QH

Helen might have been born with a cellphone attached to the side of her face and a cigarette wedged between her fingers. I have never seen the woman without either in her hands. I imagine that she’s always telling someone a story. “You’ll never believe what so-and-so did last night…” Or, “You have got to hear this…” It’s sometimes amusing to think of how connected Helen seems to be in her social circle, considering how she only ever seems to be hovering around her apartment, phone in one hand, cigarette in the other.

No, I don’t actually know Cliff, Jenny, or Helen. I’ve never talked to them, or any of the other folks I spot hanging around my apartment complex day after day. They’re just colorful background characters in my own boring life story.

On a recent phone call with my sister, she asked if I had made any friends since moving out to Palm Lake. I said: “Sort of,” but didn’t bother to elaborate that my perceived ‘friends’ were just my neighbors that I watched all day from the comfort of my balcony. 

I lucked out, as far as the position of my apartment goes. I’m on the fourth floor–the highest for this building–with a balcony that looks over the complex’s swimming pool, the grassy courtyard, and the balconies of the building on the other side of the pool. It’s from here where I spend most of my days, watching everyone else live their lives.

I sometimes wonder if any of my neighbors have taken note of me in the same way I’ve taken note of them. “Oh, there’s Mr. Creepy again, sitting on his balcony and just staring down at everyone. The dude never works or goes out–he just sits up there on his cheap plastic chair, drinks beer, and watches.”

If that’s what they say, they wouldn’t be entirely wrong. I do spend a lot of time on that cheap plastic chair on my balcony. And I do drink a lot of beer–though I’m honestly trying to cut back a little since noticing that I’ve put on a few extra pounds. And they’d be right to assume that I don’t have a job, because, well, I don’t. Haven’t had one in a while, actually. A few years ago, I helped develop an online platform for inventory management–horribly boring stuff. Some big retail conglomerate liked it so much they bought it from my team and I, making us all stupidly wealthy overnight. The kicker there? I heard that just a few years later, that conglomerate doesn’t even use our platform anymore. Meanwhile, I’m still living a pretty comfortable life.

My other teammates, they went and leveled up their lifestyles. Big, fancy cars. Big, fancy mansions. Trips around the world. Nice clothes. Expensive watches. Et cetera. But I never really needed things like that before, and that didn’t change after my windfall. I’m still driving the same beater car I’ve had for the last ten years. I have a pretty uninteresting mid-tier apartment with a pool I share with a hundred other residents. The rest of my money just sits in various accounts and investments, slowly growing larger in the most uninteresting ways. I’m hoping that someday I’ll figure out what I want to do with it all.

That’s always kind of been my problem, I guess. I don’t have a lot of drive. “No gumption,” my father always said. I don’t think I’m ‘lazy,’ per se–it just doesn’t take much for me to feel comfortable. I probably would’ve been happy working a menial 9-to-5 office job my whole life, blending in with all the other forgotten white-collar masses who were destined to never get ahead. 

But here I am, with more money than I know what to do with, no job, and little desire to do anything except sit on the balcony of my apartment and watch the rest of the world do its thing.

===

Okay, full disclosure–I’m a little creepy. I’m not trying to be, but I’m just a curious person by nature. I see something, or someone, that interests me, and I like to delve into it. I want to explore it–learn everything I can about it. That’s how I became a Star Wars trivia obsessive. It’s how I stumbled into programming, which would eventually lead to the development and sale of Hangers-11. 

And it’s why I bought a pair of binoculars, so that I can occasionally get better glimpses into the lives of my neighbors. 

I try to be subtle about when I use them–reserving them mostly for night when I can keep my lights off and not be noticed as I sit on the balcony. If I have any reputation at all around here, it’s that I spend too much time watching everyone else from up high. I probably don’t also need to be known as ‘the creep with the binoculars’ on top of that.

But you see a lot when nobody thinks you’re looking. Even with their blinds open and the curtains pulled aside, people often seem to feel safe and free in their own homes–like they can do whatever they want, as they’re free from judgment. 

Vampire Cliff watches a lot of pornography in his third-story apartment. And, given that I have a pretty good angle on his TV with my binoculars in hand, I’ll say that he watches some pretty extreme stuff. Sometimes he likes watching girls getting smacked around. But then, sometimes, he likes watching the girls doing the smacking.

Granny Smith, an older woman who lives a few apartments over from Cliff on the other side of the swimming pool, cooks a lot of food. She’s always tending to something on the stove, or putting something into–or taking something out from–the oven. It’s always a lot of food, too. Big pots. Big sheet pans. And it’s weird because I never see anyone else in her home eating the food. Where does all this food go? It seems like too much for one elderly woman, but what do I know?

And then there’s Dolly, who lives on the fourth floor of the building on the other side of the courtyard. Much like everyone else in our complex, she seems to have little sense of privacy while she’s in her own home. There are never any blinds or curtains obstructing her view outside, nor my view into her home. She struts around confidently, likely thinking that nobody can see what she’s doing. Sure, her balcony looks across the property to other properties–but there’s enough distance that you’re not going to see much. Either she’s banking on that, or she likes the little thrill of being exposed, because she acts like she’s got all the privacy she could ever need.

I call her ‘Dolly.’ Short for ‘babydoll.’ Because, well, that’s how she dresses. That’s how she acts.

The first time my binoculars zoomed into her apartment, I had no idea what I was looking at. There she was–this beautiful 20-something year old woman with peachy skin, thick blondish hair that bounced with her every step, and her petite frame–waddling around in these underpants that just seemed way too big. Like, they were thick. Bulky.

The only thing that I could think of that would be that thick was…a diaper. And as ridiculous and impossible as that initially seemed, the longer I gazed at her prancing about in her thick undergarments, the more sure I was that this was exactly what I was seeing.

Dolly likes her diapers. It’s rare that I see her without them on. Sometimes she’s wearing more than just a diaper, but the diaper is always there. Sometimes she wears these cute little dresses that don’t cover up the bulky padding. Other times, she crams her diaper into a small, tight pair of shorts. Sometimes she wears one of those onesies–those little bodysuits that snap at the bottom. Sometimes she has a pacifier in her mouth. I’ve seen her drinking from a baby bottle a few times. Jars of baby food. On a few occasions, I’ve watched her sitting on the floor, cuddling with a large teddy bear.

She’s weird, no doubt about it, but it’s an endearing sort of weird. And I’m weird too, for that matter–watching everyone’s private lives with my binoculars.

I’ve done some looking around online, learning that there’s a sizable community for the ‘adult baby’ types. I’m not entirely surprised by this–maybe I’ve seen references to this before in my life, but always dismissed it because it didn’t seem pertinent to me. It would probably be an interesting rabbit hole to fall down, but I realize that I’m not interested in the community as a whole–it’s Dolly herself that fascinates me. 

As best as I can tell, she lives by herself. She has a job she goes to during the day. On most evenings, when she gets home, she sheds all of her clothes and walks, nude, to wherever it is she keeps her ‘baby things,’ and proceeds to change into a diaper and whatever else she’s going to wear. She makes dinner like this. Talks on the phone like this. Reads a book or watches TV like this. 

I don’t always know when she uses her diapers, but I know they get used. Sometimes, in the middle of doing something else, I’ll watch as she suddenly pauses–her hands feeling the front, or back, of her diaper for a few moments. I never see her get up and go to the bathroom. Sometimes, she lies down on her living room floor and proceeds to change out of one diaper and into another. 

I was tempted, once, to dig through the trash in the complex’s dumpsters in the dead of night, curious what I might be able to learn about her from her refuse. I didn’t go through with this, of course, but it served as an indication of how desperate I’ve been to learn more about her.

===

Tonight, I’m sitting on the balcony, in the dark. I’d like to think I’m invisible up here, but I have no idea. As best as I can tell, nobody ever looks up here and watches me while I’m watching them.

I have a bottle of beer in one hand, and my binoculars in the other. Across the way, over in Dolly’s apartment, the lights are also off. She’s probably not home yet, and so I’m left daydreaming once more about what it is she does during the day. Using the binoculars, I peer into her dimly lit home, doing my usual scan for details that might fill in some of the blanks as to who Dolly really is. Alas, there isn’t anything to see tonight–at least not that I haven’t seen before.

It’s about 6:30 PM. This is around the time she gets home. I wonder if she gets off at work around 6:00, and then has about a half-hour commute. 

Soon, it’s 6:45, and the lights are still off and there’s been no activity.

“Where are you, baby?” I ask aloud, though mostly to myself.

Suddenly, there’s a flash of light in her apartment–it’s the front door opening, letting in light from the hallway. The light is on in the living room and the door closes. She walks in the kitchen, turning the light on there too. 

I increase the zoom on the binoculars. She’s wearing a salmon colored skirt over her tan stockings and a very soft looking white sweater. It’s a cute outfit, and one that compliments her fair skin color.

She stands in the center of the living room, her body perfectly framed within the rectangular sliding glass panels that would lead out to her balcony. It’s times like this when I feel like she has to know she has an audience. As she pulls her sweater up her body and over her head to remove it, it feels like a special performance just for me. The sweater is cast aside, out of view, and her pristine white bra is revealed. It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve seen this show before, it’s one I can’t ever get enough of.

She reaches behind herself, her fingers fumbling at her lower back as she unzips the skirt. Even though she can’t hear me, I softly say: “Do you need some help with that?” She ignores my question, shimmying her body out from the skirt and letting it drop to the ground. Next, the tan stockings are pulled down her legs. I’ve seen her do this before–she has a very slow and methodical approach to lowering the stockings just a little bit at a time. My theory is that they’re just fragile, and she does it like this to ensure she doesn’t cause a run or stretch in them. 

There’s something about the daintyness of the stockings that I like–how the thin fabric is like a second layer of skin for those slender legs of hers. And with that layer removed, her pastel pink panties are revealed, like a secret and forbidden fruit.

Whereas the skirt is just left crumpled on the floor around her ankles, the removed stockings are tossed aside to wherever the sweater is. Her hands are behind her back again, unfastening her bra. With its tension released, she lets the straps slide down her arms until the bra lands on the floor in front of her. Her hands cup her breasts for a moment before she lets them fall to her sides again, like she’s giving me a turn to look for myself. And I do. 

I’ve seen them plenty of times, though it's a view I never get sick of. Her tits are round little dollops–perfectly sized for a diaper-wearing baby like herself. She turns towards the window, giving me an even better view of them. 

Sometimes, I swear, she knows I’m here watching her. This is all a show she puts on for me, and me alone. 

Her panties are sliding down her legs now. Zooming in. Her hairless pussy practically glows in the warm lighting of her apartment. She squats down a little, just enough so that she can grab her panties and skirt off the floor. She walks to the side of the room, where my view is inhibited by the wall.

My eyes scan to the right, and I see the bathroom light turn on. There is, unfortunately, a curtain here, and I can’t see what’s going in there. Just as quickly as it’s turned on, though, it turns off. My eyes scan further to the right, to the windows of her bedroom. While she doesn’t have anything up over those windows, I still can’t see into that room very well–the angle just isn’t right. Still, I can see that she’s in there. I see the light turn on, and I watch her shadow bounce around the room as she does whatever it is she needs to. I suspect I know what she’s doing–it’s the same thing she always does when she comes home after work.

“That’s it,” I say. “Get your diaper. Like a good girl.”

She lingers in the bedroom for a while. All I can do is imagine what’s occurring right now.

This is usually about the time when I reflect on what I’m doing and start asking myself if I’m happy with my life.

Is this what I thought I’d be doing with my adulthood? No job, no friends, no life–just watching my diapered neighbor with a pair of binoculars?

I came to Palm Lake because I liked its proximity to everything else. Smack dab in the middle between two decently-sized cities, there’s never a shortage of things to do around here. In just an hour or three, I could be on a plane. I could be skiing. I could be hiking or swimming. I could catch a football game or some basketball. I could be seeing amazing performances at a theater or catching a great concert.

I don’t do any of those things. 

I don’t have to do anything, and so, usually, I don’t. 

No gumption. Right, Dad?

Being a creep–staring at my neighbors–that’s all I really do anymore. 

In a way, I blame Dolly for my current lifestyle. If she was a little more boring, maybe I would’ve given up my voyeuristic tendencies by now. But no–she’s got to be this cutie patootie in a fucking diaper–getting me all wrapped up in her charming mystery.

“Fuck you, Dolly,” I whisper, praying that the wind doesn’t carry my words across the courtyard to her apartment.

Dolly reemerges in the living room a few minutes later. Tonight, she’s only wearing a diaper and nothing else. Personally, while I like the babyish clothes too, I think this is the best look for her. It’s strangely…pure.

She’s in the kitchen now, her diapered ass facing towards me as she prepares food on the counter and the stove. It’s not a cold night, but it’s gotten a bit cooler since the sun went down. I hope she’s comfortable in just a diaper.

There it is. The pause. She was dicing something with a knife, but abruptly set it down as she stepped back from the counter a little. Slight squat. Her hands are tucked between her thighs, feeling the front and bottom of the diaper.

“Whatcha doing, princess?” I ask.

No reply, of course, but maybe she doesn’t need to say anything. She moves her head just enough that I can see the relief in her expression. There’s this little shudder of pleasure that seems to move through her body as she briefly aims her face up to the ceiling. I swear, I can hear her making a little grunting noise, even if I know that it's impossible and my brain is just filling in the blanks.

When she’s finished with whatever she’s doing in her diaper, it’s like she just springs back into reality again. She’s back to chopping things on the counter. She’s checking the stove. She’s taking things out from the fridge. She’s getting a bowl from the cabinet. She’s doing it all with a big, content smile on her face–the kind of smile that says: “I accomplished something and I’m very proud of myself.”

Every time I see her hovering around her apartment in a thick diaper, I find myself a little more in love with both Dolly herself and her strange little diaper-kink. I’m spending more and more time fantasizing about what it might be like to be in her apartment. Does her diaper crinkle when she walks around? Does she make little giggling noises and speak in baby talk to herself? Does her diaper smell? If it does…what does it smell like? How far away from her can I be and still smell her diaper?

I’m not going to get answers to any of these questions, and that’s something I’ve had to make peace with. I mean, sure, I could go over to her apartment and just, like, talk to her. But how would that even go? “Uhm, yes, hello. So, I like to watch you from that building all the way over yonder with my binoculars. I see you wear diapers a lot. Care to talk about that with me?”

She’d probably mace my eyes before I even finished.

The way I see it, one of two things are going to eventually happen. Either I realize that this fascination with a complete stranger isn’t healthy for me and I retire my binoculars altogether, or I eventually get caught peeping on the wrong people and end up getting kicked out of this building.

I’d rather the first option, if I got to choose. But I’m not ready for that just yet.  For now, I zoom in on her padded tush again, scrutinizing over whether or not I see a defined brownish lump in the back of her diapers.

This is also when I open the front of my pants, and grab my cock as I peer through the binoculars.

===

An opportunity presents itself, and my heart flutters wildly as I debate on whether or not I’m going to take advantage of it.

Tonight, through my binoculars, I see her in the kitchen, wearing a pair of yoga pants and an oversized sweatshirt. She’s wrangling a few bags of garbage in her hands, likely preparing herself for a trip down to her building’s dumpster. 

My fingers drum on the railing of my balcony as I watch her. I bite my bottom lip. 

“Do I dare?” I ask aloud, perhaps to some unseen deity who might be willing to offer me a sign. 

If I really wanted to, I think, I could run downstairs myself. I could go outside, and jog over to the dumpster at her building. I might be able to get there just as she arrives to throw her garbage out.

And then what?

I haven’t worked that part out yet. Wow her with my charm? That might work if I had charm, though I’ve never really been the charismatic type. 

Comment on her trash? “Wow, looks like you’re throwing away a lot of adult diapers, there.” Yeah, because she’d love that.

But I almost don’t even care what I’d say or do. I could go down there right now and see her face to face. Introduce myself. Make contact. Do something. Because something is more than the nothing I do up here on my balcony, beyond just watching her through binoculars.

Next thing I know, I’m running down the stairs of my building towards the first floor. I’d take the elevator, but it’s so freaking slow that, by the time I’ve made it to the bottom floor, she’d already have been outside, thrown her trash away, and then returned to her apartment. I’m trying not to think too much, because I think my plan would fall apart under the tiniest bit of scrutiny–what little plan that there is.

I’m going out there, where she is, and I’m making contact. Right now, that’s all I know.

I kick open the door on the first floor of the stairwell and jog out into the parking lot, making a beeline towards her building. The further I run, the further I realize her building is from mine. If my heart wasn’t pounding so hard this might be a more sobering moment–a wakeup call that I’m being a bit too creepy–but those thoughts dissipate from my head as quickly as they surface.

I see her building’s dumpsters ahead of me, but I don’t see her. Did I miss her? No, of course I didn’t miss her–I was running like a maniac. But she’s not rushing–she has all the time in the world. She’s just not here yet. I take advantage of this, propping myself up against a tree and allowing myself to catch my breath in the hopes that I’ve gotten hold of myself again by the time she arrives.

But this feels like a mistake. The second I stop moving, I start thinking. What am I going to say? How do I actually introduce myself to her? How do I get my foot in the door in a way that ensures we might be able to talk again in the future?

I have no idea.

I see a door on the side of her building open, and my breathing ceases for a moment as I watch to see who it is. The first thing to come through the door are two or three large trash bags, bulging from being overstuffed. I think: You should probably take your garbage out more often, but it seems wrong to be judgmental of the woman I’ve been watching like this.

It’s her. While the binoculars have given me incredible access into her life, she’s a sight to behold without the aid of lenses. A gentle breeze blows through her hair, and she almost seems to glow in the street lamps. 

But my indecisiveness about what I might say has altered my plan. I’ve ducked for cover in a small grove of trees and shrubbery. I’m relatively sure that I’m concealed, though it’d probably look pretty bad if she glanced in this direction and noticed any part of me.

I watch as she brings her bags closer to the dumpster. They must be heavy, given the way she grunts and strains as maneuvers them. She places them all down, taking the first with both hands and heaving it as hard as she can up into the air, its arch taking it right into the open mouth of the dumpster. A little impressive, actually–the baby’s got some strength.

She handles the next bag the same as the first, grunting as she puts some power into launching it into the dumpster, where it lands with a splatting noise.

It’s the next bag where it looks like she’s struggling. It’s a heavier one, and she winds herself up a few times before abandoning her throw at the last moment–clearly second-guessing her strength. I’m so tempted to run out there and offer assistance, but I’m sure it’s not a good look for a stranger to emerge from the darkness of the trees right now.

“Fuck,” she mutters, winding back with the bag in both hands one more time as she prepares to throw it. This time, she does launch it, and while it's an impressive attempt, the bag is simply too heavy. It hits the rim of the dumpster instead of going into it, and the force of the impact causes the bag to explode.

She says the same thing I’m thinking: “Goddammit!”

The contents of the bag scatter all over the pavement. 

“No!” she whines, followed by an exasperated: “You’ve got to be kidding me right now.”

Even in the minimal light of the parking lot, I see the white bundles that have been spilled all over the pavement–somewhere between a softball and football in size–and I immediately know what I’m looking at. Diapers. All of the dirty diapers she was about to throw into the dumpster are now spread across the ground.

It’s at this moment, while her back is turned to me, that I emerge from the trees and approach where she’s standing. I don’t know why this seems like the time to do this, but it just feels right. I quickly walk towards her and her current dilemma, and without saying anything, I bend down and pick up one of the diapers in my hand, ready to toss it into the dumpster for her. Of course, before I do that, I take a moment to gently squeeze the sinful little parcel, admiring the squish of the padding and its heft.

It’s at this point she hears me, and she spins around. I hadn’t considered just how alarming this scene must be–a complete stranger, manhandling her filthy diapers.

I feel I need to say something before she does: “Oh, hey. I saw your, uh, garbage bag break, so I ran over here to help you.”

Her cheeks blush a deep crimson and she immediately shakes her head. “No.”

I guess I just assumed she’d be grateful for my arrival, and so her blunt refusal catches me off guard. “But…”

“Please just let me handle this, okay?” she asks. “I… I don’t want anyone else handling my garbage.”

It is a fair request and one that comes from a good place. She knows that some ‘random’ passerby shouldn’t be touching the garments she’s used in place of a toilet, and that it’s best she keeps anyone else away.

Me being me, though, I act naive. I throw the diaper in my hands into the dumpster before reaching for the next one. “Oh, it’s no trouble, miss. Things like this happen, you know? I’m happy to help you clean up.”

“Please, I think I’d much rather if…” She stops abruptly, her head craning to the left. 

I hear it too–the sound of footsteps echoing across the parking lot. Someone else is approaching the dumpsters.

“Let’s be quick,” I say, plucking up two or three more diapers from the ground in quick succession and tossing them into the large metal tub.

I can tell that she’s torn about this interaction, but that she also knows I’m right. Her best chance to avoid further embarrassment is if we work together to clean up this mess as fast as we can. We both scramble around, grabbing all the diapers we can and heaving them up into the dumpster. I slide my phone out of my pocket and use the light on it to scan for other diapers, though it seems as if we have them all.

“There,” I say. “I think we got them.”

And just in time, as it’s at about this moment that an older woman walks into view, wordlessly walking past us and throwing her own garbage bag into the dumpster before trotting back in the direction she had come from.

“Thank you,” ‘Dolly’ says to me at last, her back turned towards me so I can’t see her face.

“Oh, it was no trouble at all.”

“I can explain…”

“Explain?” I ask. “You don’t have to explain anything.”

She laughs. “Oh please. You’re really going to pretend that you didn’t know what you were picking up on my behalf?”

“Well, uh…” I want to say something about how it doesn’t really matter what she had dropped, as I would’ve picked it up for her.

But before I can find the right phrasing, she continues: “You probably think I’m a freak, huh? Needing to carry a big bag of diapers to the dumpster?”

I play dumb: “I guess I just assumed you have a baby…”

She laughs again, this time louder than the first. “You don’t need to be polite. You saw how big those diapers were.”

“A grandparent, perhaps?” I ask.

She finally turns towards me, and while she is blushing brightly, I can see that she’s also smiling. Seeing her face this close for the first time, I’m noticing all the fine details that the binoculars have never revealed to me about her face. Those subtle dimples. Her long eyelashes. The perfect shape of her nose. I try to remain centered, but I’m worried that my own blushing cheeks might give me away.

“That was very nice of you,” she says. “That’s never happened to me before, and it could’ve been a lot worse.”

I shrug. “Oh, no big deal.”

“Do you live in this building?”

“Oh, I actually live, uhm…” My voice trails off, and I wonder if I should reveal which building I’m actually from. I decide to just do it. Pointing in the general direction of my building, I say: “Over there, actually. I was just out for a walk when I saw your little…accident.”

“Well that was pretty good timing,” she says. “I didn’t even see you until you just kinda materialized out of thin air.”

I’m not sure what I want to do next. It feels like the conversation is winding down, and this isn’t where I want it to end. But what do I say? Ask her to get a drink or some coffee with me? Maybe not now, but later? But then, well, this might be the most awkward time to ask someone out, and I’m sure she’d feel the same way too.

I start to speak, not really sure where I’m going with this thought yet: “So, uh, look…”

“Do you want a cup of coffee?” she asks.

I try not to look as surprised as I feel. “Oh, like, right now?”

“If you have somewhere else to be, maybe we can do it another time. I was just thinking–”

“Yes,” I say, too impatient to let her finish that thought. “That sounds great.”

“Come on,” she says, turning to walk back to her own building, waving a hand for me to follow her. “Follow me.”

We walk across the parking lot together and into the building. We make a little small talk along the way, and we make our introductions. Her name isn’t Dolly, of course, but Katie, though that name seems to suit her just as well as Dolly does. Her personality seems to match perfectly with what I had imagined, or hoped, for it to be like–kind, cheery, and the slightest bit bubbly. There are some things that you just can’t know when looking through a pair of binoculars, like what her girlish giggle sounds like, and I’m honored to have the chance to hear it.

Her apartment building is eerily familiar to my own, with similar aesthetics and layout. But the subtle differences go a long way to making this place feel like an alternate reality of mine–there are more fliers on the bulletin boards in the lobby, and the rugs are a different color. I follow her into the elevator and we take it up to the top floor. It is, of course, a slow ride, but being in a more confined space with her gives me the unexpected opportunity to smell her. It’s a subtle smell–one that I don’t even attribute to her initially–but when I realize what it is, I’m certain that she’s the source: the unmistakable powder-fresh scent of a baby or a nursery. 

Moments later, I’m following her into her apartment, and she closes the door behind us. I’ve seen plenty of her apartment before, albeit from the perspective of my binoculars and from a distance away, and so while there’s a familiarity, it’s quite uncanny to see the place from within it, looking across it from the opposite side for once. Through the sliding glass door that leads to the canopy, I can see the lights of my own apartment, out beyond the darkness that separates our buildings.

Katie hustles to the kitchen, where she immediately starts to wash her hands, waving me towards her so that I can do the same.

“Look, I don’t normally do things like this,” she says. “Like, inviting men I don’t know into my place? But I guess I just felt like I needed the opportunity to explain what happened down there.”

“Explain?” I ask. “You don’t owe me an explanation.” I’m just being polite, though–I desperately want to hear her talk about her diapers.

“You picked up my dirty diapers for me,” she says, her face immediately turning beet-red at having said these words. “I guess I’m terrified that you would’ve walked away from here thinking I’m some sort of freak who has all these diapers and…”

“I didn’t think you were a freak,” I say, turning off the faucet and taking the hand towel from beside the sink to dry my hands. “Your garbage? Your life? That’s your business.”

She smiles at this, nodding her head. She looks relieved that I said this.

Honestly, though, I’m feeling sick to my stomach. Maybe I’m saying the right things she needs to hear, but I’m certainly not practicing what I preach. The only reason I’m here right now is because I violated her privacy, repeatedly, by watching her from the balcony of my apartment. I almost wish I hadn’t ever done any of that now. Maybe, in a different world, a situation like what occurred at the dumpsters would have been more organic, and we could’ve made a more genuine connection.

“I appreciate you saying that,” she says. “I…I was going to attempt to explain the diapers to you, but…” Her voice trails off again.

“You don’t owe me any of your secrets,” I say, the knot in my stomach getting tighter. “You don’t have to tell me anything that you don’t want to.”

She smiles at me, still blushing, though not quite as intensely as before. “It’s a nice night out, isn’t it? Do you want to sit out on my balcony?”

“That sounds lovely,” I say, nodding my head.

“Perfect. Why don’t you go have a seat out there and I’ll finish getting some coffee together.”

Stepping out onto her balcony, my eyes are fixed on the lights of my own apartment. It’s too far away to see them, but I know my binoculars are over there, sitting atop the small table next to the chair on my own balcony–right where I left them when I hoofed it down the stairs in an effort to meet Katie.

The guilt is consuming me. There’s nothing honest about my being here. This whole scene is a farce, orchestrated by a creep. She doesn’t deserve this. She’s a nice young woman who is just living her best life in her small slice of privacy. I don’t belong here, and I feel as if my presence is a blight on her sanctuary. I really should tell her the truth, but I worry that doing so won’t just ruin this little rapport we have now, but it’ll ruin her little adult baby lifestyle. She’ll feel less safe in her own home. The things that brought her comfort before might not work as well after.

It would probably be best if I just finish this coffee, politely excuse myself, and then go home and put an end to this. 

Maybe I’ll even get rid of my binoculars tomorrow.

***

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It would be weird, I think, to run into someone who just looks a lot like me. It’s very, very, weird to be sitting next to someone who is you. It fucks with your head. No matter how many strange things I’ve seen on my journey so far, nothing has prepared me for the existence-questioning I’m going through right now as I stare myself in the eyes.

“You probably think you’re the real Alfie, don’t you?” I ask.

“Well, I am real,” Other-Alfie says. “But I was just about to ask you the same thing.”

Maxine groans from the other side of the table, her question ignored as the two of us ponder our place in the multiverse.

He starts to ask: “How’d you–”

But it comes at the same time that I start to ask: “How did you–”

We both laugh.

But maybe I don’t need anyone to explain things to me. I’ve seen the ‘multiverse’–still for lack of a better word–for myself and I can easily speculate that there’s an infinite number of versions of worlds I could potentially come to. Within those infinite worlds, there are many, many, other instances where an Alfie like me endures the same string events that I do, and finds himself–you know–cumming his way across worlds. 

And if I’m coming to this realization right now, it probably means that Other-Alfie is coming to the same one himself. Or, maybe, he’s already come to it.

I nod at him, signalling that I get what’s going on.

He nods back.

We both look back at Maxine again. She’s Maxine, but she’s neither of ‘our’ Maxines. She’s this world’s version of Maxine, which neither of us belong to.

“Okay,” she says to us. “I’m just going to say it: This is really fucking creepy.”

“I haven’t run into any other Alfies yet,” I say. “In all the places I’ve gone, that world’s Alfie is always somewhere else.”

“Same,” Other-Alfie says.

“So what makes this place special?” I ask. “That there’s multiple of us here?”

“It’s like a convergence,” Other-Alfie says.

I nod. “Ooh, that’s good–I like that term. Is that what it’s called?”

He laughs. “Oh, no, I just made that up. I thought it sounded cool.”

“You’re right,” I say. “Sounds awesome.”

“Oh my god,” Maxine sighs. 

Our food arrives soon after, and Celia does a doubletake upon seeing someone who looks exactly like me sitting next to me now.

She laughs. “Did…you just multiply while I was getting your food?”

“Yes,” myself and Other-Alfie say at the exact same time, both of us thinking we’re funny for this joke.

Celia narrows her eyes. “Okay, well…do you want a menu to look at?” she asks Other-Alfie. “Something to drink?”

“Oh, good idea,” Other-Alfie says. “I’m starving.”

“Should I bring, like, a pile of menus?” Celia asks. “Just in case more of you show up?” She’s joking, but Other-Alfie and I share a skeptical glance, both of us wanting to be the one to say that this might actually be a good idea.

“Just one more,” Maxine says to Celia before either of us get the chance to say anything. With a nod, Celia walks away again.

“Maxine was telling me a story,” I say to Other-Alfie. “It was about how she had met yet another version of me, and I guess he told her a lot of…stuff.”

“When did this happen?” Other-Alife asks Maxine. “When did you see this other version of me? Or, uh…us?”

“A few weeks ago,” she says.

“And, is he here now?” he asks.

Maxine blushes a little. “No. He…left.”

“Left?” I ask. “Where did he go?”

“Well I didn’t get to that part in the story yet…” she mutters.

At the same exact time, Other-Alfie’s eyes and my own get large and we let out little gasps. We both ask: “Did you sleep with him?”

Maxine’s blushing intensifies. “Well…yes.”

Other-Alfie turns to me. “You’ve probably been wondering the same thing I have,” he says.

“Right,” I nod. “What happens to us after we cum.”

“We cease to exist in that world anymore,” he says, thinking aloud. “How about that? We just…vanish, is that right? Not really the answer I was expecting.”

“It makes sense,” I say. “In the sense that it makes as little sense as anything else.”

We both laugh again as Celia swings by to drop off another menu, giving both of us Alfies a skeptical eye. She’s seen twins before, no doubt, but she’s never seen two people look, and act, more alike in her life before, I’m sure of it. 

What would my Celia think of this?

“That’s pretty much it,” Maxine says. “Alfie…er, the one who came to visit me, knew he’d, uh, leave after we had sex. He just wasn’t sure what would happen to his body. It was an experiment of sorts. One of the many things I was supposed to tell you.”

“Me?” asks Other-Alfie.

“No…you,” she says, pointing at me.

“He knew I was coming,” I say. I almost meant it as a question, but I was so sure of the answer that it tapered off into a statement. “How?”

“That was in the story I was trying to tell you,” she sighs. “Before he–” Her finger waggles at Other-Alfie. “–came in.”

“Actually, uh, bad news about that,” Other-Alfie says. I look at his face and see that he’s looking out the window. At first I don’t see anything myself, but then I see what he’s staring at–a figure walking along the street, getting closer and closer to the diner. They’re a little too far away to identify, though I think we can already guess who it is.

“Are you kidding me right now?” I mutter. 

“What is it?” asks Maxine, her vantage point maybe not as great from her side of the booth.

“Another one,” Other-Alfie says. “Another one of…us, I think.”

Is it so bad that among the first things that I think of upon realizing that there’s multiple versions of me in the same place at the same time is that I feel like I’ve lost any sense of my own identity? I am not a special snowflake. I am not the Alfie–the one and only that I’ve been my entire life. Now, I’m one of a few. One of many, maybe. One of an infinite number, if I really stop to think about it. There are days where I struggle with standing out amongst everyone else in the world, and now I’m worrying that I might not even stand out amongst a crowd of other versions of me.

“We’re all converging here because it’s a familiar place in an alien world,” I say. “It’d probably get pretty weird if more versions of us keep spilling inside the diner.”

Other-Alfie nods. “I’ll go out and stop him.”

“Good idea,” I say. “And maybe keep an eye out for others?”

“Yeah,” he says.

“Do you want me to bring you out some food?” I ask. I hear Maxine sigh, and so I look to her, remembering that she’s probably the one that has to foot this bill, since my wallet is conveniently in another dimension. “If…that’s okay with Maxine.”

“Uh, yeah, whatever,” she says.

“Yeah, good idea,” Other-Alfie says. “You know what I like.”

We both laugh at this before he gets up from our table and trots out the door, leaving Maxine and I alone again. She immediately lets out an exhausted sigh.

“Too much of me?” I ask.

“Probably. Ever since you–or, I guess, another version of you–came into my life a few weeks ago, my life has just been so fucking weird. I should be in college right now. I should be making out with my girlfriend.”

“Girlfriend?” I ask, eyebrows raised. “Y-you have a girlfriend in college?”

She shrugs. “I haven’t used that word with her yet. But if I ever get back home again, I’d like to.”

“Who is she?” I ask.

“Her name is Ash,” she says. Maybe seeing the deflated look on my face, she adds: “Just because I’m seeing someone doesn’t mean that your Maxine is seeing someone.”

“No, that’s true,” I say. “But my Maxine certainly has the freedom to see someone else if she wants to. Me and her…we’re not together at the moment. But, maybe when all this is said and done…”

“You know, that seems to be a theme,” she says. “Me and the Alfie of this world aren’t together anymore either. And the other Alfie who visited me a few weeks ago…he wasn’t with his Maxine any more either. And…” She gestures out the window, towards wherever Other-Alfie and the new Alfie might be at this moment, though I don’t see them. “...I bet if I was to ask him, he would say that he and his Maxine are no longer together either.”

I tilt my head but remain silent, waiting to hear her summarize her point, as I suspect she’s about to do.

“I’m just saying,” she says. “Maybe you and I aren’t fated to be together in any world.”

“Ouch.”

“Maybe that’s a good thing to know,” she says, shrugging. “Maybe it means you don’t have to waste any of your time trying to ‘win me back’ someday.”

I ask: “What happened? Between you and your Alfie? The one is supposedly back home in New Jersey right now, unaware of any of this?”

She shrugs again. “Our little fling was fine while it lasted, but it ran its course. I wanted different things. And that’s okay.”

Celia is back at the table again, two plates of food balanced on one arm and a menu in her other. She blinks her eyes a few times. “There was someone sitting next to you before, right? Someone who looked exactly like you?”

I wonder, for a moment, how much it would fuck with her head if I denied that there had been such a person. Instead, I just say: “Oh…he had to step out. But leave the menu. We’ll probably order something to go.”

She does so after dispensing our food, and then she’s off again with a scornful look on her face. In this brief pause in the action, I take stock of myself, and realize that the diaper I’m sitting on is a little damp and warm. I wonder when that might have occurred.

Also, there’s been something I’ve been wanting to say since Maxine started her story: “Noodles.”

She looks at me, a confused look on her face and her head tilted. “Hm?”

“Uh…noodles,” I repeat. “It was the answer to the question you asked the other Alfie in your story. About Pillow Pete’s weakness? You were going to ask me, remember?”

She laughs, blushing a little. “Y-yes, that’s right. That’s three for three in worlds where you and I have made that weird little in-joke.”

“So, uh, maybe now that it’s just us again,” I then say to Maxine, “you’ll want to finish that little story of yours?”

“Right, yeah, I should. And I hope there aren’t any interruptions this time…”

I consider making a joke about how three more Alfies are walking through the diner’s door right now, but it seems in poor taste–especially when she’s already looking a little annoyed. “Go on.”

===

More of Maxine’s Story, as told by Maxine

You–the version of you who popped into my life a few weeks ago–told me that in the course of your travels through all those, uh, dimensions, had developed a few theories about how things work. You speculated that you might have just been lucky with the specific worlds that you ended up in, combined with the fact that your journey into the multiverse seemed to start earlier, months earlier, than most other versions of yourself did–thus giving you more time and experience in navigating. Because of this, you believed that you were the best version of Alfie. You literally called yourself ‘Alfie Prime.’ I told you that this was a stupid name, though you didn’t seem dissuaded by my opinion.

Anyway, you described the ‘multiverse’ you were travelling through as an onion with millions of layers. And, like, every time you…blew your load, you were descending deeper into the onion. See–and forgive my uncertainty about telling this part of the story, I’m not as well versed in, like, comic book science–you had learned in your travels that each ‘layer’ of the onion was another world that this ‘Mother’ you’re dealing with had touched in some way.

You theorized that if you were to somehow–I don’t know–cum enough, you’d eventually make your way to the middle of the figurative onion. And at the center were all the answers: Who mother was; what mother wanted; and the knowledge of what you had to do to stop her.

I thought that was the answer, then, to my question about what you were doing in my world–this was just another stop on his interdimensional tour as you made your way to the middle. But you surprised me again by saying that you came here on purpose.

One of the things you had learned along the way–something that all the versions of you will learn eventually, when you’ve jumped from world to world enough–is that there are ways to control which world you travel to next. And so, instead of jumping deeper in the onion–like he would usually want to–he jumped, uh, to the…side?

Look, again, I’m not going to pretend I understand all of this myself. I’m relaying to you what I’ve been told.

Anyway, you come here, to my world. It’s one that you weren’t supposed to have ever come to, given the path you’re taking through the onion. But, you know that another version of you would eventually come here. And so you decide that you’re going to stack the odds in your favor. You think that if you can pass along all the essential information to another version of yourself, you’ll have an ally who can quickly join you when it comes time to get to the center of the onion. 

You think about sticking around and talking to the other version of you who eventually shows up yourself, but you don’t think you want to wait around that long–you’ve got it in your head that you need to keep moving, and you don’t want to lose your momentum as you head towards the center of the onion. And so you decide the next best thing would be if you could ask someone to be waiting for the new version of you that will eventually be arriving. Someone that you–any version of you–would trust. Someone that any version of you would want to see. 

And, well, you think of me. 

There are things that you don’t tell me. I don’t know how you got across the country. I don't know where you got the clothes on your back or the diapers that you carry around with you. And I definitely don’t know where you got the envelope full of cash that you handed to me in my dorm room–the cash that you hope will convince me to go along with your convoluted story and fly across the country so that I can meet another version of you. 

Still, I don’t know if I can buy that any of this is true or not, you know? I think I would be even crazier if I did just accept all of it as truth right away. I tell you that I need to think about it first, before I agree to anything. You claimed to be fine with this, though I got the feeling it was making you a little antsy.

I snuck you into the showers and got you cleaned up a little. Then I took you down to the campus dining hall so we could have some dinner–though you insisted on taking your bag with us. “Just in case of another accident,” you said.

 It was really weird, because it was like hanging out with the Alfie I knew, and yet…it wasn’t him. Maybe our worlds’ timelines were just different enough that your experiences with your Maxine, and my experiences with my Alfie weren’t all the same–we each made references to events and stories that the other didn’t recognize. But the core of who you are was the same. The same sense of humor. The same interests. The same mannerisms.

And I won’t lie, it was kind of nice having you around again. I missed you.

Time flies when you’re having fun, I guess. We ate dinner. We walked around campus a little, and we just talked. Not about world-traversing shenanigans, thankfully–just about ourselves. I told you about my college experience so far. You told me about The Cradle and some of the friends you had made there. 

At the risk of bringing up something awkward, I remembered something you had said earlier, back in my dorm room–about how in other worlds, I had been a very good ‘mommy’ to you. I asked about that, curious to know more.

“I don’t find you in every world,” you said. “In most of them, you’re in college on the other side of the country from where I am. Of the instances that I’ve met another version of you, there are some where you’re hostile or untrusting of me for varying reasons. There was a world where Alfie was the host of Mother, and was causing all sorts of chaos. And so there, obviously, you wanted nothing to do with me. But then, there were others where you and I managed to reconnect and form an alliance after I explained who I was and where I had come from.”

“Like this world?” I asked. “Like me?”

“Yes,” you said. “Very much like this. And, in some of those instances were ones in which you were willing to, uh, take care of me.”

“Like…how?” I asked, even though I had a good idea what you meant.

“Changing my diapers, mostly,” you said, your cheeks getting red. “Though once, you bottle-fed me. Twice you spanked me.”

“Wow.” 

Once again, your admissions gave a little credence to the idea that you were who you said you were–a world-jumping copy of the boy I knew. Because the Alfie I knew probably wouldn’t be so forthcoming about details like that. But…maybe he would if he knew that eventually he’d be moving on from this world, and he’d never talk to this version of me again.

We walked a little further when I started detecting little hints of something smelling bad. It didn’t even register with me what it could be. Instead, I was thinking that it might be something like, you know, a sewage leak or a nearby dumpster. It wasn’t until I happened to glance at your face, and saw your reddened cheeks, that I was reminded of what you were wearing.

“Did you…” I struggled to get the words out, they seemed so ridiculous, but I felt like I had to–like it was the only way for me to fully wrap my head around what was happening. “Did you poop yourself? Is your diaper…messy?”

“Guilty as charged,” you said, offering this ‘aw shucks’ shrug.

“Wh-what are we going to do about that? I can’t have you come back to my dorm room like this. If June’s there, she’ll freak the hell out.”

“That’s what this thing is for,” you said, reaching over your shoulder and patting your backpack. “I call this my ‘diaper bag.’”

“So…what? You’re just going to…”

“I’m going to do what I’ve done countless times before, in many different worlds,” you say. “I’m going to find a quiet place to change myself, and then I’m going to take care of business. You…wouldn’t happen to know of anywhere I can go, do you?”

“Actually…”

My girlfriend–well…my close friend who I make out a lot with–had recently discovered this quiet little grove by the library, a shaded corner of a field that nobody else had good reason to go to. We’d been there a few times, spreading out a blanket and lying down together under the guise of ‘studying’ or ‘reading,’–though we’d usually just end up rolling around and jamming our tongues down each other’s throats. We’d gotten into some pretty hot and heavy situations over there, and we had yet to be caught or spotted–as best as we could tell. If there was any place I could take Mr. Stinky-Bottoms to discreetly change his diaper, this was probably it.

Of course, the problem was that my secret grove was on the other side of campus, meaning that it was going to be a long walk to get over there–a long walk in the company of someone whose stench was getting worse and worse. There was a quick, straightforward, way to the grove, but it involved walking through more crowded areas, and the last thing I wanted was for someone to smell you and and later–long after you’ve blasted off to whatever world you thought you were going to next–continue to associate me with a boy who pooped his pants. So, instead, we were going to have to take the long way. 

Needless to say, you were quite ripe by the time we reached our destination. Those last hundred yards or so were the worst, with your pace being slowed to a toddleresque waddle as the stink of your diaper seemed to constantly waft up around you.

Half-joking, I said: “So, is this the part where I change your diaper for you?”

You laughed and shook your head. “I’m not going to ask you to do that. I think I’m already asking a lot of you, with what’s to come.”

“Okay,” I said. “But let’s say that I wanted to change your diaper? Would you stop me?”

You laughed. “You don’t mean that.”

“I didn’t say I did or didn’t mean it. I was just asking a question.”

“I-if you really wanted to change me,” you said… “I’d never turn down the help.”

I don’t know what the hell came over me. Maybe I was thinking about how–one way or another–you probably weren’t going to stick around. Like, either what you were saying was true and you were going to teleport somewhere else, or you were going to just walk off campus into the horizon and I’d never see you again anyway. I was wondering if I’d ever regret it, years from now, when I thought about the time I had the chance to help change a grown man’s diaper but didn’t take it. Either way, I was thinking about it.

Not that you were waiting for me to commit to this or not. You methodically took your shoes off and set them aside, followed by your pants, leaving you with nothing on below your waist but a droopy, brown-stained diaper that sagged dramatically between your thighs. I could actually see the bulge in the back of your diaper that held your mess. From your bag, you took out a towel and spread it out over the grass. While you did this, I looked around to make sure the coast was clear. Of course it was, but it just seemed surreal that someone could be here, changing their dirty diaper out in the open like this, and that a whole campus of students and faculty could be oblivious to it. 

Also from your bag, you pulled out a package of baby wipes, setting them next to the towel. Then you eased yourself down onto your back, taking great care in not putting too much weight on your ass. After this, you began to pull up the tapes on the front of your diaper, either oblivious to the fact that I was watching or just not caring.

“Do you need me to, like, look away?” I asked.

You laughed and shrugged as you slowly opened your diaper to reveal your manhood as well as the thick swatch of brown that consumed your bottom, inner-thighs and the inside of the diaper. 

“Here’s the thing,” you said. “I like the idea of you watching or helping me change. But the reality is that it also, uhm, excites me. And if it excites me too much…boom.”

“Boom,” I repeated, not entirely sure what that meant.

“Boom…like, if I orgasm, I’m gone. Off to another world, and leaving this one behind. And, y’know, I still have no idea what happens to me after I leave. Do I leave behind a body, but my mind is gone? Or does my body go too, and I just leave behind a dirty diaper? Or…”

“Or?” Such a strange conversation to have while a grown man attempts to clean himself in such a state.

“Or…maybe this world, and everything in it, ceases to exist.”

I swallowed nervously. “I don’t really care for that option.”

“I don’t think that’s what happens,” you said with a playful chuckle. “But I also just don’t know for sure.”

You were erect now, that was rather obvious. We were both blushing at the sight of this, and I wondered which of us would bring it up first. After a few beats passed and it still went unmentioned, though, I figured that was the game we were playing: just pretending it wasn’t there.

I had little doubt that you could take care of cleaning up this mess on your own. It was probably something you had done countless times before. Still, looking down at you while you fumbled with wipes and stretching your arm to reach between your legs, it felt kind of rude to just stand there and watch.

“What can I do to help?” I asked.

“You don’t have to do anything,” you said.

Like I said, maybe it was curiosity or just FOMO, but I had myself convinced I’d regret it later if I didn’t offer a hand. So I dropped down to my knees and…well, I helped take care of you.

“Having met a few versions of you now,” you said to me, as I carefully guided a baby wipe along your skin, “I’ve come to learn a few things about you.”

I laughed. “Am I the same in every world?”

“No, not really. Nobody is, actually. You might be surprised by how even the smallest change in someone’s life can alter their personality. Still, there’s…themes, I guess. Similarities that always seem true of a Maxine, for example.”

“Is that so? And what have you learned about me then, huh?”

“You’re always curious–or at least more tolerant than others–of diapers. 

I almost took that as an insult–maybe because it hit so close to the truth, that I was finding myself enjoying this moment more than I thought I would. “Really?”

You nodded. “Maybe it’s not the diapers themselves, per se, but just that you’re a pretty adventurous person, by nature. You embrace weirder things like this more than others. I think that, too, is why I came here to see you and ask for your help. I knew it’d be easier to convince you to help me than anyone else.”

“The money,” I said, laughing. “That certainly helps too.”

I thought, maybe, this would be the part where you told me where that money came from, or your clothes, or your bag of baby supplies, or you’d tell me about how you managed to get across the country. But, no. I guessed those stories would stay with you. I could’ve asked, but I kind of liked the mystery. I kind of liked…who this version of Alfie had become, the version hardened and wisened by experiences I couldn’t begin to imagine.

You walked me through the process of changing your diaper. I wiped you clean as you lifted your legs–giving me access to all the, uh, harder to access areas. I bundled up your dirty diaper and all the wipes, and wrapped it up in a plastic bag from your ‘diaper bag.’ You guided me through the process, then, of helping you to put on a new diaper–complete with shaking some baby powder on your still-erect dick. 

“Couldn’t have done without you,” you said when it was all said and done, and I was helping you back up to your feet again so you could put your pants on. A lie, but it was still nice to hear you say it, still.

We sat in the grass for a while, you and I, and I listened as you explained what you needed from me. Bits and pieces you had made mention of previously, but now you spelled it all out for me. Well, as best as you could, and as best as I could understand it.

You needed me to come here to California, to meet the other version of you whenever he arrived. You didn’t know the exact date of when that would be, but you had a good idea of when it might be–a window of a few days, which it turns out you were right about. Then, once he arrived, I’d fill him in on the things Alfie Prime told me and I’d help send him on his way–towards the middle of the, uh, onion, where he’d meet up with you. Maybe, along the way, Alfie Prime would be rallying more versions of you for this cause. And when you all met at the center, you’d be united in the goal of finding out how to rid every world of Mother.

===

“And, so…ta-da,” Maxine says, throwing her arms up in the air. “I guess I did the thing I was supposed to do.”

The only words that come to mind are: “What. The. Fuck?”

“Yeah…it’s a lot.”

“Jumping…to the side?” I ask.

“I guess.”

“The center of the onion?” I ask.

“That’s what you…uh, what he said,” she nods.

“Alfie Prime?”

“That’s what he called himself,” she says.

Maybe I’m just a little annoyed because I didn’t think of Alfie Prime myself. Or, maybe all versions of me eventually come up with that name, once we jump around these worlds long enough like he, apparently, has. But what about the name ‘Alphie?’ Like…Aflie plus ‘alpha?’ 

Maybe that’s just harder to verbalize to someone. 

I laugh, realizing that this, of all possible things, is what I’m concerning myself with right now.

I look back up at Maxine again. “So, uh…what am I supposed to do?”

“Get to the middle of the onion,” she says, shrugging like the words make just as much sense to her as they do to me.

“And…how do I do that?”

“That I can actually help you with,” she says. “But, uhm…” 

Her eyes wander back towards the window, and mine follow. I see him again out in the parking lot–the other Alfie who briefly joined us at the table. He’s talking to the other Alfie who we watched walking down the street towards the diner. This one’s wearing a large baggy shirt, and either short-shorts or no pants at all. 

And it’s not just those two. There’s another in their huddle now. Their back is to me, but I don’t need to see their face to know it’s yet another Alfie–this one in a large yellow rain poncho.

“What the fuck is happening here?” Maxine asks.

