Gramps - Chapter 23

 

Gramps

By Karen Singer

 

Chapter 23

 

I don’t know why they call it “Black” Friday.  I do know that for some people it’s their favorite day of the year.  The sale prices in the stores make it one of the most important days of the year to many businesses, because those sale prices bring out people to shop by the thousands.  Everywhere!  You would think that a term like “black” would conjure up images of something morbid or bad, but nobody I knew ever considered Black Friday to be bad.  In fact, most of the women I knew lived for it.

But I can tell you that, that Black Friday there was a deep black hole in my soul.  A hole that would never heal.

I don’t know if it was early or not.  With no clock in the room, it was hard to tell.  All I can say is that it felt early, and that was despite the fact that I hadn’t slept much all night.  The hurt and thoughts about what I had done to myself and my family were simply too strong.  But my door suddenly opened and I saw Kimmie poke her head in.  Seeing me awake, she came all the way in and closed the door softly behind her.

She headed straight for my bed.  “Move over a little,” she told me.  I slid my body sideways and moved my bear to the other side of me.  She pulled the covers back, slid off her robe, and slid in next to me.  “Turn sideways, away from me,” she said.

It took a bit of doing, but I was soon on my side with her snuggled tightly to my back.  Her arm came over me and hugged me tightly from behind for a moment.  Her arm left me and I felt her moving around, doing something.  Her arm came back, but when it did, she slid that damn singing doll under my arm, making me hold it.  I couldn’t toss it away because her arm was soon hugging me again, trapping my arm and that doll.  She stopped hugging me tightly, but her arm around me stayed.

“I’m so sorry Gramps,” she said softly near my ear.  “So, so very sorry.”  I wanted to answer, so I started to move my arm to pull the pacifier from my mouth.  “Don’t!” she whispered quickly.  “Don’t take it out.  You don’t need to say anything.  It’s all my fault.  Not yours.  I just need to apologize.”

I couldn’t see her.  I couldn’t move or answer her.  All I could do was lay there and feel her body snuggled against me, and her arm lovingly wrapped over me.

“I thought it would be okay,” she told me.  “Mom assured me it would all be just fine.  Oh, and she’s really sorry too.  She’ll probably apologize later herself, so don’t be surprised.”

I didn’t need any apologies.  And it wasn’t their fault.  It was all mine!  I had figured that much out by myself.  My fault.  My fault!  My fault!

“Please believe me,” she continued, “when I tell you how much I love you, which is…more than you can imagine.  Please Gramps.  I really do love you so much.  No.  Not like you’re probably thinking.  You men.  You always only think about one thing – sex!  Not like that.  But my love is a lot deeper than that.  Just…believe me Gramps.”

She paused and sighed for a moment, then said, “I wish I could fix things for you.  I wish like crazy I could find some way to fix everything.  But…I just don’t know how.  Mom doesn’t know either.  We’d both like to fix things for you, but…we can’t.  I’m sorry for that too.”

Fix things?  They couldn’t fix things.  It was too late.  The damage had already been done.  And once that kind of damage happens, there is no fixing it.  Ever!

“But just know that I love you Gramps.  I love you with all my heart.  And I promise to always love you, and protect you as well as I can.  I promise Gramps.  I promise!”

She said nothing more after that.  She just laid there behind me with her arm over me.  Snuggling against me.  She felt…nice doing that.  It wasn’t long before I heard her breathing change.  She had fallen asleep.  I hadn’t slept much myself all night.  Not after yesterday.

And now it was Black Friday.  What black hearted things would come my way today?  More deep dark black holes of regret.  I was sure of that.

It was a while before Kimmie woke up again.  When she moved, it woke me from the light troubled slumber I had finally succumbed to.

“Good morning baby,” she said softly.  “Let’s get you up and changed.  Okay?”

Yeah.  My diaper was soaked, as usual.  Changing me was absolutely fine with me.

