Come on! It’s down here!”
Erin watched as Hailey set her bike down, climbed down into a dry creek bed, and lifted the bike down after her. She performed the same task, once again admiring her new bike as she held it, and followed Hailey along the former creek.
“Not too much further now,” Hailey informed Erin.
They made their way along the creek bed, working their way around the occasional fallen tree branch, and making quite a racket as their shoes and bike wheels snapped sticks and disturbed small rocks. As they walked, the earthen walls on either side of the girls began to rise (or more likely, Erin decided, the creek bed was getting deeper) until it was actually slightly taller than the girls.
They climbed over yet another fallen tree, rounded a slight curve, and came across a giant concrete pipe nestled perfectly in the channel they were walking through.
“This is it,” announced Hailey, and the girls walked in, wheeling their bikes with them.
The tunnel formed by the pipe was about twenty feet long, and its diameter was sufficient that Hailey and Erin could stand up inside it with a few inches to spare. Erin also noticed that the creek bed curved again past the tube, meaning she couldn’t see very far outside the tube from either end of it.
“I’m not really sure what it’s here for,” admitted Hailey. “The only thing I can figure is they were going to build a road through these woods and over this creek, and this tube was going to be part of the bridge. But if that was their plan, they apparently never finished it, since this tube’s the only thing here. There are some trees cleared leading to it if you go up above, that must be where they were gonna put the road, but it’s getting overgrown again last time I checked.”
“This is kind of cool,” replied Erin. “Do you come here a lot?”
“Well, not too often, it’s a bit out of the way. But I’ve been here a few times since I found it; it’s a nice, quiet place to go when I want to be alone, with nobody to bother me except the bugs. You don’t mind that there are a few insects here, do you?”
Erin shrugged. “Bugs never really bothered me. My dad told me that he’d always have to stop me from eating them when I was younger.”
To say that bugs had never bothered Hailey would have been a lie, though. She’d been stung by a bee when she was six, so to her young mind, all insects were something to be feared. But as she got older and wanted to start acting more mature, she had realized she wanted to break the girly-girl stereotype of a deathly fear of bugs. She started to force herself to let them crawl along her fingers.
At one point, Hailey asked her parents to get her an ant farm. Knowing her fear, they raised objections at first, but she persisted, explaining that she was trying to stop being afraid of them and the only way to do that was to get used to them. They reluctantly gave in and she got her ant farm. She did not sleep well the first few nights, knowing that so many bugs were in a small container in her room, and the farm was one small shake away from tipping and releasing all the ants to come crawl all over her. Eventually, though, she got acclimated to the ants, and her nervousness subsided.
Hailey no longer had the ant farm, and she still couldn’t say she particularly liked insects now, but she at least had a healthy respect for them. A bug crawling on her skin was not a reason to scream and start frantically shaking it to try to remove it; all that was necessary was a calm, controlled brushing off motion. If the insects didn’t crawl on her, they could be near her and she could safely ignore them.
“That’s good to hear,” Hailey replied. “Bugs don’t bother me either.”
“So nobody else has found this place?” asked Erin.
“Well, I’ve never seen anybody out here the few times I’ve been. It’s nice and private, you can’t see in here unless you’re in the creek bed anyway, and you’d hear someone coming from a mile away.”
The girls sat down in the tube, with their respective backs against opposite walls. Erin looked at Hailey’s arm and noted with pride that Hailey was wearing the watch that Erin had given to her for her birthday. “How long do you usually stay out here?”
“Sometimes I’ve been here as long as four or five hours.” Hailey fished something out of her pocket. “My mom gives me her cell phone, so she can call me if she needs me to come back, or so I have it in case of an emergency. But I’m not supposed to answer any calls not from our house’s phone number, and I’m not supposed to use it to make any calls except to home or if it’s an emergency.”
“That makes sense.” Erin paused. “But if you’re out here so long… where do you go to the bathroom? Do you just go outside?”
“Yeah, no harm in it, it’s private enough. I usually just squat right outside the tube and pee there, so I don’t have my pee sitting in the tube with me. Why, do you have to pee or something?”
“No, I went before we left, I was just curious.”
“Oh. Well, if you don’t want to pee outside when you have to go, there’s a couple restaurants that it would take us about twenty minutes to get to from here. Just let me know.”
“No, it’ll be okay, I’ve peed outside before,” admitted Erin. Because I wasn’t allowed back into my own house, she didn’t say.
Erin remained in thought for a few moments. She’d been trying to work up the courage to ask Hailey some questions for a week now. They were the kind of questions that she didn’t want to ask if there was a chance Hailey’s parents could overhear, so this was a great time to do it, although she hated the thought that Hailey might take offense to what she was asking.
Hailey had apparently already noticed Erin deep in thought, though. “Are you okay?”
