Baskets (Commission)

Here’s an AR commission for Toddles101. Enjoy!

Todd was drunk and planning on getting drunker. At the moment, he had something to say to his cheerleader girlfriend.

“You see,” he shouted into her ear, in order to be heard over the noise of the party. “Cheerleading isn’t a real sport. There’s no league for it, even if you get trophies.”

Brittany nodded and frowned, having decided that there was no point in arguing with him.

“Basketball has leagues,” he said and took another drink from his plastic cup, feeling that he had just made a profound point about his sport.

Brittany sighed and said, “Shouldn’t you take it easy? You’ve got a big game tomorrow night.”

He blew her off, chuckling. “I think I know what I can handle,” he said before pounding the remainder of his cup in a few big gulps. After a big sigh, he declared, “I’m not some lightweight kid drinking his first beers.”

“That’s just great,” she said.

“Now,” he said, “I’m getting another one. You need one?”

She shook her head.

He leaned in and planted a kiss on her lips, but she only barely kissed him back.

Then, Todd turned and made his way to the 10 gallon drink dispenser full of bug juice, but he stopped walking when he saw who was standing next to it, apparently fiddling with the lid. “Hey!” Todd yelled. “What the hell are you doing here?”

It was that chubby nerd that ran the AV gear at the arena. With a guilty look on his face, the nerd turned to face Todd.

“Uh, hi, Todd,” the nerd said, giving him a nervous wave. “Nice party.”

“You weren’t invited,” Todd said. “What are you doing here?”

The nerd glanced around anxiously as he noticed the rest of the basketball team’s starting lineup looking in his direction. “I… uh…” he started to back away. “I thought the party was open to everyone.”

“Not to you, creep,” said the forward. “We caught you ‘fixing’ the camera’s near the cheerleader’s locker room. You’re lucky that you didn’t get kicked out of school. we ought to kick your ass for it now, at least.”

“I-I’m going,” he stammered and ran for the door. Either they were all very drunk or he was surprisingly fast, but the nerd made it out before anyone could stop him.

“You’d better run,” said Todd, before going to fill up another cupful of juice.

The other team members followed his lead. Then, they toasted their victory over the nerd and continued with the party. It was only after nearly an hour had gone by that Todd realized that Brittany seemed to have disappeared. He asked Brittany’s friend Judy if she had seen her.

“She went home,” Judy said.

Todd grunted in frustration.

“You going to call her?”

He shook his head.

“You want to hang out?” she asked, smiling at him. “I’m ready to party all night.”

Todd smiled back and nodded.

They found a bedroom later where they could have their own private party, and Todd went to sleep, feeling like an invincible hero.

***

Todd woke up the next morning with a massive hangover. Judy was gone, which he decided was for the best. He had no plans for spending time with her after last night. She was good for a little fun, but he was still hoping to salvage things with Brittany. For now, though, he was more concerned with his splitting headache. He found his underwear and his shirt and went in search of water.

In the bathroom, he relieved his bladder and then started taking repeated shots of water from a small paper cup. It relieved some of his hangover, but his head still felt sore and foggy. Checking his reflection in the mirror, he thought that he looked somewhat gaunt.

“Need some breakfast,” he croaked.

Downstairs, he found some of the boys still in various stages of waking up. They too appeared to be working through their own hangovers. He munched down some dry cereal and returned to the bedroom to get dressed. First, he sent a text to Brittany. “Love you,” he wrote. “Breakfast?”

He got dressed as he waited for her reply. Again, he had the sense that he was slimmer than normal, seeing that his clothes were fitting a little more loosely today. He slipped his shoes on and waited a few minutes, but Brittany never replied.

***

Todd arrived at his apartment 20 minutes later. The whole drive back, he was shaking his head and slapping his cheeks, trying to wake himself up, but his mental fog seemed to be lingering much longer than usual for a hangover.

He drifted into his room and, between yawns, stripped off his worn party clothes. Into the shower he went with a hope that a bit of steam would be enough to clean up his thinking along with his body. However, rather than finding some comfort in there, he became increasingly concerned as he soaped up his body. The muscles he had built over months and years of practicing and working out seemed to have lost some definition and bulk. It was a subtle change, but noticeable nonetheless.

“Maybe Brittany was right,” he said, realizing that the party might have been a mistake. Too much playing around was making him soft, it seemed.

He finished his shower and toweled off. At the sink, he avoided looking in the mirror for too long, deciding that whatever he saw there could be corrected by some hard work later.

He was not at all mentally prepared for his only class that morning, but he decided he should at least show up, even if he would only be bench warming. He got dressed for it, but again, he found it hard to select clothes that fit his slimmer body. Eventually, he settled on sweatpants, a t-shirt, and a pair of Crocs on socks. Then, he grabbed his bag and was out the door. As he walked down the sidewalk, he kept hoping in vain that his head would clear before he made it to the campus.

