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WingZ · Site Admin Joined: 15 Aug 2008 Posts: 127

Chapter 96

“I’m hooooot!” Keri complained. She lay on Donna’s bed, fanning herself with an issue of Seventeen and gazing longingly upward. Her long golden locks were fanned out and her tanned legs lay crossed at her bare ankles. She reached lazily under her navy blue tube top to scratch an itch. Her tight fitting bright red shorts did a poor job of concealing her diaper, and nearly an inch of white peaked out above them. Her whining about the heat and her soft, pouty eyes made her look every bit the helpless child. It was the Fourth of July, two years to the day after her life changed forever.

“Poor baby,” Donna taunted. She too found the weather to be intolerable, but loved to give her friend a hard time. The lingering knowledge that Keri would be leaving her soon struck her with fear and sadness. Though she did not admit as much, she wanted to make sure their remaining time together was worthwhile.

“I am a baby,” Keri answered, grinning devilishly. “I just made pee-pee in my diaper. Wanna see?”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

“How’s the no smoking going?”

“Sucks,” Donna answered. “I gained even more weight, which I have to work twice as hard to keep off, I’m in a bitchy mood a lot of the time, and I’ve been spending a lot of fucking money on gum.”

“Poor baby,” Keri reiterated and giggled. Donna retaliated by snapping the waistband of her shorts against her bulky diaper.

“You really ought to think about getting out of those before you go to college,” Donna suggested.

“I know, I know. Well…I was out of them for a little bit. Jeremy said he’d never seen me out of diapers, so our last day together I wore a pair of panties. Then I had an accident and wound up back in diapers anyway. Heehee!”

“I hope you gave him a good going away present,” Donna said smarmily.

Keri blushed and nodded. “I’m not gonna wait for him, but I will call him when he gets back from South America. He’s just so…I miss him!”

“Relax, Ker. It’s not like he’s gonna get swallowed by a freakin Anaconda.”

“Can’t I still worry?”

“Nope. Because then it gets me down. But don’t you worry…. we’re gonna have fun tonight.”

“I can’t wait,” Keri replied, fanning herself again. “Because I’m so freakin hooootttt!”

“Quit bitching and turn on MTV. That video with the totally bangin’ shirtless guy is gonna be on.”

“Oooh…can’t miss that.”

Keri yawned, stretched and sprang to her feet, her diaper continuing to rise above her shorts as she rose from the bed. She turned on Donna’s small TV and plopped back down beside her to watch. Instead of being greeted by a trendy video, they found themselves staring at a breaking news bulletin: Kip Calloway had died in a car accident.

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The skies were gray and cloudy on the day of Kip’s funeral, but no rain fell. Like Keri, they were sad but could not cry. She was devastated when she heard the news and was able to shed tears then, but as Kip’s body was committed to the Earth, she found herself unable to cry. All she felt was a horrible, sinking emptiness.

“There’s a racetrack not too far from here,” a pained, tear-stricken Kerry explained. “For the past five years, he’s taken his Camaro out and entered it in an amateur race. He was always really good. He’s been doing race and stunt driving for years and he’s had training and shit. He let me ride with him sometimes. This year, when he went to qualify…he….he spun out on a turn, hit the wall and flipped. There was an explosion. By the time I got over there…he was gone! On the news, they said it might be drugs. Fuck them! I know my brother. And I miss him!”

Keri suspected she would miss him too. He might have been a rock star, but he was a person too…. and a friend. Most alarming was that he was only 25…8 years older than her. Eight years was not a long time. Would Keri have lived out all her dreams in 8 years? Probably not. Life was too short, and never did Keri feel that more than then.

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“Things are bad,” Keri muttered. “Really bad.”

Casey nodded solemnly. He wanted to disagree, to lift her spirits and show her otherwise, but he knew better. Jeremy was gone, Kip was dead, Barry returned to Oregon (and Maya followed). Soon, he would be leaving as well. It was as if the walls were coming down around her…. and him as well.

