Bargained For [Tier 2/3 Exclusive] (Patreon)

I resent the notion that my taste is “tacky.” Even “eclectic” feels a little condescending.

I like what I like, and what I like sometimes just so happens to be the stuff that everyone else...neglects? Forgets about? When I go to a thrift shop or an antiques store and I see some too-bold-for-its-time mid-century chair, my heart practically skips a beat. Seventy’s “bachelor pad” furnishings? I’m practically wet.

So I see this wooden box at the thrift store. I can’t really place where or when it's from. It's kind of gaudy - it’s got that waxy semi-transparent wood stain on it that’s been out of style for at least forty years, with some shiny gemstone-like objects inlaid in the lid. It’s the kind of ugly that seems to transcend all eras. Was there ever a time when someone wanted this?

I tried opening the box, only to find that it was locked. There didn’t seem to be a key with it either - not unheard of for some of these things. It was probably lost decades ago. I gently shook the box, hearing something small and hard rattling around.

If the damn thing didn’t cost only a single dollar, I probably wouldn’t have been so curious. What if there was treasure inside of it?

“What’s with this?” I asked the older man at the counter. “Is there a key?”

“If there was a key,” he said, “it’d be attached to the box.”

“Can you tell me anything about this?”

I handed it to him and he flipped it over in hands a few times in his hands. “We see things like this often. Maybe it was a jewelry box? Maybe some guy got some new tools once and just decided to make an ugly box for their wife?”

That wasn’t especially helpful, but I’m not sure what I was expecting for him to have said.

“It’s got something inside of it,” I said.

“Well it’s only a dollar. Take it home, crack it open, and maybe you’ll find something worth more than a buck.”

He didn’t say anything that I wasn’t already thinking myself, but it was probably the nudge I needed to buy it.

--

“What if it’s a bone?” asked Andre.

“What kind of bone?”

“I don’t know. Like, a finger bone?”

“So you think that at some point someone loses their finger and they decide to just toss it in a box and lock it?”

“I’m just saying: What if?”

“A finger has multiple bones,” I said. “There’s only one object rattling around in here.”

“It’s just the tip of the finger then.”

“It’s not a finger.”

“If it’s a finger, you owe me lunch.”

“If it’s a finger then I’m going to throw up my breakfast.”

“Alright, fine. What’s your guess then, Rose?”

“Listen,” I said, shaking the box. We could hear the small object clanging around inside of it. “It sounds...metallic. And flat.”

“Flat?”

“Like a coin? It sounds like a coin rattling around in there.”

“Okay, great. So you’re going to get a quarter. And then you’re down 75 cents on this investment.”

He was probably right, though I wasn’t about to let that deter me. I didn’t care what it was - I just needed to see it. I had spent the last 20 minutes trying to pick the lock with some wire and a screwdriver. But I was no thief, nor was a locksmith. The answer was the other object sitting on the table - a hammer. I felt bad breaking the box. But...it was unlikely that i was ever going to display it. Had I not bought it, who knows how long it would’ve languished on a shelf until it was inevitably thrown away. If anything, I was putting the box out of its misery.

“Alright. I’m gonna do it,” I said, grasping the hammer.

“Don’t hurt yourself,” he said. “That’d be an embarrassing injury.”

I lifted the hammer up about six inches above the front of the lid, near where the lock was on the front of the box. I gave it a pretty mild strike, which did absolutely nothing but put a dent in the thick shellac of the lid.

“You’ve got to hit it harder than that,” Andre said.

Captain Obvious’s commentary was annoying, but it wasn’t like I could kick my roommate out of his own kitchen. I took a deep breath and lifted the hammer again, this time arching my arm back over my shoulder.

THWACK!

The entire front of the box, lock and all, busted free in about 23 cheap-wooden pieces of various size. Mission accomplished.

“The moment of truth,” Andre said, beating his fingers on the table like a drum roll.

I tipped the busted box forward, and the object slid out into my hand.

It was a small key.

Andre immediately burst into laughter.

“What?” I asked. “What's so funny? It’s a key!”

“It’s probably the key to the box!”

It seemed kind of paradoxal to me, but - admittedly - it would’ve been amusing if he was right. I picked up the piece of wood that held the embedded lock, trying to press the key into it. No good, it didn’t fit.

“Well. That’s kind of worthless then,” I said, tossing the key onto the table.

“There’s nothing else in the box?”