***

Class was a total blur to Todd. If anything, he was feeling more foggy as the day went on and noticeably weaker as well. He worried that he might have caught a cold, but he had no congestion or cough, and he did not feel feverish. Maybe a hearty lunch would do him good.

Waiting in line at the cafeteria, he was surprised to find quite a few tall students standing with him there. He had become accustomed to being the tallest person in the room. Now, he was noticing several men of the same height or taller than him. There was even a particularly tall woman who might have been only an inch shorter than him.

Todd needed to tighten the waistband string on his sweatpants as he felt them starting to slip down his hips while he stood there. Even his Crocs had started to slip off his feet. He did his best to adjust them to fit. Through it all, the general sense of superiority that came from his size had weakened. He had begun to feel disturbingly ordinary in the cafeteria. He decided to eat his burger on a bench outside to avoid making any more distressing size comparisons with other people.

***

The walk home after class seemed longer than the walk to them had been that morning. Todd’s Crocs were slipping off his feet again and again, and the weight of his bag seemed to have doubled. He told himself that it was only the hangover and his exhaustion from the day, their weight added on top of each other, on top of him. He decided that he needed a nap.

Back home again, he discarded his footwear at the door and stumbled his way upstairs to his bed. There he collapsed onto the bed and fell asleep face down on the covers.

***

Todd dreamed of Brittany. She was standing there in front of him. Darkness surrounded them, but they were lit as if in daylight. He was about to kiss her, but as he leaned down to her, she sprouted taller to meet him at his own height. Eye to eye now, she kissed him. As their lips connected he felt her rise higher so that she was now leaning down to kiss him. They separated, and he looked up at her as she smiled down at him. A shiver of fear passed through him.

Brittany grew even larger, now he was about the size of a young child compared to her. She cupped his face in her sizable hands and cooed down at him, “My little darling. Such as sweetie.” She grew even more, now he was barely knee high to her. She bent lower to grip him beneath his arms and lifted him into the air, holding him gently in her massive hands. Then, she cradled him in her arms, pressing him against the swell of her breasts. He felt tiny, powerless in her enormous arms. Her giant face beamed a benevolent smile down at him as terror overcame him and he woke up.

***

It was dark out. The sun had set as Todd rested. Despite having slept for hours, he still felt worn out. A glance at the clock told him he would have to hurry to make it to the arena in time. He tried to get dressed, but nothing seemed to fit right. All of his clothes felt stretched out or way too baggy. Even his shoes seemed too big for his feet. If his mind were a bit less foggy, there would certainly be mental alarm bells sounding now. Instead, he was primarily concerned about making it to the arena quickly.

Once more, he settled on wearing sweats, since they were made to be loose and could be adjusted to fit well enough. He found a pair of sandals that did fit and happily put them on. Had he thought about their pink color for a moment, he might have realized that they were Brittany’s sandals.

When he made it to his car, he had a moment of clarity, intuiting that driving might be a bad idea right now, considering how out-of-sorts he felt. Briefly, he considered calling Brittany. He checked his phone to find that she had not yet responded to his earlier text. Right now, she was probably getting prepared to cheer. Probably best to just talk with her after the game, he decided. So, he started walking with the hopes that the trek to the arena would clear his head.

The guard at the door to the player entrance gave his ID a long, suspicious look. Todd might have been more upset with the man if he were not intimidated by the size of him. The guard must have been close to seven feet tall, Todd thought, seeing how much taller than him he was.

Walking down the hall to the locker room, Todd’s foggy-headedness only seemed to get worse. Soon, he felt as though he were drunk or high, but it was not like any inebriation he had experienced before. It brought up half-forgotten memories of childhood, of having spun around to make himself dizzy. His balance did not feel affected at all, but his mind had that same dreamy detachment that came with dizziness.

Entering the locker room, Todd looked around at his teammates, wondering who he might be able to talk to about his state of mind. The way their eyes looked around, half-open and confused, indicated that they were feeling much the same way that he was.

“What’s going on?” Todd asked one of them, his words slurring slightly.

“I dunno,” he replied. “Something wrong with our uniforms. Must have gotten stretched out in the wash.”

Todd noticed one of the other players trying on his shorts and jersey. His shoulder seemed to be threatening to slip out of the neck hole as his shorts kept slipping down his hips.

“We can’t even find shoes that fit,” said one player.

The door to the locker room opened, and a man pushing a cart entered. “Good news!” he declared. “New shoes for everyone, a donation from our local businesses.” As the rest of the team started grabbing boxes and comparing the size of the shoes to their own feet, Todd got a good look at the man who had brought in the cart.

