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Chapter 14: The Reckoning Grace was already sitting at the kitchen table when Liam came downstairs. She wasn't making coffee. She wasn't buttering toast. She was just sitting there, hands folded on the table in front of her, the way she sat at parent-teacher evenings when she was about to ask the question the teacher didn't want to answer. On the table, between her folded hands and the salt cellar, sat the freezer bag. It looked worse than Liam remembered. Through the translucent plastic, the grey fabric of his boxer shorts was visible, mashed and dark with moisture. A faint halo of condensation had formed on the inside of the bag, as though it were sweating. "Sit down," said Grace. Liam looked towards the living room. He could hear Rob's voice, something about waxing skis. Claire was somewhere upstairs. Sophie was still on the loft. "Can we not do this now?" he said. "Sit down, Liam." He sat. The chair scraped against the stone floor. He put his hands in his lap and looked at the window behind her head. The sun was already high, bouncing off the snow outside. Grace didn't touch the bag. She didn't need to. Its presence between them was doing all the work. "I'm not going to shout," she said. Her voice was measured, almost gentle. "I just need you to explain this to me." Liam said nothing. "Because I've been trying to work it out," she continued, "and I can't. You told me yesterday morning that you were fine. You told me at the lift that the rushing was because of coffee and cold. And then I find these"—she nodded at the bag—"sealed in plastic and hidden at the bottom of your holdall. So either you've been lying to me, or something happened that you're too embarrassed to tell me about. Either way, I need to understand." The kitchen clock ticked. A pipe gurgled somewhere in the wall. "It wasn't... it wasn't like at night," Liam said finally. His voice was small. "It was just a bit of leaking. From the running. From stress. I was—I was squeezing and it—some of it just came out before I got to the toilet. It's not the same." Grace waited. "It was just a few drops," he added. Grace reached forward and placed a single finger on the freezer bag. She didn't pick it up. She just touched it, the way you'd touch a piece of evidence in a courtroom. "Liam," she said quietly. "I felt these. Through the plastic. They're not damp. They're soaked. The entire crotch and halfway down both legs. That's not a few drops. That's not friction." Liam felt the heat climb up his neck. "I was sweating," he tried. "Ski boots, tight layers—" "Sweat doesn't smell like urine, darling." The word darling landed like a slap. She only used it when she was being careful with him, and she was only careful with him when she thought he might break. "It was one time," he said. His jaw was tight. "One time, because I was stressed, because I had to sprint, because you and Dad put me in this situation where I'm terrified all the time. It's not—I'm not—this isn't a day thing, Mum. It's night. That's it." Grace studied him for a moment. She tilted her head in that way he hated, the way that meant she was choosing her next words with surgical precision. "Alright," she said. "Let's look at the facts. Just the facts, like a list, nothing emotional. Can we do that?" Liam shrugged. He could feel the trap closing but couldn't see where it was. "Fact one," said Grace, holding up a finger. "At the lift yesterday, you went from no urgency to full panic in under a minute. You ran. You told me yourself." "I told you—" "Fact two," she continued, raising a second finger. "You couldn't fully empty your bladder when you got there. You told me that too, on the slope." Liam opened his mouth. He hadn't told her that. Had he? Or had she simply read it off his face? "Fact three. Somewhere during the day, enough urine came out to soak your boxer shorts through. Not a spot. Not a trickle. The full front panel and into the back. I've washed enough bedsheets in the last four months to know the difference between 'a few drops' and a proper wetting." She paused. Her third finger hung in the air between them. "And fact four," she said, her voice dropping slightly. "You hid them. You didn't rinse them in the sink. You didn't put them in the laundry. You sealed them in a bag and buried them in your holdall, the way you'd hide something you were ashamed of. That's not what people do with sweat." The silence that followed was absolute. Liam gripped the edge of his chair. He could feel his eyes burning. Not tears—he would not cry—but the hot, prickling pressure of everything he'd been holding back. "What do you want me to say?" he whispered. "I want you to stop pretending this isn't happening," Grace said. Her voice had softened now, the cross-examination over, replaced by something that might have been tenderness if it hadn't been so terrifying. "Your body is under stress. It's been under stress for months. And when a body is dealing with this at night, it's not uncommon for the daytime to start... slipping too. The doctor mentioned it. I looked it up afterwards. It's a recognised pattern." "I'm not incontinent," Liam said. The word sounded obscene in the bright kitchen. "No one is saying that. But you