In-Between Chapters 64, 65, and Epilogue by Sofia Hammerstein

Cameron Sylvester has grown up always hoping he'll live up to the heritage of his mother's family height. She was a ten-foot-tall Big, after all, and his father was a tall Mid, which meant it shouldn't have been a question that he would grow out of the Little category of height early on. A bright student, he's been at the top of his class in science and math throughout his academic career! Looking toward his high school graduation and towards college, he's received scholarships to attend Emerson University. it's a question of inches if he'll be left to the fate of being a Little with a limited future or manage to make a future as a short 'Betweener.' Even as a Betweener, the question remains to be seen if he can be a normal adult or if he'll be left 'In-Between.'  (A Tale from the Diaper Dimension)

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The Legal Stuff: In-Between © 2020-2026 By Sofia Hammerstein
 
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
 

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission.
 

 
 

Chapter 64: Nominations
 

I WALKED DOWN the hallway back to my office from the conference room where we had met with a new client. They claimed a new streaming company was creating hypnosis videos and placing them deliberately on sites that Little college students regularly visited.

On the face of it, the evidence we had been given looked pretty strong to me. Still, it would take our investigators verifying the information before we would confirm that we would take the case. The Little paying to lead the suit was the father of a nineteen-year-old college student who had fortunately been safely home for the summer when she began randomly peeing her pants and crying about wanting num-nums from her mommy.

I had just sat in the chair to jot down some more notes when my phone rang with our secretary’s extension showing, “Mr. Sylvester?” I heard.

“Yes, Nikki?”

“I have a gentleman on the phone who says he is calling on behalf of the President?”

I laughed, “That’s a good one; what’s the ID say?”

“It shows The President’s House,” she said nervously.

“I’m guessing this is an elaborate hoax… would you get Kendra to come down here to stand by in case there’s some hypnotic component?”

“She’s already on her way down, sir.”

A knock on my door, and I waved her in, “Put it through,” I said and left it on speakerphone. “Hello?”

“Is this Mr. Cameron Sylvester?”

“Yes? May I ask who this is?”

“I’m Lindsey Walters, the assistant to the President. Please stand by…”

Kendra looked at me perplexed as David joined the room, too, “Mr. Sylvester?” I heard a familiar presidential voice a moment later.

“Umm… Yes, sir?” I paused, “This is a real call?”

The voice laughed, “You have no idea how often I hear that! Yes, it’s a real call. First of all, I want to offer my condolences for all you’ve been through this past year with your former fiancé, SafeFoods, Aubry Harris, and everyone else over there that put you through hell and back.”

I was in shock, and all I could say was, “Thank you, Mr. President.”

“Now, as to why I’m calling… We have a problem in this country in the judiciary with too many cases like yours happening. I have an open seat on the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals that Judge Bancroft retired from. I wanted to know if you might be interested in being nominated to fill that seat.”

I felt my jaw drop, “Umm… I’m incredibly honored that you would consider me, Mr. President. But surely you have more experienced jurors that could fill that spot?”

“Horse shit,” he said, “You have more real-world experience than any of the other candidates on the list given to me. How many others out of those do you think have experienced the injustices you have?”

“Hopefully none, Sir,” I said with a sigh.

“Exactly, none. That’s why I want you there! Now I know you’re young, but I also know there’s a certain Supreme Court Justice who would probably be willing to take a phone call from you every now and then for advice?”

I laughed, “If I didn’t, I guarantee she’d call me!” I paused, “If I’m made a justice on the Appellate Court, that’s a lifetime appointment, correct?”

“Yes, it is, at least until hopefully someday you can follow your mentor’s footsteps.”

“Would I even have a chance of being confirmed by the Senate?”

He laughed, “Trust me, I wouldn’t contact you if I didn’t know we could get you through. My party’s votes alone would carry you through, but I suspect there’ll be bi-partisan support for your nomination. The first Mid ever nominated to a Court of Appeals?” He laughed, “It has a certain political ring to it. So, what do you say?”

I looked at Kendra and David, who were both nodding vigorously at me, “I don’t have much choice; I’ll say ‘yes!’”

“Great! My Chief of Staff will contact you later for all the details of your confirmation hearing and everything. I’d like to get you down here for dinner one night during your hearing if we can swing it. I would love to meet and speak with you.”

“Thank you, sir,” I said.

The phone call ended after a couple of pleasantries, and Kendra was there hugging me. “Oh, my God! Cameron, this is amazing!!!”

“Congrats, Cameron!” David said to me.

“Did that really just happen?” I wondered aloud.

An impromptu dinner party was planned for the next day to celebrate my nomination, which was announced on the news segments an hour later. On my way home, I wondered how I had ended up at this point!

