Bottoms Up [Complete Collection] (Patreon)

The entire story, in one post!

One: Donuts

Bleary-eyed, hair tousled, excessively dry lips. Only slightly hungover. He had a personal rule about wearing sweatpants out of the house, but there he was - in the shop while rocking a pair of heather grey sweats.

Effie noticed this immediately, opting to keep any comments to herself - for now. Though, let it be said, this had been a particularly challenging morning to keep it to herself.

“Go on,” he said, clearly aware of her tongue-biting. “I know you’re dying to say something.”

She shook her head while mimicking the motions of locking her mouth shut and tossing the key over her shoulder.

“It was a rough night,” he continued, responding to questions that weren’t asked. “A rough morning too, for that matter.” He pulled the carafe from the coffee maker, pouring a disappointingly transparent brown liquid into a cup. “It’s gonna be one of those days.”

“For the record,” Effie finally said, “I didn’t make the coffee.”

“Well I didn’t either. Do I have another employee I’ve forgotten about?”

She released a burst of air from her nostrils - somewhere between a laugh and a scoff. “Harper was here this morning.”

“Really?”

“I thought you knew that.”

“It certainly sounds like something I should have known, right?”

She made the motion of locking her mouth shut again. A smart girl.

“Doors are unlocked?” he asked. “Lights on? All that shit?”

She looked at her smartwatch. “For the past hour, yeah.”

“Am I that late?”

“Yes.”

He took a sip of the coffee, cringing as he swallowed. He shook his head, holding the cup far out ahead of him - like it was a canister of caustic acid that he didn’t want to have too close to his body. He left the salesfloor, walking through the double doors into the stock room.

She waited patiently for his return, perfectly timing her question for when he emerged through the double doors again, no cup in hand. “Why don’t I just get some coffee?”

“What if a customer shows up? I’m not going to talk to them looking like this.”

Effie craned her neck over her shoulder, scanning the salesfloor. Not a single person. Nobody outside. Not even any cars in the parking lot, save for hers. This was the norm for the morning. The walk-ins would be hitting up the store later, somewhere between lunch and closing.

“I think you’ll be fine,” she said.

“Is Harper coming back?”

“No, I don’t think so. I think she just left her laptop charger here.”

“She made that coffee?” he asked, pointing an accusatory finger at the coffee maker. “For herself? And presumably drank it?”

“I think she thought she’d be staying longer than she did.”

“Oh.”

Effie knew she wouldn’t have to elaborate - and she knew that she should probably lock her mouth shut again - but she said it anyways: “She didn’t think you’d be here this morning. But then she heard your car pull up around back...”

“Oh.”

A change of subject was needed: “So. Coffee, right?”

“And donuts,” he said, his pointed finger spinning from the coffee maker to Effie. He reached into his pocket, pulling out his wallet. He grabbed a cluster of cash and handed it to her.

“I doubt the coffee and donuts will run us…” she quickly counted the bills, “...$47.”

“Just...give me the change when you come back,” he sighed, far too tired to care about this right now. “Buy yourself a Billie Eilish CD or whatever you kids do.”

She rolled her eyes, but laughed. “Gee, thanks mister. Gosh, welcome to the wonderful world of diaper money.”

“Just go do the thing,” he said. “And do it without any further snark.”

--

He liked Effie less as a person and more as a symbol. She was the sign that he was doing something right. Four years ago he was doing most things by himself. Selling, ordering, packing, shipping, customer service and, occasionally, answering a ridiculous question on the Internet. He had long assumed that this would be the way that it always was.

Harper helped, when she could. If nothing else, she was a body. She could sit at the counter while he did actual work. But she had a job herself. And a life.

This place? This was his life. 60-70 hours a week, waist deep in the world of adult diaper sales. Still just as awkward to say to himself as it was to say to other people.

And then, when he finally started to make a profit? He treated himself to an Effie. Perfect timing too, as Harper had not only grown sick of looking at giant diapers, she had grown sick of Layne in general.

They were separated now - a vast grey area that could encompass everything from sleeping in different beds to living with different people. They lived in the same house, supposedly. They passed each other once in a great while. But the house hadn’t been ‘home’ in sometime. Home was the store.

Bottoms Up: The Adult Baby Superstore.

One. He didn’t know what made a superstore so super. But the name sounded good. Definitive.

Two. He had wanted to call it the ‘ABDL Superstore,’ but that had been vetoed by Harper. He had forgotten how most of that conversation went, but he still spent a lot of time debating with himself on whether or not he should’ve pushed harder for ‘ABDL.’

Three. He had to lie about what he did for a living. He couldn’t just be a generic ‘business-owner,’ nor did he ever want to have to explain to Aunt Cathy that he sold large diapers to horny men. So he was a ‘specialized medical supply reseller.’ And that usually did the trick. Though Aunt Cathy had once called to ask if by ‘specialized medical supplies,’ it meant that he sold donut pillows for people suffering from hemorrhoids. “No,” followed by a mental ‘not unless that kink community really blows up sometime soon.’

Did he like what he did? That was a tricky question. He imagined it’d be the same answer whether he was playing professional baseball, directing movies, or selling diapers for a living. It was fun until it wasn’t. Any passion he had for the subject had just been transmuted into ‘knowing a lot about that stuff he sold.’

He hadn’t worn a diaper himself in two years. And while the store had its own semi-active social media accounts, his personal accounts had been deleted long ago.

Theoretically, he still liked it. Somewhere very deep beneath the everyday stress of fulfilling orders, paying bills, and making sure that decent coffee was within reach.

--

The front door opened, jingling the bells attached to the back of it. He didn’t look up from the laptop perched on the front counter - one tab opened on a message board discussion reviewing the new diapers from Puffybabes, the other featuring an article about the ongoing computer chip shortages that made buying a video game console so hard.

For the record, he was fine with there being a chip shortage - as it meant that he couldn’t buy a video game machine that he had no time to play anyways.

“I’m going to stack three donuts on top of each other and eat them all at once,” he said. “Just watch.”

“I’m sorry?” spoke the young woman. A different young woman’s voice than Effie’s. Less sarcastic.

“Oh, uh, hey there. I was expecting someone else. Someone else with donuts.” He silently cursed his sweatpants, opting to stay behind the counter.

“Should I...get some donuts?”

“Are you a customer?”

She looked around the shop cautiously, taking in the shelves and stacks of adult diapers tightly packed into plastic cubes and the dresses and onesies hanging from racks. “Yes, I think so. I hope so.”

“Customers aren’t required to bring donuts,” he said.

“You should have a sign on the door,” she said. “Just to make that clear before you walk in.”

Her playfulness was a welcome vacation from Effie’s sarcasm. And Harper’s frustration.

“Looking for anything in particular today?”

“Diapers,” she said. “Obviously, I guess. But that’s as far as I got.”

“I know a thing or two, if you have any questions.”

Layne was the salesman he wished every other salesman he had ever met was: unobtrusive. He was there if he was needed, otherwise he tried to stay out of people’s way. He said something along the lines of ‘Diapers sold themselves,’ often enough that it was either now a mantra, or a catchphrase he’d use until proven wrong.

“They’re not for me,” she said. She sort of just tossed it out into the void in case anyone cared.

He had heard this before. He had heard this often, actually. He had gotten pretty good at figuring out whether or not this was a lie. Sometimes it wasn’t too hard to tell. Maybe it was the way they giggled or blushed. Maybe their diaper was sticking out of the back of their pants. Maybe they were just wearing a onesie that said, in large bold letters, ‘MOMMY’S DIAPER BABY.’

He was pretty sure he had sold that very onesie to that baby.

She didn’t look like she was lying. He could certainly imagine her wearing a diaper. With her thick plastic framed glasses and auburn hair in a bun, she’d probably look cute in a diaper - the star of a video about a librarian who gets turned into a baby after reading a cursed book and…

Focus, Layne.

“Who might they be for, then?”

“My boyfriend,” she said

“Does he know he’s getting diapers?”

“Not yet.”

He laughed to himself. “Is this going to be a, uh, surprise?”

“A birthday present,” she said. “But he likes diapers. I’m not, like, forcing something new on him.”

“That’s a shame.”

She laughed.

“Are you looking for anything in particular?”

She shrugged. “I’m sure you could give me some very detailed information about each diaper’s absorbency. But I think I’m more interested in finding something...cute?”

“We have plenty of cute,” he said. He almost took a step out from behind the counter, but changed his mind. He pointed to a small stack of diapers in the center of the salesfloor. “Take a look at those.”

“Oh?”

“They’re the Carnivals. Discontinued for a while, but they’re back - mostly thanks to the demand. People absolutely adore these things.”

“They are pretty cute,” she said, lifting a package up for further inspection.

“It’s a simple design,” he said. “But I think that’s what everyone likes about them. Quite babyish.”

“Is that what people like?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Yeah...I’d say so.”

“Do you think my boyfriend knows about Carnivals? Like, would he see them and be excited that they’re being made again?”

“Maybe? Actually, let’s say yes. Yes, he would absolutely be delighted to see them.”

“Or I could get him a gift card,” she said. “And he could pick out his own diapers.”

He grimaced a little. “What is your involvement in his...diaper wearing? Are you an active participant? A passive acceptor? Probably not a concerned opposer…”

“Passive acceptor? If I had to choose.”

“So when he unwraps his gift and sees that it’s diapers, how do you think that’d make him feel?”

She smiled, shrugging a little. “Happy? Acknowledged?”

“And now imagine him opening a gift card to the diaper store.”

Another little shrug. “Yeah, alright. Let’s get these, then. Do I need to get anything else? Any other accessories?”

“Oh, maybe. Does he have a B-type or C-type changing station? Does he need an adapter?”

She wrinkled her nose at this, trying to make sense of his gibberish, before laughing.

“How often do you get to use that joke?” she asked.

“I think that’s actually the first time. Right off the top of the dome, too.”

She handed him her credit card. He took a close look at the name before sliding it through the register’s card reader.

“You’re more charming than a guy who sells diapers should be,” she said. It straddled the line between observation and joke far too closely to know for sure how it was supposed to be taken.

“Nobody has ever said that to me before,” he said. “At least not to my face, April Kellogg.”

She winced a little at hearing her own name come from his mouth. Was it too flirtatious?

“Don’t let your head get too big. You’re still selling diapers.”

He handed her card back to her, drawing a large black plastic bag from under the counter to hide her gift-diapers in. “I actually just had one more question for you.”

She smirked a little, ready for one last cute little quip from this stranger. “Okay?”

“What do I have to do to get you into a diaper today?”

--

Effie wasn’t an adult baby, nor was she a diaper lover. She didn’t hate them; she found the whole movement kind of interesting from a sociological standpoint. There had been times when she had come close to wanting to buy a package of diapers for herself - or to pluck a stray single from an opened pack in the stock room - but she hadn’t pulled the trigger. She liked admiring it from afar. She liked to pretend she was an anthropologist, immersing herself in the foreign culture to have the best vantage point of what it looked like.

She hadn’t applied for her job at Bottoms Up. It had just been offered to her. She had spent some time at Layne and Harper’s home a summer or two ago - mostly visiting her best friend Nina, Harper’s younger sister who had been staying with the couple while in between apartments. That was a much longer and complicated story than anyone had time for.

Of all the unexpected things to have happened that summer, the highest on the list would’ve been Layne offering her a full time job working at her store.

“Now, I gotta be honest with you,” he said, shortly after having shoved a can of hard cider into her then-19 year old hand. “This store is pretty fucking weird. Or, you’re going to think so.”

She told people that college ‘wasn’t for her,’ but the truth was that she just lacked focus. She was 19 and had just suffered through a decade-plus of mandated school. She didn’t know what she wanted to do with her life, but she knew that at least four more years of school wasn’t going to help that. And, just like that, a job had fallen out of the sky and landed in her lap. A thickly padded and blushing job.

It was an easy job. Layne had never really been the ‘boss’ type. He had minimal expectations, and he barely met them himself most days. He paid her as well as he could afford, and nobody else seemed willing to pay her more for doing as little as she did.

She didn’t do nothing. Most days were spent packing boxes - online sales made up for the bulk of the business. Occasionally she’d field questions on social media for Layne. He used to want to be the one to handle all those things, but his online personality seemed to be three times more prickly than it was in real life.

And, occasionally, she’d get to laugh at some silly man-baby waddling through the store. You didn’t get a perk like that while working at Sears.

The door jingled, and she had returned; a cardboard carrier of tall coffee cups in one hand and a box of donuts in the other.

He was still behind the counter, but he seemed distracted. He rubbed his cheek.

“Did I miss anything?”

He scoffed.

“Everything alright with your face?”

“Ah, you know how it is…”

“I don’t.”

“This lady who was just in here. She, uh, slapped me.”

“What? And I missed that? C’mon. I was only gone for 20 minutes. I’ve been here for 40 hours a week for the last year and I’ve never once got to see someone take a swing at you.”

“If you want to take a swing yourself, there's a vacancy on my other cheek.”

“Can I hold onto that offer for later?” she asked. “Like a coupon?”

“The decision is pending, per review of the donuts you’ve brought back. Did you get anything good for yourself?”

She pushed the remaining wad of cash across the counter towards him. “They were all out of slingshots and Pokemon cards.”

“Better luck next time.”

“Why did you get slapped, anyways? I mean, I assume you ran your mouth. But you must’ve said something real juicy.”

He shrugged. “I hit on her.”

“Didn’t work out too well?”

“Joke’s on her,” he said with a shrug. “I’m a masochist.”

“You once told me that I shouldn’t flirt with the customers.”

“That’s because I was looking out for you. You don’t want to have to share a man’s pacifier.”

“But for you it’s okay?”

“She was buying diapers for someone else,” he said. “So…”

“Who was she buying them for?”

“Boyfriend.”

She tilted her head and shook it while smirking. That classic ‘Are you kidding me right now, Layne?’ look she had perfected over the last year.

“I know, I know. Just give me the coffee and donuts.”

--

Just another Monday. Crates of diapers and plastic pants were delivered. Diapers were shipped off. The door jingled a few times. Effie was listening to something especially youthful and dreadful in the stockroom. The coffee was gone and the remaining donuts would probably sit around until tomorrow morning when they were picked over one last time before being tossed into the trash.

Another car had pulled into the parking lot, though it had just been sitting there, idling, for 20 minutes. At one point he had carefully crept towards the window to see what was going on in the car. Not too close - he didn’t want to look like he was doing exactly what he was doing. Nor did he want anyone to see his sweatpants.

Just one woman. She was flipping through documents in a folder.

Documents? He didn’t care for that too much.

Maybe it was nothing. Out here, on the outskirts of an industrial park, there were only two types of visitors: People who knew exactly what they were looking for, and people who just wanted to stop in a mostly-vacant parking lot for a few minutes.

But then she got out of the car. And she was walking towards the store. With purpose. He liked that even less.

He really wished he had a pair of slacks - even jeans - in the back.

The door jingled and there she was. A pantsuit. Her honey-blonde hair - as opposed to Effie’s whitish-blonde hair - styled in such a way that he could only imagine seeing the salon’s bill and feeling sick to his stomach.

For the second time today - third time, if he was being completely honest with himself - he was attracted to the woman walking through the door.

“Good afternoon,” she said. She looked around the salesfloor, but only dismissively. As if she only needed to remind herself of what it was she was pouting about. She definitely had a pout on her face.

“Hi,” Layne said. Friendly, but hesitant.

“Pardon my intrusion, but I’ve been meaning to stop in and have a little chat with you,” she said, brushing her hair over her shoulder. That navy blue pantsuit was really working for him. Yes, Mommy.

“Well, you’re here now,” he said. “And I am too. Shall we get to chatting?”

“Mr…”

“Stanlan.”

“Mr. Stanlan, my name is Grace Vanderhoeffen. I represent the Concerned Adults for the Local Marketplace.”

He immediately disliked the name of that group, whatever it was. “That’s, what now...CALM?”

“Yes, that’s exactly right. Good job,” she said, her tone dropping to a condescending coo. “I represent CALM. And I thought it was time for me to introduce myself - seeing as how we may be seeing a bit of each other soon.”

He squinted a little, trying to see if he could answer any of the questions he had by himself. He could not. “I’m sorry, I don’t really know what you’re talking about.”

“Mr. Stanlan, in two weeks, CALM is scheduled to appear before the city council to present our case as to why we think your store is an abhorrent scar on our good town.”

“Ouch,” he said, running a hand through his unkempt hair. “Tell me how you really feel.”

“This is not a joke, Mr. Stanlan. We have had meetings about this. Many discussions. And, you should know, we are not short of members. We have many local professionals and distinguished citizens among our ranks - all of us firmly standing in solidarity with the belief that your storefront encourages and enables dangerous and immoral behavior. I come to you today so that you know who I am. So that you know who we are. And so that, in two weeks time, you too can join the city council meeting for yourself and hear what we have to say.”

“I suspect I might have heard enough already,” he said. “But, if I may, ask a question?”

“Sure.”

“What would you have me do? Leave?”

“Yes,” she said quickly.

“And go somewhere else?”

“Well, seeing as how your store would be an abomination no matter where it was…”

“So you’d rather I just close up my shop, liquidate my inventory, break my lease, fire my employee and find an entirely new career?”

She shrugged. “Most of the details aren’t my problem.”

“Actually,” he said, rubbing his still-tingling cheek, “I do have just one more question.”

“Yes?”

“What do I have to do to get you into a diaper today?”

Two: Hammy

Harper had an on-again, off-again relationship with smoking. It looked cool, she assumed, when she was a teenager. It kept her sane through college. She ditched it when she met Layne. She picked it back up again when they separated. She was vaping now. Not one of those enormous ‘rigs’ that men with large beards had. This was a dainty little stick she stowed away in her purse. And when she pulled it out and took a hit? She felt cool again - like she was smoking in the future.

Layne had been going on about something. There was a woman in a pantsuit with good hair, and she had been mean. Something about city council. He used the word ‘audacity’ more than once.

She took a few nice slow drags of the vape. She was thinking about whether or not she would watch a tutorial on how those big-bearded men did neat little smoke tricks. Like the one where they blew a smoke ring. That’d be a fun party trick.

“...and she called the store an abomination,” he said. “Seriously, who even uses that word? Religious women in a Stephen King story.”

“But you haven’t broken any laws, right?” she asked.

“Nah.”

“And you wouldn’t have been allowed to open this store in the first place if it was doing something fundamentally shady.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“So what are you worried about? Let the windbag throw a little tantrum in front of the city. Then let the council tell her that you haven’t done anything wrong. End of story.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “People like that, they don’t just get together and get worked up for nothing, you know? We could do everything right - and I assume we have - and they could still be a problem. They become a gnat in the city council’s ear. Worse, they rile up a bunch of other people and now there’s a whole swarm of gnats in their ears. And nobody wants that many gnats in their ears, you know?”

Usually, that would’ve been enough nicotine, but she needed to take another long drag.

“So what are you going to do?” she asked.

“What can I do? Can you reason with gnats?”

“The gnat thing isn’t working,” she said. Then, just because she thought the answer would be amusing, she added: “Are you wearing sweatpants?”

“Don’t even start with me, Harpy.”

A ‘pet’ name she detested just as much as he detested public sweatpants. Touche.

This wasn’t the way she thought this conversation was going to go. She had already been nervous to talk to him tonight, and that was before she had inadvertently opened his can of personal worms.

He shook his head and muttered something to himself about Grace Vanderhoeffen. Then, remembering that she had come to him in the kitchen in the first place: “Oh, did you want to tell me something?”

She sighed. “Actually, yeah?”

“Okay.”

“So...this isn’t easy for me to say, but I’m hoping we can have an open and mature discussion about it - if any discussion is needed at all.”

“I’m probably not going to like this, am I?”

“Just listen,” she said. “I’m going on a date tonight.”

“A date? Tonight?”

“That’s what I just said.”

“With who?”

“You don’t know them.”

“That doesn’t really narrow things down for me.”

“It doesn’t matter who they are. But, I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately and I think that we - both of us - should start thinking about what we want next, you know? Living arrangements. Romance. I don’t know. We’re just stuck here in this house avoiding each other all the time and nothing is changing and sometimes I feel like…”

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” he said. “I can’t get mad about you dating some guy when it’s not like I'm over here trying to repair our marriage. I mean...I don’t think I’m about to go and date someone myself, but I guess I get where you’re coming from. So, I don’t know...have a good time with him?”

“Not him,” she said.

“I’m sorry?”

“Not him,” she said. “As in - I’m not going out with a...guy?”

“Oh.” He gave it another moment to sink further in. “Oh. A, uh, gal, then?”

“No.”

“I’m running out of options here.”

“They/them,” she said.

“Oh,” he said again.

“Don’t be weird about this.”

“Me? Me...weird?”

“Look,” she said. “It’s not a big deal. They’re just gender nonconforming, you know?”

“I can deal with that,” he said, waving his hands in front of him as if to signal that he didn’t want any trouble.

“And me going out on a date?”

“I mean...am I psyched? No, not especially. Am I…” his voice just kind of wandered off.

“Are you...what?”

“I didn’t think about what I wanted to say.”

“Well why don’t you think about it a little longer,” she said. “And we can talk about it later. Or tomorrow.”

--

He skipped the alcohol last night - he didn’t want to show up to the store in sweatpants again.

He was still late.

“Decided to finally show up?” Effie quipped from behind the counter.

“Someday, when you own your very own diaper store, you too can show up whenever you want.”

“So inspirational. Thank you, Dad.”

“You wish I was your father.”

“My father played bass in a punk band,” Effie said. “No offense, but you don’t have enough cool to qualify as the father I wish I had.”

“Damn,” he said. “That is pretty cool.” He grabbed a partially-stale donut from yesterday’s box, still sitting behind the front counter. “Did I miss anything? Any drama? Concerned citizens?”

“The Pope dropped by,” she said. “He wasn’t happy with you either.”

“Did you sell him any diapers?”

“I tried. He’s more of a chastity guy, though.”

This yielded a hearty chuckle from him. He always liked how proud of herself she looked when she made him laugh like that. Very cute.

“I have an assignment for you today,” he said.

“Oh yeah? What kind of assignment?”

“That woman who came in yesterday? Grace Vander-fart? I want to know more about her little club. CLAM? No...CALM. Could you do some internetting for me? Find out how big this thing is? When they meet up to talk about me? Where? See if they serve refreshments at their meetings?”

“Are you...actually planning on going to one of their meetings?”

He shrugged. “Wouldn’t it be funny if I did?”

She smirked, though she didn’t laugh.

He thought it was a lot funnier than that.

“Did, uh, Harper come by this morning?”

“Nah. I mean, I got here at 9 - you know, the time we open - so not unless she came earlier than that. Why so?”

“Ah, you don’t want to hear about it,” he said, swiping his hand in the air as if to wave away the conversation.

“You’re right,” Effie said, “I don’t. But if you’re going to bring it up, I feel obligated to ask for more information.”

“Well, fine, if you’re going to twist my arm…”

“I’m not.”

“Harper went on a date last night.”

Her face had fallen serious. “Oh shit. Really?”

He shrugged, attempting to play it off nonchalantly. “Yeah, I don’t know. Should I be mad about it?”

“Do you feel mad?”

“A little numb so far, that’s all. Relationship novacaine.”

She was torn. Being a good friend of Harper’s sister had gotten her pretty close to Harper over the last few years. But, spending 40 hours a week with him- give or take the hours Layne was missing from his own shop - wasn’t nothing.

She was happy for Harper. She was mad for Layne.

“Who was the lucky guy?”

“Well that’s just it. It wasn’t a guy.”

“Really? I didn’t know that she liked…”

“It wasn’t a girl either.”

He looked like wanted a reaction. Needed. She didn’t really have much of one to give him.

“Does that upset you?”

“I don’t think so. It shouldn’t, right?”

She shook her head.

“I live in a pretty simple world,” he said. “Gender stuff - it’s over my head.”

“It’s actually not that hard to grasp,” Effie said. “They say that they don’t conform to a specific gender and then you just say: Ok. That’s it.”

He waved his hand dismissively again. “Yeah, yeah. I get it. I’m just looking for things to pick at. You know, because she went on a date.”

“How did the date go?”

He shrugged. “I went to sleep before she came home. And she wasn’t home this morning. Or...she never came home.”

“Slutty,” Effie said to herself. The tone suggested that this was a positive thing.

“Alright, enough talk about my disaster of a marriage. Do your homework, young lady.”

“Fiiiiiiine, Dad.”

--

Come in late, and then leave early - such was the life of the boss.

She had found the information he was looking for in about 6 minutes, using Facebook alone. But she had stared at the computer for two hours, making it look as if she was doing some real Hackers-esque work. She provided him with the meeting place, time, and confirmed that refreshments were being served. He offered to kiss her on the forehead and she declined. Then he decided to go to the gym.

These were the moments she came to enjoy the most, working at Bottoms Up. She turned up the King Gizzard and scrolled on her phone, occasionally glancing up to confirm that the parking lot was still an empty void.

And then there was a new car. A minivan.

She turned the music down - just a smidge - and got her ‘customer service’ smile on. Layne hated it - he thought it made her look like, in his words, an ‘either homicidal or horny clown. Maybe both.’

A couple rolled into the store. She was straight out of the 1950s with her royal blue polka-dot dress and red hair pinned into an updo. He had that signature diaper-waddle that Effie had come to expect from male customers. She had no clue how to gauge their ages. The woman was either 20-something or 45. He was older - definitely older than Layne. Maybe just old? She’d guess he was in his 50s.

“Greetings. Can I help you two out with anything today?”

“Just...uh...looking around, thanks,” he said. The hem of his sports-team tee barely connected with the waistband of his drawstring shorts. With every step, they separated, and the ruffled plastic edge of a diaper poked out to say hello.

“Diapers, darling,” the woman said, though it wasn’t clear if she was talking to him or to Effie.

“Well,” Effie said, taking a chance on the possibility the woman was talking to her, “we have plenty of those.”

“I don’t want any of these plastic diapers,” she said. “Too wasteful. You know, for the environment? Hamish, here, he goes through so many diapers. The landfill probably expands an entire acre per year with just his dirty diapers.”

“Margaret,” he hissed. “You don’t have to do that here.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Margaret said. “He adores being humiliated. Have you ever seen such a pathetic thing?”

“Once or twice,” Effie said.

“It’s time we made a change,” Margaret said, glazing right over Effie’s remark. “And I do not mean another diaper change. Hamish just got his bottom cleaned up an hour ago.” She turned to the poor blushing man. “If I were to check your diaper now, it’d still be dry, yes?”

