Every year in fetish circles, a few photos of adult women wearing diapers (and no pants) as part of Halloween costumes surface, culled from social media. Presumably, most or all of them aren’t actually ABDL. I always wondered: what happens when they have to pee?
“You look absolutely ravishing,” Anna said. She was wearing a long, white dress with silver sequins, a black veil and white elbow-length gloves, a cigarette holder dangling between her middle and index finger. Her twenties costume was apparently incomplete without affecting a ridiculous British accent. While Anna’s accent might be ridiculous, her costume was elegant, but also stunningly sexy, the dress hugging her hips and accentuating her lithe body. She had a coy smile that you could never quite figure out, and watching her body language was a master class in the art of the tease. She was an ageless nymph. The same couldn’t be said for Lina. No one but Anna could have persuaded her to go out dressed like this.
“We’re gonna be the hottest bitches at this party,” Lina said, much less confidently than she had intended.
Anna gave her a slap on her padded bottom. “Now, now, I shall have to do something about that mouth of yours,” she said, and pinched Lina’s cheek. “That’s no way for a two-year-old to speak.”
Anna stood there in white, knee-high socks and a pink top with a unicorn riding a rainbow adorning her chest and exposing her midriff. She spat out the pink pacifier with the words DADDY’S GIRL on it, but it simply fell to her side, hanging by a ribbon clipped to her top. In her hand was a teddy bear Anna had given her for her birthday eight years ago, and fastened around her crotch and hips, the centerpiece: a large, white diaper. Her blonde hair was in pigtails fastened with pink ribbons. She really did look like an overgrown toddler.
“Oh, I almost forgot!” Anna said. She fished a permanent marker out of her purse, then bent down uncomfortably close to Lina’s diapered crotch. “I have a mission for you tonight! I want you to find three cute boys and get them to write down their numbers on you.” She patted the front of Lina’s diaper, and Lina recoiled. She wasn’t used to people touching her crotch without warning, even if it was her best friend. “Darling, baby girl, don’t worry about it,” Anna said, unscrewing the cap of the permanent marker. “It’s only Auntie Anna.” She proceeded to draw a smiley face on the front of Lina’s diaper.
Lina’s flushed. “Let’s get this show on the fucking road.” She attempted to offset her juvenile appearance by punctuating her sentences with cursing, but it had the opposite effect: she only seemed more like a child pretending to be an adult.
“I told you to find me a sexy costume,” Lina said as her friend pulled out of the driveway. “Emphasis on sex. Hot, steaming anal, that’s what I wanted guys to think about when they saw me. Not… Not this.”
“Oh, what aah you talking about, honey,” said Anna. “You’re positively oozing sensuality. There’s not a guy in the place who’s not going to want to take you to bed and take care of you.”
“Change my diaper, bottle feed me, read me a bedtime story and put me to bed before half past nine, you mean?”
“Don’t be silly. Real talk, darling. You are exactly what guys want: pure innocence. All the guys I’ve been with, barring the one who shall not be named, have fantasized about corrupting innocence.”
Lina fished a bottle of Captain Morgan out of her purse and took a swig. There was only one way she was going to get through this night: copious alcohol. It stung.
“Alright, baby,” Anna said as she pulled up outside the house. A lone pumpkin sat, or rather lay, smashed all over the driveway, victim of an unkind meeting with a car. “Time to get in character.” She offered Lina her head, and Lina took it. They stepped out into the fall night, Lina with no shoes on. The pavement was cold through her thin socks, but they were in the middle of an Indian Summer, and despite the chilly breeze, it was pleasantly warm out. They were greeted on the porch by Superman.
“Wow,” Superman said. “You two! Anna, you’d make Jay Gatsby turn his head any day. And Lina, come here, give me a hug!” He all but assaulted her in a giant bear hug. “You really went all out on this!” The surprise hug attack had started her, and Lina lost her teddy bear on the ground in the shuffle. She looked down on it, laying there all alone on the ground. Superman knelt down on the ground and picked it up. “Oh baby, I’m sorry you lost your stuffie.” He sounded almost tender. This was all too much. Lina needed to reassert herself as a slutty adult, which was what she’d resolved to be for the night.
