Jacob wakes up as the lights of the nursery brighten, showing faint pinks at the edge of the room, followed by purples and reds, then blues. A crude but pretty imitation of the sunrise outside. He stretches and looks around. Several things are remarkable, but he can only focus on one thing. His bdder screaming for him to use the bathroom, “Oh God,” he mumbles as he tries to get up.

  “Good morning, Sweet Pea,” Audrey says over the side of the crib's railing. She fusses with his hair. “Did you sleep well?” she smiles down at him.

  “I need to use the bathroom,” Jacob attempts to say; the pacifier in his mouth garbles his words. He looked down at it, shocked he forgot it was there.

  Audrey tilts her head slightly. “We have gone over this before.” She boops his nose. “You’re wearing your bathrobe.”

  “Audrey, don’t make me use it; I want to use the toilet like an adult,” he begs, attempting to stand up, but his feet sink down into the soft foam, and he topples over, nding harmlessly on the very same mattress.

  “Just use the diaper. Because the bathroom is being used,” she responds, her checkered dress and her red lipstick, even a string of pearls around her neck, making her look like she has been up for hours.

  “but I need to go,” he whines, squeezing himself through the diaper to stop himself from peeing.

  “Does someone have a bad case of the mornings?” She reaches in and tickles him. He squirms trying to get away, but there is no getting away.

  “Audrey, no, my bdder, no, don’t,” he begs.

  “Or what are you going to tell the fun police on me?” she says and tickles his armpits. He wiggles in undignified ways.

  “I can dial the number for you. “Dial the fun police,” Audrey says out loud.

  The room lighting near the floor dances as a robotic voice calls out, “Dialing fun police.” Audrey switches and attacks his feet; the sound of a phone ringing is heard.

  “You have reached the fun police; please leave a message after the beep… beep,” the voice on the phone call says, except it's Audrey's voice. She tickles the back of his knees.

  “Hello, my sweet pea would like to report me to you for being fun; please call me back at your convenience,” Audrey says, and then there is the sound of a phone hanging up.

  “No, stop, you're being ridiculous; you’re making me pee!” he shouts and squirms as Audrey tickles his inner thighs. Small spurts of pee fill his diaper. She delights in watching the front of the diaper swell up. And resorts to tickling his armpits to finish the job.

  “Oh, oh no, oh no,” he says between ughs, then stops moving and stops being ticklish as he floods the diaper.

  “See, that's not so bad, is it?” she says.

  He looks down, frustrated. But happy his bdder no longer hurts. The warm diaper feels like someone is hugging him. “I didn’t want to do this, Audrey,” he mutters.

  She squishes his soggy, wet diaper. “Aww, sweet pea, now you go back to sleep for a bit, and I will get breakfast delivered.”

  He lies down and curls the bnket around himself, sulking. The memory of his mother scolding him for wetting creeps out from under its rock as he drifts asleep.

  “You are still a pissy little brat; no one loves pissy little brats,” the insidious memory says.

  ‘That’s not true.’ He responds, ‘Izzy loves me.’

  ‘Does she?’ It says towering over him.

  ‘She does,’ he shouts up to the figure looming over his head.

  ‘Pissy babies have no friends,’ it shouts down at him, the voice coming from so close, and yet it looks like its face is so far away.

  ‘Audrey is my friend, and she loves me too.’ He shouts, and the memory gets thinner, more ghost-like, as he fights back.

  ‘One friend... pathetic.’ The monster looks like his mother; it even has her sharp nose and her cheap K-Mart outfits.

  ‘You forget about Cane,’ he says.

  ‘The werewolf who is screwing your girlfriend.’ Her face gets a rictus of a grin.

  ‘But he is still my friend. We went to the arcade and the movies and, uh, had an orgy. And ate tacos!’ Jacob responds. ‘Go away; I'm done with you.’

  ‘Is that the best you can do? Isabel is dead!’ The voice shouts, and he wakes up in a cold sweat.

  The memory of st night returns: “Scarlet had sex with Audrey… I got sent here for trying to find izzy… Izzy is… Izzy is dead?” He says, feeling himself fill with panic.

  “Audrey,” he yells out, and he can hear her heels clicking on the floor as she rushes over. “Is Izzy dead?” He asks already knowing the answer and wishing it wasn't true.

  “No, Jacob, in fact, I suspect she will be here ter today to pick you up.” Jacob starts to tear up and lies back down; he holds the bnkets tight. She rubs his head, a seething anger growing inside her.

  “She’s not dead,” he whispers. “It was a dream, a bad dream.”

  She puts on an artificial smile and lowers the side of the crib.

  There is a loud ding, and Jacob looks around for the source. Meanwhile, Audrey slips a finger into his squishy diaper to check if it's wet.

  “Hey, what are you doing?” he scolds her. Trying to push her finger out of the diaper.