Just eight months ago, I’d been asked to make THE scariest decision of my life. I’d taken the perilous gamble of trusting the short Doctor Nickerson and Amanda, who claimed that they had managed to recover enough of my X and Y chromosomes from my semen sample to make a solid attempt at fixing the damage. They had assessed a ten percent risk of possible shrinking, but other than that, the worst-case seemed to be that I’d be in the same situation and need to just go the girl route instead.

They’d put me under, and apparently, the reprogramming went well! The damage to my genitals and skeletal system was mainly corrected within a few hours of beginning the treatment. The following two days had been touch and go while they siphoned out almost all of the nanites in my blood. I understood that Amanda destroyed them when she was done, hoping it would prevent them from being misused.

I had been nervous about shrinking and other ill effects from the procedure. Still, fortunately for me, the side effects never came! I still stood at my old height just fine! My potty training was a bit sketchy afterward, but it improved rapidly as my body rediscovered nerves that had been rerouted. After a month of Pull-Ups just in case and only a handful of accidents, I’d been going around in regular underwear now for seven. I had even almost put back on nearly all the weight I’d had before the attack!

The only lasting physical effect was a thinner bone structure and a face that leaned slightly more feminine than before, with a smaller nose and jaw than I had been born with. It wasn’t a perfect recovery, but given everything that had happened to me in Ames, I had been ecstatic to escape relatively unscathed.

I wish I could say the same treatment could be done for Beth, but Amanda and Holly were confident that the damage to her brain was irreversible at this point.

A month ago, I’d received a call that Ashley, Beth’s mom, had died of a heart attack in her sleep. I’d attended the funeral and consoled the distraught Mr. Fehler. Beth had been too clueless to understand, but I noticed that she seemed to sense an absence as I hugged her and cuddled her some. I stuck around for a weekend and came back even more distraught over the disasters that seemed to always be happening in my life.

Today though… I couldn’t help but feel a glimmer of hope for my future. ‘Me, a judge?’ I thought, ‘Before I’m even thirty?!?’

Honestly, that was the biggest concern I had… I really was too young, in my own opinion! But who the hell turns down the President of the United States?!? I tuned the radio to a news station as I drove.
 

In other news, President Barnum announced today that he is nominating Cameron Sylvester for the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals vacancy. Mr. Sylvester would be the first-ever person under thirty to be confirmed; more unusually, he would be the first-ever Mid-sized judge to sit on an appellate court bench.

Another voice came on. Isn’t Mr. Sylvester way too young for this position?

Usually, I would agree, but he has life experience beyond any thirty- or forty-year-old we could nominate. Most recently, he has dealt firsthand with the injustices of corrupt businesses, courts and been unjustly given a Maturosis ruling that was overturned. I believe he has a good head on his shoulders and will rule according to the law…
 

‘No pressure,’ I thought, hearing the President’s voice defending me himself.

I was so focused on the radio that I almost missed the expensive red sports car sitting at the gated entrance to my home. A window rolled down on the passenger’s side as I drove up, and I looked shocked as I realized it was Addy.

“Addy?”

“Hi, Cam… I was hoping we might be able to talk?”

“You could have called?”

“Let’s just say I was in the neighborhood and wanted to see you?”

I was a little nervous about her being there – after all, we’d proven she had more than enough strength and height to easily control me like a toddler!

Sighing, “Follow me through,” I told her, hitting the gate opener.

The large gate in front of my car swung open, and I watched in the rearview mirror as the red sports car followed me inside the gated walls. I noted that it was a new model of a barely street-legal vehicle – much more her style than the mommy-type SUV had been.

As usual, I parked my car inside the attached garage while she approached the front. I shut the open garage door and met her on the porch by the front door. After momentarily fiddling with the electronic keypad and fingerprint scanner, a beep announced the door opening, “Come in,” I told her. “Be warned, the house is big-sized, but I have mid-sized furniture.”

“That’s fine,” she said. The large size of the house had always made the furniture seem smaller than usual, but having a Big in the place made it feel even more like a child’s playhouse. I led her to the living room, where at least the oversized couch should hold her size reasonably well. I sat in my favorite recliner adjacent to that.

“How have you been?” I asked her. “I guess I should ask if you want something to drink?”

“I’m good, thanks… As far as how I’ve been?” She shook her head, “Not good…”

“Sorry to hear that,” I told her honestly.

“I needed to come and drop something off to you that I should have already given back to you…”

She pulled a jewelry box out of her pocket and leaned over to hand it to me. Inside was the necklace she had given me and Beth’s ring.

I felt some tears on my face, “Thanks.”

“How is she?” Addy asked gently.

I shrugged, “No different… You said it yourself; the damage is permanent. Amanda has an idea that they’re trialing at Emerson - to use nanites to remove the plaque that formed after the chemicals - but the underlying problem is that none of the previous synapsis are there anymore. Doctor Nickerson, the Little one, thinks they can regrow the tissue to the brain, but it’ll be like a newborn brain. She’ll have to learn everything again, walking, talking, school… Beth’s dad isn’t sure she’d want to go through all that.”

