Doing Business, Part 11 (Patreon)

Eleven

“I don’t think this has ever happened before,” Evan said as Lyndie followed me into the apartment. “Are you actually bringing a woman home?”

“Lyndie, this is my roommate Evan,” I said. “Evan, this is Lyndie. We work together. We’re friends.”

“A pleasure to meet you,” Evan said, shaking her hand. “This is normally the part where I’d say that I’ve only heard great things about you, but I don’t think he’s ever told me about you before.”

“No?” Lyndie asked with a smile. “Has he told you about his boss?”

I cleared my throat nervously, afraid that Lyndie was wasting no time in making tonight the circus that I feared it would become.

“Only that she offered him a permanent position,” he said, shrugging. “Why? Is she a real bitch?”

“Quite the opposite, really,” Lyndie said. “Kind of…maternal, I suppose you could say.”

There was the slightest twitch in Evan’s lips, like he wanted to piece that together with what he had learned about me the other night.

“I ordered pizza,” I said, hoping to start a new conversation that distracted him. “It should be here soon.”

“That’s good to hear,” Evan said. “I can get some plates together. Maybe some drinks? Lyndie, what can I get for you?”

“Oh, I’m not picky,” she said. “Whatever.”

“We have beer,” he said with a shrug. “I don’t think it’s very good beer, if that matters.”

Lyndie shrugged. “Beer is fine.”

Beer was a recent arrival to our lives. With neither Evan or I being all that social, we weren’t going to any parties. And we had both only just turned 21 in the last few months. When either of us went to the store–usually me–we’d occasionally grab a 6 or 12 pack of whatever looked interesting. Or cheap. Usually cheap.

“Humphrey Light?” she said, reading from the can that Evan handed to her. “I’ve never even heard of this.”

Nor had I, and there was only one store in town that sold it–almost hidden in the back corner like even the store was ashamed of having it. But it was impossibly cheap.

“Beer is beer,” I said with a shrug. It felt like the kind of thing I’d remember saying years from now, and I’d wonder how I could’ve been so stupid.

“You want one too?” asked Evan.

“Set one aside for me. I just need to run to my room real quick.” I looked towards Lyndie, catching the growing smile on her face. She knew exactly what I needed to do. I was surprised that she wasn’t offering to follow me to my room to watch me undress and change–though thankful she hadn’t.

“Don’t be long,” she said, in a sing-song tone.

“Just a minute or two,” I said, before scurrying back to my room and closing the door.

My body felt like it was moving at 2x speed. I unbuttoned my work shirt and stripped off my tie, throwing both over the back of my chair. I let my pants fall to the ground, while thinking about how often I had pulled my pants down over the course of the day–for an audience. I peeled the tapes off from the diaper, failing to consider how loud the sticky strips sounded as they were freed from the plastic. Even louder was the sound of the wet diaper falling to the floor with a soggy THUMP.

I debated if I should put on another diaper or just put some boxers on instead. After having left the office, I was under no obligation to put another on. Even if I wanted to, a little. But no. It seemed like a bad idea while hanging out with Lyndie and Evan. They already knew way too much, and I didn’t need to further embarrass myself by crinkling like a toddler all night. I ran a damp baby wipe between my legs and around my soft manhood, hoping to clean away any lingering urine or baby powder scents.

Slipping into a pair of boxers felt strange now. I had grown so accustomed to the thick presence of the diaper in my pants that anything else felt nonexistent. After putting on a pair of joggers, I ran my hands over my ass, dismayed at the lack of extra padding. Even walking felt strange, as I no longer had to overcorrect my steps to account for the waddle the diapers gave me.

I missed Mommy.

I returned to the others in the kitchen, finding that Evan and Lyndie already seemed to be hitting it off.

“...and I got to see them live,” she was saying. “One of the best shows I’ve ever been to.”

“Damn,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t go to many concerts. But I might make an exception if they played around here.”

“Who are we talking about?” I asked.

“Nine Inch Nails,” she said. “Are you a fan?”

I shrugged. “I’m not sure I could name a single song by them.”

“It’s not really his kind of music,” Evan said, laughing. “He likes happy hipster music. What was that band you were listening to the other day? The Furry Foxes?”

“Fleet Foxes,” I corrected. Hardly what I’d consider to be ‘happy hipster’ music, but it seemed like a moot point to argue.

“How’d you two meet anyway,” she asked.

“Friends of friends, I think,” Evan said. To me: “Tom, right?”

I nodded. “I think so. One of those things where we were both looking for a place at the same time, and our mutual friend Tom connected us.”

“Do you get along?” she asked, as if interviewing us.

“I’d say so,” I said. “We give each other the space we need, and that’s all you can really ask for.”

“We can both deal with each other’s eccentricities,” Evan added, laughing.

