Doing Business, Part 42 (Patreon)

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Forty-Two

You have [one] unheard voicemail from [Annette Leiland-Ashburn].

===

Who am I?

The question came to mind as our plane began its descent onto the tarmac, marking the official end of the business trip. No more Seattle. No more Kylie. No more fancy hotel suite. Back to reality–though even reality wasn’t all that normal these days.

The brief identity crisis had been triggered accidentally–the back of my hand had simply brushed against the center of my lap, reminding me that my cock was still both locked up and contained within a diaper. In some ways, this was the entirety of my identity anymore–just an accessory in the possession of one Gabrielle Heller.

My palms grew sweaty as I dwelled on it for a few moments–the possibility that I had squandered my opportunities over the last few months. I had been doing well in school, and my hard work had earned me an internship that would’ve made others envious. I had every opportunity to learn and grow within this company–I could’ve picked up skills that I’d have used for the rest of my career.

Instead, I had managed to get myself entangled in some sort of bizarre corporate sex club. I was a cog in a strange machine now, wetting and messing diapers for the amusement of my superior. Among others.

But who was I? Was I just a little baby-doll now? I wasn’t sure that was even a bad thing, were it the case–I just wanted to know.

Ms. Heller’s–Mommy’s–hand landed on my lap at that moment, giving my thigh a gentle squeeze. Perfect timing too, saving me from falling any further down my spiral of self identity woes.

“That’s that,” she said, softly. “You had a good time, yes?”

I nodded. It wasn’t a lie–for all the humiliation I had endured while away with her, I had enjoyed myself.

“There’s plenty of work awaiting us,” she muttered. “I’ve been so busy with you the last few weeks that some work has been slowly piling up. I might actually have to start using you as an assistant.”

“Sounds horrible,” I said.

She laughed. “Ah, don’t fret too much, Baby. I’ll be sure to make plenty of time for you to get your diapers changed. Speaking of. How’s this one holding up?”

I sighed, glancing out the window again to avoid eye-contact. “It’s…not dry.”

“Elaborate on that, please.”

“I feel like I’m swimming in it,” I said. “I doubt it could hold much more.”

“Very well,” she said, smirking. “I guess we know what we need to take care of once we get off the plane, hmm?”

Not long after, my feet were on the ground again. I was home–or home-ish. I had only been gone a few short days, but so much had happened since I left town that it felt like I had been gone for weeks.

Who am I?

I was standing in the family restroom at the airport, naked from the waist down. ‘Family’ sized, my ass–this was a glorified closet with a toilet in it. Mommy was doing her best to change my diaper while I stood–something she was doing a surprisingly decent job with, given the circumstances.

“Not my best work,” she said. “But you’ll be dry until I get you home.”

“Th-thank you, Mommy.”

“You seem distracted, Baby,” cooed Mommy, pulling tight the last tape on my diaper.

“I, uh…it’s nothing.”

“Let’s not pretend that I don’t know you as well as I do. What’s on your mind, little boy?”

“I’m okay,” I said, feigning a more enthusiastic smile. “Honest. I think I’ve just been so overwhelmed the last few days that I’m just a little…”

“Exhausted?”

“Maybe,” I said, nodding. There was a lot of truth to that, even if it wasn’t at the forefront of my mind. The past weekend had sapped a bit of my energy.

She seemed to buy it–or at least she didn’t have anything else to say about it as she opened up my pants on the ground, beckoning for me to step into them. I did, and she proceeded to pull them up the length of my legs. A toddler being dressed by his mother.

“There we go,” she said. “All set. Now then, let’s get our bags and get out of here. The real world awaits.”

Soon after, we were back in Mommy’s SUV. She just started driving, there wasn’t any sort of conversation about where we were going. I hoped it wasn’t the office–though where else would she go while I was with her? I wasn’t ready for that yet. I needed time to recuperate a little. What I really needed was some alone time.

I looked down at my phone, once again seeing the same notification that was there when I got off the plane.

You have [one] unheard voicemail from [Annette Leiland-Ashburn].

I wasn’t sure why, but it made me nervous and anxious. I didn’t like voicemails–I preferred the immediacy of texts. Hell, I figured most people did anymore. Who left people voicemails these days? People who didn’t know me that well. People out of touch. People who had bad news to share.

