Doing Business Memorandums II, Episode 4: Working at the Baby House (Patreon)

Working at the Baby House

Dirty diapers. A lot of them.

I couldn’t decide which was stranger: that I was throwing a clear plastic bag filled with dirty diapers over my shoulder so that I could haul it out to the trash can, or that I’ve done this so many times that it felt normal now.

Sometimes I was tempted to talk to someone about this. There had been a few close calls. I’ll get a few drinks in me at the bar on a Friday night and someone like Hank or Aisley would be complaining about their jobs. It took a lot of willpower to not just jump in with my own story. “Okay, but do you have any idea how many dirty diapers I had to drag to the trash can today?”

I think I know why I didn’t, though. It’s because my job wasn’t actually all that hard. It was just weird. And it hadn’t even always been this weird–that was more of a recent development. And it’s not like I had to change diapers. I was just emptying the diaper pail when I was there.

Sure, once the bag ripped and a pile of dirty diapers fell all over the sidewalk. I had to find some gloves and spent longer than I’d like picking up the damn things. But that was just once. The rest of the time, I was just doing the same thing I’d do at any other house. I washed some dishes. I mopped the floor. I vacuumed.

Sometimes I’d throw away diapers.

===

I kind of stumbled into the whole cleaning gig. Originally, I was just looking for something to pass the time during the summer as I debated on whether or not I’d be returning to college in the fall. My parents tried their hardest to be supportive of ‘whatever it was I decided I wanted to do,’ but I could read their faces well enough to know that they were going to be disappointed if I didn’t go back.

It just happened to work out that my neighbors, the Bensons, were in need of a little summer help. An older couple whose kids had grown up and moved out long ago, they were in need of a helping hand to take care of some chores for them while they did some traveling. It wasn’t anything unreasonable–vacuuming, mopping, weeding their small garden. And, thanks to my mother’s need for perfection in her own home, I knew a thing or two about cleaning well.

Well, my neighbors had friends who were looking for a similar helping hand, and my name and number was passed along. And so I picked up a few more gigs. And those clients had friends too. Suddenly, my schedule was jam-packed. It was a job.

I was making money. Good money. Money that was all under the table, too. It was hard to put all of that on hold for another semester of college–especially when I wasn’t even interested in college in the first place. So I decided to put my education on hold. I’d come back to it later–if I needed to. My parents weren’t crazy about the idea, of course, but neither of them seemed willing to just put their foot down and demand that their daughter go back.

===

Gabrielle Heller had been one of the first clients I had taken on after the Bensons shared my name and number with their socal circle. I’m not sure what their connection was with each other, but it didn’t really matter to me.

Ms. Heller’s house was one of my favorite stops during the week. She was a single woman living in a rather posh house that seemed too big for one person. Not only was there very little work I had to do there, but she was always keen on slipping me a few extra bucks on top of my usual rate, “just because you’re doing such a good job.” I wasn’t sure what she thought I was doing that went above and beyond the services she hired me for, but I also didn’t argue about it.

I was intrigued by Ms. Heller. She was friendly. Pretty. Obviously rather rich. And yet she was single. Once in a great while there was a sign that she might have had a gentleman over for a night–once I found two empty cocktail glasses sitting on the coffee table of the den–but otherwise it was like she just lived in this sanctuary that was all for her.

Once in a while, I’d stumble into something that felt out of place. It was always something…infantile. A pacifier. A pack of baby wipes. They were almost always semi-hidden–set in a place that was just out of sight and perhaps forgotten about. She didn’t have children of her own. Maybe she had nieces and nephews that visited on occasion, but it was always strange that I’d stumble across, say, a bottle of baby powder but never a color book or some toys.

Every house has curious details like this, though. Mr. Ritzcomb has a jar in the back of his canned vegetable cabinet that contains a dead fly. Just one dead fly in a jar, the lid screwed on tightly. The hell if I know what that’s about. I’ve found Mrs. Mang’s vibrator in three or four different places around the house as I’ve cleaned it for the last year. The Clemente’s keep an impeccable house, with the exception of the garage–which looks like a hoarder’s paradise.

So Ms. Heller had some baby things stashed around her house. Strange, but not the strangest I’ve ever seen.

But then it got stranger.

===

“I don’t think it’ll change much for you, Marnie,” Ms. Heller said one afternoon as I dropped by with my vacuum and bag of cleaning products. “But I’ll be having a guest stay with me for the…foreseeable future.”