“Y-yes.”

“Yes…?” she said, clearly trying to elicit a specific answer.

“Yes...Mommy.”

“Well trained, is he not?”

Effie laughed. “Can he do any tricks?”

“He’ll do anything I tell him to. That’s a trick, yes?”

Effie nodded.

“Hamish. Pull down your shorts and show the nice woman your diaper.”

“Mommy…”

“Please don’t argue with me, Hammy. Or else I ask you to do something far worse.”

He sighed, giving in to her demand. Which, Effie thought, was a shame - she was curious to see what ‘far worse’ entailed. Hands on either side of his shorts, he pushed them down in one motion, revealing the plump white diaper between his legs. Baby animals pranced across the front of it. There was some yellow discoloration in the front. Just a little.

“Speaking of used diapers...” Effie said, pointing out the yellowed diaper with her finger.

“My word. Hamish! Did you piddle yourself yet again?”

“Just...just a little,” he said, shrugging.

“Ugh.” Margaret rolled her eyes as she tossed her hands up in the air. “Do you see what I’m working with?”

“They say it gets harder to potty train them as they get older,” Effie said.

Margaret laughed - a genuine chuckle. “Pull up your pants, baby.”

He did so.

“Look at all these cute diaper designs,” she said as she strolled through the salesfloor. “Princesses. Unicorns. Teddy bears. Koala bears. But it’s, like, ‘what’s the point,’ right? He’s just going to make a big poo in them eventually anyways. Sometimes I’m tempted to just tape a garbage bag to his ass and let him do his business in that.”

“Cost effective,” said Effie. “But probably not good for the neighborhood.”

“Then what would you recommend?”

“I’m hardly an expert…”

“No?”

“I mean, I just...work the counter. Put things in boxes. My boss, he’s the guy to talk to if you want actual advice. A genuinely enormous baby.”

“But I like you,” Margaret said. “Okay, fine. With the knowledge that you do have, point me in the right direction.”

“Well, I could show you these,” Effie said, walking around the counter and over to a rack against the far wall. She pulled a clear plastic package off the wall, holding a thick folded garment inside of it. “These are, like, pocket-diapers? Machine washable, and you just load cloth pads into them. But...as much as you want. So you’re essentially making them as absorbent as you’d like them to be. Then, after he, uh, does his business, you can wash the whole thing while you slip him into a new one.”

“And the diaper itself doesn’t leak?”

Effie quickly glanced at the packaging and spotted the bold WATERPROOF in a starburst. “It does not.”

“A higher upfront cost,” she mused to herself. “But probably worth it in the long run. I’ll try some. Well, Hammy will actually be trying them.”

Both women laughed, much to the dismay of the big baby. Effie gathered the selected pocket-diaper, in an adorable fuschia color, along with a package of cloth prefolds for use within it. A credit card swipe later and the transaction was complete. She had reached for the black bags and Margaret stopped her.

“No need, dear. We won’t need a bag. Hamish can just carry the diapers out to the car as is. Yes, dear?”

“Y-yes, Mommy.”

He gathered his new undergarment and accessories together, pinning them close to his chest and scrambled out the door. Margaret was still in the shop.

“Was...there something else I can help you with?”

“Not an expert on diapers?” Margaret asked.

“No...that’s not really my thing.”

“Would you like to know more?”

For the first time in quite a while, Effie was a little at a loss for words. “I’m sorry?”

“I’m just saying,” Margaret said with a shrug. “If you see yourself selling diapers for the foreseeable future, and you want to experience life on the other side of the counter, maybe I could help you with that.”

“Are you offering to put me in a diaper?”

“Do you want to be?”

“No? Maybe?” Her heart was beating like a jackhammer in her chest. She was aware of the curiosity that had been stirring in places she didn’t acknowledge all that often, and a bright floodlight had suddenly been shown on that corner.

“I wouldn’t make you play with Hammy,” Margaret said, glancing over her shoulder to confirm he had left the store. “He’s no fun at all. But you and I? We could have fun.”

“I…”

“Just think about it,” she said. “I’m in your system. You have my number.”

With no further words, Margaret spun around and briskly exited the store, returning to the minivan to chastise poor Baby Hamish for putting the diapers in the wrong place in the car.

Effie sighed as she turned the music back up again. “This fucking job.”

Three: Baby-Man

On any other day, he would’ve seen Harper’s SUV in the driveway and have automatically begun computing all the routes in the house that would minimize his chances of running into her. Today, he was happy to see her car. He would seek her out.

He didn’t have to look too hard, as she was already in the kitchen, flipping through the pages of a grocery circular that was in the mail pile. What an act that was - she never once cared about grocery shopping. She was waiting for him.

“Well, well, well,” he said as she strolled into the kitchen.

“Are you here to give me a hard time?”

“Are you here because you wanted me to give you a hard time?”

She rolled her eyes. “What do you want, Layne?”

He shrugged. “I dunno. Just curious about that, uh, thing from last night? That...oh what did you call it...a date? Yeah, I think that’s what you called it.”

“This is why nobody likes to talk to you,” she said.

“Who said that? Have people actually said to you that they don’t like talking to me?”

She rolled her eyes and waved her hand dismissively at him - a move she probably learned from him, as it was one of his signatures.

“No, seriously,” he said. “How was the, uh, date?”

“It was good,” she said.

“Did you...stay overnight?”

“No, I came back home.”

“Oh, I just didn’t see you because…”

“We left pretty early.”

“We?”

“Well they stayed over here, yes. And I had to get them back to their car and…”

Now he was doing the dismissive wave. He was a professional. Such smooth movement. Perfect arc in the wrist.

“Alright, you know what?” she said. “You’ve lost your question-asking privileges. You’re going to have to deal with being in the dark now.”

“Wait, wait, I wasn’t trying to…”

“Nope. No more talking.”

“At least tell me their name?”

No response from her. She grabbed a bottle of water and left the kitchen.

--

“So, here’s the thing. I’m thirty...four? Yes, I’m 34. My wife - I think I’m still allowed to call her that - is dating someone else. Well, she went on a date. And...actually, no, don’t get me started on that. Anyways. I have my own business, you know? But it’s kind of awkward to talk about. Like, it’s not the type of thing that’s going to make ladies swoon for me. It’d be like if I said that I owned a medical supply company. Actually, it’s a lot like that. But I’m just kind-of in this place right now where I’m asking myself all these deep questions. Am I happy? Do I want more? Am I ever going to have sex again?”

“Is this usually how you try to hit on women?”

He looked down at his half-empty pint on the bar’s counter and laughed. “Ah shit. I guess I had some things I needed to get off my chest. Sorry you had to hear all that.”

Her emerald eyes contrasted beautifully against her dark skin and the tight coils of her hair. She was smiling, but it was a sympathetic smile - probably the worst kind to be subjected to at a bar.

“Is that really your first beer?” she asked. “Or did you have seven more in the alley first?”

“You don’t even want to hear me whining after seven beers.”

“No, you’re right about that.”

“What about you? Have anything you want to get off your chest? This might be the time to unload.”

“I was passed over for a promotion a month ago,” the woman said. “I keep telling myself I’m over it, but I don’t think I am.”

“Yeah? That sucks. What type of work?”

“Project management for a group of environmental researchers. Wait, what did you say you did again? You owned a business that you didn’t like talking about?”

“And yet you’re still going to ask me about it anyways?”

She laughed and nodded. “Okay, what if I guessed?”

“Alright. Go for it. You won’t get it, though.”

“Stripper, right?”

Layne looked down at his body and laughed. “My stripping days are past me. You know, on account of me being way too hot.”

“No, I can clearly see that. But you said that it was like a medical supply store?”

“I sell diapers,” he blurted out. “I’m just going to say it. Because I’ll feel pretty stupid if I have to play this game with you and blurt it out later.”

She shrugged. “I mean, that’s not so bad. Babies gotta pee somewhere.”

“Adult diapers.”

“Less expected, I guess. But...old people gotta pee somewhere.”

“Adult diapers mostly intended for people with a fetish where they dress up, and act, like babies.”

Her mouth twisted a little, like she had to chew on that nugget for a moment. “That’s a thing? Like...I guess I know that people do...that. But I had no idea there was a physical brick and mortar store that catered to them. And that it’d be local.”

“We do pretty well,” he said. “Though I just found out that there’s a local group of concerned citizens who strongly dislike my store’s existence.”

“I believe that. But it’s not like you’re on main street, right? Next to a daycare?”

“Oh, we’re actually in the back of a daycare. Do you think that’s the problem?”

They both laughed. “What’s your name, anyways? I’m Kiri.”

“Kiwi?”

“Kiri, smartass. Nobody is named Kiwi.”

“Hello, Kiri. I’m Layne.”

“Lame?”

He laughed and shook his head. “There are people who would agree with that. Layne.”

“I’m teasing.”

“So a whole...baby store? What’s that like? Get many walk-ins?”

“I mean, people walk into our store, sure. But I’d be willing to bet that nobody has ever just been driving by and decided to randomly stop in and see what’s up. Our customers know who we are and where we are.”

“Are you a...baby-man?”

He laughed pretty hard - the kind of laugh that Effie would’ve been very proud of, had it been her joke. It wasn’t the kind of thing he was ever comfortable talking about - especially with a stranger. He didn’t think Kiri was different, per se, but the conversation had already been thrillingly candid. If nothing that he said so far had scared her off, what was the harm with going all the way?

“Yeah, I guess. Maybe not so much anymore. Don’t shit where you eat and all that.”

“A fitting analogy…”

“It’s a line that gets tougher to tread, between enjoying something and it being your business.”

“Yeah, I believe that.”

“Do you feel the same way about, uh, projects?”

She laughed and nodded. “Oh, for sure. But your life is far more interesting than mine. I want to know more about that.”

“Ugh, no you don’t.”

“Maybe just the baby-man parts?”

He snort-laughed. “Yeah? Alright. Ask me anything.”

“So, you wear a diaper, yes?”

“Jesus, don’t say it so loud.”

“Nobody can hear us. Look, there’s some sort of sports-game on the TV.”

“That’s called baseball,” he said.

“Answer the question, smartass.”

“Yes. But, again, it’s more like: I did wear diapers.”

“We can use present tense, right? I mean, you’re telling me that if you met some pretty woman who told you to put a diaper on for her, you would balk?”

“I wear diapers,” he corrected.

“Do you use them?”

“Well, yeah. That’s, like, part of the experience. But, let me ask, how does that make you feel? Because there’s a lot of people who would hear that and be repulsed.”

Her head waivered back and forth as she considered it. “I don’t know. I’m socially conditioned to find that gross. But...you could always just take a shower, I guess. There’s probably worse things in this world. Like cannibalism.”

“I’ve never taken a bite out of someone.”

She straightened her back, and her eyes glanced over his shoulders to something behind him. She was smiling - happy to see whatever it was. He turned to see what she’d be looking at, and spotted the man walking through the door. Tall, handsome. If he wasn’t a basketball player - he had to have spent most of his life being asked why not.

“Fashionably late, as always,” Kiri said with a shrug. “I’m afraid I have to abandon our conversation.”

“It was a pleasure meeting you,” he said.

“Should I ever need diapers, I guess I’ll just look up the only adult diaper store in town?”

“We’re not that hard to find.”

“Goodbye, baby-man.”

--

Back in the days of yore, when Layne still wanted to be a baby-man, he had a slightly different vision for Bottoms Up - one crafted from fantasy. Pretty women and handsome men would stroll in through the doors - multiple times a day - and they’d hem and haw over the diaper choices.

He’d step in, making some recommendations. Maybe he’d point out a particularly cute diaper and mention how perfect it’d be for a ‘big baby like you.’ They’d blush, make a weak attempt to deny such a thing, but they’d be hooked. And then Layne would suggest that they try one on for size.

And then he’d lead them through the swinging doors into the back stockroom where he’d show them the “nursery.”

The nursery still existed. It was a contentious room between Effie and Layne. She had lots of ideas for it. Extra storage. A break room. An actual office, as opposed to the haphazard table of documents and computer equipment shoved into the corner of the stockroom. Once she had even asked if she could rent the space from him and turn it into an art studio.

All requests were denied. He couldn’t let it go - that last strand of unrealistic fantasy. The store had been open long enough for him to know the truth - there would be no situation where he convinced a pretty young thing to let him put a diaper on them in the back of his store. But the day he surrendered the room to one of Effie’s whims would be the day that the original dream was dead. The store would just be a store.

He arrived at the store a little after 9:00 PM. He had been the slightest bit buzzed by the time he left the bar - only downing one more pint after Kiri left him to join Tall Guy. He could’ve gone home, but he didn’t even want to risk running into Harper right now - surely neither would be in the mood for that. So he stopped by the store after hours - something he hadn’t done in a while.

Slowly walking around the salesfloor, it was refreshing to just look at diapers without having to inventory or box them. Talking to Kiri about them - hell, feeling like he had to defend them when Grace Vander-whatever came into the store - had stirred something in him that hadn’t been stirred in a while. Everything that had settled on the bottom was kicked up. It was refreshing.

He grabbed a package of Carnivals and held them in his hand. They really were among the most perfect diapers he had ever seen. He was close to opening the pack before remembering he probably had some loose in the back. He tried to keep a few loose diapers of each brand on hand. Sometimes as freebies for orders, or sometimes as a sample to give to curious customers that didn’t annoy him too much.

Sure enough, he had most of a pack sitting on a shelf in the stockroom. They had even gathered a little bit of dust too - practically a criminal offense for diapers such as these. He drew one out, bending it back and forth to hear the plastic crinkle. Music to his ears, and a song he hadn’t appreciated in a while.

Boxes were moved out of the path to the door - no doubt a passive aggressive move on Effie’s part. When the light switched on, he found that the nursery looked almost exactly as it did the last time he saw it - months, he suspected.

“The nursery” was just a name. It was a large closet. The ‘changing table’ was a repurposed workbench, upholstered with some padding and fabric that he had to watch multiple YouTube videos for. There was a trash can - the trash bag within probably the same one that had been in there for the last two years. There was an empty shelf too, that once held essentials like baby wipes and baby powder. Again - that was a while ago. Back when he had more whimsy.

Layne kicked his pants and boxers off in the little room and climbed onto the table. Even if it had been a while since he last put a diaper on, it was the sort of thing he didn’t forget. Bottom lifted - Bottoms Up, he thought to himself - diaper positioned under him and threaded through his legs. Folded over and taped shut.

There he was, just a baby-man on the changing table of his nursery. ‘Nursery.’

It was comfortable. And while on his back, thick padding between his legs, he felt better than he had in a long time. This felt soothing. Natural. The troubles of life slowly faded from view. No Grace Vander-punks or Harpers. No need to think about the dead-end flirting wasted on April or Kiri. No smart-ass comments from Effie.

He slipped a thumb into his mouth. Goddamn, he missed that.

The thumb was a ticket to ride through some old memories - ones that were normally kept in a box under the metaphorical bed. Memories you didn’t want to look at, but would never bring yourself to throw away.

He used to call Harper ‘Mommy.’ Not all the time. But sometimes - specific times. Times when it mattered. She was good at it too - damn near effortless in blending coddling with humiliation. She could shrink him down to infant status with just a look. He’d be reading a book or watching the TV and she’d walk into the room with a smirk on her face.

“Baby want his bottle?”

Boom, done. He’d be on the floor crawling behind her, no matter where she went or what would follow.

That trip to Vermont. Skiing on Stowe, very well padded under the snowpants. The nervewracking and careful escape from the restaurant that night after too many drinks had caused the diaper to be used too many times.

His hand slipped into the front of his diaper. Hello, old friend. Remember this?

About nine minutes later, he had fallen asleep on the changing table, and this was where he stayed for the remainder of the night.

--

It was usually a bad sign when Layne was at the store early in the morning. Either things had been that bad with Harper the night before, or he had a wild new idea for something he wanted to do to the store - which meant he’d put a few hours of work into it and then ask her to handle the rest.

Effie parked and entered through the front door. She, herself, was about 5 minutes late - as she was most days. It rarely mattered when Layne certainly wasn’t there on time. But it was after 9:00 AM, and the lights weren’t on. The front door was still locked.

She immediately imagined Layne unconscious - maybe dead - on the stockroom floor, a shelf of diapers having collapsed on top of him. Later, talking to Harper, she’d have to say: “Well, this was probably how he wanted to die.”

“Hello?” she called out into the dark salesfloor. “Layne?”

No answer. She flipped the lights on and spun around the OPEN sign on the door. She walked back into the stockroom next. There still seemed to be no sign of him. He wasn’t dead on the floor. Which was good - though she was worried that she’d forget her comment for Harper by the time he actually did die.

“Layne? You here?”

Still no answer. She was about to shrug it off and head to the front counter when she spotted the yellow light emitting from the doorway of the nursery, creeping over the edges of the partially closed door. He had moved the boxes she put in front of the door - mostly just to annoy him, though that was weeks ago.

She walked towards the door, curious as to what his plan was. Clearly, this was why he was in early today - he had a project in mind for this room. Was he finally turning it into a break room? An office? Extra storage?

She pushed open the door and her eyes grew large. There was Layne - sleeping on his back, snoring slightly. Wearing nothing but a mostly unbuttoned shirt, white undershirt, and a diaper. A Carnival, at that.

She slowly backed herself out of the room and returned the door to its partially closed state.

This was probably going to be an awkward conversation later.

Four: Funny-Man

He knew that he overslept, if only because he was well rested. That sort of thing wouldn’t have happened if he was at home.

“Well fuck,” he muttered to himself. He looked at his phone. More bad news: it was a little after 9:30. The odds were good that Effie was not only in the store, but had probably seen him in his current state.

One of the things he had liked most about Effie was that she had never once asked him about his personal connection to diapers. Like Kiri the night before - most people, upon finding out he ran a diaper store, would ask if he too wore them. She never asked, nor did she seem to care. So much for that.

He slid off of the table, grabbing his pants. He considered hoisting them up over the diaper, but opted against it - it was bad enough that Effie had probably seen him in the diaper, he probably didn’t need to flaunt extra-padding under his pants now.

But, he was never one to waste a diaper either. He closed the door entirely and let out his morning piss into the mostly clean - briefly sticky - padding. He let out a pleasurable sigh akin to one Harper might after taking a hit from her vape after a long day without it. The swelling. The warmth. He missed this, and if Effie wasn’t somewhere on the other side of the door, he’d probably sit in this squishy bundle a bit longer.

Alas, gotta make the diapers. Or something like that. He peeled the still-warm diaper off, catching a whiff of the urine soaked padding. It always smelled different in a diaper, he thought. He bundled it up and tossed it into the trash can - making a mental note that he’d have to remember to finally change that trash bag now.

“Coming out of the closet?” Effie said as he emerged from the nursery. So much for waiting on the awkwardness to come after both of them skirting around it for a bit.

“No jokes, please.”

“Hold on,” she said. “I have one more: I’m glad to see we’re finally using that room.”

“You couldn’t have been late? Just one morning?”

“I’m late every morning. You’re just later than I am.”

“I’m thinking about going back in there,” he said, pointing back to the room. “I’ll sleep away the rest of the day.” It was framed as a threat.

“Are you cranky? Wake up wet?”

“I thought you were done.”

“Bear with me. I’ll be workshopping some more comments all day.”

He had been wrong - it wasn’t awkward in general, it was just awkward for him. Still, for as much as Effie was the worst person to have spotted this - she was also the best. He trusted her not to say anything to anyone else.

“I trust this will stay between us?”

“Yeah,” she said, sounding disappointed but sincere. “Everything alright?”

“Huh?”

“Well, I mean, you coming in early - probably very early - and the diapers and all that. Are you good?”

The previous night flashed before his eyes. The brief argument with Harper. The brief flirt with Kiri. The not-as brief stay in the backroom of the store.

“You know what? I don’t feel too bad today.”

“Is it because you…”

“I don’t want a smart ass comment from you about it,” he interrupted. “We had a, uh, embarrassing start here today, but we’re going to move past it. We sell diapers, right? I was, uh, testing the merchandise. And I’ll tell you what - they’re good. You tell the next customer who walks in here that. You tell them that the owner has put his own personal stamp of approval on the Carnivals.”

“Should I show them the pictures I took?”

“Did you...take photos?”

She shrugged, but then burst out in laughter, shaking her head. “Sorry - I wish I could’ve pulled that off. The look on your face…”

“I’m demoting you.”

“To what?”

“Diaper-pail emptier. You can start now. I left a present for you in the Nursery.”

--

The toilet seat was still down. There wasn’t a stray glob of toothpaste in the sink. There wasn’t a glass sitting on the counter with a quarter-inch of orange juice left in it that wasn’t either just finished or put in the sink.

Layne hadn’t come home last night.

She wasn’t exactly upset about it. Layne wasn’t the type - nor did he have the skill - to pick a random someone at a bar for a one-night stand. It was far more likely that he fell asleep somewhere he didn’t intend to. Maybe an alley or at a friend’s house.

She considered the possibility that he was lying on the floor at the store. Maybe a pile of diapers had collapsed on top of him. How poetic.

Harper would’ve loved it if she could move on with her morning and not let it bother her, but she kind of needed to know where he was - or at least that he wasn’t dead or buried. She briefly considered calling his cell, but opted to call the store instead.

“Bottoms Up, Effie speaking.”

“Effie, hey. It’s me. Is, uh, Layne there?”

There was a blink-and-you-missed-it moment of hesitation before the response: “Yeah, he is. Did you want to talk to him?” She sounded like she was smiling or had been laughing.

“No. God, no. I just wanted to make sure he was alive.”

Effie’s tone had lowered a little. Not quite a whisper, but she clearly didn’t want to be overheard. “Yeah, he’s alive. Fell asleep at the store though, FYI.”

“Alright, thank you. Hey, don’t tell him I called, okay?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Harper trusted that response. “Talk to you later.”

With the stress of Layne off her back, she felt like a free woman once more.

“Everything okay?”

Syd stood in the doorway, wearing Harper’s bathrobe. Their black hair, vividly streaked with violet, cascading over their shoulders, framing their pale face. Harper had been actively falling in love with them, though she was nowhere close to admitting such a thing.

The distraction was almost annoying at times, like now. Syd was just standing there, looking concerned and caring. And Harper would’ve liked nothing more than to just answer them. But instead, she had to take them in again; admire everything about them one more time.

“Oh...yeah. Just making sure that Layne was still alive.”

“Is he?”

“So I hear.”

“I guess I’m not going to meet him this morning, then?”

“It doesn’t look like it.” Harper sighed, thankful for such a close call. While she doubted Layne would’ve made a scene in front of Syd, there would’ve been some tension. “You’re not missing much.”

Syd shrugged - an expert on knowing when to butt out of conversations they had no place in.

“What’s for breakfast?” they asked.

“I see how it is now. Shall I wash your laundry too?”

“Please,” Syd said, grinning. “I’m not great at staying on top of it.”

“You were good at staying on top of me though.”

Syd blushed, glancing away.

“Pancakes?”

“That sounds amazing.”

Syd took a seat at one of the barstools tucked under the counter at the far end of the kitchen. Harper had almost forgotten that they had stools over there at all - it was possible that nobody had ever used them before.

Harper compiled the ingredients she needed. Truthfully, she’d have felt more comfortable with a recipe in front of her. While she felt Syd’s eyes on her, though, she opted to wing it. If she could pull it off without the recipe, and she was mostly confident she could, she was sure that it would look pretty impressive.

“You’re...more toppy than I thought you’d be,” Syd said.

“Is that a bad thing?” she asked, cracking an egg into some milk she had just poured into a bowl.

“Gosh no. Not at all. A wonderful surprise, that’s all.”

“That’s just how I roll, I guess.”

“Have you always been like that?”

It wasn’t a hard question to answer, but the answer had a little bit of baggage. Baggage that was, apparently, still alive. “I think that part of me developed a little later in life. One of those things that you never think about. And then one day, you see that there’s an opportunity - a need - within a relationship that needs to be filled. And, so, you take a chance and...voila. Domme-y Mommy.”

Syd laughed, a cute giggle they hid behind a hovering hand. “Is that what you are? A...Mommy?”

Harper sighed, worried she had said too much. “It’s...a name I’ve been called before.”

“I like it,” Syd said. “It’s got layers.”

“Layers?”

“Well, sure. Like, if I was to just call you ‘Mommy,’ I think that I’d…” They couldn’t quite finish that sentence, their cheeks already glowing pink.

“You think that you’d what? Why don’t you try? Call me Mommy.”

“Yes...Mommy.” Another giggle behind their hand, this time letting it develop into more of a chuckle.

“So, layers?”

“Right, right. So, it’s obviously very fun and sexy to just call you Mommy. But, too, I’m sure it’s a name that someone could have a whole set of emotions attached to. Like, expectations for how you look and act and talk.”

“Ah, got it. Yes, layers.”

“I can keep calling you Mommy, right?”

Harper smiled as she whisked the wet ingredients into the dry. “Yes, please.”

--

“...and that’s really what it comes down to: It’s rare that we have an opportunity like this to nip something so dangerous in the bud. We have to act. We have a responsibility - an obligation to our community. Anyone who doesn’t see this from our perspective simply lacks all the facts needed to see things the right way. And that’s what we’re doing here. We’re providing the facts. We’re providing the...oh...well, isn’t this a surprise.”

Layne was late, despite his best intentions. He was often convinced that his chronic tardiness had been inherited from his father. His mother often said as much - usually pointing out the 5 days past the expected due date that he spent in her womb. He had been born late.

He had debated not going to the meeting at all, especially once he realized he’d be showing up late. The last thing he wanted to do was to make a grand entrance. He wanted to quietly observe, maybe get a free cup of coffee. He wanted to know what his enemies had to say about him and to know what he needed to start preparing for.

But instead, Grace stopped herself mid-speech, and the group of 14 or so members of CALM followed her gaze to the back of the room where Layne had just entered.

“I understand that there are refreshments?”

It wasn’t as dramatic a moment as it could’ve been. Nobody in this room, save for Grace Vanderhoeffen, knew who he was.

“And speak of the devil,” Grace said, looking to rectify the audience’s indifference. “That just so happens to be Layne Stanlan - the owner and proprietor of Bottoms Up.”

People seemed slightly more bemused or curious now, but it was still a pretty mild reaction.

“To what do we owe the pleasure of your appearance tonight, Mr. Stanlan?”

