The Documentary

Chapter 1
Whole Story

Chapter Description: Whole Story

(Monday Night)

“Produced by the Yamatoa Anti-Tourism Board,”  Clementine read the opening credits of the documentary and pressed pause.  “Paul, this better not be some bullshit hypnosis video we’ve been sent.”  She looked up at the man mountain on the couch next to her.

Paul, an Amazon, leaned forward on the couch and uncovered his eyes.  Unlike Clementine, Paul’s feet reached the floor when he was sitting on their couch, and he didn’t need a footstool to sit on it.  Everything outside of Clementine’s room was Amazon sized.  The price of having an Amazon roommate.

“You’re guess is as good as mine, Clem.”  He scratched his thinning head of raven hair.  “I just got this in the mail.  Thought you’d want to scan it with me.”

The mysterious DVD HAD been addressed to Paul.  If it had been addressed or referenced Clementine in any way, it would have been snapped in half and burned out of hand. Strangers didn’t send movies to Littles in good faith.

“Fine, but if it’s a cartoon or I start sucking my thumb, we’re trashing it immediately.”

“Same,” Paul agreed.  Clementine shot him a look.  “What?” Paul held up his hands in a defensive gesture.  “Not a joke.  Amazons are just as susceptible to hypnosis as Littles.  Remember that Carpet Mice episode I watched for you?  ‘Little Accidents Happen’? I was a bedwetter for almost a week after that.”

Clementine thought about that week.  So that’s why Paul had acted so strangely.  “You never told me that part.”

Crimson cheeks contrasted with midnight hair.  “I was embarrassed,” he admitted.

“I would be too,” Clementine admitted.  She looked down at her jeans.  Her anti-babying belt was still locked into place.  Nervously, she fiddled with the lock keeping her pants buttoned.  It was small enough that a giant’s fat fingers would be unable to properly press the release button and strong enough that none of them would get a peek inside her panties without a serious fight.  They could still be cut off or torn loose with enough effort, but no Amazon was going to “just check”. 

It’s not that Clementine didn’t trust Paul.  She just hadn’t taken it off when she got home from work.  She rarely did.  Keeping her pants tight came just as naturally to her as wearing a bra or tying her shoes.

“No,” Paul said. “You wouldn’t have been.  That shit was so powerful it would have bowled you over and you would have come looking for the nearest Amazon to help.”

Clementine rolled her eyes.  Amazons, even the well meaning ones like Paul, were so privileged sometimes.  “I thought you said you big strong Amazons were just as hypnotizable as us poor weak defenseless Littles.”

“Shit,” Paul cursed under his breath.  “Sorry, that’s not what I meant.  What I meant was that when I woke up in a wet bed, my brain was telling me that it was normal for a Little to wet the bed, and good Littles only had to find a helpful Amazon to make it all better.”

“But you’re not a Li-”  Clementine stopped herself.  “Oooooooh.  That’s how you knew your head was being screwed with.”  Your average Amazon hypno-propaganda was so specific and targeted that there was room for cognitive dissonance to wriggle its way back in under the right circumstances. 

Clementine had dodged a similar bullet when after screening a movie that she’d had an overwhelming urge to call Paul ‘Mommy’.   Yay Amazonian sexism and poorly designed subliminal content.  She’d called out of work sick that day.

That’s why the roommates usually watched this kind of thing in shifts.  If Clementine went under, Paul could just do his level best to ignore her or treat her like the adult she was until she snapped out of it.  No level of hypnosis was so strong that it stuck permanently after one dose.  

Hypnosis was like booze in that way:  Different tolerances for different brains, but no one was going to die of alcohol poisoning after a single shot.  People’s brains were more resilient than they expected.  Prolonged exposure would give you liver poisoning, though, and if someone poured enough vodka down your gullet all at once and you’d be in for a hurting; brain damage if not brain death.

