“I can’t believe how old you are and you still wet your bed! Man that’s so lame!” my brother said. Well, my step-brother, Adam. He’s a couple of months younger than me. His Dad had met my Mom at a condo time-share sales meeting; they fell for each other, and just got married. So now it was a summer of love. We had been a happy family for only a week. Well, I don’t know about happy. Since finding out about my chronic enuresis Adam was constantly teasing. “You need to be put in diapers like a baby,” he said. “Wayne’s a big retarded bed wetting baby!”

I had been a bed wetter all my life, fourteen soggy, smelly years, some worse than others, but right now was as bad as it had ever been, and my brother wasn’t helping. I was wetting almost every night. I had always refused to wear Goodnites or diapers, a refusal that was barely tolerated by my Mom, who had often threatened to put me back in them. (‘You wet like a baby, you should wear diapers like one…’) I had become good at hiding wet sheets and underwear and tee-shirts or whatever (I never wore pj’s), and doing laundry when my Mom was out, so she had no idea how often I was wetting. She only insisted that I have a plastic sheet on my mattress, and while I sure didn’t like the idea, I accepted it as a necessary embarrassment. Now, suddenly, I didn’t have a room to myself anymore, and Adam was constantly complaining about the smell of urine, and of being woken up in the middle of the night when I had to change my sheets. Lately he complained that he had done badly on a test at school because of interrupted sleep thanks to me. He really wanted my Mom to put me in diapers, and was pushing for it. He had a point, but just the thought of being put back in diapers made my knees go weak. I couldn’t wear diapers! I wasn’t a baby!

I soaked my whole bed, even my pillow. It was 2 a.m., and I was exhausted. My blanket was wet as it had got wrapped around me, but my comforter was mostly dry, so instead of changing the bed I got rid of my soaked boxers for a clean pair and tee-shirt, lay on half my comforter on the floor, and covered myself with the other half.

“Man, it stinks in here!” Adam woke up complaining again, but he was right. My bed had stayed wet all night, and worse, I had wet again, as I soon discovered, right through my comforter and into the carpet. It really did smell bad, and I was very embarrassed. At breakfast Adam told my Mom what I had done.

“Really, I can’t stand it anymore. The carpet’s going to stink for weeks. How can I invite anyone over? Charlie’s always letting me sleep over and I can’t return the favor ‘cause Wayne pees the bed. It’s not fair!” Adam said

“I have to agree with him, dear,” my new step-Dad said. I knew he saw my bed wetting as a sign of weakness, something that should be corrected somehow, or at least controlled. He had mentioned more than once that when he was young, some kids got spanked for it. “Adam is losing sleep, they both are, and the room does smell bad, in fact the whole upstairs does. How long are you going to let this go on?”

“Well, I see your point. And Wayne, you were irresponsible not to change your wet bed, and then to wet on the carpet. Enough is enough. It’s time for a change.”

“Yeah,” Adam said, “a diaper change. It really is about time!”

My Mom left it at that, but I was afraid of what was coming, and Adam immediately began taunting me out of earshot of my parents. “Hah, you’re finally going to have to wear diapers! Just like a baby! Finally! YES!” Just before I left for school, my Mom called me. “Wayne, I want you to come straight home from school this afternoon, ok?” I thought I knew why. “Gotta go get some diapers!” Adam said. Of course he was right. All day in school I had trouble concentrating, dreading what I knew was going to happen. Three o’clock finally came, and I slowly made my way home. With Adam. “This should be fun,” he said as we arrived.

My Mom was waiting. “Do you want a compression bandage for your knee, Adam? If so you can come with us to the medical supply store, or I’ll just get you one.” Adam had hurt his knee a couple of days earlier playing basketball.

“Sure, I’ll come,” he said. I wasn’t counting on this. My shame would likely be bad enough without another witness, this one in particular.

We drove mostly in silence for about fifteen minutes, and my Mom pulled into the lot at Regency Medical Supplies. I was a bit numb, scared. We went inside. Adam immediately found what he was looking for, as I pretended to myself that this was the only reason for our visit. Then before I knew it we were standing in front of a large selection of adult and youth diapers. It was awful. I wanted to cry. There were disposable diapers, cloth diapers, plastic and rubber pants, waterproof sheeting, bed pads. Everything you could think of for incontinent people or bed wetters. I wanted to sink through the floor. A young man came up to us, he was older than Adam and me, but not that much, maybe twenty.

