Close Encounters

Close Encounters 26-43

The following story is a complete work of fiction.

Any similarity to actual persons living or dead is completely unintentional...

not to mention I will also be so incredibly jealous too.

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Close Encounters

by Danny

-< PART THREE >-

~ Twenty-Sixth Encounter ~

New Year's Eve meant more to me than the end of one year and the birth of another. It brought me another close encounter with the diapered kind. Okay, it was only my friends Mark and Sean, but that still counts.

Mark and Sean were sleeping over and the three of us had decided to stay up to watch the famous New Year's Eve Ball descend from the flagpole atop Times Square in New York City.

My brother, who was still recouping from his surgery, was spending most of his time in his bed. My sister had gone to stay at a friend's and my parents had gone to bed shortly after nine that night. So, the three of us had free run of the house and control of the television.

We still had a couple hours before the ball would drop, so, to keep ourselves awake, we ate popcorn, and drank several sodas while we played a card game called Uno.

Sean was the first to lose his pajamas by proclaiming, "It's too hot!" and sat there playing Uno wearing only his GoodNite. Mark, quickly followed suit and stripped down to reveal that he was wearing one of his Tena® diapers. I'm not sure if Mark was aware of the fact or not, but it was plain to see by Sean and I that he had already wet. Not wanting to be the only one wearing pajamas, I stripped down to my white Fruit-of-the-Loom's and socks. I mean it is winter you know!

We had the TV on while we played Uno and every so often, it would switch to the local New Year's Eve celebrations. What caught my attention was when an announcer said, "And as the clock strikes midnight, Old Father Time will pass the torch to Baby New Year." I looked up at the TV and standing to the left of the announcer was an old man wearing a white toga and sporting a long white beard. To the right of the announcer was a boy of nine or ten at the most. He wasn't wearing any clothes, just a big cloth diaper and a white sash that said, "Baby New Year" in gold letters.

"Max. Look, quick!" Mark said.

"I'm looking! I'm looking!" I exclaimed.

"I sure wouldn't want to be him!" Sean commented.

"Wait a second!" Mark said excitedly, and then crawled closer to the television.

"Mark, get out of the way!" Sean said to me.

He turned, and with an expression of extreme exasperation, he said, "I know that Baby New Year!"

"No you don't!" I said, "That's on TV in New York!"

"No it isn't, that is here!" Sean explained.

"What?" I said to Sean and then asked Mark, "Well who is he?"

But then, the camera did a close up on the new Baby New Year and I rushed to the television, scattering our cards everywhere. "Holy buckets! I know him too!"

"What?" Sean said, sounding as though he didn't like being left out.

Mark and I were on all fours in front of the TV so Sean couldn't see, but that didn't stop him. With a spine snapping leap, Sean jumped onto my back and rested his chin on my right shoulder.

"I... I don't know his name," I said getting even closer to the screen.

"I thought you said you knew him?" Sean asked in an accusatorial tone.

I turned my head enough that I could see Sean and said, "I do, but I don't think I ever got to find out his name."

The camera man switched to the old man with the beard.

"No, go back to the Baby New Year!" I shouted at the television but it was too late. The camera went to the announcer who said, "Now let's take you back to the Time Square celebration!"

"Aaarrg! Bring back the Baby you stupid box!" I said to the TV.

"So who was that?" Sean asked Mark.

Mark scooted away from the TV as he said, "He's in my Judo class."

"Since when do you take Judo?" I asked, feeling more than a little annoyed.

Mark smiled, "Since yesterday. It was one of my Christmas presents."

"You didn't tell me!" I said even more annoyed.

"Yes I did. I said my mom got me self-defense classes." Mark said, scooping at the cards.

"Oh yeah, you did tell me that." I relented.

With Sean still on my back, I gave him a horsy-ride backwards before bucking him off. He hit the floor, knees first and laughing.

"Hey, that was fun!" he giggled and then got this really serious look on his face. "Okay, if one of you doesn't tell me who that Baby was, so help me, I'm going to, to, to... I don't know what I'm going to do!" Sean warned us and then pointed at me with his pinky-finger, "But you won't like it!" He then laughed again, but I could tell he was as impatient as I was to find out the boy's name.

"I met him in the hospital when I had that nasty rash from pulling all those weeds." I then explained. "He had a broken leg and broken bones, here," I pointed to my shoulders.

"Collar bone?" Sean offered.

"Yeah, that's it." I agreed while giving Sean a playful backhand to the arm.

"You know, he was wearing a diaper even then." I said.

"I'll have to find out his name next time I have Judo." Mark said.

"You better!" I warned him.

We never did get back to playing cards. Mark needed to get changed, so he went to my room while Sean and I sat watching the television with much interest and anticipation. About twenty minutes before midnight, they switched back to the local celebration for about five minutes, but neither the old man, nor Baby New Year returned. When they switched back to Time Square again, Sean told Mark and I to let him know if it came back on. Though he didn't actually say he was going to go change, we both figured that was where he was going because, when he stood up, his GoodNite was hanging down, making it obvious that he'd really wet it at least once and probably several times.

Sean was gone a good while and when he returned, Mark and I knew why he'd taken so long. He walked back into the family room wearing one of Marks diapers, which was really too big for him but still fit and did the job for which it was intended. I looked to Mark to see if he minded and saw that he was smiling his approval. However, he wasn't smiling at Sean. He was smiling at me, because he knew I was in heaven right then.

"I didn't think you would mind if I tried one." Sean said sheepishly.

"You look smashing!" I said while patting his diapered bottom.

Mark picked up a napkin and jokingly dabbed at the corner of my mouth, "Here man, you're drooling a bit." He teased.

"Oh Ha-Ha!" I said, pushing his hand away, but he was right. Seeing Sean in one of Marks diapers was making me salivate.

"Come on, sit down, midnight is only three minutes away." Mark said to Sean.

I was sitting on the floor with my back against the front of the couch and my legs extended out. Sean did something I hadn't expected him to do, but somehow I managed to keep my cool and didn't react... much. Without saying anything, Sean stepped in front of me and sat himself right down on my lap.

When midnight came and went, we sat in front of the TV with unwavering attention. At two minutes after midnight, they switched back to the local celebration just in time to see the old man from last year passing an old-timey looking clock to Baby New Year. When the camera went in for a close up, I exclaimed, "Yes! That's him! I know it for sure now!"

"I bet he's cold." Sean observed, leaning back against my chest and using my shoulder as a pillow.

"I bet he gets beat up at school after holiday break." Mark commented.

"I bet he is some kind of actor or something." I added.

The Baby New Year was handed a microphone and he said, "May your year be happy and prosperous!" and then he waved at the camera.

Then, the TV started to jump to different celebrations all over so we stopped watching. Mark switched over to some black and white movie about some orphan kid who mucks up life for hundreds of other orphan kids. It was okay, but kind of sappy.

When Sean shifted on my lap, I whispered into his ear, "Comfy?"

His reply was to snuggle his forehead against my neck. That is how he fell asleep.

I watched the movie while I waited to be sure Sean was totally asleep before motioning to Mark to get his attention. When Mark looked at me, I put a single finger to my lips to indicate that I didn't want him to make any noise and risk waking up Sean.

Ever so gently, I managed to slide out from under Sean. He sort of slumped over sideways with his head resting on the cushion of the couch.

"Wanna pull a prank on him?" I whispered.

Mark grinned gleefully and nodded, "Like what?"

"I don't know! Think of something! You're supposed to be the smart one here!" I said.

"I am?" He said appearing truly surprised by my comment.

"Uh yeah!" I whispered.

Mark beamed as he put a finger to his head like he was really trying to think hard.

"I got it!" he said, just a little too loudly.

I slugged him in the shoulder, "You want to hold it down, you idiot?"

"Idiot? But you just said I was smart!" Mark protested.

"Yeah, well maybe I was wrong! Now shut up and think of a good prank!" I said with a threatening whisper.

"Do you have any more of that stuff that you gave to Damien that made him poop so much?" Mark asked.

"Nah and besides, Sean is sleeping. We'd have to get him to drink it without waking up." I said.

Then Mark got a look in his eyes that reminded me of Jim Carey when he played The Riddler in Batman.

"What?" I asked with a growing grin.

Mark smiled most evilly as he said, "Got any instant pudding mix?"

That one threw me, "Huh?" I grunted.

"Well, we could carefully pull open the back of his diaper and pore in the instant pudding. As the diaper gets wet, the pudding mix will be activated and it will be like he pooped." Mark said rubbing his hands together like some mad cartoon bad guy.

Without saying a word, I scrambled to my feet and slipped into the kitchen. Mark followed right behind me. Sure enough, I found two boxes of banana, a box of butterscotch and a box of chocolate instant pudding. I immediately dismissed the banana pudding and held up the other two boxes.

"Butterscotch, or chocolate?" I asked.

"Uh, I think both!" Mark giggled.

"Both?" I said, "I love it! Let's do it!"

Now, coming up with the idea turned out to be the easy part of the prank, because every time we would pull even the slightest bit on the back of Sean's diaper, he would act like he was about to wake up. We tried several times and we were both getting frustrated when Sean, suddenly rolled right over and snuggled up against me. I think at first, Mark and my hearts stopped, but we quickly realized that Sean was still out cold. To make it even better, the way he was leaning against me made it so easy for me to reach down with my left arm and hold the back of Sean's diaper open.

First, Mark poured in the butterscotch pudding so incredibly slowly. Sean didn't budge or make a sound. Then, in went the chocolate pudding, just as easily and just as slowly.

With both packages of pudding down the back of Sean's Diaper, I told Mark to take the evidence back to the kitchen and hide it under some of the trash that was already in the trashcan. All the way into the kitchen, Mark was giggling so hard he could hardly walk, which was making me giggle. We both tried so hard to keep our giggles silent, but it was just so difficult to do.

Eventually, Sean rolled off of me and I took the opportunity to get into my sleeping bag. Mark was already in his and still giggling, but each time he'd start giggling again, he'd bury his face in his pillow.

Amazingly, the two of us finally fell asleep too and slept all the way through the night. Unfortunately, we both slept too soundly because, we didn't hear Sean wake up before us. It was a little after five in the morning when unbeknownst to Mark and I, Sean woke up, discovered what we'd done and then went to take a shower. But that wasn't the end of it, not even close.

When Sean was done with his shower, he got dressed and then he got even. My dad has always been an early bird. He's usually up before 5:00 AM. New Year's morning was no different.

When Sean returned from taking a shower, he found my dad sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee and reading the morning paper. He told my dad what we'd done to him and I guess Sean was pretty hot about it, and my dad told him that he'd help him get even with us.

While we slept quietly, the two of them went out to the garage, got a couple buckets, and then went outside to fill them up with snow. Now you might remember that we all went to sleep not wearing our pajamas, so all Mark was wearing was his wet diaper and all I was wearing was my underwear and socks. Sean and my dad unzipped our sleeping bags, pulled them open and at the same time, they each dumped a bucket of snow onto us.

I woke up screaming. Mark, on the other hand, woke up, jumped up and ran to my bedroom. I think he was more embarrassed to be seen in his diaper then he was upset that our prank backfired on us.

"That's what you get for the pudding!" Sean laughed and gave my dad a high-five.

"Daaaaad?" I whined when I realized that he'd helped Sean.

"Maaaaaaax!" Dad imitated my whine.

With my teeth chattering, I ran to the bathroom to take a hot shower but found that Mark was already in there, so I had to settle with jumping into my bed and covering up to try and warm up my body.

~ Twenty-Seventh Encounter ~

If I remember right, it was about a week and a half after we returned to school that Mark came running up to me while I was shoveling snow off the front sidewalk.

"Max, you're not going to believe this!" Mark said, gasping and panting for air. It was actually kind of cool, I mean, seeing him breathing so hard because his breath was creating puffs of frozen air that sort of just hung there in front of his face and then slowly vanished.

"Dude, are you going to die? Cause if you are, can you do it over there where I haven't shoveled yet." I joked.

"No, listen!" Mark said, placing a hand on my shoulder to steady himself. Apparently, Mark had run all the way to my house and was seriously out of breath.

"I found out the name of that kid!" He said between huffs.

"What kid?" I asked.

Mark tried to flick my ear but missed. "Hello! The one that played the Baby New Year?!" he said slowly.

I'm so glad he didn't make contact with my ear because my ears were nearly frozen, and it probably would have shattered.

"Oh man! I nearly forgot!" I said punching him in the arm for nearly flicking my ear. "And stop hitting me or I'll put icicles in your diaper!"

He hit me in the arm back, "Stop hitting and listen!" he said, sounding serious and backed up so that I couldn't hit him back.

"Okay, what's his name?" I asked, leaning on the snow shovel as I pulled off my stocking cap to wipe the sweat from my brow.

"Mike Rabur." Mark said and then added, "I talked to him for a while after practice while we waited for our parents to come pick us up. He's really cool and get this, they just moved right before Christmas."

"Where to?" I asked.

"They live like three blocks over, on Pepper-Ann Court." Mark said in such a way that made it sound like he'd just revealed a national secret or something even more sacred.

I started to say something else but Mark stepped toward me again and spoke before I could say anything. "Max, you are going to flip out when I tell you that he's having a huge birthday party, and he invited everyone at the dojo to come."

"Really? So are you going?" I asked.

"Dude, we're both going!" He said as though I'd missed out on part of the conversation.

"What do you mean? I'm not in your Judo class." I said.

"No, I asked him if it was cool for me to bring a friend and he said, `The more the better!' so you get to come too!"

"When?" I asked, now sounding like Mark.

"One week from this Friday." Mark answered, "So, you in?"

"Do you wear diapers?" I said, purposefully loud, which earned me another punch, but with my winter coat on, I couldn't hardly feel it.

As you might understand, going to a birthday party for someone you don't know is kind of like going on a blind date. Not that I've ever been on a blind date. Anyway, my first priority was to get a gift for a boy I didn't know anything about. In the end, I decided that you can't go wrong with money and my dad even helped me to get a Visa Gift Card that comes in a cool little box. I only had twenty-six dollars and some change saved up, so I had to get a loan from The Bank of Dad. I thought a gift card of only twenty-six bucks would be pretty lame, so I got enough from dad to get a fifty dollar Gift Card. Yeah, a present could have cost me a lot less, but I honestly couldn't think of a single thing to buy for him.

My next problem was, what to wear. I settled for nice blue jeans, a crisp white button up shirt and I polished up my good shoes. Oh, and I also put on some Bling. My brother let me wear his gold choker which, on me, was more like a dangling chain. My brother helped me put it on and he just had to make a comment about how scrawny he thought I was.

"Do you really think I'm scrawny?" I asked, self-consciously.

To which my brother popped me upside the head and told me not to be dumb. I guess that was his way of saying that I wasn't scrawny?

I also have this awesome watch that I got for Christmas, it's gold and silver colored with a cool light brown band. What I like most about it is, the face glows in the dark so you can see what time it is at night.

My brother can be pretty cool sometimes. Like besides loaning me his gold choker, he also followed me into the bathroom and helped me to get my hair looking good. Some say girls spend a lot of time on their hair, but my brother would give them a run for their money. He got the front of my hair to stand up using some hair gel and believe it or not, I even let him trim around my ears a little.

Mark's mom gave us a ride over to Mike's house, which turned out to be the old Swanton place. If you scare easily, then you might want to skip this next part.

About three and a half year ago, our small town was rocked by a triple murder. No kidding, it was in all the papers and on every local TV and radio station for weeks. Over the years, there have been countless rumors about what happened, but the truth is, Mr. Swanton, who used to own the Handy-Mart, caught his wife in bed with another man. In a fit of anger, Mr. Swanton killed, not only his wife and her lover, but he also killed their two teenaged daughters and their dog before killing himself. Don't ask me why he killed his kids and that collie because no one will ever know why he did that. I'm sure you are wondering how I know the truth. My dad is a lawyer. Anyway, most everyone in town believes that the ghosts of the Swanton family still haunt their old home, including yours' truly, and since the murder, the house had remained for sale with no prospects to buy it. Even if you don't believe in ghosts, would you want to live in a house where four people and a dog died in it? I know I wouldn't!

As we pulled up in front of the old Swanton place, Mark's mom made a funny sound out of her nose and I secretively punched Mark in the arm for not telling me that the party was in a haunted house.

"What was that for?" Mark griped as he rubbed the sore spot.

"Did you leave out a small bit of the story?" I said to him.

"What?" He griped again, "How was I supposed to know that it was this house?"

Without saying a single word to us, Mark's mom let us out of the car and drove away, leaving the two of us standing on the concrete driveway apron of the haunted house.

It turned out to be a seriously awesome party once Mark and I got over our initial fears of the house. Before moving in, Mr. and Mrs. Rabur had the entire house redone inside and out. It looked marvelous and was so modern looking. They had gone all out for the party too. Every main room of the house was decorated with streamers and the living room had been cleared so that everyone could dance. Oh yeah, and Mike's dad is a professional DJ. He works for WKEG radio, `The best of the 80's, 90's and Today!' as well as running his own DJ business.

While Mark and I stood at the end of the drive way gapping at the house, Mike had opened the front door to let us in.

"Hey, don't you know that it's winter?" Mike called out to us.

I looked toward the front door and saw him. With just a quick glance, I was unmistakably sure that he was the same boy I'd seen in the hospital that one day with his broken leg and collar bones. Except, he'd had time to heal and he looked quite a bit more dressed up then the two previous times I'd seen him. Of course those two times, he'd been wearing nothing more than a diaper.

Mark and I made our way to the front door where Mike greeted us by shaking our hands and taking our coats. As I was slipping off my coat, I noticed that Mike was looking at me with an odd trance like expression.

In an explosion of people, the three of us were swept off into the house and the festivities, which were already in full swing. Before I knew it, I was in the living room dancing to some crazy techno music with some blonde haired girl I didn't know. When the song ended, the girl thanked me for the dance and vanished into the crowd.

I spent the next fifteen minutes fighting my way through the crowd of people while looking for Mark. I found him standing near the kitchen, talking with two other guys and some girl who I later learned were all from his Judo class.

From about halfway across the room, I tried shouting for him over the music, "Mark!"

He couldn't hear me, so I had to make my way through the throngs of people which took another five minutes. I was finding it difficult to believe that all these people were in the same Judo class.

Finally, I reached Mark and pulled him away from his friends so that I could have two seconds alone with him.

"Dude, this is crazy-insane!" he shouted into my ear so that I could hear him over the loud music.

"Who are all these people?" I asked.

He smiled, shrugged and put it simply, "Who cares!"

"Can you believe that someone Mike's age would have parents that would throw him a party like this?" I shouted back to Mark.

"You are just about gullible! You do know that don't you?" Mark said while flicking my chin.

Of course, I had to ask what he meant by that, "What's that supposed to mean?"

Mark pointed at the DJ, who I thought was his father. He said, "That's not his dad."

"It's not? Well who is it then?" was my next question.

"Who knows, but he's great isn't he?" Mark shouted as he started to dance next to me.

"Wait. Is this even a birthday party?" I asked, thinking that I was starting to get a clue.

"Of course, it's Mike's thirteenth birthday." Mark said while raising his hands over his head and bee-bopping in place.

I finally had enough. I grabbed mark by the front of his shirt, pushed him backward and pinned him to the wall.

"What the heck, Max?!" Mark said, but I didn't actually hear him, I just read his lips.

"Stop screwing with me Mark. Out with it or so help me." I shouted right next to his ear so that there was no chance he couldn't hear me.

"Take it easy Max! You're acting like there's something illegal going on here." Mark said, "It's just a party. Don't you wish you could have thrown a party like this when you turned thirteen?"

"Are his parents even here?" I asked.

"Come on Max! Get real!" he said and before I could say anything else, some girl in what looked like an old fashioned bathing suit pulled him away to dance. That was when someone bumped into me and spilled red punch all down the front of my white shirt. I don't even think they knew they had done it, because when I looked up, no one seemed to be paying any attention to me at all.

I fought my way back to where I thought the bathroom would be. I'm not sure what I was going to do once I got there. I knew that my shirt was ruined but still, I had to try to rinse it out some.

There was only one door that I wasn't able to look into, so I had to assume that it was the bathroom. However, it appeared to be occupied. I stood there and waited five minutes, then ten, then fifteen and still, whoever was in there hadn't come out. Finally, I knocked on the door, but even down the hallway, the music was too loud to hear if someone said something on the other side of the door. I tried putting my ear against the door and knocking again but still, I heard nothing from inside so I tried the knob and it opened.

However, right at that moment, about ten or more guys came plowing down the hallway. For a panic filled second, I thought they were after me, but they blew past me, knocking me into the bathroom. When I got back to my feet, I quickly closed and locked the door. When I turned around, I saw Mike sitting on the edge of the bathtub and he was crying.

Seconds seemed like minutes as I stood there with one hand on the doorknob I just locked, and the other cupped over my gapping mouth. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Mike was sitting on the edge of the bathtub wearing a dazzling metallic orange button-up shirt and khaki pants. He really looked good except for the painfully obvious wet streak that ran down the inside length of his left pant-leg, all the way to his brown loafer.

I don't think either of us could believe that the other was there. From the look on Mikes face, I could tell that he had thought he'd locked the bathroom door. I could also tell that he was teetering on the edge of losing it, and what I would do next would either push him over that edge or possibly save him from a life of ridicule and shame.

My hands must have been sweating because my hand slipped off the knob. Having not realized I was doing it, I had been putting some of my weight against the door because when my hand slipped, I nearly fell over again. Quickly, I reached out and caught hold of the other wall to brace myself. That is when Mike appeared to partially snap out of his shame induced coma.

Forgetting about the condition of my shirt and only being concerned about Mike's connection, I knew that I had to act fast. Without thinking any of it out, I put my hand back on the knob and said to him, "Lock this door behind me and don't open it for anyone. I'll be right back. I'll knock three times, pause and knock twice more. That way you'll know it is me."

The door creaked slightly as I slowly opened it enough to look into the hallway to make sure the coast was clear. There were two girls standing at the far end of the hall with their backs to me. They were talking with some guy with green hair. Really, the guy had vividly green hair, which was cut semi-short and twisted into clumpy spikes.

Before I made my way out of the bathroom, I pulled my head back in and looked at Mike. He now had his face in his hands and his entire body was shaking uncontrollably.

"Mike? MIKE!" I whisper shouted to get his attention, but he was completely lost to his emotions. There was nothing else to do but hope that no one else tried to get into the bathroom while I went looking for his room and a dry pair of pants.

