Long Story #6: Spooky Tales for Twisted Tykes (X. One Right Step)

X. One Right Step (Content Tags: Shortstack protagonist, abduction, forced babying, soiling, humiliation) One right step. One right step had been all it had taken, the catalyst that'd mercifully ended an unfulfilling role in an uninspired pock upon his filmography. One right step was what was responsible for derailing that train before it had a chance to wreck itself completely. Tate Youngblood could have been a stage name, but it was actually very real; it was only a coincidence, or by nominative determinism, that it was so befitting of him. In his younger days, when he had been a child actor, it'd been a pretty well known name to throw around, much like the Olson twins or Culkin. The difference was in how he didn't grow out of being a child actor, and how typecast his roles would become. Tate really just didn't grow at all. He had a pituitary defect that kept his body from showing visible signs of aging; no puberty, no crow's feet, no wrinkles, no getting out of shopping in the junior department. He'd gotten his start in the industry in diaper commercials and Juicy-Juice ads, and that had catapulted him to his most infamous role. His role as 'Baby Brady' in the sitcom 'The Happy House'. It was where he had cut his teeth as a performer, for five seasons and over a hundred episodes, and he'd absolutely hated it. It was schlocky crap, no different than all the other sappy garbage being put on ABC in the nineties; it kind of had combined elements of Full House and Sabrina, having some supernatural elements in play. That was why his character didn't have to age, because it was established in the first season that every member of the family had a curse, and his was to forever be a little boy. Whenever he started the role, he had been around nine or ten, and even then he had found it demeaning. Diaper commercials past the age of pottytraining had been a big enough strike against his pride, but for the show, he was stuck wearing them on television for six goddamn years. He was a teenager whenever the show finally got canceled, and it was the happiest day of his young life. It was the day that he had taken just one right step. And funnily enough, that phrase itself had more than one meaning in that context. It was quite literal in how it was interpreted as a stage direction, but it also worked as the one proper decision that he'd himself made in his career. The script had told him to step right in that scene, but it'd been an error on the writer's part, and that error had been thoughtlessly continued by the absentminded director. Tate had known full-well what the consequences of following such a stage direction might be, and he'd done the calculus on how it would impact the immediate future of the show. Take a step to the left, and the scene would continue as normal, with his contract with the show being ironclad for at least three more seasons and a movie. Take a step to the right, and all pandemonium would break loose. It was a special episode, their '150th' celebration. Ratings were still high, even though he thought they really shouldn't be, and it was their first and last 'live' episode. It'd been advertised as such, and the concept may had been done before, but there was still some novelty to it back then. In the scene, there was supposed to be a joke about him trying to forcefully grow-up, which was morbidly funny in hindsight. From where he was positioned on the stage, there was a couch to his left, and one of his co-stars to the right: Aunt Hazel. After he gave the line about not being a baby anymore, he was supposed to put his hands on the sides of his diaper, and he was to tug the diaper down as he moved behind the couch; he would toss the diaper up over the couch, for the audience to see, and there was a pair of underwear to change into. At the same time, Hazel would start moving off-screen to the right, with a long flowing dress that dragged along the floor. If he stepped left, like what actually made sense, then the scene would go on as originally planned. If he stepped right... Well, the FCC wouldn't much care for what came next. And no, they didn't at all. It wasn't a perfect way to shutter that part of his career, and he still felt bad about what he'd done to Vivian Kiley, who was the actress that played Hazel. He'd justified it at the time, because Vivian was an entitled bitch behind the scenes, but still... A long story short, his diaper went down and he stepped on her dress, which made it tear off of her. The audience, which included thousands upon thousands of televisions across the country, got a look at his bare bottom, and Hazel's bare chest. The episode came to a premature end, as did the series, as it had its contract immediately canceled by the network. The writer, director, and the costume designer were all fined, since the debacle was ultimately a shared mistake from the three of them. And Tate? He was free from the humiliation of the role. His acting career didn't go much further, not because of the controversy, but because of his own decisions on self-worth. He hated his medical condition, and nobody was about to give him any other role; he did some voice acting afterwards, which he still occasionally returned to