AgeArts 3D Comics

Continued from Chapter 3.

Mrs. Smith arrived home about an hour later as Mark was feeding baby food to Julie. Despite her lack of motor control, Julie had managed to keep most of it in her mouth.

“Hello, Melissa,” Mark said to his wife.

“Hello,” she replied as she set down her bag and headed straight past him. “There’s my little girl,” she said as she approached Julie, who cringed as Mark’s giant wife reached for her. Mrs. Smith kissed Julie on the head. The kiss felt dirty, even dirtier than the baby-food drool felt. “How has she been?”

“She’s been a bit fussy,” he said. “I think she was missing her mother.”

“Well, Mommy was missing you as well,” she cooed at Julie and wiped away some food on her cheek. Julie realized she was supposed to appear excited or at least happy. She forced a smile, and Mrs. Smith returned a benevolent smile back.

“How was your trip?” Mark asked.

“Smooth,” she said. “I think I made a sale.”

“Good,” he said.

There was an awkward silence.

“Would you like me to help you with your bag?” he asked.

“I can handle it,” she said and left the room.

Julie stared up at Mark. He could see the worry in her eyes. “We can do this,” he told her. “Don’t worry. Just a little longer.”

Mark’s phone rang, and he answered it. “Katie,” he said and listened to a response. Julie tried to hear what was said, but it was too quiet. “So, it should be here in two days?” Mark asked. “That’s great. I’ll let you know when she’s out, and then we can fix the machine. Good work.” He listened again. “I have to get going,” he said. “She just got home. I’ll text you later.” He listened more and hung up after a quick, “Goodbye.”

Julie cooed up at him.

“Two days,” he said. “We’ll have the parts in two days.”

Julie nodded. That was good news. It certainly could have been a lot worse. Still, even though two days as a baby would be a very long time, there was nothing to do but endure it as best as she could.

***

A few hours later, Julie had decided that, in fact, two days as a baby would be an unbearable torture.

She was so bored. Incredibly, bored. Painfully, bored.

There was nothing to do but lie there or play with baby toys. Those got old in seconds. She thought about trying to build a tower or something out of blocks, but she decided that would be a bit too suspicious. Mark’s wife was keeping a close eye on her, leaving her no space for anything precocious.

She soon realized that she had another problem that would not resolve on its own: she was starting to feel hungry. Mark had fed her formula and baby food up until now. Her biggest fear was that Mrs. Smith would try to feed her by herself. Sure enough, the woman came by a few minutes later and checked Julie’s diaper. It was dry, thankfully. Unfortunately, Mrs. Smith proceeded to carry Julie to a chair and started to unbutton her own shirt.

When Julie recognized what Mrs. Smith intended to do, she started to cry. It was, after all, her one form of communication now. She just hoped Mark would be by to save her from this nightmare.

“It’s okay, sweetie,” the woman said as she exposed her nursing bra. “Mommy’s going to feed you now.”

Mrs. Smith started to uncover one of her breasts, while Julie squirmed and cried as loud as she could, but there was no sign of Mark. Where was he?

***

Mark was down in the lab on his phone, texting Katie.

Do you think you could fix the machine on your own? He wrote.

I’m sure I can, She replied.

Good.

Then, I have a plan for getting you into my home lab to work on it alone.

What’s the plan?

I’m taking Melissa out for a date night the day after tomorrow, Monday night.

I’ll have you over to babysit. She won’t be suspicious if you’re there for the baby.

That could work. Sounds good. ?

Let me know if anything goes wrong with the delivery.

Will do. See you Monday. ?

Bye.

He put his phone away and sat there staring at the broken machine, lost in thought. Part of him believed that they could pull it off. If it all went to plan, then everything would return to normal in a few days. It would be simple. Another louder part of himself was pointing out that his plans were not working out so well lately. There were so many things that could go wrong. In particular, there was the problem of Katie. He felt he could deal with her when the time came. It would be the best thing for her to return her to normal, he decided. What she wanted was not important. She was only a baby, after all. Nevertheless, there was something unsettling about her. The addition of Julie’s thoughts had transformed Katie into someone new, and that made her unpredictable. He hated unpredictable situations.

After a few minutes of brooding on his problems, he recognized a distressing sound that must have been going on for a while, unnoticed by him. The baby was crying. “Julie!” he said and rushed up the stairs. By the time he made it to the top of the steps, the crying had stopped.

When he walked into the living room, he found his wife sitting on a chair with Julie’s mouth pressed against her bare breast, suckling her.

“There you go, my little angel,” Melissa said to the baby. “Drink up.”

He could see the baby with her lips wrapped around his wife’s nipple.

“How is Katie?” he asked Melissa. “I heard her crying.”

“Oh,” she said. “She’s fine. She was just a bit fussy, but she gave in after a minute with my nipple in her face.”

All Mark could do was watch as his girlfriend drank from his wife’s tit. Julie had always despised Melissa. He could only imagine what Julie must be thinking right now, and it was probably not good. The baby looked up at him with desperate eyes and moaned slightly between sucks. It seemed as if she wanted to scream for help, but her mouth was plugged up with a milky nipple and she had no language to use anymore. Although she looked horrified at what was happening, she still breastfed as naturally as any baby. Maybe her body’s instincts had overwhelmed her mental reluctance.

“Something wrong?” Melissa asked.

“Oh,” Mark said after he realized he had been staring. “It’s nothing. I was just thinking about a problem. You see, I was working in the lab earlier today, and I had some trouble with the machine, a bit of a setback.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

“I’ve been trying to think of a way to fix it. I’m sure I’ll figure it out, but you know how I am. Sometimes I space out about things when I’m trying to solve a problem.”

“I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

He tried to think of a way to rescue Julie. “Hey,” he said. “Have you been thinking about weaning her away from breastfeeding more? She’s already eating baby food every day. Maybe we could try just feeding her only on the baby food for a couple of days, see if she would like that. She is getting old enough.”

“Oh, she’s still young enough for this,” Melissa said. “Plus, I love the feeling of feeding her.”

“I thought you said that all the lactating made you uncomfortable.”

“It does,” she said. “But, it’s worth it to share these moments with my little girl. Let me keep this up for another month at least. We can talk about weaning her again after her first birthday. Okay?”

That was it, he decided. Melissa had made up her mind, and any more argument would only raise suspicions. “Okay,” he said. Silently, he apologized to his girlfriend. He had tried his best.

The baby moaned again and detached form his wife’s nipple. “Oh,” Melissa said. “Looks like someone needs to be burped.” Melissa rested the baby on her chest with the baby’s head over Melissa’s shoulder and patted the baby’s back until she puked up a little warm milk on her burp cloth.

The baby looked disgusted.

“Just two days,” he said to the baby.

“What?” Melissa asked as she wiped the baby’s face.

“Oh,” he said. “I mean, since we’re going out in two days, I wanted to ask you if it would it be all right if one of my lab assistants came over to babysit Katie?”

“Does she have experience with babies?”

“A great deal,” he said. “I know she’s dealt with a lot of diapers in her life.”

His wife sighed and said, “That sounds fine. I was going to ask my mother, but I guess this is a bit of a short notice.”

“Good,” he said. “I’ll let her know.”

His wife addressed the baby, “Are you ready for round two?”

The baby looked defeated and depressed, but she did not cry. Instead, a resigned look formed on her face as she prepared herself to suffer through another feeding.

Melissa positioned the baby over her other nipple and continued nursing, while Mark just walked away and tried to put Julie’s fate out of his mind. It would all be over in a couple of days, he thought, one way or another.

To be continued in Chapter 5 – The Homecoming