Gramps - Chapter 17

 

Gramps

By Karen Singer

 

Chapter 17

 

Life is a series of forks in the road.  Decisions that have to be made.  Paths to be decided on.  According to the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland, if you don’t know where you want to go, what difference does it make which path you take?  But of course, the truth is that it can make a lot of difference.

Months ago now, before Kimmie came to live with me, I made a decision as to which path I wanted to take, now look where that path had led me.  Was it the right path, or not?  I absolutely wasn’t certain.  Yes, there were things I liked…loved actually, but there were also a lot of things I didn’t want.  Too many things I didn’t want.  Things that scared me.  And those things seemed to be increasing in number.

I no longer seemed to have any choice at all as to which fork in the road I could take.  Kimmie had managed to take all that away from me.  She was the one in charge and I had no choice but to go along with her in whichever direction she decided to go.  Did she have some kind of map she was following to get us somewhere?  I often wondered, but never asked.  Did she have some kind of goal in mind?  Some final destination that we might eventually reach?  Again, I was too afraid to ask.  I just followed whichever way she decided to turn.  Whichever path she decided to take.

Maybe it was just that I was old and she was young and had more energy to make those decisions than I did.  I don’t know.  It was her journey, but more than that, it was my journey too.  Our journey together.

The change was subtle.  Slow.  Maybe it wasn’t so much a change as a shift.  I’m not certain, but the differences were there.  I didn’t even realize it was happening for a while, but eventually things were different enough that I couldn’t help but notice.  And as close as I can come, it all started somewhere around the first week of November.

I was sitting in my chair again, watching TV, happy for that rare opportunity when I wouldn’t be disturbed for a few precious minutes.  But I was disturbed.  By Kimmie.  As she had done a number of times before, she was suddenly there, forcing herself into my lap.  I pulled the plug from my mouth, knowing she wanted to talk.  I could only hope it was about ending this farce of a life I was now living.  Nope!  Not even close.

“Hi Gramps,” she said.  Then she leaned over and kissed my cheek.

“Is this about that pony again?” I asked.

She let out a big exaggerated sigh.  “Gramps!  We need a pony.  We need ponies for both of us.”

“No!  Not a chance.  And that’s final.”

She laughed, then said, “But gramps, just think how much fun it would be to ride, especially if your diapers are soaked and sagging wet, and especially if you’ve got a big load of shit in the back of them.  Don’t you think going for a pony ride in diapers like that would be a load of fun?”

As far as I was concerned, her idea was a load of horseshit!  It also made me queasy just to think about.  “That’s your idea of fun?”

She laughed.  “Gramps, I’d give anything to see you riding a horse in diapers full of shit.”

Believe me, I didn’t know what to say to that.  Fortunately, I knew she was joking…I hoped.  “What do you really want?”

“Would you mind Gramps…Gramps, Gramps, Gramps, my sweet baby Gramps…”

Something told me this was not going to be good.  “Mind what?” I asked suspiciously.

“How would you feel if we cut those baby pacifier videos down to every other hour instead of every hour, but you have to suck for twenty minutes at a time instead?  And I mean suck properly!”

I was surprised.  Having an hour free would be like removing a huge amount of weight from my life.  “How would I feel?” I started to say.

“And not only that,” she continued, “but the pooping thing would go to only once an hour too.”

Again, I was shocked.  “Once?  Every hour?”

“Yes,” she confirmed.  “Twenty minutes of sucking, every other hour, and thirty seconds of pushing, every hour.  And Gramps, you know you can mess your diaper while you’re sitting right there in your chair.  I’ve seen you doing it on the camera videos.”

Yeah, she would see something like that.

“I’d cut it all out completely, “ she continued, “but I don’t want you to start getting lazy, and there’s still a lot of times when I know you’re not sucking that thing properly.  You need to learn Gramps!  Sucking right and pooping and peeing without warning need to become habits for you.  You shouldn’t even have to think about any of it.”

“Habits?” I said.

She gave me another exaggerated sigh.  “Gramps, I check those videos every day pretty thoroughly.  I watch what you do all the time.  I know you well enough now that I can usually tell what’s happening.  Don’t try to tell me you’re not peeing sometimes without knowing you were going to do it.  And don’t try and tell me you don’t sometimes poop the same way.  I can tell Gramps.  I know it’s happening.  But I want it to keep happening, only more.  So I need it all to become a habit for you.  It’s just that…”

“Just what?”

“It’s just that I know all the exercises I make you do are too much.  They’re too often.  You can’t even get any rest.”

“Huh!  That much is certainly true.  It’s driving me nuts.”

