Alex Bridges

Nice to hear from you, cutie ?

Ha! Thanks. This was a fun one to write.

Scene #152 There’s something weird about being me (besides me). It’s a catch-22: the things I like most and the things I dislike most are different and the same and often on the same day. Like that little black bag. Mary was going to use its contents to discipline me for my less than honest truth, but also to reward me for being a good girl? And there’s nothing contradictory about that at all. It’s official: BDSM has evolved past the language, cuz there are no words to describe that. And Mary, bless her heart, didn’t exactly not try to bait me into trouble. I exercised some damn restraint! Mercy, forbearance, charity – these are but a drop of water in the comprehension ocean of my superlative qualities. Anyway, I put up with all sorts of slights against my honor just to learn what was in that bag under circumstances a little more favorable to me. No defenseless maiden am I. Really. ______________________ Backsided Compliments I’m very industrious, which I know is hard to see sometimes because one of my industry’s main products is streaming 90s tv shows, but it’s true. I’m industrious, and I’m fit. And being fit requires making certain sacrifices. I didn’t want to believe that at first, and I tried very hard not to, but you can’t argue with your pants. O sure, you can live in denial like when my Mary said, “All that peanut butter is gonna catch up with you one day,” and I said “I deny that,” but your pants don’t care what you think. Faced with the prospect of eating less sugar or doing more to earn it, I resumed running. I won’t call it a hobby so much as fuck-this-fucking-I-hate-this-every-damn-second-and-screw-everything-ever,’ so named after words I’ve been known to mutter while doing it. Really. “What happened to you,” my Mary who likes me but has a funny way of showing it asked me when I came in from one such perambulation. “I slipped,” I said with no mirth whatsoever in my tone. Where was my mirth? What little of it I took with me I left in muddy spot I had to detour through because of sidewalk repair. When you’re running down the pass and you fall down on your ass, mud gets everywhere. “Are you okay? Did you bonk anything?” “No. I wanna shower and then I’m eating a cupcake.” I heccin earned it! “Come,” Mary said as she closed her tablet with the fake clicking noise they make when you lock them (something more satisfying about the thuddy slap of a hardcover book being closed, but o well; the past is the past). “Where?” “A little girl as dirty as you needs help getting clean.” “I just wanna shower.” Showers take five minutes, ten if you slipped again trying to stand up, did a barrel roll, and ended up face down in said mud. Which I’m not ashamed to say is a thing that happened cuz it was the mud’s fault, not mine. A shower meant I could be savoring (snarfing like a snarfosaurus rex) my cupcake in as little as fifteen minutes. Then I’d probably have a snack or two. “Nope,” the tall, handsy lady I live with said as she took my wrist and led me toward our downstairs bathroom. “Urgh. Fine.” Worse things than being bathed by a beautiful woman. I followed her down the hall, pausing in front of the laundry closet, where she stripped me nude. “Sorry,” I said as she peeled my muddy leggings down. “Little girls who say sorry are so cute.” “I’m not a little girl. See?” As in see what you uncovered? All woman. “I see it every day, sweetie.” I don’t even know what that was supposed to mean, but I had this general sense it was her way of saying seeing it doesn’t change her opinion of my big I am. A giantess, actually; that’s me. Fighting lions, taming shrews (they bite!), and raiding tombs and such. “Daphne,” my Mary said to me mere minutes as she was washing my hair, “do you remember when we talked about taking care of your body now that you’re becoming a woman?” Did I say ‘my Mary?’ Cuz she’s not; don’t even like her. Like her? I meant never even met her. “I think a little someone could use a spa day.” “O, please no,” I didn’t whine. “You know I don’t like doing that.” “But it does a much better job than shaving and lasts longer. Don’t you wanna not have to shave for longer?” “Yes, but … it hurts.” “I know.” Wait, what? She knows and makes me do it anyway? Is there anything else she does knowing it hurts me? Sure hope not. Really. “But … okay.” “Excuse me?” “I said okay. Fine. But if any tears come out, you’re making it all better.” Not that I ever cry during a wax down below, but also sometimes yes. At least it’s an at-home spa, so to speak. And it is one of those things I like after the fact; and at least it’s a quick fact. “Hands and knees.” Maybe I’m too accustomed to just doing what she says cuz I did it and thought nothing of it until … “Make sure you’re clean everywhere…” “Wait, what HEY!” “Everywhere,” she repeated after she’d already gotten everywhere but kept ‘em spread for a couple more passes. “Ev-er-ee-where!” “Omneepatotter frauherhoferen shneedle!” “Little girls say such nonsense, even little girls who do a good job wiping … most of the time.” “Fnurl nut, Mary!” But did I say or do anything beyond sputter in indignation? Did I correct her insult against my rectitude (cuz it’s every damn time, dammit! I’m a good wiper all the time and … kind of a low moment having to defend against that charge). But I didn’t splash. I may have pouted. But I didn’t splash or name call or tantrum or bite (all of which would’ve been justified). Good for me. I guess? _______________________________________ Verbal baiting. Soooo much verbal baiting. Such as: “You’re the only person I know who has a diaper bulge when they’re not even wearing pants.” “I’m small framed!” “I know what size you are. I’m the one who buys your diapers, remember? Size small cuz you’re smol, aren’t you?” “(Warning cat hiss).” Or how about: “C’mon, Daphne! Show that diaper who’s boss!” “Mary, I swear to god …” “You can do it! Daffy Daffy, she’s our girl; if she can’t do it, it’s probably cuz she’s so little.” “(Angry bear noises).” And this gem: “Hop up on the bed.” “Seriously? It’s the third day in a row.” “Such a good counter.” “(Fed up rhino grunts).” And if she follows through on this, I’m making her move out. I mean, I’d go with her, but it would be a whole thing: “We have four bedrooms, and two of them are unused,” she observed. “One of them is unused,” I pointed out. “The other one is where we keep our junk.” Among other places; how do people acquire so much junk. For sure ours has a lot to do with compulsive kink purchases, but that’s no more than a third … maybe half of it. “So,” Mary continued cuz she loves to continue, “we could put a nursery in the other one and still not really have to move or rearrange anything.” “Harhar. You’re so funny. NOT!” Which was such a clever thing of me to say. NOT! “We could get a rocking chair. You could sit in my lap and just rock back and forth.” “Well, that … can go in the living room.” I like that idea. Wonder what it be like if she wore this harness things that attaches to a … anyhoo. “We could make a little space for you to play with your toys.” “Like my Xbox? With a big TV? Ooo, or a projector.” I mean, I know she wasn’t serious, but I could try. “And a changing table.” “How ‘bout not,” I suggested because reasons. “Diapering you on the bed and the floor isn’t so easy on my back.” “I have a solution to that – stop diapering me.” “But you’re too little to do it yourself,” she said and continued right over my protest noises cuz my Mary loves to continue even more after she’s already continued. When I do that, I get a warning about what happens when I test boundaries, which is exactly what Mary was doing – searching for the boundary right before I’d lose my patience and earn myself a spanking. “And I wouldn’t mind moving your diaper pail in there. You know, that thing where we put your used diapers? It’s like a waist basket but bigger, to fit you diapers? And it has an inner and outer lid, to hold in the scent of your used diapers.” I took deep breaths. My mom taught me that: when you’re about to blow your stack, take deep breaths. I ignored just about all of that and replied, “That thing was so unnecessary.” “Maybe you think so, kiddo. If you can’t tell when you’re pottying in your diapers, I guess I’m not surprised you can’t smell your peepee diapies.” “(Elephant rampage noises).” But did I cross the line and earn and elephantine spanking? I did not. _______________________________________ Like I Wasn’t Even There Right into the living room she came, and I thought for a second she was talking to me which would’ve been really weird since she said, “Hello?” “Um, hi?” And then I figured out she had one of her earbuds in. I use mine when I go running or work in the garden now that I’m officially retired, but Mary uses hers mostly for work calls. For some reason that makes no sense, it irritates me when she wears it outside the confines of her office. Makes zero sense. Like, does it matter if she’s using that or just holding her phone? Nope, but just … anyway, onto the conversation she conversed. “So good to talk to you in person,” Mary said to … someone. She sat down on the love seat where she could cast conspicuous glances at me. She’s always being conspicuous when she’s not being inconspicuous, devil demon that she is (and don’t tell me that doesn’t make any sense; I get enough of that at home). “I thought it would be easier to talk details instead of texting back and forth.” I knew it wasn’t a work call. She rarely has those outside her office, and when she does, she usually walks back into her office. “I’m glad to hear that. We really liked meeting Ann too. She seems so sweet” Who’s Ann? “Did she tell you she folded her pants and carried them over to us? It was so cute … I offered to play with her, but she told me she needed your permission. You have her very well trained. How long have you two been together? … Ooo, so practically still in the puppy love stage. We’re coming up on nine years together, and we’re still in that stage … Ha! I know, right?” Ann who folds pants … and brings them over to us? … The woman from the dungeon club! That was like two months ago! When did Mary even exchange info with her? “She said she switches … Uh-huh. Does she have a role she likes best? … I thought so. She just has that energy. What’s her play age?” And me, just sitting on the couch deeply interested in this conversation I wasn’t a part of, wondering what Mary was up to and knowing at the mention of ‘play age’ that it would end up involving me somehow. Mary would never play with another woman without my being there. Less a BDSM thing and more of a marriage thing, not that Mary seems to want to play with others without me (I think she’s fond of me or something?). If she really did want to play with someone else, I’d let her. I mean, not like I’d get jealous or anything. For the most part. Zero track record of me getting jealous. Really. And as for me playing with others, Mary loves it. Just the thought of me being disciplined by others like some naughty neighborhood kid back in the 1950s just gets her all titillated. Weirdo. “Daphne,” she said while casting one of those glances my way, as if my ears didn’t perk up at the very sound of the first consonant of my name being spoken by the coyote I married, well known as mythology’s trickster. “Well, she doesn’t exactly have a play age. She’s actually really adamant about not being labeled … No, she’ll agree we like ageplay, but she tantrums if you call her a little … Ha! Yeah, that’s exactly the sorta thing a little would do.” It is heccin not! Don’t fence me in with your labels and stereotypes, Mary. But I just made my irritable face at her. Totally not fair that her irritable face has so much more of an effect on me than mine does on her. Just because she’s the domme she thinks I should respond to nonverbal cues if I know what’s good for me. Totally unfair that I actually did learn that. “She doesn’t wear them twenty-four-seven … She doesn’t want to. Her big girl undie time is very important to her … I’m not sure either. Doesn’t make her seem any bigger to me, and anyway, some weeks I keep her diapered more than others. She’s sitting next to me right now with the little plastic wings sticking up over her pants and giving me the dirtiest look.” Heck heccin yeah I am giving you a dirty look! Whither under my gaze … please? Or at least look away while I tuck those in and stop reading anything into it cuz you made me! “She doesn’t like them at all, so she says … It started for us as domestic discipline, a little diaper punishment to go with the other consequences and preventions she gets. They do a good job keeping her out of trouble … I’m not sure exactly, but she’s just sweeter when she’s padded. She even follows me around more, my little shadow.” “I follow you around all the time.” I like her and stuff. And if I do follow her around more when she’s making me wear the stupid things, it’s only because … reasons. Mysterious reasons that I don’t understand but surely do not have any deeper meaning about my personality or should be construed as liking the stupid things. “Quiet, honey. I’m talking on the phone.” O my god I’m having flashbacks to 1993 in the kitchen with my mom and she’s holding a corded phone. I need a clear history button for my head. “I’ve kept her in them most of this week, and I haven’t had to give a single spanking … Heh. Nope. Not even close, but if I counted every hand to the back of her pants as a spanking, she’d never have a spank-free day. She’s a handful, but she’s really such a good girl.” Ooo, she thinks I’m a good girl! Heck yes! It almost makes up for all the beans she’s spilling about me. Like, doesn’t Mary have any questions for … whatever her name is? A little something to help me understand why this conversation is happening? And I am gonna get a reward for not clobbering her with a throw pillow seven minutes ago, right? Cuz she earned it several times over. Really. “Know what you mean. I’m an on-the-spot spanker as much as possible. I don’t like waiting til we’re home alone. Little girls learn better when they’re corrected on the spot, at least in theory. But hey, if every lesson stayed learned then they wouldn’t be little girls forever.” Don’t you smirk at me you, you … smirker! I’m not getting twitterpated! You are! “They’re all sweeties. Ageplay for us just grew naturally our domestic discipline lifestyle and humiliation kink. We didn’t mean to, but I do love the quiet times. She’ll even take a bottle from me if I bribe her with an orgasm.” Whoa! TMI! … But also yes, true story. “Ann does? … Does she prefer ‘Ann’ or ‘Annie?’ … Mhmm … See, I don’t think that makes as much difference as Daphne thinks. It’s not like we’re not physically intimate all the time. I’ve been the big spoon seven hours a day since we moved in together. We’re into nursing as a sex act, but she insists, very adorably, that we can’t consider it part of our ageplay… You do? That’s … I’ve read about it but didn’t know anyone who did until now … I think that might be a step too far for Daffy. Don’t you get sore? … Uh-huh … Lanolin? … Interesting.” Hey. Hey! What does she do? And what the heck is ‘lanolin?’ I think I know, but I wanna hear you say it out loud so I can scream no-never-nope a bunch of different ways. Don’t let this person lead you astray, Mary. We got a really détente going on the nursing thing. Don’t screw it up. And also, stop telling her all the things! Have some dignity … said the woman in the diaper cuz her spouse made her. Dammit … “What are some of the things the two of you like to do? … Mhmm … Aww, that’s sweet … Daffy doesn’t have any other little friends who do. Our friend Sandy brought a little she plays with over, but we didn’t actually play with him. We don’t really even know him … I’d like it. I don’t know how Daffy would feel about it. Well, actually that’s not true. I do know, but I also know she’d enjoy it … She really does; more so after the fact, and she’d sooner burn the house down than admit it, but she does … Yeah, it’s more fun that way for both of us that way. She’s puts up the cutest fusses.” Just … no to all of that, whatever it is … Wonder what it is. Because reasons. “Mhmm … Yeah … Ha! … Awww!” O my god, she’s turning into an idiot right in front of me. “Together, yeah, she might. I wouldn’t let her without me anyway … A couple of times, but with people we both know. She likes it … Exactly. I’m sure you and Ann are the same way … I’ll ask her. I think we’d all have fun … Great. I gotta a little girl’s diapie to check, but it was great talking to you … You too. Bye.” There was a moment of silence, and when the moment passed, I very calmly, in that super calm and collected and well-reasoned and dignified way of mine, said, “I’ll show you a tantrum!” “Daffy …” “Who did you (steel rending) and why you gotta (train derailing) and what are you even (piano falling) and like I’m not even (mall imploding) and stop looking so amused before I hit you with a pillow!” “You are so …” “One comment about how red my face is and I’ll do it, I swear I will!” Feathers everywhere! … Or probably acrylic stuffing, but it would be heccin everywhere! I swear! “You remember Ann, the woman we met at the dungeon before Thanksgiving? That was her partner.” “Duh. What’s her name anyway?” “Jo.” “And when were you gonna tell me you got her number? And you coulda held back some of our secrets.” I may have a humiliation fetish, but Mary has a spilling-all-our-beans fetish, and yes, they do well together most of the time but also geez! Hold something back until we know them better or, ya know, NEVER! “She just wants to know more about us. Ann was very excited when she got home that night. We texted about the possibility of a playdate, and figured it would be easier to just talk … Sorry if I embarrassed you.” Just because you’re not winking, Mary, doesn’t mean I know you’re not even a little sorry. Probably aroused … Good thing I’m not. Really. But all I said was, “I guessed that fifteen minutes ago. Still doesn’t mean you had to tell her so much.” “Just being safe and getting to know each other more. She’s very protective of Ann, just like I’m very protective of you. I think we’ll like them a lot.” The feminine urge to say no to everything just to be oppositional. But I fought it back. “Well, so what do they like then?” “Ann is a little. We were thinking our playdate could be an actual playdate for the two of you,” Mary said like she knew I wouldn’t exactly love the idea. “Because the last one with Jane went so well.” Remember everyone not named Mary crying? “Ann sounds a little more like you than Jane is,” Mary replied in her how-to-put-this-delicately voice. “I think you’ll get along with her when she’s in little mode more than you do with Jane.” “How so,” I asked in my you’d-better-be-careful-with-your-phraseology-unless-you-want-a-real-tantrum-on-your-hands voice. “She’s … more active. Um, ‘high spirited’ is what Jo said.” I know what that means! I heccin know what that means! “You mean she gets in trouble a lot. Remember what happened when Jane got me in trouble?” As in almost every single time I ever played with her or just been near her when she’s little? “I think this will be different. I’d really like to give them a try. Please?” “What do I get for saying yes?” “I’ll pretend I don’t know about the peanut butter hearts you have hidden behind the canned goods.” “… Fine. But not here. Their house.” Not letting them into my batcave just yet.