“Can I help you?” he said to my Mom.

“Yes. There’s no point in beating around the bush. I need to buy some diapers for this young man here,” she said, indicating me. “He’s a chronic bed wetter.” He looked at me. So did Adam. “He’s still a bed wetter.” Adam repeated, just to rub it in.

“Ok, would you like disposable or cloth diapers? Is he a heavy wetter?”

“Yes, he is, and he’s wetting almost every night. What would you recommend?”

“Well these youth disposable diapers are popular. They come with leg and waist gathers, and have a wetness indicator, although I guess that’s not important if he’s just going to be in diapers at night.” I couldn’t believe it. They looked like Pampers, and they were talking about putting me in them. Adam was smirking. I was quaking. I felt like I needed to pee. Badly.

“Or we have these cloth youth diapers, by Babykins,” he continued, demonstrating. “They call them ‘Kins’ when they’re for youth or adults. They’re flannelette, and as you can see, quite thick in the middle—six layers thick, for great absorbency, and you can add folded cloth baby diapers inside if you require even more. Of course with these he’ll have to wear plastic or rubber pants, but most parents of bed wetters find it’s still cheaper in the long run, and you get fewer leaks with cloth diapers and waterproof pants.” It was such a shock to be referred to as someone who would be wearing diapers and rubber or plastic pants! I felt like such a baby! A helpless freak! I wanted to ask my Mom if we could just leave, forget about it.

“I think we’ll go with cloth.”

“Fine, I suggest a medium. Plain white, or would you like colors or prints?”

“White is fine. I’ll take six of them for now.”

“Ok and what about waterproof pants? We have Babykins vinyl and also a very good and durable rubber pant, also by Babykins.” I couldn’t believe this was happening!

“I’ll take two plastic and two rubber pants for now.” Rubber pants! For me!

“Fine. Again, size medium. I assume he already has a plastic sheet on his bed?”

“Yes he does thanks. Do you have any diaper pins?”

“No ma’am, we don’t carry those. You just need to pick up some diaper pins for babies. They work fine. Any pharmacy or department store will have them. But I would suggest a change pad. They can come in very handy. We have them in a size that’s suited for youth or adults.”

We paid for the diapers, pants, change pad, and Adam’s bandage and left the store. I couldn’t look at Adam, who kept smirking at me. Well, at least I hadn’t wet my pants like I thought I might, but I dreaded what would happen in the evening.

“Mom, are you actually going to physically diaper him?” Adam asked.

“Yes I am, and we’ll see how it goes from there.” And now a big surprise: “You’ll have to learn how too, but don’t worry; it’s not exactly rocket science.” Great! My mean step-brother was going to diaper me! My humiliation was complete! Let me just die and get it over with! My step-brother was going to diaper me like a baby! No! Mom stopped at a pharmacy.

“Adam, run in and get some Tylenol for your knee. Oh and some diaper pins, and some baby powder.” He went, and came back with Johnson & Johnson baby powder and two packages of blue diaper pins. He waved them under my nose. “Blue, ‘cause you’re a boy!” he laughed. “They had pacifiers too; I should have got you one. And Mom, they had diaper rash ointment. Shouldn’t we get him some?”

“We will if and when he needs it.”

The smell of baby powder seemed to fill the car, and filled me with shame.

That evening I felt every second ticking by, bringing me ever closer to my doom. My diapers and waterproof pants (Adam couldn’t resist calling them my ‘baby pants’) were still in their bag on a chair in the kitchen, a reminder to me whenever I came near that this nightmare was real. My Dad examined one of the diapers and a pair of the rubber pants and shook his head, as if I was the most pathetic creature he had ever seen. Adam saw the disappointed look.

“Well, at least now his bed will stay dry,” my brother said.

At around eight o’clock my Mom appeared with the bag of my supplies plus the diaper pins and powder and said “Ok, it’s time. Let’s go upstairs. First go and get your brother. Like I said, he needs to learn how to diaper you. She never minced words.” So I had to find Adam and somehow tell him that it was time for me to be diapered. He didn’t make it easy, and made me almost spell it out. “Mom wants you to come upstairs.”

