Mary and Daphne #33 (Patreon)

Well, this was traumatic. In five years together, Mary has made me wait for a spanking if we had vanilla company over or if we were out somewhere she just couldn’t do it without getting store managers and first responders and clergy involved. Not once had she ever said, “I’m too angry to deal with you right now.”

That statement alone would’ve made me feel awful, but she wasn’t too angry to give me a telling off of an intensity that reduced me to practically swallowing my tongue as I tried to not bawl. I don’t even know why I didn’t just let it out, except maybe Mary wasn’t ready to make it all better so I held it in, maybe a little afraid it would make her angrier. This is not us. This is not how we are.

“Daphne,” she called out as soon as I shut the door. “Get your butt in here now.” I wouldn’t say she was yelling – she doesn’t really ever yell – but her voice was elevated. I felt my stomach fall through my feet and moved quickly to do as I was told.

“Ye-...” I tried to say and couldn’t even get the one syllable out before Mary was on her feet.

“Did I or did I not remind you to put on your helmet before you took your bike out?”

O, shit; she saw. I just, I don’t know, forgot. I’m as big a fan of my own head as she is, more even; it holds my brain and besides, it’s pretty. She doesn’t need to remind me. I don’t even know how I forgot. By the time I noticed, I was halfway done with my ride and was turning around anyway. “And not one minute later, I look outside and see you riding down the street without it. I can’t even imagine what on earth was going through your head. You know better, and you did it anyway. After I just told you!”

“I’m sor-...”

“It makes me sick to my stomach to think...” She stopped and rubbed her eyes with her thumb and forefinger. “Upstairs.”

I turned and scampered up the steps positive the bathbrush was coming off the wall, ready to collapse in a puddle of tears and say I was sorry over and over and over and beg to be forgiven. Mary walked at a deliberate pace behind me. The fact that she didn’t have me by the arm and wasn’t propelling me up the steps with underhanded thunderspanks was so unlike her.

Instead of the bathroom, she went into the closet and came out with a diaper. I’ve avoided the toy chest in there she keeps them in, but I’m getting curious what else is in that box.

“Lay down.” I did, and not very gently Mary stripped me of my shorts and panties, taking them off around my shoes. “I’m too upset to deal with you right now. I’m going to finish my workday and calm down, and I expect you to be ready to explain yourself to me when I’m ready for you,” she said as she sealed the last tape up.

I sat up with a crinkle, wishing she’d chosen one of the cloth-like ones because I don’t get as sweaty in them, and reached for my shorts. She shook her head and said, “You’re dressed.” And I was, in a tee, diaper, ankle socks, and tennis shoes. She looked at me, and her face started to soften before she sighed. “C’mon, let’s get you some water. You look thirsty.” I was; I had planned on showering when I got home, but I guess that was off the table.

I followed her back downstairs, and she made me a bottle of water at the sink and handed it to me. My lips were quivering; she sighed again and hugged me, but it just didn’t feel right. As upset as she was, I was just as upset, and normally she’d hug the stuffing out of me and then go to work beating my butt like a snare drum and then hug me some more. “I love you, Daphne, and I’m sorry I’m so upset with you, but I am.” She shook her head. “We’ll deal with this later. I have phone calls for the next couple hours.” She left the kitchen and went to her office and shut the door.

You may not have noticed, but I wear my emotions on the outside, so it’s not like she couldn’t see I was on the verge of collapsing into my own ocean of tears and regret. She didn’t kiss me. She didn’t squeeze me. She didn’t wait for me to apologize. She didn’t even let me apologize or ask me anything. It all happened so fast, and there I was in the kitchen wondering why she didn’t at least, I don’t know, say something reassuring too.

She didn’t put me in timeout or send me to our room or anything, and with nothing else to do but dread what I had coming, I decided to go see if there were chores in my garden I could occupy myself with, anything to take my mind away from it.

