Some Call it Fate [Tier 2 & 3 Exclusive] (Patreon)

Some might call it fate. Personally, I don’t really care for that word. It suggests that my decisions have already been made for me and that everything is predestined. All the good stuff. All the bad stuff.

Of all the things I could be thinking about as I’m running down this dark country road, I’m thinking about fate.  I refused to believe that I was only on this road because of fate. It was because of decisions that I made. Some good, some not so much.

Maybe it was a little bit of luck, too. I do believe in luck, even when it’s bad luck. Luck isn’t the same thing as fate, though.

Right?

I couldn’t see the red and blue lights reflecting off the trees behind me anymore, suggesting that I had evaded my pursuers for the moment. My pace slowed and I was finally able to catch my breath. I would’ve probably passed out a mile earlier if it wasn’t for the adrenaline coursing through my body.

There were no lights, no street signs, and I had no idea where this narrow road even led. Guided only by the dim moonlight, I walked forward without having any idea as to where I was going. Far away from my past, I supposed.

It took a while, but I finally saw a light off in the distance, through the trees. I followed the road towards it. I was finally feeling the late-winter night’s cold in my bones. I wished I had thought to grab a jacket–even a sweatshirt–from the back of my car before abandoning it on the side of the highway.

I had just assumed that I could stroll up to the house and knock on the door. But the closer I got to it, the less certain I was. If some stranger came up to my house in the middle of the night, would I be warm and inviting? Or would I kick them to the curb and tell them to fuck off?

I wondered if I should just walk past the house and continue down this road in the middle of nowhere. But, I realized, I’d need to stop somewhere eventually. I couldn’t walk forever.

I walked up the front steps and onto the covered porch. I looked around, seeing if I could get a feel for what kind of person lived here. There were only potted plants and a bicycle–nothing that told me much of a story. The porch light wasn’t on, but I could still see a handful of lights were on in the bottom floor of the two-story house, the warm light glowing through the drawn curtains.

Well, here goes nothing. I knocked on the door.

I was surprised with how quickly someone answered. I had expected to have to knock multiple times, possibly rousing someone from sleep. It appeared that this house’s resident wasn’t too far from the door.

“Hello?” They opened the front door, speaking through the still closed screen door that still stood between us. My eyes weren’t ready for the bright light inside the house, causing my vision to blur. I had no idea who I was looking at.

“Hey…uh…I’m sorry to bother you. But my car broke down a few miles back and…” My voice trailed off as I ran out of things to say. What, exactly, was I looking for? A chair to sit in? A few bucks? Just a glass of water?

“Come inside,” the person in the doorway said. “It’s cold out there, isn’t it?”

My eyes slowly focused. It was a woman. Older than me, but probably not by much; early-30s, if I had to guess. She’s clearly dressed for bed, with a cozy looking robe wrapped around her; the hem of a nightgown jutting out below where the robe stops. She’s wearing thick black glasses, and her shoulder-length dark hair is swept to the side. I suspect this is her in night-mode.

She stepped aside from the doorway, giving me the space to enter. At a different time, maybe I’d question the logic of stepping into a stranger’s house. But, again, the same could be said about letting a stranger into your house. I opened the screen door and stepped inside as she closed the front door behind me.

The first thing I felt was warmth. I needed that. I was chilled to my core, and it was going to take a while to get back to temperature, but this was a good start.

“Where did your car break down?” she asked.

“The highway.”

“And you didn’t just stay on the highway?”

It was a good point, and I wished I had thought of that before I told her where I came from. “I’m not from around here. I guess I just picked a path and…went with it.”

I expected further interrogation from her, but she simply smiled and nodded. “Do you need a phone to call someone?”

Was that a subtle way of asking me why I didn’t just use a cell phone, or am I trying to read between lines that aren’t there? I didn’t have anyone to call. I didn’t have a cell phone either. Well, not anymore, since I had left mine in the car.

“Shit…I don’t think I know any numbers off the top of my head…”

“Why don’t we just go and sit down,” she said, motioning towards the sofa. “I can get you a blanket if you want to warm up. Maybe some tea? Coffee?”

My instinct was to not trust her hospitality, but my brain was being overridden by my body’s need for warmth. “Anything warm would be nice. If you don’t mind.”

“Of course not,” she said. “Here, take a seat.”

I did so, sitting on the aged green sofa. She unfurled a large black and white afghan and draped it over me.

“Thank you.”

“Stay right there and try to warm up,” she said. “I’m going to put some water on the stove.”