This was how I knew that I had officially taken on the occupation of ‘maid:’ I started by my own cleaning products and tools because I was developing preferences for specific things that not every house had available to me. My vacuum was like my guitar–a carefully selected and personalized item that nobody would ever know as well as me.

I gripped the handle of the vacuum tightly as I shrugged. “Yeah, sure.” And then, because I was curious, I had to ask: “What sort of guest?”

She laughed. It wasn’t the reaction I had expected–it was as if she was just at a loss for words of how to describe whoever would be staying with her. I immediately knew it was a situation that was probably a little beyond what I needed to know about.

“He’s a young man,” she said. “Maybe about your age. We have an, er, arrangement?”

Was this code for: The much-younger man that I’m sleeping with is going to be staying at the house?

“Of course,” I said, hoping she could read my mind: I’ll stay out of the way of the two of you.

“I feel that I need to let you know, Marnie…” There’s some hesitation in her tone. There’s something else. Something awkward.

“Yes?”

“You may be surprised when you see this young man.”

My imagination was already sprouting all sorts of ideas. A man in a wheelchair. A man with a grotesquely swollen head. A man with bat wings. A man dressed up like a sugarplum princess.

“How so?”

“I don’t see the point in beating around the bush, Marnie. You’ll likely see it all for yourself soon enough. He’ll look like a giant baby.”

“A…baby?” Immediately, all my imagined versions of this mystery man dissipate, leaving the mental image of a cartoonish man in an oversized diaper.

“I’m not sure how else to put it,” Ms. Heller said. “Onesies. Pacifiers. Shortalls. Diapers. He’s dressed like a baby.”

Oh wow. My new mental image was proving to be far more accurate than I’d have thought.

I wasn’t sure how to respond to this. Obviously, it was strange. And, obviously, Ms. Heller knew that I’d find it to be strange. But it was her house. Her life. And she owed me absolutely nothing. If she didn’t want to tell me anything about her new guest at all–leaving me to discover the big baby for myself–that’d have been her prerogative. Either way, I had a job to do.

“I want to make it perfectly clear,” she continued. “I’m not expecting anything different from you. You do an excellent job in helping keep the house straightened, and I’d expect you to just keep that same job. Any and all things regarding my guest will be my responsibility.”

“Well…thank you very much for telling me,” I said. “Why don’t I get right to it, then?”

Of course, if someone tells you that a man is walking around the house while dressed like a baby–you want to see that. It didn’t matter if I thought it was exciting or disgusting–it was just weird, and that sort of weird was something I had never experienced before. I was on high alert, looking over my shoulder at all times, hoping I’d catch a glimpse of the fabled baby-man as I went about my job.

Once in a while I’d hear a door open or close. There’d be footsteps. I’d hear Ms. Heller talking softly to someone. On rare occasions, I’d hear the response–a new and boyish voice that usually had the cadence of whining.

I just had to know: Why? Was this a disability? A kink? Something else entirely? I felt like all the clues were already distributed around the house–the pacifiers and baby powder and all that. If it wasn’t this particular boy, she had certainly seemed prepared for someone in need of baby things for sometime now.

===

It wouldn’t be until two weeks later when I’d finally meet him. But I had already begun to see signs of his existence during my visit the week prior. Jars of baby food in the recycling. Baby bottles of milk in the fridge. Items like pacifiers and baby toys were suddenly being found in obvious areas like atop the dining room table and on the kitchen counter next to the mail. From upstairs, behind the doors of rooms I didn’t usually go into, I could hear the soft music and exaggerated voices of children’s cartoons.

I was sweeping the kitchen when it happened. Often, it feels like I’m just going through the motions at Ms. Heller’s home–there’s just not that much to actually clean. I was pushing the broom around, reaching into every corner to pull out the faint traces of dust or debris, but there was little to show for it. That’s when I caught some movement in the corner of my eye. I looked up, spotting him at the same time he spotted me.

Just as I hadn’t expected to see him standing there, I don’t think he expected to see me either. His eyes were big, and he had this deer-in-the-headlights look about him, where he probably couldn’t just run away, even if he wanted to.

