They were home in time for Christmas Eve dinner. Their Get-out-of-jail-free card was something along the lines of an unsigned non-disclosure agreement that allowed both Jack and Chastity to evade explaining the complete picture of their week in diapers. To be sure, they said that there had been a mix-up and they went to the wrong shindig, but beyond that, they remained mum. Chastity regained full bladder and bowel control by Tuesday morning, while Jack would have to wait until Thursday to get his back, which really made for an uncomfortable and very cautious Christmas Eve and the days with the relatives on his part. Once he realized he was no longer dependent on diapers, he went back to regular underwear and came dangerously close to wetting his pants more than a few times, a little fact he confided to Chastity with some embarrassment. She told him that he really should give diapers another go, because they were really good at preventing such things as wet pants. Jack did not, of course, act on her suggestion.
And so it went. Rather than walking away from the diaper testing place with a pittance to their names, the Kimberly Clarke Corporation, having realized the magnitude of their liability in the situation and how much they would suffer if the two teens went whining to their parents about how they’d been abused for a week, the repercussions to their profits and credibility would take too much time and money to move beyond, particularly as court cases had a nasty habit of dragging on and on and on with lots of media attention, provided that the case was juicy enough. So, they came up with a nice little package deal for Jack and Chastity, and shortly before they left the facility, a representative from Kimberly Clarke sat down with them to explain it.
“Here’s the deal,” the man had begun. “In exchange for your agreeing not to press charges over this mix-up, we pay you lots of money.”
Chastity, after discussing it with Jack, had decided to let Jack do the talking on this one, but when the man mentioned lots of money, she perked up and asked (to Jack’s annoyance), “How much money?”
The man had demurred and passed them each a sheet of paper with an amount on it. “This is the general outline of the agreement,” he explained, but the teens didn’t exactly hear him; they were scanning for the number. Chastity found it first, and her jaw nearly fell off of her skull.
Jack found his voice first. “That’s a lot of money,” he said.
The man nodded, smiling at them in a manner that might have struck Chastity as slimy had she not been engrossed in staring at her sheet. The terms and conditions, as it were, of the deal was that they kept quiet about everything, a non-disclosure agreement of sorts. When they put their names at the bottom of the sheet, they then became the proud owners of fifty thousand dollars. Apiece. No questions asked. In movies or TV shows or books, the protagonist or protagonists might have immediately pressed for more money, but fifty grand was nothing for two suburban kids to sneeze at, particularly because none of their parents saw that much at any one time; they had to wait most of a year to get that sort of number. But now, there it was, all for them, just waiting.
“There is, of course, an added option at the bottom that you can check if you want,” the man added. Chastity looked first at the man and then back at her sheet; Jack didn’t even bother with that; he kept his attention on the sheet. “An option for Kimberly Clarke to contact you at a later time for further services,” he said. “Which, essentially means that since you two were actually of good help to us during the course of this week, we’d like to retain your names for future product testing. That is, of course, with your permission.”
“What sort of product testing?” Chastity asked, completely forgetting that she had agreed to let Jack talk. He looked mildly annoyed, but said nothing.
“Well, the notion is that you’ll be retained for this sort of testing due to the fact that you already have experience in it, and you can be relied upon to cooperate, in spite of,” the man paused and cleared his throat, “certain circumstances.”