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Doing Business, Part 66
🕑 Added 2023-10-13 21:01:45 +0000 UTCNeed to catch up with the story so far? Check this out!
Sixty-Six
“Ah, Clark,” Mommy said as she sat behind her desk. “Come in. Close the door behind you.”
She was smiling. She sounded…calm. I had to do a double-take, wondering if I had lost my mind at some point during the day. There had been some catastrophic breach in the secret world of the office-babies, right? Or had I entirely misjudged the situation?
“Is…everything okay?” I asked as I closed the door.
“That’s a tricky question, Clarky.”
I sighed at that answer, feeling incapable of even attempting to unravel that mystery at the moment.
“Thomas Pritchard?” I asked, as if just the name was enough to convey the real questions I was trying to ask. What happened? Where is he now? What’s next?
She shrugged. “He was a dolt, wasn’t he? Exactly the type we’d have never hired as an assistant. There’s just nothing genuine about him.”
“W-was? Is he…gone?”
“Oh, he’s gone,” she nodded.
“But what about…”
“Do you remember Desiree Watkins, from our legal team? She was in my office a few days ago? Well, she just about buried the poor boy under NDAs and other contractual mumbo-jumbo. I’m not going to pretend to know what it was all about, but as she described it to me: He’ll think twice before even farting in the general direction of the company’s headquarters. So yes, he’s gone. He’s lucky we didn’t call the authorities. And, well, we’ll see how far beyond these walls the rumors of him filling his diapers can go.”
As curious as I was about Thomas’s fate, there were many other things I wanted to know more.
“Lyndie?” I asked.
She took in a long breath and nodded slowly. “She’s been rather busy around the office as of late, hasn’t she?”
“Y-yes,” I said, assuming she was talking about her conversations with Thomas.
“Do you know Bradley? Ms. Tamberlin’s assistant?”
“Of course.”
“Do you know what he said to Ms. Tamberlin this morning? Mind you, this was before the day got even more exciting.”
Gulp. “I do not.”
“He said that he didn’t want to be her baby anymore.”
I sighed. “Oh…”
“I bet you can guess who he said he wanted his new mommy to be?”
“Lyndie?”
Mommy nodded. “Nancy didn’t take the news all that well. Though, between you and me, I’ve been telling her to be more engaged for the last few weeks. I could just see it happening, you know? That little boy needs to be coddled and to have his hand held. Nancy was never really that sort of…mother. For lack of a better word.”
“Boss?”
She laughed. “Yes, I suppose she was just his boss at the end of the day.”
“So…she was pretty mad about Lyndie?”
Mommy nodded again. “Quite. ‘Who does this little girl think she is, anyway?’ That sort of thing. I had to talk her down. She wanted to demote Lyndie to being a baby. She wanted her to wear diapers too.”
“I don’t think she would’ve gone for that,” I said.
Mommy shook her head. “No, she wouldn’t have. But, needless to say, we never got that deep into the conversation.”
“So…where is she now?” I asked.
“She’s okay, if that’s what you’re asking.”
I wasn’t sure what ‘okay’ meant. I didn’t think she was at risk for bodily harm or death, and I assumed ‘okay’ encompassed those things. But did she still have a job? Had she gotten in trouble?
“But, is she…”
“Come here, baby,” she said to me, beckoning for me to walk around her desk and to approach her. I did so immediately. My feet were moving without me even thinking about it.
She stood as I approached her, and once I was in front of her, she slowly stroked my cheek with her hand.
“You’re a sweet boy, Clark.”
“Th-thank you?”
“Quite possibly the sweetest. Oh, sure, you can be naughty from time to time. But your heart is always in the right place.”
My diaper?
“You’re my favorite,” she said, leaning in to kiss me on the forehead.
“Favorite?” Favorite what?, I wondered. Baby? Assistant? Human being, in general?
“There are days that I just want to…take you home with me. I’d keep you as a pet. Wouldn’t that be nice? Living out your days in luxury? No job and no responsibilities? Just you and your diapers? And Mommy, of course, taking care of said diapers?”
“It, uhm, does sound nice, yeah,” I said, a smile cracking through my worried facade. “But what does that have to do with…”
Her hands were on my belt buckle, and she quickly unfastened my pants so that she could open them up and let them fall to the ground. My pink diaper–courtesy of Ms. Beaufort–was on display for her, and my cheeks were quick to match that color.
“Ah, looks like someone must’ve been spending some time with Neve today?”