“Why?”

“You know why.”

“No I don’t. Why?”

“You know. The bedtime thing”

“Oh right! I forgot! She’s going to put you in diapers, ‘cause you’re a big baby bed wetter. Ok, let’s go.”

I had just assumed my Mom would change me on my bed, but I guess she considered it too low for her sore back, and decided to use the much higher plain work table that was in our room. It’s about 5 ½ feet long, the type you might buy at Office Depot or whatever, and it easily doubled as a change table. This sort of threw me for a loop, especially when she placed my new quilted change pad on it. It really looked like an over sized infant’s change table. She chose a diaper, and a pair of rubber pants, and then took some diaper pins from one of the packages. The baby powder was standing nearby. All this ‘baby’ stuff and my unwilling role in it was overwhelming, and I was numb. Again. It was all happening before my eyes, but I still couldn’t believe I was about to be put in diapers. Sure I was a bed wetter, but this was too much.

“Alright Wayne, take off your pants and underwear, and hop up on the change pad. You can keep your tee-shirt on.” My brother had a sadistic grin on his face. “Adam, I want you to observe how I do this, so that you can diaper him as well when I’m not available, or just to give me a break. And here I thought I was all finished with changing diapers.”

“Why can’t I just do it?” I asked pathetically.

“Because I’m taking control of your wetting because you won’t. Later on, if you show you’re responsible, you might earn that privilege, but for now I will do the diapering, and your brother will help.” So I could ‘earn’ the ‘privilege’ of diapering myself if I was lucky. Some privilege! But I still hadn’t moved.

“Did you hear what I said? Pants and underwear off! Now!”

I guess the shame of it all was making me slow, almost paralyzed. Having to submit to the indignity of being diapered like a baby in front of my mocking step-brother was too much for me. He had never even seen me naked, even though we shared a room. That’s how shy I was. And of course my mother hadn’t seen me without pants on for a long, long time. Things were happening too fast.

“Very well. Young man, you just earned yourself a spanking. Darn it, you’re going to see that I mean business. Adam, please go to the closet in my room and get the leather strap you’ll find hanging there.” This hadn’t been used before. It had been my real father’s, and was apparently used occasionally on him and his brothers as boys. Just the faintest hint of its possible use had always been enough to keep me in line. Now it was actually going to be used on me for the first time. I was shocked, scared, and horrified. A real spanking! With the strap! What a disgrace! Was this really happening?

“Wayne, you can do like I said, or I’ll get your father and Adam to help me, and you’ll just get extra, believe me. It’s up to you.”

It finally sunk in that it was futile to resist, and in a moment I was wearing only my tee-shirt and socks. I was hugely embarrassed, and I think probably crimson from head to toe. I was shaking.

“Fine. Now you can lean over the table and wait for your spanking to begin.” I did as I was told, excruciatingly conscious of my nakedness, and in a few moments Adam was back with the strap. He didn’t say anything, but I figured he must be very amused. I stole a disbelieving backward glance at it as he handed it to my mother. It was of dark brown leather, about 2 ½ feet long, four or five inches wide, and looked quite thick. It had a wooden handle. I had seen it before, of course, but it never looked so menacing, so scary. My Mom made me wait what seemed like forever before I felt the first bite of the leather on my butt. (I later found out that this delay was a deliberate technique to increase the anticipation and humiliation of the ordeal.) After the first slow ten strokes I was crying from both shame and pain, and at fifteen I wanted to beg her to stop, but the spanking continued for ten more stinging whacks. My butt was on fire when she finally stopped and told me to get on the ‘change table’. I had no fight in me and just lay there on the change pad as she picked up a diaper. My brother seemed sort of in awe of what he was seeing.

Mom moved the bottom of my tee-shirt out of the way. “Ok, Adam, here’s how it’s done. Sprinkle some powder on the diaper where it will cover his rear, then sprinkle some on his front, then get him to lift up--lift your butt, Wayne—slide the diaper under him, like that, bring it up between his legs, and pin it securely on either side, there…and there. Be careful with the pins, and make sure you pin it tight to avoid leaks. Then just slide his rubber or plastic pants all the way up—lift up again, Wayne---making sure the diaper is completely inside. Like so. Think you can manage that?”

