Bottoms Up (Part 15 (Conclusion) added 06/13/22)

[quietlyhumiliated]

Hello. A new story I wanted to start sharing with you. It probably takes a few chapters to really get going...but that usually seems to be the case with my stories. 

Hey, if you like it and want to read more, you should check out my Patreon. All of my patrons, on all tiers, are reading ahead and are currently on chapter 5. Plus, your support would go a long way towards helping me create more content like this.

Thank you so much for reading. I hope you enjoy.

 

One: Donuts

Bleary-eyed, hair tousled, excessively dry lips. Only slightly hungover. He had a personal rule about wearing sweatpants out of the house, but there he was - in the shop while rocking a pair of heather grey sweats.

Effie noticed this immediately, opting to keep any comments to herself - for now. Though, let it be said, this had been a particularly challenging morning to keep it to herself.

“Go on,” he said, clearly aware of her tongue-biting. “I know you’re dying to say something.”

She shook her head while mimicking the motions of locking her mouth shut and tossing the key over her shoulder.

“It was a rough night,” he continued, responding to questions that weren’t asked. “A rough morning too, for that matter.” He pulled the carafe from the coffee maker, pouring a disappointingly transparent brown liquid into a cup. “It’s gonna be one of those days.”

“For the record,” Effie finally said, “I didn’t make the coffee.”

“Well I didn’t either. Do I have another employee I’ve forgotten about?”

She released a burst of air from her nostrils - somewhere between a laugh and a scoff. “Harper was here this morning.”

“Really?”

“I thought you knew that.”

“It certainly sounds like something I should have known, right?”

She made the motion of locking her mouth shut again. A smart girl.

“Doors are unlocked?” he asked. “Lights on? All that shit?”

She looked at her smartwatch. “For the past hour, yeah.”

“Am I that late?”

“Yes.”

He took a sip of the coffee, cringing as he swallowed. He shook his head, holding the cup far out ahead of him - like it was a canister of caustic acid that he didn’t want to have too close to his body. He left the salesfloor, walking through the double doors into the stock room.

She waited patiently for his return, perfectly timing her question for when he emerged through the double doors again, no cup in hand. “Why don’t I just get some coffee?”

“What if a customer shows up? I’m not going to talk to them looking like this.”

Effie craned her neck over her shoulder, scanning the salesfloor. Not a single person. Nobody outside. Not even any cars in the parking lot, save for hers. This was the norm for the morning. The walk-ins would be hitting up the store later, somewhere between lunch and closing.

“I think you’ll be fine,” she said.

“Is Harper coming back?”

“No, I don’t think so. I think she just left her laptop charger here.”

“She made that coffee?” he asked, pointing an accusatory finger at the coffee maker. “For herself? And presumably drank it?”

“I think she thought she’d be staying longer than she did.”

“Oh.”

Effie knew she wouldn’t have to elaborate - and she knew that she should probably lock her mouth shut again - but she said it anyways: “She didn’t think you’d be here this morning. But then she heard your car pull up around back...”

“Oh.”

A change of subject was needed: “So. Coffee, right?”

“And donuts,” he said, his pointed finger spinning from the coffee maker to Effie. He reached into his pocket, pulling out his wallet. He grabbed a cluster of cash and handed it to her.

“I doubt the coffee and donuts will run us…” she quickly counted the bills, “...$47.”

“Just...give me the change when you come back,” he sighed, far too tired to care about this right now. “Buy yourself a Billie Eilish CD or whatever you kids do.”

She rolled her eyes, but laughed. “Gee, thanks mister. Gosh, welcome to the wonderful world of diaper money.”

“Just go do the thing,” he said. “And do it without any further snark.”

--

He liked Effie less as a person and more as a symbol. She was the sign that he was doing something right. Four years ago he was doing most things by himself. Selling, ordering, packing, shipping, customer service and, occasionally, answering a ridiculous question on the Internet. He had long assumed that this would be the way that it always was.

Harper helped, when she could. If nothing else, she was a body. She could sit at the counter while he did actual work. But she had a job herself. And a life.

This place? This was his life. 60-70 hours a week, waist deep in the world of adult diaper sales. Still just as awkward to say to himself as it was to say to other people.

And then, when he finally started to make a profit? He treated himself to an Effie. Perfect timing too, as Harper had not only grown sick of looking at giant diapers, she had grown sick of Layne in general.

They were separated now - a vast grey area that could encompass everything from sleeping in different beds to living with different people. They lived in the same house, supposedly. They passed each other once in a great while. But the house hadn’t been ‘home’ in sometime. Home was the store.

Bottoms Up: The Adult Baby Superstore.

One. He didn’t know what made a superstore so super. But the name sounded good. Definitive.

Two. He had wanted to call it the ‘ABDL Superstore,’ but that had been vetoed by Harper. He had forgotten how most of that conversation went, but he still spent a lot of time debating with himself on whether or not he should’ve pushed harder for ‘ABDL.’

Three. He had to lie about what he did for a living. He couldn’t just be a generic ‘business-owner,’ nor did he ever want to have to explain to Aunt Cathy that he sold large diapers to horny men. So he was a ‘specialized medical supply reseller.’ And that usually did the trick. Though Aunt Cathy had once called to ask if by ‘specialized medical supplies,’ it meant that he sold donut pillows for people suffering from hemorrhoids. “No,” followed by a mental ‘not unless that kink community really blows up sometime soon.’

Did he like what he did? That was a tricky question. He imagined it’d be the same answer whether he was playing professional baseball, directing movies, or selling diapers for a living. It was fun until it wasn’t. Any passion he had for the subject had just been transmuted into ‘knowing a lot about that stuff he sold.’

He hadn’t worn a diaper himself in two years. And while the store had its own semi-active social media accounts, his personal accounts had been deleted long ago.

Theoretically, he still liked it. Somewhere very deep beneath the everyday stress of fulfilling orders, paying bills, and making sure that decent coffee was within reach.

--

The front door opened, jingling the bells attached to the back of it. He didn’t look up from the laptop perched on the front counter - one tab opened on a message board discussion reviewing the new diapers from Puffybabes, the other featuring an article about the ongoing computer chip shortages that made buying a video game console so hard.

For the record, he was fine with there being a chip shortage - as it meant that he couldn’t buy a video game machine that he had no time to play anyways.

“I’m going to stack three donuts on top of each other and eat them all at once,” he said. “Just watch.”

“I’m sorry?” spoke the young woman. A different young woman’s voice than Effie’s. Less sarcastic.

“Oh, uh, hey there. I was expecting someone else. Someone else with donuts.” He silently cursed his sweatpants, opting to stay behind the counter.

“Should I...get some donuts?”

“Are you a customer?”

She looked around the shop cautiously, taking in the shelves and stacks of adult diapers tightly packed into plastic cubes and the dresses and onesies hanging from racks. “Yes, I think so. I hope so.”

“Customers aren’t required to bring donuts,” he said.

“You should have a sign on the door,” she said. “Just to make that clear before you walk in.”

Her playfulness was a welcome vacation from Effie’s sarcasm. And Harper’s frustration.

“Looking for anything in particular today?”

“Diapers,” she said. “Obviously, I guess. But that’s as far as I got.”

“I know a thing or two, if you have any questions.”

Layne was the salesman he wished every other salesman he had ever met was: unobtrusive. He was there if he was needed, otherwise he tried to stay out of people’s way. He said something along the lines of ‘Diapers sold themselves,’ often enough that it was either now a mantra, or a catchphrase he’d use until proven wrong.

“They’re not for me,” she said. She sort of just tossed it out into the void in case anyone cared.

He had heard this before. He had heard this often, actually. He had gotten pretty good at figuring out whether or not this was a lie. Sometimes it wasn’t too hard to tell. Maybe it was the way they giggled or blushed. Maybe their diaper was sticking out of the back of their pants. Maybe they were just wearing a onesie that said, in large bold letters, ‘MOMMY’S DIAPER BABY.’

He was pretty sure he had sold that very onesie to that baby.

She didn’t look like she was lying. He could certainly imagine her wearing a diaper. With her thick plastic framed glasses and auburn hair in a bun, she’d probably look cute in a diaper - the star of a video about a librarian who gets turned into a baby after reading a cursed book and…

Focus, Layne.

“Who might they be for, then?”

“My boyfriend,” she said

“Does he know he’s getting diapers?”

“Not yet.”

He laughed to himself. “Is this going to be a, uh, surprise?”

“A birthday present,” she said. “But he likes diapers. I’m not, like, forcing something new on him.”

“That’s a shame.”

She laughed.

“Are you looking for anything in particular?”

She shrugged. “I’m sure you could give me some very detailed information about each diaper’s absorbency. But I think I’m more interested in finding something...cute?”

“We have plenty of cute,” he said. He almost took a step out from behind the counter, but changed his mind. He pointed to a small stack of diapers in the center of the salesfloor. “Take a look at those.”

“Oh?”

“They’re the Carnivals. Discontinued for a while, but they’re back - mostly thanks to the demand. People absolutely adore these things.”

“They are pretty cute,” she said, lifting a package up for further inspection.

“It’s a simple design,” he said. “But I think that’s what everyone likes about them. Quite babyish.”

“Is that what people like?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Yeah...I’d say so.”

“Do you think my boyfriend knows about Carnivals? Like, would he see them and be excited that they’re being made again?”

“Maybe? Actually, let’s say yes. Yes, he would absolutely be delighted to see them.”

“Or I could get him a gift card,” she said. “And he could pick out his own diapers.”

He grimaced a little. “What is your involvement in his...diaper wearing? Are you an active participant? A passive acceptor? Probably not a concerned opposer…”

“Passive acceptor? If I had to choose.”

“So when he unwraps his gift and sees that it’s diapers, how do you think that’d make him feel?”

She smiled, shrugging a little. “Happy? Acknowledged?”

“And now imagine him opening a gift card to the diaper store.”

Another little shrug. “Yeah, alright. Let’s get these, then. Do I need to get anything else? Any other accessories?”

“Oh, maybe. Does he have a B-type or C-type changing station? Does he need an adapter?”

She wrinkled her nose at this, trying to make sense of his gibberish, before laughing.

“How often do you get to use that joke?” she asked.

“I think that’s actually the first time. Right off the top of the dome, too.”

She handed him her credit card. He took a close look at the name before sliding it through the register’s card reader.

“You’re more charming than a guy who sells diapers should be,” she said. It straddled the line between observation and joke far too closely to know for sure how it was supposed to be taken.

“Nobody has ever said that to me before,” he said. “At least not to my face, April Kellogg.”

She winced a little at hearing her own name come from his mouth. Was it too flirtatious?

“Don’t let your head get too big. You’re still selling diapers.”

He handed her card back to her, drawing a large black plastic bag from under the counter to hide her gift-diapers in. “I actually just had one more question for you.”

She smirked a little, ready for one last cute little quip from this stranger. “Okay?”

“What do I have to do to get you into a diaper today?”

--

Effie wasn’t an adult baby, nor was she a diaper lover. She didn’t hate them; she found the whole movement kind of interesting from a sociological standpoint. There had been times when she had come close to wanting to buy a package of diapers for herself - or to pluck a stray single from an opened pack in the stock room - but she hadn’t pulled the trigger. She liked admiring it from afar. She liked to pretend she was an anthropologist, immersing herself in the foreign culture to have the best vantage point of what it looked like.

She hadn’t applied for her job at Bottoms Up. It had just been offered to her. She had spent some time at Layne and Harper’s home a summer or two ago - mostly visiting her best friend Nina, Harper’s younger sister who had been staying with the couple while in between apartments. That was a much longer and complicated story than anyone had time for.

Of all the unexpected things to have happened that summer, the highest on the list would’ve been Layne offering her a full time job working at her store.

“Now, I gotta be honest with you,” he said, shortly after having shoved a can of hard cider into her then-19 year old hand. “This store is pretty fucking weird. Or, you’re going to think so.”

She told people that college ‘wasn’t for her,’ but the truth was that she just lacked focus. She was 19 and had just suffered through a decade-plus of mandated school. She didn’t know what she wanted to do with her life, but she knew that at least four more years of school wasn’t going to help that. And, just like that, a job had fallen out of the sky and landed in her lap. A thickly padded and blushing job.

It was an easy job. Layne had never really been the ‘boss’ type. He had minimal expectations, and he barely met them himself most days. He paid her as well as he could afford, and nobody else seemed willing to pay her more for doing as little as she did.

She didn’t do nothing. Most days were spent packing boxes - online sales made up for the bulk of the business. Occasionally she’d field questions on social media for Layne. He used to want to be the one to handle all those things, but his online personality seemed to be three times more prickly than it was in real life.

And, occasionally, she’d get to laugh at some silly man-baby waddling through the store. You didn’t get a perk like that while working at Sears.

The door jingled, and she had returned; a cardboard carrier of tall coffee cups in one hand and a box of donuts in the other.

He was still behind the counter, but he seemed distracted. He rubbed his cheek.

“Did I miss anything?”

He scoffed.

“Everything alright with your face?”

“Ah, you know how it is…”

“I don’t.”

“This lady who was just in here. She, uh, slapped me.”

“What? And I missed that? C’mon. I was only gone for 20 minutes. I’ve been here for 40 hours a week for the last year and I’ve never once got to see someone take a swing at you.”

“If you want to take a swing yourself, there's a vacancy on my other cheek.”

“Can I hold onto that offer for later?” she asked. “Like a coupon?”

“The decision is pending, per review of the donuts you’ve brought back. Did you get anything good for yourself?”

