Obsession Starts with One

Chapter 1
Obsession Starts with One

A woman entered the office of an esteemed doctor sometime after 6 p.m. on an unspecified day of the week. Walking through the sliding doors and taking the first seat to the left, she patiently waited her turn before she was called back. She had contacted the office a few weeks prior in response to a new drug that had been successfully tested, resulting in the test subject regressing back to the age of five. She inquired specifically on how to acquire this drug. Though the cost was high, she was willing to part with her savings in hopes that she would be able to have an impact on the life of her oldest son, a relationship with whom had faltered in recent years. After filling out the proper paperwork and understanding the basic concept of the drug, she had but one more question. She understood the drug would take his physical form back, but couldn’t be certain the changes would suit him, perhaps making the tension between the two worse than it already was. The doctor did inform her that they had developed a new drug which had the possibilities of regressing the mental state of a person as well, but it hadn’t been tested yet. She was willing to be the first. Lucky timing or planned well in advanced, her son happened to be home this weekend, so as she readied dinner, it only took a little bit of grinding to carefully spread the pill dust into his food and drink. And as quickly as he arrived, he was on his way back to the city, classes began in the morning.

He woke up earlier than he usually did; shifting on his couch-made-bed, testing a variety of positions so he could try and fall back asleep. Failing that, he raised his eyebrows and got up. He was a fairly tall nineteen year old, short dark hair and a thick goatee, lighter in shade than his hair. His body was fair, nothing amazing but enough to catch a few glances. He was off at college and had managed to secure an apartment only a few blocks away from campus after he discovered that the dorms had been filled. It wasn’t a pleasure he didn’t enjoy though, he had much more time to himself. As he sat up, his head started to throb slightly, but he shook it away as morning fatigue. He took a shower and searched through the cupboards in his kitchen for something to eat, but there wasn’t much there. A trip to the supermarket was in order sometime in the near future. He went back to his bedroom when the head pounding started again. It didn’t shake off so easily the second time around, so to at least take his mind off of the headache for the day, he went into his closet and pulled out a pair of special socks. They were girl socks, ones which he occasionally borrowed without permission from his friend’s little sister. That being said, they were often a little small, but they eventually stretched to match his foot size. Regardless, they comforted him slightly and after getting ready, he headed off for class.

Winter had finally caught up, as had the cold weather, particularly that morning it seemed. He should’ve worn a thicker coat. Trudging through the snow, he arrived to his drawing class with more than enough time to spare, which was usual, and walked over to the heating duct to warm up. The professor wrongly assumed a positive way to begin a week was by watching slides in the projector room, an idea with no redeeming qualities. The slides were always endless it seemed, this occasion being no different, and he knew he could sleep then and there on his desk if given the chance, constantly catching himself with the head bob. That’s when the first wave hit him.

He keeled over in his seat, arms crossed over his stomach in no position to stop his face from nearly colliding with the desk, which thankfully for him it fell short. His head was pounding and his stomach tightened and churned. He gagged if only a little and slowly regained focus and clarity from that few seconds of panic. He picked his face up from the desk and looked around. Everyone was too out of it to realize anything and the professor was too busy ranting. Everything seemed normal enough, but he wasn’t going to sit around and let it happen again, lest he passed out. He quietly picked up his backpack, informed the teacher and walked out of the room.

He got back to his apartment only mere moments before the second wave hit. The overpowering headache made him stumble before the dizzy spell forced him to the floor against the fridge. When his eyesight cleared up enough, he was able to crawl into the bedroom, proceeding to plant his face directly into his pillow as he knelt before the couch. He reached around to remove his shoes before crawling and climbing up the rest of the way, pulling his large blue comforter over his quivering body.

He shuffled beneath the covers trying in vain to find a moment of comfort between the rhythmic throbbing in his head, his eyelids eventually besting any source of annoyance. Anyone sitting in the room with him at that time would have feared the worst, citing devilry and possession as possible sources. The grunts and groans he emitted weren’t loud by any means, but they were enough to startle someone within hearing distance and make them question the dimension of origin. His face was cringing and twitching in such a repetition that matched the beat of his head. Even at rest, the pain was taking a toll on his body. Luckily, his body was about to be forgiven.

