Stars - sneak peak!

Brand new male AR story "Stars" is coming this week, exclusively on Patreon. Here's a sneak peak of this work-in-progress!

My condition is impossible. People aren’t turned into babies. And yet here I am. I squeeze my thighs, the bulge of a nappy between my legs. It’s slightly damp, I must have used it in my sleep. Before I woke up, before my mind really came back to itself. 

I’m not twenty-five years old, I’m I touch my my hands in the dark as if I can guess my physical age by checking the fat folds and chubby fingers, like counting the rings on a tree trunk. I stroke the front of my footed pyjamas and feel the fuzzy pattern - a hedgehog. Just like the soft toy beside me. 

Hoggy. Suddenly, I have to hold the toy. It’s all I care about and I reach around me, trying to remember - on my left or right - and I’m flailing, panicking, my breathing picking up pace, and the coherent part of my brain, the part that seems to suddenly be shrinking back, tells me that I’m in danger of hyper-ventilating. 

I reach out desperately, over-balancing and falling onto my side. 

Where’s Hoggy? Where’s my-

There. In one hand and then both, clutched against my chest, and then brushing against my face. 

My breathing slows, I can feel my stomach muscles relax and I know I’m smiling. I’m happy because I have my Hoggy. He’s been my friend, all this time, in the crib with me, at nap times and at night, for that big sleep when Mummy isn’t here and I get so-

I freeze, the toy held tightly in my little hands. 

Careful. Something about that toy, something about Hoggy, that reminds my brain that I’m just a baby, that I should put the fuzzy animal to my mouth, suck on my and kick my feet, that I should moan and babble and forget all about my grown-up thoughts. 

I brush Hoggy against my lips, and the feeling is tantalizing, seductive, and my smile broadens, because I’m such a naughty boy, sucking on Hoggy like a silly, stupid baby, and if I suck on Hoggy I’ll want to suck on my dummy, which must also be around here in  my crib, lost in the dark, and maybe that’s why I woke up in the first place, I lost my dum-dum, and it’s so dark in here, I don’t even have my glowy lights. Mummy can fix it. Or Granny. I’m gonna call for Mummy. 

I purse my lips, ready to fuss and grumble, prepared for a wailing Plan B if that doesn’t work. 

And then I freeze. No, I can’t go back to that infantile confusion. I won’t go back. 

The toy I’m holding - is that what reduced my mind to drooling confusion in the first place? 

I want to suck on Hoggy’s feet, just like I do every night. I want to feel that sweet sense of safety and calm. 

Instead, I choose anxiety but also clarity, as I hold up the toy and throw it. 

Perhaps I won’t throw far enough. Perhaps the hedgehog will bounce off the bars and back into my arms. If that happens, I’ll have Hoggy back, and I’m not sure I’ll have the willpower to throw him away a second time. 

I’m not sure I want to have the willpower.