Black Friday Part 2

Miriam said it so normally – so much like a one mother talking to another as though they both understood how boys can be when they have a spanking coming – that for the briefest of moments Sadie thought she must be the weird one for thinking her stepmother-in-law had said something utterly ridiculous. She didn’t know what to say; she didn’t know where to even start.

Miriam filled the silence with an almost cheerful nostalgia. “That boy of mine,” she said wistfully and sighed. “Always tries to put it off.”

“Buh … Wuh … You … You can’t be serious.” The shock worn off; Sadie was becoming outraged. “He’s a grown man; you can’t spank him. It’s not even his fault. Did you do this to him growing up?” It was brutal, abusive. She had mind to kick her stepmother-in-law out of her own stepson’s childhood bedroom, pack their bags, and take him home. The poor thing.

Miriam’s bemused grin very nearly made Sadie lose her temper. “He never told you, did he? I told him he should, but you can’t tell him anything sometimes. Sit for a second, and I’ll explain. First off, absolutely I did not spank him for his accidents growing up.”

That was a relief for Sadie, but it begged the question, for what then was she going to spank him now? And what even made her think she could?

“Then what …”

“It was Reilly’s idea.” As if that made any sense at all. Sadie’s confusion was plain. “Reilly wasn’t always a wetter. Did you know that?”

“He told me he’d wet the bed since childhood.” The conversation was unreal; listening to her mother-in-law, Sadie couldn’t imagine a scenario in which any of this made sense.

“He did, but he stopped for a while. He was dry for almost four years and then started again. He hid it at first, and then for a while we all pretended like we didn’t know. I get why he did; that age is awkward enough without still being a bed wetter.

“We offered to take him to the doctor without saying the quiet part out loud; ya know, ‘we’ll take you the doctor for whatever it is you might want to talk to him about.’ The doctor couldn’t find anything causing it. If Reilly didn’t want to discuss it with us, we decided that was fine. He was doing his own washing. He did come home from school one day to find a brand-new mattress with a brand-new rubber sheet on it, and we didn’t say anything and neither did he.

“Eventually, I had to say something, of course. He didn’t dry up the first time until he was eleven, so it wasn’t something we weren’t prepared for, but we knew it could be something more than just a relapse since he’d been dry for so long. I asked him if everything was okay, and he said yes. I asked him if he wanted to talk to his father about it – ya know, thinking he might be more comfortable talking to someone with the same parts – but he absolutely did not want to. I guess some things, no matter how old they get, boys will only talk to their moms about.”

Sadie sat and listened, still not able to anticipate where this was going and what any of it had to do with her husband being spanked by his stepmother.

“He put himself back in diapers,” Miriam explained.

“Really?”

“Well, pull-ups. To me they’re the same, except one works better than the other. But to Reilly, they are absolutely positively different. Diapers are for babies; pull-ups are for big kids. I told him that was just clever marketing, but you try changing a boy’s mind at that age.”

“He didn’t wear diapers when we started dating. I had to kinda pressure him to give them a try.”

“He’s always hated them. He was spending his allowance on pull-ups that leak half the time anyway, and he was outgrowing them. He was too embarrassed to buy the adult ones on his own; he kept buying Goodnites. I offered to buy them for him, except only if they were diapers, and he said he’d rather keep spending his money on pull-ups. He’s a sweet but stubborn one.”

The door opened, and in walked Reilly. He turned pale seeing his stepmother sitting on his bed holding a diaper and the spanking brush. Waking up wet, this was exactly what he’d feared, why he’d been in no hurry to get out of bed, why he’d been so tongue tied, the reason he’d been so embarrassed – more nervous than embarrassed, really – about something that was not quite a daily routine but was pretty close. There was no reason to be embarrassed about waking up wet, but a good reason to be nervous about what the morning would bring.

“Morning, Reilly,” his stepmother said warmly. “How was your shower? Bet if felt good after sleeping in a cold, wet bed.”

Sadie watched her husband try to formulate a response. Surely he’d tell his stepmother she could just leave, that whatever she thought was going to happen with that diaper and brush was not going to be happening. She would’ve stepped in herself, but she was too thrown to know when or how to.

“Y-yeah. Good morning. Listen, um, I don’t … Maybe …”

“O, nonsense. You know the rules.” Turning her attention back to Sadie, Miriam informed her, “I tried to get him to tell you all about this early on, but he wouldn’t. I was never going to tell you, and I probably would’ve just forgotten about the whole thing, but a certain boy I know decided not to wear his diaper last night.”

“H-how do you know I didn’t,” Reilly asked. “What if it just leaked?”

“I saw two pairs of pajamas in the washer; seemed like bit much for a leak. But if I’m wrong, show me a wet diaper.” Reilly looked at the floor in response. “Moms know these things, sweetie, as much as you wish we didn’t sometimes.”

“I’m too old for this.”

“That’s not how it works, and you know that. Just because Sadie is here makes no difference. Everyone else under this roof already knows how this works; besides, it might be best for her to know too.” She stood up, crossing the small room in a few steps and turning her adult soon to face the corner, giving him a light slap on his bottom through his robe. “Stand in timeout until I’m ready, like always.”

Sadie wanted to interject, put a stop to whatever this was, but she didn’t want to be overbearing. Reilly was perfectly capable of doing that if he wanted to, and he could’ve asked Sadie for backup but didn’t. His verbal protest was feeble and resigned. Sadie didn’t want to get between her husband and his stepmom unless he gave her some definite signal he needed or wanted her to.

“Anyway,” Miriam said as she sat back down on the bed next to Sadie, “the summer before his senior year, Reilly wrote me a letter and left it on my dresser. It was right after his eighteenth birthday. I still have it, actually. I tucked it away in his scrap album; I keep one for all my kiddos. It said he wanted to talk to me about something private.

“I had an inkling the subject was his wetting, which wasn’t very private by that time in our house. Not dinner table conversation, but you can’t hide an 18-year-old’s bedwetting from everyone in the house forever. It was just one of those things everyone in the house knew, not a big deal at all. No teasing; just a little fact.

“I took Reilly – where did we go? – o! To Delaney’s pub so we could talk where his father and siblings couldn’t hear. He’s taken you there, right? Anyway, it was just me and him. He ordered his favorite, a cheeseburger. I let him have a chocolate shake too. Such a rich meal, but I figured a little comfort food might help, and besides, might as well take advantage of that 18-year-old metabolism while ya can, right?

“Poor dear was just so embarrassed; no wonder he wrote me that little note instead of just telling. Goodness, did I have to drag it out of him, what he wanted to tell me. It took a lot of coaxing, but he finally told me wanted to try punishment to help his bedwetting.”

Sadie’s eyebrows arched in surprise. That was the linchpin of the story she couldn’t put together in her head, tying the morning’s weirdness together (and it wasn’t even 7:45 yet). She wasn’t creative enough for her imagination to generate such an absurd idea, and if it had, she’d have dismissed it immediately.

“That’s the face I made,” Mom chuckled. “My Rei-Rei was so embarrassed I couldn’t even hear him he was talking so quietly. I moved to his side of the booth so I could hear him.

“He told me he was terrified of still being a bedwetter when he went away for college the next year. I would’ve been too. We planned on telling the college housing department and getting him a single room, but that wouldn’t help with the other social aspects. He was desperate to be dry by next summer, and that’s how he came up with the idea of being punished.

“We tried everything else, he said. Restricting fluids, which doctors can’t even agree is a good or bad thing; no caffeine or other diuretics; alarms; the nasal spray; pills. I think in a way it made his dad a little proud, how impervious his boy’s wetting was; not seriously, but as a little joke, ya know.

“Punishment has always been a last resort in our house. We believe in discipline and natural consequences, and I think we only ever had to truly punish them as teens a handful of times. Taking privileges away, grounding, that sort of thing. I didn’t see how punishment could possibly help his bedwetting.

“I mean, I got his theory. He’d associate wetting with something unpleasant and it would help train his body and mind to work together and wake up when he had to pee. That’s not punishment so much as conditioning, but we couldn’t very well ground him every time he wet or take something away. He’d be restricted to an empty room for months!”