“Hey,” Todd said, “You’re that nerd from the party last night.”

The man did not respond. He did not even look in Todd’s direction. He just turned and left the locker room the way he had come in.

“Wait!” Todd said, starting to follow him, but he was stopped by one of his teammates grabbing his arm.

“Come on, man,” his teammate said. “Tip off is in less than half an hour. We need to get ready.”

Todd sighed and went looking for some shoes to wear from the pile of boxes. Eventually, he located a pair that fit him, but he was concerned at how different the size number on them was from his normal size, having gone from a double-digit number to a single-digit.

Despite all of these strange changes he was faced with or because of them, his mind seemed incapable of recognizing how wrong things had gone already. Instead, the team prepared as they normally would, tried their best to make their uniforms stay in place, and headed out onto the court as the music started for their entrance.

***

Normally, the lights go out and music blares as the players’ names are called, and they run onto the court one by one, tracked by a bright spotlight, allowing each of them to soak in their own individual applause. Tonight, however, a fog machine seemed to have been turned on, filling the court with a murky cloud. Their names were called, and they ran out as per usual. When they were on the court, they became lost in the fog, appearing only like a ghostly indistinct figure. The applause was somewhat hazy as well, sounding more polite than excited. Todd, ran out last, to join his team, earning the strongest applause, which was still weaker than average.

The team lined up and waited for the lights to turn on and the fog to dissipate. As Todd stood there, breathing in the hazy air, he felt his head swim, the mental fog growing even thicker as the real thing thinned out.

The lights glowed back to life, and the team saw their opponents for the first time. Collectively, Todd and his teammates all gasped and cursed.

Their opponents looked like giants compared to Todd’s team, not a single player on the other team was shorter than even the tallest player on Todd’s team. Had Todd’s head been clearer, he might have also noticed that the referees were at least as tall as him as well. The muted alarm bells in his head were becoming noticeable now. Something was definitely wrong.

The team went through their final warm ups, tossing shots at the basket to loosen up. Shockingly, almost everyone on Todd’s team missed the hoop altogether on their first shot, all of them coming up short. The years of muscle memory they had trained relentlessly to develop seemed useless all of a sudden. It seemed as if the basket had been moved upwards a foot or two. They tried to readjust their trajectories, but there was not much time to practice now. Tip off was minutes away.

Not being one to quit or run, Todd rallied the team, shouting “We can do this! This team is nothing. We’ve got this.” It was the kind of swagger he had normally carried with him into every game. He was not feeling it right then, but he hoped that the words might will it into existence.

It came time for tip off, and the team removed their warm-up gear. A murmur rose from the crowd that grew into a rumble of chuckling and outright laughter. They seemed to find something funny about how Todd’s team looked.

All the players took their positions and readied themselves for the jump. Todd looked up at his giant opponent and did his best to hide the fear he felt. The ball was tossed into the air.

Then, the slaughter began.

***

Returning to the locker room at halftime, Todd felt ready to just get dressed and walk out. Through some miracle, he had managed to score a basket, but that ended up being the only two points they had. Their opponents had over a hundred. They would be close to two hundred if they had kept trying their best. Instead, they had started fooling around, taunting and playing with Todd’s team like it was a game of mismatched streetball. The crowd was eating it up too, laughing and cheering on the opposing team.

It was a thoroughly humiliating experience. What made it even worse was how often Todd and his teammates were stepping out of their own shoes or letting their shorts slip down their legs. It seemed that all of their clothes were getting bigger and bigger as the game went on, to the point that they were paying more attention to staying dressed than playing ball.

Something was wrong. That much was obvious. What was wrong was still eluding them, somehow. Todd’s head swam both from exhaustion and the continued mental fog that only seemed to get thicker as the evening went on. If only he could clear his head, he might be able to figure out what was going on.

“Attention,” a familiar voice said over the arena PA. “May I have your attention please?” It was that nerd again.

The chatter of the crowd outside died down to listen.

He continued, “Due to the extremely poor performance of one team, the game has been called.”

Yells and boos could be heard from the crowd.

“What’s he doing?” Todd asked.

“Do not worry, folks,” the nerd said, trying to placate the irate people in the stands. “We do have more entertainment planned for you now. Instead of our regularly-scheduled half-time entertainment, we will be treating you to a one-of-a-kind special presentation, a bit of a demonstration… maybe even a competition.”

Suddenly, there was a loud hiss from above him, a light fog blew in through the vents to fill the room, leaving everyone coughing. They started to make an escape, but they soon felt weak from breathing in the gas, whatever it was. That mental fogginess that had been bothering Todd for the whole day totally overwhelmed him at last. He stood there in a total daze, feeling absolutely lost about what was going on or what he should do about it. Feeling half-asleep, he waited there for someone to tell him what to do.

