Regressing Lots

Chapter 7
Regressing Lots: Chapter Seven

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Chapter Description: Is this the final chapter?

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Heather shrugged. “Well, we already agreed on that, right? I mean, one of us has to be the adult, and one of us is now wearing teen clothes. That’s the way this has ended up.”

Linda shook her head.

“No, that’s not what I mean, love. I mean you are literally becoming my daughter. As you get younger, you’re starting to resemble me. All of the thoughts I’ve been having about you lately have changed. I wanted a daughter, and now, well, I’m getting one.”

Heather gaped. Of course. It was, in this situation, perfectly obvious. She was resembling Linda because she was actually turning into the child of her lesbian lover. They were bonding, probably at the genetic level. Which meant, already, Heather’s fingerprints not even match. The Heather Banks she had always been was being undone, replaced with… who? Heather Cooper? Would she just become more and more like Linda as she got younger, or would the changes continue even now, without rolling the dice?

“You wished for this?” asked Heather, confused.

“No! Not directly. But of course I wanted a baby, just not with a man. I was thinking of adopting, especially if you and I.. got closer. I wanted it to be out baby!”

Heather shook her head. Linda looked concerned, and took her hand.

“Look, please, let me share in this. We can start over together, find our way through the world together. I don’t want you to hate me for becoming my daughter. I’d rather end up just like you than have that happen!”

Heather didn’t recoil from the touch. Linda’s hand was warm, despite the air conditioned chill of the diner, and she found herself taking it. The dice were working a more subtle spell than she had ever guessed, and she thought back to the first thing the spirit had said to her. About her loneliness, about her heartbreak. And here she was, now, with a woman willing to become either her mother or her sister. Linda would not give up, no matter what. It touched her heart, and she found herself beginning to cry. Linda got out of her seat and came to sit beside Heather, hugging her tight, and smoothing her hair. She whispered comforting things to her as Heather weeped, thinking of her dead husband, and her stressful life, and that all of those things were wrapping up suddenly. It was like somebody just told her she was about to die. And in a way, she was. Heather Banks was dying, or practically dead. She was a fifteen year old teen who was becoming related to her lover, becoming bonded to the woman who wanted to be her mother.

Their waitress came over, and cleared her throat. She was attractive, a brunette woman of ample figure who easily could have been an actress or a model in Heather’s approximation. Heather dried her eyes, but found it harder than normal to calm her emotions. Silently she cursed her teenage body and the hormones raging within for destroying her composure. She did not, however, let go of Linda. The embrace made her feel better.

Linda ordered for them.

“How about two cokes, and a big piece of pie to share. With whip cream.”

The waitress nodded, writing down the order on a small pad. As she turned, however, she bumped the table with her hip, and Linda’s purse on the other bench seat fell to the ground. The waitress groaned.

“Sorry miss, don’t know how I don’t fall and break my own neck somedays. I’ll get that for you,” she offered. Leaning under the table, she brought the purse back up and offered it back to Linda.

“Thanks,” Linda said, placing the purse on the far side of Heather. The waitress smiled and promised she would return momentarily with their drinks.

Linda smoothed Heather’s hair again, and kissed her on the cheek. All thoughts of returning the dice to the Banks lawyer had faded from her mind. Now, touching her daughter, she wanted nothing more than to hold her in her arms, and her mind could not dismiss the idea of feeding a darling baby from her breasts. Linda bit her lip, struggling to resist the impulse to sneak out to the Jeep and get it over with. It was like fighting the strongest, most natural urge in the world, and her parental instincts were merging with the temptation of the spirit.

Heather allowed herself to drift in the embrace for a minute, then sighed and backed away from Linda. She was thinking about Linda’s offer. It had been noble of Heather to take the dice back to herself, to absorb all of this on her own, but foolish. Yes, it was best for one of them to still be old enough to make a living, but… well, she didn’t want to end up in that high chair anytime soon. And just being held like that had made her think of what would happen if the dice were rolled again, just once right now. An average roll would make her a child. A high roll would leave her as a three year old. How many more rolls were in the dice anyways? The light was fading. On single dice, they might be able to split the remaining energy, and still be able to walk away from this (her mental emphasis was on the walking part, as she’d thought about the possibility of ending up a baby already).

Or did she just accept the lot that fate had dealt, and let Linda get her daughter? Or did they push through to the lawyers and hope against hope for a cure to this?

She looked down at her hands.

“Linda,” she said quietly. “I think we need to try and press on. Those dice are messing with our heads. I just honestly thought about letting you roll me back into being your little girl. We have to hope the Bradleys know some way to fix this, or else..”

Linda put her hand over Heather’s. “Or else, yes, you are going to end up calling me mommy.”

Heather chuckled. “I think, ‘Mommy’, that’s already kind of the way our reality is shifting.”

Linda felt her breasts ache when Heather called her mommy. She plucked up her purse, and looked down at Heather.

“Okay, we’ll eat our pie and dash. I just need to use the bathroom, okay baby?”

Heather frowned at being called baby. “Don’t call me that!”

