Rainbow Diapers

I hope we soon get more scenes were Clara has him in his sleeper a bit longer. 

Hi Mommy I’m your 8 month old baby girl Ava, you’re breastfeeding me as I’ve just woken up from a nap and you’ve kept the lights off as I woke up fussy. You’re trying to comfort me with warm milk and soft song’s, when suddenly you smell something, so you turn on the side lamp and realize I’ve had a big diaper blow out in my onesie and sleep sack. 

Chapter 15 - Preparations Ellen prepared for the cruise the way a quartermaster prepares for a campaign, and somewhere in the preparing I understood that the holiday had stopped being a thing we were going on and become a thing she was building. It was full spring now, turning toward summer, and I noticed one warm morning, dressing in a light shirt with no jumper to layer over it, that the thing I had spent the winter hiding under wool was no longer a thing I was hiding at all. The cover had gone, the heavy trousers and the thick jumpers packed away with the cold, and I stood in the bright bedroom in summer-weight clothes and realized I did not mind, that I had stopped, somewhere across those months, scanning myself in the mirror for what might show, because I had stopped being afraid of being seen. The wool had hidden me all winter while something else, something slower, had been quietly happening underneath it, and now the wool was gone and the something else had done its work, and I could stand in a thin shirt in May light and be perfectly at ease. I had been so glad, in January, of the cold and the layers. I did not need them now. That was its own small measure of the distance travelled, and I let myself notice it, and then I went down to help Ellen with the campaign. The supplies were the heart of it. Eight nights, four changes a day, plus the long excursion days when a change might not be possible for hours and a heavier one was prudent, plus a sensible margin for the unexpected, because Ellen does not travel to the Arctic Circle and run short of anything. She sat at the kitchen table one evening with the notebook and the calculator and worked it out to the unit, the way she works everything out, and then she ordered it, and when it came it filled a corner of the spare room, plain packages that she regarded with the quiet satisfaction of a woman who has provisioned correctly. "That's a lot of diapers," I said, looking at the wall of them. "That's the right number of diapers," she said. "Which is a different thing, and a better one." She was already thinking about the suitcase. "They'll have their own case. The hard one. There's no sense trying to thread them in among the clothes, we'll want them all together and easy to get at, and the case can come home empty for the things you'll buy me in the ports." She made a note. "You are buying me things in the ports. I've decided. Consider it the freight charge." I did not argue. I had stopped arguing about the small things weeks ago, and discovered, to my surprise, that a life with fewer small arguments in it is a lighter life, and that conceding the inconsequential to Ellen was less a defeat than a kind of rest. The exposure doctrine, which had already taken in a pharmacist and a saleswoman and a parking attendant, now went fully professional, and I listened to it happen with my ears burning, and noticed, as I always now noticed, that the burning faded faster every time. She rang the travel agent first, the cheerful woman who had booked the whole thing for us over a year before, back when it was going to be an ordinary anniversary cruise for an ordinary couple. I sat at the kitchen table and heard Ellen's half of it, clear and flat and entirely without apology. "I wanted to flag something so the right arrangements are in place. My husband is incontinent, he wears protection full-time, and we'll be travelling with a lot of medical supplies. I'd like to be sure the cabin's suitable and the transfers allow for it." A pause. "Yes. Yes, that's right. No, he manages perfectly well, we just need the practicalities sorted." And the travel agent, audible as a friendly murmur down the line, was apparently neither shocked nor even particularly interested, was simply helpful, making notes of her own, and the call ended with Ellen thanking her and writing something in the notebook, and the whole of my great private shame had been processed, once again, as a logistics matter by a professional who dealt with such things before lunch. Then she emailed the cruise line, the special-needs desk, and that exchange came back with the same brisk competence: yes, of course, they would arrange a sharps-and-medical bin in the cabin, serviced daily, additional collections as required, the steward would be briefed, would we like the bin lined and lidded, was there anything else they could prepare. Ellen read it out to me across the table in a tone of mild vindication. "There," she said. "You see. They have a desk for it. A whole desk, with people who do nothing but arrange exactly this, all day, for hundreds of people a year. You spent six months certain you were a unique catastrophe, and it turns out there's a help desk." She typed her reply. "Lined and lidded, yes please. He's not a unique catastrophe. He's a Tuesday with a cabin number." I had thought, when this all began, that letting the world know would be a series of small deaths. It had turned out to be the opposite. Every professional who absorbed the fact of me without a flicker took a little more of the shame off the pile, and by the time Ellen was emailing cruise lines about bin collections I found I could sit and listen to my own incontinence being administratively arranged and feel almost nothing at all, except a sort of distant gratitude that the world was so much more practiced at this than I had ever let myself believe. A new brand arrived two weeks before we sailed, and it was with the new brand that Ellen showed me, plainly, that the rules had changed, and that she knew I knew, and that she expected no argument, and got none. It was thicker than anything I had worn. Noticeably. I opened the box she pointed me to and lifted one out and felt the heft of it, the substance, and I looked at her. "These are a lot more than the premium ones," I said. "I haven't leaked through the premium ones in weeks. The physio's working, the doctor said so. I'm needing less, if anything, not more." "I know," said Ellen. She did not elaborate immediately. She let it sit, the way she lets things sit, and she looked at me with an expression I had come to know, the calm and slightly amused expression of a woman who has decided something and is waiting to see whether you will make her spell it out or whether you will, as you increasingly do, simply understand. "Then why these?" I asked, because I wanted, I think, to hear her say it. "Because I wanted to see these on you," she said simply. "That's all. Not because you need them. We settled that in the car park, didn't we, that it's not about need anymore. It's about what we want. And I wanted to see you in the thicker ones for the trip. I like the idea of it. Eight days at sea, you properly looked after, in good thick ones, not because the doctor's frightened of your bladder but because I'd like you that way." She held my eye. "You can tell me no. You can always tell me no, that's the whole arrangement, the no is real or none of it means anything. But I don't think you're going to tell me no." And I did not tell her no. I stood in the spare room with a diaper thicker than any I had worn in my hand, and I understood that we had just crossed, openly and by daylight, the line we had been walking toward for weeks, the line between protection chosen because a body required it and protection chosen because a woman wanted it and a man wanted to be wanted that way. Every escalation before this one had been earned by an accident, a leak, a failure in the field. This one was earned by nothing but her pleasure and my consent to it. And I found, standing there, that her saying it out loud, because I wanted to see these on you, did not embarrass me the way a year of smaller things had embarrassed me. It warmed me. It steadied me. It was the truest thing either of us had said about what we now were, and I handed the diaper back to her and said, "All right," and the all right meant yes, and we both knew it, and she put the thick ones on the top of the suitcase pile where they would be the first thing reached for. We went back to Monique together, Ellen and I, for the cruise wardrobe, and it was Monique who solved the one worry I had not been able to solve for myself. There was a plain practical reason for the visit to begin with. The trousers from before had been cut to sit cleanly over the premium diapers, and they did, beautifully, but I was in the thicker travel ones now, the ones Ellen had wanted to see on me, and the extra bulk of them, though slight, was just enough that the old trousers pulled a fraction where they hadn't before. Not obvious. But I could see it, and Ellen could see it, and a cruise is eight days, and a cruise has formal nights, and a cruise has a great many people in a relatively small floating space who would be seeing me, the same people, day after day, with nothing much to do but look at one another. If there was a fraction to be seen, someone, over eight days, would see it. So we needed trousers cut for the thicker ones, and that was the errand, and I had a worry stacked on top of the errand that I had not yet found a way to solve. I confessed it to Monique while she had me up on the little dais, because she had long since become a person I could confess such things to. It was the bulk, I said, but it was more than the bulk. It was the height of them. The premium ones I had worn all winter had sat low, their top edge finishing a good few centimeters below the waistband of my trousers, tucked safely down out of sight, so that even bending or reaching there was only ever trouser and belt above them and nothing to see. The new thick ones were a different proposition entirely. They came up far higher, the front of them rising all the way to my navel and beyond, so that now the top edge of the diaper stood several centimeters above the waistband of my trousers, a band of plain white showing clear above the belt whenever my shirt lifted or my jacket fell open, exactly where no such thing should ever be. In the old ones the trousers had hidden everything. In these, even well cut, there was a real chance of the diaper itself showing, at the front when I reached up, at the back when I leaned on a rail, a clear inch of it standing proud of my waistband