I nodded. “Uh, yeah. After the Thomas stuff happened, Ava and I went to her office for a little bit.”
“It was nice of her to change you. Did you give her a good mess to clean up?”
“N-no…I was just wet.”
“Aw, a shame,” she laughed. “Hopefully she made sure that you didn’t leave with an empty belly?”
I felt like I could still see Ms. Beaufort’s thick nipples in front of my face. I could taste her milk on my tongue.
I nodded.
“She’s a wonderful babysitter.”
“Auntie,” I said. “Th-that’s what she asked me to call her today.”
“Did she now? That’s cute. I wish I had thought of that myself, honestly.”
Her hand slid between my legs, feeling and squeezing at the padding. I knew it was wet, though I wasn’t entirely sure just how wet it was. There were some days where it just felt like my diaper was heavy all of the time–and those days were getting more frequent.
“How long ago did she put you in this diaper?” she asked.
“Oh…not that long ago.”
“And you’ve wet it this much already?”
I shrugged.
“You’re my favorite,” she said again. “You’re the best baby a Mommy like me could’ve ever asked for.”
It was then that I noticed something strange. It seemed subtle and small, but only because I had always taken it for granted: Her computer monitors were off. Completely off and black. I was quite sure that I had only ever seen them on in the past–their glow always illuminating Mommy’s face when she talked to me across her desk. But now there was no glow, and it felt ominous.
“So…what now?” I asked, her hand still between my legs. “Do we, uh, just go back to work?”
“Some of us will,” she said, nodding.
I felt my heart sink in my chest. “Not all of us?”
“Do you want to come here? Sit on my lap?”
Yes. I wanted that very much. I stepped forward, stepping out of my pants completely, as she sat down in her office chair. I turned myself around so that my back was facing her and I eased myself into her lap–the moist diaper squishing and crumpling between us.
It was a simple pleasure–sitting on her legs like this–but one that I hadn’t experienced very often. Part of me wondered if I should’ve done that more–especially as it suddenly felt like this would be one of my last chances to do it.
“Some changes had to be made,” Mommy said, her voice quiet and seemingly whispered into my ear. “And I don’t mean diaper changes.”
“Wh-what sort of changes?”
“Well, someone needed to be held accountable for today’s little…debacle. And Lyndie was very open and honest about her involvement.”
“But…she was trying to help. She was trying to help everyone.”
“I know this. And you know this. But she stepped on a lot of toes when she took it upon herself to deal with Thomas. The board wasn’t happy about that.”
“But…”
“Nancy–Ms. Tamberlin–she wasn’t too pleased with Lyndie either. Bad timing, really–that whole thing with Bradley. I wonder if they could’ve worked it out if Thomas hadn’t caused a big scene.”
“So…what happened to Lyndie?”
“She was made to be the scapegoat. They terminated her.”
“But…Mommy. That’s bullshit.” I shook my head, a feeling of rage building inside me. I wanted to say something else, but all I could do was repeat myself: “She was trying to help.”
“I know this,” Mommy sighed. “And I defended her.”
“I can’t believe it,” I said. “Sh-she’s gone?”
“She is. But…there’s something else, too, Clarky. I need you to pay attention. Can you do that?”
“Y-yes, Mommy.” My heart pounded in my chest. What else was there?
“I told them–the board–that if they were adamant about letting Lyndie go, then I’d be tendering my own resignation.”
I looked back at her computer monitors, devoid of any life. Tears began to well in my eyes. “What did they say?”
“They made their decision. And so I made my own.”
“N-no. Mommy…are you…leaving?”
“I know this is hard for you to hear. I’m sure this feels like everything you know is being upended. But I can assure you, Baby, this is a good thing. I’ve been ready for something new and different for a while now.”
“B-but…”
“Effective now, I’m no longer the CEO. They’ll likely be by soon to escort me out. They tend to not like people in positions like mine sticking around for too long after we’re released from the corporate teat. They already shut me out of our systems and network. The board will be putting out a statement later today announcing my departure. It’ll be framed as a mutual decision–which I suppose is true.”
“But…Mommy. What about…Ms. Beaufort. And Ava. And Bradley. And Megan. And…”
“...you?” she asked.
I nodded.
“I’m not going to tell you what to do, Baby. You may be a helpless little toddler most of the time, but you’re also still an adult.”
I sighed, wiping a tear away as it rolled down my cheek. “Y-yeah…”
“This may be a lot to ask of you, but I’ll put it out there anyway.”
My ears perked up a little. “Hm?”