“Well…” he began, and then stopped. There was nothing he could do to assuage her grief. Could he say that the future would be brighter? Did he really have the power to make such a guarantee? Instead, he let her press herself against him and hold him tightly. Inside, he was a quavering mass of jumbled nerves and uncertainty, but outside he must remain strong. They held each other and tried to force the pain away.

“I figured out what I wanna do,” Keri said, smiling for the first time all afternoon.

“What might that be?”

“Teach kindergarten.”

“Little kids can be quite a handful.”

Keri chuckled. “Believe me, I know. But they are cute…. and…well…. let’s face it, I can relate to them. It seems like it would be fun.”
“Good job security, too.”

“Yes, that too. Howabout you?”

“Possibly computer systems engineering, possibly graphic design. I’ll probably do English or philosophy as a minor and wind up interning at a Silicon Valley firm while I go for a graduate degree.”

“Wow…. it seems like you have it all figured out.”

“I certainly hope so.”

“Guess what!” Keri abruptly exclaimed. “This is big…you’ve gotta hear this.”

“Yes?”

“I’m going to Florida again in a couple of weeks. Rex’s new casino is open and it seems totally cool. My parents are OK with me going…but they say I gotta be trained first. Me no mind. A diaper and a bikini don’t mix anyway.”

“That they don’t.”

“There was something else I wanted to tell you, but I forgot what it was. Damn!”

“I’m sure it was nothing important,” Casey said sardonically.

“It was too important!” Keri pouted, smacking him on the knee. “It was…oh yeah. Me and Donna went to see John.”

“Why on Earth did you do that?”

“Because I wanted to know why he hated us so much.”

“And?”

“He said he didn’t know.”

“Might the cocaine and idiocy have anything to do with it?” Casey grumbled bitterly.

“Casey, come on. He hurt me too. But when I saw him….I wasn’t really mad or anything. Just…sad. Like why did he end up like he did and how come we didn’t?”

“Because of the….”

“…choices we make, yeah, yeah….I’ve heard that. But there’s still probably something else.”

“There are any number of other factors,” Casey explained. “None of which can be called the cause. What’s your point?”

“I guess I just don’t want to wind up in jail like John or dead like Kip.”

“Don’t make any stupid choices and you likely won’t.”

“Easy for you to say,” Keri retorted. “If you think there’s even a possibility of something bad happening, you don’t do it. Me…I just wanna have fun. And I know, shit happens, but I wanna keep having fun without my life falling apart. And if you’re so goddamn smart, how come you haven’t figured out a way to do both?”

Casey drew his breath in sharply. All these years he thought he had the upper hand. Don’t do anything wrong and you’ll stay out of trouble seemed to be his mantra. Two years ago, he had laughed when he heard that Keri got busted. He laughed because he knew it would never happen to him. That it might have been actually worthwhile to her never crossed his mind. Only in the past year and a half or so did he begin to see what he was missing. And, he forced himself to admit, some of it WAS worthwhile.

“I don’t know,” he answered at last.

“Me neither,” said Keri. “But don’t worry….you keep us out of trouble and I’ll make sure we have fun.”

“That’s the way it’s been, hasn’t it.”

“Yup.”

Casey smiled. In the midst of all this turbulence and tragedy, there was a forgotten balance. He and Keri balanced each other. Their loss was balanced by the new opportunities that awaited them. Even their very lives were a balancing act, walking the line between past and future. There was balance, and even if it seemed horribly unfair in some instances, it made the world go ‘round.

“Whatcha thinking about?” Keri asked.

“Nothing,” Casey answered.

“Wanna know what I’m thinking? I’m thinking I need my diaper changed.”

“Oh, is that what you’re thinking?” Casey asked, flipping up her skirt and checking her diaper. “Well, young lady, you just might be psychic.”

“Or psycho,” Keri said, playfully jabbing him.

Casey responded by tickling her into submission.

“Damnit, now I REALLY need to be changed,” she declared. “What did I ever do to deserve you?”

“I don’t know,” Casey answered. But he did.

