The Golden Triangle

Complete Story

“Matt, can you walk a little faster?  This woman isn’t going to wait around for us all day!” Chloe pleaded as she dragged Matt towards their destination.

“Ugh, Chloe, you freak out about everything!” he replied, rolling his eyes.  “What is she gonna do, cancel our wedding?”

“She was nice enough to squeeze us in today, and we’re already 20 minutes late!  11:30, remember?  We agreed on this time together!  How could you have forgotten?” Chloe retorted.

Matt declined to respond, looking away from his angry fiancé and into the window of The Golden Triangle Antiquities Shop.  That’s when he saw her.  A pretty girl in her early-twenties, wearing glasses with her hair up in a bun.  He slowed down, feeling his arm stretch as Chloe’s forward momentum caused her hand to separate from his.

“Matt!  What the hell are you doing?” Chloe asked, confused by her fiancé’s sudden halt.  Matt didn’t respond as he stared at the pretty young girl behind the counter of the store.  His mind raced to quickly find an excuse. 

“Babe, I’m so sorry.  I gotta take a piss.  Go on ahead and I’ll catch up with you in a few” he said as he grabbed the door handle to enter the store.

Chloe watched as he turned the handle, a look of hurt on her face.  “You can’t hold it for another block?  Matt, please! you know how important this is to me!  It should be important to you, too!  You’re acting like you don’t even care!”

Matt raised his hand in front of him, his body language projecting casual disregard.  “Chloe, calm down. I’m just going to run in and use their bathroom.  Go on ahead so the wedding planner knows we didn’t cancel.  I’ll catch up with you in a bit, babe.  I promise!”

She stared at him with a look of injurious disbelief, shook her head and began walking away.  As she made her way towards the wedding planner’s shop, her eyes began to mist.  She wiped a tear away as an ugly feeling she had been repressing for the last two years burst through the wall of her psyche:

He didn’t care.  Not about her, not about their relationship and certainly not about their impending marriage.  In spite of everything she’d done for him, including supporting him through two straight years of unemployment, he just didn’t care.  They would never adopt a child like he had promised and they would never have a family.  She had loved him.  She really had, but something had broken inside of her and that sentiment was suddenly so foreign that she couldn’t remember what it felt like.  Instead, those feelings were replaced by confusion, loneliness and horrible sadness.  Two years of her life were instantly rendered hollow and meaningless.

Her pace slowed as the weight of this horrible epiphany seemed to manifest itself in the literal sense, increasing with each step she took.  Eventually, it ground her to a halt and she simply couldn’t go any further.  As the nearby clocktower announced the arrival of noon, she slipped into a nearby alley, buried her face in her hands and began to cry.

Matt entered the store, slowly closing the door behind him.  As the door latched shut, he was struck by its eerie, churchlike silence.  The smell of old books, ancient wood and musty metal dominated his olfactory senses, reminding him of school field trips he took to museums in his youth.  He made his way through the store’s assorted odds and ends, navigating the labyrinthian layout of shelves and displays.  Then, he spotted his prey.   

There she sat, bathed in the soft, warm glow of an overhead lamp.  She looked up at her new customer, moving a strand of her sandy blonde hair out of her face, her light brown eyes framed by her glasses.  “Welcome to the Golden Triangle!  What brings you in today?”

Matt smiled, casually walking around the room with his hands in his pockets.  “Don’t have much time” he thought.  “Gonna have to be aggressive with this one.  Same game plan, though.  Get her to meet up for drinks and then…….” 

He approached the young girl, a mischievous smile on his lips.  “Well, something in the window caught my eye………” he said, leaning on the counter and giving her a look of barely disguised lust that left no room for interpretation. 

Her smile faded as she realized why her new customer had entered the store.  She was in her early 20’s and he was clearly older than her by at least ten years.  Her initial excitement turned to awkward discomfort as she did her best to navigate the conversation back to business.  “Oh, well, I’d be happy to show you some of our inventory……that is, if you came into buy something, which I assume is what you meant?” 

His aggressive, blitzkrieg method of courtship having failed, Matt decided to retreat.  “Fuck.  This isn’t going to be as easy as I thought.  Gotta dial it back a bit if I’m going to get anywhere with her” he thought as he regrouped.  “Gotta act like a serious customer.  Maybe I can convince her I’ll buy something if she meets up with me.” 

He leaned away from the counter then extended his hand towards her, his formerly smarmy grin replaced with a friendly, innocent smile.  “I’m……..look, I’m sorry. I didn’t even get your name.  That was rude of me.  I’m Matt.  And you are……?”

The girl untensed her shoulders, extending her hand to his and giving it a detached, business-like shake.  “It’s Esther, and no worries” she offered, leaning back in her chair.