She stepped out of the living room and into the kitchen where I could hear her filling the kettle with water from the tap before the click-click-click of the gas stove being ignited. I took the opportunity to take in my surroundings. It was a small house, decorated simply. Various photos and paintings on the wall. A small TV off in the corner. Lots of books and magazines, most stacked in neat piles or arranged on the many bookshelves.

I leaned forward a little, scanning one of the magazines on the table. Fashion, maybe. More specifically, fashion design. Nearby were sketchbooks and various pens and pencils. From my vantage point it looked like she was sketching out ideas for clothing.

“My name is Dawn,” she said from the doorway to the living room. “Sorry, I should’ve introduced myself sooner. I don’t get a lot of visitors. This time of night or otherwise.”

“I’m Chad,” I said, forcing a smile. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to, it was just hard to.

“Sorry it’s a little messy here,” she said, looking around. “I live alone so I tend to just let my work take over all the space it needs.”

I shrug from under the thick blanket. “I’m just grateful you let me inside. It’s your house–you do whatever you want with it. Are you, like, a fashion designer?”

“I design clothing, yes.”

“That’s really interesting,” I said. “I don’t have an artistic bone in my body. I could never do something like that.”

“I think everyone is creative in their own way,” she responded. “I’m sure you’re creative somehow. Maybe you don’t even realize how you are yet.”

I chuckled to myself and nodded. I felt like I was being talked to by my kindergarten teacher, and she was a second away from walking over to me and sticking a gold star on my shirt.

The tea kettle had begun whistling from the kitchen. “I’m going to make some tea for us, okay? Be right back.”

I leaned forward in my seat again, taking another look at her drawings. There’s something compelling about seeing her creative process scattered about the room. Perhaps because creative expression like this didn’t exist in the world I was trying to get away from. I was just trying to survive and get by, day to day. I wished I had hobbies. Passions.

I stared at some of the drawings. The one closest to me on the coffee table caught my attention. It was difficult to make heads or tails over what it was supposed to be. At first glance it looked like an adult woman, but that didn’t seem right. She was clearly wearing what looked like a diaper and an infantile romper–so maybe it was actually a child? But with a chest like that?

Or, maybe, I just didn’t know anything about fashion.

“Here’s some tea,” she said, strolling into the room with two steaming cups in hand. “Do you like earl grey?”

“I don’t know much about tea,” I admitted. “But this will be fine, thank you.”

I took the cup from her, immediately taking a loud sip. It was very hot, and I could feel it burning my tongue, but it didn’t matter. I needed this warmth and I needed it quickly.

“While I was making your tea,” she said, “I looked out the window. I saw some lights.” She retained her warm smile, but her demeanor had shifted a little. Concern, perhaps?

“L-lights?”

“Police lights, if I was to guess,” she said. “Looks like they’re headed this way.”

I wondered what my move should be. Did I make a run for it? Pretend that I had no idea why they would be approaching her home? Or did I tell her the truth and hope that she wasn’t going to hand me over to the authorities?

“They might be…for me,” I said, bracing myself for her to take the cup of tea out of my hands and kick me out.

Instead, she just nodded slowly. “How serious is it?”

There’s little point in lying about it. “Theft. But, like, a lot of it. Over the course of a few months. They figured out who I am and they’ve been looking for me all night.”

She nodded again. “So you can’t go home.”

“Exactly.”

“I can help you,” she said.

“You…you’re willing to do that?”

“You’re not going to make me regret helping you, are you?”

I shook my head. “No, ma’am.”

“I trust you.”

She stood up and walked over to the window, opening the curtains enough to look out into the dark night.

“Are they close?” I asked.

“They’re over at my neighbor’s house. One car. Two officers. Probably asking if they’ve seen anyone. They’ll probably be here in a few minutes.”

“Should I hide?”

She nodded. “There’s a room down the hall there, to your left. Just go in there, close the door and keep the lights off. I’ll talk to the officers when they arrive.”

My heart pounded in my chest. “Yes, okay. Thank you so much. You have no idea what this means to me.”

“Just go,” she said, shooing me away with her hands. “We can talk about this more later.”

I quickly scrambled out of the room and down the hall, finding the door on the left. I dove into the room, closing the door behind me. It was just me in the dark of a completely unfamiliar room. Between the dim moonlight coming through the window and the light bleeding in from under the room’s door, I could make out only shapes.

