My bad bud! I meant stinging. I know that feeling very well, but mainly when I have very loose BM's. Mostly my BM's are ''mushy'' and they don't burn even after a couple of hours sitting in it. I always throughly clean afterwards with IC cleaning foam and dry wipes.

These chapters are so good !! Seeing Emily truly open up to Amy and even more to herself has made me quite emotional ☺️. If Joyce fantasy is to enlarge the circle of people "sharing" their relationship, she right on her way to do so. Will we see more of Amy babysitting during the day and maybe Sheila could do so when Joyce has obligations late in the evening? Thanks a lot for your writing.  Cheers!

Having been born and raised in SoCal, I knew nothing about wildlife when I came up to Minnesota, but living along a lakeshore in a semiforested town in the northern suburbs of Minneapolis, I've learned.  From a pregnant raccoon trying to nest in the attic to deer (plural) bedding down for the night in our flower beds, I've seen a lot (and don't get me started on the foxes and coyotes prowling around the yard at 6 AM).  Ravens are among the most intelligent creatures on earth; they test as well as chimps and dolphins.  They are very family oriented, and form lasting friendships with others not in their flock.  In contrast, owls are apex predators, and by our standards quite cruel.  Notably, they delight in taking their prey alive and swallowing it whole.  So, the owl seemed like a good choice for Sarah, and the raven for Sofia.  Perhaps the wisdom of the raven will override the cruelty of the owl when Sofia visits, and gets a first hand look at the lay of the land.  We shall see.

Chapter 65 – Running Man “So you’re a runner, are you?” The pretty cop was leaning over the counter, fixing Zack with a wry smile. Zack kept his eyes on his lap. He tried crossing his legs, but that felt like he was exposing the back of his diaper. He pulled at the sides of his t-shirt and said nothing. The officer tried to engage him again. “Do you go to school, Adam?” Zack looked up slightly. The friendliness of her smile made him feel bad for rebuffing her attempts at making conversation, so he nodded solemnly. “What grade are you in?” Zack’s eyes widened slightly. What did I tell the other police lady? But she’s not here now… still… make something up. “I’m in the eighth grade,” he said quietly. “Grade eight, you say? I would have guessed a bit lower than that – you must be smart for your age. Are there any girls you like in your class?” Zack’s cheeks blazed heat as he thought about the girls in the classroom he had left behind, which seemed like a thousand years ago now. He had some girls that he liked, and one that he thought might like him back, but that whole universe had been laid to waste, he was pretty sure, when he’d run into a classmate in the children’s hospital, while he was strapped onto a changing table in a woman’s washroom, having his diaper tended to, looking like a toddler. At that moment, the dull ache in his injured ankle went up a notch in volume, as well. Tears started to well up in his eyes, and then a yawn attacked him from nowhere, and he put his hand over his mouth. The young lady was amazed to see the strange boy seemingly fall to pieces. She stood up and then appeared to disappear, which was a relief to Zack, but then he heard her say something from behind the desk, and then a moment later, the heavy door to the lobby buzzed open, and she came walking out, just as another, older police lady appeared behind the desk. The officer crossed the lobby and kneeled in front of Zack, before changing course and sliding his bag of diapers over, so that she could sit down beside him. She put an arm over his shoulder and pulled him into her, an action which he resisted at first, but then acquiesced to, allowing himself to slump into her side, and turning his head into the nape of her neck. He felt his shirt ride up and knew that part of his diaper was probably exposed, but couldn’t summon the energy to be concerned about it. He took deep, hitching breaths, relieved not to have to hold up his end of a conversation that he would have to script on the fly. He just didn’t have the energy for it, and he was afraid that he’d reveal something that would let them figure out who he was. “There, there, little guy, it’s okay, I was just trying to get to know you. We don’t have to talk. You’re safe here. Just relax.” Yeah, but I’m not going to be here much longer, and I have no idea where I’m going next… and anyway, “here” is a building full of cops who investigate people for a living. Zack smelled the lady’s shampoo, and felt her hand rubbing his shoulder, and his breathing steadied. He kept his eyes cinched shut, willing the lady not to ask him anything else. Her hand came down to his hip and he felt her tug his shirt over. He heard the lobby door open, and felt a change in the sound pressure in the room as the heavy glass door momentarily allowed street noises to cascade in, unmuted. He pretended not to notice. Shoes scuffed over the marble flooring. Zack assumed it was the social worker, but did not want to look, in case it wasn’t, and he’d have to endure a sympathetic glance from yet another person, or worse, another attempt to talk to him. A gentle hand touched his hair. “Adam, it’s time to go.” He recognized Mrs. Katrina’s voice, and looked up without moving his head. “You’re exhausted, aren’t you?” Zack nodded. “Sorry, that took a bit longer than I thought it would, but I had to make a few phone calls. I ended up with two options for you, Adam, both emergency placements in foster care, but one family typically houses kids around your age and a bit younger, and the other takes in mostly young kids. I decided to put you with the youngsters, because I thought you’d have an easier time there, and they also have more experience with… well, more experience.” With diapers. Zack finished her sentence in his head with what he thought she was probably alluding to. “We have a bit of a drive ahead of us, Zack. I have a blanket in the car you can use if you get sleepy.” Zack pulled away from the partial embrace of the pretty cop whose name he didn’t know. “Thank you,” he whispered, and then he straightened his back and wiped his face with his hands. “You’re welcome,” she said, and then she stood and ruffled his hair, before reaching across the bench and sliding the bag of diapers back over beside the boy. She walked across the lobby and came back with the wounded scooter, as the social worker shouldered his diapers, using the built-in clear plastic strap on the bag. Mrs. Katrina putting a hand under Zack’s bicep, said, “Up you get, Adam,” and then aided him as he pivoted onto the mobility device. He felt the back of his shirt ride up, and gave his shirt one short tug, as the officer with the bun in her hair, went over and hit the flat chrome panel on the wall that caused the main door to motor open slowly. “Thanks for everything,” Mrs. Katrina said over her shoulder, as they entered slight chill of the evening air. The parking area was well lit, but out beyond the lakes of light, there was heavy darkness. The nondescript rental car of a sedan emitted a heavy click, the marker lights flashed, and the headlights came on. Mrs. Katrina kept a hand on his back and steered him towards the driver’s side of the vehicle, before opening the back door wide and guiding his scooter in beside the seat. Zack looked into the car interior, which was grey, and dimly lit by a central dome on the ceiling. In the back of the car were two car seats, one an inclined, rearward facing baby seat, on the passenger side, and the other, a large, forward-facing seat with prominent side bolsters and a headrest that had angled side panels to it. His eyes sought out the space between them, but he realized with a sigh that it was too confined for anyone to sit there. He looked up at Mrs. Katrina. “I don’t need to sit in one of those.” She raised her eyebrows and gave him a smile. “Well, I think you’re pretty close to the weight rating of this seat, Adam, and anyway, I don’t have a choice. Our rules require children up to age ten to be in a safety seat, and, I don’t know how to take it out, even if I wanted to.” Zack looked glumly at the seat again, and then eyed the doorsill, trying to figure out how he would get into the seat, but then Mrs. Katrina abruptly leaned in and bearhugged his midsection, giving him just enough of a boost to allow his butt to perch on the edge of the car seat. Zack slid back into it reluctantly, feeling the heavy padding on the sides constrain his shoulders and his hips and upper thighs. Mrs. Katrina got him to lean forward partially, and then fished a tangle of straps out from behind him, pulling his arms through them, before reaching down between his legs, and pulling a strap with a seatbelt catch on the end of it out from under him. She snapped a plastic shield together on his chest, then fed two metal tines that together formed one buckle, into the catch, which had a red button on the front of it. Then, she reached above his shoulder and pulled another strap, one that he hadn’t noticed, and immediately, he was pulled back into the seat by the chest harness, and his thighs were pulled down against the bottom of the chair. His purple t-shirt was folded up onto his belly, and the black central strap was straining into the front of his diaper, so Zack tried to tuck his shirt down between them, but was unable to get his hands in under the thigh straps. “I’ll get you a blankie, Adam,” Mrs. Katrina said, seeing him trying to adjust his clothing. “You can’t tuck material in around the straps, it’s not safe.” She reached down and pulled his shirt back up, then went around to the trunk. While she was behind the car, an imposing police SUV angled into the parking spaces in front of the station, illuminating him with its lights, and he strained to turn his head and look into the windshield, but his restraints, and the glare from the headlamps, prevented him from seeing who it was. A door opened, and a silhouette approached him, and then as it got closer, he realized it was Officer Reilly. She leaned into the car and put a hand on his lower thigh, avoiding the scraped part of