Chapter Nineteen:

I shuffled from foot to foot, listening to the rustle of my diaper. I had to go potty, but I was waiting for the right moment. When had my pride become less important than a competition with some stranger? But in a way, Jessie was my competition. She ran her own website with the same content as mine. Plus, I remembered what Jackie had said... I could win this. I fluffed up my poofy dress and looked up at the cameras. Stay determined, Leona. You've got this.

The cameras in the room never moved, which made it easy to say out of frame. I clicked a few photos of her, of her look of... opportunity, then guile, then annoyance and then discomfort, shifting from one foot to the other. Potty dancing, maybe? I didn't know, and I was so distracted trying to stay out of the field of view of the cameras to pay too much attention.

Jessie and Kate came back ten minutes later. But the crest of Jessie's diaper poking out from under her dress was white. When she had gone into the bathroom, it was pink. So I was right!

"What ‘chu looking at?" she said and stuck out her tongue. "Too grown up to play toys on your own?"

I puffed out my cheeks. "Nuh uh! Come on, let's play race cars."

I noticed the same thing Leona did: Jessie had gone to the restroom. But then what was the point of the diapers? They had this whole nursery, all wired, streaming live. Click. Click. I got a particularly good shot up the skirts and pettis of Leona's dress as she pushed her car around.

"Do your knees hurt?" Jessie asked me, out of the blue. I looked back at her curiously. "'Cause you prolly dun crawl around a lot, since you're all grown up."

My eyes narrowed and I crawled forward a few steps, so the seat of my diaper was visible not only to Jessie, but the cameras. I couldn’t believe I was doing this… but I had to! What other option was there?! I took a deep breath and my cheeks turned pink as I pushed the mess into the seat of my diaper. Only a second later, when my body realized I had given up all control of my bowels, it let my bladder go too, soaking the padding between my legs.

Sprinkles had a lot of sass for such a diminutive girl, and a word or six for every situation. Except for this one. Except for the visitor to her nursery putting her tush in the air and shitting herself for the camera. And she didn't know what was worse; that Luvs had done that, or that she KNEW the girl was going to try and play it off as a genuine accident for Baby Points. Her mouth opened and shut like a fish for a few more seconds before the yelling started.

"Mom-MEEE! Baby Luvs is GROSS!! She pooped her diapers, MOMMY! Mommy come quick, MOMMY!"

She held her nose for show at first, and then for real the smell started to become more apparent. "You're gross, Baby Luvs!"

It wasn't Kate who was first on the scene though... it was me. I knelt down next to Leona and ruffled her hair with one hand, rubbed her back after, and smirked at the obnoxious yelling ersatz child. "She's just a little baby, Sprinkles, and that’s what babies do." I defended her because I had feelings for her, but that didn't mean I wasn't shocked over what Leona had just done. And voluntarily, too!

I was hoping Jackie hadn't been watching. If I had my way, I would have waited for her to stop taking pictures or something. But Jessie had gotten under my skin and I just sort of... I blushed furiously and bit my lip. No reason to fight it now...

"I didn' mean to," I mumbled. "I can't help it sometimes..." Oh, but I really was starting to stink. I climbed up onto my feet and looked down. Jeeze, I was so embarrassed...

"C'mere." I shouldn't have done it. I was already on camera. I was already associated to this... degeneracy. I let my feelings get in the way of my common sense, and I pulled Jackie down into my lap. Which was both intimate and wholly disgusting; she smelled awful, and I felt her diaper against my thigh. Ugh. Ew. Why was I into this again?

"Sprinkles, maybe one day Baby Luvs will grow up as much as you have, honey, and learn how to use the potty. But I'm afraid she's just not ready for that yet, are you, Baby Luvs?" I played with her hair, I was intimate, the way we were in the pizzeria. Except you know, her bottom wasn't sitting in its own mess at the time.

I wanted to be anywhere else. But at the same time, I didn't want to be anywhere else. Jackie played with my hair and pushed my face into her neck. I looked up at Jessie with burning red cheeks and looked away. Her mouth was open in shock.

Kate came in a minute later and knew very quickly that something was off. It smelled a little too much like a nursery. And I was the center of attention: the twenty-year old girl in a stinky, messy diaper. I wanted to disappear...

