Going Green (A Shifting Sands Story) - Chapter 12

[Little Sherri]

One of the things I'm struggling with while composing this story, in addition to a lack of free time, and a desire not to neglect the main Shifting Sands story, is that, whereas Zack is primarily in disposables, Oliver is wearing cloth diapers... and I personally wear disposables far more than I wear cloth diapers. So, it's easy for me to put myself in the cockpit behind Zack's eyes, so to speak - I already have a disposable on at any given moment, and I can sort of walk the world in his shoes and pound out a few paragraphs when I have a moment between tasks. I sometimes feel like I need to go put a cloth diaper on to really connect with Oliver, but  I don't have time to wear and wash cloth diapers most days... sigh... Although I did put plastic pants on over a disposable and that helped a bit. 

[keith60]

I hope you will write soon 

[Little Sherri]

Chapter 4 – Cornered

Oliver sat morosely on the couch, updating the account information for his new video game system, and downloading upgraded versions of the games he was used to playing on his older console. Normally, he would have been over the moon at the prosect of giving himself a primer on a new gaming platform, and all the associated games, and would have been video chatting with a buddy or texting continually with several of them, in pursuit of meeting in one of the games as soon as humanly possible.

However, he was unable to take his mind off the slowly dampening conditions beneath him, and the feeling of the plastic pants as they encircled his legs and made his tummy and his back feel sweaty. He’d sat and played video games in a damp pull-up many times, but that was different, because, first of all, he almost never wore them uncovered, and, second, the dampness was confined to one area within the garment, whereas this cloth… diaper… was becoming damp almost in its entirety.

Plus, he’d never been essentially a prisoner of his pull-ups; although the rule was that he had to wear them to bed, once he got up, it was up to him if he stayed in them or not. There had been days when his pull-ups were dry, when he’d worn them for part of the morning, if he didn’t have any pressing reason to get changed, and then put them aside to wear them to bed again the following night.

If they were wet, he tended not to wear them longer than after breakfast, and if they were soaked, he tossed them immediately, took a shower, and put something else on. That had been happening more often recently, which he attributed to physical growth – he was taller, and was drinking more, ergo, his output had gone up. However, he was still fairly spindly, so making the jump from small/medium, to large, made the pull-ups too loose around his legs and waist. He’d figured that he’d probably outgrow the issue before they had to go looking for another solution, never anticipating that a solution would instead come looking for him.

This situation was wholly alien to him. Every time he felt a need to relieve himself, he was reminded that his autonomy around that activity had been rescinded for the moment. He was expected to just do it.

For testing purposes.

It didn’t help that Grace had asked him at least three times if he was using his “diapers”. He’d glowered at her over the shield of his pacifier as she walked away. The pacifier was stupid, too. His mom said the doctor told her he should be using it until he got “comfortable.”

Comfortable? Fat chance.

 

Suckling on it idly, he took one hand off his controller and pulled open the waistband of his plastic pants at his right hip. The inside surface of them was clouded by condensation, befitting the general humidity below him. He looked at the safety pin that held the front and the back of his diaper together. It was pierced through the back panel, went through the front panel, and then caught the corner of the back panel again. The light blue plastic head of the pin looked easy enough to open, but, he wasn’t sure that he’d have the dexterity to replicate the interweaving of the material.

At some point, I’m going to need to go to the washroom.

He’d have preferred to just go take care of that himself, and not to give Grace or his mom the satisfaction of having to ask, but, getting the soggy diaper back on himself convincingly would be a challenge. His dad was in his office, probably editing video clips with Christine. He sighed, let his plastic pants snap shut, and went back to digging through the menus on the screen in front of him.

His stomach grumbled, not for the first time. He shook his head, tossed the controller aside, and got up off the dark leather couch, walked across the Turkish rug that was under it, and felt the cooler hardwood under his bare feet as he headed for the kitchen. The diaper shifted and pulled and rubbed and sagged in ways that were different from a pull-up, and markedly different from normal underpants. His back felt cold.

He walked on to the large stone tile of the kitchen, feeling like a toddler, but one who could see over the countertops. Grace was sitting at their expansive marble island, tinkering with the settings on her phone. Without looking up, she said, “Is diaper boy ready for his change?”

His mom, who had her back to Grace and was working at a cutting board next to the sink, doing something fancy to what looked like beans, turned and smiled at him.

“How’s the setup on the play machine going?”

Oliver started to speak, then pulled the pacifier from his mouth, putting it down on the corner of the island. “It’s fine, mom.”

“Are you getting used to your new underpants?”

Oliver’s cheeks started glowing. He averted his gaze.

“It’s going to take a little while, sweetie – going over to cloth diapers under plastic panties is an adjustment. Give it some time. They’ll become like a second skin to you – you won’t even know that they’re there. I read that cloth diapers can be even more comfortable than disposables. And you look so cute.”

Oliver looked at the ceiling and took a breath.

“I need them to not be there, mom, because I have to go to the washroom. Uh, number two.”

His mom put down the knife she was using to julienne the beans, wiped her hand on her apron, and walked around the island. She leaned over, startling Oliver when she put her hand on his side and slid a finger into his plastic pants, looking off in the distance like she was hearing something from afar.

“I don’t think you’re so wet, sweetie, that your diaper needs to come off just yet. Remember, every diaper change adds to the laundry load. Why don’t you do what you need to do, and then we’ll get you changed before dinner. Remember, Grandpa and Grandma are coming – you’ll want to be in a fresh diaper for them, won’t you?”

“I… you don’t understand, mom – I need to use the toilet. I can’t do what I need to do unless I take my diaper off.”

Grace looked over from the island. “It’s you that doesn’t understand, Oli. Your diaper IS your washroom now. Mom put one of those liners in there – remember, they’re made for poop? Get it?”

“SHUT UP, GRACE, I’m not talking to YOU!” Oliver yelled, almost into his mother’s face, as she stooped in front of him.

“My my, today is going to be an emotional day for you, isn’t it Oli? Dr. Paige said that it might be. That’s fine. That’s what this is for…,” Cheryl said, as she turned and picked his pacifier up, gliding it directly to Olivers lips.

Hot tears spilled down his cheeks as his mom put her hands on his shoulders and turned him towards the dark walnut cabinets on the back wall of the kitchen. She guided him to where the cabinets met a wall of shelving.

“You can stand in the corner and do your business there, if that’s how you’re going to talk to people. Grace, can you set a timer on your new watch?”

“Sure, Mom, for what, an hour?”

“I don’t think an hour is necessary, at least not yet. I’d like him to have a chance to get cleaned up before his grandparents get here. Set it for forty-five minutes.”

Grace tinkered with her watch, looked over at her brother’s slumped shoulders, and said “Done.”

His mom patted him on the head, turned and walked back to the countertop. Oliver heard the water run as she washed hir hands.

“Does he have to stay there until he poops, mom?” Grace asked mischievously.

“I’d say so. It wouldn’t be good for him to start holding it  – that can lead bigger problems.”

“Hey, Oli, sounds like we’re both getting a chance to use features on our new presents…”

Oliver tried to stay silent, but he couldn’t quite choke back a sob, one born of anger and humiliation. He wanted to go take Grace’s new watch and smash it under his foot.

“Suck your paci like the doctor told you, diaper baby, if you’re gonna cry,” Grace sneered.

“That’s enough, Grace. It’s Christmas. Give your brother some time to get control of himself. Fill a pot with water for me, and shake a little sea salt into it – the pink one.”

“Yes, mom.”

 

__________

 

Oliver estimated that a half hour had passed, while he stood and stared at a plate that his parents had bought in Mexico, glazed in dark blue, with an intricate gold pattern around the edges. It stood on a stand in the corner where the shelving met the cabinets.

His mom and his sister made small talk, and the knife clicked against the cutting board, and Oli heard his sister busy herself with watching videos on her phone. The heat had gradually left his cheeks, the tears now dry, but, he could feel pressure building in his tummy.

Why didn’t I just go do this myself? Why did I come in here and announce it?

He shook his head. Then, his mind turned to the thought of his grandparents walking into the room, and seeing him in a soggy diaper, standing in the corner.

No. This has to end.

Oliver put his hands on his opposite shoulders, and dropped his chin into the vee between his wrists, as though hugging himself. He closed his eyes and gave a light push. Almost immediately, a small, solid lump extruded into the seat of his diaper. He kept pushing, trying to finish as softly as he could. He passed a small amount of gas, but it was enough to be audible in the quiet room.

“Oli, did you finish your business?” his mother asked from behind him, in a hopeful tone.

“Yeth,” he whispered around the pacifier.