“Well, like I was saying, if there’s anything in here you have questions about, I’m more than happy to help.  We have some new acquisitions that came in a few weeks ago.  Those are going to be in that display area to your left.” 

Matt turned his head and looked at the assemblage of antiques on display.  One in particular caught his eye.  He made his way over to a display pedestal abutting the wall with a statue resting on top.  It depicted a woman kneeling, her feathered arms raised to the sky.  An opaque stone, roughly the size of a baseball rested in her upwardly-turned palms, as if being offered to the heavens.  A plaque with an inscription was attached to the pedestal:

“Statue of Ma’at in onyx: c. 1500 BCE”

Matt’s fixation on the object was interrupted by Esther’s voice.  “Ah, that’s an amazing piece, isn’t it?”

“It’s beautiful, but………where do you find something like this?  Where does this all of this stuff come from?” he asked, expecting something so ancient and well-preserved to be in a museum.

Esther adjusted her glasses, ready to deliver her well-rehearsed sales pitch.  “Well, the owner has been dealing in antiquities for years.  In fact, everything you see in the store was either bought or discovered by him.”

“What is he, like a real-life Indiana Jones?  What’s his name?” Matt asked.

“I can’t divulge that, unfortunately.  All I can say is that he values his privacy.  In fact, he claims his anonymity is his greatest asset” she explained.

“I guess he doesn’t have an Instagram account, then.  What else can you tell me about this thing?” Matt asked.  He watched as Esther moved from behind the counter and towards the statue with her hands behind her back, looking very much like a museum docent.

“This particular example was recovered almost one hundred years ago from the tomb of a nobleman in the Valley of the Kings.  The tomb’s owner is unknown, but it most likely belonged to a high priest.  The statue was on display at a museum in Cairo for decades.  Then, during the 2011 revolution, it went missing.  When my employer found out that it had vanished, he became keenly interested in tracking it down.  He was successful and, well, here we are.”

Matt looked at her, puzzled.  “But……shouldn’t he have returned it to the authorities?  Shouldn’t it be back at the museum?”

“I don’t know the particulars, but when he found it, he did make an effort to contact the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.  Things were still in disarray from the revolution and he couldn’t make contact with any of his old, trusted colleagues. When that didn’t work, he took it back to the museum himself and met with its director, hoping to share his research with him.  He learned something about the statue during his search, something about who created it and what its true purpose was.  After he presented his findings, they told him he could take it.  In fact, they insisted.”

“That’s……..creepy” Matt said, taking a step back from the statue.  “Did he ever tell you what he learned?”

Esther paused for a moment, seemingly hesitant.  “He did, although I’m not sure I believe any of it, even if the museum authorities did.  It’s not uncommon for legends and tales about artifacts to accumulate over the years and muddy the waters as to their true history.  It’s one of the many challenges I face during my research.”

Matt looked at her, surprised.  “Research?  You mean you actually study this stuff?  That’s impressive. I figured you were just another one of these girls working retail while you waited for a rich guy to marry you!”

Esther held her tongue at Matt’s “compliment”, clearing her throat.  “Actually, I’m working towards my Masters in archaeology.  The owner is a close friend of my professor.”

“Wow.  Well, I guess if the archaeology thing doesn’t work out, you could do modelling” Matt remarked, winking at her.

Esther allowed this latest compliment to go unanswered as she swallowed hard.  Her patience with her new customer was wearing thinner by the moment.  Still, she had a job to do and unfortunately a sale was a sale, even if it was to a chauvinistic pig.

“So, you study this stuff.  Cool.  Does that mean you can read these symbols here?” Matt asked, pointing at the glyphs at the base of the statue.

“Those ‘symbols’ are hieroglyphics” she explained.  “It roughly translates to ‘Let those who speak falsehoods be humbled.  May the light of Ra lay bare their deception.  May those they have deceived become their masters and may all know their shame.’”

Matt’s eyebrows raised slightly.  “Sounds intense.  What do you think it means?”

“I’m still researching the meaning.  It sounds like a curse of some kind.  It could be that the creator of the statue had some sort of vendetta against someone.  It could also have been intended as a form of protection against deception.  Suffice it to say, whoever wrote it wasn’t a fan of liars” Esther said in a tone that Matt took as implicative.  Off in the distance, the faint sound of the nearby clocktower ringing in the quarter hour cut through the pause in conversation.

Matt was reminded that time wasn’t on his side.  He had to hurry.  The last thing he needed was Chloe to come back to the store looking for him.  “So, has anyone made an offer on this thing?”

“Interestingly, it’s been up for sale in our store twice now” Esther explained.  “We originally sold it a few months ago to a woman who bought it as a gift for her husband.  She must have sold it to someone else, because a few weeks later, a man and a woman came in with it and sold it back to us.  They needed money to build a nursery for their little girl.  A very cute child, but she seemed very upset that they were parting with it.  If she wasn’t buckled into her stroller, I think she would have run out the door with it.”

