Chapter Twenty-Seven

The drive home had been filled with the laughter and memories of two friends who hadn't seen each other in a long while. She knew so many of the in-jokes, which told Bree how long those lines had been rolling around.

And she knew. The longer they drove, the more Bree realized that Jo had gone through much of what she was experiencing at the Dollhouse. The casual way she deferred to Kinsley, the matriarch, the way she never batted an eye at the outfit of the girl in the back seat.

"Still carrying this same diaper bag, huh?" The music break was done, it seemed. They'd caught up for a while but Jo ended up getting frustrated and upset the more she talked about David. Music ended the conversation and let them both lose themselves for a while. "When was the last time you changed the pet?"

Bree had blushed more in her time with the Dolls than she had over the rest of her life combined, and that comment added to the tally.

"Careful Jojo or you'll wind up in one yourself." Kinsley's voice was laughing as she said it, and Jo didn't miss a beat.

"Honestly that sounds really good." She opened the bag, looking at the contents and pulling out yet another plastic rectangle, another diaper. It had been more than a day since she'd been put in diapers, she'd gone through several already, including that horrible accident Faith had caused. And judging on Jo's reaction, the end was not yet in sight. "Just let someone tape me into a nice, thick diaper and just be a Doll for a while? It's harder on the outside, Kins."

"I know, sugar." Bree was lost in the conversation, in her confusion at how Jo was so calmly eager about it. "We'll be sure to pad you up once we get back to the Dollhouse."

With a grin, Jo pulled out another diaper. "Why wait? I'm betting Bree needs a fresh diaper and I wouldn't mind one. Find us a rest stop, I'll change her, you change me." She was so nonchalant about it, like it was the most normal thing in the world. "Unless you like being soggy, Bree?"

"No!" The pet responded instantly.

Jo gave a small laugh, "Oh so you're excited about a fresh diaper then?" A frustrated whine was all Bree could muster. "Oh they're training you well, aren't they?"

She had so many questions. How long would they keep her that way? How long would she be stuck in diapers? How long before they let her go?

"I don't want to wear diapers."

"Aww," Jo sounded a lot like Faith with that mocking tone. "Sunshine doesn't love her diapers yet? Careful or they'll keep you in double diapers for a week. Have you gotten a turn in the highchair yet?"

"Stop giving things away Jojo, or you're going to end up pacigagged for the rest of the trip." Much of the mirth in Kinsley's tone had vanished as the world glided gently while the car found the off-ramp to the rest stop, Bree offering no more objections. With her pulse accelerating, she tugged foolishly at the hem of her short dress. "I'm going to go use the bathroom, neither of you need one. Be a good girl, Bree. Do what Jojo says."

Mentally, Bree had been hoping for this chance, for some time alone with the new person who obviously knew what went on with the Dolls behind closed doors. She had so many questions. But all of them fled from her brain as the back door opened and firm hands with strangely calloused fingers started laying her down in the backseat without a word.

"Wait," Bree didn't resist, she didn't have much resistance left in her at all. She had tumbled so far in the past week, from human to pet to doll and now something else entirely, getting her diaper changed in the back seat of a car by a relative stranger. "I need to know-"

Her words were cut off by the pacifier, by Jo pressing it between her lips.

"Shh. You'll find out. I know better than to spoil things, despite my teasing." That sound, the sound of ripping tapes, echoed across all of South Carolina, one after another. Then came the wipes. Gentle, almost teasing... and after a moment of hesitation, calluses danced along Bree's inner thighs before dragging toward her center. "Just be a good girl."

Breath caught in her throat, Bree froze, almost disappointed when the woman's fingers stopped there, lifting her bottom instead, removing the sodden diaper and balling it up.

"Out of one diaper and into another - I wonder how many this is for you in a row?" Bree only nursed the pacifier while Jo teased, slipping another diaper under her bottom. "Up we go, Sunshine." She didn't realize until that moment that the nickname came from the smiling thing on her dress. "There we go, another nice, soft diaper. Feels good, doesn't it?"

Admitting it would be the ultimate betrayal of self, but it did and she hated that it did. The soggy padding was gone, replaced with fresh softness, that cloud that would wrap her most private places yet again, protected by plastic and sealed away. A fresh diaper did feel good, and she wasn't sure how to feel about that.

Somehow, this one felt different. Wider between her legs. Firmer, perhaps. There was no time to consider it, however, before the front was being pulled up forcing her thighs further apart. Bree was being sealed into yet another diaper, knowing it was only a matter of time before her body betrayed her again, playing into Kinsley's hands.

Exactly the way Jo seemed to want.

Grinning eyes framed by fallen brown hair looked down at her as Bree felt a gentle pressure on that soft padding, just over her most sensitive place.

Jo, patting the front of her diaper softly, smiled. "Good girl."

Kinsley's voice joined, musical tones that she found comforting and had once believed were innocent... but now Bree knew the darkness that hid behind them. Kinsley Adams was the heart of the Dollhouse, pulling the strings to see the dolls dance. And yet again, Sabrina's hope that a new person would rescue her was dashed to pieces.