“Seriously?!? You pooped your diaper? NO WAY. That’s awesome,” Grace gushed.

Oliver’s head fell forward.

“Grace, give your brother some encouragement. How much time does he have left in the corner?”

Grace played with the screen on her watch. “Twelve minutes.”

“Well, Oli, in twelve minutes, Grace is going to help you get cleaned up for dinner.”

“WHAT?!?! No,” Grace balked. “THAT was not the deal. I’m not cleaning up the baby’s poopy butt. That’s gross.”

“You can help him open his diaper, and then he can clean himself and take a shower, and then you can diaper him again for dinner, and pick out new panties for him. I think the blue lacy ones would look so sweet with his white cable knit sweater, the one Grandma got him for his birthday.”

“Ooooh, yes, I agree. Okay fine, I’ll help baby with his diaper.”

Oliver closed his eyes, dropped his hands to his sides, and sucked on his pacifier. Suddenly, he wanted more than twelve minutes in the corner.

 

[Pierry Louys]

Great chapter like always ! The only thing I don’t understand it’s why his mom is letting his sister bully him so mercilessly, and why she don’t have to change him since they want him to use diapers but don’t want to change ???  Not even Kelly is so mean 

[A_Pale_Spirit]

Wow, incredible chapter!

Excellent writing like usual! Loved the sister's interactions this chapter!

Looking forward to more like always.

[wetdiaper55]

I really like the story. Great new story idea . 🧷

[D503]

Poor kid. If they're going to be watching water and energy, he might have to stay longer in cloth nappies than is safe. He might even have to handwash them as a punishment.

[CDfm]

Fantastic job on the latest. Although the more I read the angrier I get at Grace. That girl doesn’t have a decent bone in her body! She is pure evil, the kind of person I take joy in putting in their place.  His mom comes across as being so ignorant that she doesn’t even know what she is doing to Oliver. I think she actually believes she is helping him this way. That’s a kind of dangerous ignorance. 
I am looking forward to seeing what happens next. 

[Andyman3]

I love how this is written. You really feel it. Can't wait for more

[Little Sherri]

Chapter 5 – Breath With Me

Oliver stood facing into the corner, pulling intermittently on his pacifier. He heard his mother lower her voice and call Grace over to her. They were looking at something on her phone.

Cheryl opened an email string on her phone that she had ongoing with Ellen Chan, Dr. Paige’s assistant.

She spoke in a low voice. “Skim what it says here, Grace. Diaper changes should not be stressful. If handled correctly, they can be a special time where participants reconnect, bond, and relax. Try to make diaper changes a positive experience. I’d like you to be gentle with Oli, not sharp, and don’t make fun of him. If he dreads being changed, that isn’t going to help him get used to being put in cloth diapers.”

Grace pressed her lips together. “Fine. I’ll tickle the baby’s tummy. Just don’t get the idea that this is becoming one of my chores. If you want him waddling around in nasty baby diapers, that should be your issue, NOT mine.”

Cheryl ignored her daughter’s comment. “Put him in two diapers, with a booster, so he can make it until bedtime – then, he won’t need to be changed while everyone is here. How much time does he have left?”

Grace tapped the front of her watch. “Two minutes.”

Cheryl walked across the room to Oliver. “Are you going to head up with Grace to get cleaned up like a good boy, or do you want another hour put on the timer, and you can say Merry Christmas to your grandparents from your corner?”

Oliver turned and looked balefully at his mother. “Fine,” he whispered around his pacifier.

“Good boy. When Graces watch beeps, you can go. Your paci stays in until I take it out – I don’t want any arguments up there.”

Oliver looked at the floor. A moment later, the watch emitted a beep.

“I’m going to work on getting it to play something, instead of just beeping,” Grace said to her mother, as she walked over to Oliver and took him by the left hand. Oliver trailed behind her as they headed upstairs, feeling the unfamiliar, damp bulk of his diaper shifting around inside his plastic pants. 

Once they were up the stairs and on the landing, Grace led him to the bathroom that they shared. Inside the bright environs, tiled in white quartz, there was a large glass shower stall across from a counter with two sinks. On the floor against the wall adjacent to Oliver’s sink was a white plastic bin with a lid that had a window in it, which glowed green with the light of an LED. On the side of the bin, in white embossed letters, were the words “MY DIAPERS” in a cheerful arc.

“Watch this, Oli,” Grace said, and let go of his hand, skipping over to the bin. She waved her hand over the top of it, and silently, the lid motored open. She reached inside and pulled out what looked like a piece of wax paper, and Oliver realized that there were stickers on it.

“You can decorate your diaper bin if you want to! Isn’t that neat? You can put your name in coloured letters on it, or, uh…,” she studied the sheet, “or a pirate sword, or hearts, or a rainbow… make it yours.”

Oliver studied his feet, breathing heavily around his pacifier.

“Here, I’m going to unpin your diaper for you and then go get your outfit ready. I don’t want to see inside that thing, and I don’t think you want me to, either. Take the pins out, put your diaper and your panties in the bin, take a shower, and then come to your room. Don’t take all day – Nan & Gramps are going to be here soon.”

Grance crouched in front of her brother and pulled his plastic pants down partway, at his left hip, revealing a metal diaper pin with a light blue plastic head. She opened the pin and carefully withdrew it from the damp white cotton it secured. The folds of his diaper fell away lightly, restrained by the plastic cover.

“Ewww… pee pee fingers,” she said, as the placed the pin on the marble countertop and washed her hands quickly. “I assume you’ve got it from here?”

Oli nodded almost imperceptibly.

Grace swirled and walked out of the room, closing the door with an exaggerated sweep behind her. She strutted into Oliver’s room and began checking the drawers in his change table.

Oliver looked up when he heard the door click shut, and he immediately engaged the lock. Looking down at himself, he tried to figure out what to do next. His choo-choo themed plastic pants sagged notably under the weight of his partly unpinned, fairly damp diaper. He slid his thumbs under the lacy waistband of the pants, and slid them down to his knees, surveying the results in the mirror over the sink. His diaper threatened to open on the unfastened side, but didn’t fall completely away. The air hitting his damp skin caused an immediate cooling sensation. He stepped out of the plastic pants and dropped them into the bin.

Next, he held the damp wings of his diaper closed with his hand, and walked over to the shower stall.

I don’t want anything in there to drop onto the floor…

Once he was inside, he decided to slide the diaper down around his other leg like a pair of shorts, rather than unpinning it. It landed on the floor with a quiet splat. Looking down at it, the small poop he’d been forced to deposit was evident in the seat area, but, it hadn’t really spread anywhere outside of the liner. After thinking for a moment, he stepped out of the shower stall, first turning on the overhead fan, and then, he pulled a wad of toilet paper from the roll suspended on a chrome rod, next to the toilet. He used it as a glove, to carefully extract the liner and the semisolid lump from inside the diaper, before dropping both in the toilet. He wiped himself clean using more toilet paper, and then flushed the toilet, before habitually washing his hands.

Only after he washed them did he consider that he now had to pick his diaper up and put it into the bin with the plastic pants.

Oops.

He grasped the diaper at the front and back, hiding the stained interior, and dropped it unceremoniously into the bin, before washing his hands again. Then, he eyed the lid. He waved his hand over it.

Nope.

Next, he pushed it down with his hand, feeling a gentle resistance until a latch of some sort engaged. The LED in the window glowed green again.

Dumb.

Oliver went back into the shower stall and turned the water on as hot as he could stand.

___________

 

Grace opened the dark wood drawers methodically. They slid open smoothly, with an expensive weight. The brushed metal pulls felt solid to the touch. After doing a quick inventory, she selected two cotton flat diapers, a booster bad, a liner, pins with white plastic heads, and the opaque blue plastic pants with white lace trim. She laid the diapers out in the center of the change pad, placed the booster in the center of the diaper, and then folded the outer edges of the diaper over the booster in the middle, creating an hourglass shape. She put the liner on the rear triangle of white cotton, folding it so that it had a similar shape.

Next, she pulled baby powder and a tub of diaper cream from a deeper drawer on the bottom of the unit. Opening the cream, she gave it a sniff; it smelled like baby powder, with an underling medicinal note. She eyed it dubiously.

He’s going to put this on himself, I don’t care what mom says.

Grace walked over to the light switch beside Oliver’s bedroom door, and dimmed the lights slightly. She didn’t think that airport-level illumination was called for. Next, she pulled a white t-shirt and a white cable-knit sweater out of the tallboy dresser next to his bed, laying them on his navy blue comforter, alongside the plastic pants she’d chosen for him.

