Regressing Lots

Chapter 4
Regressing Lots: Chapter Four

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Chapter Description: As the ladies continue their journey, they discuss their relationship, and debate their choices.

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It had not been a pleasant half hour for either Heather or Linda. As soon as the cursed dice had been safely stowed in the Jeep, locked in the glove compartment and padded with a blanket, Linda had addressed their next problem. Heather’s clothes were far too big for her smaller, teenage body now. It was a problem of modern society that people did not really understand how actually smaller and skinnier teenagers really were. Put two adult women beside each other and have them compare dress sizes and neither one would pretend they could easily fit into the other. But societal programming a decades of having twenty somethings portray teenagers on screen had seriously warped many a mind into thinking that teenagers were like young adults who dressed in the latest fashions. This was, painfully, far from the truth for Heather. At first Heather had tried to stand up, but her nylons were half slid off her legs, her patnies didn’t fit, and the only garment of clothing still holding onto her diminished frame was her (now) oversized blouse. She didn’t want to walk around half naked in a rest stop! She sat, instead, looking mutely at her hands and trying to think through her situation. Her heart was pounding, and there was a rush of panic trying to swallow her thoughts.

Fifteen. You’re fifteen years old now Heather. Even if those damned dice never roll again, you are screwed. Seriously, utterly, screwed.

She spent the two minutes Linda took to pack away the dice trying to work through the logistics of how she could continue with her life in her present condition. Nothing useful, rational or hopeful was coming to mind, however, and by the time Linda was finished, Heather had gone back to staring at her hands. They were smoother, the nails newer looking, the imperfections and care lines of age all but vanished. She hadn’t got a chance to look at her own face yet. Heather wasn’t sure if she wanted to, if she was ready to.

Linda came to her, kneeling down before her. Linda looked very much the same, just newer, fresher, and certainly more like the twenty year old she had become. With the right make-up and an excuse, she would certainly be able to go on with her career, in Heather’s estimation. The look of concern on Linda’s face made Heather feel guilty, and she looked away. There was genuine love and affection in Linda’s eyes, neither of which Heather deserved after the foolish stunt she had almost pulled.

“Heather, babe, we have to get out of here, okay? We need to get you into some clothes that fit a little better, and get moving. I’m shorter than you, and I’m going to guess we’re close to the same height now, so if you’re willing, I want you to grab some of my things and put them on. We’ll stop at the next truck stop and grab some better fitting clothes, but for now you shouldn’t be like this while we’re on the road.”

Heather looked back at Linda, and the jab of jealousy bit deep again. They were now only 5 years apart in age, where it should be 15, and now Heather was on the wrong side of the age divide. Linda was the mature adult (comparatively), and Heather was a pathetic teenager. She closed her eyes, banishing the thought of trying to knock Linda down to size. It was madness to even think about using those dice ever again, and she had to remember that those impulses came from without. A ghost, or a spirit, or whatever it was - the Lady of the Dice - was the one making those suggestions. But it would be Linda and Heather who had to deal with the consequences once the dice ran out of power and they were left as children by the side of the highway. So she pulled the hose off her legs, and her panties, and stood up barefoot in the gravel. It stung her feet to do it. She stepped right out of her fallen skirt, and sighed.

Linda was the same height as her now, which made Heather blink a few times. But Linda, not loosing her cool, took Linda by the arm and lead her to the back of the Jeep, pulling out her own bag. She pressed it into Heather’s arms.

“Here, take it and look through it while we drive,” she said.

“But I can’t drive and look through the bag at the same time!” Heather retorted. Then it dawned on her. She was fifteen, and under the legal driving age. If a passing State Police car sighted a teenager at the wheel, in the middle of the night, they would be pulled over for sure. Then what? Her ID didn’t match, and no one would believe this teenager was the 45 year old she claimed to be on her driver’s license.

Linda hugged her tight, trying to reassure Heather. All it did was serve to make Heather painfully aware that her girlfriend still had an ample amount of breast, while Heather’s bra shifted on her own chest ever more, highlighting how much of her own womanly development she had lost. Sensing the stiffness, Linda released the embrace.

“Come on Heather, you are still a beautiful woman, and smart, and we can figure this out. But right now, we’re fighting something way beyond anything they taught us at law school. We need to focus on our next move, and I think our next move is to keep moving.”

