A Bet To Lose, Chapter 18 free porn video

Caroline woke up slowly the next morning, feeling somewhat muddled, hearing the same faint creaking noises she'd fallen asleep to. It was so early that the sun hadn't even started coming up yet even in mid-June, and she knew that it was well before 5:15. She wasn't confused as to what they'd done with her - she waved the padded mitten around, as if to show herself it was still there, perfectly tied to her wrist - she was confused as to why she'd let them do it. Oh, right, she'd treated the whole thing like a giant dare. What the hell had she been thinking? She really hadn't been clear-headed, she realized, it was almost like she was drunk or in a stupor. Richard had been right about one thing: she had been totally exhausted. She got the idea that she should really be feeling outraged at them taking advantage of her when she wasn't capable of making good decisions, but the emotion wasn't forthcoming. There certainly wasn't anything in the realm of non-consensual, so it was like she'd told Richard: she didn't get to pretend that anyone else had made her do it. Yeah, it was weird and fetishy, but they had been exceptionally kind to her every step of the way and would leave no lasting anything, so even if she hadn't been entirely thinking straight, she wasn't angry at them for this. She didn't even think she regretted it. She just didn't know whether or not she wanted them to do it again, and contradictory thoughts floated around in her mind for a while. She looked around the room for her phone so she could check the time, realizing that she'd have to get the mittens off before she could even use it, and then she suddenly noticed the digital clock, placed there for this exact reason. It had been showing 4:50 right in her face, where she didn't even notice it. She let her head hit the pillow again, and she realized only then that her left arm was cuddling a large tiger plushie. When did they give her that? No, they never did, it must have already been in the bed with her. She had been totally out of it, she still was, and her dreams were a half-remembered mess. At least she had almost a half hour before she'd have to worry about adult things. Just eight hours of work that day, she told herself, eight hours of cutting and grinding polycarbonate (just thinking about it made her hear the sound of the angle grinder again) and customers comparing their professional work to DIY crap from Amazon and her dad telling her what goes where. She was comfortable the way she was, she didn't want that clock to hit 5:15, and she finally admitted to herself that she was actually savoring this and had been enjoying it the whole time. It was only then that she realized what the creaking noises were, as full awareness finally returned to her. 'Hey, you two, can you keep it down, there's a baby trying to sleep here!' she considered calling out, laughing at herself a bit for thinking it. She felt a gradual flush creep up, and with surprise she found that she actually was getting kind of turned on by this, and she wondered if the man of her dreams really would do this with her. (Of course he would, she realized. Almost any man worth the name wouldn't hesitate to put her in this stuff if she asked, especially if sex were involved. Men were like that.) The noises did stop after a while, and she laid back in genuine, light bliss, trying to savor the moment, occasionally rubbing her diaper with her mitten and smiling, immersing himself in a dream of her burly, wealthy husband lovingly pampering her in their luxuriously furnished cabin in the middle of nowhere. The door opened at 5:10, Susie and Richard walking in together, both of them in dresses - his rainbow, hers purple - and smelling faintly of shampoo, with Richard carrying a tube with a bag of yellow, viscous fluid on one end. Banana milkshake? Wait, that was food, wasn't it? It had to be, it might have kind of looked like an enema bag but Caroline would have gone 'Hell no' and both of them had to know that. Noticing that she was already awake, Susie gently, brightly asked "Feeling better?" as Richard turned on the lights, but fortunately there was a dimmer and he didn't turn it up very much. "A lot," Caroline admitted. It had been some of the most restful sleep of her life. "Breakfast in bed?" Richard offered, and Caroline noticed that the tube was attached to the end of the pacifier. Right, that was what they'd done with the water. She was not going to deny them this last thing, not with five minutes to go, and she answered by opening her mouth, and Richard gently strapped it in. It wasn't banana milkshake, Caroline realized: it was some sort of milky lemon meringue, and it was absolutely delicious. Sitting on the side of the bed, Susie ran her hand over the older girl's head, smiling as her boyfriend fed Caroline her breakfast. God, it was like they were her actual parents, but not her real ones, just a dad and mom - well, from the way they were dressed, two moms - taking very good care of their little baby girl, giving Caroline a sensation she hadn't felt in a very, very long time. Eventually, the bag ran out, and Caroline looked over and sighed through her pacifier. 