Well, now that she’s waiting for me to explain what I’m thinking about, I may as well do it.
“Well… I was kind of wondering if I could ask you some personal questions,” stated Erin. “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to!”
“Erin, you can ask me anything. You already know what I’m most worried about anyone else finding out, about me liking having my ‘accidents.’” Hailey made air-quotes with her fingers on the last word.
“Well, that’s kinda what I wanted to ask you about.”
“What did you want to know?”
“Well, remember a week ago when we were coming home from the amusement park, and I had to poop in my diaper, and you helped clean it up?”
“Yeah, I remember.”
“First of all, thanks for doing that. Second…”
“Anytime you need it,” interrupted Hailey.
Erin continued. “Second, remember how I wanted to return the favor to you?”
“Yeah, you let me wet my diaper, and you changed me. We’re even.”
“Well, that’s what I wanted to discuss,” said Erin. “We’re not really even, because my diaper was dirty, but you were only wet. So I was wondering…” Erin paused, and then spoke barely above a whisper. “I remember you saying that you used to poop your pants on purpose sometimes when you were younger. But I’ve never seen you poop in your diaper. Do you ever do that?”
Hailey slouched further down the wall of the pipe in an attempt to get more comfortable. “Well, that’s really two questions. Would I like to do messy diapers? Yes. Have I done messy diapers? Only once. It’s much harder to get away with a messy diaper than a wet one without my parents finding out, since it takes longer to clean up and the smell would give it away if I just put it in the diaper pail in our room.”
“But you said you have done it once? When was that?”
“It was before you knew that I liked to use the diapers,” explained Hailey. “I was at home by myself, and I think you were at the dentist with my mom. I went to the bathroom both ways into the diaper then, and cleaned myself up and threw it away in the outside garbage before you two got back.”
“But you would do it again, if you had a chance?”
“Yeah, and it might be a little easier now that you know, since I’d only have to find a way not to get caught by my parents, rather than my parents and you. But it’s still going to be hard.”
“Well, just so you know, Hailey… if you do find a way to do that, and you wouldn’t mind my help, I’d really like to help clean you up. I still don’t feel like we’re even from my accident last week.”
“If you’d really like to help, I’d accept it,” admitted Hailey. “But don’t do this just because you feel you need to repay me. You needed my help and I helped you, you don’t owe me anything.”
“It would still make me feel better if I could help you,” said Erin. “But as far as finding a way to poop in the diaper without being caught… why couldn’t we just come out here and do that sometime?”
Hailey had never thought of that. “I guess that would actually work pretty well. We’d have to bring all the supplies, and we’d have to bring the dirty diaper back to throw it away, since we can’t just leave it in the woods… but I guess we could bring some trash bags for that, and bury it under some garbage in the outside bin when we get home.”
“So you think that would work?”
“Yeah, Erin, that’s a really good idea. Heh, if only we had the stuff with us so I could try it now.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re not quite dressed to do that now.” A wicked grin came over Erin’s face. “And I don’t think your panties would be too happy with you if you decided to have an accident without the diaper.”
Hailey was seriously tempted to try. She was suddenly quite aware that she could produce urine if she decided to, and she was fairly certain she could move her bowels if she tried. But as quickly as her interest had flared at Erin’s comment, her logic arrived and dashed her hopes. It would be silly and impractical to have an accident now.
“To be honest, I’d love to do that. But that would be even harder to do, since I’d don’t have a change of clothes, and anyway, it would be really hard to get a chance to wash the dirty clothes without my parents finding out.”
Erin thought for a moment. “What do you think would happen if your parents find out, though? I mean… ” Erin lowered her eyes out of shame. “Well, I mean my body hasn’t exactly been letting me decide all the time when I’m going to the bathroom. I wake up wet most mornings, and I’ve had a few accidents during the day as well, and your parents know about all of that. But as odd as it seems, they’re not mad at me for it… it’s almost like they pity me more than anything. But would they treat you any different, since you’re actually their daughter, and I’m just… I’m just a niece who they had to take in because my parents and stepparents apparently aren’t good at staying alive?”
Erin was shocked. She hadn’t meant to get that emotional, but she’d failed to keep her conversation in check, and it ran away from her. She felt raw. Did Hailey even know about the incident that had orphaned her? Her aunt and uncle knew, so she suspected Hailey knew, but she wasn’t sure.
The girls were both silent for a while as Hailey tried to formulate a response.
“Erin, don’t think like that. You’re not ‘just’ anything. My life got a whole lot better with you in it, and to be honest, my parents seem more upbeat than usual recently. Everyone’s glad to have you living with us, and you’re the sister I’ve wanted for years. It doesn’t matter to me that you’re not literally my sister.”
