Kid's Menu [Tier 3 Exclusive] (Patreon)

I think I’ve seen that pile of rocks before. Which, I think, is impossible because we’ve been driving in a straight line for the past hour with hardly even the option of a side road. So maybe there’s just a lot of similar piles of rocks around here.

“This is ridiculous,” Lailani says. “This is the fastest route?”

“Well, that’s what the Maps app says.”

Her mood should come as no surprise to me. She’s a fussy passenger when we’re driving 15 minutes to the mall - why would it be any other way when we were driving six hours to get to my family reunion?

Still, normal expectations of fussiness aside, I could relate to what she was feeling. We were four hours into the drive, and it had probably been two hours since we had seen any sign of life. Occasionally we’d see another car in the opposite lane - the driver usually looking just as bewildered as we were. No gas stations. No fast food. Not even a creepy village surrounded by cornfields where the children appeared to be possessed by the devil.

“My diaper is soaked,” she says. “I’ll admit that I probably shouldn’t have drank that entire second cup of coffee this morning. But...if I let another drop out of my body? You’re going to have to get this seat deep cleaned.”

“You brought more, right?” I ask, glancing over my shoulder into the backseat. I can see the bag I think they’re in. “Just...climb back there and put a new one on.”

“While you’re driving? Who do you think I am? Evil Kinevil?”

“If Evil Kinevil’s stunts involved climbing into the back seat from the front seat of a moving car, nobody would be talking about him today.”

“There’s too much stuff in the back seat,” she says.

“So what do you want to do? Want me to pull over?”

“How is that going to help? Do you want me to change my diaper on the side of the road?”

“No, I just…” I don’t really have anything helpful to suggest. I ask again: “What do you want to do?”

“Oh, I dunno,” she says, her tone taking on that sarcastic tone that usually precedes a fight. “Maybe, uh, have found a road that someone else in the last twenty years has been on? Maybe a road with a Starbucks on it?”

“Okay, well, the last thing you need is more coffee.”

“Just some place with a bathroom.”

“Okay, well look. Up there - see that? Looks like a sign. Maybe that’s something.”

AMBROSE’S ROADSIDE DINER - 1 MILE

“There’s no way that place is still open,” she says, shaking her head. “It probably burned down in 1987.”

“That’s very specific…”

“Or worse,” she continued. “We get there, and we have a wonderful meal and we keep driving. Only later, when we actually make it to wherever-the-hell your family is having their reunion and Uncle Burt is like: ‘Ambrose’s? That place hasn’t been open in 40 years!’ And so, obviously, we were - or are - in some fucking Stephen King short story.”

“I don’t have an Uncle Burt,” I say. “Besides, we’re a long way from Maine.”

“Look, I don’t care if the place is on fire when we get there. Can we just stop? Worst case scenario we just pull over, empty out the backseat for a minute, and I change out of my diaper in the parking lot.”

“Yeah, that’s fine.”

Ambrose’s Roadside Diner is not only free of flames, but seems to be open. The lights are on, and the neon ‘OPEN’ sign in the door illuminates the highway in front of it. There are only two cars in the small parking lot.

“Perfect,” she says. “I need to get this soaking wet thing off of me, and I need a milkshake. Maybe a sandwich.”

I hadn’t been thinking about food, but I imagine what the next two hours will look like - mostly abandoned highways that keep getting darker and darker as the sun disappears completely - and suddenly I want a snack too.

In the parking lot, Lailani slings her shoulder bag over her shoulder. We call it the ‘diaper bag,’ but we assume others just see it as her purse. When we enter the diner, the door jingles a bell that sounds exactly like what I expected.

There is one woman behind the counter. There is nobody else in the diner as far as I can see. From somewhere in the kitchen, I hear what sounds like canned laughter from a sitcom playing on a TV.

“Well how about that?” the woman at the counter says, wearing a wide grin to match her chipper tone. “Looks like some hungry travelers stumbled onto the highway’s best kept secret.”

“Is that because it’s so well hidden?” asks Lailani.

I’m a little nervous. I’ve seen movies. We city folk come barging into the rural diner, making our jokes and disrespecting everyone. 70 minutes later, some guy with a chef’s apron and a chainsaw is chasing us around the woods.

To her credit, the woman behind the counter laughs. It sounds sincere too.

