Bare New World - Ch 2 (Commission)

Commissioned by Jazper Hemsath.

“I’m sorry,” Jax said.

Andi was busy performing cognitive tests on Maximus, assessing his ability to remember pictures on cards. She replied, “What for?”

“I-I used your machine when you told me not to,” Jax explained.

“Oh,” she said, glancing at him. “Yeah, about that. I, uh, was kind of hoping you might.”

Jax was surprised by her response. “You wanted me to use it?”

“Well,” Andi said, setting down her cards and handing Maximus a truck to play with. “I wanted to test it, but I was too scared to try something really extreme with it. I figured that putting someone else in front of the machine would lead to something interesting happening. I mean, it’s practically a wishing machine. I suspected that you would find it hard to resist making your dreams come true, somehow.”

“Huh?” Jax said, glancing down at his babyish body and diaper.

“This is not quite what I expected,” Andi admitted. “I wasn’t aware that you were into… this kind of thing.”

Feeling a bit embarrassed at being exposed like this, he replied, “So, you’re not angry?”

“I’m thrilled,” she said, smiling. “Do you have any idea of the implications of what you’ve done?”

He shook his head.

“You’ve extended human lifespans to over two centuries!” she said. “Now that it takes decades to grow up, adulthood has gotten longer as well. We could live to be over 250 years old now. Isn’t that great?”

“Oh,” he said. “Sure, yeah.”

“I had to make some emergency changes to myself to make sure I was old enough to be a student at the university. Thankfully, I had a fail safe in place to give me access to the machine. I’m now in my thirties, but I should look the same as before, except for…” She glanced down at her chest. “I guess breastfeeding adult-sized babies would require a bit more milk producing tissue.”

“But,” he replied, “how did you get here? How did you find me?”

“Simple,” she explained. “I made sure to memorize everything I could look up about you before I let you in the lab. Then, when I changed my age, I set it up so that I now work as a part-time babysitter with your mother as my only client.”

While Jax felt relieved that she was not angry at him, he felt a little concerned by how much she seemed to be enjoying the way he had turned reality upside down.

“What now?” he asked her.

“We need to do some more experimenting,” she said, brimming over with excitement. “Please, tell me what you want to change next. I’ll go back to the lab and make it happen right away.”

“Oh?” he said, trying to think of something. He looked over at Maximus as he sat there sucking his thumb and pushing around the truck with hardly a thought visible on his vacant face. “Well,” Jax said. “It might be nice if we were a little less… mentally immature.”

“Hmm,” Andi said, thinking over the request. “Yes,” she said, nodding. “Yes, that might be interesting.” She stood up and pulled something that looked like a remote control out of her pocket.

As Andi began pressing buttons on the remote, Jax asked, “What is that?”

“This is my fail safe,” she explained. “A simple teleporter. I can use this to send me back to the lab in an instant, but it’s only a one-way trip. I’ll need to drive back here when I’m done. No problem, though. I’ll change reality to put my car back at the university.”

“You’re leaving us alone?” Jax asked.

“You’re still mentally an adult,” Andi said as she finished pressing buttons on the remote. “I’m sure you can handle things until I get back.”

“Sure,” he said, but he had some doubts about taking care of a baby-minded adult.

“Right,” she said. “I’m off. See you in another hour or two.”

Andi pressed one more button on her remote, and she vanished instantly, as if she had been a picture on a screen that had been turned off.

“Jax!” Maximus cried, breaking the sudden silence. “Pway wif me!”

Jax looked at his friend, who still had drool shining on his thumb, and replied, “Sure, buddy. We can play… I guess.”

***

It did not take long for Jax to get bored with the baby toys that seemed to enthrall Maximus. The fact that Jax was feeling increasingly uncomfortable and constrained by his diaper as time went on did not help things. He had a strong desire to take it off and be naked again, but he thought that doing so would only make taking care of Maximus more complicated.

“Let’s watch some TV,” Jax suggested.

Maximus sucked his thumb and nodded in consent.

They relocated to the couch, and Jax picked up the remote. When he turned the TV on, he felt another tremor shake the house, which he assumed had something to do with Andi and the machine.

A blast of sound and colors startled Jax as some kid’s show started up on the TV.

“Yay!” cried Maximus. “Gwowing up! Gwowing up!”

Hyper music blared from the speakers as the title appeared on the screen, which was “Growing UP!” as Maximus had cheered.

The sensory overload of it all left Jax staring at the screen in stunned silence. Something about the combination of wild sounds and vibrant colors seemed to numb his thoughts, entracing him to the point that the rest of the world seemed to fall away, leaving the TV screen as his sole focus.