“I guess… Hailey, I’m sorry for that outburst, I don’t need to trouble you with that kind of stuff.”
“Erin, it doesn’t bother me. I’m willing to listen any time you’re willing to speak.”
“Thanks… but I’d rather just pretend I hadn’t let my feelings get the better of me. Can we just go on, back to the conversation we were having before?”
Hailey shrugged. Erin seemed calm enough now; if she didn’t want to explain herself, that was her prerogative. “Okay… you were asking what I thought would happen if my parents found out. You’re right, they wouldn’t be mad at me about it either, but I guess I’d feel they would think of me as less grown up, and I really want them to treat me more like an adult.”
“So do you think of me as less grown up, then?”
“Erin, I don’t. You’ve been through a lot more than anyone our ages should have. I hate to bring this up after you just wanted us to change the conversation topic, but…?” Hailey’s voice trailed off, clearly asking for permission to continue.
“You can say whatever you need to. I’ll deal with it.”
“Okay,” Hailey continued. “Your mother’s been gone for a few years now; you lost your father and stepmother to a fight between them…”
So her parents did tell her, Erin realized.
“…you’ve had to move halfway across the country to live with relatives you barely knew, and I suspect from how you’ve been behaving in the last few weeks you’ve been here that there’s even more in your past than I know about. Erin, nobody should have to go through that, especially not an eleven-year-old. That kind of stress could screw up anybody, and if the only effect it’s had on you is some shyness, bad dreams, and accidents, then I’d say you’re stronger than most.”
“Do you really mean that?”
“Erin, I’m serious. I doubt I could ever be as strong as you are. I can’t even imagine how I’d deal with what you’ve been through.”
Erin didn’t say anything, but she moved over next to Hailey and hugged her, burying her head in Hailey’s shoulder. “Thank you,” she eventually whispered.
Erin rolled back away from Hailey, but continued to lean against her, which Hailey gladly allowed. The girls sat in silence for a good ten minutes before Erin finally spoke up again.
“Again… I’m really sorry, and I already know you’re going to tell me not to worry about it, so you don’t need to bother. So I’d like to get to my next question, if that’s okay.”
“Whatever you want, Erin.”
“Well… as you know, I really would rather I didn’t have my accidents; every time I wake up wet I wish I was dry, and I’m sure you could tell that I didn’t enjoy my messy diaper last week or wetting my pants at the theater.”
“Yeah, it was pretty obvious,” admitted Hailey.
“Anyway, I was thinking about that, and how you do like to wet or poop yourself if you think you can get away with it, and I found it odd that something I detest could be the exact same thing that you love to do. But then I realized it’s not really the same: my accidents are out of my control, but yours are completely under control. You decide exactly where and when you want to go to the bathroom and what you’re wearing or not wearing when it happens. Is that part of the reason you like it?”
“To be honest, Erin, I never really thought about it like that, but I see what you’re saying. When you have an accident it’s really an accident, and other people are likely to find out, so it’s embarrassing.”
“Well, it’s only embarrassing around other people. You and your parents already know that I have accidents, so there’s really nothing to be embarrassed about… but I am ashamed of myself for having accidents around you guys.”
“The point still stands, though. You’re right, I can avoid all the negative social problems of an accident since I can control when and where they happen. So yeah, I suppose the control of the situation makes a huge difference.”
“So on that note, do you think you wouldn’t like it if you actually had a legitimate accident?”
“I guess it would depend on if anybody else saw it… anybody but you,” Hailey admitted. “If someone else saw, then yeah, I think I’d be embarrassed, and I’m not quite sure I’d get the same thrill out of it as if I did it on purpose.”
“So, um… do you think I’d like it I wet my diaper on purpose?”
“I’d say there’s only one way to find out, Erin. If you want to try it sometime, then I’ll support you, and if you still decide you don’t like it, I won’t be offended.”
Erin thought for a moment. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think I do want to try. When can we do it?”
“Well,” said Hailey, “when I wet it’s usually just before I take my diaper off in the morning and go take a shower. We could do it tomorrow morning”
“That might not work so well. Remember, there’s no guarantee that I’ll wake up needing to pee tomorrow morning… in fact, the chances are better that I’ll be wet, and I don’t know if I’d be in the mood to try to wet myself on purpose when I had just wet myself on accident.”
“Then how about we do it tonight, when we’re getting ready for bed,” suggested Hailey. “You put on a diaper, wet it, we get it changed, and you put on a new one for bed.”
“I guess I could try that, if I don’t chicken out before tonight,” said Erin.
“If you decide you’d really rather not do it, I won’t hold that against you,” replied Hailey. “Whatever you decide to do is fine with me.”
Erin was glad to hear this. She still wasn’t entirely sure she’d have the courage to actually try when bedtime came around.