Say it in front of everyone | Part 2
Say It In Front Of Everyone (continued)
It kept coming. That was the thing she hadn't braced for — it didn't stop when she thought it would. It came in stages, and she had to push, and push again, and the second push was the one that broke her breath out of her in a rush, and she heard herself make a noise against the back of her hand.
The padding at the back gave and stretched and took it, and the warmth arrived and settled and spread, and the diaper — already heavy and soaked at the front — went tight and full and enormous against her.
The whole table was silent.
Josie sat with both hands flat on the tablecloth and her eyes fixed on the salt cellar and her chest going like she'd run somewhere. She could feel it against her, warm and thick and spreading, and she could feel the front of the dress pulled tight across the bulk of it.
"Oh, well done," Priya said, softly.
Josie's eyes went hot immediately.
"Done?" Marcus said.
"Yeah." It came out wrecked and small.
"Right." He picked his spoon back up. "Sit back, then. All your weight."
"Marcus—"
"All of it. Go on."
She lowered herself back against the chair. The mess squished up warm under her and spread and she made a sound like she'd been hit, and the heat of it came through the padding and up her back, and she sat there with her hands gripping the edge of the table and her jaw tight.
"Good girl," Marcus said, and ate his pudding.
Bel had her chin on her hand. She was watching Josie the way someone watches a good documentary.
"How's that?" she said.
"Warm." Josie's voice was barely there. "It's — it's all up the back."
"God," Bel said, to the room. "Look at her face."
Josie put her hand over her eyes. Someone laughed, kindly, and someone else said "poor love," and Priya got up and topped her water glass up, which was a cruelty.
She sat in it for the rest of pudding.
It was the longest half hour of her life and also, in a way she couldn't explain to anybody, the best. The warmth went out of it slowly. The padding cooled and went heavy and thick and the dress stuck to the front of it, and every time she shifted in the chair the whole sodden, loaded mass of it moved against her and she felt it shift with her. She could smell it — her own smell, warm and earthy, unmistakable — every time she moved, and she was certain everyone else could too, and nobody said anything, which meant either they couldn't or they were being kind, and either way she sat there with her cheeks burning and her thighs pressed together and a low, hard pulse between her hips that had nothing to do with the diaper and everything to do with the fact that eight people had just watched her do that.
Twice she caught Marcus looking at her from the corner of his eye with an expression far too pleased with itself.
The second time she mouthed I hate you at him. He mouthed back no you don't.
They moved to the sitting room for coffee, and Josie had to stand up and walk.
The diaper was so heavy by then that it dragged at the front of the dress and the wet front of it was visibly darker through the grey. She walked the length of the room ahead of everyone with her chin up and her jaw clenched and every step squelched faintly, and the man who'd asked how much they held — Colin, she thought, or Callum — watched her go past and then watched the door behind her and then looked back at the sofa, and Josie sat down in the armchair nearest the fire and thought: well. Now they all know exactly what that sounds like.
Bel came and sat on the arm of her chair.
"Bet you're sore," she said.
"A bit."
"Bet you're ready for that change."
"Yeah." Josie's voice cracked in the middle of it. "Yeah, I am."
"Ask him, then."
Josie looked across the room. Marcus was on the sofa with his coffee, in the middle of a conversation, and she had to call across the room in front of everybody — again — and she was so far past caring that it almost didn't hurt.
"Marcus."
He turned.
"Can I be changed, please."
He looked at her for a beat longer than was comfortable. Then he said, "Course you can. Bathroom's—"
"I know where it is." Priya was already up. "I'll get the bag out of the cupboard. There's a towel in there, it's on the rail."
"Thank you," Marcus said. Then, to Josie: "Go on. I'll be there in a minute."
Josie went up the stairs with Priya, and Priya put her hand on her back on the landing and said, quietly, "You alright? Honestly?"
"Yeah." Josie's eyes went hot again at the kindness of it. "Yeah. It's — it's a lot. But yeah."
"Good. Bag's in there. There's a bin with a liner in the bathroom, put the used one straight in, and there's a flannel on the side if you want it." Priya squeezed her shoulder. "And take your time. Nobody's clocking you."
The bathroom was warm and there was a towel on the rail and a bag on the floor and a bin with a liner, and Priya had thought of everything, and Josie stood in the middle of it for a second with her hands over her face.
Then she got the dress up and the diaper down and sat on the edge of the bath and let herself breathe.
Marcus came up three minutes later and shut the door and looked at her — dress bunched at her waist, soaked and loaded diaper sagging between her knees, face wrecked.
"Alright?" he said.
"Mm."
"You did so well."
"Don't." Her voice wobbled. "If you're nice to me I'll cry and then I'll have to go back down with a red face."
"Then have a red face." He knelt down. "Lie back."
She lay back on the towel on the floor with her knees up and her hands over her face. He peeled the tapes and the smell came up warm and thick and he made a low sound in his throat that she felt rather than heard.
"Christ, Josie."
"Don't."
"Look at it. It's full."
"It's supposed to be—"
"It's supposed to be," he agreed, and wiped her.
He took his time. Front to back, long strokes, and then again, and then a fresh wipe pressed flat and held, and she lay there and shook and listened to him breathe. Then cream, cool, spread with the flat of his hand, and the cool of it made her eyes close.
"Open," he said, and she opened them, and he had the fresh one — thick, white, the printed one — and he slid it under her and lifted her legs one at a time to seat it and smoothed the pad flat.
Then the tapes. Bottom left. Bottom right. Top left. Top right. Each one held down with his thumb, and the thing coming snug and dry and thick against her.
"There," he said. "Clean and dry and thick as anything."
"Thanks."
He put his palm flat on the front of it and left it there and looked at her.
"You've got to go back down," he said, "in this. In front of all of them. And it's going to be loud."
"I know."
"Everyone's going to hear it on the stairs."
"I know, Marcus."
He kissed her. Then he pulled her up and got her dress straight and opened the door.
She went back down ahead of him and the crinkle came out of the dress on every step, enormous in the stairwell, and she could hear the sitting room noise falter as she came and then pick back up, and she walked in and sat down in the armchair and Bel said, without looking up from her wine, "That's a thick one, isn't it."
"Yes," Josie said.
"Can you close your legs in it?"
"Barely."
"Good," Bel said, and drank.
They left at half ten. The goodbyes were the last of it: Priya hugging her and saying "come again, properly, when you're not being put through it," and Bel shaking her hand and then, at the last second, reaching down and pressing two fingers against the front of the dress — dry, crisp, thick — and saying to Marcus, not to her, "She's dry. She'll need doing before bed."
"She'll get done."
"I know she will." Bel patted Josie's cheek. "Well done, love. You did beautifully."
Josie got out of the front door and onto the pavement and stood in the cold with her hand over her mouth.
They walked home. Marcus carried her bag and held her hand and neither of them said much. The cold got into her legs and the diaper crinkled under the dress with every step and she was so wrung out she could barely feel the embarrassment anymore; it had all been spent.
At the front door he got the key in for her and then turned her round in the hallway and kissed her, hard, with one hand in her hair and the other flat on the front of the fresh diaper, pressing.
"You were so good tonight," he said against her mouth.
"Marcus—"
"Eight people, Josie. Eight people watched you piss yourself at a table and then sit in it and then mess yourself in front of them."
"Yes—" She got both hands into his shirt. "Yes—"
"And then you asked me, out loud, in front of all of them, to change you."
"I did."
"Say it again."
"Please can I be changed," she said, and her voice broke. "Please can I be changed out of my wet nappy, Marcus, in front of everybody—"
He walked her backward into the bedroom by the front of it and she went.
He didn't take the fresh one off. He put her on the bed on her back with her knees up and the dress shoved to her waist and he knelt between her knees and pressed the crisp padding with the heel of his hand, hard, and rubbed, and the friction of it through the thickness was extraordinary — all pressure and no skin, diffuse and enormous and everywhere — and the crinkle came out of it in a frantic rhythm and she got a fistful of the duvet and arched.
"Say what you are," he said.
"I—" She couldn't think. He pressed harder. "Marcus—"
"Say it."
"A woman who — who wet herself at a dinner party and sat in it—" Her voice cracked. "And messed herself in front of everyone. And then asked to be changed—"
"Good girl." He rubbed faster. "And what happens when you need to go?"
"I ask."
"And when you've gone?"
"I sit in it."
"That's right. You sit in it."
She came with her heels skidding on the duvet and her back in a bow and her hand slapped over her own mouth, and it went on in long rolling waves and he didn't stop until she was twitching and pushing at his wrist.
Then she lay there with her chest heaving and her eyes streaming and the fresh diaper crushed and creased between her legs, and Marcus lay down beside her and put his hand on her stomach.
"Alright?" he said.
Josie laughed — wrecked, cracked, wet — and put her arm over her eyes.
"Nobody's ever going to be able to have us to dinner again," she said.
"Yes they will. Bel's already asked."
"Bel?"
"Bel's asked for the twenty-eighth." He kissed her shoulder. "She's going to be much worse than Priya."
Josie lay there in the dark with a crushed diaper between her legs and her face still hot and a man's hand on her stomach, and she thought about the twenty-eighth, and about Bel, and about the fact that she had a whole shelf of these in the cupboard now and an entire month to get used to them.
"Marcus," she said.
"Mm."
"Next time," she said, "make me ask for it at the door."
He laughed against her shoulder and said, "Yes, ma'am," and reached over and turned out the light.
