All My Mother's Rules

Chapter 51: Lisa's Sleepover Part 4: Revelations

The scene in front of me made absolutely no sense at all. Samantha was sitting on the floor next to her open backpack. From the diapers she had been holding and the ones that had been dropped on the floor, it was clear that Lisa had caught her in the act of putting them into her backpack.

I was nearly one hundred percent certain that Samantha didn't have any bedwetting or incontinence issues, and I didn't know what else could explain why she was attempting to steal some of Lisa's diapers. I had never seen someone's face go as deep red as Samantha's was right now. Lisa looked completely furious with her. Desi was the first to break the tension.

"Wait, do you have issues with wetting yourself as well?" she asked.

"She doesn't," Lisa said, before Samantha had time to give an answer. "I definitely would have noticed by now. I figured out what was up with Sarah pretty quickly."

That statement, along with the petrified look on Samantha's face, only added to my confusion. Samantha was frozen still. She opened her mouth as if to try to say something, but then clenched it shut without uttering a word.

"Seriously guys, what's going on here?" Desi asked, looking back and forth between Samantha and Lisa.

"I'll tell you what is going on," Lisa said, a note of derision in her voice. Lisa had been upset with me last night, and deservedly so, but her tone when addressing Samantha was entirely different. There was a venomous edge to it that I wouldn't ever have expected her to be capable of. "There are these people who use diapers on purpose. They piss and shit themselves in diapers, not because of any medical issues, but because they get some sick enjoyment out of it. It's disgusting, and they give people like me and Sarah, who have an actual need to wear diapers, a bad name."

I remembered what Lisa had said about people like that when we'd had a conversation about her missing diapers earlier this week. And it clicked. Samantha must have been the culprit for that theft as well. Samantha had so far remained silent in the face of Lisa's accusations, but in addition to the look of shame and embarrassment on her face was one of defiance.

"What, do you think I just woke up one random morning, rolled out of bed, and decided that being obsessed with wearing diapers and acting like a baby would be a brilliant amount of fun? I don't know why I'm like this. It's like this weird switch just clicked in my brain several years ago, and all the sudden I had this crazy strong fascination with wanting to wear diapers and behave like a baby."

"And you just decided to give in to being a diaper loving freak?" Lisa asked, practically shouting.

"You think I want to be a freak like this? I hate myself. I hate that no matter how hard I try, I can't get away from these thoughts. I'll be shopping with my mom and something as simple as walking past the baby aisle makes it all come back. I spend half the time obsessed with getting my hands on diapers and the other half hating myself for this obsession. I promise you, if I had the option to choose to not be like this, I would."

Samantha took a deep breath at the end of her rant. She glared at Lisa, as if daring her to respond.

I glanced over at Lisa to gauge her reaction. She looked a lot less angry than when I had first rushed into the room. Samantha's last outburst seemed to have struck a chord with her.

"I hadn't thought about it that way before," Lisa said, her tone now a lot milder. "I understand what it's like to have something in your life that you don't have any control over."

Samantha breathed a short sigh of relief.

"I guess really don't know how I feel about this now," Lisa said. "Just give me a few minutes. I need some time alone to think."