Heather nodded in mute agreement, and with reluctance, walked to the passenger side of the Jeep and slid in. She had to hold onto the grab bar on the dash, as usual to get in (Jeeps had a high ground profile), but it was noticeably harder to get in now than it had been. Linda had gathered up Heather’s fallen, oversized clothing and tossed it into the back of the Jeep, then slid into the driver’s seat and turned on the engine. She had to move the seat up a notch - her legs weren’t as long as Heather’s had been. They pulled back out onto the Interstate. Heather watched, in the side mirror, the place where she had been sitting in the gravel, and felt as if she was leaving a part of herself behind.

Linda’s suggestion of borrowing clothes was good natured, and Linda’s smaller height was a better match for Heather’s now diminished body, but it was still humiliating. She found a pair of comfortable looking yoga pants and pulled them on - the stretchy fabric was an excellent fit, though Heather was aware that Linda would fill them out much nicer than herself, and they were baggier than they should have been. The waist was slightly loose, but they would stay on, and that was a big bonus. Next Heather removed her oversized blouse, looking with regret and the gravel dirt on the back of the blouse from when she had sat down in the dirt. It would need to be dry cleaned. Even worse, it would half a decade before Heather properly fit into that blouse again. Her bra she took off, and discarded over her shoulder into the back. Heather’s breasts had filled a 34C before - modest but respectable. Now, looking down, she would guess she would be needing a B cup at most. She noticed Linda glancing at her sideways as she drove, and Heather blushed.

“Linda!” she said, reproachfully. She wasn’t sure how to feel about her adult girlfriend looking at her undersized body. Mentally, Heather was not a teen. She didn’t think of herself as a teen, and had no reason to. Magic, essentially, had transformed her into this. But there was an awkwardness about Linda’s affection for her before, and this hadn’t vanished. Now that she was inappropriately aged, it only made things worse.

“You shouldn’t be checking me out like that. I’m a fifteen year old now. Even gawking like that is illegal!”

Linda laughed to herself, and shook her head.

“It’s still you in there Heather, and you’re still pretty. Albeit, younger than you were, and things are damned weird between us at the moment, but I can’t just pretend you stopped being attractive!” she replied, but returning her eyes to the road.

Heather scowled, and pulled out a soft and comfortable looking varsity hoodie, and quickly pulled it over her head. She tried not to think about the direction of that conversation. What good ending existed for them now? Out of habit, she pulled down the sun visor to look at herself in the mirror, to check her hair. It was the first sight of her youthful face. Looking back from the mirror was an old memory, a wide eyed, pretty young face with a slightly upturned nose. Her hair was a mess, still gathered up into a bun, but several locks of hair had come loose and she looked a frightful mess. Reaching up she undid the bun and let her long, wavy hair fall about her shoulders. The effect only served to make her look more like the teenager she had become. She closed the sun visor and shut away the image, not wanting to look anymore at that girl’s face. It looked far too much like a child’s face.

Heather looked at Linda, thoughtfully. Thus far Linda had gone above and beyond the call of duty on this insane situation, and even stuck with her when the Dice had roped her into the effect as well. And for what? Linda wanted to be Heather’s girlfriend, wanted to love her, to make love to her, but everything was changed now.

“Linda,” she began, at the same time that Linda said “Heather.”

They both laughed for a moment. Heather took the lead.

“Linda, we need to talk about this situation,” she tried again, focusing on keeping her voice serious. She was painfully aware that her voice was a lighter higher, and there was a vague squeak to it, as if her vocal cords were still altering from childhood. She had to focus again to keep her mind straight.

“Yeah, we do,” Linda sighed in response. She glanced at Heather, but was otherwise keeping her eyes on the road. “I mean, what you said about those dice make sense. They’re trying to fool us into using them. That spirit, or whatever it was you set free, is trying to turn us both into children!”

Heather looked at the glove compartment. She had been meaning to talk about where their relationship was right now, but Linda was all business? Maybe she’d already made up her mind about thing. No, that didn’t make sense - she’d been catching a peek at Heather, topless, while she changed. Heather focused again, mentally noting that it was taking extra effort to keep her mind on one track.

“Yes, I think it will happily let us continue to roll those dice until we are both helpless, though it looks like there is a little less power in the dice with every roll. So eventually, those dice will be safe again, but..”

“But we don’t have that much left to give to them,” Linda confirmed, interrupting Heather. “Unless you’re really lucky, another 2 to 4 rolls of a single die will be it for you, babe. I might be able to take a few more than that, but I’m barely old enough to function as it is, and one of us needs to stay old enough to look after the other.”