She pushed the remaining wad of cash across the counter towards him. “They were all out of slingshots and Pokemon cards.”

“Better luck next time.”

“Why did you get slapped, anyways? I mean, I assume you ran your mouth. But you must’ve said something real juicy.”

He shrugged. “I hit on her.”

“Didn’t work out too well?”

“Joke’s on her,” he said with a shrug. “I’m a masochist.”

“You once told me that I shouldn’t flirt with the customers.”

“That’s because I was looking out for you. You don’t want to have to share a man’s pacifier.”

“But for you it’s okay?”

“She was buying diapers for someone else,” he said. “So…”

“Who was she buying them for?”

“Boyfriend.”

She tilted her head and shook it while smirking. That classic ‘Are you kidding me right now, Layne?’ look she had perfected over the last year.

“I know, I know. Just give me the coffee and donuts.”

--

Just another Monday. Crates of diapers and plastic pants were delivered. Diapers were shipped off. The door jingled a few times. Effie was listening to something especially youthful and dreadful in the stockroom. The coffee was gone and the remaining donuts would probably sit around until tomorrow morning when they were picked over one last time before being tossed into the trash.

Another car had pulled into the parking lot, though it had just been sitting there, idling, for 20 minutes. At one point he had carefully crept towards the window to see what was going on in the car. Not too close - he didn’t want to look like he was doing exactly what he was doing. Nor did he want anyone to see his sweatpants.

Just one woman. She was flipping through documents in a folder.

Documents? He didn’t care for that too much.

Maybe it was nothing. Out here, on the outskirts of an industrial park, there were only two types of visitors: People who knew exactly what they were looking for, and people who just wanted to stop in a mostly-vacant parking lot for a few minutes.

But then she got out of the car. And she was walking towards the store. With purpose. He liked that even less.

He really wished he had a pair of slacks - even jeans - in the back.

The door jingled and there she was. A pantsuit. Her honey-blonde hair - as opposed to Effie’s whitish-blonde hair - styled in such a way that he could only imagine seeing the salon’s bill and feeling sick to his stomach.

For the second time today - third time, if he was being completely honest with himself - he was attracted to the woman walking through the door.

“Good afternoon,” she said. She looked around the salesfloor, but only dismissively. As if she only needed to remind herself of what it was she was pouting about. She definitely had a pout on her face.

“Hi,” Layne said. Friendly, but hesitant.

“Pardon my intrusion, but I’ve been meaning to stop in and have a little chat with you,” she said, brushing her hair over her shoulder. That navy blue pantsuit was really working for him. Yes, Mommy.

“Well, you’re here now,” he said. “And I am too. Shall we get to chatting?”

“Mr…”

“Stanlan.”

“Mr. Stanlan, my name is Grace Vanderhoeffen. I represent the Concerned Adults for the Local Marketplace.”

He immediately disliked the name of that group, whatever it was. “That’s, what now...CALM?”

“Yes, that’s exactly right. Good job,” she said, her tone dropping to a condescending coo. “I represent CALM. And I thought it was time for me to introduce myself - seeing as how we may be seeing a bit of each other soon.”

He squinted a little, trying to see if he could answer any of the questions he had by himself. He could not. “I’m sorry, I don’t really know what you’re talking about.”

“Mr. Stanlan, in two weeks, CALM is scheduled to appear before the city council to present our case as to why we think your store is an abhorrent scar on our good town.”

“Ouch,” he said, running a hand through his unkempt hair. “Tell me how you really feel.”

“This is not a joke, Mr. Stanlan. We have had meetings about this. Many discussions. And, you should know, we are not short of members. We have many local professionals and distinguished citizens among our ranks - all of us firmly standing in solidarity with the belief that your storefront encourages and enables dangerous and immoral behavior. I come to you today so that you know who I am. So that you know who we are. And so that, in two weeks time, you too can join the city council meeting for yourself and hear what we have to say.”

“I suspect I might have heard enough already,” he said. “But, if I may, ask a question?”

“Sure.”

“What would you have me do? Leave?”

“Yes,” she said quickly.

“And go somewhere else?”

“Well, seeing as how your store would be an abomination no matter where it was…”

“So you’d rather I just close up my shop, liquidate my inventory, break my lease, fire my employee and find an entirely new career?”

She shrugged. “Most of the details aren’t my problem.”

“Actually,” he said, rubbing his still-tingling cheek, “I do have just one more question.”

“Yes?”

“What do I have to do to get you into a diaper today?”

[kerry]

1 hour ago, quietlyhumiliated said:

“I actually just had one more question for you.”

She smirked a little, ready for one last cute little quip from this stranger. “Okay?”

“What do I have to do to get you into a diaper today?”

Um, wow. That's more than just flirtatious. That's diving in whole-hog. How the heck does he stay in business if he does things like that?I did quite like the echo at the end though. ?

Fun start! 

 

[ndachg]

This story is a fun one to read as I have seen later chapters. Quietlyhumiliated has a wonderful writing style in their stories. I appreciate the work and creativity. Enjoy the next ones as they come.

 

[adot]

This is a really delightfully novel premise. 

 

[TheBabyPants]

Enjoyed the start of the story and looking forward to more.

[Sybaris]

You are awesome qh, thanks for sharing here.

[quietlyhumiliated]

Two: Hammy

Harper had an on-again, off-again relationship with smoking. It looked cool, she assumed, when she was a teenager. It kept her sane through college. She ditched it when she met Layne. She picked it back up again when they separated. She was vaping now. Not one of those enormous ‘rigs’ that men with large beards had. This was a dainty little stick she stowed away in her purse. And when she pulled it out and took a hit? She felt cool again - like she was smoking in the future.

Layne had been going on about something. There was a woman in a pantsuit with good hair, and she had been mean. Something about city council. He used the word ‘audacity’ more than once.

She took a few nice slow drags of the vape. She was thinking about whether or not she would watch a tutorial on how those big-bearded men did neat little smoke tricks. Like the one where they blew a smoke ring. That’d be a fun party trick.

“...and she called the store an abomination,” he said. “Seriously, who even uses that word? Religious women in a Stephen King story.”

“But you haven’t broken any laws, right?” she asked.

“Nah.”

“And you wouldn’t have been allowed to open this store in the first place if it was doing something fundamentally shady.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“So what are you worried about? Let the windbag throw a little tantrum in front of the city. Then let the council tell her that you haven’t done anything wrong. End of story.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “People like that, they don’t just get together and get worked up for nothing, you know? We could do everything right - and I assume we have - and they could still be a problem. They become a gnat in the city council’s ear. Worse, they rile up a bunch of other people and now there’s a whole swarm of gnats in their ears. And nobody wants that many gnats in their ears, you know?”

Usually, that would’ve been enough nicotine, but she needed to take another long drag.

“So what are you going to do?” she asked.

“What can I do? Can you reason with gnats?”

“The gnat thing isn’t working,” she said. Then, just because she thought the answer would be amusing, she added: “Are you wearing sweatpants?”

“Don’t even start with me, Harpy.”

A ‘pet’ name she detested just as much as he detested public sweatpants. Touche.

This wasn’t the way she thought this conversation was going to go. She had already been nervous to talk to him tonight, and that was before she had inadvertently opened his can of personal worms.

He shook his head and muttered something to himself about Grace Vanderhoeffen. Then, remembering that she had come to him in the kitchen in the first place: “Oh, did you want to tell me something?”

She sighed. “Actually, yeah?”

“Okay.”

“So...this isn’t easy for me to say, but I’m hoping we can have an open and mature discussion about it - if any discussion is needed at all.”

“I’m probably not going to like this, am I?”

“Just listen,” she said. “I’m going on a date tonight.”

“A date? Tonight?”

“That’s what I just said.”

“With who?”

“You don’t know them.”

“That doesn’t really narrow things down for me.”

“It doesn’t matter who they are. But, I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately and I think that we - both of us - should start thinking about what we want next, you know? Living arrangements. Romance. I don’t know. We’re just stuck here in this house avoiding each other all the time and nothing is changing and sometimes I feel like…”

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” he said. “I can’t get mad about you dating some guy when it’s not like I'm over here trying to repair our marriage. I mean...I don’t think I’m about to go and date someone myself, but I guess I get where you’re coming from. So, I don’t know...have a good time with him?”

“Not him,” she said.

“I’m sorry?”

“Not him,” she said. “As in - I’m not going out with a...guy?”

“Oh.” He gave it another moment to sink further in. “Oh. A, uh, gal, then?”

“No.”

“I’m running out of options here.”

“They/them,” she said.

“Oh,” he said again.

“Don’t be weird about this.”

“Me? Me...weird?”

“Look,” she said. “It’s not a big deal. They’re just gender nonconforming, you know?”

“I can deal with that,” he said, waving his hands in front of him as if to signal that he didn’t want any trouble.

“And me going out on a date?”

“I mean...am I psyched? No, not especially. Am I…” his voice just kind of wandered off.

“Are you...what?”

“I didn’t think about what I wanted to say.”

“Well why don’t you think about it a little longer,” she said. “And we can talk about it later. Or tomorrow.”

--

He skipped the alcohol last night - he didn’t want to show up to the store in sweatpants again.

He was still late.

“Decided to finally show up?” Effie quipped from behind the counter.

“Someday, when you own your very own diaper store, you too can show up whenever you want.”

“So inspirational. Thank you, Dad.”

“You wish I was your father.”

“My father played bass in a punk band,” Effie said. “No offense, but you don’t have enough cool to qualify as the father I wish I had.”

“Damn,” he said. “That is pretty cool.” He grabbed a partially-stale donut from yesterday’s box, still sitting behind the front counter. “Did I miss anything? Any drama? Concerned citizens?”

“The Pope dropped by,” she said. “He wasn’t happy with you either.”

“Did you sell him any diapers?”

“I tried. He’s more of a chastity guy, though.”

This yielded a hearty chuckle from him. He always liked how proud of herself she looked when she made him laugh like that. Very cute.

“I have an assignment for you today,” he said.

“Oh yeah? What kind of assignment?”

“That woman who came in yesterday? Grace Vander-fart? I want to know more about her little club. CLAM? No...CALM. Could you do some internetting for me? Find out how big this thing is? When they meet up to talk about me? Where? See if they serve refreshments at their meetings?”

“Are you...actually planning on going to one of their meetings?”

He shrugged. “Wouldn’t it be funny if I did?”

She smirked, though she didn’t laugh.

He thought it was a lot funnier than that.

“Did, uh, Harper come by this morning?”

“Nah. I mean, I got here at 9 - you know, the time we open - so not unless she came earlier than that. Why so?”

“Ah, you don’t want to hear about it,” he said, swiping his hand in the air as if to wave away the conversation.

“You’re right,” Effie said, “I don’t. But if you’re going to bring it up, I feel obligated to ask for more information.”

“Well, fine, if you’re going to twist my arm…”

“I’m not.”

“Harper went on a date last night.”

Her face had fallen serious. “Oh shit. Really?”

He shrugged, attempting to play it off nonchalantly. “Yeah, I don’t know. Should I be mad about it?”

“Do you feel mad?”

“A little numb so far, that’s all. Relationship novacaine.”

She was torn. Being a good friend of Harper’s sister had gotten her pretty close to Harper over the last few years. But, spending 40 hours a week with him- give or take the hours Layne was missing from his own shop - wasn’t nothing.

She was happy for Harper. She was mad for Layne.

“Who was the lucky guy?”

“Well that’s just it. It wasn’t a guy.”

“Really? I didn’t know that she liked…”

“It wasn’t a girl either.”

He looked like wanted a reaction. Needed. She didn’t really have much of one to give him.

“Does that upset you?”

“I don’t think so. It shouldn’t, right?”

She shook her head.

“I live in a pretty simple world,” he said. “Gender stuff - it’s over my head.”

“It’s actually not that hard to grasp,” Effie said. “They say that they don’t conform to a specific gender and then you just say: Ok. That’s it.”

He waved his hand dismissively again. “Yeah, yeah. I get it. I’m just looking for things to pick at. You know, because she went on a date.”

“How did the date go?”

He shrugged. “I went to sleep before she came home. And she wasn’t home this morning. Or...she never came home.”

“Slutty,” Effie said to herself. The tone suggested that this was a positive thing.

“Alright, enough talk about my disaster of a marriage. Do your homework, young lady.”

“Fiiiiiiine, Dad.”

--

Come in late, and then leave early - such was the life of the boss.

She had found the information he was looking for in about 6 minutes, using Facebook alone. But she had stared at the computer for two hours, making it look as if she was doing some real Hackers-esque work. She provided him with the meeting place, time, and confirmed that refreshments were being served. He offered to kiss her on the forehead and she declined. Then he decided to go to the gym.

These were the moments she came to enjoy the most, working at Bottoms Up. She turned up the King Gizzard and scrolled on her phone, occasionally glancing up to confirm that the parking lot was still an empty void.

And then there was a new car. A minivan.

She turned the music down - just a smidge - and got her ‘customer service’ smile on. Layne hated it - he thought it made her look like, in his words, an ‘either homicidal or horny clown. Maybe both.’

A couple rolled into the store. She was straight out of the 1950s with her royal blue polka-dot dress and red hair pinned into an updo. He had that signature diaper-waddle that Effie had come to expect from male customers. She had no clue how to gauge their ages. The woman was either 20-something or 45. He was older - definitely older than Layne. Maybe just old? She’d guess he was in his 50s.

“Greetings. Can I help you two out with anything today?”

