Malice Aforethought

Chapter 1
Extortion

Author’s Note: This story is the sequel to Soft and Fuzzy. It is longer and has a very different and darker tone to its predecessor (as its title would indicate), especially in the second half of the story, where it takes on a more dramatic tone, with a dash of action as well. That section may have been influenced by watching a bit too much Breaking Bad actually. Nonetheless it contains many of the same elements and characters of the first story and be warned there is a lot of both male to male and female to male sexual content (lots of stickies that is), forced mental regression and nudity so don’t read if that disturbs you. The story is complete but I will be posting it in parts. Enjoy.

Malice Aforethought

It was a warm summer’s evening outside. I could see the cloudless blue sky through my window and the humidity was obvious even inside. I probably should have been outside enjoying such a lovely day. That’s what my mum would have told me as a kid. She would have been scolding me for wasting such great weather squirreled away in the house. But mum wasn’t here to tell me off, I was a grown-up now and I could waste the day inside playing video games if I wanted to.

In any case it would be the same kind of weather tomorrow and the day after that and I could make the most of them if I felt like it. I probably wouldn’t though. I was on a winning streak on COD, Call of Duty that is, closing in on a 2 to 1 kill to death ratio. Summer was my time now, the wonderful seven weeks when I didn’t have to work or go to meetings or do anything I didn’t want to do. And what I wanted to do right now was game.

I’d been playing since I’d got up, about noon, and I was nearly ready for a break for dinner at about seven in the evening when a chime from my laptop announced one of my buddies was online. I’d just been pretty well thrashed in one my most hated maps so I was happy to throw down the controller and check the computer to see who was around. I pulled up Yahoo Messenger and scanned through the names: Diapeed_One, Baby Paul07, Ickleboy and so on. I only had a few close buddies I chatted with but dozens of more casual acquaintances. My real-life friends had no idea about my secret interests of course. No one but the people on this little list knew about that, and few of them knew more about the real me than my screen-name. The icons told me most of them were off-line at the moment. Then I saw something that made me lean forward right away.

There was a little yellow circle next to a name that had been off-line for months. I’d given up hope of ever seeing him around to chat ever again. But there he was, Little Eric, back on the board. I hadn’t been that surprised when he’d disappeared months earlier. Eric had gone through bouts of self-rejection before, tried to leave the whole scene. He would delete his account, vanish, only to reappear a month or two later. But this last time Eric had not simply reappeared. He had gone dark for close to a year.

Eric was probably my closest buddy in that world, someone who I’d shared lots of information with, roll-played with, wrote stories with. He was one of the only ones who did know a lot more about me than what was in my profile. He was a real friend. We’d even met for real once. I’d had to travel overseas to do that, to a country that had a reputation that scared away most would-be tourists. In fact it took a lot of convincing to me to entertain the idea of visiting a country known as the gun murder capital of the world. But I had gone, and I had enjoyed it. It was that which made his final disappearance, without a word to me, even more painful.

So I sat staring at the screen for a long minute, trying to decide what to do. Did I want to open myself back up to all that hurt again? Could I really just say, ‘hey, you’ve been gone without a word for a year but that’s okay! Let’s continue on like nothing happened?’ But if I didn’t click on it, I knew that would bother me too. What if this was my only chance to reconnect? We’d shared so many good stories before, I couldn’t let that go again. I clicked on Little Eric and watched a chat box pop open.

I sat with my fingers hovering over the keys for a few seconds more. I didn’t really know what I wanted to say. I wasn’t sure he’d even reply. He might disappear offline the second I messaged him. Finally I managed to type, “Hey there.”

It didn’t get much simpler than that. It was the digital equivalent of a shrug. I hit send, then waited, barely able to breathe, eyes glued to the screen.

One minute passed, though it felt like ten. Then a little italicised script appeared, “Little Eric is writing something.”

I inhaled sharply. He was going to reply! What might he have to say? An apology? Was that too much to hope for?

His reply appeared in a blink, written in bold blue text a bit different from what he used to use. It was a brief reply. “Hello Aiden. Is that you?”

I blinked and furrowed my brow, slightly confused. Of course it was me. Who else had ever used my handle? I began typing again, quickly.

“Yes it’s me. Who do you think it would be?”

A quicker reply to my query this time.

“It’s been a long time Aiden. We need to talk. Can we video chat?”