his knee. “I see you’re buckled in tight and ready to go Adam. Here, I brought you this.” She handed him a bottle of blue liquid with a squeeze top, almost like the top of a dish soap container. He recognized it as being a sports drink. “It was nice to meet you, Adam. Have a safe trip to… wherever you’re going.” She gave all of Zack’s straps a quick tug, and then nodded approvingly. Mrs. Katrina spoke over the officer’s shoulder, as she handed a blanket in to Zack, overtop of the leaning officer, who then took it and tucked it around the car seat so that it covered him up to the middle of his chest. “I’m taking him out to a foster care family I have in the outskirts of the city, for the night. I’ll let you know where he goes from there.” “Where is it?” “It’s in the Olympia area.” The officer made eye contact with Zack, from less than a foot away, stopped over as she was, inside the open door of the car. “Today’s your lucky day, Adam – that’s where you said you were from, didn’t you?” Zack swallowed hard. The social worker went around behind the car, and Zack could tell from the noises she was making that she had loaded his scooter into the trunk. She returned and leaned into the car, clipping his pacifier to the collar of his shirt once again. Officer Riley looked towards the doors of the building, and then looked back at Zack. “I think you’re a minor celebrity tonight, Adam…” she said as she stepped back. The officer with the bun leaned into the car next. She extended a hand to Zack, who by reflex, pulled his hand out from under his blanket and took it in a handshake. “It was nice to meet you, Adam, and I wish you all the best on your adventures. If you need anything, you can call me anytime, okay? My name is Officer O’Connor – Maddy O’Conner.” “My sister’s na……” Zack snapped his mouth shut. He’d almost told them his sister’s real name. He clenched his eyes shut and blew his breath out heavily through closed lips. Officer O’Conner smiled at Zack, and then gently tweaked his nose with her index finger, and gave him a wink. She picked his pacifier up, touching the silicone nipple to his lower lip. Zack accepted his soother, happy to have an excuse not to talk any further. The door closed and then he could hear the low murmur of adults talking through the glass. Zack tried to reposition himself so that he wasn’t so reclined in the seat, but the straps held him resolutely in place. Picking up the squeeze bottle from his lap, he pulled out his pacifier and pulled out the pop-up top with his teeth, before taking a haul from the contents. Slightly cool, sweet, generic berry-flavoured blue liquid filled his mouth. He had a few more sips, studiously avoiding looking out the window, and then he pushed the top closed and let the bottle drop onto the blanket covering his lap. He looked at his pacifier, and somewhat reluctantly put it back in his mouth. It’s better than having to talk. Mrs. Katrina opened the front door and sat down in the driver’s seat, giving a wave to Officer Riley, as the bright lights of the police SUV pulled back, leaving the inside of the car dark, but for the instrument lights. She punched an address into her phone, which then appeared on a display in the dashboard. Looking into the rearview mirror, she could see her charge had his head back in the car seat and was idly sucking on his soother. His sports beverage was sitting on his lap. He'll be asleep in five minutes. ________   Zack woke up and immediately noticed an absence of noise – no wind noise, no tire slapping, no vibration. The dome light in the middle of the headliner was on, and Mrs. Katrina was standing outside the car, talking to someone. The driver’s door was open but resting against the latch. He tried to sit up and look around, once again fighting the straps of his car seat. His legs were going numb where they were pinned into the seat, although he could still detect a dull aching from his damaged ankle. Then his door opened quickly, startling him, and a large, bearded face appeared directly in front of him, displaying a wide smile. Zack noted that the man had a bun in his hair as well, although it was on top of his head, rather than behind. “Oh, hallo, you not sleep! Come, we go inside!” the man said in a heavy accent that Zack could not place. Before he had a moment to react, the blanket was pulled off of him, his sports bottle was handed out to someone outside the car, and then an enormous hand reached down between his legs and pressed the release button on the center latch. The straps holding him down went slack, and then the giant hand was joined by another, and they both fiddled with the clip in the center of his chest, until it relented and opened with a click. The two hands then found his armpits, and in one motion, Zack was lifted from the car seat, tilted like he was on amusement park ride, and withdrawn from the car. He felt his shirt ride way up over his waist but was powerless to react. Next came the sensation of being tossed into the air, and then caught in the crook of a very large, hairy arm, and suddenly he was hovering well above the car, and above the