that this might be some kind of trick of the dark.
When she opened them again, she caught the briefest glimpse of the smoky stuff retreating; actually retreating under her door. The heck? Peeling back her pink comforter, Katlynn slid out of her bed and walked to her door.
Her bedroom light was on before she opened the door into the living area. That hesitation cost her seeing where the mist had gone, (assuming there had been mist) but the added light helped her catch a small detail. She caught a glimpse of a shadow, just behind the old grandfather clock.
“Hello?” she whisper-called into the darkness. “Anybody there?” Breath held, she walked out and towards the couch, nightgown flowing gently behind her. Please don’t be a burglar. Please don’t be a stray cat. Actually a stray cat might be neat; Mom would have to let them keep it. How would a cat get in here anyways?
She exhaled when she finally reached the couch. “Tommy?” Her brother didn’t stir. Her hand shook his shoulder. “Tommy, get up.”
“Huh?” Tommy said, sounding sleepy. He let out a loud, almost cartoonish yawn. “Oh. Hey sis. Is it time for school?”
Her eyes still not fully adjusted to being awake, Katlynn had to squint to make out the time on the microwave. “It’s a little after midnight,” she said. “What are you doing on the couch?”
Tommy didn’t move. “Tonight’s my night for it,” he said. “Remember?”
If she hadn’t been so sleepy, Katlynn might have laughed. Instead she was just confused. “Night for what?”
“Sleeping on the couch.”
It was all she could do to just shake her head. “Okay,” Katlynn said. “I think you’ve been sleepwalking buddy.”
“Buddy?” That seemed to wake him up.
“Come on,” she said. “Go to bed.” Liking a zombie, her brother shambled off the couch and started dragging his feet with her behind him. The only problem was he was going to the wrong room. She grabbed him by the shoulders. “Wrong room,” she told him before steering him in the right direction.
“Wrong room?” Tommy echoed as she steered him towards his own bedroom.
Katlynn pushed him a little so he’d walk faster. “We haven’t shared beds since we were little, remember?” She walked ahead of him and drew back his Spider-Man bed sheets. “In ya go, little guy.”
Tommy stopped and looked up to her. “Little…?” He said, his eyes still squinting. “I’m…” He stopped and looked at her. Even in the darkness of his room, she could tell he was confused based on his posture. His gaze started at her feet and then traveled all the way up her body until he’d just made eye contact with her and kept going.
“What?”Katlynn yawned
“Bigger than you…?” Another comment that would have gotten at least a giggle if not for how sleepy she was. He was, too. Otherwise Tommy would never have thought he was taller than her. She was a few minutes older and a few inches taller. That’s how it’d always been.
“Y’know what?” he said, climbing into bed. “Never mind. I’ll figure this out later.”
“Deal,” she said. “I’m gonna make fun of you for sleepwalking tomorrow, too.”
“Okay,” he said. “Whatever.” He was snoring before she left his room.
Great. Now he was sleepwalking. At least the bed was dry when he got back under the covers. Tomorrow morning? Fifty-fifty shot. Thankfully her little twin had gotten good enough to where he could do the laundry himself; even if Mom still helped with making the bed.


Chapter 17: Unexpected Side Effects
Good mornin’, good mornin’!
We’ve danced the whole night through,
good mornin’, good mornin’ to you.
Good mornin’, good mornin’!
It’s great to stay up late,
good mornin’, good mornin’ to you.
Tommy woke up horny. Any dreams he’d been having were paused and forgotten before he’d managed to open his eyes; as were memories of the night before. Strange. He’d remembered having sex with the elf that looked suspiciously like Amanda, (did it count as losing one’s virginity if it was done to a member of a completely different species?), and he remembered getting back into his armor and leaving for the way back home. After that? Nothing.
He was in the spare bedroom. The firm mattress under his back and nice comfy pillow under his head were enough to confirm that. Weird. He’d claimed the couch that night. Whatever. Spare bedroom meant a closed door meant privacy.
Tommy slithered his hand underneath the sheets and went to pleasure himself. His hand stopped at his belly button. Why were the sheets so clammy and clingy? Tommy opened his eyes and sat up. His Spider-Man bed sheets were soaked. He’d wet the bed, again.
A bit of static, like a record scratching or nails on a chalkboard, sounded off in Tommy’s brain. This wasn’t his room. Tommy didn’t have a room. The heck was going on? Like soggy pancakes, Tommy peeled the sheets off his bed and swung his feet over the side to stand up.
This was not his room. This was not normal. Instead of the plain white of the apartment, light blue paint covered the walls, with posters of different comic book characters punctuating blank spaces. A full dresser was to one side, super hero action figures taking up the counter space. An open walk- in closet was on the other side.
A wicker clothes hamper by the door waited for him. Tommy looked down at himself. His silk pajama bottoms were soaked from the belly button to the knee. Tommy had been kidnapped. Kidnapped and forced to wet the bed. That was the only logical explanation.
At the head, the sun was just starting to crest and bring light through a window.
A window!
Tommy hopped up on the bed and peered out, hoping to get some kind of clue as to where he was. Knocking the pillow aside, he climbed up onto the bed and leaned forward, balancing himself on the headboard. Incredibly enough, it was the Forrest Luxury apartments parking lot. The view wasn’t grand, but he’d recognize the paint job of the neighboring building anywhere. One brick still had a daring “X” scribbled across it from five years ago when Tommy had thought to try his hand at teenage rebellion and found that he had neither the artistic inclinations nor the idiotic brand of bravery required to do grafitti.
“Morning, Tommy,” a voice called cheerily from behind him. “Time to get up.”
Someone had opened the door behind him. Tommy turned around. “Mom?!”
“Off the bed, cupcake. Beds are for sleeping, not jumping.”
It was Mary Dean. Only it wasn’t. Since at least fifth grade, Mary Dean didn’t exist before 11:30 AM. From the moment Tom and Katlynn had been old enough to walk themselves to the bus stop(or old enough so Mary didn’t worry about child services being called) it had been the kids’ job to get themselves to and from school. Mary slept in.
Tom scrambled off the bed, still confused. “Mom?”
“Yes, Tommy?”
“I wet the bed.”
Mom spared a look at Tommy’s soaked PJ’s. “I know. Go shower. Go get cleaned up or you’ll miss school.”
School? Shower? Mom was taking this surprisingly well. “But I woke up here,” he tried to explain. “But I didn’t go to sleep here.”
“Mmmhmmm…” Mom wasn’t even looking at him. She was stripping the sheets off the bed. “Katlynn told me she found you sleeping on the couch. Nightmares?”
Such casual concern bothered Tommy. “No…”
“Did you remember to go pee-pee before you went to bed?”
“What? Uh. Yeah?”
Mom threw the wet sheets into a crumpled pile by the hamper… There was a waterproof mattress cover beneath, Tommy observed. “Did Katlynn take you to the bathroom when she woke you up on the couch.”
The hell? “No?!” Tommy felt a burn of embarrassment flush his cheeks.
“At least she got you off the couch.” Tommy’s mother felt the mattress cover and gave a disappointed sigh. “Soaked through. You really did a number on these, big boy. That’s unlike you.” It really was! She took off the mattress protector and threw it onto the pile with the wet sheets. She turned and faced Tommy as he remained frozen in place, her eyes zoning in like a sniper’s laser to his soaked pajama bottoms.
“What…?” Tommy yelped. “I…I peed. I told you…”
“Tommy,” Mom said; a hint of warning in her voice, “Did you remember to wear your bedtime undies?”
“Bedtime…undies?”
Mom crossed her arms and tapped her foot. “Tommy…”
He had no idea what Mom was talking about. No sense in lying. He couldn’t lie when he had no clue what was being discussed. “Um…no?”
“I can tell,” Mom said. She walked over and scooped up the soiled sheets. “If you’re not going to wear your bedtime undies, we’re going to have to go back to Goodnites.”
“Goodnites?” Tommy said. “Bedtime undies?” He felt like he’d just tuned into a Season 5 episode of a very complex and convoluted serialized television drama: Lots of strange character development and references to past events that he’d no inkling of. This was like coming into Cats just after intermission. (Bad example. Cats was confusing as hell anyway)
“I know you don’t like them, but it’s easier for me to wash one thing than to wash all of this.” She bounced the soiled sheets in her arm.
“I…I…I…”
“Maybe when you can go a whole week without any accidents we can talk about your regular undies” Mom said, walking out the bedroom door. “But please honey. For me.”
Tommy didn’t know what else to say. So instead he just said, “Yes, ma’am.”
“And make sure to throw your jammies in the wash once you’re out of the shower,” Mom called back. “No leaving them on the floor or in your hamper.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Not knowing what else to do Tommy followed his mother out into the living room, his head on a swivel like a meerkat looking for predators. The fudge was going on? Same living room…except not.
While he couldn’t claim to have the greatest spatial memory, he’d spent enough time in this apartment to notice even the slightest differences. The differences were not slight. The place was clean. Darn near spotless. The usual pile of neatly folded clothes were off the coffee table and presumably in drawers and closets that hadn’t existed last night.
The living room was bigger too. Not much bigger, but big enough for him to notice. Big enough to somehow create space enough for a separate room between his Mother’s master bedroom and the spare that Tommy could have sworn he and his sister swapped on alternating nights. The apartment was now a 3 Bedroom 1 Bath, and Tommy didn’t know what to make of that.
From what he supposed was his door he did a u-turn and peeked into what used to be the spare bedroom. Nope. It was Katlynn’s room, now: Pink walls. BTS Posters. Carefully made bed with a memory board above it and a shelf with a few little collectibles that had passed on from toys to. Definitely Katlynn’s room. They’d never been able to take any real ownership of the spare room, but now Katlynn’s looked like what he imagined any teenage girl’s room to look like. And the room he’d woken up in looked like it was meant for a boy his age…kind of.
Tom about faced and watched as his mother opened a sliding slatted door. Right next to the kitchen area, there was now a tiny alcove that fit a washer and dryer. No more trips to the laundromat. He watched as his mother reached for a laundry pod from off a wire shelf and tossed it in. “Everything’s good to go. Get showered.”
Still in his wet pajamas Tom slinked to the bathroom. The door opened and his sister slid out, making room for him to get by. “Hey, Tommy.”
Tommy looked up at her and alarm bells rang out in his brain. He was having to look up to his sister. She wasn’t towering over him, but normally he had a couple inches on her. He’d always had the slight height advantage ever since he’d had that ‘grown spurt’ back in ninth grade. Now the ratio was reversed. Either Katlynn had mysteriously sprouted several inches or…
“You’re taller than me…” he said.
“Yeah,” she agreed. “Go get in the shower.”
Tommy felt numb. “I wet my bed.”
“Yeah,” his sister said. “Go get showered.” She gave him a gentle nudge towards the bathroom. “You can talk to me when you’re clean and in dry clothes.”
Something was off. Not only was Katlynn taller, but she wasn’t making fun of his accident. Even at her most merciful she’d at least razz him a little bit. “You’re not gonna mess with me about it?”
Katlynn seemed confused. “Why would I?”
“I…” Tommy was at a complete lost for words. His family was acting like this was normal, and it wasn’t. (Was it?) He’d just confessed to his twin that he’d wet himself in his sleep and she’d acted like he’d just told her that the grass was green or that Brigadoon was a boring ass play; (it was).
“Thomas Dean,” his mother called. “Shower! Now! I do not want to be late for work because you missed the bus.”
Tommy’s bare feet moved into the bathroom and shut the door behind him. Even the bathroom looked nicer. The white tile seemed whiter. The shower rod only flecked with a bit of rust and the curtain clean; the result of use and care instead of neglect. He stripped down and got in the shower, leaving his piss soaked pajamas in their own puddle. His ill-gotten Paw Patrol Underwear was nowhere to be seen. He hadn’t wanted to put the dirty underwear back on, and so left them in Malacus.
With the time dilation effect, Tom realized too late that he could have washed his clothes and still been back home the next morning. He’s spent weeks battling alongside the dwarves. There was literally no reason he couldn’t have stayed for breakfast and laundry with the elves. Sex does weird things to a man’s mind.
He quickly washed himself, scrubbing himself down with body wash before the hot water had a chance to become tepid and then freezing. A minute passed and the hot water kept coming out of the showerhead strong. Another minute and it kept coming. And another. And another.
Was the building’s water heater not garbage anymore? With the increase in hot water, another urge welled up inside him. He suddenly remembered the feeling that had awoken him from his slumber.
The sound of the water pouring out of the showerhead created the perfect white noise. The relatively unchanged bathroom and the blanket of steam gave Tommy a feeling of security through familiarity and a sense of concealment. It was so warm in here. And wet. And clean. Time to ruin that last part.
Tommy squirted a bit of Irish Spring into his hand, backed up and steadied himself against the still cool wall on the opposite end of the shower, and started to masturbate. Closing his eyes, he imagined his tryst with Ghilanna; aka Amanda-the-elf.
He replayed it in his head, focusing on. And then something changed.
Relished memory changed and turned into unexpected fantasy as he closed his eyes and tried to block the memory. His brain flashed forwarded through the best parts of the lovemaking, turning it into a highlight real of moaning and giggling and thrusting.
The first time, they’d lain together in quiet and made pledges of loyalty and pillow talks of piece. Then Tom had gotten in his magical armor and promised to return. In his mind’s eye, Ghilana stopped him.
“Wait, m’lord,” he mouthed, hearing Amanda’s voice in his head. “We’re not done.” Tommy bit his bottom lip as he imagined her guiding him back to the bed. “You’re not clean yet.”
It was too hard to imagine both sides of this imaginary conversation, so Tom just imagined himself muted by his elf concubine’s beauty and tenderness. It wasn’t hard to do.
“We must get you clean. You can not go back to your Earth Realm in these wet and icky training pants.” Tommy’s hand increased in speed in time with his heart rate. “I must clean you.” The cool bathroom wall was now the feather bed back in Malacus.
He imagined her taking out the sweet smelling oil she’d used and rubbing it into his privates. “This will make it all better.” She whispered. “Raise your legs, m’lord.” Tommy wigged his hips and clenched his cheeks as he imagined the elf oiling his bottom. Irish Spring was starting to smell a lot more like sweet lavender perfume.
The simulacrum took some clean sheets and folded them. Tommy imagined her slipping them under his bottom and being allowed to lower his legs so she could spread them. Back in the bathroom, Tommy came, just as he imagined her pulling the front of the sheets over his pelvis.
“Doesn’t that feel better?” she’d been cooing at him right before the illusion shattered itself. His sperm shot out at an ark into the open air and mixed with the suds before washing down the shower drain.
Tommy opened his eyes and felt the cold mix of relief, triumph, and the slightest pinch of guilt that typically came post masturbation. He walked back into the shower’s stream and hosed himself off. Now it was just a matter of waiting for his penis to calm down so that no one could tell what he’d been up to.
“Hurry up Tommy!” The sound of his sister’s voice helped him in ways she couldn’t have possibly predicted. “You heard Mom!”
“I’ll be right out!” Tommy called through the door. He turned the shower off, water still warm, and reached for a towel. White and fluffy…not unlike the bedsheets he’d imagined. Tommy shook his head and forced himself to focus.
He stepped out of the shower and quickly began to dry himself off. Looking down at himself Tommy felt another odd thing. No hair. Not on his arms, nor his legs, nor his pubic area. He rubbed his chin and felt like he’d already shaved…better than shaved truth be told. He checked his armpits. Nothing. It was like he was auditioning for the swim team.
With the towel, he wiped away the steam in the mirror and confirmed using his reflection what his fingers had already told him as true. “What in the…?” Smooth as a baby’s bottom. All of him. The only hair Tom had was the stuff on his scalp and his eyebrows.
He leaned in, close to the mirror. Normally when he shaved there were still little traces of stubble that he could spot if he stared hard enough. Nothing. It wasn’t as if he’d just shaved, it was as if he’d never needed to.
“TICK-TOCK, TOMMY!” Mom called. “If I’m late for work because you’re taking too long. We’re going back to Goodnites and baby wipes.”
That was the second time she’d mentioned being late for work. Since when did Mom have a job outside of trolling flea markets and pawn shops?
Tom wrapped the towel around himself and tied it off. He picked his soiled pajamas off the bathroom floor and opened the door. Still dripping with water, he tossed the garments into the washing machine, lowered the lid and started the cycle.
“HURRY!” Katlynn said, waiting by the door. “Three minutes or I’m going to the bus stop without you, little brother. That was the Katlynn he knew. The familiarity eased his mind enough to hustle back to his new room and close the door.
Tommy dropped the towel and went over to the dresser. Top drawer. Last night underwear went in the top drawer, socks went in the drawer underneath. Tommy opened the long dresser and found some things were universal, even when the universe conspired to rearrange your home for you.
Tommy pulled out the first pair of briefs and felt like the kid who’d busted open the pinata. They were neither boxers, nor tighty whities. In Tommy’s hands he held a pair of thick cotton undies, lacking the overlapping fold that men’s underwear had, but with extra material in the front instead, in case Tommy had a slight accident. Tommy popped them open and looked inside. The extra padding went down past the crotch and well into the backside. Cloth training pants.
He turned them around. The bright blue things had a decoration. Smiling back him with a little puff of smoke coming out of his snack and the words “Toot-toot” was Thomas the Tank Engine. These weren’t just training pants, but train-ing pants.
These had to be the nighttime undies that Mommy was referring to. Still…they were undies. Tommy stepped into the underwear and shimmied it up his hips. Tommy had to fight the urge to suck his thumb as his brain registered the thickness of his new underwear. It was even thicker than the toddler pants he had snuck home yesterday, only now he suspected he didn’t need to be worried about being caught in them. These weren’t stolen. These were his.
His underwear.
Tick-tock. Not much time. The dresser drawer that had materialized overnight was wider than the one he and Katlynn had been forced to share. There were technically two top drawers; a left one and a right one. The left one had the training pants in them; his bedtime underwear. Just out of curiosity, Tommy opened the right one.
The young man’s eyes could have fallen out of his skull. Stacks of clear plastic pants were piled into the top right drawer. One stack had clear elastic waistbands, plastic underwear meant to be pulled over thick training pants in case an accident was not so little. The other stack had buttons on the front sides; something to be applied while laying down. These were the bedwetting pants, meant to be worn underneath his silk pajamas.
Meaning the Thomas training pants were his daytime underwear. He wasn’t even being naughty by wearing them just now. First slamming the drawers shut, Tommy dug through his wardrobe and stepped into a pair of shorts from the left bottom drawer and some socks from the left middle drawer. He almost waddled as he hustled into his closet and pulled a shirt over his head.
He had to sit down to put his shoes one and immediately felt the extra layers of cloth surrounding him when he set down. It was almost like how he’d imagined the thick layers of bedsheets he’d imagined Ghilanna wrapping around his waist a few minutes ago. Almost like a…
He blushed at the thought, envisioning himself wrapped up and swaddled. On the bright side, upon further examination, this new underwear was also better at concealing erections.
They were his. Malacus had given him more than he could have imagined. Within twenty four hours, he’d helped a lunch lady, ended a war, made love to a woman, and gotten his very own training pants. He really was a big boy, he thought to himself.
Tommy stopped and examined himself in his bedroom mirror, another new feature. He didn’t particularly look like a highschooler. He had a serious case of babyface, blue shorts and a Superman T-shirt. At best, this room belonged to an early middle schooler. At best…and that was not factoring in the padded undergarments that his baggy shorts concealed. Right now, Tommy Dean looked like either a late blooming middle schooler or a VERY mature and sophisticated preschooler.
And yet…
New bedroom. Clean home with a washer and dryer. Slightly nicer sister. Mom had a job. New underwear that Tommy had secretly coveted, now not-so-secret…nor shameful, apparently. This was the clock’s doing. There was no other logical explanation.
But Tommy wasn’t scared by this; not at all. If this morning was any indication, this was the start of a beautiful day. All this good stuff, not just for him but his family; that was worth a few inches in height, smoother skin, and needing plastic underwear at bedtime.
Right?
Right.


Chapter 18: School Daze
I’m not that smart
My siblings have been telling me that for years
That I’m not smart
We’re schooled at home
They see who’s bright
It breaks my heart
I’m not that smart
The rest of the morning was no less confusing for Tommy. On the bus ride to school, almost everyone was at least passingly friendly to him.
“Hi Tommy.”
“Hey Tommy.”
“Morning Tommy.”
“How you doin’, dude?”
“Sup Tommy?”
When one has grown used to what can be generously referred to as ‘casual indifference’ at best and ‘near socialized hostility’ at worst; friendly faces, kind words and a generally positive reception start to sound like a foreign language. Tommy’s peers, he had found, were a generally brooding, cynical, and mean spirited lot otherwise known as teenagers.
Was this more of Malacus’s magic?
“Why’s everybody being so nice to me?” Tommy asked his sister. “What’s going on?”
Katlynn looked confused. “What do you mean?” she asked. “Most people are nice to you. Are you feeling okay?” She reached across the aisle and felt his forehead and cheeks like an amateur nurse checking for a fever. “You’re the one who seems off today.”
Before Tommy could question any further, a familiar face turned around wearing a most unfamiliar expression. Tommy and seen Cameron smile before; but it had been ages since that smile had been directed towards him.
“Hey Tommy,” she said.
Tommy looked to Katlynn for advice. They talked sometimes, or so Tommy had figured. Katlynn was already looking at her phone. When had she gotten a phone? He looked back up at the popular girl “Hey…Cameron,” he said.
“I saw on T.V. that C.B.S. is doing one of those live musicals next week. ‘Rent’ I think it’s called?” There was something odd about her tone; how her voice squeaked up a bit when she was talking to him.
“Yeah,” Tommy said. “I’ve seen internet ads in the library. The original cast is too old for the parts and they couldn’t afford Idina Menzel, but Anthony Rapp will be hosting and there’s rumors that Jesse L. Martin will co-host.” This was the strangest feeling, yet. Tommy was talking about something he liked and someone was…listening…?
“Um…who?” So much for that.
“Um…” Tommy tried to break his geekdom down into manageable chunks. “The play is about people in their twenties…” Tommy said. “The first people to play the parts are middle-aged. The lady from the Frozen movies played a character, but she’s too expensive now.”
Something was clicking. Cameron nodded. “Okay.”
“But one guy who was in the play is in that new Star Trek show. So he’s kind of famous. And he’s hosting.”
“Alright.”
“And the guy who plays Flash’s cop buddy-”
The girl’s eyes lit up with recognition. “Joe? The dad? Adopted flash?”
“Yeah, him.” Tom nodded. “He was in Rent, too. They might get him to co-host. Talk to the live audience. Introduce the show. Announce commercials and stuff.”
Cameron seemed impressed for some reason. “Wow!” she said. “You know a lot about it!” It wasn’t quite the same as being truly impressed, more like when a dog can do an amusing , or when a child is surprisingly well versed in a bit of adult trivia.
Still looking at her phone, Katlynn said, “He knows a lot about this kind of stuff. He’s obsessed. That and Spider-Man. I think if he spent more time practicing his division facts instead of obsessing over this stuff…” She let the sentence drop off a bit. Her mouth was closed but her eyes were already apologizing?
“Division facts?” Tom said. The heck was that about? “I know my-”
“So are you gonna watch it?” Cameron asked, politely.
“Hmmm?”
“Rent.”
Tommy clenched his jaw. “Can’t.”
“Awwwww,” Cameron said. “Why not? Grounded?”
“Huh? No.”
“Past your bedtime?”
“Bedtime?” Tom blanched. “No! I don’t have a T.V.”
Cameron looked bewildered, as if the concept of someone her age not having access to a television were. Did she really not understand how poor he was? She’d made fun of him for it enough times. She looked over Katlynn for confirmation.
Katlynn looked up from her phone to Cameron. “He’s a little off today,” she said. “Don’t know why. Just one of those things. Happens sometimes.”
“Gotcha.”
That was weird. Tommy had been used to people talking about him like he wasn’t there. It was a trademark social bullying tactic. But talking about him with concern? That was new. Tommy began to suspect that more than just his physical self had changed overnight.
His suspicions were confirmed in first period Biology.
“Bye,” Katlynn said as they approached Ms. Wheeler’s class. Tommy didn’t think anything of it and followed her in. They didn’t sit next to each other or talk in class.
“Good morning Katlynn,” their Biology teacher said. “Good morning…” she paused as if searching for his name. “…Tommy. Is there something I can help you with?”
Tommy went to his desk and sat down. “Not at the moment, Ms. Wheeler.” Bits of giggles tittered at the edge of Tommy’s hearing. Tommy looked around. Confused. Why would they be laughing? Was his fly down? Could they see his new training pants? (Impossible, they looked like regular underwear, the part that might be poking out above his shorts, at least.)
“Sorry Ms. Wheeler,” Katlynn said. For some reason she looked really embarrassed. “My brother is just very…confused this morning.”
A finger tapped Tommy’s shoulder and he looked up. “Sup Lil dude?” Trevor Macintosh looked even taller now that Tommy had lost a few inches.
“Leadshoulder!” Damnit! Tommy had not meant to say that. More laughter filled morning air.
Katlynn was between them. “Trevor, I’m so sorry!”
“Naw it’s cool,” Trevor said. He smiled and ruffled Tommy’s hair, but never took his eyes off Katelyn. “It’s kind of his nickname for me. He saw me slam into a guy at football practice one time and it kind of stuck.”
That wasn’t true. None of that was true. Nevertheless, it kept Tommy out of trouble so he nodded anyway.
“Ahem.” Ms. Wheeler interrupted. “Do you mind? I have a lesson to teach.” She didn’t look to Tommy, but to Katlynn. It was an expectant look as if she’d done something wrong and needed to fix it, pronto.
“Sorry Ma’am,” Katlynn said. She grabbed Tommy by the arm. “Come on, Tommy.”
Tommy found himself yanked out of his desk and to his feet. “Where are we going?”
“Out,” Katlynn said. Katlynn didn’t look pleased. Tommy hadn’t felt this disoriented since he’d started vomiting up mana pool water onto the hooves of a certain centaur. What had he done? Where were they going? Why was he in trouble?
He hadn’t done anything wrong. He was a good a boy! A good boy! Emotions spiraling out of control, Tommy felt his breathing hasten to the point of hyperventilation. A knot was forming in his throat. He couldn’t breathe!
It was Trevor that de-escalated things. He put his hand on Katlynn’s arm. “I got this,” he told Katlynn. “Mrs. Gee, right?”
Katlynn nodded “Yeah. Thanks.” She let go of Tommy.
“Come on Little dude,” he said. “I’ll take you to class.” Disoriented and confused, Tommy followed the bigger kid out of first period Biology and into the hallway.
“What’s going on?” Tommy asked, when out of the Hallways.
“Nothing much,” Trevor said. He walked just ahead of Tommy, and while he didn’t hold Tommy’s hand, he kept looking back every couple of steps as if he was afraid the shorter man would fall behind or wander off. “You just got a little lost. No big deal. It happens. This is a big school.”
Not that big. Not big enough for anyone who’d been there more than a week to get lost in. But everyone seemed to think that Tommy was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe with his new room and new clothes, Tommy had gotten himself a new schedule
All Tommy could say was say “Oh…okay.”
After they turned the second corner, Trevor stopped looking back. That’s when Tommy started sucking on his thumb for comfort. He’d take it out when they got there, even though he had no idea where there was.


