Step-Brother to Step-Baby – Chapter 17
As he walked towards the car, each of Mikey’s heartbeats resonated in his chest like a drumbeat of mounting anxiety.
Hidden under his clothes, the nappy’s bulk was impossible to ignore. Its substantial presence felt like an intrusive companion, asserting itself against his skin with every move he made.
For years, he’d cultivated an image of relaxed confidence arrogance, effortlessly navigating social landscapes as if he were invincible.
But now, that self-assured persona felt like it was crumbling, replaced by a version of himself he hardly recognized.
Each step felt laborious, as though he were wading through a quicksand of dread and self-doubt. The world outside, once a stage for his bravado, now seemed a daunting expanse of potential embarrassment and shame.
When he finally reached the car, a brief glimmer of relief washed over Mikey. He had navigated the first hurdle without being seen by anyone.
But his moment of satisfaction vanished as quickly as it came. Alison steered him to sit in the backseat, flanked by Katie and Lucy.
Automatically, his hand moved toward the seat belt, but Alison interrupted.
“Wait, let your sisters buckle you in.”
The remark hit him like a ton of bricks. Not only was he in a nappy, but now he was also being denied the basic autonomy of securing his own seat belt.
Stripped even of this small adult prerogative, Mikey felt the scope of his autonomy shrinking by the second.
Sitting in his seat, Mikey felt a growing sense of impatience as he waited for the click of the seat belt that never seemed to come.
Across from him, Lucy and Katie locked eyes and smirked. The pause was intentional, a detail Alison had coordinated with them.
By drawing out this simple act, they subtly underscored their own control over the situation, reminding him that things would proceed when they chose, not when he wished.
After what seemed like an eternity for Mikey, his youngest step-sister, Lucy, leaned across him to reach for the seat belt.
With deliberate and slow movements, she clicked the belt into its latch, pulling it snug against him. She then humiliated him further by speaking to him like a little boy.
“There we go, Mikey’s all safe and ready to go.”
“Wait just a minute,” Rosie said, swiveling around from the front passenger seat, her timing impeccably synchronized with the moment Mikey was strapped in.
“You’ll need this, too,” she announced, pulling a pacifier complete with a strap and clip from her purse. Mikey felt his heart sink.
He had begrudgingly accepted the humiliation of the nappy, comforting himself with the thought that it was relatively hidden. But a pacifier?
That was a whole new level of public embarrassment that would only serve to draw even more attention to him and the nappy’s bulky outline.
This was his line in the sand; he couldn’t allow it to go any further.
But before he could even articulate his refusal, Rosie had already lodged the pacifier between his lips. Pinned between Katie and Lucy, their seatbelts securely fastened, he felt like a cornered animal.
In a knee-jerk reaction, he spat out the pacifier, his vocal protest following in a flurry of pent-up words. However, Alison silenced him almost instantly.
“Keep that in your mouth until you’re told otherwise,” she warned, her voice laced with an authority that brooked no argument.
Simultaneously, he heard the click of the car doors locking. A visceral sense of confinement washed over him. There would be no escape.
“If you behave, you won’t have to use it in public. But if you make a scene, you’ll keep it in for the entire shopping trip,” Alison added, leaving Mikey grappling with the grim possibilities.
“Pick it up, it’s on the floor then put it back in your mouth like a good boy,” Alison instructed.
Reluctance weighed down his every movement as he leaned over to retrieve the fallen pacifier.
Holding it in his hand for a brief, rebellious moment, he finally capitulated, placing it back between his lips and beginning to suck.
The rubbery texture and infantile purpose made him cringe inwardly, but his step-sisters, Katie and Lucy, looked on in amused delight.
As if to seal his subjugation, Rosie reached around, took the strap attached to the pacifier, and clipped it to his shirt. “There we go. Now you won’t lose your dum dums,” she said, her voice dripping with patronizing sweetness.
Stuck there, between his giggling step-sisters with a pacifier strapped to his top, Mikey felt as if his previous life—a life of adult autonomy and casual coolness—was slipping further away with each passing second. The pacifier, though merely a small object, felt like a colossal emblem of his loss of control.
As the car smoothly merged into the flow of traffic, Mikey’s stomach twisted with an increasing sense of dread. Each stoplight and passerby seemed like a potential spectator to his humiliation. Hunching in his seat, he tried to make himself as inconspicuous as possible.
