I finish unloading the laundry into the bag and come and find him, sitting at one of the tall tables by the window, doodling in his notebook.
"I don't think that's your homework."
"Um..." He steps down from the chair, closing the notebook and putting it under his arm. I can see a little bit of sag under his jeans.
I wrap my arm around his and hold his hand as we step outside. The air is cold and the city looks blue in the dark, interrupted only by yellow-orange streetlights.
"Okay, when we get home we need to put the laundry away, and then probably change you, and then we can make dinner." He squeezes my hand. I lower my voice. "Is that in the right order? Or do we need to change you first?"
"Did you go pee before we left the house?"
"Did you go in the toilet, or did you use your diaper?"
"You don't want to tell me?" I pause under a streetlight and he shifts his weight very subtly from one foot to the other. Oh, that's what's going on.
"Can we keep walking?" he says.
"Not because your diaper is full and you need a change because you need to pee yourself again?"
"Why didn't you just go in the toilet before we left? You could have avoided this. You could have just peed yourself in the laundromat if you had gone in the bathroom before we left, and you'd be fine."
He fidgets with the sleeve of his sweater.
“You know that’s true, right? Can you tell me that’s true? You could have gone in the toilet earlier, and then you could have wet yourself no problem.”
“I know,” he says, pulling down the hem of his sweater and rubbing his hands on his thighs. “I need to goooo!”
“Really super bad,” he says, looking down at the sidewalk.
“Okay, we’ll keep walking. I just need you to remember that it was your poor planning that got you into this situation.”
I take his hand and we keep walking.
We’re still a couple blocks away from home when I hear a little sniff.
He’s crying. Two tears are rubbing down his cheeks.
“You’re not being very nice. I really need to pee and it hurts and you weren’t being nice about it.”
“Ohh, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, baby.” I pause and kiss his cheeks. “It’s okay.” He wipes his eyes on his sleeves. “Ohh, honey.”
We turn the corner and almost run straight into our neighbor, out on a late-night dog walk.
“Oh my gosh, hi!” she exclaims, clapping a hand to her chest. “You scared me!”
“Oh hi!” I glance over at my boyfriend. His nose is still red and there are little tears clinging to his eyelashes, but I’m hoping it’s something only I can see in the low light of the streetlamp on the corner.
“What are you two doing out so late?”
“Walking home from laundry,” I tell her.
“Oh, nice! I’m walking Pickles,” she says, even though that’s obvious. “Look at this. I got him this new light-up collar.” She smiles down at her little dog. “It’s way safer for when he needs a walk at night.”
“Uh-huh, yeah. Um, I’m sorry, but we’re kind of in a hurry to get home…”
“I used to have a little raincoat for him with reflective strips,” she goes on, “but he hated wearing it! I think the collar is a lot better. He’s used to wearing a collar already, so he…“
Oh my god, she’s in an especially chatty mood. I feel a little squeeze on my hand.
“Okay, that’s nice, but we need to go right now!” I squeeze past her on the sidewalk. He’s holding my hand tighter and tighter.
We jog down the last block and I set the laundry down to unlock the door.
“Ugh, that’s too bad we ran into Katherine. I’m sorry. I tried to get us out of there as soon as I could.”
“I kind of went when we were talking to her,” he says quietly.
“Oh, okay. That’s fine, we’ll clean up when we get inside.”
“But I still need to go. I can tell there’s more.”
“Okay, just give me a second.” This key is so sticky. It’s a new key because our landlord just changed the locks, and it just isn’t as good as the old one.
“I’m peeing a little bit! I just went!”
I push the door open with a creak and pull him inside after me.
He starts to cry again, shifting from foot to foot. “It hurts really bad!”
“Come on, come on.” I take his arm and pull him into the bathroom.
He’s already soaked down to his thighs.
“Just get in the shower, okay? We don’t need to get those pants off you if you’re just about to burst anyway.”
He steps into the shower and I hear a hissing sound immediately. He doubles over, hands between his thighs again.
“You’re peeing on your hands.”
He grimaces, finally straightening up. “That was it.”
“Okay, let me help you get those pants off. We’ll do a shower and then I’ll get you into a new diaper, okay?”
“Do you need a pacifier?”
He nods, tears still wet on his face. I open the drawer under the counter and get a washcloth and a pacifier. I wipe his face and slip it into his waiting mouth before I help him with his belt buckle and pull his pants down.
“This diaper is completely ruined. You could’ve gone in the toilet before we left. Or you could have at least told me you needed a change.”
He whines and takes his pacifier out of his mouth.
“It wasn’t just that I peed before we left…I went more when we were at the laundromat, too…”
“Ohhh, that’s what happened. Are you feeling okay? That’s a lot of pee.”
“I, um, I was drinking a lot of water…”
“Uh-huh.” I help him untie his shoes and then pull his wet pants down. “Why?”
I’m pulling his pants and shoes all the way off. I turn to dump them on the floor. “How come?”
“I wanted to have to pee more…”
“You wanted to have to pee?”
“Did you want to pee in your diaper?”
He looks at me, holding his pacifier in one hand and chewing on the nipple. He nods. “Uh-huh.”
“How come? Why is that, baby?”
“Was it fun when you wet your pants because you’d used your diaper too much?”
He shakes his head emphatically. “No!”
“Not fun at all. I think that’s a good lesson in consequences for actions. Put your pacifier back in so we can get your sweater and shirt off. Oh, you’re kind of sweaty and stinky. I think it was a lot of work to try and hold it, huh?”
“It was hard, huh? You know what would have made it easier?”
“Nooo…” He knows what I’m going to say.
“If you’d told me you needed a change before we left.”
He fidgets with his pacifier.
“How come you didn’t? You weren’t embarrassed, were you?”
“You liked what? Having a pee diaper?”
He nods a tiny bit. “It was all warm and heavy…” He’s turning very red.
“You like having a full diaper? My goodness. What on earth are we going to do with you?” I reach out and untape him. I pull his diaper away. “Oh. You really, really liked it.”
“I didn’t mean to! It’s not on purpose!”
“Do you want me to help you with that?”
He nods, still all red, sucking on his pacifier.
“Okay, just give me a second to get my clothes off and I’ll get in with you.”
“Okay, we’re going to get you taken care of, and then we’ll put away the laundry, and then we’ll make dinner. Does that sound good?”
I pull my shirt off over my head.
“Oh, right. So you can get it all wet all over again.”
“Okay, just use better judgment this time, okay? It was fun to have a wet diaper, but it wasn’t fun to have wet pants.” I pull off my own pants and socks and step in with him.
