In the morning Jacob wakes up with Izzy tucked tight against him. He smiles warmly. Everything he has ever wanted is right here. He smells her hair and kisses her forehead. He closes his eyes again and goes back to sleep.
Izzy opens her eyes and wipes the little sharp crusties from the corners. She yawns and rolls over in her bed, but she is not in her bed… She is on a cot that is too narrow. She lands on the ground hard.
Except the ground is lumpy and squishy. Sue squeaks, and Dr. Blob wibbles and envelops Izzy, holding her above himself before pushing her back onto the bed. “Human, you almost squished the delicate one,” Dr. Blob jiggles in reprimand.
“I’m sorry I didn’t realize where I was.” Izzy groans, her body sore; she considers for a moment that maybe she is getting old, or she comforts herself with the fact that the motel mattress is so incredibly comfortable compared to this cot.
Sue whines softly, but her voice is drowned out by a Jacob springing awake. “What happened? Is it ninjas?” he says in the panic of one waking up to chaos.
Izzy reaches over and grabs Jacob’s hair. “No, it’s fine, you’re fine, we are fine; I just rolled off the bed, no big deal,” Izzy calmly says. She is already going back to sleep; she pulls Jacob closer and drifts off.
Sue sits up and sighs to herself. Like most mornings, she wakes up wearing a cold, wet diaper, but at least this time she had an amazing sleep. It turns out that Dr. Blob is the best pillow, blanket, and mattress ever.
Jacob tries to go back to sleep, but he can’t. Instead, he pulls Izzy tight to his belly, his erection pressing into her lower back. He kisses the back of her neck. “I wish we were alone,” Jacob whispers into Izzy’s ear.
Sue stands up wobbly and feels her diaper sag uncomfortably. She looks at Izzy and Jacob. She almost laughs when she realizes that Jacob is trying to seduce Izzy, but Izzy is asleep again. She walks over and pokes Izzy in the belly softly. Her cheeks were red with embarrassment and butterflies of excitement.
“What, Sue?” Izzy says sleepily, pushing Jacob away from her, his hot breath on the back of her neck unpleasant.
“Would you do the thing for me again?” Sue asks.
Izzy looks at the woman wearing her pink unicorn onesie with a plush horn on the hoodie. “What thing?” Izzy says, confused.
“Would you… You know.” Sue lowers her head and whispers too quietly to be heard by anyone with less than 6 ear stalks and 4 feet away.
“I didn’t hear you, Sue,” Izzy says, trying to stroke the knots in her back.
Jacob rubs the sore spots in Izzy’s back, pouting because he can tell Izzy is not interested in intimacy with him right now and also because he has figured out what Sue wants, and the angst of wanting it too is killing him.
Dr. Blob wibbles loudly. “She asked if you would change her diaper,” Dr. Blob says loud enough that anyone who has 2 normal human ears and is less than 200 feet away will definitely hear.
Sue jumps on Dr. Blob and beats his slime with her fists. “Quiet, quiet; don’t tell everyone. Why would you do that?” Small tears run down her cheeks.
Dr. Blob flattens into a puddle and slides out the front of the tent.
“Yeah, I guess, Sue, but I don’t want this to be a regular thing,” Izzy says casually, looking over at Jacob, trying to analyze the expression he has.
Izzy remembers Christmas at her grandmother’s house. opening gifts and looking up to see her cousin in tears, and she couldn’t figure out why. As it turns out, the reason is because her grandfather was going blind and had given her all of Timmy’s presents as well as her own because he couldn’t tell the difference between Timmy and Izzy.
That is the look on Jacob’s face.
“You got supplies, Sue?” Izzy asks, patting the bed next to her.
The smile on Sue’s face is priceless, but it’s gone as quick as it happens. Sue sees the look on Jacob’s face and turns away. “I can handle it myself,” she says, crossing her arms.
Izzy looks at Jacob, annoyed. She pushes him over onto his back. “Go to the bathroom while I take care of this.”
“What… fine,” Jacob says indignantly, but he stands up and heads outside. It’s only 9 in the morning, but people are already moving around.
Some people are packing.
Others are standing around low fires with skillets with bacon and pancakes sizzling. Jacob looks up at the sky and admires the pale blue for a moment before remembering Izzy is about to change Sue’s diaper. He feels a pain in his stomach and walks away from the tent.