5:12, 5:13. Two more minutes and she'd have to be responsible for things again. Eight hours, just eight hours, she reminded herself again, and she'd get a substantial amount of money for it - even by adult standards - and then after swimming, she had the afternoon to herself. "Don't want this to end?" Richard asked in total understanding, unbuckling the pacifier. Cripes, that kid - and Caroline still thought of him as one - was so astute when it came to things like this. Then again, this was his thing. "Don't tell... oh, who am I kidding." Zoe and Leslie would know that she had enjoyed this just looking at her, if they didn't already. "Thank you. I think I needed all that," she said, as her friends pulled down the covers to untie her mittens and booties. Caroline noticed that Richard was diapered and figured that he probably had been all day yesterday. "I was totally fucked up when I said okay, but I am not gonna look back and say, oh no, they did something horrible to me." She abruptly realized that she had been fundamentally absent for a lot of what had gone on that day. "Was Leslie okay with it? She sounded kinda nervous." "She was all right, she had other things on her mind," Richard said, not wanting to explain further. "She and Zoe were more interested in each other," Susie added, and Caroline nodded, smiling. She was sure she hadn't missed anything important. "Yeah, do I believe that. What'd you do with my clothes and phone?" Caroline asked. "Right there," Richard pointed, and of course her phone was on top of the clock, plugged into a charger, and her clothes were by the bed, neatly folded and washed. Richard really had used the strong stuff; stains she thought were permanent were a little bit less so, and the greasy feeling was entirely gone. "Shit, I'm not Michelin, but with room service this good, I'll give you guys five stars. Just not sure how many people would visit a hotel like this." That got a few light giggles. "You've been driving us everywhere for a long time," Susie pointed out. "We had to do something for you." "Not how I would have expected to be repaid, but let's call it fair," Caroline replied, swinging her legs out of bed, realizing she was still in the diaper, and she was not about to wet and mess herself a second time. She was about to say that she didn't want to do any of this again any time soon, but that wasn't right. "If I ever get that tired again, I'm probably going to ask you to do this again," she openly admitted. It was weird, being that straightforward with something like that, but this was her Squad and they didn't keep secrets from each other, especially not after they'd spent so long babying her. "If we can, we will," Susie promised, and she and her boyfriend left her alone to change. The thought crept up on her: she'd stay in her diaper and put her clothes on over it, and the loud noises of the mechanic shop would hide the crinkling while the all-pervasive petrochemical smells would mask any odor. It was a dumb fantasy, never something she'd actually do, but just the idea made a strange heat well up inside of her, and her hands were free so she could reach down into her diaper, and she sat by the bed, biting down on her tongue to keep herself quiet as she curled her fingers near her clitoris and quickly rubbed herself to climax at the mixed thoughts of having a well-hung, strong, and loving husband, identity yet unknown, find out her secret fetish that her friends had given her and keep her just like that every single night, pampering her in every sense of the word before her husband-daddy took off her diaper and made firm yet tender love to Caroline, his baby girl. 'God, did I seriously just jill off to that?' She had, and she'd even left a large wet spot in there from it. Fortunately, her friends were not the sort of people to closely inspect the contents of worn diapers, and she balled it up and tossed it into the bathroom trash. She just wanted a quick shower, but the giant Jacuzzi was right there and it felt like a crime not to use it again, even if she had no time to soak. She dried herself off as quickly as she could and put on her freshly washed and very nice-smelling clothes. Right, it'd been too long, she needed to get going, and she found Zoe and Leslie sleeping together, limbs entwined, on a bed in the other room, and she wondered who had done the carrying to get her up there. "Hey, wake up, we gotta go," she said, and the other girls looked at her bleary-eyed. Caroline was very sure that they'd been doing girlfriend stuff for hours last night. "Caroline..." Zoe mumbled sleepily but not finishing her sentence. Right, right, it had to be the right time, Caroline had to leave, she was in a hurry... "You can go back to sleep, but I have to take Leslie home." "Let me get my pills," Leslie replied, trying to prop herself up on the bed, and Caroline realized just how impossible it was for her to sit up by herself and helped her with that, handing her the necessary bag. Two of these, one of those, taken without food first thing in the morning. She'd been looking after Caroline yesterday but now everything was back to normal, her being driven, being helped, being taken care of because she had to be. She and Zoe had had a long conversation last night about just what Zoe didn't really want to treat her like. Wednesday, it would all start changing Wednesday, it had to, it was three treatments in one, they couldn't all fail, could they? "Crap, I should have woken you up earlier, could have gotten in the tub with me," Caroline said as she changed her diaper on the bed and helped her get