Pop Star's Lament

Chapter 2
A Little Down Time

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Chapter Description: Symphana gets what she wished for. Unfortunately, it’s what she wished for, not what she's getting.

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Symphana’s consciousness returned. She couldn’t see anything at first; the dark permeated everything. She could feel something with flat sides in her hands while a windup toy played a simple tune in her ears.

She knew the tune! “Farmer in the dell” played on cheap, slightly off tune brass chimes. She noted the F-key had a clunky sound that bothered her sense of musical pitch.

Despite it being a poor rendition, she hummed to it off-key and noted that she didn’t have full control of her vocal cords yet.

As her vision kicked in, she first saw the outer edges of her sight and then the complete picture. What she saw came into sharp focus with blurry edges, still sharp enough in her middle vision, allowing her to see most things clear enough.

The flat objects turned out to be toddler blocks. She finished stacking a blue atop a red and felt a powerful urge to taste a yellow one just within her grasp. She grabbed it with unsteady motor skills and lifted it to her mouth.

As she licked the rough block, tasting the paste and salt flavor of it, another of her senses came on line: her sense of smell.

“PEE-YOU!” she attempted to say at the assault of what could only be the aftermath of a baby’s digestion on a healthy serving of prunes. Instead, what came out of her mouth was a loud “GAH!” sound.

Her focus shifted to her stomach, or rather what someone had wrapped around it and over her crotch.

“He agreed to no diapers!” she thought. “Damn him! I specifically said no diapers! I’ll sue him for breach of contract! That SOB will regret…”

Her mental tirade tapered off after a few moments as she realized her situation. She was a baby in a messy diaper who couldn’t articulate her needs except with the barest of communication. Standing up or walking was impossible for her.

“I’m screwed!” she babbled as she pulled herself up to a wobbly standing position aided by the railing in the crib. She fell back down on her squishy backside and cried at her hopeless predicament.

“A-WAAAH!” she yelled as she bolted upright in her bed from her dream.

Symphana blinked at the hazy fog of awakening and cleared her crusty eyes with the back of her hands. She looked around and saw her familiar cavernous bedroom and realized that she had awakened in her massive canopy bed just like any other morning.

“Just a dream, thank goodness!” she said aloud. Her voice sounded higher pitched than usual, but didn’t register right away.

She stretched almost cat-like to further the awakening process. A little scratching at her side as she smacked her lips to get her saliva flowing.

Not firing on all pistons yet, she felt the softness and caress of her silken pajamas against her skin and had the dawning realization that something was amiss about them. She lifted her hands to examination to find the cuffs drooping over her hands, hiding them from view.

The muzziness of sleep persisted, causing her to puzzle with slowness over her name-brand Papinelle pajamas.

They were a loose fit, but not that loose! She stretched her arms out, revealing both sleeves were too long for her frame. It took several more moments before she became awake enough to remember her agreement with Natasha.

“WOW!” she said aloud, realizing that she really had regained her youth back. The high pitch of her voice now registered in her mind and her ears. She tested it out by humming an old kiddy tune from way back in her career.

“And if this is the dream, it's all I ever n-e-e-d” she sang in the key of D major, on pitch but a higher key than when she first sang it all those decades ago.

“Wow! I should have started my career earlier. This is cool!” she bounced out of her bed, leaving her pajama bottoms behind to perform in front of a full-length mirror.

Holding a hairbrush, she sang into it while gyrating at her prepubescent image, the pajama top hanging off her like a large dress. She had emerged so deep in her impromptu performance that she didn’t see her personal maid come into her bedroom.

“Well, little miss, I see that you’re up and running early this morning!” said Lilith with a smile. With any luck, she’d be able to channel that energy into getting her young charge dressed for their date at the zoo with a minimum of fuss today.

Face flushed red with embarrassment, Symphana stopped her performance and turned to take in her personal servant with the slowness of recognition and understanding of their relative positions on her family’s hierarchy.

“Oh, um, g-good morning, Lilith! I just felt like singing, you know?”

“Yes, yes! Everyone knows you’re destined for greatness, Symmy! Now let’s pick out our outfit for the day at the zoo, okay?”

Symphana the adult would have taken going to the zoo as another mundane thing, but for the child she now was…

“Yay! I wanna wear a t-shirt, shorts and knee-high socks. Let’s make it casual, okay Lilith?”

Lilith looked at her charge for a moment, wondering if she should explain something to her, and then decided to “pull the band aid” as quick as possible.

“I think shorts will show off your pull-ups a bit much, don’t you think?”

“Huh? What pull-ups?” asked Symphana. She patted herself and found that indeed, she wore a pair of them!

Lilith did her best to hide her exasperated expression as she explained for the umpteenth time to Symphana about her medical condition.

“Your pelvic muscles still haven’t developed enough to allow regular panty wear. While you can hold it to a degree, too much liquid and excitement makes you wet yourself, remember?”

Like a balloon deflating, reality sunk into Symphana’s world view as she remembered she wore pull-ups until age 12.