Finally, she sat on the corner of his bed, hearing a muted crinkle emit from under the covers.

His plastic mattress cover. What a loser.

She opened her phone and scrolled through her social media feeds, looking for any updates on her dad’s campaign. Nothing appeared yet.

That’s why dad’s been sequestered in his office all day.

She was looking forward to seeing how the latest family green initiative was going to be portrayed by his publicity team. Oliver had looked like a hostage for most of the sequence; Grace wasn’t sure how that reality could be glossed over, even by a talented editor.

She heard the water stream snap from the shower head back to the spout, and then go off, and a few minutes later, a towel-wrapped Oliver padded morosely into his room, hair still damp. He eyed the diaper laid out on his changing table, and felt his stomach drop.

“Oli,” Grace opened, “I think mom wants you using your baby soother.”

Oliver’s eyes flicked up to Grace’s, and she saw a brief flash of defiance, but then his cheeks reddened deeply, and he turned and walked back to their shared washroom, before returning with the cream-coloured, train-themed shield covering his lips.

“Good boy. Here’s what you’re going to do: I’ll turn around, and you climb up onto your changing table and lie down on your diaper.”

Grace lifted the tub of diaper cream and held it out to Oliver.

“Put this… you know, on your… diaper area. Then, pull the front of the diaper up over yourself, and then I’ll put the pins in and finish dressing you.”

Grace turned around and made a show of obviously affixing her eyes on her phone.

Oliver sighed, and dropped his towel to the floor, feeling a chill from the exposure of his damp skin, but also, just the exposure. It had been a long time since he’d been undressed in the same room as his sister; when they travelled, if they shared a room, she generally staked out the bathroom, he got dressed in the main room, and they had a strict knock-and-ask protocol before anyone came in or out. He might on occasion have brushed his teeth in the bathroom in underwear or a pull-up, or her in panties, but he hadn’t been completely nude in front of her since he was probably five or six.

Even if she is facing away from me.

Oliver put the open tub of diaper cream he’d been handed down, at the head of the table he was about to climb up on. Next, he pulled the handle on the side of his new dresser, feeling the smooth operation of the mechanism as the staircase deployed. He climbed the three steps, pivoted on the top one, and sat on the change pad, before wiggling up until he was, as far as he could tell, centered on his diaper.

He sat up, leaning on an elbow, and used his other hand to put the diaper cream next to his hip, before reaching into it with a clawed pair of fingers, and scooping up a hefty glob of thick, white, powder-scented cream. He eyed his groin with furrowed eyebrows.

Where am I supposed to put this goop?

He shook his head, and decided to paste it in the folds down either side of his legs, wiping the rest of it on his lower abdomen, where he was sure it would be covered.

“Can you geth me, a, uh, thissue or thomething,” he asked around his silicone teat.

Her head lifted from her phone, causing him to hastily add, “DON’TH thurn around!”

“Wipe your fingers on your diapers, dummy,” she said, audibly rolling her eyes.

Oliver sat forward and retrieved the upper folds of the two diapers he was to be enveloped in, using one hand to grip and wipe the other with the white towel-like material. Then, he spread the layers over the front of himself as best he could, and then he laid back.

“Okay,” he said, with evident resignation.

Grace turned around and looked at the table, taking in the slim, stark white form of her little brother, head turned towards the wall, cheeks glowing pink.

He looks a lot younger. Maybe like he’s seven or eight.

She felt a twinge of sympathy for him, and decided to try and follow her mother’s directive, with respect to being kind and gentle.

“Okay, little Oli, good job,” she said in a singsong voice. “First, I’m going to buckle up your safety strap, so that you can’t fall off your changing table!”

Oliver clenched his eyes shut. No uplifting tone was going to make his situation somehow less unbearable.

Grace latched the safety strap across Oliver’s chest, pulling the slack through the buckle until it was snug.

“There, now you’re nice and safe. Let’s get you in your warm, comfy diapers, shall we?” she asked rhetorically. Picking up one of the safety pins, she leaned over Oliver’s right hip like a medical student attempting her first stitch on a live patient. She pulled the upper corner of the rear panel over the front panel, using her other hand to smooth the overlapped section of the front down. Next, she pushed the sharp end of the pin through the two layers of white cotton, until she felt the pierce through the other side.

“We go through the top layer first,” she said out loud, as though narrating an instructional video. “Then, we pull the front snug, then, we go through the bottom layers, and back through the top ones again, before closing the pin.” She made a couple of attempts at it.

There!” she said with evident satisfaction. “Oh, wait, I didn’t put baby powder on you!”

Grace spun, seized the baby powder, turned back, and partly lifted the front panel of Oliver’s diaper, before inserting the nozzle of the baby powder bottle into the opening she’d created. Then, she gave the bottle a generous squeeze, resulting in a plume of white dust.

“That smells so cute, don’t you think, Oliver? I’m jealous, actually.” She took the bottle, pulled the neck of her sweater open, and fluffed a little powder down the front of it. “Now, we both smell baby fresh!”

Oliver reached forward and smoothed the front of his diaper down on the unfastened side, keeping his head turned toward the wall.

Grace leaned over him and pulled the front and rear panels over each other until the the rear panel was depressing the skin on Oliver’s left hip.

“Does that feel okay, or is it too tight?”

Oliver just shook his head.

Grace gave the material another tug, and then slid her left hand under both layers, so that she could feel the head of the pin once it broke through the firm cotton, in the process nearly stabbing herself on the first try.

“Whoops, that would have hurt!”

Finally, she directed the sharp end of the steel shaft back through the top layer, and then she clicked it into the white plastic safety cover.

Then, she placed a hand on Oliver’s flat tummy, making a light walking motion with her fingers that caused him to open his eyes and look up at her.

“There we go! Does that tickle? Does it?” she asked in a high voice, as she opened and closed the tips of her fingers.

Oliver exhaled around the pacifier, despite his best efforts not to. It really did tickle a bit.

“Ohhhhhh, I see that smile behind your soother, mister, you can’t hide that from me! We didn’t hurt baby, did we? No, we didn’t, no we didn’t.”

Oliver’s cheeks glowed with more heat than he would have thought possible.

“Now, let’s get you into your cute little plastic panties,” Grace said, as she turned and plucked them off the bed. “Ankles up!”

Oliver closed his eyes and lifted his ankles, feeling the scratchy vinyl cuffs being fed over them, before grace drew the diaper cover up past his knees.

“Lift your baby bum,” she said.

Oliver arched his back, feeling the safety strap strain against his chest, and Grace drew his plastic pants most of the way over his diaper.

“There! You’re diapered for the evening.”

Oliver reached for the buckle release on the safety strap that was running across his chest, but Grace put her hand over it, at the same time putting gentle pressure on his chest.

“Shhhhh, Oli, relax, buddy, shhhh. Don’t be in such a rush. Let’s talk for a few minutes. It’s going to be all hustle and bustle downstairs, with Gramps and Nana arriving, and dad wanting to film it all, and mom cooking thirty things. Don’t get yourself stuck in the corner again. Get your head together.”

Grace placed her other hand on Oliver’s forehead, smoothing back his blond hair. She reached down into the lower drawer again, and withdrew some lavender-scented baby lotion. Oliver turned his head when her heard the sound of the bottle cap snap open.

“Calming Lavender. Perfect,” she announced.

Placing a coin-sized dollop of it into her left hand, Grace put the bottle back into the drawer, and then rubbed her hands together for a moment, to warm the lotion, before she leaned over Oliver and began kneading his shoulders and upper arms.

“Shhhh, baby, relax. Breath. Suck on your paci.”

Oliver was mortified, and he felt a sob well up in his chest that he was unable to fully stifle. Grace placed a hand on his tummy and made gentle circles, while she put her other hand on the side of his face.

“It’s okay, sweetie, it’s okay. You can tell me,” she whispered in a soft voice.

Her tone was so totally out of character that Oliver opened his eyes and looked up at her, causing tears to spill down the sides of his face. She reached down, put more lotion in the palm of her right hand, and then made figure eights on his tummy, as his chest hitched.

“Are you worried about Gramps and Nana seeing your cute little diaper?”

Oliver squeezed his eyes shut and nodded. His hands clenched and unclenched beside him. Grace took her left hand off of his face and cupped his right hand with it.

“Little one, Gramps and Nana love you, and they loved you when you wore diapers before, didn’t they? And they loved you when you wore pull-ups, right?”

Oliver nodded very slightly.

“Didn’t you have a cute little pull-up on last Christmas when you were opening presents in the morning?”

Oliver nodded again.