heads of the social worker, and another woman, who was about the same height, but with wiry brown hair that was pulled into a tuft at the back of her head. He felt like he was seven feet in the air, which he basically was, since his vantage point was now above the head of the man who was effortlessly carrying him. Zack wasn’t afraid of heights, generally, but he was startled to have been lifted so high so quickly, and he felt like he was going to topple backwards, so he threw his right around the man’s burly neck. The man grabbed Zack’s good ankle with his right hand, and then laughed and tilted Zack back at a steep angle, using the ankle to counterbalance the boy’s upper body, which caused Zack to yell around his pacifier and grab at the man’s red flannel vest with his left hand. The man laughed heartily, but the lady he was with shot him a severe look, and shouted “Olek, you’re scaring him!” Then she dropped her voice. “He doesn’t know you yet! No crazy rides at this time of night – he was just sleeping, now he has woken up flying through the air in the arms of a crazy man.” Olek nodded his head in apology but raised an eyebrow at Zack, as though asking if he was really scared, or if he wanted more, as he pulled him back up to level, still sitting on his arm. Once he regained his balance, Zack looked around. He badly wanted to take the pacifier out of his mouth, because he felt ridiculous, with his shirt hitched up under his arms and his diaper entirely unobscured. But at the same time, he didn’t want to invite any questions, although he himself had many questions. He also had an unfamiliar, uncomfortable feeling… he knew his diaper was a bit wet, because it was pressed against him, and he felt that perhaps Olek would know it, too, because he was sitting on Olek’s arm. I guess I peed while I was sleeping. As though reading his thoughts, Olek took his hand from his ankle and put it into Zack’s left armpit, then shouldered-bumped him gently so that his weight was on that arm, before hoisting him one handed for a moment while he took his left arm out from under Zack and caught him under the other armpit. “Olek, don’t put him down – I told you before, his leg is badly injured!” “Podguznik…” Olek said, as he hovered Zack, who’s eyes were as wide as they could get, in front of the much shorter woman. Zack felt the rear waistband of his diaper being pulled outward, but there was nothing that he could do, short of making a kick for Olek, which did not seem like a winning strategy. His cheeks immediately went crimson. “Nea, he’s fine,” the lady said, giving him a gentle smack on the bum. Olek spun Zack in the air like he was a stuffed animal, and caught him with a right arm under his thighs, putting his left arm across Zack’s chest and suspending him in the air as though he were seated on a church pew. Zack felt the man’s beard against his left ear. He took in the lady in front of him, who was wearing an amorphous, long, brightly-coloured dress, a riot of reds and yellows and whites. “I am sorry, Adam, where are my manners – I am Natalya. This is Olek. Katrina tells us that you will be staying with us for a period of time. Please forgive Olek – he likes to play rough but he usually can’t with the babies we watch. He is thinking you are a bigger baby and can take it, but you let him know if it’s not to your liking. He doesn’t speak a lot of English, but he understands some.” Mrs. Katrina spoke next. “Adam, Natalya and Olek are emergency placement foster parents. I only had a couple of choices that had openings tonight, and the other family primarily deals with older kids. Natalya & Olek usually look after babies and toddlers for us, but given the, uh, circumstances, I thought you might fare better here than you would in a group home with teenagers. Plus, they have more experience with…” Zack watched the social worker’s eyes drift down to his midsection. “…well,” she continued, “they have more experience. You’ll be fine here. They’re lovely people.” “Thank you so much, Katrina,” Natalya said with a bright smile. “We are very excited to have Adam – most of our clients don’t say very much – this will be a chance for Olek to practice his English. And the little ones will be fascinated by this contraption on your leg – you’ll have to tell me all about that when we get inside. Does he have any belongings?” Katrina went to the trunk of the car while manipulating the key fob. The trunk sprung open, and she reached in, before handing Natalya the purple hoodie she’d pulled from the donation box at the precinct. Next, she pulled out the bag of diapers. “There you go… oh wait, I also have baby care products for him – they’re in the basket of his scooter.” “Scooter?” Natalya asked, gazing into the trunk. “It’s a mobility device – I’d say since you have stairs, you probably want to just leave it in the garage – he can’t use it in the house, it’s not safe. And, as we discussed…” Here, she dropped her voice slightly, then continued, “we think he may have run away from wherever he was before he was found by the police. So… best keep the scooter put away.” “Of course, of