Joey's Pacifier

Chapter Description: After Joey goes to one of his last days at school and sees his girlfriend and his bully in the halls, he returns home where he waits on tenterhooks for something to change.

I make all my money from writing. It is the only income I have and every single cent goes to keeping the lights on and food in the fridge. I am IMMENSELY grateful to all of my wonderful subscribers who allow me to do this for a living. If you enjoy my writing you can find benefits such as early access to everything I post and 30+ complete stories that are EXCLUSIVE to my subscriber pages. If you are interested, I would be forever grateful for you checking out my subscriber pages below (the same content is posted on both).

https://reamstories.com/elfy/

https://subscribestar.art/elfy

--- 
Joey walked up to the large front doors of the school with his bag slung over his shoulder. It seemed crazy that a place he had walked into so many times, that he knew almost as well as his own home, was soon going to be left in the past. It was his final week; his exams were mostly complete, and he was really only still going was so he could spend time studying with his girlfriend, Tracy.

Joey’s locker, the same one that he had been assigned on his first day, was at the end of the corridor. As fate would have it, the locker was right next to Tracy’s and before he had finished getting his books Tracy had come up behind him. He felt her arms wrap around his waist and smiled.

“Hey.” Joey sighed as he let himself melt into the hug.

Tracy was a few inches taller than Joey and, in his opinion, she was the most beautiful girl in school. She may not have been as conventionally attractive as some of the other girls who dyed their hair blonde and wore several layers of make-up, but Joey had never been attracted to that. Tracy had freckles on her face, either side of her small nose upon which sat her glasses. She had auburn hair that she usually tied into a ponytail, but it always frizzed up just enough to tell anyone who was to look at her closely that she wasn’t obsessed with her looks, she was comfortable as she was.

“How are you?” Tracy asked as she let go and walked around Joey to open her own locker.

“Fine.” Joey lied. His stress was still out of control and seemingly the only thing he had thus far found that helped was the pacifier, though he dared not mention that to anyone outside the family. He decided to switch subjects, “Crazy to think we’ll be out of here soon, huh?”

“Good riddance to it, I say.” Tracy snorted.

“What’s the matter?” Joey joked, “You’re not going to miss Mr. Finch’s hours and hours of history lectures?”

“Ha ha.” Tracy sarcastically laughed, “You know I was asleep for roughly ninety percent of those.”

“Well, you know what Mr. Finch said... “Those who don’t learn history are doomed to repeat it.”” Joey did his best imitation of Mr. Jones, complete with pushing imaginary glasses up his nose.

“You know that I didn’t know he said that.” Tracy replied as she leaned over and pecked him on the cheek, “I was asleep.”

The pair of them laughed. Tracy said she was going to the library and Joey told her he would be along in a few minutes, he had to visit the bathroom first, and she headed off. Joey watched her go with a sigh. There was a slight tension between them that they both seemed to be trying to ignore. Tracy had already decided on her college of choice; she had decided what she was going to do there as well. She seemed to have none of Joey’s indecision or stress about the future. It was just one more thing for Joey to think about. The college he most liked the look of was in another state on the other side of the country, if he went there then his opportunities to see Tracy would be limited to holidays, at best. She told him their relationship could survive the distance for a few years, but Joey had seen the stats on long distance romances, the numbers weren’t exactly in their favour.

Joey was just about to close his locker door when a hand came from seemingly nowhere and slammed it closed. He jumped and wheeled around to see a much nastier surprise than Tracy. Brad was a full head and shoulders taller than Joey and was smirking down at him.

“I bet you’re going to miss me.” Brad sneered.

Joey felt himself going red in the face. It was humiliating to be bullied as an eighteen-year-old, it was rather a legacy thing from years before. Joey had first encountered Brad in middle school and had quickly become one of his victims. Whilst he ended up leaving the others alone, Joey remained an easy target. He just couldn’t stand up for himself.

“What do you want?” Joey asked with as much venom as he dared, “We don’t have homework anymore so I can’t do it for you.”

“Ooh, tetchy this morning, are we?” Brad mocked. Joey was surprised the bully knew what “tetchy” meant, “No, I saw Tracy heading off to the library and I assumed you’d be following like a good little puppy dog?”

Joey remained silent. Perhaps the worst part of being bullied by Brad was that he was so good at it. It was rare that anyone saw him when he threatened Joey or made fun of him. As far as most of the teachers were aware the two were friends. Every time there was a chance of being caught Brad would turn on the charm and Joey would be too scared to say anything else.

“What’s your point?” Joey asked. He wished Brad would get to the point. He just wanted to get whatever was about to happen over with so he could catch up to Tracy.

“Well, you have to pay the toll, of course.” Brad said as he moved around to block the corridor towards the library. He reached out a hand and leaned against the lockers, it really revealed how big his arms were and how much he must work out. Joey gulped nervously.

“What toll?” Joey asked. He always put up just enough defiance that he felt a little better about himself but never enough to actually stop what was happening.

“THE toll.” Brad answered, “Now come on, we both know how this is going to go. Hand it over and we’ll both get on with our days.”

“I only have…” Joey opened his wallet, “Ten dollars for lunch and-…”

“Perfect.” Brad said as he took the note from Joey’s hand, “That’s exactly how much the toll is.”

Joey felt an impotent anger burning inside. He felt so pathetic that this was happening to him at his age. It made it even harder to tell anyone about it. He didn’t want to admit to how much of a wuss he was. Maybe Tracy was right, maybe leaving the school couldn’t come soon enough.

