Tis the Season: Independence Day

This is the 5th entry in my series of holiday themed ABDL stories. Keep an eye out later this month for the Halloween edition.

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It feels good to be at the park on a summer evening, surrounded on all sides by the rich diversity of your community, gathered together to celebrate the birth of your country.

Over there is the group of seniors from Greenville House, the apartment building for seniors your own grandmother, who lived in Greenville her entire life, lived in after your grandfather passed. You recognize some of her old neighbors, little old ladies even older and littler than you remember who were always so appreciative when it snowed and you’d come over after work to clean their cars off.

There’s the high school principal; she was your first-grade teacher so many years ago.

There’s the mayor, beaming at the turnout, proud to see the crowds back after the rough two years gone by. She went to high school with your parents; your dad still mentions how he dated her, and your mom likes to end the story with, ‘One date’ as though she’s still jealous of the competition.

The playground is swarming with so many kids it’s hard to imagine how any of the parents can keep track of theirs. One line snakes away from the snack bar that’s only open on this and a few other days each summer, while another line snakes away from the restrooms on the other side of the building, and people are lined up in shorter queues for the porta-potties.

Your family, for as long as you can remember, stakes out the same spot every year, in the grass right behind the home dugout of the softball field where the fireworks show takes place. And it’s your whole family; Grandma and Grandpa were fruitful and multiplied. Your parents, aunts and uncles, siblings, cousins, cousins’ partners, and a multiplicity of nephews, nieces, and second cousins of all ages. Getting the spot means someone has to get there early to lay blankets on the grass, put up a couple of chairs and remain vigilant in the late afternoon l heat of the summer, and gladly it wasn’t you this year.

You arrive with your partner around 6:45, more than an hour and a half of daylight left and about two hours until the fireworks start, plenty of time to socialize with your extended family. No doubt you’ll bump into a few friends from your schooldays, people you’ve fallen out of touch with for no good reason and wish you saw more of.

Your partner, as usual, is effusive in her greetings and ever popular with the very youngest in your family, hardly able to walk burdened with a chair and your diaper bag as the little ones rush up as soon as they spot the two of you working your way through the crowd. You’re burdened with the cooler and a chair of your own.

It’s been eight months since your partner put you back in diapers, and you’ve made peace with it. In your less churlish moments, you’ll even admit out loud they were right to return you to diapers after years of frustrating accidents that were growing more frequent and more severe. You feel fortunate, even, that your partner was logical and brave and strong enough to make the decision for you and to enforce it.

They were right about the diapers, and they were right that your family and theirs and all your friends would understand and embrace you. They’ve had enough sensory experience of your accidents to know back in diapers is where you need to be.

If anything, some of your family and friends are too comfortable with your return to diapers, so much so that while to you your diapers are a very private matter, to many of those close and closest to you, they’re not. Your partner discusses their decision to return you to diapers openly; the state of your diaper is discussed, and sometimes checked, openly; your mother and mother-in-law and sister will take the initiative to change you if you need changing. Your brother-in-law, with twin one-year-olds and no stranger to changing pampers, even once insisted on changing your oversaturated diaper once when your partner and her mother were busy in the kitchen, while your father-in-law, in good humor, winked and only said that men of his generation didn’t change diapers back in the day and he wouldn’t be starting now (“no offense,” he added). You found yourself laying on the carpet in the spare bedroom of your in-laws’ house getting your pants changed while your brother-in-law’s wife had their twin infants on the changing table for the same, albeit smaller, task.

You don’t get it, the willingness of your family to get directly involved in your diapers - your big, adult diapers, even stinky ones - when they don’t need to be, aren’t even expected to be, and won’t be judged for entirely ignoring what you wear under your clothes. If anything, the very opposite.

But even more strangely is why everyone treats everything to do with your diapers as being no different from any of the infants’ and toddlers’ in the family. As though you are the odd one for being embarrassed about the open discussion of them, not them; as though you were the odd one for blushing the first time your sister walked in on your partner changing you because, apparently, your nudity is no longer taboo. Sure, you can’t have gotten away with nothing in between your shirt and socks even if you want to - and you definitely, definitely do not want to - but your partner can change you on the floor of the room next to the family room at your parents’ house, and no one bats an eye as they walk through, as though there’s nothing out of the ordinary to see anymore than if the person legs up getting their tushy wiped is six months old. Sometimes your partner doesn’t close the door when they’re changing you in a bedroom, and no one bothers to close it for them. Sometimes they even walk in to chat; sometimes they offer to help!