course, he won’t need a scooter in the house, we have an Olek! Olek, come, take this from the trunk – my hands are full.” Olek tossed Zack into the air again and caught him on one arm, using his other hand to extract the scooter, which he rotated in the air, as though it were made of light plastic. “Garazh?” he said to Natalya, as Zack did his best to keep his balance while being carried like a sack of potatoes. He once again found himself using the man’s neck as a grab point. The man carried Zack and the scooter up the driveway, allowing Zack to take in the house they were in front of for the first time. It was tall, narrow, and had a single car garage, but even in the darkness, the yard and the entranceway looked neat and clean. There was a black pickup truck and a brown SUV on the driveway, which was designed for one vehicle in width but had been widened to accommodate two. The tall man located a black plastic keypad, screwed to the door jam at head height for most people, but elbow height for him. He flipped a hinged lid up and punched in some digits that Zack couldn’t make out, because his enormous hand completely eclipsed the little keypad. The garage door emitted a creak and then trundled up, revealing a garage that was jammed with tricycles and little four-wheeled vehicles that toddlers could sit on and steer – firetrucks and dump trucks and a couple of pink and purple cars. Olek walked into the garage, and with his free arm, he hoisted the scooter up to a wooden shelf that was suspended from the ceiling, and primarily occupied by tires. There was an empty section on the side of it closest to the door, and he wedged the scooter in there, before once again throwing Zack into the air, this time catching him on a shoulder, before spinning him over his ducked head, so that he ended up sitting on the man’s broad shoulders. Zack looked up and realized that he could touch the ceiling if he wanted to, but before he got his bearings, Olek bent at the waist while bracing both of Zack’s knees with his hands, causing the sensation that Zack was going to shoot over Olek’s head like he was a rodeo horse, and land face-first on the concrete floor, except that Olek used the back of his head to balance Zack’s torso. The dramatic ducking maneuver was to prevent Zack from being scraped off Olek’s shoulders by the garage door frame, which hung down below the ceiling by more than a foot. Once out from under it, Olek stood up again, and Zack put his hands on the man’s forehead to steady himself. He realized that his teeth were clenched on his pacifier. “Olek!” Natalya barked, “I told you to be gentle with him!” Olek said something in another language… Russian? And then he started to bounce from foot to foot, causing Zack to rise and fall on the back of his neck. Zack once again became conscious of the damp padding beneath him, although the diaper gave no indication that it was in any danger of leaking – Zack did not feel like he was sitting in a bowl of soup, as he had earlier, wearing the overused toddler diaper. Still, repeatedly squishing it against the man’s broad neck was making him self-conscious. “Take him in the house, you big Lokh. Such a joker. He thinks he has a son! Don’t break him! He’s somebody else’s baby!” Katrina spoke at Zack’s back as he was borne up the front walkway towards the front door. “I’m going to come back and see you tomorrow, Adam. You have enough diapers for a few days. Please be good for Natalya and Olek!” Zack looked back over his shoulder, and then braced himself for another aerobatic maneuver, knowing that he was going to collide with the top of the doorframe going into the house if the towering man didn’t do something. What he did was to take a couple of long steps and pantomime running for the door, causing Zack to throw his hands up in front of his face and turn his head, before an arm came up and hauled him sideways from his perch while the man opened the door with his other hand. But, in the process of dismounting him, Olek swung his injured leg too wide, causing the cast to bounce sharply off the doorframe. Zack emitted a high-pitched grunt as a bolt of pain shot up from the area, the dull level-three ache having been taken up to a momentary level seven or eight. Olek winced and sucked in his breath, throwing an arm under the back of Zack’s knees and cradling him tight against his chest as he walked through the entranceway and into a living room that was narrow but long, with a kitchen and a patio door at the end of it. He laid Zack down on a plush burgundy velvet couch that was like nothing Zack had ever seen before, not that he was paying much attention to the décor. Natalya came in behind them, carrying the diapers and changing supplies with one arm, and Zack’s sweatshirt with the other. Zack looked at her through the tears in his eyes, sitting partway up from the couch. He was surprised to see her throw the sweatshirt through a door that was off the entranceway. “Take that filthy shirt off him, Olek…” and then she said something else in Russian, or whatever it was. Zack realized that she’d actually said the same thing, because