Compromise - Chapter 40 (Patreon)

As much as Heather would have liked to gloat when she heard the whispering starting the spread through the office about his illicit dealings, she decided it was probably for the best to stay as far away from him as possible. Would he have put the pieces together that this had happened so soon after she'd brought Lizzie into his office twice in a row? It was hard to tell... Probably, he'd never give a little enough credit to believe they could be behind his downfall, though she'd still rather not give him the chance to make that connection, if he hadn't already.

Not to mention, of course, that, if he didn't attribute it to Lizzie, she didn't want to wind up like Wendi if he assumed she had done it instead... Or even if he suspected she'd helped out in any way. She wouldn't put it past him to try, and she couldn't let that happen, not when she had Lizzie to look after herself.

She did have someone else to take care of, too, while she was at it. Cassandra had been acting strangely ever since the visits, and it had taken Heather a very long time to figure out why, almost embarrassingly so. Her only excuse was that she assumed, at first, that Cassandra was simply scared of her after the outburst, but eventually it had clicked, and it was completely obvious what had the girl so worked up.

"Cassandra?" She picked up the phone, dialing her secretary's extension, seeing, through her window, the 'tweener jump and fidget when she saw who it was, hesitating a moment before answering. "Could you come in here for a minute?"

"O-Of course," Cassie nodded, hanging up and standing, taking a little too long to adjust her skirt. Even through the wall, Heather could practically hear her heart pounding, could almost see her hands shaking as she finally worked up the courage to walk through the door into her boss's office.

"Close the blinds for me," Heather ordered as soon as the door was shut.

Cassie flinched, biting her bottom lip, tears welling up in her eyes. "Wh-Why?" she whined, sounding far more like a little than a 'tweener in the moment. It was funny, Heather mused. 'Tweeners were always so eager to prove that they were like Amazons, so positive that they were closer to them than littles, but it was so very easy to turn them into sniffling toddlers. In a way, it was almost more satisfying, too... "C-Can't you...?" she looked to the knob that would do that automatically.

"Because I asked you to, Cassandra," Heather snapped. "Do you need any more reason than that?"

"N-No, ma'am!" Cassie shook her head. "S-Sorry, ma'am!" She practically tripped over herself, turning, fumbling with the blinds, having to climb up onto the couch to reach one of them, confirming, beyond a shadow of a doubt, what Heather was already pretty confident in. It had been worth being certain, however, before she went any further.

Cassie spun back around, hands immediately returning to her skirt, fidgeting with it self-consciously. "Come to my desk, please," Heather requested.

Cassandra's eyes flicked towards the couch she was standing in front of, but didn't protest this time, meekly shuffling forward, standing right in front of Heather's desk. "I-I'm really sorry about what happened with Lizzie," she told her yet again. Heather couldn't say she minded the repetition, though, to be fair.

"I'm very happy to hear that," Heather said, carefully starting to move her keyboard, her mousepad, off to the side of her desk, clearing off a nice, big, empty spot in the middle of it, while Cassie watched in horror. She could see the gears turning in the girl's head, wondering why her boss was doing this, what it was for, particularly combined with the closed blinds, giving the two of them complete privacy here in the office.

She had debated whether this would be too mean, but after seeing the girl's reactions so far, she couldn't help herself, reaching into one of her desk drawers and pulling out a heavy, wooden hairbrush. Cassie immediately burst into tears, shaking her head, begging, "N-No, please! H-Heather, I-I'm sorry!"

"Bend over my desk," Heather commanded, Cassie still bawling, yet obedient, no doubt terrified that doing anything else would get her into even more trouble.

Heather stood up, walking around behind the wiggling girl on her desk, as she sniffled, "Pl-Please! N-Not that! I-I'll do whatever you want, j-just don't...!"

Her words dissolved into sobs as Heather did exactly what she didn't want her to do, pulling up the back of her skirt, exposing her soaked Pull-Ups. Heather couldn't resist giving them a squeeze, confirming that they were quite warm, that, most likely, the majority, if not all, of the damage had been done recently, possibly since she'd brought the secretary into her office, made her believe she was about to be punished.

"I-It's not what it looks like," Cassie mumbled through her tears. "I-I don't...."

"Are you going to tell me who did this to you?" Heather demanded, grabbing Cassandra by the shoulder, turning her around to make her look her in the eye.