“No, there’s nothing else in the box, it’s just a…” My fingertips suddenly felt something else inside the busted box. A scrap of folded paper that hadn’t shaken out earlier. I quickly snatched it out, unfolding so I could see if this was a clue as to the purpose of the key.

It was, best I could tell, an address. Or at least part of an address.

2365 Old Oak Lane

Andre took the paper from me to look at it himself.

“That’s not very helpful at all,” he shrugged. “A dead end as far as I’m concerned.”

I remained optimistic that this was something. Maybe it wasn’t much of anything, but it was my dollar and, dammit, I wanted this to be an adventure.

Some late-night Google research led me to a few possible leads. While there may not have been an Old Oak Lane in our town, There were two neighboring areas with Old Oak Lanes. Actually just one - the other turned out to be an Old Oak Road, which I had to assume was something different.

So there was just one lead now. Adventure!

Next came, possibly, the hardest part. Did I just show up at this address with a random key and say “Hey, I got this out of a box I bought at a thrift store. I also broke the box. Do you want your key back?” Also, in this fantasy interaction I’d add: “Could you please tell me what this key is for?”

--

Andre wanted nothing to do with it. In his, possibly over-dramatic words: “There is absolutely no way in hell that I’m going to drag my ass over to Leesport just so you can knock on the door of some strangers house and tell them that you got a completely insignificant key in a dollar thrift store buy. For what? For said stranger to reveal that they're an axe murderer and drag you out back to their shed where they’ll…”

He went on like that for a while. Honestly, it’s probably not that important to recap the entirety of his rant. Needless to say, I went out on my own.

Andre wasn’t completely without a point. What did I hope to achieve from showing up with this key? Best case scenario, someone would accept the key out of politeness and throw it in the trash after I drove off. But it was only a 15 minute drive, I had nothing better to do and...well, I was curious.

It was a modest house on a modest street. With newer housing developments springing up all over the area, it was always nice to stumble into a little neighborhood like this. I could imagine kids playing on the streets in the summer. Maybe everyone knew each other.

For all the gusto that propelled me to the house on this slip of paper, I was having a hard time getting out of the car. This really did feel like a fool’s errand. There was a very good chance that I was the only person in the entire world who cared about this key.

So long as I was there, I decided, I might as well take the key up to the house. Maybe I didn’t need to knock on the door - I could just leave it in the mailbox.

Cautiously, I stepped onto the house’s porch. It was a relatively clean house and yard, and the porch was minimally accentuated with just a small table and a pair of chairs. I wondered what kind of people lived here.

I went back and forth between knocking on the door and dropping the key through the mail slot on the door. My hand would reach out and pause before retracting. Over and over.

“Can I help you?”

A young man had stepped out from around the side of the house. He couldn’t have been much older than me - maybe in his late 20s. With his short hair and pink cheeks, there was a boyish cuteness to him that I almost could’ve been into if I ran into him at a bar on a Friday night.

“Oh...hi.” If nothing else, I was happy that the decision about how to deliver the key had been made for me. “This is going to sound really weird, but I think I have something of yours?”

His head tilted in curiosity, yet there was something else in his reaction. A hint of excitement?

“O-oh? What is it?”

“Well, I’m from down the road over in Ronson? And I was at this thrift store yesterday and I bought this little wooden box for a buck…”

A small smile was growing on his face.

“...and it was locked and, well, I’m sorry about the box - I kind of broke that with a hammer. If you want the pieces they’re in a bag back in my car. But what I really wanted to tell you about was that I found a key in the box? And there was a little piece of paper in the box with this address on it.”

“Wow,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief. “I...I can’t believe you found it. If you wouldn’t mind, I...I’d really like to see that key so that I could…”

He never got to finish that thought. The front door suddenly opened, with a woman standing inside, on the other side of the screen door. I sensed that she was a little older than the young man, but certainly not old enough to be his mother.

“Hello,” she said in a kind voice, flashing a warm smile. “Can we help you?”

“Oh,” I said, finding myself caught off guard by her sudden appearance, “I was just saying to your…” I was going to address the man as her husband, but I didn’t want to assume anything. I decided to start over: “I was just saying that I live over in Ronson and I was at this thrift store yesterday and…”

“In Ronson, you said?” the woman asked, cutting me off.

“Yeah. Uh...Throwback Thrift?”