“That may be part of our charm,” she says. I spend a good half-minute internally laughing at the absurdity of wearing a nametag in a place like this before I actually look to see what her name is. She’s ‘Joy,’ apparently. She looks to be our age - or close enough to it. If her dark hair wasn’t pulled back like a woman of 20 years her senior, I could see her fitting in with a cluster of women I’d have no chance with at a club on a Friday night.

“Actually,” Lailani says before Joy can say anything else, “I really need to use the restroom. Could you point me in the right direction.”

“Oh, ab-so-lute-ly,” Joy responds, turning the word into a song. “Straight back that way. You can’t miss it. Because if you miss it, you’ll just go outside.”

Lailani has little time or patience for Joy’s quirks. Joy has clearly never spent any time around Lailani when her diaper is at capacity.

“In the meantime, handsome,” Joy says. I think she winked at me, but I’m not entirely sure. “Let’s get you a seat at the counter, yeah?”

She pulls two paper placemats and two sets of silverware, pre-rolled in napkins, out from behind the counter and places them down atop it. I pull out a stool and take a seat.

“Not a lot of business today?” I ask.

“This is kind of an off-season for us,” Joy says with a shrug. I’m tempted to ask what the on-season is, but I’m not sure that I care about the answer. “But that’s good news for you two, right? You get my full and undivided attention.”

“Do you...do the cooking too?” I ask, lifting my head up to see if I can see any signs of life through the window into the kitchen. For a split-second, I swear I hear the soft sound of snoring emerging from the back.

“Oh, no. Manny is back there somewhere. Probably watching TV until I send your order back.”

She slides two menus into our spots on the counter.

“Though, to be fair,” she says, pointing at the menu, “given that you’re the only ones here, if you want something that’s not on the menu, just ask. So long as Manny has the ingredients back there, you can have anything you want.”

“Yeah?” I say. “Can Manny whip us up some Lobster Thermidor?” It’s a joke, but I immediately regret it. They’ll remember this later when they get the chainsaw out.

“Oh,” Joy says, shaking her head solemnly. “We...actually don’t talk about lobster here. We, uh, had an incident a few years back and…” She can’t even pull together the words to finish her story.

“Ah, shit,” I say. I’m really annoyed, because I’m dying to know how this lobster story ends. “I...didn’t mean to…”

“I’m totally messing with you,” Joy says, her contagious smile blinking back onto her face as she lets out a hearty laugh.

I can’t help but laugh myself. “Wow. Okay, yeah, you got me.”

“But seriously,” she says, “I’m pretty sure we can’t make Lobster Thermidor.”

“I don’t even know what it is, to be honest with you,” I confess.

I glance down the diner in the direction of the bathrooms. Lailani is taking a while, but I guess that’s to be expected. Who knows what the size of the bathroom is that she needs to change herself in.

“Is your gal, uh, alright?” Joy asks. I’m not sure if she’s commenting on how long it’s taking, or on the look of concern on my own face.

“Oh, yeah, she’ll be good,” I say. “We’ve been driving for a while today, that’s all.” That both is and isn’t an explanation for why she might be taking a while. I shouldn’t say anything else, but I feel compelled to add: “She’s been holding it a while, you know?”

“Oh sure,” Joy says with an understanding nod. “But, uh, just between you and me? I’m not sure that she made it in time.”

I blush a little - second-hand humiliation. “Why would you think that?”

“I saw her, uh, caboose,” Joy says with a shrug. “Either she sat down in a puddle or… Well, I’ll just point out that it hasn’t rained around here in a week.”

I know that I shouldn’t say much about it. It’s certainly none of Joy’s business - and Lailani would murder me if she knew that I uttered another word. But I feel obligated to say something.

“This happens, sometimes,” I say. Immediately I regret it. Of all the things I could say, that feels like the second-worst next to ‘She sure does piss in her diapers an awful lot.’

“Oh?” Joy is clearly curious, but she remains stoic. She hesitates to say anything more when she opens her mouth, but she powers through: “Does she need help?”

“No offense,” I say. “But I don’t think she’d want you to help.”

“I meant you, silly. Did you need to go back there and lend a hand?”

“She can take care of herself,” I say. Without thinking much about the words I’m using, I add: “She’s a big girl.”

