Doing Business, Part 64 (Patreon)

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Sixty-Four

With a heavy sigh, I opened the door to Mommy’s office on Monday morning and trudged through the threshold. I was half-expecting her to have a smart-ass comment ready to go, though she seemed to be biting her tongue. Looking at her face, though, I could tell there was plenty she wanted to say.

The room remained silent for a few moments. I stood in the center of the room, as I usually did when I came to her office in the morning. I was waiting for my diaper-check. I felt tired. Emotionally. Physically. My body felt like it weighed five times as much as it usually did, and everything I did was just that much more exhausting than it should’ve been.

“So,” she finally said, not standing up from her seat. “How was your weekend?”

She knew the jist of what had happened the day before. I didn’t share all the details, but I had shared enough. I told her I had gone to see Megan, and that I was there when Mommy gave the command for me to mess myself. I told her that Megan had taken it upon herself to send the photos on my behalf, inadvertently sending them to the wrong person. I told her that I didn’t know what had happened right away. And then, I had sent the photos to Mommy in the hopes that she’d buy this story.

As best as I could tell, Mommy seemed onboard with this story.

What I hadn’t told her was that the photos had been sent to my actual birth mother. I wasn’t necessarily opposed to telling Mommy about this fact, but I was still refusing to think about that aspect myself. I hadn’t told Megan about the error she had made. I hadn’t told Lyndie. Or Ava. Or Evan.

“I made some mistakes yesterday,” I finally answered.

Mommy snorted and shrugged, leaning back in her office chair as she sipped from her steaming cup of coffee. “It sounds like you may have gotten carried away. As you tend to do.”

“I’m sorry, Mommy.”

She lifted her eyebrows curiously. “Sorry? To me? For what, Baby?”

“I…should’ve kept you updated as to what I was doing. I shouldn’t have gotten so carried away. I should’ve sent the photos myself. I should’ve…”

“Stop,” she said, holding an open palm out towards me. “You don’t owe me an apology. But I do worry about you.”

“Y-you do?”

“It seems to be happening more and more. You get so caught up in one of your little ‘baby moments’ that you seem unable to think like a rational adult.”

I shrugged. “I know. I don’t know what to do about that.”

Also…wasn’t this just as much her fault? This was her world that I had been pulled into.

“I’ll tell you what I’m tempted to do,” she said. “I’m tempted to get a little collar for you. And I’d attach a leash to it and keep you at my side at all times. You wouldn’t get much farther from me than the extent of the leash, and then I’d be able to keep an eye on you at all times.”

I found the idea to be completely humiliating, though not entirely bad. I sort of liked it. And she was right–it’d be a lot harder for me to get into trouble if I couldn’t leave her side.

I offered a little nod, unsure of what else to say.

“Alas, I bet that would be kind of frowned upon,” she sighed. “We get away with a lot around here, but I’m sure someone would draw a line when they saw employees on leashes.”

The topic of our already-strange office culture brought me back to the initial reason I reached out to Megan in the first place. “A-actually…on that note, I learned some more about what’s going on with Thomas Pritchard.”

“Is that so?” Mommy leaned forward in her chair, resting her elbows on her desk. “Please tell me more.”

“I think he did want to go to complain and make a big deal about not getting promoted. But then Mr. Yang saw an opportunity and started telling him about the baby stuff with the assistants.”

“I see,” she said. “And Megan told you this?”

I nodded. “I don’t know how, exactly, but I think the plan is to have Thomas Pritchard reveal enough that the board is forced to do something about the executive team.”

“Hrm,” Mommy grunted. “And I assume Yang thought he had a plan where he could somehow swoop in and grab some more power for himself?”

I shrugged. “Maybe? But I think that plan might be falling apart a little…” I stopped myself. I was on the verge of telling her about Lyndie’s plans to distract Thomas with diapers–a plan so insane that it might actually be working. But it wasn’t my place to talk about that. I was risking getting Lyndie into trouble–especially while I didn’t know all the details.

“Why do you think that?” Mommy asked.

“I, uh…I guess I don’t actually know. It’s just a hunch.”

“No offense, Baby. But I’m not sure that hunches are going to save the day here.”

I blushed, feeling a little dumb for opening my mouth about it at all. Though I was thankful that I hadn’t done any damage to Lyndie.

“Well then,” she said, finally standing up from her chair. “Let’s take a look at this morning’s diaper, shall we?”

Routine felt good. It felt normal. It helped block out some of the stress I was feeling in my chest. The unanswered text message from my mother. The secrets I was keeping about Lyndie and Thomas. And Lyndie and Bradley. And me and Ava. And maybe all the details of my day with Megan. For a few moments, I could just block it all out as Mommy pulled down my pants and inspected my diaper.