I felt a tear go down my face, “Honestly, Addy, he’s talking more about putting her in a facility or hospice care. Her mom died of a heart attack, and Beth will most likely face something like that just because she’s unable to move much and maintain her health. A cure may be around the corner, but approval for a trial of the cure that Amanda has been working on will take months, if not years, to come through.”

“I’m sorry, Cameron, I would never have been okay with doing that…”

I nodded, “Addy, I’ve always known you were one of the better ones… I was more shocked by Dani…”

She nodded, “I was too… They finally caught her two days ago. Did you know that?”

I felt some relief flow through me at that, “Where?”

“Javari, down in South Acirema. They’re extraditing her to Ames to stand trial.”

“Good, I guess,” I told her. “I still can’t believe her…”

“Neither could I, Cam,” she told me. “I… She always seemed to believe the right things… I don’t know what changed…”

I couldn’t help but note that she seemed as sad as I was. “So, what have you been doing? You disappeared after somehow bringing me Rings?”

I forced myself not to blush about the fact that she still sat beside my pillows on my bed upstairs.

“I did my depositions on Mom’s case and made some statements about Dani…” She looked pained at those. “And I spent a few days in the hospital too… After you passed out from that beating Dani gave you, they also went after my butt with a hairbrush for a while. While you were still out, they force-fed me four large baby bottles of breast milk laced with Little Go before diapering me. By the time the agents untied me, I had blown out the diaper they had put me in…”

She breathed in, “Then I was pretty much a mess as they took me to the hospital to get checked out. An agent drove me home once they found I was okay as I could be, besides being told I would at least need to temporarily wear diapers thanks to the Little Go. I hadn’t been home fifteen minutes when Dani showed up…”

“What happened then?” I asked, “They said you were tied up?”

“She knocked me out with a taser again, tied me up, and then must have gone through my stuff to find some cash I had. The next thing I knew, the police were there…”

“I’m sorry,” I told her. “How did she even get free?”

She shrugged, “Since we were both unconscious, she convinced the agents she was also a victim… so they let her go to come to check on her sister.”

“I guessed it was something like that too… So, are you okay now?”

She blushed, “It took me about a month to recover afterward… I couldn’t face anyone, so I left town after voting for Ivy Nickerson to be CEO. After that, I sold all my shares and disappeared to a cabin in the mountains to recover. I have enough money from selling my shares to live comfortably for the rest of my life… but I no longer desire to be in Ames. I’ve been traveling from place to place since then, just trying to figure out what I want in life… I know you can relate – I have no one in my life anymore.”

I could feel her pain and fully understood it. It was my own daily way of existing too. “Tell you what?” I said, looking at my watch and seeing it was already an hour past when I usually had dinner. “You wanna go get dinner with me somewhere?”

“Why…” She started to say.

“Well, since you’re asking that question, I assume you haven’t been listening to or watching the news?”

She shook her head, “I’ve avoided news ever since everything happened… I wouldn’t have known about Dani if they hadn’t called me.”

“Well, let’s just say that while feeling every bit as depressed as you can imagine, something big happened today, and I wouldn’t mind going out and celebrating with someone?”

“What happened?” she asked.

“I’m being nominated for the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals’ open seat.”

“But…”

“But I’m too short?” I was a little annoyed.

She shook her head, “I was thinking too young? Isn’t that something that normally goes to someone in their forties?”

“It is, so we’ll see if I’m even confirmed, but even if I’m not, it’s an honor to be nominated!”

She looked torn, “Okay, sure. Do you mind if I drive, though? I don’t think I could fit in your clown car?”

“Clown car?!?” I glared at her. “It’s a perfectly sized car if you’re a normal height…”

She laughed, and I realized something.

‘I really missed her laugh.’

A twitch of a smile was on both of our faces for a second.

‘I missed that smile too!’

I sat down in the front seat of her sports car since there were no backseats. She did have a backless booster sitting there that I grumbled about, but the truth was that it was a BIG car! As soon as she started the engine, the Addy of our college days driving like a crazy person definitely came out to play! We reached the small remote restaurant in half the time it usually took me to get there. I did have enough time to call Aunt Ruth and talk to her about my offer. She seemed to think I would be more than ready for things – my understanding of the law was clear, and I knew how to be deliberate about decisions. We hung up after she also chastised me for trusting Addy and telling me she expected a phone call tomorrow saying I was okay!

The restaurant was a unique high-end restaurant twenty minutes outside of the city. I’d used my status as a regular to get a reservation at the restaurant when we left my house. Addy’s expensive sports car looked better than most cars in the lot, but it had plenty of high-end companions that she parked next to, which kept it from being a complete shock to see at the place. The old farmhouse the restaurant had been converted from had a beautiful wrap-around porch to which we walked up a staircase. Then I opened the door to reveal the maître’d’s stand inside the doorway.