It’s not as though they believe you no longer should have any embarrassment about your incontinence and nudity; it’s that they already believe you no longer have any embarrassment about your incontinence and nudity, because everyone else they know who wears diapers - all under the age of four, which is somehow implicitly overlooked - isn’t embarrassed by those things.

Clearly your family and friends aren’t embarrassed by your diapers (and what you do in them) and your nudity. They seem to see you in that regard as not an adult even as they continue to see you as an adult in every other respect. Well, almost every other respect.

Your partner has disciplined you since early on in your relationship, even turning you over their knee for a good, hard spanking on your bare bottom. Your sister wasn’t surprised on Easter to find your bottom spanked pink when she changed your diaper. She wasn’t alarmed or worried. Instead, she got you into dry pampers and sat you down on the bed to have a heart-to-heart talk about making good choices and how you could always go to her anytime you need a friendly ear, like if you feel your partner is being unfair in punishing you. Not that your sister thought that was likely; she assumed the opposite, that if your partner thinks you need a spanked bottom then you almost certainly do. She won’t try to talk your partner out of it, but she’ll do her best to comfort you before and after you get butt warmed, or anytime you needed to share your feelings on anything or talk over a choice you’re concerned might lead to a consequence.

You’ve taken her up on that offer twice now, each time calling her with a still-burning bottom after your partner has let you out of timeout and you opted to stay in your room to call your sister even after your partner has said you could go back downstairs whenever you were ready. Each time, you sister knew exactly why you were calling, hearing in your voice the recent tears and stuffy nose in the first syllable you get out, and each time she comforted you and listened to your side of the story before gently reiterating the same lesson your partner imparted before and after spanking your bottom, which they sometimes do with a hairbrush.

Your partner always make sure you know why you’re getting a consequence, from a scolding to corner time to having your screen time privileges taken away to extra chores and early bedtimes (once without supper, though they brought up a snack later, oddly as if they were playing the good cop to their own bad cop, like they and you were getting away with a small exception to your punishment).

You can’t help but admit you’ve noticed an improvement in your behavior. Whereas once you were finding yourself across your partner’s lap a couple times a year, it had become as frequent as a couple times a week. Your partner explained they’d let a lot of things go for a long time, but now they were going to help you get rid of all the bad habits you’d accumulated. It still seems unfair when you think about it objectively - you are an adult and shouldn’t be responsible to anyone in that way, even if you implicitly and later explicitly accepted their discipline - so you just try not to think about it. In any case, you’re only getting spanked once once a week at most lately, and you can’t deny your partner has a point.

You ponder that as you sit on the blanket with your family, how oddly normal it has all become, how oddly it feels to feel normal even as you know - or think you know; it’s getting hard to tell what you know and don’t - it shouldn’t feel that way at all. Even the causal way just now that your partner asked, without really asking, you to give up your seat so a cousin who forgot her chair could sit down, leaving you on the blanket just a few feet from all the kiddos and now unable to participate in the adult conversations from where you are. Your partner is having one of those with your cousin; your back hurts from sitting on the ground; it’s a long time until fireworks; and so you say to your partner, “I’m going to go walk around for a while.”

You can’t tell if your partner’s nod was acknowledging what you’d just said or something your cousin said, and you don’t see a reason to interrupt. You stand up, stretch, and walk through the park enjoying all the people and memories, hoping you’ll run into an old friend or acquaintance.

There’s plenty of food and desserts back at the family blanket, and you already had lunch, another lunch, and dinner as you went from barbecue to barbecue, but you decide you want a sno-cone just the same. You can l remember the last time you had a sno-cone. The long line doesn’t dissuade you; you have nowhere to be, and you’re enjoying the atmosphere. It’s been an eventful year, no doubt, but it seems as if things are finally - at last - evening out, feeling l like old times, your incontinence and the idiosyncrasies of your relationships - and above all your relationship with your partner - firmly part of your new normal.

THWAWP!

You feel yourself pushed forward as you hear it the sound.

THWAWP!

Someone has your left arm just above the elbow. Your brain struggles to process it; this can’t be happening.