Her hands wrapped around my waist, pulling me closer to her. It felt good to be held so close. I wanted her to completely envelop me. I wanted her to absorb me.
“You could leave too. Come with me. Wherever I go next, I'll bring you along.”
That was an awful lot to process at once, though it did sound nice. Especially because I wasn’t sure that I wanted to work there if both she and Lyndie weren’t going to be around. Not to mention the inevitable departure of Ava.
But I was never very good at decisions like this. I felt myself frozen in place–petrified on her lap like a diapered gargoyle. I needed Mommy to tell me what to do. I didn’t even care what she offered–I just needed her to make the decision for me.
“Tell me what you’re thinking, Clark,” she said to me after a few moments of silence.
“I…I don’t know what to do. What would you do, Mommy? If you were me?”
“Oh, I’m not sure you want that answer,” she chuckled.
“I do,” I said. “Please.”
“If I were you? I’d go back to my apartment and I’d pack up everything I own. And I’d go and move in with my Mommy. Because, see, she would have all this free time, and she’d need her baby around to keep her company.”
“Oh…”
“It’s a rather selfish plan. I can admit that,” she shrugged.
I bit my lip as I thought about it. It only seemed like a bad idea because it was so impulsive. It was the sort of thing I would never do. Or, at least, it was the sort of thing I never imagined myself doing. But hadn’t my life over the last few months been full of decisions I wouldn’t have usually made? The things I did with Mommy? The things I did in Seattle? Or with Megan?
And…I needed to be Mommy’s baby. I couldn’t imagine life without that relationship now. Without her–without my diapers–who even was I?
Who am I? A question I had asked myself a lot recently. And this had been the answer the whole time: I was a baby. I was Mommy’s baby.
“I’d do it,” I said to her.
“Wait…really?” she asked, sounding incredibly shocked.
“You were being serious, right?”
There was a momentary pause between me speaking and her response–just a second, if that. An eternity, during which I worried that she’d reveal that she had only been kidding. And then she laughed. “I thought I was asking too much of you. But…yes. This is a real offer, Baby.”
“I want that,” I said softly.
“Are you sure?”
“Extremely sure. And I…I’m going to leave the company too,” I said with a defiant nod.
“I’m not asking you to do that.”
“If you’re not going to be here, then I don’t want to be here either.”
“Only if that’s what you truly want, Clarky.”
“It is.”
“Ah, well then living with me will make even more sense then. I’ll be sure to take care of your every need.”
It was all quite easy to say at the moment, but I could already feel the new buds of stress that were blooming in my subconscious. The details. The logistics. The act of having to quit this job. The conversation with Evan about when and why I’d be moving out. The entire process of relocating to Mommy’s house to live with her.
The…increasingly uncomfortable conversation I owed my actual mother. Hell, if anything had convinced me that moving in with Mommy was the right thing to do, it was probably my blunder with my actual mother. I didn’t trust myself anymore. I needed help. I needed Mommy more than I ever had before.
“What now?” I asked.
“I was going to gather a few things from my office to take with me. But…I was already advised that they’d be packing up my personal belongings and sending them to me later. I probably could’ve been gone already, save for the fact that I wanted to talk to you first.”
“Uhm…what about all the, uh, baby things?”
“Perhaps that cat is out of the bag already?” she shrugged. “There’ll be rumors, if nothing else. But thankfully I had already moved most of the baby supplies out of my office and into the nursery.”
“Oh,” I said, my mouth dropping open at the thought of Lyndie’s nursery. “What about that?”
“Neve will likely be dismantling it. I suspect it’ll be a normal looking office again in a day or two. Albeit, a strange smelling office.”
On one hand, I felt very uncertain and terrified of whatever was going to happen next. What we were proposing was a complete change to everything I knew. My job. My apartment. Perhaps even my social circle.
But on the other, it also felt like the only option. Or, perhaps, I just wanted it to be the only option. Lyndie was gone. Mommy was leaving. Ava would be gone soon too. Everything was changing no matter what I wanted. And here was Mommy, with an outstretched hand, offering to lead me to a future that–while unknown–at least included her.
“I’m ready to go,” she said. “You’re coming with me, right?”
“Of course, Mommy,” I nodded. I wondered if I needed to tell someone that I wasn’t coming back, but that also felt like something I could do later. Maybe I’d email. Or call. Or…well, they’d eventually figure out I wasn’t returning if I just stopped showing up. At that moment, I certainly wasn’t thinking about the ramifications of burning bridges.
