The Magic Collar, Part Four

By popular demand, here we go!

...

“Do you know what you’re going to wish for?” Vera asked.

At that, Belle nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I think I do. I wish…” She took a deep breath, reconsidered for a moment, then stood up on tip toe to whisper in Vera’s ear.

Vera nodded, eyes sparkling with delight. “Yes, if that’s what you want! A thousand times yes.”

Bolstered by the reaffirmation, Belle said aloud, “I wish I could be Vera’s little one whenever we want, for as long as we both want.”

A jingling sounded in the air, and the collar around her neck slackened. Belle hesitated, reaching up to feel it, and it shifted on her neck–still her collar, but no longer tight. Curiously, she reached back, unbuckling it, taking it off to inspect the object.

Just a collar, nothing more, but the rest of her didn’t change. Her outfit remained juvenile and little, shortalls with a puffy diaper beneath.

“I want to be big,” she said, and in an eyeblink, her clothes were replaced, back to their original form–leather jacket, black pants, though her diaper remained–a necessity, now that her potty training had been taken. “I want to be little.” Again, her clothes changed, the world shifting around her as she adopted the baby clothes and persona.

“Does saying your name still do anything?” Vera asked. Belle shrugged, and so she said, “Belle.”

Turning pink, Belle felt the pressure build and instantly vanish, flooding her recently changed diaper without an ounce of control. She thought that might be it, and by the time she realized another urge, she’d already dropped down, squatting with her legs wide, moving unconsciously to relieve the need. Her diaper swelled in the seat, and Vera couldn’t help but stifle a giggle.

“Cute,” Vera said, offering a hand to help Belle back up. “Let’s get you home and changed, though, okay?”

Belle nodded, glancing around. She could return to her grown form so nobody would think her a toddler with no control, but she suspected her diaper would remain just as smelly, and being a grown woman with potty pants seemed worse. So, she took Vera’s hand, waddling out of the mall.

There certainly hadn’t been a Belle-sized carseat in Vera’s sedan when they arrived, but they both relished the chance. Little Belle climbed in, and Vera managed the five point harness, pinning her safely into the carseat. She squirmed at the half-helpless, half-secure sensation that coursed up her body when the buckle clicked.

Belle knew there was more, and she was desperate to see it, bouncing a hand on her knee while Vera drove home. She couldn’t wait. When they got back, and Vera had her unbuckled, Belle tore out of the carseat and rushed to the front door, only to have to wait again.

Vera caught up to her doing an impatient dance on the stoop, and Belle anxiously pointed at the door, shifting her weight from foot to foot. “Come on, I want to see!”

“See what?” Vera asked, unlocking the door.

“My room!” Belle explained, ducking inside and waddling down the hall.

Instead of a shared bedroom at the end, there were now two doors, one with a potty training chart hanging from the front–purely decorative, Belle knew, since they’d be tracking only storm clouds and rainy days, but the aesthetic made her giggle. Throwing open the door, though…

It’d come from nowhere. The room hadn’t even existed, but now, a crib big enough to sleep her comfortably, a changing table loaded with supplies, even a play corner with an interlocking foam mat and baby-proof fence. Puffy clouds and buzzing bumblebees were painted on the baby blue walls.

Vera stepped up behind her. “Oh…oh, wow.”

Belle’s room. Belle’s nursery, really. It was perfect.

If, that is, that’s what she wished for. But, then again, she might have wished for something else. The possibilities were endless, and it could have gone like this:

“Do you know what you’re going to wish for?” Vera asked.

At that, Belle nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I think I do. I wish…” She hesitated. The wish seemed too big, too grand, beyond anything she’d seen magic do before. A part of her worried she might be stretching things beyond the limit, and fairy tales of people who asked too much of magic played at the back of her head.

But, then again, she’d been promised a wish.

“I wish that everyone could enjoy this like we do,” she said, and in that instant, the world changed.

Belle and Vera were the only two who remembered the way it was before. The only two who knew what she’d done–or, at least, the only two who were perfectly human. But, even with their old memories, they knew the world as it was. They knew what everyone else knew.

Nearby, a man a few years Belle’s senior held hands with a grown woman who was suckling on her thumb. “Come on, Jeanie, let’s get your diaper changed, ok?” he told her. “The changing room’s right over here.”

Belle walked through the mall, eyes huge, taking it all in. Next to lingerie models in panties were boys and girls in designer diapers and Gucci onesies, advertised as the latest fashion. An adult daycare was set next to the massage parlor, and each had as much foot traffic as the other.

A group of college-aged sorority girls walked past, gossiping, and Belle overheard snippets.

“I just don’t take him for a big–do you really think that’s the kind of guy who uses the potty?”

“I’d change his diaper, if you know what I mean.”

“But I guess Katie told Kathy that he’s Kaightlyn’s new big, and they’re going steady, so–”

“Wait, Kaightlyn? What happened to her whole ‘I’m a big independent girl who doesn’t care about regressing’ speech?”

And then the conversation passed. It sounded…normal. Like the standard relationship gossip one might hear any day.