I shrug, knowing as much as she does. Still, I might at least have a word to describe it: “Convergence.”

“And…what do we do about that?” she asks.

“Finish lunch, order a pizza for the other, uh…Alfies, and then… Well, that’s all I got.”

“Better plan than any I have,” she says.

And we quietly go back to eating our food. I do my best to avoid looking out the window, afraid of how many more Alfies will be standing in the parking lot next time I do.

I think about my Mom’s threat: “I thank the heavens everyday that you weren’t twins, Alfie. If there were two of you? I’d probably jump out a window.”

I’m a little curious to see how she’d react if she were here right now.

Fifty-Five: Too Many Alfies (And Audry)

Upon leaving the diner, I usher all the Alfie’s collected in the parking lot to the picnic table in the back of the restaurant–the one that Not-Celia pointed out to me back before she revealed herself to be some sort of evil imposter. That was a different world, and a different Celia, but the table seems to be a common element across worlds, as it’s in this one too.

Roll call.

There’s me–I’ve decided to call myself Alfie #1, on account of the fact that I’m the first of the Alfies currently present to arrive, so far as anyone knows. 

Then we’ve got Alfie #2, the second to arrive, and the one who briefly joined Maxine and I in the diner. He’s a little scruffier than me and is currently wearing a pair of baggy brown pants, some boots, and a red and black plaid button-up. He’s not thrilled at the fact that he’s ‘#2’ and not ‘#1,’ but he seems happy enough that he’s not ‘#3.’

Alfie #3 is currently wearing only an oversized t-shirt–as evidenced by how we were all caught a glimpse of his ‘little Alfies’ between his legs when he sat down. He seems a little more paranoid than I’ve ever been. A little too suspicious and on-edge. I wonder what was different about his upbringing to make him this way. Maybe it wasn’t even his upbringing–he might have had a similar disposition as me up until he ventured into the mult-verse. Perhaps he’s encountered a Not-Celia of his own once or twice, and it’s caused him not to trust anything he sees now.

Alfie #4–AKA Rain Poncho Alfie–asks if anybody’s got a cigarette. Nobody knows what to make of that, as we’re all non-smokers ourselves.

The pizza set down in the center of the table is gone in less than a minute, with a flurry of hungry Aflie’s pulling away pieces and scarfing them down. Maxine makes a joke about how she hopes there aren’t going to be any more Alfies joining us–but I think we all have a feeling that more are likely on their way.

“I think something’s gone wrong,” I say to this council of Alfies. “Have any of you ever been in a world where you’ve come in contact with so many of us?”

“I’ve never come in contact with another one of me at all,” Alfie #3 says. “Even in worlds where I figure he’s got to be around somewhere.”

“Same,” says Alfie #4. “It’s like the universe does its best to prevent us from meeting other versions of ourselves.”

“Except for this one,” I say, thinking aloud. “I don’t know what that means, though.”

Maxine and I haven’t shared Alfie Prime’s little story with the group yet. I’m not sure if its just because it hasn’t come up yet, or if it’s because we’re hesitant to get into all those strange details when our own current situation seems plenty weird by itself.

“Does anyone have a diaper?” Alfie #2 asks. “I’m, uh, wetting my pants over here…”

“For the love of…” Maxine sighs and shakes her head. “Yes, I have more in the car. I’m going to assume that all of you need one?”

One by one, everyone at the table nods their heads, including myself. 

“You too?” she asks me, sighing.

I shrug. “I mean…baby’s gonna baby.”

Damn, that’s good. Gonna put that on a shirt some day.

“I have enough for all of you,” she says. “But I won’t have many after that. And I don’t have a change of clothes, so if you’ve wet your pants–” She stares at Alfie #2. “–you’re out of luck for getting dry ones.”

“W-well…we’re probably going to need more,” Alfie #3 says nervously.

“I mean…do you?” I ask.

Alfie #2 knows what I mean, and he nods his head. “Yeah, you’re right. We can, uh, always move on, you know? To the next world.”

What he’s saying, without saying it, is that any of us can jerk off at any time and be done with this world. 

“I just kinda want to take a break for a while,” Alfie #3 says. “Do you know how hard it was to find just this shirt? How far I had to fucking walk to get to this diner? A-and…what if the next world sucks, you know? I’m kind of sick of this.”

We have to keep moving,” Alfie #4 says. “Because we all know that there’s nothing for us here. This isn’t our world, and the ones that each of us came from–whichever ones those are–are in some sort of peril, and we want to get back there. I, for one, want to see my Maxine again. I want to see my Tommy. My Eric.”

“Eric?” Alfie #2 asks. “I don’t know if I have any important ‘Erics’ in my life. Who’s that?”

“Yeah,” I say. “Same question.”

“Eric?” asks Alfie #4. “Like…our brother?”

“Brother?” I say, shaking my head. “No, I don’t have a brother named Eric. I have a sister named…”

“Sam,” Alfie #2 says. “Me too.”

“W-wait,” Alfie #3 says. “I have a sibling named Sam too–but he’s my brother.”

Once, a very long time ago, my mother had mentioned that if Sam had been born a boy, they might have named him either Samuel or Eric. Funny, I guess. I wonder what flapping butterfly wings caused my sibling to be born a boy instead of a girl–and what would cause some iterations of my parents to name him either Sam or Eric.

“Do you think…” Alfie #2 says, “...that there’s a world where I–or, we–were born as a girl?”

“Alfina?” I say.

Maxine groans with disgust at that.

“Audry,” Alfie #3 says. “I…I think Mom told me once that if I had been born a girl, that would’ve been my name.”

“It’s better than freakin’ Alfie,” I mutter.

“Look,” Maxine says, changing the subject. “We can’t all sit around here, pissing ourselves and putting diapers on right next to a diner parking lot. We’ve got to get out of here.”

“Where?” I ask. “There’s no Cradle here, in this world, right?”

Maxine nods. “Right. But…” She points a finger at me. “There’s the place I found you. Where I picked you up.”

“That clearing in the woods, yeah,” I say.

“Hey, that’s where I just came from,” whines Alfie #3.

“Well, we’re going back there, okay?” Maxine says. “It’s far removed from other people. It gives us a place to talk about…everything. And from there, we can figure out what comes next.”

It’s really nice to have Maxine here for this–even if it’s not the Maxine I know and love from my own world. She’s arguably more sane than the rest of us, and has a few resources that we don’t–like a vehicle, money, and diapers.

“Alright,” Alfie #4 says. “So we pile in the car and then…”

Maxine groans again. “Y’all are going to pee all over the seats, aren’t you?”

Nobody answers this, though there’s a lot of blushing on the faces around the table.

“It’s fucking rental,” she says. “All of you can–I dunno–jerk off into the great beyond, but I’ll still be stuck here, trying to explain to some pissed off rental company clerk why all the seats are soaked and smell like pee.”

Alfie #3 suggests going back into the diner and asking for some plastic bags that we can use to line the seats with, but nobody wants to be the one to have to ask for those. Alfie #2 points to a dumpster, with broken down cardboard boxes sticking out of it, and asks if those would work. None of us think it’s a good idea, but we also don’t have any better ideas of our own. And so we grab a few pieces of cardboard and Maxine and I bring them to the white rental SUV and we use them to line the top of the seats. 

Soon enough, four Alfies and a Maxine are piled into the vehicle, with Maxine in the driver’s seat, myself in the passenger seat, and the other three Alfies in the back. We’ve only just pulled out of the parking lot and onto the road when there’s a piddling sound coming from the back.

“Is that what I think it is?” Maxine asks, frustration already surfacing in her tone.

“I, uh…wet a little,” Alfie #3 says. The sound we heard was his urine reverberating off the cardboard slab he’s sitting on. “I-it wasn’t much though…”

Maxine glances at me, eyes narrowed and scorn on her face–as if this is all somehow my fault. And, sure, I guess–in some strange way–it kind of is. Or at least it’s another version of me’s fault. 

A mile down the road, the thick seas of trees already surrounding the road on either side of us, and apropos of nothing, Alfie #2 says: “I was in a world where Mother had been elected Queen Supreme of Earth.”

Alfie #3 scoffs at this. “I was in a world where Elvis was not only still alive, but he had a bionic arm with a microphone built into it that he sang into.”

Alfie #4 sighs before muttering his own weird story: “I…was kept as a prisoner in a post-apocalyptic version of The Cradle.”

“Hey,” I say, turning around. “Pisstopia, yeah? I was there too.”

“I…I don’t remember them calling it that.”

“Maybe it was just similar,” I say, shrugging. “What a trip that was. Befriended some cheerleaders who tried to save me when their base was overrun.”

Maxine shoots me a look, like: “What the fuck?”

“Oh, uh, no,” Alfie #3 says. “No cheerleaders. Just angry women who thought I was a spy. Th-they tried spanking a confession out of me.”

“Shit,” Alfie #2 says, chuckling. “I like the sound of that. I kinda want to go to that world.”

“No no!” Alfie #3 says, practically crying out the words. “You think it’d be good, but it’s not! It was…brutal.”

Is Alfie #3 a wimp, or has he just experienced some things that really changed him? Maybe we’ve all been changed a little by our…’paths through the onion’ as Alfie Prime apparently put it. 

The other Alfies are still talking, comparing stories and experiences, but I tune out a little and just stare out the window, watching the trees fly past us as I think about what might be happening in my own world right now.

===

It’s Maxine’s annoyed sigh that snaps me out of my half-sleeping stare out the passenger side window.

“Huh?” I say, turning towards her. It would seem her frustration got the attention of everyone in the back seat too, as they’re all leaning forward and looking out the windshield.

We all see it at the same time–there’s a figure in the woods ahead. Dashing behind trees and thick patches of shrubs and weeds. It’s the skin tone that gives them away–their white skin obvious in all this brown and green. 

“It’s another of us,” I say. “Naked.”

“We were all naked when we came here,” Alfie #4 says, giving me a suspicious glance. “Some of us had more luck than others at finding clothes, though.”

“Look, we’ve got to stop,” I say to Maxine.

“And put him where? We’re out of seats.”

“The cargo area behind our seats,” Alfie #2 says, gesturing over his shoulder with his thumb.

“That’s where my stuff is,” Maxine says. 

But the car is already slowing. Of course she’s going to stop–she wouldn’t just drive past another of me. I take a quick look into the back seats again, figuring we could probably squeeze another person into it if we had to. 

“Uhm…it might not be one of you,” Maxine says.

My eyes shoot back to the windshield, and I see a flash of flesh among the trees again, very close to where the car is crawling to a stop this time. I saw…a bare breast, one that was certainly bigger than mine–or any of the other Alfies for that matter. I don’t want to assume anything, but I don’t think this naked person is a man. 

“Uh, stay here,” I say to everyone else. “I’ll go out and say hi.”

“I’m just as entitled to talk to them as you are,” Alfie #4 says. 

“We don’t want to overwhelm whoever it is,” Maxine says, coming to my defense. “And, uh, he called it first, so…”

If there’s more of an argument to be had, I’m not paying attention to it. I open the door and slide out from the SUV, closing the door behind me. I look up the length of the road in either direction, looking out for other vehicles. There’s nothing coming. 

“Uh, hey,” I say into the trees where I last saw movement. “Alfie?”

There’s no verbal response to this, though I hear the sound of feet shifting on the ground, dry leaves and little sticks breaking and crumbling.

So, if it’s not a ‘he’ then…

I try again: “Uhm…Audry?”

There’s a confused “Huh?” from the other side of the green.

“So…I’m Alfie and…” But I have no idea how to finish that sentence. Do I mention that the car I arrived in is chock full of other versions of Alfie?

“H-how did you know my name,” their voice says. It’s a feminine voice, as best as I can tell.

“Lucky guess? Come on, you’ve probably seen some pretty weird things by now. This can't be that weird.”

“Nobody’s ever known my name before,” she says.

“You want to see weird?” I ask, gesturing behind me to the car with my hand, not that she can see that. “I’ll show you weird.”

“What’d you say your name was?” she asks.

“Alfie.”

She laughs. “Funny. My mom used to tell me that if I had been born a girl, I’d have been an ‘Alfred.’ I usually blew her off, assuming she was just bullshitting me. But…”

Behind me, I hear the electronic whir of one of the windows being rolled down a little so that the others can eavesdrop.

“So, uh, you’re me,” I say, trying to move this conversation along as best as I can. “Like…you’re a version of me. Or, I’m a version of you, if you’d rather. I’m guessing you’re from a world where I had been born a girl.”

“Y-yes,” she says. “I was born a girl. Didn’t have much say in that.”

“Okay, so…behind is a car full of, uh, other versions of me. And you too, I suppose. But they’re all, like, Alfies, you know?”

“How did that happen?” she asks.

“Great question. We’re still trying to work that out. But it’d probably be best if you came with us.”

“I’m naked.”

“Well, sure, we were all naked when we got here, but…” It occurs to me that there isn’t much I can say to make her comfortable with getting into a car of strangers–regardless of who they are–and especially while naked. “Uh, hey, do you by any chance know Maxine from where you came from?”

“Maxine?” she asks. “Y-yeah, I know a Maxine.”

“Well, you’re in luck, because we’ve got this world’s Maxine with us too. Why don’t I grab her and she can help you figure out the, uh, stuff about getting less naked.”

I jog around the car and over to Maxine’s window, ready to tap on it, but she’s already got it sliding down into the door.

“Did we hear that right?” she asks. “That’s a woman behind those trees?”

“Me, if I was a woman, believe it or not.”

She smirks and offers a playful shrug. “This might be the best version of you yet.”

Disregarding her comment, I say: “For obvious reasons–” I look into the backseat, where the three other Alfies put on their most innocent faces. “–she’s not very eager to get into the car while she’s naked.”

“Ah, right,” Maxine says. “She needs some clothes?”

“And probably a diaper,” Alfie #2 says from the back.

“Yes, thank you,” Maxine sighs, rolling her eyes but not looking back at him. To me: “I might be able to lend her some of my own clothes. Let me see what I can do.”

I hang back at the car as Maxine gets out and goes to the rear door, opens it, and rifles through some stuff to find what she’s looking for before wading through the forest herself.

“Hey,” Maxine says. “I’m Maxine and I just want to help.”

Audry says something, but I can’t hear it from where I am. Maybe it’s for the best, giving the girls some privacy. 

“You saw her?” asks Alfie #4.

“Not really,” I say. “Didn’t get to see her face.”

“She’s got, like…?” Alfie #2 holds hands out in front of his chest to signify breasts–those the distance he’s putting between his chest and his hands suggests some pretty enormous tits.

“She’s female, I can say that much,” I shrug.

“A female Alfie,” Alfie #3 says quietly to himself. “Who woulda thought?”

“You think she’s hot?” Alfie #4 says. “I always kinda thought I’d look hot as a girl.”

“Alright, alright,” I say. “Everybody needs to calm down a little. We can’t be creepy, okay? That’s especially true for you, #4.”

“Me? The fuck did I do?”

“You just give me creepy vibes or something,” I say. To everyone: “Now, look, just because she’s the one who represents us on the world she comes from, doesn’t make her the ‘female’ version of Alfie, alright?” “What’s that supposed to mean?” Alfie #2 asks. “She gets special treatment because she’s a girl? The rest of us are ‘just more Alfies’?”

“Yeah,” Alfie #4 says. “That’s kinda what it sounds like you’re saying. And who made you head-Alfie anyway?”

“I’m not…” But I let my words trail off, knowing it’s not worth the argument. I’m more interested in what’s happening between Maxine and Audry right now.

I move back around the car again to get a better view. Both women are concealed by trees and bushes now. They’re talking to each other, but too softly for me to make out any of the words. I see occasional flashes of skin and colors from Maxine’s clothing through the leaves and branches.

Maybe I should mind my own business, but I can’t help myself: “Everything okay back there?”

“Fine, thank you,” Maxine says. “Audry’s getting dressed.”

“You had clothes and all that for her?”

“Yes. ‘All that.’”

The shortness in her tone is one I recognize from my own Maxine, and the message is received. I reach for the passenger side door again, but change my mind and open the backseat door instead

“Scooch over, everyone.”

Alife #4, sitting closest to the door I’ve opened, scoffs and twists his face at me. “What the hell?”

“I’m going to sit back here with you,” I say.

Alfie #2 sighs too. “What? Why?”

“We’re going to give Audry the passenger seat, alright?”

“Yeah, I think that’s smart,” Alfie #3 says, already sliding over in his seat–and pushing Alfie #2 against the other door in doing so–so that there’s room for #4 to slide over.

Begrudgingly, Alfie #4 finally slides over, giving me just enough room to climb in and shut the door behind me. It’s definitely not the most comfortable any of us have ever been, but I feel like I’ve been in more uncomfortable places before.

“So there’s more coming,” Alfie #2 says.

“More…what?” Alfie #3 asks.

“More of us,” I say, thinking the same thing. “In that clearing over where The Cradle should be where I woke up–where all of us probably woke up. More Alfies keep appearing there. They wake up, they’re alone, and they do the most logical thing–wander down this road until they can either find help or find clothing.”

“Or they just…jerk off again,” Alfie #4 says. “I did that once or twice, you know? Woke up in a place that I either didn’t like the vibe of, or where it felt like it’d be too much work to explore and I just decided to roll the dice right away on a better world.”

I think about Maxine’s story, where she relayed the things that Alfie Prime had told her–specifically the concept of ‘the onion’ and how the center might just hold all the answers. I wondered why none of us had thought to immediately masturbate every time we woke up in a new world, allowing us to race ahead to the center. Well, probably because most of us–except myself, Alfie Prime, and whoever else Prime has spoken to about it since leaving this world–don’t know that there’s a center we’re racing towards. Without that information, we’re just blindly fumbling forward–pooping our pants as we think about this next world might be ‘the one’ that gives us all the answers we need to get back home.

Speaking of…

“Okay…” sighs Alfie #2. “Who did that?”

Nobody needs to ask about what he’s referring to, because we can all smell it–the toxic cloud of a dirty diaper. I’m rather sure it’s not my own, though the scent does seem strangely familiar. It’s almost creepy–smelling yourself, in a way, because another version of you has messed his diapers.

“Well, uh, that’d be my work,” Alfie #4 says. “But I’m not going to feel bad about it. It could’ve happened to any one of us. And none of us are strangers to dirty diapers.”

“Hell of a first impression to make on our new friend,” Alfie #2 says.

“She’s just as likely to load her diaper,” #4 fires back. “Let’s not pretend she’s precious just because she’s got tits.”

I try to steer the conversation back to where we were a minute ago: “So, uh, why is it that there are all of us in this one world. None of you have ever seen that before, have you?”

Everyone either says that they haven’t, or shakes their head.

“Is there something special about this world?” Alfie #3 asks.

“Or did an another Alfie fuck something else up?” Alfie #2 says.

Alfie Prime had said something about jumping ‘sideways’ didn’t he? A special way to jump from world to world that allowed him, maybe, more control over the world he went to? I’m thinking it has something to do with that, but I decide against sharing this with the group. It wasn’t my story to tell, and if Maxine wants to tell it again, it’d probably be better coming from her than from me.

The conversation stalls when the back door of the SUV opens and Maxine sets some things down in the cargo space. It’s hard to miss that all four of us Alfies are now sitting in the back seat, of course.

“What’s all this?” she asks. I turn my head a little to face her, and catch her nose wrinkling with disgust. She’s not nearly as acclimated to dirty diapers yet as we all are.

“Alfie…er, Audry can sit up front,” I say.

“Oh wow,” she murmurs half-sarcastically. “You boys are so polite.” She closes the door and calls out to Audry: “You can sit up in the front seat. Everybody else is crammed into the back now. But I’m going to warn you right now–it smells like someone had an accident in there.”

Audry says something in response to this, but I can’t make out what the words are. Whatever it is, it causes Maxine to laugh.

It’s now, as Audry walks past my door’s window, that we all get our first real glimpse of the female version of us. I can’t speak for everyone–or maybe I can, since we all might think the same–but right away I see the semblance. Those are my cheekbones. My nose. Her hair is the same color as mine, just longer. Her lips are a little smaller, but I certainly recognize the dimples. She turns her head, looking through the window at us. One of the Alfies gasps a little at the better view of her face. She pulls open the passenger door and slides into the front seat. I can’t see the full ensemble she’s wearing from this angle, but I think I’ve seen that red t-shirt before in another world–it’s one of Maxine’s. As she settles into her seat, the crinkling of yet another diaper can be heard.

For a few moments, nobody says anything at all. There’s a strange tension in the car as Maxine begins to drive again, and I can’t quite identify with where it’s coming from. Are we all just nervous to confront a version of ourselves that’s so radically different? Or is it really just a matter of us Alfies being strangely timid around a new woman in our lives?

“So, this is all pretty weird, right?” Audry finally asks. Her comment earns an immediate guffaw from Maxine, and a chorus of muffled laughs and confused grunts from us in the back.

“You’ve, uh, never met another one of you then?” asks Alfie #3. “Or…another one of us?”

But his question causes me to reflect a little myself, even though he wasn’t talking to me. Before this world, I hadn’t considered the idea of there being other Alfies. And if I had thought of this idea, what would have I imagined? More like me, right? More men. More Alfies. Audry probably never realized that she was unique for being a woman instead of a man because she probably never considered the possibility that she wasn’t the only one on this journey in the first place.

“No,” she says. “Have you?”

“None of us have,” Alfie #4 says, speaking for all of us. “This world is different.”

“And I’m, like, the only…woman.” I think it’s a question at first, but I realize it’s a statement. She continues her thought, turning her head a little to address us in the back: “And you all are men? Uh, Alfies?”

“And they’re not the only ones,” Maxine says before any of us can respond ourselves. This world has its own Alfie who lives in New Jersey and is blissfully unaware of any of this.”

“I’m from New Jersey,” Audry says.

“Obviously,” Alfie #2 mutters under her breath.

“And, uhm…” Maxine starts to talk again, but trails off almost immediately. I can guess what she wants to mention–Alfie Prime’s appearance in this world a few weeks before our arrival–but I’m not sure why she’s hesitant to make mention of it. I’m tempted to jump in and mention it myself, but decide it might be better to trust Maxine’s instincts. Maybe she’s thinking of something that I’m not.

“Do you have a brother or a sister?” Alfie #3 asks.

Audry says: “Yes, a brother.”

“Sam?” I ask, mostly just trying to be a little cheeky.

“Y-yes,” she says, a little surprised that I either knew that already or that I had guessed correctly.

Alfie #2 glances at us in the back with a wary look on his face–like he needs some sort of pre-approval for whatever it is he’s going to ask. Of course, we have no idea what’s on his mind and nobody says anything. Looking up towards Audry again, he just asks his question: “So…for us, when we want to move on to our next world, we, uhm…stroke ourselves, you know?” I can already hear Maxine groaning from secondhand embarrassment. He continues: “So, for you, when you move onto the next world…”

“Same thing,” Audry says. “Well…different equipment. But the same general idea, yes.”

In the backseat, we all quietly confer with each other, nodding heads and grunting in approval, as if this somehow proved something we weren’t sure of earlier.

===

I think it comes as a relief to all of us when we make it to the clearing without either finding another naked Alfie/Audry on the side of the road, as well as not having any additional stinky diapers to contend with. Alfie #4’s has been more than enough to deal with for those last few miles.

Of course, no sooner than the car is parked, we notice something else in the green grass–another flash of bare skin.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” mutters Maxine.

Alfie #5 is here waiting for us, looking like he just started to wake and acclimate to this new world a few minutes before our arrival. A vehicle of other Alfies, Maxine, and Audry, might be quite a shock to him–I know it would be for me, if I were in his shoes right now. If he was wearing shoes.

“#4?” Maxine says. “Come with me to the back of the car. I’m going to get you a new diaper. If anyone else needs a change, you might as well follow me. Alfie, uh, #1? Maybe you should go and introduce yourself to the new member of the collective.”

I kind of like Maxine’s efforts to keep control here. I never really considered her–my Maxine, at least–to be a leader, though it suits her well. I wonder if this world’s Maxine is just different like that, or if the events she’s endured over the last few weeks have just shaped her into this new role.

I get out of the SUV and approach the new Alfie. “Uh, hey! Welcome to yet another world. I probably don’t need to introduce myself, huh?”

“Well,” the fresh and naked Alfie #5 says, scratching his head as his cheeks blush, “this is certainly something new. Can’t say I’ve ever met another one of me before.”

“Yeah,” I say, shrugging. “I don’t think it’s supposed to work like this. But here we are.”

The other Alfies are unloading themselves from the SUV now. Alfie #5’s eyes grow larger. “There’s…multiple of you?”

I nod. “And Maxine. Surely you know her, right?”

“Yes,” he says, nodding. “I, uh… I miss her.”

I laugh and nod as well. “We all did, I think. Well…she’s here. And, uh…” I turn around and point my hand in Audry’s direction. “That’s Audry.”

“Who’s that?” he asks.

“That’s you. And me. It’s…us, from a world where we were born a girl.”

“Oh.” I watch as he stares at Audry for a few moments, taking in this surreal sight before finally glancing back in my direction. “How did you know I would be here?”

“We didn’t,” I say. “Or, well…this is where we all woke up. But we didn’t realize you’d be here when we came back. Maybe we should’ve though.”

“And, uh…why?”

I sighed, rolling my eyes–not so much at his question, but at the big unanswerable questions he’s alluding to. “Look…we’re all trying to figure it out for ourselves.”

===

Maxine has given Alfie #5 a diaper, and I’m able to get a new one to replace the soggy one that I’ve been wearing for a little while now. But the bad news is that these were the last diapers. After this, there’s nothing clean to change into. Inevtibally–someone, perhaps everyone–is going to be stuck in a dirty diaper for a little longer than anyone would like. Maxine’s considered going back to town to get more, but I wouldn’t be surprised if most of us were thinking the same thing at this point: If we needed a diaper change, and there isn’t another diaper, maybe we just move on to the next world.

It’s hard to get Maxine to myself. Everyone knows her, and has obviously unrequited feelings for her, so she’s almost always humoring someone. But I manage to pull her away from the group.

“So you didn’t tell everyone about Alfie Prime yet.”

“I know,” she says. “Maybe I should…”

“But?”

“But, while he knew when and where you’d show up, he only foresaw you coming–not the rest of the Alfies. …and Audry. So, I guess I’m just hesitant to involve them with his plan, because I don’t think he knew they were coming. What if he doesn’t want their help–just the help of the one Alfie he knew of?”

I shrug. “I guess?”

“Look, if you see him again when you, uh, cum your way to the next world, just tell him about what happened here, will you?”

“Sure,” I say. “And, uh, one more thing…”

“Uh huh?”

“Earlier, back at the diner, you mentioned something about knowing how I could get to the middle of ‘the onion.’”

“Right,” she says, sighing as her cheeks glow pink.

“Okay, so? How does one do the thing that Alfie Prime does? How does one have more control over the next place they go to?”

“I don’t know all the details,” she says. “But he gave me a little information, that he wanted me to pass along.”

“Hit me with it.”

“So…there’s different kinds of orgasms,” she says. “I mean…maybe not to you and I. Maybe to us, all orgasms are just…orgasms. But in the greater scheme of things, different kinds of orgasms have different kinds of…energies.”

“Uh, sure,” I shrug. I don’t fully understand, but I get the sense that she doesn’t either.

“Jerking yourself off? Or having someone else jerk you off? That’s one kind of energy, right?”

“Okay?”

“But there’s another when you have an orgasm during sex.”

“So, you’re saying…”

“When you leave this world, you’re going to have to fuck your way out of here,” she says with a surprising bluntness.

***

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Time crawls by when you have nothing to do. It’s just me and my thoughts–and I’m just about sick of myself. Time drags in a way that I’ve never felt it drag before.

I can sleep, though. It’s an uncomfortable sleep, but it’s kind of like a ‘fast-forward’ button, so I try to do as much of that as I can.

===

Twice now, Not-Celia has checked my diaper, found it to be dirty, only to leave the room without changing me.

I could really use a change right now. The front of my diaper is heavy with wetness, while the back and bottom are packed with a thick sludge that continues to permeate an eye-watering stench throughout the room. I know she knows I’m dirty. I bet she can smell me from elsewhere in the house. 

If I spend much more time in this state, the diaper rash is going to be a bitch.

When she enters the room again, groping at the filthy padding with her hand, I emit a frustrated series of groans through the pacifier, hoping to convey that I’d really like her to do something about this.

“Aw,” she coos at me, her voice far more condescending than Real-Celia’s could ever be. “What’s wrong, little poopy pants? Does the little baby need a changing?”

I nod my head frantically.

She says, flippantly: “Mm, see, just as there’s something I could do for you, there’s something that you could do for me. Maybe we could trade? I’ll give you what you want if you give me what I want? A little quid pro quo?”

I moan again, hoping she can translate my primal noises into the message I’d like to transmit: “Yes, whatever you want.”

“See, what I want is to know–what Mother would like to know–is how it is that you’re able to do your little hops from one world to another. Not only does Mother say that this isn’t allowed, but you shouldn’t even be able to do this. So how about it? You tell me how you’re pulling off that naughty little trick, and I’ll make sure you get nice and clean. You’ll be smelling fresh as a daisy in no time at all.”

There’s a part of me that wants to squeal with delight. Not-Celia, and Mother herself for that matter, they don’t know how I’m jumping between worlds. That’s information I have that they aren’t privy too. That’s, potentially, power.

Calm down, I remind myself. I’m still tied up. I’m still in one of the grossest diapers I’ve ever worn. I might have an ounce of power, but in this state, I barely have the means to wield it. I need to be smart.

Not-Celia reaches behind my head and unfastens the ribbon, allowing her to the pacifier from my mouth. She hovers over me, smiling down with her hands on her hips now.

“Well, little boy? Care to do a little trade? Have something you’d like to tell me?”

“H-how do you know that I’m even, uhm…travelling between worlds?” I ask. It’s still a silly thing to even think in my head, let alone say aloud.

“Mother has seen traces of you in places you shouldn’t be,” she says, folding her arms in front of her. “She’s very cross about this.”

I decide it would be best if I was very careful and deliberate with everything I say from this point forward. What’s the best way for me to approach this? How would Not-Celia, or Mother, know if my answer was truthful or not? If I were asked to prove it, and I did–thus getting zapped off to some other place–how would they react? Can they pursue me?

Her hand presses into the bottom of my diaper again, squishing my filthy load against my skin and forcing a pathetic little groan from out of my mouth.

“All you have to do is tell me how you’re doing it,” she says. “And then I can get rid of this icky, stinky diaper.”

“Will you untie me?” I ask.

She scoffs. “Why? So that you can get into more trouble?”

“I can’t stay like this forever,” I say. 

“Don’t be so sure about that.”

“I want to be untied,” I say. “And changed. And I want real food.”

She laughs and shakes her head. “So you think you can make demands now, baby?”

“I’m the one who has what you want, aren’t I?”

“You overestimate your power, little boy,” she says. “While Mother does want to know how you’re pulling off your little tricks, that’s secondary to keeping you secure so that you can’t cause any more trouble.” 

“Wh-what if I pulled off one of my, uh, little tricks right now, huh?” I need to rein it in a little–I feel like I’m not as in control of myself as I told myself I needed to be.

She laughs. “If it were that easy, you would’ve done it already.”

She’s got me there, though I won’t say as much.

“Fine,” she says. “You want to be a stubborn little baby about it? I’ll just change your diaper later. What do you say? Should I come back in, like, an hour?”

“W-wait,” I say. “Hold on just a second.” I don’t know what it is I’m willing to offer to make her stay–certainly not the truth–but I at least want to take another shot at talking her into changing my diaper.

But she’s not paying attention to me. She’s walking out the door, and closing it behind her.

And I remain tied up on the bed. Squishy and stinky.

===

I don’t know how much time has actually passed, but it feels like it’s been about an hour when the bedroom door opens and Not-Celia walks in again, a smug grin on her face.

“Well then,” she says. “It seems even stinkier now than it did the last time I was in here. Why, Little Bunny Poo-Poo, did you somehow manage to mess yourself a second time?”

I gotta give it to her, whoever she really is–’Little Bunny Poo-Poo’ is pretty good.

I shake my head. While I’m a little wetter than the last time she’s seen me, I don’t think I could mess again even if I wanted to–the back of the diaper is simply at capacity now. It’s probably just that her nose is re-acclimating to the stench of the room again. Or maybe my diaper’s contents are just fermenting over time, concocting new and terrifying scents the longer I sit here like this.

She reaches between my legs again, feeling the bottom of the diaper. I’d be willing to bet that there’s already a hand print squished into the diaper from the last time she did this. Still, she jostles the contents a little, letting out a cruel and girlish giggle.

“Gosh, it feels disgusting in there,” she says. “Like soup. That can’t possibly be comfortable.”

While I’d rather not give her the satisfaction of being right, I can’t help but shake my head again to confirm her suspicion.

“Poor baby,” she coos. “Poor, poor baby. What ever am I to do with you?”

“You could change me,” I say. I’ve been hesitant to say anything, afraid that I’ll just get the pacifier tied around my face again. But she’ll probably just do whatever she wants to anyways–I figure I might as well say what I can, while I can.

“Hmm, yes, I could,” she says, stroking her chin. “But I hope you didn’t forget the little transaction required for that to happen. You tell me what I want to know, and then you get your dirty little bottom cleaned.”

“How would you know that I’m telling you the truth?” I ask. It’s a question I’ve been pondering in the span of time between the last time she hovered above me and now.

She doesn’t respond to this, she just squints her eyes at me. 

I continue, despite not knowing whether or not it's in my best interest: “I’m assuming that you don’t want me to actually show you how I do it, because that would mean that I’m outta here, you know? And then you’d have to, like, chase me down again? Or whatever it is that you and Mother are doing. So all I can do is tell you about it instead. And you’re just going to have to take my word for it.”

She continues to stare down at me, that smirk of hers slowly morphing into a disappointed frown. I doubt she’ll ever come out and say that I’m right, but she doesn’t need to–I feel like I’ve won this round. Sort of–I’m still trapped in a very soiled diaper.

“It’s safe to assume that you need your appendages for your little trick to work,” Not-Celia sneers. “Seeing as you’re still here now.”

She’s kinda right. 

“So,” she says. “What is it, then? Some series of little hand movements, like you’re casting a spell or something? How’d you learn that?”

I think carefully–or as carefully as I’m capable of thinking–and answer only the latter question: “I figured it out on my own.”

“No way,” she says.

“Why don’t you believe me?”

“Because Mother doesn’t believe in happenstance. Someone showed you what to do. Who was it? Where did it happen?”

The amusing truth is that I could credit Mother herself for showing me what to do. It was a combination of her milk and her stimulating me that allowed me to reach the white space where I met Harriet. And, after learning that lesson, I used it to traverse deeper into the…multiverse–a word that still doesn’t feel right, with all its hokey comic book connotations, despite feeling like the most accurate.

“Alright,” I say. “You got me. It’s a combination of hand signals and spoken words. But as long as I’m restricted, I can’t do it.”

“What is it that you say during the ritual?” she asks.

Considering that the ‘ritual’ is just good, old fashioned, masturbation, her question is a little amusing to me. “I can’t, uh, do it now. It’s just something that comes out of me when I’m doing the gestures, you know? Like, it’s this whole thing. A trance-like state.”

Her eyes widen and she nods a little. Somehow, she seems to be buying this.

“Verbal and somatic,” she says softly to herself, like she’s making a mental note of it.

“Yeah, pretty much,” I say, unsure of what she means when she says that.

“So as long as I keep you tied up…”

“Right,” I say. “So long as I don’t have a full range of motion, I can’t do it.” I worry that I’m giving away too much information, though I’m also just making this shit up as I go.

Though, I suppose I do need my hands to perform the ritual of, you know, jerking off. Somewhere, deep in the recesses of my mind, I tell myself that there’s work arounds for this–that I can somehow find a way to pleasure myself without access to my hands. I don’t know what that way is, but I’m choosing to believe myself for now.

Not-Celia ponders this for a few more moments before nodding her head, seeming to accept this for now. “You probably think you’re owed a diaper change now, hmm?”

“Y-yes,” I say. “If you don’t mind.”

“Oh, I mind. But a deal is a deal.”

She stands at the foot of the bed and leans over me, her hands reaching to the diaper so that her fingers can peel up the tapes on the diaper. It occurs to me, as the tapes are released and the front of the filthy diaper is peeled back and laid between my open thighs, that while she seems to know the steps needed to change a diaper, she might not have ever done it before. It’s hard to say what instills this feeling in me beyond just experience–having now watched as a number of different people, from a number of different worlds, change my diaper.

“Who are you really?” I ask as she produces a rectangular plastic tub of baby wipes. Which, apparently, along with a stack of disposable diapers, she already has on hand.

“That’s not the business of little babies like you,” she says.

“I know Celia,” I say. “Or…another version of her. And I know that you’re not her.”

She scoffs.

Another thought comes to me, and I say: “Just as Mother is not Harriet Tuller, despite looking like her.”

Not-Celia’s face is unreadable as she slides a moist wipe over my skin in an effort to begin the work of cleaning up. She offers no response.

“Give me something,” I say. “Are you a ghost? An alien parasite? What’s your deal?”

“If you keep jabbering like this, baby, I’m going to put the pacifier back in your mouth. Do you want that?”

“No,” I say. “I just want to know who I’m talking to.”

“If I was to tell you the truth, you wouldn’t even be able to understand it.”

I’m reminded of a conversation I had a long time ago with Harriet in the white place. I had asked her a question about how she got there, and she had said something about needing to explain very big things before she could explain the little things. She had pointed up to the sky–or where a sky would’ve been if there were one–and mentioned how small we were, and how little we knew about everything.

This conversation feels a little like that one.

But I’ve learned more since then. I’ve traversed multiple dimensions. I’ve consumed a lot of magical milk. I feel like, maybe, I actually could begin to parse the mysteries of the cosmos.

“I think I’d understand more than you think,” I say.

She laughs, wiping away at my stinky bottom. “Typical child, thinking you know everything.”

And that’s the last thing she says to me for a while. She goes about diligently wiping me clean, discarding the old diaper, and sliding a new one under me before fastening it around me. Again, she seems to understand how it’s done, but there’s an unsteadiness in her motions telling me it’s her first time actually doing it. It’s been a while since this process felt this humiliating to me–there’s something strange and humbling about seeing a familiar face, and not knowing who is behind those eyes as they clean you after one of your worst moments. 

It’s not until she’s done and has left the room again that I realize the opportunity I’ve missed.

Maybe I don't need my own hands to get myself off. If I could somehow get Not-Celia to jerk me off instead, I’d have a ticket out of this place.

===

More time passes. The sun goes up and down a few times, but I’ve lost track of how often it's happened. It doesn’t seem like it should be that hard of a thing to count, but when I have nothing else to entertain me except for my own brain, it gets ridiculously easy to second-guess myself.

Has it been three days? No, four. Wait, it was definitely three. No…it was three yesterday. It was three two days ago. So it’s got to be five, right? No, three. No…

Not-Celia continues the routine of feeding me and changing me, though she seems to have little to say. My attempts at communicating with her are met with dismissive sighs or the pacifier being planted in my mouth again.

I beg her to untie me. My body can’t bear another second of being tied in this position. I need movement. I need to stretch. She’s skeptical, perhaps understandably so, but I am relentless in my bugging her about it.

“Tie me up in a different position if you have to. Or, untie me and let me roam around for a little under your supervision. Do whatever it is you need to do. Just let me move.”

My biggest fear is that Not-Celia isn’t human enough; that she has no empathy for someone like me. Maybe she sees me as a toy, or an object. My discomfort and pain could be nothing to her.

But then, when I’m on the verge of crying for the umpteenth time as she changes a wet diaper, she relents.

“I’ll untie you,” she says. “But you’ll remain in my sight at all times. And if you act up, or if I even think you’re about to act up, there’ll be consequences.”

“That’s fair,” I say.

“I’ll continue to tie you up at night, though.”

“Okay.”

“And when I have to leave.”

“Yes, that’s fine.”

And so, after a thick diaper is wrapped around me, Not-Celia methodically walks to each corner of the bed, unfastening the ropes that she’s used to keep me in place. With the release of each limb comes a simultaneous wave of relief and a new ache in my stiff muscles. Still, it feels more good than bad.

“Is that better?” she asks. I honestly can’t tell if she actually cares or if she’s being sarcastic.

“That’s good,” I say.

I’m not allowed to leave the room, but that’s fine. It feels good to walk around the short distance that I can. It feels good to just stand and stretch. She stations herself at the door, seated in a chair while she watches me like a vigilant gargoyle. 

Much like the rest of the house, this bedroom–now that I have the chance to get a more thorough look at it–seems gutted and broken down. Shelves are empty and there are bare spots on the walls where it's obvious that pictures and posters used to hang. It’s as if the space has been scrubbed of anything with a semblance of Celia’s personality.

And so where is the true Celia of this world, if Not-Celia is not it? And what of her father–who even if he wasn’t living here often, was liable to show up eventually? I doubt these are questions Not-Celia would be willing to answer, and so I don’t even bother bringing them up.

“Can I have a book or something?” I ask. I point to the TV in the corner of Celia’s room: “This place have cable?”

“You’re annoying,” she says. “Can’t you just sit there and be quiet?”

“That’s all I have been doing.”

She scoffs. “You whine like an actual child. You belong in diapers.”

“So…what’s next?” I ask. 

“Hm?”

“You’ve got me where you want me. You’re stopping me from going anywhere else. What now? Do you send me back to Mother?”

She seems to carefully consider this question for a moment before shrugging and saying, simply: “No.”

“No? No…what?”

“I won’t be sending you anywhere. Nobody is coming to retrieve you.”

“Ever?”

“Right.”

“So…” I can’t help but laugh. “Seriously, that’s it? This is the rest of my life? Trapped in a house here with you? In diapers? Getting tied up?”

I’d like to think that by pointing out this absurdity to Not-Celia, she’d second-guess this plan herself, but she only offers the most apathetic shrug.

“That’s insane,” I say. “You realize that, right?”

“It’s how Mother wants it–for you to be neutralized.”

“Neturalized? You make it sound like you’re going to kill me.”

“If you’d rather that, it makes no difference to me.”

“Woah, woah. This conversation is going in the wrong direction.”

“My only purpose,” Not-Celia says, “is to make sure that you stay put. By whatever means necessary.”

“What about you?” I ask.

“What about me?”

“Don’t you have a life? A greater purpose? Wants and needs? If you’re expected to, like, spend the rest of your life babysitting me, what kind of life is that?”

Unfazed, she just shakes her head and smirks. “Sorry to disappoint you, Baby. But I’m your entire future, and you’re mine. And that’s fine by me.”

===

It seems unwise to assume too much, though I wonder if there’s a few things that can be extrapolated from my conversations with Not-Celia. Like, for instance, that while I have the means to traverse the multiverse (still a silly thing to reference), does Mother not? Hence, why she isn’t coming to collect me herself? She’s at least aware of the fact that I can jump between worlds, though I’m unsure yet of how that is.

Not-Celia, too, is also unable to travel like I do. Which could mean…what, that she’s always been here? 

And, since it came up, I've been thinking about death. Can I die here? What happens to my physical body, wherever it is? Or…is this my physical body? Or…is this…

I never get too far into that train of thought. It just hurts my head.

They want me to stay here. Or, more specifically, they just don’t want me to keep jumping to new worlds. And why would that be? It could just be a control thing–a frustration about how I can do something that she can’t. Maybe Mother’s afraid of what I’ll find out there–like the answer to how one goes about overthrowing her? If I’m allowed to continue, there’s a chance that I could one day be a threat to her. 

Regardless, Not-Celia seems to think that I’m here forever; that this is the last stop on the Alfie Worlds Tour. I should probably take this more seriously, but it hasn’t really bothered me yet. Maybe I’m being cocky, but I just can’t help but think that, eventually, I’ll find a way out of this place. I’d hate to be wrong about that, but the hope keeps me strong.

Sooner or later, I choose to believe, I’ll get Not-Celia’s hand around my cock, and she’ll unknowingly send me right out of this place.

===

I’m sitting on the edge of the bed, flipping through pages of a cooking magazine from about eight years ago–fantasizing about what this chicken cacciatore I’m looking at might taste like–when I feel a sudden, urgent pressure in my bowels. This wouldn’t be the first time that what’s about to transpire next has happened in front of Not-Celia in the days that I’ve been her captive, though it never seems to get easier.

I slide off the edge of the bed into a squatting position as my arms wrap around my abdomen. At the same time that I let a long moan out from my mouth, there’s a splattery explosion–albeit muffled–coming from the other end of me that’s currently diapered. The back of my padding instantly droops and changes color as I dump the soft contents of my bowels into it. Whatever it is that she feeds me in her bottles causes every movement to be like this. 

I helplessly moan again as my body braces itself for round two. The diaper gets heavier, and the pungent smell–both sweet and rotten–further fills the room.

And Not-Celia, who has just been watching me from her chair by the door this entire time, smiles and watches the whole thing happen. 

“Poor, poor little boy,” she coos as I feel the last bit of it slip past my anus. “Did you have another accident?”

This–me needing a diaper change–is the only thing that she ever seems excited by. Nothing else seems to matter to her, but she’s always ready to condescend me as soon as my diaper gets heavier.

When I don’t respond to her, she says: “Aw, I see. Too bashful to even respond to me now?”

I have an idea that I’ve been meaning to try out–one of the many things I think about when I’m tied to the bed, or left to just stare into the abyss in this stripped down room while she watches me from her chair.

“I…I poopied my diapy, Mommy,” I say–putting my all into this performance. I want to sound cloying and pathetic. I want to sound like I’m lost in the moment and that I believe I’m the baby I’ve been made to act like.

She giggles, and leaves the chair so that she can strut a little closer to me. “Well that’s new,” she says. “Mommy, huh?”

Maybe this won’t amount to anything, but I want to see where this goes. If the only thing she ever seems to enjoy is teasing me and treating me like a baby, then I’m going to lean into it and see where it goes.

“Mommy…uhm…baby stinky.”

Maybe, under the influence of the milk at The Cradle, I’ve acted this way before and meant it. My memories of those moments, when the pull of the milk is at its strongest, are hazy and vague now. 

She giggles again. “Mmhmm, yes you are, little boy. You made big stinkies in your diaper, haven’t you?”

“Yeth,” I say, my word slurred by my thumb, which I’ve slid into my mouth.

As silly as I feel, it’s surprisingly easy to get into this role. It does seem well-suited for me. But I’ve considered this possibility, and I’ve decided that this is a good thing. I want to slip into my role. I want to roll over, in a sense, and show Not-Celia my figurative belly. I want to disarm her, and entice her to play with me even more. 

“Aw, just look at you,” she coos. “You’re so adorable when you’re a filthy little mess.”

“Mommy. Me need changies.”

There’s a new softness in her face. A slight pinkening of her cheeks. “I know,” she says softly. “I know, dear. Come up on the bed for me.”

I stand up and turn to climb onto the bed, only for her hand to smack my bottom a few times, sending its creamy contents splatting and smushing into new areas of my diaper. It’s humiliating, though that’s not all it is. By letting myself ‘be’ small, I’m easily sliding into a different headspace. For the first time since my arrival on this world, the feeling of a dirty diaper–and Not-Celia’s hand on my bottom–is also arousing. I feel my cock growing in the front of my diaper, pushing its way through the moist, dense, padding.

No sooner than I flop down on the mattress, on my back, Not-Celia seems to notice this as well–her eyes growing large and curious as she spots the new bulge in my diaper.

“Why, baby–what is this?”

“Uhm…”

“I’ve never seen this before,” she coos. “Is this lump right here for meeee?” She reaches forward, gently stroking the bulge with the back of her hand. Just her touch–the slightest amount of pressure on my member–sends an excited pulse through my body.

Yes, pleeease! Please touch me. Keep going.

“Ah-ah-ah,” she tuts, waving a finger at me. “One thing at a time.”

She starts every diaper change by tying me to the bed again if I’m not already secured in place. Her justification for this being that she doesn’t want me to ‘work my magic’ while her hands are busy cleaning my swampy diaper. It’s smart thinking, even if it only indirectly prevents me from making my escape from this world.

Not-Celia seems to get better at changing my diaper every time she changes me. She’s practically a professional now, swiftly moving through the process without any hesitations. The tapes are peeled away, one at a time, and the diaper is opened between my legs. Though I cannot see what she does, I have a good idea as to what she’ll find: a sea of brown that coats the inside of the diaper, as well as my thighs and bottom, and my manhood as it stands at attention–a stoic flagpole rising from the humiliating abyss.

“Goodness,” she says, giggling again. “Someone sure is happy to have filled their pampers up for me, hm?”

My thumb back in my mouth again, I moan with affirmation.

“What ever shall I do with this,” she teases, playfully poking my stiff member with her fingers so that it wobbles to and fro. Quite amused with this, she lets out another girlish squeal.

I just don’t understand Not-Celia. If my infantilization brings her such delight, can’t something else? Why is she so comfortable with dedicating the rest of her life to preventing me from ever doing anything again? Who is she in relation to Mother? How did she get here? How long has she been Not-Celia–assuming there was a time when this world really did have a Celia?

Well.

If a day comes where I can ask those questions of her, I doubt she’ll give me the answers.

So when I leave this world–whether it’s now or later–I’ll be leaving without answers. Just another mystery of the very large cosmos that Harriet once tried to warn me of.

I think I can make peace with that.

“Hmm,” Not-Celia muses, her eyes hungrily staring at my cock. “I bet you’d love it if I played with this, hmm?”

“Mm…Mommy…” It’s easy, in this moment, to forget that I’m setting a trap for Not-Celia. I’m reminded of my joy of diapers, of the pleasure that comes from being babied and talked down to. This feels good–the best I’ve felt in a while. There’s even a small part of me that wants to stop her as her hand grips my cock–willing to sacrifice the potential for an orgasm for a few more days of blissful baby-space.

“I probably shouldn’t be rewarding you like this,” she says. “But I have to admit, I do love the look on your face when I’m touching you. You like this, baby boy? Do you like when I touch your naughty bits while you’re still all messy and stinky?”

I groan, my body automatically thrusting myself further into her hand. 

This seems too good to be true. Too easy.

But it’s happening. She’s really stroking my cock right now. She’s into it–enjoying herself. She’s watching my face intently, studying me like I was at text book.

“Dirty little boy is going to make another big mess soon, isn’t he?”

“Mm…”

I realize, perhaps a moment or two too late–right around the time when I feel myself tensing up for an orgasmic release–that I might have misplayed my hand a little here. After this, will Not-Celia, and by association Mother, now know my secret for jumping between worlds?

Not much I can do about it now. 