for anyone to clock, and eight days was a long time in front of the same faces. Was there anything to be done about that, or did one simply accept that someone, eventually, would notice. Monique considered this with the seriousness she brought to all such problems, which is to say as a question of cloth and engineering and not of shame. "What you want," she said, "is to take the waistband out of the equation entirely, and stop anything riding up or gapping at the back when you bend. And the answer to that is older than any of this." She smiled. "When mine were babies I had them in those little bodysuits, the ones that fasten under, day and night, because nothing rides up, nothing gaps, everything stays put and smooth no matter how they wriggled. The grown-up version's the same idea. A plain bodysuit, white, snug, worn under the shirt, fastened under so it can't ride up. It holds your protection close and flat, smooths the whole line, and there's simply no waistband to show because it's tucked away under the suit. Nobody sees a thing. You could bend over the rail for a week and more and there'd be nothing to notice." It was, the moment she said it, obviously right, and I felt the worry dissolve. "Where would I even get such a thing?" "I know a seamstress, does alterations for us, lovely work. She'd run you up a few in plain cotton, made to your measure so they fit properly, which the shop-bought ones never do on a grown man." And then, because she was Monique and thought of the part I would have dreaded, "And there's no need for you to go and be measured and fitted all over again somewhere else. I can take your measurements now, while you're here, and pass them to her with the order, and you'll never have to set foot in the place. They'll just arrive done." She was already reaching for her tape. "Pop into the room and I'll take what I need." And so I went into the fitting room and Monique took my measurements through the process she made entirely unmomentous, and I did not have to present my situation to one more stranger, and a small problem that had been sitting on my chest for a week was solved in five minutes by a woman with a tape measure and a good idea she had got from her own children. I came out of that shop, as I had come out of it before, lighter than I went in, marvelling again at how much of the help I had spent my life refusing had been there the whole time for the simple price of asking. What I did not hear, because I was in the fitting room with the curtain drawn while it was arranged, was the rest of the conversation. Ellen told me about it eventually, long after, when such things had become things we could smile about together. But she did not tell me at the time, and at the time I knew nothing of it, and I have decided to set it down here in its proper place because it belongs to the preparations even though I did not witness it. While I was behind the curtain, Ellen had drawn Monique a little to one side, and lowered her voice, not unkindly but practically, in the register of one competent woman briefing another. "The bodysuits are a good idea," she said. "We'll have several. But I want to ask you something, and I'd rather he didn't hear the particulars, so quickly while he's in there." A glance at the curtain. "He has a history of taking his protection off when he shouldn't. Not lately, but it caused us a great deal of trouble when it happened, a ruined day, an accident in public, the lot, and it came from him being able to simply remove things himself when his pride got the better of his sense. So I'd like at least one of the bodysuits, perhaps two, made so that he can't easily get out of it on his own. No fastenings he can reach. A zip up the back rather than anything underneath, the sort of thing that needs another pair of hands. Can your seamstress do that?" Monique, who had seen a great deal in her years of fitting the human body and its difficulties, did not bat an eye. "Easily," she said. "Back zip, set high, no pull he can get a grip on himself. I'll mark it on the order. He'll not get out of that without you, and it'll look like an ordinary vest from the front, nobody any the wiser." A small professional pause. "Very sensible, if you don't mind my saying. It's the same principle as the babies, really. You fasten it where the wearer can't reach, and then you don't have to worry about it." "Exactly the principle," said Ellen, and thanked her, and the order was placed, the plain bodysuits and the one or two that fastened only at Ellen's discretion, and the curtain opened and I came out knowing none of it, pleased with my clever solution to the waistband, with no idea that my wife had just quietly arranged for some part of my protection to become, for the first time, something I could not take off without her, and that she had done it for reasons that were half practical and half something else entirely, something she was still discovering the size of in herself. She filed it away, the knowledge of those particular garments coming in the post, the way she filed everything. And the reader knows it now, and I know it now, but I did not know it then, and that gap, between what Ellen had arranged and what I understood, was about to become one of the quiet pleasures of her life, and, in time, of mine. The swimming she ruled on without much ceremony. There was a pool on the ship, and decks for lying in the sun on the warmer southern legs of the voyage, and I had wondered, vaguely and anxiously, what was to be done about any of that. Ellen had not wondered. Ellen had already decided. "There are containment swim things," she said, "the kind that hold an accident in the water, they make them, I looked." "What does that even mean," I said, "containment. How does anything contain anything underwater? It'd just fill up." "It's not absorbent," she said, with the patience of a woman who had read the product descriptions properly while I had not. "That's the whole point of them, and the thing people get wrong. An absorbent one would just swell up full of pool water and do nothing, you're quite right. The containment ones are sealed instead, snug elastic at the waist and round the legs, so that if you had the other kind of accident, a solid one, it stays put and doesn't end up in the pool with everyone else. That's all they're for. The solids. They don't do a thing for wee, your wee just goes in the water the same as everybody else's in that pool, which is a cheerful thought I'd suggest you don't dwell on while you're swimming. So for you, who only has the bladder to worry about, a containment brief in a swimming pool is honestly close to pointless. Which is rather my argument." "Ah," I said, enlightened and faintly appalled. "Yes. Ah." She went on. "But honestly, for the pool, I think we keep it simple and you give the swimming a miss. It's eight days. There's a hot tub you can sit in if you fancy it, but if you do, you'll wear a swim brief with a containment one underneath, no arguments, because a hot tub is exactly where the other kind of accident would matter and I'm not having you be the reason they drain the thing. That part I'm firm on. But proper swimming, lengths, I'd rather not chance it and have us both worrying. You can lie on a deck chair like a sensible man and read your book and be brought drinks, which is a better holiday than swimming anyway, and far less effort." She looked at me. "Unless you feel strongly." "I don't feel strongly about swimming." "No," she said. "I didn't think you did. You've never once voluntarily got into a swimming pool in thirty years. Settled, then. Deck chair, book, drinks. I'll put a containment brief in for the hot tub and that's the swimming dealt with." And it was, and I noticed, the way I noticed everything now, that I had just had a small decision made entirely for me, a thing ruled on and settled and removed from my hands, and that I had not minded in the least, had in fact felt the small familiar ease of it, the relief of a thing decided by someone I trusted so that I did not have to carry even the question of it. The night before we flew, she laid my clothes out on the chair. I came up to bed and found them there, the travel outfit for the morning, the comfortable trousers and the soft shirt for the flight, folded with her particular precision over the back of the bedroom chair, and on top of the pile, where it could not be missed, where it was simply the first and most obvious item of the morning's dressing, the thick diaper, the new kind, the one she wanted to see me in. I stood and looked at it for a while. It undid something in me, that chair, though I could not have said exactly what, and it was a long time before I understood it, and when I understood it I did not mind. She had laid out clothes on a chair like that thousands of times in our marriage, but never my own, never for me. She had done it for the children, every one of them, the night before a school trip or a first day, the little outfits laid ready on the chair so the morning would be smooth and nothing forgotten and the child would wake to find everything prepared and have only to be dressed. She had done it for three children across twenty years, and now, on the night before we sailed for the top of the world, she had done it for me, laid out my morning on the chair down to the diaper on top, so that I would wake and find everything prepared and have only to be seen to. "All set for the morning," she said, from the bed, watching me look at it. "No fuss, no forgetting. Everything's ready. I'll do you before we leave for the airport." "You think of everything," I said, and my voice was not quite even. "Somebody has to," she said, but gently, and she held the covers back for me, and I came to bed, and she turned off the light, and I lay in the dark beside her with the chair a pale shape at the edge of my vision, the morning laid out on it, everything prepared, and I slept better than I had slept in years, the deep untroubled sleep of a man who has, at last, stopped carrying a thing he was never any good at carrying, and handed it to the one person who was, and been glad, purely and simply glad, to let it go. We were down to one night now. Whatever Ellen had decided, and I had begun to understand that she had decided something, some larger thing she was steering us both toward with all her quiet certainty, she had not yet told me what it was. And I fell asleep with no idea at all of what she had settled would happen at the top of the world, and no fear of it either, only the chair in the dark, and the morning laid out, and her breathing slow and certain beside me, carrying us both north.