“First,” said the nerd on the PA. “Let’s have the home team back out on the court again.”

Their regular entrance music began to play, and Todd and the rest of the team followed their usual pre-game routine and left the locker room to return to the court. It was the wrong time for all of this, and they knew it, but they felt helpless to do anything but what they had been ordered to do.

They were dimly aware that something was very wrong with them. Their already overlarge uniforms were no longer fitting them at all. Their shorts were slipping down their waists, causing them to either hold them up or abandon them altogether. Fortunately for the ones that lost the bottoms of their uniforms, their tops were now so long that they covered them down to their knees or lower. They all stepped out of their shoes and socks, leaving a hallway full of discarded footwear that they tripped over as they went. All of these changes made the walk back to the court seem much longer. Looking up at the ceiling of the hallway, Todd wondered why the whole building seemed bigger than he remembered.

Eventually, they reached the court and discovered a row of giants waiting for them on the side of the court. These people had to be over ten feet tall! Where had they come from? Seeing the team approach them, the giants began to laugh and point at Todd and the other players. Had he not felt so intimidated, Todd might have sought to defend himself against this kind of ridicule. Instead, he hurried onto the court, where the spotlight found him. The laughter spread throughout the whole crowd as they spotted Todd and his teammates. He wondered what it was that they found so funny. Was it their uniforms?

“Quite the transformation, isn’t it?” said the nerd over the PA as the music faded away. “The gas in the stadium is reacting with the chemicals I placed in the punch at their party last night, chemicals tailored to affect only the men that drank them. As you can see, they have been reduced to toddlers at this point. In a few minutes, they should be little more than babies.”

“Babies?” Todd asked, realizing then that his voice sounded strangely squeaky. The word cut through his mental fog. He looked at his pudgy little hands and back over at the seeming giants he had walked passed before, and it all made sense. He could not believe that he had not noticed it until now. They were not giants, only adults. His clothes were not falling off of him because they were too big. It was because he was too young and small to fit them. He was getting younger and younger! He knew that realization should be freaking him out, but he only felt surprised.

The nerd added, “You may be wondering why you all are taking this so calmly. Well, that’s thanks to another chemical I’ve sprayed into the arena. It has the effect of making people much more compliant and unquestioning. Basically, you’re all drugged to make yourselves accept whatever I tell you without any doubts.”

There was silence in response.

“As a demonstration, give me a round of applause.”

Everyone began clapping and cheering.

“Now calm down.”

The noise died down immediately.

“See,” he said. “I have total control of this arena, and I cut off the broadcast early on. No one will be coming to help you until I’m done. So, settle in for the show.”

Everyone sat down, even the players on the court.

“Now,” the nerd said. “Let’s get the cheerleaders out here again. Come join us, ladies!”

The cheerleaders jogged out onto the court, waving their pom poms with a somewhat dazed enthusiasm. Todd watched the comparatively giant women run towards him, feeling increasingly intimidated as they approached. Each of them had several feet of height on him now and were so massive that he was certain he weighed only a fraction as much as they did. He worried about what kind of “show” the nerd had planned for them.

“Ladies,” the nerd said. “Give us a cheer!”

The cheerleading team lined up and started a routine in perfect sync with each other. Todd and the other basketball babies around him watched in stunned amazement as the enormous women danced in front of them. It was simultaneously mesmerizing and terrifying. Eventually, amongst the rest of the girls, Todd spotted Brittany, his girlfriend and, hopefully, his rescuer.

“Well done!” the nerd said. “Let’s give it up for these lovely ladies.”

The crowd cheered with authentic fervor. No coercion had been necessary to elicit that kind of response. It had been an excellent performance, well-deserving of a trophy, Todd acknowledged at last.

As the crowd calmed down, the nerd asked, “So, ladies, are you ready for a little bit of fun with the boys here?”

The ladies let out an enthusiastic cheer in response. They looked positively excited to participate in whatever he had planned.

“Great,” the nerd said. “Could a pair of you check in the tunnel over by the opposing team? I left a couple of carts in there with supplies for our game.”

Two of the cheerleaders split off and entered the tunnel, returning a minute later, pushing a pair of carts. One cart was stacked high with folded white blankets and wicker baskets that looked just big enough to fit a basketball in them. The other cart held large packages of disposable diapers and related changing supplies.

“As you might guess from looking at the carts, tonight’s competition will be a diaper changing contest,” said the nerd.

The crowd let out an unprompted cheer, sounding excited to see any kind of contest.

“Now, ladies,” he said. “Find yourselves a baby partner. You may want to select someone special to you.”