“Oh my, look at you,” she coos. “Is someone going to make their little squirties already?”

I try to mumble something: “S-see…you…”

She giggles. “What’s that, sweetheart?”

“See you later…sucker.”

And the world around me seems to crumble away as I climax.

Fifty-Three: Maxine’s Story

First, there’s this grogginess–a momentarily unshakable haze as my mind tries to take the few context clues that I have and make sense of things once more. My instincts are devoted to finding answers to the most simple of questions: Where am I? How did I get here? Am I in danger?

Then, my consciousness switches on, and I’m better able to reasonably assess my current situation. 

I’m lying in the grass, my head resting against the trunk of a fallen tree that’s just about the right height to emulate a pillow.

I remind myself that this has happened before–waking up in a vulnerable state in a place that I don’t know, without any clue of what awaits me here–and that this probably won’t even be the last time it happens. 

Which is all summarized by my muttering of: “Well, let’s see what kind of shit I’ve stepped into this time.”

I’m used to waking up naked. I don’t like it, but I’ve come to accept that this is the way ‘it’ works. Either clothes can’t traverse these worlds like I can, or perhaps there’s some cosmic force that goes out of its way to remove my clothes while I’m en route just because it likes fucking with me.

Except… 

I am wearing clothes this time. Not much–a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. My t-shirt. The Life Aquatic shirt. There are also sandals on my feet–a welcome change of pace from having to tromp around with bare feet for a while after waking.

And, I find as I spread my legs apart and bring them together again, there’s a telltale squishing between my thighs that suggests that I’m already diapered. A clean diaper, by the feel of it. I was not wearing a clean diaper when I left the last place I was in, which only makes this more curious.

“Wakey wakey, baby,” a voice says. I can’t really tell where the voice is coming from, though there’s something familiar about the tone. It’s a voice I know well, but one I haven’t heard in a while.

It might be…

I prop myself up into a sitting position and spin my head around–both to view my surroundings and to look for the person who just spoke to me. At first, all I see is the lush grass of a small field surrounded on most of its sides by forest, with a little trail or road that borders the last side. While the place itself is one I’m not familiar with, I feel like I know the bigger forest that this is a part of–the California wilderness, where The Cradle is. Or should be. 

Another world. A new set of mysteries about how and why this place is different from the one I’ve come from.

I see her, at last, standing near me, but a little behind where I’m situated. I slowly, unsteadily rise to my feet, brushing blades of grass and dirt from my pants. At first I refuse to believe it’s who I think it is, and I stare at her intently, as if trying to find a way to prove it’s an illusion. Black pants, a ratty metal band shirt and a stretched out cardigan pulled over it.

“Alfie,” Maxine says, smiling at me. “It’s good to see you.”

===

We’re seated on the fallen tree now like it's a bench. She sits next to me and lightly caresses my back as I rub the last remnants of sleep from my eyes.

“You’re really…you?” I ask.

She laughs. “I hope so.”

“But you’re not…”

“No,” she says. “Not your Maxine. But a Maxine.”

“We’re in California?”

“Yes.”

“You knew I’d be here?”

“Yes.”

“H-how? I mean…”

“We don’t have to get into all that right now, do we?” she asks. Her hair is a little longer than I remember it being, and it might even be a slightly darker shade now. Her tired eyes make her look older than she is.

Tears well in my eyes and I towards her to embrace her. She reciprocates. I’m sobbing now. It doesn’t matter if she’s ‘my’ Maxine or some other version–it’s still her. She feels familiar in my arms. She even smells familiar–the same sweet-scented body spray or lip gloss she’s used since I first met her. 

I pause for a moment, considering Not-Celia. What if this Maxine isn’t real either?

No, I say to myself. I know Maxine. I’m willing to trust my instincts. I’d know my ‘her’ on any world.

“Max…how?”

She laughs. “I bet the story of how you’ve gotten to this very moment is pretty long and crazy, huh?”

I nod. “An understatement.”

“Yeah, well… I’ve got a story like that too.”

===

We walk down the road a little ways together, towards the car that Maxine says she’s parked about a half mile away. Her pace is a little faster than mine, mostly on account of my diaper-induced waddle, though she quickly adapts and does a better job of matching my speed.

I want to hold her hand–I feel like I could really benefit from the feeling of her hand in mine right now. But for as familiar as she seems, I need to remind myself that she’s a stranger.

She shoots down most of my questions, each time stating that it’d be better if we just didn’t worry about those things for now. If I want answers, they’ll come later when she can tell me everything.

“What about me?” I finally ask. “Like…the me who lives here? At least tell me that.”

“You’re fine,” she says. “Uh…he is fine.”

“You mean that? Safe and secure? Healthy? Living his best life?”

“He’s alright,” she says. “I promise.” There’s a hint of something in her tone. Frustration? Indifference? I don’t feel that it’s aimed towards me. Perhaps this world’s Alfie is a pain in the ass too.

I briefly wonder why she didn’t just drive her car all the way up to the field, though the condition of the old road, and its deep potholes, answer that concern for me. Eventually, though, I spot a newer-model white SUV stopped and abandoned in the center of the road. I suppose it’s safe to say that there’s no other traffic on this road that would be impeded by its presence there.

“Is that yours?” I ask. Probably a silly question, but I’ve never seen the car before. It looks expensive–the kind of thing my Maxine would never be caught in. 

She nods, waving for me to follow her towards it. “Come on.”

“Where are we going?”

“Are you hungry?”

Food is the last thing on my mind, but the thought of it does make my stomach gurgle a little. “Yeah, sure, I could eat.”

“I know a place,” she says. 

I can take a pretty good guess as to where we’ll be going, and it conjures memories of meeting Not-Celia in the parking lot. I do my best to let that fear go for now, I’d rather be happy right now. Being greeted by Sam in this world is such a nice alternative to being captured or imprisoned.

“You got to give me something,” I say to her while she drives down the narrow dirt road. “I wake up in god-knows-where and you’re here waiting for me? Like…I think I deserve an explanation.”

“Right now, on the other side of the country,” she says, “Alfie–the one I’ve always known–is working. He’s oblivious to the fact that I’m here. He doesn’t know I’m in California, and he definitely doesn’t know that you are in the car with me right now. In fact, there’s a lot he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know about The Cradle. Or Mother. Or milk. He’s never experienced those things, and he’ll never have to. Blissfully ignorant, I’d say–his natural state.”

“Ouch,” I say softly, taking it personally, despite the fact that she’s talking about someone else.

“Hit close to home, does it?”

I shrug, my cheeks blushing. To get back on topic: “And yet you know about them. Milk and Mother and all that. You know about these things but the Alfie here doesn’t?”

She shrugs. “I bet you think that’s pretty weird, huh?”

“To say the least.”

“Yes, well, despite the fact that the Alfie I know is oblivious to all this you’ve still managed to pull me in and involve me,” she says.

“Me?” I ask. “I…I didn’t do anything to you…”

“Not you,” she says, sighing. “God, isn’t this ‘mulitple realities’ thing fucking exhausting?”

I nod. “A little.”

“Believe it or not,” she says, “you’re not even the second Alfie I’ve ever talked to.”

“That sounds like the start of an interesting story.”

“Maybe,” she says. “But hold that thought for a second..”

I scoff. “Oh, come on. Seriously? You’re going to keep doing this? Pausing right before you start to tell me what’s going on?”

She chuckles a little. “You’re just like him, you know?”

“Alfie?” I ask. It’s really, really strange, referring to someone else with the same name–someone else who is, essentially, me.

She nods. “All of you Alfies are the same.”

“Well, I should hope so. But, uh, you’re just like my Maxine too.”

That would explain the near-instant rapport we seem to have with each other. In a way, we kind of have known each other for quite a while. 

“Look, I know you’re not going to like me asking you this,” she says. “But before we get to town I just thought I should check and, you know, make sure your, uh…diaper is okay.”

I swallow hard, my cheeks warming considerably as I stare out the passenger side window to avoid eye-contact with her. 

“It’s…good.” Then, something occurs to me: “Did…you dress me?”

She nonchalantly shrugs as she stares out the windshield.

“You found me? Naked? And you put clothes on me? You put a diaper on me?”

“I was kind of hoping we didn’t have to talk about that,” she says.

“But you…”

“Oh, come on, Alfie. It’s not like it’s anything I haven’t seen before. Besides, isn’t it better that you woke up with a little bit of dignity.”

“Well…thank you. But…”

“But?”

“Well, you know where I was going to be. And you knew when I was going to be there. And you knew that I was going to be naked. And you knew that, uh…I’m Alfie, but not your Alfie.”

“I’ve changed your diaper before,” she says, shooting me a playful smirk. “Or so I’ve heard.”

“Uh…” My face gets warmer.

“That never happened to me, of course,” she says. “I put you into a diaper, just a little bit ago. It was kind of fun, in a weird way. Maybe I’m missing out on whatever fun the other versions of myself are having.”

“You seem, uh, awfully comfortable with the idea of the multiverse.”

She laughs and shakes her head. “Well, sure. Now I am. You should’ve seen my face when it was first explained to me, though.”

I’m laughing too, now–imagining how ‘my’ Maxine would react if I tried to explain these recent events to her. She’d probably zone out and roll her eyes and make a playful jab about how I read too many comic books.

I say: “I wish I was here to have seen that.”

“You were,” she says. “In a way.”

===

This Harper’s Bell is no different than the Harper’s Bell I was just at where I met Not-Celia. Identical, as best as I can tell. This, too, may be a world without a Cradle.

“I hope this place is good,” Maxine says, pulling into the Harper’s Dinner Bell parking lot. “It’s, like, the only place to eat around here.”

I want to laugh, and I want to scream. Get me the hell away from this place. Alas, I calm myself as best I can and try to play it off like everything’s cool. Food does sound good, and I’m just going to cross my fingers that the Celia here isn’t also some sort of agent of Mother.

Of course, Celia is here and she’s also our server. Moments after we take a seat in a booth–perhaps, even, the same one that Nikki and I sat in when we first came to town–she sidles up to our table, a big customer-service grin on her face.

“Hey,” she says. “I’m Celia, I’ll be taking care of you today. From out of town, are ya?”

“Is it that obvious?” Maxine asks.

“Maybe,” she shrugs. “But also, I know everybody in town, so it's pretty easy to spot the new faces.”

“You, uh, get a lot of visitors here?” I ask. 

She shrugs. “Not really, no.”

I have the slightest pang of deja vu. In another world, I had almost the same exact conversation with her once. The thought of this makes me queasy–a reminder that I’m fucking with things that are so far beyond me.

“So,” she says, not missing a beat. “While you’re looking at the menus, how about I get you something to drink?”

A few minutes later, and we’re slurping on fountain sodas and waiting for our food to arrive. Maxine shakes her head incredulously. “Seriously, tacos? Who’d order tacos from a place like this?”

“Uh, so…” I don’t mean to change the subject, but every moment that passes without me getting answers is like a headache whose intensity gets turned up a notch on some figurative dial. “You’ve got a story to tell me?”

“Here?” she asks.

“I don’t care where it happens. Here is as fine as any other place.”

She shrugs. “Yeah, alright. Well…I feel like I need to preface this by saying that all of this might sound completely insane.”

I really do laugh this time–an abrupt squawk that causes my cheeks to redden when I realize how loud I am. “S-sorry. It’s just that, uh… Look, I’ve seen a lot of weird shit. You just tell me the story, no matter how weird you think it’s going to get.”

“Fine,” she says. “You asked for it.”

I excitedly nod, eager to hear what she’s got in store for me.

“Everything was, you know, completely normal,” she says–her version of ‘Once upon a time.’ “Well, as normal as my life ever is. I have a girlfriend at college. …uhm, had a girlfriend? Things are complicated on that front right now, but that’s for neither her nor there.”

“A girlfriend,” I say. “What about, like, you and me?”

She shakes her head. “We broke up when I went to school. “

“Why?”

She sighs. “Look, this story is convoluted enough as it is. You and me are a whole other story. Maybe we can talk about that later or something.”

“Yeah, fair enough. Go on.”

===

Maxine’s Story, as told by Maxine

You came and visited me on campus one afternoon, a few weeks ago. Now, I don’t want to make you feel bad or anything–maybe you’re different from the Alfie I know, in this regard–but I was really surprised to see you. Not just because it was a random, unannounced visit, but because this wasn’t the sort of thing you ever did. 

I just so happened to see you before you saw me. You were standing there on one of the sidewalks, a bookbag slung over your shoulder. I watched you for a minute as you wandered around aimlessly. I guess it made sense–you’ve never been to campus before, and you probably didn’t know where to find me. It was just luck–fate, if you want to play that game–that I happened to spot you. Who knows how long you were blundering around before I approached you.

You were happy to see me. Like, way happier than I would’ve expected. You didn’t take our breakup very well, you know, and I just assumed you still resented me. But there you were, practically blubbering like a baby when I touched your shoulder.

You said that it was really good to see me. I believed you meant that, but I couldn’t understand why you needed to see me that bad at all. It hadn’t been that long since I had seen you last, and–like I said–given the way that last conversation went, I assumed you wouldn’t want anything else to do with me.

You looked different. Your hair was a little longer, a little shaggier. You had some stubble on your face. It didn’t really seem purposeful, I guess, it just looked kind of patchy–more like you just hadn’t thought about shaving in a while as opposed to trying something new. You looked crazed and desperate to me. And, yeah, I was concerned. Not just for you, but for me too. Like, should I be worried about a crazed version of my ex showing up at my school out of nowhere?

The best plan of action, I decide, is to get you away from other people. Clearly you want to talk to me anyway, and I don’t need my peers seeing me trying to comfort some loon, right?

And I’m sorry if that offends you. When I say ‘you’ I don’t mean you. You get me?

I was supposed to be in class, but I said ‘fuck it’ and dragged you back to my dorm. Thank goodness June, my roommate, wasn’t there, because I didn’t want to have to feel guilty about asking her to give me some space. 

By the time we get to my dorm, you’ve calmed down a bit. Instead, you just seem a little embarrassed about everything–making a scene and showing up unexpectedly. You apologized profusely, and I assured you that I forgave you. Honestly, I don’t know that I actually had at that point–I was kind of pissed at you, but I wasn’t going to say anything.

And speaking of ‘pissed,’ well… That was one of the first things I noticed after we were in my room: you smelled kinda bad. You smelled like pee. Mind you, I don’t think I thought of ‘pee’ in the moment–that’s more of a hindsight thing. At that moment, you just smelled…dirty.

I told you so. You seemed a little embarrassed about it, but not entirely troubled, which I thought was strange. And your pants weren’t wet–I specifically remember checking that, trying to figure out if you had actually pissed yourself or not. As best as I could tell I hadn’t.

Of course, knowing what I know now, it’s safe to say that you were wet. You know what I mean?

I made you sit down–on June’s chair, not mine–and I told you to explain yourself. Almost immediately, you jump into this rambling tirade about magical milk and California and your brother in law and I just had to shut you down. 

I thought you were crazy. I thought you had, like, legit lost your mind. I was going to call your mom or your dad and tell them to come collect you, hoping that they’d see you need some sort of psychologist’s help.

But then you said: “I want you to call me.”

“Call you?” I asked. “Call you what?”

“No, no. I want you to call me on the phone. You have your cell phone, right? Give my number a call right now.”

I didn’t get what your game was. Was this some sort of trick or stunt? Or was I going to call your phone and activate some sort of…bomb. Alfie, I’m telling you–that’s how worried I was about you: At that moment, I seriously believed that you were capable of planting a bomb somewhere.

I don’t know how, but you convinced me to give your phone a call. Maybe I just agreed to do it because I thought I could somehow prove that you were being crazy and I needed to take further action. 

So, I found your contact in my phone–I had actually changed the name from ‘Alfie’ to ‘Dumbass’ at some point since we had last spoke–and I called you.

Maybe you can guess what happened next?

I stared at you–the you that was sitting across the room from me in June’s chair–waiting to see one of your pockets light up or to hear something in your backpack vibrating. Instead, someone answered the phone.

It was you.

“Maxine,” you said. “Is everything okay?” And that was the freakiest fucking thing, because it sounded just like you, right? But I’m looking at you at that moment, and you’re not talking.

The ‘you’ on the phone sounded startled. Understandable, I guess, since you probably weren’t expecting a random call from me.

“Alfie,” I said. “Where are you right now?”

“Uh…home?” you said. You laughed, like I asked the most ridiculous question. “Why?”

“I just…” I thought that maybe I was talking to a recording. AI? Can AI even do that? I asked: “What time is it right now?”

You told me the exact time. The exact date. And then you laughed again and said something stupid like: “What, did you lose your watch and needed a hand? There’s easier ways of getting the date and time, Max.”

I wanted to mention that I was currently looking at someone who looked and sounded exactly like him, who was in the same room as me, but I didn’t. I don’t know why–maybe it just seemed smarter to withhold that information, just in case I could use it to catch the version of you I was talking to in a lie.

“You’ve been home all day?” I asked the person I was talking to on the phone.

You laughed again. “Pretty much. Maxine, you’re starting to concern me a little. Is everything okay?”

I couldn’t truly believe that I was talking to Alfie on the phone while seeing a different version of Alfie right in front of me–I just couldn’t wrap my head around it. This was a trick, or a stunt, or some kind of, I don’t know…tomfoolery.

Trying to catch the Alfie on the phone off guard, I asked him a question that I thought that only you–the true you–would know the answer to: “What is Pillow Pete’s one weakness?”

On the other line, you chuckled softly. “Are you serious right now, Maxine?”

“Alfie, just answer the question.”

“Maxine, you made it pretty clear that you didn’t want to talk to me, and I haven’t heard from you in a while. And now you’re calling me out of the blue and you’re acting all weird, and…”

“Please, Alfie. Just answer the damn question for me, okay?”

Even if he was a little hesitant to do so, he said…

Well, he told me the answer. I’m not going to tell you what he said, because I’ll want to see if you know the answer too when I’m done with this story. But he gave me the answer and it was correct.

I didn’t know what else to say, so I said I had to go and that maybe we’d talk another time. I ended the call before he could respond.

Sitting in June’s chair in my dorm room, you had a smug smile on your face, like you had just proven some point, even if I had no idea what point that was.

“What’s going on here, Alfie? I want the answer. And I want it right now.”

You told me that it was a very long story, and I said that I didn’t care. I wanted to hear all of it.

And so you told it to me. You started from the very beginning–when Anders had gone missing in California, and how you and Nikki went to go retrieve him. And you told me about The Cradle. And milk. And Mother. You told me about coming home and how you and I decided that we would just be friends with benefits before you went back to California. You told me about some festival. About how you stopped some literal clowns from stealing the supposedly ‘magic’ milk. You told me about how Mother might’ve, like, zonked you out or something and you were transported to some other world where, uh, you were with…like…Mother, but she isn’t Mother… Honestly, from this point on, the story gets kind of hard to follow.

Needless to say, you told me a lot of things. Stuff that was pretty hard to believe, though it was all stuff that you seemed to believe yourself.

I asked you the same question I asked whoever it was that I talked to on the phone: “What is Pillow Pete’s one weakness?” It was an in-joke you and I had for a little while, something that we had kind of both stopped referencing even before we broke up. But I thought it was just the kind of thing that you–the real you–would remember and know the answer to. And even if you had coached someone else to serve as an imposter on the phone–like this was some fucked up practical joke–it’s not likely you would’ve thought to tell them about.

You–the you in my dorm room–gave me the right answer.

“It’s me,” you said. “Not the ‘me’ you know, but it’s…me. And I need your help.”

I honestly wasn’t sure if I believed you, or if I was just humoring you. If nothing else, I was curious.

“First things first,” I said. “You’re stinking up my dorm room. June’s going to kill me if I don’t do something about that.”

Your face got beat red. “I…need to change.”

“Do you have a change of clothes with you?” I asked.

You laughed a little and shook your head. “I don’t mean my clothes…”

I realized, then, that you meant…a diaper.

I don’t know why, but that was like the thing that made me start to believe that all the nonsense you just spouted might have been true. Like, of all the things to like about, who would choose a dependency on diapers? Who would sit here in my dorm room in a wet-ass diaper, stinking up the place with it?

I asked if you needed to go use the dorm’s bathroom. You said you’d rather not attend to your little issue there, and that seemed understandable. So, I told you that you were welcome to use my room. I don’t think you liked that much either, though it was probably the best option.

“Do you want me to leave the room?” I asked.

You said that I didn’t have to. Fine. I assured you that I’d give you some space and I’d just, like, look away or something. I went so far as to offer you my bed if it was a useful place for you to change, though you said you were fine taking care of business right there on the floor, in the space in the center of the room between my bed and June’s.

Now…I know I said that I’d look away and give you privacy–but I peeked pretty early on and saw that you were so wrapped up in your process that you weren’t paying much attention to me. So, yeah, I’m not ashamed to admit that I watched. All it took was one glance and I knew that I wouldn’t be able to look away even if I wanted to. You were so methodical, the way that you flattened yourself onto your back, pants discarded and set aside. You peeled away the tapes of your diaper and unfolded the thing, letting the front of it flop down between your open thighs. Your pubic hair was gone–that area pristine and clean shaven. I’ve seen your junk plenty of times before, Alfie, and there’s always been hair there. Not that it matters, I guess–just saying.

The inside of the diaper was stained yellow, and all I could think about was how heavy that must’ve felt on you. And the smell–I was definitely thinking about that too, the scent of your pee seemed to get a lot stronger with your diaper open. 

From your bag, you pulled out another diaper and a slim plastic package of baby wipes. Only more recently have I wondered where and when you got those, as I know you didn’t have them when you first arrived. You went about cleaning yourself with efficiency and speed, using three or four wipes to completely wipe down your front, bottom, and back sides that had been in contact with the wet diaper. The dirty diaper pulled out from under you, and the wipes tucked into the center of it, you bundled the whole thing up into a tight little package before pulling a plastic shopping bag from your backpack and depositing your bundle into it. The bag was tied shut and set aside. You unfolded the diaper and laid it out between your legs before pulling it under your body. All that was left to do at that point was fold it over yourself and tape it up, which you did in just a few swift movements.

It was only when you were finished, and sitting up again–your crinkly diaper making noise underneath you–that you saw that I had been watching you.

You blushed, of course, doing that thing you do where you run your hand through your hair when you want to pretend you’re cooler than you feel. “Were you watching the whole time?”

I nodded.

“It’s probably better I didn’t know,” you said, laughing.

“Why’s that? Too embarrassing?”

“Ah, well, sure…some of that. But you and me–in different worlds–we’ve had some, uh, crazy times together. I look at you and I can’t help but think about them.”

“So…I’ve changed your diaper for you before?” I ask.

You nodded, face getting even more crimson. “Oh yes. There are worlds in which you’ve been an exceptional Mommy.”

For the first time since showing up at my university, something you said had bothered me. Maybe it wasn’t the words, but the insinuation–the suggestion–that you’d prefer that I was a little more like another version of me you had encountered in your travels.

“Really, though,” I said. “Why are you here?”

And he said…

===

“Hold that thought,” I say to Maxine, holding my hand out to her from across the table in our diner booth. As entranced as I am in this story, and as badly as I want to hear more, the diner’s entrance has opened and someone awfully familiar looking has entered. 

I swing my hand at Maxine as I stare at the door, trying to get her attention and draw her eyes to the same thing I’m looking at. I finally do, finger tips grazing her chest. “What the–” But then her eyes follow in the direction I’m pointing, and she sees him too.

It’s me.

It’s Alfie. 

Yet another one. This one wearing a pair of baggy brown pants, some boots, and a plaid button-up. Not quite my aesthetic, but it’s probably not quite his either. I wonder where he got it from.

If this isn’t the version of me that’s native to this world, and I don’t think it is, then that means there are at least three of us here now. Not counting the version of me from Maxine’s story–who, judging by the look of surprise on Maxine’s face right now, it probably isn’t.

I never thought I’d have to say such a thing before, but here we are: “I think there’s a few too many Alfies in this world.”

***

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She wrestles me down to the ground, pulling me down with more force than I think each of us are expecting. The wooden chair I had been tied to previously is knocked over and my back hits the cement floor with a sudden thud. Quickly rolling over my side so to pin me onto the ground, Skylar looks down at my face.

“What the hell, man? What was that all about?”

“Uh…”

“Did you really get that worked up over everyone touching you earlier?” she asks. “Are men always like this, and I just forgot?”

I don’t think the pain hurt me too bad, that I feel an ache radiating through my lower back. My hands, free from my diaper and pinned at my sides, unconsciously squirm like they’re trying to worm their way back to where they just were.

“Sorry,” I say. “I’m really not trying to cause any trouble here…”

“Yeah, obviously. You just want to jack off in front of me, is that it?”

“I’m not trying to be crude or anything.”

“Is that the amnesia?” she asks. “Did you forget how to act like a fucking human?”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I sigh. “I won’t do that again, okay?”

“Seriously, tell me what the hell that was about?”

“I got carried away,” I say, sighing. It’s not the truth, but it’s the best answer I can come up with that doesn’t make me sound like either a maniac or a pervert. Or, a perverted maniac.

She laughs, though I can’t tell if it’s because she actually finds this funny, or if it’s one of those ominous “I’m laughing because I’m about to destroy you” laughs.

“How long has it been since you’ve seen a woman, anyways?” she asks.

“Uh…” Probably not as long as she thinks it’s been. I just came from a world where giant women tried to baby me. And before that, a world where my only company was a woman. And before that…well, there were plenty of women in my life back at home. Some might even say ‘too many,’ though I don’t think such a thing is possible. But seeing as how these cheerleaders are acting like they almost never see men anymore, I wonder if that means there’s factions of men somewhere that haven’t had any interaction with the womenfolk for quite a while. Seems dangerous, honestly–I’ve seen how men get when they’ve become desperate. 

Still, in the interest of providing a universe-specific response, I say: “I’m sure it’s been a while. Though I don’t really remember.”

“Hm,” she grunts. “That’s fair.”

“Has it, uh, been a while for you?” I ask. “Like, since you’ve been with a guy?” The conversation feels a little strange while our limbs are tangled up on the floor and I’m being pinned down, but this is hardly the strangest thing that’s happened to me today.

“Virgin,” she mutters. “I didn’t get any before The Blow Out, and it’s not like there’s been a dating scene since.”

At the risk of sounding like her therapist, I ask: “How do you feel about that?”

She snorts–a sound reminiscent of one Nikki would make. “It’s fine, I guess. Besides, you know I’m not defined by my sexual history, right?”

“Y-you’re the one who brought up being a virgin…”

Skylar sighs, and I feel a sudden release of tension around us as she relaxes her hold on me. “Look, I’m sorry about throwing you on the ground. But…just don’t, like, start touching yourself in front of me again, alright? It’s fucking creepy.”

I nod. “Sorry.” Maybe my intentions were less perverse than she thinks, but I don’t think I’d ever be able to explain that to her effectively. 

I do need to get myself off at some point, but I’ll have to find another time for that. Preferably one where I’m all alone.

“Can we just not tell the others about this?” I ask.

“You promise to behave yourself around other girls?” she responds.

“Y-yeah,” I say, my cheeks blushing. I’m being shown a lot of grace for a moment that seems more creepy everytime I think about it.

“We shouldn’t have gotten you all worked up like that,” she says, rolling away from me. 

She springs up to her feet and reaches her hand down towards me. I take it and let her pull me to my feet again.

“You should eat,” Skylar says, pointing at the food.

“I know beggars shouldn’t be choosers, but I guess it’s just not what I was hoping for.”

She scoffs. “Buddy, you know where you are, right? There ain’t no fine dining around here. No fast food. No Tex-Mex. All that shit’s gone, unless you go to the midwest, where I’m sure you can buy some with labor.”

“Is that what it’s like there?” I ask.

She shrugs. “Dunno. But I’ve heard stories. Look, this is what we have. We make our own bread. We make soups, broths, and stews from what we can forage and grow. The water’s from a well. It’s not the best food you’ll ever eat, but it’s not the worst. If you had been found twenty miles west of here, you’d have been picked up by the Paci Clan. I hear they eat bugs.”

My stomach turns at the thought. “Well, when you put it that way…”

“Just eat,” she says, going back to the bed and sitting down on the edge of it.

I pick up the knocked-over chair from the ground and bring it to the small desk before sitting down at it. I pick up the chunk of bread and tear a piece off and dip it into the orange broth before taking a cautious bite from it. It’s…not terrible. The bread is mostly flavorless, besides a slight wheatiness. The broth is interesting. A little spicy, but a little sweet.

“What’s this jail all about?” I ask, trying to win back some respect by just being normal.

“Don’t know,” she says. “We found this place a few years ago and it seemed like a good place to make into a home.”

“The jail?”

“The whole area. It’s, like, a compound. Cabins and other buildings. A fence–or what used to be a fence, I guess.”

I think I already knew this, but this goes to further confirm that we’re in what’s left of this world’s version of The Cradle. It doesn’t explain why there was ever a prison here, though. Did things go horribly off the rails at some point? Or…is this what could happen at my own world’s version of The Cradle? I need to know more. Maybe I shouldn’t be so hasty to depart.

“Do you think I’d ever be allowed to leave this cell?” I ask. “You know, like walk around and stretch out a little?” I dab another piece of bread into the broth and cram it into my mouth.

“It’d be up to Chloe, I think,” Skylar says. “But…”

“But?”

“I think she’s been hesitant to tell everyone that you’re here–only her most trusted friends. She might not want you to be seen by everyone else.”

“Why? What’s the problem with everyone seeing me?”

“You saw the way Brittany was looking at you, right?” she says. “Some girls are going to want to get their hands on a guy. Some girls have had bad experiences with guys from other factions–they might think you’re one of them and want revenge. And, well, I think Chloe would just like to know who the hell you are before we say anything to anyone else.”

“Y-yeah, fair enough,” I say, my mouth full with another bite. I’m hungrier than I thought I’d be, it seems. I have no idea how time works for me anymore. Has any amount of time elapsed since I left the bigs and littles? Since Harriet?

A few minutes pass in silence. I finish the food on the tray and stand up, thinking maybe I’ll go lie down on the bed for a little bit. All this interdimensional movement can be a little tiring. But no sooner than I’m on my feet, I feel my bladder giving out and a warm stream shooting off into my padding. I guess, subconsciously, I had known of a faint signal alerting me that I needed to pee, but it seemed pretty ignorable. I have no idea what’s going on with my body now. Am I still riddled with Mother’s milk? Is it because of the incontinent post-apocalypse that I find myself in? Or…is it just habit that I use my diaper now?

The answer doesn’t matter, because I’m still pissing myself. The diaper grows heavy and squishy as it sags between my thighs. It feels…good. I hate that wetting my diaper feels so good. Or, rather, I hate that it’s probably so obvious that I like pissing myself. What I wouldn’t give to be alone right now…

Skylar laughs and shakes her head. “Whatcha got going on there, Alfie?”

“Uhm…just an accident…”

She chuckles to herself. “Want me to take care of that for you?”

“Does anyone change their own diaper around here?” I ask.

“I mean, sure, they can,” she says. “But we’re, you know, a sisterhood. We do these things for each other.”

“I’m not your sister…”

She laughs. “You’re either a prisoner or a guest. Either way, we’d probably still insist on taking care of that for you.”

“Well, if you insist. But you just put me in this one, so if you want to wait a while before changing me again…”

“What, do you like being in a wet diaper?” Skylar asks, an eyebrow raised.

“Uh…”

“You wouldn’t be the only one.”

“Really? You…like that too?”

She laughs and shakes her head. “Oh, god no. I’d kill to be able to dependably make it to a toilet again. I just mean that there’s factions out there that have totally embraced diapers and acting like babies. Maybe you belong to one of those groups. The Mothered? The Infants? Any of those names mean anything to you?”

“No,” I say. Though I’m very curious to know everything there is to know about them. Is there a wiki somewhere for all this?

“Why don’t you just lie down?” she asks. “I’ll change you. Maybe you can take a nap after?”

“Sure,” I say, though I let out a little laugh.

“What?” she says. “What’s so funny?”

“A few minutes ago, you were wrestling with me on the ground. Now you’re making sure that I get enough sleep. It’s just…interesting.”

“I doubt you remember what your life was like before The Blow Out,” she says. “But I wonder if you had an older sibling or not?”

“I have an older sister,” I say. She’s a very, very long ways from me, but I keep that part to myself. 

“I had a younger brother,” she says. “That’s the way those relationships work, isn’t it? One second you’re fighting, and the next you’re working together.”

She had a younger brother. I’m curious about that, but I’m not sure if it's a box I–or she–wants to open. Instead, I just nod. “Yeah, I can relate to that.” Sam is often my best friend. And there have been times when she’s been my greatest enemy.

“Come over here,” she says, patting the bed. 

I waddle towards her, deciding that I wouldn’t mind a change and a nap. I lie down on the bed on my back. It’s not the most comfortable thing in the world, though maybe not the most uncomfortable surface I’ve ever slept on before.

She wastes no time in ripping up the first of the tapes from the front of my diaper, before following with the others. She looks down at me with a cheeky grin on her face as she does. “And don’t you worry, I won’t be getting you all riled up like before, alright?”

Gee thanks. But I keep my thoughts to myself. I’m just happy that this doesn’t have to be a big deal.

She’s quick and methodical with her changing, so efficient that I barely get the chance to enjoy the process. True to her word, she doesn’t let her hands linger around my manhood any longer than she needs to. Following our earlier grappling, I didn’t think I was going to get all hot and bothered again anyways, but she still ensures there’s not another awkward situation with a stiff cock.

I’m the tiniest bit disappointed, I guess. It wouldn’t have been so bad if she stroked me off and sent me on my way to the next place. Oh well.

“Take a nap,” she says. “Get some rest.”

“You’ll be here later?” I ask. I’m not sure what I’m actually asking here–if she’ll be the one I’ll be seeing later, or if I’ll just be alone.

“If not me, someone else,” she says, shrugging.

She drags the chair closer to the cell door and takes a seat. She’s just going to sit there? No book to read? No phone or tablet? Sounds boring, but what do I know? Maybe the apocalypse is a good thing if it causes people to put down their distractions and think for themselves again.

I attempt to do some thinking of my own–reflecting on what’s happened to me, and considering what could come next–but there’s something about being in a horizontal position and in a fresh, thick diaper that seems to make my eyelids pretty heavy. 

===

The cheerleaders have me pinned down again. There’s more of them now. Four or five–it’s hard to tell because I feel almost lost in the tangle of their limbs. My diaper is being opened again. They’re talking to each other, laughing too, but I can’t make out the words. Are they talking too softly, or are there just too many voices to keep track of? I want to ask if it’s time to be changed again, but I don’t think it is. I don’t smell anything stinky in here, and I definitely don’t feel wet. 

But then I feel their hands on my cock and my balls again. There are hands spreading my legs apart. Hands sliding under my ass and playing with my back door. Hands stroking me. Groping me. Someone spits down into the orgy of hands that are rubbing at me. 

Fuuuuck…

“Alfie,” a voice says. 

“Mm,” I moan. “Just…keep going.”

“Alfie!”

It’s the shaking of my shoulder that wakes me, but it’s the sound of shouting coming through my cell’s little window that actually stirs me.

A shame, really–I was having a very nice dream.

“...the hell is going on?” I ask.

Skylar is at the side of my cot, her hand on my shoulder and still shaking me. I see that Marci is at the cell door, left hanging open now. 

“Come on, we have to go,” Skylar says.

“Go?” I ask. “Where?”

“We’ve got to get out of here,” she says.

“Remind me why we can’t just leave him?” Marci asks. “He’s not one of us.”

“Yeah,” Skylar says. “But he’s not one of them either. With his amnesia, he won’t last any amount of time on his own.”

“I guess I’m just not sure why that’s our problem,”Marci says with a sigh.

“Because it’s the right thing to do,” Skylar says.

“Fine, fine,” Marci sighs. “Come on, come on. Everybody’s leaving.”

“So, uhm, what’s going on?” I say, sitting up on the cot now. My diaper crinkles loudly beneath me and I’m reminded that I’m still not wearing anything else.

“The truce was broken,” Marci says. “It’s the Paci Clan. They’re coming to raid us. They want our supplies.”

“They want our diapers,” Skylar says.

This world is so fucking weird.

“And so…y’all are just going to run away?” I ask.

“We’re potentially outnumbered,” Skylar says. “We’re fighters, but we’re not stupid.”

“Where are you going to go?” I ask.

“Jesus Christ,” Marci mutters at the door. “Can’t you play Sherlock later? We’ve got to go.”

“We have allies in the south,” Skylar says. “We’ll regroup there and figure out what’s next.”

This all feels too big for me. Factions at war, struggles to survive, the sudden need to abandon the only comforts you have. This isn’t my home. This isn’t my fight. And I’m just an orgasm away from leaving it all behind.

“What if, uh…you just left me behind?” I ask Skylar.

Skylar tilts her head. “You wouldn’t be safe. Just come with me–we’ll take care of you.”

She cares about me, I think. I’m her adopted little brother–the proxy for the one she used to have before things went south. It’s honestly kind of touching, though it also makes me realize that I might just break her heart in a moment.

“We really don’t have time for this,” Marci says.

There’s more yelling outside. A woman screams: “Go, go, go, go!”

“Come on,” Sklyar says to me.

Seeing as how we probably don’t have the time for me to explain much of anything, I have to weigh my options. Maybe, for now, it’s just easier to follow Skylar and Marci. I can lose them later, then go off on my own way and, well, work on the ol’ escape plan. If I try to shake the girls now, I run the risk of Skylar chasing after me. For the sake of her own safety, that seems like an unwise path to take.

“Let’s go,” I say, rolling off the cot.

“Finally coming to your senses, huh?” says Marci. “I’m headed outside. Brittany should be there already. Meet us there.” With that, she jogs down the hallway away from us, her skirt riding up to show that thick diaper waggling back and forth with every step.

The things I notice…

“I grabbed some clothes for you,” Skylar says.

“Not a cheerleading outfit, I hope.”

She snorts. “For what it’s worth, I bet that’d be cute. But no–these were in storage. I think it was stuff left behind by whoever used to live here. I don’t know what would or wouldn’t fit you, so…just maybe just quickly go through it and find something that fits?” She points to a cardboard box filled with pieces of loose clothing.

I quickly rifle through it, finding useless-to-me things like skirts and single socks. But then I spot a plaid button down shirt that looks a little familiar to me. Where have I seen this shirt before?

I think I remember Tommy wearing a shirt like that once. That’s fucking weird.

I dig a little more, pulling out a faded blue t-shirt with The Life Aquatic film’s logo on it. That’s weird. I used to have a shirt like that. I mean, I guess I do own a shirt like that, back where I’m from. In fact, I’m pretty sure that I had that shirt packed in my bag when I came to California.

Is it possible…

How crazy would it be if this was actually my shirt? Well, not mine–but the version of me who comes from this world. He was here. This is his shirt. My shirt. 

Does this imply that, up to some point, this world and my world had a very similar timeline? In this world, I still bought this shirt, much to Nikki’s objections, while at this record store on the boardwalk? That I still came to California–not once, but twice, bringing this shirt with me the second time? And if that’s true, does that suggest that what’s happening here really is the probable outcome for my own world?

Is this the future, compared to the time in my world?

“Did you find something?” Skylar asks, some urgency in her tone.

“Uh, one sec…”

It only seems right to take back my own shirt, and I put it on. Fits just like it always did. Smells a little musty, though god knows where this thing has been sitting for, apparently, years.

I flip through the contents of the box, hoping to find something else of mine, but I don’t see anything. I’d like to think that it means that I escaped this place with my belongings at some point, but who knows. Maybe I’m dead. Or in some weird ‘faction’ like the, uh, Paci Gang or whatever. My luck, I’m probably in the worst faction there anyone can be part of, the one all the other factions make fun of–something like ‘The Bongo Butts’ or the ‘Diapered Cucumber Sniffers.’

Does this mean that the ones sniffing the cucumbers are diapered? Or that the cucumbers, themselves, are diapered?

I retrieve a pair of cargo shorts from the box. They look a little big for me, but I think I can make them work. Besides, it’s best to have something that can accommodate this thick diaper.

I’m about to stand up and get dressed when something else in the box catches my eye–a very familiar shade of light green.

“No…” I say softly. 

I pull another t-shirt out of the box. Lake Bucky Bike Race, 2014, read the faded black letters on the shirt. This could be the strangest coincidence, but I think I’ve seen enough to know that it’s probably not.

This is Nikki’s shirt. This is her comfort shirt–the one she wears whenever she wants to be comfortable, usually to bed. 

Maybe she left it here that first time she and I came to The Cradle to get Anders.

Yeah, but she was wearing it when we went back home to New Jersey–before I went to California again on my own. 

Nikki came to The Cradle again.

She was looking for me.

Does that mean, back in my world, Nikki has–or will, in the future–come looking for me?

“Come on, Alfie,” Skylar says.

“I…uh…hold on…”

The weight of the last few months suddenly feels crushing. The realization that I never knew shit about who Mother was or what was happening at The Cradle. The realization that we were all fucking with forces beyond our comprehension. The realization that I may have put Nikki in danger because I couldn’t get enough milk.

I have to find a way to go back. I need to help free Harriet. I need to make sure that Nikki isn’t in danger. I need to…stop whatever diapered hellscape this is from happening, if such a thing is even possible.

I get to my feet and slip into the shorts and put a shirt on over my head.

“Shoes?” I ask.

Skylar shrugs. “There’s none in the box. But maybe there’s some extras over at the–”

A voice calls down the hallway: “I swear, we’re going to fucking leave without you if you don’t hurry up!”

Skylar grabs my shirt and pulls. “Let's go. We can worry about shoes later.”

She’s running. I’m running. Past the other, vacant cells. Down the hall. When the hallway veers to the side, we turn with it. Ahead is the open door and bright daylight. We charge into it, and I can’t even begin to imagine what I’ll see when we’re there.

===

I see chaos.

And I also see the Cradle. It’s not exactly The Cradle that I know and love, but it’s still very familiar. As we stumble forward, I see that the cabins and buildings are a little more run down now than I remember them, but they’re still in all the places I remember them being. The prison, I realize, is where the dining hall used to be. 

There are women–running everywhere. I see cheerleaders, here and there, directing the running women with their hands, showing them where to go as they yell out commands about where to meet with the others.

I think I just assumed that everyone in this little club wore cheerleading outfits, but I’m wondering now if only the leadership team gets that uniform.

“Ow,” I mutter, my bare feet smacking down on old gravel pathways and uneven turf. I do my best to dodge the debris that I can–of which there is some–as I’d rather avoid the need for a tetanus shot if I can help it. Could you even get a tetanus shot here? No–if you get tetanus they probably just throw you in a pit or something.

Something large and yellow catches my attention, flapping in the wind above my head. I steer my face towards it, seeing that it’s a tattered flag. The yellow color, I imagine, was once more vibrant and aggressive, though it’s been muted by years exposed to the sun and the elements. The flag’s only other detail is a word scrawled across it in bold black letters. It appears to be written by hand, in a chaotic–almost furious–script. 

It reads, simply: ‘PISSTOPIA.’

Is that what we call this place, or is it a defiant ‘fuck you’ to the state of the current world? So many questions, and–given that someone is tugging at my arm again–so little time for answers.

“Shoes,” I say to Skylar again, seeing that she’s the one towing me alongside her.

“We’ll get them when we can,” she says.

The shouting intensifies, and new voices are being added to the mix. Masculine voices. Angry voices. The Paci Clan? 

How mad can you be when your identity is based around a tool used to soothe a crabby baby?

Somewhere behind us there’s a very loud ‘bang’ that seems to echo around us forever after. Gunshot? Explosion? A building failing down? I’m tempted to turn around and look, but I’ve decided that the less I know about this place, the better. I don’t want to be invested. I just want to go, and never come back.

There’s a mound of ashen dirt on our left where a garden used to be. Up ahead there’s a shell of a building that, once upon a time, was where big babies waddled to when they needed their diapers changed. 

“Are you okay?” Skylar asks.

It almost annoys me that she cares enough about me to ask. This isn’t my world, and it’s not where I belong, and I want to get out of here–but once I do leave, I doubt that means this world ceases to exist. It continues to be. Skylar, and her Brats continue to deal with the same hardships. I’m the one with the easy escape plan that they don’t have, and it just doesn’t seem fair.

But what else would I do? I’m not their savior, and I’m not going to fix an entire world. This was their battle before I got here, and it’ll continue to be theirs after I go. I hate that, but it’s true.

“I’m okay,” I say. “But, look…”

She glances at me as we run forward. “What?”

“I need you to do something for me.”

There’s a worried expression on her face. “Please don’t tell me you’re going to do something stupid.”

“There’s something that I have to do. And I need you to keep running. You can’t run after me, alright?”

She shakes her head. “Just like I said–you’re going to do something stupid. I thought you couldn’t remember anything. How is it that you know you have something to do?”

“I know this,” I say. “Just…please keep going. Don’t stop on my account, okay?”

“Alfie…” She looks mad. Or she just looks tired–it’s really hard to read expressions when you’re running like this.

“I’ll be okay,” I say. “And so will you.” No, I don’t know that, but it seems like the kind of thing you’re supposed to say. It’d make a good, heart-warming scene in a movie.

“If I ever see you again…” she says, shaking her head. “I’m gonna smack you alongside the head.”

“And I look forward to that,” I say.

And with that, I break away from grip on my arm and run off to the side as she continues to run straight ahead. I dodge a few other running women–including a confused Chloe–as I dodge behind cabins and trees. Somewhere in the distance, I hear more yelling. I see smoke. I sprint–as much of a sprint as my unathletic legs can muster, at least–in a new direction. The remains of the fence that surrounded The Cradle are ahead, with large swaths of it fallen down completely or broken. I pick an area that looks like I can leap over and hurdle it. My feet are killing me, and I’m terrified of the trek through the woods beyond the fence. I have to be cautious of sticks, rocks, and whatever post-apocalyptic debris might be hidden beneath the leaves. My pace slows, though I keep moving at a steady-enough clip. From one tree to another. 

The noise behind me subsides. Nobody knows I’m here. Nobody, as best as I can tell, is pursuing me. I finally stop to take a breath, resting against a large tree on a wooded incline. Out here, in the middle of the forest, it’s almost like you’d never know that the rest of the world has gone to hell. It’s probably no different than the forest of my own world. The same trees and chirping birds. The same pristine, unspoiled nature. It’s the closest I’ve felt to home in a while.

I let myself slide down the tree into a sitting position, my plump diaper squishing beneath me. 

Well. There’s only one way out of here.

I’m thinking that the last thing in the world I want right now, while I’m sweating and my heart is pounding like a jackhammer, is to start jerking off. 

But I gotta. 

Think of sexy things. Think of sexy things. Think of sexy things.

I imagine myself on my back, legs spread and held high in the air by Freya as she changes my diaper. I think of Maxine, groping the front of my diaper as she teases me for being such a pathetic little baby. I think of the way it felt the very first time my mouth latched onto Mother’s breast and I tasted her milk–and how it felt like my entire world was coming apart at the scenes.

I’d say it’s weird–leaning against a tree in the middle of the forest, rubbing the front of my diaper. But this isn’t even the weirdest thing that happened to me today.

But it’s not working. None of this is really, like, getting me in the mood that I need to be in.

What else? What else sparks excitement?

I think of thick diapers. Wet diapers. Mucky, stinky diapers. I think of crowds of people standing around me, watching as I squat and push a load into the back of my padding.

Almost, but not quite.

I sigh, giving my hand a break for a moment. Maybe I’ll come back to this later. Though, I have no idea what ‘later’ even looks like here. Is it me, still sitting by a tree in the middle of the woods at midnight? Is it me getting further lost in the tall trees? Walking until I find some other settlement that’s probably too dangerous for me?

But then, something–someone–does come to mind. And, after I take a deep and cleansing breath while thinking of her, I feel myself stiffening.

“Fuck,” I say aloud. I can never, ever, tell her about this. She’d punch me. Pummel me.

“I’m real sorry about this,” I say, hoping that its intended recipient never hears the words. 

I ease my hand inside my diaper and begin to stroke my erection.

I can’t say for certain why it’s my thoughts of Nikki that are getting me stirred up right now, but I make a pact with myself that it’s something we’ll think about later–when all of this is said and done.

“Mm,” I moan softly. “Nikki, get me out of here…”

Fifty-One: Transcendental Friendship

“Did ya lose yer clothes or something?” the man asks, his eyes narrowing as he peers out the window of his car.

I’m almost oblivious to the fact that, to him, I just look like a crazy naked guy on the side of this unpaved backroad that cuts through the forest. Instead, I’m fixated on how normal this almost seems. He’s a normal sized man in a normal looking car. An actual California license plate on the thing too.

An hour or so ago–it’s hard to be sure–I woke up alongside this road. And so once I found the strength to stand up and move around again, I decided to do the only thing that I could–walk. I don’t know where I’m going, but I figure this road has to eventually go somewhere.

When I saw the car–a white Lincoln that’s probably seen better days–coming down the road, I briefly considered diving into the trees and taking cover. For one, it was nice to wake up in a new place and not be a prisoner–be it by a giant woman or a post-apocalyptic diapered cheerleader. For all I knew, the driver of the car was just going to end up locking me up and slapping a diaper on me. Maybe, I thought, I’d have better luck avoiding this car and finding my way to a place where I can get some clothes and get a lay of the land on my own.

What prevented me from doing that was the unknown. How long until I made it to a place with clothes? Food? What if this world–if it wasn’t my own–had, like, dinosaurs in it? Or…forest ninjas? The car seemed like my best bet. So I waited at the side of the road, my hands covering up my midsection the best I could, as the car slowed down and rolled up next to me, the window slowly rolling down.

The man is older, old enough to be someone’s grandpa, I suppose. Balding, with the last strands of his gray hair pulled over the expanse of nothing on top of his head. Stubble on his leathered face. Big lensed bifocals. He also looks more annoyed at the sight of me than concerned.

I don’t know how to explain my current predicament to a stranger, but I take a stab at it. “It was a, uh, prank. Some hazing, you know? Me and my buds…we got a little carried away.”

The left side of his brow slowly raises. “And where’re yer friends now, boy?”

“Don’t know,” I say. “Back in town?” I’m hoping that there is a town in this world.

“Harper’s Bell?” he asks.

It’s a huge relief to hear him say that name–it’s not much, but it’s a faint semblance of the normalcy that I crave right now.

“Yeah,” I say. Still, I’m skeptical of what weird twist this world has in store for me–assuming it’s not the world I’ve originally come from. “It’s not, like, blown up or anything, is it?”

Both of the man’s eyes narrow again. “Is that some kinda joke or something?”