Joy offers a short scoff before smiling again. “Do you two have any kids?”

I shake my head. “Nah. I don’t think we’re quite there yet.”

“Neither was I,” she says with a shrug. “Alas, I have a four year old. Ava.”

I’m nervous she’s going to take out a cellphone and subject me to a long slideshow of her little girl posing in hundreds of random places without context.

Thankfully, she doesn’t. I can’t help but feel like she was going somewhere with that, but she’s waiting on me to take the bait. For a minute, I let it go and just stared down at the menu. But I’m not reading it - I’m dwelling on why Joy might have brought up her daughter.

I finally cave: “Why did you bring up kids?”

“Oh,” Joy says with a shrug. “I just...it’s nothing.”

“Come on,” I say. “It sounds like it was something.”

“I’d be talking out of turn,” she says. “You seem like nice folks, and I just want you two to have a good meal before you get out on the road again.”

I glance back towards the bathroom again. Still no sign of Lailani. I hope she’s alright back there. But...this does buy me a few moments to dig into Joy a little. “No, go on. Say what you were thinking.” Then, as if I needed to sweeten the pot a little: “We’ll keep this between us, yeah?”

Joy smiles - she really is quite pretty. “I was just thinking about potty training. Ava did not like it. She hated it. She put up such a resistance. But we got through it, mostly. She still has an odd accident now and then.”

I feel a little better, realizing that Lailani’s wet bottom had only inspired Joy to reflect on her own adventures with her daughter.

“Well, actually,” Joy continues. She pauses and looks back towards the bathroom herself. “And this stays just between us, right?”

I nod hesitantly, nervous about where she’s going with this.

“So, I keep Ava in pull-ups. You know what those are, right?”

I nod again. “‘I’m a big kid now.’”

“Right,” she says. “Exactly. I don’t keep her in them all the time. But whenever she has an accident, I put her back into pull-ups for a few days until she can show me that she can keep them dry. But sometimes I’ll put her into pull-ups and she’ll wet those too. Like, absolutely drench them, you know? And with her underpants, I can tell immediately if she had an accident or not. But sometimes it’s hard to tell with the pull-ups without just checking inside of them. But when she soaks through the pull-ups, I can usually tell because it leaks out the sides, and it makes these, like, half-moon shapes on her bottom?”

She pauses. Maybe that’s the end of the story, or maybe there’s more but she realizes that it’s best not to continue. The implication is clear: Lailani had clearly reminded her of her little girl’s pull-ups. And she is so close to the truth that it’s frightening.

Lailani emerges, wearing a nervous smile on her face. She politely nods to Joy before taking a seat next to me. I realize that Joy probably saw her before I did - and that might have been why her story ended.

“How are you feeling?” I ask.

“Mostly better,” Lailani replies.

“Well folks,” Joy says, stepping in front of us on the other side of the diner counter, “now that we’re all here, maybe I can start you off with something to drink?” She’s a complete stranger again. We didn’t talk about Ava or Lailani’s possibly soaked ass.

“I need a milkshake,” Lailani states. “Do you have those?”

“I can absolutely get you a milkshake.”

“Chocolate?”

“Whipped cream? Cherry?”

“Both! Oh my god,” Lailani says with a look of deep satisfaction on her face. “You’re a lifesaver.”

“Yeah?” Joy asks with a smile. “Wait’ll I tell the boss that I saved someone’s life today.” She turned to me? “And for you? Is there any way that I can save your life this evening?”

“Not unless you’ve got some hard liquor back there.”

“Manny probably has something he shouldn’t in a flask, but I doubt he’d share.”

“Just iced tea is fine.”

“Alright,” she says. “Let me go back and get started on this lifesaving milkshake first - that’s a high priority. Then I’ll be back and we can talk about food.”

No sooner than she disappeared into the back, I turned to Lailani.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“The bathroom was just barely bigger than the front seat of the car,” she says. “But I made it work. Fresh diaper. But...I leaked a little.”

I almost say ‘I know,’ but I think better of it. She doesn’t need to know about the entire conversation we just had about it while she was in the restroom. “Is it bad?”

“It could’ve been worse. It’ll dry. Hopefully the car seat isn’t soaked.”

“We can just put down a towel when we get back to the car. You said you put a new diaper on?”