“I just thought I’d drop by and see what all the hubbub was about,” he said. He was tempted to leave it at that, but he couldn’t help himself: “Word around town is that this group gets pretty wild.”

“Folks, this is what we’re going to be up against. Mr. Stanlan here thinks he’s a bit of a funny-man and he’ll do his best to charm the city council.”

Baby-man and funny-man. He was starting to accumulate a little collection.

“Honest,” he said to Grace and her club, “I’m not here to disrupt things or cause drama. I was just hoping to hear some of the discourse. I wanted to hear about the concerns.”

“You should’ve been here 45 minutes ago, then,” Grace said. “But we’re actually about to wrap up. Perhaps next week? It might be your last chance, seeing as how the city council meeting is the week after that.”

“I’ll put it on my calendar,” he said.

He stuck around, listening to Grace wrap up the meeting with some less relevant updates about other potential bees in their bonnets. At their dismissal, most of the folks left, barely acknowledging Layne as they shuffled out the door. Those that remained stood in small groups, drinking coffee and eating cookies.

Layne helped himself to a cup of coffee too before approaching Grace as she organized some papers to load into a folder.

“I hope you don’t mind that I helped myself to some coffee. I won’t eat your cookies though.”

“You should at least try one,” she said. “They’re homemade.”

“You made them?”

She nodded.

“See? Look, we can be civil. Polite.”

“Your point?”

“I just want to run my store. I don’t want to have to go to city council meetings or deal with your wild pack of elderly people who have nothing better to do.”

“Insulting the members of my group is not going to help your argument.”

He sighed, nodding. “Yeah, okay. Let’s try that again. I truly believe that I am not a threat to this community. Maybe we can have, I don’t know, have a conversation about that? Like, what if we just met up sometime soon. We can discuss it over dinner or a drink. Or just...here. Anywhere.”

“Mr. Stanlan, it sounds like you’re asking me out on a date.”

He laughed. “No, no. I just think we should have a conversation before things get too complicated. That’s not asking too much, right? Like, if I had a problem with anyone else in my life, I’d want to talk to them before I took them to court or something.”

She sighed, nodding begrudgingly. “You’re not wrong, Mr. Stanlan.”

“You can call me Layne.”

“I could, but I probably won’t.”

“So? You and I can arrange a little meeting? A tete-a-tete?”

“Lunch tomorrow?”

“That’s fine, yes.”

“The Schoolhouse? On 7th street? At noon? Would that work for you?”

“I’ll be there with bells on,” he said.

“As long as it’s not a diaper.” It was intended as an insult, no doubt, but it came off as playful ribbing. At least to Layne - who probably took most insults that way.

“You’re no fun at all.”

--

By the time Layne got home, Harper was reading in bed and Syd was gone.

There were, however, leftover pancakes in the fridge. He thought it was weird that Harper would make pancakes for herself. But who was he to complain?

Five: Irked

“You just missed her.”

“Missed her? Missed who?” he asked, checking his watch. 9:30 - he wasn’t even that late today.

“I don’t know who she was. Carey, I think? Said she was stopping in on her way to work.”

“I don’t know who that is,” he said, scratching his head. “Carey?”

Effie shrugged. “Well, she seemed to know you.”

“Carey,” he said again. “I don’t know. What did she look like?”

“Black? Cute hair? She looked way too cute to be someone you would’ve dated, so I just assume she’s your lawyer or accountant.”

“Oh shit. Kiri.”

“That might be it,” Effie said. “Yeah. Kiri.”

“Well did she leave a phone number? A business card or something? Did she say she’d be coming back?”

Effie shook her head. “None of that. I guess I could've asked her to leave a number. But, alas, I did not.”

He sighed, shaking his head. “Did you empty that diaper pail in the back yet?”

--

“I’m not just saying this to get into your pants, but your pancakes yesterday were much better than this souffle is.”

Harper smiled, lackadaisically letting her spoon orbit her cup of tea. “Complimenting my cooking does tend to earn one an invitation into my pants. Not that you need one.”

It had been a while since Harper felt this way. This all-consuming excitement towards one person. It had been years since she felt that way about Layne, and probably even longer since the time before that.

Syd smiled, cutting into the cafe’s overly-flaky souffle to harness another piece for herself. They looked as content as Harper felt. Or so she hoped.

There was a little error message elsewhere in her mind - it hadn’t quite made its way to the forefront yet, though Harper was aware of it. It was a reminder that she was going to have to talk to Layne about this. In her wildest fantasies, they weren’t a seperated couple - they were best friends who could support each other through whatever came next. Even if that meant heading in different directions.

Such wild fantasies.

“Alright,” Syd said, swallowing the bite of her breakfast. “We’re going to have to do it.”

“Do it? Do what?”

“We need to address the elephant in the cafe. The one that follows you around whenever we’re together?”

Harper sighed. “Yeah?”

“Layne owns a store that sells adult diapers?”

“You know, it hardly seems fair,” Harper said. “It’s his store and his dream. But I’m the one feeling embarrassed about it when I have to talk about it.”

Syd did their best not to laugh, offering a sympathetic grimace of some sort instead.

“I don’t know,” Harper said. “I try not to let it bother me.”

“I think it’s...interesting,” Syd said.

“Interesting. Better than you thinking it’s disgusting.”

“No. Gosh, no. It’s, uh, intriguing.”

“Interesting and intriguing?”

Syd laughed, running their fingers through their hair. It was something they did often. Harper suspected it was some sort of coping mechanism. If she paid more attention, she wondered if she could read Syd’s mind. Did the fingers in the hair mean they were nervous? Anxious? Gassy?

“I want to say I’m curious without saying that I want to put a diaper on,” Syd said.

“There, you just did it,” she replied with a smile. “But I might be able to help with curious. If you have questions.”

“I know you said you had been called ‘Mommy’ before. But are you into...all that? Diapers and what-not?”

Harper laughed, somehow unprepared for that specific question. She rolled her tongue around in her mouth for a moment, considering the best answer. “I think there was a time when it was something that I found pretty exciting.”

“We do weird things for the people we love,” Syd said with a shrug.

“I guess that’s a funny thing,” Harper said. “Because I was the one who brought diapers to the table originally.”

“Oh?” Their eyes lit up and they slid forward on their chair a little further to be closer. “I didn’t see that coming.”

“It was kind of new to me, too,” Harper said. “I’m not sure where the original idea came from, honestly. Maybe I saw it on TV, or online. Maybe I just saw a pack of diapers one day and my mind wandered. But it had been a curiosity of mine for a while. And so I tossed it out there to see if Layne was interested. He was. And it was really good for us for a long time.”

“And he loved it so much he decided to sell diapers?”

“That’s the very short version of that story, yeah. It just took over our life. It wasn’t a secret little thing to come home to anymore. The food on the table and our mortgage depended on diapers. We had crates of diapers sitting all over the house. I was spending hours every day talking to people on the phone who made bespoke adult-sized pacifiers. It very quickly stopped being something that we could enjoy. And, once that was off the table - and he became consumed by the store - we didn’t really have that much left.”

Syd offered a solemn and sympathetic nod. “Do you miss it?”

“I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to seperate it from the business. If I’m being honest? I wish I could. Because then I’d probably miss it.”

“I don’t want to make things weird,” Syd said. “But, maybe, I am...a little curious.”

Harper’s eyebrows raised. “Curious?”

Syd sighed and nodded. “You know, not for today. Or tomorrow. Just...somewhere down the line. If that was something that came up… I don’t know, maybe that’d be fun? I’m just saying.”

She tried to play it cool. She nodded slowly before sipping her tea. But inside? She was dancing. That excited feeling that Syd gave her seemed more intense than ever. For the first time in years, the word ‘diaper’ didn’t feel like an immensely heavy word associated with finances and time spent apart.

“Well, you know,” Harper finally said, “if we ever decide to try something like that out. I know a guy who can hook us up.”

--

He had never been inside of The Schoolhouse before. He knew of it. He got the jist of it, but it just didn’t seem like his scene. A ‘gastropub,’ whatever that was. Expensive bar food, expensive craft beer, and an environment that looked like it was built to replicate a rich man’s fantasy of what a dive bar looked like.

He was on time - maybe the first time he was on time for anything since the days his mother drove him to elementary school. By that virtue alone, he thought, Grace should raise the white flag and spare him an expensive lunch.

“Mr. Stanlan, you absolutely irk me in a way that very few people ever have before.” That was just her opening statement as they were seated at a table together.

“I don’t have quite that level of disdain for you yet, Ms. Vanderhoof, but maybe we’ll give it some time and see what happens.”

She shook her head as she laughed - a contentious laugh if there ever was one. “It’s Vanderhoeffen, actually.”

“Are you married, Ms. Vander...uh… Grace?”

“No,” she said. “Why? Were you hoping you could work in a joke or two about me not being married? Or the kind of man I’d marry?”

“I was just curious,” he said. He paused for a moment before adding: “Actually, I guess I was curious to know what kind of man would’ve married you. No offense. That’s genuine curiosity. Science.”

“Believe it or not, I’m not a full-time activist,” she said, playing with the silverware laid out before her. “I’m a social worker. The hours are often...unforgiving. And it leaves me with little patience for my fellow man.”

“That sounds like an excuse,” he said. “You’re capable of love, right?”

She scoffed. “Your wedding band would suggest that you are married, yes?” she asked. “What kind of woman marries a peddler of adult diapers?”

He was tempted to take a little offense to her question, but it was essentially the same question he would’ve asked her. He was tempted to correct her and tell her that he was separated. That didn’t seem like an especially good commentary on his character, though. Not to mention the meta-psychology one could dip their toe into regarding his insistence on wearing a wedding band while he was separated.

He shrugged. “People make bombs, right? Nobody likes bombs. Nobody thinks bombs are a good idea. If I was to ask anyone on the street if bombs should be outlawed, they’d probably be, like, ‘Yeah, fuck bombs.’ But there’s still people who have to make them. And those people have spouses. I assume.”

“Is this part of your argument?” she asked. “The argument to get me to drop my complaint with the city council?”

“I haven’t even gotten there yet.”

The menus arrived, and a few minutes of careful food contemplation followed. Layne had wondered if this was part of her game. Were there more ‘powerful’ lunch options? Did he establish more assertiveness if he ate, say, the short-rib grilled cheese instead of the fuji apple salad? Maybe it was the other way around.

Ultimately he went with the blackened chicken thigh sandwich. By his quick guestimation, it was smack in the middle on the scale of weakness-signaling and strength-signaling option.

She ordered the fried plantain entree - which he couldn’t place on his scale at all.

“So,” he finally said, after the menus were taken away. “I annoy you?”

She sighed. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have led with that.”

“We’ve talked all of twice. For probably less than 10 minutes total. I can’t possibly bother you that much.”

“I’ll tell you what it is,” she said, finger wagging in his direction. “It’s the fact that you came to me. You came to my meeting. You were late - but you bothered to learn where and when it was and then you showed up. I guess I wasn’t expecting that.”

“What were you expecting?”

“Complete indifference, I suppose. Or an angry and bitter argument - whether it was in person or in front of city council. But you’re neither of those. You...want to reason. Talk about it.”

“It just makes sense,” he said. “Doesn’t it?”

“It’s a lot easier when you’re angry. Or yelling at me. Or if I didn’t see you at all. But you had the audacity to show up to my meeting and…care. Right? That’s what you said. You said that you wanted to know what the concerns were?”

“So you’re annoyed because I care?”

“I’m annoyed with you because I wish we were on the same side. I...don’t dislike you as a person.”

“You just dislike my store? You dislike me as a…'peddler of adult diapers?’”

“Yes, that about sums it up,” she said.

He laughed. It was the most human she had ever looked. She might not have been a complete stuck-up, no-nonsense, joykill. Partially. But not completely.

“Is there anything worse than finding out your enemy is friendly?” he asked.

“It’s the absolute worst.”

“Do you think I’d be able to convince you to drop this drama and leave my store alone?”

“No,” she said. “I doubt it.”

“Alright,” he said with a shrug. “But, I will say this: At your meeting yesterday, I overheard you say that your group was ‘providing the facts,’ yes?”

“Yes.”

“I’d argue that you don’t actually have ‘the facts.’ You have assumptions and preconceived notions of what my store does and what it represents. Tomato, tom-ah-to, you might say. I don’t know. You’re a social worker, right? And I’m sure you’ve never once taken action on case without doing all your research.”

“Are you suggesting I research...diapers?”

He shrugged. “Yeah, I guess I am.”

“You irk me, Mr. Stanlan.” She was smiling.

--

The boxes were taped up and registered to be shipped off. She swept the floor in the stockroom and salesfloor. And she had even found some thick yellow rubber gloves under the bathroom sink that she used to carry the Nursery trash can out to the dumpster to throw out Layne’s overnight surprise. And she still had an entire afternoon to kill.

This was how bored she was: Effie had begun looking up local ordinances for businesses, looking for rulings and loopholes that either Grace Vanderhoeffen would use against Layne, or that Layne could use to his advantage.

She was far from a lawyer - most of the documents she found online were coded in addendums, footnotes and references to other documents that she didn’t know where to begin in looking for them.

But something had jumped out at her amidst her research. The names of the members on the city council. Seven councilmen and women - all of them with dreadfully old sounding names. Evely. Lawrence. Hillary.

And then there was Hamish Bellencourt.

It seemed way too good to be true. But was she really supposed to believe that there was not just one man in this town named Hamish, but that there were two?

She quickly searched for the councilman’s name, and found his picture. He had a slightly different appearance when he was wearing a suit and tie - but make no mistake, this was Baby Hammy.

For a moment, she contemplated calling Layne to let him know the good news. She stopped himself from calling, though. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Layne to do something good with this information, she just… Actually, that might have been exactly what it was. Besides, she already had an in with the councilman’s ‘mommy.’

She looked up Margaret and Hamish’s recent transaction in the system, and used that to pull up the account. Under her name - of course it was. Margaret McCrea; not a Bellencourt.

Further online investigation would yield that there was a Mrs. Madeline Bellencourt. Poor Mrs. Councilwoman - she probably had no idea that her husband was such a big baby.

The phone rang three times and the familiar voice of Margaret answered. “Good afternoon.”

“Good afternoon, Ms. McCrea. Sorry to bother you. This is Effie from…” she was almost afraid to say the name. She imagined Ms. McCrea driving a car filled with nuns for some reason - her phone playing through the car’s audio system. “...Bottoms Up?”

“Oh. Bottoms Up. And you must be the young woman who helped us pick out our diapers the other day.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“I’ll be quite frank with you, dear, I didn’t think you were going to call me like I asked. Especially not so soon.”

“I’m surprised, myself.”

“And so what can I aid you with, Miss…”

“My name is Effie.”

“That’s a pretty name. Is that short for something?”

“Not to my knowledge. Actually, Ms. McCrea…”

“You may call me Margaret. For now.” Those last two words were saturated with implication.

“Margaret. I was actually hoping to get in contact with your, uhm, friend? Your...baby? Hamish?”

“Ah yes, little Baby Hammy. Quite the character, he is. While he’s with me, he’s mine. But...he’s a rather important baby. I’m not sure if you knew this or not.”

Effie winced a little. She did, in fact, know this. “That’s what makes it difficult to reach out to you now,” she said. “Because I’m sure you were hoping that I’d call for the sake of some sort of...playtime. But, see, there’s this group who is trying to damage our business by going to the city council and…”

“Ah,” Margaret said, chuckling softly into the phone. “A political favor. Would you believe I am already aware of this little situation?”

“I would.”

“Baby Hammy told me all about it. It’s quite the pickle for him, really. He’d love to defend your store - and as a councilman, he’d have a lot of sway. But at the same time...it may not look good for him to defend a store like that. Even if he is a customer himself.”

“Do you think he’s open to a, like, conversation or something? Maybe myself or my boss could…”

“Miss Effie, Baby Hammy is completely under my spell. As are most of my babies. He’ll do as I ask. Or, at least he will if he wants his dirty diapers changed. And I assure you, he is almost always in need of a change while he’s in my care.”

“So...you’re saying that you’d talk to him?”

“For you, darling? Most assuredly.”

“Oh my gosh, thank you. That really means a lot to me. And, probably, my boss too, because…”

“But…”

Effie drew in a sudden breath. “But?”

“You may think me cruel for saying this, but...nothing comes for free.”

Effie winced again. Her heart beat faster and her stomach tied in a knot. Given enough time, she probably could’ve put together a shortlist of ideas Margaret might have had. She just needed to rip the bandage off: “Alright. What’s the cost?”

“It’s actually a very fair offer,” Margaret said. “Not only would you get me in Hammy’s ear, but you’d be getting some hands-on experience with your own merchandise.”

Effie could’ve guessed as much.

“Come spend some time with me. I’ll make you into a perfect little baby. And when we’re done? I’ll make sure the councilman has your store’s back.”

“Okay,” Effie said, slightly surrendered. Slightly curious. “We have a deal.”

Six: Hanson

They called him Hanson because Effie had once remarked that he looked a lot like the one kid from the 90s pop sensations. The long-haired one from the “Mmm Bop” video. She didn’t know which kid that was, or so she said. Layne tried to turn it into a long-running joke for a while - insisting that she was actually a closet Hanson fan. It never really worked out, though. Effie was much better at either leaning into jokes or letting them roll off her back.

Hanson’s real name was in the system, or at least his last name was. At some point, Effie had changed his first name to “Hanson.”

Hanson was a repeat in-store customer, and not one of the favorites. He wasn’t especially friendly, and he always had a mischievous look in his eyes - like he was searching for some sort of trouble to get into. He was the closest any customer had ever come to being permanently banned from Bottoms Up, on account of the time he tried to stroll into the store one afternoon without pants on, sopping wet diaper hanging between his legs. Layne had handled it the best he could’ve: he pointed to the door and said, loudly: “Out!”

It worked that day, though he had been back a few times since - pants on.

Sometimes, but not all the time, he’d buy things. This, in itself, wasn’t an issue. But when combined with the rest of the facts, it painted Hanson as a chronic problem. Seedy, skeevy, and most likely scheming for ways to get off on public exposure at the expense of Effie and Layne.

Ten minutes after unlocking the front door, Effie noticed that Hanson was in the store. He was skulking around the shelves along the one wall, caressing the thick packages with his fingertips.

“Good morning,” Effie said. She was much more interested in making sure that Hanson knew she was there than she was in being polite.

“Uh, hey,” he said, glancing over his shoulder for just a moment.

One of Effie’s first jobs was working at the makeup counter in a department store. As part of her training, she was made to watch an ancient VHS tape about loss prevention practices. In it, new employees were advised not to directly accuse a potential, or suspected, shoplifter. Rather, it was best to approach them and just ask if they needed any assistance. Sometimes, just the knowledge that the store’s staff was aware of their presence was enough to dissuade them from any nefarious deeds.

That lesson had always stuck with Effie. She wondered if it was still an effective tactic all these years later. Maybe store security had come a long way since then and it had been decided that you were supposed to charge them, guns blazing, instead.

“Can I help you find anything today?” Effie asked.

“Uhm, just, uh, looking,” Hanson said. He wasn’t really doing much of anything. Just touching. And looking. But, Effie thought, in a creepy way.

Hanson was never an especially subtle fellow, and this morning proved to be no exception. His tight joggers - so close to just being woman’s leggings that they may have actually just been - were barely able to be pulled up over his diaper. They were the Fairy Princesses - pink diapers with magic-themed print on them. More popular with the sissies than anyone else.

She wanted to say something. She wanted to tell him to pull his pants up over his diaper, but she bit her tongue. Maybe this was as good as it got with Hanson.

He was doing something, but she wasn’t sure exactly what it was. He’d walk down the aisle, looking at things, and every few feet he’d stop and squat down and thoroughly inspect something on a lower shelf. His mannerisms, and the way he squatted, seemed kind of awkward. Like - this was not the way that a normal person moved when looking to see something on the bottom shelf.

She wondered if he could feel her stare on the back of his head. And if so, was that what he wanted?

A bad small caught her nose. She couldn’t quite place it, but it annoyed her. On top of everything else, Hanson now also smelled bad? She was going to have to put that in the system.

But the smell got stronger - which shouldn’t have been the case. It wasn’t like he was getting closer to her. Whatever smelled bad was new. Fresh. Getting worse.

“Oh fuck,” she said to herself. “Hey, Hanson.”

The man offered no recognition to the name, though he did look around curiously, as if to see who she was talking to.

“You,” she said again to the man. “Long haired guy with the Fairy Princess sticking out of his pants.”

Hanson stopped and stood straight up, slowly turning himself to face her. His cheeks had turned an epic shade of magenta.

“Did you just poop your pants in our store?”

“Uh…”

“I want an answer, mister.”

“Nuh uh,” he said nervously, shaking his head.

“You did. You totally did. You disgusting little…” She stopped herself. This was, no doubt, exactly what he wanted. This was the ideal scenario. Fantasy endgame. This would forever be the scene that he thought about later when he stroked himself in whatever rat’s nest he called home - the cute young lady calling him out for pooping himself. “You need to go.”

“W-wait,” he said. “I’m, uh, not done shopping.”

“You’re done. Go.”

He opened his mouth to offer another protest, but wisely decided not to follow through. He slowly backed up towards the door.

“You are banned,” she said. “For life. I’m putting it on your account. I’m going to make a note of this and tape it to the register. Because if I ever see you back here again, I’m not going to say anything, I’m just going to call the police.”

He said nothing. He turned and bolted through the door. He waddled across the parking lot and crawled into his ancient Oldsmobile, sitting in his desecrated diaper. As he drove away, she wondered if this was how he thought this morning was going to go, or if he really thought that this would go some other way.

He may have been gone, but Hanson’s thick noxious stink lingered in the air. There was no telling how long that would be there.

--

“We trying something new out today?” Layne asked as he pulled up to the entrance in the back of the store. Effie was standing outside, leaning against the wall. “Leaving the store unattended and waiting to see what happens?”

“You can’t go in there,” she said.

“Why?”

“Because it smells like shit.”

“Look, it wasn’t me. That was just one diaper, you know? And I only wet it. And I didn’t actually expect you to throw it out - so if it's still in the trash can in the nursery I’ll take care of it and…”

“No,” she said. “It wasn’t you. It was fucking Hanson.”

“Hanson? What did he do?”

“He came in here after I opened and walked around for a few minutes and then...filled up his diaper.”

“Oh for crying out loud. What did you do?”

“Kicked him out. Told him he was never welcome back here again.”

“Well, that’s good. I’m sorry you had to deal with that.”

“The store smells like his gross dirty diaper now.”

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Alright. Why don’t you...head on home.”

“What? I mean, it’ll probably be fine in a little bit. We can just go and get some air fresheners and…”

“Nah, I’m calling it. I’ll go in and lock up. We’re not going to subject ourselves to Hanson’s contamination today. Let’s come back tomorrow and hope for the best.”

“Do I at least get paid for today?”

“Yeah, sure. In fact, here’s a little extra for your trouble.” He reached into his pocket and fished around. He pulled out a little bit of cash - maybe the remnants of what he had given her the other day to buy coffee and donuts. He quickly counted it. “Alright, well, that’s only $8. So, like, buy yourself a sandwich or something.”

She shrugged and took it. “See you tomorrow?”

“We’ll see what the air quality looks like.”

--

It was something he had thought about doing most days - just letting the store remain closed for a day so that he could do anything other than work. He was always keeping an eye out for an excuse he could use to fulfill that fantasy. He was happy to have gotten one today, but a little saddened that it was Hanson’s stinking diaper.

He wanted to go home, charge his Playstation controller, and shoot some robots. Maybe hit giant beasts with an axe. He missed his old friends Kratos and Commander Shepherd.

But when he pulled up to the house, he noticed that parked behind Harper’s SUV, there was a car that he did not recognize. An older yellow Jeep, the back of it plastered in bumper stickers.

It was them. They were here, in his house.

He wasn’t mad, but it felt a little deceitful. He wondered if this was how it normally went. He’d drive to the store, and immediately after, Harper’s new friend would pull into the driveway for a day of debauchery.

The temptation was strong to just burst through the front door. Perhaps he had no right to actually be upset at what they were doing, but he did like the idea of introducing a little chaos to their morning. With luck, he’d cause a commotion that would interrupt whatever fun they were having under the sheets of her bed.

Formerly my bed, he thought - though not especially bitterly.

Instead he approached the aged Jeep and walked around it, trying to case Harper’s friend. Who were they? What did they like? What made them tick?

If the bumper stickers were to be believed, they liked jam bands and camping. Interspersed were stickers with slogans and phrases that he felt he was missing the context for. Maybe a reference to some TV show or podcast he had never heard of.

Peeking through the driver’s side window, he gleaned a CD wallet sitting on the passenger seat. An archaic relic of days long past, it reminded him of the days of narrowly avoiding car accidents because he had to swap his Sublime CD for a Tom Waits disc.

He wanted to just walk away, but he was curious. He tested the door handle. It wasn’t locked. No car alarm went off. Was this person just careless? Or confident that nobody would ever steal a brick of antiquated data-circles?

He reached to the CD wallet and dragged it closer to him, quickly opening it so he could flip through the pages. Observe now, judge later. Dave Matthews Band and Phish. Neil Young. Neil Diamond? The Police. Metallica. Nothing especially offensive or unexpected. It was a little disappointing, because their taste seemed neither terrible nor especially well-curated. How was he supposed to judge them based on this?

The door was closed as softly as he could muster, and began walking towards the house again. As he got closer, though, he could hear talking. The window.

There was a brief debate on the ethics of spying on his wife in their own house, but...there didn’t seem to be anyone else around to see this lapse in good judgment. He darted around the side of the house and crouched under the open window of the kitchen.

“...and, I never looked back after that,” a voice said. Not Harper’s. Theirs.

“I totally get that,” Harper said. Her voice was a little more clear. She was likely standing closer to the window, maybe preparing some food on the counter. “I was on the fence about it for a while. I grew up with the stuff, you know? We’d drink it with our dinner and everything. And so the idea of replacing it with something else - anything else - just felt sacreligious. So I never got on board with soy milk. Or even almond milk for that matter. But after I tried oat milk, it just felt like such a no-brainer, you know?”

Somehow, it felt worse that they were talking about milk than if they were comparing notes about favorite sexual positions. Milk was something you talked about with a partner.

“Are you going to eat that?” they asked.

“I couldn’t eat another bite,” Harper replied.

