Trading Post

Chapter twelve Toby’s departure was a masterpiece of opportunistic stealth. He didn’t just leave the table; he vanished in a blur of athletic grace, utilizing a momentary lapse in their mother’s attention to slide toward the hallway. A singular, mischievous glance back at Leo served as a victory lap—a silent announcement that he had successfully abdicated his duties. The bathroom was his sanctuary of unaccountability, a strategic retreat where the looming threat of scrubbing pots and pans could be ignored under the guise of a biological necessity. Leo watched him go, feeling a strange, distant envy for the ability to simply *disappear* into a restroom without a report, a schedule, or a supervisor. To Toby, the bathroom was a place to hide from chores; to Leo, it had become a clinical theater of submission. He remained seated, the silence of the dining room pressing in on him, while his parents began the rhythmic clatter of clearing the table. Leo sat motionless, the humming of the refrigerator filling the gaps in his parents' conversation. As he stared at the mahogany grain of the table, he began to reflect on the architecture of his own collapse. It hadn't been a single event, but a series of subtractions. First, he had lost the ability to trust his own judgment; then, he had lost the right to privacy; and finally, he had lost the very concept of a boundary. He thought of the "purification" protocols and the clinical precision of Mrs. Gable’s care, and he realized with a jolt of terror that he no longer viewed her dominance as an external force. It had become his internal operating system. He wasn't just obeying her; he was anticipating her corrections, preemptively shrinking himself to fit the shape of her expectations. He looked at his hands, resting flat on the table, and wondered if they still belonged to him. In the eyes of the world, he was a young man visiting his parents for a break. In reality, he was a ward in a temporary relocation. The barrier cream, still a heavy, hidden presence against his skin, felt like a brand. It was a physical manifestation of the truth: that he was no longer a self-governing entity. He had traded the exhausting burden of autonomy for the sterile comfort of being managed, and the exchange had been absolute. “Hey, you actually look like you’ve regained some color. You coming to the bar tonight?” Toby’s voice sliced through Leo’s internal monologue, bringing him back to the living room where his brother was now leaning against the doorframe, tossing a set of car keys in the air. The invitation was casual, a typical Friday night ritual for the men in their family—a few rounds of drinks and loud arguments about sports. To Toby, it was a simple question. To Leo, it felt like a summons to a battlefield where he lacked the armor to survive. He instinctively shifted, the tacky residue of the barrier cream creating a distinct, sliding friction against his thighs. The sensation was a sudden, jarring reminder of his reality. A bar meant crowds, loud music, and—most terrifyingly—a public restroom. The thought of a communal bathroom, stripped of Mrs. Gable’s clinical oversight and the safety of her scheduled interventions, made his stomach coil. He imagined the panic of a sudden urge, the vulnerability of a stall with a gap in the door, and the crushing realization that he no longer possessed the confidence to clean himself thoroughly without a directive. “I don’t know, Tobs. I’m kind of wiped,” Leo replied, his voice small. He looked at the keys in Toby’s hand, seeing them not as a vehicle for fun, but as a means of transport away from the only person who currently knew how to manage his body. Toby rolled his eyes, stepping forward to clap a heavy hand on Leo’s shoulder. “Since when do you turn down a night at O’Malley’s? Come on, you’ve been cooped up in that dorm for months. You look like you’ve seen a ghost. A few beers will put some life back into you.” The physical contact, though affectionate, felt intrusive. Leo felt as though he were wearing a costume—the costume of a college student—while underneath, he was a carefully curated patient. He wondered if Toby could smell the faint, medicinal scent of the zinc oxide, or if the stiffness of his posture betrayed the secret of his dependency. The idea of sitting on a vinyl barstool, knowing that his most basic functions were now governed by a landlady's regime, created a dizzying sense of vertigo. “Actually,” Leo said, his mind racing, “I think I’m just going to stay in and catch up on some reading.” “Reading? On a Friday?” Toby laughed, a loud, genuine sound that filled the room. “You’re officially a nerd. Fine, stay in your books. But don’t complain when I come back with stories about the girls who were asking where the 'mysterious older brother' disappeared to.” The shift began not as a sharp alarm, but as a slow, heavy migration in his lower gut. It was a sudden redistribution of weight, a liquid warmth that signaled the inevitable surrender of his sphincter. For a moment, Leo froze, his breath hitching, as he felt the first rhythmic pulse of a contraction. He didn’t just sense the urge; he felt the total collapse of his internal containment. The pressure built with a clinical inevitability, a heavy, descending tide that pushed against the barrier cream, making the slickness of it feel like a lubricant for his own failure. He was no longer a man standing in a living room; he was a vessel reaching its capacity. The panic surged, not because of the physical discomfort, but because he was now operating outside the supervised zone. He was alone in his vulnerability, stripped of the voice that told him when it was permissible to let go. “I need to use the restroom,” Leo crooned, the word *crooned* an unconscious reflex of his new nature. It wasn't a request or a statement; it was a plea, delivered in that soft, tentative cadence Mrs. Gable had cultivated in him. He didn't speak with the declarative strength of a son; he spoke with the hopeful fragility of a pet asking for a treat. He had forgotten, for a fleeting second, that he was no longer in the landlady's clinical orbit, and the resulting softness of his voice sounded alien and childlike in the familiar warmth of his parents' home. The response was not the permission he craved, but the sound of a deadbolt clicking and a faucet running. His father was inside. Leo stood frozen in the hallway, the pressure in his gut now a demanding, rhythmic throb. The sound of the faucet—a steady, uncaring drone—echoed the clinical sterility of the life he had left behind. He felt the first warm, traitorous leak seep through the barrier cream, a slow-motion disaster that signaled the total failure of his autonomy. He wanted to scream, not because of the mess, but because there was no one there to tell him it was okay to fail. “Oh, honey,” his mother’s voice drifted from the kitchen, cutting through his panic with a gentle, domestic clarity. “You know your father. After a big dinner, he’ll be in there for a while. He’s like a tortoise in a shell once he hits that bathroom.” She appeared in the doorway, wiping her hands on a floral apron, her expression one of maternal warmth that felt, to Leo, like a distant star. “Go downstairs and use the powder room. It’s much quicker.” The downstairs powder room was a forbidden geography, a tactical error in the map of his new life. As he looked toward the stairs, Leo didn’t see a convenient alternative; he saw a breach of contract. He had promised Mrs. Gable—had practically sworn an oath during the "preparation" phase of the trip—that he would not utilize any facility that lacked her specific oversight or the safety of a lock she had vetted. To enter the powder room now would be an act of unsanctioned independence, a theft of the dependency she had so meticulously cultivated. He could almost hear her voice, a cool, clinical reprimand: *“A promise made in the sanctuary of the home is a promise kept in the world, Leo. Discipline is not a garment you take off when you leave the house.”