Doing Business, Part 49 (Patreon)

Behind? Catch up with this index of the story so far!

Forty-Nine

I’ve never handled change all that well. My mother had always been the one to remind me of this whenever something came along that changed the status quo.

For example, when I had finished the 5th grade, I would be moving from the elementary school I had known for the last five years–six, if Kindergarten was to be included–and on to middle school. Where the big kids were. Where there was no recess. A new library that didn’t have all my favorite places to sit and read. I cried about it that summer, unable to accept that an era had come to an end.

Of all the things my mother could’ve said to quell my fears about the new school, she sat me down and told me about how challenging it was to potty train me. She told me about how stubborn I had been about it. How I refused to give up my diapers and use the potty. She said that, once, I had marched myself all the way to the bathroom just so that I could squat and pee in my diaper next to the toilet.

“And look at you now,” she had said. “You use the toilet like a big boy. And you certainly wouldn’t dream of going back and wetting your pants now, right?”

And 11 year old me–naive to the future roughly 10 years ahead–thought that made sense. I sometimes thought about that conversation in the years that followed. When a new, scary, change was before me, I’d just remember that I had once been stubborn about potty training too. It had gotten me through high school graduation. And starting college. Hell, it helped when I started my internship–though it seemed rather ironic now.

“Clark, I’m leaving the company.”

I thought of this story again as I sat across the booth from Ava. It seemed less relevant now. In fact, it was almost confusing. Here I was, once again in diapers. Years later, diapers had won over the toilet. How was I ever going to adapt to change again?

“Why?” I asked.

“It’s complicated,” she said, sighing.

“So tell me everything, then. Every single detail.”

My heart pounded in my chest. I hoped she wasn’t serious. And if she was, I hoped that there was a way for me to convince her to change her mind. I couldn’t imagine the office without her now. I needed Ava to be there.

“My mom found my diapers,” she said.

“R-really?”

I didn’t know Ava’s mother. I could argue that I really didn’t even know Ava all that well yet. But this resonated with me. With my own mother’s arrival approaching, the thought of her finding out about my diapers was the absolute worst case scenario. Apocalyptic.

“She didn’t mean to,” Ava said. “And it’s not like she just found a single diaper. She found, like, baby stuff. Pacifiers, you know? It’s hard to make excuses for all that.”

“So she knows everything?”

“She knows enough,” she said, nodding. “She doesn’t know about Ms. Beaufort or what goes on at the office. But if she did…I don’t think it’d be good. She’d tear that place apart.”

I gulped nervously, imagining my mother’s hands wrapped around Ms. Heller’s neck after learning that I was being kept in diapers and chastity for her amusement.

“I have to leave,” Ava continued. “I don’t want my mother to learn any more than she has, you know? And…things are kind of weird between me and her right now. I want to rebuild our relationship, and I don’t know if I can while I’m at the office.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“Because I don’t trust myself,” she said. “Ms Beaufort–everyone there, really–creates this bubble, you know? And I lose myself in it. Like that story I told you about pooping my diaper in the Uber? I shouldn’t be doing that. But it’s like I lose control of myself. And…I love it. I really do. Like, it actually excited me when I told you that story just a few minutes ago.”

“But if you like it, and your mother doesn’t know about the office, why can’t you just…be more careful and keep doing what you’re doing?”

“I don’t trust myself,” she repeated. “I had been really lazy about leaving my baby things around. That’s how my mother found out. And the deeper I fall into this world of breastfeeding and diapers, the more I find myself throwing caution to the wind. And maybe there’ll be a point in my life when that’s okay. But it’s coming between me and my mother now. I…I think I need to step back a little.”

“Have you talked to Ms. Beaufort yet?” I asked.

“Not yet. I typed up a letter. I think I just needed to talk to someone about it first.”

“Wow,” I said. “I can’t believe it.”

“You know,” she continued, “the day that my mother found out about the diapers–it was the same day I had talked to Lyndie about the idea of moving in with her.”

“Really? I didn’t know that.”

“We didn’t actually make plans yet, or anything. But she’s going to be living alone soon and I wanted to get out of my mother’s house. It made sense.”

“Do you think that’ll happen if you leave the company?”

“I don’t think I want that to happen either, regardless.”

I wanted to tell her about Lyndie–about her suspected betrayal–but this didn’t seem like the time.

“Why not?” I asked.

“For the same reason I think it’d be bad for me to stay working under Ms. Beaufort. I have no control over myself. And living with Lyndie, where I could go about living like a baby, unchecked? I’d probably turn into a literal infant and Lyndie would have to start dropping me off at daycare in the morning.”

“I dunno,” I said, shrugging. “That sounds kind of cute.”

She laughed. “Clark, do I sound crazy?”

There seemed to be no point in being anything other than completely honest. “I want you to stay, Ava. It’s hard for me to imagine you not being there. But. You have to do what’s right for yourself too. And nobody knows that better than you.”

“Thank you,” she said. “I needed to hear someone say that. All of that.”