“Just...uh...looking around, thanks,” he said. The hem of his sports-team tee barely connected with the waistband of his drawstring shorts. With every step, they separated, and the ruffled plastic edge of a diaper poked out to say hello.

“Diapers, darling,” the woman said, though it wasn’t clear if she was talking to him or to Effie.

“Well,” Effie said, taking a chance on the possibility the woman was talking to her, “we have plenty of those.”

“I don’t want any of these plastic diapers,” she said. “Too wasteful. You know, for the environment? Hamish, here, he goes through so many diapers. The landfill probably expands an entire acre per year with just his dirty diapers.”

“Margaret,” he hissed. “You don’t have to do that here.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Margaret said. “He adores being humiliated. Have you ever seen such a pathetic thing?”

“Once or twice,” Effie said.

“It’s time we made a change,” Margaret said, glazing right over Effie’s remark. “And I do not mean another diaper change. Hamish just got his bottom cleaned up an hour ago.” She turned to the poor blushing man. “If I were to check your diaper now, it’d still be dry, yes?”

“Y-yes.”

“Yes…?” she said, clearly trying to elicit a specific answer.

“Yes...Mommy.”

“Well trained, is he not?”

Effie laughed. “Can he do any tricks?”

“He’ll do anything I tell him to. That’s a trick, yes?”

Effie nodded.

“Hamish. Pull down your shorts and show the nice woman your diaper.”

“Mommy…”

“Please don’t argue with me, Hammy. Or else I ask you to do something far worse.”

He sighed, giving in to her demand. Which, Effie thought, was a shame - she was curious to see what ‘far worse’ entailed. Hands on either side of his shorts, he pushed them down in one motion, revealing the plump white diaper between his legs. Baby animals pranced across the front of it. There was some yellow discoloration in the front. Just a little.

“Speaking of used diapers...” Effie said, pointing out the yellowed diaper with her finger.

“My word. Hamish! Did you piddle yourself yet again?”

“Just...just a little,” he said, shrugging.

“Ugh.” Margaret rolled her eyes as she tossed her hands up in the air. “Do you see what I’m working with?”

“They say it gets harder to potty train them as they get older,” Effie said.

Margaret laughed - a genuine chuckle. “Pull up your pants, baby.”

He did so.

“Look at all these cute diaper designs,” she said as she strolled through the salesfloor. “Princesses. Unicorns. Teddy bears. Koala bears. But it’s, like, ‘what’s the point,’ right? He’s just going to make a big poo in them eventually anyways. Sometimes I’m tempted to just tape a garbage bag to his ass and let him do his business in that.”

“Cost effective,” said Effie. “But probably not good for the neighborhood.”

“Then what would you recommend?”

“I’m hardly an expert…”

“No?”

“I mean, I just...work the counter. Put things in boxes. My boss, he’s the guy to talk to if you want actual advice. A genuinely enormous baby.”

“But I like you,” Margaret said. “Okay, fine. With the knowledge that you do have, point me in the right direction.”

“Well, I could show you these,” Effie said, walking around the counter and over to a rack against the far wall. She pulled a clear plastic package off the wall, holding a thick folded garment inside of it. “These are, like, pocket-diapers? Machine washable, and you just load cloth pads into them. But...as much as you want. So you’re essentially making them as absorbent as you’d like them to be. Then, after he, uh, does his business, you can wash the whole thing while you slip him into a new one.”

“And the diaper itself doesn’t leak?”

Effie quickly glanced at the packaging and spotted the bold WATERPROOF in a starburst. “It does not.”

“A higher upfront cost,” she mused to herself. “But probably worth it in the long run. I’ll try some. Well, Hammy will actually be trying them.”

Both women laughed, much to the dismay of the big baby. Effie gathered the selected pocket-diaper, in an adorable fuschia color, along with a package of cloth prefolds for use within it. A credit card swipe later and the transaction was complete. She had reached for the black bags and Margaret stopped her.

“No need, dear. We won’t need a bag. Hamish can just carry the diapers out to the car as is. Yes, dear?”

“Y-yes, Mommy.”

He gathered his new undergarment and accessories together, pinning them close to his chest and scrambled out the door. Margaret was still in the shop.

“Was...there something else I can help you with?”

“Not an expert on diapers?” Margaret asked.

“No...that’s not really my thing.”

“Would you like to know more?”

For the first time in quite a while, Effie was a little at a loss for words. “I’m sorry?”

“I’m just saying,” Margaret said with a shrug. “If you see yourself selling diapers for the foreseeable future, and you want to experience life on the other side of the counter, maybe I could help you with that.”

“Are you offering to put me in a diaper?”

“Do you want to be?”

“No? Maybe?” Her heart was beating like a jackhammer in her chest. She was aware of the curiosity that had been stirring in places she didn’t acknowledge all that often, and a bright floodlight had suddenly been shown on that corner.

“I wouldn’t make you play with Hammy,” Margaret said, glancing over her shoulder to confirm he had left the store. “He’s no fun at all. But you and I? We could have fun.”

“I…”

“Just think about it,” she said. “I’m in your system. You have my number.”

With no further words, Margaret spun around and briskly exited the store, returning to the minivan to chastise poor Baby Hamish for putting the diapers in the wrong place in the car.

Effie sighed as she turned the music back up again. “This fucking job.”

[aldl4811]

Fantastic start!

[Kaleros]

This story is getting off to a good start and the dialogue is pretty entertaining. Keep up the good work Quietlyhumiliated.

[therende]

Good dialogue and entertaining generational conflict as well as fun bits of humiliation with Hammy

 

[quietlyhumiliated]

Three: Baby-Man

On any other day, he would’ve seen Harper’s SUV in the driveway and have automatically begun computing all the routes in the house that would minimize his chances of running into her. Today, he was happy to see her car. He would seek her out.

He didn’t have to look too hard, as she was already in the kitchen, flipping through the pages of a grocery circular that was in the mail pile. What an act that was - she never once cared about grocery shopping. She was waiting for him.

“Well, well, well,” he said as she strolled into the kitchen.

“Are you here to give me a hard time?”

“Are you here because you wanted me to give you a hard time?”

She rolled her eyes. “What do you want, Layne?”

He shrugged. “I dunno. Just curious about that, uh, thing from last night? That...oh what did you call it...a date? Yeah, I think that’s what you called it.”

“This is why nobody likes to talk to you,” she said.

“Who said that? Have people actually said to you that they don’t like talking to me?”

She rolled her eyes and waved her hand dismissively at him - a move she probably learned from him, as it was one of his signatures.

“No, seriously,” he said. “How was the, uh, date?”

“It was good,” she said.

“Did you...stay overnight?”

“No, I came back home.”

“Oh, I just didn’t see you because…”

“We left pretty early.”

“We?”

“Well they stayed over here, yes. And I had to get them back to their car and…”

Now he was doing the dismissive wave. He was a professional. Such smooth movement. Perfect arc in the wrist.

“Alright, you know what?” she said. “You’ve lost your question-asking privileges. You’re going to have to deal with being in the dark now.”

“Wait, wait, I wasn’t trying to…”

“Nope. No more talking.”

“At least tell me their name?”

No response from her. She grabbed a bottle of water and left the kitchen.

--

“So, here’s the thing. I’m thirty...four? Yes, I’m 34. My wife - I think I’m still allowed to call her that - is dating someone else. Well, she went on a date. And...actually, no, don’t get me started on that. Anyways. I have my own business, you know? But it’s kind of awkward to talk about. Like, it’s not the type of thing that’s going to make ladies swoon for me. It’d be like if I said that I owned a medical supply company. Actually, it’s a lot like that. But I’m just kind-of in this place right now where I’m asking myself all these deep questions. Am I happy? Do I want more? Am I ever going to have sex again?”

“Is this usually how you try to hit on women?”

He looked down at his half-empty pint on the bar’s counter and laughed. “Ah shit. I guess I had some things I needed to get off my chest. Sorry you had to hear all that.”

Her emerald eyes contrasted beautifully against her dark skin and the tight coils of her hair. She was smiling, but it was a sympathetic smile - probably the worst kind to be subjected to at a bar.

“Is that really your first beer?” she asked. “Or did you have seven more in the alley first?”

“You don’t even want to hear me whining after seven beers.”

“No, you’re right about that.”

“What about you? Have anything you want to get off your chest? This might be the time to unload.”

“I was passed over for a promotion a month ago,” the woman said. “I keep telling myself I’m over it, but I don’t think I am.”

“Yeah? That sucks. What type of work?”

“Project management for a group of environmental researchers. Wait, what did you say you did again? You owned a business that you didn’t like talking about?”

“And yet you’re still going to ask me about it anyways?”

She laughed and nodded. “Okay, what if I guessed?”

“Alright. Go for it. You won’t get it, though.”

“Stripper, right?”

Layne looked down at his body and laughed. “My stripping days are past me. You know, on account of me being way too hot.”

“No, I can clearly see that. But you said that it was like a medical supply store?”

“I sell diapers,” he blurted out. “I’m just going to say it. Because I’ll feel pretty stupid if I have to play this game with you and blurt it out later.”

She shrugged. “I mean, that’s not so bad. Babies gotta pee somewhere.”

“Adult diapers.”

“Less expected, I guess. But...old people gotta pee somewhere.”

“Adult diapers mostly intended for people with a fetish where they dress up, and act, like babies.”

Her mouth twisted a little, like she had to chew on that nugget for a moment. “That’s a thing? Like...I guess I know that people do...that. But I had no idea there was a physical brick and mortar store that catered to them. And that it’d be local.”

“We do pretty well,” he said. “Though I just found out that there’s a local group of concerned citizens who strongly dislike my store’s existence.”

“I believe that. But it’s not like you’re on main street, right? Next to a daycare?”

“Oh, we’re actually in the back of a daycare. Do you think that’s the problem?”

They both laughed. “What’s your name, anyways? I’m Kiri.”

“Kiwi?”

“Kiri, smartass. Nobody is named Kiwi.”

“Hello, Kiri. I’m Layne.”

“Lame?”

He laughed and shook his head. “There are people who would agree with that. Layne.”

“I’m teasing.”

“So a whole...baby store? What’s that like? Get many walk-ins?”

“I mean, people walk into our store, sure. But I’d be willing to bet that nobody has ever just been driving by and decided to randomly stop in and see what’s up. Our customers know who we are and where we are.”

“Are you a...baby-man?”

He laughed pretty hard - the kind of laugh that Effie would’ve been very proud of, had it been her joke. It wasn’t the kind of thing he was ever comfortable talking about - especially with a stranger. He didn’t think Kiri was different, per se, but the conversation had already been thrillingly candid. If nothing that he said so far had scared her off, what was the harm with going all the way?

“Yeah, I guess. Maybe not so much anymore. Don’t shit where you eat and all that.”

“A fitting analogy…”

“It’s a line that gets tougher to tread, between enjoying something and it being your business.”

“Yeah, I believe that.”

“Do you feel the same way about, uh, projects?”

She laughed and nodded. “Oh, for sure. But your life is far more interesting than mine. I want to know more about that.”

“Ugh, no you don’t.”

“Maybe just the baby-man parts?”

He snort-laughed. “Yeah? Alright. Ask me anything.”

“So, you wear a diaper, yes?”

“Jesus, don’t say it so loud.”

“Nobody can hear us. Look, there’s some sort of sports-game on the TV.”

“That’s called baseball,” he said.

“Answer the question, smartass.”

“Yes. But, again, it’s more like: I did wear diapers.”

“We can use present tense, right? I mean, you’re telling me that if you met some pretty woman who told you to put a diaper on for her, you would balk?”

“I wear diapers,” he corrected.

“Do you use them?”

“Well, yeah. That’s, like, part of the experience. But, let me ask, how does that make you feel? Because there’s a lot of people who would hear that and be repulsed.”

Her head waivered back and forth as she considered it. “I don’t know. I’m socially conditioned to find that gross. But...you could always just take a shower, I guess. There’s probably worse things in this world. Like cannibalism.”

“I’ve never taken a bite out of someone.”

She straightened her back, and her eyes glanced over his shoulders to something behind him. She was smiling - happy to see whatever it was. He turned to see what she’d be looking at, and spotted the man walking through the door. Tall, handsome. If he wasn’t a basketball player - he had to have spent most of his life being asked why not.

“Fashionably late, as always,” Kiri said with a shrug. “I’m afraid I have to abandon our conversation.”

“It was a pleasure meeting you,” he said.

“Should I ever need diapers, I guess I’ll just look up the only adult diaper store in town?”

“We’re not that hard to find.”

“Goodbye, baby-man.”

--

Back in the days of yore, when Layne still wanted to be a baby-man, he had a slightly different vision for Bottoms Up - one crafted from fantasy. Pretty women and handsome men would stroll in through the doors - multiple times a day - and they’d hem and haw over the diaper choices.

He’d step in, making some recommendations. Maybe he’d point out a particularly cute diaper and mention how perfect it’d be for a ‘big baby like you.’ They’d blush, make a weak attempt to deny such a thing, but they’d be hooked. And then Layne would suggest that they try one on for size.

And then he’d lead them through the swinging doors into the back stockroom where he’d show them the “nursery.”

The nursery still existed. It was a contentious room between Effie and Layne. She had lots of ideas for it. Extra storage. A break room. An actual office, as opposed to the haphazard table of documents and computer equipment shoved into the corner of the stockroom. Once she had even asked if she could rent the space from him and turn it into an art studio.

