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Congratulations on the job and new place. Hope all goes well for you.   Absolutely loving this story, makes me feel like im right there in the story with the characters.  

Holy shit is was so good Would love to see this on ao3

I wasn't a fan of your last chapter, it shows a very abusive mother, I was sure this wasn't going to happen in this story, but I'll see what's next in her plans, just hope she won't go much further than it is right now.

Chapter 151: Without a Net I stuck my head out the bathroom door and scanned the immediate area. Tracy was nowhere to be seen. With my used diaper balled up and wrapped inside the clean one, I toddled across the hall to my room.  Correction: I did not toddle.  I fucking glided! No padding forced my legs apart. No soft plastic scraped against my thighs. No crinkle broadcast my movement or gave away my position. Nothing extra weighed me down or threw off my stride. I was a mother fucking ninja and elite super spy secret agent rolled into one. I imagined myself as the serial killer in a horror movie; the diaper pail my victim as I shoved the soiled Monkeez down its throat, its eyes bulging as it gagged and choked on a cocktail of my refuse and its vomit. The idea of turning the pail into an effigy of Brollish crossed my mind and I smiled briefly while I closed the lid shut. “Nah,” I decided. “Too much effort.” I stopped halfway to the door and looked at myself, really admiring myself. My shorts were so baggy! I looked like I’d lost about five pounds, all in the crotch and ass. And without the bulk of a diaper encasing me I felt naked and free!  It was like getting out of a cast or walking without a cane for the first time in forever. My body was rediscovering itself! I did some basic yoga stretches to loosen up and fight off any remainders of the morning’s aches. It was so much easier without having to accommodate for the extra layers of underwear clinging to my hips. I felt like a sprinter who’d just finished training with leaden boots.   A few deep breaths later it occurred to my nose that something else was gloriously missing.  For once my crotch didn’t smell anything like baby powder. No diaper cream had been smeared between my cheeks like peanut butter. No perfumes were sprayed into my clothing to cover the scent of my own piss. I didn’t smell, sound, walk, or look like a baby. I looked and felt more grown-up than I did even in my Feast Friend/Escape costume.  There was nothing infantile to cover up, muffle or misdirect away from. I wasn’t clinging to a dress shirt and tie like a sword and shield. I would have preferred my shorts to have buttons instead of pure elastic, but my outfit still looked like something I might have worn on a lazy day hanging around the house.   That was Tracy’s gift to me:  Time to live as a normal adult, even if it was only for a few hours. Hanging out was infinitely more novel at this point than being babysat or getting a playdate. Time to be me. I prowled out of the nursery and slinked down the hallway straight into the living room. Tracy was quietly shuffling around the kitchen; opening and closing cabinets one at a time; unfastening and redoing all the safety latches as she did.  I probably wouldn’t have heard it were the T.V. on, but the sheer emptiness of the house and the lack of white noise coming from my pants made me feel like I had developed super senses. “Hey, Boss.”  Tracy greeted me.  She was in the pantry, standing on a chair. I’d need a boost to grab most things above the first shelf. Being a Tweener, Tracy must have been reaching for something closer to the top.  “Hey,” I waved casually, even though she’d already gone back to digging. A few seconds later, Tracy stepped off the chair holding a box of pancake mix.  She walked it over to the countertop, seeming deliberately preoccupied with the box’s ingredients.  “Need…help with anything?”  This was her very polite, very awkward way of asking if she needed to put a diaper back on me.  “Naw,” I said. “I’m good.” Tracy put the box down on the counter and smiled. “Cool, cool! How was the shower?” I slicked back my hair. “Surprisingly decadent.” “I’ll bet.”  She chuckled to herself. “You sick of rubber duckies and toy boats yet?” “Gettin’ there…” I fibbed. Comparatively speaking, Janet’s baby crazy was typically low during bathtime. Holding me and singing while I swooned in the suds was usually enough to scratch whatever itch she was having.  But bitching about giants and the camaraderie of commiseration was still an important part of Tracy’s and my dynamic. “What’s next on the docket?” Like a model on a gameshow, Tracy stepped out of the way and gestured to the collected boxes, cartons, and jugs she’d dug out and set on the counter. Orange juice, cow milk, eggs, several boxes of cereal, butter, syrup, honey, strips of bacon,  packets of instant oatmeal, and finally a box of pancake mix sat on the cliff-like counter above me. There was also a bottle of Janet’s breakfast shakes and a beat up packet of muffin mix that might have been older than my last batch of preschoolers.  Bottles of any kind and bags of ‘goat’s milk’ were thankfully absent from the display.   “Breakfast,” Tracy said. “I didn’t know what you wanted so I just decided to do some basic inventory.  