“While you’re down there,” she said, shoving Superman down as he tried to stand up. Lina handed him the permanent marker. “Auntie Anna says I have to get three cute boys’ numbers tonight. I don’t see any cute boys here, so you’ll have to do. Write it on my crotch,” she commanded. Superman shot Anna a quizzical look, but he dutifully wrote his number on her. He grabbed hold of her hip and pushed into her diaper for resistance. The padding being pushed into her crotch gave her the tingles, and she involuntarily arched her back and pushed into him. A little flustered, Superman stood back up and handed her the permanent marker and her teddy. Then he took her by surprise: instead of releasing her hips, he picked her up off the ground, clasping his hands under her bottom. Lina squealed. She never did have the strongest sphincter, and wore panty liners to the gym; as she left the ground, Lina felt a little trickle of urine escape her. She instinctively buried her face in Superman’s neck. His cologne was overwhelming.
“Lookie, what have we here!” Said the Joker, who also went by Tom. “One very, very naughty little girl.” Superman put her down, and Lina slung her arms around the Joker.
“Tom, Tom, we have to have shots!” The earlier swig of Morgan, not to mention the beer as they dressed, was already having an effect. The Joker smiled and began pouring vodka into two shot glasses. “No, no, we need three! Teddy wants one too!” Lina said, offering forth her teddy bear.
“Oh, I bet,” said the Joker, and filled a third glass. “Bottoms up!” Lina downed the shot, then took the third glass and pretended to try and feed it to her stuffed bear, but his lips were sealed shut with string. Scratch that: his lips were string. “I suppose there’s a lucky little girl that wouldn’t mind having two,” the Joker said. She obliged, and almost hurled. Lina was a light drinker, normally. Still, she managed to get the shot down.
“Oh my god,” said a voice behind Lina. Anna had disappeared already, no doubt busy being ravishing elsewhere. Kate was dressed as a slutty pirate, a costume that consisted of an eyepatch and a whole lot of cleavage. “You look so cute!”
I do, don’t I? Lina thought. She shifted her legs a little, and was pleased that the absorbent material between her legs had done its job. She couldn’t even feel her earlier little leak. “Nice costume. The boobs were a nice touch,” Lina said. Kate punched her in the arm. The punch must have hit a tender spot, because it hurt more than intended. Lina squeezed her eyes shut and winced.
“Oh, baby, I’m sorry,” Kate said, putting an arm around her.
Lina gave a mock pout, and then she dragged Kate over toward a group of people. “HIIII,” she slurred. “Heya, I mean,” enunciating everything clearly, which made her sound more drunk than the slight slur in her voice earlier. As she walked over, she’d felt a little twinge in her bladder, but standing still, the urge was gone. She was thirsty, both for drink and for attention.
“You’re such an attention whore,” Janice Coupland had told her in seventh grade, as Lina had stood atop a desk and proclaimed Shakespeare, because she was going to be in a play, and if she were to practice, why shouldn’t everyone get to hear it? As the years passed, Lina had grown to realize just how true it was. Normally, she was almost irrationally confident. She commanded attention and therefore she got it. But this outfit was a little too much, even for her. If it were any other friend suggesting it, she would have thought she was doing it out of jealousy, out of some desire to humiliate Lina to elevate her own status, but Anna was self-assured in the opposite manner of Lina: rather than being a flaming dynamo that commanded the room, Anna simply seemed not to ever consider that it was even possible to be insecure.
One episode serves to illustrate this. In eight grade, they’d gone on a school trip. All the girls slept in one big room, most of them on air mattresses on the floor. Through Lina’s machinations, she and Anna had gotten one of the two bunk beds in the room. In the early morning, as everyone was waking up, Anna had climbed out of bed. “Hey everyone,” she said, addressing the collection of sleepyheads strewn about the room. “Does anyone know where Mrs. Taylor is?”
