My Best Friend's House

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I tried my best to read all the rules and regulations about stories on this site, but there are many and they seem to be very strict. If I break any rules please be patient and give me the benefit of the doubt. I will alter anything that needs to be changed so long as I'm made aware of it.

This story is the first that I ever finished completely and has spawned a sequel. Like what you see here? Please let me know! Nice comments and messages encourage me to write more! Want to know more about me? Read my introduction in the 'About the Authors' thread!

Brief synopsis: A young girl agrees to house sit for her best friend's parents while they are away on vacation. She figures that it will be a good chance to get some productive time for herself, but it turns out that the job will not be so easy. There is a catch...

My Best Friend's House

Chapter 1

Rebecca and I were best friends. I remember meeting her for the first time way back when we were very young, probably no older than four or five. It was the start of school and because our surnames are very close alphabetically we were made to sit next to each other in class. We didn’t become best friends straight away, since we both already had our own groups and at that age you just want to cling to familiarity. But as time went on our old friends slowly slipped away, either by circumstance or because we were just growing up into different people. Anyway despite this, or perhaps because of this, Rebecca and I seemed to grow closer and I slowly realised just how awesome she was. We got on so naturally; it was one of those friendships that are never cemented in words. I can not remember either of us ever acknowledging that we were best friends, it was just so obvious that it went without saying.

At the complicated age of ten years old I remember staying at Rebecca’s house for the very first time. I was clearly scared because it was my first real sleep over, but her parents made me feel very welcome and we ended up having an awesome time. I don’t think any one realised it then, but it was the turning point in our friendship. My first sleep over with Rebecca quickly became a regular weekly occurrence for the next five or six years. Occasionally Rebecca would come over to my house, but more often than not I would go to hers because I got on with her parents so well. It didn’t take long for them to start joking that I was their third daughter, and in a way I think I really did consider them to be almost second parents. It was a nice feeling, and one that would last even after Rebecca and I moved on in our separate ways.

I mentioned that Rebecca’s parents considered me their third daughter. As you may have guessed she did in fact have a younger sister. I vaguely remember her being born around the time that Rebecca and I met, and her name was Amy. She was mostly a quiet and shy girl, though of course to Rebecca and associated friends Amy was simply annoying. Our relationship was relatively civil, but I did not feel anywhere near as close to her as I did to Rebecca’s parents. This was largely due to the fact that since Rebecca was the older and considerably bigger sister, Amy was naturally very immature. Her attitude never improved a great deal, so it seemed that relative to her age Amy became even less mature as time went on. I knew little of Amy during the time I was frequenting Rebecca’s house, because we simply didn’t pay her much attention and Rebecca scarcely mentioned her.

Now, this story takes place some years down the line when Rebecca and I were still good friends but I didn’t stay over like I used to. We were both older and simply didn’t have time to be playing girly sleep-over every week. However, I still had a fantastic relationship with her parents because by this time I was working in a bar that they regularly frequented. Hell, we probably got on better than we ever did and I talked to them about almost everything (perks of getting older I guess). It was no surprise to me then that I was the natural choice for a house-sitter when they suddenly announced they were going on holiday in the summer. I was surprised however; to learn later that it would in fact be only the two of them jet-setting to Spain for two weeks.

“We just wanted a little time to our selves” Rebecca’s mom said “It has been so long”

“But what about Rebecca?” I replied. It wasn’t that I didn’t want the job; I would be getting paid to sit around in a house for three weeks, I was just a little confused.

“Rebecca will be away with her own friends” Well that explained that. Rebecca had said that she was going away with some of her new friends from college, but I was unsure of the exact dates and only realised later that it was probably deliberately timed. There was of course still one thing to address.

“What about Amy?” At this point I had only seen Amy sporadically in the last few years and hadn’t spoken to her in as long, not that I ever spoke to her before. I had no idea how she was turning out, but she must have been of a lot older by now.

“See, this is the thing… Amy will be staying at home” Clearly not of a mature age then, so this was going to be more of a baby-sitting than a house-sitting. Not that it changed a great deal.

“To be honest, that’s the main reason we asked you to house-sit for us while we’re away” Of course, they couldn’t trust Amy on her own for two weeks. Quite straight forward really. “I hope it’s not a problem”

“Oh no, not at all. I’m sure that would be fine” I know that sounded cliché and lame, but there was little all else I could say really. After all, I believed it to be true.

“She really won’t be a problem for you. Amy’s old enough to do most things for herself; we’d just like you there to make sure she’s alright.”

“Yeah that’s understandable, and it might stop her from being lonely all on her own” I helpfully tried to add. I think they liked it too.

“Oh thank you Mio! I knew we could count on you”
Now it needs to be said that memory can be a little sketchy, but this was pretty much how the conversation went. It probably had more “ums” and “ahs” and pauses, but the overall result was the same. I was going to be baby-sitting my best friend’s sister in my best friend’s house for two weeks on my own!

Well it was a long time before summer, so I guess I had a while to get to know Amy a little before moving in. Unfortunately, I completely lost track of time and my life and before I knew it, the fateful day came around and I had to begin house-sitting without ever meeting Amy once. No biggie right? I mean, she was older now so it wasn’t like I’d need to be playing big sister, and besides, it would be a nice surprise for us both. Rebecca’s parent’s flight departed very late in the day so they would have to leave in the evening. Rebecca had already left earlier in the day so I was simply to arrive around eight thirty to go over some ground rules before her parents left me to get to know Amy. Or that was the plan anyway. On that very day I got a phone call at around six asking if I could come over right away since they needed to be at the airport early because of a change of flight. Well of course I was mostly packed but I still had a few things to get ready and it was a fair old drive from my house to theirs, so I just had to try and get there as soon as I could. By the time I arrived, her parents were practically walking through the door. They had just enough time to direct me towards the “rules notice” that was posted on the fridge door, and to tell me that Amy was out but would be back shortly. Obviously most of the major rules had been discussed long ago, such as emergency contacts, how to work things in the house, and of course payment.

Once the holiday makers had successfully crammed everything into their small care and sped off without so much as a wave, I thought it might be a good idea to check out the house. The hallway had two doors at opposite ends to the front door; one which led into the kitchen and another into the living room. Obviously there was also a large stair case leading to the next floor. The kitchen was o.k, not very big and not the cleanest in the world, but it was easy enough to navigate and had a very walk-in walk-out feel to it. The living room on the other hand was a lot more to my liking. It was very spacious with modern décor and a large bay window at one end. It had a tasteful rug and my favourite feature of all; leather sofas! There were two in a lovely beige colour against perpendicular walls facing the TV which occupied the far corner of the room. Directly opposite the TV in between the two sofas was the door to the hallway. The only other room on the ground floor was a small, bare dining room that only adjoined the living room. It looked like it was purely used for laundry since the huge dining table (which took up most of the room) was piled with clothes.

Upstairs was not a great deal more interesting. The bathroom was the first door at the top of the stairs, Rebecca’s parents had the next room along and the slightly smaller room further down belonged to Rebecca. Since she was going to be away for the whole two weeks I would naturally be staying in her room, so I took this opportunity to bring some of my stuff in. Having been in this room like a million times before I knew it inside out, although if truth be told I had never seen it this tidy. It was likely her parents made her do it. Leaving my new room behind I glanced at the final door along the hallway that I knew led to Amy’s room, but so as not to start off on the wrong foot I respected her privacy and didn’t go snooping around. Besides, there would probably be plenty of time for that later.

Satisfied with my personal tour of the house I returned to the kitchen to fix myself something to eat (another perk of house-sitting). The fridge and cupboards were expectedly well stocked, but as I was just about to shove a microwave meal in to nuke, I remembered that Amy would be home soon. Perhaps it would be nice if I made us both something to eat when she got back? I was quite proud of myself for starting to think about Amy’s well being so soon, and I resolved to pass the time by skimming over the set of rules which were attached to the fridge by a rather crude magnet depicting some exotic island I had never heard of. It was mostly stuff I’d already heard, plus a few minor domestic issues such as what day to take out the bins, but there was one rule that struck me as rather odd. “Amy’s bed time is 10pm, 11pm Fridays and Saturdays” I read out loud. That’s funny; I didn’t think a girl of Amy’s age would need a bed time, let alone one so early. Maybe I had just been confused and Amy wasn’t as old as I thought she would be? I didn’t think I was wrong, and in truth, who was I to question someone else’s parenting? I would just have to wait and do as the rules suggested - which upon further reading raised no more glaring questions. All that was left to do then was kick back, watch T.V and wait for Amy to come home.

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Chapter 2

Amy wasn’t too late in returning home, it had just passed 8 when I heard her come in. I was pretty hungry now that was for sure, but that was soon lost when I realised that this would be my first meeting with Amy since, well… I couldn’t remember. It would also probably set the tone for the next two weeks so I desperately hoped it would go well and quickly tried to plan for if things weren’t so civil. Upon hearing the door I quickly stood up and shuffled towards the hallway. Amy was just taking her shoes off and hanging her coat up when she saw me, and sure enough there stood an average looking girl in her early to mid teens. I wasn’t wrong after all. “Um, hi Amy”, was the best I could come up with, but I was not prepared for the reaction that followed.

“Mio!” Amy took in a deep breath as her face slowly lit up until it beamed “Oh my god! Hi!” And with that she ran at me - practically jumping to give me a hug. I was shocked to say the least but naturally I hugged back.

“Uh, hey kiddo. How’ve you been?”

“Wow this is so cool! Just the two of us for two whole weeks is gonna be awesome!”

“Well, erm… great! I’m glad you’re so excited.” If her first words hadn’t have been to call my name then I might have suspected she didn’t know who I was. As it stood I guess Amy had matured a little over the years. Either that or I had drastically missed something when we were younger.

“Yeah! I haven’t seen you in ages! I couldn’t wait for mom and dad to leave” After this comment we kind of stayed semi-hugging for a few moments, you know the kind of hug where you have each other at arms length so you can see the other persons face. All the while Amy was smiling happily, her eyes wandering around. I finally broke the silence by suggesting that we move through to the living room. Again I wasn’t prepared for the response that came.

“Carry me?”

Not so mature after all then. I didn’t quite know what to make of her request, but she seemed unashamed to ask and things had been going better than I expected; I didn’t want to spoil it. It couldn’t hurt to play along.

“Um, o.k. I guess” But before I could consider the best way to pick her up, Amy had already leapt into my arms. Fortunately my reactions were quick enough to catch her and she was expectedly pretty light.

“Yay!” Amy giggled and held onto me as I began to carry her towards the living room. Angling through the door way was the only minor hitch before I could safely plop her down onto the sofa. Taking up seat on the other sofa I decided to wait and see if Amy would come out with any more surprises. She didn’t.

“Are you hungry at all?” I enquired, remembering that I had waited for her to make dinner.

“Hmmm, nope.” she answered “I already ate.” Well I certainly was hungry even if she wasn’t.

“O.k, well I’m going to fix my self some dinner if that’s o.k. Just call me if you change your mind.”

“Sure thing, thanks anyway Mio!” she called after me as I headed for the kitchen.

