The Dazzling Farce of Ruby Dreams [Tier 3 Exclusive] (Patreon)

3 Months Ago

At about the halfway point in her latte, she looked up from her phone to see a young man staring at her from across the cafe. He was trying his damndest to not look conspicuous. She appreciated his attempt at subtlety, though it wasn’t working.

She had two options: she could either acknowledge his attention, or she could ignore it. Acknowledging it felt like work. Work that wasn’t hers. If he wanted to say something, if he wanted her attention, he was going to have to get up and get it himself.

And so, out of sight, out of mind. She returned her attention to her latte and the newsfeed on her phone–the two most important parts of her morning. She found herself tempted to glance back up in the young man’s direction a few times over the next few minutes, but she fought that urge. Ultimately, she was left feeling empowered by that decision. She didn’t need his attention.

“Excuse me?” a meek voice piped up from her side.

She turned, finding the young man standing aside her table. Up close, he was slightly less attractive than she thought he had been from afar. A little too unkempt for her liking. There was something about his aura–as if he was so ridden with anxiety that it permeated his skin and affected his stance.

“Can I help you?”

“I…I normally don’t do this sort of thing,” he said, nervously scratching his head.

“You don’t say.”

“But I figured, you know, I might not ever get this chance again, so I should probably come over and thank you in person.”

“Thank me? For what?”

“Well, I’ve been a loyal subscriber for over a year now, and I think that your content is among the best I’ve ever seen and…”

“Content?”

“Oh, uhm…” The young man glanced around the cafe for a moment. When he spoke again, his voice had become dramatically more hushed: “I understand if you don’t like speaking of your content aloud. But, rest assured, I am very fond of everything that you do.”

This was almost certainly a case of mistaken identity, she assumed. Though now she was curious–just who did this young man think she was?

“Sit down,” she said, gesturing at the other chair across the table from him.

“Are you sure?”

“Sit down,” she said again.

He did so, hurriedly.

“Who is it that you think I am?”

“Ruby,” he said. “Ruby Dreams.”

She laughed aloud, her head tilting back as if it was the funniest thing she had ever heard in her entire life. “I’ve been called a lot of things, but I have never been called a Ruby Dream before.”

He squinted and scanned her over again. Then he nodded, as if his suspicions had again been confirmed. “No, I’m sure of it. You have to be Ruby Dreams.”

“I’ve only ever gone by one name: Celia Watts,” she said. “Show me. I want to see who it is you think I am.”

He nodded nervously, suddenly a little less sure of himself now that he was being asked to show his work. He pulled his phone from his pocket and quickly navigated to something–his fingers blurring in a flurry of taps and swipes. Finally, he handed his phone over to her.

“Here,” he said. “Ruby Dreams. You can’t possibly tell me that you are not, uhm, her.”

“One of us is about to be quite surprised,” she said, accepting the phone.

She looked down at the phone, and the picture that stared back at her was…peculiar. It did look an awful lot like her. She was certain that she owned a pink and white sundress that looked like that. And that did remind her an awful lot of the Mexican beach she had once visited. A Mexican beach she had once visited while in the possession of that dress.

But...stranger things had happened, right? There wouldn’t be a word ‘coincidence’ if they didn’t ever occur.

“There’s more,” the young man said. “Swipe left.”

She did. She–or this woman who looked almost exactly like her–was lying on a blanket in a red bathrobe. It was getting harder to cast doubt when she recognized that bathrobe and blanket as ones she owned. In her bedroom, no less.

These photos were, without a doubt, her.

She swiped again. This photo was, without a doubt, not her. It was a closeup shot of someone’s mid-section. Whoever it was possessed a similar body type, no doubt. However, for one, they had a birthmark just under the belly button which she did not have.

But also: this person was wearing a diaper.

She squinted at this photo for a moment before looking back up at the young man. “You said these are all the same person?”

“Yes?” he asked, as if the answer was so obvious that it had been silly to ask it at all.

She had no idea what to make of this diaper photo. It made so little sense that she could barely process it at all. She scrolled past it. A photo of her when she was hiking in the Ozarks. A photo of her feeding a baby cow on a farm. These were her photos. These were, in fact, photos of her.

Scrolling further, there was another picture of this stranger’s diapered midsection, bent over and with their thickly padded ass pointed at the camera. She swiped again. A photo of her at Emily Longwick’s party last summer. Swiped again: The diaper is facing the camera again, except this time it’s discolored a dark shade of yellow.

Celia handed the phone back to the young man.

“Diapers?” she asked. “She–whoever it is you are smitten for–wears diapers. And you like that?”

“Y-yes.”

“And so you think that I wear diapers?”

“That is you in those photos, isn’t it?”

“Curious, isn’t it?” she asked. “I don’t see any photos with her face and her diaper in the same shot.”

His face turned red. Perhaps he was feeling foolish for never having considered such an obvious observation himself. “No, that can’t be right.” He quickly swiped through more photos on his phone. She patiently watched and waited for him to find evidence that she was wrong. Yet, after a few minutes of this, it seemed clear to both that she wasn’t wrong.

“So…are you saying you aren’t Ruby Dreams?”

“Did you not listen to me when I told you that the first time?”

Now

“Do you want dessert?” Annette asked, wiping her lips with the napkin before tossing it onto her plate. The towel had, literally, been thrown in. She was done with this meal.

He couldn’t help but grin. “Well, we could do that.”

“You have a better idea?” she asked, smiling now herself.

“I’m just saying that I’ve got some ice cream in the freezer back at my place. You know, if you want it.”

“Your place, eh? I dunno. I guess it depends on what kind of ice cream you have.”

Annette hadn’t been like the other girls he had dated the last few months. She wasn’t as…vapid. Not that there was anything wrong with vapid. Vapid had its place. Vapid quickly got into bed with him. Annette, on the other hand, had depth. Personality and character. Partner potential, if he was looking for such a thing.

