Mary and Daphne #75 (Patreon)

Penises are weird, but I will give them credit for functionality. They can function the hell away from me, but going snowshoeing and Mary needing to pee was funny as heck. The snow was deeper in the shade, and she came back from this stand of trees red in the face and looking like a wave of humidity was coming out of her coat collar. I can say from experience when you’re wearing more than one layer and the snow is deep and you’re a woman, it takes skill and a certain degree of physical fitness to pee in the show without (A) peeing into your clothes bunched up below you and (B) putting your butt (and other stuff) into the snow. One slip, and you’ll have a life–long memory. And your dad will tell the story every time you go camping for the rest of your damn life. Um, so I’ve heard.

“Get yourself a little workout there,” I asked with my very own Cheshire Cat smile. Usually I’m just the mouse.

“Thighs of steel, Daffodil.” She exaggerates, and I should know. I spend up to an hour a week draped over those thighs. They’re more like … some kind of softer steel. Don’t ya hate it when a simile gets away from ya?

“No buns of ice? I could warm them up for you,” I offered. “I know how and everything.”

“O yeah? And how is that?”

“It involves circular motions and squeezin’ stuff.”

“We still need to use that sauna before we leave; maybe you could show me in there. How you doing, Daffy? You wanna keep going or turn back”

Truth? I learned, entirely without meaning to and against my will, that diapers have remarkable insulating properties. That was the only part of me that wasn’t at least a little cold, and that was before I, um … stuff. But after, um, other stuff before we left.

I wasn’t mad about it. Well, I wasn’t mad, but I was little up to here with the bullshit excuses (my hand is at my forehead now). I wish she’d just straight say she was doing it to bedevil me and make me turn all the reds, but no. Mary Queens of Pretexts told me, “Think of it like a hand warmer … except down your pants.” I’m from Wisconsin. Mary is not the first person to think of putting a hand warmer down their pants. Heck, she’s not even the first person to think about putting a hand warmer down my pants. She was just the first, so far as I know, to fashion one out of oatmeal. “Besides, it is good for your butt. You still have my name on your right cheek.”

“I got that when we got married,” I reminded her. “You just needed the right tool … Like invisible ink.” And it is good for my butt, I sadly learned. Don’t know if it will make marks fade sooner, but it does make my skin softer. I noticed all on my own, but Mary also pointed it out to me with a certain glee in her voice while she was tickling … things.

“Kinda ready to start heading back,” I said in the present up on the mountain. We just walked down the street we’re staying on until we got to a trailhead and started going up. More up and over, I guess.

“We’d better check your if pants can last that long.”

O look! Another pretext! I wasn’t opposed to getting felt up in the woods (that’s why god invented leaves – so frisky forest creatures could have a little privacy), and even without the leaves on the trees, we were alone. I think. The snow was muffling sounds so for all I knew we were within ten yards of someone, but I doubt it. I think only Mary is gung–ho enough to look at a foot of new snow and insist on going for a walk. Skiing, sure, but we were hoofing it, and it was some serious work. Remind me not to sit on my ass in a pandemic for ten months before the next time we go snowshoeing.

“Cross your arms,” Mary told me.

“Why?”

“Gonna get cold.” And zip! Count ‘em: one and two layers around my knees. She left one layer up. Well, two if you count the diaper, which was hers.

“Mary! Have you lost your mind?!?”

“How could I check your pampers through all those layers?”

“Buhduhbaduh frgn frauer hoffen, Mary!” It was clear as a bell in my head, and luckily that’s where it stayed because I’d have been in soooo much trouble if she understood even half of the curses and epithets I sent her way.

“You’re so cute when you’re all sputtering and red faced.”

“Marrrrrry! I’m cold!” I tried to stomp my foot, but that’s not so easy in a snowshoe. I sorta did the mime version of stomping my foot, or everything but the stomp. So I guess I just straightened my knee a little, but in a way that asserted my bodily sovereignty, I think … dammit …

“I’d better get to checking then,” Mary said and ignored my not-a-stomp. And then she did that things with the cupping and the patting and the squeezing (glaven). “It’s hard to feel anything through this long underwear. Or maybe it’s the mittens.”

But I, um, like the mittens. They’re, um, big. “Mary, I promise you can grope me any way you want back at the cabin, just please pull my pants back up!”

“What’s the magic word?”

“MARY!!!!!” Well, that worked in a hurry. I don’t go there often with the tone, but then she doesn’t pants me in the snow often either (GRRR!!!!!)!

“Worried someone’s gonna see your pampers through your long undies,” she asked me with that sorry–I–couldn’t–resist sympathy smile of hers that doesn’t always make up for her more impulsive ideas.