“Why?” Lina asked.
“I wet the bed,” Anna said. “I need to tell her.” Lina leaned over the railing of the top bunk, looking down on her friend. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she could she that the entire back of Anna’s pajama pants was drenched. A wet oval extended across her buttocks and up toward her back, and even the back of her shirt was wet.
“Eww, Anna peed the bed!” Someone said. Probably Janice, head of the bitch clique. “Pissypants, pissypants,” she said, and several girls joined in on the chant.
“Yeah, I did,” said Anna. “What about it?” She seemed genuinely surprised that anyone would care.
“You’re such a baby,” someone else said. “Can’t even keep your bed dry. What are you, three?”
“No, I’m thirteen,” said Anna. “It was just an accident. Does anyone know where Mrs. Taylor is sleeping?” Lina climbed down the ladder and lifted Anna’s covers. A wet outline of her lower body was adorned the sheets. Lina had taken her friend’s hand and led her, still in wet pajamas, to the teacher. She’d tried to put it delicately, but her confused babbling did nothing to explain the situation, so her friend had to bail her out: “I peed the bed, Mrs. Taylor. What should I do?”
She’d been teased about it for the rest of the trip, but paid it absolutely no mind, and soon, everyone gave up. That was the sort of person Anna was. She’d never humiliate anyone to get ahead, because to her, her own worth was too self-evident to need asserting.
Lina sat down on the lap of the guy closest to her. She handed him the permanent marker. “Auntie Anna says I have to be a good girl and get three phone numbers tonight,” she said. She took his hand and directed it toward her crotch. “Write it down here so I don’t forget. I’m not so good with numbers,” and she stuck her tongue out at him. It must be the drink, because she was enjoying her little role play more than she should. When she felt the tiny little pressure on her nether regions, her cheeks flushed, and again, just like with Superman on the porch, she arched her back and pushed into it.
“That’s my boyfriend you’re gyrating on,” said a voice. It was Janice Coupland, of all people. It’d been years since Lina saw her. She quickly got off Janice’s boyfriend.
“My bad,” she said, and sauntered over to a table where two men clad in hipster uniforms—the rugged beard (one of them had a fake beard, the other a real one), the lumberjack shirt, the nerdy glasses—deep in intellectual conversation. Lina grabbed a beer from the table and listened in.
“I’m telling you, The Dark Knight is the best superhero movie of all time,” said one of them.
“I personally think Superman’s dad could beat up Batman’s dad,” Lina said. The two men turned to look at her. One of them, the one with the fake beard, lit up. He patted his lap, then grabbed her hand and pulled her in.
“Have you meet my niece?” He asked the man with the real beard. “This is little…”
“Lina,” she offered. “And this is Teddy.”
“Ah, yes,” said Fake Beard. “Do you remember uncle’s name?”
She shook her head. At that moment, Lina’s bladder made its presence and present state of continual filling-up known. She crossed her legs and put it toward the back of her mind.
“It’s Ron,” said her new uncle. “I’m disappointed, pumpkin. I thought I made an impression on you, but I guess little ones are forgetful.”
“Cheers!” Lina said, clinking their beer bottles in turn.
“Anyways,” said Real Beard, “about that…”
Lina sat there on Ron’s lap, listening to the two grown men discuss superheroes, until she was out of beer and bored. She got Ron to write down his number on her diaper before she got up.
Now, she really needed to pee. Standing still was hard; she was tapping her foot against the floor, subtly squirming in place. She needed to find a bathroom, but when she arrived in line, she realized: she wasn’t wearing any underwear. All she had was the diaper, and she wasn’t sure the tapes would stick if she removed them. She had jeans in the car, but Anna had the keys and was no where to be found. Lina couldn’t very well walk around the party naked. Unless she could find Anna, she couldn’t pee. Lina crossed her legs, and a little moan escaped her. Her bladder was now visibly protruding from her abdomen, and she couldn’t stand still. “What is it, honey?” Asked the lady in front of her. She was dressed like a witch, with a wide-brimmed black hat shading her eyes.
