Joey's Pacifier

Chapter Description: Joey is stressed. Between finishing school, his upcoming trip to college, his girlfriend, his bully, his job, and his chores... Well, he has a lot on his plate. One day, as he watches his baby brother calm down with a pacifier, he can't help but wonder if it would do the same for him. He tries it and, miraculously, it does kind of work. Unfortunately, he didn't realise that someone else had seen him. Joey's mom decides she has been putting too much stress on her oldest son, and what he really needs is some time relaxing, and if Joey finds the pacifier relaxing, well, she knows other ways to help too. What follows is a story of humiliation, as Joey is forced into his new position and all the complications that comes with it. How will his girlfriend react? Can he get through his last day of school? What about work? What if his bully finds out? All these complications, and many more, lie ahead.

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Joey’s Pacifier

By Elfy

“Joey, could you change Lucas?” Fran called out.

“Mom, I’m…” Joey started.

“I’m busy and Ben is doing homework.” Fran interrupted.

Joey sighed. He had been sitting in the living room trying to relax after a really tough day at school. The eighteen-year-old was sitting his exams and he was feeling very nervous about them, especially of the ones he still had coming. That wasn’t to mention the shift at work he had starting in an hour, something he absolutely had to do to help his mom with the bills. His father had left when the third of the three brothers were born. From that moment on Joey was the man of the house and his mom leaned on him for a lot of help.

Joey had turned eighteen a few months ago. His brother, Ben was thirteen and Lucas, the baby of the family, was just four. With Fran, Joey’s mother, having to work a full-time job from home and do a majority of the chores, Joey was the one who was expected to pick up the rest of the slack. He was happy to help his mom, of course, but the stress was building and building. It felt like he never got time to sit down and just relax.

Standing up, Joey left the bedroom and headed upstairs. He walked through to his mother’s home office. She was at the computer and apparently on a conference call. Behind her, Lucas was sat in a small playpen area. Joey could already smell why he needed a change and sighed deeply. Messy diaper changes were always so much more horrible and protracted than wet ones.

“Come on.” Joey said as he reached down and picked up his baby brother.

Joey sat the four-year-old on his hip and could feel the way the diaper squelched; it was going to be a big clean up job. Honestly, Lucas was probably overdue for potty training, but no one had the time to really commit to doing it properly. It felt like home was always chaotic.

Walking back along the hallway, Joey passed his middle brother’s bedroom. From inside he could hear Ben laughing and talking, he was probably playing one of his online games. A part of Joey was very jealous of Ben’s ability to do whatever he wanted and relax. So much for him doing his homework…

“Joey.” Fran’s voice came from her office, “Could you pick up some stuff for dinner for the rest of the week after work?”

“Sure.” Joey replied.

“Thank you.” Fran quickly retreated back to her computer.

The truth was, Joey felt his stress levels ratchet even higher with every request made of him. He didn’t have a lot of money, and it would mean he would get even less sleep that night before dinner tomorrow. It felt like there were a thousand different things weighing him down and they were building up faster than he could possibly clear them.

Joey carried Lucas into the nursery and went straight over to the changing table. He pulled apart the flaps of the toddler’s onesie and pushed it up over Lucas’s belly exposing the diaper underneath. He pulled at the tapes and then lowered the front of the disposable.

“Ugh.” Joey turned away and closed his eyes.

Lucas just quietly sucked on his pacifier and seemed completely calm about everything. It seemed incredible that anyone could be as relaxed as the baby. Joey looked into Lucas’s eyes and shook his head; he was truly feeling jealous of the toddler with a messy diaper. In reality, he was just jealous of the idea that someone could live with so little stress on them.

“What’s it like?” Joey asked wistfully, “To not worry about anything.”

Lucas said something around the pacifier, but Joey had no idea what it was. He picked up a tub of baby wipes and started the long job of cleaning the toddler up. It was a particularly messy diaper and took a little while. About halfway through Joey sighed and paused what he was doing. He put his hands up to his head and tried not to freak out. That was something that was happening more and more often. Joey feeling like he was about to fall over the edge into a full-blown panic attack.

Joey took some deep breaths, despite the horrible smell in the room, and counted slowly. It wasn’t helping. It just felt like he had so much to do. Between school, his job, looking after his brothers, his girlfriend and his chores, he felt like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. With his eyes filled with tears he looked down at Lucas and saw the pacifier again. He didn’t know why, but he was desperate to relieve some of his anxiety and when he saw how much the soother calmed the baby, he wondered if it would work on him too.

