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AARDVARK, PLATYPUS, AND TWINKLETOES: ATTORNEYS AT LAW

 

DESTINY'S CHILD

 

Janis felt like the proverbial fish out of water.  Since she was already a volunteer with regular hours at the hospital, there was no need for her to sit down and fill out an application form.  This left her standing alone while her sisters scribbled away, many of them desperately trying to recall the courses that they had signed up for in the winter term, and the hours to which they were already committed.

 

The morning's events had also left her dazed.  Incredibly, her “day in court” had gone just the way Professor Grady had promised it would go.  Forty of her sisters would now be volunteering as candy stripers for six hours a week until they graduated.  The house had to get its grade point average up and keep it up, and if they could do so over the long haul, their records would be expunged when their probation ended.  And after having a private chat with the gangster who owned the diaper service, Professor Grady had assured them that they were no longer in any danger of being fed into a wood chipper.

 

A bus had magically materialized at the back of the courthouse, and having kept them away from the press, the Professor had brought them to the hospital to put in their applications-- and to be locked into their diapers.

 

Janis grimaced.  It was hard to come to terms with the fact that she had lost her toilet privileges, and would be peeing and pooping into a diaper until she graduated years in the future.  A diaper service truck would be pulling into the sorority's driveway every week, a humiliation that would only stop when Tippi Bjornsen, their first year Legacy, earned her diploma.

 

Will I lose my bladder and bowel control before this is all over?  Am I going to end up in diapers for the rest of my life?  And how am I going to pay for the diaper service?  I don't have near enough in the bank, so the money will have to come from my parents …

 

Will they disown me?

 

And what about dating?  Will anyone be desperate enough to date a girl who's locked into a diaper?  Seriously?  I'm not like Kimberly … our very own “Fraulein D Cup!” 

 

Looking around the vast cafeteria, Janis was thankful that there were so few visitors at mid-morning, and doubly thankful that she didn't recognize any of the doctors and nurses enjoying their coffee breaks.  Her shift didn't start until three, and when she could manage a break and come down in search of a Tab, it was always closer to five.

 

She watched quietly as the Professor left the room in the company of Officer Canon and two more members of the staff, whom she did not recognize.  It seemed likely, however, that they were all headed for the psych ward up on Seven-- notoriously, the Professor's home away from home.

 

“Janis?”

 

Snapping out of her reverie, Janis looked at Marcia Mason, who was holding a folded slip of paper in her outstretched hand.

 

“I want you to go up to Seven,” the first shift charge nurse ordered, “and ask to speak with Doctor Stevenson in the Psych ward.  When they admit you, give her this note, and Rita will take it from there.”

 

“Do you think that I'm crazy,” Janis whimpered.  “Just because I stole some diapers ...”

 

“Well, you did put one on, complete with a pair of baby pants.  But no, I most certainly do not think that you're crazy!  A little too curious for your own good, perhaps, but in the broad scheme of things, about as sane as the rest of us.  Still, if you're having problems … emotional difficulties … Rita is an old hand.  She's not judgmental, and she's a good listener.  If you talk freely with her, she can help you put things in perspective.”

 

Note in hand, head bowed, Janis shuffled slowly out of the cafeteria.  In her imagination, there was little to choose between the walk to the elevator, and a walk to the gallows.  Her unease increased tenfold when she stole a peek at the note's contents.

 

Rita, this is to introduce Janis Marsden, who is a second shift candy striper in my department.  Janis is one of the sorority girls with a thing for stealing diapers, and part of her sentence includes wearing and using them until she graduates.  Please outfit her, including baby pants and locking canvas cover.  Give three keys to Professor Grady, and give the fourth to Janis, with instructions to leave it on the desk in my office.

 

I am hoping that she will open up to you, and that you have the time to work with her if she does.  She is well liked down here, and I want to help her get through this as best I can.  Marcia Mason

 

.  .  .  .

 

“And you are?”

 

“Tippi Anne ...”

 

“Bjornsen.  Yes, I see … just turned nineteen … first year student ... from New Ulm.”

 

Gayle Soderberg looked up from the application form in surprise.  The Patient Relations administrator had put in more than five years running the hospital's candy striper program, and she took pride in selecting quality candidates-- young women with a spring in their step and a smile on their faces … young women whose boundless optimism and cheerful demeanor would brighten, if only for a moment, the lives of patients and their families in the surgical wards.

 

Tippi Anne Bjornsen was the first applicant in her tenure to have been convicted of a criminal offense.  She had pleaded guilty to a DWI a few months earlier, and the terms of her probation required her to remain alcohol and drug free until her twenty-first birthday. 

 

“Looking at the date,” Gayle commented with a reasonably straight face, “I'm guessing that you attended one too many high school graduation parties.  The drinking got out of hand, you got behind the wheel, and you got pulled over for speeding or driving on the wrong side of the road.  Does that about sum it up?”

 

Tippi nodded in agreement.  “I was smashed.  I started with vodka, then progressed to gin, tequila, scotch, and rum.  I spent the next forty eight hours mostly throwing up.  Before they let me go, the police gave me a bucket and a mop, and stood over me while I scrubbed the floor of my cell.  Lesson learned.  I haven't touched alcohol since.”

 

“This was late on a Friday night.  Didn't your parents bail you out?”

 

“No.  They raised me to take responsibility for my actions.  I didn't get out of jail until Monday morning, when I went to court.”

 

“Where you pled guilty.  And this morning you pled guilty again, this time for theft.  Diapers, no less!”

 

Gayle leaned back in her chair, and studied the young woman opposite her.  Tippi Bjornsen was tall and predictably blonde, but unnaturally thin.

 

She looks like a light breeze would lift her off her feet!  Well, the one thing she won't have to contend with inside these walls is a stiff headwind …

 

“Janis tells me that you're the brains behind this bizarre stunt.  Well, I have to give you credit: this is the most creative Fraternity Row has been in many a year.  But is the notoriety worth the price that you're paying?  You'll have to explain this to your parents, and you're going to spend the next three and a half years wearing diapers-- wearing them and using them.  No toilet privileges whatsoever.  And Tippi, our diapers are thick and impossible to conceal.  Even a flared skirt won't hide the bulge.  On campus, you are going to be the butt of a lot of sick jokes.  Was it worth it?”

 

“I think so, but only because of Professor Grady … because of what he did last night, and again in court this morning, and now here.  There's the family you're born into, and the family you choose.  He's taught us all the meaning of family, got us to understand that we're more than a bunch of girls living under the same roof.  We care for one another, and going forward we'll be there for one another.  How do you put a price tag on something like that?”

 

“You don't,” Gayle agreed.  “And it says a great deal about you … about all of you … that you have found a way to turn a bad experience into a rewarding one.  Now, I see that you have not entered the hours at which you would be available; how flexible are you?”

 

“I want to work with one person on the staff here … Professor Grady's fiancee.  I'll arrange my class schedule to fit her needs.”

 

“You want to work with Sarah Haikonnen?  In post-surgical care?”  Gayle was floored.  Even for full-time staff, the oncology and post-surgical wards were the most emotionally taxing in the building.  Death and its imminence hung over the hallways like a darkened shroud.

 

“Good Lord!  Why?”

 

“Because I missed it.”  Tippi was resolute, and it showed in the jut of her jaw and the determination in her eyes.

 

“Missed what?”  Gayle was absolutely mystified.  To say that she had never met a late adolescent like Tippi Bjornsen was to put it very mildly indeed.

 

“When I spoke with him during his office hours, all I saw was the diapers.  I never saw the man, and I couldn't understand how any woman would want to share her life with a cripple unless she was a loser herself.  But Officer Canon isn't a loser, and she's so much in love that the word doesn't even begin to describe her.  And then there are the doctors here who also love him.  'What's wrong with me'?  That's what I keep asking myself.  How can I be so completely blind to what others see almost instantly?”

 

“Don't beat yourself up, Tippi.”  Gayle was shaking her head, remembering the heady days of her late teens, the highs and the lows, the triumphs and the setbacks.  “When you put the last vestiges of childhood in your rear view mirror, you will begin to weigh your choices differently.  It's all just a part of growing up.”

