Quiet & Blushing [Tier 2 & 3 Exclusive] (Patreon)

I feel a great stress within me.

But, I assure you, this is very much a physical stress. Mentally, emotionally, I’m doing much better. A little anxious - probably more than usual. This feeling is in my gut. It’s the feeling of having waited too long, mixed with the expectation that I may have a while more to wait yet.

“Are you nervous?” she asks. “You shouldn’t be. Nobody can tell.”

This helps, and I do find it to be reassuring. I had figured that this was the case, but it’s good to hear her say it. I trust her.

We’re entering the mall. And I just have to laugh about that. Do you have any idea how many times I’ve gone into a mall in the last five years? Maybe I could count those instances on one hand; each of those instances probably occurring around the holidays, as part of a last-minute campaign to find a few odds and ends when my other choices have been exhausted.

I’m used to the way that malls looked when I was younger - bustling and full of life. People just hanging out, you know? It was like some sort of cultural hub. Now, as we walk through it, and I see a few vacant stores and dead-eyed shoppers marching about with purpose, it just feels different. It’s everyone’s last choice.

It takes the wind out of my sails a little bit. I wonder how she feels about it. Other stories - the stories we like to read to each other - point to the mall as being the apex of the humiliation experience. If there was anywhere where you’d be pointed out and shamed, it’d be at the mall. Maybe some lovely young woman in a clothing store would catch a glimpse of your bottom as you’re in mid-change in a dressing room. Maybe a crowd would gather in the food court as your caretaker pulled down your pants and threatened to paddle you.

But right now, I suspect I could walk across the entire mall without my pants on and I’d get - at best - a disconcerting eye from some standing at the kiosk that sells calendars.

“Kind of quiet, I guess,” she says, likely thinking about the same things I am.

I don’t think we’re so out of touch that we really thought the mall on a random weekday afternoon would be a bustling capital of commerce. If anything, we expected this while hoping for more.

But this is good too. Our eyes may have been bigger than our stomachs. Because now that we’re here - and seeing the scattered shoppers dart to and fro - it’s hard to imagine how nerve-wracking it would be if it were twice as busy. Just the thought of that possibility fills me with a level of anxiety that eclipses the anxiety I’m actually feeling while within the mall at current.

She actually has some shopping to do, or so she says. We’d probably be here even if she didn’t, so that’s certainly convenient. It gives a sense of direction.

The first stop is a clothing store. There’s a lot of clothing stores, still, and I’ve never quite understood the subtle differences between them like she does. She can point to three stores and say that she doesn’t like them at all, but then this one is good. And I don’t know why. Is it the style of clothes they sell? Their targeted demographic? Maybe the sizing of the clothes in that particular store is problematic - I’ve certainly heard her say things like that before.

But we’re in this store now.

“Are you doing okay?” she asks. “Do I need to check your diaper?”

These are functionally rhetorical. Yes, I suppose I could answer her. But she already knows the answers, or the answers aren’t even important. She just wanted to ask the question out loud. And she did, with no effort made to be subtle or quiet about it. If we were standing next to another customer, or a group of customers, or even the President of the Mall, they’d have heard her. And then they would’ve looked at me. And then they would’ve looked at my pants. And whether or not they could tell that I was wearing a diaper, they’d just know.

There is nobody around us. At the far end of the store is a woman behind the counter, and a woman on the other side of the counter. They are talking in a way that suggests that this is not a cashier/employee transaction. They are just friends, gossiping and laughing.

There is no answer that I could give that would satisfy her question - all possible answers would result in the same response.

“Turn around,” she says. “I want to check for myself.”

Would you believe me if I told you that she’s probably more nervous than I am?

She’s usually very quiet and reserved. She likes reading books and getting deep into the lore of TV shows about witches. When we first met, she didn’t own a vibrator and was very anxious about the prospect of buying one.

In other words, she’s being very brave for saying these things at the volume that she is.

I spin my body away from her, so I’m left facing the gossiping women at the far end of the store. Behind me, she pulls open the back of my pants, pulling on the waist of my diaper along with it. I cannot see for certain, but I’m sure she’s peering into them. There’s nothing to see - and even if I had only wet the diaper, I suspect that she wouldn’t be able to tell from spying down the back door. But this was not meant to be a practical diaper check. This was just for show.

