Sissy Room

Some tykabkes disposables and boosters ☺️ Hoping they get here earlier than expected!!

(Note: there’s more set up & character development here, but the story is on a new ticking clock with more than just one explosion on it’s way. More 2 come before the weekends over) Chapter Fifty-Six: The living room had settled into that familiar early-evening lull — the kind where the air feels thick with comfort and leftover sunlight. Monday Night Football murmured on the TV, the crowd noise reduced to a soft, companionable roar. Amber lounged sideways on one end of the couch, legs curled beneath her, scrolling on her phone and occasionally snorting at memes. Martina sat upright at the other end, one leg tucked beneath her, knitting needles clicking in a slow, steady rhythm like a heartbeat. And Paul sat on the rug between them, script pages spread open in front of him. He kept tracing Declan’s handwriting in the margins, as if memorizing the letters themselves would make tomorrow’s practice less intimidating. At least — he tried. But his body had other ideas. A familiar tightening gripped low in his abdomen. Sharp. Sudden. Impossible to ignore. His eyes widened. His breath caught. Amber noticed. He shifted. Hesitated. Then pushed himself up, muttering something like “Be right back,” and hurried down the hallway toward the bathroom — shoulders tense, jaw clenched, moving with that awkward half-run of someone who couldn’t wait but didn’t want to look like they couldn’t wait. The bathroom door clicked shut. Amber lowered her phone, concern flickering over her face like a passing cloud. “Mamá…” she whispered in Spanish, leaning closer. “Está bien? Digo… él no ha… ya sabes…” (Mom… is he okay? I mean… he hasn’t… you know…) The word wouldn’t come. She couldn’t say it — not about Paul. Not about someone who wasn’t a toddler or a sick child, but an eighteen-year-old boy she’d spent half her life teasing, defending, sometimes fighting with, always orbiting. Martina didn’t look up from her knitting. She simply breathed through her nose, soft and steady — the inhale of a woman who had lived long enough to know when a child was carrying more fear than facts. “Está haciendo lo mejor que puede, mi lucerito,” she murmured back. (He’s doing the best he can, my little star.) Amber’s shoulders eased — a little. “Solo tenemos que apoyarlo. He’s wearing protection, just in case. Y unos pantalones mojados no significan que el mundo se acabó.” (We just need to support him. And a pair of wet pants doesn’t mean the world ends.) Amber scoffed quietly. “It does in high school.” Before Martina could respond, Paul reappeared in the doorway — face warm, flushed, eyes darting between them. “What about high school?” The silence that followed was immediate. Heavy. Charged. Amber’s eyes widened — guilt flickering behind her lashes — Amber opened her mouth — but her phone blared the Saved by the Bell theme song. “Oh thank God,” she breathed in relief. “Ronnie. Pickup.” She hopped off the couch, scooping up her purse, leaning down to kiss her mother’s cheek. “I’ll be home by twelve.” Martina’s hand caught her wrist. “Once, mi lucerito.” (Eleven, my little star.) Amber groaned. “Eleven-ten.” Martina answered by raising both eyebrows — the universal Mom move. Amber laughed. “Eleven. Fine.” Paul stood up, expecting a casual waved goodbye or maybe a light shoulder bump. Instead, Amber wrapped both arms around him. A real hug. Warm. Full-body. Tight. His whole face flushed. Her hand lingered on his back — dangerously close to the waistband where his padding has been resting. Too long. Way too long. But then she let go. As she turned toward the door, she called back— “Mamá, cuando vuelves?” (Mom, when will you be home?) Martina answered fully in Spanish, voice lilting with experience and a hint of mischief. “Probablemente en una hora… después de que ella acueste a su pequeñito en camita.” (Probably in an hour… after she tucks her little one into bed.) Amber burst out laughing. “All boys need a beddy-bye time,” she tossed over her shoulder, winking at Paul before disappearing outside. The door clicked shut. Paul rounded on Martina. “A bedtime? Seriously?” Martina’s knitting needles stilled. She looked at him — fully, deeply — with the weight of someone who had raised him halfway to adulthood. “Sí, Paul. Things are changing. Your father was very clear. Earlier bedtime. New rules. For your health. For your safety. Even after he and Lilly talk with you.” Paul’s heart lurched. “That stunt,” she continued softly but sternly, “scared everyone who loves you. What got into you?” How could he explain it? How could he tell her he needed — desperately, feverishly — to feel like an adult again? How could he confess that the rush of the nightclub, of music vibrating through him, of bodies moving and lights flashing, made him feel invincible — wanted — powerful? And how could he admit that the man who’d danced on that platform wasn’t the boy who woke up the next morning? The memory twisted inside him — hot and