Long Story #2: Parlay and Pampers (P1)

Long Story #2: Parlay and Pampers (Content Tags: Messing, humiliation, diapers, physical and mental regression, brain-drain, supernatural elements) The sticky steamer surged forth into the diaper with power, with persistence, and with purpose. That purpose being to forever ruin whatever chances Chance might have with escaping the orbit he'd found himself shackled to. The broad end of the turd would have a meteoric crash, a phenomenal *thud*, as it collided with the plush, white walls of the disposable diaper. It was a perfect metaphor for the way that Chance's chances were crashing and burning; much like the near-future contents of his puffy babypants, his worth was being equated to warm logs coiled up underneath a pair of pale, chubby buttcheeks. It was inexcusable, it was irredeemable, and it was inexplicable. So tainted was the merit of his mindfulness, that this act of fervent defilement could be soon considered forgivable. The expectations set out for the dull of wit, were not so lofty that a stool-stained seat could turn one's head. And to consider, that the entirety of his precarious predicament could be traced directly back to his own penchant for gambling. Gambling on his fortune, gambling on his future, and now, gambling on a fart. All bets that'd been lost, and all losses that would prove insurmountable. His obstinate pride in his own understanding of probability had done more than just screw him, it'd bent him over the roulette table and gone at him with the sort of passion he thought was reserved purely for the lurking vixens of such an establishment. Time felt slow, like a clock submerged in a lake of molasses; it was a familiarity to him, or to any high-roller for that matter. The nature of the game involved nonstop risk and reward, and when a participant was reduced to little more than a spectator of their own judgment, all they could do is to resist the minute-hands of fate. He'd seen this sluggishness many times before, sometimes in greater degrees than others, and it was akin to waiting on dire test results from a doctor. A gambler would find themselves trapped in that moment, between execution and result, waiting for the die to finish casting across the table. Click-clacking from face to face, taunting every possible result, until finally a judgment was made. Chance was trapped in this moment. Each passing second felt as though it was a minute, and thus every tiny detail found itself transcribed deep into the recesses of his consciousness. The slow-down had started at the gamble, or at least at the moment he truly conceived that it was a gamble. What was a little gas, a little push? When faced with the cramping pressure of a tortured tummy, who wouldn't seek out such simple relief? Ah, but he'd known the risk, at least on some level. Perhaps it was the risk itself that had drawn him in. The boiling in his lower gut hadn't reached such a feverish level of percolation that it couldn't be ignored by a person of his resolve. He could have pushed down on the pain, but instead he'd pushed down on his aching bowels, and so the roulette had begun its wild spin. Did it land on red or black? Neither, it would land on brown. The first orchestral section of his backside-bet was all sevens; if his toilet competency was equated to slots, then the first two stops were tops! A seven, a seven, and finally... A steaming coil of poo. The powerful wind that he'd brazenly had the confidence to break, the so-called 'sure thing', had a mid-game upset of catastrophic proportions. As the flatulence fluttered and sputtered, muffled by the immense bulwark of plastic, polymers, and cotton, it had an explicit tonal shift toward the end. What had sounded dry, quickly became wet, and what had once been but gas, quickly underwent deposition into a solid; it was that deposition that would turn weightless miasma into a true deposit of reeking heft and simmering substance. A solid, sticky, steaming, squishy substance. The look on his face had gone through quite the transformation during this crisis; smug confidence, to impish impropriety, to dopey relief, and finally to cataclysmic panic. In the span of one lousy fart, one smelly stint of six seconds, he'd changed every future outcome his life would ever meet with. He hadn't rolled just one set of snake-eyes, but had ensured that would be the result of every possible roll he would ever make. To wit, there had seemingly been but one rule in this twisted game: the diapee must remain tidy. No pee, no poop, no exceptions. That had ultimately been the nature of the win-condition. Every other meta-game in the pernicious parlor had been an insidious farce; a distracting spectacle of dazzling lights and sublime sounds. Chance had been played in the same way that a kid was tricked into doing their chores; he'd been so entranced by promises of fun, that he'd never realized what the real game underneath the hood was. He'd been told that the path to victory was straightforward, that success ultimately would come at the end of a poker chip, but that'd been a misdirection. It hadn't mattered how many good hands that he'd had, or how high the pile of chips had stacked, because a less refined pile had entered the equation, and that stack had reached the top of the Tetris screen. Game over. No quarters. No continues. It would make more sense to him in time, whenever the pain of loss subsided; the scam would show itself to him for what it truly was, and he'd feel even stupider than he already did. But in the current moment? All he could consider was the growing bulge behind him, and the fact that the stiff roll of 'chips' he'd jettisoned, was now being made into terrible triad. What had seen its start as a sharp trumpet note gone awry, had callously escalated into what sounded like a red-cheeked blast from a tuba full of pudding. The description of the sound was apt for what became of the accident's second phase; his fate, not content to mock him with simply a trio of turds in his oversized Huggies, instead deigned to also curse him with a flood of magmatic mush. By the time this dirty deluge had started, his knees had already become bent down into the half-squat of a helpless toddler, and his once bold demeanor would match the