Marked

"No, nuh uh!  Mommy, no way!  Absolutely not!" I stomped my foot on the floor and balled my hands at my sides.  She had dressed me in this horrible, humiliating pink dress, and curled the ends of my hair.  Now, we were standing in the tattoo parlor and I looked every bit the five year old girl I was acting like.  Women stared and I shied further into myself.

~~~

"Ollie," I began, stepping out of the way so everybody could see how darling my baby boy really was, "we put so much effort into how pretty you are today, why are you hiding away and making a fuss? What if you have some secret admirer out there and here you are trying to hide yourself? Now be good, missy."

~~~

One of the women on the bench whispered to another and I watched them both giggle.  My cheeks burned and I quieted down, until Mommy dragged me into the room with all the inks and needles.  Tears started to form in my eyes.  I knew what she wanted... "Please, don't... I'm a good boy, I won't ever take them off again!  I'll be the best baby boy!" The tattoo artist looked me up and down, a wide grin on his face.  Mommy must have told him what she had planned to do...

~~~

"Well, Oliver, soon it's not going to matter if you take them off or not, because you'll always be in diapers no matter what, even if you do." Yes, just like that I said it, right here in public, and that got the whispers going much more voraciously - not that anybody should have been surprised one bit, though, not with the way he was dressed.

~~~

The man roughly tossed me down on the table and Mommy lifted my dress, flashing the pink diaper to the waiting room before closing the door.  Tears of shame dripped down my cheeks well before the pain of the tattoo. "Please," I begged, one more time.  The women in the waiting room would step in, or the artist would refuse.  But no one came to my rescue...

~~~

"Please?" He asked, in return, smiling down at the small and pretty boy. "Well, since you asked so nicely, and your Mommy's already paid, who am I to say no?" Soon there'd be no difference at all when Oliver removed his diapers, soon it would be apparently to everybody at all times just what his position in life was - he was a baby boy princess, and never again would he deny that fate. After all, soon it would be written on his body in black and white~