Suddenly I saw it, the red and blue lights swirled across the window, illuminating the room in short bursts. I could now make out some of what was around me. A chair. A table with a sewing machine on it. Bodies? No, mannequins–outfitted in strange poofy dresses. Wigs. More clothes hanging from racks and hangers. This must’ve been her workspace.

I could hear the knock on the front door.

“Hello?”

“Good evening, madam. My name is Officer Grady from the Oak Ridge police department. How are you this evening?”

Surprisingly, I could hear just about everything through this old house’s thin walls.

“The police?” asked Dawn. “At this time of night? Is everything alright?”

“Well, we hate to bother you so late, but we’ve got a little bit of a pickle on our hands right now.”

“Oh? Do tell, officer.”

“We’ve been pursuing this fella tonight, and we have reason to believe he might have come running down your road here. So we were wondering if you might have seen or heard anything out of the ordinary tonight.”

“Gosh, pursuing? Sounds dangerous. Is he dangerous, officer?”

“You can never be too sure, ma’am. Between you and me, I don’t think he wants to hurt anyone. But he’s also a criminal on the run. It can be hard to say what he’ll do next. It’s in everyone’s best interest that we find this guy tonight. So have you seen anything? Heard anything?”

“No sir,” she said. “And believe me, if I saw some strange man lurking around my house this time of night, you better believe the first thing I’d do would be to call the police.”

“Very wise of you, ma’am.”

There was a pause where nobody said anything. I wished I could see what was happening instead of just hearing it. The police car’s lights continued to illuminate the room. The more I saw, the more confused I was. It was just like her drawing on the coffee table–babyish clothing, but seemingly sized for adults.

Just who was Dawn designing clothing for?

“You live alone, ma’am?” the officer asked.

“Y-yes,” Dawn answered, marked hesitation in her voice.

“Do you mind me asking why I see two steaming cups of tea sitting on the coffee table then?”

Damn. I looked up at the window, wondering if I’d be able to get the window open and escape if I had to. No, I couldn’t do that. Dawn was just trying to help me, and I didn’t want her to get in trouble if I was caught in the midst of trying to flee the house.

“Well I live alone,” Dawn said. “But my sister is currently staying with me. She’s in the other room right now.”

“Oh, I see,” the officer said, sounding unconvinced.

I needed to do something. To help the both of us. I looked around the room again as Dawn’s reference to her fake sister repeated in my head.

I had an idea. It was either the smartest thing I had ever come up with, or the stupidest.

“Look,” the officer said, “I’m not saying that you’re doing anything wrong here. But I do want to be clear that folks get in a lot of trouble for harboring and aiding criminals.”

I had quickly pulled off my pants, followed by my shirt. I grabbed a dress off of one of the closest mannequins. I couldn’t really see its design, but it probably didn’t matter much. I just needed to be convincing enough for a single moment.

“Are you suggesting that I’m lying to you, officer?” Dawn asked in the living room.

“Not at all, ma’am. Just stating facts, that’s all. We have reason to believe that the suspect couldn’t have gotten too far, you know? If you haven’t seen him yet, there’s a chance that you still might.”

I quickly darted across the room, grabbing a wig from a shelf. Would this be sufficient? Did they know what I looked like? And if they did, how good of a photo did they have?

I lowered the wig onto my head.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” I muttered to myself.

I opened the door of the room, walking out into the hallway. I had a plan, and I quickly walked towards the living room. I felt the cool outside air before I got there, that familiar winter air drafting in from the open door. I saw Dawn and the officer standing at the threshold of the door.

In a single second, I watched Dawn’s mouth drop open in astonishment as they both looked at me, before she composed herself.

“Annie,” she said to me. “Dear, this nice officer dropped by to ask if we’ve seen anyone lurking outside the house tonight.”

“O-oh,” I said, attaching a mockery of a feminine falsetto to my voice. “Well, I haven’t seen anyone.”

“I’ll talk to the officer,” Dawn said to me. “You get back to bed. I’ll bring your tea to you.”

“Thank you, Dawn!” I said, quickly spinning on my heels and heading right back into the room I had come from, shutting the door behind me.

“My apologies, ma’am,” the officer said, his tone reflecting defeat. “I didn’t mean to sound so accusatory before. It’s just been a long night and…”

“Oh goodness,” Dawn said, cutting him off. “No need to apologize. I understand you’re just trying to do your job.”

“I’ll let you get back to your evening,” he said. “Please apologize on my behalf to the young woman. I didn’t mean to get her out of bed with all this commotion.”