What do you feel like?” I bobbed my shoulders noncommittally. “I don’t know. What do you feel like?” “Doesn’t matter,” my old assistant smirked. “You’re the one cooking.” My jaw dropped right as my lips violently yanked themselves to the sky, leaving me with the dumbest looking clown grin possible. In trying to gain control of my face, my lips covered and tucked over my teeth. I must’ve looked like a teenager who’d just jizzed himself. “My babysitter wants me to cook her breakfast,” I laughed. “Oh the irony!” Tracy leaned against the counter. “Your words. Not mine. I’m not a babysitter.” I was somehow both puffing out my chest in pride while looking away like a bashful kindergartener.  “Oh yeah? How do you figure?” It was a setup of course. A call and response we’d never consciously rehearsed. Even so, I knew what Tracy was going to say next. “You’re not a baby.” She knew what I was going to say next, too. “And Maturosis?” “It’s bullshit.” “Good,” I regained most of my composure. “Just so we’re clear.”  The box of pancake mix was suddenly calling to me.  “Is there a waffle maker anywhere?”  “I think so…” Tracy unlatched the cabinet right beneath the toaster and fumbled around past some pots and a blender. “Got it!” “Let’s do waffles, then,” I said. “Get me a mixing bowl, a whisk, and some mixing spray.” My taller companion gave a playful salute.  “Yes, Chef!” “And push a chair over so I can get a boost.” “Yes, Chef!” Our improv game continued.  “And stop calling me ‘Chef’!” “Yes, Chef!” She laughed and snorted at me shaking my impotent fists, but still handed me everything I requested. I felt out of practice working in a kitchen. Not that one ever really forgets; not something as simple as how to make waffles off the back of a box. It was the breakfast equivalent of baking instant brownies.  What really took some re-getting used to was the scale of everything. The mixing bowl could have encased my head and the whisk might’ve doubled for a club in my hands. The single egg I cracked was the size of my fist. Back in my old life, my kitchen was almost as cavernous as Janet’s, but plenty of adjustments had long been made. The previous ‘progressive’ owners had installed and left behind plenty of ladders and stools so their potty-trained Little girl could be more independent, plus anything not bolted down, installed or built in (not counting the bed) was replaced with something Little sized.  Yes, I needed a ladder to get a glass of water or drop something in the garbage disposal. No, I wasn’t crazy enough to dice vegetables from a bone breaking height. Thank goodness for Tracy.  She acted as my arms and legs, fetching and putting away everything as required. What would have necessitated me climbing up and down and up again was nothing to her.  The most strenuous thing she had to do was carry the milk and juice with both hands and that was purely out of an abundance of caution. Just watching her zoom around the kitchen, putting everything back where she found it and snatching up things as I asked exhausted me.  Memories of her flitting around the classroom came to the forefront of my mind.  She really tended to be one step ahead of any potential pitfall or disaster.   A roll of paper towels was placed right next to the mixing bowl. Moments later when I inevitably over poured the batter and the waffle iron looked to be foaming at the mouth I had something to clean it up with. “Thanks,” I said and laughed at my own clumsiness. “No problem, Boss.”  She was already filling up glasses of milk and orange juice over at the breakfast table. Waiting on the first waffle, I couldn’t help but look down at the floor and picture myself having to scurry from place to place, setting every knife, fork, plate, cup, napkin and so on. Just thinking about it made me tired. I could have managed it, but I was incredibly grateful that I didn’t have to.  Tracy’s gift kept on giving: I actually felt like I was getting old. “Plate!” “Yes, Chef!” A few minutes (and a few waffles) later a new challenge presented itself. I sat at the kitchen table, an enormous plate and pillow-sized waffle in front of me. My butt was wiggling curiously at the now novel sensation of sitting on an uncushioned surface.  Problem was the plate was level with my upper lip. That and Janet’s house had a dearth of milk crates, hardback large print dictionaries, or obsolete encyclopedias. I sighed and stood up. “It was worth a shot.” Tracy was already sitting across from me. Now that I was standing we could actually make eye contact. “What if…?”   I followed her gaze over to my highchair. It genuinely would be easier for me to sit there. It would allow me to sit comfortably and feed myself while still sharing the experience with Tracy. “Maybe…”  The heated guilty buzzing in my head came back with a surge. “...not.” “I get it,” Tracy said. “You don’t want to be trapped.” That truth was like wonderfully ice cold water splashed on my face. “Exactly!” “Hmm…” Tracy seemed to study the kitchen table like a pool shark lining up a trick shot. “What…if…?”  She reached for my plate and moved it slightly closer to her. Then she scooted it to the shared edge between us and repositioned her chair so that she was sitting right at the corner. “What if you sit on that corner and I sit here?” I followed the train of thought. “That way I can sit down, and have a plate beside me…” “And you don’t have to twist your head backwards to look at me.” It wasn’t the most graceful solution but it did the trick and felt organic to boot. Had I not been out of practice thinking about such things I’d have beat Tracy to it. What the seating left to be desired, the rest of the meal surpassed in quality.  I got to spread and pass the butter! And the syrup! All by myself! My utensils were made of metal and not blunted plastic! My dining companion was cutting up her food and only her food! I was cutting my breakfast up and feeding it to myself without my hands touching any of it!  