“I’ll miss this.” Brad said wistfully, “Me and you. We’ve had some good times…”

Joey didn’t reply. He slung his bag over his shoulder and pushed past Brad who laughed as Brad headed towards the bathrooms at the end of the corridor. He needed the bathroom, but now he also needed to wipe the tears from his eyes before he saw Tracy again.

---

Joey kept expecting something to change. His mom had been quite cryptic towards him and, in the days leading up to the weekend, continued to act quite unusually. She was up to something but wouldn’t tell Joey what. There were a lot of deliveries coming to the house and Fran made sure she was always the one to sign for them before spiriting the boxes to the basement. Joey even tried to sneak down there late one night after everyone else had gone to bed but found, quite unexpectedly, that the door to the basement had been locked.

Ben had started acting strangely as well. Whenever he saw his younger brother, Ben gave him this knowing smirk. Joey asked what was amusing him, but Ben replied by miming zipping his lips and walked away.

Joey found his answers on the next Saturday morning. He had woken up as usual, after getting dressed he had walked into the nursery to make sure Lucas was alright but, surprisingly, his younger brother wasn’t in there. It wasn’t completely out of the realm of possibility that his mom had taken care of Lucas, of course, but it was normal routine for him to do it. He wasn’t going to complain about less work though.

Joey walked downstairs whilst yawning. He scratched his arm as he rounded the bottom of the stairs. Something was strange, there was a weird atmosphere, and everything was oddly silent. It took Joey a second to realise the television in the living room wasn’t on, which was strange for a weekend morning. He walked down the hallway towards the kitchen where the door was closed, another unusual occurrence. He pushed it open and was nearly had a heart attack.

“Happy Unbirthday!” Fran and Ben exclaimed as the door opened. Even Lucas had his arms in the year shouting.

“W-What?” Joey stumbled backwards a step in confusion.

The kitchen looked like it was set up for a birthday celebration. There were a few balloons floating around, the rest of the family were wearing party hats and, as Joey looked around the room in shock, Ben blew loudly on a something which made a shrill noise that made everyone jump. Despite his participation he didn’t look particularly happy. The real eye-catching thing though, was the banner hung over the window and facing him. It was a “Happy Birthday!” banner but the letters “Un” had been hastily scrawled at the start of birthday.

“I… I don’t understand.” Joey said in shock.

“Come in and sit down!” Fran said as she waved her oldest son forwards, “We have cake!”

Joey was so confused. The rest of his family were on the opposite side of the table as he came in and slowly lowered himself into the free chair. Ben, having seemingly done what mom had asked him to, had dropped his party favour and was sat back with his arms folded across his chest. Lucas, meanwhile, was straining for the cake from his highchair and being told to be patient.

“What’s going on?” Joey asked.

“I’ve been thinking about what you said.” Fran replied as she started cutting up a chocolate cake that had one candle on top, “About all the stress you’ve been under. Well, I’ve decided I’ve not been fair on you and so we’re going to make some big changes.”

“Changes? What changes?” Joey asked.

“Well, you’ve had to look after Lucas so much, I don’t think it was a coincidence it was a pacifier you reached for to calm yourself. After all, that’s what babies do.” Fran said.

“But I’m not…” Joey started.

“Hold on.” Fran continued. She stood up and walked around the table with a slice of cake and a party hat.

The plate was placed on the table and as his mom put the hat on his head, he looked down to see that his slice had the words “Baby Boy” written in the frosting. This was only getting more and more confusing.

“We’ve decided, as a family…” At Fran’s words, Ben let out a loud noise of complaint. Fran looked at her teenage son and continued, “Yes, ALL of us decided, that it would be beneficial if you were treated just like Lucas.”

Fran finished speaking as she sat down in her seat. Joey just blinked at her, his brain not really comprehending what she was saying. The words repeated in his head, but they didn’t make any sense.

“Like… Lucas?” Joey said slowly.

“She’s going to treat you like a baby!” Ben finally spat out, “Duh!”

“That can’t be right… Mom?” Joey looked at his mom. She was smiling back at him warmly, but when she didn’t say anything a cold bucket of reality seemed to wash over Joey, “You’re not actually going to… Mom, I can’t do that when I have school and work and… It’s ridiculous!”

“Is it?” Fran asked, “School is ending in, what, a week? I’ve picked up some extra hours working so you don’t need to work anymore either. I think this is just what you need.”

Joey wasn’t even sure what was happening. Treated like a baby? What did that even mean? He looked at Lucas and saw the toddler sitting in the highchair seemingly unaware that anything extraordinary was happening at the table. Mom wanted to treat him like that?

“I… I can’t…” Joey said.

“Eat your cake, baby.” Fran replied, “And then we’ll go upstairs and begin.”

A sort of delayed shock seemed to be spreading over Joey. He still had no idea what his mom meant but with so much confusion, his brain was just grateful to hang on to something. He had been told to eat his cake and that was something he could accomplish even if his brain felt somewhat stun locked. He lifted the chocolate slice to his mouth and took a bite. Everyone else at the table did so as well, Ben still looking like he wanted nothing to do with anything that was happening whilst Lucas practically smeared the cake all over his face in his haste to eat it.

--- 

If you enjoyed this update and want to see what happens next without waiting you can find part two posted at the following links:

https://reamstories.com/page/lpjgftb4y2/story/ms1lat8c054a4d/chapter/msllj7tof7d0102

https://subscribestar.art/posts/2629612