I didn’t get that far. I got as far as the retaining wall and sat down, with every intention of crying it out for a bit and then maybe going to take a nap.

“Who’s over there,” I heard Nana ask.

“Me.”

“You don’t sound happy. Can I come over?”

“Um, no?”

“Well why on earth not?”

“I’m, um, not …  please?”

“Well, will you tell me what’s the matter?”

“I did something stupid.” I was trying and failing to keep the telltale sounds of crying out of my voice. I wasn’t crying yet, but you know the way a person sounds when they’re about to. “Mary is angry at me, and (sound of a sad puppy)…”

“O, Daffy. Sorry, kiddo, but I’m coming over.” I didn’t even so much care at that point. Mary’s reaction to my misdeed had me all flustered. What did it mean that she was too angry to deal with me right then? She always deals with things right then. She never gives half-assed hugs. She never just sighs and shakes her head at me and walks away. Nana sat down on the wall next to me, and she opened her big, soft arms, and I was crying on her chest. Not full on sobbing, but I just needed to cry and needed a hug and the two happened at the same time.

“I (gibberish) and she told me (babbling) and no helmet (meeping noises) and now (the melodious language of the Wookies).”

Mary and I have enough of a connection, plus experience with one another, that she can actually decipher what I’m saying when I’m like that. Nana’s reaction was, “You didn’t wear a helmet to an open mic?”

“Bike!”

“Ohh!” She patted my back a few times and loosened her arms. “Try to calm down, sweetie. You’re okay.”

I didn’t feel okay at all, I was trying to calm down, but it’s not so easy sometimes. “But Mary (huff) she didn’t … she hasn’t … she didn’t …” I was trying to come up with a less embarrassing way to say she didn’t spank me right away, and I don’t think that would make any sense to Nana anyway, or really the bigger issue, which even in my own head sounded pathetic: Mary didn’t hug me right. I mean, delay a spanking, but not hug me right? That just doesn’t work for me. “She said she was too upset to deal with me.” More tears; wonderful.

“I’m sure she just meant she needed some time to calm down. That’s a good thing. I had to do that a few times when mine were young.”

“But she doesn’t do that.” She’s never not ended a lecture or a punishment without some affection. And when “hers” were young? Like I needed to point this out, but Nana did not ever have one of me. I’m one of a kind. They broke the mold, possibly because they looked at it and thought maybe less needy next time. And I didn’t used to be so needy. It’s just – dammit! We have a routine, and it works: I make a mistake, Mary corrects it; I get upset, Mary comforts me. Why the break in the routine?

“Well, there’s a first time for everything. I’m sure it will be okay.”

“She’s gonna use the bathbrush!” It’s a scary goddam implement, alright? It’s the suitcase bomb of spanking implements: it looks small, but it can level an entire butt and render it unusable for generations.

She patted the outside of my thigh. “Can I be honest with you?”

“Mhmm.” Kinda what makes our relationship so great.

“If it keeps you from riding your bike without a helmet, I think that’s exactly what you need.” Okay, clearly she doesn’t know what the bathbrush does. I think it’s pretty awesome she doesn’t mind the whole kinky-lesbian-couple-next-door-doing-kinky-shit and even seems to accept it as just part of her world, but she’s never seen Mary spank me. She’s seen some swats here and there and maybe caught sight of me over Mary’s knee from her window, but I’m pretty sure like all ‘nillas she would be horrified if she saw my butt after a full blown paddling. Even I’m not sure if it looks worse than it is or if it’s worse than my kinky brain is capable of understanding or both.

“I do wear my helmet. I just forgot and I don’t even know why. I just ... (huff) … I did.”

“Okay. Please don’t get upset again. I’m sure you can tell her that. Mary is very understanding from what I’ve seen … Um, Daffy, wear your pants?”

