Chapter Fourteen:

Betsy covered my naked body - but for the very wet diaper - with a baby blanket with block letters. She put a pacifier between my lips and I lamented the loss of the real thing. But the exhaustion and dizzy comfort of the past half hour had me teetering on the edge of sleep. When I woke up - hours later, with the blanket bunched up under me and showing the seat of my diaper - I had to pee. But why make a big deal about it? My job was easy, if I'd let it be.

I tried a lot of things to work through the way I felt after seeing what had happened, and by the time that Leona woke up I'd settled on professional distance. Or indifference. Same thing. I clicked photos that would work out to be some of the best of my career: photos of her face, of her smile, of her diaper and her playing with blocks and toys on the plush alphabet tiled floor. She was so purely childish, like the way she'd been out in the park. That sense of oblivious happiness… if Betsy could make her feel that way, wasn't I just being selfish getting in the way? Usually, Leona would snap out of it when she was this deep into her Baby Luvs persona, but today she was enveloped. Purely and utterly Baby Luvs. All the indifference in the world couldn't make my chest flutter calm down when she offered a picture she drew to Betsy. To Mommy. When was this day going to be over…

On Sunday night, there was a crib in the hotel room. On Monday, Abe had bought that changing table. I wondered with idle curiosity what sort of surprises I had to expect tonight when I got to the hotel, but the only new furniture was an armchair. Actually, it was the same armchair from the set at work: a rocking, soft beige, lazy-boy-looking thing. But it was bigger - not quite big enough for two people, but maybe enough for one on another's lap. Then I remembered how only earlier today I'd laid across Betsy's lap on that very chair with her breast to my mouth. A blush washed over my cheeks.

"Now you make sure you're a good girl and when Mommy comes to pick you up, we'll make sure to give you some more feeding time."

Betsy didn't stay long. She dropped Leona off and posed for the camera like a politician, said a few enticing things, and left the two of us alone. I'd look at the chair, then look at Leona, then look away. Today she'd been fed from another human being. Betsy had made milk and put that inside of Leona, like some weird anchor to being Baby Luvs. It made sparking up an adult dialog... tricky.

"Was today fun? You looked pretty happy in some of the photos I took." Although... It was probably the last thing she wanted to discuss…

"Juss acting," I muttered, waddling over to the chair on the far side of the room and climbing into it. Unlike before, there was a little plastic cover over both arms of the chair. Each had pockets, fitted with spit rags, empty baby bottles, and a hairbrush. The chair had only appeared on set on Sunday - without a Mommy, we had never needed one. I wondered what we would use now.

"Well, you're a good actress, Baby Luvs." Alright Jackie, focus on this, focus on... us. Like there's an us. Ugh. Stop being so weird, Jackie! Don't be a pervert, don't be a weirdo, certainly don't... go sit in the chair with her, squeezing into the confined space, and then pull her up onto your lap. Don't do that!

See, I knew the logic. But I did it anyway.

And now I had Leona on my lap, now I could feel her wet diaper - clammy and used - against my bare thigh presented by the skirt I'd worn to work today. And if I knew Leona, there'd be fireworks. She'd freak out, she'd get up and lecture me, tell me I was being stupid. But for this moment, I savored the closeness of my bad decision.

No cameras. No movie. Just Jackie and me. But all the same, she came over and sat in the same chair, pulling me up onto her lap. Betsy dressed me in a long shirt before leaving the studio, but it hardly did anything to cover the puffy white diaper - or rather, puffy yellow diaper, since the car ride over here took a little longer than I thought.

I looked at her with annoyance and then... softened. I played with my fingers quietly.

"You were really brave today." It had come from a place inside of me that I didn't know existed, a place where I realized there was a sense of maternity and I'd just never allowed myself to see it. My tone was concerned, soft, tender. One of my hands separated strands of her hair that had become tangled during the day. I was everything Betsy wasn't. And while the words came out of nowhere, they felt... right.

"I"m really proud of you." Jealous as fuck - not of what she did, but that she did it with someone who wasn't me - but proud nonetheless.

"...yeah?" Her fingers ran through my hair and I felt myself melt into her lap. She was proud? Because I had done such a wonderful job at work? That had to be it. Because I was an amazing actress, and I made all this look easy. I let it be easy. I smiled a little and put my head against hers.