Brittany sought out Todd without a moment’s hesitation. She stepped up to him and took a moment to stand above him smiling down at him. She towered over him, seeming even larger now than when he had first spotted her on the court. He wondered if that meant he had gotten even younger since then.

“Stand up,” his girlfriend ordered him.

Todd tried to get to his feet, but his leg muscles felt like jelly. As soon as he lifted his ass off the wood floor, he lost his balance and plopped back down onto it again.

Brittany crouched down above him and wrapped her enormous hands around his middle before lifting him into the air with surprising ease. His uniform top hung from him like a dress, obscuring his body below, but he could see that the floor was now far beneath where his feet reached now, even as he was eye-level with her.

She pulled him in close to her chest and cradled his body against her breasts. Soft and warm, her embrace comforted him more than disturbing him.

“Distribute the supplies to each pair,” the nerd ordered, and the cheerleaders obeyed. Soon each of them had a handful of diapers along with some wet wipes, a bottle of lotion, and a container of powder. “Good! Looks like you’re ready. Now, strip those little ones down to their birthday suits and get ready to begin.”

Brittany sat Todd down on a blanket and lifted his uniform top off of him, exposing his bare body to the whole arena. It was a shock to see how soft and hairless he had become. There was no sign of muscle on him at all, only pudgy baby fat all over. He flexed his stubby baby hands and feet, feeling how small and useless they had become.

“Bwinny?” he asked, but the silly sound of his babbling baby voice quieted him immediately.

“All right then,” the nerd said. “The game will be to see who can successfully diaper their baby first. The baby that wins this game takes home a very special prize. He will be forever trapped at this age, unable to grow even a day older than the baby he is right now. That means that he might be functionally immortal, so long as he doesn’t die from unnatural causes. Sounds like a good prize, right?”

The crowd applauded.

“Unfortunately, that will also mean living as a baby, unable to do anything but crawl around and babble helplessly, drinking breast milk or formula, pooping and peeing in an endless series of diapers.”

The crowd chuckled, and Todd felt a chill run up his spine. Suddenly, he felt the urge to crawl away from this game. Brittany rested her hand softly on his chest, holding him in place with only the weight of it.

“Still,” the nerd said. “At least you’ll be a winner.”

The crowd cheered.

“This bunch loves a winner, it seems. So, let’s give them one,” he said. “On the count of three, you may begin.”

The cheerleaders all readied themselves to grab their supplies as soon as the countdown was done.

He counted, “Three… Two… One… Go!”

Brittany grabbed her wet wipes and chilled his crotch by rubbing it all over, quickly but gently. Then, she slipped it back through his butt cheeks before reaching for lotion and powder. Her hands were surprisingly powerful, moving his body around with little effort, but she was hardly even jostling him as she did. Her confident motions indicated that she had much experience with diaper changes, making Todd think that she had babysat before. He wanted to ask her when, but he realized that he lacked the mouth control now to pronounce more than a few simple words.

Before he knew what was happening, she had grabbed his ankles and lifted his behind up from the blanket to slide an open diaper under him. She set him back down, spread his legs and deftly folded the front of the diaper up to his abdomen, before attaching the sides to it.

Brittany’s hands shot into the air and she declared herself, “Done!”

The crowd leapt to their feet, cheering for her.

“Well, well,” the nerd said. “Looks like we have a winner. Well done… Brittany, is it?”

She nodded up towards the booth above them, where the nerd likely was.

“Who is that baby there?” the nerd asked. “Is that widdle Toddy?”

She nodded again and lifted Todd into the air, to show off the results of her diaper changing skills to the whole arena, who applauded her good work.

“Excellent,” the nerd said. “Todd gets to stay a baby forever.”

Hearing that, Todd felt his eyes begin to tear up.

“Hold on,” the nerd added. “I’ll have to come clean. I was not entirely honest about the prize for the winner.”

Feeling hopeful, Todd held back his sobbing.

“It’s not that the winner will be stuck as a baby forever,” the nerd said and then shouted, “All of them will be stuck as babies forever! They all win!”

The crowd cheered and applauded as if the team had won a championship game. Even the cheerleaders seemed overjoyed. Only the babies sensed the horror of what the nerd had just said.

When the arena calmed down again, the nerd said, “Now, it’s about time I headed out of here. I’m sure someone will catch wind of what is going on sooner rather than later. Ladies, please wrap the babies in the blankets and place them in the baskets. After that, put the baskets on the carts.”

Todd tried to tell Brittany to stop, but he could not even say her name anymore. Only babble and drool left his clumsy lips now.

He and his baby teammates were wrapped and put in baskets and lined up in rows on the carts as the nerd had ordered.