“Good evening Mr. Sylvester,” he said to me. “I see you have a lovely guest with you tonight. Please follow me to your table.”

“Thanks,” I told him.

“Come here often?” Addy asked.

I shrugged, “It’s one of the closest good restaurants to my house, and the food is as good here as anywhere I’ve eaten. The Chef immigrated ten years ago…”

Over a fantastic dinner, Addy and I genuinely talked. We spoke about her feelings, my feelings, and even the elephant in the room - her babying me.

“I’m sorry about all of it, Cameron…”

“Tell me the truth Addy, what was with the hair all these years? You really wanted me as a girlfriend, or what?”

She blushed, “I…” I watched her squirm, “Look, Cameron, I always enjoyed it when we had sex… but a part of me always fantasized about having you dressed as my little baby girl too…”

“You like girls?” I asked her.

She shrugged, “I tried a relationship with a woman after I broke up with you in college. Honestly, it didn’t do anything for me. It was more just the idea of dressing you up and putting you to my breast?”

I nodded, “I wondered.”

“Okay, your turn to tell me the truth… Was being my little girl that bad?”

It was my turn to squirm, but I shook my head, “Anyone else, and it would have been utter torture, but it wasn’t completely terrible with you. The massages you gave me, the attention… and honestly, the nursing was kind of nice.”

“So…?”

“So, Addy, I don’t want to be adopted and be your baby girl? Look at the future I have in front of me now. As a judge on the Court of Appeals, I can make so much of a difference in people’s lives – Bigs, Mids, and Littles! I couldn’t do that if I was adopted.”

“What if it was just pretending?”

“Pretending?”

“Oh, come on, we tried some different types of play in bed…?”

“You mean…?”

She smirked, “And then we enjoy that my mom failed?”

I opened my mouth to respond but couldn’t. Fortunately, dessert was delivered right then, and I could hold off my response.

“How can I trust that you wouldn’t just drag me outside, dressed as a baby?” I asked her when I had one bite left on the cake.

“Well… I easily could; we both know that. But you can trust me, Cam.”

I mulled over that as I paid the check before she could and climbed back in her car. Back at my house, I said, “Honestly, I’m not even sure everything still fits correctly with you.”

She looked at me surprised, “What, you think we need to test drive it?”

“Without the babying for a while?”

She looked thoughtful, “Okay, but you have to agree to sometimes go along with it?”

“Let’s talk later…”

My bed was a full-sized Big bed, so we easily fit on it together that night as we did verify that things fit - multiple times. When we were both finally tired, she carried me to the enormous oversized bathtub the contractors had installed before I bought the house. It was easily big enough for both of us, and I sat still as she gently washed me and then herself while I sleepily looked on at her.

Milk came from her breast in a few droplets.

“How do you feel about this…?” She asked me while holding her breast.

I shrugged, “Amanda said she left me enough nanites to take care of it…”

“Then come here, baby girl?”

I felt my insides turn to goo at that statement. I felt a certain revulsion but also a feeling of absolute pleasure as I let Addy place my head at her breast, sitting a couple of inches above the water. I didn’t immediately suckle, though. Instead, I pressed my tongue to her nipple and licked around her breast. I felt her shudder and smirked that I knew how much pleasure she was getting. A drop of the milk on my tongue meant my mind said it was time to drink the tasty drink, though.

I nursed from both breasts and sleepily dressed myself in pajamas and a Pull-Up to be safe. I soon lay cuddled in her arms, staring at her beautiful face as we both went to sleep.
 
 

Chapter 65: Squeezed
 

“THANK YOU, MR. Sylvester,” the judiciary chair said. “The chair now recognizes the Distinguished Senator from Ames, Senator Darling.”

“Thank you,” she said. The tall woman had a severe look with her tightly controlled bun on her head. Her clothing was clearly as high-end as it got for a skirt-suit set and a necklace with five pendants, each holding the name of one of her Littles, hung from her neck. “I have a significant issue with this idea of a Court of Appeals judge having no experience as a previous District Judge or prosecuting attorney, nor am I a fan of you only being barely thirty years old yesterday, as we look at approving you to be one of the most powerful judiciary members in the country. The fact that within the last year or so, you have found yourself being taken care of in a daycare, where you were accused of fighting with another Little, makes me even more sure you have no business being in charge of such adult matters…”

“Point of Order! Does the senator have a question?”

One of the president’s biggest allies on the committee challenged her speech.

“Please do get on with it, Mrs. Darling,” the chair said before looking at his colleague, “Remember, she has the right to use or waste time as she sees fit.”

She looked affronted but continued, “Do you think you have the capabilities to understand case law?”

“Thank you, Madame, for your question. I do believe I have the capabilities. I have studied law continuously since beginning my journey in law school, even before then, and I know how the law should function. I believe strongly that the constitution gives us the guidance to do so and that it would be my job as a member of the judiciary to uphold that law.”

