Curious Beginnings

by M. A. Innes

  Chapter 9

  “I don’t really want to talk about it,” Mark sighed.

  Laying on his bed, he pulled up his knees, and resisted the urge to bury his head under his pillows. They’d been on the phone going back and forth about this for the last ten minutes. He’d tried to change the subject a dozen times already but Sebastian wasn’t going to budge. Sebastian was in full daddy mode and wasn’t going to let it go.

  “I know, baby boy, but I think it would be a good idea if you did.” Polite but firm, the perfect “daddy” combination when approaching something terrible.

  Mark didn’t know how it could help. Everyone said that talking about your problems made them easier but what was so helpful about digging up the past and laying it out there for everyone to see? For Sebastian to see? Sebastian didn’t see him the way everyone else had and Mark wasn’t really sure that he wanted him to. He never wanted Sebastian to see him like they had.

  Sebastian saw him as desirable, sexy, and smart. He didn’t want to do anything that could change that. Mark didn’t want to tell him about all the people who’d seen him as weird, broken, and undesirable.

  “Well, if you can tell me that you’ve talked about the things that upset you about your physical issues with someone as an adult I’ll leave it alone. Anyone, a doctor or therapist, your mother…anyone. If there is someone you’ve confided in and vented to, I’ll leave it alone.”

  “I…well…” He didn’t want to lie to his daddy but he also didn’t want to tell him the truth. He’d hadn’t talked to anyone about his problems, aside from the physical aspects he had to discuss with his doctor, in years. Even his mother didn’t bring it up anymore. Most of the time they just pretended it didn’t exist and that he was perfectly normal.

  “Baby boy, don’t even think of lying to me.”

  “No, Daddy…I mean, yes, Daddy…I mean, I won’t lie and there wasn’t anyone to talk to.” The words just tumbled out. “How would I even start explaining it to an acquaintance much less the receptionist at a therapist’s office? ‘Hi, I want to talk to the doctor, I have a problem dealing with the fact that I wear disposable underwear.’ Yeah, that sounds like a reasonable conversation.”

  “Mark.” Sebastian’s voice dropped lower and he sounded more like Daddy now than Sebastian. Mark wasn’t sure why but it was almost as if they were two different people to him. Sebastian, who he worked for and discussed business with, and Daddy, who took care of him and Mark sometimes thought might love him.

  It was too soon for that, had to be. However, sometimes when Daddy said goodnight to him on the phone or when he kissed him goodnight at the end of a date it was almost like he wanted to say more. When Mark wasn’t worried about their relationship or over-analyzing things in general, he wanted to say more too. It was too soon for that, though.

  “But, Daddy.” He wasn’t whining. Nope, not him.

  “Baby, talk to me. You hide your physical issues from everyone and you’re so angry about it. Tell me why. I promise it will help. We can talk about it next time you come over if that would be easier. Would you prefer that we talked about this when we’re cuddled up in bed or in the nursery together?”

  “No. That wouldn’t help.” No, he didn’t want to bring the bad memories into Sebastian’s house. Sebastian’s house had too many wonderful memories for him to bring the bad ones there.

  “Okay, then. Talk to me, baby. Unless you’d rather talk to someone else? Would you prefer we found a therapist or someone like that? One of the other members of the group is actually a counselor we could—”

  “NO! Nobody else.” That would be more than he could handle. Telling strangers or heaven forbid his mother about all of it, no thanks.

  “If you’re not comfortable talking with me though—”

  “No, Daddy. I’m comfortable with you. I just…I just…” He didn’t want Sebastian to think that. “I just…”

  “Deep breath, just take your time baby. Start at the beginning. When things started going wrong. I know that you couldn’t have been this upset about being different when you were little. When did it get hard?”

  “Hard’s not the right word.”

  “What would be baby?”

  “Terrible…devastating…awful…take your pick.” Just thinking about that time made his stomach hurt. “It was when everything changed.”