“A little damp,” she reported. “I was expecting this to be a little more swollen this morning.”

“Hm?”

“Did you know I keep a spreadsheet? More of a ‘potty chart,’ if I’m being honest.”

My cheeks reddened at the thought of Mommy keeping track of my diaper usage. “You do?”

“Oh yes. It’s actually a rather impressive looking doc. Come here. I’ll show you.”

She walked behind her desk, pulling up a file on her laptop. I waddled behind, my pants still around my ankles as I tried not to fall over.

And there it was–a rather expansive spreadsheet with various tabs for each week, and notes made throughout. Some of it made sense to me. Yellow and brown cells weren’t too challenging to decipher. But then there were blue cells too. The chart also seemed to account for things like how long I had been in a particular diaper and who ended up changing me. It was so thorough that it was actually kind of…sweet.

“There’s gaps here and there,” she said to me. “Obviously I’m not with you 24/7. Another argument for the leash, I suppose.”

I blushed again. “That’s…quite a lot of data.”

“Well, I do have a love of numbers and information,” she said. “Hence my role in the company.”

“And that’s all…me?”

She nodded. “Your entire soggy, stinky, time as my baby–condensed into a spreadsheet. But, I can do some rather interesting things with it. We’re coming to a point now where there’s enough data that I can start making predictions about your diaper habits. Case in points, you’re most likely to come to work in a very wet diaper on Monday mornings. And you usually go through more diapers on a Friday than any other day.”

I had to step away. Waddle away, really. It was weird seeing all that information in one place. Every diaper. Every humiliating trip from my desk to Mommy’s office, or to Lyndie’s nursery. Every embarrassing story. Every time I almost had a panic attack because I thought someone could smell me–it was all here. And the longer this went on, the more she’d be able to glean from this information. She’d know me–the diapered part of me, at least–better than I’d know me. She probably already did.

I wasn’t upset about it. It was just a lot.

“The board meeting is this week,” Mommy finally said. I swore that I heard the slightest waver in her tone. Worry, perhaps?

“The one where Thomas is supposed to…”

“Yes,” she said, nodding.

“Do you think we should be…worried?”

She sighed. “I’m not worried. Though I do think this week is going to be a challenge.”

“What can I do?” I asked. “To help you. To help anyone, I guess.”

“You just keep using your diapers for me, Baby. I’ll take care of this.”

I nodded, feeling my cheeks warm a little. “Of course. But…”

“Yes?”

“What if…it’s the worst case scenario? What if everything falls apart?”

Mommy smiled. I needed to see that–a genuine and warm grin. “Baby, I have a plan B. And a plan C. And a plan D. I can’t predict the future, but I can at least be ready for it.”

I nodded, feeling some comfort from those words.

“Now then, I’ve got a few calls this morning that I should get ready for. I sent you an email this morning with some files that I need pulled, so maybe you could take care of that for me?”

“Yes, Mommy.”

“Thank you for being such a good boy.” That never failed to get the dopamine going.

“I, uhm, suppose it's inevitable that I use this diaper a little bit more than I already have…”

“I could use the pick-me-up,” she said, smiling. “Even if I’m on a call, you come in here and show me when you do.”

“Yes, Mommy.”

She pulled up my pants for me, tucking my shirt back into them and fastening my belt again. Such a simple gesture, but one that still managed to make me feel wonderfully small.

“Off you go then, Baby.”

But I couldn’t go back to my desk and start my actual work just yet. My little flub about Lyndie’s plans with Thomas had me thinking that I really needed to know more about what was going on there. Especially if the future of our jobs depended on it.

As I walked across the office, I was thinking about… Well, I was thinking about a lot of things. I was thinking about everything, truth be told. I was thinking about Ava, who would be leaving the company soon. I was thinking about whatever debacle Lyndie had gotten herself into with Thomas. I was thinking about Megan.

I sighed, remembering that I still hadn’t talked to my mother. There were a number of unanswered texts from my mother on my phone. Eventually, I was pretty sure that I’d have to talk to her. And the longer it took for me to reach out, the harder it would be to make excuses. Would she believe me if, ten years from now, I finally called her and said that my phone was hacked and that the photos weren’t mine?

My life is a fucking mess.

My knock on the nursery door was almost immediately answered by Lyndie, who–like Mommy–had a slightly worried look on her face.

“Oh, hey Clark.”

“Everything alright?”

“Come inside,” she said, beckoning me to follow her with her hand. I did, and she closed the door behind her.

I had to ask again: “Everything alright?”

She drew in a long breath before responding. “Hopefully?”

“What’s, uh, going on?”

“Tommy. Uh…Thomas. He was supposed to come by this morning, but he’s kind of a no-show right now.”