She’s very brave.

My eyes catch those of the woman’s from behind the counter, for just a moment. She’s too far away to say for sure, but I sense there’s at least some curiosity. Why is this fella looking at me like that? It’s just for a moment, though. She doesn’t actually care.

“So far so clean,” she says from behind me.

Our schedule today is not defined by time, but rather by actions. We have nowhere else to be and nowhere else to go. We won’t be leaving the mall today until we’ve crossed everything off of our list.

In that way, I have control over our schedule. The sooner I do the things that I said I would do, the sooner that she can do the things that she said she would do. And then we’ll be done.

I’m thinking about wetting myself. I could do it right now. Is that too soon, or should I pace myself?

We had gone back and forth on whether or not I would tell her when I used the diaper. There was a good argument to be made in favor of me having to announce aloud that I had used it. And we haven’t completely abandoned that idea. Next time, maybe.

She liked the sound of discovery better. Discovery. She wanted to find out for herself. She wanted to check the diaper and discover that I had used it. She wanted to catch a random whiff of me and discover that my diaper was containing more than it had before.

She picks out a pair of jeans that she likes - light blue with those pre-made holes and worn patches. I never quite got the aesthetic myself, but I’m happy that she likes them.

“Would you please ask the woman at the counter if she can unlock the dressing room for me?”

This is not a scheduled event in our little humiliation scheme. She simply doesn’t want to have to talk to the woman herself. It’s slightly amusing when I think about her willingness to check my diaper, but hesitation to talk to a store employee.

In another story, this is the part where the employee asks me if I’m wearing a diaper. That didn’t happen here. I just asked if she would unlock the dressing room, and the woman agreed to.

I’m standing outside of the dressing room as she tries the pants on. Without being able to see her at my side, I feel a little more exposed and self-conscious. I always feel awkward in this moment - diaper or not. As if another woman would walk into the store, see me just standing there, and ask: Why is this man just standing here in a women’s clothing store? Some sort of pervert?

Well yes, but for different reasons.

“Are you there?” she asks from the other side of the door. I confirm that I am. “These pants fit well. Like, perfectly. But if I was wearing a diaper - like you are - I bet I wouldn’t be able to pull them up all the way.”

I blush and look around. Nobody - the gossiping girls at the counter and the only other customer - acknowledges this. I wonder if it was easier for her to say something like that from the other side of a closed door. It was like a verbal hand grenade - she just lobbed it over the door and took cover, leaving me to deal with the results.

While she purchases the pants, and is read the sales pitch for a rewards program that she’s not interested in, I decide to wet my diaper. I have this comical vision of just a little wetting - a short burst or two that dampens the padding between my legs. But the dam is broken and a deluge forces its way through instead. The diaper swells and warms all around me. I feel in the front, on the bottom, and even behind me. Now, I suspect, if she were to check the diaper the same way she had before, she’d easily find what she’s looking for.

The next stop is a kiosk selling coffee and refreshments. She orders an iced coffee for each of us.

There are two reasons why I respect this move. The first is that I admire her initiative in ordering for me. As if I couldn’t - or shouldn’t - be allowed to make such a decision for myself. The other, more rooted in her knowledge of me as a person, is the awareness that coffee tends to have a quick and strong impact on my insides. She can almost guarantee that this is going to do something to me.

And my insides are already feeling a little stressed. The bear is already irritable, and yet she insists on poking it.

I had opportunities to avoid this irritable bear earlier, and I passed them all up. Purposefully.

Last night, just before bed, I could feel a little turbulence in my belly. The kind of turbulence that would be easily quelled with a trip to the bathroom. But knowing what today was to look like, I skipped it. I did the same thing this morning, not once - but twice. Once when I woke up, and just before we left home. She had asked if I wanted to use the toilet. A last minute opportunity to re-shape the day.

And so I drank the sweetened coffee drink pretty quickly. It was delicious and went down easy. Every sip felt like allowing a fuse to burn a little longer.

Next was the bookstore. It never ceases to amaze me that bookstores still exist, let alone that one exists in this mall. Stores from this very chain, freestanding and without the baggage of being in a mall, have closed around us. This store’s continued existence is curious to me.