“They’re. Not. Mine!” She did that thing where she puts her mouth on mine and there’s tongue and it’s just … it’s a whole thing. Really.

“Let’s go,” she said with one of her goofy and super sweet smiles on her face like she’s happy to be alive just because I’m with her. “Hold my hand?”

“Why?”

“Because I wanna hold your hand, you silly snow goose. You’re not very trusting today,” she said to me. Can you believe that? Me? Not trusting? I don’t know why I wouldn’t be. Besides the extremely obvious. I like a good game of Poke Daphne in Her Tickle Spots as much as the next person who also likes that game, but I kinda felt like I was playing an exhibition game and she was playing to win.

“There’s no such thing as snow geese.”

“You’re waddling like one.”

“Am not! I’m … shifting my weight.” I was wearing layers, people. Besides, I sat down before we left. There’s less waddling after, when the oatmeal is … dammit.

We walked (showshoed?) back to the cabin and got inside and felt that instant wave of heat again where it’s like you’re your very own mobile steam bath and started peeling off layers in the entry way. “I feel gross again,” I complained. Snowshoeing is work, and I wore one too many layers (two too many, if you count Mary’s diaper). “I’m wet and cold and hot all at the same time.”

“Want to go get cleaned up?”

“Very much please.”

“Wanna try putting some snow down your diaper first?”

“How ‘bout no … and it’s yours.”

“Daffodils say the darndest things. Let’s go.” We walked through the living room and into the bedroom. “Be right back.”

I got on the bed and grabbed the blanket I’d taken from the living room and put it around me. We’ve decided it’s coming home with us (or I’ve decided and it will be too late when Mary finds out). Not sure why I like it so much. It’s just very soft and has a good weight to it. She came back with a towel and immediately proceeded to chuckle at my expense.

“You wanna take that with you when we leave,” Mary asked.

“What?”

“Your blankie.”

“It’s not my … shut up,” I said as I squirmed and got comfy. The overheatedness was gone and the warm–fuzzy heatedness had taken its place accompanied by the I–snowshoed–up–a–mountain tiredness.

“I’ll message the owner and ask. I bet she says yes when I tell her my little girl loves it.”

“Marrry (yawn) I’m not.”

“(Yawn) Don’t you start yawning or I’ll (yawn) start. Lift.” She spread the towel under me. “Hold your (yawn) blanket outta the way. See what you did?”

I laid there and let her clean me up, which was fitting since for one, I am a princess, and for two, she’s the one who made the mess. Oatmeal belongs in horses.

“Hold your knees for me … Not sure how much worse this can be than the real thing.”

“Mary, it is the real thing. It is genuine, authentic, steel cut, instant oatmeal, and the way I can tell is that I smell like breakfast, which is bad enough.”

“I just mean it’s thi…”

“Don’t, for the love of jebus, don’t say it!”

“Thick?”

“Urgghwww … One of these days I’m just gonna do it to teach you a lesson about fantasy versus reality … That’s not your fantasy, is it?” Because we talked about fantasies way back when, and I’d remember if that came up. It’d be burned into my brain.

“No … And look at the pretty girl under this mess!” She made that I’m–having–so–much–fun face of hers followed by her I’m–getting–lost–in–the–task–at–hand face. Literally the task at her hand (me, a/k/a my princess parts for those of you who need it spelled out).

And I put the blanket over my head because I needed a moment alone.

“You’re squirming,” Mary chuckled. I poked my head out.

“You’re … mmmm.”

“You can fib all you want, but I know how much you like your diapee changes.”

“That’s hhh! Inci–hhh!–den…tal. It’s just … mmmmm …”

Then Miss Mary, Mistress of Tease and Denial, Duchess of Almost, Queen of All The Not–Quites decided, “All done … Don’t chew on your blankie, sweetie.”

Well, I needed something to bite down on. Stupid morgasm (that’s when you need just a leettle more and don’t get it).

“But (yawn) … sigh.”

“(Yawn) there you (yawn) go again. Let’s get you padded up before we both fall asleep.”

“Can I just sleep like this?”

“After you just threatened to poop your pampers? I don’t think so, little lady.”

“That’s a (yawn) motivated interpre–(yawn)–tation of what I said.” An argument that didn’t stop her from putting another of those things on me. She was taking an awful lot of liberties with me on that vacation. “Where are you going now,” I asked as she got off the bed.

“Start some laundry.”

“Just get in,” I said and rolled to my left side and lifted the blanket up.

“Aww, you wanna share your blankie with me?”

“Spoons don’t talk.” She got under the blanket with me and did her job as the big spoon.

“You were a good girl this morning,” she whispered in my ear. “I think we both deserve a treat when (yawn) we wake up.”

“Quiet you (yawn).”