had a significant leak yesterday. And you've been ignoring the warning signs—the urgency, the running, the incomplete emptying. You're relying on willpower and luck, and both of those run out." She unfolded her hands and placed them flat on the table. "I think you should wear protection today. On the slopes." Liam's chair scraped back. He hadn't decided to move; his body just rejected the idea before his brain had processed it. "No." "Liam—" "No. Absolutely not. I'm not wearing a—a nappy—during the day. That's insane. That's not—no. Night is one thing. Night, I'm asleep, I can't help it, fine. But I'm awake during the day, Mum. I can feel it. I can go to the toilet. I'm not a—" He couldn't finish the sentence. Grace let the silence do its work. She waited until his breathing had slowed, until the flush in his face had begun to recede, until his hands had stopped gripping the back of the chair. "It would just be a safety net," she said. "A DryNites under your salopettes. They're thin. No one would know. Not even Sophie. You'd barely feel it. And it would mean that if you get caught in a lift queue, or up on the mountain, or anywhere where there isn't a toilet, you'd have a margin. A buffer." "I'd know," said Liam. "I'd know it was there. Every second." "Yes," said Grace simply. "You would. But you'd also know you were safe." Liam stood behind his chair, gripping the backrest. He could feel the wood grain under his fingertips. Everything in him was screaming no. Daytime was the last frontier. Daytime was the real him. If he wore protection during the day, then there was no version of himself left that was normal. "I'm not doing it," he said. Grace nodded slowly. Not agreement—acknowledgement. She'd expected this. "Alright," she said. "Then let me tell you what happens if I can't trust you to stay dry on your own." She stood up from the table. She wasn't rushing. She had all the time in the world. "If this happens again—and I mean any version of this, Liam: wet pants, a panicked sprint, an accident in your salopettes, anything—then we move to a different arrangement. One where I don't have to trust you, because I'll know for certain." She picked up the freezer bag and held it between them. "I will put them on you myself. Morning and evening. I will check you at lunchtime—we'll find a bathroom, I'll do a quick check, and if you're wet, I'll change you into a dry one. You'll ski with me, not with Sophie, so I can keep an eye on how often you need to go. And if we're somewhere without a toilet and you can't wait, you'll have the padding and it won't be a disaster." She said it all in the same tone she'd use to describe a recipe or explain a parking route. There was no malice in it. No punishment. Just logistics. "That is what full management looks like, Liam. That is what happens when I can't rely on you to be honest with me about what's going on with your body. I become the one who manages it, all of it, because you've shown me you can't." Liam stared at her. His mouth was dry. "You're... you're threatening me," he said. "I'm informing you," she corrected gently. "I'm telling you what the alternative is so that you can make a real choice. Because right now, I'm offering you the easy version. You put on a DryNites yourself, under your clothes, no one knows, and you have a normal day with your friends. That's option one. Option two is what I just described. I'd rather not go there. But I will, Liam, because I am not spending another evening scrubbing your pants in a freezer bag while you pretend everything is fine." The morning sun fell across the table between them. From upstairs, Liam could hear Sophie's footsteps, the creak of the loft floorboards. She was getting ready. In a few minutes, she'd come down and find him here, in this kitchen, negotiating the terms of his own incontinence with his mother. "One day," he said. His voice cracked. "I'll try it for one day. And if nothing happens—if I'm completely dry—then we drop it. Deal?" Grace considered him. Her eyes were steady. "One day," she agreed. "But, Liam—if it's dry at the end of the day, that just means the safety net worked. It doesn't mean you didn't need it." "That's not—" "One day," she repeated. "And you put it on yourself. Properly. I'll check when you come back down." She held the freezer bag up once more, then dropped it into the bin under the counter in one clean motion. "I'll get you a fresh one from my room," she said, already moving. "Go up and get changed into your ski things. I'll bring it to your room." She paused in the doorway. "And Liam? The wet things in your bag—I'll take those too. I'll rinse them out today while you're all on the mountain. We'll say I was doing a general laundry load." She was already thinking three moves ahead. She always was. Liam stood alone in the kitchen. The clock ticked. The pipe gurgled. Through the window, he could see the mountains, white and vast and indifferent. He thought about option two. He thought about Grace checking him at lunch, in some bathroom, pulling down his salopettes to inspect whether he was wet or dry, like a toddler at nursery. He thought about skiing beside his mother all day while Sophie carved beautiful turns somewhere below them, wondering why he wasn't there. He heard Sophie's voice from the landing: "Has anyone seen my goggles?" He was out of time. He had to move. He had to go upstairs, take the DryNites from his mother, and make a decision. He pushed the chair in and walked towards the stairs.     