* The promise had been the price of his travel. In exchange for the "mercy" of her allowing him to visit his parents, he had agreed to a strict protocol of transparency. Using the downstairs restroom without reporting it, without a scheduled window, was a violation of the hygiene regime. He had committed to a window. To deviate from that window was to admit he could function without her, a heresy that Mrs. Gable had spent months erasing from his psyche. Leo’s thumb hovered over the screen of his phone, the brightness of the display feeling like a spotlight on his transgression. He began to type, his fingers trembling, drafting a message that was less of a request and more of a confession. *Mrs. Gable, the upstairs facility is occupied. May I please use the downstairs powder room? I am experiencing a significant urge.* He stared at the words, feeling the desperate hope that she would grant him this small, momentary autonomy. He knew the risk—that she might find his inability to wait for her a sign of weakness, or worse, a sign that he thought he could manage his own crisis. The silence that followed the "send" button was agonizing. For three minutes, Leo stood in the hallway, a statue of mounting desperation, watching the three grey dots of her typing bubble appear and disappear. Each pulse of his gut felt like a gavel striking a bench. When the notification finally chimed, he nearly dropped the device. *“Absolutely not,”* the screen flashed back, the words stark and uncompromising. *“Our agreement was the upstairs bathroom, Leo. I explicitly stated that we would utilize that specific facility so that I could clean your rear through the bathroom window. Deviation from the plan is a failure of discipline.”* Leo felt the blood drain from his face. The logistics of her request were absurd, almost surreal, yet in the vacuum of his autonomy, they felt like an immutable law of physics. He looked at the ceiling, imagining Mrs. Gable standing in the garden below, her clinical gaze fixed on the window frame, waiting for him to submit to the protocol. The "agreement" wasn't just about hygiene; it was a choreographed piece of theater designed to strip him of the last vestiges of privacy. To be cleaned through an open window, exposed to the night air and the potential gaze of the neighborhood, was the ultimate erasure of the boundary between his private shame and her public management. “What if I can't make it?” Leo typed, his fingers shaking so violently that he misspelled the word *make* twice before sending. He was leaning against the wall, his legs beginning to tremble from the effort of holding back the tide. The pressure in his lower gut had shifted from a rhythmic throb to a desperate, demanding ache that ignored the boundaries of his clothing. The reply was instantaneous, devoid of empathy but brimming with a clinical, almost maternal confidence. *“I wouldn't be surprised,”* Mrs. Gable wrote. The words hit him with the force of a physical blow. She wasn't expressing concern; she was predicting his failure. To her, his lack of control wasn't a crisis to be averted, but a milestone to be reached. By stating that his accident was expected, she was effectively stripping away the last shred of his hope that he could manage this on his own. She had already written the ending of this scene: Leo, broken and leaking, forced to rely on her precise, scrubbing touch to be made clean again. The sound of the flush was a thunderclap of salvation. It was the signal that the territory was vacant, a sudden vacuum of space and time that offered a narrow window of escape. His dad exited thr bsthroom and he enters. He burst into the bathroom, the door swinging shut with a definitive click that felt, for the first time in hours, like a shield. He didn't even stop to breathe before he was fumbling with his belt, the metallic clatter of the buckle echoing against the tiles. The release was violent and immediate, a total surrender of his autonomy to the laws of gravity and pressure. As he sat, the sheer volume of the failure overwhelmed him, a warm, heavy tide that felt like it was stripping away the last of his adult dignity. The relief was instantaneous and devastating. As the pressure finally broke, Leo didn’t feel a sense of victory; he felt a profound, clinical failure. The barrier cream, intended to protect his skin, now only served to make the sensation more visceral, a slick glide of surrender. He sat there in the silence of his parents' bathroom, the air smelling of lemon polish and old towels, feeling the warmth soak into the fabric of his underwear. He was no longer a student or a son; he was a patient who had suffered a lapse in containment. Panic flared as he looked at the toilet paper. His hand hovered over the roll, but his muscles refused to engage in the familiar motion of cleaning himself. The psychological tether Mrs. Gable had wound around his autonomy was too tight. He found himself waiting—not for a signal from his own body, but for a command from her. The thought of wiping himself without her explicit directive felt like a transgression, a theft of the intimacy she had claimed as her own. He felt a sudden, sharp longing for the sterile scent of her wipes and the firm, uncaring precision of her hand. *“I made it,”* Leo typed, his thumb hovering over the send button as he sat frozen on the toilet, the aftermath of his surrender cooling against his skin. It was a confession disguised as a status update. He wasn't reporting that he had reached the bathroom; he was reporting that he had reached the point of total failure. He hit send and leaned his forehead against the cold tile of the wall, waiting for the digital verdict. The phone buzzed in his palm, a sharp, electric vibration that felt like a command. *“What a pleasant surprise,”* the screen read. *“Now prop your rear out that window for mama. Once it’s out, do not move and turn your phone off. We work around my schedule.”* Leo stared at the words, his heart hammering against his ribs. The "window" was a narrow, sash-style opening that looked out over the flowerbeds on the side of the house. It was a precarious, humiliating physical requirement, yet the phrasing—the use of "mama"—sent a wave of conditioned relief through him. The clinical authority was suddenly wrapped in a suffocating maternal warmth, making the absurdity of the request feel like a necessary mercy. He didn't question the logistics or the risk of being seen; he simply obeyed. Leo didn’t hesitate. The internal dialogue—the part of him that might have questioned the sheer absurdity of exposing himself to the night air—had been successfully silenced by months of clinical conditioning. He stood up, his movements mechanical, and slid the sash of the bathroom window upward. A sudden, sharp draft of evening air cut through the humidity of the room, smelling of damp earth and jasmine, chilling the sweat on his neck. He stepped toward the porcelain edge of the bathtub, which sat positioned directly beneath the window frame. With a shaky breath, he hoisted himself up, propping his hips against the cold, hard rim of the tub. He shifted his weight, angling his body so that his lower half was thrust outward, suspended over the sill and exposed to the garden below. The