“Do you think they cared?”

Oliver’s eyes opened, and focused on Grace’s.

“No, right?” she answered. “So why would they care that you’re in a cloth diaper? They’ll understand that it’s for the environment, and for dad’s campaign.”

Oliver lifted his head and went to reach for his pacifier with his left hand, but Grace put her right index finger on top of it, pressing down gently.

“I think you need your paci in right now. But I can understand what you’re saying. Go ahead.”

“I justh don’th wans them to thee my diapher….”

“But you’re plastic panties cover your diaper, sweetums.”

“THATH NOTH BETHER. They look like they’we fow girwls.”

“No, sweetie, baby clothes are gender neutral. And anyway, they’re dark blue. They don’t look girly.”

“They have LATHE on them. Like youw underweaw.”

“It’s just a little trim, sweetums, to make them cute. They’re baby pants – there’s nothing feminine about them, trust me. No one is going to be saying, ‘Ooh la la, look at the ruffles on Oli’s little panties’, believe me.”

“They’re going tho think I’m a baby!”

“Sweetums, they’re like a hundred years old. They think that all of us are babies.”

Oliver had no choice but to take his siter’s word for it. He felt exhausted, emotionally drained, and overwhelmed. He let his head rest on his changing mat, closed his eyes, and breathed in the lavender scent of the baby lotion, sucking his pacifier as his sister held his hand and made circles on his chest, cooing gently.

He felt himself receding from her voice, drifting into darkness, as the tension ebbed out of his limbs. A small nucleus of damp warmth made itself known to him, in the confines of his diaper. His breathing became more regular and deep.

[A_Pale_Spirit]

Another excellent chapter!

As always, love your writing!

[D503]

Excellent chapter. Hard to what's worse for Oli's predicament: her aversion to diapers and bullying him or her maternal instincts kicking in and babying him.

[CDfm]

So you know that Grace is up to something.  No way she could ever be that nice without something in it for her or something mortifying for Oliver. I don’t know what that is right now. Guess we wait and see.  
You’re are still doing a fantastic job with this story and I am looking forward to seeing what happens next. 

[Little Sherri]

Chapter 6 – Presenting Oli

 “Where’s Oli?” Cheryl asked Grace, when Grace descended the staircase by herself, a half hour after going up with her brother in tow.

“Look at this,” Grace said, and opened her phone, showing her mom a thirty-second video of Oliver sleeping on the changing table in his dimly lit room.

“That is definitely not what I expected the outcome to be, from sending you two upstairs to get him dressed. I figured I’d be intervening in World War Three up there at some point. How did you manage that?”

Grace smirked. “I did what you said to do, mom – I was gentle and kind. I even put that lavender baby lotion on him. He had a cry, he sucked on his paci, and he went to sleep.”

“Well, we might as well leave him for a bit – maybe he’ll be in a better mood when he wakes up.”

Cheryl and Grace spent the next twenty minutes laying out table settings on the antique walnut table in the home’s grand formal dining room, which was an inconvenient distance from the kitchen, a holdover from a time when the homeowners dined with their guests, while other people did the cooking and the dishes.

Cheryl’s phone emitted a bing that indicated the doorbell camera on the front porch had detected motion.

“I think dad’s parents are here,” Cheryl announced. “Go knock on dad’s office door, and then get Oli up and dressed.”

Grace laid out the last of the wine glasses, and then walked to the front of the house to tap on her father’s office door.

“Dad, Nan and Gramps are here…”

A muffled “Thanks” came through the door.

Grace ascended the stairs and softly opened Oliver’s bedroom. He remained motionless on his changing table, except for the rising and falling of his chest. The room smelled like baby powder and lavender.

Grace walked over to him, and did a spider walk up his tummy and chest with her fingernails, while whispering into his ear. “Wake up, sleepy head, Nan and Gramps are here, time to get dressed.”

Oliver stirred and opened his eyes. It took him a moment to remember where he was, and he thought briefly that he might be at a doctor’s office or something, when he put his hand down beside him and it fell off the edge of the changing table.

Grace unsnapped the safety strap that ran across his chest, allowing him to sit up. Oli went to wipe his chin with the back of his hand, and encountered his pacifier at the same moment that his eyes were fixated on the puffy confines of his plastic pants. He took a deep breath and swallowed hard, feeling emotionally hung over.

Oliver swung his legs over the edge of his changing table, and made the short hop to the floor, rather than using the built-in stepstool. His first steps acquainted him with the novel bulk of the twinned diapers he’d been pinned into. Dry, but for a small spot between his legs, they settled around him as he moved, finding their natural position within the vinyl cover.

Grace reached behind him and pulled the plastic pants up over a fold of white cotton that had been visible at Oliver’s midback.

“How’s your diaper – is it too snug?”

Oliver pondered the question. The cotton flats he was enveloped in pulled firmly at his waist, but, he didn’t want them to start sagging right off the bat.

“They’we pfine.”

“And your panties fit okay?”

Oliver gave her a lidded stare.

“Okay, let’s get you dressed. Hands up,” Grace asked him.

Oliver put his hands up over his head, and his sister pulled a white t-shirt down over them, and then a thick, white cable-knit sweater over that. She pulled and tugged on the hem of the sweater until it hung over the upper front of his diaper ensemble, and rested atop its bulk, at his lower back.

“What socks do you want to wear?”

“I don’th cawe.”

“Well, then, I have some socks that would go perfectly with your panties.”

Taking his hand, she led him over to the bathroom, and then quickly ran a brush through his hair, before dashing off to her room. While she was fetching the socks, Oliver looked at himself in the mirror, and he could feel a familiar heat returning to his cheeks. Under the white top, his blue diaper cover looked enormous, bulbus and obvious. The pacifier with the choo-choo motif completed the picture. He looked like an overfed toddler in his best Sunday sweater.

Grace came back into the bathroom, and dropped to her knees, taking his feet one at a time and pulling thin nylon ankle socks over them with lace-fringed cuffs. The lace gathers ringing the back of the leg opening on hid plastic pants had become trapped under the elastic on one side, so she tugged it free.

“See? They’re perfect. You’re a picture – now let’s go downstairs and say hi. Be careful – those socks can be slippery on the wood stairs.”

Oliver’s eyes travelled past his diaper, down his legs, and to the small, sheer white socks with their frilly edges. He could feel a lump forming in his throat again.

Grace stood up, flicked the lights off, took him by the hand, and walked toward the staircase with an enthusiastic stride, while Oliver dragged his feed and felt his chest tightening.

 

_______

 

Gramps and Nan, otherwise knows as Robert Holbrook Sr., and Greta Holbrook, stood in the foyer of their son and daughter-in-law’s house, removing their jackets and hanging them in the closet with a familiarity bred from frequent visits. They slipped their shoes off and stepped into slippers that were kept in the front closet for them. Robert Senior was tall, grey, and slightly deaf, well turned-out in a multitoned blue sport jacket over a grey half-zip sweater, above khakis, while Greta wore a long, flowing cashmere sweater in beige, over white slacks. Their jackets were of medium weight, reflecting the moderate, damp winter weather of the US pacific Northwest.

Robert Jr. walked over from his office to greet them, giving his dad a proper handshake and his mother a half-hug with a kiss on the cheek.

“I parked on the driveway, son – I assume you’re not going anywhere this afternoon?”

“That’s fine, dad – my assistant might come by later, but I’m not going out again. And there’s room to get around you if we need to.”

“Plenty of room,” the elder gentlemen finished.

“Oh, and here come the kids… OH.” Greta’s sentence had opened with a not of expectant enthusiasm that shifted to slight confusion, as she watched her granddaughter descend the grand staircase, in a colourful knee-length dress, with her grandson trailing behind her… seemingly wearing running shorts.

As they reached the slate-tiled ground level, the picture became… clearer, but still confusing.

“Oli, you’re wearing… gym shorts? Are those from school?” Belatedly, Greta’s eyes zeroed in on the pacifier.

Cheryl, walking over from the dining room, interjected. “No, Gran, those are plastic panties. I thought you’d know right away what they were! A lot of people from my generation have never seen them.”

“Oh, yes, I see now what they are. What’s the occasion?”

“Oli’s getting used to wearing cloth diapers – today is his first day in them. I thought we’d give them a test drive while it’s just family around. It’s part of Bob’s campaign – if he’s going to pursue a disposable plastics ban, he can’t very well have a son who spends every night in disposable plastic diapers. So we bought Oli good old fashioned cloth diapers for Christmas. That, and a video game system, of course!”

“And the soother…?” Greta’s voice trailed off.