What would happen if someone he knew were to spot him? How could he ever explain this away? The air inside the car seemed to thicken with tension, a palpable contrast to the steady whirl of the wheels on the asphalt below.
As they drove, the sun beat down relentlessly through the car windows, turning the enclosed space into a simmering furnace. Mikey felt the heat seep into his clothes, heightening the already uncomfortable sensation of the nappy he wore.
It clung to him, growing progressively warmer and more stifling with each passing minute under the sun’s unyielding gaze.
Suddenly, he understood why parents might let their toddlers run around in just a nappy on hot days—wearing one in these conditions felt like an exercise in slow torture.
As the car turned into the supermarket parking lot, Mikey’s eyes darted around, half-expecting to see a familiar face that would send his already fragile self-image into complete disarray. The notion of walking around in public while nappied had him teetering on the edge of full-blown panic.
“Can we park here?” Lucy asked inquisitively.
“Absolutely,” Alison responded, steering the car toward a spot marked with the image of a baby in a stroller. “The sign might show a baby in a stroller, but Mikey’s wearing nappies like a baby. So I think we’re ok to use this spot.”
Mikey tried to ignore the desperate attempt to humiliate him further.
The car slid smoothly into the designated space, and for a moment, Mikey felt like the earth had stopped rotating. Rosie then chimed in, ” Maybe we could put Mikey in a stroller? Then no-one can argue!”
Mikey felt his heart sink to his stomach at the mere suggestion. An anxious gaze darted towards Alison, filled with trepidation for her reply.
But Alison dismissed the idea with a shake of her head, “I don’t think we need to do that, do we Mikey? I imagine you wouldn’t want the world to see you in a stroller as if you’re an infant. Keep your behavior in check, act like the adult you’re supposed to be, and there’s no reason to put you in such an embarrassing situation.”
Her words conveyed an illusion of fairness, though she fully intended a future scenario where Mikey might very well find himself confined to a stroller.
Mikey replied with a simple smile and “Thanks.”
“Of course Mikey. But let me be clear – if you act up like a baby or try to escape,” she paused, fixing her eyes on Mikey, “then you might just find yourself strapped in a pushchair, as your sister has suggested, or perhaps on a set of reins so we don’t lose you.”
Mikey shuddered at the prospect, remaining silent while Alison continued reinforcing the point.
“Do we understand each other?” Alison asked pointedly, completing her threat with an almost sweet smile.
Mikey swallowed hard, his mouth dry as sandpaper. “No, I promise I’ll behave,” he stammered. His words nearly jumbled together as he struggled to articulate them with the pacifier still wedged in his mouth.
The terror at the very notion had his heart racing anew, but the growing reality was that, as bizarre as this situation was, such an outcome was beginning to feel not just possible, but perilously likely.
As the engine turned off and the car settled into its spot, Mikey felt as though he were being thrust onto a stage he had never wanted to be on. Yet, he knew there was no turning back now.
With each passing second, the boundaries of his comfort zone seemed to be shrinking, drawing tighter around him like a noose. He went to remove his belt but was quickly reminded about his place.
“Stay in your seat, Mikey. You wait until you’re unstrapped,” Alison instructed.
One by one, his sisters unbuckled themselves, exiting the car and leaving him alone in the backseat. It was another calculated pause, one that reverberated with the imbalance of control between them. After what felt like an eternity, Alison opened the rear door and leaned over him.
With deft movements, she removed the pacifier from his mouth, unsnapped his seat belt, and stood upright. Taking the clip that had been attached to the pacifier and strapped to his front, she moved it to the back of his t-shirt, out of sight but still very much in his awareness.
“For now, I won’t make you keep this in,” she said, her eyes meeting his. “But if you misbehave, it’ll be back in your mouth before you utter a single word.”
The weight of the pacifier, even if tucked behind him, felt like an albatross around his neck. It served as a constant reminder of his precarious situation, a looming threat should he dare to act out.
As he stepped out of the car, his legs felt shaky, his nerves frayed. The pacifier pinned to his clothes was more than a physical object; it was a deterrent, a symbol of the control he had surrendered, and a silent warning that kept him on a short leash.
The End of Step-Brother to Step-Baby – Chapter 17
Written by: BacktoBabyhood – Chapter Seventeen
If you want to read more stories by BacktoBabyhood you can find a list here: Diaper Boys – Index