He wasn’t really sure if he was looking for that or not. But he liked her company while he figured it out.

“You tell me what an acceptable flavor of ice cream would be,” he said.

“It’s tricky. Neapolitan, for example, seems like a good and safe choice, right?”

“Well, sure. Three flavors.”

“Right, but I’d wonder if it means you actually just can’t commit to a single flavor.”

“What if I had, say, just vanilla?”

“I would have more respect for just vanilla than I would for neapolitan. It’s a boring choice, but at least you’re sure that’s what you want.”

“What if it’s vanilla bean? Or French vanilla?”

“Even better,” she said. “Not only do you know you like vanilla, but you know that there’s a specific version of vanilla that you prefer. You get the minutiae of vanilla. I might even wonder if you were a vanilla connoisseur.”

“I’m pretty sure I have coffee-flavored ice cream,” he said. “What do you make of that?”

“Distinguished,” she said with a smile. “Ice cream is pretty sweet and, well, childish. But a coffee flavor suggests adult tastes. Playful, but sophisticated.”

“And so will you be coming with me to my place for dessert?”

“I’d be happy to,” she said.

It was decided that Annette would follow Mick back to his apartment from the restaurant, as opposed to taking the same car. Initially, Mick worried that this gave her the opportunity to dip out from his townhouse earlier than he’d like tonight. But, too, it also meant that if she did end up staying the night–and it was Friday night–he wouldn’t have to escort her back to her car in the morning.

And so he cranked the radio up, rolled the windows down, and savored the drive home, watching her headlights in his rearview mirror as they drove. He was ready for dessert too, and when he got the chance, he was going to devour her. That tight black dress? She knew what she was doing. He could even feel himself growing hard in his pants just thinking about the inevitably of that dress being removed not too long from now.

As he pulled into his driveway, he noticed a white Mercedes SUV was already parked on the street in front of his house. He didn’t recognize it, but that wasn’t entirely unheard of–likely just a guest of one of the neighbors. Still, it always annoyed him when they parked in front of his house. Especially when–as a quick scan of the street confirmed–all of the neighbors seemed to have more than enough room in their own driveways.

Fuck it, he thought. Who cares?

“Welcome to my humble abode,” he said as Annette stepped out from her car, parked behind him in his driveway.

“Is this like MTV Cribs?” she asked. “Will you be showing where the magic happens?”

“That’s the best part of living alone,” he retorted. “The magic happens anywhere I want.”

He gave an express tour of the downstairs, moving her through the living room, dining room and kitchen quickly while pointing out the downstairs bathroom in passing. The sooner he got a nightcap in her hands, the better.

“Leather sofa? What is that, a 300” TV? I had no idea you were such a fancy-pants,” she said, smirking.

“It’s only 75”,” he said. “But it is quite impressive, isn’t it? I’ve got some of those surround-sound speaker setups now too. It’s incredible.”

“Seems…pricey.”

He shrugged. “You have to treat yourself now and then.”

“It looks like a Pottery Barn catalog in here. Do you treat yourself pretty often?”

Maybe there would’ve been a time when he would’ve gotten defensive over a woman remarking on the amount of money he spent. These days, he didn’t mind as much. He had the means, after all. And maybe a little affluence helped him look a little more handsome.

“Whenever I can,” he said. “Come, have a seat. I’ll pour you a drink. What do you want?”

“What are you having?” she asked, sitting down on the soft leather sofa.

“Maybe an old-fashioned?”

“I’m not sure I know what’s in that.”

“I’ll make you one,” he said. “Try it.”

“I’d like that.”

He loved playing bartender for an attractive woman. Nothing felt sexier than mixing up a cocktail on the fly. Of course, the truth was that he didn’t have to do much work for an old-fashioned. It was as simple as pulling out a bottle of pre-made old-fashioned syrup and mixing it with some bourbon. He wasn’t even sure what was actually involved in making a traditional old-fashioned.

He made a little show of it. With his back turned to Annette as he stood at his liquor shelf, he clinked some bottles together, shook another bottle randomly, and then excessively stirred the cocktails with some ice.

“Voila,” he said, handing a tumblr of light-brown liquid to her. “Old-fashioned.”

She took a sip of it and nodded in approval. “Impressive. Do you know how to make a lot of cocktails?”

“The important ones,” he said, laughing. In other words: the ones he had pre-made mixes and syrups for.

“You know what I like about you?” she asked, gently poking him in the chest with her finger.

“Hmm?”

“You’re a man.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m so sick of dating boys,” she said.

“I can only imagine.”

“You have no idea,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Needy little leeches that just bleed me dry sometimes. But you? You have a nice place. A job. You know how to make drinks.”

“Don’t forget that I have coffee-flavored ice cream,” he added.

“Ah yes, that too. See? A man.”

He smiled and nodded along, but a pang of anxiety had caused his heart rate to jump a little. Imposter syndrome, maybe–he was worried that at some point he’d falter in being able to meet her expectations. Too, it was easy to approve of him based on what she saw on the surface. He wondered if she’d like what was under that.

He wondered if he could keep that hidden.

“And you,” he said. “Can I just say how nice it is to be in the presence of a charming and intelligent woman like you?”

“If you haven’t been going out on dates with women who are charming and intelligent, just who are you dating?” she asked.

“Ogres,” he said. “And trolls.”

She laughed, shaking her head. “I don’t believe you. But thank you for making me feel good.”

There was no time like the present, and he leaned in for a kiss. She was ready and willing herself, her mouth already waiting for his. They tasted the bourbon on each other’s lips and tongues–a buzzing tingle. Mick quickly had the sense to take both cocktails and set them aside, freeing up their hands to explore each other. He was torn between the impulse to tear her little black dress off of her, or to leave it on a little longer—there was something so undeniably sexy about the rest of her skin remaining hidden behind such a small amount of fabric.