A little late but never the less!     Chapter 32.   Making New Plans.   Pete and I had been back home for two days from our little trip and we were getting along well.   We had already signed and posted off all the paperwork that we needed too, so that part was in full motion.   The great sex had continued, and it was like old times had returned, I even treated him to a couple of nappy sessions.   We’d decided that we needed to visit my sister and tell Penny what was being planned for us all in person.   But that was tomorrow, today we were deciding what stuff we wanted to take with us to the new place.   A removal company had dropped off a load of flat pack boxes, tape and labels with instructions that anything we wanted to take needed to have a label clearly stuck on it.   So, everything that we taking downstairs was getting a label, which in all honesty wasn’t much. Most of the stuff we had was old and second hand when we got it.   There was an old sideboard / dresser that was my nans and a table that came from Pete’s family but that was it really, I think the sofa was third hand when we got it so that could definitely go to the tip.   The prospect of a new home with new fixtures fittings and furniture was so mind boggling it was really hard to come to terms with.   “Shall we start with the bedrooms now” I asked Pete.   “Ours or the kids room?” He replied.   “Let’s start with the kids”   We went through every drawer, every cupboard, under beds and behind Wardrobes.   I picked out Penny’s clothes that would still fit her as I did with Simons, the rest could go to the tip. Pete packed all kids toys and some of Simons more interesting items he’d collected over the years.   “Hello, hello! what have we here?” Said Pete.   Holding a clear bag of white powder about six inches square.   “Well, it’s not soap powder is it, give it me!”   “No, what you gonna do with it”   “The only thing I can do, flush it”   “That’s worth a fortune, we can flog it”   “Who to? your mates down the pub. You don’t know who uses the stuff, you could end up offering it to some undercover copper, then what, can you accompany me down to the station please sir.   That will kibosh our new start and jobs for sure, so no, we’ll flush it”   Pete had a real pissed off look and was reluctant to even hand the bag over.   “Ok, ok I’ll flush it “he said.   “Go on then”   “What now!”   “Yes now”   “But”   “No buts do it. Otherwise, no nappies for you, ever again”   “Awwww shit”   He sounded like a five-year-old and reluctantly made his way to the bathroom. “Off you go then flush, and pore” He pulled the chain on the high-level cistern, and the water started its descent down the flush pipe heading to the bowl.   He opened the bag and started to shake its contents into the pan just as the water started to come out and swirl around the bowl, taking the unknown powder away through the sewerage system. It could have been talcum powder for all we know, something Simon kept hidden with his nappy stash, but now it was gone.   “Flush again and bung the bag in this time”   His face was a picture, as if he thought I didn’t notice that he had some of the powder still in the bag.   “Go on!”   “Alright, alright I’m doing it”   We waited for the cistern to fill again and he flushed again, this time throwing the bag and its remaining contents into the bowl.   It took a third flush and the use of the toilet brush to finally get rid of the bag, but rid of it we were.   “Don’t ever let me hear anything like that from you ever again, there’s far too much at stake to even think of doing stuff like that, you need to wise up and get with the plan Pete.   “I know, I know, it was just a thought”   “Just make sure then that you don’t have another one”   “Another what?”   “Thought”   He gave me a stare.   We continued sorting and checking, but we ended up with very little, a few boxes of clothes and toys.   The wardrobes and chest of drawers weren’t needed as the bedrooms at the new place had the built-in wardrobes. We labelled up the kids two beds which were in good nick and of course Simons decks. I could just imagine the fit he’d have if we didn’t take his pride and joy.   Our room was much the same, a few clothes that were sort of still in fashion and our bed, everything else was just tatty old rubbish.   It didn’t take us long to button everything up as we really didn’t have much to start with.   We went downstairs and I told Pete that I needed to phone my sister and to get the kettle on for a tea, as I wouldn’t be long.   I went over to the phone box across the road from our flat and found that as usual it had been vandalised. So, I had to walk 10 minutes to find one that hadn’t been.   “Hi, Brenda, only me”   “Hi sis how’s things?   Did your meeting thing go ok?”   “That’s why I’m ringing. We need to pop over tomorrow if that’s ok?”   Why what’s wrong, I thought you wanted Penny to stay for two weeks”   “No, she’s still staying for the two weeks if she’s still welcome and behaving herself? But we’ve got some really exciting news to tell you all, and I wanted to do it face to face rather than over the phone!”   “What you ain’t won the lottery have you?”   “Not the lottery, but something close to it”   “Go on tell me sis”   “No, tomorrow! Don’t tell Penny were coming though I want it to be a surprise”   “What time you getting here?”   “About eleven, if that’s ok?”   “Yes not a problem, Penny and Jane are going out to the park in the morning with Ed but should be back by about twelve”   “Super, see you tomorrow then”   “Awwww go on give me a hint”   “Look all I will say is that its brilliant news and I hope you’ll wish us all well when you hear it”   “Ok, see you tomorrow then”   “See you”   I hung up the phone and made my way back home. I was desperate to tell Penny the good news but wanted to be with her when I did.   When I got back in doors, Pete had made the tea, and two mugs were sitting on the coffee table one of which was empty and the other tepid.   Thought you were only going to make a phone call you’ve been gone ages.   “Bloody kids had vandalized the poxy phone again. I had to walk ages to find a working one. When you going to say goodbye to those mates down the pub?”   “This afternoon” he replied.   “Don’t tell them much though, just tell them you’ve been offered a new job out of town and we need to move”   “Ok I’ll keep mum. What about you and work?”   “Same as you, this afternoon. I still have four weeks holiday owing as I’ve not taken any yet this year, so I’ll go down and give my four weeks’ notice and use the holiday as the notice period.   “Bet they won’t be happy with that” “If they don’t like it tuff, nothing’s going to stand in our way now, nothing”   I drank my now cold tea and did another sweep in the living room and kitchen for stuff to take.   “I thought you’d checked the wall cupboard”   “I did”   “So, what about all the board games in here then”   “I didn’t think we’d want to take them seeing as most of them aren’t totally complete”   “How’d you know, when was the last time you played them?”   “I dunno, ages ago”   I pulled the boxes out of the cupboard. All of them were games we’d played with the kids over the years, mouse trap pop-up pirates, scrabble, which Penny normally won even at her tender years, Monopoly and Ker-plunk.   I then remembered when penny used some of the scrabble tiles and glued them to her bed when she was about three, and spelt out I LOVE MY FAMILY, the playing pieces from the Monopoly got the same treatment at the other end of the bed.   I spotted an ordinary looking cardboard box at the back of the cupboard and pulled it out.   “Bloody good job I checked in here, look”   Pete came over.   “Didn’t see that, sorry”   I gave him my less than pleased look.   “Look sorry, I thought it was all junk”   The box contained all of our wedding stuff, photos and gifts like the champaign glasses and the wedding lucky horseshoe we were given as presents, along with heaps of other family photos and the kids first of everything, shoes, dummy’s you know, the family rubbish that you never throw away.   I took it to the coffee table and started looking through. It was stuff that in all honesty I hadn’t clapped eyes on in years, but there was no way it was being left behind.   Pete sat down next to me and started to pull things out as well.   We ooood and arred and have some really good nostalgic reminisces over the next hour or so as we went through the box’s contents one by one.   “Where’d we go wrong Jen, what happened to us?”   “Look now’s not the time to start pointing fingers, we’ve been given the chance to start afresh, let’s just make the most of it ok!”   “Ok” He replied.   He had a little tear in his eye which I loved to see.   We hugged for a while and kissed and hugged some more.   I got up and put the box into one of the packing boxes and sealed it with tape, then fixed a label to it which read fragile, as I felt it was, a fragile memory as to how things were.   We both left the flat at the same time, him to say goodbye to his mates and me to say goodbye to my job.   I was totally surprised that work were happy for me and weren’t too bothered about me leaving. They even said that I could continue to use my discount card for another six months.    I half expected Pete to be as pissed as a fart when he got back home but much to my surprise he was really very sober.   “I only had two, just to say bye to everyone. Even the landlord brought me one” he smiled.   We had some dinner that I had prepared when I got home and decided on an early night as we had a long day tomorrow. We of course had fantastic sex again and I did him his now customary rewarding nappy and plastic pants when we’d finished.   I had inadvertently found my way to control Pete, and I was loving every minute of it.   The alarm went off at seven. I got up and washed first. Pete lounged in bed in his now customary wet nappy waiting for me to take it off.   I’d made it a condition that he wasn’t allowed to remove a nappy once I’d put it on him. The rule was that I was the only one allowed to touch it and he was actually sticking to it.   I did find it a bit of a turn on myself, to see him with nothing more than a soaked terry nappy and plastic pants waiting for his new mummy to take it off him, and when I did he always had an enormous hard on.   He always tried to relieve himself, but I’d always slap his hand away and tell him No! he would have to wait till later.   He would always have a puppy dog look when I told him no, but he did as he was told and left his stiffy alone once he had been told no, so again I was enjoying the new control I had over him.   I removed his plastic pants and unpinned his nappy, and he got up, got washed and dressed while I went and made us some tea and toast and washed out the nappy.   I put the Happy Summers paperwork and all the stuff we’d been given a couple of days ago into my bag ready to go.   It didn’t take us long to finish up and get out of the door, and we made our way to catch our first bus which arrived quite quickly. The journey was only about 35 minutes then the second bus was slightly less.   We arrived at Fenchurch Street train station just in time to catch our train. This journey was going to take another one and a half hours but the train motored along quite steadily and in no time we arrived in Southend-on-Sea.   “Fancy a walk to the beach Jen?”   “Yea go on then, we’ve still got plenty of time to spare”   Pete took my hand, something he hadn’t done in many a while and we headed off towards the beach which was a short walk down the hill from the station.   Southend wasn’t as busy as it had been in the past but there were still plenty of people and kids milling about at the sea front.   