 

“Which is painful, and scary.  I'm not ambitious.  I don't want to set the world on fire.  All I want is to find Mister Right, fall in love, get married, and have children.  I'm a small town girl who wants to have a family.  I want a good man to look at me the way Professor Grady looks at Officer Canon.  I want a husband whose eyes melt when he looks at our children the way the Professor's eyes become so soft when he looks at us.  And I'm greedy-- I want to find Mister Right without wading through an ocean of Mister Wrongs.”

 

“And you think that Sarah can help you to realize your dreams?”

 

Tippi nodded emphatically.  “She knew that Professor Grady was Mister Right when she first met him  … and yes, I know that love at first sight is supposed to be a myth.  How?  How did she see the man when all I saw was the diapers?  I want her to teach me what to look for because I need help, and I'm not going to find the answers to my questions in a classroom.”

 

“No … no, you won't,” Gayle conceded.  She didn't know Suzie Marshall, didn't know that the two of them were on the same crusade.  Both were convinced that there came a point when a human could only learn from experience.  Life was the ultimate teacher.

 

“Is she going to be all right,” Tippi asked, abruptly changing the subject.  Note in hand, Janis Marsden was leaving the cafeteria with her head bowed, broadcasting her guilt and shame to the world.  “Janis is so fragile ...”

 

“She'll be fine,” Gayle answered, and she meant it.  “Oh, don't get me wrong; her co-workers are going to tease her, but it will be good-natured, not malicious.  Tippi, since you're going to be working here, you need to think of this place as a village.  We have our friendships and our rivalries, our likes and our dislikes, and I swear that gossip flows up and down the corridors like the tides.  But when one of us needs help, we come together, in the way that families so often do.”

 

Coming to a decision, Gayle flipped Tippi's application form over, and began writing in the empty space at the bottom reserved for her comments.

 

Sarah, this young lady has expressed an interest in working with you, and I believe that it would be mutually beneficial for you to mentor her.  She is one of the sorority girls involved in the diaper scandal, and will be with us until her graduation.  Her plea agreement includes wearing and using diapers for the duration.  Put her under lock and key; keep one key for yourself, and forward the other three to Professor Grady, who will share responsibility for her with Bernice Miller, the sorority house mother.  With forty- one surrogate daughters, your fiance is going to be a very busy man!  Gayle Soderberg.

 

Gayle folded the application, and slipped it into an envelope, which she addressed to Sarah.  Directing Tippi to the bank of elevators that would usher her to Sarah's third floor domain, Gayle slipped her the envelope, wished her good luck, and sent her on her way.

 

As another of the girls slid into the chair to take Tippi's place, Gayle watched the young woman walk away.

 

Destiny's child, she thought; truly, this one is Destiny's child.

 

.  .  .  .

 

 Approaching the door to the Psych ward, Janis looked up at the camera, and with hand shaking reached out to ring the buzzer.  In a matter of moments, the door buzzed to admit her.  Taking a deep breath to steady her nerves, Janis entered the Psych ward, but she almost jumped out of her skin when the door loudly shut behind her.  She was now locked inside the one part of the hospital she had hoped never to visit, and she was acutely aware that she could not leave without permission.

 

.  .  .  .

 

Standing quietly in the doorway, Tippi took a moment to examine the woman seated at the desk, head down, engrossed in some report or other.  One of the few things that she knew about hospitals was how heavy the administrative workload was for the charge nurses.

 

Sarah Haikonnen, she judged, was another natural blond, but with hair a somewhat darker shade than her own radiant crown.  The Finnish blood line, she knew, was far more complex than her own purely Swedish roots.

 

Then she looked down at Sarah's chest, and what she saw took her breath away.  Even with the crown jewels safely hidden away inside her bra and nurse's smock, it was obvious that the woman had been blessed by nature.  Tippi's first thought was that the Professor had struck gold, and that their lovemaking must be off the charts if Sarah's tits were sensitive to the touch of his fingers and lips, to nibbling teeth and a questing tongue.

 

Involuntarily, Tippi's hand drifted up to her own chest, and not for the first time, she cursed her ill fortune. She was tall and thin, neither her breasts nor her hips what she wanted them to be.  She wore a 32A, and knew that a training bra would have still got the job done even as she approached the end of adolescence.  But training bras didn't turn the boys on, not that she had ever been able to compete with the cheerleader types anyway.  She had mastered oral sex early and practiced it often, but on her eighteenth birthday, in the one way that mattered, she was still a virgin.  The first professor she had scalped was shocked to discover her hymen still intact.  Only moments before, as his knowing fingers had unclasped the hooks on her bra … feeling the straps slide down her arms-- for the first time she had felt like a woman in the fullest sense of the term.  But he had paused, and she had read the doubt in his eyes when he gently asked her if she was sure … really sure.  The question had hurled her back into little girlhood: yes, she was sure.

 

He had been gentle and caring, and he had nibbled on her breasts, not at all discouraged by the smallness of her buds.  And it had felt so good!!  A wave of molten pleasure had flowed from her tits to her vagina, her clit gorging with blood, and he had made love to her, the giving and receiving of pleasure.  Eric had ushered her into womanhood, but she was indebted to him above all for teaching her so clearly the difference between a boy and a man.

 

Tippi was done with boys.  She wanted a man, and she wanted Sarah to teach her how to separate the wheat from the chaff.

 

Who am I kidding, she mused.  I want the Professor, but that means standing in line behind at least four other women, maybe more.  So how do I cut the queue, as our British cousins would put it?  Being diapered for umpteen years will put us in the same boat … can I use that?  Get him to change my diapers?

 

No, wait!  What if I can persuade his girlfriends to let me change HIS diapers when we're on campus?  Surely the Batgirl will have to go back to doing whatever it is she normally does sometime soon.  There's the opening!  And since I'll be locked up, kept chaste, I won't pose a threat.  I'm the logical choice!!

 

“Can I help you?”

 

Tippi snapped out of it, and looking up, saw that Sarah was steadily staring at her.

 

Wow!!

 

Sarah's eyes were large and luminous, an unusual shade somewhere between blue and green, but when she looked at you?

 

Tippi felt like a deer trapped in the headlights.  This was not a woman to be trifled with.

 

And there's something exotic about her features.  Eskimo, maybe?  Somewhere in her blood line …

 

“Um … hi,” Tippi stuttered.  “Gayle Soderberg … uh … down in Patient Relations?  She spent me up here.  Here … she, uh, she wrote a note to explain what's going on.”

 

Tippi held out the envelope, still unopened.

 

Without shifting her gaze, Sarah took the envelope and slit it open with a fingernail.  Pausing only long enough to scan the contents, she went back to staring at Tippi while she thought about it.

 

“So, you're one of the diaper thieves who have been tormenting my fiance.  What is this about Ian now having forty-one surrogate daughters?”

 

“He's … uh … kind of taken all of us who took part in this stunt under his wing.  I mean, he's protecting us from the gangster, taking charge of our probation, and maybe the biggest thing of all … he's helping us to create a sense of family at the house.  We have a house mom, and now I guess that we have a house dad, though no one knows quite how that's supposed to work.”

 

“It says here that I'm supposed to diaper you, and take away your toilet privileges.  That's easily done; when you leave this office, you will be wearing one of our hospital diapers, which are very thick ...”

 

“Like the Professor's,” Tippi interrupted.

 

“One and the same,” Sarah agreed.  You'll also be wearing vinyl baby pants, and a heavy canvas diaper cover with a lock that cannot be defeated.  It looks like I'm personally to take charge of diapering you here at the hospital, but pass three of the four keys to your locking cover to Professor Grady and your house mom.  Are you comfortable with having my fiance change your diapers when you're on campus?”

 

“No!!!”  Tippi found it easy to feign shock.  Somewhere in the future, she was looking forward to having Ian change her diapers, but not now!  This would sink all of her plans, vague as they were.

 

“I mean … think of the damage to his reputation!  That poor man … I don't want to do anything that would hurt him!”

 

“What year are you in?”

 

“First year.”

 

“So, you are going to be wearing diapers for the next three plus years, peeing and pooping … you do realize that your bladder and bowel control are going to slip badly, don't you?  In fact, they may vanish altogether, leaving you incontinent and diaper dependent for the rest of your life.  Are you mentally prepared for this?”

 

“I think so,” Tippi shrugged.  “I mean, realistically, what choice do I have?”

 

“None whatsoever.  Now, what's this about me mentoring you, and the arrangement being mutually beneficial?”