“Hey, kids!” cried a cartoon rabbit. “Welcome to ‘Growing UP!’ Are you ready to grow up?”

“Yeah!” Jax and Maximus replied in unison.

“All right!” the rabbit said. “Let’s get down to it.”

Jaunty music started playing and the bunny danced over to a cartoonish bathroom.

“This one’s for the babies out there,” the bunny declared. “Hoppy has a song for you all about getting out of those diapers and onto a potty.”

Jax and Maximus watched with rapt attention as Hoppy the bunny, now dressed in only a diaper, danced his way over to the toilet.

“Using a diaper stinks,” Hoppy declared. “It’s messy and smelly I thinks. But, you don’t need to frown. Pull that diaper down and dance your way to the toilet.”

And, that is exactly what Hoppy did. Now, seated on his porcelain throne he let his stubby bunny legs swing along with the music for a while before starting the next verse.

“Now, you have to be holding it in, ‘till you’re seated and ready to begin. But, when you’ve made it here, there’s no need to fear. Just let it all go on in.”

There was the sound of some splashes and water flowing, followed by a flush. The music played a triumphant ditty.

After the toilet segment ended, the bunny encouraged them to stand up and do a little exercising with him, mostly coordination practice. It was only after standing up that Jax realized he had removed his diaper during the last song. Maximus noticed as well. He took a look at his own diaper and followed suit in stripping naked.

Jax’s mind was so addled by whatever hypnotic effect the TV show had induced that he saw nothing odd about the situation. If anything, he was enjoying the sight of Maximus with no clothes on.

“You big,” Maximus said.

Jax tried to figure out what Maximus meant, but his thoughts seemed to be slowed down as if he were mentally trying to wade through mud. “Wut you mean?” Jax replied.

Maximus pointed at Jax’s crotch and Jax looked down to find that his pee pee had indeed grown.

“I am big,” Jax declared, proudly.

“Hey!” Maximus said. “I’m gettin’ big too. Wook! Me too!” He touched himself, feeling himself grow in his hand. “Ooh,” he said. “Dat feewls good.”

Jax watched him stroking it, wondering if he should try it himself.

“Hey,” Maximus said. “Wet’s do it togevah.” Maximus grabbed Jax the same way he had grabbed himself.

Jax felt momentarily shocked to have Maximus touching him down there, but then he started to enjoy the sensation and moaned in pleasure.

“You do me,” Maximus requested.

Jax mirrored his friend’s actions, causing Maximus to moan as well. Then, when Maximus started sucking the thumb on his free hand, Jax’s slow mind somehow managed to come up with an idea.

“Hey,” Jax said. “I know sumfing ewlse you can suck.”

***

Andi arrived at the house about a half an hour later. Stepping inside through the front door, she was met by the shocking sight of the boys lying on the carpet, completely nude. It took her a few moments to identify the sticky substance they were blankly playing with, but when she noticed how it was drying on their bodies and where, she figured out what they had been doing.

“Jax!” Andi said, scolding. “What were you thinking, doing that with him?”

Jax looked at her with bleary eyes. “Wut?” he asked. “Doin’ wut?”

It was then that she noticed the TV. Feeling oddly befuddled by the sound of it, she shut it off.

To Jax, it felt as though his mind had been reactivated at the same moment that the room went silent. He looked around in confusion for a moment. Then, he noticed the sticky substance on his fingers. His eyes went wide as the memory of where it had come from returned to him.

“Oh!” he said and nervously ran off to the bathroom to clean up.

***

After Jax had freshened up, he found Andi finishing cleaning up Maximus in the upstairs bathroom.

“So,” Andi said, as she did a little more wiping. “I think I might have figured out what went wrong.”

“I had no idea what I was doing,” Jax explained. “I swear.”

Andi led Maximus over to the enormous changing table in Jax’s nursery room. “I know you didn’t,” she said. “It was my fault… mostly.”

“What do you mean?”

Andi pulled out an enormous diaper and started to maneuver it under Maximus’s butt. “You see,” she said. “I was just trying to realize your request. I wanted to help Maximus here act a little more grown up. So, I told the machine to create a way for babies like you to get a rapid education of some kind.”

“The TV show?” Jax asked.

“Apparently, that was the solution,” she said. “It created a way for people to be hypnotized by the TV into behaving differently. That show was meant to make you act more like toddlers instead of babies. Of course, that would make someone like Maximus here act more grown up.” She tickled Maximus under his chin after finishing fastening his diaper in place. He giggled happily and climbed down from the changing table. Andi patted the table, indicating that it was Jax’s turn now.