“Yeah,” she said.  “It’s too much.  So I want to try cutting back, just a little for now.  If I see signs of progress toward it all becoming more of a habit for you, then I’ll cut back even more.  The more of a habit it all becomes for you, the less you’ll have to work at it.  Okay?”

Not having to do it all so much was more than okay with me.  It was very okay.  I nodded.  “Works for me,” I told her.

“That’s just it,” she replied.  “I’m hoping it will work for you.”  She giggled and bopped me on the nose.  “And Gramps, we really do need to get you a pony.”

Ugh!  Darn woman.

You would think those changes would be huge, and in some ways, they were.  Just that much relief took a lot of the stress from my life.  But the other ways those changes affected me were much more subtle.  Or should that be diabolical?  While I only had to do the sucking thing every other hour now, it was now for twenty minutes at a time.  Kimmie quickly had me start filming myself doing it even when she was there so she wouldn’t have to watch me so closely.  She could just review parts of the video where she wanted to see if I messed up at all.  And trust me, she was quick to notice the slightest mistake.

A few weeks earlier, she had cut those videos back from fifteen minutes to ten.  That had been a huge relief.  But now I was doing it twice that long, which meant I had to concentrate on what I was doing twice as long.  And since I was filming myself close-up, I dared not make a mistake.  After just a few times doing it that way, the task became mindless, whether I wanted it to be or not.  I tried to concentrate on what I was doing, but the monotony of it was simply too much and my mind couldn’t help but wander.  The result was that even when I wasn’t trying to film myself sucking that damn baby pacifier, I found myself doing it properly, even though I really wanted to do it wrong, just to spite Kimmie.

And then there was the other thing, pooping every hour instead of twice an hour.  You would think it wouldn’t make the least bit of difference in me, but as I said before, the change was more subtle than that, and it took me days to realize it.  Yes, there had been a few times when I had pooped in between my half-hourly pooping requirements, but most of the time the shit came out of me while I was having to push it out.  The result was that I was pooping far more often, but less was coming out of me each time.  Don’t kid yourself, the end result was always a huge load in my baby diapers when changing time came around – afternoon and evening.

But now I was suddenly only doing the exercise once an hour.  Half as much.  Maybe my body had just gotten used to going more often, I’m not exactly sure, but now I kept finding myself pushing, when I didn’t intend to.  I’d be in the middle of doing something, and all of a sudden I realized I was pushing something out into my diaper, even though it wasn’t time.  Hey, in one way it wasn’t a biggie.  I was wearing a diaper anyway and it was going to go in there, like it or not.  But at the same time, it was happening when I wasn’t exactly planning on it.  Kimmie!  That’s not fair!

Somehow, I figured Kimmie considered it all to be fair play.

The next little “shift” in my life occurred a few days after she had sat in my lap.  Kimmie always dressed me for bed at eight o’clock and then let me stay up until nine to watch my TV shows.  But shortly after our latest little talk (about the ponies, remember?), she dressed me for bed like always at eight o’clock, then sent me out to watch TV.  But then at eight thirty, she hauled me right back to the bedroom and put me to bed.

“Nine o’clock is too late for bedtime for babies,” she declared firmly before I had a chance to argue with her.

Yes, I wanted to argue, but I could already see that she was prepared for another of those “which one of us is the baby” discussions, which would only involve me admitting that I was the one who wore the baby diapers.  I would have asked why she didn’t simply put me to bed at eight o’clock as soon as she finished putting my night baby diaper on me, but I was afraid she might actually do it.  In fact, she still might.  I said nothing.  Things were bad enough already.  So my nightly nine o’clock bedtime suddenly became eight-thirty instead.  Trust me, I felt more like a real toddler than ever.

And then there was the other thing.  An even bigger thing.  And it started on a Saturday.  Now remember, Kimmie had been keeping me in high heels for weeks (except for the pink sneakers when we still walked the backyard every day).  But all of a sudden, when she was dressing me to go out shopping, she stuck a pair of white tights on my legs, then hauled out those black patent little girl shoes I had always loved so much.  As she was buckling them onto my feet, my mind suddenly had a thought.  Didn’t I order some new little girl style shoes a while back?  Red ones?  I hadn’t seen any sign of them, so maybe they had never gotten ordered.  Or maybe the order had been cancelled for some reason, like they were out of stock or something.  I tossed it off the moment the black shoes were on me, and I realized once again how much more comfortable they were than the heels.  Especially the pink locking heels.

