Chapter Thirty:

Jackie went to the counter to check out and I stood behind one of the potted plants in the corner. Hiding wasn't feasible, not with the bright pink of my dress, but I couldn't go out there in front of everyone and act like everything was normal. I couldn't even walk, damnit! Jackie exchanged the room keys and signed a piece of paper, then came back to find me. I sulked.

"Come on," she told me. "Let's go out the side door. Betsy should be here any minute."

Sure enough, Betsy was just getting out of the mini van when we made it to the parking lot. She looked at us with a frown.

"I said I would be up to get you at nine. You didn't have to come down here." In other words, she didn't want me to avoid the humiliation of check out. "Too late now," she sighed.

"Don't worry, Bets, I took care of it." I patted her on the shoulder with a hint of condescension, and nodded to the van. "Are we going back to the studio for the big finale?" While asking, I was taking my camera lens off and snapping a few pictures of Leona. Betsy would think it for the project; but these were for me.

Betsy grinned and I sunk into myself.

"The studio? Oh, no. We have something much more grand. Come now."

She opened the back door to the car and I was greeted immediately by the camera crew. I put on my best baby girl expression and waved with both hands. Last day, I reminded myself. Last day.

Last day, I thought to myself. This was the last day this vile woman would have any sway over my little girl’s actions. But it wasn't as though she'd ever had sway over her heart - that was mine. So I sat in front, and I took pictures. Not of the smiles she gave the film crew, but of the looks she gave in between.

"We're going to have a grand finale that your fans deserve, Baby Luvs," Betsy smiled, proudly. "It's like nothing you've ever done before, even more special and scary then when you filled your padding with stinky mess for everybody. Won't that be wonderful?"

A grand finale? I should have expected that. But when Betsy mentioned the horrifying act I'd done in my diaper three times already, I went crimson. I looked at Jackie nervously, but I had to play it up. The cameras were on me. Last day, I thought. That was going to be my mantra, it seemed.

"Uhhuh! Wonderful!"

"I'm so glad you're so excited for the spectacle you're going to be today, Baby Luvs! That's a good spirit to have!"

Okay, but what was she up to? What could she impose upon my Leona that she hadn't already done? What could be so awful? But we were driving away from the city, away from the hotel, away from the apartment. I had so many questions, like... like where was the furniture from the hotel?

Jackie passed me a bottle on Betsy's instruction and I sucked it softly for the camera, batting my beautiful lashes and giggling in the seat. I knew how to play my role. I was good at it. I was beyond professional. If anything, this week was the equivalent of getting my doctorate in babyhood. I should put that on my resume. I'd have to tell Jackie that joke later...

But as the afternoon dragged on and the bottle was long gone, I was getting bored of waiting. What was Betsy planning, and why did we have to go so far out of the city to do it? Finally, after two very long hours, we pulled into the lot of a public park. I anxiously looked at all the cars and over at Jackie. She... she wasn't taking me out in public like this, was she? I couldn't even walk...

Betsy climbed out of the car, and the camera crew got into position, too - one more man than usual, who stayed in the car to film from inside, while Betsy opened the door on the outside and unbuckled the baby girl from her seat, lifting her out and setting her down into an off-road style stroller, the sort with three wheels.

"Better safe than sorry to keep the nasty icky mud off Baby Luvs dress, and contained to her diaper, right everyone?"

She laughed while I followed along, and it took less than a minute or two for the group of us to arrive at the Grand Finale. Her nursery. Set up here, in the public park, in open air. There were streamers. Banners. Many, many people surrounded a huge picnic table with a tablecloth, decorated with gifts. And a cake. A birthday cake.

"Happy First Birthday, Baby Luvs!" Kate leaned down and hugged me tight around the stomach. Kate? If Kate was here, then so was...

"LUVS!" Jessie tackled me in the stroller, almost knocking the both of us to the green grass. She was dressed in a beautiful purple party dress - something tastefully childish. Envy washed over me.

"Sprinkles has been eager to see you again since you visited on Wednesday," Kate explained. I had to play it up. So I flashed my brightest smile and hugged Jessie back.

"Me too! So 'cited to see you!" I was not excited to see her. I wasn't excited to see any of this...

Happy First Birthday. This was a birthday party, in the park? In a public place, with the crib, the changing table, everything... I looked at the layout and made inventory. Was the highchair new? It had to be new. I scanned the crowd until I found Abe, sharing a conversation with a man in a suit. I made my way over to the area sectioned off for AV equipment and waited to catch Abe’s attention.

"Well, Abe, this is certainly... something."

"Isn't it, Jenny? It's something, look around you, look at the nature, look at all that green, isn't that something? It is, Jenny, it is, and that something is money, Jenny, green like money, all the money we're going to make off today and tonight!"

Half a week away from this man was not long enough. "You really caught her by surprise today, huh?"

"You ain't seen nothin' yet," Abe said with a smile and a glint in his eye.

"Come on Luvs, less play!" I climbed out of the stroller at Jessie's behest and stumbled to my feet. She watched in awe as I struggled to stand and a wide grin spread across her face. "Tag!" she shouted, tapping me on the shoulder. "You're it!" Then she ran across the grass toward a tree on the far end of the picnic area. I looked up at Jackie with a pout, but she just shrugged her shoulders. Yeah, yeah. Last day...

I watched Leona run, I watched her trying to keep up with Sprinkles. But there was just no way that Thickly Padded Baby Luvs could have kept up. The cameras caught everything, making up for the lack of catching Leona did. And Sprinkles turned and teased her.

"Too much of a baby to catch me? Maybe its all the poopies in your pampers, Baby Luvs!"

I blushed furiously and looked at Jessie, then at the camera, and down at my frilly ruffle socks, clad in small black buckle shoes. This wasn't fair! Every step I took, I toddled like a baby who had just learned to walk! Jessie stuck out her tongue at me and I balled my hands at my side, running toward her as fast as I could with little to no regard for my balance.

What was it about Jessie that always brought out this competitiveness in me? All I had to do was touch her. Just once! But just before my hand reached her dress, I tripped and fell flat on my face.

The cameras caught everything. The attempt. The run. The stumble. The fall. The crying that followed, and then the fact I ran to her side without any regard for what was happening or who might see me. I bundled her up, I played with her hair, and I told her how okay it was that she fell. Sometimes that happened to girls her age. And the cameras caught it all.

My palms were scraped and my shoulders hurt and my legs felt numb for a few seconds. I didn't mean to start crying. But Jessie's stupid smirk and everyone watching and... and I couldn't help it. Tears started dripping down my cheeks and I fed into it. Wailing like a child. Until Jackie pulled me into her arms. I wrapped myself around her and pushed my face into her neck. She was so... warm. So comfortable. I smiled quietly and wiped my tears on her shirt.

"Sprinkles, you get over here and apologize to Baby Luvs right this second." I didn't even know where that tone came from! She wasn't even my little girl, but sure as rain that girl came over quick as could be and mumbled an apology to Leona.

"Why don't you go get her a juicebox, alright? She knows you didn't mean it, but she just needs a minute and she'll be good to play again." A Mom mode I didn't even know I had.

Wow... that was... sort of cool. I looked up at Jackie with renewed reverence as Jessie brought a juice box over to me. Jackie poked the straw into it and held it up to my lips. I smiled softly and sipped the straw, holding the juice box with both hands. The cameras never stopped filming me, but it felt like the two of us were alone in the world. I wanted to kiss her... but that wouldn't make for a good documentary. When I got to my feet again, I held Jackie's hand to stay standing. I saw Betsy watching from the edge of the picnic area with her arms crossed. Annoyed? Or contemplative? I couldn't tell.

"Do you wanna go play on the playground?" In for a penny, in for a pound. I was here, I was on camera, and this was this. Whatever. "I'll push you on the swing until lunch is ready?" Abe was on the phone, laughing, watching, talking about money clearly because he was smiling. What was he up to? What was this?

"Push me on the swing, Mommy!!"

Sprinkles was tugging on Kate's arm and puffing out her cheeks. And then someone else pulled up in a white SUV and got out of their vehicle - was that... I squinted. Was that? From Bed Bath and Beyond? No way…

"Ohhhh look! She's so cute in her new dress!" Becky ran up to me and pinched my cheeks, and before I thought better of it, I slapped her hands away. Becky was either fifteen or more suited to my career than I was - it wasn't fair for her to treat me like that! But slapping was all the excuse Betsy needed.

"Baby Luvs!" My blood ran cold...

"You will not treat your friends this way! Becky came all this way to see you on your birthday, and you hit her? You leave Mommy no choice."

I hated when she used that word on my Leona. But I hated what happened next even more. She grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her to the park bench, sat down, and pulled her right over her lap.

The park had to have been rented out for the party. Right? But half the people here, I had never met before. Men in suits or guys wearing polo shirts. Did they know me? Did they know who I was? Or was the sight of a grown woman in two very thick diapers being tugged over another woman's lap a complete surprise to them. Everyone turned. Everyone watched. The wind rustled the trees of the sunny afternoon and Betsy lifted the seat of my dress. I felt tears in my eyes before her hand even came down once on my bottom and I started to beg. The humiliation was crippling...

"Please, please don't... I'm sorry, please don't..."

"I raised you better than this, Baby Luvs. I raised you better than to hit other people. You are in such trouble young lady! I think we're going to go all the way to twenty this time, and I know you can't even count that high but it’s a VERY high number!"

What could I do? Should I intervene? But when I took a step forward, Abe grabbed my wrist and shook his head. Smiling. Grinning. Ugh!

Each smack on the seat of my ruffled panties was worse than the one before it. I couldn't feel it at all, but I could certainly hear it. I could hear the laughter, the whispers, the teasing. I saw the camera poking into my face to capture my expression, knowing full well the other one was getting a full view of my ass as Betsy's hand came down over and over on my diapered behind. Tears dripped down my cheeks and I kicked my feet in protest. When had crying become so easy? When had I fallen so far?