Mitch

Our moms came back loaded down with all kinds of stuff. They had bought us each a case of 96 disposable diapers, ten nighttime diapers, and loads of plastic pants.

“After discussing your situation with the saleslady at the store, we decided to get you ‘adult small’ diapers and plastic pants,” my aunt Loretta announced.

Larry looked puzzled but not appalled like me.

“How come?” he asked.

“Well, it turns out that ‘youth large’ and ‘adult small’ are almost exactly the same size; however, the adult size is more absorbent—by 30% ” she answered.

I felt sick again. Larry’s diapers had always been noticeable under his school clothes. Therefore, the new ones would be even worse. A mental picture of me wearing puffy pants at school made my stomach turn. I became aware that Larry was staring at me. I didn’t want him to think that the diapers had upset me so I smiled at him. This seemed to confuse him.

“You like the new diapers?” he asked in a surprised tone.

“Why not?” I responded defiantly.

My mom and aunt exchanged a knowing glance. Only then did it occur to me that I had sounded happy about getting all these baby things.

“I mean, you’re not complaining so I guess they must be OK,” I backtracked.

He snorted derisively at my lame attempt. My mom didn’t look convinced either.

*****

Larry

I helped my mom carry a load of our new cloth diapers to the laundry room to pre-wash them. After this was done she asked me to put away my new plastic pants and disposables.

“I still have an unopened bag of my old ones,” I pointed out.

“Bring them down here,” she answered. “I’ll donate them to the handicapped center. They’re really too small for you to wear.”

I opened a package to see what I was getting. They were a lot bigger than my old ones. I guessed that they were almost twice as thick and that they would rise at least three inches higher. I wasn’t bothered by this in the least. In fact, I was happy that my mom had bought thicker and bigger ones than I had asked for. It was going to be impossible for Mitch to hide his diapered state. I couldn’t stop myself from smiling. Monday was going to be sweet revenge! I went downstairs and watched TV with the others. Whenever Mitch looked at me I smiled broadly. It really unnerved him but he couldn’t complain without making himself seem whiney.

Normally, I thought that time crawled by when Mitch visited. Tonight, however, I was surprised when my mom announced that it was time for me to get ready for bed.

“You, too,” Mitch’s mom added.

“I’m sleeping here?” he asked in surprise.

“No, but it’s been such a long time since I’ve diapered you for bed that I want aunt Loretta to help me.”

I thought that Mitch was going to throw up again.

“I don’t want everybody to see me!” he complained loudly.

“Too late for that,” my uncle Bill answered. “You’ve been going around in diapers all night. Now, get moving,” he warned.

I was sent off to shower in my parents’ room and Mitch went with his mom to my room. When I got out I heard Mitch and his mom in the bathroom. He didn’t sound at all happy.

*****

Mitch

“I can wash my own hair,” I complained as I sat in the tub with my eyes closed.

“Of course you can,” she answered condescendingly.

The water came on again and she rinsed my hair I opened my eyes just as she lathered up a washcloth. She started on my face, neck, and ears.

“Good grief, Mitch,” she said. “When was the last time you gave your ears a good cleaning. No wonder you don’t hear what dad and I say.”

If she thought she would get me to jump on that bait, she was wrong. I continued sitting there passively. She lathered my upper body and I was genuinely shocked when she brought the cloth down to my private area.

“No!” I gasped. “Not there!”

“Be quiet!” she said sharply. “Or do you want to deal with daddy?”

Two things made me hesitate. First, she had used the word daddy for the first time in years. Second, when I was little, dealing with my dad meant getting a spanking. These had always been more symbolic that painful but I didn’t want my cousin to find out about them. She was finally satisfied and I was told to stand up to get rinsed. The ultimate humiliation occurred after she dried me off: she led me back completely naked to my cousin’s room. He was laying on his changing table being pinned into his new cloth diaper. I was shocked: it was so huge that it made him look like a little kid.

“How does it feel?” my aunt Loretta asked.

“OK, I guess. It feels really different,” he replied tentatively.

“It’ll take a few days to get used to them,” she agreed. “But you won’t have to worry about leaks any more—your old diapers had six layers down the middle, these have twelve.”

“Yeah,” he replied brightly, “it’ll be nice not to have leaks.”

I snapped out of my stupor and turned to my mother.

“Please don’t make me wear those… I’ll give mine to Larry and you can take the money out of my allowance… Please!”

“Oh, no, honey,” my mom answered sweetly. “Larry has all the diapers he needs.”

I guess that Larry didn’t know that we were there. He started sitting up so that he could see us.

“Wait, honey. Let’s get your plastic pants on first,” his mom said.

She unfolded the pants and pulled them up his legs. My sense of despair grew when he stood up and faced me.

*****

Larry

I got off the table and nearly fell down! These diapers were really thick! Instead of being embarrassed, though, I was glad. Mitch was going to feel like a real baby. I decided to rub it in.

“Don’t worry. Mitch, These are going to work even better than the ones you stole from me—there’s a lot more diaper to them.”

*****

Mitch

I completely lost it again.

“Please don’t make me wear those,” I begged, tears pooling in my eyes.

“Up on the table,” my mother responded.

“Please!” I begged again.

Seemingly out of nowhere, I received two sharp slaps on my bare bottom.

“Up there, now! Or do you want me to call daddy?”

I began crying in earnest as I got up onto the table. I don’t remember much about the diapering except that I received one or two slaps on the hand for trying to stop my mom from putting the plastic pants on me. The next thing I remember was sitting on the bed next to Larry. Our moms had already left. I wasn’t sobbing anymore.