She has a long list of books that she wants to look for, and so we may be here for a while.

“I have a job for you,” she says.

I didn’t expect this, and I’m excited.

“I’d like you to find the section that would have books about parenting and babies,” she continues. “See if you can’t find a book about potty training. Preferably one written for children. With lots of pictures.”

This is an excellent request, and I’m so proud of her for thinking of it. Obviously, I’m a little nervous and apprehensive about the request itself. But bra-fucking-vo.

I seperate from her and venture off into the store. I could be wrong, but it feels like there are more people within this one store than I’ve seen in the rest of the mall combined. Perhaps that’s why this store is still here. Or, perhaps all the customers from the other closed branches have been forced to come here now.

It’s not immediately apparent where this section is, though I know it exists. I come dangerously close to asking an employee where I can find books on potty-training, but at the last minute I find the section called Parenting and Childcare.

Part of me worries that she was too narrow in her request. Does such a book exist? Is that the sort of thing that a mall bookstore keeps in stock?

To my surprise, delight, and terror, there is a robust section of books on potty training that are intended to be read to children. Colorful books with names like Everybody Needs the Potty and Let’s Be Big Kids! Potty training propaganda that only helps to further the taboo of wearing diapers long after you’re supposed to be.

Gulp.

There are safer choices - less embarrassing ones - but what would be the fun in that. I choose Pretty Patty Prefers the Potty, a charming little book in which a cartoon girl seems to grow more and more embarrassed of her accidents and is convinced to embrace the potty.

I realize, for the first time, that there’s another woman standing not too far away from me. She’s glancing through self-help books on the next shelf over. Just as I nonchalantly look over to see what sort of books she’s interested in, I feel her eyes on my book. I wonder what she’s thinking. Probably that I have a daughter.

I want, so badly, to tell her that this book is actually for me. I want her to know that I am currently in a diaper - a badly soaked one at that. I want her to know that Pretty Patty is much much more mature than I am.

I don’t, of course. I hold my book close to my chest like I’m hiding a stolen artifact and I scramble back to her.

She has a small pile of books in her arms. I know her process - it is the same in a bookstore as it is in a library. There’s the first round of books - a pile of things she’s potentially interested in. This will then be whittled down in a second round, exiling books she’s less excited about. And then, finally, she’ll settle on the two or three she wants to buy. Seeing as how she’s still studying the shelves in front of her, we’re not even finished with the first round yet.

I don’t just walk towards her, I waddle. My pants weren’t made for sagging diapers, and the saturated bulk between my legs is forced into awkward positions as I walk. I’m positive she’s aware of this, but she says nothing.

“What do you have there?” she asks. “May I see?”

I hand her the book, and she’s smiling before she even reads the title of the book. Everything about the book, just at first glance, tells you everything you need to know. Cute bold colors. Cartoon girl standing next to a cartoon toilet. Bubble-letter typefaces.

“Oh this looks very good,” she says, flipping through the pages. “You could learn a thing or two from this little girl.”

I expect this to be the end of this task. I’ll put down the book or I’ll put it back on the shelf.

“Hold onto that,” she says. “I’ll read it to you later. Or, maybe, you’ll have to read it to me.”

I continue holding the book close to me, hoping that no passersby see it. I doubt that they’d think much of it, but it’s hard to separate that from what I know.

“I might be a while,” she says. “Do you want to find someplace to sit?”

Another subtle but devious question. She rightfully suspects that I’ve used my diaper, and she is thrilled with the idea of me having to sit in my soggy padding. But it’s not a very good idea. If I’m going to spring a leak, this is how it would happen.

“Suit yourself,” she says in response to my dismissal of the idea. But she makes it a point to show me that her process of book selection is only going to be slower now.

Meanwhile, I hate having such a predictable body. The coffee is working its way through me in exactly the way that she had thought it would. There is no longer just stress in my body, there is pressure. Urgency.

For now, I can hold it. It is uncomfortable, but I can do it. The question is for how long I can keep up this control. Because I could end this all right now. I could fill my diaper with just a thought, or even just the momentary absence of a thought.