“Well, yeah,” she replies. “We still have a bit more driving to do, right?”

“I know, but when we get there we’re going to be, like, at the campground, you know? Everyone is going to be there.”

“There’s got to be restrooms there, right?”

“I think so? I hope so.”

“Well I’m not going to get back on the road without a diaper on.”

“Do you need them now?” I ask. “Or do you still just want them?”

She grumbles, taking a little offense at the question. “Can’t it be both?”

There’s a lot more I want to say, but I let it go for now. Maybe that’ll be a better conversation for the car - far from the likely intrusion of Joy at any moment. But it comes down to me missing when diapers were our thing, and not just hers. I missed how special the ritual of fishing her “baby box” out from under the bed in advance of a kinky Saturday night felt.

“Sorry,” I say. “Of course it can.”

“She’s cute,” Lailani says, motioning back towards the kitchen with her head. It’s a good change of subject.

“Right?”

“I want her to smack my bottom.”

“She would if you asked,” I tease. I didn’t actually know this, but I wanted to believe it was true.

“Get the hell out of here,” she says, playfully punching me in the arm. “I’m not going to ask if she’d…”

She is cut off by the return of Joy, chocolate milkshake in hand.

“You’d have to ask nicely,” Joy says, smirking. “But you never know if you don’t ask.”

Both Lailani and I are blushing now. Either Joy has the ears of a wolf, or we have no idea what a hushed tone is.

“I’m sorry,” Lailani says. “You...probably shouldn’t have heard that.”

“I’m the one who should be sorry,” Joy says with a casual shrug as she places the milkshake down in front of Lailani. “You work in this place long enough and you develop superhuman senses. Mind you, they only apply within this diner. Not the most fascinating super power, I know.”

“For what it’s worth,” Lailani says, “I meant it when I said you’re cute.”

I was sometimes tempted to use the word ‘reserved’ to describe us. But there were times, like this one, when Lailani had reminded me that I was the reserved one, and she simply spent too much time with me. Given the chance to be a little more gregarious, she’d leap at it.

“That means quite a bit to me, actually,” Joy says. Joy’s finger quickly swiped across the pile of whipped cream on the milkshake, and before Lailani could even react, Joy playfully booped the tip of Lailani’s nose, leaving a perfect dollop of cream on it.

It was as adorable as it was sexy. Health code violations be damned - this was right out of a video I probably would’ve paid for online.

There is just a fraction of a second where Lailani seems aghast at what had just happened. It dissipates, and she suddenly looks very excited. Empowered, even. She slowly wipes the cream from her nose with her own finger before licking it clean.

“You’re hungry, right?” Joy asks. She might have been talking to both of us - but she was staring directly at Lailani.

“Indeed,” Lailani says, her eyes bouncing back and forth between the menu and Joy’s face.

“Actually, if you don’t mind,” Joy says, reaching under the counter again, “I think I have something you’d appreciate more than this menu.”

It’s a single laminated page. The bold colorful writing at the top of it catches my eyes immediately. ‘Kid’s Menu.’ No sooner than she places it in front of Lailani, she pulls away her ‘adult’ menu.

Lailani’s face swings to the side to face me. “Did you...say something while I was in the bathroom?”

“No!” And while Joy and I did have an interesting conversation, I was pretty sure I hadn’t said anything about the diapers.

But we both realized what had happened at the same time. In the same conversation we had talked about wanting Joy to smack Lailani’s bottom, we had also talked about the diapers.

“I hope I’m not being too bold,” Joy says. “Say the word and I’ll just, uh, turn off the playfulness.”

I look to Lailani. I, myself, am interested to see how she’s going to respond.

“No,” Lailani says. “This is good.”

Joy leans over the counter, across from Lailani, planting her elbows on the counter and setting her face atop her open hands as she stares ahead. “Diapers, huh?”

Lailani blushes and sighs. She’s being bashful, but she wants to participate. “You heard that?”

“Afraid so.”

“I do. I mean, you know, I wear them.”

“I’m going to be honest with you,” Joy says. “I had guessed that.”

“What gave it away?”

“Your wet pants,” Joy says. “I guess it’s a habit to check butts when I have a little girl barely out of diapers herself.”