Chapter 19 Late to the party…
Charlie was standing on the toy box so he could get a better look out the daycare’s one-way window. He loved people watching first thing in the morning: The suck ups and the social feebs running to class as soon as the first period bell rang; the panicked last-minute good-bye kisses from young couples that didn’t have the same class together; the loud and lazy stroll and chatter that the future deadbeats who were ‘too cool’ to show up to class quietly and on time; the consternation of tired and overworked teachers trying to maintain order without any kind of real authority to back them up.
Charlie couldn’t hear the bells, of course. Nor the chatter. Nor the kisses. Nor the blustering of teachers. Whatever magic kept the daycare hidden from the general populace, (and it was magic, Charlie had long accepted that), also made the walls soundproof.
But places like Scrumpton had a rhythm to them that persisted from day to day. Charlie might not be able to read a clock anymore, but he’d learned to tell the time based on what kids were running by the window. Funny (but not surprising) how none of the other kids ever saw what he saw. Only limitation to this method was that Summers dragged by like a sumbitch.
“Charlie,” a voice called. “Time to stop looking out the window and come to Circle Time.”
Charlie waved the teacher-lady off. “Just a second,” he grunted. Someone new was coming down the hall. A late comer. Tall guy. Tough build. Probably a football player. That was odd. The dumbest of the dumb jocks had already sauntered into their remedial math and reading classes.
“Are you pooping?” the grown-up asked. Charlie didn’t even bother learning their names anymore.
“No…” Yes he was pooping, but that’s not why he was stalling. He could empty this morning’s oatmeal into his pants anywhere. He’d gotten more than just used to it. He’d pooped during Circle Time on many occasions. Usually they let him finish the shapes song before he was ushered off to be changed.
“I think someone’s getting whiney because they need a change.”
Out of habit, Charlie stomped his feet, but kept his gaze steady. The big lug was just about to walk out of his field of vision. “I wannnaaaaa waaaaatch!” Silently he cursed himself for saying it. He loved playing this game, though. Too late to turn back. Might as well enjoy it.
As they tended to do, the grown-up ignored Charlie’s whining and did what she wanted to do anyways. Charlie had to lean up against the glass to keep his balance as two fingers hooked into the back of his shorts and pulled the back of his diaper open. Charlie gasped, feeling the front of his diaper tighten a bit, and not just because the back was being pulled on.
“Thought so,” the teacher lady said. “Baby made a boom-boom.” One of the advantages of being in Charlie’s position was that he rarely got to realize how silly he looked, objectively speaking. He popped his thumb into his mouth and started sucking on it as his waistband was snapped back into place allowing the mess in his pants to settle.
Charlie immediately lost that advantage as the teacher lady grabbed his hand to lead him over to the changing table. Some ridiculous looking kid walked past the window. He was short, the windows just below shoulder height for him, so that Charlie could see him through the window. Just like Charlie, the kid was going to town on his thumb.
Realizing how silly he looked, Charlie took his thumb back out and wiped it on his shirt. The hell was that kid doing sucking his thumb? Was he a nail biter or some kind of mama’s boy? He resisted the tug of the grown-up wanting to change his diaper so he could just a second longer to ruminate on this.
The moment was all that was needed. As the kid passed by, Charlie craned his neck and saw a flash of blue undies with red trim poking out the back. That brought back memories; memories of Thomas the Tank Engine training pants.
Thumb sucking. Training pants. Baggy shorts. Late for class and looking confused as hell.
“Come on Charlie,” the teacher lady said. She picked him up, pressing the mess up against him and spreading it around. Charlie was too stunned to enjoy it this time. Maybe later. “Let’s get you nice and clean.”
“See ya soon,” Charlie whispered to the window as he was carried away to have his body laid down, his pants pulled off, his legs lifted up, and his ass wiped.


Chapter 20: Out to Lunch
What is this feeling
So sudden and new?
I felt the moment
I laid eyes on you
My pulse is rushing
My head is reeling
My face is flushing
What is this feeling?
Fervid as a flame
Does it have a name?
By lunch time, Tommy was getting ready to yank his eyelids out. The fudge was going on? His entire class schedule was upside down, and he’d ended up in classes he didn’t even recognize with teachers he’d never met before.
Remedial Science with Mrs. Gee; Miss Ell had Remedial Social Studies; and Remedial Language Arts in Mr. Vee’s class. He’d gone from being a middle of the road student, to being in all the dumb kid classes! And by all that was right and good, how dumb did you have to be to reach eighteen years of age and not know that there were supposed to be three branches of government?! That was elementary level- maybe middle school- trivia at best.
Even the teacher’s names were dumbed down. Mrs. Ell’s last name was Lyons. Mr. Vee was really Mr. Vinkman. Mrs. Gee…okay, that was a legitimate nickname. Having to call on Mrs. Gronkowskovich constantly might be a mouthful.
But that was beside the point! This was wrong! Tommy shouldn’t be in the remedial classes with the dumb kids! He didn’t need things like accommodations, or modifications, or handicaps, or extra help.
He already knew all this stuff! He knew about food chains and producers and consumers, (not to mention apex predators). He knew that congress had two houses (otherwise known as “bicameral legislature”) He knew that Animal Farm was an allegory for the Russian Revolution (and what an allegory was).
What Tommy didn’t know is why he was in these classes, and why no one seemed surprised to see him there.
“Good morning, Tommy,” Mrs. Gee had greeted him with a smile and a little-too-sunny disposition. “Did you get lost again?”
“Yes ma’am,” Trevor had answered for him.
“That’s okay,” she’d said. “These things happen.”
And Tommy had been forced to thank Trevor and send him back on his way. Kids that Tommy didn’t know beyond fleeting glimpses in the cafeteria greeted him like they were old comrades, and Tommy was too shell-shocked to argue with them.
All morning had been a kind of drudgery: Colorful worksheets about the food chain, first period. Filling out a diagram of the U.S. government and their jobs on the most basic levels and a multiple choice quiz based on stuff that the teacher had just talked about during second period. Third period was illustrating a scene from Orwell and providing the appropriate matching text that the drawing was based on.
Instead of being bored by stuff that was too dry and complex, Tommy was being bored by stuff he had long ago mastered. This was stupid; practically baby stuff. The only thing he didn’t know was what was what new classroom to shuttle off to, but a new-old classmate would always take his hand and lead him in the right-wrong direction.
“This way, Tommy.”
“Wrong way, Tommy.’
Don’t get lost, Tommy.”
His new-old teachers seemed amazed and perplexed, too.
“Way to go Tommy Boy!”
“Tommy is having a really good day, today!”
Mr. Vee offered him a sticker and a tiny candy bar just before lunch. If only they’d been perplexed about why he needed to be in remedial Special Ed. Classes.
At least his lunch period was the same. Tommy sat by himself stewing over a plate of macaroni and cheese, trying to make sense of this brave new world that he’d awoken into and what people it had in it.”
He was aware of Amanda’s presence before she announced herself. He knew her by the silhouette of her shadow hovering behind him. He’d watched that shapely figure too many times to not recognize it. “Hey, Tommy.”
“Hey, Amanda.” Tommy didn’t look up. “Why are you eating alone?”
“I always eat alone,” Tommy said.
“He was like this on the bus.” Great. Cameron was here, too. “He’s off today.”
Amanda slid up next to him. Cameron took the other side. On any other day but today, he would have loved being sandwiched between these two. “Why aren’t you sitting with your friends?” Tommy looked where she pointed and saw the kids from the different remedial classes eating lunch together.
“Those aren’t my friends,” he told them.
“I see what you mean.” Amanda was talking over his head to Cameron. “Really off. Sick?”
Cameron shook her head. “I saw Katlynn feel his forehead. No fever.” Cameron looked at Tommy. “Do you want to talk about plays and stuff? Like on the bus?” Tommy stewed, unsure of what to say. “Maybe Spider-Man? You really like Spider-Man, don’t you?”
That’s where Tommy recognized that tone! Duh! It was the same tone that grown-ups…adults…used when trying to talk to little kids. Do you like cartoons? What cartoons do you like? Spider-Man?
Tommy looked at Cameron. “Why are you patronizing me?”
The girls stifled a laugh as if they’d been caught off guard. “Wow,” Cameron said. “How do you know that word?”
“How old do you think I am?” Tommy asked, heart pounding.
“Eighteen,” Cameron said. “Just like your big sister.”
Tommy stood up from the table, so angry he was ready to flip his tray and spill macaroni everywhere. “We’re twins! Just because she was born a few minutes before me doesn’t matter THAT much!”
“It’s just a joke, sheesh.” Belittling. Not listening. Emotionally tone def. That was a side of Cameron that Tommy was used to.
Tommy didn’t look at them, either of them. He just leaned forward, weight on his hands and panted. Somehow he’d gone to the puny poor loser to the stupid kid that everybody felt sorry for. He’d soared to new heights in Malacus and had plummeted even further as a result.
“Quit being such a B-I-T-C-H, Cameron.” Surprisingly, that came from Amanda. That was unexpected. “Tommy’s sensitive.” Tommy had never heard himself referred to as sensitive; not in a non-insulting way that is.
“Thanks.” Tommy was still staring off, still boiling inside.
“Welcome.” The girls got up to leave. “Take care, cutie.” She kissed him on the cheek. It was nothing. A chaste peck, but Tommy shuddered at the feeling of her lips on his flesh.
His bladder did too. The front of his Thomas the Tank Engine suddenly warmed and the wet spot spread down and out, quickly saturating and then spreading down the thick padding in his underwear. Quickly his bladder muscles clamped down and stopped the stream, but it was too late. He’d wet his pants in front of the two hottest girls in his class.
As if in reflex, his elbows bent and arms retracted up his size, seizing up and making his posture resemble a T-rex. His knees locked and his teeth gritted. He looked down to his shorts, fearing the worst. The good news was that there. The training pants had done their job. The bad news was that they’d had to do their job in the first place. That, and Tommy had the distinct feeling that if he sat down, he’d wring out some of the soaked up piss and end up with puddle marks on the inside bleeding out. Thomas the Tank Engine had only delayed the inevitable.
“Uh-oh,” Cameron said. “I’ve seen this look before.”
“What?” Amanda asked. They were talking over him again.
Tommy couldn’t quite understand them as they whispered, literally, behind his back, but what Cameron said sounded a lot like ‘fetish prance’.
“Tommy? Buddy?” Cameron asked. “Do you need Katlynn?” Her tone was soft and gentle, a grown-up trying not to make a little kid cry. Katlynn didn’t have this lunch, and she’d never let him live this down if she knew; or she’d already know and accept it as normal. Poor stupid Tommy wetting his training pants again. Tommy didn’t know which he dreaded more. “Do you need me to go get you the nurse? Would you like that Tommy?”
Amanda’s hand grabbed Tommy’s. “ Ugh. God,” she groaned. “You’re such a wuss, Cameron. I’ll take him. Come on, Tommy.” She pulled and Tommy followed.
All thought left Tommy’s brain for a moment. He was holding hands with Amanda Monroe! She slowed down and let him catch up to her, walking side by side. She was holding hands and walking with him!
Passersby were noticing, too.
“Hey, Tommy! Hey, Amanda!”
“Hey, Amanda! Hey, Tommy!”
“Sup, Tommy? Hi, Amanda!”
The girl of his dreams waved and said hi to everyone as she guided him towards the clinic. She was walking with him AND being seen with him. It was the smallest, simplest thing, but it was more than Tommy had ever rationally dreamed of. He barely felt the cooling wetness or the odd not-quite sloshing sensation as he practically waddled through the courtyard and hallways in his wet trainers. He was too busy feeling the heat surge through his entire being.
He’d gotten his crush to finally notice him and treat him as something other than a disgusting inconvenience… and all he had to do was wet his pants right in front of her.
Worth it.
Tommy was the first to step past the threshold; Amanda held the door open for him. “Tommy needs um…help,” she said.
The nurse sighed. “Again, Tommy?”
He blushed. “Yeah…?”
“See you later, Tommy. I’m gonna go finish my lunch.” And just like that, she was gone. Still worth it. Still totally worth it.
The nurse got up and opened a closet. From the closet she pulled out a ziplock bag, the words “T. Dean” written on it in black permanent marker. She took a thick pair of underwear and tossed it to Tommy. “Here ya go, kiddo.” A plastic grocery bag soon followed.
The underwear was thick and padded, just like his training pants; only not decorated…and not soaked with pee. Tommy looked at the pair of plain white trainers and back up to the nurse. “What now?”
“Now,” the nurse said, “you get your butt in that bathroom and change your underwear. You’re a big boy.”