We brought an ice cream each and sat on a bench on the sea front in the warm August morning sun for a while.   “Are you happy Jen?” Pete asked.   “I’m happy that were getting along better. I’m ecstatic that were heading off on a new journey for us, and I’m excited for the kids getting a new excellent chance to be happy, for me that’s the clincher”   “Yea me too. I’m sorry though”   “For what?”   “For being a total prat lately. I can see why you were beginning to hate me now”   “I didn’t hate you Pete, I was just pissed off at you because your actions were being used by Simon. He had the attitude of, if dad can get away with it then why can’t I. So, he started to go off the rails about the same time you did”   “I realise that now. My lethargy was bringing us all down”   “But now you’ve seen the light and everything’s going to be ok”   “Yea I suppose so” He replied.   “Well, no, not really.   We’ve both got some really hard work ahead of us to rebuild everything from the bottom up. These people at Happy Summers have given us a step up and a push in the right direction. We’ve now got to fight for everything to rebuild and bring us all together again and I want to be able to rely on you in the future, so can I?” “What rely on me? Of course, love, I want it to work as much as you, in fact maybe more, because it was me that really caused the problem. I want nothing more than to get us all back to where we were five years ago, a happy loving cohesive family that is supporting each other and relying on each other”   Pete grabbed my hand. “I promise luv, we’ll come out fighting and we’ll get it back to how it was before”   He squeezed my hand really hard, pulled me toward him and gave me a soppy kiss, much like how he did when we first met all those years ago.   “Shall we go and tell your sister, and more importantly Penny our good news” He suggested.   Maybe things were on the up again, maybe he was fully committed.   “Common luv. If I remember your sisters place is just up the road and round the corner”   He pulled me by the hand, and we made our way off the seafront toward my sister’s place.   He was right, Brenda’s place was just around the corner. She had moved here seven years ago to get away from London, something I really wish we had done, but that’s all history now.   We arrived at the house in five minutes and was, for a change getting somewhere early.   Pete rang the doorbell, and we heard a Westminster chime from behind the closed door, then as if she’d been standing behind the door in anticipation of our arrival the door swung open.   “Helloooow, you two, hasn’t it been a long time”   She and I hugged then she pulled Pete in and hugged him as well.   “So come on then, spill the beans what’s going on, I’ve been on tender hooks since you called last night”   “Can we come in first woman” Pete laughed. “Sorry, I’m just really intrigued, you’ve turned up sort of unexpectedly over a week before your due to collect Penny so It must be important news”   “Tea first” I said. “We’ve been on the go since seven”   “Oh god how rude of me, Yes, tea! come in, sit down, shoes off first please”   Pete and I removed our shoes and placed them on the floor next to some others in the hall.   “New carpet, were trying to keep it spotless for as long as possible”   Brenda had always been very house proud, everything had its place and it was normally totally spotless in her home.   She led us to the lounge and sat us down in her new leather suite,   “Hope you find it comfortable, we only had it delivered two weeks ago”   She was so much like mum, even down to the little ditty she was humming while in the kitchen which is so so reminiscent of mum before she died last year.   “What time are you expecting Penny, Jane and Ed back?”   “In about an hour. Ed took them to feed the ducks in the park up the road, then they were going to the amusement arcade to feed 2p’s into the log push machine, that normally keeps them occupied for a good half hour, well until the pot of 2p’s has gone anyway”   Brenda came in from the kitchen carrying a tray with three cups and saucers, a milk jug and a teapot and a plate with an assortment of biscuits.   “So, come on then spill the beans, it must be important if you’ve come all this way” “Well, you know that Simons gone away to a camp for six weeks”   “Yes which is why we’re looking after Penny to give you two a break for a couple of weeks”   “Well, it’s a bit more than just a camp, it’s like a correctional school that uses some unusual techniques in its way of working” “Ok I’m intrigued, tell me more”   “Well,” I paused trying to think of the best way to phrase the next bit.   “Come on, come on out with it” she said with a large hint of impatient thrown in.   “Well, when they have finished sorting Simon out they have offered to move us all to a new area for a fresh start. New schools for both the kids and new jobs for me and Pete, oh, and a new fully furnished house”   “No, really, I’m so pleased for both of you and the kids of course. Where is the place?”   “It’s a place called Abingdon its near Oxford, we were up there a couple of days ago, we saw the house, went to see the kids’ new schools, and the best bit went to see our new employers, were going to be working for the same company. Pete welding and me in accounts”   “This all seems to be like a dream scenario, how did all this come about”   “Well as I told you ages ago, Simons been playing up for some time now, skipping school, stealing, drugs you name it. Well, his social worker approached us and told us of this place called Happy Summers, a special facility that aims to correct kids that were straying off the beaten track.   She warned us that because of the way Simon was that he was on a sort of last chance, take it or leave it solution to help get him back on track. Otherwise, it would have him, ending up in an approved secure unit. Which I thought was a little excessive if I’m honest, but what we weren’t aware of was how they saw the family as the answer to the problem as well as the school.   We went up for a meeting with the Happy Summers team a couple of days ago as you know, and over two days they made us the proposition”   I pulled the paperwork out of my bag and handed it over to Brenda. She looked at the brochure about the school and raised her eyebrows a couple of times. Then read our copies of the work contracts, house lease, furniture money and just about everything. “Well sis you’ve fallen on your feet here, this looks too good to be true. How do you feel about it Pete?”   “I was dead against it at first, but now I can see that It’s going to be a great thing for the family and mine and Jenny’s relationship”   “So, what’s this Happy Summers camp thing all about then, the brochure doesn’t say much”   “Well, they sort of regress the children and re-educate them over a six week Period. Show them where they’ve gone wrong and try to get then back on the right track. Show them how things could be if they put in the right effort”   “I’d love to know how they manage that over only six weeks”   “They have special methods some of which we know about some we don’t. We both decided that it was worth a shot with Simon, we needed to do something, because we were at our wits end”   “Come here both of you”   She got on her knees in front of us and outstretched her arms. Pete and I leant forward, and we all cuddled for a couple of minutes.   I heard a key being inserted in the door, they were back home from the park early. Brenda got back to her feet and made her way to the hallway.   “I have a surprise for you Penny, someone’s come to visit”   Penny came through the door and her face lit up when she saw us.   “Mummy” she screamed and ran over to hug me”   “Don’t forget Daddy” I said.   “Hello Daddy” Penny Gave Pete a little hug.   “Why have you come Mummy, it’s not Simon is it, he’s not hurt or in trouble is he?”   “No hun, nothing like that but It’s sort of got to do with Simon in a way” I explained the situation to Penny in every detail as it would affect all of us, the move the new house the new schools the new jobs, but I left out the nappy part.   “So how do you feel about all of that then Penny?”   “I think it sounds great”   “Aren’t you worried about losing your friends?”   “Honestly mum!” She raised her eyebrows.   “You know I only have one real friend, Jackie. The rest of the kids around home and at school are just kids to play with.   They all look at me as if I’m some sort of brain freak so I won’t miss them at all, besides if this new school is as good as you say it is, I’ll be with kids that I can talk too properly so I’ll make new friends won’t I”   Wow! such a grown-up thing to come out with I thought.   “What about Jackie” Brenda asked.   “Well, we can talk on the phone and according to mum were not moving to the moon, so we’ll be able to see each other now and then won’t we.   How’s Simon getting on is he enjoying his holiday?”   “As far as we know yes” said Pete.   “Good he needed to get out of our place and away from those idiots he was hanging around with. So, when are we moving then?”   “Well, me and your dad think it’s best that you finish your little holiday with your auntie so we can pack everything up and get it all moved to the new house all ready for when you and Simon move in”   “Wow, I can’t wait. Have you started packing already?”   “Yep we started yours and Simons room yesterday. All your clothes and toys are in boxes ready to go”   “All of Simon’s stuff?” “Yep all of it”   “Even his” She stopped abruptly.   “Even his what?” I asked.   “Nothing, I’ll tell you later”   The six of us all chatted in the living room, Brenda made another cup of tea and this time brought out the cakes as well.   Everyone was excited about the news and were talking about the plans we all had for the future. After a while Pete and Ed decided it was time for a fag so they got up and went to the back garden because there was no way Brenda would allow smoking in her pristine home.   Jane went to the loo and Brenda took the plates and cups out to the kitchen to wash up.   Penny sat next to me and she started to quietly whisper.   “Did you find Simon’s stuff behind his wardrobe?”   “What his little bag of white stuff?”   “No, his nappies”   “How’d you know about his nappies”   “Mum, we live in the same room, of course I know about his nappies, he doesn’t know I do though.   He sometimes wears one at night, and he likes to sleep on top of his covers so every once in a while, his pyjamas would ride up, and I’d see the nappy he had on. I thought he was wetting the bed and trying to cover it up. But he wasn’t wearing every night so that wasn’t why. When I was staying at Jackie’s house ages ago I looked on the internet and found an article about older boys that liked to wear nappies for fun, which Jackie and I had a good laugh about, so I worked it out that that’s what Simon liked to do and left it there”   “That’s a very nice thing for you to do by not making fun of him and showing him up”   “He’s my brother and I love him, I’d never do that to him even though he’s a git to me sometimes”   “I love you Penny, I really do”   “I love you too mum, so, so much”   Everyone came back into the room all at about the same time and Brenda suggested that we all went out to dinner tonight, and she also suggested  that Pete and I stay the night in the spare room, an invitation to which I graciously accepted.   Well, that was another little hurdle that we’d gotten over, Penny was happy with moving and my sister’s family were overjoyed that we’d been given a fresh start, so we were well on the way to hopefully making this a big success.   Let’s hope Simon would look at it in the same way when he came home.       Next time were back with Simon in         Chapter 33.      