Olek put a hand behind his back, sat him up, detached the paci clip from the collar, and then pulled the long t-shirt up over his head and tossed it through the air, where it landed by the lady, who picked it up and threw it through the same doorway. “We’ll wash those and give them back to you in the morning, Adam. It’s warm in here. You’ll be fine….” She paused, seeing the pained look on Zack’s face. “Did Olek hurt you?” Zack looked up at Olek, who, for all his menacing height and bulk, genuinely looked concerned behind his red-brown beard. He shook his head gently. “I’m othay,” he mouthed around his pacifier. Natalya looked skeptical, but Olek looked relieved, and he patted the boy on the shoulder and then went to take Zack’s care items from his wife. Just then, Zack heard a scattering of clicking noises on what sounded like wooden stairs, and then a slower thump, thump, thump. A girl who looked about eight or nine emerged from inside the kitchen, and Zack realized as he looked over at her, that the house was multiple stories high, and that every floor had a staircase that went up, and another one that went down, at either end of the house. The blond-haired girl wiped sleep from her eyes, as she shuffled into the room in a purple knee-length nightie, carrying some kind of stuffed animal, and followed by a medium-sized tricolour spaniel mix that looked like it was wearing makeup.  “What’s going on,” the girl whispered, looking over at Zack, and then back at her parents. “Veronika, this is Adam. Adam is a new baby for us tonight – he will be staying for a little bit.” Veronika stopped and eyed Zack. “That’s not a baby,” she stated simply. “Well, sweetheart, you should be in bed. You can do me a favour and please take his diapers up with you, and put them in the yellow room – that’s where he will sleep for now.” She pointed at the countertop where Olek had deposited them. The girl looked sleepy and confused, but she went over to the bag. “How many diapers, mama?” “Take a few, baby. Thank you. Good girl.” The girl reached up and lifted the bag down from the counter then reached in and extracted a bundle of diapers, before putting them down on a bar-height chair that was pushed up to the countertop, and fanning them out. “Cute,” she said. “There’s ones with animals, and ones with just a duck, like he’s wearing now.” “Maybe you can try one if you like them,” Natalya said with a smile. The girl shot back a cross look, and then she gathered them under her arm with the stuffed animal she was carrying, and turned back towards the stairs. The little dog followed her as she disappeared from view and thump-thump-thumped back up. Natalya walked over and picked the bag of diapers back up from the floor, putting them on the chair, and then she went into the kitchen, while at the same time speaking Russian with Olek, who had disappeared into the room where the clothes were thrown. Zack sat up and watched the proceedings, not sure what to make of it. After a minute of fiddling with something, the lady went to the fridge and opened it, withdrawing a carton  – milk, Zack assumed. Then, she walked back over to where she’d placed his belongings, and picked up the remaining sports beverage. She unscrewed the cap on the bottle and poured it into the sink, before tossing the plastic remains into a cabinet below Zack’s line of sight. A moment later, she came walking over with a purple sippy cup that had two pink handles on it which were scalloped to look like feathered wings. She carried it past Zack and then sat herself on the couch next to him, where his head would have been if he weren’t craning his body to see what was going on. Wordlessly, she extracted the pacifier from Zack’s mouth, picking it up by its tether and laying it on a side table, while she pressed the nipple of the sippy cup to his lips. Zack, exhausted, slumped back into her lap, and started listlessly suckling. He’d been bottle-fed before and knew the drill, although the sippy cup required a bit more of a deliberate pull than the baby bottles he was used to. It has some kind of valve that lets air in… With her other hand, the lady picked up a remote and flicked on a TV that Zack hadn’t noticed when he exploded into the room in Olek’s arms – it had looked like a piece of art, hung over a fireplace that was barricaded off at ground level by interlinked plastic gates. A baking show came on, a bunch of stressed-looking people all making the same thing at separate stations while judges walked around and interrupted them with questions. At least it’s in English… The softness of the plush couch and the warmth of the room, plus a complete lack of interest in the programming the lady was watching, conspired to cause Zack’s eyes to close as he suckled, and once the last of the milk gurgled out of the sippy cup, his breathing became rhythmic around the silicone spout. Natalya felt the weight of the cup declining, and then noted that the boy had stopped sucking on it, so she waited until she was sure it wouldn’t disturb him, and then gingerly withdrew the sippy cup, replacing it delicately with the purple pacifier he had come in with. She looked at her new charge, as his chest rose and fell. The social worker hadn’t been sure of his age; he claimed to be older, she said, but as far as she could tell, he was probably nine or ten years old, however he was likely developmentally delayed, and in some ways, was acting much younger. She looked at his diaper, with its slight discolouration below the print on the front, and nodded to herself.  