I was eating while fully clothed and un-bibbed!   What a rush!  What a stupid, stupid, stupid rush! Syrup tasted so much better when untouched by one’s fingers! The waffle was the perfect mix of temperature, taste, and texture! So much better than the pre-baked frozen waffles that made the rounds in the cafeteria or the hockey pucks that got thawed in the toaster! And drinking? It was so incredible getting to drink from something without a sippy lid or a rubber nipple! I could open my mouth, tilt my head back, and let gravity do all the work. It felt like nursing combined with skydiving! I started playing chicken with myself, chugging as fast as I could go without spilling out the corners of my mouth, and my heart was genuinely pounding! To think that this would all become nostalgia… “UUUUUUUUUURP!” I belched moments after pounding back nearly two liters of milk and O.J. The milk wasn’t as good as what I’d become accustomed to, but it paired well with the waffle. “Whoah!” Tracy exclaimed. “I didn’t think you could get that loud unless somebody was burping you!”  Something must have shown on my face, because she immediately started backpedaling. “Shit!” she corrected herself, “I don’t mean ‘you’, specifically, Clark! I just mean like…the ‘royal you’, or whatever! Like, not that you need to be burped, either. Just that….you know…slapping somebody on the back…!” I sat up straighter and folded my hands in my lap. A weight settled in on my eye sockets, pressing on my cheeks. My top lip pouted out while the rest of my face drooped into a scowling frown, making me look like an old honery bulldog.  “Tracy…” I growled. “I wish you hadn’t said that.” “I know…I’m sorry…!” “Because goddamnit Tracy,” I turned my head and stared dead at her. “I wanted to say it, first!” A moment of silence as my friend processed that I’d been fucking with her.  The moment passed. “You goddamn little shit!”  I snickered and took another bite of my waffle. “Now you have to wash the dishes.” “You were going to ask me to do them, anyway!” “That’s not the point!”  She back handed me lightly on the bicep. I settled for stabbing and stealing a piece of her waffle, even though I wasn’t half-done with my own.  Much laughter was had by all.  We finished breakfast without a single ‘Open wide’, ‘here comes the airplane’, ‘clean your plate’, or ‘just one more bite’. Glorious. Simply glorious. Not wanting to seem ungrateful and feeling clingy, I waited for Tracy to scrape and rinse the dishes so she could put them in the washer. On some level I suppose I was neurotic, if not afraid. If I took a shot of Janet’s tequila and no one was around to witness it, did I really scream and vomit until my blood vessels burst? Was adulthood without someone to share it with not just loneliness? I’d have been lonely for a while, too. Tracy cleaned the kitchen the way movie mobsters cleaned crime scenes. The mixing bowl and whisk were practically sterilized and every nook and cranny of the waffle iron was cleaned with a sponge. Then she went over every surface either of us had touched with bleach wipes. “Is Janet coming back before lunch?” “Probably not.” “Then are you going to do this all after lunch too?” “Probably.” Janet was an Amazon, but that she wasn’t that much of an Amazon. It’s not like Tracy was in any real danger of being reprimanded or regressed.  “Why?” Tracy stopped what she was doing, put down the sponge she’d been using to deep clean the waffle iron and faced me. “So we can do this again, dummy!” My heart broke and my face plummeted, even though I felt flattered and hopeful beyond words.  “Really?” “Duh! How else are we supposed to hang just the two of us?” It’s crazy how one can put up their guards and brace for an infinite number of slings and arrows, only to have it all collapse over a silly platitude and offer of friendship. “You’d want to?” “Of course!”  I think she wanted to say more, but I half-tackled/half-hugged her and kind of headbutted her right in her belly button. She let out an audible “oof!” and then a strained, “I love you, too, Boss. Happy Solstice.” The moment was ruined by the too timely intervention of the morning’s refreshments. “I’m sorry,” I said and broke off the hug. “Be right back!”  I was already feeling phantom pains from muscles that had been expecting to let loose as soon as I even half-consciously felt them tense. My first few steps away from her were extremely tentative. I was paranoid that any sudden movement might result in me making a puddle then and there. “Do you need any help?” Tracy asked. “Like…a boost up? Or getting the tapes off or something?” I waved her question off and forced my hand not to grab my penis through the baggy shorts. “I’m not wearing a diaper right now.” Tracy’s inhaled in surprise, her nostrils flaring like a spooked horse. “What? Go! Go! Go!”  She stopped herself from leaning forward and shooing me out the door, but she still made the motions with her hands. I zoomed out of the kitchen and made my way through the living room and back into the hallway. Where I felt like a superhero before, I felt comparatively crippled. Where I had been preternaturally fast, stealthy, and observant, I now was anything but.  My bare feet stomped and slapped noisily. I couldn’t hear anything behind my own neurotic and fearful utterances.  No matter how fast the environment whizzed by me, I felt as if I were wading through pudding. Whiz! Such a bad choice of inner monologue! Why did I have to think in those terms?!  