“You’re fidgeting,” she says. “Do you have to potty?”

Her use of the p-word as a verb is a cunning attack. I wonder if this is hard for her to come out of her shell so much.

“Or maybe you already have? Let me check your diaper again.”

I see the top of a head on the other side of a shelf we are standing near. I wonder if they heard that.

I assume the position, facing down a long stretch of bookshelves. Bodies occasionally walk across them, seemingly oblivious to the grown man getting his diaper checked.

She pulls back the diaper and pants behind me. “Oh. What’s this? I see something. Did someone make a pee-pee in their diaper?”

The head on the side of the bookshelf turns and their body walks away. Maybe they just found the book they were looking for. Maybe they didn’t want a part of whatever they had just heard and needed to put some distance between them and us.

“Such a good boy,” she says softly, leaning forward so she can say it directly into my ear. It makes my arm hair stand on end. In the front of my squishy diaper, I feel a slight throbbing.

But that’s it. She has nothing further about it to say. No promise of when we’re leaving, nor hope of a diaper change.

A diaper change. Now there’s a question mark. I know how this scenario has played out in our fantasies. In those nights in bed, cuddled under a blanket, talking about the most fantastical ways an adventure like us could end. Me, on my back, on the floor of the women’s restroom as she changes my diaper. Me, on my back, in the back of our car in the parking garage, my exposed bottom getting wiped clean.

There’s a diaper bag in the car - she asked that I pack one. I was uncertain as to whether or not I was expected to carry it around with me in the mall, and I had left it in the car. Every few minutes I try to re-evaluate whether or not that was the right decision. Carrying the bag around with me seemed to insinuate a more immediate need for it. The diaper change would happen here, in this mall.

Leaving it in the car suggested that, eventually, we’d be making a long trek back to the car - in whatever state my diaper was in. This would also not be happening until either she was done with her shopping, or I was truly in a state in which a change could no longer be put off.

Neither seem entirely good or bad.

She’s onto the second stage of the book purchase. She’s rereading the summaries and flipping through the pages of each book, looking for hooks to grab at her.

Maybe it’s a little bit of boredom in waiting for her, or a little anxious energy that I need to find something I can channel it into, but I start flipping through the pages of my own book.

“Good idea,” she says. “Best to get very familiar with Pretty Patty.”

My cheeks are buzzing - literally tingling - as I turn the pages.

Pretty Patty has started spending more time with her friends on the playground. She is not yet potty trained - she has been stubbornly opposed to it. But her friends, they like to use the potty. Patty, she doesn’t quite get the appeal. She’s wondering what is so good about having to run and use the potty when she could just go right where she is.

And so, of course, she does. But the other boys and girls all turn their backs on poor Patty. She’s stinky. She needs to have her diaper changed like a baby. They don’t want to play with babies anymore, they’re on their way to being big kids.

Begrudgingly, she decided to finally try and start using the potty. And, wouldn’t you know it, the better she gets at making it to the potty in time, the more fun she gets to have with her friends on the playground.

I could see the message working on a stubborn little girl or boy. But it rings differently to me, far removed from the days of playgrounds - though not as far removed from diapers. The story could be seen as one of sacrifice. Little Patty surrendered the lifestyle she was comfortable with for the sake of fitting in. Hardly as appealing of a message.

It occurs to me that this book is not only embarrassing on account of being a children’s book about potty training, but also for accidentally reaffirming my own stance on diapers. I don’t need friends - I just need her. And diapers.

She hands me two books, stacking them on top of my own. “Can you go pay for these?”

Given the surprising ease in which she’s able to contribute to my embarrassment, it’s refreshing to hear her social awkwardness creep in a little.

“And,” she says, the snide grin reappearing on her face, “please be quick about it. It’d be horrible if you used your diaper again while in the process of buying a book about potty training.”

Much to her dismay, I made it through the checkout experience without even an extra drop of liquid seeping into my diaper. Believe me when I say that the temptation was there. As the cashier scanned my book, I watched her study the cover while smiling wistfully. Maybe she had been there before - potty training a young Patty. I wanted, at that very moment, to unleash everything inside of me into my diaper. Sorry, ma’am, the book is for me because - as you can see - I only use my diapers now too.