“Duh, I dunno,” Adam said, and laughed. “Man, does he ever look like a dweeb! A baby dweeb!”

“And if you have to spank him, don’t spank harder than I did, and no more than thirty strokes, maximum.”

“So I actually get to spank him?” Adam asked. “Bonus!”

“Only if he gives you good reason, and only after consulting with me or your father.” This was incredible. Not only was my technically younger brother going to be putting me in diapers, but he even had permission to use corporal punishment on me, something I had no doubt he’d take advantage of. Too much!

So here I was, totally defeated, humiliatingly spanked and in diapers in front of my mother and step-brother. The diaper felt really thick and bulging on me, and felt very strange between my legs. The rubber pants made noise at the slightest movement, and I reeked of baby powder. This was total and complete mortification, with no end in sight.

“Now let that spanking be a lesson to you, Wayne,” my Mom said. “We have better things to be doing than to be changing your diapers, so you just cooperate fully or you’ll get a spanking every time. Is that clear? The strap is going to stay right here in your room as a reminder.” She put it on top of my dresser; later it would hang in my closet. I wasn’t thinking clearly, but I had already decided that whatever happened, I would do whatever it took to avoid another spanking.

“Can I have pants?”

“No. I think until further notice you can just wear your diapers and rubber pants and think about why you need to be in them. None of your pants would fit over them anyway.”

“But everyone will see me!” This made Adam laugh.

“Well that’s your problem. The solution is to stop wetting the bed and then you won’t need to wear diapers.”

“Or baby pants,” Adam helpfully added.

When my step-father saw me in my diapers later he just shook his head. It was clear he thought I was some kind of disgrace, while his precious Adam could do no wrong. It made me feel even worse to see the waistband of Adam’s boxer shorts peeking out of the top of his jeans, a reminder of how low I’d fallen. It didn’t help when he ‘playfully’ swatted me on my sore backside through my rubber pants. For once I couldn’t wait for bedtime, but had a hard time falling asleep. Partly it was the intense shame of my spanking and my first night back in diapers, but also from the bulk of the diaper and the heat from the rubber pants. I woke up in the middle of the night temporarily forgetting about my awful new situation until my hand touched my smooth rubber pants, and my shame came flooding back to me (no pun intended). Now I had as just much in common with a baby as with the fourteen year old I wanted to be. I was also soaking wet, but for once the bed wasn’t.

After a few minor leaks and more complaints from Adam about imagined urine smells, my Mom decided to add flannelette baby diapers to what I was already wearing. She made me go to Wal-Mart after school and buy a package of 10 Snugabye 27x27 inch diapers, two of which she (or Adam, but my Dad has never changed me) would fold in thirds lengthwise and add to the inside of my Babykins. It added some bulk, but it’s not as if someone was going to notice because of that when I was already obviously wearing thick diapers and plastic or rubber pants and was waddling around like an infant. But buying diapers is risky and embarrassing, and there’s a rule that if something can go wrong when the stakes are that high it will, and it did. I was waiting in line at the checkout, doing my best to hide the package of diapers. To my relief they finally ended up in a bag, bought and paid for. But when I left the store I ran smack into three kids from my school, Kevin Jones and two other boneheads. The problem was that the logo and lettering on the Snugabyes were visible through the thin department store plastic bag. I did my best to conceal it, but Kevin noticed. Maybe he had a baby brother and recognized the package.

“What you got there?” he said.

“Nothing.”

“Looks like something. Looks like you bought yourself some diapers. That right, Wayne? Did little Wayne get some new diapers?” He said this in quasi baby talk.

“No.”

“Oh. ’Cause I heard you still wear diapers. That right?”

One of his friends grabbed the bag from my hands, and soon the three of them were passing my package of diapers around like a football. The bag was on the floor.

“I heard you still wet the bed every night still and need to wear diapers like a baby. That’s what I heard, anyway.”

After awhile a security guard approached and they got tired of the game and threw me a pass. “Here you go, baby.” But they knew. The whole school knew.