“Do you mind if I isolate for this?”  Paul asked.  The movie, a documentary about the dreaded country where Littles checked in but did not check out by the looks of it, was still on pause.  It hadn’t even reached the title card.  “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

Clementine tried to joke.  “Got a feeling they’re gonna turn you into a Daddy?”  In theory, it wasn’t impossible for hypno-propaganda to be targeted specifically at Amazons.  An Amazon could be mind fucked into thinking that Littles were babies just as easily as a Little could get their eggs scrambled into believing that they were babies themselves, but Clementine didn’t believe it was a regular thing.

Why would ninety percent of Amazons feel the need to hypnotize the ten percent that disagreed with them?  Paul had often debated the accuracy of those numbers, but Clementine’s point still stood:  From day one, Amazons were told explicitly and implicitly that Littles were basically babies, and society had been set up for them to make that the truth.  Amazons didn’t need to be hypnotized, they were already largely indoctrinated.  That didn’t stop Paul from walking out of the room whenever one of those obnoxious Monkeez commercials with the Littles and babies side by side came on.

If diaper commercials aired on network T.V. were supposed to hypnotize her, they were doing it wrong.  The Little woman felt like slitting her wrist every time she saw someone her own age or older waddling around on screen, dressed up in a pirate hat and saggy padding as a corny voice warned about the danger of leaks on the high seas.  She’d die first before letting some Mommy or Daddy take her to be their Little doll.

She’d kill first.  Murder whatever Amazon was fool enough to put her in a crib and lean down for a kiss. Tear out their fucking jugular with her teeth.

“Fine,” Clementine said.  “I’d rather watch this and have to sit on the toilet all day tomorrow than lock and barricade my door.”  Whenever Paul got like this- worried that he might be compromised- it was standard procedure for Clementine to lock herself in her bedroom and be ready to bug out at the first sign that he’d want to baby her.

Paul was one of the few Amazons in Clementine’s life who was worth a damn.  He’d never once suggested that he baby her.  Not so much as a plastic sheet or a booster seat.  Still...Clementine would be lying if she said she wasn’t relieved that her window was next to a fire escape.”

Her roommate looked relieved.  Hurt.  But also relieved.  “Thanks, Clem.  I’ll keep an ear out and check in on you.  If you don’t answer back or I hear anything, I’m coming running and pulling the plug.”

“Deal.”

Paul excused himself.  Clementine pressed play.  

(Tuesday Morning)

“How was it?”  Paul asked at breakfast.

Sitting on her stack of old phone books, Clementine stirred her instant oatmeal.   “Well, it was depressing, that was for sure.  Enlightening, but depressing.”

“Yeah?” Paul said, spooning up his own brown and sugared mush.  “Learn anything interesting?”

“Only that Yamatoa as a culture is way more racist than I initially thought.”

Paul nodded in that way that people did where they didn’t know what question to ask or what else to add, but they wanted to be involved in the conversation.  Yamatoa was peculiar in Amazonian cultures.  Various countries had different policies on what constituted a “legal” adoption, but Yamatoa was easily the most extreme. 

Every Little that crossed into the country’s borders had to be babied and diapered by law.  Even tourists.  Even Littles whose plane made an ‘unscheduled’ pit stop for ‘refueling’.  Yamatoa was where the worst of Amazons went so they could kidnap and baby Littles with impunity. “Yeah?”

Clementine swept her bangs away from her forehead, something she usually did when she was stressed, (which was a lot).  “Did you know that the Yamatoan Emperor imposed that law as a way to, and I quote ‘keep Amazonian blood pure’.  Fucker hated Tweeners and Littles so much that he wanted to control Little reproductive rights.”  She took another spoonful. 

“Shiiiiiit.”  Paul just shook his head.  “I never thought of it that way.  Littles who never grow up never have kids.”  It was like a gentle kind of genocide.  Thankfully Paul was aware enough not to voice those feelings out loud. 

Clementine let out a sigh. “And it’s depressing as anything.  So many interviews with Littles who were just aware enough to give their side of the story.  One guy was kidnapped and taken over to Yamatoa.  Nobody would extradite him.  When they’re done reprogramming him, his Mommy is gonna take him back and there’ll be nothing anybody can do about it because our country recognizes adoptions made in Yamatoa.”