“Uh, yeah. Sorry…ignore that.”

“You want a ride back to town?” he asks. “Or you gonna wait out here ‘til yer pals get back?”

“Well…”

“It ain’t gonna be light out fer much longer,” he says, glancing at, I assume, the time on his car’s dashboard. “Ya might be better off goin’ to town.”

“If you’re offering,” I say.

“You ain’t got any clothes at all?” he asks.

“Nope.”

He sighs, again sounding more aggravated by having stopped than anything else. “Well, shit. Ya can’t go to town lookin’ like that. Yer gonna offend the ladies.”

“Not much I can do about that,” I say.

“Hold on. Mays be I got somethin’ in the trunk you can wear.”

“You don’t have to…”

But he’s already got the car in park and he’s opening the driver side door and slowly hoisting himself out of his seat. He’s not an especially big guy, though there’s something solid about his frame. He reminds me of my grandfather, my dad’s dad–the kind of guy who didn’t know the meaning of resting. The kind of guy who insisted on working and laboring like he was still 30-something and not in his 70s.

The man has the trunk popped open and he flings it open when he gets to it. He rifles around for a little bit and pulls out a bundle of blue fabric and tosses it at me. 

“Here,” he says. “It ain’t much, but it’ll keep you decent.”

I unfurl the bundle, revealing a pair of faded and stained denim overalls.

“They ain’t pretty,” the man says with a shrug. “I keep ‘em around in case I get stuck in the mud and make a mess of myself or somethin’.”

I’m mildly amused by his choice of words, just because ‘making a mess of myself’ means something very different where I come from–assuming that it’s not here.

“Well, thanks,” I say. I quickly step into the overalls, one leg at a time, and hoist them up over my body before fastening the shoulder straps to keep everything in place. They’re a little bug, but they could be a lot worse. And, like the man said, if nothing else, they’re keeping me decent. 

“I ain’t got shoes or anything like that though,” he says.

“It’s alright,” I say.

“Ya prolly got clothes back in town?”

“Sure.” I probably don’t, but that doesn’t seem worth explaining.

“Well get in. I’ll take ya back.”

===

Bill Hammond’s got some kids, he says, but they’ve all moved away. 

“They don’t want nothin’ to do with this place,” he says as the car lurches along the old backroad. “Can’t say I blame ‘em or nothin’. Time was, I was happy my pop gave me this place–felt like I was doin’ my job to continue the family’s legacy, ya know?”

“Sure,” I say. 

He shrugs. “But if the kids don’t wanna live out here in the middle of nowhere, and don’t wanna be farmers, I can’t make ‘em. I’m disappointed–but I ain’t gonna force ‘em.”

“So you live out here alone?” I ask.

“Aye. Well, not alone. Got the wife and the dog, of course. Some animals in the barn. I’ll give it a few more years but then I’m prolly done with it all. Maybe I’ll sell all the land, y’know? Maybe sooner than later so I can enjoy some of the money before I keel over.”

Admittedly, I’ve only been half-paying attention to him, but there’s a few nuggets in the words I’ve heard that feel like puzzle pieces. 

Hammond. I’ve heard that name before, haven’t I? Hammond. Hammond. Who is that?

Obviously it’s nobody that I know, since I’m not from around here and I don’t know any of the locals. So it’d have to be a name that I’ve heard–a name that’s been referenced around me. But what local person would be referenced in a context that would’ve mattered to me.

My eyes widen, realizing where I know it from.

The Hammond Farm. The place that would later become The Cradle. Is the farm he’s talking about–the one he hasn’t even seriously considered selling yet–the same as the plot of land I’ve come to see as home over the last few months?

“I gotta ask ya, boy, what in the world transpired that caused you to be out in the middle of goddamned nowhere without any britches on?”

“Uh, well, that’s a long story,” I say. And it is.

His shoulders bounce with a little shrug. “Kids doin’ stupid shit. Some things never change.

“Can I ask you something?” I don’t mean to cause such an abrupt change of direction for this conversation, but it’s hard for me to humor any other small talk at the moment.

“Yeah,” he says. “Shoot.”

“You ever hear of anything called The Cradle? Not, like, an actual, uh…cradle. I mean, like a place that they call ‘The Cradle.’ It’s like a camp, I guess?”

He glances at me with his eyebrows all uneven like he’s trying to understand me while I speak in an entirely different language. “Huh?”

“Mirabelle?” I ask. “That name mean anything to you?”

“I don’t know anything about any of that,” he says, his chest shaking with a rumbling laugh. “What are you on ‘bout, boy?”

“Ah…nothing,” I say, shrugging. “Just some stuff I heard about in town, I guess.”

“You live in town?” he asks, as if picking out detail to process and throwing the rest of what I said out. “Who’s yer parents? I prolly know ‘em.”

“I don’t live in town,” I say. “Just visiting, actually.”

“So you don’t even live ‘round here and yer pals are just leavin’ ya in the woods without yer pants?”

When he puts it that way, my fictional friends do sound pretty shitty.

“Like I said, it’s a long story.”

“Who’re yer friends?” he asks. “Maybe someone I know?”

Damn, man. He’s asking too many questions. I think he means well, but he’s unknowingly backing me into a corner where I’m going to run out of ways that I can lie to him. 

I take one more shot at changing the subject. Plan B might just be opening the passenger side door and rolling out of the moving car and then running through the woods. “They’re just a bunch of idiots. Whatever. Hey, do you know the girl at the diner? Celia?”

At this, the friendly smile on his face–which has been there since he first tossed me his overalls–grows a little wider. “Celia? Yeah, I know ‘er. Nice gal.”

That’s really all I needed to hear. I just needed to know that something in this world was familiar. 

“Actually,” I say. “You think you could drop me off at the diner?”

He laughs. “You gonna go and bother Celia, are ya?”

“Uh…”

“There ain’t much of a dress code at the diner,” he chuckles, “but ya might need more than jus’ overalls.”

Shit, I say, forgetting about my current attire, or lack there of.

“Ya sure I should drop you off there?” he asks.

I nod. Clothes or no clothes, and regardless of whether or not this Celia is ‘my’ Celia, this is all I have. I’ll take my chances. “Yes, please.”

===

Harper’s Bell looks nearly identical to how I remember it. The same well-worn expanse of slowly cracking roads and buildings in need of upgrades. Even Harper’s Dinner Bell looks exactly like I’d expect it to. Though, maybe slightly shabbier? But it’s been a while since I’ve been in town in my own world, so I can’t be too sure.

“You want these overalls back, I assume,” I say to Bill Hammond as I climb out of his Lincoln in the parking lot.

He considers this for a moment and shakes his head. “I got more. And you need ‘em more than I do. You sure yer good, kid?”

“I’m alright,” I say. “Thanks for the ride.”

I don’t think he believes me, but with a little shrug and one more flash of his friendly grin, he puts the car into drive again and his car rumbles down the street and out of sight. It’s not until he’s gone that I realize how stupid I am. No phone. No wallet. No shoes. Barely any clothes.

No diaper. Does that matter? Knowing my luck, it probably will.

I don’t have to look too hard to find Celia, she’s around the side of the diner, leaning against the wall and drawing in a long drag from her vape with one hand as she scrolls on her phone with the other. She’s got a pink t-shirt on and a pair of light-blue jeans that are rather tight, a white apron tied around her waist. She looks up at me as I slowly, carefully, amble closer–watching every step for broken glass or pointy rocks. Her eyes linger on me, but it’s not recognition in her eyes; instead she looks baffled by me. I can just about read her mind: “Who is this clod with the big overalls, no shirt, and no shoes?”

“Hey,” I say.

She narrows her eyes and tilts her head. “Hey.” It’s almost a question.

“Uh, Celia…”

Her head tilts even further. “Do I know you?”

“Well, yeah…” I stop myself, well aware of how insane I’ll sound if I try to rattle off how I know her in a different world. “N-no, I don’t think so.”

She scoffs. “Well? Do I know you or don’t I?”

“You don’t,” I say. “I don’t think.”

“You don’t look familiar,” she says. “You’re not from around here.”

“That’s for sure.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

I sigh, wondering if we’re getting off on the wrong foot. But, then again, what in the world am I supposed to say? This Celia is a complete stranger to me. Is there any feasible way that I can get her to help me? 

Maybe I can’t. It was probably a mistake to try and approach her in the first place.

“So…can I help you or something?” she asks when I don’t say anything for a few beats.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” I sigh.

“What’s your deal?” she asks. Without giving me a chance to respond, she stacks a few more questions on for good measure: “Where are your shoes? Your shirt? How do you even know my name?”

I search my mind for something–anything–that I can say that might help establish a connection between us. I blurt out: “Darla.”

“What?”

“Darla,” I say again. “Your father is dating a woman named Darla, right? From out of town? He stays with her pretty often, and it’s why you’re usually alone at your place.”

For a moment, she doesn’t react to this at all. She just stares at me, taking me in with cold and calculating eyes. I’m already regretting having said any of that–I probably come off as a terrifying stalker more than anything.

“How do you know that?” she finally says.

“You told me once.” Shit, that was the wrong answer.

“But you don’t know me,” she says. 

I sigh and shrug. “I…I don’t know.”

I expect her to tell me to fuck off, but instead she smirks, laughing to herself a little as she shakes her head. She seems…strangely amused.

“I-I’m not going to hurt you,” I say, putting my open palms up in front of me. “I just…”

Something in her expression seems to soften as she looks at me. It’s a similar softness as I had seen on her face when I was in her home–in a different time, in a different world–when she was offering to change my diaper. I think it’s pity or sympathy. I don’t know what she sees right now–a crazy guy in stained overalls in need?

“Do you need something to eat?” she asks.

The abrupt change in tone of this conversation almost gives me whiplash, though at least it seems to be turning in the right direction.

I hadn’t thought of eating since…I was in whatever PISSTOPIA was, but now that she’s mentioned it, I feel a little grumble in my stomach.

I shrug–the universal symbol for ‘I’m too proud to say that I need something, but hopefully you’ll understand this and help me out a little.’

She sighs, pointing down the diner’s wall to where the corner turns. “There’s a picnic bench back there. It’s for the staff on their breaks, but I think I’m the only one who ever uses it. Why don’t you go over there and sit down. I have to go back to work, but I should be able to grab some food for you in a little bit.”

“Y-you don’t have to…”

“I don’t know what your deal is,” she says. “But I think we’ve got more to talk about. Do you have anywhere else to be?”

I shake my head. 

“Okay. Picnic bench, then. I’ll see you in a while.”

“Thank you,” I say, before we head in our different directions–me back to the table, and her back into the diner through a side-entrance.

===

The old, worn bench–just as unloved looking as the rest of Harper’s Bell–sits nestled between two tall pine trees on the edge of the parking lot. The fact that the bench and the ground around it are littered with fallen brown needles and pinecones suggests that what Celia said was right and that this isn’t an oft-used area for taking breaks. I take some comfort in that as I brush some needles away from the bench and sit down–feeling hidden from the rest of the world back here.

Not only is this place the closest thing to ‘home’ I’ve felt in a while, but I find the freedom from giant women and angry post-apocalyptic clans to be rather refreshing. So close, but so far away. This is Celia, but it’s also not–not as I know her, anyway. But she looks like the Celia I know. She sounds like her. The smell of the smoke she exhaled after vaping even smells like the kind the Celia I knew used. 

It makes me wonder what else about this world is like the one I know. What is this world’s Nikki doing? And Maxine. And Mirabelle–if there’s no such thing as The Cradle. And Anders. Sam. Is my dad still shacking up with Julie-fucking-Ross?

What about…me? Am I here?

I somehow feel it before I feel it–the sound of liquid dripping into a puddle, coming from directly below me. It’s at this moment I realize that the crotch of my overalls–well, Bill Hammond’s overalls–have suddenly become warm and wet. A trail of wetness runs down the insides of the overalls thighs, past the knees, down the ankles, and now a tiny trickle of pee is puddling in the pine needles on the ground.

And there you go, ladies and gents–your boy still needs diapers.

It’s a weird feeling, pissing myself without a diaper. The warmth is in the wrong place. The dampness is all wrong–feeling more like a sloppy wetness. And in the bagginess of the overalls, sans underpants, it just feels like I’m sitting in a wet sack or something. There is absolutely nothing even slightly erotic or ‘naughty’ feeling about this. I feel gross–which is a funny thing to feel when I don’t think I’ve felt that way in months, despite the number of dirty diapers I’ve been trapped in.

It’s a whole new challenge, isn’t it? How do I get diapers when I don’t have any money?

I close my eyes and take a few deep breaths, hoping that I can somehow collect myself. I have no idea if it’s working or not, but trying is at least a pleasant distraction from freaking out.

A rusted door on the back of the diner, near a dumpster, opens and Celia emerges, carrying a plate. She walks over to the picnic table, brushes some more debris from the top of it, and places the plate down in front of me. Looks like a club sandwich and some fries.

“I hope this is alright,” she says. “I realized that I didn’t ask what you might want.”

“Beggars can’t be choosers,” I say. “And this is perfect.” Honestly, I’m just glad that it’s not the tacos.

She reaches into her apron and slaps a few napkins down on the table too. “How about something to drink?”

“Y-you really don’t have to–”

“You can’t eat a meal without something to drink,” she says. “Water? Soda?”

“A Coke actually sounds perfect,” I say. Something sugary and caffeinated really does sound like the best thing I could ask for.

“Okay,” she says with a nod. “I’ll be back in a minute. Anything else?”

“You’re already doing too much,” I say.

She doesn’t respond to that directly, beyond a little shrug. “Alright, be right back.” 

She’s gone again.

The sandwich and the salty fries are fantastic, not only hitting the spot, but giving me a nostalgic rush for when I’ve eaten at Harper’s Dinner Bell before. I’m reminded of when Nikki and I came here for the very first time, when we arrived in town in search of The Cradle so that we could cover Anders. Goddamn, that was a different time. Before diapers. Before Mother. Before Tommy, Celia, and Freya became a part of my world.

Celia returns again and sets a clear plastic cup of soda down on the table. “Everything good?”

“Anything at all would’ve been good,” I say, my mouth full of half-chewed french fries. “This is excellent.”

“Good,” she says, nodding a little. She lingers near the picnic table for a moment, looking like she wants to say something else. 

After swallowing, I don’t take another bite, instead, giving her my attention. “Hm?”

“You seem to know my name,” she says. “But you’ve got me at a disadvantage when I don’t know who you are.”

“Alfie,” I say.

“Alfie,” she repeats. “ I don’t know if I’ve ever met one of them before.”

No, not on this world.

“I’m a little biased,” I say, “but I’d like to think we’re pretty cool.”

Of course, as I shift in my seat a little and are reminded of the wetness in my overalls, I suddenly feel a lot less cool. 

She doesn’t say anything. She just watches me carefully; studying my every move like I was a zoo animal in a cage and she’d never seen anything like me before.

“Do you remember me?” I ask, a hopeful twang in my voice–as if I fully believe that the power of friendship somehow transcends dimensional barriers or something like that.

“No,” she says bluntly, instantly shooting down my hopes. “But, I dunno, you talk to me like you know me.”

“Uh…”

“You seemed pretty confident about ‘Darla,’” she says. 

“I really don’t know what to say.”

“Give me something.”

“We, uh, met in another life, maybe.”

She clicks her tongue as she tries to process that response. However it is she feels about it, she keeps it to herself.

“What else do you think you know about me?” she asks.

I laugh. “Honestly? Not a lot. You’re kind. You, uh, have gardens in front of your house. They’re kind of your project now, but you originally started them with your dad.” But beyond that, I don’t know what I can say that’ll make sense to her. Describing the inside of her house would probably just make me sound like a home invader–not someone who was invited inside of her home in another world like this one.

“Alright,” she says, tapping her fingers against her thigh. “Let’s start somewhere else. “Where are the rest of your clothes? And your shoes?”

“I don’t have any.”

She pinches the top of her nose with her thumb and forefinger and closes her eyes. Is she agitated? Just thinking? She asks: “Do you live in town?”

“No.”

“Are you homeless?”

“Technically, I guess,” I say, scratching my head.

She sighs. “Are you in trouble, Archie?”

“Alfie,” I correct. It’s surreal, hearing her say the wrong name like she doesn’t know me at all. “And…kind of.”

“You need a hand, yeah?”

I nod my head.

“I’ve got to get back inside. I probably have customers waiting for me. When my shift ends in about two hours, are you going to be here?”

“I can be,” I say. Also true is that I have nowhere else to go.

“Okay,” she says. And just like that, she goes through the door and back into the diner again.

I can’t get a good read on her. I feel like she should be more skeptical of me. More suspicious. Less trusting. But she sounds like she wants to help me, for whatever reason. I won’t pretend that I understand her motives, but I also need her help so badly that I’m hesitant to question them too much.

Perhaps the power of friendship really does transcend dimensional borders, and she can sense a strong connection between us from another place and time.

===

I spend almost every second of my time waiting for Celia thinking about what I’ll say to her later. I could lie to her, fabricating some convoluted story about my origins and how I got here. But I don’t even know where I’d start with that. It’s probably a testament to my upbringing that I don’t know how to spool together a string of lies about who I am, where I’ve come from, and how I’ve come to learn strange details about Celia’s life without her knowing who I am.

I decide to just tell her the truth. As absolutely as insane an idea as that sounds, I think it’s the only way to go. I need an ally, and I’d rather earn Celia’s trust through the absurd truth than lying.

Worst case scenario, am I really in a worse spot than where I started? I’ll just…fondle myself and jet off to the next world, I guess.

When Celia emerges from the diner’s backdoor again, she looks tired. Her apron is gone now, and she’s got a purse slung over one shoulder and a cardigan hanging off the other. She glances at me, sitting at the picnic table, and almost looks like she forgot about me for a moment there. The expression on her face says: “Ah shit, you again.”

“Hey,” I say. “How was work?”

She grunts, seemingly unhappy with the question. I suppose I can understand that–she doesn’t think we have any rapport yet. I don’t deserve the opportunity to ask things like that. She doesn’t know me like I think I know her.

“Look,” I say, “we can do this tomorrow if you want. Like, if you just want to go home and shower and relax or whatever, we can meet up and talk later instead.”

“Why don’t you come with me?” she asks.

I’m surprised by this. “You want me to go back to your house with you?”

“You’re not going to kill me or anything, are you?”

“Uh, no,” I say. I resist the urge to add: “But isn’t that what a killer would say?”

“And you don’t have anywhere else to go, do you?” she asks.

I shake my head.

“And you don’t have any other possessions? No clothes? Things?”

“No,” I say.

“Come on,” she says, beckoning me towards her with a hand. 

It’s only as I stand that I remember what I had done in the overalls earlier. While that accident might have dried a little, the second accident–occuring maybe an hour an ago–certainly hasn’t. There, in the crotch of my overalls, is a giant wet splotch, spreading down my thighs with little streams and rivers of wetness running down the length of the legs.

Celia stares at me for a few moments, not saying anything at all. Her expression isn’t at all what I’m expecting. She’s not disgusted or disturbed by what she’s seeing–instead, she looks curious. Intrigued, even.

“What happened there?” she finally asks, pointing towards my midsection.

“That’s actually part of the very long story I need to tell you.”

“You had an accident?” she asks.

“J-just a little one…”

“You couldn’t have pissed on a tree? Asked to use the restroom?”

“Maybe if we could just talk about everything, I could explain that…”

“Do you need a diaper?” she asks. “Is that it?” She says it dismissively, like it’s just a joke.

I laugh nervously. “I mean…”

“Really?”

“I, uh, usually wear them,” I say, adding: “Where I come from.” It feels shameful and humiliating to have to admit as much to a stranger.

“Come on,” she sighs, again beckoning for me to follow her with her hand.

“Are you sure?” I ask.

She laughs. “I wouldn’t have invited you if I didn’t mean it.”

===

We don’t talk much on the walk to her house. There’s a lot I’d like to say to her, but I opt to follow her lead, and she seems content with silence.

My feet are a little sore, but I’d take the smooth sidewalk of Harper’s Bell over the rough backroads that cut through the forest. 

The closer to her house we get, the stranger this situation feels. She really ought to be more suspicious of me, shouldn’t she? Who invites a random pissy-pants stranger over to their house after a whole ten minutes, if that, of conversation?

Am I, somehow, the one who is suspicious of her now? I mean the thought mostly as a joke, though I’m still on edge.

For the most part, I find the walk to her house to be a pretty familiar route. I’ve walked this way with Celia before, in a different world. There’s a few minor differences to the buildings around us–no signs about their being no public restrooms or changing stations, for one–though the path itself is the same.

It’s a Harper’s Bell without the influence of The Cradle. No strange people in diapers passing through on the daily. No influx of cash to local businesses from visitors en route to the old farm. Now, it’s just a small isolated town, drawing even closer towards its inevitable abandonment. It’s sad, in a way.

I almost don’t recognize Celia’s little cottage when we get there. While there are some patches of dug-up earth in front of the house–places where gardens would be back at the version of the yard I’d know–there’s nothing but dried soil and remnants of dead plants now. It’s been a long time since anyone’s cared about growing something here.

She opens the front door, beckoning for me to follow. Beyond the door, I just see darkness. I don’t know why, but I have a bad feeling about this; it’s deep down in the pit of my stomach–an instinct to turn and run.

“Come on,” she says. 

I approach the door, despite the bad vibes. Maybe it’s because I have nowhere else to go, or maybe it’s because I could always trust my Celia. 

“Good boy,” she says as I cross the threshold. 

Her voice sounds different. Her hand is suddenly wrapped tightly around my wrist. Instinctively, I try to run, but she stands her ground and holds me in place. She seems almost impossibly strong–my attempt to flee doesn’t so much as cause her to lean. 

Something’s not right. Something’s not right. Something’s not right.

My eyes adjusting to the darkness inside the house, I see that things are not as I expect them to be. This isn’t the quaint little place I remember. There are no warm-colored rugs and furniture. The paintings of people and flowers have been pulled down from the walls. Some of the shelves are empty of the knick knacks and plants that used to habitat them, while other shelves are gone altogether. This place seems abandoned. Deserted. 

“Celia… What is this?”

“I’m not Celia,” she says, closing the door. 

Her face has changed. Not like she’s morphing into someone else so much as the expression on her face–her entire temperament–is unlike any I’ve seen from my Celia before. She looks amused and satisfied. Devilish and sinister.

I make another feeble attempt to escape her grasp, but she’s simply too strong and effortlessly holds me in place.

“What’s going on here?” I say–my voice a childish whine.

“Poor baby,” Not-Celia coos sarcastically. “Your mother has been worried sick about you.”

“My m-mother?” I stammer. But then I realize what she means. Not my mother–she means Mother. She of the psychedelic milk and who is suspiciously absent from this world.

“Mother doesn’t like that you’re able to run amok,” Not-Celia says. “No little boy should be allowed to run between worlds like you do.”

“And who are you, then?” I ask.

“I’m here to make sure that you don’t get to run any further,” she says. “You’re going to stay right here where I can keep an eye on you for Mother.”

===

Another world, another instance of finding myself held prisoner in a diaper. I really thought this world was going to be different, but I guess I was a fool to think that.

I’m tied to what I assume was once this world’s Celia’s bed. Each of my limbs is tied separately to one of the bed’s corresponding posts. 

I have been liberated from my wet overalls. 

I am, once more, wearing a diaper.

The diaper is already wet.

There’s a pacifier in my mouth, held in place by a piece of ribbon that is wrapped around my head to keep it in place.

I’d laugh, if I could. No matter where I go, this just seems to be my fate. You’d think I’d be used to it by now–but here I am, already thinking about how maybe it’ll be different next time.

Assuming, of course, there gets to be a ‘next time.’

***

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Love you, bye.

I mean… If being a ‘little’ means being made to wear a diaper, act like a baby, and get doted on by people acting like the adults, I don’t suppose that’s all the different from The Cradle. But that seemed like a more consensual agreement than whatever is happening here. Though…the milk, and whatever mind-altering properties it has has me questioning that now too.

But, for the sake of her question, being made into some giant woman’s pet baby is certainly a first. I nod my head.

“Shit,” Stinker says. “I’m sorry to hear that. I mean, it’s impressive that you lasted this long without getting captured. Did you live around here? Were you in one of the communities?”

I shrug, vaguely pointing to my face and plugged-mouth with my mitts to remind her that I can’t really answer all those questions right now.

“Right,” she sighs. “Maybe we can talk about that later.”

“Are you scared?” Tinkles asks.

I shrug, for lack of another way to respond. I’m not, like, terrified. But this place is strange and alien to me. The four of us look like what I’d consider to be an ‘average’ adult size back in the Earth that I know and love. But here, where everything else is bigger, it fucks with your head. The ceiling is too tall and the room seems too big in general. 

“Peggy isn’t bad,” Stinker says. “I mean, I don’t like her. But she’s mostly harmless. Just kind of careless sometimes.”

Wobble sighs. “Lenore, though…”

“I don’t think Lenore actually likes littles,” Stinker says. “She tolerates them on behalf of Peggy.”

“Th-that’s not true,” Tinkles says. “She likes littles. She’s just a little more, uhm…”

“Uptight,” Wobbles says, finishing that thought for her. “Bitchy. Moody. Not especially kind.”

“You must be tired and overwhelmed right now,” Wobble says, putting a mitted hand on my back. “Do you need to lie down? There’s some blankets over there.”

“I’m a good cuddler,” Tinkles says. “Sometimes we have cuddle parties.”

I have no idea what I need right now. I can barely think straight. Do I need a nap? Lunch? A bottle of milk? Do I need…a cuddle? 

No, what I need is to cum. As ridiculous as that sounds, it might be my only chance at getting the hell out of this weird place. 

But then what? Someplace even stranger? And this prompts the question: How does this get me any closer to my end goal of getting back to my own world–preferably while freeing Harriet as well? Because if I keep cumming–if future orgasms work to take me into new, uh, realms or dimensions or whatever, am I just going to get myself further and further away from where I want to be?

Or, are the answers I seek here, in this weird world of bigs and littles? But how would I know? And how would I find them while trapped in some crazy couples’ basement?

My head is spinning. Maybe I do need to lie down for a little bit. I nod and follow Wobble’s finger to where the blankets are stacked. I waddle towards them and grab one or two. It’d be nice to have a bed or something, but at this point, I’d be fine with just throwing the blankets on the ground and curling up on top of them for a bit.

No sooner than I spread a blanket out on the padded floor, though, I feel a presence behind me. It’s Tinkles.

“Would it be weird if I took a nap with you?” she asks. 

I shrug, again unsure of how else to respond.

“I…well, I just want you to know that you’re not alone here,” she says. “Sometimes it helps comfort me when I have a friend I can cuddle with. So if you think it’d help you too, then…”

I nod. Sure, it’s a little odd, I guess, to cuddle with a stranger I’ve just met. But so is a world with giant women who make us wear diapers. So is traversing the multiverse with orgasm. So is magical milk that turns people into diaper-wetting babies. And you know what? I think having a warm body cuddling against me in these very surreal times sounds quite nice.

So I nod my head and lower myself onto the blanket, as does she. I lower myself onto my side, expecting her to lie in front of me to be my ‘little spoon,’ except she lies down behind me instead. I’m the little spoon. But that’s fine. That’s…actually pretty nice. 

She doesn’t say anything. Her hands aren’t groping me or anything like that. She’s just lying behind me, her body pressed against mine. It’s warm. It’s comfortable. 

I try to think, juggling all the scattered thoughts I have about the weirdness I’ve encountered so far, and what sorts of weirdness will probably be yet to come. But I feel myself shutting down sooner than I expect. I’m reminded, briefly, that I didn’t feel things like exhaustion–or a need to pee, for that matter–when I was in the white space with Harriet. I’m feeling those things now. I’m exhausted. And, well, I have to pee.

If I’ve learned anything from my time in diapers, it’s that there’s never a reason to just hold it. Sooner or later, you’re going to end up with a soggy bottom anyway. 

I let it all out, feeling the diaper growing warmer and heavier between my legs as the wet spot expands to encompass more and more of the padding.

That feels good. Everything about this moment feels good. I let those good vibes carry me off to sleep–a welcome reprieve from the madness of whatever reality I’m experiencing.

===

I’m airborne.

I open my eyes and I see my feet dangling below me. The blanket I was laying on is getting further and further away from me.

But there are hands under my arms. I’m being lifted up. Oh right, the giant women. I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to being hoisted up by Peggy.

“That’s a pretty wet diaper you got on there, Smooshy,” Peggy says to me. Her breath is as bad as I remember it being earlier. Less onion-y, though; more generically ‘bad’ now.

There’s another odor in the air, though–one that, hopefully, isn’t related to Peggy’s breath. It’s the unmistakable stench of a messy diaper. Mine? I don’t think so, though I wouldn’t be completely surprised if it was.

“I see how it is,” Lenore mutters to Peggy from behind. “You’re going to take the wet one, and I get to change the stinky one?”

“Oops,” Peggy giggles, adding a nonchalant shrug.

Lenore grumbles and picks Tinkles up from the ground. She holds the diapered girl out away from her like Tinkles is a bomb set to explode. “Let’s get this dreadful thing off of you.”

The women carry Tinkles and I from whatever playroom we’d been kept in and we’re taken to another room. Despite being just woken from a nap, I feel a little more aware of my surroundings than the last time I was carried around the house. I see the large changing tables–one of which I was probably laying on when I got my first diaper here–and I see that this is a nursery of sorts. Two changing tables. Shelves holding lots of diapers, wipes, powders, and ointments. There’s a happy little woodland scene painted on the walls. If my sister and Anders were to ever have a kid–and what a terrifying thought that is–this is how I’d imagine Sam would want to decorate the room.

Tinkles and I are each flopped down on our own changing tables and the women get right to work on us. I’m not surprised at their speed and efficiency, as I’m sure they’ve changed plenty of diapers. 

I make the mistake, just once, of turning my head and glancing at Tinkles as her diaper is unfastened and pulled open, revealing the brown mess within. I see her glancing at me too, her cheeks bright pink. I turn away, not wanting to embarrass her anymore than I might have already.

“Nobody has called about him,” Lenore says, pointing at me.

“You expecting that?” Peggy asks.

“If one of the neighbors had lost one of theirs, I could see them reaching out to everyone else in the area and checking to see if we’d found him, couldn’t you?”

“I suppose,” Peggy shrugs.

“Nobody’s called. Nobody’s come looking for him.”

“Maybe nobody’s noticed he’s missing,” Peggy says.

“I don’t think he belonged to anyone.”

Peggy’s eyes get large. “You mean, like we got a wild one?”

“Perhaps,” Lenore says, her nasally tone masking if she’s more amused or annoyed by this. “Though he seems awfully docile to be wild.”

“He’s a good wittle Smooshy, ain’t he?” Peggy coos at me, her giant fingers attempting to tickle my belly. It does little besides making me squirm.

“Is that pacifier necessary?” Lenore asks.

“He was quite chatty before…”

“Take it out, I say. If he gets to be annoying, we can always put it back in. But if you leave it in now, I’m concerned he’s just going to be resentful. And a resentful little is not a compliant little.”

Peggy sighs. “Yeah, yeah, you’re prolly right about that. But doesn’t he just look so cute and pathetic with his mouth all stopped up like that?”

“Peggy…”

“I’ll take it out. Sheesh.”

Still, she doesn’t take the pacifier out immediately. First, she tends to my bottom. The wet diaper is peeled away, and her big hands run a baby wipe–bigger than one I’ve ever seen before, I might add–over my diaper area. She’s not even especially gentle about it this time around; it’s just a low-effort set of moves, like she’s not all that interested in cleaning me up. I think I’ve seen an attitude like hers before–there’s plenty like her in the workforce. They’re the people who do just enough to get by. The bare minimum. I probably know it so well because that also describes me.

A new diaper is unfolded and slid beneath me, again my legs being hoisted into the air to lift my bottom up. Bingo bango–I’m wearing a clean diaper again.

Meanwhile, Lenore is still working on cleaning up Tinkles, and it looks to be a laborious affair. Lenore glances at Peggy, a frown on her face, and scoffs. She says: “Next time, you get the dirty one.”

“We’ll see,” Peggy says cloyingly, before her hands reach around my head and unfasten the strap that holds the pacifier in my mouth. 

I feel a surge of relief as she pulls the bulb from my mouth. My jaw, exhausted from being forced open for so long, flexes up and down a few times as I acclimate myself to having use of it again. I know better than to say anything, though–I have a feeling that she’d be happy to jam that thing back into my cakehole again, given the slightest excuse.

“I’m bringing him back to play with the others,” Peggy says, picking me up.

This, too, seems to irritate Lenore, as she pauses what she’s doing to narrow her eyes at Peggy. I can only guess why this would annoy Lenore. Maybe Lenore thinks that Peggy should be spending more time with her ‘toys’ rather than leaving them in a room by themselves while she goes and fucks off elsewhere.

I mean, that’s certainly what I’m thinking.

I’m carried back to the other room–the one with the padded floors where the other ‘littles’ are–and I’m eased down onto the ground in a sitting position.

“There you go, Smooshy,” Peggy says. “Good as new. I’ll be back to check on you later.” And with that, she turns and leaves the room, leaving me alone with the others.

“Smooshy,” says Wobble with a nod. “I see you’re allowed to talk now.”

I open my mouth, unsure of what it is I want to say. How soon do I want to get into the story of my dimension-hopping orgasms? Do I want to talk about milk? Do I want to ask a thousand questions about this place?

I settle for simply saying: “Hey.”

“TInkles?” asks Stinker.

“Still getting changed,” I say. 

“So,” Wobble says, a big smile on his face. “Now that you can talk, I’ve got a very important question for you.”

“Okay? Shoot.”

He says: “Cake or pie?”

===

I don’t know how to respond to that, and I need to consider the question for a moment. Is he being serious? Is this somehow a hotly debated topic among the littles? Is there a wrong answer–one that gets me shunned from this tiny community in Lenore and Peggy’s basement.

“There’s your answer,” Stinker says to Wobble. “Clearly he doesn’t know.”

“W-wait,” I say. “I mean…I like cake a lot, but…” I look at both of their faces, seeing a mix of amusement and curiosity. “You’re not actually asking me about cake or pie, are you?”

“If you don’t know, you don’t know,” Wobble says. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Well, hold on,” Stinker says. “Don’t be so dismissive just yet.”

“No,” he says. “We can’t trust him yet. We can talk about this some other time, okay?”

Stinker seems annoyed by this response, but also doesn’t look like she’s going to press the matter. Myself, I’m debating whether or not I want to poke this bear.

“I'm not from around here,” I say.

“Where are you from, then?” Wobble says.

I can’t help but laugh. “Honestly, I don’t know where I am now.”

This raises Stinker’s eyebrows. “And yet you know that you’re not from around here?”

“California?” I ask. “Does, uh, Harper’s Bell sound familiar?”

“Well, yeah,” Stinker says. “That’s the closest town to here.”

“The Cradle,” I say. “Have you ever heard of that?”

Stinker shrugs before glancing at Wobble who also shrugs. 

“Like…is that a place?” he asks. “Or do you mean an actual cradle?”

“It’s a place,” I say. “A community? A, uh, cult? Mother? Milk? Mirabelle? Does any of that mean anything to you?”

They look at each other and shake their heads. I’m not surprised by that response. The  Cradle might exist and they just don’t know about it. But I suspect there’s just nothing like it here. In a world where there’s already a natural imbalance between ‘bigs’ and ‘littles,’ there’s probably not a need for a community that embraces diapers and baby clothes. 

“What about, uh…” But my voice trails off as I hear approaching footsteps. It’s Lenore, entering the room with a freshly changed Tinkles. She sets the girl down on the padded floor, scanning the rest of us with a skeptical eye.

“On your best behavior?” Lenore asks.

Wobble nods his head. Stinker says nothing at all.

Lenore’s glare shifts to me. She stares down at me, her eyes narrowed.

I nod too. “Yes, ma’am.”

Lenore scoffs. “Peggy’s right–you do talk too much. Careful with that mouth of yours, child, or you’ll be wearing that pacifier again.” As quickly as she stormed into the room, Lenore pivots and exits–her footsteps getting quieter as they recede.

“What’s the deal with these ladies?” I ask. “Can they just not hear us? Or are we, like, so beneath them that they can’t bother to acknowledge us?”

Tinkles tilts her head. “Have you…never met a big before?”

“No,” I say. 

“I don’t believe you,” Tinkles says, giggling with amusement. “That’s impossible.”

“Where are you from?” Wobble asks for a second time.

I sigh, still unsure if I should be lying or telling a story that there’s no way they’d ever believe. 

“Look, I don’t know what happened to me,” I say–not a complete lie, “but I’m having trouble remembering, uh, everything right now. Maybe I hit my head or something when I ended up here.”

“Amnesia,” Tinkles gasps, holding her hands up to her mouth.

“We can help you remember things,” Wobble says. “What do you remember?”

“I’m from the east coast,” I say. “New Jersey.”

This seems to get everyone’s attention. They’re all staring at me. They look–I don’t know–in awe of me?

“So…” says Wobble. “When I asked if you liked cake or pie…?”

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” I respond. Nikki and I have a little joke we make sometimes about cake and pie. I don’t even remember where it came from, but once in a while, one of us will ask the other if we like cake or pie. And the other will say… “Donuts?”

Wobble laughs, laughing as he sighs with relief. “Yeah, exactly. See…I knew you knew!”

“Knew?” I ask. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“New Jersey,” Stinker says. “The Littles’ Rebellion?”

“It’s the code,” Tinkles says. “It’s how we know you support the rebellion.”

“You do remember the rebellion, right?” Wobble says.

I’m more confused than I’ve ever been. Rebellion? New Jersey? Donuts?

“Nikki?” I say aloud. I mean to say it more to myself than anyone else–I’m just thinking out loud as I try to make sense of all this.

“Yes, exactly,” Wobble says. “Nik’s Rebellion.”

I laugh, “Nick?”

“N-I-K,” he says, spelling it out. “The leader of the rebellion in New Jersey. Her and her littles have been fighting back against the bigs. The stories are spreading around the world–inspiring other littles to stand up for themselves.”

The odds seem slim, but I’d love for this to mean that Nikki–the Nikki that I know, love, and have lived with for a long time–is the face of a rebellious group of littles working to overthrow the ‘bigs’ of this world. Because that is the sort of thing she’d do in a situation like this, isn’t it? If anyone ever tried to make Nikki put a diaper on, she would fucking revolt.

And if that is ‘my’ Nikki, I wonder if that means there’s another version of me in this place. Am I in NJ too, as part of Nik’s Rebellion? Am I a big, poking fun at helpless littles in diapers?

No, of course not. I’m definitely a little. Wearing a diaper is probably my fate across all universes.

Perhaps this is my body in this world. Maybe I’m just temporarily using the body of this universe’s Alfie while I’m here? Strange that I’d be in California, I guess, but what the hell do I know? 

And, now that I think about it, why do littles have to wear diapers and act like babies for the bigs? How did that culture come about? And do bigs rule the planet? Do littles have any representation at all? What does a community of littles look like, free of bigs? What identity do bigs have for themselves when they don’t have a little to torment?

Was there ever an Elvis here? Was he famous? Was he a big or a little? Are there little celebrities? Are there bigs who champion for littles’ rights?

But maybe any one of the littles in this room with me would have countless questions about the world that I live in, given the chance to travel there for themselves. Which is to say, that I’ll probably never know everything there is to know about this place. 

“Are you part of the rebellion?” I ask.

“We support the rebellion,” Wobble says. “Quietly.”

“This is our home,” Stinker says. “This is all we have. We may not always like being the bigs’ playthings, but…”

“I understand,” I say. And maybe I don’t fully comprehend the full situation, I think I get the jist of it. 

===

“Is he not the cutest little Smooshy who has ever smooshed before?” Peggy asks, her giant fingers squeezing my cheeks and shaking them. When she releases her grip, my cheek radiates a warm pain as I open my jaw a few times in an effort to stretch out my face’s skin again.

“You like this one, do you?” Lenore asks. She seems to be only half-paying attention to Peggy and I, her face aimed at the TV–one that’d likely be too big for any house in the world that I come from. 

I’m seated on Peggy’s lap as she sits in an armchair near Lenore’s in what I presume is their upstairs living room. I’m wearing only my diaper, and I’m straddling Peggy’s legs as I face her chest. Her legs occasionally bob up and down, jostling my body around. She seems to find this pretty entertaining. Of course, the jostling is also doing a number on my digestive system–shaking my bowels so much that I can feel them suddenly begging for release. What the hell is even in my bowels right now? 

“He’s adorable,” Peggy coos, sticking her face in mine and planting a sloppy kiss on my head with her big lips. Strings of saliva drip down my cheeks. “So precious. Do you know how hard it is to get a little this cute?”

“He belongs to someone, I’m sure,” Lenore says with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Or rather, he belonged to someone. He’s ours now.”

I feel another ominous rumble in my guts as Peggy’s thighs shake again. My face must signal the new panic I’m feeling, because I watch as Peggy’s eyes light up as she stares down at me.

“Uh oh. What’s that look for, little fella? Are you thinking you gotta use your diaper?”

Lenore sighs. “If he’s going to make a mess, could you at least take him somewhere else? I don’t want his stench to ruin my relaxing evening.”

“Oh, come on,” whines Peggy. “It won’t be that bad.”

“No thank you,” Lenore says. “You made me change Tinkles’s nasty little diaper earlier, and I’ve had just about enough of stinky bottoms for the day. This one is all yours. Get him out of here and then clean him up yourself.”

Peggy sighs, lifting me up and cradling me in her arms. “Come on, Smooshy. Let’s go take a walk outside.”

With her breasts smashed against my face, she carries me out of my room. I hear doors opening and closing, though I have no sense of where we’re going. It’s not until I feel a brisk wind rush past my skin that I realize we’re outside.

“There we go, Smooshy,” Peggy says. “Feel free to do your dirty little business whenever you’re ready. I promise I’ll take good care of you after you do.”

“Do I have to?” I ask. 

She chuckles and shakes her head as her arms sway from side to side to rock me. “You silly little thing. Such a chatty fella.”

I swear, it’s like they can’t actually understand the words littles say. A little can understand them, but they just can’t comprehend any of the words that come out of our mouth.

I put the theory to the test, clearing my throat first and then saying, a little more loudly: “You’re ugly and your breath stinks.” I feel kind of guilty for even saying this–I don’t think I’ve ever called a woman ugly to her face before, and I don’t think I ever want to do it again. Still, surely this will get a rise out of her.

But she just laughs and shakes her head. “Maybe I ought to get that pacifier for you again, hm? You blabbering little baby.”

My test is inconclusive–I still can’t be certain if she’s just not paying attention to what I’m saying, or if the sound of my voice means nothing to her. But I do know that it’d probably be best to keep my mouth shut for a while, lest I want a paci-gag shoved into my mouth again.

She continues to rock my body back and forth in her arms at a slow and steady pace. And it’s…kind of nice. It’s easy to kind of lose myself in this moment, just closing my eyes and making peace with the gentle swaying and the warmth of her body. 

It’s the one thing that was missing from The Cradle, I realize. There, they can treat you like a baby all day–and the milk certainly helps to make you feel like you’re that baby–but you never get the feeling that you are as small as you wish you were. No matter what you feel, you’re still in an adult-sized body. 

That seems to matter less here. No, I’m not the proportional size of an infant here either, but I’m certainly smaller than my caretakers. I can be picked up, manhandled, and tossed around with ease. She can cradle me in her arms like I’m a small child, and…I needed that. More than I ever would’ve thought, apparently.

“That’s a good little Smooshy,” she coos at me. “Get nice and comfortable.”

I see now what babies like about this. Fuck everything else. Who cares about The Cradle. Who cares about littles and bigs? Who cares about Harriet? Just give me this forever. Let me be this diapered sack of bones forever and ever–just lying here in these big arms and getting endlessly swung back and forth.

There’s another little cramp in my abdomen, reminding me of the still-growing pressure in my bowels. There’s a small part of me that would still prefer to have this happen somewhere else, but there’s a much larger part of me that doesn’t care at all.

You’re a baby now. Completely. Just let it all out and let someone else deal with it. The sooner you empty yourself into this diaper, the sooner you can get back to focusing on completely shutting your mind off while in her arms.

I honestly can’t say whether or not I purposefully allow myself to mess my diaper, or if my body makes that decision for me. All I know is that I’m suddenly grunting and shifting a little in Peggy’s arms as she rocks me, and I feel the back of my diaper suddenly expanding as a new warm mass squeezes into my padding.

Peggy seems to sense what’s going on almost immediately. “Are you…” She laughs. “You are! You’re doing a big ol’ poopsy woopsy for me, aren’t you?”

I offer no response as I let out another pathetic whimper as I helplessly push another round into my diaper. Normally, doing this sort of thing in front of someone else would make me feel pretty humiliated, but I find myself not caring much about that at the moment. This just feels right–like it’s exactly what I’m supposed to be doing.

“Aww,” she coos, balancing me on one arm as her big fingers of the other press into my belly and rub it. “You should see that scrunchy little face you make while you’re doing your poopies for me! Lenore was stupid for not wanting to see this. You’re just the cutest little thing in the whole world!”

With a final little “Unh!” I force the last of my load out from myself. The swampy diaper feels so much better than it probably should–the way it sticks to my skin and mushes around as Peggy continues to rock me.

“And, oof,” she says, “a stinky little thing, huh? That was quite the load. Maybe I deserved that after what I left Lenore with earlier…”

My eyes are closed, and I’m already finding it easy to sink into this blissful state of nothingness. I am floating. I am a baby. I have no thoughts. No concerns. Nothing else matters.

I feel one of her hands on my diaper, though I can barely be bothered to see what arrangement her arms are in to make this possible. All I know is that I like the feeling of her large fingers poking and prodding at the dense padding as she feels the size of the big mess I made.

“Goodness,” she coos. “You’re gonna put me to work with that mess.”

I let out a little moan as her hand continues to grope my diaper. I’m not even aware of the fact that I’m becoming erect until I feel some of her fingers rubbing at the new lump on the front of my diaper.

“I knew I was going to like you the most,” I hear her say–though her voice sounds like it’s coming from somewhere far, far away from the blissful realm I’m currently inhabiting. “We’re going to have so much fun together.”

There’s this very small part of me that knows that this isn’t right and that I don’t belong here. But there’s another, louder, part of myself that proclaims: I don’t care! This is how it’s going to be now. I’m baby.

“The other littles don’t like it when I play with them like this,” she says softly. “But you don’t seem to mind at all, do you? You seem to love it.”

I moan again, lost in this abyss of being rocked, getting rubbed, my thoughts dissipating, and the air around us starting to stink like my diaper. Those big fingers are doing some very good things to me right now, and I feel my head rolling back as streams of drool leak out from the corner of my mouth. My restrained hands helplessly reach up and bat at her chest

“Go on,” Peggy coos. “Show me what a good little you are. Show me how much you like your filthy little messes.”

There’s that old familiar feeling: a numbness that washes over me as I realize I’m on the verge of cumming into my diaper.

And I realize, a few moments too late, that once I cum, I probably won’t be here anymore. I won’t have the chance to talk to the other littles again. I won’t have the chance to learn anything else about this crazy place.

I know that I need to go, but I wasn’t ready for that yet.

“W-wait…” I say.

But I’m already cumming.

Forty-Nine: Post-Apocalyptic Consent

I realize a few things as I slowly come to and open my eyes. For one, I’m sitting on a chair. But I can’t move my arms or legs. I slowly tilt my head down to see why that is, and find the answer pretty quickly. My legs are bound with rope, and it seems another rope wrapped around my abdomen is what is keeping my arms bound behind the back of the chair.

The walls on either side of me are dirty and a little ramshackle in their construction. Cinder blocks and cement, I guess–though I’ve never claimed to be any sort of expert on building materials. It’s the wall in front of me that concerns me more–metal bars that run from the ceiling to the floor. They’re painted black, but that paint has chipped in places and I spot rust and corrosion in the bars. There’s a door on the right side of the bars, which I imagine is locked from the other side.

I’m tied up? 

In…jail?

Well, this is definitely worse than being rocked in a giant woman’s arms while I mess my diaper. How do I go back to that? And for that matter, how do I get back to Harriet? 

How do I get back to The Cradle, and home? Is such a thing even possible now?

I don’t see anyone else here in this place with me, though I can’t see behind myself. 

“Hello?” I say. Miraculously, my mouth hasn’t been gagged or otherwise restricted.

There’s no response. 

I slowly look up at the flickering fluorescent lights, recessed in the cement ceiling and giving off a buzzing sound. Beyond the bars, I see a long hallway, and possibly some other cells on either side of it, but that’s about all I can make out.

“Hello?” I say again. “Anyone?”

Again, there’s no answer. No sound at all, really, save for the consistent buzzing sound of the lights.

Well fuck. I’d like to call a mulligan, I think. If I had access to my hands, I’d jerk myself off right here, right now, and just let fate take me to the next universe–hopefully one where I’m not just automatically in jail for some reason.

“Hellooooo. Anyone? Look, I don’t know what’s going on here, but I can assure you that I’m probably not someone you need to have in jail.”

Or am I? If my mind is inhabiting the body of the version of me who lives in this world, perhaps there’s a good reason I’m bound and in a cell of some sort.

Also, I’m suddenly realizing that I’m naked again. This makes the tight, bristly ropes against my bare skin feel very uncomfortable. Why is it that I can’t wake up in a world where I have some dignity?

At the very least, I don’t see any diapers lying around. Of course, given my luck, I’m probably in, like, Baby Jail, and I’m awaiting trial to be sentenced to a lifetime of suckling from bottles, pissing myself, and crawling around on all fours.

No, it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, I suppose. But I could do without the pre-trial bondage.

From somewhere else, I hear a new sound entering the fray–a gentle clip-clap. Footsteps, I think, echoing across the hard ground. They slowly get louder, and I realize that they’re heading towards me. I swallow hard, nervous to see who or what I’m going to have to deal with now. Clip-clap. Clip-clap. Clip-clap.

A figure turns a corner at the end of the hallway I’m facing and they’re walking straight towards me now. And, well, of all the people I could’ve imagined walking towards me, I don’t think I would’ve ever imagined what I’m seeing now.

She’s a cheerleader. An honest-to-god blue-and-white-skirt-and-top, hair-in-pigtails-with-big-bows, thigh-high-socks-with-pristine-white-shoes cheerleader. Her tan skin and buoyant, curly brown hair couldn’t look more at odds with the shabbyness of this prison.

“Have a nice little nap?” she asks as she reaches the other side of the bars of the cell that I’m kept inside of. 