She chuckled. Her tone and her eyes hadn’t betrayed any disappointment, much less anger, since she’d knocked on the door. She seemed nostalgic, a low-key happiness that conveyed how much she loved being a mom and having her babies under one roof, the same happiness that practically emanated from her Wednesday night when they were all together in the kitchen baking pies. She’d worn a treasured apron the kids had made for her one Christmas, puff-paint lettering spelling out ‘World’s Best Mom,’ and she wore it as though she’d been awarded it by a council of experts who looked the whole world over and declared she loved her kids, and her kids loved her, more than any mom anywhere in the world. Glancing from her mother-in-law to her husband fidgeting in his timeout corner, Miriam’s demeanor had a disarming effect.

“I told him so, and goodness did he blush so red. I think he thought I’d just know what he meant, but the thought of spanking him never even entered my mind. The closest he’d ever come to a spanking was just a tap on his toddler butt when he tried to put a penny in a light socket. We just didn’t spank in our house. And he was eighteen! Whoever heard of spanking an 18-year-old? Well, Reilly had because a boy in his class still got spanked, Sam Morris. However his secret got out, the poor boy’s classmates found out. Wouldn’t that be terribly embarrassing?

“Reilly told me this Sam had always been a troublemaker, constantly getting in trouble at school. His mom had gotten so desperate, she decided to go back to spanking his bottom when he misbehaved. Whuddaya know? Suddenly he was the most well-mannered boy at school, like someone flipped a switch.

“I didn’t see that as being the same; it’s not like my Reilly was wetting the bed on purpose, but he was so desperate, I decided to at least talk about it.

“When did he think he should get spanked? Every time he wet, he said.

“How should he get spanked? I assumed he meant bending over for some swats with a paddle. His school still paddled, not that we ever signed the permission form. This boy Sam, Reilly said, got spanked. Not paddled, but actually spanked, over his mom’s knee like a little boy.

“I assumed over his underpants, but Reilly told me no. Imagine, eighteen and bare bottomed over his mommy’s lap to be spanked for making poor choices.

“I asked if Reilly was really okay with his private parts being seen, and – this threw me for even more of a loop – he told me being embarrassed was part of the punishment. I hope I had a good poker face!

“Embarrassed, like on purpose, I asked? Mhmm, exactly, by being treated like a little boy, because only little boys wet the bed and only little boys get turned over their mother’s knee.

“That’s not true, I told him. Obviously, not only little boys wet the bed. It had nothing to do with how old he was. And he’d never been spanked as a little boy. Never.”

Sadie looked at her husband. The backs of his ears were crimson, and his hands were balled up as though he was cringing with his entire body.

“He told me he knew that, obviously, and that was the point. This was the one thing we had never tried, and that it was all new would make it even more embarrassing, and that plus a red bottom every wet morning might finally be the ticket.

“I still thought it was silly, but he had a point. We’d never tried it. Punishment is terrible for bed wetting, downright wrong, but maybe it would be different as a strategy. We weren’t mad at him; he knew he had nothing to be ashamed of. So it really wasn’t a punishment, just conditioning. He piqued my curiosity.

“How many spanks? Until he cried, he said. Starting off every morning with a wet pull-up and tears, really? That was the point, he said.

“What else, I asked. He told me, ‘Having to wear my wet pull-up to breakfast … Having to call you Mommy.’ As far as I’m concerned, it’s ‘getting to call me Mommy’ and he could call me that whenever he wants, but boys are so silly about never calling their stepmoms that after a certain age. Let’s see, what else?

“Being treated like a little boy on weekends. Ashley and Julia being in charge if his Dad and I weren’t home. Being talked to like a little boy during his punishments. Getting little boy consequences like the timeout he’s in right now. None of that seemed too harsh since he was asking for it. I warmed to the idea a little bit. It gave me an idea.

“I never liked those pull-ups. They almost always leaked, and they were too expensive. I said what if he wore diapers from then on. He said – little fibber – that he didn’t see how that would help. I told him part of being treated like a little kid is he wouldn’t get to make those kinds of choices for himself anymore, and that if I said he’d wear a diaper, he’d wear a diaper or get a consequence.

“He blushed so red, it was cute. I could see the wheels turning in his head and kept quiet. Then he whispered, ‘Okay … Mommy.’ O, how long since he’d called me that. My heart just melted.”

Despite herself, Sadie smiled. It sounded so sweet, which was exactly like him. It reminded her of the night he finally agreed to wear a diaper to bed, the soft ‘okay’ that passed his lips.