This feeling seemed shared by Annette as well. Her hands stroked the bulge in his pants, with her fingers taking turns working on his pants zipper and just playing with firm lump through the cloth.

An absolutely perfect moment in time.

Knock knock.

“Huh?” His head jutted up from Annette’s neck as he heard the sound of someone knocking on the door. It was so unexpected and random that it took him an extra moment or two to remember what the standard protocol was for responding to a knock.

“Are you expecting someone?” Annette asked. She seemed mostly calm, though maybe a little frustrated with the interruption in their fun.

“No,” he said, slowly sliding off of the couch. He quickly straightened out his clothes and ran his hand through his hair once or twice to make sure it was about where it needed to be.

He took a quick look back at Annette as she sat up on the couch, straightening out her dress. Whoever was at the door, they could almost definitely be assured that they had earned the ire of both lovebirds.

“Can I help you?” he spat as he opened the door.

But the color had drained from his face immediately, and he had been rendered speechless–as if he had seen a ghost.

And he may as well have. If not a ghost, then a creature just as mythic. Someone who, theoretically, existed; but shouldn’t.

“What’s wrong?” the woman on the other side of the doorway asked. “Don’t you recognize me?”

“Uh…”

“Dumbfounded?” she asked. “Stupified? Poor baby. But I can help you refresh your memory.”

“B-but…”

“Aren’t you going to ask me to come in?”

From behind him, Annette’s voice piped up from the couch: “Mick? Is everything okay?”

“Oh,” the woman said, a sarcastic frown stretching across her face. “Am I interrupting something?”

He continued to fumble with his words until he was able to finally spit out: “Y-yes. Maybe this isn’t a good time?”

“I’m not above forcing myself into your house,” the woman said. “I don’t want to, but I will if I have to.”

“This really isn’t a good time for this,” he said in a hushed tone. He knew who she was, and he knew what she wanted. This was going to be an ugly conversation and one that he wanted Annette nowhere in the vicinity of.

This was his worst nightmare come true.

“Oh? Would I be inconveniencing you if I were to come into your home?” the woman asked. “That’s fine. I guess I could go have a conversation with the police instead.”

He groaned and looked back at Annette again. She was sitting on the edge of the sofa with a worried look on her face. Goddamn, he just wanted to kiss her lips again.

“F-fine,” he said. “Come inside.”

The woman entered and he closed the door behind her.

“Good evening,” the woman said to Annette. “I’m sorry to intrude. Well…I’m not. But I do wish my timing had been better as to have not interrupted time with Mr. Jenning’s lady-friend.”

“Mick, do you know this woman?” asked Annette.

“Uh, sort of,” he said, his face rapidly turning back and forth from Annette to the woman.

“My name is Celia Watts,” the woman said. “Though that’s not the only name people know me by these days.”

Annette just looked to Mick and shrugged, unsure if she was supposed to know what Celia was referring to or not.

“Ruby Dreams?” Celia asked. “Does that name ring any bells?”

Annette shook her head. “No, it doesn’t mean anything to me. Should it?”

Celia laughed, playfully punching Mick’s arm. “She doesn’t know who Ruby Dreams is? Oh boy. Oh boy. This is not going to be a fun conversation for you. Should you excuse your friend here before she learns a little too much for her own good?”

Annette’s face wrinkled up in frustration. “Excuse me? I’m not a child, you know. I’m Mick’s friend, thank you very much. And if he wants me to stay, I’m more than happy to stay.”

“A child,” Celia said, grinning. “Did you hear that, Mick? A little bit of an ironic word choice, if you ask me.”

“Can someone please tell me what’s going on here?” Annette finally demanded. She was looking at Mick–she needed to hear the truth from him.

“It’s…complicated,” Mick said. “Maybe…” He paused, taking a deep breath as he braced himself for what could very well be a request that would ruin whatever it was he and Annette had. “Maybe it would be best if you did leave. We can meet tomorrow and I can tell you everything. I promise. But right now I think it’d be best if Ms. Watts and I had a private conversation.”

“A private conversation?” Annette hissed. “I was here first! Two minutes ago, you were feeling up my tits through my dress. And now some random woman knocks on the door and I have to go? I’m not going anywhere until I get some answers. Are you sleeping with this woman too?”

Celia laughed again. “I can assure you that that is not happening.” 

“If you’re not going to tell me what’s going on here,” Annette said to Mick before slowly turning to face Celia, “...maybe you will?” 

Celia sighed and nodded. “Last chance, Mr. Jennings? Are you going to say it, or am I?”

“N-no,” Mick stammered. “What if neither of us says anything?”

“I don’t think that’s going to work for your friend here,” Celia said. “And frankly, I’m with her. It’s time to get this shit out in the open.”

“But-”

“So,” Celia said, cutting him off so that she could talk to Annette directly. “Not too long ago, it was brought to my attention that I’ve become Internet-famous within a particularly perverted circle of men.”

“Perverted?” Annette asked. She was now more curious than she was angry.

Celia shrugged. “Maybe I’m being a little harsh, but this does appear to be an audience of men who enjoy watching a young woman crawling around in a diaper as if she was a big baby.”

“Wait…what?” Annette asked. She looked back at Mick. “Is…that something that you’re into?”

“N-no,” he said. “She’s wrong. Er…I don’t know what she’s talking about.”

“So you see,” Celia continued, “As it turns out, Ruby Dreams is this attractive woman who occasionally lifts her dress up and–voila–there’s a diaper under there.”

“So you wear diapers?” Annette asked Celia.

Celia smiled. “Much to the dismay of the fanbase I’ve unknowingly acquired, I’m afraid not. See, someone has been taking photos of me–me at the beach, me at my family reunion, me on vacation–and has been sticking them in between photos of a faceless figure showing off their dirty diapers. I wouldn’t think the public so foolish as to think that they’re all the same person. But…apparently it’s worked enough.”