Music in the air. Chapter 32.docx A little late but never the less!     Chapter 32.   Making New Plans.   Pete and I had been back home for two days from our little trip and we were getting along well.   We had already signed and posted off all the paperwork that we needed too, so that part was in full motion.   The great sex had continued, and it was like old times had returned, I even treated him to a couple of nappy sessions.   We’d decided that we needed to visit my sister and tell Penny what was being planned for us all in person.   But that was tomorrow, today we were deciding what stuff we wanted to take with us to the new place.   A removal company had dropped off a load of flat pack boxes, tape and labels with instructions that anything we wanted to take needed to have a label clearly stuck on it.   So, everything that we taking downstairs was getting a label, which in all honesty wasn’t much. Most of the stuff we had was old and second hand when we got it.   There was an old sideboard / dresser that was my nans and a table that came from Pete’s family but that was it really, I think the sofa was third hand when we got it so that could definitely go to the tip.   The prospect of a new home with new fixtures fittings and furniture was so mind boggling it was really hard to come to terms with.   “Shall we start with the bedrooms now” I asked Pete.   “Ours or the kids room?” He replied.   “Let’s start with the kids”   We went through every drawer, every cupboard, under beds and behind Wardrobes.   I picked out Penny’s clothes that would still fit her as I did with Simons, the rest could go to the tip. Pete packed all kids toys and some of Simons more interesting items he’d collected over the years.   “Hello, hello! what have we here?” Said Pete.   Holding a clear bag of white powder about six inches square.   “Well, it’s not soap powder is it, give it me!”   “No, what you gonna do with it”   “The only thing I can do, flush it”   “That’s worth a fortune, we can flog it”   “Who to? your mates down the pub. You don’t know who uses the stuff, you could end up offering it to some undercover copper, then what, can you accompany me down to the station please sir.   That will kibosh our new start and jobs for sure, so no, we’ll flush it”   Pete had a real pissed off look and was reluctant to even hand the bag over.   “Ok, ok I’ll flush it “he said.   “Go on then”   “What now!”   “Yes now”   “But”   “No buts do it. Otherwise, no nappies for you, ever again”   “Awwww shit”   He sounded like a five-year-old and reluctantly made his way to the bathroom. “Off you go then flush, and pore” He pulled the chain on the high-level cistern, and the water started its descent down the flush pipe heading to the bowl.   He opened the bag and started to shake its contents into the pan just as the water started to come out and swirl around the bowl, taking the unknown powder away through the sewerage system. It could have been talcum powder for all we know, something Simon kept hidden with his nappy stash, but now it was gone.   “Flush again and bung the bag in this time”   His face was a picture, as if he thought I didn’t notice that he had some of the powder still in the bag.   “Go on!”   “Alright, alright I’m doing it”   We waited for the cistern to fill again and he flushed again, this time throwing the bag and its remaining contents into the bowl.   It took a third flush and the use of the toilet brush to finally get rid of the bag, but rid of it we were.   “Don’t ever let me hear anything like that from you ever again, there’s far too much at stake to even think of doing stuff like that, you need to wise up and get with the plan Pete.   “I know, I know, it was just a thought”   “Just make sure then that you don’t have another one”   “Another what?”   “Thought”   He gave me a stare.   We continued sorting and checking, but we ended up with very little, a few boxes of clothes and toys.   The wardrobes and chest of drawers weren’t needed as the bedrooms at the new place had the built-in wardrobes. We labelled up the kids two beds which were in good nick and of course Simons decks. I could just imagine the fit he’d have if we didn’t take his pride and joy.   Our room was much the same, a few clothes that were sort of still in fashion and our bed, everything else was just tatty old rubbish.   It didn’t take us long to button everything up as we really didn’t have much to start with.   We went downstairs and I told Pete that I needed to phone my sister and to get the kettle on for a tea, as I wouldn’t be long.   I went over to the phone box across the road from our flat and found that as usual it had been vandalised. So, I had to walk 10 minutes to find one that hadn’t been.   “Hi, Brenda, only me”   “Hi sis how’s things?   Did your meeting thing go ok?”   “That’s why I’m ringing. We need to pop over tomorrow if that’s ok?”   Why what’s wrong, I thought you wanted Penny to stay for two weeks”   “No, she’s still staying for the two weeks if she’s still welcome and behaving herself? But we’ve got some really exciting news to tell you all, and I wanted to do it face to face rather than over the phone!”   “What you ain’t won the lottery have you?”   “Not the lottery, but something close to it”   “Go on tell me sis”   “No, tomorrow! Don’t tell Penny were coming though I want it to be a surprise”   “What time you getting here?”   “About eleven, if that’s ok?”   “Yes not a problem, Penny and Jane are going out to the park in the morning with Ed but should be back by about twelve”   “Super, see you tomorrow then”   “Awwww go on give me a hint”   “Look all I will say is that its brilliant news and I hope you’ll wish us all well when you hear it”   “Ok, see you tomorrow then”   “See you”   I hung up the phone and made my way back home. I was desperate to tell Penny the good news but wanted to be with her when I did.   When I got back in doors, Pete had made the tea, and two mugs were sitting on the coffee table one of which was empty and the other tepid.   Thought you were only going to make a phone call you’ve been gone ages.   “Bloody kids had vandalized the poxy phone again. I had to walk ages to find a working one. When you going to say goodbye to those mates down the pub?”   “This afternoon” he replied.   “Don’t tell them much though, just tell them you’ve been offered a new job out of town and we need to move”   “Ok I’ll keep mum. What about you and work?”   “Same as you, this afternoon. I still have four weeks holiday owing as I’ve not taken any yet this year, so I’ll go down and give my four weeks’ notice and use the holiday as the notice period.   “Bet they won’t be happy with that” “If they don’t like it tuff, nothing’s going to stand in our way now, nothing”   I drank my now cold tea and did another sweep in the living room and kitchen for stuff to take.   “I thought you’d checked the wall cupboard”   “I did”   “So, what about all the board games in here then”   “I didn’t think we’d want to take them seeing as most of them aren’t totally complete”   “How’d you know, when was the last time you played them?”   “I dunno, ages ago”   I pulled the boxes out of the cupboard. All of them were games we’d played with the kids over the years, mouse trap pop-up pirates, scrabble, which Penny normally won even at her tender years, Monopoly and Ker-plunk.   I then remembered when penny used some of the scrabble tiles and glued them to her bed when she was about three, and spelt out I LOVE MY FAMILY, the playing pieces from the Monopoly got the same treatment at the other end of the bed.   I spotted an ordinary looking cardboard box at the back of the cupboard and pulled it out.   “Bloody good job I checked in here, look”   Pete came over.   “Didn’t see that, sorry”   I gave him my less than pleased look.   “Look sorry, I thought it was all junk”   The box contained all of our wedding stuff, photos and gifts like the champaign glasses and the wedding lucky horseshoe we were given as presents, along with heaps of other family photos and the kids first of everything, shoes, dummy’s you know, the family rubbish that you never throw away.   I took it to the coffee table and started looking through. It was stuff that in all honesty I hadn’t clapped eyes on in years, but there was no way it was being left behind.   Pete sat down next to me and started to pull things out as well.   We ooood and arred and have some really good nostalgic reminisces over the next hour or so as we went through the box’s contents one by one.   “Where’d we go wrong Jen, what happened to us?”   “Look now’s not the time to start pointing fingers, we’ve been given the chance to start afresh, let’s just make the most of it ok!”   “Ok” He replied.   He had a little tear in his eye which I loved to see.   We hugged for a while and kissed and hugged some more.   I got up and put the box into one of the packing boxes and sealed it with tape, then fixed a label to it which read fragile, as I felt it was, a fragile memory as to how things were.   We both left the flat at the same time, him to say goodbye to his mates and me to say goodbye to my job.   I was totally surprised that work were happy for me and weren’t too bothered about me leaving. They even said that I could continue to use my discount card for another six months.    I half expected Pete to be as pissed as a fart when he got back home but much to my surprise he was really very sober.   “I only had two, just to say bye to everyone. Even the landlord brought me one” he smiled.   We had some dinner that I had prepared when I got home and decided on an early night as we had a long day tomorrow. We of course had fantastic sex again and I did him his now customary rewarding nappy and plastic pants when we’d finished.   I had inadvertently found my way to control Pete, and I was loving every minute of it.   The alarm went off at seven. I got up and washed first. Pete lounged in bed in his now customary wet nappy waiting for me to take it off.   I’d made it a condition that he wasn’t allowed to remove a nappy once I’d put it on him. The rule was that I was the only one allowed to touch it and he was actually sticking to it.   I did find it a bit of a turn on myself, to see him with nothing more than a soaked terry nappy and plastic pants waiting for his new mummy to take it off him, and when I did he always had an enormous hard on.   He always tried to relieve himself, but I’d always slap his hand away and tell him No! he would have to wait till later.   He would always have a puppy dog look when I told him no, but he did as he was told and left his stiffy alone once he had been told no, so again I was enjoying the new control I had over him.   I removed his plastic pants and unpinned his nappy, and he got up, got washed and dressed while I went and made us some tea and toast and washed out the nappy.   I put the Happy Summers paperwork and all the stuff we’d been given a couple of days ago into my bag ready to go.   It didn’t take us long to finish up and get out of the door, and we made our way to catch our first bus which arrived quite quickly. The journey was only about 35 minutes then the second bus was slightly less.   We arrived at Fenchurch Street train station just in time to catch our train. This journey was going to take another one and a half hours but the train motored along quite steadily and in no time we arrived in Southend-on-Sea.   “Fancy a walk to the beach Jen?”   “Yea go on then, we’ve still got plenty of time to spare”   Pete took my hand, something he hadn’t done in many a while and we headed off towards the beach which was a short walk down the hill from the station.   Southend wasn’t as busy as it had been in the past but there were still plenty of people and kids milling about at the sea front.   