It kept coming. That was the thing she hadn't braced for — it didn't stop when she thought it would. It came in stages, and she had to push, and push again, and the second push was the one that broke her breath out of her in a rush, and she heard herself make a noise against the back of her hand.
The padding at the back gave and stretched and took it, and the warmth arrived and settled and spread, and the diaper — already heavy and soaked at the front — went tight and full and enormous against her.
The whole table was silent.
Josie sat with both hands flat on the tablecloth and her eyes fixed on the salt cellar and her chest going like she'd run somewhere. She could feel it against her, warm and thick and spreading, and she could feel the front of the dress pulled tight across the bulk of it.
"Oh, well done," Priya said, softly.
Josie's eyes went hot immediately.
"Done?" Marcus said.
"Yeah." It came out wrecked and small.
"Right." He picked his spoon back up. "Sit back, then. All your weight."
"Marcus—"
"All of it. Go on."
She lowered herself back against the chair. The mess squished up warm under her and spread and she made a sound like she'd been hit, and the heat of it came through the padding and up her back, and she sat there with her hands gripping the edge of the table and her jaw tight.
"Good girl," Marcus said, and ate his pudding.
Bel had her chin on her hand. She was watching Josie the way someone watches a good documentary.
"How's that?" she said.
"Warm." Josie's voice was barely there. "It's — it's all up the back."
"God," Bel said, to the room. "Look at her face."
Josie put her hand over her eyes. Someone laughed, kindly, and someone else said "poor love," and Priya got up and topped her water glass up, which was a cruelty.
She sat in it for the rest of pudding.
It was the longest half hour of her life and also, in a way she couldn't explain to anybody, the best. The warmth went out of it slowly. The padding cooled and went heavy and thick and the dress stuck to the front of it, and every time she shifted in the chair the whole sodden, loaded mass of it moved against her and she felt it shift with her. She could smell it — her own smell, warm and earthy, unmistakable — every time she moved, and she was certain everyone else could too, and nobody said anything, which meant either they couldn't or they were being kind, and either way she sat there with her cheeks burning and her thighs pressed together and a low, hard pulse between her hips that had nothing to do with the diaper and everything to do with the fact that eight people had just watched her do that.
Twice she caught Marcus looking at her from the corner of his eye with an expression far too pleased with itself.
The second time she mouthed I hate you at him. He mouthed back no you don't.
They moved to the sitting room for coffee, and Josie had to stand up and walk.
The diaper was so heavy by then that it dragged at the front of the dress and the wet front of it was visibly darker through the grey. She walked the length of the room ahead of everyone with her chin up and her jaw clenched and every step squelched faintly, and the man who'd asked how much they held — Colin, she thought, or Callum — watched her go past and then watched the door behind her and then looked back at the sofa, and Josie sat down in the armchair nearest the fire and thought: well. Now they all know exactly what that sounds like.
Bel came and sat on the arm of her chair.
"Bet you're sore," she said.
"A bit."
"Bet you're ready for that change."
"Yeah." Josie's voice cracked in the middle of it. "Yeah, I am."
"Ask him, then."
Josie looked across the room. Marcus was on the sofa with his coffee, in the middle of a conversation, and she had to call across the room in front of everybody — again — and she was so far past caring that it almost didn't hurt.
"Marcus."
He turned.
"Can I be changed, please."
He looked at her for a beat longer than was comfortable. Then he said, "Course you can. Bathroom's—"
"I know where it is." Priya was already up. "I'll get the bag out of the cupboard. There's a towel in there, it's on the rail."
"Thank you," Marcus said. Then, to Josie: "Go on. I'll be there in a minute."
Josie went up the stairs with Priya, and Priya put her hand on her back on the landing and said, quietly, "You alright? Honestly?"
"Yeah." Josie's eyes went hot again at the kindness of it. "Yeah. It's — it's a lot. But yeah."
"Good. Bag's in there. There's a bin with a liner in the bathroom, put the used one straight in, and there's a flannel on the side if you want it." Priya squeezed her shoulder. "And take your time. Nobody's clocking you."
The bathroom was warm and there was a towel on the rail and a bag on the floor and a bin with a liner, and Priya had thought of everything, and Josie stood in the middle of it for a second with her hands over her face.
Then she got the dress up and the diaper down and sat on the edge of the bath and let herself breathe.
Marcus came up three minutes later and shut the door and looked at her — dress bunched at her waist, soaked and loaded diaper sagging between her knees, face wrecked.
"Alright?" he said.
"Mm."
"You did so well."
"Don't." Her voice wobbled. "If you're nice to me I'll cry and then I'll have to go back down with a red face."
"Then have a red face." He knelt down. "Lie back."