Chapter 15: The Longest Day Grace came up the stairs ten minutes later. She didn't call out first. She simply appeared at the top of the steps, holding a DryNites in one hand, still in its clear wrapper, and her toiletry bag in the other. Sophie had gone downstairs to help with breakfast. They were alone on the loft. "Here," said Grace quietly. She held the nappy out to him. "Get changed into your ski things and put this on underneath. You've got about fifteen minutes before we leave." Liam took it. The plastic wrapper crinkled in his hand. "And Liam—" She paused at the top of the stairs, one hand on the railing. "Properly. Flat against your skin, barriers unfolded. Like I showed you last night." "I know how to put on a—" He stopped himself. He couldn't even say the word. "Good. Then there shouldn't be a problem." She held his gaze for a beat longer than necessary, and in that pause he heard the echo of everything she'd said downstairs at the kitchen table. I will put them on you myself. Morning and evening. I will check you at lunchtime. You'll ski with me, not with Sophie. The full programme. The thing she'd do if he couldn't be trusted. "One day," she said, as if reading his thoughts. "That's all. And if it's dry tonight, we'll talk." She went back down. Liam stood in the middle of the loft, holding the DryNites. Sunlight was pouring through the triangular window, catching the dust motes, warming the floorboards under his bare feet. From downstairs came the smell of coffee and the sound of Rob laughing at something. He looked down at the nappy in his hand. DryNites Teen. 8–15 years. The design was deliberately discreet—dark blue, no cartoon characters—but it was still unmistakably what it was. A pull-up. A nappy for children who wet themselves. He sat down on the edge of his mattress and turned it over. It weighed almost nothing. The padding was thin, concentrated in the front panel, with elasticated leak barriers along the inner thighs. It was designed to be invisible under clothes. That was the whole point. A secret layer between him and the world. He thought about putting it on. He really did. He imagined stepping into it, pulling it up, feeling the soft padding settle against his skin. He imagined the slight bulk between his thighs when he walked, the faint rustle when he bent his knees. He imagined sitting next to Sophie on the chairlift and knowing it was there. Knowing that if she put her hand on his leg—the way she had under the blanket last night—her fingers would be resting on a nappy. He thought about the day ahead. A full day on the mountain. Lift queues. The restaurant at lunch. Sitting on hard plastic chairs. Standing close to Sophie in the gondola. Every moment a calculation: Can she hear it? Can she feel it? Does it show? And then he thought about taking it off at the end of the day. Handing it to his mother. Her inspecting it, the way she'd inspected the one this morning—feeling the weight, registering the warmth. Smiling that satisfied smile. Good. You were safe. Even if it was dry. Even if nothing happened. She'd still have won. She'd have proved that he needed it, or at least that he was willing to wear it, which amounted to the same thing. And tomorrow she'd say: "It worked so well yesterday. Let's just keep going." And the day after that. And the day after that. Until it wasn't a trial anymore. Until it was just what he did. No. The word came from somewhere deep, somewhere older than reason. A place that had nothing to do with logic or risk or bladder capacity. It was the part of him that was still him—not the boy who wet the bed, not the boy who got creamed and padded by his mother, but the boy who'd held Sophie's hand last night and felt the whole future open up. He looked at the nappy one last time. Then he stood up. He walked over to his holdall. He unzipped it and dug down into the bottom, into the corner where he'd hidden the freezer bag of wet pants—which Grace had since confiscated. The space was empty now. He pushed the DryNites into the gap, folded it flat, and covered it with a thick wool jumper and his spare salopettes. Hidden. Gone. He found his ski gear and got dressed. Thermals first, tight against his skin. Then his salopettes, heavy and stiff. He zipped, buttoned, checked his reflection in the small mirror on the wall by the stairs. He looked normal. He looked like a seventeen-year-old going skiing. He leaned close to the mirror. He looked himself in the eye. "You've got this," he whispered. "You're not a child. You just happen to have a completely mental mother." He grabbed his jacket and headed for the stairs. Grace was in the hallway, pulling on her boots. She looked up when she heard him coming down. Her eyes moved immediately to his hips—but the salopettes were baggy and stiff, and there was nothing to see. "All sorted?" she asked. Her voice was light, casual. For anyone else's benefit, it would have sounded like a mother asking if her son had remembered his gloves. Liam met her gaze. He