We brought an ice cream each and sat on a bench on the sea front in the warm August morning sun for a while.   “Are you happy Jen?” Pete asked.   “I’m happy that were getting along better. I’m ecstatic that were heading off on a new journey for us, and I’m excited for the kids getting a new excellent chance to be happy, for me that’s the clincher”   “Yea me too. I’m sorry though”   “For what?”   “For being a total prat lately. I can see why you were beginning to hate me now”   “I didn’t hate you Pete, I was just pissed off at you because your actions were being used by Simon. He had the attitude of, if dad can get away with it then why can’t I. So, he started to go off the rails about the same time you did”   “I realise that now. My lethargy was bringing us all down”   “But now you’ve seen the light and everything’s going to be ok”   “Yea I suppose so” He replied.   “Well, no, not really.   We’ve both got some really hard work ahead of us to rebuild everything from the bottom up. These people at Happy Summers have given us a step up and a push in the right direction. We’ve now got to fight for everything to rebuild and bring us all together again and I want to be able to rely on you in the future, so can I?” “What rely on me? Of course, love, I want it to work as much as you, in fact maybe more, because it was me that really caused the problem. I want nothing more than to get us all back to where we were five years ago, a happy loving cohesive family that is supporting each other and relying on each other”   Pete grabbed my hand. “I promise luv, we’ll come out fighting and we’ll get it back to how it was before”   He squeezed my hand really hard, pulled me toward him and gave me a soppy kiss, much like how he did when we first met all those years ago.   “Shall we go and tell your sister, and more importantly Penny our good news” He suggested.   Maybe things were on the up again, maybe he was fully committed.   “Common luv. If I remember your sisters place is just up the road and round the corner”   He pulled me by the hand, and we made our way off the seafront toward my sister’s place.   He was right, Brenda’s place was just around the corner. She had moved here seven years ago to get away from London, something I really wish we had done, but that’s all history now.   We arrived at the house in five minutes and was, for a change getting somewhere early.   Pete rang the doorbell, and we heard a Westminster chime from behind the closed door, then as if she’d been standing behind the door in anticipation of our arrival the door swung open.   “Helloooow, you two, hasn’t it been a long time”   She and I hugged then she pulled Pete in and hugged him as well.   “So come on then, spill the beans what’s going on, I’ve been on tender hooks since you called last night”   “Can we come in first woman” Pete laughed. “Sorry, I’m just really intrigued, you’ve turned up sort of unexpectedly over a week before your due to collect Penny so It must be important news”   “Tea first” I said. “We’ve been on the go since seven”   “Oh god how rude of me, Yes, tea! come in, sit down, shoes off first please”   Pete and I removed our shoes and placed them on the floor next to some others in the hall.   “New carpet, were trying to keep it spotless for as long as possible”   Brenda had always been very house proud, everything had its place and it was normally totally spotless in her home.   She led us to the lounge and sat us down in her new leather suite,   “Hope you find it comfortable, we only had it delivered two weeks ago”   She was so much like mum, even down to the little ditty she was humming while in the kitchen which is so so reminiscent of mum before she died last year.   “What time are you expecting Penny, Jane and Ed back?”   “In about an hour. Ed took them to feed the ducks in the park up the road, then they were going to the amusement arcade to feed 2p’s into the log push machine, that normally keeps them occupied for a good half hour, well until the pot of 2p’s has gone anyway”   Brenda came in from the kitchen carrying a tray with three cups and saucers, a milk jug and a teapot and a plate with an assortment of biscuits.   “So, come on then spill the beans, it must be important if you’ve come all this way” “Well, you know that Simons gone away to a camp for six weeks”   “Yes which is why we’re looking after Penny to give you two a break for a couple of weeks”   “Well, it’s a bit more than just a camp, it’s like a correctional school that uses some unusual techniques in its way of working” “Ok I’m intrigued, tell me more”   “Well,” I paused trying to think of the best way to phrase the next bit.   “Come on, come on out with it” she said with a large hint of impatient thrown in.   “Well, when they have finished sorting Simon out they have offered to move us all to a new area for a fresh start. New schools for both the kids and new jobs for me and Pete, oh, and a new fully furnished house”   “No, really, I’m so pleased for both of you and the kids of course. Where is the place?”   “It’s a place called Abingdon its near Oxford, we were up there a couple of days ago, we saw the house, went to see the kids’ new schools, and the best bit went to see our new employers, were going to be working for the same company. Pete welding and me in accounts”   “This all seems to be like a dream scenario, how did all this come about”   “Well as I told you ages ago, Simons been playing up for some time now, skipping school, stealing, drugs you name it. Well, his social worker approached us and told us of this place called Happy Summers, a special facility that aims to correct kids that were straying off the beaten track.   She warned us that because of the way Simon was that he was on a sort of last chance, take it or leave it solution to help get him back on track. Otherwise, it would have him, ending up in an approved secure unit. Which I thought was a little excessive if I’m honest, but what we weren’t aware of was how they saw the family as the answer to the problem as well as the school.   We went up for a meeting with the Happy Summers team a couple of days ago as you know, and over two days they made us the proposition”   I pulled the paperwork out of my bag and handed it over to Brenda. She looked at the brochure about the school and raised her eyebrows a couple of times. Then read our copies of the work contracts, house lease, furniture money and just about everything. “Well sis you’ve fallen on your feet here, this looks too good to be true. How do you feel about it Pete?”   “I was dead against it at first, but now I can see that It’s going to be a great thing for the family and mine and Jenny’s relationship”   “So, what’s this Happy Summers camp thing all about then, the brochure doesn’t say much”   “Well, they sort of regress the children and re-educate them over a six week Period. Show them where they’ve gone wrong and try to get then back on the right track. Show them how things could be if they put in the right effort”   “I’d love to know how they manage that over only six weeks”   “They have special methods some of which we know about some we don’t. We both decided that it was worth a shot with Simon, we needed to do something, because we were at our wits end”   “Come here both of you”   She got on her knees in front of us and outstretched her arms. Pete and I leant forward, and we all cuddled for a couple of minutes.   I heard a key being inserted in the door, they were back home from the park early. Brenda got back to her feet and made her way to the hallway.   “I have a surprise for you Penny, someone’s come to visit”   Penny came through the door and her face lit up when she saw us.   “Mummy” she screamed and ran over to hug me”   “Don’t forget Daddy” I said.   “Hello Daddy” Penny Gave Pete a little hug.   “Why have you come Mummy, it’s not Simon is it, he’s not hurt or in trouble is he?”   “No hun, nothing like that but It’s sort of got to do with Simon in a way” I explained the situation to Penny in every detail as it would affect all of us, the move the new house the new schools the new jobs, but I left out the nappy part.   “So how do you feel about all of that then Penny?”   “I think it sounds great”   “Aren’t you worried about losing your friends?”   “Honestly mum!” She raised her eyebrows.   “You know I only have one real friend, Jackie. The rest of the kids around home and at school are just kids to play with.   They all look at me as if I’m some sort of brain freak so I won’t miss them at all, besides if this new school is as good as you say it is, I’ll be with kids that I can talk too properly so I’ll make new friends won’t I”   Wow! such a grown-up thing to come out with I thought.   “What about Jackie” Brenda asked.   “Well, we can talk on the phone and according to mum were not moving to the moon, so we’ll be able to see each other now and then won’t we.   How’s Simon getting on is he enjoying his holiday?”   “As far as we know yes” said Pete.   “Good he needed to get out of our place and away from those idiots he was hanging around with. So, when are we moving then?”   “Well, me and your dad think it’s best that you finish your little holiday with your auntie so we can pack everything up and get it all moved to the new house all ready for when you and Simon move in”   “Wow, I can’t wait. Have you started packing already?”   “Yep we started yours and Simons room yesterday. All your clothes and toys are in boxes ready to go”   “All of Simon’s stuff?” “Yep all of it”   “Even his” She stopped abruptly.   “Even his what?” I asked.   “Nothing, I’ll tell you later”   The six of us all chatted in the living room, Brenda made another cup of tea and this time brought out the cakes as well.   Everyone was excited about the news and were talking about the plans we all had for the future. After a while Pete and Ed decided it was time for a fag so they got up and went to the back garden because there was no way Brenda would allow smoking in her pristine home.   Jane went to the loo and Brenda took the plates and cups out to the kitchen to wash up.   Penny sat next to me and she started to quietly whisper.   “Did you find Simon’s stuff behind his wardrobe?”   “What his little bag of white stuff?”   “No, his nappies”   “How’d you know about his nappies”   “Mum, we live in the same room, of course I know about his nappies, he doesn’t know I do though.   He sometimes wears one at night, and he likes to sleep on top of his covers so every once in a while, his pyjamas would ride up, and I’d see the nappy he had on. I thought he was wetting the bed and trying to cover it up. But he wasn’t wearing every night so that wasn’t why. When I was staying at Jackie’s house ages ago I looked on the internet and found an article about older boys that liked to wear nappies for fun, which Jackie and I had a good laugh about, so I worked it out that that’s what Simon liked to do and left it there”   “That’s a very nice thing for you to do by not making fun of him and showing him up”   “He’s my brother and I love him, I’d never do that to him even though he’s a git to me sometimes”   “I love you Penny, I really do”   “I love you too mum, so, so much”   Everyone came back into the room all at about the same time and Brenda suggested that we all went out to dinner tonight, and she also suggested  that Pete and I stay the night in the spare room, an invitation to which I graciously accepted.   Well, that was another little hurdle that we’d gotten over, Penny was happy with moving and my sister’s family were overjoyed that we’d been given a fresh start, so we were well on the way to hopefully making this a big success.   Let’s hope Simon would look at it in the same way when he came home.       Next time were back with Simon in         Chapter 33.      Music in the air.

