Story #17: The Missing Step

Life wasn't the easiest for a preteen sheet-soaker. It meant being at the high end of the 'natural lifecycle' of bedwetting, where most of your peers have already stopped and even plenty of kids younger than you have become dry morning superstars. It meant keeping a chart hung on your wall and a package of Goodnites always making it into your mother's cart at the grocery store. Every morning and night would carry the same humiliating rituals. Putting on a glorified Pull-Up before bed and then having to tear the heavy, saturated result off in the sunny spotlight of morning. It meant that your room always maintained a subtle odor of ammonia, even with what was unequivocally a diaper pail to seal it. It made it hard to invite other kids over to play, and sleepovers weren't even a real option at all. It might not be so bad if you were an only child, but what horrible happenstance if you had a younger sibling who had no such issue to speak of. With a poor roll of the dice, that was such the case for Landon. All of it. He soaked himself every night and had been going up in Goodnite sizes throughout the years, all while his little brother had remained less than impressed with his performance as a 'big kid'. It didn't help that they shared a room. Every night would have Dylan making a snide remark about remembering to put on his 'pee-pee pants' and insisting on checking to make sure he'd done so. Every morning after would have Dylan pointing out how much the Goodnite was sagging, followed by a complaint about the 'pee' smell and a stern stare as he waited for Landon to put another rainy sticker on his chart. Landon was three years older than Dylan, and bigger than him, but he really didn't have any standing to argue. His social life was a delicate porcelain doll in the spiteful hands of an emotionally immature little thug. If Landon stood up for himself, then the whole neighborhood would know about his pissy problems by lunch, and Dylan wouldn't skimp on bringing the receipts. So, he just had to take the childish abuse. The only time he had stood up for himself had been when Dylan had kept complaining about the lingering smell, stating that Landon should just wear giant diapers instead, so that the odor wouldn't as freely emanate. It'd been a breakfast table conversation that he'd managed to steer toward his own advantage, but the bitter little brat hadn't fully given up. Dylan would still quip, snark, and fuss when given the opportunity. One night would change everything though. It was a chain of inconvenient circumstances that would coalesce into a crisis: a perfect storm. The most major of these elements were regarding the way that he'd gorged himself on a dinner at a pizza parlor, and the mental exhaustion he'd inflicted on himself by staying up too late playing games. Another important distinction was that Landon had put a pair of underwear on over his Goodnite, since he'd been forced to put it on a little earlier in the night, and he'd been around friends of his parents. The last thing he'd wanted was his crinkly waistband to leer over the precipice of his pajama pants. The overly ambitious meal would resurface strongly enough, now in the form of an unpleasant cramping of the gut. It was enough to wake him out of his bed, but not enough to stop him from being groggy and pretty much still half-asleep. He shakily made his way down the hall, bumping into the wall a few times as he basically sleep walked to the bathroom. The pressure was getting much worse, and he passed gas idly as he began to fiddle with getting his pajamas down to his ankles. Next came his briefs and they too crumpled to the floor below, followed by an unrestrained and unfocused plopping onto the toilet. His fatigued mind was running at less than optimal conditions, and the only thing he concerned himself with was the burning in his belly. He didn't have to push much. As soon as he had gotten onto the toilet, his bowels had been more than compliant in taking care of business. His eyes weren't even open, and he hadn't even had the wherewithal to close the door. So as he began to make a hot, squishy pile in his Goodnite, all while the act was narrated by his noisy, reverberating flatulence, he'd unknowingly had an audience. His clumsy withdrawal from the room had been just enough to stir Dylan, who had woken with a feeling in his own bladder. So shortly after Landon had pulled down his pajamas, Dylan had arrived to see that his big brother had seemed to miss a pretty big step. This was huge, and not just the load being squeezed into the Goodnites, but the implications that Dylan could take advantage of. Their parents had been pretty patient with the bedwetting, but Dylan figured that pajama-pooping would be a beast that was completely different. Landon would finally be thickly diapered, just as he should be! Landon finally finished filling his seat, totally oblivious to the hot mush that was pressing tautly against his buttcheeks. His sleepy autopilot instead tore off some toilet paper and lazily rubbed it against the smelly seat of his Goodnite. He dropped the clean paper into the bowl and stood up, flushing and starting to pull his briefs and pants back up in an uncoordinated manner. The only cognitive side of him was in an irritated, confused state as he had trouble getting the back of the pajamas to fit neatly back into place. Then, he unceremoniously waddled back into the hall and passed Dylan, leaving a trail of poo-fumes in his wake. The older boy probably wouldn't even remember that he'd gotten up to use the toilet. Dylan smirked, even with the smell of droppings stinging his nose. Tomorrow morning would be very, very interesting; he couldn't wait to see how Landon tried to explain himself. Dylan would of course make another argument for diapers, and this time, Landon would have no high ground to take on the issue. Feeling particularly mean-spirited, he also wondered how he might make the bedmessing become as common as the boy's bedwetting. Dylan gleefully let his mind wander in the valley of these thoughts while he took care of his business and then followed his stinky brother back to their room. He couldn't wait until morning!