She lay back on the towel on the floor with her knees up and her hands over her face. He peeled the tapes and the smell came up warm and thick and he made a low sound in his throat that she felt rather than heard.
"Christ, Josie."
"Don't."
"Look at it. It's full."
"It's supposed to be—"
"It's supposed to be," he agreed, and wiped her.
He took his time. Front to back, long strokes, and then again, and then a fresh wipe pressed flat and held, and she lay there and shook and listened to him breathe. Then cream, cool, spread with the flat of his hand, and the cool of it made her eyes close.
"Open," he said, and she opened them, and he had the fresh one — thick, white, the printed one — and he slid it under her and lifted her legs one at a time to seat it and smoothed the pad flat.
Then the tapes. Bottom left. Bottom right. Top left. Top right. Each one held down with his thumb, and the thing coming snug and dry and thick against her.
"There," he said. "Clean and dry and thick as anything."
"Thanks."
He put his palm flat on the front of it and left it there and looked at her.
"You've got to go back down," he said, "in this. In front of all of them. And it's going to be loud."
"I know."
"Everyone's going to hear it on the stairs."
"I know, Marcus."
He kissed her. Then he pulled her up and got her dress straight and opened the door.
She went back down ahead of him and the crinkle came out of the dress on every step, enormous in the stairwell, and she could hear the sitting room noise falter as she came and then pick back up, and she walked in and sat down in the armchair and Bel said, without looking up from her wine, "That's a thick one, isn't it."
"Yes," Josie said.
"Can you close your legs in it?"
"Barely."
"Good," Bel said, and drank.
They left at half ten. The goodbyes were the last of it: Priya hugging her and saying "come again, properly, when you're not being put through it," and Bel shaking her hand and then, at the last second, reaching down and pressing two fingers against the front of the dress — dry, crisp, thick — and saying to Marcus, not to her, "She's dry. She'll need doing before bed."
"She'll get done."
"I know she will." Bel patted Josie's cheek. "Well done, love. You did beautifully."
Josie got out of the front door and onto the pavement and stood in the cold with her hand over her mouth.
They walked home. Marcus carried her bag and held her hand and neither of them said much. The cold got into her legs and the diaper crinkled under the dress with every step and she was so wrung out she could barely feel the embarrassment anymore; it had all been spent.
At the front door he got the key in for her and then turned her round in the hallway and kissed her, hard, with one hand in her hair and the other flat on the front of the fresh diaper, pressing.
"You were so good tonight," he said against her mouth.
"Marcus—"
"Eight people, Josie. Eight people watched you piss yourself at a table and then sit in it and then mess yourself in front of them."
"Yes—" She got both hands into his shirt. "Yes—"
"And then you asked me, out loud, in front of all of them, to change you."
"I did."
"Say it again."
"Please can I be changed," she said, and her voice broke. "Please can I be changed out of my wet nappy, Marcus, in front of everybody—"
He walked her backward into the bedroom by the front of it and she went.
He didn't take the fresh one off. He put her on the bed on her back with her knees up and the dress shoved to her waist and he knelt between her knees and pressed the crisp padding with the heel of his hand, hard, and rubbed, and the friction of it through the thickness was extraordinary — all pressure and no skin, diffuse and enormous and everywhere — and the crinkle came out of it in a frantic rhythm and she got a fistful of the duvet and arched.
"Say what you are," he said.
"I—" She couldn't think. He pressed harder. "Marcus—"
"Say it."
"A woman who — who wet herself at a dinner party and sat in it—" Her voice cracked. "And messed herself in front of everyone. And then asked to be changed—"
"Good girl." He rubbed faster. "And what happens when you need to go?"
"I ask."
"And when you've gone?"
"I sit in it."
"That's right. You sit in it."
She came with her heels skidding on the duvet and her back in a bow and her hand slapped over her own mouth, and it went on in long rolling waves and he didn't stop until she was twitching and pushing at his wrist.
Then she lay there with her chest heaving and her eyes streaming and the fresh diaper crushed and creased between her legs, and Marcus lay down beside her and put his hand on her stomach.
"Alright?" he said.
Josie laughed — wrecked, cracked, wet — and put her arm over her eyes.
"Nobody's ever going to be able to have us to dinner again," she said.
"Yes they will. Bel's already asked."
"Bel?"
"Bel's asked for the twenty-eighth." He kissed her shoulder. "She's going to be much worse than Priya."
Josie lay there in the dark with a crushed diaper between her legs and her face still hot and a man's hand on her stomach, and she thought about the twenty-eighth, and about Bel, and about the fact that she had a whole shelf of these in the cupboard now and an entire month to get used to them.
"Marcus," she said.
"Mm."
"Next time," she said, "make me ask for it at the door."
He laughed against her shoulder and said, "Yes, ma'am," and reached over and turned out the light.
26-30, M