I doubt if I was gone more than five minutes, but I'm sure to Mike, it must have felt like a million years. I got lucky, the first bedroom I looked in, I knew right away was Mike's. On the far wall was a poster of Mike in his full Judo gear. Mark had told me what they call the clothes they wear but I can't remember right now what he said they were. Mike's room didn't look like the room of a teenager. I was expecting posters on all of the walls, clothes scattered all over the floor and well, I guess I was expecting a slightly more mature version of my friend Sean's room. But Mike's room was the exact opposite of Sean's room. It was clean, tidy and best of all; it didn't reek of stale pee. There was no dresser in Mike's room, so I had no idea where he kept all his socks, t-shirts and underwear. I did find a pair of pants hanging inside the closet, which is what I had come for.

Upon returning, I tried the knob. Sure enough, it was unlocked. I slipped back in and made sure to relock it. Maybe Mike thought I had gone out to tell everyone about him peeing in his pants because when I returned, he looked utterly shocked at my presence. I thought Mike was going to fall backward into the tub when I showed him the pants I'd brought back with me. They weren't kakis but they were nearly the same color and no one would know that he'd changed pants.

Mike blinked three times, but didn't say or do anything.

"Come on! Get your pants off!" I said softly while double checking that I had locked the door.

He opened his mouth and I saw his lips move but not even so much as a squeak came out. Mike didn't look like a boy who was entering his teen years. As the tears continued to flow from his glassy eyes, I couldn't help but think how much he reminded me of little Damien.

I moved toward Mike and he must not have expected me to do that because that's when he did fall backward into the tub and hit his head. I helped him back out of the tub and just like a young child who's hurt himself, Mike again began crying and holding his head.

"Boy, Mike is having a ghastly introduction into his teen years." I thought to myself as I tried to calm him down. Another thought crept into my mind. Actually, it was a weird thought to have, but never-the-less, my brain did come up with it. "Thirteen, both a young man and yet still a little boy at heart."

After I checked that Mike's head wasn't hurt too badly, I made him stand up, and without asking him for permission, I began to unbutton the front of his pants.

The music out in the house changed to a hard punk rock song that I actually knew. It was by the group `OUTL4W' and it made the walls vibrate from the thundering bass. I could even feel the bass in my chest, or was that the beating of my own heart?

I glanced up at Mike as I began to slide his wet pants down his thighs. He wasn't looking at me, but instead, he was looking straight up at the ceiling light as thought he was trying to hide his eyes from me and the situation.

When I saw his bright-yellow SpongeBob SquarePants underwear, I almost laughed out loud, but I managed to swallow hard and forced it down into my stomach. His pants were bunched up around his ankles and I had to physically lift his left leg, and then the other to get them completely off of him.

The whole time, Mike continued to stare at the ceiling, so, without any hesitation, I reached back up and pulled down his SpongeBob underwear, exposing his nudity to me. That's when I saw that, unlike Damien, Mike had already begun puberty. The majority of Mike's body didn't show the normal signs of puberty, but beneath his pee soaked underwear was all the evidence that Mike was changing. Actually, I think he had more hair down there then I did however, and this may have been due to him being wet and cold, but his plumbing didn't seem to be much bigger then Damien's.

Mike must have wet himself shortly after I found him, because when I took his underwear off of him he was still wet enough that I felt like I should dry him off before helping him put on my pants. There was a white hand towel hanging on the side of the vanity that I used to sop up any lingering traces of pee. However, when the towel made contact with his penis, Mike jumped and squawked like someone had just jabbed him in the ribs. Amazingly, he didn't take his eyes off that darn ceiling light, not even for a second.

As it turned out, the pants I had retrieved were slightly too small for him. It took some effort, but I managed to get them pulled up his legs and buttoned around his waist however, getting them zipped proved to be a lot more difficult. I made Mike suck in his gut and pull up on the front of his pants while, with one hand, I protected his penis by keeping it away from the zipper, while with my other hand, I tugged the zipper up with all my might.

When I finally had his dry pants on him, I rolled up the wet pair, stuffed them into the vanity behind a stack of towels and instructed Mike, who was using some toilet paper to blow his nose, to retrieve them after the party.

I stood up and faced him. His eyes were red, swollen and still glassy, but he wasn't crying anymore. His cheeks were tear-stained and he needed to blow his nose again. Otherwise, he was looking much calmer.

I retrieved a rag from under the vanity, soaked it with cold water and washed his face for him. After leaving the rag on his eyes for a minute, they looked much better. With one last blow of his nose, I asked him, "So Birthday boy, are you ready to go back to your party?"

He smiled with just one side of his mouth, nodded and said, "I think so."

But then, his face became screwed up again, and for a panic filled second, I thought he was going to start crying again, but he didn't. Instead, he asked me, "Don't I know you?"

It was my turn to smile and to be cute I said, "The names Bond, James Bond." But Mike must not have been ready for funny yet because he held that same peculiar expression. "Okay, you got me. I'm not James Bond." I said, this time taking his hand and shaking it. "I'm Max, Max Riddle."

But my name didn't seem to ring a bell for him, so I then said, "I'm friends with Mark from your Judo class."

That did it. His eyebrows jumped on his forehead. "No you're not." He said, "You're that guy from the hospital."

"Yeah that was me too." I said holding my hands up like I was surrendering.

"Yeah, I remember you!" He said pointing at my face, "But you look different without all those red swollen bumps."

I wish he would have left it at that, but he didn't.

"You also look so old now." He said, and then blushed slightly when it dawned on him what he'd just said. "Sorry, I didn't mean it like..."

I cut him off, "Ah, don't worry about it." I said with a smile.

Absentmindedly, I stroked my own cheek with my free hand while my other hand was still being grasped by Mike.

"You look different too, I mean without your casts and wheelchair." Of course, I also wanted to say that he looked different without his diaper, but I think that might have been pushing it too far.

Before the moment could become uncomfortable again, I stepped to the side, clicked the lock in the middle of the doorknob and pushed Mike out into the hallway.

Mike kind of tensed up for a second, but I rubbed his shoulders, leaned down next to his ear and said, "Relax, it's a jamming party! Just go have fun! Oh, and Happy Birthday!"

He looked over his shoulder, smiled and started walking but stopped and turned to face me.

"What?" I asked.

"You're shirt! It's a mess!" he said.

I looked down at my own shirt. "Oh, yeah. I totally forgot that someone spilled their punch on me."

Mike took my hand and lead me back down the hall, past his bedroom door and into what I could only assume was his parents room.

"Are your parents here tonight?" I asked as we stepped into the room.

"They are down in the basement." He said as he released his grip on my hand and crossed to the wall of mirrored closet doors.

"What are they doing in the basement?" I asked.

"Hanging out." He said while opening one of the doors and suddenly vanishing inside the closet.

He reemerged a moment later holding a white button up shirt.

"Whoa, is that your dad's?" I asked, "I can't wear your dad's clothes."

"It's okay, he can't wear it anymore. He got too fat for the clothes in this side of the closet." He said as he handed me the shirt.

I looked at my own stained shirt, then the shirt in my hand before beginning my little strip show in front of Mike.

"Wow, that's a nice necklace!" Mike commented.

"Oh, thanks. It's actually my older brother's but he let me wear it for the party." I said, letting my shirt fall to the floor.

"Is that his watch too?" Mike asked.

I chuckled at the way Mike was trying to make small talk. "Nah, I got this for Christmas."

I put on his father's shirt, which was too big for me. But after I tucked it in and rolled the sleeves up, it didn't look quite as big.

Now that the two of us were presentable again, we made our way back out into the crowd where he was swallowed up by the throngs of people. Unfortunately, I didn't see him again for the remainder of the evening. Actually, I had also lost track of Mark and I made a mental note that when I found him, I would thank him for dragging me to this kick butt party. Of course, I never did tell Mark what happened between Mike and me in the bathroom. That's one secret that will forever remain locked away within the vast recesses of my mind.

The party was still going strong when it was time for Mark and me to leave. I had hoped that Mike would return with our coats, but he didn't. Instead, that same guy with the green spiky hair brought us our coats.

"Hey man, thanks for coming to my lil' bro's party." He said sounding like one of those stoner guys you'll find in just about every teen movie.

"Mike's your brother?" Mark asked, and I was glad he had asked it so that I didn't have too.

"Yeah, most of the time he's a real turd, but I guess he deserves to celebrate turning thirteen in a big way. Don't you?" he asked while scanning the crowd.

"Yeah, this is one heck of a party." I said.

Then he looked right me. I had completely forgotten that I was wearing their dad's shirt, so when he said to me, "Oh, hey man, you that dude what helped my lil' bro tonight?" I think I may have blushed a little, as I shyly smiled and nodded.

He held up his knuckles for me to bump, which I did.

"Righteous! Mike told me about it." He said, wanting to bump fists again. "Names Ryan, and thanks for being so totally cool about it all, dude. Oh yeah, I'll make sure you get your shirt back."

I tugged on his father shirt that I was wearing, "Yeah and I'll do the same."

"Nah, man, you keep that. My old man won't ever miss it." Ryan said as he handed me my coat.

"Thanks again for coming," Ryan started to say, "and well, for everything you did for the little turd."

This time, I held my knuckles up for him to bump and when he did, he once again relied, "Righteous!"

Mark's mom was already waiting in the car at the end of the driveway. As we drove back to my house, Mark and I didn't have a chance to talk because his mom was asking us all about the house, what it looked like inside, if we saw any ghosts, and dumb stuff like that. I don't think she was serious about the ghost stuff but, it was kind of funny to think that even with everything that had happened inside the house, I'd totally forgotten that the place was supposedly haunted. I couldn't help wondering if I had remembered at the time, if I would have gone back into Mike's room and his parents' bedroom. Yeah, I probably would have gone, but I probably would have been a lot more apprehensive, at least more than I had been at the time.

~ Twenty-Eighth Encounter ~

After what happened with Mike at the party, an idea started brewing. I don't think I slept much at all after the party. My mind wouldn't shut-off. I kept thinking about helping Mike change out of his wet pants and SpongeBob underwear. I was also mulling over my new idea, so the follow day, when I ran into Mark, I shared it with him. He got excited and decided that it was an absolutely brilliant idea. He even helped me refine it from an obscure idea into something that was totally doable.

I've been fortunate enough to have had several close encounters with the diaper and wetting kind more than once now and I have found myself presented with an emergency wetting or pooping situation where I've had to think fast to help out whoever it was. My idea, originally, was to create some sort of Super Hero style utility diaper belt thing that I could wear at all times in case I found myself faced with another situation like what happened with Mike at the party or at the movies that one time.

As Mark and I talked it over, we both agreed that a diaper utility belt wouldn't exactly be inconspicuous when you conceder all the stuff that would need to be contained in it. Mark came up with a better idea to get one of those backpacks that has a secret compartment in it where you are supposed to keep your laptop computer.

That evening, while Mark and I were in my room, talking about what sort of things to put into the emergency backpack, my sister came into my room carrying a green zippered three-ringed binder.

"Hey thief." She said.

She said this because my sister and I had a bit of a tiff earlier in the day because she caught me in her room taking notebook paper out of her desk drawer. Granted, I should have asked before taking it, but she didn't need to blow it up like she had just caught me stealing the original Declaration of Independence.

She tossed the zippered binder at my head and she didn't do it nicely either, but I did catch it before it collided with my skull.

"Hey! Watch it!" I snapped at her.

"You can have that and I put 500 sheets of college ruled notebook paper in it for you. So don't let me catch you trying to rob paper from me again!" she said and then stormed out before I could say anything else.

"Whoa!" Mark said, "You've got a cool sister."

I, on the other hand, was feeling rather confused. I was both angry that she'd just tried to brain me with a three-ring binder and shocked that she would do something so nice after having just caught me stealing paper from her.

"Uh, yeah." I said, unzipping the binder and seeing all the paper.

"Boy, you are set for the rest of High School." Mark commented.

But as I had the binder on my lap and realizing that it was my sister's binder from last year, it struck me how awesome it would be to have an emergency diaper kit that would fit into something that could be disguised as a zippered three-ringed binder.

The fact that I was thinking so hard was evident, even to Mark who kicked my shin, not hard, only hard enough to get my attention.

"What?" he asked me, so I told him what I was just thinking about.

"Oh man, that would be so cool." Mark said pulling it out of my hands, "And you could still keep it in the secret compartment of the backpack just so that someone doesn't mistakenly try to look in it."

"Too bad it has those three rings in it." I said.

Mark popped open the rings, took out all the paper and handed it to me without even looking at me. He was too busy checking out the binder by flipping it this way and that.

"I think if we could get these two rivet things off, then the whole metal part should come out." Mark said, holding it open and pointing to one of the rivets.

I took the notebook back so that I could get a closer look.

"Nah man, they are really in there." I said, trying to pull the ring unit away from the zippered cover.

"Give it back a second." Mark said, yanking it out of my hands. "Got a pocket knife or maybe even a flat screwdriver?"

"Um, I can get you both, which you want?" I asked him, already standing up and heading toward my bedroom door.

"Maybe both, and a hammer too, if you got one." Mark said while continuing to examine the binder.

I chuckled as I left him sitting on the side of my bed while I went scavenging for tools. The screwdriver and hammer I found in the junk-drawer in the kitchen. The pocket knife I got from off my brother's dresser. He wasn't home. For the first time since his surgery, he'd gone out with some of his friends, and besides, I knew, unlike my sister, he wouldn't mind that I was in his room.

It took Mark only two minutes to pop those two rivets and remove the whole three-ringed until from the cover.

"Oh man Mark, you are a wizard!" I said feeling around the inside of the spacious zippered cover.

"Ah, it was easy!" he said, which I knew wasn't the truth because I'd just watched him do it and it had looked extremely difficult to do.

Right about then, Dad stepped into my room wearing his overcoat.

"Hi boys." Dad said.

"Hey dad!" I said.

"Oh, hi Mr. Riddle." Mark said.

Dad reached up to his hat, pulled off a partial handful of snow and threw it at Mark.

"Ah no that's cold!" Mark said as he recoiled backward across my bed.

"Sorry to be the one to tell you Mark, but you're going to have to stay here tonight. The roads are horrible out there. I saw five accidents on my way home."

"I better call my mom then." Mark said.

"No need, she just called here looking for you. I told her we'd let you sleep in the garage." Dad said trying to throw snow at me but missing by a mile.

"Whoa, um, I got to sleep in the garage?" Mark said gullibly.

"Dude!" I said hitting him with the notebook cover as he sat back up, "Dad was kidding!" I then looked at dad, "Um, you were kidding right dad?"

Dad cocked one eyebrow as he said, "Oh, I suppose you can sleep inside."

Mark was so funny! He sprang off my bed, fell to his knees and was hugging my dad's leg while saying, "Oh thank you kind sir! And might I beg you for a morsel of food?"

Dad reached down, grabbed Mark by the hair and lifted my friend off him. Of course dad didn't really pull Mark's hair, the two of them just made it look that way.

"I suppose next you'll want to wash yourself in MY tub!" dad said still holding Mark by the hair.

"You mean," as he GULPED a breath, "a bath?" Mark asked, causing me to laugh out loud.

Dad let go of Mark's hair and playfully wiped it on his overcoat, "perhaps two baths are in order."

I was laughing so hard I thought I was going to wet myself.

"And you could probably use one yourself, son of mine!" Dad said while giving me a disgusted look.

Trying to stifle my giggles, I said, "Yes dear father! I shall go wash at once!"

Dad left, leaving Mark and me falling all over each other with laughter. After dinner, Mark took a shower and I took one after him. Then the two of us spent the rest of the evening, and much of the night, talking about stupid stuff that seemed important, only to us.

The following day, school was closed, so Mark and I started a snow shoveling business. During the night, more than five inches of snow had fallen, but Mark and I found that on the opposite side of the street from my house, the snow was more like a foot deep and sometimes even deeper in places. That first day, we raked in over forty-dollars and we almost doubled that on the second day because it snowed a little more that night. Mark hadn't slept over that second night though; however we had already planned on getting up early to get a jump on shoveling.

Sean showed up around lunch time, but he didn't want any part of snow shoveling. He was more concerned with throwing snowballs at us. Mark and I took a few minutes out of our busy work to pelt Sean with a few dozen snowballs. Actually, that was really fun right up to the point where Sean got in a lucky throw and nailed me in the face.

"Sean! When I catch you, you're dead!" I shouted and took off running for him. Thankfully, the snow drift Sean had been using as a snow shield also slowed him down enough to allow me to catch up to him. When I was only a couple feet away from him, I leapt into the air and pounced on him like a snow leopard.

As I leapt onto him, he screeched like a barn owl. I sat on his back, shoved him face first into the snow and said, "Thought you would get away with ambushing us, huh?"

He struggled to get away and nearly folded himself in half backwards so that he could get his face out of the snow to breathe.

"Max, you're crushing me!" He whined, but he should have saved his breath because I had him right where I wanted him. I dug my fingers into the sides of his thick wool coat and began tickling his ribs. When he started to scream, I slid my butt so that I was nearly sitting on his shoulder blades. His face was forced back into the snow.

Mark caught up to us, his entire front was covered in snow and I knew he'd taken a nose dive into the snow while trying to race over.

"Hold him down!" Mark cheered.

"What do you think I'm doing? Taking a nap?" I said as Sean once again was able to lift his face out of the snow; but only barely.

"Get off me!" Sean screamed.

Mark dropped to his knees, yanked off his right glove, and before Sean or I knew what was happening, Mark had pulled open the back of Sean's pants and GoodNite, exposing Sean's gleaming white butt which was nearly as white as the snow around us. Mark began shoveling snow into Sean's pants with his one gloved hand while Sean screamed for us to stop.

With the back of his GoodNite packed with snow, Mark and I hurdled ourselves off of him. Sean quickly got to his feet; his face was streaked with frozen tears. Snow was caked to his eyebrows and the front of his hair. During the struggle, he'd lost his hat. He called us a couple of buttheads and ran away.

Mark and I were falling all over each other laughing. "Oh man that was funny!" Mark roared.

From a distance, Sean's voice carried across the frosty air, "I hate you guys!"

It seemed to take forever for the two of us to be able to stand again and get back to shoveling snow. Every time we'd stop laughing, we'd look at each other and start all over again. We took great delight in telling and retelling the tail to each other.

"You know, we're going to have to watch our backs now." I told Mark "He's going to get even with us!"

Mark began laughing again, slipped on a small patch of ice, and his feet went flying into the air. He hit the sidewalk, all the while still laughing his head off.

"You alright?" I asked him.

"Stop making me laugh!" he groaned and laughed at the same time.

Mark got back to his feet. He was holding his butt and snorting with laughter.

It almost looked like he wanted to say something, but couldn't stop himself from giggling long enough to put two words together.

"What?" I asked him as I tried so very hard not to laugh, but failed miserably.

He took a deep breath and blurted out, "I bet Jack Frost is nipping at more than his nose by now!"

I snorted too and fell over sideways into the snow. "Oh please stop!" I too was holding my stomach and doubled over, "Bet his cheeks are nice and rosy!"

"My butt hurts!" Mark chuckled.

"My stomach hurts!" I laughed.

The two of us carried on like that the rest of the day. Sean never attempted a second military assault which was something I was very grateful for. If he had, we probably wouldn't have seen him coming.

~ Twenty-Ninth Encounter ~

That second day, a while after lunch, Mark and I had shoveled so many walks that we had plowed all the way over to Mike Rabur's house. However, we didn't shovel their sidewalk, because Mr. Rabur, Mike's father, owns one of those enormous self-propelled snow blowers and had already cleared their driveway and sidewalks. Mr. Rabur had even cleared a path through the snow all the way around their house, sort of like a two-foot-wide snow moat. I'm not sure why he did that, but it looked cool.

Even though we didn't get any money out of Mike's dad, we did manage to hire his son away for the remainder of the day. Mike had seen us shoveling the neighbor's driveway and came out to see us. Mark asked him if he wanted to help, and without hesitation, he jumped right in with gusto.

You know, at first, I thought maybe Mike might be freaked-out after what had happened at the party. I mean, I'd not only seen him in wet pants, but I'd also seen him naked. Conversely, Mike acted as though absolutely nothing had happened. Moreover, he acted like the three of us had been friends all our lives.

I'm not sure about Mark, but I had completely forgotten that we were supposed to be watching out for Sean. My guard was completely down as the three of us shoveled snow, talked and laughed a lot. Mike and I were shoveling out an old ladies sidewalk, from her door to her driveway, while Mark was down by the street shoveling out the driveway apron that had been buried by the snow plow. We weren't really paying much attention to Mark until we heard a blood curdling battle cry. Mike and I turned to see Sean on top of Mark, who was lying upside down against one side of the snow mound. Before we could react, Sean sprang to his feet and ran off again. By the time we got to Mark, he was already staggering to his feet, and that is when we saw what Sean had done to him.

Like some sort of demented snow Ninja, Sean had snuck up on the unsuspecting Mark, tackled him from behind and pulled a half frozen, used GoodNite over Marks head. Mike stood there looking utterly shocked and confused while I fell to the ground laughing my butt off!

"I told you! I told you!" I blasted though my laughter, "I told you he'd get revenge!"

"That little..." Mark started to say.

"Is that..." Mike began, "Oh sick! It is!"

Mike looked like he was going to be sick as he said, "That's ghastly! W-w-why would someone do that?"

"He's a friend of ours." I said.

"A friend?" Mike exclaimed.

"Well, he was!" Mark said under his breath as he threw the GoodNite down on the ground. It made a semi-loud squishing sound which caused me to double over again with laughter.

"Oh that sounded wet!" Mike said, and I think I saw a hint of a smile.

I explained to him how Sean had ambushed us the day before and how Mark and I had jumped Sean and filled his pants with snow. However, I purposefully left out the part about Sean's GoodNite.

"Yeah, but still!" Mike said, "He put a wet diaper on Mark's head!"

Mark stomped on it, "It's not a diaper! It's a GoodNite!"

Despite the fact that Mark had just worn one of Sean's pee soaked GoodNite for a hat, I don't think he should have ousted Sean like he did next. At least when he did, he also ousted himself to Mike.

Mark tried to wash some of the pee out of his hair using snow while saying, "Just wait! I'm going to mummify his head with one of my big wet Tena diapers the next time I see him!"

Shocked that Mark would say something like that, I looked to Mike to be sure he'd actually heard it. Boy, did he ever! Mike's eyes were the size of car tires and his mouth was gaping open.

Mark realized too late what he'd said and the look on his face was just as mortified, if not more so, than Mike's face was.

I started speaking without really thinking about what I was saying. Without spilling Mike's secret, I told him about Mark and Sean's problem and that it was a, "Super-ultra-high, top-secret, we'd-have-to-kill-you, chop-you-to-bits-and-feed-you-to-a-fat-woman-who'd-poop-you-out-if-you-ever-tell," kind of secret.