I think jeans do better so long as they’re not too skinny. The heavier fabric suppresses the noise better and is less likely to show what’s underneath if they’re a traditional fit

This makes me so very happy to hear. I’m glad the story has had such a positive influence on your life. I know! ???

Scene #151 “Leemee lone. I wun sleep.” “Daphne, it’s time to get up for church. Come on. Up you get,” Her Holiness prodded me. “I’m tired.” “We went to bed on time, and literally all you have to do it roll over and watch on the iPad.” She oversimplifies everything. I’d have to roll over, sit up, and pay attention to the iPad. That’s a rule – pay attention in church. If you don’t, you get taken down to the cloak room in the basement for a spanking, or at least you used to pre-pandemic. We don’t want to be in that crowd yet every Sunday, and church is a lot less fun without the singing. We tried singing along to the iPad, but without a couple hundred other parishioners to drown us out, we have to listen to ourselves … and we suck. Really. And I actually like church, but I just wasn’t feeling it. But church attendance is a rule; oddly more of a rule in our house than the actual church, which is (you’ll be shocked to learn this given our lifestyle) very non-conformist and free-spirited and full of weird people (at least two of whom are super gay). Lucky for me there are exceptions to the church rule. It was too late to tell Mary I was out of town, so that left, “But I don’t feel good.” “Are you not feeling well, or do you just not want to go to church?” “Just put the iPad on my back and I’ll listen with my eyes closed.” See? I am a peacemaker, a problem solver, a resolver of differences. Who knows? I might have even heard the sermon in my dreams. Wouldn’t be the first time I encountered Pastor Sara in Dreamland. Just don’t call her ‘the hot pastor’ in front of Mary cuz you’ll get a long lecture about respect, and halfway through your timeout, so I’m told, you’ll realize you’re not sure if she’s being serious or if she’s just taking the excuse to put you in timeout. The Grand Inquisitor repeated herself. “Are you not feeling well, or do you just not want to go to church?” Moment of truth. Literally. “… Not feeling well.” My face was buried in the covers, but I could feel Mary making her o-really face at the back of my head. “O really,” she said to the back of my head. She really telegraphs her thinking sometimes “Then we’ll have to see what can be done to make you feel better.” Funny how I was suddenly awake and alert and ready to run far, far away. If only someone or something could’ve warned me she’d see through my mistruth and call me on it. Something like experience or deduction or even, heck, an aversion to fibbing could’ve warned me (I said I was tired, dammit, and I don’t think so good when I’m tired). But perhaps all was not lost. Perhaps I could backpedal, misdirect, or stall. “No,” I tried to insist, “You go to church, and I’ll be fine.” “Daphne Ann, of course I wouldn’t leave you all by your lonesome when you don’t feel well. Let’s just get to the bottom of this, and maybe we’ll make the afternoon service if you’re feeling better.” I wonder if today’s sermon is about how hurtful sarcasm is. How fitting would that be. Or the consequences of fibbing. “Um … no thanks. It’s one of those things you just gotta ride out … in bed … alone.” “You sound awfully alert now.” “But it’s taking all my strength. Um, so why don’t we just plan on me doing the afternoon service if I’m feeling up to it?” “Because Pastor Mike does the afternoon service, and you dislike how boring he is even more than you dislike being tired. Or are you not being truthful?” Wow, that was kinda direct to the point of not being nice. “Are we back on that again (cough)? … (cough hack sniff) (re-cough-eally) … Your mistrusting expression isn’t making me feel any better.” Hey stupid, my better angel said. She’s a sassy angel. Yeah, you, the stupid one. Stop digging the hole deeper. And maybe next time don’t dig any hole at all or at least dig better, less transparent ones. She’s very blunt and judgmental for an angel. “O dear, am I making it worse? That’s just not good. Let’s deal with this right now.” “No,” I said as she walked away from me. “No please,” I said as she went into the bathroom. “No pretty please,” I said as she … she couldn’t hear me, not that I think it would’ve made a difference. O crud, she’s coming back. And where did that bag come from? “I wanna go to church now.” “You can’t, sweetie. You don’t feel well.” “I feel better. It’s a miracle, and that’s what church is all about. See, I’ll even stand up.” Which I did. Look at me, head to toes all standing and healthy and pious. Church please, and step on it. “Not until we make sure you’re okay. Lay back down.” “I’m sorry?” I mean, might as well try to apologize, even if just to get out of what mean thing she was gonna do to me while pretending to be sweet as summer rain. “For being sick? You don’t ever have to be sorry for being sick.” “I didn’t say I’m sick. I just said I didn’t feel well. Can we please …” Did you know Mary can cut you off in mid-sentence with just a look? For instance, her too-late-I’m-gonna-teach-you-a-lesson-and-you’re-gonna-cooperate-if-you-know-what’s-good-for-you look. And then you shudder a little you make a barely audible sound as you mouth opens again and turns her head sharply to glare at you with her make-my-day-say-one-more-word eyes. Eep. Which is when my better angel said, Best to just lay back down now. It’s funny, I don’t hear much from my worse angel, and sometimes I think that’s cuz I’m my own worse angel. “Poor, poor girl. We’ll get to the bare bottom of this.” So that’s why some people would rather not know what their diagnosis is. Huh. “Mary,” I said from flat on my back while she was in the closet getting stuff, “I’m trying to backpedal here.” “Bicycling is no good for sick little girls.” “So that’s a no on the backpedaling?” “It’s a no,” she told me as she returned with – guess what!?! – diaper changing supplies. “What’s in that bag?” “O look,” was her response as she took notice of the pacifier she keeps on my nightstand, right next to the paddle she calls mine but is really hers. “Open up … Good girl. Keep this in, sweetie. Pacifiers keep little girls from crying; why, I bet if if it comes out before I tell you it’s safe you’ll end up crying very hard.” Threatening subtext, that. “Lift your hips.” If I could pray for anything, I’d pray for X-ray vision. It’s not entirely unheard of for Mary to just produce from thin air (or under the sink) things with which to mistreat me (see, for example, pull-ups). When she went into the bathroom, I feared she was getting the enema kit ready, not that I’m ever afeared of anything, but the mystery of the mystery bag was just sitting there next to me being all Orwellian like it could contain anything. “You’re becoming quite the experienced diaper wearer.” What the heck does that mean? “I’d call you a Class A Diaper Girl if I didn’t know how much you hate being that.” Aw come on! Now you’re just trying to get me to spit the pacifier out. “Just a few taps of my hand, and we can do a whole diaper change without even speaking.” O yeah? Prove it and stop speaking. Smack. Oof! That part of me is not for smacking, even lightly … except sometimes it is. “When you say you don’t feel good, is it because of potty problems? Does it hurt when you tinkle?” It was then that I heard a voice from the heavens, and it sounded exactly like David Attenborough: Note the tone of the taller and more dominant of the two females lacks the mischief characteristic of its mating ritual and ceremonial displays of dominance. The less dominant female, our old friend Red, must have noticed this, or surely, she’d have taken out her pacifier to answer back. She rarely lets a slight against her honor go unanswered. Instead, she merely shakes her head no and side-eyes the newcomer on the scene, the faux-leather bag. Someone should tell Dave that the friggin pacifier is not mine. “And I don’t see any diaper rash or even a sign of diaper rash. Must be because I take very good care of you.” Cue Dave: Those of you who have followed this bonded pair since the beginning of our series know that when Athena – so named by you, the viewers, because of her powerful aura and hardass physique – says something sarcastic without a hint of sarcasm in her tone, as she just did, she’s very likely growing more bloody ticked off by the moment. You’ll also note Red, who actually seems to be getting ever so slightly smaller during this confrontation, appears conflicted. It looks as though she wants very badly to point out that she doesn’t wear diapers often enough to get a diaper rash, that the possibility would be exactly zero if Athena didn’t make her wear them, and that anyway, the diapers not even hers. At the same time, she is experiencing a nascent but rapidly growing sense of regret at the mere mention of how well Athena cares for her as it becomes clear Athena is no longer playing along, a sure hint that something besides her decision to try to weasel out of church is at issue. “Turn over.” And guess who? Dave, that’s who: Showing signs of trepidation, Red slowly turns to her tummy, keeping an eye on her alpha until the last possible moment, knowing how vulnerable she is in this position: face down, bottom exposed. She looks intently at the bag again, clenching and unclenching her little fists as she watches Athena reach for it, seemingly in slow motion to her, but to the rest of us, with the surety and relentlessness of a freight train. It is too much for the younger female, who takes a calculated risk by flipping back over onto her back, letting the pacifier fall from her lips, unironically making her uwu face, and bleating out the high-pitched noises even casual viewers must surely recognize by now as her vocal expression of sincerest regret. “I’m sorry I’m sorry what’s in the bag and I’m sorry and I won’t do it again!” Ol’ Davey boy heard from: Nature, we must remember, may be pitiable, but it is not pathetic. Actually, Red is quite brave, stalwart, and true; always honest, never bratty, and mighty not just for a female of her size but relative to the species as a whole. What she lacks in making better choices the first time, she more than makes up for in always being prepared to cave, sometimes without even putting up the show of a fight. And also she’s really put off by the mystery bag. Really. More to the immediate point, she feels awful for what’s she done and wishes to make amends and seek forgiveness because she doesn’t take Athena being upset with her very well. Like, at all. True story. And me: O my god! Shut up, Dave! There’s only room for one narrator, and it’s heccin not you! Mary (who looks a little like Athena; I could totally see that and maybe for next Halloween), looked at me with a rather cross expression. It was more than a little unsettling how quickly she went from not buying my BS but going along with it to teach me a lesson to seeming actually upset with me. She was taking deep breaths through her nose. She’s gotten well and truly pissed at me just a handful of times, and while she’s never raised her voice at me (hard limit!), she’s had to try not to before, and she always took deep breaths through her nose. And it she went from A to B awfully sudden like. “Daphne Ann, I am … Sit up. Right next to me. Last week I sat right in this spot and watched you sleep. For three days, I did everything I could to take care of you and make you feel better because you really didn’t feel well. And it …” Not so much of the verge of yelling at me now as on the verge or crying. O god, don’t cry cuz I’m gonna cry so much harder. “I was trying to teach this lesson in a little more fun way, but … It’s not funny, okay? Don’t you ever fib to me about not feeling good again. It … Don’t.” “Mary … I’m so sorry. I didn’t think … I’m … sorry.” Ever feel so ashamed of how you made someone else feel intentionally or not, that you wanna throw up? Me too. “I know. I don’t mean to … be so serious. It just … It’s scary. It’s not … I knew you were just trying to get out of … It’s still scary.” “I didn’t think about it that way.” “I know you didn’t. I just …” Speechless Mary. I mean, this is the same woman who is rarely at a loss for words, the same one who has so many words that she just loves to continue whatever she’s saying even after I’ve interrupted her with points that are very on point. “I won’t do it again.” “I know you won’t.” Which is when I hugged Mary very hard cuz she needed a very hard hug (and so did I). We stayed liked for a few minutes, and I was nervous to say it, but I plucked up my courage and asked, “Will you go to church with me? We only missed a little.” “I’d like that very much. I have half a mind to ground you to this bed for the rest of the day after.” Ugh. “That’s … fair.” “But then I don’t get to spend the day with you. Your punishment is being grounded to my side all day.” O gawd my feels! “(Suppressed crying noises).” “(Also suppressed crying noises).” I needed more than that though. “May I please have a bedtime spanking tonight?” “Of course, sweetie.” “With the bathbrush?” I hate that thing so much, but it does have its uses, like reducing me to a limp, sobbing, sweaty mess that needs to be helped up and showered off. Not that I’m a crybaby. Really. “No.” “But …” “You didn’t mean to. I like you too much to use the bathbrush just because you feel guilty. We’ll get those feelings out, and we’ll both have a good cry with just my hand, okay?” “Okay.” “And after church you need to try to use the potty for anything you don’t want to do in your diaper. I want my baby girl glued to my hip all day.” “Okay … What’s in that bag?” “I’ll show you this weekend if I don’t have to give any bad girl spankings.” And let’s not question how what’s in that bag can can make me apologize like a rapid apologizer person and inspire me to be my bestest self at the same time. That’s just one of the burdens of being kinky me.

Scene #150 “I love you always, forever Near and far, closer together Everywhere I will be with you Every sin, I will do for you I love you always, forever Near and far, closer together Everywhere I will be with you Every sin, I will do for you “Say you'll love me forever Never stop, never whatever Near and far and always and everywhere and every Say you'll love me forever Never stop, never whatever Near and far and always and everywhere and every Say you'll love me forever Never stop, never whatever Near and far and always and everywhere and every Say you'll love me forever Never stop, never whatever Near and far and always and everywhere and every-gahh! … Hi.” “Hi,” my wife who sneaks up on me (or just walks into the room while I have my headphones on and my back turned) said to me. “Whatcha doin’?” “Sing-cleaning.” “I remember it wasn’t that long ago that hardly a cleaning day passed without me having to spank your bottom to motivate you.” That’s a true thing, is what it is. It not that my views on cleaning have changed all that much. They’ve just evolved. Or they stayed the same and I evolved. “I was still working then. Work all week and spend half a Saturday cleaning when I could’ve been not cleaning? Easy math, Mary.” I’m good at math. True story. “And now you enjoy cleaning?” “No. I just don’t mind it as much. Or maybe I do enjoy it cuz it’s something to do and makes the house nice.” And since we’re spending two full weeks in a post-travel quarantine, not like I don’t have time or like I’m not spending all of it at home. I won’t even talk to Nana over the fence. I know I say she’s not old, but COVID doesn’t know that. “So who were you singing about?” “Was I singing too loud?” “No. So who was it about?” “Who?” “About some you love always forever? Someone whose love you need?” Mary? Flirt? She’s ways past that. “O … It’s no one you know.” Me? Flirt? I’m way past that. Really. “So you have a crush on someone, is that it,” Mary the Apex Predator said as she sashayed those hips of hers in my direction. All I had to defend myself was a swiffer, my French Foreign Legion training, and my petite self. One of those things is not like the others, but everyone fudges their résumé (I confess – it was an off-brand swiffer). “I can have crushes,” I defended my right to have crushes. Someone has to defend my rights. If I didn’t do it, I’d hafta behave all the time. Blech! “Is it a boy crush?” “Yuck. Do you know what’s between their legs? I mean, good for them and all, but keep it tucked away from me.” Never did like them. Kinda like raw tomato. People still say to me, ‘You’ve just never had a good tomato,’ and I say, ‘I’m sure some of the many people who tried to get me eat tomato had a good one, but I just don’t like tomatoes.’ Not a value judgment. Just more of a … peach person. And not that I’m an expert, but every time I see an eggplant emoji, I just wanna tell the person who posted it to stop flattering themselves. At best, they have a robust parsnip (and I don’t like parsnip either). “So it’s a girl crush,” the lioness of the house asked me with this little tinge of threat in her voice like she me do stuff to me … and things too.” “Well, you backed me into a corner … literally.” Cuz in the French Foreign Legion they taught us the safest place to be when confronted by your dominant is in the corner … where you can’t run. It was just a weekend training course, but how weird. In retrospect, might have been a kink retreat with some pre-Mary friends. I do remember getting tossed around a bit and ordered to do this and that and French something. “Did I,” she asked all innocently (which she is not!) as she put a hand on each wall, trapping me in between. “Eep.” “You’d better eep. Who’s this crush?” “I don’t hafta tell you.” “O really?” “Yeah. And anyway, you wouldn’t know her. She lives in Canada. Met her at Niagara Falls. Ya know, the one with all the water?” “You know when the house gets cleaner, you get dirtier?” “Literally or figuratively?” Agree with literally. Don’t really see the connection figuratively. “It’s like you’re my little dust bunny.” “Hee. Should I get the tail out of the toy chest when I’m done?” “But who’s it for? Me or your secret crush?” “You’re … tall. When you stand there like that … looming over me and being all … tall.” Said the bunny to the she-lion, all sleek and muscled and stuff. “Who’s your crush? Don’t think I won’t tickle you til it comes out.” Wait, specifically til what comes out? “Okay. I’ll tell you. You ready?” Cuz I had to make sure she was ready. “Yeah.” “You’re sure?” Cuz I had to make sure she was sure. “Yeah.” “Cuz once I tell you …” Just giving her a last chance to back out. “Gonna count to one…” “It’s Sara. This woman who used to babysit me and spent the day with me while we were in Wisconsin. She taught me to ice skate and she let me have sugary cereal for breakfast and she’s sooo pretty!” She’s looking at me funny again. “Guh! Put me down!” “No!” “But yes.” “No.” “But yes, is the thing.” Ooo, we’re sitting on the couch. Or Mary was; I was sitting on Mary. Sigh… “What a coincidence, cuz I babysat the cutest little girl.” “She wasn’t little. She was a middle at her very smolest.” “How would you know?” “Rumor and innuendo.” “What have I told you about gossiping?” “Um,” I said all sexy and stuff and put my finger right in the middle of Mary’s chest and just, ya know, traced a little switchback on down. “I forget. You’re gonna hafta teach me again.” “Maybe if we video record it this time you’ll remember in the future. We could even share it with some friends so they don’t make the same mistakes you have. There could be a whole video series on proper behavior for good girls like you.” “Like me?” “Mhmm. Good, smol. Girls who want to be be good so bad, but sometimes just can’t help their little selves.” “And sometimes we can just put the video on like during dinner? Or on long car rides? … Or on my virtual reality headset. Hell yes!” So worth the spanking I got for that. “So smol, so horny.” Wow, just summing me up like that. Seen. “Can I ask what you liked so much about this Sara character?” “Um …” Yeah, sorta been actively avoiding that topic in my head. “I can tell you a few things, but a girl’s gotta have secrets too.” See, they don’t teach the let-them-down-gently-by-being-cute method in business school. Not that I ever went to business school. And if I had, people would’ve said, “There goes Daphne. Don’t know why she’s in business school when she’s already so dynamic and is the best synergy creator ever.” Yep, that’s a thing people woulda said. “I suppose I can let you keep a few secrets.” “Well, um, she roleplayed. Not that you and I don’t … And not that I’m comparing her to you cuz that would just be so meta. But roleplay is fun even when you’re lifestyle.” “Enjoyed mixing it up?” “Yeah.” “You’re blushing.” “I’m always this color when you’re in the room.” Really. “So what else?” “She … tried very hard to make me not feel about embarrassed about embarrassing stuff, in a way that was super embarrassing.” “Like what?” “Nope. Don’t wanna say.” “Aw, you can tell me. Is about still need spankings to help you make good choices? Or is about your problem,” she whispered. “Cuz you don’t hafta to be embarrassed about either of those. I mean, you shouldn’t go around telling anyone because they’d probably make fun of you and call you names like Spanky, but you don’t hafta to be embarrassed … though you probably should also.” Gah! Buttons! “Sorta like that.” “Are you sleepy all of a sudden? Is that why you laid your pretty face on my chest?” “And she made me feel awesome cuz she taught me to do something I didn’t think I could. Not that that can be an everyday thing.” “Nope, but sometimes you do need a little touch-up lesson. Like after your bath, I could teach you how to comb your hair so it’s not sticking up all over the place,” she said as ran her fingers through my hair (which was sticking up all over the place). “I knew I was gonna clean and decided to shower after.” “O, I thought dust bunnies always have messy hair.” “So question. Should you be at work?” “I had a meeting, and since I’m the boss I rescheduled it cuz I wanted to come find out who my person was singing about.” O my god heck heccin yes! I’m Mary’s person! She just said so! Eeeeeeee! “Can I confess something,” I asked the person whose person I am. “Mhmm.” “You sure?” Just making sure. Wouldn’t wanna traumatize the person whose person I am. “Tell me.” Hey! She pinched my butt! “It was all a ruse. I was singing about you.” “Aww, you love me always forever?” “Mhmm.” “Near and far closer together.” “Mhmm.” “Is that why you’re unbuttoning my shirt?” “Mhmm.” “You be gentle when you find what you’re looking for. Any teeth, and I’m gonna hafta spank you bottom. Ouch!” “Heeheeheehee.” I bit my person whose person is me, and I’m not sorry. “Naughty girl … Why’d you stop?” “Ahem.” Did you know if your head is in someone’s shirt, you can feel them roll their eyes? True story. Really. “(Sigh…) Fine, you’re a good girl … Hhhh! A very good girl.” O my god! The person whose person I am thinks I’m a very good girl! She is sooo my person! My person who totally followed up on the warning about biting. Sigh … getting smacked hard on the butt while a grown woman tells me ‘we do not bite.’ That really takes me back. And she is such a hypocrite cuz this one time at band camp she … O yeah, not supposed to gossip either. Dammit …