“Uh, where are we headed?” I asked.

“Home,” she said, flashing a gentle smile in my direction.

“My home? Or…yours?”

She chuckled a little. “Oh, I bet you’d like that, huh? To see Mommy’s house?”

I had never really given much thought to her life outside of work. Outside of me. She always seemed so defined by work and myself that I just assumed that was her entire personality. I tried, for a moment, to imagine what her house would look like. I pictured a decadent mansion. Lots of windows. Everything was gold. No, silver. Everything was immaculate.

“I suppose I’m curious,” I said.

“I ought to have you come by sometime for dinner,” she said. “Though I’m not much of a cook. I’d probably just feed you jarred baby food.”

Now I was imagining myself sitting in a large high-chair in her decadent kitchen, as she spoon fed me from a jar of brown mush. My cock strained a little against my cage–I wasn’t opposed to that actually happening.

“We’re going to your home,” she said, interrupting my fantasy.

“Y-you know where I live?”

“I ordered diapers and had them sent there, remember? I know where you live.”

I tried to remember the state of the apartment when I left for work on Friday morning. Between Evan and I, he was the tidier of the two of us–but he wasn’t exactly Mr. Clean. It was safe to assume that the apartment was not in any condition for hosting Mommy. Hell, if I had a week’s notice, I would probably feel like that still wasn’t enough time to clean for her arrival.

“Oh,” was all I could muster.

“I don’t want to invade your personal space, Baby,” she said. “I’ll just drop you off at the door and be on my way.”

I really wanted to say that I liked that plan, and yet I couldn’t bring myself to say it. I felt bound by some sort of mommy/baby code of honor. As if to deny her access to my home would’ve been unspeakably rude.

“N-no, it’s, uhm, cool. You should come in. I’ll show you around.”

I couldn’t believe what I was saying. She hadn’t even asked to come into my apartment, and I was the one inviting her inside.

She laughed again, shaking her head a little. “Cool? I’m not sure I’ve ever heard you say that to me before. I don’t have to see your apartment if you’re not comfortable with it.”

I quickly fired off a text message to Evan: “Hey, out of curiosity, how clean is the apartment? Is it hospitable enough for a surprise guest?”

Again, I had been given ample space to simply tell her that I would be happier if she didn’t enter my home. But, of course, I couldn’t just take advantage of this opportunity.

“I would really like it if you came inside,” I said. I absolutely did not mean this–and I suspected she knew this too. But she craved this sort of awkwardness. She’d want to see me squirm as I allowed her into my home.

Evan: “The apt. seems fine to me. Who is coming over?”

Me: “My boss.”

Evan: “THE boss? The one who treats you like a baby?”

Me: “That’s the one.”

Evan: “Holy shit. Is it weird that I’m excited? It’s like an actual celebrity is coming to our place!”

I sighed and slid the phone into my pocket. That was not the reaction I wanted him to have had.

This is who I am. A pathetic baby who stumbles from one humiliating situation into another. This is who I was, and I wondered if it was who I had always been.

I had a new question for myself: Who was I? Before all this. Before becoming Ms. Heller’s baby. Who did I used to be? And was that any better than who I had become?

“Of course,” Mommy said, “you show me yours and I’ll show you mine. I promise to feed you jarred baby food in my kitchen now.”

I felt another pang of excitement for that. I wasn’t sure it justified the stress of her walking around my home–though I hoped that by the time she was spoon feeding glop into my mouth, I had forgotten all about today.

“Are you nervous?” she asked, filling the void caused by my silence.

“Well, uh, you know…”

“Just be honest with me, Baby.”

“It’s just that I hold your opinion of me in such high regard. And you’d be walking around my home, just judging me and…”

“Baby, I’ve watched you squat and fill your diaper. If you’re content with whatever regard you’ve earned from me then, I think you’ll be just fine if I drift around your apartment for a minute. Besides, believe it or not, I was young once–I remember that early 20s lifestyle. If you’d have seen the state of my bedroom then, you’d have spanked me.”

My cheeks warmed as I tried to imagine the absurdity of Mommy’s bare ass laying atop my lap for once. Goddamn, sometimes I really wish I wasn’t in this cage.