“No? That’s a shame. I had something you could have bitten.”

“Well...there’s always room for dessert.”

That was more like it, Layne thought. Good old fashioned flirting. Somehow, that made him feel a lot better than milk-chat.

He hated these moments. The ones where he’d suddenly stop, look at what he was doing, and feel really terrible about it. Yeah, maybe there were some strange logistics involved with dating while separated - while living with each other. But he could just hear it in her tone - she sounded happy. Happier than he had heard her be in a while, at least.

After walking back around the house, he approached the front door. He didn’t want to interrupt them anymore - but he did want to mash buttons on a controller.

--

“Shouldn’t you be...at the store today?” Harper asked as Layne walked into the kitchen. She was wearing pajama pants and an old Red Hot Chilli Peppers tee. Sometimes that was her gym shirt. Sometimes it was her sleeping shirt.

“There was some, uh, equipment failure at the office today,” he said, opting not to reveal the messy details in the presence of company. “So I’m taking a personal day.”

“Well…” Harper said, scratching her head, “I suppose introductions are in order. Layne, I want you to meet Syd. Syd, this is Layne.”

Syd stood up from the kitchen table to greet him. He had no idea what to expect, and so he hadn’t expected Syd. Tall and lanky. They had the slightest bit of an edge to them - something he would’ve called ‘alternative,’ had it been 15 years ago. Perhaps the most surprising thing of all was the kindness in their eyes.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Syd said, reaching a hand out to him. He took it, shaking it firmly.

“Likewise,” he replied. “Has Harpy been filling your head with terrible stories about me?”

Syd smiled and shook their head. “Probably less than you think.”

“I’m too busy making out with them,” Harper added. “Or else I would’ve talked their ear off about your annoying qualities.”

Layne could hear Grace Vander-half’s voice in his head now: “You irk me, Mr. Stanlan.” And then he pictured her smile. Subtle. Disarmed.

“Smells like...french toast?” he said. “Did I miss breakfast?”

Harper shrugged. “I have a piece left on my plate if you want it.”

“I, uh, might have taken a bite out of that already,” Syd said.

“Just as well,” he said. “Harper’s french toast is usually pretty soggy.”

“No soggier than your…” She laughed and stopped herself. It probably wasn’t a mystery to anyone in the room where she was going with that, but it was for the best that it wasn’t finished aloud.

There was a brief moment of awkward silence in the kitchen. All three of them tried to play it off as if they didn’t notice it, but nobody had fooled anyone else.

“So, uh, I hear you’re in the business of diapers?” Syd finally asked.

Layne laughed. “That’s how you decided to break the silence?”

“Well, I figured things are already awkward…”

“You’ve heard correctly,” he said. “Though, to be fair, we don’t just sell diapers.”

“Oh?”

“Sure. We sell, you know, onesies. Pacifiers. Bonnets. Booties. These locking mitts that you wear on your hands.”

Syd laughed. “A Superstore!”

His eyes darted to Harper. “Did you tell her to say that?”

Harper shrugged. “I may have told her about the naming debacle.”

--

Cleaving a demon in half was pretty cathartic, but it wasn’t enough. He felt congested with emotion. Not anger, necessarily. But it was something equally heavy - an amalgamation of a lot of different emotions that he didn’t have the ability to parse.

It wasn’t Harper and Syd. Or, maybe it was - but just a tiny bit. It wasn’t even Syd, as a person. It was the concept of Syd. The existence of a Syd. The reminder that he had let his marriage dissolve to the point where a Syd could not only walk through the front door, but would eat french toast at his kitchen table while he talked to Harper.

He missed love. Romance. He missed friendship. Effie was probably the closest thing he had to a relationship - but he was paying her, and he was just paying her to fill boxes with diapers.

Somewhere out there, Grace and her cronies were building a case against his store. Somewhere out there, Kiri hadn’t forgotten about their brief conversation at the bar. Somewhere out there, people were going to parties and hanging out with friends and talking about their investments and talking about their favorite limited runs of IPAs from a local craft brewery.

Meanwhile, all of Layne’s conversations began and ended with diapers.

Of all the emotions swirling around within him, it was anger that had managed to spiral its way to the top.

He needed an enemy. He needed a target for his negative energies. It couldn’t be Harper, because if anything, she was the victim of his negligence. It couldn’t be Syd, because they hadn’t actually done anything wrong. It couldn’t even be Grace, because he truly believed she was well-intentioned, though misguided.

An idea sprung to mind. He grabbed his keys and wallet and waved goodbye to Harper and Syd as they sat in the living room together.

He had expected that by the time he got back to the store, he’d have convinced himself that this was a bad idea. A cooler head would prevail and he’d just laugh at himself as he pulled into the parking lot.

It had actually turned out to be just the opposite. The drive only empowered him further. He felt further bolstered in his belief that this was the correct course of action.

He unlocked the back door and entered the stockroom. To be sure, he quickly walked into the salesfloor and sniffed the air. He was pretty sure that there were no lingering traces of Hanson, but there was this psychological taint to the environment. Hanson had polluted his store, and he’d forever be wondering if atomized particles of his diaper still hung in the air.

Back in the stockroom, he grabbed another single Carnival from the open pack and charged into the nursery with purpose. He slid his pants and boxers off and taped the diaper around himself. He wished there was a mirror in the nursery - in fact, he made a mental note to bring in a mirror. He decided that he wasn’t going to let his dream die. He would finish the nursery. Deck it out. Make it the fantastical escape he had always dreamed it would be.

Diaper on, he bent his legs and jutted his bottom out behind him. If it had been a long time since he had last wet a diaper - recent example excluded - it had been much much longer since he had done this.

He wondered if, on some level, he had known that this was where the day was going. There had been a few opportunities during the day where he thought he should use the bathroom and answer the call of his bowels. But each time he had put it off, for no defined reason. Here he was now, though, and he was ready to go.

There was a time when this moment meant everything to him. That ritual of getting in the right position and letting it all happen. The entire process - the lead up, the execution, the aftermath - was an elaborate song and dance that progressively shrunk and regressed him. By the end of it, he’d be rolling around in his dirty diaper, sucking his thumb and pawing at the front of it.

This was different. He unleashed his bowels aggressively. With purpose. A torrent of firm mess loaded the seat of his diaper in a loud eruption.

He wanted, so badly, to savor it. The feeling of the thick mass filling his diaper; the new weight of it pulling at his waist and sides. He wanted to sit in it. He wanted to crawl around.

He wanted Harper to change him.

There was no time to let himself be distracted.

He waddled out to the salesfloor, grabbing a pack of wipes from a shelf, before returning to the stockroom. There, between shelves of boxes of extra diapers, he unfastened the tapes of his own and let it carefully flop onto the ground - chock full of everything he had been saving up inside him all day. He wiped himself clean, adding the dirty wipes to the inside of the open diaper. Satisfied with his self-cleaning, he tossed the rest of the wipes aside and folded up the used diaper into a neat little package - reusing the tapes to seal it closed again.

He booted up the computer, doing some quick research in the Bottoms Up customer directory. Satisfied with the results, he shut it down again.

--

400 Malcolm Drive, Apartment 13C.

It wasn’t what he expected it to look like. Admittedly, he had comically low expectations, but this was a decent - if not completely normal - looking apartment building.

He hadn’t quite thought this far ahead. Did he actually think he was going to go inside the building and leave it on the doorstep? What then?

His eyes scanned the area, looking for inspiration as to his next move - and then he saw it. The Oldsmobile. The dreaded Oldsmobile. The old car that elicited groans of disgust whenever he or Effie saw it pull into the parking lot.

Grabbing the plastic bag on the seat next to him, he left his car behind and quickly trotted into the apartment building’s parking lot. Nobody seemed to be around. There seemed to be no security cameras.

“Please, please, please,” he said aloud to himself as he reached the car. Could he be so lucky twice in the same day?

He tested the door handle of the Oldsmobile, finding it unlocked. He smiled - literally laughing out loud in delight.

“I brought you a little present, Hanson,” he said. Hanson wasn’t there to hear that, of course. But he’d probably hear Layne’s words in his head later anyways. He turned the bag over, spilling the used diaper onto the front seat. With a soft ‘plunk’ it just sat there. For just a moment, it was a diaper. But soon, after the door was closed again and the afternoon sun had a little time to bake the contents of the car further, it was sweet sweet revenge.

And that felt extremely cathartic.

Seven: Ring

“I’m just going to assume he’s not in today either?” she asked.

“He’s not,” Effie said. “I don’t know your relationship with Layne, so I’m hesitant to elaborate on that answer too much.”

“My relationship with him is nonexistent,” the woman said. “So fire away. Give me the dirt.”

“I’m only working an eight-hour shift,” Effie said. “That’s simply not enough time for all the dirt. So I’ll offer this: you’ll never see that man in this store before 10 AM.”

The woman laughed and shook her head. “He’s not a morning person, I take it?”

“He’s not an afternoon or evening person either, really.”

“Are you saying that I’m wasting my time coming in here early, then? On my way to work?”

“What time do you leave work?”

“Six. Most days.”

“That’s too late,” Effie said, playing with her hair. “If you want to see him, you’re better off showing up after 10, but before 4. Oh, well there’s lunch to consider too. So, let’s say between 10 and 11:30 and then between 1:00 and 4:00.”

“And he’s the owner?”

“Quite the gig, huh? Look, I can just, you know, give him your number. You don’t have to try and surprise him here in the store.”

“I could do that. But I was hoping to catch him off guard. Here in his natural element. Tease the baby-man a little.”

“The baby-man,” Effie repeated. She really wanted that nickname to catch on. “You are...Kiri, yes?”

Kiri nodded and smiled. “That’s me. And you are?”

“Effie.”

“A pleasure,” she said. “Well, I am on my way to work. If I decide to stop in again, I’ll keep your recommended hours in mind.”

“Should I tell Layne you stopped by today?”

“No,” Kiri said. “I’d hate to come off as desperate.”

“If anything,” Effie said, “you’d probably just inflate his ego.”

“Well we can’t have that either.”

“Mum’s the word, then.”

“Thank you, Effie. Though...if you can find the chance - maybe call him a baby-man? For me?”

“Oh, I very much intend to.”

--

To the surprise of nobody, himself included, he got out of bed late. Truth be told: this wasn’t an accident. He no longer used his daily alarm on his cellphone, and left his wake-up time up to the fates. If he got up early - good. If not - oh well. It had been this way for a while, and he couldn’t even recall when he turned off the alarm. Weeks ago? Months ago?

He stumbled downstairs and to the kitchen, fully expecting to run into Harper and Syd. Alas, just a Harper.

“It’s 9:15,” she said.

He shrugged.

“So you’re not even going to pretend to care about being late anymore?” she asked.

“Effie’s a big girl.”

“Are you alright? Depressed or something?”

“Or something,” he said. Though this was just a dismissal of ‘depressed,’ and they both knew it. “No Syd this morning?”

“They have a job. Sadly.”

He started to try and imagine the kind of job Syd would have. Record store employee? Radio DJ. It was far too early to dwell on something so unimportant.

She sighed and tapped her fingers on the table, clearly considering something. “Hey, can I ask you something?”

He stared at her with tired dead eyes. “You can do whatever you want. But I promise you that I’m probably not awake enough to give you a good answer.”

“I’d take a bad answer too, you know.”

He shrugged.

“It can wait,” she said.

There was a time when he would’ve fought for her to open up. He would’ve straightened himself out, shook the sleepy cobwebs out of his head, and handed her the platform to say whatever she needed to. Now, he was tired - sure. He was also defeated. The gears of change were in motion, and it felt far too late to change them now. She was moving on. If it wasn’t with Syd, it’d be someone else. She’d be moving out eventually - or maybe he would. At their most civil, they’d commit to being friends, though that wouldn’t last forever. The worst part, of course, would be that this had all happened so glacially slow that he’d be left with a lifetime of regret over all the opportunities he had to right the ship.

He let it go, holding her to that - it could wait.

He poured some coffee into a travel cup. He took a sip or two, wincing at the hot black liquid on his tongue - though it seemed to prove effective in restoring a little life to his body. He grabbed his wallet from the counter and his keys from the key hook hanging on the wall.

“Oh, actually,” she said. “There is one thing…”

“What?” he asked, his tone sharpened. “What is it? What is so important that we have to talk about it right now?”

“If you’re planning on leaving,” she said, “you should know that you’re wearing sweatpants again.”

--

It was hard to say why he was so cranky. Yesterday had been, by his own account, a bit of a win for him. A day off. There had been the dispensing of justice.

But - “Oh right” - there had also been a bit of tequila in the evening.

He had stopped at the store on the way to work, picking up a can of paint, some assorted paintbrushes and painting supplies, and a full-length mirror.

“I don’t like the look of this,” Effie said as he entered Bottoms Up through the backdoor, mirror tucked under one arm while the rest of the bags dangled from the other.

“You don’t have to be involved,” he said.

“What sort of project is this? What’s getting ‘Layne’s Frustrated Treatment’ today?”

“The nursery.”

She glanced over to the dark corner of the stockroom where the door to the closet-esque room was slightly ajar.

“Are we...using that room now?”

He shrugged. “I guess that depends on how today goes.”

“And if it goes poorly?”

“You can put a TV in there and call it a breakroom.”

“Then, and I mean this in the nicest way possible, I hope you fail.”

Almost immediately into his project, he too wondered if he was taking on something that was mostly pointless. Who was this room for? Who would use it? When? Why? How?

But being busy felt good, and so he shrugged it off and kept going. He dragged the makeshift changing table out into the stockroom. He washed the walls and swept the floor of the accumulated dust and dirt of years worth of neglect. He taped off the ceiling and floor and opened the paint can to reveal a warm pastel pink. It was the most perfect color for the room he thought. In his imagination, it was the color of the womb he had once spent time in. He wanted to immerse himself in the paint; bathe in it.

He’d settle for just putting it on the walls.

He took his time painting. It may have been the most careful he had been doing anything in quite a while. With every stroke of the brush, he became less fixed on how pointless the room was and more focused on the potentials.

A young couple comes into the store, blushing and giggly as they look at their options. The friendly, and handsome, shopkeep suggests a diaper or two, and the bashful boy shrugs sheepishly, unsure of what he could commit to. The young woman sides with the shopkeep - these might be the diapers they need. But the shopkeep senses the boy’s hesitation. “You know, maybe what you need is to try one on.” And he leads the two back to the Nursery, thrusting a diaper into the young woman’s hand. The boy seems unable to believe that he’ll be expected to put a diaper on here. But the young woman, she’s fine with it. She’s all about it. She closes the door and pampers her little one; he, well aware of the fact that anyone on the other side of that door - anyone in that store at all  - knows exactly what’s happening in there.

Or…

That woman is back in the store again. What was her name? April Something-or-other? She’s buying diapers for her boyfriend for his birthday. She’s flirting with the shopkeep a little - or at least she is not completely shutting down his efforts at flirting. He takes a wild shot in the dark - figuring he’s already got her money anyways. “What can I do to get you into a diaper today?” To his surprise, she’s not winding up to slap his face - she’s hiding her blushing cheeks behind a raised hand. She makes it very clear that all he had to do was ask the question. He offers her a hand, and she takes it. He leads her back to the nursery, closing the door behind them. He helps her out of her clothes, stripping her nude. Her skin is soft, a pinky-peach that positively glows in the pink nursery. He offers to help the nude woman to the top of the changing table, but she’s already there. Her legs are raised in the air, and her bottom is completely exposed. She’s ready for her diaper. “But first,” he says, unzipping his pants, “we need to…”

“Layne?”

He snaps out of his fantasy, realizing for the first time just how aggressively pink the room is becoming. He glances over his shoulder, afraid to turn away from the wall and expose the firmness in the front of his pants.

“Yeah?”

“Someone’s here to see you,” Effie said.

“Who?”

“That lady.”

“Be a tiny bit more specific.”

“Grace? From the Angry Citizens Club?”

His eyes grew big and he awkwardly darted up from his kneeling position. With a quick maneuvering of his pants, he hoped that nobody could tell what had been growing in there. “What does she want?”

Effie shrugged. “I didn’t ask too many questions. I just told her I’d see if you were around.”

“Alright.”

“As in,” she continued, “if you’re not here, I’ll tell her as much.”

He considered it for a moment. Was he here? Did he want to talk to her?

“Yeah, alright. I’m here.”

“Well she’s waiting out front.”

“Send her back here.”

“Yeah? You sure?”

He shrugged. “Whatever.”

The second she had gone through the swinging doors, he sighed in relief. It had been harder to hide his excitement for seeing Grace again than it had been to hide his erection.

--

“So this is, what, now?” Grace said, poking her head into the half-painted Nursery.

He considered lying for a moment. The truth would only prompt more questions. More judgment. More fodder for her whatever speech she gave to the other concerned citizens in town next.

“I call it the nursery,” he said. “It’s a work in progress.”

She scoffed, the first thoughts that came to her mind not seeming to be all that good. “Interesting.”

“What brings you in today, Ms. Vander...er, Grace.”

“I was in the neighborhood,” she said. It sounded like the kind of lie he had once used himself in the early days of courting Harper.

“And so you thought you’d stop in and see your favorite enemy? How very kind of you.”

“I was thinking about our conversation at lunch,” she mused as she walked around the stockroom, taking in the shelves of extra adult-sized diapers and onesies. “And it bothers me to say this, but I suppose you deserve to hear it: You may have been right.”

He laughed. “Ask anyone, they’ll tell you. You’re never supposed to tell me that. Even if I’m not sure what it was I was right about.”

“You reminded me why I became a social worker in the first place. Research. Delving into the problems instead of just looking at things written in a folder. I’ll spare you the entire sob story - but the quick and dirty version is that I spent many more years than I should’ve in the care of someone who convinced other social workers that I wasn’t a victim.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said.

“No apology needed. Like I said, I wanted to do better, and so that’s been my life’s work. That was why I joined CALM. But...again, you were right. I hadn’t done my research. I made some kneejerk reactions to what I thought your store represented. That’s not who I have ever wanted to be.”

“And so...what does that mean? For me? What comes next?”

“Research,” she said. “That’s what comes next for me.”

“Can I help you with that?” he asked.

She smiled, then laughed. It wasn’t the first time he had seen some life come to her face, but this was her most candid moment yet while in his presence.

“I don’t think so. I didn’t come here for help. I came here because I wanted you to know that.”

“Fair enough,” he said. “Though I’m curious. What does ‘research’ entail? Are you reading things? Watching things? Uh...wearing things?”

“I’ll see where my needs take me,” she said.

Layne glanced over to the swinging doors leading to the salesfloor to make sure there was no sign of Effie. The coast was clear. “I’m going to propose something to you. And I don’t want you to tell me yes or no.”

“Okay.”

He pulled a Carnival diaper from the open pack on the shelf. The same open pack he had pulled two from in recent days. He handed it to her, practically forcing it into her hands.

“What do you want me to do with this?”

“Take it home,” he said. “I don’t care what you do with it after that. Throw it away if you need to. But in my opinion? There are some things that you aren’t going to learn enough about by researching them online.”

She quickly stuffed the flat padded object into her purse, folding it in half to do so. When she looked back up at him, her cheeks had some extra color to them.

“This doesn’t change much,” she said, doing her best to compose herself.

“No?”

“This could backfire. My research could confirm all the worst case scenarios I imagined. It could only further empower me. It could fuel CALM to take our fight beyond the city council.”

He shrugged. “You’re right, this doesn’t change much. You could’ve done that damning research already.”

“May I make an observation?” she asked.

“Go ahead.

“You’re not wearing your wedding ring today.”

It was a sharp observation. He had taken it off - somewhere around the third shot of tequila the night before. In between the victory dance for having gotten stinky revenge on Hanson and lamenting the inevitable finality of his marriage. The ring was in his pocket now - not that it would matter if he said as much.

“How astute.”

“I shouldn’t look into that too much, right?”

“One thing at a time,” he said. “You finish researching this one thing first, and then we’ll talk about the other.”

--

She was sitting on the deck, sipping on some wine while her vape dangled from her fingers. She didn’t feel like getting a wine glass from the dining room, so she was drinking out of a plastic novelty cup from some place in Las Vegas she and Layne had gone to once upon a time.

It was dark and the outside light by the backdoor wasn’t all that effective of hitting the entire deck. There had been times when she asked - nagged, as he probably saw it - Layne to figure out a better lighting solution. But she actually didn’t mind it tonight. It was actually kind of nice sitting in the dim light.

Harper imagined, for a little while, that she was completely hidden from the rest of the world. It was just her and a plastic cup of white wine.

The sliding door opened behind her. So much for that notion.

“What the hell are you doing out here by yourself?” asked Layne.

“Is the deck unsafe for just one person at night? Are there monsters? Street youths?”

“We can’t all be snarky,” he said. “One of us needs another personality.”

“You should explore that. Become someone new. Fresh. Mysterious drifter?”

“How would you describe me now?”

“Optimistic grump.”

“I don’t care for that much.”

“Well thank you for the warning,” Harper said. “But I think I’ll be okay out here by myself.”

“I was actually looking for you.”

“Oh?”

“This morning you said you wanted to ask me something?”

She took a drag from the vape and washed it down with the wine. She hoped that the whole sequence looked pretty cool in the dim lighting of the deck. “Believe it or not, I came out here so that I didn’t have to talk to anyone.”

“Alright, well, I can just go inside, I guess.”

“Pull up a chair if you want.”

He did. She was tempted to be annoyed that he had taken her up on the offer, but instead she was just surprised.

“How was your day?” she asked.

“Was that the question you wanted to ask me this morning?”

“Don’t be a smartass. I’m trying to be nice to you.”

“It was...fine.” He had said a lot with a little. He sounded exhausted. Conflicted. Stressed. Uncertain. Probably a few other emotions she couldn’t put a finger on. She wondered what his day was actually like. The characters he encountered. The tiny little things that he got annoyed at. “How was yours?”

“Good,” she said, confidently.

“Yeah? For real? Like, you’re not just saying that?”

“It wasn’t, like, the best day I ever had. But it was good. Days have been good lately.”

“Because of Syd?”

“They certainly help.”

It was hard to say what his exact motion was in the dark of her periphery, but it looked like a shrug. A friendly and well-meaning shrug, she’d like to think.

“For the record,” she said, “I don’t think Syd is...The One. Maybe they are. Maybe they’re not. Maybe they’re just the first in a series of fun people I meet.”

He made some noises. Not quite words. Half-grunts or little clucks.

She decided to ask the question: “If I want to proceed with a divorce, are we going to be able to be friends?”

He didn’t answer right away. She didn’t expect him to.

“I worry that that’s just what we’d tell ourselves,” he finally said. It felt real. No jokes or sarcastic tone. Nude emotion. “But then we’d just fade from each other’s lives.”

“What’s the alternative?” she asked. “Like, what do you want? In a perfect world.”

She didn’t want to guess what his reactions were, and she turned to face him.

“You know what I miss? The old days. The days before the store. Back when it was just...Mommy and Baby.”

“Yeah,” she said. “I miss that too.”

Neither said anything for a moment or two.

“Hey,” he finally said. “Do you, uh, want to go for a drive?”

“Anywhere in particular in mind?”

“Yeah, I was thinking I could show you a little project I’m working on over at the store, actually.”

She laughed. She was tempted to tell herself that this was a bad idea. But...he was her husband. Still. For now.

“I’m down,” she said. “Let’s go.”

Eight: Nursery

“It smells like paint,” she said. “Is that the project? Are you repainting the store?”

“Not all of it.”

The back door closed behind him and he flipped on the lights of the stockroom. Harper immediately turned her attention to the changing table, pulled out from the nursery.

“Ah,” she said. “Is that what this is? Renovations for the Baby Room?”

“I needed a distraction,” he said. “Once I’m done, I’m sure the room will go just as unused as it is now.”

“Let’s see,” she said, walking into the room and turning on the light. “Okay, well I like the paint color. What other changes were you looking to make?”

“I bought a mirror for the inside of the door. Maybe I’ll upgrade the changing table - get one of those custom-built fellas? I’ll stock the shelf in here with wipes, powder, etc. Maybe hang a mobile? Get some stuffed animals? I’m winging it.”

“I’m not picturing it,” she said, stroking her chin. “So, like, where would the changing table go, ideally?”

“Over in that corner. Opposite of the one it was in before, I think.”

“That makes sense,” she said. “Could we put it there now? I just want to picture what it would look like.”

“Yeah, sure,” he said with a shrug.

It was probably easy enough to move with just one person - he had gotten it out of the room by himself earlier - but it was even easier with two. They carried it into the room and placed it down.

Harper stepped back and tilted her head, seeming to try and see what the finished project would look like. “Yeah, okay. I’m seeing it now. With that wall color? And the changing table here? I think that makes more sense.”

“Alright, good,” he said, letting out a sigh of relief. She had always been the better decorator and her approval carried a lot of weight.

“Actually,” she said, “maybe the placement of the changing table isn’t perfect.”

“No?”

“I don’t know. It’s hard to say without seeing a person on the table. Like, I feel like having a body on the table is going to change the aesthetics a little. That’s an important thing to consider.”

“So, would it help if I, like, laid down on top of it?”

“Oh, for sure. That would help a lot, actually.”

He did so, climbing atop the converted bench, lying down on his back. It reminded him of a few days earlier, during the night spent at the shop. But with her here, it reminded him of days long past.

“Does that help?” he asked.

She laughed, and he laughed in response.

“No, not really.”

“No? Why not?”

“I mean, I just see a fully dressed man laying on a table in what I’m supposed to imagine is a nursery of some sort. It’s not working for me.”

“Okay, so what would help?”

“If I’m supposed to imagine a baby laying on this table, then I think I need to see a baby.”

“Interesting,” said Layne. “Should I go...find one?”

“No, no,” she replied. “Not at this hour of the night, anyways. We’ll have to do with what we have.”

“So…”

“So, take off your pants, big boy. We need to make sure this room is going to look alright with a baby in it.”

This suggestion itself was a surprise to neither - both knew where this was going when Layne had first suggested that they take a drive. The surprise was just how into it both were. Both had suspected the other would be hesitant or wary of actually going through with this.

He unfastened his pants and pushed them down his legs, boxer briefs included. She stood near the other end of the table, catching the crumpled mass of cloth and helping lead them down the remainder of his legs.

Just like old times. Just like riding a bike. Just like taking the pants off of your husband so you could put him in a diaper.

