With Friends Like These

Chapter 1
ONE

Foreword: They say perfect is the enemy of good. When it comes to writing I’m a perfectionist. I never want to publish a story that isn’t as good as my last one. As a result I have a lot of unpublished stories. They are ones I like, but which I just don’t think are good enough. Nevertheless, in the spirit of trying to add more stories to the Archive, I’ve decided to post a few here. This is my first offering. No masterpiece but hopefully enjoyable for those who like my style of mental regression.

Chapter One

Ben walked into the dentist’s office waiting room, trying to seem nonchalant, like this was any other day and he just happened to be going to see his local dentist. In some ways it didn’t look like an unusual waiting room. Hell at first glance it could have been any dentist’s office in the country really. There was a row of chairs along the wall, a table with magazines abandoned across it, a little window on the far wall where a woman was paying her bill at the moment.

But on the far side of the waiting area was the key giveaway that this was not a normal dentist’s office at all. It was a play area for children, for little ones who came to get their teeth cleaned. Except some of the toys weren’t exactly little. And the only person in that play area was by no means a small child. It was a fully grown man, probably in his late twenties or early thirties. He was a bit tubby, his brown hair buzzed short. Ben couldn’t see his face from this angle.

The man was sitting on his knees, legs tucked underneath him, soles of his bare feet facing up. There was no sign of abandoned shoes or jandals, no sign he’d worn anything on his feet to go to the dentist today. He was wearing a bright red t-shirt and some navy shorts, board shorts it appeared, but no shoes. And he was playing with the children’s toys, bashing a plastic hammer into a pile of letter blocks, making little crashing sounds.

Ben’s eyes lingered on the man for only a moment, because his real focus was on the only two other people in the room, his friend Greg and his partner Hannah.

Greg hadn’t noticed him yet. He was looking with evident discomfort at the young man playing barefoot on the floor. But Hannah made eye-contact with Ben. She didn’t smile, just raised her eyebrows slightly and gave him the tiniest of nods, a jerk of her head to let him know it was okay to proceed.

Ben headed in, taking in his preoccupied old friend. Greg was twenty-nine, a fit young man with dark hair and brown eyes. He was wearing what he considered his casual clothes, a set of khakis dress shorts with a polo shirt and some tan walking shoes and socks. As a quickly rising marketing firm accounts manager he wore a full suit most days so this was his idea of dressing down for the weekend.

Ben put on his best fake smile of surprise as he made his way over to the couple.

“Well hey there, what are you doing here?” he announced in greeting.

Greg looked with some confusion before recognising his friend.

“Oh, hey Ben,” he then responded. “We’re just here for a filling,” he explained. “What about you?”

“Just a normal cleaning,” Ben lied, sitting beside his friend. His heart was pounding in his throat, knowing this was the culmination of so much plotting by Hannah and him.

Greg nodded, still appearing uncomfortable though. Ben make a point of looking at the man playing in the corner and said, “What’s up with him?”

Greg frowned. “I think he’s… um… special, y’know?”

Ben played it dumb, giving Greg a confused look.

With even more discomfort Greg whispered, “Mentally challenged. He’s like a little kid I think.”

“Oh,” Ben replied. “Yeah, I think people like that are a bit of a specialty for Dr Ward.”

“Oh yeah?” Greg said, looking a bit worried. “But he obviously does normal people too. I mean, you’re here. And Hannah recommended him.”

Ben quickly nodded to reassure his mate. “Yeah, he’s really good. I like him because he avoids pain killers.”

Greg nodded. “Yeah, that’s what Hannah said. He’s into more natural methods, uses hypnosis instead of drugs.”

“Yeah, I don’t like the idea of getting pumped full of drugs,” Ben said, knowing that was just how Greg felt. Sure enough his mate was nodding straight away.

“Mummy wookit Domas!” the young man on the floor called, having stood up now, revealing his full adult frame. He was actually quite tall, maybe even six foot. And he definitely was wearing board shorts. They were baggy and bright, falling below his knees. Right now he was holding a big plastic Thomas the Tank Engine toy and calling to the woman at the window.

“Yes Jamie, I see that. Play quietly while Mummy talks to the office lady dear,” she directed.

The adult man nodded sharply and dropped back to hands and knees, pushing the toy train around the carpet and making ‘choo-choo’ sounds for it. Greg looked at this display with disdain. Ben wondered what he found most revolting, the man’s loudness, his playing with silly children’s toys or his bare feet. That was something metrosexual Greg had no tolerance for, Ben knew.

But Ben was more focussed on something else. The woman, who the man called ‘mummy,’ was clearly little older than him. She was very clearly not his mother. But had Greg noticed that? Had it even registered? Or was he too focussed on the man’s silly behaviour?

“He seems quite happy in any case,” Ben noted to Greg.

Greg shrugged. “Yeah, I suppose. Small blessings, he’s too dumb to know how silly he looks.”

Ben chuckled. “Yeah, that’s one way to see it.”

“I mean, look at him, bare feet at a dentist’s office,” Greg spat.

“Well he’s probably more comfy that way. He’s obviously just a little boy in a big body,” Ben suggested.

