April Exclusive - "Lief" - Part 1

When I wake up, I have the mother of all headaches.

When I wake up, I’m a baby.

I don’t scream. I don’t faint. I’m just amazed. It’s impossible. It must be a dream.

But I’m awake. Propped against a pillow, I look down at my pudgy body, and I remember my baby photos from thirty years ago. Yeah, Mom always said I was chunky.

“You’re awake,” Brooke says, confirming the point. She’s sitting on the edge of the bed and I notice that her tits are bigger than they were last night. Which is a weird detail, I guess, but my eyes are drawn to them. My baby eyes.

“What am I going to do with you?” asks Brooke. She looks at me in a detached way. As I’m something she found on her doorstep. A stray something with a throbbing head.

“Take you to the hospital?” she asks. “They’ll have some questions for me, for sure.” She cradles her breasts in her hands. “I’ll tell them, ‘he’s not my baby’ and they’ll ask why my breasts are leaking…” She touches the area around her nipples, shakes her head. “What the hell?” She looks at me again, and this time it’s fierce. “Where did you come from?”

In that moment, I understand. At least, as much as I can.

Brooke doesn’t know who I am.

Doesn’t she wonder what happened to the guy she met at the bar last night? The one who put up with all her chatter about the poetry, and then about one in particular – what was it called? – because even if she was a nerd, she was a pretty nerd. A sexy nerd. A nerd I was in a hurry to take back to her place.

We tore each other’s clothes off, we jumped naked into bed. We were all over each other, and then…what? I can’t remember. I don’t even know if we did it. And now, I’m a baby. Now, she’s just as pretty, but with those bigger, tender looking tits. The poet needs milking, I think to myself, because I can be a real asshole.

She rubs her hands together. “I don’t have much choice, do I. Time to get you to the hospital. They’ll ask me where you came from, and I’ll shrug. They’ll ask me where these came from,” she says, pointing at her chest. “And I’ll shrug. And either I’m lying or I’m crazy. Or both.”

She reaches for me, picks me up as if I weigh nothing, holds me against her chest. I flinch; her hands are cold, and besides, when was the last time I felt so vulnerable. Whatever’s going on, I’m at this woman’s mercy. So much for one night of fun with a sexy nerd. I should have stayed home with DoorDash and Netflix. I should have had an early night.

I open my mouth. “What was the poem?”

Brooke’s eyes go wide. I can feel her arms loosen. She almost lets me fall to the floor.

She tightens her grip. I flinch again. This woman is not cut out for holding babies. My stomach churns. I might be about to make an age-appropriate mess.

“Wait, are you…” Her eyes flash. “Tyler?”

I nod. “It’s me.” Hi, I’m the problem. My words sound muddled. A lack of teeth, a lazy tongue, who would blame me? But she understands all the same.

“How?”

I laugh. Well, I chortle. I make the baby sound. Perhaps I’m adorable. “I don’t know. Woke up like this.”

She looks at me with narrow eyes. “You didn’t…drink a potion or something?”

“A what?” Come on. I don’t need a crazy woman, even if this is a crazy situation.

“Well,” she says, and I enjoy watching her cheeks redden. She really is a pretty nerd. “You know, like a magic…” She shrugs. “There’s no reasonable explanation for this.”

“You changed as well,” I say, as if to suggest that if I drank a magic potion, so did she.

“Just my breasts,” she replies. She pouts. “They’re really heavy, they feel so…”

No kidding. I’m pressed against them.

I sigh. She has no idea what’s going on, which makes two of us. But I’m the one who lost the most, whatever happened. I look at her with my baby blue eyes and say, “So, I turned into a baby and you’re…my mom?”

It’s Brooke’s turn to flinch. “I don’t…I mean, I looked. I don’t have stretch marks or anything. Just…bigger breasts.”

Heavy ones. Filled with milk. My hands are on them, I am pressed against them. But I’m not overcome with a desire to drink. If anything, I feel nauseous.

I laugh, despite the pain between my temples.

“Really?” Brooke asks. She looks stung.

“Not laughing at you,” I say. “Just, this is crazy, and I’m being completely honest, I think I have a hangover.”

Brooke’s expression softens. “Maybe you’re sick.”

Or maybe we both got hammered last night. I think we did, I think we both got loaded.

But loaded with what? A magic spell? Worst cocktail ever.

“You do look kinda pale,” she says. “I mean, I think you do.”

“Got a headache, and I feel ready to…well, I’m kind of crampy.” Is that clear enough? What I mean is, I might just shit myself.

Brooke gets the gist. “You need a diaper.”

I groan. But she’s right. I sniff. “I’m guessing you don’t have any.”

I look around the bedroom. I need clothes, I need food. I need medicine. Can babies take Tylenol? There’s probably an infant version. Probably. But Brooke, who isn’t my mother, who isn’t anyone’s mother, isn’t going to have any of these things.

“Oh,” Brooke says, “this isn’t my house. It’s an Air BnB.” She takes me from the bedroom, and I wonder if this would look more or less natural to someone else. A naked woman carrying her naked baby.

We pass a bathroom and I see my clothes. My adult-sized clothes. I remember taking them off in a hurry. I remember everything being in a hurry.

“Oh!” Brooke exclaims, and I do my trademark flinch, stiffening my back and gripping her skin with my chubby fingers.

“It’s okay,” she says, “Look.” She points.

“Huh,” I say. “No way.” I laugh. We both do. Right in front of us, right beside the bedroom we just woke up in, is a baby’s nursery.