“Uh…” How do I even respond to that question, let alone any of this?

“Sorry if the ropes are a little tight,” she says. “Marci gets a little carried away when she’s on rope duty.”

“Uh, do I have to be tied up? I mean…I’m already in a cell, aren’t I?”

“Better safe than sorry,” the cheerleader responds. “We’ve made mistakes before, and we don’t intend to make them again.”

“We?” I ask.

She proudly points to the stylized word in large letters that adorns the front of her cheerleading uniform top: THE BRATS. “Don’t you know that you’re in Brats territory?”

I’d shrug if I could. “I don’t know what that means.”

She laughs loudly, kicking her head back as she does. “Bullshit. Everybody knows who we are and that we run this area. What’s your name? Who are you with?”

“Alfie,” I say. “And, I…really don’t know how to answer that other question…”

“See, Betsy didn’t think you needed to be tied up,” the cheerleader says. “She thought you’d be harmless and we didn’t need to take any precautions. I’m happy I stuck to my guns, though, because you’re trouble.”

“I’m really not.”

“You’re a liar,” she spits, a fierce finger poking through the bars towards me. “Tell me what faction you’re in.”

“I’m not really from around here,” I say. “So, uh, seriously–I don’t know what you mean when you talk about factions.”

“Where are you from then, huh? Because last I heard, there weren’t any territories left that weren’t under faction control.”

“Uhm…New Jersey?” I say, hoping that that means something to her.

She narrows her eyes at me. “Is that some sort of fucking joke?”

“I’ve been accused of terrible timing with jokes in the past,” I say. “And I can sense this would be a bad time to be making one. So, uh, I’m not trying to joke around, no.”

“You want to be a smartass, huh?” she asks, rearing back with her hands on her hips now. “Cool. Fine by me. We’ll see if you think you’re still funny when I bring Chloe down here to talk to you.”

Is that supposed to sound threatening? There’s nothing especially terrifying about the name ‘Chloe.’ Still, there was some extra emphasis put on the name–even if I don’t think of Chloe as a threat, someone else certainly does.

“I’m more than happy to explain myself to anyone you bring here,” I say. “I’m not a threat, I promise. I’m just a guy who’s in the wrong place at, apparently, the wrong time.”

She scoffs and shakes her head. “Yeah, we’ll have to see what Chloe thinks about this. See you later, loser.”

And with that, the cheerleader pivots and begins walking away from me, back down the hallway again. Clip-clap. Clip-clap. I notice two things as this happens, however. The first is that I see the name ‘Skylar’ is printed across the back of the cheerleader’s top–presumably her name.

The second is that I see the back of her skirt is rising up a little–just enough to reveal what she’s wearing underneath it. And wouldn’t you fucking know it?

It’s a goddamn puffy, white disposable diaper.

===

Chloe doesn’t look any more threatening than her name sounds. She’s short, thin, and looks like a stiff wind could carry her across a few counties. She is also dressed like a cheerleader, in a uniform similar to Skyar’s, which doesn’t exactly instill terror in me. But credit where credit is due, she’s got a mean look on her face, and her scowl concerns me. 

Skylar opens the cell door from the other side and lets Chloe in. All I can think about is whether or not Chloe, too, is wearing a diaper. There might be a slight bulge in her skirt, but I could also be completely wrong about that.

“I hear you’re being difficult,” Chloe says. Even her voice is soft and flowery.

“I-I’m really not trying to be,” I say. “I’m trying to explain that…”

Slap!

Quicker than anything, her open hand flashes between us, smacking me alongside the face. It stings like hell. I can’t remember the last time someone slapped me like this. Julie Ross, maybe, back when we broke up? But even then, I don’t think Julie meant to hurt me so much as just shame me. Chloe wants to cause pain–and I can’t help but imagine a pink hand-shaped mark on the side of my face now.

“What faction do you belong to?” Chloe asks, in the same tenor one might use to ask about what was for dinner. Seeing now what violence she was capable of, that tone seemed a little terrifying.

“I’m not part of a faction,” I say. “I’m not from around here.”

Slap!

That really smarts.

“He told me he was from New Jersey,” Skylar says.

“Heh,” laughs Chloe to herself. She asks me: “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“You do know what New Jersey is, right?” I say.

She scoffs. “I know what New Jersey used to be.”

I tilt my head a little. “What do you mean? It’s still there…right?”

Now Chloe narrows her eyes at me and just stares at me for a few moments. “Is this some sort of bit?”

I think about the excuse that seemed to work pretty well while I was in Lenore and Peggy’s basement, and wonder if it might win me a little of Chloe’s patience here: “Uh…I think I’ve got some sort of…amnesia.”

Chloe looks back at Skylar: “You said you found him like this? Naked?”

Skylar nods. “Marci, myself, and Tiffany did, uh huh.”

Chloe asks: “And he wasn’t even wearing a diaper?”

I sigh a little, feeling like I already see what’s coming. It really is my destiny, across all universes, to end up in diapers.

Skylar shakes her head. “No. He was unconscious. Face down in a field. We thought he might be a School Boy, so we tied him up down here.”

“I don’t think he’s a School Boy,” Chloe says, turning back to me. She runs the back of her hand over my bare shoulder. “No gold stars.”

School Boy? Gold stars? Brats? No New Jersey?

“Well he’s definitely not a Stinky,” Skylar says. “Too clean for that. Mothered?”

“Maybe,” Chloe says. “But this far south? They’d never travel so far away from their precious robots.”

“R-robots?” I say.

Chloe laughs again, squinting at me. “You really don’t know about that?”

I shake my head.

“Big Girls? The Mothered? The Paci Gang?”

“I can assure you that I don’t know what any of that means,” I say.

Skylar says: “What about The Blow Out?”

“Is that a…faction?” I ask.

Chloe sighs, looking sympathetic towards me now. “Go ahead and untie him, Sky. But we’ll keep him in the cell for now. Stay here with him, and I’ll send Brittany and Marci down here with some diapers and clothes for him.”

I don’t really want to interject–the last thing I want to do is squander the little bit of goodwill I seem to have now–but I add: “M-maybe something to eat? And drink?”

Chloe nods. “I’ll see what I can do.”

===

Skylar works on the knots that keep me bound to the chair until I finally feel the tension surrounding me release. I can move my limbs again. 

“Is that better?” Skylar asks me.

“Much,” I say, slowly standing up. Now that I can move around, I turn around to see what the rest of my space looks like. There’s a barred window mounted high on the wall. A barebones cot in the corner. A small wooden writing desk.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” she says.

“Like?”

“Like trying to escape. I promise you that you can’t run faster than me. And you’re definitely not stronger than me.”

“I don’t doubt that,” I say, shaking my head. 

It’s only now that I remember that I’m completely naked; as I look down to see my soft manhood dangling between my legs. Instinctively, my hands rush down to cover myself up as I feel my cheeks redden.

Skylar laughs. “I wouldn’t mind seeing some more of that. I don’t get to see too many of those.”

“I think I’ll just, uh, keep that to myself right now,” I say, sitting back down in the chair. It seems a little easier to conceal myself in this position.

“You really don’t remember anything?” she asks.

“Uh, no. Whatever is going on here, it’s all new to me.”

She laughs. “What’s the last thing you remember? Maybe I can catch you up.”

I have no idea how to answer that. I get the feeling that there’s a point in which this universe wildly diverged from the one that I’m from, and I don’t know when in the timeline that might have happened.

I just have to laugh. These are some wild concepts that I’m allowing myself to so readily embrace. Someone else, faced with the same circumstances, might go insane from trying to wrap their head around this. Perhaps it’s the milk that’s opened my mind. Or, maybe, it’s all those years of reading comic books–where things like this happen all the time. And Nikki wanted to make fun of my comic reading.

“Something funny?” Skylar asks.

I shrug. “I…I don’t even know where to begin.”

“You know about The Blow Out, right?”

“Was that, like, a movie or something?” I ask.

She shakes her head, sighing a little. “You really don’t know, do you?”

“Nope.”

“Folks call it ‘The Blow Out,’” she says. “Nobody–at least nobody that I’ve ever talked to before–knows who or what caused it. But something happened a few years ago and it caused everybody on Earth to, uh…” Her voice trails off and her cheeks redden a little.

“Hm?”

“Sorry. I should be used to it by now, but I guess it’s still kind of embarrassing. So, uh, this thing happened, right? And it made everyone…incontinent. Like, every single person in the world.”

“Incontinent?” I ask, leaning forward a little.

“Like, you know, we can’t control it when we have to piss or…”

“N-no, I know what it means,” I say. “But that happened to everyone?”

She laughs, shaking her head again. “I can’t believe none of this rings a bell to you.”

“Like I said, I don’t really remember anything.”

“Right, well,” she continues. “Everything fell apart after that. Maybe it was because of the incontinence itself, or maybe that was just the last straw in a world that was already pushed to the breaking point. Uh, that’s what Emily says, at least. But people went crazy. Governments crumbled. A lot of the country’s population consolidated in the midwest to form new colonies. But the coastal regions are still mostly held by factions.”

“Like…The Brats?” I ask, looking at her cheerleading uniform.

She smiles and nods. “That’s right!”

This is even more comic-booky than I initially thought. 

“Does, uh, ‘The Cradle’ mean anything to you?” I ask.

“Like, the place?”

My eyes open wide and my heart rate quickens. “You know of it?”

She shrugs. “I guess. It’s kind of an urban legend around here. You know about that but you don’t know about The Blow Out?”

“I, uh, it’s just a faint memory,” I say, shrugging my shoulders. “But what do you know about it?”

“It’s where we are now,” Skylar says, shrugging. “Or, well, it used to be called that, I guess. A long time ago. Some creepy cult used to live here or something. Some of the girls used to tell this story about how the leader of the cult turned all of her followers into, like, babies and that she was the one responsible for The Blow Out. But people make up all kinds of shit, you know? Stupid stories like that were just made to scare everyone else.”

It’s a lot to process at once. For one, I suppose it continues to confirm that when I cum my way from one universe to another–as insane as that sounds–I’m arriving in the corresponding location of where I was before. Perhaps that’s a good thing to keep in mind.

But…this isn’t The Cradle that I know. This is a jail cell, and it’s not the only one in this building. At what point did The Cradle ever need a prison? When did they start locking up people? And why?

I need to remind myself not to get too caught up in details like these, though. This isn’t my world. This isn’t my Cradle. 

Still, maybe there’s some warnings to take heed of. While Skylar seems dismissive of the story about a cult leader who turns followers into babies, all stories have to start from somewhere. It’d be quite the coincidence if someone just fabricated a story about a cult leader babifying her followers here, in a place called The Cradle. It makes me wonder–is the inevitable path of Mother in any world she inhabits? That, given enough time, she’ll eventually render the entire world incontinent?

Why? And to what ends? And…

“You still with me?” Skylar asks, waving a hand in front of my face. I’m realizing that I spaced out for a moment.

“Oh, uh…yeah,” I say.

“You’re kinda weird,” Skylar says.

“I’m sure I’m even weirder than you think I am.”

===

Two new cheerleaders walk down the hallway towards the cell where I’m still sitting, and where Skylar leans against the wall.

“Hey,” says the first. She’s got short, dark hair, freckles, and big doe eyes. She’s got a small stack of folded, plump, disposable diapers and what might be a package of wipes in her hands. “I didn’t bring any clothes. All we have are, uh, uniforms, and I didn’t think he’d want that.”

She’s probably right.

“Yo,” Skylar replies to acknowledge her, stepping forward and pushing the cell’s door open from the inside. Apparently the door isn’t locked? Had I known this, I wonder if I would’ve made an attempt at escaping. 

The other cheerleader–with a more olive complexion, big gaudy glasses, and big auburn hoops of hair–carries a tray of food past me and places it on the desk.

I haven’t yet considered the age of these girls, but it’s something I’m thinking about now. Definitely not of high school age. College-age, maybe. Maybe a little older? They still have a youthful glow to them, but there’s a dash of maturity in those eyes as well. Of course, who the hell knows what toll doomsday takes on a body. They could be 18, or they could be 40, for all I know.

Even if I was fully clothed and in a more ‘normal’ situation, by my standards, I still think I’d have a hard time handling myself around a group of attractive women like this–let alone women in cheerleading outfits. There’s something about the cheerleader–a symbol of a popularity class that I could only ever dream of being a part of in high school–that makes me feel self-conscious and more timid. It helps, a little, to know that they’re all wearing diapers–but that doesn’t mean much when I have a feeling that they’ll be putting me in a diaper too, soon enough.

“No food until you’re wearing a diaper,” the girl who carried in the food says. The back of her uniform reads ‘Brittany.’ Which, I think, makes the other Marci?

If this, in fact, the post-apocalyptic world after Mother has had her way with humanity, I have to say that I’m impressed with their uniforms–they’re clean, perfectly sized, and the customized details of the cheerleaders name and the ‘The Brats’ logo is pretty well executed. I can’t help but wonder who handles that sort of thing after the fall of civilization as we know it.

Oh, the things I think about at the end of the world.

“Yeah, sure,” I say. I’m not going to fight these women over a diaper. I’m coming to expect that this is just the way it is in all universes.

“Over here,” Skylar says, waving me towards the bed with her hand. “I can take care of that.”

I’m assuming they’re putting me in a diaper because they assume I need one, like apparently everyone else who lives on the planet. But I’m not completely sure why they have to be the ones to put it on me. Can’t I just do it myself? Is this typical protocol for a prisoner, or whatever it is that I’m considered to be?

“Oh, uh…” I look around at the girls’ smirking faces as they watch me. “Maybe you could all just…look away for a second while I get up?”

The girls all snickered and giggled amongst each other.

Marci says: “I don’t see the point in being modest about it. We’re gonna see it all when Skylar puts the diaper on you anyway.”

“I never seen a dick before,” Brittany says, blushing a little. “I mean, like, in person.”

“You’re not missing much,” Skylar says. “Overrated.”

“You would think that,” Marci says with a wry grin on her face. “We know what you and Betsy do in your cabin at night.”

I don’t get much time to imagine what that might mean, though, as Brittany and Marci are on either side of me, each taking one of my arms and pulling. They manage to not only pull my hands away from my crotch, but they pull my body up from the chair and into a standing position. Once more, my manhood flops down, dangling in front of me pathetically.

“There you go,” Marci says, pointing at my crotch. “That’s a dick.”

“That’s it?” Brittany asks, her nose wrinkling a little in disappointment.

“H-hey,” I say, my face feeling pretty warm all of a sudden. “I’m a, uh, grower–not a shower.”

Marci giggles as she pulls me closer to the bed. “Sure, buddy. Whatever you say.”

“We caught that guy from the Paci Gang trying to steal our supplies, remember that?” Skylar says. “He, uhm…” She doesn’t finish that thought, but holds her hands out in front of her, putting a good twelve inches between her hands. The other girls giggle and act astonished. Personally, I’m not buying that anyone’s shlong is that big–unless this universe just so happens to also have very well-endowed men in addition to being a post-apocalyptic diapered hellscape.

Brittany gives me a little shove towards the bed, and I’m caught by Skylar, who then helps ease me onto my back. The cot doesn’t have any sheets or blankets on it, it’s just a thin mattress pad atop the wires and springs of the cot. 

There are hands all over me. I can’t keep track of whose hands are where. Hands hold down my shoulders. Hands spread my legs open. Hands unfurl a diaper and spread it out between my thighs. I look up briefly, and the sight of their three pretty faces peering down on me is like some sort of hot dream my teenage-self would’ve had ten years ago.

“I wanna touch it,” Brittany says.

“You can’t just go touching whatever you want,” Skylar says. “You should ask first.”

It’s nice to know, I guess, that consent is still important in the post-apocalypse.

“Excuse me, stranger,” Brittany says to me. “What do you think? Can I touch your, uh, dongle?”

My dongle?

I clear my throat, unsure of what to say to that. “Uh, well… I mean, I guess…”

Brittany wastes no time, her hand darting between my legs and grasping at my manhood. I don’t want this to be sexy or arousing–I’m embarrassed and out of my element enough as it is. Still, my body betrays what I want and I feel myself starting to grow elect as her soft, slender fingers shake my cock to life.

“Ooh,” Marci coos. “Would you look at this? Somebody is happy to get some attention, hm?”

“You know,” Skylar says. “Maybe he was right. It’s already a little bigger than I expected it to be.”

My sense of self-worth thanks her, a little, for that.

“It’s…not like I was expecting it to be,” Brittany says.

Marci giggles. “Really? Like…what were you expecting it to be like?”

“I don’t know,” Brittany replies with a shrug. “Maybe it’d feel…scaly?”

The other girls laugh at this. Hell, I’d laugh too if I wasn’t paralyzed with humiliation from being held down and fondled by them.

I wonder if this is actually a blessing in disguise. Maybe, if they play around with my cock a little longer, they’ll manage to get me off and–bam!–I’m whisked away to the next world where, for whatever reason, I’m made to wear a diaper.

“So…this is what you do with it, huh?” Brittany asks, her fingers wrapping around my shaft and giving it a little tugging motion.

Hoo boy.

Skylar bats her hand away, wrapping her own hand around my cock now. “I mean, sure, that’d probably work. But this is how I used to do it.” Hand cupped around me, she strokes upwards, almost clearing the shaft completely before using her palm to rub at the head before letting her hand slide back down the shaft. “You have to be, like, real flexible with your wrist.”

Marci scoffs. “See, I wasn’t giving boys handjobs. They can do that themselves. There’s other places I’d want to stick that thing.”

“Slut-ty,” says Skylar with a giggle.

“Are you gonna show us what you mean by that?” Brittany says.

“What, you think I’m going to put this stranger’s dick in my mouth?” Marci scoffs. 

“Alright, alright,” Skylar says. “Let’s not get our captive too excited. I gotta put this diaper on him and he still needs to eat.”

“Will that diaper even fit right while he’s all hard like that?” Brittany asks.

“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Sklyar says, shrugging.

I’m surprised with how disappointed I am that they’re not going to finish what they started. Not only am I not getting the chance to blow this joint and travel somewhere else, but now I’m just erect and worked up. 

There’s a matter-of-factness about the application of the diaper. There’s nothing ‘fun’ or ‘naughty’ about it. Even at The Cradle, where diapers are changed hundreds of times a day, there’s still a feeling of it being this special thing. But here, it’s just business as usual. There’s nothing special about a diaper change when everyone, with apparently no exceptions, needs them. As Skylar finishes wrapping the diaper around me, the other girls have already loosened their grip on me and are talking amongst themselves.

Up until now, I haven’t taken much note of the smell in whatever kind of cell this is supposed to be–I guess there’s a faint and inoffensive trace of dampness, but nothing beyond that. There’s a new smell filling my nostrils now, however. It’s the undeniable odor of a soiled diaper.

And I’m not the only one to smell it. I watch as Skylar wrinkles her nose, giving me a skeptical look. “You couldn’t possibly have already…”

“It wasn’t me,” I say softly.

“Was that you, Britt?” Marci asks.

Brittany sighs. “Yeah…” She doesn’t look embarrassed as much as she looks inconvenienced. Like her flip flop broke, or she spilled mustard on her pants.

“Phew,” Skylar says, waving her nose in front of her face. “Marci, why don’t you go give her a hand with that. I’ll finish up Mr. Stiffy here and make sure he eats. Just make sure someone comes down later to take over guard duty, yeah?”

“Yeah, sounds good,” Marci says, shrugging. “C’mon, stinky.”

“Shut up,” Brittany responds, playfully pushing the other girl. “You’re one to talk. We all got a whiff of what you cooked up this morning during breakfast.”

The two continue to poke fun at each other as they leave the cell and walk down the hallway, leaving me alone with Skylar again.

“There you go,” she says, pulling the last tab into place on the front of the padding. “I’m surprised you didn’t piss all over the chair while you were tied up.”

“Yeah, me too,” I say.

“You hungry?” she asks.

I nod. 

“Well, have at it. There’s some food on the desk there for you. Water too.”

“Thanks,” I say, sitting up in the cot before swinging my legs off the side of it. 

I see that the cell door has been left slightly ajar. Nobody has been walking around with keys. Maybe that door just doesn’t lock, and that’s why I’ve either needed to be tied up or guarded. 

A shame, because if I was left to my own devices, I’d have a hand crammed down the front of my bulging padding as I worked on traversing the, uh, diaperverse again. It doesn’t feel especially appropriate to do that while Skylar sits in here with me. It doesn’t help that I feel a little edged at the moment–my cock still at attention as I waddle towards the tray of food.

What would Skylar do if she saw me groping my diaper? Stop me? Yell at me? Join in? I don’t think I’m bold enough to find out.

The food on the tray is nothing to behold. A chunk of bread. Some sort of orange broth with unknown chunks floating in it. An apple.

I haven’t seen very much of this world…but I don’t think I want to be in it any longer than I have to. There was a lesson to learn here–that if left unchecked, this is what Mother is capable of–and now that knowledge is stowed away.

You know what? I find myself caring a little less about how bold I usually are or aren’t. I gotta get out of here.

With my back still turned to her, I slide my hand down the front of my diaper and grasp my shaft. And I slide my hand down. Up. Down. Up. This is either the stupidest or smartest decision I’ve ever made.

“Hey…” I hear Skylar say behind me, some curious skepticism in her tone. “Wh-what are you doing?”

“Uh…nothing.”

Up. Down. Up. Down. I don’t know if it’s because I’m still just that worked up from the cheerleaders putting their hands all over me, or if the thrill of needing to get myself off while Skylar remains in the room is working for me.

“Y-you’re…touching yourself,” she says. 

“Uhm…”

“Stop that!”

“Just, uh…one second…”

Given how strange the last few months have been, I think calling something ‘crazy’ has lost all meaning. Still, this feels crazy. Among the craziest things I’ve ever done. It’s wrong. It’s kinda gross. 

But if this works, then I’m out of here and it doesn’t even matter. And if it doesn’t work…I’m already in jail anyway, right?

I hear Skylar behind me, shuffling towards me–her own diaper crinkling under her skirt. 

I rub myself even harder and faster, praying that I can somehow summon an orgasm before it’s too late.

***

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“What?” I ask.

I open my eyes for a moment, but the light blinds me and I quickly close them again. It might not even be that bright–I suspect any amount of light would’ve done that to me.

“Sorry, I’m rambling,” the voice says. It’s a feminine tone. Friendly sounding. 

Freya, maybe? Marta? The voice doesn’t exactly sound like either of theirs, but my senses still feel like they’re booting up again.

“How long was I out?” I ask.

“Uhm…”

“Probably a while, huh? Went through a few packs of diapers on me? Go ahead and get it out of your system–tease me about being such a big baby.”

“Wh-where do you think you are right now?” the voice asks.

I open my eyes again, though I can only manage to keep them open by squinting. It’s not that it’s bright, per se, it’s that everything is…white.

Oh, come on.

I sigh. “Harriet?”

She laughs. “Hello, Alfie. It looks like you’re finally coming around?”

“How long have I been here?”

“I’m not sure,” she says. “There’s not really ‘time’ here. So, I guess…a while? You just sort of appeared, as you usually do. Though you’ve never shown up unconscious before.”

I can open my eyes a little wider and see that I’m in that damn white place again. That weird ethereal nowhere that I always seem to drift to after having an orgasm while deep under the effects of the milk.

Did…I cum? It’s such a ridiculous question to have to ask, but that’s the only way I’ve ever gotten to this place previously. 

I try to remember where I was before waking up, but those memories seem distant and hazy. I search the mental archives for the most recent memories I have. 

The clown girl. The stolen milk. Driving the truck back to The Cradle and feeling simultaneously frightened and empowered. 

I was at Daycare. I remember that now. I suppose it’s not that hard to believe that there’d be an experience at the Daycare that would send me here again.

But…

“You said I’ve been here a while?” I ask.

Harriet nods. “Yes. It surprised me too. I kept waiting for you to, uhm, disappear again. But you’re still here.”

I don’t know what that means, but it seems disconcerting. I slowly rise to my feet, stretching my limbs as far as I can.

“Is this what it was like when you first came here?” I ask.

“I don’t know,” she says. “Maybe.”

As my eyes begin to focus more, it’s hard to look at her and not see Mother. They look the same. Something tells me that they are the same–though, again, I don’t know what that means.

There are minor differences, I think. Subtle things like body language. Mother’s posture seems much more perfect. There’s a reverence about her–she carries herself like she knows she’s the most powerful woman on the planet. But this Harriet just seems so…normal. Everyday. Her shoulders are a little slumped. There’s no confident smile on her face. She looks tired and weary. 

The same body, but with a different soul, if such a thing were possible.

Mother. I remember now–I had seen Mother. We were talking. I had things I wanted to say to her. I might have even said the name Harriet to her. What else had I said?

Mother had asked me something: “Do you like being a baby, Alfie?”

I don’t know how I responded, but I doubted that I said “Nah.”

Neither of us say anything for a while. I stare down at my feet, noting how I don’t seem to be standing on anything at all. It gives the illusion that I’m falling, or at least floating, but because it feels like I’m standing on something the experience doesn’t seem to be as nauseating as I’m sure that it could be.

I don’t really feel any sort of physical ailment at all. No headaches. No abdominal discomfort. Mentally? Well, sure, I’m a mess. Anxiety and confusion course through me. 

Ah shit. I realize I’m naked. Harriet isn’t, she’s wearing a simple dark-colored robe of some sort. It’s not the most flattering thing, but it keeps her bits covered up. My instinct is to try and hide my shame, but…what’s the point? For all I know, this is just a dream.

Still, I’m curious. “How come you have clothes and I don’t?”

She laughs. “You can have anything you want, here. It took me some time to realize that, of course.”

I sigh, a little frustrated with that answer. “You realize I don’t know what you mean by that, right?”

“If you think of something hard enough–if you think of something in just the right way–you can…create it. Summon it? I’m not entirely sure. It’s hard to explain, and it took me a long time to figure out that I could do it. I didn’t have anyone here to tell me that I could do that, like you do now. Remember that one time you were here, and there was grass and trees and sky and…”

“Yeah,” I say. “Where is all of that now?”

“That’s the hard part,” she shrugs. “You can create anything you want here. But you have to keep your mind on it for it to stay here. If your thoughts stray, it ceases to remain. It gets even harder when you want to do multiple things at once. Like, say, creating a grassy field while talking to someone–I have to be able to maintain focus on the earth beneath our feet while maintaining a conversation.”

“I’ve never been that good at rubbing my belly and patting my head,” I say.

“Right. Well…I’ve had time to practice. The meditation helps. Also, sometimes, it’s easier to just…not need things. It’s boring around here when it’s just white like this, but it also frees up so much of my mind.”

Perhaps that explains the simple clothes she’s wearing–it’s just less taxing on her psyche.

Less taxing on her psyche. What kind of goofy comic book am I in right now?

“Aren’t you lonely?” I ask. “Why don’t you just, you know, think of some people to interact with?”

“It doesn’t work with people,” she says. “I’ve tried. It has to be things. Places. Ideas, even. Like, for example, imagining a beach at sunset.”

And with that, I find that my feet are suddenly half-buried in warm sand. I look to my left and to my right, finding that the beach extends in both directions as far as I can see. The sun is in my eyes. I use my hand to shield my face, and see–and hear–the waves of the vast, flat ocean lapping at the shore. It’s not quite perfect–the lack of clouds, seagulls, and other people do cause it to feel a little artificial–but it’s no less amazing because of it. The sun feels warm on my skin. It feels good.

“Can I do this?” I ask.

“Dunno,” she says.

“What about buildings?”

“Look behind you.”

I do, seeing a row of buildings perched on the beach’s edge. They’re all mostly similar to each other, with some subtle differences in, perhaps, color and the number of windows they have. It’s impressive nonetheless.

“Can you go into them?” I ask.

“It’s tricky,” she says, “but not impossible.”

“But no people,” I say, talking more to myself than to her. “Sounds…lonely.”

“A little.”

I turn around, and I watch her sigh with relief as the houses vanish and a little extra space in her mind is returned to her.

“What about doors?” I ask.

“Doors?”

“Can you make a door that leads you out of this place?”

She laughs. “Do you think I’d be here if I could do that?”

I sigh. There’s a part of me that still thinks that, at any moment, the ‘world’ around me is just going to fade away and I’m going to find myself back in a crib at Daycare again. But lots of moments have passed, and I’m still here. This isn’t like the other times. 

===

Mother said to me: “Do you like being a baby, Alfie?” I cooed: “Mm.” Because, yeah, I really have enjoyed my time at The Cradle and all that it entailed. Even the diapers. Sometimes, especially the diapers.

And I now remember what she said then: “I sure hope so. Because after this, that’s all you’ll ever be.”

And, well, that certainly implies some permanence, doesn’t it? Maybe not the permanence I would’ve expected, but I think I’d be a fool if that didn’t relate to my current predicament.

A fool. That’s exactly what I’ve been. I see magic–actual magic, as best as I can tell–and I allowed it to feel normal. There she was, a woman who can make enough breastmilk to feed a community. A woman who can make breast milk that reduces people to slobbering, pants-filling babies. And I don’t think I, or anyone else, ever stopped to say: “What else can she do?”

Everyone at The Cradle is a fool, playing with things they don’t actually understand.

Look at me. I got careless. And now I’m…I don’t know. Blinked off the face of the Earth? Stranded in nothingness? 

===

Harriet isn’t too far away from me, but she’s given me some space. I didn’t ask for this, but I respect her knowing that I needed it.

Maybe she needs it too.

With every moment that passes by, it seems less likely that I’m going to just blink away and reappear somewhere else. This is how things are now. For how long, I couldn’t say. Harriet, too, would probably like to know how long we’re going to be here.

I have questions for her. She has questions for me. Eventually, we’ll get around to asking them. But what’s the rush?

Actually, maybe I’ve got to get a few questions out of my system: “Do you ever get tired?”

“No,” she says.

“Do you sleep?”

“Not really. I don’t get hungry. I don’t get thirsty. I don’t have to go to the bathroom. These aren’t, like, physical bodies. They seem like they are. But…I don’t know.” She shrugs, a frustrated glare on her face. “They’re just not.”

I’ve been standing since I first stood up–when I first found myself in this place. I’m not tired. I’m bored, but not tired.

I’m still naked. Maybe that’s part of the reason she’s looking away from me. My flaccid manhood dangles in front of me helplessly. There was a time, what feels like ages ago now, when this would absolutely destroy me with humiliation. It’s still unpleasant, for sure, but maybe the time spent in The Cradle has helped. All the people who’ve seen my dong during a diaper change. All the people who’ve just seen me in a diaper. All the people who’ve seen, or smelled, me use a diaper. 

After a while, it gets a little difficult to feel as ashamed as I used to.

Harriet can conjure things with her mind. She’s made herself clothes. Can I do that? 

I think about pants. That doesn’t seem to do anything, though–except make me feel strange for thinking about pants so intently. Harriet had said that I need to think about things I want to ‘conjure’ in a very specific way. But if she doesn’t even know what that means, how the hell am I supposed to know? 

I think about pants…differently. I imagine myself wearing pants. I imagine pants forming around my legs, like a second skin that slowly weave their way into existence. For a moment, I feel something–the slightest rush of air against my bare legs–but no pants are created.

Maybe I should just ask Harriet to create pants for me. 

No, no–she figured this out for herself, and I can do the same thing. There was probably a time when she was here, all by herself, and she was naked for god-knows how long and she had to slowly learn how this place works. I’m already at an advantage here in that I have her to guide me.

For now, I’ll just be naked, I guess.

“If you were to guess,” I say, “how long do you think it’s been since I came here?”

She shrugs. “I…I have no concept of time anymore. A day? Two days?”

“But not, like, a month?”

“No, I don’t think so,” she says. “But who actually knows?”

“Do you think time here correlates to time…in the, uh, real world?” I ask. It’s such a weird question, but that’s just the way it’s going to be in ‘here’ for the foreseeable future, isn’t it?

She shrugs.

“I just wonder, like, when it is in the real world, you know? Is it the same day I got, like, zonked out? The day after? Or have three years passed and now everyone assumes I’m dead?”

Harriet lifts her eyebrows. “I don’t think it’s the latter. Well, I hope it’s not.

Pants. I’m thinking about pants again. I’m focusing on pants. I’m trying to find new and creative ways of exploring the very concept of pants in my consciousness. 

Pants.

Pants.

Paaaaants.

I close my eyes tightly and take a deep breath, holding it as I attempt to reach deep within myself and make contact with another level of my psyche. Harriet had mentioned meditation earlier as what she needed to summon things into being here. And like her, I’ve never meditated once in my life. 

Well, that’s not entirely true. I pretended to meditate once, back when I was with Julie-fucking-Ross. God, that seems like an eternity ago. Back before she started dating my father. Back before I really despised her. At the time, Julie was going through this semi-spiritualized journey of sorts. I think she had, like, read a book or something about inner-peace and new-age whosie-whatsits, and decided that she was going to make some big changes in her life based on that. Me, still trying to be a good boyfriend at the time, gave a mild shrug of approval and even offered to try meditation with her. 

Candles were lit and she put some soothing music on–something with a lot of harps being plucked, as I recall. She sat on the ground with her legs crossed and her hands stretched out at her sides. I asked her why she was poised like that, thinking that maybe this was somehow proven to be the best position for meditation–like it allowed for better spirit-flow or something silly like that.

She said: “This is just how people do it, Alfie.”

And I guess that was indicative of how Julie went about all things in life, doing the things that everyone else did without considering the reasons why. 

I didn’t cross my legs. I didn’t hold my hands out to my sides. I didn’t close my eyes and stare off into space, occasionally chanting some monosyllable ‘ohm.’ I just sat there on the floor, watching her and taking note of how silly the whole thing was. I waited and watched, wondering how long this charade would go on for. But Julie–well, she’s always been tenacious. She stayed like this for way longer than I thought she would. It was at least an hour, maybe even close to two. And, like, I truly did not believe–and I still don’t to this day–that she was actually ‘meditating.’ She liked to make little scenes like this. She probably wanted me to watch her. When we were done, she wanted me to talk about it after the fact with my family and my mutual friends. She wanted me to say things like: “Yeah, I didn’t really get it, but she was totally meditating! It was incredible, the way she was able to disconnect from the world like that.” It was exhausting, really, to always be inadvertently made into her hype-man. 

And I stared and stared at her. And the time just kind of melted away. And soon I wasn’t really looking at her–I was just kind of looking at nothing. I was thinking about nothing. I was just…there. And…

Well…shit.

It occurs to me, only now, that maybe I actually was meditating. While staring at my ex-girlfriend, as she tried to prove how connected she was to some other plane of existence, maybe I actually had achieved the very thing she was looking for.

And maybe she did actually meditate, I don’t know. I didn’t think that I had. But…I was wrong.

So maybe I can do it again?

How did I do that? Sit. Stare. Focus. No, don’t focus too much. Just…let it all go. Don’t think about nothing–just allow myself to be nothing.

I realize that I’m still holding my breath. How long have I been holding my breath for? Minutes? Shouldn’t I be dead right now? Maybe I don’t have to breathe here. Just like how I don’t need to drink, or eat, or sleep. 

I’m focusing again–but not focusing too much. My eyes are closed and I let myself just…be. I let the rest of the world around me fade away. Which is pretty easy to do when there is no world around me. No sounds or lights or other distractions. It’s just me and this endless expanse of nothing. And Harriet too, but it’s easy enough to not even have to think about her either. 

Pants.

I’m thinking about only pants. Or maybe it’s not so much pants themselves, but the concept of wearing pants. Of some sort of garment that’s wrapped around my body.

I think it’s working. I feel something. Warmth. The feeling of soft material brushing against my manhood.

I’m wearing something! I feel it slowly materializing my midsection.

I’m so excited that I open my eyes and look down. 

Pants?

No. It’s not pants. It’s a diaper. I’m wearing a fucking diaper. Of all the things that my mind can conjure in a place like this, I end up in a diaper again.

Somewhere behind me, I can hear Harriet giggling at me.

===

Time passes. I couldn’t say how much or how little. There are no clocks, and there’s no sun or moon. For that matter, there aren’t even biological clocks like hunger, needing to urinate, or just getting tired. Still, I have a vague sense of time passing. My body still recognizes the cadence of an hour–but the problem is that it’s easy to lose track of just how many ‘hours’ scoot past me. It’s been a day, I think, since I woke up here. Maybe a day and a half?

I don’t talk to Harriet as much as I probably should. For the most part, she keeps a little distance, though she’s always happy to chat when I want to. I think she thinks she’s doing me a favor by not being in my face all the time, and she’s probably not wrong about that. This ‘place’ is like nothing I’ve ever experienced before, and it takes a while to acclimate to its nothingness. Once upon a time, she went through a similar period of acclimating, and she had to do it by herself.

My diaper comes and goes, as my focus on it waivers. Slowly but surely, I come to learn how to dedicate a small part of my consciousness to maintaining the diaper’s existence while the rest of my mind wanders elsewhere. Here, with seemingly infinite time and no other distractions, I find that I’m a quick learner. Soon enough, I’m wearing a shirt too. Briefly, I’m able to make myself some actual pants, but it seems to be a much harder thing to maintain. I stick to diapers, as embarrassing as they are, just because it’s something I have little trouble with. 

I have a theory as to why that is: For the last few weeks, thanks to the milk, my entire world has revolved around diapers. Even here–detatched from what I know as reality–the milk continues to have a hold on me. It’s easier than it should be to just think like a baby.

“What’s the most elaborate thing you’ve created here?” I ask Harriet at some point.

“I recreated my childhood home,” she says. “Well, as much of it as I could recall. I tried living in it for a while.”

“That’s kind of neat.”

“No,” she says, shaking her head. “It was terrible. It was lonely and sad. For one, there were so many details that I couldn’t get right. Like, I’d know that there was a red couch in the living room, right? But it’s hard to recall what that couch exactly looked like–so anything that I placed there just didn’t feel right. No matter what, it felt fake.”

“Hm.”

“It’s, like…the uncanny valley,” she says. “Isn’t that a thing?”

“Uh, yeah, it’s a thing.”

“Like, everything looks so close to being real, but not close enough and so it looks even weirder. It’s one thing to make a house, you know? But you can’t make it feel lived in. Mail on the counter. Dirt being tracked in through the front door. A cereal bowl on the dining room counter. Magnets on the fridge.”

“So…you’re saying that I shouldn’t try to recreate my childhood home.”

She shrugs. “Well I’m certainly not going to do it again.”

“You once told me that this place is like a prison,” I say. “I didn’t really get that before, but I think I get it now.”

“I think of this place as, like, where my mind gets dumped while someone else is using my body.”

“Someone else…” I repeat to myself. “Like…who? What?”

She shrugs. “The hell if I know. An alien? A wizard?”

“Do you think that, since I’m here too, there’s someone else in my body?”

She shrugs again. “I…I don’t know.”

“We’ve got to get out of here.”

She clicks her tongue and shakes her head. “Like I said before–if I knew how to do that, I wouldn’t be here right now.”

“We’re going to figure that out,” I say.

She scoffs.

“No, I’m serious,” I say. “There’s two of us now. I mean, you figured out so much on your own, right? With no assistance from anyone else? Now imagine what the two of us can do together.”

She laughs–it almost sounds like one of Nikki’s signature snorts. “Zero plus zero is still zero.”

I think I get what she means. “We don’t know if we don’t try. And…well, what else do we have to do around here?”

The expression on her face says more to me than her words ever could. She looks tired and a little checked out. She looks like she’s abandoned much of whatever hope she originally had a long time ago. She’s spent an unknowable amount of time in this bleak nothingness, trying and failing to escape from it–or, at the very least, creating distractions for herself. Her more optimistic days are behind her.

Okay then. 

===

More time passes, as it does. The hell if I know how long it's been.

I’ve made myself a bench that I’m sitting on. I continue to wear only a diaper. Sometimes I think about trying to make other clothes, but I’ve given up caring. It’s easier to just stick with this for now.

But I’ve done some experimenting, and found that I can change the, well, state of the diaper. I can’t actually pee or mess in it–but I can create a diaper that looks and feels like it has been. Right now, my diaper is heavy with pee and tinged yellow. When I stand, it hangs between my legs. When I sit, it squishes around me. 

It’s comforting, in a very strange way. It reminds me of those early days at The Cradle, when diapers and milk seemed so exciting and magical. I felt like I was part of something big and special.

Harriet sits down next to me, giggling a little as she does. Of course, I can’t help but blush at the fact that she knows I’m choosing to sit here in a swampy adult diaper.

“I-I’m not laughing at you,” she says.

I roll my eyes. “Oh yeah? That’s exactly what someone who is laughing at me would probably say.”

“It’s the bench, actually.”

“What about it?”

“It might not seem like much to you, but–this is kind of wild. For the first time, in a very long time, I’m sitting on something that I didn’t have to make myself. You have no idea how wild that is, Alfie.”

“I didn’t really think about that.”

“This is, like, the happiest I’ve been in a very long time. And it’s just a bench!” She starts laughing again.

“Ah, well…so happy I could make you laugh, then.”

“I…I’m sorry about before,” she says. “I shouldn’t have been so pessimistic.”

“I get it,” I say. “I really do. You’ve been here for god-knows how long and you still have no answers about why you’re here or for how much longer you’ll be here. That’s got to be draining.”

“It is,” she says. “But it’s nice to have company. And it’s good that you have hope. It’s a little inspiring, honestly. I needed that.”

“Happy to help,” I say, shrugging.

She’s laughing again, but this time she’s looking down at my lap. “Okay…now I’m laughing at you.”

“You have no idea how weird this is,” I say, staring at her face as she snickers behind her hand.

“I could say the same thing. The first time I’ve spent time with anyone in a long time, and it’s a guy in a pissy diaper.”

I sigh. “It’s hard to look at you and not think of, uh, Mother.”

“Mother,” she repeats. “She’s nothing like me, is she?”

“No, not really. I mean, obviously you look alike. But she’s…” 

“She’s what?”

I’m not sure what to say here. Truthfully, I barely know Mother at all and the words I would use to describe her to someone else–words like ‘powerful’ and ‘confident’–would probably not sound good if I mentioned them to this Harriet.

“She’s just different. Her body language, and, like, how she talks.”

“What would she do if she saw you were in a pissy diaper?” she asks.

I laugh. “I…uh…”

“Would she change you? Like a baby?”

“N-no… She’d probably pass that job off to someone else.”

Harriet laughs. “That’s wild.”

“She’s a, uh, influential woman, you know? She wields power.”

“I don’t think I could get someone to bring me a bottle of water if I asked,” she says, her eyes still fixed on my diaper. “Let alone get someone else to clean up the mess I helped make. I’ve never really had power like that before.”

“Well, for what it’s worth–the you in the ‘real’ world is thriving in her little colony of adult babies.”

She laughs and shakes her head. “I-is it bad that…I want to touch it?”

“My…diaper?”

“J-just a little,” she says. “I know that’s weird, but… Well, again, I’m just fascinated by the presence of things I haven’t had to make myself.”

“I mean, no, I don’t mind…” I feel like half of the world’s population has touched my diapers over the last few weeks, what’s one more? “But, you’re not, like, grossed out by it?”

She laughs. “It’s not real pee, right? Maybe, when you really think about it, it’s not even a real diaper.”

“Uh, knock yourself out,” I say. “Touch it if you want to.”

This stupid place. Can’t sleep. Can’t eat. Can’t pee. Probably can’t even get an erection.

I feel her hand lightly press into the diaper. It feels like it should, with the thick padding being pressed against my skin–the feeling of squishy dampness that I know all too well. It sounds like it should, the way it crinkles as it flexes.

And…

“Okay,” I say, politely brushing her hand away from my diaper. “That’s, uh, enough of that…”

“What’s wrong?” she asks, a concerned look on her face. “Did I do something I shouldn’t have? I just wanted to…”

“No, no, you’re good,” I say, sighing. “It’s just…”

There’s an erection forming in my diaper, and I fold my hands over the front of the padding in an effort to conceal it.

Her cheeks redden a little, as she now seems to understand. “Oh…”

“I gues…that can happen around here, huh?” I ask. “If I’d been here for as long as you’ve had, all alone, I’d have probably touched myself so much that my, uh, penis would’ve fallen off by now.”

She laughs, her cheeks getting even redder. 

But that’s got me thinking. Previously, I was able to get to this place through having an orgasm while under the influence of milk. What would happen if I had an orgasm here? Would it send me home? Send me somewhere else?

Without even taking a moment to consider how insane it’s going to sound, I turn to Harriet and open my mouth: “I think I want to try something. All I need to do is cum.”

She laughs, narrowing her eyes at me. “Are you asking me for help?”

Forty-Seven: Big

It seems only right that I explain myself. I tell Harriet all about my milk-induced orgasmic planar traversals–a phrase that would probably be a fantastic name for my story once all this weirdness is behind me and I have the time to write my story, assuming that day ever comes. I then explain my current theory: that, maybe, if I’m able to reach climax in this place, I’d be sent…elsewhere. Maybe back to the real world? Or maybe somewhere even weirder.

Harriet takes it all in, nodding her head as I yammer on about it. Even when I feel like I’m just kind of rambling, she seems interested. Never once does she smirk, shake her head, or laugh at me like I’m some kind of dolt. 

“It’s not a bad idea,” she finally says.

“R-really?”

“I did, at one point, wonder to myself if this was just a very elaborate ploy to get me to jerk you off…”

“Oh, hm…” I hadn’t even considered that.

She shrugs. “But I’d have just done that if you asked me–no convoluted story necessary.”

“Is that so?”

She laughs. “Your presence is such a pleasant change from the monotony that I’ve been trapped in, Alfie. You have no idea how fucking bored I was. You can have anything you want.”

It takes me a moment or two to snap out of my dumbfounded stupor. I could do all the nasty things I want with Mother? Well, she’s not Mother. But: I could do all the nasty things I want with a good looking woman? Hell, even: I could do all the nasty things I want with another human, here in the privacy of some sort of weird pocket dimension?

“Noted,” I say.

“Perhaps, firstly,” Harriet says, “it’s important to know where we are. Like, is this really a place? Or are we just somewhere deep inside of this, uh, ‘Mother’s’ consciousness while she uses our bodies?”

I shrug. “I mean, what’s the difference? Either my plan works or it doesn’t.”

“Okay,” she says, laughing. “See, it’s good that you’re here. I have a tendency to overthink things. I need someone who’s more of a, uh…”

“Non-thinker?”

“I would’ve probably chosen a much nicer word.”

I’m not offended, but I have too many jumbled thoughts to dwell on this for too long. “Let me ask you something, here.”

“Okay?”

“Have you, uh, touched yourself here?” I ask. “Like in this place? Can you do that here? Does it work?”

There’s a bashful look on her face and a little extra pink in her cheeks as she glances away from me. “Yes. It works. And when you spend a lot of time alone…you do a lot of…that.”

“Okay, that’s good. So I can get off.” I say it like I’m a scientist, making note of an important detail, when really I’m just talking about masturbation.

“Yes,” she says. “I think you’ll be fine.”

“So, look, we’re essentially speedrunning the whole intimacy thing here,” I say. “But…”

“Speedrunning?”

“Like, uh, videogames?” I say.

She shakes her head. “I was never really into them.”

I don’t really want to have to overexplain my bad joke so I start over again: “Normally, when I like someone and want to, like, be with them, it’s like pins and needles, you know? A lot of vague suggesting and not a lot of me using my words. I think that’s why I usually go for girls that are a little more…self-assured, you know? Girls who know what they want and are a little more forward than I am.”

“What are you getting at?” she asks.

I laugh and wag a finger at her. “See, this is exactly what I’m talking about.”

“Just spit it out.”

“I have to cum,” I say, my face blushing. “I mean…I think it’s something worth trying. And I could do it myself, but I’ll feel all awkward about it if you’re watching me. Or…even if you’re not watching me–like if you even know that’s what I’m doing. So I think it’d be better…”

“For god’s sake, Alfie. Just say that you want me to get you off. I already said that I would.”

“Yeah,” I say. “That.”

===

“Diaper or no diaper?” she asks.

That question gets my face good and red–not just because she’s asking me if I want to get off in a diaper in the first place, but because I think I might actually prefer being in a diaper. I think I could admit as much to her–why the hell not?–but I feel like, maybe, I don’t need to be that greedy. Or, I just want to hold onto one little slice of dignity.

And suddenly, I’m not wearing a diaper, and I’m completely naked again.

It’s a funny thing, how quickly it seems I’ve become accustomed to the vast nothingness of this place. Both Harriet and I create things to fill that space now–tables, chairs, floors, walls. Sometimes trees and grass and picturesque horizons. It’s hard to know who is creating what at times–it’s like one of us builds something with our mind, and the other expands on it. Not only is it getting easier for me to do, but I think it’s a little less taxing on Harriet to have to do everything herself. We make our immediate surroundings together, and everything beyond that is just…white.

We’re sitting on a bed. It’s nothing special, beyond the fact that it’s got incredibly soft sheets–softer than anything I think I’ve actually felt before. In a way, it’s frustrating, because I know that some day I’ll want to buy sheets like this, and I’ll never find any that feel like how I remember these feeling. Or, if I do, they’ll be absurdly expensive.

I’m naked, and so is she. I didn’t ask for that, but I’m not mad about it. She looks fantastic, and that’s definitely helping to get me worked up. 

“It’s been a while,” she says, her hand on the top of my thigh now. It’s so close to my manhood that it feels like a tease–but I think she’s just as nervous about making that move as I am. “Even before, uh, all this, I wasn’t exactly drowning in romance.”

“Who would even want that?” I sigh. 

“I’m not…promiscuous, is what I’m saying.”

I shrug. “Okay.”

“I’m just saying. I haven’t been with a guy–or a girl–for a long time.”

“Look, really,” I say. “It’s not a big deal. And you don’t have to do anything you don’t–”

“I want to,” she says. “I’m just nervous, alright? I’m worried that I won’t be any good.”

I laugh. “See, I believe you now when you say you haven’t been with a guy in a while. LIke, you do remember what men are like, right? We’re easy. If you just sat there and blew on my dick from, like, a foot away, I’d still get all riled up.”

She’s laughing too. “Is that what you think a blow job is?”

And now we’re laughing very hard together–the silly pun combined with the absurdity of our current situation is goddamn hilarious.

“I like you,” I finally say, wiping tears out of my eyes. “I wish I knew you, uh, out there.”

“I’m more likable here, trust me,” she says. “I was a nobody out there. This place is the most interesting thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“You’re not alone there,” I say.

Maybe she’s finally ready, or maybe she just wants to change the subject, but her hand leaves my thigh and her fingers grasp my shaft. I let out a soft gasp as her grip tightens.

“You tell me what feels good, okay?” she says.