It had been a while since she had last seen his cock. If it hadn’t been two years, it had to have been incredibly close. It hung to the side, semi-inflated - as if waiting for the go-ahead to fully stand at attention. She didn’t give that permission. Not yet.

“Choice of diaper?” she asked.

“There’s an open pack of Carnivals in the stock room,” he said. “Or, whatever, lady’s choice.”

“I’ll take a look around. Be right back - don’t go anywhere.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

True to her word, she wasn’t gone all that long. She rummaged around the shelves quickly before tearing open a plastic package, drawing a single diaper from it.

“The Peach Bottoms,” he said, seeing the peach-colored diaper in her hand as she returned to the nursery. Undersellers, though a style he had always been a fan of himself.

“Legs up,” she said.

She probably didn’t even have to say anything, his legs were already in motion as the words came from her mouth. She slid the diaper under him, and he automatically knew when to lower himself atop it. She pulled it through his legs, taping the sides and sealing him into it. She even gave him a playful pat on the padded bottom before stepping back.

“Okay,” he said. “How about now? Does this help you picture the finished Nursery better?”

“Hmm,” she mused, stroking her chin. “We’re getting closer. I think you need to look...smaller. More babyish.”

“More? Any suggestions?”

“You’ll need to lose the shirt, for starters.”

She unbuttoned his shirt before helping him to wiggle his way from it and the black tee underneath. They were added to the pile with his pants on the ground. Then, catching a spot she missed before, she pulled his socks from off of his feet.

“Now we’re talking,” she said. “Baby Puddles, in just his little diaper.”

That name was another blast from the past.

Up until now this had been cute. A fun diversion from the soul-crushing despair of the future. But the deeper into this game they had gotten, the more he could feel itches getting scratched that hadn’t been for some time. More than that - it was getting reacquainted with an old friend he had seen in years. One of those old friends he thought it would be super-awkward to try and converse with all these years later. Yet, within seconds, they were carrying on as if no time had passed.

Hello, Baby Puddles. I’ve missed you.

“Is somebody feeling very little?” cooed Harper, looking down at him as he stretched out in the changing table - her words broken down into musical syllables. Her fingers playfully danced up his chest. “I can tell.”

He wanted, badly, to say something snarky or sarcastic. Something very Layne. But there was nothing that could be said that wouldn’t ruin this moment, and he wanted this moment to last for as long as possible.

“I know a thing or two about this little baby boy,” she said softly. “I know the things he likes. Well, I knew what he used to like. But I bet that he still has the same, uh, tastes now. Is that right?”

He nodded immediately, not even certain that he knew what she was referring to. But as she began to pull off her top, his eyes lit up with comprehension. His mouth watered. She didn’t remove her bra, she had just pulled her left breast from it, letting it hang openly before her.

“Yes?” she asked, watching his face grow more and more excited. “Would you like this? Do you want to be fed, little one?”

He stopped just short of thrusting his head up to bite at her chest like he was some sort of diapered piranha. There had been a lot of things that he missed about ‘the good old days,’ but most of those things could be reproduced in some way by himself - wearing diapers, crawling around, etc. But this was an experience he truly believed he’d just never get to have again.

She lowered her chest down to his face slowly, until he could just barely reach it when he strained his neck. It didn’t stop him - he would’ve turned his head round 180 degrees if it meant he could taste her nipple again. That perfect teardrop shape with the flesh button on the end, how he missed it. His lips enveloped it, suckling on it loudly. They both moaned.

Her hand reached between his legs, grasping the firming lump in the front of the diaper. Permission granted. He was hard as a rock and throbbing in her hand as she stroked him through the bulky padding.

“Does the little baby like this?”

He unleashed a groan that could only be described as positive-sounding.

“Do you remember when we used to do this all the time?”

He nodded.

“Come,” she said. “Sit with me.”

She stood up, pulling her breast from his mouth. His lips made a final weak attempt to reach up and grasp her nipple, but it was already too far away. She left her shirt off, and left the nursery, unfastening her bra and letting it fall to the ground as she did. He quickly sat up on the table, swinging his legs off the side before sliding off to follow.

But he didn’t walk to her. He could’ve - and she certainly hadn’t asked him to do anything else - but he could remember the way that this used to go. When she summoned her baby, her baby crawled. And so he crawled from the nursery, across the stockroom, and to where Harper had taken a seat along the far wall. Her legs were splayed open, a welcome invitation to return to a figurative-womb. He spun himself around, sitting between her legs with his back to her, letting her wrap her arms around him and pull him in close.

There was a momentary thought about how often Effie swept the floor like he had once asked her too, but that faded away quickly, making more room for Baby Layne to be present.

“Isn’t this nice?” she asked.

He offered some sort of content moan.

“I missed this.”

Her hands slowly slid down his bare chest and stomach - a few extra pounds of soft baby fat since the last time she had probably done something like this - until they had reached his diaper. She gently squeezed at it, feeling the padding squish beneath her fingers.

There was something about diapers - the psychological expectation of diapers - that had embedded itself in his psyche just as much as potty training had. While outside of diapers, he had all the control he could ever need. In diapers, his body knew what the end result was going to be and it was well-trained to make it happen.

So he wet himself while her hands were on his diaper.

“Oh gosh, Baby Puddles. Are you actually…”

Another affirmative moan.

“It’s so warm,” she said softly into his ear. “Keep going. Really fill that diaper and live up to your name.”

It was out of his control now, but she was going to get exactly what she wanted.

“Do you remember Lake George?” she asked. She didn’t wait for a response. “We thought we were the only ones at the campsite for days. We could go anywhere and do anything we wanted, and there didn’t seem to be a soul there to see it.”

He nodded.

“And there was that rec center there, with the pool table and the arcade games and the jukebox. And you played that Stone Temple Pilots song like 18 times in a row.”

“Plush,” he said with a laugh, further melting into her hands as she rubbed his diaper.

“I dared you to take your pants off and keep them off, right? For the rest of the week. Just you and your diaper. And you did it. Because you were such a good baby. And you waddled around in your sagging diaper? Mommy had to keep changing you because you couldn’t keep a diaper dry for more than an hour at a time.”

There was a lot more that she could probably have said, but he knew the stories just as well. In the silence that followed, he was transported back to that final full day of camping. Three or four days of almost exclusively using diapers in the woods had finally become second nature and little thought had been given about concealing it. They had returned to the rec center for a last game, or five, of pool. He hadn’t just emptied his bowels into his diaper - he had been rather belligerent about it too, making an entire production out of bending over and loudly filling his pants. All fun and games, of course, until he learned - moments too late - that another couple had finally shown up to the campground and had thought to stop in the rec center at that exact moment.

He thought of this as a very good memory.

“You can still be my baby,” she said at last.

He considered these words carefully, as their meaning wasn’t immediately discernible. He could interpret them as meaning that she had stopped wanting him to be her baby, and that she had since changed her mind and decided to allow for it again. Or, he could still be her baby - after whatever came next.

That was it, he realized. Finality. An end loomed in the distance, and they were now talking about after.

“Will you have other babies?” he asked.

“Oh, maybe. If they want to be.”

“Syd?”

“Hmm, yes. I think so,” she said.

“Really?”

“I think they’re curious. Maybe it’s just because they think it would please me if they tried - and they’re right. But I wouldn’t doubt their own curiosity.”

“Take some diapers home,” he said.

“No, I don’t think so.”

“No?”

“Well, I mean, that was my original thought too. But maybe we get that nursery finished and I bring them here?”

He laughed. “Yes, please. Let’s bring some purpose to that closet before Effie convinces me to make it a break room.”

“What about you?” she asked. “No special ladies on the horizon that you want to change your diaper?”

“I’ve got a little project I’m working on,” he said. “Though I don’t think she’ll be the Mommy type.”

“No?”

He shrugged. “We’ll see. But...if you and I can stay on good terms, maybe I can get your help?”

She laughed at this, not even able to imagine what he had in mind. “When you need me, let me know. For now? What if we do something about this diaper?”

“No,” he said. “It can hold more.”

“So we’re going to sit here all night and wait until you think it’s full enough to change?”

He shrugged.

“What about this?” she said. “I’ll help you finish painting the Nursery. Then? You get a diaper change. And then we go home.”

“Seems fair.”

“So until we’re done painting,” she said, “do your worst.” She gave his diaper another squeeze, this time catching the tip of his firm shaft within. “Oh. I almost forgot about this.”

“It’s not really your responsibility. I mean...you certainly don’t owe me any…”

“Always such a chatty little boy,” she taunted. She reached around him with her left hand, pressing a thumb against his lips until he opened his mouth and let in. Her right hand slipped into the front of his diaper, grasping his shaft before gently stroking it.

“Yow thon’t haff tah…”

“When a thumb is in your mouth, Baby, you just suck on it. It means no more talking. Just let Mommy take care of you.”

And when he finally came in his diaper, that was when they finished painting the nursery. He was absolutely sure that he’d never walk into that room again without thinking about this night.

Nine: Around

Effie preferred spending her days off alone. She could be a social creature at times; when she needed to be. And it wasn’t like she was getting overloaded with human interaction while at the store. She just liked being home, surrounded by her things. No diapers, just books. No cardboard shipping boxes, just the warm glow of her TV.

But she was not home today - already a strike against it.

She knocked on the strange new door in her life. There had been times in the day or two leading up to this moment, where she had been overwhelmingly anxious. Others where she was curiously optimistic. And the rest were spent wishing she had never agreed to any of this.

It’s not my fucking store.

The door opened and Margaret was there to greet her. “Punctual, I see. I like that.”

Effie was punctual when she knew she had to be. Work was not one of those times. But she wasn’t able to disrespect Margaret McCrea.

“Euphemia,” Margaret said as she closed the door behind Effie.

“I’m sorry?”

“It’s a Greek name. It is from where your name, Effie, is derived. You told me the other day that your name wasn’t short for anything.”

“Oh. Well…I can assure you that my name is ‘Effie’ on my birth certificate.”

Margaret laughed, walking into her kitchen with Effie trailing behind. “The Greek have a wonderful language. Like...pána.”

“Pána?”

“Greek for ‘diaper,’ I believe. More of an infant’s diaper, I think. Still seems fitting though.”

Effie had no clue if this was accurate or not, but she liked how worldy it made Margaret sound.

“May I get you something?” Margaret asked. “Coffee? A warm bottle of milk?”

Effie wondered how Layne would’ve reacted to a question like that. Would a question about a bottle of milk get his heart racing? Would he salivate uncontrollably? It did nothing for her. She had never experienced a longing for something so infantile.

“Maybe just some water?”

“I actually have some hot water on the stove - I was about to have a cup of tea. Perhaps I could make you a cup? I have a cranberry pomegranate herbal.”

She wasn’t incredibly interested in tea either. She didn’t dislike it, but it often seemed so boring. Effie felt the same way about cans of flavored seltzer water where the flavor had to have been added by someone waving a single piece of fruit around in a warehouse.

“Yes, that would be nice,” she said, just to be polite.

“Let’s get business out of the way first,” Margaret said as she tipped the steaming silver kettle to pour hot water into two cups. “You have my word that Hamish Bellencourt will help set the council straight on whatever fire this group tries to light.”

“I appreciate you saying so,” Effie said. “I suppose I’m a little nervous that there’s still a possibility that he could change his mind and…”

“I’m going to assume you haven’t met Mrs. Bellencourt.”

“No, ma’am.”

“An absolutely abysmal woman. Rude, snooty, and a broomstick shoved so far up her bottom that… Well, you get the idea.”

Effie nodded, understanding it enough.

“They have a relationship built on a foundation of need. She is the head of a major nonprofit. He is, well, a councilman. The status of each only empowers the other. And that is exactly where their relationship ends. There is no romance. There is no sex. And if he were to mutter the words ‘diaper me’ to her, she’d likely burn the entire city down as to eradicate any record of him having said it. In other words - Hammy needs me, and he cannot live without me. If I told him to go to a council meeting and tell them that the sky was green, he would do it - all the while daydreaming of getting his next dirty diaper changed.”

This was enough of a convincing argument for Effie.

Margaret placed the cup of tea down in front of her. “I have to say, I’m very happy that you’re here and that you’ve come around. Now then. I’m thinking that we’d start with you pulling your pants down and then crawling over my lap so that I could paddle you.”

--

“So how off base would I be if I asked you where you were last night?”

Even though Syd had seemed pleasant and in good spirits when they first came by the house this morning, Harper could tell that something was off. They seemed bothered or annoyed.

Harper was tempted to pry a little - as she would’ve if it had been Layne with a little pout on his face. But she thought she’d give them some space. Let them come to her with the issue if they needed to.

And they had, as it turned out. Within minutes of arriving at the house, Syd had launched into the bee in their bonnet.

“Are you...jealous? Suspicious? Help me out here.”

Syd stroked their hair - the meaning of which was still a mystery to Harper. “Sorry, I don’t want to sound crazy. I just texted you a few times last night and I didn’t hear from you. And I guess I… No, no, this is on me. I think I’ve just had bad experiences in the past. I don’t want to accuse you of doing something wrong.”

“I was with Layne last night,” Harper said.

Syd seemed unsure how to react to that, which made sense to Harper. In the relatively short time they’ve known each other, she had never really spent any time with Layne.

“Oh,” they finally said.

“We got to talking, and then we ended up taking a trip to the store so I could help with a project there.”

“I’m so sorry,” Syd said. “Here I am, practically accusing you of cheating on me with...your husband. God, I feel terrible.”

Harper sighed. There was obviously more to the story, and now she was the one who was feeling terrible. “Actually, no. I think I need to tell you everything.”

“Everything?”

“It’s not...bad. Per se.”

“Per se,” Syd repeated, clearly not liking the sound of that.

“Layne and I, we have  - we had? - this special kind of relationship for a long time. One that, you know, kind of turned into a business.”

“The diapers and all that?”

“Right. And, I don’t know, you and I had talked about it the other day. And then Layne and I were talking last night and I think we both just got hit with this wave of nostalgia. We wanted this...thing. This little ritual that we used to share.”

“So you guys did that sort of stuff? Diapers and baby-things?”

Harper sighed and nodded.

Syd didn’t seem to know what to make of that. They stood there in silence for a few moments while they stared off into space. There were a few times that Harper wanted to say something - chime in with more details. As if there was a way to make ‘I made my separated husband come inside of a diaper last night’ sound non-threatening.

“What does this mean? Are you two getting back together? Like, what am I supposed to do with that?”

“Syd, I know this doesn’t make an especially compelling argument for the fact that our marriage is over, but...I think I know more than ever how sure I am about that.”

Syd scoffed. “I honestly have no clue what I’m supposed to think right now. I’m hearing: ‘Yeah, after putting my hands all over my ex-husband - while participating in our very intimate mutual kink - I realized that I didn’t want to be with him anymore?’”

“It sounds kind of crazy when you say it out loud,” Harper said, scratching her head. “But yeah.”

They threw their arms up in an exaggerated shrug.

“I want to live in a world where - even after our divorce - we’re still friends,” she said. “Friends with...strange benefits, I guess. Is that asking too much?”

She watched Syd process what she said, before finally exhaling slowly - releasing some built--up pressure within. “I guess it’d be a strange new world for all of us. But it means a lot to me that you’re saying this now, as opposed to months down the road.”

“I think honesty is pretty cool,” Harper said.

“Is Layne on the same page?”

“I gave him the book. Whether or not he read it is up to him.”

Syd laughed, seeming to lose some of the flustered edge they had before. This came as a relief to Harper.

“You know...if it’s a matter of wanting to, uh, be in a particular role...I’m game.”

Harper’s eyebrows raised.

“I don’t want that to come off wrong,” Syd quickly added. “I’m not saying that I want you to replace Layne with me. Or that you can’t have...whatever it is with him too. But. If it’s important to you, it’s important to me. And I’m curious.”

“Genuinely curious?”

“Genuinely curious.”

“That makes me happy,” Harper said.

“So. When do you think we’ll get around to it?” asked Syd. “Soon?”

--

He was conflicted on how he felt about the days he was running the store by himself. He had done it for so long, pre-Effie, that it wasn’t an especially difficult thing. But he did like the company. Even - though he likely wouldn’t ever say it to her - Effie’s company.

But these were also days for quiet contemplation, singing out loud to the radio without judgment, and ordering something ridiculous for lunch.

These were also days he had to answer the phone.

“Yeah, uh, do you like, uhm, sell...adult diapers? But, like, uhm, for...adult babies? With, like, colorful designs and stuff”

“What is the absorbency of the Mermaid Girls versus the Carnivals?”

“What kind of diaper should I get if I want to poop my pants?”

It was days like these he felt bad for Effie having to field these questions on the days she was here. He wondered how she answered them, or if she answered them at all.

“Mr. Stanlan?”

He had answered the phone in a sleepy deadpan, not expecting to recognize the voice on the other end. “Grace?”

“I hope I’m not bothering you.”

“You bother me by calling me Mr. Stanlan instead of just Layne. Otherwise, you’re not a bother.”

“If I could just have a moment of your time.”

He looked around the quiet store. “You may have as many moments as you’d like.”

“I was doing some...research.”

He laughed, being reminded of what he had given her when she was last at the store - and the guise under which he had given it to her.

“And how is that going?”

“I don’t think I’m very good at it,” she said, sounding exasperated. She almost seemed out of breath, speaking on the phone now just after having exerted herself in some way.

“I’m not sure if it’s the sort of thing you can be bad at,” Layne said. “We’re talking about the diaper, right? You can say ‘diaper.’ But if that is what we’re talking about, I’d say the only way that you could do it wrong would be if it was on your head. And even then...I’ve been there before, and it wasn’t that bad.”

“These tapes are all crooked,” she said. “The whole thing looks lopsided. It’s not on very tight, either, I feel like it could fall off at any moment. And I had tried to adjust one of the tapes, but I guess it’s pretty sticky and it just ended up pulling a little hole in the diaper as I pulled at it. The whole thing is kind of a mess, really.”

“Okay, well, none of those things seem that important.”

“No?”

“All possible user-errors aside, do you like it? Do you like how it feels on you? Do you like how it makes you feel?”

She sighed, a little bit of a hum mixed in for good measure. “Do I have to say?”

“No, I guess not. I mean, I’d love to know the answer. But it’s probably more important that at least you know the answer.”

“Hmm.”

“I don’t really know what you, or CALM, think it is that our store does, but I hope this is a small glimpse into the truth. We’re not dangerous predators, nor are we encouraging shady behavior. I’m selling escape. From adulthood. From reality. Do you feel like you’re escaping right now?”

“Escaping my sanity, maybe,” Grace quipped.

“Sure, sure. It’s all very silly and weird.”

“I fear that I’m not doing it right,” she said again. “But I don’t dislike it.”

“That makes me incredibly happy to hear.”

“I thought you would. If you’re going to go and touch yourself now while thinking about me wearing a diaper, I don’t want you to tell me.”

“Ms. Vander-frog, do you have reason to believe that I would be attracted to such a thing? To you?”

“Well…”

“Or, is it that you have thought about me wearing a diaper?”

“I don’t have to answer that.”

“Your silence is incriminating. Surely that must come up once in a while in your profession.”

She laughed, a nervous and uncertain laugh, but a laugh nonetheless. “Guilty as charged.”

“So, you don’t have to give me an answer right away - maybe think this over a little bit. But, if you really want to, uh, research this subject, I think I could arrange for you to get some real hands-on experience. We’re talking a guided one-on-one tour of all things regression. You’d be diapered and swaddled by the very best in the business.”

“The very best? You’re not very modest, are you?”

“Oh, I’m not talking about me.”

“No?”

“But she’s an exceptional Mommy. And I feel the odds are good that she’d be willing to show a new baby the ropes.”

“Just days ago,” she said, “I stormed into your store and suggested that it be obliterated from the city. And today you’re trying to convince me to be treated like a baby at the hands of a stranger?”

“Yes?”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Please do. Feel free to call back whenever you’d like. I’ll be around.”

--

“You have [ONE] new voice mail message.”

“10:47 PM: Uh, hi. This message is for Mr. Stanlan? Er, Layne? This is Grace Vanderhoeffen, following up on a conversation we had earlier today. The answer is yes. I am interested in taking you up on your offer.”

“There are no new voice mail messages in your voice mail box.”

Ten: Buttercup

Sp*nking wasn’t entirely new to Effie. Her grandmother had been the paddling type - one of the very last of her kind, she suspected. Eleven years old felt like a very very long time ago, but in the scheme of things - and in consideration of her current age - it really wasn’t that long ago at all. She might as well have been paddled a week ago.

Much more recently, in the minutes prior to when Effie had knocked on Margaret McCrea’s front door, Effie needed to come to terms with a hard truth: If she was going to do this for Layne and the store - and if she was going to come to this house at all - she had to be ready to fully commit. No matter what it was that this crazy lady wanted, it would be worth it if Hamish Bellencourt was on their side.

And so, no, she wasn’t thrilled about taking off her short black skirt. Or her violet satin panties. She wasn’t at all eager for this woman, easily 20 years her senior, to see her nude from the waist down.

“You promise?” Effie asked again. “What happens here stays here? No photos? No videos? No expectation that I will come back here again? No showing up in the store in the future and commenting on the things that happened here?”

“What sort of monster do you take me as?” responded Margaret, clutching her chest as if greatly offended.

“I just need to know that,” Effie said. “Because if you give me your word, I promise that I’ll do whatever wacky thing you want me to do.”

“You have my word,” Margaret said, one hand on her chest and one hand raised as if being sworn in at court. “And my appreciation for being so open-minded.”

“Okay,” Effie said. “Thank you. That means a lot to me, because…”

“That’ll be enough talking, young lady.” Margaret’s voice had taken an abrupt swerve into stern and commanding. It stopped Effie in her tracks. More than that - it had immediately defined their roles. Margaret was in charge, and she would be respected.

“Now then,” Margaret continued, after giving Effie a moment to let her authority sink in, “up on my lap. It’s time for your sp*nking, young lady.”

As awkward as it was, and there was plenty of that, it could’ve been worse. After all, it hadn’t been that long ago since the last time she had been in this position. And she hadn’t forgotten it.

Effie crawled over Margaret’s lap as she sat in a simple wooden dining room chair that she had pulled out from the table. Her midsection balanced on the top of the woman’s thighs, while her buttocks sat poised off the edge of her lap - the perfect position. She half-expected to hear something like “This will hurt me more than it will hurt you.”

There was no such sentiment offered.

She had still been in the process of nestling into Margaret’s lap when the first swat came in, stinging her bottom like a giant flat bee. She yelped louder than she thought she would’ve, or could’ve. She blushed, unprepared for having to sacrifice so much dignity so soon.

The next four or five came at a steady rhythm - a firm slap, a pause, and then the next. Margaret had varied the force of her impact with each, making the next feel unpredictable in where - and how hard - it would land. Each eked out another short burst of noise from Effie’s mouth.

“It is unfortunate for you that I know your type,” Margaret said. “All too well, in fact. I was once a little Effie. And I could have definitely used a firm paddling to keep me in my place”

Effie heard the words, but hadn’t quite absorbed them. There were too many stimuli to focus on any one - and the most obvious were smacking her in the ass.

“Six,” announced Margaret, tallying the number of swats so far. “Seven. Eight.”

She could feel something happening, but it was hard to say what it was. It was an embrace of submission, for sure, but it was more. She was eleven years old again and she had just pushed her cousin into the lake. She was eight years old again and she had just thrown the bowl of lima beans into the trash can. She was five years old again and she had just wet her pants at the county fair.

“Eleven. Twelve.”

Effie had once begged an ex named Vincent to give her ass a few good cracks. He gave it a half-assed attempt - as he did with most things in their relationship. Now that she was getting to experience the real thing, she’d need more. It’d be a requirement of men, and women, moving forward. Or, she could just date Margaret. Very tempting.

“Is that enough?” Margaret asked.

Effie offered only a sheepish nod in response.

“Then we best get you a few more, to make sure you don’t forget this anytime soon.”

Fourteen, fifteen and sixteen landed in quick succession, targeting areas that had already turned red and throbbing. Whatever it was she had been thinking about - it was gone now. Effie had been driven to a blank numbness. The world faded and then blurred. She knew only two things now: her ass was absolutely killing her...

“There. All done now, baby. Promise.”

...and she’d do anything to be called ‘baby’ by Margaret again.

Margaret slowly and methodically rubbed Effie’s bruised and inflamed ass. The same palm and fingers that had caused such damage seconds ago now gently caressed her skin. It was a long ways from complete relief, but peace was being restored.

“I know that’s not the most fun way to start our day off together. But I think it helped, don’t you? You seem so much more...supple now.”

Effie agreed with this assessment.

“We’ve got you feeling the part, but now we need to get you looking the part too. Come with me.”

She had no resistance or hesitation in taking Margaret’s hand so that she could follow the woman through the house, up the stairs and towards another room. The paddling had warmed her bottom well enough that she hadn’t even considered the fact that she wasn’t wearing pants until they walked up the stairs.

Before Margaret had opened the door, Effie imagined a nursery - not like the weird pseudo-closet that Layne worked on when he was in a mood, but the real thing. The place that the big babies who shopped at Bottoms Up either had or dreamed about owning. The door opened to reveal a pretty plain-looking guest room. Just a spare bed, some furniture, and some boxes that looked like they just had nowhere else to go.

But there was no time to be disappointed. Sitting atop that bed was a small pile of folded diapers, just waiting for them.

“I hope you don’t mind,” Margaret said, pointing to the diapers. “I made the selection myself.”

“Buttercups,” Effie said softly. They were a cute style of diaper that Bottoms Up sold: Mostly pastel yellow with light blue flower shapes printed across it.

“Shall we get these on you?”

Effie nodded.

“You must know what I need from you then, yes?”

Effie might not have ever considered herself to be any sort of AB or DL, but she had absorbed a good amount of basic knowledge from just standing inside Bottoms Up. Stories people told. Discussions. Connecting dots when reading product descriptions. Observing the comments and conversations shared in the comments of social media. She knew how this worked - she knew the motions.

But for the first time ever, she also had the honest-to-goodness passion to experience it for herself.

She practically threw herself down on the bed, landing on her back. She knew where her legs would need to be, but she lacked the boldness needed to just stick them up in the air.

Margaret, on the other hand, had no qualms about modesty or the quantity of boldness. She grasped Effie’s legs and lifted them straight into the air. For Effie, she felt more vulnerable now than she had while over Margaret’s lap.

