BABY TERRY "Have fun, Terry," his mother said as she kissed him goodbye, an action that left him feeling more than slightly embarrassed in front of his two cousins. "Don't give your Aunt and Uncle too much trouble, OK?" Terry watched as the car pulled away, carrying his mother and father away for a long summer vacation, their first in years. Like most sixteen year olds, he wanted to believe himself far more grown-up than he actually was capable of being. He tried to pretend that he didn't need them any more, and that these next two months would be a lark, but discovered that he actually had tears in his eyes. Jesus! What an idiot I am, he thought. It's not as if I'm never going to see them again. He wiped the trace of moisture away before anyone could see it, and turned, smiling, to these relatives with whom he would spend the summer. Aunt Mary and Uncle John both worked, and he knew he would not see much of them, but he looked forward to spending time with his cousin Bill, only a year younger than him. Janet he could do without, but he knew from past occasions when the families vacationed together that his twelve-year-old cousin would insinuate herself in practically everything that the boys would do, so he decided just to make the best of it. Maybe she was old enough not to be such a pest anymore. The first few weeks were every bit as much fun as Terry had hoped they would be. Bill and he played tennis, biked, and swam over at the lake; Janet usually came along too, but she did have other friends around, and, he discovered with some relief, she indeed had grown a bit and was not as much of a pain as she had been only a year or two earlier. Early in July, though, Bill took sick. Aunt Mary had a doctor come in to look at him, a real Marcus Welby type, complete with a black bag. Terry had seen such things on old TV shows, but he could hardly believe that this guy was real. Life in small towns was surely a lot different than what he was used to in the city. Bill's illness wasn't life-threatening, as it turned out, but it was serious enough to curtail his activities for several weeks, and he slept almost all the time. He was forced to stay in bed, even when he was not sleeping, and Aunt Mary kept careful watch on his condition. She even took time off her job as an assistant at the town's small hospital to take care of her son. Dr. Welby had told her that he needed to be monitored regularly, in case any problems should develop. She believed him when he said that there was no reason to fear, but his caution did make her tense. Terry and Janet went riding together a couple of times, but it was never the same without Bill, so Terry found himself staying home a lot, despite the tension in the air. He began watching a lot of televison and sleeping very late. His aunt mentioned it a few times, but he shrugged it off, and she never really confronted him; she was too busy worrying about Bill, who was not improving as rapidly as she had been told that he would. One afternoon, as Terry was lazily fishing for something to wear, Aunt Mary came into the room that he shared with Bill carrying a tray. She was irritated to find him still in his pajamas. "Terry," she said, "can't you do something to help out around here instead of sleeping until lunch time?" Terry indicated his cousin, lying quietly on the bed. "I'm just waiting for Bill to improve," he said. "Bill would improve a lot more quickly, young man, if you eased the situation here by being helpful instead of making it worse by being selfish. Honestly, I don't understand you. I thought you were such a joy for the first few weeks, but ever since your cousin has been sick all you've been doing is moping and lying around; you act just like a baby." Terry didn't know what to say, and his aunt had begun busying herself with something or other for Bill, so he returned to his apparel search, hoping that she would just go away. When he had finally found something, and she had not left, he decided to change elsewhere. Turning to leave, he saw for the first time what she was doing. She was taking Bill's temperature, and she was using a rectal thermometer. Terry dropped his clothing, he was so surprised, and he couldn't suppress a small chuckle. Aunt Mary, apparently through with her business, turned around suddenly. "What are you laughing at, young man?" she asked. He smiled. "Nothing." "There's no laughter in nothing. What do you think is so funny about Bill's condition?" His cousin said nothing; he was probably too embarrassed about being seen that way, Terry thought. Aunt Mary kept pressing for an answer, refusing to leave him alone when all he wanted was to leave. Finally, he blurted out, "It's just very silly, that's all. You're taking his temperature as if he was a baby! I'm sorry, OK? It just seemed funny." "How dare you laugh at your cousin's condition!" She stared at him for a moment. "You know, I've been wondering lately if perhaps you might be coming down with whatever it is that Bill has. You've been sleeping a lot, and you look a bit pale. I think we need to take your temperature too." Catching the glint in her eye, he immediately shot back, "Not in the rear, you don't." "You can take it any way you want, Terry, but I would like to make sure you are not sick. Now come here and get on the bed." Terry wanted to do just about anything else, but he obeyed his aunt for the sake of harmony. "As long as I can take it in the mouth," he said. "Sure," she replied, hovering over him. "You can have it in the mouth or in the rear, as you choose." She smiled, and something about it made Terry a bit uneasy. "But, whichever you choose, you're going to have to use the same thermometer Bill just used; it's the only one we've got." He stared at the thermometer which had so recently been in the backside of his cousin. Bill, who had been lying in bed listlessly, watched him from across the bedroom. His aunt continued to hover over him with the thermometer; there was no escaping it. "All right," he said so quietly she almost could not hear him. "In the rear." "Good. Now roll over," she commanded, and she swiftly had the thing inserted into a place he had thought she never would even see. Terry lay still for several long minutes, until he felt her remove the thing from his rear. He reached down to pull up his pajama bottoms, but her voice stopped him. "No, Terry," she said. "You do seem to have a bit of a temperature, and your listless behavior might indicate that you're getting this thing too. I think I'd