vulnerability was instantaneous and total; he felt the sudden, shocking contrast of the cool night breeze hitting his skin, stripping away the last vestige of privacy. He was no longer a guest in his childhood home; he was a specimen on a pedestal, waiting for the administrator to arrive. Chapter 13 The sound of the front door opening was a distant thunderclap that shattered Leo’s fragile sanctuary. "Alright, I'm heading out! See you tomorrow, Leo!" Toby’s voice boomed from the foyer, followed by the heavy thud of the door closing. For a heartbeat, Leo remained frozen, his rear still suspended in the night air, the cool breeze mocking his vulnerability. He felt a surge of genuine terror. The path Toby took to the driveway ran parallel to the side of the house—a direct line of sight to the bathroom window. If Toby had paused, or looked back, or even slowed his pace, he would have seen the surreal, clinical tableau of his older brother propped up like a piece of livestock. The thought of Toby’s laughter—not the playful ribbing of a sibling, but the horrified laughter of someone witnessing a total psychological collapse—made Leo’s stomach churn. But the fear didn't stop at the window. As the sound of Toby’s car engine ignited and faded into the distance, Leo realized the true danger: Mrs. Gable was coming. She wouldn't just be arriving; she would be infiltrating the perimeter of his family home. The image of her—sharp, disciplined, and utterly dominant—stepping out of her car and potentially crossing paths with Toby was a nightmare scenario. If Toby had seen her, he might have asked questions. The fear of discovery was rapidly being replaced by a more insidious anxiety: the fear of contagion. As Leo hung there, suspended between the cold porcelain of the tub and the open air of the night, he began to wonder if Mrs. Gable had already begun to map the vulnerabilities of his brothers. He thought of Toby’s impulsive nature, his lack of boundaries, and the way he admired strength and decisiveness. If Mrs. Gable decided that Toby was a "project"—a chaotic element in need of the same clinical restructuring she had applied to Leo—Toby would likely walk right into her web, mistaking her dominance for mentorship. The thought of it was paralyzing. He imagined a world where the entire family dynamic was rewritten by her hand, where Toby and his other brothers were stripped of their confidence and taught to croon for permission. He could almost see her standing in their living room, her sharp eyes scanning his brothers, identifying the cracks in their armor that she could widen into chasms of dependency. If she indoctrinated them, Leo wouldn’t just be a ward; he would be the blueprint. He would be the living proof of her efficacy, the cautionary tale she used to break them. If Toby were to be broken, it wouldn't be because of some inherent weakness in his spirit, but because Leo had provided the map. Every time Leo had succumbed to a protocol, every time he had accepted the clinical erasure of his dignity, he had been subconsciously building a bridge for Mrs. Gable to cross. He realized with a jolt of nausea that his submission wasn't a private tragedy; it was a blueprint. If she decided to expand her regime to the rest of the household, the responsibility would lie squarely with him. He had shown her how to dismantle a man's will in this specific family line. It would be all his fault. The guilt was a heavy, suffocating blanket, until the sensation of the night air was suddenly replaced by a sharp, clinical precision. He felt the snap of nitrile against his skin—a cold, synthetic shock that signaled the end of his solitude. The touch was firm, devoid of hesitation, and instantly focused on the area of his greatest failure. The sensation of the glove, slick and sterile, moving with an authoritative efficiency across his rear, acted like a switch in his brain. The crushing weight of the "what ifs" regarding Toby vanished, replaced by the singular, overwhelming reality of Mrs. Gable’s presence. He didn't need to see her to know she was there; the rhythmic, scrubbing pressure of the nitrile glove told him everything he needed to know about his current status. "Still" she commanded, her voice a low, steady hum that vibrated against the silence of the garden. "You've been quite messy, Leo. A complete lack of containment. Do you think this is how a disciplined young man conducts himself in his parents' home?" The command was followed immediately by a shift in pressure. The glide of the nitrile glove transitioned from a methodical check to an aggressive, scouring motion. Mrs. Gable didn’t just wipe; she reclaimed the territory of his skin with a series of sharp, punishing swipes that forced Leo’s breath to hitch. Each movement was a clinical correction, a physical manifestation of her disappointment. The friction was intense, the glove dragging across his sensitive skin with a rhythmic violence that blurred the line between hygiene and penance. He could feel the exact moment the barrier cream gave way, stripped away by her relentless efficiency, leaving him raw and exposed to the night air. “A bit more to the left, Leo. You’re barely giving me a target.” The voice was a velvet rasp, emanating from somewhere below the windowsill. Leo felt his muscles lock up, the cool night air continuing to bite at his exposed skin. He shifted his weight,  He felt the precarious tilt of his body, the sudden sensation of being more ‘out’ than ‘in,’ as he strained to present himself exactly as she demanded. “That’s it. Give Mama more of that hiney. Prop it right through the window,” she commanded. The tone was a dizzying blend of a nursery rhyme and a military order. He obeyed with a desperate, mindless eagerness, pushing his hips further over the ledge until he felt the hard edge of the sash pressing into the soft flesh of his stomach. He was completely inverted, a man reduced to a biological function, suspended in the gap between his parents' domestic peace and Mrs. Gable’s clinical empire. He could feel her breath, warm and focused, hitting the back of his thighs. Then came the sound—the rhythmic, wet snap of a fresh wipe being deployed. The scrubbing eventually ceased, replaced by a sudden, heavy application of something thick and cooling. It wasn’t the usual modest layer of barrier cream; this was a deluge. Leo felt the cold, viscous mass spread rapidly across his skin, applied with a level of generosity that bordered on the obsessive. Mrs. Gable didn’t just coat the area; she plastered it, her gloved hand moving in wide, sweeping arcs that pushed the cream deep into every fold and crease. It felt as though she were trying to seal him off from the world, creating a dense, waterproof wall between his flesh and the air. The sheer volume of the cream made his skin feel heavy, almost burdened. As she worked, the coldness transitioned into a stifling warmth, the thick paste trapping his body heat against a layer of synthetic protection. He could hear the squelch of the excess as she smoothed it out, the sound wet and clinical against the quiet of the garden. It was an overcorrection, a lavish application of medicine for a failure of discipline. By saturating his skin in this way, she wasn't just protecting him; she was marking him, ensuring that for the next several hours, he would be consciously aware of the thick, sliding weight of her care with every single step he took. Mrs. Gable didn’t stop until the sensation of coldness was replaced by a suffocating, airtight density. She continued to scoop the zinc oxide from the tube, layering it on with a methodical intensity that felt less like skincare and