As embarrassingly as Kimmie always dressed me, especially when she was taking me out of the house, she always let me wear pants of some sort.  Yes, her pants always, not mine.  But they were still pants.  All of a sudden though, I was stepping into a skirt I had never seen before.  I was shocked.  A bit panicked too.  “You want me to wear a skirt?”

“Uh…isn’t it obvious?” she asked as she pulled it up my legs and settled it around my waist.

I searched for something to say about it, but she beat me to it.  “Don’t argue Gramps.  I decide what you wear, not you.”

End of that discussion.  And I never got a chance to say anything about it.

Yes, yes, on top I was still wearing a bra and one of her tops.  That much goes without saying I think, kind of like the diapers.  Sorry, baby diapers.  But once I was dressed that far, Kimmie wasn’t done with me yet.  That day, she again attacked my hair.  By the time I got in the car, I had two matching ribbons in my hair, and they were just as pink as my freshly done fingernails, and just as pink as I’m sure my face was.  Um…maybe not.  I had no doubt my face was bright red.

Kimmie.  What are you doing to me?

What was she doing?  She took me shopping.  But this time, she seemed to be more interested in me than her.  Once again we went to the mall.  It was a completely different experience for me walking around in a skirt instead of pants.  A huge difference.  I was far more embarrassed than ever.  And the ribbons in my hair didn’t exactly help matters either.  The way she did it, was I supposed to look like a little girl?  Ha, ha!  Big laugh!

Why did the mall have to be so big?  Why did we have to stroll around so slowly looking at things, most of which we had seen on previous trips?  Why did Kimmie have to enjoy shopping so much?  I guess these are among the essential questions of life that everyone has to ask at some point.  I asked myself those things every week.

She dragged me into one of the big department stores.  No, of course we didn’t wander anywhere near the men’s department.  Women’s and girl’s things instead.  Oh, and she looked at some of the baby clothes too.  Was she considering getting pregnant with that boyfriend of hers?

“Oh look!” she said suddenly.

I didn’t want to, but I looked anyway.  She was pawing her way through a stack of…something.  And I wasn’t sure what they were, except the material appeared to be soft fleece, and that said same material was completely covered in girly cartoon characters and flowers.  I wanted to ask what they were, but my baby pacifier was in the way.  And then she pulled one out and held it up, letting the entire thing unfold.  And it was long.  Body length!  And I finally figured out what it was – some kind of footed pajamas, all one piece.  And then she turned to me and held it up to my shoulders to check the length.  “Gramps,” she said excitedly.  “This should help keep you warm at night.”

I was speechless, even with that plug in my mouth.  Kimmie grabbed the thing and draped it over her arm, so she could buy it before we left the store.  Wonderful.

A few minutes later, Kimmie found something else to hold her interest.  Socks.  Big deal, you say?  They were for Kimmie.  Like shoes, Kimmie loved socks.  She often wore them around the house without shoes.  And trust me, she had quite a collection, many of them…uh…strange.  But this time, she was fixated on the kind of socks I was afraid wouldn’t be for her, but for me instead.  By that, I mean the fancy little girl style with the turned down top that ended in ruffles and lace.  The darling kind that girls and women all seemed to go nuts over because they were pretty.  You know what I mean.  Sissy socks.

Pluck…one pair.  Pluck…two pairs.  Pluck…  When we checked out, I bought myself those footed flannel sleepers and five pairs of socks I figured I’d have no use for at all.  I had no use for them, but I had no doubt that Kimmie had other ideas.  Believe me, I was happy for once to get out of that store and back into the concourse…uh…where a whole lot more people could see me.  Maybe it would have been better to stay in the store and keep shopping there.

Shop, shop, shop…in a skirt.  Lunch, lunch, lunch…in a skirt.  Go everywhere, do everything…in a skirt.  I wanted to scream at the way everyone was looking at me.  Maybe it wasn’t the skirt.  Maybe it was the hair ribbons.

At the other end of the concourse was another of those big department stores.  As always, in we went and looked at…stuff.  But oh, the stuff that Kimmie found to look at.  Um…how shall I put this.  Yes, I bought and paid for something else before we got back to the concourse, and Kimmie was absolutely delighted with it, even though it had me practically wanting to throw up.  Once we left the store, Kimmie stopped and had me pull that something from the bag.  She grabbed my wallet and my cellphone from her purse, and put them in MY purse, which she then handed to me to carry.  Why did she look so happy and satisfied?  I certainly wasn’t.

“Hook it over your arm Gramps.  It’ll be a lot easier to carry,” she suggested.

Yeah right!