It seemed an odd request. We hadn’t done video very often even after we’d met in person. Now he suddenly needed to see me to chat? I looked myself over. I was wearing a simple yellow t-shirt with a sarcastic message printed on the chest. I hadn’t shaven that morning but I didn’t think I looked too scraggly. Well, I had nothing to lose really.

“Okay,” I typed, then hit the button to start a video call.

A larger box opened and I listened to the customary American-style ringing Yahoo uses. I took a last chance to fix my hair as the light on my camera went on and I saw myself in the smaller screen below the still black bigger one. Then came the noise signalling connection has been made and the bigger screen resolved into a scene that so shocked me I nearly dove out of view of my camera. For it was not my old buddy Eric looking back at me but a young woman I didn’t recognise at all.

She was a pretty woman, mid to late twenties in age I guessed. She had short light brown hair and hazel eyes. Her skin was lightly tanned and she was wearing a short-sleeved pink top. I could see she was sitting not in some bedroom but in a kitchen, the stove and cabinets visible behind her. Morning sunlight was streaming in from the sliding doors to some unseen deck or back garden.

“Hello there Aiden,” she greeted. “I’m sorry to surprise you like this. I’m sure you have a lot of questions.”

That was quite an understatement. In fact I was left speechless for a moment, still stunned by having this woman staring back at me when I’d expected my friend Eric. I did immediately register her accent. It was different from Eric’s but in some ways similar. He had a British South African accent, drawling and deliberate. Hers I recognised as an Afrikaner accent. She spoke English in the way White South Africans of Dutch descent, who were raised speaking Afrikaans, were known to.

When I recovered my voice I managed to say, “Well to start with, who are you? And where is Eric?”

The woman smiled and gave me a slight chuckle. “Well, you are direct.”

“So people tell me. Again, you are who exactly?”

“My name is Elly. I’m Eric’s mummy.”

Now I knew something was off. There was no way she was old enough to be Eric’s real mother. So was she some kind of mistress he’d hired? If that was the case making contact with me made no sense. What was her motive for wanting to chat with me on the video?

“So, you’re what? A mistress? His girlfriend?” I asked, trying to clarify.

She chuckled again, dismissively. It was beginning to annoy me, her chuckles.

“No silly, I told you. I’m his mummy. I take care of Eric. He’s my little boy.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, I got that part of it. But you’re obviously not really his mum, so he’s either paid you to treat him like a baby for a bit, or you’re his girlfriend and you’re roleplaying with him. So which is it?”

Elly nodded now, at least sparing me another derisive chuckle.

“Well, I did used to be his girlfriend, in a way. But now I take care of him. He needs me for everything. Without me he couldn’t possibly survive. His mind simply isn’t up to the job anymore. So that makes me his mummy. I take care of him and my other little one, Benny, his big brother.”

Couldn’t take care of himself anymore? His mind isn’t up to the job? What was she playing at? I knew for a fact that Eric was a professional with a sharp mind. Was this part of her roleplay with him? Was he tied up just out of camera and she was humiliating him? He’d hinted he was into humiliation before. Maybe that’s what this was. That made me kind of angry, made me feel like I was being used.

“Look I don’t know what game it is that you’re playing with Eric, but I don’t need to be part of it. So as nice as this has been, I gotta get going,” I told her, moving the mouse to close the video box.

“I wouldn’t do that Aiden La Fleur,” Elly snapped in a suddenly threatening tone.

My blood ran cold and my fingers froze on the touchpad. She knew my full name. Why the hell had Eric told her that?

“Excuse me?” I replied.

“I don’t think you should say goodbye too early dear. You haven’t even seen your old buddy Eric yet.”

So, Eric was there, probably just off camera. She probably had him all dressed up in one of those outfits he spent so much money on. He just loved dressing up all babyish, showing off all the elaborate juvenile patterns on those cotton overalls, his yellow ducky socks and baby-blue onesies. And he wanted her to show him off to me, part of his humiliation kick.

“I was actually in the middle of something…” I started to explain.

“Oh this won’t take too long and it’s been such a long time since he got to see you last,” she assured. “Just wait one minute. I promise it will be worth your while.”

I frowned and sighed but said, “Okay.”

“Wonderful, stay right there now,” she urged, leaving her seat and walking out of the kitchen.

With her out of camera I could see more of the kitchen. There was a child’s potty seat, decorated bright red and yellow, sitting in the far corner. A set of large swallow-proof blocks were also left spilt across the floor. The fridge was just in camera range and I could make out a number of childish scribbled drawings pinned to it. It really did look like a child lived there, a toddler in fact. Maybe this was her house, set up for her adult baby clients. She certainly knew her craft well and she was good at being in character.

