Chapter Five:

I stood awkwardly behind one of the set walls and looked down at the diaper between my legs. Betsy told me to go back here and make sure I was as wet as I could be before the changing scene. After all, if I didn't use the diaper now, I'd wet myself a lot sooner this evening. I shook my head at the thought. Finally, I had a moment to myself. Finally, I could be Leona again. But... after this morning... after everything... it was the first time I struggled to come out of my Baby Luvs persona.

"It's important when changing a baby girl to follow all the proper steps and precautions," Betsy narrated to the film crew, with Leona laying on her back in front of her. My camera whirred at the end of the roll of film and I stepped away to change it out, and from where I stood by the table it was hard not to hear Abe bickering with his assistant.

"Listen, Melissa baby, listen to me and listen good, you're a woman and it's second nature for you."

"You know I have a family, right Abe? I can't just check into a hotel for a week and be part of your little pet project."

"Pet project?" He waved his cigar around. “No Mel, no no, we do Baby Luvs here. Cousin Tony does Kitty Meow."

I rolled my eyes as I unrolled the film and went back to watching. If he didn't pay so well, I didn't imagine anybody would have had anything to do with that man.

I held my stuffed elephant to my chest and looked back, upside down, at the camera. I was nervous. I'd been put in a diaper on camera a thousand times, but this was different. This time, I was wet. Really wet. It wasn't the same. Betsy untaped the sides of my diaper and the rush of cold air washed between my legs. I shivered and pushed my face into my elephant's tummy.

I got the picture, I got the shot of her face the moment she felt her diaper opened up - the camera crew focused on the diaper area because they lacked any artistic integrity. And lacked the strange fascination I seemed to have with this girl. But that's why we were both hired, right?

"For a girl like Baby Luvs, she can immerse herself in her childish ways, hide away in her juvenile life, play make believe and pretend so long as she desires - but diaper changes make her acutely aware of one thing." The camera zoomed up and showed just how wet and yellowed the inner padding was. "She's a baby now, she'll never be anything but a baby, she can't ever change her mind or come back from this. No adult would ever let this happen to them."

Well you know, that wasn't true now - plenty of adults wore diapers! But none of them were as attractive as Leona.

I can't change my mind. No adult would let this happen. Her words washed over me like ocean waves and I sunk into the plush carpet, cuddling my elephant as tightly as I could. I knew it was just pandering for the camera. Tell them what they want to hear, right Leona? But a part of it stuck with me... like maybe she could be right. She wasn't! But maybe she could be...

"Baby Luvs here can fit into actual baby diapers, she prefers them in-fact," Betsy continued as she wiped the girl clean, methodical, like she'd done this a thousand times. "But for a girl like her, so small, so helpless? Well, it's better to keep her in something much thicker."

One of the cameraman handed her a diaper, a thick white and pink one, the plastic crinkled audibly enough that even I heard it, and I wondered about a lot of things. Flashes of Leona out grocery shopping, at the movies, in the park, in a lecture; in her pretty baby-tee and bonnet, and that diaper, and nothing else, and it being normal. My blush was gonna match hers at this rate...

Baby diapers? Sure, I wore them for a few shoots. Especially to live up to my namesake. But I didn't care about one diaper over another. They were all just diapers. The woman lifted my legs by the ankles, high above my head just like a real baby, and slid the dry diaper beneath my bottom. Then I smelled the familiar scent of baby powder and I looked up at the cameras shyly, popping my thumb in my mouth.

I couldn't believe the degree that Betsy sold the narrative - I couldn't imagine how much Abe had to be paying her. The portly man had appeared beside me in between my taking a picture of the powder sprinkles all over Leona's thighs, and the shot of her thumb between her lips.

"She's something, isn't she Jackie?” Abe said, at my side. “She's something else."

Click. "Leona? Yeah, she's brilliant, very..." Sexy? Jesus. "Photogenic."

He sucked on his cigar and looked at me like I was trying to jam a square peg into a round hole. "What? No Jackie, are you blind? Betsy, Nurse Betsy, she's something else, look at the way she handles Baby Luvs, look at her finesse, her love for the craft, Jackie, you could learn a lot from her."

"Like how to drill you for more money, Abe?" He looked like a dog who'd just had his toy taken away and slunk away, mumbling to himself.