nauseating. His skin crawled. His breath stuttered. Martina saw it instantly. She touched his forehead. Warm. “Enough TV,” she said, reaching for his hand. “Come, shower. I’ll tuck you in after.” He didn’t argue. Didn’t think about what she meant. He just nodded and disappeared into the bathroom, water running within seconds. Martina stood alone in his bedroom. She unzipped his small duffel bag — the last of his things from the clinic. Inside… Another folded Safari-print diaper. The same infantile pattern he wore at four years old. The same smell — powdery, sweet, unmistakable. The same sound: that soft hug of thick padding wrapped in plastic. Her breath caught. Memory hit her like sunlight through old curtains: Paul at four, cheeks tear-streaked after another nightmare… his mother’s perfume still clinging to the hallway… his small body trembling as she diapered him to stop the accidents… Her hands shaking as she wiped his tears and whispered, “Estás a salvo, mi amor. Estás a salvo.” “No.” Paul stood in the doorway, towel wrapped around his waist, hair damp, eyes sharp with panic the moment he saw what Martina held. The diaper. His face drained. His chest tightened. Like a ghost of the whole weekend had followed him home. Martina didn’t move. Didn’t hide it. Didn’t apologize. She simply nodded once, firm. “Sí.” She stepped forward, gently fluffing the diaper out, smoothing the leg guards, laying it flat in the center of his bed. Then she walked past him into the bathroom, retrieving a small bottle of skin cream and powder, placing both beside it with the practiced movements of ritual. “Martina,” he pleaded, hands shaking slightly, “I know I need extra… extra… pad—” He couldn’t say it. His throat seized. “Protection. And I can put on a new pair of trainers myself. I appreciate your concern but—” Martina raised one hand. Paul froze. His breath hitched. Because for the first time in years, he heard it: “Quiet, Coyote.” The old family technique. Used rarely — only when gentleness needed a sharper edge. Used by his mother. Used by Martina. Everything inside him stilled. Martina stepped closer, her voice soft but immovable. “Entiendo que estás avergonzado. I know. But this isn’t to hurt you. It’s to protect you — and your sheets — for the second time.” His eyes widened. She knew. His stomach dropped. How? Kim? Did Kim tell her? Everything? His breath shortened into quick, shallow bursts. Martina placed her hand on his back, slow circles. “Shhh, mi niño. You’re not in trouble. I saw the stain on the mattress pad. Saturday morning. I spent the day cleaning it. I switched the sheets you left in the dryer.” Paul closed his eyes, mortified. “And at the clinic,” she continued quietly, “they expect accidents. They even sent you home with this.” She tapped the diaper gently. “So what happens now is simple.” Her voice softened into something almost sacred. “Te voy a cambiar, como cuando eras pequeño. Y luego te acuesto, mi príncipe acolchadito.” (I’m going to change you, like when you were little. And then tuck you in, my padded prince.) The words punched through him. His last scrap of dignity reared up. “I can… put it on myself,” he whispered, voice cracking. Martina smiled — sad, knowing, fond. “You’re a good liar, mijo. But never to me.” Defeated, trembling, exhausted… Paul let the towel fall to the floor. And climbed onto the bed. He lay back slowly, eyes glassy, chest rising fast. Her touch was maternal without infantilizing. Skilled without being clinical. Comforting without forcing regression. Paul’s muscles loosened under each movement. His breath slowed. His eyes fluttered drowsily. She unfolded the diaper completely, sliding it beneath him with the gentle, practiced precision of a woman who had done this while humming lullabies years old. Her movements were quiet, instinctual. A dab of cream. The soft dusting of powder. The careful check of each leg guard. The slow pull of the front panel up over his hips. Paul’s whole body softened beneath her hands. She taped the diaper snugly into place, smoothing the waistband with a tenderness that carried decades. “There,” she whispered. As she tucked him under the covers, she lingered — brushing his hair back, thumb grazing his cheek. She kissed his forehead. Once. Twice. Longer than before. “You are locked in for the night, mi amor. No leaving this house until 7 a.m. Or we will all know.” He nodded, eyes fluttering — too tired, too wrung out to resist. Martina slipped out of the room, pulling the door nearly shut. The soft wedge of hallway light cut across the floorboards and up to the edge of Paul’s comforter — a thin, glowing line. Then darkness. Then silence. For a moment, he lay perfectly still. Paul… the adult Paul… tried to breathe through the tightness in his chest. He tried to focus on the ordinary things: Tomorrow’s practice. Declan’s notes. Homework deadlines. The rising ache under his rib cage where the EMG needles had pricked him. The humiliation of the exam. Amber’s hug. Lilly coming back. His father’s expectations. The