Paul frowned.  “How long is that gonna be?”

His roommate put her hand to her stomach.  Sympathy pains perhaps.  “He shit himself in the middle of the interview and kept going like he didn’t even notice.  Just squatted down and messed his shorts.  Then stood up and kept talking.”  She blinked.  “He might be back here already for all I know.”
“And they put that on camera?”
.
“Yeah.  Really depressing stuff.  Kind of makes you wonder what the point of fighting it is.”

Paul reached across the breakfast table and patted Clementine on the hand.  “Don’t talk like that.  People like us can make a difference. If that documentary showed how awful things are, then it’s up to us to make it less awful.”  He drew back his hand.  “At least it wasn’t a video about Maturosis.”

Clementine spit out a mouthful of oatmeal back into her bowl.  “Fuuuuck that.”  She reached for a paper towel and wiped her mouth.  Her words were harsh, but her tone was a bit jovial.  “I thought there were some things we didn’t talk about in this apartment.”

“Yeah,” Paul grinned.  “But it snapped you out of your funk, didn’t it?”  Maturosis was a craze that may have started here on the West Coast, but it had taken root and spread like wildfire back East.  It was eugenics disguised as science and oppression framed as compromise.  Summed up: Littles had a genetic predisposition towards acting like babies and if this predisposition expressed itself, it was every compassionate Amazon’s duty to baby them not because the Amazon wanted to or was cosseting, but because it was what the Little’s own ‘Developmental Plateau’ required.

Paul, Clementine, and the rest of their friends at the Rowanton Adult Society agreed that it was the most ridiculous thing they’d ever heard.

Such bullshit.  The whole thing was a racket that excused bad behavior from Amazons by putting the blame on victimized Littles.  What did the Little deserve to be put back in a nursery?  Surely, it was their Maturosis flaring up.  Meanwhile it was an incentive for every other Little to dissociate from each other, as one ‘symptom’ of Maturosis was a subconscious desire to associate with other regressed Littles.  Babies wanted to play with other babies or some such.  Not that Paul needed to express it to Clem.  She’d been nice enough and patient enough to teach him.  Now it was his job to teach others of his height.

Clementine took another couple of spoonfuls of oatmeal.  “Good point.  At least it’s not any of that Little Voices bullshit.  So fucking demeaning.”  Little Voices had jumped on the bandwagon and promoted the Maturosis brand with gusto.  They got to look like the good guys because they promoted more subtle forms of abuse than just plopping a Little in front of a hypno-screen or leaving them in shitty diapers or beating them till they broke.

They’d received tons of Little Voices promotions over the last few months. Correction: Their wastebasket had received tons of promotions.  It looked like the monster was trying to head home.


“Do you mind doing the dishes for me?”  Clementine hopped off her phone books and stood up on the chair. “I don’t wanna be late for work.”

It was Paul’s day off of work so he didn’t mind.  “Fine, but that means you’re on for after dinner.”

“Deal.”  Her floral print dress fluttered a bit when she hopped down to the floor.

“Do you think I should watch?”

“Only if you want to feel the opposite of ‘good’.”

“I got nothing better to do,” Paul said.

“Then give it a watch.”  Clementine started to walk out of the kitchen.

Paul arched an eyebrow when he saw her not make a right at her bedroom.  “Uh, Clem?”

She stopped. “What’s up?”

“You’re not wearing any shorts under your dress, are you?”

Clementine arched an eyebrow.  “No.  Why?  Can you see anything?”

He couldn’t but that wasn’t the point.  “You’re not wearing any pants right now?  And you’re going out?  To work?” 

The Little looked down at herself.  She lifted up the hem of her dress at the ankle.  Her legs bear beneath it.  “Yeah?  So?  I’m covered up.” 