“Kids that age will cry about anything” Matt replied dismissively as he took a few steps closer to the statue, his posture straight with his hands behind his back in an effort to feign sophistication. 

“So, do you think you’d be interested in purchasing it?” Esther asked.

“Well, that depends” Matt responded, grinning flirtatiously.  “Does it come with your phone number?  I was thinking that we could discuss the purchase over drinks.  On me, of course.”

Esther had finally had enough.  Despite her prim, proper look and bookish mannerisms, she was no pushover and could be quite assertive when she had to be.  In an academic field dominated by men, it was a personality trait that was practically a necessity.  She also had a BS detector that was in no need of maintenance.  The truth is, it had been going off from the moment Matt walked into the store.  Now, it was time to bare her fangs.  She crossed her arms in front of her, leaning to one side and cocking her head.

“Who was the woman you were walking with before you came into the store?” Esther asked in a tone that wouldn’t have sounded out of place in a police interrogation.

A blank look came over Matt’s face, stunned by the young girl’s aggressively pointed question.  In his impulsive, libido-driven pursuit he hadn’t considered that Esther might have seen him with Chloe before he noticed her.  “Oh, uh, her?  That was just a friend………a friend of mine.  We, um, got into a little argument about where to have lunch and she stormed off.” 

As Matt attempted to lie his way out of Esther’s inquiry, she caught a glimpse of something shimmering behind him.  It disappeared just as fast as it appeared, causing her to dismiss it as a tromp l’oeil.   Now, she decided to fire another interrogatory volley at her flailing customer.

“Oh?  That’s quite the reaction to have over a friend disagreeing with you about where to eat.  Surely it was over something more serious than that?”  

Matt laughed nervously.  “Haha, I know!  She really is immature for her age, but hey I try not to be judgmental; you know?  In all seriousness though, we’re just friends, I promise.  I hope you didn’t think we were, you know, ‘together’……..”

As lies continued to pour from Matt’s mouth, Esther saw the shimmering once more.  She tilted her head slightly to the side and that’s when she saw it.  It was coming from the statue.  The stone Ma’at held in her hand was glowing.  “There’s no way…..” she thought as her eyes widened, “……that the legends are true?”  Suddenly, the glowing rapidly intensified and shrank, focusing into a small dot which shot forth from the stone.  Esther reflexively tried to move her head to avoid the luminescent projectile, but she wasn’t nearly quick enough.  It struck her right between the eyes.  Then, she saw everything all at once.  It played like a movie in fast forward before her mind’s eye.  All of his lies. All of his deceptions and broken promises.  Every moment of infidelity was laid bare before her.  Worse, she saw those whom he hadn’t given a choice to.  Women who slumbered as he had his way with their bodies.  The last thing she saw was a young woman, crying bitterly in an alley.  “May the light of Ra lay bare their deception”, she said aloud as the ethereal vision ended.

“Wait, what?  Where’d that come from?” Matt asked as he paused in his rambling attempt at obfuscation.  Esther gave him a look that suddenly made the hairs on his arms stand up.  She then shook her head, as if in disbelief at her own disgust. 

“Um, Esther?  Is everything…….ok?” Matt asked, taking a step backwards from the angry-looking girl.

“You’re a liar, Matt” she stated in a flat, matter-of-fact manner while seemingly staring right through him.  “Chloe isn’t your friend.  She’s your fiancé.  She’s your fiancé and you don’t even love her.  In fact, you could care less about her.  You’ve stayed with her because she supports you and you don’t want to work.  You lie to her every day.  You cheat on her regularly.   On top of all that, you’re a rapist, too.  That’s why you came into the store today.  You wanted to see if you could sleep with me.”

Matt stood before her stunned, mouth agape.  He felt as if a spotlight had been placed on his very soul.  Stripped of his façade of lies, he shrunk away from her in embarrassment.

“What…..how….do you know?” he stammered, still shocked by Esther’s damning soliloquy.

In truth, Esther didn’t know how to answer that question because she wasn’t exactly sure herself.  But that didn’t matter, because now a sunlight-hued aura began to surround Matt.  She watched as the man before her began to change.  At first it was hard to tell what exactly was happening, but soon it became clear.  He was getting younger.

“The curse…….it’s real!” Esther thought as she watched the transformation taking place.  The stone pulsed slowly, each time removing another handful of years as he entered his twenties.  Matt, for his part, seemed oblivious as to what was happening to him.

“Are you going to answer me?!  Is this some kind of fucking setup or something?!” he asked, his voice now a bit higher as he entered his late-teens.  Esther remained silent as she stared in amazement.  His clothing seemed to change as he continued his chronological descent backwards.  He entered his pre-teens, leaving him in a baseball cap, shorts and a t-shirt.