 

“When I visited your fiance during office hours, I was blind to everything except the diapers.  I never even thought about him as a man, never gave him a chance.  But you were totally different.  You saw the man, not the diapers, and you saw his worth.  It's the same with the Batgirl … er … Officer Canon.  She changes him, cleans his messy bottom, but she's never lost sight of the man, and I think it's fair to say that she worships him.  What was it that the two of you saw, and that I missed?  I want to meet a guy like the Professor … fall in love … get married … have a family.  I want you to teach me what to look for, so that I don't make this mistake again.”

 

“I see.”  Sarah was absent mindedly drumming the desktop with her fingernails as she considered what Tippi was saying. “And how does taking you on as a candy striper benefit me?”

 

“When Officer Canon returns to her duties, you will need someone to change his diapers on campus.  Who can you trust not to seduce him?  Any one of us could do it because we'll all be wearing these diapers and locking covers-- just don't let Professor Grady anywhere near the keys!  But I want to do it, and I'll be on hand for the next three and a half years.  That's a long time in which you won't have to worry about him being unfaithful.”

 

“True … although there are other ways to insure his fidelity.”

 

Sarah opened a desk drawer, and removed the chastity cage.  She held it up for Tippi to inspect.

 

“Do you know what this is,” she asked.

 

Tippi shook her head.  She had no idea what Sarah was holding in her hand.

 

“It's a male chastity cage,” Sarah declared; “the male version of the medieval chastity belt for women.  This ring locks behind his testicles ... his flaccid penis is secured inside this very tiny sheath … you marry the two together and insert the lock … turn the key … and voila.  Just like that, you have a forever faithful boyfriend or husband.”

 

“Wow!”  Wide-eyed, Tippi held out her hand, and Sarah obligingly passed the steel cage over for her to examine.

 

“This is so neat,” she excitedly proclaimed before returning the cage to Sarah.  “But are you sure that he'll wear it?  Have you asked him?”

 

“Not yet, but I'm confident that he'll agree.  Ian has a problem with self-control, and he admits it, so he'll see the wisdom of wearing this in order to make the problem go away.  Still, you're right that I'll need someone on campus to change his diapers. I'll take you on in this department, but you will have to adjust your class schedule to give me three hours of your time, twice a week, between seven and three.  Can you do that?”

 

“Yes.  It won't be a problem.”

 

“Good, then let's get you diapered, and I'll inform Gayle that I'm taking you on.  She'll set up orientation for all of you, give you a tutorial on the do's and don'ts, and with the preliminaries out of the way. I'll put you to work.  Welcome aboard.”

 

Sarah held out her hand, and the two women shook.  Then, without further ado, Sarah ordered Tippi to close the door and take off her clothes.  She spread a changing mat on the floor, and silently directed the girl to lie down.

 

Tippi obeyed without a moment's hesitation.

 

Sarah paused to examine her new charge.  Tall and slender, with boyish hips and childlike breasts, with a bit of work Tippi could easily pass for a boy in his mid to late teens.

 

Or add a pair of shortalls to her bulging diapers, put her hair up in pigtails, and she'd make an adorable toddler!  Now, there's something to think about down the road!

 

Setting her fantasies aside for the moment, Sarah got down on the floor and went to work.  Tippi raised her hips to welcome her diaper, and with it a heavy application of baby powder-- heavy enough, in fact, to make her smell like a newborn.  Sarah efficiently pinned the diaper tightly in place; the vinyl pants came next, and then the diaper cover. 

 

As it happened, she had collected it from stores at the start of her shift, her plan being to lock Ian up in a new cover to which she alone would have the keys.  She wanted to deal Priscilla Canon out of the equation, and this was the fastest way to do it.  And as an added bonus, she reasoned that long hours in a wet and messy and possibly leaky diaper would serve to remind her baby husband to be that she ruled the roost in their relationship, and that she was not above punishing him with a nasty diaper rash.

 

And if I pitch it as a way for him to get back to regular diaper changes, he's much more likely to welcome the cage.  And how will he like having a barely nineteen year old babysitter?  A babysitter he can't screw because she'll be trapped in a locking diaper of her own? 

 

Wonder if she'd like to babysit Vickie as well … now, that would be a sight!

 

Sarah left Tippi to finish getting dressed, knowing that it would be almost impossible for her to squeeze the mountain of cloth, vinyl and canvas that she was now wearing into her jeans.  As the girl struggled, Sarah also knew that it would quickly occur to her that she would need to buy a new wardrobe to cover her bulging rear end.  The humiliation that Tippi would soon begin to suffer every time she went out in public sent a shiver down Sarah's spine.

 

Tippi was still struggling with her jeans when the telephone rang.  Watching the girl, a triumphant smile on her lips, Sarah was in a very good mood when she picked up the receiver.

 

“Sarah, it's Rita.  You need to get up here right now!”

 

INTERMISSION

 

“It is not often that I speak with an American cousin.  It is a pleasure to hear your voice.  How are you, Vincent?”

 

“Bene, Don Antonio … molto bene.”

 

Spats had adjourned from the courthouse directly to his lawyer's office.  The gangster took it for granted that the FBI was recording all of the calls from his home and office, but bugging his mouthpiece and then trying to introduce the evidence in a trial raised all sorts of thorny constitutional issues.

 

Further complicating matters, the esteemed Jerome Goldstein, Attorney at Law, wasn't even on the premises.  Whenever Spats showed up to make a call, Jerome conveniently remembered that he had an appointment down on the ground floor.  Both his hair and his toenails were impeccable.

 

“Confido che tu staia bene.”

 

“Life is good, Vincent; life is good.  Now, let us speak English.  Your accent continues to offend me.  How can I be of service?”

 

“Don Antonio, I have had a most interesting morning.  I was in court, and there made the acquaintance of a young man who claims to have done business with you.  His name is Ian Grady … a Professor at one of our universities.”

 

“Vincent, Ian is much more than a university professor.  He is a very powerful man, with even more powerful friends.  We have done favors for one another on more than one occasion.  He is dear to my heart.”

 

“This is good to hear, Don Antonio, for Professor Grady and I have come to an unusual arrangement.  I am an honest businessman, but there are always questions.  He assures me that in future I shall not be disturbed by the tax office, and he has promised me a safe  journey to la mia terra natale … many such journeys.  In return, he seeks but one piece of information.”

 

“And what would this be?”

 

“Shipping information.  Food shipped in quantity one to three times a month on a fixed schedule. The destination will be isolated, probably remote and well guarded.  The most unusual part of the order will be children's cereal.”

 

“This is a most unusual request, even for our fratelli on the Potomac.  Is there an explanation?”

 

“He searches for his daughter … and others … taken from a village in Viet Nam, almost ten years ago.  The children were taken; everyone else was put to death.”

 

There was a long silence on the line while Don Antonio thought about Ian … thought about the indefinable air of sadness that had always cloaked his friend like a second skin.  Finally, it made sense.

 

“I will address the Council,” he thoughtfully declared.  “We are searching for a Eurasian girl, about ten years old, perhaps in the company of other Vietnamese children about the same age.”

 

“Mille grazie, Patron … mille grazie.”

 

“Give me twenty minutes.  I shall speak with Chicago.  Do you know the number?”

 

“It is committed to memory.”

 

“Very good.  Twenty minutes.”

 

.  .  .  .

 

Spats glanced at the clock on the wall, then settled into a well appointed leather chair to peruse the Wall Street Journal.  He managed his own stock portfolio, and he followed the market closely.  It pleased him to see that his holdings continued to outpace the ruinous rate of inflation that the political elite daily inflicted on a suffering country.

 

Twenty minutes later, he moved to the plush chair behind his attorney's heavy walnut desk, and dialed the number of a telephone booth in Chicago's Oak Park district.  This was his only direct link with Tony Accardo, at once his mentor and the head of the Outfit, a syndicate that controlled broad swathes of organized crime from the Midwest to the Pacific coast.

 

Spats laid it out for his boss: in return for one exotic piece of information, the CIA would get the IRS and the FBI off the Outfit's highly exposed back.  But, Tony wanted to know, what about the ongoing investigation into the murders of seven thieves who had burglarized his family home in neighboring River Forest the year before?  There was considerable heat. 

 

Spat's contact would make that problem go away as well, but only in return for payment received in full.