I wasn’t entirely sure what the stakes were here, but her nervous energy was making me a little nervous too. “How bad is it if he doesn’t come?”

“I worry that it would mean that he’s decided to still go through with talking to the board.”

“As opposed to…doing what, exactly, with you? Like, I know you offered him diapers–and you said he seemed to take the idea–but what then?”

She shrugged. “I thought it would be pretty straightforward. I put him in diapers. Treat him like a baby. And then, voila, he drops whatever plans he had and we all move on with our lives.”

“He was into it, wasn’t he?” I asked. “You made it sound like he was really into them.”

“He was,” she nodded. “You should’ve seen his face, Clark. Lit up like a goddamn Christmas tree or something. The boy probably has all sorts of mommy issues…”

“Like the rest of us.”

“Sure. He was one of us. I was sure of it. He took diapers home with him on Friday. He was supposed to check in with me first thing this morning. He had even texted me over the weekend, telling me how much he liked them. He sent me pictures. But here we are, and…”

“He’s not here,” I sighed.

“I thought it was a slam dunk,” she said. “I thought I had fixed everything.”

“Maybe he’s still coming,” I said. “He’s just late.”

I had another thought: What if Mr. Yang had caught wind of Lyndie’s plan? She wasn’t just trying to persuade Thomas to not go to the board–she was trying to persuade him to doublecross Mr. Yang. What if he had offered Thomas something even better than…diapers?

“He’s an hour late. Did you see him at all? This morning?”

I shook my head. “No. But, then again, I feel like I don’t see him at all most days.”

“I’m going to call his desk again,” she said. “Just in case he’s there.”

Lyndie tried calling from the phone on her desk. It still amused me that Lyndie had an entire desk in the nursery–was there a lot of paperwork to do with this role? Maybe she was contributing to Mommy’s vast spreadsheet. Maybe she had a few spreadsheets of her own for the other babies in her care.

“No answer,” Lyndie said.

“If he’s not here–like, in your office–and he’s not at his desk either, that might be a good thing, right? Maybe he’s just sick today. Or…he quit.”

“Maybe he fell into a giant pit,” Lyndie shrugged.

“Seems kind of grisly, don’t you think?”

“It’d fix everything though, wouldn’t it?”

“Look, if there’s ever a time in my life when you think that all your problems would be fixed if I just fell in a pit,” I said, “could you just tell me? That’s the sort of thing I’d want to know.”

“Fair enough,” she replied. “Can you just, like, distract me for a minute? So that I’m not just thinking about how I might have fucked things up by taking matters into my own hands? You must’ve done something embarrassing or weird lately, right?”

“Really?”

“Am I wrong?”

I sighed, shaking my head. As much as I wanted to be annoyed that she just assumed my life was a series of ridiculous and embarrassing events, I was more annoyed that she was right. Might as well tell her the big news.

“Well, you’ll love this one…”

A smile creeped over her face. “Oh?”

“I may have accidentally sent my own mother some extremely compromising photos of me in a dirty diaper yesterday.”

“No…”

I sighed again. “Yep.”

“Jesus, Clarky. How the hell did that happen?”

“It’s a long story.”

“It always is.”

“Actually, falling into a big pit sounds pretty good right now. Do you know where I could find one?”

“What did she say?” she asked. Before I could answer, she had a few more questions to fire off: “What did you say? How the hell do you even explain that? I mean, did she know the photos are of you?”

“I…I don’t know. I haven’t talked to her yet. I’ve been avoiding her like the plague since it happened. I might try avoiding her for the rest of my life.”

“Very healthy, Clark. And, uhm, honest question here for you–because you’re my friend…have you ever considered a therapist? Like someone unbiased person to talk to about everything going on? It might not be all that bad of an idea.”

“Y-you think I need therapy?”

“I think you need someone to talk to,” she said. “Preferably before your head explodes.”

She wasn’t wrong. I slipped that idea into a mental pocket for later.

“Thank you, Lyndie.” I hoped it had come off as sincerely as I wanted it to.

It was at about that moment that the phone on Lyndie’s desk began to ring. For a moment, some of Lyndie’s own visible stress looked like it was fading a little.

“Ah, okay,” she said. “This is probably Thomas now. He’s going to tell me that he’s running late and…”

“What’s wrong?” I asked, noting the look of panic on her face when she looked at the caller ID on the phone.

“It’s Ms. Heller.” She picked up the phone: “Good morning.”

I didn’t know what the call was about, but it seemed troubling that Mommy seemed to be doing most of the talking. She was explaining something to Lyndie, it seemed. And the longer the call went on, the more distressed Lyndie’s face seemed to look.