last 72 hours. Everything he still had to be. But each thought hit like a stone dropped into water — heavy, sinking fast — before dissolving into static. His eyelids fluttered. ...stop… don’t think about all that… just… stop… He shifted under the blankets. crinkle. He froze. His heart skipped. The sound bloomed in the darkness — soft, warm, familiar in a terrifying way. Another small shift. crinkle crinkle. A tremor ran through his stomach. His adult mind barked a warning — No. Don't. You’re not— But the other part of him… The part he’d tried to bury, deny, ignore… The part that had been fed and held and kissed and carried all weekend… That part stirred. Softly. Patiently. Like a small hand pressing against a much larger one from the inside. It’s okay… We don’t have to think right now… We don’t have to be big right now… Paul swallowed. His throat tightened. Another shift of his hips — this time intentional. crinkle. A tiny laugh escaped him before he could catch it. His adult brain flinched — Stop it. This isn’t me. This isn’t us. Grow up. This is— But that voice was weakening. Like a light flickering. Like someone trying to shout underwater. Paul’s hand drifted across his stomach and rested on the thick, cushioned swell beneath the covers. The warmth. The pressure. The safety. It pulsed through him like a heartbeat. His breath hitched — a small, involuntary whimper. His adult mind tried one last time, desperate, exhausted. We can’t let this happen. I won’t let-You can’t— But the little side whispered back, stronger now, wrapping around the fear: Shhh… No more fighting… You’re tired… Paul exhaled. Slow. Long. Surrendering without meaning to. As he reached instinctively toward the nightstand. His fingers brushed cool silicone. And before the adult part of him could protest, he popped the pacifier into his mouth. His lips closed around it. Suck. Pause. Suck-suck. His shoulders loosened. The knots in his chest unwound. His mind dimmed, like someone lowering the lights with a quiet switch. The last coherent adult thought he managed was: …I shouldn’t… I can’t… But even that faded as the little voice curled around him like a blanket: Beddy-bye time… His breaths slowed into gentle, rhythmic pulls around the pacifier. His eyes grew heavy. One more soft shift under the covers — crinkle. He giggled again — tiny, blissful, helpless. And then the last of the tension melted away as Paul drifted down… down… down… into sleep. Where the adult world couldn’t reach him. Not tonight.     Tokyo shimmered under a late–autumn sun — steel and glass catching fire in the light as if the whole city had been lacquered. From the rooftop of the production complex, the skyline stretched in every direction: endless towers, neon billboards still half–asleep, and the distant echo of traffic humming like a pulse. Bryan Goldhawk stood at the center of organized chaos. Crew members rushed cables across the rooftop. Stunt riggers tightened harnesses. Two cranes swung overhead like metallic giants. A camera operator in a padded vest tested a heavy IMAX rig. Screens flickered with playback. Bryan was already in wardrobe — a tailored charcoal tactical suit with reinforced seams, a shoulder holster, and fingerless gloves. Sweat gleamed in the cut of his jaw, but it only made him look sharper, more alive. He was a force here — the kind of presence people moved around instinctively. A pillar. A pillar who cracked, sometimes. But never crumbled. “Bryan! We’re resetting from the top!” the director called, waving a marked clipboard. Bryan nodded, already moving. “Copy that.” He helped adjust the safety harness on the young stunt actor playing his scene partner, cracking a joke that broke the kid’s nerves. He reviewed choreography. He ran lines. He blocked out camera angles with the cinematographer, using hand gestures smooth and decisive. He lifted a steel pipe prop and twirled it through his fingers like air. Everything Paul wanted to be — Bryan, without realizing it, already was. But when the assistant director called a ten–minute break… Bryan’s confidence faltered. Not outwardly. Never outwardly. But inside? Inside something tightened like a fist around the heart. He stepped away from the crew and onto a quiet balcony. Tokyo towered below him, lights flickering on in pinks and purples though it wasn’t yet dusk. He leaned forward, elbows on the railing. The moment the door closed behind him, Tokyo’s morning breathed against his face — cool, metallic, sharp. He braced his hands on the railing. And the private hell he’d been suppressing all night clawed to the surface. Paul. Sneaking out. Into a storm. Into danger. Just the security footage streamed to his phone — slow-motion horror played out from 6,000 miles away. Paul stumbling across the lawn. Paul disappearing into the marina darkness. Bryan had stopped breathing the moment he watched it. “Jesus, kid…” he muttered, bowing his head now against the memory. “What were you thinking?” He felt the anger rise again — sharp, hot, protective. But then, like always… the