Chapter 21: Afternoon Delight
That face, that face
That dangerous face
I mustn’t be unwise
Those lips, that nose, those eyes
Could lead to my demise
That face, that face
That marvelous face
I never should begin
Those cheeks, that neck, that chin
The rest of the school day was a blur of too simple classes, too simple worksheets, and too simple curriculum. Yet Tommy felt a kind of radiance beneath his skin the rest of his day. He couldn’t stop thinking about his lunchtime accident and how Amanda held his hand all the way to the nurse’s office. It was easy to multitask when the work was so easy. Even knowing that a gallon ziplock filled with his piss soaked underwear was now crammed into his backpack couldn’t diminish.
Tommy felt he was in a kind of waking dream, his mind never quite where his body was. How precious that bit of kindness had been to him, that bit of sympathy from someone who had so recently been indifferent to him at best. To Tommy it was more intoxicating than a thousand days as the conquering hero god king of Malacus. Being a few inches shorter, a few hairs smoother, and a pair of training pants wetter was well worth the price.
The boy still felt drunk on that feeling during the bus ride home. “Tommy,” his sister called. “Tommy, it’s time to go. We’re home.” Tommy blinked back to the present and stared at Katlynn as if she were a newly respawning hydragon.
“Huh?”
Katlynn took his hand and guided him to his feet. “We’re home. This is our stop.” Tommy looked out the window and saw the bus stop, just a short walk away from Forrest Luxury Apartments.
Tommy had to tilt his head upward slightly to look his twin in the eye. That was going to take some getting used to. “Oh yeah. My bad.” He started down the center aisle while the bus driver patiently waited for them. Everyone had been more patient with him today. Friendlier too.
The kids who’d greeted him when he’d gotten on the bus were still there, now waving goodbye to him.
“Bye Tommy.”
“See ya, Tommy.”
“Later Tommy.”
It was a little more bittersweet than it was this morning for young master Dean. He now realized that their friendliness came from a place of sympathy. It was easy to be nice to the dumb kid, and that’s what Tommy was to so many of these people. The dumb kid.
And yet…
Was it really so bad? Better being ‘the dumb kid’ than the smelly kid, the poor kid, or the pervy kid. Lowered expectations were reachable expectations.
As though he were a child who might wander off, Katlynn took his hand and started leading him home. It was done with the same relaxed informal familiarity as every other strange thing that had happened to him this morning. As far as his family remembered, he was easily confused, behind for his grade, short for his age, a bed wetter, and an occasional pants wetter. Looks like he got lost on the regular too.
Fate had other plans for Tommy than going home, he felt. On just the periphery of his vision, a golden light shone, and the sound of hooves clip clopped in his ears. Just as the bus pulled off, Tommy looked back over his shoulder.
Across the street a golden structure caught his eyes, glistening and shining like a lost city, just waiting to be discovered. “What’s that?” Tommy pointed.
“What’s what?” Katlynn asked. She followed Tommy’s gaze. “Oh? That? That’s the old playground, remember?” Tommy did not, in fact, remember. The rickety old playground that was normally located across the street had been a relic from decades before the ‘Luxury’ in Forrest Luxury Apartments was ironic.
From Tommy’s memory, that playground was just a pile of rotting timber, and rusted metal. The main play structure smelled of moldy wood and insects crawled over dozens of scraped-in initials where young punks had thought to carve their initials alongside curse words in a poorly thought out attempt to make their mark on an uncaring world. Plastic slides held had developed a unique kind of fungus on them cultivated from dog and catshit smeared over them.
Any grass surrounding it was overgrown and home to snakes, raccoons, and who knew how many parasites. The old sandbox was what could generously be described as a mud pit.
The seats on the swingset had long been broken and were home to little more than dangling chains that snowed brown iron dandruff when shaken. Corroded and rusty monkey bars had a greater chance of giving a child tetanus than a good time. Both the spinning merry go round and the seesaw had rusted at their joints where they were closer to modern art than play equipment. The old playground was more of a graveyard of fun; a poorly preserved fossil from better times when money had been invested into the community.
This? This wasn’t the old playground. This looked shining and brand new. Everything looked brand new and in mint condition: Clean slides, fresh wood, short grass, crisp sand, and smooth and clean metal play equipment, all with a golden sheen. (Not unlike a certain Titan’s armor.)
There was something different about the playground, though. More than just the cleanup and new materials inhabiting the old space, Tommy swore that he could see a strange silhouette just behind the main play structure: Hints of hooves on the ground, with a humanoid upper body.
“Nox,” Tommy whispered to himself. Tommy let go of his sister’s hand. “I’m gonna go check it out.”
Katlynn took his hand back. “No you’re not.” There was an air of command about her tone. Tommy wasn’t sure if he liked it. “We gotta get home, not play on some dirty old playground.”
“But-”
“No buts-” Katlynn interrupted. “You’ve got homework to do, mister.”
“You’re not my mom, Kat.”
“No, but I’m your big sister.”
“By two minutes!”
“That’s not why I’m your big sister…” Katlynn let the words hang for a moment, and Tommy caught a glimpse of regret in her eyes. Just a flash, though.
Tommy grimaced. She might not have thought he knew, but he realized what she was implying. He stood up as straight as he could, took his hand back and said, “Katlynn. I’m eighteen. I’m an adult. I’m allowed to make my own choices, for better or worse.”
Katlynn took a half step backwards. Her jaw wasn’t exactly hanging, but her lips were open. Her lips were open and no sound was coming out from between them. Speechless. She was speechless. She was trying to think of a rebuttal, and couldn’t. Her cheeks puffed as she exhaled. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you lately, but…”
Tommy waited. He wanted to attack, to barrel her over and rebut any counter arguments and have the argument be won before she could utter a comeback. Instead, he held back. “But?” he asked.
“But you’re right,” she admitted. “You’re technically an adult and there’s nothing I can do to stop you.”
Tommy nodded. “Good.”
“I’m gonna tell Mom, though.”
Young master Dean wrinkled his nose. “That’s fair. I’ll accept those consequences.”
His sister’s head sort of vibrated, not as if she were disagreeing, but as if she couldn’t quite believe the words coming out of his mouth. Wisdom from the mouth of babes, as it were. “Okay then…okay.” She walked away.
Tommy wasted no time sprinting across the street. He dumped his backpack, wet trainers still inside, into the mulch as soon as he crossed the neatly cropped grass into his area. The metal frames of the swingset and monkey bars, he noticed, were etched and covered in familiar and unfathomable runes.
That wasn’t his main priority, however. “Nox!” he called out, ducking under the nearest slide. “Equestrinox!” He ran to the back. “Nox, what are you doing…?” He stopped. “Here?”
Just behind the play area, with it’s steps, and slides, and even a little fireman’s pole was a new piece of equipment. A tall spring pony was planted in the mulch and woodchips, a big one with legs sculpted on with just enough length to give the vague sense that someone was looking at the real thing from a distance. That explained the horse hooves.
Its rider explained the humanoid outline. Sitting side saddle on the playground equipment was a woman, a stranger. She was a woman grown, older than any of the girls in his class, but younger than his mother. Mid to late twenties, maybe thirty. A white t-shirt and plain blue jeans did nothing to hide her curves: She was shapely, with full hips and fuller breasts, and brunette hair that cascaded down her shoulders. Her eyes were mismatched, one green and one blue, a strange not quite imperfection that only made her seem all the more alluring to Tommy.
“Hello Tommy,” the woman said. “Come to play?”
Tommy froze. “How do you know my name?”
The woman didn’t answer. She just smiled and slid off of the big spring pony and walked past him. Tommy let her pass, but when he looked over his shoulder, she was looking back over hers “Coming?” she asked.
The stranger kept walking as Tommy followed. “Seriously. How do you know my name? What are you doing here? Were you waiting for me or something?” He peppered her with questions, each one went unanswered, her not even responding as she meandered to the front edge of the renewed playground. He took another look at the runes engraved on the golden monkey bars. “Are you from Malacus?” he asked.
She stopped and looked down at him. “Sort of,” she said. “But that’s not important right now.”
“What is?”
The woman smiled, warmly; knowingly. “For you? Right now? Playtime?”
A bit of Tom the Titan came to the forefront of Tommy’s. “What kind of playtime?” He clenched his fist and stepped back into a defensive position.
Her laughter resounded out loud and filled with mirth. The very metal of the playground vibrated with her laughter. “The kind best kind,” she said. “The kind where you play! Slides. Monkey bars! Seesaws! This is a playground, silly! I just want you to play!”
Tommy unstiffened. “Okay…” This could be a good thing. After such a strange and exhausting, he could use a good ol’ fashioned fantasy adventure. The strangest thing followed: Nothing. They stood there, just looking at each other. He looking at her, and she at him. Him, wobbly and uncertain looking from her and back to the playground, waiting for something to happen. Her, staring passively at him; only the gentle heaving of her breasts and the occasional blink indicating that she was alive. What was going on? If she was from Malacus, wasn’t she supposed to say something? Do something? “So…uh…”
“Yes?”
Tommy shrugged. “What am I supposed to do now? Just start going down the slide? Ride the horse into the sunset?”
The stranger’s lips made a thin line. “Aw,” she cooed. “Poor baby. You don’t know how to play?”
He shrugged. It had been a long while since he’d played on an actual playground. This playground had been on its last legs when he was five and had only gone downhill since. And Scrumpton wasn’t exactly a place where playgrounds flourished. Like so many other cities in America, Scrumpton suffered from an epidemic of organized play.
Increasingly since Tommy was a little boy, play was a contest. It wasn’t proper play unless there were things like rules and boundaries and points and winners and losers. Tommy had almost always been among the losers. Places of simple whimsy and unstructured playtime were few and far between…as were people who enjoyed playing for playing’s sake. “Um…I guess not?”
“Don’t worry,” the stranger reached out and patted Tommy’s head. “Nanny will teach you.”
Tommy arched an eyebrow. “Nanny?” he said. “Is that your name?”
She shook her head. “Not really. But you can call me that if you’d like to.”
“What if I don’t want to?” Tommy asked. Something just didn’t quite feel right about all this. In Malacus everything had been spelled out for him, piece by piece, like the tutorial level in a video game. But this wasn’t Malacus, was it?
Instead of answering, Nanny picked a bag up off the ground. It looked like a satchel purse. There was something vaguely familiar about it, though; mainly in the color scheme. “Is this yours?” she asked.
Tommy shook his head. “No. Not mine.” An instant later he realized why it looked so familiar.
Before Tommy could finish the thought, the lady flipped open the top satchel, and pulled out a gallon plastic bag. “Are you sure?” Coyly, she dangled out the ziplock containing Tommy’s wet training pants. “Are these big boy pants yours?” She smiled, a prosecuting attorney presenting damning issues.
Tommy gulped. “Yeah.” He said. His heart rate sped up a few ticks.
“And were they in this bag?” Nanny asked him. She dropped the wet trainers onto the grass.
“Yeah…”
“Then this bag must also be yours.”
His not-quite secret shame there on the ground in front of him, Tommy felt his face flush. “It didn’t used to be a bag,” he said. “A second ago it was my backpack.”
“Sure it was.” The stranger agreed, but the sound of her voice sounded like she was humoring him. He followed her gaze back down to the wet trainers. “Had a big accident at pre-K, huh?”
Tommy grimaced like he’d swallowed salt water. “I go to the high school,” he said.
Nanny smirked. “You had a big accident at high school?”
“No!” That did not come out the right way. A set of mismatched eyes looked down at the trainers on the ground and then back up to Tommy. “I mean, it was only a little accident…” He patted the front of his crotch, feeling the dry warmth of the extra padding. His blue Thomas Trainers might need a wash, but his plain backups were still good to go. “It didn’t even leave a spot on my shorts.” He crossed his arms. “I’m a big boy.” The juvenile phrasing came to him so easily that he barely noticed how queer it sounded coming out of an eighteen year old’s mouth. He barely noticed, but he still did.
The woman, this so called nanny, reached out and tickled Tommy under his chin. To his surprise, he let her. “Who said you were a big boy?” she purred. “Miss Thompson the pre-K teacher? You’re not ready for daycare, yet.”
Tommy snapped out of the momentary stupor he was in. “For your information, it was the nurse who said I was a big boy.”
The stranger seemed to consider that. “Well if it was from a nurse…” she said. “Fair enough. Who am I to argue with a medical professional?” Like a switch, the woman’s demeanor changed from taunting and passive agressive to playful. “Since that’s settled, why don’t we get ready for play?”
“Get ready for play?” Tommy echoed. “How do you get ready for play?” He had the sinking feeling that this offer of play, this mini adventure outside of school would require special equipment; baseball gloves, or football helmets. It just wasn’t a game in Scrumpton unless accessories were involved.
Alas, Tommy was right, but not quite in the way he’d supposed. “You’ve been in those clothes all day,” Nanny said. “Best to get into a change of play clothes, don’t you think.”
“I don’t have a change of…” Tommy cut himself off as he watched Nanny reach into the satchel and take some clothes out. A Spider-Man T-shirt…and matching shorts, red and balck webbing pattern and all. If Spider-Man had been turned into a toddler, he’d wear shorts like those. Tommy looked down at the big red S on his chest. He liked Superman well enough, but Spider-Man was by far the best; that’s why Tommy knew he’d defend Turn Off The Dark as being robbed at the Tony’s with his dying breath.
“Would you like to get changed into these?”
Tommy almost felt like he was drooling. “Yeah.” He would. He really would. “I’ll take those home,” he said. “And I’ll change and come back here.” He reached out for the clothes; his clothes. They were in his satchel purse, so they were his; even if he didn’t remember packing them.
Playfully, the woman calling herself Nanny yanked them away. “Or…” she said, “…or you could put them on here.”
Tommy looked around. “There’s no bathroom.” Lots of things had been restored, and the spring pony was a new addition, but there were no public restrooms around, either now or in Tommy’s memory.
“I’ll help.”
Sometimes things need to be repeated, not because the listener misheard, but because what was said was so completely unexpected that it didn’t fully register with the conscious mind. The idea was foreign, if not the language. Tommy stood there in the grass, gawking. “Excuse me?”
“I’ll help you get into your play clothes out here,” this strange woman said. Tom’s conscious mind was telling him to run. Stranger danger to the extreme. Tommy’s unconscious mind, however…
“There’s no bathroom,” Tommy repeated himself. Maybe the same thing was happening to the Nanny. She said she was from Malacus, (sort of). Flush toilets weren’t really a thing on that side of the clock.
The Nanny was already digging around in the satchell that used to be Tommy’s backpack. In a feat that wasn’t quite on par with pulling a large potted plant out of a carpet bag, the beautiful lady with mismatched eyes removed a folded picnic blanket, flapped it open, and laid it out with just the flick of her wrist. “I know. You can get changed here.”
Tommy looked around “Uh…we’re in public.”
“Don’t worry. No one’s looking.” She pointed to the playground. It seemed to be glowing. “The sun is in the perfect position. If anyone does look, they’ll be blinded by the pretty golden glow.”
Tommy was close to tears; tears of frustration he realized. He was running out of excuses to give himself. “What about you?”
“You were almost completely naked in front of a bunch of hairy, sweaty dwarves,” the woman said “Are you scared of me little old me?” Tommy didn’t say anything. Like a child who’d run out of good arguments, he felt his tongue tied and his voice go quiet. “Step onto the blanket. Let’s get these nice clean play clothes on you.” Her voice was downright hypnotic. “You know you want to.”
He did. He really did. And for once, even when she was teasing him, she was talking to him like he was intelligent. None of the others at school today dared call him stupid. They just talked over his head in well meaning but condescending voices. Especially Katlynn. Even Amanda a little bit.
“Alright,” Tommy said stepping onto the blanket. “Let’s play.”
“If anyone sees us,” the Nanny whispered, “it’ll be all my fault.” She started pulling his shorts down for him. Tommy didn’t resist. “I’m older, wiser, smarter. I’m taking advantage of you. You can pretend you didn’t know any better.”
“Yeah,” Tommy whispered. “Yeah.” He didn’t know any better. That’s why he was standing out here as this beautiful stranger that surely no one in town knew. That’s why he was letting his pants get pulled down and showing off his padded tighty whities. That was just…just…just a little…
“But no one’s going to see us. You’re here. You’re safe. You’re just going to play.” Her hand was on his chest, and Tommy suddenly felt weak in the knees. He wasn’t overcome or fatigued, he just had the sudden urge to sit down on the blanket, being guided down mentally as well as physically.
Strong, feminine hands tickled themselves up Tommy’s ribs and guided his arms to the sky. “Easy part first. Let’s change that shirt.” The world went blue for a second as the T-shirt was yanked up over Tommy’s head. “Good boy. Keep those arms up.”
Tommy sucked in his breath as the brand new Spider-Man shirt was pulled over his head and his arms guided through the sleeves. In a strange well it felt good to be dressed like this. Comforting, really.
The woman put her hand back on his chest and gently guided Tommy to lay down. He picked his legs up, and the woman with the mismatched eyes shimmed his shorts off his ankles, them only getting caught on the heels of his sneakers for an instant.
“Shoes can stay on,” the woman said. The Spider-Man shorts did not go on next, however. Nimble, almost elven fingers dug into the waistband of his underwear. “These? I don’t think so.”
Tom reached down and grabbed the wrists. “I do.” His special training pants were staying on. He yanked up at her wrists, but they stayed where they were. He had godlike strength inside the clock. Not so, here.
The Nanny removed her fingers, not because she was forced to, but because she could. She reached over and grabbed what used to be Tommy’s backpack. “I think you were very big for school,” she said, “but I’m worried about your trainers. You’ve already had one accident today…”
“I’m not giving up my special undies!” Tommy was almost bleating. Have his shirt and pants ripped off of him? No problem. But the anxiety that was flooding his gray matter was starting to border on manic. He’d lost a lot to get Thomas the Tank Engine and friends on his underwear. He wasn’t giving it up to freeball.
The Nanny brushed aside a bit of her brunette hair. She grabbed the thing that used to be Tommy’s backpack. Still on guard, Tommy dug his fingers into the waistband of his trainers and clenched his fists tight while she rooted around.
“You don’t have to give up your special undies,” she said. “Just give them a rest. A break.” Tommy held firm. From out of the bag, the woman pulled out a new item. It was rectangular, and mostly white, with little teal scribblings stenciled in. Tommy could tell from the crease on the bottom that it was folded up. It wobbled a bit in her hand, and made a dry crinkling sound as she turned it over in his hand. The back had cute little squiggles on it. Grover, from Sesame Street, was chasing a pastel butterfly with a net. Along what had to be the front waistline, a smiling Elmo and Abby Cadaby waved at Tommy. The word ‘Pampers’ off to the side made it absolutely clear what she was holding, just in case.
It wasn’t a purse or a satchel that she was digging around in. It was a diaper bag. And in her hand, was of course, a diaper; just a little bit bigger than what babies wore. “Take a break from being a big boy,” the lady said. “Give you potty pants a break.”
The hairs on the back of Tommy’s neck (what few remained) were standing on edge. “I can hold it,” he said.
“I know you can.” The Nanny reached forward and tweaked his nose. “This would be just in case.”
Tommy’s breathing was becoming shallow and he wasn’t sure why. “Just in case?”
“Just in case.”
“What if I keep these dry?” Tommy asked. The fact that he was spread eagle in his underwear outdoors had vanished from his mind. He had more pressing matters on his mind.
“Then when you’re done playing and ready to go home, I’ll help you put your big boy undies back on.”
“And if I do…” Tommy chose his next words carefully. “If I need that just in case?” He didn’t dare say anything along the lines of accidents.
The woman who’d lured him this for just shrugged. “Then I’ll change you.” She paused. “Hold on.” She looked in the diaper bag, briefly. “Yes, I’ll change you,” she said, sounding more sure of herself. “Your Mommy packed plenty.”
“And I’ll be stuck inside them?” Tommy clenched his trainers. He was genuinely unsure of what he wanted the answer to be.
The Nanny pressed her lips together, again, letting out a low humming noise as she considered. “No. I don’t think so. I’ll change you. But when we’re done and it’s time for you to go home, your big boy trainers will go back on.”
Tommy bit his bottom lip so hard it almost bled. Why was this so important to him? “And you won’t tell anyone?”
“This will be our little secret.”
Tommy stared down at his chest. A certain arachnid silhouette stared at him over black webbing on a field of red and blue. “And the…play clothes?”
“You can keep those,” the woman promised.
Tommy released his death grip on the plain white trainers and propped himself up on his elbows. He leaned on his left so he could stick out his right hand, little finger first. “Pinky swear?”
Mismatched eyes lit up with joy, and the Nanny slapped her hand over her mouth in order to stifle her own laughter. “You’re too cute!” She reached out her own pinky and wrapped it around his. “Pinky swear.” Tommy said no more. He laid back and put his hands behind his head, leaving his trainers unguarded so that this strange apparition of the land behind the clock could go to work.
Those delicate, almost elven fingers dug into the waist band of his underwear and pulled it down. Without thinking, as if it were almost second nature, Tommy planted the flats of his shoes on the picnic blanket and lifted his hips so she could slide them all the way off his hips. “Good boy.”
A slight breeze picked up and blew across Tommy’s hairless privates as she finished guiding the underwear off his legs. Like the shorts, the trainers got caught on his sneakers. “That’s the hardest part,” she said. The smaller leg holes of the trainers took more jostling. “Can’t even rip open the sides like Pull-Ups. It’s why I hate potty training.” Like a spell being cast, the trainers came free.
Tommy swallowed as she unfolded the diaper, not much bigger than what a two-year-old might wear. He gasped as the Nanny pushed his legs back and lifted his bum up for him with ease before sliding the diaper under him. It seemed she was being polite when she allowed him to help get his underwear off.
Immediately as his weight settled, he could feel the extra cushioning of the diaper. The padded underwear he’d low-key exalted in wearing all day seemed thin by comparison. An impulse rocketed through him to suck his thumb. Out of pride more than revulsion, he resisted the urge and sucked on his teeth instead as the diaper was brought up between his legs. Tommy was a little disappointed that a bottle of baby powder hadn’t come out of his new diaper bag.
“Diapers go on easy,” the strange woman said. Tommy shivered in delight a bit as the Pampers were taped up, one side at a time; first the left, then the right. It was strange how something that was shaped and sized like something between a washcloth and a towel took form around his waist. There was a feeling of completion and security that he hadn’t gotten when changing his wet trainers at lunch. The Nanny gave a last press on each of the tapes, for emphasis. “Much easier, don’t you think?”
Still sucking on his teeth in anticipation (for what he couldn’t remember), Tommy nodded. “Mmm-hmmm.” He sat up to move, but found the Nanny’s hand back on his chest, guiding him back down.
“Silly boy,” she clucked. “You’re only half dressed.” She popped open the matching baggy shorts and worked them over his sneakered feet. When they were just past his ankles, she reached for his hands.
Taking the cue, he reached up and allowed himself to be helped to his feet, with the pants and his new diaper on display for any passerby. “You’re being such a good helper,” the woman complimented him, as she pulled the shorts all the way up his waist and let the elastic band snap into place.
His ‘play-outfit’ complete, Tommy took a few tentative steps off the blanket, whilst the brunette haired woman packed away the clothes he’d worn to school in what used to be his backpack. It felt…different. He was more bow-legged and the padding had less give than he was used to. He could put his feet together if he angled his knees in the right direction, but found that if he tried to touch his knees together, they would just barely graze. The insides of his thighs would not be touching for as long as he was wearing this. Tommy had never worn a pelvic cast before, but he imagined it was a lot like that.
A few more quiet steps, and Tommy realized that his steps weren’t so quiet at all. There was a dry rustling when he moved, a crinkling that sounded like a kind of cross between grocery bag plastic and crumpling notebook paper. It happened with every step. The diaper didn’t move with him as much as it moved around him.
“This,” Tommy hesitated. “This is new.”
The Nanny came up beside him. “Do you mean you’ve never worn diapers before?” she teased. Tommy had nothing to say to that. “Think of it as a refresher of sorts.”
“Why would I need a refresher?” Tommy asked.
He didn’t get an answer; just a playful swat on his behind. He barely felt it through the poofy undergarment, but the surprise caused him to go up on his tippy toes and stumble forward. A stranger he’d met not ten minutes ago had just stripped him and dressed him like he was a toddler too young for even preschool. Things were already going so fast. If he hadn’t already lost his virginity to an elf last night and peed in front of his crush (with both women having identical faces), this might have been considered weird. “Think of it as armor,” the Nanny, now behind him said. “Play armor.”
Tommy looked back over his shoulder and noticed that not everything had been put away. “Are you going to pack up the blanket?” he asked.
The beautiful stranger regarded the blanket for a moment. “I’ll leave it out. Just in case…” She motioned for him to go play. “Go on. I’ll watch.”
With slow and unsteady steps, Tommy walked bow-legged onto the playground. He took the pristine wooden steps onto the main play structure, doing his best to ignore the rustling sound that buzzed up from his waist with every step. It was a relatively plain play place as far as those sort of things went. A set of steps up to a main platform with multiple ways out.
Straight ahead were connecting monkey bars he could swing on, to his right was a second set of steps that fed into a twisting slide. To his left and farther out was a second slide, this one wider and straighter with a fireman’s pole to the slide’s right just before. Beneath him, through the wooden boards he could make out a kind of pit, with golden metal play wheels.
“This is dumb,” Tommy mumbled to himself. “It’s just a playground.” But then a little voice inside of him- the same voice that got his attention and caused him to stare longingly at a package of Paw Patrol Pull-Ups- gave him another idea. What if it wasn’t just a playground?
Tommy looked to the monkey bars. “Battlements,” he said. He lightly stomped on the floor and looked in the shaded area beneath the playspace. “A dungeon.” He squinted at the slide that went straight out like a ramp. “Drawbridge over the moat.” He looked at the twisting slide and the fireman’s pole. “Secret passages.” This wasn’t a playground, that voice deep within Tommy told him. “It’s a fortress.”
“What was that, Tommy?”
Tommy looked down to the grown-up lady at the playground’s perimeter. “I said it’s a fortress!”
“Oh is it?” The Nanny giggled. Arms flourishing, she bowed. “Well then, at your service, m’lord. Prithee, what is the king of this castle’s name?”
He was about to proclaim he was Tom the Titan of Earth Realm, but something didn’t taste right about that. He was all those things in Malacus, but this wasn’t Malacus. It was like calling Trevor ‘Leadshoulder’; a case of similar but mistaken identity.
An idea came to him. He pulled the front of his shirt out and looked down at it. “I’m Spider-Tom!”
The Nanny’s response was immediate. “Hurray! Spider-Tom! King of the Castle!” Darn tootin’ he was! With what felt like unexpected grace, Tommy took to the monkey bars and started swinging from them, moving down bar by bar, one hand at a time.
“Spider-Tom is on patrol to protect the fortress.” Tommy declared. The ground was only an inch or two away from his toes, but to Tommy he might as well have been soaring through the skies through a bizarre kind of medieval Manhattan. For an ordinary child, pretending a playground was a castle was an easy enough task, requiring little imagination. For Tommy, who had let go of such immature pastimes AND had been in the inside of actual castles and fortress, such an act of internal chicanery required a level of skill and Herculean imagination.
“Such good swinging!” The Nanny cheered from the side of the monkey bars. “Well done m’lord Spider-Tom.”
Tommy’s feet came to the ladder at the end of the monkey bars and he twisted and pivoted around so he was facing back towards the fortress/play place. “I’m not swinging by my hands,” he told her. “I’m web slinging.” He let go with one hand long enough to do the signature Spider-Man pose: Pointer and pinky stretched out, middle finger and ring finger to his palm, and thumb sticking out to the side. He didn’t know why, but it was very important to him that she knew that Spider-Tom wasn’t just swinging from the monkey bars like a kid.
“And what wonderful web slinging it is, Spider-Tom,” the Nanny gushed. She came up and fiddled with his shorts, breaking character. “Just a moment.” Tommy looked down and saw the waistband of his Spider-Man play shorts pulled up over the paper-thin top of his diaper which had just been starting to poke out. “Carry on, m’lord.” Another pat on the butt sent Tom swinging back across to the playground.
Tommy sored along the battlements, satisfied with his patrol. “Things seem to be fine.”
“But look out Spider-Tom!” He heard the Nanny call from the ground. “Goblins are trying to crawl up the drawbridge!”
Tommy whipped his head to the straight and wide slide. He couldn’t see the goblins, of course, but knew they were there all the same. With a few bounding leaps Tommy was gliding down the slide, bowling goblins over in his wake with speed and agility that Tom the Titan could never match.
Legs spread wide to trip them on his way down. Tommy threw punches in every direction, felling goblins left and right. These adversaries felt weaker than even the dwarves. Tommy couldn’t even feel their bones breaking beneath his fists, but he knew ever punch he threw, the minions of evil were being slain.
No treaties. No playing nice. No complicated geopolitical-racial tensions. Just beatin’ up baddies and being the hero. Just the way Tommy liked it. “Oh no!” Tommy yelled, sounding completely insincere. “There’s too many of them!”
“Run away!” The Nanny called from the sidelines. “Retreat back to the castle!”
Tommy ran back up the slide the way he came, whirling around with a positively maniacal grin when he’d reached the top. “FOOLED YOU GOBBIES!” He shouted, sliding back down and slaughtering the goblins who were foolhardy enough to follow him up his own drawbridge. Goblins always fell for that trick.
“Yay for Spider-Tom! So smart!” After a day in remedial everything, that little pretend compliment meant more to Tom than it should have. Tommy continued beating up invisible legions and punching at shadows.
“Oh no!” The Nanny cried out in mock horror. “They’ve got ogres! Whatever are you going to do?”
Tommy didn’t stop punching the air. “It’s okay,” Tommy called back. “I can handle ogres!” He kept punching and doing his best (bad) kung fu impressions, throwing in some web slinging for good measure. “Yah!” He shouted. “Bam! Pow!”
It was harder to do kicks in these clothes, though for reasons he wasn’t quite paying attention to, Tommy was definitely doing a kind of fancy footwork. He hadn’t been to a toilet since lunch. Technically he hadn’t successfully used a potty…a toilet… outside of a few dribbles and aftershocks after the damage had already done to his clothes.
No time to think about that, though. “But Spider-Tom,” the Nanny said. “The ogres are making their way inside the castle!”
Like the cartoon characters he’d seen so often in his youth, Tommy stood straight up, with his pointer towards the sky. “Spider-Tom is on the way!” Once again, Tommy ran straight up the slide. This time he lost his balance, slipping. His stomach and chest hit the slide first, before he skid back down. It didn’t hurt. Not really, but something was off.
He felt a hot warmth for a second and then he realized the source. He was wetting his pants again, and not just a little bit this time. He’d started peeing the moment he fell and by the time he was upright he was almost done. No point in cutting the stream off, or so his body had decided. Tommy looked down at his ruined playshorts, ready for the tell tale wet spot to form on the outside of his pants, or for urine to start trickling down his leg.
None came.
“Tommy?” the only other person there called. “Tommy, are you alright?”
He felt his underwear- his diaper- swelling and sagging a bit, like he’d just peed into a sponge, but there was no obvious sign at what he’d done to himself. He didn’t dare touch his crotch, for fear of giving himself away. “I’m fine,” he lied. He pulled his pants back up over the very top of the diaper. “Pants fell down a little.” An idea came to him. Instead of gently padding his front and feeling for wet spots, he brazenly grabbed his diaper through his pants and jostled it. “Gotta…adjust…” he said. “Guy stuff.”
“Oh,” the Nanny said. “That’s fine.”
The squish in the front of his diaper was wet and warm; not unlike the inside of a certain queen of the elves. That memory rushed to the forefront of Tommy’s and his Pampers started to feel a little tighter at the mental image. He chased the idea out of his head. He had more important things to do, like kicking ogres out of his castle.
Tommy redoubled his efforts and rushed up the inclined plane of a drawbridge back up to the castle proper. With titanic spider strength, Spider-Tom tossed ogres out of the castle. Nanny provided their voices (or rather, their cries of anguish) as they fell from such lofty heights.
“Oh no! Too strong! We never should have come here!” Her voice was high pitched and sniveling, yet growly; a properly humbled ogre voice. “Quick, Spider-Tom, some of them are getting away!”
“NOT ON MY WATCH!” Tommy yelled at the top of his lungs. Instead of sliding back down the drawbridge, Tommy went the other direction to the twisting slide. Secret passages were always faster. Always.
Nanny grabbed him by the hand and pointed to the spring pony they’d met on. “To your horse m’lord! That’ll catch them!” Hand in hand, they ran over to Spider-Tom’s noble steed. Tommy climbed on and began rocking back and forth as his Spider-Tom-Horse ran as fast as it could, mowing down ogres by the score. “Good job!” she praised him.
Tommy dismounted as he caught up to the last invisible ogre. “I’m taking this one prisoner.” By the time he’d finished riding, Tommy had stopped noticing how different his wet diaper felt compared to when it was dry. He’d stopped noticing the squish with every rocking motion, or how the swollen Pampers made his legs bow out even more when he was walking.
It wasn’t the same as with the trainers. When he’d had an accident at lunch, it had felt like a kind of mental trainwreck. The trainers were padded in case he got wet, not because they were supposed to get wet. The thing wrapped around his hips now was meant to contain any accidents he had and let him keep adventuring. There was no ‘just in case’ about it. It really was like play armor. Internally, Tommy just accepted that this was how his underwear was supposed to feel.
He made a show of going over and pantomimed picking up the imaginary monster, and stowing it back on his noble steed. “Back to the castle!”
Before he could hop back on the spring pony, Nanny tapped him on the shoulder. “But before we go back to the castle, I think it’s time we go back to the picnic blanket.”
“Why?” Tommy was genuinely unsure.
She reached down between his legs and squeezed his crotch. His new underwear was still pleasantly wet and squishy, but it had lost all warmth by now. Nor was it by the strictest definition ‘new’ anymore. “I think I need to ‘adjust’ your diaper.” Without further comment she took Tommy by the hand and led him back over to the blanket; Tommy blushing all the way.
She’d known all along, Tommy realized. From the moment that he’d pretended to adjust as a way of checking himself, she’d known. Yet she had brought it up until well after. Nanny had let him play. Nanny had played along and cheered with him, as if a little accident inside his pants was less important than him having fun. If he hadn’t captured that last ogre, and created a break in the play, he might have been allowed to continue. She didn’t have that disgusted, freaked out, look that Cameron had had at lunch. Even Amanda had bailed on him as soon as he crossed the threshold into the nurse’s office. Nanny was staying with him.
That idea- the notion of not being rejected for things he couldn’t control- was a measure of comfort to Tommy as his pants were pulled down for him and he was guided back down to the ground. Tommy lifted his legs and started to try and get his shorts past his sneakers, while Nanny dug around in the diaper bag. “Can I help?”
Nanny looked back at him and steaded his legs. “Pants stay on.”
“But you said you were…I mean I thought…-” Tommy’s words were cut off as Nanny reached down and started to rub him through the wet diaper. Tommy let out a gasp as his penis grew erect.
“Little baby boy thought he wanted to stay in his trainers, didn’t he?” There was no irony or mocking in her voice. She kept rubbing him through the extra large Pampers. The wet pulp surrounded his manhood, cushioning him and caressing him as she squeezed and stroked. “Didn’t he?”
“Uh-huh,” Tommy moaned. He wasn’t a baby boy. He knew he wasn’t. But this just felt so good. Her voice was so hypnotizing. It was useless to resist. So why resist? The front of his diaper felt especially snug, his erection growing with every stroke, becoming harder with each honeyed word she whispered into his brain.
“But if baby boy had had his trainers on, he would have had an accident and Spider-Tom would have wet his pants.” This was fact. It was known. All Tom could do was suck on his teeth and moan as Nanny kept rubbing. Still rubbing him through the diaper, she counted off the many deeds on the playground. “Instead, he got to fight goblins, and ogres, and ride on the horsey, and not worry about anything other than being the best baby Spider-Tom he could be.” It was soothing in a way.
For an instant, his synapses flared to self-awareness and with that came a moment of self-consciousness. He was out in the open, pants around his ankles, being jerked off in a diaper while one of the most beautiful women he’d ever seen cooed at him like he was an adorable little tyke. What would the neighbors think?
Like a second round of booze hitting his bloodstream, Tommy suddenly didn’t feel embarrassed. Instead he felt giggly, and silly…and naughty. Tommy felt naughty in the best possible way. He started thrusting his hips, ever so slightly to grind against his Nanny’s palm.
“Oh-ho!” Nanny cooed. “Does baby like his special diaper change?”
Tommy only giggled as he wriggled his hips some more. He’d stopped sucking on his teeth; too hard to keep his mouth closed. But he wanted to suck on something. He almost wanted to ask Nanny to reposition herself so he could suckle on her tit, but couldn’t find the courage.
Lulling his head to the side as he neared climax, he stared at his thumb. Flashes of himself days ago on his couch, sucking on his thumb. Should he?
Nanny paused long enough to take out a fresh Pampers, a packet of wipes and a bottle of baby oil. She wasn’t kidding when she called this a ‘diaper change’. She reached over and undid the tapes on Tommy’s diaper with two quick motions; one hand against the base of the diaper, and the other to peel the tapes off.
She pulled open the diaper and revealed that it didn’t come close to Tommy’s ankles. “Like I said,” Nanny smiled coyly, “diapers are easy.” The cold baby wipe dragged over his throbbing cock did little, if anything, to douse his physical excitement. “Gotta get that baby clean,” she cooed.
The baby oil came next. Tommy watched and felt everything as it was rubbed over him. So warm. So fragrant. So…familiar. Nanny grabbed him again and picked up the pace. Tommy was bucking as she started stroking him directly. “Ug…ug…uh…ug…uh…” he groaned. Words were lost to him, and for the moment only baby babble was coming out of his mouth.
He looked at his thumb, his bottom lip trembling. He’d already gone so far over the line.
“Go on baby,” Nanny coaxed. “It’s okay.”
Tommy jammed his thumb into his mouth, giggling and feeling so incredibly naughty and silly, his mind peaking, just as his body rocked him into an almost violent climax. Another baby wipe caught his erupting sperm, cleaning it up neatly as he quivered. “That’s right,” she whispered. “Get it alllllll out.”
The wipe containing his jizz went into the dirty diaper. Same as all the other ones. A few more made sure that his taint and backside were clean. Then it was out with the old diaper and in with the new one. Tommy lay there panting and grinning around his thumb as the new diaper was pulled up and taped on.
“Good boy.” Nanny cooed as she slid his Spider-Man shorts back up. Like a good helper, he lifted his hips so she could slide them back over the new diaper. “Nanny’s gonna go throw this yucky thing away.”
Just like that, it was over. The evidence of the last half hour thrown away in the garbage. New diaper. Clean bum. Pants pulled back up. Tommy was renewed again. He took his thumb out of his mouth, closed his eyes, and let out a relaxed sigh.
“Tommy?” That wasn’t Nanny’s voice. Tommy jolted awake. His eyes opened to near darkness. The sun was setting. “Tommy, what are you doing?”
“Mom!” Tommy scrambled up off the old overgrown grass that he’d matted down.
His mother drew him into a tight, panicky hug. “Tommy, is this where you’ve been?” She sounded worried.
“I’m sorry, Mommy,” Tommy said, trying to keep his confusing wave of guilt, confusion, and fear together. “I didn’t mean to.”
Mom pulled back from her hug. “Didn’t mean to? Katlynn told me you wouldn’t let her take you home…” Tommy saw that Mom already had his backpack. Backpack, not diaper bag.
“Didn’t mean to fall asleep.” Tommy corrected himself.
Mom shook her head. It was a pitying gesture. He wasn’t the precious baby boy anymore, he was the dumb twin who didn’t know any better. “I don’t know how you could manage to fall asleep out here.” Tommy looked back over his shoulder. The playground wasn’t golden anymore. His play fortress had reverted to a rotting rusted heap. Had it all been a dream?
“I don’t know either.”
Tommy took his mother’s hand as she walked away. “And you better not have trouble getting to sleep tonight because you took an impromptu nap, young man.” Young man. Not baby boy. Not even little boy. Just ‘young man’.
“Yes ma’am.” Tommy looked down at the ground, staring only at his sneakers and blue Spider-Man shorts. Tommy held his breath and moved his gaze upward. Spider-Man shirt, too! But that meant…
Tommy listened for the crinkling sound of fresh Pampers. Nothing. He tried to squeeze his thighes together, but couldn’t. Mom wouldn’t let him stop walking. Sneakily, he pulled open the front of his pants just to check. He still had the plain white training pants from this afternoon on.
I’ll change you,” Nanny had said, “But when we’re done and it’s time for you to go home, your big boy trainers will go back on.”
Tommy mouthed the words to himself: “This will be our little secret.”