didn't hesitate. He'd been lying for two days; one more made no difference. And the alternative—her hands on him, her fingers checking the waistband, the midday inspections, the photographs—was not something he could survive. "Yes," he said. "It's on. Happy now?" Grace exhaled. Her shoulders dropped. She believed him—because she wanted to believe him, because the alternative was too exhausting, and because the boy standing in front of her looked calm and sure and nothing like someone who was bluffing. "I'm not happy, Liam," she said gently. "I'm relieved. And you should be too." She smiled and handed him his helmet. "Remember—one day. We'll check tonight." They drove to the ski centre in two cars. Liam sat in the back of Rob's SUV, wedged between Sophie and a pile of ski bags. Sophie's thigh was warm against his through the salopettes. She smelled of sunscreen and cold air. "Right," said Rob from the driver's seat, squinting up at the mountain through the windscreen. "Conditions look mint. Who's coming with me on the black?" "Me!" said Sophie immediately. "Liam?" "Definitely," said Liam. In the other car, Grace was driving with James and Claire. She'd let him go in Rob's car without a fuss. Because she believed he was protected. Because she thought the safety net was in place. If she knew, Liam thought, watching the white peaks slide past the window. If she knew there was nothing between me and disaster except a pair of cotton boxer shorts. But she didn't know. And he wasn't going to tell her. Freedom. That was the first word that struck him as they clicked into their skis at the top of the lift. Not the nervous, hunted feeling from yesterday, but genuine, weightless freedom. Grace had stayed down at the green beginners' slope with Rob and James, who wanted a "technique chat" and an early beer. She'd sent Liam one last look before they parted—a look that said: Good that you've got it on. Now I can relax. And because she believed he was safe, she'd set him free. "Ready?" Sophie shouted. Her voice was crystal-clear in the thin air. The sun sat high in a cloudless, deep-blue sky, and the snow glittered like millions of diamonds. "Try and keep up!" Liam called back. He pushed off. He leaned forward into his boots, felt the edges bite into the hard, perfect piste. Without the thick, stiff nappy between his legs, he could feel his muscles again. He could bring his skis together in the turns without the irritating resistance of padding. He felt light. Agile. Free in a way that was almost reckless—because this lightness was stolen, borrowed against a debt that would come due the moment Grace checked. He skied hard but controlled, carving wide, flowing arcs down the broad piste. Sophie was right behind him. He could hear her skis cutting through the snow. Swish. Swish. They stopped halfway down, on a small plateau with a view over the entire valley. Liam braked with a hockey stop, sending a cloud of snow up into the air. Sophie came gliding in beside him, planted her poles, and leaned over them, catching her breath. "Okay," she panted, pushing her goggles up onto her forehead. Her eyes were shining. "What did you eat for breakfast? You're skiing like a dream today." Liam took off his goggles too. The sun warmed his face. "I just needed to get out," he said, smiling. It was a real smile. It reached his eyes. "Away from the cabin." Sophie watched him for a moment. She wasn't looking at his clothes, or his pockets. She was looking at him. "I'm glad you came, Liam," she said suddenly. Her voice had gone softer. "I was a bit worried it'd be boring. You know—just me and the olds." "Boring?" Liam stepped a fraction closer to her on his skis. "With me? Never." "No," she laughed. "That's true enough." She looked out over the valley. Far below, the cars looked like tiny toys. "This is where I want to be," she said quietly. "Imagine waking up to this every day. No school. No expectations. Just snow." Liam looked at her profile. The small upturned nose, the red cheeks, the fair eyelashes. He felt a wave of warmth in his chest that had nothing to do with the sunshine. "You should do it," he said. "Go to Austria. You belong here." She turned to him. "You think?" "I know it." She smiled, but then her expression grew serious. She took off her glove and straightened the collar of his jacket, which had folded the wrong way. Her bare fingers brushed his neck. It was a small, intimate touch that sent a current through his entire body. "You fit in pretty well too," she said. "Obviously not quite as well as me, but... when you're just being you, it's actually pretty great." Liam swallowed. When you're just being you. If she knew who "you" was. A boy who got nappied by his mother every night. A boy who'd thrown a used pull-up out of a window and had it dragged back by a Golden Retriever. A boy whose mother had sat across a kitchen table that very morning and described, in calm detail, how she would check him at lunchtime and change him into a dry one if necessary—as though he were a toddler at nursery. But right now, in this second, that boy didn't exist. Right now he was just the lad Sophie liked. "Come on," he said, his voice rough, breaking the intense eye contact before he revealed too much. "Let's take