 

The deal was far too sweet for the crime lord to turn it down.  The word went forth, and throughout the country, the Outfit's underbosses got to work. The capi had lieutenants seeded throughout the trucking industry and food distribution networks; if what Spats Belmondo was describing was a recurrent order being filled anywhere in North America, they would uncover it.

 

.  .  .  .

 

Far to the west, in a time zone where the sun had not yet risen high into the sky to part the swirling mists, a small child sat quietly on rocky ground and gazed out to sea.

 

She was ethereal, a willow, almost the youngest member of her tiny family.  And she was different.  She could see it when she compared the faces around her with the image that stared back at her from the mirror.  Her face was longer, her eyes exotic, neither those of her brothers and sisters, nor those of the monsters who held them captive.

 

She was slight, but she was also strong.  It could not be otherwise, for fate had cast her to lead and others to follow.  There had been three deaths, each the consequence of her failures.

 

Eleven remained, and she would lose no more.  And so she absorbed the strange tongues that challenged her, mastering them all so effortlessly.  She thought it curious that no one else in her family could do this.

 

They called her Anna, and she pretended this to be her name, but she knew otherwise.  Once, she had had a different name, though she did not know what it might be.  Inside her heart there was a gaping hole, in the place where she thought her mother to find.  The emptiness spoke to her in its own way, telling her that her mother was forever gone, and would never again know the joy of holding her daughter in her arms.

 

But it was not so with her father.  The warmth of his presence filled her, carried to her in the hushed whispers with which her captors spoke of him, when the boat brought news from far away.

 

She bathed in the wisps of fear that she saw in their eyes, knowing that he searched though he had yet to find.

 

Songbird.

 

They called him Songbird, and so she thought of herself simply as The Songbird's Daughter.  She would make do until he came for her, and gave her back her real name, and with it those of her brothers and sisters.

 

Her family.

 

Each morning The Songbird's Daughter sat on the rocky ground, in the time allotted to her, and quietly gazed out to sea.

 

Searching.   

 

OFF STAGE

 

Janis closed her eyes, and keeping them firmly shut, slowly counted to three.  She was trapped inside a nightmare, held captive behind the locked door of an insane asylum.  She had only one chance to escape, and that was to wake up.

 

Slowly opening her eyes, Janis trembled.  Nothing had changed.  She was still standing on the plushly carpeted floor of the psych ward.

 

There's no carpeting down on Four, but then we don't have to worry about inmates hurting themselves when they are knocked down while trying to escape …

 

Looking around, Janis registered the deeply stuffed chairs scattered around the room, many of them occupied by members of the staff.  Some looked to be hard at work, brows furrowed as they concentrated on writing up reports; others were nursing coffees or chatting quietly with a colleague.

 

No one was wearing a strait jacket.

 

They must keep the patients locked away.  How did Professor Grady ever manage to get out?

 

She made eye contact with an orderly.  He was tall and muscular, perhaps a football player in high school or college.

 

He'll tackle anyone trying to escape … an open field tackle.

 

“Can I help you”, he asked politely.  But his eyes were cool and appraising.

 

“Uh, hi.  My name is Janis Marsden.  I work down on Four.  Marcia Mason sent me up to see Doctor Stevenson.”

 

Janis started to show him the note, but remembering its contents, hastily dropped her hand to her side.  She was wearing a dress, and had no pocket within which to conceal it.

 

“Oh, okay,” he said with a warm smile.  “Her door is open; just knock, and go on in.”

 

The orderly gestured in the direction of an office off to her left.

 

“Thank you,” she answered politely, as she began walking away.

No one else was paying her any attention. 

 

“Excuse me,” she said as she stood in the doorway.  There were two women in the room, and she recognized one of them from the cafeteria.  “I'm looking for Doctor Stevenson.”

 

Janis wanted to run and hide, but there was nowhere to go, and if she tried, they would probably put her in a strait jacket.  So, she stood there, as immobile as a statue, the nightmare refusing to let go.

 

“I'm Doctor Stevenson,” Rita said, “and this is my colleague, Doctor Cameron.”  Rita casually gestured at Becky.  “What can I do for you?”

 

“My name is Janis Marsden,” she repeated.

 

Rita looked at her sharply.  “Are you related to Marilyn Marsden?”

 

“My mother,” Janis confessed.  At least, it felt like a confession.

 

“Ian's agent,” Rita commented in an aside to her colleague.  “She came to terms with Sarah yesterday morning.”

 

“Does Ian know that he has an agent,” Becky asked with a wicked grin.

 

Rita nodded.  “He signed off on the deal in the afternoon.  Sarah thinks that she will do him a lot of good.  I hope so, because his salary is ridiculous.  Seventeen thousand a year... what a joke!”

 

“He is only making seventeen thousand dollars?”  Janis couldn't believe what she was hearing.  “But … but … he's so talented,” she protested, her voice once again trailing off.

 

“Oh, I wholeheartedly agree,” Rita replied.  “Now, what brings you to our little corner of the world?”

 

“I'm … uh … one of the sorority girls arrested for stealing diapers.  But I also work here … on Four … a … a … a candy striper.  Marcia Mason wanted me to come up and see you.  She … uh … she wrote a note.”

 

Blushing a deep shade of red, Janis meekly surrendered the note as she dropped her eyes to stare at the floor.

 

Rita looked at her quizzically, then took a look.

 

Rita, this is to introduce Janis Marsden, who is a second shift candy striper in my department.  Janis is one of the sorority girls with a thing for stealing diapers, and part of her sentence includes wearing and using them until she graduates.  Please outfit her, including baby pants and locking canvas cover.  Give three keys to Professor Grady, and give the fourth to Janis, with instructions to leave it on the desk in my office.

 

I am hoping that she will open up to you, and that you have the time to work with her if she does.  She is well liked down here, and I want to help her get through this as best I can.  Marcia Mason

 

Rita silently passed the note to Becky, who read it in turn.

 

“I'll check on Candy,” Becky remarked as she handed the note back to Rita.  Excusing herself to Janis, she left the room, quietly shutting the door behind her.

 

“I'd like you to read this.”  Rita passed the note back to Janis.

 

Janis read the note a second time, hoping that she had originally misunderstood its contents.

 

She hadn't.

 

“It's a good thing that you're wearing a dress,” Rita commented, “because you won't leave this ward until you are properly diapered-- and our diapers are very thick and difficult to conceal.  If you like to wear pants, you will need to buy some at least one and possibly two sizes larger than what you wear right now.”

 

“I know,” Janis whispered.  “I've seen Professor Grady's diapers; he makes no effort to hide them.”  She was still staring at the floor.

 

“Janis?  I want you to look at me.”  Rita's tone was somehow both gentle and stern at the same time.

 

Janis looked up, and to her surprise, found herself looking into eyes that were warm with sympathy.  Maybe she wasn't en route to the gallows after all.

 

“If you want to talk to me,” Rita smiled kindly, “I promise to make time for you.  But this will have to be your decision.”

 

“Decisions … that poor man.”  Janis was thinking about Ian, still trying to process how the Professor could treat them with such kindness after what they had done to him.

 

“You're thinking about Ian?”  Rita's voice was very, very soft-- it was one thing for Ian to regard Janis and the others as his daughters, but did Janis somehow see in him a surrogate father?

 

Becky's right … the waters here are treacherous and deep …

 

Janis nodded.  “It was just a stupid sorority stunt … the diapers, I mean.  And you know what?  In the beginning, I didn't want to do it, but now?  Now, I'm glad that I did because … you know what?  It's the first time in my life that I've done something daring … something reckless.  My whole life, I've been the good, little girl who sat quietly at the back of the classroom, politely raising my hand to ask a question, never speaking out of turn.  That's no life … that's no life at all!  I'm nineteen, and I want more!”

 

“It's funny,” Rita shrugged.  “Last night, standing in my dull, dull living room, I had exactly the same thought.  The difference is that I'm thirty-four.  You are fortunate to have discovered at so early an age what it has taken me another fifteen years to figure out.”

 

“So, you understand where I'm coming from?”  There was a hopeful look on Janis' face.  It felt like Doctor Stevenson had just thrown her a lifeline when she was about to go under for the third time.

 

“Very much so,” Rita acknowledged.  “Janis, I hope that you will seek me out; I think that it would be good for both of us to get together, and just talk.”

 

“I'd like that,” Janis smiled.  “I'd like that a lot.  I like working here, and the only thing I'm sorry about is disappointing the people I work with.  I've been thinking about declaring a major that would make it possible for me to work her full time … after I graduate, I mean.”