Scene #149 “Hey,” I said as I woke up to someone stroking my hair. “You been there the whole time?” “Yeah,” the hair stroker said. “Sandy is going to bring one by and leave it on the doorstep.” “I don’t have covid,” I told Mary. “But thank you.” I’m not short of breath, coughing, wheezing, stuffed up, or sore throated. “Better safe than sorry. Being sick can cause flare ups.” A flare up. I had a headache and muscle aches and my joints hurt and I was exhausted and sometimes even my skin hurt in places for a little bit. That comes and goes pretty quick, but the achiness and fatigue were just there. Me and my autoimmune condition have lived in relative détente for a while. No real issues of late, at least not lasting longer than a day or two and even then, just one or two symptoms, not a bunch at once or all over. For some reason that really sucks, it had been a bunch at once for three days the week we got back from Wisconsin. And Mary’s right, a little infection, something as simple as cold can set it off. Or stress or changes in the weather or even a big hormone shift. Or nothing at all, at least nothing I can single out, like this time. I’ve mostly been in bed. When I had a job, I would give it a day of rest and then power through it, or try to, and miraculously that didn’t work and typically just made it last longer. But I don’t work anymore, and I have this nice person to take care of me. So bed. It’s actually good to still move and even exercise, but I wasn’t feeling up to it, and when I tried to make myself do it anyway, Mary just kept taking my hand and making me sit down. I think she hid my workout shoes during one my naps. She’s kinda a pushy nurse. Not gonna lie. “How’s your diaper?” O yeah, the rule that if I’m sick, I have to be in a diaper. She thinks she’s so clever counting seasonal allergies as being sick. But actually sick? I still don’t like it and usually put up a fuss (which usually just gets me called a fussy little girl and a smack on the thigh to get me hold still). But right then, I was way too into hating corporeal existence right then to care (like seriously, I could so totally skip having a body at all if it’s gonna feel this way; just put my brain in cyborg). She reached down all on her own and checked and must’ve been satisfied. “Are you hungry,” she asked me, being all affectionate and stuff. “No.” “Well, you need to eat something. What can I get you?” “Nothing right now.” “I spank little girls’ bottoms even when they don’t feel well.” She takes my eating so super serious all the time, but when I don’t feel well, she turns into my grandmother and just can’t stop offering me food. Of course, had I accepted one of those offers earlier, she might have stopped for a while. And that threat was so transparently empty. “No you don’t.” At least not this kind of not feeling well. She knows better. She tried it once when I had a flare up back when we were dating and she moved in with me for a few days (cuz she liked me a bunch and still does). Trying to cheer me up and thinking she was being cute, I was shuffling across the living room in my slippers, and she asked me (surprise!) what she could make me, and I got grumpy cuz (surprise!) it was the fourth time in forty-five minutes that she asked me that. I told her nothing kinda sharply (well, the first three times were very nicely declined). She reached over and just tapped me on the butt, and while I think I meant to say ‘Urgh! Fine. Macaroni,’ what came out instead was, “Waaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh! Boohoohoohoo WAAAAAHHHHH!!!!” And so on and so forth. Except harder and with sooo much self-pity. Mary set a world record for apologizing and getting almost as teary as me. Then she made me a sandwich. Since I’ve known her, Mary says tears don’t stop a spanking, but yeah they do under the right circumstances. “We can order in. I’ll get you anything you want, but you can’t go all day without eating.” “All the good foods make it worse.” True story. It’s as if my body is trying to tell me that whatever is in a hotdog isn’t healthy for it or something. Strange, that. “Daphne.” Hmm. Mary’s yes-you-are face. She saves it for when she’s adamant that yes, I am gonna do what she says. If I ignore it, she escalates (she’s always escalating stuff) to her fine-I’ll-just-make-you-then face. Not that she could actually make me right then because her toolbox of coercive measures was just about empty. What was she gonna do? Ground me to the bedroom? Make me hurt all over? I already did. “Soup please.” And just like that, her anything-for-you face. “What kind?” “Hot and sour, and chicken noodle.” “Done.” With a mere tap of her finger, Mary made soup appear (in 45 minutes via DoorDash). She’s magic like that. In the meantime, she made her I’m-sorry-you-don’t-feel-well-face and combined it with her does-it-feel-good-when-do-this hands. Normally, yeah. Mary’s hand on my cheek feels wonderful. “Not there, please.” Neuropathy. It’s like having a rash or a sunburn except not. It just hurts to the touch (or sometimes even to make any movement that even tightens it, like smiling), and it’s always on places where the skin is sensitive anyway like my temple and cheek and my sides and the inside of my forearms. Mary’s I’m-sorry-this-sucks-so-hard sigh. I didn’t start having symptoms until I was in college, and when I got diagnosed my Mom, bless her heart, said not to bother getting upset about it. She was secretly super upset about it, but she didn’t want me to be and thought I’d move on to the this-is-just-my-burden-to-carry phase of acceptance if I just … did, I suppose. And actually, I didn’t have a hard time accepting it because back then the symptoms were few and far between. But like most things, they got a little more frequent with time. And they’re still infrequent, just not totally absent. Color me impressed with myself cuz with all the stress of almost two years of pandemic, this was my first big flare up. If I had predicted it, it would’ve been my tenth or twelfth. Not that I did anything to avoid it. Just happened that way. “Hey Mary?” “Yeah, baby?” “Thanks for taking care of me.” “You are very welcome. You wanna watch a movie until dinner gets here?” “No,” I said in my I’m-about-to-cry voice, which made Mary make her what’s-happening-face with the furrowed brow and inquisitive eyes. “I’m fine. I just don’t wanna be brave right now.” “You can cry and be brave at the same time.” Offer the fuck accepted! “(Weepy girl noises) (sniffles) (tiny sobs muffled by bedclothes and Mary’s sweatpants).” “I know. My brave girl. You wanna crawl across my lap and let me rub your butt?" "A-after d-din-ner." "My brave girl."

I'm trying to imagine what that's a typo of and coming up with nothing

Regarding the scenes, I’d have to check. I try to break it up around the 20 scenes/200 page range. That (1) keeps the printing cost down and (2) makes it more manageable to proof/edit/revise, which in turns means releasing books more often. If I waited until the very end to do that, it would take me YEARS to have the time and motivation to proof/edit/revise and release (which is what happened to both volumes of Done Adulting, though I’m starting to get a handle on those now). And so glad you’re enjoying it!

It would be super appreciated if folks could leave a review or rating on Vol 7 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09MDDBTKN

I know exactly what you mean ?

Scene #148 We left the town I grew up in and drove about thirty minutes. I grew up in the suburbs, so all that means is we took the highway part-way around the city. Not my first time to that part of town, but a place I rarely went to growing up. In other words, where I probably wouldn’t know anybody. I hadn’t lived in my hometown for more than a summer break in twelve years, so it’s not like I knew everyone back forty minutes the other way, but I might know some of them. Can’t go anywhere with Mom but she runs into two different people she knows, but she’s lived there her whole life. Anyway, Sara took me somewhere no one would know me, is the main point. It made me a little anxious cuz there’s a reason she would do that, and I didn’t know it. I had some guesses, but I tried very hard to suppress my anxiety and remember that Sara wouldn’t let anything bad happen to me … or do any bad things to me. But she could also not do bad things to me or let them happen to me around people I know without any problems either. It’s very easy, actually. Really. “We’re here,” Sara announced. “A skating rink,” I asked for some weird reason cuz it was obviously a skating rink. That’s me now, person-who-announces-the-obvious, apparently. Maybe I need to read more challenging books or something and claw my way back to being a worldly conversationalist. “Yep! Sit tight.” I did, and she came around to let me out of the car even though I now knew I could just as easily have gotten out on the driver side cuz that’s what she did after her Very Sincere But Also Pushing My Buttons talk. And here’s the thing: I don’t ice skate. Nor do I roller skate, roller blade, skateboard, ski, or snowboard. Surprising because I grew up in a state where almost everyone can skate, but not surprising when one remembers I have all the coordination of a newborn gazelle (which are actually much more coordinated than me after about twenty minutes). Now put that newborn gazelle on something slippery. You think that’s just self-deprecating exaggeration, and it is …but not by as much I wish it were. “I can’t skate,” I said to Sara. And she knows that because while we don’t live together (eyeroll), we have lived next to each other for my whole life, and I know for a fact she’s seen me sitting on the bench when the neighborhood pond freezes over playing a wicked game of Solo Sad Girl while everyone else skates. She even comes over and says hi to me, so what exactly was she getting at with taking me to a skating rink? “And today is the last day you’ll be able to say you can’t skate.” Ah, got it now. Good thing one of us had faith in my skills (her, specifically; not me) And here I am a supremely confident person who it actually among the best at most of the best things … but not skating. “No, but I really can’t.” Not that I don’t trust Sara. I, for example, trusted she would ride in the ambulance with me on the way to the emergency room. “When’s the last time you tried,” she asked me. “A long time, but …” “And how old were you then? Try to guess.” “Um … Nine?” “And have you gotten better at other things since you were nine?” “Yeah,” I answered, seeing her point and still not wanting to try it. Does she not know what happens when you fall on ice? It’s like concrete! And ya know what’s under the ice at skating rinks? CONCRETE! And you don’t bounce back as easily when you’re not a little kid, which I’m physiologically not no matter how everyone treats me. I had visions of me being Girl-Too-Old-To-Be-Crying-That-Hard while everyone skates around me and then the manager would slide me on my butt to the nearest exit with a push broom. Not that they actually do that, but it makes some sense from an efficiency standpoint. But back to Sara, my cheerleader, which was nice all, but also … meh. “Of course you’ve gotten better at lots of things,” she said as she held my hand through the parking lot. “And you have a lesson scheduled.” “I do?” “You do! A late Christmas present!” She is so irritatingly positive! Which is so irritatingly endearing! Dammit. Now, just because I couldn’t skate doesn’t mean I didn’t spend a lot of time at skating rinks growing up. There was this awkward period after age nine when I had given up on skating entirely and was the lonely, bored girl at friends’ skating birthday parties. Then came the awkward time when my friends wanted to hang out at the rink to flirt with boys. Then the less-awkward-but-by-no-means-not-awkward period when I knew I liked girls and tried to feign interest in the flirting (but was really watching the figure skaters skating and being hot). Maybe that’s when I acquired my leotard fetish? Yeah, definitely. And I didn’t want to fall on my butt in front of the all the hot women in leotards. Insult, meet injury, ya know? Just like I remembered, the non-rink part of the rink was so heccin hot! And loud and crowded. Even with a mask, I was surprised Sara would take me there. We waded through all the kids rushing around, and the parents who looked so over it all and ready for them to be back in school, to the reception desk. “Hi,” Sara said to the woman there. “We have a lesson scheduled.” Which is when I learned that it was not a solo lesson and that Sara, or whomever made these arrangements, had reserved a private changing room. Good for multiple reasons, one of which was not wanting to be in a crowded changing room and the other of which was suspecting Sara had things in store for me that I’d find unacceptably embarrassing (and that police might find misdemeanor-y) if they were to happen in the presence of others. We got our change room key and skates, and the woman said we had twenty minutes and told us where to go for the lesson. “Are you going to take a lesson too,” I asked Sara. “No. I already know how to skate.” “You do?” “Yeah. I’ve just never been skating with you cuz you don’t know how.” How did I not know that about ‘Sara?’ “We need to a hurry a little if we don’t wanna be late.” You hafta give ‘Sara’ credit for booking the time and working backward to get me out of bed, out of the house, and through the store with twenty minutes to spare, almost as if she anticipated all the ways I’d slow us down. Like she knows me really, really well or something. Hmmm. Though of course I didn’t slow us down at all; she did with her shenanigans and well-meaning but misplaced adherence to alleged rules my imaginary mom made up. “So where will you be during my lesson,” I asked for reasons other than being nervous. Cuz I wasn’t. Really. Ignore everything I said before. I gibber when I jabber and what comes out is pure nonsense. There goes Daphne, people say, she can’t skate, not that she’s nervous about trying, and btw she is so good at nonsense. Yep, that’s a thing people say. About me. Really. “Right next to you the whole time. You nervous?” “A little.” Who said that? Me? More nonsense. But also o my god, yes! Heck heccin yes! “Maybe a little a lot,” she wisely perceived. “Hurry and get undressed.” What should I have been more nervous about? Falling on hard ice or whatever knavery she had in mind for our day out? Yes/and. Good thing I’m not the nervous or anxious type. Sigh … “All the way,” I asked. “Down to your socks.” “With you in the room?” “Did I not change your diaper and spank your bare bottom for you this morning?” Fair point … doesn’t mean she had to bring it up though … and can we please later spend some time debating who that was for (I’ll take the Not Daphne side). “Besides, we’re both girls. Need a little help?” She was in a hurry, just guessing by how she didn’t wait for me to answer, and I woulda protested that it was totally inappropriate, but (1) I could tell that she wasn’t really asking, (B) she had a point about who’d seen (and touched) what, and (Purple) I think I have a crush on her or something? And how oddly familiar it felt to have Sara strip my clothes off in a hurry, almost like she’d done it before. For serious. Personally, I was in less of a hurry because I didn’t so much mind being late for an opportunity to embarrass myself. Of course, it would only be embarrassing for a second, and then everyone would stop laughing when they saw how badly injured I was … so I guess I had that going for me? I just hoped I wouldn’t take anyone down with me. And hey, thought – did you know you don’t actually hafta get undressed to put a pair of ice skates on? True story that I remembered reading once only after I was naked below the waist. “Hey Sara,” I asked off handedly, because, ya know, reasons and suspicions and well-founded reasons for having suspicions, “how come I’m not wearing any pants? Asking for my friend.” “We gotta get your pull-up on, sweetie, and remember what we talked about. You’re gonna be a good girl and cooperate.” She knelt down in front of me and held open one of her Goodnites, and I put a hand on her should for balance as I stepped in. And can I pause and just point out that if I need to put my hand on her shoulder for balance to literally take a step, I shouldn’t be placed on ice! “But, um, why do I hafta wear it?” “The lesson is an hour long, and it’s just too much trouble to get you off the ice every time you hafta potty.” Like right then, which is a thing I realized as she was sliding it up my legs and seating it snugly against my … seat. I may not be ready to babysit, according to some people, but I do know that if a person has potty problems, which I do not (repeat: not!), then you give them a chance to use said potty before putting them in a new pull-up. I could’ve said something, but I had this weird feeling it wouldn’t have been taken seriously. Probably would’ve resulted in something along the lines of ‘O, you think so? That’s a good sign. Let’s tell your mommy when she gets home tonight,’ or something like that, but no trip to a toilet. Don’t know why I felt that way. Sigh … “Can you see it,” I asked when my leggings were pulled back up. And o, hey, how about Sara picking out leggings when she knew she’d but putting me in a pull-up later? If she’s not careful, she’s gonna give me complex about the intentions of beautiful women, and that could express itself in so many unexpected ways. Really. “Arms up.” Don’t know why she bothered asking since she already peeling my sweater off me. “My friend would super really like to know why you’re taking my sweater off,” I said with maybe a tinge of irritation. A touch. A very small amount. “To get your skating outfit on, silly goose.” “I don’t …” Which is when Mary, no Sara, I think maybe, produced from her backpack my Halloween costume, the one that at the time was a ballerina outfit complete with tights, skirt, and leotard but that, apparently, minus the tights was going to be pulling double duty as a skating outfit. Wear that in vanilla space with a you-know underneath where people would definitely see me and might see it? The sight of the thing sent my parts in opposite directions. Some parts were wobbly. Some parts were tingly. Some parts just checked the heck out, for instance my brain, which musta needed to do a hard restart or something. “Daffy,” Sara said, “Step in.” “Huh?” “Step in,” she repeated as she held the leotard open for me. “How?” “What?” “I mean, how can I wear that with the and at the place when I’m, you know,” I very clearly asked as she got the straps over my shoulders. When did I even step into the thing? Also, Lycra is smooth and slippery, is a thought I had at the time (seriously, need to exercise the ol’ thinking organ with something that isn’t erotica and very soon). “You’ll feel better when we’re in the rink. I think you’re getting overheated,” she chuckled. “Your face is bright red.” Can you believe she chuckled at me? Like I’m a figure of comedy of something? I’m a very serious person to be taken very seriously. Really. But in reference to the color I turned, “That’s a thing that happens … But I can’t wear this with a pull-up. Everyone will see.” “Not with your skirt on.” “But what if my skirt flies up,” I asked as she raised my skirt up around my hips. When did I step into that thing? “Daffy, trust me. No one will be able to tell what you’re wearing.” “But … But I’ll get cold.” “You’ll probably be too hot once you get going.” “Do I really hafta wear this?” “Yes, you really get to wear this. Still dry,” Miss Sara I-Have-An-Answer-To-Everything asked me and didn’t wait for an answer before putting her hand under my skirt and giving me several firm pats … on the front part. Gah! “You’re g-gonna …” “I’m just checking …” “Stop … words.” “Are you alright? Daffy?” “I need outta this room.” Before she touches another spot, pushes another button, or says another word and makes me number three in my pants which is how she puts it and I hate it but also love it and turn the doorknob and light and air precious air! And a room full of people that smells like sweaty cocoa. Well, that certainly put the ice in my … bucket. You’re usually better at metaphors … but not so much when she’s pushing the buttons. “Someone is suddenly so eager,” Sara said looking very satisfied with herself. Thank god no one was on the opposite side of that door cuz I couldn’t have opened it any harder if I had a battering ram. “I’m kinda lightheaded.” And I might’ve pulled a tummy muscle stopping … something from happening. “Trying to goldbrick? You’re not getting out of your lesson.” Gotta stay on your feet; fainting will only attract attention which will only make you faint again. Damn, but I’m complicated, even to the point that I still don’t know why wearing a skating outfit at a skating rink should push my humiliation kink buttons so much. Not like anyone knew why I was wearing it or how I was feeling or even what I was wearing under it. “It’s too hot in here,” I told Sara. Yep, the room’s fault, not mine or Sara’s … well, not mine, anyway. “Let’s go then.” Sara locked the door behind us, and we speed-walked to the rink. Cold air has never felt so good. Sara sat us down on the bleachers right next to where the lady at the desk said to go for the lesson. “Are you okay,” she asked me with a very serious look on her face like it was just now occurring to her that people in my condition – by which I mean how I apparently just am at all the times now and not only like right then when I was recovering from an acute attack of being me – should maybe not be put on ice. “Yeah. No, yeah, I’m fine. Just needed some cold air.” A cold shower and a little forbearance on Sara’s part not being available. In a dazzling display of dexterity that made me think of all the things Sara could probably do with those fingers and the hands they’re attached to, she had my skates laced in not time flat. I don’t even like walking in skates. Feel like I’m always on the verge on snapping my ankle, the avoidance of which was a helpful distraction from what I was wearing in a room full of regular people. “Who’s here for a lesson,” some guy probably named Chad asked as he looked from his clipboard to the various people milling about. You actually have to do this, a voice in my head reminded me. Nothing like a good ol’ dose of fear to pull my attention away from so many other emotions. Not that I was scared; I don’t get scared. I was gonna join the X-Men, but they said it’s important for their members to retain at least a small sense of fear as a tool for self-preservation, so I couldn’t join. … If only ice skating was part of their entrance exam, but their loss. Really. It was a small group lesson, by which I mean there were only two others taking lessons and that they were very small, like under eight years of age. Not sure if that was on purpose but Sara did a good job looking surprised (she did a less good job looking sorry). And here’s a thing no one ever thought to give me when I tried to learn to skate the last (six) time(s): a helmet. What a friggin’ breakthrough! That would be such a big help in making sure my concussion was merely moderate and not critical! Chad (I missed his real name, if he ever said it, cuz I was too busy catastrophizing in my head), even helped me sort through the bin to find the only adult-sized one while the parents helped their littles ones get theirs on. I put my own helmet on, and what a shot of confidence. Way ahead of my classmates already! Sigh … “Everyone ready,” Chad asked and stepped onto the ice, making this gesture like it was time for the rest of of us to do the same. Which, seriously? “Shouldn’t we watch a safety film first?” Why’s everyone laughing? I’m being serious, very very serious. I waited my turn (while the parents literally picked their kids up under the arms and lifted them over the threshold of the door in the boards