I was probably a better person for having held it a little longer.

We were inside another clothing store soon after. Again, the clothes don’t look all that different to me. I suppose I’m seeing the current trends across all fashion. The differences from store to store have to be details that are invisible to me. The number of rhinestones on a pair of boots? The amount of holes in a pair of pants?

“How is your belly doing?” she asks. “Do you need your diaper soon?”

Need is a hard word to agree with, but I nod anyways. Does one really need a diaper if I could make it to the potty - er, toilet - without incident?

We have talked about this moment before. The would we/wouldn’t we. And before our trip today, we had never reached a definitive answer. Now, at this moment, I am still wondering if she expects me to actually further soil my diaper.

She offers no answer either, she just goes on her way, pulling shirts from racks to closer inspect or to hold up against herself in the mirror.

Talking about going to the bathroom has me thinking about going to the bathroom. And thinking about going to the bathroom has my body thinking that the urge is actually much greater than I thought I had moments ago.

On a scale from 1 to 10, with a 10 being so urgent that a genuine accident was inevitable, I had seen myself at a 7 upon entering this store. Right now, we were at a 9. A 9.2, if I had to be even more specific.

“Look at you,” she says in a playful tone. “Doing a little potty dance. Is that what this is? A potty dance?”

Is it? I look over to a full-length mirror so that I can see my body swaying from side to side while my legs take turns slightly bouncing up from the ground. It’s pathetically childish. Par for the course, but it’s upsetting that I lacked seeing this for myself sooner.

“Do you think you could do it here?” she asks.

Her voice seems, temporarily, stripped of its authority. She’d accept any answer that I give her, and so I must tread carefully. If there are any doubts about me, this is the time to say so. But I assure her that I can. If I have to. If she wants me to.

The decision is on her now, and she seems to want to think it over a little longer.

She dawdles with some more clothing, moving on to jackets and hats for a bit. Any other time, I’d be at her side, cheering on the outfits I find most cute. I’m a late afternoon shadow now, allowing space so she can’t hear my frustrated grunts as the urgency continues to weigh on me.

“Come up here with me,” she says. “Where I can more easily keep an eye on you.”

I briskly walk towards her as my stomach bubbles and twists. I remain in control, but the discomfort is punishing. Worse, I feel like I’ve heard her exact words before - uttered from my own impatient mother when I was an actual toddler, probably in a store not too different from this one.

“I think you should use your diaper,” she says. Another woman, no more than 15 feet from us, cocks her head - doing a doubletake to be sure if she heard correctly. Just as quickly, the woman returns to her own shopping, either assuming she misheard or just deciding it's better if she lacks further context.

Her words sound like an opinion and not an order. I stand my ground. When I finally let go - and I know that it’s going to happen eventually - it’s not going to be pretty. So long as I have a say, I’m not going to let that happen here.

“I understand if you don’t want to,” she says nonchalantly while flipping through hangers on a rack, her back turned to me.

This comes as a relief to me.

Another squelching gurgle in my tummy. It’s loud enough that she hears it too. When she turns around to face me, I can’t tell if she’s concerned or pleased. It’s possible, somehow, that it’s both.

“Things are really happening in there, huh?”

An understatement if there ever was one. The discomfort comes close to transcending the best words I could use to describe it. It’s a turbulent roil of cramping pain. There, that’s the best I can do.

“You should just let it out,” she says. “I promise you’ll feel better about it.”

I look around the store again. More shoppers are rolling in. I’d hesitate to call the store busy, but it’s at least getting busier. We’re approaching that hour of the day where people are getting out of work. On a Friday, no less. People have paychecks to burn through, and/or dates they need to look good for.

There’s an attractive blonde going through a table of panties to my right. Her fingers graze a pair of dark green panties with a black lace trim and she stares at them for a moment - perhaps imagining what they look like on her. Maybe she’s wondering what a particular someone would think of them. She looks up for just a moment - her eyes catching mine looking at her. It’s too late, too awkward, to look away, so I continue to stare forward. She points to the panties. Hey you. Adult male. Do you like these? Would you like it if you saw a girl wearing these? I nod. She grasps the panties and walks away.