A little while later, breakfast was served.  Since I had gotten baby cereal for breakfast the day before, I was betting I was going to get it again.  Yes!  I won that bet!  Baby food!  Yuck!

Ashley had dressed me in another skirt outfit for the day.  Short skirt, light blue knitted top, blue tights, and red little girl shoes with the decorations on them.  Easy.  Casual.  I certainly didn’t need anything special since I would be spending the entire day dragging my butt around on the floor, being made to go from toy, to toy, to toy.  Why couldn’t they make baby toys more interesting?  If they did, I’m sure they would be much more educational than the ones that I had.

A few times Kimmie came over to me and whispered, “Are you pushing Gramps?  Or do we need to keep you doing your exercises here too instead of just at home?”

I got the point and started pushing immediately.  It wasn’t long before my diaper was messy, smelly, and miserable.  Kimmie chuckled as she walked away, leaving me like that.  Darn woman!

I was happy though.  Mid-morning, my diaper got changed and I was soon clean, dry, and happy.  Uh…the dry part didn’t last long since Kimmie had me drink another baby bottle of juice.  Darn that stuff can run right through you.

I had colorful baby food again for lunch, while I watched Kimmie and Ashley eating leftover turkey and dressing.  Not fair!  I loved turkey and dressing, especially leftovers.  A little while later, it was nap time again.  This time I was tired.  I guess because  I didn’t sleep well the night before.  I don’t remember much about that, which has to mean that I was out like a light.  I do remember though that it kind of surprised me later when they woke me up that my diaper was so wet.  When they had put me down to sleep, it had only been a little wet.  I guess I had been too tired to remember much each time I woke up to pee.

It wasn’t Kimmie, but Ashley who came into my room to wake me from my nap.  “Hi Dad,” she said as she came in, her words pulling me awake.  “Sleep okay?”

Pacifier!  Couldn’t answer!

She came over and pulled the covers off me and helped me out of bed.  “Stay there a second,” she told me.  She pulled out the changing mat plastic tablecloth and laid it out on the bed.  I was soon lying down on top of it.  I was more than a bit shocked that she was going to change me.  I’m sure she could see the hesitation and worry about that on my face.  “Don’t worry,” she told me.  “There’s nothing there I haven’t seen many times before.”

That was mostly true.  But there was one thing I was betting she might not have seen.  Still, if I refused to let her change me, I had no doubt that Kimmie would subject me to another “who’s the baby” lecture.

It didn’t take long before she pulled my diaper down.  My own daughter exposing me in all my babified glory.  How humiliating.  Especially when she noticed the one thing that I was betting she probably hadn’t seen before.

“Oh!” she said once the chastity device had been exposed.  “Kimmie told me about that, but I didn’t realize she was going to use it on you up here.”  Her fingernail tapped the flat surface of the front several times.  “Is it fun?” she asked.

I didn’t reply, and not just because I couldn’t with that thing in my mouth.  I didn’t nod, I didn’t shake my head, I just stared back at her challengingly.  A second later, she went back to changing me.  Yeah, I could tell.  She was another one who’d had lots of practice.

After the way things had gone the day before with the family, I was more than glad to spend the entire day in relative quiet, playing with my toys and watching cartoons on TV.  Even being forced to do that all day was far better than facing the indignation of the family.

Maybe Black Friday wasn’t so black for me after all.  But that didn’t mean that the black hole in my soul didn’t remain all too prominent.  I doubted I would ever get over it.

 

After everything being quiet and calm all day Friday, I wasn’t sure what to expect for Saturday.  If anybody asked me, I’d tell them I wanted to go home Saturday.  I would have preferred to go home on Thursday after that miserable late lunch that didn’t exactly happen.  In fact, I would have preferred to never have come up here to see the family at all.  But none of that happened, and Kimmie appeared to be sticking to her plan to leave on Sunday to go home.