Part 13 “What the hell was that?” David looked concerned when his wife returned from settling their son. “I’m not sure but I’ve just changed him and put him to bed and...” “Couldn’t he do that himself?” David interrupted in confused disbelief. She shook her head, “But he was okay just minutes before... I mean... normal.” He still couldn’t quite get a grip on what he’d just witnessed. He saw his upbeat son happily discussing his therapist visit and then that sudden glazed look that appeared from nowhere. They looked at each other in silence for a few moments before Susan continued. “These sudden slips, moments of regression, seem to becoming more regular. I’ve seen it a couple of times with his interaction when Terry has called. In fact, I’m sure Terry, who seems an unlikely candidate for any of this nappy stuff, is also occasionally slipping.” “Why do you say that? What have you seen?” Her husband looked more than a little unsettled by this revelation. “I’ve watched them both play together like little kids running toys around the room and I’ve even had to change Terry when he was once here. They were both sucking on one of those dummies.” “What? When?” David asked even more exasperated as he didn’t remember hearing anything about this. “Oh yes...” Susan had forgotten that she’d kept that incident secret. Though, now the lot was supposedly out in the open, realised she needed to tell him everything. # Susan had to come clean about the entire thing that had happened even before they had the session with Laura Mohammad. There had been a great deal of interaction, and agreement, between her and Avril over how best to treat a teenager with a wetting problem that David was unaware of. When she sat down to catalogue events, like she had with Laura, she realised once again just how culpable she was. However, at the time, she thought she was doing what was best for her son, and, with the constant encouragement of Avril, had been only too keen on continuing with his ‘recovery’. Clearly, that so-called 'recovery' had been far from genuine. Unfortunately, by then, Susan was actually enjoying seeing her teenage son not only wearing nappies but revelling in wearing them. It had been an unexpected but enjoyable ‘emotional extra’ that she could appreciate along with her son. To her, once he was wearing a nappy at night, and it was doing the job it was designed for, and he wasn’t complaining about it, AND actually seemed to agree it was something that was needed. She simply appreciated the padded comfort was actually helping. John had taken to all the elements that Avril and then the Dreamtime team had sent their way... and she’d loved his dressing up as much as the lad himself. However, everything shifted after those dummies were brought in, as she noticed a clear difference in behaviour—but by that time, unknown to her, it was already too late. Susan couldn’t believe just how easily she’d been manoeuvred by the pharmacist; the betrayal and the use of her son in such a dodgy experiment... it left her seething in anger and guilt. “That bloody woman...” As he listened David raged under his breath because although he was angry with the pharmacist he was once again looking accusingly at his wife. So much he thought he knew about but alas, what had really happened was that he’d not taken enough notice of his son’s soggy predicament. He’d left it to his wife and despite trying to put the blame firmly elsewhere had seen with his own eyes (so he couldn’t be in denial) Johnny happily parading around the house wearing just a nappy. His emotions were all over the place... what had he missed? What value did his silence contribute? Once again silence fell around them both as they took account of all that had been said. David’s mood softened, an awful lot had gone on and mistakes had been made by both him and Susan, he couldn’t simply put the blame on her. He realised that his wife not being able to mother another child might, just might have slipped into pouring all her motherly instincts into a second round of babying John. That thought couldn’t be dismissed and he was sure that the psychiatrist had already covered such an area but that still left their son in an awkward situation. That was... what had just happened. It hadn’t been anticipated and they now had to deal with that as a priority. He moved closer to his wife and gently put his arms around her. “We’ll make it work love... we’ll make it work.” # Fast asleep and with a thumb firmly being nursed between his lips John was unaware of all that was going on downstairs. He had no idea what had happened or why. He had no thoughts at all in his head but, as he slept, his body decided to act... by filling both the front and back of his nappy as he snuggled deeper down into a place that had just become a new state of affairs - Comficated! He was comfortable but it was complicated. # David and Susan talked nonstop, their meal hardly touched as they discussed their ailing, and it seemed failing son. Susan was keen to point the blame squarely at the drugged dummies, which her husband pointed out the police had said were being made specifically for ‘distribution’ at one of the main up and coming large music festivals. “But she was using Johnny as...” Words failed her as she remembered clearly her own worries that she’d brought up with Avril about the use of dummies on someone his age. The pharmacist had glossed over those misgivings, and in fact had been definite that it was a soothing culture that had started in the Far East and had been adopted as a useful enabler for those who were stressed. She had seen the reasoning behind that argument and let it go. Susan cursed herself for not being more assertive on the issue, being so easily conned and now it seemed that it might be too late. “We have no idea just exactly what chemicals or hallucinogenic properties those damn things were coated in...” The guilt on Susan’s face was real but David added that the police were still investigating and testing the dummies that they’d confiscated. So far the test results were uncertain. “At the moment they have no real idea what Avril and her boyfriend have concocted or...” he added with a nervous shrug, “if it’s a temporary high or what.” The truth was that they were using John and his enthusiasm for such items, as their guinea pig.  Despite feeling guilty they also couldn’t evade the fact that their son had actually been enjoying the entire process. Could his readiness to accept nappies and the rest of the clothing have made a mindset that enabled the drugs to be more effective? Did it break down barriers? Open up lines to the brain? Did it actually regress those who took it or simply more attuned to some basic desire? They tossed several ideas and scenarios around for a few hours before eventually agreeing it was time for bed. They called in at John’s bedroom and immediately knew from the smell that their poor boy desperately needed a change. “I wonder how long he’s been lying in all this mess?” Susan sympathised, whilst David simply told her to go to bed as he’d sort it out. Johnny’s nappy was still firmly shut behind the tough pair of blue plastic pants that Susan had put him in but there was no denying the mess had discoloured the fabric underneath. John had hardly moved when the light had been switched on and was barely reacting to his father’s ministrations as he pushed under the plastic change mat before pulling off the plastic pants and begin to release the stained padding. Manoeuvring a dead-to-the-world sixteen year old wasn’t easy. Although a slight groan escaped his thumb-sucking lips he wasn’t really conscious enough to know what was going on. When his eyes did open he hardly took in that it was his dad who was trying to change his soiled nappy but, as if on automatic, when told to lift up, he did so. Susan had already opened the windows wider and despite being told he’d deal with it, hovered nearby in case she was needed. She took the messy package from her husband and disposed of it in the bathroom, where she collected a towel, wipes and a bowl of warm water and sponge. David had already begun the clean-up but couldn’t pretend that what his wife brought was certainly more useful in dealing with the streaks and dirt a few wet wipes couldn’t clear up on their own. As things progressed John started to come round a bit, although he still wasn’t totally engaged. “Dada,” he mumbled around his spit-slicked thumb. For a moment his words caught his father off-guard as he pinned part of his fresh nappy in place. “Hmmm... yes son...” But then his boy’s eyes glazed over and he dropped off back to sleep. A thicker pair of rubber pants were passed to him by Susan who thought they might contain any extra night time spillage better and David slowly, but methodically, pulled them into place and patted them down once he’d checked all the fleecy nappy was confined. “Night-night son” “Nighty-night sweetheart,” Susan added. Their son was clean and safe for now but what would the morning bring. # I woke up incredibly groggy. My eyes took a few moments to focus but I could hear the rain beating at the window. I sighed because I knew Bruce would need to be taken out and I just wasn’t in the mood to ‘enjoy’ a summer downpour. Still, he’d need to be exercised so I thought I’d better get up and see to his needs. As I swung my legs over the side of the bed, I became aware of the thick rubber pants I was wearing. I had no recollection of putting them on, yet they were securely holding my night nappy in place. To my relief, the padding wasn’t entirely soaked, though I could feel a definite dampness. I made a mental note to deal with that after I’d taken Bruce out for his walk. Glancing at the clock, I saw it was already past 10am. Mum and Dad had allowed me to sleep in, and with my memory of the previous night being hazy, I couldn’t recall what time I’d eventually gone to bed. I pulled on some socks, a jumper and slipped up a pair of fleecy maroon shorts and headed downstairs. As soon as my feet hit the top of the landing Bruce came bounding up the stairs to greet me. “Morning Brucie boy... who’s a good boy then,” I enthused as he madly wagged his tail and I gave him a wonderful long petting. I think we both needed that. Mum stood at the bottom of the stairs. “Morning sweetheart... and how are you this morning?” I detected a slight note of concern in her voice but she was smiling so I knew all was okay. “Fine, I think... just a little damp this morning, which is a change... not that I need one just yet,” I joked. “Okay love, what do you want for breakfast... I can cook something if you fancy it?” “Nothing at the moment, erm, I better see to Bruce first.” “He’s fine, Dad took him out first thing before the rain started so... come sit... have something to eat and...” She disappeared into the kitchen so I didn’t catch the last bit of our exchange. That was a bit of relief because I couldn’t remember where I’d left my wellington boots or where my orange plastic anorak and over-trousers, which I normally wear when out in the rain. I arrived at the kitchen and Mum was putting the pan on the stove and slipping some bread in the toaster. “Scrambled egg on toast?” “That sounds lovely thanks... erm...” I was feeling the tightness of the rubber pants once I sat down. “Do you know why I chose these...” I said showing the top to her as she went about cracking a couple of eggs in a bowl. “Yes love, you had a bit of an accident last night, well, more than an accident actually, quite a blow out in more ways than one. We thought you might need the extra protection as it was quite a messy experience.” “WHAT?” I didn’t remember any of that and a cold clammy guilty feeling crept into my damp nappy and a few more inadvertent spurts hit the material. “Yes love, sorry to say it but, you sort of zoned out at one point and began sucking your thumb. I put you to bed but when we came up ourselves, you had filled you nappy and needed a change. Dad saw to you.” “What do you mean I zoned out... I don’t...erm... what... did I do anything stupid?” I asked cautiously. “Okay,” she said pushing a plate of scrambled egg in my direction, “I’ll let you know what happened and what Dad and I have decided.” It sounded serious and wasn’t sure I had any appetite for the food or what was about to be disclosed but Mum had made this specially so I thought I’d better make an attempt to eat it. In fact, she wouldn’t start until I’d taken my first bite. Actually, the eggs were just as I liked them and once piled on well-buttered toast found myself slightly distracted from what Mum was saying. Once started I was thoroughly enjoying eating and my mind slipped into ‘food’ mode and everything else just tumbled into the background. Not only did I begin to cut everything into bite sized pieces, I found myself nodding, when Mum looked at me to see if I was listening. Through mouthful’s