He was, as Ms. Heller said he’d be, dressed like a baby. He wore a blue and green striped onesie with an illustrated alligator on the front of it. A bib was around his neck. Below his hips, the onesie seemed bulging and inflated, a thick diaper was doing its best to break free from the dainty snaps at the bottom of the onesie, between his legs. He may have been about my age. Maybe a little older, maybe a little younger–it was hard to judge someone’s age when they were dressed like this.

I still had no context for why this boy was dressed like a baby, and so I was hesitant to say much. Still, it felt rude to just indefinitely stare at him.

“Uhm…hi. I’m Marnie. I clean Ms. Heller’s house once a week.”

“Hi,” he said, nodding. “I’m, uh, Clark.” That was all he said.

“Well…I’m just cleaning up a little in the kitchen. I hope I’m not in your way.”

“N-no,” he said, his fingers nervously scratching at his tousled hair. “I just came for something to drink.”

“Sure,” I shrugged. “Don’t let me stop you.”

He didn’t walk to the fridge–he waddled. His body had this comical little bob to it as he went to the fridge–pulling out a bottle of milk in a baby bottle. Looking back at me–perhaps to gauge if I was judging him or not–I could see that his cheeks were a bright pink.

“I, uhm, got it,” he said.

“Okay,” I shrugged. “I’ll, uh, see you later?”

He nodded and waddled his way out of the kitchen.

Somewhere else, moments later, I could hear Ms. Heller’s voice: “Clarky. How many times have I told you? Babies crawl. You need to get used to crawling everywhere.”

===

Every week was good for at least one Clark sighting. I’d see him crawl past the doorway of the room I was working in. I’d see him dozing in a playpen that had been set up in the den. I’d walk past the dining room and watch as Ms. Heller guided a spoonful of colorful glop into his open mouth.

A few weeks passed when I found him in his playpen one day as I was making the rounds with my trusty vacuum. He had that deer-in-the-headlights look on his face again when we spotted each other. Not completely unsurprising, but I had thought that we had seen enough of each other that it wouldn’t be as big of a deal for him to see me.

No, it was something else. It wasn’t just that I had walked in on him. It was when I had walked in on him. He was squatting in the center of the playpen–legs spread apart with his diaper hovering just above the ground. He wasn’t wearing a onesie today–instead, just a t-shirt and his diaper. I knew nothing about diapers or taking care of babies, but I could certainly smell what he had been doing.

He let out an uncomfortable grunt, like he had to finish something–whether he wanted to or not.

“Oh,” I said, taking a step or two away from him. “Did you just…uhm…”

His face was beet red as he stammered, clearly debating about how much he should say to me. “I…uhm…well…I just…”

“Why don’t you just sit right there,” I said. I thought better of that quickly. “No, wait. You probably shouldn’t, uhm, sit. Just…stay there? I’ll go and get Ms. Heller.”

The boy just nodded sheepishly, the ripe odor getting stronger by the second.

There are some sensations that you just don’t ever forget. I think that smell has forever been burned into my nostrils–the stench of his freshly soiled diaper. So fresh that I was literally staring at him as it was happening.

“Uhm, Ms. Heller?” I was walking through the house now, hoping to find her. “Ms. Heller? When you have a chance? I think there’s something you should know…”

“Yes dear?” Ms. Heller emerged from one of the upstairs bedrooms–a spare room that I had only ever seen once, and was a mostly empty space at that time. Now, I could see that it was slowly taking the form of a nursery.

“I was just downstairs in the den and, uhm, Clark is there and…”

“Is he okay?”

I wasn’t sure how to answer that question. Was he okay to shit his pants like a toddler?

“I guess? I think? It’s just that I think he had an…accident.”

“Ah, I see,” she nodded. “It happens often. Being a baby and all that.”

“Right, well…”

“Did he go number one? Or number two?”

“Uh…two?” I simply couldn’t believe that I was telling someone that a grown man had messed in his diaper.

She wrinkled her nose and shook her head. “Damn. I thought we’d have a while before that happened again. Is he still in his playpen?”

“Yes. Well, he was when I came up here.”

“I suppose I should go down there and take care of that,” she sighed. Then she smiled at me. “Unless you have any desire to learn how to take care of a baby.”

“I think I’m good,” I said.

She laughed, like she already knew what my answer was. I couldn’t tell if she had just been joking, or if she would’ve actually let me tag along if I had said yes.

“I’ll change the baby and then I can take him upstairs for his nap,” she said. “That’ll get him out of your way to clean in the den, yes?”