Kate, for her part, handled things well. She clicked into gear, and obviously had some experience changing messy diapers for one reason or another - although from the look of disgust on Jessie’s face, it was probably not something she had ever done. Kate lifted Leona up into her arms, hoisted her into place, and laid her down on the changing table. I made sure to slip out of frame, but stayed close enough to get photos of the change that made my stomach churn. But I had a paycheck to earn, and seeing Leona so... vulnerable… well, it wasn't awful. Kate was lecturing her, telling her about how she had to know better than this, that she was lucky it happened now and not on her way home cause rashes were easy to get and hard to get rid of. And that made me wonder if our time here was almost over. Sprinkles certainly looked like she hoped it was.

We ate mac and cheese and ice pops for a late lunch. I thought Jessie would spill it all over her bib and I would be forced to do the same, but the both of us were well behaved. We were playing with dolls when the chime rang through the room, signaling a break. She crossed her arms.

"I underestimated you..." It wasn't so much a show of respect, as it was an... acceptance. An understanding that Baby Luvs would go places and do things that Jessie wouldn't dare dream of.

"I mean, iss gross, but I know some of our fans are into that stuff, I jus' wish someone gave me a heads up that you were gon' do that 'cause you smelled so bad..."

I puffed out my cheeks in embarrassment. "Maybe you're just not enough of a baby!"

Jessie rolled her eyes. "Yeah, well, you got me convinced. You're definitely little. So you can come visit again if you wanna."

I blinked. Little...? Like her? But I wasn't... I just didn't want her to lose to her! Obviously. "Like I would ever wanna come back here!" I stuck out my tongue.

"Uhhuh." She rolled her eyes and started peeling back a banana from her snack cabinet. "Mommy said you do some private studio stuff as your job, but you dun have your own nursery? That muss be awful. I mean." She bit into her fruit. "This means a bunches to you, and only being able to do it for work must be really hard sometimes, right? I have rooms without cameras jus' for relaxing an' bein' little and you're always welcome here, even if you are a stinky butt brat. She stuck her tongue out, covered in mashed banana.

...a nursery? I didn't need a nursery. It's not like I ever acted like this at home. Home... wow, that was a foreign concept. This was my fourth day away from home. I thought back to my little studio apartment, clean and lonely. Not even a pet... maybe I should get a pet, I thought. Or a crib. Ha...

"Baby Luvs?" I looked up to find Nurse Betsy in the doorway. She had been gone all day! "Time to go."

"R-right. Um." I turned to Jessie as I got up off the floor. "Nice to meet you."

"You, too, Baby Luvs." Jessie waved with half a banana still in her hand, as her new friend funneled out the door with her caretaker and... aunt, she guessed? What a strange girl.

"How was your little playdate, Baby Luvs?" Betsy asked, once they were in the car. Somebody else was driving, which meant with Jackie having taken her own car home, Betsy and Leona were in the back, the latter buckled into a car seat. A cameraman filmed from the passenger seat. "Were you a good girl for Mommy?"

I kicked my feet and looked up at Betsy. Mommy. It was weird to think about her like that - all she ever did was humiliate me and push my boundaries. If anybody was a Mommy - a kind, empathetic Mommy - it was... I blushed a little and sunk into my seat.

"I had a lot of fun," I told her honestly. "Maybe we could come back next week?"

Betsy, for her part, had a one week contract, and whatever happened next week would have very little to do with her. But she appreciated the theater, she appreciated the playing up of her charge’s role here. Betsy smiled as warm as her stern, professional features would allow, and kissed the girl on the forehead.

"If you're a very good girl, Baby Luvs, Mommy will see about that. I was quite surprised to see you dry and clean when I got back, you know, usually your diapers are quite a mess by this time of day. I bet you're hungry though, so when we get back home," home being the studio in this case, "we’ll change you out of that dress and into something more comfortable, and then Mommy will feed you." Feeding which, in this case, could only come from one place: her chest.

I elected not to mention the messy diaper to Betsy, but maybe the color of my cheeks told her everything she needed to know. Or maybe Kate did. But when Betsy said the word "home", I didn't think she meant the studio. I didn't think she meant my studio apartment either. I thought she meant the hotel. Somewhere down the line, the hotel had become home to me. Maybe it was all that baby furniture. Or maybe it was the company.