Cherlyn Becomes Cherry

Despair swirled through her, her fight gone, at least for the moment, humiliation drowning her, dragging her down and down and down into the pit.

In trying to be Cherlyn, all she had done was become Cherry.

*

Sitting at home, comfortable on the sofa, Nathalie smirked down at her iPad, an article on the screen.

Cherry makes her grand debut as a judge -- but can a baby really judge the nation of singers?

"Indeed, she cannot... No one can replace me."

Cherry's insane introduction to the USA had gone off without a hitch and the smile was still on Nathalie's face as she answered her phone to a number that she recognised -- even if she had deleted the contact from her phone a few weeks ago. She'd known they would come crawling back to her sooner or later, it had only been a matter of time.

"Hello, Stan, I thought you might give me a call," she said, brushing her fingers through her hair, smile widening. "Yes... Yes, such a shame, such a debacle... She was a hot mess, wasn't she? Oh, well... Are you sure you don't want to give Cherry another chance? It could have been a bad first day, poor thing, I wouldn't want... Well, if you're sure, Stan, I'd be pleased to step back into my role. It'll be an honour to work with my team again."

Of course, all had gone to plan -- how could it not have? Her smile curved up wickedly as she hung up, turning back to her iPad to flick over into a folder containing her personal videos.

She wouldn't have let Cherry go through things, after all, without taking plenty to blackmail and humiliate her, though there was only so much blackmail that could be done when the entirety of the world, pretty much, had already seen Cherry in her crudest of presentations. Her husband had already formally left her, even if they had already been technically unmarried due to their intervention. It was much better for him, truth be told, and she had a date set up with Connor for the following weekend. He'd have a much better time with her than he ever would have with Cherry.

In the first video she clicked onto, Cherry was surrounded by the women -- those that had helped her with her plans and more, so many more of her loyal co-workers and assistants from her team. Oh, they had been too pleased to help her work through the myriad of Amazon Instant boxes scattered across the floor, dressing Cherry up in crazy costumes and makeup after her "coming down" from glory had been announced, but there was too much fun to be had there. She would have been sorely amiss if she had not taken advantage of more than a little of it for herself.

Cherry sat in a chair while the women crowded around her flat feet, appearing large from the camera angle, obnoxiously so. They grabbed her toes as they chanted, wiggling and yanking them while Cherry tried to wrench her feet back. Her makeup was done, if one could call it that, but as if a five-year-old had applied it, bright red cheeks and smeared mascara, along with thick, bright pink lips.

"Eenie, meenie, minie, mo!" They chanted, the old (rather racist) children's rhyme, although it had been adapted to better fit Cherry. "Catch a monkey by their toe!"

She pulled back, lips parting, revealing that she wasn't wearing her dentures, apparently fearful of what would happen at the end of the rhyme. Yet as the final words were spoken, the women leapt back, all as a giant bucket of water was dumped over her. The childish, frilly dress that Cherry had been wearing slicked down to her body, revealing everything, water splashing everywhere, her makeup running as she tried to rub water out of her eyes.

Her squeals and garbled screeches were the perfect music that Nathalie had so sorely needed to hear from the strung-up brat.

Bored of that video, Nathalie clicked onto another where Cherry was shown diapered and locked into a high chair. Ah, yes, that had been an interesting one, where Cherry had pulled back a little more fight in her, though it was hard for her to fight at all, bless her, when they all loomed as they did. It was easy to look down on the hobbit when she was as short as she was, dressed in a baby onesie that, of course, had been sized up for an adult to wear. Nathalie grinned. Well, Cherry was a rather small size, so it had been an easy one to have custom-ordered rather quickly. If you knew the right people and had the right influence, you could get anything done.

In the highchair, Cherry shook her head violently, food of all kinds smeared over her face -- some of it baby food, though the camera was zoomed in so that only Cherry and the disembodied hands of those feeding her could be seen. Hands holding spoons came out of nowhere, the spoons piled high with all kinds of food, from sloppy egg mayonnaise to ketchup and actual baby food and mashed potato. It added to the mess all over her and the table before her as she flailed and tried to push it away, though they did manage to get some into the gaping, gummy hole of her mouth.