impotent energy of his pitiful posture. The soft, squishy tide of semi-solid droppings came in waves, and like waves, each sequential crash eroded the sturdiness of his shore. If panic had been the puppeteer of the first evacuation, and despair the second, then it was now simply shame that picked up the tattered reigns. After all, he already knew it was the end of the game for him, so now it was purely a matter of how precipitous the loss would appear. Gas would make an uninvited return in this third act, but not as another risk to invest his chips in, but as a rogue agent of chaos; bubbling, rasping, and sputtering became deeply intermixed in the lowly language of his diaper's native tongue. Plops, crackles, squirts, splats, and crinkles were the backbone of the phonetics, and the eruptive force of the farts, they were the accent to which this linguistic life could be forged with. The vile debasement of his diaper was the only thing that really approached communication in those murky moments, if one were to ignore the strained grunts, garbled groans, and whining whimpers of a man pushed beyond his physical and emotional limits. What was being said? What could be translated from the stinking well of bubbling filth that his diaper-seat had become? Perhaps only the raising of the white flag, before too much brown threatened to splotch it, and to stain it with the true shame of his defeat. While the padded seat swelled with noxious droppings, and toxic fumes spilled out atop from past the guarded threshold of the diaper's snug waistband, much like the choking smog of a filthy factory's sordid smokestack, the gambler's failure would only more strongly oppress his own fractured sense of resolve. Chance had thought himself a very clever boy, hadn't he? So clever, in fact, that he'd broken all the most basic rules that a professional fatalist learned early on. His inflated sense of worth hadn't spun straw into gold, it'd spun delusions into failures. He'd chased losses, he'd wagered what he didn't have or couldn't afford to lose, he'd played games for which he wasn't intimately aware of the rules for, he'd allowed his emotions to cloud his judgment, and most importantly: He hadn't known when to fold. Whenever he'd first come to the eerie establishment, it'd been on the back of a special invitation. The crimson envelope, with its gauche golden seal, had appeared seemingly out of thin air, and inside had been a gleeful welcome to come try his luck at an exclusive den of sin. By what provenance should this providence have come by? By what measure should a man judge from whence his bait originated? The thrill of risking it all, the novelty and allure of an exclusive hall, how could it have been anything else but a warm crack-pipe gracing the singed lips of an addict? One couldn't cast a truffle before a swine and then be surprised when it treated the delicacy as its pearl. But now he was beyond the hook; he was on the table: scaled, de-boned and ready to be cooked up. And who else could be the chef, but the debonair devil in the flesh himself: Ludwig Lugosi. The self-proclaimed proprietor, the master of ceremonies, and the weaver of the terrifying tapestry that Chance was embroidered upon. With his gleaming grin, and those smoldering black eyes, he'd invited Chance to lose himself in the frivolities of this house of fate. Whenever Chance had first sauntered in through the front door, it'd been Ludwig who had warmly greeted him and placed a chip in his palm. "Let luck be a lady for you tonight." His voice was deep and inviting, it was smooth like honey, and just like honey, it'd been a sticky trap for a pest like Chance to find himself trapped in. The differences in how he perceived the man at the beginning of the night and the end were stark; Chance had been enamored with Ludwig's confidence, with his cool sway and the grandness of his form, but now his affection had long fermented into fear, and those same admirable qualities had taken on more sinister connotations. Ludwig's grandeur wasn't impressive, it was imposing; his deep, dulcet tones weren't comforting, they reverberated Chance's insides with a dense terror; that cool confidence wasn't a sign of a welcoming host, but was the sharp-toothed grin of a wolf, who was staring down a bunny who'd wandered too far from his warren. Chance had certainly come to feel like a bunny, with the 'cottontail' he'd been sporting since the beginning of this dreadful game. The first game he'd put himself against had been the simple tug of a slot's lever; not because he was so easily tantalized, but because he was a creature of ritual, and running a single game of slots had always been how he measured his luck for the evening ahead. It was a calibration, a toe dipped in the water, and as superstitious as it may have seemed, it was a test that'd never steered him wrong. He'd cleaned out many a casinos while riding on the guided tides of a good slot-pull, and so when he got a row of cherries, he'd obviously expected that this place would be yet another establishment that he eventually was barred from. Oh, how Chance wished now more than ever, that he could be kicked from this place too, even if that meant leaving without a penny to his name. The hours that would follow the bolstering of his confidence would do nothing to dissuade his certainty of victory. He was raking in money, hand over fist, and it felt as though nothing could shatter his unbelievable streak. A part of him kept expecting some rough-hewn goon to put a terse hand on his shoulder, and to insist that Chance had exceeded his welcome, but that never came. Did the house not care about the ludicrous amount of money they were losing? All to one man with exceptional fortune? As it would turn out, no, no they did not. Instead, they treated him like royalty! His cup never fully emptied, before a new one would be set before him, and he never had to busy his gambling hands with something as lowly as lighting his own cigarettes. Every croupier smiled warmly, every cocktail waitress flirted, and the casino host never let Chance pay for a single luxury. They treated him like the high- roller he was, but without the baggage of acknowledging he was making off with their own bag. If he'd been less tipsy, from the