Cassie looked so tiny, so helpless, crying her eyes out, so scared of Heather, but just as terrified of whoever had made her wear these, whoever was tormenting her. "I-I can't," she shook her head. "I-If I do..."

"All right." Heather let her voice soften, giving the girl a hug. "It's okay... I had a feeling you were going to say that. Don't worry about it."

Cassandra sniffled, staring up at her, wide-eyed. "R-Really?"

"You don't have to tell me anything," Heather assured her, walking back around to the other side of the desk, taking something else out from her drawer, setting it down between the two of them.

"N-No!" Cassie wailed, stomping her foot. "Th-That's not fair!"

"I'd say I'm well within my rights to do this," Heather replied calmly, snapping open the diaper, Cassie's face going pale. "I don't think anyone would argue with me if I told them I found my secretary in a drenched pair of training panties."

Cassandra couldn't deny that, as much as she clearly wanted to. "W-Well, no," she admitted. "B-But..."

"Are you going to be a good girl and let me do this?" Heather asked. "I don't want to have to spank you, Cassie, but..."

Cassie groaned, looking from the hairbrush to the diaper, as if trying to decide which was worse, though, of course, she was clever enough to know that if she chose the former, it likely would end with her winding up in the latter anyway.

"I-If the other secretaries find out, I'm never going to hear the end of it," Cassandra complained. "A-And if Sa..." She cut herself off, having nearly answered Heather's earlier question as well without meaning to, clamping her mouth shut with a blush.

"Cassie," Heather assured her, "I'm not going to let anything happen to you, okay? Just be a good girl and let me put you in this diaper."

Cassandra pouted, but, in the end, she slid her skirt down, stepping out of it, reluctantly allowing Heather to rip open the sides of her Pull-Up, throwing it away so she could wipe the girl off, then lift her up onto the waiting diaper, taping it snugly around her waist, smiling as she saw her start to wiggle, scowling at the sound of crinkling that followed her every move. "I-It's so big," she complained.

"Yes, it is," Heather nodded. She, of course, wasn't going to use one of Lizzie's kitten diapers for this, but she'd had plenty of other options from her collection at home that seemed big enough to fit a 'tweener, that she knew she was never going to use on Lizzie when she already had her favorite kind of diaper all picked out. "That exactly what a little pants-wetter like you needs, isn't it?"

She felt guilty, seeing Cassie's reaction, watching her eyes fill with tears again, wondering if maybe she'd gone too far. The secretary looked like she wanted to deny it, but stopped herself, probably scared that she wouldn't be able to do that without accidentally telling Heather the whole truth, something she obviously didn't want to do. She pulled the skirt back up over Cassie's diaper, the fabric having to stretch quite a bit to accommodate the extra bulk, then sent her back to her desk, and waited.

She'd borrowed the bug from Lizzie, not telling her why, exactly, she needed it. Part of her questioned if she ought to be angry that Cassie hadn't been suspicious of it at all, but she had hidden it in a vase of flowers she'd put on the girl's desk, along with a note telling her they were from her, and she didn't really want the girl to be suspicious of her.

She kept the blinds closed, not needing them, wanting to give her target a false sense of security to believe they weren't going to be caught. Sure enough, it didn't take long at all before the sound of Cassie sniffling and crinkling was interrupted by a female voice. "Oh, my God, you stupid little baby," it scoffed. "What did you do?!"

"I-I didn't do anything!" Cassie stammered. "I-I told you she was going to notice, a-and..."

"That's why you were supposed to be careful, dummy," the other voice scolded. "You know what? Maybe we ought to take a trip down to the daycare."

"Sarah, no!" Cassie begged, Heather hearing the sound of struggling.

That was all she needed. She burst through her door to see Sarah, one of the other secretaries, with her hand around Cassie's arm, trying to pull her away from her desk, grinning, her face falling suddenly when she saw the Amazon in the doorway.

"What exactly is going on here?" Heather demanded.

Sarah immediately let go of Cassie, her hands crossing behind her back innocently. "I-I was just helping her out," she lied. "Sh-She almost fell over, because she is so clumsy in those heels, so I..."

"That's funny," Heather cut her off. "It sounded to me like you were disagreeing with the way I choose to discipline my secretary. I'm not sure how that is any of your business, young lady."

"I-It isn't!" Sarah agreed, eyes widening as she scrambled to cover her tracks. "I-I don't know what you overheard, b-but you must have..."

"I'm sorry," Heather raised an eyebrow, "are you telling me I'm wrong, young lady?"