Did my little gambit…work? Did I somehow fool the officer into thinking I was Dawn’s sister?

“I can assure you I will,” Dawn said. “And if I do happen to see anything suspicious, I’ll be sure to give your office a call.”

“Much appreciated. Good night, now.”

The door closed. And for a few moments there was just silence. Soon, I watched as the police lights receded from the room until they were gone.

“The coast is clear,” Dawn said from her living room. “Are you still wearing those clothes you put on?”

“Y-yes?”

“Come on out so I can see you.”

I did as she asked, opening the door and slowly marching back into the living room. I felt as ashamed as I did relieved.

“Well you fooled him,” she said.

“I can’t believe that worked.”

“You almost convinced me that I actually had a sister.”

“R-really?”

“Have you seen yourself?” she asked.

“The light wasn’t on, and I couldn’t find a mirror. So…no. How ridiculous do I look?”

“Come with me,” she said. “I’ll show you.”

I followed her further down the hallway and into a bathroom. She turned the light on, positioning me in front of the mirror.

“Well?” she asked. “What do you think?”

The first thing I noticed was my head. The blonde wig completely concealed my shorter, darker, hair to the point where it looked completely natural. But the real surprise was that it framed my face in a way that made me look remarkably feminine. Transformative, almost.

“I have to say, you make a pretty cute girl,” she said. “A little bit of makeup? The boys would be all over you.”

My eyes traveled down the mirror to the dress, and my cheeks turned crimson. I had been right in my earlier observation that her dresses all had an infantile quality to them. But this pink dress, with its cream colored bows and accent ribbons, also had the word ‘BABY’ literally embroidered across the front of it.

“Who is this dress even for?” I asked, staring at the cute–if not slightly infantilized–person staring back at me.

“I design clothing for a very specific clientele,” she said. “Have you heard of adult babies before?”

I shook my head, though I could just about guess what they were into.

“You’re not wearing the complete outfit,” she said. “It works better as an ensemble. Not that you knew that.”

I continued staring ahead at myself, trying to make sense of what I was seeing. “What else could possibly be a part of an outfit that includes a dress like this?”

“Oh, well, there’s the diaper cover. And the knee-high socks. And a bonnet too.”

“Did you say diaper cover?” I thought back to the drawing I saw on her coffee table of the busty woman sporting a thickly padded ass.

“Adult baby, yes,” she said, shrugging. “They’re quite serious about their diapers.”

“Oh.”

“You look so cute in that dress and wig though. I realize this is going to sound crazy but…I’d really love to see you in the full ensemble.”

“I…I don’t know about that.”

She shrugged. “I mean, I did just help you evade the authorities who were looking for you.”

I sighed. She was right, though I was disappointed to see her using that for leverage already. I wondered if there was a limit to her hospitality. Would a denial of her requests cause her to pick up the phone and call the police?

“Okay, sure,” I said. “I’ll play dress up for you. But…”

“But?”

“Do I have to wear a diaper?”

She laughed. “So you’re fine with wearing a dress and a wig, but you somehow draw a line at a diaper?”

She made a good point, and I couldn’t quite pinpoint how I found diapers to be too much after agreeing to wear everything else. Actually–I could think of a reason why the dress might have been a little more acceptable.

“Diapers are new to me,” I said. “That’s all.”

“But a dress isn’t new to you?”

I wasn’t sure what to say to that, but I was sure that my blushing cheeks spoke volumes.

“Ah,” she said, smiling wickedly. “Someone’s played dress-up before, is that it? Mommy’s clothes?”

“When I was younger, yes,” I said softly. It wasn’t the type of information I’d normally give up to anyone, but seeing as how I was already in the dress, there seemed to be little point in holding back.

“If only Mommy could see her little girl now,” she said. Her finger pointed to the word on my chest. “Her little baby.”

“I…I’m not a baby.”

“Not yet, you’re not. You’d need a diaper.”

“I don’t need…”

“Come with me,” she said, marching out of the bathroom. I obediently followed her.

We ventured a little further down the hallway and then up the stairs. She pointed me towards a room off to the right. It looked to be just a pretty standard bedroom. A guest bedroom, if I was to guess, given the clean and vacant state of the room. Few decorations on the shelves. A bed that looked like it hadn’t been disturbed in years. No clothing or toiletries strewn about.

“Get on the bed,” she said to me.

“Why?” No sooner than the word had escaped my mouth, I realized it was a dumb question to have asked. I probably could’ve guessed.

