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Cinnamon, Gunpowder, and Diapers Sam did not like bullets. Guns were another matter. Shooting was an art form, a skill of reflexes, coordination, situational awareness, and good ol’ fashioned talent. He, Sam Jack, was an artist. He probably took better care of his gun than he would have his wife - not that he had a list of standing offers in that department. There was no time for such things. The district office’ gun range was where he spent his off hours, and his job at the FBI left him with little enough of those. He was the best, and was constantly assigned the hard jobs – when he didn’t outright request them. His home did not even have a kitchen; there was no room after the remodel. The at-home gun range had required too much space, but of course it was important to have somewhere to practice on those nights when his insomnia kicked up. (The permitting had been a bit tricky on that one; the downstairs neighbors kept making a fuss. Clearly they did not appreciate the obvious truth: the only proper reason to own your own condo was to add a few… reasonable customizations.) But enough about that. Sam’s day was already in progress, and it was not going well. His present situation involved far too many of the aforementioned bullets. Specifically, the ones which had shattered his back windshield, left mirror, right mirror, and most frustratingly: his driver-side taillight. He had just gotten that fixed! Then there was the one which had flown by his left ear, so close that he could feel the breeze as it whizzed by. He was getting plenty of good shots in himself, mostly due to having trained to shoot with his left hand. These kinds of skills were important; one never knew when one might need the right hand free in order to steer the car the wrong way down a busy freeway, just as Sam was doing now. In that sense it was turning out to be a fairly typical car chase; he simply liked it better when he was the one doing the chasing. It had all started when he had been tasked by his superiors to guard an attractive young woman by the name of Paige, who presently sat in the passenger seat beside him. He had no idea who was trying to kill her or why; that was all above his pay grade. He simply needed to keep her alive. “Keep your head down, please,” he instructed upon noticing that she was sitting up quite rigidly in her seat. Her head was now a perfect target for the shooter in the car behind them. “What?” she shouted back. “I said,” he repeated more loudly, reaching over his shoulder to fire a couple more rounds, “to keep your head down!” He had not even heard himself over the fresh ringing in his ears, and anyway he needed to swerve just then to avoid a head-on collision. He tried making hand gestures, but then glanced back over to see Paige still sitting up. Her dark hair was mussed from the wind blowing through the broken windows. (They didn’t bother Sam as much as the tail light; he had never gotten around to fixing the air conditioner anyway.) Her back was still unnaturally rigid, and her round face held a look that said ‘not good’ as plainly as any he had ever seen. Her eyes were round as saucers, and her mouth was open in an almost perfect ‘o’. Her gaze frequently darted to his face and then away again, but she said nothing. Both hands were pressed against her slim waist. He immediately feared the worst. “Where is it?” he shouted. “Where’s what?” she yelled back. “The bullet wound! You need to keep pressure on it!” “I’ve been shot?!” she demanded with sudden horror, her voice turning into what was almost a shriek. He glanced at her, feeling his own forehead bunch up in confusion. “I don’t know! I thought… Why are you holding your stomach like that?” She looked down and back up, then did a strange almost-flinch as if the answer would get her in trouble. Her eyebrows arched slightly and she smiled a cute, sheepish smile that showed off her perfect, even teeth, made her look younger than her twenty-six years, and genuinely had no business being in the middle of a gunfight. “I, umm, just peed my diaper,” she replied a moment later. The sentence so distracted him that he almost got winged by the bullet that took out his rearview mirror. He recovered himself quickly, swerved, and made another left-handed shot out his window, taking out the last headlight of their attackers. “I hope their warranty on that light just expired yesterday,” he thought aloud. “These jerks don’t know how frustrating it can be to –Wait, ‘diaper’?” he said as he spun to face her. Seeing that same sheepish attempt at a smile in return, he turned back to the road and tried to process this. “Will it leak?” he asked. She shrugged meekly. “I don’t know… If I pee more, maybe.” He looked at her sternly but said nothing. She bit her lower lip nervously but said nothing. “You don’t still need to-” he started. “I need to pee again,” she said over the top of him. “Well, hold it!” he demanded in horror. “That’s brand new upholstery on that seat and-” “I’m trying!” The last window on the vehicle shattered from another bullet. “Can’t you… do something about that?” she complained. “Just hang on,” he said after discarding several acerbic replies he would have rather