I’m thankful that Joy doesn’t reference our earlier conversation. Though it seems less likely now that Lailani could be mad about it, given the current state of the conversation.

“You should have said something,” Joy continues. “There’s an office in the back that would’ve given you more space. And there’s even a couch there.”

“Well I wasn’t about to ask if you had a place where I could change my diaper,” Lailani says.

“Fair enough. Well, if you end up needing another change before you leave here, I can certainly show you where it’s at.”

“Th-thank you,” Lailani says, humbled again.

“And, just to throw it out there,” Joy adds, “if you need help with that change, just say the word. I’m a bit of an expert, you know?”

“I, uhm… I’ll keep that in mind,” Lailani says. She’s clearly hesitant - possibly just as unconvinced of this being reality as I am - but she’s still smiling. She wants this to be real, and I certainly can’t fault her for that.

“Oh,” Joy says, as if she had forgotten to say it sooner, “that goes for the smack on your bottom, too. Whenever you’re ready, I’m ready.”

“Thank you,” Lailani says again, giggling.

“Okay, seriously now,” Joy says. “Look at the menu and figure out what we can make for you.”

Joy steps away again - hopefully to bring me the iced tea I need far more now than I did a few minutes ago. I’m even willing to ask Manny if he’ll share his flask with me.

Lailani and I exchange glances. There’s a lot we probably want to say to each other right now - though most of it doesn’t need to be said aloud.

“Is this really happening?”

“Seems like it.”

“Do we...play along?”

“It seems like one of those things we’d regret later if we didn’t.”

Or something like that, I think.

Lailani studies the kids menu. I half-expect her to reach over and grab my menu, but no. I decide to lean into it a little more myself.

“Hey, Joy?” I ask as she places a glass of iced tea down in front of me.

“Yes, dear?”

“What about crayons?”

“How foolish of me,” Joy says with a smile. “Little girls do love their coloring.”

She places a cup of crayons on the counter. The cup itself has seen better days, as have the crayons within. Most are just halves of crayons - either broken or worn down. It’s almost disturbing for me to think of how many little toddlers have manhandled this cup of crayons before, but Lailani seems to like it - maybe for the same reason. In the future, some little boy or girl will handle the same crayons, having no idea how big the last little girl to use them was.

“Have we made some decisions?” asks Joy.

I look to Lailani who nods sheepishly.

“Okay, then,” I say. “Can I just get a turkey club? And some fries?”

“Of course. And for you?” she asks, turning to Lailani. Her tone completely changes with Lailani, as if she was actually addressing a four or five year old girl.

“Chicken fingers?” asks Lailani, her cheeks glowing pink.

“Excellent choice,” Joy says. Without context, I’d have mistaken it as condescension.

Joy returned to the window of the kitchen. “Manny? Manny, wake up.”

Not what you really want to hear when dining anywhere, but given the remote nature of our location, it didn’t seem quite as egregious.

“I need some food,” Joy continues. “Fingers. Turkey club. Fries. You got that?” She spun around to face us again. “It’ll be ready shortly. In the meantime, why don’t you draw me a picture…”

“Lailani,” I say.

“Lailani!” Joy repeats excitedly. “Oh my goodness. What a beautiful name!”

In another life, Joy was the most popular kindergarten teacher who ever lived. Or she was raking in the big dollars on some niche-interests adult hotline.

I’m tempted to remain silent and cede this moment to just Lailani and Joy, but I want to ask the questions that I don’t think will get asked otherwise. “Is this something you’re familiar with? Adults? In diapers?”

Joy starts to shake her head and then just shrugs instead. “I guess I could imagine it being a thing. I certainly didn’t ever think I’d see it. Not here, at least.”

“You don’t think it’s wrong?” I ask.

“Wrong? No. You’re not hurting anyone, are you?” Joy reached across the bar, stroking Lailani’s chin with her fingertips.

Lailani practically purred as she nodded.

“Tell me about it,” Joy coos. “What do you like about them? Do they make you feel little? Naughty?”

“Yes,” Lailani says. “All of those things.”

“So before, when you went running through the diner,” Joy asks, “was that a diaper that had a little too much inside of it?”

Lailani nods.

Joy turns to me. “And you, what’s your part in this? Are you a baby too?”

“No…”

“You don’t wear diapers?”