We were in familiar territory again. I knew these streets, and they gave me some comfort. I also knew I had a few minutes before we got to my apartment building.

Now where did I leave off? Oh, right: Who was I?

Besides the penchant for wearing–and using–diapers, I wasn’t sure if there was much difference between who I was now and who I had been before. I was a follower. Someone who had always been waiting for someone else to do tell me what I had to do.

And before Mommy came along, there was someone else making most of my big decisions for me. Someone else who I followed.

My mother–my biological mother. Annette Leiland-Ashburn.

You have [one] unheard voicemail from [Annette Leiland-Ashburn].

I stared at the notification again. It still wasn’t time to listen to it.

We hadn’t been on the best of terms the last few months. We still talked on occasion, though far less frequently than I used to. We used to talk everyday. Every single day–sometimes multiple times per day. She wanted to know what I was eating. She wanted to make sure I was keeping up with my schoolwork. She wanted to make sure I was staying active. That I wasn’t doing drugs. That I hadn’t fallen into a ‘bad’ crowd. I was often surprised that she wasn’t asking me if I had wiped my ass enough.

Then one day, not that long before my adventures with my internship began, I had decided that enough was enough. I was an adult. I had moved away and was now taking care of myself. I didn’t need her to micromanage my life for me. I told her that–or some variation thereof.

She didn’t take it especially well. She had tried to lay down a pretty thick guilt trip on me, stating over and over again that she was just looking out for my well being. For once, maybe for the first time, I held my ground until she backed off.

I did not want to hear what was on this voice mail. It was either bad news or a guilt trip, and I wasn’t in the mood for either.

“This is your building up here, yes?” Mommy asked, pointing to the large brick monolith ahead.

I nodded. “That’s the one.”

I was wondering if my little spat with my mother had contributed to my eagerness to expose my belly to Ms. Heller. I had talked a good game–an okay game, maybe–about being more independent. But Ms. Heller seemed to have shown up in my life right around the time I had a vacancy for a mother-figure in my life.

I almost laughed about it, there in the car. How could I have been so foolish as to not see this until now?

Oedipus complex, anyone?

“You do have a bathroom, yes?” she asked, a playful smirk on her face. “I know you aren’t using it, but your guests might.”

“I, uh, yeah… We have a bathroom.”

“Ah yes,” she said, nodding. “We. You have a roommate, right?”

“Mmhmm. Evan. You’re about to meet him.”

“Are there any conversation topics off limits?”

I was actually impressed that she asked–or even cared. “Well, he sort of knows…everything.”

She laughed. “Poor Baby. Is there anyone who doesn’t know yet?”

Annette Leiland-Ashburn, so far as I know. “Doesn’t seem like it.”

“I’ll be nice,” she said. “I’ll only tease you a little bit in front of him.”

“I, uhm, appreciate that, Mommy.”

When she parked, I fetched my bag from the back of her SUV. My heart was pounding. I was tempted to send Evan one more desperate text, pleading for him to be ‘cool.’ I didn’t send him anything. I was the one who needed to be cool. If anyone was going to humiliate me, it’d be me.

“This isn’t a bad neighborhood,” she said, glancing around my street. “And is that a pizza place right down the street? Must be convenient for a young man like yourself.”

I was blushing again, reminded of Pizza Girl. I was almost certain that Mommy had heard part of that saga before, though I wasn’t going to volunteer the rest of that story now. Just don’t order pizza while Mommy’s visiting.

Also, I just couldn’t imagine Mommy eating pizza. I was sure she had. I just couldn’t picture it.

I lead the way into the building, guiding her through the lobby, past the mailboxes, and into the elevator. Once, in this very elevator, Lyndie had made me pull my pants down to show her my soaked diaper. I was pretty sure that one of my neighbors, Ms. Tuttleman, had caught a glimpse of my diaper. I kept that story to myself too.

And it was here, in the elevator, that I began to wet my diaper again. I wouldn’t say it came out of nowhere. It was a state I was starting to call ‘semi-conscious,’ a state where I knew what I was doing, but it wasn’t at the forefront of my mind. It wasn’t even until mid-wetting that I fully realized it was happening in Mommy’s presence. It was a heavy wetting too–everything I had been holding onto since I soaked my diaper in the plane.