“What does this have to do with him?” Annette asked, pointing to Mick.

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out myself,” Celia said with a smirk. “See, I did all my homework–got friends of mine to do some IP tracking and…hacking? Look, I don’t know what they did. But they gave me a name and an address. And that name–Mick Jennings–set off a number of alarms in my head. Because it just so happens that I have a, uh, ‘friend’ named Mick Jennings on social media–my private social media account, might I add. We met a few years ago, right? I believe Abigail is a mutual friend of ours.”

“I, well…”

Even the worst armchair detective could’ve pieced together the case that Celia was building against Mick. A lightbulb seemed to go off above Annette’s head, and she slowly turned back to Mick with an accusing finger pointed in his direction.

“Did you…take this woman’s photos and pass them off as your own for a profit?”

He could’ve lied. He definitely wanted to. But Celia wouldn’t have made the trip here without proof. Which would be worse: simply admitting his misdeeds, or denying them and being proven to have been lying?

Instead he said: “You weren’t supposed to find out.” It was unclear who he was talking to, but it probably didn’t matter; he’d have said the same thing to either.

“You created a chatty fanboy,” Celia said. “And he wanted to meet his favorite diaper-wearing model, Ruby Dreams. I think that was a surprising conversation for the both of us.”

“Diapers?” Annette asked Mick.

“You believe her?” Mick asked in return.

“Well you haven’t denied it yet…”

“Who is the other woman?” Celia asked.

“Wh-what?”

“If I’m the face of your Ruby Dreams character, who is the, er, bottom? Whose diapers are we seeing?”

He sighed, quickly trying to mull over what his answer should be. He wondered if the truth actually mattered–would any answer be rejected as a lie?

“I have a little pet theory myself,” Celia said with a shrug. “Would you like to hear it?”

“Well I am curious to hear it,” Annette said, filling the void left in Mick’s lack of response.

“I think there’s a good reason as to why there are so many more diaper-shots than there are face-shot,” Celia said. “Well, shots of my face. Mick has a limited supply of my photos on my social media, but a near-endless supply of diaper photos.”

“I’m not sure I follow.”

“What if I said that Ruby Dreams never shows pictures of what is inside her diaper?”

“Are you suggesting that…” Annette hadn’t completely grasped Celia’s point yet, but it was clicking for her as she said the words aloud. “The diaper photos are…Mick?”

“N-no! No way,” Mick quickly rebutted. To Annette: “You can’t possibly believe that, right? C’mon! That’s insane!”

“But is the rest true?” Annette asked. “Did you steal this woman’s photos for…whatever weird fetish content you’re making?”

“I…well…”

“Actually, there’s a way that I might be able to prove whether or not Mick is also the faceless diaper-wearer.”

Neither Annette or Mick said anything, instead waiting to see what new wrinkle Celia would reveal next.

“What do you see when you look at this picture?” asked Celia as she handed her phone to Annette. “Besides someone wearing a diaper.”

“I…I don’t know,” Annette said, seemingly dumbfounded by what she was seeing. “I mean…that’s a diaper. Wow. That really is someone wearing an adult diaper.”

“Kind of funny, isn’t it?” Celia asked.

“Like, I believed you when you said it,” Annette said. “And I knew it was plenty weird. But I don’t think I truly realized just how strange it was until…”

“...you could see it for yourself?” Celia asked, finishing Annette’s sentence. “If someone hadn’t shown me, a while back, I might not have quite grasped it myself.”

“I mean…it’s not even, like, one of those old-people diapers. This has little teddy bears printed on it,” Annette said, staring deeper into the photo, perhaps hypnotized by its absurdity.

“What else do you see?” asked Celia.

“I’m not sure what I’m looking for. They have a girlish figure, I guess? Or at least…kind of fit and hairless? And…oh, well, there’s a birthmark under the belly button.”

Annette looked up at a smiling Celia and then they both turned to face Mick.

“What? What do you want from me?” he protested.

“Just show us your belly button,” said Celia.

“Why would I… No, no. I’m not going to give in to these crazy demands.”

“Are you just a thief?” Celia asked. “An identity thief, at that? Or are you also a diaper-wearing pervert on top of that?”

“Show us,” Annette didn’t say so much as demanded.

“Fine. But this proves nothing! You’re just going to see what you want to see. And, like, there are things like Photoshop and…”

“Just show us,” Annette said.

He tightly gripped the edge of his button-down, which had been pulled out from his pants during his earlier canoodling with Annette on the couch. He hesitated for a moment before finally deciding to just, figuratively, pull the bandage off. With one swift movement, he tugged his shirt and undershirt up to his chest so that his belly was on display.

Hairless and smooth. A little brown birthmark beneath his belly button.

“Well, well, well,” Celia said to Annette. “Do you see what I see?”

“Honest to gosh?” Annette asked Celia. “You had no idea that he was taking your photos and pretending to be you?”

Celia shrugged. “I can assure you that I’d never have consented to such a thing.”

“That’s very serious,” Annette said to Mick. “I mean…identity theft, for one, right? But then on top of that, you’re using that identity for this…sex thing?”

It was at this moment that Mick broke. There was no longer any reason to keep up the facades. There was no chance of charming his way through this. There was no chance of protecting the rapport he had built with Annette. A new game was afoot: survival.

Somewhere deep, deep, in the back of his mind, he knew that this was always a possibility. He had told himself a few times over the last year or three that there was a chance–however small–that everything he had built for himself could come crashing down if someone happened to recognize that “Ruby Dreams” was actually someone named Celia Watts. But what were the odds of that?

They just had to have been so small.

“Fuck,” he finally said, breaking the tense silence. “I’m really sorry.”

“Oh, well in that case, I think I’ll just be on my way then,” Celia said flippantly.

He either believed that for a moment, or just very badly wanted to believe it. When he looked up at Celia’s face–just in time to catch her rolling her eyes–his heart sank even deeper into his chest.