“I’m curious about that,” she said. She pointed to me. “What would you say is Evan’s weirdest trait?”

I nervously glanced towards Evan. It was an awkward spot to be put in, and I wasn’t sure that I could think of an answer that wouldn’t be uncomfortable for him to hear. And likewise, what would he say about me? It was a dangerous game. He’d give back whatever I gave him, so it would be best to tread lightly.

“It’s cool,” Evan said. “Roast me. Let me have it.”

Fuck it. “Well, he’s a hermit, for one,” I said. “To the point where I wonder if sunlight would kill him. When’s the last time you left this apartment?”

He laughed, running a hand through his hair. “Damn, man. You’re not wrong. I guess I always hoped that wasn’t so obvious.”

“Agoraphobic?” asked Lyndie.

“A homebody,” he said, shrugging. “I’m tempted to just say ‘lazy,’ but maybe I’m just…depressed.” He laughed again, the nervous chuckle of someone who might have just made an accidental breakthrough with themselves.

“No judgment here,” I said. I now felt bad for trying to make light of his antisocial tendencies.

“Nor here,” Lyndie added. “But now you’ve got to give us some dirt on Clark.”

Oh boy.

Evan laughed. “I dunno…”

“It’s cool,” I said. “Let’s just put it all out there.”

“Okay, so then can we talk about the weird baby-thing?” he asked.

Lyndie was on the edge of her seat, looking ecstatic.

“I get the feeling that…you know all about this already?” Evan asked Lyndie, glancing at her excited face.

“Oh, I got a front-row seat for the weirdness at work today,” she said.

“Wait,” he said, looking absolutely astonished. “What?”

I sighed. “I probably need to catch you up on a few things…”

“I thought you said he knew all about it,” Lyndie said.

“He knows of it. I guess. Maybe.”

“Here’s what I know,” Evan said. “You were moaning like a banshee the other night, calling out for mommies and diapers. And then you came stumbling out of your room smelling like a baby’s changing table.”

Lyndie was already in hysterics, seemingly unable to stop herself.

“It goes a little deeper than that,” I said.

“Alright,” Lyndie said, containing her laughter for long enough to face Evan. She was ready to unload all the dirt. “You might want to hold onto something, because this ride is a bit crazy.”

Evan lifted his can of cheap beer into the air, showing his tight grip on it.

“Perfect. So, the CEO of this entire company has personally selected little Clark here to be her weird kinky sex slave.”

Evan looked at me, pure confusion washing over his face. “Sex slave? You?”

“Well, it’s not like he’s just humping her all day long,” Lyndie continued. “She’s keeping him in diapers. Treating him like a baby. And I don’t mean she’s, like, teasing him babytalk or something. She’s literally putting him on his back and changing his diaper like an infant.”

Evan shook his head in astonishment. “Jesus. And you…like that?”

I felt my cheeks burn. “I mean…”

“Yes,” Lyndie said, answering on my behalf. “He fucking loves it!”

“You said you actually saw it happening today?” Evan asked her.

“So Gabrielle–this enormous company’s CEO–barges into the broom closet that we get to use as an office, right? And with no regard for whether or not I was there, she makes him lie down on top of the desk so she can change his diaper.”

“Which begs the question,” said Evan, “you not only wear diapers, but you use them?”

“Uh…yeah, that’s right,” I said, nodding.

“At work?”

I nodded again. “Also true.”

“How does that even work?” he asked.

“So far?” replied Lyndie. “Not at all. You know. I know. Your neighbor now knows. God knows how many other people know.”

“Our neighbor?” chuckled Evan. “Which one?”

“Ms. Tuttleman…”

“How the hell did that she see…” Evan stopped himself and shook his head. “No, nevermind. I don’t even want to know how that happened.”

“Alright, fine,” I said, throwing my hands up in the air. “We can all agree that my life is infinitely weirder than Old Man Hermit over here who hasn’t stepped outside in 40 years.”

“Aww, calm down,” Lyndie said. “Don’t get your diapers in a twist.”

“If he gets too excited, does he wet his pants?” mocked Evan.

“Probably,” said Lyndie, shrugging. “Speaking of, are you currently rocking your baby-pants? Pull-ups?”

“I’m a big kid now,” sang Evan in an especially teasing tone.

“No,” I said. “Just regular old underwear.” I had to take a mental snapshot of this moment: getting teased at my own kitchen table about diapers from both my roommate and coworker.

“Aw, what the hell?” Lyndie said. “You’re not going to model your diapies for us?”

“I think you’ve seen more than enough of my…diaper area today,” I said.

“I dunno,” Evan said. “Is it weird that I want to see it?”

“See what?” I asked. “Me in a diaper?”

“Yeah. I mean, c’mon, that’s not something you see every day, right? How could you not be curious about that?”

“Sure, I guess. But I’m not going to go and put a diaper on for your entertainment. Don’t I deserve a break from being everyone’s laughing stock?”