“What a good girl,” Margaret cooed, admiring the underside of Effie as if a car had just been lifted on hydraulics. “Shaved clean. You saved me the trouble of having to do that myself.”

Effie blushed, imagining Margaret lathering her pussy before running a razor between her legs. She wished she knew that had been on the table.

Next time. And then: What the hell am I thinking? There’s not going to be a next time.

“You have to forgive me,” Margaret said, laughing awkwardly, as she longingly stared under Effie’s lifted legs. “It has been a while since I’ve been in the company of a little girl. Well - ahem - a young woman. I care for plenty of little girls. Though I’m usually the one reminding them that they’re little girls.”

Did Margaret seem flustered herself?

“Is...this okay?” Effie asked. She wasn’t entirely sure, herself, what this was, but it seemed to be the polite thing to ask.

“This is more than okay,” Margaret said. “But be careful, little one. I could just eat you up. Absolutely devour you.”

Effie’s cheeks flared with warmth. She had opened her mouth so that she could tell Margaret to have a taste, but she had stopped herself at the last moment. Maybe, for now, it’d best to let things take their course. If she wanted more she could think about it later when she wasn’t paddle-drunk.

The Buttercup was unfolded and slid under Effie’s lifted bottom. For Effie, the world suddenly seemed to be lurching into hyperspeed. With a practiced and experienced handling of the diaper, Margaret made it ridiculously simple.

Effie was reminded, briefly, of watching cooking videos on YouTube. They stir some pre-measured ingredients into a bowl and then flip it around in a hot pan to make the most delicious looking dish. Meanwhile, Effie would watch/stop/rewind/play/stop/rewind/play/stop nearly every 10 seconds and still end up with a dish that looked nothing like the one in the video.

By the time she had finished thinking about cooking videos, she was wearing a diaper.

So this is what it’s like, huh?

She had seen so many big babies before - waddling escapists with at least one foot lodged in a world that she hadn’t been privy to. Their thick diapers sticking out of their pants, or at least being well defined within their too-tight clothing. It was weird to see until it had just become the norm. And, as the figurative anthropologist she sometimes pretended to be, there was little else to do but to monitor them from behind a counter.

And now, she understood it. Perhaps not all of it - there were so many deeper holes that could be explored. But just feeling the bulk of the thick diaper between her legs seemed to answer questions she never knew she had. Like: How does a diaper make you feel safe and secure, yet also so exposed and vulnerable? Well, it just does - and it was the sort of thing that you didn’t question.

“Do you like the way that makes you feel?” asked Margaret.

“Uhm…”

“A prideful little girl, yes? Did you think yourself above the other little babies in your shop? Did you never think you’d be one of them?”

Effie, as far as she could recall, had never specifically said to herself that she believed she was above those babies. But with her sore bottom sealed into a diaper of her own, she recognized the creeping humiliation that was consuming her as the realization that she was really not that much different from the baby-men who prattled on at the counter of the store.

“I like it,” Effie said finally. “I like how it makes me feel.” She said it to herself more-so than she had said it to Margaret. She needed to say it aloud to make it feel real and official.

“Sit up, dear,” Margaret said, opening a closet. “We’ll need to complete the look.”

The closet door slid open to reveal colors. Clothes hung from hangers. Toys and bins and boxes stored below. Stockpiles of colorful diapers in all prints and sizes. It was as if the entire store had been crammed into a small closet.

Margaret selected a dress from a hanger. It seemed kind of small to Effie, but that also seemed like the point. It’s soft creamy-green color reminded her of spreading avocado on a piece of toast. A strange color for a baby dress - but one that seemed to make sense with her yellow diaper.

“You shall be my little Buttercup,” Margaret announced.

Effie nodded to agree - she had already seen that statement coming. She raised her arms into the air before she even realized she was doing it - allowing Margaret to pull the dress down over her.

Once on, Effie could see that she had misjudged the dress’s size - albeit, only slightly. The top of the dress was an almost perfect fit for her. It was just the bottom that ended up being comically short. Intentionally so. Bottoms Up sold dresses much like this one - perhaps even this one. Effie imagined that she may well have been the one who hung it in the store in the first place - no idea that she’d one day be wearing it herself. Still, she knew as she sat there that this dress would do nothing to conceal the diaper. If anything, it highlighted it. It pointed it out with thick soft-green fingers.

“Oh and we’re missing something,” Margaret said, a light-bulb almost having appeared above her head. She reached back into the closet and rummaged around until she found what she wanted. A yellow bonnet - a little brighter than the diaper, but close enough that it did make for a fitting cap to the ensemble.

Margaret carefully positioned it over Effie’s head, tucking her hair into the back of it before tying it on under Effie’s chin.

“There!” Margaret proclaimed. “You have to look at this.”

She pointed to a full-length mirror on the back of the door to the room. From her angle, Effie couldn’t see herself, and so she slid from the bed, taking her first few cautious steps as a new baby. The mobility both was and wasn’t everything she had expected. The bulk between her legs forced each leg to make slow and exaggerated strides forward - that classic telltale diaper waddle. But she had been wrong to think that this was an awkward way of walking. On the contrary, this already felt natural and expected.

There was the little girl in the mirror. Little Buttercup, her yellow diaper hanging well below where the dress ended.  The yellow bonnet, meanwhile, contrasted with her paler face. She looked younger. Smaller.

Fitting, because that was exactly how she felt.

“You may be tempted to fight what you’re feeling,” Margaret said from behind her as she stared into the mirror. “You may think that this is just temporary. Sooner than later, you’ll return to your big girl clothes and you can leave this house thinking that you’ve done your party and that it’s over. And I won’t fault you for thinking those things. But, I’d implore you to savor this moment now, while you can. While you’re unjudged and free to explore this as much as you’d like to.”

It was true - Effie knew there was a light at the end of the tunnel. Reaching it would be the point in which she said to herself” “Well, that was quite the day, wasn’t it?”

But she was in no rush to reach the end of the tunnel. Margaret was right - this was certainly a moment worth pausing on and savoring.

She imagined it being harder than this - like she would need to spend a half-hour convincing her body to just accept what she wanted. But no, it had been no harder than sitting on a toilet.

As she stared at the baby in the mirror, she wet the diaper, feeling thick layers of padding wick away the moisture as quickly as it could. A losing battle - the diaper was overwhelmed by the steady stream, and until the padding could catch up, a small pool had formed in the bottom of the diaper.

In the seconds that passed, every drop found its place within the diaper. The diaper was different now. Obviously; but it amazed her at just how much it had changed everything. She was no longer wearing a fluffy cloud, she was wearing a handful of wet bathing suit bottoms, and they hung between her legs shamefully.

“My goodness,” said Margaret. “I’ve never seen a baby soil a fresh diaper so quickly. And this is your first? You barely got to experience it while dry.”

“I...I think I like it better this way,” Effie replied.

“Is that so? I have to say, this comes as a little bit of a surprise to me,” Margaret said.

“It does?”

“I had you pegged as a dainty little girl. A little princess, allowing yourself to be cute and doted on - perhaps the opposite of who I thought you are as a big girl. But...it seems to me that you’re actually a dirty little girl. A baby in filthy diapers who probably wouldn’t come to me to ask for a change.”

Effie was unsure as to whether or not that was accurate - she had been a baby for less than 10 minutes. But it sounded right.

“So you like your wet diaper?” Margaret asked.

“Yes.”

“Do you think you’d like it if it were...dirtier?”

Effie immediately thought of Hanson, squatting down in the middle of the store and pushing a smelly mess into his diaper. She had been so mad and disgusted at him at that moment. But she could now sense another emotion lingering under that negativity.

Jealousy?

Was she jealous? Jealous that he felt he had the freedom to do something so disgusting and self-pleasing in public? Jealous that he had gotten the exact reaction he likely wanted before being able to go home and pleasure himself to those memories?

“I would,” she said, her face hanging so that she couldn’t see her own cheeks in the mirror.

“I can arrange that,” Margaret said.

“How?” It was a silly question - she helped to sell some of the methods a baby might use to make a clean diaper dirty.

“We’ll use this,” Margaret said, pulling an enema bag out from the closet.

What an amazing closet, Effie thought.

Margaret quickly added: “If you’d like, that is. I don’t wish to force anything on you.”

“Yes,” Effie said. “I want that.”

She might have zoned out there, or perhaps her brain just expunged the unnecessary details of what transpired between agreeing to an enema and lying on her belly, ass propped up in the air by her knees. Because there she was, having a plastic tube pressed into her bottom as her soggy diaper was pulled down enough to give Margaret access.

If Effie thought about - really thought about it - she may have rejected this moment. Margaret was a stranger, and a stranger with a lot of power for as long as she could influence Hamish. And now she was about to give Effie an enema - something Effie probably wouldn't have even agreed to had her family physician suggested it.

The world beyond Effie was blurred. There was no Margaret, and she was not at Margaret’s house. She was in her own space, and she was the only one there. It was just Baby Buttercup - a name that had an incredibly alluring ring to it - diaper pulled down and getting an enema. It didn’t matter how it was happening, just that it was.

With the nozzle completely inserted, Margaret’s fingers caressed Effie’s damp backside for a moment. A reminder that she was still there, perhaps.

“This may feel strange,” Margaret said. “But just let the enema do its work.”

Effie’s first thought was curiosity as to whether or not Margaret had ever experienced an enema - or a diaper, for that matter - herself. But that thought was immediately eradicated from her mind as the water was released from the enema bag. Just as the warm water was to clean out her bowels, it had cleaned everything from her consciousness too.

Effie moaned softly as she felt herself fill.

It could’ve been two minutes, or it could’ve been ten. Eventually the water stopped, and it was unclear if that was just all that was in the enema bag, or if Margaret had determined that Effie had taken enough of it inside her.

“I’m going to pull the nozzle from you slowly,” Margaret said. “There’s a lot of foul things that want to come out of your body now. Were you a baby who was in my care more frequently, I’d ask you to hold it a bit longer or until I’ve given permission for you to release it. But, seeing as how this is our first time, there’ll be no such request from me. Hold it until you can’t.”

Effie wanted to hold it. She wanted to feel that immense pressure that she was already feeling build within her. She wanted the moment of release to feel as much like an accident as she possibly could.

The plastic nozzle was pulled from Effie and the diaper was hoisted back up into place. Just in time, too, as this was exactly how long Effie could hold it.

In hindsight, Effie would believe that there was no amount of effort on her part that would’ve allowed for her to hold the enema any longer. The decision was out of her hands almost immediately. Margaret’s hands were probably still on the diaper, shifting it into place, as Effie’s little a*us gave out.

The moment was unlike any that Effie had experienced in her life. It was more than just the immediate and violent rejection of everything in Effie’s bowels into a diaper - though it was a bit of that too. It was complete surrender of every part of her body. She was a baby now, not even able to stand on her own at the moment - just lying there with her ass in the air as she loaded the diaper.

Little dummy baby. Stupid little girl. A pathetic little pants-filler who was completely overwhelmed by how much she liked the feeling of a disgusting pile of shame in her diaper.

“Oh my,” Margaret finally said, her hand sliding down the back of the diaper to feel the new weight of what had been added.

The diaper had, miraculously, stayed in place - likely on account of the angle in which Effie’s ass was positioned, with her bent legs tucked beneath her. Had she been standing, the diaper could very well have slid down her legs like a mud-filled bomb.

“In every way possible,” Margaret said, “you have surprised me. Shall we get you cleaned up now?”

“N-no,” Effie said. She wasn’t even sure if she was actually saying the words or not.

“No? For just how long do you intend to stay like this?” Margaret asked. “For as cute as you look, you smell absolutely dreadful.”

Effie knew what she needed. She thought, maybe, she was just saying the words in her head - but she was actually saying them out loud: “I need to come in my dirty diaper.”

Margaret laughed. “Well, of course. That can be arranged.”

Eleven: Whatshername

“You’re still here?” Effie asked incredulously.

Layne shoved some styrofoam blocks into the trash compactor. “Yeah, yeah. I don’t want to hear about it.”

“Sorry, I’m not used to seeing you here this late. Still working on that nursery?”

“It’s done. Do you want to see?”

“Not really.”

Layne snort-laughed. “Fine.”

“I’ll look at it tomorrow when I come in,” she said with a blasé shrug. “Maybe if I’m lucky I’ll see a baby-man lying on the table again.”

Layne’s eyes narrowed. “Excuse me?”

“Which part of what I had just said confused you?” Effie asked, her patented smart-ass smile stretched across her face.

“All of it,” Layne said. “You’ve been awfully...peppy the last few days. Cockier than usual.”

“Am I not allowed to be?”

“I don’t trust it. And ‘baby-man?’ Where did you get that from?”

“Oh...does that mean something to you?”

“You can’t kid a kidder, Effie. Someone said something to you.”

Another playful shrug.

“It was Kiri, wasn’t it? She was in here again and she told you to tell me that.”

“How are you only the world’s greatest detective when it comes to someone making fun of you?”

“But she was here, right? Again?”

“She didn’t leave a phone number for you, if that’s what you’re asking for.”

“Then what was the point of her coming in again?”

“I think she was hoping to run into you.”

“Is she…”

“Coming back? Maybe. But I wouldn’t know when. Or why, if I’m being honest. She’s, like, some sort of crush? Future disappointed-lover?”

“She’s a...person of interest.” The words didn’t sound right coming out of his mouth, but he didn’t bother looking for alternatives.

“But, really though, it’s weird seeing that you’re still here while I’m locking up the store for the day.”

“You know what? It’s not just your pep that bothers me. It’s how chatty you’ve been. C’mon, what’s up with you? Are you seeing someone now? Are you, uh, getting laid or something?”

“I’m almost positive that you’re not allowed to ask an employee that.”

“Should I get Human Resources on the line?”

Effie laughed. “Actually, that’s a good idea. I have a number of complaints about my boss.”

“Best of luck. I’ve been trying to get rid of that guy for years,” he said as he walked back to the nursery.

Layne had spent the last few days in ‘the zone’ - that metaphysical plane where you’re so hyper-focused on a task that you often forget why you were doing it in the first place. He’d occasionally dip out from the zone for little breaks. He’d look at the shelves he just hung or the colorful foam tiles laid out on the floor of the Nursery and wonder if he had been making a mistake or not.

No, probably not, he thought. Hopefully not.

There was an endgame afoot. Calls had been made. A hesitant woman was willing to take on the role of Mommy. An even more hesitant woman was willing to take on the role of baby.

The nursery was far from perfect, but it would do. It looked good. Or, at least, finished. It looked like a room you might call a Nursery. He had bigger plans for it - knock down a wall and expand the room; custom furniture; a window that looked into the salesfloor.

“That city council thing is coming up,” Effie said to him. She had a suspiciously smug tone.

“Uh huh.”

“You, uh, nervous about it?”

“Out of sight, out of mind,” Layne said with a shrug.

--

Effie was torn on whether or not she’d tell Layne about her recent dealings that had ensured the favor of Mr. Hamish Bellencourt. In most instances, she preferred keeping it to herself as to not have to field any questions about her experiences. But she also wanted Layne to know. Weeks, months, years later, she wanted Layne to think about the fact that it was Effie - living, dead, or just unemployed at that time - who had saved the store.

And, so, she found his lackadaisical ‘out of sight, out mind’ attitude absolutely infuriating.

He seemed to give no fucks about defending the store from this group of loudmouthed locals. The work he was putting into the nursery felt like transference - a means for him to do something with his built up anxiety.

And what was his relationship with this Grace woman, anyways? This was the most infuriating thing of all. The more opportunities he had to talk to her, the more likely he was to say something so incredibly stupid and off-putting that Grace wouldn’t just go to the city council - she’d gather an angry mob to burn down the diaper store.

Thank goodness for me, she thought. The only one with common sense around here.

--

Mid-sandwich, Harper had warned Syd that what she was about to say could very well be the strangest thing Syd had ever heard. Syd said they didn’t believe that.

“There’s a woman going to the city council in an effort to shut down Bottoms Up. Layne’s plan to avoid this is for me to put the woman in a diaper and treat her like a baby.”

“He knows that kidnapping is illegal, right?”

“He swears that she’s consenting to this.”

“If she’s consenting - why is there talk of her going to the city council?”

“I’m certain that I’m missing details.”

“But you’re going to go along with this?”

Harper sighed, replacing her sandwich-half with her vape before taking a drag. “I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. That’d be a weird thing for me to agree to, right?”

Syd shrugged. “Yes. But...I suspect you already agreed to do this?”

“I might have said that I might help. Maybe.”

“I gotta say,” Syd said, trying to subtly sniff at the air - she was fond of the many scents of Harper’s vape, “that is certainly one of the strangest things I’ve ever heard.”

“But, I was also thinking…”

Syd took a cautious breath.

“...maybe you’d like to go?”

“Why do you think that I would like to go to see that?”

“Well...I was just thinking, you know, that you were curious about the whole diaper-thing. So maybe you’d want to see it in action?”

“Maybe.”

“Or…”

“Or?”

“We make it a, uh, two-for-one. If you want.”

“Two-for-one? I’m not sure I know what you mean by that.”

“Like, you know, she wouldn’t be the only first-time baby in the room. If you wanted to see what it was like.”

“That’s a lot at once…”

“I know.”

“So, it’s you, your soon-to-be-ex-I-think, some random woman who might want to ruin your husband’s business, and then me? And I’m going to be put into a diaper in front of them?”

“Alright, well now it’s not sounding like that hot of an idea.”

“I’m in.”

“Look, it’s not that big of a deal,” Harper said with a shrug - perhaps not fully paying attention. “The whole thing is weird as hell. You certainly don’t need to be there. And maybe I should think more about whether or not I even want to commit to this too, you know? I mean, what if…”

“I said: I’m in.”

“Oh. Wait, are you serious?”

“I trust you. A lot. Do I tell you that enough?”

“I mean, you’ve never had to.”

“I don’t talk about being nonbinary a lot. But it was my decision to live this way, you know? So any hardships are ones I’ve brought upon myself. But that doesn’t mean that it’s not hard. I tell people who, and what, I am and they balk. As if I couldn’t exist on account of the fact that they can’t relate to it themselves. But you’ve never once treated me like that. You’re one of the few people in my life who’ve just always accepted me for who I am. Anytime I’ve told you something about me, you just accepted it without question. So, I dunno, maybe I owe you the same. Is this the craziest fucking thing I’ve ever heard of? Do you and Layne live in a weird world that seems alien to me? Yeah, you do. But you’ve never once flinched at anything I’ve told you. So if you’re going to have a fucking baby party with a stranger - and because I know you wouldn’t invite me to something you think I’d get hurt from  - I’m willing to just say: Okay. Let’s fucking do it. Make me into a baby.”

“Jesus Christ,” Harper said, looking exasperated.

“What?”

“I’m so fucking attracted to you right now. C’mon. We need to go back to the bedroom.”

“But I’m eating a sandwich!”

“Put down the sandwich and come fuck me, dammit”

--

“Okay, but I’m really leaving now,” Effie said, summoning Layne from the Nursery.

“Okay,” he said with a shrug.

“But you’re still here?”

“I, uh, have some stuff to do here.”

“Stuff? What stuff? You said you finished the nursery.”

“What’s with the third degree? This is my store. If I want to stay here until midnight, I’ll stay here until midnight.”

“Is Kiri coming over, is that what this is all about? Are you trying to woo her into your nursery?”

He laughed, enjoying the mental image that conjured. “N-no. Just working on a little project tonight. Something personal.”

“Ugh, I hate that I’m curious.”

“I can’t tell you.”

“It’s a secret? Well shit. Now I need to know.”

“Look, I’m sorry, Effie. But this is bigger than me and…”

The back door opened, and both Effie and Layne knew who it was before anyone stepped through the door. Only one other person had a key.

“Oh shit,” said Effie, glancing back to Layne. “You and Harper?”

Harper came through the door first, the classic diaper bag hanging off her shoulder. Black with little white and red flowers printed on it, it was a relic of days gone by - though only Layne would’ve known about them. Seeing its return brought a feeling of comfort over him.

Syd was next through the door - a surprise to Layne and Effie alike.

“Wait, what the hell is going on here tonight?” Effie asked.

“This is, uh, more participants than I was expecting,” Layne said, nervously scratching at his hair.

“I’ve acquired another baby,” Harper said. “I hope that’s okay.”

“I mean...well…”

“Good enough for me,” Harper replied. She turned to Effie, the two of them embracing. “Have you met Syd?”

“No, I don’t think I have,” Effie said, her tone rising to an excited pitch that Layne had only ever heard when she was talking to Harper.

“A pleasure,” said Syd, holding out their hand. Effie grasped it and shook it with a goofy smile.

Layne noticed the slightest of twinkles in Effie’s eyes. He had become a bit of an accidental expert in decoding his co-worker. Right now? She was digging this androgynous stranger.

“So, really now,” Effie repeated. “What exactly is going on here?”

“A christening of the new nursery,” Harper said. “Some lucky babies are getting pampered tonight.”

“Quite literally,” Syd said. It sounded as if they wanted to be bolder, but was still kind of uncertain about everything herself.

“Oh, well, first and foremost,” said Harper, “I think we owe a first-time customer a little tour around the store. Show ‘em what the big babies wear and such.”

“Please!” exclaimed Syd. The two linked arms and Harper led them through the swinging doors into the salesfloor.

“I could stick around,” Effie said with a shrug.

“Oh no you don’t,” Layne said. “You have to get out of here.”

“Am I cramping your style? Are you actually thinking that you’re going to, like, score a threesome with those two?”

“No, no. Don’t worry about it. We just have some...things planned and I don’t need any extra distractions around. Or, in your case, distracting pains in the ass.”

“Some ointment would clear that right up, you know. I’m sure Harper could work that into the routine tonight, Baby-Man.”

“Well now you’re just being mean, and I definitely don’t appreciate…”

From the front of the store, Harper yelled back: “Hey, do you mind if I unlock the front door for a moment? There’s someone else here. Your friend, I think.”

Layne cringed as he turned to face Effie again.

“More? Who all is coming to this little party tonight? And you couldn’t have even mentioned it to me?”

“Effie, really, maybe it’s best if you don’t get involved and…”

It was too late. Effie walked up to the windows in the swinging doors and looked out into the salesfloor.

“Is that....whatshername? Grace? From the group? From, uh, CLAM?”

“CALM,” Layne said with a sigh. “And...yes.”

Effie’s face was a brilliant red - a shade Layne had never seen before. And while he had seen this situation as plenty awkward and embarrassing for most parties involved, he failed to understand how Effie could possibly be so upset about this.

“Is she...putting a diaper on too?”

“Well...maybe. You know, if she wants.”

“This place,” Effie said, throwing her arms up in the air as she looked around the stockroom in frustration. “This fucking place.”

“Are you...mad?”

“Consider this my two week’s notice for my resignation,” Effie finally said. And she stormed out the back door with her nose held high in the air.

Twelve: Gin

Somewhere else, Effie was imagining herself tightly wrapping a diaper around Layne’s face until he was no longer able to breathe.

But the truth was that she was a little more upset at herself. She felt like a fool. It could’ve been worse - at least she was the only one who knew she was a fool - but that didn’t make her feel much better about it. She had sacrificed and made herself incredibly vulnerable for the sake of Layne and the store. And how could she not have seen this coming? Of course Layne would stumble into an answer on his own. Such was the Layne Stanlan Story.

Maybe she shouldn’t have said anything to Layne as she stormed from the store. She probably didn’t actually want to have to look for a new job. And so that meant calling Layne back tomorrow and apologizing.

Her imagined diaper-strangulation intensified.

She needed someone to talk to. But someone who could understand where she was coming from. Someone who wouldn’t divert the conversation the moment that Effie brought up the fact that she had expelled an enema into a diaper.

And there was only one person that she could call.

--

The fact that she had crumbled so easily suggested that she never had that tight of a grasp in her beliefs in the first place.

When she traced back through her relatively short tenure with CALM, she saw herself rising to the role of spokesperson only on account of the fact that nobody else wanted it. CALM hadn’t been about action previously - it had been a breeding ground for frustration and contempt. Someone would complain about something, rile everybody up, and then they’d start showing up in local government assemblies.

For a while, it made complete sense to Grace because she was caught in the echo chamber.

But, wouldn’t you know it, this guy - who she once referred to as a diaper-peddler - would crack open the lid to the echo chamber by just asking a few basic questions.

It was just a little personal crisis. Who am I? What do I believe in? Etc.

And there she was, once again in the parking lot of Bottoms Up. It’d be the third time she’d walk into that store. She’d never admit aloud how many more times she had just sat in the parking lot after hours, staring up at the building. It was a strange temple that hosted a group of people who were willing and ready to sacrifice all of their adult-ly agencies for the sake of feeling things that society strongly discourages.

That certainly didn’t seem so bad.

If there were creeps and monsters who bought things in Bottoms Up, she figured the ratio was no different than the number of creeps who were shopping at the local grocery store or, hell, an ice cream stand.

All that to say - she had wet herself while wearing a diaper and she was rather fond of it.

This wasn’t completely unexpected. The night after her lunch with Layne at The Schoolhouse, she fell down a wine-fueled rabbit hole of videos and stories. And for as much as it pained her to admit it, she didn’t hate what she saw.

The moment she had gone into Bottoms Up and mentioned the word ‘research’ to Layne, she could see what would happen next. And she was right - she came home with a diaper. She put on the diaper - poorly, but she still did it. She wet the diaper. She...really enjoyed that diaper.

And now for the return to that temple. She had been telling herself, most of the day, that this would still be research. She was still tallying up positives and negatives, as if it mattered when she picked the arbitrary moment when ‘research’ ended.

This wasn’t research anymore. She didn’t know what it was, but it probably didn’t matter.

The first thing she observed, as she walked to the front door of the shop, was that there were two people on the salesfloor - neither of which she knew. She could deduce that one was the supposed ‘Mommy’ promised by Layne, but the other was a complete unknown. It made her a little nervous. Was this not the private introduction to babyhood she thought she was getting?

The woman inside yelled something back to the stockroom before charging forward to unlock the front door.

“Hi, you must be Layne’s friend?” the woman asked.

“Is that how he’s described me?” responded Grace.

“I might be putting words in his mouth. But we wouldn’t be here if he didn’t like you.”

“I’m Grace, by the way.”

“Hi Grace. I’m Harper, I’m Layne’s...uh…”

“She’s his wife,” said the other person, the one with the semi-purpled hair. “And we all agree that it’s weird, but it probably won’t be the weirdest thing that happens today.”

