A Clockwork Diaper

This was written as a standalone story, but with the possibility of continuing it left deliberately open. If you want to see this story continued next month, please let me know in the comments!  

...

Ashley squirmed in the seat as the attendant adjusted her restraints.

She hadn’t learned his name, there’d been so many random nurses and doctors and legal experts she’d med in the past week, trying to track them all was a blur.

“I’m not gonna, like, get up and leave halfway through,” she said. “I volunteered for this.”

The attendant ignored her. Ashley had been hoping for some kind of response. It was getting on her nerves, being alternately treated like a criminal not deserving of rights and an object not deserving of autonomy. She just wanted to go home.

And maybe, finally, they were going to let her once this was done.

Her arms were strapped to the medical chair, as were her legs. She could wriggle, a little, but she couldn’t move. A brace kept her from turning her head, and while she sat there in a half-reclined position, a pair of headphones were placed over her ears.

Remember, she thought. You agreed to this.

…

Three months earlier, she’d been standing in front of a judge, getting the worst news of her life.

“Guilty on all counts.”

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. She hadn’t done anything that wrong, and she didn’t know what her friends were getting up to - she’d just been along for the ride.

Turns out, that didn’t matter to the judge. She was an accomplice, and that was all that mattered to the court.

“Your honor,” the prosecutor, the person Ashley hated just about the most in the whole world, said. “In light of the defendant’s unique position, I’d like to make a sentencing suggestion.”

“Go ahead,” the judge said.

“Are you aware of Dr. Ibbs ‘Aptitude Program Enabling Rehabilitation’?” the prosecutor asked. “It’s a new experimental treatment that focuses on reducing criminality and allows for convicts to continue living in society without being a risk to anyone.”

“I’m aware,” the judge confirmed. “Early reports look promising. If the defendant wishes, we can seek to enroll her in the program.”

“Wait,” Ashley said. She should have known better than to speak without permission in court, but… well, she was bad at that. “I can do this program and not go to jail?”

“Yes, though there’s more to it than-” the judge started.

“I want it!”

…

‘Not going to jail’, it turned out, had been a lie. She was still held during the long, complicated process of enrolling, being approved for the trial, and then taking all the pre-procedure medications necessary. She wouldn’t even have to delay her college education, she’d only miss a few classes and she’d be able to catch up.

It was a simple, elegant, if slightly embarrassing, system. Once the procedure was done, she’d get to go home. If she tried to do anything illegal, the whatever-it-was they were doing to her head would inflict an adverse effect onto her.

That was the embarrassing part - the ‘adverse effect’ was that the procedure would induce temporary incontinence. Basically: Break the law, pee her pants. There was more too it than that, she’d had a whole primer class that she’d yanwed her way through which explained all the nuts and bolts. Certain activities that weren’t technically illegal could still cause an ‘adverse effect’ - drugs and alcohol were, unfortunately, off the table - but that was the gist.

And, there was just one more thing. She’d have to wear diapers. If she used them at any point, her brain would forget how to take them off. She’d be assigned a probation officer, and in the instance of needing a diaper change, she’d need to explain what she did that caused her accident, and then her officer could change Ashley’s diaper.

That was it. If the process -

Ashley frowned. Thinking about it as ‘the process’ felt too clinical.

If she didn’t pee her pants very much, the conditioning would wear off. The less she had accidents, the faster it would go. Behave like a model citizen, and she’d find herself back in panties in six months.

That was pretty simple. Ashley didn’t expect to be perfect, but it wasn’t like she went around breaking the law all the time. Eight months felt like a good estimate. She’d be out of diapers before getting her BA.

“Open your mouth,” the attendant instructed. She did, and an electrode was placed on her tongue. “Shut your eyes.” She did, and two more got taped to her eyelids.

“Now, be still and try to relax. You might feel some involuntary body motions, just ignore that. This will take about half an hour.”

Ashley tried to nod, but her head was braced in place.

She wanted to ask, ‘When is this going to start?’, but that would require opening her mouth. She waited, and a moment later, felt a tingling buzz on her eyes, mouth, and heard a humm in her ears. Almost-but-not-quite words started to play, and then she felt dizzy, and then…

…

“Just drop me off here,” Ashley said, pointing to the curb across from her dorm. There was street parking in front of the dormitory itself, so pulling over there was always impossible. She was glad her dorm was available - if she’d needed to find temporary housing and then an apartment, it would have been a real hassle.

She glanced down at her diaper. Or, well, she glanced down at her jeans, certain that she could see a subtle bulge beneath the denim. Even though she didn’t expect that it’d get used very often, it was still embarrassing to have it on.

Still. Better than being behind bars. Tomorrow she’d be back to taking college classes, she already had a few leads on a part time job, life was already returning back to normal.

Getting out of the car, she thanked the driver, grabbed her bag, and waltzed across the street, ready to put this whole mess behind…

Hiss…

She felt the warmth between her legs immediately, spreading out into her diaper right in the middle of the road. Eyes widening, she ran to the sidewalk, looking around. “What the hell?”

Digging in her bag, she took out her cell, she punched in the number of her parole officer. NO SERVICE.

“Dammit,” she fumed. She hadn’t had a chance to get her connection turned back on after not being around to pay the bill for a few months.

She needed to know why she’d just peed her pants, when she hadn’t done anything wrong, but it could wait. Squelching a bit as she walked, she made her way up to her dorm, connected to the wifi, and spent thirty minutes talking to customer service and getting her cell phone turned back on.

Then she called her parole officer.

“This is Danielle Iron,” she responded quickly. “How are you doing, Ashley?”

They’d met a few times before. Danielle was nice, if a bit stiff and overly professional. “Hi, Danielle,” Ashley said. “My, um. Conditioning kicked in, and I don’t know why.”

Danielle didn’t disbelieve Ashley. “Alright. You know my address. Come over, and I’ll change you and we can figure out what you did.”

“Thanks,” Ashley said. “I’ll be there soon.”

Danielle’s home office was only about a mile away. A couple blocks to the bus, an eight minute ride, and then a couple more blocks to Danielle. Ashley fished her earbuds from her bag, popped them in, and started walking.

Things started going wrong almost immediately. While she ran across the street to beat the bus, she felt her bladder give way again - there wasn’t much left, but the extra trickle of warmth soaked into her padding, and she found herself feeling suddenly thirsty and in need of some hydration.

She swiped her bus pass and walked to the back, conscious that she smelled a little stale. Hopefully nobody would notice the smell of pee on the bus, and if they did, they wouldn’t identify that it was coming from her, but she still couldn’t prevent a subtle blush from creeping onto her face.

Fiddling with her phone, she turned on her music app, switching to an old playlist she’d put together back in highschool. Nostalgic songs, always comforting when she was feeling stressed. An old familiar song started to play, and she tried to relax, but...

There was definitely something wrong with the conditioning. She was already trying to pee, again, and with an empty bladder, her body shifted to something else, something distinctly worse.

BLLLRCH-

Her body loudly, involuntarily began to expel the contents of her bowels into her diaper. Sitting on the bus seat, there was nothing she could do to prevent her diaper from being packed with mush immediately, squelching and smushing into the limited space.

And, once she was done, the need to go didn’t go away. Another round of pushing started, weaker than the last but just as insistent, squelching and bulging in her diaper. It still didn’t stop, even as her diaper was totally filled up with smelly muck and there was nothing left in her body.

Cramps racked her belly and she felt her body push, resulting in nothing except a few weak farts. It was horribly uncomfortable, and she couldn’t do anything to stop it. As she fought against the cramps, then, people on the bus started to notice, wrinkling their noses and scooting further away. A few girls that Ashley recognized giggled so loudly that it was audible even through Ashley’s music.

It was so distracting, so uncomfortable, so humiliating that Ashley almost missed her stop. When the bus slowed, she noticed where they were and got up, grimacing as all the muck in her diaper squelched, waddling heavily to the front.

She tried to tell herself that she didn’t hear the ‘click’ of a phone camera over her music as she waddled past the giggling girls.