“Pants are a privilege.” I thought Nana just knew that; she seems so wise, and I just thought in her acquired wisdom she knew pants were a privilege. Of course, I didn’t learn that until I was twenty-six when Mary taught me. And having been asked that question, I had the o so wonderful feelings of embarrassment and awkwardness to partially displace the feelings of disappointment, hurt, and dread. And swamp crotch – also swamp crotch. Or more swamp waistband (?), because it wasn’t so bad inside the diaper but all around my waist and thighs where the plastic was I was feeling sticky with sweat clinging to that stupid plastic prison.

Nana sighed; I wish I knew what she was thinking every time she learns a new thing about us. “Do you want to come over for a little bit? I’ll make us a snack and maybe you’ll feel a little better.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea. I should be here in case Mary is ready for me all of a sudden.”

“Then let’s go inside.”

“She’s on the phone for work,” I said as I hopped off the wall.

“We’ll be real quiet.” We went inside, and the air conditioning felt good before I was just freezing. I needed to change my shirt; it was a little damp from my ride and sitting in the sun.

“Have you had lunch yet,” I asked.

“Not yet.”

“Would you like something? I can make us some sandwiches or something.” I’m a good hostess even when I’m in the middle of a freak out.

“I have a better idea. Why don’t you go take a shower, and I’ll make us something? You’ll feel so much better.”

“I don’t think I’m allowed to.”

She rolled her eyes at that. I’ve never seen her do that. “To take a shower? Daphne Ann, how old are you?”

“Thirty-one. And I meant I’m not sure if I can, um…” I looked down at myself and she got the hint.

“You can, Daphne. I say so … and remember a while ago? Mary did say you had the choice.” Well, specifically she said I could take my diaper off or Nana could do it for me, but I’m pretty positive that was a one-time thing. “Scoot.”

There are before times and after times: before May, after Mary; before covid, after covid; before the nuclear bomb, after the nuclear bomb; before Jesus, after Jesus; before the big bang; after the big bang. Before Nana swatted my butt to get to me to start moving toward the shower, and after.

All the feelings, all at once. It was like all the characters from Inside Out were in my head and simultaneously said, Fuck these fucking working conditions. we’ll come back when management fixes this shit. And management was like, To the barricades! It’s up to ownership to fix this mess, and she’s on the phone.

I don’t even remember the shower. I was just suddenly wet and wrapped in a towel looking in the mirror wondering who was looking back at me. Why had Mary been so angry and hands off? Why did I have such a hard time regulating my emotions on my own? Why did I parade outside in a diaper? Why was I letting myself put all this emotional labor on my vanilla neighbor who never asked to be a part of this? And why did she think it was okay to swat the back of my diaper? (With me in it!)

I went and sat on our bed thinking about those things, and through the vent I heard Mary say in surprise, “Mae! I didn’t expect to find you here.” She sounded calmer than an hour before, but that was a low bar. Had she found a dead care bear on our kitchen floor, she would’ve been calmer than she’d been an hour before.

“I came over to have lunch with Daphne. Care to join us?”

“Thanks, but I only have a few minutes before my next call. Where is she?”

“I sent her upstairs to shower. She was a little sweatball.” I goddamn glisten, goddamit! “If you have time, I think you should go check on her. She’s awfully upset.” In my defense, I’m always upset these days, apparently. Or at least it seems that way.

“She’s in trouble. As soon as I’m off my next call, she and I are gonna have a talk.”

“She told me. She’s afraid you’re going to spank her with the bathbrush.”

“I haven’t decided.” For the record, I’m not afraid of the bathbrush. So long as Mary is the one wielding it, I’ll know I’ll be fine. It’s less a fear and more of a dread, like you’re not afraid of going to the dentist, but you really really really really don’t wanna go. “She’s going to need a fresh diaper when she’s out of the shower.”

“Ya know, before you two had moved in I was aware there were people into spanking and even, ya know, more than that. I didn’t realize people made a whole lifestyle around it, but I’d never even heard of the diaper part. I don’t get it.”

“Well, our lifestyle goes well beyond spanking.”