To prove that rule is true—I had another embarrassing similar incident—my Mom sent me to a medical supply store to buy rubber pants. I hung around outside for almost an hour before working up the courage to go inside. I waited until the counter didn’t look too busy, grabbed the three pairs of Babykins (or ‘Kins’) rubber pants I had been told to get (my Mom seemed to favor them), shakily paid and left the store with my purchase in my backpack. An alarm sounded, and I was escorted back inside by a security guard. The clerk said there must be a theft-prevention tag inside something that I bought, so before I knew it he had my three pairs of rubber pants out of their packaging and on the counter, and was examining each pair, holding them up, sticking his hand inside, searching. The commotion had alerted everyone nearby, and they all watched as this happened. There was a boy around twelve who looked at me wide-eyed, as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. I heard his mother (I presume) say, “They’re like baby pants, but for big boys who still wet the bed or their pants.” Big boys like me. Turned out the alarm was set off by a rental DVD I had in my pack sack. All that embarrassment for nothing!

Being a bed wetter is bad enough, but you can hope it doesn’t happen, or if you do wet you can change the bed and get past it, and tell yourself maybe it won’t happen again. But when you’re made to wear diapers the shame continues on whether you’re wet or dry. That’s what I was finding out. Every night from 7 o’clock (or whenever my Mom or Adam arbitrarily decided), my dignity and self-esteem plunged to zero and stayed there while I spent the whole evening in my diapers, a walking advertisement that I was still a baby/bed wetter. The odd night that I stayed dry I still spent in diapers. I can see that someone might give up even trying. They say ‘clothes define the man’. Well diapers are clothes too, and in this case you could say that they re-defined the ‘man’ backwards, all the way back to babyhood. They are what everyone notices, and no-one looks beyond. Wayne isn’t the boy who’s good in math, he’s the fourteen year-old kid who still wears diapers and wets them.

Getting changed by my brother was very very hard to endure, and he was now doing most of the diapering. My Mom had increased his allowance to compensate him for it, and she diapered me only when he was away for the night, for example. If he was going out early, then he ‘took care’ of me early, and if he changed his mind about going out, too bad. Usually he had diapers ready and powdered on the change table (as they now openly called it), and a pair of waterproof pants selected. I was expected to quickly undress, get on the table, and cooperate, which I always did. If he forgot the powder, then when I was standing he’d insert a finger or two inside the waistband of my plastic pants, inside the top my diapers, tug a little, and dump some in front, then in back. Then, sometimes with a swat on my plasticized (or rubberized) butt, I was ‘free’ to go. “My work here is done,” he might say, laughing.

So far I hadn’t received a dreaded spanking from my brother, but I came close. Some of his friends had been over at various times and seen me in my diapers, and all had been fairly cruel in their comments, in one way or another. I could hardly even blame them. His friend Bryce never failed to call me ‘Baby Wayne’ for example, while others just laughed or made stupid comments ‘Man, wearing diapers is so retarded!’ Charlie said when he first saw me. Or, ‘I think someone needs his diapers changed!’ But the first time he actually had a friend in the room at change time, I balked. I didn’t even know Axel was there. I got called to the room, where as usual a thick diaper with inserts was waiting on the change table, and Axel was at the far end with a disbelieving look on his face. He hadn’t yet seen me in diapers, much less the process of being put in them. I stopped dead.

“See? I told you,” Adam said. “Ok Wayne, go ahead.” I didn’t.

“Look, Wayne, we have stuff to do, so either cooperate right now or you get the strap.” He told Axel to look in the closet.

“Man, oh man! That looks like it must hurt! It’s wicked!”

“I’m sure it does. Up to you, Wayne. Right now or you get a spanking. It’s a no-brainer, bro. Either way you end up in diapers, as usual.” He would have to ask Mom to authorize a spanking, but I knew my odds wouldn’t be good. So I reluctantly complied. It was tough.

Axel watched the whole thing in fascination, as if it were a freak show, which I guess it was. This was one of the times my brother forgot the baby powder, and remembered as I got to my feet. As I hung my head in shame he inserted some into my diapers, front and rear.

“Now get lost, Wayne, we have stuff to do,” he said, smacking my behind on the plastic, making a loud noise.