“Do you now?”

I nodded.

“Mr. Sylvester, are you aware of the case Dane vs. Tully?”

“Yes, Ma’am,” I said. Aunt Ruth and I were sure this case and my close proximity to it would come up.

“What do you think about it?”

“I think it was executed faithfully within the purview of the statutes,” I told her. “That case still stands as precedent under the 3rd Circuit due to never being heard in the Supreme Court.”

“You would be very familiar with it, wouldn’t you?”

“I was clerking for Judge Ruth Jones when it was written,” I agreed.

“Not only were you clerking, but I have a sworn affidavit from a Mrs. Kathy Stanford Everett, who was also clerking at the time, stating that the legal basis and reasoning of the decision were yours alone?”

I wasn’t entirely surprised to see this come up, but the shock on committee members’ faces made me nervous. ‘You’re sworn in under oath,’ Judge Jones had advised me, ‘Just tell the truth.’

“I wouldn’t say that they were mine alone, but I will say I suggested that there was no timing listed in the statute.”

“For anyone who is not aware of this case. Mrs. Dane had her Little girl kidnapped four years before the case and was seeking to regain custody of her now that she’d been found. There was interference against the legally allowed bounty hunter. Instead of handing her over, Judge Jones gave her time by saying that she wouldn’t need to return until her kids were old enough to live on their own. That’s correct?”

I nodded, “She had two little babies at home that needed her care as a mother. Judge Jones recognized that she had met all of the requirements for emancipation except one - her adopted mother signing off on it, and decided that meant she could cope until her Little ones were old enough to live on their own.”

“Except that hasn’t happened, correct?”

“Well, last I knew, she still had two new twin baby girls that are about a year old that would have reset that, but also, the Supreme Court chose not to hear the appeal due to her being granted full emancipation in the state of New Haven shortly after they were in court for the initial case.”

“You feel this is just? You feel like this follows the law?” She pushed.

I stared her in the eyes. “Is it just that she would have to abandon her babies? That they would have had to grow up without a mother...?”

“Mister…”

“Is it just that the medical examiners demonstrated without a doubt that she had been abused and neglected by Mrs. Dane?” I paused, “Is it just that you would send a poor woman who made her way in this world to freedom back to the most unsafe and miserable environment they could have?”

“It’s the law!”

“Should it be?” I suggested.

“Do you believe all Littles should be freed from their adoptions?”

I knew this one was coming, so I came up prepared, “I believe that the most precious thing in life is the ability to choose our destiny. You mentioned this case and my own time of being unjustly declared a case of Maturosis by a judge who was being blackmailed? You didn’t mention that the love of my life, my fiancée, just disappeared one day without a trace. Her father took her and her similarly afflicted mother to run from a corporation that had made it their goal to find a way to force more Mids into the same surrogate baby relationship as Littles. You failed to mention that she was mentally completely destroyed by the illegal and unethical experimentation.”

“Mister…”

“You failed to mention that, while there are many Littles out there who do benefit from the additional care, there are Millions, Millions, that are forcibly taken, beaten, neglected, and emotionally and sexually abused for so-called mothering instincts. That Maturosis has become a crutch of a way to send more that direction?”

“Mister Sylvester, stop…”

“Madame, you asked if I feel every little should be free? The answer is the same as every Mid and every Big. Yes, I feel that they should be free. And here’s the deal, I’m also okay if a Little genuinely wants that caring relationship of a good adopted mother or father!”

Her mouth stopped moving. “What?”

“In the State of New Haven, roughly three abuse cases are brought up per ten thousand Littles each year. Do you know that number for your own State of Ames?”

“No… But I’m sure you do?”

“Yes, I do. It’s one-hundred and thirty per one thousand there. Or thirteen in a hundred! It’s four-hundred times the rate of New Haven! Why do you think that is?”

She looked at me angrily, “You’re so smart; you tell me!”

“Because most adoptions in New Haven are consensual, excepting court orders as an alternative to jail or prison. If there’s a choice involved, studies show that their adoptive parents tend to treat them with more love and care.”

“So, you do feel like all Littles should be free?”

“Free to make a choice, yes! Same as Mids and Bigs. Many of them might surprise you and still choose to be surrogate babies if given the chance. I have a friend of mine from college who genuinely loves being her mommy’s baby. I’ve also seen people ripped from my life for no good reason – and that should never happen.”

“Senator Darling, your time is up; the committee will now recess for thirty minutes, hear closing statements, and then return for a vote.” The chair said as they banged his gavel.

Addy approached me and bent down to hug me out in the lobby where she had been waiting. “So, how do you think it went?” She asked me.

I shrugged, “I pissed off Senator Darling.”

“Easy to do… Did I ever tell you what I did at one of her parties once as a teenager…?” She started to say, and then we saw her approaching us.