The good news was that Saturday was almost a carbon copy of Friday for me.  Another skirt outfit similar to what Kimmie put me in the day before, and lots, and lots of time spent on the floor with all those toys I hated…loved so much.

I said almost a carbon copy (I wonder how many of you out there even know what a carbon copy actually is?  Look it up!)  There was one very notable, humongous difference that I couldn’t ignore if I tried.

It’s called – baby shower!

It didn’t happen until late Saturday afternoon.  And darn it all, nobody warned me…or reminded me about it.  Yeah, I vaguely remember Kimmie mentioning it once, but after what happened on Thursday, you’d think anything like that would be cancelled.  Nope!  Not at all.  Not since it was a chance for the women to get together and party.

Before the party, I got stuck into the bathtub for another scrub by Kimmie.  The bath water didn’t have bubbles, but it was purple and smelled flowery.  By the time Kimmie let me out, I smelled just as weird.

Lots and lots of baby powder followed.  More than usual, and she rubbed it on me in places she didn’t usually put it.  In moments I went from smelling weirdly flowery to smelling like nothing but baby powder.  You already know I’m not going to mention that she put a diaper on me next.  No tights.  Instead, she stuck a pair of those frilly little girl socks on my feet, followed by the red little girl shoes.

Then she dropped something new over my head.  It was…I don’t know what you’d call it.  Some kind of baby girl looking top?  No, that’s not a strong enough description.  I think it was supposed to be a dress, but with it that short I’m not sure you could actually call it a dress.  It was pastel yellow and white, lightweight airy material, short cap sleeves with lace around them.  Lace across the tight-fitting bodice, and the rest of it flared out and got wider the longer it got, which actually only came down past the top of my diaper.  And that’s it.  It fastened with a single button at the back.  No bra!  I couldn’t believe it.  It felt so good to go without one for a while.

And then she attacked my hair while her mother made suggestions that Kimmie just had to try.  I think they spent almost half an hour, winding up doing very little to my head other than what Kimmie usually did to it, except that I do know that she clipped two big red bows into my hair.  I saw the bows before she put them in, so I knew they were there, one at the back of each side of my head.  The end result though…I couldn’t see.  I’m not sure I wanted to see it.  I was planning on looking in the mirror as soon as they were done, but that didn’t happen.  When they declared me finished, Kimmie had me get down on my hands and knees, and crawl all the way from my bedroom into the living room.

“No more walking tonight!” Kimmie told me sternly.  “You crawl like a baby only.  In fact, don’t even stand up…ever!  Got that?”

I couldn’t answer.  You know the reason.  It’s the reason I didn’t usually answer anyone.  But what would anyone care about what a baby had to say anyway.

Two minutes later, Ashley handed me a baby bottle full of juice to drink.  Big mistake!  Didn’t they know how fast that stuff ran through me?  I’d be peeing and wet before anybody knew it, and they had just changed and dressed me.

The two women disappeared after that, leaving the “baby” unattended again.  Wasn’t that a crime or something?  When I finished my bottle, I automatically stuck my paci back in my mouth.  I was so used to it now that it almost felt weird to not have something to suck on.

Eventually, Ashley and Kimmie came back to the living room, both of them dressed nicer than they had been before.  Ashley had some things in her hand.  She got down on the floor with me and my toys, grabbed my face with one hand, and began brushing something lightly on my cheeks.  When she finished with that, she pulled the plug from my mouth and spread a touch of something on my lips.  Then she pushed the pacifier right back into my mouth again.  Why had she bothered with my lips?  Nobody was ever going to see them.

While Kimmie had been busy doing that, Ashley began moving all my toys further into the corner of the room.  Kimmie had me crawl over to them and play there.  And then the doorbell rang, and the panic hit me full force again.  This was bad!  This was very, very bad!  Why hadn’t they cancelled this party?