anger dissolved into something worse. Guilt. He exhaled until the breath trembled. You needed me, and I wasn’t there. Again. Missing his son in ways he didn’t have words for. His phone buzzed. A calendar alert: Test results expected in 96 hours. Another gut-punch. What if it’s something irreversible? Something I can’t fight for him? The city below blurred. Bryan pressed his hand over his eyes — the only gesture of weakness he would ever allow himself. Just hurting in a way Bryan didn’t know how to fix. He squeezed the railing. Rachel would’ve known. She always knew. Her laugh flickered in his mind like a candle. Her voice whispering, “He’s sensitive, Bry. Like you.” He blinked quickly, as if clearing dust. “Sir?” A PA approached, bowing slightly before speaking. “They’re ready for you in the boardroom.” Bryan straightened, armor snapping back into place. “I’ll be right there.”   He entered still in half-costume, sleeves rolled to his forearms. A panel of executives sat around a black glass table, the Tokyo skyline glowing behind them. Bryan spoke concisely, confidently. He negotiated stunt pacing, despite heading up the studios finance and creative portions he still did “controlled” stunts from time to time, keeping him centered. But he also did as an escape when Rachel passed, he needed to feel something after the numbness had set in.  He then advised on reshoots. Protected an actress from an unsafe rig the execs wanted to push. This was who he was in the world: the man who held the line, who didn’t bend, who protected people. Except his own son. Neon signs hissed awake as rain misted down in a thin silver sheet. Bryan stood in the middle of Shibuya Crossing, lit by kaleidoscope colors. Extras rushed around him in controlled chaos. Cars idled. The director called action. He sprinted through the intersection, leaping over a fallen barricade, grabbing an extra and spinning him into a controlled throw. A camera car chased him, tires hissing in rain. His boots slapped water off the pavement. He moved flawlessly. But in the rhythm of the stunt — the sprint, the roll, the impact — he heard echoes. Dad, I’m fine. Dad… please don’t be mad. Dad… I don’t know what’s wrong with me. He hit his mark, chest heaving, rain streaking down his face. The director yelled, “Cut!” Applause erupted. Bryan didn’t hear it. Not really. He stared at the ground, rain pooling near his boots. “What’s happening to my son?” The question haunted him. Not a rhetorical question. Not an angry one. A terrified one. He had failed somewhere, hadn’t he? Not in love — he had enough love to drown the world. But in presence. Work had always been his escape and his excuse. But now? Now Paul needed him more than any studio. Bryan’s chest tightened as he walked back to the monitors, soaked in neon and rain. His voice shook before he steadied it. “Let’s go again,” he said. But his mind was 6,000 miles away.   Bryan pulled off his gloves, tossed them beside the bed, and sat at the edge with his face buried in his hands. The room was elegant and quiet — a king bed, floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Tokyo. His phone buzzed again. Lilly. Perfect timing. He answered immediately. Her voice was softer than usual, fragile around the edges. “Bryan… can you talk?” He closed his eyes. “Always.” She told him about Nashville. About Lizbeth. About the grave. About the shaking hands. About how she didn’t know how to walk back into the house with everything she was carrying. Bryan didn’t interrupt. He never did. A memory sucker-punched him unexpectedly, He saw it again — the funeral home in Nashville, the honey-colored lighting, the polished cherrywood coffin, the smell of lilies turning thick in the warm air. Lilly stood at the front of the viewing room, black dress clinging to her frame, red lipstick a slash of defiance against grief. Her hair had been styled perfectly that morning — but the moment her mother Lizbeth and two aunts descended on her like circling hawks, everything unraveled. “You should’ve been here sooner.” “You always run.” “You embarrassed the family coming in so late.” “That man gave you everything — and you couldn’t even stay?” Bryan had stood in the corner, jaw locked, fists hidden in his pockets. Watching Lilly take the blows. Watching her shoulders stiffen, then fold. He didn’t interfere —instead he positioned himself close enough that she could sense him. Her shield. Always ready. When her mother’s voice cracked like glass, Bryan finally stepped closer, his voice low, steady. “Enough,” he had said. “This isn’t helping anyone.” Lizbeth glared at him — then stormed away. And Lilly had looked at him with something between gratitude and devastation. “Don’t leave,” she whispered that night, gripping his coat sleeve. He didn’t. He held her through the night, listening to her shake. He had never seen her so small. When she finished, he sighed — warm, deep, steady — the sound of a man who stood as a shield when swords failed. “Come home,” he murmured. “We’ll figure all of it out