“He was having a bit of a hard time adjusting to his first day in diapers – his pride is a bit wounded. I’m working with an excellent child therapist during this transition period, and she suggested the pacifier might help him manage his behaviour and emotions. But I’m hoping we can put it aside soon.”

“Well,” Greta opened, addressing her words to Cheryl but her eyes to Oliver, “I think he looks adorable. He reminds me of Bobby when he was a little thing. You look just like your dad did, Oli. Where did you get those rubber panties? The detail on them… very vintage. And I love his booties. Come, Oli, do a turn for me, and then come give your Gran a hug.”

Oliver slid forward toward his grandmother, taking steps without really lifting his feet, eyes fixed on her dusty rose slippers, which looked like deck shoes with overstuffed interiors. He did a robotic rotation.

Gran enveloped him in a broad hug, finishing with a pat on the back of his plastic pants and a kiss on the head.

Robert Sr., with the characteristic boom of someone who is slightly hearing impaired, said “I think he looks ridiculous! Diapers on a boy his age… what he needs is a good spanking. At least put some pants on him – he looks like he’s three years old. And spit out that baby soother.”

Tears welled up in Oliver’s eyes, and he leaned back into his grandmother’s embrace.

“Do shut up, Robert,” Greta retorted. “He’s just a boy. He’ll outgrow this just like his father did – with no help from you, I might add! Cheryl, why is he in them during the day – is he wetting  himself when he’s awake, too, or, is it just to get used to being in cloth?”

“That’s part of it, Gran.” Cheryl turned her voice up a notch to make sure that Robert Sr. could hear what she was saying, but without putting any animus into her tone. “Oli’s going to wear his diapers over the holidays so that all of us can get used to them – how they go on and off, how well they work, how they’re washed. There’s a lot more to it that throwing a pull-up diaper into a trash bag. His therapist said to have him show his diaper to as many people as we can, in these first few days, because it really speeds up the habituation phase – she said that keeping these things a secret can heighten anxiety, which can magnify behavioural issues, and actually make the wetting worse.”

Greta nodded and stroked the back of Oliver’s head. Oliver had his face pressed into her sweater, which smelled like old lady perfume and fabric softener.

Robert Sr. shook his head and looked away. “Somebody get me a Bourbon. Maybe get Oli one, too – it might put some hair on his chest.”

Cheryl partially pried Oliver off of her mother-in-law, and leaned in close to him. His pacifier pulsed with his breaths, between tear-streaked cheeks.

“Are you ready to put your paci away, and chitchat with the big people? Or do you need to stand in your corner for a while, and collect yourself?”

Oliver murmured something unintelligible. Cheryl gently extracted his pacifier from between his pouting lips.

“Can you say that in big people words, little man?”

“I’m ready to talk with the big people, mom,” he said softly.

“Okay, then! Go put your pacifier on the shelf in your corner. Grace, lay out a blanket on the floor for Oliver to sit on, in front of the coffee table. Put a couple of his toys on it. Nothing that makes noises.”

[CDfm]

I can’t believe that stepping out in front of your grandparents in a diaper and plastic pants is a hole lot of fun.  I bet Oliver wanted to crawl under the biggest rock he could find. 
It was another wonderful chapter though and I am looking forward to seeing more. 

[A_Pale_Spirit]

Such an amazing chapter, excellent descriptive writing.

Always looking forward to more!

[Andyman3]

Oh I like this grandpa 😄. The way it's written is wonderful, feels like your actually there. 

[Little Sherri]

Chapter 7 – Back in the Day

“Can't I play on my PS5?” Oliver asked, surveying the pink and white blanket that Grace had laid out for him on the living room floor. She’d placed a red metal firetruck, a stuffed dog, and a stuffed bear, onto the blanket. Oliver recognized the stuffies but hadn’t seen the firetruck in ages.

She must have raided the back of my closet for that.

“Your game system is in the family room, and we are entertaining in the living room, Oliver, so, no, you can’t,” Cheryl replied curtly.

“What about Lego then?”

“Lego would be fine – you can run up and get it from your room if you like. Don’t dally. What would everyone like to drink?” Cheryl asked the room.

Oliver walked out of the room as he heard his grandparents giving their drink requests.

“Bourbon, neat,” Robert Sr. said loudly.

“White wine,” his grandmother added. He didn’t hear what his dad said as he ascended the steps.

His plastic pants rubbed against the inside of his thighs, and he could feel the diaper underneath, folding and shifting around him. The lace on the waistband itched vaguely where it pulled into his tummy, almost at his diaphragm. He diverted briefly to the bathroom, just to get another look at himself in the mirror. Oliver could not believe how bulbous his behind was, under the two cloth diapers and the puffy plastic pants. He did not have enough sweater on to try to cover it. 

People wear these things?!?

He shook his head.

He went into his room and opened the closet, leaning down to extract a Lego playset from the shelving in his closet organizer. He selected a construction-themed set from among several, including Star Wars, a superhero themed set, and, a large clear bin filled with a hodgepodge of bricks. When the box slid out, something circular accompanied it, tumbling to the floor of the closet.

Oliver leaned down and picked up a coil of opaque white aquarium tubing. A quarter inch in diameter, and several feet long, it had once channeled air from a pump, into a bubble filter, for his fish tank – a tank that was now dry and sitting on a shelf in the basement, his fish having long since departed the world of the living. He’d campaigned to get more fish, but his mom had heard about someone they knew having to make an insurance claim because their aquarium had leaked and damaged the floor, so, that request had been denied.

He picked it up and put it back on the shelf, but, the nucleus of an idea blinked into life in the back of his head. Carrying the Lego with him, he walked into the bathroom he shared with his sister, and put it down on the counter, then opened a cabinet on her side of the double-sink vanity. Hibernating on the top shelf was a water flossing machine that she’d received, coinciding with the installation of her braces, but, as far as Oliver could tell, she never used it.

Squatting, he reached in and pulled the white plastic wand from its cradle on the front of the machine. It trailed a small white tube, coiled like a phone cord, which ran back to the base of the device. A clear plastic reservoir sat on top of the base. He turned the wand around in his hand, thinking.

“Oli! Where’d you get to!”

Oliver was startled by the sound of Grace’s voice, and then he heard her feet coming up the staircase. Pressing the wand back into the molded receiver on the base, he shoved the cabinet door shut, but the soft-closing mechanism caused it to spring partially back open, and then to slowly close again. Grace showed up in the bathroom just as the door silently came to rest. She didn’t seem to notice.

“What are you doing in here?” she asked.

“What do I have to tell you for? Do I ask you why you go into the bathroom?”

“I’m not wearing a diaper. You don’t need to use the bathroom.”

“What’s it to you, anyway?” Oliver demanded.

“Mom thought you might be trying to take your diaper off. Anyway, take your Lego and come back downstairs.”

Grace reached for Oliver’s hand, which he retracted. She caught his elbow instead, and maneuvered him past her, and toward the door. Oliver’s other hand shot out and picked up the box of building blocks.

As he descended the stairs, with Grace walking a step behind him, she projected her voice over his head.

“Mom, I found him – he was in the bathroom.”

“What was he in the bathroom for?”

“He won’t say,” Grace replied, injecting her words with a note of suspicion.

“Well, tell him the bathroom is off limits until it’s time to brush his teeth.”

“Hear that, baby pants? No potty for you,” she whispered.

As Oliver rounded the corner back into the sitting room, his mom fixed him with a quizzical look. She was standing in the middle of the room.

“Did you need to poop, Oli?”

“No,” he said in a low voice, feeling heat creeping into his cheeks again.

“Come over here,” she said flatly.

Oliver walked over to her, looking up at her face with trepidation.

“Turn around.”

Confused, Oliver pivoted, so that he was facing his grandparents on the couch. Grace stood at the entrance to the room. He felt his mom lifting the back of his sweater up, and then she pulled the waistband of his diaper away from his lower back. He stood, frozen on the spot, for what seemed to be at least a minute, although it was probably only a few seconds.

Cheryl let the diaper snap shut, and then arranged the waistband of her son’s plastic pants so that it wasn’t folded over itself. She gave him a pat on his lower back, through the layers of material, and let his sweater drop.

“Looks good so far. Go play on your blankie, Oli. Oh, look what I dug up!” Grace said, as she stepped beside him and pointed to the wide, low coffee table, which was constructed of barnboards that contrasted with a chrome metal frame.

A purple sippy cup sat on the edge of the coffee table, filled with a brown liquid.

Chocolate milk.

