Teenage Baby

Chapter 10

  "There, love, all done. This will keep your skin so soft now." She gently held his ankle with one hand as she brought his foot nearer to her face, pressing her plump lips against its bottom afterwards and lingering, all her motherly affection displayed in that little peck.

Aaron froze and stared down his front, mouth agape with the disgust that overwhelmed him the second he sensed it: her lips against his foot, for a period longer than he had imagined. Did she not find it disgusting? Did she really not mind? He did, and he wanted it to end.

  Mommy lowered his foot again and looked at him, a blissful smile brightening her face. She didn't look disgusted, that was one thing Aaron was sure of. "What is it, love?" she asked, not as if she had just willingly kissed his foot. It wasn't weird, at least not for Mommy—she didn't mind, because that foot belonged to her baby, her beautiful, innocent baby.

  Aaron felt the contents of his stomach swirl queasily as he watched her. How she seemed to be in a daze, yet her eyes were trained on him and her lips were formed in a loving smile. The way she could be so creepily affectionate filled his gut with a jumble of disgust and fear. She looked like she actually loved him so much, and Aaron found that a lot more unsettling than the thought of someone hating him equally.

  Daddy came in, a hooded onesie held in his hand, its color a mix of sleek black and deep blue—like the night sky—and littered with star prints all across. Both the captors carefully dressed him in it. As soon as they were done, Daddy lifted him off the table then placed him on the floor.

"Give us a minute. We'll be right back. Don't move, alright?"

  Aaron nodded, watching as both Mommy and Daddy left the room, keeping the door slightly open behind. Their absence and the sudden silence that followed finally gave him time to think of everything that had happened, gave his mind the freedom to process all that he'd just been through.

The bath. The lotion. The unwanted touching. Being exposed. The disgust. The fear. The humiliation.

This was potentially the most uncomfortable he'd been in his entire life.

Aaron brushed his finger lightly across his arm, gasping inaudiblely when he felt the difference, how his skin was noticeably oily and soft. He felt like the trigger had been pulled, and suddenly he wanted to perform a breakdown, to scream loudly and shatter glass, to let out all the piling emotion he'd been forcing himself to repress throughout everything happening.

But he didn't do any of that. He fought it.

  He suddenly felt his head begin to throb, piercing pangs pulsating through his temples. He tried rubbing his head, but it wasn't helping, because the pain was coming from inside—like some solidified pressure thumping against his skull furiously. His hands reached up to his damp hair and grasped tufts of it tightly, knuckles whitening with the intensity of the grip. Everything was so horrible, so terrifyingly weird. He'd never been put in such a situation. Couldn't there be anything moderate in his life? Why was it that his own father hated him, and complete strangers loved him in a way so twisted and creepy?

"Aaron?"

  Aaron easily recognized that distinctively soft voice. He loosened his grip on his hair and gradually let go, arms slowly slumping back to his sides. Leo stood at the threshold with the paw of a teddy bear clutched tightly in his hand. Putting it aside, he approached and sat on his knees next to Aaron. His heart sank at how obviously sad he looked.

"Why sad?" Leo asked, eyes glistening. Aaron let out a humorless chuckle at the innocent question. There was so much he was currently sad about. "Didn't like bath time?"