"Babies can't have solid food!" Someone sung, pressing in behind her, their dark skin suggesting that the voice came from Lorel. "Open up, baby Cherry, open up! Open up for the explorer to climb into the cave!"

Cherry shook her head violently, beet red, refusing it even as the woman's breasts squished on either side of her head, her hair so thin that, by that point, she appeared to be almost bald. She didn't want to eat anymore, clearly, but the women weren't about to take no for an answer.

To the side, a bottle of hot sauce opened out over one of the spoons, the women cooing and baby talking to her. The camera zoomed out to show Kobe down on her knees at her feet, giggling, a nutcracker poised over Cherry's bare toes. At just the right moment, the hot sauce spoon held up before Cherry, she snapped it shut over her smallest toe, the most painful of them all, Cherry's mouth flying open as she wailed.

Yet it was not one spoon but several that were shoved into her open mouth, the hot sauce liberally coating her tongue, even as she fought and squirmed, eyes streaming. Someone pinched her cheek viciously, forcing her to open her mouth again, fingers hooked into the corners of her lips to force them open for her feeding, despite her wishes.

Nathalie laughed, delighting in the memories of the brattish woman's debasement. Oh, it had been so good to take her down all the pegs that she should never have climbed! Not looking like that, not acting as she had... She had brought it on herself, ultimately, stealing her spot from her.

Another video, a shorter one that time, showed how Cherry had been locked into a baby walker, the kind of thing where the legs dangled but they were supported enough that they would not fall if they could not walk on their own yet. The contraption beeped and played a childish tune, some kind of singsong that might have amused a baby learning to walk for the first time, Cherry screaming and garbling, though she had her dentures in. They didn't help her slurred, gargled speech all that much though, for she had them out of her mouth by that point so much that she could hardly talk with them in: just another way that they had stripped her posh humanity from her.

Someone dangled one of her old outfits, sparkling and prim in a figure-hugging dress, before her, letting her fat legs wobble and chase them all over a bare room that looked like it could have been an empty studio.

"Chase us, baby Cherry, chase us! Aw, the baby thinks the pretty clothes are for her!"

Bright lights flashed all around the walker as she tried to catch up, but her legs wouldn't work quickly enough, her range of motion as she bounced there, still diapered, limited, bare otherwise. She didn't need to wear anything else, not when she was under their control. Lorel and Lafawna found it the most entertaining, slapping their thighs as they used their thicker, more powerful bodies and especially their chests to coral the baby walker and Cherry inside it.

"Hi-yah!"

Viviana appeared, kicking the baby walker so that Cherry skidded and whirled around and around, flung to the other side of the room as she squealed and wailed, kicking and flailing. But no matter what she did, she couldn't find any purchase with her feet, forced to rotate until the walker came to a natural stop, the silly tune still playing and chirping away. Viviana put her hands on her hips, scoffing and wagging a dismissive finger while the others collapsed in laughter.

"Goblins don't wear pretty clothes! You're never going to get to wear anything like that ever again, Cherry!"

Nathalie smirked, clicking onto another video, that one of Cherry in a ridiculous swimming costume, the cut of it way too high up over hips to be flattering, purple and glittery, even with odd pink ruffles placed in random locations. It didn't fit at all, but did a great job of showing off her flat chest and "nothing there" backside, how her body was back to its natural state -- with a few enhancements, of course, like her flabby stomach and thicker thighs.

She leapt about like a bug not wanting to touch the ground on a dance machine, though the supports had been removed as she missed every step, flailing wildly. In the arcade-like room, Nathalie and her team screamed at her, leaping up and down with their fists pumping the air.

"Left step!"

"Right, right -- jump!"

"Catch up, Cherry!"

"Come on, Cherry!"

"You're not winning, Cherry!"

But they kept going and going as she turned red in the face, whimpering, though her cries were not caught by the microphone, not as she fell further and further behind in the game. Of course, it had been set to "SUPER HARD" mode, the highest level possible, and no one that didn't play competitively could have gotten it, but every mistake came with a punishment.

