✅ My Cousin's Keeper [NaNoWriMo 2021]

Epilogue: Her Baby Girlfriend (1/3)

This bonus chapter is dedicated to Dewayne, with thanks for all your support. Thank you!

I yawned and stretched. One arm instinctively stretched out in the direction of my fiancée, but I found that she wasn't there. Then I gave a little sigh, and forced my eyes open. My own bedroom; quiet and empty.

"Ffrances?" I called out, in the hope that she would be in the office or somewhere.

"Oh, you're awake?" her voice came back. "Need me to check your diaper and tell you if you're soaked this morning?" I couldn't really respond to that; so I just blushed crimson and hoped that she wouldn't ask again. I reached down and checked my diaper. I was dry, which was enough to elicit a sigh of relief.

It was hard to believe just how much things had changed in the last week, and I could tell that the stress was having an effect on me. I'd wet the bed for the first time since high school; and not just once. After the second time, Ffrances and Tess had started teasing me about what a baby I was, and the third time had been enough to make Ffrances demand that I start using some kind of protection. It seemed pretty ironic; the same demand that I'd made of Tess six months before. But the context was so very different. For me, who had never been a little, just the thought that I wasn't in control of my own body was terrifying, and made me feel like I had to prove myself to the world.

Wetting myself in the car hadn't helped my self-esteem either. But at least I'd been able to keep that from my family, and clean it up myself. Thankfully it had only been while I was driving. It hadn't been too hard to put a blanket over the pee-soaked seat, and wrap my coat around myself until I could get to the bathroom at work and change my clothes. But I'd had to start carrying extra clothes in my bag, just hoping that the next time wouldn't be somewhere that anyone could see. I couldn't believe that this was happening to me, and that uncertainty had started to make me doubt every decision.

"Don't worry, darling," Ffrances said cheerily, coming back into the bedroom just as I was checking the status of my diaper. "You can't help it, and that's not a big deal."

"It's not!" I protested, a little anger entering my voice now. "I mean... I'm not a baby! Stress shouldn't hit me like this, it's not normal. What's happening to me? I feel like my body's betraying me, like anything could go wrong at any time. I don't want to feel like I need somebody to help me. It's..." Then I couldn't keep my feelings locked up anymore. I started sobbing, sitting there in my bed.

"It's okay," Ffrances said, and slowly sat down beside me. "I can help you. Okay? Just let me know how you feel. This is degrading, isn't it? It disturbs you, and you hate not being in control when you've made that a core part of your life. Right? It's like it's eating away at your sense of self."

"Yeah," I said, with a little growl. "You got it. I mean, I get that you enjoy not having that control at times. But this... it's like something completely different. Like there's something wrong with me, something terrible. I can't stop worrying about it, thinking about how it could get worse."

"That's the point, isn't it?" she answered. "The same thing, but not knowing what caused it, is a hundred times worse."

"Exactly. It's not the same thing at all."

"And you have spent more than half a year forcing Tess through those feelings. Drugging her, abusing her trust, doing everything you could think of to convince her that it was just something that had happened to her."

"No, not like that," I argued. "It's natural for her, she's a little. She just needed some help to understand it."

"Tell me the truth, Gabby," she said, hand on my head. "Do you believe that?"

"No. I wanted her to be my baby because she's so small and cute, but I knew she'd never accept it. I had to trick her because it was the only way I could get her to regress at all."

"So you put her through all the anxiety you're feeling now. All the same fears, the uncertainty. You watched her shut herself away, seeing her friends less and less, because she was ashamed of this problem. And you kept on trying to make it worse, just because you could. Is that right?"

"Yes," I nodded, and then listened to what I had juts said. I had to qualify that answer; say that I knew she would be happier if she returned to the child that she was meant to be, and that she needed my help so that she wouldn't be fighting against so much pressure to act like an adult. "But I didn't think about it like that. I kept on lying to myself, thinking that she would be happy when she got used to it. I needed to believe that I cared about her, or I wouldn't have been able to go through with it."

"That sounds like the truth to me," she said, and I nodded slowly. Even my own judgement told me I had done something terrible. Maybe it was a kind of poetic justice that had given me this problem; what I really deserved for the way I had acted.'

"I deserve this then?" I whimpered, hoping that I would somehow be able to get over it. If I woke up wet again, I would have to see a doctor about it, no matter how humiliating the experience. "Do you think I'll... will I be able to recover?"

"How would you feel if I told you this was a part of your punishment?" she asked. "I think it would be quite appropriate, and entirely justified, to make you suffer the same things you did to Tess. So that you can understand how it really made her feel."

"Is it?" I asked; the thought hadn't even occurred to me. It could mean that I wasn't losing control of my body, that I wasn't actually sick. Could I believe that everything I was facing now, the anxiety and the disgust, was what the people closest to me thought that I deserved? I couldn't imagine that any of them would hate me that much. These feelings were the worst kind of hell.

And that was what I had done to Tess. I'd kept on reassuring myself that she must be enjoying it, and that she just needed a little help to understand what she really wanted. I told myself that the loss of control would just let her know she was a baby, and once she accepted that it wouldn't bother her. But as soon as I was in the same situation, I'd seen it for a nightmare. I had put her through hell, and refused to accept it for what it was until I was going through it myself.

"I'm sorry," I whimpered. "I never imagined it could be... I didn't think it would be anything like this. It was supposed to be all cute and adorable, not degrading and making me doubt my worth."

"And you've understood the difference now? Or is the only difference that it's you getting the short end of the stick?" She didn't sound like the woman I'd fallen for at all, when she was so bitter. But with the shock of what she had revealed, I could imagine that treating my baby like this would have earned me an awful lot of anger.

"I'm not a bad person," I said. "I don't try to be. I just... it's so easy to get carried away, and to ignore things that don't fit into what I believe. Really, Ffrances. I'm sorry. I would never have tried that if I had any idea how harmful it could be. So is this my punishment? Can you make this go away, if I make it up to you?"

"I told you it was harmful. I made rules to prevent you abusing it, precisely because of that. You can't tell me you didn't realise that, can you? Are you going to say that you didn't see all my attempts to rein you in, as you went out of your way to work around them?"

"No," I shook my head. "That's the big lesson. I need to trust that you know what you're saying. When it comes to psychology, and when it's about kinks as well. You're the one who actually understands that stuff. And I promise I will listen to you, whenever you tell me that something is a problem."

"That's good," she said. "And I really hope that some day, I'll be able to believe you. But if you want to end your punishment, it's not me that you need to apologise to. Tess is in control now, you understand? It's her you have to obey. And you know what I've noticed? I think she likes it when we call her 'Mommy'. She's got all the maternal instincts that you keep boasting about, and she knows just how to push a baby's buttons. You or me. So, maybe if you're nice to her, she'll let you keep the uncertainty at bay today, and remember that this is just a temporary trial, rather than an interminable nightmare. If you're nice enough to her, she might even let you have a day without any little accidents. Although, of course, you might not know if you're really safe or not."

"Damn," I mumbled. "I really screwed this one up. But I can live with it. And I promise you, I can learn."