“Miss Harris?” She seemed surprised. “Why are you here?”

“Here to support my fiancée,” she told her.

“Where is he?”

“Right here,” she said, touching my shoulder.

“But…”

“But you thought my mom had solved that problem years ago? Don’t worry, the wedding is a small guest list; you won’t have to feel awkward at responding to an invitation,” she said.

‘Meow! The cat claws are out…’ I thought to myself.

“Why…” She started to say, then turned and walked away.

“That was worth the price of admission,” Senator Venire, the chair, said as he came up.

“Glad we could entertain you,” I told the tall man.

“You did well out there. You should advance through here just fine.”

“Really? I figured I’d just blown that?”

“Really! Your appointment solves a problem that almost everyone there knows we have.”

I shrugged, “I’m just going through the process.”

He laughed, “Good luck with your marriage,” he told us as he walked away.
 

FORTY-EIGHT HOURS later, Aunt Ruth was meeting me in the courtroom. I had first watched her run, swearing me in as a judge.

It had been a momentous day, and my new robes hung heavily about me as I realized that I genuinely had been given the power to make a difference in people’s lives. We had just hugged goodbye and pulled away to drive back to what had become our home when my phone rang. Since Addy was driving, I was free to answer it.

“Hello?”

“Is this Judge Sylvester?”

I laughed, recognizing the voice, “You’re the first person to call me that on the phone.”

“That’s a great honor, Your Honor,” the voice said jovially. “I just wanted to let you know that the deal with Aubry Harris and Danica Harris was approved by Judge Flanders.”

“Final terms?” I asked. Addy glanced over at me with a sour expression on her face.

“Aubry Harris was sentenced to six consecutive terms of six months to twelve years in the Cribbing Penitentiary, followed by mind wipe and three-month status to be readopted.”

I didn’t feel even a little bit guilty at that sentence. I knew that meant Aubry would be kept in diapers – even as a twelve-year-old, for a total of seventy-two years, re-regressing every time before she turned thirteen again, before being readopted out as a shrunken newborn with no memories of her old life at all. Additionally, that wasn’t a twelve-year-old in ‘Big’ sizes; that would be a twelve-year-old as a Little. She would most likely never get past the height of a two-year-old in Big sizes during that entire time. In the meantime, she would remember everything she had done, just as the evil woman was given every bit of the babying treatment she had sentenced others to.

“And Danica?”

“Two of the same consecutive terms, and readopted at a six-month status with a mind wipe.”

I shuddered a bit at that one. Dani had always felt like an unwitting accomplice to me until the end. “Thanks for letting me know,” I told him.

“You’re welcome; I hope it lets you sleep more easily. Both women will be regressed for the first time tomorrow morning.”

“Thanks, and good luck,” I told Mike Doster, a man I had talked to frequently over the phone. “I appreciate you sticking with the case even after all the hate mail you’ve received.”

“You know that feeling yourself too. Good luck, and congrats, Judge Sylvester!”
 

OVER THE NEXT month, we finished planning our wedding while also dealing with additional therapy appointments. Neither of us was lying to ourselves and saying we were ‘okay’ after everything we’d been through, so we saw a counselor separately and together to help us deal with the emotional trauma we had both been through since the week after Addy reappeared.

Thinking about everything that had happened to us, we decided not to hold back on our wedding in any way for timing. We were both without family, even though I had some extended cousins and aunts and uncles that flew in for the occasion. Judge Jones was officiating the ceremony. In the end, we had a pretty but beautiful small ceremony with Judge Jones’ husband being brought in to ‘give away’ Addy to me. It was a beautiful ceremony, and Addy was the highlight! She was spectacularly beautiful in her traditional dress! Having Amanda, Fred, Megan, and Meg all there made it feel even more special to me!

We’d flown immediately after the reception to a private island in the Havana Sea. After everything had been settled out in court with her family’s estate, she had purchased the entire island, and we enjoyed a two-week honeymoon on the beaches. While I spent much of the time those weeks dressed as her husband, I also indulged her on some evenings as her ‘baby girl.’ Her mothering instincts were hard for her to stop, and I admitted that I enjoyed it as just a game.

Consequently, over the next few months, when we returned to Crescent City, I often found myself ‘indisposed’ on the weekends, being taken care of in a nursery she had put together. Fortunately, the nanites seemed to keep the incontinence effects at bay. Still, I did get noticeably moody if I went a few days without getting a hit from her breasts.

We’d been married for four months when Addy surprised me with an ‘adult’ candlelight dinner on our back patio on one of the nights we normally would have been playing. “What’s the occasion?” I asked her once we had started eating the amazing dish she had made.

“So… Look, you know I’ve felt terrible about what my family did to Beth?”

I nodded, “You were in grad school; you weren’t to blame…”

“No, I may not have been there pulling the trigger, but my family was… Anyway, I’ve had some ideas that I spoke with Amanda, Fred, and Holly Nickerson about…”

I looked up at the candle burning just above the level of my face and into her eyes, “Do you have something…?”

