The Orphanage (I)

The Orphanage

An ABDL Horror story by Blake Rose

I.

The warmth of the car’s interior evaporated in the night breeze as the passenger side door opened. The cool Autumn air whipped around her thinly veiled legs causing goosebumps to begin to pop up across her skin. As Kelly Hornbeck stepped out into the chill and looked up at the imposing building looming over them in the distance, she reminded herself that they would be indoors tonight and therefore wouldn't be cold for long. Her boyfriend Tyler exited the driver’s side, locked it behind them with a click, and Kelly scooped her arm through his to walk close to him across the parking lot. For the tenth time in the past hour Kelly zipped open her purse and checked to make sure they had remembered the tickets and brochure.

A crowd of people were already gathered outside the front doors under a wide awning.. Briefly checking her phone she saw that it was 8:32 – no, 8:33pm. Twenty-seven minutes early. Tyler usually made them late.

Tyler Morrison had the nasty habit of waiting until the last minute to pack for trips, taking forever to say goodbye at parties, never breaking into anything faster than a casual stroll, and generally not giving a damn when his best impressions of a turtle would grind against everyone’s patience. Kelly’s mind flicked back to one occasion when they had been running late for a train. From car to platform Tyler walked slowly and casually, even when the train was in the process of pulling up to the station. Kelly dove in, calling out for him to “hurry his ass up” while simultaneously being as kind as possible to the ticket collector to earn sympathy. On that occasion the train happened to be two minutes early and the staff reluctantly waited for Tyler to casually step over the gap. The ticket-taker’s distaste toward Tyler was palpable, but Tyler still stubbornly held firm to his “We were on time, they were early, they can wait for me,” viewpoint. Kelly put a little extra stank on the slap she gave his arm that time. Expecting a whole train to just wait for your ass, she thought bitterly, knowing that pressing the subject wouldn’t lead to a different outcome. She had started forcing him into the car forty-five minutes earlier than necessary, and even then they would occasionally cut their arrivals close. So, given that he took everything at a leisurely pace, they were usually late when they traveled and nearly always late for events like these. With a smirk she reflected on how wonderful it felt to be early for once. She loved Tyler but that was one of those little things about him that made her grind her molars to dust.

“I think I can see them from here,” Tyler said. They were approaching the crowd of people and by following Tyler’s outstretched finger, Kelly’s eyes landed on their friends Marcus and Christine. “Yo! Marcus!”

Under the awning a man with black hair and coffee-with-cream skin blinked and broke from his conversation at the sound of his name to look for the noise. “Holy shit, you made it,” Marcus said impressed, clapping his hand with Tyler and pulling him into a one-armed bro-hug so overtly masculine it might have been a physical manifestation of the phrase “No homo.” Breaking from the hug, Marcus continued. “And on time no less!”

“Right?” said Kelly, ribbing Tyler with a grin. “I can’t believe it myself. It’s a miracle.”

“Still got a little bit of time before the show starts,” Marcus was saying.

“I hope it’s soon,” added Christine, “I’m freezing.”

The four exchanged their greetings and quickly dove into chit-chatting, huddling together by a tall outdoor heater, its flame licking upwards and providing a toasty bubble to stand in. Kelly was reminded of the outdoor seating heaters at fancy restaurants and was grateful. Marcus and Christine had clearly been holding the spot, and standing in the dome of warmth made the goosebumps on her bare legs melt back into relaxed and freshly-shaven smoothness.

Kelly didn’t blame Christine for being cold, but inwardly she rolled her eyes. She was wearing far less clothing than Kelly by comparison, and as the wind picked up Kelly could see Christine’s sleek and slender legs shivering while her hands attempted to casually tug the hem of her skirt down a bit so as to cover even a centimeter more of skin. Kelly chuckled. She never learns.

Christine had the habit of always wearing especially revealing costumes on Halloween, temperature or weather be damned. Every year she would dress as a sexy school girl or Little Bo Peep or Harley Quinn or Alice fresh from a trip to Wonderland and every year she took the opportunity to show off as much skin as she could. An intelligent and proper young woman most of the time, Christine seemed to view Halloween as an excuse to lock up the formal side of herself and let her inner siren out. This was part of the reason why Kelly never called out her friend for her choice of costumes. It was nice to remember that there was the same party girl from college underneath all that bookish academia. This year Christine was donning a Strawberry Shortcake “costume”. A short skirt, puff-sleeved top, thigh high stockings, and a soft woolen bonnet. The bonnet looked like it had only the vaguest potential to be warm, but the rest of her body seemed wrapped in less fabric in total than an average washcloth. Tyler and Marcus kept it simple and came as the Super Mario Brothers.