“And so what am I supposed to do?” Celia asked. “Go to the police? Sue you?”

“Is he making money off of your photos?” Annette asked.

“As I understand it, Ms. Dreams’ content is free. But she does have quite the following. Just over 15,000 subscribers, last time I checked.”

“15,000 people and nobody ever realized that he is not quite…you?” Annette asked Celia.

Celia had to laugh. “Believe me, I’ve thought the same thing myself. How do so many people fool themselves into thinking that the woman romping around the beach is not the same as the faceless torso showing off their diaper in a poorly lit bathroom? Goes to show, doesn’t it? People don’t care about what they actually see. They see only what they want to.”

“I’ve seen enough,” Annette said. To Mick: “I can’t decide if this little visit was terrible timing or the best timing. But, all things considered, it’s probably for the best that I know about it now.”

“Are you leaving?” asked Mick. It felt like an especially pathetic question. Of course she was leaving. What reason was there for her to stay?

“I think I’ve seen all that I need to,” she replied.

“Well, for what it’s worth,” Celia piped in, “I’m far from done here. In fact, I’d say that I’m just getting started. And if you have nowhere better to be, I’d encourage you to stay. The more the merrier.”

Annette laughed. “Yeah? And what all did you have in mind?”

“Quite simply: revenge.”

Simultaneously, Mick swallowed nervously and Annette chuckled.

“Revenge? Well, damn. You’ve got my attention.”

“Maybe you both should go,” Mick said. “Celia, there’s a conversation that should be had. But I don’t think that this is the time and place for whatever it is you want to-”

“Shut up, Mick,” Celia said.

Mick stopped talking, the power in her voice having been quite effective on him.

“As I’ve shown you,” Celia continued, “I didn’t come here empty handed. I have everything I need to prove that you’re in deep trouble. I mean, c’mon, my stolen photos are probably enough. But my friends–the tech-savvy ones who are good at the hack-y things–gave me the rest of what I needed. IP addresses. Registration data. Email addresses and emails. Internet handles. Essentially, I have an air-tight case against you. And what should I do? Go to the police? Your friends and family? Your employer?”

“N-no,” he said. “Please, none of that.”

“But you put me at that sort of risk, you know? My friends could’ve found your lies. My boss. My mother. And I would have to prove that I wasn’t some diaper-wearing weirdo.”

“What do you want from me?” he asked. “Please, just tell me. Money? An apology?”

Celia turned to Annette: “What would you want from him, if he stole and repurposed your photos? And, let’s be honest, if you’re an attractive woman who is friends with him online, there’s a good chance he was already thinking of stealing your photos for use in his next little disgusting alter ego.”

“I guess I’d want…assurance,” said Annette. “I’d want to know, for sure, that he was never going to do it again.”

Celia nodded. “Exactly. I want assurance.”

“I can assure you,” Mick said. “I’ll never take another photo of yours again. I’ll delete my accounts. I’ll unfollow you! I promise, I’ll never be a problem again.”

“First things first,” Celia said. “We need to do some damage control. If not today, then possibly tomorrow or the day after, someone I know is going to see those photos of me–associated with your Ruby Dreams character.”

“But…I can delete them and-”

“Do you not know how the internet works? You don’t simply pull down your account, delete some photos and walk away while patting yourself on the back. Once those photos are out there, they get saved and shared. Reappropriated. Recycled. You could blink out from existence right now and there’s still a chance that two years from now, my future boyfriend is going to see a photo of me in Tahoe, followed by a photo of ‘me’ with my dress pulled up and a big fat diaper sticking out from it.”

Mick sighed. “So what did you want from me?”

“We’re going to make some content,” Celia said with a smile. “And we all know how good you are at that.”

He opened his mouth–maybe to protest, or maybe just to plead for an alternative solution–but he ultimately said nothing. Either she had earned the right to boss him around, or she simply had him by the balls. Metaphorically. For now.

Annette would be the one to ask the question that he would’ve eventually asked himself, had the room stayed quiet long enough. “What does that entail?”

“Mr. Jennings here is going to disrobe for me. For us. Then, he’s going to get one of his big diapers. Then he’ll model it for us, showing us what a cute baby he is while we take all sorts of photos. And then, he’s going to post them all for Ruby Dreams’ adoring fans so they can meet the real star.”

“But…”

“No, I’m sorry,” Celia said, hands on her hips. “This isn’t up for discussion. There will be no negotiations. If you want to work this out–without the police getting involved–then you’re going to do as I ask. Otherwise, I walk out this door with everything that I have on you. And, well, good luck after that.”

After just a moment of deliberation, Mick spoke again, defeat permeating his tone: “What do I have to do now?”

“Take your clothes off,” Celia ordered. “All of them.”

His instinct was to protest, but he bit his tongue. It was finally setting in–he wasn’t going to be getting out of this without being humiliated. The only real choice he had was whether he’d get humiliated at the hands of Celia or the hands of the public if Celia walked out that door while unsatisfied with his attempts at penance.

Slowly, he began to disrobe. He started with this button down, and then his socks and pants. Next came his tee, before finally–and with more hesitation–he let his tan boxer briefs fall down his legs to the ground.

Both women stifled giggles as they looked at the nude blushing man. His hands hung in front of him, doing their best to conceal his shriveled manhood. Not that it mattered much, in the process of taking his clothes off, both women had seen everything they needed to.

“Well?” Celia asked Annette. “Had I not shown up when I did, you probably would’ve seen most of this anyways. What do you think?”

“It felt bigger in his pants,” Annette said, laughing.

“I’m curious as to what you would’ve thought when you finally saw all this without any context,” Celia said, waving her hand in a circle around his torso.