Amazingly, Mike smiled and asked me, "So, they wet like me?"

Just like that, all three of their secrets were out. In an instant, every bit of the uncomfortable tension dissipated into the winter air.

For the remainder of the day, the three of us worked like machines. The subject of our conversation didn't waiver, all we talked about was wetting, diapers and sharing our most embarrassing wetting memories. Of course I didn't have any since I don't share their problem but I did tell about the time I wore Mark's wet pants. Actually, I've done that on many occasions now, but I only told Mike about the first time.

As we were shoveling our second sidewalk as a team of three, Mike stopped, leaned on the snow shovel and asked, "So are all three of you Teen-Babies then?"

Hearing it put so bluntly made it sound so, well, so perverted. Mark was the first to answer.

"No!" He said strongly, "I wish I didn't have to wear these stupid things but it's better than walking around with wet pants all day."

I was getting ready to explain to Mike yet again that I don't wear diapers, and I don't wet my pants but I didn't have too. Mark spoke up yet again.

"And Max doesn't were diapers like we do." He said motioning to Mike and himself. "He's just..." he faltered while searching for the right word.

Mike jumped back in with, "Oh, I get it! Then you're a daddy!" he said to me.

"What?" Mark and I exclaimed in unison.

"You just like caring for people who wear diapers." He said.

It was hard to believe that Mike was only thirteen-years-old because he sounded much older and more educated on the subject than Mark or me.

Talk about being in the hot seat! Now Mark was staring at me the same way Mike was.

"You know something Mike? I think maybe you've figured Max out to a tee!" Mark said with a humorous huff.

Mark shoveled up a mound of snow and lobbed it at me, "Daddy Max!" he teased.

"Oh shut up and get back to work!" I said.

"Ok daddy!" Mike taunted too as he quickly began shoveling snow again.

As we worked and talked, we all kept a watchful eye out for another sneak attack by Sean. I assumed that Mark was in the clear now, he'd received his payback, but I feared that I was still on Sean's hit list. However, we didn't see any sign of Sean the rest of the day. In a way, I wish he would have just gotten it over with, so that I wouldn't have to spend another day looking over my shoulder wherever I went.

~ Thirtieth Encounter ~

Even after we gave Mike his share of the money the three of us had made that second afternoon, Mark and I still had over ninety-dollars between the two of us. Mark tried to insist that I keep all of it to use for the Super Hero Diaper Kit supplies, but I forced him to take his share anyway. By force, I mean that, I tackled him to the floor and tickled his arm pits until he peed and agreed to take the money.

Unfortunately, the next day, school reopened again; otherwise, Mark and I probably would have continued our little enterprise even though the snow was getting harder to shovel with each passing day.

After suffering through that first day back to school, Mark met up with me after his Judo lesson and the two of us made our way up to the corner drug store to purchase the supplies we'd need for the kit. We found some of the best stuff for putting inside an emergency diapering kit.

Tiny travel packages of baby wipes that had three wipes per sealed package. They were only two dollars and ninety-nine cents for a box of ten packages. We bought all that they had of those.

Diapers were probably the most difficult because there are so many different sizes. The problem was, how do we fit one of every size diaper into the zippered binder cover? After looking at all the different packages of diapers, Mark and I finally gave up on those for the time being. Instead, we focused on the other items we would need such as powder, rash cream, Vaseline, Zip-Lock storage bags for soiled diapers and a changing pad. I hadn't thought about including a changing pad, but Mark said we diffidently had to have one of those. We found one that was clear with blue stars, pink flowers and yellow bowties all around the edges. The good thing was that it was thin, yet strong vinyl and when folded, it hardly took up much space at all.

"Boy Mark! This is going to be perfect!" I told him as I dropped the pad into our shopping cart.

"Maybe we should get two," Mark said, "So that you'll have a spare, in case you need it later."

Once we were sure we had everything we might need, we had to return to the problem of which diapers to get. The two of us stood in the diaper isle, looking at the endless choices of diapers and feeling completely overwhelmed.

"Maybe we should just get one package of the biggest size?" Mark suggested.

"Well, then I might end up in the same situation I did at the movies that one time. Your diaper was absolutely huge on that kid." I said.

"Oh yeah, I remember that! What was his name again?" Mark asked.

I bent down to read the smaller writing on the back of a package of Pampers Size-6 and without really thinking about it, I answered Mark's question.

"Eben Maximillian Orric Jr." I said.

"Wow, Max! Do you remember everyone you ever had an encounter with?" Mark asked, and the tone of his voice made me wonder if he was attempting to tease me a little.

When it was clear that I wasn't going to answer him, he said with a whine, "Even if it was too big, at least one of my diapers worked."

That was when a lady that worked at the Drug Store, walked up to us and asked if she could help us. I, of course, turned twelve shades of red, but Mark didn't. He spoke right up, and I thought I was going to have a stroke.

"We're trying to invent an emergency diaper kit for parents to use, but we don't have enough room to put in every size of diaper." He said as simply as if asking where the athlete's foot-powder was at.

The store lady looked at the two of us, and for the first time, I started to question this whole diaper infatuation I have. If she hadn't spoken-up when she did, I think I might have run out of the store and never return again.

Sounding just a bit skeptical, she asked, "Is this something you're doing for school?"

"Uh, yeah. It's for Home Economics class." I quickly lied. "Everyone has to come up with something to help new parents, and this is what we got stuck with."

"I swear! The things teachers are coming up with these days. You know, I've had three others in here this week with outlandish school projects. Oh well then, let's see what we can come up with." She said, and I found myself wondering what sort of project those other kids had to do for school and if it had anything to do with diapers.

"I'm assuming you want to stick with something that's disposable?" she asked, directing her question at Mark, because I was too busy looking at the floor.

"Well yeah, I guess so." Mark answered while looking to me for confirmation.

I think I might have nodded, or shrugged or something.

"Because, a cloth diaper would pretty much be one size fits all." She said, but then countered her own comment with, "However, plastic pants wouldn't be."

The lady fingered that little divot below her nose while thinking out loud, "And besides, cloth would probably be too bulky for what you are trying to do."

"If only they made a `one size fits all' disposable diaper." Mark said, not realizing that his thought had been said out loud.

The lady suddenly brightened up, snapped her fingers and said, "Wait right here. I think we might have something in the back room. I'll only be a minute."

She was gone a lot longer than a minute, more like ten minutes!

"Why'd you have to go and tell her all that for?" I said, backhanding Mark on the arm.

Mark flinched and grabbed his arm as though I'd just punched him as hard as I could.

"What's the matter with you? I barely touched you." I said, still upset with him.

He shook out his arm and continued to rub the spot I'd hit. "Must be sore from Judo class." He said, and at the time, I accepted it, but a time was coming when I'd think back on this moment and realize that there was more to it than just sore muscles from working out.

The lady finally returned with her arms loaded.

"We just got these in, they're new sample packs." She said, handing us both one of the yellow boxes.

"They're the new adjustable briefs from Attends. And well, they are not really one-size-fits all," she said while bobbing her head from side to side, "but they do come in two youth sizes, which is what I brought out for you. Small to medium, that's what you have there. Then there are these..." she handed us both a blue box which read, LG/XLG.

"These are the sample packages, they are individually wrapped and you could put one of each size into your diaper kit thing." She said, and I couldn't help noticing that she seemed a little too eager about all this.

Forgetting that I was supposed to be feeling embarrassed, I exclaimed, "Wow, thanks! These will be perfect!"

Mark asked a really good question, "How much do they cost?"

"Oh, well these are just samples that we're supposed to give out to anyone that buys diapers. I don't think we're supposed to start that promotion until next month." She said, dropping all that she had in her arms into our tiny drug story shopping cart.

"They are really free?" I asked.

"Yep!" she said with a toothy smile, and then she got serious, "But don't let my boss know I let you have them."

"Wow! Thanks so very much!" Mark exclaimed. I'm sure he hadn't meant for it to come out sounding so fruity, but it did.

"Yeah, thanks!" I said too, then something struck me. My story was that Mark and I were making just one of these kits for school. But the lady had given us enough to make at least a dozen kits. I felt that I needed to say something more.

"Um, but I don't think we need that many samples for our school project." I said trying to not look at Mark, who I knew was looking at me in disbelief.

She smiled again and said, "Oh well, whatever you don't use, just give to someone that can use them. We've got hundreds more back there still."

And with that, Mark and I started to head for the checkout register. We were about half way up the candy isle when Mark stopped me.

"Since we have so many free diapers, why don't we make more than one kit?" he said in a soft whisper.

"But I don't have another binder." I commented.

He poked me in the forehead, "Hello. With all the money we saved on diapers, we can buy another binder!"

"Can you believe our luck?" Mark asked as we headed over to the school supplies isle.

"I don't know about you, but I thought I was going to die when that lady walked up to us." I laughed and wiped the sweat from my upper lip.

"Yeah, you looked like your head was going to explode or something!" Mark said as he nudged me with his elbow.

We made our second trip through the store, making sure we had at least two of everything. Most of the stuff we had a lot more than just two. I wasn't going to need to go supply shopping again for a while, that was for sure.

Thankfully, no one saw us as we arrived home and carried our supplies to my room. However, to be safe, once we were in my room, I closed the door and shoved my desk chair under the knob to keep anyone from coming in and seeing all that stuff.

The rest of our afternoon was spent getting all that stuff situated inside the zippered binder cover. It bulged a little but it closed and anyone that saw it would think it was just another note book. And once we put it into the computer compartment in the new backpack that Mark had brought over, no one would ever know I had it.

I switched out all my school books from my old book bag into the new backpack and once I'd returned the chair to my desk, I hung the backpack on it.

We stashed all the extra supplies under my dresser. I discovered a very long time ago, that if I pull out my dresser, there is a small area under the bottom drawer that is open from the back. From the front you can't see that small area, so it is a perfect place to hide things I don't want mom and dad to see. Such as girly magazines and now my secret stash of emergency diaper kit supplies.

~ Thirty-First Encounter ~

This next encounter happened on a Saturday at K-Mart. And yes, it is the same K-Mart where I had my very first encounter so long ago, but this wasn't an encounter like any I've had before. To be honest, I hope I never have an encounter like it again. Okay, let me explain.

My dad had brought me to the store with him the day he was getting a new Microwave for our kitchen. I have no idea why he dragged me along. Maybe he thought he would need my help carrying it or something. On Friday morning, when my sister was trying to defrost a loaf of bread, our old microwave up and died with no warning what-so-ever. Now, my sister and I know why it died, but with a single glace at each other, we'd promised never to tell our parents why since we both knew what happened. When she put the frozen bread into the microwave, she had left the metal twist-tie on it and didn't pay attention to it after hitting the `Start' button. Boy, that little wire-twist-tie was sparking and shooting off a lightshow worthy of a Washington D.C. Fourth of July extravaganza. I was so captivated by the light show that it didn't occur to me right away to get up from the table and turn it off. I watched the shower of sparks at least ten or twenty seconds before I shouted at my sister to turn the microwave off. By then, it was too late. As she was reaching for the `Stop' button, it made a clicking sound and turned itself off. Boy, you never smelled such a stink in your life. It was like hot metal, melted plastic and burnt toast.

When dad came to see what was making the awful smell, I think we both expected him to hit the roof, but instead, he said, "Alright, which one of you two farted? And don't try to tell me it was your sister because I already know that girls don't fart!" and he punctuated it by smacking me playfully on the back of my head.

Luckily, my sister had the forethought to remove the loaf and toss it into the trash before dad came in, so I don't think he ever knew just what `caused the problem.

Now, dad is the sort of guy, who can't just buy something. He has to look at every single model and compare every tiny aspect. I suppose that's a good thing, but not when you have to stand around waiting on him for hours... and I do mean HOURS!

I was so relieved when dad turned to me in the store and said, "You look bored, why don't you go over to the sporting goods and I'll come get you when I'm ready."

I didn't even hesitate. I was off like a shot, weaving between customer's carts and racing down unoccupied isles.

Now. I have been begging my parents for a paintball gun for a while now and every chance I get I like to go ogle them. That's just what I had in mind.

"Oh man, the Spyder Sonix with semi-auto action and," I was reading the package out loud, "power feed! And oh my gosh; it's on sale!!!"

"Top of the line!" someone said, and I think I jumped as I spun around in shock.

It was a Hispanic boy, maybe twelve years old with jet black hair and dark brown eyes. He had the biggest lips I had ever seen on a guy before and his eyelashes were so long, that they didn't look real. He laughed when he realized that he'd startled me.

"Sorry, didn't know someone was listening," I said while trying to recover my composure.

"I have two!" he said.

"Two what?" I asked, not realizing right away that he had meant the Spyder Sonix paintball gun.

"The gun, I have two. One's red and one's blue with the black rubber grips," he clarified.

I think I was still feeling a little startled because I didn't respond right away.

"Oh yeah, play all the time too," he gloated. "I am the best! No one can beat me ever!"

I was beginning to believe that I was being fed a line of bull, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt. I mean, I didn't know him from Adam, so how did I know if he was lying or not.

Anyway, the kid went on and on telling me how good he was, and how he had won all these paintball competition trophies. Heck, I just wanted to look at the guns. I didn't want to hear how he single handedly beat six tenth graders last weekend. He picked up a package of four blue and gold colored paintballs. "See these?" he said handing the package up to me.

"These have a kind of pepper in them so that when you get hit, you really go down. Only the real experienced players use them. I use them almost all the time," he said, and I couldn't take any more of the kid. I mean a guy can only take so much crap before everything starts to stink like a landfill of used disposable diapers.

"Hey, I got to go. My dad's probably waiting for me." I said and took off before he could start talking again.

I was surprised to find my dad had made a selection and was about to come get me when I arrived in the appliance department.

"Oh there you are Max, you're just in time," dad said.

"So, did you get the white one?" I asked, and I shouldn't have because dad started into the whole spiel about why the one he selected was so much better than any of the others and how he managed to get a deal on it. All the way up to the checkout, he went on and on and heck, I didn't know half of what he was talking about most of the time.

"Zip your coat up, it's cold out there," dad said as he was swiping his credit card.

"Yeah, yeah," I mumbled to myself.

We started to leave, but as I was passing through the door, that stupid anti-theft metal detector thing went off. I figured that it was the microwave that did it, but after the lady at the checkout counter swiped it again, it set off the alarm a second time.

This skinny guy came over and took the box out of our cart, he couldn't have been more than 18 yet, but he acted like he was the king of K-Mart. His name tag said, Assistant Day Manager in Training. He walked it through the doors without the alarm sounding. I don't know where the two guys in suits came from and though they didn't have any nametags on, I could tell that they were store security. I'm sure you know the type... cheap department store suits, bad haircuts and a holier-than-thou look about them.

It's embarrassing enough when the door alarm goes off and everyone within eye shot stairs at you, but to have security ask you to step away from the doors loud enough for all to hear is just humiliating. I mean they automatically treat you like you're a harden criminal.

You might also remember that my dad is a criminal defense trial lawyer and he can argue like no bodies business. All through his high school and college years, my father was on his school debate team which means, he's a highly experienced arguer. If you ask my dad what sort of degrees he has, he'll tell you that he has a PhD in B.S.-ology. But I have since learned that you can't argue with K-Mart security guys that think they are, Clint Eastwood, Sylvester Stallone and Al Pacino all wrapped into one bundle and stuffed into a cheap K-Mart suit.

In hindsight, arguing with them wasn't the best move to make because dad was just causing a scene. One of the security guys said to dad, "Listen, if you don't calm down, we're going to have to phone the police."

"By all means! Please, PLEASE call the police!" Dad shouted and all I wanted to do was find somewhere to hide. As it was, I had the hood of my coat pulled over my head and down over my face as much as possible, but I could still feel the other customers' eyes boring holes through my coat.

To make a long, drawn out scene shorter, the police came and both dad and I were escorted to the back of the store to a tiny employee lunch room. When the police found out who my dad was, they seemed to switch sides and were trying to calm the K-Mart people down.

I felt so intimidated and my heart was racing a million beats per minute. I was staying behind my dad, away from everyone and I guess I said something because everyone stopped to look at me. The next think I knew, I was laying on the floor with a paramedic leaning over me taking my blood pressure.

"There he is!" someone out of view said.

"Dad?" I whimpered, sounding like a scared little child.

Dad's voice couldn't have sounded calmer, "I'm right here Max. You're ok. You just fainted."

The paramedic that was checking me out asked, "Can you tell me your name?"

"Maxwell L. Riddle," I answered.

"Good," the paramedic said, "And what's the L stand for?"

Now, I don't actually remember saying this, but dad swears I told the guy, "None of your damn business!"

Someone laughed, "Yeah, he'll be fine."

"M-my head is cold," I said.

"That's because your head is resting on an ice pack." the paramedic told me.

"Did I hit my head?" I groaned as I tried to move and a pain like an electric shock exploded within my skull.

Dad chuckled and said, "You nearly broke their floor with that hard head of yours."

I laughed and then moaned from the pain, "Dad, don't take this the wrong way, but you're nuts!

Dad then said, "Oh, you sound just like the toaster!" And made me laugh again.

Someone was kneeling to my right, but they had their back to me doing something. It took a second to realize that it was the other paramedic. When he turned around, he didn't look very old. Actually, except for the cheesy porn star mustache, he looked like he could still be in high school. He wiped the inside of my right elbow with a cotton swab and then turned away again.

Dad made the comment, "Get ready for the ouchy!"

"This won't hurt a bit," The guy said with his back still to me. I had to hazard another peek and noticed that his shirt had ridden up in the back. When I looked closer I saw that his underwear didn't look like underwear at all. They looked kind of shiny, like... He had turned back toward me and stuck me with a needle even before I knew he was going to do it.

"Hotchie Motchie!" I exclaimed and made everyone laugh. "Dang dude! Warn a body next time, would ya?"

When he turned away again, I got another look and was sure it was a diaper, but then, my dad leaned over me and asked, "You doing ok champ?"

"Me? Oh yeah, you know, just needed a lil' nap." I joked.

"Well, would you look at that!" someone else said.

I lifted my head slightly and saw that it was that same skinny assistant manager guy. He bent down, and it felt like he was trying to take one of my shoes off my foot. As he stood back up, he held out a small black rectangular thing.

"Boy!" Dad said, looking right into my eyes, "If you weren't already hurt, I'd beat you till you couldn't grow anymore."

"What?" I said not realizing that I'd had one of those security scanning devises stuck to the bottom of my shoe.

"He must have stepped on it somewhere in the store." The skinny guy commented. He then promptly apologized to my dad and me. I guess the fact that I'd fainted had everyone associated with K-Mart concerned. However, I don't think their concern was for my well-being as much as the fear that my father would sue them for everything they had, and then some.

Normally, I wouldn't have been too happy with the fact that I had to go to the hospital in the ambulance to get my head checked out. However, seeing how I might get a chance to see more of the medics diaper was more than enough to counter my dread of going to the emergency room.

Maybe they were worried that, if they told me how hurt I was, I might faint again or worse and that is why they didn't share with me that I did more than just hit my head on the floor. Once in the hospital emergency room, I learned that I had cracked the back of my skull completely open and had bled quite a bit. Dad also told me that before I came too, I had experienced a small seizure. Unfortunately, the diapered medic wasn't the one that road in the back with me. Instead, he had climbed into the driver's seat. Aside from the brief moment when he and his partner wheeled me into the emergency room, I didn't get to see him again.

~ Thirty-Second Encounter ~

While all the Kings Horseman and all the Kings Men attempted to put my head back together again, I happen to have yet another hospital encounter. Yeah, no kidding! Maybe it's a sign that I should study medicine when I go to college? Anyway, the encounter was quite brief and I never actually saw the diaper, but I did hear about it.

I was lying on my stomach on the rolling bed in the elevator. Some guy was taking me to have my head x-rayed and we weren't alone in the elevator. There was a fairly attractive lady present. I guessed she was in her mid-thirties, with long shiny rust colored hair and pale, glowing skin. Although she looked worried and tired, she still looked pretty dang hot to me. I guessed that the girl and boy standing in front of her were her children, an easy assumption to make.

The girl was only tall enough for me to see her head, from her lips up. She looked like a smaller version of her mother, but with shorter hair. The boy was rather pleasing to the eyes as well, with his rust colored hair which he wore parted on one side. However, his most prominent feature was his heavily freckled nose. In another place and time, I probably would have made some kind of wise crack about him looking like Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.

The boy glanced my way and we made momentary eye contact. He smiled politely, but I can't remember if I smiled back. I mean, I was suffering from a head injury, so things were a little hazy. He looked fairly young, but not too young. Like I said before, I'm a bad judge of people's age, however I would hazard to guess that he was maybe eight or nine years old, but his eyes looked much older than that.

A shiver ran through me and the Orderly who was talking me to get x-rayed, patting my back and asked me, "You doing ok?"

"Huh, oh yeah, but I'm cold," I mumbled.

"That's probably the ice pack," he said and tucked the thin blanket up around my neck. "When we get up to x-ray, they have some nice warm blankets. I'll get you one."

The boy and I made eye contact again. This time, he didn't smile. He looked worried, or concerned about something. I watched as he turned toward his mother and motioned for her to bend down to his level. Cupping his hands around his mouth, he whispered, "I had an accident again." Although he thought he was whispering, everybody in the elevator heard it. Even his younger sister gave him a disgusted look.

I was so disappointed when the elevator doors opened and they got out. My chauffer and I had to go up one more floor, so that ended that ever so brief encounter.

~ Thirty-Third Encounter ~

I am not sure if this next encounter actually happened or not. I was just so out of it that I can't be sure I didn't imagine the whole thing. I was parked in the hallway while the orderly fetched me a nice warm blanket. Oh it felt so good when he laid it over me.

"How's that?" he asked.

"Cozy." I hummed.

"I'll be back to get you when their done taking your picture, okay?" He said with a jovial grin as he tucking the blanket under my chin for me.

"Sure, don't worry about me." I said trying to be amusing, "I'll just be hanging out here `til you get back."

This is the part that I'm not sure happened or not. While waiting my turn, two others were wheeled up. One was an old lady on a bed like mine. I only got to see her as she was wheeled past me, but in that brief moment, I saw that she looked very old and I didn't have to see her to know that she was sawing some major logs. The other to arrive was a boy who looked to be about my age, and he was in a wheelchair. Unlike the lady who had been parked behind me, he was placed so that he and I could see each other.

"What you in for?" he asked with a sniffle. He looked like he'd recently been crying and it was clear to see why. Both of his arms were wrapped up like a mummy and he wasn't wearing a shirt or hospital gown so I could see that his chest was covered with a large square bandage.