before setting them down very gentlly on the ice, keeping their hands on their shoulders to help the little kiddos balance). Yeah, no, great Christmas gift, not potentially lethal and definitely not mortifyingly embarrassing at all. Like, not only am I not six years old, but these are my permanent teeth we’re putting at risk here! “C’mon,” Mary said and held out her hand for me as she stepped onto the ice like she wasn’t right then doing some superhero shit and I should just be able to do the same thing. But hey, good on me for keeping my shaking so well controlled it wasn’t visible to anyone else. “Mary,” I said because I just couldn’t stay in character, “if I take out one of these kindergartners, I will never forgive myself.” It’s a known fact that I’m bad at whispering, but I think it was more the remarkable capacity of almost brand-new ears that made it possible for a tiny voice to respond, “I’m in first grade.” Wow I feel so much better now, and did anyone else just see those parents move this kids further away from me? I closed my eyes for a second to regather my patience only to find that I really needed all my senses to stay balanced even with Mary holding my arm. “Maybe we should’ve put some thicker padding on your butt,” Mary whispered successfully cuz she’s better at that than me too. “Not funny.” “You’re gonna be able to skate by the time we go home, and my name is Sara, sweetie. Sa-ra.” Ugh. I guess the good news is I only fell once and it was on my butt, which has had a lot of practice impacting against hard surfaces (other way around, actually, but a physicist will tell you it’s the same difference). I didn’t fall the rest of the time so much as I would just keep going until I ran out of momentum and either bumped into the wall (and grabbed it before my butt could hit the ice again) or just came to a slow stop and sat down. More of a falling sit, but we’re not going to count the fall part. “They are so adorable,” Sara said about the little tykes not literally but damn near skating rings around me. Hot damn I’m feeling good about myself! Really! “They’re too young to know about traumatic brain injuries,” I reminded Sara. Anyone can move their body with free spirited abandon when they don’t know about traumatic brain injuries! Really. “O god, he’s coming over again.” “He’s here to help,” Sara reminded me as Chad joined us again. Not that I disliked Chad, but I would have preferred to just fail all by lonesome (with Sara). And what’s that he’s got? O geez, not the chair! “A lot of adult learners find it a little easier to get their feet under them if they use the chair to steady themselves. Like this,” he said as he put his hands on the back of the chair he’d brought over and pushed it in from of him as he skated. Like I didn’t already know about the chair. Not my first ice skating lesson. I know all about the damn chair. At least he called you an adult; first person to do that all day. After Chad had given me some more pointers, I got behind the chair cuz at that point, why not? “Do you have any idea how embarrassing it is to show up to a skating lesson in a skating outfit like a huge nerd who bought the outfit but can’t actually skate and then be the only adult in the whole place wearing a helmet and pushing a chair?” “Pretty darn embarrassing, judging by all the shades of red you’ve turned today.” “Meanest. Sitter. Ever.” “Not even close, cupcake. Bend your knees a little.” But if I do that then I can’t be stiff as board, and my anxiety is telling me I should be stiff as a board right now. “I’d rather not.” Wow, how calmly and politely I said that. “Just try it. It’ll help.” “Fine, but anything I hurt you’re rubbing later.” That’s called making a good deal. And then the lesson over and not a moment too soon. I asked, “Can we leave now, please?” “Nope.” “What!?! Why not,” I didn’t whine even thought The Anti-Whining Society of Wisconsin would’ve agree it was justified if I had … which I didn’t. Really. “Because you’re not done skating,” Sara said once more like she was delivering the best news since ever. “I so am!” I. Was. So. Done. “Have you had fun yet,” she asked. “No.” True story. “Then you’re not done skating.” “Saraaaa!” “Nope. Grab your helmet.” “The lesson is over. What if someone else needs it?” “I don’t think that’ll be an issue.” I mean, almost certainly not, but how rude to say so. Amiright? I mean, honestly, the nerve. “Well, what if we go get some cocoa first?” “I know that trick. By the time we stand in line, you get through pretending it’s too hot to drink, and sip it down a milliliter at a time, it’ll be time to go home.” Whoa, she really does know that trick. Not that that was exactly what I was gonna do, but yes it was. “But …” “Daphne Ann Schmidt,” she said not as quietly as I would’ve liked, loud and crowded skating rink notwithstanding, “you can skate with a freshly spanked bottom, or not. Your choice. Three …” Definitely not as quietly as I would’ve liked. “Not,” I sighed. “Exactly what I would’ve chosen. Let’s go.” If I were actually good at it, skating hand in hand with ‘Sara’ while wearing a leotard (in public!) would’ve been one the all-time great things I ever got to do. The only thing tighter than her hand was the leotard, and that’s exactly how I like both of those things. Not that we didn’t look a little weird, me dressed like a skating princess and Sara in jeans and a college sweatshirt looking decidedly less finicky about her appearance, which is when I muttered, “We look so gay right now,” and couldn’t help chuckling. Neither outfit reflects what we look like or who we are every day, but we definitely fit one stereotype of a lesbian couple. Then something terrible happened. No, I didn’t get hurt (thank goodness!) or hurt anyone else (thank god!). Something almost as bad. I started to get a little good at skating, which in itself is great … but it proved Sara right. Worse, I started to have fun. Just terrible. I hate proving my people right when I’ve put so much work into insisting they’re wrong. Which is a thing that doesn’t make me a brat even a little bit. Really. “Leggo,” I told Sara. “You’re sure?” “Yeah. Heehee!” She let go of my hand, and in a moment I’ll never live down even if I live long enough to marry my babysitter, I actually said, “I’m doing it! I’m really doing it!” At least I didn’t go wheeee! And I loved-hated-loved how proud I felt when Sara clapped for me. Pretty sure I was starting to like her again. Why else care what she thought of me? (Cuz it’s not like I’m ever insecure of anything. Really). A half hour later, “It’s almost time to go home.” “Five more times,” I asked. Not pleaded, asked. Like a mature adult who needed permission from their babysitter. Not like I’m the only one, right? Right? “Three,” she said and held up three fingers like I needed a visual aid which is a thing a person might reasonably conclude if they are the babysitter of a mature adult. Not that I mind it or ever overanalyze anything while writing in my diary that no one else will ever read. Back in our dressing room, our windburnt cheeks aglow and steam practically rising from Sara’s sweatshirt, I cowgirled up and said, “Thank you. That was fun after all.” How very magnanimous of me, I know. “You’re very welcome. You can have all sorts of fun if you just listen to your caregivers.” She pulled off her sweatshirt, and underneath she was wearing this white tee that looked a little damp from exertion. Not that I was staring. “Now, let’s get my little skater ready for the drive home.” “This is so cool,” I said. “What’s that, sweetie?” “I know how to skate. Finally … Can we have my next birthday at a skating rink?” I was the only girl in my whole class who never had a birthday party at a skating rink! I have lost time to make up for! “I don’t see why not, and there are plenty of places closer to home you can skate at too.” “Can I wear the outfit,” I said maybe a little flirtatiously. “Of course you can,” she chuckled as she started taking said outfit off me. “Ya know, you’re becoming quite the shapely young woman. At this rate, you might even have B-cups one day.” That stung a little, but just then I liked her, so I didn’t call her on it. First the skirt came off, then she started taking the leotard off me. “Sara, is it normal for me to feel … tingly when I wear this outfit?” Trying to start something? Who, me? Never. “Daphne, I understand that at your age, you’re having lots of feelings you don’t understand, but that’s more a question for your mom than your babysitter.” “I’m gonna ask my friend Mary tonight. She knows lots of stuff.” Not that I was derpily excited because of my accomplishment, but (squeee!!!!) I was and was looking forward to tell Mary all about it. And my mom and dad. They’d be so proud of me too (awww!). And maybe flustered cuz it’s not like they didn’t try to teach me for nearly nine years. Perhaps it was so diffuclt for me to learn because I was something of a willful child; hard to imagine, I know. “Let’s see if my awesome skater managed to keep her pull-up … Nope, but that’s okay. Did you know you’re wet, honey?” “Yeah,” I said ever so much less excited, absorbent undergarments I don’t need always having that effect on me, as Sara took my leggings off. “Why didn’t you tell me you needed a potty break?” “Are you mad?” As in angry, not crazy. Clearly she’s crazy, clearly. “Of course not, sweetheart. Did you know you needed a potty break?” “I thought I was supposed to use them.” “You’re supposed to use your diapers, honey, but when you’re in pull-ups …” “You called them diapers!” Sara’s I-done-been-called-out face. Ha! “I did, didn’t I?” She tore the sides and pulled it from between my thighs. “Yes, which makes it all your fault, but I forgive you cuz I had a fun day anyway.” “Well thank you; that’s very big of you for such a little girl. And I think maybe having your pull-ups on probably helped you learn to skate today. You woulda lost a lot of practice time if you had to make so many trips to the potty.” “It wouldn’t have been that many trips.” I may – who’s to say? – have poked my tongue out at her. “Really,” she said and hefted the pull-up in her hand before tossing it up a few inches like a softball. “Cuz it feels like at least three trips to me.” “Um, really … I’m not blushing, you are!” “Well, you’re the best skater and potty pants I know.” I let that go cuz just then I was liking her. And normally I’d be embarrassed to leave one of those in a public trashcan, but I’d be much more embarrassed to leave it in my parents’ trashcan, as we’d already done a couple times. My parents must think we have some weird hang up about taking out the trash every day (or more). “Put this on while I get your things ready,” she said and handed me a dry tee. When my head popped out, I couldn’t help but ask, “Why do I hafta wear a diaper?” Cuz o look, she got out a diaper. What a predictable and predicted surprise. “I thought we agreed you wouldn’t argue about your diapers anymore today.” “I’m not arguing, but couldn’t I wear one of the pull-ups instead?” No point negotiating for panties. Aim for the possible. “Sorry, but anytime you might fall asleep, you need to be in diapers, and you know that rule so don’t even try me. I can still redden your bottom today.” Eep! But nonetheless, “But I’m not gonna fall asleep.” “Lay down,” she said, pointing from me to the diaper she had laid open on the bench. Having made a promise and not wanting to get my bare bottom spanked in the changing room (well, at least not right then), I did. “I know all about girls your age,” she said as she wiped me down and sprinkled powder on me. “They all think they’re grown-ups, but after an active day like today with all this fresh air and practically bouncing from excitement, you’ll be asleep in the backseat in twenty minutes.” She finished taping me into the diaper (one of the bunny ones) and reached into what was starting to seem like a bottomless bag for a pair of sweatpants for me. Better than leggings considering, but not as good as jeans. “Shoot,” she said as she dug through the bag. “What?” “I forgot to bring a clean outfit for myself.” “That’s okay. You don’t stink too bad.” Me? A brat? Where do these rumors get started? “Said Little Miss Potty Pants,” she retorted and playfully smacked my butt. I let that go too. And isn’t it just like Sara to take such good care of me that she totally forgets to take care of herself? I so have a crush on my babysitter! We stopped for pizza on the way home, and when we got home, I dashed for my bedroom, leaving Sara holding the pizza and my mom chuckling, “She’s always had a tiny bladder. All the stops on trips, remember, honey,” she asked my dad, who responded with a dad noise that I think means yes. Or that’s just a thing Sara made up to make me squirm. She found me in my bedroom and wanted to debrief on the day. “Did you have fun?” “Yes, really. Thanks for taking me and making me try it.” “You’re welcome. And did anyone make fun of you for what you were wearing?” “Not that I know of,” if we’re not counting Sara. Pretty sure someone out of that crowd had to have remarked on the woman in the figure skater outfit taking lessons with little kids. “I didn’t think so. You were cute as a diaper pin today.” “Saraaa.” “Just teasing. I had a really good time with you today. A little rough start, but you were a good girl all afternoon.” O my god! My babysitter thinks I was a good girl! Squeee! “Does that mean you won’t tell Mom and Dad that you needed to …” “Spank your bare bottom?” I nodded. “No need to be embarrassed. Sometimes girls like you need their bare bottoms spanked. Needing some firm guidance is nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, some girls never grow out of needing it, and there’s nothing wrong with that.” “O good, cuz I worried about that,” I couldn’t help but joke. I giggled, and Sara tickled me on my side for just a second, and I tried hard and didn’t even squeal. Really. “How’s your diaper? Wet?” “I don’t need changed.” “That’s very good, but that’s not what I asked you.” “Pizza first. Please?” Cuz we didn’t stop for lunch, and I expended some serious calories just be anxious and I didn’t have any protein (understanding now why that’s a thing), and I needed to eat something before I got dizzy. Only reason. It’s a hazard of being smol. Really. “Look at me,” Sara said, and I think she mean look up cuz I was already looking at her. She must not have liked something cuz instead of making smart remark, she said, “You need to eat something.” “I just said that,” is a think I said. “But before we go downstairs, I want you to know I really mean it – I had a great time with you today. One of our best days ever?” “One of our best days ever.” We exchanged a very good hug, and I got a kiss on my forehead, which I always like. “Put this on,” Sara said when she got a long cardigan out for me to wear. The kind that goes past my butt. “Go on down and start without me. I need to change.” “Does that mean you’re not coming downstairs?” “Nope. I’m going straight home.” “O. “Do you think after I go home, you could come visit me sometimes?” “Ha. I’d like that very much.” “Thanks for making my day so special.” “Thank you, Daffodil. Run along and tell your Mom and Dad what a good skater you are.” She sent me on my way with a swat on my butt, which I saw coming but didn’t try to dodge because reasons. As I was descending the stairs, straining to hear if I was crinkling (pretty sure I wasn’t?), it struck me: Why the #!$@$% do I feel like I just said goodbye to Mary @#$@$% Poppins!?! Get a grip! Geez! “Daffy, there you are,” my Mary said to me when she came downstairs. “Mary!” And you better believe I koala’ed her like a tree. Why the #!$@$% do I feel like Mary just got home from a business trip!?! Doesn’t matter. I like her and stuff. “Is everything okay,” Dad asked, “Look like you haven’t seen each other all day.” “We’re fine,” Mary said as she rubbed my back while I blushed and only partly let go of Mary. “Is it … Is it a lesbian thing,” he asked quietly. “Daddyyy! You’ve been making that same joke for twenty years.” I saw it coming the moment he did that thing with his eyes where he pretends he’s looking to make sure we’re alone, and I just had to stand there and let it happen. “Because it still makes you laugh.” “Yeah, but … So?” “I don’t know how you handle her, Mary, but thank you for taking such good care of her for me.” “My very happy pleasure.” Ooo, she’s smiling at me. “Besides,” I said, “I take care of her.” “That’s true,” Mary replied. Hey, who’s squeezing my butt and where is that barely audible crinkling coming from?