So far so good! I thought to myself as I raided the cupboards for nourishment. In truth I had half been expecting Amy to remember me as nothing more than her sister’s friend who ignored her. Secretly I feared that we wouldn’t get on, at least at first, but since our initial meeting had gone so well I had cause to relax. Yet ever the sceptic I only allowed myself a brief moment of solace, figuring that it was still too early let my guard down. I mean, we had hardly said two words to each other, let alone discussed matters of living together. I soon returned to the sitting room complete with a hastily made sandwich to find that Amy had turned the TV on. She seemed engrossed in it at first but soon redirected her attention when I re-entered the room.

The remainder of the evening went extremely well. Amy and I talked about various things, but mostly our memories of when we were younger. Apparently, Amy always thought I was cool and often wanted to join in with whatever Rebecca and I would be doing. I just said that I was sorry we never realised. Amy brushed it off with a smile but I could tell that it had been a big deal to her. I didn’t have the heart to tell her the truth; that Rebecca and I knew she wanted to get involved with us but still ignored her. Because we were quite young and Amy was younger still, we found her to be simply annoying and too immature to play with us. Obviously things would be different now, but I still felt guilty for treating her in such a way, even though we were just kids. As the conversation wore on it moved onto cheerier subjects, but now I was also acutely aware of the time ticking by. I wondered how Amy would react to me telling her to go to bed as it was drawing ever nearer to 11. I wondered if she might kick up a fuss, saying she wasn’t tired, that she was old enough to decide her own bed time. Or worse, what if she thought I wasn’t cool anymore? That I was just another mean grownup and didn’t want to be friends? I seriously did not want that to be the case; I was beginning to like the fact that Amy thought of me as cool, and the three weeks would be a lot more fun if we could be friends rather than having her see me as just a baby sitter. But, at the same time I needed to remember my responsibilities to her parents. They trusted me to look after the house and abide by the rules, which must have been there for a reason.

I resolved to play it by the book, so-to-speak, as it was the first night and although I wanted to get on with Amy, she also needed to know that I was ultimately in charge. Maybe as I became more comfortable with our cohabitation I could think about extending her curfew a little, but for now it was time for bed. I waited for a natural dip in the conversation.

“Hey Amy, it’s nearly 11 o’clock.” I said casually

“Really? Wow, I didn’t realise it had gotten so late! We’ve been talking ages!”

“Yeah… maybe its time you were thinking about going to bed?” As soon as the words left my mouth I cringed inside, expecting the worst. But once again I was proven a poor judge of circumstance. Amy simply looked down a little dejectedly, but then looked up seemingly fine.

“Oh, o.k.” she said “I guess so.” Wait. That was far too easy. Something inside of me was not accepting the situation. After all, I had been her age once and had my fair share of young cool baby sitters, even though this was slightly different.

“Um, my mom lets me sleep on the sofa sometimes so I can watch TV. Is that o.k?” she said with an innocent smile. I knew it! Never believe you can win against a teenager, they always have some trick up their sleeve. Her parents had said nothing about this to me, so I was very sceptical. On the other hand, if her parents did let her sleep downstairs and watch TV, then I would be just being a meanie by saying no, and I was already losing cool points from the whole bed time thing.

“Oh alright then” I said, trying to make my tone sound as though I was always going to let her. Thinking about it; where was the harm anyway? “Go and get ready for bed then come back down. I’ll get your mom’s quilt for you to sleep under”

“O.k!” Amy scurried off upstairs, shortly followed by myself. After retrieving the quilt and setting it up on the sofa to make a cosy sleeping place, I waited for Amy to return. She was taking a while but I trusted her not to stall on me so I patiently kept on waiting. When she finally emerged I was in for yet another surprise of the evening. However, this one easily took the grand prize; it surpassed all of the previous shocks, tricks and surprises put together. This time I really was unprepared.

“Amy…” I said curiously

“Yeah?” she replied

“Um, what are you wearing?”

“My night stuff; what I always wear to bed.” Amy remained utterly oblivious to my obvious reasons for questioning her attire.

“Then, what is that?” I was now pointing, since it seemed Amy did not know what I was bumbling about.

“Er…” she looked at me as though I had pointed to a giant clock “It’s my diaper?”

And there it was. Her tone was so flippant she may as well have added a “DUH!” onto the end. There she stood; a teenage girl genuinely unfazed by the fact she was in nothing but a pyjama top and a diaper. But my inquisition did not end there. Oh no.

“I… what’s it for?” I asked, still pointing. This time, her look was even more condescending, as though I had pointed to the same giant clock and asked what that was for.

“Um, for when I wet the bed?” Now even her tone matched her look, though I have to admit that I deserved it this time as the answer was pretty self evident. Nevertheless, to say I was flabbergasted would be an understatement. For the life of me I could not recall her parents ever mentioning this. Surely they would have said? But then surely I would have remembered? It was this self doubt coupled with Amy’s cavalier attitude to her flaunting her diapers that caused my shock. If she had come to me quietly and explained then things would have been completely different. Well, this changed everything.

“Amy, I’m not so sure about this…” I said as Amy flopped onto the sofa with a crinkle.

“Huh? What’s wrong?” she answered innocently, switching the T.V on at the same time

“I’m not so sure your parents want you on their nice sofa if you, erm, if you… wear those.” Even though she had only just blurted it out to me, I didn’t want to risk embarrassing Amy by mentioning that she wet the bed. If she even did.

“But – but you said I could.”

“I know I did, but that was before… I mean I didn’t know, erm” There I went again, dancing around words and making a general fool of myself. Amy still knew what I meant, though now she looked genuinely hurt by it.

“So you” *sniff* yup, there was a sniff “so you don’t like me… because of this”

“What? No, no! Of course not! Don’t be silly babe” Oh man! How bad did I feel?

“Then why would you take back a promise?” Technically I hadn’t promised anything, but kids minds work in different ways. I felt like the worst bully ever

“Awww, I’m sorry Amy. I didn’t mean for it to sound like that. It’s just…” By this point I was sitting on the sofa with my arms around her. How could I be so mean to such a sweet girl? Her face and puppy dog eyes were just so cute! And the diaper wasn’t helping on that front either. “Oh, go on. Of course you can sleep down here” I relented. Amy’s face was miraculously a visage of happiness.

“Yay! Thank you Mio!”

“Just be sure you don’t leak, o.k?” I stuck my tongue out at her to show I was only kidding, which must have worked because she giggled and hugged me again.

As it turned out, we got talking a little more once everything had been resolved, though the T.V stayed on in the background. It was gone midnight when I finally decided we both needed to go to bed, and although the subject of diapers had not been mentioned once, I suspected that she might have already been wet by the time I went upstairs.

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Chapter 3

I was having a little trouble sleeping. Not because of the day’s events, though they sure were on my mind, it was simply because this was a bed and a room that I always associated with Rebecca and it felt weird to be in there on my own. I sat there for a while pondering. There was a good chance that Amy’s parents had told me about her problem, and so my memory was just failing. On the other hand, if they had in fact neglected to tell me, then why? Perhaps they took it for granted that Amy wet the bed at night and forgot, perhaps they were a little embarrassed and didn’t want to say, or perhaps they considered it none of my business? Maybe, though this was the most illogical reason I could think of, maybe they thought I already knew? I had stayed over so many times that it would be fair to assume I would have found out. And yet by some fluke of circumstance I hadn’t. In my head I wasn’t too sure of this, leading me to speculate that she might not have wet the bed when we were younger, which would mean that her return to diapers was a more recent occurrence. And that was another thing, why the diapers? Surely Amy was too old for them even if she did wet the bed? Bah! This was all too much thinking for me, and my opinion at the time was that Amy’s little problem was not a major event. It sure wouldn’t change anything. My thoughts turned to other less complicated matters until I eventually drifted off to sleep. For some reason morning came around very quickly and I awoke disgracefully early (well, relative to a normal teenager anyway).

I half expected that I’d wake up early because of the unfamiliar place I was in. As it turned out I was right, and although I’d had a relatively sound nights sleep my body was just being cautious; it wanted me up! I slid out of bed and, not wanting to act like a slob in someone else’s house, proceeded to get dressed. Most of my things were not unpacked so it was a simple case of selecting clothes from out of my suitcase and heading for the bathroom.

Business taken care of I descended to the ground floor, ready to face my first full day as a house sitter. O.k. I thought; priority number one was to make sure that Amy was alright. I carefully opened the living room door, trying not to make too much noise in case she was still asleep. Sure enough, Amy was lying on the sofa lost her in own dream world, or at least I hoped she was dreaming. There was a smile on her face, so I was pretty sure. In truth I was secretly hoping that she would still be asleep, as I wouldn’t get another good opportunity to do what I was about to do. I wanted to see for myself if this bed wetting was for real, not because I didn’t trust her; I mean why would you lie about that? I guess I was just curious to see if a girl of Amy’s age could actually still need diapers. Convincing myself that she’d probably still be dry, I couldn’t resist taking a peek under the covers. Well, so much for my doubts; she was soaking wet! So much so that I could tell just by looking, I guess she really did need them after all. I stared transfixed for a few moments and couldn’t help letting out an “Awwww!” which did not go unheard. I quickly put the cover back and sat down on the other sofa just as Amy rolled over and slowly opened her eyes.

“Good morning sleepy head” I said chirpily, trying not to sound too suspicious

“Huh? Oh, morning Mio” Amy replied a little groggily.

“Did you sleep o.k? I mean, being down here on the sofa”

“Oh sure.” she said now fully awake.

“Good, good...”
No one said anything for about ten minutes; we kind of just sat staring into space as is fairly usual for teenagers with morning sleepiness. Amy was the first to break the deadlock.

“I better go change” she said, with a look of mild concern on her face. I watched as she left the room, her diaper sagging heavily around her hips. She seemed a little embarrassed, which was a big change from how she was acting last night. It could have been simply that it was still early and she’d been caught off guard, which I felt a little guilty for, but then I had another thought. I remembered the look of concern Amy had on her face when she had declared that she needed to change. My eyes darted towards the sofa and my heart sank; those beige leather sofa’s were mightily expensive. Had I made a big mistake in letting her sleep down here, knowing she would wet the bed? I had to check. Pulling the covers completely from the sofa I feared the worst. At first glance I could see no leaks, and thoroughly running my hands over the seat confirmed it; all dry! Phew! I thought. I was relieved that the diaper had done its job, despite being so wet. That’s why she must wear them, I mused. Well duh. Obviously that’s why she wears them, being in diapers wouldn’t be much good if you couldn’t wet in them. Suddenly things were a lot clearer to me, which was good because I’m not the brightest person in the world and I’ve always had a tendency to wonder about minor things I don’t understand. As I walked through the hallway to get to the kitchen, I could hear the sound of a shower running upstairs.

The rest of the day was largely uneventful, with Amy declaring soon after that she was going over to her friend’s house for a while. I was kind of sad; I had wanted to spend our first full day getting to know each other and maybe becoming friends, but I guess it was still Amy’s summer and I couldn’t stop her doing what she wanted. As I waved her goodbye she must have sensed that I was a little disappointed, because almost out of nowhere Amy stopped and gave me a hug. She explained that she hardly ever went out of the house, preferring to talk to her friends on the phone or over the internet. She added that she was only going to see her friends today because she’d promised them that she would. Apparently they too were leaving on vacation. I tried to act all cool, like it would not have been a big deal either way, but secretly I was happy that I might not have to be alone much for these two weeks. Somehow it didn’t seem very appropriate to have my own scant few friends round to someone else’s house. After seeing Amy off I made myself some breakfast and then began the arduous task of unpacking, which I promised myself I would do early so that it was out of the way. With Amy being gone most of the day I felt it was almost fate telling me to get off of my butt. That done, I spent a good deal of time reading one of the many books I had brought with me. I began to lose track of time and before I knew it, Amy was re-entering once again.