more like masonry. She worked the paste into his skin with firm, circular motions, ensuring there was no gap, no sliver of exposed flesh, and no possibility of the air touching him. The application became a sculpture of dependency; she was not merely treating a rash, but constructing a physical barrier that would remind Leo of her presence with every single muscle contraction. “There,” she whispered, her voice drifting up through the window, sounding far too satisfied. “Now you are properly sealed. You’ll feel that weight with every step you take back to your bed, Leo. A constant, heavy reminder that you are incapable of maintaining yourself without my intervention.” The silence of the night was broken by a sharp, rhythmic sound—the same sound a parent makes when praising a particularly well-behaved golden retriever. With a sudden, playful violence, Mrs. Gable delivered a firm, condescending smack to his rear. The sound echoed off the garden walls, a crisp *thwack* that resonated through the cold air and vibrated deep into the layers of zinc oxide. It wasn't a blow of anger, but one of absolute ownership, a punctuation mark at the end of a clinical sentence. “Soft as a baby’s bottom,” she cooed, her voice dripping with a maternal irony that made Leo’s skin crawl. “Such a precious, helpless thing you’ve become.” The smack served as a tactile signal, a command for him to retreat. He felt the sudden, frantic need to vanish from the window, to pull himself back into the interior of the house before the absurdity of his position became a permanent fixture of the night. He scrambled backward, his hips sliding off the cold porcelain of the tub with a wet, suctioning sound, his legs shaking as he tried to regain his balance. As he retreated into the bathroom, he felt the heavy, sliding weight of the cream. It was no longer just a protective layer; it was a garment of shame. Every movement of his thighs felt sluggish, the thick paste creating a vacuum of friction that reminded him of his total surrender. He stood in the center of the room, chest heaving, looking at the open window. The night air was still rushing in, but the space no longer felt like a breeze; it felt like a breach. He was terrified that some part of her—her gaze, her scent, her absolute authority—had leaked into the room and would remain there, haunting the corners of his parents' home. Leo stood in the center of the bathroom, the heavy, suffocating layer of zinc oxide acting like a brand on his skin. As he looked at the door, he didn't see a way back to his family; he saw a leak in the dam. If Mrs. Gable’s influence could seep through a closed window and a phone screen, it was only a matter of time before she decided to walk through the front door. He thought of Toby’s loud, confident laughter and his father’s unsuspecting trust, and a sudden, desperate spike of protectiveness surged through him. He was already a ruin, a blueprint of submission, but he could still act as a shield. If he could remove himself from this environment—if he could lure the predator away from the flock—perhaps his family could remain untainted by the clinical horror of his new life. He moved through the hallway like a ghost, his gait awkward and wide to accommodate the sliding weight between his cheeks. Every step was a reminder of his fragility, a wet, rhythmic friction that felt like it was announcing his shame to the entire house. He navigated the stairs in a crouch, his heart hammering against his ribs, terrified that a single floorboard groan would alert his parents to his midnight excursion. He didn't stop to put on shoes; he just slipped out the back door, the cool dew of the grass shocking his bare feet, and retreated into the shadow of the overgrown hydrangea bushes, far enough from the house that his voice wouldn't carry. *“I want to go home,”* Leo typed, his thumb hovering with a desperate, trembling uncertainty. The words on the screen felt like a betrayal of his own heart. In the silence of the garden, Leo stared at the glowing rectangle of his phone, the phrase *“I want to go home”* feeling like a lie the moment it was typed. He didn't want to go back to the landlady's sterile domain, the locked doors, and the clinical degradation of his will. He wanted the warmth of his father’s study and the chaotic, unfiltered energy of Toby’s laughter. He wanted to be the version of himself that existed before the "purification" protocols—the man who could walk into a bathroom without a map or a mandate. Yet, as he looked back at the silhouette of the house, the yearning was eclipsed by a cold, protective instinct. He realized that his desire to stay was a luxury he could no longer afford. If he remained here, acting as a bridge between his family and Mrs. Gable, he was essentially inviting her to study them. He was the breach in the wall. By staying, he was keeping the door open for her to observe his father’s softness and Toby’s impulsiveness. To stay was to risk them becoming "projects" in her eyes. The car door closed with a definitive, vacuum-sealed thud, cutting off the sounds of his parents' laughter and the lingering scent of home-cooked meals. For a few minutes, there was only the hum of the air conditioning and the rhythmic clicking of the turn signal. Leo sat in the passenger seat, his posture rigid, feeling the heavy, sliding weight of the zinc oxide as it began to set into a stiff, uncomfortable crust. He felt stripped, not just of his clothes, but of the brief, delusional hope that he could exist as a son and a brother while remaining her ward. Mrs. Gable didn’t look at him as she shifted the car into gear. She navigated the driveway with a precise, surgical efficiency, her eyes fixed on the road ahead. Only after they had cleared the perimeter of the neighborhood and merged onto the highway did she speak. "I knew you'd only last a few hours, Leo," she said, her voice devoid of surprise, sounding almost like a scientist commenting on a predictable chemical reaction. "The facade of independence is a fragile thing. You thought the change of scenery would grant you some semblance of autonomy, but your body remembers who owns it. You were practically vibrating with the need for my intervention by the second day." The words felt like a physical weight being added to the one already pressing against his skin. He wanted to argue, to tell her that the "failure" was a result of the psychological pressure she exerted, but the argument died in his throat. The truth was more terrifying: he had spent the last few days in a state of high-alert anxiety, his mind a constant loop of her protocols and warnings. He had collapsed back into her control because the effort of pretending to be a normal twenty-something was an exhausting, impossible labor. "You tried to negotiate for the powder room," she continued, a faint, mocking smile touching her lips. "A bold attempt at autonomy. But we both know how that ended. The fact that you sat there, waiting for my permission while you were failing, proves that you have finally internalized the contract. You aren't just my ward, Leo. You are a creature of habit, and your habit is submission." Leo stared out the window, watching the familiar landscapes of his commute blur into a smear of green and grey. He felt an odd, paradoxical sense of peace washing over him. The tension of the weekend—the desperate act of lying to his parents, the terror of being discovered by Toby—was evaporating, replaced by the crushing certainty of her dominance. The struggle was over because he had stopped fighting. He was no longer a man trying to maintain a secret; he was a patient returning to his clinic.