“Oh,” was all she could respond with.

Lilith helped her undress and remarked on how big her pajamas were.

“Why do you insist on wearing such a gigantic size? You won’t fit into these for a decade or two at least!”

“They’re comfy, okay? I like the feel of silk against my skin!” was the child’s reply. It came off prickly, and Lilith knew when to back down at her childish outbursts.

“Yes, milady!” she responded.

Symphana listened to her servant’s tone and turned her emotions from brooding back to being sunny, as only children and manic depressives were capable of.

“So, what clothing do you propose we go to the zoo in, Lilith?” she asked sweetly with big, innocent china-blue eyes and a cheerful grin.

Lilith smiled back and chose a loose child’s bib overall shorts, yellow play shirt, bright red sneakers, and rainbow socks.

Symphana gagged inside at the clashing riot of colors but smiled and allowed herself to be dressed, starting with a fresh pull-up.

Hair brushed and braided into perfect twin tails, her face scrubbed and clean, Symphana ate a breakfast of cold cereal and juice before going outside her sprawling mansion with Lilith to be picked up for her zoo visit by a hired limo driver.

At the zoo, Symphana found herself bored as she walked from one exhibit to the next. She found she lacked the excitement of experiencing something for the first time with a child’s innocent worldview.

With a jaded attitude, she visited the monkey exhibit. She yawned and found light amusement at several of the primates as they imitated her.

Near lunchtime, Lilith begged her charge for a break. She sat down on a nearby bench with a soda and took off her uncomfortable shoes to relax. Symphana didn’t feel like sitting and begged to go visit the giraffe exhibit while Lilith recharged.

As it allowed her to keep watch on the girl and rest her tired feet, Lilith agreed.

Symphana bumped into Natasha while she viewed the tall beasts as they grazed on tree leaves. It didn’t shock her. She had a feeling he might come by and evaluate how she was doing.

“Hello, Natasha,” she greeted him neutrally. “Are you here to gloat at my misery?”

Natasha noted her attitude fit in well with most drama queens of her current age. He clasped her hand with grace and tenderness in his well-manicured ones and looked into her eyes with concern.

“No, my dear, I’m not. I’m here to ensure your satisfaction. What about our deal is causing you unhappiness?”

The events of the day, its disappointments, boredom, failure to fulfill her fantasy about being young again all came to the surface. Symphana groused with the ungraceful brattiness of a petulant child who had received nothing of her strict demands.

“You said no diapers and I’m bored and all sweaty! This isn’t any fun! You said I’d have fun at the zoo, but I’m not!” she vented. Natasha took it all in stride with patience while he waited for her to calm down from the release of her displeasure at her situation.

She finished, felt embarrassed for being so bratty, and apologized for her rudeness.

While Natasha smiled at her frankness, her intuition told her she’d dodged a bullet by doing so. A vision of her back in the playpen flashed across her mind, causing her to shudder.

Another creepy feeling crept up her spine with excruciating slowness. It felt as if she were a fresh, young juicy mouse being eyed by a semi-sated boa constrictor, considering whether to have a snack before its next meal.

“I really mean it. I shouldn’t complain about a bunch of little things. My apologies!” she stammered nervously, reiterating her regret in hopes Natasha wouldn’t do anything in retaliation for her brattiness.

Natasha gave her a genuine smile in return. With his ego stroked by her discomfort, he was magnanimous in his response.

“How about we go to a burger joint and let you play in the ball pit?” he offered. “A hot and salty meal with a syrupy shake looks to be just what you need right now, little Symmy!”

The smile on his face turned oily as he hinted he wasn’t requesting they go. He was demanding it.

She gulped at his offer. While it felt like something she wanted to do; she didn’t feel comfortable in his presence. She felt the longer she found herself around him, the more problems she’d have further down the road.

“Um, if you insist?”

The unsureness in her voice gave Natasha’s ego an additional boost. He felt almost drunk with the giddy feeling it invoked in him.

“Yes, my dear Symmy, I insist! Let’s collect your caregiver and be off!”

With no further ado, he took her by the hand to walk her back to where Lilith had passed out on her bench. She startled awake from their approach and alerted to her charge being escorted by a strange man.

“Albeit a handsome one, he’s still a stranger!” muttered Lilith, who hastily put on her shoes and put the rest of her soft drink into a nearby waste bin.

Approaching the pair, she admonished Symphana about the dangers of strangers. The girl rolled her eyes in defiance at the warning.

“Natasha and I know each other, Lilith! Stop being such an old stick in the mud,” she snapped. The last thing she needed was her maid pissing off someone as powerful as Natasha!

The worries of Lilith and the nervous rebelliousness of Symphana turned out to be the one out of a million combinations that Natasha loved to savor the most. He grinned at the pair.

“It’s like watching a pair of sisters fighting like old friends,” he chirped with glee.

“Let’s go to that greasy burger joint and you can both enjoy playing in the ball pit!”

He waved his arm at Lilith with enthusiasm.

 

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