Sadie’s mother Belinda stared at her recent best friend Janice. “Your daughter won an honors scholarship? Wow, I know for a fact, that is one hell of an achievement”, she stated, dumbfounded.

Janice gave a slight shrug, and a timid smile. “It took a lot of coaxing, but I guess Melissa recognized the value of it. She’s a good student.”

“It’s not THAT easy, not just cramming”, countered Belinda, shaking her head. “it’s that AND being very damn intelligent”. The Iced tea and sandwich had turned into a beer, and after that came the Margarita. It wasn’t often she went out with a friend for the evening, and it wasn’t often either that the soft-spoken psychologist let her vocabulary ride on the drinks. “I know for a FACT that the reason that show-off school makes those exams so difficult is so only students who are very well funded ever grace their halls. That, or somebody so highly intelligent that it would make the school proud!”

Janice gave a giggle. She sipped her Margarita, thoughtful. She smirked, “So, you are calling me poor, I guess”.

Belinda’s face fell. “No girl, I didn’t mean it this way…”

Janice winked at her. “Gotcha! Of course, I know what you mean. I know we don’t really fit into that school, and there is no way I could ever dream of affording the fees. But I sort of bullied Melissa into preparing at least one school year early, she spent the whole summer studying, and then the test… I wonder if it’s all my fault…”, mumbled Janice, this last sentence mostly to herself.

Belinda frowned. “What do you mean?”, she asked, reaching out to hold Janice’s hand.

Janice sat still, closing her fingers around Belinda’s soft warm hand.

“I guess this is where you start taking notes and charge me per hour”, mumbled Janice, insecure. “This requires a professional opinion, and I don’t want to take advantage”.
Belinda pursed her lips. “Janice, I live by a code of ethics that will not permit me to take on friends as clients. So, my advice is free. If I ever felt you needed professional therapy, which I really doubt that you do right now, I would be happy enough to refer you to one of my colleagues. So, take advantage of our friendship, and speak. Need a refill?” She looked at her friend expectantly.

“No, I’m fine… well, it’s not something terrible, I guess, but I do feel responsible for it”. Janice paused in search for words. Belinda pressed her hand on hers, encouragingly. Janice continued. “At the end of the summer, before the big test, Melissa started wetting the bed. Nothing serious, I guess, but her being a teenager and all, I was quite caring and understanding with her, but I was worried sick. The online research I did sort of quieted my fears, that it was a puberty thing, stress things like that. Her doctor sort of confirmed it, said to wait it out, take things easy… Melissa took it OK, better than I would have, but the biggest hassle was the wet sheets, pajamas… That has to be an uncomfortable thing to wake up to, I am sure.”

“So, what happened?”, questioned Belinda.

“Well, nothing. She still wets the bed. I eventually bought some, well, like… well, diapers. Called Good Nights, or something like that. A pull-up sort, made for older kids”. Janica made an embarrassed face.

“Yes, I know them”, Belinda said, soothingly. They seem to be a popular product. “Does she still wear them?”.

“No, well, she did, but I guess they are made for… light incontinence, I guess you would say?”. Janice had to close her eyes to say the last sentence: “I ended up buying adult diapers for her”.

Belinda bit her lip in an effort to suppress her smile. “How adorable”, she thought to herself. “Her best friend worried because her daughter wears diaper to bed”.

Belinda came to herself with Janice staring at her searching for answers.

“Um, I can tell you for a fact Melissa isn’t the only teenager in her school who wears diapers to bed”, said Belinda, with a bit of a smirk.

“How can you tell for sure?”, wondered Janice.

“Easy: Medical statistics. OK, it is unusual for a girl her age to need diapers for bed, but it is not an unusual occurrence, therefore you can expect somebody else has to deal with the same kind of issue. It’s a completely manageable thing. As you very well know, there are very good products out there that help manage this situation. As you have said, Melissa is OK with wearing diapers to bed”.

“Well, that sort of the thing… I think she has grown… um, well, attached to them”, murmured Janice at a loss.

Belinda raised her eyebrows, taken aback. “Attached?”

“She always wets the bed, well, I mean, her diaper, but not enough to really fill it to capacity. When she gets up in the morning, she empties her bladder in the toilet.

“Makes sense”, mumbled Belinda. “Teenagers in secondary enuresis won’t usually void their bladder completely”.

“Yeah, the doctor said something like that”, Janice said. “Melissa usually is comfortable wearing a diaper around me, and sometimes she even has breakfast in her pajamas – and diaper, so I can tell what a normally wet diaper looks under her pajama bottoms, right? But recently I’ve discovered her diaper up to saturation point, and she sort of shrugs it off, claiming she was too lazy or something. That’s why I think she is growing attached to them”.

“I see”, said Belinda thoughtfully, nursing her Margarita. “So, what are you going to do about this?”

Part 2

“I could punish her with no diapers, but she needs them. That would be cruel. Or I could be overly controlling and make sure she gets her diaper off as soon as she wakes up, but that would be treating her like a little girl, but I know she wouldn’t appreciate it. Or I could also ignore it, and hope it goes away, sort of dust under the rug…”. Janice frowned as she took a long sip of her Margarita, emptying the glass. She sat there, staring at her empty glass thinking over the situation.

“Or”, said Belinda. Janice looked at her friend expectantly. “Or, you could play her on her own game”.

“Huh?”, said Janice, confused.
“It goes like this”, said Belinda. “If she likes wearing diapers, MAKE HER wear diapers. This way, you get to control her experience, lay ground rules, and so on, but it’s not where she wears diapers out of laziness”.

“I don’t understand”, said Janice, confused.

“For example, my daughter Sadie was having a problem keeping her bedroom clean, pure laziness, you could say, so one Saturday morning, when I came up with her laundry, properly stacked and folded as any proper mother would do for her loving teenage daughter” – they both smirked – “I came into her room and ceremoniously dumped the clothes on her bed in a heap – she was still in bed – and obviously she was outraged at what I did. I told her since she was happy keeping her room in such disarray, I would be happy to help her in the process”. Belinda paused to laugh along with an amused Janice.

“Did it work?”, asked Janice, expectantly.

“It did. After she calmed down and I explained the importance of cleanliness. That it wasn’t a one-sided job, and I expected her to do her part.

“Well, your idea doesn’t seem too bad, I guess. Maybe I should try it. I guess… Well, I’ll be using a lot more diapers then. I should buy some more”, said Janice, thoughtfully.

Both women paid their bills and agreed to meet soon, Janice promising Belinda she would keep her updated on her “diaper project”. As they waited for their ubers, they said their goodbyes, parting better friends then they were when they had begun that evening. Belinda was wondering how Janice would react to the fact that her own daughter Sadie was a diaper lover just as Melissa seemed to be.