better at least do for you what we did for Bill at the start." She called out into the house. "Janet, bring me the enema bag for Terry. " Terry had no idea what an enema was, and he was not at all sure he like the sound of the word. "What's an enema?" "Something to help clean out your system," she responded as Janet entered the room. "Fill it with warm water, will you, dear?" she said to her daughter. Janet looked at Terry and smiled before she left. Janet re-entered a minute later carrying a rubber bag with a hose. Her mother asked her to come in to assist her, and Terry quickly found himself on the receiving end of a highly embarrassing two- quart enema. When it was all over, and he had expelled the enema in the customary way, he lay red-faced on the bed, stunned at what had just transpired. His aunt came back into the room, carrying some white cloth. She pulled down his covers and, before he could even react, slid it beneath him as he lay on his back. "What is this?" he demanded. "Just something to help contain any more of the enema that might be in there." Deftly, she pulled the cloth between his legs, and only then did he realize that it was a diaper. "Oh, no," he cried. "No way!" He ripped the diaper out from beneath him, irritated and confused by his aunt's actions. Suddenly, his agitated temperament turned to anguish, as, before he could even begin to control it, more of the enema exploded onto the bed. The room reeked. His aunt looked at him reprovingly. "You've been acting like a baby lately, Terry, and this is the last straw. I can't believe that you would let this happen." He tried to explain to her that maybe it happened because she had done this to him with no reason or warnings, but she was not listening. She called out to Janet, and Terry found himself subjected to being cleaned up by his young cousin. Then his aunt pinned him into another diaper. "You will keep it on this time," she said, and left the room. Terry lay on the bed in nothing but a diaper. Bill, still weak from his illness, looked at him but didn't say anything. Terry would have pulled a sheet over himself, but there were none; he had soiled them. Then the door opened and Janet walked back into the room carrying sheets. Terry tried to hide his diapered body, but there was no place to go. "It's OK, Terry," she said. "I'm just going to change the sheets for you. " He looked at her, very embarrassed. Then he remembered that she had helped clean him off before, and he suddenly couldn't look at her anymore. He stood in his diaper while Janet made his bed. As he watched, he became aware of a new terrible pain in his bowels; almost with no warning, whatever was left of the enema erupted into his diaper. He doubled over with the suddenness of the expulsion. Janet looked up, having heard as well as smelled his problem. "Oh God," she said, "not again." She called to her mother. "He's messed himself again!" Aunt Mary called up the stairs. "I'm in the middle of something, Janet; can you change him?" Terry stood there in a messy diaper, incapable of even summoning an argument. Meekly, he submitted to the change. After what he had already been through, it seemed almost natural. And he felt so tired that it didn't seem to matter. Then he climbed into his bed and went to sleep. When he woke up, Aunt Mary was there with Dr. Welby. They told him that he had been ill for a couple of days, and that he had been sleeping so soundly that he had required a couple of diaper changes, and he had not even awakened during them. The doctor smiled as he said that Terry was out of the woods, that he would be fine, and that he should be a "good baby" for his "auntie. " All of the rest of the summer, Terry was treated like a baby. Aunt Mary would not let him out of the diapers, and even Bill, after he got well, got into the act of babying him. They made him some play clothes in babyish styles and some Dr. Denton-style pajamas, with feet, and kept him in these things--and in diapers--twenty-four hours a day. They took turns spoon-feeding him and made him drink from a bottle, and all of his eliminations were into the diapers. Forced to wear the diapers, and weakened by the disease, he found himself losing control completely. By the end of July, he realized that he actually needed the diapers. And then there was a new problem: his parents would be back soon. But that, at least would end this horrible experience. And he consoled himself with the thought of how angry they would be with his aunt for having done this to him. On the day his parents arrived, he overslept. When he awoke, soaking wet, and heard their voices, he scrambled to the stairs to tell them what these people had done to him. But his mother and his aunt were already talking, and, as he reached the stairway in his Dr. Dentons, he was shocked to hear his mother say in a completely calm voice, "Do you have extra diapers I can use?" He ran down the stairway to protest, but his mother just hugged him and said, "Don't worry, Terry; Mommy will handle everything." She patted his behind. "You're wet, aren't you?" Then, having him lie down right on the living room floor, she changed him as if he were two years old. Terry's life changed forever that summer. He spent every minute from then on in diapers. His friends at school did not know why he was exempted from gym class, but Terry needed to be changed twice a day by the school nurse and spent his afternoons in the house with his mother. When he graduated from high school, many of his classmates decided to go buff under their robes. Terry did also, but not quite: he wore only a diaper under his. When he brought his fiancee home to meet his parents, it embarrassed him when his mother began to tell her all about how best to feed and change him, and what kind of plastic pants were best. But when the ceremony came, he was of course wearing diapers under his tux. And when his daughter was born, Terry's wife had two babies to take care of. She would just lay them both side by side on the bed and change one after the other, then give them their bottles before doing her chores. Lying there one day, he worried about a time when his daughter would be out of diapers and he would still be in them. And he worried about her teenage years, that his wife, or his mother, who still changed him when she visited, would enlist his daughter to help with his diapers. But there was nothing he could do about it, so for now he just rolled over, sucked on his bottle, and went to sleep. The End (baby k)