said, “we’re going to take that exit right there.” “Exit?” she said with obvious befuddlement. “All I see is an entrance ramp with more headlights coming this way.” “Yeah, that one.” Without further explanation he swerved the car violently around an oncoming truck and onto the entrance ramp. He had to swerve several more times to avoid the cars that continued to come at them. Each time they almost collided with another vehicle she flinched and grunted. “Would you stop swerving like that?” she protested at one point. “It’s making it worse!” He couldn’t take his focus off the road long enough to give her the exasperated retort he desired. “I can’t… I can’t do this any longer,” she said at one point, in a voice that sounded desperate and tired. Her hands now alternated between grabbing the cloth of her knee-length circle-skirt resting between her legs and twisting, and pressing it up against her groin. “I’m just going to-” “Hold on!” he pleaded. She had to close her eyes and concentrate for a few moments before she could speak. “I have a confession,” she said finally. “I’ve been wet for hours. I went at the restaurant, and then again in the subway.“ Her hands moved to the area of her stomach again for emphasis. “But this time it’s going to be… well I only wore my light pull-ups and…” She never finished the sentence but instead went back to wincing and grunting at every bump or turn. “Well why didn’t you…” He waved his hand around in a vague gesture. “Why didn’t I do what..?” she shot back tartly, mimicking his hand gesture in obvious mockery. “When did I have a chance to do anything about it? When we were hiding in the closet of that restaurant, running for our lives down the subway, trying to disguise ourselves in the crowd of that big parade…” She continued on like that. She might have had a point too, he grudgingly admitted. It was really hard to find a good break time when people were trying to kill you. Avoiding oncoming cars was easier now thanks to being off the highway; there were so many more options: yards, public parks, sidewalks… He had to swerve at one point to avoid a jaywalker. He shook his head in disappointment at the man. It was just so obnoxious when people flaunted the law! “Yeah, well okay, I get where you’re going with this. I do.” He sighed theatrically before turning her way -now driving through the city’s large waterfront park using only his peripheral vision. “It’s just that I’ve been busy with the whole SAVING YOUR LIFE thing! Did you notice that? Did you notice that going on at all?!” Satisfied that he had made his own point, he turned his attention back to dodging trees. He nodded with satisfaction as he did so; investing in new, five-year-warranty, all-terrain tires had clearly been a good decision! “Oof!” she protested as they hit a bump severe enough to nearly knock her head into the car’s roof. “Oh no… No I’m going to…” One more bump, and this time she made a sound that started like a grunt of pain but ended like a long sigh of relief. “Ohhhh, oh, oh gosh I’m… I’m going…“ Her body went slack as she leaned back into the seat in obvious surrender. Several sighs and a few soft exclamations of ‘oh gosh’ followed as she pointedly ignored his gape-mouthed stare. “What did I tell you?” he complained, deftly avoiding a couple with a stroller on the grass. Why did pedestrians never use the sidewalks? “I’m sorry,” she said in a tone that sounded much more relieved than apologetic. “I can’t stop… I’m going to leak…” The car behind them had closed the distance, and he knew from previous chases here (this particular park was conveniently located right off the freeway) that the boat dock was out of sight behind a large hill up ahead. He gunned it, hoping that the car behind them would do so as well, then made a hard, hard left turn right after passing the steep hillside before slamming on the breaks. Sure enough, the car behind them had floored their own pedal to keep up and did not anticipate the turn. They went sailing right down the boat dock and into the river. The source of their first problem dealt with, Sam exited the car without a word and quietly walked around to the passenger side. Getting the jammed, mutilated door to open took a considerable effort on his part, but Paige made no attempt to help. She had gathered her skirt up with her hands and held it around her waist to protect it from another, steadily growing body of water: the pool of her pee on the car seat. Her tight, red lips were tilted up on one side and down on the other as if not knowing whether to smile or frown, and her brows were gently tented above her round eyes that tried altogether too hard to look innocent. They were pulling it off too, he had to admit. Looking further south, he observed the significant bulging of her otherwise form-fitting disposable pull-ups where the overburdened absorbent padding had soaked up everything it could. The garment sported a faux-cloth style exterior that was clearly designed to look like real lingerie, and even went so far as to have little fake ribbons and bows painted around the top. Curious but not wanting to speak just yet, he reached down and pulled the front of the garment away from her waist so that he could see inside. She made no move to stop him. Sure enough, more liquid was still pouring out from her. He let go. As his ears began to recover he realized that he could even hear the low hiss of the woman’s spray as she shamelessly relieved herself in front of him. Taking a moment to calm himself, he looked over his car and took inventory of things he would need to look at. The windows were all shattered, as were the taillights. All three mirrors were in ruins, and a hubcap or two seemed to have been lost at some point. The engine was smoking ominously, and bullet holes made the whole back end of the car look like a metal sculpture of swiss cheese. “Great,” he said after a heavy sigh, resting his gaze once more on Paige, “just great… You’ve ruined the upholstery.” She frowned, and her eyes lit up with a sudden fire. “That’s what you say to me? After all that? After almost getting me killed how many times?” He made at least two attempts to protest but she simply shouted over him each time. “Your car is a pile of scrap metal, and you’re worried about the stupid upholstery??” She rose deliberately from her yellow pool, dripping on the ground a bit as she stood defiantly before him. Her hands were still occupied with holding her skirt high and dry, putting her undergarment on clear display. “No, no, no, Mister!” she barked in a tone that said she was (thankfully) coming to a conclusion. “You owe me a safe place to rest, a good meal, and…” She glanced downward and then back up as if what she said next had just occurred to her. “...And I'll need a new diaper! You may have just made this the worst day of my life, Pal, so you’d better believe that if there’s any chance at all of redemption for you it’s in giving me-” Once again he had stopped listening. Her full lips were distracting, the way all the smooth, soft features of her round face were arranged perfectly within the frame of her dark, flowing, shoulder-length black hair. The smooth roundness of her breasts and the shapeliness of her body… She broke off as he suddenly wrapped his thick arms around her and pulled her to him. His lips locked onto hers before she could object, but she made no effort to pull away. She would tell him later that he tasted of cinnamon. Cinnamon and… what was the other thing she would say? Oh yes, cinnamon and gunpowder. She would say it quite romantically too, and he would smile at the pleasant memory. The smell of her wet diaper combined with her rosy-fresh perfume in his own nostrils and made an intoxicating scent. He explored her back with his hands and her previously stiff body melted to a warm softness in his arms. “Sorry,” he said quite honestly after releasing her some moments later, “I don’t know why I did that.” Now it was his turn to stumble over his words. “It’s just that… no one else has caused my heart to flutter the way you have -or done as much damage to my car as you did- and… I guess I don't want this feeling to end.” “You don’t have to explain,” she assured him. “You loved me from the start; I know – it’s okay. I’m sorry about yelling at you like that, it’s just that-” “No actually that was kind of a turn-on,” he admitted. “Pardon? You mean, when I started verbally abusing you for saving my life, that…” “...turned me on to you even more,” he finished for her. “Yes.” She scrunched up her face haphazardly in a new expression that he took to be confusion. “I… really?” Her voice grew quiet as she seemed to be thinking out loud. “That doesn’t seem like it makes any sense, but I mean, the heart wants what the heart…” Then, in a louder, more confident voice she finished “Oh whatever, I’ll take it.” This time she was the one who pulled him close, her smaller frame fitting nicely in his arms. Once again he began moving his hands gently over her hills and valleys. He squeezed her bottom at one point, only to remember too late that it had a soaking wet diaper over it at the moment. Some of her pee escaped, dribbling onto his leg, but clearly neither of them cared. She moaned softly for a moment, and then squeezed her eyes closed for a heartbeat -as if from exertion- before squishing up her face once again and pulling away just a bit. “You don’t have to resist it,” he said gently. “Let me ignite your fire-” “No,” she said in a strained voice, “it’s not that.” She was looking at him now with that sheepish smile he knew all too well. “It’s… I still need to pee some more and… and I think I’m about to poop.” Before he could respond, several waterlogged men broke the surface of the river near the boat ramp. They had somehow managed to hold onto their guns, and he recognized the model at a glance as one which would fire even after being submerged. He let loose a heavy sigh, but the upside was that at least he was going to get shot at by people who had a respectable taste in guns. A moment later they had indeed recovered their balance and were getting a few shots off. “Hold that thought,” he instructed before scooping her off her feet with his powerful arms, one under her knees and the other beneath her upper back, causing her head to rest against his shoulder. “I know a safehouse nearby.” He took off running, effortlessly leaping across root and rock despite the added burden of carrying her, and the chase was on once again.