  “Tell me when it changed baby. How did you feel about being different before everything changed?” Sebastian’s voice was warm and soft. Part of Mark wanted to be cuddled in his daddy’s lap, but it would probably be easier if he didn’t have to look at Sebastian when he told him.

  “It was inconvenient and it was a little bit embarrassing as I got older but it was never a big deal in my house. The school and my teachers were even great about not making me feel weird. I went to the nurse if something went wrong and I had a schedule worked out with my teachers so things rarely went bad at school. Some kids thought I was a little odd but in elementary school most kids don’t notice weird, they just accept what the grownups tell them.”

  “When did that change, baby?”

  “In fifth grade. That’s when everything started to change. In fourth grade, kids started to notice how often I left class and just that I was different somehow but they didn’t know why.”

  “How did they find out? What happened next?” Sebastian’s soft, low, daddy voice was usually soothing but this time it didn’t seem to help. His chest got tight as he relived the terrible memories.

  “I told Jeremy. He was my best friend back then. He’d moved to the area at the end of fourth grade and we became inseparable. He didn’t understand why I couldn’t have sleepovers and things like that like the other kids did. Things that would have made hiding my issues too hard. He asked over and over why I couldn’t sleep over and so finally I told him that summer before fifth grade. He seemed to understand and it didn’t seem to change things between us but…but…”

  “It’s okay, baby. You can do it. What happened next, baby?” His daddy’s voice chased the tightness from his chest.

  “I don’t know what happened, I never asked. He told someone, I don’t know who or why but he told. He probably didn’t mean to because he was a sweet kid, funny, and popular too, but he was nice. He wouldn’t have been that mean on purpose.”

  Taking a deep breath, Mark continued. “We came back from vacation just before school started that fall. When school started, things had changed. No one would talk to me at first. They just stared and giggled. Even Jeremy wouldn’t talk to me. He couldn’t even meet my eyes that first day back. By the next day everyone knew and the teasing started.”

  “Deep breath, baby. It’s okay. I’m right here.” Mark could hear the worry in Sebastian’s voice.

  “I know, Daddy. I can do it.” Several deep breaths later, Mark leaned back against his headboard, grabbed a pillow to hold tight, and started telling about what happened again, determined to get through it this time. “The teasing got worse and there wasn’t anything the school could do. The teachers tried but every time they turned their backs on the class, someone would make an obnoxious comment or make a rude gesture. I tried to hide it from my parents at first but they realized quickly that something was wrong. There wasn’t much they could do about it though. They couldn’t even pull me out of school because we were living in a small town and they needed both incomes to make ends meet.”

  Mark started breathing better now that the hardest part was over. “My dad was finally able to get a job transfer towards the end of the school year. It was a good enough promotion that my mom was able to stay home and they decided I would be homeschooled. So I didn’t go back to public school after we moved. I even attended college at an online university. It made things safer.”

  He’d learned to distance himself and make sure no one else would find out again. Until Sebastian that is. He’d comealong and changed everything.

  “Is that why you didn’t date?”

  “Of course. I knew that I
just couldn’t have that. I never gave boys or girls that much thought after everything happened because I just couldn’t imagine a way to date and hide my problem at the same time. Even with timing the bathroom trips and being careful, problems happened and I just couldn’t take that chance. Most people just couldn’t understand.”

  “Why didn’t you ever look at someone in an alternative lifestyle?” Sebastian just really didn’t seem to understand why Mark hadn’t embraced the age-play lifestyle years ago. “There are all kinds of people with different kinks that would have at the very least accepted the issue and not been horrified by it.”

  Now that he’d started to share, opening up to Sebastian came easier. “I think primarily it was because I hated the way the disposable underwear made me feel and I couldn’t see diapers as being any different.”

  Mark paused; relaxing the grip on his pillow, he tried to find the right words to explain it. “They made me feel…isolated, I guess. Because no one would understand. It would be all they saw of me if they found out. The whole idea of kinks like that was just confusing. I just couldn’t relate to the idea that some people would like what I hated.

  “And let’s face it,” he couldn’t help his sarcastic tone. “The media doesn’t portray people with kinky lifestyles as the sanest individuals. The only real examples of things like that came from bad porn or people on weird reality TV shows. So the only exposure I had wasn’t someone that I could relate to or see myself opening up to. The whole idea was like going up to a crazy stranger and sharing my deepest fears.”

  “I guess I can understand that. I had different role models growing up. My parents were the stereotypical hippies that never grew up. They never tried to force me to fit inside any preconceived molds of how or who I was supposed to love. I had a lot of room to explore myself and what I wanted. They were very supportive of my relationship with Ally.” Sebastian paused and Mark could hear the wheels turning in his head. Mark wondered what other questions were on his daddy’s mind.

  “Do the diapers feel different to you now that you’ve actually tried them on and we’ve explored them together?” Mark could hear the concern in Sebastian’s voice and he hated that he’d made Sebastian doubt himself.

  “Very different, Daddy. The way you look at me, the way you take care of things, and honestly look forward to the times when you change me, it makes things very different.” And even if he couldn’t say it out loud, the diapers themselves felt different. Maybe it was just the association that he had with them was so different now but they felt sexy and soft. The disposable underwear felt odd and wrong.

  Mark could hear the confidence return to Sebastian’s voice as he started talking again. “How does it feel to wear the diapers when you’re alone then? Does it feel the same as when you are with me or does it feel different?”

  Of course, Sebastian would want to hear about that. Just thinking about the newest twist in their relationship made Mark squirm. The other day Sebastian sent Mark home with a box of diapers for his house. He wanted Mark to try wearing them when they were apart, not just when they were at Sebastian’s house.

  “A little of both, I think.” He paused, not sure how to explain it. “I think…I mean…I guess I have a lot more positive associations with the diapers, so when I put them on by myself it doesn’t feel like I’ve failed when I need a new one. It’s not the same as when you do it, but close, I guess. When I need new disposable underwear, it feels like I’ve failed at being an adult. Like I should be able to be normal but I’m…inadequate. With the diapers though, it’s not failing to need to change it because that’s the point of it, for you to change me and have our special time, so it’s not the same. Does that make sense?”

  “Yes, baby boy, because I want it to be different for you too, for it to be special. You’re special to me and I want you to feel it when you’re wearing them. You’re special because you let me be me and just take care of you. You don’t make me feel weird for needing to care for you and you let me show you how much I care…How much I love you, baby boy.”

  Mark couldn’t breathe, holding the phone away from his ear. He just looked at the screen, afraid he’d heard wrong. It was too soon, wasn’t it? Hearing the silence on the other end of the phone, Mark knew he had to say something. Sebastian didn’t seem to be breathing either as he waited for Mark.

  He said the only thing he could…the truth. “Daddy, I love you too.”

  Chapter 10

  “Are you sure this is a good idea, Sebastian?”

  “Yes, we discussed everything that could go wrong today, didn’t we?”

  “I guess so.”

  Over the last two weeks, they had numerous dates over at Sebastian’s house but they hadn’t gone anywhere else. Mark was fine with that but it was making Sebastian a little bit unreasonable. Sebastian was convinced that he had some kind of phobia against leaving the house. Total bull, but to make Sebastian happy he said he would go on a date if Sebastian could figure out a date that would be reasonable for him.

  That hadn’t been quite as easy to figure out as Sebastian had hoped because Mark had put his foot down on the idea of being changed in public. They’d finally agreed that a single stall bathroom would work because Mark could go in and change himself when it was needed. The problem was finding a nice restaurant with a single stall bathroom that Sebastian deemed first date worthy. There wasn’t one.