It was a curious sight.  From Nick’s knees up to his chest, he was shaved almost completely clean. Even his pubic hair was kept tightly trimmed and neat. The things he, assumedly, did to keep up appearances for Ruby Dreams. Annette did wonder if she’d have noticed his lack of hair once they got intimate–or if, perhaps, he was the type who always insisted on keeping his shirt on while having sex.

The answer didn’t seem to matter much. He was a strange man who had gotten himself into an even stranger situation.

“Now,” Celia said to Mick. “What do you say we get you into some of Ruby Dreams’ finest, hmm? Some nice thick diapers?”

Once more, he looked as if he wanted to say something, but he didn’t go through with it. Compliance seemed to be the best option. He slowly nodded. “I…I have to go get one.”

“Get one? Get one of what?”

“A…diaper.”

“That’s right. Go and get your diaper. We’ll be here waiting for you.”

He turned and walked away from them, listening to them giggle and snicker behind his back as he trudged up the stairs without clothes on.

If he were in his bed at this moment, dreaming up a perfect fantasy, it might look something like this–two strong-willed and pretty women bossing him around and forcing him to dress up in his kinkier attire for them. In this moment, however, all he could feel was the infinitely heavy humiliation that was crushing him into nothing.

A Little Over Two Years Ago

Long before Ruby Dreams had a perceived physical form, she had at least been a concept in Mick Jenning’s head. She–a free-willed kinkster with a penchant for pissing her pants–was the opposite of Mick Jennings–just another lost in a sea of other boring white middle-aged men.

Early on, he saw Ruby Dreams as a persona. A character that he played. But not even that seemed good enough for her. Ruby Dreams was better than that. He didn’t want to play Ruby Dreams. He wanted to be Ruby Dreams.

He started small. Internet chat rooms and message boards. Cloaked in anonymity, Ruby Dreams was a flirty and gregarious presence. She was a diaper-pissing little slut, and she was always on the hunt for Daddy.

In this scenario, the small doses of dopamine were sufficient. He’d find someone who was quickly enamored by the concept of Ruby Dreams. Someone who wanted to ask questions, and learn everything there was to know about her. And Mick lived for it–he was writing the story of Ruby Dreams with every conversation. Everytime someone asked a question that had never been answered before, it was an opportunity to learn a little more about Ruby himself. He’d dangle the carrot–the concept of Ruby–in front of a man for a bit until the man either wanted more than Mick could offer, or Mick got bored. Usually, the man would want to see photos. Or talk on the phone.

After the line had been cut many times for men who were thoroughly on the hook, Mick had begun to think about what was next. Was this an endless loop of briefly exciting conversations with strangers?

The evolution of Ruby Dreams, he figured, was her image. In his imagination, he couldn’t quite see what Ruby looked like. She was vaguely hot. Cute. Tall sometimes, but short other times. How did she walk? How did she wear her hair?

It was a mystery that stuck with him for a while, bubbling in and out of his consciousness almost every day. He’d see an attractive woman at a bar, or while waiting in line at the bank, and he’d wonder if that was what Ruby Dreams looked like.

But as the old adage goes: you only find it when you stop looking for it.

Scrolling through his social media feed one night, he came across a picture of a woman he only barely knew--Celia Watts–smiling and waving to the camera at some sort of music festival. There was something about her that just resonated with him. She had equal parts youthful exuberance and controlled maturity about her. Cute as hell. Best of all? He could imagine her in a diaper.

His memory of his connection to Celia was fleeting. A friend of a friend, he thought. Maybe they had met at a party of some sort and had hit it off in a short conversation, but had never made the effort to reconnect after.

It didn’t matter. Celia was the face of Ruby Dreams, even if nobody else knew it.

But…would anyone else know better if Ruby actually appropriated Celia’s looks for her web-presence? After surprisingly little internal debate, Mick decided to make it so. Ruby Dreams had a face now.

Ruby shared stories about herself. She was almost always getting into convoluted situations where she was suddenly on the verge of pissing her pants–or worse–at the worst times. Her sister’s wedding. Her nephew’s birthday party. In the middle of a movie at the theater. While on a date. The answer to this string of fictional crises were, of course, diapers. And thus, she’d piss herself at her sister’s wedding. Piss herself as her nephew blew out the candles on his birthday cake. Piss herself while in the middle of dessert with a man named Javier.

And now, Mick could slip in a little photo at the end of each post. Celia’s photo albums were chock full of potential adventures for Ruby. He found some photos of Celia’s time at a family reunion. Well, Ruby now had a tale to tell about how she had flooded her diapers to the point of leaking while at a family reunion. And there was the photo of Celia–or, Ruby–looking slightly frazzled and nervous as a swarm of people partied behind her.

For a time, this satiated the demands of Ruby’s growing fandom. But they wanted more.

“Show us your diapers!”

“We want to see you soaking that diaper.”

“Please-oh-please, show us a picture of your cute face with a diaper on.”

And, short of driving to wherever it was that Celia lived so that he could drug her and put her into a diaper, he wasn’t sure what else he could do about that.

Somewhere in between taking a shower and getting dressed one morning, he had a thought as he looked into the mirror. Was he that far off from having a physique similar to Celia’s? If he lost 10 pounds…maybe he could pull it off? She wasn’t ‘curvy,’ but she wasn’t a beanpole either. And for as close to ‘fit’ that he thought he was, he probably couldn’t have pulled it off were she any thinner.

In other words: It was as close as it was probably going to get. And if he took a chance and nobody bought it…would he–Mick Jennings–be all that worse off?

Thus, Ruby Dreams was introduced to the world. Free-spirited and adventurous. Charming. Pretty. Naughty. All it took was a handful of people to spot Ruby Dreams’ posts, and when they shared her content, it caused a chain reaction that brought in more people–who brought in even more people in turn.

Ruby Dreams wasn’t just Celia Watts’ photos, nor the photos of Mick’s diapered bottom, nor the stories Mick fabricated of Ruby’s adventures. Ruby was a composite of those pillars, and she’d cease to exist if any of those were to vanish.