“I’m imagining picking you up and carrying you like a baby out of the building,” she said. “What an epic finale that would be, right?”
I laughed, feeling my cheeks warm again. If she had been serious, and if she had that sort of stamina, I could’ve seen myself agreeing to that.
“In slow motion,” I added. “As everything else behind us exploded for no apparent reason.”
“And all while you filled your diaper to the brim in the office one last time.”
“Well that I could probably do,” I said.
“I think the office might have had its share of exposure to dirty bottoms today,” Mommy shrugged. “But I could take you back to my place? Well…our place?”
My eyes lit up. I was practically salivating, and I even felt my shriveled cock throbbing in its cage. I nodded.
“Very good. If you happen to make a big mess of yourself before we get home, then that’ll just have to be the first thing I take care of when we get there.”
“You can count on that.”
I took one last look around her office, noticing that Mommy was doing the same thing. All things considered, I hadn’t actually known this place–this company as a whole–for all that long. But it still felt so important to me. This was the place where my diapers were sometimes changed. And often, it had been the place where everything changed.
Without another word, we were leaving her office. I followed her as she marched through our floor’s workspace. Her pace didn’t seem rushed, and her head seemed to be held high. She’d occasionally pause to talk to someone–usually people I didn’t know all that well. Supervisors and managers from departments I had just about no contact with. She had quickly developed a little spiel that I heard her repeat time and time again. The gist of it was: “Yes, I’ve made the decision to leave the company today. No, this does not reflect the health of the company overall–it just felt like the right time to move on. So sorry for the short notice. You have my contact information, yes? Let’s stay in touch.”
All eyes were on us, though it was hard to say what anyone was thinking. There was no doubt that some would draw a connection between the Thomas Pritchard incident and the departure of Gabrielle Heller, CEO. Were I still an intern, and had I never met her myself, I’d have probably thought the same thing.
Then again, if I hadn’t met her, would any of this be happening?
We walked past Ted Lemire’s desk. Oh, Ted Lemire–still seemingly oblivious to the world around him as he feverishly worked on the tasks he had been assigned. I wondered if he had any idea of what had happened earlier in the day.
We walked past the little room that Lyndie and I used to work from when we were just interns–The Closet. God, that felt like years ago. Mommy paused for a moment to shoot me a little smirk. I was pretty sure I could read her mind: “Remember that place? Remember when I changed your dirty diaper in front of Lyndie?”
Lyndie. I wondered how she was. I needed to give her a call or a text. Though, if I waited much longer, I’d probably never get to it–I could easily imagine the rest of the day being swallowed up by whatever Mommy and I did at her place.
Our place?
I quickly tapped out a message for Lyndie as I continued to follow Mommy to the elevator: “I hope you’re okay.” I quickly followed that up with: “We need to talk soon. We have a LOT to catch up on.” It still seemed like a bit of an understatement.
The elevator door opened and Mommy stepped inside. I wanted to follow, but I still found myself hesitating. I just needed to look around one more time–I’d probably never see this place again.
“Are you ready?” she asked.
“Ready, Mommy.”
Ten Months Later
I was having the most pleasant dream. It was fading quickly as the room’s natural light filled my vision, but I remember it involving cartoon farm animals. Fitting, I supposed, as all I had been watching as of late were children’s cartoons–many of them about animals.
There was a hand on my shoulder, gently shaking me awake. It could only be one person.
“M-Mommy?”
“I really hate waking you,” Mommy said. She was standing outside of my oversized crib, looking down at me. “But I wanted to say goodbye before I leave.”
“Oh…uhm…” I lazily scratched my head as I tried to sit up. “You have to go? Already?”
“Clarky, it’s almost 10 AM.”
“Oh.”
“Normally I wouldn’t mind that you’re a sleepy little baby. But you’re the one who asked me to make sure I said goodbye before I left for the airport.”
“Y-yeah, that’s right,” I said, propping myself up.
I could feel my diaper squishing under me and between my legs. Not an uncommon feeling in the morning these days, though one I still wasn’t completely used to. At least I wasn’t smelly. Waking up smelly was less common…but common enough.
“You’re going to be a good boy for your babysitter, right?”
I felt my cheeks glow. “Uhm…of course, Mommy.” It occurred to me that I wasn’t even sure who she had tasked with watching over me for the weekend. “Who is it? Lyndie?”
“I didn’t ask her,” Mommy said, her hands dangling over the railing of the crib so she could play with my messy hair. “Between Bradley and things at the office, I think she’s got her hands full.”
“Ms. Beaufort?”
