Intimism, Chapter 5

 [Standard Content Warning: This is an ABDL story blog, that means stories on this page contain diapers, diaper usage (like, lots of it), infantilism and the like! In addition, mental and physical manipulation, bondage and nonconsensual or dubiously consensual employment of all of the above themes and many others may also apply. Viewer discretion is advised.] 

Evie was so overwhelmed that she hadn’t been able to bring herself to refuse when Inara offered to help her get cleaned up. She hadn’t argued when she’d watched Inara slip another booster pad into another pair of MagiHeart panties and then beckoned Evie to step into them so she could pull them up. She was so covered in shame and confusion that she was all too willing to just let Inara take the reigns right now. She wasn’t even making it far enough to be relieved that the woman wasn’t sickened by her and telling her to get out of her house. She just plain didn’t understand what had happened to her to bring her to this point. She felt like she was floating outside of her body.

“Wh-what’s that?” She asked, snapping out of her haze long enough to notice Inara had gotten a dry erase board of some kind and some colored markers and was writing ‘EVIE’S RULES’ at the top of the board.

“Your stress clearly goes much deeper than either of us were willing to see up front, dear,” Inara said as she wrote. She let out a little sigh. “I must admit, I’m worried, that you have some deep issues that need to be sorted through. The first thing we need to do is set up some guidelines to try and reduce your anxiety.” Evie swallowed. She thought that opening up a bit had helped, but…maybe it had done the complete opposite, she felt like a total mess right now. She rubbed her head.

‘I felt this…weird pressure in my chest, bringing up my mom like that,’ she said, as if she was just realizing it for the first time. ‘Have I just been burying a buncha stuff and heading for a total breakdown without realizing it?’ Either way, she couldn’t really argue with anything Inara was saying right now.

“First off….” Inara wrote the first rule in marker.

[1. Evie has a bedtime of 9.]

Evie grimaced. First off, did she have to use the word “bedtime”? Secondly, that seemed really early.

“I…I guess I have been staying up past midnight a lot.” She rubbed the back of her head.

“I know.” Inara traced around what she’d just written in some other colors - trying to make it look fun, was all Evie could surmise. “I think staying up too late might be a contributing factor to your stress. More sleep is never a bad thing, so this is a good starting point.”

‘Yeah, but 9 PM is a little bit overboard…! The sun isn’t even all the way down, yet, can we do like, 10:30, 11 or something?’ She thought, but when she opened her mouth…

“O…okay.” She felt herself nod. “I’ll start going to bed at 9.” Inara smiled at her.

“Good girl.” Evie felt a little warmth in her face, but not in a bad way, at those words. Inwardly, she was a little confused. She had been all ready to try and argue Inara into something less restrictive than 9-o-clock, but she had kind of just caved. She guessed Inara must’ve made a pretty good point about more sleep not being a bad thing.

“Next, speaking of bedtime….” Inara murmured. Evie still didn’t love that word, but she said nothing, looking at what Inara wrote next.

[2. Evie has to sleep with her special sheets.]

Evie looked back at the pink sheets on her bed that had been there since Inara had taken the previous ones to the laundry. She now recognized them as what they were, MagiHeart sheets. Besides starting to wonder why Inara had so much stuff for this 20-year old kids anime in her house, she grabbed the sheets in her hand and realized as she felt them crackle and crinkle a bit in her hands that they weren’t normal sheets.

“Th…these are the special sheets?” She asked Inara, and she was pretty sure she knew what was special about them without having to ask.

“Yes. Those will help if you have an accident in bed. I know I said we could go back to your old sheets when they were done in the laundry, but given what’s happened, I think we should stick with your special sheets for now,” Inara explained. Evie gave a little shake of her head.

“I…I don’t think I need them,” she murmured and she knew how weak her pushback sounded even as it came out of her mouth. She wanted to say she wasn’t gonna have an accident in bed, but the words didn’t even make it to her lips because at this point, they sounded patently absurd. Inara gave her a look that said she knew it, too.