“Belle–” Vera said, putting a hand on her shoulder. Belle turned pink as her collar jingled, forcing her to lose control just the same as it’d been before, squatting down and filling up her diaper in the middle of the mall.

This time, though, the looks of passersby didn’t read as, ‘There’s a cute child’, they read as, ‘There’s a cute woman’. A guy whistled, then a friend smacked him on the back of the head and told him not to be a creep. A couple across the corridor smiled in her direction, as if they’d just witnessed a romantic kiss.

“Let’s…I need a change,” Belle said.

“Of course, sweetie,” Vera replied, just as stunned at the transformation. Leading her towards the mall’s bathrooms, they saw another change:

There were still two restroom stations, but now, instead of being divided along gender lines, the spaces were split between Stalls and Tables, with stick figure signs indicating the division. Below a sign reminding people to wash their hands, was another sign reminding people to change poopy diapers immediately and deposit them only in the diaper pails, not the trash bins.

They had to wait for a changing table, as couples–boyfriends and girlfriends, spouses, platonic friends, every flavor of intimate relationships–did each other’s diapers.

“Is this what you wanted?” Vera asked, as she helped Belle up onto the next free table. “Ah–I didn’t bring a change, do you…”

“I have one,” A stranger supplied, passing it over from their diaper bag. “Do you have wipes?”

Vera accepted the diaper, an athletic design with a trademarked triple stripe on the front. “No, sorry–I forgot my diaper bag.”

“No worries, happens to me all the time,” the stranger chuckled, sharing his wipes as well.

Belle didn’t know if this was what she’d wanted, but it seemed okay. A world she could be happy living in.

If, that is, that’s what she wished for. But, then again, she might have wished for something else. The possibilities were endless, and it could have gone like this:

“Do you know what you’re going to wish for?” Vera asked.

At that, Belle nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I think I do. In fact…well…”

“What is it?” Vera tilted her head, glancing around the mall.

“I already made it,” Belle said. “I got what I wanted.”

Vera’s eyes widened. “What’s that?”

Belle didn’t answer for a long moment. She wanted to think about how to phrase it, how to say, ‘I’m not going to tell you’ without it coming off like an insult. “You know how, when you make a wish on your birthday candles, you’re not supposed to tell anyone or it won’t come true?”

“Oh,” Vera said. For a moment, Belle thought she’d take it personally, or get upset. Vera’s next sentence didn’t quell those anxieties. “Will I notice what it is?”

“I don’t think so,” Belle admitted, taking a half step closer. Though they both stood in the middle of a busy mall, in the moment, it felt like just the two of them, with the noise and wash of people blurring to white noise. “I just had a question, something I wanted to know the answer to. I told him, and he gave me the answer I wanted, but it’s something I can’t share. I don’t know if I can explain better than that.”

Vera nodded, pursing her lips. “A question? You could have had anything in the world, and you just wanted a question answered?”

“I don’t want anything in the world,” Belle said, lacing her fingers with Vera’s, squeezing her girlfriend’s hand. “I don’t want to be rich beyond belief. I don’t know if I could try to fix all the world’s problems with magic, I’m not smart enough for that, I think if I tried I’d just make things different but not any better. Any object I wished for, it’d just be exciting until the novelty wore off. I couldn’t think of any thing in the world that mattered more to me than the question.”

Vera considered that for a moment and, in lieu of words, leaned in and kissed Belle on the lips. When they parted, she whispered, “I don’t understand, and I’m dying to know what you asked, but that’s okay. If I had any wish in the world, it’d just be for you, and I’ve already got you here with me.”

Belle melted in Vera’s embrace. The words were no surprise, but to hear them still sent her heart into summersaults, knowing she was cared for, knowing she had someone to care for. In retrospect, her wish had been wasted–she’d known the truth, and hearing it had only given her confidence, quelled her worst fears.

(A question? Are you sure?)

(Yes. I just want a truthful answer.)

(Alright. Ask, but know that truths can be changed. Ask me what will happen in ten years, and your own actions will butterfly into a new world based on that knowledge.)

(Mmm…)

(Have you changed your mind?)

(No. I still want to ask. Is she the one? Is it real? Will we be together forever?)

(That’s three questions.)

(Sorry.)

(It’s alright. I’ll answer them all, because the answer’s the same: Relationships are what you make of them, together. It’s dedication from two souls, and it needs that shared purpose to survive, but it can never be static. Where you stand with her now is not where you stood three days ago, and where you will stand three three decades from now. No garden flourishes forever without care and attention, but... You care for her, genuinely–that’s a statement, not a question–and she cares for you in kind. I cannot predict the winds of fate. I cannot control her destiny, nor yours, but you have the tools you need, and the fertile soil. Don’t let the garden die, give it the care that it deserves, and together you will blossom brighter than any rose.)

Belle squeezed Vera, snug and tight. “I love you, Vera.”

“I love you too, Belle,” Vera whispered back.

Their love could not be denied, and that was the truth, no matter what possibility Belle had really wished for.