You turn to look over your shoulder and see your partner rearing back again, their arm straight and stiff at the elbow, palm facing out to deliver - THWAWP! - an underhanded spank to the back of your shorts. It happens so fast you don’t see if others are noticing, but how can they not be. You’re in a long line of people running along the park’s main sidewalk within a large crowd. Dozens must’ve have seen your partner land three spanks on your butt, and now they see your partner pulling out of line like a naughty child, delivering two more swats to propel you forward.

“I was looking all over for you,” your partner says loud enough to be heard over the din of the crowd. Their voice is sharp, irritated. “You know better.”

Except you don’t, because you have no idea what they’re talking about. You can’t even begin to puzzle out their meaning because you’re still trying to grasp the reality of what just happened - your partner took you by the arm and spanked your bottom as they pulled you out of line, right in public - and what’s happening now - just ten feet from that same line, your partner is scolding you loudly enough for others in a small radius to hear clearly despite the noise of the crowd.

Your partner is between you and the line, and you’re not listening. You lean just a little to your left, looking over their shoulder and seeing the part of the line you were just in watching you. Eyebrows are raised;

no one is smirking or laughing, but they’re watching. You’d blush harder, but you’re already blushing as hard as you can. Everything happened so fast, quicker than you can process it, and even as your mind catches up, it’s still as though you’re an observer rather than the main character in your public embarrassment, the adult who just got their butt spanked at Independence Day celebration in the park. The only thing that could make it worse is if anyone recognized the thwawp, the unmistakable sound of a hand meeting a diaper at high speed. Only then do you notice one of your cousins at your partner’s side, Kelly, all of nineteen, looking back at you with her hands on her hips.

Your partner sees you’re not listening and gets your attention the direct way, by putting their hand on your chin and turning your face to their own. “Tell me what I just said,” your partner tells you.

“Uh …” You hadn’t heard a word of it.

Your partner rolls their eyes and sighs. In the calm but firm tone they use when they are, as they say it, disappointed in your choices, they repeat: “I said you can’t wander off like that alone.”

It’s a ridiculous statement. Of course you can. You’re an adult; all around you are kids just a third of your age who are walking around the park alone, playing alone, standing in line at the snack bar alone. What could possibly happen to you, and even if there were a risk, why should you, an adult, not be allowed to take it?

You open your lips to make this argument, and you’re not able even to take a breath before your partner scolds you, “No. No. Do you understand me? You do not wander off from me in public without my permission, especially in a crowd. You know better.”

In fact, you know no such thing. You’re not a toddler. Moreover, you told your partner you were going to take a walk. It seemed a minor detail at the time that you weren’t sure if they nodded to acknowledge you or the person they were talking to. Clearly it wasn’t you, but that still shouldn’t matter. Your partner should be okay with you going off on your own. Nothing about your incontinence or your (alleged) behavior mean you shouldn’t be allowed to leave your partner’s sight, crowd or no crowd.

You’re about to say so when your partner’s eyes soften, and in the tone one uses when trying to make a small child understand how important something is, they tell you,”You scared me. Do you understand? You scared me. I looked away for not even five minutes and you were gone.”

Just then, the music playing over the public address system pauses, and a voice announces, your name: “Please go to the information tent near the tennis court right away. Your family is looking for you.”

Your cousin gets out her phone and sends off a quick text. “I’ll let them know we found them,” she says to your partner, adding for you, “You really had everyone worried. Johnathan, Marty, Skylar, and Aiden went looking for you.”

You felt about two feet tall for the condescending way you’re being treated, and learning that four of your cousins, all under the age of twelve, were sent off to look for you cuts those two feet down to one. You can’t be trusted to take a walk on your own, but four children are trusted to go looking for you.

You look back at your partner. You still want to tell them off for treating you like a toddler, for pulling you out of line, for swatting your bottom, all in public. As upset as you are, you’re likely to raise your voice, and that’s a no-no. Your partner has already proven that they’ll take you to the restroom and spank your bottom for real in public. You were mortified the first time that happened, crying quietly as they led you to the restroom by the wrist and crying loudly when the hairbrush connected with your bare bottom. The second time, you were at least as mortified that you hadn’t learned your lesson the first time as you were by the public nature of it all.