“Good,” he said. “Now, one more dose, a sleeping drug with a simple side effect: it makes you forget everything that happened since you woke up today.” More gas started filling the arena. “The babies will be immune from it, however, due to the drugged punch from last night. You’ll get to remember all of this for a long time to come.”

Todd watched as Brittany’s eyes fluttered shut and she slumped to the floor, as did everyone else in the arena around them. A minute later, the nerd appeared on the court. He wore a gas mask over his face, revealing only his eyes behind it. Still, Todd could tell he was smiling at them.

The nerd pushed the carts full of babies off the court and through the hallways of the arena. He rolled them out a back door of the building to a windowless white van. He opened the back doors and then started carrying the baskets from the carts into the van, starting with Todd and another player that Todd no longer recognized.

When the whole team had been loaded into the van, the nerd shut the doors, sealing them inside. A moment later, he was in the driver’s seat, where he removed his mask and slipped on a black ski mask instead. Then, he turned to face them and said, “Now, let’s get you all to your new homes.”

He drove for a long time. It must have been at least a half hour before he stopped. He parked and opened the back of the van again, where he picked up a pair of babies in baskets and walked away with them. Todd tried to look outside to see where they were, but all he could tell was that they were on a street at night. A short while later, he came back to close the back doors again and then return to the driver’s seat.

Once more, the nerd drove a half hour before stopping and removing two more babies from the back to drop them off wherever they were.

He continued this way for the next few hours, stop after stop, slowly emptying the babies out the back of the van until only Todd remained.

As they made their final trip alone together the nerd said, “You know, it’s nothing personal.”

Todd had no way to reply so he remained silent.

“I needed to conduct a test and you were big enough jerks to deserve this. I suppose you should be happy that I decided to spare your girlfriends at least. They’re not much better, but I felt it would be going a little far to include them.”

Todd smelled something gross, a strange stink. Then, he felt something warm and mushy around his backside.

“Uh oh,” the nerd said. “Looks like somebody needs a diaper change. I’m afraid you’ll have to wait a bit until someone finds you. Fortunately for you, we’ve arrived at your destination, so it shouldn’t be long.

The van stopped. The nerd opened up the back doors of the van once more and carried Todd in his basket outside. The nerd angled the basket to give Todd a view of the building next to them. It was a firehouse and on the wall was a big door with a sign that read “Newborn Safe Haven.” The nerd opened the door, and put Todd’s basket down inside.

“Well,” the nerd said. “This is the last time you’ll see me. I wish you a nice long life, even though I know you won’t be enjoying it much. So long, loser.” He shut the door, sealing Todd inside alone with the stink of his dirty diaper.

Todd started to cry. It was all he could do now besides waiting to be found, just lying there in his own mess, bawling in utter despair.

***

And, that felt like the end of it all. Unfortunately, it was only the beginning of something worse.

Todd was found and cared for in some kind of orphanage, and despite his best attempts at being understood, nobody realized he was anything but a baby. He tried everything. His mouth was useless for anything except for drinking, and it was not even good at that. His hands could not manage to write anything. Even when he managed to reach some blocks with letters on them, he realized that there were not enough of them to spell out a useful message. It was hopeless.

Soon enough, he gave up trying to be understood. He was a baby. There was nothing else he could do. Time passed, and he grew accustomed to the routines of his new infancy. He slept and drank formula and filled his diaper. And in between, he waited for someone to put him to bed and feed him and change him again. Life became a lot of waiting around.

Months went by, and he overheard his caretakers talking about him one day. They were concerned. It turned out that he was not gaining any weight. He was being fed well enough, and he was not ill, but for some reason, he just was not growing.

Of course, Todd knew why. He was stuck at this age forever. The nerd had said as much the night he had transformed Todd and his teammates. For a while, he had hoped that the nerd was wrong. Unfortunately, it was true. This was his new existence, permanently.

A series of doctors were brought in to examine him, pediatricians and various specialists. Todd listened as each one admitted their confusion about what was wrong with him. He was placed in various machines, scanning him and imaging him inside and out. None of it added up. He was impossible.

However, it did not take long for the doctors to realize that Todd was not alone. Word went around that there were nearly a dozen other babies out there with just the same condition as Todd, and all of them were orphans like him, left in safe havens as he had been. It was Todd’s old teammates. Soon enough, they were all gathered together into one orphanage to be studied as a group. The team was reunited again.

It would have been nice if they had some way to communicate with each other aside from awkward gestures and nonsense babbling. Only with their eyes could they share a moment of understanding, looks that said, “This is messed up, but at least we’re not alone anymore.”

Then, things got even weirder.

With all of the doctors and scientists they consulted having no explanation or cure for the babies’ condition, the nursery caretakers realized that they would have to work out a long-term solution for caring for the mystery babies. They turned to the media for help.