Chapter 97

The early to mid 1980’s was a time of economic prosperity for many Americans (and social neglect for many others) and families were given a chance to grow. Unlike the tumultuous 1970’s, a decade filled with tumultuous violence and strife, the 80’s seemed to offer an opportunity to settle down and breathe easy (this, of course, was only an illusion…. but it was a convincing one) without need of fear or fervor. America, suburban middle class America at any rate, was in its zone.

Among those seeking new beginnings during this time of opportunity were two young couples: Jack and Debbie Roberts and Roger and Edie Bombach. Both Jack and Roger were taking on new jobs and both their respective spouses were expecting children. A move into the suburbs seemed logical, and it was there that they met. Their initial interactions were pleasant enough, but more mandated by convenience than by any common bond. The Roberts were liberals in the John F. Kennedy vein, the Bombachs middle of the order conservatives. The former were avid partiers in their younger days, the latter preferred quiet, intimate get-togethers. It was their kids that brought them together.

Keri and Casey were, for a while, the only two babies on the block (Timmy was being cared for by an aunt while his mother recovered from a long illness), and, as such, saw a lot of each other. Though they were obviously too young to remember their first interaction, many of their encounters that followed would form a lasting impression on them.

For instance, one summer day when Casey was 2 and Keri was 3, Roger decided to have a barbeque. Jack Roberts was widely hailed as the neighborhood grillmaster, and he wanted to prove that he too could cook. Edie thought it was foolish male competitiveness at its worst, but agreed to help out. While the two couples ate burgers and dogs and debated Regan’s economic policy, their children were (within their sight) left to play.

Keri was excited to see Casey that day. She had recently been fully potty trained and was wearing a brand new pair of Minnie Mouse big girl panties. As Casey was several months younger and a boy (arguably the more difficult of the two genders to train, though there were exceptions), in diapers he remained. That he was in diapers and wasn’t very vocal while Keri used the potty and talked a mile a minute made him feel low and ashamed.

“Looka wha I got, looka wha I got!” she exclaimed, showing Casey her panties under her romper. He tried to remain disinterested, but he couldn’t help but become fascinated. All he had known in his brief life was diapers. On occasion, his parents put him into training pants…. but with no success. Part of him wanted to join this new and strange phenomenon known as “the potty”, but another part of him remained stubbornly defiant. Just what was wrong with his diapers? He had worn them up until now without a problem so why should he suddenly have to change? It wasn’t fair. He wanted to please his mommy and daddy, but it sometimes seemed so hard.

They played for a while and Keri seemed vaguely aware that Casey was sad. She couldn’t quite understand why nor did she know what to do about it, but only wished that she could help.

Meanwhile, Casey sought to conquer his inadequacy. In recent weeks, he had been able to tell when his diaper was about to be wet or messy, but he declined to tell mommy or daddy because they would only try to make him use the potty. Normally, he was fine with having an “accident” in his diaper, but Keri and her big-girl panties made him feel differently. She was growing up, but he was still a baby. He didn’t want to feel left behind. Thus, when he knew he was about to wet, he would tell mommy and prove to himself and Keri what a big boy he was, even if it meant going potty.

The opportunity finally came, but Casey choked. He saw the grownups talking and he didn’t want to interrupt him. He was shy and he was scared. Nonetheless, he knew what was coming and he didn’t want to embarrass himself again. Mustering all his courage, he began to waddle towards them…. only to stop midway. It was too late.

Frustrated, Casey began to sob. He did not bawl loudly, but tears did stream down his face and he felt like running away.

“Wha’s wrong?” a concerned Keri asked.

Casey couldn’t bring himself to answer, so she asked again. “Wha’s wrong?”

Still, fear held him silent. He finally pointed to his diaper and nodded.

“S’OK,” Keri assured him, but he didn’t think so. He had curled himself into a ball in an effort to make the world go away. When his parents glanced over, they assumed he was playing a game and thought nothing of it.

Keri was worried that having an accident bothered him so much. She had plenty of accidents when she was learning to go potty, and while she was embarrassed on ocassion, her mommy told her that she’d get it in time. And she did. She wished she could make Casey see that, that she could show him that he was no worse and she no better because of it, but she didn’t know how or what to say. So she did the next best thing.