“I didn’t mean…”

“I know. I just mean it’s what we need from each other; we wouldn’t be happy without it. She’s happiest when she knows she’ll be held accountable for her actions, and I’m happiest doing that for her; it’s a way that she needs me, and I like being needed by her. A lot more goes into than maybe it seems to, um, people who aren’t like us. Just like the marriage vows say, ‘love, honor, and obey; love, cherish, and protect.’”

The conversation continued without me. “Ha. This is certainly one approach to that … I still don’t really get the diaper part, or some of the other more childish things.”

“If it makes you uncomfortable, you can tell her she can put pants on when she comes back downstairs. Could you ask her to bring a diaper to my office and tell her not to knock?”

“Sure. Or I can take care of that if you’re going to be on the phone. However I can help.” Omygod, stop being so helpful!

There was a pause. It seemed like a very long pause. “Thanks, but I can’t let you do that without Daphne saying it’s okay. You can do me a favor, though.”

“Sure.”

“After the two of you have lunch, please tell her to take a nap.”

“Happily. She needs it.”

That left me in a sticky spot (not literally, thank god). I guess it was just assumed I wasn’t going to diaper myself (excellent assumption, because nope), and that I knew better than to put on panties. But I’d also been told I was fully dressed minus pants. I’d heard that conversation, so if I put on pants, would they know I was eavesdropping? (That word makes no sense, btw. What eaves does one drop?) But what was the alternative? Lady Godiva down the bannister and into the kitchen? Which, safety tip, only works if the bannister has been recently and very thoroughly polished; just don’t even think about trying it otherwise.

Anyway, what difference did it make if I they knew I’d heard or maybe suspected it? It’s not like I did it on purpose or that they said anything they probably wouldn’t have said with me in the room, except maybe for some of what Nana said, but she’d already offered to change my diaper once (in fact, had been pretty insistent about it, giving Mary an earful). I put on a skirt, went into the closet, and opened the toy chest I’d been avoiding. I don’t know what I was expecting to find (a magic portal to some weird diaper dimension or something? Like that even exists …), and all I found was a mostly empty bag of diapers and the same toys that had been in there the last time I looked.

A minute later, I was laying on the carpet of our second bedroom-slash-Mary’s office while Mary diapered me without missing a beat in her conference call. It was weird, somehow off. Since quarantine began, Mary would come find me during the day if I was diapered and make a mini-production out of checking and changing me. Or sometimes I’d go find her, partly to be cute and make her smile. Mary never could resist getting in a little jest here or there, using the opportunity to poke my humiliation bone and ooh and ahh and say stuff to make me blush and feel all fuzzy inside.

This time, I just laid down on the floor and she taped me into a diaper like it was just a normal thing. When she fusses over me and says embarrassing stuff, it’s so obviously a put-on, but getting diapered while she talked about clouds and networks with someone on the other side of the country took away the put-on part of it. Like, before she had been teasing me with her little remarks about how it was a good thing I was padded and we both knew it was teasing, but on the floor of her office, the joke had gone out of it. It didn’t feel good natured or affectionate at all. It felt like she was doing a chore and I was in the way of her job.

I hated it. I thought I disliked her little quips and gasps and occasional pottypants talk, but her holding her work call and diapering me like it was the four thousandth time was so much worse. There was nothing about it that tickled the right humiliation spots. It actually felt like a straight up punishment.

Mary did give me a kiss on my way out the door. I very much needed that.

I felt I owed an apology to Nana for being such a drag, though it did occur to me that I asked her not to come over. It still didn’t feel right that I had basically used her as a sobbing post (it’s like a scratching post for sad kittens). I was glad when we finished lunch and decided I’d go see her in the next day or so and apologize and remind her that I’m actually fun to be around and not just an emotional dumpster fire who needs a surrogate grandma to run to when I’m in trouble.

