The Diaper Bag

Chapter 8
Part 7

“What do you think?” Lynn asked.

Marie adjusted her glasses, stroked her chin, and nodded approvingly.  “Cute. Is it new?”

“Cute?” Lynn echoed.  “That’s it?”  Granted, the outfit WAS cute, but that hadn’t been the reaction Lynn had been expecting from Marie.  

“Yeah,” Marie confirmed. “It’s cute.  Is it new?”

“Very new.”  The denim shortalls hadn’t existed until about half an hour prior to Marie’s arrival.  Dyed pink, it popped against the plain white t-shirt that stopped just above Lynn’s belly button. The sneakers from last night and a new pair of pink frilly ankle socks and matching scrunchies keeping her hair up in pigtails should have it obvious what kind of look she’d been going for.  “Cute” was a word she’d expected (specified to bag, in fact), but it wasn’t the only reaction she’d expected from Marie.

Like a runway model (or a toddler in a pageant), Lynn walked around her kitchen, positive that her friend noticed the crisp crinkling from beneath her clothes and distinctive waddle with which she walked  (how could she not?).  Yet no comment came.  

Marie had several classes at the community college with her.  They’d become study partners and shared notes, the latter was more of a courtesy to Lynn.  Marie took excellent notes. She could almost be a stenographer, her ear and eye for detail was so great.  That meant that either Marie didn’t notice, was being oddly polite...or found nothing out of place worth remarking on.

“What do you think of the snaps?” Lynn asked.  She gestured to the metal snap buttons that ran from the inside of her leg all the way up to her crotch.

Marie pouted out her bottom lip and narrowed her eyes.  “Oh yeah.” She said. “They’re almost the same color as the rest of your outfit.  Very cool so they don’t stand out as much.  Practical too.  Makes it easier.”

“Easier…?”

“To change you.”  Marie might as well have just said that water was wet.  Regarding wetness.  “Why?  Are you hinting that you need to be changed?  You don’t look it, but I can check if you-”

“Marie!” Lynn all but screeched.  “I’m wearing a diaper!”

Her study buddy cocked an eyebrow.  “Yeah. I know.”

A new warmth flooded Lynn’s body, and this time it wasn’t inside the giant Pampers she’d chosen to conjure up. It was all in her cheeks as her face flushed bright red.  Just hearing it said out loud like that made it so much more real!  “You know...I’m wearing a diaper?”

Marie nodded.  Once again water was wet and ice was cold.  “Yeah. Don’t you always?”

Lynn’s mouth made for to go “no”, but her throat wouldn’t cooperate.  No sound.  Just puffed out lips, like a newborn puckering up for a warm bottle. “It’s not what you think,” she started to say. She reached under the kitchen table where she’d stashed her magic purchase.  “See? I went to this store yesterday, the new one downtown- the old bank- and I bought this.”

“That’s good,” Marie replied.  “Your old diaper bag was getting kind of worn out.”

“Yeah,” Lynn explained.  “And this bag is a magical bag from the lost city of Shangri-La or something.  Can take care of a baby, forever.”

“Cool.”  

“And it can make anything you ask it too, as long as it’s...y’know...for a baby.  But the clothes can be bigger and stuff,” Lynn explained just in case she wasn’t crystal clear about where her new outfit had come from.  “So...there’s that.”

Again, Marie said, “Cool.”

Cool?  Cool?!  Lynn was telling Marie that she had an honest to goodness mystical artifact!  And the best she could manage was “Cool”?  This was magic!  Breaking the laws of physics and reality!  That settled it, in Lynn’s mind. The magic of the bag and the items it created really did affect people’s minds.  

It was the only reason she could fathom. “Okay.  Cool.  Thanks.  I needed to check something.” With that she turned around to go back to her bedroom.  Phase one of her experiment had concluded.  Time for phase two:  Would Marie act any differently after Lynn got dressed in big girl clothes.  Would she remember things differently?  Important to know.  

“Wanna go to the duck pond?”

Lynn stopped so suddenly she swore she heard her sneakers skidding like tires on the pavement.  “Duck pond?”

“Yeah.” Marie said.  “Feed the ducks...?  They’ve got a playground too.  I could watch you play if you wanted.”

The diapered girl felt her heart thud through the bib of her shortalls. Was she being offered to be taken out in public?  Where everyone could see her?  Could the magic of the baby bag affect that many people at once?  She dry swallowed.  “Okay,” she rasped.  “Just let me get something to drink.”

“Don’t you normally keep a big bottle of juice in your diaper bag?”  Marie suggested. As soon as the words had come out of Marie’s mouth, Lynn felt a side pocket in the bag inflate; right where a baby bottle might go.   Marie stepped up and opened the side pocket, handing it to Lynn.  “Here you go.”  

Lynn took it in both hands and held it to her mouth.  Again, her lips made the “no” motion, all so she could taste the bottle a fraction of a second sooner.  Still cold and the sweetest orange juice she could remember tasting, it took everything the girl had not to smile and risk some of it dribbling out the corners of her mouth.  Mustn’t do that when she didn’t have her bib on.

So much better than coffee. “Wow…”

“You drink it in my car on the way,” Marie told her.

“Alright.”

Time for more experiments.