Kelly watched Christine’s knees clacking and suddenly felt herself feeling more appreciative of the costume she put together this year. Warmer than I thought they would be. Her fingers drifted casually behind her and gently traced her rear through the back of her skirt. Through the petticoat she felt and heard the slight rustling of plastic and cotton. She shifted her legs and felt a delicate crackle against her inner thighs. From within her Mary Jane shoes, a pair of opaque white tights stretched up her legs and disappeared into the jungle of sheer fluff that was her petticoat. All of this, coupled with the Carebear hoodie she wore made Kelly smile with self-satisfaction.

“Same crew?”

Tyler’s question pulled Kelly back from her mental tangent.

Marcus clicked his tongue and looked at his brochure. “Dunno. I’d assume so.”

Kelly looked at the piece of paper. Like the other attendees Kelly and Tyler had received their brochure and tickets in the mail this year and were instructed to bring both in order to be permitted entry.

Risking the chill, Kelly stepped out from underneath the entrance awning and up at the building they would all soon be entering. The yellow and white lamps on the building’s exterior shone down at the entrance like spotlights, making the top parapets of the castle vanish into the dark sky.

The Heartstead House was a tall, imposing building built of thick gray stones. Mined from overseas and transported to the northern coast of Long Island, New York in the early 1900’s, they were originally constructed into Castle Bergenheim where the wealthy Bergenheim family lived for decades. As time passed and one thing led to another, the Bergenheim family left the property, all two hundred fifty acres of land were given over to the state and preserved as the Beach Point Conservancy, with Castle Bergenheim being renamed to The Heartstead House.

It stood on a small cliff face overlooking the thin, rocky beach and the water which stretched out northward toward Connecticut, a castle standing silent on the edge of the water. Tonight, the far distant New England shores twinkled with Halloween light. Far away on the watery horizon, the murmurs of thunder began to warm up. In a few minutes, Kelly and the others would enter the Heartstead House for a yearly tradition. Every October the castle would be taken over by performers and transformed into a fully immersive Halloween Haunt.

Well… “haunt” wasn’t entirely the right word.

On this day five years ago, Kelly and Tyler had found themselves in a situation where they didn’t want to stay home and give out candy to the neighborhood brats but also had no friends available to spend the holiday with. That year, Halloween had landed on a Monday. After a quick online search for nearby events, they found that many of the recurring neighborhood shows and events were either sold out or closed for one reason or another. Then one of Kelly’s friends finally responded to a text.

“Turns out, Reggie and his friend just bailed on us. If you guys can get here before 9 we’ll hold the tickets for you.” Kelly looked at the time. They’d be cutting it close. “If we leave now we can make it,” she said to Tyler, who agreed.

Kelly made sure she drove.

As they ventured across town, Tyler pulled out his phone and dug a little deeper into the show so as to get a better idea of what to expect. It was described on the website as an “intensely immersive experience”. Self-aggrandizement, they assumed, expecting a typical haunted house with stock audio files, dark hallways, and people in rubber Spirit Halloween masks popping out from behind dark corners. They were seasoned Halloween-ers, and this wasn’t the first time a Halloween Haunt touted itself as being flashy when the final product disappointed. As Kelly drove and Tyler investigated they did not have the highest of hopes for their evening. Tyler attempted to make a light time out of even the worst situations, and he was often at his most comfortable when laughing at lameness, so he had no concerns over a “cheesey spookfest” being entertaining.

They were surprised, then, to find themselves plunged into a piece of theater that surrounded them on all sides and from all angles and delivered an engaging story rather than goofs and gimmicks. Instead of locals volunteering to be the boogeyman once a year, professional actors performed a deep and intricate narrative where the audience members were often asked to participate. Expert technical design elevated it from a typical “Halloween haunt” to something more sophisticated. More impactful.

And as a result, more unnerving.

A theater bug and always a lover of the arts, Kelly found the experience enchanting, but Tyler was not as entertained. He enjoyed it and was genuinely impressed by the quality of the craft but he didn’t care too much for its more “cerebral” quality, preferring instead to spend Halloween doing mindlessly fun and spooky things. It often took some effort to get Tyler to join in subsequent years. He would sometimes forgo it entirely leaving Kelly to attend with her girlfriends, but this year Marcus and Christine tagging along were enough to persuade him to come. Once they went on sale, Kelly snatched four tickets for the very last performance of the month-long run: the closing show on Halloween night.