Sarah shook her head. "N-Not wrong, ma'am! Y-You might have misinterpreted..."

"Misinterpreted you trying to take my secretary away from doing her job?" Heather crossed her arms. "Maybe you need a little visit to daycare yourself if you have enough time to drag her there and back. Obviously you don't have enough work to do, and that seems like a far more appropriate use of your time than bothering Cassie."

"N-No, I-I..." Sarah insisted, peeking past Heather, freezing at the sight of the hairbrush Heather had left on her desk, beside the second diaper she'd set there for the girl to see. She glanced over at Cassie, clearly assuming that was what had happened to her, wobbling in place for a moment as it hit her that she was a breath away from having it happen to her as well. "I-I'm sorry!" she squealed.

"I hope so," Heather leaned down threateningly. "If I see you anywhere near Cassie's desk again..."

"Y-You won't!" Sarah promised, scurrying away like a terrified little girl.

Cassandra stared up at Heather in awe. "W-Wait, did you do all that...?" She looked over at the desk as well. Heather had to assume she was putting the pieced together, realizing that Heather had wanted to guarantee she seemed scared, upset, to sell the idea that Heather had punished her, and would probably be willing to do the same with whoever else made her upset. And, since Cassie hadn't wanted to tell Heather who was behind this, Heather needed to get a reaction from them so she could overhear it, have a reason to know it was them that wouldn't make them suspicious, wouldn't get Cassie labelled as a tattletale around the office.

Heather hoped the secretary was figuring all that out, anyway, that she knew Heather hadn't gone through that charade just to mess with her. She could have told her beforehand, relied on Cassie's acting skills, but she'd decided it was safer to actually scare her... And it served her right, really. She probably deserved more than that, really, though Heather knew Lizzie would disapprove if Heather took it any further, if she insisted that Cassie stay in diapers at work from now on.

So, instead, she said, quietly, "I think you'd better wear those the rest of the day, so she doesn't get too suspicious... If you stay a little late today, I have some Pull-Ups you can wear to head home in, and then you can go back to your big girl panties on Monday, okay?"

Cassie nodded gratefully. "Yes, ma'am," she smiled, her appreciation tempered as the next question dawned on her. "Wh-What if I have to use the bathroom before then?"

Heather smirked. "You know where my office is, I assume. I have a spare or two, just in case."

"B-But...!" Cassie pouted.

"I suggest you get back to work," Heather chuckled, taking the girl by the shoulders, turning her around and sending her back towards her chair with a pat to the bottom. "Unless you need a little... encouragement..."

"N-No, ma'am!" Cassie shook her head, plopping down at her desk obediently, nose wrinkling ever so slightly in a way that made Heather suspect she would, indeed, need to change the girl before the end of the day.

She could, she supposed, have kept Cassie like this, have had her as her office baby... But that felt wrong, outside of doing what she needed to do to get the secretary's bully off of her back. After all, she had a baby all her own waiting for her back at home.

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Lizzie had been more than happy to go along with Heather when she suggested that it would be easiest for both of them if Lizzie spent the night at her place on Thursday, so that she would be there on Friday morning, bright and early, to be put into her diapers for the day. It wasn't hard to set her laptop up and get work done at the desk they'd put in, and if she spent the whole day there, she'd be there to get a change at lunchtime, and when Heather got home from work, which, given how thick her diapers were, ought to be plenty.

She should have expected, when Heather had brought it up, and especially when she asked, the night before, if Lizzie had any meetings scheduled for the next day, that she'd try something like this, yet she was still surprised when, that morning, the Amazon put her into a pink, frilly t-shirt that ended right above the waistband of her diaper, her diaper itself, and then a pair of lacy ankle socks and Velcro sneakers.

"Umm... Mommy?" she frowned, looking down at herself with a blush. "I think you forgot something..."

"Really?" Heather knelt down, staring Lizzie up and down, a faux-serious expression on her face. "No, I don't think so."

"Mommy!" she pouted, stomping her foot, blushing at the thought of spending her whole day like this, diaper completely on display. Of course, the only person she was likely to see was Heather, but that did very little to make it feel any less embarrassing.

"If you need to go anywhere, you can put some pants or a skirt or something on," Heather told her, kissing her on the top of the head. "Or if you just want one, that's okay, too."

