Neighbors, Part Eight (Patreon)

Eight.

Me to Lucy: That’s that. I’m sitting in one very soggy diaper. I guess that means you can talk to me again?

A few minutes passed while I waited for her response. It seemed only fair, given that she had to wait for me. Still - after the rapid-fire chatting we had earlier, even a minute felt like a year.

My attention was split. I would look down at my phone, trying to conjure a response from Lucy. Then, my eyes would dart across the room to the closed bedroom door.

On the other side of that door, Ashley was wearing a diaper. And the most ridiculously cute outfit. And her hair was in pigtails. Fucking pigtails. And Veronica was putting makeup on her. And Veronica either knew, or didn’t yet know, about the diaper.

Though, honestly, how could she not?

I wondered how Veronica would react to the diapers. For so long, I had just assumed that Veronica was uninterested in them - mostly because of my own failed attempt at bringing them into our relationship. But, given everything else that Ashley had been wearing, diapers seemed like a completely natural fit and the obvious next step.

And so, what did I do with that?

I sighed and looked at my phone again. Nothing yet.

There was giggling from the other side of the door. I so badly wanted to see what was happening over there. I wanted to be a part of that.

My phone vibrated, finally. In the nick of time too, as it saved me from sliding into a slightly moodier headspace.

Lucy: It took you long enough. Stage fright?

Interestingly, yes? Among other things - not that she needed to know those details at the moment.

Me: Maybe a little bit. But it's all out now.

Lucy: Good boy. Does it make you wish someone was there to check your diaper? To change you?

Me:  I’m sure you can guess the answer to that.

Lucy: If it makes you feel any better, it’s something I miss, too. It’s been a while since I changed a big baby’s diaper.

Me: Your ex? The one you recently broke up with?

Lucy: Not him, no. That wasn’t his thing. Probably a good thing, too. I’d have left him stewing in his diapers until he got a rash.

Me: Wow. Maybe the worst fate. Was he that bad?

Lucy: No, probably not, ha. We said some mean things to each other while in the midst of breaking up. I guess, at the end of the day, I hope that he finds happiness. But for now I’m still a little miffed with him.

Me: What about you? Are you happy?

Lucy: Happier, at the very least. Getting there. Are you? Happy?

That was a challenging question, and not one I expected to have to answer today.

I was pondering how I’d respond to that when the bedroom door opened and closed again. I looked over to see only Veronica.

She walked to the kitchen, placing two tumblers down before pulling a bottle of riesling from the wine rack to fill both.

“How’s it going?” I asked.

She made a noise. Maybe it was a “hmm” and maybe it was a more annoyed grunt, but I couldn’t exactly make it out.

“It’s good,” she finally said. She was smiling, but I knew her well enough to look past the smile. Something was weighing on her mind.

“Is...everything okay?”

“Did you know about this?” she asked.

“Know about...what?”

“Her diaper?”

I instinctively blushed just hearing the word exit her mouth.

“I...I don’t know what you mean.”

She grinned a little. I wasn’t sure that she bought that. “I don’t think I’m supposed to know,” she said. “But how could I not?”

I shrugged. I’d have offered her reassurance that I knew nothing about it, but that would’ve been a lie - and I think she would’ve seen right through it. As it was, I suspected she assumed I knew more than I was letting on.

“Are you upset about it?” I asked.

“Upset? No.”

“Then what?”

She laughed, placing the wine bottle down on the counter. She turned and began walking towards me. I don’t think she intended to come off as intimidating, but with no idea what she was doing, I found myself on edge.

Standing before me, she gently reached down and tapped my crotch. There was a telltale “thap-thap-thap” sound. The sound of tapping on a thick wet diaper.

“I’m surrounded by babies, it seems. Perhaps I was wrong not to see the appeal much sooner?”

She spun on her heel and returned to the kitchen, grabbing the two glasses of wine. She gave me one last glance - a knowing smile - and disappeared back into the bedroom. The door shut behind her.

What in the hell was that? I asked myself. How did she know that I was wearing a diaper? A lucky guess? Could she tell? Well, if she couldn’t before, she certainly knew now.

I plopped back down on the couch, landing on my wet diaper with an audible splat. For a few minutes, all I could do was sit there and try to process what had just occurred.

I remembered that I needed to get back to Lucy. Thanks in part to a portion of my brain being reserved to continue pondering my interaction with Veronica, I found my words to be a little more blunt as I typed.

Me: You know...I’m not really sure. Sometimes I just think I’m complacent. I could be happier.

I didn’t have to wait long for a response.

Lucy: Complacent. Yeah, I get that. I think that’s a good description for the relationship I just got out of. We were just going through the motions. So long as nobody thought too hard about things, it seemed fine. We could look past the issues, because they didn’t seem like roadblocks everyday.

I sighed. That felt way too familiar.

Lucy: Not to be a downer, of course. I don’t want to ruin the soggy diaper vibes.

I laughed, reaching down to jostle the front of my diaper. It sloshed around a little. Breathe in. Breathe out. It had certainly been a weird afternoon - but that didn’t make it a bad one.

Me: Oh you couldn’t ruin that if you wanted to.

Lucy: I can assure you that I don’t want to. Still enjoying the house to yourself in your diaper, baby?