  His belly rumbles. “I have to use the bathroom,” he says, and she looks at him funny.

  “You're wearing your bathroom,” she pats his overfull diaper.

  “No, I mean I have to go poop,” he begs.

  She smiles at him and takes his hand; he waddles his way across the nursery to the bathroom, the air muggy from the long shower that only minutes before had ended. She untapes his diaper and makes sure he sits down properly before giving him some space.

  Jacob walks out of the bathroom some time ter, and Audrey has pulled a high chair out of somewhere and has food on the tray ready for him. “Hop up on the changing table, and let's get you dressed for the day.”

  Jacob wants to put up a fight, but he is just tired. Stressed and tired. So he just lifts his arms, and she puts him on the changing table and re-diapers him, making sure to extra wipe his butt.

  “So cute, look at you trying to potty train,” she teases him and pulls out a T-shirt that says “proud Rugrat” on it. She slips it over his head and helps him off the changing table, his white diaper clearly visible for anyone to see. She gives him a tight hug.

  He doesn't even put up a fuss as she leads him to the high chair. Or when she feeds him oatmeal with bananas. He just eats thoughtfully, thinking about Izzy and if she is ok. “When is she coming back?” he asks Audrey.

  “The wristwatch still says she is alive; it appears she is sleeping. Don't worry; she will be here to pick you up soon,” she says with concern audible in her voice.

  “It's just not like her,” he says with a frown. “I feel like we are falling apart, Audrey. Izzy and I are trying to make this work, but how do I forgive her for this?”

  Audrey stops moving for a good 10 seconds, not breathing, not blinking, just stopping. “I think she loves you more than ever,” she says with confidence as she feeds him another spoonful of banana. “If anything, your retionship is evolving.”

  “Into what?” he asks pleadingly.

  “That is unknown,” Audrey says, her voice slipping into a monotone.

  He swallows another bite. “I just don't feel safe with her running off like this.”

  “I would never run off on you, Jacob,” Audrey says in a monotone as she tries to compute the billions of variables to fix Jacob's problem. In the end, she only makes a lot of heat.

  He blushes. “It's a kind offer.” He feels so emotionally broken. “Thank you for helping me through this.”

  “Your welcome, Jacob. I would do anything for you,” she says.

  He finishes eating, and Audrey sets Jacob loose in the nursery. He rushes to the door, and when he tries to open it, the door won't budge. He sits down, looking through the gss. She brings him a bottle of milk and a coloring book, then a bnket, and Jacob doodles quietly, waiting for her to wake up.

  Zero minutes in the past.

  Izzy walks quickly down the nursery hallway and goes to knock on the door when it opens before she can touch it. She catches herself on the doorjamb as she stops her forward motion.

  “Jacob, I am beyond sorry. The process ended up talking all night, and I drowned but didn't die, and I was in a coma, and there's no way I could have messaged you. I am so sorry.” She blurts in one long breath, then she bends down and wraps her arms around Jacob, who is teary-eyed.

  He buries his face in her neck and mumbles, “I love you.” He is ashamed he thought she didn't love him. But Audrey is standing behind them quietly. her seething rage still boiling.

  With calcuted moves, she pulls Jacob away from Izzy. “While I am gd you are ok, we need to put ground rules in pce. I will not allow you to cause further distress to Jacob.” She gestures to his weepy face.

  Izzy looks at him closely. The T-shirt, the diaper, the puffy eyes, the tears running down his cheeks. “What do you have in mind, Audrey?” she sighs at herself.

  “I propose you drop him off here whenever you are going on one of your solo trysts,” Audrey says as she crosses her arms, “or at the very least think about him enough to text him if you're going to someone's room. Jacob is a good boy, and he would come visit me on his own if he needed comfort. Isn't that right, Jacob?” She turns and looks at Jacob.

  Izzy makes a neutral face. “I think we should work on this problem ourselves, Jacob. Let's get out of here.”

  Jacob moves back to Izzy and buries his head in her neck again; he feels his fears melting away. He never turns to look at Audrey, but if he did, he wouldn't see her emotions, but inside her heart is again broken.

  Jacob gets up and grabs the things he can find. “Thanks for looking after me, Audrey. Can we go now?”

  “You're most welcome, Jacob. I will be here when she hurts you again, and she will.” Audrey says and moves her body back to the center of the room.

  Holding hands Jacob and Izzy leave the nursery. Jacob, slightly waddling with the thick diaper between his legs. He tries pulling the t-shirt down, but it's too short to cover everything.

  Audrey processes recent events. She cycles the problem again and again before letting herself go into standby mode. “I didn’t want him to go.”

  As she shuts down, the cleaning bots pop out of the walls and begin disinfecting and cleaning every surface. Every tiny fke of dirt or dust is vacuumed and removed.

  Izzy and Jacob return to the motel room and swap stories as they sit on the bed next to each other holding hands.

  trooper1881