“Casey, look,” she said, tapping him on the shoulder. He forced himself to look and was surprised to see that Keri was wetting her brand new panties. “I had a accident,” she said, blushing. “I’m just a baby too.”

Casey stopped crying and hugged her. If even big girls had accidents, then he was certainly no worse off. There was hope for him yet to get it someday. And he did. He managed to pick up a few other things as well, all on his own, though he still turned to Keri for what he could not grasp….as she did to him, and so it went.

Chapter 98

The summer months were sticky slow sojourns of success, strife, sorrow and sleepy-eyed simplicity. With the help of her parents, Keri got herself trained in time to go to Florida, where she had a great time. Casey found other future Stanford attendees in the area and began to network. Joe banged up his hand trying to tune his car and nearly put his football scholarship in jeopardy. Brice received a stern warning not to try to hack into NORAD again in the future. Dawn asked to be babied fulltime by her parents, and her wish was granted on a temporary basis: they loved how much better behaved she was in diapers. The surviving members of Aerosol released a tribute CD to Kip before calling it quits and once again enlisted Keri to pose for the cover art. People came and went, old things were replaced with new and all were powerless to resist the flow of life. They could only hope to guide its direction. It was fate, karma, God, the unknown and the unpondered movers and shakers of the universe at work and they slowed for no one and nothing, not even 90-degree days of blistering sun and sweat and heat.

Eventually, it came time for Casey to leave. He had to show up at college early for orientation along with all the other freshmen and thus had to say his goodbyes long before anyone else started classes. Though they were good friends, Brice and Paul proved easy to part with: nothing was lost by them communicating over a computer screen as opposed to in person. Next to his parents, who had their feet in the door of his life ever since he was born and were only gradually beginning to step away, he would miss Keri the most. He rationalized that he would meet other people, that she wouldn’t be lost forever, that he should be more concerned about being out on his own than merely just apart from her, but beneath all his explanations and excuses, she still mattered.

Keri was taking his imminent departure surprisingly well. And why not: she had a whole summer’s worth of loss to prepare her. Even Donna and her other girl friends had begun to pull away a bit. It was as if, despite their hollow words, they knew their friendship would not weather the storm of time and were preparing to jump ship before the lightning struck. She too was sad, but it was a more subtle sadness and not the scream-and-tear-at-the-walls agony that her melodramatic mind had worked it up to be. Besides, she reasoned, it wasn’t like he was going away forever.

In many ways, it was an open buffet. Casey loaded up his plate with “goodbyes” and “good lucks” and “hope you do wells” from people he barely knew (after becoming valedictorian and being accepted into a first-rate school, they made it a point to know him). He made sure, however, to save plenty of room for Keri, his parting dessert.

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Keri lay on her bed, humming. Freedom had been strange to her, in part because she felt as if she had so much of it already. She had been out to the beach, out to the gym and out of diapers. She hooked up with a few guys (including one in Florida and a disastrous tryst with Kerry Calloway, who was still really fucked up over his brother’s death), visited interesting places and generally kept herself occupied. She would say that she was content. Not unhappy, but there was something missing. There hardly seemed to be any structure to her life anymore. There had been a time when she had been able to measure a day by feedings and diaper changes. Even school, for as much bullshit as it was, gave her something to do. Now she was up and around and everywhere trying to do everything but really doing nothing. Was that what college would be like? Doing things and feeling like nothing was really done? She hoped not.

The song that Keri was humming was “Leaving on a Jet Plane”, which was exactly what Casey would be doing soon. The only difference was that instead of a jet plane, Casey would be taking a car the day after next. His parents were taking him out to celebrate the night before and he would be leaving early the morning of, but until then, he was hers. There was so much they could do together, so many places she could take him, but then it occurred to him: what does he want? Casey wasn’t very vocal about his desires and she either had to guess (and she guess wrong a lot of the time) or they ended up doing what she wanted. Would this time be any different just because it was their last occasion to be together for months to follow?

