The New Narnia

Chapter 17
Chapter 17: Unexpected Side Effects

Chapter Description: The next day, Tommy's clothing and home seem...a little different.

Chapter 17: Unexpected Side Effects

Good mornin', good mornin'!

We've danced the whole night through,

good mornin', good mornin' to you.

Good mornin', good mornin'!

It's great to stay up late,

good mornin', good mornin' to you.

Tommy woke up horny.  Any dreams he’d been having were paused and forgotten before he’d managed to open his eyes; as were memories of the night before.  Strange.  He’d remembered having sex with the elf that looked suspiciously like  Amanda, (did it count as losing one’s virginity if it was done to a member of a completely different species?), and he remembered getting back into his armor and leaving for the way back home.  After that? Nothing.

He was in the spare bedroom.  The firm mattress under his back and nice comfy pillow under his head were enough to confirm that.  Weird.  He’d claimed the couch that night.  Whatever.  Spare bedroom meant a closed door meant privacy.  

Tommy slithered his hand underneath the sheets and went to pleasure himself.  His hand stopped at his belly button.  Why were the sheets so clammy and clingy?  Tommy opened his eyes and sat up.  His Spider-Man bed sheets were soaked.  He’d wet the bed, again.

A bit of static, like a record scratching or nails on a chalkboard, sounded off in Tommy’s brain.  This wasn’t his room.  Tommy didn’t have a room.  The heck was going on?   Like soggy pancakes, Tommy peeled the sheets off his bed and swung his feet over the side to stand up.

This was not his room.  This was not normal.  Instead of the plain white of the apartment, light blue paint covered the walls, with posters of different comic book characters punctuating blank spaces.    A full dresser was to one side, super hero action figures taking up the counter space. An open walk- in closet was on the other side.  

A wicker clothes hamper by the door waited for him.  Tommy looked down at himself.  His silk pajama bottoms were soaked from the belly button to the knee.  Tommy had been kidnapped.  Kidnapped and forced to wet the bed.  That was the only logical explanation.

At the head, the sun was just starting to crest and bring light through a window. 

A window!

Tommy hopped up on the bed and peered out, hoping to get some kind of clue as to where he was.   Knocking the pillow aside, he climbed up onto the bed and leaned forward, balancing himself on the headboard.  Incredibly enough, it was the Forrest Luxury apartments parking lot.  The view wasn’t grand, but he’d recognize the paint job of the neighboring building anywhere.  One brick still had a daring “X” scribbled across it from five years ago when Tommy had thought to try his hand at teenage rebellion and found that he had neither the artistic inclinations nor the idiotic brand of bravery required to do grafitti. 

“Morning, Tommy,” a voice called cheerily from behind him.  “Time to get up.”

Someone had opened the door behind him.  Tommy turned around.  “Mom?!”

“Off the bed, cupcake.  Beds are for sleeping, not jumping.”

It was Mary Dean. Only it wasn’t.  Since at least fifth grade, Mary Dean didn’t exist before 11:30 AM.  From the moment Tom and Katlynn had been old enough to walk themselves to the bus stop(or old enough so Mary didn’t worry about child services being called) it had been the kids’ job to get themselves to and from school.  Mary slept in.

Tom scrambled off the bed, still confused.  “Mom?”

“Yes, Tommy?”

“I wet the bed.”

Mom spared a look at Tommy’s soaked PJ’s. “I know.  Go shower.  Go get cleaned up or you’ll miss school.”

School? Shower?  Mom was taking this surprisingly well.  “But I woke up here,” he tried to explain.  “But I didn’t go to sleep here.”

“Mmmhmmm…”   Mom wasn’t even looking at him.  She was stripping the sheets off the bed.  “Katlynn told me she found you sleeping on the couch.  Nightmares?”

Such casual concern bothered Tommy.  “No...”

“Did you remember to go pee-pee before you went to bed?”

“What?  Uh. Yeah?”

Mom threw the wet sheets into a crumpled pile by the hamper..  There was a waterproof mattress cover beneath, Tommy observed.  “Did Katlynn take you to the bathroom when she woke you up on the couch.”

The hell? “No?!”  Tommy felt a burn of embarrassment flush his cheeks.

“At least she got you off the couch.” Tommy’s mother felt the mattress cover and gave a disappointed sigh. “Soaked through. You really did a number on these, big boy.  That’s unlike you.”  It really was!  She took off the mattress protector and threw it onto the pile with the wet sheets.  She turned and faced Tommy as he remained frozen in place, her eyes zoning in like a sniper’s laser to his soaked pajama bottoms.