 

“We can talk about that as well,” Rita said with a smile of her own.  “But for now?”  She clapped her hands, signaling that the interview was over.  “For now, I'm going to walk you down the hall, gather up what we need, and put you in a diaper-- the first of many.  Then, I'll have to adjourn to the conference room for a staff meeting; Professor Grady apparently has a great deal to tell us.”

 

“He does,” Janis confirmed.  “That poor man … I worry about him.  He's beating himself up, and it's so unfair because there was nothing that he could have done all those months he was in the hospital.”

 

“So you already know what this is all about?”

 

“Uh huh,” Janis shyly replied.

 

Rita looked at her appraisingly, her thoughts again returning to Becky's shrewd assessment of the danger that now surrounded Ian.

 

“You admire him, don't you?”

 

“Uh huh,” Janis said anew.

 

“Well, if you're willing, I'd like you to join us.  Your perspective on what he has to say could be very valuable because it will be so different from our own.”

 

“Thank you.  I want to help him, Doctor Stevenson.”

 

“Rita.  We're not big on titles around here, Janis; they tend to get in the way.”

 

“Thank you.  He's suffering, Rita, and it's so unfair.  He's so nice … so gentle and kind.  Listening to him last night?  It felt like my heart was broken, and then someone took a sledgehammer to the pieces.  I want this to stop.”

 

“As do we.  Now, come on.  Let's get you diapered, and then you can join what we call The Circle.”

 

.  .  .  .

 

“Julia!”

 

Harriet jumped up from behind her desk, and all but sprinted to Lullaby's entryway.  Grinning hugely, she wrapped her arms around Julia, and hugged her close.

 

“Thank you!  Thank you!  Thank you!  You're a lifesaver!  All three of you!”

 

Breaking Harriet's grip, Julia stepped back.  “I take it that you've heard the news?”

 

“Saw it on the TV last night.  And then Uncle Vinnie called this morning; he says that forty-one girls in that sorority are gonna become our customers.  But Julia, we don't have nearly enough adult diapers to service that many new clients!  What am I gonna do?”

 

“Well, the first thing that you're going to do is calm down.  Hi, Francie!”  Julia peeked over Harriet's shoulder, and saw her assistant lurking in the background.

 

“Hello, Missus Canon, and welcome.”  Francine mimicked hanging herself with a rope.  “We're dying here, and it's a slow death!!”

 

Looking around the office, Julia noted that four different desks were awash in customer files.

 

“Okay, first things, first.  I have two bags of Ian's diapers in the trunk-- one clean, the other in urgent need of the hottest temperature and the strongest detergent you can manage.  We are talking serious stink here, and I say that as a mom with lots of diaper changing experience in my background.  Next, we're going to dispatch a truck to the sorority house, and pick up the diapers recovered there.  Bernice Miller, the house mom, wants them out of her dining room tout suite.”

 

“On it,” Francine called out; “just give me the address, and it's done!”

 

Address in hand, Francie rushed out to make the arrangements.

 

“Now,” Julia asked as she once again surveyed the office, mentally trying to get a handle on the hill that now had to be climbed.  “What are we dealing with here?”

 

“Chaos,” Harriet shot back; “utter, complete, and total chaos.  Customers have been calling in all morning long, and I do mean non-stop.  Some want to cancel their service.  Others want us to compensate them for being inconvenienced with free deliveries: a week, a month … I've heard the lot.  We're being asked for refunds, rebates, credits to account ...”

 

“But on the plus side,” Francine cut in as she returned to her desk, “we're also fielding a lot of new orders from mothers who didn't even know the Twin Cities had a diaper  delivery service.”

 

“And then there's Emmett Bailey,” Harriet moaned.  “Julia, can you imagine it?  He wants to come out here and interview us!  An insider's look at the diaper service industry, he calls it, and the free publicity would be worth its weight in gold, but ...”

 

“But you think he's got an angle,” Julia grinned; “maybe wants to do a ride along with whoever is going to be doing the pick up and drop off at the sorority house?  Maybe snag an interview with a heavily diapered sorority girl or two?”

 

“Exactly!  I mean, publicity is one thing, but I don't want us to pile on.  Those girls are in enough trouble as it is.  Can you imagine what their parents are going to do?  Twenty five hundred dollar fines!  That's a lot of money!”

 

         

“Bailey's easy.  Call your uncle, and lay it out for him.  I'm guessing that he won't want the press to come crawling around one of his businesses.  Letting him decide gets you off the hook.”

 

“Now,” Julia declared as she clapped her hands, “with regard to your forty-one new adult clients, here's where we stand.  Ian had them ferried over to the hospital, where they are being interviewed with an eye to doing community service as candy stripers.  If they're accepted, the charge nurses to whom they'll be assigned will be locking them into those monster diapers that Ian wears ...”

 

“For how long?”  Francine was shrieking with laughter.

 

“Until they graduate.  But this is just a makeshift arrangement.  Ian is putting your uncle in touch with the hospital's purchasing agent, so you need to figure out how much additional inventory you'll need.  If each girl goes through thirty-five diapers a week, that's almost fifteen hundred additional units.”

 

“We need to lay our hands on one of these diapers ASAP,” Francine declared.

 

Harriet nodded in agreement.  “Do we have enough washer and dryer capacity on the floor to handle the load, or do we need to install new equipment?  New equipment means amending our Special Use Permit, a sit down with the city inspector, giving a presentation to the city council … AND MORE PAPERWORK!!!  I HATE PAPERWORK!!”

 

“And I hate stakeouts,” Julia laughed.  “I swear, the next time I have to freeze my butt off in some high school parking lot, I'm going to be wearing one of your diapers!  Just tell me where to find some of those cute baby pants that Ian wears over his!”

 

“Would you like pink with ruffles,” Francine queried, her eyes full of merriment.

 

“Just the thing,” Julia crowed.  “And they'd really turn my husband on!”

 

“Well, let me give you directions to a shop in the northern suburbs called Fantasy Island.  If Jessica is there, tell her that Francine sent you.  You'll get a discount.”

 

“All right … give.  What's this all about?”

 

“Quite a few of our adult customers are men in their twenties and thirties … even a few in their forties.  Either they have a diaper fetish, or they are what is known in certain circles as adult babies.”

 

Francine and Harriet grinned knowingly.  Francine had dated one such customer-- a sort of trial run to determine whether she would be interested in a D/s relationship.

 

“Adult babies?”  Julia couldn't wrap her head around the concept.

 

“Yeah … guys who want to be forced to wear and use diapers, drink from baby bottles, suck on pacifiers, eat baby food … the whole nine yards.”

 

“Are you sure?  I mean, Priscilla changes Ian's diapers … bottle feeds him with breast milk, no less … and he's definitely no adult baby.  It's therapy!”

 

“Therapy works.”  Francine's grin had turned malicious.  “But offer him a pink pacifier, and see what happens.”

 

“Francie and I have different takes on Ian,” Harriet elaborated.  “I think that he's a man's man, whereas she insists that there's a little baby girl in there who's just aching to come out and play with her mommy.”

 

“Hmm.”  Julia had a thoughtful look on her face.  “Maybe I'll run this by Priscilla … or maybe I'll sit on it to await the day when I'm taking care of Ian … changing his diaper and bottle feeding him.  You're right: a pacifier would be a huge tell!”

 

“Is this in the offing?”  Francine found the idea of changing Ian's diaper and nursing him at her breast incredibly exciting.  A D/s relationship with Professor Ian Grady was something that any woman with an ounce of imagination would jump at.

 

“My husband certainly thinks so,” Julia giggled.  “And I detect a certain amount of jealousy there.  A much younger man, who is making my daughter very, very happy ...”

 

“SHE'S SLEEPING WITH HIM?”  Harriet was stunned.

 

“Good for Ian,” Francine clapped.  “I keep telling you, Harry-- not all babies are equal!”

 

“But he's engaged to that nurse at the hospital!  How ...”

 

“Priscilla is joining her household.  Sarah will now have to share her husband to be with, count 'em, three other women!  He's going to be busy!”

 

“Especially if they all want babies of their own!”  Francine found the whole saga hilarious in the extreme.