Mary woke me up a couple hours later. She was sitting on the side of the bed looking at me. I was instantly nervous, feeling a little fight-or-flight response kicking on, and the way she was looking at me, much the way I sometimes look at her when she’s asleep, made me feel that fuzzy feeling. It didn’t take away the nervousness, though.

“Hey,” she said softly, “how do you feel?”

Dry mouthed and headachy is how I felt. Conflicted in about nine different ways is how I felt. “Crummy,” is how I felt and said so.

“Here.” She reached over and handed me a glass of water.

“Mary,” I started to say after I took a few swallows.

“Not yet. Slide over for me.” I did, and she got on the bed next to me, turned back toward my nightstand, and got that stupid pacifier. “I wanna talk first,” she said. I obediently let her put that thing in my mouth. She took out her phone and unlocked it to a Google image search. “This is why you need to wear a helmet every single time you ride your bike.”

Well, yeah, thanks; I freaking know that. I do wear it. The one time I forget, and she sees it and treats it like I’m trying to ride a motorcycle upside down across the Grand Canyon.

“C’mere,” she said, and I got up on all fours and started to put myself over her lap. “No no, just c’mere.” She patted her thigh, and I friggin’ hate the diaper position, but I started to turn the other way anyway because the very last thing I wanted to do was give her anymore reasons to paddle my butt. “Daffy, just come here.” She reached over and pulled me to her and put her left hand around my shoulder.

O, a hug! Suddenly I remembered these. Sigh…

“I know you just forgot. I’m not sure exactly how, but I know you just forgot, and I’m sorry I was so upset with you. I didn’t … I’m sorry I was angry.” She shook her head.

O, just friggin’ great. Just what I needed to cap the day off. She was gonna cry, and then I was gonna cry twice as hard. But she didn’t. She put her right hand around my shoulder, and then her left gave me a little nudge, and then I was resting my cheek against her chest. She kissed my hair and said, “I’m sorry. I don’t like how I treated you today. I know how upset you were, and that was my fault, and I should’ve have made sure you knew I was only mad at your choices and not at you; and I didn’t … I’m so sorry. I guess I don’t need to remind you that I’m not always right or so mature.”

Well, no, she didn’t, but somewhere in a box in the basement we do have a framed poster saying Rule #1: Mary is always right.

I’m not supposed to talk with the pacifier in my mouth, though Mary has told me several times if I ever decide I just want to use it for a while, I can be a little chatterbox to my heart’s content, but she got to the part I was going to ask about anyway.

“I think the reason I was so upset is because it’s about your safety, again. The driving incident. Everything going on right now. I just can’t help it sometimes, picturing the worst case scenario when it comes to you. I worry about that; it’s silly, but I’ve been scared this whole time. I know you know that and that we both have been. It’s just … watching everything out there happening again this week, and this was one more thing to scare me, and it just set me off. That wasn’t fair to you at all. It’s important for you to follow the rules and do all the things you know you should, but I shouldn’t be taking out my anxieties on you, and I definitely shouldn’t be making you feel so awful and just walk away. I’m so sorry, Daffy.”

Taking a minor risk, I took the paci out and said, “I’m sorry, too, and I forgive you.” When she says that to me, it can fix pretty much any feeling of guilt I have. Broke a rule, said something I shouldn’t have, accidentally killed our pet care bear, if she forgives me, that’s all I need to hear to stop beating myself up over it. It didn’t seem to have the same effect on her as it has on me, which I guess is just part of what makes me the eager-to-please submissive and her the person who hands out the spankings and absolutions.

“Thank you, baby.” She gave me another kiss.

“Stop it,” I pouted.

“What?”

“Whatever is going on inside your head that has you all sad still,” I said, getting my hips into my bossy pants and wiggling around to see how they fit (not great; and how was I supposed to know chocolate is poisonous to care bears?). I was kinda hoping to talk about my own emotional implosion, but it didn’t seem fair. She needed reassurance, and it’s my job – my favorite job – to be her emotional support the way she’s mine. I would’ve offered my butt to make her feel better, but I could tell that wouldn’t have helped. I had an epiphany. “In fact,” I said, “if you’re still upset, you should go cry in the backyard. Nana will magically appear and help make it better.”