“Well… you know that ‘Premature Birth’ fad that’s going on back in Selegnasol?”

I made a face, “Yeah, it’s bullshit making poor Littles live inside of their ‘mommies’ for nine months and then be reborn!”

I was not a fan of the process, and the few survivors who could still talk afterward all seemed seriously hampered by the psychological effects of being isolated in a womb for that time!

“Well, how they’re using it is awful, but I got to thinking that maybe it could be used positively…?”

I looked up at her face incredulously, “How could that horror be made positive?”

“Beth.”

“Why would I want to submit her to that?!?”

“Hear me out?” She asked soothingly.

“It’s not sounding good,” I angrily thought, but I took a breath and said, “What’s the idea?”

“I think we can use the procedure Doctor Nickerson and Amanda came up with to remove the plaque and other damage from her brain. If she’s implanted into a womb, we can use that time to heal the rest of her synapses, body damage, and even alter her DNA.”

“Alter it to what?”

“A mix of her new parents so she doesn’t have to be short forever?”

“That can be done?”

“The process would result in her coming out a little larger than a newborn Big, but she could grow up. I mean, it would be completely regrowing up. From nursing to solid foods, potty training, the terrible twos, elementary school, awkward teenage years, and all that comes with a real baby. But, she could at least have a future…”

I bit my tongue briefly, “And who would carry her?”

“Me?” She suggested.

“You?”

“Why not me?”

“I don’t know…” I said uncomfortably. “That might be really awkward,” I told her.

“She wouldn’t remember anything of her previous life…” she reminded me.

I thought for a long while without saying anything. “What about Beth’s dad?”

“I’ve talked to him… He’s okay with it if you’re on board. He knows he can’t take care of Beth forever, and he’s sure that she’s got a matter of a couple years before her body crumbles like his wife’s.”

“So, what… What then?”

“She’d be our daughter.”

We debated back and forth for a few weeks. I consulted with Amanda, Holly, and some other medical professionals I knew before. I, too, agreed it was her only chance to not die a meaningless death. A month later, I watched in abject horror as a machine was hooked up to Addy and the sleeping Beth. Earlier that day, I held her and brushed her hair. Over the time since her mother died, she had become skinnier and frailer, to the point where I could tell that she was just wasting away – clearly having given up any hope of life.

I watched as a tube somehow squeezed her anesthetized form through the machine into the womb of Addy and apparently shrank her quite a bit, too, as there wasn’t that much of a visible baby bump at first. We watched over the months as that changed, and soon we had a bouncing baby girl, as they say! Beth behaved like any other infant and began hitting all the milestones a newborn should have right on time!

A few months after that birth, another miracle happened… Addy got pregnant the natural way! Something about the artificial pregnancy had given her body a kickstart, and we were happy and shocked to learn of the upcoming new member of our family!

It was certainly tough for us as new parents for the next couple of years! Lance was born about five days after Beth’s first birthday, and he wasn’t even eighteen months old when Laura was born, followed by just over a year until Jason was born.

Until Beth was nearly two, I occasionally joined her and Lance in the diapered group. As Beth again began talking, though, we decided it wouldn’t be a good idea for the word to get out to the country that the mid-sized Appellate Court Justice liked spending time as a baby alongside his babies!

Since Addy had genuine babies to care for, her mothering needs were more than fulfilled by the rambunctious brood we now had. She became a full-time stay-at-home mom, clearly loving every minute of our children’s lives.

As my now much shorter hair grayed, it was amazing to watch our children grow up. I did my best from the bench to make sure that the world they grew up in was as just a world as it could be for them and all sizes of our people!
 
 

Epilogue:
 

I FELT THE heaviness of new robes again upon my shoulders as I looked at Aunt Ruth, staring me in the eyes with a wide smile. A tall platform with steps had been provided for me to stand on to reach her level as I was sworn in.

Earlier that day, I had taken my constitutional oath on live television at The President’s House. It was important and a big part of the oaths of office, but this one in the highest courtroom of the land was a much bigger moment for me because of her. She was nearing her eighty-first birthday, having had a huge bash for her eightieth, and said she planned on serving on the court for at least another two terms.

“Please repeat after me,” she said. “I, state your name.”

“I, Cameron Frank Sylvester.”

“Do solemnly swear that I will administer justice…”

She led me through each phrase until I uttered, “Under the Constitution and laws of the United States of Acirema.”

“Congratulations,” she told me with a smile. She hugged me before I hopped down to hug my kids.

Beth was taller than me but shorter than the rest of them. She was the first to reach me, though, and hugged me, “Congratulations Daddy,” she told me with a smile. Beth was now fourteen and had passed me in height a year ago during her growth spurt, and I had been so relieved that she was no longer just inches away from freedom! With our help, she was at the top of her class in school and did pretty well in competitive dance and cheer!