 

“Yeah.”  Julia's tone changed abruptly.  “But there's a shadow hanging over everything.  “Last night, at the sorority house, he begged the girls to stand by one another … to think of themselves as a family.  He wanted them to try and imagine what it feels like to have a wife, and to learn that she's been murdered because he wasn't there to protect her ...”

 

“And to have a daughter,” she whispered, “a little baby girl … taken away because he wasn't there to keep her safe … missing all these years ...”

 

“Oh, no.”  Harriet was shaking her head, her stomach knotting.  “Oh, no … oh, no ...”

 

Appalled, Francine had visibly paled.

 

“He's one of a very special breed,” Julia marveled.  “The kind of man who will charge the machine gun without hesitation because he understands that retreat is not an option.  Will I try and comfort him if the need should arise?  Twenty-fours hours ago, I would have said 'no' without even thinking about it.  But this morning?  Knowing what I now know?”

 

Julia looked at them both, and there was steel in her glance.

 

“In a heartbeat.”

 

.  .  .

 

Deep in thought, fingers drumming on her desktop, Suzie Marshall was a general preparing for war.  The battlefield was well marked, the enemy visible in the distance.  It was time, she thought, to line up her soldiers, and charge the barricades.

 

Her opposite number was Dean Willard Turgeson, a pantywaist whom she had defeated in many a previous engagement.  But he was a mere lieutenant; the enemy command lurked beyond the horizon, in the offices of academic vice-presidents and, ultimately, in the office of the university president.  The current occupant was to the manor born, a shallow, weak-minded heir to one of the state's great industrial fortunes.  His one talent was to glad hand the donor class, alumnae who dreamed in turn of gleaming towers and athletic arenas carrying their names into the distant future, into the world of their grandchildren and beyond.

 

The objectives of this particular campaign were twofold.  The first was to prevent ZAP from losing its charter, which could only be revoked by the National Board.  But there was only one finger on this particular trigger to worry about, and that was the Dean's.  If he decided to act, and attached a cover letter to the police report, Bernice Miller would be out of a job.

 

Suzie's fingers quickened their pace.  Walt Mischof was the proverbial good guy, and everybody on campus who was anybody was waiting for the big lunk to ask Bernice out on a real date.  It was obvious to all and sundry that they were attracted to one another-- well, obvious to everyone except Walt and Bernice.  And besides, Walt was so damned honest that it would never occur to him to tone down his report anyway.  Nope, there was no help coming from that direction.

 

Blackmail or intimidation, Suzie mentally conceded.  Blackmail or intimidation …

 

It would be easy to spread rumors about the Dean's pathetic little dicklet, which she knew from her scalp hunting days didn't quite reach two inches in length when fully erect.  She could even spice things up a bit … insinuate that the only way she had been able to get him off involved a massive dildo and his rear end.

 

She still had the dildo, safely locked away in a bedroom dresser drawer.  And then there were the photographs.  You couldn't claim a scalp unless you had the proof.  She had claimed Willard Turgeson, all right, but she had kept the really nasty photos to herself.

 

But you can only play the ace up your sleeve once, and I've always held it in reserve against the day when it's our charter that's on the line …

 

Suzie opened her address book, picked up the phone, and started making the rounds.  The house moms and dads would all rally round, and when it came to irritating this or any other Dean, some of her friends could be quite creative indeed.  And besides, Wendy Stafford, her first year bedwetting Legacy, had come up with a brilliant idea, and the sooner Suzie tested these particular waters, the better.  Wendy had volunteered to leave PISS for ZAP, where her nighttime diapers would now let her fit right in, and she had suggested that girls in the other houses with wetting issues might follow her lead if given the chance.  This would balance out some or all of the financial loss that ZAP would suffer when eleven of its members abandoned ship.

 

But Suzie wanted to take Wendy's idea one step farther: if she lost Wendy, she would happily take a refugee from ZAP in exchange.  It would be a win-win for both houses.

 

The second challenge awaiting her was going to be infinitely more difficult to tackle.  If the student body and faculty learned that there was a CIA agent in their midst, the anti-war crowd would respond with sit-ins and demonstrations, demanding his expulsion from their hallowed, anti-imperialist turf.  A president who shunned bad publicity might opt to give the mob what they wanted, and a first year professor without tenure was easily sacrificed.

 

Idly, Suzie wondered what would happen if she phoned the Central Intelligence Agency, and asked to speak with Ian's boss.

 

BEHIND THE SCENES

 

“All's quiet on the western front,”  Connie declared.  She was currently occupying what staff in the Psych ward euphemistically dubbed “the throne” – a tongue and cheek description of the desk whose occupant controlled entry and exit to the facility, received and rerouted incoming phone calls, and monitored the video feeds from the cameras strategically located throughout the secure wing.

 

“Unlike the conference room,” Marge agreed.  She was scanning the various feeds, relieved to see that all was indeed quiet on the western front.  If she could finish her rounds before lunch, then she would be able to devote the afternoon to Don Phillips.  She had gained the battle scarred vet's trust, and she was making real progress in restoring his cognitive abilities.  His speech patterns were now improving almost by the hour.

 

And all thanks to the breakthrough that Ian Grady and Amos Waring achieved over Thanksgiving dinner.

 

Marge reminded herself to give full credit to both at the Saturday morning weekly round table.

 

“What was that all about, anyway?”  Connie was referring to the screaming that everyone in and around the foyer had heard at one point during the closed door meeting.

“It sounded like the same girl who was screaming her head off in the corridor a while ago.”

 

“It was,” Marge confirmed.  “Janis Marsden … one of the sorority girls caught stealing diapers.  Rita brought her along, and Sarah brought a second one … the ringleader, apparently … a Tippi Bjornsen.  Janis got really upset when Rita insinuated that Professor Grady has been lying to all of us from day one.”

 

“What's your take?”  Connie's eyes roamed from screen to screen.  The secure wing was still quiet, but that could change in a heartbeat.

 

“It's a judgment call, but personally, I don't think so.  It turns out that Ian works for the CIA, and until yesterday afternoon, wasn't authorized to tell anybody anything.  He leaped at the chance to come clean-- that's what the meeting was all about-- but there was precious little sympathy on offer for a guy who had a family in Viet Nam that was taken from him while he was in the hospital.  Con, his wife was murdered, and his little baby girl stolen.  For years, he and the Agency have both been searching for her all over the world.  And what was the hot topic of conversation for Sarah, Rita, and some of the others?  How inconvenient it would be to raise children inside a compound patrolled by armed security there to keep Ian's children safe!  Honestly!”

 

“Psychiatric unit … how may I direct your call?”

 

Connie had picked up on the first ring.

 

“I'm sorry,” she interrupted after listening for a moment, “but Doctor Robinson is currently in conference.  Would you like to leave a message?”

 

“I see,” Connie nodded.  “I'm sorry, Miss Marshall, but I don't know a Bernice Miller, and Professor Grady left the ward a few minutes ago with his police escort and one of the sorority girls.  I'm not sure where they were going.”

 

“Let me speak to her,” Marge ordered as she reached for the phone.

 

.  .  .  .

 

Rita slumped into her chair, her mood as bleak as the expression on her face.  She barely had the energy to look up and confirm that Vickie and Sarah had followed her into the office.  Sarah at least had the presence of mind to shut the door behind her.

 

“I need a drink,” Rita bluntly remarked, opening her desk's bottom drawer to collect a bottle of her prized Courvoisier.  She reached for a glass on the credenza behind her, but paused with her hand in mid-air.

 

“Anyone want to join me?”

 

“No?”  Vickie and Sarah were both shaking their heads.

 

“It's too early in the day for me,” Sarah politely remarked, “and our baby girl here is waiting for her ba bas.  We're both good.”

 

“Your loss,” Rita shrugged.  She poured herself a stiff drink, and downed most of it in one long gulp.

 

“What a disaster,” she finally began.  “I knew a part of what he was going to say.  Janis gave me an abridged version of what he told the sorority last night, and Becky and Reiko told me what they learned in the cafeteria … even showed me the photograph.  I knew about his wife and daughter, but all I could see was my dream home out on Lake Minnetonka going up in flames.  God, what a miserable excuse for a human being I've turned out to be!”

 

Rita downed the rest of the cognac, and poured herself a fresh drink.