dressed. "It's fine, I'm going to deal with all that at home," Leslie replied. She didn't want to be woken up at all, but being stapled to other people's schedules was a sad fact of life for her. Caroline didn't know how she got up the stairs, but it was certain how she'd get down: by simply being picked up. Caroline had lifted and carried automotive parts heavier than Leslie was, although, like Richard, she couldn't exactly make a running leap carrying her, and she took the stairs carefully. Breakfast - the same stuff they'd served Heather - smelled absolutely delicious and Richard and Susie had just finished making it, but... "I was going to eat at home," Leslie said, but there was no way she was going to leave this untouched. It would be rude and it smelled too good. "And I'm really out of time," Caroline said, but she headed over there anyway. The meringue had been just an appetizer; what was sitting on the table was a meal. She thought she'd given herself plenty of time, but she had to be at work at six and getting Leslie home first made it at least a fifteen-minute trip. "Don't worry, I'll eat what you don't," Richard replied, and Caroline set Leslie down on a chair before taking one herself. Five minutes, she could eat this in five minutes, right? And there was coffee, she needed coffee, she needed all the coffee, she needed to get that pacifier back on and hook it up to a giant vat of coffee. She knew what she was drinking was some expensive Iranian blend, and, to her hosts' amusement, she chugged it like it was crap from an undercleaned thermos at the gas station. Wait, had she been thinking of them as already married or something? Cripes, that was about how it felt. She didn't have time to think about it. She, like Leslie (who, to her credit, was actually very methodical in rapidly getting food to her mouth) just had time to eat. And then they were moving, Richard helping carry Leslie's possessions (including leg braces) while Caroline carried Leslie and Susie opened doors. The weather was a little chilly, but Caroline just didn't have time to care. "Guys, seriously, thanks for everything yesterday," she remembered to tell them. "You're welcome, drive carefully!" Richard cheerfully replied as Caroline started up the car. "Don't I always?" she asked with a wave and then, making sure Leslie was securely buckled in the center middle and that she had everything with her, drove off. Maybe it was because she was in a big hurry, but it had felt like nothing at all had happened. She knew she need to stop expecting weird things rather than just a fast bath and a quick breakfast, but everything had been so weird that it was even weirder that the weirdness would just stop. She just hoped Leslie was all right. "I hate that," Leslie suddenly said, crossing her arms against the morning chill. "Hate what?" Caroline asked quickly. Crap, was this about last night? Or was it the fact that she hadn't really asked permission to pick her up, and there wasn't any time to get her leg braces back on, but Leslie had to have been... "Rushing," Leslie replied. "Especially when I eat. It's not that it hurts, it's... when I was little, if I didn't eat fast enough, my parents would just go 'Looks like you're not eating it' and take it away." Caroline was relieved that it didn't have anything to do with any of them, but it was still awful to hear about. "Damn, Leslie, is there anything they didn't do?" "They didn't care. That's what they didn't do." "Damn... by the way, you weren't weirded out by what happened last night, were you?" "A little bit, at first," Leslie readily admitted. "But you were into it, and they were always checking that you were okay." Leslie was not going to tell her about the bad stuff between her and Zoe. It was private and she wanted it forgotten about forever. The fewer people who knew about that, the better. "Yeah, that's them." It escaped neither Caroline nor Leslie that their friends were actually good at looking after people. The heater started to turn on, coating the interior in warm air, the early-morning sun not quite in Caroline's face, but close. She checked the time at a red light of a large intersection - she'd make it for sure, it wasn't like there was any traffic out there, and all she could hear outside the car was a faraway siren. The coffee was starting to hit, and she wondered if maybe she'd had too much. The light turned green and she lifted her foot off the brake, but she noticed something out of the corner of her left eye, and she turned her head to look before touching the gas. A Honda Civic came screaming towards the intersection at faster than highway speeds, and Caroline slammed the brake back down instantly. It blurred about fifteen feet in front of her, and Caroline was about to call 911 before she heard the siren - no, sirens, plural - getting louder very quickly, and three cops, lights flashing, blasted through the intersection after the other car. "Kill his ass!" Caroline blurted out at the cops, even though Leslie was the only one who could hear her. "What happened?" Leslie asked, looking up. She'd been fooling around on her phone. "We almost got wasted by some nutjob," Caroline replied, heart beating furiously and breathing heavily, making herself calm down, it had happened in moments and it was over. The light had turned red again, some sort of sensor, but once again it turned green and Caroline made sure nobody else was going to come flying through there before she touched the gas. If she hadn't been paying attention - if she'd been distracted, if she just hadn't seen that psycho coming - if, if... 