Memento (Patreon)

Ali awoke to cold glue-like saliva slobbed across her face. That didn’t matter the moment she felt the cool wet heap of blanket clinging to her legs. That bolted her awake. She grimaced, looking down as she pulled the blankets off the bed. There was a massive wet spot. “Again…” she murmured meekly, feeling defeated. In addition to the dried wet stains from the previous nights, her bedsheets were now fully covered in body-sized circle pee stains. Instinctually, Ali decided to ignore it. Instead of pulling off the sheets, she got out of bed, walked out of her room, and into the kitchen.

“It happened again?” Lydia, her roommate, asked, pointing at her pants as Ali walked in. Ali looked down, the inside of her pants legs were visibly darker than the rest. She clenched her teeth trying to fight the blush of stupid embarrassment.

“Why didn’t I change!?” She thought, feeling like a total ditz walking into the kitchen like that. “Um, yeah it did.” Ali said while avoiding eye contact. She opened the cereal drawer, pulling out the box she bought yesterday.

“Do you think it might be long COVID like they’re saying?” Lydia suggested, knowing it was a tense subject. The sound of fruit loops spilled into Ali’s bowl.

“We got it at the same time, and you haven’t started wetting the bed yet.” Ali said in her defense. She dug her hand into the bowl, then scooped some with her hand. “Oh right, milk.” She thought after shoving them into her mouth.

“More and more people are starting to report it as a long term symptom...” She said, dumping her freshly whisked bowl of eggs down the drain.

“Hey, did you write this?” Ali said, pointing at the magnetic notepad clung to the refrigerator. ‘We need to buy Crayons.’ was written in black ink.

“Um, maybe? I don’t… remember.” She said, squinting at the words. “But, if it’s on there, then there must be a reason.” She argued.

“I can’t remember either, but you’re right.” She said the Crayons were synonymously childish. It reminded Ali of the drying wet stains between her legs. She tried recalling all the individual times she’d woken up wet but they were all starting to blend together. The only time she could remember for sure was the first time, mostly the initial shock. Since then, it was becoming alarmingly commonplace. Her room’s aroma smelled like piss. Especially her blankets. She couldn’t fully remember a time getting into her bed and not feeling old pee from the night before squelching out of the saturated mattress. As hard as it was, Ali had to be honest with herself. She grabbed a bic pen from the junk drawer next to the refrigerator. She started writing a shopping reminder.

“We need diapers.”

***

Ali couldn’t contain her excitement, she bawled her fists in giddy excitement. Her bed was finally dry! She ran out of her room to Lydia’s door. She started banging on it. “Lydia! I was dry! I WAS DRY!” She yelled at the top of her lungs, unable to hold back her excitement.

“Okay, okay…” Lydia said, opening her door, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. “You didn’t have to wake me up…” She said, looking down at the diaper drooping past her friend’s shirt, she smirked.

“Well, I understand why you need diapers, but remind me again, why do I have to wear one?” Lydia asked.

“Silly, it said it on the notepad. We agreed there has to be a reason why even if we both forgot.” Ali said. Giggling, she pointed at Lydia’s waist.

“See look! You definitely need diapers, you’re wet!” Ali said. Lydia’s face shot down confused. Sure enough, her diaper was wet too.

“H-how… I was dry! Just a minute ago! I swear!” She said honestly, this was a genuine accident. It was an extremely foreign thought. Lydia had never had an accident before. Her body language shrunk. “It must have happened when I got out of bed… but why??” Lydia wondered, alarming regret pinched her thoughts. This wasn’t normal. Something was happening to them.

“Hehe, you must be a baby!” Ali teased, poking at the very warm mush. In her fragile state, Lydia took deep offense to the insult. The depressing fear molted into shooting anger. Without thinking about it, Lydia raised her hand, flinging it down to smack Ali in the arm. “OWWW! HEY!!!” Ali screamed, she fired back, slapping Lydia right across the face.

