Given these unprecedented times and the subject of this story, I’m posting this story here in the regular story section to share it with everyone and bring a little entertainment. Most of my stories these days are posted up in the donor’s lounge as a way to thank donors and give back to the site and try, in a small way, to help support it. The only other place most of my stories are available is on amazon. If you have Kindle Unlimited, you can read all my amazon stories for free.
This story features Alex and Bernadette from my story Secrets To Keep (in the donor’s lounge and on amazon) but you don’t need to read that story to understand this one. But if you did read Secrets then you’re already familiar with the characters and have a deeper understanding of them. None of which is necessary to read and enjoy this story.
I originally wanted to title this “Love in the Time of Corona” but that was a rip off of “Love in the Time of Cholera” so I just shortened it to Love and Corona. If you have any title suggestions that you feel would fit better, I’m all ears. 
This is written for a friend who also named the teddy bear. (Going with anonymity since I didn’t ask if they minded being mentioned or not).
LOVE AND CORONA
by CK Cute Kitten
Alex pressed his cheek against the sun warmed glass. Outside the window, little robins hopped about on their tiny legs, ruffling their feathers and tweeting at the blue sky. Pink and white magnolia blossoms filled the air with their sweetness while green leaves budded on dark tree branches.
“This sucks.” He slumped back in his wheelchair with a loud crinkle from his freshly changed diaper. The fresh spring breeze wafted in through the partially open window, taunting him. He’d been stuck in the house for weeks, but it felt like months. The most he did was play fetch in the backyard with Sarge, his golden retriever. The family dog was old, so he wasn’t up for much playing.
The Covid-19 virus shut down the bustling small town. People only ventured out in masks and gloves for necessities. His mom, Ella, would not let him go anywhere; she claimed that even with a mask and gloves it was too dangerous for him.
Alex looked out the window. Below the tree, in the driveway, sat his shiny blue Mustang. It had special, modified hand brakes so he could drive it. He felt it calling his name; he itched to leave the house. Go anywhere or do anything, even run to the grocery store for a bag of their crappy, too-thin and leak prone diapers. Baby powder. Suppositories. An enema. Whatever. He just wanted out, a change of scenery.
He tried bargaining with his mother, but Ella wouldn’t budge. She was the Berlin wall between him and freedom. As a stay at home mother, she was here all the time to watch over and check on him all the time. He couldn’t even sneak out for a trip to a fast food drive through. She confiscated his car keys the first time he tried.
He puffed his cheeks out in annoyance. He knew she was terrified of him catching the virus and she just wanted to protect him, but her smothering was driving him up a wall. He pushed backwards on his wheels, rolling back and gazing about his room to look for something to take his mind off of things.
The bedroom walls were a pale baby blue with white trim work. Glow in the dark star stickers decorated the ceiling above his bed with the white and navy striped duvet and a waterproof mattress cover in case his diaper leaked during the night. Basketball trophies filled several shelves on the walls and framed photos of his basketball days were turned face down, some with cracked frames. Photos of him with his old group of friends, the popular kids at school, were gone. Those fair weather friends had drifted away after his accident. The only frames still up were photos of him with his parents and him and his girlfriend Bernadette.
His room was tidy; he’d kept it neat and orderly even before his accident. A mint green laptop sat on his desk. His schoolwork for the week was complete. So was Bernadette’s. Due to the virus, schools had closed down and classes had switched to online. Alex had been so bored he worked ahead then did Bernadette’s work as well. He was a straight A student, always on the honor roll and scoring top marks while Bernadette barely managed to pass her classes.
Alex didn’t miss any of his classmates, but he deeply missed his girlfriend. He rolled to his neatly made bed where a pile of plushies sat and grabbed a powder blue teddy bear off his bed. It was a birthday gift from Bernadette when they were in first grade. He’d named the bear Count Snuggly von Snuffles the IV or Snuggly for short. He hugged his favorite plushy tight, burying his face in the soft fur. He and Bennie grew up together. Their parents were friends, so the they had grown up lifelong best friends. They had only been dating for a short time, since Valentine’s Day.
Their relationship was like a tropey, cheesy romance. Just a few months and he already needed her like needed air to breathe. He had loved her his whole life; they were the other half of each other’s hearts. Soul mates down to their dirty little secrets. Alex was an AB and Benni an AB Caregiver. The plot was like something written by a tacky ABDL author on the diaper story forums Alex liked to read.