Although, Mrs. Katrina had said that he seemed bright enough, clearly, what was laid out on her lap, was not neurotypical. Her own daughter, Veronika, was nine, and she had been dry during the day for six years. At night, it was a different story, but Natalya suspected that had something to do with the ever-rotating cast of babies and toddlers they hosted for Child Protective Services – Veronka enjoyed being the big girl, but, Natalya mused, sometimes she wanted the attention that the little children commanded. The baking program drew to a close, and she looked the clock on her phone; it was nearly 11:00 PM, late for her, let alone for the child. However, she looked at him again. He would need a diaper change before bed – the social worker had said he had a diaper rash. And, he was filthy; if she was going to have to wake up, anyway, to get him ready for bed, then she might as well give him a bath. Rather than shouting for Olek, which might have woken up Adam, or any of the children asleep upstairs, some of whom had only a tenuous relationship with normal sleep/wake cycles, she chose to send him a text, assuming that he was probably in the basement, tinkering with something in his workshop that smelled of grease and solvents down there. Sure enough, Olek came tromping up the stairs moments later. “Da, Dorogoy…” he said, using a term of endearment. Natalya motioned for him to come over to her, then asked him to go upstairs and pour a bath for the boy, and to “Come up with something so that his leg stays dry.” Olek nodded and disappeared upstairs. Several minutes later, he reappeared, nodding that he had done what she asked. His wife motioned towards the comatose child, and said, “take the boy up and remove his diaper.” Olek walked around to the front of the couch and very carefully lifted the sleeping boy, leaving him in a reclined position as he was carried up the stairs. Olek walked him into a back bedroom that was not currently occupied – a toddler had been in it earlier, however they had moved him over to a playpen in a larger room, when they heard that Adam was coming. He seemed to have adapted and fallen back to sleep. On one side of the room was a wooden changing table with a waterproof mat on it, next to a dresser. A few of the boy’s diapers had been placed in a neat stack on top of the dresser. Delicately placing the boy onto the changing table, Olek noted that his legs were going to hang off of it, so he changed tactics, and lifted him back up with one hand, while dragging the changing table over until it was up against the dresser, which was nearly the same height. Laying Zack down again, the boys legs were now on top of the dresser. Olek swiftly removed the boy’s diaper, which was somewhat wet, but not soaked, and then he bundled it up and put it aside. Natalya walked in a moment later, and she picked it up, carrying it with her as she motioned for Olek to bring the boy. She walked to the main bathroom on the other side of the hall, and deposited it into a white plastic diaper can they had in there, with a top that opened via a peddle. Zack was stirring now, and when he opened his eyes, he was momentarily confused as to what was going on, but then he looked up at Olek’s vast beard, the texture of steel wool and the colour of copper wire, and he remembered where he was. Feeling a slight urge to pee, he relaxed… and all of a sudden Olek was holding him aloft and away from his chest. “He piss on me! Silly baby.” Zack’s eyes went wide as he realized that his diaper was no longer accompanying him. “Thorry!” he said around the pacifier, turning beet red with embarrassment, both at what he’d done, and, what he was, or rather, was not, wearing. “It’s not your fault, Adam – you were asleep!” Natalya said, as Olek stepped into a green, brightly-lit bathroom with a green apple-themed wallpaper border running around the top of the walls, which Zack noticed first, because he was looking up at the ceiling as he was being carried, in order to avoid looking Olek in the eyes. When he saw his destination – a bathtub full of sudsy water – he began to object, worried that his leg would get wet, but also mortified by his circumstances. However, Olek lowered him into the tub without heeding his “Wait, wait… wait!” exclamations, and that’s when he realized that a plastic stepstool had been placed on the bottom of the tub, and that it stood a few inches above the surface of the water. Natalya guided his cast onto it, and he felt his body sink into the comfortably warm water. The bubbles closed around him, and he felt a bit less exposed than he had. “Adam,” Natalya started, “you are getting a much-needed bath, my little friend. I will be