This was such an amazing read. Thank you so much for writing it. The diaper dimension can be incredibly cruel at times, and this story really leans into what's at stake with Littles not having the same rights as Amazons and the abuse that will inevitably lead to. Ivy's side of the story in particular is very compelling, since it's one of a person learning about her biases and prejudices and then doing something with that information. The fact that she never mentally regressed Holly signaled early on that she had a strong ethical core, even when society around her said it was an acceptable thing to do. And when she learned more about the traumatic things Littles endure, she actually cared and did something about it. I have to say that for a lot of the story I was wondering if it was going to end with them both traveling back to the non-diaper dimension. It was the only way I could see that the story would end without Holly forcibly mentally regressed by an Amazon who was blind to her worth as a person (let alone as a doctor). I'm very pleased with the way the stakes were upped by the incident in the Daycare resulting in Holly gaining the agency and choice to decide how to move forward with her life. And I think her decision is consistent with her characterization throughout the rest of the story. She gains human connection at the cost of parts of her autonomy, a decision many of us have to make even in our dimension. And in the end, she chooses the life that she has learned to love the good parts of and tolerate the bad. And she gets to do amazing work as a surgeon as well. And that's just such a beautiful ending to a story in this genre. 10/10. Would gladly endure selective amnesia to be able to read it for the first time again. Can't wait to read more of your writing.

Back today with Chapters 19 and 20! Happy Dominican Independence Day!  Tomorrow, we'll post our finale, Chapter 21! I hope you're looking forward to it! “Bwuh…!”   Charlie’s eyes opened. She tried to sit up. She got only halfway up and then fall back down. She looked around, seeing Ida’s bedroom. She was back in the cradle next to Ida’s bed. That part wasn’t surprising. The surprising part was…   “H-hey, Charlie!”   “Zoe…!”   Charlie managed a smile when she saw Zoe standing over her cradle. Charlie’s eyes lit up when she saw standing next to her…   “Alma!”   Charlie tried to reach out to Alma. Alma rolled her eyes and did not reach back. Charlie’s arms fell limply back into the cradle.   “I can not believe you got yourself into this,” Alma said in a very unimpressed tone as she stood over the cradle, looking down at her partner.   “I did it for sweets recipes…” Charlie muttered weakly in her defense.   “Okay, never mind. I definitely do believe it,” Alma sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose between her fingers.   “It’s okay, Charlie,” Zoe said, leaning into the crib and stroking Charlie’s head. “I know what you’re going through.”   “Is it as bad as the girls said it is?” Charlie asked. Zoe grimaced and looked away for a second. Charlie was pretty sure she was trying to decide if she should lie or not.   “Um. …yeah. Yeah, it pretty much is,” she said with a nod. “Sorry.”   “Wehhhhh….” Charlie whined.   “Alright, look,” Alma said. “We can’t stay too long. Ida promised us immunity from all of the freakin’ ghostly hijinx so we could come see you, but I don’t think that’s gonna last forever. I just wanted to see you and make sure you’re still in one piece before the flight.”   “What flight?” Charlie asked.   “Ummmm.” Alma started tapping her fingers together. “Sooooooooo. There’s this witching retreat down in Acapulco. A buncha witches are gonna be there, some really big ones and there’s gonna be seminars and workshops and the hotel where it’s at is on the beach and I wasn’t really plannin’ to go ‘cause it’s kinda expensive, and I figured I was gonna be with you, workin’, but. Now I don’t have to worry about rent for a few months, and I don’t have to worry about work either, ‘cause you’re, uh, indisposed, sooooo.” She brought up her hands in a bit of a half-shrug. Charlie wasn’t sure how to digest all of this. She said the first thing that came to her mind.   “…can I come?” Charlie asked.   “Ahhh.” Alma rubbed the back of her head. “Ida says you’re too little to go on a plane.”   “W…we could drive?” Charlie offered.   “Ida says that long of a car ride is too much stress for a little one like you,” Zoe said.   “Weeeeehhhhh!” Charlie whined, longer this time. “…can you at least bring me back a box of Bubu Lubus?”   “We can do that!” Alma said. She grabbed Charlie’s hand and gave it a quick shake. “Okay, that’s as good of an off-ramp as we’re getting, Zoe, c’mon,” she said, grabbed Zoe and left the room. The door was closed behind them before Charlie could get her arm up to wave goodbye.   “…I wanna go to Acapulco too…” She muttered to nobody in particular.   Charlie’s time as “the littlest” didn’t improve much from there and was, in fact, about as bad as she’d been told. Her body was extremely weak, she could barely manage some crawling, but she mostly didn’t anyway, for three reasons. One, if she did crawl, she usually ran out of energy in a couple minutes. Either way, she exhausted very easily and needed three naps a day, as promised. The second reason was that Ida was watching her at nearly all times and rarely let her crawl anywhere, instead choosing to carry her around, push her around the daycare in a stroller, or keep her in a cradle, a rocker or a bouncer. The last reason that crawling wasn’t really on the table was that her diapers were now preposterously thick, the exact kind of monstrosities she’d feared at the start, the leg-bowing waddle-inducing type. They were so thick and bulky, carrying them around really wasn’t helping her not waste energy.   Unfortunately, her diapers needed to be that thick, because Ida insisted on feeding her milk and mushy ectoplasmic baby food a good 6 times a day now. All of it being ectoplasmic, it all wound up in her diapers quickly and her changes were indeed much less frequent. Ida had changed her pretty quickly the night they were playing the game, now in these super-thick diapers, she was down to 2 or 3 changes a day, leading to plenty of stroller rides, naps in the cradle and rocking chair sessions with a full diaper. Whiningly asking for a change usually just got a laugh and a hug from Ida, followed by another bottlefeeding, which of course, would just make the state of her diapers worse a few minutes later. Charlie unfortunately became very familiar with the feeling of wetting and messing so much that they all mixed into a swampy, mushy, sludgey soup that no part of her could escape from.   It wasn’t all terrible. She did get a lot of affection as the littlest. It was definitely more overwhelming and infantilizing than she would prefer, but, that part wasn’t that bad to get used to, either. Charlie hadn’t been able to put a finger on it when she’d arrived, but she didn’t realize how strange it was that the daycare didn’t have the cold, foreboding feeling most haunted zones had. Now, she understood it. For ghosts, all of them were really warm. She could feel Ida’s warmth even when she was living in the cradle next to her bed and now that the ghost girls were hugging her instead of teasing her and trying to capture her, they were pretty toasty too.   