A young woman sitting behind a fold-out table at the entrance spoke to the throng of people in a loud voice. “Anyone who has not checked in, signed the waivers, and gotten their hand stamp, please do so now!”

Kelly and Tyler broke off from the others, realizing they had neglected to do so. Biting the middle finger of his cartoonishly large white gloves, Tyler slid his hand free and extended it to accept the ink stamp. After the check-in process was complete and the waivers signed, the ticket girl tore off the perforated portion of the brochures and handed them back to Kelly. Kelly handed the ticket stubs to Tyler who deposited them into a pocket of the hoodie he wore over his Mario overalls before turning back to the others.

“One more thing,” said the ticket girl, pulling up a Polaroid camera, “stand against that wall, please,”

Kelly cocked an eyebrow. This is new. “What for?” she asked.

The ticket girl smiled. “For our wall of memories, of course!” When Kelly didn’t look too convinced, the girl let her demeanor cool by a few degrees and added, “Part of the show. No photo, no entry. Sorry. That’s the rules.”

Still unconvinced and confused but not caring enough to argue, Kelly obliged, standing in front of a stretch of white wall and popping the pacifier dangling from her collar into her mouth with a smile. The girl snapped the photo. Tyler followed suit with a white-gloved double thumbs up. Once the photographs slid out from the camera, the ticket girl provided a permanent black marker and said, “Please write your first name on the bottom.” Kelly and Tyler did so and handed the photos and markers back. “Doors will be opening soon,” said the ticket girl with a smile.

She was dressed like a gypsy or fortune-teller and Kelly could tell just by the cut of some of the pieces of fabric that this girl had not just plucked this off a shelf at a costume store. It looked authentic and almost custom made. Her teeth were slightly yellow and she was wearing a strange ornamental headdress. It was silver and gold with tiny blue sapphires embedded within, the largest one dangling in the middle of her forehead like some bizarre third eye.

Kelly twitched.

A feeling of DeJa Vu and vertigo washed over her so strongly that she thought the asphalt beneath her feet had heaved. She shook her head. “Woah, babe. You ok?” Tyler said, noticing. “You look...”

“I’m fine. Just a dizzy spell,” she said, steadying herself.

“You sure?”

“Yeah, just give me a second.”

“If you’re not feeling well, we don’t have to go in.”

“I said I’m fine!” Kelly popped with a little more force than she intended. Of course he would look for any excuse to not be here, Kelly found herself thinking bitterly. Tyler had snapped back an inch from Kelly and his eyebrows were furrowed in concern. “Sorry,” said Kelly after a moment, “It’ll pass.”

Christine approached from behind. “You guys did the picture thing? That’s new. I don’t remember them doing that last tiii– woah, Kelly. You alright?”

“Y-yeah,” murmured Kelly. “Just dizzy.”

Marcus slid up next to Christine and took in the scene deadpanned. “Stomach fucked up? Gotta hit the bathroom? The brochure said there’s no available bathrooms inside but there’s a port-o-john around the cor–.”

“Fuck. That.” The finality in Kelly's tone was clear.

Tyler chuckled. “Yeah, that would never happen. You should have seen Kelly at CarnageFest this summer. Those port-o-potties were legendarily horrendous."

“Don’t remind me. Just being near them I could feel the stench sticking to the inside of my nose for two days after that,” said Kelly with a shudder of recollection. Tyler smiled and pulled Kelly into a hug so she could lean on his chest for support. After a moment Kelly’s world began to right itself as she leaned against her boy’s slowly heaving chest. She buried her face in the jacket he wore over his red shirt and overalls. Mmmmmm. She allowed herself a moment to snuggle into him. Just his soft hug was enough to help the vertigo subside.  Thank heavens for tall boyfriends.

“Besides,” Tyler commented slyly, “she wouldn’t need to go all the way to the port-o-john tonight, anyway. Isn’t that right, baby?”

For a moment Kelly tried to gather the meaning of what Tyler had said, but before she could piece it together Tyler had lifted the back of Kelly’s skirt, exposing the thick diapers Kelly wore for Marcus and Christine to see. Her tights were opaque but stretched thinly enough around the infantile padding for the printed baby block design to be seen underneath. Marcus gave a small chuckle while Christine smiled and let out a long, patronizing “Aaaawwww, look at you, sweetie!”

