Food for Thought
“Sally,” Nokes chastised. “Stop licking her ear! Do you want her to wake up?”
Admonished, the dog moved away from where Pam lay unconscious on the floor and crept outside. Nokes took another gulp of Schwepps and gin and belched. He had grown sick of playing games with that Tover kid and decided to put the screws to him. The kid’s family was loaded and he would gladly pay. Otherwise, he might find himself facing a murder charge. Nokes was very good at making people disappear and even better at disappearing himself. He’d watched the whole thing unfold from his vantage point in the woods: the trial, the accusation and all that other bullshit. The kid had zero credibility now, absolutely none. Who wouldn’t believe that he would kill the girl to shut her up? And, should Nokes miraculously get caught in the process, he’d cut a deal and claim he did it on contract. Either way, he was getting paid. He would just wait a few hours before he made the call…
Later, after it was all over, Ryan would read the name Simon Nokes in the newspaper and do a double-take. He had visited FBI headquarters during his Washington trip and saw Nokes’ name on the most wanted list accompanied by a composite sketch. He was a paltry number nine.
The guy Matt met at the bar who would serve as his link to Nokes was an alum; an ex-lacrosse star named Wayne Starvos. Starvos had hired Nokes to burn down his fiancée’s parents cabin so that he and Lilly could hit them up for money after they collected on the insurance. Nokes agreed to the proposition, but decided to arbitrarily up his take. When Starvos refused, Nokes threatened to burn down the cabin with the in-laws IN it. The deal eventually went down, sans hitch, and Wayne used his part of the money they eventually received to buy Lilly the engagement ring he’d been unable to get earlier. When Matt came to him regarding the accusation he would soon be faced with, Wayne suggested Nokes. He prefaced his suggestion with the observation that “the dude was crazy.” Matt didn’t care. His future was on the line. Maybe crazy was what he needed.
Nokes yawned. Getting to the girl had been easy. He just donned the phony but convincing campus police uniform, approached her on the pretense of discussing a private matter and knocked her out. There was nothing to it. Fire-bombing a senator’s car at the behest of some Colombian gangsters…now THAT was a challenge.
The girl was wake now, although highly confused and disoriented.
“Wha?” she asked.
Nokes grinned. “Hiya honey.”
The ragtag rescue party consisted of Chris, Stacy and Pete. The latter surprised the both of them by insisting to tag along.
“Why?” Stacy asked.
Pete shrugged. “Boredom?”
“He’s been right so far,” Chris said.
Thus, with the cloudiest of intents, the greatest caution and the weakest stomachs, they set out to investigate Nokes. ‘Investigation’ was really too strong a term: they were going to make sure Matt wasn’t lying to them. At the first sign of trouble, they would call the police.
Matt’s friend Wayne had provided them with an address. Stacy’s hand squeezed Chris’s tightly as they approached the door.
“I’m scared,” she said.
“I think we all are, “he told her.
“Eh,” said Pete. He was eating candy, as usual.
They rang the bell and waited. A moment later, a man appeared before them. His eyes were red but he seemed quite lucid.
“Can I help you?” he asked.
“We’re…um…,” Stacy began nervously.
“We’re looking for a friend,” Chris explained. “She hasn’t been well lately and might be wandering around.”
“Really?” the man asked. “What does she look like?”
Chris gave him Pam’s description and watched his face change.
“Hmm…nope. Haven’t seen anyone around here like that. But I’ll be sure and keep my eyes open.”
With that, he closed the door.
“Ohmygoddoyothinkthatwashim?”Stacy exclaimed.
“Maybe,” Chris said. “Pete?”
Pete was busy feeding candy to a dog.
“She really seems to like this stuff,” he explained.
“Itshimitshimwhatwegonnado!” said Stacy.
“I don’t know,” Chris said. “Pete?”
Pete was still feeding the dog.
“Screw this,” Chris said he began knocking furiously on the door. “Paaaamm! Are you in there?!”
A moment later, the door opened and the man reappeared. He had a gun.
“What the hell’s all this?” he roared.
Before either of them could answer, Pete flicked a piece of candy at his crotch. The dog lunged….
Later on, after they were able to drown Nokes’ screaming out of their minds, Pete swore that he didn’t know that would happen. But they all thought he did.
“I’m just glad you came,” Pam said. She had been tied up in a closet. They found her, untied her and left, stepping over the mauled man on their way out. The dog followed, leaving him behind. She was more like his ex-wife, after all.

Druids II: A Return, an Epiphany and More Sweet, Sweet Candy
Chris blinked. It was 10AM Sunday morning. He had actually slept the whole night. He expected to have nightmares of the man being mutilated by his dog, but no such ghastly visions came. That was his first surprise of the day. His second came when he checked his diaper. It was dry. If two of the three conditions had been met, it didn’t take a genius to conclude what would happen next.
Eagerly, he sprinted down the hall and knocked on Stacy’s door.
“Whaaat,” he heard her groan. He had woken her, but didn’t feel the least bit guilty. It was for a good cause.
“Guess what,” he said as the door opened.
Ashley reached out and grabbed him by the ear. She had picked that weekend not to go home and he had woken her too.
“Honestly, Chris,” she scolded as she dragged him inside. “Banging on doors at 10AM? I’d expect that from Chuck, but not you.”
“Oww…I can explain,” he protested as she sat down and put him over her knee. He could have broken free but probably would have lost his ear in the process. Her grip was Teflon-tough.
“Hey,” Stacy protested. “Nobody gets to spank my boyfriend but me.”
“Nobody is spanking anybody,” Chris said, trying to dislodge Ashley’s fingers from his ear. While he struggled, Stacy snuck up behind him and relieved him of his pajama pants. His diaper came down with them and both girls gasped in surprise.