now, but his time on camera had come to an end. Instead, he followed more scholastic passions. He got a degree in marine biology, he did some writing, and he enjoyed his life out of the limelight. The time he spent on the sitcom, as 'Baby Brady', felt like it was a distant memory. Until he got a call from Howard about doing a reunion special. Howard Crowley, or Adrian in the show, had been the big brother in the sitcom family. He'd actually been younger than Tate, being only six or seven whenever the show started, but he was obviously bigger than Tate was, so he'd been cast as older. As a character, Adrian had a pretty rough go of things when the show had first started; the audience didn't much care for his bumbling antics, and so Howard was always so jealous of the attention that Tate received. Tate was a fan favorite: cutest character and typically the one with the funniest lines or plots. However, near the end of the show, Adrian had seen more rising development as a character, and it was planned for him to become a much more central element of a lot of plots. The audience had become sympathetic to him, and Howard had grown as an actor; if the next season had gone on as planned, then he might have really struck it big in the years to come. As it was, his career fizzled out shortly after. He could never fully step out of Tate's shadow, or out of the controversy that had ended the show. Tate was apprehensive to go through with the idea of a reunion, but he felt badly enough for messing up Howard's career, so he decided that one last step into the role of Brady wouldn't hurt too much. He figured he could make some demands on how his inclusion would be portrayed, so that he could at least strut around the stage with some dignity. He definitely wasn't going to return to the primary gag of 'poopy diapers' that his character had been so known for. They were to meet up at a restaurant in south Hollywood, to discuss the particulars; apparently the whole sitcom family would be there. He'd kept up with a few of them over the years, but several he'd cut contact with entirely. The meetup never really happened. Tate took a taxi from the airport, to get to the restaurant, and before he could go inside, a cloth had gone over his mouth. Everything went black. When he woke up, he was stuck inside a highchair. He was naked, aside from a bib around his neck, and a cumbersome diaper around his waist. The familiarity of the costume wasn't lost on him; it'd been what he was wearing, and this had been where he was sitting, in the first scene of the very first episode. That had been when his role had been much smaller, when he was intended to be more of a background character, with few lines and the occasional bout of self-defecating humor. He quietly groaned and realized there was a binky lodged in his mouth, and while he tried to spit it out, it wouldn't budge; it was tied behind his head, like a gag. "Wakey, wakey little baby." Cooed a voice. Tate groggily raised his head and squinted, his vision a little blurry and his mind a little foggy. The shape of a man came into view; he had glasses and rust-colored hair, he was a little paunchy and disheveled. Tate wasn't sure at first who he was, but then he recognized the gaudy outfit with the 'rad' colors of the past era. It had to be Howard, or with how he was dressed, Adrian. "That's right, baby Brady...Get those peepers nice and open. We wouldn't want you to fall asleep and face plant into your oatmeal, like in episode thirteen." Tate tried to raise his arms, but his wrists were bound with duct tape. He tried squirming himself out of the highchair, but the plastic tray locked him in, and the bulky diaper rustled and squeaked against the seat. From the feel of things, the diaper was actually a match to the year that the show had started, before the diapers began to be manufactured slimmer and with cloth backing. "I was so glad that you decided to come. Your number was harder to track down than I thought it would be. But...You were the most important one to get in here, isn't that right? The little 'star' of the family?" Tate looked around. Was this the old sound-stage? He remembered hearing that the studio had gone under after the controversy, but he hadn't thought the place would be untouched and abandoned. Everything looked the same as it used to though, more-so than it technically should have. Howard noticed his confusion, "The kitchen looks like the pilot episode, right? I had to make some adjustments. Funny to think how much could change in just a few short seasons, right? A lot of things changed...Well, except for you; unless we count your dirty diapers." Whatever was going on, Howard was clearly unhinged; maybe he was having some kind of psychotic break, or he was in a fugue state of sorts. This was definitely too far for a mere joke. "I picked season one, because that was before the audience ate you up. When the show started, it was me who was supposed to be the lovable scamp. It was supposed to be my entry into the business, into a lifelong career of glamour. Sure, I had to share that limelight with Sarah, since she was the 'sister', but I never felt threatened by her obnoxious acting. You on the other hand..." Howard got closer and put a palm on top of the bound