together. You’re not alone in this.” He heard her breath catch. “And Paul?” she whispered. “I… I don’t know how to help him without making it worse.” Bryan pressed a hand to his forehead. “I don’t either,” he admitted quietly. “But we’ll learn. Together. I’m not leaving either of you to deal with this alone again.” Silence stretched between them. But this silence felt like connection, not distance. Bryan’s jaw tightened. He wished he could’ve been there to pull her away, shield her again like at the funeral home. “I’m coming home sooner,” he said quietly. “The studio owes me two bloody weeks away. If they don’t like it, they can fire me.” There was a small noise on the line — part laugh, part sob. “Bryan… don’t be ridiculous. You can’t—” “I can,” he interrupted softly. “And I will. My family comes first.” Silence settled. But it was the warm kind — the kind that sits between two people who trust each other completely. “We don’t know everything yet,” he said. “But he’s scared. I saw it in the camera feed. He didn’t run because he hates us. He ran because he’s drowning and he thought he had to do it alone.” Her breath caught. “I don’t want him to feel alone,” Lilly murmured. “Then we won’t let him,” Bryan replied. “Not this time.”   When the line finally clicked off—soft, hesitant—Bryan let the silence of the Tokyo suite settle around him like falling ash. For a long moment he didn’t move. Then, slowly, he reached into the inside pocket of his leather jacket. Not the one used for scripts, not the one for keys— the hidden one, sewn into the lining years ago, because the world didn’t need to see what he kept there. His fingers brushed the edge of something soft, worn from time, as fragile as a pressed flower. A wallet-sized photograph. He hesitated—exhaled once, the breath shaking—and pulled it free. The moment it touched the light, his chest caved in. Rachel. Barely twenty-three. Hair pulled back in a messy bun. Eyes bright and exhausted in that way only new mothers ever are. She was sitting in a hospital bed, cheeks flushed, gown half-slipping off her shoulder, holding Paul wrapped in a white-and-blue blanket. Her smile wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t posed. It was real—raw love, like she’d been waiting her entire life to hold him. And Bryan? God. He looked young. Both of them did. He was at her side, one arm around her, the other hand cupping Paul’s tiny head as if the world were too dangerous to leave even an inch unprotected. His eyes were red—he remembered that night. He hadn’t slept in nearly forty hours, too wired, too terrified, too proud. He traced a thumb across the glossy surface, over Rachel’s cheek, over newborn-Paul’s impossibly small hand gripping Rachel’s finger. A burn rose behind his eyes. He flipped the photo. The backside stung worse. Rachel again—this time alone with Paul, cradling him against her chest. The nurse had taken the picture while Bryan signed forms. Rachel had written on the white border in blue gel ink: “For Daddy’s wallet. So you never forget.” He closed his eyes— and the years collapsed. “I’m sorry,” Bryan whispered, knuckles whitening around the picture. His voice cracked—deep, guttural, the kind of break that comes from old wounds never tended. “I’m so damn sorry, Rach…” The tears came quietly, but they came. He bowed his head, the photograph clutched in both hands like a prayer, like a confession. “I should’ve been better—for him. For you. I let work swallow everything. I let other people raise him when he needed me.” His shoulders trembled, breath hitching. “I don’t get to say sorry to you anymore… but the next time I say it?” His jaw tightened, grief sharpening into resolve. “It’ll be to tell you how sorry I am that you couldn’t be here to see him becoming… becoming something incredible. Something brave. Something you would’ve loved.” The last tear slid down his cheek, hit the photograph, and darkened the paper before fading. He pressed the picture to his chest. Held it there. Let it hurt. Let it heal. Only when he felt steady again did he slide the photo back into the hidden pocket—closer than his heartbeat, where it had always belonged. And when he finally rose, walked toward the window, and whispered his vow to the city below…    

I like bananas, but only the green ones because the yellow ones make me itchy.   When I eat them, I make monkey noises and pretend I'm a monkey.   It's sometimes embarrassing when my boss walks in at that exact moment, but now she just doesn't ask any questions anymore.   Oh, and we already have 34 likes.

Ian's sidearm in Vietnam was a Colt M1911A1, and throughout the seventies it remained his weapon of choice.  He currently owns two.  Both have modified barrels to accept suppressors, and he has shoulder harnesses for both, each of which has twin magazine pouches.  At present he isn't carrying, but we'll see how things go as the story progresses.  

Nice, looks like shudder has a free trial. I saw it was on AMC+ but I'm pretty sure I used up my free trial recently. Thanks.