Any minute now, the dam would break and any remaining respect that Tracy had for me would be soaked up by a mop and spun away in the washing machine.   Pure adrenaline surged through me as if injected by a needle.  I heaved the seat lid up so fast it might have been made of cardboard. I jumped so high I thought I might be flying. The climb and boosting myself up on the seat likely wasn’t half as powerful or graceful as it felt, but it took me less than five seconds to be standing up with pants down and my dick out safely over the water and that was a win! I was huffing and puffing, catching my breath and trying to relax.  I was failing. I still felt the familiar sting and need coming from my bladder, but whatever switch in my brain there was to control my sphincter muscles was clearly stuck on ‘closed’. Of all the times to develop a case of shy bladder! Holding my member in my hands felt suddenly alien to me. It tried to stiffen, briefly, and then went limp when I continued my attempt.  My bladder felt like it was clenching even more, now. I couldn’t even aim and pee at the same time! And some mental block insisted that unless my penis was limp and encased in pulp and plastic that I was going to have a terrible accident! I repositioned my hands to my hips and closed my eyes. I inhaled deeply and did what I could to relax.   “It’s time to do some dancing. It’s time to sing along. It’s time to laugh our heads off when the Muffet Show comes on!” I didn’t sing it out loud, just played the melody over and over in my head. I just needed something to help myself dissociate enough so that my body would untense and unfreeze. Lacking a book to read or a phone to scroll through, this was the best I could do. “It’s time for loud explosions! And skits from dusk til’ dawn.  We go completely crazy when the Muffet Show comes on!” I opened my eyes and peered down into the pristine bowl, half hoping I’d somehow gone deaf and had peed without noticing.  It wasn’t working. Singing the stupid theme song only put a timer in my head. I wasn’t getting lost in the moment and relaxing. I was silently telling myself how many verses I had till my time was up and I’d failed at going potty like a goddamn Grown-Up! My eyes closed again and I took one last deep breath.  I needed to think about something more calming. Not as zany or as high energy as my beloved Muffets from T.V.  My disappointed exhale was loud enough that I heard it reverberate off the bathroom wall. Idea… “My baby takes the morning train, He works from nine to five and then, He takes another home again, To find me wai-” The stream ejected as if from a firehose, and my anxiety was replaced with a filling calm. The sound of liquid hitting liquid took over for the tune in my head.  A dopey, triumphant smile came over me as I tinkled and tinkled and tinkled. It was over much sooner than I’d expected, though. I’d gulped down so much milk and orange juice, it had been a wonder I’d had any space left for solids. That I’d pissed away less than a gallon was emotionally inconceivable even if factually accurate.   Had there really been only that much in my proverbial tank? Was my bladder becoming that atrophied and shrunken? It was more than just a spurt or a trickle, but still… A different kind of muscle memory took over when-shorts still around my ankles- I leaned forward on the balls of my feet and braced myself against the back of the lid just so I could flush. The dopey smile had hardened into a confident grin.  The tank was filling when I pushed back, jumped off and landed flat on my feet. I crouched with the landing to try and absorb some of the shock and pulled my loose shorts up over my waist as I rose.  “I still got it,” I hissed to myself. Half a second later, joints and muscles that hadn’t regularly done this sort of thing since I was at least in college protested. “Worth it!” I promised myself.   Damn, but I missed my step stools and accessibility ladders. Tracy was busily emptying out the dishwasher and restocking the dish cabinets when I came back.  She really was giving Janet the most out of this gift. “Everything come out alright in there?” I pushed the sudden surge of indignation and replaced it with an appropriate level of embarrassment.  “Yeah,” I admitted. “I guess, I’m out of practice.” Tracy turned her head away but still kept the corner of her eye trained on me.  “Anything you need help with?” My hands started waving in front of my face, palms out. “Oh no-no-no-no-no. Nothing like that.”  From the heat on my face, I was certainly blushing up a storm. “Just…size challenges.” Tracy relaxed and took her eye off of me. “Ooooooh! Yeah, this place doesn’t have any toilets in your size does it?” I walked over and handed her a clean dish from the bottom rack. “Nope.” Tracy was about to add my dish to a stack she was making. “I keep forgetting that Little and pre-k sized toilets are something kind of unique to our two rooms.” I rolled my eyes in playful indignation. “I don’t even know why Beouf has one, to be honest.” “Yeah, not like you’re gonna use it.” I didn’t even have time to feel offended.  “General you, I mean! General!” “I know.” “Like, her kids aren’t allowed to, not that you don’t know how! “I know.” Her eyes wandered to the kitchen sink and back to the plate I’d just handed her. “How did you wash your hands?” Fuck. I forgot.  I ran to and heaved the nearest chair up against the kitchen sink and grabbed for the dish soap. “Shit!” I cursed. “Sorry! Sorry!” It was her turn to be gracious. “It’s okay. Stuff you probably haven’t been allowed to think about for a while.” “It’s not that, I just was in a rush and…” “I get it.”  