“What’s going on?!  Where did you get all that shit from?!  Why the fuck are you just staring?!!” he yelled as his voice awkwardly cracked mid-sentence.  He was now a pre-pubescent boy. 

It was the cracking of his voice that finally alerted him that something was amiss.  Well, that and the fact that the room suddenly seemed much bigger than it had been a few moments ago.  Even more alarming was the fact that Esther was now taller than him by at least a few feet.  “Why is she so much taller than me?  What the hell is going on?!” he thought to himself as he straightened his posture in a futile attempt to regain his lost stature.  It was then that he realized that Esther hadn’t gotten taller, he had gotten smaller! 

“W-what?! N-no! What’s happening to me?!” he screamed as he held his hands to his face and saw his small, puny arms in front of him.  He was six years old now.  Esther looked at the stone and noticed that while its pulsing ceased, it still glowed hotly. 

Matt, now clad in a red shirt and overalls, frantically ran his hands along his new clothing, confused and in shock.  As Esther stood before the frightened little boy, she felt drawn to the statue once more.  She could hear it speaking to her.  “You……want me to serve as a priestess?” she asked it with her inner voice as she stared at its glowing sphere.  “Yes, I will, but what do you need me to do?”  She listened as her question was answered.  The light of Ra had laid Matt’s sins bare.  Now, he was to be humbled.  Her duty was clear.  It was time to fulfill it.

“Aww, poor little boy…….” Esther said, walking towards him.  “You picked the wrong statue to lie in front of, it seems!”

Matt began to back away as Esther’s patronizing tone made him feel just as small as he’d become.  “How……how are you doing this?!  What happened to me?!  Change me back!  I’m not a little kid, I’m a man!”

Esther frowned in mock sympathy.  “Oh, is that so?  Well, I’ve seen all of your dirty little secrets and I can’t say I agree.  You’ve been a very naughty boy, haven’t you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Matt whined angrily, sounding like a little boy caught in an obvious lie.  Esther took a few steps closer, then bent down to address him, making it a point to demonstrate her physical dominance to him. 

“Oh, I think you do!  The statue you were so interested in seems to have taken an interest in you, too.  It’s shown me who you really are, and it’s not a man.  Well, I know you think you are because you fancy yourself some sort of macho stud.  But that’s not true either, is it?  The truth is that you’re so pathetic that most of your conquests weren’t even conscious while you had your way with them.  You sit around all day while your fiancé works and you have no interest in devoting yourself to the woman who does everything for you.  You’re not a man, you’re a pathetic child masquerading as one.  Chloe isn’t your fiancé, she’s practically your mother.  So no, Matt.  You aren’t a man.  Not at all.”

Esther’s dressing down made Matt feel incredibly small.  His face turned bright red as he sniffled, rubbing tears from his eyes.  Esther remained unsympathetic.  She wasn’t finished with him yet.

“Oh, I have to ask, Matty…….” she began, infantilizing his name, “If I had been naïve enough to go out with you, would you have tried to drug me, too?”

Matt’s heart raced and his breathing intensified from fear.  He realized that she really did know everything.  Still, he couldn’t bring himself to admit it.  Esther’s angry tone combined with her imposing stature made him shrink away from her in fear.

“Well?  Answer me, little boy!  Were you going to try and rape me?” she asked, arms crossed.

“I……I wasn’t…….I………” Matt stammered.

“YES or NO?” she interjected, testily.

“NO!  NO! I wasn’t going to!” he screamed back in the shrill tone of a little boy arguing with an adult.

“Oh, Matty…….” she said, shaking her head as the stone began to pulse.

Matt felt himself begin to shrink again and his clothing changed once more.  Now, he was wearing a white t-shirt with a firetruck on it and blue shorts.  That’s not all he was wearing, though.  He was also wearing something under his shorts.  Something soft and thick.

Esther covered her mouth as she began to laugh, amused at the consequences of his latest lie.  He couldn’t have been more than four years old now.

“You just can’t help yourself, can you Matty?” she teased.  “I’d start telling the truth if I were you.  Any more lies and you might just disappear!”

“N-no!  No wanna be wike dis!  Pwease!  Change me back Estuh!” Matt pleaded as his speech regressed along with his age.

“Assuming I knew how, why would I give you your manhood back?  So that you can keep cheating on your fiancé?  So that you can keep drugging your one-night stands?  No, I don’t think so.  I think you got just what you deserved, Matty!  Besides, you look so cute in your little outfit!”  Matt began to whimper in embarrassment as she verbally emasculated him.  As he raised his shirt to dry his teary eyes, Esther saw the frilly waistband of what he was wearing under his shorts.

“Oh my!  Someone isn’t even potty trained yet, is he?” she teased.  “Does Matty still have accidents in his pants?”