I laugh again. “Everything feels good. That’s the problem sometimes, I think. That’s why I get myself into so much trouble.”

“Alright,” she says, her voice just a whisper now. “That’s enough talking. Let me do this.”

I want to close my eyes, but I can’t look away. I watch as her slender hand glides down my shaft, pauses, and then slowly slides up towards the head. Yes, it feels good. Of course it feels good. The first few swipes of her hand are like little experiments–testing to see what the resistance is like and how my reaction changes depending on where in the shaft her hand is and how much pressure she uses. Soon, her speed increases and her grip tightens. She seems more confident with what she’s doing. Between my groaning and the slow, pleasured rolling of my head, I think she’s getting a lot of really good feedback to work with.

The world around us is changing, I think. The walls are getting shorter, then longer, while changing colors. There’s a window sometimes, and sometimes there isn’t. When there is a window, there is sometimes a sun that shines through it, and sometimes it’s moonlight that illuminates our space. I hear water on the ground–the gentle babbling of a stream, maybe. I don’t know which of us is doing that. Maybe it’s me–maybe my mind is all over the place while she pleasures me and this is what happens.

I feel a shudder roll through my spine. 

“You like this?” she says.

“Yes.”

“You like being…a baby?” she asks.

Oh, come on. She’s doing this for my benefit, I think–asking a question that she knows is going to set me off. And it’s working.

“Y-yes. I…I’m a baby…”

“I know,” she says. “I can tell. A big baby.”

“Fuck…”

There’s a blissful numbness spreading through my body, a loss of bodily awareness that sometimes comes (pun, likely, intended) from a good orgasm.

“Yeah?” she asks, as if she had translated my groans and moans into something profound. “Are you going to…”

“Y-yes…”

“Do it,” she says.

“Fuck…”

“I-if this works,” she says. “If you, uhm…get transported, or whatever…”

“F-fuck,” I mutter, only half-listening to her as my body tenses.

“Please find help, okay?” she whispers into my ear. “Get us the fuck out of here.”

“Fuuuu–”

===

“Well now,” a voice says. It’s…loud. Not like they are yelling, but more like they are talking into a microphone linked to a large PA system. Or a megaphone. Their voice just seems…big. “What do you make of this?” The voice is feminine, I think. It’s cold. A little nasally.

A different voice responds: “Some is going to be in trou-ble.” Their voice is also feminine, though playful and a little more song-like, but it’s just as big and loud as the first.

I don’t know where I am, but I’m definitely somewhere–and that somewhere is not the white nothingness where Harriet and I just were a moment ago. 

I’m laying face down on the ground.

The ground. Yes, there is a ground here. I’m lying on dirt and grass. And I’m naked, though this seems slightly less important. I’m somewhere. My theory, I think, worked. Cumming my way through the multiverse, baby.

“I don’t think it’s one of ours,” the nasally voice says. “Look at him–he’s naked.”

“Aye,” the playful one says. “But maybe he took all his clothes off.”

“Seems unlikely,” the first says. “Though, I suppose, not impossible.”

I feel something poking at me, nudging my body. It’s something big. Blunt. Whatever’s poking me seems strong enough to get my whole body to shake when it touches me. I could roll over, but I don’t think I want to see where I am, or who it is that I’m dealing with.

“He’s alive, ain’t he?” the playful one says. So loud.

“Warm,” the other says. “Maybe just unconscious. Why don’t you pick him up? We’ll carry him back home and see if he’s one of ours or not.”

“And what if he’s someone else’s?” 

“Finders keepers,” the nasally voice bellows, at which the playful voice cackles with glee.

Yes, I think. I belong to someone else. Maybe I should say that right now, before it's too late. 

Just like when I first went to the ‘white place,’ there’s this immediate sense of things being wrong. I mean, obviously it’s not normal there. But it’s like your whole body knows that something is off and that you don’t belong there. I feel that way here too. Wherever I am now, I am certain that this isn’t a place I belong.

I feel something grabbing me–a hand on either side of my body. Maybe? They feel like hands, but they also feel like they’re way too big to be hands. Nobody’s hands are this big. 

I feel myself being hoisted off the ground. It seems to come easily for whoever is picking me up, like I’m just a ragdoll. And when I open my eyes, I see that the distance between myself in the ground is growing quickly, and I’m being lifted into the air a little higher than I would’ve expected.

That’s when I see her–the other woman who isn’t picking me up. Long dark hair. A stubby nose. Big glasses. An ugly seafoam green skirt and a bluish top. She’s not an attractive woman. She looks like someone’s mean elementary school teacher–the kind who would slap your hand with a ruler or scold you if you took too long at the water fountain.

And, well, she’s big. Not, like, Nikki-big in that she’s just kind of muscular. I mean…she’s big. A giant, even? It’s hard to say just how big she is, because I don’t have anything around I can compare her to for context, but based on my own size and our proximity to each other she’s got to be, like…twelve feet tall? Twice the size of me, that seems right.

“Not one of ours,” the ugly nasally-voiced giant woman says. “He’s cute though. I think I’d like to keep him anyway.”

“Lemme see,” the other says, and I feel my body being spun around in her giant hands. And there she is. Slightly more attractive, I suppose, though that’s not saying much. She looks younger, with blonde hair pulled into a big ponytail. She’s wearing a blue and white striped shirt and a pair of denim overalls. She’s a slingshot-in-the-back-pocket away from having some major ‘adult woman Dennis the Menace’ vibes. “Ohhhh, yeah! I like him already! Look at his cute little face! We have to keep him.”

Both of them are like cartoon characters come to life. And big.

“What’s yer name?” blonde ponytail girl says to me, her giant face getting closer to my much smaller face.

“A-alfie…”

“I don’t like it,” the nasally woman says. “I don’t even know what that word means.”

“And what would you call him?” the blonde says, her giant hands still holding me good and close to her face. Her breath is like a strong wind, smelling of…onions, maybe? I don’t care for it.

“Smooshy,” she says with a confident nod. 

“Aww, I love it!” Blonde exclaims–sending globs of spittle the size of ping pong balls onto my face. More onion stench. “Little Smooshy! I’m Peggy! But you can call me Mommy if you want.”

With that, Peggy presses my body against her chest, her giant arms wrapping around me for a bear hug. She’s too strong. Too big. She’s pressing me into her chest which is, well…proportionally bulbous. It’s the sort of thing that weird men probably have strange fantasies about–and I won’t lie that it’s, conceptually, something I find pretty pleasing. But she’s too strong, and seems to lack a sense of just how much she’s crushing me.

“You must be careful with him,” the nasally woman says. “You do remember what happened to the last one you squeezed so hard, don’t you?”

“Yeah…” Peggy sighs, finally relinquishing most of the strength in her arms. She flops me about with her hands again, and now I’m cradled in her arms like I was a child. 

Which makes me wonder: Are these women large? Or am I just small? And…what happened to the last one that got squeezed too hard? Hoo boy.

The world around me gives little context for this, as everything seems more proportional to the women. The trees are especially tall. The road that they found me in is exceptionally wide. A road sign not too far from us–just a speed limit sign like one I’ve seen a billion times before–just seems comically large. 

While I don’t think I’ve ever been here before, it doesn’t seem entirely unfamiliar to the point of being alien. We’re on a long dirt road that stretches as far as I can see in either direction, cutting through a dense forest. The speed limit sign–and the suggested speed of 35 MPH–suggests that cars exist here too, and I’m guessing they’re also big. I’m reminded of the California backwoods someone has to traverse to get from Harper’s Bell to The Cradle. This place definitely has that vibe.

“Y-you can understand me?” I ask Peggy.

“They’re so cute when they talk,” Peggy gushes.

“Yes, well, they shouldn’t be talking to us,” the other’s voice booms. “The littles should only be talking to the littles.”

“I don’t mind if he talks to me, Lenore,” Peggy squeals. “I hope he tells me that I’m the best mommy in the whole wide world.”

She hasn’t answered my question. She’s acknowledged that she can hear me, sure, but not that she understood, or cared about, the actual words that came out of my mouth. Still, I’m going to assume that they can understand me, seeing as how I can understand them.

I’m learning things. Peggy and Lenore. Littles. And, does that make them ‘bigs?’

“First thing’s first,” Lenore, as I now know the nasally woman to be, says. “You’re going to want to make sure to put a diaper on that one. Why, he’s liable to wee all over you.”

DIapers? I sigh, annoyed that I somehow seem to be in yet another place that’s all about diapers. This is my fate, I guess–diapered in all dimensions.

“Yes, I know, Lenore,” Peggy says. She focuses her attention down on me again. With another wave of warm onion breath, she says: “You’re not going to wee on me, are you, little Smooshy?”

“N-no, I don’t think so,” I say. “But…”

But seemingly uninterested in what I have to say, Peggy cuts me off, saying: “If you wee on me and ruin my favorite overalls, I’m gonna be real cross with you, you got me? I promise you, Smooshy, you don’t want that.”

No, I’m sure I don’t. What does an angry giant do to a little when punishment is needed? A spanking would probably flatten me into a cartoonish pancake.

Peggy carries me down the road, rocking me back and forth like I was actually a small child who needed it, as Lenore walks alongside us. Honestly, I don’t hate the feeling of being held and rocked, nor the feeling of being small and handled by someone so much larger than me. Is a new kink being unlocked? Or just an expansion of the wild kinks I’ve already been inoculated to over the last few months?

“It may be one of Myrtle’s” Peggy says to Lenore as they walk.

Lenore scoffs. “Doubtful. Myrtle doesn’t feed her littles enough. They’re all scrawny and wiry.”

“Smooshy is kinda thin…”

“He’s not that thin.”

Peggy giggles, poking me in my stomach with her giant fingertip. It doesn’t feel like a poke–it feels more like a jab, causing me to make an “ugh” sound. She says: “He does have a little bit of a tummy, don’t he? Someone’s been feeding him.”

Geez, thanks a lot. I make a mental note to myself to go to the gym when this is all said and done.

===

The forest begins to thin out, and the road comes to a clearing. There’s a house on the hill there, at the end of the driveway that the women are just turning onto. Without the context of the large women who carry me, it almost looks like a regular house–the kind I could just walk up to, step inside, and feel like it’s ‘normal.’ It’s kinda quaint–a simple one-story white building with a mid-century look to it. It has a well manicured lawn with a garden, an attached garage, and some of those bright pink plastic flamingos sticking out of it. But the closer we get, the more undeniable it is that this house, too, is enormous. Hell, those flamingos are hilariously large in comparison to what I’d expect.

“I’m gonna take him downstairs,” Peggy says. “I’ll put him with the others for now.”

“Please put some clothes on him,” Lenore says. “At the very least, a diaper. If I find any stains on the carpet later, it’s your nose I’ll be rubbing in it.”

Peggy scoffs defiantly. “Well duh. You think I’m going to let this little scurry around without a diaper on?”

“Just making sure,” Lenore grunts. I sense, perhaps, that she’s usually the more responsible one, cleaning up after Peggy?

“C’mon, little Smooshy,” Peggy chirps, skipping up the hill ahead of Lenore. “I’m going to make you look so cute and pretty! The other littles are going to be so jealous!”

From behind us, I can hear Lenore sighing. “Peggy, please, don’t rile them all up.”

But Peggy isn’t paying attention. Her skip has turned into a jog, and she recklessly pops through the front door–using her arms and my body to push the large door open, and smacking my head against the door frame. “Oopsies,” she says, barely sounding sincere in her sympathy.

Somewhere else, Harriet is wondering what happened to me. Is my body there? Is she still holding onto my cock? Or is she suddenly sitting in an imaginary bed all alone?

And then, in a different somewhere else, The Cradle is going about its day; big babies waddle around in dirty diapers like they do. What do they think happened to me? What actually happened to me? Does anyone care?

Maxine. Nikki. My editor, Benny. Mom. Dad. Julie Fucking Ross. They’re all still ‘there,’ somewhere, going about their life like nothing has changed. I have to admit, I’m pretty jealous. I wish that were me. I crave normalcy. I crave the ‘everyday.’

But no, instead I’m in some sort of weird diaper-inception. 

Only me, right? Just my luck.

“First thing’s first, Smooshy, I gotta put a diaper on you,” Peggy says. Her large body careens through the house so quickly–or perhaps it’s just that the sense of scale is so skewed–that I can’t focus on anything. It’s hard to say what the inside of the house looks like. I can’t pinpoint landmarks I’d want to remember for later, should I try to escape this place. 

Is escape even an option?

Perhaps, if I want to get out of here, I’d have to do the same thing I did to leave the ‘white place.’ I’d need to, uh, cum again.

“If you must,” I finally mutter, assuming she either won’t listen or respond to anything I say anyway. And it seems that I’d be correct, because she doesn’t even bat an eyelash at me. Out of curiosity, I try something else and shout: “Hey, big ogre-lady! Can you even hear me?”

She rolls her eyes and looks down at me briefly. “You’re a little yappier than the other littles. What are you so fussy about? Sounds like you’re going to need a pacifier in addition to a diaper.”

So…what does that mean? She can hear me, but can’t understand me? Or she thinks so little of me that she truly doesn’t care what I say?

Thud!

Suddenly, I’m being flopped down onto a padded surface. Mattress? No…changing table. I’ve been on enough of those recently to know one when I’m on it. Thank god for the padding, or else my sore head would probably be bouncing off another hard surface. Peggy seems to lack a more careful touch.

“Smooshy,” she says, “I think I’m gonna put you in a, uhmmmm, blue diaper.”

“Yeah, sure,” I sigh. “Whatever.”

She rolls her eyes again. “You sure do make a lot of sounds, don’t you? Here, before we go any further…”

Her hand disappears from view for a moment, reappearing with a pacifier between her thumb and forefinger, aimed at my mouth. It looks so small between her fingers, but by the time it’s between my lips, I realize it’s actually a little bigger than the pacifier Maxine had once given to me. Holy shit, that was, like, lifetimes ago. Its soft latex bulb fills my mouth, and almost immediately seems to stupify me. There’s a natural instinct to just suckle, but I don’t know if that’s my own instinct, or if the effects of Mother’s milk somehow transcend space and time.

There’s no point in resisting or fighting a woman who is twice my size, and so I just let it happen. I let myself just lie there as her big hands carefully unfurl a blue disposable diaper and lays it between my legs. I’ve felt small plenty of times before while someone’s changed my diaper–that’s just how it goes while you’re treated like a baby. But now, I’m actually small. And she’s big. And she lifts my legs up into the air, raising my bottom off the surface of the changing table, so that she can slide the diaper underneath me. Manhandled like a doll. My cheeks feel like they’re burning.

The diapers might be small in comparison to her hands, but because the bottle of baby powder looks proportional to her size, it looks comically large. Shake shake shake. It’s like a blizzard, entirely centralized around my midsection–though she gets a good amount on my things and belly too. Not that she seems to care about this.

“Maybe I shoulda given you a bath first, huh?” Peggy asks. I imagine it's a rhetorical question, seeing as how I can’t respond–whether I want to or not. She shrugs. “Ah well. Sooner or later, you’re gonna need a good scrubbing, yeah?”

She pulls the front of the diaper through my open legs and folds it over me, pulling the tabs tightly to the front so that she can seal me into it.

“There you go!” she finally says. “Oh, you look just darling in a diaper! Now then, I think you’re missing a few things…”

She plops something else onto the changing table. Pink and, maybe, softball-ish in size. But for the life of me, I can’t figure out what they are. That’s when she picks one up and turns it over, revealing a cavity inside of it. I realize what’s happening at the same time that she fits it over my hand. It’s, like, a mitten. A thumbless mitten. Well, there goes the use of my hands. Worse, the mittens have buckles at the cuffs, which she tightens into place after slipping them over my fingers–preventing me from even prying them off my wrists later. 

“I don’t normally do this,” Peggy says, “but because you’re such a chatty thing, I think I’m gonna make sure you don’t make too much noise.”

The pacifier is pulled from my mouth, replaced a moment later with another one of a similar size, though this one is attached to a strap which is then wrapped around my head and fastened in the back. A…pacifier gag?

“There we go!” Peggy exclaims. “This is perfect. I think I can introduce you to the other littles now. You’re not gonna cause me any problems, are ya? You’re not gonna make trouble?”

I shake my head. With my hands bound and my mouth plugged up, what can I even do?

She picks me up again, carrying me with her hands under my arms and holding me out from her as she walks.

She says: “Bad babies, just so you know, get spankies. And I don’t think you want spankies, do you?”

That giant hand on my little ass? No, I probably don’t want that.

Though…

Maybe, in the dark recesses of my mind, there’s a small part of me that kind of wants to feel that once. That little voice that says: “Maybe someday in the future, you’ll be pretty annoyed that you didn’t let a giant woman spank you in the ass.” There’s probably a whole community of people online who obsess about a prospect like this. Entire Subreddits related to fiction and imagery surrounding giant women administering spanking. 

And I could be their god.

Alas, that’s probably not what I should be thinking about right now. I need to get out of here. And how do I do that? Well…probably the same way that I got here. I need to…cum again. 

Though I’m in quite the pickle now, seeing as how I don’t have access to my hands, I’m in a thick diaper, and I can’t even use my mouth to explain to someone else what I need. I don’t want to just jump to the conclusion that I’m screwed, though I should probably get comfortable with the idea that I’ll be here for a while.

===

This is what a day care looks like on TV shows. The interlocking, colorful foam pads on the floor. Signs showing the alphabet and numbers hanging on the walls, mingling with pictures of animals and cartoon characters. There’s toys and stuffed animals strewn across the floor. 

And I’m not alone. There’s three others here–all of them dressed like babies, though none of them actually are. They’re my size–which is to say, not gigantic. There’s a man with dark, shaggy hair, wearing a blue and green onesie. A woman with long reddish hair pulled into pigtails, wearing a yellow dress with a very short bottom that makes little effort to hide her equally yellow-stained diaper. Another woman, of sepia skin and short, dark hair, wore only a diaper and plain baby-blue colored t-shirt. All of them have their hands trapped in similarly disabling mittens as mine–though I’m the only one with a pacifier stuck in my mouth.

“Everyone?” says Peggy, calling for the others’ attention. “This is Smooshy. He’s gonna be living with us now, alright? I don’t want any of you to give him a hard time. And, likewise, Smooshy, you better be on your best behavior. Our littles are well trained and very obedient. Don’t you go messing that up, alright? Like I said before…spankies.”

I nod my head, acknowledging what she’s said.

“I’m gonna go upstairs for a little while. I’ll check on y’all later. Anyone need a changing?”

Peggy’s eyes scan the group, and the girl in the yellow dress raises a padded hand. To this, Peggy narrows her eyes and stares at the girl’s diaper before huffing and approaching her. She lifts the hem of the dress to get a better look at the diaper. With a dismissive sigh, Peggy breezily waves her hand in the air. 

“That doesn’t seem that bad,” she says. “I’ll change that later. Toodles!” And with that, she stomps out of the room and up a flight of stairs. 

Seeing as how this appeared to be a one-story house from the outside–and because there are no windows in here–I’m guessing we’re in the basement.

“Welcome,” the guy says. “I, uh, don’t know who your previous owners were, but I should warn you ahead of time that Peggy and Lenore aren’t much better.”

“Y-you shouldn’t tell him that,” the girl in the tee says. “That’s a terrible introduction.”

“It’s true, though,” the girl in the yellow dress sighs. “My diaper needed to be changed, like, two hours ago. I’m definitely going to get a rash now.”

“Smooshy, huh?” the guy says to me.

I shrug. It’s not my preferred name, but maybe it’ll have to do while I can’t say what it actually is.

“I’m Wobble,” the guy says.

“I’m Tinkles,” says the girl in the dress.

“Stinker,” the girl in the tee sighs. I’m guessing that these names were chosen for them by the bigs, like my own. And clearly, the bigs have poor taste in names.

“Look, it’s not so bad here,” Tinkles says. “Yeah, the bigs here are kind of a mess. But we have each other. That’s something.”

They seem almost…resigned to their fate. There’s no defiance in their eyes. They’ve accepted that this is the way things are, and seem to have made peace with it some time ago. I wonder if this is the only life they’ve ever known–some sort of infantilized servitude to these ‘bigs.’

If I could talk, I’d have only one question: “What the fuck is this place?”

***

Friends. Enemies. Others. How are you? Doing well? Warm enough? Cool enough? Dry enough? Wet enough?

If you want to read more of this story, or more of any of the other stories that I write (hundreds of 'em!), you ought to check out my Ream Stories page. And if you were ever, like, "I dunno, man, seems a little out of my price range..." I have some good news for you: Starting in February, I'm lowering the cost of the highest tier -the tier that grants readers access to all the stories I have shared there. Something to keep in mind...

“We were talking about who we were before we came here,” Freya says to her. To me, she says: “Kelly used to be an au pair for a rich couple in New York City, if I remember correctly.”

“Don’t remind me,” Kelly says, rolling her eyes. “It made me an expert on changing diapers, for sure. But I'd take one of these big babies over one of those little privileged brats any day.”

I’m curious to know more, of course. I kind of want to know everyone’s story of how they got here. Why here? What makes this place better than everything they left behind? 

Every single person contained in The Cradle’s fence has a story. This isn’t new news, but it’s something I don’t always think about when I walk around this place. 

“Who else can we expect to be here tonight?” Kelly asks.

“Nita,” Freya says. “Probably Patty.”

“Marta?” Kelly asks.

Freya sighs. “I…I didn’t tell her.”

Kelly seems surprised by this. “Oh. I just… I always assumed you two were inseparable.”

“I like Marta,” Freya says. “A lot. But she’s got bigger stakes than most of us here. She operates the flower shop in town, you know? Mirabelle’s gotten in her head that it’s the start of The Cradle expanding. I really want to trust Marta, but I just worry that she’s…”

“Compromised?” I ask.

“Maybe,” Freya says. “Maybe not even on purpose. I don’t think she’s doing anything shady, but if she was asked to choose between taking Mirabelle’s side and anyone else’s…”

“Yeah,” Kelly says. “Better safe than sorry, for now.”

“You said you invited someone?” Freya asks me.

I nod. “Tommy.”

“R-really?” Kelly asks. “No offense. But…him?”

“You don’t like him?” I ask.

“I mean, he’s fine, I guess. I just… Well, he’s always running around like Mirabelle’s errand boy, isn’t he? If we’re not ready to include Marta yet, then I’d think…”

“We can trust Tommy,” I say. “I trust him.”

Kelly opens her mouth to say something else, but seems to change her mind. I think I can guess what it is–something like: “Can we trust you?”

I’m not mad about it. I’d probably ask the same question.

Nita is the next to arrive. Dark skin, long braided hair. She’s soft spoken but not in a shy sort of way–instead, she seems like one of those types who only speaks when they have to. I’d like to think that’s how I am, though I’m not always sure how others perceive me.

“Cade didn’t want to come,” Nita announces after she’s been introduced to me. “He wants me to pass along the message that he supports us. But he thought it would be best if hung back for now.”

“Cade?” I ask. Everyone else probably knows what she’s talking about, but I don’t.

“My brother,” Nita says.

“Your…brother is here at The Cradle too?”

“Twin brother,” Freya says.

I’m not sure what to make of that–or if I should make anything of it at all, so I stow that information away in the back of my head for now. Everyone’s got a story here–and I have to accept that I probably won’t ever get to hear them all.

“I saw Ingrid on my way here,” Nita says.

Someone groans, though I’m not sure who it is.

“Either she didn’t see me,” Nita says, “or she didn’t care.”

This isn’t the first, or even second, time I’ve heard less-than-nice things said about Ingrid. I ask: “Is she trouble? Someone we have to watch out for?”

“I don’t know,” Freya says. “For all I know, she might actually be on our side. I think it’s just that, uh…”

“She’s not pleasant,” Nita says.

“I hope you’re not talking about me,” says a new voice as the cabin door opens again. 

The new woman looks a little older than I think she actually is. It’s her aesthetic, I think–the bandana over her hair and her large, round glasses make me think of a middle-aged art teacher I used to have in elementary school. In actuality, she’s probably closer in age to me.

“Ingrid,” Freya says.

“Oh,” the woman says, clearly trying to stifle a laugh.

“This is Patty,” Kelly says to me. “In case you haven’t met yet.”

“I don’t think so,” I say. “Hi.”

“You’re Alfie’s friend?” Patty asks.

“Yes.”

“I don’t know him especially well, but his cabin is one of the ones I help take care of,” she says. 

“And what of his cabin mates?” I ask. “Do they ask about where he is or what happened to him too?”

“I’m not privy to all the chatter,” Patty says, shrugging. “But I get the feeling they’ve bought Mirabelle’s story that he’s getting some special sort of care.”

“I think that’s everyone, isn’t it?” Nita asks.

As if in response, there’s a light knock on the door.

“This might be the last person,” I say. “Come in!”

The door opens and Tommy walks in, his face pink as he nervously glances around the cabin. Surrounded by women–most of whom have likely changed his diapers on many occasions.

And this makes me wonder if these ‘Mommies’ wear diapers too.

Who changes the diaper-changers?

“Wet,” Nita says, pointing at Tommy.

“Wh-what?” Tommy says, looking at her incredulously. “No! I mean…uh…”

“A soggy diaper, for sure,” Kelly adds with a smirk. “Look at that thing drooping under his pants.”

I don’t know that I would’ve detected it myself, but I assume these women know their dirty diapers. 

“Before we get started, maybe someone ought to change him?” Freya asks.

“No, no, I don’t need that right now,” Tommy says. “Why don’t we get started and….”

“Don’t be silly,” Kelly says, standing up. “We can do both.”

There’s a diaper in Kelly’s hand now. For a moment, I’m not even sure where it came from–I’m certainly not hoarding diapers in my cabin. But I’m realizing only now that she arrived with a backpack slung over her shoulder. A diaper bag of sorts? Interesting that she knew to bring it with her–though, more than likely, she’s just learned to keep supplies on hand at all times. A ‘Mommy’s’ work is never done.

And so, in the corner of the cabin, Tommy begrudgingly lies down on his back on another of the vacant beds as Kelly pulls his pants off and prepares to change his diaper while the rest of us talk.

“Alright, so, I think that’s everyone we can expect,” Freya says. “Maybe we ought to start talking.”

“Where do we start?” Patty asks.

“Something stinks around here,” I say, taking the lead. “And, uh, I don’t mean Tommy’s diaper.”

“H-hey…” Tommy says.

“You do smell like pee,” Kelly says with a shrug.

I continue: “As most of you probably now, my friend Alfie disappeared from view a few weeks ago. Whisked away to seemingly nowhere, and Mirabelle has been unwilling to give anyone answers. Even you–the very people who are running this place on her and Mother’s behalf.”

“We, those of us who are here from the Maternal Council,” Freya says, “have talked about it privately. Even before you arrived, Nikki. It’s…concerning. Mirabelle and Mother have never hid anything from anyone before.”

“Not that we know of,” Kelly says, peeling up the tapes on Tommy’s diaper in the background.

“Well, right,” Freya sighs. “But slowly, a lot of things are changing around here. The locks on the doors that we aren’t given keys to. There’s a lot less communication than there used to be.”

“I tried to talk to Mirabelle about it,” Nita says. “But she brushed off my concerns. She said that these were just ‘temporary measures’ after the attempted theft of the milk supply.”

“Just to play the devil’s advocate,” Patty says. “What if that is true?”

“Then where’s the transparency on what’s going on with Alfie?” Freya asks. “There’s no excuse for that. Or, if there is, Mirabelle hasn’t said as much to anyone else.”

“Th-there’s something else too,” Tommy says from his horizontal position. We all look in his direction, just as Kelly opens his wet diaper and exposes his flaccid manhood to all the ladies in the cabin. His cheeks turn bright red. Some look away from him, attempting to spare him further humiliation. I should probably do the same, but I find my gaze fixed on his embarrassed state.

“What else?” I ask.

“The milk,” he says. “I-it’s mind control.”

There’s an awkward silence in the room, and I can’t tell what to make of it. Is it that everyone already knows this? Or is that his claim is as ridiculous as it sounds?

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“The milk, uh, makes you, like, susceptible to being told what to do. Y-you have to drink a lot of it before it starts to have that sort of effect on you. But if everyone here is being given milk all the time, well…”

“How do you know this?” I ask.

Freya asks a similar question: “Where did you learn this?”

“I…heard it,” Tommy says, his cheeks getting a little redder.

“Yes, but from where?” Freya asks.

There’s something in Freya’s tone that gives me a little pause. “Wait,” I say to her. “Did you know this already?”

The ‘Mommies’ all glance at each other nervously.

“Sort of,” Nita finally says.

“It’s one of the first things we were told when we joined Mirabelle’s Maternal Council,” Kelly says, now gently stroking at Tommy’s midsection with a moist baby wipe.

“It’s not like anyone says: “This is mind control, use it for nefarious purposes,”” Freya says. “It’s more, like, implied that the ‘babies’ around here become a lot more docile and easier to guide when they’ve been drinking the milk for a while.”

“It was, uh, suggested to me that we don’t tell the residents about this,” Kelly says.

“Yeah,” Nita says. “Same.”

“Me too,” Patty says.

I look at Freya, and she looks at me. We have the same thought at the same time. She let’s me be the one to say it: “So…you were told not to say it. And, because you’ve been drinking the milk too…”

“Shit,” Patty says, laughing as she shakes her head. “I, uh…never really considered that.”

“Me neither,” Kelly says, now pulling Tommy’s wet diaper out from under him, and balling it up.

“What else has been ‘suggested’ you do?” I ask the room.

Freya sighs. “Who knows. I mean…all kinds of little requests, you know? Things that seem simple and innocuous in the moment. Things we might have agreed to anyway. Or…so we’d think.”

“So it’s safe to say we’ve been subtly manipulated from the very start,” Nida says.

“I guess, on some level, I always wondered if that was the case or not. I mean, why would it only work on the babies, but not us?”

Nobody directly responds to this, but judging by the disappointed faces on everyone else, I suspect they’ve all shared a similar thought.

Freya turns to Tommy again, just as Kelly unfurls a fresh diaper, laying if flat between Tommy’s legs while he lifts his ass up from the bed.

“Where did you hear about the milk, uh, affecting people’s susceptibility?” she asks.

“It doesn’t matter,” he says.

Sloane. She might’ve known about it. That might’ve had something to do with why the thieves she was associated with wanted the milk in the first place.

I can see why Freya might want to know how Tommy knew about this–she’s probably confused as to how someone else might’ve been able to talk about it, but she couldn’t. They’re not ready to hear about Sloane yet, I think.

“Well, it does matter,” Freya says.

“Alfie knew,” I say. “I don’t know how he knew, but he did. He, uh, mentioned it to me before he disappeared.” This isn’t true, of course, but it’s not like Alfie’s here to answer any further questions about how he would know such a thing.

Freya nods, seeming to accept this answer. “So that’s why you don’t drink the milk.”

“Right,” I say. “And if any of you are still drinking it…maybe it’s time to give it a rest?”

Nobody in the room verbally acknowledges this. Maybe some have already stopped drinking it. Or have been thinking about it. Or, they’re embarrassed to realize that they’re as addicted to it as they are, and they know it’s going to be hard to pull themselves away from it.

“There’s something else too,” Tommy says. Kelly is taping the new diaper around him now. “I, uh, don’t really know what it means, but it might be worth mentioning.”

All eyes are on him now, whether he likes it or not. His face maintains its redness as Kelly puts the finishing touches on the diapering job.

“So, uh, Alfie had a name he was looking into. Harriet Tullman.”

There’s silence in the cabin still–it seems likely that nobody recognizes it.

He continues: “I did a little research on it. W-well, it wasn’t just me, but…” His voice trails off, and he takes a moment to compose himself as he sits up again–his new fresh diaper crinkling beneath him. “Harriet Tullman has been missing for a few years. She has friends and family who are looking for her. And, well, a few years before that–when she was more active online–she was just this very normal woman. She had a mundane job. A pretty mundane life. I’m sure she was, like, nice and all–but…”

“I’m sorry,” Nita says. “Just who is Harriet?”

“Kelly?” he asks. “Could you hand me my pants?”

She does so, and Tommy reaches into the pocket and draws out his cellphone. It’s wild to me just how weird it is to see someone using a phone here in The Cradle. The reception is so unreliable that most people around here don’t even bother carrying them with them.

He hands the phone back to Kelly. “These are some photos I took of Harriet Tullman’s social media page. Does she look familiar to you?”

Kelly’s eyes immediately grow large as she looks at the phone. She hands the phone to Patty.

“Oh!” Patty exclaims. She hands it to Nita.

Nita laughs and shakes her head, passing the phone to Freya.

Freya just stares down at the phone, says nothing, and passes it to me.

But I don’t know who this woman is. I don’t recognize her, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen her before. There’s nothing even abnormal about this

But…

If everyone else here recognizes her, it must be someone associated with The Cradle. And who is someone I haven’t met yet that might elicit a reaction like this?

I ask: “Mother?”

“That’s her,” Freya says. “Well, sort of.”

“That’s her face, alright,” Kelly says.

Patty says: “But Mother is more, uh…”

“She’s bold,” Freya says, picking up the thread. “Bigger than life. Powerful.”

“So, then, this picture isn’t of her?” I ask.

“It is her,” Tommy says.

“Maybe it’s, like, a twin sister?” Patty asks.

“I don’t think so,” Nita says. “That’s her. I think, at some point, she just…changed.”

Freya laughs, looking over at Tommy again. “Yeah…I don’t know what to do with this information either.”

There’s some more silence as all of us process what’s been shared so far. It’s a lot to take in, and it's apparent that each of the women are trying to grasp what this means for how they see The Cradle.

Nita’s the one who asks the question to move things forward: “So, what do we do?”

“I’ll tell you what I want to do,” I say. “There’s that cabin by the farmhouse. It used to be a storage shed or something, I guess, but it’s gotten a makeover and there’s a lock on the door now. Either Tommy’s in there, or there’s something else inside of it that the rest of us should probably know about. If someone knows where I can get a crowbar or a hammer, I’ll just rip that door down myself.”

“We should be careful about actions like that,” Freya says. “I mean, I like your spirit. But the second we start taking actions like that, we lose control of everything. Suddenly, Mother and Mirabelle start locking us out of more things. We lose the ability to lead. The residents, ultimately, will suffer.”

I’m ready to retort: “But…”

“I want to do the same thing you do,” Kelly says. “But Freya’s right. We shouldn't take action like that until we have a plan in place. We need to make sure everyone is safe–both ourselves and the residents. Once we start busting down doors, there’s no telling how Mirabelle would react.”

“If she can manipulate us with suggestion, through the milk,” Nita says, “is there more that they can do that we don’t know about yet?”

The cabin is silent again. These are fair points, I suppose. I don’t like them, but they’re questions that would probably need answers before we do anything.

“We should stop serving milk,” Patty says.

“And just how do you propose we do that?” Freya asks.

“We, uh, fake it,” Kelly says. “Swap out Mother’s milk with milk we buy at the store?”

“We don’t have access to the reserves anymore,” Freya says. “And Mirabelle is very cautious about who handles the milk that’s distributed to the residents now. But…it’s not impossible.”

“It’s not a bad idea,” Nita says. “Something we should at least think about.”

I sigh and shake my head. “That takes time. Too much time. Time to plan these things out. Time to implement. Time for the effects to be noticeable. And then what? All this time passes, and I’m not closer to freeing Alfie from whatever captivity he’s in.”

Nita nods, but says: “But if we do things your way…”

“I’m going to bust down that door,” I say, making up my mind on the spot, “whether or not you like it. I’ll take the blame for it. If I come face to face with Mirabelle, I’ll tell her that nobody else had anything to do with it. Worst case scenario, what’s she going to do–kick me out? I’m done here anyways. I’ll take Alfie and be on my way. Meanwhile, your little revolution still needs to happen. Take all the time you need to figure things out. I know everyone around here acts like big babies, but you’re all adults. You can ask questions. You can take action. You can warn everyone here that something shady is going on.”

I’m standing, I realize. I don’t know when I stood up. There’s a part of me that wants to storm out of here and slam the door behind me, but that would be kind of silly, seeing as how it's my cabin.

Freya sighs: “Nikki, maybe we can meet halfway or something? I know Alfie’s important to you–he’s important to all of us. But we still need to be careful about how we go about things.”

Oh, she’s probably not wrong. But I still don’t like hearing it. 

But I’m out of patience.

I just want Alfie back.

And a fucking toilet.

“We can all agree that something needs to change here,” Patty says. “No, uh, pun intended.”

Someone–I don’t know who–giggles a little.

She continues: “We need to figure out what our end goal is. Is there a Cradle without Mother or her milk? Do we really want to end this little experiment? No, I don’t think so. I think we just…accountability. We want answers. We want the truth. We want to know the truth about Alfie.”

“And we want to know about the long-term effects of milk,” Kelly says.

Nita adds: “And we want to know why there’s not more transparency with the residents here about how the milk can be used to manipulate.”

“Maybe that’s the take away for tonight,” Freya says. “We define what we want, and we start developing plans on how to get there. Maybe we all think about this, individually, and we meet back here in, say, a week? Nikki, a week’s not too long, is it?”

I sigh. There was a moment where I thought this meeting was going to be constructive, but it’s become everything I was worried it would be. Too many people. Too many ideas. To many concessions that need to be made to make everyone happy. 

I can’t hold it against them–they all think they’re doing the right thing. And they may very well be. It’s just not how I want to do things.

I lie: “That’s fine.” Seems to be little point in fighting now.

And so, with the decision for everyone to ‘think more’ before reconvening in a week, everyone slowly filters out of the cabin. In the end, it’s Tommy, myself, and Freya. Freya is at the door, about to leave herself.

“That’s not what you wanted to hear tonight, is it?” she asks.

“No,” I say.

“But you understand why everyone is hesitant to take big swings right away, right?”

“I do,” I say. I don’t say it aloud, but I think: “And I disagree with that.”

She laughs. “But we’re not going to stop you from doing your own thing, are we?”

I snort. “No, probably not. Sorry.” I’m not sorry, but it feels like the right thing to say.

“Oh, no apology needed,” she says, running a hand through her hair. “Go. Wreak whatever kind of havoc you need to.”

“I think we needed to start having these discussions,” she says, “with or without you. But they probably wouldn’t have happened if you weren’t here. So, thank you for that.”

I shrug. “You’re welcome, I guess.”

“You’re right–we’re all adults here,” Freya says. She glances at Tommy, still sitting on the bed in his diaper. “Well, most of us.”

He says: “Hey…”

“We’ll figure it out,” she continues, talking to me again. 

I ask: “I meant what I said earlier. If I go kicking doors down, I’ll leave the rest of you out of it if I end up having to answer to anyone.”

She shrugs. “I’m not going to tell you to do that. Do whatever makes sense to you. We’ll figure it out from there.”

Freya looks sad. All the other ‘Mommies’ did as they were leaving the cabin, I think. It’s the realization that the community they’ve worked so hard to build has a spot of rot in it, and the more they uncover, the larger the spot turns out to be. I can guess what they’re biggest fear is: That, by the time they’ve uncovered all the rot, there will be nothing good worth saving.

I’d hope, in that case, that they do the right thing and just throw the whole damn thing away.

Still, I feel for her. “I’m sorry, I say. “I…know this place means a lot to you all. I hope everything works out. For your sakes.”

“I appreciate that, Nikki,” she says. She yawns and looks out the door into the dark night. “I should…probably get going.”

“Right. I’m sure we’ll talk again sooner than later,” I say.

She bites her bottom lip nervously and asks: “How soon until you think you’re going to, uh, do whatever it is you’re going to do?”

“Do you want to know?” I ask. Though, truthfully, I don’t yet have a plan of my own in place.

“No, I suppose not,” she says. “I want to be able to act surprised when I hear about it.”

===

It’s just Tommy and I now. 

If we were home, I’d make an ill-advised decision about brewing some coffee or chugging something caffeinated from the fridge instead of going to sleep. I don’t have that option here, but maybe I don't actually need it–the way my mind is working right now, I don’t know if I’ll be getting to sleep regardless.

“Maybe I should be on my way too,” Tommy says, grabbing his pants.

“You’re welcome to stay, if you want,” I say.

“Ooh, a sleepover?” I can’t tell if he’s being sarcastic or if that’s genuine excitement in his tone.

“Don’t get any ideas–you’ll have to sleep in your own bed.”

“Do you think you can lend me a pillow?”

“Maybe.”

“Do you want me to stay?” he asks.

This is usually the part where I say “No.” I might even make a snarky comment about him even asking me this. 

But I’m still in this longing mood. I miss Alfie. I miss home. I miss the security of normalcy. Maybe some company, in the form of one of the only friends I have at The Cradle, isn’t a bad thing.

“Stay,” I say.

He smirks. Maybe he’s just happy he can stay. Maybe it’s because he knows, on some level, he’s managed a great feat by becoming someone I like enough to let stay with me. 

“You’re not going to stink up the cabin, are you?” I ask.

“Uh, no,” he says, cheeks reddening a little. “Well…I’ll try not to.”

“I’m not changing your diaper if you do.”

He laughs. “Well, if you need a hand with your own diapers…”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Probably.”

“I took mine off,” I say. “Fuck that thing.”

He’s laughing again, but he also looks a little disappointed. Maybe he thinks I’m cute in one? Oh well.

===

The cabin’s dark now. I’m lying in the bed, staring up into the darkness. Somewhere else in the cabin, I can hear the sound of Tommy lightly snoring while his still-uncovered diaper crinkles a little every time he shifts his body.

I actually kind of like the background noise. It feels good to not be alone. For as much of a loner as I like to think I am–as I probably actually am in most ways–I still have needs.

But here’s a weird thought: I almost miss the diaper. I didn’t think I would. I mean, I still hate the concept of them and having to play along with everyone else here. But I had almost gotten used to wearing them over the last few days, and it’s not until now, when I’m free of them, that I realize I kind of like the bulk and warmth of them in my pants.

I don’t think I miss them enough to go find one and put it on or anything like that. It’s just a stray thought wandering through my mind as I stare into the nothingness.

I gotta get out of here. Back on the east coast, I doubt I’ll ever find myself missing diapers, of all things.

It’s time. I’ve ‘played the game.’ I’ve met with the Maternal Council. I’ve waited. I think it’s finally time to act.

I think I’ll talk to Mirabelle one more time. Ask one more time to see Alfie. No more wasting time.

I don’t care what excuse she makes, or what possible reason she can throw at me. If I don’t see Alfie after that?

Well…yeah. I’m going to–as the other babies here might put it–throw a temper tantrum.

Forty-Five: Nikki’s Story, Part 12 

(Note from QH: For anyone sensitive to such things, this chapter makes references to spousal abuse and violence.)

I’m not proud of it, but I’ve thrown a punch once or twice in my life. Perhaps more, but I allow myself to have selective memory when it comes to my low points. 

I tell myself that my violence was justified whenever it occurred, but I still regret it. I think I used to be angrier. Scrappier. A little less in control of myself. I’m not sure what happened to change that, but I’ve certainly changed for the better. I’d like to think I’m cooler and more level-headed now. Maybe age mellows you out. Or alcohol and pot. Or working at a place where you see everyone else getting easily riled up, and you learn a thing or two about the kind of person you don’t want to be.

I punched this guy Harris once. Right in the face. It was a sucker punch–he never saw me coming. And, really, that’s my only regret about that incident. I should’ve let him know what was coming and have given him the chance to defend himself. Hell, I wish he threw the first punch. I would’ve liked for him to have really given me a reason to smack him around.

Whatever. He still deserved what he got. 

I barely knew the guy. He was the boyfriend of this girl I knew, Amy. I never really thought of Amy as a friend–I think she was just a co-worker that I got along with–but I think she thought of me as a friend. I don’t know, I sometimes feel awkward about things like that. Am I supposed to make more of a ‘friendship’ effort if I’m not feeling the same way the other person is? Regardless, I at least tolerated her. So when she started showing up to work–this shitty little diner that closed only a few months after it opened–with bruises on her arms and face, I started asking questions. She never came out and said that Harris had been hurting her, but the message was there, in between the lines. I asked if she wanted me to do anything. She said no, she did not. And I didn’t like that answer, but it also wasn’t my life.  I thought I could let it go. 

But then, the stupid-ass has the audacity to show up at the diner one night while we’re cleaning up after a shift, and berate her for not wanting to give him some cash. I kept my distance, trying not to get involved. At one point, I had kind of tuned the entire nagging conversation out altogether. I couldn’t keep ignoring it when I heard her yelp though, after he had tightly wrapped his hand around her arm in an effort to keep her standing next to him. I have no idea the context of the conversation at this point, all I know is that she’s saying “Stop, you’re hurting me,” and he shows no sign of caring or backing down.

I didn’t even think about it–I just walked over to him, wound up, and…smack. Right in the face. It was harder than I meant it to be, though I have little remorse about that. Immediately, he dropped Amy’s arm and stumbled backwards. His nose was bleeding–or maybe it was his lip? Could’ve been both.

All this to say, if it came down to it again, I’m not above punching someone again. If Mirabelle wants to get in my way, and she’s what stands between Alfie and myself, I’m not above punching her.

Thinking about this, as I walk to the dining hall in the morning after our little meeting in my cabin the night before, I feel my fists clenching at my sides–as if I’m already letting that old violent energy build up inside of me before it's even needed.

Calm down. We’re not there yet. And, with luck, I won’t ever have to be. I don’t actually want to get into fisticuffs with Mirabelle. I just feel like I need to be ready for the worst case scenario. 

But in a place like this–where seemingly magical milk turns people into diaper-filling babies–maybe the worst case scenario is actually weirder than I think it is. Maybe it’s not a fist-fight with Mirabelle. Maybe droves of stupified adult babies chase after me like it's a zombie movie–trying to tackle me to the ground before dragging me back to the farmhouse, where Mother is planning on forcing me to drink copious amounts of milk so that I might join their cult.

The thought of zombies takes me back to when Alfie and I were first driving to The Cradle. We knew nothing about where Anders was yet, and we made comments to each other about feeling like we were in a horror movie. Zombies, chainsaws, all of that.

I dunno. Sometimes I think I’d prefer that to diapers.

“You coming to the farm today?” someone asks, a body sidling up to mine at the dining hall.

I’ve been so lost in thought that I don’t even remember entering the dining hall, let alone getting in line for some coffee. 

“Oh, hey,” I say to Tess, realizing that she’s the one talking to me right now. “I, uh, have something I need to do first.”

“Yeah, of course,” she says. “No pressure. But if you’re able to make it by later, we could still use the help.”

What I want to say, but don’t, is that I can’t even imagine where I’ll be this afternoon. I could be in a car, driving towards the airport with Alfie at my side. I could be knocked out and stashed away in whatever prison cell Alfie’s sitting in. Hell, for all I know, The Cradle could be on fire in the background as I walk away slowly.

“I’ll see what I can do,” I say.

===

I casually stroll towards the farmhouse; resisting the urge to run or march there with any sort of speed. I need to be calm. I need to be in control of myself. 

If I’m being honest, I looked around for tools. I walked around the back of the dining hall, hoping someone might have left out something–anything–that I could use to pry open a door or bust a lock. A hammer. Screwdriver. Crowbar. Axe. Machine gun. I walked around a few other buildings and cabins too, scouting for helpful items. No such luck. Maybe all the good stuff has been stashed away or something.

Whatever. I’ll use my bare hands if I have to. I’ll use a big stick. A rock.

I stand near the door to the little building off to the side of the farmhouse again. This used to be a storage shed, I’m told. But it’s certainly more than that now. I hear the air conditioning unit connected to this building whir.

Last time I was here, Mirabelle came right out, because she saw me on the cameras. She’ll likely see me this time too. She might have already seen me.

I wait. And I wonder how long I’d have to wait before I just kick down the door myself, instead of talking to Mirabelle first.

“It’s always a pleasure to see you, Nikki,” a familiar voice says to me. 

There she is. Just as I expected–Mirabelle.

I turn and face her. For a moment, I wonder if I should try and smile politely, but I don’t see any reason in trying to be fake at this point. She gets what Alfie would call ‘the stank eye’–the look of frustrated disgust I’m guilty of weaponizing often. She’s wearing a pair of dark green linen overalls that have a baggy fit on her, and a white top underneath the straps. She has some real camp counselor vibes going on.

“I suppose you know why I’m here,” I say.

“Ah, yes, I take it you were hoping to see Alfie today, hm?”

“Just as I was yesterday,” I say. “And the day before. And the day before that.”

She clicks her tongue and shakes her head sympathetically. “I feel for you, I truly do. You want to see your friend so badly. Can I just say, Nikki? I really commend that. I do.” She clutches her hands to her chest. “It’s an inspiration, you know? I wish everyone was as devoted to their friends as you are to yours. I adore that about you.”

I resist the urge to give any positive reaction to this. She sounds sincere. Maybe she is–I suppose someone can genuinely mean the nice things they say while also being underhanded.

I say: “Mirabelle, I’ve grown tired of asking the same question over and over again. I’ve grown tired of you telling me to wait a little longer.”

“I can imagine that would be upsetting, yes,” she says. “But, you see…”

“No,” I say. “Absolutely not. No more excuses. Today’s going to be the day, Mirabelle. You’re going to let me see Alfie, or I’m going to force my way through that door.”

“Now, Nikki, I don’t think that’s very wise. You have to understand that…”

“I’m not sure that I can make this any simpler,” I say. “Are you going to let me see Alfie right now? Yes or no? That’s all I need to hear.”

“Perhaps the actual answer isn’t as black and white as you want it to be,” Mirabelle says. “Surely you can understand this.”

I snort. “I’m going to assume that’s your way of saying ‘no,’ then.”

“And, if that’s how you choose to interpret my words, what do you plan on doing next?”

I shrug and point to the small building that’s behind me now. “I’m going to bust my way through that door.”

She smirks a little. It’s a hard expression to read. It’s not the most sarcastic of smiles–it’s more condescending than anything else. I’m reminded of the way my mother, once upon a time, sneered when I told her that one day I’d leave home and never come back. It’s a look that says: “Sure, go ahead and try that.”

I turn around and face the door, with its big lock. Could I kick this thing down if I wanted to? I have no idea–I’ve never actually busted a door down before. And the last thing I want to do is embarrass myself by trying and failing. 

But then, I’m way too stubborn to just walk away. I’m going to try.

I take a step towards the door.

“Nikki,” Mirabelle says. “Come inside with me. We can go into the farmhouse and I can make us something to eat. Something to drink, maybe?”

“No thank you.”

“Would you like to meet Mother? I can get you some time with her today. Maybe you’d like to hear more about Alfie’s situation from her? I can arrange that.”