“I’m not going to have you put on your own diaper,” she said.

“Okay,” I concede. “But does it have to be done with me lying down?”

“Have you ever watched a baby get its diaper changed?” she asked.

I nodded, thinking about all my cousins when they were babies.

“Have you ever watched a baby get its diaper changed while it stood up?”

“No…”

“Right. So onto the bed you go.”

I did as she asked, lowering myself atop the bed. Of all the things I could be thinking about, I was entranced by how comfortable this mattress was. I thought of the aged and stiff excuse for a mattress back in the room I used to call home. I don’t think I’ve slept on a comfortable bed in years.

“I’ll be right back,” she said. “I trust you can be a good girl and stay put?”

My cheeks glowed again as I offered a tiny nod. Truthfully, now that I was on this bed, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to get off of it. She could do whatever she wanted to me, so long as I got to stay right there.

I could hear her walking back down the stairs, but almost immediately it seemed that I heard her walking back up them again. For a moment I wondered if she had forgotten something, but I realized that I had fallen asleep for just a moment. I wondered how long she had been gone.

“I think I’ve got everything I need here,” she said, sliding back into the room with a smile on her face. She held a number of things in her arms, dumping them atop an otherwise uncluttered dresser-top near the door.

When she turned around to face me again, she was holding a large flat object, seemingly folded. I had seen similar objects before on a much smaller scale–a diaper. I was unsure what I expected, but this probably wasn’t it. It was too similar to the little diapers my cousins wore. Pastel pink in color with cutesy cartoon designs on it. Shrunken down, it would be no different from a baby diaper. It was a baby diaper–just for large babies.

“Let’s get this over with,” I muttered.

“That’s entirely the wrong way to look at this,” she said. “This isn’t just some experience that you ‘get over.’ I have a feeling a little girl like you is going to enjoy this more than you think.”

I considered debating that speculation, but I bit my tongue. Really, did it actually matter if I liked it or not?

“I thought you just designed clothes for those people,” I said, unintentionally weaponizing ‘those people’ as if they were pariahs.

“Hmm?” she asked, tilting her head curiously.

“You have diapers on hand?”

“Ah. Are you asking if I wear them myself?”

“You,” I said. “Or other guests?”

“You could call it research, I guess. I am, after all, making clothing that fits over the extra-pillowy bottom of a big baby. Now, do I wear the diapers myself? No. Goodness no. But I’ve made some, you know, friends in this community. I call them in. They get to be diapered and dressed up by a pretty lady. And I get the exact measurements I need to sell some new products. We all win, Chad.”

I sighed. I could be certain that her previous assistants had far more agency in their decision to work with her than I did.

“Now then,” she said, loudly crinkling the large diaper in her hands. “We’ve gotten off course. Let’s get this on you.”

She grabbed hold of the elastic band of my underwear, tugging them down the length of my legs. My limp and shriveled manhood dangled uselessly between my legs. Were it any other time, being undressed by a pretty woman would have probably straightened it right out. At this moment, I was far too humiliated to even consider being aroused.

When the underpants were removed from my body, she held them up between us with just her thumb and forefinger. In just hanging there, they seemed shameful–worn and faded blue briefs that had certainly seen better days. I tried thinking back on the last time I had a chance to change them. It had probably been a day or two too long.

“I’ve changed my mind,” she said, staring at the underwear.

“You…don’t think I need a diaper?”

“Oh, I am more sure of that than ever before. But I hadn’t expected the stench of your little panties here to be so offensive.”

I blushed–both for her reference to them as my ‘panties,’ and for calling me out on not being as fresh-smelling as I would’ve liked.

“You can whine and protest a diaper all you want,” she continued. “But I hardly see the difference between using a diaper and wearing something as putrid as this.”

Using? “Wait. Do you actually expect me to…”

“One thing at a time,” she said, grasping my hand in hers. She pulled me up to a sitting position. “You need a good scrubbing before we put your diaper on.”

I sighed, this time in relief. That actually sounded pretty nice. It had been a few days since I last had a hot shower, and I badly needed one. I needed to be clean, physically and mentally.

“Yes,” I said, nodding. “That’s a good idea.”

“Very good. Come, follow me.”

I stood up and followed her back out of the room and into another across the hall. It was a bigger bathroom, this one with a large bathtub nestled in the corner.

“Arms up,” she said. “Let’s get this dress off. But don’t worry, I’ll give it right back to you once you’re clean.”

“I could probably take it off myself,” I said.