"Hit my head," I told him. "What happened to you?"

"Neighbor's dog attacked me," he said with another sniffle.

"Looks painful," I said.

His face contorted as he said, "It is. And this chair is really killing my butt."

I rolled my eyes slightly to the side and waves of pain radiated from the back of my head. I closed my eyes and tried to suffer through it. When I opened them again, the boy was squirming around in his chair, trying to get more comfortable. That is when the blanket which had been covering his lap and legs fell away revealing... a diaper of course. But it wasn't a green hospital style disposable diaper like I would have expected. It was white and extremely thick looking. It also sat high on his abdomen and there was so much padding in the middle that it forced his knees apart. It's not really important but I also noticed that his legs had bandages on them too. I guess that dog really tore into him.

I would have expected the poor guy to have died of embarrassment, but he didn't. He simply looked down at the fallen blanket, then to me, and that is when he winked at me as though he knew that I was enraptured. I closed my eyes for a moment, and when I opened them again, the blanket was back on him where it had been before. A moment or two later, some lady came and took him away; leaving me to lie there and wonder if the whole thing had really happened or if I dreamt it all.

~ Thirty-Fourth Encounter ~

Apparently, I slept all the way through the whole x-ray procedure because I don't remember any of it at all. I woke up back in the ER of Providence University Hospital, the same hospital my brother had been in only a few weeks before.

When I woke up, Dad and mom were both there looking really worried, but relieved? The first thing dad said was, "What are you doing lying around when there are sidewalks that are needing to be shoveled?"

Okay, it was funny after I realized where I was, but at first, I thought he was serious.

"Am I okay?" I asked, but neither got to answer because right then, my doctor came through the curtain.

"Hey, he's awake," the doctor said and then she asked, "How are you feeling?"

I guess I was still confused because all I said was, "Huh?"

"Can you tell me your name?" she asked.

"Max," I answered.

"Max, do you know what day it is?" she asked next.

I thought about it for a second and tried to shake my head 'no', but couldn't. I tried to reach up to see what was inhibiting my head movement and felt something plastic.

"That's to keep your head still." She said.

"HOLY SHIT!" I screamed, "IS MY NECK BROKEN?!"

The doctor took hold of both of my hands because I'd tried to reach up and pull at the plastic collar.

"Whoa, whoa, calm down. Except for year skull, you don't have any broken bones," She said. "I promise, you're okay! It's just a precaution. You had a small seizure and took a tumble outside of "I fell?" I asked, not really expecting an answer. I didn't get one either.

I calmed down after that and allowed her to check me out all over. I didn't even care that she was a woman and boy, I was relieved when everywhere she touched on me didn't hurt, except for my head, which was hurting pretty bad.

Finally, she shined her pin light in my eyes, and said, "Nice peepers."

"Thanks," I said dismissively. "Can we take this dang thing off now?"

"No, I think that it would be better for you to keep that on for a few days and then we'll see about getting you something a bit more comfortable." She stuck that pin light back into her pocket before saying, "You'll probably have some residual pain. I mean, you jarred your neck about as badly as you could without actually breaking anything."

Without telling me she was going to do so, she ran the top of her ink pen across the bottom of my left foot. My whole body shook from being tickled and for the first time, I felt a bite of pain in my neck like a vampire had taken a chomp out of me.

"Son of a bitch!" I said, not even knowing that I'd said anything.

"Sorry about that, but I needed to be sure your reactions were good," She said.

"Were they?" Mom asked, and I didn't miss that she didn't sound too good herself.

"Yeah, well don't do that again!" I snapped at the doctor, angrily.

She laughed in a high chipmunk tone, and then the skank tickled my other foot.

"God-dammit! Stop that you cock sucker!" I swore, and this time I knew I'd cussed. Boy was I mad. That second time hurt more than the first and even caused me to see stars for a minute or two.

"I'm sorry Max," she said, but there was something in her voice that didn't sound right. I didn't pick up on it right away, but she asked my mom and dad to step outside of the curtain for a minute so that she could talk with them. That was when I realized that maybe I wasn't okay after all.

I was immensely relieved when all three came back in a couple minutes later and the doctor told me that they were going to get me a room upstairs.

"We'd like to keep an eye on you for a few days." She said, and then flashed me a smile, but I didn't return it because I was still upset about the whole tickling thing. "If you are as lively as you seem to be right now, I might just let you go home earlier."

As the doctor was leaving, this really cute black nurse walked in. I'm talking HUBBA-HUBBA here! The doctor told her something, and she went over, put something into the IV that until then, I'd not known was stuck into my arm, and before the nurse left, I was out cold again.

I later learned that, besides pulling some of the muscles in my neck, I had some brain swelling, and it was causing some odd side effects. For example, I was finding it difficult to see far away, but that cleared up after the first day in my new hospital room. More concernedly was my problem with cussing. It was really weird because, even though I knew I was doing it, I couldn't actually stop myself. And my moods didn't seem to exactly match what I was feeling at the time. My doctor assured us that I'd be fine after the swelling went down, but it was still unnerving.

Now, one might think that my head injury might have caused me to begin having wetting problems, which meant that the nurses would have had to diaper me, but that was not the case. That sort of stuff only happens in Internet diaper stories. For the first two days, I had a catheter inside of me that I was peeing through. Thank god I was asleep when they put it in. I can only imagine how much that would've hurt. An hour after that, they took it out, and I peed like normal. Okay, normal isn't exactly right because normal would have been, me getting out of bed on my own, walking to the bathroom on my own, standing in front of the toilet on my own and peeing on my own. That's not how it went down.

I buzzed the nurse who appeared about five minutes later. When I told her I needed to pee, she handed me a funky looking cardboard container.

"What the hell am I supposed to do with this damn thing?" I asked and instantly felt bad for yelling and cussing. The nurses all knew I was having trouble with the cussing, so they were being extremely nice about it but still, I felt bad. I guess feeling bad was a good sign.

She explained to me how the pee bottle was to be used and asked if I needed help. Of course, I told her no. There was no way I was going to ask her to hold my penis while I peed into a cardboard bottle. It was humiliating enough to be awake when they took the catheter out. After ten minutes of unsuccessfully trying to pee while sitting up in bed I gave up and buzzed the nurse again.

"All done?" she asked.

"I can't do it." I confessed.

I was so relieved when she offered, "If I help you to the bathroom, do you think you can go in there?"

"Yeah, I think so." I said.

She was really cool about it and didn't even say anything when my gown rode up, exposing my package for her to see. Oh man, I thought I would die, but she quietly pulled my gown back down, draped my arms over her neck and helped me to my feet.

At first, my legs felt wobbly, but then I was good and could stand on my own. Walking, on the other hand, proved to be more than a little difficult, but the nurse was kind and let me take it nice and slow. I felt like a little kid learning to walk for the first time. I had to mentally instruct myself to put one foot in front of the other, and even then, my legs acted as though my brain was speaking in riddles.

Until then, I hadn't even known that I wasn't in a private room. I had a roommate. He looked like he could be maybe thirteen. He was a dark skinned African-American and he was out cold. I don't know if he was just asleep or drugged, but I didn't much care. I was too preoccupied with trying to walk.

When we got to the bathroom, I wanted to stand to pee, but she didn't think that was such a good idea, so instead, she helped me sit down. But man, when she reached between my legs and pushed my penis down for me, I nearly came back off that toilet seat.

It was seriously annoying that I'd gone through all of that just to dribble out about a quarter of a cup worth of pee, but that was all I was able to do.

On the way back to bed I noticed that my roommate, who was still off in la-la land, had shifted in his bed. He was now lying on his side with his diapered butt sticking out from under the covers.

"Whoa!" I said aloud when I saw that.

The nurse thought I had hurt myself and asked, "You okay?"

"Huh? Oh yeah, I'm okay." I said, trying to play if off.

Once I was back in bed and the nurse had me covered back up, I laid there for a while thinking about my diapered roommate until sleep overtook me. Man, who would have thought that going pee would be so exhausting.

I never did get to meet my roommate. The following morning, the nurse helped me to the bathroom for my first bowel movement since arriving at the hospital. As I stood up and took my first step, I noticed that the adjacent bed was empty.

"Where'd he go?" I asked.

"He had surgery last night and is in ICU now." She said.

I spent my time in the hospital, either sleeping or watching TV. All in all, it was pretty boring. And then on the morning of the third day of my hospital stay, the doctor removed the plastic neck collar and replaced it with a bulky softer neck collar that fastened with Velcro.

"How does that feel?" my doctor asked me.

"Lots better!" I told her.

Later that same day, in the afternoon, I had a bit of an accident. You see, when wearing a neck brace, it inhibits you from being able to move your head, thus, you can only see up and down and side to side for as far as your eyes can move. I'd gone to the bathroom to pee, and for the first time, I felt good enough to pee standing up, however, I couldn't see to aim and I missed the bowl completely. Boy I felt bad. I mean, really bad, and I guess for the first time in my life, I had a small idea what it must be like for people with wetting problems. I felt so bad that I almost didn't tell anyone that I'd done it, but that wouldn't have been right. So when the nurse came in to check on me, I told her what happened.

"Oh don't worry about that." She said, "You'd be surprised how often that happens. I'll have someone come in and clean it up."

Two good things happened on the fourth day of my hospital visit. The first was when one of the nurses that had been with me since I'd arrived in my room said to me that, she could tell I was getting better because I wasn't cussing much anymore. Boy, that made me feel a lot better. The second good thing to happen was shortly before dinner time when my doctor came to check on me and then said that she was tired of seeing me. So, I got to go home after eating dinner.

The first thing I did after getting home was to take a nap, and the second thing I did was take a loooooong hot bath. I wasn't allowed to take a shower because I'm not allowed to take off my neck brace but oh man, that bath felt great. Actually, all I did was sit, in the hot water and soak, but it wasn't like I was dirty. I'd had several sponge baths in the hospital.

~ Thirty-Fifth Encounter ~

The first few days after coming home from the hospital, I passed the time by lying or sitting around the house watching TV, surfing the Internet and moaning about how much my head hurt. If I were truthful with myself, it wasn't so much the pain as the fact that I was bored out of my frick'n mind! I had a few visitors such as Mark, Sean, Damien and his grandparents Bill and Gladys. Oh, and I got a visit from Mike too. Mark had already informed him as to what had happened and he wanted to come visit me to check for himself, that I was really ok.

I think he was glad to see that I was ok and frankly, seeing him really cheered me up a lot too. Without actually asking him about it, I could tell that he'd put the whole party pants wetting incident behind him. It feels good knowing that I can count him as one of my friends now too. What was even cooler was when Mike sat down on the side of my bed and I could hear the unmistakable crinkling sound of a diaper. Do you know how hard it is to secretively check out if some dude is wearing a diaper while he's looking and talking right at you?

Mike stayed for about an hour. At first, he started out sitting close to the foot of my bed but as we talked, he kept scooting closer and closer to my head. I don't think he was consciously doing this; he was just talking animatedly, waving his arms and moving around a lot. Before too long he was sitting less than two feet from where my head was resting on a stack of pillows. He was close enough that I could make out the unmistakable scent of baby powder. I was so disappointed when mom came in to give me my medication. When she did, Mike moved all the way back to the foot of the bed again where I couldn't smell him anymore.

Right after Mike left, I saw the coolest diaper commercial on TV. It was a commercial for Attends Youth Incontinence Pants. The same kind that Mark and I had used for the Emergency Diapering Kit. They showed a classroom of kids that looked like they might have been in the fifth or sixth grade and then the announcer said, "Can you spot the child who suffers from incontinence? Neither can their classmates." Of course, I sat there the rest of the day watching that same exact channel until I got to see the commercial two more times. I probably would have continued watching that channel the rest of the day if my stupid sister hadn't come home and felt the need to sit with me for several hours.

Don't get me wrong, I love my sister, but in all honestly, I don't like her much. I mean, if we weren't brother and sister, I can say with all certainty, that we would not be friends at all.

~ Thirty-Sixth Encounter ~

Ok, this next encounter started out kind of bizarre. There were no diapers involved. However there was a case of someone peeing on someone else, and I guess that's about as close to an encounter as one can get with the absence of diapers.

In mid-March, when it was still fairly cold out, I had a visitor. My older brother had just brought me home from physical therapy, which I go to three times a week. He had left me home alone while he went to go see his girlfriend. Since I had been in the hospital, there had been very few times in which I had been left, truly alone, because every so often, I would have a sudden onset of a paralyzing headache, or I'd get really dizzy or something like that. Usually, if I get too worked up, excited or mad, it will bring on a headache. The doctor said it is due to increased blood flow. All I know is that it hurts like mad when I get one of those headaches.

Since I had the house to myself, I went to my room, changed into my navy-blue sweatpants and a long-sleeved baseball t-shirt before making myself comfortable on the sofa to rest while watching a Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends marathon on TV. No sooner had I gotten covered up with the throw blanket then I heard someone knocking on the front door. Since I hadn't seen much of Mark or Sean for a couple days, I figured it was probably one of them. However, when I answered the door, I was greeted by a three and a half foot tall ghost that was covered with small pink flowers. Ok, in actuality, it wasn't a ghost but some kid wearing a sheet and I guess whoever was under the sheet didn't have a plain white sheet, so they had to use one with pink flowers. But why would someone dress up like a ghost in the middle of March?

"Trick-or-Treat, Trick-or-Treat!" the little pink flower ghost said in an almost cartoon like voice.

"Oh, come on now! It's not Halloween! It's the middle of March for crying out loud!" I said, trying not to laugh too much.

"Well, some people do their Christmas shopping early. I'm getting a head start on Trick-or-Treating this year!" the ghost said, still using that cartoon voice.

I wasn't even trying anymore not to laugh at the mini-specter, but in a way, it was fairly amusing. "Will you get real? I hope you don't expect me to fall for that because it won't work."

"Awe, come on Max!" the ghost said, and for the first time, I thought I could recognize the voice coming from under the sheet.

"Hey, who's under there?" I asked while trying to reach for the sheet, but the ghost pulled away before I could reach around the storm door.

"So, let me get this straight..." The ghost said, and I was starting to get a clue as to who it was under the sheet, "You're refusing to give me candy, which means, you want me to do a trick on you?"

"I'm not refusing anything. I'm just saying; you need to come back in October." I said.

The ghost yanked the sheet off its head, revealing that it was none other than Damien. "Awe, come on Max; ain't ya got no candy in there at all?"

"Oh my goodness!" I faked an expression of surprise. "I had no idea that was you under there."

Damien shrugged his shoulders, "Yeah, yeah but I'm still not seeing any candy. So, how about it?"

Though Damien still had the sheet draped over most of himself, I could see his neck and the upper part of his chest and noticed that they appeared to be bare.

I dropped all pretense of humor and asked seriously, "Dang Damien, where's your coat?"

"Don't try to change the subject!" he said, stomping his foot, "I want candy and I'm not leaving without some!"

I finally gave in, stepped to the side and said, "Alright, you win! Come on in and I'll see what I can find."

As he was coming in, I closed the door and accidentally caught the hem of his sheet. Since Damien was moving kind of quickly, the sheet pulled off of him before he knew it was happening. He spun around with wide shocked eyes. Standing there before me was Damien wearing absolutely no clothes, save for his socks and shoes. He was butt-naked and from the look of it, he was cold, if you get what I mean.

"Where are your clothes?" I asked but before he could answer I asked another question, "And what are you doing running around naked when it is still winter?"

When he didn't respond, I said, "Fine, I'm calling your grandparents."

"NO!" he screamed in desperation, and I could see the signs of a full on temper tantrum coming on.

"Why not!" I asked.

With his arms rigidly straight to his side and his little fists balled up like little sledge hammers, he asked through thin irritated lips, "You promise you won't get mad?"

"I'm not promising you anything." I was getting upset now.

I picked up the phone, but before I could dial the number, Damien tried to make a break for the front door... without his sheet.

I let the phone drop to the counter with a bang, it then fell to the floor and banged again as I chased after him and caught him just as he was opening the door.

"Stop!" he squealed, "No Max! Let me go!"

"Damien, settle down this instant!" I shouted, and I remember thinking how much I sounded like my own dad right then.

"No!" he shouted, "Let me go!" and tried to kick me.

When I tried to set him down on the sofa to get him calmed down, the little brat bit my shoulder... HARD!

"OUCH, you little monster!" I shouted angrily, except I hadn't called him a monster. "If you make my neck hurt, I swear I'll beat your ass until it bleeds.

"I'm not going back there!" Damien shouted, and I noticed that he was crying now, "I hate them!"

"No you don't!" I said, trying to sound calm so that he might calm down too.

"I HATE `EM! I HATE `EM! I HATE `EM!" He screamed so loud that I had to cover my own ears.

He nearly got away from me again, but I managed to grab a fist full of his hair. He screamed in agony as I yanked him back onto the sofa, flipped him over so that he was lying on his stomach and then I sat on him.

"Ah Max, you are crushing me!" he howled.

"You know what? I don't much care! You bit me and I'm not about to let you do it again." I said, while flicking the back of his head several times.

"I can't breathe!" he screamed.

"If you can scream then you can breathe." I said.

"Get off you asshole!" Damien screamed and cussed this time. His little arms and legs were flailing about in a mad attempt to escape.

Oh, now I was mad, "Uh, excuse me? What did I tell you about cussing the last time?"

"You do it! I heard you in the hospital!" he said.

He managed to get one arm twisted around and hit me in the calf.

"Stop hitting!" I said.

"Go to hell!" he spat, and even though I knew he was seriously upset about something, I wasn't going to put up with his dirty mouth or risk the chance that he might cause me to hurt myself again.

Pressing down on the small of his back with one hand, I was able to stand up and get a good grip on him. I hoisted him up, which was something I wasn't supposed to be doing yet, and carried him to my room where I promptly shut him in the closet. I then put my desk chair under the knob so that he couldn't get out.

"LET ME OUT OF HERE!" he screamed and kicked the door and made it sound as though, he was knocking down the entire house but he couldn't get out.

"Not until you tell me what's going on and why you were outside without any clothes." I said.

"It smells like stinky feet in here!" he cried out almost inaudibly.

"Yeah, well I hope you choke on the stink!" I shouted through the door at him.

Damien pounded and kicked but it was hopeless for him. I had him trapped for as long as I wished him to be.

"I'm going to give you to the count of three. If you don't start telling me what I want to know, I'm calling your grandparents." I said calmly.

"NO!" he said.

"No what?" I asked.

"NO!" he shouted again.

"Alright, I'm done messing with you." I said and walked out of the room. I could still hear him in my closet screaming bloody murder while trying to kick his way through the door.

When I got back to the phone, it was making that horrid sound that phones make when you leave them off the hook for too long. So I hung it up for a couple of seconds to let it reset before making the call.

The phone only rang once before I heard Bill Killian, Damien's grandfather, answer.

"Hello Bill." I said, "This is Max."

"Oh, hello Max. I'm sorry, I can't talk right now. We've got a bit of a family emergency here." Bill said.

"Yeah, I bet it has something to do with Damien?" I said and then listened.

For all of two seconds, there was complete silence on the line before Bill asked, "Is he there?"

"Yes sir, but..." I paused because I didn't know how to say that Damien had turned up only wearing shoes and a sheet. "Uh, he came to my door asking for candy but the thing is..." I paused again.

I heard Bill saying something but he sounded far away, so I had to assume that he'd either pulled the phone away from his mouth or he was covering the receiver with his hand.

"He's still there with you now right?" Bill asked.

"Yes sir but... well, he wasn't wearing any clothes." I said quickly.

"I'll be right over." Bill said and hung up the phone.

My head was spinning and I stood there next to the phone for several seconds before I realized that Damien wasn't making any more noises. Thinking he might have escaped I ran back to my room, only to find the chair was still in place.

"Damien?" I called out.

There wasn't a response.

"Damien, are you ok in there?" I asked and put my ear to the closet door. I could hear Damien sobbing heavily from inside.

I was about to remove the chair to let him out when the doorbell rang.

"Holy cow that was fast!" I thought to myself.

Sure enough, it was Bill at the door along with Damien's mother. I knew it was her because I'd met her when she had brought Damien to see me when I was in the hospital. She looked just as bad now as she had then.

I let them both in right away. Bill didn't look like himself either. I'd never seen Bill looking like he did and I'm not sure how to describe his countenance. He seemed like a bomb that could go off at the slightest jostle. He looked around the room and started to ask where Damien was but stopped when he looked at me. "Max you're bleeding!" he said while pointing at my shirt.

Of course, I couldn't see the wound because I had on my shirt, but that didn't matter because I could see the blood that had seeped through the fabric. I reached up, touched my shoulder and then looked at my hand. "Well, that little..." I fumed, "He broke the skin!"

"He bit you?" Damien's mother asked shrilly and I remember thinking that she sounded drunk or high. "Damien James Foster, you come here this instant!" Damien's mother shouted.

"Not going to work!" I said to her, "He was freaking out and trying to run out of the house with nothing on again. So, I put him in my closet."

"You locked my son in a closet!" she asked, rounding upon me with snakelike eyes as if what I had done was a bad thing.

"Oh, I'm the bad guy here?" I snapped back at her. I know I should be respectful of my elders, but from the little I know about her, Damien's mother isn't exactly a good person, let alone a good mother.

"Lisa!" Bill said, addressing Damien's mother in an authoritative voice, "I'm only going to tell you this once more. If you don't calm yourself down, I am going to call the police myself."

Okay, I've known Bill a long time and never, and I do mean NEVER, have I seen or heard him sound so angry in all those years. The veins were popping out of his neck and forehead like raging, pulsating rivers. Heck, he even scared me. Obviously, something was going on, something bigger than the immediate picture.

Bill turned back to me and calmly said, "Max, thank you for calling us and for keeping the boy here with you. Why don't you go get that cleaned up and I'll go talk with Damien."

I nodded my agreement and showed him where my room was. When Damien's mother tried to follow Bill into my room he turned to her and said, "Don't you think it is better if you wait in the living room?"

"But he's my son!" she said, sounding like she was about to become unhinged. Even so, she didn't go in with him and I'm glad because I really didn't want that skank in my bedroom.

Instead of going to the bathroom to care for my bleeding shoulder, I went to my mom and dad's bedroom and called dad's cell phone.

"Hello?" I heard dad answer.

"Dad? Can you come home right away?" I asked.

"Why? What's wrong Max? Are you alright? Is it your head again?" he said sounding concerned.

I proceeded to give him the short version of what was happening and he said that he and mom were only about five minutes from the house; they got here in less than two.