On one of the shelves under the changing table’s surface there was a little tub filled with pacifiers. Joey plucked a little blue one from the box and held it up. He saw Lucas looking at him curiously, probably wondering when the diaper change would be completed.

“What the hell…” Joey sighed, curiosity getting the better of him.

Joey pushed the pacifier between his lips and started sucking on it. He looked down at Lucas who started giggling at the infantile behaviour. Joey snorted a little as well.

“Yeah, it ith a little funny, ithn’t it?” Joey found that he even lisped like a baby around the bulb of the pacifier.

Joey went back to cleaning Lucas’s butt whilst chewing on the pacifier. To his surprise, he was actually feeling a little better. It was a little embarrassing to be soothed by the same thing that helped babies, but he couldn’t deny that there was something about the repetitive sucking that just eased his mind and seemed to make him more present in the moment. Lucas was still giggling but at least it made the diaper change easier.

The old diaper was balled up and taped closed. Joey dropped it into the diaper pail and then took a moment to just try to centre himself, to forget the world and just feel the sensation in his mouth. It felt strange and wasn’t something he could do often, but after a few seconds he pulled out a fresh diaper and started to unfold it.

“There we are.” Joey mumbled around the paci as he pressed the tapes on the fresh diaper against Lucas’s belly.

“Baby!” Lucas exclaimed in the way toddlers do before learning to control the volume of their voice as he pointed up at Joey. Joey just laughed and shook his head.

Joey turned around to put the powder back on the shelf when he was frozen in his tracks. The door to the nursery was open and, standing in the entranceway with a deep frown on his face, was Ben. Joey immediately felt himself blushing as he stuttered some words and pulled the pacifier out of his mouth. He tried to hide it behind his back, but it was obviously too late for that.

“What the heck are you doing?” Ben asked. He sounded disgusted.

“N-Nothing.” Joey swallowed hard. Was it a bad sign that he already wished he had the pacifier back in his mouth? That it would provide him with something to focus on other than his thirteen-year-old brother’s look of confusion was undoubtable.

“It didn’t look like nothing.” Ben said accusingly, “You were using one of Lucas’s pacifiers!”

“Baby!” Lucas shouted from the table as he sat up and caused his diaper to crinkle, “Baby! Baby! Baby!”

“I… Look, it isn’t a big deal, OK?” Joey said. He ignored his baby brother to talk to Ben but every repeated accusation from Lucas seemed to deflate him a little more. He hated the desperation in his voice. He hadn’t done anything wrong and yet he couldn’t help but make himself sound guilty of something.

“I’m telling mom!” Ben said suddenly as he turned away and hurried towards the landing.

“No! Ben, let me explain!” Joey took two steps towards the doorway, ready to chase his brother and make him see sense, but then he heard Lucas moving on top of the padded table.

Lucas couldn’t be left alone. Not up on a high surface where he could fall and hurt himself. Joey already heard his middle brother hurrying down the stairs, it was already too late to catch him. Turning back to the baby in the fresh diaper, Joey picked Lucas up and sighed.

It wasn’t a big deal. He had tried using a pacifier. It didn’t mean anything. Plenty of people experimented with all sorts of weird stuff at his age. He was just doing it to entertain his baby brother. All these justifications ran through Joey’s head, and he repeated them out loud to the baby he was now carrying. Lucas didn’t respond. He’d probably already forgotten about the episode and was thinking about what toy to play with downstairs.

For a little while it seemed like Joey had just been making a mountain of a molehill. He didn’t know if Ben had actually told their mother and he certainly wasn’t going to ask. Maybe the teenager had already spilled the beans, and their mom just waved it away. It wasn’t a big deal. Why did his brain keep trying to MAKE it a big deal?

Joey knew the truth. It felt like a big deal because for a few moments, up in the nursery with the latex bulb resting on his tongue, he had felt genuinely relaxed for the first time in ages. The stresses of his job, of his college decision and of his responsibilities at home had melted away. He had been able to focus solely on the present. It was the sort of breakthrough for his mental health that would take a dozen therapy sessions that he could ill afford. Even as he sat in the living room, typing a draft college application on his laptop and watching Lucas play with his plastic army men, he wished he could put the pacifier back in his mouth. It was still in the back pocket of his pants, digging into him slightly as a constant reminder. He just wanted to put it between his lips again, to see if it had the same effect.