“How was your day?” I enquired, trying to be polite and putting my book down.

"Great!” she chirped “I didn’t think we’d do much but we actually had a lot of fun!”

“Awesome…” I was trying to stay cool but I just couldn’t help probing further

“I guess you’ll be spending some more time over there then? I mean, if its fun for you…”

“Nah, I like being at home” she said flatly “and even if I wanted to go over again I couldn’t; they go on holiday in two days time”

“Ah, I see” I suddenly felt pretty lame for acting so immaturely. I just hoped Amy hadn’t noticed. “Um, are you hungry at all?” I said after an awkward pause “Or did you eat out again?”

“No, I thought I’d wait until I got back. So I guess I am a lil’ hungry…”

“You wanna eat now? I can fix us something to eat if you like”

“Um, I kinda had an idea about dinner.” Amy was starting to look suspicious

“Oh really? And what’s your idea?” At that point I couldn’t fathom what she was thinking, but I figured it couldn’t have been anything to extreme. I mean, dinner is dinner right?

“Do you think maybe we could get pizza?” Ah-ha! There it was again; the classic teenager coming right out. I’m surprised I didn’t figure it out sooner. To be honest I was glad at the idea.

“Sure, pizza sounds fine to me; it saves me from cooking!”
Her parents had left me plenty of money for the duration of their trip (we could have had takeaway 24/7 with cash to spare!), and although I didn’t want to abuse it, so long as it wasn’t a regular occurrence it couldn’t hurt. I decided now would be a good time to order since it was after 7 and the delivery man would take a while to arrive.

Amy and I both agreed to watch a movie while we ate our pizza, though unfortunately we did not agree on exactly which movie to watch. It took us almost as long as it took the pizza to arrive! Generally I am pretty easy going when it comes to entertainment genres; I’m game for trying anything, but I draw the line at Care Bear’s the movie. That’s right; Amy’s film of choice was none other than the do-gooding stuffed toys’ big adventure, and the rest of her collection didn’t vary much in terms of calibre. In the end we came to a compromise, though it seemed more like I had just folded to her wishes.

Conflict resolved, we both settled down to a screening of The Little Mermaid, with the pizza arriving about 10 minutes into the showing. Despite wanting to get to know Amy a little better, we spoke surprisingly little during the film. Well, if you exclude the frequent exclamations of- “I love this bit!” I’d like to say that it was Amy who was too engrossed in Ariel’s dilemma to talk, but if I’m honest I have to admit that I too became lost in the fantasy realm under the sea. I guess some things you just never grow out of, huh? Well, the pizza soon disappeared and The Little Mermaid came to a climactic yet predictable end. By the time we were done cleaning the pizza boxes away it almost 10, and as it was no longer a weekend this unfortunately meant it was nearly Amy’s bed time. Once more however, she seemed not too bothered, and I was starting to realise that she must have been used to it.

“So, do you feel ready for bed?” I asked as casually as I could.

“Sure, I guess so” came the rather apathetic response.

“Um, do you wanna sleep on the sofa again?”

“No, its o.k. I only like to sleep there at the weekend when I can stay up”

“Alright, you better head upstairs and get changed-” I cringed and cut my sentence short, not realising the connotations of my choice of words until they had left my mouth. Amy seemed oblivious.

“Will do. Goodnight Mio!” And with that she hugged me before leaving for the night.

“Do you need any help?” I cringed again but this time there was absolutely no excuse for my ridiculous question. Of course she doesn’t need help! Way to make her feel like a little kid! I thought. Strangely enough, in spite my self reprimanding Amy actually paused for what seemed like quite an extensive moment. I couldn’t tell what she was considering; only that she was, but it didn’t matter because she didn’t stay silent for long.

“Hmmm, I’ll probably be o.k. But thank you for asking!” Amy beamed an adorable smile at me before turning once more and heading for her room. Completely disregarding the fact that I was not tired, I shortly followed suit, and it wasn’t long before I had settled down into my unfamiliar bed for the night.

[Pink]

Chapter 4

That night I slept much better; I guess it wasn’t taking me long to adjust to sleeping in someone else’s room. All the better I thought as I had another two weeks yet! Upon waking I decided to head downstairs for a cup of coffee to set me up for the day. At first I wasn’t sure if Amy was awake, but as I passed the living room on my way to the kitchen I could hear the sound of early morning T.V. I made my coffee weak with plenty of milk because I don’t really like the taste, and then considered where I should drink it. I decided it might be nice to watch T.V with Amy for a while so I took my drink in there. I would just have to be very careful not to spill any. Sure enough, Amy was sitting in her familiar spot on the sofa engrossed in some chat show that I didn’t recognise.

“Good morning” I chirped

“Morning!” Amy replied with a smile. And that’s when I noticed it. I had to do a double take at first, but there was no mistaking that Amy was still wearing a diaper. It didn’t seem too wet so I couldn’t be sure if it was last nights’ or a fresh one, but either way I needed to say something. For all I knew she may have simply forgotten what she was wearing.

“Um Amy, do you think you should change?” I said, trying to sound as casual as possible. At first Amy was a little startled and quickly looked down, but after briefly checking herself she seemed alright again.

“Nah its o.k. Im not too wet.” I wasn’t really expecting that response.

“But, erm, why are you still wearing …” I was still having trouble saying the word ‘diaper’ in front of her, “…it?” I concluded.

“Oh, mom lets me keep my diapers on if they’re not too wet in the morning”

“But why?”

“Well, in case I have an accident,” Uh oh, there was that ‘Duh!’ tone again, and with the look to match, “might as well be in a diaper.” She continued.

Now her parents certainly had not mentioned this! I was willing to accept the possibility that I just hadn’t heard them mention the bed wetting or the diapers, but day time accidents? Amy was a teenage girl! There was no way I wouldn’t have heard that! I was now sure in my mind that they just hadn’t told me, which probably meant the same was true for everything else. In their defence I could see why they might not have wanted to bring it up, I mean, it’s hardly information you would want to mention to a potential house sitter. But still, somehow I felt a little cheated, like they couldn’t trust me to be fine with it. Then I had another thought; what if I wasn’t their first choice at all? What if someone else had turned them down before me? I had no idea how many people they could have asked before I finally accepted, and all of them might have refused to do it because of Amy. Would I have turned the job down if I’d have known? Suddenly I felt incredibly guilty; this wasn’t fair on Amy at all. She was a lovely girl who just had a problem that maybe she couldn’t even help. I really hoped that if any previous candidates had turned down the job, Amy didn’t know about it. She didn’t deserve that. I was starting to think that if I were Amy’s parents, I wouldn’t have told me about her either. In a way I was glad they didn’t. I’d like to think that my reaction would have been one of understanding, even in the region of “awwww, how cute”, but I could never be sure.

“So, um, do you have many accidents?” I said, now with a hint of sympathy.

“Sometimes…” was all Amy could reply with, though she still seemed fairly nonchalant.

“And er…” This was the biggie, “what happens if you have an accident, like… you know”

“My mom usually cleans up.”

Great. In her innocence I don’t think Amy realised that this meant it would be me who had to clean up after her, and even if she did I doubt she thought twice about it. Still, I had been with Amy almost two days now and although I wasn’t with her all of the time, I hadn’t seen any evidence of an accident at home nor had she come home wet, so her accidents couldn’t be very often… could they? By now I was sitting on the sofa next to Amy and had subtly put my arm around her to make her feel more at ease.

“Amy, do you think there’ll be many accidents while Im here?” I felt so bad for asking this but I had to get an idea. At least I’d said it with my friendliest voice possible.

“I dunno, I mean… um, I’ll try not to…” I was beginning to detect a twinge of embarrassment from Amy. I still wanted to ask if she only had wet ‘accidents’, but for her dignity I thought better of it.

“That’s great hun, you try your best but don’t worry about it.” I said.

Amy and I talked for the rest of the morning, stopping only briefly so that I could get some breakfast since Amy had already eaten. It appeared to me that we were getting along wonderfully; neither of us seemed awkward about starting conversation. I tried quizzing her for gossip on any boys she liked from school, though Amy seemed largely dismissive and uninterested. I guessed she must not have been quite at that stage yet, and I tried to think of what I was like at her age. If I’m honest, I think I was very much the same and even if I had liked anyone, I don’t think I’d have tried to do anything about it. We were just young girls wanting to have fun in young girl ways.

Just before midday Amy wet her diaper, though she assured me it wasn’t an accident. She said that she’d just wet on purpose so we could keep talking, and that she thought I wouldn’t mind since she was in a diaper already. I had no reason to doubt her, and to be honest I was beginning to enjoy our little chats so I really didn’t mind. When I told her it was fine and that I had actually forgotten she was wearing one, Amy blushed a little. I guess it was a small white lie, I mean it would have been hard not to notice her fully exposed diaper, but I’d like to think that it made her feel a little better, and it sure wasn’t affecting my talking to her. We hugged before seamlessly carrying on the conversation. I noticed at that point we’d been hugging a lot over the brief time we’d spent together, which was nice because Amy really seemed to appreciate it. I’ve been told that I give great hugs, which I obviously can not vouch for since I don’t get to have them from myself! All I know is that I go all in for them, no half measures or pretend ones, and that may be the secret to a good hug. Its amazing how something so simple can make people so happy.

After lunch I asked Amy to go change herself and get dressed, which she seemed happy enough to do. It felt a little bit like I was treating her like a kid, which I didn’t want to do, but I got the impression that she would have stayed in her pyjamas all day if she could have. After she had been gone about 10 minutes I heard her call to me from upstairs.

“Mio! You wanna come and play with me?”

“Um, sure thing Amy! I’ll be up in a second.” I wasn’t exactly sure what she meant by playing, but I didn’t think it would be dolls or teddy bears somehow. So up I went to meet Amy, who was standing outside her door in regular clothes waiting for me. I felt bad, but now that she didn’t have a diaper on all I could think about was what she had told me this morning about her accidents. I wanted to give Amy the benefit of the doubt so I tried to dismiss such thinking.

“So, what exactly did you want to, um… play?”

“Do you like video games at all? I mean, would you wanna play a game?” Ah, of course. It was lucky for Amy that I love computer games. Or maybe unlucky, since I was pretty good!

“Sure I do, lead the way.”

“Awesome! My play station is set up just in my room” and with that she began leading me into her private refuge, the only room in the house I’d never even seen or knew anything about and to be honest, I was pretty interested to find out. Entering the room I didn’t know what to expect, so I wasn’t really surprised to see that the place was an absolute mess! The décor was nice; pale blue walls with a darker blue carpet and curtains, and the furniture and pictures were pretty tasteful, but the state of tidiness just screamed out typical teenager. Her bed wasn’t made (which sure enough had a plastic sheet), there were papers and files littering any work surface, clothes lay scattered across the floor, old crusty plates and mugs could be spotted about, wires all tangled with each other from various appliances, and general rubbish filled in the gaps. All in all though it was pretty cosy, and the room only smelled faintly of wet diapers. Balancing on the edge of the main desk was a small TV with play station wedged in next to it.