Matt then realized why his “underwear” felt so thick and soft: he was back in Pull-Ups.  As he attempted to pull his shirt down over the waist of his shorts to hide his indignity, he felt a squirt of pee jet out of his shrunken manhood and into the thirsty confines of the absorbent garment.  Startled, he grabbed at his crotch with both hands in an attempt to stop himself from wetting again.  Esther grinned as she watched him struggle. 

“Matty, are you ok?” Esther asked, giggling at his plight.  “Does someone have to use the potty?” Matt continued to hold his crotch tightly, shuffling as he desperately tried to keep from wetting himself. 

“Aww, you really have to go, don’t you?  Too bad our bathroom is for employees only, or I’d take you to the potty and you could show me what a big boy you are!” she mockingly teased with barely disguised innuendo.

Matt couldn’t respond.  It took all of his mental effort to concentrate on not wetting himself.  The muscles that had so reliably held such urges at bay in adulthood were now severely weakened.  Despite holding as tight as he could, he began to feel his bladder slowly releasing itself.

“N-no!  I no wanna…….I no wanna pee pee!  Help me, Estuh pwease!  I need da potty!” he pleaded aloud as he continued to struggle.  Esther merely stood and watched, waiting for nature to take its course.

Finally, Matt’s body had its way and he began to soak his Pull-Up right in front of Esther.  His knees bent slightly inward as he stared into space and felt the warmth of his own urine pooling in the crotch of his Pull-Up.  He could feel it sagging slightly as he continued to pee, giving him the feeling that he might leak through it.  When he was finished, Matt did what all little boys who had accidents did: he started to cry.

It was then that Esther heard the store’s front door open as a woman hurriedly entered, frantically looking around.  As she passed in between the wall of display cases, Esther caught a glimpse of her and realized it was the same woman she saw in her vision.  “It’s her, it’s Chloe!” she thought as the woman spotted the crying little boy and rushed over to him.

“There you are!  Matty!  Why did you run off from Mommy?  I’ve been going into every store on the block looking for you!  I was just about to call the police!”  Matt recognized Chloe’s voice, but barely heard her as he continued to cry in embarrassment.  He tried to speak but couldn’t get any words out in between his sobs.

“How did you end up in here?” she asked, taking out a tissue and drying his eyes.  His vision now clear, he saw how big Chloe had become which stunned him and halted his blubbering.

Chloe turned to Esther, giving her an apologetic look.  “I am so, so sorry!  I was trying to find a store we could go into because he said he had to use the potty.  I turned around for one second and he was gone!  I really should’ve kept you in your stroller today, Matty!” 

“Oh, I…….see?” Esther replied blankly as she tried to make sense of what was happening.  Chloe’s relief transitioned to firmness as she bent down beside the distraught little boy.

“Honey, you told me you had to make a pee pee!  You were supposed to use the big boy potty once we got to the store!  Are you still holding it, or did you have an accident in your Pull-Up?”

Matt remained silent, confused as to why his fiancé was speaking to him as if she was his mother.  He wanted to explain what had happened, but he simply couldn’t find the words to express himself.  His vocabulary had all but disappeared, leaving him struggling to communicate even basic emotions and concepts.  Even worse, he knew that he had wet himself, but he just couldn’t bear to admit it in front of both his fiancé and the woman he had tried so desperately to take to bed.

“Well, if you aren’t going to tell Mommy, she’s going to have to check…….” Chloe said as she grabbed his pants by the waist and swiftly pulled them down to his ankles, revealing a sagging Pull-Up that had clearly absorbed a large wetting.

“Ugh, I knew it…….” she said in a disappointed tone, grabbing the crotch of the sodden garment in her hand.  “Four years old and still going potty in your pants!  I bet you snuck off from Mommy just so you could go in your Pull-Up, didn’t you?”

“I’m so sorry,” Chloe said to Esther as she began to unzip the bag slung over her shoulder, “but this is exactly why I still need to carry a diaper bag with me.  I can’t take him anywhere without him having an accident…..”

“Seems that way” Esther replied, smirking at Matt as he whimpered and began to suck his thumb.  He looked up at Esther with eyes that begged for mercy, but he was met with a cold stare of indifference.

“Do you mind if I change him here?  Do you have a bathroom I could use?” Chloe asked, sounding somewhat embarrassed.

“Well, we do but it doesn’t have a changing table, unfortunately.  You can change him here on the counter, if you’d like…..” Esther offered as she stared directly at the little boy.  Matt’s eyes widened at this suggestion.

“Oh! Well, that’s fine, as long as you’re ok with it of course!” Chloe said as she began to rummage through the diaper bag.

“Oh, it’s no worry at all!  I’ve changed plenty of diapers while babysitting” Esther assured.  “I won’t see anything that offends me, I promise!”