In between the time that I had hung up the phone and my parents returning home, I'd gone into the bathroom and got a cold washcloth to put on my shoulder, under my shirt.

As dad and mom were rushing through the front door, a still nude Damien, who was now missing one of his shoes, came running out of my bedroom, past his startled mother and would have made a clean getaway had my father not swooped the boy off the floor with a single arm. I think the fact that he'd been recaptured again, this time by my father, sort of threw him for a loop for several seconds. Those few seconds was all that my father needed to get complete control of the boy.

From past experiences wresting around with my dad, I know that he has ways of completely immobilizing me and my brother without even hurting us. He sort of ties us up, using our own limbs against us. That's just what he did with Damien. Dad was holding Damien kind of the way adults carry little kids on their hips, but at the same time, he had a hold of both of Damien's wrists with one hand and had both of Damien's legs crossed and trapped against his side, so that he couldn't hit or kick. When Damien made as if he was going to bite my dad, I thought for a split second that dad was going to throw the boy down, but all dad said was, "Do you want to find out what my belt feels like against your backside?" That sure got Damien's attention!

Let me tell you from personal experience, when my dad raises his voice, people pay attention. There is just something about the way he talks when he is upset or angry that can make your blood run cold. I can also testify that my dad is an expert when it comes to the art of using a belt, and I don't mean for holding up his pants.

However, what dad seemed to be overlooking was the fact that he was holding a young, mad, NUDE boy tightly to his side. Damien did not bite my father, nor did he kick, hit, scream, shout or say a single word... no, what Damien did next said more than any words could say. He peed on my dad!

"Damien!" Bill shouted while moving across the living room, but my dad put up a hand to stop Bill in his tracks.

"Please! It's not the first time I've had a little boy pee on me," dad shot me a quick, knowing glance, "and I'm sure it won't be the last."

I would have loved to have had the ability to stop time right at that instance so that I could ask dad just what he meant by that. Maybe one of these days I will get up the nerve to ask him.

From that point, things started to calm way, way down. Gladys had showed up a few minutes later looking as though she had been doing a lot of crying. Mom had taken me to the bathroom to help bandage my shoulder. Boy, mom was sure mad about Damien biting me, but I told her that it was okay and that I was more worried about Damien because obviously, something was going on with him.

When Momm and I came back out of the bathroom, I saw that Gladys was sitting on the sofa with Damien who was wearing one of my t-shirts, and on the other end of the sofa, Damien's mother was sitting and crying into her hands. Bill and dad were talking in the kitchen, but when I turned the corner into the kitchen I saw that two police Officers were in there with them.

"Ah, here he is," dad said motioning for me to come over to them.

"Max, this is Officer Lewis and Officer Clark." Dad introduced, "This is my son Max, who I was just telling you about."

I shook the Officer's hands and tried to keep a straight face, but they perceptibly knew I was holding something back. "What is it?" Officer Clark asked, while still shaking my hand.

"Are you guys really Lewis and Clark?" I chuckled and thankfully they did too. "Yeah we get that a lot." Officer Lewis said.

I happened to glance up at dad and he didn't seem to have found it very funny.

I told the officers exactly what happened, from the minute I heard the knock at the door, right up to when I came into the kitchen.

Despite the fact that I insisted that I was fine, they still called for a paramedic to come check my shoulder out, "For the record," Officer Clark said, trying to reassure me.

While the paramedic swabbed my shoulder with iodine, Officer Lewis talked with Bill and Gladys and his partner, Officer Clark, talked with Damien and his mom.

Okay, I still don't know what started all of this, but I do know why Damien ran away from his Grandparents. I overheard Gladys telling the police that Damien had an accident while sitting on her brand new couch. Apparently, earlier that day, her new couch had been delivered and a couple hours later, Damien had peed all over it. I guess there was a lot of heated words and shouting done by all, and while his mom was trying to get him into the bathtub, Damien escaped and ran away. Now, why he tried the trick-or-treat bit on me, I've no idea at all, but who knows what goes through the mind of a junior psychopath like Damien.

~ Thirty-Seventh Encounter ~

Two weeks later, I was sitting in my room with Mark, while doing our homework. Yeah you got that right, I was doing his too. I was supposed to be helping him, but somehow, he talked me into doing it for him. Actually, he does that a lot. Anyway, like I said, I was in my room with Mark when mom said I had a phone call.

"I didn't even hear the phone ring." I said to Mark as I slowly stood up from my desk. It just so happened that on that same morning, I'd seen my doctor and he had said that I could start going without the neck brace when at home, but I still had to wear it when I sleep and while at school.

"Who is it?" I asked, as mom handed me the phone.

"Gladys," was the only clue I got from her as to the reason for the call.

"Hello?" I said into the phone.

"Oh, hello Max! I'm glad you're home. And how are you? Is your shoulder feeling better?" she asked, but I could tell that, for all her talking, she hadn't yet got around to what it was she really wanted to say.

"It's cool. Doesn't even hurt." I answered, even though it was a lie. It did hurt, well a little bit anyways.

Gladys then sighed heavily and began to tell me something truly disturbing. Damien's mom had been arrested for drug possession about eight months ago and as of two days ago, she was hauled into prison for violating her probation. The whole time Gladys was telling me about it, I kept thinking to myself, "Why is she dumping all this on me?"

I got my answer when she told me, "Damien is going to be staying with us for a while."

Gladys paused, and I think she might have even been crying, but it gave me a chance to say something. "Gladys, I am so sorry about Damien's parents. That is so sad."

I glanced over at mom and she was holding a single finger up to her lips to shush me. That one puzzled me, but I figured she knew something I didn't know, so I sealed my lips together and just listened.

"Max," Gladys started, "You seem to do so well with Damien. Because of that, my husband and I were wondering if you would be willing to baby-sit for us again on a regular basis."

"Uh," I started to say, but again I looked at mom and this time she was giving me a stronger shushing. I rolled my eyes and closed my mouth again.

"I talked with your mother already and she said that, as long as you are okay with it, she will be okay with it.

There was a pause, and honestly, it felt like Gladys was expecting me to say something, but there was my mom with her finger pressed to her lips.

"We'd like you to sit for us for a couple hours after school each day and we were hoping you could walk Damien to and from school just to make sure he actually gets to school and comes home like he should."

The first thing that went through my mind was, that I was going to have a couple hours each day alone with Damien to possibly have more diaper fun with him. Then I started to panic a bit as I wondered what I might be getting mixed up in; I mean, with their whole personal family problems and all.

There was another pause, and I looked to mom and held out a hand longingly to her. She finally smiled and nodded which meant that I could finally speak.

"Uh, yeah sure; I'd love to help, but um... are you sure you want me? Don't you want my sister to do it? I mean, she's always babysat for you in..."

But I didn't get to finish. Gladys interrupted with, "Oh Max, Damien just adores you and never stops talking about you. When he ran away, whom did he run to?" She paused for effect, "You, that's who."

I was sure now, that Gladys was crying even though she was still trying to hide it from me.

Mom had inched over so that she was now standing right beside me with a reassuring hand, petting the back of my head. I guess that's what gave me the courage to say, "Yes, I can do it."

Gladys cheered so loudly that I had to yank the phone away from my ear or risk lasting auditory impairment.

"How about if you come over in say," she paused in thought, "an hour. We'll give you a key to the house and we can talk everything over."

"Uh, okay. Yeah, see you in about an hour. Bye." I said and then hung up the phone.

"I am so proud of you!" Mom started to cry.

"Moooom!" I whined, as she hugged my face with her hands and tried to kiss me.

"What's she going to say?" I asked while motioning toward my sister's room.

"She already said that she doesn't want to do anymore babysitting. Besides, she's too busy with school, cheerleading, the pep-squad, the drama club..."

"Yeah, yeah, I get it! My sister the wonder girl." I said derogatorily.

I then switched gears, "Mom, have I just done something stupid? I mean, well you know!"

"Max, I think you have done the right thing and besides, that little boy is going to need a friend now that both of his parents are in jail."

"BOTH?" I exclaimed.

"I thought you knew that his father is in prison too." Mom said concernedly.

"Uh, no! I didn't know that!" I said.

Mark walked in, looking kind of sheepish, "Sorry I sort of couldn't help overhearing..." he trailed off at the end and stood there looking pitiful.

"Oh, hello Mark. I forgot that you had come over." Mom said.

And as if absolutely nothing had just happened, she asked him, "Would you like to stay for dinner?"

"Uh no but, thanks for asking. I'm supposed to be home in a few minutes, so I best get going." Mark said, still acting sheepish and uncomfortable.

"Uh, hang on Mark. Let me get my stuff together and..." I stopped and looked at mom, "I'm going to walk Mark home if that's okay, then I'll head over to Bill and Gladys's house."

Mom nodded her approval and then said, "Remember to put on your neck thingy."

Out on the street, the two of us walked toward Marks house while we talked over what had just transpired.

"Oh man Max, that is seriously messed up!" Mark said, punching his fist into the palm of his other hand.

"Tell me about it! Can you imagine being Damien's age and having both of your parents in jail?" I said.

"I don't think I will ever complain about my `rents again." Mark said.

"Geese, I feel so bad for the little guy." I started to say, "Don't get me wrong, he's an evil little..." I caught myself before saying the `B' word, "...daemon, but I guess he's got a reason to be."

Mark adopted a cheerier attitude, "And besides, it will be kind of like having a younger brother, except you won't have to deal with him all day, every day, but only for a few hours a week."

I thought about that for a moment, "Yeah, it will be like I'm his big brother."

After leaving Mark at his house, I continued to walk to the park. I had time before I needed to be at Bill and Gladys's and I wanted to do some thinking. Plus, since wrecking my bike, I hadn't had a whole lot of time outside, so it was kind of nice to be in the cool fresh air.

When I arrived at Bill and Gladys's, I didn't even make it in the door before I was blindsided by Damien, but not in a bad way. The front door to their home opened and a blur launched itself at me.

At first, I was scared and would have jumped but the extra weight of Damien's body wrapped around my leg kept my feet planted on the porch. Damien was sobbing like... well, like a child and mumbling something that was completely unintelligible. His arms were wrapped around my leg, his face was buried in my thigh and his legs were wrapped so tightly around my ankle that I could hardly feel my foot, which he was sitting on.

Bill appeared at the door a moment later, smiling and motioning for me to come in. Damien finally loosened his grip and slid off my feet. His face was red as were his eyes. He was still crying big huge crocodile tears and he sobbed what I took as, "Max, please don't be mad!"

I bent down in front of Damien and took hold of his face, the way my mother does when she is trying to say something really important to me. "Damien, what could I be mad at you for?"

Huffing and sobbing he said, "For biting you right there!" he pointed to my shoulder and then began to howl. I'm talking sad ol' hound dog howling with big tears and snot running out of his nose.

I glanced over to Bill. He lifted Damien up and carried him into the house.

Damien wouldn't stop crying until I promised that I wasn't mad at him. Once I did, he ran to his room still huffing and sniffling.

Bill and Gladys sat me down at the kitchen table and explained the situation to me; maybe even more than I thought they should have, but it was cool that they trusted me with so much of their family secrets.

So, starting tomorrow, I am going to be stopping by to get Damien every weekday morning to walk him to school, and I'll be waiting outside his school at the end of the day to walk him home. Apparently, I'm doing that because, for the past few weeks, Damien had been skipping school quite a bit.

And then, I'll be staying with Damien at their house until Gladys gets home at 5:30. That means, I'll be watching Damien for 2 hours, Monday through Thursday after school. Now, the one part of this whole deal that I didn't much like was the fact that, they want me to watch Damien each Friday from the time I pick him up until about 9:00 at night. The only problem I see with this is, Friday nights are typically the night that Mark, Sean and I have sleepovers, but I guess we'll have to only have those on Saturday's.

The three of us talked for a very long time, and it was dark outside by the time I was ready to head home. I said I'd be fine walking home on my own, but Bill insisted on giving me a ride. I gave in simply because I didn't want to cause any more trouble.

Before I left, I asked if it would be okay if I went up to say goodnight to Damien. I found him not in bed, but sitting on the far side of the bed, jabbing a broken pencil through several sheets of notebook paper. I knocked on the door softly so as not to startle him.

"Max!" He squealed and jumped over the bed to get to me. "I thought you already left!" he said, happy to see that I hadn't.

"Nah, I wouldn't leave without saying goodbye." I said, bending down to his level. "It looks like you and I are going to get to spend a lot more time together!" I said coyly.

Damien got the wildest look in his eyes. He leaned toward me, cupped his hand over my ear and whispered. "Does that mean more diapers?"

I pulled away from him and saw that he was beaming and smiling so wide, I could have counted every tooth in his mouth.

Instead of answering him, I smiled as I asked in a serious tone, "Did you brush your teeth yet?"

Damien clapped his hands over his mouth and started to run for the bathroom to brush, but I stuck out my arm and caught him around his middle. I pulled him into a backwards hug but he managed to wiggle himself around so that he could hug me back. Then I said, "I want you to brush your teeth, get your pajama's on and go to bed. Okay?"

Damien lifted his head from my neck and kissed my cheek. "Okay, I promise."

"I will be here before school tomorrow to walk with you, okay?" I said.

"Really?" he beamed again.

"Really, really!" I said back. "Now, go brush!"

When Bill dropped me off at home, I said thanks for the ride and headed into the house where I found Mom and dad were waiting for me.

"Where have you been young man? Do you know what time it is?" Dad barked at me before I was even three steps into the house.

He scared me so badly that I nearly fell over the coffee table on my way in.

"What? Mom knew where I..." I started to say but then dad cracked a big smile to let me know he was messing with me.

"Gosh dad! Don't do that! You nearly gave me a heart attack!" I exclaimed.

Dad put me into a headlock, not tight because my head was still a bit tender, but I managed to wiggle out of his grip before he could do it. Dad swung at me playfully but I swatted his hand away.

"Come into the kitchen a minute, would you? Your mother and I want to talk with you." He said.

"Am I in trouble?" I asked with half a laugh.

"Uh, should you be?" dad countered.

"Oh, no you don't! The rules state that you have to catch me doing something wrong to punish me!" I said laughing.

"Rules?" dad started to say in an absolutely horrid Mexican accent, "I don't need no stinking rules!"

My sister was coming out of the kitchen as the two of us were walking in. She looked at me and stuck her tongue out at me.

"No thanks, I use toilet paper!" I said to her.

"Oh, that's real mature!" she said, acting like she was going to barf.

Then she did something that surprised even my parents. She gave me a hug and kissed my left cheek.

"What was that for?" I asked, as I instinctively reached up to wipe away the kiss.

"What? A sister can't show her baby brother some love without it being turned into a federal case?" she argued and then went off to her room.

"What was that all about?" I asked mom and dad.

Mom looked like she was going to cry again and I didn't think I could take more water works. I was emotionally zapped and in need of some serious down time. Thankfully, dad started talking before mom could start blubbering again.

"We've been talking..." dad began, "and we feel that one, you are growing up and should be given more reasonability."

Before he could continue I interrupted with, "Does this mean I am going to have to do more around the house?"

They both laughed.

"No, that's not what we were getting at... however, now that you brought it up. The mess you call a room is starting to spill out into the hallway."

It was my turn to laugh, "Okay I get it. I'll clean my room."

"Can I finish what I was saying now?" Dad said, half serious and half laughing.

Trying to be cute, I said, "Okay but make it quick would ya? I have the maid coming over in like five minutes!"

Mom gave dad a look as if to say, "He's your son!"

"As I was saying," Dad continued, "I believe you've stepped up and taken on more responsibility by offering to help Bill with his grandson during this difficult time. That leads me to the second thing."

While he continued to speak I couldn't help but wonder what the first point was again. Did he even actually say what the point was?

"...you've been showing quite a bit of maturity lately. Your mother and I have noticed and we feel that, given the fact that you are going to be away from the house more now," boy he was really drawing this out, "you probably should have your own cell phone."

At first I didn't react. I guess it took a few seconds for the words to sink in, but once they were firmly rooted in my brain, I got excited.

"No seriously?" I asked, as the anticipation within me took on a self-sustaining life of its own.

Mom pulled a small wrapped package from out of the cabinet under the sink.

"No way!" I said, now dancing on my tiptoes.

"Yes way!" Mom said, as she handed me the package that was wrapped in striped green and gold wrapping paper with a huge golden bow on top.

"Oh, you're joking! Please tell me this isn't a joke! I-I need to sit down." I said, now bouncing from one foot to the other while holding the back of my head with one hand.

"No, I can't sit!" I spun in place.

"Are you going to open it or dance with it?" Dad hooted.

My whole body began to tense up and my muscles all locked, forcing all the joy and enthusiasm to see the one and only outlet left. "AAAAAAHHHH!!!!" I squealed, and with the release of energy, I clutched the package to my chest, threw my head back and began to bounce again.

My howling brought my older brother out to see what the heck was going on.

When I saw him, I blasted him with, "DUDE, I GOT A PHONE! I GOT A PHONE!"

Looking serious he put a hand on my shoulder, "Little brother, and I do mean little; that is not a phone. That is a box." And then he flicked my ear lobe, but I didn't even care.

I began to rip open the package, causing little bits of gold and green paper to fall like confetti to the floor and island countertop.

I saw right away that it was one of the new iPhones, and that sent me into a whole new fit of dancing, prancing, hooting and hollering. Before I even had it out of the box, I ran down the hallway to show my sister. I then ran all the way back to the kitchen, hugged mom and dad, and then ran to the front door where I proceeded to announce to the entire world that, "I GOT AN IPHONE!

"Max! People are trying to sleep!" mom said.

"Oh, I have the bestest parents in the whole world!" I said, racing back to the kitchen, hugging them both and then frantically tried to free the phone from the container.

Needless to say, the rest of my evening was burned away by playing with my new phone. After a while, Mom gave up on Dad and me as we sat at the table, figuring out all the cool gadgets of my new iPhone. About half of that time was me trying to find the coolest ring tone. I ended up downloading a new ring tone that sounds like a toilet flushing. Dad said I was a sick puppy but I think it is cool.

~ Thirty-Eighth Encounter ~

A few days after I had received my new phone, Mark and I had decided to make a trip to Gulliver's Mountain, which is a store for outdoorsmen and hunters. We really didn't have a reason for going other than just wanting to go check out all the cool stuff they sell. However, there was a wrinkle in our plan. That particular day, I was supposed to be keeping an eye on little Damien, but after Mark and I talked it over, we decided that it might be more fun if we turned it into a friendship outing, with not only a trip to Gulliver's Mountain, but also lunch at McDonald's, and if time allowed, we'd catch an afternoon movie matinee at the two-dollar Danbury Cinema. So, after a few phone calls, to get permission from everyone's parents and/or guardians, five of us, Mark, Sean, Damien, Mike and yours truly, began walking north, across town.

It had been quite a while since Mark and I had put together the `Super Hero Emergency Diapering Kits' and we had yet to be presented with an opportunity to field test the first kit. Well, before leaving, I thankfully had the presence of mind to pack the first two kits Mark and I had put together, because before the day was over, the kit would have not one but two field tests. I also had the brilliant idea to bring along several extra diapers... just in case.

Since my house is at the extreme southern edge of our town, and Gulliver's Mountain and the Danbury Cinema are both located at almost the opposite end, north of I-70, Mark and I figured we'd need at least an hour and a half just to walk that far, but in reality, it took us more than three, because we stopped several times.

Our first stop was due to Damien, whining about his legs being tired. Since I was wearing my backpack, loaded down with diapers and such, Mark ended up carrying Damien on his back. You know that Mark hardly ever goes anywhere without his own backpack, but he was totally cool with allowing Mike to wear it for him. Once Damien was on Marks back, he quieted right down.

Our second stop was at the Super America Gas Station and Mini Market, which is not even a full mile from my house. The Mini Market wasn't exactly an unscheduled stop. Once I knew Damien was coming along, I had decided that we'd stop there and I'd take Damien into the bathroom to get him diapered. I wasn't sure how he'd take to being diapered in public like that, but I was hoping that, as long as he trusted me, he would probably go along with the idea. And boy did he ever!

"Really?" he squeaked when I whispered in his ear what I had in mind.

Damien leapt from Marks back, nearly causing Mark to take a nose dive into the asphalt parking lot. Damien grabbed my hand and was pulling me toward the store as I said to the other guys, "Be right back."

I'd been in the bathroom of the Super America Station. It's big and clean and there's lots of room on the floor. However, they didn't have a changing station hanging on the wall. That would have been really cool if they had. I would have gotten a kick out of changing Damien on one of those.

I also would have loved to put Damien into one of Marks diapers again, but I knew that there was no way his pants were going to fit over something that thick, so I settled for one of the new diapers that Mark and I had gotten for the Super Hero Emergency Diapering Kits. Before I even had the bathroom door locked, Damien had stripped off his shoes, socks and pants and was tugging at his Spider Man underwear, which was already slightly damp in the very front.

The thought of Damien peeing on Mark nearly caused me to laugh, but I was able to shake that thought loose from my mind.

"Whoa, keep your shirt on." I told Damien when he started pulling his shirt over his head.

"Let's just get you down on the floor and I'll get this on you." I said pulling one of the diapers out of my backpack.

Damien's eyes bugged out of his head when he saw the crisp, white, disposable diaper dangling before him. I used the full treatment on him too. I used diaper cream all over the front and back, and I made sure to get it between his tiny butt cheeks and around his poop shoot too, and then came the powder, which made the bathroom smell really good, and finally, the diaper. On Damien, it seemed a little big, but once I had it in place, it looked really good. Before I let him get back up, I put his socks back on him, making sure to tickle his little feet in the process.

"Max! No tickling!" Damien giggled.

When I helped Damien to his feet, I saw how adorable he looked, standing there wearing a white button up shirt, white tube socks and a white diaper. I wished I had a camera to snap a picture of him.

In no time, I had Damien ready to leave the bathroom and when I opened the door, there stood Mike with the goofiest grin on his face.

"What?" I asked him.

Damien slipped past the two of us and ran out of the Mini-Market, giggling and skipping. Mike pushed me backwards into the bathroom and then came in too, locking the door behind him.

"What?" I asked again.

"I want to wear one too." He said so softly that I had to ask him to repeat himself.

"What was that?" I'd said.

Not really speaking any louder he leaned forward and said, "Can I wear one too?"

"Uh..." I stammered with disbelief and joy.

I had forgotten that he was wearing Mark's backpack, and when I started to take mine off again, he said, "No, I... um... want to use one of Mark's. He said it was okay."

"Oh... Okay, yeah sure!" I said, finally getting my hormones under control.

Mike then asked the most wonderful question, "Can you help me like you did at my party?"