The dress was indeed modest, but something didn’t sit right with Paul.  “Yeah, but you can’t fit that fancy belt lock thing of yours over a dress and have it do anything. Can you.  What if some Maternalist decides to...” he stopped and snapped the back of his own jeans to illustrate, “...you know?”

Clementine blinked.  “Oh yeah,” she said.  “I guess I guess I just forgot.”  She dipped into her room.  Not even two minutes later she was out.  “Got a pair of shorts and my belt.”  She lifted up the hem of her dress to show.  Paul, being a gentleman, fought the urge to look away.  “Thanks for looking out.”

“No prob.”

That was weird, Paul thought as he cleaned up the dishes and rinsed them in the sink. Clementine was normally way more careful than that. ‘Careful’ wasn’t the word for it. ‘Paranoid’ was a more apt descriptor of her. Rowanton was super progressive as Amazon cities went, with restrictive adoption laws that made it not worth most Amazon’s time.  Most Amazons who had their diapered dolls came from afar and got grandfathered in.  Maybe that documentary she’d watched into the wee hours of the morning had done something to her.

That was unlikely, though.  There’d been none of the signs: No bed wetting or accidents, no childish lisps, or slips and calling him ‘Daddy’.  No strange addictive compulsions (a common feature to ensure repeated viewing). No tics like thumb sucking.  She’d made a tiny mess with the oatmeal, but she’d taken care of it immediately and it was his fault for getting her to do a spit take.  More than likely she’d just been a bit depressed and sleep deprived.

It happened.  It was her right. 

So after he’d cleaned the dishes up and gotten himself a soda, Paul plopped down on the couch, turned on the old DVD player, and pressed ‘play’.

(Wednesday evening)

“Okay everyone,” Clementine spoke into the microphone.  “Take your seats.”  The Rowanton Adult Society came to order.  The gathered crowd of Littles, Tweeners and yes, more than a few Amazons quieted and sat down, Amazons in the back only out of courtesy so that their shorter peers could be more easily seen and heard. 

The R.A.S. was the city’s largest organization against the adoption and infantilization of Littles.  About once a year, someone suggested a cutesy name change, usually by adding an H-word so that the acronym would spell ‘RASH’, but it was always rejected.  R.A.S. was no nonsense and without frills.  Let Little Voices and their ilk use propaganda and calls to emotion.  On paper, adopting anyone who wasn’t chronologically a child was wrong, and that’s all that mattered. 

Paul and Clementine were senior R.A.S. members, and had used their combined clout to call tonight’s meeting.  “Paul and I have come across a very enlightening documentary.  It shows some of the worst and most subversive practices of Little Adoption, both from a conditioning point of view and from a geopolitical and legal point of view.  This is an honest and frankly uncomfortable look at Yamatoa.”

There was a general murmur from the assembled crowd.  Everyone knew of Yamatoa.  It was only an ocean and an eleven hour flight away.  Some in the crowd (the Amazons especially), likely had Yamatoan neighbors.  Those neighbors more than likely had a Little kept in perpetual infancy.

“I should warn everyone,” Clementine warned the audience, “that while this will be educational, there will be some disturbing content for everyone.  You will see footage of captured Littles in diapers.  You will hear uncomfortable historical information given by experts of all ages and sizes.  You will hear suppositions by the filmmaker that accuse our own government using Yamatoa’s practices and reputation to their advantage, including as a way to suppress and discourage Little immigration and travel abroad.  This is not a feel good movie by any definition.”  That got an uncomfortable chuckle from some members of the audience.  “If at any time you feel yourself becoming uncomfortable, feel free to excuse yourself.”

A hand shot up from a Tweener.  “Um...speaking of “ she said. “Are we sure it’s safe to watch?”  There was no murmur, this time.  All eyes and ears were on the stage.  Everyone in R.A.S. knew the risk that certain types of media presented.