Chloe took out a changing pad from the diaper bag, unfolding it and laying it across the counter.  She picked Matt off the ground and placed him on it on it as Esther returned to her seat behind the counter and watched.

Matt stared in awe as his fiancé picked him up as if he was as light as a feather.  As a man, he had stood several inches taller than her.  Now, she seemed like a giant as she stood over him and rummaged through the diaper bag.  Matt realized what was about to happen and began to fuss and kick.  He once again tried to speak, but his mind seemed like it was blank.  He had forgotten nearly all of his adult words and all he could muster was a whiny, repetitive “Noooo!” and cover his crotch as Chloe prepared to remove his sodden Pull-Up.

“Matty, stop fidgeting!” Chloe snapped.  “Mommy needs to take your Pull-Up off and clean your pee pee!”  Matt watched in horror as she reached into the bag and produced a packet of baby wipes and a disposable diaper. 

“N-no!  No diapuh! Pwease!” Matt pleaded as Chloe attempted to tear the sides of his Pull-Up away.  He continued to squirm and resist, causing Chloe to grab both of his hands by his wrists, pushing them behind his head.  He tried to push back but her ironlike grip rendered his struggling useless.

“Matty!  If you don’t stop fussing Mommy is going to put you over her knee and spank you in front of this young lady, do you understand me?”  Frightened and intimidated by his fiancé’s obvious physical dominance over him, he stopped resisting and began sucking his thumb again as Chloe returned to removing his wet Pull-Up.

“What did Mommy tell you when she put you in these?” she said, tearing one side of his Pull-Up.  “If you’re going to use your Pull-Ups like diapers, then Mommy is going to put you back in them!” she said as she tore the other side of the Pull-Up away and pulled the front down between his legs, exposing his infantile genitals.  Matt’s face burned red with shame as he looked to his side and saw Esther smiling at him in the innocently adoring way that any young girl would smile at a helpless, naked little boy.  He wanted to beg her to figure out a way to change him back.  He didn’t want to be a baby anymore, he wanted to be a man!  Yet, he realized that even if he could speak in full sentences and beg all she would do is mock him.  The woman that he had preyed upon now had a front row seat to his emasculation and she seemed to be quite content to allow it to continue.

His train of thought was interrupted as he felt his legs being lifted by the ankles as Chloe removed his wet Pull-Up from under his bottom.  He then felt the cold sensation of baby wipes caressing his bottom and genitals, causing him to shiver slightly as he continued to suck his thumb for comfort.

He then felt something being sprinkled on his crotch, which he realized was baby powder once he smelled it.  He felt Chloe rubbing it in, causing him to whimper in embarrassment as her hands roamed his body freely.  After powdering him, Chloe drew the front of the diaper up between his legs and taped it shut.  She then took Matt’s shorts in her hands and held them up, frowning.

“Oh, Matty!  You leaked right through your Pull-Up and onto your pants!  Well, I can’t put you back in these.  You just won’t have anything covering your diaper, that’s all” she said, balling up the soiled bottoms and tossing them into the diaper bag.  Matt groaned in embarrassment as Chloe stood him up on the counter in front of Esther, dusting the excess baby powder from his thighs and making sure his diaper was on snuggly.  Matt’s thumb remained in his mouth the entire time.  He felt like it was the only thing keeping him from bursting into tears and crying again.  Chloe sat him down on the counter, facing her.

“Now, Mommy knows you already made pee pee, but Matty can show Mommy what a big boy he is by keeping his diaper clean and dry!” she instructed, causing Matt look away shamefully.  “So, if Matty has to make a pee pee…..or a poo poo….” she emphasized with particular importance, “…….Mommy wants him to tell her so she can take him to the potty!  I don’t want Matty using his diaper for poo poo!” 

Wetting himself in front of Esther was bad enough, but being told to inform his fiancé if he had to poop was absolutely mortifying.  Chloe winked at Esther, then looked back down at him.  “But I’m sure Matty won’t do that, because he’s such a big boy!” she patronizingly exclaimed, tussling his hair with her hand.

“Nooooo, he doesn’t make poo poo in his pants, does he?  He’s too old to do that!” Esther added, playing along with Chloe while sneering at the diapered little boy sitting on the counter.  Chloe sighed, putting her hand on her hip while brushing Matt’s hair out of his face.

“We’ve had a really tough time with potty training…..” she lamented, zipping her diaper bag back up and slinging it over her shoulder.  Curious as to why Chloe believed herself to be Matt’s mother, she decided to prod.

“So, is his Daddy as handsome as he is?” she asked as Chloe picked Matt up front the counter and held him at her hip.

“I wouldn’t know.  I’ve never met his father.  I can’t have children, so I adopted him a few years ago.  He’s been quite a handful, but I love him to death.  I hope that I can give him a good life, but he’s Such. A. Challenge sometimes!” she playfully said, bouncing Matt each time she punctuated her sentence.

