April flash tale #1 - "Check"

Miss Egan?

She wasn’t anyone, really. No one high up. Not like a teacher, or one of the doctors. Miss Egan was the facilities manager; basically, she was there to make sure the lights stayed on.

But that didn’t stop her taking advantage.

“Come, let me make sure you haven’t embarrassed yourself.”

On my first day as her assistant, I discovered that she had influence. All those cameras, picking up on agents’ indiscretions and political intrigues. She had intelligence on enough players in Pardkale to wield significant power.

So, what did she do with that power?

“Come on, don’t be shy! Let Mummy check.”

She dressed her assistant up and kept him in nappies.

My very first day, she took me down to the lower floor and put me in one of those adult-sized outfits they give the mentally regressed, with the thick underwear to match.

And I know what you’re thinking. Right there and then, you’d leave. You’d walk out. But it’s not as simple as that. By then, I’ve got the scoop on what happens in Parkdale. I’ve signed papers, I’m not going anywhere. I know what happens to quitters.

Still, I stood at Miss Egan’s desk in my red overalls with the tractor on the front and I asked her, of course I did, “Why?”

She folded her arms, snorted derisively. “It’s what all you men want. To be mothered, to be controlled.”

It isn’t. I took no joy or comfort in the childish outfits. I certainly didn’t appreciate my boss calling herself ‘Mummy’, and I sure as hell didn’t enjoy the daily nappy checks, Miss Egan beckoning me to her desk with a curled finger, and then using the same finger to pull back the elastic waistband of my trousers so she could make sure I was “still dry.”

Weeks and months go by, through a summer with juvenile T-shirts proclaiming Here Comes The Fun! Or Trouble Never Looked So Sweet, and then the autumn with overalls and jumpers decorated with dinosaurs and lorries.

And every morning and evening, Miss Egan checks my nappy.

“Chop-chop! Time for Mummy to check you’re still nice and dry.”

It’s never wet. How could it be? Because it’s just clothes; she didn’t do anything to me, not like the agents treat their targets. I’m not mentally regressed, I’m on the Parkdale payroll.

But Miss Egan seems to delight in the possibility that I’ll crack and give in.

“One of these days, you’re going to be soaking wet and begging me to change you.” She dismisses me with a smirk.

And then one lunchtime, I was in the park, sitting on a bench and eating a tuna and sweetcorn sandwich, when a schoolboy sat down beside me. Told me he was going to do me a favour.

“You must be sick of her,” he says, taking a small plastic pouch from his pocket and putting it down between us. “And it’s easy. Just a little jab.”

I understood what he was offering. And I could imagine why; Miss Egan must have stepped out of line one too many times.

Just a little jab. But when he stood up, I held out my hand to stop him. “Just…why me? Why not do it yourself?” I pick up the pouch, feel its weight. “You’re an agent, after all.”

The teenager grins – I can see why all the girls fall for him – but there’s a flicker of uncertainty on his face. “This is a little…unofficial.” He nods at me. “Things are changing. You’re gonna want to be on the right side of this.”

And then he was gone, and I was left holding the pouch.

Now, I look down at Miss Egan.

Although, that name doesn’t really work for her anymore.

After the change, I put her in a nappy, dressed her in a pink bodysuit which says Big Smiles on the front.

She doesn’t have a big smile. On the contrary, she looks up at me with fear in her eyes.

No big smiles, because Miss Egan – sorry, I mean Violet - still knows who she was, she understands all that she’s lost. She has already tried to win me over; first with red-faced threats, and then with pleaded bargains.

What’s worse, to have her adult mind trapped in an infant’s body, or to know that the mental regression will take hold, leaking out her adult thoughts and leaving her just another drooling baby?

The kid left it up to me; either way, they wanted rid of her. I pick up the baby, offer her the bottle of milk.  bottle in my hands.

Violet must wonder, beyond fearing her loss of position and identity, what I have planned for her.

She won’t wonder for long. She accepts the teat, still looking at me with those wide, pleading eyes, and she drinks the treated milk. I hold her, and I’m reminded how heavy a baby can feel after a while. She finishes the bottle, and her fingers uncurl, she dribbles milk down her chin, and I raise her to my shoulder, rub her back with small circles until I earn her burps.

“Let me check you,” I whisper gently. But there’s no need to check, and there’s no need to tease. What would be the point of mocking a baby?

I lay her down to sleep, and I call the number I was given for a special emergency like this one. They will find their Miss Egan reduced to infancy, and I will claim ignorance. And I will hope my next boss lets me wear a suit.

THE END

A sadistic Parkdale boss humiliates her employee with 'nappy checks', but he gets revenge by sending her back to the nursery for real - Byron