Television shows came by to interview the caretakers and film the babies. Their story spread far and wide. Eventually, some woman who had seen the babies on TV contacted the caretakers with a solution.

The babies would be used for educating mothers-to-be.

Pregnant women want guidance on caring for their new babies. For the most part, the only kind of practice they get involves not particularly convincing dolls since actual infants were in short supply and had a tendency to outgrow their job as training babies. However, babies that never grow up are perfect for this kind of job. Mothers-to-be could come to practice changing and feeding them on a regular basis with no doubt that there would be babies ready to help train them.

And so, they began their careers as professional babies.

Swollen and cumbersome expectant women arrived for class in new groups twice a month. Little did they know that they were getting their breasts drained by a former college basketball team. As much as Todd wished that he could be anywhere else, he did appreciate the flavor of the milk over the blandness of formula. Plus, it felt good to be held, even if the hands holding him were awkward and hesitant. Life took on a monotonous but comfortable sameness.

Then, came a day when everything changed.

***

“Welcome to your first day of class,” the instructor said as she walked the pregnant women into the nursery. “Let me introduce you to your partners.”

The women walked over to the cribs where Todd and his teammates were resting. They were invited to pick a baby. A woman went to reach for Todd, when another woman said, “Hold on. Let me see that baby.”

Todd turned to face her, and his mouth went wide. It was Brittany! His one-time girlfriend gently held his hand and turned his arm to get a look at the inside of it. “The birthmark…” she said, seeing the dark splotch on the inside of his upper arm below his arm pit. “Todd?” she whispered, clearly remembering having seen the same birthmark on Todd when he had been an adult.

Todd began babbling wildly, excited to have been found at last. He was saved! Brittany was there to rescue him from this infantile hell.

Brittany turned to the other woman and said, “I’ll take this one.”

Her enormous hands encircled his body and lifted him into the air. Looking down, he noticed for the first time how much Brittany had filled out. Her already large breasts had grown massive and rested just above her swollen pregnant belly. Worried, he looked into her eyes, wondering what she had been through since the last time he had seen her that night in the arena.

Then, Brittany cradled him close to her, resting him against her breasts and on top of her belly. He could feel the unborn baby shift slightly beneath him, the two of them separated only by the thin wall of Brittany’s flesh. He wondered who the father was. He wondered how long it had been since he had last seen Brittany.

And, there was one big question troubling him: Why was she not telling someone who he really was?

Brittany took her seat next to a changing table, still cradling Todd in her arms, and the class began. The instructor walked the women through positioning their babies for breastfeeding. Meanwhile, Todd cooed up at her, expectantly, trying to get her to say something to the instructor or anybody. “Help me!” he wanted to scream at her, but he could not say the words.

Instead, he waited and watched as she removed her shirt and bra, and he had a good look at her milk-swollen breasts for the first time, so enormous compared to the breasts he remembered.

Again, he tried to communicate with her, but she immediately stopped up his mouth with her nipple. Then, she shushed him and whispered to him, “Quiet now. It’s time for you to listen to me for once.”

Todd started drinking, partly out of instinct but also partly because he was feeling anxious now and he knew the milk would calm him.

“I forgot everything about that night you all disappeared,” Brittany whispered as she suckled him. “We all did. No one knew what happened to the team. It was a big mystery.”

She switched him to her other breast and continued, “Some trace of a memory must have been left in my head, though. Every time I would see a baby in a diaper, I would think of you. It seemed so weird, how I kept making that connection without knowing why. I had babies on my brain. I felt like I needed one. My life felt empty without one.”

Todd’s belly was growing full of her warm, nourishing milk. However, it was more troubling than comforting to feel something of hers filling the inside of him like that.

“Then, I saw you all on TV,” Brittany said. “I heard the story. I did a head count. The same number of mystery babies as missing players. Then, you went and lifted your arm up on TV, and I saw the birthmark. I knew it was you. After that, I came here as soon as I was ready.”

Again, Todd felt the unborn baby shift beneath him.

“You broke my heart,” Brittany said. “I found out about you and Judy. Everyone did. They questioned all of us, everyone close to you. Judy confessed that she had slept with you the night before you disappeared. She apologized to me, as if that would fix anything. It just felt like I lost you twice, once to her and once to wherever you all went.”

Todd stopped sucking, feeling full now and a little queasy.

“I wanted to forget you and move on, but the baby thing kept happening. I kept thinking about you again and again. I hoped the pregnancy might help, but it didn’t. And then I saw you on TV, and I knew what would help. I knew what I had to do to you.”

Her nipple slipped from his lips, still coated in her milk. He wanted to call for someone to save him from Brittany, now.