“Nope.”

“Are you her, I guess, Daddy?”

Lailani and I share a look. It’s a complicated question. I had never been able to commit to the idea of being “Daddy.” I had been worried she’d want more from me than I could give. I wasn’t sure what that made me instead. The babysitter with benefits? The boyfriend who puts her in diapers occasionally?

“Yeah,” I say. “Something like that.”

“He doesn’t like being called Daddy,” Lailani says. She practically pouts it out like she was just denied an extra snack while she watches Sesame Street.

“No?” Joy asks. “And why is that?”

A waitress and a relationship counselor? It’s our lucky day.

I don’t want to have this conversation at all, let alone now. With a stranger. But maybe there’s no better time than now, in this fever dream of a reststop.

“‘Daddy’ has implications, I think. I just don’t want to disappoint.”

Joy nods and hums to herself. I’m expecting a little monologue about some past situation in her life that she can compare to this. But there is none. She shrugs it off and returns her focus to Lailani.

For a moment, I’m relieved. And then I’m a little disappointed.

“Tell me more,” Joy says to Lailani. “Do you like to be coddled?”

“Sometimes...” Lailani replies. There’s a little hesitancy in her voice that probably says more than her word actually did.

“Do you like to be punished?” asks Joy.

Lailani blushes and laughs, nodding her head. Bingo.

“So when I see a young woman sprinting across my diner in wet pants, desperate to get to the bathroom - not so that she can use the toilet like a big girl, but so that she can change her soaking wet diaper - does that sound like something a good girl would do?”

“No,” Lailani says, her voice sounding even meeker than the last time she spoke. “Probably not.”

“I’m just saying,” Joy continues, nonchalantly shrugging. “If you wanted to get your bottom smacked, you certainly earned one.”

My eyes ping-ponged between the two women as I let the scene play out in front of me. There was a trust - a rapport - between the two that had developed so quickly.

“If I’ve earned it, I think I should have it, then,” Lailani says. Her lips quivers as if she can barely even control how badly she wants it.

“You need to say the words to me again,” Joy says. “Tell me what you want me to do.”

“I want you to smack my bottom.”

“Your wet bottom?”

“I...I have a new diaper on.”

“But your pants - they’re still wet, yes?”

“Yes.”

“I could do it now. But I’d rather wait.”

“Wait?” Lailani practically cries. “Until when?”

“When you came into my diner, why did you run to the restroom?”

“Because...I...I was afraid I was going to leak if I used my diaper again.”

“And when you were in the restroom, and before you put your new diaper on, did you use the potty?”

“No…”

“So, you think you could use your diaper again, then?”

Lailani’s eyes light up. “Y-yes. I do.”

“Good. Your food will be ready very soon. And while you’re eating, I want you to think about maybe using that diaper again. And when you’re done, you’ll tell me that you’re ready for your dirty bottom to be smacked and then to be changed. Sound good?”

Lailani smiles widely as she nods.

The smells from the kitchen grow stronger. Nothing specific - hot salty oil. But it reminds me that I am hungrier than I thought I was.

“Dinner time!” cheers Joy, grabbing the plates that a burly hand places on the kitchen window’s ledge. Joy certainly has no qualms about openly saying what’s on her mind - and I wonder what her relationship with Manny is like. Does he care? Or does getting paid to watch TV and drink from a flask detach him from reality just enough that he doesn’t have to care?

Joy places my plate down in front of me first. It’s exactly what I expect it to be - a turkey club and some french fries.

Joy places the plate of chicken fingers down on the counter in front of Lailani next, but far enough from Lailani that they’re not comfortably within reach. Without another word, Joy takes Lailani’s fork and knife and proceeds to slowly and methodically cut the fingers into small bite-sized morsels. With every slice, I watch Lailani’s cheeks get a little pinker.

I wonder if Joy has any idea how good at this she is.

“There you go,” Joy says, pushing the plate towards Lailani. “Perfectly sized for a little girl.”

She walks back into the kitchen, leaving us with our plates of food - the equivalent of a mic-drop.

“She’s good,” I say, taking a bite of the sandwich. I don’t actually believe it’s the best sandwich I’ve ever had, but I know that when I look back on this day, I’ll remember it being even better than it is.