Jason stood two inches taller than her and hugged me, too, “Awesome, Dad!” He told me. At ten-and-a-half years old, he was the youngest, and it wasn’t fair that he towered over me so far!

His brother Lance was right next to him and was a little more circumspect with the handshake he gave me. I forced his giant frame, which was only eighteen inches shorter than his mom, into a hug. At thirteen, I knew he still had plenty of room to grow! I had a feeling he would be close to Addy’s height when all was said and done.

My beautiful little girl Laura was next; at eleven-and-a-half years old, she was taller than Beth already but not quite her brother’s height. The doctors figured that she’d top about nine feet at most when she was done growing, something that made her frown until Laura put her arm on her big sisters’ shoulder and reminded herself at least she wasn’t the shortest!

Addy was there next, and our embrace passionately shared our love as we shared a chaste kiss and broke apart. A photographer was on hand to memorialize the moment, and we stood for numerous pictures as a family before going out to eat.

“I’m so proud of you, Cameron,” Aunt Ruth said as we walked together.

“Thank you, Aunt Ruth; this would never have happened without you!” I told her.

She laughed, “I’m sure it would have. You’ve always been tenacious, and if I hadn’t stepped forward, surely your David and Kendra would have found a way.”

I shrugged, “I’m pretty sure you’re the only one that stopped things.”

We had told Beth her history when she turned twelve. She had been really upset about us ‘lying’ to her at first until I showed her the plaque she had made me. She’d fingered it as if it triggered a long-lost memory.

“I really loved you, didn’t I?” She asked.

I nodded, “And I, you.”

“And I was completely lost?”

“Completely… Well, you’ve seen those Littles on the news lately…?”

She shuddered, “Yeah…”

It had taken a few weeks of processing, but she had come to me one night and hugged me tightly, “Thank you, Daddy, for giving me a second chance.”

Not wanting to lie to our kids, eventually, we told all of them the truth about their sister. Fortunately, we had great kids, and not a single one made fun of Beth for it. She was their loving ‘big’ sister and would always be that to them, no matter her past.

It was why in some ways, I couldn’t help but admit my disappointment that she wanted to return to Emerson to go to school when she graduated high school. “Why there?” I asked her, “It’s in Ames?”

“Ames is better now; you’ve said it yourself, Dad,” she told me.

“It’s still Ames…”

“I promise I won’t end up in diapers like you,” she smiled.

“And you…?” I reminded her.

“I was shorter then, right?”

I sighed but nodded, “Yes, you were…”

With that, I gave her my blessing, and before I knew it, we were soon helping to move her into the same dorm Addy had lived in when we met. As we hugged a final time after saying our goodbyes, she pushed a small wrapped present into my hands. “Open it, but not until after you leave,” she told me.

We soon left her to partake in orientation, and I found myself staring at the wrapped box. Lance, Laura, and Jason were sitting in the back, glued to their devices, so it was okay to open it without them taking too much notice.

I felt my heart stop as I viewed a similar piece of slate to what she had given me as an adult decades ago.
 

More than Inches
As a Little girl, I knew that Daddy
was the one I could always depend on.
No girl knows how dependent on Daddy
she is until she grows to an adult.

Growing up, we find ourselves to be like,
The miniature versions of our parents.
Until we learn, while we may look alike,
paths must be different in appearance.

Once upon a time, it was inches that
sent our paths askew. Inches, just inches,
were something that seemed to just be a fact.
But dreams are made of much more than inches!

Daddy taught me that dreams are beautiful,
hopeful, and the way to a better life.
Dreams in inches are really very beautiful,
because Daddy loved enough to give life!

Growing up with a dream to be better.
inches, just inches, no longer askew.
May this be a token and a tether,
For a daughter's love, of hope, and a dream.

 

“You okay, Daddy?” Laura asked me.

“Sure am, Laura, couldn’t be better,” I said with a smile, even as I wiped the tears from my eyes as discreetly as possible.
 
 

Thanks for reading! Please take a moment and press the Kudos button, and I would love a comment from you!!! Beth's story is continued in a work I've been working on the past few years, 'Lights, Camera, ...What!?!' that I will start posting here soon. The first book of the series is available on Amazon Kindle at this point if you're curious! (It encompasses the first 74is chapters - I have 206 or so written at this time and consider three books to essentially be complete. I'm working on the next chapters now) If you've enjoyed this work, please consider making a purchase to help support me!

All of my published works have AI read audiobooks available for them. I’ve spent some time tweaking pronunciations, and they’re pretty good when you can’t afford thousands to pay for audiobook creation! They’re a $1.99 addon to the $5.99 price on Kindle. If you’ve already purchase the book it should come up as only $1.99. They’re also available on Audible directly, but that’s $9.99 versus the cheaper price! https://www.amazon.com/author/babysofia