Heather looked away from the glove compartment and over to Linda, and felt a small glow of tenderness in her heart. Was she serious? No, it was just the moment talking. There was no way Linda was signing herself up, just like that, to look after Heather. That was absurd. Heather would have done it for Kyle, of course, if he were here. And she was sure he would have done it for her. But they had been married, and married for quite a while. She could count on Kyle without even wondering if he would help her out, and she knew he had enjoyed that same level of comfort and trust with her. Then he had been killed, and her life had been turned upside down, emptied like someone had ripped the core out of her being and left the rest hanging there. Was this development in her life, as absurd and impossible as it was, actually worse than the day Kyle died? She wasn’t sure.

She still loved her husband, even now, but he wasn’t here. She had no one in her life at all except Linda, and she had no real reason to trust her (aside from a sense of mutually shared danger). But Linda was making it known, in her own way, that Heather might be able to trust her, and that she could depend on her. The lawyer in her reminded Heather that it was easy to make promises, and that people would often change their mind in a hurry when the consequences of those choices came calling. On the other hand, Heather was in an extremely tight spot at the moment, and really needed the help. She could try and ride this out with Linda (who she felt some growing, honest affection for), at least until they figured out what was going on. Or she could insist Linda leave, now, for her own good, and see if she could get the Cursed Dice to focus on Heather alone.

It was a choice, and one she had to make before she ended up making the wrong one by inaction.

“Linda, you’re taking on an awful lot of responsibility in this crazy mess. And believe me, it’s touching, after all I’ve ended up putting you through. Now you’re a decade younger, and you could just walk away now if you wanted. Hell, this might be one of the best things that had ever happened to you.”

Linda didn’t look away. They were driving into a rainstorm, and Linda had to fumble with the controls until she found the windshield wiper. The wiper blades made a few squeals before the first patters of rain began to coat the screen. She took a deep breath, and shook her head.

“No, no way Heather Banks. I’m not running from you. Not now, not even with this craziness. I believe in fate, babe, and I’ve been watching you for years. Years. But you were married, and that meant you were just nice to look at, but off limits. Then… then, you know, Kyle passed away, and you grieved. So I waited, and finally got up the nerve to ask you out.”

Heather tried to interrupt, but Linda cut her off before she got more than a word out.

“You said yes, and we got a few little dates, but you weren’t ready. I know. It doesn’t take a genius to know when another woman isn’t interested really, when she’s just going through the motion. But then this happened, and I heard it in your voice. Spontaneous. A chance to start living again, so I jumped. And then the ghost, and the dice, and now look where we are! So yeah, I’m not running. I’m not giving up. You might be 15, I might be 20, we might both be really really screwed, but this is the closest I’ve ever been to you, and I’m not giving it up.”

Heather was silent. Linda continued.

“I love you damnit, Heather! Can you just accept that?”

Heather took a deep breath, and nodded her head yes. Then, knowing Linda couldn’t see that, she said it out loud.

“Yes, I can accept that,” she said quietly. “But… it’s going to take time to believe it again, Linda. It’s going to take time to love again.”

Linda laughed, and even giggled a little. “Well, we both now have a lot more time to wait, right? I mean, you know, with the youth and everything.”

Heather grinned, despite how screwed they both were. She was right. Heather’s life had gone from having between 20-40 years left to… well, who knew how long? She was 15 again, she was years from even being fully grown up. Linda had gained a decade of youth back herself. Really, in a way, they were both lucky. Despite that, Heather didn’t feel quite as lucky as Heather. Stopping at twenty would have made Heather a lot happier than her current state, but she had to admit, it could have been an awful lot worse. If the dice hadn’t bonded partially with Linda, how young would Heather be now? She had to count small blessings.

They also had to figure out what to do next. Would they press on to see the other Heather Banks, deliver the parcel and try to find out what the Bailey’s knew about the spirit. But what if they knew a lot more than they were letting on? What if the fact the spirit had been set free, accident or not, enraged them? Would they do something desperate? Now Heather wished she had never called the other office at all, because then the Bailey’s would not know the package had arrived anywhere. Heather wanted, more than anything, to actually just go to her cabin and try and figure this out, and to spend some time with the woman who had thrown her heart on Heather’s lap. It didn’t feel fair they had to try and muddle out this relationship while both of them were worried

A crash of thunder and a flicker of lightning split the sky, illuminating the Interstate. It was far from empty, but there weren’t a lot of cars on it at this time of night. Heather was not a big fan of storms, and it made her nervous to be driving through one, but at least Linda was at the wheel right now. The storm made her think back to their situation, and their destination. Much like making a choice with Linda, she need to make a choice about where they were going, and what to do about the dice.