She turned him around and rested him on her shoulder to burp him. Her hand tapped his back gently, but every time she made contact, he worried that she might hit him a little too hard. He burped and spit up only a little of her milk. Again, he felt discomfort in knowing that something of hers was inside of him, feeding him, nourishing him, becoming a part of him. He wished he had thrown it all up.

Brittany set him down on the changing table now and readied herself as he lay there, wondering what he could do now about her, if anything. For a moment, she had been his only hope. Now, she was his biggest threat. She knew him. She despised him, it seemed, in a way that no other mother-to-be would.

She undressed him, taking her time, removing his onesie at a leisurely pace. With his baby body exposed to her, feeling chilled, she took a moment to run her finger down the side of his face, tracing the curve of his pudgy cheek down to his chin, then down onto his chest, feeling how soft and vulnerable he was, while at the same time, showing him how strong she was.

Brittany unfastened his diaper. She folded down the front of it, and he smelled urine that he did not remember releasing in there. She lifted his bottom half up by the ankles and slid the soiled diaper away before setting him back down. Then, she grabbed a wet wipe and began cleaning him, rubbing it against him, chilling him even more with it. Through the fabric of the wipe, he felt her fingers slide over his crotch, feeling what he had left there. She smirked at him and whispered, “Even smaller than I thought it would be. Poor little baby. To think how you would belittle me… Now, look at you.”

Todd was crying now, silently. Brittany paused to watch him lying there naked, in tears, utterly helpless before her. Through the tears he could see her vindictive smile. His humiliation amused her, it seemed. The moment dragged on. At long last, she showed some mercy and began to fit a fresh diaper on him.

“That’s enough,” Brittany whispered to him. “I’m satisfied for now. You deserve this. I’m glad that you ended up here.” She slipped his little limbs back into the onesie, with the patience and kindness of a good mother. “Goodbye, Todd,” she whispered. “Later.”

Brittany walked away, and he watched her go. The only adult in the world who knew him now, and she was gone.

***

Ages passed. Whole years crept by in monotonous uniformity. Todd did not change, none of the babies did. The routine of feedings and diapers stayed the same as well. Todd wished he could forget. He tried to forget, tried to let go of his old life. After a while, it had begun to fade, but still, some of it hung on. He remembered the man he had been, the athletic body he had possessed and would never have again. He wanted this life to end, but there was nothing he could do about that. He was powerless to do anything but keep existing, trapped in this baby body like a prison, no release, no parole, a life sentence.

Then, Brittany returned.

She asked the caretakers if she could visit the baby she had worked with in her class, long ago. Then, she introduced the girl with her, her daughter, the one she had been pregnant with back then. The girl looked to be about 10 years old now. Todd could hardly believe that it had been that long.

Brittany walked up to him with her daughter holding her hand. “Here he is,” she told her daughter. “I called him Todd, after a friend I used to have. You can see the birthmark on his arm. That’s how I recognized him again.”

The girl looked at Todd, curiously. “He’s been a baby all this time?” the girl asked.

“Yes,” Brittany said. “He’s a special baby, like the other ones here. They never grow up at all.”

“Wow,” the girl said, amazed. “And, you were pregnant with me when you were here before?”

“Yes. So, in a way, you’ve met before. You were even smaller than him back then.”

The girl walked up to Todd’s crib, and he thought about how large she seemed now and how similar they had been before. This girl was growing up. He was watching it happen, watching her race ahead as he was stuck at the starting line.

“Can I hold him?” the girl asked.

Brittany nodded. “But, be careful. Make sure you support his head.”

The girl lifted him up, cradled him in her arms, smiled down at him. “Hi, Todd,” she said. “I’m Katie. You helped my mommy a long time ago. Do you remember her?”

Todd nodded. It was a subtle movement, though, easily overlooked, as was every attempt he made to communicate.

Brittany rested her hand on Todd’s head and said, “I’m sure he remembers me, and you.”

“Did you change his diaper?”

Brittany nodded.

“Can I change his diaper?”

She nodded again.

Todd sighed, and suffered through the changing. He wondered what the future held with Brittany and her daughter. Would Katie return again, when she was older and pregnant, to practice breastfeeding and changing diapers with him? Would she return again with her own daughter, Brittany’s granddaughter, to pass him down again, daughter to daughter, for generations to come? He could see it now. Every new descendant would learn about his birthmark and his name. He would never be forgotten and never be allowed to forget.

That would be his final torture, never being able to let go of his life as Todd. Brittany’s family would keep his name alive, keep his past from fading away by giving him a reminder every decade or so when a new woman would come and find his birthmark and call him Todd again.

Brittany smiled at Todd as she passed him on to her daughter, like a living heirloom, and he knew that her revenge was now complete.