Joey felt like he was doing something wrong as he leant forwards in his seat and reached back to pull the little soother out of his pocket. He felt his heart racing. He was so desperate for the stresses of his life to melt away, and he was equal parts excited and worried. If it didn’t work, he would be back to square one.

The living room door was closed, and Joey was sure he would hear footsteps approaching in time to hide the pacifier again if he needed to. Lucas was so engrossed in his toys that Joey didn’t think anything could distract him. He held the pacifier up and, feeling like he was sneakily taking some drug, he pushed the bulb back between his lips.

Joey immediately felt himself relaxing again. Perhaps it is an instinctive thing that all humans feel but the rhythmic sucking seemed to just ease the anxious young man’s mind. He leaned back on the couch and took a deep breath. Before he knew it, he was closing his eyes. Soon he had his feet up and was laying horizontally. He hadn’t been sleeping well thanks to all the stress, but now he felt tiredness overtaking him. With his multitude of anxieties melting away, at least temporarily, his exhausted brain wanted to take the opportunity to rest. Within minutes he was falling asleep.

“So, it’s true then.”

Fran’s voice made Joey go from zero to one hundred in no time at all. His eyes shot open and he sat up, looking towards the doorway he could see his mom leaning against the frame, her face inscrutable. He didn’t know how long he had been asleep, but it felt like he had only just closed his eyes. What he was sure of, was that the pacifier was still firmly in his mouth. He quickly spat it into his hands and held it by his side as if somehow it hadn’t already been noticed. He could feel how warm and slippery the bulb was, the saliva wetting his palm in a way that made him shiver.

“M-Mom…” Joey was turning a bright red.

“When Ben told me what he had seen I thought he was playing games.” Fran said, “I shall have to apologise to him.”

“It… It isn’t what it looked like!” Joey was desperately trying to get his brain to click into gear and think of an excuse that would make what Fran had just walked in on make sense.

“Oh, really?” Fran asked. She walked into the room and sat on the armchair in the corner. She didn’t seem upset; in fact, she was smiling a little. Lucas got up and hurried over, she picked him up to sit him in her lap, “Because it looked like you were sucking on one of Lucas’s pacifiers.”

Joey felt a wave of shame going through him. It was bad enough that Ben had found him like that, now his mom had to. He looked down at the couch between his legs as his eyes filled with tears. It had just been a little experiment, just to see how he felt, nothing more. Fran was watching him now and not saying anything. He wished she would just tell him she was disappointed or that he was somehow bad and wrong. Anything to break the tension.

“I’m not mad at you.” Fran said eventually. Correctly guessing Joey’s worries, “I just want to understand.”

“Understand?” Joey shook his head, “There’s nothing to understand.”

“Clearly something is going on.” Fran said softly, “Ben caught you with the soother and I could write that off as some idle experimentation, but clearly it’s more than that if you did it again.”

Joey didn’t say anything. The mouthguard of the pacifier was digging into his skin, and he realised he had been clenching his hand so tightly around it that he was threatening to turn it into dust. He lifted his hand and used the back of his sleeve to wipe his eyes. He didn’t even know why he was so upset. Sure, this was an embarrassing situation, but it didn’t have to be anything more that than. He could’ve written it off as nothing, as some idle thing that he tried because of boredom. That wasn’t the truth though. No matter how much he wanted to lie and forget about everything he knew his mom would see right through it just because of how he was acting.

“Joey.” Fran said softly. She had put Lucas back on the floor where he had run back over to his toys, “Just talk to me.”

“I’ve just been so… so stressed.” Joey started talking and as he admitted the words he found a sob hiccupping up through his throat. It was something that had been consuming him and this was the first time he had been able to talk about it.

“Oh, Joey…” Fran said. She stood up and came across the room quickly, sitting herself next to Joey and putting an arm around him.

“It’s just all been too much!” Joey exclaimed tearfully, “I can’t keep up! When I was changing Joey and I gave him his dummy I saw how calm it made him. I wanted to know if it would work for me as well…”

It was an intensely embarrassing thing to admit. A very childish thought that it could work. And yet, it HAD worked, at least in some small way. When he had sucked on the pacifier it had stopped him worrying about a hundred things he needed to do in the near future and instead, he could focus on the then and there. Hell, just putting it in his mouth in the living room had relaxed him enough that he had soon fallen asleep. Just like a… Joey didn’t want to think like that.