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Casey looked around his room and found it to be nearly barren. A few things that he could not/would not/should not be taking remained, but the room had no soul to it anymore (if it ever did). The only real things that deliberately left unpacked were his beloved camera and his diapers. While there would always be use for the former, the latter stood in jeopardy. Ever since he stopped wetting the bed, his legitimate reason for wearing them disintegrated. He could still argue that he could wear them as much as he wanted because he LIKED them, but such an admission shamed him. College students don’t wear diapers, he told himself, even though he knew of examples to the contrary. Besides, if his parents could let go of him (an excruciating move for such controlling people), then he should be able to let go of wanting to be a baby. Well, he argued, I could always bring them along…in case I’m ever in a situation where I know I’ll be nervous and…. no, it was excuse. All excuses. Casey reluctantly stashed the box containing his diapers away and sighed. He was waiting for Keri to either show up or call and she had done neither.

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“You actually think I’d forget?” Keri asked 15 minutes later as they lay basking in the sun in her backyard.

“Well…” Casey began, and dropped his objection.

“So….you all ready? You excited? You…”

“One at a time, please.”

“Me sawwy.”

“Yes, I am ready…. as ready as I am going to be at any rate. Excited? I don’t know. Yes and know, I suppose.”

“Duh….you gotta pick one.”

Casey smiled lazily.

“How about you?”

“I’ve still got a couple of days before I have to worry about leaving….and even still, it’s not like I’m going really far.”

“True, true.”

“You’re gonna call me once you get settled in over there, right?”

“Of course. I trust you’ll do the same?”

“Yuppers!”

“Why do they call it Labor Day if no one works?”

“Casey, we’ve been over that already.”

“Oh.”

“So…”

“So?”

“What do you want to do?”

Casey shrugged.

“You’re not getting off that easily,” Keri prodded. “You’re gonna pick something and we’re gonna do it.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want you to forget, OK!” she exclaimed. “I don’t want you to go over there and meet all these people and then be like, “yeah….Keri was my friend for awhile, but when it came time to say goodbye, we didn’t even do anything.” That is totally uncool!”

Instead of being chastised, Casey felt a justifiable anger. What she said sounded shallow, selfish and callous, but it also rang true. Had they not been this close once before? And had they not drifted then?

“How dare you,” Casey retorted. “How dare you think that of me! And what makes you so damn sure that won’t happen anyway no matter WHAT we do?”

Keri saw the anger burning in his normally passive eyes and flinched. She wasn’t expecting this. She just wanted things to be nice, to be perfect for one final day. Then everything could change and she would be ready for it. But not now, not…

“Sorry,” she said shortly. “Forget it.”

Casey sighed.

“You’re right,” he said at last. “We should do something. It seems to be happening already.”

“Yeah.” She repeated her question. “What do you want to do?”

“Still have your baby stuff?”

A sly grin betrayed Keri’s answer…and her intentions.

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“You’re not gonna catch me, you’re not gonna catch me!” Keri taunted. She was 18 going on 2. Dressed in just a diaper, her favorite pair of pink plastic pants and a halter top, she zigged and zagged emphatically around her backyard. Casey followed; slowed considerably by the bulk of the three cloth diapers he wore around his waist. When at last he caught up to Keri, he tagged her on the butt. She tagged him back and they became entangled and they fell to the ground laughing.

Jack Roberts watched the display curiously from the window.

“They don’t make college students like they used to,” he remarked jokingly to his wife.

“No dear,” she replied. “They certainly don’t.”

“Heeehehee,” Keri giggled. “You have grass in your hair.”

“There’s going to be grass in your diaper,” Casey threatened mildly.

“Nope, just pee,” Keri answered. “Wanna see?”

Casey lay on his back with grass in his hair and sweat on his brow and sun in his eye as Keri straddled him and guided his hand inside her plastic pants. He could feel her wetting, wetting as helplessly as if she hadn’t been retrained and as helplessly as they day she had been born. It was a release of responsibility, a warped declaration of defiance and freedom.

“You’re going to need changing soon,” Casey remarked.

“Will you change me?” Keri asked pleadingly.

“I don’t change big babies,” Casey joked.

“Fine…I hate you,” Keri whined, playing up the part of a spoiled brat to good effect.

“You had better retract that statement,” Casey cautioned. Even in baby mode, his vocabulary remained.