Clementine gestured to her roommate and friend. “Both Paul and myself have already watched this once.”  She made a show of turning around and bending over.  No diaper bulge from inside the skinny jeans, no white plastic backing peaked out the top of her pants.  “I’m not crinkling am I?”  That got a good natured laugh from the group.  “Paul? Did you bring a diaper bag?”  Paul made a show of patting his pants pockets and looking over his shoulder, as if such a gaudy item of infantilization were something on the level of leaving his wallet in another pair of pants.  That sent the taller folk howling.

“I think we’re good, ma’am.” Paul said.  More laughter, and the two took the slightest of bows.

“Now that we’ve got that out of the way.  Let’s educate ourselves.”

The lights dimmed, the projector turned on, and the documentary started to play.  Paul helped Clementine down stage by holding her hand, but his grasp lasted all the way until the pair had walked to the back and off to the side.

Clementine had lied up there.  Just a small fib, but for some reason she felt bad about it.  She and Paul had watched it once, yes, but they’d watched it more than that. They’d each watched it once alone. Then they watched it again together. 

Then they watched it this afternoon before the meeting.  It was as if they’d both wanted to commit each wrong, each atrocity to memory.  This movie was the ultimate trainwreck.  Clementine didn’t enjoy watching all of those Littles and hearing their stories about how they were once successful before being dragged back into the cradle of a foreign land.  She just couldn’t stop watching it.

Paul seemed much the same.  Horrified and disgusted at what Amazons were capable of if given the permission.

There in the darkness, Clementine fiddled with the lock on her anti-babying belt.  Such a stupid thing; all so that a stranger had less ability to check her pants for her.  Amazons didn’t have to worry about this kind of shit. 

She opened the lock with her touch. 

Then clicked it shut.  

Open. 

Then shut. 

Open.

Then shut.

Kind of pointless, really.  If an Amazon really had the mind too, it wouldn’t matter.  Paul, for all intents and purposes could still wrestle her down to the floor and peel her jeans off with a pair of scissors.  A few of the interviewers had mentioned trying similar devices, before being taken.  Now they all wore daycare uniforms and had giants coo at them and sing to them in a language they didn’t fully understand.

Her belt was a wooden door when every other burglar had a battering ram.

It was depressing.

“I should do it,” she whispered to herself.  “I should just get it over with.”  She imagined herself just letting go and peeing her pants right in the middle of everyone.  And then Paul or some other Amazon would scoop her up and strip her down, carry her naked to a corner store if they had to, and finally put a diaper on her.

And she’d cry and bawl and scream the entire time.  Right until whoever caught her put one of those inflating pacifier gags in between her lips.  Even then she’d moan and mumble around the rubber bulb, all the way until her captor decided to spank her into obedience, or force her to watch enough cartoons until her brain turned to mush and seeped out into her diaper.

No one got out of life alive.  No Little got out of adulthood undiapered.  It just didn’t happen.  Clementine was coming to realize that.  She didn’t want to be a baby.  It was something that still gave her dread on an existential level.  But this documentary was more evidence that it would happen to her eventually.  Wouldn’t it be nice, in a weird way, to give up that fight and just let it happen on her own terms? 

She chased the thought away.  It was gone, like the temptation to jump from a terminally tall building.  But the thought had occurred all the same.  One day, she’d jump.  Just not tonight.

Clementine snapped the lock on her pants closed.  And watched.

(A Thursday Afternoon...two weeks later.)

Paul took a bite out of his sandwich.  “So I was thinking,” he said.

“Yeah?” Clem looked up from her phone..

“Maybe we should, I dunno,” he swallowed.   “Leave the R.A.S.” 

She put her phone down with such force that Paul worried she might break it.  “Leave the R.A.S.?  Why?!”

Out of habit, Paul raised his hands back up in the defensive position. “I think things are starting to go downhill there.  Like, what good are we really doing Littles by watching that same movie again and again?”  The documentary was met with rousing success. Standing ovation. So the powers that be decided to show it at the next meeting.  And the next.  And the next.  “All we do lately is watch that doc. We watch it and we feel bad about ourselves, and then we clap and go home.”

“You feel bad about yourself,” his Little roomie quipped.  “I feel disgusted with what I’m seeing.”