“I didn’t want you having a glass on the floor, and I knew I had some sippy cups somewhere in the kitchen, from when your cousins came in the summer. Your dad suggested that I text Christine, and sure enough, she knew where they were!”

Dispirited, Oliver sank to his knees on the pink square, and then sat back so that his heels pressed into his diaper. He let the construction set flop down beside him. His hand reached for the sippy cup, and he brough it to his lips, happy to have something to distract himself with. He put his lips on the purple plastic beak and sucked, creating a wet foaming sound as air rushed in to replace the liquid he was drawing out. He felt like every eye in the room was on him.

Grace petted him on the head as she walked by. She sat down on the grey leather couch and smoothed her dress. Greta turned to her and smiled.

Robert Sr. projected his voice across the room like he was addressing an auditorium.

“Stop babying the lad! I’ve never seen anything more ridiculous - I’m going to need another bourbon. Can we put on Fox News?”

“It would be too loud, dad!” Cheryl enunciated.

“Put it on low,” he responded, loudly.

“Low for you is LOUD for everyone else,” his wife responded, then added, “And I think you look adorable, Oli – don’t listen to your grandfather,” in a lower voice.

Robert Sr. busied himself by sipping the amber liquid in his glass, and then holding it up to the light, sniffing it, and sipping it again. Greta and Grace and Cheryl talked about how the tenth grade was going so far. Oliver flopped back onto his generously padded rear and listlessly snapped yellow and black blocks together, without any real plan for what would become of it.

Robert Jr. invited Robert Sr. to step into his office, and then Oliver could hear what sounded like a friendly argument coming from behind the door, as both of them shouted back and forth to each other about what was going on with Junior’s campaign.

A muted beeping came up the hallway from the kitchen, nearly drowned out by the banter from inside Bob Jr.’s office, and Cheryl got up to go check which of the wall ovens was asking for attention. Greta followed her, leaving Grace sitting on the couch, watching Oliver’s dejected block-assembling. Quietly, she lifted her phone, opened the camera, and then slid over to the video function, shooting for fifteen seconds before texting the file to her father.

Grace: I thought this might be useful for one of your campaign vids

Robert: Thanks, I’ll send this to Christine

Grace stood, walked over to Oliver, and sat down cross-legged next to his blanket, pushing her dress down between her legs.

“Whatcha’ playin’, Oli?”

“Nothing.”

“Why don’t you play with your firetruck? Vroom…,” she said, while she reached over and wheeled the truck across the blanket. “Vroom, where’s the fire, breaker breaker, firetruck one responding…”

Oliver raised his eyes and fixed her with a level stare.

Next, Grace picked up the stuffed dog, and dragged it towards him. She pressed its nose into Oliver’s hip.

“Ruff, ruff,” she said, imitating a growly dog’s voice. “How come he’s allowed to pee on the floor, and I can’t?”

Grace changed her voice back to normal and addressed the stuffed dog. “He’s wearing a diaper, Ruffy, so he’s not actually peeing on the floor, he’s peeing in his pants.”

She changed her voice over to a high-pitched tone, while animating the stuffed bear with her other hand. “Aren’t diapers for babies?” she asked.

Going back to her normal voice again, she added, “Aren’t you going to answer your bear, Oli? Aren’t diapers for babies?”

A fat tear streamed down Oliver’s left cheek.

Grace stood up, dropping the bear in front of Oliver with a flick of her wrist as she did.

“Mom,” she called down the hall. “Oli’s sniveling again. Can I give him his pacifier?”

“I’m carving a roast right now – it’s over in his corner. Come give me a hand, and tell him to stay on his blankie.”

Grace swooshed out of the room and up the hall for a moment, before returning with Oli’s pacifier. She crouched, and held it in front of his face, bending the silicone nipple against his closed lips. She took a breath and turned her head toward the kitchen, when Oli relented and accepted the paci, figuring she was about to yell over to their mother again. Her eyes shifted back to him. “Good boy - mom says stay on your blankie.”

Greta looked at her daughter-in-law, as the latter pressed a fork through the crest of charred fat that blanketed the top of the roast.

“Do you really think Oli would take his diaper off?” she asked.

Grace walked into the kitchen with Oliver’s sippy cup, and went to the fridge to refill it.

“I don’t know. His therapist – Dr. Paige - said that sometimes, when they’re first put back into diapers, some kids take them off, or they damage them, in a show of defiance. The pharmacy she’s associated with sells locking panties and diaper shirts and tamper mitts. I didn’t order anything like that. But she said to keep an eye out for that kind of behaviour.”

“What are ‘tamper mitts’?” Grace asked.

“They’re sort of like little boxing gloves. They make it harder for her patients to take their clothes off or get into their diapers. They can’t grip anything, basically.”

“Is that really necessary?” Greta queried, raising her eyebrows. “I just told Bob that if he took his diapers off, his dad would tan his hide. He left them on.”

“Kids don’t really get spanked very often, these days,” Cheryl noted. “I take it Bob didn’t like wearing them either?”

“Back then, nobody had fences, and possies of kids used to roam the neighbourhood, playing cowboys or cops and robbers. He didn’t like being seen in his rubber pants. I just told him to stop wetting his drawers, then, and he wouldn’t have to wear diapers anymore. But until then, out you get, come back when the streetlights turn on!”

Cheryl chuckled. “It was a different time, for sure – now, everyone drives their kids over to each other’s houses. How old was Bob when he stopped wetting the bed? We haven’t really talked about it,” Cheryl asked, poised over the roast with an electric carving knife.

“I don’t remember, maybe eight or nine. It worked, though – by that point, I’d had it up to here and I was determined to get him to stop. He basically didn’t wear anything but a diaper and rubber pants, all of that summer. By the time school started, he was staying dry. The alternative was to let his father spank the bejesus out of him. I think my technique was kinder.” Grata gave Grace a wink.

“And that stopped dad from wetting his bed, Gran?” she asked.

“Don’t you go telling him I told you this, young lady. He’s a dignified state politician now, with a Swedish car and a big house. But, sometimes a young person’s friends can exert more influence than their parents can. Being the only kid running around in diapers got under his skin eventually. I knew it would.”

“Do you think that would work with Oliver?” Grace asked, in a solemn tone, trying not to sound hopeful.

“Well it’s winter right now so I don’t think sending him outside to play without pants on would be advisable,” Cheryl noted, before triggering the carving knife.

Greta leaned into her granddaughter’s ear, to speak over the sound of the carving knife.

“Well, lets just see how he does in church tomorrow.”

[A_Pale_Spirit]

 

Wow, incredible chapter!

Loved it, really leaves me looking forward to what's coming next for Oli!

 

Also with Robert Sr., I'm picturing the father-in-law from National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation whenever he speaks lol.

 

[CDfm]

Well it didn’t take very long for the true Grace to show back up again. Poor Oliver, it just seems like his entire family is out to humiliate him.  Even Grandma wants him paraded around in nothing but a diaper.  Grandpa would just as soon beat him into getting past the accidents.  
I am really enjoying the story though so kee up the great job. 

[Andyman3]

Ya this is what makes your stories so good. This is like a reset to the other. Shifting Sands needs a time skip, it's gone so far it's hard to process right now. 

Wow this story is interesting. Wonder what going to happen to oli. Church and friends hu, interesting can't wait. 😄

 

[Little Sherri]

Chapter 8 – Getting the Picture

“I really enjoyed having a roast for Christmas dinner for a change!” Robert Sr. boomed.

“More wine, Grampa?” Grace asked.

“I think I’ll switch back to bourbon.”

“Does anyone want more dessert?” Cheryl asked the table, surveying the empty plates and partially filled crystal at every place setting, with the exception of Oliver’s plastic sippy cup.

There was a murmuring of response, which amounted to an indication that nobody needed seconds or thirds of the homemade tarts and pies that Charyl had laid out earlier, after the main course had been done justice.

“More coffee, then? Espresso? Tea?” Cheryl replied.

“I’ll take some tea if you don’t mind,” Greta answered, smiling at Cheryl.

“Oliver, could you run into the kitchen and turn the kettle on? Make sure that there’s water in it. I want to make Nan some fresh tea,” Cheryl said to her son.

Oliver nodded once and slid his chair back from the table.

“Oliver – your paci,” Grace reminded him.

Oliver shot daggers at his sister, picked his pacifier up from beside his sippy cup, and put it into his mouth, before getting up off his chair and heading into the kitchen.

His diaper was notably heavier now, and was uniformly damp in a way only cloth diapers can get, because of the wicking properties of cotton. He felt it swinging slightly as he stepped.

Greta ran a hand over Oliver’s chair, and ran her thumb across her fingers. “Completely dry,” she noted.