A moment later, Jenny walked into the room with her two daughters, Allison and Madison.  They were all carrying gifts.  They greeted and hugged Ashley and Kimmie, then they all came over to “see” me.  They didn’t exactly talk to me.  Instead, they talked about me.

“Oh my goodness, look at that sweet top he’s wearing.  It’s so pretty!”

“Doesn’t he look just like a baby?”

“I saw those shoes on Thursday at Marie’s, but I didn’t get a chance to ask.  Where did you ever find them?”

You get the picture, I’m sure.

The doorbell rang and more women arrived.  More gifts.  More comments about me.

“I love the pattern on his diapers.  It’s so darling.  So babyish…even though I’ve never seen any actual baby diapers that look like that.”

“Is he…do the pictures on his diaper disappear when he’s wet?  Because if so, then it doesn’t look like he’s dry anymore.”

I don’t know what all those women were drinking, but the more of them that showed up, the louder and giddier they all seemed to get.  When I realized that, I took more careful note of the glasses and cups in their hands.  Yes, I saw a few wine glasses, but most of them had coffee mugs or regular glasses that looked to contain soda or something.  All I can tell you though is that the noise level continued to get louder, and the laughing and talking continued to get busier and more excited. 

“Oh no.  Kimberly wanted a pretty little girl, so we’ve got to call him her, not him.”

“No, no!”  Someone else shouted a few minutes later.  “She can’t keep calling him Gramps.  Not if he’s a little girl now.  We need a better name!”

That statement became the start of a lengthy game of name calling.  All girl’s names that the women came up with and laughed at.  All of them girl’s names that they thought Kimmie should rename me.

“Kimmie!  Think about it.  You could even legally change his name.”

“Wouldn’t that be a scream?” one of them laughed.

“I wonder how he’d feel about that?” another one contemplated.  And then they all laughed loud and long.  I just sat there and wet my diaper over the idea.  My pacifier was getting sucked on a lot harder than usual too.  I was going to wear it out soon if I kept at it like that.  But I figured I had good reason to keep sucking as hard as I was.  Kimmie would be proud of me though.  All my sucking was just the way she wanted me to do it.  I wasn’t chewing on the thing at all.  Too much practice I guess.

And then the time came for Kimmie to open all their gifts.  I started trying to pay extra attention to that, but with everyone crowded around, I really couldn’t see much from my position in the corner of the floor.

How many times can those women say ooo, ah, and oh?  How many times can they laugh?  It seemed like an endless number of times for all of it.  A number of times I heard the words, “specially made for big babies.”  Had some of those women actually bought stuff made for adult babies?  It sounded like it.

Despite not being able to see, I heard about adult sized diapers, baby bibs, baby toys, clothes, a changing mat, and jewelry.  I’m sure there were other things too, but as I said, I couldn’t actually see any of it.  Something told me though that I’d get more than ample time to not just see, but experience everything those women had brought for Kimmie…which I already knew was in reality all for me.

I got the impression that Kimmie had no intention of ending her little games with me anytime soon.  That thought, along with thoughts about what had happened Thursday, made my future sound more ominous than ever.

And then Kimmie came over to me, grabbed me by the hand, and had me crawl over to the middle of the living room where Ashley was rolling something out on the floor.  “Lay down baby,” Kimmie told me softly.  I realized the thing on the floor was a new changing mat.  Was Kimmie going to change me here?  Now?  In front of all those women?  I looked up at her questioningly, but the moment I did, I saw that look on her face that told me she was prepared to lecture me about who was the baby in the family again.  With a sinking feeling, and more than a few worries about what a bad idea this was, I laid on my back on that mat.  Cushioned.  Nice.

All the women were talking, including Kimmie.  All of them were watching from either up close, or back in their chairs.  In the center of the living room, I was the center of attention.  Or rather, my diaper was.

Since my top didn’t cover much of my diaper, and my socks didn’t come anywhere close to it, all Kimmie had to do was pull the fastening tapes open and pull it down to fully expose me in front of all of them.