“UMUHH! NEHH!” Lydia retaliated back by hitting Ali again. The two girls devolved into a diapered wrestling match. Lydia pinned Ali down, holding her hair down to make sure she couldn’t get up. Ali grabbed her shirt. Pulling at it until a rip tore down the center. Her braless chest popped out. They rolled over, Lydia bit down on Ali’s arm. That elicited a howl of pain. Hateful energy surged through her arms. She used it to turn the tides, pushing Lydia off, and pinning her to the ground.

She started slapping Lydia’s body hard, starting first with her neck, then her boobs, migrating down all the way to her waist. Lydia held her arms up in defense mode. Ali flipped her on her stomach, she began hitting her padded butt as hard as she could.

“YOU’RE A STUPID BABY!” Ali screamed, each smack hitting hard enough the padding didn’t really matter. Lydia’s eyes dribbled into full raindrop tears. “SAY IT.” Ali yelled.

“MNNN NO!” Lydia yelled, she couldn’t lower herself to that. Ali wasn’t having it, she pressed her advantage, swinging down this time with all her might. “OWWwooowooo” Lydia cried, her courage collapsed from the unbearable pain like a house of cards. “I-I I’m a stupid baby!” She yelped just to make her stop. She did, pushing her to the ground. Ali stood up and walked into the kitchen. When she came back, she shoved the pad and pen into her roommate's face.

“Write it.” She said, Lydia looked up with bloodshot teary eyes. She shook her head no. Ali pushed it closer, raising her hand again to intimidate her. “WRITE IT!” She yelled, Lydia cowered in fear of another strike. Her trembling hands grabbed the pen.

“Lydia is a stupid baby.” She wrote in bad shaky handwriting.

***

“Why do we have so much of this?” Ali questioned, looking at the large 32 pack of toilet paper inside their bathroom closet. It didn’t make any sense. She shrugged, then grabbed the towel off the shelf she originally came in there for. When she walked out of the room she pressed into the center of her diaper. It was heavy and drooping.

“I can probably wet a couple more times before starting some work.” She thought, walking into the kitchen. She walked up to the shattered glass cup on the floor sitting in a pool of apple juice. She threw the towel onto the mess. “That should take care of everything!” She thought, immediately dumping the responsibility from her mind. Standing next to the refrigerator, she put her hands on her hips. Her mind compulsively still wanted something sugary. She turned to it, getting a glance at the notepad.

‘We need Crayons, We need diapers, Lydia is a stupid baby, Lydia’s nap time is 2, it’s okay to leak, it’s okay to be messy all the time.’

“Ugh, don’t remind me.” Ali thought specifically of the ones about Lydia. Although the last two were a good reminder. She looked over into the living room. Lydia was happily sucking her thumb, playing with one of Ali’s old teddy bears. Bouncing it up, then giggling as it tumbled to the ground. Ali seethed, squinting jealousy.

Ali chugged her Coke as she walked back to the sofa. She picked her laptop, pulling up the shared excel sheet she was working on. Her eyes immediately would rather bleed than look at it. Easily, her attention pulled back to Lydia.

Her diaper was desperately in need of a change. It always was. Lydia couldn’t do it herself, everyone knew she was a stupid baby. Thank god it was okay for her to leak, otherwise Ali would have to be on top of that sort of thing. It was so much effort to settle her down, take the first tape off, then the next, wipe her, check her own diaper, suck on her thumb for a minute too. It was stressingly too much work.

Ali felt even worse about her job. It was so boring and stupid. Why did she have to work so hard when Lydia got to have fun being a baby all day? Ali shifted her weight, subconsciously squirting half of the Coke into her diaper. It dribbled leaks onto the couch. The stains blended right in with all the others.

She felt hot excitement burn through her chest. Her cheeks blushed, knowing how naughty and unforgiving it was. She stood up from the couch, then started walking right back where she came from. “Who cares, I won’t remember anyway.” The fun part of her brain reasoned, easily suppressing boring adult-rationality against it. Ali pulled out the pen out and wrote,

“Ali is an even stupider baby than Lydia.”

Her mouth ejected spit as she giggled, splattering the pad. She ripped it off the refrigerator. All that paper was perfect for their Crayons to scribble on.