“Or what?” she challenged.

“Or you might get a spanking.”

“Me don’t care!”

Casey seized her and brought her over his knee and gave her a few playful swats on her diapered butt, causing her to squeal with giddy laughter that only a young (or in this case, not so young) girl can possess.

“NOW will you change me?” she asked. He nodded and helped her to her feet. He wanted to carry her up to her room, but he wasn’t quite strong enough. Instead, they wrapped their arms around each other, each cupping the other’s diapered butt.
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“Ath wath uhn.”

“Care to repeat that?”

Keri took the pacifier out of her mouth. “That was fun,” she said. Casey had just finished changing her, and for the first time in weeks, she became aware of exactly how much she missed that kind of attention.

“Yeah,” he answered, sounding vague and distant.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

He tried to fob her off with ‘nothing’, but she wasn’t buying it.

“Do you have any idea how difficult it is going to be for me to find anyone who understands this…and me as well as you do? Well I do: it’s going to be nearly impossible! Every time I get close to a girl, I’m going to be afraid to tell her and it will get in the way.”

“I’m sorry, Casey, really. But that is something you are going to have to conquer on your own.”

“I know,” he answered woefully.

“I have an idea,” she said, smirking. “Wanna have sex?”

“Very funny.”

“No, I’m serious.”

Casey looked at her, dumbfounded. She lay splayed comfortably on her bed, her legs apart, her skimpy shirt raised over her breasts and her eyes warm and hopeful.

“Correct me if wrong,” he began. “But didn’t we try this once and didn’t it not work.”

Keri shook her head. “Duh…we tried dating and that didn’t work. This is just sex.”

“Don’t you find this the least bit…incestuous.”

“Because we’re so close?”

“Exactly.”

Keri exhaled. “Alright, look. If you’re not comfortable with it, I won’t ask again, no harm done. But its just that I care about you…. really. And I know you’re, no offense, scared around girls. So I thought if you did it with me, you’d be…. like more comfortable. And then when the time came and you decided you want to do it again with someone else…. it wouldn’t be such a weird experience. OK?”

Casey was awestruck. “Are you sure you want this….from me? I mean, let’s face it….this is one need you don’t have any problem filling.”

Keri chuckled at his coy use of metaphor. “I know, I hook up with a lot of guys….but I only go all the way with the ones I really care about. And there haven’t been any since Jeremy. So yes, I want it from you. Why? Do you not want it from me?”

Casey blushed. “Ever since I…um…. began thinking of girls in a…. ahem…..sexual context, you were the first one that came to mind.”

“Aww…. that’s sweet.”

“I have my moments” he answered.

“So,” she asked, pressing his hand against her breast. “Do you want to?”

Casey nodded. He pulled down the diaper he just put on her and she took off his and they drew close. As he entered her, he felt as if two links on an eternal chain had been at long last connected.
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Afterwards, they lay in bed together safe and snug and diapered once again. Keri ruffled Casey’s curly hair and he delicately placed his lips upon her breast. She had been right: there was nothing for him to fear.

“Do you really think we’re gonna drift?” she asked. It was an earnest question and she sought truth, not sympathy.

“I don’t know,” he answered. “Probably.”

“Well…it’s been good.”

“Yes,” he admitted. “It has.”

“Do me a favor though, OK?” Keri asked.

“Yes?”

“Don’t be afraid to talk to me,” she said. “I mean, even if we haven’t seen each other in a zillion years, don’t be afraid.”

“The same goes to you,” he told her. “Even if I’m a multimillionaire, I’m still the kid who lived down the street from you. In some ways, I suppose I always will be.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

They faded into a peaceful, dreamless sleep, their diapers touching, their arms around each other, their doubts and fears at ease.

Chapter 99

“Ow!” Keri yelped, scratching her arm. She had been to the doctor for a physical and was given a bunch of shots. She hated shots. Then again, she would have hated meningitis even more, but it seemed too distant to even think about. Besides, the thought of it didn’t make her arm hurt.