'Drive carefully,' Richard's words echoed in her head, and Caroline made herself remember that coincidences happen, he wasn't actually psychic, that kind of thing wasn't real. It was a common thing to say, everyone knew that car wrecks were dangerous, it wasn't like drunks cruising around in the early AM were as rare as they should be, but holy hell was that some spooky wizard shit. At least it gave both Caroline and Leslie something to talk about with their parents instead of telling blurry half-truths. Zoe woke up for the second time, sitting up in bed, wondering if she was late for school. Oh, right, it was the summer and there was a pandemic, there was no 'late for school' and probably wouldn't be for a really long time. She did remember where Leslie was, though, and she also immediately remembered the stuff they'd done yesterday. Just a bunch of roleplaying, she and Leslie had agreed. She went to the bathroom, the one they all used with the big tub, and saw something that was not roleplaying. Richard really was seriously cleaning the tub wearing his pink kneepads and his rainbow dress, his five-inch wedges facing her as he bent over to scrub. He turned his head to look. "Almost done, Zoe!" he called back. The tub got kinda grody after a couple weeks of people using it, especially since Majid had been in the thing, but it was nothing that a sponge, good cleansers (Susie had bought some more of those last week), and a bit of elbow grease couldn't remove immediately. "It's all right, she's got as many bathrooms as people right now," Zoe replied, heading off to another one. She would have killed to have grown up with that. She'd once browsed housing listings for fun, and in her opinion, any architect who thought '3BR/1BA' was acceptable was a certifiable, mustache-twirling Satanist. She relieved herself and brushed her teeth - she didn't even know whose toothbrush that was, so she thoroughly sanitized it, before and after - and found Richard gathering up the sheets. Oh crap, of course it was him doing it, who else would it be? She and Leslie hadn't really been concerned about leaving damp spots last night, but fortunately he didn't seem to notice (he actually did notice and was very good at pretending not to care; those weren't the only damp sheets in the house), and so she took a bath in the freshly washed tub. He was still cleaning when she was done, scrubbing pots and pans with a Brillo pad, the floor already mopped and the other dishes already washed. "Breakfast's in the fridge, big sis," he told her. That was their family's habit: breakfast was made for everyone once, if someone didn't wake up early enough for it, it went in the fridge. Soggy cornflakes? As their mother had often told them, that was their problem. Zoe usually just ate them anyway, and it wasn't like these foods got soggy in that way. "Really should get you that maid dress," she joked. Richard had done more housework since all this started than he had in the rest of his life combined, she was sure of it. "Yeah, I really need one," he replied with a little smile, setting aside a very well-scrubbed metal pan, and he was not joking. Zoe didn't think she'd ever get used to watching her brother actually do this stuff for real. "So where's your princess?" "Out finding the cat, he's down the hill somewhere, she says he does this sometimes." She microwaved the dinner, and it was still utterly delicious even reheated. Her brother finished his chores and sat down with a cup of tea - her brother, actually drinking real tea by himself of his own volition - taking the weight off his heels. Susie came back in a few minutes later, Whiskers in her arms, and immediately started brushing the cat's fur, looking for parasites. "What was he doing down there?" Zoe called out. "Chasing rabbits, as usual," Susie replied. "He ever catch one?" "This cat? I don't think he'd know what to do if he ever did. Isn't that right, Whiskers?" She gently brushed under the cat's chin, eliciting a soft purr. "The only food he hunts is the stuff in his bowl." She set Whiskers down and the cat seemed to agree, heading straight for it. "All done?" she asked Richard, glancing long enough at the teapot for him to get the message and pour her a cup. "Wash is going, five minutes left," he replied, and she nodded, sipping the nicely warm tea. It was the good stuff, of course, her father having given her an extremely refined palate for this sort of thing. "So, Zoe, I'd like to make a bet with you," Susie told her after a bit. "We believe that Caroline is going to want to be babied again within the next week." "No bet," Zoe decisively replied. "She wants that when she's overworked, right? She's not going to be underworked until every driver service in the city gets that shield she keeps talking about. I'm pretty sure she's already backed up for days." "She wasn't 'backed up' last night," Richard replied. Susie pffted a little tea back in her cup. Zoe held her hand in her face as she laughed. "You wanted him, you got him," Zoe told Susie, still laughing. "There he is, he's all yours. I was going to auction him off, but I'm pretty sure you're the highest bidder anyway." Susie kept laughing. Even Richard started