Jax lay down on the changing table and asked, “But, why did it make me dumber?”

“Well,” Andi said, pulling out another diaper and starting to put it on him. “Even though you still could think like an adult, your body would be considered a baby’s body in this world. So, it reacted like a baby’s body would to that stimulus, making you think like a toddler as well. Unfortunately for you, that would be more of a downgrade than an upgrade.”

“I see,” Jax said, feeling disappointed at the sensation of being constrained in a diaper again. “Can you undo that change?”

“Possibly,” Andi said, taking a step back to let Jax stand up. “I would like to examine the technology a bit first. It could be useful for future experiments.”

“Well,” Jax said, standing up. “At least, that’s over for now.” He glanced at Maximus, sucking his thumb and felt a fresh wave of embarrassment as he remembered what they had done.

“Not exactly,” Andi said. “The hypnosis was designed to create a subconscious suggestion in your mind.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that your behavior might be altered again in response to certain stimuli.”

“You mean, I’ll start acting like a toddler again if something… stimulates me… somehow?”

Andi sighed. “Not that kind of stimulation.”

“Oh,” he said and felt embarrassed again.

“I mean if something relating to the show you watched happens. That stimulus might trigger you to mentally regress into a toddler again.”

He sighed. “Is there any way to stop that from happening?”

Andi shrugged. “I won’t know until I have some time to study you and the technology. For now, I would try to avoid getting too close to certain playmates.”

They both glanced at Maximus, who stood there, cheerily sucking his thumb, waiting to play with them.

***

When it came time for them to eat, Andi microwaved a meal for herself after preparing some bottles of baby formula for the two of them. Maximus sucked greedily at his bottle as Jax took a little while to get used to the artificial flavor of the formula. For a brief moment, Jax considered asking Andi if she were able to breastfeed, but he decided that she might take that the wrong way. And, considering the state he had been in when she had discovered him earlier, he thought it best to avoid getting into any misunderstandings with her.

Eventually, he did finish the bottle and let out a thunderous burp. The warm liquid within his belly made him feel a bit drowsy. He lay down and let his mind wander a bit, wondering what odd events tomorrow might bring. The future he had been expecting before had all been wiped away by a single wish. Had that only been a day ago now? It felt like a lifetime had passed.

A little more discomfort in his belly pulled his attention back to the present. At first he thought he might need another burp, but he soon realized that he needed to deal with releasing something from the other end. He stood up, and his head swam. That dizzy, befuddling sensation returned, leaving him feeling the same as he had when watching “Growing UP!” earlier.

“Uh oh,” he said. “My bwains awl slow again.”

For a moment, he felt lost about what he needed to do. He needed to go somewhere to take care of something. He was not quite sure what it was, though.

The pressure in his belly increased, and he said, “I gotta go potty!”

He started to walk to the bathroom, but it felt as though he might leak if he was too careless with his movements. He took it slow, despite feeling the urgency to go. He worried he might not make it in time.

“Awlmost dere,” he said, seeing the bathroom door just ahead of him. However, when he reached it, he found it closed. He turned the doorknob and cried, “Wet me in, pwease! I gotta go.”

“One moment,” Andi replied, through the door. “I’m almost done. You could go upstairs if you can’t wait.”

Jax did a squirming dance, trying to hold it in as he considered either making an attempt at climbing the stairs or waiting here, yet before he could decide, the problem solved itself.

“Uh oh,” he said, feeling warmth filling his diaper. “Andi?”

“Yes?” she replied.

“I had an accident.”

She sighed. “Wait there. I’ll take care of it in just a moment.”

***

Upstairs on the changing table again, Jax waited as Andi cleaned up the mess he had made in his diaper. His foggy mind had cleared a little, but he still felt like a toddler in some inexplicably fundamental way.

Andi disposed of the mess. Then, she checked for a fresh diaper beneath the table and said, “Looks like there’s no more diapers here. Wait here. I’m going to go check the closets for more.” She walked off.

Jax resented the idea of being stuck in a diaper again. That impulse to be naked overtook his natural inclination to listen to what grown ups told him to do. He decided he needed to get out of there.

He slipped down from the table and tiptoed to the door. A quick glance around the hallway showed that she was off somewhere else now. It was time. He made his escape.

As he walked, he enjoyed the pleasure of being bare. It was so freeing being naked, like being a bird flying through the air, untouched by anything. He hurried down the stairs and considered where to head next.

“Jax?” Andi called from the other side of the house. “Is that you?”

He did not wait for her to come looking. Instead, he opened the front door and ran out, naked into the evening.

To be continued…