TRIGGER WARNING: Consent Violation, Blood

This chapter is dark.

Chapter Eighteen

"Hey," I sighed inwardly as Aubrey's voice reached me while I unlocked the door to my car.

I had hoped that on this final day, I would avoid seeing her entirely. The job was done, the company kept Benjamin Harris... though if my read was correct, he'd be fired within two months for gross incompetence. I had highlighted his flaws and pointed out clearly that in many cases I would recommend releasing him, but that he had a chance to become a valuable asset in the right setting. It wasn't entirely a lie - I just didn't think that setting was at this company, he already had a toxic work ethic.

"Aubrey," I greeted her solemnly. Her attitude was different, she seemed more relaxed. Good, maybe she was done trying to extort me.

"Why is Kailee this way?" she asked. I was honestly surprised by the frankness of the question.

"Sit with me," I offered, nodding to the car. I climbed in, unlocking the passenger door and waited for her to climb in as well. When both doors were closed - and Aubrey looked a little uncomfortable with being in territory that was firmly mine - humans are funny that way, we've evolved these thinking and reasoning skills but most people had no idea how much raw instinct affected their thoughts and emotions. Some primal part of Aubrey identified me as a threat, and being in "my territory" was further threatening. "Kailee is a submissive, to an unhealthy degree, honestly."

"What does that even mean?" Aubrey interrupted me before I had barely begun. I leveled a solid gaze on her and waited, staring, telling her nonverbally that interrupting was not acceptable behavior. "Sorry," she added quietly.

"It means," I continued, "that she has some drive to feel controlled, possessed, helpless. I'm not a psychologist and I'm certainly not Kailee's psychologist and there are a million different reasons why she could be this way. Maybe it's childhood trauma, maybe it was just watching a specific movie at a formative time in her life, maybe it's her need to feel validated in victimhood - you know that one is true, Kailee enjoys righteous anger, the feeling of being right because she was wronged - but it could be anything. Kailee needs to talk with a professional to learn these things." I paused, giving Aubrey a moment to speak.

"But what if she doesn't want to cure them?"

"Cure?" I chuckled. "No psychologist worth their salt is going to try to cure this, there is no 'cure'. Kailee is who Kailee is - talking to a professional isn't about trying to get rid of these urges, it's about trying to understand their cause and deal with any emotional trauma that's hiding there. Kailee has many unhealthy behaviors and attitudes, can you say that she really loves herself?"

"No," she agreed. "I can't."

"She should. Kailee is not a bad person. She is a selfish person, and she needs to learn to grow out of that."

"Well that's rich," Aubrey snarked, "I didn't think you wanted her to grow out of anything. You got her addicted to diapers, Vanessa! That's the opposite of growing out of things!"

"A diaper is just clothing," I countered. "Yes, it has a meaning, a connotation - but it's just a piece of clothing. Just because she wears a diaper - just because I wanted her to wear a diaper - doesn't mean she should be emotionally immature. We are adults - and it doesn't matter how deep the game goes, at the core it's an agreement between two consenting adults. She agreed to play, and when I no longer felt that it was right for me, I bowed out."

"Bowed out!?" she snapped. "You left her a sobbing wreck! She cried over you for a month, every day! You tore her heart out and stomped on it, you heartless... " I pursed my lips and narrowed an eye, and Aubrey's fury abated somewhat. She obviously had something else on her mind, if she came to fight she wouldn't simply back down there. "You were harsh," she finished, her voice lowered. "Too harsh."

"I gave her a hug, I told her that our relationship didn't feel like a good fit to me, I told her that there was someone out there for her, and I walked away."

"That's not what she told me," the tremor in Aubrey's voice told her that she was doubting, unconvinced.

"Let me venture a guess," I paused to take a breath for effect before continuing. "She told you that I said I hated her and that I never wanted to see her again, that I was a terrible and mean person who refused to give her another chance, and that it wasn't fair?"

"That's... pretty close, actually."

"I was gentle, Aubrey," I sighed. "You heard her pain, not reality. To her, in her mind, that is what I said - that was her interpretation of what I said, that was her experience. And I can't deny that's what she felt - but that's not what I said. I dated her for eight months and it ended almost three years ago. I have moved on. I never wanted to hurt her, but I'm not going to spend my life helping her overcome her damage, that's her responsibility. Too many people overlook these glaring cracks in their partner, or they don't discover these problems until they're years into the relationship and they don't want to just 'throw it away' because they've invested so much. It's the Sunk Cost Fallacy - and I don't fall for it."

"You're cold," Aubrey said softly.

"I'm practical," I replied. "I care about her wellbeing, but I refuse to take responsibility for it and if I continued to play the mommy role for her, that's exactly what I'd be doing. Kailee does need someone to help her - but it's not me."

"What does she want?" Aubrey asked - there was a solemn, timid tone to her voice.

"I am not the person to ask. How can I tell you what Kailee wants? Only she can do that."

"But she can't!" Aubrey's fists were tight on her thighs, she was hurting for her friend. That I could understand. "She can't, Vanessa. I keep asking her, I keep asking her what she wants but she never tells me anything that makes sense. What did she want from you?"

I sighed again, a weary sound.

"She wants to be controlled," I offered. "She wants someone to physically dominate her."

"Why does she want someone to hit her?" Aubrey asked, frustrated - she wasn't hearing me.

"Again, I can't tell you why. There are a multitude of reasons - but I can tell you this, it's not wrong to want that kind of attention from someone you trust. I recommend that you find a couples counselor."