“Oh,” Grace said, feeling a wave of uncertainty wash over her. “I had no idea that…”

“Seperated,” Harper said. “But friendly. At least for the past week we have been. Oh, and behind me, here, is Syd. They’re my current partner.”

Syd looked to be blushing a little. Swooning too, Grace thought - but that was just speculation.

“That was the first time you called me that,” they said.

“Is it?” The two squealed in glee.

In the back of the room, at the window in the swinging doors that lead back to the stockroom, there’s another feminine face - the other employee of the store. Her cheeks look excessively red - though it’s hard to say if she actually saw that or not in the moment the face is there. The face is gone as quickly as Grace sees it.

“How many people are actually going to be here?” she asks the other two.

“Just you and me,” Harper says. “And Syd. And Layne.”

“Effie isn’t staying?” Syd asked.

“I doubt it,” Harper said. “She’s not really into this stuff at all.”

“I guess that’s already more people than I anticipated,” Grace said, almost feeling bad that she was interrupting the banter between Syd and Harper.

“Layne will not be an active participant,” Harper said. “In fact, I’m going to ask him to go get us some dinner later so that he’s out of our way. Do you like Indian?”

Grace just nodded politely, for lack of desire in getting too off topic in a discussion about the Indian meals she did and didn’t like.

“Oh, and there’s me,” Syd said, seeming to remember that they had yet to reveal how they played into this. “I’m, uh, also getting indoctrinated into the baby cult tonight.”

“So you’re not alone,” Harper quickly added, as if swallowing up any potential silence would prevent Grace from second-guessing herself.

“That sounds nice, actually.”

“Yeah? Are you sure?” Harper asked.

Grace nodded again.

The swinging doors opened, and Layne entered the salesfloor. Everyone else - in various stages of knowing him at all - could tell that he was trying to look happier than he was actually feeling.

“Ladies and gentleman,” Harper said, playing a drum roll on her air-drums, “our sponsor for this evening.”

“Our figurative Daddy to your Mommy?” Syd asked.

“No,” Harper quickly said. “He’s no Daddy. He’s just a…”

“Can I get y’all anything to drink?” Layne asked. “I have some water in the back. Maybe soda? I definitely have at least half a bottle of gin. But it’s cheap gin, so don’t get too excited.”

“Alcohol?” Harper asked Syd and Grace. “Would that help?”

“Probably,” said Syd.

Grace just nodded.

“We’ll take three glasses of your finest gin, my good man.”

“I have two coffee mugs…”

“Just bring out the damn bottle. We’ll share.”

--

Somewhere else, Effie had placed a call.

“You know, I was spending some time with Baby Hammy this morning. And I was very clear about the stances he’d need to take in his upcoming council meetings. He was, I must say, very receptive to them.”

“Oh?” Effie couldn’t bring herself to tell Margaret the truth. And even if she could’ve, she still might not have.

“It was easier than I thought it’d be,” Margaret said. “I simply dangled the key to his chastity cage over the toilet.”

“When can I see you again?” Effie asked.

Margaret offered a single shrill “Ha!” in response. And for a moment or two, that was it. She eventually followed it with: “I knew that you enjoyed it - it was quite obvious. But I didn’t think I was going to be hearing from you again.”

“No?”

“You’re prideful. Well, when you’re not in a diaper, at least. We had completed our transaction, and regardless of how much you liked it, I suspected that I wouldn’t hear from you again.”

“I want to see you again,” Effie said. Margaret hadn’t been wrong about anything she had just said. She had convinced herself that she probably wasn’t going to call Margaret again. But that was before her little explosion at the shop.

“You do realize I charge my little babies for my time, yes?”

“Do I need to pay to see you again? Because…I would.”

“No, my darling Buttercup. I wouldn’t charge you a penny.”

--

“The thing about hypnosis is that the recipient has to want the effects of it, right? You will never be hypnotized if you stubbornly reject it. The more you allow yourself to be affected by it, the more you’ll get out of it.”

“Are you a hypnotist too?” asked Syd.

“It’s somewhere on my kink bucket list,” Harper said with a shrug. “But I may have spent time with a hypnotist once or twice. The point I’m trying to make is that this really isn’t that different. You get out of this what you put into it. If you go into it thinking that you’re going to hate it, you’re probably going to hate it. I can’t magically make you embrace diapers if you don’t want to.”

Syd and Grace both nodded. The bottle of gin had made its way around their little circle a few times. It was just as bad as Layne had warned them it would be. But the stinging warmth in their bellies was also a little comforting. It was a shared stinging warmth.

“This might all be pretty obvious, but let’s just get the important stuff out of the way. We can all agree that whatever happens here stays here? Between us?”

“Yes,” said Grace.

“Of course,” said Syd.

“And, look, we’re going to be getting pretty, uh, intimate with each other. Clothes are coming off. I’m going to see all your bits. And, you know, I’ve seen some of the bits in this room. Some I have not. I just want to make sure we’re all good with that.”

“I’m good with that,” Syd said. “I’ll take off my pants right now if you want me to.”

“Grace?”

Grace sighed before shrugging and laughing. “You know…I’m already here. I’m already...invested. So, yeah. Whatever you need from me.”

“Any questions before we get started?”

Syd turned to Grace. “Care to make a friendly bet?”

“A bet?”

“We see who uses their diaper first?”

Grace laughed again, blushing a little. “When you say ‘use’ you mean…”

“Well, pissing yourself, I think,” Syd said. “But, I mean, bonus points for making a truly epic mess for Harper to clean up.”

“Nothing I haven’t seen before,” Harper said.

“I don’t think I’m quite there yet,” Grace said. “Though, when you say ‘uses their diaper first,’ is that person the winner or the loser?”

“Uh, winner,” Syd said.

Grace blushed a little while nodding at these terms, though not entirely believing that being first made anyone a ‘winner’ or ‘loser.’

“Look,” Harper said, clapping her hands together. “Anything in the store. Anything you want. Onesies. Dresses. Pacifiers. Particular diaper style. Whatever you want to try, we’ll try it. We good? We ready to go?”

She was met with mostly-assured nods. Which was good enough.

--

Somewhere else, Layne was watching alt-rock music videos from his youth on his phone while he ate cookies at his desk in the stockroom. He didn’t actually believe he’d get to be up close and personal to the action, but he didn’t think that he’d be dismissed. Now he just waited until they needed something.

He wasn’t really watching the videos though, they were just distracting noises and lights. His cock was throbbing, thinking of Harper babying the two guests. He was jealous. Jealous that he wasn’t right there with them. He was so close - he could hear the murmur of their conversations.

Really, he was jealous that he might not get to see the end results.

--

“Who’s first?” asked Harper.

“You?” asked Grace, finger pointed to Syd.

“Yeah, me, I guess,” replied Syd with a shrug.

“I think there are some diapers in the Nursery already,” Harper said. “But if there’s anything special you want we could go and grab some.”

“No, that’s okay,” Syd said. “I’m not sure that I care much about aesthetics right now.”

“Suit yourself. C’mon, baby.”

Syd blushed, and then Grace blushed - a second-hand blush from the knowledge that she’d be ‘baby’ next. Syd followed Grace into the small room and the door closed behind them.

Grace was tempted to meander across the stockroom to talk to Layne, but she stopped herself. She was here for, if not ‘research,’ herself. She liked Layne. Liked? Well, she felt some sort of way about him. But she also wondered if she felt the same way about Layne as she felt about a fast food hamburger on a day where she had somehow been too busy for breakfast and lunch. It was probably the most appetizing thing in the world, as anything else would’ve been if she looked a little more.

She had been single for a long time. So long, in fact, that this was just The Way it Was. She worked a lot, and when she wasn’t working, she was volunteering. Or taking care of her mother. Or neglecting herself. Usually at the same time. The concept of romance sounded nice, but it also felt like a lot of work. Dates and texting etiquettes and whatnot. And here was the diaper-peddler, plopping right into her lap. And he had been, mostly, nice to her. Patient, at the very least.

Grace wondered what would’ve happened if her band of angry citizens had targeted a store that sold costumes to those people who dressed up like animals and had sex with each other...or whatever it was that they did. Would she have developed a crush on a guy who dressed like a bobcat at night? Would she be waiting for his wife to put a dog mask on her?

No, diapers seemed good. Somewhere in her skull there were reasons for that. Old memories and triggered nerves that made the concept of diapers resonate more. Someday she’d dig into that a little, but the reasons seemed unimportant now.

She tried to imagine what it was like on the other side of the closed door. It made her excited. It made her wet in a way nothing had in a while. She even, briefly, contemplated, fleeing the building and getting back into her car to drive away. The obvious stimulation was a heavy weight on her, and she feared that Harper wouldn’t like what she saw. Cooler heads prevailed, and she let out some tension with a nice long sigh. Harper probably knew damn well what to expect.

Time passed, and she stared into space while her brain flipped through the channels. She imagined herself getting put into a diaper. She imagined herself wearing the diaper. She imagined what it would be like to squat down and force a poo into the back of her diaper. She imagined needing to stand before CALM to explain why she not only thought that they should drop their protest of Bottoms Up, but that she’d also be stepping away from the group - all while she wore a diaper under her slacks - slowly and steadily wetting them as she talked to everyone.

The door opened and Syd emerged. Near nude, save for a white undershirt and the thick space-themed diaper around her midsection.

“You’re up,” they said with a smile. “Don’t keep Mommy waiting.”

She smiled and nodded politely as she stepped towards the now-open door.

“Are you ready?” asked Harper, stepping out from within the nursery.

“Ready as I’ll ever be.”

“Come on in.”

The room looked bigger than she remembered it looking before, in the half-completed state she observed a few days prior. Odd considering that there seemed to be more things in the room now - two people included. With little context for what a proper adult-baby nursery would look like, this seemed to be just about what she had expected. There was the changing table. A well-stocked shelf of diapers, wipes, and other assorted bottles and tubes. The colorful foam flooring. The pastel walls with floating shelves holding things like stuffed animals and pacifiers.

Grace immediately began shimmying out of her pants and panties, letting them slide down her slender legs.

“Oh, we’re not going to waste any time, I see,” said Harper.

“I’m worried that if I give myself a moment to think about it, I’ll freeze up.”

“Fair enough. But we can’t go any further until I look at these.” Harper bent down and plucked Grace’s panties off the ground. A bold royal blue with yellow trim, they featured a single cartoon rubber-ducky on the front of them. “These are very cute. Did you wear these especially for tonight?”

“I...don’t really own many ‘cute’ things,” Grace said. “I had to go buy these at the store today.”

“All that just for them to be replaced by a diaper.”

“I bought them from the, uh, kids section. Honestly, it was the biggest size in that department - which I don’t think is far off from my usual size.”

“Very cute,” said Harper.

“I just thought that…maybe I’d try wearing something more juvenile.”

“I almost hate to see the panties go to waste then. Alas, you’re wearing diapers tonight, because you’re too small for actual panties. Even if that might not actually be too far from the truth.”

This was exactly what Grace wanted - needed - to hear.

“Lie down on the changing table, baby.”

A small “muh” escaped Grace’s lips - an infantile muttering that she didn’t know she was capable of. She stepped atop a small folding stool at the end of the table and climbed onto it, sprawling out onto her back. She had reservations on what the comfort of this table would be, and was pleasantly surprised by the feeling of the thick padding beneath her body as she lay there.

“Someone is very excited to get their first diaper, huh?” asked Harper, looking down between Grace’s legs.

“It would be my...second.”

“Oh?”

“Layne...he gave me one the other day.”

“Ah, I see,” Harper said with a smile. “And you liked it so much that you needed more?”

“I...wasn’t sure if I did it right.”

“I’m not sure that there’s a wrong way to use a diaper.”

Harper put her hand on Grace’s thigh, slowly grazing it across her flesh, slowly sinking into her inner-thigh. Harper watched as Grace started to moan, before biting her lip.

“It made you feel good, right?” Harper asked.

Grace nodded.

“It made you feel so good that you can’t help yourself from dripping all over the changing table now, yes?”

Grace nodded.

“Then I don’t think you did anything wrong. But I do think we can do it better now. Would you like that?”

“Uh huh,” more of a soft moan formed into the shape of words than they were actual words.

Harper’s hand had reached the wetness between Grace’s legs. She carefully ran her fingers up Grace’s labia, catching the moisture on her fingertips.

“Do you see?” asked Harper, showing Grace her glistening fingertips. “This is what being a little baby does to you.”

Grace found her hands reaching up into the air, trying to grasp Harper’s hand. When she grabbed it, she pulled it towards her mouth, licking the fingers clean.

“Well damn,” Harper said. “I can see you’re going to be trouble. Maybe you need some extra reminders of how small you are now.”

Grace cocked her head to the side in curiosity as Harper bent down to the floor. When she popped back up again, she was holding Grace’s little ducky panties. Grace’s eyes grew big, nervous about what Harper was going to do with those. They barely fit her as it was - they wouldn’t fit over the diaper.

Without a word, Harper shoved the panties down the front of Grace’s diaper, tucking it all the way down to the bottom, between her legs.

“There we go, that’s much better. I’m afraid you’re not going to be able to keep your panties dry. It’s a good thing you’re in diapers.”

Thirteen: Inspiration

She found the act of naming to be an incredibly intimate one. Maybe it was because she had never been a fan of her own name - Harper always sounded more like the name of a profession and not a little girl. You know - one who...harps. But to choose your own name, to pick a single word that encapsulated who you were and who you wanted to be - she simply adored everything about it.

She had once pressed Layne to choose a baby name for himself. An identity separate from ‘Layne,’ and one reserved just for his time in little space. He didn’t have quite the same affinity for it that she did, tossing out a few joke-names like ‘Steve’ and ‘Thanos.’

So she picked for him, and she picked Baby Puddles.

It was an incredibly effective name. It’s infantile simplicity never failed to immediately help regress him when he heard it. She could sometimes weaponize it - lobbing it into a heated argument to freeze him in his tracks for a few moments.

She reckoned, though, that even if the name hadn’t been something as silly as Puddles, it would’ve been effective. There was power in identity - even in just a temporary alter-ego. As soon as there were some memories associated with a given name, hearing it would invoke them.

As she had put each of her new babies into a diaper, she asked them to pick a baby name. A new identity to be born into.

Syd had been very into the idea. They had done it once before - choosing a new name for themself after having shed most of the identity that was assigned to them at birth. Syd represented things, or so they had said, though Harper hadn’t gotten to hear those reasons just yet. For that matter, she had no idea who Syd was before they were Syd. It was a point of curiosity, though she was fine with leaving well enough alone. She liked Syd.

“Bunny,” Syd had said in response to Harper’s question, without letting a single moment pass.

“Baby Bunny, is that right?”

Syd nodded.

Grace had been a little more challenged by the concept. The entire experience of being exposed and diapered by a near-stranger was overwhelming enough. Harper having stuck her fingers between Grace’s legs probably hadn’t helped much.

Grace had hemmed and hawed a little, pretending to think about names when she seemed much more interested in feeling the plump Carnival diaper that Harper had just finished taping onto her.

“I...I don’t care,” Grace said. “Call me anything you want.”

“Anything? Be careful what you wish for.”

Grace had gone on, mindlessly grabbing at the padding between her legs as if it was the most interesting thing she had ever worn. It may have been.

It occurred to Harper that maybe there were two different approaches to the concept of alternate identity: there were those who wanted to have a hand in who they were and how they’d be seen, and then there were those who wanted to be told who they were so that they could live up to that name.

Bunnies and Puddles. Grace was a Puddle. It was no wonder that there was some sort of chemistry between her and Layne.

“We’ll just call you Princess,” Harper finally said, planting her hand on Grace’s diaper for a playful squeeze.

Grace offered a moan of approval.

Back in the stockroom, the babies were reacquainted. For two people who had never even known of the other a very short time ago, their similar circumstances had created a strange bond, like little siblings. They shrieked in delight at the sight of each other in their new diapers and hugged.

“Hi, I’m Baby Bunny!”

“And I’m Princess!”

Layne was there, maybe in the middle of trying to say something to Syd before she and Grace stepped out from the nursery. Harper was a little annoyed by his presence - fearing that he’d inevitably do something that would make the other babies feel judged or objectified.

“This is a Baby Party. A party for babies,” she said.

“Okay?” Layne said with a shrug. “I was just coming over to say ‘hi’ and…”

“If you’re joining the party you’re going to have to put a diaper on. Those are the rules for the Baby Party.”

Layne’s cheeks grew red as he contemplated his options. Clearly he feared missing out. But sticking around would put him in a vulnerable position.

She had been waiting for Layne to say something, but it was Grace’s voice she heard first: “Join us?”

He laughed, a release of some of his pent up anxiety. “Yeah, alright. Fine.”

A few minutes later, the nursery door opened again and Layne emerged, wearing only his blue Epitaph Records tee and a light blue diaper featuring polar bears and penguins - the Polar Party.

“Hi,” said Syd with a wide mile. “My name is Baby Bunny.”

“And I’m Princess,” said Grace. “What’s your name?”

“Ugh, c’mon…”

“Tell them your name, baby,” Harper said from behind him.

“Hi. I’m...Baby Puddles.”

Everyone got a good laugh out of that, with Layne eventually joining in.

Soon after, Layne and Harper unfurled a number of blankets onto the floor. It wasn’t much, but it was a place to crawl and roll around without worrying about getting too dirty. Harper had also begun to pass out some treats that she had brought along for the babies. Bottles of juice and milk. Baggies of animal crackers. There were some jars of baby food too, but there were no immediate takers for those.

“Do you know about the bet?” Syd asked Layne as the three babies sat in a circle, watching each other clumsily drinking from their bottles.

“Bet?”

“The first person to use their diaper is the winner.”

“Does the winner get a prize?” he asked.

Syd shrugged.

“We could set some stakes,” Harper said as she looked down at her babies.

“Winner gets an extra bottle?” Grace asked.

“Oh, I’ll give you all the bottles you want,” Harper said with a grin.

“It’s not the winner who gets something,” Syd said. “It’s the loser.”

“Go on,” said a curious Layne.

“I don’t know,” Syd said. “I’m making this up as I go. But can, like, diapers be...re-used?”

“Well, they are traditionally pretty disposable,” said Layne. “We have some cloth diapers out front but…”

“No, no,” said Harper, shaking a finger as she picked up Syd’s thread. “Syd - Baby Bunny - is suggesting that a ‘winner’s’ used diaper be given to the loser to wear. Is that right?”

Syd nodded.

“Overtop of their diaper, maybe?” asked Syd.

“Tapes don’t always cooperate like that,” Harper said, looking around the stockroom. “But...I see plenty of packing tape. We could make it work.”

“So this is a game now?” asked Layne. “A competition? I thought this was an introduction to the wonderful world of diapers.”

“You talk too much, Baby Puddles,” said Harper. “And besides, you’re lucky you were invited to this Baby Party at all.”

“I’m just saying, maybe if this was a more chill…” He was cut off by a pacifier being pressed into his mouth, as Harper’s hand had reached around his head from behind him. The other two babies seemed delighted by this.

“I could do it right now,” Syd said.

Grace tilted her head curiously. “Hmm?”

“I could totally wet myself.”

“Then do it,” said Harper. “Show us what a little baby you are.”

Syd always put up a strong and daring front, but more often than not, they were the first to blush and act shy when an embarrassing topic came up. Right on schedule, there were their glowing pink cheeks. Everyone watched as Syd contemplated how to achieve this. They tried re-positioning their legs a few times. They stood up, and then they sat back down on the blanket again.

“I...I have to go. I just...can’t. Not yet.”

“Evvybubby geth pee shy ah tha firth thime eh diaperth,” said Layne through his pacifier.

“Puddles, I stuck that thing in your mouth so that everyone else had a chance to speak.”

“Have you ever worn a diaper?” Grace asked Harper.

She nodded. “A few times. But...I tend to feel off my game when I’m not in charge. When I’m, you know, not on top.”

Syd laughed. “Ain’t that the truth.”

“I feel guilty,” Grace said. “I like this - all of this. Quite a bit. But it’s hard to enjoy.”

“Why so?” asked Harper.

“I was so sure that you people were...disgusting.”

“I hathe tah bweak et too you,” Layne said, “buth we are.”

Harper shot Layne a frustrated look before turning back to Grace. “Even if we were, it’s...controlled disgust. But we’re all here because we want to be, right? We’re not hurting anyone. Nothing we do here tonight - no matter how crazy it seems - will ever affect another person outside of these walls.”

“Unleth you make ah diaper tho thtinky that Effie thmellth it tahmorrow.”

Harper grumbled. “Actually, I take back what I just said. One of us may end up getting hurt by the end of the night.”

“You can enjoy this,” Syd said, putting their hand on Grace’s shoulder. “You have my permission.”

“And mine,” said Harper.”

“Anth mine,” said Layne, doing his best to maneuver the pacifier in his mouth as he spoke.

For a good minute or two, nobody said anything - as if waiting for Grace to respond. She simply smiled and looked down at the ground. And when she finally looked up, her cheeks were rosier than they had been moments earlier.

“Okay,” she said. “I...just wet my diaper.”

Syd’s mouth dropped open incredulously while Harper grinned from ear to ear.

“And then there were two,” said Harper.

--

Of course, Grace hadn’t just wet her diaper. She had also saturated the wad of cloth that Harper had shoved into her diaper earlier - her cute yellow ducky panties. And while the diaper had done its part in absorbing all the liquid it could, the rest remained trapped in her panties - the damp cloth pressed against her skin. It was every bit as humiliating as Harper had likely intended it for it to be. Not only had she pissed herself - the first tonight to do so - but she had all but ensured that she’d never be able to look at these panties again without remembering what happened to them here.

It was hard to think that she could be any more embarrassed tonight, considering not only what she had just done - but what they all would likely do at some point. But the thought of her soaking wet panties getting exposed to everyone else felt worse.

“I swear,” Syd said, shaking their head in frustration. “I have to go. But my body just isn’t letting me.”

“It can be hard,” Harper said with a sympathetic nod. “Your first time using a diaper had been tough, right?” she asked Layne.

“Uh...yeah.”

--

Layne was experiencing an issue that he suspected was unique among the other babies in the room. Like Syd, he knew that he could wet himself. He had felt the aching of his bladder calling him earlier, and adding a bottle of juice to that had only grown that feeling. But this wasn’t the psychological problem Syd was experiencing. This was physical.

And who could blame me, he thought. Surrounded by cute people in diapers? He was a tad excited.

It was actually a bit of a relief that he felt himself becoming so enamored with the company. The diaper biz had almost entirely sucked out the last of his kink-drive - if not his sex-drive altogether. It had slowly been rekindled again, following his overnight stay in the nursery and the night with Harper, though he still saw those as exceptions to the rule. But no - there were some pretty bodies in diapers before him, and he was more than okay with it.

Or, he wished he could be even more there for it, but he had just found the perfect position in which he could sit and not make it look like he had a raging hard-on in his diaper. Almost any attempt to get up or relocate now, he figured, would reveal the truth.

“And who will it be?” cooed Harper, walking around the circle of babies. “Who is gonna be the, uh, lucky baby? Though I guess that depends on which you’d like more - winning or losing. I know at least one of you babies is especially fond of being a dirty little boy.

Layne blushed and scoffed, as if he could be incredulous for such an obvious observation. He saw Grace cracking a smile. He spit the pacifier into his hand. He couldn’t even remember how it ended up in his mouth in the first place.

“Is that true?” asked Grace. “Is he a naughty little baby?”

“Oh, sweet Princess,” Harper said, “you have no idea. Does she, Puddles?”

“Sometimes,” he said, “it’s not the worst thing to just...let mysteries remain mysteries. We don’t have to, like, talk about it.”

“I think we do,” said Syd. To Harper: “Tell us?”

“Please?” added Grace. Ganging up on him like siblings.

“Well, I mean...there’s so much to tell. I couldn’t tell you everything.”

“Tell us something good,” Syd said. “Consider it...inspiration. You know, to make it easier for us to be as big of babies as Layne is.”

“Well who am I to stand in the way of inspiration?” Harper asked. “I ‘m tempted to tell you a story. I mean, I could tell you about Lake George. Or...Boston.”

“No,” Layne said. “I don’t know about that…”

“First of all, why is that pacifier out of your mouth?” Harper asked. “Get that back in there. Second, Boston was far from the worst embarrassment you’ve ever experienced.”

He grumbled, sliding the pacifier back into his mouth.

“Tell us about Boston,” Syd said.

“Yeah,” said Grace - still in her little-sister mode.

“Tonight isn’t about Puddles,” Harper said. “Even the most embarrassing story would probably just serve to shine an unnecessary spotlight on this little boy’s adventures.”

“Aw,” the other babies said in unison.

“At least tell us,” said Syd. “Does he use - like, really use his diapers?”

Layne offered a pleading look to Harper. A ‘Please, don’t say anything in front of Grace’ kind of look.

But Grace would probably figure it out sooner or later, given enough time.

“My goodness,” Harper said to the babies, “you have no idea just how dreadful this little baby’s diaper can be.”

They giggled amongst each other - coming close to breaking into a cackle. Layne’s shoulders slumped in defeat.

“Do you know what a ‘blow-out’ is? Well, I’m sure you can imagine what that is. But he is the Prince of Blow-Outs. There was this stretch of time where I swore he had somehow mastered the technique of filling a diaper so much that it had nowhere else to go but...out.”

“That happened...outside?” asked Grace.

Harper nodded. “Afraid so. For what it’s worth, I’m not sure we ever attracted much attention. Except for when we wanted to. Boston, I guess, was...obvious.”

“You’re not going to tell us about Boston?” asked Syd.

“Ask me later. When Puddles isn’t here to give me his sad eyes.”

“Thahth noth berry nighth,” he murmured through the pacifier.

“The moral of this story, babies, is that you can do your absolute worst in these diapers. Wet them. Mess them. Absolutely desecrate them. And at the end of the day? You just get changed, take a shower, put some normal pants on, and you get to walk away looking like a normal adult again. Puddles here manages to fool people every day into thinking he’s a normal adult.”

“Hey…”

“Let that be your inspiration. No matter what you do, I’ve already seen worse.”

“Alright,” Syd said with a smile. “That works for me.”

“Feeling inspired?” asked Harper. “Think you could wet a diaper now?”

“Oh, no,” Syd said. “I’m feeling inspired because I wet myself already. While you were talking.”

“And?”

“I love it,” they said.