“Maybe,” Lyndie said, smiling. “But you like it. So, we’d be doing you a favor by making you go and put one on again for us.”

I sighed. “You don’t actually expect me to go put a diaper on for you two right now, do you?”

Lyndie and Evan looked at each other, simultaneously answering: “Yeah.”

“You don’t have to do anything that you don’t want to,” Lyndie said. It wasn’t the first time I had heard that recently. “But if you wanted to? Nobody would be mad about that.”

I took a long sip of the beer while I thought about it. It tasted terrible. This quality had to be indicative of the price. Otherwise who would ever choose to drink beer?

Focus.

It seemed like a bad idea. An obviously bad idea–the kind where if you explained it to someone else later, they’d say: “Well, of course, you shouldn’t have done that.” But there was that yearning again–that need for the feeling of shame and humiliation. In my own home? It was way more tempting than it should’ve been.

“I…I’ll just be a second,” I said, getting up from the table. I quickly turned and walked back to my room, closing the door behind me.

At that moment, I honestly had no idea if I was going to put a diaper on or not. I just wanted to think about it without their hungry eyes staring at me. I knew what they wanted–they wanted Baby Clark. They wanted someone to tease and laugh at.

I was prepared to deny that request. I knew, in my heart, it was probably better in the longterm for my mental health that I did what made me happy and not them. But then I made the mistake of looking down at my bag. My diaper bag, as Ms. Heller had called it earlier. I could see the edge of one of the diapers poking out from the top of it. I bent over and grabbed it, pulling it free from the bag so I could hold it in my hands. It crinkled in my fingers as I pressed into the thick padding.

I wished I had more self control. Alas, I did not, and I returned to the kitchen table with a diaper on under my pants.

“Well?” Lyndie asked, almost immediately. “Did you put one on?”

I shrugged, wondering how long I could remain coy about it. “Maybe.”

But then I sat down, and in the eerie sudden quiet of the kitchen, the tell-tale rustling of my plasticked pants seemed to echo through the whole apartment. There was their answer.

“Show him,” Lyndie said.

“What? But…I…”

“No, he doesn’t actually have to show me anything,” Evan said. A surprisingly diplomatic thought for a guy who helped pressure me into putting a diaper on in the first place.

“But don’t you see?” asked Lyndie. “We’re not making him do anything he doesn’t want to do. We’re enabling him. He’s turning into a little humiliation addict. And he loves that. Right, Clark?”

I sighed. “It’d probably be dangerous for me to answer that question honestly.” Which was probably the same thing as just agreeing with her, but it was too late to fix that.

I tried to think ahead to what the worst case scenario would be after revealing all of my secrets to Evan. Him, exploiting me and holding these secrets over my head? Manipulation? Somewhere, deep within my consciousness, I felt the slightest twitch of pleasure.

“You don’t have to show me anything,” Evan said again, laughing. “I definitely believe that you’re wearing a diaper.”

But it was too late. Lyndie had either put the idea of showing him my diaper in my head, or she had just amplified a much smaller idea that I already had.

“Fine,” I said, pretending like I had somehow been coerced into this action. “I’ll show you.”

I stood up from my chair, that shameful crinkling sound following me as I did, and I stepped back from the table to give both a better view. I wanted to say something–maybe some sort of self-deprecating remark that would show that I’m in on the joke instead of just being the joke. Instead, I just grabbed the sides of my pants and shoved them downwards. There it was, once more, my giant white diaper was once more on display.

Evan’s eyes widened. “I’ll be damned. That’s a diaper alright.”

“But you should take your pants off,” Lyndie said with a shrug.

“Off?” I exclaimed. “Have you not seen enough?”

“Well, we’ve seen it all now,” she said. “So there’s no reason to hide it, right? Besides, haven’t you ever been to a house with a baby in it? And the parents let the baby crawl around in just its diaper? Maybe it saves money on laundry detergent or something.”

“They probably just want to keep an eye on the baby’s diaper,” Evan added. “So they can be the first to know when there’s an accident.”

“Oh my god, speaking of…” exclaimed Lyndie. I wasn’t even sure, yet, what she was going to say, but I already knew it was going to obliterate any remaining traces of my dignity. “...Gabrielle told me the craziest thing today while she was checking in on Baby Clark’s diaper.”

“Oh?” asked an amused Evan.

“Apparently, she made him poop his pants in her office.”

“What?”

“Isn’t that right?” Lyndie asked me.

“Are you asking me for details?”

“Just confirmation that it happened,” she replied with a smug smile.

“It happened.”

Evan and Lyndie both laughed.

“So you’re, like, all in on this baby thing, huh?” Evan asked.

I shrugged. “Seems like it.”

“Well then I agree with Lyndie. Take off your pants and leave them off, Baby.”