Chapter 22- Not so fun and games
Give them no reason to stare
No slipping up if you slip away
So I got nothing to share
No, I got nothing to say
“Happy birthday to youuuuuuu,” the crowd of party guests sang. “Happy Birthday to youuuuuu.” Tommy sang along. “Happy Birthday dear Deviiiiin. Happy Birthday to youuuuuuuu!” Tommy clapped along with the other guests, even though he didn’t feel much like clapping. It was the polite thing to do; even though Tommy didn’t feel much like being polite.
It had been something of a rough week for young master Dean. Things had not gotten better since Monday. He was still in all of the dumb kid classes, no matter how much he showed that he could do the work. They were barely working on double digit multiplication in math and he’d long ago memorized the names of the Presidents in American History. No matter how many remedial worksheets he’d finished in record time or how insightful his comments seemed, his bevy of new teachers seemed more pleasantly surprised than actually impressed with his accomplishments.
To compound his frustration, not once had he seen the Nanny or that golden playground again. He just couldn’t stop thinking about that day. The “why” and “how” he thought about it varied from day to day and hour to hour: Anticipation, longing, guilt, nostalgia, boredom, and even lust. It was a wide gamut, but that day was almost always on his mind. The school stuff was so easy, he could do most of it in his sleep.
In fact, that’s what he did and was allowed to do. Finish his classwork in five to ten minutes and put his head down, and wait out the rest of the hour. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. He’d managed to fall asleep too, and had been shaken awake by more than one overworked teacher who had actual dumb kids to occupy them until the fifty-ninth minute. It had thrown off his sleep schedule, but that had made little difference. He could literally do this in his sleep.
The clock next to the couch wasn’t opening either. He could be neither the strange realm’s protector, nor the stranger woman’s cute little charge. He was stuck being the short dumb kid that occassionally wet his pants. It seemed that Malacus was abandoning him right when he needed it the most.
Tommy hadn’t wet his pants at school the rest of the week, for what little good that did. He was still a bedwetter, and had to tug even thicker trainers over himself along with plastic pants to prevent leakage. He’d woken up wet, every morning, with no leaks. Then it’d been a matter of dumping wet underwear and plastic pants in the washing machine, showering up and going to yet another day of drudgery filled with fake smiles and easy work. It was quickly becoming routine, almost as if his new body were remembering a lifetime worth alternate hum-drum.
That’s what this was, Tommy had realized, an alternate reality of sorts. He was spell struck, infatuated and frustrated; not stupid. Reality was being restructured around him; he knew that much even if he couldn’t figure out the pattern or the cause and effect relationship. The golden playground, so similar to his armor, definitely meant that this crazy and that crazy were connected. The Nanny had even said she’d been from Malacus, even though all the other denizens had sworn they’d never been outside of it.
The crazy would have to wait for later, when Tommy had time to think.
Later couldn’t come soon enough. In the now, he was at this Devin kid’s tenth birthday party. Tommy didn’t even know anyone here; certainly not Devin, but he’d been lumped in with all the other kids. Devin’s mother was one of Mom’s work friends, (that was weird…Mom having a job…thinking of her as ‘Mom’ instead of Mary was new too), and Tommy had been obligated to tag along.
Tommy had been obligated; but not Katlynn. Katlynn had been allowed to stay at home and enjoy her weekend. Tommy, not so much. He was here with a bunch of kids, and dressed like a nerd: Khaki slacks, a button up shirt, loafers. If he hadn’t come close to throwing a fit, he would have had to wear a bow tie, too. All the fun clothes that had come with this new reality came with an equal amount of bad ones, it seemed.
He was the oldest non-parent here, and yet the only one who looked like his mommy dressed him. Every other ‘guest’ of the party at least got to wear comfortable clothes.
Cake was being served in the kitchen, and the fourth graders were all scrambling for a piece. Those who didn’t want a piece or had already wolfed down their slice were back out in the backyard, playing tag or making like Tarzan on a tire swing.
Tommy would have loved to give that a go, but the line was so long, and the kids were all looking at him funny. It wasn’t something that was inherently aggressive or unwelcoming, but distinctly uneasy. Kind of like how his old classmates tended to look at him these days, minus the friendly familiarity.
He was the weird kid…but also the strange kid, too.
Grown tired and irritable at a wasted afternoon, Tommy wriggled past the throng of ten year olds scrambling for cake. He was taller than them, but just by a head, if that. He tugged on his mother’s sleeve, interrupting her conversation with one of the other parents. It might have been a relative of Devin’s, or another one of Mom’s work friends; Tommy was alone in a sea of strangers. “Can we go home?”
Mom turned to face him. “They’re just serving cake, then we’re doing party games.“ Her voice was patient and quiet; a grown-up explaining to a child without being embarrassed by him. Better than nothing.
“Why do we have to stay?” Tommy was trying to control the amount of whine in his tone. It’d been getting harder and harder.
“Because we were invited,” Mom said. “I thought you’d like to play with some kids closer to your own…” she stopped, obviously searching for the right words.
“My own what…?”
“Kids that were a little more like you.”
Tommy looked at the assembled fourth graders. Some were wolfing down chocolate cake, others had already lost focus and were playing in the backyard. They appeared more with it than the gaggle of drones and jerks he’d been penned in with back in the remedial class, but that was only because they were ten. Their brain tanks were fuller, but they were smaller, too.
“They’re not my friends,” Tommy said. “I don’t know any of them.”
“So? Mom shrugged. “Go make some friends.”
“Why didn’t Katlynn have to come?” It was the question that was bothering Tommy more than anything. When you’re a twin and most every activity is co-op, the absence of your other sticks out in a major way.
Mom tried to shoo him away. “Go play, Tommy.”
“Why couldn’t I have stayed home with her?”
“Go play.”
“Seriously,” Tommy pressed. “Why couldn’t I have stayed home with Katlynn?”
Mom put her hand on her hips and gave him a look; it wasn’t quite the infamous and otherwise indescribable ‘Mom glare’, but it was darn close. Tommy was pushing it. “The last time you were alone with Katlynn, you wandered off and fell asleep at that disgusting old playground.”
Oh. Right. Mom had been meeting them at the bus stop every afternoon since. He hadn’t thought to examine that till just now.
One of the mom’s stepped in and grabbed Tommy’s hand. Reflexively, Tommy gripped back and allowed himself to be led. “Come on Tommy, let me introduce you.” Anything to get away from the potential wrath of Mom.
A group of kids stood in a circle and were tossing around a plastic ball. “Hi guys,” she said. “This is Tommy. Can he play with you?”
The kid with the ball pressed some kind of button on it and held it tightly. It wasn’t a regular ball after all. The game on pause, boys all looked at each other, wearily. An outsider was in their midst. It was the dwarven forges all over again. Tommy wasn’t the best at reading people, but he knew he was being measured up. “Okay.” One of the kids finally said. The others shallowly nodded their heads.
It was okay. Not fine. Not great. Not sure. Just okay. Tommy was being allowed in.
The circle widened, and Tommy was allowed to join it. That was enough for the mom. She walked away without so much as a word beyond “Have fun.”
Tommy looked around the circle. “What are you playing?” Tommy asked. “Catch?” He then noticed that several of the kids’ pants were wet. “Whoah!” Tommy said. “Do y’all have accidents, too?” A silent wall of shocked stares met him in response.
Stupid. Real Stupid. Only one kid had a wet patch on his shorts, and he was soaked from the waist down. Several of the other boys had drenched t-shirts. “Accidents?” One of the boys scrunched up his face. “How old are you? Three?”
“Eighteen…” Tommy sounded defensive. Which made sense because he felt defensive, too.
Another boy, Devin, Tommy thought, overheard and joined the circle. “He’s…different,” he said. “My mom and his mom are friends.” He held out his hands and got the ball tossed to him. He held it out so that Tommy could get a closer look.
It was hollow, kind of like a wiffle ball, but through the little grates and holes, Tommy could make out something squishy with a thin membrane.
“It’s got a water balloon in it,” Tommy said.
Devin smiled a little too brightly. “That’s right!” He turned it over to show the button. “And this button is connected to a timer. When it goes off, the balloon pops and water goes everywhere. But we don’t know how much time is left.”
“So you gotta get rid of it as quick as you can, then.” Then Tommy added, “Like a hand grenade.”
“See?” Devin said to his friends. “He gets it.” That sunk Tommy’s mood a bit. Nothing like having to have your intelligence verified by a ten year old to put any lingering self-esteem in check. “Ready?”
Tommy nodded, Devin pressed the button, and the game was on. Toss. Yelp. Catch. Toss. Catch. Yelp. The little plastic orb went sailing across the circle. Tommy hunched over, tense, ready for a catch that never came.
He was part of the circle but not much else.
Until…
KERSPLOOSH!
“Aww! Got me!” The kid’s hair used to be dry, now from his head to his shoulders, he was dripping.
“Loser replaces the balloon,” Devin called. There was a lull in the conversation as the newly soaked kid unscrewed the hollow sphere, reached into a bucket and loaded up a new water balloon. “So…uh…what do you like to do for fun?” he asked Tommy.
Tommy shrugged. “Oh, y’know. Spider-Man. Music.”
“That’s cool….” Devin said. It was empty of any thought. The most literal definition of small talk. He was being talked down to by someone whose voice hadn’t even changed. “What kind of music? Rock? Rap? Country?”
“Show tunes.”
“Oh yeah?” The kid on Tommy’s other side, asked. “Like what? Like uh…Loud House? SpongeBob? We Bare Bears?”
Tommy shook his head. How did he explain theater to a bunch of kids from Scrumpton without an example? “More like…musicals…?”
“Like Disney?”
“Kinda…but not just Disney…”
“Okay…” The other boys nodded their heads in the shallow way people do that means ‘I want you to stop talking but I don’t wanna be rude’. Great, he was being condescended to by people whose voice hadn’t changed yet.
“Ready? Go!” The sphere went back across the circle in the wettest game of hot potato Tommy had ever been witness to. This was a cool game! Now if only he could actually play it. He waited for someone, anyone to throw it to him, but no one would. That was the problem with being the odd man out.
He’d had more fun playing in the old park by himself…himself and Nanny.
“Can I play next? Tommy asked when it was time to reload. “I wanna show you a trick.”
Devin looked askance at him. “Okay…” he finally said. “I’ll give you a turn.”
Oh how generous of him, Tommy thought sarcastically. “Throw it here!” the birthday boy called when the water grenade was loaded up and the timer was ticking. Like the king calling court, the orb was in his hands the very next toss. He placed it in Tommy’s hands. “Okay. Your turn. Now throw it.”
Tommy looked down at the orb, he even felt the slight ticking of the timer if he held it still enough. Suddenly the children who’d been all but ignoring him were all staring. “Throw it!” They said.
“Toss it away, Tommy!”
“Throw it!”
“Tommy! Throw it to me! Throw it here, buddy! Come on buddy!” Their tones were high(er) pitched, their eyes bright. Some were. They were talking to him like he was a puppy; a simpletone.
Tommy decided to work his trick. “I’m gonna let it cook.” This thing was on a timer. The longer he held onto it, the closer it would be to bursting when he handed it off.
Devin scowled. “This isn’t cooking.”
Tommy just rolled his eyes. He was getting tired of being talked down to. “It’s something people do with hand grenades.”
“But it could explode!” Tommy just smiled at the kid. “Did you hear me, Tommy? The idea is to get RID of the hand grenade, Not hold it!”
A wicked grin spread across Tommy’s lips. “Ohhhhh…not hold it.” Tommy echoed low and slow. “I’m not supposed to hold it. Holding is bad. Got it.” He still held it, quietly counting to himself. He’d spent the last two rounds counting the timer. It was random…between twenty and thirty seconds…so not THAT random. “What am I supposed to do?”
“GIVE IT TO ME!”
Tommy lobbed the orb high and slow over the kid’s head. “Okay.” The thing exploded right before Devin got a good grip on it. “Oh wow.” Tommy smirked. “That really was bad, wasn’t it.”
The kid stood there; fuming; nostrils flaring. No one laughed. No one, save Devin moved. He was staring Tommy down. There was a flare in the kid’s eyes, and even thought Tommy still had a few inches on him, he couldn’t help but feel small by comparison. “You…you…you idiot!”
Two hands shoved Tommy in the chest. Hard. Like a fawn that hadn’t quite learned how to walk yet, Tommy stumbled back and tripped over his own heels, crashing into the grass. He gasped! He’d just gotten shoved down by a little kid! Devin gasped too! But it wasn’t for the same reason.
A wet spot started to form on the front of Tommy’s pants. The thick trainers were instantly overtaxed, and Tommy’s accident immediately started soaking through and stained the front of his khaki pants. Had he already had an accident in them? Tommy couldn’t remember. There was no way he’d be able to claim that it was from a water balloon.
“I’m sorry! I’m SO sorry!” Devin said as Tommy skittered back, staring in horror and disbelief at his own pants. This wasn’t like wearing a diaper; he couldn’t just laugh it off and keep playing! He’d done bad. He was going to get in trouble. He had to…he had to…
Tommy had to get away!
“I’ll go get your Mom!” Devin was running back into the kitchen as Tommy dashed in the opposite direction. Devin didn’t sound mad. He sounded like he was running for help. But that didn’t matter. Mommy had been cross with him all week since the playground. Now he’d gone and wet his pants. Mommy would be mad! Mommy would be real mad!
Like a baseball player sliding into home plate, Tommy dove for cover underneath an abandoned snack table. Most of the delicious vittles had been picked clean off of it before cake had been served inside, and now only the cheap quasi plastic table cloth remained.
With the table cloth as a kind of privacy barrier, Tommy poked at himself in the front of his pants and felt the squish, and saw a little puddle form right beneath his finger. God, he’d really messed it up this time!
A pair of familiar legs came into view. He hadn’t seen them from this view in years, but there was something indelible in his mind; memories of him and Katlynn playing hide and seek (badly) with their mother; burying themselves beneath the kitchen table. “Tommy?”
He sensed, more than heard the other boys pointing his direction. An all too familiar pair of legs closed in. With a slight rustle, the table cloth was lifted up and Tommy found himself face to face with his mother. “Tommy? What’s wrong?” Her eyes immediately looked to his pants. “The boys told me you ran under here.”
Tommy felt his mouth go as dry as he wished his pants were. She knew. She already knew. This was a test, nothing more. Confession time. “I hadda accident.”
Mary Dean’s sigh filled the dark little grotto under the table. “Again…?”
The eighteen year old little boy nodded. “Yes ma’am.” He closed his eyes. “I’m sorry.”
His vision temporarily forfeited, Tommy could only feel his mother gently take his hand. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s get you cleaned up.” Tommy had only had two accidents in the last seven days, (he didn’t count the Pampers on the playground), but his mother acted like this was an all too common inconvenience for both of them. She didn’t sound angry, as much as she did weary.
Tommy opened his eyes and allowed himself to be taken inside by the hand. His head down, he allowed her to lead him through clusters of onlookers and party guests; the dark dripping stain on the front of his pants a badge of shame. Even though he avoided it, he still heard Devin’s apologetic mumblings of “Sorry, Tommy.”
The mumblings of kids and adults who had infinitely more control over their bladders than he, faded as Mom shut the bathroom door behind them. Steering him by his shoulders, Tommy was maneuvered to the toilet. Without waiting, warning, or asking, Mom pulled his pants and soaked trainers down to his ankles. Poor James the Red Engine. “Sit down.” Her tone was not scolding. There seemed to be a great deal of patience behind it.
Tommy sat down as he was told. Not even caring that he was half naked. “Yes ma’am.”
“Go pee-pee,” she instructed, peeling off his shoes and socks and working his pants off. “Get anything you’ve got left out.”
Tommy strained and flexed his bladder. Nothing. “I think I’m empty.” He was bare from the waist down. Mommy was folding up his wet pants and slipping it into a gallon baggie that she’d been keeping in her purse.
When that was done, Mommy opened up another compartment of her big bag. “Let’s get you into some play clothes, hon.”
Young master Dean felt his heart skip a beat. “Play clothes?”
She took a packet of baby wipes; not quite as big as the ones Nanny had had; more of a sample pack or travel size. “Stand up.” He did so without question. He waited and breathed in shallow, wincing breaths as his mother wiped his penis and public area for him.
Nex out came something blue and red and crinkly with a certain wall-crawling web slinger plastered all over. “Spider-Man diapers?”
“Not diapers, honey,” Mom corrected him. “Goodnites. You’re still a big boy.” She didn’t see how his face fell. I was going to have you put this on later,” she said. “In case the party ran late and you fell asleep on the car ride home. Looks like we gotta do it now.”
“Yes ma’am…” Tommy tried to hide his embarrassment.
She popped them open and Tommy stepped in. “I also think we may have to look into something a little more absorbent than your training pants. You might have to wear these during the day.”
“Yes ma’am…!” he did his best to hide his excitement. She slid them up his hips for him, and he bit his lip to suppress a smile. Mom went back and started digging around in her purse. “I’ve got a pair of shorts in here, somewhere.” She did.
Tommy stepped into those and then put his socks and shoes back on all by himself. His trainers had been absorbent enough at least to at least spare them. “I’ll finish cleaning up in here,” she told him. “Go play.”
Tommy stumbled out of the bathroom and back into the birthday party. The kids throwing him pitying looks as he walked back out to the backyard. A pinata was being set up by one of the adults. After his freak out and accident, Tommy felt terribly conspicuous. The only highschooler at a kid’s birthday party. Moreso, he swore he could hear the crinkle in his baggy shorts every step he took, and he still had the button up shirt on.
He’d come to the party looking like a toddler who’d been dressed by his Mommy. Now he looked like a Toddler that had been allowed to dress himself.
“Hey Tommy!” one of the kids called, breaking him “You wanna play on the tire swing?!”
“DO I?!”


Chapter 23-The call back
And I feel it in my veins
It’s a feeling I can’t tame
Can anyone please explain
Why, why, why
Why I’m bouncing off the walls
BONG! BONG! BONG!
Tommy sat up in bed, barely registering the squish of his wet Goodnites. The last thing he’d remembered was nodding off in the backseat of Mom’s car. Mom must’ve carried him in. Changed him, too. He hadn’t been wearing pajamas before.
The young man frowned. These weren’t his magic jammies, the ones that were the golden and runed suit of armor. If he was going to defend Malacus, he’d need the armor, wouldn’t he?
It didn’t help that he was wet; not that he was uncomfortable. Far from it. It was infinitely preferable to the thick padded undies and plastic pants he’d been wearing to bed. Tommy knew he was wet, but it wasn’t the same kind of wetness-cold and clammy-that came with wet pants. The goodnite had done its job and if not for the clock, Tommy would have slept through the night.
Still…it might be hard to go be the Titan and hero of Malacus with sloshing squishy undies. Did he have time to change?
BONG! BONG! BONG!
That was decidedly a ‘no’. Dry pants could wait. Taking a deep breath, Tommy shuffled out into the living room. The old clock didn’t look quite so beaten up. It’s varnish less chipped, it’s glass only a little cracked. Out from the open panel- the door to Malacus- an airy mist billowed out.
“That’s new,” Tommy whispered to himself.
Taking a deep breath, Tommy turned sideways, ducked and went into the darkness, once more. The passageway into Malacus felt different this time. The darkness didn’t seem as mysterious or ominous. The cool parts beneath his feet seemed less chilly, the rocky walls not as jagged. They were still there.
It was kind of like a diaper versus training pants. Both were bulk and cushioned. Both were decorated with brightly colored cartoon characters. Both could be peed in. But one was distinctly more pleasant than the other…
The passageway was subtly transforming, too. Or maybe he was just getting used to it. The details were becoming more familiar to them, and so the shock was lessened, with familiar sensations being filed away to his unconscious.
What hadn’t changed, was the glowing algae on the wall before the final entrance. “Thomas Dean”, Tommy read his own literal hand writing. He didn’t feel much like a Thomas Dean. He didn’t feel like a Tom Dean either. Given his druthers, he would have written ‘Tommy’ and be done with it.
There was a thought. But as his outstretched finger went closer to the rock, the algae started to glow. And with the glowing, a kind of low electrical hum sounded; almost like a growl. “What the…?”
Tommy drew back his hand, and the algae dimmed once again, the low hum diminishing with the light. But when he reached out again, the wall became neon blue, the volume of its hum directly corresponding.
Experimentally, he reached out to touch the letter “T” that he’d written, slowly moving his pointer finger closer and closer and hearing the low hum increase in volume.
TZIT!
When his finger was less than a millimeter away, a tiny blue spark leapt out and zapped him. “YOW! FUCK!” Tommy yelped. It was like being stung by an electric bee.
“UCK-UCK-UCK,” his voice echoed.
Angrily, Tommy shook his hand and stared at his stung finger as if it had betrayed him. When he raised his hand again, the algae hummed louder, and a crackle of energy rippled through Tommy’s name. “The wall doesn’t want me to touch it?”
Tommy huffed. Okay. Fine. He didn’t need to rewrite his name. It was a silly idea to begin with.
Just before he ducked into the final opening, he checked his Goodnite. Wet. But still comfortable. A pang of self-consciousness rang out in his mind. The might hero returning in what was basically a Pull-Up for bedwetters. Not that dwarves and elves and centaurs knew what a Pull-Up was. And there was the bright side that as soon as he fell through and landed in the Mana Pool, everything would be soaked beyond recognition, (assuming his jammies didn’t turn into something badass).
But as he took that final drop, he stopped freefalling. He was still plummeting, but it was guided this time. Something soft and airy, like an inflatable raft caught Tommy, and far faster than he would have liked, started sliding and rolling downwards. That’s what this was! A giant inflatable slide!
“OOOOF!” Tommy exclaimed as the air rushed out of him. “UG-UG-UG-OOOF-OCK-UG!” The sky and the ground in the horizon became dance partners. If it hadn’t been so unexpected, it might have been kind of fun.
The final splash of freezing cold water never came, instead being replaced by a hollow crackle and clatter. Instead of the darkness and air starving depths, Tommy found himself buried by a deluge of rainbow colored rocks that both cushioned his fall and buried him.
Legs pumping, his feet could not find enough purchase to properly swim or leap to the surface. He could still breathe, but he was floundering- half climbing half thrashing half swimming up to the top. Red. Green. Yellow. Blue. The most basic of colors swirled around him as he paddled up from the softball sized rocks.
Given his superhuman strength and near invulnerability, one might forgive Tommy’s mistake in thinking they were marvelous rocks all polished to a uniform smoothness. They weren’t rocks, but hollow plastic balls! Tommy had fallen down a slide and into a giant ball pit!
Just as his hand breached the surface, he felt a strong and familiar grip grab his wrist and lift him out, first by the wrist, then by the armpits.
Dangling by the armpits like a four year old, Tommy gazed in disbelief at the centaur. “Nox?”
“Hello, friend Tommy!”