"Your turn, Jojo."

Unexpectedly, Jo's cheeks colored just as Bree's had a thousand times during this road trip.

She asked for it, why in the world is she embarrassed by it now?

"Scoot onto the floor or climb up to the front," that powerful confidence was gone from Jo's voice, those green eyes flickering with some emotion that Bree had no name for. "You're not keeping the front seat though."

Opting for the front, she did her best to keep her diapered rump from view through the windows, ignoring the fact that her childish dress would give her away just as easily. Specters surrounded her, spilling from her mind, the faces of the girls that had seen her before, the drive-thru workers. Anxiety reawakened, shame at having been seen in such a foolish situation.

She was lost in it, but that now-unmistakable rustling crinkle pulled her from her haunting.

A fresh diaper. Turning around in her seat, she saw Jo, naked now from the waist down. Ink curled around her hips on each side, twisting and stabbing until they met in the middle, on the lovely V below her navel and above unexpected parts. The lines formed a sort of tribal heart, menacing and sweet at the same time, the center a blooming red amid its black, sharp surroundings.

It was beautiful, and a moment later it was hidden as the diaper was pulled up and taped, one-two-three-four, with impressively efficient motions from Kinsley. When Jo had first appeared, she'd been an almost rock-star, that same grunge-chic that Faith wore but with an entirely different twist. The dirty hair, the ripped jeans, the sarcastic t-shirt, she had a power that came from pure "cool". The t-shirt was still there, Jo was still the same woman, but seeing her laying there in the back seat, crimson-cheeked and thickly diapered, she seemed completely different.

All women, regardless of what was between her legs, and still with that power but tucked away. As though the diaper hid that cool beneath the matching cute they now shared. Bree wondered if she looked that cute, whether the clothes and diaper overcame every bit of butch she armored herself with - or if she looked as stupid as she felt. As stupid as the people in the drive-thru likely believed her to be.

Jo's voice was guarded as she pulled her torn jeans back up. "Pretty rude of you to look." Panic stabbed Bree, she hadn't even considered it. "I prefer people to learn on my terms, or not at all."

Stepping out of the car, she walked to the window, looking down at Bree through the window. The jeans looked odd now, bulging with the bulk of the diaper, the plasticky waistband poking up and betraying her not-at-all-secret underwear. Silently, Jo commanded her to honor her word and Bree scuttled to the back seat again.

"I'm sorry." Before Jo was even seated, Bree was apologizing. "I didn't mean to..."

Interrupted by a sharp laugh from Jo, Bree looked up in surprise. Kinsley was back in the driver's seat, quietly watching their exchange.

Jo's expression was unreadable. "Though I suppose I didn't exactly ask you first, huh. Feel differently about me now?"

On the back foot, Bree shook her head. "Why would I? You're still cooler than me," she reached for her status in the Dollhouse as a shield. "And I'm on the bottom."

It was Kinsley's turn to laugh as the car roared back to life. "Good. Dolls don't judge, we wouldn't have kept Bree around if anyone thought for a minute she was."

Wandering lost in a mist of unfamiliar feelings, Bree reached out in all directions, trying to find her way. "Why?" Bree's question was simple, but Jo's expression darkened. "Why did you want to wear a diaper?"

The clouds in Jo's eyes scattered instantly, the gleam returned in full force. "Why not? It's comfortable and I was going to end up in one anyway. They'd think of one reason or another - protect the bed, the little sister come home, or Faith would dump water on me and tell everyone I wet myself."

That did, in fact, sound like Faith.

"You don't care?" Bree was still confused. Jo knew what the Dolls were about, the weird things they did, and walked right back into it.

Trees flying by them on the right, Jo shrugged. "It's just clothes. Why would I care?"

"Clothes?" Bree looked down at her own humiliating outfit and realized only then that Jo hadn't teased her once about it. She hadn't batted an eye, as though it was the most normal thing in the world. "It's humiliating. I don't want this."

"So you say," Jo turned to face the road, the shrug in her voice this time. "You seemed to be enjoying it a moment ago. Thanks for handling the trash by the way, Kins."

Kinsley's musical laugh answered. "Someone has to be the adult, after all. It's not going to be you and it's certainly not the pet."

When Bree didn't answer, Kinsley turned the music back on, filling the car with drums and synthesizers and guttural, rhythmic screams that the two people in the front lost themselves in quickly.

In the back, she was equally lost. New feelings skittered around inside her, pulling at her heart and her mind. Jo had gone from cool to cute and back to cool. But what was more, Bree knew something now about Jo's journey - or at least she could make some assumptions - and it was complicated. Her own relationship with femininity was complicated and feelings she had for the new girl were confusing.

The music did not grip her the same as the other two, however. Essentially left alone with her thoughts, she turned it over in her mind.

She was jealous. She just wasn't sure why.