Twelve Months to a Better Life – Chapter 7 (Patreon)

There was nothing so nice as a barbecue with friends on a warm spring morning, was there? Chilling by the grill… chatting with folks they hadn't seen since fall… sipping at drinks and just shooting the breeze…

Heck, it was almost enough to make Jayden forget all the ways in which his lifestyle had changed these past four months. Almost, that is – until he happened to glance downward. Until he caught a glimpse of his velcro shoes and soft cotton shirt decorated with a cartoon dinosaur. Both of which reminded him anxiously of the thick, cotton-and-plastic "protection" hidden beneath his new elastic-waist pants. Protection which, he had to admit, he'd actually asked Erica this morning for permission to wear.

For various reasons… but most embarrassingly, because he was beginning to doubt his ability to control his own bladder.

Fortunately, Dave didn't seem to notice his lapse into self-conscious silence. "Yeah, dude, I know! It's actually been pretty quiet at work these past months. Not quite sure why – but after last year, it's a nice break." He grinned and took another hefty swig of his beer, gesturing a moment later at the giant water bottle in Jayden's hand. "Hey, don't be shy about drinks, Jayden! We've got plenty of beers over in the cooler. What'll you have?"

Jayden hesitated, mentally weighing whether Erica would (a) be okay with her slowly regressing husband drinking alcohol, and (b) order him still to drink his entire daily water ration no matter how many other drinks he had. But with Dave grinning so expectantly, and his own yen for something more tasty than the flat water he now chugged seemingly round the clock… he gave in.

"Um, sure! Yeah, why not? Anything's good, really – I'm not picky."

Which is how he ended up ten minutes later, sipping at a lager and looking on in affable silence as Dave's partner Liz bustled about with the fixings of their barbecue. "That's right, Erica – the buns are over there, aren't they? Silly me! Here, let me go fetch the condiments…" She paused, catching Jayden in her bright-eyed gaze. "Oh, and Jayden? You're gonna be pumped, I know it! Take a peek in that crock pot, will you?"

He did, with a polite smile. And found himself staring into the depths of a massive pot of steaming chili.

"I know how much you loved my chili last time, remember?" Liz was beaming with matronly goodwill. "So this time I was like, 'No – Jayden's gonna have as much as he could ever want!' Heck, I was already telling Erica, you know? I'll send you home with anything we don't eat today, no worries!"

And off she bustled: leaving Jayden musing first about what a nice lady Liz was… but upon later reflection that something like chili might not be the best thing for a fellow whose toilet privileges were steadily shrinking.

***

"Oh, that was nice, wasn't it? So much fun to hang out with friends again!"

It was almost evening. The two were finally pulling into their driveway, Erica still prattling about what Liz had told her about her job, and so on, and so forth. And as the garage door opened with its familiar squeak, Jayden was shifting wetly in his seat with something akin to panic.

"What's the matter, babe? You not feeling well?" Erica finally noticed Jayden's face, eyeing him as she turned the key in the doorknob. "Or… oh, are you wet? I bet you must be, what with all that beer!"

"Well, I mean… kinda…" He faltered, fighting the urge to clutch at his stomach. "I am pretty wet…" Oh, he was, too. The beer had flushed his system thoroughly, and by afternoon he'd become increasingly anxious, wondering even as he'd let yet another stream of warm pee dribble out into his diaper that maybe, just maybe, this one would betray him and his leaky secret.

They entered, Erica hefting the giant pot of chili onto the counter and turning to give him her full attention. "Okay, baby, turn around. Pants down – show me." An order which Jayden obeyed, and which sent a fresh burst of little shivers rippling through his already churning gut.

"Tsk, you are soaked! Wow, I'm surprised you haven't leaked," Erica chuckled with a good-natured poke at his bloated disposable, and now she was leading the way to the bedroom. "I guess you were right to ask for a diaper today, huh? I was happy to let you try underwear, given we were out with friends. But goodness, you would have been potty-trotting the entire time, wouldn't you?"

"Please," Jayden began, his hands now clutching his audibly rumbling stomach in open desperation. "I- um, you know that chili? It's not really agreeing with me. So I was hoping I could, you know, take care of it in the toilet-"

Erica's eyes grew thoughtful, then glinted with sudden resolve. "But, sweetie… you're back home now. And Doctor Natalia said whenever you're at home, the potty needs to be 100% off-limits now." She shook her head sympathetically, reaching up and stroking his head in mild affection. "Remember? This month she said you needed even stronger treatment. That's why she got us all those new things…"

Jayden winced, his mind flashing guiltily with the image of all his latest new "treatments." The soft, body-hugging white onesies that had replaced his sweatpants pajamas. The toddler-esque and cartoon-covered shirts that now hung where his old polos and button-downs had been. The new hypnosis file she had told Erica to give him every night. And most of all… the bar-surrounded single bed that now stood silently in the guest room, serving as nothing less than his oversized crib.

