✅ A Dose of Humiliation

32. The Perfect Guy

I opened my eyes and groaned again. I could tell before I even moved that my diaper was wet. I tried to do my best, remembering to use the bathroom before bed, but somehow it wasn't always enough. Once or twice a week, I would wake up soaked. It was starting to become almost normal now, but I never got over the shame.

I took off the diaper and bundled it up, throwing it in the trash. Then I went straight to the bathroom and treated myself to twenty minutes of soap and fragrant steam. I was sure that every trace of pee was gone from my skin now, but I still felt dirty, and that wasn't so easy to get over. I kept on trying to wash myself, but it didn't do anything to stop me feeling humiliated by the betrayal of my own body.

Eventually I came down for breakfast, the gross feeling still clinging to me. Mum was in the kitchen already, but she didn't say anything.

"Morning Mum. I... I wet the bed again." I hated saying it. I hated admitting that I was so helpless. But I had to. Dad had insisted, and I thought that in this case he might be right. Giving me an extra day if I failed to tell them would encourage my brain to dedicate more mirror neurons to honesty, or however the underlying biology worked. Elspeth kept using the words mirror neurons, and bridge synapses, and I didn't really understand the difference between the two. But I knew that she'd read all the literature put out by the company, including complicated scientific studies published in journals for the interest of other scientists, and I was sure that she would tell me if there was actually anything I needed to know. For now I just had to follow my parents' rules.

"I'm sorry, honey," she said. "Drinking before bed? You want bacon on that?" She nodded towards me as I lifted out a bagel and hurriedly spread cream cheese on it.

"A bit," I sighed. "Hard to judge when I'm drinking from the bottle. Probably more than one shot. But I don't think it was excessive. No hangover. And I'm hoping to catch Clint before school, so no bacon today."

She could have punished me for drinking, but I knew she wouldn't. She'd actually tried to understand what I meant about the boosters, and said that it lined up with what they'd been saying in childcare books since the turn of the century. The punishment had to fit the crime. In this case I might have gone over the limits I'd promised myself, but I hadn't gone to excess, and I hadn't done anything that might be a problem. And perhaps more to the point, I'd owned up to a possible transgression. The drinking had happened last night, and I was being honest about it now, so if I got a booster for that it would be punishing the wrong thing as far as the smart molecules in my grey matter were concerned.

I knew that the bacon was a little treat, as well. She was trying to remind me that it wasn't my fault, and that I shouldn't have to be embarrassed by what they had forced on me. The thought was what mattered. And a handful of chopped green onions scattered on a bagel, which were more to my taste anyway and didn't take so long to prepare.

I was eating as I went out the door, and I was happy to find that Serena was just pulling up outside. Her car had already started to raise some eyebrows in our neighbourhood; apparently it was one that some of the dads were drooling over at the moment, an unattainable dream for the middle-managers. Some mornings I would see her there, depending if she was heading to school from her own place or Daddy's mansion. I never knew if she'd happen to be in the area at the same time I left the house, but it seemed today I was in luck.

"Waterfront?" she said, and I just nodded. I'd started heading there when Clint was the only person I knew who would be up so early in the morning; but now there was something to admire in the way he'd come back from adversity. He still had some bandages, but they were mostly cosmetic, and he was starting to get really good on his brother's skateboard. He hung around with us whenever he got the chance as well; he was a part of our group of friends as much as anyone else now.