Happy New Year! Sorry this took me so long. I got distract by the calendar project which was way more work than I thought it would be (and more than it was worth, which will learn me to do something like that again ... though it was fun), and then I had to write a New Year's Eve story to complete my holiday cycle. Anyhoo, next scene ... ___________________________________ Scene #147 I was expecting Sara to have laid out a pullup for me, but instead I found a sweater, leggings, fuzzy socks, and panties. Granted, they were my unicorn panties, but I could live with that. Even more shocking when I got downstairs was Mary – ahem, Sara – had two bowls, milk, and several choices of cereal on the table. “Is this breakfast,” I asked because I’m almost never allowed to eat just cereal for breakfast. Something very accurate about them just being sugar (which I so don’t care about). “Don’t you look so pretty cleaned up. Did you brush your teeth?” “Yeah.” “Do you need help making your own bowl?” “No … Is this breakfast,” I asked again. “Yeah. You were expecting bacon and eggs or something?” Did she just imply I’m an entitled brat or something? “Um, no. It’s just that I’m almost never allowed to just have cereal for breakfast.” True story. Sara’s doppelgänger is kinda serious about starting the day with protein. As in the wooden spoon will come out of the crock serious. “Well, we’re in a hurry today, so let’s just not tell your mom. Are you gonna sit down and eat with me?” “Yeah,” I said as a I took a seat and selected honey nut cheerios because they are the best ever, which come to think of it may have something to do with how much sugar is in them. Speaking of, “Sugar,” Sara asked me and slid the shaker toward me. O my god, what is even happening right now? “No, thanks. These are already sweet enough.” “Wow. I never thought I’d hear you say that.” Hey! I got that! Grr. “So where are we going today?” “It’s a surprise, but we have to leave in ten minutes. We need to make a stop along the way.” We took my mom’s car, and Sara showed just how overprotective she is. I went to get in the passenger seat, and she told me, “Nice try, but I don’t think so.” “What?” “In the back.” “I can ride in the front. I’m … tall enough.” Really. Have been since I was (sigh) fifteen. “I’m not so sure about that, sweetie.” “But I am. I can … Fine.” So I got into the back. “Do I have to wear a blindfold or something?” “What,” Sara asked from the front seat. “Cuz it’s a surprise. Aren’t I supposed to wear a blindfold?” Not that wearing a blindfold in the backseat wouldn’t have made it look to other drivers like I was being renditioned or something, or that a blindfold wouldn’t make me dizzy. “You can close your eyes if you want, unless that’ll make you carsick. Do you still get carsick?” “Why? How long of a ride is it?” Not that I get carsick, but it would be nice to know just how far from the safety of my home this Sara person was taking me. “Not long.” She opened the navigation thingy and told it to take us to the nearest grocery store. “I can give you directions.” “I bet you can, sweetie.” O my god, you are so patronizing! And Sara had allegedly lived there even longer than me. She should know the way to the grocery store … unless she’s some spoiled princess who’s never run an errand in her life. I bet that’s what it was. Ugh, so entitled. Pretty and entitled. When we got to the grocery store, I went to open my door only to find – surprise! – Sara had turned the child safety lock on. “Just hold on a second,” she said as she fiddled with her purse. “I’d like to get out now,” I said back with, yeah, a bit of a whine, because I was a little up to here with the patronizing crap (I’m pointing to my forehead now). “Just a sec … Wait, do you have to go potty?” “What? No.” “Okay, okay,” she said and got out of the car, walked all the way around, and opened my door. “It’s okay if you do need to go potty. Just tell me.” Excuse me? Tell her. Don’t think so. “I can go on my own, thank you.” I got out of the car, and the second my back was turned, she touched my butt! I mean, what the heccin hey!?! “Excuse you!” “I was just checking to make sure you didn’t have an accident. You’re not always honest when you do.” This is what happens when ‘Sara’ gets to contribute to the storyline! The backstories she writes always put me in the worst possible light. But I chose to just roll with it and try to push through to the fun part of the day, whatever that would be … if it would be. “But … That was was forever ago!” “I know two years seems like a long time to you, but when you get older, you’ll understand that’s it not so long since I’ve babysat you last.” Such a big eyeroll I think I strained something. “Whatever.” “I really don’t like that word,” she told me. “C’mon, we only need one thing.” I decided to be the bigger person and let her hold my hand through the parking lot. In fact, it was actually me who was holding her hand. Really. “What do we need here? Are we going on a picnic?” “Silly, how could we go on a picnic when it’s this cold outside?” “The arboretum,” I said with a strong, implicit duh. That’s where everyone around there goes during the winter. Duh. We walked into the supermarket, and Sara beelined us toward … Crap! Really? “We just need to pick up some Goodnites for our outing,” she told me like I was supposed to be grateful. “I’m sorry, Sara. I didn’t know you need Goodnites.” “Nice try, kiddo. They’re for you, and you know it.” “No,” I said as she reached for the package. “I don’t need those.” “Of course you do.” “But I, um, don’t wear them during the day.” I’m not starting to freak out! YOU’RE STARTING TO FREAK OUT! The store was just down the road from my house. People I know might’ve seen us. “I don’t!” “Sweetie, inside voice. What’s the rule about outings?” “You lower your voice,” I said quietly cuz while yes, I may have been a little louder than I should’ve been, but she was talking at a normal volume which is much too loud for the subject if you ask me and I did, so there. Heccin really. Sara exhaled sharply through her nose while grimacing at me. “When we go on an outing longer than an hour, you need to be in pullups. That’s the rule.” Still talking at a normal volume. My o my, the store was crowded the day after Christmas. “Not anymore. Not in, like, forever.” “Daphne, your mommy reminded me of this rule just this morning before she left.” “But I don’t want to wear pull-ups!” “And I don’t want you to have an accident in your pants because you couldn’t hold it or you’re having so much fun you forget to go to the potty. Remember what happened last time,” she added. I’m guess that was for the benefit of anyone who might overhear it; call me paranoid, but I think Sara likes embarrassing me on purpose. Like, she like likes it, if ya know what I mean. “But I don’t want them,” I tried again, this time more plaintively than whinily. “It’s pull-ups, or we have your diapers in your bag. Which do you want?” “You … You wouldn’t.” No reason to look over here, fellow shoppers, just testing boundaries. Go about your business please. And so that’s what was in the backpack she brought with us. Great. Just … great. “Daphne Ann Schmidt ….” O my friggin god! Using my full name in the middle of the store while talking about this and … O, hey lady also shopping in this aisle. How old’s your little one? Have a good Christmas? “… You are trying my patience. If the next thing that comes out of your mouth isn’t a choice, I will take you to the ladies’ for another little talk about your behavior and then we’re going home. Do you want diapers or pull-ups?” Did she just verbally underline those words? How does that even work? “Pull-ups,” I mouthed. “What was that?” “Pull-ups,” I squeaked. “Thank you. Let’s go checkout.” Lemme tell you, doing my absolute best to project a vibe that they were absolutely not for me as we checked out … didn’t work. Not that think anybody knew, but I just couldn’t pull that vibe off. And lemme tell you, when we got to the car, I did some heccin hard pouting in the backseat. I was this close to fussing (I’m hold my thumb and forefinger really close together now). There are two kinds of pouting. Kind #1 is what you do when you have unhappy feelings that just need to be physically expressed. Kind #2 is what you do when you wanna protest something and have literally no power to do anything other than just look sad and grumpy, so that’s what you do. I did both kinds in the car. I don’t know if Sara could see me in the rearview or not, but if not, she guessed I was pouting. “Cheer up, Daff,” she said all breezy like she hadn’t just told three aisles of grocery shoppers I needed pull-ups, but o hey, don’t worry cuz if I find that embarrassing, I could always just wear my diapers. That I don’t even need! And she threatened to take me to the ladies’ room for a “little talk!” I’m too old to be spanked! And I’m way too heccin old to be spanked in public! And I’m way too heccin old for her to use such a transparent euphemism around other people! Who probably didn’t hear or notice, but not the heccin point. Really! “I don’t wanna cheer up.” And okay, I know objectively that was a very childish thing to say, but if I’m gonna be treated like a little kid, then the people doing the treating are gonna hafta deal with one. I didn’t get a response, and ya know what? I peeved enough to demand that someone acknowledge me, so I said it again louder for the people in the front named Sara. “I said I don’t wanna cheer up!” And I crossed my arms, kicked the seat with my heel, and added, “Hmmph!” for emphasis. Take that! She responded with a sigh. An exasperated sigh. I – I! – did that! I do too have agency even if everyone is gonna try to decide everything for me. But also, got another response. Wow this is a lot of acknowledgement; like who even asked for any acknowledgement at all, is a thing I said in my head as she pulled over. “Why are you pulling over,” I asked because I was, ya know, kinda curious why she pulled into some random strip mall parking lot. Just curious; not nervous or worried something very public was about to happen (that has happened in a car but not in a busy parking lot … before dark). She turned the car off, and I had this little ball of regret in my tummy (and I don’t even know why. Really). I wasn’t even that bad! I think. She got out of the car, opened the back door, and sat down again next to me. “Daphne,” she said in that same voice she was using while she was changing my diaper this morning right before she spanked me. Ruh roh. “You are not being the sweet girl I know you are from the last time I sat for you. Wanna try to tell me why?” “Because I’m not a little kid anymore!” Oops. Said it like it I felt it, which is fine, but it entailed doing that raising my voice thing again. I don’t know why I kept doing that. I’ usually a very calm and collected person … or at least a quiet one … until push pretty darn far. “I won’t tell you again about raising your voice to me. That is the last time today.” She made her do-you-understand face, and luckily for me, I did. “Sorry.” “I haven’t done or asked you to do anything you don’t do every day with your mom and dad. I don’t know why you thought today would be different, and I really don’t appreciate you trying to use me to get away with not following rules you don’t like.” “But …” “No, Daphne. No. Do not fib to me again and tell me the rules are different.” “But … Sorry.” Admit defeat, regather forces for later offensive at a time and place of strategic advantage … if that opportunity ever presents itself, which it hasn’t in a very long time. “Are you gonna s-spank me again?” Make an uwu face, my brain said to me, so I did. And people say I don’t think before I act. Pshaw! Puh-shaw. “No, sweetheart, I’m not going to spank you right now, but don’t think I don’t see through your puppy dog eyes.” Dammit. “I want to have a little talk so we can just clear the air. There’s still time to have fun together, but if you’re going to tell me no all day long, we might as well go home. If you’d rather just go home, we can do that and just watch a movie or something.” “I won’t have to go to my room?” “No, not unless you make a bad choice again. Or you can have your surprise. Which will it be?” I wasn’t sure who was talking to me, Mary or Sara (they look a lot alike, okay? … And totally my type). Sara was giving me a chance to pick something more fun. Mary was giving me a chance to red light … or orange, cuz we added orange. “I …” Heccin dammit this is so hard sometimes. “I want the surprise,” I told Sara. To Mary, I was saying, I trust you. At least I was trying to, but the instinct to preserve one’s own ego is not so easy to suppress. It’s so hard sometimes. “Can you tell me why?” “Cuz I trust you and I wanna have fun like we used to. I’ll be good.” “C’mere.” So weird thing, I could recognize Sara’s hugs in the dark. Felt very familiar. Weird, right? “I won’t let anything happen to you.” “I know. Thanks.” “I know it must be very hard being a big girl in diapers.” “Um, yeah, but do we have to keep talking about that?” “I think you’ll feel a lot better if you do. What were you feeling in the store when you got upset?” “That, uh, I don’t wanna wear pullups during the day. I don’t want anyone to see.” “That’s understandable, but I don’t think anyone ever sees, do they?” “I don’t know. It’s not like anybody ever comes up to me and says they didn’t see anything.” Powerful logic, that. Really. No, really. “That tells me that either no one sees or that if they do, they don’t make fun of you.” “But even if they don’t make fun, they won’t think I’m cool anymore. I’m not one of the popular girls. I’m not, like, a loser either, but I will be if people find out and you said everything so loud.” “I didn’t talk any louder than I normally do, but I understand why you’d be worried. If some you knew did overhear, they might call you names like ‘diaper girl’ and ‘diaper butt’ and ‘pamper packer.’” Gee, there’s only one person I know of whose ever call me those, and I told Sara the same thing I told that person. “I don’t! I never and I won’t ever.” “Shh, honey. I’m just saying what they might call you, and they probably would think you fill your diapers cuz diapers are for that too, aren’t they?” “Technically.” Hmmph! “Yes, they are. But ya know what else they might do if they found out you still wear diapers?” “They’re pull-ups. At least call them what they are.” “Sorry. Sometimes I mix them up because pull-ups are just diapers that get pulled up instead of taped on. But you know what they might call you?” “What?” “’Daphne,’ ‘friend,’ ‘person I think it pretty cool.’ Because people are much kinder than it seems sometimes, and I think most people would be very understanding of your little problem.” “Really?” Also I don’t have a problem, but the quicker I rolled with it, the sooner it would be over … I hoped. And I did say I’m trust her. “Really. But let’s do this today, okay? You don’t give me anymore trouble about your diapers, and I’ll make sure no one finds out or says anything mean to you if they do. And we’ll have one of the best days we’ve ever had together. Will you do that for me?” Heccin unfair with her sincere attempt to get me to go with the flow cuz she wants to have fun with me and wants me to have fun with her and the unfairness of it all and the rampant sincerity and gentle kindness and the evident caring and stuff. Darn it! “Yes.” “Promise?” “I promise, but you hafta promise too.” “I promise.” She sealed her promise with a hug that I returned. To be continued ...