careful when I clean your injured knee, and I will not get any water into your cast, but I am going to clean your feet, and the rest of you. You are having a bit of diaper rash, so somebody has not been keeping you clean, I’m afraid, but you don’t have to worry about that here – I have the cleanest babies on the block!” Natalya turned and chattered away at Olek in their language, while she took a washcloth and squirted some lavender-scented baby shampoo onto it, before dragging it over his face and head, causing soapy water to transit along the silicone nipple of his pacifier and into his mouth. He took it out and tried to spit the water out, so the lady ran some fresh warm water from the tap, into her hand, and then held it up to Zack’s mouth. He looked confused, but then bent to sip it, and then let it run down his chin, and then the lady rinsed his pacifier, put it on the side of the tub, and took a measuring cup that was sitting in the corner by the faucet, using it to scoop up tub water and rinse off his hair and face. She held his pacifier in front of his face, and he took it, after which she worked her way downward and along his extremities, working carefully around his knee and the case, and rinsing as she went. “Olek, lift his leg for me,” she said, and then when he lifted the casted leg almost vertical, her hand and the cloth went under the water, and he could feel her swabbing his diaper area thoroughly, and he clenched his eyes shut and took a hissing intake of breath. “Your rash hurts, baby? That’s okay. We need to clean it for it to heal.” Zack shook his head but said nothing. It’s not the rash that hurts, it’s my dignity. Eventually, the ordeal was over, and he was once again weightless in midair, in Olek’s arms, while Natalya dried him and then wrapped him in a towel. Olek carried him back into the yellow room he had come from, and laid him back on the changing table, before lifting his legs with an arm under his shins, so that his wife could apply diaper cream, prompting another intake of breath and an episode of furious blushing, on the part of Zack. Then, one of the diapers was positioned underneath him, and his hips were lowered, before the front was pulled up and the tapes were quickly and snuggly secured by Natalya’s expert hands. “Keep him here for a moment, Olek, I am going to go borrow something from Veronika for him to wear.” The lady disappeared out of the room, reappearing a minute later with a smallish green and purple nightgown that had Dora the Explorer on it, and a frilly lower hem.    “We don’t usually have boys your age, Adam, so I had to borrow something from my daughter. You are close in size to her – it will work until we wash your clothes from earlier,” she said, more to herself than to Zack. Zack pulled his arms in and hugged his chest, but Olek reached over and peeled them off, and they quickly went slack, as Zack once again resigned himself to his fate. The nightie was pulled down over his head, and the frilly bottom covered most of his diaper. Small mercy… Olek picked him back up and wordlessly carried him to the bathroom, where he was seated on the countertop. Natalya opened a new toothbrush and squirted a dollop of pink, fruit-flavoured toothpaste onto it, before removing his paci and brushing his teeth thoroughly. Zack had a hard time getting used to the feeling of someone else probing the corners of his mouth – it felt like being at the dentist. He expected to be offered a glass of water for a rinse at the end, but Natalya smiled at him and said, “It’s baby toothpaste – you can swallow it.” And then she put his pacifier back in his mouth. Olek carried him back to the bedroom, this time in the crook of his arm again, rather than cradled, and Zack was able to discern his destination before he arrived at it. Once again, his heart sank, as he eyed two white painted cribs that were up against the wall, across from the changing table. Olek positioned him in the closer one, landing his legs at the near end, and then laying him back, so that his head was at the far end. He could feel his hair brushing up against the smooth wooden bars. Natalya leaned into the crib and passed him the same sippy cup he had drunk from earlier, this time filled with water, and then she put a white, crocheted blanket on top of him. He looked around, and realized there was no pillow in the crib. Natalya fiddled with something on a side table, and then she turned out the light in the room, and a moment later, a night sky star-scape was projected onto the ceiling, accompanied by soft classical music. The stars slowly transited from one side of the ceiling to the other, occasionally overlaid on aurora borealis-like clouds of pink and green. Zack felt around for the sippy cup, and drank some water from it, to try and banish the cloying taste of the toothpaste, before he put his pacifier back in, yawned widely around it, and, involuntarily drifted off to sleep.

Thanks Les Lea i really liked this chapter. There where a couple of mentions of the music and heart beat sounds, and that got me wondering if Diane is using hypnotic suggestion? Maly.