“I need to peeee,” Lina whined.
“Well, so do I. You’ll have to wait in line.”
“But, but,” Lina mumbled. It was no use standing here. She had to find Anna, and she had to find her fast. Sweat was now beading on Lina’s brow, and she didn’t know how long she could hold it. Lina stumbled around the party, clinging to her teddy bear as if it were a talisman against pee accidents. Finally, she found Tom. “Tom Tom Tom, where’s Anna?” She asked, or attempted to ask, but what came out was considerably less composed. It was more like, “Tomtomtom, whelsh Anna?”
“Oh,” Tom said. “She went home to pick up something she forgot, she said.”
“She went home?” Lina stamped her foot on the ground in frustration. That was enough to set off a little leak. This time, she could feel her crotch warming up, as the pee pooled underneath her butt before soaking into the padding. She’d already started to have an accident, and there was no ETA on when her pants would arrive. Lina had known girls who’d peed themselves while drunk before, but none of them had been wearing a full baby outfit, complete with adult diaper. She turned on her heel and walked off, not really knowing where she was going. The house was vast, three stories, and she had no idea who owned it, but that someone had to be rich. There were very large flatscreen televisions, there was expensive-looking art on the walls—although for all she knew about art, it might have been bought at IKEA—and there were so many rooms. Lina turned away from an abstract painting and almost banged her head into Superman. She’d forgotten Superman’s real name. He was Anna’s friend.
“Lina, baby, you’re upset,” Superman said. “What’s wrong?”
Lina shoved her stuffie into Superman’s hands so she could hold herself between the legs. “I have to pee and my pants are gone and if I take off this stupid diaper I can’t put it back on and I’ll have to walk around naked but if I don’t I’m gonna pee myself and then I might as well walk naked because…”
“Oh, baby,” Superman said. For some reason, hearing him call her “baby” felt reassuring, as if everything was going to be okay after all. “Dry your tears,” he said, wiping her cheeks. She didn’t even know she’d been crying. “Superman is here to save the day.” With that, he swooped her off her feet again, just like when she’d first arrived. And just like when she arrived, the sudden movement of her entire body caught her off guard, and she peed. But this time, her bladder was full, and she couldn’t stop. As Superman carried her in his arms, his hands firmly under her bottom, she felt her muscles give way, and she felt herself begin to void. The urine was hitting the front of her diaper and running down back, pooling under her butt, warming it, right where Superman was holding her. What was he going to think when he felt his hands grow warm? She’d just confessed, verbally and nonverbally through her fidgeting and holding herself, that she was desperate to pee. Now, it just would not stop, she peed and peed, and he had to realize what was happening. Lina buried her face in Superman’s shoulders and closed her eyes. She’d never been so embarrassed. Absent a plan for what she was going to do, she was content to inhale Superman’s cologne and allow herself to be carried god knows where like a child.
Then he put her down onto the ground again, very gently. Lina felt her wet diaper sag between her legs as gravity took hold. There was an audible slosh (at least in Lina’s head) as the diaper was restrained by the tapes around her hips and bounced back into her sex. If she hadn’t been so embarrassed, the feeling of the wet padding against her nether regions would have excited her. Lina opened her eyes, looking straight into Superman’s. His were steely gray, and kind. “Baby, do you have anything you’d like to tell me?” He asked.
Lina shook her head. What could there possibly be to say? She didn’t even know him!
“Lina baby, do you still need to pee?”
She blushed and shook her head.
“Where did all that pee-pee go, then? Did it go in the potty?”
Lina looked down shamefully. Her diaper was all puffed up and yellowed in the front. That wasn’t what upset her the most right at that moment, though. “The phone numbers are all gone now!”