colorful drinks and life-affirming smiles of all the beautiful women, then it should have been easy to see that things were too good to be true. How could a slice of heaven like this, exist on the shitty ball of dirt that was earth? The answer would come, like a rock to the head, whenever he was invited to the VIP lounge where the high-stakes games were held. Feeling beyond invincible, and thinking he might walk out of there with enough money for a lifetime of assured comfort, he happily followed the invitation, like an enthralled child behind the pied piper. It was at that new table, where his lucky streak and will would be broken, and where he would wager more than he could ever hope to repay. The minimum bet was higher than most place's maximum; it was high risk and high reward, but on an extreme level. He bet all his winnings in one blow; Chance was all in, not because he had to be, but because he felt unbeatable. His luck ran out. Blowing on his dice, wearing his lucky underwear, carrying his rabbit's foot, none of that made a lick of difference. The way the chips were falling, he was going to go bust, and all his earnings of the night were going to go kaput. His reputation and pride as a high-roller would be marred forevermore. It wasn't an indignity that the man could tolerate to suffer, so against all reason and rationale, he decided to go double-or-nothing with his entire life's savings as the wager. It was a level of risk that he'd never taken; it broke his personal rules on gambling, but for some reason, he couldn't help himself. He would lose all that too. Now flat broke and indebted, he was to be kicked out, and it was only by Ludwig's grace that he'd be allowed to stay. While the croupier had been more than ready to call upon security, the pit boss himself had come and put a hand on Chance's shoulder. "How would you like an opportunity to win everything back that you've lost?" Of course he did, but what collateral did he have to use as betting material? "Why not bet using things less material? Come to my personal table; you have more to offer than you know." It was the first time he'd become privy to the kind of supernatural force that Ludwig was; now directly facing the house, Ludwig would give him a demonstration of the non-monetary values that could be used in lieu of real money. The bait was a simple hand of blackjack, and Chance was told that his wager would be a random memory from childhood. Win, and he'd have some semblance of solvency again, lose and a single day from his past would be erased from his mind. Chance didn't believe a word of it, and why should he? No person could pluck the memories from another man's head! Ludwig was either crazy, or he was mocking him, and Chance hardly appreciated either option. Still, he was without any real choice in the matter. He was flat broke, and if he left now, then his life would become extremely difficult in the very near future. So, he willingly took on the bet, and he sat down to play. In a small return to form, he would win that first hand, and true to Ludwig's word, his earnings would present themselves: Ominous white chips would poof into existence before his very eyes; a handful that were stacked neatly, that didn't have the same emblem as the normal ones from the casino, but instead that had a peculiar design he was unfamiliar with. Their sudden appearance came in a dazzling flash of light, with a puff of purple smoke, and that was when Chance realized that Ludwig wasn't as crazy as he'd first appeared. A lesser man would have folded right there, or maybe it was a smarter man who would have done that; to bear witness to the fact that there were incomprehensible powers at work on the other side of the table, that would have been immediately disqualifying for most sane people. But not for Chance. No, the man was entranced by what he saw, and against all reasoning, he wasn't scared by it either, but instead was intrigued. So, he played onward, and his good fortune appeared to trickle slowly back to him, with the stack of ethereal chips gradually growing taller. He won hand after hand, but his earnings were dreadfully slow; at the rate he was going, it'd take all night to earn back even half of the debt he'd taken on. How foolish he would later feel, when he came to realize that this had all been a part of the elaborate hustle set against him. His lowest point would come at his last hand on the blackjack table; his patience was wearing thin, and his ego was again swelling, and so he put all the chips he'd earned into the fray. The first card was a king, the second a four, and Chance had quietly been counting cards. Odds were in his favor to get a seven or lower. "Hit me." An eight flipped onto the table. "That's twenty-two, you bust." The meager scrap he'd earned back was being clawed away from him, and he was right back in the poorhouse he'd started in. Crestfallen, he sank miserably into his chair, looking destitute and beaten. The man chuckled, "Oh, sulking now? Don't be such a baby. Are you really done? I thought you were a gambler. " Chance would glare and growl, "I'm not done, not by a longshot. I'm not leaving this place until I've earned back every penny." "Is that so? Then perhaps it is time we move onto higher stakes, don't you think? You'll never strike it rich with these petty bets; I'm sure you'd like to make things a little quicker, right?" Of course he did, and blinded by his own greed, he was all too ready to involve himself in whatever Ludwig had in mind for him. Chance had looked right into the face of fate, and without blinking, he'd decided to spit. That was how he'd ended up in the puffy diaper to begin with, and how a loss had been described to him as letting any usage come to it. At the time, Ludwig's explanation had been of a sardonic persuasion, with it seeming that he was riffing on how he'd perceived Chance to pout at his losses like a child. It'd come across as symbolic, since the addition of the diaper has only sought to add a lose condition to the game. By agreeing to those terms, to allow himself to be diapered, he would be provided a beautiful bounty of the mysterious chips, for which he could spend around the casino as normal. So, what had the real catch been? (Continued in the second post)