It's a good thing it has been a while since I cracked my head, otherwise, all the blood my heart was pumping to my brain might have given me another one of my migraine attacks.

My body was trembling with untamed excitement as I tried to answer. "Y-y-yeah s-sure!"

Mike beamed!

Unlike Damien, Mike didn't undress himself. He left that job to me, and you had better believe, I enjoyed every minute of it.

Mike was wearing one of those double buckled belts with each buckle having two buckle pins apiece. Talk about overkill, but then again, it was sure effective. It would have taken a team of twenty horses to pull those pants off him. As it was, it took me a moment or two to get the belt unbuckled and his pants unbuttoned and unzipped.

To my surprise, as I pulled his pants down, Mike wasn't wearing any underwear, but that isn't what surprised me the most. Mike had a full on stiffy that popped out of his pants and stick out at a ski pointing at a 45-degree angle.

At first, I was lost with what to do, and when I looked up at Mike, he, unlike at the party, where he had been staring at the ceiling, was looking down at me and smiled wickedly. I decided that the best course of action was, to ignore it and act like it wasn't even there.

"Okay, lay down on the floor." I told him

When he moved, his penis shook like a tightly tensioned spring.

"Spread your legs please." I said, as I reached between his legs to apply the diaper cream.

When the cold cream made contact with his skin, Mike sucked in a quick breath and made a small gasping sound.

"Cold?" I asked.

He nodded and smiled wider, if that was possible.

When it came time to apply the cream to his bottom, I decided to lift one of his legs. He made that same sound when my fingers brushed over his poop hole and this time, he squirmed a bit.

"That tickle?" I asked.

He nodded again and grunted, "Uhuh!"

I'm not sure what possessed me to do it, but I applied more cream to my index and middle fingers and returned them to his hole. I smeared the cream around so that his hole had become completely coated in white and then, I applied a bit of pressure with my two fingers. They both slipped into Mike as easy as could be.

Mike's entire body rose off the bathroom floor as he groaned, and his penis began to throb.

"Don't want to risk you getting a rash, now do we." I said to him.

He was biting his bottom lip and he shook his head wildly from side to side.

I removed my fingers, reapplied some diaper cream to them, and then began to butter his abdomen and nut sack. Mikes entire body had begun to tremble and quake. With each rubbing motion his body would shutter, and when I began to apply the diaper cream directly to his thin, ridged penis, Mike's back arced, and he moaned softly. Three seconds later, Mike's entire body froze up, his toes pointed down and his fingers went straight. I'm no idiot, I knew what was happening to him and oddly enough, I was okay with it. Three quick squirts of thin, ever so opaque, semen streamed out of Mike as he lay there motionless, not breathing at all.

When he finally exhaled, his body began to go soft, all except for his penis, which was still rock hard and standing up from his body as if to say that, it was ready for round too.

I took out a baby wipe and cleaned up the few spots of semen from Mike's belly while he laid gasping and huffing for air. Not another word was uttered between us as I slid one of Marks diapers under Mike's bottom, pulled it up between his legs and taped it tightly into place. I was a little concerned about Mike's penis pointing up and worried that if he peed like that, the pee might shoot right out the top. However, I know from experience how much it hurts to force an erect penis down when it doesn't want to be down.

Seeing Mark's diaper on Mike reminded me of Eben. It wasn't quite as big on Mike, but it still looked several sizes too big for him and rode up so high that it almost went up to Mike's nipples.

Getting Mike redressed turned out to be easier than I was expecting. Mike had purposefully worn loose fitting pants. I knew this, even though he didn't tell me. It was obvious to me that he had thought it out beforehand.

I didn't have to fasten the belt for him. He did that on his own, and then pulled his shirt down over it.

"How's that? Think anyone can tell?" he asked.

"No! Not at all!" I lied.

Mike surprised me by what he did next. I was still kneeling on the bathroom floor, putting the diaper supplies back into Mark's backpack when Mike launched himself at me. He wrapped his arms around my neck and squeezed.

"Thank you daddy!" he said, and then kissed my neck just below my left earlobe.

It was all I could do to contain my amusement as the two of us walked out of Super America. Mike was waddling so exaggerative that there was no way anyone could not guess that he was wearing a diaper. Before leaving, I went to the back of the store, got five Cokes, and then went up to pay for them.

There was a girl behind the counter who was ringing up the drinks. As she did this, she was also keeping an eye on Mike, who was standing just outside the door, talking with the other guys.

"Is your little brother handicapped or something?" she asked.

"Uh, he's not my brother, but yeah, he was dropped when he was a baby." I said, trying my best not to make eye contact while handing her a ten dollar bill.

"Oh that is so sad. Is that why he's wearing the diaper?" she asked, and I swear, I nearly passed out.

"Uh, yeah, but he's kind of sensitive about it." I said.

"Oh, okay then!" she said with a shrug as she gave me my change.

I think my heart stopped when she asked, "So then, why are all the other's wearing diapers too?"

"They all have similar problems and I take care of them. Today, we are on an outing." I couldn't believe how easily the lies were coming to me.

"Oh, that is so nice of you to take care of special children like that." She said, and God help me, I couldn't stop myself from looking up into her pale green eyes.

"Uh, yeah! Helping... them." I said, sounding like a retard myself.

"So do you even have to change their diapers and stuff?" she asked, twirling her hair with one finger.

Without answering that question, I quickly escaped from the store and told the guys, "Come on, let's get going." and began to walk kind of quickly, while holding on to Sean and Mike's hands while Mark got Damien back up on his back.

After we were out of sight of the store, I told the guys about the cashier and what she had said. Poor little Damien turned so red, I thought he was going to stroke-out on us, but Mike just smiled and laughed it off. Sean was the only one that seemed slightly disturbed by it, but that seemed to pass quick enough.

~ Thirty-Ninth Encounter ~

We had another unscheduled stop in front of White Castle to give some lady directions to the Post Office. I doubt that lady had a single living brain cell because it took Mark and me a good ten minutes to explain to her, that she only needed to drive down the street to the third light, turn left and go about half a mile and the Post Office would be on her left.

I'd bet you a year's allowance that she's still driving around, trying to find her way there.

When we finally got rid of the air-head blonde bimbo, Mark announced that he needed to make a pit stop at White Castle.

"I'm swimming here!" he announced, and while he went in to change, the four of us stood outside waiting for him.

"Why is there a wall there?" Damien asked, pointing to a large brick wall across the street that completely encompassed a gated condominium community.

By the time I finished explaining the concept of a gated community, as I understood it, Mark had returned.

"That is much better!" he said, stooping down to allow Damien to hop back on his back.

"How come you didn't let Daddy Max change you?" Mike asked, trying to egg Mark on a bit.

Mark responded by punching Mike in the back, not hard, just playfully hard.

"Alright you two! That's enough." I said.

Mike hit Mark back.

"I said that is enough! Do you want me to paddle your bare bottoms right here?" I said, and though I tried not too, I busted out laughing.

"I'm hungry!" Damien shouted into Marks ear.

"Well McDonald's is right over there." I said, pointing ahead of us about three hundred yards or more.

"Wow, they have a play room!" Damien shouted, while bouncing on Mark's back.

"Giddy up horsy! Giddy up!" Damien said, trying to get Mark to go faster.

"Stop kicking me or I will make you walk!" Mark groaned at Damien.

You might remember that Damien has an evil side, and every now and then, it rears its ugly head. This happened to be one of those times, but thankfully I saw it coming. Damien had pulled his head way back and was about to head butt Mark from behind.

Just in the nick of time, I reached out and caught a fist full of the back of Damien's hair.

"AAAAAAAAAHHH!" Damien screamed when his hair was pulled.

I yanked so hard that I pulled him right off of Mark and to the ground with a butt breaking thud.

"What did you do that for?" Mark chirped as he spun around.

"He was about to head butt you." Mike told him for me.

"Do you want to go back home?" I scolded Damien, "Because I will be happy to take you back to your grandparents right now!"

Damien was crying now, partly because of the shock of getting caught and partly because I was still holding him tightly by the hair.

"Max, you're hurting me!" Damien cried out.

I let go of his head and he rubbed the back of his head so hard, I'm surprised his hair didn't rub off.

"I'm sorry Mark!" he whimpered.

"That's okay!" Mark said, bending down and lifting Damien back to his feet.

I noticed instantly, that the back of Damien's pants were covered in something brown. It turned out to be dog doodoo.

"AAAAHH!" Damien moaned in disgust.

Mike fell off the curb he had been standing on, because he was laughing so hard. Sean was holding his nose and keeping his distance.

"Max! You made me fall in dog poop!" Damien whined as he began to cry louder than he had been before.

Now, if I were any kind of a good caretaker, I would have taken him into White Castle, removed his pants and washed them in the sink. But I decided that Damien needed a little humbling.

So I said, "Well, you can't go around wearing dog poop on your pants." And then started to pull them off him.

"Max!" Damien moaned, but he didn't try to put up a fight for his pants.

Once I had his pants off him, I put them into one of the extra Ziploc plastic bags I'd brought along; while Mark helped Damien put his shoes back on.

Now, with Damien's diaper exposed for the entire world to see, Mark decided to carry him on his hip as if Damien were half the size he really is. Damien didn't make a sound all the way to McDonald's and he stayed that way until he had finished his Happy Meal.

Sean and Mike had already decided to go out to the McDonald's playland area. They were both too big, but most of the time, as long as there are no other little kids out there, the McDonald's people don't care if older kids play on it too.

Damien sat close to my side, watching the two of them play for several minutes. I could tell it was eating him from the inside not to be out there playing too. Finally the desire to play overcame his fears of being seen wearing an exposed diaper in public.

"You know we're taking a huge risk letting him run around in a diaper and no pants." Mark whispered to me when we were alone.

"Yeah I know." I said.

"What if someone that knows one of us, sees and says something to one or more of our parents." Mark said.

"I said, I know! I know!" I whisper shouted at him and he let the matter drop.

After a little while longer, I decided that Mark was right and fished out the plastic bag, containing Damien's pants.

"I'm going to see if I can get them cleaned up in the bathroom." I said.

Mark smiled, knowing that he'd convinced me. "Need some help?" he asked.

"Nah, keep an eye on our kids would you sweetheart?" I said teasingly.

"Oh shut up!" Mark hissed while taking a swing at me, but missing by a mile.

I had stood up and slung my backpack over one shoulder, but I wasn't done messing with Mark. I carried the charade a step further, "Oh come on dear! Let's not fight in public!"

I leaned in like I was going to kiss him, but I made sure not to lean in too close. Mark took another swing and I jumped backwards before he could make contact.

"Where's the love?" I teased as I turned and headed for the bathroom. That's when a deadly french-fry collided with the back of my head.

"Hey!" I laughed as Mark attempted to play off his innocents.

And then Mark said something that was so incredibly funny. Loud enough for most everyone in the restaurant to hear, Mark said, "Just wait until I get you home my dear!"

~ Fortieth Encounter ~

Cleaning the dog poop off Damien's pants turned out to be easier than I would have expected it to be. I removed them from the bag and was nearly knocked over from the stench. Okay, maybe sealing them up into a plastic bag wasn't the best idea, but that's how we learn, right? I used toilet paper and paper towels to get most of the poop off and then there was nothing to be done but to get dirty. I turned on the hot water, shoved the pants into the sink and used a lot of the liquid hand soap to wash the pants by hand. With a few minutes of rinsing the soap away, the pants looked clean and after giving them the nose test, I was sure that they were clean.

Now came the really difficult part, getting the pants dry. Of course I did the obvious and tried to wring as much water out of them as I could, but twisting them and squeezing them can only do so much. So then I turned to the electric hands drier. Boy, that sure took a long time and by the time I had gotten the pants partially dry, I'd already been in the bathroom a good twenty minutes or more. Oddly enough, during that time, no one else had come in until I was nearly done. The guy that came in, looked rough and dirty, and I figured he must be a construction worker or something like that.

I decided that Damien's pants were as dry as they were going to get with my help and picked up my things to leave.

"Hey!" the guy called after me.

I stopped and turned around. The guy was standing there looking ominous. "You make that mess in there?" he said, pointing to the inside of the toilet bowl.

"Sorry?" I said, trying to act like I didn't know what he was talking about. But I did know. I'd been so preoccupied with getting the pants clean that I had forgotten to flush the toilet after throwing all that toilet paper and paper towels into it.

The guy shot me a mean, disgusted look and growled. Yeah, he really growled. Not wanting to stick around any longer, I slung the backpack onto my back and got the heck out of Dodge!

It took some convincing, but soon, I was able to get Sean, Mike and Damien to come in from playing.

"Here, put your pants back on." I told Damien.

He didn't even offer the slightest objection. Actually, I think he was surprised that I was allowing him to have them back.

"Max washed them in the bathroom for you." Mark told him.

"They are cold!" Damien said as I pulled them onto him and tried to button them.

"Well, I couldn't get them completely dry." I said.

Thankfully, we got out of McDonald's before the guy came back out of the bathroom.

"Where to now daddy?" Mike teased me as he took hold of my right hand and smiled like a goofball.

"That way!" I said.

Sean took hold of my other hand while Mark got Damien onto his back.

"Boy, you must have gained ten pounds while we were in there." Mark groaned to Damien as he bore his weight.

"Put him down then, his legs aren't broken." I told Mark.

"Yeah, my legs aren't broken!" Damien parroted.

So, that is just what Mark did.

"Hey!" Damien complained when Mark just let him fall off.

"What?" Mark chuckled.

Damien pulled back his arm like he was going to hit Mark, but he thought better of it and lowered his fist without anyone telling him to do so. Letting go of Sean's hand, I reached out, pulled Damien close and hugged him to my hip.

Damien pulled away, "Don't Max!" He then reached out and took Mark's hand instead.

Gulliver's Mountain was so cool; it doesn't matter how many times I get to go there, I always find something new. This time, we mainly checked out all the cool camping gear and got to pet a live beaver. Gulliver's Mountain brings in live animals at different times of the year. In November, they have live turkeys and they've brought in other animals such as deer, buffalo, moose and bears. There have been other animals; those are just the few that I've seen personally.

About the time we were getting ready to leave to head over to the Danbury Cinema, Damien tugged on the back of my coat. He didn't have to tell me what he wanted, I could tell just by looking at him.

"Anyone else need changed?" I asked quietly.

Surprisingly, everyone raised a hand, Mark included. The humor of the situation, as I followed behind my four diapered friends while watching their waddling bottoms, was almost laugh-out-loud funny.

I had never been in the bathrooms of the Gulliver's Mountain store before, so I was surprised to find that they didn't have a men's and women's bathroom. Instead, they had one large family bathroom, and it wasn't empty. Gulliver's is one of the largest stores in the area, so it would seem logical that they would have an equally large bathroom, and they sure did!

Mark had been leading the way, followed by Damien, then Sean, then Mike and finally I was manning the rear of our diaper brigade. I liken myself to the clowns who would follow behind the elephants and scoop up their poop during a circus parade.

When Mark suddenly stopped dead in his tracks, each one of us in turn collided behind into one another like a train wreck. Mark had realized, as he opened and stepped through the door, that it was occupied by men and women and other boys and girls.

"Mark! Get moving!" Damien groaned and shoved Mark into the bathroom.

Everyone has heard of someone going Ghost White, right? Well, that is how Mark looked. I stepped around the others to get a better look at him. All the blood had flowed right out of his pretty little head and into his shoes. I looked into his vacant eyes and saw the same Mark I'd seen that very first day, back in the school gym locker room.

The bathroom in Gulliver's Mountain was laid out with a total of sixteen stalls, eight on either side of the room with one of the other walls taken up by a bank of four diaper changing stations. The opposite wall from the fold down changing stations was lined with one of those long trough like sinks with waterfall style faucets that jetted out from the wall above the sink.

Thinking fast, I shoved Mark into the first unoccupied stall, hoping that once out of everyone's direct line of sight, he would snap out of his fear induced coma and change his own diaper. Thankfully, Mike took the same cue and jumped into the stall next to Mark. I took off my backpack and standing in front of the open stall door I asked him, "You going to need help?"

Mike grinned and said, "I can do it myself this time!"

From under the stall wall, Mark had reached over with a GoodNite. Good, that meant Mark was okay after all.

"Thanks buddy!" he whispered right at the wall divider.

I then turned my attention to Sean, who was still standing next to the door and looking around the large room in wonder. Take away the fact that it was a bathroom, the sight was magnificent to behold. The brains behind Gulliver's Mountain had really put a lot of money into making the bathroom more than just functional, but visually pleasing as well.

"Smells like a pine forest huh?" Sean commented.

"Uh, I hadn't noticed." I said, taking in a deep breath through my nose. "You're right." I commented.

Damien, again tugged on my coat. I turned to him, "Yeah I know you need..." but stopped short when I saw that he looked like he was about to cry.

"What?" I asked him, and then realized why he looked so upset.

"Oh don't worry about it buddy," I said squatting down to his level, "That's why I brought all this stuff."

I held out my backpack and gave it a shake.

I then took his hand in mine and lead him back to the changing tables with Sean sticking right by my side. After I helped Damien up onto one of the changing stations, I asked Sean if he wanted my help. He blushed a bit, shook a fist at me and said, "Just give me one and I will do it myself!"

Right then, the door to the bathroom flew open and it was because of the loud sound the door had made that I turned to look, as did just about everyone else in the bathroom.

A dark skinned woman walked in pushing a smallish boy who was walking with his head hung so low, he could have tripped over it.

I turned back around, reached into my backpack and found one of the diapers for Sean to use. As I handed it to him, I looked up and that same dark skinned lady was standing right behind Sean.

"Max?" she said.

"Mrs. Orric?" I coughed in utter disbelief.

I looked down at the boy that was standing beside her. His chin was still tucked down against his chest, but I hazard to guess that it was none other than Eben.

"What are you doing here?" I stupidly asked.

She looked down at the boy solemnly. "We were doing some shopping and had another accident." She said.

And then Eben looked up, his face tear streaked and shame filled, but when he saw me, his eyes lit up as though powered by the light from heaven above.

"MAX!" Eben nearly shouted.

"Hey there Eben!" I said with as big a grin as I could possibly have, "Wow, you've really grown!"

It wasn't true, actually he didn't look much bigger than the last time I saw him, but isn't that what you're supposed to say to little kids when you've not seen them in ages?

I also noticed that Eben's mom didn't seem to be prepared, yet again, for this situation. Taking a chance that I was right, I smiled at her and said, "Hey, I have something here that I put together that might just be what you need."

I unzipped the secret compartment of my backpack and pulled out one of the Super Hero Emergency Diaper Changing Kits. As I handed it to her, I said, "There should be everything you need in there."

Mrs. Orric looked at it with puzzled wonder, then opened the station beside Damien and me and lifted Eben onto it.

"Max, I got a new dog!" Eben announced and I found it amusing that all sadness had seemed to have evaporated from him, leaving only happiness at seeing me again.

"A new dog? What kind?" Damien asked.

"Oh sorry, this here is Damien." I told Eben and his mother, "Damien, this is Mrs. Orric, she is married to the Mayor and this is her son, Eben."

Damien was still lying down, but he waved politely and asked. "What's a mayor?"

"Someone who runs the city." I said, hoping it was enough of an explanation and didn't offend Mrs. Orric.

"Oh," he said, and then addressed Eben with a question, "What kind of dog did you get?"

"We got a Collie." Eben proclaimed with excitement and pride, "Her name is Lady and she is bigger than me." He explained, while his mother opened the Diaper kit and examined the contents.

His mother pushed Eben back onto the table while Damien and Eben continued talking.

"I used to have a dog, but he ran away." Damien confessed.

Eben took a deep, excited breath as he began, "Lady can't run away because we got a way high fence and she can run all around."

Mrs. Orric began to unsnap the crotch of Eben's pants. I couldn't believe that a boy Eben's age was wearing pants like a small child would wear. When she had his pants fully opened and pulled up over his tummy, she unfastened his diaper and opened it up. She wasn't kidding; he'd had another serious blowout, however this time, his diaper had contained the mess.

I wanted to ask Mrs. Orric why she would go out into public with a child in diapers and not bringing along a diaper bag, but I didn't think it would be polite to ask something like that.

From behind me, I heard a stall door open and when I looked back, it was Mike. He was coming out of his stall. He looked both ways to make sure no one was looking. He then ran toward the trash can and threw away his diaper before running out of the bathroom without washing his hands.

"Max, this is the second time you've come to our rescue." Mrs. Orric said as she wiped at Eben's poop covered backside.

I had Damien cleaned up and diapered before she finished with Eben, so I took my time getting him dressed. All the while, Damien and Eben, though they couldn't actually see each other, continued talking about dogs.

I heard another stall door open and glanced over my left shoulder, but it wasn't one of my friends, it was just some zit faced older teenage girl with a seriously outdated hairdo.

Mrs. Orric finished and handed the diapering kit back to me.

"Uh, hang on a sec." I said, laying it on the changing table between Damien's legs. I opened my backpack again, took out two diapers and a few more of the prepackaged wipes and replenished the kit before handing it back to her.

"I figure that one of these is a lot easier to carry around than a big clumsy diaper bag." I said.

"Oh Max, you are so incredibly sweet." She said, and then leaned forward and gave me a peck on the cheek.

Unbeknownst to me, Sean and Mark had already finished and had made their way out of the bathroom. Mrs. Orric, Eben, Damien and I went to the other end of the bath where Mrs. Orric and I washed our hands, tossed out the used diapers and then exited the bathroom together.

Mrs. Orric thanked me again and Eben kept saying that he wanted Damien and me to come over and see his dog.

~ Forty-First Encounter ~

Damien and I found the others across the way, looking at the beaver again.

"You guy's ready to go see a movie?" I asked them.

Mike jumped about two feet when I had spoken. All of us laughed.

"Did I scare you?" I teased and poked him.

"No!" he laughed too.

We left Gulliver's Mountain and headed for the Danbury Cinema, but by then, it was getting a lot busier on the streets and it felt colder.

"My ears are cold." Mike whined.

"My fingers are cold too." Sean added.

"Put your hands in your pockets then, rocks for brains." I said to Sean.

"I can't put my ears in my pockets!" Sean said with a laugh.

"Well, then cover your ears with your hands." Damien said.

"Then my hands will get cold." Sean laughed more.

"Alright, let's just walk as fast as we can to the movies." Mark finally said.

The five of us were moving pretty fast and made it to the cinema within about fifteen minutes or more.

"What are we going to see?" Mike asked no one in particular.

"I want to see Underdog." Mark said.

"Yeah Underdog!" Damien cheered.

Sean then piped in with, "That's okay with me."