He walks down to the row of outhouses and sits down to pee. He forgot his phone in the tent, so he sits and reads the back of the door. The disclaimer is long and complex and at times nonsensical, but he soon makes his way through it. His mind starts to wander again, so he instead tries to figure out what kind of plastic the door is made out of just by looking at the recycling symbol. He can’t remember what any of the symbols are, but he knows they have meaning.
He sighs at himself. “How did people do this before cellphones?”
Back in the tent, Sue opens her duffel bag and brings out a diaper, wipes, and powder. She hands them to Izzy with a tail wiggle. “Thanks, Izzy,” she says, with the look of joy in her eyes again. She misses her girlfriend terribly.
Izzy sighs and unzips the attractive woman’s onesie and helps her slip out of it. Sue’s diaper is revealed to be very wet and leaking at the leg gathers. Izzy untapes one side. “How long have you worn these, Sue?” she asks.
Sue blushes; she can feel Izzy’s eyes on her body. She looks up at Izzy. “I think I was 5 when it happened the first time.” Sue says as she covers her face with her hands in the delightful embarrassment she loves so much, “The first time I wet the bed, that is.'”
“And you just wet the bed all the time after that?” Izzy asks, untaping the other side.
“No, but after the first few times, my mom put me back in diapers for sleeping and waited for me to grow out of it,” Sue says, remembering how supportive her mom had been; it had become a ritual that brought them closer together.
Sue’s mom is tall and thin, and her voice is deep and commanding. She’s a career military woman. “Well, back to diapers for you, Sue,” the women had said. And that was that.
The first night Sue had worn one, she knew she was odd. “They just feel good,” Sue whispers to no one in particular.
Izzy pulls the wet diaper down and laughs at how full it is. “You did all this in one wetting?” Izzy asks. Lifting it up and bouncing the sogginess in the air.
“I uh, no, maybe I was sleeping for most of them,” Sue says, trying to avoid the subject.
“So let me guess, you kept wetting the bed, and you helped it a little along the way,” Izzy accuses the naked woman.
Sue scrunches up her face. “It wasn’t a lie; I just really like them,” Sue says, then squirms as Izzy wipes her up with a baby wipe. The wipe is practically, but not really, icy on her skin. “Fine, you’re right; it was a lie, but it wasn’t meant to hurt anyone.”
Izzy raises an eyebrow. “Are you feeling guilty?” Izzy asks as she lifts Sue’s butt up and slides the crinkly diaper under her.
Sue covers her face as Izzy tapes the old diaper shut and lays it on Sue’s belly. “I’ll take that as a yes,” Izzy says.
Outside the tent, Dr. Blob is following Jacob down to the water’s edge. Jacob is watching people pull down tents and try to put them back in the bags; about half of them have given up.
Jacob walks down to the dock, the wooden platform bouncing with each step. He walks to the end to see the big water is empty of people. “Why is no one swimming?” Jacob asks. He looks along the shoreline, and there are no houses in sight.
Dr. Blob rolls to the edge of the water and dips a pseudopod in. The water of the pond becomes clear in a circle that radiates out from his body. He flops into the pond and moves like a jellyfish, soaking up the algae and dirt. “I don’t know,” he vibrates.
Jacob jumps, and the dock bounces, making him land on his butt with his sneakers and socks in the water. “Don’t do that,” Jacob demands. He turns and looks at the swimming slime. “Where did you come from?” he asks confused; he thought he was alone. The floating dock soon comes to rest.
“Water’s nice; it’s warm,” Dr. Blob says brightly.
Jacob’s feet already wet, he decides to slip his shoes and socks off, the warm waters lapping at his ankles. He looks down into the much clearer water and spots a thing; it’s hard to tell if it’s what he thinks it is. “Is that?” he asks.
Dr. Blob turns into a whale-like creature and blows water out of his blowhole.
“Is that a shrimp?” Jacob asks the water. It doesn’t reply. He stands up and starts walking back to his tent. As he does, Dr. Blob rolls out of the water and follows behind. His body contains 2 trout, half a dozen shrimp, and half a pound of algae dissolving inside him.
Jacob stops and looks at the sleeping figure of Josh leaning against a door. The door is leaning against a tree. Jacob walks over and examines the door. He notices there are no hinges and the handle is in the wrong spot. But more importantly, the door isn’t running away.
Jacob examines Josh up close; he is sound asleep, snoring softly occasionally. He notices that Josh has lipstick on his face and his zipper is down. Jacob spies a blanket that looks like it was lovingly wrapped around Josh’s body but kicked off in the night. “At least someone got some last night,” Jacob pouts and covers the sleeping man’s body.