“Oh…he’s fine where he is,” I said. “I just thought you should know about his, uh, diaper.”

“So you’ll be okay if I leave him in his playpen while you clean up?”

“That should be fine.”

I busied myself elsewhere for the next few minutes, tidying up the bathroom instead. A few minutes later, Ms. Heller found me and paused at the doorway with a smile on her face.

“The offending bottom has been dealt with,” she said.

“That was quick,” I blurted out. I was trying to think of how long it would take me to clean up after myself if I ever found myself in the unfortunate position of pooping my pants. Hours, I figured. Hours and six or seven showers.

“Ah, well, I’m somewhat of an expert on diaper changes by now,” she said.

I had a million questions, but it felt like it’d be rude to ask any of them. “I guess that’s, uh, good for him.”

She nodded. “The den is still a little stinky, so if you’d like to skip that room today, that’s fine by me.”

“I appreciate you saying so,” I said. “I guess we’ll see how it is when I get there.”

Truthfully? I didn’t want to be walking around a room tainted by the smell of someone who had pooped themselves. It’d have been no different if it was an actual baby.

Still, I felt a sense of obligation. Ms. Heller had been kind to me since I started working for her, and I felt that I couldn’t just leave her house without doing everything I came here to do. I had earned her respect, and I intended on keeping it.

A few minutes later I was back in the den with my cleaning supplies. I’d have probably preferred to have waited a little longer, but seeing as how it was all that was left to do before I was done, I decided to just get it over with. The scent of dirty diapers was less strong now, but it was still lingering in the air.

“Hi,” a still-blushing Clark said, now seated in the playpen as cartoons played on the TV.

“Hi,” I replied. I was hesitant to say much more. I was the interloper. I was the only one in the house that wasn’t of whatever weird world they were currently living in.

“I’m sorry about before,” he said.

I shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. That’s why they’re called ‘accidents,’ right?”

He laughed. I didn’t think I was making a joke, but I had stumbled into some sort of in-joke that you only appreciated while wearing diapers.

I look around. I check down the hallway. I want to make sure that Ms. Heller isn’t around when I come back to the playpen.

“Hey. Can I ask you something?”

“Hm?”

“Are you…okay?”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“Like, whatever is going on here…you’re happy with it?”

He nodded, sighing like it’s not the first time he’s fielded this question. “I’m good. I’m happy. This is exactly where I want to be.”

“So…all of this? It’s a choice?”

“Yes.”

“And you like it?”

“Yes.”

I supposed that was all I really needed to know. All the other questions were none of my business.

===

A month later, Ms. Heller was going away for a week; though she left a key behind for me and asked if I wouldn’t mind going through the usual routine anyway. That was fine by me.

I assumed this meant that there’d be nobody home. I would quickly learn that this was not the case. Soon after arriving, I followed the noise of the TV into the den. Except it wasn’t Clark–it was a girl that I didn’t recognize. She was probably a little older than I was, with dark curly hair and big glasses.

“Oh, hi,” she said, pausing the TV. “Ms. Heller said you’d be coming by. Marnie, right?”

“Uh, yeah, that’s me. I’m sorry, you are…”

“Courtney,” she said, standing up and walking towards me to shake my hand. “If there’s anything I can do to help out, just let me know.”

“Well…I kind of got this,” I shrugged. “It’s my job.”

“Ms. Heller says you’re very good too.”

“Th-thanks,” I said, unsure how to take a second-hand compliment from a complete stranger. “So are you, like, housesitting?”

“Sort of,” Courtney shrugs. “Babysitting, actually. But, I mean, I guess that makes me in charge of the house too.”

“Oh. So Clark is…here?”

“Mmhmm,” she hums. “He’s taking a little nappy-nap in his crib right now. Poor guy is all tuckered out.”

Yet another person drinking the kool-aid, I think. She acts like this–babysitting a grown man in a diaper–is the most normal thing in the entire world. And maybe some of that energy has rubbed off on me. At this point, I rarely think about the absurdity of Clark or Ms. Heller’s relationship. This is just the ‘diaper house.’ I do my job, maybe avoid the rooms that smell like a dirty diaper if I can help it, and I move on to the fly-in-jar house. Once in a while, like on this particular day, I’m reminded of just how strange it all is.

“So, hey, can I ask you something? Just between you and me?”