Linda blushed slightly. “Sorry, Heather. Just an expression of affection. You can eat the pie, you’re the growing girl between us, okay? I won’t be long.”

Heather watched Linda walk off. It wasn’t fair. Bitterly she wished the tables were turned, and that Linda was the one facing training bras and diapers instead of Heather. But Linda had made it very clear that while she was willing to share Heather’s fate, she wasn’t going to replace herself in it. And in truth, she obviously preferred to have Heather take the brunt of this, and look after her. Maybe Heather wasn’t the only one in their relationship who had selfish designs after all. She looked down at herself. Fifteen. Could she provide for a child at fifteen? A brief fantasy entered her mind of herself, a teenage mother, pushing an adorable little baby around in a stroller. She would get stares, she would get comments, but she could always say “the alternative was much, much worse.” Once more, she had to shake her head to focus on their task.

She stood up, and then without wasting a moment, walked out to the Jeep. Heather’s had left her purse in the Jeep, but she had a spare key attached magnetically to the underside. Kneeling on the ground, she reached under… and found it just out of reach. Of course, she’d shrunk with her regression. Muttering a curse, she got on her back and reached, struggling to pull the key off the underbody. It came after a few seconds of work. Heather grunted, and got out from under the Jeep, quickly opening the lock and sliding into the passenger side. She had to move quickly. She would bargain with the spirit, and offer to let all the energy free right now if it would go to Linda. Heather had made up her mind - she was not going to end up in diapers.

She opened the glove compartment and pulled out the box, opened it quickly and looked at the dice. Or looked at where they should be. The box was empty!

Small sparkles began to drift off of her body. Heather panicked and screamed, but nothing could stop it. Once more it felt like her body was being pinched from all sides, but it was more intense this time. Her flip flops slid off her feet as she lost several shoe sizes at once. The tourist t-shirt ballooned on her, while what little was left of her breasts flattened, nipples turning a soft pink. Her belly puffed out gently, and her tights loosened and sagged as she lost her hips. Freckles blossomed on her cheeks and arms, and her hair softened to a beautiful shade of red.

“Fifteen years you have walked free of your mothers womb. Now, this total is but eight. Each cast of the die will release more of my stolen power, and restore your lost youth.”

Eight? But before she could deal with the fact that she was in her single digits, she felt her body tighten again. With a shriek she realized someone was rolling the dice consecutively, just like Linda had (accidentally) before. The seat seemed to be stretching around her, her calves sliding against the bench of the car seat as she literally shrank into it. Her toes vanished into the leggings, pulling back almost to the knees, while her t-shirt grew to the size of a makeshift dress. Her teeth buzzed as adult teeth retreated into her gums, replaced by child teeth one by one.

“Eight years you have walked free of your mothers womb. Now, this total is but three. Each cast of the die will release more of my stolen power, and restore your lost youth.”

“No no no!” she whimpered, and put her hands over her mouth when she heard her own voice. High, shrill, a tiny and cute utterance belonging to a toddler, not to Heather Bank, lawyer. But she wasn’t even that any longer, she realized, crying. Linda had betrayed her, before Heather could betray her in turn of course. So much for love! She would end up…

Her body stiffened.

“Please, no,” she pleaded. But smalls dots of light were already beginning to rise from her skin. It was exhilarating in one sense; Heather had watched her share of horror movies in her life, and she was living through one right now. If she could just tear herself away from the fact that this was happening to her, she would not be so terrified at the moment. Mentally she tried to think of any hope of not ending up… what? A baby? Unborn? Would the spell make her younger than the time she was born?

She watched as her hands shrank before her very eyes, the shirt falling right around her shoulders. Her belly puffed out as her body swelled with baby fat. Her mind put those words together ominously. She was a baby, and going to push before baby and into newborn. And maybe further. The spirit kept saying “mother’s womb”. Would she end up an unborn fetus in Linda’s womb? What would that even be like?

Time had slowed to a crawl as Heather shrank, the months of maturity melting off her like hot wax. Her legs pulled up, and the leggings fell to the floor. Her feet pulled inwards, puffing up on the bottom. Feet that had never been walked on before confronted Heather’s eyes. Her legs were too short now, lacking proportion to her body and head. Her hair was pulling into her head, or just vanishing into the sparks of light. Her teeth pulled back into her gums, one by one, baby teeth retreating into a toothless maw more apt to suckling. Her nose turned upwards.

The world began to go out of focus, and she found herself falling backwards. She’d shrank in place, pulling away and inwards from the back of the seat and the front. Her legs bowed slightly, and she saw her hands diminish even more. She knew, rationally that she was in the Jeep, but her infant brain was loosing neural mapping at a rapid pace. Memories began to fade. Law school slipped into nothingness.

A voice, soft and comforting, seemed to whisper in the infant’s ear as it crested into a mewling newborn.

“Three years you have walked free of your mothers womb. Now, return to the womb and grow, and when ye are born once more, they loneliness will be cured.”

The infant vanished into a small puff of white sparks, and the clothes lay on the passenger seat of the Jeep.

