The Product Tester - Chapter 6

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Ethan stared at his fiance, puzzling about what he should do. 

She wasn’t likely to cause any real damage. That was the point of the drugs, after all, if they increased the danger of self-harming they’d be less than useless. Right now, she was going to be feeling pleasant, lazy, and unable to form sentences of longer than two words. 

That said, he wasn’t about to leave her alone. ‘Unlikely’ didn’t mean ‘Impossible’. She could try to make food and hurt herself, or do something unfortunate with one of the power tools still scattered on the couch and coffee table. 

Not to mention… “No! Dang it, stop that!” Ethan said, slapping Mary’s hand away from the crotch of her diaper once again. 

Whether it was the drugs or something else, she was apparently interested in a little solo stimulation and completely unconcerned about the smelly state of her padding. He couldn’t just leave her alone to do something like that, not when she’d come to her senses in a couple hours and be mortified by the memory. 

“Mary,” he said, sitting down next to her on the couch. “Can you understand me in there? Why don’t you just tell me what I can do for you?” 

She looked down between her legs, frowning, but Ethan wasn’t about to put up with that and shook his head. Mary, coherent enough to understand his gesture, pouted but didn’t argue. “Lunch?” 

He almost protested. Wouldn’t she rather wait until after her diaper change? It’s only an hour or so from now, but since she doesn’t seem to care… “Sure thing, sweetie. Why don’t you wait here and I’ll go make something?” 

A playful, wicked smile danced across her mouth, but Mary nodded innocently. “Okay!” 

The childish attempt to be clever was more than enough indication what she was planning on doing the moment Ethan walked away. 

“Babe, no,” he insisted. Taking both of her hands in his, he concocted a new plan. “Okay, you’re going to come with me.” 

“Nooo,” Mary whined, but she let Ethan pull her to her feet and walk her towards the kitchen. 

The open floor plan apartment wasn’t huge, but it had room for a sizeable kitchen and dining area. Mary cooked more than Ethan did, but he wasn’t hopeless with a stove either. There was a kitchen island with two high bar stools, the perfect place for Mary to wait while he whipped something together. 

Helping his fiance up into the seat, her diaper squelching as she put her weight on the wooden stool, Ethan said, “Sit here? I’ll make some food.”

She nodded, and he sighed in relief. 

Maybe this won’t be too hard after-

“Gosh darnit, stop that!” He frowned, making a mental note to talk to Kat about the drugs they were using in Mary’s collar. Sure, Mary wasn’t going to be doing anything to escape the cover, but… 

“Okay, we’re going to need to work something out. Can I trust you for ten seconds?” he asked, watching Mary’s face carefully. Deciding that her expression meant ‘no’, he resolved himself to just work quickly. 

The stool had arm rests, and there was tape beneath the sink. Briefly, Ethan considered just taping her hands down so she couldn’t do anything with them, but that was a terrible idea for more than a couple reasons. 

Dismissing that, he came up with a better idea. Retrieving the duct tape from beneath the sink, he also took their cutting board, and with judicial application of the former, he secured the latter to Mary’s bar stool. In a few moments, he had created an effective barrier between her arms and everything below the waist. 

She could wiggle her hands beneath the board if she really wanted to, but there’d be no wiggle room to move around and do anything, and he suspected Mary wasn’t coherent enough to peel up the tape to move the board. The impediment wouldn’t stop a dedicated effort, but it would prevent any impulsive behavior, and Mary’s thoughts were currently driven exclusively by impulses. The board would suffice. 

Still keeping an eye on Mary in case she tried to do anything clever, Ethan raided the cupboards and came away with macaroni noodles and ingredients for a cheese sauce. Easy, fast, and inoffensive to even the most mild of palates. 

He got everything started, keeping an eye on Mary to ensure she didn’t do anything else naughty. She was playing nice, mostly just drumming her hands on the cutting board and spacing out. 

Apparently, that could only keep her attention for a few long moments, because before long she grumbled, “Boooored.” 

“You want to watch something?” Ethan asked, reaching for his phone. “I could find a show for you.” 

She nodded emphatically, and he opened a streaming app and pulled up some retro cartoons that would keep her attention without seeming too juvenile. Letting her watch the show, he returned to cooking, getting the pasta into the water and waiting for it to cook. 

With nothing requiring his attention for the moment, Ethan finally had a moment to step back and breathe. Mary was distracted, she’d get food, he’d be able to change her diaper before too long, then maybe he could convince her to take a nap until the drugs wore off. 

“As if I’d be so lucky,” he chuckled, winking at Mary. “Babe, I love you, but if you aren’t incredibly fussy as a baby I’ll eat my hat.” 

Mary looked up from the phone at him. “Huh?” 

“Never mind. Food’ll be ready soon.” 