“Not like his bum,” Grace added.

“Grace put him in two diapers – I expect he’d probably be good until morning,” Cheryl predicted.

“Well, you don’t want him to get diaper rash – he should really be changed before bed,” Greta opined. “That’s a being a good big sister, by the way!”

Cheryl nodded. “I didn’t think I’d have to be worrying about diaper rash again, at this point in my life, but here we are! Well, it’s for his own good. We switched him over to cloth diapers for Bob’s campaign, but his therapist said that there can be a number of side benefits – kids with behavioural issues often fall into line when they’re diapered, and some kids develop better attention spans. Behaviour has never really been an issue with Oli, but, his attention span could arguably stand to be improved. We’ll see.”

Oliver returned from the kitchen and took his seat, pouting glumly from behind his pacifier. Grace went and freshened her grandmother’s tea, while Robert Jr. poured bourbons for himself and his father. Then, he stood, and addressed the room.

“Is everybody ready to play Holbrook Pictionary?” he asked, referencing the name they had given to a hybrid of the original game, which they had created after losing the box during a move. They found themselves at Easter a few years prior, with an easel, a pad of paper, and markers, but no box of topic cards and no board, so, they’d pulled out a dictionary, and revised the rules.

“I’ll give everybody a refresher,” Bob Jr. offered. “The participants will be divided into teams. The playing team chooses one member to draw, and the rest have to guess what is being drawn. The team has two minutes to guess what their player is drawing. If they guess in the first minute, they get two points, and if they guess in the second minute, one point is awarded. If they can’t guess after two minutes, they get no points, and the other team is up. The word that the player is drawing is chosen by the opposing team. The player at the board cannot use letters, numbers or symbols – they can only draw pictures. Remember to speak up so that Gramps can hear.”

“At Thanksgiving, we did kids versus parents, with Cheryl teaming with the kids, and I got lumped in with the parents, I guess because I look older than Cheryl does. This year, I propose we divide along gender lines – men versus women!”

“Their first word should be ‘losing’, because that’s what they’re gonna be doing!” Robert Sr. bellowed, then took a gulp from his glass.

“Ha!” Greta retorted. “You couldn’t draw your way out of a paper bag. I carried our team last year. Prepare to be humiliated.”

“Grace, think of a number from one to ten, but don’t say it out loud,” Bob Jr. requested.

“Done,” Grace confirmed.

“My number is one – dad, what’s your guess?” Bob Jr asked.

“Pardon?”

“DAD, CHOSE A NUMBER BETWEEN ONE AND TEN.”

“UH, FIVE!” Robert Sr. yelled back.

“Oli, do you have a number?”

Oliver looked up but did not reply.

“Does someone want to watch the first round from his corner…?” Cheryl asked rhetorically.  

“Theben,” Oliver replied around his pacifier.

Bob Jr. addressed his wife. “He’s going to have to lose his rubber boob, Cheryl. Nobody can tell what he’s saying.”

“That’s fine, as long as he can keep his emotions in check. Go put your pacifier in your corner, Oli,” Cheryl responded.

Oliver got back up and waddled over to the corner he’d been standing in prior to his grandparents’ arrival. It was his customary station when his mother was displeased with him, but he hadn’t considered it to be his corner. He took his pacifier out of his mouth and put it on a shelf, next to an antique ship’s compass in a wooden box, before following the trail of voices over to the living room.

Oliver walked in and sat down on one of the overstuffed leather easy chairs that matched the grey leather couch.

“On your blankie, Oli – I don’t want your diaper leaking on that chair,” Cheryl said. “We don’t know how well they work yet. Speaking of that, go refill your sippy cup.”

Oliver got up off the chair and squelched out to the dining room, and then the kitchen, before returning to the formal living room. It felt like his diaper was hanging a third of the way down to his knees, but before he had a chance to do anything about it, his mother walked over, lifted his sweater, and hitched up his plastic pants.

Grace guffawed. “Those panties go up to his chest!”

“Shush, Grace, don’t get him sniveling again,” her mom admonished. “I think you look very sweet, Oli.”

Bob Jr. turned from setting up the easel. “Who got the closest to the number you thought of, Grace?”

Grace gave a thin smile. “Oli was closest to the number.”

“Perfect, then Oli draws first. Here’s the official Holbrook Pictionary Dictionary – choose the first word.”

Oliver got up off the blanket he’d just sat down on, and stepped up to the large white pad of paper that was across the room from the couch. Grace took the dictionary, and opened it up, flipping through the front, before settling on a word about a third of a way into it. “I have it,” she said, and then she walked over and held it open for Oliver, before running her finger partway down the page. Her smile broadened as it stopped on her chosen word.

Oliver’s face fell, and then his head physically followed. He considered refusing to play, or at least refusing Grace’s word, but realized that he’d end up standing in a corner for the rest of the night. He sighed and picked up a light blue marker.

“Hang on, Oli – someone start a timer,” Bob Jr. requested. Grace tapped on her phone and then said “Go!”

Oliver stood in front of the lined sheet of paper, all thirty-six inches of it, and considered his options. The word Grace had chosen was cruel, deliberately so. How was he going to depict it on paper in under a minute, without humiliating himself? It didn’t seem possible.

He took the cap off the marker and pressed the tip to the page, smelling the slight solvent smell it emitted, almost but not quite the scent of gasoline. Reluctantly, he drew a horizontal stick figure, and then he drew a box around it, and added vertical bars to the box.

“Prisoner! Prison! Jail!” Robert Sr. shouted.

“Cage! Monkey! Zoo!” Bob Jr. added.

Oliver shook his head. He drew another stick figure, this one vertical, and then he paused, took a breath, and added a triangle shape, point down, where the figure’s legs joined its body. He started colouring in the triangle, and then he outlined two oversized safety pins, one on either side.

“Diaper! Baby! Plastic Pants! Plastic Panties! Rubber Pants! Nappy!”

Oliver felt his cheeks burning, and was acutely conscious of what he was wearing, as he hastily drew a much larger stick figure next to the small one he’d already illustrated, and then he circled the smaller one repeatedly.

“Child! Toddler! Kid! Babysitting!”

“One minute is up,” Grace chimed in. “One point lost, one point left on the table.”

Swallowing hard, Oliver pressed the tip of his marker to the face of the smaller figure he’d drawn, and he outlined the shape of a pacifier where its dashed-line mouth had been.

“Pacifier! Soother! Dummy! Nipple! Teat!” Oliver’s father and grandfather hollered.

Oliver circled the whole of the smaller figure again, repeatedly.

“Uh, baby, toddler, child, wait, INFANT! INFANT!” his grandfather roared.

“Good job, Grandpa!” Grace cheered, but Oliver’s head just dropped, and he padded back to his blanket to sit down.

The game continued on, but Oliver barely participated, until Grace was up at the board. Then, he lunged for the dictionary as it was being handed from his grandmother to his dad. He snatched it up and flipped to the front, before going through a half-dozen pages. Finally, he settled on a word, and he walked over and showed it to Grace.

Grace smirked. “Fine, Oli, we’ll use your word.”

She put a pen to the page, waited for the signal that the timer had been set, and then quickly drew the stick figure of an animal with triangular ears.

“Dog! Uh, fox! Wolf! Coyote!” her mother and grandmother shouted over each other.

Grace drew the stick figure of a person, then drew a curved line from behind the animal’s head, up to the stick figure’s extended hand.

“Pet! Dog! Canine! Retriever! German Shepard! Dog! What the hell else could it be?”

Grace paused, then she drew an exaggerated bow on the top of the animal’s head, and then drew smaller stick animals underneath the larger one, including one whose stick-snout was pressed up into the underside of the larger stick animal.

“Puppies, litter, whelping!” his grandmother tossed in rapid succession.

Grace drew an arrow to the large dog, and circled the arrow repeatedly.

“Girl dog, mother dog, what the heck do they call a female dog…  a dam? OH. Right. Is the word B-I-T-C-H?” his grandmother asked in a flattening tone, spelling it rather than saying it out loud.

“What was the word?” Robert Sr. demanded.

Greta turned to him, raised her voice, and said, “BITCH.”

Robert Sr. nearly spat the last of his bourbon onto the oak flooring. He walked over, leaned down and gave Oliver a hearty smack on the shoulder, laughing uproariously.

There was no humour in Cheryl’s eyes, however. “And that’s the end of the game for Oliver, I think. Get your pacifier, go upstairs, and brush your teeth. You can stand facing into the corner in your bedroom until it’s time to change your diaper for bed.”