Charlie found herself pretty regularly nuzzling against Ida when they were in a rocking chair together (which was often) and one time, the four ghost girls got together with her in the playroom, bringing together a bunch of blankets, pillows and cushions from all over the daycare. Licorice insisted they were doing it to make, quote, “the most kick-ass blanket fort ever” and when it was done, they all laid next to Charlie in a big, warm nest.   “Awwww, is everybody having a little slumber party?” Ida whispered as she floated around the blanket fort, not opening it up herself. “Well, I suppose just for tonight, they can stay here instead of the cribs,” she said, leaving them be. It was very nice. They all laid in the fort, nuzzled with each other, lightly dozing off.   …until they were interrupted by a muffled wind-breaking noise.   “Awww, geez, Charlie.” Licorice let out a half-asleep giggle, covering her nose. “You’re stinkin’ up the foooort,” she said, giving Charlie a light shove.   “Uhm, that was me, actually,” Mint muttered. “Sorry.”   A second noise came shortly after that.   “Okay, that one, was Charlie.” Mint reached a hand through all of the cushions and grabbed the seat of Charlie’s onesie. “Yup. Definitely Charlie.”   Despite how accustomed she’d gotten to it, Charlie felt her face flush. Fortunately or unfortunately, she’d also gotten used to falling asleep despite having a mess smushing her butt, so she drifted off easily enough, the other ghosts all following her shortly after.   One ghost she hadn’t spent any time with was Strawberry. She’d barely even seen her during her time as the littlest and when she did see her, the pink ghost didn’t say a word to her. Charlie’s feelings over it were still…conflicted. She certainly wasn’t fond of what Strawberry had done to Zoe, but she also knew there genuinely had been something mutual to their relationship (something not entirely healthy, Charlie was pretty sure, but that wasn’t the point) and without Zoe, Strawberry was now very, very lonely. That just didn’t sit well with her. But she wasn’t sure what to do about it and there wasn’t anything she really could do while she was the littlest, so for an entire month, she just stewed with those thoughts, not sure what she would do or if she even should or could do something.   She wasn’t any surer what to do by the time a month had come and gone, but the month did indeed come and go anyway and that came with its own good news.   “Ah…ha!” Charlie said, fully standing up onto her own two feet and walking around. “Look at this, I’m ambulatory! Look at me gooooooo!” She said as she walked around the playroom. Her arms were stretched out, she was wobbling back and forth a bit, but she was standing and walking. That counted for something.   “Heeeh! You still look like a runt to me,” Licorice said, poking Charlie in the back and giggling as she almost tumbled over. “But I’m glad you can play with us for real, now.”   “Ida will probably even let you sleep in a crib, tonight!” Choco said encouragingly. Charlie let out a snort.   “I don’t think that’s that big of a step up,” she said. It was an improvement on the cradle she’d been sleaping in for the last month, at least. More importantly though, it was one step closer to being able to ‘graduate’ from the daycare. Which meant she was one step closer to getting back to Sweets Hunting.   —   “Since you’ve been looking a bit stronger lately, I think we can have you in some regular nighttime diapers now,” Ida cooed to Charlie as she had her on the changing table. “These are less bulky than the ones you were wearing before, promise!”   Once Charlie felt the padding get pulled between her legs and taped on, she wasn’t so sure about that. These ones still felt pretty bulky. But nonetheless, Ida took her to a crib, rather than a cradle, hugging her and pulling the bars up. It was an acknowledgment of progress, of a sort. Charlie tried to focus on that.   “So, uh, Ida,” she said, before the nanny could float away. “Now that I’m kinda. Makin’ progress outta bein’ the teeny-tiniest. How much longer were we thinkin’ of havin’ me here?” It was the first time she’d been enrolled. Now that her time as the littlest was wrapping up, she wanted to at least know what Ida was thinking on the subject.   “Hmmmmn.” Ida balanced her elbows on the bar of the crib. She smiled down at Charlie. “I’d like to be extra safe waiting for your strength to return, but after that…I don’t think there’s too much more you have to learn, here,” she said. “Do you think you can tolerate our company for another week or two?” She asked. Charlie let out a breath of relief. She didn’t think Ida would keep her here for a year (it had seemed like she didn’t even want to keep Zoe that long), but she was relieved to hear it wasn’t gonna be in the 4-6 month range, just the same.   “I think that’ll be just fine,” she said. Ida reached in and stroked her head.   “Goodnight, Charlie,” she whispered, then floated away. Charlie started to nestle into the crib. Immediately, she appreciated all the extra room, even if she was, y’know, still surrounded by bars. She started thinking about how she would tell the girls, who were all already in their own cribs, snoozing away. Charlie was excited to get back to her job, after all, but, they had all become friends over the last month. She knew they would miss her, so she had to figure out how to break it to them.   “Hm, you were very hungry tonight, weren’t you?” Charlie heard Ida ask someone in a hushed voice. “All of those extra bottles went right through you, didn’t they? Hehehehe. It’s okay. Nana will get you nice and clean and smelling like baby powder before bed.” She was starting to drift off, but something caught on Charlie’s attention. What Ida was saying was pretty normal stuff for a bedtime diaper change, but. Charlie was pretty sure the other four girls were all already in bed.   “Actually, Ida, please don’t change me.”   Charlie’s eyes opened up, immediately coming out of her half slumber when she realized that was the first time she’d heard that voice all month.   “Oh.” Ida sounded surprised. “Um. Are you sure, sweetie?”   “I’m sure,” the voice sound back very matter-of-factly. “I would prefer to sleep like this.”   “Well, okay, if that’s what you want,” Ida said, sounding a bit unsure herself. “But if you want to stay in your diaper all night, I’ll have to put you in another layer.”   “In that case, please put on two extra layers to be safe.” At that, Ida let out a little chuckle.   “Of course, sweetie,” she said. “You can be my cutie-patootie little triple-pampered sleepyhead tonight.”   “M-mmn…”   Some rustling, some crinkling and the sound of two extra diapers being taped on followed. A moment later, followed by the sound of someone being laid down on a mattress and a crib’s bars being pulled up and locked into place.   The lights went out shortly after that. Charlie actually sat up in bed for a moment and looked in the direction of the other crib. Again, the thoughts she hadn’t been able to solve for the last month reared up. She thought about saying something, just going with her gut, but. What could she do with both of them put down in cribs for the night, anyway? She laid back down, resolving to figure something out in the morning.   