“Mmmn….are you sure, dear?” It was a pointed question, but it wasn’t without any mercy. “Can you say for sure you won’t have another accident in bed? If you can, we can try without them…” She said. She sounded skeptical, but it seemed like she was willing to give Evie a chance. Evie opened her mouth, ready to insist that she could make it through the night without an accident…

“…mmmph.” Evie’s mouth closed, and she looked down. She couldn’t manage it. She thought about all the times she’d wet herself the last few days and she couldn’t bring herself to say it, it felt too close to lying.

‘C….c’mon, I’m not doing that bad, am I!? I can make it through one night without wetting the bed…’ She thought to herself, frustrated at her inability to just say that. She looked at Inara, then looked down and felt doubt creeping up her back. ‘C…can’t I?’

“It’s okay, dear,” Inara cooed, taking Evie’s silence as an answer. “I promise, I won’t get upset if you do have an accident, no matter what happens,” she said. Then, in a lighter tone, she asked, “Do you like your MagiHeart sheets?”

‘Honestly, right now, I feel like I could take ‘em or leave ‘em…’ Evie thought. Whatever fondness she’d rediscovered for MagiHeart was being increasingly supplanted by a feeling of weird immaturity the more she was surrounded by this magical girl themed stuff that was clearly meant for bedwetting little kids (yet still was sized for someone Evie's size?). But still, she found herself pulling up the sheets a bit so they were covering part of her face and bashfully nodding. That got another little chuckle out of Inara. She reached out and rubbed the top of Evie’s head, which got that same warmth to build in her face again. Then, she went back to writing.

“Now, I know this one might sound a bit scary, but I think it’s important, so I need you to give it a chance, Evie,” Inara warned. With no shortage of trepidation, Evie looked at the board.

[3. Evie has to tell Inara when she has an accident.]

Evie dropped the sheets back on the bed and looked at Inara incredulously.

‘C-c’mon, we’re not being serious with that one, are we?” She thought, feeling a bit of panic rise up through her chest. ‘I really don’t think I wanna do that one…b-besides, you’ve already seen most of them happen, do I really need to tell you about them too?! No, no, there’s no way I can do that!’ She opened her mouth to tell Inara, sorry, you’re gonna have to erase that one, because I absolutely can’t do that.

“D…does that mean I have to…?” She asked very tentatively. Inara gave her an encouraging nod.

“Why don’t you try, dear?” She asked. Evie swallowed, then opened her mouth again.

“I…on the first night, I uhm. L-leaked a little bit. Into my panties…a couple times…”  She looked away.

“You don’t have to feel bad, Evie, dear,” Inara reminded her. “You didn’t do anything wrong.” Evie gave a little nod and made herself continue.

“I uhm. Leaked a little more overnight. Then I wet myself in my swimsuit, but I was in the water so I didn’t say anything.” Inara nodded. Evie didn’t know if that meant she’d suspected anything at the time or not but the lack of surprise on her face made her think that it did. “Th…then I wet myself again back in my room.”

“Is that what that noise was from your room last night?” Inara asked in a knowing tone. Evie ducked her head down and twiddled her fingers again.

“I was yelling into my pillow,” she admitted. Inara sighed, but didn’t say anything, just letting her continue. “I…m-more than leaked, I w-wet the bed that night,” she said. She swallowed. “Then…again during breakfast. I made it to the bathroom once while I was watching MagiHeart, so I thought I was getting better, but…”

“But?” Inara asked, tilting her head a little.

“Mmph.” Evie avoided eye contact.

“What happened, Evie?” Inara asked. Inwardly, Evie was screaming.

‘Inara, c’mon, you just saw it, don’t make me say iiiiit….!’ Evie whined to herself, to no avail. ‘I don’t wanna talk about this anymore, I didn’t even wanna say this much, why do I keep saying this stuff…!?’ She wished a wave would come in from the ocean and just carry her away, but alas, the island remained above water. Evie’s eyes kept flitting from the ground to Inara, who realized she wasn’t going to say it on her own.

“Did you poop your training panties?” It was said so bluntly and simply, that Evie wanted to scream some more. But outwardly, she just gave a quick, short nod. “Can you say it, dear?”

“I-I….I pooped my MagiHeart panties…” Evie said weakly. “I’m sorry….!”

“Mmmn….was it because you were too caught up in watching MagiHeart?” She asked. Evie furrowed her brow.

“Wh-what do you mean?”

“I just want to know, dear, I won’t be upset either way. Did you know you had to go, but you were too distracted by watching MagiHeart, or did you not know you had to go?” She asked.

‘B-both of those choices suck!’ Evie thought. ‘Either I’m too immature to just hit the pause button on a DVD to go to the bathroom or I’m admitting I can’t even tell when I need to go? Inara, why’re you asking me questions like this?!’ She didn’t even know which of these could possibly be less bad than the other. She opened her mouth and then closed it, just staring at Inara.

“Or….” Inara offered. “Did you do it on purpose?” That made Evie’s eyes get big.

“Wh-why would I do it on purpose?!” Evie asked.

“I’m not upset if you did, dear. I just need to know,” Inara assured her. “We can talk about it if that’s what you want to do.” Evie just stared, her eyes still very wide.

‘Okay, yeah, that’s worse. That’s definitely worse than the other two, don’t say that, don’t ever say that.’ Evie gave a little shake of her head. She definitely didn’t want Inara to think she had pooped her pants on purpose.

“I…I didn’t feel it until it was too late,” she murmured. It was the closest thing to the truth, honestly. “I tried to get up and make it, b-but…”

“It was too late. I understand. Come here, dear,” she wrapped a hand around Evie and pulled her close, giving her a kiss on the forehead. Again, the little gesture of comfort and affection sent a burst of warmth through Evie that made her feel a little better, but…

‘Why did I say all that…? I never should’ve said anything, why didn’t I just keep my mouth shut! The bedtime and magical girl sheets are one thing, but why am I admitting that I…uuuugh, that I messed myself in - magical girl panties, for crying out loud!’ She looked at the board as Inara finished putting little colorful flourishes around the third rule.

She had wanted to refuse or at least argue a bit against each rule, but when she saw it written on the board, she’d been unable to do anything more but weakly object and then go along with it as written. Her brow knitted upwards as she looked at Inara. It didn’t make any sense, but - the way she was acting didn’t make any sense, either. Was she just complying with whatever Inara suggested because she felt humiliated and didn’t want Inara to get upset? That certainly was something getting a lot of space in Evie’s head right now.

‘Every time she writes something, I just wind up going along with it…it’s not like I wanna start yelling at her and fighting with her over these rules, but geez, I don’t wanna go along with stuff this embarrassing so easily, either…!’

Either way, Inara had finished with the third rule and was now starting to write the fourth.

“This is the last one, dear,” Inara mentioned. “But it’s very important.” Evie’s eyes widened.

[4. Evie has to wear dia—]

“Wait, wait!” Evie reached out and grabbed Inara’s arm before she could finish writing it. “P-please, please don’t!” She begged, feeling herself sniffle once.

“Evie, my heart,” Inara said, sounding a little exasperated, but nonetheless unsurprised by Evie’s objection. “I understand you don’t want to, but if you can’t feel it when you need to go, you need more protection. Your panties and booster pad can only help you when you’re wet, not if you poop yourself again.” Evie winced, feeling that word bonk her in the chest like a boxing glove, but she nonetheless persevered.

“I - I won’t! It won’t happen again, I promise!”

“Mmmn…and what’re you promising not to do?” Inara asked, a bit suspicious. Evie swallowed and looked at the floor again.

“I…” her voice got quieter. “I promise I won’t poop my MagiHeart panties again…” The way the confidence had drained out of her voice and she’d suddenly had to stare at the floor rather than maintain eye contact…Inara didn’t look particularly convinced. But, her discerning look quickly shifted to a resigned smile.

“Alright, dear. We can try one more time,” she said and adjusted what she was writing.

[4. Evie has to wear her special panties and booster pad. Evie has to get checked by Inara to change her underwear.]

“You just need to let me check you a couple times, just so we’re sure we’re not trying to hide anymore accidents, alright?” Inara said, waving the marker in Evie’s direction a bit. Evie nodded.

“M-mmhm. Th…thank you,” Evie said. Maybe she shouldn’t have been glad that she was still gonna be wearing these magical girl underwear and getting checked by Inara now, but, she was just relieved to have avoided the alternative. She didn’t think what was left of her thoroughly battered ego could’ve taken that. Inara reached out and rubbed her again.

“You like those panties, don’t you?” She asked.

“I…” Evie swallowed. “I like MagiHeart,” she said. “I…wanna keep wearing the MagiHeart panties…” It was already out of her mouth before she realized what she was saying.

“Do you want some more MagiHeart things?” Inara asked. “I’ll see what else I have in the house. Which one’s your favorite?”

“I…I like both,” she said. “…m-maybe Sun?”

“Okay.” Inara took the rule board and placed it on the wall, where it stayed. “After lunch, we’ll see if we can find anything, and maybe we can make a few changes to this room too, to make it a little bit more fun for you. Would you like that?” She asked as she took Evie’s hand and led her out of the room.

“Y…yeah.” Evie nodded as she followed along, holding Inara’s hand. Outwardly, her mood was improving. Inwardly, she felt more exhausted than ever.

‘What the fuck, dude…’ She thought to herself, exasperated. She was feeling like she was…very suggestible to anything Inara said right now, and she didn’t understand why. She threw one more look at the rule board that was hanging on the wall and swallowed. Was this all in her head, a result of her stress? Or…

Inara responsible for what was happening to her?

If so, how? Like, literally how was that possible? And more pressingly, how much more damage had she already done, and how was Evie gonna avoid her doing even more?

—

Evie sat on her bed, staring down into her own lap. She had wandered back into her room sometime after lunch and just stayed there. For a while now, she had just been staring. At first, she stared at the ruleboard that Inara had filled with all of those rules she’d just gone along with. Then, she’d looked around at the room surrounding her. When she’d gotten here, it was just a normal guest bedroom, now it had all this childish stuff in it, like a chalkboard, toys and childish decorations, mostly themed around this magical girl anime that seemed to have totally engulfed Evie's life within the last few hours. Did Inara expect her to play with this stuff or something?  But her eyes eventually moved past the board and the room itself and fell to her own lap.

Sitting in it was her watch. It wasn’t an expensive looking watch, by design, because it wasn’t supposed to attract any extra eyes. Evie gripped the  crown of the watch and tugged at it. At first, her fingers were just idly pulling, but eventually, she did it with more purpose, in a specific way. After a few seconds, the watch clicked and a compartment opened up on the watch’s underside.

“….hn,” Evie grunted to nobody but herself. She stared at the compartment and the single small gray button it held for a few seconds. She looked up at the door to her bedroom. She heard footsteps coming and her fingers made the decision for her, pressing down on the button and holding it for several seconds.

“Evie?” Came a voice from the hall, the footsteps growing closer. Evie took her hand off of the button and closed the compartment. She crossed her arms over her lap, covering up the watch as Inara entered the room.

“Dinner’s ready, Evie,” she said. Evie stared at Inara for a second, then looked away, not saying anything in response. Inara looked a bit saddened, but not particularly surprised. “Are you okay, dear?” She asked.

“I don’t know,” Evie said in response and, in fairness, it was the truth.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Inara offered, taking a few steps into the room but not sitting down yet.

“I…” Evie grimaced and looked out the window. “I don’t know if that would help.”

“Well, I’ve rarely met the problem that can be made better by keeping it to one’s self,” Inara said with a bit of wryness in her voice. Evie had a feeling she knew that wasn’t what she meant. She let out a small huff.

“I don’t know if it’d help because I’m not sure whether or not you’re the reason for my problems in the first place,” she said, deliberately not making eye contact as she did. Eyes still on the window.

“Mmmn.” Inara nodded. She didn’t sound too surprised to hear that. She took a few more steps towards Evie. “In that case, you probably won’t find much that I have to say very reliable,” she admitted as she sat down on the bed next to Evie. “But I can still listen to you, nonetheless.” Evie looked at her, then looked away again. But she didn’t move away. Evie took in a breath. She looked down at her own lap, then gave a small nod before she spoke.

“…I’m having all of these. Weird doubts and feelings about myself. And obviously, I’m having…” Her voice trailed off and she let out an angry grunt. “Physical issues, too.” She felt Inara’s hand come up and lightly touch her back, stroking it a bit. She didn’t move away from the comforting touch, but she looked at Inara and she was unable to hide the accusatory look in her eyes. “None of this was happening until I got here, so I dunno whether or not to think you’re the one causing all of it,” she said.

There it was, she’d put her voice to her doubts and said them directly. Part of her immediately felt like a heel, accusing Inara of this. Part of her was glad that she was standing up for herself. Most of her was curious and a little worried about how Inara was going to react. She just sat there quietly, absorbing what Evie had said. Was she going to get dismissive and say that was ridiculous, get defensive and angry at the girl for accusing her? Instead, she just sat there for a moment in quiet contemplation….

“I think I understand that,” Inara eventually said with a small nod.  She let out a small thinking noise. “May I hazard a guess as to what you’re thinking right now?” She asked. Evie blinked once.

“I guess so, yeah,” she said. Whatever response she’d been expecting, that wasn’t it.

“Good. First, allow me a bit of a sidetrack,” Inara said. “What have you been doing since you finished schooling? Have you gotten a job yet?” The question immediately made Evie fidget a bit. She felt her hand reaching down and grabbing a handful of those sheets again. It kind of annoyed her that the crinkling noise of the plastic put her at ease a bit.

“Sorta,” she said noncommittally.

“Sort of?” Inara repeated.

“I…got a job at a magazine,” she said. “I’ve been doing that for a couple years. It doesn’t really count.” Inara tilted her head.

“Do you go there every day?” She asked.

“Yeah, pretty much,” Evie said.

“And do they pay you?” She asked.

“Y…yeah?” Evie furrowed her brows a bit, not really understanding the question. “Yeah, they pay me.”

“Then why doesn’t it count?” Inara asked. “Are you doing a bad job?” She asked and from the chuckle she gave, it didn’t sound like Inara thought that was at all likely.

“I mean, I don’t think so,” Evie said. She sounded less sure of it than she wanted to. “But - it’s just. I got the job because my mom introduced me to the editor. I didn’t get it on my own. So…”

“So it doesn’t count?” Inara said and let out a little sigh. “I think I understand,” she said. She took her hand off of Evie’s back. “I think you came here full of excitement and passion and drive to try and accomplish something that you thought you would be able to call entirely your own. Something you could take pride in because you felt it was something you built yourself. Your own idea, realized in your own vision, with somebody you respect.” Evie didn’t have to say anything to confirm that thought - it was all pretty self-evident. “But ever since you got here, it hasn’t been what you expected. Your body has stopped listening to you and the only thing you can logically conclude is responsible is your presence on this island and thus…” Inara tapped a hand to her own chest. “The responsibility must lie with the only other person living on this island.”

“That sounds pretty close,” Evie murmured, staring ahead at nothing. Hearing it spelled out like that didn’t feel great. She’d come here with all of these big adult plans for her career and now she was in this kids’ room, wearing kids’ underwear and her biggest priority had become not messing herself. It was hard to find a more stark example of failing at adulthood than that. It would’ve been nice to be able to blame something, anything else. “Are you about to tell me why that’s not the case?”

“I don’t know for sure that it isn’t,” Inara said. “But. I do have an alternate theory, if you’d like to hear it.” Evie turned her head to meet Inara’s eyes. Inara smiled at her, but it was a bit sad. “Evie, I think you don’t give yourself very much credit for anything.” Evie blinked once.

“What do you mean?” She asked.

“You just told me you don’t feel like the job you’ve been holding for years, plural, doesn’t count for anything. And I don’t want to repeat what you said about your family situation, earlier…” That made Evie look away again. It immediately came back to her mind, how she’d divulged her insecurity about disappointing her mother. She still couldn’t believe she’d said that so easily, she’d never told anybody that, not even Amaya or Miss Nightingale.

“But nonetheless,” Inara continued. “The first thing you did when you arrived was send Amaya away because of those feelings.” Evie closed her eyes. She couldn’t really argue with that. She’d already admitted that she’d sent Amaya away because she just wanted to feel like she was out from under her mother’s eyes for a while. She still felt terrible about it. And it looked like Inara could tell, from the way her voice got even softer. “Evie, I think you’ve been putting an unimaginable amount of pressure on yourself to succeed in a very specific way and some part of you was subconsciously trying to escape from that pressure by asking Amaya to leave. That doesn’t make you a bad friend or a bad person. It just makes you a human being. And it also only makes you a human being who hasn’t done anything wrong if your body simply…succumbed to that pressure in ways you didn’t expect.”

Evie swallowed, everything Inara was saying kicking up a bunch of disparate and contradictory feelings in her head. Part of her wondered - had she done this to herself? Had her mind managed to wreak enough havoc on her body to lead to…this? Struggling not to constantly wet herself? It seemed crazy, but now all she could think about was stuff like how much she’d prepared for this, how many times she hadn’t been able to sleep because she was so nervous about this. Not just about getting her gallery off of the ground, but meeting Inara and not disappointing her.

Now the most nightmarish worst case scenario Evie could’ve never imagined in a hundred years had come, she was literally wetting and soiling herself like a toddler, but. Inara hadn’t gotten angry or seemed disappointed for even a second. And for some reason, all that did was make Evie suspicious of her? Why? Was she really that conditioned to expect to be harshly rebuked for her mistakes that the idea of somebody just comforting and supporting her, even when she screwed up, just made her think they were up to something?

“This feels bad coming out of my mouth, but, I think I need to say it anyway,” Inara said, continuing. “…a very real part of me is glad that this happened here, while you were in my home,” she said. “Because at the very least, while you’re here, you can stop and confront everything you need to in your own time, with relative privacy.” Inara grimaced. “I don’t want to make assumptions, but. I’m guessing that if this just happened out in the world, you likely would’ve tried to just hide it and pretend nothing is happening.” Evie couldn’t really argue with that either, since that was literally what she had tried to do until Inara had caught her. Inara reached out and took Evie’s hand. “Evie, dear, I also have to admit. I’m…worried about you. I’m worried about what will happen if you don’t start taking care of yourself.”

Evie looked down at Inara’s hand over her own. She didn’t move her hand, not taking it away, nor holding Inara’s hand back. Of the two options, she felt like she was probably closer to the latter. She looked around the room and at all the childish toys and affects Inara had put on it.

“…is this taking care of myself, staying in a room like this?” She asked, gesturing at…everything.

“Do you not like it?” Inara asked.

“It’s all…pretty childish, isn’t it?” She grabbed the sheets and pulled them up again.

“Children let themselves be taken care of, Evie,” Inara said matter-of-factly. “They don’t know any better.” Then, the saddened tone creeping back into her voice, she added, “Nobody has taught them to be ashamed of themselves for needing help yet.”

Evie swallowed and her eyes got a little bigger. That last sentence in particular caught her across the bow and pretty stiffly, at that. Inara could see the change in Evie’s expression and decided not to press on it, leaving Evie to just think about it for a moment. Instead, she glanced at the wall. Evie followed her eyes. She saw the board with ‘EVIE’S RULES’ written on top of it and swallowed again. The ruleboard that had caused her so much mental consternation a little while ago.

“This might be a silly question, but, indulge me for a moment, dear,” Inara said. “Have you felt, perhaps, more passive than you want to be since I started writing those rules down?” She asked. Evie’s eyes snapped back to Inara. She was surprised to hear that.

‘Does she know that I was thinking that board might’ve been doing something to me…?’ Evie wondered to herself. How could Inara know that. It sounded totally ridiculous in Evie’s head, how could Inara have just guessed it like that. She wanted to hear more, so…she nodded.

“Y…yeah, I was,” she said and fidgeted in her seat. It sounded ridiculous in her head, it was gonna sound even stupider coming out of her mouth. “When you were writing them down, I felt myself…wanting to say something, but then just. Not.” That got a fond chuckle out of Inara.