Courtney smiled. “Yeah, of course. What’s up?”

“How does something like this even happen? How does a guy just become…a big baby?”

Courtney shrugged. “Some people just like that sort of thing. You should see them together. It’s the cutest thing.”

“What about you?” I asked. “Are you into, uh, diapers?”

“For the amount that Ms. Heller pays me? I’ll fucking eat a diaper if she asked.”

That made sense to me. Money had a way of loosening inhibitions.

“I offer a service,” Courtney said. “This isn’t the only little guy I watch over.”

“Oh.” That made even more sense to me. A small amount of research had revealed to me that the ‘adult baby’ scene was far more vast than I could’ve ever imagined. No doubt, Ms. Heller wasn’t the only one with a need for a specialized babysitter. “Do you like this work?”

She laughed, shrugging. “I usually enjoy it. But I’m always good at it.”

I could see some of myself in Courtney–a young woman who might have stumbled into a line of work that wasn’t what she had expected, but she was surprisingly good at. I tried to imagine myself in her shoes–changing diapers and pushing bottles into the mouths of men who were older than I was. I wasn’t sure that I could handle it.

“It probably does look pretty weird from the outside,” Courtney added. “I’ll give you that.”

“Whatever pays the bills,” I shrugged.

“Exactly.”

We stayed out of each other’s way. I cleaned the house, while I’d only occasionally see Courtney as she went back and forth from the den to the nursery upstairs. I put a little haste into my work, hoping that if I finished a little sooner, I’d have a few more minutes to ask Courtney some questions before I needed to be on my way again. This mission was a success and when I returned to the den, I found her waiting for me–a smile on her face.

“Want to see something?” she asked.

“Maybe? Is it gross?”

She laughed. “Depends on what your threshold for grossness is.”

I was thinking I should refuse. Whatever it was–it probably wasn’t any of my business. Which, of course, was exactly why I wanted to see it.

“Yeah, alright.”

I followed her up the stairs and over to the nursery. I had only seen the completed nursery once or twice–and only from the hallway. Actually standing inside of it was a sight to behold. The oversized furniture. The abundance of supplies. The strong scent of powders and lotions that were so inviting that it seemed to turn on the maternal drive deep within me that I barely knew I had.

And there was the baby. Clark was lying on his back, passed out in his crib.

“He had an accident while he slept,” Courtney whispered to me. “Wet himself real good. I need to change him before he leaks all over the crib.”

“Like…an actual accident?”

“Oh, he has more accidents than not-accidents.”

This was incredibly fascinating to me. “Is that what you wanted to show me?”

“Have you ever seen the inside of his diaper?”

I held a hand up to my mouth to muffle my laughter. “When would I have ever seen that? Why would I want to?”

The idea of seeing some guy’s limp penis in a soaked diaper didn’t sound like the best of times to me.

“Trust me,” she said. “You’re going to want to see this.”

The side of the crib was opened, giving Courntey access to the slumbering baby within. I was surprised with how naturally she went about her task–reaching to the diaper and pulling open the diaper’s tapes before pulling the bloated diaper’s front down between his legs.

I was, in fact, surprised by what I saw. His pale skin was devoid of any pubic hair. Not even faint traces of stubble. I almost wanted to ask Ms. Heller, later, how she had gotten it so smooth.

However, this was not what Courtney wanted to show me. No, I believe that would’ve been the metal device that contained his shrunken little manhood.

“Is that a…”

“Chastity,” Courtney nodded. “Locked up nice and tight and Mommy’s got the key.”

“Mommy,” I repeated to myself. It probably should’ve been obvious that it would be what Clark would call her, but I hadn’t ever heard him say it. I liked the sound of it. It felt so empowering. Mommy. I couldn’t even imagine–feeling so small and dependent that I’d look to another adult as my ‘mommy.’

“Pretty cute, right?” Courtney asked.

“It…kind of is,” I said, again having to stifle a little laugh.

It was more than cute, though. I was fascinated by the idea of Clark making this grand commitment to this lifestyle–even though he lacked the ability to get off on his kink without his Mommy’s key. Books could be written about this. Stories, at least.

“Think you’ll ever look at him the same?” Courtney asked.

“I was never really sure how to look at him in the first place.”

===

It’s hard to say what changed. Maybe the more I saw Clark as he waddled around in his bloated diapers, the easier it was to pretend that he wasn’t that different from an actual, and adorable, baby. Maybe if you smell enough dirty diapers, it rots away the part of your brain that tries to tell you that it’s all pretty fucking weird.

Regardless, I felt myself slowly coming around on the baby thing.

“How’s the baby?” I’d ask when I came by to do a cleaning. Ms. Heller loved to be asked about the baby.

“Oh, he’s doing well. Though, can you believe it? It’s only 10 AM and he’s had three diaper changes already.”

“Three? What are you feeding that kid?”

Clark seemed to be warming up to me too. It’s not like we sat around and had deep discussions, but it seemed that he had come to accept my presence as a regular thing. He stopped freezing in his tracks and blushing when he saw me. He stopped apologizing when he filled his diaper in front of me. In fact, he seemed to have no trouble pushing a little gift into the back of his pants whenever I was in the vicinity. Coincidence? Or did he just get a little thrill from dirtying his diapers while I was somewhere in the periphery?

We had reached a strange level of comfort with one another. Not quite friends yet, but something more than two strangers who occupied the same building once a week.

Sometimes he’d ask me questions. Strange questions. Questions that made him sound like he had been abducted by aliens or had been in prison for a few years, and he just didn’t know how the world worked anymore.

“What’s, like, viral these days?”

“Is that chicken place still downtown by the old Catholic church?”

“What kind of weird flavors of Mountain Dew are there right now?”

Meanwhile, as I found my footing with him, I found it easy to begin to tease him. I’d ask, before I entered a room that he was already in, if it was safe to proceed or if he needed a clean diaper first. I’d make a big deal about how many diapers I found in the trash cans around the house. I’d compliment his cute little outfits and tell him how excited all the ‘big girls’ would be if they saw such a mature man strutting around dressed like that.

I decided that I’d start cleaning up in the nursery too. Ms. Heller hadn’t asked me to do that, and I wasn’t even sure she’d approve the idea if I had asked. But it just seemed like a nice thing to do, to take some extra responsibilities off her shoulders. I washed the onesies, bibs, and whatever other oversized baby clothes found their way into the hamper. I’d sanitize the pacifiers. I fluffed the pillows in the crib. I straightened up the supplies near the changing table. If the diaper bin was filled, I’d take out the bag and carry it out to the trash can.

“Marnie, dear. I couldn’t help but notice that the hamper was empty after you left last week. Did you…wash everything that was in there?”

“Yes, ma’am. Cleaned it, folded it, and put it all away.”

“You know you didn’t have to do that, right?”

“I know. I just…I wanted to.”

“That couldn’t have been pleasant,” Ms. Heller said. “There was that onesie with the questionable brown stain going up the back of it…”

“A little bit of pre-soaking and I got the stains right out of it by the time it was in the wash,” I replied confidently.

“Well aren’t you just full of surprises,” she said.

When she realized how much I was taking care of in the nursery, she insisted that she pay me more. I tried to tell her not to–coming close to admitting that I would’ve done it for free, just because I was so enamored with the world she had built for herself and Clark. Alas, she ‘won’ the argument, and soon she’d be paying me enough that I could stand to lighten my workload throughout the rest of the week without feeling an impact in my wallet.

===

As much as I liked Ms. Heller, it was the rare weeks when I got to see Courtney that were my favorites. Seeing her car in the driveway when I rolled up to the house gave me a big hit of dopamine.

Sure, maybe Courtney knew her way around a grown man’s diaper, but I still saw her in a similar situation as me–an outsider. We weren’t living here in the Diaper House. We weren’t dealing with Clark 24/7. We just came and went when Ms. Heller waved some cash in our directions.

Courtney being there also meant that Ms. Heller wouldn’t be. Again, I liked Ms. Heller, but she was also like the default authoritarian. At her best, she was the best high school teacher you ever had–a great friend and someone you enjoyed spending time with, but you also had to respect her because she was in charge. So when she wasn’t around, everything just felt a little more relaxed.

“When you’re finished cleaning,” she said, a clear bottle of amber liquid raised into the air, “I’ve got a beer for you.”

That was the kind of stuff I liked. Sitting down for a few minutes in Ms. Heller’s ultra-plush home, cold beverage in hand, while I laughed at the baby with my new friend.

“Come in here, Clark,” Courtney shouted towards the hallway as we watched the shadow of the overgrown toddler crawling into view. “We want to see you.”