It was then that Esther realized what the “curse” had actually done.  “She became his mother!  She always felt like she was, so that’s what she’s become!” she thought in amazement.  “He was never going to be the man she wanted, so the curse made him her child!”  Esther realized that Matt was going to be forced to relive a second babyhood, which to her seemed a just punishment for his wayward, wicked adulthood.

“Well, he has a lot of time ahead of him to grow up” Esther consoled while smirking at Matt who continued to suck his thumb as he clung to Chloe.  “Besides, I think he’ll turn out just fine with you as a mother” she said while shooting him a knowing grin.

Chloe frowned, slightly embarrassed.  “Well, I’ve got a four-year-old who isn’t potty trained and I nearly lost him today, so I hope you’re right!”

As the two women talked, Matt looked over at the statue that had drained him of his manhood.  As he stared at it, he began to see something form inside the stone.  It was a swirling haze, the composition of which he couldn’t discern.  Then, through the exotic miasma, an image appeared.  It was him.  More specifically, it was him as a man!  His adult avatar was desperately pushing against the air, giving the impression that it was trapped.  It stuck its hand out, as if begging to be freed from the stone.  Matt realized that his fate might not be sealed.  If he could get to the statue and break it, maybe he could free and reclaim his lost manhood!  He began to fuss, pointed at the ground and said “Wanna get down!”

“Ok honey, but stay close to Mommy!  I don’t want to lose you twice in one day!” Chloe instructed as she placed him on the floor.  As the two women continued their conversation, Matt slowly moved behind Chloe, then close to the counter to stay out of Esther’s line of sight.

Matt slowly inched his way towards the statue, his diaper crinkling as he snuck closer.  He realized that he was too small to actually reach up and grab it.  He would have to try to knock it down from its pedestal.  He began to push against the stand, but soon realized that it was actually bolted to the floor.  He would have to get high enough to push the statue off its pedestal if he was going to free himself.  He needed to reach the statue, but how?  Then, inspiration struck.

“Momma!  Momma!  Gotta go poo poo!” he shouted, interrupting Chloe and Esther’s conversation.  Esther watched as Chloe hurried over to Matt, wondering why he had strayed so close to the statue.

“Oh! Oh!  Mommy’s coming, Matty!  Just hold it a bit longer!” Chloe excitedly said as she swiftly walked over to him.  Matt stood next to the statue with his arms held out, signaling that he wanted to be carried.  As he waited to be picked up, he knew it was now or never.  Chloe reached down, held him under his armpits and lifted him into the air.  As he was raised level with the statue, he kicked it with all the might his little body could muster.  It wasn’t a direct hit, but it was enough to move it sideways with most of its weight now hanging over the edge of the pedestal.  It began to teeter, seconds from falling and crashing to the floor.  Time seemed to stand still as Matt pleaded and begged with all his heart for the demise of the object held his manly essence captive.

Unfortunately for him, it wasn’t to be.

As it teetered, Esther rushed over to the pedestal just before it fell, catching it in her arms and raising it back atop the display stand.  Realizing his plan had failed, he now desperately reached out towards the statute, swinging his hands wildly as Chloe apologized to Esther.

“Oh my gosh, that was SO close!  I would have felt so horrible if he’d broken it!” Chloe offered apologetically, turning her attention to her flailing child.  “Oh, he really has to go, can we use your bathroom?” she asked, putting Matt down on the floor and holding his hand firmly.

“Oh, of course you can!  Here, let me get you the key…..” Esther offered, rummaging through a drawer behind the counter.

As Chloe searched for the bathroom key, Matt continued to stare at the statue, still desperately thinking of a way to destroy it.  It began to glow again, showing him his imprisoned avatar once more as if mocking him.  Then, it pulsed slowly for the last time before its light faded completely.  Matt swore he felt something within him change, but whatever had happened wasn’t immediately noticeable.  He began to panic, wondering why the statue had changed him again.  Then, he remembered the last lie he had told.  The lie he told in his futile attempt to destroy the statue.  As if on cue, he felt a strong urge that made him realize that what he had lied about was now actually happening.  Now, he really did have to poop.  In fact, he was already doing it.  Matt bent his knees slightly and filled his diaper in silence while holding his fiancé’s hand as Esther continued to search for the bathroom key.

“I’m so sorry!” Esther offered while rummaging through the drawer.  “I know it’s here somewhere!”

“It’s ok, I’m sure he can hold it a bit longer, can’t you Matty?  Mommy knows that you’re trying and……….oh…….oh no…….” she said, stopping mid-sentence and wrinkling her nose at the foul odor wafting up from the little boy.  A few seconds later, Esther smelled it, too.  Chloe knelt down beside Matt, pulled the rear of his diaper away and looked inside.  She sighed, slinging her diaper bag over her shoulder and picking Matt up from the floor.