As if inciting some sort of hymn, the intense anguish on his face started to vanish and his limbs began to relax as the trembling ceased. As if to match suit, his body began to subtly change.

His face began to appear softer, less mature, as noted by the slowly fading stubble as well as his goatee, which became lighter in hue. After a few years had been taken off, more noticeable effects started taking place. His goatee which had suited his face rather nicely minutes ago, now appeared loose and sparse, not full like before. Because of his loss of years, he began to visibly look younger, his clothes, while covered by a blanket, still started to look rather outlandish on his smaller frame. As he began to pass the age of fourteen he started to lose the war with his pants. They had been considerably loose fitting even for the former nineteen year old, but now they were ridiculous. The belt at the notch it was at was no longer doing anything for him, making it easier for his legs to draw back in as he regressed. The socks he wore, it seemed, were avenging their former owner, loosening around his feet before starting to swallow them, at this point already dangling slightly off the end of his toes and hanging everywhere. Even his sweatshirt betrayed him, already claiming his hands, covering them with the ends of the sleeves.

Puberty in reverse was brutal on the former teen. During the change he experienced small concentrations of acne just above the bridge of his nose and he had grown considerably during the period the first time around, the reversal leaving him in quite the diminished state. All the hair on his body grew thinner and began to recede back into his body, leaving his arms and legs smooth, and to add insult to injury; he was left in a sexless state, no longer fueled by the uplifting rage of hormones. By age nine, he was able to lie across his short couch without curling his legs, and then some. His legs had shrunken well into his pants, shifting and kicking them absentmindedly without any resistance from the material as the ends were crumpled into a twisted mess. At this point he was drowning in his sweatshirt, which started to look more like a blanket on him, his left arm already out of the sleeve, leering eerily close to his mouth. Ironically, he entered the same age of the girl he stole the socks from, though they seemed to fit her better. They had crumpled and dangled so much at the end it might have been difficult to pick out where his toes ended if he wasn’t bending them every so often. Before his age had dropped any farther, he started shifting his weight around, kicked his legs twice and curled them up so they were sticking halfway out of his sweatshirt, socks still dragging behind. In the process, he had kicked his jeans to the floor from underneath his blanket and into a pile.

After another short loss of four years his body stopped regressing. The ripe old age of five. From what little of his head still actually stuck out of his sweatshirt, the baby-like features were evident in his face, specifically in his cheeks, more puffy and round. The baby fat was just starting to leave his arms and legs, leaving them slightly flabby and round as well. In his curled up fetal position, his body was now swallowed up entirely by his sweatshirt, two twin socks dangling out from the bottom. His arms and hands had left the arms of his sweatshirt and were crossed over his chest, the left empty arm hanging over the edge of the cushion. A body under stress and physical demand, considering the compression his internal structure just undertook, was finally at rest and comfort, revitalizing itself in the next hours.

Three hours later some unnecessary road rage and excessive honking awoke him from a deep almost coma like sleep. He rubbed his eyes and followed with a long and drawn out stretching of his arms and legs. He wiped some sweat from his brow as his senses began to return.

The ceiling appeared farther away, so did the ceiling fan. An odd expression formed across his face as he began to push the blanket off of himself. The odd expression was then replaced with shock as his hands had been replaced by two limp sleeve ends, quickly; he scrambled himself up to a sitting position. He gasped once again at the sight of his sweatshirt covering his entire body, cursing loudly then quickly throwing a loose sleeve up to cover his mouth when he heard such a childish voice. He gathered himself, shook his head and jumped, literally, to the floor. As soon as he did, his new legs, shorter and stubbier became wobbly and he stumbled slightly inevitably sending his boxers to the floor. The elastic had managed to keep them on him long enough. He gave a little hop and continued on to the bathroom, with each stride a sock flying back behind him, landing carelessly crumpled on the floor, the whole time his sweatshirt flirting dangerously with the carpet, threatening to send him tumbling.

In the bathroom, he had to climb up the toilet seat in order to see the mirror. He leaned in as far as he could, hands stretched out across the sink carrying the rest of his body weight. He brought his right hand up to feel his face, one he didn’t recognize, so soft, unfortunately, leaving an uneven balance. The material in his sweatshirt caused his hand to lose grip and he fell, face planting onto the small red carpet at the foot of the tub. Lying on his stomach, his ten little toes dancing just outside of the sweatshirt, he began to cry. Pain, pain and disbelieve were the cause of those tears.