Chapter 24- Old Scene, New Rules
And if you’re feeling cross and bitterish
Don’t sit and whine
Think of banana splits and licorice
And you’ll feel fine
“Friend Tommy!” Nox, the centaur beamed as Tommy dangled by his armpits. “It’s good to see you again!”
Reflexively, Tommy grabbed at the burly centaur’s forearms, trying to force the horse-man to let go of him. The arms didn’t budge even an inch. His strength had failed him! It was gone! “Nox!” he shrieked. “Put me down! Put me down!”
The centaur seemed confused, as if Tommy was making a bizarre request. He seemed vaguely uncomfortable, as if Tommy screaming at him and demanding to stand on his own two feet was strange indeed. “My apologies, m’friend,” Nox, said. He put Tommy down.
The shrinking effect that Tommy noticed back in the real world persisted here. The centaur hadn’t gotten taller since last time; Tommy had just lost a few more inches. Something was different about Nox , though. As a centaur, Nox had a certain animal musk about him; not unpleasant, but decidedly not human. Here he smelled…well…clean. Almost soapy, like someone who’d just sudsed up in the shower. His hair wasn’t as ragged, either, more clean cut. Nor was his beard as shaggy. Nox’s resemblance to his more clean cut (former) Math teacher, Mr. Jordan, was even more apparent.
Tommy was different, himself. His Spider-Man jammies had transformed, sure enough, but not into the glorious golden armor of Tom the Titan. Instead he was wearing a plain white t-shirt and overalls. Tommy was no stranger to overalls, for sure: A little hick town like Scrumpton, Georgia still had its fair share of good ol’ boys who wore them when working outside, usually with at least one strap hanging off their shoulder and no shirt.
But Tommy’s weren’t made of the rough cheap denim of road workers; but something more light and breathable, with light green pinstripes running down. These stopped at his knees, too, giving Tommy a decidedly less blue collar rough and tumble aesthetic than most overalls for boys his age. Maybe it was the color scheme, but he couldn’t help but think of the Sound of Music; the scene where the children had play clothes made out of old curtains. The girls were all in dresses, and the boys were all in cloth overalls that went down just above their knee. This was a little like that; a modernization of the same style.
Play clothes. For a child. The muted crinkle and slight squish between his thighs signaled that not everything about his garments had changed.
“Nox?” Tommy looked up at the dapper centaur. “Why is there a slide and ball pit in the mana pool?” He pointed backwards, accusingly, to the little lake filled with plastic balls.
The centaur frowned, confused, as if Tommy had just asked a very simple question in a way that demanded a very complex answer; like ‘Why is the sky blue?’ or ‘Why do I have to go to school?’.
“Because, friend Tommy,” Nox answered, “we are at peace.”
“What does that have to do with the mana pool?”
Nox scoffed as if Tommy had said something absurdly funny. “I sometimes forget, friend Tommy, that you are not of Malacus.” Tommy frowned and felt his bottom lip start to stick out, but if Nox was offended or noticed, he didn’t show it. “Does Earth Realm have moats, friend Tommy?”
Now it was Tommy’s turn to scoff. “Of course Earth Realm has moats!” He crossed his arms a moment. “I mean…we used to…I’ve seen them…in movies.”
“Movies?”
“Nevermind. Yes, I know what a moat is.”
“The mana pool is like a moat. When we are at war,” Nox gestured to the rainbow colored slide, “the bridge goes up and the pool fills with water. It is a long drop and freezing water that awaits the unwelcome intruder.”
“But when it’s peaceful, it’s a slide into a ball pit?”
Nox nodded approvingly. “Precisely, friend Tommy.”
Something else itched at the back of Tommy’s brain. “Why do you keep calling me
Friend?
”
Nox nickered. “Are we not friends?”
“Yeah…” Tommy said. “Yeah we are. Just, the last couple of times I’ve been here, you and everybody else on my side called me ‘m’lord’.”
“We were at war, friend Tommy.”
“So I’m only ‘m’lord’ when it’s war?”
“Yes.”
Tommy thought about it. He remembered in History class (before he got bumped down to remedial) something about ancient Rome. Originally, a dictator was someone who took over in a time of crisis when snap decisions had to be made and democracy would have been too slow. But once the crisis had passed, they’d turn power back over to the people and let democracy take its course. It wasn’t until later that the term dictator took it’s negative connotation. “So I’m not a king, but a dictator? Like a Roman one?”
“You do roam from realm to realm, friend Tommy.”
Intentional or not, Tommy let the word play go. “Is that why I’m not strong anymore?”
“Aye, m’friend. Malacus doesn’t need a Titan of Man to protect it.”
“Then what am I even here for?”
At this, the centaur looked genuinely hurt. “I’m sorry, friend Tommy. I thought we were friends, you and I. Do you need to be fighting something for us to spend time together?
A pang of guilt wracked Tommy’s brain. “I didn’t mean it that way.” He did, in fact, mean it that way. He’d been quietly hoping to bust some heads. “I’m sorry.”
“I forgive you, m’friend.”
There was a silence, and Tommy couldn’t help but stare back down at his bare feet and trace awkward circles in the grass. “Are we at least still on the back of a giant flying turtle?”
Nox’s laughter practically shook the ground. “Of course, m’friend. We are still on the back of a giant flying turtle.”
Tommy licked his chops. “Cool. Cool. So uh…there’s nobody to fight?”
“Nay, m’friend.”
“Heh…you said ‘nay’.” War or peace that one never got old. “So what else is there to do?”
The horse-man scratched his nose and twitched. Tommy got that look whenever he had a particularly jagged booger that needed picking but he didn’t want to be rude and go digging for gold. “We could go on a quest,” he suggestion.
That perked Tommy up a bit. “A quest?” Tommy didn’t know what a quest was in this context, but it sounded kind of fun. “Are quests fun?”
“Aye, m’friend. Most amusing.” Nox patted Tommy on the head. He grinned. “And I’d be honored to accompany you and your first! You never forget your first!”
Tommy felt his heart pounding. “Alright! Let’s quest!”
“Hop on my back m’friend!” Tommy half walked half waddled to the centaur. No saddle. No super jumping, and Nox wasn’t moving to boost him with his arms. Tommy let out a little cough…hoping that would be enough.
It was. From behind, a long prehensile, almost monkey-like tail snaked around Tommy’s waist and boosted him up onto the horseman’s back. His legs straddling the horse part, Tommy felt the pulpy squish of the wet Goodnite beneath him more accutel than ever. It was impossible to ignore. “Nox?” Tommy asked. “Didn’t you have a scorpion tail before?”
“Nay, m’friend,” Nox assured him. “Why?”
“Are you sure?” Tommy asked. “I could’ve sworn that-”
“Excuse me, m’friend,” Nox interrupted. “But is there something different about your smallclothes?”
Tommy blushed. “Smallclothes?”
“Your breeches m’friend. It feels like there’s a thin cushion between my back and your bum.”
Tommy’s eyes shot open. He wasn’t the only one feeling the night diaper. “Oh, that?” he bluffed. “Transformed when I got here. It’s called an under-saddle. Popular for horseback riding in Earth Realm. Less mess…” Crud! Why’d he say mess?! “I mean muss. Don’t have to take the saddle off and on if it’s beneath your clothes.”
Nox pawed at the ground like an adult suspiciously tapping his foot. “Are you su-?”
“QUESTING TIME!”
Nox took off at a full gallop through the forests growing on the back of the giant sky turtle with Tommy hanging on for dear life and grinning like an idiot; Nox’s tail wrapped around his midsection to steady the boy. As the centaur made that first terrifying leap at the end of the shell, Tommy heard the faintest screeching in the wind… a distant bird.


I am really enjoying this story, Personalias.


Chapter 25- New Neighbors
Charlie played with his toy turtle, scooping it through the air and making whooshing noises like it was some kind of reptilian fighter plane. It was just after bath time, and Charlie was playing on the carpet of his nursery in just his diaper while Mommy was switching into her night robee
It was kind of the routine.
The turtle was supposed to be a bath toy; a cute buoyant thing with a concave bowl in the shell that little nick-nacks could nest in. Charlie just liked to fill it up with water. It brought back fond, almost forgotten memories.
Under normal circumstances, Charlie left the toy turtle in the tubby where it belonged. But he whined and begged and complained until Mommy finally understood the message and let him keep the toy after he was toweled off. Sometimes it was so hard for grown-ups to understand him, that Charlie was tempted to limit his speech to mewls and babbles and whines…maybe a few two word sentences here and there. It was how most of the other babies his age did it, and all that the grown-ups understood.
One time he’d gone through the trouble of reciting the preamble to the constitution. Nothing fancy, but full of non-toddler language. All that day he’d done it, but Mommy and all the other grown-ups just gave him the same responses of “Uh-huh” and “That’s nice” and “Oh yeah?” and “Really?”. They weren’t hearing him. Sometimes it was easier to just whine and tantrum and coo and get loved on for it.
BONG! BONG! BONG!
Charlie snapped his head up. “The clock!” he whispered to himself. He knew that toll anywhere, even after all these years. What was it doing so close to here? It could only mean one thing: Malacus had come back to Scrumpton.
Over the years, whenever a new kid was brought into daycare, just before they completely cracked, Charlie would manage to overhear their ramblings before it went into full on babblings.
There had always been mentions of worlds underneath beds (before they turned into cribs) and closets and cupboards and mirrors and wardrobes and holes in the ground. At least once it was something about a cardboard box in an attic. But never a clock. That meant that kid he’d seen the other day…
Where was that noise coming from?
“Okay, Charlie,” Mommy said as she came in. Her robe was already open, her breasts engorged. Other than her silvering hair she looked exactly as she had the day when the Charlie had found that clock. “Time for one last bit of num-nums.”
“Mommy! No!” He cried out. Looking over to the window. “I hear the clock, Mommy! I hear the clock. No!” He picked himself up and ran to the window, trying to show her, trying to let her know. “Look!”
“Oh yes-yes-yes!” Mommy cooed, a smile plastered on her face. “It’s time for num-nums, then bed.”
Charlie was already cradled in her arms before he could protest, her nipple brushing against the corner of his mouth. Instinct and routine kicked in and he latched on; suckling and moaning even as he struckled. A few gentle pats on his back and some slight bouncing quieted him down. “Shhhhh, that’s right. That’s right. Good baby.” She started swaying slowly, rocking him to sleep. At least she was still by the window.
Trying to keep his lids from shutting and his eyes from rolling into the back of his head, struggled to power through the ecstasy and keep his eyes trained on the window along his periphery. In the empty lot by their house, a heavy fog rolled in, a sentient mass of clouds obscured everything outside.
The sounds of clicking and clacking could be heard through Charlie’s window. Earth being moved and paved. Framework being put up. Bricks being laid and plumbing and electrical being installed and rigged up. All in a matter of seconds. Charlie couldn’t see it because of the mist (and his mother’s boob in his face) but he could sure as hell hear it.
The sleep started to overtake Charlie. His lids were drooping. His tummy was getting full. Unconsciousness would claim him, and he’d most likely awaken just in time for Church tomorrow.
BONG! BONG! BONG!
That sound! Charlie unlatched and craned his neck just in time to see: Like steam on a skillet, the mist evaporated up into the air. Where once there was an empty lot and a patch of grass, a new two story house stood. So that’s what it looked like from the outside. He felt his diaper warm and become damp, and this time it wasn’t just because he hadn’t had his potty training for well over a decade and a half.
“See you soon, kid…” Charlie whispered.
“Time to switch,” Mommy cooed, moving him over to the far tit. Charlie closed himself off and just enjoyed the milk; the warmth; the intimacy. No point in worrying about things he couldn’t control. Speaking of which, he hoped Mommy plugged in the wipe warmer. It’d be easier for him to stay asleep during a change if the wipes were warm.


Chapter 26- New Adventures.
You’ll have a treasure if you stay there,
More precious far than gold.
For once you have found your way there,
You can never, never grow old.
In the great forge hall of the dwarves, Tommy stood aghast .“Leadshoulder?” All around, the great burning song forges of the dwarves were dark and cold. Where once great anvils hammered hot to keep rhythm of the magic forging songs, now were tremendously tall shelves Shelves wasn’t completely accurate, however.
When Tommy thought of shelves, he pictured flat surfaces with books resting on them in neat orderly rows. This was more like a wine rack with lattices criss crossing at diagonals creating fist sized diamond shaped holes. Rolled up scrolls made of ancient looking parchment took up each space, with bits of colored ribbon binding each scroll and drooping out of its resting place. Tommy had caught a glance and saw that the same dwarven runes were written on the bits of ribbon; the titles perhaps.
The great booming forge had become a quiet library. Dwarves who had once feasted and sang at the mead table now sat quietly at it, contemplating writing.
None of that caught Tommy off guard nearly as much as looking at
“Aye, Tommy, m’friend,” the dwarf nodded. “It is I. Why do you ask?” He still looked vaguely like Trevor Macintosh stretched over a dwarven frame, but there was so much difference that it was startling. No ornately runed armor, just a simple tunic with a hempen belt. In place of a battle helm was a floppy sack of a hat. Even his rough beard that he’d been so proud to have grown had shaved down to stubble. He’d gone from looking like something out of Tolkien to an extra in a Disney movie.
It was also a bit disturbing that he had an inch or two on Tommy, now.
“You look so…so…different, is all,” Tommy said. “No armor. No beard.” Looking around, Tommy saw almost none of the dwarves had beards. Most were white and barely wispy things compared to the thick and bushy beards that he remembered.”
Leadshoulder smiled politely. “It is peace time here in Malacus, m’friend.”
“And the beards and armor were only for war…” Tommy finished the sentence.
“Just so.”
The young man curled his mouth to the side. “You didn’t mention all these changes before,” he said.
“It had been a long time since we’d had peace,” the dwarf replied. “Never thought we’d live to see it. But now elves and centaurs, and dwarves are all harmonious, thanks to you.” Tommy dug his hands in the pockets of his shortalls. “I see your garments are changed, too. No more armor.”
Tommy looked away. “Yeah…” As oddly comfortable as these clothes were, he really did miss his golden armor.
Seeming to sense Tommy’s discomfort, Leadshoulder changed the subject “What brings you here?”
“We seek a quest,” Nox said, plainly.
Leadshoulder clapped his massive hands together. “A quest! That sounds like a delightful way to spend an afternoon!”
Tommy felt the centaur’s strong hand on his shoulder. “It will be friend Tommy’s first.”
Trevor’s doppelganger’s eyes widened with a sense of nostalgia. “Your first quest! Oh you’ve come to the right place, then!” It vaguely reminded Tommy of when he was a kid and friends were telling him how great a certain flavor of ice cream was or a really good movie. ‘Oh you gotta try this! Oh you gotta see that!’. That kind of thing.
“What is a quest, anyways?” Tommy asked. “Why didn’t we do quests before?”
“I already told you, m’friend,” Nox began.
Leadshoulder silenced him and held up his hand. “I think I can explain it better, friend Equestrinox.” When the centaur did not object, he continued. “Malacus is imbued with magic; deep powerful magic.”
“Uh-huh…” Tommy said. “I know.”
“And on Malacus, Magic is a naturally occurring resource.” The dwarf was speaking kindly, but slowly, like he was explaining a basic arithmetic problem to a kindergartner.
Tommy wasn’t complaining. “Sure,” he said.
“In times of war, the magic becomes harnessed for war. Hydragons are bred. Elven mind control magic is spun.”
“Armor is sung into existence?”
Leadshoulder nodded. “It is raging river water being harnessed to power destructive mills.” Okay. Not the best metaphor, but Tommy understood. But when Malacus’s magic is left to its own devices during times of peace, it becomes a pleasant stream to take a swim in.”
Tommy scratched his head. He started to shift about slightly, but the crinkling sound from his hips made him self-conscious. “So it’s like a field trip? A field trip to find good magic?”
Leadshoulder’s smile was nearly identical to Trevor’s: Kind. Patient. And slightly condescending. “Exactly. For some on Malacus, questing becomes a kind of professional sport. Try to complete the most quests in a day for example”
“Oh…okay…” Tommy said. “So what quest should I do?”
The dwarf gestured to the racks of scrolls. “You pick a quest, m’friend!”
“Pick a quest?”
Nox clip-clopped forward. “Whenever enough magic pools in an area to create a quest, a questing scroll forms.“ As if on cue, a new roll of paper materialized in an empty slot. Nox pulled the scroll and examined the ribbon without opening it. “Harvest and eat world’s biggest turnip…?” The intonation made it sound like a suggestion.
Tommy arched an eyebrow. “Why would I want to do that?
“If you can eat it, you can eat anything,” Leadshoulder said. “Literally.”
Nox picked another scroll. “Staring contest with the queen bee?”
“Why would he want to be able to turn anything he touches into honey?” Leadshoulder scoffed.
The gears in Tommy’s head finally started turning. He stepped forward and between his two magical friends. “So you mean that if I finish a quest, I get superpowers?”
Both of them looked supremely amused. “Aye, Tommy.” Leadshoulder said. “Why else would you try to get a bee to blink?”
“THAT IS SO COOL!” Tommy was practically bouncing.
“No freezing powers, m’friend.” Leadshoulder said. “Not allowed. Too close to warlike. If it were winter, you might get a snowball power but…” Leadshoulder stopped. A beefy finger poked Tommy lightly in the chest. “That’s it!”
“What’s it?” Nox asked.
“The dragon! The quest of the dragon! It’s right there on your tunic! It’s a sign!”
Tommy looked down. “Dragon?” It was slightly obscured, but sure enough, there was a tiny green dragon on Tommy’s shirt. Had that always been there, he wondered.
“It’s impossible.” Nox argued. “No one ever does it because they’ve long given up.”
“Which is why friend Tommy should try it! He could do it! The lad is very clever! VERY clever!”
“Excuse me,” Tommy said. “What is the quest of the dragon and what happens if I complete it?” Considering anything martial was out, Tommy very much doubted that it had anything to do with breathing fire (or acid or lightning or cold).
Nox sighed. It was a defeated gesture; very much like a teacher who’d been run ragged. “Flight. Anyone who can solve the quest gains the ability to fly so long as they’re in Malacus.”
Flight! Like Peter Pan? Oh how wonderful would that be! Tommy wracked his brain. There was a catch. There was always a catch with this sort of thing. “What happens if I can’t complete the quest?”
“You’ve wasted a day.” Leadshoulder gave nox a knowing elbow to the flank. “No risk beyond frustration.” He reached over and withdrew a very old looking scroll; it’s paper yellowed, it’s ribbon golden. “Unwrap it and it’s yours to undertake m’friend.”
Tommy pulled the ribbon and unrolled it. Nothing. Right there in front of Tommy’s face was just old, yellowed paper with no writing on it.
Then BAM!
Flashes of golden light blinded Tommy causing hims to shout out. As his vision cleared, he saw the glowing runic letters flashing and cooling into dark black ink. “So cool!” Tommy said. He stared at the writing a bit longer, waiting for some other sign. “Uh…what do I do now?”
“You read it,” Leadshoulder said simply enough.
Tommy stared at the runes. They were little more than stylized chicken scratch to him. “I can’t…”
“Here lad,” Nox took the scroll from Tommy’s hands. “Allow me.”
“What’s it say?” Tommy asked.
The centaur squinted. “What has a mouth but never talks? Always runs but never walks? What has a bed but never sleeps? Has a head but never weeps?”
“It’s a riddle,” Leadshoulder proclaimed.
“Aye,” Nox agreed. “But what’s the answer?”
“Perhaps a Wabberjocky.” The dwarf speculated. He noticed the confused look on Tommy’s face. “Nasty things. They just lie around and scream all day. Terrible nuisances.”
“Mayhaps.”
“It’s a river,” Tommy said. “Mouth of a river. Running river. River bed. The head of a river.” He’d known that one forever. “Is there a famous river in Malacus?”
A light of recognition came to Nox’s eyes. “The boy’s a genius! To the River Bank!”
Tommy was so proud in that moment that he felt he was glowing. His skin was hot and tingly, but in a good way. So proud was he as Leadshoulder slapped him heartily on the back and lifted him back up onto Nox’s rump, that he almost didn’t notice how his Goodnite was starting to sag just a little more.
Almost…


