Just after Alan’s mother started spoon-feeding him his milk-soaked rusks, the doorbell rang. She put the bowl and spoon down on the tray of his high-chair and turned to go towards the front door. Then she stopped, came back and popped the soother into his mouth. “Won’t be a minute”, she chirped.
It was Mrs. Fulton. “How is our little baby doing this morning?” she asked brightly, looking past his mother at Alan in his high-chair. His mother looked at him and smiled proudly.
“I’ve brought some toys for the baby”, Mrs. Fulton announced. The women came into the kitchen and she placed a large box on the table. They went through the assorted baby toys. His mother shook a rattle and smiled at him. He glared at her. She brought the rattle over to him. He looked at the mitten on his hand and realised that he couldn’t even hold a rattle. “Take it between both hands”, his mother instructed. He clamped the rattle between both mittens. His mother stood back expectantly. He shook it once. “There! Good baby.”
She returned to the box and left Alan holding the rattle. He looked down at his bowl of rusks. They tasted pretty gross, but he was hungry. His mother was more interested in the toys.
There was a little drum. A tin xylophone with five notes. “He should be able to manage most of these toys”, Mrs. Fulton said. “It’s mostly just things he can hit or shake or hold. He can’t do much more than that of course.” Alan looked gloomily at the box. It looked like that was about exciting as things were going to get for him.
He gave a little groan through his soother. His mother looked at him. “What’s wrong honey, do you want to play with your new toys?” He looked down at his rusks and kicked his legs to indicate frustration. She smiled and came over to him. She took the soother from his mouth and resumed feeding him. “Sorry dear, I forgot how much you love your rusks.”
When he was fed, he was brought to the play-pen and his new toys had been placed in it. “You play away there while we have coffee”, his mother told him. He looked unenthusiastically at the baby toys on offer.
The women went into the kitchen. Alan had really no interest in these toys. “I don’t hear anything”, his mother called out from the kitchen. He picked up a drum stick with difficulty between his two mittens and started hitting the drum and xylophone. “That’s better.”
When Mrs. Fulton was about to go, she came back in to see him playing in his pen. “I’ve asked Mrs. Lloyd to come over to you this afternoon with her little Joe. He’s been back in nappies now for over a year. She’ll be able to give you lots of tips and advice.”
Alan was shocked to hear of this poor boy kept in nappies for over a year! Then he remembered that this appeared to be his own fate.
The morning and early afternoon continued with his usual series of feedings and changings. The doorbell rang around 3pm. He heard his mother greet Mrs. Lloyd and Joe. “Oh, just look at him! Isn’t he adorable?”
Alan looked towards the door. In walked a boy, probably a year or two older than Alan. He was wearing a satin dress in turquoise with big puffed sleeves and tightly packed layers of petticoats underneath. The dress came only to a few inches below his waist and Alan could see most of his scarlet satin panties with three rows of white lace across the seat. His panties were pulled up over white tights and the obvious bulk of a nappy and he also wore white ankle socks with red lace trimming around the top. His turquoise mop cap rested above a dozen sausage curls.
Alan couldn’t believe that the boy was smiling! And he suc-ked quite unself-consciously on a large soother. “Isn’t his dress just beautiful?” his mother enthused. Joe took the hem of his dress in his fingers on either side and performed a deep curtsey. His ringlets dangled as his did so.
Alan realised that Joe’s hands weren’t even in mittens. He gave every appearance of being quite content to be standing there in a hugely gaudy baby dress, tights and a nappy. Alan wondered would he be so content if he was still in baby dresses and nappies in a year’s time. He was quite sure he wouldn’t.
“Show me those panties”, Alan’s mother prompted him. Joe turned his back to the ladies. He bent over to display the frills on his panties – although it was hardly necessary.
Suddenly, with his back safely to the ladies, the smile disappeared and he gave Alan a thoroughly miserable look. So Alan’s suspicions were confirmed. Even after a year being kept as a baby girl, you would not get used to it. But that thought did not make him feel any better.
When Joe was instructed to turn back around, the sweet smile reappeared before he turned. “Joe just loves his pretty dresses, don’t you?” Joe emitted what sounded like enthusiastic grunts through his soother and curtsied again. “He never wants to go back to being a grown up boy, do you?” Joe hesitated momentarily and the smile slipped a little but he pulled himself together and gurgled again.
“And he’s been in nappies for over a year now?” his mother asked. “Well, he couldn’t do without them now, could you dear?” Joe gave a slightly-embarrassed smile. “You’ll find Alan here will soon lose his control too when he realises that there’s no point in holding on”, Mrs. Lloyd said smiling down at an ashen-faced Alan in the pen.
His mother opened the side of the play-pen. “You two play together for a little, while your mummies chat.” Joe walked into the play-pen and sat down. Alan’s mother clipped the side bars back in place. Alan backed into a corner, uncomfortable with being confined in such a small space with the other boy. But they could not avoid touching against each other.
Joe picked up a dolly and started picking daintily at her dress. Alan looked at him as if he was mad. The ladies went into the kitchen.