“Do you think you’ll give up diapers entirely?”

“I don’t know,” she said, shrugging. “Maybe I’ll take a break from it. Re-evaluate. Figure some things out about myself first. Then, I’ll see if I still want them. Or…need them.”

I could see myself benefitting from the same course of action. I wouldn’t, of course–I wasn’t ready to give up my diapers.

“But,” she said, trying to rekindle the conversation after the booth had gone silent for a few moments. “I’m wearing a diaper now. I haven't given it all up just yet.”

This helped to calm me a little. There was still time for her to reconsider. Time for her to find a different way to approach her crisis without abandoning her job.

“So, if we’re talking about our personal traumas now,” she said. “I do believe that it’s your turn.”

“Ugh.”

“Come on. I told you a lot about me. More than I’ve said to anyone else.”

“Fair enough.”

“Why did you look so upset when you left the office today?” she asked.

I didn’t really want to talk about Lyndie–especially after everything Ava had just told me. But, if we were going to start vomiting up uncomfortable truths, it seemed like a topic worth discussing.

“Do you know who this Thomas Pritchard guy is?” I asked.

“I don’t know him, but I know of him.”

“He was initially mad that Lyndie and I had gotten promotions and he didn’t. But since then, I guess he’s learned a few things about the assistants.”

“Like…diapers?”

I nodded. “I think so. The company is going to have him sign an NDA in exchange for a settlement of some sort.”

“But how does he know what he thinks he knows?”

“Someone is telling him about it,” I said, shrugging.

“Who would do that?”

I sighed, swallowing hard. It was even harder to say than I thought it would be. “I think…it might be Lyndie.”

“What?”

“I know. It doesn’t make any sense, but… I saw him leaving the nursery today. It was just the two of them in there. Why else would he be in there?”

“There has to be another explanation,” Ava said. “She would never rat us out! She’s our friend!”

“What other explanation could there be? You can’t go into the nursery without seeing everything. All the diapers. The changing table. Like, he knows everything now.”

“But…Lyndie wouldn’t…”

“I don’t know what happened,” I said. “I don’t know what she said to him, and I don’t know why. But something happened, and I can’t ignore that.”

“You probably don’t want to hear this,” Ava said. “But I feel like that only reaffirms I should be leaving that job.”

I shrugged. “I mean, I understand why you’d feel that way.”

“Clark, if we can’t trust Lyndie–who can we trust?”

It felt a little dramatic, though I’d have been lying if I said I hadn’t thought the same thing. Our world–our lives as ‘babies’–seemed dependent on everything working the way it was supposed to. The right amount of privacy. The right amount of the staff not knowing what was going on behind closed doors. With big careers on the line, was there a point in which Ms. Heller or Ms. Beaufort would throw us under the bus to save themselves? It was a question that I was terrified to know the answer for.

“You can trust me,” I said.

She nodded. “I know I can. And you can trust me, too.”

Food came, and we ate. We had mostly fallen silent, save for some small talk here and there–neither of us seemed to be sure what we were supposed to be talking about now. Somewhere, amidst the quiet, I wet my diaper. As per usual, it barely registered as something I was doing until I felt the diaper growing warm and swelling between my legs. I wondered if she noticed my cheeks reddening, but she either didn’t, or didn’t mention it.

“So,” I said, figuring it was my turn to end this round of silence. “Maybe it was more fun when we were distracting ourselves from our problems.”

“Those are problems for later,” she said, a slight smile returning to her face. “Your mother isn’t here yet. I haven’t quit my job yet. This Pritchard guy hasn't blown up our world yet. We don’t know for sure that Lyndie has done anything wrong yet. Right now…we’re just two friends getting food.”

“In diapers,” I added. “Because we’re big babies.”

“The biggest babies,” she said.

“Are you, uh, staying dry?” I asked, my hand feeling my own warm diaper under the table.

She shook her head. “Not really.”

“No?”

“I’m…damp. And what about you?”

“Wet. For sure.”

“Maybe I’m a little more than just damp,” she offered, shrugging.

“I’d offer to have you come back to my place and change…but I’m just not sure I’d be in the mood for Evan’s snark when I bring you home with me.”

“Fair enough,” she said. “Likewise, I don’t think waddling into my house with a boy–a boy in diapers–is the best move right now. It’s hard enough dealing with my mother’s judging eyes as it is.”

“My diaper is probably good for a while yet,” I said. “After this, if you want to keep hanging out, maybe we could take a walk or something?”

Ava’s face lit up a little. “That sounds perfect.”

It was a win-win. We were friends who wanted to spend time together. But also, neither of us wanted to go home. Neither of us wanted to return to the real-world and be one step closer to having to face the things we didn’t want to face. So we’d just pretend it didn’t exist for a little longer.

After we settled the bill, we laughed at each other as we made our way out of the diner. Each of us could see that the other had that tell-tale ‘saggy-diaper’ stroll that we knew too well ourselves. The sort of thing that, hopefully, wasn’t as obvious to anyone else.