“Hey, no fair! How come I never win?” Amy moaned as I beat her yet again. We were playing some generic race-car game that was fairly easy to get to grips with, though Amy seemed to be having difficulty despite owning the game.

“I think Im just getting lucky” I lied, “you were really close that time, you could have won.”

“You think so?” Amy chirped innocently

“Of course, I was pretty worried in that last race.”

“Well in that case, next time Im gonna get you!” she beamed. Telling small white lies to Amy was becoming slightly routine, even necessary. But it was o.k. I told myself, it made her happy.

“I better be careful then!” I said “But how about we give your skills a rest before your next big win and go do something else?”

“Sure…” she said rather unenthusiastically. At first I thought it was because Amy was having fun gaming and didn’t want to stop, but she soon corrected my thinking, “Um, just so you know, I kinda had an accident while we were playing.”

“An accident?” I asked bemused, though I knew full well what she meant. Glancing over at Amy it was clear to see that she had in fact wet her self. I guess neither of us had really been paying attention whilst racing. “Oh Amy…” I said disappointedly, the way one might talk to a small child or even a pet that had done wrong. Amy just looked at me seemingly without a care in the world.

“So what did you wanna do instead of playing?” she said. I could only sigh.

“Well first we need to get you cleaned up. Go jump in the shower and I’ll give your clothes a wash.” Remembering what Amy had said about her parents cleaning up after her, I didn’t really want to give her that responsibility. And besides, I also remembered that this probably wasn’t her fault, so I just took her clothes from her while she shuffled towards the bathroom. The damage wasn’t much; Amy had fortunately been sitting on her bed with its plastic sheet so cleaning wasn’t too difficult. I couldn’t help but think however, that things may have been quite different had we been somewhere else in the house or even out. But I didn’t want to think about that and just hoped that this time would be a one off, because I wasn’t much looking forward to the next time. As I put Amy’s clothes in the wash I took the opportunity to wash her bed sheets too, figuring that they should probably be washed regularly despite her diapers taking most of the wetting. I just hoped that Amy had some spare, since the lack of a tumble drier meant these would not have been dry before bed time.

[Pink]

Chapter 5

So far, house sitting for Rebecca’s parents had been going well. Heck, it was pretty easy work for the money I was getting paid, and living with Amy had actually been quite fun. But I was growing ever more conscious that I was letting time slip by me. You see, at this time I was still studying at university, and despite it being the start of summer I sure had a lot of work to prepare for the next semester. When I first accepted the job of house sitting I was looking forward to having some extensive paid free time, figuring that I could further my studies at my own leisure. So far I hadn’t even looked at the books relating to my course, though I knew that there would need to be a “getting familiar” period when I first moved in the house, and that I could use this time to just relax and get comfy before I started to work. Now I was starting to feel that I really should crack on, especially since Amy might need a little more looking after than I had previously thought. Not that I minded taking care of her; she seemed really interested in being friends and it was my job after all, but I felt that it might eat into my free time meaning the spare moments I did get needed to be even more productive. So there I sat; books and folders piled either side of me with my lap-top positioned surprisingly on my lap. I had to resist the urge to put the T.V on as back ground noise, because for all my good intentions it was always far too much of a distraction.

Right, now I was ready to work. But no sooner had I switched on my lap-top and selected my first book, Amy walked in from having her shower. She was wrapped up tightly in a large fluffy towel dripping water as she went and leaving faint wet footsteps on the carpet. Her thin, shoulder length dark hair clung damply to the sides of her face. She shuffled into the middle of the room and, making no attempt to dry herself, stood there shivering slightly while she stared with a glazed expression at the blank T.V screen. After a few seconds of waiting in vain to see what Amy would do, I rolled my eyes before moving my lap-top over to one side.

“Come here then.” I said reassuringly, and also rather rhetorically, since it was I who got up and went over to her. Amy was quite content to let me dry her with the towel; she just smiled up at me the whole time whilst shaking from the rubbing motion. After I was convinced that she was dry enough, and also a little warmer, I asked Amy is she had a hair dryer. It wouldn’t have mattered if she hadn’t since I never left home without mine, but she said she did, and after a brief flit back to her room Amy returned carrying a rather dated looking hair brush and dryer set and wearing a soft lilac bath robe. I spent the next fifteen minutes or so drying Amy’s hair while she sat on the floor in front of me watching the T.V. I have to admit it was pretty fun and reminded me of how Rebecca and I used to do each others hair at sleepovers. But it wasn’t helping me get my work done.

“O.k. Amy, I think that should do it. What do you reckon?”

“Yep, feels dry to me!” Amy replied, without even touching her hair. “What do you wanna do now?”

I was really hoping that Amy wouldn’t ask this, but I guess I did suggest it first. Well, at least before she’d had her little accident.

“Um, is it o.k if we call it a day? Only I kinda have some work I need to do. Sorry babe.”

“Sure. I was getting into this T.V show anyway.” Despite her positive answer I could tell Amy was a little bit disappointed. I needed to do something to alleviate my guilt.

“Are you hungry at all? I can make us dinner if you want.”

“Its o.k, I was gonna make myself something a bit later. But thanks anyway.”
I had to stop myself from asking Amy if she was capable of cooking for herself.

“No problem. Um, I promise we’ll do something tomorrow o.k? How about it?”

“Sure!” I knew this would pique her interest, but now I needed to come up with something fun to do.

“We could go to the mall. Do you like going to the mall?”

“Yeah! I love going to the mall! Mom lets me look around all the shops and stuff.” It was a stupid question, all girl love the mall.

“Well that’s settled then. Tomorrow I’ll take you out.”

The rest of the evening was dull at best. Having to do academic work over the summer sucks big time. Amy occasionally made things more interesting with a comment about what was happening on T.V, or by asking me about my work. I would always answer politely but briefly, so as not to start a conversation that would distract me, though the T.V was doing a good job of that. I could only really start working after I had sent Amy to bed, making me secretly glad at her early bed time. I knuckled down and managed to get an assignment half completed by the time I went to bed. I stayed up pretty late, but felt it was best to utilise the time while I was in the swing of things. I figured that I could always sleep in the next morning since I hadn’t planned on taking Amy shopping until the afternoon. Pleased with myself, I settled down in bed for what I expected to be a good night’s sleep. I was wrong. It became apparent at 8.30 the next morning that Amy had made other plans for our day.

“Mio! Come on, wake up Mio!”

“Wsrfr?” was my response. Not surprising since I’d had a disgracefully small amount of sleep. And it didn’t help that Amy was bouncing up and down on my bed.

“You promised we could go to the mall today! Remember?” How could I forget? And while I was pleased that Amy was so excited, I was less than impressed at her timing.

“Yup, guess I did, didn’t I?” Admitting defeat I slid myself up into a sitting position and tried to focus on Amy who was now kneeling on the bed in front of me. She was wide awake and grinning happily. She still had her pyjama top on but was not wearing a diaper, which I assumed meant that she’d soaked it during the night and had to change when she woke up. I just hoped that she wasn’t still in the early morning drowsiness stage, which as I remembered from my past baby sitting experiences was a prime time for accidents. Of course, this experience came from baby sitting children much younger than Amy, but I was sure the same logic applied.

“Alright, just give me a few minutes to get ready and I’ll be right down. Have you had breakfast yet?”

“Yep, I’ve been up for ages!”

“Right, well get dressed and get ready to go. I won’t be long.”

“Yay!” And with that Amy bounced off the bed and skipped out of the room. I had never seen anyone so happy to be going somewhere as simple as the mall. When I was her age, I was at the mall all the time with my own friends. Maybe Amy didn’t get to go that often? Or maybe she thought I was going to buy her something? The thought had crossed my mind, since I wasn’t so cruel as to take a teenage girl shopping and not get her anything. But more than that, I don’t know, there was just something about Amy that really made me want to spoil her. In truth I was really looking forward to finding something to get for her, almost as much as I was looking forward to going back to sleep now that she’d left the room…

But no, I couldn’t do that to Amy. Peeling myself out of bed I stumbled towards the bathroom before heading downstairs for some breakfast. Amy must have heard me descending because I in turn heard her door open. With my lack of sleep I was still very much in the morning drowsiness stage, but unlike the accidents Amy might have, I almost had an even worse one. Walking through the kitchen I wasn’t looking where I was going, that is until I was about half an inch away from stepping on a soaking wet diaper. It was just lying there discarded on the kitchen floor, and there was no mistaking who it belonged to.

“Amy?” I called, knowing that she wasn’t far behind me.

“Uh-huh?” Amy replied, actually right behind me.

“Um, what’s that?”

“Oooops…” she giggled “I was eating my cereal when my diaper started to feel a bit cold so I took it off. I must have forgotten to move it, sorry.”

“It’s… o.k.” I said rolling the diaper up and throwing it in the trash. I wasn’t angry, just a little surprised. It seemed like quite an unusual thing to do half way through your breakfast. I began wiping the floor with disinfectant around where the diaper had been, since it looked as though Amy had just undone the tapes and let it plop to the floor. I also gave the stool a wipe that she’d been sitting on, evident by the half empty bowl of cereal in front of it, because I wasn’t sure if Amy had then continued eating in her diaper-less wet behind. After my hurried cleaning I gave Amy a hug to show that it wasn’t her fault and that I wasn’t mad. I don’t think she quite understood my reasons, as she seemed oblivious to why I was cleaning and to the fact that she may have done wrong, but she appreciated the hug all the same.

A good hour and a half after Amy had first woken me up we were ready to go. It was true that I would rather have had the hour and a half in bed but I was wide awake by this point so was slowly warming to Amy’s over excitement. It could easily have turned out to be a really fun day. Things started well, we arrived at the bus stop moments before the bus arrived. I did have my car with me, but it was a nice day and parking at the mall was a nightmare so we opted for public transport. Amy didn’t mind of course; I suspect she would have been happy to walk all the way there! The bus was largely empty so we had our choice of seats, and much to my surprise Amy didn’t sit next to me. Instead she took the seat in front and turned around so that we could talk, the way that cool kids do on the bus. Come to think of it, during the whole day I noticed Amy becoming slightly less child like and a little more like a typical teenager acting cool. But that was Amy; just when I thought I had her figured, she would go and surprise me. She still had slightly give-away Amy traits that often came out, such as pointing out “amazing” things that we passed on the bus and her unmistakable child like giggle, but I could tell she was enjoying feeling like two sisters going on a day out together.

[Pink]

Chapter 6

Amy and I held hands as we traversed the mall. It was still relatively early so most shops weren’t busy, which allowed us to be a bit more leisurely when browsing. We looked around many places; mostly clothes and cosmetics shops, the latter was more for my benefit than Amy’s since she didn’t seem all too interested in the many ranges of beauty products which I now felt very self-conscious for looking at. It was mostly Amy who tried on clothes and shoes though, and I was happy to let her have fun with it because every new item made her more and more excited. Occasionally she would see something that she wanted me to try on, so I would oblige knowing that Amy was enjoying being my personal stylist, even if her response to everything was “It looks great on you!” At first I thought that Amy might secretly have an eye for fashion, but after declaring that a bright red top that was at least three sizes too big for me “looked great”, I kinda figured that she just wanted to say nice things about my look, which was cute in its own way. After a thoroughly enjoyable but nevertheless exhausting morning, I decided it was time for lunch and a sit down.