“I thought it might be something like that,” she said warmly. “You didn’t seem very excited when I wrote down that bedtime. But.” She rose a finger. “But…do you think it might be possible that that’s you trying to tell yourself that you might like to be taken care of in that way, if only for a little while?” Evie blinked a few times. “Your subconscious has already tried once to escape the pressure that you feel you’re under. Maybe it saw a way to ease you out from under it and it’s trying to encourage you to go along with it. To just…” Inara made a gesture with her hand. “Go with the flow. And not worry about whether you’re succeeding or failing for a while.”  Evie was quiet for a long couple of minutes. Ever since that line about not being ashamed of needing help, her mind had just been swirling even worse. She was having a lot of difficulty parsing her thoughts out from one another right now. 

“….I dunno what to think,” she admitted. “About what you just said. About a lot of stuff.”

“It is a lot to think about. I don’t expect you to figure it all out in a few moments.” And, perhaps, sensing that more talking wasn’t going to help and that now Evie probably needed some time to herself to think, Inara stood up. But before she left, she rubbed Evie’s head, her hand going down the girl’s cheek and lightly holding her chin. “Just consider some of it, please. If not for yourself, then for me.” She smiled. “At any rate, dinner is ready in the dining room. If you want to come, please do, but if you’d like a bit of time to yourself, I’ll save you a plate.” There was no judgment or urging one way or the other in her voice. She let go of Evie’s chin and started to walk away.

“…I-Inara.”

Before she left, Evie called out to her. She turned back. Evie was biting her lower lip.

“I….really don’t wanna wear diapers,” she said, a small whine seeping into her voice. She knew that among all of the heavy emotional stuff they were discussing, it was ridiculous to focus on that, but she couldn’t help it. That felt like it was crossing a line. Inara just smiled at her in response.

“Evie, have you ever met anybody that needed diapers?” She asked. Evie furrowed her brow and thought about it for a second.

“I…I guess?” She couldn’t think of any names, but she guessed she could think of times she’d seen it in passing. People that weren’t babies, anyway. Those kinda didn’t count for the purpose of this conversation, she assumed.

“Did you think any less of those people for it?”

“No.” Evie shook her head. She’d maybe craned her neck and stared a few seconds longer than normal when she’d seen something like that in someone’s shopping cart, but that was about it.

“Did you think they had failed in some way or that they were proving themselves immature, somehow?” She asked. Evie immediately shook her head again.

“N-no, of course not!” Evie said and she meant it. Inara could tell she did and she nodded.

“Then I would just ask you to give yourself the same kindness that you would a stranger, dear,” she said and left. Evie blinked once. She leaned back on the bed a bit. She had to turn that over in her head for a few seconds.

She was pretty sure she still didn’t wanna wear diapers, but. She had to admit, that was another pretty good point.

After a few moments of trying to think her way through everything that had just happened, she looked down at her lap and saw her watch. Her eyes got a little big as she checked the time. She realized she and Inara had been talking for over an hour. That meant it had been over an hour since she’d hit the button and sent the signal. She put her shoes on and quickly, quietly, went outside. Night had fallen by the time she went out, so she turned on her phone's flashlight and saw….

…nothing.

The dock was still empty. The boat hadn’t come back yet. If Amaya had gotten the signal from the watch, she would’ve come back immediately, but she was nowhere to be found. She looked at her watch and tugged the crown again, opening the compartment. She stared at the button.

“Did I not press it long enough?” She asked nobody. “Or maybe the signal just fizzled out…” That kind of unnerved her a little bit. If her watch wasn’t working, then if an emergency came along, that’d be bad. But in this case…she glanced back at the house. She closed the compartment and dropped the watch into the pocket of her pajama shorts.

“Mmn…maybe this time it’s for the better,” she muttered to herself as she went back inside.

A couple hours later, when she went to bed, she felt just a bit more at ease about her situation. As she drifted off, she didn’t notice her hand making a fist and her thumb slowly sliding into her mouth.