“That’s what I was trying to tell you,” he explained as he covered himself back up. “I’m not cursed anymore.”
“Somebody is going to be very happy later,” Ashley remarked.
Stacy giggled. “I’ve been waiting long enough. I was about to go lesbo.”
Ashley glared at her.
“Kidding!”
“You know, I can think of someone in this room who needs a spanking and it isn’t Chris.”
Stacy yawned. “It’s too early in the morning for you guys to be so uptight.”
Chris showered and changed into normal underwear. After two weeks, it felt odd for him not to be in diapers. He felt awkward and self-conscious about his movements, as if he was letting it all hang out. Knowing that the worst was over with, he buckled down and tended to his logjam of homework.
Ryan couldn’t believe it. He had been gone two whole weeks and nothing had changed. He bid goodbye to his parents after they dropped him off and made his way to Drew Hall. He passed Christine, who was on her way out. Brimming with enthusiasm as always (although her cause this time lay in the efforts of Trent the senior biology major to satisfy her), she asked him briefly about his trip and informed him about a weekend viewing of Animal House that she was organizing.
When he got to his room, Chris was at his desk doing homework.
“Hey,” he greeted. It was as if Ryan had just gotten back from a class instead of a two-week trip to the nation’s capital.
“Hey? Is that all you’ve got?”
Chris set aside his textbooks. “OK…how was it?”
“Well, since you asked…the most awesome, bitching time imaginable.”
He told Chris of his interactions with fellow students (many of them hot, single female students), the trip to the FBI building and the time spent hanging out with senators and other important people.
“Plus, I learned stuff. I’m totally into history now, too. Hey…do you know anything about Professor Thorne? I hear he’s good.”
Chris erupted into a fit of coughing upon hearing the mere mention of the name.
“Are you OK, man?” Ryan asked him.
“Yeah…fine,” Chris said.
While Chuck was out jogging, he encountered Sally the dog. She came from the woods and followed him as he circled the campus. Chuck didn’t mind. He had nothing against dogs. In fact, he had one at home.
While Chuck was out jogging, he also encountered the illustrious Jenna Hoffman. She was stretching and looked to be getting ready to go for a jog herself. Watching her stretch made Chuck nearly lose his balance. Fortunately, he was able to avoid tripping over his own two feet.
“Chuck!” she exclaimed. “Why didn’t you tell me you had a dog?”
“Dog…. oh…um…yeah. This is Sally. She’s great.”
“I love dogs,” Jenna said, patting Sally on her head.
“Me too,” Chuck said. “You know what else I love…”
Pete sat in the darkness of his room listening to Pam pour her heart out. Despite Chris’s curse, she had still born the brunt of misfortune during the past few weeks. She felt like both a victim and a victimizer, a harlot and an innocent, a player and a pawn. Pete had listened to her state her grievances in his usual fashion: without saying a word.
“I think…” she said, slightly sniffling. “I might want to take some time off. I mean, I don’t want to, but I think I need to. It’s just so HARD.”
“Life wasn’t meant to be easy.”
“Where did you get that one from? The Book of Obvious Quotes?”
Pete did in fact have such a book. He showed to Pam and she smiled.
“Thanks for listening,” she said. “Is there anything I can do for you?”
He shrugged. “Do you have any candy?”
Later that night, after Ashley had convinced Ryan to accompany her to Christine’s showing of Animal House (thus giving their respective roommates some much needed privacy), Chris and Stacy found themselves alone.
“This is weird,” she said. They had been kissing and cuddling for half an hour. He was demonstrating incredible patience despite his urges. “I mean, not weird weird but…I don’t know what I mean.”
“I think…” Chris said. “Nevermind.”
“No, what?”
“I think we’re so used to the diapers and the little power struggles and the arguments and the jokes and the interdependency that we don’t know how to take each other seriously.”
She frowned. “I think you’re right.”
“I still love you,” he confessed. “I just don’t know how to do this.”
“Me neither. Even when I was with guys who weren’t in diapers, which is every other guy but you, there was always something to build around and that became our thing. Like….oh, I don’t know…ice skating, for one. Of course, I was freezing half the time and I fell flat on my ass at first, but when I was with him, it was fun.”
“I understand. But what if we can make something else our thing. Something a little more…normal.”
“Me? Normal? Pff…nah. But I can give it a try.”
He played with her hair. There was something in his eyes.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“No, what?”
He sighed. Time for another embarrassing confession. “Or…we can do what we’ve been doing….”
“Oh, Chris, that’s so sweet. I mean, I know you’re sick of it, but…”
“…only reversed,” he concluded.
“Reversed? Hmmm….”
She grinned.

Epilogue
Chloe sat alone in the women’s center. The window had finally been fixed. It was nearly Thanksgiving, but she was glad to have it fixed just the same. She had been printing fliers advertising a forthcoming guest lecturer when there was a knock on the door.
“Entre,” she greeted.
The door opened and there stood Professor Gary Thorne. He was quite literally the last person he expected to find standing there.
“I’m doing a lesson on Susan B. Anthony,” he explained. “Would you like to come in and say a few words?”
“Sure,” she said.
“I see you got your window.”
She nodded.
“I see you got your class back under control.”
He nodded.
“Well then…have a nice Thanksgiving.”
“You too, Professor.”
In another part of the student center, Matt Tover and a group of his few most loyal friends listened to a local punk band put on a free concert. He was on the committee that was in charge of bringing such bands to campus. Some acts were free; others required a nominal charge. As Matt surveyed the crowd, he saw many familiar faces. He even saw Pam.
“Dude, is that…” one of his friends began.
Matt nodded. “You know what the bitch of it is?” he said. “I didn’t even do her!”
This was Central State College, where nothing interesting ever happened…. except for when it did and nobody believed it.
THE END