He and Bernadette were polar opposites in many ways. Until his spinal cord injury last summer, Alex had been the star basketball player of the highschool team. With his shaggy blonde hair, big blue eyes and pretty boy good looks, he’d naturally fallen in with the popular kids like a duck takes to water. Bennie was cute and pretty with her brown hair and brown eyes, but she’d never be a stunning beauty queen. She favored loud neon clothes and loved performing magic tricks and body contortion. She’d always been the weird girl, the bendy neon freak. Now, in their senior year of highschool, Alex was a social outcast as well due to his wheelchair and diapers.
“Snuggly, I miss Bennie.” He rubbed his cheek against the plush blue fur then gazed down into the blue marbles of Count Snuggly von Snuffles the IV’s eyes as if the inanimate object held the answers to his problems. He knew, rationally, the plushy was just a pile of stuffing sewn up in blue fur, but cuddling the bear helped him to not feel so alone. He’d slept with the bear every night since Bennie gave it to him, and cuddling the bear now made him feel closer to Bennie.
Modern technology kept them in touch; they texted and called each other daily and video-chatted and watched Netflix together via remote screen sharing, but none of that was the same as face to face, in-person interaction. Especially when it came to their AB games. They didn’t indulge much- just little things like Bennie feeding him or changing his diapers. He often had her push his wheelchair on dates when his arms got tired, like their last date through the long halls of the local Botanical Gardens and Aviary.
He booped Snuggly’s nose with a fingertip. “At least Bennie is gonna get all A’s in her classes now.” He sighed wistfully, thinking of how lovingly Bennie changed his diapers. She’d perform magic tricks like making his clean, folded up diaper disappear. He knew it was a sleight-of-hand trick but he hadn’t figured out. She blew playful raspberries on his flat, bare tummy after taping a new diaper on him, making him laugh and squirm. She’d bought him a bib and a few pacifiers he kept hidden for when they were alone in private and safety. She would make silly airplane sounds when she fed him. Her lips would buzz as she flew the spoon or fork through the air. “Boom! Uh-oh, an engine just blew! Mayday! Open the hanger for an emergency landing!” She’d swivel the utensil, threatening to spill the bite of food as Alex giggled and opened his mouth. When she pushed his wheelchair, she often bent over to steal quick kisses on his cheeks or the back of his neck.
The memories made him feel warm and fuzzy inside like a small child with not a care or worry in the world. His heart ached, wanting to feel like that again. His pink lips twisted in a pout. The blank flatscreen TV across from his bed reflected his image. Between his expression and Count Snuggly von Snuffles the IV, he looked like a whining toddler about to throw a tantrum.
Alex scrunched his nose at the image and turned away. “All this moaning and moping isn’t doing any good. I know there’s people out there with bigger problems than mine. This whole thing just sucks. I need to do something.” He looked down at Snuggly as if the bear could answer him. “But what?”
Nothing. He had nothing to do. No job- after his accident, both his parents fussed too much if he even mentioned looking for a job. He used to work part time at a home improvement store as a stock boy. Now, his mom Ella insisted he needed time to adjust and heal. He’d been doing that for the better part of a year. At this point, he thought she needed it more than he did. His father was a doctor with his own thriving practice. Ella insisted Alex have an allowance. His dad didn’t argue; he never argued with his wife. He was rarely home enough to have a full conversation. His life was work, and his wife was the head of the household. And Alex was on the receiving end of most of her attention.
“Snuggly, she could at least let me do some chores.” He hated getting an allowance for nothing. That was another battle between him and his mother. “I like to play baby, but I’m not a baby.” He frowned. Ever since the virus cancelled Ella’s social activities, she’d been more focused on her disabled son.
A long, warm wave of pee streamed over his crotch. The thick padding swaddling him absorbed it all so fast he wondered if he’d truly just wet himself. The damage to his lower spinal cord left him unable to tell when his bladder and bowel were full, but his automatic empty reflex remained intact, which was unusual in lower injuries like his. There were other methods of incontinence control he could use, such as catheters and a bowel program, but diapers made him feel safe and secure. Anytime, anywhere he was protected from an untimely accident. He found them easier to deal with.
The wall next to his closet was stacked floor to ceiling with cases of adult diapers. Puffy, thick, ultra absorbent adult diapers in a wide array of ABDL prints. His parents did not know about hishidden AB side. He just told them he liked the colorful prints. White was boring, and designs on his diapers made them feel more like regular underwear. His parents found it odd but did not question it since it seemed to help him cope.