“Ha.” She smiled for a moment and then looked sad again. Dammit anyway! “I’m sorry.”

“You said that already.”

“I mean, if I’d been …”

“Mary, please stop. It’s over. I’m okay; you’re okay.” And if she kept talking about it I was sure to l get weepy. This is what I don’t get about vanilla couples, which is basically the situation we were in: we fought, basically, and had no ways to expiate all the shitty feelings and move on. Again, my first instinct was to get up and put my butt over her lap and tell her to start spanking until we both felt better, but she just didn’t seem like she’d appreciate that in the moment.

All I could think to do was hug her tighter, then she hugged me tighter. Then I made the too-quick decision to sacrifice something way more fundamental than my butt to see if it would get her to stop wallowing. It took a minute; it felt wrong in every possible way, except in the way that I’d been napping for a couple hours and needed to. So I did.

Mary’s head slowly rotated to the left and down as she looked me with a look I couldn’t raise my eyes to. She reached down to where I was sorta sitting on her leg and gave my diaper a couple pats. “Wow,” she said, “I didn’t realize just how warm that feels when it’s, um, fresh.”

“I had to go,” I said shyly and for the first time ever decided to put that pacifier in my mouth and bury my face in Mary’s chest against. I knew it would make her smile and make me cringe, which would make her smile, and that her smiling would make me cringe more, and she’d find it adorable because I am adorable, and she’d also find it sexy because it’s so submissive to use the diapers like she says to and funny to her because it always tickles her to watch me turn red. Did you get all that?

“You’re supposed to tinkle in them,” she said. “Are you all done?”

O, god, what a horrible question. There’s no way, at all, to answer that question that isn’t excruciating. My non-verbal answer – press my face into the space where Mary’s arm and body meet like I’m hiding from strangers – was at least as bad as any verbal answer I could give, but I did it anyway.

“You weren’t this shy at the park.”

“I wasn’t sitting on you,” I said around the pacifier, muffled by her body.

“Well, that part is different,” she said with a chuckle. “You’ve been in that thing since lunch time,” she said. “Turn over for me.”

I rolled off her onto my tummy, and she felt my butt.

“It can wait, but let’s get you into some clothes.”

“I’m wearing clothes,” I said, taking the pacifier out and eyeing it with disdain, though I was starting to see how it could be something that benefited me: she got it for when she wanted me to not be talking; I could use it when I didn’t want to be talking, like when she was trying to coax me into saying stuff to make me blush.

“Maybe something more than a tee shirt. Come on, up you get. Our pity party is over,” she declared. Good.

“So I’m not being punished for the helmet?”

“No, Daffy. I think you get the message. But if there’s a next time, whether you just forget or not, I’ll spank your bottom blue.”

“I won’t. Promise.”

“I think you should wear your rainbow onesie this evening.”

I hesitated. I kinda felt like it wasn’t the right time to bring it up; she had a rough day, too. And it was ironic, to be concerned about how much emotional support I needed lately and then to turn around and ask for some more, but kicking cans down roads didn’t seem to be working in my favor lately, and it was apropos to the moment.

“Um, can we talk about something?”

“Of course.” She sat down on the bed again.

“I, um ...” It was too late to say never mind. “I ... didn’t like the, uh ... how upset I got either ... and the way I, um, sorta dumped it on Nana ... Or the way I’ve been so emotional lately.” Mary was making her concerned face. I asked her, “Have you noticed it, too?”

“Noticed you being more emotional than normal? Well, a little, but I think everyone feels that way right now.”

“I just don’t think I’ve been handling my feelings well. I should be able to deal with stuff without being so ... dependent.”

“I think you do a good job asking for help.”

“But it’s not fair to other people to always be asking. Other people don’t.”