man's head, "You became a problem very quickly. Dan said you saved the show, that you kept it going all that time, but I think he just considered you an easy way out. You can really dumb down the writing, so long as you have a mascot with some funny catchphrases. What was yours again? Your first one?" Tate obviously couldn't answer, and even if he could, he was having a more pressing concern. Something in his gut was going wild, and his belly was starting to cramp violently; between the airplane food and whatever he'd been drugged with, nothing was playing nice. "Oopsie-poopsie, Brady made boom-boom? That one didn't really catch on though, did it? They really leaned into the baby talk in that first season; they didn't bother writing your character with much of a brain until season two, when Sheryl Stone came on as a writer. I really thought I'd like Sheryl, but ultimately, she made the show all about 'Baby Brady'. She saw you as marketable, and the rest of us? We would just become side-players." Tate grimaced, feeling a silent fart spewing out into the diaper beneath his bottom. He could hardly appreciate how crazy his former costar was being, when he was desperately clenching his buttcheeks to keep from shitting himself for real. "...Everything okay, baby bro? You're looking a little queasy. You remember the times that you went in your diaper for real? I only saw it three times, but Dan said it was easily six or seven over the years. A stomach bug here, a dietary mistake there, some mistakes in trusting farts, a scene that went on too long... Wasn't that a big reason you didn't wear underwear under the diaper? Because of all those potty mishaps? With how small you are, I guess it can be forgivable; it was pretty shocking that a few of those cuts made it on TV, but you remember how much Dan hated falling behind schedule." Tate wanted to tell him to shut up, to stop reminding him of the humiliating foibles of his youth, but the binky halted him. This was a one-sided conversation, or more so a rant, and that didn't seem likely to change. Another fart sputtered, more loudly this time, and wetter. "I remember you begging for Brady to get pottytrained, because you hated wearing the diaper in every scene. You hated having to pretend that you were soiling yourself. You said it was degrading, right? Threw a big hissy fit a few times? But those tantrums didn't get you very far. The audience loved those jokes; potty humor rated really well with kids, and adults thought you were cute as a button. The last episode we did was where your fate was going to be sealed, remember? You would try growing up, but by the end of it, you would return to the status quo...Me on the other hand, my character was about to go through a big change. Adrian was going to start developing his sorcery." Tate bit down on the bulb of the pacifier, clenching it tightly in his teeth, and his fists curled into balls. He couldn't hold back, a giant steamer was barreling down against his backdoor. "...And then, it was all over. We barely had any time to rehearse that episode, so the mistake in the script didn't really get caught. You were following the stage direction, so you didn't get blamed, maybe except by Vivian. She made out pretty well though, had a stint in Playboy and ran the talkshow circuit. That nip-slip was controversial for the late nineties, but I think your tushy being on screen helped to soften the blow." A louder fart, a juicy one, broke through the man's rambling, and it made him chuckle. "Point being, that almost everyone had a career to look forward to afterwards. Except for me. Except for poor Adrian. I could have been the next Neil Patrick Harris, with those Doogie Howser credentials, but no. The show ended before my time to shine. All because of you. I know you did it on purpose; you might have looked like a little kid in preschool, but you weren't an idiot." Tate shut his eyes completely and tried lifting his bottom from the highchair; he could only ascend a couple of inches, but it was enough room to start pushing out the BM that was causing him terrible discomfort. There was a wet crackling sound as the turd started to jettison into the vintage diaper, and his face became scarlet as he had to start pushing to get it all out of him. The diaper rustled loudly and puffed out to accommodate the load, but without flattening it, he was running out of space for the immense pile to grow. More toots joined the fray, and he had to actually grunt behind the pacifier, which itself was becoming slick with drool. "There's that boom-boom, baby Brady. We'll have to keep practicing that for your scenes. I'm not a hack like Dan was, I prefer method acting; keeping it as real as possible. In that vein, I think we'll need to dumb you back down to season one era Brady. Before you became a show stealer." The mound of poop bubbled and simmered underneath him as he plopped back down in exhaustion; he could feel the mush spreading out in all directions, coating his backside and oozing into the front. The smell was putrid. "Things are going to be different this time. We're going to take the right steps to make sure that you don't get a chance to ruin anything." Right steps. It had always been about the right steps. What would the right step now be?