“Man, I can’t believe what I’m seeing,” Axel said. As I crinkled away to try to find a hiding place to die in, I heard Adam say “We’re not trying to be mean. He wets every night, and if he’s not in diapers the smell gets putrid.”

The Axel incident may have prepared me for an even worse one. Adam had a new girlfriend, Rachel. She had already made it clear that she thought I was an infantile geek, and I tried to keep my distance from her, especially when I was in diapers. She could be scathing about my wetting and the fact that I still wore diapers. (‘My brother is three and even he doesn’t wet the bed.’) One evening Adam was in the process of diapering me when she walked in. The diapers were covering me, but weren’t yet pinned on. His cell-phone rang, and I was left lying there like that. I tried to think of something to say, but there was nothing, and I probably wouldn’t have been able to speak anyway.

“Adam, we have to go.” She was looking at me with the look she reserved for the lowest of the low—a pathetic diapered bed wetter. She resented the fact that her boyfriend had to ‘baby-sit’ me, as she put it, something which was sort of true, as I was never allowed to be alone, and sometimes this interfered with Adam’s plans. Adam was in a deep discussion with his friend Charlie, which didn’t sound like it was about to end soon. He motioned to her.

“Hook him up will you?”

“What?”

“Pin him up him for me, and put him in his plastic pants. I have to talk to Charlie about later.” He went back to his conversation. She didn’t hesitate.

“Have you been powdered?” I couldn’t answer. She lifted my diapers and saw that I hadn’t been. Then she grabbed the Johnson & Johnson’s and sprinkled powder all over my front. She repositioned the diapers and pinned them on me, first the left side, then the right. Tight. My eyes were closed, but I felt as my feet were inserted into the pair of plastic pants that Adam had selected. I felt them go up my shins and calves, my thighs. They crinkled a lot.

“Lift your butt.” I did as I was told, and she pulled the plastic pants over my diapers. I felt her checking at the legs and waist to make sure I was completely covered.

“There. You know, I’ve changed lots of diapers on lots of babies, Wayne, and so far you’re the biggest one.” I got off the change table, and on shaky legs slunk out of her sight just as Adam ended his call.

I was standing in the den where my parents were watching TV when Adam and Rachel came in to announce they were going over to Charlie’s.

“Don’t you feel a bit silly being in diapers in front of Adam’s girlfriend?” my Dad asked. He never missed a chance to shame me, maybe thinking it would somehow help me stop wetting.

“Um, I guess so,” I answered lamely. He couldn’t possibly know how foolish I felt right then. Adam and Rachel started to laugh.

“What’s so funny?” my Dad wanted to know.

“Guess who diapered him?” Adam asked. My parents looked at Rachel quizzically.

“Adam was on the phone, and we were in a hurry. Don’t worry; I’ve changed lots of babies. I know what I’m doing,” Rachel said. I thought my parents would be upset, but they laughed.

“So you were changed by an expert,” my Mom said to me, and they all laughed. “Rachel, we should hire you to baby-sit.” I didn’t know if she was kidding.

Adam’s new girlfriend inspired him to new heights of hygiene, with not very happy results for me. I had to have a shower in the mornings, for obvious reasons, but now as often as not I couldn’t get in the bathroom because Adam was suddenly so meticulous about cleanliness. That particular problem was solved after I came home with a note for my Mom from Mrs. Collins, my home-room teacher. More than once I had been forced to go to school without showering, and as the day wore on my urine smell became obvious and offensive, not to mention the source of much ridicule from several students, including Kevin Jones and his brain-dead friends from the mall (‘I think Wayne forgot to wear his diapers last night…’) But then there was another problem. Adam had been complaining about my doing diaper laundry in the washing machine. He claimed that my diapers left a ‘pee smell’ in the washer, and he didn’t want his clothes to become, as he said, ‘contaminated’. He argued and harangued until my Dad cut him off by announcing that from now on I could wash my diapers in the laundry room sink and hang them to dry on the rack that was there. This was a pain, of course, and time-consuming, but the fact was that I could never get them as clean as the washing machine, with the result that they always had a slight but unmistakable smell of urine. So when I was in my diapers I always smelled of pee and baby powder only sweetened it a little.