If only she knew. Later, when she wears those panties for that special so-and-so, she’d have no clue that the approving nod had come from someone wearing a soggy diaper. Someone with a child’s book about potty training in the bag he was holding. A tropical storm churning in his gut that threatened to pollute the air quality of the entire mall if it were released.

Meanwhile, she’s grown impatient. “I know you haven’t done it yet.”

I barely even realize that I’m doing it, but I’m slowly following her as she shops her way across the store. We’re at new racks. New clothes that all look the same to me. Other shoppers are nearby. I can’t tell if she’s trying to keep me close to where there most people are, or if the other people just so happen to end up where we’re standing.

She leans in close and speaks softly into my ear: “I want you to do it. Here and now. And the longer I have to wait? The less you’re going to like the things I have to say.”

I should, I really should, let it happen. But I’m curious. What is she going to say? Who is she going to say it to? Dare I tempt her?

I do dare. A real trouble-maker over here in my squishing diaper.

“I can smell your diaper,” she says. It’s in her normal tone, said from a few feet away from me. Said in the same way that she’d tell me that she liked the print on a shirt. “It smells like pee.”

In my periphery, I see a head lift from a rack of clothes. I can’t even bear turning to see the look on their face.

She’s walking again, I’m following.

“I guess I should cherish this moment,” she says. “After all, it’s probably going to smell worse soon, right? After you make a big stinky mess in your diaper?”

My vision blurs a little. Are there people around us? Could they hear her? Are they looking at me?

“Isn’t that right? You’re moments away from making a poopy in your diaper? Any minute now. I’m surprised you haven’t done it already.”

Panty-girl, green panties still in hand, is straight ahead. She’s staring me down, analyzing me. What parts of that did she hear? Did she believe any of it? She sets the panties down on another table and walks away. It comes as the most humiliating blow I’ve experienced yet - the silent rejection of my earlier recommendation. She couldn’t let herself wear the panties selected in part by a diaper-messing man-child. I don’t blame her.

“Please?” she asks. She’s been doing her best to put up a strong and dominant front, but my stubbornness may have gassed her a little. “Just...do it now, okay? Because I don’t want to leave here until you do.”

I convince myself that I’m not doing it for my own relief - I’m doing it for her.

Time slows down considerably before seeming to stop altogether. The world is frozen in place and I’m the only one in motion. I look around the store. Panty-girl is back at the table of underwear again, looking for a second choice. A cluster of young women have just entered the store and are moving from rack to rack, harshly judging everything they see. A lone woman only two racks away from us is rummaging through hangers, all while keeping a single eye on me. She’s heard something and she wants to see where this goes. A store employee is walking past me on the other side, the customer trailing behind is trying to get their attention. Two middle-aged women behind me seem just as flummoxed by the current fashion trends as I am.

It’s here, in this near-infinite gap in time, that it happens. I don’t push, I simply release. Before I’m even fully cognizant of the fact that it’s happening - it’s happening. This catastrophe - two days of hesitating and waiting, topped off with an ill-advised iced coffee - launches into the back of my diaper with a sound not unlike a lawnmower started. And yet this isn’t even the worst of the noises. The voluminous soft and wet mess fills the diaper so fast that the soggy plastic crinkles loudly as it expands wherever it can within my pants.

But time only seems to stand still for as long as I’m pooping my diaper. As the last of it is released - a second, maybe third, round of cramps and expelling - things around me begin to move again. Except everything is wrong. The women behind me have stopped talking about the absurd cuts of shirts. The woman flipping through hangers of shirts is now staring directly at me. Panty-girl seems to be putting even more distance between herself and I. I’m hearing giggling and laughing coming from the horde of young women that I’m too afraid to investigate further.

“Okay,” she says. “Let’s get out of here.”

She was holding a few pieces of clothing that she had wanted to try on, but she abandons all of them, tossing them over a rack for someone else to deal with. She reaches back, grasping my arm, and she marches forward to the exit, towing me behind her. I’m towed past the giggling girls. Past the concerned-looking employee. It’s only after we’re back in the main thoroughfare that I finally take my first breath in what feels like an hour.

“Dammit,” she says. “Where is the bag of books? And my jeans?”