 

“It wasn't your finest hour,” Vickie concurred.  “And you were even worse,” she added, looking straight at Sarah.  “Accusing him of being a spy … going on and on about how horrible it would be to live in a big house paid for by the government … oh, and let's not forget your diatribe against the armed guards whose one job would be to keep us and the children Ian gives us safe.  Are you trying to push him away?  Because you're doing a damned, good job of it.  In case you haven't noticed, Priscilla is filling the vacuum that you've created!”

 

“Damn it, he lied to us!”  Sarah's voice was etched with bitterness.  “He led us on!  And what makes you think that we've heard all of his secrets?  You heard him, damn it!  He told us what he's been authorized to share.  Well, what about the parts that he hasn't been authorized to share, the bits that he's still hiding?  Aren't you at all curious about the rest of it?”

 

“This is getting us nowhere,” Rita warned.  “We need to calm down … take a breather.  Let's do lunch in the cafeteria in … say … ninety minutes.  We need time to get some perspective on this.”

 

Rita jumped when the telephone rang, her drink spilling and staining the blotter on her desk.  Cursing, she picked up the receiver.

 

.  .  .  .

 

“Miss Marshall, I'm Doctor Margaret Bellencourt … one of Doctor Robinson's colleagues.  She's tied up at the moment-- a postmortem for an especially difficult session involving the whole of our senior staff ...”

 

“Oh, let me guess,” Suzie rather rudely interjected.  “You have just learned about Ian's wife and daughter, and right now Vic and her friends are trying to pick up the pieces.”

 

“How can I help you, Miss Marshall?”  Marge was working on cool, calm, and collected.

 

“I'm the house mom in charge of Pi Iota Sigma; Vic and I are sorority sisters.  I just got off the phone with our campus police chief, and Walt tells me that Ian, Bernice, and the forty-one sorority girls in their care are somewhere in your hospital.  I need to speak with Ian and Bernice urgently, and Vic needs to be in on this.  She's still his therapist, isn't she?”

 

“She is.  Please hold the line, and I'll see if Doctor Robinson can take your call.”

 

.  .  .  .

 

“What now,” Rita growled.

 

“It's Marge.  A Suzie Marshall from the Pi Iota Sigma sorority house is on the line; she wants to speak with Vic, and she says that it's urgent … something concerning Ian, a Bernice Miller, and these sorority girls.”

 

“Suzie Marshall,” Rita mouthed.  “Urgent.”

 

“Put her on speaker,” Vickie suggested.

 

“Vic, are you there?”

 

“Hard at it.  What's up, Suz?”

 

“Ian.  Bring me up to date, Vic; how did it go when he spilled the beans?”

 

“Sorry, Suz, but no can do.  Patient confidentiality, and so forth.”

 

“Well, let me bring you up to date on matters at this end.  This morning, one of my girls was canvassing the other houses to make sure that everyone got the message that Ian is now off limits for scalp hunting.  A friend told her about Ian's wife and daughter, said friend having learned the details from one of the girls fleeing ZAP.  Get the picture?  I expect the news to go campus wide during the course of the day, and it's just a matter of time before his connection to the CIA is also revealed.  That will set off a firestorm among the usual far left student groups, who will be howling for Ian's head.  I have a plan to save ZAP's charter, and to keep Ian out of the line of fire, but I can't move without their permission.  I need to speak to Ian, and to Bernice Miller, ASAP.”

 

“They're in the cafeteria.  You in your office?”

 

“Here for the duration.”

 

“I'll go down and find a phone, or bring them back up here.  I'll need a few minutes.”

 

“Your office would be best.  It's more private, and I need you to be on hand.  I'm going to press Ian to make a tough decision, and after what happened last night, I'm worried about how it's going to go.  Priscilla knows the drill, and I'm guessing that she learned it from you.”

 

“I'll bring her along.  Between the four of us, we'll manage.”

 

“Figures.  I'm looking forward to meeting your colleagues on Saturday night.  Is it BYOB?”

 

“Contributions are always welcome.  And Suz?  Tell me the truth: did you put Ian to bed last night?”

 

“I did … after changing his diaper and nursing him.  My epiphany moment.  This morning my hormones are running wild, and guess who I want to put out the fire?”

 

Suzie hung up the phone.

 

.  .  .  .

 

Rushing into the cafeteria, Vickie braked to a halt as she began scanning the vast chamber.  She quickly spotted Priscilla deep in conversation with a nicely dressed, middle aged woman, whom she assumed to be the mysterious Bernice Miller.  Vickie knew the ZAP house mom by reputation, but their paths had never crossed during or after Vickie's own four year stay at the university.

 

There was no sign of Ian, which surprised her.  Priscilla stayed closer to him than his own shadow.

 

Well, he can't have wandered off too far … not without his many daughters in tow …

 

“Pris, where's Ian?”  Vickie had rushed to Priscilla's side; Suzie Marshall was no shrinking violet, and she had her ear to the ground.  If there was trouble brewing, she would sense it coming.

 

“Running errands for Gayle Soderberg.  Vic, aren't you supposed to be raising the dead, or something?”

 

“Cute.  I just got off the phone with Suzie Marshall.  She wants to speak with Bernice Miller and Ian; I'm supposed to haul the three of you up to Rita's office, and the sooner the better.”

 

“I'm Bernice Miller.  What is this about?”

 

“It's an honor finally to meet you.”  Vickie's smile was genuine, her handshake warm.

 

“I'm ...”

 

“Victoria Robinson, scalp hunter extraordinaire.” Bernice's handshake was equally warm.  “Suzie speaks highly of you.”

 

“She does?”  Vickie was visibly startled.  She was pretty sure that ZAP's house mom was pulling her leg, or maybe being diplomatic … something.

 

“Oh, yes.  When she reminisces about the good, old days, your name frequently enters the conversation.  A worthy rival who has gone on to do the sorority proud.  Now, two things-- the first being what is so urgent, and the second being why you are wearing a diaper.  Are you incontinent?”

 

“My control of bladder and bowel is a bit questionable, but this is really a makeshift chastity belt.  I have been sexually active since I was fourteen, more or less nonstop.  Sarah doesn't trust me to remain faithful to Ian, so she has taken matters into her own hands.”

 

“Ah, yes … Sarah.  I spoke with her last night.  She seems very formidable.  A dominatrix, perhaps … or are you good with this?”  Bernice idly gestured at Vickie's visibly padded rear end.

 

“I'm good with it,” Vickie agreed.  “And yes, Sarah is certainly strong-willed, but someone has to take control of our weird, little household, or the whole thing will fall apart.”

 

“But Priscilla and Ian both think that Sarah and Rita may bail.  We were talking about this just a few minutes ago.”

 

Bernice looked at Pris, who was nodding her head in agreement.

 

“What if, in the end, it is just the three of you.  What then?”

 

“Ian will marry Priscilla, and I will beg them to take me in.”

 

“WHAT?”  Priscilla shook her head in open disbelief.  She literally could not believe what Vickie had just said.

 

“It's logical,” Vickie explained.  “Pris, you have a family … I don't.  Your Mom and Dad would be there for you; mine wouldn't even bother to show up.”

 

“You're family to me, Vic.”  Priscilla's eyes were glistening.  “I keep telling people that I think of you as my big sister.  And I'll say it again: I'm good with sharing.”

 

“And I'll repeat what I told Ian just before you arrived,” Bernice interjected.  “Tonight, after you drink yourselves silly, the three of you are welcome to use my guest room … for as long as you need it.”

 

“And Victoria, you do have a family.”  Bernice reached out once again to clasp Vickie's hand.

 

“You've just lost sight of us, but you're welcome to come home any time.”

 

At a loss for words, Vickie fell into Bernice's arms and hugged her tight.  “Thank you,” she whispered.

 

“Not at all.  Now, what's this about Suzie?”

 

“She says that she has a plan to save ZAP's charter, but she needs to run it by you.  And she thinks that the usual suspects are going to run riot when they learn that there's a CIA agent on the faculty.”

 

“She's right about that,” Bernice nodded.  “I asked my girls to keep quiet, but I also warned Ian that this might happen.  Any idea what she has in mind?”

 

“No … just that Ian will have to make a decision, and she's worried that it will trigger another episode.  So, Pris … get back up to Seven, and call Suzie.  I'll wait here for Ian, and bring him up as soon as he gets back.  If Bernice and Suzie can get things squared away first, we'll deal with Ian second.”

 

“On our way.”  Taking the lead, Priscilla headed back to the Psych ward.  For her part, Bernice wondered whether she would soon be meeting still more sisters who, over the course of the years, had drifted away from their family.