Lizzie didn't doubt that Heather meant it, that she wouldn't get mad if she got herself a little more dressed, but it felt wrong, somehow, doing it when she really had no reason to. The shoes had been a masterful stroke on Heather's part, she had to admit, a way to make it seem like this was a complete outfit, like Lizzie was so little she didn't actually need anything covering her diaper.

She also had to confess that looking down, seeing her kitten diapers right on display as they were, did make her feel safe, somehow. It didn't matter that she could get the tapes off on her own, or that she knew she didn't need them... Her Mommy had put her into them, and her Mommy would decide when she got out of them. Sitting there at her desk like that, the pink canopy bed she and Heather had picked out together behind her, it was hard not to feel like a little girl, like she'd been transported back in time... And here, in the safety of her room, she didn't mind that too much, honestly.

At least, not until that afternoon, after Heather had come back for lunch, changing her soggy diaper and giving her a kids' meal from a fast food restaurant to eat. Lizzie had finished up everything she really needed to do for the day, was just playing around on her computer, waiting for Heather to get home again, when it happened. She gasped, eyes widening at the cramp she'd felt, biting down on her bottom lip as she tried to squeeze her legs together in vain, the bulky diaper stopping her short.

She looked frantically to the clock, her heart pounding as she thought about how long it would be until Mommy got home, and the fact that she'd warned, at lunch, that she might be a little late. "Oh, no," she whimpered, instantly flashing back to filling her diapers during the operation, to the way it had made her feel. As safe as she felt here, now, she wasn't quite ready to try that again, especially not while she was all alone.

She was tempted to call Heather, beg her to come home early, knew she probably would, but resisted, not wanting to bother her at work for this. She could make it until she got home... And, if not... Well, that was what her diapers were for, wasn't it?

She couldn't help feeling anxious about it regardless, until she toddled over to find her pacifier at the changing table, slipping it into her mouth, feeling herself start to suck on it automatically. It only calmed her down a little, but that was enough.

As soon as she heard the door to the apartment open, she raced out of her room, whimpering, squirming, mumbling behind her paci, "Mommy, I hafta go potty!"

To Heather's credit, she recognized the issue right away, didn't tease her or ask why she didn't use her diaper, simply whisked her up, carrying her straight to the bathroom to get her out of her diaper, setting her down on the toilet right on time, not even insisting on taking the time to dig out the potty chair they'd bought for exactly this reason.

It was a huge relief, no matter how humiliating it was, pooping in front of Heather, before she could even try to get out of the bathroom and let her have some privacy. Still, she couldn't keep herself from feeling bad about it. "Sorry," she told Heather, once she was finished. "I-I know I should use my diaper, but..."

"When you're ready," Heather told her gently. "If you're ready. If not, that's fine, too."

"B-But I know you want me to..." Lizzie protested.

"I want you to do what you're comfortable with," Heather interrupted. "Nothing more. Come on, we'll get you cleaned up. Do you want to go into a Pull-Up, since you made it to the potty like a big girl?"

It was tempting, she couldn't deny, but she shook her head. "No, Mommy," she whined. "It's Friday! I hafta wear diapers on Friday!"

Heather beamed happily, making Lizzie even more certain she'd made the right choice. "If you say so, sweetie." She took Lizzie into her bedroom to get her into a fresh diaper, pausing once she had her powdered up, when she was about to pull the front up between her legs. "I need to tell you something."

Lizzie wiggled, surprised at the serious tone in her voice and look in her eyes. "What, Mommy?"

"I diapered somebody else today," Heather told her.

"O-Oh." What was that feeling bubbling up inside of her? Could she possibly feel jealous about that?

"It was Cassandra," Heather continued.

"Oh," Lizzie said again. "D-Do you want her to be your baby?"

"No!" Heather exclaimed. "I mean, the thought did cross my mind, but I was doing it to help her out, and it'll never happen again... It just felt wrong anyway, not letting you know about it."

"Helping her out?" Lizzie frowned. "How did...?"

"It's complicated," Heather chuckled. "I'll tell you over dinner. But I wanted to tell you."

"Okay," Lizzie nodded, squirming as Heather went back to diapering her, confused by all the feeling swirling around inside of her, trying to make sense of them. By the time the last tape was secured, however, all she really knew was that she had to say, "I-If it's to help, I understand, but other than that... I-I don't want you diapering anyone else. You're my Mommy."

Lizzie wasn't sure she'd ever seen Heather look as happy as she did now. "Of course, baby," she promised. "Whatever you want."