of scrumptious soft floaty egg and warm toast... I have no idea to what I was hearing or agreeing to. # Mum suddenly stopped talking. I hadn’t realised that I was humming a happy little tune as I ate with my fingers, which had drawn her attention to the fact that I was not really with her. I’d just about finished the last crumb of toast and sliver of egg when she came over and hugged me tightly. I heard a sigh. She lightly pushed her hand down the front of my shorts and noticed I was soaked. “Okay sweetheart, brekkie over, time to get you into something dry... yes?” There was part of me about to say I was fine and only a little damp, I had after all checked before I came down but she seemed adamant that I needed a change so wasn’t going to argue. However, I didn’t need her to do it I could do it on my own. “Mum, it’s...” she was already leading me out of my seat and towards the kitchen door. “Look Mum it’s fine and I can do it myself...” I saw her look suspiciously at me. “Really, I’m just a little damp I can...” “Sweetheart, you’re soaked. Not just a little but on the verge of leaking so...” My hand immediately went and rubbed the front of my shorts. She was correct, the padding had grown all squishy I needed to sort things out, and quickly. Still, I wasn’t a little kid, although I’m sure Mum said something about it whilst I ate breakfast. What I did know was that I could and would change my own nappy. “Sweetheart, you need help... you’re not yourself at the moment.” I laughed. “Mum, I’m not a little kid I can sort out a wet nappy and...” I didn’t realise the absurdity of that statement – ‘not a little kid’ and ‘wet nappy’ but barged my way past her and headed for my room. Since eating breakfast I’d peed into my nappy without being aware I had... so, what else did I miss? I vaguely had the feeling that whilst sitting at the breakfast table, I’d felt peculiar when Mum spoke and ended up missing much of what was said. It was like I just drifted off to another place but where to... I had no idea. Unable to understand the reason myself, I found it impossible to explain it to her—so I didn't. I made my way to the stairs and again felt a bit weird. As I stood on the bottom step unsure of what I was about to do. I knew that... erm... was I about to play with my... Ummm..... Mum was right behind me. # Again I saw it coming. That lost and distant look that told me he was no longer ‘in the room’ and could well be drifting or may already be regressing and my poor sweetheart had no idea. Although my opinions towards whatever Avril had done, whatever drugs she’d used, were coursing angrily through my system, it was what was coursing through his that required my attention. He seemed to slip back in control for a short while but... He was in need of mummy’s help first and foremost so that’s where I aimed my concern. He slumped down on his bed and looked confused. “Mummy, have you come to play with me?” He looked befuddled at the thought. “Yes sweetheart but first, let’s change that very wet nappy shall we and then you’ll be all nice and dry to play with your toys, huh?” “Okay.” I watched as his thumb slipped between his lips, a gesture of comfort as he observed me gathering everything needed for a proper clean and change. My heart swelled with affection, seeing him lying quietly, childlike, simply allowing me to take care of him as any toddler with a wet nappy would, trusting me to sort it all out. There was a teddy on the floor that I picked up and thought he might be happier holding a ‘friend’ close. I offered it to him and he joyfully took it and smiling, gave it a huge hug. Once again his nappy, as had become ‘normal’, was completely soaked. No matter whether at his morning change or anytime during the day, his nappy was always saturated. I didn’t know how much liquid he drank, although we did insist he kept hydrated, perhaps he’d taken the instruction too literally. Anyway, he needed a complete clean up. What unsettled me was how easily he switched back—one moment a typical, lively teenager, and the next just a young child with nappy troubles. I even caught myself smiling for a moment at the thought: here was a teen dealing with nappy issues. I kept wondering whether, halfway through changing him, he'd suddenly remember he's sixteen and resent Mum fussing over him and putting him in fresh padding. Still, I didn’t want to dwell on it, so I simply got on with what I had to do. Although Dave and I had previously discussed this matter, I found caring for my son to be rewarding. While I did not wish for him to remain dependent, I didn’t harbour any negative feelings about it. It was what needed to be done. These moments reminded me of earlier times in his life and, despite their regressive nature, I viewed them positively. My primary problem was experiencing both satisfaction and guilt simultaneously, feelings I would have preferred to avoid but acknowledged, nonetheless. Although resentment towards Avril persisted due to her dishonesty, the change in Johnny’s behaviour to that of a young and innocent child was both unexpected and endearing. It wasn’t his fault but didn’t want my poor growing boy to be encased in nappies for the rest of his life. # When we chatted last night Dave and I had decided that through no fault of his own our son had probably been grievously affected by those drugged dummies. How it had effected his brain we didn’t know but there was no denying we could see the consequences here and now. He may well have taken to the nappies and other items easily but it was up to us to protect him from the effects of the drugs that were now in his system or, and this is what we were mainly concerned with, had they permanently affected his brain. We knew the police had Avril in custody and were still questioning her about the couple’s little laboratory and just what exactly the concoction was that they’d dreamt up. According to the police, it was her boyfriend who was the boffin and brains behind the invention and she was unaware of most of the component parts he’d created. Her job, once they’d tested it out, was to help in distribution. Apparently, he had big ambitions for what he saw as a niche but welcome addition to the dopehead world. Shame he was on the run and may well have returned to his home country by now. The chances of his return, either by choice or otherwise were very slim, his country of birth were not known to cooperate well with other police forces.   # “There you are sweetheart all nice and tidy.” I patted, as I always did, the mound of padding hidden behind a pair of soft though robust clear plastic pants with thicker than usual cuffs and waistband. I knew it was wrong because I was thoroughly enjoying getting my boy changed and into his fresh clean nappy. I needed to get rid of my contented smile as each piece of the process was completed. A guilty pleasure? Maybe but the lack of guilt at times made me wonder what I was playing at. During the session with Dr. Laura I had admitted as much – I liked to look after my boy. Now he was in nappies that urge to be there whenever he needed me grew stronger and stronger and I couldn’t shake it off (not that I tried that much). I remembered him as a child and again it hit me that I wasn’t able to produce a brother or sister for him though through his regression, well, I felt shame and happiness because I was able to look after my little boy again. It filled a need I didn’t even know I had until the therapist made me face the decisions I’d taken... and why. Even now, when we’d been through everything and I’d seen my culpability (a word I was becoming less and less happy about) I was still enjoying this dependence. When I saw him first drop into his child-like state sucking on the dummy, there were parts of me that thought how sweet and wonderful this innocence is – a lad his age not caring about image simply having fun. Of course, now we know the real reason it isn’t something to be happy about... yet... “Any idea which toys you want to play with?” “Mum...” he looked at me as if I was a bit deluded, “I think we need to chat.” And just like that, lying there wearing only his fresh nappy and plastic pants, John, teenage John, was back with me and appeared ready to find out what exactly was going on. # Although much of what Mum shared with me was familiar, this time her deep concern regarding the potential consequences (and ongoing affects) of those drugged dummies was strikingly apparent. She spoke candidly about the changes she had observed in me, detailing the episodes that had occurred most recently, including my earlier relapse. Mum explained the steps she and Dad intended to take if, or when, the situation were to arise again, emphasising their readiness to respond and support me as best they could. “I don’t think you can take away what Doctor Laura inferred – that you really like wearing nappies - as the total reason for your wetting.” She paused and rubbed my arm as I wasn’t sure what or how I should react to this admission. “Whatever it is, and maybe the police will have an answer soon, we will take each development and deal with it sympathetically...” “Mum,” I wanted her to know something I thought was important, “I’m not suffering any hurt or bad feelings as a result of what’s in my system...” “Well that’s a bonus,” she interrupted, “but we need to keep an eye on things sweetie as we just don’t know where it will end.” She looked lovingly at me and said a little more. “The problem is love, erm, we don’t know that you know when what’s happening, is happening. You seem completely oblivious and although nothing bad has happened so far... we don’t know for certain that it won’t. We need to keep a close eye on you just so we know you’re safe.” “I don’t want to be a worry. I don’t want either you or Dad to think...” Then I had another worrying thought. What about Terry? That session we’d had not so long ago was weird but wonderful. It was completely out of character... and yet... it felt great, normal, fun. How is he dealing with his feelings, drugged or otherwise, and do his parents know... should we tell them? That recent session was something else my parents were unaware of but the occasion, although a fantastic encounter, was perhaps disturbing because of Terry’s keenness to act like a kid... a little kid that wanted to wear a nappy. The entire experience had been brilliant and he’d entered into the spirit of the situation without any prompting from me. He’d played his part and we spent a good few hours being childish and silly enjoying every moment of it. When it was time to stop, Terry just stopped. Weird or what? Mum hugged me, her hands gently stroking and comforting my naked back, it was then I noticed I needed to put some clothes on as I was still only wearing a thick nappy but clear plastic pants. My state of undress wasn’t unusual but was it really the right outfit for a teenager speaking with his Mum? Besides, hadn’t Dad told me he would rather I put other clothes on rather than parade around wearing only my padding. However, I needed to speak to Terry... perhaps we needed to speak with him. # Terry looked surprised when I invited him in. He had responded straight away after I called him thinking no doubt that we might be having another little childish session, I didn’t tell him otherwise. Mum and Dad were sat in the living-room and our guest visibly deflated when he saw the welcoming committee. “Ah Terry,” Mum started in straight away, “glad you could come. We wanted to bring you up to date on what we’ve learned about the drugged dummies, the police investigation and to check that you are, well, umm, okay.” He didn’t look any more relieved than he did when he came in but I detected a slight sigh as he settled down and my parents seemed to relish telling him their latest news. Terry just sat and listened although I did notice that he was actually paying attention to what he was being told. There was very little said about my psychiatrist visit, although it was implied, and thought I’d fill him in on that after all this updating the ‘criminal’ stuff had been finalised. For several minutes, Mum and Dad carefully explained everything they had discovered, making it clear that, to the best of their knowledge, only Terry and I had actually tried the FruitiZuckers. They stressed this point repeatedly, highlighting that according to Avril’s admission, I was the only one she had knowingly given the soothers to, unaware that anyone had also sampled them. As a result, it appeared that only the two of us had been exposed to the drugs they had been laced with. “Have you been feeling any after effects... like... strange feelings, emotions, slips into childhood?” Mum wasn’t waiting for him to confess; she wanted answers and wanted them now. She was going after Terry and didn’t want him to have time to make stuff up. What she got was what none of us expected. # tbc #