The moon is shining through the window above my desk. He comes up behind me and leans down to rest his head on my shoulder.
"Hi. Do you need help getting ready for bed?" I look at the clock. It's late. I've been telling myself I'll stop working in ten minutes for the last hour.
He doesn't say anything but draws his head away, standing over me.
"Okay," I say, shutting my computer. "We'll get you ready."
I stand up and place a guiding hand on his back and we walk over to the bedroom. He's already laid out a towel and his diaper in the middle of the rug. He sit down, legs bent at the knee and his hands clasped loosely in the little triangle-shaped space under them.
"Ohh, you got it ready for me." I kneel down across from him, leaning over to kiss his neck. He giggles and lets me push him over, relaxing his legs so that I'm on all fours between them, our faces inches apart.
"You need a shave," I tell him, rubbing his scratchy cheek with my knuckles.
I place a hand on his knee and push myself up, leaving him lying there. "You're still in your big boy work pants."
He rolls over and crawls onto the towel.
"You're so cute. You look nice dressed up for work. Did you have a good day?" I've been so busy that I haven't really had a chance to talk to him.
"Mhm," he says, one hand wandering off the towel to fidget with the rug.
"Did you learn a lot at the science factory?" That's our joke about his job at the university.
"Mhmm...We recatalogued some old specimens today."
"How was that? What kinds of animals?" I undo his belt buckle and he gasps a little bit. I can see him refocusing, trying not to get distracted.
"Um, we had some lizards that were collected in the '60s..." I unzip his fly. "Oh..."
"Yeah, um, and the labels were really faded. So we went over them in micron pen. Some of the dates were smudged so we had to look over this old record..." He gets distracted again as I pull off his pants, purposefully letting my nails graze the backs of his thighs.
"Right, you said I'd be surprised at how poorly organized really nerdy people can be."
"Yeah! Especially my boss! He's worked there for, what, like 40 years! And he still...oh." I'm pulling off his underwear and he has to adjust to help me.
"Let's see. Oh wow, totally dry. You have a little stain here, though." I show him the little mark against the black cotton and he squirms, turning away and squeezing his eyes shut. "What's that from?"
"It gets really boring when we have to do tedious work, and I..."
"What? What happens when you're bored?"
"I get bored and I...my mind kind of..."
"Goes somewhere else? You didn't take care of yourself over the weekend while I was away, did you?"
"You know I don't like doing it by myself," he says, eyes still closed.
"Aw. I know." I run a hand along his penis, red and blushing just like his face is. "Jeez, you're super hard."
"Stop," he whines, folding his arms over his face. "I know."
I push my knee against his erection, pressing gently. "Does that hurt?"
"N-no..." I notice his hips starting to tense. I climb on top of him again, one leg between his and one of his legs between mine. He starts to rub against me but stops, arms over his face again.
"I...I don't want to mess up your pants."
"It's okay. They're the pants you peed on a couple weeks ago."
"Oh. Don't make me think about that..." He starts to hump harder against my thigh.
"It's okay, baby. It was a scary movie. I was even a little bit scared, too."
"It wasn't...I wasn't scared...I just couldn't quite hold it..."
"Uh-huh, of course you weren't scared. Someone squeezing his partner's hand and pressing into her on her lap isn't scared, huh?"
"O-okay, maybe I was a little scared..."
"And you were probably holding for too long, before, too. You need to stop doing that or this is going to keep happening, baby."
"Sometimes I wonder if I should just keep you in diapers during the day to remind you to go more often."
His breath is hitching in his throat. "Enough talking," he says. "Too much talking."
He shudders and I feel something very warm on my leg. I back off. "Oh, what a mess." I peel some of it away on my fingertips and show him.
"I know...I don't need to see..."
I wipe it on his neck. "That's yours. You can have it back." I reach next to me for the wipes. "You got these out, too, huh? You were so good tonight. Or are you just really sleepy?"
"This is going to be cold, okay? Okay. Can you help me finish that while I get your diaper ready?"
He sits up and finishes wiping himself up as I fluff his diaper and lay it to the side.
"Don't get yourself flustered again so soon," I say, taking the dirty wipes from his hands and crossing the room to drop them in the trash. "Once it's on, your diaper isn't coming off until morning."
"I know. In case I go pee at night."
"Uh-huh. Since you never really got over your bedwetting habit, huh?" We both know the answer but I like pointing it out anyway.
"Did other kids ever make fun of you for that?" I ask, pumping lotion onto my hands and rubbing them together to warm it up. "I've always been really curious, to be honest."
"Uhh...not really until college. Because growing up, most of my cousins did it, too. I mean, I don't think it followed most of them into their 20's, like with me, but all of them did it for a long time. But in college my roommate and his girlfriend found out and oh my god...the teasing."