“Hey!” yelped Kelly quietly, slapping Tyler’s hand and tugging her skirt back down. When putting on her costume earlier she had been conscious of how short the skirt was and how little she needed to bend for her strange underwear to be on display, so it stung that Tyler would effectively flash her in public. Inwardly, however, she was surprised at how she hadn’t noticed or felt it happening. There was enough padding wrapped around her that she hadn’t noticed her skirt move at all. “Ty, that’s not cool!”

Tyler smirked his maddeningly adorable smirk and Kelly felt her heat subside. “Don’t worry, there was nobody behind you except these two jokers,” he wagged a gloved finger at their compatriots, “and you did dress for the occasion, no sense in hiding it. Besides, you look adorable. Way better than everyone else’s attempts.”

“Ohmygod, SO fucking adorable, and coming from me that means something,” said Christine genuinely, wiping away her faux maternal cooing. It was true, and Kelly could feel it. Of the twenty or so people waiting outside, many of whom were in costume, only about six seemed dressed in sync for the event. Four were wearing costumes bought off the rack at Party City and two of them clearly just tried (and failed, in Kelly’s opinion) to throw together a costume with things they already owned. What a fucking waste. Kelly had thought this every Halloween season. In contrast to Christine’s bookish academia, Kelly was right-brained and loves expressionism and art. Naturally she loved dressing up, and therefore she could never grasp why so many people wasted the unique opportunity afforded by Halloween. As with the previous years, the invitation brochure stated “Wearing outfits matching this year’s theme is encouraged but not required.” And she did so.

The cast of these shows would sometimes interact directly with the crowd, and oftentimes those who came dressed in a way that matched the theme of the show received the most attention. However, most audience members often couldn’t be bothered to get dressed up or just didn’t care to read the ticket fully, and Kelly would always click her teeth at those who let the holiday pass by without so much as some face paint.

The wardrobe recommendations were usually guidelines. Casual dress, Gothic, Bright colors, etc. The style and theme of the Heartstead House shows changed drastically from year to year. Vampires, nightmares, suicide cults, it was always a completely different theme. During the COVID years they lacked the ability to create an indoor show, so they produced one outside using the impressively large forest and camping trails on the Beach Point Conservancy property. It centered around the Native American monster, the Wendigo, and every half hour or so a group of audience members would delve deep into the woods into a “quarantine zone”, each group led by a Senior Ranger Bob and their fresh-faced assistant, Junior Ranger Danny. For the costume dress code that year Kelly threw together a boy scout outfit with short-shorts so revealing it would make every perverted camp counselor in one hundred miles start salivating. This year however, the dress code recommendations weren’t included and Kelly assumed the public was left to guess.

For the vampire show, she had arrived in a sleek black dress, dramatically striking make-up, a bone-white wig, and freshly molded fangs. With the rare opportunity to go full-on goth mode, she decided to go all out and as a result she felt like Victorian royalty possessed by Satan.

This year the show was titled The Orphanage. What she was currently wearing didn’t make her feel quite as seductive as previous years.

She wore a sweater made of soft pink fleece which covered a white Hello Kitty t-shirt in a child’s 2XL. She added extra blush and a few more freckles to her already peppered cheeks, slid into her white tights, and buckled her feet into a pair of black Mary Jane shoes she borrowed from a friend. To match, she wore a pink and blue polka-dot skirt with a white petticoat, and although she was initially hesitant, she decided it was worth going the extra mile and completing the ensemble with adult diapers printed to mimic a baby's. To her mild surprise, the Google search quickly led her to a multitude of online businesses dedicated to such items, and even she had to admit being impressed by how many types of baby-printed adult diapers there were.

The shit you can find online, she thought to herself in amusement as she clicked “ADD TO CART” alongside an oversized pacifier and clip. I guess there’s a community for everyone these days, and this one must be bigger than I thought it was. Growing up online, she would once in a blue moon come across stories or articles about people who would dress up and act like babies. These occasions were few and far between, and it seemed harmless enough though undeniably weird. Upon discovering the sheer volume of different products dedicated to this fringe group, she realized that the community might be bigger than she had thought. She was never one to “kink shame”, but still, the act of personally buying such items for herself, even for Halloween, still came with a sense of residual embarrassment.