“Okay, so then we’re going to try and make this work still? I mean me, teenager and all, you adult, both of us not sure if this is where we stop?” Heather said, breaking the silence.

“Yup, you’re stuck with me now, baby,” Linda replied, with a grin on her face. The word baby, however, didn’t feel as cute and endearing in their present state as it was meant to be.

“Do you think it’s appropriate for us to have a relationship with me like this, Linda? I mean, assuming we never roll these dice again, I’m definitely under age for a relationship with an adult, physically. I’m not, really, but - this could cause us a lot of trouble.”

Linda shrugged. “I’m just hoping right now we get some time together before we end up rolling the dice again, to be honest. If what you said is right, if those dice want us both to keep rolling them…”

Heather opened the glove compartment and pulled out the box, fishing it from the blanket. Linda made a few protests, but was also trying to focus on the road. Without saying a word, Heather opened the box up again and pulled the dice out of the packing.

“What are you doing?” yelled Linda, panicked. If those dice dropped, she would regress at the wheel. Desperately she began looking around for an exit, but there wasn’t one in sight, and they’d just passed one recently.

“I’m going to bond with the dice, Linda. I’m going to try and take back both of them, and I figure contact with them is the fastest way. We need to think rationally about this, and stop letting this spirit call the shots. If you get even a little younger, we’re both screwed. You said it yourself - one of us needs to stay old enough to look after the other!”

Heather held a die in each hand, her heart pounding in her chest loudly. She felt a surge of excitement at the same time, and a niggling temptation to roll the dice. Especially Linda’s die - a decent roll and they would both be teens, and this entire relationship question would not be as big of a problem. Heather shook her head to dismiss the insane idea, and instead looked down at the two dice. The glow in each was completely equal, and both glowed far less than they had when the dice had first been imbued with the stolen power of the entity. That dismissed one question she had - were the dice showing how much age left they had to give, or was the power of the being just spread between them. It appeared it was spread evenly, which meant every roll of the die would release more from the pair.

“Put them back Heather! If I hit a bump or something, you might drop one of them, and then where would we be. Look, right now, we need to find you some better clothes, get rid of this package, and then go home to figure out how to move on in life! Not play around with a supernatural powder keg!”

Heather ignored her. This was the right choice to make, and Linda wouldn’t risk a sudden move to snatch the die away. She wondered how long it would take - it had been at least an hour or so for Linda to bond with the die.

“Heather, look, you don’t need to do this! I don’t want you to bear all of this burden, I want to share the risk. If you bond to those fully again, one single roll and you are going to be a child!”

Heather looked over at Linda, and shook her head. “No, Linda, this is the right thing to do. This entity wants us to use these, and there’s a good chance we might end up using them without meaning to. If that’s the case, I don’t want you getting any younger than you already are. It’s not fair to you!”

“This isn’t fair to me!” yelled Linda, and she was starting to cry. “Babe, at least if its shared we have a hope of being… of…”

But Linda trailed off, and didn’t finish her thought. Heather guessed she could finish it for her, and did so.

“Of being a couple. I know. I even wondered if maybe you should join me as a teen, you know, we take on growing up together,” admitted Heather.

“Yes!” Linda said, and snatched away the die in Heather’s left hand. Heather yelled in anger and tried to grab the die back from her, at the same time trying to figure out which one each of them had.

“Give it back Linda! Quit being absurd! We can’t both wander around as teenagers! What will we eat? Where will we live? Two juvenille lawyers, think about it! Think!”

“I am thinking, Heather Banks! And I know you want to protect me, but you can’t do this to yourself! You can’t take it on alone! I won’t let you end up a helpless child while I… while I…”

Linda sighed, and released her grip on the die in her hand. Heather took it back, but it was hard to tell which die was which in the light of the Jeep’s dashboard and the night storm. She let out a sigh of relief, and put them both back in her lap, hands firmly holding each die in place.

“We have to, Linda. If we can’t find a way to stop these dice, you have to stay the adult, and I have to take whatever’s left in here. If I can get the dice to bond to me fully again, that is.”

Linda was crying now. With pain in her voice, she stated the obvious.

“So this isn’t lovers now, then. It’s mother and daughter,” she said quietly.

“Yes,” replied Heather, and realized just how bitter that made her feel. “Daughter and mother.”

 

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