  Sebastian had put his foot down on the idea of their first date somewhere besides his house being anything but perfect. However, after a lot of planning they’d agreed on a date. They were going to go on a hike and have a picnic. Sebastian thought it was romantic enough to count and Mark was willing to compromise and hope there was enough privacy on the trail so that he could change himself when it was necessary.

  They found a fairly easy trail that was only about twenty minutes from Sebastian’s house and decided to head out the next day. Mark thought they could wait until later in the week. Who took a day off work to go hiking on a Tuesday? However, Sebastian seemed to think that if he let Mark put if off they might never actually go. So Tuesday it was.

  He was going to show Sebastian that he could do this. Hopefully. Fingers crossed. He had to show Sebastian because it was one of the things that was holding them back. It wasn’t the date itself. Although Sebastian seemed to get stir-crazy a lot faster than Mark did when they were home for a long period of time. It was more that he needed to show Sebastian that he was ready for more.

  How do you show the person that you already consider your daddy that you’re ready for him to really be your daddy and lover? By showing him that he matters and that what he wants is important. So first out of the house date, then he would tackle the next problem: Daddy’s friends.

  Pulling into the parking lot at the base of the trail, Sebastian parked the car and they got ready to go. The walk started off pretty easy and getting out of the house was a lot nicer than Mark thought it would be. Sebastian seemed to keep most of the panic that he normally felt at bay. No matter how frustrated and embarrassed he became, Sebastian was always there to help. He’d never pictured it could be this way.

  He was a little bit tense when he thought about changing his diaper later, but nothing like it would have been even three weeks ago. And it was a diaper, no more disposable underwear, and no more embarrassment.

  Well, almost no embarrassment, at least when it came to Sebastian. Aside from actually being more comfortable and more practical in a lot of ways, he liked the way Sebastian looked at him when he wore the diapers.

  The passion in Sebastian’s eyes when he would look at Mark and call him his boy, or when he would ask him if he needed to be changed was electric. Mark wasn’t sure if he found the diapers sexual now or if it was just Sebastian’s passion for them that got him off, but he decided it didn’t matter.

  The hike was turning out to be a lot more fun than he expected. It was a loop trail that would take them a couple of hours to finish according to the map online. Howeve
r, it was easy and there were a lot of places to stop and rest for a few minutes or have lunch.

  Tuesday was probably a good choice because they saw very few people on the trail and Mark was growing more confident by the minute that he would have privacy when he needed to be changed. They talked a bit but mostly they walked in silence just enjoying being with each other. It gave Mark a lot of time to think.

  They’d been working on Mark’s habit of timing his bathroom trips and worrying about when he would go. The goal was to stop worrying about it entirely and just ask to be changed if he went. It was harder than he’d thought it would be.

  He hadn’t realized how ingrained the need to set his timer was or to just look at the clock. Sebastian finally made a rule that when Mark was at his house the phone had to stay in the kitchen. He would still hear it if one of his clients needed him but otherwise, he had to leave it alone. Unless he was actively working.

  It wasn’t that hard of a rule to follow at Sebastian’s house because all he had to do was tell his daddy that he’d wet his diaper. The reward for being honest with Sebastian far outweighed the initial embarrassment of asking to be changed. Far outweighed.

  Sebastian loved it when Mark cuddled up to him and asked his daddy to change him. And lately, he’d been getting just as turned on as Sebastian did when he had to ask to be changed. It hadn’t taken long for his body to associate the diapers with the incredible things that Daddy did when he changed him. They still hadn’t gone all the way yet but what they had done was wonderful and Mark couldn’t wait to experience more.

  When he was at his house, it was harder to break the habit. Without Sebastian there to help, he found himself stalking the clock again and setting his timer. He felt guilty about it sometimes but other times he just couldn’t help it. Sebastian said he was going to put his foot down soon and start punishing Mark if he didn’t work harder to stop setting the timer when he was alone. Mark couldn’t decide if the threat of a punishment was actually a deterrent or not.