“B-but…”

“I’ll never understand how he still acts so timid,” she said. “Don’t you think you’d just be used to being spotted in your diapers by now?”

Clark crawled into the living room on his hands and knees, wearing only a cropped t-shirt and his big diaper. The diaper had an obvious sag to it, and the color at the base of it looked off–yellowed and darker.

Sometimes I wondered if it was rarer to spot Clark in a completely clean and dry diaper.

“C’mon, Marnie. Don’t you want to try changing his diaper?”

“Absolutely not,” I said, shaking my head with exaggerated force. “I clean up everything else around here–including the trash cans full of his stinky diapers. You can be responsible for cleaning his ass.”

“Fair enough. Clarky? You’re looking pretty soggy, mister. Do you think I should change you now? Or…do you have something else you need to do in your diaper first?”

“W-well…” He tried to answer her question, but his eyes kept wandering back and forth between myself and Court. Whatever the answer was, he didn’t want to say it out loud. Not to us.

“Oh, come on,” Courtney cooed. “You usually have no trouble telling me all about the naughty things you have to do in your diaper.”

And, likewise, I was no stranger to catching him loading up his padding while I was around.

I could see how this was different, though. There were two of us. Two separate entities that he usually only had to deal with when we were on our own. But together? That was an entirely different monster. One that was already giggling and smiling as we looked down at him on the floor.

It was different for me too. With Court at my side, I felt empowered. I could understand the appeal to Courtney or even to Ms. Heller herself–this sensation of having this pathetic little man in the palm of your hand. I wouldn’t even have to feel guilty about it, because he was here willingly. He liked this. He craved moments like this above all others, as best as I could tell.

“I…do have to…”

It’s hard to hear someone stammering over the words when you know exactly what he’s going to say. It took restraint on my part to not just finish his sentence for him. I’d wait. I’d let the baby say what he had to say.

“Just say it,” Courtney sighed, rolling her eyes. She had a little less patience than me–but then again, she might have dealt with this situation plenty of times in the past.

“I have to…” His eyes diverted from our faces and he stared down at the floor. I could just feel the shame permeating from him. “...poop.”

I laughed. It felt cruel to, but I couldn’t even help myself. I’d be mortified if I had to tell my best friend that I was going to take a shit in the bathroom. But to have to look up into the faces of us, while wearing a diaper, and admitting that he was going to use said diaper? I’d have just keeled over on the spot. The only way my brain could handle that secondhand embarrassment was to laugh.

“Aww, wittle baby-pants has to make his poopies?” Courtney said in a mocking tone while gesturing with her hands wiping fake tears from her eyes. “In front of the big girls, no less? Whatever shall you do?”

“It’s nothing I haven’t seen before,” I said, feeling emboldened.

“Get out,” Courtney said to me, playfully slapping me on the shoulder. “You’ve seen him poop himself?”

“One of the first times I ever met him,” I nodded, glancing back in his direction. “I watched him squatting down in that playpen over there.”

“Ah yes,” she said, wistfully staring over at the playpen, now moved into the corner of the room while not in use. “Many a stinky afternoon has started in that playpen.”

“It’s kind of exciting,” I said. “Like…watching it happen? I can’t really explain it. It’s as if what you’re watching is just so gross and ridiculous that it just sucks you into it. And suddenly you’re studying his diaper to see how much it’s going to expand.”

Courtney laughed. “Exactly! And his stupid little face gets all scrunched up…”

“...and maybe he, like, grunts or something?”

Something was happening, and it wasn’t just our mutual interest in humiliating the diaper-baby. Courtney and I found ourselves on the exact same wavelength, and we were suddenly staring into each other’s eyes as I felt my cheeks turning red. Just as Courtney’s were.

“Uhm…guys?” muttered Clark. “I-I’m still here. And…”

“Can you just, like, suck on your thumb?” Courtney said, not even bothering to look in his direction.

From the corner of my eye, I could see his hand lifting up towards his mouth to follow her instruction.

“Once babies learn how to speak,” she said. “They don’t ever shut up.”

I laughed, biting my bottom lip as my mind tried to organize all the things I was feeling.

“You, uh, deal with other babies too?” I asked.

She nodded.

“Are they all as pathetic as Clark?”

She nodded again. “But in different ways. Clark is a special boy. He’s…devoted. Most of the other babies I see are just exploring this space for a set amount of time. After I leave their place–or they leave mine–they’re an adult again. But Clark…he’s just always a little baby.”