chuckling, before he checked the clock and started mincing his way to the laundry room, Zoe hearing some faint crinkling as he did. Susie watched him go, smiling. Zoe's tone got a lot more serious in a hurry once he left the room. "You're actually using him as a slave. You know that, right?" Susie's voice was aristocratic and firm. "Just because I completely control him doesn't mean I don't love him." That phrase was largely taken from something she'd found somewhere, and she would never tell either of them what nor where. "Making the beds is the last thing he's doing for me today, and I'm going to help him." She had learned from a very early age that two people cooperating with the sheets and blankets on the large beds could get things done in a quarter of the time that one person could. "Considering I tied him to mine last night, it's only fitting." Zoe couldn't even laugh. "You what." "It wasn't tight at all, I wasn't going to stretch his arms and legs all night, but yeah, he was spread eagle, four-poster bed," she replied, smiling. "I like him like that, and guess how he feels about it." At least one part of him had been very enthusiastic. "I swear, it's like you're in another galaxy, another dimension. I walk in that door and I'm in the Twilight Zone, and I don't mean a remake, I mean the 1960s, Rod Serling, black and white, OG Twilight Zone." There had been a very brief period in fifth grade when she'd actually had a crush on the host before realizing that he was, of course, long dead. She sighed. "Well, just... don't hurt him, I guess." "I'm not going to take him away from the things he loves, and I'm not going to make him do anything he hates," Susie told her quietly, aristocratic and firm once again. Zoe didn't want to say what she was thinking: that his hatred or enjoyment of tedious chores was strongly affected by what he was wearing and who was telling him to do it. But, then again, they lived in the modern era with modern conveniences, and most of the serious domestic labor had been handed off to machines almost a century ago, so the remainder of Richard's maid service that day was limited to moving clothes and blankets from washer to dryer, crinkle- mincing over to the couch to watch moe anime with his girlfriend, then mincing back to collect everything and put it away. Susie did help him, as promised, and it really was easier with two people, and then Susie put his mittens back on him and popped his yellow, unstrapped pacifier into his mouth, then she retrieved the plushie she'd slipped into Caroline's bed the previous night and told him to cuddle it like a good boy. Richard didn't get the appeal of the anime they were watching - the character motivations made no sense to him and he'd counted three weird kinda-plotholes in the first episode alone - but both Susie and Zoe were clearly into it and he wasn't paying that much attention. He was half- watching it at a 90-degree angle anyway. His head was in his girlfriend's lap, his arm around the plushie, and he was looking up at her breasts, which he could have sworn had gotten slightly bigger in the last couple of weeks. A hormonal thing, it had to be, maybe even part of the reason why she'd wanted his body so much after her father had left, milking him for sperm twice a day. He certainly wasn't complaining. He'd probably get tired of being tied to her bed and used as a living dildo sooner or later, but that was decisively going to be later rather than sooner. ('Oh no. My girlfriend is a dominant, wealthy nymphomaniac. Please. Send help.') He had found his Heaven on Earth, there on his girlfriend's lap as her passive, obedient baby pet. A quote from a book he'd never actually read came to him: was it better to reign in Hell or serve in Heaven? He had experienced both and decided that he much preferred the latter. He felt a twinge in his bladder and simply let go. Susie noticed and smiled down at him, but she waited until the end of the episode to take him upstairs and change him. He was surprised to see that, instead of a diaper like the one he'd worn, she retrieved the plastic pants and large, puffy underwear made of sewn-together cloth batting. "A cloth diaper, Your Highness?" he asked, pulling the pacifier from his mouth. "Yeah, I can't get any more of those pink ones. My dad still won't let me order anything online, it has to be cash. I wish I had somebody I trust who's got a credit card and I could just pay to do this for us." She was very grateful for Caroline. "But," she continued, fully in princess mode, "cloth is washable and reusable, making it the undergarment of choice for sissy boys whose princesses keep them in diapers." "Then it's perfect for me, Your Highness," Richard replied with a smile. She kissed him on the head, took his pacifier, and pushed it back in. "You're such a good boy." The plastic pants crinkled even more than the diapers had as he minced along beside her, but they were back downstairs before the opening of the next episode had finished, and he laid there, dozing. During the credits of the next episode, Susie started tickling his midsection and sides over his dress, and he didn't realize what she was doing until he was already laughing around his pacifier, wiggling around with his arms up to give her better access. Susie only pulled the pacifier out for lunch, some whole-wheat sandwiches of some expensive nut spread, and since he was