She grinned, and he checked on the pasta. It seemed good, so he drained it, mixed with the cheese, and scooped it into a bowl. 

“Here you go,” he said, adding a spoon and setting the meal on the tray of Mary’s improvised high chair, moving his phone to the counter by the sink. “Eat up!” 

Mary looked at the bowl and grabbed at the spoon, but she missed and flipped it onto the floor. She frowned down at it, tried to the utensil on the ground, and nearly toppled the stool. 

“Crap!” Ethan lunged forward, grabbing the chair and steadying it before she could fall. “Okay, hold still a sec, I’ll take care of this.” 

Of course, it couldn’t happen any other way, could it? 

Grabbing the spoon off the floor, he tossed it in the sink, retrieved a clean one from the drawer, and picked up the bowl. “Okay, Mary, open up.” 

She looked at him skeptically, and Ethan almost expected her to refuse. After a long moment of staring uneasily at the spoon, though, she finally opened wide. 

A heaping spoonful of cheesy goodness went into her mouth and she closed, swallowing, only dribbling a little down her lip. Ethan was going to need a napkin, but that was a small problem. 

“Good?” he asked, readying another spoonful. 

Mary nodded agreeably, opening her mouth wide and saying, “Aaah!” 

They went like that, working their way through most of the bowl. One spoonful at a time, Mary gulped it down, making a mess of her face but swallowing the majority of the food down. 

“We’ve got a cheese disaster going on,” Ethan said, leaning to the side to grab a washcloth from the sink so he could dab off her face. “Hold on, let me get you cleaned up.” 

She didn’t care for the wet cloth nearly as much as the mac’n’cheese and pulled away, but she couldn’t really stop him from wiping away the sauce and occasional bit of noodle. Pulling back to make sure he hadn’t missed a spot, he asked, “There, isn’t that better?” 

“Mmmh,” Mary said, neither agreeing or disagreeing. She crossed her arms over her belly, rocking forward slightly in the stool.

Ethan frowned uncertainly. “Hey there, what are you…” he trailed off as a muffled ‘frrrt’ bubbled somewhere beneath the improvised tray, as Mary’s body made room for the new food by emptying itself into her diaper. “Right, uh…” 

He blushed and looked away, feeling uncomfortably voyeuristic given how little control Mary had at the moment. Feeling intensely awkward, he wasn’t exactly sure what to do. 

Fortunately, Mary had an idea. “More please?” 

“I-” he started, caught off guard. She was gesturing to the bowl in his hand, completely unperturbed. “Yes, of course babe. Coming right up.” 

Another half bowl of food went down, and he convinced her to drink some water through a straw, before his phone began beeping with a reminder. 

“Oh, cool,” he said, picking it up off the counter and checking it. “It’s time for you to get changed, Mary. How’s that sound?” 

Still high and unconcerned with how badly her backside was stinking, Mary just shrugged in response, holding her cup in both hands as she drained the rest of the water. Whether or not she was indifferent, though, Ethan wasn’t about to abandon his duties. 

Stripping off the tape and setting the board aside, he got Mary out of the stool. Leading her by the hand, they moved to the bedroom, where he’d left most of the changing mat set up. He’d had to remove the leg and arm restraints, and anything proprietary, but there was no reason to fold the mat itself back up three times a day. 

“Wait here,” he instructed, guiding Mary to sit down on the mat. “I’ll be right back.” 

He’d left his case in the car when he’d gotten back, unsure if he’d be there long enough for Mary to need a change. Now that it was confirmed, he had to run down to the parking garage to grab everything he needed. 

Calling it a ‘case’ was, perhaps, a bit charitable. It was, for all intents and purposes, a technologically advanced diaper bag. It was undecorated and plain looking, but if you ignored the batteries, restraints, and miscellaneous tech, the other contents could be found in one version or another in diaper bags across the country. 

Retrieving it from his trunk, he hurried back up the stairs, locked the apartment door behind him, and half-jogged back to the bedroom. 

“Aaaah!” Mary moaned, hands kneading into the front of her diaper. Her back was arched in sensation, and if Ethan knew her half as well as he thought he did, she was only a few moments from climax. 

“No!” he barked, dropping his bag so he could grab her arms and pull them away. “Stop that!” 

“Nooo!” Mary complained, wriggling her legs in frustration as he stopped her from finishing. “Lemme go!” 

It was fortunate that she was so out of it, because he could hold both her arms down with just one hand while stretching out his leg to fish for the handle of the diaper bag and pull it over. “Mary, you’re either going to be mad at me now, or you’ll be mad at me when you’re sober, and I’d rather not face you angry and sober. Trust me, it’s for your own good.” 

With one hand, he unzipped the bag, pulling out the arm restraints first. Latching them onto the pad was a trick while keeping Mary from wriggling away, but he managed it, got her arms locked down, and finally had a moment to breathe again. 

“Jerk!” Mary mumbled, kicking her legs softly. “Lemme finish!” 

“Babe,” Ethan sighed in response, looking through the bag for the pair of leg restraints. “If you still want to fool around once you’ve come down, I would be happy to let you go to town on yourself. Until then, do what I say. Got it?” 

She stuck out her tongue and blew a raspberry at him in response. If anything, that was a good sign; Mary did that when she was sober, too.

Cuffing her legs to the mat, Ethan pulled out a fresh diaper, the key, and a few miscellaneous items. Going through the process of decrypting and unlocking the safeties on the cover, he checked the battery, replaced it with a fresh one, then undid the belt and finally opened the diaper cover. 

He’d been expecting the smell to get worse once the cover was gone, but he still had to wrinkle his nose and take shallow breaths in response. He didn’t mind, really; the reaction was more impulsive than deliberate. Still, it was a reminder to get the change done as quickly as possible. 

Untaping the diaper, the stink finally got strong enough to make Mary react, even in her drugged stupor, and she wriggled and grumbled against her restraints. 

“Yeah, yeah, working on it,” Ethan said, beginning the lengthy process of wiping her clean, tossing the old diaper into the pail, applying powder, and finally taping a new diaper in place and locking the cover on once more. 

Confident that she was secure, Ethan unlocked the restraints, sat Mary upright, and asked, “How’re you feeling, babe?” 

She shrugged, pushing to her feet without warning, using Ethan as an anchor so she wouldn’t stumble. 

Ethan followed her up, walking Mary out of the bedroom and towards the couch. “You want to play a game or something? I can find you something to play with.” 

That got a nod, to his pleasant surprise. Leading Mary to the couch, Ethan ran back to the bedroom to grab his tablet, downloaded a puzzle game for kids, and brought it back to Mary. 

Operating on the theory that it was better to keep Mary stimulated and distracted so she wouldn’t get up to anything she’d regret, Ethan also turned on some music, playing through the TV speakers. Mary hummed along, tapping away at the tablet, happy as could be. 

Ethan’s shoulders sagged in relief. She was happy, taken care of, and unlikely to cause any more trouble. He could take a break. 

‘Taking a break’, of course, involved more chores. He scarfed down some lunch, put the leftovers in the fridge, did dishes, and cleaned up Mary’s power tools. Packing away her camera, he popped out the memory card, stepped into the guest bedroom, and saved a copy of the footage on his laptop before putting the camcorder away. 

Tidying up the diaper bag, Ethan declared his chores taken care of, silently congratulated himself for handling the situation as well as anyone could be expected to, and walked back into the living room. 

Mary wasn’t on the couch anymore. She’d gotten to her feet, had her arms raised high, and was swaying her crinkling waistline to the beat of the music. 

The dance wasn’t very graceful, but it looked like she was having fun, and Ethan was more than happy to let her enjoy herself. There was no point in spoiling her fun, not when it didn’t look possible for there to be a negative outcome here. 

Spotting him, Mary called, “Dance with me!” 

Oh, right. That’s a negative outcome if there ever was one. 

“I don’t dance, you know that,” he chuckled. “I’ve got two left feet, and neither of them have rhythm.” 

“You don’t gotta dance well,” Mary giggled, beckoning with her arm as she shook her hips. “It’s fun!” 

“Eh, what the hey,” Ethan decided, walking over and accepting her hand. “But if I step on your toes, don’t blame me. Are you feeling better, I guess?” 

Mary giggled, pulling him close with a jerk of her arm that nearly sent them both toppling to the floor. They caught themselves, and stepped back, in something very vaguely akin to a tango. “Oh, no. I’m still high as a kite. Full sentences are easier, though.” 

Ethan laughed as he stepped back, put his hands in the air by his head, and pumped them up and down to the tempo. 

That made Mary stop dancing so that she could double over in wheezing laughter. Ethan decided that the tears streaming down her face was a side effect of the drugs, and not part of her reaction to his dance moves. Either way, he smiled, letting her recover from the torrent of giggling. 

Once she had her breath back, Mary surprised him again with a sudden kiss on the lips, not lasting for more than a moment. “Thanks.”

He raised an eyebrow, curious what she was referring to. “For?” 

She shrugged. “For being the voice of reason for me, when mine was kaput.” 

“Of course, babe,” Ethan said, without hesitation. “I’m not going to let anything bad happen to you.” 

Mary tittered, putting a hand to her mouth. “You already scarred me for life with your ‘moves’.”

He rolled his eyes. “If that’s the thanks I get, I’m going back to work.” 

They kissed again, and this time the embrace lasted.