“Are you having fun so far?” I asked as we took seat in the food court.

“You bet! I can’t believe there are so many different stores.”

“Glad to hear it Amy, I just hope its not too boring hanging out with me” I teased. Amy looked genuinely shocked, as though I were going to leave her unless she proved that she wanted me to stay.

“No way! You look good in everything!”

“Awww, thanks hun. You’re quite the fashion model yourself you know.” Amy just giggled. We spent the next five minutes deciding what to eat (or more accurately, I spent the next five minutes waiting for Amy to decide what she wanted to eat), I then left Amy at the table so that I could order our food. As I fished my purse out of my bag I realised that despite having tried on an innumerable amount of clothes, Amy hadn’t asked for anything. She never even gave me the look of longing that I used to give my mom when I was her age. Still, I had promised myself that I would treat her just this once, so now all it meant was that it could be a nice surprise for her.

We ate in silence for the most part; Amy being quite content to put all of her attention into her food, but despite this she took an awfully long time to finish and didn’t quite eat it all. She was small I guess, and kids always want more than they can actually handle. When I was sure that Amy wouldn’t eat anymore, I suggested that we move on.

“How about we go do some more shopping then?”

“Um, I think I need to use the bathroom first. Is that o.k?”

“Oh w… I mean sure, of course it is. Do you know where they are?” That was a close moment! I had almost totally embarrassed Amy by saying “well done” to her wanting to use the bathroom!

“Uh-huh, they’re just over there. I’ll be right back.” And with that Amy skipped along towards the bathroom, allowing me some free time to mentally scold myself for nearly treating her like a four year old. It was just one accident and already I doubted her continence! Well, there was the bedwetting and diapers of course, but still I felt bad. At least I had a chance to make up for it with the shopping trip, not that Amy would realise what I was trying to make up for…

Once she had returned from the bathroom we resumed our day, frequenting very much the same kind of shops that we had before lunch, with the exception of one. As we walked past the Disney store, Amy had to do a double take before giggling with glee and rushing in. It was a little bit of a surprise at first, but it was an awesome store after all (not to mention enormous) and I figured that it should be fun. I’m not kidding when I say we spent over two hours in there, and the whole time Amy was clutching a squishy Tigger that she had found within the first five minutes. She still had a hold of it by the time I’d managed to convince her it was time to go, despite us looking at almost everything in the store. I had not seen her so enamoured with anything the whole time we’d been out, including the stuff that she’d tried to persuade me to buy for myself. I knew at that moment what I wanted to buy for Amy. I waited until she was distracted by one of the many Disney films that they show on various TVs around the store, then quickly bought the same kind of Tigger that she’d been holding and hid the bag behind my back. As we left the Disney store I tried to figure out the best time to reveal my purchase to Amy. Waiting until we got home would be a nice surprise, but that would mean hiding the bag for a long time which risked Amy spotting it and spoiling the moment. In the end I decided that it would be best to show her sooner rather than later.

“Hey Amy, what did you think of the Disney store?”

“It was awesome! Definitely my favourite place in the mall!” she grinned.

“Well, I think they really liked you too hun.”

“They did?”

“Yep! So much so that one of them wanted to stay with you…” and with that, I brought Tigger out from behind my back and presented him to Amy, complete with a “Ta-da!” To say she was grateful would be an understatement.

“Thank you thank you thank you!” she screamed, hugging me tight with her new soft toy pressed between us. I could tell right then that Amy had no idea that I was going to buy her anything.

“Ha ha, you’re welcome!” I said with the wind nearly knocked out of me. “So what are you gonna call him?” Amy looked up at me from hug position.

“Tigger of course!” Silly me, I should have known that you can’t rename a classic character, but I congratulated Amy all the same.

“That’s a great name! You can tell Tigger all about his new home while we ride the bus, o.k?”

“Uh-huh! I think he’ll like living in my room.” Pleased that I’d subtly managed to tell Amy that it was time to go, I just as subtly steered us out of the mall and in the direction of the bus stop. All the while Amy was occupied with her new friend, completely contrasting the mature way she’d been acting earlier.

By the time we got back to the house I was absolutely beat; it’s amazing how tired you can get from not doing an awful lot all day. I was content to put my feet up on the couch while the little bundle of energy that was Amy occupied her self with various activities that might in some way involve a soft Tigger. At one point the two of them did join me to watch T.V, but it wasn’t long before her true motives were revealed.

“Mio, what’s for dinner?” Amy said finally.

“I dunno kiddo, what would you like? I could make us something.”

“Um, anything I guess!” Now I at least knew enough about kids to know that this is usually a lie; most people around the teenage years are fussy eaters. My suspicions were confirmed as I spent the next few minutes suggesting various things to eat, most of which Amy didn’t like. We finally settled on something that Amy would like (which just happened to be complicated to make), so up I got to start cooking. This was what I was getting paid for after all. Amy even offered to help, and although it probably would have been easier to do everything myself, I didn’t have the heart to say no. It did turn out to be quite fun, and entertaining Amy was something else which I figured I was being paid for. We made quite the mess (and I use ‘we’ very liberally), but things were going fine. Amy was very enthusiastic and eager to impress me; she just had a little trouble reaching things. I also noticed that her hand to eye co-ordination left a lot to be desired, much to my amusement, but as long as I kept glancing an eye over to her I was confident that nothing would go seriously wrong. That is, until I heard the familiar sound of spilt milk dripping onto the linoleum floor.

“Ooops, have you spilled something there missy?” I asked turning around

“No, I…” and that’s when we both stopped what we were doing. As Amy turned to face me we both realised what was happening. Nothing had been spilled.

“Amy… are you o.k?”

“Uh-huh, I guess I just, um…” she said in a very meek voice as the dripping noise subsided, “sorry…”

“Hey, its o.k hun, totally not your fault. Cooking is a very distracting endeavour.” I said in my most encouraging voice. It seemed to work because Amy perked right up, and I was starting to gather that the only thing that bothered Amy about her accidents was whether or not I got mad.

“Uh-huh! I was sooo having fun!” She smiled

“Alright then, we’re nearly done anyway so why don’t you go get cleaned up and I’ll finish here?”

“Awww, but I wanted to help until it was done…”

“I know babe, but you’ve had a little accident and I think it’s better if you get clean so that we can eat as soon as it’s done, o.k?”

“O.k!” I think Amy was a little happier with the prospect of not having to wait to eat.

“Right, off you go then and I’ll call you when it’s ready.” I made sure that Amy was out of the room before I started cleaning up her accident. Somehow I thought it might embarrass her more if she knew I had to clean up after her, sort of like spoiling her innocence. Though on the other hand, maybe it would make her less inclined to have accidents? I knew I didn’t want to take that risk. And besides, that would be like admitting I thought she was doing it on purpose, and I trusted Amy. Still, I was starting to wonder if I should talk to her about it, just friendly like. Maybe tomorrow? Yeah, Amy would soon be in her night diapers anyway, and it gave me time to think about stuff and to see whether anything else would happen. With that in mind the rest of the evening passed uneventfully, with Amy going to bed at her usual early time leaving me to get on with my much neglected work while she slept. I would soon come to realise that these were the only times I would get any work done, but hey, it was a pretty good arrangement and allowed me to structure my day around what I was being paid to do. This was of course looking after the house, but it became more and more evident that my true task was to take care of Amy, and Rebecca’s parents had known it all along. Not that I really minded you understand, so in a way I classed the whole experience as a victory against those who considered Amy anything but a pleasure to be with.

[Pink]

Chapter 7

That night, I had the first disrupted sleep of my time in Rebecca’s house. It wasn’t the unfamiliar surroundings; by now I was feeling quite at home, and it wasn’t the time; I went to bed at a reasonable hour and had dropped off pretty quickly. No, I was woken up by something completely different. A fairly low pitched yet consistent noise had found its way to my subconscious, the kind of sound that is designed to deliberately penetrate any attempt to block it out. A dripping tap would be one example of such a noise, finger nails scratching a black board would be another, or a baby crying. Funnily enough, the latter of these would prove to be the most accurate comparison, because as I tried to focus upon the source of my sleep disturbance it became clear that it was emanating from the wall adjoining Amy’s room, and was in fact Amy. She was crying. As soon as I had put two and two together and allowed myself a few seconds to account for sleepy reactions, I jumped out of bed ready to do my duty. I figured she had probably fallen out of bed and hurt herself or something similar; a nightmare was always a possibility, but at this point I hadn’t considered the very situation that would later become blindingly obvious.

I entered Amy’s room to find her sitting on the edge of her bed; openly crying and lightly shaking her fists as though out of frustration. All of this was accompanied by the unmistakable smell of a messy diaper. As I turned on the light, Amy continued to cry but now looked at me pleadingly. I in turn did what was becoming routine for me, I said something utterly stupid.

“Awww babe, what’s the matter?” Amy paused momentarily as her child like mind tried to rationalise her situation into an articulate form. Then she just started crying again. Realising my mistake almost instantly, I quickly moved to be close to Amy so that I might comfort her since my words would probably fail.

“Shhh, its o.k hun, it’s only your diaper, no big deal.” No sooner had I sat down next to her than Amy had thrown her arms around me and jumped onto my lap, leading me to wonder just why she was so upset, since the feeling in her diaper couldn’t have been bothering her too much.

“It was an accident…”

“I know, I know. But it’s in your diaper, right? So everything’s o.k.; nothing a change won’t fix.” Upon hearing this, Amy stated crying in earnest. I wasn’t even sure of my own words, so I really didn’t know how to respond to Amy becoming increasingly upset; I was lost for a reason and so just hugged her tightly.

“What’s up sweetie? You don’t have to be sad.”

“My… my mom always changed me when I – I…” And then it all became clear to me, the poor thing was missing her mom. I couldn’t blame her really, I’d been trying my best but I was no substitute for the real thing. Most frustrating of all was that I couldn’t do anything about it. Well, almost nothing…

“Hey there,” I said looking into her tear filled eyes “How about I, um… take care of you?” I knew it was an enormous risk as soon as the words had left my mouth. She could have thought that I was embarrassing her, undermining her, distracting her or worse, trying to take her moms place. I was already planning the classic, “or not, that’s o.k too…” when Amy hugged me with so much force that I fell backwards onto the bed, ending up with the tiny tear-laden girl pressed on top of me with her stinky butt in the air. She maintained this position for a good while before calmly rolling over so that she lay on her back with her legs spread apart. At this point I was so glad that Amy had taken kindly to my offer that I wasn’t even thinking about the fact that I would have to change her diaper.

As it turned out, it wasn’t so bad after all. I guess there are a lot of things that don’t seem like such a chore when you have good reason to do them. In my case it was all part of looking after Amy, which I was more than happy to do. The change wasn’t nearly as awkward as I feared it might be, quite the opposite almost, with the only distraction being Amy’s continuing tears, which were possibly due to slight embarrassment and the fact that she still wanted her mom. Even so, Amy was very cooperative and I didn’t feel hesitant, although that may have been a combination of the strong emotions that we had just shared and my inherent tiredness.