“You probably think you could do a lot of things,” she retorted. “But I’ll be taking your dress off.”

No part of me was at ease with hearing her refer to it as ‘my dress.’ But I relented, lifting my arms into the air. Whatever strange things happen here, it’s still better than being caught by the police, I thought.

The dress was lifted straight up and over my head, before being gently hung from a hook on the door. Next, she walked to the bathtub, putting a stopper in the drain and twisting the knobs for the water. I realized that she was running a bath.

“Couldn’t I just take a shower?” I asked, nodding towards the showerhead sticking out from the wall above the tub.

“Showers are for adults,” she said.

Steam began to rise from the bathtub, gentle wisps of it spilling over the edge of the tub and filling the air of the bathroom. The mirror above the sink was already beginning to fog.

“Go ahead and get in,” she said. “It’s still filling, but it’ll be warm.”

I could already guess, but I felt like I needed to ask anyway: “I’m, uh, not taking a bath by myself, am I?”

“If I thought you were capable of taking a bath by yourself,” she said, “I’d have allowed you to just take a shower. Go ahead and climb into the tub so that I can give you a bath.”

Un-freaking-real. Not that long ago, my elderly Chevy was lurching its last few feet on the side of the highway, taking me as far as it could. I was just walking outside. And suddenly I was being asked to step into a bathtub so a stranger could wash me before putting me in a diaper.

“Vamanos,” she said, giving my bare ass a slap.

I sprung forward, dipping my foot into the tub. The water was hot. Too hot, maybe, but I needed this. I sighed, opting to just roll with it. The alternatives were all worse than this. And this wasn’t even that bad–it was just weird.

I imagined having to tell someone about this later. “...and then she gave me a bath.” I imagined anyone I told that to responding with: “It sounds like she was taking care of you.”

My body eased into the slowly rising water. The hot water felt like it was incinerating my skin for just a brief moment, before my still-frozen bones absorbed all the heat that they could. I was sitting on my ass, my legs bent in front of me. The higher the hot water got, the better it felt. I didn’t care that she was there, nor did I care what she could see. Right now, I just needed everything I was feeling inside this tub.

“Theft?” Dawn asked.

“Just stealing anything I could get my hands on to sell,” I said. “Cell phones. Laptops. Purses. Cars.”

“And they caught you?”

I shrugged. “I’m not sure what happened. Somebody probably gave my name to the cops to save their own ass. I came home to my place today and they were waiting for me. I ran. They followed. I got some distance from them but…then my car died.”

She shut the water off. For a moment, the bathroom was completely silent. I hadn’t felt anything as serene as being partially immersed in the hot water in this quiet bathroom in a long time. My stresses, and there were so many, were pushed off into the distance for now.

“So what happens when you leave here?” she asked.

“I probably can’t go home. Not that it was ever all that much of a home.”

“No friends? Family?”

I shook my head. “I’ll probably have to go to a new city. Lay low for a while. Maybe try to get some legitimate work but…last time I tried that, this is where I ended up.”

She soaked a washcloth in the water before squeezing some soap into it. ‘Baby Bathtime Soap,’ per the bottle. The soft, infantile, scent penetrated my nose immediately. She kneaded the cloth, drawing out a cloud of thick suds in her hands. Gently, she pressed it against my shoulders, running it across the skin of my back.

For a moment, I tensed up. I sighed, trying to release as much of that tension as I could.

“That’s it,” she said. “That’s a good girl. Let it all out and let me take care of you.”

“This is all rather strange,” I admitted, blushing again at her continued use of feminine pronouns towards me. “But…thank you.”

She laughed.  “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy this myself.”

“You said before that you didn’t wear diapers yourself. But you’re still, like, into all of this stuff, right?”

Her wash cloth

“I’d have picked a strange career if I wasn’t,” she said, laughing to herself.

“So you like…taking care of people?”

“There’s a very specific way in which I like to take care of people,” she said, smiling. “It tends to attract friends, though few that I would ask to stay long term. Thus, living by myself.”

A moan stumbled out of my mouth. She hadn’t even done anything perverse, it was just the bliss of her damp cloth grazing across my skin, one small area at a time.

“You’re still too tense,” she said. “Just relax.”

“That’s hard for me to do.”

“4-7-8 breathing,” she said.

“What?”

“Breathe in for four seconds. Hold it for seven. Breathe out for eight seconds.”

“And what is that supposed to do?”

“Just do it. And keep doing it.”