We stepped off the elevator on my floor and I waddled to the front door. I was certain that Mommy knew exactly what I had done, though she wasn’t saying anything. She would, of course. Eventually.

I turned the handle to our apartment door and pushed the door inwards. Here goes nothing.

“Mm,” she hummed, smiling as she took a few long strides into my apartment. “This is a nice little spot you have here.”

Her approval was like a drug for me, and this was the hit I needed to ease my nerves. “Thank you, M-mommy.”

I hadn’t noticed Evan sitting in the living room until I had gotten the word ‘Mommy,’ tripping me up. I felt my face warm as I wondered if I’d have avoided saying the M-word if I knew he was there.

“Good afternoon,” Evan said, standing up and stepping towards us.

“This is Evan, my roommate,” I said to Mommy. “And Evan, this is my boss, er, Gabrielle Heller.”

“A pleasure to meet you, Ms. Heller,” Evan said, his hand reaching out towards her. She took it and gave it a firm and hearty shake as she smiled.

“Likewise,” she said. “You’re welcome to call me Gabrielle, if you’d like. Or ‘Mommy,’ like Clarky here.”

“Gabrielle, then,” Evan said, nodding politely.

“Can I get you anything to drink?” I asked. “Water? Uhm…I’m not sure what else we have. Orange juice, maybe?”

“Nope,” Evan said, shaking his head. “Drank it all.”

“Water is fine with me,” she said. “So long as it’s not from the tap.”

I was relatively sure we had bottles of water, I’d just need to look for them. From the living room, I could hear Mommy continuing a conversation with Evan.

“Are you a good boy?” she asked him.

“I, uh, try to be,” he said. I could hear respect in his voice, despite the awkwardness of the question.

“A shame,” she said. “You have a cute face. I bet you’d look good in a diaper.”

“That’s more of a Clark-thing, I think,” he said, laughing. “But thank you.”

I retrieved a bottle of water and waddled back to the conversation, eager to cut short this conversation before either of them said anything else that’d make me blush.

“Hrm,” Mommy said, a slightly disappointed groan as she took the bottle from me. “What’s this?”

“Uhm…water?”

“No, not the bottle, silly. You. What did you do?”

I could see that Evan was giggling behind a hand held up to his mouth. I sighed and looked down, afraid of what I might see. It was what I should have expected–major leakage. Either I had wet myself far more than I thought I did, or the standing-up diaper change in the airport bathroom hadn’t sufficiently sealed the diaper. Or both–that was certainly a possibility too.

There were wet splotches in my pants on either side of my crotch. I could only imagine what the back of my pants looked like.

“My word,” Mommy said, clicking her tongue. “Evan, is it hard living with a big baby?”

“You know something? I’m still learning just how big of a baby he can be.”

“I certainly hope you don’t have to start changing his diapers.”

“Me too,” he said.

“Well then, Baby,” she said to me. “Let’s expedite the tour a little so we can get to the bedroom and I can change your little pee-pee pants.”

“Y-yes, Mommy.”

“Actually,” she said, “why don’t you go and get all your clothes for me. Get out all your baby supplies from your bag. I’m going to finish my water and use the restroom and then I’ll join you.”

“Yes, Mommy.”

I shuffled off in my soggy, sagging, diaper and my wet pants. My face had turned bright pink, and I did everything I could to avoid looking at Evan’s face as I waddled past.

In my room, I did exactly as she asked. I unpacked the bag I had brought with me, getting some diapers, wipes, and baby powder out and ready to go. Then I shimmied myself out of my wet pants, casting them into the hamper.

I could hear her and Evan out in the living room talking again. Laughing.

Who am I?

A baby. That’s it. That’s all I am. That’s all I’ve ever been, and it’s likely all I’ll ever be.

Though that question does remind me that I have a voicemail waiting for me on my phone. I figured I might as well cap off this frustrating afternoon with more bad news.

“Hello Clark, it’s your mother. I know we’re not exactly talking right now, but I think it’s time we had a little chat to work through it. I’ve decided that I’ll be coming to see you–maybe this conversation will be better in person, don’t you think? I’m thinking I’ll come up next weekend. Please call me back. Love you.”

It was worse news than I ever could’ve imagined.

Who am I? I knew who I was–I was scared of my mother.