“Well, we won’t be needing the bathroom key anymore” she announced, sighing.  “I’m going to take him back to the car to change him.  Thank you so much for your help, Esther and sorry again for my little escape artist, here.”

Esther watched as Chloe held Matt up at her hip and noticed he looked a bit different.  He had gotten slightly younger and was now perhaps a little older than three.  As Chloe prepared to leave with Matt, Esther realized her role in the statue’s curse was complete. The man who had entered her store intending to woo and rape her was now leaving as a baby boy with a dirty diaper.  Realizing that his fate had been sealed, Matt’s lip began to quiver as his eyes met with Esther’s.  The girl returned a satisfied smile, waved and mouthed “bye bye” to him.  Matt frowned as tears began to run down his cheeks.  Then, he began wailing hysterically.

Chloe began to bounce him, shushing him as she began to walk towards the door.  “Well, I have to get Mr. Cranky in a clean diaper and home before his babysitter arrives.  I have a date tonight and I definitely don’t want to be late for that!  Nice meeting you, Esther!”  Esther waved goodbye and soon the pair had left the store.

As Matt’s cries of shame and despair slowly faded away, Esther looked over at the statue.  She should have felt terrified being alone with it, but she felt completely at ease.  It had chosen her and she had done as it asked.  In fact, it had protected her.  Perhaps that’s why she wasn’t afraid.  It had no cause to harm her.  Or, perhaps having been fed, it simply wasn’t hungry anymore.  Whatever the case, she had seen its power for herself.  It didn’t belong in a store for someone to buy.  It didn’t even belong in a museum.  Esther picked up her phone.  Her thumb hovered nervously over the screen for a few seconds, then tapped his name.  “Screw it” she thought.  “He needs to know.”

“Hello? Esther?” the voice groggily answered.  “What did I say before I left?  Do you know what time it is here?  You’ve got quite a knack for calling at uncommon hours” he scolded.

Esther sighed.  “I know what you said, sir.  But something…….something just happened and I can’t really describe it.  It’s……..”

“The statue of Ma’at?” he interjected.

Esther didn’t reply, her silence confirming what he already knew.

“Well, then I apologize for being short with you my dear.  I assume then that what’s done is done, correct?  They’re beyond help?”

Esther looked over at the stone as the afternoon sunlight reflected off of it.  “He is.  Well, they are, I suppose” she answered, suddenly realizing what had happened to the woman whom Esther had first sold the statue to.

“I see.  Very well, then.  Spilt milk, under the bridge.  The question is what do we do about it?” he asked.

“It needs to go back” she answered.

“Out of the question.  They begged me to take it away, they certainly won’t take it back” he countered.

“Not to the museum.  It needs to go back to the Valley of the Kings”.  A long silence met her assertion.

“That……..will be a difficult undertaking.  The tomb was sealed back up ages ago.  I’m going to have to call in a considerable amount of favors and as you know favors……”

“Are the real currency of this business, I know” she interjected, “but it needs to go back there.”

The voice on the other end sighed.  “Yes, it does.  Alright, then.  Delist it from our catalogue and put it in storage.  I’ll begin to arrange its reinternment.” 

With that, the call ended.

Epilogue

Esther walked down the street, making her way through the sea of people that milled about.  Her thesis defense had gone well.  She was in a good mood and decided to spend the rest of the day wandering around the city.  As she made her way past the shops and restaurants that lined the main drag of the downtown area, her phone buzzed.  She stopped to take it out of her purse and looked at the screen.  It was from her boss.

“Heard your thesis defense went well!  You’re destined for great things, Esther!  Very glad that working in my store didn’t frighten you off from the world of archaeology!” 

Esther smiled, thanking him in her reply and promising to meet for coffee soon.  Indeed, her experience with the statue of Ma’at hadn’t sent her off scared and running.  In fact, it had affirmed why she entered the field in the first place: the call of the ancient world, telling its stories and revealing its secrets through what it left behind.  Her encounter with the statue’s amazing power convinced her that there were other relics of similar power that had yet to be discovered and she was determined to find them.  In a world where the unknown was increasingly becoming known, the potential existence of other objects that transcended mortal understanding was alluring, even romantic.  As Esther continued to walk down the avenue, she spotted a bakery across the street that a friend had recommended to her.  Having worked up an appetite from her long walk, she decided to stop for a snack.  She tapped the crosswalk button with the side of her fist and waited for it to change.

As she waited for the street crossing sign to light up, she turned around and realized that she was standing in front of a daycare center.  She watched through the large window as children toddled about, playing with toys and running around the room.  A little boy wearing a diaper and a t-shirt stood by the window, sucking his thumb as he peered out to the street.  Their eyes met.  She smiled.  He screwed his face and began to cry.