“What ‘always?’ I don’t think you do that. And I think most other people would be happier if they asked more often.”

“I’ve kinda been a crybaby lately,” I said to cut to the chase.

“Do you remember what you said to me back at the start of quarantine?”

I shrugged. I say lots of stuff, most of it nonsense. I’m known for it, which probably surprises you, but really.

“You said that if you take care of me and I take care of you, we won’t have to worry about anything else.”

“Well, I’m very wise ... and well spoken.”

“And I think what you said was very smart. I don’t think you’re a crybaby. I think you’re just sensitive, and that’s one of the things I like so much about you. You’re sensitive because you care. If I had been more considerate today, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.”

True. But I think we would’ve had it some other time.

“You’ve never done that before,” I said softly.

“What’s that?”

“Been upset with me and walked away. Not resolving it right then. Not … not a good hug. I didn’t like that.”

“I know. I know, and I’m very sorry. I promise I won’t do that again.” She decided to make up for it by wrapping me in another hug.

“And in your office. I didn’t like that either. It felt different, like you were doing a chore.” Instant regret! Instant regret! the Inside Out crew in my head were shouting. If they were better at their jobs we might not have gotten here. Mary’s confused face. Backpedal!

“I mean, I, just, see, it wasn’t, um, I don’t mean that I, uh ...” O, sure, I’m sooooo well spoken...

“You like it more when ...”

“It was just, um, if you’re gonna make me, then ... it felt like not the, um … Like you weren’t doing it because ...”

“You can say it.”

“It’ll hurt your feelings.”

“This only works if we communicate openly and honestly,” she said, paraphrasing from literally every power exchange how-to book ever.

“Like you weren’t doing it in a loving way.”

She exhaled once, took a breath, and did it again. “I’m so sorry for making you feel that way. I didn’t mean to do that.”

“I know. I didn’t think you did, but, uh, that’s how it felt. I just, I needed to say that.” I’m sorry I said anything. I know she didn’t mean to make me feel that way. Bad day all around. I didn’t expect a repeat of that, so I shouldn’t have said anything. But as much as I’d made my peace with all the new and exciting forms of underwear in my life, it couldn’t ever be like that again or I wouldn’t be able to do it.

“Well, I guess I won’t have to remind you I’m not perfect for a while,” Mary said.

“Guess not, but you’re so close,” I said trying to lighten the mood.

“How close?”

“This close?” I held my thumb and forefinger an inch apart.

Mary got a funny look on her face, like she had an evil idea and was seconds away from launching it out into the world. “That reminds me,” she said with her finger on her chin like she was pondering, “I’ve been meaning to ask: how big is Daphne,” she positively exclaimed and threw her arms up high.

“Maryyy, nooo!” Not gonna play that game. Nuh uh. “I’m not a little girl,” I felt compelled to remind her. People who are not little girls have no need to announce how big they are, except occasionally when I need to remind Mary six times a week.

“Okay,” she said, “you’re right. You are not a little girl. But now I think I owe you a dry diaper.”

“Can I wear panties?”

“Nope.”

“Shocker.”

“Why doesn’t my big girl scoot down to the end of the bed, and I’ll get out one of your big girl diapers to change you into to, because you’re a big girl.” Gee, and there I was thinking the word ‘diaper’ couldn’t get any worse, but Mary found a way. She winked at me. I know when someone is shining me on! I know when I’m being patronized! Especially when the person doing it winks at me.

“You know what I think,” I said as petulantly as I could, “I think you’re the one who belongs in diapers.”

“What did you say, Daffy,” as she walked into the closet, “because it sounded like ‘please paddle me until I don’t know my own name anymore.’”

“I said nothing.” She must’ve heard the wind. I don’t talk much, as you know. I’m very laconic. People always say, there goes Daphne, so reserved and quiet...

“We’re almost out,” she said as she rummaged. “Which ones did you like most?”

“Huh?”