Joey sobbed and Fran squeezed his shoulders. She remained silent, letting him cry it out. It felt cathartic. All the emotions he had to suppress as the “man of the house” being released in his salty tears. For several minutes he was able to just sit there and get his emotions out without a word being said. Even Lucas waddled over and briefly put a hand on Joey’s knee, likely trying to imitate his mother, before going back to his toys. The gesture made Joey chuckle despite everything.

“Thanks Lucas.” Joey mumbled.

There was a box of tissues on the living room table and Fran pulled out a handful so that Joey could clean up. His crying had subsided a great deal but the lump in his throat, primarily made up of shame, remained.

“Did it work?” Fran asked when Joey had calmed down.

“Huh?” Joey sniffed.

“The pacifier.” Fran’s voice was the softest Joey had ever heard it, “Did it help you? Did you feel… calm?”

A fresh flush of embarrassment reddened Joey’s face as he slowly nodded his head. There was no point denying it. The little baby item had allowed his brain to focus and even after taking it out he felt good for a little while after it. The first time at least, this time there wasn’t much good feeling, just humiliation at being caught in a compromising situation.

“I understand.” Fran said.

“You… You do?” Joey looked at his mom for the first time since she had entered the room. Through shimmering eyes he could see her smiling, ever so slightly.

“I do.” Fran sighed deeply, “And I feel like I must apologise.”

“Apologise? No, mom, you haven’t done anything wrong.” Joey shook his head, “It’s me. I’m the one who can’t cope. The one who isn’t good enough to…”

“No, Joey. I don’t want to hear you talking like that.” Fran was suddenly sterner. Joey stopped talking immediately, “This is my fault.”

Joey waited for his mom to continue. Lucas, tired of his toys and in no way interested in the “grown up” conversation on the couch, wandered out of the room, presumably to go find Ben. Lucas always seemed to want to hang out with the teenager even though Ben usually looked for any reason to fob off the responsibility on someone else, usually Joey.

“Ever since your dad left… I know there’s been a lot to do.” Fran said, “I couldn’t do it all myself and so I needed help. I think I’ve been leaning on you too heavily. I should’ve known you’d need something to help with stress, I’m just glad it’s this rather than drink or drugs.”

Fran reached over to the hand that was still tightly clutching the pacifier. She took it and looked at it for a second before raising it up towards Joey’s mouth. His eyes were side, and he looked at his mom uncertainly, but she gave a subtle nod of the head. Joey hesitantly opened his mouth and let the soother go in again. He felt it resting heavily on his tongue.

“I should’ve seen how stressed you are.” Fran said. She put her arm around Joey’s shoulder, “But don’t worry. We’re going to fix this.”

Joey leaned against his mom’s side and closed his eyes. It was embarrassing but as Fran’s hand gently stroked his hair he sucked rather noisily on the pacifier. He didn’t know what his mom meant when she said she was going to “fix this”, but he was still enjoying the endorphins released after his outburst of emotion. He sighed and felt like he could’ve stayed in that position forever.

Joey wasn’t sure how much time had passed before Lucas came waddling back into the room. He was also teary-eyed. He looked at Joey with the pacifier in his mouth but didn’t seem to care at all. His bottom lip was poking out in a very pronounced pout.

“Poo-poo!” Lucas exclaimed as he pointed to his butt. He was crying softly.

“Again?” Joey said quietly.

Joey had to chuckle slightly, and he started to get up. Fran put a hand on his shoulder that kept him in place. He looked at her with a frown.

“Let me deal with this.” Fran said.

“Are you sure?” Joey asked. His words muffled by the soother, “I don’t mind…”

“No, it’s fine.” Fran said, “I should’ve been doing this a lot more anyway. Don’t worry, let me think about things and then we’ll sort everything out. I’ve put too much responsibility on you for too long.”

Joey wasn’t completely sure what his mom was saying but as she lifted Lucas into her arms and left the room he flopped down on the couch. He’d already been tired but with the emotional outpouring he now felt exhausted. This time he didn’t care that the living room door was open and that he still had his pacifier in his mouth, he closed his eyes and let himself drift off to sleep.

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If you enjoyed this update and want to see what happens next without waiting you can find part two posted at the following links:

https://reamstories.com/page/lpjgftb4y2/story/ms1lat8c054a4d/chapter/msbmetbr6952e21

https://subscribestar.art/posts/2617487