Chapter 27 Unexpected developments
If you trust in your song
Keep your eyes on the goal
Then the prize you won’t fail
That’s your grail
That’s your grail
“This isn’t what I had in mind when you said we were going to the riverbank,” Tommy said to his centaur companion.
Both he and Nox stood at the edge of what was technically a river. The keyword in this scenario was ‘technically’. When thinking of rivers, Tommy (like most people) presumed water was involved. An understandable if predictable mistake considering where he was. Nothing was ever as it seemed in Malacus, Tommy was realizing.
Dwarves pounded anvils only so they could keep a steady rhythm and sing their miraculous creations into life. Elves inscribed unspoken mind control magic into the floors beneath their feet; creating a kind of hypnotic snare trap. A Mana Pool was literally a magical pit filled up that could be swam (or drowned) in.
Still, the seemingly endless flow of gold coins rushing past him, clinking and clanking like little shifting plates of armor was a little on the nose. “This is the River Bank,” Nox said in a gruff and frank voice. “Out of all the rivers in Malacus, this is the most likely to contain what we’re looking for.”
“Scrooge McDuck couldn’t swim through this stuff,” Tommy complained.
“Who?”
Tommy waved off the question. “Never mind that. This isn’t a river. This is a controlled avalanche. Why here?”
“The Quest of the Dragon is one of the most cherished and difficult quests on Malacus,” Nox explained. “If it were easy all would be flying without wings.”
There was some merit in that thought. Tommy looked down at the little green dragon hiding just beneath his bib overalls. Had that been there the whole time. Whether it had or it hadn’t, didn’t matter. It wouldn’t aid him in solving his quest.
Experimentally, and with the quickness of a child reaching into a mousetrap to snatch the cheese, Tommy skimmed his hands along the surface of the rattling river of coins and got a handful of thin gold coins for his trouble. Even so, his hand stung. It reminded Tommy of the time when he was little and he stuck his fingers inside a fan. “Ouch!” If this had been water, it would have been white water rapids!
“Careful, friend Tommy,” the centaur warned. “Much riches flow through the River Bank, but a body can be buried by their own greed…literally.”
But why gold?” Tommy asked. “And what’s with the runes?” Indeed, all of the coins Tommy had successful snatched up had the same stylistic runes that had once belonged onto his armor…and the playground back home.
“Gold is the element that best conducts magic.” Now Nox was sounding more and more like a certain indignant and exasperated teacher that had lectured countless times over bored students that refused to pay attention. “Why else would it be so valuable?”
Tommy didn’t have an answer for that. Back home, gold was valuable because humans like shiny things…or maybe gold had the same properties and people just forgot. “What about the uh…?” Tommy scribbled his finger in the air to indicate he meant the strange etchings.
“To control the direction of flow of the magic,” Nox said. “You didn’t think your golden war armor had those markings on it for decoration, did you, m’friend? Magic has to be channeled properly and in the right directions or else…” Nox scratched his ears. “How do I put this?”
“Kaboom?”
“Precisely.” Nox’s ears twitched. His head jerked slightly to the right; as if he’d heard something, but was trying to focus on the task at hand. “Most likely, the answer to that riddle- or the next piece of your quest I should say-is somewhere near the bottom.”
Tommy looked at the palms of his hand. They were still a little red. “The bottom?”
“Would you prefer to search the River Sticks?” Nox sounded a little more distracted; not far off as much as slightly agitated.
“Something wrong?” Tommy asked.
Nox turned his head to face the boy. “Um…how to put this delicately?” the horse-man said “A boon of my body is that I have two stomachs. A bane is that when nature calls, it is difficult for me to delay answering it.” He gestured around, “And there isn’t much privacy.”
Tommy blushed. “Oh…yeah.” Horses might drop their loads wherever they pleased, but centaurs were only half horses. In a certain regard, Tommy was lucky for what he was wearing. He’d answered nature’s call at least twice, but the goodnite dangling around his hips afforded him a measure of privacy (and with it, a sample of dignity). “If you need to go…I mean…leave…I’ll wait.”
Mr. Jordan’s equine doppelganger patted his stomach and scraped the ground with his back legs. What might the intestinal track of a centaur look like? “Thank you m’friend. I’ll return as soon as I’m able.” He was galloping away- the sound of frantic hoofbeats already overlapping with his voice before he’d finished the sentence. “Good luuuuuck.”
Tommy sat down in front of the river of gold. The clammy squish of his goodnite registering beneath him. “I’ll need it.” How the heck was he going to get to the bottom of that river to find whatever the quest required of him.
He looked at the paltry sum of coins in his palm and jingled them around a bit and hummed. It’d been a bit, but the coins reminded him vaguely of every poor boys summer pastime: skipping rocks. The river was fairly wide, so at the very least he should be able to skip it a few feet. Maybe it’d help him think.
The first coin didn’t skip as much as it plopped in the rushing pile, immediately becoming indistinguishable from the horde of coins that carried it along. “Scuba tank?” Tommy wondered out loud. No. That wouldn’t work. Breathing wasn’t the problem as much as being crushed was. A lot of gold…a lot of fast moving gold too…meant a lot of weight.
The second coin had a little bit more spin, a little more force. It’s splash was less like a stone skipping across water and more like a cueball scattering billiards. Nature of the environment, Tommy supposed. “Fishing pole?” he wondered before dismissing it completely.
Whatever was hidden beneath the River Bank was buried beneath moving solids, not flowing liquid. He’d need to be the world’s best blindfolded crane game player to pull off something like that. No dice.
Tommy looked at the last coin in his palm, it was golden, but no bigger than a penny. Maybe when Nox was done pooping behind a tree, he’d have better ideas. Tom the Titan was a great war hero, but Tommy was a pretty cruddy quester. He wished he was better at this.
He wished…he wished…Tommy stood up! He wished! He shouldn’t be skipping stones, he should be throwing coins in a well! Magic was real here, duh! Closing his palm, Tommy lifted the coin to his mouth and whispered. “I wish I had what I needed to finish this quest.”
With a lazy, back and forth motion, Tommy underhand tossed the final coin back in the River Bank. Rather than be swept over, the coin stopped. The whole river did. Coins slowed to a clinking and clattering halt before stilling.
The sound of a million piggy banks rattling around loose change rang out in the air as a sinkhole opened up in the middle of the river, coins clattering down into darkness as Tommy watched, mouth agape.
The magic did not end there. For out of the hole, floating slowly up like an angel ascending from the pits of Tartarus was a woman. Her gown was simple and black, with a white apron and trimmings- a faux medieval twist on the stereotypical french maid’s outfit (and infinitely more modest and concealing besides), but Tommy would have recognized those mischievous mismatched eyes anywhere.
“Nanny?”
“Hello, Tommy.” The Nanny smiled back. “How are you, little boy?”
“What are you doing here?” Tommy asked.
“I live here,” she giggled as if Tommy had asked a silly question. Tommy did feel silly. She had said she was from Malacus, hadn’t she?
Tommy peered down into the bottomless hole that had formed in the now stilled river of coins. “You live in a stream of money?”
She giggled, rather coyly, Tommy observed. “Human legends tell tales of ladies who live in lakes. What’s so strange about a Nanny in a river of gold?” Well…when she put it like that…
Tommy’s feeling of silliness was short lived, “But you have solved the first riddle for your quest.”
“I have?”
The Nanny floated over to Tommy and descended till her feet were upon the soft grass. “Of course, silly! You’re so smart! Nobody’s ever thought to just wish their way to victory. The answer was right there in front of their faces.” Tommy fairly glowed at the praise. “Grown-ups, huh?”
“Yeah,” Tommy agreed. “Kinda obvious if you think about it.”
“Now let’s get you what you need, little boy.” Nanny reached her hand out to the side, and as if peeling back a thick curtain, penetrated the air around them. “Just a second.” When she withdrew her hand, she held a very padded and very crinkly folded rectangle in her hand. To call it ‘cloth’ would be a misnomer. ‘Cloth-like’ would have been more accurate.
Tommy stepped back half a pace. “A diaper?” Pampers, more specifically.
“They don’t have these in Malacus, and I’d hate to stick you with a safety pin, while changing you.”
Tommy gulped. “Changing me?”
Nanny’s mismatched eyes sparkled. “A silly old centaur might not recognize a droopy wet diaper underneath a pair of shortalls, but I do.” She waved the diaper lightly in her hand, playfully slapping it into her open palm. Tommy’s cheeks turned almost sunburn pink. He couldn’t bluff. He couldn’t lie. Not to Nanny.
“But-”
“You wished for what you needed to finish this quest,” Nanny said. “And what you need right now is a fresh diaper.” Tommy didn’t say anything. He just stood his ground, staring at his sneakers. He didn’t feel much like Tom the Titan; just another little kid with wet pants. “I’m not going to let you go play in a wet diaper. That’d be irresponsible Nannying.”
“PLAY!” The very word energergized Tommy. Heart rate increased. Breathing picked up. Toes wiggled as massive amounts of dopamine were released into his bloodstream.
“Of course, play. Isn’t that what a quest is?” It was true. Pleasure. Vacation. Amusement. All just really big words to describe forms of play. And if he was playing, Nanny knew best.
“Okay,” Tommy said. “Just make it quick.” He started fiddling with the brass buckles on his shortalls. “I don’t want Nox to see-”
A gentle hand interrupted his thoughts. “Not so fast, baby boy.” Nanny whispered. “Do you know how expensive diapers are?”
Growing up in Scrumpton Georgia in an abstinence only sex-education program, Tommy had a vague idea of how expensive such things were. The health education room was plastered with posters about the cost of raising a baby, diapers included. Being unable to get pregnant and very unlikely to have sex anytime soon, Tommy never paid attention to the actual numbers.
“Pretty expensive.” His stomach gurgled in a kind of agreement.
“And your tummy is making funny sounds.” Nanny pointed out. “You know what that means.”
Tommy grabbed his tummy. “No…?” He left that little inflection at the end, but in truth, Tommy knew exactly what was body was signalling. He needed to find his own far off patch of bushes to hide behind or whatever. There wasn’t a latrine in sight.
“If I changed you now.,” Nanny chirped. “I’d just have to change you again in a few minutes.”
“So you’re saying you want me to…?” Tommy left the question hanging. Both of them knew what he was really asking.
Seductively, the Nanny leaned in and pressed her forehead to his; her mismatched eyes twinkling hypnotically. “It just makes sense, doesn’t it Tommy?”
“I…I…I…” Tommy stuttered. The smell of lavender perfume invaded his nostrils, and he wasn’t sure if it was coming from the strange women he’d met on the playground, the diaper in her hand, or both. Something else besides his diaper was swelling, though the two were in tantalizingly close proximity. “I can’t.”
“Sure you can, baby.” Nanny whispered. “There’s not a potty around for miles, none of your friends- real or imaginary- are around right now, and I’ve got a fresh Pampers waiting just for you. All I want you to do is to use your diaper for its intended purpose.”
A tiny, very adult voice, in the back of Tommy’s head reminded him that the goodnite wrapped around his butt wasn’t a diaper. It wasn’t something that was supposed to be peed and pooped in while he was awake; only for bedwetting. That voice used to be much louder once upon a time, but it had gotten increasingly distant over the last few days. It was a sad voice. A lonely voice. The voice that Tommy had had in his head before Mommy brought the clock home.
His nanny (his nanny?) must’ve been able to hear that voice too. “Don’t worry,” she said seductively, “you won’t get in trouble. Just the opposite. Just close your eyes.” Tommy obeyed. “Bend your knees.” Tommy did. “Now push.”
Tommy did. He grunted and pushed, but not with his arms. He pushed with his guts, pushed with his sphincter, pushed with his will. He pushed past every last bit of potty training he’d ever had, and little by little, he did as he was told. It was so weird pooping standing up. At first he wondered if he was doing it right, but then felt the first bit of mess hit the back of his goodnites. That’s when he knew.
He breathed deep and pushed again and felt Nanny’s lips gently kiss his forehead. She was rewarding him, even as the warm mass spread in his pants. His manhood…manhood?..boyhood?..penis. His penis continued engorge even as he filled his pants. The warmth of the mysterious woman’s sweet kisses made him disassociate any disgust he might have or think about what the warmth coming out the back of him was. Truth be told, it felt VERY good as long as he didn’t think too hard about it, and Tommy just didn’t have enough blood going to his brain.
Very quickly, Tommy’s body, internal inertia, and gravity took over. He couldn’t have stopped himself if he’d wanted to. “Good baby,” Nanny whispered. “Very good. Now use it allllll….” A strong grip between his legs told Tommy what she meant.
Tommy shuddered his way into an orgasm as the woman gripped his genitals through pee-pee’d padding. “Oh Nanny!” he gasped, falling through his knees as his penis spurted out his seed, adding it’s warmth to match the warmth in the back.
“All empty?” the Nanny asked.
Beyond words and his heart pounding slowly in his chest, Tommy nodded. “Uh-huh….” He opened his eyes.
She bared her breasts to him. “Then let’s fill you up.” Nanny was also a wetnurse, it seemed. She lowered to her knees and scooped the boy up, cradling him in his mess and guided his lips to her milky nipples. Overcome with instinct, Tommy latched on, his tongue licking and teasing as fresh milk.
Warm in front. Warm in back. And now so-so warm on the inside as his tummy filled up. Tommy groaned with pleasure, not caring about either load in his pants. Eyes started to get heavy. “Don’t go to sleep,” Nanny warned. “It’s not time for nap-nap yet.”
Tommy opened his eyes as she switched him over to the other breast. How was she cradling him so easily? Was he getting littler…er…smaller?
Who cared?
He lost himself as he latched back on and filled his tummy back up. The next time he made boom-booms would be easier, he knew. Nanny’s milk would help him.
Finally, and yet all too soon, Nanny’s milk ran dry, and Tommy felt the fresh air and sunshine of Malacus back on his face.
Why wasn’t Nox back yet? Why did he even want Nox to be here?
His feet had yet to hit solid ground now that his milky snack had finished. Rather, he found himself draped over the woman’s shoulder, seated in the crook of her arm. The mush in his pants had since cooled and was now pressed up against him as his back was patted. “Give me burpies,” she gently commanded him.
A bit of a bubble of hesitation, and then Tommy’s body obeyed. “UUUUUURP!”
“Oooh! That was a loud one!” Nanny remarked. “Good boy! Such a good burper. Do you have one more for me?”
In point of fact, he did. “Uuuuurp.”
“Good baby,” she whispered, before laying him down on the grass.
Tommy moved to sit up. “Okay…gotta…get…” His words were cut off by the gentle hand on his chest guiding him back down.
“I’ve got it, sweetie. Let me change you. Nanny will take care of it.”
Stupidly, drunkenly, futilely, Tommy did his best to fiddle with the buckles on his shortalls.
“Not like that, Tommy,” Nanny giggled.
“Then how?”
In reply, Nanny reached between his legs. Tommy felt, more than heard, the little snaps along his inseam and crotch come undone. He definitely felt the cool breeze rushing up his thighs, and saw the nearly destroyed goodnites come into view as Nanny peeled back the bottom half of his outfit as though it were just a skirt.
“Have those buttons been there the whole time?” he wondered aloud.
“Of course they have, Tommy.” Nanny smiled coyly. “Snaps make diaper changes so much easier.” She leaned over his bed wetting pants and tore roughly at the sides. “Speaking of easier,” she grunted, “it will be a lot easier to change you when all of your diapers have tabs. No more ripping off sides or pulling down undies…”
“All of my-?”
Nanny didn’t wait for him to question her. Tommy stopped asking when he got a good look at his shoes juxtaposed against bright blue sky, and the warmth of his muck covered behind contrasting with the fresh wet feeling of baby wipes cleaning them off.
He could get used to this.
“You will,” Nanny said. “Everyone does.”
“Beg your pardon?” Tommy asked, looking up as the old padding was swapped out for the clean diaper. He could have sworn he’d only thought that last part.
Nanny busied herself powdering him and taping the fresh diaper snugly around his waist. Filled with a strange kind of guilty curiosity, Tommy craned his neck and looked at the loosely balled up mess to the side of him. The night diaper was clearly oversaturated with pee-pee, and there was no mistaking what the brown spots meant; but it would have taken a forensic scientist (if anyone) to find what else the teenager had done in his pants.
No laundry worries. No crusty socks or jammies. No discoloration. The evidence would go to the bottom of a trashcan or a diaper pail, and who in their right mind would take a blacklight to a diaper? In terms of sexual gratification it was the perfect victimless crime.
And when Nanny finished buttoning the snaps back up and set him on his feet, no one could tell that his outfit was meant to tear off at the bottom. “Wow…”
His personal assistant/caretaker took him by the hand and lead him towards the stilled money whole. “Ready to keep playing?”
Tommy bobbled his little head. “Uh-huh!”
“Then in ya go!” She gave him a little nudge and his bottom a little pat. “Go head. In you go. It’s fun.”
Tommy looked down into the blackness. It was his first day in Malacus all over again. He looked back up to Nanny. “You promise?”
“Cross my heart. Before you fly, one must learn how to fall.”
Breath steadied, the boy who would fly, swung his arms, readying himself. “One…two….”
“THREEEEEEEE!” Nanny’s arms gave him a gentle shove, ensuring his courage as he went tumbling into darkness.
This wasn’t like the first time, however. Once past the edge of the hole there was no plummeting drop into icy cold water. This wasn’t the most recent time either. No inflatable slide into a ballpit. Instead, just like a certain Victorian girl who crawled down a rabbit hole, Tommy wafted slowly and safely down into the darkness.
He landed when the light from above was just a tiny pinprick above; indistinguishable from a single star. “Where am I?” he wondered. His words did not echo.
What did happen, was a spotlight shown down from the blackness, a single table highlighted, a golden box, not quite the size of a Big Mac container, placed upon it. The runes were as alien to Tommy as any of the others. Thankfully, Tommy could only think of one thing to do; he opened it.
“BEHOLD!” A voice from inside the box boomed. “HAIL GREAT QUESTER! YOU HAVE SOLVED THE FIRST RIDDLE OF THE DRAGON’S QUEST? ARE YOU READY FOR THE NEXT?”
Tommy nodded, grinning wildly. This game was getting good!
“YOU DO REALIZE THAT I’M A DISEMBODIED VOICE IN A BOX AND CANNOT SEE YOU, RIGHT? IS ANYONE THERE OR DID THE BOX TIP OVER IN AN EARTHQUAKE AGAIN?”
The boy spoke up. “Sorry. I’m here.”
“AHA! ARE YOU READY FOR THE NEXT RIDDLE, OH ADVENTURER?!”
“Yes.”
‘VERY WELL!” Tommy wasn’t sure how a box could manage to clear its throat, but it found a way.
“IF YOU STEP ON THE DEAD ONES, ALL OF THEM CRINKLE,
STEP ON THE LIVE ONES THEY WON’T EVEN TINKLE!”
Tommy frowned. Crinkle? Tinkle? Did this riddle have something to do with his diaper? “What’s that mean?” he asked the box.
“IT’S A RIDDLE! NOW PLEASE PROCEED DOWN THE HALL.!”
A second spotlight lit the way for Tommy to proceed. Tommy trudged off down the path laid out for him, crinkling all the way. It felt good to have a fresh diaper on, but was he now on a path that he couldn’t turn back from? (In more ways than one?)


Chapter 28: Meanwhile, On the Sky Turtle!
Katlynn screamed as she fell through the darkness of the cave! She’d thought she was right on Tommy’s heels when she saw his name written in electric blue algae. If he was, he was probably dead, just like she was.
Why the hell had she walked into the clock? Why hadn’t she woken Mom up? She didn’t know. She probably never would know, now. All she did know was that she’d been stirred from her dream by the old clock in the living room going off.
BONG! BONG! BONG!
It didn’t chime that often, she could have sworn; certainly not that loudly. But when she woke up, she felt compelled to check on Tommy to make sure he was okay. Twin or not, he needed more care and consideration than she did; it’s just how it was, how it always had been. The loud noise of the clock could have sent him into a panic attack.
Yet he wasn’t in his bed. The front and back doors were still locked, and her and Mom’s keys were still on the hooks, (of course Tommy didn’t have his own keys). The only thing out of place was how the front panel to that old grandfather clock was now wide open. Leave it to Tommy to want to play hide and seek (and wreck one of Mom’s antiques) in the middle of the night.
Katlynn didn’t find Tommy, though. She found a strange and spooky pathway through a dark cave. It was like a certain blonde Victorian girl crawling through a hole, with Tommy as the White Rabbit. Only there wasn’t the pleasantly slow fall so that she could wave goodbye to her cat. It’s surprising what goes through one’s brain when they’re plummeting to their doom.
“EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!” If someone were far off enough, it might not sound like a poor girl shrieking at her imminent death as much as a random bird screeching as it flew overhead. She was usually more eloquent than this, but “EEEEEEEEEEEEK!” comes out much faster and more efficiently than “Dear God I’m going to die, please forgive me, save me save me save me, I want this to be a dream but I’m so certain that, it’s real I don’t want to die I don’t want to die!”
Her fall lasted less than a second before a strange cushioned feeling,like falling into a safety net, or more accurately; an inflatable crash pad. Her straight drop turned into a skidding roll as she clattered into a soft clutter.
Balls?!
Balls?!
Why was she surrounded by balls? She’d somehow stumbled out of a Guillermo Del Toro film and into the playplace at McDonald’s. Katlynn didn’t swim as much as she jump, climbed to the edge. She was grateful when a friendly hand reached down to help pull her up; a bit afraid, too, but mostly grateful.
“Katlynn?” a familiar voice asked. “You’re…early…?”
On her knees Katlynn looked up from the grass, and found a familiar face. “Cameron?” No. Not quite Cameron. The face was the same, but this girl’s hair was longer; Cameron never needed to tie anything back. Her dress was infinitely less revealing than anything Cameron might wear, too. Cameron liked shorts that showed off her legs and shirts that showed off her boobs. The bonnet was definitely not something Cameron would be wearing outside of Halloween (and Cameron normally wore less clothes for a costume, not more).
The girl in front of her wore something that could best be described as Ren Faire cosplay. She wore a long flowing gown; the kind where the skirt would have to be hiked up in order to run. And although the bust of the dress accentuated the breasts with ruffles, the girl’s flesh was completely obfuscated. Oh and then there was the pointy ears.
“Cameron?” the elven women said. “My name is Theodosia.” She helped Katlynn to her feet. “Now come along. If we dally much longer, your pre-punctuality shall be for naught.” The woman with Cameron’s face turned around and started walking away. Her tone wasn’t forceful, but it had an air of authority about it; like a doting teacher. Her accent seemed different from a moment ago, too.
When Katlynn had been looking down at the grass, she could’ve sworn that Cameron was there beside her. Now her voice was different. Her voice more nasally, her syllables more clipped. Pseudo-English. It sounded like Cameron doing an impression- or slipping into character- than how her schoolmate normally talked.
Emotionally off balance, Katlynn ran after Cameron’s doppelganger. “Cameron! Wait!”
“I already told you, silly girl,” The lady with Cameron’s voice said. “I’m Theodosia. Now let’s go. We don’t want to be late for tea.” She turned to go. The tiny field-the ball pit oasis as it were- quickly ended at a near perfect tree-line. It was less of a forest and more of a garden. It lacked that beautiful chaos so often found in nature.
“Late for tea?” Katlynn echoed, feeling stupid. Then something clicked. Tea? Late? Falling? Fancy dress and snooty English accents? This seemed like something out of a certain Disney cartoon. Katlynn took a moment to examine herself and sure enough her own clothing had changed. White tights. Black Mary Janes. The dress was a light, almost salmon colored pink, but otherwise it was an identical style and cut to the iconic Alice. “Am I dreaming?”
Cameron’s clone stopped and tittered behind her hand. “Dreaming?” she said. “Dreaming? Dear girl, do you really think that you’d tumble down a ramp into a ball pit only to find out that you’re late for tea in a dream?”
“Yeah…?”
Again, Theodosia as she called herself, giggled through her nose, mouth obscured. “And I suppose you came to that tunnel that was…what…?..Under your bed?”
“A clock, actually,” Katlynn volunteered.
The prim and proper woman took Katlyn’s hand in her own. “And you still think this is a dream?”
“Yeah…?”
“If you insist, dear.” Theodosia’s tone was cheerfully condescending. She continued walking, leading Katlynn along. “If you insist.” In perfect step with each other, the pair walked into the too-perfect forest.
“Why do you have Cameron’s face?”
“Why does it matter?’ Theodosia replied. “If this is a dream like you think it is, perhaps it is the only face you can imagine for me.”
Katlynn couldn’t argue with that, logic. “Okay. Fair enough.”
A sharp right turn caused the girl to yelp as they came to a second clearing. A quiet little party was already in progress. It was much tamer than Katlynn would have expected; perhaps because she lacked the manic imagination to really create something worthy of Lewis Carrol. The table was perfectly round, for starters, not an absurdly long rectangle All the cups and pots in perfect order. There was no funny man with a giant hat or a talking rabbit; and Katlynn suspected there would be no mouse hidden in any of the pots.
In place of the Mad Hatter and March Hare were two of Katlynn’s friends; two of the very few she counted on. “Jenny? Margo?” Like her, they both wore a variant of the ol’ Alice getup. Over white tights, Jenny wore a sunflower yellow, with a matching bow, and Margo wore a vibrant leaf green dress with a white apron covering. Margo’s brownish-red hair was put up in pigtails, making her look even more toddlerish than the dress alone might accomplish. Like the so-called Theodosia, their ears were also pointy like those lame aliens from Star Trek.
The girls giggled at their names, but otherwise said nothing. “Katlynn,” Theodosia said. “This is Adora, and Ambrosia.” She gestured to Jenny and Margo respectively. “We’ll be having a lovely tea party, today. Please do join us.” It was a command phrased as an invitation.
“Please, Katlynn! Pleeeease!” The other two were practically bouncing; the bodies of eighteen year olds doing puppy dog eyes and pouty lips. If peer pressure could be cut with a juvenile guilt trip and turned into a person, this is what it might look like. They spoke with the same clipped not-quite British accent.
She shrugged. Seeing as this was a dream, Katlynn figured that she might as well go along with it. She took her seat in a matching pink wooden chair and scooted herself up roughly to the table. Adora and Ambrosia, as they were called, had their own matching yellow and green chairs. There was no matching one for the more elaborately dressed girl. That was odd come to think of it. Comparatively, Jenny and Margo’s dream-twins seemed so much more simply dressed than Cameron’s. Theodosia seemed more mature, more authoritative as a result.
“Where’s yours?” she asked Theodosia, with not a matching violet chair to be seen.
A thin smile spread across Theodosia’s lips. “I’m the hostess, dear. It’d be rude of me to be seated before my guests are served. Don’t you know the first thing about tea-parties?”
Something about that unnerved Katlynn, but rather real or imagined, she really didn’t know the first thing about tea-parties. This was a dream anyways, so her brain was just making up the rules as she went along. “I guess not.”
Picking up the pristine white teapot, the pointy eared Cameron went and poured steaming brown tea into dainty cups.
“Thank you, Miss Theodosia,” Jenny/Adora said.
“You’re very welcome, Adora,” Theodosia replied.
“Thank you, Miss Theodosia,” Margo/Ambrosia nodded her head demurely.
“You’re quite welcome, Ambrosia.”
The tea entered Katlynn’s cup. She looked at it and squinted. She could have sworn that the cup had been made of some kind of fancy fine china a second ago. But the stuff had lost some of its luster with the tea. As the cup was filled, it seemed more and more to be made of sturdy but altogether cheap plastic.
“Ahem…” Katlynn looked up to the Victorian school-marm version of Cameron.
“Oh, sorry. Thank you, Miss Theodosia.”
“You’re welcome, little Katlynn.”
Katlynn took no notice at being called ‘little”. She was short. That last growth spurt her pediatrician had promised just before high school had never come. Holy crud, had she not been to the doctor since middle school?
A quick sip and then Katlynn’s face scrunched up in revulsion. Being from Scrumpton, Georgia, Katlynn had never had tea that wasn’t sugared into oblivion and chilled to near arctic temperature. Even the three times she’d had hot tea for a sore throat, there’d been so much honey stirred in that an entire hive could have supped. This? This was just hot leaf water. It was like someone had taken lawn clippings and turned it into a broth.
The other tea drinkers seemed just as off put. Pointy elf ears wiggled and shuddered as dainty lips swallowed the vile stuff. “Oh dear,” Theodosia said, setting down the tea pot. “Perhaps I made it too strong.”
“Yes please!” All three girls responded, putting their cups down.
Theodosia picked up a sugar bowl and started spooning the powdery white stuff in. “Three scoops a piece and no more.” Cameron’s twin said in her snooty accent. “You three are sweet enough, otherwise.”
Gingerly, Katlynn took a sip. Better. Not good, but better.
“Would anyone like milk?” Three hands went skyward. Such a weird dream. She definitely wouldn’t be telling Jenny or Margo about this. Cameron wasn’t anywhere in the ballpark of a possibility. “Would you like Mother’s Milk or Maiden’s Milk?” Theodosia asked Katlynn.
While not a straight A student, Katlynn knew enough to blanche at being offered Mother’s Milk. “Is Mother’s Milk what I think it is?”
“That depends,” Theodosia smiled coyly, “what do you think it is?” Not by coincidence, Katlynn felt, Cameron’s elf-twin chose that moment to adjust her breasts. Also not by coincidence, Katlynn caught a glimpse of her friend’s breasts and realized just how big they were! Pointy ears and longer more done up hair weren’t the only differences between real Cameron and dream Cameron.
A hot blush flared up on Katlynn’s face. “Maiden’s Milk, please.” Just a splash of milky white stuff dripped out of the saucer, transforming the dark brown water into a creamy tan color. The other guests got Maiden’s milk.
“Drink up before it gets cold, dears.”
“Heee-heeee!” Ambrosia giggled, her pigtails bobbing as she did. “It tickles all the way down!”
“All the way through,” the fancier dressed woman corrected.
Straw haired Adora giggled too as she set her cup down on the table.
A shudder rocketed through Katlynn and she let out a full fledged guffaw as she felt her ribs being tickled from the inside out! She almost dropped the plastic tea cup, as she reflexively hugged her ribs, trying to block invisible fingers that wouldn’t let up, to no avail. It was good in a way.
“More?” the hostess offered.
“Yes please,” Katlynn slid her cup closer.
“Good girl.” Tea, sugar, and milk were served in short order.
The others were getting their seconds, too. This was a perfectly pleasant dream, once she got used to the weirdness of seeing her classmates in fantasy garb. She wondered absentmindedly as she took her next sip if she’d wake up giggling. On a more serious note, she worried if she might accidentally wake up wet. Mom would be very cross if she did. “What kind of example are you setting for your brother?” she might say, even though Tommy hadn’t woke up in dry pants since…ever.
A wave of delightful tickles went so far up Katlynn’s spine -starting at the soles of her feet- she had to slam her eyes short to stem the happy tears. When she opened them, she put her empty cup down and looked to the side so she could wipe her eyes. When she did, however, something caught her eye.
“What are those?” she said, pointing to the three vehicles parked at the edge of the clearing. Vehicles was a poor word to describe them, but they were the only vocabulary that Katlynn had at her disposal.
They were roughly the size of a thin, single bed, but elevated above the ground like a hospital gurney. The wheels were gigantic however, with fancy spokes, and the surrounding rim almost made it look like a crib. At the foot of the bed was a bar for pushing, and a kind of convertible roof lay at the head.
Quickly, Katlynn looked to the elf variant of Cameron and back to the wheeled beds. Something clicked. Strollers. They looked like those old timey strollers that babies used to ride in. Stroller wasn’t the right word; carriage? Yeah. Carriage. At the edge of the tea party’s clearing were three very big baby carriages. And just like their dresses and chairs, they were pink, yellow, and green, but not a violet one in sight.
“Excuse me,” Katlynn spoke up. “What are those?”
All three of the pointy eared dream people looked to where Katlynn was pointing. “The Prams?” Theodosia said. A breeze blew across Katlynn’s bare legs, causing her to shiver a bit.
“They’re for taking us home,” the elf-girl in the yellow dress said.
“And naps!” green-dress and pigtails added.
Yellow dress giggled, adding to the banter with even more of a fake British accent. “And nappy changes!”
“Usually in that order. Nap and then nappy change.”
“Or nappy change, then nap, then nappy change again!”
Katlynn couldn’t tell if it was the elf girls’ laughter, the elf woman’s approving smile, or the breeze on her legs that made her shiver, but shiver she did.
Bare legs?
Katlynn looked down at her legs to see her white tights receding. It was as if they were melting, but going up her legs instead of dripping down. “What the-?” was all she managed to get say before the ground dropped beneath her.
She was shrinking! No, not quite. Instead the chair she was in was growing taller. Katlyn’s hands were on the edge of the seat, getting ready to slide herself off of the extending chair when -
THWAP!
A tray slammed over from above her, sounding like a giant mousetrap, and leaving Katlynn trapped with her arms pinned to her sides.
The other girls at the table got similar treatment, though their arms weren’t pinned down. More importantly, as their white tights vanished up their dresses, they seemed more than pleased. “It tickles!”
“All the way through,” Elf Cameron said.
The tray obscuring her view, Katlynn couldn’t be one hundred percent sure of what was happening to her clothes, but a few of the other girls gave her an idea.
The tights were rising up, merging with their underwear, as the legs of the chairs elongated above the tiny tea table. Katlynn’s underwear was changing too, her panties were getting thicker by the second. She heard a crinkle as she squirmed in the seat. Again, she couldn’t help but flash back to middle school before she had switched to tampons.
The thing about panties was that unless one was specifically thinking about them, they didn’t feel the thin modesty-protecting garment. This, though? Katlynn felt it. How could she not? Her thighs were being separated. She was sitting what felt like half an inch taller.
If what she was feeling wasn’t any clue as to what she was wearing, looking at the other elf girls confirmed what she was wearing. She knew their panties were thickening as well, because the hems of their dresses were shortening; shortening so much that they probably couldn’t be honestly be referred to as dresses. Even though the trays and angles obfuscated them a bit, there was no mistaking what the other girls were wearing as anything other than big puffy white diapers; like something a toddler might wear.
She was wearing a diaper, too, Katlynn had to admit. And judging by the other guests’ dresses, hers just barely covered the top of her own nappy.
Two elven thumbs went into elven mouths as a final round of girlish giggles rang out. “Pheee-pheee!”
The poor girl barely had time to process as another round of tickles hid her insides. “Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! STAAAAAAHP!” She cried out. But it wouldn’t. The tickling was in her armpits. “Heeee-heee! STAAAAAHP!” She was crying again. Then her ribs. “NOOOO-O-O-O! STAAAAAHP!” Her howls of laughter. Then her tummy, creeping down to her thighs.
IT TICKLES ALL THE WAY THROUGH.
That’s when the highschool senior’s bladder let loose. Even though the tickling continued, Katlynn stopped laughing, such was her shock. Her mouth agape, and her breath fast and shallow, she was keenly aware as her bladder spasmed and released its contents into her diaper.
One time, she couldn’t quite remember when, Katlynn sat down on a park bench just after a rain. She hadn’t seen the puddle, but felt it as it spread across her pants, soaking her; subtle at first but then blossoming into full wetness. Her current experience wasn’t all too dissimilar. Her diaper was soaking up her accident almost as quickly as she was releasing it, with a growing warmth blooming beneath her and then subsiding into a subtle, muted squish. Was this how Tommy felt whenever he had an accident in his Pull-Ups?
To make matters of worse, either the feeding tray that restrained her had widened, or Katlynn had lost just a few pounds. Her freedom of movement was still non-existent, however. Like a snake a kind of harness had slithered around her chest, keeping her back pinned to the seat, and a bib had manifested just over her breasts.
Wanting to scream, but too humiliated to vocalize, Katlynn’s body took over. Her lips retreated inward and she placed her thumb between them, biting down to distract herself, and giving her digit the occasional suck when the emotions threatened to become too much.
Stuck in a highchair, wearing baby clothes, sucking on her thumb, sitting in a wet diaper. This was just a step below what Tommy went through almost every day. If whatever weird genetic condition that expressed itself in Tommy had been passed down to her, this is how she could have ended up.
This is what this nightmare (and that’s what it was) was about. This is what was essentially her twin’s life- being treated like a baby even though by all rights he should be an adult. The only difference is Katlynn was smart enough to be embarrassed by it. She’d treat him better when she woke up from this, she promised herself. This was a literal wakeup call
Her nightmare wasn’t over yet. While she’d finished peeing herself, Nightmare Cameron was replacing the other baby-elves’ thumbs with bottles. Katlynn was next. “This will help you sleep until you get to Nanny’s.”
Her lips suckled on the rubber nipple and as the ice cold contents entered her mouth, Katlynn’s tongue danced with delight! This was the most delicious thing she’d ever tasted. The phrase ‘an orgasm in your mouth’ to describe particularly delicious flavors had always seemed crude to her, but here it seemed apt.
Theodosia or Cameron or whatever the elf’s name was, saw the look of intense delight in Katlynn’s eyes and seemed pleased. She nodded. “Good girl. This will help you sleep until you get to Nanny’s.” Yes. That would be a good way to end this dream. Swallow the milk. Orgasm in her diaper. Then go to sleep. Then wake up in her own bed.
But before she swallowed that first gulp, Katlynn had the most disturbing thought of all: What if this wasn’t a dream? This stuff might taste amazing, but that might just make it amazing tasting poison.
As Theodosia turned her back to check on other babies with familiar faces, Katlynn started to grunt and make gulping sounds, all while letting the milk dribble out the corners of her mouth. She was all suck, but no swallow. Hopefully, her captor wouldn’t notice and once or twice, Katlynn dared to turn her head to the side and spit. She only had to worry about the pointy eared woman who wasn’t wearing diapers. The other two seemed like they were in la-la land.
While she worked at her deception, Tommy’s twin was treated to a show of watching Margo/Ambrosia, with her green dress and ginger pigtails being unstrapped from her seat, tray removed from the table, and limp form draped over the now slightly larger woman’s frame and have her back patted. “That’s right, Ambrosia “ Theodosia cooed. “Take one for the team. We can turn you back after this. Though Malacus knows I’ll tease you about it.”
The elf-baby hybrid with Margo’s face let out a mighty belch and sighed contentedly. “Good girl.”
Katlynn almost did an involuntary spit take as she watched what was essentially Cameron pull open the back of what was essentially Margo’s diaper and take a look down inside. Holy shit! Had she pooped herself? Had Katlynn? All of a sudden, the young lady felt as if her own potty training was very much in question.
Katlynn kept watching, leerily, as the green carriage piloted itself over, and a pointy eared Cameron laid her green dressed charge down in it. “Let’s change you, you soggy thing.” A chorus of cringe inducing giggles filled the air as Katlynn watched a not quite adult get their diaper changed right in front of her. The fresh Huggies and wipes came from a bag just underneath the carriage. The used diaper was tossed carelessly into the woods.
Next was a not-quite Jenny, dressed in yellow and gurgling nonsense. Katlynn wasn’t exactly experienced in babysitting, but the sag in the back of Adora’s diaper signaled what would be found inside before the elf-sitter peaked inside. “This suits you, Adora. It really does.”
While the second diaper change was going on, Katlynn very subtly, very carefully unscrewed the lid and watered the nearest patch of grass behind her highchair. She could do that much at least. Finally it was her turn.
As she was draped over the elf’s shoulder, having her back patted, she listened to horrible and confusing things. “Terribly sorry about this, Katlynn.” The not-Cameron cooed. She gave Katlyn a few firm pats on the back. “Truth be told, we were considering letting you go, keeping the family legacy going as it were. At the very least, we were going to save you for last; ease you into it like your brother.”
What about Tommy?!
“But we miscalibrated the clock and woke you up by mistake, and here we are,” she continued. “It would have been fun to drag this out, actually. We do love the Wonderland tropes. Carrol was so much more fanciful than Lewis or Tolkien. It would be nice to play the refined madam instead of some femme fatale. Ugh. Boy stuff. They’re all better off in nappies if you ask me.” The pats were coming faster and harder now. There was a bit of a bobbing gait to her walk. She was growing impatient. Katlynn quickly sucked air into her gut and let out a little burp. It was a trick she’d learned back in grade school and had stopped doing when the girls kept thinking it gross and the boys stopped being impressed. “Good girl.”
Ever cunning, Kaitlynn didn’t flinch or shudder as she felt her diaper pulled back and inspected; she didn’t recoil as her padded backside was given a gentle pat. “Just wet.” The girl was bone still as she was laid down in her own personal carriage. What she wasn’t was bone dry. “Still, you’ll sleep better if you have a fresh nappy on.”
Don’t think about it don’t think, about it don’t think about it.
Katlynn tried to not think about the sound of the tapes being ripped open. But the velcro scritching sounded like fireworks in her ears. She tried not to think of how loose and disgusting the once snug undergarment now felt. But now the used diaper was little more than a wet rag on her privates. Desperately, she prayed for strength so that she wouldn’t fixate on how casually this monster with Cameron’s face was violating her with baby wipes, all while humming a jaunty tune. Whatever higher power there was didn’t hear her as every stroke and caress felt like a breach of intimacy.
There’s a strange vulnerability of being half naked in front of someone. Frankly. Cameron didn’t like it. She didn’t have to wait or feel vulnerable long. When the monster pivoted to toss away the wet diaper, Katlynn made her move. With a heave, she rolled over and began dragging the carriage with her. A few strides later, she was rocketing downhill.
In Katlynn Dean’s hand, this wasn’t a baby buggy, it was a land sled!
“Katlynn!” Cameron’s voice called out after her. “Come back! You’re too close to the edge of the shell!”
Shell? What shel-?
For the second time that day, Katlynn Dean found herself plummeting to her death. The second plummet, however, lacked any kind of safety ramp, or ball pit. It was also considerably longer.
“EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!” Given her velocity and state of panic, it was much easier to scream than to ponder aloud, “Oh my god I’m going to die; I’m too young to die; I’m going to die half naked from running away from a diaper change; I’m too old to die half naked from running away from a diaper change; and is that a giant flying turtle above me?!”
It can’t be guessed exactly how long it took for Katlynn to regain consciousness. What is known, is that she did regain consciousness, very much alive, and with an absolutely trashed baby buggy beneath her. “They don’t build ‘em like this anymore…”
She shifted, and painfully pulled herself to her feet. “Where am I?” she wondered, before realizing she didn’t want anyone answering that question. To the naked eye, it would seem that a too-perfect forest had been replaced by a too-perfect hunting field. Wide open plains, with only the occasional bush for modesty.
A quick dig through the wreckage found only diapers, all in her size. It was still better than than Donald Ducking it or going full Eve, Katlynn supposed.
Trippiest. Nightmare. Ever.
Unfolding one of the diapers, Katlynn found herself staring at it like a grandmaster stares at a chess board…only she had next to no clue how to play chess. Finally, she decided to wing it, laying down on the ground. No wonder babies needed help putting these things on. This really was a two person job.
“I really hope my bed isn’t wet.” She grunted as she awkwardly yanked it up over her crotch and fiddled with the tapes. Standing up, Katlynn knew something didn’t feel right. Her cheeks were hanging out the back. “Ugh,” Katlynn moaned. “Don’t tell me I put the darn thing on backwards!”
The sound of hoofbeats, and Katlynn’s brain went on high alert. Like a frightened squirrel she darted for the nearest bush and closed her eyes as the gallop slowed to a standstill.
“Halt! Who goes there?!” The man on the horse called out. Katlynn remained silent. Again, there was something familiar about the voice. It was strong, and masculine, but oddly confident…which made it seem foreign. No faux British accent at least. “I know thou art here, interloper. I sensed you all the way from the River Bank!”
Again. Katlynn was as still as she could manage. She couldn’t manage enough. “I see you trembling from behind that shrub!” the mounted man called out. “Come out now, or I’ll run you down.” Somehow, Katlynn sensed that he wasn’t bluffing. Maybe it was just that mowing people over with a horse wasn’t something that people normally bluffed about.
Wearing nothing but a half-dress and a backwards diaper, Katlynn emerged and connected a face to the voice threatening her. If she hadn’t already released her bladder at the tea party, then her Huggies would most certainly be wet, now.
“Katlynn?” It wasn’t a man on a horse, but a half man, half horse that was looking down at her. And the man part of the horse was arguably the last man she would’ve guessed.
“Mr. Jordan?”