Hi there. Sorry some of our members got a little too excited. Hope they didn't scare you away. First thing to understand: this isn't about children. It's an activity for consenting adults. Don't worry he's interested in minors. On what you actually asked? Unless you son is asking for your help or involvement, or showing signs he needs help (and simply being ABDL is not a sign), you really don't need to learn anything about ABDL at all. Your son is an adult, and this is a pretty private matter. If he were into a fetish that was more common, I doubt you'd be keen to learn more or interfere. ABDL is just about the safest thing he could be into. While his friends are out doing reckless young man things, your son will be content to stay home, watch cartoons, and draw pictures. It's actually kind of awesome that the big box of crayons can make an adult super happy. Big picture: you don't need to be anymore involved in this aspect of his life than with his dating life. When he's out on his own, this should really be a non-issue. There won't be a reason for you ever to discuss it again unless he wants to. Most ABDLs never discuss this with family ever. About interfering, I don't think you should interfere at all. What objective would you be trying to achieve by interfering? He will never not be ABDL. It may wax and wane, but fetishes don't go away. If anything, he'll probably just develop more over time. As for his academics, there's no reason this should interfere with those anymore than other interests, and actually reasons why it would be harder for it to become an issue (he can wear his little clothes while still doing his homework, right?). The greater risk is it will interfere with his social and dating life, and only he can learn to balance his ABDL time with still seeing friends and doing all the normal things people his age do. As for dating, it's complicated for ABDLs, but you can't solve that for him. What I DO think you should do is two things. First and most importantly, make sure he knows you love him. Second, agree on boundaries: what you will and won't do, and what he will and won't do. A good starting point is this is an adult matter, he's an adult; he should not seek your involvement, and you should not involve yourself. Some example guidelines/boundaries for you: You don't care what kind of underpants he wears. What's under his pants is his business only. If you're still giving him an allowance or spending money, you don't care what he spends it on. If it happens in his room, you don't care about it. If you spot a diaper peaking above his pants, see a bulge through his pants, or hear a crinkle, don't comment on it unless it's to save him the embarrassment of someone else seeing. From your end, it's really more about you deciding to as a parent to disengage on this subject. Some example guidelines/boundaries for him: If you don't want him wearing obviously babyish clothes openly in the house, then he shouldn't. (But if it's something more ambiguous, like overalls, don't sweat it). If he's using the main trash can to dispose of diapers, he should be bagging them in old grocery sacks or ziplocs and taking the trash out often. If his room smells, he should needs to fix it. If he smells ... he just shouldn't smell, but if he does, a gentle word is the kind thing to do. If he leaks on something, he needs to clean it, including his laundry. He shouldn't be asking you for money for ABDL things. He shouldn't ever flaunt his fetish, should do his best to make sure no one else ever finds out accidentally, and to keep any supplies in his room (so a guest is never asking who the bag of adult diapers are for). If anyone does find out, by accident or otherwise, unless that person is your child, that's his problem to deal with alone. Cousin finds out? You won't be talking to the cousin or their parents. He's an adult; he needs to deal with it. Never berate him for his feelings. My other advice: Don't let this change who you think he is. Chances are he's had this feelings most of his life and has probably acted on them in some way. He's not different; this has always been who he is; whoever you thought he was before he came out is who he still is. Personally, it's been a part of me since I was 2 years old, literally my oldest memory. I've always been ABDL, so who I am has always incorporated that part of me. He's probably the same way. If he wants to meet other ABDLs in person, he should take the same precautions he would if meeting any other stranger in person. If someone comes out of nowhere offering to be his caregiver, it's almost certainly someone trying to scam him out of money. He should shield his identity. Shouldn't be using his real name, and my advice is he shouldn't share his face online either. And it's also very easy to accidentally post something from his main social media accounts when he meant it for his ABDL accounts. He should know to be careful. Financial responsibility is important. He shouldn't be spending money he doesn't have on ABDL things. If any of you are struggling with this, Dr. Rhoda Lipscomb is one of the only psychologists specializing in ABDL. If you want to show you're supportive, buy him a PUL mattress cover and a diaper pail (I recommend Dekor). If he's living at home, those are as much for you as him. Prevents his room from smelling like a nursery. I don't think parents should be buying diapers for their ABDL children, but it's also a dream come true to get a pack for Christmas or a birthday.

This is a sequel to A Thanksgiving Special, available wherever the best diaper stories are found (like here) and to A Christmas Special (here). Read those first or dive on in! _______________________ Basic party etiquette is if there’s a line for the guest bathroom, you wait. You do NOT go upstairs to use the host’s bathroom. But what if you can’t wait? These are your thoughts as you stand in the upstairs bathroom, unsure of what to do and with your partner not answering your texts. She probably can’t hear her phone above the music and your friends and acquaintances ringing in the New Year, still four hours away. You jump when there’s a knock on the door. “Um, occupied,” you say back. “I know,” says the host, a slight edge in her voice reminding you that you’ve invaded her private space. “Is everything okay,” she asks because you’ve been in there a while. The upstairs bathroom is right at the top of the stairs. She must’ve seen you go in, and there’s a chance others are noticing this exchange. “Y-yes … Could you …” You hesitate, embarrassed already and reluctant to add to your embarrassment by being a grown adult asking for someone to go get your partner because you need help in the bathroom. But you don’t have a choice and ask. The emotional stress is becoming physical as you hear your host’s high heels tapping against the hardwood as she descends the stairs. It’s a long five-minute wait, or maybe not even one minute, until you hear two sets of heels returning before a knock on the door. Your partner’s voice has never sounded so good to you. “Are you okay,” she asks. She doesn’t need to ask who’s inside; no one else at the party would need her help in the bathroom. “Yes,” you answer with your voice quivering. You’re not the crying type, or at least you weren’t until recently; you’ve been trying so hard to convince yourself your newfound tendency to get teary is coinciding with your return to diapers on only by coincidence. Outside the bathroom, your partner is asking your host to go and get her bag from the guest room. You hear her saying she should be able to pick it out among all the others because it will be the biggest, and she asks as casually as she can, but with sharpness communicating it’s a minor emergency, if the two of you can use the master bathroom. You hear heels retreating again, and your partner whispers through the door, “Unlock the door, sweetie.” You do and she opens it just enough to peek her head around the corner. “C’mon, let’s go.” “I can’t,” you say with a mix of plaintiveness and frustration. “We’re just going down the hall to Jen’s bedroom. Quick.” She reaches out her hand for yours, and you let her lead you down the hall. It’s unfortunate the upstairs bath is at the top of the stairs leading up from the kitchen, where people tend to gather as they often do at parties. You do your best not to notice whether anyone below is watching as your partner leads across the landing before the two of you disappear from the party’s sight. “I’m sorry,” you say to your partner. “Hold on,” she says, “Almost there.” When the door closes behind you, you can’t hold it in anymore and start to cry hard while apologizing over and over. “I’m sorry,” you tell her, and you need her to know you’re sorry. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” “Shhh,” she says while pressing your face to her shoulder, giving you a warm, dark place to let your tears free. “You don’t need to be sorry.” “I’m sorry.” “Shhh,” she says and rubs small circles on your back, “don’t be sorry. Never be sorry for this. It’s not your fault.” You feel her hand surreptitiously slide down past your waist to pat your bottom. “It’s not your fault.” That’s how Jen finds the two of you, your partnering trying to calm you down while you sob into her shirt and tell her, “I tried. I really tried!” “Shhh. I know you did. It’s okay. There, there.” She notices Jen, who quickly closes the door behind her, and continues patting your back. “This is why we talked about it being okay to stop trying. It just makes you so upset, honey.” “Is everything okay,” Jen mouths to your partner. You feel her nod in response, and ow cognizant you’re not alone together, you pick your head up and do your best to dry up your tears, sniffling hard and wiping at your eyes with your palms. “I’m sorry,” your partner says to Jen. “Thanks so much. We’ll be as quick as we can.” Rather than handing her the bag, she approaches and asks, “Need a hand?” You can’t believe your ears, which turn an impossibly deep shade of red as your partner declines, explaining, “Thanks, but you don’t want to do that. It’s a big change, if you know what I mean.” “I don’t mind.” You don’t even want to be there, making it unfathomable to you why Jen would even offer, let alone why she didn’t take the out your partner had politely offered her. Indeed, having implied what kind of accident you had, your partner was more polite to Jen than to your feelings. Not that it upsets you very much, aware as you are of the scent beginning to make itself known, taking away any chance to hide the nature of what you did in your diaper. No use getting upset over a moot point. “We’ll just be in each other’s way in the bathroom.” “It’s a big bathroom.” “But really?” your partner asks. “How long have the three of us been friends? Let me help. Call it being a good host,” she chuckles. “An exceptionally good host,” she adds. Your partner takes a deep breath she lets out in a sigh, and while you stand there anxiously unable to stop it, she accepts. You want to protest, to say no, to say this is private, to thank Jen and show her out of her own bedroom. But you know you don’t get a say. If you’d had a say on Thanksgiving, you’d still be wearing underpants … and you’d be facing a much larger and more embarrassing problem. Everything having to do with your diapers since Thanksgiving has only reinforced that you don’t get a say when it comes to your diapers. The point was driven home the day before when your partner sat you down to tell you she’d informed your friends of your problem and how you were handling it, again explaining it was better this way, not having to hide it or risk being discovered and sure that your friends would all embrace you and be understanding, would probably never even mention it. She’d been right about that with her family and with yours, but the frustration with your condition and the sense of powerless over it now had been building for longer than just the past month, and it came out then as you raised your voice and told her she had no right to do that. She spoke firmly without raising her voice in turn. “I have every right because you wouldn’t be handling it at all if I didn’t take charge,” she said pointedly, all the more embarrassing because you knew it was true. “And you do not raise your voice.” Like she didn’t ask when she put you in diapers or when she told her family, your family, and all your friends, she didn’t ask when she put you in a timeout to calm down. She was already calm; it was you who needed a moment to collect yourself and make peace with what was about to happen. After your spanking and the jig you danced coming off her lap with a red, stinging bottom, she let you cry on her shoulder as she alternated between rubbing and patting your butt. You received a loving lecture about raising your voice and how you must accept that you do need help and will receive it whether you want it or not. “You’re leaking right now,” she said, and you looked down at yourself to see she was right – you were dribbling on her jeans. “I’m not trying to embarrass you. I’m trying to take the embarrassment away. You need help, and I’m going to give it you. Understand?” You do, which is why you don’t fuss when your partner takes your hand again and leads you into the bathroom with Jen in toe. “I’m sorry we need your bathroom for this. Just seems much better than using the hall one where others could see me disappearing behind the door and two of us coming out,” your partner explains. It’s comforting to know she really is concerned with your feelings and wants to spare you embarrassment, or at least all the embarrassment she can, and you remember the New Year’s Resolution the two of you had talked about that morning during your after-breakfast change, that you will try your hardest to trust her to help you with your problem. “I get it,” Jen says with a wink, though who it’s directed to isn’t clear. It’s somehow less embarrassing for you to stay silent and let everything happen to you, so you do while the two of them chat like nothing is out of the ordinary as you walk into her bathroom. “Could you get everything out while I get them undressed? Lift your foot for me.” You do and she takes off your shoe, followed by the other, narrating as she goes. “Learned the hard way it’s best just take pants all the way off for big changes, didn’t we hun?” “True no matter their age,” Jen says as she unfolds the very large changing mat your partner found on Etsy. Too big good for a shopping trip, but ideal for making sure makeshift changings rooms are left as clean as you find them on longer outings when you don’t have to to carry the diaper bag everywhere. You step out of your pants and cringe a little while your partner examines the inside to be sure they’re clean. “Turn around for me, honey.” You do, and she puts her hand on your bottom, patting it once and seeming to lift it for a moment before letting droop again, sizing up the task ahead of her. “Open your legs a little, sweetie,” Jen says from down on the floor. You do, preferring to think on the you’ve become ‘sweetie,’ ‘honey,’ and ‘sweetheart’ to so many in the past five weeks, in addition to ‘sport,’ ‘tiger,’ and ‘kiddo,’ rather than the sight you’re presenting or whom you’re presenting it to. “The onesie got a little,” Jen says, pointing to where your onesie disappears between your thighs. “Are you feeling okay,” your partner asks you. “Something not agree with your tummy?” You shake your head. Your tummy felt fine now. And you didn’t feel sick before. Just an urgent need followed by a minor pain as you tried the knob on the guest bathroom only to find it occupied. You’re not supposed to take your diaper off yourself, but you imagined your partner somehow wouldn’t mind under the circumstances and quick stepped toward the stairs, hoping no one noticed. You must’ve been discreet because your partner keeps such an attentive eye on you, but she didn’t see you duck around Jeremy as you sped through the kitchen and up the stairs. Only Jen noticed where you’d disappeared to, and you were grateful she had, if only because your partner didn’t respond to your text after you’d closed the door and finished what had begun happening in your pants as you awkwardly climbed the steps. “Ready,” Jen says. “Wait – are you sure you’re done?” A humiliating question, but you and your partner had learned that lesson the second week of you being back in diapers. “Trust me,” your partner gently scoffs as she reaches around to pat your bottom again, “definitely done. There’s a wet bag in there.” Jen turns back to the diaper bag while your partner takes her heels off and sets them aside next to Jen’s. She unbuttons your shirt, and Jen takes it from her to hang on the back of the door after making sure your shirttail was spared. You can’t help but note the disparity between two women dressed in their best and you naked except for your socks and a well-used diaper. Your partner kneels down to unsnap your onesie. “And gloves,” she adds as she stops herself, remembering your diaper wasn’t quit enough this time. “O! Here,” Jen says and hands her a pair. Mind if I …” “Help yourself, and actually, in the little pocket on the outside are some hair ties.” Jen gets out a second pair of gloves for herself, but only one hair ties that she hands to your partner. Jen’s happy to help, but she’s not going to put herself in a position, literally, in which she’d need to tie her hair back. Your partner takes the rubber band and puts her hair into a ponytail, and you feel a pang of regret, though not for what you’d done; you are already getting over that, because your partner is right and you can’t help it. No, your regret is for how hard your partner worked on her hair for the party. “Sorry,” you say. “I told you, sweetie, nothing to be sorry for.” “For your hair. You did such a nice job on it. Sorry about … It looked really good … You still look great tonight.” She smiles as though remembering in that instant why she loves you, which is why helping you with a loaded diaper isn’t a yucky chore but something she doesn’t mind and even does lovingly. She kisses you, and you awkwardly stand there as she kneels down again. “Turn for me,” she says and holds out a hand toward Jen for a wipe. You do, looking straight ahead as the less of awkward option than looking down at Jen. Your partner uses the wipe to get the hem of your onesie as clean as she can before turning you back around. She unsnaps it and wipes it a little more before saying, “Arms up.” She carefully rolls your onesie up as she stands, covering the dirty part with the clean part to be sure nothing else gets dirty as she takes it off you. Jen holds out her hand to take the onesie to put in the wet bag. After a moment’s assessment of the state of your diaper, your partner says, “Better if we take your plastic panties off with you laying down.” She kneels down again, and you carefully ease yourself onto the changing mat. “Careful,” Jen says anyway, though not sharply. A reminder, not a scolding. “We’ve come this far without a blowout. Don’t wanna fumble on the 1-yard line,” she chuckles. It’s a funny analogy, and you chuckle too despite everything. “Okay,” your partner says as she scoots closer to you. “Sorry you’re gonna see this, Jen.” “Hush. It’s not my first messy diaper change.” Your partner unsnaps your plastic panties, and you lift your hips to let her slide them out. “Just hold the bag open,” she says to Jen and drops them into the bag. Next comes the worst part, and you put your arms across your face as the tapes are torn and that feeling of humiliation returns. Jen leans down and places a kiss on your forehead. “It’s okay,” she promises you. If your eyes were open, you would see that neither of them changes their expression when your partner opens your diaper. It doesn’t bother them in the slightest, something that surprised your partner the very first few times she helped you clean up a messy accident, and she chalked up her unexpected fortitude to her feelings for you. Among those feelings was never pity, just an understanding sympathy. She’s never put it quite in these words, but to her, you are not a person to be pitied but to be loved, admired for your inner strength and perseverance and bravery because you don’t let your problem control your life, and to be cherished because you make her happier than anyone else ever has, the way she does for you. You hear her hum a tune she sometimes hums and that sounds much like one your mother sang you to sleep with many years ago. And you feel her wipe, and you respond to her hands as she gestures with a tap to open your legs to clean inside your thighs. “Okay,” she says, “Up we go.” You raise your ankles, and she helps you hold them up in her left hand while she cleans with her right. “I got that,” Jen says and takes hold of your ankles. “Thanks.” Bored, Jen keeps holding your ankles with one hand and gets a clean diaper out of the bag with the other. “These are so stinkin’ adorable. I can’t believe they make pampers for adults.” “They don’t. It just looks like an actual pampers. Isn’t it cute?” “I love this little lion. Where did you find these?” “Japan. Had to bend over backwards and ask a coworker there for a huge favor to get them, but I wanted these. We’re doing our best to be lighthearted about this, aren’t we,” she asks you rhetorically. “And you really are so sweet and adorable in them.” You blush from the compliment and know that it’s objectively true. ‘Cute,’ ‘sweet,’ and ‘adorable,’ more words almost never used to describe you until your partner put you back into diapers, and you don’t hate it even if you’ll never admit it. After another minute, your partner sighs, and Jen asks, “Everything okay?” “Yeah … just … this is just gonna take a while.” “Needs a bath?” “Can we,” your partner asks with apologetic eagerness. “I really wouldn’t ask, but …” “No no no, not a problem. Totally okay.” “Thanks. Just let me get a little more. A little higher.” Jen tilts your legs back a little further, raising your lower back off the changing pad, and your partner slides the dirty diaper out from under you, using a few more wipes to clean you up before moving the diaper out of the way. “Okay, down.” You lower your legs while your partner rolls the small pile of dirty wipes inside the diaper, sealing it tightly with its own tapes. She moves to put it into the wet bag, and Jen stops her. “I’ll take that to the trash.” “Really?” “Unless you need my help with the bath.” “No, but we can take it home.” “Don’t be silly. I’ll take it straight to the outside trash.” “Thanks. What do you say?” “Thank you,” you say, and you mean it. You didn’t need to be reminded to say it, but you don’t mind. “Really, thank you.” “Big time,” your partner adds. “You’re a great friend.” “Anytime. See you two back downstairs in a bit.” “Thanks,” you say. “but I don’t really wanna go back downstairs.” “You can come back down,” your partner says. “No one will tease you or even look at you funny. I promise. You don’t have to, but you can.” “And if anyone does give you a funny look, I’ll shove them right out the door,” Jen adds. She really is a good friend. “But that won’t happen. Everyone understands. None of our friends are those kind of people.” And she’s right, or none of you would be friends with them. Still, since your partner told everyone about your problem and the solution, they must have surmised by now why the three of you have disappeared for so long, and you’re embarrassed about it whether anyone says anything to you or not. You’d rather just go home. “I know, and thank you, really, but I think I’ll just get a Lyft.” “Wanna go home,” your partner asks. Jen is still kneeling above you. “Yeah,” you tell her. “Sorry.” “It’s okay. And you don’t need to call a Lyft. We’ll go together.” “I don’t want you to miss the party. It’s only nine o’clock.” “That’s okay. I don’t mind. I’m not gonna let you ring in the New Year alone,” your partner says. “You can stay up here if you want. I don’t mind.” “We can’t impose any more than we have,” your partner says with an apologetic scoff. “O, stop it.” “Well,” your partner asks you, “you wanna stay up here? You can come back down later if you feel up to it, or just hang out up here.” “Yeah, okay,” you agree. That’s a good compromise. You rather would just go home, but you don’t want her to miss the party, nor do you want her to start the New Year alone any more than you do yourself. “Thank you.” “You’ve said that enough. Let’s just assume it,” Jen says sunnily. “Need a change of pants,” she asks, addressing the question to your partner. “We never go anywhere without a spare,” your partner tells her. If your onesie was a little dirty, your pants must be too even if it wasn’t so easy to see. “And some jammies just in case.” Just in case of what, Jen wonders but doesn’t ask. No matter. No answer will make her think differently of you. “I’ll leave the remote on the bed. You can rent anything you want. I’ll bring you a snack and something to drink.” “You don’t have to do that,” your partner responds. “I’m the host,” Jen says and stands up, smoothing out her dress and reaching over to turn the tap on. “Here,” she adds and holds out a hand. Your partner hands her the dirty diaper you made, and Jen is surprised by its weight but doesn’t say anything. You try to put the thought of her carrying that thing through the kitchen where anyone, and probably more than a few someones, can see it out of your head. “See you in a bit,” your partner says. Jen leaves, and your partner helps you sit up and step into tub. She turns off the tap with just a few inches of warm water in the tub. “Lean against the back like at home,” she says even though you know the routine, a seemingly once-a-week affair since going back to diapers as once a week, give or take, you’ve needed a change wipes alone were not enough for. She stands, takes off her gloves and puts them in a ziploc bag. You watch as she takes off her little black dress and hangs it next to your shirt on the back of the door before rolling down her stockings and doing the same with them. In just her satin bra and panty set, she turns her attention back to you. When you’re clean and the water has been changed twice, she fills the tub almost to the top and tells you to lean back and relax while she runs a bar of soap from your neck to the soles of your feet once more. She chuckles. “What,” you ask. “You’re going into your jammies after we get a clean diaper on you. No way are you coming back downstairs, are you?” You frown and look down. “It’s okay. I’m not mad or anything. I just know when you look sleepy.” “Sorry I spoiled the evening.” She stops washing you and takes her chin in her hand to turn your face to hers. “Hey, you did not spoil the evening because the evening isn’t spoiled. We’re together, aren’t we?” “Yeah.” “Then I’m having a great time. Believe me?” You do, and you nod hurriedly as your eyes fill with tears again. “I’m sorry,” you manage to say as you let out a sob. “Don’t. Be. Sorry,” she says with her gentle firmness. “Not for crying. Not for your accidents. Not for needing diapers. Not for needing my help. Not because of the party. Don’t be sorry for any of it.” “Okay,” you say as the swell of emotion rises in your throat that do your best to choke back down as you try to let her words and kindness soothe you. She kisses you on your temple, wets a clean washcloth, and dabs at the few tears that escaped your eyes. “I love you,” she says and means it in every way. “I love you so much too.” “I know.” She reaches over and opens the drain. When you’re diapered and in your jammies, she sends you into the bedroom while she gets everything packed away and puts her dress and shoes back on. “Where are your stockings,” you ask when she joins you. “In the bag with your shirt and shoes. Maybe someone will notice and think you seduced me and that we’ve been up her getting’ busy this whole time.” You have a good laugh with her. “Are you okay with me going back downstairs?” “Yeah, really.” “Need anything,” she asks, nodding toward the plate of hors d’oeuvre and desserts Jen left on her nightstand for you next to a glass of water and your favorite cocktail. “No, thank you.” “Blanket,” she asks and starts to unfold the throw Jen keeps at the foot of her bed. “I can do it myself.” She smiles, chagrinned. “I know.” She turns back to you and kisses you on the forehead again. “I’ll be up to check on you.” “You don’t need to.” She makes a tight smile, an expression she often wears when you tell her something isn’t necessary right before she repeats herself in a gentle yes-but-we’re-doing-it-anyway tone. “I’ll be up to check on you. Text me if you need anything.” “‘Kay.” “And I’ll be back before the ball drops. You owe me a New Year’s kiss.” “Wake me up if I’m asleep. I don’t wanna miss it.” “Deal.” She kisses you on your forehead again. You’re asleep every time she, once with Jen, comes up to check on you. True to her word like she always is, she wakes you to share the perfect New Year’s kiss. Happy New Year and don’t forget to check out my 2022 bedwetting calendar for ABDLs, recreational bedwetters, and their caregviers for sale now on Lulu.com!