“Right,” Lyndie said, responding to something. And that was what most of her side of the conversation was like–one or two-word reactions. “Yes.” “I see.” “I understand.” “Okay.”

Finally: “Thank you, Ms. Heller. I’ll see you shortly.”

“What was that about?” I asked as she hung up the phone.

“Well…maybe I had reason to be nervous.”

I felt my heart beating quickly in my chest. What now? “Why? Did something happen?”

“Something is happening right now,” she said. “It’s Thomas.”

“Oh.”

“Look,” she said to me. “Maybe you just hang back. I don’t want you to get in trouble too.”

“Trouble? What sort of trouble?”

But Lyndie didn’t answer me. She instead rushed around the desk and to the door of the nursery, flinging it open and rushing back out into the office. I was tempted to hang back for a minute, thinking that maybe it just wasn’t my business. Alas, my curiosity was too strong. I left the nursery myself, closing the door behind me.

Perhaps that’s how I knew that whatever was happening was a big deal–Lyndie was the most careful when it came to the nursery, and yet she had just left the door wide open as she jogged away.

As I walked back towards Ms. Heller’s office–the same direction that Lyndie had gone–I couldn’t help but notice the slowly building clamor around me. Other employees were whispering to each other. Some were getting up from their desks and heading in the same direction that I was. Some were laughing and giggling. Some looked shocked–even upset.

Were they laughing at me? Talking about me?

No, that didn’t seem right. Nobody seemed to care about me. It was something else. Someone else.

Aw jeez, Thomas. What did you do?

I heard it before I saw it–the sound of many people trying to talk at once. The sound of people trying to talk someone down. I had never really thought about how infantile the sound of placating was, even for adults, but hearing those voices now, my first thought was of a bunch of mothers trying to convince a child not to do something bad.

“Come on, Thomas. Why don’t you just come with me and we can talk about this.”

“Thomas, please. Let’s not make a scene.”

“Hey, Thomas. What are you doing, buddy.”

Finally seeing the scene, it looked so surreal that I couldn’t even comprehend it. I was reminded of those cosmic horror stories where the big scary monster was so beyond human understanding that to just look at it would drive a man insane.

What the fuck is happening here?

A small crowd was growing in front of Ms. Heller’s office. Mommy was near the center of the crowd. As was Nancy Tamberlin from HR. And Lyndie. And they were trying to talk to Thomas, who–inexplicably–seemed to have his pants pulled down to his knees, exposing a giant white disposable diaper to anyone who cared to look.

“I…I just want the same thing as everyone else,” Thomas said to someone. It was hard to know if he was addressing the entire crowd, or someone in particular. “I want to be a baby too.”

“Thomas,” Lyndie said, reaching out towards him. “We, uhm, can help you. But we should probably not be out here for this conversation.”

A foul–but familiar–scent seemed to waft through the crowd, striking me in the nose like a punch. It was an undoubtedly messy diaper–and for once, it wasn’t mine.

Was it…his?

Everyone else seemed just as unsure of how to read this situation as I was. Some folks were trying to stifle laughter as they muttered little things to each other. But there were plenty of people who just looked concerned and worried for Thomas, as if they were watching a man who had just gone insane.

“Sh-should we call the police?” someone near me muttered.

“I think, uhm, management has this under control,” I said. I hoped that was true.

“That’s enough,” Mommy said to Thomas. “Come with me now. We need to have a little chat. Now.”

They filed into her office one-by-one. Mommy, Thomas, Lyndie, and finally Ms. Tamberlin. The door slammed shut behind them, leaving only a crowd of confused office workers and the lingering scent of filthy diapers.

“Alright,” someone said to everyone. I didn’t know her by name, but I had seen her around. Some sort of mid-tier manager or supervisor. “Let’s get back to our desks. Whatever is going on here, the management team will sort it out.”

Part of me wanted to go into Mommy’s office too. I was, afterall, her assistant. Then I remembered what Lyndie had said to me–about not wanting me to get in trouble too. Maybe it’d be better to hang back a bit. At least until I knew more.

Ava was suddenly at my side, seeming to have emerged from the dispersing crowd that had just watched Thomas’s antics. She looked as concerned as I felt. She reached for my hand and gave it a quick squeeze. It seemed to say a lot of things. Hello. Also: Well, that wasn’t good at all.

“Did you see what happened?” I asked.

She nodded.

“And…what was that about?”

“Well…” But she quickly trailed off and began looking around her suspiciously at our co-workers as they strolled past us.

I started looking around myself, realizing what Ava was seeing. It seemed like everyone–well, enough of the employees–were staring at us. Giving us curious glances. Some whispered and muttered to each other, while others giggled and chuckled as they looked in our direction.

Ava sighed. “I…I think he just exposed us to everyone.”