Chapter 29: Cruel Temptations
Toucha toucha toucha touch me, I wanna be dirty
Thrill me chill me fulfill me
Creature of the night
Tommy wandered down the tunnel beneath the River Bank. “If you step on the dead ones, all of them crinkle, step on the live ones they won’t even tinkle.” What did it mean? He supposed if he knew that right off the bat it wouldn’t be much of a riddle. And if it wasn’t much of a riddle it wouldn’t be much of a quest.
Speaking of crinkle, Tommy could still hear the faint papery crinkle of his new diaper beneath his shortalls. Still fresh. Still crisp. Still dry. Speaking of tinkle, Tommy knew that the milk he’d drunk was still working its way through his system. And oddly enough…he was okay with that. There was something nice about a wet diaper compared to wet pants. Something nice about a thick and comfy diaper made only thicker and comfier with just a tiny tinkle as opposed to thin, barely noticeable underwear. Something nice about getting to focus completely on the task at hand instead of being distracted by a rumbling tummy or aching bladder. And something completely, almost decadently wonderful about one’s clothes being somebody else’s problem.
Too much thinking about the potty, Tommy chided himself. Too much thinking about diapers, too. Tom the Titan didn’t think about his glorious armor protecting him; he’d just run straight into battle. Malacus had provided him with the tools he’d needed to thrive. Likewise, Tommy the riddle master shouldn’t think about the clothing Malacus had placed on him this time and just trust that it would do the job while he did the real work.
“Step on the dead ones and all of them crinkle,” he repeated. “Step on the live ones, they don’t even tinkle.” What could it be talking about.
“Hello, Tommy,” the sweet, teasing, very familiar voice, called from down the tunnel. “I see your shadow coming down the hall.” Tommy smiled, and his diaper started becoming a little smaller as his manhood started to engorge itself.
He couldn’t help it. That voice just had that effect on him. Amanda’s voice. Or rather, Ghilanna of the Gilded Leaf, Sorceress Queen of the elves’s voice. It was complicated.
The tunnel ended in a clearing, and dim magical torchlight and bioluminescent fungus and algae made way towards actual sunlight. Tommy blinked as his eyes adjusted to the sunlight. He was still technically, underground- or at least beneath the surface. The tunnel ended in a kind of pit; a wide and deep hole piled and piled with junk that nowhere managed to reach the top, but at the very least there was direct sunlight shining down on him.
“Hello, Tommy,” the elf with Amanda Monroe’s face greeted. She leaned against a near wall of the pit, with her arms crossed. No longer dressed in any kind of silken robes fit for a queen, she was clothed in commoner’s rags. Even in rags she looked stunning. Her hair was a mess. Tommy curled his fingers as the idea of him running his fingers through that messy hair.
In many ways, Ghilanna was a cat: Even at her lowest she seemed to have a kind of mysterious dignity and beauty. Same as when he’d caught her in her bed and defeated her spells. Just like now that she was in beggars clothes.
Tommy smirked. “No ‘m’lord Tommy’?” he asked. “Not even ‘friend’?”
Ghilanna stopped leaning against the dirt wall. “I think we’re a little more than friends, don’t you?”
The boy who might yet fly, shuddered a bit. The shaking wasn’t from revulsion or fear, but of suddenly reliving the intense memory. Assuming she was real (and why shouldn’t she be?) Ghilanna was his first. You never forget your first.
“You look…um…different.” Tommy said.
Ghilanna eyed his shortalls. “So do you.”
“I decided to wear something more comfortable.”
“Tommy, Tommy, Tommy,” Ghilanna clucked with her tongue. “You’re still a terrible liar.” Boldly, she grabbed his chin in her hand. “Somebody or something put you in those clothes.” The elf leaned in and whispered, “And you love it.”
Lacking his super strength, it was all Tommy could do to slap away the intrusive hand and step away from the seductress. “Maybe I do, maybe I don’t,” he stuttered out. “What’s your excuse? Slumming it?”
Pointy eared Amanda’s mouth twisted and her shoulders drooped. “If you must know, I’ve had a run of bad luck.”
“Do tell.”
“As it turns out, when there’s no war and universal peace, there’s no borders. And when there’s no borders and everyone is getting along and things are hunky dory, people don’t feel they need queens.” She picked up the hem of her ragged skirt and did a crude curtsey. “Hence, this.”
“Why not use your magic to stay queen?” Tommy asked.
Ghilanna rolled her eyes; she really was Amanda Monroe in every way save the ears. “You don’t have your strength either, do you? War magic goes away when the war is done and settled.”
Tommy averted his eyes and stared at the ground, but he couldn’t help but feel foolish. The way Amanda/Ghilanna said it made the whole thing seem perfectly sensible and obvious; but Tommy felt like he was grasping at straws. Sometimes Malacus made perfect sense; other times it felt like the fantasy world was rewriting its own natural laws and making things up as it went along.
“Um…” Tommy said, “So what brings a girl like you to a pit like this?”
Again, the elf rolled her eyes. “Isn’t it obvious? I’m trying to solve the riddle to get to the next part of the quest.”
Tommy nodded. “Yeah, that makes sense.”
“What doesn’t is the blasted riddle,” Ghilanna complained. “Step on the dead ones, all of them crinkle, step on the live ones, they don’t even tinkle.”
“What does it even mean?”
With wide sweeping gesture, the elf woman indicated the junk lying around the room. “Whatever it is, it has something to do with all of this nonsense.”
Tommy focused his eyes past the adversary with his crush’s reflection. Junk. Junk everywhere. Rusty Nails. Shiny Bells. Leaves. Stuffed Animals. Rice. Wooden blocks. Bug carcasses. Moss. Coloring books. Pinatas. Bubble Wrap. Broken Glass. Pitchers of water. Music Boxes. All of that and more formed piles around the pit. It was a junk collection worthy of Mommy Dean herself.
Junk was everywhere, Tommy saw, and it was disorganized for sure (hence junk), but it wasn’t quite random. The piles were all homogenous. Like with like. There was a pile of loose bubble wrap that went up close to seven feet high, and an eight foot tall mound of cellophane wrapped candies, but there was no mountain of bubble wrap and candy to be found.
“What are we supposed to do with this?”
“I THINK we’re supposed to choose the right pile,” Ghilanna said. “The question is which one?”
Tommy licked his lips. “Good question. Which should we try first?”
Another sweeping gesture from Amanda’s doppelganger. “Be my guest. You guess is as good as mine.”
A single half-waddling step is all Tommy took before freezing in place and pivoting back to look at Ghilanna. “This is an Indiana Jones and Last Crusade thing, isn’t it?”
The elf’s nose wrinkled and her brow furrowed. “You know, Tommy, I’d have an easier time answering your questions if I knew what you were talking about, sweetheart.”
Tommy had to bite his tongue to focus after being called ‘sweetheart’. “Every pile but the correct one is a death trap, isn’t it?”
Ghilanna deflated a little. “Death trap? No. Disqualifier? Yes.”
“What happens?”
“You get ejected back to the beginning of the game in that stupid dwarven library,” she pouted. “And to get back here you have to solve another riddle.” She huffed and crossed her arms. “This is my fifth time getting back here.”
“So it’s not always a passage from the River Bank?” Tommy asked.
Ghilanna scowled. “River Bank? Ooooh, that’s an easy one. You got lucky with that riddle.”
“Hey,” Tommy complained, “Nox and Leadshoulder couldn’t figure it out.”
The elf turned her back on Tommy. “You could write a whole book on the things those two dummies can’t figure out.”
The boy who was Titan, turned his back as well. Tommy never did like his friends being picked on…even the fantasy ones. “Whatever,” he said. “It’s not like fighting is going to help us solve the riddle.”
The elf who was Queen, pivoted and wrapped her arms around Tommy. “You’re right,” she whispered. “So why don’t we do the opposite of fighting?”
Tommy’s breath caught for a second. She enveloped him. It wasn’t until he was in her embrace that he realized just how much bigger than him she’d become. “You mean…?”
“Let’s get the creative…juices flowing.” Tommy could have melted into a puddle and been soaked up by his own Pampers just then. “We’re alone. And the last time we did this, good things happened.” She nibbled on his ear. “For both of us.”
Tommy leaned back into the elf, now bigger than he, as she nibbled on his ear, moaning softly and slowly. Throwing back his head, he leaned into her breasts. Even in rags, she smelled like fine oils. Almost like baby oils. The thought of her lathering baby oil on him only made him harder.
“Lay down,” she commanded. Yes. Lay down. Good things had been happening to Tommy when he laid down for pretty ladies.
The elf was on top of him before his back hit the dirt. Her lips on his; tongue probing in his mouth. Even through the dirty rags her breasts felt amazing. She started riding him, grinding on his waist while he bucked his hips.
“Ooooh,” he moaned, as his heart started racing. His hands snaked down and grabbed her by the hips; trying to pull her down on him through his clothes. “Ooooooooh!” He moaned for another reason, too. She felt…heavier.
Sex was like fractions. When the bigger sum on top, it was improper.
“Ooooooooh!” she echoed back, oblivious to Tommy’s discomfort. “Ooooooh! YES! Writhe around in the dirty with me my strong Titan.”
Something was wrong. Tommy knew it by the third thrust and the second sentence out of the elf’s mouth. Just then, being called strong and brave and bold didn’t make him feel so good. “Tell me I’m cute,” he grunted. “Call me cute.”
They didn’t stop bucking, but Tommy felt he was losing steam. “Oooooh! Writhe in the dirt with me, by cute Titan!” Damnit. Not what he meant. And he was dry, too. There was none of the pulpy warm squish. A wet diaper was thiiiis close to a pocket pussy. A dry one? For all intents and purposes, he was trying to dry hump one of the prettiest girls he’d ever seen through a pillow.
“Hrrrnn,” she growled. “Disrobe. Take your clothes off!”
Fingers fumbled clumsily for the buckles on his shortalls, but the brass wiring wouldn’t budge off of the breast buttons. “I can’t…”
Slender yet strong fingers jiggled with the buttons. “Here. Let me.” She had no more success; her lips snarling, and her hushed breath speaking in a language Tommy could not hope to understand? Was this what swearing in elvish sounded like.
Tommy could already feel himself beginning to lose it. With the blood starting to flow back into his brain, Tommy got another idea. “The snaps!” he said. “Get the snaps!” He might just salvage this thing yet!
Ghilanna stopped grinding against him. “Snaps?”
“Buttons!” Tommy yelped. “Between my legs!” Goodness gracious don’t lose momentum!
The elf dismounted and bent over Tommy’s crotch. Thin and nimble hands started undoing the snaps. “Oh my!” she giggled. “It’s a dress masquerading as pantaloons!”
“It’s not a dress!” Tommy cried. “It’s a-”
“What…is…this?” Ghilanna had peeled back the leggings turned flaps. Elven eyes saw, but could not seem to comprehend the stylized Sesame Street characters parading around Tommy’s crotch. “What happened to your underclothes?”
Even through the diaper’s padding, Tommy could feel the slender hand experimentally poke and grope at his penis.
Tommy felt his tongue become sandpaper. “It’s a diaper.”
“A what?” Tommy didn’t know if Ghilanna didn’t know what a diaper was, or whether she just wanted to hear him say it again.
“A diaper. I’m wearing a diaper in case…” Tommy paused. Corrected himself. “I’m wearing a diaper for when I need to…you know.”
Ghilanna wasn’t Amanda Monroe anymore than Nox was Mr. Jordan. But her facial expressions were just as wild, and just as cruel and just as hurtful as any of the times Amanda had been witness to Tommy being bullied in school. Her eyes were just as excited, her grin just as wicked, and her laughter just as gleeful.
“LO AND BEHOLD!” she crowed. “THE MIGHTY TOM THE TITAN, SLAYER OF HYDRAGONS IS REALLY JUST…” she stared Tommy down, and lowered her voice to just above a whisper. “A pathetic. Weak. Pants wetting. Piss soaked. Little. Baby!”
Instinctively, Tommy started scurrying away, pedaling backwards as Ghilanna towered over him. Leadshoulder had a good few inches, but the elf was MUCH bigger “You have gotten smaller!” she grinned. “I thought it was me, but you’re really just a baby. A tiny, sexless thing. And that’s not even a dress draped around you.”
“It’s NOT!” Tommy insisted, climbing to his feet with the dirt wall to support him. The legs for his shortalls had yet to be all the way snapped together. It sure felt like a dress.
“It’s a gown!” she teased. “A baby gown! You’re far too little to be wearing anything as manly as pants!”
“It’s not a-!” Tommy froze. His cheeks started to flush as the front of his diaper warmed. He’d erupted into his pants, and not in the way he’d hoped to.
The elven Amanda must have seen it. “Awwww,” she mocked. “Wussa matta? Did widdle Tommy wommy make a tinkle in his-…” She stopped. Her jaw dropped. If not the look of excitement and the manic grin on her face, Tommy might’ve suspected that she’d wet her pants, too.
“What?” Tommy huffed. “What is it?”
“Diapers.” She grabbed Tommy’s hand. “That’s the answer!” Tommy’s feet followed behind him while the bully dragged him to a pile of (thankfully unused) diapers among all the random brick-a-brack.
“What’s the answer?”
“Step on the dead ones, all of the crinkle. Step on the live ones, they don’t even tinkle!” She gestured to the pile. “Just like a diaper!”
“But-”
“They crinkle, even when they’re wet. And you tinkle in them, except it doesn’t make the sound because there’s no water!”
“But-”
“It makes perfect sense!” She gave him a condescending pat on the head. “Bye-bye, little one!” She jumped backwards into the pile, her arms spread wide.
And then…
And then…
Nothing.
Laying in the pile of Pampers, the not-quite Amanda seemed confused. “What?” The rumbling from beneath the ground gave her all the reason to despair. “Oh…” As the ground shook, and the mound of diapers started to sink into the ground, dragging her with them, Ghilanna surely wished she’d been wearing one. “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
As the last diaper fell into the earth’s surface, and more dirt rushed into fill the whole making the ground perfectly level, Tommy calmly buttoned up his shortalls. He could still do that at least. “Heh,” he said. “Diapers aren’t alive, silly.”
Left alone in the pit, he started to look around as he absent mindedly brushed the dirt off of his play clothes. Nanny would be terribly cross with him if his play clothes got too dirty. (Even if she would be happy to change him.)
Hmm…play. This entire riddle quest was supposed to be a form of magical play, was it not? Not a trap, or something dangerous. Just amusement. But nothing here seemed worth playing in. Nothing except…
His swollen diaper causing him to waddle a bit, Tommy toddled over to the pile of leaves. It had dead, dried out leaves that snapped under his feet. “Step on the dead ones, all of them crinkle.” And live ones that were full of water and mute, not even making the slightest sound. “Step on the live ones, they don’t even tinkle.”
Leaves! The answer was leaves! Like a certain richest duck in the world and his money bin, Tommy jumped into the pile and began swimming about, tossing the foliage into the air as if it were water. He hadn’t done this in years!
He felt like a little kid in the best way, just rolling around and having a nonsensical time.
He felt happy!
He felt like…like…like he was FLYING!
Floating up into the air, Tommy giggled as he ascended with the pile of leaves. Unlike the leaves, however, Tommy didn’t waft gently back down. He had started swimming through the leaves, but in less than a minute, the boy was swimming through the air. Just like Peter Pan!
And even though his diaper was starting to sag between his thighs and press up against the snaps in his overalls; it didn’t weigh him down at all.


I’m really enjoying this story so far! You have a great grasp of when to give minute detail and when to give a broader overview, which makes your writing evocative and engaging. The story itself is wonderfully wacky, verging on absurdist in places (not a bad thing, I hasten to add!) and each chapter grips like an electromagnet until the last word. Thanks for sharing!