Paul rubbed his temples. Littles. So stubborn.  So impulsive!  Like children, sometimes.  “Yeah,” he said with as much patience as he could muster.  “But what about activism?  Getting out there and changing people’s minds?  We’re just turning ourselves into a big echo chamber.”

This wasn’t an exaggeration.  Things were getting more tense over at the R.A.S. meetings.  There was never any talk of plans on how to change people's minds or get new anti-adoption legislation passed.  It was all watching that movie, and Littles and Tweeners getting angry.  The Amazons were getting shorter tempers too.  An acquaintance of his had been kicked out because a Little had gotten mouth and slapped her, and she took the Little over her knee. 

She’d been expelled.  He just hadn’t shown up to the next meeting.  And Paul had the strangest premonition that he hadn’t quit the club, but was now in a playpen somewhere. In a way he’d reminded Paul of those guys in movies that went out and got in a shootout so they didn’t have to face the music.  Suicide by cop.  Or in this case it was more like Maturicide by Amazon.

Clementin stood up from her phone books.  “You sound like them, you know.  The people who try to discredit Littles.  Say we’re just a bunch of babies whining and crying about everything.  Is that what you think?”

“No, that’s not what I-”

“Changing people’s minds.  You mean changing Amazons’ minds.  Or are Littles not full grown people to you anymore?  Is that it?  Am I just some dumb baby?  Do I need a big strong grown-up Amazon to take care of me?” she spat.

“I’m not saying that.”

“Yes you are!  You’re saying that we have to do things YOUR way!  It’s always YOUR way!  It’s always an Amazon’s way or no way at all!  The only way that Littles get what we want is if we want what you want for us!”

This was getting out of hand. 

Paul slammed his palms on the table and stood up.  “Are you even listening to yourself?  You sound like a-?”

“LIKE A WHAT!” she screamed.  “LIKE A BABY?! LIKE I’M THROWING A TEMPER TANTRUM!”

“YES!” Paul shouted back.  “YOU DO!”

Something inside Clementine snapped just then.  “Fine.” Clementine kicked off her shoes.  “Wah!  Daddy!” she mocked. “Feed me!”

“Clementine,” Paul warned.  “Don’t do what I think you’re about to do. 

She unbuckled her belt and squatted down.  “Wah! Daddy!  Dress me!”

“Clementine.  Don’t.” 

She closed her eyes.  “Wah! Daddy!” And pushed.  “Change me!”

“Don-!”  But it was too late.  He heard the burbling sounds coming out of her backside.  He saw the wet patch spread and drip down her pants as her bladder got in on the act, the puddle pooling and then dripping off the chair.  His nose picked up the rest.

“Wah, Daddy!” She stomped her foot in her own urine.  “I’m a baby!  What are you gonna do about it?!”  To punctuate her point, she plopped down on the phone books that boosted her up to table level.  Her lip quivered a bit and her face twisted as the mess squelched and spread around. 

She’d regretted that just then.  She had no idea how much she’d regret that.

Something inside Paul snapped just then.  Fast, faster than any Little could possibly appreciate, Paul blurred across the table and snatched his roommate up.  “You wanna act like a baby?  You want someone to feed you and dress you and change your poopy pants?  FINE!”

He tuned out all her kicking and screaming and carried her to his bedroom.  With one fell swoop, he cleared off his desk and pinned her to the makeshift changing table.  She kicked and screamed as hard as she could.  Meanwhile, he opened up the desk drawer and got out a travel pack of wipes and diapers. 

The Monkeez he’d bought from the gas station was a Size 8. Clementine’s size.  He’d bought them and the baby supplies as a precaution. He’d wanted to offer it to her as an option the next time a hypno-toon sabotaged her bladder control.  Better she have to wear a diaper for a day than all the extra laundry or damage to their couch like every other time. The wipes were for cleanliness.  The travel bottle of baby powder was for her own comfort and to avoid chafing.  That’s how he’d justified it.