Casey had been gone and soon she would leave as well. Her parents were trying to hide it, but they had come close to being teary-eyed on a few occasions. Then again, after she came home after month or two and asked for money and ate all the food in the house she could get her hands on, they would probably be crying for an entirely different reason.

It was sunny again, as it has been every day for the past few weeks. Keri sat outside in front of her house in hopes the sunshine would cheer her up. It didn’t. At times like this, she would usually strip down to just her diaper and cuddle with a blanket or stuffed animal (if no one was around). Now, she didn’t even have that to fall back on. Then again, it was hard for her to feel sorry for herself when she had so much.

She was in such a lackluster daze that she didn’t even notice someone walking up the street towards her.

“Keri,” a voice called. She was daydreaming and assumed the voice was a part of her dream. “Keerrriiii!”

When she snapped to attention, Timmy Marshaw was standing in front of her. This time, the shock was not as great. He looked relatively the same as when she saw him last, and though he showed up unexpected and unannounced, she no longer felt as if his presence were somehow enchanted. It was still plenty of reason for excitement, however, and eagerness as well.

“Timmy!” she exclaimed. “Oh my God….this is like…wow!”

“It’s wow all right,” he said. “Hey, where’s Casey?”

“At Stanford.”

“He couldn’t wait? I told you all I would be back to visit.”

“Not his fault.”

“You’re right,” he said, sitting down beside her. “So…. what’s new? Still in diapers?”

“Nope,” Keri said, shaking her head. “I use the potty now.”

“I don’t believe you,” Timmy joked. He reached behind her to give her a wedgie, but instead of a diaper, he grabbed a handful of her peach colored panties.

“You dork,” Keri remarked, gently punching him in the arm.

“Oh….getting feisty now. Just remember….I can still out run you.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“So...when are you leaving?”

“Few days.”

“Me two. Better make it worthwhile then.”

“Yes,” Keri said. “We’d better.”

He took her hand and helped her to her feet and together they walked out of the midday glow and into the house. They had much to talk about, much to share and learn. The wheels never stopped, they just changed directions. The road didn’t end, it merely forked and turned.

Chapter 100

The author (he was the Stranger no longer, now just Z__ once again) finished typing and looked at the screen, the results of several months’ worth of ‘work’ (if one could call it that) before him. As usual, he was his own toughest critic.

“Self indulgent, monotonous crap,” he denounced. “No explosions, no aliens…barely any diapers. And you managed to kill off a rock star! Man, what the hell happened to you? You sold out!”

Even worse than selling out, he grew up. Much had changed since he visited Keri and Casey last, both in his life and theirs. He was older and wiser, had more experiences (and subsequently more experiences). Dreams were finally fulfilled, and while a great many fell below expectations, others were well worth hoping for. Some things changed, and some remained the same.

Z__ tapped his fingers against the desk and then wrote about tapping his fingers against the desk. He had seen the film Adaptation not too long ago and realized full well what a precious gift irony could be. Irony allowed him to laugh at the sad things in life and hate that which was beautiful and pierce a hollow heart with a flat and dull blade. Irony was his connection to the world.

“So,” he said to no one but himself. “What next?”

There were other stories, of course. Literally hundreds of them. Z__ had a million ideas, but was always lacking in either time or disposition or both.
What next was not a question inasmuch as it was a command: tell me, oh higher being that may or may not be, what further do you require of me? Of course, he received no answer, which was just as well, for he had not expected one.

“I spend way too much time fucking with human nature,” he asserted, grinning at this revelation.

It was true, too. He took all the cardboard cutouts of humanity, the stereotypes and examples and easily dismissed soulless masses bound by what should be rather than what is and gave them their freedom. Of course, he did this because he lacked the power to do so in the ever-persistent world of the real (as if there were any other). It was an assurance-booster, plain and simple: I can’t change me beyond a certain point, but I can always change them.

Z__’s fingers lay on the keys once again, the final words dangling in his mind. “Don’t do it,” a part of him screamed. “There’s so much more that can be told.” Was there? Was there really? Maybe, maybe not. He’d leave that for the reader to decide. With the lethal cunning of a butcher, he yawned and thusly proclaimed
THE END