And eyes were, once again, on Baby Puddles.

“And then there was one,” said Harper. “I suppose that makes you the loser.”

“Whath elth ith new?”

Fourteen: Endtimes

Never in her life had she expected to find herself wishing that she had more time to stay in a diaper. Yet as she waited for Syd to emerge from the nursery after their change, her hands gently squeezed and rubbed the front of her soaked diaper again. The diaper had cooled a little, but the padding had only grown denser and heavier. It hung from her shamefully; the bulk serving as a constant reminder that she had done something that most adults in her world would’ve frowned upon.

Her mind returned to that imaginary CALM meeting - standing before the people that had originally sent her to Bottoms Up in the first place. She’d tell them that she was no longer able to challenge the store before the city council. Everyone would ask why. She’d give them the reason: Because if the store didn’t exist, where would she get her diapers?

She wanted a pack of Carnivals. Maybe some Buttercups. Cloth seemed interesting for a number of reasons. Maybe she needed some onesies. And a pacifier of her own. And a bonnet. And a diaper pail for dirty diapers. And she’d need to get a bottle. Would a jar of baby food make for a good breakfast?

Her fingers pushed in on the damp panties, still trapped inside her diaper. She moaned softly, feeling her cheeks warm as she did. What an absolutely shameful thing.

“Ready, Princess?” asked Harper.

Returning to Earth, Grace saw that Syd had already returned to the blankets in a fresh all-white diaper that looked thicker than any she had seen yet. She wanted whatever that was.

Grace nodded, following Harper back into the nursery.

--

“Alright, Baby Puddles. You’re up.”

He wasn’t being summoned for a diaper change. Just the opposite, really - he was getting more dirty diapers added on top of the one he already wore.

“Are you coming?” she asked again when he hesitated to get up. “C’mon!”

Within his diaper, he was still entirely firm. He was pretty sure that wasn’t going away anytime soon. In fact, he wondered if he may be permanently hard. The sight of these other babies - so close, yet so far away - may have broken his body. He’d never get the sight of Grace pissing her diapers out of his head. He’d never forget Syd’s victorious smile. He’d never unhear Harper describing how he had blown-out a number of diapers in the past.

“I...maybe give me a few minutes?” He had once more taken the pacifier from his mouth, holding it tightly in his hand.

“What? No, come on. Let’s get this done.”

“I...I can’t get up right now.”

Harper left the nursery and returned to the blankets with hands on her hips and a smile on her face. “Oh? And would you care to tell me why not?”

He shook his head. “I’d rather not.”

“Babies?” Harper asked the other two. “Any guesses as to why Baby Puddles is so adamant about staying in place?”

“Is he afraid of us seeing his diaper sag?” asked Grace, whose fingers stroked her new clean diaper.

“Maybe,” said Harper. “Though I would bet it’s...something else.”

Syd guessed next: “Is he nervous he’s going to leak?”

“You should talk,” Harper said with a smile. “We changed your diaper just in time. Given a few more minutes, you’d be a little Puddles yourself.”

Syd blushed and looked down at their new diaper.

“I’ll give you all a little hint,” Harper said. “This little boy here loves his diapers. And, what more, he loves seeing other cuties in their diapers. And I don’t think it’s exactly a mystery that Baby Puddles is especially fond of Princess here…”

Grace’s hands rose to her face to shield her glowing cheeks from everyone else.

“Put that all together, and…”

“Does Baby Puddles have a stiffy in his diaper?” asked Syd.

Nobody actually needed to confirm this. It seemed obvious with even a casual glance at the front of his diaper. It had tented up and out from his body - like a spear behind a tent.

“I suppose this is part of the reason he had lost the little challenge, of course. I’m sure it’s not easy to piddle himself in a diaper when all that blood is flowing down there.”

“Is there any way to help him?” asked Grace with a knowing smirk. “I mean...it can’t be comfortable. And I’m sure he wants to use his diaper.”

“Oh there’s plenty of ways to help him,” Harper said. “The problem is that they’d all be playing into some of his craziest fantasies. I’m not sure we all want to be part of that, do we? I mean, we’re here for us.”

Grace shrugged. “Sorry, Puddles. I tried.”

He was completely torn on whether he liked her even more for being willing to say that the answer was to get him off, or he liked her less for teaming with Harper to torture him.

“Look, we all know you’re concealing a weapon in there now,” Harper said. “So get up, come to the nursery, and we’ll get you into your diapers.”

Despite not wanting to have to march past the other babies with his pronounced erection, Harper wasn’t wrong. The sooner this moment was over, the sooner the next moment would come - and maybe, for once, that one wouldn’t make him the butt of a joke.

So he stood, his tented diaper fully on display and acting as a magnet for laughter, and he followed Harper into the nursery.

“Is this fun?” she asked as he laid atop the changing table. “This isn’t too much is it?”

“If it was, it’s too late to change that now.”

“Am I being too mean?”

“I can take it,” he said with a sigh. “I mean, god knows I love it. I just wish I didn’t...love it so much in front of them.”

“If it’s Grace’s reaction you’re worried about, you shouldn’t be. She’s taken to diapers like...a real baby.”

“Sure, she likes the diapers. But what about me? Have I backed myself into a corner? Will I forever be just a pants-filling diaper-wearing baby with a hard cock to her?”

Harper laughed and shrugged. “Probably. But I think she likes that.”

Harper held up two diapers, both of which were soaking wet - the saturated padding visible through the plastic exterior. “Which one goes on first?”

“Uh...Grace’s?”

The motions were similar to a diaper change. He lifted his bottom and she fed the diaper under him before threading it through his legs. Her diaper had been smaller than his, given the bulk of his diaper - and anything inside of it - but she was able to get it in place easily enough before unspooling a long strand of clear packing tape. His bottom lifted again so she could weave it under him before wrapping it around the diapers like a belt. And while he couldn’t actually feel Grace’s wetness against his skin, the weight and bulk of his own diaper changed considerably as the two diapers became one.

Next came Syd’s diaper. The same process was followed, resulting in a massive blob of saturated padding between his legs.

“That must feel strange, huh?” Harper asked. “These soaked diapers hanging between your legs - yet your diaper is still dry.”

“This is ridiculous.”

“You love it.”

“No comment.”

Sitting up, the feeling was indescribable. Layers of diapers, each at varying levels of saturation. They slipped and slid against each other, though they remained held in place by the thick belt of tape wound around the diapers. In a lifetime where he thought he had experienced some of the naughtiest things this kink could offer - this was entirely new.

“I have something else to give you,” she said.

“Oh? I think I’m at capacity as far as other dirty diapers go. You aren’t wearing one too, are you?”

“You wish,” she said flippantly. “I’d argue this is better.”

“Okay?”

Harper held up a small wad of yellow cloth. At first he didn’t quite know what to make of it, but as she unfurled the cloth, he could see that it was a pair of yellow panties. With a duck on them.

“Cute,” he said. “But they’re wet? I don’t get it.”

“A certain little Princess was wearing them tonight,” she said. “It pained me to take them off of her, but I gave them a good home inside of her diaper.”

“Oh,” he said. “She…”

“Pissed all over them? Yup.” She took a little sniff of them. “Quite pissy.”

“And so what are you doing with them now?”

“Well… I figured that if you’ve inherited her diaper, maybe you should inherit the panties too.”

“Wait, so…”

Harper shoved the damp panties down the front of his own clean diaper. Feeling the wet cloth against his skin - knowing where they were and how they got wet - came close to short circuiting his brain.

“Compose yourself. We should go back,” Harper said.

“They’re going to eat me alive.”

“I’m going to let them.”

He sighed.

“Do you want my advice?”

He shrugged.

“Roll with it. Wherever tonight goes - whatever they want - just roll with it. You’ll be glad you did when this is said and done.”

He nodded, knowing that she was completely accurate about that.

“And one more thing?”

“Yeah?”

“Put the pacifier back in your mouth. And do not take it out again unless I say so. Next time, I’m putting you over my knees in front of them.”

--

“It’s too much,” Grace said with a straight face as she shook her head.

“You think?” asked Syd.

“Like, I was so close to feeling...something. Like, feeling so small and vulnerable? That, uh…”

“Little space?” Harper asked.

“Yes, right. Exactly. But then I see this,” Grace said, pointing at Layne. “And, well, I could never look that pathetic.”

“Feeling small is not the same as being pathetic,” Harper said. “Baby Puddles may manage to be both small and pathetic, but don’t let that deter you from feeling either one of those, if that’s what you want.”

“Is he still, uh, packing heat?” asked Syd.

Harper reached around to the front of the massive and awkward omni-diaper of Layne’s and ran a hand up the bulky padding. She nodded. “Unless he stuck a log down there…”

“While you guys were in the Nursery, Grace - uh, Princess - and I were talking,” Syd said, a sly smile on her face.

“Oh? And what were you naughty babies talking about?”

“We were just thinking about how unfair it must be to be so aroused that you can’t even wet yourself. That has to be hard.”

“No pun intended,” Grace added.

“A little bit intended,” Syd said. “Because, you know, we’re quite aroused too. But we’re still able to have accidents.”

“Well that’s very nice of you to think about your baby brother like that. Are you suggesting that...we do something about his little problem?” asked Harper.

“Yes,” Syd said. “Sort of.”

“Sort of?”

“We think he should be allowed to, well, get off. But we don’t think that should be our responsibility,” they continued.

“Are you saying that I should be getting him off?” asked Harper.

“No,” Grace said. “You should...play with us. But you should let Puddles get himself off.”

“Interesting,” Harper said, looking back to Layne - standing there with three diapers sagging between his legs. “You really think we should allow him to reach down in there and take care of himself?”

“I mean, you could always make it more interesting,” Grace said. “We could say that he’s not allowed to use his hands.”

“That is interesting,” Harper said, stroking her chin. “Baby Puddles? What do you think about that?”

He shrugged. Then shook his head. Then nodded.

“Some mixed signals there…”

He nodded one more time.

“The other babies are on to something, then. Go ahead, Puddles. Why don’t you go ahead and try and find a way to make that grotesque excuse of a diaper nice and sticky too?”

--

This was how he imagined the biblical endtimes would be: everything turned on its head, and the world twisted out of shape. Nothing would make sense, nor would it ever again. His latest archnemesis would conspire with his wife’s new partner to leave him sexually frustrated in an outrageously heavy diaper.

The temptation was strong to just fold his arms, sit down, and suck on his pacifier until all of this had blown over.

The temptation was even stronger to give in to the wants and desires of this naughty chorus and just throw himself on the ground and hump the pile of dirty diapers he had become attached to.

And in this world where Grace Vander-spoon could wet a diaper while her balled up panties were inside of it - the same panties that were now swimming inside of his own diaper - it was hard to come up with a good argument for why he shouldn’t.

So he dropped to his knees, leaned forward until his hands were sprawled out before him, and proceeded to thrust his thickly padded hips into the ground. Over and over, until he found the right angle.

--

“I know you must be dripping right now,” Harper said to Grace. “I feel like you’ve been in a near-climax since you walked through the door.”

Grace’s hands were already on her diaper. “I...uh-huh.”

“Can I help?” asked Syd.

“R-really?”

“I’ll help you if you help me.”

Harper had expected a different evening. Maybe it shared some of the same elements this one had, but it would’ve been much slower and much more awkward. But there was Layne, desperately bouncing his diapers off of the ground. And there was Grace and Syd, in the beginning stages of curiously poking and prodding each other’s diapers.

It was absolutely beautiful. She wished she could capture this moment forever.

“Wait for me,” Harper said. “I want to play too.”

Off came her shirt and bra, her breasts bouncing out in front of her. The babies’ mouths were practically salivating. She took a seat on the ground. Once again, she saw things playing out differently than they did. In her imagination, there’d be a slow and patient process that played out of assuring the babies that this was a perfectly acceptable thing to do.

In reality, they were like piranhas, and no sooner had Harper taken a seat on the blanket, Syd and Grace had practically pounced on her - one on either side, each desperately taking a breast and finding the right angle to suckle at her nipple.

And she looked to her left and saw Grace’s hands in her diaper as she suckled from Harper’s chest. And she looked to her right, and there was Syd’s hands, massaging and squeezing the front of their diaper. Somewhere straight ahead was Layne, seemingly making progress with his efforts to find the right angle to fuck his diapers.

Would anything ever be better than this? Was this the apex? Would her nights with Syd forever be greyed by the failure to compete with this moment?

Syd, as if hearing their name being thought, pulled away from Harper’s breast for a moment - sloppy cables of saliva trailing between their lips and her nipple.

“Thank you...Mommy…”

Their lips returned to her breast.

She turned to Grace. “Are you doing okay?”

Grace wasn’t as aggressive with her suckling. Her lips were sealed around Harper’s nipple, but all of her mouth’s movements were small and subtle. She seemed to savor every moment of it.

“We’ve got all the diapers in the world,” Harper told the babies. “So don’t feel bad about using them if you have to.”

The statement had either fallen on deaf ears, or it just wasn’t worth responding to. Both likely already knew what that - or they wouldn’t have thought about it before using their diapers again anyways.

Across the blanket, Layne was grunting closer to spurting into his diaper.

Absolutely perfect.

Fifteen: Grown-Ups

Two things had happened.

First: Grace had gone before CALM during their next weekly meeting, and had given an impassioned speech about trusting the adults of this city to do the right things with their personal lives. If someone wanted to buy diapers - and it didn’t harm anyone else - was there really a need to make a big deal about it? CALM could do greater things, she reminded them. Predatory banks. Shady car salesman. Telephone scammers. Businesses that actually forced their way into people’s lives and caused harm.

A handful of members agreed with this. The rest still thought the diaper store was a boil on the ass of the devil. Grace stepped down as the chairwoman and as a member. And as she explained this to the rest of the group, she pissed in her diapers. She had been hoping to do more - but she hadn’t quite reached that level of comfort yet.

Second: the remaining members of CALM, with their new spokesman - the loud and boorish Gregory Handscomb - took their argument to the city council, as scheduled. They pleaded their case - Gregory listing the potential concerns he saw with a store that catered to ‘our neighbors inflicted with the curse of infantilism.’ But there were no charts. No studies. No proof of such trauma or troubling behavior in the years since Bottoms Up had opened. It likely would’ve been quickly dismissed anyways, though councilman Hamish Bellenourt still made a point to call out the organization for wasting the council’s time.

“We pride ourselves on not being the thought-police,” Bellencourt had said. “And until anyone can show me certifiable proof on how this business adversely affects our city, then I say that this business is a welcome part of our local economy.”

There were rumblings within the group that Grace had gotten too close to the owner of the diaper store. He had charmed her, or at least paid her off.

Not that it mattered. CALM would be shuttered soon after.

--

“What is that?” Harper asked, walking into the kitchen, exhaling the last drag she had taken from the vape.

“Dinner,” replied Syd with a grin.

“Dinner? Like...you’re cooking?”

“I’m growing,” they said. “Trying new things. Finding new and exciting ways to burn my arms with hot cooking oil.”

Harper sniffed at the air. “I’m catching notes of...garlic, onions, tomato, basil, and...something I can’t quite put my finger on. It’s stronger - the strongest, really. I want to say it’s foul. Like...absolutely putrid?”

“That’s not a very nice thing to say about my cooking,” Syd said with a smile.

Harper got closer and kissed Syd on the cheek before orbiting behind them so she could pull open the back of their pants and look inside.

Diapers hadn’t been an everyday occurrence between the two. Usually once a week one of two things would happen: Syd would find a diaper waiting for her on the bed after a morning shower; or half a day would pass before Harper realized Syd had surprised her with a little extra bulk in her pants.

“Ah, I see the problem,” she said. “You have something else cooking back here.”

“I...was going to tell you about that.”

“Oh yeah? When? Because I could smell your diaper before I could smell the pot on the stove.”

“Who do you think you are?” they asked. “My mommy?”

“I think that’s exactly who I am, and you know it.” She wrapped her hands around Syd, leaning in to kiss their neck before playfully swatting the odourous diaper in their pants.

“Well I need to watch this pot and make sure it doesn’t burn,” Syd said with a shrug. “It’s not like I can leave it for a diaper change.”

“You’re so difficult.”

Syd shrugged again.

“Fine, finish cooking. But I’m warning you right now, if you’re telling me that you don’t want a diaper change now, you don’t get to come ask me for one later. You’re staying in that stinky thing until I decide you need to be changed.”

“Suit yourself,” Syd teased. “I’m sure you’ll want my bottom nice and clean for dinner.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Harper shot back. “I think it would enhance the mood knowing that you were sitting across the table from me while sitting in your own filth.”

“We have company coming over,” Syd said, stirring the deep red sauce vigorously. “That wouldn’t be very nice.”

“Normally I’d agree. But this company? I’m sure they’d understand.”

“You know, for someone you divorced, I still feel like we see an awful lot of Layne.”

“Too much, you think?”

“I’m kidding. Though…I definitely feel like you two are closer now than back when you were hitched.”

“Life is funny like that,” Harper said, musing on that strange new reality herself. “Besides, the boy needs a Mommy. And Grace is no more a caregiver than he is.”

“How do you think they even function when they’re together?”

“I just imagine them rolling around on their backs sobbing because nobody’s there to change their diapers. But what do I know?”

The house had been sold. The divorce was finalized. But the most extreme changes were the good ones. The friendly ones. The weekends they set aside so that Harper could dote on her favorite babies - all 3 of them. She was just as clueless as Syd was on how Layne and Grace’s dynamic worked, but she had come to terms with the fact that she didn’t have to care. She liked the smaller world she cared about now; the one where she and Syd lived together and were falling more in love everyday.

--

“Excuse me, miss?”

“Yes?”

“I’m looking at these two and...I’m not sure which is better. Do you have any...recommendations?”

Effie smiled. “Well, these ones here - The Ultrafluffs - they’re known for being quite absorbent. Quite possibly the most absorbent diaper on the market, as far as ones made for giant babies like yourself go.”

The young man - barely out of his teens, with an ill-advised goatee and haircut combination - blushed a little at this remark but said nothing.

“If thickness is your thing - or if you’re planning on wearing the same diaper all day - you really can’t go wrong with the Ultrafluff. But these other ones? They may just be my personal favorites.”

“Really? W-why?”

“The Buttercups are a little less absorbent. A little less thick. But, I mean, it’s still a diaper made for big babies. You’re going to feel that bulk. And you could easily fit a two-liter of Coke in there. Y’know - if you had to. Plus, there’s something about the design that I just really like. It’s cute and innocent and it just feels like...good memories.”

“Good memories?” The young man scratched his head.

“Or, I have good memories associated with them. Feel free to make your own memories.”

“Can I, uhm, ask what your favorite memory of these diapers is?”

“You cannot. I admire your boldness though. I’m sure that was hard for you to spit out.”

“I’ll...take these,” he said defeatedly, flopping the thick pack of Ultrafluffs up on the counter. She wondered if she could’ve sold him on the Buttercups with a story about getting an enema.

“These are probably the better choice for you anyways,” she said. “You look like a baby who wants to stew in his own juices for a while.”

It wasn’t until after the young man paid for his purchase and left that Layne turned around. She was impressed that he hadn’t butt in once during that entire transaction.

“That was good,” he said. “Though I can’t decide if it’s a perk or not to have my manager insulting the customers.”

“He loved it,” Effie said, shrugging. “He’s going to go home and cream his diapers while thinking about me.”

“You’re happy with that?”

“We sold him some diapers, right? And he’ll be back.”

“Fair enough. Oh, and, uh, memories? What memories do you have associated with Buttercups?”

“I admire your boldness,” Effie said again with a smile. “But...I just made that up.”

It had been months since she had first spent time with Margaret - back when she had ulterior motives and didn’t just want her bottom paddled - and she had yet to tell Layne what had happened. It had been a little bit of a relief to see that it had still mattered in some small way - she liked to think she had contributed to the dissolution of CALM - though time had proven that she cared less about that than she thought she did.

She suspected that Layne had suspected something. Maybe he didn’t know exactly what she did, but it was as if he knew that she had helped in some way. He had been nicer to her following that night she threatened to quit. And then, just a month ago, he gave her a promotion to Associate Manager, along with the promise of a budget that would allow for her to hire someone herself - in addition to making a few changes around the store, as she saw fit.

“Just a reminder that I won’t be in on Saturday,” she said.

“Yeah, that’s right,” he said. “I can take over that day. What were you doing again?”

“I just have an appointment.” That usually worked. He never cared for elaboration when the a-word was dropped for fear of stumbling into an awkward conversation about the nature of that appointment.

“Right, right.”

She made a mental list of the things she’d need to pick up before Saturday. She wanted a new pacifier. Maybe that new onesie with the flower print. Probably another pack of Buttercups too - you can never have too many.

“Alright,” he said. “I’m heading out. I’ll be driving down to Morristown tomorrow, and I probably won’t be back in the store until Friday. If you need me, text me. Don’t burn down the store. Don’t let anyone poop in here either.”

“Haven’t seen Hanson in months,” said Effie. “A shame too, because I would’ve loved to yell at him again. You know, as a manager.”

He shrugged. “Maybe you did such a good job yelling the last time.”

“So this Morristown thing is happening?”

“We’ll see,” he said. “I like the location, and we’d be getting a pretty good deal on the lease there. I guess I just need to decide how much I want to operate two of these damn stores.”

“Well you’re not alone,” she said. “I got your back, no matter what you choose.”

“That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me. Hurry up and say something snarky, or else I’m going to think you’re getting too soft.”

“Hurry up and get out of here, Baby-Man. And don’t forget a diaper when you go - it’s going to be a long drive.”

“That’s the stuff,” he said with a calmed sigh.

--

“I wish you were coming with me,” he said, kissing Grace’s lips.

“I wish I was going with you too. But maybe it’s for the best that I’m not.”

“You think?”

“It’s getting cold out,” she said with a shrug. “So we’d have to keep the windows up. And can you imagine that drive with two full diapers sitting next to each other?”

He laughed. “Well, it’s not like you’re doing nothing.”

“I’m nervous,” she said.

“Really? Why? You’re a great public speaker. I still remember that time I dropped by that CALM meeting and heard you speak. You almost convinced me to hate my own store.”

She gave him a playful punch to the arm. “You don’t have to butter me up anymore. You’ve got me.”

“I prefer you buttered,” he said. “It tastes better that way.” He kissed her lips again.

“Well thank you for the morale boost.”

Grace was back to volunteering and speaking about issues that mattered to her. Except her platform had changed a little - this would be the first meeting for AKAF, the Alliance for Kink-Aware Friends, a small group that hoped to advocate for fair treatment of alternate lifestyles.

“You’re going to wear a diaper while you speak?”

“Should I?”

He shrugged. “I’m not saying you have to use it. But I bet it’d make you feel better. I thought I heard that once - the secret to public speaking is to have a secret that nobody else knows. It’s a power thing.”

“Well that’s about as much power as a diaper gives you,” she mused.

“But let’s talk about tonight.”

“Oh right - dinner at Harper and Syd’s?”

Layne nodded excitedly.

“Never thought you’d be so happy to see them.”

“Syd’s cooking, so I’m not as excited for that. But…”

“You need some motherly love?”

“Don’t you?”

She nodded slowly, her cheeks becoming a little rosy.

“Let’s pick out some diapers and get ready.”

“And you’re going to change your pants too, right?” she asked.

He looked down at his heather-grey sweatpants. He smiled and kissed her again.

“One of these days,” she said, “one of us is going to have to learn how to grow up a little.”

“Why the hell would we do that?”

She didn’t have a good answer for that.

--

The door opened, jingling the bell. Just one woman. Dark skinned with tight curls atop her head. She looked familiar.

“Well, well well,” she said. “If it isn’t Baby-Man himself.”

He stood up straight and ran a hand through his hair. He couldn’t believe his eyes. “Kiwi?”

“Kiri,” she said with a smile. “You’re still a smartass, I see.”

“We’ve tried everything,” he said. “Drugs, therapy, electro-shock. As it turns out, it can’t be cured.”

“Every once in a while, I like to drive by your store,” she said. “I’ll peek in through the front window and see who’s there. It’s always the girl.”

“Effie,” he said with a nod. “She’s a manager now.”

“Does that mean you’re here even less now?”

“That sounds judgmental.”

“Good.”

“What can I do for you today?” he asked.

“I have a need for diapers.”

“Well you’ve come to the right place. We have a few here.”

“I see that.”

“You know, Effie would’ve been happy to have sold you some diapers. You didn’t have to wait for me.”

“I got it in my head, I think, that I had to get them from you,” she said, starting to meander through the store, looking at the shelves of diapers and infantile supplies.

“Because of my amazing personality?”

She laughed and shook her head. “There was something about you that I really liked. That night we met in the bar all those months ago? You told me these humiliating things about yourself in a way that felt so normal. I guess I really appreciated that boldness. It’s something I’ve strived for myself.”

“I also might have been tipsy.”

“It’s possible.”

“Probable,” he said.

“Anyways, it’s been a good thing that I haven’t seen you here. I’ve been working up the courage to tell my boyfriend I wanted to experience some fun with diapers. I’ve been dropping little hints here and there, but I don’t think he’s put it all together. And, I thought, for as long as I didn’t see you in this store, I didn’t actually have to buy diapers and show them to him.”

“But here I am,” he said. “The day has come.”

“Yeah,” she said, laughing to herself. “I guess so. Time to be a grown-up, buy some diapers, and then beg my boyfriend to participate.”

“Do you want to try a diaper on?” he asked.

She tilted her head a little. “I’m getting the mental image of a communal shared diaper that you let everyone try on.”

“I’m sure there’s someone out there who’d like that very much. But, no, I just have a nursery in the back. More of a closet, really. But it’s got enough space for a curious woman to slip into some thick padding and get a feel for it.”

“Is the room full of secret cameras?”

“Ah damn,” he said. “You know something? I never thought of that.”

“The diapers aren’t for me,” she said. “They’re for him.”

“Oh?”

She pointed to some diapers - the Carnivals. There was a hand-drawn sign next to them, courtesy of Effie, that proclaimed them to be ‘The Best-Sellers!’

“Is this true?” she asked, referring to the sign.

“They’re my personal favorites,” he said.

“The problem is,” she said, “it’s hard for me to pick out diapers without being able to imagine what they look like on him.”

“I could give you a sample or two, if you want. Free of charge. Take them home and have a ball.”

“That’s not a bad option,” she said. “Or…”

“Or?”

“Baby-Man, what do I have to do to get you into a diaper today?”