“What if we skipped your reunion?” Lailani says. “And we just stay here?”

“Here? At a diner?”

We both laugh. Lailani reaches for her silverware, only to find that Joy had taken it away. Without missing a beat, she proceeds to just pick up each little piece and eat it with her hands.

She’s never looked smaller. I’ve never enjoyed this side of her more.

Soon, our plates are empty. My iced tea glass is empty. Lailani’s glass only holds the melted remnants of the milkshake that once was. We’re satisfied, in more ways than we were likely expecting when we first arrived.

“Was everything good?” Joy asks, collecting our plates.

“Yes, thank you,” I say.

Lailani just nods happily.

“I’ve learned that I can’t just ask Ava if she’s had an accident or not,” Joy says as she puts the dishes in a bin behind the counter. I smile - already excited to see where she’s going with this. “She knows what the answer is supposed to be, you know? So, according to her, she never has accidents. But, obviously, that’s not true. So I don’t ask anymore. I just have to check and see for myself.”

I turn my head and look at Lailani. She looks at me.

“Did you wet yourself again? During dinner?”

“Maybe?”

Joy walks out from behind the counter, and slowly makes her way towards us on the other side. She doesn’t announce what she’s doing or ask Lailani to do anything. For her part, Lailani does nothing except wait. When Joy reaches her, she lifts up the back of her shirt with one hand while pulling open the back of her shorts and diaper with the other, peering in. Joy says nothing and releases the shorts and shirt with just a satisfied hum.

“Well, I seem to have found exactly what I expected to find,” Joy says. “That bag there - is that your diaper bag?”

“Yes,” Lailana says sheepishly.

“Let’s go, then. Pick it up. Come back with me and let’s get you all taken care of before you go out on the road again.”

There is no hesitation from Lailani. Not only is she willing, but she was probably waiting for the invitation.

No such invitation is extended to me. As to be expected, I guess. As Lailani stands, I watch as her hand meets Joys and they hold each other’s.There was no prompt or signal for this - it was like magnetism. Joy leads Lailani by the hand through the dining room, behind the counter, and they disappear into the kitchen.

The world seems mostly silent for a minute or three, save for the sound of something sizzling in the kitchen, and two men having a comically exaggerated argument on Manny’s TV.

The sound comes suddenly: WHAP! I can only imagine what the scene actually looks like.

Lailani’s pants are pulled down, exposing her diapers in full for Joy. Joy debates pulling the diaper down too, but ultimately leaves them up. Her hand collides with the thick padding with significant force over and over again - though most of it is absorbed and turned to sound. It doesn’t stop Lailani from feeling any less humiliated though.

The sounds finally cease. I can’t hear what they’re saying - I don’t have the super power of Diner Hearing - but I can hear them talking to each other in soft tones. Joy is asking questions, and Lailani is responding.

The popping of tapes, the crinkling of diapers - new and old. I’m tempted to close my eyes and let my imagination fill in the gaps again, but I let it go. For one, it’s their moment. Two, I’m already hard as a rock and I’m not sure I could handle Joy’s reaction if she discovered that I had a different sort of accident in my pants.

A few minutes later - but longer than I expect - they return. Lailani looks positively beaming, maybe the happiest she’s looked in a while.

“We should get going,” I say. “If you’re ready.”

Lailani nods.

“Joy? Could we settle the check?”

“There’s no balance owed,” Joy says.

“Oh...Joy, that's very nice but you don’t have to…”

“I insist,” she says.

There’s no emotional goodbye or promise of seeing each other again. Maybe Lailani and Joy already got that out of their system in the office, or maybe we could all just agree that this was just a perfect moment in time, best left unsullied with further discussion.

Twenty minutes down the highway later, I reach over to her and put my hand on hers. She weaves her fingers in mine, and we both smile.

“You can call me Daddy if you want,” I say.

“Yeah?”

“I trust that you’ll show me what I need to know, when I need to know it.”

She nods and smiles.

Much later, we’ll wonder if that actually happened. We might mention it to someone at the reunion, and they might say that they thought that place closed down years ago. Maybe we’d make our way back there on the way home. Maybe Joy would be there, waiting for us. Or maybe we’d take another route altogether - one with more gas stations, coffee shops and places to change a diaper.

We held hands for the rest of the drive.