“You walk like a toddler,” Ava said to me once we got outside. Away from people, her voice was a little louder, and hearing her statement echo down the street caused me to blush some.

“Y-you should talk. I’m, uh, surprised you weren’t crawling out of the diner.”

“Good one,” she said, her tone steeped in sarcasm.

We started walking. Neither of us had suggested a place to go, we were just moving. Just as I thought I was following her, I wondered if she thought she was following me.

“I’ll have to practice my diaper-specific shit-talking.”

She feigned a gasp. “Do you kiss your mommy with that mouth?”

“Don’t tell her I cursed,” I joked. “She’d spank me, for sure.”

“Don’t act like you wouldn’t love that.”

I shrugged.

“Speaking of kissing…”

I should’ve seen this coming. “Yeah?”

“I hope I didn’t make things too weird when I tried to kiss you last week,” said Ava. “It was just an…impulse.”

“Even Ms. Heller seemed a little confused that I didn’t kiss you back,” I said, shrugging.

“She told Ms. Beaufort about it, you know?”

I nodded. “She said she’d do that.”

I tried to remember the conversation I had with Mommy when I told her about Ava kissing me. She had seemed relatively unphased by the news–which had surprised me because the only reason I hadn’t reciprocated the kiss was due to my fear of Mommy having a bad reaction to it. In fact, she had only one request: That I tell her about it first if I later decided I wanted to pursue any sort of relationship with Ava. Or, as Mommy had put it, if I felt any special way about Ava.

Waddling down the sidewalk with her now in the streetlight, our diapers plenty moist as we joked with each other, I was feeling some special ways. I almost laughed at the thought of stopping and ducking into an alley so I could quickly text Mommy. “It’s happening! Special ways!”

I’d do no such thing. It felt good to be a 20-something guy again. Sure, I was in a diaper and my cock was just about useless. But I was out in the town with a smiling young woman and, goddammit, it felt like a welcome change of pace.

“Did Ms. Beaufort care?” I asked.

“She wants me to kiss boys and have relationships. She tried to set me up before?”

“Really? With, like, guys from the office?”

“No,” she said, laughing. “I have no idea where she found these guys.”

“So you actually went out with these guys?”

“Mmhmm. I mean, she’s probably tried to set me up with, like, four or five guys by now. But I’ve only actually gone on two dates now.”

“And how did that go?”

Her dramatic sigh was probably enough to go on, though she seemed willing to elaborate. “The first guy just wasn’t compatible with me. He was good looking and smart–I could see why she wanted me to go out with him. But he just didn’t have any sense of…whimsy. I think the date was pretty much over before we even finished our appetizer.”

“Whimsy?” I asked. “Is that a quality you’re looking for in a partner?”

She shrugged. “Sure, why not. Are you whimsical, Clark?”

“Not on purpose, I don’t think.”

She giggled. “Self-awareness of your own level of whimsy is, I think, whimsical.”

“What about the other date?”

“It went better, I guess,” she said. “Though ‘better’ doesn’t mean it was good. But this one not working out was my fault.”

“What happened?”

“I peed my pants,” Ava said, matter-of-factly. “And I wasn’t wearing diapers. I just…forgot that I wasn’t a baby for a single night. Next thing you know, piss is soaking through my jeans and puddling on the floor below me at the bar.”

“Oh my god. What did you do?”

“What could I do? I ran! I don’t even think I said goodbye to him, I just grabbed my purse and fled the bar. O’Halloran’s over on 16th? I still can’t bring myself to go back there. I’m terrified that whoever mopped up my piss will see me and remember me.”

“How long ago was this? I’m sure they’ve forgotten by now.”

“A year, give or take. But I doubt I’ll feel any different when it’s been ten years. I’m never going back to O'Halloran's.”

“At least you’re wearing diapers tonight. Like a good girl.”

She quickly laughed off my jest, her cheeks a little rosy as we strolled forward. “But it was a good date before I pissed myself.”

“Yeah?”

“Mommy–uhm, Ms. Beaufort…”

It was always reassuring to know that I wasn’t the only one with this problem.

“...she observed that I have a tendency to, uhm, wet myself when I get excited?”

“Really?” I asked. “That’s pretty cute.”

She shrugged, her cheeks a bit more red now. “It makes dating hard…unless I’m in a diaper. And then dating is hard for an entirely different reason.”

“I think the solution is pretty obvious,” I said, shrugging.

“Oh?”

“You have to date people who are also wearing diapers.”

“That makes sense,” she said, a wry smile on her face. “But where am I going to find another guy in diapers?”

I thought I had a pretty good reply lined up–something about just following your nose–but as I opened my mouth to speak, she had taken a step in front of me. It all happened so fast–her face leaning in towards mine, her lips pressing against mine.

This time I kissed her back.

A minute later, when she pulled her wet lips back from mine, she smiled at me mischievously. “See? I got excited and…wet myself again.”