Ruby went to Key West, where she got her diaper changed by a jet-ski tour host. In Boston, Ruby stumbled into a corporate barbecue and was made to strip down to her diaper for a bunch of tipsy executives. In Chicago, Ruby was tied to a punk rock band’s kick drum in just a diaper for the duration of a show.

As Celia would say one day in the future: They see only what they want to. Nobody ever doubted the authenticity of Ruby because they didn’t want to. They had no reason to. It didn’t matter if Ruby was real or not, because the concept of her was something everyone wanted.

Someday, somehow, he knew that it would some day end. The future of Ruby had always been incredibly foggy. Mick just hoped that, when the time came for Ruby to bow and leave the stage, it’d be per his terms.

Now

“This exceeds my expectations,” Celia said, before shaking her head and laughing. She accepted the folded up diaper from Mick’s outstretched hand, making sure that Annette could see it too.

“Oh,” Annette said, mouth agape. “Oh wow.”

“It’s…the only kind I have right now,” Mick said.

The diapers were a pastel pink color, with little cartoon princesses printed across it. The shade of the diaper’s pink almost matched his cheeks’ color perfectly.

“I shouldn’t be surprised,” Celia said. “I imagine these are exactly the kinds of diapers a pretty baby like Ruby Dreams would like to wear.”

“What about you?” Annette asked Celia in a teasing tone. “Is that the kind Celia would wear?”

Celia laughed. “I prefer my toilets to be white and porcelain.”

The speed at which Annette and Celia had developed a camaraderie had concerned him. He had hoped that Annette would’ve either been his defender or would’ve just left his house. She had done neither, and had–in fact–become just another tormentor in what was shaping up to be one of the most difficult nights of his life.

“They’re very girly,” Annette said, stroking the plastic diaper with her fingers. The loud sharp crinkles of the clean diapers cut through any other sound in the room, rendering Mick’s cheeks a deeper shade of magenta.

“You almost have to wonder if he thinks that these are just the types of diapers that he thinks Ruby Dreams likes or if…these are the kinds of diapers that he likes himself.

“Well, he does seem to enjoy pretending to be a girl,” Annette said with a shrug.

“Indeed,” replied Celia. “But he’s not quite a girl, is he?”

“He could never be one of us,” Annette said, folding her arms in front of her. “He’s just a sissy.”

Celia barked a very satisfied laugh. “Exactly! A sissy! A little sissy baby. Is that right, Mick?”

“W-well…”

“Mick is a con artist and fraud,” Annette said. “I don’t care for him much. But I think we should play with Ruby.”

“Precisely what I was thinking,” Celia said. “Are you ready, Ruby?”

“Ready…for what?”

“Lie down,” Celia said. “On the ground. Let Aunt Celia put you in your diaper.”

“Aunt?” laughed Annette.

“Who do you want to be?” Celia asked her, an amused smile on her face.

“The big sister. Wait, no. I’m the…little sister. Can you even imagine? Getting put back in sissy diapers by your little sister?”

Celia laughed and shook her head. “Careful. Imaginative situations like that are probably exactly what Ruby Dreams thrives on.”

She couldn’t have been more accurate. Had he not been humiliated to the point of near-paralysis, he suspected he’d be sporting a raging hard-on at that moment. As it was, he just prayed that he could store this memory deep in the back of his mind for some day far in the future, when the stinging embarrassment wore off.

Snap. Annette got a photo of the humiliated Mick on her phone.

Doing his best to ignore that, he did as he had been asked–he slowly lowered himself down to the ground and then laid on his back. This too–all of this really–was straight out of his fantasies.

“I read up on Ruby Dreams,” Celia said, shrugging as if that was an incredibly obvious thing to say. “I read every single one of her posts.”

Mick groaned, feeling a tremendous shame for all of the filthy fantasies he had penned using Celia’s face as a muse.

“Miss Dreams has had her diaper changed by a lot of different people, did you know that?”

“I had no idea,” Annette said, laughing. Really, she had been having a near-constant giggle fit since Mick had laid on the ground. Just the absurdity of a grown man lying down to be put into a ridiculous diaper–never in her wildest dreams did she imagine that the night would go like this.

“This has to be a first,” Celia said, kneeling down and positioning herself between Mick’s legs. “Ruby Dreams getting her diaper changed by…herself?”

Celia handled Mick’s body with a practiced ease. She lifted his legs straight into the air, sliding the unfurled diaper under him before laying him down atop it.

Snap. Snap. Annette got some more photos on her phone.

“Do you have children?” she asked Celia.

“None of my own. A niece and a nephew, though. I know my way around a diaper. How about you?”

“I don’t know a thing about diapers,” Annette said. “I want to be a mother someday but…diapers always seem kind of intimidating to me.”

“Oh there’s not much to them,” Celia said, draping the front of the diaper over Mick’s shrunken manhood so that she could tape shut the sides. “Getting them on is easy. Taking them off…well, it can get dirty. But all you have to do is just wash your hands after and you’re good to go.

“Well you certainly make it look easy,” Annette said with a laugh.

Snap. Snap. Snap. Annette’s phone got a few more shots of Celia’s hands putting the finishing touches on Mick’s diaper.

“There we go!” Celia chirped. “Isn’t that better, Ruby? All wrapped up, nice and snug, in your diaper?”

He just sighed, stuck in a humiliated limbo.

“This is too much,” Annette said, laughing again.

“We’re not done yet,” Celia said.

“We’re…not?” Mick finally asked. “Wh-what else am I supposed to do?”

“Don’t be silly,” Celia said. “You’re only in a diaper. Ruby Dreams doesn’t wear just a diaper in all her adventures, right?”

Mick shrugged as he sat up.

“Don’t act like you don’t know. Here, I’ll show you.” Celia quickly trotted away from Mick and over to the front door. She opened it, reaching out to grab a suitcase that she then rolled inside. “I came prepared!”