“I’m going to put mine in your phone for you,” Superman said. His voice was calm. His eyes didn’t betray the freakout she expected. “But first, let’s get you cleaned up.” They were standing in a bedroom, Lina realized. And before she knew it, Superman was crouched down, about to undo the tapes of her diaper. Which she had just used for its intended purpose.
“What! No! I don’t let strangers just… Touch me and see me naked!”
“Baby, I’m gay,” Superman said simply.
“You’re… Gay?”
“Yes, baby. Gay is when guys like to stick their penises between other guys’ buttcheeks, and not between the legs of ladies. Although you look so cute, if you didn’t have boobs, I might’ve made an exception. Only in the butt, of course,” he said and winked at her.
Lina looked down to her chest. In keeping with her costume, she wasn’t wearing a bra, which made her bust seem smaller than it really was. “You don’t like my boobs?” She asked.
Superman stood up and cupped her breasts. Lina’s cheeks grew a deeper shade of red, and she felt her entire lower body tingle. “They’re very fine boobs,” he said, “but unfortunately, breasts are a turn-off for me. Now, will you let me clean you up? Don’t you want that smelly diaper off of you?”
“I can clean myself up! And it does not smell!” Lina stamped her foot on the ground, making her diaper bounce. She stamped her foot once more, just to feel the bounce-back into her lips. It felt good.
“Now, now, baby girl,” Superman said. “Let’s look at things from my perspective. Come, sit with me.” He sat down on the bed and pulled her onto his lap. When she tried to speak, he popped the pacifier into her mouth. She’d forgotten that particular accessory was even there. “Now I speak, and baby girl listens. I found a little girl wandering the halls, crying because she couldn’t figure out how to get to the potty. So I picked her up to take her to the bathroom, and what do you know, she piddles in her diaper while I’m carrying her! If you found a little girl like that, would you trust her when she says she can clean herself up?”
Lina spat the pacifier out of her mouth. “I’m not a little girl, though,” she said. “Not really. It’s just a costume.”
“That’s right,” said Superman, absentmindedly tracing a line on her exposed tummy with his finger. “You’re not a little girl. You just act like one. Now, I don’t want you to get a rash. Do you want a diaper rash, baby?” Lina had to admit, the idea didn’t seem very appealing. She shook her head.
“That’s right. Now you sit here and look pretty for a moment. Be a good girl.” He popped the pacifier back in and sat her down on the bed. Lina looked around the room while Superman was gone. There was a large wardrobe, another flatscreen TV—how many was that? She was sure she’d seen at least eight around the house, none smaller than forty inches or so—and more IKEA/expensive art, whichever it was. Superman soon returned from the attached bathroom. In his hand was a pack of wet wipes and a large, white towel. He laid the towel on the bed and had Lina lay down on it. She dutifully lifted her hips so he could get the diaper away from under her. As the tapes came off and he opened the front, the cool air on her skin shocked her, and a little trickle of pee escaped her. “Oopsies,” said Superman. “See why I don’t trust you to take care of yourself? You all done?” Lina nodded.
“I think so.”
“You think so or you know so?”
“I know. I think?”
The entire seat of the diaper was yellowed. Superman balled the diaper up and began wiping her down. At first, he was just wiping around her bikini line, but then he worked his way downwards. Each motion was gentle, but assured, and the whole thing was, for reasons Lina couldn’t quite comprehend, unbelievably erotic. When he began wiping around her lips, Lina couldn’t help it. She pushed into Superman’s hand and moaned. It felt so good.
“Now, now, naughty girl,” said Superman. “Remember we talked about what gay means? It means I don’t like to get naughty with girls. Well, at least those who have vaginas and identify as cis, myself I’m more nonbinary…”
“Oh my god,” said Lina and giggled. “You’re a total Tumblr bro! Please, talk more, it’s amazingly good at killing ladyboners.”