"Yowch!"

She screamed, leaping, her feet shocked, not wanting to touch the machine as her eyes watered, heaving and panting, for the electric shock that had jolted into her was only the first of many. Every time she made a mistake, stumbling, fumbling clumsily over her own feet, it shocked her, the electrical pulse intensifying until she was sweating furiously, jaw hanging open to pant.

With no other option than what they had given her, she danced like the monkey she had become for them, squealing and shrieking with pain whenever the shocks came, more and more.

In another video, the final one for the moment, Cherry hunched over in a playpen, dressed in a pink onesie with purple unicorns all over it. The stars between the unicorns lit up with tiny LEDs, hardly the sort of thing that Cherry would ever have chosen to wear before. The playpen was barely large enough for her, plastic blocks and soft toys around her feet, whimpering and rocking back and forth. Of course, Cherry was not alone with Nathalie, Kobe, Lorel and Lafawna leaning over her. Even then, they looked so much taller than her, overpowering, dominating, yet all without even trying.

"Oh no... Oh no!" Kobe grinned widely. "The egg must have bound her up!"

"Don't worry, she can't resist forever," Dr Amir said confidently, one hand on her hip as if she was in complete control of the situation. "She'll have to let it out sooner or later. She can't resist..."

Cherry tried though, oh, how she tried... She went red in the face and shook her head over and over again, trying to stay right where she was, but the pressure was building and building, something that could not be held back, not as she wanted it to be.

Flipping open the bottom section of her onesie, something that was often built into onesies for much younger children so that they could more easily have their diapers changed, everyone laughed as she had to bear down, for the strain in Cherry's stomach had to be allowed out.

Cherry balled up her hands, curling her toes practically into fists, obviously grinding her teeth, but she was forced through, straining, striving, fighting a losing battle. They sang to her, encouraging her like a child, goading her on, but even Cherry had to know that there was nothing more she could do. Truly, the fight in her would have been impressive, if it hadn't proven to be as annoying to Nathalie throughout the process of her humiliation.

"Lay an egg, Sally hen, lay an egg, Sally hen," they sang. "Lay an egg, Sally hen, and into the hen house you gooooo!"

She strained and strained and shook her head, but Cherry could not do it. With a massively lewd squelch and ripple of breaking wind, she "birthed" a huge, hard poo that landed with a solid "plop" on the playmat under her. It was quick, but there was another log to add to the first as she reeled in disgust, her eyes shooting open in disgust.

"Yay, well done, Cherry! Baby did a poo!"

They bellowed and slapped their thighs with laughter around her, cheering and clapping their hands, but it surely did not feel like anything of a celebration to Cherry, slumping forward with her forehead against the side of the playpen. She slumped down, curling up there, broken, sweating and humiliated as the comments from the women filled the air and her ears.

"Ugh! The baby is so gross!"

"Things like that don't know how to be civilised!"

"Maybe little hen needs to be taught how to clean herself up!"

Finally satisfied, Nathalie stopped the video. It was enough, at least for the moment. Heading onto Cherry's husband's -- oh, ex-husband's -- Instagram page, she started to type him a message, her smile softening, becoming something a little more natural to her. The deed was done and she didn't have to concern herself at all with maintaining her position and reputation, not when Cherry had already shattered her own, all so very easily.

Putting her feet up, she twitched the toe holding Cherry's rings, both now belonging to her, for it was not as if Cherry would have ever done anything good with them anyway. She didn't deserve such fineries, not with how she had looked down on everyone around her, and Nathalie's status and position spoke for itself with how her team had rallied for her. They had all done it because they loved her and hated Cherry, all that that brat of a woman stood for. But she wasn't going to be an issue anymore.

On her left foot, the rings glinted, on the long, slender, second toe, right where they belonged. She'd make things right with Connor, surely, when the time was right. Until then, Cherlyn had become Cherry and there never again would be any going back to stardom for her.

The brat had finally found her rightful place in the world.