Clutching her belly, she fought the cramps and helpless attempts by her body to push, waddling down the road towards her parole officer’s house. She had to double check the number before making her way up the sidewalk towards the quaint little home, knocking on the door.

Danielle Irons answered a moment later. She was about twenty years older than Ashley, and looked like a cross between a nursery employee and an office worker, with practical clothes. As Ashley understood it, Danielle had several other parolees in the area who she was responsible for, uh… changing.

Even if she was used to dirty diapers, though, Danielle still had to wrinkle her nose and step back in reaction when she opened the door, and Ashley’s blush deepened.

Taking out her earbuds, she whimpered, “I don’t know why, I just… I couldn’t help it.”

“Come on in,” Danielle said. “What happened when you first used your diaper?”

“Nothing!” Ashley said. “I’d just… been dropped off. And that was it. I was walking across the street to get to my dorm room.”

Danielle nodded. “Ah, I see. And you weren’t at a crosswalk?”

Ashley blinked. Now that she was talking to Danielle, the cramps had stopped, and when she realized why her first accident had happened, she felt both stupid and annoyed. “Jaywalking? It kicks in from jaywalking?”

“This was all in the material you read before the procedure,” Danielle said, taking out a notepad and writing it down for her report. “Now, what caused you to mess your diaper?”

“I don’t know! I was just sitting on the bus,” Ashley said, crossing her hands over her belly. “It just… happened.”

“So you got on the bus, sat down, and then it happened without anything else in between?” Danielle raised an eyebrow.

“I’m not lying!” Ashley whimpered. It was hard to feel mature and put together when she was trying to explain to an older woman why she’d had a poopy accident in her pants.

“I believe you,” Danielle said. “If you were, you’d be using your diaper again right now.”

Ashley groaned. “Well… I guess I put on music? But music’s not illegal.”

Danielle nodded knowingly, reaching out her hand. “Let me see your phone.”

Ashley passed it over. Danielle looked at the music app, reading the songs. “‘Mr dash brightside dash mp3 dash download’? ‘Mark Ronson dash Uptown Funk (Official Video) featuring Bruno Mars’?”

“What about them?” Ashley frowned.

Her usually professional expression cracked, and Danielle showed just the tiniest hint of a smirk. “You didn’t, by chance, download these songs illegally, did you?”

“I… wait, seriously?”

Danielle handed the phone back. “Let’s go change your poopy diaper, Ashley. Don’t worry, things like this happen to everyone, but you’ll learn to be a law-abiding girl before too long.”

Ashley stammered all the way to the side room, which Danielle had set up as a very obvious changing station, with a stepstool to get up. There were stacks of clean diapers in many sizes, a large diaper genie meant for adult use, changing supplies, and for some reason a minifridge.

Ashley did just that, lying back and shimmying her jeans down around her ankles, exposing just how badly she’d abused her diaper in just the past half hour.

Here was where Danielle’s professionalism was appreciated. She didn’t fuss or comment on the smell, she just untapped Ashley’s diaper and went about the process of cleaning her up. The old diaper went in a sealed pail, wipes were employed judiciously, and then a fresh diaper was slid in place. A thin layer of powder applied and Ashley was taped up in clean, sweetly-scented padding.

Ashley could have done the last step on her own; she could change out of and into diapers as long as they were dry without any trouble, but Danielle made it easier.

“Thanks,” Ashley said, pulling her jeans back up from around her ankles.

“You’re welcome,” Danielle replied, stooping to the minifridge and taking out a sixteen ounce bottle of Pedialyte. “Drink this. Your body dehydrates itself if you activate your conditioning too quickly in a short timespan, this’ll help you feel better.”

Ashley accepted the bottle, unscrewing the cap.

“So,” she said. “This happens to everyone?”

“More or less,” Danielle shrugged. “I tried to explain to the administrators that people need more forewarning, but they pointed out that it’s all covered in the briefing. Maybe once this gets rolled out nationwide, people will learn better. Maybe not.”

“Well… I still gotta unpack and stuff,” Ashley said, hopping off the changing table. “So I’ll see you later?”

“Probably sooner than you’d expect,” Danielle said. “Good luck, Ashley.”