“Diapers. I need to order some more. Any preference?”

“How many did you go through?” See what I did there?

“Not that many. Sandy ordered us a bunch of samples. Which were your favorites?”

“Um, none?”

“Well,” she said as she emerged holding a diaper and changing supplies, “which did you dislike most?” Mary’s Cheshire Cat smiley face.

“That’s the best deal I’m getting?”

“And a very generous one.”

“I know what you’re doing,” I said, not intending to let her think she was getting away with getting me to buy into this stuff actively.

“I’m changing the big girl’s diaper,” she said without missing a beat and tore the tapes open. “Because it’s all full of tinkle.”

“Marrrryy!” I really don’t like even semi-vulgar words about bodies and bodily functions, but really, ‘tinkle?’

“Fine, fine,” she said. “I’ll pick out your diapees for you.”

“I reserve the right to complain about what you pick.” Beginning with the fact that they’re diapers.

“I reserve the right to clip your pretty paci to your onesie and put a stop to that complaining.”

“I remember when you used to just spank me.”

“I remember when you used to put up a fight about this.”

Aw, bite me. “I still don’t like the diapers.”

“I know, I know. But you still like this more than my office this afternoon.”

“Right ... It’s all relative, and there’s no contradiction ... Ztop smirking!”

“Ha! There. Adorabibble,” she pronounced me as she sealed the fourth tape.

“I know,” I said, resigned to my adorability. “What time is it anyway?”

“Not quite six. What do you want to do for dinner?”

“Takeout.”

“How about Chinese and a movie?”

“Something sappy but not too sappy.”

“A good snuggle movie for my little girl.”

“I’m not a little girl,” I said wearily. How many times? Seriously? We can just get them all over with at once if that’ll help.

“You’re my little girl, Daffodil.”

“When did you become such a big?”

“What? I’m not,” she said incredulously, like the idea had never entered her mind.

“You’re holding a wet diaper, and it was your idea.” Let her be on defense for once. Ha!

“Ya know,” she said looking not nearly so confident as she was seven seconds ago, “not that it isn’t a fair question, but I’m invoking my right to decide no more heavy discussions today.”

“What right?”

“My right as the person who does the spanking.”

“O, yeah.” The power of the veto rests in the paddle.

“So,” she asked as she carried that diaper to the bathroom wastebasket, “which would you rather choose tonight: the appetizer or the movie?”

“Both.”

“Both?!? Why should you get to choose both?”

“Because you love me.”

I wonder what questions Nana would have if she ever actually saw us behind fully closed doors. I mean, I have questions. Overhearing Mary with Nana, it sounds like Mary has questions, and now that I’d called Mary out on her part in our shift toward ageplay, she probably had a bunch more. I don’t think it could ever make sense to Nana. Makes us all the more lucky (most of the time) that she just accepts it.

“Do you think Nana wants to come to a movie night some time,” I asked. The three of us don’t really do stuff together besides sit on the patio and have the occasional dinner.

“Why not tonight,” Mary asked. Sweet thing that she is, she said it earnestly, as though it was the perfect night for that, me dressed as I was.

“Um, lots of reasons,” I said as I watched Mary get the rainbow onesie out. I took my shirt off.

“I think she’s a little past the phase of being surprised or embarrassed by your attire. You do know you were parading around in just a diaper in front of her today?”

“And shoes and socks.” And only because I needed a hug more than I needed pants, which I didn’t say because I didn’t want to open that can of crap again.

“Well, she really isn’t fazed at all by it, but if it makes you shy, we’ll invite her next time.”

“Good. Another thing.”

“What’s that,” she asked before bringing the onesie down over my head.

“If I hafta wear a diaper, I don’t think I should hafta pause the movie for you.”

“Oh! You are such a little devil!”

“I am not! I’m a big smartass.”

“That too. Stand up.”

Hate to say it, but for not having taken any measurements, Nana did a really good job on that onesie. Snug but not too snug in the right places.