“I decided I’d talk to his father about it. Of course, my little man didn’t want to be there for that. Boys and their fathers. And I thought of how we’d need to do it for it to work. I told him if we do this, you agree from the start that we keep doing it as long as his father and I think it’s helping. It couldn’t work if he quit as soon as he didn’t like the consequence he was getting. I thought that would be a deal breaker, but he agreed.

“I told him we could change rules or make new ones, and he had to follow them. He agreed to that too, which surprised me. He was desperate to dry up by college. I wanted that for him too, and I also saw some upsides.

“No more pull-ups meant no more wet sheets to wash and hopefully less of that peepee smell in his room. But no more underpants for long car rides either. Every vacation, if not the drive down, then the drive home or both he’d fall asleep and wet. He sat on a pad, but wet clothes and the embarrassment of having to get out of the van like that. Nope; he’d start using his pull-ups for that. Any ride two hours or longer.

“I didn’t know at the time the diaper part would turn into a power struggle,” she said, waving the diaper she’d pulled from the closet. “I thought it was very mature of him to approach me about this – weird, but mature, and brave too. I assumed if I made a rule that he had to wear diapers to be, he’d wear them. Turns out diapers are the one thing he can’t be a big boy about.

“He said he would wear them, but in the morning he’d be in a wet pull-up. Four days of that, each one with wet sheets, and we had our first rule change: if I found him in a wet pull-up in the morning, I’d be diapering him myself from them on, and he’d wear a diaper all the next day.

“It had been a long time since he’d thrown a tantrum, but he did. I’d just finished giving him his morning spanking; he was still over my knee sniffling, and he argued with me, then talked back when I put my foot down, and then just had a full-on toddler tantrum right over my knee. Rule change number 2: if he wanted to be treated like a little boy, then he’d get spanked for any reason I thought he needed one, and he got his first ever real punishment spanking right then. Five spanks later, and he agreed to be a good boy and stop his tantrum.”

Sadie detested corporal punishment, but in the unique circumstances Miriam was describing, it made sense and didn’t seem immoral. She imagined herself in her mother-in-law’s shoes and could see herself doing the same thing if Reilly was over her knee throwing a tantrum. A sniffle from the corner snapped her out of the imagined scene.

“That was a long time ago,” Miriam said, “but we agreed back then it wouldn’t stop just because he wanted it to.”

“Even though it didn’t work,” Sadie asked.

“Hasn’t worked yet, at least not completely, but he has gotten better. He was down to wetting three time a weeks. Once he went away to college, though, with no one to enforce the rules, he relapsed. He even stopped wearing pull-ups, unbeknownst to us until Parents’ Weekend. Boys’ dorm rooms stink, but hoowee! I couldn’t be there every morning, but I was that morning, and he got a spanking from both of us. I like to imagine he wasn’t the only freshman getting his bottom warmed that weekend, but I doubt it. I very nearly took him to the pharmacy to get him some diapers to wear for the day and beyond, but I knew he wouldn’t wear them without me to make sure he did, so I let it go.

“We enforced the rules at home on breaks and during the summer though. He’d be wetting six or seven days a week when he got home and be down to three or four in a week or so. His father and I even discussed making him take a gap year at home to see if we could get it whipped once and forever.”

“So whenever he’s been home since then, he’s been in a diaper at night and gotten spanked if he wet?”

“And put in that diaper by me.”

“The night before our wedding?”

“Diapered, and spanked the morning of.”

Sadie looked at her husband. She didn’t see him differently; well, except perhaps as more of a little boy at heart, but it was that part of him that made him so endearing. She’d never had a partner who enjoyed cuddling, and the ones who indulged her were too alpha to let her be the big spoon. That was just one example.

She stepped over to him in his corner and whispered in his ear. Miriam couldn’t hear. He replied, and she whispered again. Miriam saw him nod. Sadie stepped back, saying, “If you’re sure.” He nodded again. To her mother-in-law, Sadie said, “Daylights a-wasting.” Through the door, she could hear his siblings in the hall and the kitchen.

“That it is,” his stepmom said. Always a warm woman, there was the subtlest transformation in her tone and demeanor to match the shift in her vocabulary as she stood up from the bed, leaving the diaper but taking the hairbrush as she moved to his desk chair.

“Your timeout is over, Rei-Rei. Come to Mommy.”