I could hear Elly returning with someone, their footsteps getting closer. Then they appeared from another room, walking into the kitchen. My jaw surely dropped at the sight before me. I immediately recognised Eric. He was about five foot ten, of a medium build and had brown hair which was now cut very short, almost buzz-cut. He wasn’t in any silly toddler outfits though. He was only wearing his birthday suit, letting Elly lead him by his hand right up to the table where the computer sat. I had met Eric before, seen him act like a little boy in our roleplaying, and something looked off about him now.

Eric didn’t look like he did when he’d acted. He walked with a noticeably wider gait, his feet slapping the floor quite heavily as he went. His face had a relaxed kind of slackness to it, a total lack of worry about anything. Even at this point it just looked like more than just an act, just a roleplay.

“Come on Eric, come see your old buddy,” Elly was coaxing him, using the high sing-song tone one expected an adult to use for a very small child.

Eric giggled and it was unlike anything I had heard from him before. What was going on here?

“Up on the chair honey, uppies,” Elly urged him.

Eric climbed awkwardly up onto the seat. But rather than sitting in it he squatted atop it, gaping at the computer. I could see his whole nude body this way. His bare toes were curling and uncurling along the edge of the chair and I could see they were grimy as though he never wore shoes. His legs were smooth and hairless, as was the penis hanging freely between his thighs. His eyes were kind of glassy, like he really wasn’t all there. He had this kind of curious half-smile too and he pointed at the camera and declared, “Das man.”

His voice was nothing like I recalled. It was higher and his words were short and garbled, barely comprehensible. But Elly was smiling and nodding at him encouragingly.

“Yes Eric, that is a man,” she agreed. “Can you say hi to him?”

Eric gaped at Elly then nodded jerkily and twisted back to face the camera. He flapped his hand in a silly toddler wave and chirped, “Hi! Hi! Hi!”

“Good boy!” Elly cooed to him, rubbing the top of his head so he smiled.

“Um, hi there Eric,” I replied. “You playing a game?”

Eric looked confused now, his eyes wide and empty of recognition. He didn’t look like he was playing a game at all. He looked like he was actually confused by a simple question. Elly stroked his bare arm and said, “Can you tell the man your name? Go ahead sweetie. Tell him your name.”

The confusion was gone and was replaced by a look of love. He looked so happy to have Elly there to guide him, to do the thinking for him. He gazed into the camera.

“Ewic. Me Ewic!” he declared, hopping in place on the seat.

“Clever boy,” Elly cooed to him, pecking a kiss on his cheek.

“Hi Eric, I’m Aiden. Don’t you remember me?” I responded, no longer sure this was a game after all and feeling a bit more uncomfortable with it as the doubts crept in.

Eric stared back at me in slack incomprehension again, then he leant forward and began slapping a keys on the computer. A series of random letters quickly began to fill the text box with no apparent meaning.

“Look at Eric typing like a big boy,” Elly cooed, chuckling again.

Eric didn’t seem to register the condescension at all. He grinned from ear to ear, sticking out his tongue and blowing a happy raspberry as he continued punching keys and rocking on his bent knees so that his penis jiggled about.

“What’s wrong with him?” I final asked, directing my question to Elly as it was now obvious Eric was actually incapable of responding himself. “This doesn’t look like a game.”

Elly shook her head and took Eric’s hands off the keyboard. “Okay honey, no more typing right now. The grown-ups need to talk,” she told him.

Eric nodded, slack jawed in wonder at his mummy again. He rested back on his haunches for a moment then dropped back onto his bare bottom on the seat and seemed to gaze about the room looking for something pleasant or shiny to catch his eye.

“I told you honey, this isn’t a game,” Elly told me, sounding serious again, the high-pitched voice gone.

“What’s been done to him?” I asked, now growing truly concerned.

Elly shrugged. “Nothing he didn’t want to happen honey. It only works when they want it.”

I looked back at Eric, chewing on the tips of his fingers of his left hand and playing with his penis with the other now. It remained flaccid despite his manipulations. He wasn’t pleasuring himself, he was really just playing with his penis, like it was a toy.

“He didn’t want this,” I told her. “He had all kinds of outfits. He liked dressing up. And he was a bright man. I don’t know what you’ve done to his mind, but he couldn’t have wanted this.”

