May Flash tale #1 - "Relief"

Ngatea, New Zealand

When it happens, it is everything.

It doesn’t feel like everything. It just feels like a relief.

After her arrival in Ngatea, Valerie played the part to perfection. Keenly aware that she was under observation, she continued to behave in the same docile, simple way she had on the journey from England. As if she was still under the hypnotic trigger that her handler, the brusque and efficient Dave, had used at her flat, and then at 36,000 feet.

She had allowed Alexa, a woman 10 years younger and far less pretty, to clothe her like a toddler in the yellow dress that let anyone know that Valerie was wearing a nappy. She had agreed that her pigtails looked sweet as, she had not even asked for shoes to wear.

She doesn’t try to seduce Alexa, although it would have been easy. The girl is barely a grown-up herself, and Valerie doesn’t discriminate. But she plays the part. She is clumsy, she is messy, she wets herself. She lets herself be bathed, fed, coddled, put to sleep with the most asinine of bedtime stories.

It’s a lot to put up with, and every instinct in Valerie’s mind tells her to forget this, to take out the girl and make a break for it. But Valerie is interested in getting away for good, not just a matter of precious hours and minutes before they track her down. She wants to get away for good. Which means she needs someone with power. As is the case most of the time, Valerie needs a man.

Valerie prepares herself for a week of immaculately mentally regressed behaviour, lulling everyone, allowing them to worry about someone else, maybe someone who wasn’t a former Parkdale agent, before Valerie will put her plan into action.

But after just two days of being babysat, with jetlag still in her eyes and legs, Valerie is sent to school.

“She’s a little nervous,” says Alexa, introducing her to the teacher.

“She’ll be right,” Mr. Briggs replies.

Mister.

He gives her a look. Of course, he does. He looks at Valerie in the way that men do. Even as she giggles and plays like a two-year-old, there’s no denying her curves, the way she moves. Her body is hypnotic.

So, forget the plan, Valerie decides, confident despite her babyish dress, sure-footed despite her lack of shoes. She will dazzle him. She will lure him.

Really, it’s not a fair fight. But neither was abducting Valerie from her post-Parkdale life. Hadn’t she done her duty? Wasn’t it enough?

At the first break, when the other students are lining up for their morning snack, Mr. Briggs makes the time for a one-on-one moment with Valerie. He takes her by the hand and leads her to the carpeted play area.

“Just want to make sure you’re settling in,” says Mr. Briggs. “You haven’t played here with our little pretend village.”

Valerie looks over at the other students. They are engaged fully with the classroom assistant; they are focused on nothing but juice boxes and gingernuts. They have spent the morning so far engaged with activities designed for the youngest of children. Valerie has seen several of them require nappy changes.

She can’t pretend like this for a week. She can’t.

But that’s okay. She beams at the teacher. This won’t take long. It has never taken long.

She looks down at the plush rug beneath her feet. A kind of play-mat, with roads and houses. The kind of thing small children love to imagine with, on their hands and knees, pushing plastic cars and dropping plastic people.

She looks back at Mr. Briggs with her wide eyes. She curls a pigtail around her fingers just as her toes curl into the carpet.

“Don’t like cars,” she says in her babyish voice. Doan wike cahs. She bats her eyelashes. “Cars are for boys.”

Mr. Briggs looks thoughtful. “And you’re a girl.”

Valerie nods. There’s no doubt about that. She tightens the hair around her fingers, and for a moment she wonders about her fingers – are they getting lost in her hair, will they find their way out? – and then she giggles, digging her pretty toes into the fuzzy rug.

When it happens, it is everything. It is nothing. It happens in a blink.

“I’m a girl,” she agrees. A girl who always gets what she wants from stupid men. “Cause I got…” And as her mind changes, more gently and fully than it had with the blunt, hypnotic trigger, Valerie finds herself distracted by the word Dave used to describe her chest. A silly word. She wrinkles her nose. She won’t use that one. She wants something pretty, something…sexy.

“Honey?” says Mr. Briggs softly. He looks into her eyes. “You right?”

Valerie grins. She’s more than okay. She nods her head, pigtails jiggling. “I got boobies,” she whispers. Her secret…no, her not-so-secret weapon. She pushes her shoulders back proudly. All she must do is-

“You sure do,” says Mr. Briggs. He winks. “Are they bouncy?”

Which is a funny thing for a man to say to her. A perfectly funny thing. And there’s something in Mr. Briggs’ expression, something in those eyes, that helps Valerie understand exactly what the teacher is looking for.

Valerie bends her knees and then she jumps up, and her breasts bounce freely under her pretty yellow dress, because girls like Valerie don’t need a bra, girls like her are free to play and have the sweetest, most innocent of fun.

“Bouncy bouncy!” Boun-thee boun-thee!

She jumps up and down and Mr. Briggs claps his hands, clearly impressed. “So bouncy,” he says, and smiles. “What a bouncy girl you are.”

Valerie giggles and nods, feeling out of breath, feeling out of her depth, and it’s a relief when she stops worrying about her plan, any plan, and just waits for whatever the teacher says next. He’ll say something, and she’ll agree. Easy as that.

“Bouncy girl,” says Mr. Briggs. He pats her head affectionately. “They told me you’d be trouble, but you’re no trouble at all.” He smiles. “You’re good as gold, Val.”

Valerie responds with an open-mouthed smile. She loves her new teacher. She can feel a dampness in her underwear – all that bouncing, all that silliness – but it’s nothing to worry about.

“Ready for your snack?” asks Mr. Briggs. “Wanna biccy?”

Valerie nods and bounces again. “Uh-huh!”

“Thought so.” And Mr. Briggs takes Valerie over so she can be with the other students.

THE END

A sequel to Tatas, Valerie tries to escape her fate as the girl with the biggest boobs at Ngatea's special school - Elfie