Chapter 30: The Greatest Truth You’ll Never Remember
“Mr. Jordan?” Even saying it a second time had a funny taste in Katlynn’s mouth. “What are you doing here? And why are you a horse?”
Mr. Jordan was a decent math teacher, but the gossip down the halls was that if you didn’t want him to teach, all you had to do was ignore him and talk just slightly lower than his voice. Or if you really wanted fun, just raise your hand and ask a purposefully stupid question. The guy was one of those poor souls that understood numbers better than people and couldn’t wrap his brain around the difference between a sincere misunderstanding and a distraction in question form.
He’d always get this look when someone asked “How are we gonna use this in real life?”. He didn’t quite glare as much as stare in disbelief. “How will we use abstract math in real life?” was right up there with “Why is the sky blue?” or “Why is water wet?”; a simple question with such an obvious answer that to go deeper than “because”, would have merited a much more complicated lecture to the person asking the question. Yet “because” was never good enough for Mr. Jordan.
It distracted him every time. Clockwork. Dude got numbers; not people.
Right now, the centaur barbarian was making the same kind of twisted up and contorted face whenever one of the popular kids raised their hands and asked how they were going to use this in real life or why couldn’t they just use a calculator. Centaur Jordan- for that’s what Katlynn was mentally labelling him as- seemed just as confused as the time two-legged Jordan was interrupted explaining polynomials.
“Mr. Jordan?” the centaur repeated as if tasting a particularly bitter fruit. “Yes…I have been called that before. But why are you…?” His eyes narrowed. She was being stared at. It didn’t happen often, not to Katlynn…but she knew what it felt like to be ogled. But it wasn’t her chest that was being stared at. Instead, the girl felt her ears flush. “What are you doing here, Katlynn?”
“Am I dreaming?” Such a stupid question- of course she was dreaming. If she didn’t accept this as a dream, her mind might collapse in on itself. If she wasn’t dreaming this was a complete and total hallucination.
Centaur Jordan snorted derisively. “Not as such, no. You are in Malacus. But for humans, I’m told the experience is quite dreamlike. But why are you here? You weren’t supposed to be here, yet, we haven’t had time to-”
“Why are you a centaur?” It might’ve been her own dazed and confused state as the last of the adrenaline started to drain away from her; or it might’ve been that Mr. Jordan’s face was so easy to interrupt.
The centaur frowned and scratched his head. “I’ve always been a centaur, no matter the visitor. Only the face ever changes.” His eyes darted down when he said ‘changes’. “Why is your diaper on backwards?”
Katlynn’s eyes all but bugged out of her head. She’d been so stricken with confusion and disbelief that she’d completely forgotten about the near fatal carriage crash and being afraid for her life, and having nothing to cover her bottom but a fairly large Huggies.
The fact that in her panic, she’d somehow managed to tape it on backwards didn’t help. She still had the crinkle like a diaper with every micromovement of her waist, but it fit funny. It was loose in all the wrong places. “I was in a rush. I wasn’t wearing it before, but something happened to my underwear.” Her fists were clenched and nervous.
The centaur pouted out his lips like he was sucking on a bad lemon. “You said your panties changed into a diaper?”
A hot flash spread into Katlynn’s cheeks. “I said my underwear, but yeah.” She pointed to the crinkly papery not-quite cloth monstrosity strapped to her hips. “This is all I have left.” Her dress (if it could even be called that) would be useless at protecting her modesty below the waist. By this point it was less a dress and more a shirt with some frills at the hem.
“Maiden’s milk?” The centaur asked.
The word scratched at the back of Katlynn’s brain. “Yeah…?” That’s what the elf that looked a heck of a lot like Cameron had called it. It’s what had been put in that god awful hot tea…and things had tickled all the way down until tickles turned to tinkles. “A girl with pointy ears gave me some.”
The Mr. Jordan with a horse body closed his eyes and started rubbing his temples with one hand, effectively soothing himself and facepalming at the same time. “Theodosia,” he growled. “Always too ambitious for her own good.” He let his hand drop away from his face. “I suppose Adora and Ambrosia were with her?”
Those names clicked in Katlynn’s brain. “Yeah. Except they looked like my classmates. Why does everyone look like people I know?”
The centaur clopped up a few steps. “Lay down.”
Alarm bells rang in Katlynn’s mind. “What?”
“Lay down,” Mr. Jordan said. “You need to get that diaper on right or it will leak the moment your bladder spasms. I can help.” He gestured around. “The grass is soft here and there are no bugs that will crawl on you.”
Barefoot and feeling increasingly powerless, Katlynn took a step back. She pivoted sideways. It was a good way to look behind her without fully turning her back on the monster standing in front of her. “I’m not going to pee myself,” she said.
“You drank Maiden’s Milk,” the centaur said. “Your body is starting to remember things it has long forgotten.”
Katlynn opened her mouth to answer. Oof…there was a lot to unpack there. So much that she didn’t know where to begin. “Remember? Remember what?”
“Like how to completely let go.” He pointed down to her crotch. Katlynn looked down at herself in horror. Was she peeing? She was peeing, wasn’t she?! She didn’t know! She didn’t know and that was the scariest part. Some strange feeling of propriety, made her lift the hem of her so-called dress up to her belly button in a futile attempt to protect the fabric.
Katlynn looked down at her legs, and waited for the inevitable dampness between her legs; the trickle of urine down her thighs as she helplessly wet herself like a toddler that wasn’t even close to potty training.
And nothing came.
“Why are you doing that?” The centaur furrowed his brow.
Katlynn let the hem of her dress drop down. It didn’t protect her modesty at all, but it did free her hands up. “I just thought that…when you said let go…I thought…I mean…”
The centaur snorted and smirked; a very un-Mr. Jordan expression. “Had I the ability to make you void yourself or predict when you would void yourself, diapers wouldn’t be needed, would they?”
“Um…no?”
“Nay, they would not.” Katlynn had to suppress a nervous giggle at a horse person saying “Nay”.
“I guess not.”
“But the fact that you yourself are uncertain tells me you should have one on.”
“But…”
“You drank Theodosia’s potion. You’ll need one for a bit at least.” His voice was authoritative and resolute. Also not much like Scrumpton’s pushover math teacher. “Now lay down before you leak.”
Katlynn wrinkled her nose. “Um…no offense, but you’re a guy and I’m not going to-”
“Is this a dream and do you ogle horses?” The centaur interrupted.
“I beg your pardon?”
Again, the centaur face palmed and rubbed at his temples with one hand. “Is this a dream and do you ogle horses?” he repeated.
The older of the Dean twins blinked. “Um…I don’t know about the dream thing aaaand…I’m not into horses.”
The centaur put his hands on his torso -hips felt like a misnomer- and said, “Then there’s no harm in this. If this is a dream, then it’s a very strange dream that you’ll most likely forget upon waking or not tell anyone about.”
“And if it’s not a dream?” Katlynn asked. (She’d never had a dream feel this real before).
“We are two very different species. I have no lust for you anymore than you have for me. Or have you not noticed that I’m naked?”
Katlynn’s eyes widened. She hadn’t. She really hadn’t. “Aren’t you embarrassed?”
The centaur gave a shrug. “Do humans get embarrassed being naked around other animals?”
“I guess not…?”
“Then lay down. Let me help.”
Reluctantly- very reluctantly- Katlynn laid down in the soft grass, biting into the sides of her tongue to keep the screaming at bay. She turned her head to the side, trying to focus on something in the middle distance.
Like a show pony, the centaur gently and slowly lowered itself to the ground. Front legs first; then hind ones. “On your belly, please. That’s where the tapes are.”
“This better be a dream,” she mumbled to herself as she rolled over to her belly. The sound of velcro tabs scritch scratching off didn’t feel like a dream. Nor did the feeling of her being flipped back over by meaty hands. “Whoah!”
“Just a moment.” He sounded patient now. Focused. And focus is exactly what Katlynn lossed as her bare feet went to the sky. She wasn’t used to this! Nor was she used to the feeling of her bum coming down on soft padding. Doubly so for when Not-Mr.-Jordan hiked the diaper over her hips and taped it on properly. At least when Tommy got changed, Mom would let him step into the new Pull-Up. So his underwear got ripped off but he could at least pretend that he was an adult as he stepped in and pulled the fresh one up his legs.
This? This was just a diaper change.
Just like that it was over. The nappy was properly on; it’s Huggies logo, Mickey Mouse decorations and velcro tapes all facing the correct direction. “There,” the centaur said. “It’s done.” That was all Katlynn needed to climb back up to her feet. Smoothing out the hem of her dress over her diaper didn’t really accomplish anything, but it made her feel a little better. Same with the Huggies being taped on directly. It certainly fit her better; but it was still a diaper; something most girls her age didn’t wear.
Slowly, the centaur rose to his feet. “Where’s the pram?”
“Pram?” Katlynn repeated dumbly.
“The carriage,” the centaur said. “It’s Theodosia’s preferred method of transport and if she got you to drink the Maiden’s Milk, she would’ve had one nearby.”
“Oh, yeah.” Katlynn remembered. “Over there.” She pointed in the direction she’d come from. The centaur didn’t wait to pick her up with his oddly monkey-like tail. Nor did he listen to her screech as he deposited her on his back. It was a quick jaunt to the crash site. The wrecked pram hadn’t moved any. “What are we looking for?” Katlynn asked as the monster with Mr. Jordan’s mug pawed through the twisted iron and cloth.
“Your diaper bag,” he said matter of factly. “Just in case.”
“Just in case what?”
“In case you need a change.” He shook his head in disgust. “Sloppy elves. Can never trust them to do the job right these days. Never learned to adjust. Just take credit for other people’s work.”
Something about that didn’t quite sit right with Katlynn. “What job?”
Katlynn’s question was roundly ignored; with the strange fantasy creatures eyes thoroughly scanning the ground. “Maybe it fell out…”
“There!” Katlynn said. “Two O’clock.” She instantly regretted pointing it out, but she almost couldn’t help herself. The centaur’s head swiveled forty-five degrees and he broke out into a trot, scooping it up with his tail and slinging the bag over his shoulder.
“Well done, little Katlynn!” he called over the sound of his own hoofbeats. “Well done, indeed!”
A shiver broke out over Katlynn’s back. Again, she was being called “little”. Again she didn’t like the sound of it. Not one bit. His back to her- (human back anyways…fantasy creature anatomy was hard!)- the centaur didn’t notice how Katlynn tensed up. He probably didn’t feel how tightly Katlynn was clinging to his shoulders as he started galloping through the fields and brushes.
“Where are we going?” Katlynn asked. “Where’s Tommy?”
Not breaking his stride, the centaur leaned his head back to glance at her. “Don’t worry, I’m taking you to him.”
She didn’t know if her brother could handle such a dangerous place. Plummeting off the back of a giant flying turtle? Tommy could barely handle a playground some days. “Is he safe?”
“There is no place safer for your kind than Malacus?” The centaur replied. “Danger is merely an illusion here.”
The young Miss Dean gritted her teeth. Poison that fucked up your bladder control seemed pretty dangerous if you asked her. “Why?” she asked.
“All will be revealed.” he promised.
“Is somebody named Charles here?” She tried to remember the other name scribbled in algae. “Charles Watson?”
The centaur’s gallop slowed to a stop. A monkey tail wrapped around Katlynn’s waist and put her back on the ground in front of her horse-teacher. “Did you say Charlie Watson?”
Perhaps it was fear. Perhaps it was more of the milk affecting her. But Katlynn felt a blossoming wet patch in her Huggies just then. It wasn’t much…just a spot…what her Mom would call a ‘tiny tinkle’ had it been Tommy in his Pull-Ups. “Y-y-yeah…?” she said
The centaur glowered down at her. “How do you know that name?” Katlynn lost the ability to reply. “Tommy, I understand. Even if Theodosia didn’t run her mouth you’d be concerned for him. You can’t remember a time when he wasn’t as he is now…”
“As he is now…?” Katlynn echoed the words confusedly. “What do you mean? He’s always been a…” Katlynn stopped. ‘Baby’ wasn’t quite the right word for it; Tommy was the same age as her, even if he never had developed, physically or mentally past thirty months. But ‘baby’ sounded a lot better than any other word she could come up with. Then her mind connected the centaur’s and elf’s words.
“You can’t remember a time when he wasn’t as he is now…” The centaur just said.
“At the very least, we were going to save you for last;” the elf with Cameron’s face had confessed, “ease you into it like your brother.”
Had Tommy NOT always been her baby twin brother?!
“How do you know about Charlie Watson?” The centaur repeated.
“I…I…I don’t know…” Then a rogue thought came into the girl’s head. A very clever thought. “Tell me what’s happening to my brother.”
Nostrils flared up. Front hooves stomped angrily as teeth gnashed. And then it all vanished behind a facade of reserved calm. “Very well,” he said. ”But not here.” Again, the strangely long and not at all horse like tail wrapped around Katy’s hips and deposited her on the back half of the centaur, before breaking off into another gallop.
Katlynn decided not to scream questions and accusations on the back of the man-horse, and just clung onto his shoulders as tightly as possible. If this was a dream, it was one of the weirdest ones she’d ever had. Beyond a few broken down ponies tied to a wheel at the county fair, Katlynn had never ridden a horse. Yet as the centaur that looked an awful like Mr. Jordan galloped on, vague sensory memories of bouncing on Mommy’s knee when she was a little girl came to her mind:
The bobbing up and down as the horse galloped half galloped. The way his strong hands enveloped and tried to comfort her white knuckled grip. Even the cushioned crinkle as she bobbed up and down wasn’t entirely unfamiliar. Katlynn almost couldn’t feel the slight wet spot she’d left in her diaper. Almost.
Something else was happening as she bobbed up and down, too. Something a lot less pleasant inside her stomach. The ride would be over soon she told herself. Very soon.
Open field gave way to a nearly impossible, setting. Reaching into the clouds above her were enormous trees; big leafy giants that gave a cooling and concealing shade. Beneath her were tangles of thorny vines and brambles so thick that the centaur had to slow down and high step in the thickets, clomping down hard on the prickly vegetation. It was something like Brer Rabbit meets the great redwood forest.
No way could something like this happen. Either the vines would choke out the tree roots and rob them of water, or the giant trees would rob the vines of too much sunlight to thrive. Yet here they were.
The centaur plodded along over the vines, leaping here and there to finally reach the smallest of clearings. Without preamble he set Katlynn down as her stomach gave yet another rumble. Her legs felt wobbly and bowed out a bit before buckling. It didn’t hurt very much; the fall wasn’t very fall, but she still let out an “Oof,” as the dust spread out.
“Careful,” the centaur said. Though it sounded like less of a concern and more of a command word. When a group of wooden poles shot out of the ground, caging her in an even small segment of the clearing, Katlynn suspected she was right.
“HEY!” she cried out. “What gives.”
“It’s for your own safety,” the centaur replied. “The milk is affecting you more deeply than you know.”
“You’re going to keep me safe by putting me in a cage?”
“No. I’m going to keep you safe by putting you in a playpen.”
Katlynn had had about enough of this. “What’s with all this baby shit?” Katlynn demanded. “What’s with all the diapers and carriages and baby clothes and playpens?!”
As tall as the trees were, there were still stray branches that were well within reach; another implausibility. The centaur reached up and grabbed a shiny red apple from the branch. “Here.” He handed the fruit to Katlynn. “Eat this. It will make you feel better.”
Katlynn slapped the apple out of his hand. “Screw that. Answer my question.”
“Eat the apple.”
“No way! That’ll just make me more into a baby!”
The centaur rolled his eyes. “Why would I want you to be a baby before you’ve answered my questions? You can’t tell me about Charlie Watson if you’re a baby, can you?” He reached for another apple and took a bite out of it, chewing it slowly and swallowing before handing it over the bars. “See?”
The milk turned those others into pants peeing toddlers just as easily as it had Katlynn. The lead elf even mentioned about taking one for the team. Her present host/captor wouldn’t poison himself. Slowly, Katlynn took the apple and took a bite out of the other side of the apple.
A burst of cold juice exploded in her mouth and flooded down her throat. Her teeth tingled with delight as she crunched and munched on that first decadent bite. “Mmmmmm!”
“I told you it would make you feel better,” the centaur said, humorlessly. “I’m not an elf.”
Katlynn swallowed and tossed the apple aside. “Now tell me what’s going on,” she said. “Tell me everything.”
“Of course,” the centaur nodded. “A deal’s a deal.” From out of the trees, hanging on vines little wooden marionettes dangled down, both vaguely humanoid in appearance.
The centaur gestured to the puppets. “Mankind has always had a complicated relationship with power. Your people crave power and independence.” Like an old Punch and Judy show, the two wooden figurines began pantomiming beating on each other. Swinging and kicking and grappling. It was really a wonder the vines serving as strings didn’t get impossibly tangled with each other.
Katlynn leaned forward. “Whoah,” she whispered. Her legs felt a little weak, and she bent them a bit as she clutched the wooden bars of her makeshift playpen.
“You stock up on power and freedom and autonomy and liberty.” The centaur went on. “Call it what you want; it’s the same thing with so many different words and disguises. You fight for it. You crave it. You resent others for having more than you. You take it from others who have less. And when you get it you just want more. One drop is too much and too much is never enough.”
She bent her legs a bit more, and bit her lip. She didn’t even notice that she was pushing a warm mushy load into the back of her Huggies. She was too enthralled by the puppet shows. “That sounds like alcohol,” Katlynn said.
“Exactly!” The centaur smiled. “Yet you also don’t want it. Not really. “In almost every power structure there has to be something above you.” A larger puppet dropped between the two fighters, grabbing them by the scruffs of their necks and separating them and wagging its finger at them as if scolding them.
“Even at the highest levels, you say there’s a god above you. That or you are part of an uncaring universe within which you are completely insignificant. As a people, humans can’t stand the idea of being the most powerful or the greatest or having any real control.” The two puppets prostrated themselves before the larger third. “You crave it and fear it. You want someone to give it to you and to keep it from you.”
The smaller marionettes found themselves over the larger one’s knee being spanked. “You’re nothing but toddlers constantly exploring and then going and tugging on Mommy’s apron for reassurance lest you break out into a tantrum.” Putting a cloth diaper and pinning it on two string held marionettes should have been an impossible trick for the third, and yet it happened right in front of Katlynn.
As her diaper drooped and her bladder released another burst to be soaked in by the thirsty padding Katlynn became only vaguely aware of her situation. “So you think humans are all babies? That’s why I’m in a friggin’ we-…why I’m in a diaper?” Katlynn’s cheeks flashed hot when the literal weight of what she’d just done reached her brain and the smell of her own poop and pee invaded her nostrils.
“Goodness no!” the centaur laughed as the puppets (two of them now diapered) took a bow and ascended back up into the branches. “Malacus is not a land of punishment, but of wish fulfillment.”
Malacus? That was the name on the clock, Katlynn realized. That revelation was almost enough to distract her from what she’d done to herself. Almost.
Like a hungry shark, the centaur started circling the playpen. “We simply attract people here who want more power than they have or have more power than they want and reset them to their most natural state. They crave adventure? We give it to them? Whimsy? That too. No one leaves Malacus unhappy.”
“Tommy isn’t unhappy!” Katlynn blurted out. She whirled around to face the centaur, in part to hide how her backside had filled up. She had to make her stance bowlegged just so her own personal muck wouldn’t smush up against her as much. “He’s practically an eighteen year old baby! He doesn’t know any better!”
“Exactly!”
A flash of insight. “You don’t mean… Tommy used to be normal?”
“Thomas Dean found us when he was at a low point,” the centaur said. “He wanted adventure, respect, and power. So we gave it to him. He wanted to fight and kill and explore. So we let him pretend.” Katlynn had to keep pivoting to meet the centaur’s eye. “But just like all games,” he said, “this one is temporary. We’re returning him to his natural state. He can have all the power that he needs; just enough to have fun and live his life in comfort. But there will always be someone more powerful above him to take care of him; a Mommy or a Nanny. A babysitter, perhaps.”
Katlynn heard what he hadn’t said, too. He hadn’t mentioned ‘big sister’ as one of his caretakers. “What do you get out of it?” she asked. “What’s in it for you?”
The centaur nodded. “Even a bullied highschooler has some power. The ability to dress himself, feed himself, cook, travel, be seen as an intellectual equal or emotional equal. To be understood when speaking.” The centaur’s nose twitched. “The ability to determine his own bedtime…or control his innards…” He knew! He knew what she had done! “And magic doesn’t require a great deal of power to make someone have super strength or fly for a time. So we just do an exchange. A power fantasy in return for actual power.”
“You stole his…his adulthood?”
The centaur seemed offended. “Elves steal power. The rest of us…exchange it. That’s more than fair, don’t you think?”
“Why hasn’t Tommy told me about this place?” Katlynn didn’t notice that there were tree vines drooping down into the playpen.
“Babies don’t like to share their favorite toys?” The centaur shrugged. “Either that or he doesn’t consciously remember his visits here until he’s called.” Katlynn remembered how loud the clock sounded. “Most of them are like that,” the centaur said. “Most of them don’t know any better, either. All except Charlie Watson. Never could figure him out.” His eyes narrowed. “I wonder…”
The vines snaked around Katlynn in a flash, threading themselves between her legs. “EEEEK!” Not only was she lifted off her feet, but the mass in her diaper squished messily against her. “AAAH! Gross!” A fly caught in a spider’s web, Katlynn struggled as more and more vines snaked around her, supporting her, confining her. “THIS IS SO GROSS!”
“You won’t think so in a minute after that apple kicks in.”
“You said it wouldn’t turn me into a baby!”
“And I did not lie,” the centaur smirked. “The apples here have…other effects.”
Katlynn didn’t ask what other effects. She saw them as she caught a peak at the underside of the horse. “Pardon me,” the centaur blushed. It was necessary that I take one for the team. I’m thinking of a sweet young philly that I’m seeing after work today; not you, if it makes you feel any better.” He turned away from her.
Katlyn kicked. Katlynn struggled and thrashed. She couldn’t move. Once more, she had to lean forward for her toes to even graze the floor. And when she pushed off, she’d go a little bit into the air, the vines pressing her mess up against her. The vines had constructed a giant baby jumper for her. She was trapped and filthy and disgusting. And she hated to admit it…but she kind of liked it.
“Hnnn…” she moaned. “What’d you do to me?” She felt as if her naughty bits were on fire in the most sensual way. She was both disgusted and aroused by herself and wasn’t sure which way to lean emotionally speaking.
The horse-man looked back over his shoulder. “Shame and self-control are two other forms of power,” Mr. Jordan’s look alike said. “I only brought out what was already inside you, Katlynn. The clock wouldn’t have called you otherwise.” Then he added. “It was the clock, right? That’s the entryway in your part of the world, last I checked.”
Katlynn’s breathing sped up. Each futile kick or pathetic thrash created a pleasant little bobbing and bounce. And as long as she didn’t think about WHY the inside of her Huggies was so gooey and wet and warm and mushy…the sensation wasn’t that bad. Oh god, what was she thinking?! “How?!” She gasped. “How do I make it stop?”
“There is no stopping it,” the centaur chuckled bitterly. “Just speeding up the inevitable.” He wiggled his fingers. “I recommend you use your hands since you can reach. You wouldn’t like how centaurs have to do it.”
Mortified and overwhelmed, Katlynn reached down between her legs and began to rub herself through her sopping wet and messy diaper. Up and down, up and down. Pressing her fingers through the soft puly padding. It felt so good; almost primally so.
“Think of something,” Katlynn said to herself. “Think about Brad Pitt.” The rustle as she rubbed herself invaded her senses. The way the diaper flopped back down whenever she released tension. “Think about cute boys at school. Think about a hot bath! Anything…just don’t think about where you are or what you’re doing!” She also tried to not think about how good it felt. She tried not to think about how helpless and humiliated she was and how hot that made her feel inside.
She failed.
Katlynn Dean didn’t scream just then when she brought herself to climax. She never did. Living in a house with a perpetual baby brother and an overprotective mother meant she had to pretend she’d never known what masturbation was or how to do it. It was a silly lie, but manners and politics was the art of taking something that everyone knew to be untrue and saying it anyways. Instead she let out a low breathy moan as her hands slowly stopped rubbing herself, the crinkle between her legs slowing gradually as she released fully into the waiting diaper; becoming a light pitter patter and then nothing as she collapsed in her harness.
“Please…” she panted. “Give me something to suck on.” She’d always wanted to kiss after cumming, but with nothing and no one worth smooching, she’d often resort to sucking on her own lips instead. The intense rush draining out of her made her realize that her own lips just wouldn’t cut it.
“Just use your thumb,” the centaur said, huffing; clearly trying to contain his own lust. “All the others do.”
Without hesitation, Katlynn shoved her thumb into her mouth and started sucking. It felt oddly good. Oddly right. Even as her own brain screamed at her that she looked and was acting ridiculous. In that moment, she didn’t care.
“Now,” the centaur said, trotting around the playpen, slowly. “Tell me what you know about Charlie Watson.”
At the sound of the strange name she’d read, a bit of Katlynn’s rational brain kicked in. “Nnnn-nnn…” she shook her head. The girl knew that if she told him what he wanted to know, he’d have no reason not to turn her into some kind of freak-baby; just like Tommy. She sucked her thumb for comfort. Part of her still didn’t want that.
“If you tell me, I’ll change your diaper,” her captor offered. “Or if you’d like…I’ll give you another apple.”
Katlynn moaned around her thumb. That. That was temptation. Either sounded wonderful just then. Either the clean decadence and security of a fresh diaper; or the rowdy, filthy decadence of another go in the jumper. Why not? Why not to either? Why should Tommy be the one to get all the attention? All the love? All the irresponsibility?
“It’s okay,” the horse man tempted. “Enjoy it. The moment you leave here you won’t remember a thing. And if you let us do our magic, no one outside will remember you as anything different than how you are right now. You’ll get to be who you’ve always wanted to be and this will be no more yielding but a dream.”
Katlynn opened her eyes, not even realizing she’d closed them, and saw the centaur opening her diaper bag and spreading it out onto the floor in a spot bereft of brambles. “After you change me,” she asked, “can I ride on your back again?” Riding horseback really was more fun than being carried around on some broken down old pony.
“Just say the word, baby girl.” He told her. “Say the word and we’ll make an excha-”
“NOX!” A familiar voice boomed out. The centaur shook and looked behind him. Katlynn looked out of the playpen. He was dressed in shortalls and a t-shirt. The bulge in his midsection showed that he was wearing a diaper just like her. Yet his shoulders were squared and his feet hovered effortlessly above the spiked vines that riddled the forest floor. No vinces from the trees held him aloft. He looked even more like a baby than usual, but had the confidence and poise of a superhero.
“Tommy?” Katlynn called out. “Is that you?
Tommy’s face was stern and angry. He regarded her with a nod but kept his focus on Katlyn’s captor.
“Nox?!” He repeated. “What do you think you’re doing with my big sister?!”