I closed my eyes and drew in a deep breath. 1. 2. 3. 4. I held my breath. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Release. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. And, because she said to, I started over again. Breathe in. Hold. Let go. Breathe in. Hold. Let go.

The line grew blurry between the feeling of her cleaning my body and the feeling of me sinking deeper into the bathtub as I relaxed. The feelings began to meld together. I wasn’t even sure that I was breathing at all anymore, though I continued to count. 1. 2. 3…

I heard a voice. It was probably Dawn’s, but I wasn’t completely sure about that. It was just a disconnected voice, floating through the ether I now inhabited: “The good thing about starting over is that you get to choose who you want to be. Who will you want to be?”

I had been in survival-mode for so long that I rarely ever made time to think about the things I wanted and not needed. What did I want? Money? Belongings? Did I want 100 pairs of expensive sneakers? One of those electric self-driving cars?

No. I think I wanted simpler things. A home. Love. Comfort. And pretty dresses. And perfumes. And panties. And pretty blonde wigs. And…

Her hand plunged into the water, nestling itself between my legs. I was woken from my daze, mouth ajar and eyes wide open.

“Calm yourself,” she said. “But I’m going to have to clean down here too.”

Her wash cloth wrapped around my cock, now starting to finally show some life.

“Lean back,” she urged. “This is going to be awkward, but we have to be thorough.”

I had no idea what she was talking about, nor did I take a moment to try and guess. I did as she asked, leaning back in the tub. She separated my legs further before reaching between them again. This time, I felt her probing fingers exploring below my shaft, now fully erect. I knew what she was looking for before she found it. My heart beat quickly, but I made no effort to stop her.

“Just relax,” she said softly.

The fingertips of her index and middle fingers pressed against my backdoor. Every instinct told me to tighten and tense. Breathe in. Hold. Let go. Her digits entered me. At her angle, and my position, she couldn’t get far. But she didn’t need to. My head rolled back on my shoulders as I moaned.

“That’s a good girl. We’re just making sure your bottom is good and clean too. For now.”

Her fingers slowly slid out of me. I moaned again, this sound ending on a sour note. It implied disappointment.

“Oh, do you want more?”

I wanted to say yes, or even just nod. But I was paralyzed with shame.

“Maybe later we could try that again,” she said. “During your next diaper change?”

Once again, that implication that I’d be using the diaper. I didn’t find the idea of it to be all that offensive.

She pulled up the plug from the drain, and the warm water began to recede around me. I watched the water, now an odd shade of gray, spiral as it entered the drain.

“And look what the tide has left behind,” she said, grabbing hold of my cock.

“Unh.”

“This silly thing will never fit in your diaper, will it? What do we do about that?”

I said nothing. She could do whatever she wanted with it, but she knew this already.

“Seems like a waste, doesn’t it?” she said, slowly letting her hand slide up my shaft. “A pretty little girl who seems eager to have her bottom played with. Yet here she is with a healthy-sized cocklette.” Her hand then slid down the shaft towards my balls. She began to repeat these movements, letting her hand shift up and down. Up and then down.

“I’m choosing to trust you,” she said. “You can be trusted, yes?”

I nodded.

“And not just because you know that I could sic the police on you if I had to. I trust you because I want to. I know there’s good in you. You’re just a lost soul, yes?”

I nodded again, breathing heavier as the speed at which her hand slid up and down my shaft increased.

“You can stay here, with me, if you want to. For now. I’m not committing to anything long term. But for the time being you need a safe place to stay. Not just because you’re a wanted man, but because you need to rest. Warm up. Eat. Look how skinny you are. I need to fatten you up a little.”

“You…you would do that for me?”

“There will be rules,” she said. She continued to stroke me, every cycle bringing me a little closer to a point of no return.

“Of course,” I said, my voice on the verge of breaking. “Anything you want.”

“I don’t have men’s clothing here. But I have plenty of clothing for little girls.”

“Uh…yes. Okay.”

“And if you’re going to be a little girl, I’m going to insist that you wear diapers.”

“Y-yes, ma’am.”

“You’re wise to show me respect. But I would prefer it if you called me Mommy.” Her hand had picked up even more speed on my cock.

Words were getting harder to form. “Yes…Mommy.”

“I’ll be preparing your meals. I’ll be dressing you. I’ll be changing your diapers.”

Maybe it was just the rush of hormones flooding through my body, but if she told me that I also had to stick a kazoo up my ass and perform “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” I’d have agreed to that too.

“Yes…yes!”