"Wow, that's pretty immature of them. I mean, immature of you, too, when you think about it..."
"I know...that was one of the things they said. They would call me the baby. Like, 'is that why he has the bottom bunk? Because he's the baby?'"
"Is that why you had the bottom bunk?"
"When did they find out?"
"Um, I totally wet my bedsheets and I was up at 8:30 in the morning pulling them off. I thought he was at his 8am, but it got cancelled, so he came in with his girlfriend just as..."
"They didn't knock? How rude!" I signal to him to lift up his legs so I can get it under him.
"They did! But I just kind of froze up. I was halfway through getting the fitted sheet off."
"Yeah, and I had it pulled up with this huge wet splotch in the middle. It turned out my roommate's girlfriend had already kind of suspected."
"She said I just had that look. But also that sometimes the sheets weren't on my bed when she came over and I seemed to always be doing laundry."
"And did your roommate have any idea?"
"No idea. Until that day, I guess."
"Women tend to be observant. Some women." I smooth over his tapes and straighten up. "Do you want Halloween PJs?"
"Uh, I don't really care..."
"Well, I think you'll look cute in Halloween PJs. Although those Christmas ones are..."
"It's not Christmastime," he says automatically.
"Uh-huh. Says Mr I-don't-care."
"I don't care, I was just..."
"Being pedantic?" I pull open a drawer in our shared dresser and fish out his jack-o-lantern pajamas and an oversized tshirt.
"I forgot to ask you about your day!" he says suddenly as I bunch up his pajamas to pull them over his legs more easily.
"My day was okay. Just working, working, and more working. I got a little gardening in, too. And I went for a walk."
"That's nice. That's good."
I finish pulling up his pants and he holds out his arms so I can pull on his shirt.
"Do you need me to brush your teeth, too, honey?"
"Uh, if that isn't too much trouble for you, I'd like it..." He chews on one of his knuckles. Why does he still need to be so awkward with me?
"Not at all. Come on, let's get up." I take his hands and pull him to his feet.
In the bathroom he sits on the toilet lid while I brush and floss. I open the drawer and get out his toothpaste. He hates mine. Very particular about different flavors of mint. I never once considered the different between "mint" and "fresh mint" before I met him.
I rinse off the dinosaur toothbrush I got him earlier this month. Even though he insisted that he didn't like it at the time, his perfectly good, plain green toothbrush has stayed under the sink ever since the dinosaurs were in the picture.
"Open up," I say, turning to him. His mouth is already open. I keep an eye on my watch. "One more minute. Thirty seconds. Ten, nine, eight...there you go."
He stands up off the toilet and spits in the sink.
"There. Now you just need a drink of water and you're all ready. Oh, oops, you need to wash your face."
I leave the room while he splashes water on his face. When I come back, he's drying off with a towel. "Here's this," I tell him, passing him the sippy cup of water.
"I don't need a sippy cup," he says.
"No, but you like to use a sippy cup. And it won't spill if you reach for it in the middle of the night."
He doesn't say anything but takes a long drink of water.
"Okay, let's go back to the bedroom. I'll read to you for 15 minutes, okay? Then it's lights out time."
"Did labeling lizards really take so much out of you?"
He stifles a yawn. "Maybe."
We climb under the covers and I get him situated. I can feel his even breathing. "Which story do you want to hear?"
I pull out the book and find the bookmark from where we left off. His head finds its way into the crook of my neck. One of his hands is cupping the front of his diaper. He likes to rest it there. I never point it out because I don't want him to get embarrassed and stop doing something so cute. His other hand is rubbing his lips and nose. Slowly, his thumb works its way into his mouth.
"Do you know how cute you are?" I ask him, slipping in the bookmark.
"Five more minutes," he mumbles around his thumb.
"Five more minutes of reading? Okay, fine. You just can't get grumpy at work tomorrow if you stay up late."
"It's not late. It's five more minutes. ...Is five more minutes too late?" he asks in a very earnest voice.
"No, I'm just teasing. We'll do five more minutes and then we'll turn out the lights."
Five minutes pass quickly and I put in the bookmark again. "Hop up and turn out the light, baby boy."
He slides out of bed and switches the light off, eagerly crawling back under the covers and cuddling up to me.
"It's cold out there," he says.
"I know. You are such a good boy for always turning out the light for me, even when it's cold." I smooth his hair and kiss his head. I can feel that he still has one arm in front of him, resting on his diaper.
"Does you diaper feel good? I got the tapes secure?"
"Yeah, you did a good job," he says quietly.
"Good. I'm glad I'm getting better at it."
"Mhmm. I think you're better than I am."
"Really? Shouldn't you be a master by now?"
"Well...it's more fun when you do it." He presses his face into my shoulder and I can feel him blushing.