"I've not seen it yet." Mike said with a shrug, as he looked at me to cast the final vote.

"Is it any good?" I asked.

"Uh, none of us have seen it yet!" Mark said, giving me a playful shove, but since he had Damien on his back, he nearly lost his own balance.

That was enough incentive for Damien to bail, before he got dropped again.

"I want popcorn!" Damien announced loud enough for China to hear him.

"So, are you good with Underdog?" Mike asked again.

"Yeah, sure, why not." I surrendered even though I really didn't care to see the movie. As it turned out, I didn't get to see most of it anyway.

After we paid for our tickets, and before heading over to the concession stand, I covertly asked the gang, "Anyone need to be changed?"

Even though it hadn't been very long since we had left Gulliver's Mountain were they all got changed into fresh diapers, I thought that I'd ask just in case one or more of them needed freshening up before sitting for over an hour and a half in the theater.

"Not me!" Damien said proudly.

"I'm good too." Mike said while messing with Sean, by flicking the backs of his ears.

"Boy, you better leave me alone or..." Sean started to say. He wasn't really mad because he was laughing when he said it.

"Or what?" Mike said as he began to slap-box with Sean.

"Alright you two!" I said snippily, "We are in public!"

"Sean, do you need to get changed?" I asked him.

"I don't think so." He answered without really paying much attention to me because he was still messing with Mike.

And then I looked around for Mark to ask him, but he had vanished. I assumed that he'd gone to the bathroom to change and I had assumed correctly, because right as we were paying for our popcorn and sodas, he returned.

Mark put a hand on my shoulder and whispered into my ear, "Watch the bathroom door. A kid with jet black hair will be coming out. It sounded like he was changing a diaper in the crapper next to mine."

We still had about twenty minutes before our movie was due to start, so Mike, Sean and Damien all headed for the arcade games, while Mark and I waited for the kid to come out.

"How do you know what he looked like?" I asked Mark.

"I was combing my hair before I got changed and saw him come in." Mark said, "He was acting paranoid and kept checking to see, if I had noticed him come in."

Mark was grinning the way he says that I grin whenever I get the `Diaper-itch', as he calls it.

"To be honest, I didn't think twice about him until I went into the stall and started to change." Mark said as he took a fist full of popcorn and crammed it into his mouth.

Mark tried to continue talking with his mouth full, but I elbowed him in the rib, "Chew, then swallow, then speak."

Waiting for that kid to come out seemed to take forever. People kept going in and coming out, but still not the kid we were expecting.

"There!" Mark said hitting me so hard that I nearly dropped the tub of popcorn.

I quickly looked up from the popcorn to see a boy who must have been twelve or thirteen, cautiously walking out of the bathroom. He was looking this way and that, as though he was expecting someone to jump out of nowhere and capture him. He was wearing a green windbreaker that was way to light for the time of year, faded blue jeans, that were too short but blended well for checking out his red Converse High-Tops. His hair was indeed, jet black, and from the look of it, he had what is known as a mother's hack job. When will mothers stop trying to play barber and let a guy get a real haircut.

"Looks like he might be at least, partly Asian." Mark commented and we would later learn that he was part Japanese from his father's side.

When he had wandered about ten feet from the bathroom, he began to walk toward the concession stand at a quickened pace, and that was his undoing. If he would have continued walking slowly and deliberately, there would have been less chance of someone noticing his unusual waddling gait. I've seen that walk enough times now to know the diaper walk when I see it.

"No doubt about it, he's a wearer too." I said to Mark.

"Boy, you must lead a charmed life!" Mark told me.

"Yeah, I know what you mean. It's like you guys are pulled toward me!" I said.

"You guys?" Mark asked in an accusing tone.

"You heard me diaper boy!" I said purposefully loud.

Marks eyes widened as panic struck him. He looked around us to be sure no one heard me, and then he balled up his fist and said, "I owe you one!"

"My friend, you will owe me for the rest of your life!" I said, meaning something totally different than what he had meant.

Mark and I continued watching the dark haired boy for a while. Of course we were not blatant about it, but at the same time, if the kid saw us, I'm sure he'd know we'd been spying on him. He bought an enormous drink; I didn't even know they had cups that big. It even had a handle on it like a bucket. He also bought a box of Hot Tamales candies.

"If he eats all those red-hots, he's going to need a drink that big to put out the flames." Mark commented with a chuckle.

Mark and I acted like we were talking when the guy walked toward us, heading for his movie. When he passed us, we both heard the crinkling sound.

"Can you believe that?" I said to Mark.

"What I can't believe is that stupid smile!" he said, pointing to my face.

"Dang it!" I said, "I might as well have a tail like a dog!"

Mark continued to make fun of me, "A tail might be less likely to give you away than that Bleep-eating grin of yours!"

"Bleep-eating?" I asked.

"You know what I mean!" Mark snipped at me while nodding knowingly.

"Yeah, just sounded weird." I said, giving him a bump with my shoulder.

"Mike!" Sean called out when he spotted him. "Get the others; it's time to go sit down."

The five of us found the theater for Underdog and amazingly, there was only one other person in the whole theater.

Mark looked at me in disbelief, "Lucky bleeping, bleeper!" he said, continuing to censor his own language. I always get a kick out of the way Mark does that.

Damien and Sean wanted to sit down front, right in front of the screen, but Mike and Mark wanted to sit farther back. I wanted to sit directly behind the black haired, diaper wearing kid. Since I had the bucket of popcorn I went and sat behind him and the others reluctantly took seats on either side of me with Damien making sure he was sitting between Mark and myself. Mike ended up on my left side with Sean sitting next to him.

By the time the previews started, maybe ten or more other people came into the theater. They were scattered all over the theater, but for the most part, everyone gave everyone else quite a bit of distance between themselves. That's what people do when there are so few people in the theater. Well, I should say, other people do that, because I had taken as close a seat to the diaper wearing boy as I could, without actually sitting beside him.

When the previews started, so did the groping hands in search of popcorn.

"Did you get extra butter?" Sean asked in a sniveling sort of whine.

"Yes, I got extra butter!" I sniveled back.

Damien took a big sip of his drink and promptly let loose a belch that could curl your nose hairs.

"Dang Damien!" Mark said, elbowing him in the chest.

"What do you say?" I asked him.

"Excuse me." Damien said with glowing red cheeks.

But Damien's gastro pyrotechnics had drawn the attention of those sitting closest to us, especially the boy sitting directly in front of me. He was laughing at Damien's belch and said over his shoulder, "Better out the attic than the basement, I always say!"

"Joji?" Mike questioned loudly.

The boy turned around and looked right at us.

"HEY!" he said, making it sound as though he knew Mike.

Turning all the way around in his seat so that he was on his knees facing us, the boy asked in a quiet voice so as not to disturb the others that were watching the movie previews, "Michael, what the heck are you doing here? I thought you and your family were in Colorado skiing?"

"Mom got sick again, so we couldn't go." Mike said.

"You guys know each other?" Mark asked Mike.

"Oh yeah! Sorry, I should introduce you guys. This is my best friend Joji."

And then he introduced us to the boy, "These here are the guys I was telling you about. This is Mark..."

Joji momentarily interrupted him, "Ah the one from your Dojo?"

"Yeah he's the one," Mike said quickly moving on, "That's Sean and Damien and..."

Before Mike could tell him my name, Joji jumped in again with, "You must be Daddy Max! Michael has told me so much about you."

I didn't know what to say and looked to Mike for an explanation. Mike dunked his head slightly and in that small humble gesture, I knew that Mike had told Joji EVERYTHING.

I wanted to ask a thousand questions, both to Mike and to Joji, but the previews had ended and the feature presentation was beginning. So, without another word, Joji turned back around and everyone began watching the movie... that is, everyone except for me. I ended up sitting there watching Joji the whole time. A minute or two later, Mike stood up, climbed over the top of the seats and sat himself next to Joji where he remained for the entire movie.

I watched as Joji popped Hot Tamales as if they were no warmer then M&M's, and as he took each sip from that enormous drink of his, which he did a lot and they weren't really sips, but long, drawn out gulps, I knew that it wasn't going to be long before he was either going to need to go to the bathroom, or if he really was wearing a diaper, he'd be wetting it—a lot!

~ Forty-Second Encounter ~

About forty-five minutes into the movie, Joji leaned over and whispered something into Mike's ear. For a second or two, Mike just looked at Joji quizzically and then the two of them popped up like a pair of Mexican jumping beans and motioned for me to come with them.

My heart was racing and my palms were sweating with anticipation for what I was sure was about to happen.

"Where are you going?" Mark whispered.

"Why do you always ask me that?" I asked back, shaking my backpack in his face.

He grinned knowingly. "Go get 'em tiger." He teased and swatted me on the backside.

As I was trying to get out without stepping on anyone's toes, I looked down at Damien and saw that he was sacked out. For half a second, I thought about waking him up and bringing him along, but then I decided I didn't want to risk missing out on any potential encounter opportunities that might present themselves with Joji and Mike.

The three of us stepped out of the door and had to stand there in the hallway, shielding our eyes until they adjusted to the bright lights.

"Max," Mike began to say, "Joji has a problem."

I didn't look at Joji, but at his pants and sure enough, he'd had a leak. It wasn't surprising considering how much he'd already had to drink since the start of the movie.

"Wow, I guess he does." I said.

"He only brought one change with him. Can he use one of your diapers?" Mike asked, making sure he didn't say it too loud. There wasn't anyone else around, but one can't be too careful.

"Oh yeah, sure." I said, disappointed that I wasn't going to get to assist in the changing.

I decided to try my luck anyway. I directed my eyes right into Joji's dark slanted eyes, "Do you need my help getting cleaned up and changed?"

Joji was about to answer when Mike quickly said, "No, I will help him."

Reluctantly, I reached into my backpack and pulled out the second Super Hero Emergence Diaper Changing Kit and handed it to Mike. Mike had not yet seen the kit and looked at it as if I'd just handed him a plate of liver and spinach.

"It has everything you will need inside of it. Just unzip it and open it up when you get in the bathroom." I told them.

No sooner had I said it, than the two of them took off running like they were being chased by a bear.

As I slung my backpack over my left shoulder, I began to wonder if the Emergency Diaper kit was such a good idea. I mean, the potential was there for the kit to have more encounters then I could.

"Gosh, am I jealous of a notebook filled with diapering supplies?" I mumbled to myself.

I didn't go back into the theater, but instead, waited by the door for a few minutes. After a while, curiosity got the better of me and I began to meander toward the bathroom.

I stopped at the entrance to the bathroom and listened, but I couldn't hear anything. So, with a deep breath, I stepped into the bathroom. However, I didn't see Joji or Mike anywhere. There were two guys who looked to be in their 20's, standing at the urinals so I had to be careful as I tried to peak under the stalls to check if I could see two boys standing in one stall.

Sure enough, the last stall, which was the largest due to being the stall designated for handicapped people, had two pairs of legs. I could hear mumbles and giggles coming from inside and I wanted so badly to knock and be let in, but I was scared too.

Finally, I turned and walked back out of the bathroom and back to the theater where Underdog was playing. Mind you, I didn't go back in, but instead, stood there waiting for Joji and Mike to return, which they did after about another ten minutes.

The two of them were walking kind of fast and looking mysterious. Joji had his hands crossed over the front of his pants, the way boys do when they are naked and are trying to hide their nudity.

"What have you two been up to?" I asked them.

Mike shot me a wicked grin and then said, "Joji can't get his pants zipped."

Joji punched Mike, "You said you wouldn't tell."

"So what!" Mike said, smiling and rubbing his arm.

"Let me help." I told Joji as I knelt down in front of him.

He was reluctant to move his hands so I took hold of his wrists and forced his hands to his side.

"Well, there's the problem. You got your shirt stuck in your zipper." I said as I took hold of the zipper and tried to pull it down to free his shirt. While I was doing that, I was getting an up-close view of the diaper bulging under his pants and I could see a bit of it through the open part of his zipper.

"Boy Joji, you really got it caught." I commented as I tugged with all my might.

Finally, the shirt and zipper came free of one another.

"Oh there we go." I said.

I stuck two fingers into the zipper to tuck the shirt out of the way. I then removed my fingers and zipped up his pants for him.

When I looked into Joji's eyes again, he was grinning and blushing at the same time.

"Alright you two, let's go finish watching the movie." I said, swatting them both on their diapered rear ends.

"Thanks Daddy Max." Joji said with a giggle, and it was my turn to blush.

That is when I remembered the diapering kit.

"Where's the notebook I gave you?" I asked Mike.

Mike smacked himself in the forehead, spun on his heels and took off running toward the bathroom again, leaving Joji and me standing there alone.

"Sorry, we kind of forgot it." Joji said with the most innocent eyes.

"I suppose you were more worried about your zipper, huh?" I asked.

"Yeah," he said kicking at the carpet with the toe of his shoes.

Mike soon returned with the notebook and his eyes were as big as dinner plates.

"What's the matter?" I asked him.

"Someone found it in the bathroom and was carrying it to the ticket counter." He said, out of breath.

"You think they opened it?" Joji asked.

"Yeah!" Mike answered, "And I had to tell him it was mine."

Mike handed it to me and I quickly stuffed it back into the secret compartment of my backpack as the three of us went back into the theater.

I don't remember any part of the remainder of the movie because I was too busy sitting there fantasizing about Joji and Mike, who were sitting in front of me, giggling and sharing that enormous drink.

When the movie was over, all of us, including Joji, stayed through the ending credits, which was good because we got to see all the bloopers from the making of the movie. If you ask me, the bloopers were funnier than the movie itself.

Once the credits were over we stood and found that everyone else had left already and two guys were standing at the back waiting to clean up the theater for the next movie.

We walked out and once the door closed behind us I asked, "Let's see a show of hands... who needs changed before we head home?"

I had my eye on Joji to see how he reacted and he did so just as I expected he might. He blushed so red that his face was almost glowing crimson.

I wasn't surprised when every one of my boys said they did, Mark included. However, once Joji saw all their hands he seemed to lose some of his bashfulness because he too raised a hand.

For just a moment I wondered if I had that many diapers left in my backpack. Thankfully I did have JUST enough.

Sadly, I didn't get to change Joji, nor did I get to see him changing. Damien was the only one who didn't take a diaper into one of the toilet stalls to get changed.

So while the others were taking care of themselves, I helped Damien up onto the changing table and to my surprise he fell asleep almost the instant he was horizontal. It was much easier to get him cleaned up and into a dry diaper with him sleeping. I finished before any of the other's and carried Damien out of the bathroom.

"Unless any of you needs help, Damien and I will be waiting out in the lobby." I announced.

I received no reply so I carried the sleeping Damien out with me.

Once outside the bathroom I found a bench near the arcade where I could deposit him but he heard the video games and woke right back up again. He begged for some quarters and I was about to give him a couple when the boys came out of the bathroom all giggling and carrying on.

"That was the best movie!" Mike said.

Damien ran to Mark and begged for another piggy-back ride which he got without delay.

I lead the group out to the lobby where we found that it was spitting rain outside.

"Ah man!" Mark groaned.

"I ain't walking home in that stuff." Sean said.

"Okay, I better call home and see if I can get us a ride." I said.

"Wait, maybe my mom can give you guys a ride." Joji offered.

He didn't wait for a reply. He ran out of the cinema and out to a car that was waiting by the curb. A moment later, Joji turned and waved for us all to come out.

Joji and Mike got in the front of the car while the rest of us climbed in the back seat.

"Where to boys?" Joji's mom asked.

She wasn't what I would call a Hot Mama, but she wasn't too hard on the eyes either. She had dark hair, but not as dark as Joji's, and she had big green eyes. It was clear that Joji took after his father and not his mother.

"Thanks for giving us all a ride Mrs...?" I trailed off, not knowing what to call her, because I didn't know what Joji's last name was.

"Kim, Holley Kim." She said.

"You have a pretty name." Sean said, and then he went bright-red when he realized that he'd actually said it aloud.

During the ride home, we learned that Joji's father and mother were divorced and that Joji's father had moved back to Japan after the divorce. Joji lives with his father for six months, and then comes to the United States to live with his mother for six months.

Mrs. Kim was kind enough to drop each one of us off at our own homes. First, we dropped off Sean, then Mark, then Damien and finally we stopped at my house. Mike had decided that he wanted to go home with Joji instead of going back to his own house. I again felt the monster of envy, because I so badly wanted to go spend the rest of the day with those two.

~ Forty-Third Encounter ~

Two weeks later, I had just walked in the door from school when mom told me that I had received a phone call and that she had wrote the number down next to the phone. I didn't recognize the number at all, so when I called it back and got some official sounding office, I nearly hung up the phone without saying anything.

"Hello?" an average sounding male voice on the other end repeated for the third or fourth time before I finally said something.

"Hello, this is Max Riddle. I think someone called me from this number earlier?" I said nervously.

"Oh yes!" the man said sounding much more upbeat, "Please hold while I transfer your call."

I was used to getting put on hold. That happens whenever I try to call my dad at his office.

"Hello Max!" a woman's voice sang into my ear.

I knew the voice, but it took me a second or two to place it.

"Mrs. Orric?" I said, unsure if I had guessed right or not.

"That's right Max!" She sang again and I couldn't help thinking how unlike Mrs. Orric she sounded.

"Max, I have got to meet with you as soon as possible. I have some wonderful news for you." She said.

"You do? I mean..." I couldn't finish my thought. My brain was working in overdrive, but I was still confused.

"How about this evening? We can talk over dinner." She said, but before I could reply, she added, "I won't take no for an answer Max! And be sure to wear something nice. A suit and tie, if you would."

I could hear a bunch of noise in the background that sounded a lot like a busy shopping mall or somewhere like that.

"Uh, I'll have to ask my parents first." I said.

"Absolutely Max! You do that; I will hold." Mrs. Orric said, and then it sounded like she was talking to someone else wherever she was at. "No, no! It mustn't have any writing or pictures."

Confused and nervous I put the phone down on the counter and went searching for mom, but instead, I found my dad. He was just walking in the front door.

"You're home early." I told him and then I explained to him about how Mrs. Orric, the Mayor's wife, wanted to take me to dinner. Needless to say, Dad was pretty much stunned.

"You know the Mayor's wife?" he asked.

"Um, yeah." I said feeling almost guilty, because he didn't have a clue as to how I had met her in the first place and there was no way I was going to tell him either. In the end I told him, that I'd met her and her son at the movies.

"As long as we know where you're going and when you'll be back. I don't see why you shouldn't go." Dad said, and I could tell that he was both impressed and proud that I was rubbing shoulders with someone so important.

I went back to the phone, picked it up and put it to my ear. There was even more commotion in the background than before.

"If they want that much money, tell them, we'll have to pass. No wait; tell them, that we're in negotiations with another company at half the price they are offering and see, what they say to that." I heard Mrs. Orric saying.

"Mrs. Orric?" I said into the phone.

"Oh Max, is everything set then?" She asked, sounding overly sweet.

"Uh, my dad said it was okay." I said, still feeling like my stomach was doing flip-flops like a fish out of water.

"That is wonderful! I will send my driver to pick you up in say, two hours?" she said. "Okay, bye-bye!" and then she hung up.

I hung up our phone and turned to see mom and dad looking at me with expectant eyes. I guessed, that dad had already told mom about the Mayors wife wanting to take me to diner.

"Well?" Mom said when I didn't say anything.

"Sh-she's sending her driver to pick me up in two hours." I said, as that thought finally sunk in. "She also said I should wear a suit and tie."

I showered, combed my hair, put on my best suit and one of my father's ties, while mom polished my shoes for me. They kept asking questions like, I wonder what she wants? Or they would ask me about meeting her the first time. Stuff like that.

Dad also told how he had met the mayor and even once met his wife, but he'd never been asked to dinner.

Waiting for the driver to arrive was agonizing, but finally, a long black car pulled up in front of the house and I knew that must be for me.

"Do you have your phone?" Mom asked.

Dad stopped me as I was going out the door and handed me a wad of cash. "Just in case you need it." He said, stuffing it into my sweaty hands.

It was kind of overcast as I stepped out of our house and walked down to the black car. I don't think it was a limousine, it wasn't that long, but it was still longer than your average car and the inside was all black leather with really nice black carpet on the floor.

I tried to ask the driver if he knew why Mrs. Orric wanted to see me, but all he said was that he had been instructed to pick me up and take me to the Pine Club.

"What's the Pine Club?" I asked him.

"It is a very nice restaurant." He said and then added, "Too fancy for my liking, but then again, I'm happy with a beer and some wings."

As I exited the car, I saw that the sign on the front of the building read, "The Landmark Pine Club since 1947" and just from the outside of the building, I knew that I was way out of my element.

As I stood there I mumbled myself, "You're not in Kansas anymore Maxwell Riddle!"

A gentleman was standing outside and greeted me as I walked up to the door, "Good evening Mr. Riddle. I am Mrs. Orric's personal assistant, Oscar Huggins."

I stuck my hand out to shake while wondering how he knew it was me. Then the car pulled away and felt stupid. Of course he knew who I was, I just got out of the car Mrs. Orric had sent for me.

"Hello Mr. Huggins." I said.

"Oh no, please call me Oscar." He said as he showed me into the restaurant.

A lady in a fancy long draping black dress took my coat and things and when she walked away with them, I asked Oscar. "Uh, how will she know which coat is mine?"

Oscar smiled knowingly, "It is their job to remember these things."

My eyes were working overtime to take in all the wonder that is the Pine Club. I'd never been to such a ritzy place before. Heck, a few minutes ago, I hadn't even heard of the Pine Club.

Mrs. Orric had spotted me coming before I had seen her. She walked over to me and dismissed Oscar.

"Max, my dear boy," she gave me a full embracing hug before saying, "I have a wonderful surprise for you tonight! But first, I want you to meet some friends of mine."

"Max, this is Sharon Monroe. She's married to Judge Cartwright Monroe." A lady with long dark hair and probing eyes stood and shook my hand.

"It is a pleasure to finally meet you Mr. Riddle." She said.

"Oh please Sharon, call him Max." Mrs. Orric said, putting one arm around the small of my back, and with the other hand patting the middle of my chest and asked me, "You don't mind if we're unceremonious here, do you?"

I shook my head because I thought that is what was expected, but to be honest, I wasn't sure what she had meant by what she had said.

"This is Herriot Johanna, and her husband is the Lieutenant Governor of Ohio."

I was sweating like a turkey on Thanksgiving-eve, so I wiped my hand on my trousers before presenting it to Mrs. Johanna to shake.

"P-pleasure to meet you." I said, moderately showing how nervous I really was.

"Max, relax!" Mrs. Orric said, putting that same hand on my chest again, "We are all friends here."