“What…?” Tommy yelped.  “I...I peed.  I told you…”

“Tommy,” Mom said; a hint of warning in her voice, “Did you remember to wear your bedtime undies?”

“Bedtime...undies?”

Mom crossed her arms and tapped her foot.  “Tommy…”

He had no idea what Mom was talking about.  No sense in lying.  He couldn’t lie when he had no clue what was being discussed. “Um...no?”    

“I can tell,” Mom said. She walked over and scooped up the soiled sheets.  “If you’re not going to wear your bedtime undies, we’re going to have to go back to Goodnites.”

“Goodnites?”  Tommy said.  “Bedtime undies?”  He felt like he’d just tuned into a Season 5 episode of a very complex and convoluted serialized television drama: Lots of strange character development and references to past events that he’d no inkling of.  This was like coming into Cats just after intermission.  (Bad example.  Cats was confusing as hell anyway)

“I know you don’t like them, but it’s easier for me to wash one thing than to wash all of this.” She bounced the soiled sheets in her arm.

“I...I...I…”

“Maybe when you can go a whole week without any accidents we can talk about your regular undies” Mom said, walking out the bedroom door.  “But please honey.  For me.”

Tommy didn’t know what else to say.  So instead he just said,  “Yes, ma’am.”

“And make sure to throw your jammies in the wash once you’re out of the shower,” Mom called back.  “No leaving them on the floor or in your hamper.”

“Yes, ma’am.”  Not knowing what else to do Tommy followed his mother out into the living room, his head on a swivel like a meerkat looking for predators.  The fudge was going on?  Same living room...except not.

While he couldn’t claim to have the greatest spatial memory, he’d spent enough time in this apartment to notice even the slightest differences. The differences were not slight. The place was clean.  Darn near spotless.  The usual pile of neatly folded clothes were off the coffee table and presumably in drawers and closets that hadn’t existed last night. 

The living room was bigger too.  Not much bigger, but big enough for him to notice.  Big enough to somehow create space enough for a separate room between his Mother’s master bedroom and the spare that Tommy could have sworn he and his sister swapped on alternating nights.  The apartment was now a 3 Bedroom 1 Bath, and Tommy didn’t know what to make of that.

From what he supposed was his door he did a u-turn and peeked into what used to be the spare bedroom.  Nope.  It was Katlynn’s room, now:  Pink walls.  BTS Posters.  Carefully made bed with a memory board above it and a shelf with a few little collectibles that had passed on from toys to.  Definitely Katlynn’s room.  They’d never been able to take any real ownership of the spare room, but now Katlynn’s looked like what he imagined any teenage girl’s room to look like.  And the room he’d woken up in looked like it was meant for a boy his age...kind of.

Tom about faced and watched as his mother opened a sliding slatted door.  Right next to the kitchen area, there was now a tiny alcove that fit a washer and dryer.  No more trips to the laundromat. He watched as his mother reached for a laundry pod from off a wire shelf and tossed it in.  “Everything’s good to go.  Get showered.”

Still in his wet pajamas Tom slinked to the bathroom.  The door opened and his sister slid out, making room for him to get by.  “Hey, Tommy.”

Tommy looked up at her and alarm bells rang out in his brain.  He was having to look up to his sister.  She wasn’t towering over him, but normally he had a couple inches on her.  He’d always had the slight height advantage ever since he’d had that ‘grown spurt’ back in ninth grade.  Now the ratio was reversed.  Either Katlynn had mysteriously sprouted several inches or...

“You’re taller than me...” he said.

“Yeah,” she agreed.  “Go get in the shower.”  

Tommy felt numb. “I wet my bed.”

“Yeah,” his sister said.  “Go get showered.”  She gave him a gentle nudge towards the bathroom.  “You can talk to me when you’re clean and in dry clothes.”

Something was off.  Not only was Katlynn taller, but she wasn’t making fun of his accident.  Even at her most merciful she’d at least razz him a little bit.  “You’re not gonna mess with me about it?”

Katlynn seemed confused.  “Why would I?”

“I…”  Tommy was at a complete lost for words.  His family was acting like this was normal, and it wasn’t.  (Was it?)  He’d just confessed to his twin that he’d wet himself in his sleep and she’d acted like he’d just told her that the grass was green or that Brigadoon was a boring ass play; (it was).

“Thomas Dean,” his mother called.  “Shower!  Now! I do not want to be late for work because you missed the bus.”