"It's important to rub the powder in good, to use just the right amount and then some, a baby likes ours could be in a wet diaper for many hours before she notices, or before Mommy checks for her, isn't that right, Baby Luvs?"

Abe was right about one thing... Betsy was certainly finessed.

She pulled the thick diaper up between my legs and taped it snuggly around my hips. Then, without warning, she picked me straight up off the floor and put me on my feet. Wow, she was strong... and it made me feel so small in comparison.

"Tank you, Mommy," I mumbled shyly and patted the sides of my new pink diaper. I cuddled up to her arm with my elephant as the crew took pictures. If I didn't look like an obvious adult woman - albeit, one in a diaper - someone could believe she was my real mom!

"It's time for your dinner, now, Baby Luvs - Mommy's got your favorite formula in your babas, and you can have as many as you like." Which was code for 'I'm going to feed you as many as Abe says to', clearly. The film crew cut to the bottles on the table, three of them with different colored guards one each in pink, blue, and yellow, and then back to Betsy as she settled herself down into her chair adjacent.

"When you're taking care of a baby like Baby Luvs here, you have to remember she'll need quite a few bottles if she's to stay off solid foods and feel at her most babyish, so even if she says she's full, you should always give her a little more. Come over here, Baby Luvs, Mommy's got your dinner."

I crawled onto Betsy's lap in the rocking chair and wrapped my lips around the nipple of the first bottle. Usually when I had bottles on set, I had plain milk. But this wasn't milk. I pouted and tried to shoo the bottle away with my hands but Betsy shushed me with some soft coos and guided the nipple back into my mouth. At first, I played it up. Wiggling around on her and getting comfortable, curling up to her, relaxing... but Betsy was different. She played with my hair while I drank. She said quiet things to me. And I felt myself... thinking just a little bit less... like maybe I could close my eyes and just enjoy the moment.

Betsy played with her hair the way that parents do, and she didn't narrate the feeding any further; she kept it calm and soft and intimate. I wondered if the parent-for-hire had kids of her own - she was a natural, after all. I mean, maybe she just practiced on others? I had no idea how common or not this fetish was, were there other girls out there, like Leona? No, my blush decided for me. Nobody was like Leona.

I looked dizzily and sleepily up at Betsy as she propped me up over her shoulder. Three bottles and I was feeling warm and gooey, like I'd melted into the carpet. I never thought I would say this at three in the afternoon on a work day, but I really wanted to take a nap! Then Betsy's hand came down on my back, light and sharp, until a loud burp poured out of my lips. I blushed furiously and looked at the cameras. I hadn't meant to do that...

It was surreal. Just like a baby. She wasn't just an actress playing Baby Luvs - she was Baby Luvs.

"It's hard to find good help, Jackie, harder than finding a rocking horse that poops and trust me I'd know, that's not easy, Jackie, that's hard like the wood the rocking horse poop's made out of, I tell you that." Ugh... what? "Melissa's let me down, let me down in a big way."

"What?" I tried to hide the annoyance in my voice, tried my damnedest not to be pissy at the man, but he was kinda ruining the moment for me! Since when did I care about that, though?

"It's the evening, Jackie, the evening. The cameras go home, and Nurse Betsy, too. Melissa was supposed to stay with Baby at night, stay with her and take some video with a little camera, no studio, no rehearsal, no production, just Baby Luvs after dark." He chewed on his cigar disgustingly and took it from his lips, his voice raising. "But women can't be trusted, Jackie, not as far as you can throw them and the law says you can't throw them anymore so what's a man to do, Jackie? What's a man to do. There's a hotel room set up, kitted, equipped, at the Carleton across the street from the studio, and nobody to watch over Baby Luvs."

"I'll do it." What? What wait, wait, hold up Jackie! "No big deal, right?"

I played a little game on a tablet that Abe had picked out for me a few months ago. A "tap the blocks" game. No thinking, no effort. A cat could play it, honestly. And it made the perfect game for a baby girl. And a perfect distraction. I rolled over so the camera crew could get shots of my diaper from tons of different angles, but I was bloated and bored. Sometime after climbing on top of my giant stuffed panda, my diaper high in the air, I felt my eyes slip closed. Just for a second, I told myself, and sucked softly on my pacifier.