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Linda came out of the bathroom stall, trying to clear her head. She could barely think right now, and was sure the lack of sleep was not helping her resist the siren song of the spirit in the dice. She wanted a baby. She wanted Heather to be her daughter, that she knew now. As soon as she realized what was happening, her heart had begun to fill with maternal care for her blossoming young daughter. But she couldn’t. It was violating Heather’s will to do this, stealing away what maturity she still possessed. She just couldn’t do that to another person, desire or not. It would be like stealing all of Heather’s money, or her life, or her marriage. It would be almost like slavery.

But what choice did they have? The dice were a menace as long as they were around. The temptation was maddening to live with, and Heather was sure one of them, soon enough, was going to give in and roll. She’d been serious before about sharing Heather’s fate. If the two of them ended up teens, or children, at least they would be rid of the spirit, and they’d share in the outcome. But then what? How would they make money? Eat? Shelter? They’d have to go into foster care, and they’d be separated soon enough. Linda did not, really, want to grow up again. She was happy being twenty, of regaining this amount of youth.

Linda resolved it. She would go to the Jeep, and get this over with. Giving these objects to someone else, hoping they would help them, would not do. She needed to get rid of the spirit, then read the books to find a cure for Heather, or at least answers. And in the meantime, she would get her baby.

Linda paused suddenly. Her breasts ached again. Hard. Looking in the mirror, her eyes widened. Before her eyes, her breasts were filling out, her bra tightening around the suddenly tender mammaries. She watched in shock as she put on weight, her belly pushing out her tights slightly, her hips putting on pounds as they pushed outwards. Linda still looked twenty, an attractive red haired, blue eyed beauty, but her figure was… motherly. Like she’d given birth.

“But I didn’t roll the dice,” she said, confused.

Another wave of aches hit her, and this time she knew. Heather must be rolling the dice. The crazy girl had decided to get it over with, and Linda was becoming her mother in earnest. Her breasts ached again, and then a tightness began to grow in hey belly. Before her eyes her abdomen began to push outwards, filling rapidly with life. It was not impossible to guess what was happening - she was becoming pregnant. Very pregnant, and in a big hurry. Her tights slid down the bottom of her mounding belly, and her shirt tightened and began to rise. Her belly button peeked out between the two departing hems of the clothing as Linda jumped months in moments in her pregnancy.

The voice of the spirit entered her ears.

“They daughter’s cast was greater than the sum of her age, and to thee her infant spirit is bestowed. The pact was with they daughter, and with thee only through her own actions. Another now holds the dice, and it is with that being I shall bargain. Farewell.”

Linda stood in front of the mirror, wide eyed and shaking. She was pregnant with her best friend, her lover, now become her daughter. The enchantment of the spirit vanished as if she had suddenly been sobered. What had she done? Why had she ever thought this way? Linda began to cry, realizing how foolish they had been, and wondering what she was going to do with her life. The only two comforts, as far as she could see, was that Heather was indeed safe, and that the spirit had not left the bond to Linda to resolve.

Who had the dice though?

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Arianna tossed the keys to the Jeep onto the driver’s seat for Linda to find. The Jeep wouldn’t run, of course - the spirit of the vehicle had broken itself down for her. But her business with the two ladies was concluded for the moment. Now she had a weapon, a weapon to turn her relationship with Michael around, and a means for Arianna to come out on top. The dice, empty now of power, she tossed into a nearby trash bin. The spirit, wherever it was, owed her, and she intended to cash in that very night. Arianna passed by a very pregnant Linda, awkwardly waddling out to the Jeep. She almost felt sorry for her, and the memories of her former role gave her pause. Should she really leave Linda and Heather in such a state? Just two more bystanders with lives turned upside down in the supernatural world?

Arianna paused in place. Angels and Demons knew the power of choice, and could always feel the weight of it when a choice presented itself. Mortals would change their minds dozens of times, hundreds even, but the pattern of those choices would push them into a direction they described as their “choice”. Except for big acts, like murder or accidents, most of the time they could undo those choices, and turn their ship around out of bad weather. This was not the case for beings like Arianna. Once a decision was made, they would follow it, and complete it. Mortals, naturally, found this alien mindset baffling and bizarre. Only savvy ones like Michael understood it, and how to exploit it.

So if Arianna turned her efforts to helping the ladies out, she would not have the time before Michael arrived to summon the spirit. He would order her to do so, and she would comply. But if she left Linda on her own, who knows what would happen? This was the outcome of Arianna’s choice to set the spirit free. She now stood, toes at the edge, of another choice. Before her was the small baby section of the gift shop, in which she would find the right articles to summon the spirit to herself.

Behind her was the Jeep, and Linda’s baby, and her confused life. The practical part of Arianna knew she aught to let the ladies fend for themselves, and move on with her plans. But there was still a spark of the old Arianna left in her, not blunted through the ages and wicked actions, and it desperately wanted to not walk away, again.

It was the slave’s paradox. It was the reason she had rebelled, so long ago, thinking she would find freedom in throwing off the mantle of the higher power. But she had simply replaced one master and purpose with another.

“To hell with it,” she uttered, and made her choice.

 

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