Tommy’s bare feet moved into the bathroom and shut the door behind him.  Even the bathroom looked nicer.  The white tile seemed whiter. The shower rod only flecked with a bit of rust and the curtain clean; the result of use and care instead of neglect.  He stripped down and got in the shower, leaving his piss soaked pajamas in their own puddle.  His ill-gotten Paw Patrol Underwear was nowhere to be seen.  He hadn’t wanted to put the dirty underwear back on, and so left them in Malacus. 

With the time dilation effect, Tom realized too late that he could have washed his clothes and still been back home the next morning.  He’s spent weeks battling alongside the dwarves.  There was literally no reason he couldn’t have stayed for breakfast and laundry with the elves.  Sex does weird things to a man’s mind.

He quickly washed himself, scrubbing himself down with body wash before the hot water had a chance to become tepid and then freezing.  A minute passed and the hot water kept coming out of the showerhead strong.  Another minute and it kept coming.  And another.  And another.

Was the building’s water heater not garbage anymore?  With the increase in hot water, another urge welled up inside him.  He suddenly remembered the feeling that had awoken him from his slumber.  

The sound of the water pouring out of the showerhead created the perfect white noise.  The relatively unchanged bathroom and the blanket of steam gave Tommy a feeling of security through familiarity and a sense of concealment.  It was so warm in here. And wet. And clean.  Time to ruin that last part.

Tommy squirted a bit of Irish Spring into his hand, backed up and steadied himself against the still cool wall on the opposite end of the shower, and started to masturbate. Closing his eyes, he imagined his tryst with Ghilanna; aka Amanda-the-elf.

He replayed it in his head, focusing on.  And then something changed.

Relished memory changed and turned into unexpected fantasy as he closed his eyes and tried to block the memory.  His brain flashed forwarded through the best parts of the lovemaking, turning it into a highlight real of moaning and giggling and thrusting. 

The first time, they’d lain together in quiet and made pledges of loyalty and pillow talks of piece.  Then Tom had gotten in his magical armor and promised to return.  In his mind’s eye, Ghilana stopped him.

“Wait, m’lord,” he mouthed, hearing Amanda’s voice in his head.  “We’re not done.” Tommy bit his bottom lip as he imagined her guiding him back to the bed.  “You’re not clean yet.”

It was too hard to imagine both sides of this imaginary conversation, so Tom just imagined himself muted by his elf concubine’s beauty and tenderness.  It wasn’t hard to do.  

“We must get you clean.  You can not go back to your Earth Realm in these wet and icky training pants.”  Tommy’s hand increased in speed in time with his heart rate.  “I must clean you.”  The cool bathroom wall was now the feather bed back in Malacus.

He imagined her taking out the sweet smelling oil she’d used and rubbing it into his privates.  “This will make it all better.” She whispered.  “Raise your legs, m’lord.”  Tommy wigged his hips and clenched his cheeks as he imagined the elf oiling his bottom.  Irish Spring was starting to smell a lot more like sweet lavender perfume.

The simulacrum took some clean sheets and folded them.  Tommy imagined her slipping them under his bottom and being allowed to lower his legs so she could spread them.  Back in the bathroom, Tommy came, just as he imagined her pulling the front of the sheets over his pelvis.  

“Doesn’t that feel better?” she’d been cooing at him right before the illusion shattered itself.   His sperm shot out at an ark into the open air and mixed with the suds before washing down the shower drain.

Tommy opened his eyes and felt the cold mix of relief, triumph, and the slightest pinch of guilt that typically came post masturbation.  He walked back into the shower’s stream and hosed himself off.  Now it was just a matter of waiting for his penis to calm down so that no one could tell what he’d been up to.

“Hurry up Tommy!”  The sound of his sister’s voice helped him in ways she couldn’t have possibly predicted.  “You heard Mom!”

“I’ll be right out!” Tommy called through the door.  He turned the shower off, water still warm, and reached for a towel.  White and fluffy...not unlike the bedsheets he’d imagined.  Tommy shook his head and forced himself to focus.

He stepped out of the shower and quickly began to dry himself off.  Looking down at himself Tommy felt another odd thing.  No hair.  Not on his arms, nor his legs, nor his pubic area.  He rubbed his chin and felt like he’d already shaved...better than shaved truth be told.  He checked his armpits.  Nothing.  It was like he was auditioning for the swim team.

With the towel, he wiped away the steam in the mirror and confirmed using his reflection what his fingers had already told him as true.  “What in the…?”  Smooth as a baby’s bottom.  All of him.  The only hair Tom had was the stuff on his scalp and his eyebrows. 