I couldn’t even help but blush - I practically giggled - at her calling me “baby.”

Me: I’m no longer alone. But that hasn’t stopped me from sitting around in my diaper.

Lucy: Don’t leak.

Me: I think this one has a little more room in it.

Lucy: So you like diapers. And I like that you like diapers. Things are looking good in that regard. Maybe we should see if there’s anything else about each other that we like?

Me: Diapers aren’t enough?

I was being sarcastic - but it was hard to tell how these sorts of things translated via written messages.

Lucy: They might be. But it would be neat if there was more too. Like...avocados? Yay or nay?

Me: I feel pretty good about avocados.

Lucy: Me too. See? Look at this deeper connection we have now.

I smiled. It was hard to stay as realistic as I wanted to be. She could be anyone. She could easily not be who she claimed to be. Even if Lucy was the grossly exaggerated version of someone real, it still wouldn’t be the same. But still...I was enchanted.

Me: Music?

Lucy: A passion of mine.

I swooned. I guess that was all I needed to know. I usually liked to ask about favorite bands and favorite genres and all that. But the older I got, the easier it was to just appreciate that people were passionate about the things that I was passionate about, regardless of whether or not the specific tastes were the same.

Lucy: But if you need me to be more specific, I’m listening to the Talking Heads right now while I write to you.

Swoon-on-swoon. It wasn’t really an answer to any actual questions - real or assumed on either of our parts - but it was everything I needed to hear. We had a contender for The Coolest Woman Who Had Ever Lived.

Me: I think we should meet up sometime soon.

Lucy: I’d like that. Wednesday?

Me: Yes, absolutely.

Wednesday worked. Tuesday worked. Thursday worked. I would’ve answered the same no matter what day she had said. If I had plans, I would’ve cancelled them.

The bedroom door opened again. I quickly let my phone fall to my side. I wasn’t sure why I felt like I needed to hide anything, but between my conversation with Lucy and the escalating absurdness in the bedroom, I felt on edge.

It was Ashley this time. She was doing her best to straighten out her short dress. Whatever was happening in there moments ago had left her clothes and hair in a slightly tousled state.

She opened her mouth to address me, but she had no words. She gave up, offering only a bashful grin - a big dumb smile cutting through her bright pink face. As quickly as she exited the bedroom, she skipped across the apartment and disappeared out the front door.

Peculiar.

It was only after the front door had closed that Veronica exited the bedroom too. She was also straightening herself out a little, though whereas Ashley looked nervous and excited, Veronica looked only smug.

“Everything all right in there?” I asked.

My phone vibrated at my side.

“Oh, yes,” Veronica said, looking as if my question returned her to Earth from wherever she was. “Ashley had to go back upstairs. She forgot something.”

I narrowed my eyes.

“What?” she asked, answering my look with faux-ignorance.

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what I wanted to say. I wanted to complain, maybe even rant. I wanted her to know how unfair all of this had felt.

“Fine,” she added, clearly taking my inability to say anything as further coercion. “If you must know, we were fooling around and I just so...happened to stumble upon her diaper. It’s very wet, if you must know. But not to worry, she’s fetching a fresh one.”

It hardly mattered, because I was at a loss for words anyways, but I bit my tongue regardless.  That tidbit hit hard, right in the gut.

“Have I said too much?” Veronica asked. I honestly couldn’t tell if she was asking that sincerely, or if she was still trying to fluster me.

If she was, it was definitely working.

“It’s all just...strange to me,” I said at last. No lies there.

“I suppose it would be,” she said. “It’s strange for me too.”

I nodded.

“Would you believe me if I said that it wasn’t personal?” she asked.

“I’m not sure I know what you mean,” I said.

“This...all of this. Everything between me and Ashley. The flirting and the dating and the kink things and...all of it. I’m not doing it to hurt you. This isn’t some game. I’m...genuinely enjoying the things I’m doing with her.”

I sighed. I wanted to believe her. But even if that was true, I didn’t know if that made me feel better or worse.

“I’m going to be meeting someone this week,” I said. I just kind of blurted it out without really thinking about it.

She paused, her contentedness fading a little.

“I just thought you should know,” I added.

“Okay,” she said. Then she nodded, repeating: “Okay.”

“Are you upset?” I asked.

“Surprised is all,” she replied. “I told you to do this. Hell, I expected you to do this too. But...I don’t know. Hearing you say that… It just feels different when it's real as opposed to just being a thought in my mind.”

“That makes two of us then,” I said.

“I hope you enjoy yourself,” she said. It sounded sincere, and her smile was growing again. She was letting her happy smug vibes wash over herself again.

She calmly strutted back into the bedroom without another word, leaving the door cracked open.

As quickly as she was back in the bedroom, Ashley burst through the front door again. She didn’t even make an attempt at subtlety, with a folded fresh diaper clutched in her hands as she rushed across the apartment and into the bedroom, the door closing behind her.

I wondered if anyone in the halls had seen her running around with a diaper in her hands.

I took a look at my phone.

Lucy: You’re going to wear a diaper on our date, yes?

Me: If you’d like me to.

Lucy: I insist.

I sighed and let myself relax a little. Somewhere behind me, in the bedroom, all of my fantasies were coming true for other people. But maybe I wasn’t too far from my own chance at that, and I was feeling pretty good about it.