“He wanted to be little Aiden. He wanted to need a mummy to take care of him. And that meant giving up his ability to care for himself, it meant losing all those intellectual powers that let him be independent. Without losing those it would just be a game. This is very real.

“And as for his outfit, well grown-up Eric may have liked dressing up, but that Eric is long gone honey. Little Eric likes his birthday suit. He likes being mummy’s nakey jaybird. Losing all that intellect also meant losing all his silly modesty and all his ideas about how toddler’s should dress. Now he likes to dress however mummy decides to dress him. Isn’t that right sweetie?” she asked, switching to the high voice again and turning to Eric, tickling the blackened bare sole of one of his feet.

Eric giggled at the tickle, smiling up at Elly and then grabbing the tickled foot and popping a couple toes into his mouth to munch on. It was obvious he didn’t understand any of our conversation. He hadn’t a clue what had been done to him. His actions were incredibly arousing to me on one level, but I had to remind myself that this was real for him.

“What you’ve done is a crime,” I told her.

“I didn’t force anything on Eric. If he hadn’t wanted this he could have walked away at any point.”

“Well thanks for letting me see my old friend. I hope you’re happy together, but I have things to do, as I said before,” I told her, not wanting to watch this any longer. It was so hard not to get excited watching Eric continue to suckle away at his own toes, those vacant eyes gazing at me and conveying such total lack of intelligence.

“Hold on Aiden, we aren’t done yet,” Elly warned, her voice once again threatening.

“Well I am,” I retorted.

“But I’m not done with you dear. Have you forgotten about the photos Eric took of your visit?”

I took my hands off the keyboard and sat up straight. “The what?” I stammered.

“The photos Aiden. Have you really forgotten?” she said with a nasty smile before opening a photo sharing window in the chat box.

I could only sit and watch in horror as she shared photo after photo of me playing with Eric. Photos of me dressed like a toddler, photos of me doing all kinds of things that I’d prefer to be kept private, very private.

“You need to see more?” she finally asked.

“No, you’ve made your point,” I said, trying to regain my composure. “But so what? You think they really scare me?” I added, trying to seem unconcerned. “People post photos of themselves dressed up like babies and such all the time. There are thousands on the internet.”

Elly shook her head. “Yes honey, but you certainly haven’t.”

“Maybe I would,” I suggested.

“I don’t think so dear. I’ve read all your chat logs with Eric. I know all about you. I know about your job. What is it you teach? English literature wasn’t it?”

This was worse than I could have possibly imagined. I knew how I must look now, like a deer in the headlights. She had me and she knew it.

“Imagine what would happen if a student, or a parent or a prospective employer googled your name and these photos were what popped up. Maybe in New Zealand they’re more liberal than us. But I doubt it.”

“I’ve done nothing illegal,” I insisted.

“Oh I know honey. But isn’t there something about conduct unbecoming to the profession or something like that? Do you enjoy your job?” she asked with that wicked smile.

“What do you want? If you know I’m a teacher then you also must know I have no money.”

“I don’t want your money Aiden. All I want is some of your time.”

“Some of my time?”

“You’re on summer holiday aren’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“Well I want you to come here, come to meet me, see your old buddy Eric.”

I stared at her for a moment. “Why the hell would I do that?”

“As I said Aiden, I’ve read your chat-logs. I know you have the same feelings as Eric. I think you want to be sitting right here beside him, nakie-bummed, having a munch on your tootsies too. I want you to come and let me try to give you that release, give you your dream.”

I couldn’t deny that I stiffened down there at the very suggestion. Of course that was exactly what my dream was, but nevertheless I knew it needed to stay that, a fantasy. To actually be reduced, as Eric clearly was, to a simple-minded tot in need of total care, was clearly not a fate I actually wanted.

I shook my head. “I don’t really want that.”

“If you don’t want it, it won’t work. I only ask that you let me try.”

“And if you fail, you’ll really just let me walk away and you’ll give me the photos?”

“Yes, I will.”

“How do I know you’ll really keep your word?”

She shrugged. “You don’t. But you do know I’ll definitely post the photos if you don’t come.”

I frowned and considered my options for a moment. What kind of risk was this? If she was really able to do that to Eric could it happen to me? No, I was stronger willed than that. I had to be. And if I didn’t go it could be the end of my career. That and once it was online the photos would follow me forever. What choice did I really have?

“So where do I go?”