 

.  .  .  .

 

Suddenly finding herself alone and at loose ends, Vickie looked around the cafeteria while her fingers caressed the photograph in the pocket of her smock.  It had passed from hand to hand in the conference room, the tangible evidence that Ian had once had a wife and baby daughter in Viet Nam.  The detached reactions of her colleagues and friends had startled her.

 

We're all highly trained, experienced professionals, but did everyone miss the lecture on compassion?  Rita embarrassed herself, and Sarah put on a clinic … selfishness distilled down to its essence … and why the hell was Becky frothing at the mouth?  How ironic that the only two people in the room genuinely concerned for his well-being were a policewoman and a sorority girl …

 

But at least Rita got one thing right … the importance of communication.  I asked Ian for permission to pin this photo alongside the other, right over there on the wall …

 

Vickie looked across the room, to the bulletin board.  The photo of Ian riding through the jungle on Toby, with Pete draped across his shoulders, was still there, still isolated from the clutter that normally filled every inch of the cork board.

 

And he simply nodded at me.  Pris and I are going to have to work on that … get him to become more verbal.  All those years fighting in the shadows … he's so closemouthed.

 

Coming to a decision, Vickie walked over and sat down beside Marcia Mason.  Her friend was still hard at it, writing notes as she interviewed still another of the sorority girls.

 

Vickie helped herself to a couple of blank note cards, and pulled out her pen as she gathered her thoughts.

 

How far do I want to push this?

 

On the first card, she opted to print the text, everything large and bold:

 

SPRING 1970

 

IAN, HIS WIFE & DAUGHTER

 

It was the second card that gave her pause.

 

How far do I want to push this?

 

Vickie knew the answer; she was simply trying to summon up the courage to act on her convictions.

 

WIFE MURDERED

DAUGHTER STOLEN

VILLAGE MASSACRED

 

SEARCH ONGOING

 

Still debating, Vickie looked up, into Marcia's eyes.

 

The unspoken question passed between them.

 

In response, Marcia reached out to grasp Vickie's arm, the age old gesture of reassurance.

 

Nodding, Vickie got up and walked across the room.  Staring at the aging photograph of a much younger and supremely confident man, she pinned the second photo alongside the first.  The young man now seemed a bit more mature, the demands of family settled comfortably on his shoulders.

 

She pinned the first card above the photo, and the second beneath it.  Then she turned and walked away.

 

There were a fair number of vets working at the hospital, men and women both, and word of the photograph would spread quickly throughout this clannish group.  Then, like a raging firestorm, it would spread across the entire complex.  In two hours or less, it would be everywhere, to be repeated yet again at workday's end, in bars and over dinner tables around the Cities.

 

Vickie had unleashed the Kraken and it would be prudent, she thought, for the whole staff to troop down to the cafeteria at lunch time.  Amos and Ian, Phil and Don …

 

They were by no means the only vets to have brought Viet Nam home with them.

 

.  .  .  .

 

“Should I be a bit concerned that I actually know my way around this place,” Priscilla chuckled.

 

“Well, unless you work here, I'd say that being well acquainted with a Psychiatric ward is not a good thing.”  Bernice was about to say more, but the door buzzed to admit them.

 

“Rita's office is this way.  Technically, it's Doctor Stevenson, but around here using the title that you worked all those years to earn is seen as counterproductive.”

 

The door was open and Rita was alone, but Priscilla knocked anyway.  Once the introductions were finished, Rita dialed Suzie's number.  She picked up instantly.

 

“Rita Stevenson here,” she began.  “Bernice Miller and Officer Canon are here; do you want me to pass the phone, or put you on speaker?”

 

“Speaker's fine.” 

 

Rita reached out to press a button on the base of her phone console.  “Go ahead,” she whispered to Bernice.

 

“Hi, Suzie; what's up?

 

“A couple of things.  I've made the rounds, and the troops are prepared to make Turgeson's life miserable if he gets carried away.  I've scheduled a meeting at noon to drive the point home.  I'm more concerned about the financial hit that ZAP will take if you lose more than twenty percent of your members.  One of my girls has come up with a pretty clever answer, which I'd like to tweak a bit.”

 

“Thanks, Suzie.  I've run the numbers in my head, and they don't look good.  You know what our utility bills look like in the winter.”

 

“Do I ever!  Anyway, Wendy Stafford has been having problems staying dry at night, and has agreed to wear diapers rather than ruin the mattress and bedding.  This morning, she came in and said that, if it would help, she would move to ZAP!  She's a sweetheart, Bernice; in fact, she actually laughed about blending in with your girls.  Then she suggested that we poll the other houses, find out how many bed wetters we have in residence, and try and move all of them to ZAP … make it a house where all the girls in diapers can support one another.  This could be the answer to your financial woes.”

 

“Suzie, it's brilliant!  Truly brilliant!  Wendy would be most welcome, and she might even save some money in the process.  Rumor has it that the term rate at PISS is higher than ours!”

 

“I've heard that rumor too,” Suzie laughed.  “But here's my idea: you take Wendy, and I'll take one of the girls who are fleeing your nest in return.  We do a straight swap, and that way neither house suffers financially.  Oh, have I mentioned that Wendy is on the Dean's List?  That should help your house grade point average.”

 

“I can't offer you anybody in that class.  We're at panic stations because part of the settlement that Ian worked out with the DA is getting our collective GPA up to a three one.  The Judge is giving us the rest of the academic year to get our affairs in order, or it's back to court we all go!”

 

“We're in good shape over here, so not to worry.  Let me reach out to the other moms and see what the numbers look like.  We still looking to replace eleven of your brood?”

 

“Sadly, yes.  I did hope that the light of day would see a few of them changing their minds, but they're all standing firm.  I'm losing all eleven.”

 

“Not to worry, Bernice; we'll find homes for all of them.  But how the heck are we going to organize this?  You can't very well change forty-one girls morning, noon and night all by your lonesome!”

 

“Do you think Wendy Stafford would be willing to pitch in?”

 

“Of course!  Why didn't I think of that?”  Suzie snapped her fingers.  “We put the girls we send over to ZAP in charge of your forty-one felons!  Brilliant!  God. It's downright brilliant!”

“May I make a suggestion,” Priscilla cut in.

 

“Hey, Batgirl!”

 

“Hey, Suzie!  How about this?  We work up a flyer, and send it to every high school counseling office in the five state area.  We advertise ZAP as a sorority that provides a shame-free environment for bed wetters, and those with broader incontinence issues.  We give them a support structure, in house and at a local hospital, discretion guaranteed.      

Find a way to emphasize that therapy for both physical and emotional issues is part of the package.  You good with this, Rita?”

 

“I'll have to run it by John Lessing, but I don't see any problems here.  We can start with group sessions of the usual type, and offer one on one counseling as needed.  Should work.”

 

“If this works …”  Suzie was all but jumping for joy.  “If this works, what are the odds that one of the financially strapped fraternities will choose to follow our lead?  Imagine!  We could end up providing a warm and welcoming home to late adolescent bed wetters all over the country!  Fantastic!  The potential here is bottomless!”

 

“Now that that's settled,” Bernice coughed, “let's talk about Ian.  Suzie, I take it that you have a plan?”

 

“I do.”

 

“Want to share?”

 

“Oh, it's very simple.  I want Ian to join you, and place a call to his boss at the CIA.  I'll take it from there.  The Director may know a lot about the world, but I know a lot about this campus and what makes it tick.  I will give him detailed instructions on how to manage our President, and bring the faculty Assembly and student activist groups to heel.    I promise all three of you that Ian isn't going anywhere unless he chooses to do so, and I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure that he stays.  Shouldn't be hard, not for a man with forty-two daughters running around campus.”

 

“Forty-two?”  Priscilla looked at Bernice, trying to figure it out.

 

“Wendy Stafford.”  They couldn't see it, but Suzie was grinning from ear to ear.  “They had a father-daughter talk during his office hours a couple of days ago.  The man's heart is a bottomless pit.”

 

“And it's just a matter of time before someone takes advantage of him, and hurts him very badly.”  Suzie had turned very, very serious.  “We have to find his daughter, and bring her home.  That's something else that I want to talk to the Director about.  The status quo isn't working, so we're going to jettison it.  I know what to do; I just need Ian to clear the decks so that I can make my pitch!”

 

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