Oliver got up off his blanket wordlessly and retrieved his pacifier, before climbing the stairs to his bathroom. Nobody in the room missed that there was a little more spring in his step than there had been for most of the night, as he exited.

Standing in the corner of his room, with his soother perched loosely between his lips, Oliver listened to the game continuing downstairs for a while, until the enthusiasm behind the shouted words dropped off, and then, he sensed that the game was over. He peed into his diaper for the umpteenth time, feeling a warm dampness that now extended a good way up his back. The middle of the diaper pulled away from him, creating the sensation that he was wearing some kind of sling. Shifting his weight from leg to leg caused it to pendulum slightly within the confines of his plastic pants.

“Your team won, Oliver.”

Oliver startled at the words coming from behind him. It was his grandmother. She was so light on her feet that she hadn’t made the staircase or the wooden floors creak. He turned to look at her.

Smiling, she walked over to his changing table, and began opening drawers, before extracting two more pre-fold diapers, pins, and a shimmery white pair of plastic pants. She laid the diapers out on the table, and did not, he noted, put a liner into them.

Maybe she doesn’t know about diaper liners.

He felt his cheeks heat up as she puttered about, pulling out cream and baby powder and pins, and arranging them on a shelf that she slid out of the head of the changing table, causing him to furrow his eyebrows.

I didn’t know that was even there.

Finally, she patted her hand on the changing pad. “Up you get, Oli.”

Oliver shook his head slowly.

Greta chuckled. “What’s the matter, are you shy all of a sudden? I’ve seen your bare bum lots of times, you know. And I thought you’d prefer me doing this, to your mother – she’s not impressed with your word selection, although personally, I think it was clever. Maybe too clever. But, if you’re going to be wetting your pants, you’re going to be having your bum changed, that’s just the way the world works, little man. Stop wetting the bed and your parents will be happy to drop all your diapers off in the charity bin, but for now, well, here we are. So up you get, let’s do this nicely.”

Oliver’s cheeks went into crimson mode again, and his eyes broke from his grandmother’s and found the floor. He considered his options. He knew that if his mom had to come up here, there would be further consequences, and the bottom line was, he’d still be going to bed in the outfit his grandmother had laid out. Unless he jumped out a window and ran off into the winter night.

He sighed deeply, and walked over to the change table, preferring to put his hands on it and hop up from the center, rather than climbing the built-in stepstool.

“Nan, can you waith othide my doow whiwe I geth my weth dthiapaw opff?”

“No can do, Oli. Your mom asked me to take care of you. Now let’s get that lovely sweater off.”

She grasped the hem of the heavy sweater and rolled it up his chest, as he lifted his hands almost by reflex. The t-shirt he had on came off next. Tears formed in the corner of Oliver’s eyes and threatened to run down his temples as he slowly rotated on his squishy behind, to lay himself down. His grandmother ran a hand over his hair and then wiped his cheeks with her soft cashmere sleeve, and then she extracted his pacifier and put it on the shelf she’d discovered.

“You don’t remember me doing this for you before? I must have done it a thousand times for you, my dear. You used to stay with me after school, remember? I’d diaper you for your nap when you got home. Mind you, they weren’t cloth diapers, no – you liked Huggies, didn’t you?” She gave him a smile and kept talking, as she started inching down his plastic pants.

“Lift your bum for me.”

Oliver furrowed his brow. He did remember staying with his grandparents after school, back when his dad was a city councilor, and his mom was his administrator, and they both worked until six or seven in the evening. He recalled liking the dinners at their place, when he stayed for them, and, yes, picking out boxes of Huggies at the grocery store on occasion, from among the long aisle of diapers. Why he’d liked them, he could not figure out – he hadn’t thought about it in years.

“I think it was the commercials that appealed to you. I was always worried that you’d stop letting us put them on you, that you’d figure out they were really for toddlers, but you liked Mickey Mouse, and they fit you, so after school, on they went. You never kicked up a fuss, unless your sister was over, but she was in an afterschool program, so we had you all to ourselves a lot of the time, back then. You’d sit on my lap in your diaper while I played piano, remember? Cute as a button. That changed when your mom and dad bought this house, when you were about seven. By then, you didn’t need naps after school anymore, and you’d figured out from the commercials that big kids pulled their own diapers on.”

Oliver realized that his plastic pants were down around his ankles, and his grandmother was taking out one of his diaper pins. He took a breath and blew it out through pursed lips. He could feel a cooling sensation where the damp cloth rested against his navel.

“My my, someone has a soggy bottom, don’t they? You really gave this diaper a test drive. What do you think so far? Comfy?”

Oliver turned away from his Nan and looked at the wall.

“They feel bulky and stupid. I look like a baby.”

Nan put her hand in the middle of his chest and looked down at him.

“You don’t look stupid, and you don’t look like a baby. You look like a big boy who has a little problem, and who is, just maybe, starting to think about growing up and putting that little problem behind him. Lift your bum again.”

Oliver shifted the weight off of his hips, and he felt the sodden diaper being drawn out from under him, and then, a moment later, the cool touch of a folded wipe, as his grandmother wiped him down. Diaper cream came next, also cool, and applied very liberally, as his Nan prattled away about the things he liked doing when he was younger.

“Tell me about your S-P-5,” she said, as she drew the first of the dry pre-folds up between his legs, flattening it onto his tummy before following it with the second.

“You mean my PS5?” he asked.

“If that’s what it’s called, then yes. It all sounds like Greek to me. I didn’t even have a TV until I was in my twenties. Why is the P-S-5 better than the one you had before?” she asked, as her hands expertly pinned first one side, and then the other. She ran a finger along his waistline at his tummy, checking the fit.

“Well the PS5 has way more processing power, so the graphics are amazing, and the games never slow down, even if you’re playing with like a dozen people.”

“You’re planning to have a dozen people over to play on that thing?”

“Nan,” Oliver admonished, “not over to our house in person. I play with them online. We’re all playing from our own houses, but we meet up in the game, using the internet.”

“So, it doesn’t matter what you’re wearing, I take it? Lift your ankles.” She slid the new, shimmery white plastic pants over his feet and up to his knees. “Legs up a little higher, please.”

Oliver went silent again. He blew out another tight breath.

“What’s got you upset now? We’re almost done. Doesn’t it feel better to be nice and clean and dry, in brand new panties?”

“My mom and dad said that I can only play on my PS5 when I’m wearing stupid diapers.” Oliver brought a hand up to his face and wiped his nose with the back of it.

“Well, Oli dear, I don’t think that’s gonna be the rule forever. They just want you to get used to wearing them. I’ll share something with you, something I read in one of those advice articles your mom gets from your therapist. What you should do, sweetie, is just forget about your diapers, okay? Forget them. Pretend they aren’t there. Just go about your business. Once they see that you aren’t going to sneak away and take them off, and you’re not acting like a startled rabbit, they’ll start forgetting about them, too. Then, just keep your bed dry like a big boy, and they’ll get tired of this whole rigmarole, trust me – it’s a ton of extra laundry.”

“You think so?” Oliver asked hopefully.

“I know so. The therapist said to keep you diapered for the rest of the holidays, just to get you used to it, but once you go back to school, you’ll only be in them at home. And once baseball training starts up in the spring, there won’t be any time for this business other than when you’re going to bed. And if you keep your bum dry, not even then. Stand up and let me adjust your panties.”

Oliver hopped off the changing table, and Greta tugged and pulled at his plastic pants until no white cotton showed through, and no lace was pinched under the waistband or leg elastics.

“There you go, mister. Now let’s head downstairs and say goodnight to everyone. Maybe you could even apologize to your sister. Not that I think she didn’t have it coming – it didn’t escape me, what she did to you. I just think you put yourself in a bad position, the way you retaliated. You embarrassed your mom, so, she embarrassed you right back, didn’t she?”

Oliver nodded thoughtfully.

“So put your soother in your mouth and let’s head down and say goodnight, and then it’s off to dreamland, and tomorrow there will be one less day left before school starts.”

His grandmother took him by the hand and led him toward the staircase, as his plastic pants whispered softly with his steps.

[A_Pale_Spirit]

Another excellent chapter

Love the speed these chapters are coming out 

[Alutheria]

Thoroughly enjoying this story so far. And another little glimpse into Dr Paige's program. I do hope that we're going to get to see more of her and the clinic at some point. 

[D503]

Such a good story. Haha, I love Oli's little attacks on Grace, like a true brother, but it will get him into a lot of trouble. I wonder what prank he's planning. Also wondering if they're going to use the clothes dryer or not yet.

And yes, we might even see a Zack and Oli crossover!