There were two other ladies at the table. Mrs. Orric introduced me to them as well.

"And this is Roxanne Stenenbaulm." Mrs. Orric said, and not really thinking, I said, "Stenenbaulm? I think I've heard that name before."

She stepped away from the table, walked around and took my hand, "I should imagine so, Max." she said in a calm and familiar voice.

"Doctor Stenenbaulm?!" I exclaimed, "You were the doctor that took care of me when I came into the hospital a couple months ago."

She smiled, "How's your head?"

Instinctively, my hand went to the back of my head, "Uh, fine! Hardly having anymore headaches. Uh, if you don't mind me saying so, you sure look a lot different than you did in the hospital."

She smiled and the other ladies all chuckled at my remark.

"I'll take that as a complement." She said.

I think, I may have blushed a little at that.

"You two already know each other! That is so very wonderful!" Mrs. Orric proclaimed with sincere delight.

As Doctor Stenenbaulm moved back to her seat, Mrs. Orric directed me to a fairly attractive older woman with heavily tanned skin, which said to me, that she had recently returned from somewhere tropical. She also had shoulder, length salt-and-pepper hair, and seemed extremely dignified, even more so than the company of women she kept. She was at least twice the age of the other ladies, but just as energetic.

"Max, this is Genevieve Killington." Mrs. Orric said, as the regal woman took my hand and looked deeply into my eyes.

"Killington?" I said, feeling weak in the knees and trying to keep my hands from trembling at her touch.

I should explain that the Killington family is well known, even to someone like me. The Killington family is the one that the town of Killington, Ohio was named for, long before I was even born. If you go Downtown Dayton, the Killington Tower is the tallest high-rise and its shining black walls stand out against the concrete and glass skyline.

Doctor Stenenbaulm spoke up and said with an air of humor, "I think, we better let Max sit down before he falls down."

Mrs. Killington took hold of my bicep and gave it a squeeze. She looked at the other ladies and said, "Oh, he's cute and he's got muscles."

Doctor Stenenbaulm spoke again, "Yes Genevieve, I've seen them for myself. Now let the boy sit-down."

As I turned away from Mrs. Killington to take the chair that Mrs. Orric was directing me to, I suddenly jumped as I felt a hand on my butt. I spun around and saw Mrs. Killington looking at me as if I was a chilidog and she was the dog who hadn't eaten in a week.

"He's got a nice bottom too." She giggled.

"Genevieve!" Mrs. Orric said in a chastising tone.

"What," Mrs. Killington said, "I'm not dead yet, Dotty!"

When she realized that Mrs. Orric was sitting me two seats away from her, she protested, "Why are you putting him way over there?"

"Because, the boy doesn't need you pawing all over him while he tries to eat." Mrs. Johanna said.

I remember thinking to myself how prim and proper Mrs. Killington looked and, I found it extremely difficult, that such a refined looking woman could act so... animalistic!

Mrs. Orric then shared, "I do wish Holley could have been here."

"She's really having a hard time with this pregnancy." Doctor Stenenbaulm said.

"The poor thing must be scared to death that she'll loose this one too." Mrs. Johanna, I mean Herriot, said.

"To lose two children so late in the pregnancies like she has." Sharon said followed by a heavy sigh.

"I saw her and her kids this morning," Mrs. Killington said, "She looked really good, lots of color in her cheeks. Mind you, her oldest son could use a bit of the belt though for the way he's turned out. Give me a month with that boy and I'd straighten him out!"

As the ladies where exchanging gossip, something was gnawing at me, and then I realized what it was. I turned to Mrs. Orric and asked her, "I don't suppose you mean Mrs. Kim, do you?"

All five of the ladies looked utterly shocked at my question.

Mrs. Killington blasted out with a hearty, "You know Holley?"

I nodded, "Yeah, I met her son Joji at the movies just a couple weeks ago. She gave us all a ride home from the movie because it was raining. But I didn't know she was pregnant."

"Oh, now there's a fine boy if I ever saw one!" Mrs. Killington said proudly. "A lot like his father, that Joji.

Sharon added, "Let's hope he doesn't turn out to be such a lousy husband when he grows up."

Mrs. Killington let loose a room shaking laugh, "I can guarantee you that he won't be a lousy husband!"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Mrs. Orric asked.

"Dotty," Mrs. Killington said, trying to squelch any nerves that may have been trodden upon, "The boy doesn't have any interest in girls."

Doctor Stenenbaulm joined in with, "It's not just playful fun that keeps him chasing after the other boys."

Mrs. Orric put a hand above her chest and gasped, "I-I never had a clue." She leaned forward, "Really?"

Mrs. Killington laughed as she said, "Fruitier than a fruit basket."

I had no idea I said anything until after I had asked, "You mean Joji's gay?"

Harriot, I mean Mrs. Johanna raised her eyebrows at me, "You mean you didn't notice?"

"Well, I didn't really get to spend much time getting to know him really." I said in my own defense.

A waiter came to our table; at least I assumed he was the waiter, because all the guys in that place were wearing nearly identical black suits with black shirts and ties. If I hadn't known better, I would have thought I was hanging out with the Sicilian Mafia or something.

"I see your guest has finally arrived, ladies," he said, giving me a welcoming nod.

"What happened to our other waiter?" Mrs. Killington asked.

"That is the same waiter Genevieve." Mrs. Monroe said with a hint of annoyance.

Mrs. Killington reached out without him seeing her do so and cupped his left buttocks just as she had mine. "Oh yes, that's him alright." She said smiling and nodding.

Everyone at the table, myself included, turned about twenty shades of red. Doctor Stenenbaulm chose to hide her face in her hands as Mrs. Johanna shook her head disapprovingly. The waiter simply smiled and laughed it off with a very funny comment, "Mrs. Killington, I've told you before that you can't have desert before dinner."

Mrs. Killington got a real kick out of that. "Well, then stop standing around looking all sorts of beautiful and bring us something to eat." And she popped him one on the butt to drive home her point.

I guess, when you have more money than anyone else in town, and you get as old and senile as Mrs. Genevieve Killington, you can get away with groping waiters in a fine restaurant like the Pine Club. However, I didn't buy for a second that she was as senile as she acted. There was too much life in those eyes of hers. I think she acted like that because she knew she could get away with the sort of things she was doing.

Mrs. Orric, uh... Dotty, as she insisted on being called now, ordered for me. I didn't understand a word of what she told our waiter, nor did I understand what the other ladies ordered, but when it was served, I saw that it was some sort of brown glazed fish with mixed veggies and something that resembled rice but was a mix of light and dark brown grains that were about three times longer than white rice.

When I picked up the glass of ice water that had been set in front of me and took a sip, I thought I was going to die. I coughed and gasped for air as the fire inside my mouth felt as though it was going to roast me from the inside out. Doctor Stenenbaulm patted me on the back, as did Mrs. Orric.

"What the heck is that?" I wheezed.

Mrs. Orric picked up the glass and took a sip, "For Pete-sake, you got Genevieve's gin."

Mrs. Killington picked up the glass in front of her and said, "I thought this was kind of weak."

Everyone in the place was looking our way as I coughed and sweated bullets. The ladies at my table all thought it was funny. I on the other hand was glad I could almost breathe again.

"Mrs. Killington, I mean Genevieve, took the glass from Dotty and took a big gulping swallow before letting out a satisfying, "Yeah, that's mama's sweet nectar!"

"Buck up boy!" Genevieve said, "A couple of these and you'll start growing hair in all the right places."

That caused me to choke and cough again at the reference to my growing pubic hair. I might add that I already have pubic hair, but come on. Having important rich ladies talking about my short-and-curlys is not something I would have ever thought might happen to me.

Doctor Stenenbaulm again dropped her face into her hands, but this time, she was laughing so hard that her entire body was shaking.

All through dinner, no mention had been made as to why I had been asked to join them, and I gotta say, that I was practically dying to find out. By the time we finished our meal, I had, mostly, become used to Genevieve's playfulness and was really enjoying the company of my new lady friends. We talked about all sorts of stuff too. Doctor Stenenbaulm told us about the time a man came into the emergency room wearing handcuffs, a ladies thong and nothing else. I guess you had to be there and hear the way she was telling it, because boy was it funny.

I was having so much fun that I didn't even notice when the conversation ever so subtlety shifted to the subject of each of their children. And then I heard the word... `THE D-WORD', which was first spoken by Herriot. I honestly cannot remember what she said prior to that word, but you can bet, I remember every word that followed.

"...diapers in a single day." Herriot said.

My fork clanged again my plate when I heard her say `Diaper' and they all looked my way.

"Sorry," I mumbled.

Dotty, I mean Eben's mom, then began talking about Eben and his diapers. No kidding, right there at the table where God and everyone else could hear! She talked about his need for diapers as if it was the most normal thing to discuss at a place like the Pine Club.

And then Genevieve said, "Well, as you know, I kept all three of my boys in diapers until they left for college and they are all better men today because of them!" and then she hiccupped, because she had already had at least three more glasses of gin since I had arrived. Lord knows how many she had before I got there.

I couldn't believe my ears. Every one of these ladies was talking about how they diapered their children and I don't mean babies and toddlers, but school aged boys!

And then Dotty turned all attention to me. "And how I ever managed without the wonderful diaper case Max gave me two weeks ago, I do not know!"

She then reached under her chair and produced the green, zippered note book; I'd given her at Gulliver's Mountain.

"I can't tell you the number of times I have dreaded lugging the heavy diaper bag around for Eben." She said, laying the folder in the middle of the table... OPEN!

"It has everything! Powder, wipes, cream and of course diapers! All in a completely generic case!" she said, pulling each item out and showing it to all the ladies.

Genevieve then asked me, "Where on earth did you come up with such a simple, and yet brilliant idea?"

Have you ever seen those old black and white cop shows were they put a guy in a room, shine a bright light in his eyes and then grill him for hours with questions? Well, that is exactly how I felt at that moment.

When I didn't say anything, Dotty asked me, "You did say that you came up with this idea, right?"

"Yes mam." I said, forgetting that this was supposed to be informal.

"For your little brother?" she asked.

"I don't have a little broth... oh, you mean Damien?" I said, remembering that she had seen me changing Damien's diaper at Gulliver's Mountain. "Damien isn't my little brother." I said, and then I told them how I had ended up as Damien's babysitter, slash big brother, and god help me, once I got started talking, I couldn't stop myself. It was as though for the first time in my life, I was able to unburden every diaper related secret I had been keeping my entire life.

With enraptured interest, my female audience listened to everything I had to say and asked questions whenever they felt like it. I had become an open book for them to read.

When I had finished, I leaned back in my chair and sighed quietly to myself. Before that evening, I hadn't known how consumed I had felt carrying all those secrets around with me, and afterward, I felt almost as though I could float away, unencumbered by my life of secrete close encounters.

The ladies continued talking for a while about the things I had shared, and about their own diaper related things. And then Dotty turned to me again and asked, "What would you think about going into business with us Max?"

"Excuse me?" I asked, nearly sliding out of my chair and under the table.

"We want to start mass producing your diaper case and selling it all over the country." Genevieve explained.

"Huh?" I grunted, unable to process what was being said, "You want to do what?"

Finally, Doctor Stenenbaulm, I mean Roxanne, said to me, "Max, there are mothers all over the world that would love to have something as handy as your diaper cases."

"What did you call it again?" she asked me.

"I haven't really given it an official name yet, but Mark and I have been calling it the Super Hero Emergency Diapering Kit." I said.

"No," Genevieve said with another hiccup, "Needs to be shorter, more catchy."

"Well, I kind of like what Dotty was calling it, a diaper case." I said, "I mean it's not a diaper bag, but a diaper case."

"Diaper Case?" Sharon questioned thoughtfully.

"I like it!" Herriot decreed.

"It gets my stamp of approval." Roxanne said.

Genevieve hit the table with her hand, "Diaper Case it is then!"

Dotty then asked me, "So what do you think?"

"About what?" I asked stupidly.

"About going into business with us?" Herriot said.

"Boys a bit slow?" Genevieve kidded me and gave me a wink to show that she was joking.

And then the thought of how I would explain all this to my parents, hit me like a ton of bricks.

"What's the matter?" Roxanne asked me.

"Huh?" I grunted.

"You look like you're going to be sick." She said, and I guess from her medical experience I must have really looked bad then.

"I-I can't." I stammered.

"Well, why the hell not?" Genevieve growled.

"My mom and dad. What would I tell them?" I said ashamedly. "They don't know anything about this. They'll think I am sick and lock me away in some asylum."

Genevieve put one elbow on the table and leaned toward Dotty, "You know... strip away the wild imagination he's got, and I think he might just have a valid point there."

Sharon then snapped her fingers, "I've got it! We make him a silent partner."

"What? You mean duct-tape him and hide him in the basement?" Genevieve said with a hiccup and a healthy belly laugh.

I laughed too, albeit nervously.

Sharon pushed her chair back and leaned forward, "I know his father and I'm not so sure he'd be to open minded when it comes to something like this. However, how about, along with making him a partner, we also hire Max as a professional Big-Brother."

And then Herriot added, "Just the way he does with the Damien boy."

Dotty looked at me and asked, "What do you think?"

"Uh, but how will I have time for all of your kids?" I said feeling overwhelmed.

"You could take all the kids to the park on weekends for a couple hours." Roxanne suggested.

"And maybe once every month or two, you could take them someplace special, like a water park or the zoo." Herriot offered.

"You'd be freeing them up," Genevieve pointed out, motioning to the other ladies, "for a couple hours each week and making money at the same time." She picked up her drink and began to raise it to her lips, "Plus, your share of any profits from the Diaper Case."

"You can tell your parents, that I thought you were doing such a wonderful thing with Damien that I wanted to hire you too and then I introduced you to my friends as well." Dotty suggested.

I thought for a moment and then said, "That could work."

Genevieve pointed a finger at me, "That means you'll be changing diapers when you have the kids. No bringing back a poopy boy!"

I laughed, put my right hand over my heart and held up my other hand, "I promise."

She made a dismissive huffing sound, shook her finger at me again and said, "You could use a little diaper training yourself mister smarty pants."

For half a second I thought she was serious, but then she smiled and all the ladies chuckled.

I then leaned toward Genevieve and said, "Admit it, you just want to get me out of my pants!"

Wow! The laughter was so loud that everyone in the restaurant looked our way again.

Even though I was the one to say it, I blushed, because I honestly hadn't thought before I said it. It just sort of came out of my mouth on its own.

One the laughter had subsided Genevieve gave me a reassuring wink of approval.

"I have another idea to go along with hiring him." Roxanne added. "We should open an account for Max and put all of his profits from the company into that account. So he'll have that money for when he goes to college."

Genevieve was really feeling her gin, and it was showing. She slammed her hand on the table as she announced, "And by god, you are going to college too, young man!"

"Yes ma'am!" I said in a cute little voice, but I did mean it.

"Do you have any idea what you want to study?" Roxanne asked me.

"To be honest, I've been thinking about that quite a bit lately." I said, taking a sip of my water. "I think I would..." I paused and looked around the table. Never before had I felt comfortable saying, what I was about to say, but sitting there at that table with those women, I felt completely safe in saying; "I'd like to do something just like what all of you have suggested. Working with boys of all ages..." I paused again as I looked each one of them in the eyes, "that are in diapers."

Dotty put an arm around me and hugged me. The other ladies, except for Genevieve, who was too drunk to get up, came over and each hugged me in turn.

Finally, Genevieve said to me, "Boy, uh Max, come here!"

Partly reluctant for fear of getting groped again, I slowly eased myself to where she was still reclining. She grabbed at the front of my shirt, pulled me down and planted a wet, gin laced kiss on my left cheek.

"You are a good boy!" she said, patting my opposite cheek hard enough to nearly scramble my brains. Her breath was so saturated with gin, that it nearly pickled my eyeballs within their sockets.

While Genevieve kept one arm wrapped around my middle, Dotty said to me, "And now for your surprise."

"Uh, I thought all this was the surprise." I said.

"No, the surprise is," She paused and looked at the other ladies who all shared knowing glances, "We have already begun ordering the necessary materials for the diaper cases and production should begin next week. This morning, thanks to some pull from Genevieve," Genevieve bowed in royal fashion while still seated in her chair, "...we reached an agreement with the corporate headquarters for Kids-R-Us, Baby-World and Wal-Mart, to sell them. Your Diaper Cases will be on their shelves by early May."

"No way!" I exclaimed, momentarily forgetting that we were in the Pine Club. I looked around at the women, who were all now looking guilty, "You all knew I'd agree to this all along, didn't you?"

Genevieve grabbed my butt, however not like before, this time she was rubbing it in tiny circles. This time I didn't jump.

"I said it before," she began, "and I'll say it again. Cute, sexy and smart!" and then she gave me a hard swat that felt almost as hard as when dad used to spank me. She then goosed me, really hard, which did get me to yelp and jump.

"Genevieve," Dotty growled at her, "Stop groping our business partner!"

And Sharon quickly added, "And babysitter! Don't forget that part too!" she said rubbing the back of my neck.

When I got home, both mom, and dad, as well as my brother and sister were excitedly waiting to hear all about my evening. So, just like the ladies had proposed, I told them about the job offer to act as a Big-Brother to their boys. To take them on outings and just hang out with them like I was already doing with Damien.

"And besides, Damien needs more friends to play with." I said and mom started to cry.

"Why are you crying?" I asked her. "I thought you would be proud that I am getting a really good job."

"I am honey!" she said, grabbing a tissue and dabbing at her eyes. "I am just so proud of you!"

"Dang little brother," My sister said, "That sounds like a really sweet deal."

"I hope you aren't mad." I told her.

"Why would I be mad?" she asked.

"Well, because you used to watch Damien and all." I said.

"Believe me," she said rolling her eyes, "I don't regret letting you take over babysitting that little monster."

I think that was the first time I had ever heard her say, that she had felt like that about Damien.

My brother didn't have anything to say about the babysitting part, he just thought that it was cool, that I was working for such a rich cliental.

"I only have one condition." Dad started to say, but before he could continue, I said, "My grades better not suffer?"

"Dot... I mean, Mrs. Orric and the other ladies already said as a condition of me working for them; I have to keep a `C' average or better." Of course that was a bold face lie; they hadn't said anything of the sort.

"I'll do them one better," Dad said, "You had better keep a `B' average or your butt is mine!"

"A `B' average?" I complained, "Isn't it good enough that I got a job? Now I have to be a nerd too?" I said jokingly.

Dad grabbed my elbow and pressed on one of the pressure points. It only took half a second for me to scream out, "OKAY, OKAY! I'LL KEEP A `B' AVERAGE!"

"I know you'd see it my way." Dad said.

Mom then added, "And you better check with Damien's grandparents to make sure they are ok with Damien going along with you."

"Yeah, I thought about that too. I was going to call them as soon as I got home." I said, which was true; I had planned on doing just that.

Of course, Bill and Gladys were overjoyed at the news and totally on board with Damien making more friends. When they put Damien on the phone and I told him about it, he didn't sound too happy about having to share me, until I whispered into the phone that he would get to play with more boys that wear diapers too. After that, he was all for it. Heck, he wanted to go play right away, but I told him that we'd have to wait until the weekend.

Never in a million years would I have ever thought that something like this could happen in real life, let alone to someone like me. "Daddy Max!" That's what Mike calls me and now I get to play daddy to a host of diaper wearing boys. I can't wait to meet them all!

~ THE END ... or is it? ~

Final Note from the author:

Wow, I can't believe how many of you have been writing me to say how much you are enjoying this Close Encounter series. Several of you have even written to say that one or more of the encounters were so much like what you had experienced yourselves. That means a lot to me because that tells me that the things that have been coming out of my head are not as far-fetched as I might think they seem at first.

If you would like to, I would love to hear what you thought about the ending of Close Encounters. You can email me at m12@thedoghousemail.com

Be sure to check out my other stories as well...

Simon's Journal – Ever read someone's secret diary? Well, here is your chance to read the private journal of a young boy named Simon David Leonard. Simon is just a mild American boy...that is until someone threatens his friends or family, then watch out! He has a secret problem which to him feels all consuming. When he decided to go in search for others who share the same secret problem, he sets off a series of events that will change his life, and the lives of those he encounters, forever. As you lose yourself within the pages of his four volume journal, you will laugh, cry, scream, and cheer your way through adventures that will take you halfway around the world and back again.

(http://www.nifty.org/nifty/gay/young-friends/simons-journal/)

Goodbye Normal Jeans – Meet Nevada, the middle child of a country families seven children. Nevada, prematurely born, lives the life of a simple country boy. His biggest concerns in life are dealing with his physical inadequacies related to his early birth, and making sure the pigs don't get loose. All of that changes when it is discovered that Nevada is exceptionally intelligent and is awarded a scholarship to a prestigious school for gifted young minds. There he must learn new ways of coping with his bodies limitations while trying to cope with life back on the farm.

(http://www.nifty.org/nifty/gay/young-friends/goodbye-normal-jeans/)

Alvin Ever After – A four part novel series chronicling the life changing events of a young California surfer boy named Alvin who has been uprooted and transplanted clear across the country to Maine?

In the first novel you will journey with Alvin and his parents as they travel east, encountering many adventures and people along their way.

The second novel tells of Alvin's new life in Maine as he and his parents struggle to make a new life for themselves.

The third novel tells the tale of a terrible tragedy which rocks Alvin and his family at its core. Friends and loved ones will flock to Alvin and his family's side as everyone struggles to come to grips.

The final novel in the series sees Alvin making a life changing decision and sets out on a new adventure across the country as he attempts to return to California.

(http://www.nifty.org/nifty/gay/young-friends/alvin-ever-after/)

Levi – Long before the divorce of his parents, Levi has been living with a secret, but when Phil, one of his friends, discovers his secret a series of events are set in action that will affect more than just Levi.

(http://www.nifty.org/nifty/gay/young-friends/levi/)

Everyone Has a Story - Everyone has some sort of deviant bent that, if it ever became public knowledge, would destroy them. This is the story of Rogan Lecher, a teacher with a big secret. That secret's name is a boy named Teddy Feinstein.

(http://www.nifty.org/nifty/gay/adult-youth/everyone-has-a-story.html)

How to Tame an Orange – After a horrible drunken night, Scott McGrouter's perfect life went to hell quickly. He went from being an upstanding family man and pillar of his church, to starring in gay pornos and living in his car. Things began to improve in his life, then he met a youngster by the name of Seth Jonagain and once again he found his life was in jeopardy if he couldn't get control of the kid.

(http://www.nifty.org/nifty/gay/adult-youth/how-to-tame-an-orange.html)