After several minutes, he sat up and crossed his legs, the sweatshirt forming a tent like form around him, dried his eyes and decided to go back to his room. Slowly bobbing his way back in, he walked into a wall of cold air, which immediately caused him to shiver and bring his arms up around himself. He had left the window open when he passed out before and the room had become very cold. Even the sweatshirt and under shirt he had on weren’t working so well, considering they had left quite the gap at the point where his neck and shoulders were, coming close to falling off one side. With both hands, he put most of his strength into opening his drawers, but failed to find any article of clothing that would suit his needs. None of his clothing would fit him anymore. That’s when he remembered that he had some clothes that would work, though they weren’t his. Opening his closet, he pulled out a black linen cloth deep from the bottom and in the back and unwrapped it. It revealed quite the collection of girl socks. He picked a smaller pair, one he wouldn’t have been able to squeeze into before, specifically white ankle high ones with a lace like flowery fringe sewed into the top which would traditionally be folded over. Though they didn’t garner the same attraction he would have normally felt, he was satisfied because they were serving the purpose now of keeping his feet warm, and put the rest back into hiding.

He grabbed his blanket, much heavier than before, and dragged it over to his computer chair, where he proceeded to wrap it around himself as he searched his laptop for possible answers. For at least the next hour, feet swinging gently as they no longer touched the ground, he searched the internet, heart pounding all the while worried that whatever might have happened to him might be incurable or irreversible.

He just pulled his legs up into a cross legged sitting position when he perked his head up to hear the beginning little jingle of his cell phone. He was hesitant to rush over and answer it, considering he didn’t plan on actually answering it. Someone just might question why a little kid was answering his phone. Regardless, he wanted to see who it was. He pushed away the blanket and jumped off the chair, moving his little legs quickly before the call ended. Looking down to the small screen, the name forced him to turn off the ringer and hide his phone under the couch. He wasn’t about to answer the phone for anyone, specifically not his mother. Looking back at his computer, he realized he wasn’t getting anywhere and would try again in a little while. He picked up his remote and plopped himself down on the couch, once again wrapping himself up. Without cable, he was only offered the basic local channels, which would work when they decided they wanted to. He flipped through a few of them, all of which were a little too blurry for his liking, and then he landed on the public broadcasting channel. He cringed, because of course, it was the only channel that came in, and Sesame Street was on. He threw down his remote and decided to watch it anyways; at least it was background noise.

Though he still had his adult mind, his little kid emotions and actions would show through on occasion. Over the hour, he became enthralled with the show, unknowingly, leaning forward mouth half-way open as the Count began to count up to the number of the day. So involved in fact that he didn’t seem to hear the front door to his apartment open.

He broke out of his funk just in time to see his mother scanning the floor of his rooming, noticing the clothing scattered across it, then bringing her eyes up to the television in time to see the program flick off, and one last time to the right to see a small boy in oversized clothing holding a remote control. For several moments the silence was so overwhelming you could cut it with a knife, broken only by small intervals of a small child breathing heavily. He was too busy trying to make himself invisible to notice her lips pull up into a smile. Trying to stutter out some coherent words to describe the situation, she ignored what he was saying and started to gather some of his things into his backpack, whispering something softly to herself as she packed one last book, finally squeezing in the laptop before zipping it shut. Looking at her all the while, she threw the backpack over her shoulders, then she headed towards him. He started to back up, but softly bounced off the back of the couch as she picked him up and placed him in her arms. Previously being taller than his mother, this was a new feeling for him, and a new outlook, and he could only stare, speechless, mouth agape like a dumbfounded toddler. Embarrassing was another word that could have described the situation.

She locked the door behind them and walked out into the winter afternoon, the cold crawling up his skin as he began to shiver. Two girls walking past, bundled up perhaps a little too extreme, gave some girlish admiration to the cute little boy and continued on there way as his face turned a little red. Of course, that could have just been the cold. Before he had time to react to the compliment, he was being placed into the back seat of a car. Instinctively, he reached over to put on his seatbelt, but he lost the race as a much larger hand flew over to do the exact same thing. He just put his hands to the side and stared into the seat in front of him. He couldn’t believe it.