When toilet paper started to become scarce, Ella panicked and went into survival mode. She stocked up on non-perishable foods, toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and diapers for her son. As a result, he ended up with a few cases of girly and sissy diapers from her panicked misclicks as she hurried to place an order before the diaper supply vanished as fast as the toilet paper.
Alex shuddered at the bags of pink and purple diapers. He dreaded when he’d have to wear those. He’d rather wear a boring, plain white incontinence brief instead. His current diaper was green with cartoon dinosaurs on the front panel.
Loose, light colored khaki pants almost concealed the enormous bulk of his protective padding, but close inspection revealed the tell-tale bulge of a very thick diaper. The light coloring of the soft fabric showed diaper leaks too easily, so he never wore them to school or out of the house. He wore a pale green t-shirt with his favorite band under a navy flannel shirt.
Stuck in the house all day, every day, he easily live in just pajamas. But that felt like giving up on his freedom, his connection with the outside world. So he got dressed every day. He refused to get stuck in an imposed rut.
Thanks to Ella’s restrictions, he had more free time than he knew what to do with. He was ahead in school work. He had begged Bernadette to let him do her work, too. She’d happily complied. He finished that a few days ago. He already re-read his favorite books, including Lord of the Rings and all seven of the Harry Potter books. Shows and movies he streamed with Bennie in the evenings on Netflix. He had texted her earlier, but was still waiting for a reply.
Unlike him, Bernadette was very busy. All of her live performances and engagements for her magical contortion act had been cancelled. So she used this time to promote herself online. She made Youtube and TikTok videos of magic tricks or contortion stunts. To help with her lack of income, she hosted live video chat magic lessons where she taught people basic, easy sleight of hand tricks.
She was a daring entrepreneur who never gave up on her plans and dreams. She planned to become a world class, famous magician. She wanted her name right up there with the magical legends- Houdini, Penn and Teller, Seigfried and Roy. Hard work and planning was slowly turning those dreams into a reality. The local news station and a few news papers featured her several times. Around the town she was a well-known performer for birthday parties, weddings, bar mitzvahs, etc.
She still had a long way to go, but he knew she’d achieve her big dreams. He felt it in his bones, a certainty in his guts. He admired that about her, and wished their parents could see it too. Instead, all they saw was the danger and risk, not the reward. They had no faith in Bernadette, in her dream. Just like they had no faith in Alex’s ability to take care of his paraplegic self.
Alex scrunched his nose and told Snuggly, “I could put my leg braces on again and crutch around the house…” But his legs were still tired from when he did that this morning after breakfast. Ella had hovered worriedly behind him with his wheelchair. Alex pushed his body too far in his boredom. Standing up straight gave him a different vantage point, almost made him feel whole again. His wheelchair was his new normal, and while he was used to seeing the world from that perspective, he hated always having to look up at people.
He spent most of his time in his wheelchair. His stamina sucked; this morning had proved that quite nicely. After breakfast he walked around the house on his leg braces and crutches, pushing himself past his limits. Slowly he had crutched all over the house, diaper crinkling loudly with each movement. It felt so good to be up and moving, to do something different. He hadn’t wanted to stop, not even when his digested breakfast filled the back of his diaper. His mom noticed and wanted him to stop for a diaper change. He feigned ignorance and kept going. His muscles fatigued and he’d wobbled dangerously. He would’ve fallen if his mother hadn’t been right behind him with his chair. Maybe all of her worrying wasn’t so pointless.
He had collapsed in his wheelchair, so exhausted he didn’t notice the mess in his diaper squishing all around. He was too tired to deal with a diaper change, let alone a super messy diaper change, so he allowed his mother to take care of him. Ella had changed him then tucked him into bed for a mid-morning nap. He’d woken up from that a while ago, changed out of his soaked diaper, and enjoyed some quiet time without his mom hovering over him.
“So, what do I do, Snuggly?” Alex shifted in his wheelchair, diaper crinkling loudly. Periodic shifting of his weight helped him avoid pressure sores from sitting most of the time. The powder blue bear tumbled out of his lap; he leaned forward from the waist, stretching down. His diaper crinkled noisily and a warm squirt of pee spread over his front as he snatched Count Snuggly up and hugged the bear tight.
“I could play cards, but I’m tired of solitaire. Tired of video games, too. Maybe I can talk Mom into a board game after lunch. Or-”
His bedroom door opened, cutting him off mid sentence as his mom bustled in. “Oh, good. You’re up, sweetie. I know you’ve been bored under quarantine, so I’ve got a friend for you to talk to.”
tbc…