At least if I get too drunk I won’t have to worry about the bathroom, she had joked to herself as she had lay on her bed and taped the second of the two sample pack diapers between her smooth legs. With no intention or desire to save a diaper for another occasion she decided to wear both. This is going to make my ass look great.

They were thicker and louder than she thought they would be. Sliding it out of the packaging it felt almost like a vacuum-sealed pillow that was finally given permission to breathe again. Once taped closed, she couldn’t shake the slight feeling that even if she did use them she doubt anyone would even notice. Her initial concerns over whether or not they would feel like sanitary pads immediately evaporated. This wasn’t like Kotex. This was like wearing a mattress. For a moment it was hard to get used to the feeling of so much padding between her legs and the way her behind swayed heavily back and forth when she walked, but she twisted and adjusted and eventually the plastic and cotton seemed to settle into place. She checked herself out in the bedroom mirror and had to resist laughing. She felt weird, but to her surprise, this alien garment covered in cartoon animals and baby blocks actually didn’t look bad. Once she had completed the costume and returned to the mirror she turned profile and saw that her puffy underwear made the back of the skirt flare out adorably. Within a half hour she had completely forgotten that she was wearing them at all.

Kelly had practically forgotten about the two-inch-thick padding swaddling her until Tyler had pulled up her skirt. Suddenly the natural embarrassment of being a twenty-six year old woman wearing a diaper surged back into her, despite the nature of the holiday and the handful of people with lazier, less flattering costumes by comparison.

Tyler sensed he may have gone too far, and smiled. “I’m sorry, babe. Just messing with you, and besides, what's the point of wearing that thing if you’re not going to let people see it?”

“Just because I’m dressed like a baby doesn’t mean you have to treat me like one,” she said as she popped her hood up around her pigtails to cover her reddening ears. Tyler chuckled more heartily and Marcus and Christine bit down their own laughs or hid them behind their hands.

“That might be kind of difficult,” said Christine.

Kelly had forgotten that the hood of the sweatshirt came with fuzzy bear ears that stuck up adorably around the brim. Realizing this she couldn’t resist a laugh at her own expense. Tyler leaned forward to kiss her nose, tickling her face with the large stuck-on mustache. She smiled, and when Tyler snatched the pacifier hanging from Kelly’s sweater and pressed it gently to Kelly’s lips she only playfully resisted for a moment before smiling and accepting it.

“Good girl,” said Tyler as he pulled her into another warm hug.

A few late-comers had just finished filling out the paperwork before a heavy thunk broke the din. The solid oak doors of the castle’s entrance began to open with a deep creak. The chatter fell to silence.

A sandy-haired man poked his head out of the foyer. Darkness seemed to leak out from behind the doors into the night. Kelly felt the wind pick up again. Catching the eyes of the attendees he smiled and walked out to greet them, a ring of keys jingling loudly at his waist. With a commanding voice he spoke with arms held wide.

“Welcome, welcome everyone to the Beach Point Orphanage. It has been years since we’ve opened our doors to the public and we are so excited to have you all here with us to visit our little ones. Before we may enter, there are some house rules to follow.”

Kelly could practically feel Tyler’s eyes rolling in frustration, and a quick glance around the crowd showed her that her boyfriend was not the only one who found this superfluous. They were eager for the show to begin. Tyler was as well. The sooner they start the sooner they’d end.

“Number one:” the man listed, “Stay with your party at all times. We may separate you, but unless otherwise instructed, stay together.”

“Number two: Do not touch what doesn’t belong to you, and that includes everything.”

“Number three: Turn off and put away your cell phones and electronic devices.”

At this, the man looked at the crowd expectantly. A moment of awkward silence passed as a few people turned their phones off or tried to stealthily set them to silent instead. Once those all who seemed willing to abide had finished, the man continued.

“Number four: Please remain quiet, and only speak when spoken to.”

“Number five: For both our safety and yours, you are to follow any instructions given to you by our staff without hesitation. If we can follow those five rules, your visit with us should be just wonderful. Sound good?” There was a smattering of agreement from the more mentally present in the crowd. The sandy-haired man smiled. “Very well then. If you would follow me.” He turned and stepped back inside the darkness within, only his hand holding the door open behind him could be seen.

Kelly threaded her fingers through Tyler’s, and smiling behind the pacifier she tried to convey without words how happy she was that he had come with her. She knew it wasn’t really what he wanted to be doing, so at the very least she appreciated him making that sacrifice for her. Hand in hand, Kelly and Tyler fell in line with the others.

One by one they stepped inside.

Chapter II. HERE