the black run to the bottom. You're buying the Coke." They skied the rest of the afternoon. They laughed. They raced. They shoved each other in the lift queues. They shared a large Coke and a bag of crisps on a bench in the sun, talking about everything and nothing. The day began to fade. The sun sank behind the ridgelines and cast long blue shadows across the pistes. The temperature dropped instantly. The snow changed colour from white to cold blue. "We need to catch the last one!" Sophie shouted, pointing towards the main lift. "It's ten to four. They're closing soon!" "Last one there's a loser!" Liam called back. They raced down to the base. They made it by the skin of their teeth. The lift attendant was checking his watch but waved them through as the very last pair. "Final ride, folks!" he called after them. They glided up to the boarding line. The big eight-seater chairlift came swinging around from behind. They sat down. Liam felt the hard, cold seat against his thighs. He had only his thin boxer shorts and thermals under the salopettes. The cold bit a little harder now that the sun had nearly gone, but it didn't matter. The safety bar came down. Click. The lift carried them up from the ground. The earth fell away beneath them. They were completely alone in the wide chair. There was no one else heading up. The mountain was empty, silent, and magical. Sophie shifted towards the middle, closer to him. "God, it's cold now," she said, shivering slightly. "Come here," said Liam, and put his arm around her shoulders. The movement felt natural—the kind of thing that happened in films, effortless and exactly right. She leaned her head against his shoulder. They sat in silence while the lift swayed gently and carried them towards the summit in the fading light. Liam breathed in deeply. The air was sharp and clean. He felt invincible. "Liam?" Sophie whispered against his jacket. "Mm?" "I'm glad you're okay again. You were a bit odd this morning. It honestly seemed like that wipeout yesterday really knocked you for six." Liam stiffened slightly, then relaxed again. "Yeah. Sorry. I was just knackered." "It's alright," she said, looking up at him. Her face was close to his. "You're sweet when you're tired." She leaned forward the last inch. Liam felt her lips against his. It was a cold, tentative kiss that tasted of lip balm and Coca-Cola. But it was the best kiss of his life. The world stopped. And then the lift stopped. With a metallic CLANK and a jolt that ran through the cable, the chair came to a halt. They hung motionless. Suspended between two pylons. Thirty metres above the ground. In the gathering dusk and cold. The wind keened softly in the cables. Liam pulled back slowly from the kiss. He looked up towards the summit. The lift was still. Completely still. "What's happening?" Sophie asked, sitting up straight. "Why have we stopped?" "They're probably just... loading someone on or off," Liam said. He tried to sound calm, but a small, cold worm had begun to stir in his stomach. He felt the cold from the seat seeping through his trousers. He thought about the large Coke they'd shared an hour ago. He thought about the fact that he hadn't been to the toilet since this morning. Strange that he should feel regret about that now. And he thought about the dry nappy lying folded at the bottom of his holdall, back in the cabin, while he sat here trapped in the air.

Hi. I am happy to take care of a little boy around Bendigo

Honestly, yes. Unless it was an obvious joke I'd feel like that would be exposing my kink in public. I tend to be very private with this stuff

So this week I "starred" in a couple videos for training, at work. Since I kind of rescheduled it on short notice and didn't plan ahead smart enough. So in the videos, I was wearing a MegaMax 3/4 full (maybe 1/2 full according to Northshores numbers). The videos included that section of me, but I always wear 'baggier' clothes while diapered up. So I know that they're seeing me, but only those that know what to look for will have any clue. And 'they' will eventually anyone, when the videos eventually become completely public. I respectfully... ...very respectfully will not share the video here, as it would definitely open the door to losing my anonymity separation between here and the rest of the world. (I'm sorry and I hope this won't offend.) I just wanted to share a little weird excitement.   Stay padded my friends, MixerOp

Steve finally got stewey man 🥺 Carry on my warward son  There will peace when you are done when you lay your weary head to rest  So don't you cry no more.  By the way have you ever heard of the free masons? They built monuments to be exact they built the ones in Washington DC as well as the ones in the UK there was alot of other places as well though that actually back to the great peramids of geezer 😂 sorry about that geiza 😂  Welcome to new age the new age 🎶🎵🎶 It's a radio active 🎶😂 It's revolution 🤟I suppose 🙏🎶😇 Bro I don't like thinking about depressing Lesheit M'kay 😂  It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine 😂 Dude new FINE means fucking insecure neurotic & emotional  😂 Fun fact beatoven blew.his eardums.out.on purpouse😂 Apparently I should.beat the dog shite out.of.my oven hugh😂