The drive to where he assumed was home seemed to be taking forever. The worst of it all, the window was now too high for him to see out of, so the only entertainment he had was to twiddle his fingers together and kick his feet, another experience which was by all rights, more or less new to him. Still concerned about his predicament, he asked her if they could pay a visit to the doctors office before heading home, praying for a small glimmer of hope that they might know what’s wrong. Looking at him through the rear-view mirror, she informed him that they were closed today, but would check into it tomorrow. He sat back disappointed, not realizing how heavy his eyelids were growing, a few short minutes later dozing off in his seat.

At a red light just before the freeway, she looked back to see him fast asleep in the backseat, his head cocked off to the right. After a little more careful observation, she lifted up the bottom of his sweatshirt and saw the girl socks he was still wearing. A look of strange curiosity came over her face, but she just smiled, shook her head and went back to the road.

Getting back home, he was still sleeping so she carefully took him out of the seat and carried him into the house. She laid him on his bed and had a little chuckle to herself as she left, as his thumb had found his mouth and he had begun sucking on it, closing the door behind her. Having prepared for this moment earlier, she went into her closet and pulled out all of the little boy clothes she had purchased the week before.

He woke up a few hours later to a pair of children’s clothing at the foot of his bed with a note from his mother, claiming she had gone to the neighbor’s house to borrow some clothes from their little boy, at least for the time being. He didn’t enjoy the thought so much, considering he didn’t plan on being young for too long, but clothing that fit was a good place to start. Although he wasn’t thrilled with her choices either.

The attire was normal enough; aside from looking like they belonged on a little kid, but it was the underwear that killed. They were white with red trimming, and to top it off, covered in Barney designs. Humiliation sums it up.

The day went on as it would, experiencing life as a little kid, and every night, he would be forced by his mother to wear a light blue one piece pajamas set, complete with footsies. The first night he woke up crying from embarrassment because of wetting the bed, and though the idea horrified him, he was given but one more chance to correct his mistake and prove his adult abilities if he didn’t want to wear a diaper at night. Of course, he blew that chance the next night, and was forced to wear diapers as he slept from then on out.

The following day he was given a surprise, the clothing laid out for him included but was not limited to a little girls dress, tights, those Mary Jane shoes you hear about so much in stories like this, and of course, frilly little white socks. Punishment only for the day stimulated by his mother’s discovery of his “stash.” He wasn’t forced to go into public, but simply having to wear it around his house was embarrassment enough, worse when fueled by the warning that if he cried or complained about the situation just once, he would get a fierce spanking.

The visit to the doctor’s office never came, and after one week of having him home, she began to administer the test drug that would ideally lower his mental state to match that of a five year old. That change became apparent over the course of the next week as his rebellious refusal to accept this physical change was overcome by childish emotions and youthful activities. His recollection of his past slowly faded as she periodically quizzed him on random events, even academic types of questions which he started to struggle with. His enthusiasm moved away from girls, music, and current events, changing instead to making time for Looney Tunes and Lego building before he had to go to bed. A time, which happened to get earlier everyday. Finally, at the end of the week, he had been reduced to reciting spelling words and drawing juvenile pictures with stick figures and a dog that looked like a bush. The drug had run its course, and with pinpoint accuracy.

About two months later, a big night had come up, and his parents were set up for a night on the town and had to hire a babysitter. Their neighbors had recommended a girl they often used, a family friend, and sent her over their way for the evening. Quite the beauty at seventeen, her straight, yet wavy brown hair came down to just past her shoulders, and she had a smile that would make any boy double take. The two got along splendidly, playing hide and seek, watching some random Disney movie, even letting him try to walk around in her large adult shoes, as if to hint at a particular future fascination. Before the clock had the chance to strike midnight, she looked over and mussed the hair of the little boy sleeping soundly on the couch next to her when she barely heard the slight squeak of the door signal that his parents had walked in. His mother thanked her and reached into her purse for the money to pay her, but hesitated when she saw the regression pills. With a secretive smile, she looked up.

“Let me get you something to drink before you go.”