still in his mittens she simply fed it to him instead, bite by bite, before giving him some iced tea to drink. A few episodes later, she started taking off his heels. "What...?" he mumbled. "Did you want to wear these home? Or maybe Caroline can pick us up here and you could wear your mermaid suit to the Y?" Susie teased him as she replaced his long socks and heels with his shorter socks and Mary Janes. Oh. Right. It was a swimming day and he hadn't brought any boy clothes with him. He hadn't even brought any boy underwear with him! The mermaid suit very poorly hid his bulge; wearing the long-enough jingly dress home, which she changed him into, over his crinkly diaper was weird by social standards but not get-you-arrested weird for someone his age. "I so wish you could go out like that," she said, smiling at him, and he nodded in agreement, letting her put his pacifier into his belt pouch with his phone and reluctantly holding out his mittens so she could take them off. Being in public wearing bondage mittens and a pacifier was still somewhere in the red zone, at least in the summertime, and she saw him off with a kiss. Zoe took his hand and walked away, his Mary Janes softly tapping while his plastic pants crinkled and the wind made his bells jingle. The boys on bicycles were in the same spot they were the first time. This time, the surprise was gone, and they'd obviously been hoping to see them again. Richard knew very well why: he looked like an anime character made flesh. If they were somewhat older and less civilized, he would have been worried about them ambushing him physically on the second go-around; then again, if they had been those things, they probably would have been doing drugs rather than bike tricks on a path behind some houses. "Can we take pictures with you?" the older of the two asked brazenly. They'd discussed that jingling vision of loveliness in the past couple of days. According to their judgment - and the judgment of one of the boys' fathers - it was no surprise that an pretty girl dressed up like that had a boyfriend, and since she and her sister were walking from the richer part of the neighborhood (and because he could afford to buy her such clothes!), a wealthy one, possibly even someone old enough to buy beer, almost certainly someone old and tough enough to kick both of their asses at once, as that boy's father had warned. The boys had privately agreed that pictures was the best they could do, so pictures was what was they would go for. They intended to tell their online friends that she was each of their girlfriends - in different places, to different people - and use the pictures as proof. They were too infatuated, too enraptured, too amazed to wonder about basic stuff, like why she wasn't talking for herself or why she was walking rather than riding in a car, but they didn't even need to ask her name - they'd just make something up. "Yes, but don't touch," Zoe replied firmly, and Richard gave a light, happy smile. Each of the boys posed - absolutely ridiculously, they looked even more silly than Richard did - while the other one took photos. They heeded Zoe's demand and did not touch, so Richard didn't care for the same reasons he didn't care before. Would someone recognize him, in the various Discord channels and online fora such boys were already posting those things to, there on their phones? He'd just enjoyed something that these two could only dream of, and no one was in a position to seriously come after him for it. He could count the number of real social concerns he had on his fingers, but only while he was wearing his mittens. "You liked that, didn't you?" Zoe asked him after they were out of earshot, the wind-blown jingling mostly drowning out her voice. "Yeah," he admitted with a smile, wondering if he'd ever run across those pictures anywhere, wiggling his butt a little as he walked to make his dress jingle some more. They got home well before Caroline was scheduled to pick them up, and Richard stayed in his jingly dress for a while, catching up on some internet crap that he realized he actually didn't care about anymore, instead of putting his boy clothes on right away. When he finally did, they felt a little weird, the sneakers unfamiliar on his feet. He stashed the cloth diaper and plastic pants deep in a box in the back of his closet, packing his Sunshine set in his glittery pink backpack before remembering he had to use his ordinary boy one. Caroline showed up on time, but she and Leslie were rather quiet until they went to Susie's house, where she was already locking the door behind her, walking to the car in bikini and sneakers, confirming Richard's earlier suspicions- her top fit just a little bit differently than it had before. It was something he paid close attention to, after all. "Now that you're all here, we've got a story for you," Caroline said. "Why didn't you just put it in the chat?" Zoe asked. Neither of them had been chatting all day, but she'd just figured that she and Leslie had talked a lot already and Caroline had been working. "We weren't going to ruin your day," Leslie replied. "Is this a day-ruining story? Can it wait until the day's almost over?" Zoe half-seriously asked. "I'll just tell you," Caroline said. "Some asshole came tearing through the intersection right in front of us after our light turned green..." There was more she was saying, about the cops coming after him and about how they could find out what happened if they looked it up, but Richard was barely listening. If she had pulled forward just then, the exact thing he'd visualized, her getting T-boned by some lunatic, would have come to pass. It was a weird coincidence, it was just a really weird coincidence, reality did not work that way. "...no wonder this Jedi here told me to drive carefully." "Yeah, I worry about stuff like that," Richard replied, trying not to give any hints about how weirded out he really was. 