Circles within Circles – Ch. 24 (Tier 2+)

Chapter Twenty-Four – It's a Hard Switch Life

Oh, so many important things to do! So many things for a big sister to take care of!

And of course Anneke was going to take care of them all – every last one.

Gone was the tall, blonde, quiet young woman who had first drawn Ethan's attention seemingly so long ago in class. Gone was her reserve, her self-assured smile, her mature air and her clearly capable grasp of the world. In her place there now bounced the same tall young woman, with a childishly earnest expression on her face and a bright, unfocused look in her grey eyes…

"We gonna get you all cleaned up!" she crowed – and into the bedroom she dragged the feebly struggling Ethan, whose pee-soaked jeans and drool-covered chin left zero question of exactly what mental age he now was. "Me's gonna change you! Gotta get you a nice new diapuh. Okay?" And about the room she bustled: eager hands grasping for the powder and lotion perched on the dresser, tugging open the drawers in search of the stacks of oversized padding nestled within.

Queen B had made sure they were well-prepared, after all.

And what a sight unfolded in that little bedroom – the same little room in which the sly and confident Anneke had first introduced Ethan to the delights of giving someone else control. Oh, she was definitely still in control, for sure. Anyone could see that from the way she ordered him about and tugged off his soaked clothes, and loudly declared him a "little pee-pee pants" who needed a diaper. But the clumsy way she tugged the open padding beneath him, the haphazard taping of the tabs, the petulant exasperation with her squirming charge… well, they bore all the marks now not of a grown woman, but of a grown woman with all the childish energy and bright loudness of a bossy little girl.

Emphasis on little… as her own underwear drawer now attested.

"See? I'se a big girl! I gets ta wear big girl pull-ups!" But as she hiked up her short skirt and gazed down at her panty-clad crotch, her satisfaction disappeared like sunshine before a passing spring cloud. "Wait, dat's not right!" Fingers clutched at the ugly blue cotton, pulling it down her legs and tossing the panties distastefully into the corner. "I wants pretty pink princesses!"

And indeed, there they lay in her underwear drawer: a stack of oversized pastel pull-ups, waiting for those eager hands to grab one up and tug it clumsily up along her long, bare legs and settling at last around her naked waist. "See? I'm a big girl with big girl panties! You'se just a baby! A wittle diaper baby!" But of course, the only response from Ethan was a grunt and gurgle as he stared blankly up at her, a look of regressed and infantile apathy in his unfocused eyes.

Not that that deterred her – for something inside her was egging her on. Was it in her brain? Her belly? She couldn't have said – but it didn't really matter. "Okay, we gonna eat now!" she declared, and out into the kitchen she marched. "You be good baby now. I'se gonna get nice yummy bottle for you!"

And dinner for herself, too. Queen B's programming must have mercifully left behind some self-preservation instincts, for even as the regressed Anneke gaily hauled chicken nuggets from the freezer and plunked them into a pan in the oven and turned it on, it seemed that her adult self still had enough sense not to burn her bare hands. Nor did she seem to have entirely forgotten how to boil water and immerse macaroni within. A three-year-old inside a woman's body she might have seemed, but at least she wasn't going to harm herself just yet.

So it was that, a half-hour later, any passerby curious – or nosy – enough to peer in the window would have seen a most unusual sight. A grown woman: seated on the living room floor before the TV, laughing at the antics of Twilight Sparkle and her friends, and cradling a giant bowl of macaroni-and-cheese and chicken nuggets between her wide-splayed legs. While beside her, an equally grown young man lay, clad in nothing but an oversized diaper, staring vaguely into the brightly colored screen over the shape of his already half-empty baby bottle of milk.

***

When morning dawned the next day, filtering slow and grey through the little apartment's curtains, Anneke was the first to wake. She blinked up at the ceiling, feeling her brain hazy and filled with fragments of the strangest dreams. Rainbow Dash… and Rarity. Trying to fly over the… ice cream mountains…

And then she felt it once more: the cool, thickened swell of cotton between her bare thighs.

As she groggily sat up, pushed back the covers, and pulled gingerly at her pastel nightgown, she blinked down to find the swollen bulk of a pink pull-up between her legs, the blurred faces of Disney princesses staring unsettlingly back up at her. Beside her… well, beside her was Ethan. Buried in the covers. And though she wasn't quite sure what he was wearing just yet, from the smell tickling her nose she was pretty sure it was something thick. And bulky. And probably full of a mess even more infantile than her own.

She groaned softly, then reached over for her phone. What… what had happened last night? It might as well have been a wild night of drinking, for all she could tell; her mind was as foggy and unsure as if she was struggling through the hangover from a half-dozen tequila shots. But as the screen on her phone lit up and she tentatively stabbed at the photos app, everything suddenly became clear. Embarrassingly so.

For there she was: face close to the camera, grinning like a maniac, with cheese sauce plastered from nose to chin. Here was another photo – this one of a half-naked Ethan staring into the camera from behind a mostly-empty bottle. One from a crazy angle, showing nothing but an obviously wet diaper. Another of a TV screen with Spike and what must have been part of Applejack's hindquarters. And then a series of three showing nothing more than the blurry-out-of-focus surface of a pink, princess-covered pull-up between splayed legs.

Oh, god. She- she'd really been regressed. They both had been. And all because of… of Queen B?

Fifty-fifty. The sarcastic, gloating voice of her mistress echoed in her mind, and she blinked up, staring out the window in chagrin. She'd suspected, yes. She knew Queen B had bragged about giving them both hypnotic, regressing triggers. But god, what a complete mind-fuck this all was to be so transformed – and at such a distance! Here she'd been mature and sensible and so ready to get back to her normal life. Here she'd thought maybe she could leave behind all the regrets and angst of those terrible weeks…

And how easily she'd persuaded herself of it too these past days! Heretofore they'd gotten off with sending Queen B nothing more than silly little "proofs" of their loyalty. One day she'd grinned apologetically and asked Ethan to pop in a pacifier so she could take a quick photo and send it off; the next she'd snapped a pic of the stacks of diapers she'd hurriedly stuffed away in the dresser…

But apparently those weren't nearly good enough for the Queen.

Fifty-fifty. Clearly, Queen B could trigger them anywhere – and so she was bound to do so again. When would she and Ethan be triggered next? Would it be when she was somewhere safe, like here at home? Or in class? Out in town? With… with friends? With family?

There was no way of knowing, of course – which was the whole spine-tingling horror of it. But maybe if she sent something off now, Queen B would be pleased enough not to trigger them again… right? All she could do was hope: biting her lip, glancing over at the slumbering Ethan, and ruefully tapping to compose a new message.

Her eyes grew wide once more as they took in the sight of her photo roll. The cheese face one, yes. And the one of Ethan. A flush of mortified shame crept up her cheeks, and her fingers hesitated for a moment before slowly pecking out the embarrassing words…

"We was good babies"

Oh, sure, maybe not all the time. But deep down she sensed the truth. She and Ethan were caught up in the Queen's world now. They might be tempted into feeling themselves free, but the hypnotic programming would likely never let them go. Like collared dogs on a shared leash they would tug to break free, and run… all the while running in hapless circles around their owner. Closer and closer they would inevitably slip, as their owner laughed and gloated and watched them spiral ever deeper into her control…

Though, she reflected as her finger tapped Send… if she and Ethan had to be caught in this mess, at least they were caught together, right? And if she had to become a pathetic, regressed little mess for her Queen's pleasure… well, there was no one else she'd have wanted to be with than Ethan.

THE END