“And I’m afraid the name ‘Chad’ is simply no good, as far as little girl names go. Perhaps something like…Charlene?”

“Yes. Of…of course, Mommy. Call me Charlene…”

“Are you getting close?”

I nodded frantically.

“Be a good girl and ask to have your climax, won’t you?”

“I…yes… M-mommy, may I…please…may I…”

“Yes?”

“May I…be allowed to c*m, Mommy? Please? I…I promise I’ll be a good girl for you. If I…If I could just…”

“Go on,” she said with a smile.

Within the same second she said the words, I erupted, the milky spurts landing in her bathtub serving as my signature on the verbal contract I just agreed to.

“Come now, we’ll need to get back to the guest room–or should we call it the nursery now–and get you into a diaper.”

I slowly climbed to my feet, my still dripping cock losing most of its stiffness and just swaying between my legs again.

This was it. The start of an entirely new chapter.

***

“I think it’s safe to say that someone needs their diaper changed, yes?” Dawn asked.

My cheeks glowed as I stared down at the carpet. I was still getting used to the concept of just going when I felt the urge–and I had a feeling it would still take a while longer to fully accept it. But…I had done it, probably putting on quite the little show for her too, as I grunted and pushed in an effort to empty all of myself into the diaper.

There was a knock on the door. Dawn got up from her seat, looking surprised that there was a visitor, but still maintaining her calm composure.

“Be a good girl and stay there,” she said, a smile on her face.

She walked to the door and opened it, revealing a police officer.

“Good afternoon, Officer…Grady, was it?”

“Yes, ma’am. And I’m sorry to bother you again.”

“Oh, not a bother at all. I’m sure you’re just doing your job. What can I help you with today?”

“I just wanted to follow up with you on my stop over to your house the other night? Regarding that fella we were trying to track down?”

“Ah yes,” Dawn said. “That was, what, three or four days ago? And you still haven’t caught him?”

“Not yet, though we’re doing our best. I was passing through the area and thought I’d check in with you and your neighbors again to see if you’ve seen or heard anything suspicious since that night.”

“If I had, Officer, you’d have been the first to know.”

He sighed, nodding. Something seemed to have caught his attention. He sniffed the air suspiciously. Dawn and I could probably guess what it was. I knew that I could certainly smell it.

“Oh that?” Dawn said. “Just my baby.”

“Baby?” the officer asked, scratching his head. “I didn’t know you had a kid. The other night I thought it was your sister staying with you.” His voice didn’t sound accusatory. It sounded like curiosity.

“Oh, it’s her,” Dawn said. She stepped back from the door, allowing the officer to stick his head into the house and look at me. “I sometimes call Charlene a ‘baby’ because…well, you know.”

I was on the carpet, sitting on my loaded diaper with my feet splayed out in front of me. I wore my pink dress still, the word ‘BABY’ embroidered on the chest. Pacifier on a clip dangling from my collar. Bonnet over top of my blonde wig. Puffy pink diaper cover. Knee-high cream colored socks.

He was staring at me, right into my eyes. He must’ve known what I looked like–what Chad looked like. Did he see some semblance of that person when he looked at me? Or was there no recognition at all.

“Oh,” he finally said, sounding completely confused by what he was looking at.

“Sorry for the smell. What can I say? Potty training is a bitch.”

“Right,” he said, backing out from the door. “I’ll, uh, let you go back to that.”

“Thank you. And thank you for your service, of course. If I see anything suspicious, I’ll remain in touch with you.”

“Y-yes,” he stammered. “Please do. Thank you for your time.”

She closed the door, smiling.

“See? You’re safe. Though, the timing of this blow-out couldn’t have been better. Let’s get you changed.”

***

Later, and many times after, I’d wonder what the police officer thought when he saw me in the house that afternoon. Was there any recognition at all? His face was still burned into my memory, and the more I thought about it, the more I thought I could see a glint of recognition in his eyes.

Maybe he knew exactly who I was. But when he looked down at me, in my infantile get up and obviously soiled diaper, he considered the possibility that I had found something I deserved more than courtrooms and prison.

Or, maybe, he just didn’t recognize me at all.

“Thank you,” I said, as she ran a baby wipe between my legs. It was a genuine thank you–not just for this moment, but for everything. Shelter. Food. Companionship. Her warm nature and compassion.

“Of course,” she said, helping me to my feet. “You’re lucky you knocked on my door.”

“I’m not sure I believe in luck,” I said. “Feels more like fate to me.”