“There you go Amy, I’m all done.” I said, lifting her from the bed and back onto my lap.

“Thanks…” She mumbled through sniffles.

“And you don’t have to be upset next time, o.k? Just come and get me and it’ll be alright, I promise” Amy just nodded her head shyly, though I got the impression that she always cried under these circumstances; it got results and was probably easier than going to wake her mom up. After allowing a few moments for Amy to stop crying I became aware that I was feeling pretty exhausted, so I slowly tried to make a move for my own bed (it was the middle of the night after all!). The only problem was that Amy, who was snugly curled up on my lap, didn’t seem to want to move. Each time I tried to talk or shift a little, she would just hug me tighter and meep in a tired fashion. Once again, I knew where this was going. Making sure I had a careful hold of her, I lifted Amy into my arms and carried her back into my bedroom. I knew she was happy about it because she didn’t try to resist or question my actions in the slightest, and wasn’t reluctant to release her grip once I had placed her onto my bed. I figured that Amy getting a good night’s sleep was more important than worrying for the state of my clean dry sheets, and she was in a new diaper, so after turning out all of the lights I climbed back into the bed next to Amy and slowly drifted off.

When I awoke Amy was nowhere to be seen, so I assumed that she must have already been up and about, probably bouncing around somewhere. I quickly gave the sheets a once-over to check if they were dry, which fortunately they were. Not that I would have blamed Amy for any kind of leakage, after all she’d had a bit of a rough night and probably couldn’t help it, but it was a nice bonus all the same that I wouldn’t have to wash the sheets.

Since it was morning I trudged downstairs to make myself a coffee. I must have slept for quite a long time because sure enough, Amy was already dressed and in the kitchen messing around on her phone, probably texting one of her friends I figured. I could see that she wasn’t wearing a diaper so I made a quick scan of the kitchen and poked my head into the living room to check for a repeat of the previous day’s incident. I doubted that there would be and was proved right when my scan resulted in an all clear. It did get me thinking however, about Amy and her so called “accidents”. I’d really wanted to talk to her about it that morning, but decided it would be better to wait a bit longer after the last night’s revelation. I didn’t think that Amy would have been in the mood to discuss anything and it would have been unfair on her if I tried pushing the subject. Besides, at that point I thought that everything might sort itself out with a bit of time, and then there would be no need to ever raise the issue. I just told myself - what are a few accidents every now and then? A mantra that would soon prove to be very short lived, because later that evening I felt the need to raise the subject once again.

Amy and I were watching T.V in the living room, a pastime which was rapidly becoming a favourite for us to enjoy together, when Amy decided to get up. I would later discover that she had gone to get a drink, but at the time it was the furthest thing from my mind. Whilst I had been watching T.V from the vantage point of the rather lavish sofa, Amy had been sprawled on the floor with her chin resting on her hands and her feet gently swaying in the air. She had looked pretty comfy; too comfy it would seem, because when she got up to leave I noticed something which made my heart sink. There was a large circular wet patch on the carpet directly underneath where Amy had been laying. Another accident. I didn’t believe for a moment that Amy hadn’t noticed it, so I pursued her into the kitchen where I found her obviously wet and making a drink. I knew she wouldn’t have tried to hide it from me on purpose, she was probably just being shy, and I didn’t want to embarrass her again by saying something stupid, so I simply approached her and started to take off her wet pants. Amy soon caught on to what I was doing but just continued making herself a drink, happy to let me get on with it. Once again I thought about saying something to Amy, but changed my mind as it was still too soon after what had happened. Tomorrow though for definite, I said to myself, but in the meantime I had a short term solution. Once her clothes were off and the washing machine had been put on (again), I gave Amy another I-know-its-not-your-fault hug.

“Hey Amy, instead of bothering to get changed all over again, why don’t you just go get ready for bed? Then we can watch a movie or something!” I chirped, trying to make it sound like I had thought of a great idea to help her, and not like I was just trying to get her into a diaper to avoid any further accidents.

“Sure! Can I pick the film?” Amy replied, completely buying my little white lie.

“Of course you can sweetie, now why don’t you run along and get ready?”

“O.k!” And with that, she scampered upstairs excitedly.

“Oh! And don’t forget to clean yourself a bit hun! We don’t want any rashes!” I called after her. I assumed that she heard me, because shortly afterwards I thought I heard the shower going. I did feel a little bad about kinda maybe sort of tricking Amy, which made cleaning the carpet a lot easier, almost like I was cleaning it out of guilt.

Well the movie came and went rather quickly, another fabulous kiddie classic courtesy of Amy. At least she hadn’t insisted on Care Bears the movie this time, which I secretly feared, probably remembering that I hadn’t wanted to watch it the first time, which I thought was very nice of her. There was still time before Amy had to go bed, so we filled it watching more T.V and engaging in one of our girly chats. This time I learned that Amy really enjoyed soccer of all sports, and was hoping that soon she’d get picked for the girl’s team at school, though as usual I was very frustrated to hear that the girls team got almost no facilities compared with the boys. Nevertheless she was quite excited by the prospect of me coming to see her play if she got picked, and of course I said I would. Hell, it would be worth seeing just because I wouldn’t believe it otherwise! Amy then proceeded to do something that was becoming a usual occurrence; shock me just as I thought I had her figured out. Despite being engrossed in a conversation, right in the middle of a sentence even, she excused herself to go to the bathroom. I couldn’t help but chuckle to myself as I watched her waddle off, diaper crinkling all the way. This was the girl who would keep her wet night diaper on just so that she didn’t have to use the bathroom in the morning, going to the toilet when she had a perfectly usable diaper on. Of course, it was most likely that she was going to… you know, and she was gone for quite a while, but still it made me have to think twice when she said it.

[Pink]

Chapter 8

That night as I went to bed, I couldn’t help but stop by Amy’s room for a sneaky peak. She had been asleep for a while, so I wasn’t too worried about disturbing her, I just wanted to kind of check… you know, just make sure that she was o.k and everything. I carefully opened her door just a little, fully expecting it to creak all the way, but instead it swung smoothly allowing me to creep right into Amy’s room. Much to my relief she was sleeping peacefully. To be completely honest I didn’t really know what I was looking for or what to expect, but after the night before I was just glad that things were relatively normal. Suddenly, Amy rolled over making her whole mattress crinkle which in turn made my heart skip a beat; maybe something was wrong? Or maybe I had woken her up by being in her room? I spent the next five minutes frozen stiff, staring into Amy’s expressionless face until I finally accepted that I was just being overly protective and paranoid. In a way I secretly wanted her to be upset again, so that I could play big sister and get the unconditional thanks that always came whenever I did something nice for Amy, but the fact that nothing was wrong was obviously better for her and it would sure make things easier for me the next day. Still, it never hurt to check, and once I was satisfied that I had justified my little intrusion; I completed the journey to my own room and my own bed.

The next morning came around as usual, and my waking up routine was becoming, well, routine. I checked the clock to see what time it was, dragged my lazy self out of bed and to the bathroom before returning to get dressed. Once everything was done and I had sorted myself out to a reasonable standard, I headed downstairs to check on Amy. Sure enough, there she was as regular as clockwork couched in front of the T.V, presumably having already eaten breakfast. Normally I would scoot on over next to her and loaf for a while, maybe engaging in some kind of light conversation, but today was going to be a little bit different; the conversation was likely to be far from light. For a few minutes I kind of half hid-half rested around the doorway, where I was sure Amy hadn’t seen me, and studied her for a while. At least I told myself I was studying Amy, in reality I was more likely preparing myself for the encounter, probably trying to think of what I was going to say. All the while she seemed happy enough sitting there, although to be fair I wasn’t expecting anything else, but more importantly she was still sitting there in her night diaper as she apparently always did. This would make it easier for me to say what I wanted to. When I felt it couldn’t wait any longer, I took a step back then entered the room, announcing a good morning to Amy as though it were the first time I had seen her today. She turned to me with her innocent smile and returned my greeting, then she shuffled up on the sofa a bit; an indication that she wanted me to sit next to her. Of course I obliged.

We followed familiar politeness for a while, with me asking Amy how she had slept, what she was watching, etc, and Amy replying in her excited familiar fashion, still with her eyes fixed on the T.V. As we talked, we naturally gravitated closer to each other in a deliberately subtle way, the way two people do when they want the situation to go a certain way but don’t want to admit it to each other. But as with all such situations, there eventually came a point where neither of us could feign ignorance any longer and Amy half clambered-half got lifted onto my lap. It was an awkward couple of seconds before she had settled down and both of us were happy that this was what we wanted. Amazingly enough, Amy had managed to convincingly keep watching T.V through the whole process, which in a way made it easier for me as I could then look at her without giving the game away. Once I was satisfied that we were both comfy, I chose this moment to pretend I had noticed her diaper for the first time.

“Oh Amy, I think you might be a bit wet hun…” I said, prodding her squishy diaper. She just blushed and nodded a little unenthusiastically.

“Maybe you should go change?” Amy looked disappointed; I knew she didn’t want to get off of my lap already. Still, I made sure I didn’t sound like I was telling her to.

“Um, I will in a bit” she said quietly, clearly testing the situation. Obviously I didn’t want her to go change so I let it slide. A long pause ensued before I felt right to pick up the conversation again.

“Amy, don’t you mind being wet? I mean I know you’re… protected and stuff, but well, you know.” In retrospect that could probably have come out better, but at this stage I am happy to admit that articulation wasn’t and still isn’t my strong suit.

“Um, not really, it’s no big deal.” Amy said matter-of-factly.

“Oh, o.k…” Another pause ensued, this one even longer than the first, partly due to the nature of the conversation but also partly due to an interesting moment happening on T.V. I didn’t want Amy to be too distracted when I said what I was going to say next.

“Amy…” This was it, now or never. I picked my words carefully and said them very thoughtfully, so as soon as I was sure she was paying attention I went for it.

“Do you ever wear diapers more than just at night?” The silence was
excruciating. I wasn’t sure if Amy had heard me right so I decided to clarify a bit further.

“You know, like through the day and stuff? I mean, you don’t seem to mind them at night, and it’s not so different. I was just thinking like, you know, in case you have accidents…”

“Um, nope.” She answered, shortly before looking down at her waist, “Apart from mornings and stuff.” At that point I thought I heard a giggle, but if I did it was very faint. This wasn’t really the answer I was hoping for. It’s actually quite funny that I had put serious preparation into this, but never really considered such an outcome. I was probably hoping to learn that her parents would sometimes put her in them, or something that would give me grounding.

“Oh, o.k…” I said trying to think on my feet, “Um, how come?” It was risky I knew. I mean, you just don’t ask these kinds of questions. However, Amy was neither shocked nor embarrassed; instead she seemed to actually consider my question. The look of a deep thought process on her face was priceless. Finally she answered.

“I dunno, never really thought about it.” And with that, all tension was broken and Amy’s attention returned to an episode of “Friends”. Meanwhile, I was rapidly thinking of what to say next. It was clear from Amy’s answer that her parents had never tried this, or even mentioned it for that matter, which didn’t give me a great deal to work with. Nevertheless, I continued the conversation, barely skipping a beat.