“Oh my God!”  Someone exclaimed.

“Look at that thing!” someone else laughed.

“It’s completely flat!” another of them noted.

“How can he pee out of it?” still another one asked.

“Are you kidding?” someone replied.  “Did you see how wet his diaper is?  He’s got no problem peeing through it at all.”

With that, Kimmie explained that there as a six inch tube running inside my penis that made sure peeing would be no problem for me at all.  Yes, the women all laughed at that too.

“Can I touch it?” one of them asked.

“Me too!”

I was soon subjected to woman after woman touching and tapping on my chastity device.  They even pulled on the tight waist band that kept it pulled tightly to my body.

“He certainly can’t get it off,” one of them noted.

“And he can’t get himself off either,” someone added.

“Isn’t that the point?” another of them said.

Yes, again they all had to laugh.

That had to be the longest and most embarrassing diaper change I had ever experienced.

Eventually I noticed though that the number of women was diminishing.  Eventually, they all left.  It was just Ashley, Kimberly, and me in the house once again.  Ash and Kimmie both disappeared leaving me alone with my toys.  I really needed to speak to Kimmie about that.  Leaving babies unattended like that was dangerous.  You never knew what could happen to them.

I was still on the floor in the corner of the living room when Ash and Kimmie came back and started cleaning up.  They both still ignored me, but the two of them seemed to be very happy.

I guess despite the men in the family, despite the things that had happened on Thursday, the women had all come together to have their little party.  Their baby shower, for a big, overgrown, very old baby.  Me.  I believe women love baby showers.  I guess any reason is a good excuse to have one.  Even Kimmie and her new baby…me.

Yeah.  No matter how I looked at it.  Despite the events of Thursday.  This baby shower had been a success.  I guess Kimmie and her mother had good reason to be happy.  I felt glad for them.  But that black hole in my soul was still just as deep and black as ever.

 

Sunday morning, Kimmie and I got back in her car.  It was now loaded with things from front to back, top to bottom, and everywhere in between.  I was stuck in the backseat again wearing another skirt outfit.  My black patent little girl shoes had made another appearance and were back on my feet, along with both pink tights and white lacy socks.  Kimmie hugged and kissed her mother, and Ashley leaned into the car to hug and kiss me.

“Love you Dad,” she told me.  “Don’t fret too much about the family.  Let me worry about them.  You just…try to enjoy your life, okay?”

I said nothing.  Pacifier, remember?

She hugged me again then closed the rear door of the car.  A minute later, Kimmie was on the road and we were heading home.

The road seemed to be packed with cars.  How many people saw me dressed the way I was, sucking on either a pacifier or a baby bottle?  Several times, accidents slowed the highway to an absolute crawl.  Still, Kimmie had no choice but to keep driving.  When she finally stopped for lunch, it was at another fast-food restaurant, and again she insisted that I go inside.  Yes, I was quite a sight for everyone to see.  Yes, I wet my diaper as soon as I walked into the place.  I couldn’t help it.  At least Kimmie let me drink from a straw again.

When she stopped for gas, she changed my diaper afterwards.  Then it was back on the road, but I was still in the backseat.  I stayed there, completely silent with that pacifier in my mouth all the way home.

You have no idea how relieved I was to pull into our driveway.  You have no idea how relieved I was going into my own house.

I was relieved, but that black hole in my soul remained.  My son.  My oldest child had disowned me.  He no longer considered me to be his father.

What hurt even more, was that everything he had said about me had been absolutely true.  I was a disappointment, not only to him, but more so, to myself.  I had allowed myself to come to this point, and I didn’t know what I could do about it.  Worse, I already knew the answer to that.  I wasn’t going to even try to do anything about it.  The damage had already been done and there was no fixing it.

This was my life now.  Me and Kimmie.  I guessed, for as long as she wanted things to be this way.