From downstairs to upstairs.  Too many levels, too many stores.  One of which she usually passed by, but guess what, not this time.  In we went…into the toy store.  Um…we didn’t exactly go to the section of games for older kids or adults.  Nope!  You guessed it.  Toys for tots.  Like me I guessed.  Most particularly, toys for little girls.  And when I say little, I mean little.  Two years old or less.

“Gramps, look!” she said, pointing toward an entire area filled with stuffed animals.  “Go find yourself a stuffie.  And make sure it’s nice and soft.  Really soft.”

I pulled the paci from my mouth.  “Stuffie?”

“Stuffed animal dummy,” she explained.  “And put that dummy back in your mouth…dummy.”

Ugh!  Pick one out?  Myself?  As I wandered in that direction, I realized she wasn’t coming with me.  She was still back there looking in the age two and under area.  I looked at all the stuffed animals, and there was a lot.  What did I want?  None of them.  But Kimmie had said…yeah, yeah.  It was her path we were on, not mine.  So what did I want?  Maybe it was just that I wasn’t so used to making decisions anymore, but it took me a long time to pick out a simple light brown teddy bear.  Holding it though, I can tell you for sure that it felt soft.  Very soft.  I looked for Kimmie to show her, but she was nowhere around.  Had she left me?

I found her two aisles away, still looking at toys, but she had some kind of large colorful box in her hands.  “Find something?” she asked.

I showed her the simple teddy bear I had decided on.

“Nice Gramps,” she told me.  “But you could have found something a bit more colorful.  But this is fine…for now.”

For now?

Yeah, my credit card made another appearance, but this time I pulled it out of my own damn purse.  And I put it back into my own damn purse too.  And just the thought of doing that had me wetting my diaper!  Despite not drinking as much as usual, I could literally feel it starting to sag between my legs.

And then the phone in my purse dinged.  Kimmie hauled me out to a bench in the concourse and had me sit and suck my baby pacifier for twenty minutes…while she went into another store to shop.  And yes, everyone looked at me even more amazed at what they were seeing when they realized I was filming myself sucking my baby pacifier.  I guess I would be pretty amazed to see that too…if it was someone else.

Not twenty minutes, but half an hour later, we were off strolling the mall and shopping again.  By the time we left the mall my credit card had a few more purchases on it that I didn’t want at all.  When we got back to the car, I loaded my bags into it.  A teddy bear.  Some kind of huge box that held some kind of “thing” for toddlers to play with.  A footed sleeper.  Five pairs of fancy socks.  And the newest items we had just purchased, two more skirts and…yes…here it comes…a dress!  I could just scream!  Um…my purse I kept on my arm.

In the past, as soon as we got home from those ridiculous outings that Kimmie forced on me, she always made sure that I removed whatever pants were covering up my diaper so she could see it.  I expected her to tell me to get the skirt I was wearing off, and the white tights too.  But she didn’t.  Had she forgotten?  Or was she simply too thrilled with the way she had dressed me that day?  I warred in my head with asking her about it, but decided not to say anything for two reasons.  First, for once my diaper wasn’t fully on display.  Despite the things I was wearing, I was more properly dressed.  And the second reason I said nothing…um…you know what it is.  That damn plug in my mouth.  I guess as far as Kimmie was concerned, silence really is golden.

I couldn’t believe it.  All day long, Kimmie kept me dressed that way, even after she changed my diaper…baby diaper at two o’clock.  And I was happy.  Ecstatic really.  Not only was I dressed, but it was all the stuff of my wildest dreams.  From the ribbons in my hair, to the nail polish, to the skirt, to the white tights, and down to the black Mary Jane shoes on my feet.  And of course, we can’t forget the diaper I was wearing under it all.  My dream outfit.  And Kimmie was keeping me in it.

I was even happy spending twenty minutes every other hour filming myself sucking on the baby pacifier.  Although after which, I realized about another twenty minutes later that I was still sucking properly.  Each time I realized that though – chomp!  Down went my teeth to chew on it.  Take that Kimmie!

Somehow, and don’t ask me how, but that dumb teddy bear I had bought earlier that day wound up in bed with me.  Who could have possibly put it there?  Hint…it wasn’t me.  I suddenly had a new sleeping companion.  At least he wouldn’t snore and keep me awake.  I hoped.  And as for it being a he, was he?  Or it?  Or…her?  Or…what the heck sex is a teddy bear anyway?  I had no clue.  It did give me something to ponder as I drank my warm baby bottle before going to bed…at eight thirty.

No, I didn’t hold the bear in my arms when I went to sleep later.  In fact, I pushed it out of the way…and dreamed about how I had been dressed all day long.  The stuff of my dreams, became the stuff of my dreams.