I didn’t think it was the talk of Clark, himself, that was so hot to me. It was just the way she was talking to me. Her whole persona. This sense of power and deviousness, combined with a breezy nonchalantness. I didn’t know what was coming over me, but I wanted to drink it from her lips.

“He’s so stupid, isn’t he?” I asked. My voice had gotten a little softer. I felt myself leaning towards hers on the couch.

“Oh, for sure,” she replied. “The dumbest little baby.” She was leaning towards me too. She was smiling.

Oh wow. I really liked that smile.

Somewhere in the background, I could hear the sound of Clark suckling on his thumb. A constant and rhythmic suk-suk-suk-suk. There was a moment when I could’ve sworn his sucking was timed perfectly with my heartrate. Suk-thump-suk-thump-suk-thump.

“We’re big girls,” I said to her.

“Mmhmm. We don’t need diapers. We don’t pee our pants.”

“We don’t wear diapers.”

“We don’t make poopies in our diapers.”

“We can do anything we want.”

Each of us had been moving closer and closer to the other. And suddenly, before I had even expected it to happen, our faces were but an inch from each other’s. All there was left to do was to close that gap. We did so at the same time, our lips meeting in the middle.

In the background: suk-suk-suk-suk. It was getting faster, like he was just as excited as we were.

“Big girls,” Courtney whispered to me, pulling her mouth from mine just for a minute.

My tongue explored her mouth. Our hands explored each other. The rest of the room faded away as we enveloped each other, giving into desires that were either entirely new to us, too, or had been there since the first time we met–without us realizing it until now.

Pblort.

There was no mistaking what that sound was. As we went about feeling each other up and making out, Clark was busy with a little project of his own. There were a series of sounds–muffled blats in the back of his diaper, interrupted by his own occasional grunt.

Had there been an opportunity to think about it, I’d have assumed a grown man pooping in his diaper near us would’ve killed the mood. I’d have been wrong. Clark was awkwardly glancing in almost every direction besides ours–trying to avoid eye contact as Court and I made out with each other. Were I to guess, he didn’t mean to mess himself when he did, it just happened. And that was what made it so hot, to me. This pathetic little boy couldn’t even help himself, and was now left to marinate in his dirty diaper while waiting for us to finish.

“He stinks,” I said to her.

“Do you want to stop so I can change him?”

“No.”

“I didn’t think so. We’ll just let him sit in that for a little bit.”

===

Another heavy sack of dirty diapers was thrown over my shoulder so it could be dropped into one of the trash cans outside. It was a particular ripe bag of goodies–Ms. Heller must’ve had her hands full recently.

This might have been the last bag of dirty diapers I ever hauled across Ms. Heller’s house.

A few weeks prior, I’d given my notice that I would be winding down my cleaning services. I decided it was time to move on, and much to my parents’ delight, I opted to go back to college. I had an idea of the direction I wanted to take my career, and so I had enrolled in classes for hospitality management. Seemed like a good fit to me.

I tried to take in everything that I could, hoping to retain all these senses as memories for later. The scent of baby powder wafting through the hallways. The feeling of a stack of fresh diapers as they were squeezed into one of the nursery’s shelves. The way that Clark looked at me with equal parts excitement and humiliation when he spotted my eyes fixed on his squishy bottom.

The following weekend, at the bar, I invited my new friend Courtney to join my friends for some drinks–a little celebration in honor of my closing one chapter of my life and moving on to the next. Of course, as it usually goes, we reached the part of the night where everyone was complaining about work again. Hank had to do–gasp–too much filing this past week. Aisley had a rude customer. Tony got written up for showing up late too many times.

“What about you, Marnie?” Courtney asked, a wide smile on her face. “Have to deal with anything crazy at work this week?”

She’s one to talk. Her job was crazier than mine.

But, whatever, I decided to take the bait. Maybe it was time to throw some of these stories out there–as unbelievable as they sound. I was curious to see how they’d react.

“So…there’s this one house I’ve been cleaning for a while,” I started, not completely sure where to begin. “And, uh… Well, the woman who lives there has a baby.”

So far, nobody seemed all that interested. Fair enough. She knew she’d have their attention soon enough.

“I think this baby is, like, my age? Maybe a little older than me?”

Now they were curious.