“I’m sorry I made you cry,” Larry said.

“You didn’t make me cry… these did,” I answered, tugging fiercely on my plastic pants.

“You’d better not rip those or your mom will be really mad,” he advised.

I wanted to tell him to mind his own business but I knew that he was right. I hated this feeling of being trapped.

“What am I going to do? My friends will kill me if they find out that I’m wearing diapers.”

“Do you really think you can hide it?” he asked reasonably.

He was right again. My diapers were going to be obvious. Everybody would know right away. I shuddered. A few seconds went by.

“We’re supposed to put on our pajamas and socks, then go downstairs,” Larry said.

He handed me the pajamas. At least my punishment was taking place during warm weather and not during the winter when he wore footed sleepers. I suppose these weren’t all that bad: they were made of ‘normal’ summer pajama material with short legs and short sleeves. From a distance one could have supposed that they were regular boy’s pajamas… except that they were one-piece and that the wearer sported a very prominent diaper bulge. We put them on simultaneously and I think that even Larry was surprised at how obvious our diapers were. We pulled on our socks and headed to the den to where our dads were watching a ball game.

“Come here a second,” my dad said. Pulling me close to him, he whispered into my ear, “Is it true that you gave mom a hard time after your bath?”

“Yes,” I answered nervously. “I’m sorry.”

“OK. I’m sure it won’t happen again, will it?”

“No,” I agreed.

He surprised me by hugging me and pulling me up onto the couch with him. He put his arm around my shoulder and we watched the game together. I was confused. Wasn’t he supposed to be mad at me, too?

*****

Larry

At first, I was mad that uncle Bill didn’t yell at Mitch for the way he acted. After a while, though, I became jealous of how uncle Bill and Mitch were sitting close together watching the game. Every once in a while uncle Bill would give him a little poke to make him giggle. I wished that my dad would pay attention to me like that. Anyway, my aunt, uncle, and Mitch went home after the game. Mitch looked kind of scared before he walked out to the car. He was lucky that it was dark and no one from school saw him. I smiled to myself knowing that he wasn’t going to be so lucky on Monday.

*****

Mitch

I couldn’t get to sleep. And it wasn’t only the physical presence of the diaper and plastic pants that kept me awake: I couldn’t stop thinking about school on Monday. I was going to get killed. I spent the night alternating between shaking with fear and crying into my pillow in frustration. Finally, just around daybreak I fell asleep for a couple of hours. I had a headache when my mom woke me.

“Do I have to get up?” I asked.

“Don’t you feel well?”

After I told her what was wrong, she felt my head and cheeks.

“You don’t have a fever. I’ll get you some aspirin and you can come down to breakfast. After that, I’ll get you out of your wet diaper and into a daytime diaper. You can take a nap then if you want to.”

Her talk of changing me made my headache worse. The realization that I had wet my nighttime diaper made me feel dizzy. I struggled to remember if I had wet it deliberately or not. The fact that I wasn’t sure scared me.

“Good morning, sport,” my dad greeted me cheerily.

“Hi,” I answered somewhat confused.

My dad was acting as if everything was normal… as if I normally came down to breakfast in baby pajamas and a wet diaper. Thinking about it, it also occurred to me that my mom had also acted as if everything was normal. This made my headache even worse. Were they subtly suggesting that this was how things were going to be from now on?

“Feeling OK?”

“I have a headache.”

“That’s too bad... come here.”

My dad turned me around and sat me on his knee. He started to massage my neck and, to my amazement, the headache vanished. I closed my eyes and luxuriated in the sense of relief. I heard my mom come into the kitchen and put the bottle of aspirin on the table. My dad kept up the massage— going up and down my neck, across my shoulders, and down my back. I was so relaxed I almost fell asleep. After five minutes or so he stopped.

“How’s that?” he asked.

“Awesome!” I answered.

My mom had gotten my cereal ready and I sat down and ate heartily. I wondered if my dad had felt me pee my diaper while I sat on his lap. It was such a babyish thing to do but I couldn’t help it. My after-breakfast diaper change brought my headache back, not that mom did anything deliberately. She let me use the bathroom to do number two before she cleaned and powdered. My alarm came from the fact that the disposable was almost as big and thick as my nighttime diaper.

“These are too big!” I exclaimed in a panic.

“Calm down!” my mom said. “Let me check.”

She had me turn around as she examined how the diaper fit.

“No, they fit like they’re supposed to,” she said matter-of-factly.

“No they don’t!” I whined. “My pants will never fit!”

“Calm down!” she repeated. “Don’t get excited. Let’s get you into your plastic pants and then we’ll see how your pants fit.”

We went through my closet and bureau. My mom was wrong in thinking that this would calm me down. It was true that over half of my pants and shorts fit comfortably at the waist, but none of them did anything to hide my diaper bulge. And, as I changed from one pair of pants to another, I became fully aware of how much crinkling and rustling was emanating from my diaper and plastic pants.

“Everyone will see and hear!” I whined again.

“As I recall,” she said coldly, “you were the only one to ever point those things out about Larry. Without you as the ringleader maybe no one will say anything.”

I stared at her open-mouthed.

“Well,” she continued, “name one time when someone made fun of Larry without you starting it.”

“But this is different!” I shouted.

“Calm down!” she said for a third time. “How is it different?”

The answer was something that I couldn’t say to her. My friends at school were merciless whenever they discovered somebody’s weakness. Once they figured out that l was wearing diapers, they would treat me ten times worse than I ever treated Larry.