“Well, Neve is coming with me, so…”
“Right, right.” She still hadn’t answered my question though. “So, who is going to be here this weekend?”
“She should be here any minute,” she said, checking her watch.
I felt my lips curl into a frustrated frown as I looked up at her smiling face. I just wanted her to tell me who it was.
“Oh, what’s that look for?” Mommy teased. “You’ll love her.”
“Is it Courney again? I like Courtney, but…she’s a lot.”
“Courtney’s got a lot of energy, yes. But I think that’s a good thing. She keeps you on your toes.”
“So it is Courtney?”
Mommy refused to answer, instead just humming a little as she gave a playful shrug. It was probably Courtney.
“Mommy? What about my diaper?”
She reached into my crib, giving the bloated padding between my legs a good squeeze. “You certainly need a change. But I really ought to get going. Just stay put. She will be here soon and she’ll clean you up. Consider yourself lucky that you didn’t wake up with another stinky diaper. And, on that note–and before you do that too–I should probably be on my way.”
“O-one more thing, Mommy?”
“Yes?”
“Uhm, is there any chance I can get the, uh, key? For my…”
Mommy chuckled and shook her head. “Aw. I’m sure it’s not the answer you want, but I think I’ll be taking it with me.”
“But…”
“Oh, I think you’ll survive a whole weekend without it. Besides, I think you’ve been getting pretty good at making sticky diapers without needing to be unlocked.”
“I guess...”
“Now, I really need to be going. Behave yourself for the babysitter, please.”
“Yes, Mommy.”
She leaned over the railing of the crib, kissing me on the forehead. “I love you, baby.”
“I love you too, Mommy.”
Mommy’s life continued on as it always did, it seemed. She was busy, and the demands of the new company were sending her all across the country. I was still seeing plenty of her, though a wave of anxiety still washed over my body when she announced she’d be taking off for another weekend. I always told myself it wasn’t a big deal–there had once been a time when I didn’t see her on weekends. And I was fine then, right?
The second she had left my nursery, I felt a pang in my chest. Fuck. I missed her already, and she was still in the house.
My hands fumbled over the railing of the crib in an effort to unlatch it. Mommy often teased me for how much trouble the latch gave me sometimes–which was probably why she had walked out of the room without having unlatched it herself. But I finally managed to free myself–just about tumbling out of the crib and onto the floor. It wouldn’t have been the first time that happened.
I crawled out of the room and down the hall. This just seemed to be my default mode of traversal these days. Mommy preferred it when I crawled, and so that’s what I usually did. And after crawling so often, I rarely even gave it a second thought.
I entered the living room on my hands and knees, my thick–and saturated–diaper underneath bulging out from my striped onesie. The pacifier pinned to my chest dangled below me. I was hoping to have caught Mommy before she left–just so that I could see her one more time–but it appeared that she was already gone.
Knock knock.
That would be Courtney. I already knew she was going to make a big deal of my bloated diaper, so I braced myself for her snide smile and verbal jabs as I reached up and pulled on the handle to open the door.
It wasn’t until the door was halfway open that a thought occurred to me: Courtney doesn’t knock–she just walks right in through the door.
It wasn’t Courtney.
“Oh, uhm…hi,” said the woman, brushing her dark bangs out from her eyes.
It was…her. I hadn’t seen her in such a long time. Just about as long as I had been living with Mommy. And she had changed. She looked more…mature than I remembered her ever looking before. Her hair was longer. Her clothes were nicer. I couldn’t get over how adult she looked.
“A-are you my…”
“Babysitter?” she smiled. “Believe it or not. It’s been a while, Clarky. I see that you haven’t grown up yet. In fact–I think you’ve grown down.”
There was so much I wanted to say, but instead I just looked up at her from my pathetic place on the floor–probably looking more like a baby than I ever had.
It was the first time I had seen Ava in almost ten months, and now she was going to be my babysitter?
Thank you, everyone, for continuing to read along with this crazy story. This does conclude Season 3 of Doing Business - though it's not the end of the story. There won't be a new chapter published next week, but in the week following we'll be starting Doing Business: Memorandums II, a series of short stories about the supporting cast of this story. Then, in a few weeks, we'll be jumping into Season 4 proper.
Comments
Paul Bennett
A wonderful and fitting end to this season. I don't know how many seasons are left of this wonderful saga; however I am grateful as I am sure many others are for this amazing ride of a story that you have taken us on. Great work QH thanks for taking the time to write and share this with the community.
Ruby Teagan
👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏
