This is the continued story of Simon’s Journal.
Before you begin this third volume in this series,
I would highly recommend that you read the first and second volumes
as each picks up were the previous left off.
Simon’s Journal -
Volume I
Thirteen Days – The First Crusade
Thirteen
Nights – After the Crusade
ADMONITION:
The
following narrative is nearly a complete work of fiction. Some events and
characters were pulled from real life but have been changed, enhanced and
twisted to comply with my twisted will. Any other similarity to actual
individuals living or dead is completely unintentional, but it would be
incredible!
WARNING:
The
following story contains diaper use, violence, adult language and strong sexual
content. If reading a coming of age story about boys wearing diapers and
exploring their awakening sexuality doesn’t tickle your pickle, or if pickle
tickling is illegal in your area, then I suggest you select something else to
read.
Simon's Journal
Volume III
Thirteen
Sails
Adventures Abound
Written by Danny
With friends like you...
BJ wanted me to ride back with him and parents
but my mom said that she thought I needed a little time alone with her and dad.
After saying my goodbyes and thank you for
bringing me along, I climbed into mom’s van and buckled myself in. I really
don’t know what they had in mind for the drive back home. Perhaps they hoped I
would have questions for them or something but I honestly didn’t feel like
talking.
As the car began to move I looked out the
window at the setting sun hanging only a few inches above the water. That is
when I saw her. She was silhouetted against the blue sky right at the edge of
the horizon. Even from that great distance I could tell that all thirteen sails
were driving the Banachelli forward. A momentary panic filled my heart as I
wondered if Tom saw her too and though I quickly looked around for him I didn’t
see him. All I could do was hope that he hadn’t seen her too.
A moment later and we were out of sight of
the beach house, the sandy shore and the water. We were on our way back home. I
made myself comfortable, pulled out my electronic journal and was about to
begin writing but when I saw my e-journal it struck me that all along I had
thought that my e-journal had been a birthday gift from my aunt when if fact it
was a birthday gift from my real mom. With that thought a chill ran up my spine
and caused me to shiver.
“Are you cold?” mom asked.
“Nah, I’m fine.” I replied and turned on my
e-journal to begin writing some more...
“You sent for me?” I asked as I pushed open
the door to Runts private room.
“Oh hey Simon, didn’t think you would be here
so quickly; ‘mon in and uh, close the door would ya.” Runt said without looking
in my direction.
“Hiya Tate!” I said when I spotted him
sitting on Runts bunk.
“Spaz! Howzit going?” Tate shot back.
“Ah you know,” I said back.
“So what’s for dinner?” he asked.
“Bat bladders and rattlesnake rectums.” I
said repeating what I had heard Fyer say once.
Tate looked away as he said, “Hope there’s
lots of ketchup.”
Runt piped in, “With warm diaper gravy!”
Tate put a hand over his mouth, “OK! I am
sorry I even brought it up!”
“Oh yeah, speaking of bringing it up...” I
began knowing that I’d get Tate with this one, “That’s what we’re having for
desert.”
Tate made a fake retching sound before
saying, “Whelp Runt ol’buddy, ol’pal, ol’chum, ol’...!”
“Whatever you’re going to ask for the answer
is no!” Runt said with a half laugh.
Tate grabbed his heart with both hands and
looked mortally wounded. With a phony expression of shock and hurt Tate looked
back and forth between Runt and me.
“Do you believe him?” Tate said to me while motioning
toward Runt.
“My best friend thinks that I would take
advantage of our friendship like that?” Tate said still feigning a mortal wounding.
“Well they say that the sword of a friend cuts
the deepest.” I said off handedly.
Tate now looked honestly stunned and was
staring at me with his hands out like a common street beggar.
“What?” I snapped when I couldn’t stand his
eyes burning a hole through my forehead any longer.
“Spazoid, that was incredibly deep!” Tate
said and though I hadn’t seen Runts face yet I could tell he was chuckling.
With a shrug of my shoulders I dismissed his
comment.
“So I was told you wanted me for something?”
I said directing my words to the back of Runts head.
“On that note, I think I will leave you two
fruits alone!” Tate said beginning to get up.
Runt turned partially toward Tate and threw
something at him. Whatever it was it missed him by a mile and instead ricocheted
off the wall before falling behind Runt’s bunk.
Before he left, Tate stepped up behind Runt
and said, “See ya melon head!” right before giving Runt a big, wet, sloppy,
puppy dog kiss across the neck and ear.
“You sick mother...” Runt complained as he
wiped at the tongue slime. Before Runt could finish Tate gave him a firm swat
to the diaper and ran from the room messing my hair up in the process.
“Hey!” I complained but it was too late.
“See ya Spaz!” he called from the hallway.
“Later Tater!” I said partially laughing.
And a second later I called out, “Oh wait!
Tater come back a second would ya?”
I heard Tater’s shoes squeak as he stopped
and did an about-face. He stuck his head back in the door, “Yo?”
It was all I could do not to laugh when I
said, “So how far would you be right now if I hadn’t called you back.”
He shot me a dirty look and flipped me off
before slamming the door.
From the moment I had come in, Runt had been standing
in front of a large canvas that had three bright yellow diagonal slashes of
paint on it and one big splotch of black; at least it looked black but when I
got closer I could tell that it was a very deep blue. Runt was wearing noting
but his diaper without any plastic paints and a paint spattered bandanna wrapped
around his head. It wasn’t until after Tate ran from the room that I realize it
wasn’t a bandanna but an old cloth diaper knotted in the back to keep it in
place. It was the first time I had ever seen him like that and to be completely
honest, it was giving me the heebie-jeebies big time. I mean yeah I knew he
wore diapers too; you would have had to of been blind not to see the obvious
bulge under his clothes... and I ain’t talking about his muscles.
“So did you just call for me to stand here
and help heat your room?” I tried teasing but even I knew that it had sounded
lame.
He reached up, pulled the diaper from off his
head to wipe the sweat from his brow and when he did I saw that his hair had
been completely buzzed off. At first I was stunned because his head looked like
a fuzzy cue ball and I almost laughed out loud but I chomped the inside of my
cheek to ward off any giggles.
“Nice hair cut,” I said and he put the diaper
back on his head but at least now I understood why Tate had called him a melon
head.
I’m kind of surprised that I hadn’t noticed
when I first came in that his cabin room had been decorated... obviously by
Runt himself. Three of the four walls were covered with pictures which frankly
looked like he had taken a bunch of magazines and tore out any ad or picture he
could find. When I was back home I had a chance to talk with Ian, the guy that
lives in the same building that my brother Jamie and his mom live in. He was
the same guy painted the portraits of Jamie and I for my newly decorated room.
He told me that he had known of some artists that did that too. They used the
images kind of like models when they painted.
The far wall in Runt’s cabin room was different;
it had several paintings of various sizes and colors hanging in an absentminded
fashion. There were several more painting on the floor leaning against the same
wall and still more blank canvases stacked in the far right corner of the room.
The floor was paint-spattered and even the ceiling had hints of green, white, gold
and one big splatter of yellow.
Music was playing and it wasn’t rock or anything
from our lifetime. It sounded like something an old man would listen too. Also,
the room wasn’t lit very well; actually it was down right gloomy but I guess
that was the way Runt liked it.
Seeing Runt like that kind of threw me. I
mean Runt didn’t seem the type of guy to enjoy painting but then again, when I
first met him I didn’t think he was the type of guy to get mixed up in drugs
and crime. So I guess we’ve established that I am a dreadful judge of people,
huh?
“Huh, what are you d-doing?” I ask trying to
be friendly even though I knew that Runt and I weren’t on the friendliest of
terms. We’re more like the
At first he didn’t answer me. He was sanding
before his canvas with his diapered butt swaying to the crooning of the man on
the radio.
“Come here a sec’.” He eventually said and he
sounded almost... well nice; but I knew better then to let my guard down around
him. Once upon a time I blindly trusted him but those days are long gone. I’ve
seen him do an emotional flip-flop too many times not to keep my guard up
around him.
I stepped a little closer.
“No, come over here; I want to show you
something.” He said and after thinking to myself, “This isn’t a good idea
Simon!” I walked right up to his side.
You know, it was kind of funny because with
each step I could hear Captain Janeway from the TV show Star Trek Voyager in my
head...
“Shields
up!”
Step...
“All
hands to battle stations!”
Step...
“Bring
weapons to maximum!”
Step...
“Prepare
for impact!”
Step...
Had the current song on the radio not ended, my
imagination probably would have gotten the better of me. Runt stopped painting
and the way he was just standing there; well, it was almost as if he was
studying the canvas or something. Like it knew what was supposed to happen next
and Runt was waiting for it to tell him what color to use.
I watched him watching his painting for a few
seconds then asked, “Since w-when d-do you p-p-paint?” my anxiety was becoming
apparent in my stuttering.
“Since always,” he said stepping back from
the painting.
The radio announcer said, “That was Gregory
Gilbarco singing ‘Loving the Rain’ and now here’s the Tweeters with ‘High Life’.
I wonder if I will ever outgrow the habit of
speaking before engaging my brain; because that is just what happened to me yet
again. “I-isn’t th-that k-kind of gay?”
The little voice in my head was screaming at
me, “Way to go idiot! Now you’ve gone and pushed his buttons.”
Runt made a sound that told me he thought my
comment was amusing, maybe even witty but I would have liked it if he had
laughed... I’d have even settled for a tiny chuckle but I had to settle for his
amused grunt.
“Wanna give it a try?” He asked me.
The memories were still fresh in my head of
him chasing me with Fyer’s cooking knife and now he wanted to teach me how to
paint? Granted it wasn’t just yesterday that it happened but it also hadn’t
been so long that I would have forgot about it. Maybe he thinks I have that
thing, uh what’s it called? Oh yeah, selective amnesia.
“B-be gay or p-paint?” I asked and couldn’t
believe that I’d done it again. Mentally I envisioned slapping myself in the
back of my head and saying, “Hey up there! You won’t to get with the program
here?”
As soon as I asked, “Be gay or paint?” I
thought I could see his neck muscles tighten just before he softly replied,
“Paint.”
“N-nah, y-you seem t-to b-b-b-be doing j-just
fine.” I said even though none of his paintings, I mean the few that I could
see, seems all that good.
I then added, “B-besides, I d-don’t w-w-want
t-to g-g-g-get my clothes d-d-dirt-ty.”
“Why do you think I’m dressed like this?
Strip down and step up. It’s really easy.” He said.
Ok, now I got it! Painting was just a ploy to
get me out of my clothes; or was that just my imagination? I mean I did kind of
set myself up for that one.
A silent argument was going on inside my
head. The voice inside my head was trying to get me to understand that I was pushing
Runt too far and that I needed to get my diapered butt out of there and fast.
The other side of the argument went something like this, “Yeah but what if he
is genuinely trying to mend the fences between us? Wouldn’t it be better if we
were good friends again? I mean isn’t life here bad enough without having Runt
as my enemy?”
So, against my better judgment I started to
remove my jacket and shirt. All the while that dang little voice wouldn’t stop
taunting me, “You’re the one that pushed his buttons! Whatever happens now is
your own fault!”
“Better lose the pants too.” Runt said as I
dropped my shirt and jacket to the floor, “Like you said, you don’t want to get
paint on your clothes. She wouldn’t be too happy about that.”
“She?” I thought to myself knowing that he
had meant Miss-M, “When did SHE get brought into this?”
The little voice was beginning to win me over
and I hesitated as long as I dared before lowering my pants to my ankles and
stepping out of them. That left me wearing my socks, cloth diaper and clear
plastic pants.
Somehow I got the feeling that Runt probably
knew I was contemplated making a run for the door and I knew that if I was fast
enough I could probably have reached Sister Sarafina or anyone before Runt
caught me; that is, if he chased me at all. There was a chance that he wouldn’t
come after me; small as that chance might have been, I seriously considering it
for an extremely long ten seconds.
That whole time, Runt had kept his back to me,
but when my pants hit the floor he turned and for the first time I saw his bare
chest and his face. There was a bright red mark on his chest exactly the shape
of someone’s hand. Each finger was clearly evident and I knew instantly that
his chest had been slapped appallingly hard. I looked up at his face and he had
the biggest and blackest shiner around his right eye. I mean it was so dark and
so shiny that I wondered for maybe half a second if it was shoe polish or makeup
or something. The bruise covered most of his upper cheek and stretched all the
way back to his ear; it was shaped kind of like a tear drop on its side. Like
he was wearing half of a black mask.
“Yikes! Holy b-buckets!” I exclaimed, “W-what
the heck hap-p-pened t-to you?” I asked, “Y-you g-get in a f-fight w-with a w-wall
or s-something?”
Without a reaction or an answer he turned
back around, drops his left arm to his side and reached back with a brush in
his hand. I got the hint that he either didn’t want to talk about it or wasn’t
able to talk about it yet. I mean, by the look of him it couldn’t have been too
long ago that it had happened; maybe the day before or possibly earlier that
morning.
Maybe it was because of his shiner, maybe it
was the red hand imprint on his chest or it could have been because I’d never
seen him so emotionally stripped that I decided to trust him this time. I
suppose only God knows the real reason I lowered my shields.
With my right hand I took the brush he was
holding out for me and he also handed me a tray that resembled the bottom half
of an egg carton only it was made of clear plastic. It also looked like it had
never been used before now. He set his brush down; removed from the easel the
canvas he’d been using and replaced it with two smaller ones.
“Now we can start,” He said softly.
As he went to pick up his brush again I said
sharply, “Wait!”
He paused and looked at me with that
prominent black eye.
“I-I-I d-don’t have a c-clue what I am d-d-d-doing!”
He smiled and I think it was the first time
in a long time that I saw the old Runt. He put a hand against my right cheek
and rubbed my lips with his thumb.
“It’s called painting?” He started to say,
“You put your brush in the paint and then put the paint on the canvas.” He
removed his hand from my face and added, “It’s not rocket science you know!”
I tried to joke with him to get a better feel
for this strange new artistic Runt I was meeting for the first time. “Rocket
science I c-can d-do... but p-painting? Th-that’s hard!”
I was surprised when he put his hand on my
cheek again and played with my bottom lip with his thumb. It kind of tickled
too.
“No it isn’t. All you have to do is listen to
the music.” He spoke softly as though he were trying to charm a butterfly into
landing on his finger. “Follow the song, don’t think about painting and don’t
worry about trying to create something. Just paint.”
His thumb was partially in my mouth only
stopped by my bottom teeth and he looked at me hard and long before reaching
down and taking up his own tray of paints. He dipped his brush into his tray of
paints and added, “Let the song become part of you.”
I was feeling very nervous, I knew this
because my heart was thumping almost as loud as the radio was playing plus I
had just soaked the front of my diaper. “B-but w-what if it sucks rocks?”
He gave me a bump with his diapered hip. “Don’t
worry about that.” He said, then walked over to the radio and turned it up more.
The music filled the room and seemed to swallow
up everything including Runt and me. The music was so loud that I could see
little ripples in my paint tray and it felt like someone was using my chest as
an amplifier.
First there was a single flute playing and it
was soon joined by some kind of deep throaty sounding horn. A violin began to
grow up between the notes and eventually took center stage. It cried out like a
lady weeping deep within her soul. And then a voice, this saintly, smooth voice
began...
Never
knew I could feel like this
It’s
like I’ve never seen the sky before
Want
to vanish inside your kiss
Every
day I'm loving you more and more
I looked up at Runt, he had his eyes closed
and his head tilted way back so that his nose was pointing toward the ceiling.
Listen
to my heart can you hear it sing?
Come
back to me and FORGIVE everything!
Seasons
may change winter to spring
I
love you, ‘til the end of time
“Wait, I think I know this song but who is that
singing?” I asked him.
“Don’t remember but you probably heard it
sung in that movie Moulin Rouge.” Runt said with his eyes still closed.
“Oh, I remember that movie. Whoever this is
singing now, she’s really good!” I said.
“Don’t dwell on the words too much.” Runt
said opening his eyes and ready to put his brush to the canvas. “Go along the
melody.”
At first I didn’t know what he meant so I
watched and imitated him. I plunged my brush into my paint tray; it wasn’t
until I put it on the canvas that I knew I had dipped into a cinnamon-brown color.
I drew in a breath of air through my nose, held it, raised my hand to the canvas
and listened to the music.
A man had joined her...
Come
what may! Come what may!
I
will love you until my dying day
I placed my brush against the canvas and
tried to make the bristles dance in time with the song. I swooped it left, then
right again... I was not painting a thing, I was painting a song.
The song continued...
Suddenly
the world seems such a perfect place
Suddenly
it moves with such a perfect grace
Suddenly
my life doesn't seem such a waste
It
all revolves around you
I watched Runt clean his brush in a small can
hanging beneath our canvases so I did likewise before trying a different color.
A red that was nearer to copper than red came to rest on the canvas in random
splashes while an emerald green seemed to tease the cinnamon lines.
The song ended and another, more modern sounding
song began. It was a man singing this time with a low deep sad voice like he
was singing a bit of poetry...
Little
boy wishes he wasn't small
He'd
give his turtle to be six feet tall
He's
got photos of Shaq and
And
he'd try a jump shot but he's afraid he'll fall
I allowed my eyes to drop to the tray in my
hand and contemplated all the different colors Runt had given me. Runt was
humming now and I remembered seeing this guy painting on TV a long time ago; he
hummed when he painted too. I remember they guy would put more then one color
on his brush at a time so I thought I would give it a try. I added a mixture of
burnt umber and mist gray to my canvas with a single, bold flick of my wrist.
Not sure what to do next I closed my eyes and
just listed; when I opened my eyes I glanced over to Runt and saw that he had
been looking at me, not my painting but me. I think he realized that I got what
he was saying.
Another song and I was able to see things on
my canvas; the hint of distant trees against the balance of an autumn night sky.
I hadn’t meant to paint trees or a sky but none the less, there they were.
Runt startled me by speaking, “You know what
happened before?” he said as though the words were razorblades slicing at this
tongue.
I figured he meant the incident with the knife
but won’t sure.
“Y-yeah,” I answered back.
Still focused on his own canvas he made a
stroke of blood red, “I-I didn’t... I mean I’m sorry.” He said.
Twenty minutes ago I wouldn’t have believe
him. Twenty minutes ago I would have thought he was setting me up. Twenty
minutes ago I secretly wanted him dead. But now... well... now I didn’t know
anything for sure.
“Y-y-yeah, m-me t-too.” I said though I
didn’t know if I really believed my own words.
I stopped painting and watched him for a
moment. He became lost in the music again, moving his brush as though he were
caressing the canvas. His emotions seemed to be flowing down his arm and out
the bristles of his brush.
He must have sensed my stillness and turned
to me. There was something in his expression the moment before he spoke; I couldn’t
tell whether it was genuine sorrow or something else. Was he unsure of his
apology or unsure of mine?
“So let’s see what you painted.” He said and
the moment, whatever it was, had gone.
“It’s not very good.” I said as the next song
began.
“Let me see.” He said.
Part of me wanted to quickly smear all the
paints with my hands to keep him from seeing but I step aside to let him get a
good look at it. He was standing beside me; his diaper was brushing my upper
arm. Runt was looking at the songs that I had recorded on my canvas. When he
spoke Sammy Davis Jr. was singing, ‘What Kind Of Fool Am I’.
“Simon, this—-this is remarkable!” he said
breathfully.
I dismissed his complement, “Nah, you’re just
saying that.”
But I could tell by the way he was talking,
by the air in the room, by the electricity between us, that he meant what he
was saying.
“No really Simon, this is really good!” he
said again and then looked down into my eyes, “You’re a natural! You must have
paint running through your veins.”
I was still holding the paints and
paintbrush; as Sammy sang his last verse Runt reached down for my hand and
guided my hand across the canvas leaving an apricot swash across the bottom.
Our hands lower together but Runt still held
my hand and was squeezing in rhythm with the music of Nat King Cole. He began
to sing the words...
I
think of you every morning
Dream
of you every night
Darling,
I’m never lonely
Whenever
you are in sight
I
love you for sentimental reasons
I
hope you do believe me
I've
given you my heart
Right then the door to his room burst open.
We both turned to see Tater’s younger brother Mikey standing in the doorway. He
looked surprised to see us and said, “Oops! Wrong door!” and quickly closed it
again with a wall rattling bang.
Runt and I both looked down and seen that we
were still holding hands. He released my hand and returned to his painting. After
a moment he looked over at me and smiled; I was almost sure that it was the old
Runt that was smiling at me. “You probably better get dressed and get back
before someone figures out you’re not in the kitchen.”
I paused and looked into his eyes; I couldn’t
believe it at the time, heck I don’t believe it right now but I honestly wanted
to stay. I smiled back and started to raise my brush to my canvas again.
“I SAID GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!” he snarled
like a pit-bull dog.
Maybe I was so startled because he yelled so
loudly into my face, or maybe the fact that I’d witnessed in a brief second the
old Runt being yanked back like a dog on a leash and the mean Runt reemerge.
Either way it didn’t much matter because they both would have resulted in my
reaction which was my body shaking with shock, my brush and paint tray falling
to the floor and me tumbling backward onto my diapered backside. I wasn’t about
to take the time to debate with myself why I was on my diapered tush. Like a
fish I flopped onto my belly, quickly gathered my clothes and scrambled to my
feet. With my clothes wadded up in my arms I started to open the door as I turned
to look at him one last time. I shouldn’t have stopped.
“You know with a friend like you...” I began,
“who needs enemas!”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
Runt griped.
“It means you’re a real shit!” I said and
tried to run out the door but I didn’t make it even half a step.
His hand came toward my face in ultra slow
motion and collided with my chin sending the back of my head knocking against
the doorjamb and then bouncing forward into the edge of the solid oak door like
one of those speed bags you see boxers training on in the gym. When my head hit
the edge of the door it sounded like a melon being smashed open. I had been
laid open from over my right eye, down past my temple to my cheekbone. Of
course I hadn’t known it at the time, all I knew was that I’d heard the crunch
of my face hitting the door and saw the platter of blood.
After that first hit I swear I tried to fight
him off but he was too strong and he only had to punch me in the chest once to
completely overwhelm me. Even with my plastic rib guard on it didn’t stop the
full impact of the blow. The air was forced out of my lungs and I collapsed to
the floor with a knee crunching thud. How many times he hit me after that I
don’t know; I just remember lying in a ball and him kicking me over and over
and over.
The next thing I knew I was lying face down
on his bed and the top of my head kept ramming into the hard wooden wall while
on the radio the Judds sang...
Mama,
he's crazy
Crazy
over me
I could feel him on top of me, “NOOO!” I
cried out. Then suddenly I couldn’t breathe; at first I didn’t know why but
then I realized that HE WAS CHOKING ME!
I tried to move, tried to buck him off and I must have succeeded because the
next thing I knew I was on my back on the floor and he was on top of me with
his hands clamped around my throat. His face was right there, less then an inch
away from my own and oddly it was his buzzed head that I focused on. And just
before I blacked out I heard a screech, saw Vera appear out of nowhere and
attach herself to Runts face. Runt screamed like a girl, fell over backward and
then everything went dark.
** I know this was a difficult chapter to
read and believe me it was even harder to write. I’ve been writing Simon’s
story for so many years that he seems real to me; like he’s a part of me. I
know that this chapter will upset some of you, maybe more then some, so if you
feel the need to vent please feel free to send any comments, questions,
suggestions, or criticism to me at: [email protected] **