She started to drift off again, turning onto her side, when she realized something was wrong. She didn’t actually turn all the way. Her arm didn’t move. For a second she worried the weakness had started coming back, but she realized that wasn’t it. Her arm wasn’t slow and uncoordinated due to weakness. It just wasn’t moving around at all. She looked around, her eyes eventually finding the answer. It made her breath stop.   The mirror was pointed at her crib. She saw her reflection in it, grinning at her as she laid down as well.   Charlie saw a pair of ghost hands undo the locks of the crib. The bars slid down and Charlie hopped out. She heard it happen a second time in a different part of the room and her body walked towards the sound. As she moved, Charlie glanced at the mirror. She spoke in a quiet tone, so as to not wake anybody up or rouse Ida in the next room.   “Still mad, huh?”   Her reflection smirked and gave her the middle finger.   “We even after this?”   Her reflection tapped her chin a couple times, tilting her head back and forth in consideration. Then, she grinned and nodded. That made Charlie a bit worried about what she was in for.   “Greeeat. Have a good night, P.B.”   Her reflection giggled into her hand. Charlie’s body hopped into the crib, breaking line of sight and returning her control of her body. She slid into a sitting position on one end as the bars slid back up.   Strawberry sat on the other end of the crib, glowering at Charlie.     “…I didn’t know you guys could open and close the cribs like that,” Charlie said.   “Neither does Ida,” Strawberry said in an equally low voice. “We’re going to keep it that way.”   Charlie let out a breath.   “Look, I’ve been wanting to talk to you,” she said. “I know that. What happened the first night I got here put us at odds, but—”   “I don’t want or need to hear all of that from you,” Strawberry said, cutting her off. “There is very little we need to say to each other at this point. The things we do need to say are very specific and have nothing to do with that night.” Charlie let out an exasperated grunt.   “Look. I feel bad, okay? But I don’t feel that bad about ruining you kidnapping Zoe. You can hate me all you want, but somewhere, I know you understand, she needed to leave this place behind, so she could live her life—mmmph!”   Strawberry pointed a finger. A ghost hand appeared and shoved a pacifier into Charlie’s mouth, holding it there.   “I don’t hate you. And I’m not going to argue with you about what happened.” She held a hand up and something that Charlie had fortunately forgotten about from her first night here unfortunately started to happen again, the sheets beneath her starting to stir.   ‘Oh, god, not the monster sheets!’ Charlie squeaked a couple times into her pacifier as the sheets grabbed her arms, holding them behind her back and snugly tying them there. Pulled down onto her back, a couple more ghost hands appeared and undid the snaps of her onesie. With her diaper exposed, the ghost hands began taking it off.   “You can give me everything I want from you, right here,” Strawberry said, standing up from her own sitting position, a lot of crinkling and squishing noises coming from her as she did. She pulled up her nightgown to reveal she wasn’t wearing any bloomers, because they likely wouldn’t have fit over the massive triple diaper she was wearing, which even with the two extra layers, was notably bulging in the seat.   The ghost hands untaped the hugely swollen triple diapers from around Strawberry. Charlie looked confused for a moment, but awful realization hit her when her diaper was removed and the ghost hands started carrying it towards Strawberry. Meanwhile, that huge and hugely messy diaper floated across the crib. Charlie thought about causing a huge racket and waking up everybody just to avoid that, but….   “Mmmmph…!”   Instead, she let out a muted cry into her pacifier as the mess was pressed up against her bottom. The front wasn’t any better, the sodden padding immediately squishing against Charlie as it was pulled up. While Strawberry was taped into Charlie’s clean overnight diaper, Charlie was now stuck in a hugely bulky triple-layered monstrosity with a mush cradled tightly against her butt that unfortunately, despite its ghostly nature, was no less tangible and no less squishy.   With their diapers swapped and Charlie now feeling quite discomforted and humiliated with Strawberry’s mess strapped to her, Strawberry walked towards Charlie and stood over her.   “There was no point in doing anything with this while you were the littlest,” she said coolly. She reached into her nightgown and pulled something out. Charlie felt sweat pricking the back of her neck as she saw it.   A single long blond strand of hair.   ‘That’s my hair…!’ Charlie realized. The hair Strawberry had taken when they’d first met. ‘She made that doll that she used to control Zoe with a piece of Zoe’s hair. I totally forgot she had one of mine too!’ Charlie breathed in and out frantically. She’d spent so much time sorting through her own feelings on Strawberry and how she should handle them that she’d totally forgotten that the ghost girl had been holding this incredibly powerful piece of leverage over her the entire time.   “But now that you’re not the littlest anymore, it’s relevant again.” Charlie was sweating. She’d just started on her path to leaving this place, if Strawberry made a doll that could control her like she had Zoe, who knows when she would be getting out or how a clearly spiteful Strawberry would treat her in the interim.   “It’s time to settle our account,” Strawberry said. She looked over the strand of hair….   …and flicked her hand, tossing the hair forward. It landed on Charlie’s stomach. Charlie stared down at it, then looked up at Strawberry. She didn’t understand. Strawberry stared at her for a second before explaining.   “You’re going to ask Ida to stay here for another month, instead of another week,” she said. “You and I are going to spend that entire month together. We’re going to play together. We’re going to share our naps. We’re going to share our bedtimes. We’re going to sleep in the same crib. We’re even going to share our diapers,” she said, leaning forward and pressing her own hand on her own former diaper, now taped onto Charlie, squishing its contents against Charlie even more. “And when Ida asks if that’s what you want, you’re going to tell her it is.”   Charlie absorbed all of that and let out a sigh. Part of her wanted to respond, try to negotiate somehow. There was a couple parts of that she wasn’t excited about, but. She’d had a month to figure this out and she hadn’t gotten any closer to it. Maybe Strawberry had just gotten tired of waiting.   So, she nodded her head.   The sheets and the ghost hands released her in an instant. Strawberry laid down next to her.   “We’re even,” she said, giving Charlie a kiss on the cheek. It tingled and made Charlie a little dazed, but besides that, she didn’t think it affected her too badly.   What was going to affect her was the sheets stirring to life again, wrapping around both her and Strawberry at the same time. She looked at Strawberry, who just smiled and pulled out another pacifier, putting it into her mouth and settling her head down on Charlie’s chest. Charlie heaved a long-suffering sigh and decided to just lay back and suck on her own pacifier a bit as well, as the sheets swaddled the two of them together.   