I pause. That’s a little tempting. No, I can’t imagine it would be all that helpful of a conversation–I’m sure ‘Mother’ would also try to be manipulating me and feeding bullshit like Mirabelle is. But I’d like the chance to look her in the eye and say something about how I’m done with her and this whole little cult of hers. Maybe I’d say something about how I know about ‘Harriet Tuller’ too, even if I don’t actually know what that means.

And I laugh to myself. I bet that’s exactly what Alfie did. That’s probably why he’s in baby jail right now.

“I’m good, thanks,” I say, continuing to walk towards the door.

“Please,” Mirabelle says, her voice on the verge of cracking–it’s the first time I’ve ever heard her voice without that calculated ‘customer service’ tone in it. “Let’s not do anything rash.”

This gives me strength. Hearing the desperation–even trace amounts of it–in her voice makes me feel like she sees me as an actual threat. There’s a part of her that believes I can do what I say–that I can bust down this door and take Alfie. 

At the door, I raise my hands over my head and behind my back. Fully wound up, I swing them forward and down, letting the bottom of my fists crash into the door. 

Slam!

I don’t know what I expected to happen–because I’m not so delusional as to think that I’m strong enough to knock down a door with a single blow. But my hands hurt now, and the door seems completely indifferent to swing. I can’t even bear to turn around and see what Mirabelle might be doing. I don’t need to see her smirking or laughing at me for thinking I can bust down this door.

No. I can do this.

I’m going to try again, but I’m going to try something different this time. I take a step or two back, and aim my shoulder at the door.

“That’s enough,” Mirabelle says to me. Her voice is mostly calm and level, though I can hear some restraint. I think she wants to be angrier. “Stop this right now.”

That’s a command, isn’t it? I think it might be. The sort of thing she could say to any other diaper-wearer here at The Cradle, and it’d make them stop in their tracks. Their minds–soft and malleable from all that milk–have no idea how suggestible they are.

I wonder, if I’d actually been drinking the milk, if this command would have any sort of effect on me. Maybe not–I still wouldn’t have been drinking it for all that long.

So I just laugh.

I hear her sighing behind me, disappointed that her command didn’t work.

And now I’m charging forward.

I hear her calling out. “N-no, Nikki…”

Slam! It’s louder than the first time, and the impact is a lot harder. I feel pain radiating through my shoulder and down my arm. The door still stands, which doesn’t seem all that surprising, though I did hear a faint cracking noise. I’ve weakened something, somewhere. If I do this again, maybe I can further weaken it. “N-Nikki, you can’t do this!” Mirabelle says to me. “Stop!”

I snort. “What are you going to do about it?”

“I, well…”

Mirabelle isn’t used to defiance. No, I bet that’s never been an issue here before. People only come here willingly, and they come here already wanting the experience of being treated like a child. They all roll over so readily. Mirabelle and ‘Mother’ have probably had very little need of their milk-based manipulations, given how everyone would be willing to do what was asked of them in the first place.

Except for me. I get to be the exception to the rule.

It’s an honor.

I take another step or two away from the door, readying myself to ram into it again.

“Nikki,” Mirabelle says. “You have to stop this right now! You don’t know what you’re doing.”

“That’s not true,” I say, aiming my shoulder for the same place I rammed it the first time. “I know exactly what I’m doing.”

I charge forward again, and my shoulder collides with the door. 

Slam!

This time, there’s an even louder cracking sound coming from the other side of the door. I think it’s the frame. Another blow or two, and I might be able to actually break it and force the door inward.

My shoulder is killing me, but the feeling of accomplishment is bringing me a lot of strength. I take a step back, and then two more, giving myself even more space to build up momentum with my next ram.

“Alfie!” I yell at the door. “Can you hear me? It’s Nikki. I’m coming in.”

“Nikki, wait,” Mirabelle says, her hand suddenly on my shoulder. It’s a soft touch, and when I look over my shoulder, my eyes meet hers. Yes, she looks desperate, but she looks concerned too. 

“What?” I spit. “Are you going to open this door for me, or am I going to have to do it myself? Because I think I’m getting pretty close to making my way inside.”

“Y-you don’t understand,” she says.

“No, you’re right. I don’t. I don’t know why it’s so hard to get an honest answer out of you–but I’ll tell you what I think it means. I’m pretty sure it means you’re up to something shifty, you know? Something you’d want to hide from everyone else.”

She sighs. “Just what do you think you’re going to do when you break through that door, Nikki?”

I shrug. “I’m going to get him out of here. I don’t care if I have to carry him out.”

“He’s going to need more than just being carried,” she says.

“And what’s that supposed to mean?”

She sighs again. “M-maybe it really is best that you see what’s going on.”

I can’t help but roll my eyes. “You couldn’t have come to that conclusion before I started ramming myself into this door?”

She reaches into her pockets and produces a keychain. “Come on. I want to show you what’s inside of here.

I step aside, giving Mirabelle access to the door. My shoulder throbs, but I can barely concentrate on that. My heart races and my hands feel sweaty as I hear the key sliding into the lock. Here we go. Finally. 

She turns the keys. Click. She pushes the door inwards. Cool air rushes out from the building, cooler than anything I’ve felt in the last few days–even the air conditioned dining hall never feels as good as this. But the burst of air carries scents with it too. Baby powder. A faint staleness. And the odor of dirty diapers–a scent I’ve come to know well since my time here at The Cradle.

“Come with me,” Mirabelle says.

And so I step through the doorway.

===

It’s not a very big space. I already kind of figured this, given the observable dimensions from the exterior, and yet it still seems even smaller once I’m inside of it. I feel like I’m in a shed. A nice shed. Maybe more of a closet than anything. 

There’s very little in the way of decoration or aesthetics. The floor has a layer of squishy padding on it, like maybe the mats kids play on in preschool. There’s a changing table–large enough for an adult baby, of course–against one wall, and a crib against the other. There’s a small wooden chest filled with stuffed animals and toys. Some shelves on the walls with stacks of diapers and baby supplies neatly organized on them. The lighting here is soft–just enough to see around, but dark enough that it takes my eyes a moment to adjust to it. The air in here is comfortable here too–not too warm, and not too cold. The most ideal room temperature I could ever ask for.

There are cameras mounted on the walls. I count at least four, but I would bet there are even more that I haven’t noticed yet. A way for Mirabelle to keep an eye on this place from the farmhouse, I guess?

The babyish scent of powder, stale pee, and the musk of dirty diapers past intensifies as I step towards the crib. I see a shape in the center of it, a long shape, swaddled in blankets. 

“Is…is that him?” I ask, slowly walking forward.

“It is,” Mirabelle says.

I’m not yet really surprised by any of this. Here, in this place where everyone wears diapers and traipses around while dressed like a baby, this doesn’t seem all that different. The one big difference would be the isolation, though. This room is sequestered from everything else. There must be a good reason for that.

I stand at the edge of the crib and peer in. That’s him, Alfie. My heart aches in my chest and my legs tremble a little–I feel overwhelmed, finally seeing him again after all this time–after all this searching and scheming. His eyes are closed and he’s letting out these little snoring noises as he sleeps.

I start to reach into the crib, ready to shake him in the hopes of waking him up.

“Wait,” Mirabelle says, her arm holding mine back just before I touch him.

I roll my eyes. “What?”

“He’s not going to respond like you want him to.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She opens her mouth, but hesitates. 

“Just spit it out,” I say. 

“He’s not the Alfie that you know.”

I snort. That hasn’t answered my question at all–she’s only giving me more questions to ask. “I’m going to wake him.”

“Y-you don’t understand…” she starts to say.

But my hand is already down in the crib again, gripping his shoulder as I give his body a little shake. At first, there’s no reaction, and so I shake him again, this time a little harder. “Alfie,” I say. “Wake up.”

His eyes flutter a little before finally opening slowly. For a moment, he looks in my direction, but he seems to be looking past me more than at me. He gazes all around him, like the world is a strange and unfamiliar place to him. There’s a glassy look on his face as he blinks and slowly steers his head around to take in his surroundings.

“Alfie. It’s me–Nikki.”

Alfie opens his mouth, but when a sound finally comes out of it, it’s an unintelligible noise. A “bah” or something similar.

“Alfie…”

“He doesn’t understand you,” Mirabelle says. “And he won’t be talking back.  Well…not words that you’d comprehend, at least.”

“Is he doped up or something? What’s wrong with him?”

At the base of the crib, Alfie wriggles slowly from side to side, slowly shedding the blanket that he’s cocooned in. He’s wearing a baby-blue onesie, with an undeniably large bulge where his diaper is. 

“There’s nothing wrong with him,” Mirabelle says. “He’s just had…uhm…”

I'm already tired of the constant goading. “What? He’s had what?”

“A lot of milk,” Mirabelle says. 

I can’t help but laugh. “So has everyone else here.”

“Yes, but… It was more than anyone else here drinks at any given time. It was a lot, and it was a lot at once. And, well…the effects of doing something like that can be very powerful.”

“What kind of effects?” I ask.

“Well…right now, Alfie’s not exactly…Alfie.”

I snort, annoyed that I’m going to need to ask her to elaborate again.

But to my relief, she continues without being asked to: “He doesn’t know who he is. Where he is. What he is. He’s essentially…”

I sigh, realizing what she’s getting at. Not that I need for her to tell me, I can see it for myself inside of this crib. He’s essentially a baby. An actual, oversized, baby. Helpless. Pathetic. And…

I watch as Alfie’s face scrunches up for a moment, a little extra pink blooming in his determined cheeks, just before there’s a soft rippling sound coming from his diaper.

“It’s a good thing we’re here, then,” Mirabelle says. “Sounds like he’s going to be needing a change in a moment.”

A new smell quickly rolls through the small space–the unmistakable stench of a messy diaper. And it’s the weirdest fucking thing–seeing my best friend lying there like that, helplessly filling his diaper without a thought in the world and with no recollection of me in his eyes whatsoever. 

There was a second there where I thought I found him. But…he’s still lost. Lost to himself, really.

“Why?” I ask her. “Why did this happen?”

“It is what Mother required.”

“Why?”

“I…I cannot say. Not even I understand everything that she does. But you have to understand, Mother sees beyond the current, like you and I. She sees everything. She knows all. Everything she does is part of a bigger plan, even if it’s one that we don’t fully understand yet.”

I make no effort to stifle my groan. I’ve heard that before, or something like it. My childhood was rife with people saying things like that to explain everything they didn’t like. People can believe whatever they want to, I suppose–but I told myself a long time ago that I wasn’t going to buy into mysterious ‘masterplans.’

“This is why I wasn’t ready for you to see Alfie,” Mirabelle says. “I knew it was going to be hard to explain this to you.”

“So you were going to just…keep leading me on? Making false promises about seeing him the next day? And when the next day came, you’d kick it to the day after that? And so on and so forth forever?”

“We, uhm, weren’t prepared for your tenacity, I suppose. I was thinking that we’d eventually be able to buy ourselves some time with the, er…”

“With the milk,” I say, finishing her thought. “Is that it? You were hoping that I’d drink enough milk that you’d eventually be able to just make me not care about Alfie?”

Mirabelle sighs, but doesn’t say anything for a moment. The only sound to be heard is that of Alfie’s dirty diaper rustling as he wiggles around inside of it.

“You’re not drinking the milk, are you?” Mirabelle says to me.

“No.”

“I wondered if that might happen. But, I remained hopeful that  you would.”

“Sorry to disappoint.”

“But do you see why Alfie can’t leave here?” she asks. “He needs care and attention. And he gets that here. Everything he could possibly need. I know that you care for him, Nikki. But are you prepared to bring him back home in this state? Are you prepared for the work needed to take care of him?”

“It’ll wear off,” I say. “...right?”

“It… It’s hard to say,” she says. “It could be a long time. A very long time. So long that it might even be…permanent.”

I snort. “Bullshit. No way. You’re just saying that to scare me.”

“Look at him, Nikki. For now, like it or not…this is who Alfie is. And I don’t know if anything’s going to change that. Not any time soon.”

“No,” I say. “I’ll take him out of here. I’ll carry him back to the easy coast in my arms if I have to. I’ll take him to doctors. I’ll do whatever it takes to get him to snap out of whatever state you put him in. I’ll…”

“You can’t take him, Nikki. He needs to be cared for, and he’ll have that care–that special kind of care–right here.”

“Sorry, he’s not yours to keep,” I say.

“Well, no, he’s not mine,” Mirabelle says. “But he’s Mother’s.”

“She’s welcome to come here and try to stop me from taking Alfie,” I say. “But otherwise, he’s coming with me.”

Mirabelle opens her mouth again, ready to say something else, when the door behind us opens, letting in the bright light of the outdoors. Someone walks into this already cramped space, closing the door behind them. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust again, though I feel like I might already have an idea as to who this new visitor is. 

Speak of the devil…

Mirabelle speaks first. “M-Mother! I was just explaining to Nikki that…”

“Perhaps it's time that Nikki and I have had a conversation,” the woman says.

“Yes,” Mirabelle says, nodding her head as she begins to skirt past Mother, bringing her closer to the door. “Should I leave? Let the two of you talk in private?”

“Yes,” Mother says. “But don’t go too far. You’ll need to change the little one’s diaper soon enough.”

===

Time seems to freeze for a moment, and I’m stuck in this indefinite second where I’m just gawking at her. Yes, she does look familiar to me, even if I’ve never met her before–I’m reminded of the photos that were on Tommy’s phone last night. Harriet Tuller.

But this woman might resemble her, but I don’t think that it is her. This woman seems larger than life. Tall and powerful. Confidence that surrounds her like a glowing aura. The semi-transparent black robe she wears lets me see her perfect skin, her round tits, and her flat belly. Her perfect posture. Her sculpted face.

Yes, there’s a reason she’s the leader here. Just looking at her makes a small part of myself feel like I, too, should be worshipping her.

“I’ve been watching you since you’ve arrived,” the woman says. Her voice is calm and understated. It’s almost like she has to restrain herself–as if inflecting any amount of emotion in her tone would be too much for human ears to tolerate, and we’d go insane from it.

I want to say something snarky, but it’s tough to think straight in her presence. I can’t tell if I just need a moment to collect myself or…if it’s something else. Maybe it’s not crazy to think that a woman capable of producing psychedelic milk also has an aura capable of affecting the psyche of those around her.

“I admire you,” Mother says. “Strong. Independent. Brave. But, alas, I don’t know that there’s a place for you in a place like this.”

“Yes, well, I’d agree with that,” I say. “That’s why I’m trying to leave.”

“The Cradle is just the start,” she says to me. “I don’t think you realize that just yet. I think very few do. Eventually, I’ll have so much more than just The Cradle. Maybe, wherever it is you call home, will one day be mine too. And on that day, I’ll still have no use for someone who refuses to obey. It would be so much easier if you allowed yourself to become one of us now, Nikki.”

I snort. “I…I don’t think so.”

“Drink the milk,” she says, reaching to her chest and grasping one of her tits through the mesh robe. I see a blob of white forming at the nipple, dripping out and wetting the robe itself. “I promise that you’ll like it.”

“No,” I say. “I’m not going to.”

She steps towards me. “Just a taste, Nikki. I understand why you’d be so hesitant–being such a strong and stoic woman. But don’t you get tired of it? Don’t you get tired of being the one in charge? The one who has to assert dominance? The one who has to make decisions? The one who has to always keep your composure?”

I say nothing, but I swallow. Yes. That is a lot. Yes, it’s something I do get tired of sometimes. It’s hard to always be stoic. To be a realist. To be proactive. To be pragmatic. 

But that’s who I am. And I don’t want to be anyone else, no matter how hard it is.

But…

Maybe there is a small part of me that yearns for the feeling of just…letting someone else take the reigns.

Wait. Do I actually feel that way? Or is she, like, doing something to me?

She says: “Come closer, Nikki. Just once, allow yourself to let go of everything.”

And I take a small step towards her. 

I honestly have no idea if I want to take her up on her offer, or if she’s making me think that I am.

“Alfie,” I say, as if calling out to him for help. A silly gesture, I know–but it’s the only thing I can think to do as Mother’s milky breast seems to get closer and closer to my face.

“Nikki,” a voice mutters softly. 

Is that… It is. That’s Alfie’s voice. I spin around, seeing the body in that giant crib starting to sit up.

“Alfie!” I’ve snapped out of whatever brief haze I felt myself slipping into.

“Nikki,” he says. “Y-you… You have to…”

I rush to the side of the crib. “What? What is it, Alfie?”

“You have to…drink the milk.”

Suddenly I know, deep in my soul, that this is not Alfie. Not the Alfie I know, at least.

“Fuck,” I mutter under my breath, feeling stuck between Mother and ‘Alfie’ in the crib. Coming to California. All this planning and plotting. Building these relationships. Was it all so that I would just end up here–falling into the same trap that Alfie might have? 

I was a fool to have come here.

===

Like I said at the top, next week starts a new story arc here in the pages of Milk!, once more returning the focus of the story to our boy Alfie.

Of course, folks who are subscribed to my Ream Stories page are already pretty deep into this next arc. And you could be too! Check out the link below and subscribe to check out not only new chapters of this story, but the hundreds of other stories I've shared with my readers.

It’s a story that’s probably been told a thousand times by everyone else who was there. Though it’s one that he’s never really told himself. He’s come close a few times–giving small morsels of it to both Alfie and Nikki. But he’s torn on whether or not he’d ever want to tell the whole story. Because the whole story is long and complicated. 

He sometimes wonders how far back he’d have to go to have the story make sense to someone. Maybe the story starts when he first meets Clark Ashburn–an intern at the company he worked for, who ended up being the catalyst for the strange turn his life took after. And, well, he did have a lot of resentment for Clark and the attention he got. But that’s not actually the start of the story either.

Maybe the story starts when he was in college, and he had spent the better part of a semester trying to break out of his antisocial shell to woo Jasmine Pickford, whom he was spending hours every week studying with–only to catch her on her hands and knees in his own bed, getting railed from behind by his own roommate.

Or, maybe the story starts in high school, when the friends group he had been a part of for years suddenly decided that they were way more interested in smoking pot, drinking beer, and stealing shit than they were in playing Tekken with him on his PlayStation–causing a rift that was never bridged.

The story might even start even earlier than that, like when he was eight years old and spending the summer with his grandmother–as he had for the summer’s previous to that. Those previous summers had been joyous marathons of being coddled and spoiled, but for this particular summer he was joined by his toddler cousin Melissa, who got all the coddling and spoiling and naught but a cold shoulder from his grandmother.

In a nutshell, the problem had always been that he felt overlooked and ignored. Desirable until someone, or something, better came along–at which point he was just discarded and forgotten about.

Those years and years of feeling rejected had taken their toll on Thomas, culminating in him acting like a fool at his office. Ironic, he sometimes supposes, that he would be remembered and talked about now–but only as the ‘diaper-guy’ who humiliated himself.

If he’s being honest, he sometimes feels a little overlooked at The Cradle too. He isn’t one of the ‘cool’ babies. He sometimes worries that he isn’t given so many tasks and errands to do because they trust him, but because he’s a doormat that can be easily walked all over.

But he’s a lot happier these days anyways. The Cradle isn’t that much different than the rest of the world, when he thinks about it. A little stinkier. A little quieter at night. But it’s still people just being people.

He is the one that’s changed. His little stunt in his old office gave him pause and forced him to do a lot of reflecting. Why was he always so determined to make people like and accept him? Why did it matter if people paid attention to him? Wouldn’t it be better if he was just…himself?

So, yeah. He’s going to call himself ‘Tommy’ now. Not ‘Tom.’ Not ‘Thomas.’ He’s going to dress up like a country boy when he feels like it. He’s going to take ill-advised shots at girls that are probably out of his league. He’s going to let himself be a little corny and goofy. He’s going to continue to embrace diapers–which he likes far more than he ever thought he would.

And The Cradle is an exceptional place to practice being yourself, he’s found.

He’s made friends here. One in particular, Alfie, is a friend in the truest sense–someone who seems to accept him, warts and all. Someone who trusts him. The kind of friend Tommy hasn’t had in a very long time–or maybe ever. 

When Alfie seemingly vanished that night, right after driving that truck of milk back to The Cradle, Tommy had convinced himself that nothing nefarious was happening. This was The Cradle, after all–it’s home. It’s the inspiration for him living his best life. It’s the place where he gets to start over after burning his old life to the ground.

And then Nikki showed up, reminding him of how strange things actually were around here. Alfie needs help. And who to better help him than his friend?

Tommy’s been a fool before–maybe he’s even been a fool his entire life. But he thinks this time is going to be different. He’s going to make sure that he doesn’t look back at this part of his life with regret.

He’s going to do whatever he can to make sure Alfie’s okay. And that’s how he knows he’s grown–because he finally recognizes that all his previous disappointments came after only caring about his own needs.

===

Tommy pulls his pickup to the curb in front of Celia’s house. He had stopped by the diner first, but was told that she wasn’t working today. That was good news–it was probably better that he didn’t have to hassle her while working.

Now that he’s got some reception on his phone, he was thinking he could just search for the name ‘Harriet Tuller’ on it. But when he tried in the diner parking lot, he was underwhelmed by the results he was getting–not to mention that his small screen was just making it hard to parse the websites he was looking at, making him think he was missing details. Doing this on a bigger screen seemed necessary. Nikki was right to suggest Celia’s help.

“Tommy,” Celia says when she opens the door. For the first time in as long as he can remember, she doesn’t seem to cringe when she looks at him–the way she usually did when she saw him at the diner. Understandable, he supposes–he probably laid it on a little thick with his flirting. Though, in his defense, flirting is still a relatively new thing for him to be doing; he’s not all that great at it yet.

Instead, there’s a look of concern on her face. He immediately realizes what it might be–she sees him as the bearer of bad news. As if there’s no other reason he’d be at her door right now.

“Alfie?” she asks, when he doesn’t immediately say anything.

“No news there, really,” he says. “But Nikki and I are working on some leads.”

She nods, her face still looking disappointed. 

“But there was something I was hoping you could help me out with.”

There, he sees a little spark in her eye. She lifts her head up, already eager to help in any way that she can. “Yes, of course. What do you need?”

Alfie mentioned a name to me a while ago. Maybe he mentioned it to you too? Harriet Tuller?”

Celia considers this for a moment and shrugs. “I don’t know who that is. Should I?”

“That’s what I’d like to know too. I got the feeling that Alfie thought there was something important about that person, but he–you know–went off the radar before I could get any more information from him. Nikki and I have asked around The Cradle to see if anyone else recognized the name, but I know that I haven’t had any luck.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know her either,” she says, disappointment creeping over her face again. “Sorry you drove all the way out here for me to say that.”

“Well, I was thinking that maybe you could help me do some research? Maybe we could look for her online with your laptop?” It occurs to Tommy now that he’s just assuming that Celia owns a computer of some sort. But who doesn’t these days? Besides, this was Nikki’s idea, and she spent some time here at Celia’s place–she’d probably know if Celia didn’t have a computer.

“Come inside,” she says, nodding. “Let’s see what we can do.”

There’s someone else sitting in the living room–a young woman he doesn’t recognize at first, though she’s certainly familiar-looking.

Oh right. Sloane is here. Nikki had mentioned this to him. It seemed like Nikki trusted her to some degree, and so he figured he should probably do the same. Still, he had heard the stories about how she had betrayed The Cradle, and those were hard to set aside. He wondered what she was still doing here.

“Hey,” he said, nodding at her.

“Hey,” Sloane said.

“Look, I’m not a private investigator or anything,” Celia says, retrieving her laptop from another room and carrying it over the coffee table in the living room. “I don’t know the first thing about looking people up online. But I’ll do my best.”

Sloane’s eyes grow bigger. “Looking for someone online? M-maybe I can help.”

Celia chuckles a little. “Is this something you know a thing or two about?”

Sloane shrugs, her cheeks getting a little pink. “Maybe. I’m a little guilty of doing some cyber-stalking in my free time. Checking up on exes and old friends.”

“Sounds creepy,” Tommy says.

“Honestly, it’s more pathetic than creepy,” Sloane says. “I guess I’m always hoping to see people living more miserably than I am. But it rarely works out that way. Usually, I’m the one left feeling miserable.”

“I ran a search for her name,” Celia says, looking at the laptop’s screen. “Harriet Tuller, right? These search results seem like junk.”

“It is,” Sloane says. “That’s your first mistake. All these sites in the results just want to sell you access to information that’s been taken from public records. You want to find someone, you look on social media.”

Sloane motions for Celia to pass the laptop to her, and when she has control of it, she navigates to one of the social media sites. “I have to log you out of your account, okay? I don’t want anyone seeing that your account was looking for this person.”

“That can happen?” Celia asks.

Sloane shrugs. “Better safe than sorry, right? I have an account that I use just for this purpose.” 

She logs into the site with her own credentials, pulling up the profile of someone named Addison Langley. There’s a picture there that isn’t of Sloane. A whole profile’s worth of details that are likely fabricated. Tommy, standing behind the couch and watching the computer over the girls’ shoulders, even notes that ‘Addison’ has more friends than he does on his own profile.

“This is…quite elaborate,” Celia says.

Sloane’s cheeks get a little more red. “It’s nothing I’m proud of, okay?”

With her secret identity logged in, she searches for the name ‘Harriet Tullman.’ A list of potential profiles show. 

“Shit,” Celia says. “How would we ever know which is the one Alfie talked about?”

“Uhm…I think that answers the question right there, doesn’t it?” Tommy asks, his finger pointing at one of the profiles. Sloan’s eyes immediately grow and she lets out a little gasp.

“Who is that supposed to be?” Celia asks.

Tommy says: “Well…that’s Mother.”

===

Harriet Tuller is 30 years old and supposedly lives in the small town of North Grey, Michigan. She’s an operator at a customer service support hotline for a credit card company. She likes police procedurals on TV, hiking, reading, Elton John, Mexican food, and Disney movies. 

Either she doesn’t use social media very often, or she just doesn’t know many people. She has a low follower count, and when scrolling through her timeline, most of it is just out-of-context photographs and short messages. Each has only a smattering of likes and reactions.

A picture of a hot air balloon hovering above a park, taken from the ground.

A picture of some fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies with the caption: “Please don’t make me eat these by myself :)”

A post that reads: “It was good seeing you, Janny. Safe travels back home.” A response, from Janet Layton reads: “Thanks again for having me, Harriet! You’re the best! I’ll let you know how things go with Garbage-Man.”

But it would seem that Harriet hasn’t been active on her profile in a few years now. Six? Seven? This, by itself, wouldn’t be all that concerning to Tommy–he rarely updates his own profiles anymore. A few years could easily slip by without him caring much about it. The concerning part are the messages at the top of the timeline–the messages left for her by other people.

“It’s been a while since I’ve heard from you,” says Mary Tuller, likely of some relation to Harriet. “I miss you.” That post came two years ago.

Last summer, Janet Layton asked: “Does anybody know what happened to Harriet?” The response to that comes from one Mirabelle Hapsbergen, two months later, who says: “Harriet is doing just fine, thank you for asking! She doesn’t get online very much anymore, but wanted me to pass along the message that she’s okay and that she hopes to talk to you soon!”

There is no response from Janet Layton.

“Mirabelle,” says Sloane. But when they click on her profile, they see that it’s restricted to only being able to be seen by friends. “Do I dare try to add her?”

“Is there any way she can trace the profile to you?” Tommy asks.

“I don’t think so,” she says. “But I’m not an expert on these sorts of things.”

“And who is Mirabelle?” Celia asks. “And…Mother?”

Tommy chuckles a little, rightfully assuming it’d be complicated to try and explain everything to Celia. “They’re the ones in charge. More or less.”

“But here they are, looking almost like normal people,” Sloane says. “I can’t get over Mother–er, Harriet’s–profile. She looks…”

“Nerdy,” Tommy says. He thinks of the way he’s seen Mother at The Cradle–this tall and imposing woman who just seems to radiate power from her every pore. And that’s not who he sees in the online profile. Here, Harriet comes off as kind of lonely and unassuming. If he squints his eyes, he supposes he can believe that Harriet and Mother are the same person. But how does someone go from a mundane life of answering phones and baking cookies to overseeing a community of people who regress to babies when they drink milk from her breasts?

What the hell happened there?

“How did Alfie know her name?” Celia asks.

“I don’t know,” Tommy says. “But he’s a writer, right? A reporter? Like, that’s what he does. He investigates.”

“Do you think he knew too much?” Sloane asks. “Maybe that’s why something happened to him. He knows things he isn’t supposed to know.”

“Yes,” Tommy says, shaking a finger at the screen. “I bet you’re exactly right.”

“But how does knowing someone’s name, or about their previous life, matter?” Celia asks. “How is that knowing too much? It’s not like she was a spy or a government official. She was just some chick with a boring job like everybody else.”

“It’s not about who she was,” Sloane says. “It’s about who she is now. She doesn’t want anyone to know that she was once normal–she fears it would undermine the authority and power she has over The Cradle for people to see her as one of them.”

“Maybe,” Tommy says. He feels like they’re close to something. Closer than they–or anyone else–has ever been to learning the truth of The Cradle. They’re just missing a piece or two of the puzzle.

“So what now?” Celia asks him.

“I need to go back and talk to Nikki. I don’t know what the next steps are, but maybe she’ll have some good ideas. Maybe we go and talk to Mirabelle and…”

“That doesn’t seem like a good idea,” Sloane says. “For all we know, that’s what Alfie did, and now he’s been jammed in some secret nursery.”

“Good point,” he says, sighing. It’s still a little hard to accept that The Cradle–a source for so much goodness in the lives of many–has a vein of darkness running through it. It’s even harder to accept when he’s not even sure what the ‘darkness’ is. It’s not like they know of a sinister master plan or anything. There’s secrets–but what are those secrets protecting? “Do you have a printer, Celia? Can I print some of these pictures out?”

“It’s not a very good printer,” Celia says.

Tommy takes out his phone instead, snapping a few pictures of the computer screen with it. “This should do.”

“Whatever it is you’re going to do,” Sloane says, “I want in.”

“Likewise,” Celia adds.

“I’ll talk to Nikki,” he says. “We’ll regroup. We’ll come back to you two and we’ll hash it all out.” He starts to walk towards the door.

“You just got here,” Celia says. “Are you leaving now?”

“Ah, well…”

“I was going to make some dinner. Stick around and join us?”

“Well…” Yeah, maybe that’s not a bad idea. Nikki knows how to take care of herself, and this information can probably wait a few more hours at this point. Not only is Celia being nice to him, but she’s inviting him to stay for dinner–it feels like an offer he shouldn’t refuse. He smiles. “What’s on the menu?”

===

Dinner was good, if not a little awkward. Tommy couldn’t help but feel like a third wheel–not knowing either woman well enough to push the conversation beyond small talk, while they had no issue chattering amongst themselves. It wasn’t like they were trying to be rude–they tried to include him as often as they could–but the whole thing just felt a little stilted and unnatural. 

When dinner is finished, Tommy practically begs Celia to let him take care of the dishes, but she turns him down.

“Don’t take it personally,” Sloane says with a smirk. “I think she just has a particular way of doing it, and it makes her anxious to have anyone else handle it.”

“It’s therapeutic,” Celia says, gathering the dishes from the table. “I need mindless chores sometimes. It helps me process things. And, you know, I don’t have that many dishes to wash when I’m here by myself.”

Tommy’s a little curious about what sorts of things Celia has to process, but he knows that’s none of his business. Maybe it’s the same stuff that everyone else in this house is processing: How the hell did we get caught in this weird world of diapers and magical milk?

When Celia is nearer the sink, Tommy leans towards Sloane. In a hushed tone: “Hey, can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” she says, matching his low volume.

“I, uh, might have an extra diaper or two in the glovebox of the truck, but if you have one in the house I could use…”

“I have some,” she says, nodding. “They’re not as good as the ones from The Cradle though–but they do the trick. Are you…wet?”

“Uh, yeah,” he says, running a hand through his hair while his face warms. He’s more than just ‘wet,’ though–he’s soaked. Somewhere during their meal, he wet his already damp diaper pretty heavily.

Celia tries to keep a straight face, but ends up chortling behind her hand just before turning the faucet on. 

“She has ears like a hawk,” Sloane says. “FYI.”

Tommy sighs, his cheeks glowing a little. 

“It’s not a big deal,” Sloane says. “When I was coming off of the milk, she heard all about my dirty diapers.”

“And saw them,” Celia says from the sink. “And smelled them. And not just Sloane’s. Aflie’s, too. Trust me, it’s nothing I haven’t seen for myself already.”

Sloane shrugs. “See? No big deal. Come with me, I’ll get you a new diaper.”

Tommy follows her out of the kitchen and across the house to the spare bedroom. He feels a little guilty, leaving Celia behind to deal with the cleanup of dinner alone, but she’s already humming a little song to herself, so maybe she really is okay with it.

In the spare room–a barely decorated, but adorably quaint little space, Sloane pulls out a package of adult diapers from under the bed, shoving the whole thing into Tommy’s chest. “Here. You can have them all.”

“I only need one,” he says, laughing a little. “Besides, don’t you need them?”

“I still have occasional accidents,” she says, shrugging. “The milk lasts a little longer than you think it does. I still have another pack, though. I’m finally starting to wear panties again during the day. It’s actually kind of wild to not feel that bulk between your legs.”

“Congratulations on the potty training,” he says, smirking.

“It might happen for you someday,” she says, shrugging. “If you want it to.”

“I don’t know what I want anymore,” he sighs, not realizing until a moment after the words came out of his mouth that he was responding to more than what she just said.

She lifts her eyebrows a little, looking invested and curious. “Having some doubts about things?”

“I really thought The Cradle was the utopia I craved, you know? The place I could go and finally be myself. But I’m starting to wonder if I was wrong about this too.”

“Take this with a grain of salt,” she says, “considering how I didn’t go to The Cradle because I wanted to be a big baby. But there’s a lot of genuinely good people there that can be trusted. If there weren’t, I probably wouldn’t feel as bad for doing what I had.”

“That’s true,” he says, staring down at the open package of diapers he cradled in his arms now. “But what if milk and Mother turns out to be some sort of…I don’t know…scam? That’s the heart of everything. What is The Cradle without its heart?”

Sloane considers this for a moment and then nods. “Yeah, that’s a really good question. And a part of me wonders if every person at The Cradle is going to have to answer that question for themselves some day.”

“I guess,” Tommy says. She might be right, but it’s hard to think about the big picture when he’s so often stuck thinking about his own identity.

Seeming to read his thoughts, Sloane adds: “But I know what that’s like to be questioning who you are, or where you belong.”

He looks up from the diapers. “Yeah?”

She nods. “It’d be nice if I just knew where ‘home’ was for once. It’d be nice if I had a real job. Friends. Family. When I, uh, helped to steal the milk…that was for my family, you know? But I couldn’t even do that right.”

Tommy knew a little of her story, bits and pieces he had put together from what Nikki had mentioned to him after she spent some time here with Celia and Sloane. 

She laughs. “God, I’m sorry. Listen to me–making this a pity party about myself…”

“No, it’s okay,” Tommy says. “Honestly, it’s kind of good to hear that I’m not the only one who’s struggling with who I am or where I belong.”

“There’s dozens of us,” she says with a smirk. “Dozens.”

He laughs a little, happy to recognize the pop-culture morsel. It reminds him of a different time in his life, when he owned a TV, listened to podcasts, and knew what movies were playing at the theater. What has he missed? Is there a Toy Story 9 right now?

“Maybe I should, uh…” He looks down at the diapers again.

“Do you want some help?” she asks.

He blushes again. “N-no, I think I can manage on my own.”

“Let me help you,” she says. She seems to mean it in a friendly way, but it comes out sounding a little like a command. 

Tommy’s eyes grow big, a slight look of vacancy in them. He drops the pack of diapers onto the ground. He says, simply: “Okay.”

She looks confused for a moment, in seeming disbelief that he’s really just rolling over that fast, suddenly willing to let her change him.

“Shit,” she mutters.

Tommy blinks his eyes a few times, as if suddenly waking up from a brief sleep. “What the hell was that?”

“Tommy…”

“Did you do something to me? It was like you told me to let you change you, and there was this overpowering voice in my head telling me that I had to let you do that.”

“Alfie didn’t tell you…” she says.

“Tell me what?”

“No, of course he wouldn’t have,” she says to herself, thinking aloud. “He disappeared right after he got back to The Cradle, right? After he brought the truck back?”

“More or less.”

She sighs. “That night–just before he took the truck–he was confronting this girl, Casey, who was in the group I was a part of. The one’s stealing the milk?”

“Okay?”

“She made Alfie do things with commands. Like, she told him to stop moving, and he did. She told him to give her his phone and he… Well, he almost did that too, but I think he fought the urge and dropped his phone on the pavement instead.”

Tommy recalls when he and Nikki stood in that very parking lot a few days ago and noticed the broken glass from the screen. They were right to speculate that it was part of Alfie’s phone.

“So what are you saying?” he asks. “That this girl…made Alfie do things that he didn’t want to do? She had some sort of power? That you have that power too?”

“No, no,” she says. “It’s not like that. Casey said that if someone’s consumed enough milk, they were susceptible to being ordered to do things. Anyone could take advantage of that if they knew to.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Tommy says, shaking his head. “So, like, because I’ve drank a lot of milk, you could tell me to do something and…”

“Tommy, touch your nose,” she says.

He does this.

“Tommy, walk in place.”

And he does this too. He looks down at his legs incredulously, horrified by the betrayal of his own body.

“Stop,” she says, putting an end to the marching.

“This…this isn’t good,” he says.

“I know.”

“Y-you didn’t think to tell anyone?”

“I didn’t know who I could talk to,” she says. “You know damn well that there isn’t anyone at The Cradle who’d want to see my face right now.”

“That’s true,” he says, stroking his chin. “But this is…big. This is important for people to know. I need to tell everyone about this.”

“You need to be careful,” Sloane says. “You have to assume that Mother and Mirabelle know this. And if they’re not telling anyone else about it, you have to assume that it’s because they want to exploit it. You start telling people, and the wrong people find out you know something you shouldn’t…?”

“You think that’s what happened to Alfie?” he asks. “He knew too much?”

“That makes sense,” she says, nodding. “They don’t want him around everyone else because they don’t want him to talk about the things he knows.”

“I have to at least tell Nikki,” he says. “I need to go back right now.”

“Hold on, hold on,” she says, putting a hand on his shoulder. “One thing at a time. You smell like pee–you should change into a new diaper first.”

“That’s the last thing I can focus on right now,” he says.

“If you can’t focus on a diaper, you probably can’t focus on driving either. Lie down on the bed, Tommy. I’m going to change your diaper.”

“But…I…” He’s nodding his head. There’s a part of him that wonders if he’s doing this because he really does think it’s a good idea, or if he only thinks so because of the milk’s influence on his mind. “You have to be careful, Sloane. P-please don’t make me do anything I don’t want to do.”

“Right,” she says. “Sorry…you’re right about that. I’ll leave you alone if you want to take care of things yourself.”

“No, wait… Maybe, uh, I could use a hand. If you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind at all,” she says.

Moments later, he’s lying on the guest room’s bed, on a changing mat that Sloane’s rolled out for him. Perhaps that was another thing Celia picked up for Sloane at some point–something to keep the sheets clean during the necessary diaper changes. It’s a little weird to have Sloane–a stranger, and a woman seen as many in The Cradle–standing between his legs and untaping his dirty diaper, but since coming to California he’s had his diaper changed by so many different faces he can’t even remember them all. 

Maybe she’s not all that bad, he thinks as she carefully slides a moist baby wipe over his limp manhood. She doesn’t make any jokes or commentary at his expense–she seems to do everything she can to keep him comfortable and feeling safe. 

And it’s working.

===

Later, as he drives back towards The Cradle–fresh padding under his bottom now–he thinks about that foolish thing he did, once upon a time. Too, he thinks about all the things in his life that lead up to that moment. All the mistakes, second-guesses, betrayals, and perceived slights that would eventually make him think it was a good idea to poop his pants in front of all his co-workers in the hopes of getting a little attention.

It’s getting harder and harder to recognize the person that he used to be.

“And so who am I now?” he asks aloud, to nobody in particular.

HIs thick diaper crinkles beneath him as he hits a bump in the road, though he barely notices. 

But he wonders if he isn’t asking himself the wrong question. The near-constant search for his own identity is exhausting. Just as is the constant search for home and a place where he belongs.

He thinks he might be better served by building the home that he wants to live in, and helping the people that he cares for. And somewhere in that process, he’ll just know who he is now.

He’s going to tell Nikki everything he knows. And then, together, they’re going to figure out what to do next from the list of the things to do. 

At the top of that list?

Save Alfie.

And then, save The Cradle from itself.

Forty-Three: Nikki’s Story, Part 10

Sitting around and waiting for Freya in my cabin, as the world around me gets quieter and darker, gives me time to think. It’s not something I want to be doing–I think I’ve done far too much thinking on this little excursion as it is–but I’m having trouble with just shutting off my brain.

I might be a little homesick, I think. 

I miss the apartment I share with Alfie. I miss the comfortable contours I’ve worn into my mattress. I miss my favorite travel coffee cup that I use almost every day. I miss the way our TV makes a mildly alarming clicking noise when you first turn it on. 

I miss the stupid in-jokes that Alfie and I had. The ones’ so obscured by time that we probably couldn’t even tell you why we originally found them funny. Like when one of us asks the other if they prefer cake or pie, and the answer is ‘donuts.’ We still say it, and we still laugh about it, but the hell if I know where that even came from.

I don’t miss the concept of ‘work’ itself, but I do miss the routine of a normal day. You don’t realize how comforting the banality of life is until you’re thrust into a situation where every single moment feels weird and new.

I want to be thinking about paying bills right now, not about diapers.

I want to use a fucking toilet.

In an alternate universe where Alfie never flew across the country to ‘save’ his brother-in-law, we might be chilling in the apartment right now. Just another night. We’ve got some cans of beer in our hands, and I’m pretending to watch whatever foreign language film Alfie’s got on the TV at the moment–probably something he’s never seen before himself, read a positive review of once, and bought a Blu-Ray for sight-unseen. I’ll go to bed when I’m tired enough, blasting the air conditioning in my room because I like both the white noise of it and the arctic temperature it produces. I’ll probably slide my hand between my thighs before drifting to sleep, and I’ll never actually know if I reached climax or if I fell asleep before that happened. 

Instead, I’m just waiting in the dark. Wearing a diaper.

I hear the faint sound of footsteps outside, little grinding noises coming from the gravel pathways.

This is her, I just know it. 

Sure enough, there’s a light tapping on the door a moment later.

“Come in.” I turn on the small light on the bedside table to create a little more light in the cabin.

As expected, it’s Freya. She’s wearing an oversized gray sweatshirt–hood pulled up over her hair. It seems a tad too warm for that, but I think it has less to do with keeping her warm and more to do with helping her look inconspicuous as she traversed across The Cradle. Even in the dark, any bit of light on her red hair would give her away.

Which yields the question: Just who is she trying to avoid? 

“I hope you don’t mind me coming here,” she says.

“I don’t,” I say.

“After I had dropped off the note, I realized that it probably would’ve been better to give you an option, you know? I could’ve had you meet me somewhere else, so that if you wanted nothing to do with my request, you could’ve just not come.”

“It’s really okay,” I say. “I’m not upset that you’re here.”

“So, do you need a change?” she asks, smirking. It’s a joke, I think.

“N-no.” Though I’m certainly thinking of the last time I saw her, and the things she did with me.

“How long have you been in that diaper?” she asks.

“A while,” I shrug. “But I haven’t, uh…” I laugh a little. “There’s a puddle behind the cabin. Watch your step if you go back there for any reason.”

She laughs. “Noted.”

“I’m going to guess that you didn’t come here just because you wanted to check my diaper.”

“You’re right,” she says. “Though I would’ve. And, well, the offer is still on the table if you do happen to need one before I leave.”

“I’ll take that under consideration,” I say.

“I should probably get to the point,” she says. “Things have been a little strange around here for the last few weeks.”

I say: “Stranger than they usually are.”

She chuckles and nods. “To say the least.” She takes a second to compose herself before starting again: “Alfie being, you know, whisked away like he was–it didn’t sit well with a lot of us.”

“And ‘us’ is…”

“The Maternal Council,” she says.

I still don’t like that name, but I keep that to myself.

Freya continues: “Well, it’s not the entirety of the council. A handful of us. There are some who refuse to question anything that Mother or Mirabelle say or do–and we know better than to let them in on these conversations.”

“Ingrid?” I ask. I know absolutely nothing about whoever that is, but the name is stuck in my mind–someone that Tess had called out earlier for being ‘prickly.’

Freya laughs. “Do you know her?”

“We haven’t met. I’ve only heard of her.”

“Then her reputation precedes her,” she says. “Yes…she’s one of the council members that we leave out of these conversations. She’s the type who’d run to Mirabelle in a heartbeat and tattle on the rest of us who dare question ‘Mother’s divine judgment.’”

“Let’s say she did do that,” I say. “How bad would that be?”

Freya shrugs. “No idea. There’s no precedent for that, you know? We’ve never had an issue that the Maternal Council was divided on before. There’re others, like Ingrid, who have been vocal about the fact that whatever has happened to Alfie is none of our concern.”

“Hrm.” It annoys me to hear that.

“It’s a new world,” she says. “One where a few of us have to be very careful of who we talk to, where we talk, and what we say.”

Kelly had mentioned some of this to me earlier, when she was changing my diaper. Changing my diaper–it’ll never not seem absurd to even think those words.

“And so what now?” I ask. “I mean, it’s good that some of you are talking about the more questionable aspects of this place. But, like, do you have a plan for what you’re going to do about it yet?”

“No,” Freya says, looking down. She looks disappointed.

Maybe my question was a little harsher than I meant for it to be. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it, like…”

“It’s okay,” she says. “I get it–you want your friend back. And we want answers. There’s no doubt that we have to do something. But we’ve only just started to talk about it.”

“I get that.”

“That’s why I wanted to talk to you,” she says. “I think what you want aligns with what we want. Maybe we can all work together.”

It’s a good idea, I’ll give her that. But I’m also not exactly the ‘works well with others’ type. 

Well… Maybe there was a time when that was more true, but this excursion to the west coast has me reconsidering that. Tommy. Celia. Sloane. We’ve all been working together so far, and I’m probably better off for it.

“I have some people I’ve been working with too,” I say. “Some on The Cradle and some outside of it.”

“You trust them?” she asks.

“So far,” I say. If Freya asks, I don’t think I’ll be naming names. Nobody here is prepared to hear Sloan’s name being mentioned when talking about allies.

“That’s good to know,” Freya says. She, thankfully, leaves it at that. “So you’d be interested in meeting with us, then?”

“Of course.”

“I was hoping you’d say that,” she says. “We’ll be meeting tomorrow night.”

“Where?” I ask.

“Well, finding places in The Cradle that are safe from curious eyes and ears is tough, but I think I might know a place.”

“Hm?”

“Here?” Freya asks.

“My cabin?”

“It’s in a good area–a little less foot traffic than others, especially at night. Plus, you’re just about as far from Mirabelle and the farmhouse as we can get.”

“So, was this the plan all along?” I ask, cracking a smile. “Give me the advantageous cabin in the hopes that I’d later be okay with hosting a meeting for the rebellion?”

She laughs. “Rebellion–I like that. Well, I wasn’t the one in charge of choosing where you’d stay. But I find it hard to believe that Mirabelle wouldn’t have wanted to keep you closer–so maybe someone else had a hand in that.”

“Here is fine,” I say.

“Perfect. Then you’ll see me–and some other friends tomorrow. It’ll probably be late at night–make sure you get plenty of rest.”

I shrug. I doubt I’ll be sleeping much tonight, and I’ve already committed myself to another day with Tess in the garden tomorrow. I’ll probably be pretty exhausted by this time tomorrow. Oh well.

“Are you sure you don’t need a diaper change before I go?” she asks, her lips smirking again.

I have little desire to use my diaper, but her question almost makes me wish I felt differently. A little pre-bedtime attention between my legs–like the kind she gave me the last time she changed me–doesn’t sound that bad right now.

“Still dry,” I shrug.

“Ah well. Maybe tomorrow night?”

I laugh. “Yeah…we’ll see.”

“Good night, Nikki.”

“Good night, Freya.”

===

The next morning, as I drag my weary body towards the dining hall for some coffee, I spot Tommy charging towards me with a determined look on his face. He practically bowls me over, and I sidestep him to avoid the both of us tumbling over.

“H-hey,” he says, trying to catch his breath. “Sorry, I just…I went to your cabin this morning, but I must’ve just missed you.”

“So you’ve been chasing after me?” I ask. “What’s the emergency?”

“I, uh…” He pauses, wheezing for a moment.

“Just take a second,” I say. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Yesterday, I went to town. Like we said, you know? I went and talked to Celia and Sloane. Harriet Tuller. We…”

“Stop,” I say, looking around us. 

I don’t want to be paranoid, but if Freya and her Maternal Council friends are being cautious of everyone, it makes me think that I should be too.

“Wh-what? I thought you wanted to know about…”

“We should talk about this later,” I say. “Somewhere else.”

“Ah, right,” Tommy says, finally grasping what I’m not saying aloud.

“You should come over to my cabin tonight.”

I watch as his cheeks redden a little. “Oh, uh…”

I roll my eyes. “Don’t get too excited. We’re going to talk business. And you won’t be the only guest.”

“Who else is…”

I wave my hand at him to signal that it’s something I won’t be talking about. “Late night tonight. Just come.”

“How late?”

“I don’t know. Just…whenever you can make it over, I guess. The later the better.” I’m hoping I don’t have to spell out that he needs to not be spotted by anyone else.

He nods. “Right. I’ll be there.”

“Good.”

There’s excitement on his face. I mean, I guess he always looks a little excited–he’s just that kind of guy. But more excited than usual, maybe. I wonder if he got some especially important news from his research on Harriet Tuller. Or, maybe, he’s just excited that it feels like people are finally starting to band together and do something for Alfie.

If it’s the latter, I get. I’m excited too.

===

I think, maybe, I’ve lost a little bit of weight since coming to The Cradle. Not much, but enough that my shirt suddenly feels a little bigger. I’m not that surprised, honestly–I’m snacking around less. Drinking a lot less. And even when I eat at The Cradle, I find myself eating less than I usually do, because every bite just reminds me that every bit of food I consume could eventually end up in my diaper. 

It’s a weird way to diet–probably not one I’d recommend to anyone else. Too, I know we’re supposed to feel good about losing weight–especially us of the female persuasion–but I was happy with where I was before I came here. I liked my curves. I like when someone I end up in bed with appreciates having a little something extra to hold on to.