Superman immediately stopped wiping. The look on his face had turned dark. “Oh my god, did I offend you? I’m sorry…” Before she could say anything more, Lina was on her stomach. Superman took both her hands by her wrists and held them behind her back. Then she felt a stinging on her bottom, and, like a roll of thunder after a lightning strike, the thud as his hand hit her flesh. He struck her again. Tears were forming in Lina’s eyes. It wasn’t so much the pain as the humiliation that got her. Again he struck, and she felt her muscles weaken. Before she knew it, she was peeing again, this time onto the towel, as she received slap after slap on her butt. Lina didn’t know how long it lasted, probably no more than a few minutes, but there came a point where it was all too much for her, and she began sobbing loudly. She no longer had any control over herself, over her bladder or her emotions, and she must really look the part of the toddler. When Superman heard her crying, he flipped her over and put a pillow under her butt.
“Little girl, you need to learn to be respectful of others,” he said. “Do you understand?” Lina nodded her head. Superman put the pacifier back in her mouth and handed Lina her teddy bear. She clung to it, found comfort in it. Without a word, Superman continued cleaning her. This time, he continued rubbing her when she began moaning. She couldn’t help it. She was so worked up, all her emotions were centered on the rubbing motion and the physical sensations it created in her. She arced her back and began humping against his hand, and Superman didn’t stop until she climaxed. Exhausted, full of pleasure, spent, Lina slumped back in bed.
There was a knock on the door. “John, are you in there? Can I come in?” It was Anna. “Tom told me you were up here with Lina.”
The door opened, and the 1920s entered the room. Lina had a white plastic bag in her hand. “Oh!” She said. “Jesus, John, what have you done to her?” She kicked the balled-up diaper towards a corner.
John rose. “Done to her? What do you mean?”
“I mean why the fuck is there a pissy diaper on the floor, why is she naked in your bed with a teddy bear and a pacifier in her mouth?” Lina was still too dazed, not to mention drunk, to say anything.
“What?” John said. “You mean she isn’t into this?”
“I mean to say that yes, my best friend isn’t an adult baby! It’s a costume!”
Superman, or John, retreated to the hallway with Anna. They were yelling to each other, and then they were talking too quietly to register anything but a low mumbling through the door. Lina looked up at the ceiling. There were stars! Little LED lights laid out in the pattern of Ursa Minor and Major and other constellations. Lina was lost stargazing until a voice broke her out of her reverie. “Lina, baby, the adults have been talking,” said Anna. “I realized you didn’t have any underwear on, so I went back and got the rest of the adult diapers, I thought you could use a change. I never imagined I’d come too late and you’d have already gone to the potty in your pants by the time I came back.”
“It seems I’m the one who needs to learn how to respect others,” said Superman. He’d thrown off his cape and looked much more like a John now. “I assumed… It seems I assumed there was more to your costume than there really was.”
“John tells me you’ve had fun while I was gone,” Anna said. “Maybe you discovered something about yourself that you didn’t know was there?”
“My butt hurts,” Lina said.
“Yes, I bet it does, sweetie. Now, I have something important to ask you. You’re naked.”
She was, Lina realized. She hadn’t even thought about that.
“You need some underwear. Now, I have your panties and jeans here. But after talking to John, I think maybe you’d like it if you got to stay in diapers for the night?”
Lina didn’t respond. She remembered the feeling of the padding against her sex, and then the wet padding against her sex, the feeling of letting go in her diaper. The sagging and bouncing. And she remembered the diaper change, and how content she’d felt during it.
“Lina babe, would you like another diaper?”
She nodded.
“Well then, I’ll leave you to it. John will be happy to put it on for you. He likes to take care of people. It’s kind of his thing.” She winked at Superman, who blushed.
“No!” Lina said. “Don’t leave me! I don’t want to be spanked again!”
“John isn’t going to do anything to you that you don’t want,” Anna said.
“But please don’t leave me. Stay a little while. Please?”
“All right,” Anna said. “I’m going to get a drink while John changes you.”