"Umm… but, but it's gonna be pretty smelly," he faltered, shuffling in what was undeniably a potty dance. "I don't want you to, you know, have to-" "Hush your whining, babe," Erica ordered, striding back from the nightstand with a wry laugh – and into his mouth she now thrust his nighttime pacifier. "Squat down already and use your diaper for what it's for! You need a change anyway. And I think we both know it's better you make your mess in that one than a brand-new one!"

With that curt order, she strode off to the bathroom. "And don't worry, babe. We'll clean you up in the shower soon as you're done!"

Jayden flushed, staring after his wife's retreating back. Had she really just… told him to shit his pants? But before he could do more than muse over what a dirty little dream come true this was, a fresh cramp gripped him. He shuffled to the corner in panicked embarrassment. And there, shamefully squatting down – exactly like some Pampers-packing toddler – the storm in his innards finally exploded into his already sagging diaper.

He had scarcely finished his humiliating act when Erica came to fetch him, fresh from the bathroom and now clad in nothing but her lingerie. "Hey, can't have you getting my top dirty," she teased, taking his hand and tugging him playfully toward the shower. "Here, let's get my dirty baby of a hubby in here and cleaned up! Phew, you really are a dirty boy, aren't you?!"

It was a messy affair, both of them readily acknowledged that. But while four months ago such a scene might have been unimaginable, now it was… well, merely humiliating for Jayden, and a bit distasteful for Erica. "Thank goodness for showers," she commented, blasting his exposed ass-crack with yet another steamy jet of water. "Now, soon as we get you dried off, you're going into your PJs, okay? No sense in dressing again as late as it is. This way we'll just have a nice quick supper and send you off to a nice early bed!"

Like an actual baby, he mused silently, shivering with simultaneous cold and arousal as she briskly toweled him dry. Like a baby again he lay a minute later, prone on the bed and with splayed legs, while his scantily-clad wife bustled about with the lotion and powder that had by now become his trademark skin products. "Nice and warm and clean and dry," she commented brightly, as she thrust the second giant pin deep into the double-thick cotton diaper around his waist. "I know these are a bit old-fashioned, but I think they look so cute! Especially with these plastic pants, you know?"

And then, with a playful pat and squeeze of his still-prominent, though cotton-bound, erection: "Oh, poor baby – getting all locked away in your clean diapers when you want big boy times!" She laughed and shook her finger in good-natured mirth. "Don't worry – we'll take care of that tomorrow. Who knows? We might even try your plug again like the Doctor said! It might keep that mess inside, you know. Though then again: as much chili as you'll be eating, and if that file Natalia gave us does anything, maybe not…"

So it was that, fifteen minutes later, the now onesie-clad Jayden was waddling his crinkly way to the dining room table, there to sink down upon his pillowy bottom and eye the bowl of instant potatoes and chili that Erica had prepared for him. "Eat up, babe," she exhorted, plunking his familiar water bottle beside him. "Gotta finish all that before bed, okay? Now hurry up. I told Liz I'd give her a call this evening to show her the new curtains, We can't have you in the background looking like that, can we? Unless you actually do want her to see you in your baby clothes…?"

Hell, no, he didn't!

Which is how it happened that half an hour later, the now-stuffed Jayden was gazing out into the darkened guest room through the bars of the bed that had now become his personal crib. Here he was: a diapered, onesied, pacifier-sucking, crib-bound man-baby: just like he'd fantasized for all these years. His wife was off somewhere else in the house, talking about grown-up things with her girl friend… while he lay here on his plastic-covered mattress, paci in mouth and headphones on ears, trying to fall asleep at barely eight in the evening. And all the while, his belly continued churning, and the memory of his mortifying messy diaper echoed in his brain, and the audio hypnosis whispered that good baby boys should let go. Yes, let go. Let their muscles relax. Wet and mess in their lovely thick diapers. Mess uncontrollably. Mess at any time of the day or night. Because messing was good. Messing was natural. Messing was inevitable…

He lost track of just how long he humped – and how many times he moaned and spurted into his bulging diaper – before finally drifting off to sleep.

(To be continued!)