I spend my walk to the gardens daydreaming about all the things I’m going to eat when I get home. A cheeseburger. A big ass chimichanga from the place over on the corner by our apartment. The barbecue pork pizza from Razzo’s. A six-pack of cheap beer and a bag of pretzels.

And I’ll happily suck the cock of any man willing to sit by my side and feed me those things so I don’t have to move my arms.

There’s a little pang of discomfort in my abdomen. Despite my best efforts, sooner or later–and probably sooner–my bowels are going to be asking for release again. I’m going to try my hardest to make that a later-me problem, but that might be out of my hands. 

“You alright?” Tess asks me an hour or two later in the garden, when I’m dragging a heavy sack of fertilizer off of the wheelbarrow. 

“Hrm?”

“You seem…off,” she says with a shrug. 

“Oh. Am I not working hard enough, or…?”

“No, no, you’re doing great,” she says, giving me a warm and reassuring smile. “As usual, you’re doing more than everyone else. You just seem a little distant today, that’s all. More so than usual.”

“Ah, well… I’ve got a lot on my mind, I guess.”

And that’s true. Future meetings with the Maternal Council. The future meals I’m going to eat when I’m out of this place. Future diapers that might need to get changed because I’m not able to just use a toilet like I’d want to.

“Anything you want to talk about?” she asks.

I snort–the habitual sort that I do without even thinking about first. “Oh, probably not.”

She laughs. “Fair enough. Well, just so you know, you can talk to me about anything if you want to.”

“Thanks,” I say–a word that never feels like it means much of anything in a context like this. At best, it’s: “I’m acknowledging your offer, but I’m not interested. Here’s the easiest, most polite way of saying as much.”

When I get back to work, I wonder if I should talk to Tess about the Alfie situation. Maybe she’d be another good ally to have in the days to come. 

Hell, I wonder if Tess would feel insulted if–later, when everything was said and done and Alfie was headed back to the east coast with me–if she would feel insulted that I didn’t ask her to help.

She doesn’t seem like that kind of person to me. But maybe there are limits to my human understanding. Maybe I’m only really good at analyzing strangers when they’re in a bar.

Tomorrow, perhaps. I’ll see how tonight goes with the Maternal Council ladies and Tommy. If we can get some sort of plan together, Tess is someone I can probably rely on for a hand–but I wouldn’t want to involve her until there’s a plan in place.

And, well, I’m already a little worried about this meeting tonight for that reason. Committees and meetings, in general, have always been the bane of productivity in my opinion. With so many cooks in the kitchen, it’s going to be hard to agree on details. There’s going to be compromises. There’s going to be a need for even more meetings later. The thought of that makes me queasy. We don’t need deliberation–we need action. 

I already see myself leaving the meeting tonight, frustrated by the lack of forward momentum, and feeling like I’m better off just doing things myself. Which will be even worse of a thing to do at that point, because I’ll have been in a room with other people who will have already stated their displeasure in doing things however I want to do them. 

It’s a mess, I’m realizing. It’s already a mess.

A mess. Just like a dirty diaper. Just like the dirty diaper that I’m currently downwind of.

Or…

Please, don’t let that be me.

That’s how crazy I feel at the moment–that I can momentarily believe that I’m capable of accidentally crapping my diaper like every other big baby around here. Even though I’m not drinking the milk. Like, I don’t know, milk vapors in the air have seeped into my skin or something, and now I’m poisoned by it whether I like it or not.

No, it’s not me. There’s no mushy bulge in my diaper. I sigh with relief, realizing it’s just someone else. 

In fact, it would seem to be Tess, who is just a few feet away from me, carrying a shovel. She spots me looking at her, and her cheeks blush a little.

“Guilty,” she says with a little shrug. “I usually don’t think about it too much, but having a new face around is making me a little self-conscious. S-sorry if I don’t smell like a flower right now…”

“Oh, it’s…fine,” I say. “Shit happens.”

She laughs, and I can’t help but snort myself–that was an accidental pun. 

Now I’m thinking about poop, of all things, and my bowels are calling out to me again. 

I have this thought–and it seems a little silly at first, but it makes a little more sense every second that I dwell on it. If I have to poop at some point anyway–even if it’s in a diaper–why not now? Why not right here, when I won’t be the only one walking around with a swampy diaper?

Maybe it’d be, like, a sign of solidarity? In fact, I’m pretty sure this is what Tess proposed the last time I was working on the garden and on the verge of messing myself–the two of us filling our diapers up together. Well, regardless of whatever I thought the last time this came up, it seems like a good idea now. Experiences like this might be what proves Tess to be a reliable ally when the time comes to blow this place up and take back Alfie.

Or…whatever it is we end up doing about that.

“I, uh…actually…” I want to tell Tess that I’m going to join her in needing a diaper change, but the words are harder to get out than I’d like. Makes sense, really. We as adults don’t often have to say to other adults: “I’m going to poop my pants too.”

“What’s that now?” she asks.

I sigh, figuring I should just actually say it: “I, uh, am going to need a diaper change myself here in a moment too…”

She smirks. “Oh!”

I guess I’m doing this now. 

But how do I…

The last time I messed myself, it practically happened on its own because I had waited way too long. Despite having to go, the feeling is nowhere close to being as urgent. In other words: this isn’t going to happen without me making it happen.

With an audience, no less. Tess is trying to pretend like she’s not watching me, and that she’s busying herself with other things, but I keep seeing her curious eyes glancing in my direction.

“Do you…need some privacy?” she asks. She likely remembers the last time, and how I had to run away before doing my dirty deed.

“Oh, no, it’s fine… I just need to, uh…”

Just do it. Just get it over with.

My body goes into a semi-autopilot mode as I let sheer instinct take over. 

I squat a little, simultaneously relaxing the muscles in my ass while pushing a little.

Maybe, for just a moment or two, I’m the toddler I was 20-some years ago. Maybe this is the infantile headspace these other babies get into much easier when they drink their precious milk. Because I’m barely thinking about it as I do it–this just seems like the right and natural way to do this.

Here it comes.

It’s happening.

And there’s Tess, taking another little glance at me while she pretends to do something else. Does she like this? Or is it just curiosity–the same feeling that triggers when you pass an accident on the side of the highway and you need to take a look, even though you know it’s not something you really ought to be seeing.

I’m messing myself. This is not like the first time. I’m squatting here, physically pushing the contents of my bowels into this diaper. I’m feeling the diaper expanding under my shorts. Wafts of toxic air–an altogether different sort of putrid odor than the one Tess had made a few minutes ago–are already meeting my nose.

I think I’m done, but there’s more in there. I push a little harder. I let out a pathetic sounding grunt as I do–a girlish squeak that Alfie would probably try to emulate and mock for the next six months if he were here.

Fuck, I don’t care. I wish he were here right now.

“A tough one, huh?” Tess says–her voice seeming a little distant to me as I focus on the deed at hand.

“Uhm…”

“It’s been a while since that’s happened to me,” she says. “Maybe it’s the milk, you know? I never have a problem getting it all out now. Hell, most of the time, I don’t even know it's happening until I’m done. Give it some time–I bet the same will happen to you.”

I realize I’m holding my breath, and I finally release it–just as I finish depositing the last of my load into my diaper. Then, I laugh a little as I finally process what Tess just said to me. No, I don’t think I’ll ever just be walking around, mindlessly pooping myself. Or so I’d like to hope.

“Feel better?” she asks.

I hate that I do. “Yeah.”

“Maybe we should go get these stinky bottoms taken care of, huh?”

I didn’t really think about the ‘changing’ part when I squatted down out of solidarity and friendship. Another diaper change. Another person manhandling my legs and cleaning my own filth off my skin when I could easily be doing it myself. Another humiliating trip to the changing table. And this time, with a friend!

“Yeah,” I say, sighing. “Let’s.”

===

I’m on my back, legs up in the air, and the dirty diaper is pulled open–further filling the cabin with the stench of my mess. Kelly is standing at the end of the changing table opposite my head with a baby wipe in her hand.

I’m thankful that it’s Kelly again, and that someone else from the Maternal Council’s first impression of me isn’t my smelly ass.  I’m also thankful that Tess insisted that I get myself changed first. I don’t think I could stand waiting around outside longer in this dirty diaper than I have to, only to come into the cabin and be changed in the remnants of Tess’s own stink.

Selfish, I guess. But I’d argue that she’s used to it, and I’m not.

“Back so soon?” Kelly says with a smirk.

I hate to reuse the same joke so soon, but Kelly wasn’t there the first time I used it: “Shit happens.”

She laughs a little. “So true. But that’s okay. That’s what I’m here for.”

“Sure.”

“I’ll, uh, be seeing you tonight?” she asks.

I nod, though I feel my cheeks warming. All I can imagine is her sitting in my cabin, smiling at me while everyone's talking because she’s thinking about how the two other times she’s seen me, I’ve had this disgusting mess in my diaper.

Logically, I don't think that’s actually going to happen. But that doesn’t mean it’s not a fear of mine.

“Tess?” Kelly asks. “Is she in the loop?”

“Not yet,” I say. 

Kelly nods. “Understood. I just want to know what I should or shouldn’t say around her.”

“Nothing for now,” I say. “But, uhm, do you know Tess well?”

She shrugs. “Not especially well. We’re friendly, though. If you’re helping her out on the farm, you probably know her better than I do.”

Fair enough. I don’t even bother asking Kelly’s opinion on whether or not she trusts Tess.

“You seem a little more at ease today than you did last time I was changing your diaper,” she says, changing the subject.

“Hrm.” It’s definitely not because I’m warming up to it. If anything, it’s that I’m just distracted by too many other things right now. Probably for the best.

Though–I dunno–I feel like I kind of get the appeal of being the baby. Just lying here while someone else pampers you–in just about every meaning of that word. I still don’t think that life is for me, but maybe I’m a little less judgmental of anyone else who loves it. 

Tommy and Alfie included.

“Almost done,” Kelly says in her chipper tone.

I make the mistake of peering through my legs, catching a glimpse of a glob of brown on the baby wipe she’s currently holding. It makes me sick to my stomach. Humiliating.

I keep my eyes closed for the duration of the change.

===

Most of the day teeters on the edge of ‘normalcy,’ or as normal as a day at The Cradle ever gets. I help Tess in the garden. I eat some food at the dining hall. I take a nice long walk through the grounds as the sun begins to set. 

But it’s not actually ‘normal.’ None of it is, nor should it ever be. Alfie’s still missing. This place still has far too many secrets. I refuse to let myself become complacent. I refuse to acknowledge ‘routine’ while I’m here.

I feel sick to my stomach at the thought of how much time I feel like I’ve wasted since I got here. I know it makes sense to ‘play the game’ and try to blend in, or to pretend that I actually want to be in here. I should just be busting down the door to that weird cabin over by the farmhouse right now. If Alfie’s not actually in there, I’ll just bust down every door until I do find him.

The more I think about it, the worse my mood gets. By the time the sun has vanished over the horizon, and The Cradle starts winding down for the day, I’m in a downright awful mood. 

When I have to piss again, I pull down my shorts outside, behind my cabin, rip my diaper off completely, and piss on the ground–at right about the same spot I did the last time.

I’ll ‘play the game’ again tomorrow, I decide. I’m taking a break for now.

I wipe myself off with the diaper before standing up and hiking my shorts up. They obviously fit a little looser without the diaper, but they seem to fit even a little looser than they used to before I came to California too. 

“Such a rebellious little girl,” a voice from somewhere behind me says in a cheeky tone. “I guess every toddler reaches an age when they think they’re bigger than they really are.”

It’s Freya. My cheeks glow a little, unsure if I’ve just been caught peeing on the ground or not.

“I was born a bitter adult woman,” I say. “Or so I’ve been told.”

Freya laughs, stepping out of the darkness of the trees with a smile on her face. “I believe that.”

“Did you just watch me…”

“Maybe,” she shrugs.

“I hope you enjoyed the show,” I say sarcastically.

“I’ve seen worse.”

I snort. “Are you flirting with me?”

“I’m enjoying adult banter,” she says. “You’d be surprised how little of that there is around here.”

I snort again. “No, I don’t think I’d be surprised at all.”

“I didn’t mean to creep up on you,” she says. “I know I’m probably a little earlier than you expected.”

“It’s fine,” I say. “You’re just that eager to spend time with me?”

Something like that,” she says with a little shrug. “Like I said–adult conversations are sometimes hard to come by here. You remind me of, uh, friends I used to have.”

“They’re not your friends any more?” I’m walking around the cabin to the door, and she follows behind me.

“You sacrifice a lot of yourself when you commit to staying here,” she says. “Friends, family, jobs, hobbies. There’s a lot I walked away from. And I doubt most of those things would still be there if I ever went back.”

She follows me into the cabin, and we both take a seat atop my bed. What I wouldn't give for a couch or a chair.

“You ever think you’ll leave here?” I ask.

“When I first came here, I was certain that I’d see it through to the end, yes.”

I laugh. “You sound less sure of that now.”

“Well… Recent events have me reconsidering whether or not this is the utopia I once believed it was.”

“Someday, Alfie will laugh when he learns he inadvertently ruined utopia.”

“No, no,” she says. “I don’t think it was him.”

“Then what was it?”

“You,” she says with a shrug. “Even the first time I met you–dirty diaper and all–I just knew you were too stubborn, too feisty, to be controlled by this place. I was, like: ‘This girl is going to set this place on fire.’”

I don’t know how I should take that, but I’m choosing to take it as a compliment. 

===

More Milk! is available for readers on my Ream page (link below). Subscriptions start at only $3 a month, and you get access to a boatload of new chapters of this story, as well as other goodness. GOODNESS.

She sits on a metal folding chair on the far end of the rehearsal space–a small detached garage-cum-studio that Other Mike made arrangements for. He knows the owners of the house the garage belongs to, maybe? This, she’s decided, is her favorite place to be–sitting in this garage while the band rocks and Ash seems to be singing directly at her–an audience of one.

Sometimes, Maxine feels like she’s in the band herself. She’s friendly with everyone in the group. She’s there for every rehearsal and every performance–either on campus or at the local dive-y club, Merengue. Also, since she shared some of her poetry with Ash, Ash has been hounding her to write some songs for the band–even inviting her to join in vocal duties. Maxine has been giving it some serious consideration, though she’s still a little apprehensive.

The band is no longer called Snowball Fight. They were briefly Moist! Moist! Moist!, but Other Mike made a very strong argument about how it didn’t really fit the ‘vibe’ of the band’s songs. Currently, they’re called Pet House, a name that Maxine pitched after a drunken conversation about the Beach Boys that nobody really remembers the details of anymore. 

“See, I don’t like that thing you do in the bridge,” Ash says to Buck, causing the music to come to an abrupt stop. 

Buck shrugs. “Okay? What do you want instead?”

“Something, like…” She sighs and looks to Lee. “Do you know what I’m saying?”

“I think,” Lee says. “Maybe…more snare? Less kick drum?”

“Yes,” Ash says, her finger wagging back at Buck again. “Something like that.”

Buck shrugs again. “Yeah, alright. Wanna take it from the top again? Or…”

“Let’s take a break,” Other Mike says. “I gotta piss.” Maxine still doesn’t know who the ‘original’ Mike was, but she continues to call him ‘Other Mike’ like everyone else does. That’s just his name.

“I’m gonna get some fresh air,” Ash says. She nods towards Maxine with her chin. “You coming?”

“Absolutely,” Maxine says, her mouth spread into a girlish grin as she springs up from her chair.

‘Fresh air’ is code for vaping outside in the alley, and making out a little bit, something that neither Maxine or Ash can ever seem to get enough of. Moments after rounding the corner from the front of the garage into the alley, Maxine’s pinned against the brick wall, Ash pushing her warm lips against hers. 

“You sound good today, Mommy,” Maxine says softly into Ash’s ear. 

‘Mommy’ is an interesting word between the two of them, one that seems to have taken on its own meaning within their relationship as of late. Maxine used to mean it a little more literally–actually imagining Ash as someone who could make her wear a diaper or suck her thumb. She does still imagine this from time to time, though when she uses the term now, it’s more of a cute and intimate moniker. An affectionate little in-joke between the two of them–even if Ash probably has no idea how literal Maxine has meant the name to be at times.

Ash is Mommy. She’s strong. She’s caring and supportive. She’s the supportive older sister Maxine’s never had. The attentive mother she’s never had. And, on top of all that, the greatest kisser she’s ever known.

“It’s hard sometimes,” Ash says, pulling away from Maxine’s body and pulling her vape out of the pocket of her cardigan. “I see you sitting there, watching me as I sing, and all I can think about is how badly I want to fuck you.”

“Oops,” Maxine offers, shrugging while flashing a playful grin.

“You’re not doing anything later, are you?” Ash asks.

“Don’t think so.”

“So…you want to stay here at the garage with me after everyone else leaves? I’d like to practice a little more.”

They both snort and laugh, knowing damn well that this was probably not what they’d be using the garage for.

“Shit,” Maxine sighs. “Actually, I’ve got to go back to my dorm. Juju went home for a few days, so I’ve got to feed her stupid fish.”

“Wait–so that means you have the dorm room to yourself, right?”

Maxine laughs, not even considering that until now. They were both so used to assuming that her dorm was just not an option, because her roommate would be around. Nothing personal against Juju, of course–they just wanted to have the kind of fun that was best enjoyed without an audience.

“Yeah, you know what? You should come over to my room tonight. Crash there if you want to.”

“Oh, I plan on it,” Ash says. “I’m going to wake up naked in your bed tomorrow.”

“You better.”

“So, after rehearsal wraps up we’ll just go over to your room?”

“Actually,” Maxine says, thinking about it. “I mean, yes, I want you to come over. But the room’s kind of a mess right now. I should probably tidy up a little bit.”

Ash laughs. “Tidy up? I’m not your mother. I don’t care what your room looks like.”

Maxine bites her lip a little at the ‘not your mother’ comment, but keeps her comments about it to herself. “My clothes are all over the place. You’d think a bomb went off in there.”

“I like all of you,” Ash says. “Let me like the messy part of you too.”

They still used the word ‘like’ when they talked about their feelings. Maxine suspected that they wanted to use the word ‘love’ instead, but it just felt too soon for that. They’d only been together for a few weeks now. They’d been an incredible few weeks, but it still felt too soon to start using lofty l-words. 

“Look, I really want you to like the messy part of me too,” Maxine says. “And I’d really like to just be messy around you and not worry about cleaning up after myself. But I’m not there yet, okay? Just let me try to continue the illusion that I’ve got my shit together.”

“Seems kind of silly when you’re telling me exactly what you’re doing,” Ash says, smiling. “But…I get it. Maybe I’m still trying to be the best version of myself around you too.”

“So then it’s settled. I’m going to head back to campus and straighten up my room, okay? Text me when y’all are done rocking and you’re on your way over.”

“Deal,” Ash says. “How about I bring over some food. Pizza and a bottle of coke?”

“It’s like you know the way to my heart is through my stomach.”

“I’ve also found that it’s the way into your pants,” Ash giggles.

“Oh please,” Maxine says, her cheeks glowing. “All you have to do is look at me and my legs start to spread.”

“Is that so?” Ash asks. “Because I’m looking at you right now.”

“Right. And I’m wet.”

“Let me see…”

Without even bothering to look either way down the alley, Ash pulls open the front of Maxine’s pants before slowly sliding her hand down into them. Her fingers carefully explore southward along the silky fabric of the panties until they’re burrowed between Maxine’s thighs. Maxine gasps, her eyes closing tight and her mouth hanging open as she feels Ash’s hand stroking her pussy through the panties.

“Wow, you’re right,” Ash says. “You’re pretty wet.”

“T-told you…”

“Think you’ll be that wet later?”

“The odds are pretty good.”

“I guess I’ll just have to check later, then,” Ash says, shrugging. “For now, I should probably-”

She’s interrupted by a voice at the end of the alley, nearest to where the garage door is. It’s Other Mike: “Hey, whenever you’re done groping your girlfriend, we’re ready to get started again.”

Ash and Maxine both laugh, though Maxine’s cheeks get a lot more red than Ash’s do.

“Go on,” Ash says to her. “Get out of here and clean your room for me, alright?”

“Yes, Mommy.”

===

It’s a cool, beautiful day–a welcome change after all the dreary weather they had in the last week. The sun’s out, the breeze feels good, and Maxine’s vulva feels like it’s still tingling from Ash’s touch. 

Life is good.

She slows her pace a little, knowing she’s probably got a bit of time yet. Besides, her ‘cleaning’ will mostly just entail shoving things under her bed or in her closet, and that probably won’t take very long to do.

And then, as happens from time to time–especially when her ‘mommy needs’ get especially strong–she thinks of Alfie. She hasn’t heard from him in a while. A while ago, Alfie’s sister Sam had reached out to her, asking if she had heard from him. It was a little concerning that not even his own sister had heard from him, but she also just assumed that Alfie was enjoying his time over in baby-land, or whatever that place was. She had asked Sam to keep in touch with her and to provide any updates she might have about Alfie. She hadn’t gotten any updates yet, but she assumed no news was good news. She’d have probably heard if Alfie, like, fell into a ravine or something.

If only he could see her now–getting wet at the sight of some cool rock-and-roll chick just looking at her. He’d probably get a kick out of Maxine’s fantasies–like the one where Maxine pisses her pants, and Ash forces her into a pair of thick pampers.

“This is all your fault, Alf,” she mutters to herself as she strolls through the campus gates. If she hadn’t met him–or, perhaps, if he hadn’t taken that first trip over to California–she’d still be years and years away from diapers being something she thinks about on a daily basis. 

A few minutes later, she spots a familiar face sitting on a bench near a courtyard. Zach. Zachy. The cherubic boy she had so badly wanted to diaper and swaddle on her first week on campus. The boy she had attempted to spank, only to have him cream his pants. They’d occasionally make small talk when they drifted past each other on campus now, but for the most part, it was clear that he was avoiding her. She was a little disappointed about this. All dirty fantasies aside, she didn’t dislike the guy, and his avoidance made her feel like she was a monster of some kind. She didn’t think she did anything wrong, but she wondered if Zach felt differently.

She asked herself: Do I approach him, or leave him be?

No, she couldn’t bring herself to just walk past him. She had to at least say hi.

“Hi.”

He looks up from the book opened on his lap, an especially thick volume with columns of text and diagrams. Probably something for one of his classes.

“Oh, uh…hey.”

“Sorry,” she says. “Hope I’m not interrupting anything. I just saw you here and wanted to see how you’ve been.”

“N-not at all,” he says, his cheeks getting a little pink. She’s not sure how she knows, but she has a feeling that he’s thinking about that time they hung out together–when he made a mess of his pants. “And I’ve been alright, thanks. How are you?”

“Can’t complain,” she says, shrugging.

“I, uh, saw you last week over at Merengue. You were, uh, hanging out with Pet House.”

“Oh shit, yeah, I was there. Damn, I didn’t know you were there, or else I would’ve said hi. How come you didn’t say anything to me there?”

“Well…you looked like you were having a good time and stuff, so I just didn’t want to bother you.”

She thinks back to the show the band played there last week. Pet House was opening for another local-ish band called Rugby Acres–and after the band had finished their set, she and Ash had spent the rest of the night making out in the corner. Yeah, she probably wouldn’t have approached herself either if she was Zach.

“It was cool of you to come out to the show, though. What’d you think?”

“Pet House? Uh, pretty good. I liked Snowball Fight, honestly, but I think the band sounds better than it ever has.”

“I think so too.”

“You and Ash–you’re, like, dating now?”

“Something like that,” she says, trying to downplay it a little. She’s not even sure why.

“Hey, so, I’ve been meaning to talk to you,” he says, scratching at the back of his head a little.

“Yeah? Here I am. Whatcha got?”

“I was just, you know, thinking about that time we hung out. Over in your dorm room?”

She laughs. “Yeah, I think I know what you mean.”

“I feel like I handled that in the worst way that I could’ve.”

She shrugs. “It’s not a big deal. I mean…you can’t control what your body does, right?”

His face turns red. “Oh…uh, well. That was plenty humiliating too. I meant the part where I ran out of your dorm.”

“Oh, right. Well…” She shrugs. “Look, you have no idea how often I want to run away from things. If I had, like, farted in front of you that day you were in my dorm room, I probably would’ve taken a flying leap out the window.”

He laughs. “You’re only on the second floor, though…”

“So then I would’ve started running when I hit the ground. Maybe to the hospital if I had to have jumped through the glass.”

“I was an ass,” he says. “I…wish I hadn’t left that day.”

“It’s cool,” she says. “Seriously. Don’t worry about it.”

“I was just thinking, like, if I hadn’t done that…maybe we could’ve kept hanging out together? Like, maybe if we tried again…”

She thinks she sees where this is going. He feels regret for having bailed out of that scene like he had. He sees now–or at least he thinks he sees–that this is probably his only chance at having fun like that. If he had just stuck around, there would’ve been a lot more fun to have had. So now he’s sticking his foot in the door, so to speak, to stop it from closing completely and locking him out. 

Yeah, sure, it’s probably embarrassing to blow your load in your pants in front of a girl. But she would’ve rolled with it. She thinks about the way she pleasured herself in the minutes after he ran from her dorm, in fact–still imagining what’d it be like to finish that spanking before putting him in a diaper. And, sure, it’s flattering to think about how it sounds like he still thinks about all the possibilities too, and still seems interested.

But, man. Maybe she’s just looking for messages that aren’t there, but it kind of sounds like he’s saying that he wants to reconnect and pick up where they left off. Okay, sure, that does sound nice. But buy a girl a cup of coffee first. She worries that he’s more interested in getting his bottom spanked than he is spending time with her.

Then again, maybe friends with kinky benefits wouldn’t be the worst thing?

“We should hang out sometime,” she says with as casual a shrug as she can muster.

“I-I would like that,” he says, nodding. His cheeks get a little pinker as he pulls the big book in his lap a little closer to his body–his legs closing a little. Is just the thought of hanging out with her again giving him a little stiffy? 

She’s not mad about that. In fact, she’s almost positive now that diapers are in little Zachy’s future. Because he’s going to be willing to do anything to make up for fleeing previous. He’ll even say that to her: “I’ll do anything for you.”

And she’ll say: “Let’s see how true that is. On your back, little boy. I’m going to show you what I want.”

“Cool,” she says to him. “I gotta run right now. But we’ll figure something out soon, okay?”

“Yeah,” he says, nodding his head, the book being held a little tighter in his lap.

===

Maxine was feeling good when she left the garage. By the time she gets back to her dorm room, she’s feeling transcendent. She’s in love with a beautiful girl–she can use the big l-word when she’s talking to herself–and now she’s got a potential boy-toy to play around with later.

The dorm room doesn’t even seem that bad when she gets inside. The clothes that probably need to be dragged down to the first floor washing machines get stuffed into the bin. Everything that looks potentially wearable again gets tossed into the bottom of her wardrobe. She takes all the random papers, notebooks spread across her desk and puts it into a single unorganized pile. She stuffs all of the garbage into the trash can and ties the bag shut, throwing it near the door to take downstairs later before putting a new bag into the can. 

Maybe there’s more she could do. She could straighten things up on the top of her dresser. She could finally hang those new postcards she bought for the purpose of hanging on her wall that she hasn’t touched yet. She even considers putting together a new playlist that she leaves playing on her laptop while Ash is over–Ash is always talking about how good Maxine’s taste in music is.

Instead, she rifles through the clothes she just dumped into her wardrobe until she finds the disposable diapers she had hidden away in the same space. She doesn’t want to wear them–she just wants to see them. Feel them. She needs this every once in a while. She likes the feel of the satin plastic-backing of the diapers. She likes the way it crinkles between her fingers. She even likes the way they smell. No, they don’t smell like baby diapers–which is a shame, she thinks–but she kind of likes the generic plastic scent that they have. 

For a moment, she imagines that Zachy is lying on the bed behind her–pants off and legs open wide, waiting to be wrapped up good and tight in some thick padding. 

Holding the diaper in both of her hands, she spins around, slowly strutting towards the bed, practicing her seductive ‘mommy-walk.’

“Well, well, well, little boy,” she says. “Looks like someone’s ready for their diaper, hmm?”

There’s no response, of course, though she waits a beat as if giving his phantom presence the chance to reply.

“It’s about time you got treated like the baby you are,” she says. “I think about that little mess you made in your pants the last time you were here. The way you…splooged yourself.”

She hunches over, hands on her knees, as she cackles at herself. Splooged? Who the hell talks like that? Thank god she’s practicing–there’d be nothing sexy about talking about how ‘splooged’ himself.’

She clears her throat and tries again: “It’s about time you got treated like the baby you are,” she says. That part she likes–she’s definitely going to use that when he’s here. “You made such a little mess in your pants the last time you were here, didn’t you? I bet that was an uncomfortable walk home, wasn’t it?”

Yes, yes. This is good. 

She continues: “I think it’s just smarter to keep you in diapers. That way, whatever mess you make is contained inside of these bad boys.”

She snorts with laughter again. Bad boys. That probably won’t make the cut either.

She tries again: “Not only do you look cuter in a diaper, but it means that if you have any sticky little accidents again, it’ll be even easier for me to clean you up.”

Mmm. She likes that too. She likes implying that he will end up blowing his load in the diaper, just as she likes the idea that she’d be there to clean him up after it happens.

“That’s right, little boy,” she says, trying something else out. “You can do whatever you need to do in this diaper. You can make your sticky little cummies. You can make pee-pees. You can even make a big stinky poopy into it if you want. I’ll clean you up no matter what you do.”

Her clit feels like it’s pulsating. There’s something thrilling about saying these dirty things out loud, even if there’s nobody else to hear her say them. Can she actually see a scenario where Zach poops in a diaper? No, probably not–nor would it even be a good idea for something like that to happen in this space she shares with Juju. Hell, she’s not even sure she wants to wipe the ass of some guy she barely knows in the first place.

But the idea of it is kind of hot. Saying the words out loud is hot, for sure.

Now she kind of wants to run with that–saying more dirty things out loud, just to hear herself say them.

“Oh, Zachy, what did you do?” She waves her hand in front of her face in an exaggerated way. “Did you just… Well, don’t even bother denying it, little baby. Someone just made a really stinky mess in their diaper and it certainly wasn’t me. Did you do that, huh? Did you go poo-poo in your diaper? Did you make a mess for Mommy to clean up?”

She squeezes the diaper in her hands again, listening to the crinkling it makes as it squishes between her fingers. She holds it up to her face, taking a big drag of the plastic exterior. 

She’s thinking about if this was her diaper now. She’s imagining that Ash is in the room with her, and Maxine now has to plead her case for a diaper change. 

“Mommy,” she says. No, that’s not right. It’s too ‘normal’ sounding. She needs some desperation in her tone. 

“M-mommy…” That’s better. But it’s still missing something…

She slides her thumb into her mouth, holding out the other diaper in front of her. “M-mommy? I neethe you tho, uhm…changth me…”

Oh yeah. That’s it. That’s perfect. 

Fuck. She can’t believe she’s never done this before. It’s one thing to try and imagine these things happening. But acting them out–saying these dirty things out loud–is absolutely hitting the spot right now.

What else would be fun to say aloud? She pulls her thumb from her mouth, letting it slide down her side towards her thighs.

“Mommy…I went pee-pee.”

“I…peed in my diapey.”

Not bad. She’s getting a feel for the baby-talk, finding the right balance between helpless child and humiliated adult.

“Mommy, ch-change my diaper pwease? I went potties again…”

She’s a little wet again. These poor panties of hers–how many times is she going to make them moist today? Not that she’s complaining much. She wouldn’t mind if the first thing Ash said to her when she came by the room later was something like “Babe, I can smell your damp panties out in the fucking hallway.”

Ugh. She’d fucking melt if that happened.

She clutches the diaper tightly against her chest as she slips her other hand down the front of her pants. She probably shouldn’t be doing this right now–she’d be better off saving all this energy for Ash, wouldn’t she?

I’ll just touch myself a little, she thinks. That’s not hurting anyone.

Less than a minute later, she’s collapsed on top of the bed, on her back. Her legs are spread wide. The diaper is still being clutched against her body with one hand, while the other is plunged into her unzipped pants. Her back has a little arch in it as she gazes up at the ceiling, her mouth wide open.

She wishes she could say something humiliating in-character as she does. Something about how she’s a filthy little baby. Maybe she’d beg for a good spanking. But all she can manage to get out of her mouth is: “F-fuck…”

She hears something in the background. A noise in the hallway? It might as well be on another fucking planet. She just can’t bring herself to care right now. All that matters is this orgasm she’s working towards while holding onto the diaper tightly.

Come on…

Not much longer now…

But then she hears the noise again, and realizes what’s happening. 

Someone is knocking on the door. 

Who the hell…

It seems too early for it to be Ash. And Juju wouldn’t knock on her own door. So…it’s probably someone else. Fine. Whatever. She’ll just pretend like she’s not home. Whoever it is–whatever they want–can wait until later.

Her fingers remain on her clit, stroking it in circular motions. Her eyes are closed tight again. She’s imagining Ash standing above her, looking down and shaking her head in a condescending sort of way. 

“And just what am I going to do with you?” Ash says.

Yes, that’s perfect. It’s like she can actually hear Ash saying those words to her.

Wait…

She opens her eyes. Either she’s tripping really hard–which she shouldn’t be, considering that she hasn’t smoked anything yet today–or Ash really is standing at the side of her bed, watching her touch herself while holding a diaper.

“Hi,” Ash says. “I didn’t mean to interrupt anything…”

===

There’s a moment where Maxine is so overwhelmed with what’s happening in this moment that she simply short circuits. Beyond sitting straight up and taking her hand out of her still-open pants, all she can do is stare at Ash in disbelief.

“Sorry,” Ash says. “Maybe I shouldn’t have let myself in, but I didn’t think you’d mind and, uh… Well, I didn’t think you’d be busy.”

“I…uh…”

“Don’t get me wrong,” Ash says. “I’m not mad that I caught you like this.”

Maxine looks down at the diaper that she’s still tightly gripping in her hand. She looks up at Ash’s face, observing the fact that Ash is looking at it too.

“Is that a…diaper?” Ash asks.

“Uhm…”

Ash chuckles. “Look, just so you know? I’m not judging you or anything. I’m just curious.”

Maxine’s face feels way too warm. She opens her mouth, though she still has no idea what she’s supposed to say. How does she defend herself? How does she spin this so she doesn’t look like a crazy person who loves diapers?

“I…uhm…” The best she can come up with is: “It’s not what it looks like.”

Ash laughs again. “That’s a shame. Because, to me, it looks like the little baby’s got herself a diaper. Is that what you like? You can tell me.”

Maxine considers denying this, but then she sees that big smile on Ash’s face. 

“Yes.”

“Mm,” Ash moans, slowly rolling into bed alongside Maxine. “I’m going to want to hear all about that.”

“Yeah?”

“Oh, for sure. But there’s something else we need to do first?”

“Wh-what’s that?”

“Have you cum yet?”

“No.”

“Let’s take care of that, then. Then I want to hear everything.”

And now Ash’s hand is down inside of her panties where hers was just a moment ago. 

Alfie, Maxine thinks to herself, I hope you’re having as good of a time right now as I am.

Forty-Two: Nikki’s Story, Part 9

I have a theory. I suspect that at this moment–waddling out of the woods and down a small hill to get onto the trail again, while wearing a messy diaper–I am closer to an actual baby than any of the weirdos who call The Cradle their home.

See, they like this. They drink this milk and they think that it puts them in touch with their inner-baby. They poop and piss their pants and get all sorts of delight out of it. “Look at me,” they say, “I’m a baby!”

I’m not a mother, and I don’t spend a lot of time around babies. But I still know a little about them from just being a citizen of the world. Babies and little kids are everywhere. You go to the store, and there they are. You walk down the street, and there they are. And don’t forget about all the TV shows and movies about parenthood. I’d like to think that everybody has some basic understanding of a baby’s needs just on account of being exposed to them on a regular basis.

What’s one of the first things someone says when a baby starts crying?

“Do they need to be changed?”

And do you know why people ask that? Because babies don’t like sitting in their own mess. They don’t want to be in dirty diapers. They want to be cleaned. They want to be dry. 

These people–these big babies bopping around The Cradle–they happily fill the back of their pants all day long, laughing with each other about how smelly they are.

I’m a baby. I’m the one with an enormous frown on my face. I’m the one grumbling under my breath as I take careful steps with my legs spread apart while I walk, so as to not further disturb the mushy mound in my diaper. I’m the one who wants to get this fucking diaper off my ass more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my entire life.

I hate this. 

There was this brief moment where I thought that maybe I was wrong about all of it. Just after I had fallen on my ass in the woods, and having felt my mess spread throughout my diaper, I laughed at how ridiculous all of this was. I had this thought, like, “Well, this is it–the stupidest moment of your entire life.” It’s like hitting rock-bottom, you know? Where else does one even go from there? And it was almost liberating. I was so close to coming around on it completely. Like: “Well, I might as well embrace it. I’m a baby now.”

And then I stood up again, and felt the weight in the back of my diaper shift a bit–the diaper sagging between my legs. And I said: “Fuck this.”

So, whatever. If someone else wants to have a blast in their dirty diapers, they can go right ahead and do that. But they’re not as infantile as they think they are.

And it’s definitely not for me.

I have no idea what the hell I’m supposed to do right now. Where do I go? Do I just stumble up to some ‘Mommy’ and tell her to change me?

I don’t need to be changed. Just give me a shower. Give me a hose and I’ll just spray myself down.

“I didn’t expect to see you like this so soon,” someone behind me says.

I sigh. The voice is familiar, but my head is swirling a little too much for me to place it. It just figures though, doesn’t it? This embarrassing thing happens to me and then, of course, someone has to witness it happening and then make some commentary about it.

I turn around, and see that it’s Mirabelle. I don’t think there would’ve been anyone that I’d be happy to see–except, maybe, Freya–but Mirabelle feels especially disappointing. 

“I guess that’s the, uh, milk, huh?” I ask, gritting my teeth a little. I don’t know if she’ll buy that or not. If Freya could see through my milk-fakery, I’d assume that Mirabelle–the big cheese around here–would be able to as well. 

But I’ll take my chances and let her call my bluff.

“Is the first time that you, uhm…”

“Y-yes,” I say, feeling my cheeks warming.

She smiles, and her head tilts a little to the side–a very parental look. 

She has yet to be anything other than warm and friendly towards me. But I don’t trust her, and the longer I’m at The Cradle, the less I trust her. Something’s happened to Alfie–something that nobody else seems to know anything about. But she knows, though isn’t sharing any details.

“What do you think?” she asks. 

I snort. “What do I think?”

“Do you like the way it feels, Nikki? Do you feel yourself warming to the life that we have here?”

It takes a surprising amount of effort to prevent myself from saying what I want to say. If I’m ‘playing the game,’ then this is the boss at the very end of it. 

“Uh, maybe,” I say. 

“You were off to get yourself changed, I hope,” Mirabelle asks, her nose scrunching a little. 

Yeah, I smell myself too. It’s foul.

“That’s the plan,” I say. 

“Well I have a few minutes,” she says, shrugging. “If you’d like, I’d be happy to take you someplace and take care of that dirty diaper of yours.”

“I…” I’m not sure what to say here. I do need a change, and I had already assumed that I’d have to allow someone else to do it, whether I liked it or not. But I don’t really want to spend any more time than I have to with Mirabelle–and I especially don’t need her to be the one wiping my dirty ass. 

“Why don’t you follow me, sweetie. I know a place close by where we can get you all cleaned up.”

I just don’t get her. Her body language and tone make her seem so genuine. She has this incredible aura around her. I can almost see myself running over to her and grabbing her hand like I was a little girl–letting her tow me along to wherever she thinks we should go.

“I appreciate it,” I say. “But I was just going to go…over there.” I point in the direction I was walking before Mirabelle found me, though I don’t really know what’s in that direction–nor could I say why going ‘over there’ was something that prohibited her from changing me.

She smiles again in that patient, and possibly a little condescending, way and nods. “Of course, dear. You are going to get yourself changed though, yes?”

“Yes,” I say.

“Well, my offer for some assistance will still stand, okay? Should you need me to help you get changed–or anything else–you just come find me, yes?”

“Sure.” I start to turn away, but remember something else I wanted to say to her: “Wait–hold on.””

“Yes?”

“Alfie,” I say. “You said the other day that you’d let me see Alfie, but you just needed a day or two? And, well, I think we’re at about that now, aren’t we?”

There’s a little bit of surprise on Mirabelle’s face–like she either forgot she made such a promise, or she was hoping that I would’ve forgotten she said that. 

“Ah, well, that’s a very good question,” she says, nodding her head. I’d have to check in and see what his status is and then get back to you. Would you mind if I got back to you on that?”

I sigh, my fists balling up at my sides. If my ass wasn’t caked in my own filth right now, I’d probably have a lot more to say to her, but the urgency of needing to be cleaned is taking precedence. “Y-yeah…if you could let me know as soon as possible.”

“Of course,” she says. “I appreciate your understanding. We’re taking very good care of Alfie, and that means being very selective about external stimuli.”

“I’m his best friend,” I say. If that’s not an acceptable ‘external stimuli,’ then I’d love to know what is.

“Yes, you’re absolutely right,” she says. “Like I said, I’ll get back to you, okay?”

A moment later and I’m walking again in the direction I was originally headed in, taking wide and cautious strides to avoid making a bigger mess of myself.

I’m a little surprised that Mirabelle let me go so easily. I thought for sure that she would’ve insisted on changing me, and I’d have run out of excuses for why I didn’t want her to do that. Maybe she just wasn’t in the mood to change a dirty diaper. The thought amuses me–it’s probably the perk of being the closest thing to a boss around here, letting someone else take care of the stinkier problems. 

I am a little curious if she bought that I was all milked-up or not, though. There was nothing about her attitude towards me that suggested she didn’t–but her unflinching sunniness, despite her possible misdeeds, has me thinking she could just be a sociopath. 

===

A few minutes later, I spot another cabin with the Maternal Council symbol on the door–another ‘changing station,’ I guess. I hope.

I can’t believe I’m doing this–the last thing I want is for anyone else to see me, or smell me, in this condition. Just the idea of having to go to someone else to take care of this feels like it goes against everything I stand for.

Still, I challenge myself to find a different way to look at this. For my own sanity. I’m ‘playing the game,’ sure–blending in with all the other stinky babies around here. But, perhaps there’s something to be said for the fact that I’m not the one who has to do the cleaning. That gets to be someone else’ job. Someone else has to wipe me up and put me in a new diaper, while all I do is lie there. It doesn’t really make me feel better, though I’m pretty sure I’d rather be the changee than the changer. 

I give the door a quick rap and wait. I can hear some movement inside. Maybe someone talking. 

“One moment please!” a voice says from inside, in an almost sing-song cadence.

What’s a few more moments of standing around in my own filth?

Hm.

My mind wanders back to where it was earlier–how none of these supposed ‘babies’ have the disdain for dirty diapers that a literal infant would. 

Do you know who likes rolling around in their own shit? Pigs. Or so I’m told–I’ve never actually been around pigs, as best as I can recall. So that just settles it. The Cradle isn’t actually for babies–it’s for piggies. Dirty little piggies.

The door opens before I can dwell on my new metaphor any longer. A young woman emerges, pushing her messy brownish-red hair out of her face. Her freckled cheeks have a vibrant pink glow to them right now. The first thing she does is take a whiff of the air around me and wrinkle her nose. I roll my eyes, biting my tongue before I say something like “I’m sure your diapers don’t smell like cotton candy, missy.”

The girl quickly scrambles away from me and the cabin, pulling at the hem of her powder-blue dress to cover the thick white diaper underneath it. I don’t know why she’s even bothering. Maybe she’s also new to this place?

“Thanks for your patience,” a woman says emerging from the cabin next. The first things I notice about her are her long blonde hair and rather impressive chest–bulging out from the tight white shirt they’ve been stuffed into. Truth be told, I’m usually more of a butt-girl than I am a boob-girl, but if she’s going to flaunt those puppies like she is, I’m not going to stop myself from getting a little lost in her cleavage.

“Uh oh,” she says, waving a hand in front of her face. “Someone made a little boom-boom, huh?”

I resist the urge to call her ‘Captain Obvious’ and just nod my head. If nothing else, I’m grateful for the fact that I don’t have to tell her that I pooped myself and need her to change me.

“Come inside, buttercup. Let’s get you cleaned up.”

“Uh, sure.”

I follow her inside the cabin and she closes the door behind me. Either all these ‘changing station’ cabins look the same, or I’ve been in this one before. I try to recall where I was when Freya changed my wet diaper, but I find there’s a lot of empty space in my memories from around that time. 

“Why don’t you hop onto the changing table, okay?” the woman asks. A moment later, her eyes flutter and she laughs to herself. “Silly me–I didn’t even introduce myself, did I? I guess I just assumed all the babies know who I am, but I don’t recognize your face. I’m Kelly.”

“Nikki,” I say, waddling towards the changing table.

“Nikki,” she repeats, speaking to herself. “Is there another Nikki here?”

I shrug. “No idea.”

“I just heard that name recently, and I’m trying to remember why.”

I leave her to her pondering as I propel myself up onto the table’s soft matt. The odor in here is…not great. It’s not just me, I don’t think–though I’m certainly contributing. There’s other competing scents in here. Baby powder, and a stink that I don’t think is mine. Maybe that last girl’s dirty diaper. 

I spin myself around and lower myself onto the mat, feeling my filthy diaper squish beneath me as I do so. I’m cringing as I flatten my body out, feeling even grosser than I did a moment ago.

“Ah,” the woman says, nodding her head finally. “Nikki.”

“Thinking of someone else?” I ask.

She laughs. “No, someone mentioned your name to me just this morning.”

I’ve never been a fan of other people talking about me when I’m not there. I guess there’s nothing you can do about it, but it just feels like a loss of control over how people perceive me. Not that I even care about how people perceive most of the time–but I still want to be in control of it.

“Who?” I ask.

She smirks at me. “Don’t worry your cute little nose. Nobody said anything bad about you.”

I sigh. “But…who?”

“If you must know, it was Freya. She didn’t say much–just that she had a, uh, favorable experience with a new member of our community yesterday.”

“Hrm.” I feel my cheeks warming.

“It’s a good thing,” she says, gripping the waistband of my shorts and easing them down my thighs. “Trust me, you should hear the way we ‘mommies’ talk about the babies we don’t like.”

Admittedly, I am a little curious about that. I don’t like it when it’s about me, but I do have a little thing for gossip. It might come from the longer, slower nights at the bar when there’s barely any people around and I’m looking for something to amuse myself with. I’ll listen in on conversations taking place on the other side of the counter, absorbing all the nasty rumors and drama for people I’ll never meet. 

Baby gossip. What’s that like? Who has the stinkiest diapers? Who’s the hardest to get to sit still during a diaper change? Who guzzles the most milk? 

I bet there’s some good gossip in a place like this. Seeing the way the milk can make people act all loopy, and given that everyone is always being encouraged to be their most real selves, The Cradle probably has a surprising amount of drama. Didn’t Tommy say something about that a bit ago? Something about one of Alfie’s roommates sleeping with some semi-famous stranger behind everyone’s back.

Wild.

The sound of the tape being peeled up from the front of my diaper reminds me of where I am, and what’s about to happen.

“Now then, let’s see what we’re dealing with in here, stinky,” she says, giving the bottom of my diaper a good pat. I don’t care much for being called ‘stinky,’ but the pat to my disgusted diaper triggers some of the same tingling sensations that Freya stumbled into when she changed me last.

Keep it together. You’re not doing that again. Not with a messy diaper.

“You’re so tense,” she says.

“Things like this don’t usually happen to me,” I say.

She laughs. “Is this…your first poopy diaper, Nikki?”

“We really don’t have to talk about it,” I say, my face getting even warmer. “I just need a, uh, new diaper so that I can be on my way.”

“This is a big deal!” she says. “A special moment! Baby’s first poopy!”

I shake my head. “Not exactly a moment I want to remember or celebrate.”

“Aw, you’re such a cute little stick in the mud. I guess that rules out me taking a picture of you right now for prosperity?”

“Not if you don’t want to see me kick your phone as far as I can into the trees.”

“I’m kidding,” she says. “I’m just trying to loosen you up a little.”

I snort. “Well, threatening to take pictures of me like this isn’t going to do the trick.”

“Not really into joking around, huh? Okay, okay, that’s fair. That’s probably a good thing for me to know.”

“Sorry…” I sigh. “I don’t mean to be standoffish. I just… This is all new to me. And I've got a lot on my mind and…” But I don’t want to divulge anything else. I don’t know who I can trust around here–even if they’re about to have their hands in my soiled diaper. 

Kelly’s response is simple–she leans down, her big breasts briefly resting atop my own chest, and she lays a kiss on my forehead. And without another word, she goes back to my diaper, a little smile on her face.

It’s an incredibly disarming kiss. It helps to brush away some of the anxiety I’m feeling. And, well, when’s the last time someone kissed me like that? Just…gave me a loving and reassuring little smooch on the head?

It makes me miss my parents. Well, no–it makes me miss the concept of my parents. The idea of who my parents could’ve been. In a world where my mother kissed me on the forehead once or twice, would I have moved so far away from them? Would I have met Alfie? Would I have ended up on a changing table, smelling my own foul mess?

I intermittently switch between closing my eyes and staring up at the ceiling. Anything to avoid having to watch Kelly wipe my ass clean for me. 

But I feel it. And I hear the crinkling of the dirty diaper beneath me. I hear the sound of the moist baby wipes being pulled from the package. I hear Kelly’s little “Hm”s and “Ah”s as she carefully manipulates my legs to get into each and every orifice.

I don’t feel that rush, that thrill, that I had when Freya was cleaning me up yesterday. Even when Kelly runs a moist wipe over my vulva, it doesn’t quite send positive vibes up my spine. It could be Kelly herself. Nothing personal–she’s very pretty, and seems to be nice enough–but her entire approach to this process is different. Freya had an unmistakably sexually charged energy about her. Kelly’s is more maternal. She wants to clean me up and take care of me, because that’s who she is and that’s what I need. Also, it could just be that I’m a lot less horny now, following the magic Freya performed with her fingers previously. It’ll probably take a good long while before I’m that horny again. And by that time, I’d like to think that I’m anywhere other than here.

Last, but certainly not least, is the possibility that it’s just the nature of my messy ‘accident.’ Lying here in my own filth probably won’t ever be the sort of thing that turns me on. 

“Are you okay?” Kelly asks.

“Fine,” I mutter, sparing her the complaints about how I don’t want to be here.

“We’re almost done.”