I’m no longer holding the bags. I can’t even recall when that happened. Had I dropped them? Did I set them down at some point? We both know the bags are in that store. And we need to go back in and retrieve them.

She shrugs. “Fuck it. We’re going to have to go back in.” I’m disappointed to hear ‘we,’ but I’m thankful that she hadn’t suggested that I just go in alone.

Back into the store we go. It still feels like the aftermath of a plane crash here. The store seems split between people who are trying to move on from what they had just witnessed and people who are still in disbelief.

“I’m sorry,” she says, seeming to address everyone in the store. “We forgot our bags. But...also. I’m sorry you all had to see that. My little boy is obviously wearing diapers for a reason.”

She’s so very brave. And I wish that I wasn’t looking for a window to leap out of right now, because I want to get on my knees and worship her.

“We’re leaving now,” she assures everyone. “I obviously need to change his stinky diaper.”

There are probably some murmurs and confused conversations taking place around the store, but all I can hear is the shrill laughs emerging from the cluster of young ladies. A murder of crows who probably wont stop laughing about this for the rest of their lives.

We’re out of the store. We’re quickly walking through the mall now, making our way back to the parking garage. I’m holding her hand tightly.

“That was so very good,” she says. “You were a good boy. Such a good boy.”

Since leaving the store, I’ve been feeling quite low. Disgusting and piggish. Selfish, even, to think that I had any right to fill my diaper in the presence of these strangers.

“I’m so turned on,” she says.

I wish she wouldn’t say that. Through all of my soul-obliterating humiliation, the knowledge that she’s turned on turns me on.

“Fuck. I don’t know if I want to change your diaper or let you fuck me.”

I look at her face as we race across the mall. She’s completely focused and deep in thought. I so badly want to be inside her mind and see what she’s seeing.

“I’m not changing you in the car,” she says. “So that means you’re going to have to sit in your messy diaper. You can do that, yes?”

She knows this is fine by me. Anything would be fine by me if she had suggested it.

“On the drive home, I want you to read aloud from your new book. I want you to tell me all about Pretty Patty. Let’s see if we can’t learn a thing or two about the difference between big girls and little babies who still poop their pants - especially in public.”

I could argue that I had only done so to please her, but I am certainly not without fault. This, afterall, had been the plan from the very beginning. Our nights spent assembling the possibilities of how a day like this would play out. Our hour drive to a mall today - knowing all the while that we likely wouldn’t be going home the same people.

“You’ve been a very good baby,” she coos as we briskly cut across the large intersection with the fountain in the middle.

For the first time, I can smell myself. To be able to do so, at this pace, suggests that I’m no longer able to outrun the lingering shame I leave behind me. I instinctively look at her, wondering if she has noticed as well. But I can already tell that she’s been aware for some time.

“You’re a very stinky baby,” she says. “Absolutely putrid. And you’re going to sit in that mess the entire way home, yes?”

Of course I am. I’d stay in it for an entire day if she asked.

With each proceeding moment, the population of the mall seems to increase. We maintain our speed, but we’re now trudging through the masses. Nose twist and upturn as I catch sight of a few confused patrons. What is that smell? I see exactly one outstretched finger pointing in my direction, from a person I can’t bring myself to face. I wonder how they had pinpointed the source of this toxicity. I can’t help but imagine a turgid brownish-green cloud around me that leaves a trail in my wake.

“You’re leaking,” she says after taking a moment to analyze the back of my pants. “It’s wet. And...brown. It’s kind of obvious, really. But that’s okay. We’re almost there. Just keep walking.”

I want to panic. I want to have a full-blown panic attack. But she’s right here with me, attached by my hand. If she can stay calm and move forward, then so can I. As dreadful as this moment is, I already know that we’ll be looking back at it with overwhelming excitement.

We take a moment to catch our breaths in the parking garage. She laughs and I laugh too. The last hour or two feel unreal. I’m expecting some revelation - I was dreaming the entire time and we’re still driving. But we’re here and all of that most certainly happened.

Next comes another adventure. Sitting in my mess. Driving home for an hour. Reading out of a very humiliating book. Then comes home, which will no doubt be yet another adventure.

“Did you have fun today?” she asks me as she finally unlocks the car.

“Yes,” I finally respond.