And even if you could respond without yelling, you’re not even sure what you would say. Having to assert your own adulthood, your right to make your own choices, your ability to safely walk through a park you’ve visited a hundred times, the unfairness of being chastised at all, much less physically, in front of others is all embarrassing in itself. The only people who ever have to righteously assert “I’m old enough to …” are almost invariably children, and apparently you now. Your partner’s soft eyes, your cousin’s worried expression, the people in line still watching; with all these feelings you don’t know how to express, your lips tremble, your eyes water, and you just barely hold back a sob.

“Aww,” your partner coos as they pull you into a hug. Your face is pressed in their chest, and they kiss your hair. “You’re okay,” they say. “You’re safe. Everything is alright. You just scared me; I’m not mad.”

They lead you around the back of the snack bar to where the restrooms are, you shuffling your feet as your partner holds your cheek against their body and pats your back. “It’s okay.”

You look up and see you’re in line for the family restroom, your face brushing the strap of the diaper bag slung over your partner’s shoulder. You whisper in your partner’s ear, and they answer back at their normal volume, “No, sweetheart, you’re not getting a spanking. I know you won’t ever wander away from me again.” She kisses your blushing forehead. “But if you do, I absolutely will take you to the nearest private place, take down your pants and diaper, and spank your bare bottom red.

Understood?”

You nod, just so slightly, humiliated to know that at least the woman in front of you with their own child in the stroller heard. She spun around, seemingly ready to give your partner a piece of her mind for physically threatening a child young enough to be in diapers, as she rightly should, but she was brought up short by the sight of you. She looks you over from bottom to top, eyes wide, before turning around. She’s now trying and failing to get a second look at you without making it obvious. You’re wondering if she’s just curious or trying to spot your diaper through your shorts.

It’s a thick diaper, one of the diapers for fetishists that your partner insists she only buys because they’d so well made and absorbent, but she never misses a chance to tell you how cute they are, how cute you are in them, and to try to match holidays to diapers when she can. There’s not a summer celebration or fireworks diaper, so she chose instead a rainbow-colored diaper and filed the diaper bag with other bright and colorful patterns. Why she always takes out all the regular diapers and replaces them with themed ones on holidays, and why she fills it with as many diapers as she can when you can’t possibly need them all in a single outing, you don’t understand.

For that matter, why your partner has a dedicated diaper bag at all instead of a regular backpack. They insist it’s because they’re more functional, with all the pockets and compartments to store everything needed for a diaper change, but that’s not wholly true. The compartments aren’t big enough to hold your diapers; you’re an adult, and the bag is made for parents with infants and toddlers.

The wet compartment for sure can’t handle your used diapers. They go straight into the trash when away from home, except for that time you took a day hike and needed a change at the halfway point. You were almost in tears as your partner changed you in a (hopefully) secluded meadow off the trail. With hardly any room left in the diaper bag, your partner gave you the choice of toting your used diaper back to the car in a ziplock bag or carrying two fresh diapers so the used one would fit in the bag. You wanted so badly to tantrum, as if that would’ve accomplished anything, and chose the used diaper. You thought it would be less obvious what it was, but not very far back up the busy trail, you learned how heavy one of your used diapers really is when carried in your hand for a mile and swapped it for the dry ones, getting the worst of both options for your walk back.

“Could we please get a less obvious diaper bag at least,” you’d asked when it first arrived.

“Of course. See what you can find,” your partner replied. And you did look, and to your disappointment found that none were more discreet than what they’d bought. Sure, it was a backpack-style without any toddlerish designs on it, but to anyone who had a kiddo in diapers anytime in the last decade, with its shape and compartments and pockets, it was without doubt a diaper bag.

The line for the family restroom isn’t long, but it’s definitely not short. Mothers with babies young enough for a socially acceptable diaper change on their blankets or in the grass are doing exactly that to skip the line, and you’re at least grateful - and feel small for being grateful - that your partner at least understands that they can’t do that.

Your cousin is still there, standing at your partner’s side, and your partner pats your bottom pointedly and says to her, “Someone needs a fresh diaper.”

The people in front of you and behind you definitely heard that, and others who care to glance likely wonder why three adults with no children are waiting for the family restroom. A glance at the diaper bag probably tells them why, and that your partner is carrying it while keeping their arm around your shoulder and holding you close likely tells the crowd which of you is wearing the used diaper. You think you see odd looks on faces as people pass you to get in line. Confused, then knowing, then sympathetic. It would be easier if they were disgusted, the sympathy just a reminder that seemingly everyone understands you need diapers, that it’s perfectly natural and right you should wear them. That it’s really for the best. And not all that sympathy is directed at you. Some of it comes in a barely perceptible nod or smile or wink at your partner, and if they’re the one truly deserving sympathy for having to change such big diapers.

And it is a big diaper. Your partner insists the fetish diapers don’t swell up very much when they’re wet, certainly not so much that you shorts acquire an unmistakable diaper bulge. But you’re the one wearing it. You know better. Anyone looking, including you with a glance down or in the mirror, knows it. You assume your partner is trying to spare your feelings, and it’s so sweet of them that you don’t have the heart to tell them you know better.

“Poopy,” your cousin asks. It gives you whiplash as you jerk your head up and look around at who heard. The mom in front of you, or course, and worse somehow, the dad behind you. Your cringe and sniffle. Your partner’s arm tightens around you, and she leans in again to coo into your ear, “It’s okay. You’re safe. I’ll make everything better.”

You assume that means telling your cousin to shut up, or even better, to go back to the blanket. But no. Instead, your partner answers her, “Not this time. Amazing given all the hotdogs and junk food they ate today.” Your partner gives your tummy a little tickle and squeeze with their free hand. “I’ll have quite a stinky project on my hands in the morning, if it doesn’t wake one of us up tonight. But no, just wet for now.”

“How can you tell,” your cousin asks.

“What do you mean?”

“You didn’t check their diaper.”

“As long as I’ve been managing their accidents and now their diapers, I can tell.”

“How,” she asks, genuinely curious.

“By how long it’s been since their last change. I use different diapers for them, and you get a sense of how long they last.”

“So you change them on a schedule.”

“Sort of. I change them when they need changed. I wouldn’t make them sit in a dirty diaper, for their own sake of course but also for mine and their clothes and our furniture, if you know what I mean. Same for if they’re just soaked. But if they’re not and it’s been a few hours, I like to change them just to give their fanny a little air time and some fresh powder and rash cream. We haven’t had a diaper rash in almost three whole months, and we’re keeping it that way, aren’t we?”

“So is it time, or …”

“Not quite time, but they’d definitely would feel better with a dry diapee. I let them have two beers today.”

That your partner ‘allowed’ you to have two beers today is news to you. You just had a beer, then you wanted another one and had it. You didn’t ask permission; you don’t, so far as you know, need to ask permission. But you didn’t know you needed to ask permission to take a walk on your own, and apparently you do, at least according to your partner.

“And,” your partner says in a whisper, “I can tell by the waddle and the outline under their pants.” Your cousin is two feet away from your partner, whereas you are pressed right against them. Somehow your partner thinks you won’t hear or understand what they whispered but your cousin will. It’s just another instance of your partner and others talking about you like you can’t hear or understand what they’re saying. Your partner often accuses you, often right before giving you a consequence for some choice you made (or that they think you made, or didn’t make) of not listening to them. More times than you’d ever admit, you’ve found yourself sniffling and (so embarrassingly) rubbing your pink bottom as your partner reiterates, in the patient tone of a loving parent to their child, “When you start listening, you’re gonna be in trouble a lot less often.”

As small as that makes you feel, it has nothing on the line they fall back on when you try to debate a rule or consequence: “I am talking right now; your are listening. What part do you listen with? Lips closed; ears open.” That firmness, even sharpness, hardly ever comes out, and only during a scolding or before a consequence; your partner is all sweetness and light once your consequence is over. Not that the two of you fought much before they put you back in diapers, but you never, ever fight now. You find yourself in the corner or over their knee as soon a debate starts to become a fight, and you can’t deny your relationship is easier now, and you’re just as happy, even happier, despite so many changes in your lifestyle and their demeanor toward you.

But happy in the scheme of things doesn’t mean happy and not humiliated in the moment as your cousin continues to ask questions and your partner continues to answer them.

“How often were they wetting their pants before?”

“Not every time they needed to potty, and not every day, but more days than not.”

“Do they make it to the potty at all anymore?”

“Ya know, at first I thought we’d use the diapers like pull-ups …”

“Why didn’t you just use pull-ups,” your cousin interrupts.

“They’re messy accidents. Imagine that in a pull-up. Might as well just use their pants, right,” she replies with a chuckle. “But as soon as they were back in diapers, they never asked to use the potty or be taken, and I realized they were using their diapers as, well, diapers. I figured, why not?”

“So are they using their diapers on purpose or, like, did they just start having a bunch more accidents when you put them back in diapers?”

“I think the times they made it to the potty were more by accident - ya know, by chance - than not, and once they were back in pampers and stopped trying so hard, their mind let their body relax. They’re always wet; just dribbling constantly and sometimes having big floods. For sure diapers are the best choice for them.”

“For sure.”

“And I’ll tell you something else,” your partner said as you shuffle forward one more spot in line. “They’re so much happier without all that stress and those embarrassing accidents.” She kisses you on your cheek and ruffles your hair. “My happy little person.” Somehow that makes you blush even more than everything that had happened, and you feel a warmth in your tummy.

Your partner is right. You are happier not worrying about accidents, not staying hyper focused on whether you need to go and trying to hold it when you do. Car rides and flights and long lines and Zoom meetings and even date night are no longer cause for anxiety or shame. And though you haven’t volunteered the information - because your partner hasn’t asked, and because it’s embarrassing - she’s right. You’re not using your diapers on purpose. You simply stopped holding it; you at first felt you were supposed to, but very quickly (as in, within the first two hours of being back in diapers) you just stopped, and your partner didn’t say anything or give any hint that was the wrong thing to do, and you found that without the effort you’d been putting in to not pee and mess yourself, you are functionally incontinent.

That bothered you at first, but not for long; it doesn’t bother you now, though the way people treat you because of it still does. You want to jump and down sometimes and shout that it’s not normal, but if you did, you know exactly how your partner and family and friends would react: they’d say you’re tired, that this has been an emotional rollercoaster for you, that it’s very understandable that you’d have an outburst, even that it was overdue and how they’re surprised you’d held it in so long, and then your partner would embrace you and make you promise to tell them whenever you have bad feelings so they can help you get them out in better ways than screaming tantrums. And likely as not, you’d be swiftly changed into something clean and dry and put down for a nap, and your partner would probably take a nap with or at least lay down with you until you fell asleep.

While you’re daydreaming about your hypothetical outburst, unsure how’d you feel about the reaction you’d receive, your cousin is asking, “Do you always change them,” your cousin asks.

“Not me always, but if you’re asking if they ever change themselves, no.”

“Isn’t that … Why not? I mean, isn’t kind of ..”

“Yucky? Yeah, and you can say yucky. We don’t like euphemisms, do we,” she says glancing at you. You’d actually be fine with a euphemism. More than fine. “Euphemism are for things with stigma, and there should never be a stigma for a medical condition. But having poopy diapies is yucky, and they can’t help that, so how could I not be a good partner and do the yucky job of changing stinky diapers? Besides, they’re only messy three times a day, four at most.”

“That’s … Isn’t that a lot?”

“For most adults, yeah, but I keep them on a happy tummy diet. Makes it easier for both of us. Don’t you have a happy tummy? Don’t you,” she coos at you, her words and sing-song tone catching you more off guard than the swats to your shorts.

“Honey,” you plead, and your partner just smiles back at you.

“Anyway, of course they don’t change themselves. That would just be silly.” You have no idea what about that would be silly, and neither does your cousin.

“I guess … Yeah, you’re right. So is potty training anywhere in the future.”

Your partner looks first at you, smiling and rubbing your back, before turning back to your cousin. “This isn’t a potty training kind of problem. This is forever. But that’s okay. We don’t even call it a problem anymore.”She kisses you again and gives you a squeeze.

“Almost our turn,” your partner says. “What did you wander away for? Were you getting a snack?”

“I just wanted to walk around, and then I thought I’d get a sno-cone,” you say shyly.

“Is that all? You shoulda said so, silly.”

“I did,” you say, your words coming out in more of a whine that you intend. “I did say I was taking a walk.”

Your partner makes a sort of frowning smile or smiling frown, a face they make when they’re trying to scold without making you feel scolded. “It doesn’t count if I don’t hear you, sweetie. You have to make sure I hear, and you have to wait until I give you permission.”

“You were talking to someone.”

“So? You can interrupt me. And there’s no need to be shy, especially around family. Were you feeling shy?”

“Not really.” In fact, thickly diapered in a crowd, you actually felt confident and even hoped you’d run into old friends.