“Would you? I mean, do you think you’d wear a diaper? Like if your mom asked you to or something…”

“I don’t know really…”

“I mean it’s not necessary, and you totally don’t need to, I just thought… you know, with accidents and stuff, it might be helpful… better than nothing, right?”

“I… guess so.” And there it was; now I had something to work with. Although I still felt that Amy didn’t quite understand what I was getting at, which instigated yet another break while I figured out my next move. After a good wait I decided it was time to go straight to the point.

“So um, how about you go change in a minute?”

“Sure, alright.” Amy said happily. Alright? Alright? Wow, she sure took that very well. It was far easier than I had thought. Unless of course…

“And like, put another diaper on this time?” I continued, “Just in case you know, accidents and everything. It’s no big deal.” For the first time thus far I had Amy’s undivided attention. Aha, now she understood, her face said it all. Quick! Say something else! “I mean, if that’s o.k.” I couldn’t tell whether Amy’s look was one of surprise, confusion, a mixture of both or most likely, neither. But she certainly didn’t look upset or angry, if I’d have even recognised Amy being angry, which was a good sign.

“Oh…” She began. I had to stop myself from cringing because this was going to be Amy’s first voiced reaction to my suggestion after I had been babbling on for what seemed like ages. I had no idea how she was going to take it, which made it all the more surprising when she said, “o.k.”

“Cool.” Was the only thing I could think of to say, which ironically probably sounded really un-cool.

Well, I had managed it, but my heart was still pounding as I tried to process what exactly had just taken place, but the more I thought about it the stupider I felt. I had just asked a teenage girl to go back to wearing diapers full time, coincidentally the same girl that was cuddling me at that precise moment wearing a wet diaper, but that was beside the point. And I guess technically I had never specified the full time bit, but I was confident that now the first step had been made it would be no big deal to go the whole leap. Amy just might not have known it yet is all. Despite my many doubts, fears and confusions, there was no denying what was about to happen shortly, which made the wait somewhat more bearable. Kind of like the feeling after you’ve ordered pizza; you don’t care so much about the wait because you know its still coming.

“I better go get dressed” Amy said eventually, peeling herself out of my arms. Not wanting to push the issue too far, I merely nodded in acknowledgment and helped her up. I wanted to subtly remind her of what she had just agreed to, but I was hoping her wet diaper would do that for me. As she toddled off, I was suddenly hit by a wave of guilt. I could probably argue that Amy needed the diapers because of her frequent “accidents”, but then could you justify making any teenage girl wear diapers, regardless of accidents? She was at a difficult age; I certainly didn’t want to make her feel uncomfortable… on the other hand, the accidents were a bit of a hassle, and she didn’t seem too bothered about it… Deal done. At the time this was perfect justification to me. What can I say? I’m pretty selfish! And I was looking forward to having no accidents to clean up. I was just a little bit surprised that Rebecca’s parents hadn’t done something about it sooner; I mean they must have been cleaning up all the time. It didn’t make much sense that they just left Amy to it, although there was the whole diapers in the morning thing, which will have offered some respite for them at least.

I found myself just sitting in the living room, waiting for Amy to return. In truth I had nothing better to do, although it was obvious that my main reason was so that I could make sure everything was o.k with Amy. It was always possible that she was secretly upset about having to wear a diaper, so I resolved to comfort her as soon as she came back, which wasn’t long after. But far from being upset and embarrassed as I feared, Amy returned in her usual good spirits wearing her everyday clothes as though nothing was different. I was a little suspicious, but true to my conviction I beckoned Amy over to me and gave her a big hug, which she reciprocated unquestioningly. As good an opportunity as any.

“Hey cutie, you got your diaper on?”

“Uh-huh.” Amy nodded as I took it upon myself to check the back of her pants mid-hug.

“Good girl!” In retrospect my actions appear rather rude, though Amy didn’t seem to mind. Even so, I was ever the worrier and so naturally provided further clarification.

“Don’t forget these are just in case, o.k? You can still use the bathroom anytime; you just don’t need to worry about having accidents is all.” I smiled down at her to show that I meant it, though I was pretty certain she would have probably figured all that already. I mean, just because I asked her to wear a diaper didn’t mean I expected her to use it. She was still an independent girl growing up, and so would naturally want to be responsible for acting that way.

[Pink]

Chapter 9

Work, work, work. I had only been doing it for thirty minutes but it was already seriously grating on me. It was way easier to do it late at night when Amy was in bed and there was nothing better to do; trying to concentrate in the middle of what would have otherwise been a free day would prove to be desperately counter productive. Of course, it could have been because Amy had been pestering me to play with her non-stop for the whole thirty minutes, but I’m not all about making excuses…

“Alright” I said utterly giving in, “what would you like to do?”

“Um, I dunno, what do you wanna do?” Typical, I thought sighing to myself. Of course I could just reply “work”, but that would be cruel and more to the point, untrue.

“Well, do you want to go somewhere maybe? Or just hang out here?”

“Cant be bothered going anywhere…” She giggled.

“Right, well that makes things easier. How about a game?”

“Nah, don’t feel like it.”

“O.k, not even a video game?”

“You’ll just beat me loads again!”

“I could find you some chores to do…”

“Nooo!” She squealed, gripping me tight and nuzzling herself into my shoulder. I was beginning to feel like this would go on forever. I couldn’t fathom exactly what Amy wanted from me.

“Why don’t I just put the T.V on until we can think of something?” Amy just nodded as I flicked the remote. T.V is always a great last resort for any situation involving kids, who despite often not being able to keep still, somehow have a natural affinity with remaining motionless when watching anything on a screen. Amy was no exception, and I predicted that instead of coming up with something better to do we would just stay watching show after show for several hours. Which is exactly what happened. Not that the viewing was particularly bad, in fact some of it was pretty entertaining, its just that I’ve never once felt fulfilled after spending all day in front of the box, quite the opposite in fact; I always get a sense that I’ve wasted my time. The time wasting would probably have kept on for even longer still, if Amy hadn’t have interrupted.

“Hey Mio?” she piped up, breaking hours of silence.

“Uh-huh?”

“Um, can we eat soon? I’m pretty hungry.” Being fully capable of cooking for herself, this was Amy’s own cute/lazy way of saying that she wanted me to make dinner. I wanted to resist, but since it was technically my job and also a long time since lunch, I had to concede.

“Sure thing hun, in fact I can go fix us something right now if you like?”

“Yes please!” Amy said decisively, adding a further “I’ll help!” as soon as I got up to leave.

Making dinner wasn’t too much of a chore, I’d even say I enjoyed doing it, but the fact that Amy was helping me only reminded me of what happened the last time, which in turn reminded me of what she was wearing. I didn’t want to embarrass the poor girl, but at the same time I was a little curious and quite concerned about the condition of her garment. After all, I presumed she wasn’t used to wearing diapers through the day and so might not know what to do if the worst happened.

“Hey Amy?” I said, trying to open the dialogue with a questioning tone. Amy stopped what she was doing and smiled at me. “You’ll be o.k if you need a new diaper, right?” Amy shrugged at me, so I wasn’t sure she understood.

“Um… When, I mean if, you have an accident.”

“Ohhhh, right.” Amy said, suddenly getting my point.

“Uh-huh, so you’ll be able to…” Amy cut me off before I could finish.

“I think I had an accident.” She said, apparently content that some prior confusion was now cleared up. I had to admit that I was a little taken back; I certainly wasn’t expecting that declaration. Already? I thought to myself, but I didn’t want to say it out loud in case it hurt Amy’s feelings.

“Already?” I said out loud. The relationship between my head and my mouth was never one of mutual benefit. “I mean it’s o.k if you have, but are sure?”

“I… don’t know.” Amy replied rather nervously, subtly cupping the bulge of her diaper. I noticed her actions and felt she didn’t need to worry about it so much, so I intervened.

“It’s alright Amy, we’ll check for sure o.k?” Amy nodded and stopped trying unsuccessfully to check her own diaper, while I brought myself down to her level to get a better look. Sliding down her pants, it was quite clear that Amy was wet.

“Was it only one accident?” I asked innocently, hoping for an honest answer. In truth her diaper was soaking wet, front to back; there was definitely more than one accident’s worth in there.

“I… don’t know” Amy repeated, in exactly the same way as before.

“Have you used the bathroom at all today?” Amy shook her head.

“It doesn’t matter kiddo, but I think you need to change.” Now at this stage I wasn’t sure if Amy was expecting to be allowed out of diapers, just as if it were her morning diaper, or if she would put another one on, which was my intention to begin with. Just to be sure, I felt that telling her to go change wouldn’t be clarification enough, so instead I tried to make my intentions obvious.

“How about you go get another diaper on and I’ll finish up here?” As it turned out, what Amy was expecting was beyond even what I had envisaged, which became evident from her reaction.

“Huh? You mean I gotta change myself?”

“Well, yeah… um, is something wrong? Don’t you want to wear another one?” Obviously I hadn’t twigged onto the nature of her response.

“It’s not that, it’s just that I don’t really like changing, and you did ask me to wear it…”

“Awww, it’s not such a bad thing Amy.” I said, still oblivious. “It won’t take long, and it’s got to be easier than cleaning up after you had an accident right?” Amy nodded.

“I guess so.”

“Uh-huh, and you wont have to change again if you don’t have any more accidents.”

“Um, but what if I do…” She said rather ominously. I got the impression that the “what if” part was Amy being over-polite.

“Well then you might have to change again…” I replied, now feeling rather suspicious.

“oh, o.k.” And with that, Amy pulled up her pants and skipped off, presumably in the direction of her room where she kept her diapers.

I was a tad concerned about Amy’s sudden bathroom habits, or lack of them. It was true that her accidents had become slightly more frequent over the last few days, but she still used the bathroom most of the time and had never had more than one accident in quick succession. So far, since I had asked her to start wearing diapers she hadn’t used the bathroom once and as far as I could tell, hadn’t even made an effort. And then it struck me. Amy had said she didn’t like changing, as though it were a huge effort, and going to the bathroom with a diaper on would basically mean changing. Given her little control problems, and the fact that her diapers were the all-in-one full mat kind, it may have been difficult for her to use the bathroom. Relatively anyway; in reality it surely couldn’t make that much difference, but who knows? It was a possibility, and one easily remedied.

After dinner, while Amy was washing up (she offered!) I decided it was a good time to help Amy out with her problem. Very simply, it was a sooner rather than later scenario. I figured that Amy would be fine in the house for a few minutes, so I let her know I was just popping out and jumped into my car. Having been friends with Rebecca for such a long time, I knew this area like the back of my hand; I just hoped that the convenience store was still open because even when we were kids it was decidedly run down. Driving up to where it used to be, sure enough it was still there in all of its dilapidated glory. I always remember it being not too bad inside, but the store itself changed hands fairly regularly so it was unlikely that I would recognise the person behind the counter. Probably for the best really. Upon entering the store I quickly confirmed my lack of acquaintance with the assistant, then proceeded to delve deep into previously unexplored isles searching for my goal. As I had suspected, it was clear that Amy’s parents didn’t get her diapers from here. There wasn’t a great deal of choice, and by that I mean there were two options available to me: the largest child size or the one adult size that they stocked. True to form I had not thought this through, because I had no idea what kind of size would fit Amy and had not thought to bring one of her diapers or even her underwear as a reference point. I could still make an educated decision though, as the one adult size were clearly for an average adult and so would have drowned Amy. The largest child size may well have been too small, but the picture on the packaging showed quite an old toddler, and so they were clearly my best bet. As a second thought they were also a hell of a lot cheaper, so if this was the wrong decision it wouldn’t be as bad. Grabbing one bag for starters, my will power utterly failed and I proceeded to do what I had always done for so many years… I marched right over to the candy section. I think it’s a universal rule that you cannot enter a convenience store without browsing the colourful array of sweets in jars, which as a child you covet greatly because you cannot afford them or know you will not be allowed them. At my age I revelled at the prospect that I could buy any of them that I wanted, perhaps solely making up for years of desire and torment, so when the cashier asked: “will that be all?” I didn’t hesitate before pointing out almost the same value in candy, which was promptly bagged up for me along with my genuine purchase. Anyhow, the candy was mostly for Amy, I lied to myself.