'I worried about that exact thing' was something he chose not to say - not because it'd make him sound like a braggart, but because they'd take him seriously, and that really would ruin everyone's day. "Well, good call. Anyway, end of story," Caroline said. "That must have been scary," Zoe said to Leslie. "Not for me, I didn't even see it." Zoe wondered if she would ever have seen it if Caroline had pulled forward, then she suddenly, randomly thought of what Dr. Sinchurch (she didn't even know what the guy looked like) might say if he heard that his singular test subject had just been obliterated by some shithead in a car wreck before he could try his therapies. Zoe just hugged her instead of talking as they drove, and there were no more shitheads speeding through intersections against the light. "Hey, Mindy, are we going to be able to watch while she's doing this stuff in the hospital?" Susie had overheard bits of them talking about this stuff on Tuesday, even though most of her attention had been on Richard. Leslie had hoped that she wouldn't have to exercise so much once she got the therapies, but it was entirely the other way around; it'd be every day, not twice a week, and Mindy was actually going to pass her other clients off to substitutes while she worked with Leslie full-time. "Yes, as long as you wear masks and practice social distancing. The physical therapy center's actually a separate building, but it is still considered part of the hospital." Mindy was actually very glad that Leslie had such friends. They were unusual, in ways that went beyond their relationships and Richard's crossdressing. She figured that maybe she was the one with the skewed perspective, as she didn't have any friends who'd stuck by her for the whole three months she'd been in therapy after her mother had skidded off the road on ice, slamming her into a telephone pole. (That was the event that had driven her to become a physical therapist herself.) Still, making such friends in real life, in the middle of a pandemic? How'd the girl do it? She would have been even more amazed if she had known why Susie had smiled in reply and what she was planning. They spent the hour in the usual way, Richard chasing Susie around the pool - he had made significant improvements every single time, she wasn't easily outpacing him at all anymore, not even right away - Caroline doing her laps and dives, Zoe staying near Leslie. Mindy intentionally avoided the semi-hidden bathroom in the back, because she knew what she'd see if she got there: the same ritual, three girls and a boy go in with one girl at the entrance, and four girls come out. Richard wondered if someone would eventually catch them other than Mindy and once again just couldn't bring himself to really care. He was wearing his heeled sneakers as Sunshine and he was happy. "So, where to, sushi?" Caroline asked Susie straight-out. A month ago, that would have been taken as something of a Rule One violation, but that rule was unraveling quickly. "Does everyone want sushi?" Susie asked, and they all wanted sushi, so sushi it was. They all made a point of ordering stuff they hadn't had before and thought they'd like. Richard loved octopus, and the table was utterly rife with somewhat pornographic tentacle references for a good twenty minutes, beginning with 'I've seen enough hentai...' and continuing from there, stopping only when the last of the tentacles went down his throat. "All right, guys. I'm out today, going home, doing some reading, taking a massive break from everything and everyone," Caroline told them as they went to the car. "Another fucking work day tomorrow. Twelve goddamn hours. Nothing on Sunday, maybe we can do that thing again," she said seriously, and everyone just nodded in agreement. Caroline had been expecting some level of teasing - 'You want to be treated like a big helpless baby, this is getting to be a regular occurrence' or something along those lines - but it was like she'd said she wanted to watch a movie or something. "I told you in the chat, your dad better be paying you big for all that work," Zoe said instead. Didn't this violate some child labor law somewhere? "And I told you, I'm getting percentage commissions," Caroline replied. "My dad raised the price for new customers by fifty percent. Only one guy even blinked, I swear to God, and I already made at least three hundred dollars for eight hours of work today. I know that one of you, won't name names, isn't impressed by all this," (Susie could probably have gotten indignant but just giggled in reply) "but we're actually saving up doing this, because we're going to run out of these kinds of customers before this mess is over." Her father had told her to enjoy the work and the money while it was there, as things were going to get slow in the future. Feast and famine. "It'll only be over with a vaccine, whenever