She took the dish I’d handed her and ran it under the soapy water I was creating. It would be going back into the dishwasher. “And the sink isn’t right by the toilet so I would’ve had to-” “Clark. Boss. Easy. You think I’ve washed my hands every time? I’m just being extra nitpicky because…” she jerked her head sideways to the garage door. “You know.” I turned the water off and shook my hands dry, afraid that I might somehow taint whatever dish rag I touched.  “Yeah. I know.”  That was the end of that particular conversation... Tracy and I finished putting away the dishes in complete silence, save for the occasional rattling of silverware in a drawer or a request on what was to be handed next. Tracy was smart, stacking multiple of the plates atop each other and then putting them all up at once on the lowest shelf of an overhead cabinet. That way she could manage it by lifting the plates overhead and standing on her tiptoes to slide them in place. It was all for not, because the glasses were on the shelf above, necessitating a chair to stand on.  She kindly made no comment about the bottles and sippy cups. Our more leisurely vibe picked up after we migrated back to the living room and turned on the television. No kids’ or family shows today.  No news either. I turned to what passed for the comedy channel. This time of year, it was the only station that wasn’t playing some bland cookie cutter Solstice Special where some privileged family learns the true meaning of togetherness and gift giving thanks to the intervention of a magical visitor. “You’re watching ‘West Field’!” The T.V. announcer proclaimed. “Up Next! More ‘West Field’! Then, it’s the hit holiday classic, ‘We Adopted an Elf!’” Nevermind. Watching television wasn’t the point. It was just something to have on in the background while Tracy and I talked like adults. She joined me up on the couch. “You never told me: How exactly did you try to run?” My bladder suddenly ached. This morning’s liquids weren’t done with me yet. I threw my head back in frustration and tried to will the cushions to absorb me.  “It’s complicated.” “How so?” “It was the perfect mix of something too crazy to predict and too stupid to be safe. I got catfished by somebody too creepy for Amazons and was too desperate to check sources or think of a contingency.”  She leaned. “Okay, now you gotta tell me more!”  She blinked and her face grew concerned. “Are you okay?” Realizing that I’d started squirming, I forced myself to be still. “Yeah. I’m fine.” I went and told her the relevant details. She listened thoughtfully. I kept hemming and hawing and losing track because I was constantly trying not to pee and losing my train of thought. Imagine trying to tell a story, but every time you say a word with the letter ‘g’ somebody crushes a squirrel in front of its family.   Was it hypnotic conditioning? Drugs? Physical atrophy? Or had I just gotten good at the worst kind of multitasking? “So why didn’t you just wait?” Tracy asked when I had finished my synopsis.  “I was desperate,” I said. “I’d had enough. I needed to get out and I thought it was my best chance.” “Not going it alone? Not finding other Littles you knew?” I cocked an eyebrow at what I felt was an accusation. “Could you get out all on your own?” I said. “Or would you need someone bigger than you to help?” I scooted, slid and dropped to the floor. My need to pee was like a painful mosquito bite begging to be scratched and my body was feeling less and less picky by the second.  “Shit,” Tracy cursed. “Sorry. You’re right. Sorry!” I chose that moment to stop crossing the living room and I landed with one foot on the playmat. My mood instantly went up a notch. Hard to be cross when clouds are giving you a full foot massage pedicure. “It’s cool.”  A small spurt of heat, just a dribble, intruded in my pants and woke me up. “I’mnotmadIjustreallygottapee!” I ran as fast as I could and used all of my self-control to wait until after I’d rounded the corner to start pinching myself down there. The bathroom door was wide open. I made no attempt to close it. I was suddenly seconds away from bursting and the idea of free climbing back to the top made my arms and legs want to tense up. How long had it been? Fifteen minutes? Twenty? Oh gosh, would I have to do this every half-hour until I was sufficiently dehydrated?  A lightbulb flipped on inside my skull and a bit of that ol’ Gibson ingenuity came back to me. I gambled that wastepaper basket next to the toilet could be turned upside down and used as a stepping stool. The gamble paid off. The second time was much easier than the first. I didn’t even need the whole chorus to get things started this time. “There,” I whispered to myself over the flush. “Hope this time lasts longer.”  I dared to pull my shorts up and patted the front of them. As feared, there was the smallest wet patch right where my control had briefly faltered. Nobody would notice, surely. My shorts were already dark and the wet spot was so tiny it could have  been a choking hazard. It still didn’t feel great, considering. I did an extra round of parkour, climbing from the toilet seat up onto the bathroom counter.  I must’ve looked every bit the naughty toddler crawling all the way across the counter to get to the sink.  I washed my hands on my knees and wiped them on the front of my pants as camouflage. Then I washed them again.   I slid, dangled off the counter’s edge, dropped neatly to the floor and dusted my hands off on my t-shirt. The distance dropped couldn’t have been more than a foot and a half but I felt accomplished and daring all the same.  I marched right past the wastebasket and didn’t bother to flip it back over, confident I’d be seeing it again. “So,” I asked upon my return. “What’s it like working with Starke?” My taller, bigger friend was more than happy to change the subject. “Still pretty darn good.  She reminds me a lot of you. In a good way.”  I filed that away as further proof that Jessica’s stature was the one thing that kept her out of Monkeez. “She’s way more patient than you were about potty training, but other than that, she’s a good fit.” And I filed that away as a reminder that an Amazon was still an Amazon. “Weeeell,” I said, “she also has a really good assistant to show her the ropes.” Tracy folded her hands behind her head and eased herself back into the cushions. “Damn skippy.”  I joined and one-upped her, being small enough to prop my head up on the nearest arm rest and stretched out so my feet were just touching the middle cushion. “Honestly? I think you’d make a pretty good teacher.” She copied me and readjusted herself so that she was lounging across from me. She had to lean back on her elbows and bend her knees, but she still looked pretty comfy on  her two-thirds of the couch. “Thanks. I think so, too.” “Near the end there were days where you were pretty much the teacher,” I admitted. With all the drama and freakouts I’d had that last semester Tracy had been definitely picking up the slack. “You were a good teacher, too.” Tracy replied. “Not my point,” I said. I pointed at her for emphasis. “I’m saying that you’d make a good teacher.” She smiled and sighed through her nose. “Thanks, but all I got is an Associate’s.” I cursed under my breath. “And you need a bachelor’s for certification.” I nervously nibbled on my lip.  “Money?” She rolled her head around on her shoulders. “Money and I wasn’t great at school when I shoulda been. It sucks, but it is what it is.” “Could you do online classes or something? Night school?” Tracy rolled over on her side and stared at the television. “Maybe. I’m still not a great test taker and stuff.” I saw my opportunity. “I could help!” I gleefully offered. “I’m probably rusty on some of the more academic language, but I could help you through with a lot of the broad strokes!”   I already had the fantasy building in my head.  Tracy coming over and pretending to baby me while I helped her hit the books and write essays where five words of information were communicated in the space of fifty.  She’d get a tutor and I’d get more time off the changing table. True Symbiosis.  And in a perverse way it would be like ensuring my own legacy.  Was it egotistical and selfish to think of Tracy as a disciple of mine? Extremely! But it was my fantasy, damn it! Ever practical, Tracy burst my bubble with three words. “College isn’t cheap.” “Oh yeah,” I said. “I’m guessing your salary wouldn’t cover much.” “Neither would yours,” she replied. “No offense.” “None taken,” I said. Though I did sulk inwardly at having my pie-in-the-sky fantasy humbled so quickly. “Is that why you didn’t bring this up when we were working together?” “Naw. I didn’t realize I wanted to be one until after you left.” I sat up so the back of my head wouldn’t grind against the armrest when I shook it. “If Ambrose could be a teacher…” She swung her legs around and sat up. “Anyone could!”  We high-fived one another. “That and I really, really, liked working with you.” “It would have taken years,” I replied. “We’d have had plenty of time together.” “Yeah,” she agreed. “I know. Still…didn’t want to leave you high and dry.” “I’m almost never dry.”  I gasped and wished I had a dull needle and thread to sew my mouth shut with. Tracy looked half-an-Amazon for a moment. “Did you just make a pee-pants joke?” “Shut up!” “You did!” she cackled. “You did!” “Shut up!”  For some reason she wasn’t taking me seriously. It might have been that I was standing up and stomping my bare feet into the couch cushions with my fists balled up and my entire body a blustering beet red. “Only I can make that kind of joke! You can’t!” I pointed my finger like an angry and impotent god making a strongly worded suggestion. Tracy spent a good minute and a half belly laughing and clutching her sides. I repeated myself several times just in case she didn’t hear me.  “No-no-no-no-no-no-no! You’re right! That’s not my joke to make! You can, though!” And she punctuated her sentence with more good natured laughter. I probably would have been more at ease, but I bet you can guess what decided to catch my attention just then.  Why did I drink so much? Tracy stood up from the couch. “Hate to pause the conversation, but I think something in those waffles didn’t agree with me.”  She patted her stomach for emphasis. “Be right back.”  I stood there, watching her walk to the bathroom.  I sat back down and crossed my legs. “Not a problem,” I whispered to myself. “I can wait till she gets back.”  I’d done this plenty of times back in the day. It’d be extremely uncomfortable but it would be manageable.   The sad reality was that my bladder was no more resilient than usual. I just had more incentive to let myself suffer. Elementary teachers possess iron bladders because they’re too busy dealing with everything else and a three minute bathroom break could very well result in thirty minutes of cleaning up the catastrophe that occurred during their brief absence.  The key was just not thinking about it.  