“Holy shit,” Annette said. “What the hell did you bring?”

Celia shrugged, parking the suitcase down next to Mick. “A little bit of everything. I was just thinking, you know, maybe the issue is that Mick was just really jealous of my sense of fashion, right? That’s why he picked me to be the face of Ruby Dreams. So I thought I could bring some of my clothes over to him. Then, at last, we’ll get Ruby Dreams’ diapers and fashion in the same place at the same time. At last.”

“That is brilliant,” Annette said, seeming to be awash in the bliss of that idea.

“I…I don’t want to wear your clothes,” Mick stammered.

“Well I don’t care what you want,” hissed Celia. “You stole my images–my identity. If I want you to paint yourself purple and pretend to be a hippo, you’ll do that too.”

“Can we please do that next?” asked Annette.

“Hmm, maybe,” teased Celia. To Mick: “Stand up. It’s time for a fashion show for us and all of Ruby Dreams’ followers.”

There were clothes–lots of clothes. Panties, bras. Shorts and skirts. Dresses. Heels and flats.

And makeup.

“Now, isn’t this fun?” cooed Celia as she dabbed at Mick’s cheeks with a brush loaded with pink powder. He had been moved to a chair, where Annette and Celia took turns applying makeup to his face. In a small mirror that was propped up in front of him, he watched the progress slowly take shape. His cheeks became rosier. The eye shadow, and the burst of pink above his eyes, really made his eyes pop. His lips took on a juicy red hue.

He still looked very much like a man. Albeit, a very pretty one.

Snap. Snap. Snap.

First outfit: cut off shorts that just barely fit over the diapers–in fact, the 30% of the diaper still jutted out over the top of the shorts. A light pink croptop, exposing pretty much everything from his midriff down to the shorts.

Snap. Snap. Snap.

Next: A blue sundress, complete with thigh-high white stockings and dark blue maryjanes.

Snap. Snap. Snap.

“Maybe you should bend over,” instructed Celia. “And lift that hem up a little bit.”

He was bent at an almost 90 degree angle, his dress lifted enough to see the thick diaper poking out, perfectly framed by the stocking-ed legs on either side.

Snap. Snap.

Next: A very small red cocktail dress. He didn’t quite fit into it, but by leaving it unzippered in the back, they were at least able to give the illusion that it fit for pictures. It was perfectly complemented by the black heels and lacy garters.

Snap. Snap. Snap.

And on (Snap. Snap.) and on (Snap. Snap.) and on (Snap.)

“Can you two just excuse me for a few minutes,” he finally said to them.

“What? Why would we do that?” responded Celia.

“I just need to…take a break.”

“You can have all the breaks you want when we leave.”

“I just…”

“Do you have to use the bathroom?” Annette asked.

“Well…”

“Come on,” Celia said. “You can’t be fucking serious right now. The Ruby Dreams we know and love knows damn well where she goes potty.”

Somewhere between the fear of the consequences of not playing along with Celia’s game, and the pseudo-reality of actually becoming Ruby Dreams, Mick felt like he was missing his own free will. Celia controlled him like a puppet. Ruby Dreams was controlling him too.

There, in his short yellow skirt, black tank top and stuffed yellow bra, he gave in to his base needs and flooded his diaper.

Snap. Snap. Snap.

Celia had lifted the hem of the skirt so that Annette could get a video of the diaper gradually getting saturated, before it then sagged down between his legs.

“You like it, don’t you?” Celia asked.

“Wh-what?” Mick answered.

“Don’t play dumb. You like being Ruby Dreams. This humiliated little pants-pisser. Right?”

“Yes…”

“Tell us. Tell us both how much you love it.”

“Well, I…”

“Go on,” Annette urged. “I want to hear.”

“I’m Ruby Dreams,” he said. “I love diapers. I’m a big sissy baby.”

“Did you get that?” Celia asked Annette.

“I think I hit the wrong button,” Annette said, fumbling with her phone. “You’ll have to say that again.”

“Probably for the best,” Celia said. “He can do a lot better than that.”

A New Post

“Hi. Uh, hello. This is the first time that I’ve, uhm, made a video on my blog–but it’s an important one.”

From off camera: “Introduce yourself.”

“Hi, I’m…Ruby Dreams. I probably don’t look like I…usually do. But that’s because, well, the Ruby Dreams that you know…wasn’t real. I had stolen photos from someone else. J-just the face photos. The, uh, diaper photos were all…me.”

“Go on,” the voice from off camera said. “Say all of it.”

“I’m…just a big sissy baby. I steal other people’s photos because I’m too pathetic to use my own. But it’s time that all of you saw my real face. It’s time that you saw who Ruby Dreams really was. And, well, here I am. I’m…a pants-pissing sissy.

“All of my old photos have been removed from this account. In their place, a new collection of photos have been uploaded along with this video. I…uhm…encourage all of you to share and save these photos of me–the true Ruby Dreams.”

Later

The women were gone. He’d never see Annette again. Well, not by choice at least. It wasn’t a big town, and maybe someday, somewhere, their paths would cross again.

Celia had left behind her suitcase of clothes. They were his now; a ‘donation,’ as she put it. She left him with something else, too: A threat. She had eyes on him now, and she promised that the consequences would be far worse if he were to ever try such a thing again–whether it be with her photos or someone else’s.

But, as he sat on the living room floor in the same soaked diaper, he doubted he would ever do such a thing again. It was a rather inconvenient path to get to this point, but now that he was there–he was beside himself with the revelation that this was the start of something.

He could grow his hair out, or get a wig. Wear more makeup. Get even thicker diapers, obviously. Just thinking about the possibilities caused his hand to plunge into the front of his diaper. Within just a minute, he was on his back again, breathing heavily at the satisfaction of having erupted into his diaper.

Ruby Dreams had finally, truly, been born.