The pacifier gag he shoved in her mouth he had a harder time explaining to himself.  On some level, he knew she wouldn’t like the idea of being diapered, even if it meant she was still a big girl.  But she wasn’t a big girl, was she?  Big girls didn’t pee and poop their pants in protest just because their best friends disagreed with them.  That’s what Paul told himself as he pulled her disgusting clothes off and wiped her down. 

She clearly needed this. This was for her own good.  He was being a good friend to her.  That’s what he told himself as he powdered her bum and diapered her bottom.

She screamed over the pacifier that she just couldn’t spit out, and swung at him, but her kicks and screams were nothing to him.  He carried her squalling, flailing form over to the bed and swaddled her the Yamatoan way, just like the documentary had shown him time and time again.  By the time he was done, his Little roomie was diapered and restrained, as helpless on the outside as she was on the inside; but she looked like an adorable newborn baby. 

Clementine, his darling, was moaning behind her pacifier, the reality of what she’d done to herself finally sinking in.  But it was too late.  The pro-Adoption Amazons in the doc had had a kind of twisted point.  Littles really couldn’t be trusted to moderate themselves, to care for themselves.  They really were just babies that wouldn’t grow up.  And you couldn’t force them and you couldn’t let them.  You could only baby them.

Paul carried his Little girl out to the living room and propped her up on the couch.  He flipped on the T.V. and unblocked Pennycade Jr.  Good.  Carpet Mice was on.  The opening credits were finishing and the title card flashed. “Little Accidents Happen.”

Good.

A few of these, and Clementine would finally be happy instead of living in a world of perpetual outrage. She wouldn’t be an adult, but at least she’d be happy.  Clementine moaned and tears started forming in her eyes.  It was too late for her to blink, now.

Paul went back into the kitchen and picked up Clem’s phone.  She wouldn’t be needing it anymore.  He’d snarled and looked down at the puddle she’d left for him.  He’d always have to clean up her messes, but at least from now on they’d be encased in pulp and poof and plastic.

Clementine’s moaning started to subside as the hypno-toon drew her in, (how had no one caught this yet?  It must be more of that government corruption the documentary had talked about).  Good baby in the making.  He scrolled through her phone, looking for ways to properly adopt her, even if it meant going out of town.
Hmmm…

Yamatoa seemed nice this time of year. 

(Saturday Night.  Eleven hours away.  Translated from Yamatoan.)

“Congratulations, Mr. Sato.”  The champagne glasses clinked and the two Amazon men sipped.  “Tourism and immigration is up ten percent since releasing that documentary.”

“You are too kind.  Mr. Ito.” The Vice-Minister of Tourism nodded to his superior.  “I am honored that you have noticed.”

“You aired many of our dirty secrets to the wider world and somehow made us more desirable than before.”

A sly grin spread across Mr. Sato’s mug.  “That is not all that I’ve aired, Minister.”

“Oh?”

Mr. Sato bit his tongue. There had been more in that film than just a bit of muckraking. His editors and technicians had also included subtle forms of suggestion, nearly indetectable.  Something that quietly reinforced that there was no point in fighting or delaying a Little’s inevitable second childhood. 

Littles who watched it enough times would inevitably self-sabotage.  High minded Amazons would lose their ideals, deciding it was better to join the masses instead of fighting an unwinnable good fight.  And they’d all think it was their idea.

Neither side would be happy with it, at least not initially.  A Little would see their worst nightmares come true.  An Amazon would find themselves a hypocrite.  But they’d justify it to themselves, and after an inevitable vacation and adoption in lovely Yamatoa, they’d both come around to the right way of thinking. One as the child and the other as their doting parent.

It was for the best.

The real secret was luring them in with a bit of gossip and the bitter fruit of harsh truths.  No one trusted things with news too good to be true.  Everyone was willing to listen to the latest gossip and believe the worst. 

“I also added in a false flag, so we never have to take credit for spilling our own secrets.”  Best not let his superior know the whole truth.  Just in case there needed to be a sequel.  Best to remain indispensable.