She nodded. “Would you like to...come inside?”

“Well, I don’t know if that's necessary. I just have your key here and I was thinking I could just drop it off and be on my way.”

“You could do that, if you’d like to,” the woman said. I glanced back to the man, but he was already gone. “But...I suspect you didn’t drive out here just to drop off the key.”

“I...don’t follow,” I said. “What else would I do?”

“You could’ve mailed the key back,” she said. “Or just threw it out. Honestly, I almost wish you had. But, no, you decided to drive out here and bring it to us yourself. That was very kind of you, don’t get me wrong. But am I wrong to say that you’ve got a curious spirit?”

I laughed, “Well...you got me there. So I’m going to guess you know what the key is for?”

“I know exactly what the key is for. I could...show you. If you’d like.” She opened the screen door, an invitation for me to enter.

“No offense,” I said, “but I’m not crazy about that idea.”

“What if I promise not to murder you?”

I sighed. That was hardly reassuring. But I was getting more and more curious. I quickly got out my phone and sent a text to Andre: Going inside this house on 2365 Old Oak Lane. I’d like to think I’m going to be safe, but just in case… If you don’t hear from me in a few hours, look for my body here.

Almost immediately, he texted back: I swear to God, if you don’t get killed by these strangers, I’m going to kill you myself.

Good, that was out of the way.

“I suppose I could let my curiosity get the best of me,” I finally said.

“Good. I’ll make some tea.”

It was always nice to be in a house that felt more “adult.” When I thought about the apartments of myself and my friends, I thought of second-hand furniture and IKEA projects as far as the eye could see. No coordination. No aesthetic. In this home, everything felt deliberate. The furniture’s colors complimented the wall colors. Art hung from the wall in frames that were almost as interesting as the art themselves. No piles of magazines. No river of power cords and USB wires stretching out from all available outlets. There wasn’t even a TV in this room. Where was it? The den? I dreamed of one day having a seating area in my home that didn’t have a TV in it.

“My name is Dorothy,” the woman said. “You met Walter earlier.”

“It’s nice to meet you. I’m Rose.”

“Likewise, it’s nice to have met you as well, Rose.”

“Was that your...husband?”

“Walter?” she laughed. “No. He would probably like that though. He’s…” she put a hand to her chin in thought, “...I’m not sure what I’d call him. A friend? A project?”

Project? That was curious.

“Do you want the key?” I asked.

“Why don’t you hold onto it for a few minutes. I’d like to show you what it belongs to first.” She turned to the kitchen: “Walter? Are you over there, dear? Could you please come here?”

Slowly, Walter emerged from somewhere behind Dorothy, shuffling into the living room. It was hard to put my finger on just how, but there was something peculiar about his walking - like every step was somehow restricted.

“Our new friend Rose here is curious about what the key belongs to.”

Walter’s cheeks seemed to get a little brighter. “Oh...well...that’s not really that important, is it?” he asked.

Dorothy scoffed and rolled her eyes. “Alright, I suppose I’ll do it. Walter, be a good little doll and fetch us some tea? I have the kettle on the stove.”

She took a seat on the couch across from the one I sat in.

“Walter and I play a little game,” she finally said. “A scavenger hunt of sorts. I like to take his key, you see, and hide it on him. The longer we play this game, the more elaborate my hiding spots get.”

“So...you stuck his key in a box and gave it to a thrift store and hoped that someday...somebody...would not only find this box, but buy it? Then open it? Then be willing to return the key?”

Dorothy nodded.

“But, what if nobody ever bought the box. It was a pretty ugly box. Or what if…”

“It’s a risky game,” Dorothy said with a chuckle. “And quite honestly, I had expected it to have ended once I dropped off the box to the shop. You being here now defies all of the odds.”

“How long was it at the thrift store?”

Dorothy smiled and slowly turned her head to the kitchen. Walter was just returning with a serving tray in his hands. Atop the tray was a teapot, two tea cups, some sugar and some honey. He placed it down on the coffee table between the two couches.

“Walter, honey, could you please tell Ms. Rose here how long it’s been since the last time you saw your little key?”

His face flushed red again. “I...uh. Well…” He cleared his throat and started over. “It’s been…eight months, two weeks and four days.”

“Not that anyone is counting,” Dorothy added with a chuckle.

The implication was clear - regardless of what it was that this key went to, it seemed rather important to Walter. I tried to imagine what it could be. Money? Some of his belongings, locked in a box?

“Well, I’m sure we’ve kept you in suspense for long enough, Rose. It’d be selfish of us to soak up much more of your time with all this beating around the bush, so to speak. You’d like to see what the key belongs to, yes?”

The tension had only made it more mysterious and more intriguing. I had another thought, too. There seemed to be some sort of power dynamic at play here, and when combined with the little game they were playing, it seemed to point towards something...darker.

What else could I say except: “Yes, please.”

“Rose...I should warn you. This isn’t some innocent little game. This is…” she trailed off, searching for the words.

“Adult?” I said.

“Perceptive,” she said.

“I still don’t know what the hell y’all are up to. I just know that it’s weird.”

“But you haven’t left,” Dorothy pointed out.

“I’m pretty sure you’re not going to kill me. If the worst you’re going to do is weird me the fuck out, I think I can handle it.”

Dorothy laughed. Even Walter cracked a smile. “Well, my friend, prepare to get, as you said, ‘weirded the fuck out.’ Walter? Could you please show her what the key is for?”

Walter began unbuckling his belt. My mind spun, trying to quickly build a list of possibilities as to what he could possibly be about to show me. I couldn’t think of a single thing. Even if I had been given hours to construct a list, I still wouldn’t have guessed it. Walter was pulling his pants down now. I was scared to look, but there was no way that I’d be able to look away.

“A...diaper?” I didn’t say the words so much as they just fell out of my mouth.

Walter’s face was the brightest shade of pink I had seen yet.

My hand tightened around the key. While this revelation had completely blindsided me, I felt like I was tumbling deeper into a rabbithole that I didn’t ask to fall down - all the while my real question was still going unanswered.

“We have an arrangement,” Dorothy said. “He stays in his diapers until he has his key back.”

“Okay,” I said, starting to get a little impatient. “But...the key is for…?”

She laughed. “So I show you my pathetic little Walter in diapers, and that’s not enough to deter you from your purpose?”

She was right - I was looking for something so specific that I had barely even processed that this adult man was wearing a large diaper. It hit me like a tidal wave. Holy shit, this guy is wearing a diaper. It was white with pastel blue and pink designs on it. I’ve heard of adult diapers - but I didn’t think they just looked like giant baby diapers. Of course I was curious. Of course I had questions.

I suspected she could observe that I had reached such an epiphany.

“Normally,” she said, “we’d be leaving his diaper on until he needs to be changed, but…”

My mouth dropped open again. Changed? Does that mean that he…

“Oh, look at your little face,” Dorothy said with a little chuckle. “I’m sure this is a lot.”

“G-go on,” I said. Fuck the key. I wanted to know everything that was going on in this weird house.

“Walter, Baby, we’re going to have to take your diaper off for a minute,” Dorothy said, turning her attention back to him for a moment. “We need to show Rose something.”

He said nothing, standing still to let her do what she needed to do. One at a time, she peeled back the four plastic tape strips that seemed to hold the diaper on him. With each tape’s stretchy sticky sound, I grew more nervous about what I was about to see underneath it. By the time the diaper fell off his body and flopped to the ground, I had braced myself. I was ready for anything.

It seemed to be a cage, of some sort, trapping only his penis within it. His soft flesh poked out from the little metal bars of the cage pathetically. I was vaguely aware of things like this existing, but it just seemed so far out of my own little world that it might as well have been an alien artifact.

“I’m sure you can guess what the key is for now,” Dorothy said.

The key? Oh fuck, the key!

“Wait, so this key is for his...uh...cage?”

“Indeed it is.” Dorothy grabbed the cage in her hand, giving it a playful shake. Walter looked more humiliated than he did uncomfortable. I supposed I would be too if my pants were pulled down in front of a stranger while I wore a diaper.

Finally, all the pieces of the puzzle were laid out in front of me and I could start putting it altogether. There were two people playing a strange twisted game, with a man’s ability for sexual release at stake. And here I was, inadvertently stumbling into it because I liked cheap things at thrift stores.

I started stretching my hand out towards the two of them to offer it back. I thought of what Walter had said earlier, about the key having been missing for over eight months, and I couldn’t even imagine not having the ability to get off for that long. It wasn’t even a choice for him - he just couldn’t.

But something happened as my hand began to lift. In the blur of thoughts in my mind, a new one had emerged and rammed its way to the front.

How badly did he want this? What would a man do to get something like this back?

How much power was I holding in my hand right now?

I retracted my hand. Dorothy and Walter both seemed very aware of this deliberate move, and while Walter’s mouth dropped open a little, a wide grin had spread across Dorothy’s face.

“How badly do you want this key?” I asked.

“Why, Miss Rose,” Dorothy said, “I did not see this happening.”

I didn’t ignore her as much as I remained focused on Walter, staring into his timid eyes.

“B-but...I’ve waited for months for this key,” he said. It was more of a whine. “I...I’ve wanted nothing but release for all this time. I...I didn’t even think the key was going to come back and...and...c-could I just...have it?”

I slipped the key into my pocket. To be honest, I had no idea what I was doing here. I didn’t necessarily know what I expected him to offer. I was pretty sure I wouldn’t want anything that he could offer, for that matter.

“What will you do for it?” I asked.

“A-anything.”

I looked to Dorothy - I wasn’t even sure why. Was I looking for her to corroborate that claim? Or did I just want to see her reaction to it? She seemed very smug.

“Anything?” I said. “That seems dangerous, doesn’t it?”

“M-maybe I don’t have anything to lose,” he muttered.

He had, in a way, called my bluff. I knew nothing about this world of his, and I wouldn’t have known the first thing about how to extort it.

“Educate me,” I said. “Did you ask for this?”

“This?”

“This...game? This lifestyle?”

He sighed. “Y-yes. This was my idea.”

“And the rules are - if I’m understanding correctly - that you get your penis locked up in a cage, she goes and hides the key somewhere, and then you wait around in diapers until the key comes back?”

“I...I suppose that’s about it.”

“Do you use your diapers?”

“I...I have to. She makes me.”

“But you said this was your idea.”

“I...well...yeah…”

“So she’s not making you so much as she’s...enforcing your own requests?”

Dorothy laughed.

“I-I guess so…” he said.

“So, really, should I feel bad about having your key? This is the desperation that you sought, right?”

Right there - right in front of both Dorothy and I - a small stream of urine trickled out of his caged dick, dribbling straight down to the ground. Some of it, coincidentally, would land in his open diaper. Some of it just splattered on the floor.

“He’s been in diapers full-time for quite a while,” Dorothy said. “And prior to this round, he’s had plenty of long stretches in them from others. So you’ll have to forgive him if he doesn’t exactly know how to hold it anymore.”

“Like a baby,” I mused.

Dorothy nodded.

“Then maybe,” I continued, “you don’t deserve to have the key back.”

“W-WHAT!”

I was thinking on my feet, and had little time to really mull things over. But the tighter I gripped Walter’s key, the more I could feel something within me growing stronger - a side of myself that I didn’t even know I had before.

“I could just leave,” I said. “Maybe I should.”

“I’m telling you!” Walter cried out, the desperation in his voice became thicker. “I’ll do anything!”

I looked over to Dorothy and her smug face. She was absolutely loving the chaos she had sowed. I simultaneously felt like a fish out of water and the most powerful person on Earth. I was so completely out of my element, but I didn’t even care. Eventually, I’d walk out of this house and go back and home and I’d leave all this behind. I wouldn’t ever have to see them again, and we’d all be left with only memories of this day. Why wouldn’t I have fun with that?

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s do something. “I want to see you at your most...babyish. Infantile? I want to see you at your most pathetic.”

He tried to reply, but he just spat out a few half-words. Honestly, it kind of sounded like babyish babbling to me.

“Shall I take him upstairs and dress him up for you?” Dorothy asked.

“Are the choices?” I asked. “I’d...like to see. I’ll pick.”

“Very good,” she said. “Let’s go.”

I expected, maybe, some sort of weird BDSM dungeon; or some infantalized “nursery” like something I might have seen on TV once. But it was just a small bedroom. A small bedroom that smelled of baby powder and faintly of stale piss...but just a pretty run of the mill bedroom. I was almost disappointed that this wasn’t some fantastical kink playland.

But then Dorothy slid open the closet door. There it was. The piles and piles of diapers. Paddles. Leashes. Strange harnesses and things with straps that I couldn’t even begin to imagine the use for. Pastel colored clothes, some hanging up and some stacked nicely in little piles.

“Take a look,” Dorothy said. “If anything strikes your fancy, set aside.”

It was an overwhelming amount of choices in a world that I knew next to nothing about. But the more I looked through the options, the more I realized that it didn’t matter what I knew about it. This was for me, and we were playing by my rules. I wanted to pick the silliest things. The most ridiculous. The cutest. He was my doll, just as he had been for Dorothy.

I pulled one of the hangers out of the closet - it was a pastel pink dress with lacy white frills wrapped around the bottom of it. It looked like something I would’ve been made to wear to church when I was six years old.

“I didn’t realize Walter was a little girl.”

“He’s not,” Dorothy said. “He’s a little sissy - but that’s different. He could never be worthy of being called an actual girl.”

I nodded, quite content with that answer. I put the dress on the bed - that was a winner.

And that’s how the next 30 minutes went - with me methodically going through their collection and arranging what I felt was the most perfect outfit. Occasionally Dorothy would chime in with a little story or context for a particular piece. The collar he wore so he could be chained up in the backyard while Dorothy’s lover came over. The dress he was wearing to a fetish ball. The plastic panties that he won as part of a Little Miss Sissy competition, whatever that was.

With everything picked out, Dorothy decided to get Walter into his new ensemble. She offered me the chance to help, but I opted to just watch instead. His remaining clothes - at this point, just his shirt and socks - were stripped off and tossed aside.

He laid down on the bed, and I handed Dorothy the diaper I had selected. Bright pink with little cartoon princesses on them. She unfurled it, and eased it under his bottom while expertly lifting his lower body up by his legs. It reminded me of the way my mother changed my baby brother’s diaper when I was much younger. Seeing her easy manhandling of his body with almost the same exact motions my mother used only served to reiterate just how close to an actual toddler he had actually become.

She doused his bottom and caged penis with baby powder. She looked to me and I motioned for her to shake some more on for good measure; a request she was happy to oblige.

I had an idea. A wicked idea. While Walter stared up at the ceiling, I quietly got Dorothy’s attention and showed her something. She nodded, looking as happy as I was about this plan.

With the diaper taped up and sealed around him, a pair of puffy cloth panties were pulled over his diaper. Then pastel pink leggings. Then, white knee-high socks with adorable pink ruffles near the opening. These adorable glossed black mary jane shoes - I had been tempted to ask where they got them - were fastened around his feet next. He was made to sit up, then, for the dress to be lowered over his head. And while it didn’t necessarily fit with the ensemble, I couldn’t say no to a bib that had “Mommy’s Little Cocksucker” embroidered on it (custom-made, as Dorothy told me). Then, a bonnet - just because I had never seen anyone actually wear one before and I hoped it would be as cute on Walter as I thought it would be (it was). Then, finally, a pacifier pressed into his mouth.

He stood in the center of his room and Dorothy and I both walked around him, inspecting our handiwork. He looked adorable. He looked pathetic.

He looked perfect.

“Walter hardly seems like a fitting name for such a big baby,” I said.

“If you have a suggestion,” Dorothy said, “I’m all ears.”

“Something...soft. Dumb. Like...Muffin?”

“Ooh. Baby Muffin has a good ring to it.”

We giggled together, taunting and mocking him with his new name.

If it seemed like I had adjusted rather quickly to this bizarre new world...it was because I had definitely become caught up in the excitement of all. It’d come in waves. One moment I’d be laughing while I called this pathetic man-child “Baby Muffin.” The next moment, my heart would race as I battled the existential panic caused by my being there - in a place that felt far outside of my comfort zone.

I took a deep breath, recollecting myself.

“Happy with what you see?” asked Dorothy, seemingly oblivious to my internal conflicts.

“Quite so.”

“Has Baby Muffin earned his key back?” Dorothy asked. She knew better than to think that he had - but she was instigating. It seemed to be what she was best at.

“No,” I said.

Muffin squirmed in frustration, moaning disapproval from behind the pacifier.

“I think there’s something else you can do for me,” I said. I struggled to get the words out of my mouth - it was the sort of thing I had never had to say before. “I...I think you should...use your diaper.”

His eyes widened.

“Like...poop your pants?” I clarified.

His face grew beet red. He glanced to Dorothy. I don’t know what he expected to find in her reaction, but he found no sympathy or leniency there. She simply shrugged.

“She has your key, Baby, not me. If you want it back, you’ll do as she asks.”

He scoffed and huffed. But he was also clearly thinking about it.

“Do you have to go?” asked Dorothy.

He shrugged.

“It could be a while,” she said to me. “Do you want to go downstairs and have some more tea while we wait or…”

“Nuh! Nuh!” Muffin protested.

“Oh?” Dorothy said, her interest piqued. “We don’t actually have to wait?”

He shook his head slowly, like his shame had made his head four times as heavy as it normally was.

“Well this should be quite a show then,” she said to me.

Meanwhile, I took a deep breath. This is okay. This is weird - yes, but it’s okay. Nobody’s getting hurt. He’s making a fool of himself...but he wants that.

I expected a prolonged and labored process, but it was anything but. I wondered if he had been holding it for a while, or if being so close to getting his key back had somehow stimulated his bowels into cooperating. Regardless, he wasted no time in squatting down right in front of us, his face growing a new shade of red as he pushed.

I had never seen a more pathetic sight in all of my life than this grown man dressed like an oversized baby girl, squatting in front of two women while trying to poop his pants so that he could get a key back to unlock his penis. I doubted I’d ever see anything as pathetic again.

There was a muffled rumbling sound from his backside, followed by the sound of - presumably - the rear of his diaper being filled. It felt like it took a minute, though I suspected the whole thing actually played out in less than 10 seconds.

Nobody said anything for a moment. The stench of his diaper was slowly wafting to my nose, and while it was disgusting to me - it brought me some satisfaction to know that I made this happen.

“I don’t suppose you’ll want to change him?” Dorothy asked.

“No...smelling it is bad enough. That may be where my limit lies.”

He spat out his pacifier. It looked to me like there were tears in his eyes.

“Th-there. You got what you wanted, right? Please...I just want the key back.”

Dorothy and I shared a smug look. An especially devilish one.

“I hate to break it to you, Muffin,” I said. “But you do have your key.”

His eyes shifted between the two of us incredulously.  “What do you mean?”

“While I was putting your diaper on you,” Dorothy said. “Rose here had requested that I put the key into your diaper.”

“What? But… Do you mean that I just… I…”

“It’s in there now,” I said with a shrug. “If you want it.”

His face contorted, running through a wide range of emotions. Relief. Despair. Frustration. Regret. Shame.

“We’ll leave you to your diaper,” Dorothy said. “And your key. Enjoy.”

The two of us left the room, closing the door behind us. We went back downstairs. I wondered if we’d talk more, but there didn’t seem to be much else to say. I did my part and I participated in the game - probably more than the two of them had ever expected.

“Would you like to play with him again sometime?” Dorothy asked as I put my jacket back on.

“I don’t know. There was something about holding that key and having that sort of power. I’m not sure if it’d be the same without it.”

Dororthy nodded. “I’m sure I’ll eventually take the key again, and I’ll send it out into the world to see if it makes its way back.”

“If I find it again,” I said. “Then I’ll come back.”

“That’s an interesting challenge for me,” she said. “I’d like to see you find it again.”

“I’ll keep an eye out for it.”

“I hope you do.”

--

I texted Andre: I’m alive! And on my way home now.

Shortly after, he texted back: Well? Was it everything you hoped it would be? Did you get handsomely rewarded?

There was no good way to answer that, and there was certainly no way for me to tell him what had actually transpired in that house without incurring a barrage of judging questions. Maybe, I decided, it’d be best to just keep this to myself.

They appreciated me bringing the key, I texted. But they didn’t know what it was for. Oh well.

He texted back: I told you it was a waste of time.

I spent most of my way home on the verge of pinching myself, not quite certain if it had been real or not. I almost preferred it that way.

In the days and weeks that’d follow, I found that I had no regrets. For as surreal and alien as the day had seemed to be at times, it was the kind of memory that I was happy to have stowed away in my mind. I’d never forget Walter, or Muffin’s, look of sheer determination as he squat before Dorothy and I, nor would I ever get sick of thinking about it.

I was tempted to begin scouring every antique store in a 50 mile radius obsessively. Cracking open every drawer of every piece of furniture and opening every nondescript box that I saw on a shelf. This seemed like an unsatisfying way to live, though, and if I had really wanted to go back and see the two of them again, I knew where they lived.

Instead, I took a break from thrifting and antiquing altogether. If it would be fate that I found the key again - and I wanted it to be dictated by fate and nothing else - I’d find it when I wasn’t looking for it.

And I had a pretty good feeling that I’d find it again one day.