“Oh I know, I’m not blaming him of course. I mean he obviously can’t help it at all. Dumb little kids love running around half clothed of course. They have no sense of modesty, no sense of decency. It’s his caregiver’s fault, letting him in here like that. She should know better,” Greg explained.

“Well I think it’s cute,” Hannah interrupted. She saw her partner’s look of disgust but she continued. “He looks like a real little boy that way, baggy shorts and bare feet.”

Greg shook his head and rolled his eyes. But just then the ‘mum’ finished paying and took the young man out. They watched as she slipped a harness around his arms while he continued playing with his toy train, then she got him to put it down and led him away, wearing what was obviously a leash. The young man didn’t seem to know that, or at least not to care if he did. He skipped brightly along on his nimble bare feet, disappearing out into the bright afternoon sun.

The door to the back area opened a moment later and a young woman in scrubs stood there with a clip-board in her hand. “Greg Sunderland?” she asked.

“Yep,” Greg replied, standing up.

“Good luck honey,” Hannah said.

“I’ll be fine,” he told her with some disdain. “It’s just a couple fillings.”

“Of course, I know that,” she answered.

With a firm nod Greg followed the woman back into the offices, disappearing from sight.

“Well, that’s it. Are you still certain about this? No second thoughts?” Ben queried.

Hannah smiled back and shook her head. “No, this is the right choice. You know he’d have been devastated to learn about us. And I just couldn’t do that to him. And I still want him in my life, but that wouldn’t be fair to you. This is the best way for all of us.”

“It’s going to be tough you know, talking care of such a big little boy. You saw that other one. She needed a leash for him,” Ben pointed out.

“And we’ve already seen how Marcia does it with her big little one. We can handle this. He’s going to be just lovely. Remember what they said, sweet, affectionate, playful, happy. Those are the cornerstones of the whole thing.”

“And you’re not feeling bad for Greg, even a little bit?” Ben asked.

“Are you?” she retorted.

“He’s my friend,” Ben answered.

“And he’s been my lover for two years. I don’t want anything bad for him. But you’ve seen how uptight he is, the stress he’s under. This is going to be a relief for him. He’s going to have so much more freedom. No more worrying about what people think of him, crafting his image so carefully. He can get filthy while he plays, run around barefooted till the soles of his feeties are black as the pavement and not feel an iota of self-consciousness about it. He needs this,” Hannah argued.

Ben was about to concede when the door opened again and the woman in scrubs reappeared. “We’re ready for you now miss,” she said with a smile.

“He’s already under?” Hannah asked, surprised.

“Oh yes, he went very quickly. Dr Ward says he was quite easy to drop into trance,” the woman assured.

Hannah gave Ben a smile and stood up, heading off to play her part. That left Ben alone for a few minutes. At first he tried reading the magazines but that was too hard. He couldn’t stop thinking about what was going on behind that door, what was happening to his friend.

Then the main door to the office opened again and a middle aged woman entered, leading a young man in by the hand. Well he was more of a boy actually, probably still in his teens. The woman appeared to be his actual mother. It was obvious he’d already had his time in the back room. He was wearing a set of blue jean overalls over a Donald Duck t-shirt. Like the man they’d seen earlier this boy had arrived at the dentist’s barefoot, the ankles of his overalls cuffed up.

“Why don’t you go play with the toys sweetie,” the woman urged to the teen boy, who was actually a good six inches taller than her.

The young man nodded eagerly though, tottering off to the toys and dropping swiftly to his knees, showing off the fact that the soles of his bare feet were indeed black as the pavement and probably as tough as leather too. Ben knew this boy had to have been left ‘special’ some time ago.

“Is he a handful?” Ben asked the woman as she took a seat.

She gave him a warm smile. “Nothing compared to what he was like before,” she said. “No, he’s really very sweet now. Never causes me much worry. Sure he needs a good scrubbing in the bath before bed after playing in the dirt or the mud, but it’s nothing like the messes he got into in the past.”

Ben nodded. “So how long has he been… er, little?”

“This is our six month check-up,” she said.

“And has he needed any refreshers?”

“Nope, haven’t seen a flicker of his nasty old big boy side since he climbed into the old dentist’s chair.”

Ben nodded, watching the boy try to assemble a Mr Potato Head without much luck. It was obvious his mental capacity really was as simple as a toddler’s.

“My friend is in the chair right now,” Ben told the woman.

“Oh, that’s lovely. Kevin loved his turn in the chair. He was all smiles afterwards. And he was so much happier. No more black clothes and nail polish, no more dark deafening music pumping through the house. Now he’s so bubbly and bright. And he only wears the cutest outfits with lots of nice bright colours. The only thing black about Kevin now are the bottoms of his feet,” she joked.

“Yeah, Hannah, my… er, Greg’s girlfriend said she thought it was natural for little boys’ feet to be black as the pavement.”

The woman nodded. “Yep, boys are meant to be filthy little things. Much easier to scrub those tootsies than clean up vomit after your teen son gets home a three in the morning from some wild illegal party.”

They were interrupted when the door to the office opened and the woman in scrubs waved at Ben now. “We’re ready for you now,” she said simply.

Ben swallowed hard and stood up.

“Good luck dear,” the other mother told him.

“Thanks,” he replied, heading through the door.

 

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