“You are so silly. It’s okay to say you’re shy. Why else would you not speak up when you know better than to walk away from me in public? It’s okay to be shy, sweetie; it’s okay. Lesson learned, right?”

There’s so much you want to say in response to that, and you still don’t know how to say it or even if you could. “Yeah,” is all you say.

“Yeah? Okay. And I’m sorry I startled you and spanked your bottom. You scared me and I was upset, but I’m not upset now. Believe me?”

“Yeah.” Of course you do. Your partner is always so earnest. It would be easier if they were gaslighting you; you’d know exactly how to respond to that, all outrage and righteousness. But they’re not. They mean every word.

“You still want that sno-cone?”

You want to say no just because you think it makes you seem more mature to not want something, especially a sugary treat like that, and so you say no. Your partner sees right through it.

She turns to your cousin and asks, “Do you mind getting in line for a sno-cone?”

“Sure thing.”

“What flavor, sweetie?”

Blushing again, you manage to not mumble, “Cherry and lemon-lime.” You’re glad and not glad your partner didn’t buy it.

“I’ll meet you guys back at the blanket.”

“Thanks so much. What do we say?”

“Thank you,” you mumble.

It’s soon your turn for a diaper change, and when you’re done, your cousin is no longer in line at the snack bar. Your partner leads you by the hand back to your blanket, and your cousin and all the ones who went looking for you and the others and your aunts and uncles and parents and brother and sister, all smiling kindly and welcoming you back, and all you want is to not be the center of attention. “Here,” your cousin says to you, handing you your sno-cone. Your partner intercepts it.

“Not so fast, buster. You’re gonna make a sticky mess with this, and I like the shirt you’re wearing. Let’s take it off first.”

“I won’t get anything on it. I’ll be extra careful,” you say back, cognizant of how plaintive it is to plead your ability as an adult to eat without making a mess. Your partner just looks back at you with a yeah-right smile. “It’ll wash,” you try.

“It’ll stain.”

“But … please?” You don’t want to be shirtless, knowing your diaper will peek above your shorts. Your partner relents.

“Okay. This time, but be extra careful, okay?”

“Okay.” You reach for your sno-cone.

“Bup-bup-bup. Sit first.” They sit down in your their chair; your mom is now sitting in yours with no intention of moving. You sit down on the blanket at your partner’s feet. Only then does your partner hand you your sno-cone.

“Don’t eat it too fast,“ they remind you. “You’ll get brain freeze.” As if you were born yesterday and didn’t know that.

You feel a kiss on the top of your head; it’s from •your mom. “You had me worried too. Thank goodness you’re okay. You need to stay with your partner or me or someone you know and we trust.”

“We already had that little talk. It won’t happen again.” She reaches out to tousle your hair.

“That’s gonna be all over their shirt,” your mother says. But she doesn’t mean it in a mother-knows-best way. She chuckles. “We’re gonna hafta to get pictures before you wipe their face off.”

Your cousin Kelly comes back over and sits next to you, saying nothing but bumping your shoulder playfully, the way an older cousin or sibling does with a younger, teasing but not teasing to let them know they can hang with the big kids even though they’re objectively not big kids. Except you’re almost ten years older than your cousin Kelly.

Unbeknownst to you, your shirt has ridden up in back, and the waistband of your diaper is peeking above your shorts, obvious to anyone for what it is.

Some of the people who saw you get spanked and pulled out line mine and heard you get scolded see you, see your diaper, and none of them laughs or points. It’s not funny because it’s not abnormal; it makes perfect sense to them now. You wear diapers; of course you can’t wander away from your partner … or caregiver. One of them even waves to you and smiles as though trying to get you to smile back, the way people do with infants, and you don’t recognize her and assume she must be waving to someone else.

As you eat your sno-cone, leaving a red drip down the front of your shirt, you’re distracted by your partner’s hands on you again, resting protectively on your shoulders.

“O shoot,” your partner says. “We got a whole outfit for you in your diaper bag. Should’ve just changed your shirt first. O well.”

“Are you excited for fireworks,” your cousin asks. You nod. “Are they really loud? Can I sit with you in case I get scared?”

You know she’s patronizing you, and you don’t care.

You can’t tell if you’re being taken advantage of or being cared for lovingly, like you’re precious to everyone you know, even to strangers you’ve just met. You don’t linger long on the thought, enjoying your partner’s hands gently kneading your shoulders as the sun sinks on Independence Day.