Hi everybody! The next chapter is a little slow in coming cuz I got delayed with this! Remember in Scene #139 when Mary got Daphne a calendar to keep track of her “bedwetting”? I actually made one and it’s on sale now for 2022!

Hi All! I had a fun idea and made it a reality: a bedwetting calendar for ABDLs! This is an actual, physical wall calendar to hang above your bed, in your diaper closet ... or on your fridge ? It's on sale now at Lulu.com! Get yours for the New Year! https://www.lulu.com/en/us/shop/lexy-bridges/the-no-more-more-bedwetting-calendar-for-allegedly-adult-bedwetters/paperback/product-y6e9rr.html?page=1&pageSize=4 The front cover and January are below. It's a physical product and color printing is unfortunately pricey. But you do get 12 months of enjoyment out of it ?. $19.99 in the US.

You’re very welcome! Happy almost new year!

You're very welcome!

Scene #146 Every year, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday until it’s over, and then Christmas takes the top spot. Since we usually don’t travel for Christmas, our tradition is Christmas Eve at Mary’s brother’s house, Christmas morning just the two of us (and church, unless we went on Christmas Eve), and Christmas dinner at her parents’ house. How to recreate some of our Christmas morning tradition since we did travel this year? For starters, we left most of our presents for each other at home. We’ll open them on New Year’s Day. Second, we woke up early on Christmas morning. My dad, sweetheart though he is, has never been a morning person, and he decreed some twenty-odd years ago that there will be no present opening before nine. Interminable as a kid, though at least he waited until we were a little older before implementing that rule. And apparently, he still lives by that rule. To get some alone time, we stupidly decided to get up at an hour that, when factoring in the time change, was neither definitively night nor morning. “Merry Christmas,” my wife said to me ever so sweetly while stroking my cheek. That was a lovely way to wake up, very considerate when one accounts for the size of the bed and that all she’d have to do to wake me is sit up (and by doing so knock my butt to the floor). “Snoofering early sleep gurnymartin and stuff,” is how I greeted the love of my life on Christmas morning, according to said love. I’ll take her word for it cuz I don’t remember. “I usually have to work make you spout gibberish. Daffodil,” she sang my name to me. “Daffodil. Wake up, sleepy head.” Which is a weird expression – if a person is sleepy, they should get more sleep, not be told to wake up. How cruel this world is even on Christmas. “What time is it,” I managed to ask. “Very early on Christmas morning.” “Dad was right about the rule.” All those years I doubted him. The wisdom of our elders, I guess … or something. “Roll over for me.” “We should buy them a queen-sized bed as a housewarming present when they move,” I grumped as I tried to do a barrel roll. Ooo, Mary’s Christmas morning smile. “Hi.” “Hi back. You look pretty as a picture this morning.” “That’s a lie. Here in Wisconsin, we call those lies.” I mean, I could feel my hair sticking up. Maybe should’ve washed the product out of it before I got in bed, but it was late. Late to bed plus super early to rise equals all the ingredients to put me on track for one of those moods my Mary insists needs adjusting. And no, Christmas is not a cheat day with zero consequences. If anything, the smart mouth I married told me once, with the threat of Santa’s closing out the year on naughty list being an entire twelve months away, she needs to be even more strict to keep me on the straight and narrow (though true story: she has never kept me straight). “You know what I think we should do,” she asked me cuz she values my opinion. “Go back to sleep and forget about our valiant but misguided attempt to have predawn alone time?” “I think we should take a shower.” And see, the thing about that sentence is it has a plural subject and a singular object: we … a shower. “That’s the smartest thing you’ve said since calling me pretty thirty seconds ago.” “I’m going to have a talk with your mom to find out if not enough sleep has always made you so sarcastic or if it started with puberty.” “The average kid doesn’t understand sarcasm until age thirteen, but I think I started in kindergarten.” I got out of bed first and discovered, “O crap it’s freezing!” Dad was so proud of his smart thermostat, he showed it to us … for ten forever minutes. And turns out it’s smart enough to know that no one in the house is out from under their covers at that unholy hour. I dashed for my robe hanging on the back of the door, and when I turned around to toss Mary hers, there she was: sitting up in bed, leaning on one hand, her tank top askew, her hair a mess. Oof, so damn pretty. “Hey, Mary,” I asked all suddenly awake and coquettish, “let’s use the shower downstairs.” “Why all the way down there,” she asked as she put her robe on and hugged herself for warmth, a job I would soon be doing for her. “I was thinking as last minute Christmas gifts for each other, I’d do that thing you like, and you could make that sound I like.” Mary looked around like she was searching for something. “Did I miss something that made you go from sleepy grump to thirsty temptress?” “You’re giving off all this Christmas hot girl energy I couldn’t see when you were under the covers.” Not blushing. Just hot all of a sudden. Hey, how’d this robe get on me? “Aren’t you so sweet when you want sex,” she said like I’m adorable and stuff, which I am but also sexy and cunning and humble and witty and benevolent. Kinda packing a lot of superlatives into a small frame. Really. “I try my best for you.” And a little while later when we were clean and well groomed, Mom found us on the couch, steaming mugs of cocoa on the coffee table, the two of us more than ready to open presents … as soon as we woke up again. Then there was present opening, breakfast, I snuck in a nap while my maidservant Mary (please don’t ever tell her I called her that) helped Mom in the kitchen because they both agreed I looked like I needed it (I need to do a better job not leaving the two of them alone together because reasons), dinner, general merriment, and bed around eleven. I coulda stayed up longer, but Mary who didn’t take a nap and is not the boss of me whispered in my ear how much trouble I’d be in if I (A) woke her up coming to bed or (2) was grumpy in the morning. But if Christmas Day didn’t provide a whole lot to relate, lemme tell you how the day after went. (Insert harp music here) “Wake up,” I was told by an awake person. “Time to get out of bed before you sleep the whole day away.” And at least it was a reasonable hour. Didn’t even feel behind with the time change. Which didn’t stop me from answering that directive with, “Whuh?” The covers were whisked off me by this person who was a dead ringer for my Mary, and she was very business-like and wearing a University of Wisconsin sweatshirt that I know for a fact Mary doesn’t own because she didn’t go to the University of Wisconsin and neither did I. “Rise and shine! Your parents asked me to look after you for the day, and they’re not going to be happy if I let you sleep the day away.” “Huh,” I said as I sat up. I had yet to recover my wit and mental agility. You might even say I was friggin disoriented waking up in a post-Christmas fog in aplace that was not my bedroom and with this person who was sorta familiar but also not. “Daphne,” the doppelgänger said as she snapped her fingers. “It’s time to get out of bed. We have big day and lots to do before your parents get home. If you’re good for me today, I’ll get you a treat, but we hafta get moving.” “Okay but what’s happening again?” “Wow. Your mom wasn’t kidding when she said you need a little extra help for a girl your age.” O my god, my babysitter is such a bitch … and what the hell, Mom! “I do not,” I retorted as this stranger in my bedroom sat down next to me. “Daphne, it’s been a few years but have to remember. Sara Hansen from next door?” Okay, so I might have once upon a time told Mary – wherever she went – that growing up, Sara Hansen from next door sometimes watched me while my parents were out. It was during those preteen to early teen years when I was technically old enough to be home alone but maybe not for a whole day and definitely not if they went on a trip and didn’t take us (which was very offensive in itself because I’m a blast to travel with and take up very little room compared to the average traveler). I would say I don’t need a babysitter, and Mom would say she’s not a babysitter, just a friend coming over to keep an eye on things. Except that’s called a housesitter when no one is in the house, a petsitter when there’s a pet to look after, and a babysitter when there’s a kid to look after. So Sara Hansen was my babysitter, and I may have told Mary she was my first crush. Mom never failed to say something embarrassing to her with me right there in the room. Of course, given my age at the time, she could have said ‘have a good time’ and I would’ve found that absolutely mortifying … anyhoo. “And where did my parents go,” I inquired, trying to catch up on the latest events. “Aww, don’t be sad, sweetie. Your mommy and daddy will be home before bedtime. They just needed a day to themselves.” “Sara was never condescending.” Just, ya know, pointing that out. “Honey, please don’t refer me to in the third person. It’s very rude.” Gulp. This Sara was apparently a stickler for decorum and none to shy about calling me out. “So Mom and Dad are gone for the day, and you’re my babysitter?” “Of course not! I’m just a friend home from college for winter break here to hang out with you today. Babysitters are for babies, and you’re not a baby, are you?” O gee, ya think this might be a trap? “Um, no?” I think it was a trap. “Of course not! Being a bedwetter doesn’t make you a baby.” “But I’m …” DAMMIT! How friggin long has she been planning this!?! Scheming, conniving, very nice person I married. “It’s okay. It’s been a while since I last sat for you – ope! Hung out with you, and I thought you’d be dry by now like the other kids I ‘hang out’ with, but it’s not a big deal. Let’s see how you did last night. Do you have some dry nights, or are you always wet come morning?” Okay, so first off, ‘ope’ is our word. Mary didn’t grow up in the Midwest, so she can’t use it unless she’s being ironic. That’s just a basic etiquette thing. Second, “No thanks, I can take care of it myself. I’ll be down in just a minute.” And if you’re wondering why I didn’t reject the premise, it was because my wife at the time, Mary, made me come to bed with her so she could make me wear one of those stupid diapers (and also the aforementioned reasons but also those STUPID diapers)! I know a put-up job when I see one! I know when I’m being hustled … upon reflection several hours after the fact. And yes, it was wet, and yes, she knew it was wet because she yanked the covers down and my pajamas don’t hide much (and she picked them out! Dammit!). So I couldn’t even claim to be dry. “Sorry, kiddo, just doing my job.” “But … but …” Where are the excuses when you need them!?! “But Mom doesn’t do that anymore. I’m big enough – Old enough! – to take care of it myself.” “O, well, your mommy didn’t tell me that. The last time I ‘hung out’ with you …” “Stop saying it like that!” “Excuse me, little girl, I don’t know all the rules that may have changed since the last time I babysat you, but I’m positive the rules still include not raising your voice at me. That’s strike one.” O my god. She is being such a … “But I barely did!” Which also, if you’re inclined to see it that way (also known as objectively), which she clearly was, I may have said a little too loudly in a manner once would characterize as raising my voice and, purely by coincidence, it was at her. Oops. “Okay, that’s strike two.” Sara gave me this pointed look that reminded me very much of this look my wife gives me when she’s trying to warn me about my behavior with just her eyes. “Can I finish what I was saying now?” “Yes.” “Good girl.” O my god, my hot babysitter crush who’s also kinda a hardass and a bit of a B thinks I’m a good girl! Squeee! “As I was saying, I don’t know what rules might have changed since I babysat for you last, and I’d be much happier if we just did things like we did back then so your mom doesn’t get mad at me. Will you be my big helper and just go with the flow today?” “Yes,” I said. Yes, I’ll do my best, you patronizing … I didn’t say. Good for me for not saying it. My Wisconsin Catholic upbringing must’ve been faulty because, in addition to be super gay, I didn’t even feel a little guilty for the sin of thinking of all the words I wanted to call her right then. “Thank you. Why don’t you just lay back and we can get your bedtime diaper off you.” “No.” Who said that? Me. I said no. I refused. I chose not to follow the babysitter’s directions. I chose not to do what I was told. Cuz ya know why? If Mary wanted to role play, and I’m assuming she did cuz she left me with my old babysitter, who now that I think on it looks a lot like Mary and also happens to be six years older than me like Sara was, I can roleplay too. Really heccin good. Really. “Okay, just … Excuse me? What did we just say?” “I can do it myself! I don’t even need them!” “O really? Cuz through those jammie pants it looks like someone didn’t stay dry last night.” Scoff! Incredulity! How rude! “Because I had to go, and they make me wear them even though I don’t need them!” “Honey,” Sara said to me while trying, so it seemed to me cuz I don’t really know her that well, to exercise a great deal of patience that appeared to be quickly running out, “I very much doubt your mommy would still be diapering you at your age if you didn’t need them. Now lay back …” “But I can do it myself!” “I’m going to count to three. One …” “No!!!!” Which is when it occurred to me I was taking it on faith that my parents really were out of the house cuz they definitely would’ve heard that. I didn’t go full tantrum, but Sara wouldn’t listen, and grown-ups have this stupid thing about not shouting but ya know the frick what, we wouldn’t heccin have to shout if they’d just listen to us! And, um, by ‘us’ I mean women in their early thirties. Um, really. I would have explained that impressive logic to Sara, but before I could, she was pinning me down on the bed looking rather cross with me. I’m not sure why. “Strike three.” Ruh roh Do you think it was the multiple refusals, the going back on my word as soon as I gave it, the raising my voice and raising it again (several times) after having been warned not to, or the general ‘tude? I had a sneaking suspicion this version of Sara and the current version of me were going to get along a little less swimmingly than the shades of yesteryear. “Daphne Ann,” Sara said to me, making me wonder who told her my middle name, “I have a very nice day planned for us. We can have fun, or you can stay in your room until your parents get home, and then I’ll let you explain your behavior to them. Which do you want?” “Fun,” I meeped. “Then you are going to hold still while I change you out of your nighttime diaper, we are going to deal with your misbehavior, and then we’re going to have our nice day together. If you don’t listen to me or you talk back, you’ll find yourself alone in your room with no TV and no phone for the whole day. Understand?” So actually the last time Sara ‘hung out’ with me, the only things phones did was make phone calls, but a lot of things were happening that didn’t happen back then so I guess there were just some anachronisms built into the plot. Based on a true story, as Hollywood said, very different from a true story. I opted not to point out the historical inaccuracies, mostly because I didn’t think she’d appreciate criticism of her artistic license, and answered only,“Yes.” “Thank you. Now stay put while I get what we need.” I had a feeling this was gonna be one of those days that was gonna be all about conflicted feels but that in future years (or days, whichever comes first … or day, singular, perhaps) would stand out in my memory as So Heccin Fun. So yeah, leaning into it. She wanted to treat me like a bratty early teen with an overprotective mom who may or may not need ‘a little extra help’, whatever that means, then that’s what I’d be. Headspace, here I heccin come. I didn’t want to tempt fate by sitting up to look around, so I just followed Sara across the room with my eyes. She opened my underwear drawer and came up with a packet of baby wipes. I was about to be on very intimate terms with my babysitter. “Okay,” she said as she plucked one out on her way back to me in a tone sorta like she didn’t enjoy this part of the job, which, ya know, realism. And as my former and current selves both tended and tend to do, I felt a pang of guilt for making it harder on her than it had to be before remembering this was all my mom’s fault … before escaping my headspace long enough to blame Mary and then going right back into headspace. “Scooch down for me,” Sara instructed. Not coldly or clinically, but I wouldn’t call it warm and fuzzy either. Even the nicest babysitters have a limit to their patience, and I sorta kinda did definitely run up some debt with her in a very brief span of time. “All the way to the end of the bed. You know the drill, knees over the end. Lift your butt for me.” I did, and she pulled my pajama pants off me, leaving me in just a, “Cute diaper. I like that little lion. Did you pick these out,” she asked me as she untaped it. I didn’t answer (and the answer would’ve been no). “Ya know, I understand it’s probably not fun still needing diapers at your age,” Sara lectured me, which was so overstepping her bounds as an occasional babysitter, if you ask me and I did so there, “and still needing help with them. I mean, you’re old enough to be babysitting and changing diapers, and here you are on your back getting your big girl diaper changed by your babysitter. I bet you’re worried your friends will make fun of you so hard if they find out and tell everyone at school.” Ya know what, she was taking her sweet time with those wipes. Almost as if she wanted to draw it out or something so she could rub those words in or something. But Sara wouldn’t do that, right? But she continued like someone (else) who just loves to continue. “And you probably miss out on sleepovers and Girl Scout camp. All experiences that help girls your age grow and mature, so it’s not like I’m judging you for needing a little extra help for your age like your mom says. But I do hafta say it would make you seem a lot more mature if when you have a wet diaper, you just say so, and when someone is going to change you, that you make it as easy and fast as possible instead of telling fibs, refusing, raising your voice, and having a tantrum like a toddler. Being a bedwetter and needing diapers doesn’t make you a toddler. I’m sure there are women more than twice your age who still need diapers and need help changing them…” And yes, I got that. “… but when you act like a toddler, it makes it very hard for people who just want to help you to not treat you like a toddler. There, all clean. Please try to be a big girl and act your age for me today. Will you?” “Yes,” I said feeling this very confused mix of emotions. Guilt, gratitude, embarrassment, and also a little love, like maybe Sara did care about me after all and wasn’t being mean on purpose. Just overprotective and strict, because she’s overprotective, like my (imaginary) mom. Some serious junior mom vibes she was giving off. I had a lump in my throat (and I didn’t like it cuz I knew where it would lead). “Now,” she said as she deposited the wipes in the diaper and rolled it up – and hey, true story, Miss Mary Plans for Everything didn’t have a very good plan for disposing of those in my parents’ house, but I digress – “we need to deal with your poor choices. Sit up for me.” She helped me sit up, and I had this feeling I was going to get a consequence from Sara that I never got from the real Sara. “What’s … what’s my punishment?” “Come stand in front of me,” Sara said as she took a seat on my bed and stood me, naked from the waist down, in front of her. “What happens when you make poor choices?” “I get punished.” Hey, why is my voice quavering? “You get a consequence. What consequence do you usually get?” “Um … I get grounded?” “Daphne Ann, I know what consequence happen in your house. When you make a make a bad choice, you get a spanking.” “But I don’t! I don’t get spankings!” “Daphne Ann Becker, I know you still get spankings.” (My maiden name? Seriously?) “But I’ve never gotten spanked before!” Hey, sniffling. Where the heck did that come from? “Daphne! Do not fib to me. I know you get spankings. I’ve seen you spanked before.” “But that was a long time ago!” “And the whole neighborhood saw at the block party last summer when you threw a tantrum about getting ready for bed before the fireworks. Everyone saw your daddy swat your little bottom all the way back to your house.” O, tears; how literally unexpected. “Please don’t spank me. I’m too old! No one my age gets spankings.” “I know for a fact that’s not true. You may be the only one in diapers come bedtime, but you’re not the only girl your age I still sit for. And even if it was true, it wouldn’t change the fact that you still get bare bottom spankings.” “Mom and dad are gonna be so mad at you!” “Your mommy gave me permission to spank your bare bottom if you misbehave.” “Bare!?! Please not bare! Please! It’s embarrassing!” “I just changed your diaper, little girl. If you’re all out of theatrics, please get over my knee and let’s get this over with.” “At least let me bend over the bed or something! Only little kids get spanked over the knee.” “And when you act like a naughty little girl, that’s how you’ll be treated. If you want to prove to me you don’t need to be treated like a little girl, right now you need to accept the consequences of your actions. Now, over my knee.” Sara has really got the stern-but-not-angry tone down. And what the heck is that ball doing in my tummy? I’m not scared of a spanking … am I? I always do my best to not start crying until I’m well into getting my butt spanked, but I also don’t do headspace. When you’re lifestyle like me and Mary are, you don’t do headspace. It’s just how you are all the time every day. Maybe that’s different for a little like my friend Jane cuz she regresses and needs to switch between her big and little selves because while she’s also lifestyle, it’s not a hundred percent of the time that she’s coloring with crayons. She has to adult too. But I am a hundred percent of the time subject to discipline, no jumping in and out of it. Anytime, anywhere, Mary can spank my butt for any reason or none at all. No headspace needed. But this was roleplaying, and while I’ve roleplayed without really getting into the headspace of the scene, this time I did. And it was on purpose, but if I knew just how deep I was gonna go, not sure I’d do it again. She helped me over her knee not with a tug but with enough of a grip on my wrist that I couldn’t have run away even if I tried. “I’m going to spank your bottom with my hand the same number as your age. If you try to reach back, I’ll use your hairbrush. Are you ready?” “Y-(sniff)-y-yes. I’m s-sorry.” “I know you are, and we’ll talk about that as soon as your spanking is over.” The woman playing the character of Sara has given me age in hand spanks just taking me to my pre-spanking timeout spot, and that was my actual age, and all those swats rarely ever provoked more than a protest from me. This time was less than half as many swats, and though she spanked only a little hard, I bawled. B-a-w-l-e-d: bawled. The whole thing took less than a minute and left me laying across her lap a hot mess. Later, when I was processing what the hell happened, what I came up with was the realism. I was in my headspace, and Mary was in hers. Because when Mary my wife spanks me, I don’t try to get out of it nearly as much, and she spanks way harder for way longer. That’s how adult Mary spanks adult Daphne, but Sara spanked non-adult Daphne. “Okay,” Sara said to non-adult me, “you can get up now.” She helped me sit up, and somehow it felt like my butt was on fire. I was still crying hard with actual tears running down my face, and Sara wrapped me in a hug and let me cry on her. When I had calmed down, she patted my back to tell me to sit up. “I’m sorry I had to give you such a hard spanking. I hope you understand that I will not accept you telling me no and raising your voice to me. I know it feels like you’re almost an adult and don’t need a babysitter, but you’re not an adult and your parents think you do need a babysitter. It’s been a long time since I’ve sat for you, but I’m going to follow the same rules because your mom didn’t give me any new ones. Understand?” “Yes,” I sniffled. “I’m sorry I was bad and you had to spank me.” “You’re never bad. You just made some poor choices.” “You probably don’t even wanna hang out with me anymore.” And I so want Sara to think I’m cool. It’s embarrassing even having her as a sitter cuz she’s only six years older than me, but … I dunno. I just want her to like me cuz I don’t have a big sister or even a lot of friends. I was seriously upset when she went away to college. If Mom had just said she was going to come over, that would’ve been awesome, but Mom has to have her officially babysit me tells her I still wear diapers to bed and I still get spanked … and I still cry and carry on like a little kid when I do. Not cool. “Daphne, that is just not true. You got your consequence, everything is forgiven, and you and me can still have a fun day.” “But you (sniffle) still think I’m a loser.” “Hey,” Sara said and put her hand under my chin, bringing my eyes to hers in a gesture that somehow felt really familiar. “I do not think you’re a loser. I meant it when I said it’s not your diapers or your wetting or even still getting spanked that makes you seem immature. It’s the way you handle those things. You didn’t handle them very well just now, but you know what?” “(Sniff) What?” “I think you can handle them much better than you did. I know you can, and I know that warm bottom is going to remind you for the next hour.” “Are you gonna tell Mom and Dad I needed a spanking?” “It can be our secret, but I need you to listen to me and be on your best behavior today. Okay?” “Okay.” “Do you promise? Because you know my rule about spanking. Remember?” “Um …” “The first spanking is your last warning. Any more bad choices, and I’m going to have to spank again. Understand? Will you be my big helper and help me not to spank?” “Yes. I’ll be good. I promise.” Sara kissed me on the forehead and gave me a pat on my butt. “I know you’ll be good. We’re gonna have a very fun day. Up you get.” I stood up, really driving home the reminder I had been sitting on Sara’s lap still naked down below. “You go take a shower, wash your diaper area really well, and I’ll leave an outfit for you on your bed. Come downstairs for breakfast when you’re dressed, and don’t dawdle. We got a schedule to keep today.” She sent me on my way with another spank hard enough to make me eep, and I rubbed my butt the rest of the way to the bathroom. Sara was much more strict than I remembered from all those years back. I don’t ever remember getting spanked by her that hard, but at least she won’t tell Mom and Dad. And yeah, it was stupid of me to try to get out of it. I just didn’t think Mom would’ve given her permission; all my spankings have been from her for the last two years. Except that stupid block party incident … and a few other times from Dad, but they don’t count cuz my pants stayed up and he didn’t put me over his knee or anything, so those weren’t real spankings. And that was me writing us a backstory in my head while I showered and rubbed my butt, which very quickly stopped hurting as the water and alone time broke my headspace. But downstairs making breakfast was Sara, and prior to being Sara, Sara was Mary, and Mary is thorough. First off, gotta be impressed with her getting out of that twin bed without waking me up. True ninja. Second, I saw the hairbrush on my nightstand. She literally set up props at some point when I wasn’t in the room or maybe when I was sleeping. I knew she had to have something bigger than a spanking in store, and that it would be fun but intense. I’ve never become fully comfortable with this part of my spanking kink. People shouldn’t hit kids, and if I ever saw someone spanking a child, I would literally assault that person. But this scenario Mary had created and the backstory we were building as we went … It was exciting. I have learned, though, that you can’t help what you find kinky. All you can do is keep fantasy separate from reality. I wasn’t a young teen, and Mary was not the girl-next-door babysitter. I knew that. I also knew that I’d had a hard year. Everyone had. And whether Mary meant it to be therapeutic or just fun or both, I felt better coming out of the shower. I’m an adult, Mary is my wife, and whatever she had cooked up for us, I’d enjoy it more if I dug into my headspace. For sure, she would be digging into hers. She doesn’t do much by halves. And btw, in my headspace I totally do not need diapers no matter what Mom and Dad say, I don’t need ‘a little extra help’ for my age, and I am so too old for spankings! Hmmph! But I’ll try to be a good girl and prove to Sara that I’m more mature than my parents (and, um, sometimes my behavior) give me credit for. Really. (To be continued…)

Merry Christmas from Mary and Daphne and me!

You’re very welcome!