the hell that is and if anybody trusts it." Her friends didn't reply and Caroline stopped talking about it. Leslie got dropped off first as usual, with Zoe and Richard swapping seats as before. "Now that it's just the four of us, I'd like to plan a surprise for her," Susie said, princess mode fully activated. "I'm listening," Zoe said guardedly. "The first day we can see her in the physical therapy center, all four of us should be wearing Team Leslie apparel." "What, like T-shirts? Isn't that short notice?" Caroline asked. "I know the exact place to get them from. We can go in Monday morning and get them Monday afternoon." "This is all going to be bright pink, isn't it," Caroline said. It wasn't really a question. She just knew. "And with glittery script," Susie replied aristocratically and with a large smile. "Shorts and sneakers as well, don't worry, I'll cover all of it." Caroline suddenly had the idea that they'd prank her by having her be the only one wearing this, and she kicked the idea out of her mind. God, fuck, why did she keep thinking things like that? These people just did not do that kind of shit, and Zoe wouldn't let that happen, this was for Leslie. "All right, if we're all wearing the same thing, no variations," Caroline felt obligated to say anyway. "Only for size and shape. I actually want to measure you when we get home." Caroline assented on the premise that nobody at all would be allowed to know what her measurements were - even the shirt studio didn't have to know who would be wearing this - and so, shortly after they reached Susie's house, Zoe and Richard stepped out of the room when Susie went over Caroline's body with tailor's tape. She did Zoe next - same conditions, this was a private thing and Caroline was already on her way home - and Richard enjoyed measuring his girlfriend, wishing that he'd had a reason to do this two weeks ago so he could confirm his suspicions with numbers. Richard's own torso fit Youth XL so completely that he could have been a model for it. The bright pink shorts and sneakers would be less of a problem; the girls could find those at a regular store, and, as Susie jokingly pointed out, it wasn't like they knew of a very specific store that sold girls' clothes in boys' sizes or anything like that. They started work on the design, including Caroline in a no-Leslie chat that Zoe very firmly told everyone would only last until Wednesday, and meanwhile, Leslie was being chatty again. It was something to be talking with her in one chat room while planning in another one, but this was the good kind of surprise. As Susie promised, the proposed design contained plenty of glitter, and the four of them settled on cursive script with the 'i' in Leslie's name being dotted with a big heart. Once that was settled, Susie abruptly started kissing Richard out of nowhere, and led him up to the bedroom where one thing led to another very, very quickly, and they had been itching to do that ever since Richard put that tailor's tape around her breasts. Zoe was wholly unsurprised, as they'd been making lovebird eyes at each other all throughout. She was texting her mother in the meanwhile, telling her where they were and what they'd had to eat and when they'd planned on coming home: shortly before dark. Which, so close to the solstice, was rather late indeed. Heather was annoyed that they were missing yet another family dinner together, but what was she going to tell them? 'You shouldn't have ruined your appetites with that expensive sushi at that fancy restaurant, I was going to cook spam and pea soup for you'? Her own mother might have said something like that, which was why her children hadn't seen their grandmother for a very long time. She tried to put herself in her children's positions, a thing that she had occasionally tried (and very clearly failed) to do and that her own mother had never done, and at least this was all understandable from a simple viewpoint. They wanted to be where the fun was, and it was summer. How could she blame them for that? At least they told the truth, even if it wasn't the whole truth. Her children had come home shortly before dark as promised, her son in heeled sneakers and the Sunshine outfit she had once foolishly thought Zoe would wear. He even had his boy clothes with him but he'd intentionally chosen the girl outfit anyway, and he smelled of Susie's shampoo again. She almost asked them some serious questions, questions she would have asked if they weren't what they were, but there was no point in haranguing them about anything. She already knew the sorts of topics that they wouldn't talk to her about and that she really had no business prying into anyway. Susie was wealthy, and the boy couldn't possibly catch an STD from a monogamous relationship, and neither could Zoe. Having her (high level, she reminded herself) children so wholly out of her control grated on her a bit, it always did, but every time she rolled it around in her mind - which she did a few times a day - she simply could not see any upside to interfering in their business and a whole hell of a lot of potentially horrible downsides. So, she asked about the sushi instead, and got a lot of information she never thought she'd ever want about the texture and taste of octopodes. They were tired and headed to bed rather early for teenagers, but that was okay. She would get some time with them tomorrow.