All requests were denied. He couldn’t let it go - that last strand of unrealistic fantasy. The store had been open long enough for him to know the truth - there would be no situation where he convinced a pretty young thing to let him put a diaper on them in the back of his store. But the day he surrendered the room to one of Effie’s whims would be the day that the original dream was dead. The store would just be a store.

He arrived at the store a little after 9:00 PM. He had been the slightest bit buzzed by the time he left the bar - only downing one more pint after Kiri left him to join Tall Guy. He could’ve gone home, but he didn’t even want to risk running into Harper right now - surely neither would be in the mood for that. So he stopped by the store after hours - something he hadn’t done in a while.

Slowly walking around the salesfloor, it was refreshing to just look at diapers without having to inventory or box them. Talking to Kiri about them - hell, feeling like he had to defend them when Grace Vander-whatever came into the store - had stirred something in him that hadn’t been stirred in a while. Everything that had settled on the bottom was kicked up. It was refreshing.

He grabbed a package of Carnivals and held them in his hand. They really were among the most perfect diapers he had ever seen. He was close to opening the pack before remembering he probably had some loose in the back. He tried to keep a few loose diapers of each brand on hand. Sometimes as freebies for orders, or sometimes as a sample to give to curious customers that didn’t annoy him too much.

Sure enough, he had most of a pack sitting on a shelf in the stockroom. They had even gathered a little bit of dust too - practically a criminal offense for diapers such as these. He drew one out, bending it back and forth to hear the plastic crinkle. Music to his ears, and a song he hadn’t appreciated in a while.

Boxes were moved out of the path to the door - no doubt a passive aggressive move on Effie’s part. When the light switched on, he found that the nursery looked almost exactly as it did the last time he saw it - months, he suspected.

“The nursery” was just a name. It was a large closet. The ‘changing table’ was a repurposed workbench, upholstered with some padding and fabric that he had to watch multiple YouTube videos for. There was a trash can - the trash bag within probably the same one that had been in there for the last two years. There was an empty shelf too, that once held essentials like baby wipes and baby powder. Again - that was a while ago. Back when he had more whimsy.

Layne kicked his pants and boxers off in the little room and climbed onto the table. Even if it had been a while since he last put a diaper on, it was the sort of thing he didn’t forget. Bottom lifted - Bottoms Up, he thought to himself - diaper positioned under him and threaded through his legs. Folded over and taped shut.

There he was, just a baby-man on the changing table of his nursery. ‘Nursery.’

It was comfortable. And while on his back, thick padding between his legs, he felt better than he had in a long time. This felt soothing. Natural. The troubles of life slowly faded from view. No Grace Vander-punks or Harpers. No need to think about the dead-end flirting wasted on April or Kiri. No smart-ass comments from Effie.

He slipped a thumb into his mouth. Goddamn, he missed that.

The thumb was a ticket to ride through some old memories - ones that were normally kept in a box under the metaphorical bed. Memories you didn’t want to look at, but would never bring yourself to throw away.

He used to call Harper ‘Mommy.’ Not all the time. But sometimes - specific times. Times when it mattered. She was good at it too - damn near effortless in blending coddling with humiliation. She could shrink him down to infant status with just a look. He’d be reading a book or watching the TV and she’d walk into the room with a smirk on her face.

“Baby want his bottle?”

Boom, done. He’d be on the floor crawling behind her, no matter where she went or what would follow.

That trip to Vermont. Skiing on Stowe, very well padded under the snowpants. The nervewracking and careful escape from the restaurant that night after too many drinks had caused the diaper to be used too many times.

His hand slipped into the front of his diaper. Hello, old friend. Remember this?

About nine minutes later, he had fallen asleep on the changing table, and this was where he stayed for the remainder of the night.

--

It was usually a bad sign when Layne was at the store early in the morning. Either things had been that bad with Harper the night before, or he had a wild new idea for something he wanted to do to the store - which meant he’d put a few hours of work into it and then ask her to handle the rest.

Effie parked and entered through the front door. She, herself, was about 5 minutes late - as she was most days. It rarely mattered when Layne certainly wasn’t there on time. But it was after 9:00 AM, and the lights weren’t on. The front door was still locked.

She immediately imagined Layne unconscious - maybe dead - on the stockroom floor, a shelf of diapers having collapsed on top of him. Later, talking to Harper, she’d have to say: “Well, this was probably how he wanted to die.”

“Hello?” she called out into the dark salesfloor. “Layne?”

No answer. She flipped the lights on and spun around the OPEN sign on the door. She walked back into the stockroom next. There still seemed to be no sign of him. He wasn’t dead on the floor. Which was good - though she was worried that she’d forget her comment for Harper by the time he actually did die.

“Layne? You here?”

Still no answer. She was about to shrug it off and head to the front counter when she spotted the yellow light emitting from the doorway of the nursery, creeping over the edges of the partially closed door. He had moved the boxes she put in front of the door - mostly just to annoy him, though that was weeks ago.

She walked towards the door, curious as to what his plan was. Clearly, this was why he was in early today - he had a project in mind for this room. Was he finally turning it into a break room? An office? Extra storage?

She pushed open the door and her eyes grew large. There was Layne - sleeping on his back, snoring slightly. Wearing nothing but a mostly unbuttoned shirt, white undershirt, and a diaper. A Carnival, at that.

She slowly backed herself out of the room and returned the door to its partially closed state.

This was probably going to be an awkward conversation later.

[maly]

I like the writing style, very good dialogue.

Thanks for posting.

Malhy.

[ShadeOfAce]

This is quite the intriguing read, I will say. Very much looking forward to more! 

[quietlyhumiliated]

Forgot to change the forum post name to reflect that Chapter 3 was added last week, oops! Well, Chapters 3 AND 4 are both available now

 

Four: Funny-Man

He knew that he overslept, if only because he was well rested. That sort of thing wouldn’t have happened if he was at home.

“Well fuck,” he muttered to himself. He looked at his phone. More bad news: it was a little after 9:30. The odds were good that Effie was not only in the store, but had probably seen him in his current state.

One of the things he had liked most about Effie was that she had never once asked him about his personal connection to diapers. Like Kiri the night before - most people, upon finding out he ran a diaper store, would ask if he too wore them. She never asked, nor did she seem to care. So much for that.

He slid off of the table, grabbing his pants. He considered hoisting them up over the diaper, but opted against it - it was bad enough that Effie had probably seen him in the diaper, he probably didn’t need to flaunt extra-padding under his pants now.

But, he was never one to waste a diaper either. He closed the door entirely and let out his morning piss into the mostly clean - briefly sticky - padding. He let out a pleasurable sigh akin to one Harper might after taking a hit from her vape after a long day without it. The swelling. The warmth. He missed this, and if Effie wasn’t somewhere on the other side of the door, he’d probably sit in this squishy bundle a bit longer.

Alas, gotta make the diapers. Or something like that. He peeled the still-warm diaper off, catching a whiff of the urine soaked padding. It always smelled different in a diaper, he thought. He bundled it up and tossed it into the trash can - making a mental note that he’d have to remember to finally change that trash bag now.

“Coming out of the closet?” Effie said as he emerged from the nursery. So much for waiting on the awkwardness to come after both of them skirting around it for a bit.

“No jokes, please.”

“Hold on,” she said. “I have one more: I’m glad to see we’re finally using that room.”

“You couldn’t have been late? Just one morning?”

“I’m late every morning. You’re just later than I am.”

“I’m thinking about going back in there,” he said, pointing back to the room. “I’ll sleep away the rest of the day.” It was framed as a threat.

“Are you cranky? Wake up wet?”

“I thought you were done.”

“Bear with me. I’ll be workshopping some more comments all day.”

He had been wrong - it wasn’t awkward in general, it was just awkward for him. Still, for as much as Effie was the worst person to have spotted this - she was also the best. He trusted her not to say anything to anyone else.

“I trust this will stay between us?”

“Yeah,” she said, sounding disappointed but sincere. “Everything alright?”

“Huh?”

“Well, I mean, you coming in early - probably very early - and the diapers and all that. Are you good?”

The previous night flashed before his eyes. The brief argument with Harper. The brief flirt with Kiri. The not-as brief stay in the backroom of the store.

“You know what? I don’t feel too bad today.”

“Is it because you…”

“I don’t want a smart ass comment from you about it,” he interrupted. “We had a, uh, embarrassing start here today, but we’re going to move past it. We sell diapers, right? I was, uh, testing the merchandise. And I’ll tell you what - they’re good. You tell the next customer who walks in here that. You tell them that the owner has put his own personal stamp of approval on the Carnivals.”

“Should I show them the pictures I took?”

“Did you...take photos?”

She shrugged, but then burst out in laughter, shaking her head. “Sorry - I wish I could’ve pulled that off. The look on your face…”

“I’m demoting you.”

“To what?”

“Diaper-pail emptier. You can start now. I left a present for you in the Nursery.”

--

The toilet seat was still down. There wasn’t a stray glob of toothpaste in the sink. There wasn’t a glass sitting on the counter with a quarter-inch of orange juice left in it that wasn’t either just finished or put in the sink.

Layne hadn’t come home last night.

She wasn’t exactly upset about it. Layne wasn’t the type - nor did he have the skill - to pick a random someone at a bar for a one-night stand. It was far more likely that he fell asleep somewhere he didn’t intend to. Maybe an alley or at a friend’s house.

She considered the possibility that he was lying on the floor at the store. Maybe a pile of diapers had collapsed on top of him. How poetic.

Harper would’ve loved it if she could move on with her morning and not let it bother her, but she kind of needed to know where he was - or at least that he wasn’t dead or buried. She briefly considered calling his cell, but opted to call the store instead.

“Bottoms Up, Effie speaking.”

“Effie, hey. It’s me. Is, uh, Layne there?”

There was a blink-and-you-missed-it moment of hesitation before the response: “Yeah, he is. Did you want to talk to him?” She sounded like she was smiling or had been laughing.

“No. God, no. I just wanted to make sure he was alive.”

Effie’s tone had lowered a little. Not quite a whisper, but she clearly didn’t want to be overheard. “Yeah, he’s alive. Fell asleep at the store though, FYI.”

“Alright, thank you. Hey, don’t tell him I called, okay?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Harper trusted that response. “Talk to you later.”

With the stress of Layne off her back, she felt like a free woman once more.

“Everything okay?”

Syd stood in the doorway, wearing Harper’s bathrobe. Their black hair, vividly streaked with violet, cascading over their shoulders, framing their pale face. Harper had been actively falling in love with them, though she was nowhere close to admitting such a thing.

The distraction was almost annoying at times, like now. Syd was just standing there, looking concerned and caring. And Harper would’ve liked nothing more than to just answer them. But instead, she had to take them in again; admire everything about them one more time.

“Oh...yeah. Just making sure that Layne was still alive.”

“Is he?”

“So I hear.”

“I guess I’m not going to meet him this morning, then?”

“It doesn’t look like it.” Harper sighed, thankful for such a close call. While she doubted Layne would’ve made a scene in front of Syd, there would’ve been some tension. “You’re not missing much.”

Syd shrugged - an expert on knowing when to butt out of conversations they had no place in.

“What’s for breakfast?” they asked.

“I see how it is now. Shall I wash your laundry too?”

“Please,” Syd said, grinning. “I’m not great at staying on top of it.”

“You were good at staying on top of me though.”

Syd blushed, glancing away.

“Pancakes?”

“That sounds amazing.”

Syd took a seat at one of the barstools tucked under the counter at the far end of the kitchen. Harper had almost forgotten that they had stools over there at all - it was possible that nobody had ever used them before.

Harper compiled the ingredients she needed. Truthfully, she’d have felt more comfortable with a recipe in front of her. While she felt Syd’s eyes on her, though, she opted to wing it. If she could pull it off without the recipe, and she was mostly confident she could, she was sure that it would look pretty impressive.

“You’re...more toppy than I thought you’d be,” Syd said.

“Is that a bad thing?” she asked, cracking an egg into some milk she had just poured into a bowl.

“Gosh no. Not at all. A wonderful surprise, that’s all.”

“That’s just how I roll, I guess.”

“Have you always been like that?”

It wasn’t a hard question to answer, but the answer had a little bit of baggage. Baggage that was, apparently, still alive. “I think that part of me developed a little later in life. One of those things that you never think about. And then one day, you see that there’s an opportunity - a need - within a relationship that needs to be filled. And, so, you take a chance and...voila. Domme-y Mommy.”

Syd laughed, a cute giggle they hid behind a hovering hand. “Is that what you are? A...Mommy?”

Harper sighed, worried she had said too much. “It’s...a name I’ve been called before.”

“I like it,” Syd said. “It’s got layers.”

“Layers?”

“Well, sure. Like, if I was to just call you ‘Mommy,’ I think that I’d…” They couldn’t quite finish that sentence, their cheeks already glowing pink.

“You think that you’d what? Why don’t you try? Call me Mommy.”

“Yes...Mommy.” Another giggle behind their hand, this time letting it develop into more of a chuckle.

“So, layers?”

“Right, right. So, it’s obviously very fun and sexy to just call you Mommy. But, too, I’m sure it’s a name that someone could have a whole set of emotions attached to. Like, expectations for how you look and act and talk.”

“Ah, got it. Yes, layers.”

“I can keep calling you Mommy, right?”

Harper smiled as she whisked the wet ingredients into the dry. “Yes, please.”

--

“...and that’s really what it comes down to: It’s rare that we have an opportunity like this to nip something so dangerous in the bud. We have to act. We have a responsibility - an obligation to our community. Anyone who doesn’t see this from our perspective simply lacks all the facts needed to see things the right way. And that’s what we’re doing here. We’re providing the facts. We’re providing the...oh...well, isn’t this a surprise.”

Layne was late, despite his best intentions. He was often convinced that his chronic tardiness had been inherited from his father. His mother often said as much - usually pointing out the 5 days past the expected due date that he spent in her womb. He had been born late.

He had debated not going to the meeting at all, especially once he realized he’d be showing up late. The last thing he wanted to do was to make a grand entrance. He wanted to quietly observe, maybe get a free cup of coffee. He wanted to know what his enemies had to say about him and to know what he needed to start preparing for.

But instead, Grace stopped herself mid-speech, and the group of 14 or so members of CALM followed her gaze to the back of the room where Layne had just entered.

“I understand that there are refreshments?”

It wasn’t as dramatic a moment as it could’ve been. Nobody in this room, save for Grace Vanderhoeffen, knew who he was.

“And speak of the devil,” Grace said, looking to rectify the audience’s indifference. “That just so happens to be Layne Stanlan - the owner and proprietor of Bottoms Up.”

People seemed slightly more bemused or curious now, but it was still a pretty mild reaction.

“To what do we owe the pleasure of your appearance tonight, Mr. Stanlan?”

“I just thought I’d drop by and see what all the hubbub was about,” he said. He was tempted to leave it at that, but he couldn’t help himself: “Word around town is that this group gets pretty wild.”

“Folks, this is what we’re going to be up against. Mr. Stanlan here thinks he’s a bit of a funny-man and he’ll do his best to charm the city council.”

Baby-man and funny-man. He was starting to accumulate a little collection.

“Honest,” he said to Grace and her club, “I’m not here to disrupt things or cause drama. I was just hoping to hear some of the discourse. I wanted to hear about the concerns.”

“You should’ve been here 45 minutes ago, then,” Grace said. “But we’re actually about to wrap up. Perhaps next week? It might be your last chance, seeing as how the city council meeting is the week after that.”

“I’ll put it on my calendar,” he said.

He stuck around, listening to Grace wrap up the meeting with some less relevant updates about other potential bees in their bonnets. At their dismissal, most of the folks left, barely acknowledging Layne as they shuffled out the door. Those that remained stood in small groups, drinking coffee and eating cookies.

Layne helped himself to a cup of coffee too before approaching Grace as she organized some papers to load into a folder.

“I hope you don’t mind that I helped myself to some coffee. I won’t eat your cookies though.”

“You should at least try one,” she said. “They’re homemade.”

“You made them?”

She nodded.

“See? Look, we can be civil. Polite.”

“Your point?”

“I just want to run my store. I don’t want to have to go to city council meetings or deal with your wild pack of elderly people who have nothing better to do.”

“Insulting the members of my group is not going to help your argument.”

He sighed, nodding. “Yeah, okay. Let’s try that again. I truly believe that I am not a threat to this community. Maybe we can have, I don’t know, have a conversation about that? Like, what if we just met up sometime soon. We can discuss it over dinner or a drink. Or just...here. Anywhere.”

“Mr. Stanlan, it sounds like you’re asking me out on a date.”

He laughed. “No, no. I just think we should have a conversation before things get too complicated. That’s not asking too much, right? Like, if I had a problem with anyone else in my life, I’d want to talk to them before I took them to court or something.”

She sighed, nodding begrudgingly. “You’re not wrong, Mr. Stanlan.”

“You can call me Layne.”

“I could, but I probably won’t.”

“So? You and I can arrange a little meeting? A tete-a-tete?”

“Lunch tomorrow?”

“That’s fine, yes.”

“The Schoolhouse? On 7th street? At noon? Would that work for you?”

“I’ll be there with bells on,” he said.

“As long as it’s not a diaper.” It was intended as an insult, no doubt, but it came off as playful ribbing. At least to Layne - who probably took most insults that way.

“You’re no fun at all.”

--

By the time Layne got home, Harper was reading in bed and Syd was gone.

There were, however, leftover pancakes in the fridge. He thought it was weird that Harper would make pancakes for herself. But who was he to complain?

[quietlyhumiliated]

Five: Irked

“You just missed her.”

“Missed her? Missed who?” he asked, checking his watch. 9:30 - he wasn’t even that late today.

“I don’t know who she was. Carey, I think? Said she was stopping in on her way to work.”

“I don’t know who that is,” he said, scratching his head. “Carey?”

Effie shrugged. “Well, she seemed to know you.”

“Carey,” he said again. “I don’t know. What did she look like?”

“Black? Cute hair? She looked way too cute to be someone you would’ve dated, so I just assume she’s your lawyer or accountant.”

“Oh shit. Kiri.”

“That might be it,” Effie said. “Yeah. Kiri.”

“Well did she leave a phone number? A business card or something? Did she say she’d be coming back?”

Effie shook her head. “None of that. I guess I could've asked her to leave a number. But, alas, I did not.”

He sighed, shaking his head. “Did you empty that diaper pail in the back yet?”

--

“I’m not just saying this to get into your pants, but your pancakes yesterday were much better than this souffle is.”

Harper smiled, lackadaisically letting her spoon orbit her cup of tea. “Complimenting my cooking does tend to earn one an invitation into my pants. Not that you need one.”

It had been a while since Harper felt this way. This all-consuming excitement towards one person. It had been years since she felt that way about Layne, and probably even longer since the time before that.

Syd smiled, cutting into the cafe’s overly-flaky souffle to harness another piece for herself. They looked as content as Harper felt. Or so she hoped.

There was a little error message elsewhere in her mind - it hadn’t quite made its way to the forefront yet, though Harper was aware of it. It was a reminder that she was going to have to talk to Layne about this. In her wildest fantasies, they weren’t a seperated couple - they were best friends who could support each other through whatever came next. Even if that meant heading in different directions.

Such wild fantasies.

“Alright,” Syd said, swallowing the bite of her breakfast. “We’re going to have to do it.”

“Do it? Do what?”

“We need to address the elephant in the cafe. The one that follows you around whenever we’re together?”

Harper sighed. “Yeah?”

“Layne owns a store that sells adult diapers?”

“You know, it hardly seems fair,” Harper said. “It’s his store and his dream. But I’m the one feeling embarrassed about it when I have to talk about it.”

Syd did their best not to laugh, offering a sympathetic grimace of some sort instead.

“I don’t know,” Harper said. “I try not to let it bother me.”

“I think it’s...interesting,” Syd said.

“Interesting. Better than you thinking it’s disgusting.”

“No. Gosh, no. It’s, uh, intriguing.”

“Interesting and intriguing?”

Syd laughed, running their fingers through their hair. It was something they did often. Harper suspected it was some sort of coping mechanism. If she paid more attention, she wondered if she could read Syd’s mind. Did the fingers in the hair mean they were nervous? Anxious? Gassy?

“I want to say I’m curious without saying that I want to put a diaper on,” Syd said.

“There, you just did it,” she replied with a smile. “But I might be able to help with curious. If you have questions.”

“I know you said you had been called ‘Mommy’ before. But are you into...all that? Diapers and what-not?”

Harper laughed, somehow unprepared for that specific question. She rolled her tongue around in her mouth for a moment, considering the best answer. “I think there was a time when it was something that I found pretty exciting.”

“We do weird things for the people we love,” Syd said with a shrug.

“I guess that’s a funny thing,” Harper said. “Because I was the one who brought diapers to the table originally.”

“Oh?” Their eyes lit up and they slid forward on their chair a little further to be closer. “I didn’t see that coming.”

“It was kind of new to me, too,” Harper said. “I’m not sure where the original idea came from, honestly. Maybe I saw it on TV, or online. Maybe I just saw a pack of diapers one day and my mind wandered. But it had been a curiosity of mine for a while. And so I tossed it out there to see if Layne was interested. He was. And it was really good for us for a long time.”

“And he loved it so much he decided to sell diapers?”

“That’s the very short version of that story, yeah. It just took over our life. It wasn’t a secret little thing to come home to anymore. The food on the table and our mortgage depended on diapers. We had crates of diapers sitting all over the house. I was spending hours every day talking to people on the phone who made bespoke adult-sized pacifiers. It very quickly stopped being something that we could enjoy. And, once that was off the table - and he became consumed by the store - we didn’t really have that much left.”

Syd offered a solemn and sympathetic nod. “Do you miss it?”

“I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to seperate it from the business. If I’m being honest? I wish I could. Because then I’d probably miss it.”

“I don’t want to make things weird,” Syd said. “But, maybe, I am...a little curious.”

Harper’s eyebrows raised. “Curious?”

Syd sighed and nodded. “You know, not for today. Or tomorrow. Just...somewhere down the line. If that was something that came up… I don’t know, maybe that’d be fun? I’m just saying.”

She tried to play it cool. She nodded slowly before sipping her tea. But inside? She was dancing. That excited feeling that Syd gave her seemed more intense than ever. For the first time in years, the word ‘diaper’ didn’t feel like an immensely heavy word associated with finances and time spent apart.

“Well, you know,” Harper finally said, “if we ever decide to try something like that out. I know a guy who can hook us up.”

--

He had never been inside of The Schoolhouse before. He knew of it. He got the jist of it, but it just didn’t seem like his scene. A ‘gastropub,’ whatever that was. Expensive bar food, expensive craft beer, and an environment that looked like it was built to replicate a rich man’s fantasy of what a dive bar looked like.

He was on time - maybe the first time he was on time for anything since the days his mother drove him to elementary school. By that virtue alone, he thought, Grace should raise the white flag and spare him an expensive lunch.

“Mr. Stanlan, you absolutely irk me in a way that very few people ever have before.” That was just her opening statement as they were seated at a table together.

“I don’t have quite that level of disdain for you yet, Ms. Vanderhoof, but maybe we’ll give it some time and see what happens.”

She shook her head as she laughed - a contentious laugh if there ever was one. “It’s Vanderhoeffen, actually.”

“Are you married, Ms. Vander...uh… Grace?”

“No,” she said. “Why? Were you hoping you could work in a joke or two about me not being married? Or the kind of man I’d marry?”

“I was just curious,” he said. He paused for a moment before adding: “Actually, I guess I was curious to know what kind of man would’ve married you. No offense. That’s genuine curiosity. Science.”

“Believe it or not, I’m not a full-time activist,” she said, playing with the silverware laid out before her. “I’m a social worker. The hours are often...unforgiving. And it leaves me with little patience for my fellow man.”

“That sounds like an excuse,” he said. “You’re capable of love, right?”

She scoffed. “Your wedding band would suggest that you are married, yes?” she asked. “What kind of woman marries a peddler of adult diapers?”

He was tempted to take a little offense to her question, but it was essentially the same question he would’ve asked her. He was tempted to correct her and tell her that he was separated. That didn’t seem like an especially good commentary on his character, though. Not to mention the meta-psychology one could dip their toe into regarding his insistence on wearing a wedding band while he was separated.

He shrugged. “People make bombs, right? Nobody likes bombs. Nobody thinks bombs are a good idea. If I was to ask anyone on the street if bombs should be outlawed, they’d probably be, like, ‘Yeah, fuck bombs.’ But there’s still people who have to make them. And those people have spouses. I assume.”

“Is this part of your argument?” she asked. “The argument to get me to drop my complaint with the city council?”

“I haven’t even gotten there yet.”

The menus arrived, and a few minutes of careful food contemplation followed. Layne had wondered if this was part of her game. Were there more ‘powerful’ lunch options? Did he establish more assertiveness if he ate, say, the short-rib grilled cheese instead of the fuji apple salad? Maybe it was the other way around.

Ultimately he went with the blackened chicken thigh sandwich. By his quick guestimation, it was smack in the middle on the scale of weakness-signaling and strength-signaling option.

She ordered the fried plantain entree - which he couldn’t place on his scale at all.

“So,” he finally said, after the menus were taken away. “I annoy you?”

She sighed. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have led with that.”

“We’ve talked all of twice. For probably less than 10 minutes total. I can’t possibly bother you that much.”

“I’ll tell you what it is,” she said, finger wagging in his direction. “It’s the fact that you came to me. You came to my meeting. You were late - but you bothered to learn where and when it was and then you showed up. I guess I wasn’t expecting that.”

“What were you expecting?”

“Complete indifference, I suppose. Or an angry and bitter argument - whether it was in person or in front of city council. But you’re neither of those. You...want to reason. Talk about it.”

“It just makes sense,” he said. “Doesn’t it?”

“It’s a lot easier when you’re angry. Or yelling at me. Or if I didn’t see you at all. But you had the audacity to show up to my meeting and…care. Right? That’s what you said. You said that you wanted to know what the concerns were?”

“So you’re annoyed because I care?”

“I’m annoyed with you because I wish we were on the same side. I...don’t dislike you as a person.”

“You just dislike my store? You dislike me as a…'peddler of adult diapers?’”

“Yes, that about sums it up,” she said.

He laughed. It was the most human she had ever looked. She might not have been a complete stuck-up, no-nonsense, joykill. Partially. But not completely.

“Is there anything worse than finding out your enemy is friendly?” he asked.

“It’s the absolute worst.”

“Do you think I’d be able to convince you to drop this drama and leave my store alone?”

“No,” she said. “I doubt it.”

“Alright,” he said with a shrug. “But, I will say this: At your meeting yesterday, I overheard you say that your group was ‘providing the facts,’ yes?”

“Yes.”

“I’d argue that you don’t actually have ‘the facts.’ You have assumptions and preconceived notions of what my store does and what it represents. Tomato, tom-ah-to, you might say. I don’t know. You’re a social worker, right? And I’m sure you’ve never once taken action on case without doing all your research.”

“Are you suggesting I research...diapers?”

He shrugged. “Yeah, I guess I am.”

“You irk me, Mr. Stanlan.” She was smiling.

--

The boxes were taped up and registered to be shipped off. She swept the floor in the stockroom and salesfloor. And she had even found some thick yellow rubber gloves under the bathroom sink that she used to carry the Nursery trash can out to the dumpster to throw out Layne’s overnight surprise. And she still had an entire afternoon to kill.

This was how bored she was: Effie had begun looking up local ordinances for businesses, looking for rulings and loopholes that either Grace Vanderhoeffen would use against Layne, or that Layne could use to his advantage.

She was far from a lawyer - most of the documents she found online were coded in addendums, footnotes and references to other documents that she didn’t know where to begin in looking for them.

But something had jumped out at her amidst her research. The names of the members on the city council. Seven councilmen and women - all of them with dreadfully old sounding names. Evely. Lawrence. Hillary.

And then there was Hamish Bellencourt.

It seemed way too good to be true. But was she really supposed to believe that there was not just one man in this town named Hamish, but that there were two?

She quickly searched for the councilman’s name, and found his picture. He had a slightly different appearance when he was wearing a suit and tie - but make no mistake, this was Baby Hammy.

For a moment, she contemplated calling Layne to let him know the good news. She stopped himself from calling, though. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Layne to do something good with this information, she just… Actually, that might have been exactly what it was. Besides, she already had an in with the councilman’s ‘mommy.’

She looked up Margaret and Hamish’s recent transaction in the system, and used that to pull up the account. Under her name - of course it was. Margaret McCrea; not a Bellencourt.

Further online investigation would yield that there was a Mrs. Madeline Bellencourt. Poor Mrs. Councilwoman - she probably had no idea that her husband was such a big baby.

The phone rang three times and the familiar voice of Margaret answered. “Good afternoon.”

“Good afternoon, Ms. McCrea. Sorry to bother you. This is Effie from…” she was almost afraid to say the name. She imagined Ms. McCrea driving a car filled with nuns for some reason - her phone playing through the car’s audio system. “...Bottoms Up?”

“Oh. Bottoms Up. And you must be the young woman who helped us pick out our diapers the other day.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“I’ll be quite frank with you, dear, I didn’t think you were going to call me like I asked. Especially not so soon.”

“I’m surprised, myself.”

“And so what can I aid you with, Miss…”

“My name is Effie.”

“That’s a pretty name. Is that short for something?”

“Not to my knowledge. Actually, Ms. McCrea…”

“You may call me Margaret. For now.” Those last two words were saturated with implication.

“Margaret. I was actually hoping to get in contact with your, uhm, friend? Your...baby? Hamish?”

“Ah yes, little Baby Hammy. Quite the character, he is. While he’s with me, he’s mine. But...he’s a rather important baby. I’m not sure if you knew this or not.”

Effie winced a little. She did, in fact, know this. “That’s what makes it difficult to reach out to you now,” she said. “Because I’m sure you were hoping that I’d call for the sake of some sort of...playtime. But, see, there’s this group who is trying to damage our business by going to the city council and…”

“Ah,” Margaret said, chuckling softly into the phone. “A political favor. Would you believe I am already aware of this little situation?”

“I would.”

“Baby Hammy told me all about it. It’s quite the pickle for him, really. He’d love to defend your store - and as a councilman, he’d have a lot of sway. But at the same time...it may not look good for him to defend a store like that. Even if he is a customer himself.”

“Do you think he’s open to a, like, conversation or something? Maybe myself or my boss could…”

“Miss Effie, Baby Hammy is completely under my spell. As are most of my babies. He’ll do as I ask. Or, at least he will if he wants his dirty diapers changed. And I assure you, he is almost always in need of a change while he’s in my care.”

“So...you’re saying that you’d talk to him?”

“For you, darling? Most assuredly.”

“Oh my gosh, thank you. That really means a lot to me. And, probably, my boss too, because…”

“But…”

Effie drew in a sudden breath. “But?”

“You may think me cruel for saying this, but...nothing comes for free.”

Effie winced again. Her heart beat faster and her stomach tied in a knot. Given enough time, she probably could’ve put together a shortlist of ideas Margaret might have had. She just needed to rip the bandage off: “Alright. What’s the cost?”

“It’s actually a very fair offer,” Margaret said. “Not only would you get me in Hammy’s ear, but you’d be getting some hands-on experience with your own merchandise.”

Effie could’ve guessed as much.

“Come spend some time with me. I’ll make you into a perfect little baby. And when we’re done? I’ll make sure the councilman has your store’s back.”

“Okay,” Effie said, slightly surrendered. Slightly curious. “We have a deal.”

[Marcorpsdoc]

Love it.  

[Babytom948]

quite the turn

[quietlyhumiliated]

Hey friends, just want to thank everyone who has been reading along with the story so far. I hope you're enjoying it, as there's still plenty more to come.

If you like what you see and want more, you really ought to check out my Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/quietlyhumiliated). I post chapters of this story weeks before I post them here at the most affordable monthly tier. And if you choose a higher tier, you get access to even more exclusive ABDL stories that aren't available anywhere else. And, you know, you're helping to support my efforts to write even more stories!

 

Six: Hanson

They called him Hanson because Effie had once remarked that he looked a lot like the one kid from the 90s pop sensations. The long-haired one from the “Mmm Bop” video. She didn’t know which kid that was, or so she said. Layne tried to turn it into a long-running joke for a while - insisting that she was actually a closet Hanson fan. It never really worked out, though. Effie was much better at either leaning into jokes or letting them roll off her back.

Hanson’s real name was in the system, or at least his last name was. At some point, Effie had changed his first name to “Hanson.”

Hanson was a repeat in-store customer, and not one of the favorites. He wasn’t especially friendly, and he always had a mischievous look in his eyes - like he was searching for some sort of trouble to get into. He was the closest any customer had ever come to being permanently banned from Bottoms Up, on account of the time he tried to stroll into the store one afternoon without pants on, sopping wet diaper hanging between his legs. Layne had handled it the best he could’ve: he pointed to the door and said, loudly: “Out!”

It worked that day, though he had been back a few times since - pants on.

Sometimes, but not all the time, he’d buy things. This, in itself, wasn’t an issue. But when combined with the rest of the facts, it painted Hanson as a chronic problem. Seedy, skeevy, and most likely scheming for ways to get off on public exposure at the expense of Effie and Layne.

Ten minutes after unlocking the front door, Effie noticed that Hanson was in the store. He was skulking around the shelves along the one wall, caressing the thick packages with his fingertips.

“Good morning,” Effie said. She was much more interested in making sure that Hanson knew she was there than she was in being polite.

“Uh, hey,” he said, glancing over his shoulder for just a moment.

One of Effie’s first jobs was working at the makeup counter in a department store. As part of her training, she was made to watch an ancient VHS tape about loss prevention practices. In it, new employees were advised not to directly accuse a potential, or suspected, shoplifter. Rather, it was best to approach them and just ask if they needed any assistance. Sometimes, just the knowledge that the store’s staff was aware of their presence was enough to dissuade them from any nefarious deeds.

That lesson had always stuck with Effie. She wondered if it was still an effective tactic all these years later. Maybe store security had come a long way since then and it had been decided that you were supposed to charge them, guns blazing, instead.

“Can I help you find anything today?” Effie asked.

“Uhm, just, uh, looking,” Hanson said. He wasn’t really doing much of anything. Just touching. And looking. But, Effie thought, in a creepy way.

Hanson was never an especially subtle fellow, and this morning proved to be no exception. His tight joggers - so close to just being woman’s leggings that they may have actually just been - were barely able to be pulled up over his diaper. They were the Fairy Princesses - pink diapers with magic-themed print on them. More popular with the sissies than anyone else.

She wanted to say something. She wanted to tell him to pull his pants up over his diaper, but she bit her tongue. Maybe this was as good as it got with Hanson.

He was doing something, but she wasn’t sure exactly what it was. He’d walk down the aisle, looking at things, and every few feet he’d stop and squat down and thoroughly inspect something on a lower shelf. His mannerisms, and the way he squatted, seemed kind of awkward. Like - this was not the way that a normal person moved when looking to see something on the bottom shelf.

She wondered if he could feel her stare on the back of his head. And if so, was that what he wanted?

A bad small caught her nose. She couldn’t quite place it, but it annoyed her. On top of everything else, Hanson now also smelled bad? She was going to have to put that in the system.

But the smell got stronger - which shouldn’t have been the case. It wasn’t like he was getting closer to her. Whatever smelled bad was new. Fresh. Getting worse.

“Oh fuck,” she said to herself. “Hey, Hanson.”

The man offered no recognition to the name, though he did look around curiously, as if to see who she was talking to.

“You,” she said again to the man. “Long haired guy with the Fairy Princess sticking out of his pants.”

Hanson stopped and stood straight up, slowly turning himself to face her. His cheeks had turned an epic shade of magenta.

“Did you just poop your pants in our store?”

“Uh…”

“I want an answer, mister.”

“Nuh uh,” he said nervously, shaking his head.

“You did. You totally did. You disgusting little…” She stopped herself. This was, no doubt, exactly what he wanted. This was the ideal scenario. Fantasy endgame. This would forever be the scene that he thought about later when he stroked himself in whatever rat’s nest he called home - the cute young lady calling him out for pooping himself. “You need to go.”

“W-wait,” he said. “I’m, uh, not done shopping.”

“You’re done. Go.”

He opened his mouth to offer another protest, but wisely decided not to follow through. He slowly backed up towards the door.

“You are banned,” she said. “For life. I’m putting it on your account. I’m going to make a note of this and tape it to the register. Because if I ever see you back here again, I’m not going to say anything, I’m just going to call the police.”

He said nothing. He turned and bolted through the door. He waddled across the parking lot and crawled into his ancient Oldsmobile, sitting in his desecrated diaper. As he drove away, she wondered if this was how he thought this morning was going to go, or if he really thought that this would go some other way.

He may have been gone, but Hanson’s thick noxious stink lingered in the air. There was no telling how long that would be there.

--

“We trying something new out today?” Layne asked as he pulled up to the entrance in the back of the store. Effie was standing outside, leaning against the wall. “Leaving the store unattended and waiting to see what happens?”

“You can’t go in there,” she said.

“Why?”

“Because it smells like shit.”

“Look, it wasn’t me. That was just one diaper, you know? And I only wet it. And I didn’t actually expect you to throw it out - so if it's still in the trash can in the nursery I’ll take care of it and…”

“No,” she said. “It wasn’t you. It was fucking Hanson.”

“Hanson? What did he do?”

“He came in here after I opened and walked around for a few minutes and then...filled up his diaper.”

“Oh for crying out loud. What did you do?”

“Kicked him out. Told him he was never welcome back here again.”

“Well, that’s good. I’m sorry you had to deal with that.”

“The store smells like his gross dirty diaper now.”

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Alright. Why don’t you...head on home.”

“What? I mean, it’ll probably be fine in a little bit. We can just go and get some air fresheners and…”

“Nah, I’m calling it. I’ll go in and lock up. We’re not going to subject ourselves to Hanson’s contamination today. Let’s come back tomorrow and hope for the best.”

“Do I at least get paid for today?”

“Yeah, sure. In fact, here’s a little extra for your trouble.” He reached into his pocket and fished around. He pulled out a little bit of cash - maybe the remnants of what he had given her the other day to buy coffee and donuts. He quickly counted it. “Alright, well, that’s only $8. So, like, buy yourself a sandwich or something.”

She shrugged and took it. “See you tomorrow?”

“We’ll see what the air quality looks like.”

--

It was something he had thought about doing most days - just letting the store remain closed for a day so that he could do anything other than work. He was always keeping an eye out for an excuse he could use to fulfill that fantasy. He was happy to have gotten one today, but a little saddened that it was Hanson’s stinking diaper.

He wanted to go home, charge his Playstation controller, and shoot some robots. Maybe hit giant beasts with an axe. He missed his old friends Kratos and Commander Shepherd.

But when he pulled up to the house, he noticed that parked behind Harper’s SUV, there was a car that he did not recognize. An older yellow Jeep, the back of it plastered in bumper stickers.

It was them. They were here, in his house.

He wasn’t mad, but it felt a little deceitful. He wondered if this was how it normally went. He’d drive to the store, and immediately after, Harper’s new friend would pull into the driveway for a day of debauchery.

The temptation was strong to just burst through the front door. Perhaps he had no right to actually be upset at what they were doing, but he did like the idea of introducing a little chaos to their morning. With luck, he’d cause a commotion that would interrupt whatever fun they were having under the sheets of her bed.

Formerly my bed, he thought - though not especially bitterly.

Instead he approached the aged Jeep and walked around it, trying to case Harper’s friend. Who were they? What did they like? What made them tick?

If the bumper stickers were to be believed, they liked jam bands and camping. Interspersed were stickers with slogans and phrases that he felt he was missing the context for. Maybe a reference to some TV show or podcast he had never heard of.

Peeking through the driver’s side window, he gleaned a CD wallet sitting on the passenger seat. An archaic relic of days long past, it reminded him of the days of narrowly avoiding car accidents because he had to swap his Sublime CD for a Tom Waits disc.

He wanted to just walk away, but he was curious. He tested the door handle. It wasn’t locked. No car alarm went off. Was this person just careless? Or confident that nobody would ever steal a brick of antiquated data-circles?

He reached to the CD wallet and dragged it closer to him, quickly opening it so he could flip through the pages. Observe now, judge later. Dave Matthews Band and Phish. Neil Young. Neil Diamond? The Police. Metallica. Nothing especially offensive or unexpected. It was a little disappointing, because their taste seemed neither terrible nor especially well-curated. How was he supposed to judge them based on this?

The door was closed as softly as he could muster, and began walking towards the house again. As he got closer, though, he could hear talking. The window.

There was a brief debate on the ethics of spying on his wife in their own house, but...there didn’t seem to be anyone else around to see this lapse in good judgment. He darted around the side of the house and crouched under the open window of the kitchen.

“...and, I never looked back after that,” a voice said. Not Harper’s. Theirs.

“I totally get that,” Harper said. Her voice was a little more clear. She was likely standing closer to the window, maybe preparing some food on the counter. “I was on the fence about it for a while. I grew up with the stuff, you know? We’d drink it with our dinner and everything. And so the idea of replacing it with something else - anything else - just felt sacreligious. So I never got on board with soy milk. Or even almond milk for that matter. But after I tried oat milk, it just felt like such a no-brainer, you know?”

Somehow, it felt worse that they were talking about milk than if they were comparing notes about favorite sexual positions. Milk was something you talked about with a partner.

“Are you going to eat that?” they asked.

“I couldn’t eat another bite,” Harper replied.

“No? That’s a shame. I had something you could have bitten.”

“Well...there’s always room for dessert.”

That was more like it, Layne thought. Good old fashioned flirting. Somehow, that made him feel a lot better than milk-chat.

He hated these moments. The ones where he’d suddenly stop, look at what he was doing, and feel really terrible about it. Yeah, maybe there were some strange logistics involved with dating while separated - while living with each other. But he could just hear it in her tone - she sounded happy. Happier than he had heard her be in a while, at least.

After walking back around the house, he approached the front door. He didn’t want to interrupt them anymore - but he did want to mash buttons on a controller.

--

“Shouldn’t you be...at the store today?” Harper asked as Layne walked into the kitchen. She was wearing pajama pants and an old Red Hot Chilli Peppers tee. Sometimes that was her gym shirt. Sometimes it was her sleeping shirt.

“There was some, uh, equipment failure at the office today,” he said, opting not to reveal the messy details in the presence of company. “So I’m taking a personal day.”

“Well…” Harper said, scratching her head, “I suppose introductions are in order. Layne, I want you to meet Syd. Syd, this is Layne.”

Syd stood up from the kitchen table to greet him. He had no idea what to expect, and so he hadn’t expected Syd. Tall and lanky. They had the slightest bit of an edge to them - something he would’ve called ‘alternative,’ had it been 15 years ago. Perhaps the most surprising thing of all was the kindness in their eyes.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Syd said, reaching a hand out to him. He took it, shaking it firmly.

“Likewise,” he replied. “Has Harpy been filling your head with terrible stories about me?”

Syd smiled and shook their head. “Probably less than you think.”

“I’m too busy making out with them,” Harper added. “Or else I would’ve talked their ear off about your annoying qualities.”

Layne could hear Grace Vander-half’s voice in his head now: “You irk me, Mr. Stanlan.” And then he pictured her smile. Subtle. Disarmed.

“Smells like...french toast?” he said. “Did I miss breakfast?”

Harper shrugged. “I have a piece left on my plate if you want it.”

“I, uh, might have taken a bite out of that already,” Syd said.

“Just as well,” he said. “Harper’s french toast is usually pretty soggy.”

“No soggier than your…” She laughed and stopped herself. It probably wasn’t a mystery to anyone in the room where she was going with that, but it was for the best that it wasn’t finished aloud.

There was a brief moment of awkward silence in the kitchen. All three of them tried to play it off as if they didn’t notice it, but nobody had fooled anyone else.

“So, uh, I hear you’re in the business of diapers?” Syd finally asked.

Layne laughed. “That’s how you decided to break the silence?”

“Well, I figured things are already awkward…”

“You’ve heard correctly,” he said. “Though, to be fair, we don’t just sell diapers.”

“Oh?”

“Sure. We sell, you know, onesies. Pacifiers. Bonnets. Booties. These locking mitts that you wear on your hands.”

Syd laughed. “A Superstore!”

His eyes darted to Harper. “Did you tell them to say that?”

Harper shrugged. “I may have told Syd about the naming debacle.”

--

Cleaving a demon in half was pretty cathartic, but it wasn’t enough. He felt congested with emotion. Not anger, necessarily. But it was something equally heavy - an amalgamation of a lot of different emotions that he didn’t have the ability to parse.

It wasn’t Harper and Syd. Or, maybe it was - but just a tiny bit. It wasn’t even Syd, as a person. It was the concept of Syd. The existence of a Syd. The reminder that he had let his marriage dissolve to the point where a Syd could not only walk through the front door, but would eat french toast at his kitchen table while he talked to Harper.

He missed love. Romance. He missed friendship. Effie was probably the closest thing he had to a relationship - but he was paying her, and he was just paying her to fill boxes with diapers.

Somewhere out there, Grace and her cronies were building a case against his store. Somewhere out there, Kiri hadn’t forgotten about their brief conversation at the bar. Somewhere out there, people were going to parties and hanging out with friends and talking about their investments and talking about their favorite limited runs of IPAs from a local craft brewery.

Meanwhile, all of Layne’s conversations began and ended with diapers.

Of all the emotions swirling around within him, it was anger that had managed to spiral its way to the top.

He needed an enemy. He needed a target for his negative energies. It couldn’t be Harper, because if anything, she was the victim of his negligence. It couldn’t be Syd, because they hadn’t actually done anything wrong. It couldn’t even be Grace, because he truly believed she was well-intentioned, though misguided.

An idea sprung to mind. He grabbed his keys and wallet and waved goodbye to Harper and Syd as they sat in the living room together.

He had expected that by the time he got back to the store, he’d have convinced himself that this was a bad idea. A cooler head would prevail and he’d just laugh at himself as he pulled into the parking lot.

It had actually turned out to be just the opposite. The drive only empowered him further. He felt further bolstered in his belief that this was the correct course of action.

He unlocked the back door and entered the stockroom. To be sure, he quickly walked into the salesfloor and sniffed the air. He was pretty sure that there were no lingering traces of Hanson, but there was this psychological taint to the environment. Hanson had polluted his store, and he’d forever be wondering if atomized particles of his diaper still hung in the air.

Back in the stockroom, he grabbed another single Carnival from the open pack and charged into the nursery with purpose. He slid his pants and boxers off and taped the diaper around himself. He wished there was a mirror in the nursery - in fact, he made a mental note to bring in a mirror. He decided that he wasn’t going to let his dream die. He would finish the nursery. Deck it out. Make it the fantastical escape he had always dreamed it would be.

Diaper on, he bent his legs and jutted his bottom out behind him. If it had been a long time since he had last wet a diaper - recent example excluded - it had been much much longer since he had done this.

He wondered if, on some level, he had known that this was where the day was going. There had been a few opportunities during the day where he thought he should use the bathroom and answer the call of his bowels. But each time he had put it off, for no defined reason. Here he was now, though, and he was ready to go.

There was a time when this moment meant everything to him. That ritual of getting in the right position and letting it all happen. The entire process - the lead up, the execution, the aftermath - was an elaborate song and dance that progressively shrunk and regressed him. By the end of it, he’d be rolling around in his dirty diaper, sucking his thumb and pawing at the front of it.

This was different. He unleashed his bowels aggressively. With purpose. A torrent of firm mess loaded the seat of his diaper in a loud eruption.

He wanted, so badly, to savor it. The feeling of the thick mass filling his diaper; the new weight of it pulling at his waist and sides. He wanted to sit in it. He wanted to crawl around.

He wanted Harper to change him.

There was no time to let himself be distracted.

He waddled out to the salesfloor, grabbing a pack of wipes from a shelf, before returning to the stockroom. There, between shelves of boxes of extra diapers, he unfastened the tapes of his own and let it carefully flop onto the ground - chock full of everything he had been saving up inside him all day. He wiped himself clean, adding the dirty wipes to the inside of the open diaper. Satisfied with his self-cleaning, he tossed the rest of the wipes aside and folded up the used diaper into a neat little package - reusing the tapes to seal it closed again.

He booted up the computer, doing some quick research in the Bottoms Up customer directory. Satisfied with the results, he shut it down again.

--

400 Malcolm Drive, Apartment 13C.

It wasn’t what he expected it to look like. Admittedly, he had comically low expectations, but this was a decent - if not completely normal - looking apartment building.

He hadn’t quite thought this far ahead. Did he actually think he was going to go inside the building and leave it on the doorstep? What then?

His eyes scanned the area, looking for inspiration as to his next move - and then he saw it. The Oldsmobile. The dreaded Oldsmobile. The old car that elicited groans of disgust whenever he or Effie saw it pull into the parking lot.

Grabbing the plastic bag on the seat next to him, he left his car behind and quickly trotted into the apartment building’s parking lot. Nobody seemed to be around. There seemed to be no security cameras.

“Please, please, please,” he said aloud to himself as he reached the car. Could he be so lucky twice in the same day?

He tested the door handle of the Oldsmobile, finding it unlocked. He smiled - literally laughing out loud in delight.

“I brought you a little present, Hanson,” he said. Hanson wasn’t there to hear that, of course. But he’d probably hear Layne’s words in his head later anyways. He turned the bag over, spilling the used diaper onto the front seat. With a soft ‘plunk’ it just sat there. For just a moment, it was a diaper. But soon, after the door was closed again and the afternoon sun had a little time to bake the contents of the car further, it was sweet sweet revenge.

And that felt extremely cathartic.

[Sybaris]

I think this is the first time I've been hooked on a diaper story just because it makes me laugh. The slice of life stuff is great and I think this story might resonate with muggles too. Excited to read more, thank you qh!

[Bluebird67]

Yes, this is a really original story. By the way, Layne referred to Syd as “her” towards the end of their conversation which was a bit crass, but then that’s Layne; I don’t think Harper should have let it pass, let alone made the same error herself.

[Babyqtboy]

5 hours ago, Bluebird67 said:

Yes, this is a really original story. By the way, Layne referred to Syd as “her” towards the end of their conversation which was a bit crass, but then that’s Layne; I don’t think Harper should have let it pass, let alone made the same error herself.

I think that makes the story more real. Pronouns have only recently (the last 3-5 years at most) become a staple conversation in our daily lives. Myself, as a gen X’er, have no problem with transgender people but I often struggle with pronouns, especially “them” because the connotation implies multiple or plural. I am not saying they/them is wrong, just that a majority of people do stumble and struggle with the pronoun preference. It might have been a slip on the author’s part or it might be intentional to point out that older generations do in fact struggle with this

[quietlyhumiliated]

19 hours ago, Babyqtboy said:

I think that makes the story more real. Pronouns have only recently (the last 3-5 years at most) become a staple conversation in our daily lives. Myself, as a gen X’er, have no problem with transgender people but I often struggle with pronouns, especially “them” because the connotation implies multiple or plural. I am not saying they/them is wrong, just that a majority of people do stumble and struggle with the pronoun preference. It might have been a slip on the author’s part or it might be intentional to point out that older generations do in fact struggle with this

Truthfully, it was probably a slip on my part. To @Bluebird67's point, it is an error I could see the character of Layne making—but definitely not Harper. I appreciate this being called out, actually. I wanted Syd to have their own identity, but not to have that identity be a source of drama or conflict within the story.

I went ahead and edited the dialog. Thank you!

 

[quietlyhumiliated]

Seven: Ring

“I’m just going to assume he’s not in today either?” she asked.

“He’s not,” Effie said. “I don’t know your relationship with Layne, so I’m hesitant to elaborate on that answer too much.”

“My relationship with him is nonexistent,” the woman said. “So fire away. Give me the dirt.”

“I’m only working an eight-hour shift,” Effie said. “That’s simply not enough time for all the dirt. So I’ll offer this: you’ll never see that man in this store before 10 AM.”

The woman laughed and shook her head. “He’s not a morning person, I take it?”

“He’s not an afternoon or evening person either, really.”

“Are you saying that I’m wasting my time coming in here early, then? On my way to work?”

“What time do you leave work?”

“Six. Most days.”

“That’s too late,” Effie said, playing with her hair. “If you want to see him, you’re better off showing up after 10, but before 4. Oh, well there’s lunch to consider too. So, let’s say between 10 and 11:30 and then between 1:00 and 4:00.”

“And he’s the owner?”

“Quite the gig, huh? Look, I can just, you know, give him your number. You don’t have to try and surprise him here in the store.”

“I could do that. But I was hoping to catch him off guard. Here in his natural element. Tease the baby-man a little.”

“The baby-man,” Effie repeated. She really wanted that nickname to catch on. “You are...Kiri, yes?”

Kiri nodded and smiled. “That’s me. And you are?”

“Effie.”

“A pleasure,” she said. “Well, I am on my way to work. If I decide to stop in again, I’ll keep your recommended hours in mind.”

“Should I tell Layne you stopped by today?”

“No,” Kiri said. “I’d hate to come off as desperate.”

“If anything,” Effie said, “you’d probably just inflate his ego.”

“Well we can’t have that either.”

“Mum’s the word, then.”

“Thank you, Effie. Though...if you can find the chance - maybe call him a baby-man? For me?”

“Oh, I very much intend to.”

--

To the surprise of nobody, himself included, he got out of bed late. Truth be told: this wasn’t an accident. He no longer used his daily alarm on his cellphone, and left his wake-up time up to the fates. If he got up early - good. If not - oh well. It had been this way for a while, and he couldn’t even recall when he turned off the alarm. Weeks ago? Months ago?

He stumbled downstairs and to the kitchen, fully expecting to run into Harper and Syd. Alas, just a Harper.

“It’s 9:15,” she said.

He shrugged.

“So you’re not even going to pretend to care about being late anymore?” she asked.

“Effie’s a big girl.”

“Are you alright? Depressed or something?”

“Or something,” he said. Though this was just a dismissal of ‘depressed,’ and they both knew it. “No Syd this morning?”

“They have a job. Sadly.”

He started to try and imagine the kind of job Syd would have. Record store employee? Radio DJ. It was far too early to dwell on something so unimportant.

She sighed and tapped her fingers on the table, clearly considering something. “Hey, can I ask you something?”

He stared at her with tired dead eyes. “You can do whatever you want. But I promise you that I’m probably not awake enough to give you a good answer.”

“I’d take a bad answer too, you know.”

He shrugged.

“It can wait,” she said.

There was a time when he would’ve fought for her to open up. He would’ve straightened himself out, shook the sleepy cobwebs out of his head, and handed her the platform to say whatever she needed to. Now, he was tired - sure. He was also defeated. The gears of change were in motion, and it felt far too late to change them now. She was moving on. If it wasn’t with Syd, it’d be someone else. She’d be moving out eventually - or maybe he would. At their most civil, they’d commit to being friends, though that wouldn’t last forever. The worst part, of course, would be that this had all happened so glacially slow that he’d be left with a lifetime of regret over all the opportunities he had to right the ship.

He let it go, holding her to that - it could wait.

He poured some coffee into a travel cup. He took a sip or two, wincing at the hot black liquid on his tongue - though it seemed to prove effective in restoring a little life to his body. He grabbed his wallet from the counter and his keys from the key hook hanging on the wall.

“Oh, actually,” she said. “There is one thing…”

“What?” he asked, his tone sharpened. “What is it? What is so important that we have to talk about it right now?”

“If you’re planning on leaving,” she said, “you should know that you’re wearing sweatpants again.”

--

It was hard to say why he was so cranky. Yesterday had been, by his own account, a bit of a win for him. A day off. There had been the dispensing of justice.

But - “Oh right” - there had also been a bit of tequila in the evening.

He had stopped at the store on the way to work, picking up a can of paint, some assorted paintbrushes and painting supplies, and a full-length mirror.

“I don’t like the look of this,” Effie said as he entered Bottoms Up through the backdoor, mirror tucked under one arm while the rest of the bags dangled from the other.

“You don’t have to be involved,” he said.

“What sort of project is this? What’s getting ‘Layne’s Frustrated Treatment’ today?”

“The nursery.”

She glanced over to the dark corner of the stockroom where the door to the closet-esque room was slightly ajar.

“Are we...using that room now?”

He shrugged. “I guess that depends on how today goes.”

“And if it goes poorly?”

“You can put a TV in there and call it a breakroom.”

“Then, and I mean this in the nicest way possible, I hope you fail.”

Almost immediately into his project, he too wondered if he was taking on something that was mostly pointless. Who was this room for? Who would use it? When? Why? How?

But being busy felt good, and so he shrugged it off and kept going. He dragged the makeshift changing table out into the stockroom. He washed the walls and swept the floor of the accumulated dust and dirt of years worth of neglect. He taped off the ceiling and floor and opened the paint can to reveal a warm pastel pink. It was the most perfect color for the room he thought. In his imagination, it was the color of the womb he had once spent time in. He wanted to immerse himself in the paint; bathe in it.

He’d settle for just putting it on the walls.

He took his time painting. It may have been the most careful he had been doing anything in quite a while. With every stroke of the brush, he became less fixed on how pointless the room was and more focused on the potentials.

A young couple comes into the store, blushing and giggly as they look at their options. The friendly, and handsome, shopkeep suggests a diaper or two, and the bashful boy shrugs sheepishly, unsure of what he could commit to. The young woman sides with the shopkeep - these might be the diapers they need. But the shopkeep senses the boy’s hesitation. “You know, maybe what you need is to try one on.” And he leads the two back to the Nursery, thrusting a diaper into the young woman’s hand. The boy seems unable to believe that he’ll be expected to put a diaper on here. But the young woman, she’s fine with it. She’s all about it. She closes the door and pampers her little one; he, well aware of the fact that anyone on the other side of that door - anyone in that store at all  - knows exactly what’s happening in there.

Or…

That woman is back in the store again. What was her name? April Something-or-other? She’s buying diapers for her boyfriend for his birthday. She’s flirting with the shopkeep a little - or at least she is not completely shutting down his efforts at flirting. He takes a wild shot in the dark - figuring he’s already got her money anyways. “What can I do to get you into a diaper today?” To his surprise, she’s not winding up to slap his face - she’s hiding her blushing cheeks behind a raised hand. She makes it very clear that all he had to do was ask the question. He offers her a hand, and she takes it. He leads her back to the nursery, closing the door behind them. He helps her out of her clothes, stripping her nude. Her skin is soft, a pinky-peach that positively glows in the pink nursery. He offers to help the nude woman to the top of the changing table, but she’s already there. Her legs are raised in the air, and her bottom is completely exposed. She’s ready for her diaper. “But first,” he says, unzipping his pants, “we need to…”

“Layne?”

He snaps out of his fantasy, realizing for the first time just how aggressively pink the room is becoming. He glances over his shoulder, afraid to turn away from the wall and expose the firmness in the front of his pants.

“Yeah?”

“Someone’s here to see you,” Effie said.

“Who?”

“That lady.”

“Be a tiny bit more specific.”

“Grace? From the Angry Citizens Club?”

His eyes grew big and he awkwardly darted up from his kneeling position. With a quick maneuvering of his pants, he hoped that nobody could tell what had been growing in there. “What does she want?”

Effie shrugged. “I didn’t ask too many questions. I just told her I’d see if you were around.”

“Alright.”

“As in,” she continued, “if you’re not here, I’ll tell her as much.”

He considered it for a moment. Was he here? Did he want to talk to her?

“Yeah, alright. I’m here.”

“Well she’s waiting out front.”

“Send her back here.”

“Yeah? You sure?”

He shrugged. “Whatever.”

The second she had gone through the swinging doors, he sighed in relief. It had been harder to hide his excitement for seeing Grace again than it had been to hide his erection.

--

“So this is, what, now?” Grace said, poking her head into the half-painted Nursery.

He considered lying for a moment. The truth would only prompt more questions. More judgment. More fodder for her whatever speech she gave to the other concerned citizens in town next.

“I call it the nursery,” he said. “It’s a work in progress.”

She scoffed, the first thoughts that came to her mind not seeming to be all that good. “Interesting.”

“What brings you in today, Ms. Vander...er, Grace.”

“I was in the neighborhood,” she said. It sounded like the kind of lie he had once used himself in the early days of courting Harper.

“And so you thought you’d stop in and see your favorite enemy? How very kind of you.”

“I was thinking about our conversation at lunch,” she mused as she walked around the stockroom, taking in the shelves of extra adult-sized diapers and onesies. “And it bothers me to say this, but I suppose you deserve to hear it: You may have been right.”

He laughed. “Ask anyone, they’ll tell you. You’re never supposed to tell me that. Even if I’m not sure what it was I was right about.”

“You reminded me why I became a social worker in the first place. Research. Delving into the problems instead of just looking at things written in a folder. I’ll spare you the entire sob story - but the quick and dirty version is that I spent many more years than I should’ve in the care of someone who convinced other social workers that I wasn’t a victim.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said.

“No apology needed. Like I said, I wanted to do better, and so that’s been my life’s work. That was why I joined CALM. But...again, you were right. I hadn’t done my research. I made some kneejerk reactions to what I thought your store represented. That’s not who I have ever wanted to be.”

“And so...what does that mean? For me? What comes next?”

“Research,” she said. “That’s what comes next for me.”

“Can I help you with that?” he asked.

She smiled, then laughed. It wasn’t the first time he had seen some life come to her face, but this was her most candid moment yet while in his presence.

“I don’t think so. I didn’t come here for help. I came here because I wanted you to know that.”

“Fair enough,” he said. “Though I’m curious. What does ‘research’ entail? Are you reading things? Watching things? Uh...wearing things?”

“I’ll see where my needs take me,” she said.

Layne glanced over to the swinging doors leading to the salesfloor to make sure there was no sign of Effie. The coast was clear. “I’m going to propose something to you. And I don’t want you to tell me yes or no.”

“Okay.”

He pulled a Carnival diaper from the open pack on the shelf. The same open pack he had pulled two from in recent days. He handed it to her, practically forcing it into her hands.

“What do you want me to do with this?”

“Take it home,” he said. “I don’t care what you do with it after that. Throw it away if you need to. But in my opinion? There are some things that you aren’t going to learn enough about by researching them online.”

She quickly stuffed the flat padded object into her purse, folding it in half to do so. When she looked back up at him, her cheeks had some extra color to them.

“This doesn’t change much,” she said, doing her best to compose herself.

“No?”

“This could backfire. My research could confirm all the worst case scenarios I imagined. It could only further empower me. It could fuel CALM to take our fight beyond the city council.”

He shrugged. “You’re right, this doesn’t change much. You could’ve done that damning research already.”

“May I make an observation?” she asked.

“Go ahead.

“You’re not wearing your wedding ring today.”

It was a sharp observation. He had taken it off - somewhere around the third shot of tequila the night before. In between the victory dance for having gotten stinky revenge on Hanson and lamenting the inevitable finality of his marriage. The ring was in his pocket now - not that it would matter if he said as much.

“How astute.”

“I shouldn’t look into that too much, right?”

“One thing at a time,” he said. “You finish researching this one thing first, and then we’ll talk about the other.”

--

She was sitting on the deck, sipping on some wine while her vape dangled from her fingers. She didn’t feel like getting a wine glass from the dining room, so she was drinking out of a plastic novelty cup from some place in Las Vegas she and Layne had gone to once upon a time.

It was dark and the outside light by the backdoor wasn’t all that effective of hitting the entire deck. There had been times when she asked - nagged, as he probably saw it - Layne to figure out a better lighting solution. But she actually didn’t mind it tonight. It was actually kind of nice sitting in the dim light.

Harper imagined, for a little while, that she was completely hidden from the rest of the world. It was just her and a plastic cup of white wine.

The sliding door opened behind her. So much for that notion.

“What the hell are you doing out here by yourself?” asked Layne.

“Is the deck unsafe for just one person at night? Are there monsters? Street youths?”

“We can’t all be snarky,” he said. “One of us needs another personality.”

“You should explore that. Become someone new. Fresh. Mysterious drifter?”

“How would you describe me now?”

“Optimistic grump.”

“I don’t care for that much.”

“Well thank you for the warning,” Harper said. “But I think I’ll be okay out here by myself.”

“I was actually looking for you.”

“Oh?”

“This morning you said you wanted to ask me something?”

She took a drag from the vape and washed it down with the wine. She hoped that the whole sequence looked pretty cool in the dim lighting of the deck. “Believe it or not, I came out here so that I didn’t have to talk to anyone.”

“Alright, well, I can just go inside, I guess.”

“Pull up a chair if you want.”

He did. She was tempted to be annoyed that he had taken her up on the offer, but instead she was just surprised.

“How was your day?” she asked.

“Was that the question you wanted to ask me this morning?”

“Don’t be a smartass. I’m trying to be nice to you.”

“It was...fine.” He had said a lot with a little. He sounded exhausted. Conflicted. Stressed. Uncertain. Probably a few other emotions she couldn’t put a finger on. She wondered what his day was actually like. The characters he encountered. The tiny little things that he got annoyed at. “How was yours?”

“Good,” she said, confidently.

“Yeah? For real? Like, you’re not just saying that?”

“It wasn’t, like, the best day I ever had. But it was good. Days have been good lately.”

“Because of Syd?”

“They certainly help.”

It was hard to say what his exact motion was in the dark of her periphery, but it looked like a shrug. A friendly and well-meaning shrug, she’d like to think.

“For the record,” she said, “I don’t think Syd is...The One. Maybe they are. Maybe they’re not. Maybe they’re just the first in a series of fun people I meet.”

He made some noises. Not quite words. Half-grunts or little clucks.

She decided to ask the question: “If I want to proceed with a divorce, are we going to be able to be friends?”

He didn’t answer right away. She didn’t expect him to.

“I worry that that’s just what we’d tell ourselves,” he finally said. It felt real. No jokes or sarcastic tone. Nude emotion. “But then we’d just fade from each other’s lives.”

“What’s the alternative?” she asked. “Like, what do you want? In a perfect world.”

She didn’t want to guess what his reactions were, and she turned to face him.

“You know what I miss? The old days. The days before the store. Back when it was just...Mommy and Baby.”

“Yeah,” she said. “I miss that too.”

Neither said anything for a moment or two.

“Hey,” he finally said. “Do you, uh, want to go for a drive?”

“Anywhere in particular in mind?”

“Yeah, I was thinking I could show you a little project I’m working on over at the store, actually.”

She laughed. She was tempted to tell herself that this was a bad idea. But...he was her husband. Still. For now.

“I’m down,” she said. “Let’s go.”

[Babytom948]

this guy a player,lol

[D503]

Amazing story. The part in chapter 6 about "disconnection" from romance and friends really hit home. But I'm also enjoying all the possibilities.