I just had to hyper focus on something else and I’d be able to become numb to the grinding burning itching discomfort that I’d become so unaccustomed to over the past several months. “And now, the hit holiday classic, ‘We Adopted an Elf!’” Fuck.   I bounded off the couch and charted a course straight for Janet’s bathroom, grumbling and moaning all the way.  The good news was that Janet left the door open and didn’t do anything crazy like putting a lock on the toilet.  The bad news was that her toilet was slightly higher, than the one in the guest bathroom, there wasn’t a makeshift stool in sight, and it felt like there was a fifty-fifty chance of me either peeing myself or pulling something during the climb. That or I might slip and chip a tooth or something.  (Was that how Amy lost her front chompers?) Pacing back and forth, I hoped for more of that old magic to flood into me. (Goddamnit! “Flood”?) I heard phantom flushes and almost ran back to the living room in the hopes that Tracy had finished.  If I was wrong, though, it might literally make a bigger mess of things. If I peed myself here, I could probably cover it up by- Janet’s shower door was open! Eureka! I dropped trou and high stepped it into the stall. I was incredibly pleased with myself, pissing down the drain. I put my hands down on my hips and started trying to write my name in cursive.  “Three for three!” I hissed triumphantly.  I really had forgotten what it was like to relieve myself without my pants ballooning out on one end or the other.  There was no way for me to ‘flush’ the shower. I’d have to wait for Janet to unknowingly rinse it off in the shower and pray that it didn’t smell like a men’s room beforehand.  My pride shrank when I’d redressed myself. The wet spot on the inside of my shorts was still there, imperceptible to everyone but me. Not so different from a diaper after only a wetting or two.  I’d sat in wet pants, watched T.V., gabbed, and joked like it was nothing. Making it to the toilet was the exception while squishing and crinkling around was the rule. The most aggravating part was that I was slowly talking myself back into the rule. Were this baseball, my first at bat was a triple, my second was a solid double, and my third was something of a foul ball. How long till I struck out? This place wasn’t built to accommodate someone my size. That wasn’t my fault. I’d gotten used to wearing diapers and wasn’t nearly as afraid of the daily indignities as I probably should have been.   Tracy knew the score.  She’d literally considered bringing training pants for me. That would have been a compromise for my sake and not a misdirect for Janet’s.  And wouldn’t I enjoy her company more if I wasn’t constantly stressing the possibility of pissing my pants?  It’s not like she hadn’t seen me in a wet diaper before.  But that felt like quitting. And today, I’d decided that Clark Gibson didn’t quit! I went back and forth on this all the way back to the living room.  “Fuck,” I stopped and stared down at my hands. I’d forgotten to wash them.  “Damn.” My stomach buzzed,and I grunted out a hot fart. Uh oh! I wasn’t sure, but I had a bad feeling that it wasn’t all gas that escaped.  I bent over backwards and tried to weld my cheeks together with my bare hands.  Probably just a wet one. Not just! The moment I eased up, I felt a turtle head try to poke out. There was still more than enough of Janet’s milk left in my system to make my stool soft and prevent constipation. I did my best to sort of suck it back in, but that was a losing battle. Muscle memory was instructing me to either run to a corner and poop there for maximum privacy, to fill my pants then and there to get it over with, or to wander around and just let the inevitable happen while I played. Unacceptable!  A flush, a real one, sounded off and Tracy came stomping out of the hallway. “I don’t know if it was the big portions, or if that mix had some kind of multigrain in it,  but wooooo!” She waved her hand in front of her face. “You know what I mean?” I did. “Uh…huh…” My face was contorting in discomfort and disgust. “Yup…” My assistant’s entire posture changed. “Uh oh!” She harped. “You okay, dude?” I grimaced, trying my best to inhale from the wrong end. “Nope.” Her stance widened, like a shortstop getting ready for the pitch. I’d seen this before; usually with our three year olds that were just starting potty training. For obvious reasoins, Tracy was always better at rushing children to the bathroom than me.  “Need help?” My reply was a painful groan and a quick head bob.  “Okay. Let’s do it!” She quick stepped behind me and started nudging me forward toward the guest bathroom. “Let’s go! Let’s go!”  I clenched my cheeks and reflexively leaned back into her arms.  She hooked me under the arms and practically frog marched me through the hallway. “Hold on!” she told me. “I’m trying!”  I’m proud to say that I made it across the bathroom threshold. I’m proud to say that my body didn’t immediately start pushing when Tracy lifted me up and put me on the still warm seat. I’m not proud to say that I failed to maintain that level of control until my pants were all the way off.  “I’m sorry!” I shrieked. “I’m sorry!” “It’s no big deal,” Tracy lied.  Her eyes wouldn’t leave the horrible brown stain I’d left on the waist band.  Not a big deal, at all.’ I was splay legged and naked from the waist down. Meanwhile it felt like a boa constrictor was slithering out of me and I couldn’t even cover up my junk.  I had to lean back on my hands and balance with my ass dangling in the void just that I didn’t fall in.  “Get out!” I screamed. “Get out!” “Yup!” Tracy zipped out, taking my ruined shorts with her and closing the door. I stayed in that uncomfortable position longer than I needed to. I eventually repositioned myself so that I was sitting at the edge, most of my weight on the back of my thighs and my ass still tangling.   I counted to a hundred.  Then two hundred. I peed again and cursed. I scratched at my scalp and opened my mouth for a silent scream, berating myself for my failure. “Boss?” Tracy called from the other side. “You okay in there?”  I didn’t reply right away. “Boss?”  The knob started to turn. “I’m here!” I called back. “I’m here.”  Then she asked the second worst question. “Do you need help?” “No,” I called back. “I’m fine for the moment.” Then she asked the worst question. “What do you want me to do?” I fell forward and scooted off the toilet seat, probably leaving a brown streak.  “I think I want to take a shower,” I said.  Whatever mix of emotional, physical, or mental staminal most people needed in order to wipe their ass was in short supply for me. “I feel kind of gross.” “Roger, roger!” Tracy chirped back. “How do you feel about me laying out a towel and stuff for you?”   The way she phrased it wasn’t really a question of permission, but I gave it anyway. “That’s fine.” “Great!” A few steps echoed away. Then, “Call me when you get out!” “Yes, ma’am.” I intoned back. I stripped my shirt off and climbed back into the tub. The water started off ice cold and I did not object to it when my skin broke out into a million goose pimples and my genitals tried to escape inside me. There wasn’t enough soap or body wash in the world for me to feel clean, no matter how many times I swabbed myself I felt the weight of my own failure. I was disgusting. I was a disgrace. I tried again and again to prove the Amazons wrong and at every turn I only bolstered their case. I really did need diapers.  Or if I didn’t ‘need’ them in the strictest sense, I was coming to prefer them.  I stood on chairs and climbed everything just to reach. I couldn’t finish Grown-Up portions or make it to a toilet without help.  No wonder Janet thought I was a baby. Tracy didn’t think I was a baby. For some reason I knew that as a fact, deep inside my heart. She knew the truth about me and the reality of my situation. For what privilege she had over me or what slip of the tongues might happen, she was still aware and trying to support me the best way she knew how. Wearing a diaper didn’t make me a baby. I knew this. Tracy did too. Needing one didn’t make me a baby, either.  So why the hell wasn’t I acting like it? Just like before, Tracy snuck in a towel and fresh clothes for me. She was safely concealed by the other side of the bathroom door, and I was modestly obscured by the shower curtain. When the door closed, I shut the water off and climbed out. This time the clothes had been left on a dry patch of floor. No nasty surprises just out of view. The bright red shorts she’d passed on were present. As was another partially assembled Monkeez.  For once I took the hint. This time the diaper was taped together extremely loosely, with the ends barely touching the outermost edge of the landing zone. I had to hold it up tight around my hips or else it would skid right back down my legs.  “Tracy!” I called.   For the sake of my pride, she took a moment to respond. “Yeah, Boss?” “Can you help me with something? In here?” “Sure!” The door knob started to turn. “Can I come in?” I took a step back. “Yeah. Go ahead.” She came in, took a look at my pathetic form and took a knee. “Alright,” she said. “Let’s get this sucker nice and tight.”  I looked over her shoulder at the toilet. “Mhm.”  “And remember,” she said not unkindly. “If you need to go to the bathroom, just ask. And if you don’t make it-” “Tracy,” I interrupted her. “I think…I think I might need to take a break. If you know what I mean.” Surprise and confusion crossed the Tweener’s face.  “Seriously? Like, yeah, sure! That’s no big deal! I was just offering!” I toddled, (yes toddled), back a step.  “I’m not saying that I want you to change me or anything.” I bent over and grabbed my new shorts and pulled them up over the diaper. It did not help. “If I…” I gulped, “...you know. I’ll take a quick shower…again.” Tracy laughed and stood up to her full height. “Boss, if I treated you like a baby I don’t think Emiliano would ever forgive me!” “Good.” I grabbed my shirt and pulled it back on over my head.  “One small favor, though?” “Yeah?” I lowered my eyes but cleared my throat. “You don’t have to call me ‘Boss’ anymore.” Right then I wished I’d had Lion with me. “Please.” “Sure, Clark. No problem.” She caught herself and did a double take. “Is ‘Clark’ still okay?” “Always.” “Any other nicknames? Chief? Mr. Gibson?” Gibson?  I imagined Billy, or someone very much like him, riding on Emiliano’s shoulders and blasting away and mowing down competitors at one of Tracy’s paintball games like he was riding a war elephant.  I kept the image to myself but let the silly image bubble up into my smile.  “Clark’s fine. So is ‘Jefe’. Just you and Emiliano, though.”  She seemed pleased. So was I. We walked side by side out into the hallway.  “Okay, Jefe.” “On second thought…maybe just Emiliano. Sounds cooler when he says it.” My teasing was met with a light smack upside the head. “Worth it!” I couldn’t hear the crinkling of my undies over our laughter. I was too busy leaning against the wall for support to notice my widened gait.  I stopped paying attention to what was going on in my pants for the rest of that day and focused on enjoying the time and respect my friend was giving to me.  

Oh please continues