He leaned in, close to the mirror.  Normally when he shaved there were still little traces of stubble that he could spot if he stared hard enough.  Nothing.  It wasn’t as if he’d just shaved, it was as if he’d never needed to.

“TICK-TOCK, TOMMY!” Mom called.  “If I’m late for work because you’re taking too long.  We’re going back to Goodnites and baby wipes.”

That was the second time she’d mentioned being late for work.  Since when did Mom have a job outside of trolling flea markets and pawn shops?

Tom wrapped the towel around himself and tied it off.  He picked his soiled pajamas off the bathroom floor and opened the door.  Still dripping with water, he tossed the garments into the washing machine, lowered the lid and started the cycle.

“HURRY!”  Katlynn said, waiting by the door. “Three minutes or I’m going to the bus stop without you, little brother.  That was the Katlynn he knew.  The familiarity eased his mind enough to hustle back to his new room and close the door. 

Tommy dropped the towel and went over to the dresser.  Top drawer.  Last night underwear went in the top drawer, socks went in the drawer underneath.  Tommy opened the long dresser and found some things were universal, even when the universe conspired to rearrange your home for you.

Tommy pulled out the first pair of briefs and felt like the kid who’d busted open the pinata.  They were neither boxers, nor tighty whities.  In Tommy’s hands he held a pair of thick cotton undies, lacking the overlapping fold that men’s underwear had, but with extra material in the front instead, in case Tommy had a slight accident.  Tommy popped them open and looked inside.  The extra padding went down past the crotch and well into the backside. Cloth training pants.

He turned them around.  The bright blue things had a decoration.  Smiling back him with a little puff of smoke coming out of his snack and the words “Toot-toot” was Thomas the Tank Engine.  These weren’t just training pants, but train-ing pants.  

These had to be the nighttime undies that Mommy was referring to.  Still...they were undies.  Tommy stepped into the underwear and shimmied it up his hips.  Tommy had to fight the urge to suck his thumb as his brain registered the thickness of his new underwear.  It was even thicker than the toddler pants he had snuck home yesterday, only now he suspected he didn’t need to be worried about being caught in them.  These weren’t stolen.  These were his.

His underwear.

Tick-tock.  Not much time.  The dresser drawer that had materialized overnight was wider than the one he and Katlynn had been forced to share.  There were technically two top drawers; a left one and a right one.  The left one had the training pants in them; his bedtime underwear.  Just out of curiosity, Tommy opened the right one.

The young man’s eyes could have fallen out of his skull.  Stacks of clear plastic pants were piled into the top right drawer.  One stack had clear elastic waistbands, plastic underwear meant to be pulled over thick training pants in case an accident was not so little.  The other stack had  buttons on the front sides; something to be applied while laying down.  These were the bedwetting pants, meant to be worn underneath his silk pajamas. 

 Meaning the Thomas training pants were his daytime underwear.  He wasn’t even being naughty by wearing them just now.  First slamming the drawers shut, Tommy dug through his wardrobe and stepped into a pair of shorts from the left bottom drawer and some socks from the left middle drawer.  He almost waddled as he hustled into his closet and pulled a shirt over his head.  

He had to sit down to put his shoes one and immediately felt the extra layers of cloth surrounding him when he set down.  It was almost like how he’d imagined the thick layers of bedsheets he’d imagined Ghilanna wrapping around his waist a few minutes ago.  Almost like a…

He blushed at the thought, envisioning himself wrapped up and swaddled.  On the bright side, upon further examination, this new underwear was also better at concealing erections.

They were his.  Malacus had given him more than he could have imagined.  Within twenty four hours, he’d helped a lunch lady, ended a war, made love to a woman, and gotten his very own training pants.  He really was a big boy, he thought to himself.

Tommy stopped and examined himself in his bedroom mirror, another new feature.  He didn’t particularly look like a highschooler.  He had a serious case of babyface, blue shorts and a Superman T-shirt.  At best, this room belonged to an early middle schooler.  At best…and that was not factoring in the padded undergarments that his baggy shorts concealed.  Right now, Tommy Dean looked like either a late blooming middle schooler or a VERY mature and sophisticated preschooler.

And yet...

New bedroom. Clean home with a washer and dryer. Slightly nicer sister.  Mom had a job.  New underwear that Tommy had secretly coveted, now not-so-secret...nor shameful, apparently.  This was the clock’s doing.  There was no other logical explanation. 

But Tommy wasn’t scared by this; not at all.  If this morning was any indication, this was the start of a beautiful day.  All this good stuff, not just for him but his family; that was worth a few inches in height, smoother skin, and needing plastic underwear at bedtime.  

Right?  

Right.