"We're not a couple," Aubrey's eyes narrowed. "I'm not gay." She was so defensive, so offended by the thought... it was funny to me how a person could be accepting of others - she was accepting of Kailee - but have this internalized homophobia, that it was okay for everyone else but it couldn't possibly be okay for them. To me, I could read it plain as day... I had seen it enough in my life.

"A couples counselor can also see friends - they teach communication skills, Aubrey. That's all."

"It's not wrong to give her what she wants, right?" Pain. Seeking reassurance. Seeking permission. They both had so much learning to do about themselves. But I refused to step into that lion's den - I refused to be responsible for their mess.

"She's not wrong for wanting it, and what two consenting adults do in their own time is their business. But Aubrey," I laid a hand gently on her shoulder. "Don't do something because you feel obligated. If you give yourself in a way that makes you feel bad, it will only lead to resentment. Kailee is responsible for herself, for her own feelings."

"Yeah well," she said bitterly, "Not all of us can walk away from someone we care about when they're hurting."

Before I could reply, she was out of the car and storming off.

What a mess.

* * *

I stomped away from Vanessa's car, fuming.

She's such a cold bitch.

The Terminator. She terminated Kailee's relationship just like she terminated hundreds of jobs at A-Tech. Cold. Calculated. Unfeeling.

How could that beast have the gall to tell me about emotional health? She barely had emotions!

Kailee had been happier in the past two weeks than I had seen her in months. She liked me being her nanny - I couldn't stomach her calling me "mommy", not after watching her call Vanessa that for so long - she liked how I took charge. Vanessa was right about one thing - she did want to be controlled.

But it took so much time and effort. It was so draining, trying to do this for her, trying to make her happy. What about what made me happy?

I climbed into my car to drive home - I was glad Vanessa was out of my life. And when I got home, I was forbidding Kailee from mentioning her again. She wanted to be controlled? Fine. I would be controlling.

The drive was quick at least. I was at the apartment door in under half an hour.

When I open this door, I thought to myself, it had better be clean in there.

When I had left for work that morning, Kailee hadn't put away the dishes yet, and she hadn't folded her laundry. She had another leak yesterday, so she had bedding to wash today. Three years ago she had been on track to be a supervisor at her job, managing the QA team - now she worked part-time at a coffee shop. She didn't have a shift today, and if I came in to find...

Kailee jumped when the door opened, fumbling with the TV remote and stuffing it behind her after the television went silent.

"Hi nanny," she grinned. I knew that grin. That grin meant she had done something wrong and wanted to be punished for it. She did that so much. I'd tell her to do something and she'd "forget", she'd purposefully do things wrong because she loved it when I was cross with her. I narrowed my eyes, wondering what she had messed up now.

"Show me your diaper," I said after the door was closed. She stood and lifted her skirt, showing me a sodden, sagging diaper still taped around her. "Go change."

"Will you change me?" she asked, stepping over and leaning into me, grasping onto my arm.

"No," I said flatly. "I'm not going to change you - you change yourself." The idea of changing her diaper bothered me - it didn't bother me so much that she wore them, it didn't bother me that she peed in them, but I drew the line at handling them. I'd put her in a dry one after a bath, that was about my limit. "Now go. Now."

"Yes nanny," she sighed, trudging into her room as if I weren't already giving her every fucking thing she wanted.

Couldn't she see that I was doing this for her? Diapers weren't my thing - I wasn't even into women. Benny and I had a date tomorrow night at least, I'd get some attention then.

I heard her vibrator kick on in the next room, and it set my teeth on edge. She was so careless... but I really felt angry when I looked into the kitchen and found the sink full of dishes that she had sworn would be clean when I got home. I gritted my teeth and sat down, turning the TV on... only to find it on a Pay-Per-View porn. She was wasting money on cable porn!

I tried to breathe, tried to calm myself down. I wasn't going to leave her like Vanessa did. The Terminator was right though, she was selfish. Like a child.

I thought back to my own childhood, and I knew what I had to do. I grabbed the wooden spoon from the kitchen and headed for Kailee's bedroom. I heard the rip of the tapes of her diaper as I pushed the door open... and found her masturbating on an unmade bed, laying on just the plastic sheet, her clean bedding all over the floor.

And I saw red. Her room was a disaster, worse than it had been yesterday when I told her to clean it. I stomped over to the bed and tossed the used diaper on the floor, rolling her onto her stomach roughly.

"Nanny!" she squeaked. I brought the spoon down hard, stinging her flesh that was still damp from sitting in a wet diaper all day. I brought it down over and over.

"I'm going to teach you," I said between strikes, "not to be selfish. I'm going to teach you," she was squirming now, whimpering, "to think about others. This behavior is going to change!" As I continued, her whimpers turned to cries, which turned to sobs. She wanted punishment? Fine. She wanted control? Fine. But she was going to learn from it.

"Stop, Aubrey!" she writhed. I put my hand firmly on the back of her neck and held her there, bringing the spoon down on her bottom mercilessly.

"The dishes aren't done, your room is a mess, you wasted money on porn, and you're just in here masturbating!"

"Fuck Aubrey! Red! Red! Stop!"

I knew I was supposed to stop there, I knew I was supposed to listen to that word, but red was in my vision. And she wasn't going to learn if she could stop a punishment whenever she wanted.

When I did stop, she was a sobbing mess, begging and promising to be better. Blood dripped down her thigh, I had broken her skin at some point - the wound was angry and red on her bottom.

I looked down at her, heard her begging, heard myself, my child self in her cries.

And I hated myself.

"I don't want to ever have to do that again," I said, throwing the spoon to the ground. "I need you to listen."

As my mother's words came from my mouth, I walked away.

I wasn't going to abandon her like Vanessa did. I was going to fix her if it killed me.