Lina leaned back and let Superman put a new diaper on her. At that moment, being cared for like a child was just what she needed. Before she knew it, she was dressed in fresh padding, free of icky pee. She beamed a smile at Superman, who responded by leaning over and blowing a raspberry on her stomach. Anna reentered the room carrying a drink in a glass in her right hand, and in her left, a baby bottle. “What’s that?” Lina asked.
“This?” Anna held out the bottle. “I bought it for your costume, but I thought it might be a little too much.”
“No, I mean what’s in it?” Lina asked, a little impatient.
“Special big girl juice. Would you like some?” Lina nodded, and her friend held the bottle out for her to drink. Vodka Redbull, from the taste of it.
“Why don’t we get cozy,” Superman said. They all piled under the covers, Lina in the middle, John and Anna on either side of her. Lina sipped at the bottle, and when Anna began humming something that vaguely sounded like a lullaby, she felt her eyelids grow heavy. Soon, she was fast asleep, only to be awakened by an uncomfortable feeling in her abdomen. “I need the potty…” Lina said, too groggy to really think.
“Honey, you already went,” Anna said.
Lina realized her butt was wet and cold. She must have wet the bed. Only, the bed wasn’t wet. It was just her butt. Anna was about to open the tapes on her diaper when Lina said, “No, the other kind of potty…” Her abdomen was cramping, and she was in pain.
“Oh my,” said Anna. “Let’s get you to the bathroom before anything big happens out back.” She helped Lina out of bed.
“Nothing big is ever coming out… back there!” She said, trying to maintain at least a little dignity. It wasn’t easy when she had to waddle with a wet diaper between her legs, stopping every other step to lean forward, strain her cheeks, and hold her butt. Finally, she made it to the toilet, where Anna removed the tapes and then left her to do her business. When the final plop-plops had left her, she felt ten pounds lighter.
“You done, princess?” Anna asked. Lina nodded, and then felt stupid for doing so. Of course Anna couldn’t see that through the door.
“Uh-huh,” she said instead.
Anna came back into the bathroom, carrying the wet diaper. “Looks like we cut that one pretty close,” Anna said, holding open the diaper. An embarrassing stain sat around the part that had been pressed against her butt. The yellow discoloration had almost been normalized—and here, sober and big Lina had an odd moment of cognitive dissonance, as she realized how ridiculous it was to be completely fine with peed pants, and yet at the same time, little Lina found so much comfort in the majority of the diaper that was merely yellow with pee—but the embarrassing part wasn’t yellow. Lina shuddered at the thought of the disaster that’d almost occurred.
“I made it though,” little Lina said proudly. By which you mean, almost all of the #2 went in the potty, but let’s downplay the fact that all of the #1 went in your pants, big Lina added in the back of her mind.
“I’m proud of you, baby girl,” Anna said. “Did you remember to wipe?” Blushing, Lina realized she had not.
Back in the bedroom, Superman put a new diaper on her. Anna rose and tried to head back to the party, which could still be heard faintly through the door, but Lina grabbed her arm and pleaded with her to stay. “A little while longer, then,” Anna said, but her eyelids seemed to be almost as droopy as Lina’s.
“Do you know where I bought the art you see on the walls?” Superman asked.
“It’s your house?” Lina asked.
“Sure is. I bought the art at a little French museum. I’m not sure baby has heard of it. It’s called the Louvre.”
“Really?” Lina’s eyes went wide.
“No, silly,” Superman said. “I bought the paintings at IKEA, actually. I don’t know anything about art, I just thought they looked nice.”
“Wow,” Lina said. “IKEA. Is that like a big place?” In the back of her mind, she knew what it was, of course. But in that moment, she couldn’t remember.
“Yes, yes it is. A very big store.”
Lina closed her eyes. Anna kissed her on the forehead. “Night, night, baby girl,” she said.
Before long, Lina was asleep, flanked by her mommy and daddy for the night.