I hadn’t even stepped through the door before I’d had my hands on the candy, and even then it was only because I had foolishly thrown the grocery bag on the back seat of the car so that I couldn’t reach the sweet temptation whilst I was driving. Amy was also upon my within moments of entering the house, forcing me to share my plunder.

“Hey Amy, guess what I got from the store!” I said, holding my hand out.

“Oh yummy!” She said to the candy, snatching some with a gasp.

“Don’t eat too much before bed, it’ll give you nightmares.” Of course I knew that this was simply a lie you told to children so that they wouldn’t become hyperactive on sugar when you wanted them to sleep. I also knew from experience that my warning was futile, but felt it my duty all the same.

“How come you went all the way to the store just for candy? My mom keeps some in the top cupboard in the kitchen.”

“I know, but I needed a few other things too so I just thought I’d get some more while I was there, as a kind of surprise.” This seemed to fully satisfy Amy, who promptly returned to the living room with her plunder. She didn’t show an interest in the remaining items in my bag, which was probably for the best because I wanted those to be a surprise for her too.

[Pink]

Chapter 10

“You still dry Amy?” I asked casually, once the candy guzzling had stopped. In truth it was I who had munched my way through the majority, whilst Amy had eaten surprisingly little before she decided she’d had enough. She must have been still full from dinner, I thought, because there was no way that this little girl had more sugar will power than me…

“Uh-huh” she announced, grinning through candy-colour stained lips. That was good enough for me; her surprise could wait until the morning as it was already getting close to Amy’s bedtime/ Mio’s private study time. I wondered how long a diaper would last without any kind of “occupant” to justify its need, because I didn’t want Amy wearing the same one to bed if it was just going to fall apart or something. I assumed that they would at least last a little while, and though I doubted that Amy knew any better than I did, it was her decision all the same since she would be the one wearing it. I also highly doubted that she would want to change if she didn’t have to, given her previously stated aversion to it. In the end I would never know, since she disappeared off to her room without as much as a hint.

The next morning I fully intended to wake up before Amy, so that I might catch her before she changed. I presumed that even if she was wet, she wouldn’t change right away and would likely come downstairs for a little while first, even if it was just to eat breakfast. I mean, who would want to change their own diaper first thing on a morning? Not knowing the exact hour that Amy would awaken, I set my alarm for the overly cautious time of seven A.M, just to be on the safe side. Of course, that little extra foresight meant I could always snooze until seven fifteen and still be within a comfort zone, or maybe seven thirty, or even eight, eight fifteen…

O.k so I didn’t exactly stick to the plan per say, but there was still a good chance that I was up before Amy was. Forcing myself out of bed in a rush to get ready, I was out of my door and down the stairs just before nine A.M. Not bad going I thought to myself, maybe this nine to five lark that everyone complains about wasn’t such a hard life after all? In retrospect it is pretty unsurprising that I failed so miserably, evident by the fact that when I walked into the kitchen for the first time that day there were the tell tale signs of Amy’s breakfast already lingering. Sure enough, as I entered the living room there was Amy, regular as clock-work, glued to the T.V watching morning cartoons. My defeat was further emphasised by Amy’s underwear, or the presence of it to be precise. Not that she didn’t have a right to wear it after changing out of her night diaper, but, well, in my eyes she had almost wavered that right, and I had hoped that she would at least humour me for a bit longer. Still, there was no sense in not trying, and I was already carrying Amy’s surprise, albeit behind my back now.

“Morning Amy” I asked, still needing time to think of what I was going to say.

“Heya… watcha got there?” She asked, completely stripping me of that luxury.

“Oh nothing,” I lied “So did you sleep o.k?”

“Tell me, tell me!” Amy replied, suddenly excited. Evidently I am a poor liar.

“Um, well I thought that since you didn’t like to, you know… with your diapers.” At that point Amy’s face noticeably dropped. I felt awful for building her excitement then killing it.

“Now I know you’ve got your panties on now and stuff, but yesterday, um, you know…” I noticed that her face was starting to glow a little red, probably because my mincing of words was only making things worse. She had clearly been expecting something nice and so her guard was down.

“…and with accidents and um, I was thinking, you know, just to help you a bit more…” It was like taking candy from a baby, in the worst possible sense! It was time to end the charade and get straight to the point, so I fumblingly brought the package from behind my back and presented it to Amy.

“Maybe you could wear these? Just to see how you go?” There was a deadly pause while I desperately tried not to cringe.

“Oh, o.k!” Amy chirped. After all this time I should have known better than to expect anything less from the tiny teen.

Awkwardly, I handed the bag to Amy, who in turn just held it awkwardly. I got the impression that she didn’t quite know what to do with it so I took it back momentarily before handing it to her once more, this time opened. As usual, my brain and mouth were having a competition to see who could ruin the situation the most.

“Yeah, so now if you need the bathroom you can just go like you normally would without having to mess around with…” Fortunately for my brain and my mouth Amy wasn’t listening. She was intently studying the package with a look of innocent curiosity. Slowly, she reached for the opening and pulled out one of its contents. I could have died. How did I not see this when I bought them? Amy and I both studied the cute but completely inappropriate designs of flowers, balloons and teddy bears which couldn’t have been more childish. I suddenly felt like a monster, who would put a teenage girl through this? I serious considered taking them back and declaring it all a big joke, but then I noticed. Amy didn’t seem all that bothered. She certainly wasn’t as embarrassed as I was, and after getting to grips with the unfolding of the garment, she proceeded to put it on right there.

“See, you can pull them up and down like panties, and it doesn’t matter if you have a little accident.” I added, feeling the need to restart the contest. Once again I was glad that Amy wasn’t listening to my idiotic comments; she obviously knew what a pull-up was, and after a few moments of making sure hers were snug (complete with twisting, turning, and the classic over-the-shoulder look at the back), Amy simply sat back down to finish watching her cartoon.

As I sat watching Amy’s rather wearisome choice of television channels, time was elapsing at the usual alarming rate until I half expected Amy to start announcing that she was hungry, which in turn made me wonder why she hadn’t got dressed yet. Then I realised what time it was. It’s funny how a simple act such as getting up early for once can skew your whole concept of time, making you feel like you’re in the wrong part of the day. I myself was starving, but my now befuddled brain was telling me it wanted something heartier than a bowl of cereal or piece of toast, probably because I had convinced it to think about lunch time. As I raided the kitchen for something at least slightly still breakfast orientated, my urge swelled until I just couldn’t bring myself to accept cereal as a substitute; I wanted bacon! Sadly, I knew that there wouldn’t be any in the house, or sausage for that matter, which left me at a loss as to what to do next. If only I had more will power, but even now if I want something, there’s little I can tell myself to make me stop wanting it. I could always have nipped out to get some from the shops, but after yesterdays excursion I thought it would be unfair to leave Amy in the house alone again. In my mind I was rapidly suggesting and dismissing idea’s in order to find a solution, until I stumbled across a brilliant plan.

“Hey Amy, how about we go to the park for a bit? It’s a nice day out.”

“Yay!” Amy agreed, leaping out of her seat. Perfect! The park had a fabulous café that sold all kinds of hot breakfast delights; I would be spoiled for choice!

“Hehe, I knew that’d make you happy. How about you go get dressed and I’ll check the weather forecast?”
As Amy stood up to leave, I couldn’t help but think that something wasn’t quite right. Yes, there was definitely something niggling at me that I just couldn’t put my finger on.

“Just hold on one second Amy before you go…” I said, stalling for time. But it was just as Amy turned to face me that it suddenly hit home. The embarrassingly childish prints on the front of Amy’s pull-up that had made me cringe so uncomfortably were almost gone. It would be fair to say that at this time my knowledge of children’s undergarments was limited, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out what could make a fun design fade… It would also be fair to say that Amy could read my face like a book, because before I could inquire any further Amy piped up.

“Im sorry Mio, it was -”

“- An accident? I know, I know hun. Don’t worry about it.” I said trying to reassure her. It worked, because the sniffling soon stopped once Amy realised I wasn’t mad, which I gathered was the only thing that would bother her. The bag of pull-ups was still by the sofa where she had left them, so I quickly grabbed one and held it out for Amy, which she held on to while I took off her wet one.

“See, it’s not such a big deal, right? Just pull the old one off and put on a new one.” I smiled as she followed the second part of my instructions.

“You just have to remember to change if you have an accident, o.k? That’s the only thing with pull-ups Amy, they won’t last very long if you don’t…” I struggled to find the right phrase, “…pay attention.”
Amy nodded before toddling off to her room. It was just one accident, I thought, she’s probably still getting used to how pull ups work; she probably wont have any more accidents know she knows how easy it is.

So far, pull-ups were turning out to be a great compromise. Amy would have fewer accidents (at least in theory) but still be protected in case she did. I also felt less guilty about making Amy wear them, which was good for my own peace of mind, and I was sure Amy would be happier because pull-ups would probably not show up at all under her clothes. Unlike the diapers, which I only discovered after I put her in them, made her pants bulge and would probably peak out if she wore a skirt. Yep, I was onto a winner, which made me wonder: why hadn’t her parents thought of it before?

The park was not a particularly long way from Rebecca’s house, maybe a fifteen minute walk if we took a short cut through the estate. Amy had opted to wear what I could only presume were her “playing clothes”, which consisted of a rather fashionable shirt accompanied by quite stylish overalls. I got the impression that Amy could be quite the guru when she wanted to be, and rightly so as far as I was concerned; she was at that age when being in fashion was desperately important to a teenage girl, which I remember quite fondly from my own youth. For me it had been all about seeing what your friends were wearing then trying new and quirky ways to vary it. Like most girls I eventually settled on my own kind of “style” as my teens wore on, to the point where I could now almost not be bothered to make a conscious effort to impress my friends, knowing that whatever I wore would suit me just fine. I wondered how fashionable Amy’s peers would think she was if they knew what she was wearing underneath her clothes. Not worth thinking about really. I guessed that Amy might feel a little embarrassed, though I was starting to suspect that Amy thought I was the coolest person in the world (at least in her world), and if wearing diapers didn’t bother her now, she might not care what anyone else thought either. More likely, and rather sadly for her, Amy’s naive innocence probably didn’t understand what was wrong with wearing protection. I just hoped she would never have a chance to find out. At least, as I predicted, the pull-ups didn’t show under her overalls, which was most of the battle I guess.