The position they wound up in was Strawberry mostly laying on top of Charlie. Strawberry weighed almost nothing, so at least it was more in the range of “weighted blanket” than “crushing her chest”, but she could’ve done without the feeling of their diapers rubbing against each other all night.   —   “My, my, look at this!”   Ida was amused to find the two wrapped up together the next morning, just chuckling to herself.   “Oh, I wonder, I wonder, how did my little ones pull this off? I could’ve sworn I remembered to close both of their cribs when I put them to bed last night!”   Her laying it on so thick made Strawberry certain that she’d already known that she could unlock and lock the cribs. That annoyed her. The rest of it went according to plan, though.   “Uh, Ida,” Charlie said. “I think I uh. Want to stay for another month,” she said.   “Okay!” Ida said immediately and without any follow-up. “A month, it is.” She nuzzled her nose into Charlie’s head. “You decided you just would’ve missed nana too much, huh? Hehehe!”   “That must be it,” Charlie said with a weak little laugh of her own.   From then on, at least at first, Charlie did as Strawberry asked, spending pretty much all her time with her. Strawberry did similar things to the other girls, she had games she liked to play, mostly she did a lot of reading. Charlie didn’t mind that so much, since she hadn’t exactly done a ton of reading herself in her first month here - the other girls were more into tag, hide-and-seek, board games, that kinda thing.   It didn’t bother Charlie much, firstly because spending time with Strawberry wasn’t as bad as all that. Secondly, she pretty much hadn’t spent any time with her in the previous month, so giving her as much time as she had spent with the other girls before she left was only fair, right? So for at least for a couple weeks there, she did give Strawberry exactly what she wanted and let her monopolize Charlie’s entire day. She could tell the other girls were disappointed, Licorice in particular was annoyed the way she tended to get annoyed at everything Strawberry did, but they also didn’t try to interfere. Charlie got the feeling Ida had talked to them about it.   Charlie had been prepared for it, but she thought she maybe still underestimated how possessive and clingy Strawberry could be. She wasn’t doing it malevolently anymore, she didn’t make Charlie do anything she didn’t want (plus, she didn’t have the leverage of any magic dolls to force her), but the two of them, by no lack of effort, really were inseparable. When one of them was being carried by Ida somewhere, Strawberry made sure the other was there too. Every time they took a nap or went to bed, Strawberry made sure they shared the same crib and were swaddled together. Charlie found out that Strawberry regularly, like basically as a daily occurrence, would call for Ida to spend time with her and now that meant Charlie was a part of all of those little daily affectionate dates too, being pushed in a stroller or going around with Ida as she did her daily chores or parked on the nanny’s lap right next to Strawberry in a rocking chair.   The weirdest part (and probably the part Charlie liked the least) was definitely the diapers.   Strawberry insisted it was going to be simple and fair. Either of them could ask for a swap at any time and the other couldn’t refuse. That way if Charlie, for example, thought Strawberry was sticking her with a messy diaper all the time just so she could steal Charlie’s clean one, she could just do the same thing back to her. It was balanced, so it was fair! That logic made sense to Charlie on its face, but somehow, it didn’t work out as equally as that.   “Ooh, looks like my little Sweetie-Berry needs a change!” Ida said, lifting Strawberry up and giving a single sniff to her rear.   “I don’t want a change, Ida,” Strawberry said matter-of-factly. “Can you please swap us, instead?” Charlie, currently in only a slightly damp diaper, let out a sigh. Ida looked down at her and giggled a little knowingly.   “Do you want to swap too, Charlie?” She asked. Charlie hung her head. She wished Ida didn’t ask this every time.   “Yes, please.”   “Hmmmm.” Ida shook Strawberry a little and sniffed her again, twice this time. Now that Ida had started drawing it out, Strawberry started blushing a pink hue. “I dunno! This little Sweetie-Berry looks preeeeettty stinky! I think if I swap Charlie into her diaper, I’ll have to double her up too, just to be safe! And if Strawberry is gonna make messes like this in Charlie’s diaper, well, I should probably double her up too!”   It was very quiet for a moment after that. Ida just drank the whole thing up.   “I’m going to need to hear you girls say it out loud~~,” she said in a sing-song voice. Charlie glowered at Strawberry. Was she really gonna make them both do this. Strawberry glared back. She absolutely was. Charlie sighed.   “Please double diaper me in Strawberry’s stinky diaper, nana.” “Please double diaper me in Charlie’s diaper because I made a stinky mess in mine, nana.”   “Ohhh, you two girls are so cute when you agree with each other.”   Ida swept Charlie up in her arms next to Strawberry. Sometimes, nana had to make fun for herself.   —-   But after those first couple weeks of basically doing whatever Strawberry wanted with her, Charlie did start working her own angle as well.   She took it slow. First, she just told Strawberry they should read in the playroom instead of those dark side rooms. Strawberry was hesitant at first, but gave it a try eventually. From there, Charlie just took it gradually, trying to loop herself and Strawberry into whatever the other girls were doing a little more often. Licorice was hesitant, but Choco seemed to figure out what Charlie was doing and tried to help, inviting Charlie and Strawberry to play with them regularly. Even Licorice eventually started helping in her own, well, very Licorice kind of way. When Strawberry would say she didn’t want to play whatever board game was going on, Licorice would huff and say that’s cause she was scared she would lose. That was usually enough to get Strawberry to close her book right there and join in, just to prove Licorice wrong.   It was a long month, to be sure. Full of swaddling and a very clingy ghost girl and lots of diaper swapping (an equation which Charlie always seemed to land on the messier side of, she noticed…). But by the end of the month, Charlie thought she’d at least managed to tug Strawberry a little more towards the other girls. She hoped that the time she’d spent with Charlie had helped her deal with the absence of Zoe a bit and she hoped that once Charlie left, she was a little better equipped to not be so lonely anymore.   She had a good feeling about it.

I also hold a motorbike license (no longer a motorbike owner thought) and when on that would ALWAYS follow the maxim "dress for the slide, not the ride".  Kevlar jeans and jacket on a mountain bike at 30C / 75% humidity on a bike path?  Not so much 🤣

Wow. Taking out the catheter like you did is risky. And after 24 hours, before your sphincter could heal in an open state? That is a gamble and a half. It is interesting your bleeding stopped so soon after the surgery though. Do you know what they used to make the incision?