"Absolutely." As she leaned back against me, as she surrendered to the way I held her, let herself relax, I thought about how disgusted I should be. She was an adult and she'd pissed herself and I could feel the evidence of that my on my bare skin. So why wasn't I grossed out? Despite the logic, all I could feel was protective. I put one hand on her tummy, and then I kissed her ear and laughed a little bit. A happy laugh.

"I like this. I like you. You're a sweetheart, you know that?"

"Shuttup," I muttered, pushing her away. Did she kiss me? I mean, it was just on the side of my head, so it wasn't an actual kiss, but that was so much more affection than anyone had given me in... in years, maybe. I wasn't really the touchy-feely type.

I stumbled off her lap and looked down at the diaper between my legs. "...I should change," I said, more to myself than to her, but then I remembered last night, when she diapered me. Another blush filled my cheeks. Jeeze...

"That's probably a good idea." Otherwise you'll get a rash. That's what Betsy would say, right? Would she say it just to be taunting, or to make her feel diminished and warm? I didn't know how any of this worked!

"Alright, lay down on the changing table." I'd have said for her to lay down on the twin sized bed, but it seemed they'd taken that away this time and left me with a super uncomfortable looking fold up cot. How passive aggressive!

"Come on, up you get, and then we'll get something to eat - my treat." I spoke to her not like a baby, but more like I'd talk to one of my younger cousins - casually and cheerfully, without leaving room for her to argue.

"I can do it," I said quietly, folding my arms over my chest and pouting. But Jackie got up from her place on the chair and went over to the changing table nonetheless, examining the different colors and styles of diapers.

I bit my bottom lip and walked over to the small step stool, so I could climb onto the table without protest. She'd changed me once before, but that was on the bed. The changing table was so different... so much more infantile...

"There's a good girl." The praise wasn't humiliating, wasn't too diminishing, but it was undoubtably childish. I should have been filming this, I should have been documenting this moment! But this was for me, dammit. Not for Abe, not for the production. For me!

Well, this moment was for Leona, too. Not Baby Luvs, not a fictional version of this wonderful girl, but for Leona.

As she laid on her back, she presented me a parents-eye view, and I realized how wet her diaper was. Betsy really needed to change her before dropping her off! Not that I minded, but it was her job.

Was I supposed to talk? Should I narrate this?

"Where do you wanna go for dinner, hunny?"

In the end, I talked, but I talked about anything but the diaper change. It seemed the most adult way to approach a childish thing.

"...go?"

"Yeah, well, we could go out for dinner. It's been a while, hasn't it?"

She had already untaped the diaper and slid it out from underneath my bottom. Diaper changes had always been second nature on set, but this wasn't on set. This wasn't even being filmed!

"I'm not going out like this," I said sternly. "Absolutely not!"

But Jackie was a step ahead.

"Don't worry, I've got you covered."

Covered? What did that mean? I thought maybe I wouldn't have to wear a diaper at all, but she pulled the blue one with stars out from under the changing table. Great, the thickest bedtime diaper I had...

I could have picked something smaller, I knew I could have. I tried to convince myself that I picked the thickest one because it would mean she'd fit into the borrowed clothing better - she was smaller than me, after all - but to be honest, it was because I wanted to see her in it. I wanted to see her thighs unable to close; I wanted to hear the way it crinkled when she tried; I wanted to see her waddle when she tried to walk and need to hold my hand to keep balance. I bit my lip and forced a confident smile as I rubbed the powder into her privates.

The bloomers were hardly practical - the ones I wore under my dress when I took ballroom dancing classes two years ago - but they would more than conceal the diaper I was putting on her. They were childish, but they were mine, so she couldn't say they were baby clothes! And she'd be in a dress anyway so.... whatever. Confidently, I tugged the diaper up between her legs, and proudly I taped it. Symmetrically, too - it was a LOT easier on the changing table!

"There we go, much better, right?"

In a way, it wasn't better at all. Some photographer girl had just changed me into a diaper on an adult-sized changing table in the middle of a hotel room that was quickly becoming my nursery. And none of it was for the goddamn movie! What was the point of any of this?

But on the other hand, I had never truly appreciated dry diapers before this week. Lying here, with the warm, soft diaper between my legs, and knowing a nice woman had put it on me... well, it was better than the alternative, at least.