I hadn’t been to my hometown in years. I hated it. Even this stop was simply for gas. I’d intended to keep going ’til New Jersey, where my fiancée was waiting. And yet, as I filled my tank at the old Exxon—one thing I could count on being there, despite the passage of time—I suddenly got the urge to poke around. Suddenly it was a novelty to be in my hometown, by chance, knowing no one, my parents long dead. The Monday morning winter street wore a desolate aspect, while miniscule changes among the downtown shops and restaurants imparted a feeling like a dream in which a familiar locale is slightly distorted, unreal. I felt somewhere between Scrooge floating around with the ghost of Christmas past and Mrs. Ramsay in To the Lighthouse vexed to discover changes in people she hasn’t seen in twenty years. I guess I felt Edwardian, like an E.M. Forster novel, with a bit of Henry James’ “Jolly Corner” on the side, for I was charmed rather than dismayed by those instances where memory clashed with the present. The fact that a cellphone vender had gone in where a coffeeshop called The Lantern had gone out gave me an unmistakable thrill. It was a sign of how far I’d come, or rather gone, since my youth. I hadn’t been here in years!

A block off Main in any direction sufficed to outdistance meters, while clean signposts limited free parking to 4 hours, as if the town could exhaust half this largess. Indeed, after parking, I was at a momentary loss. I had no desire to visit my childhood home, but I felt like seeing some old haunt, and began to wander at random, passing familiar subshops and unfamiliar cellphone vendors. (When I left, portable phones were esoteric devices requiring small suitcases.) The camera shop was gone, the fish market gone, yet the Irish goods shop defiantly endured, along with the perpetually failed restaurant whose name often changed, even as decor, staff, and menu never varied. Right now it was Julien’s, comfortably generic. It used be Justin’s, though a host of names—Town & Country, Pickwick Tavern, inexplicably The White Horse, and countless others—had intervened. Just as I was verging on boredom, I remembered the old used bookstore, Underwood Books and Maps. It was just the thing. But could it still exist? Used bookstores were falling like dominos, scarce in New York, gone from Cambridge, closing even in Berkeley. I nonetheless headed up the street, towards an area where the commercial district gradually faded to residential. At the cusp of this transition, among a group of shops inhabiting an old farmhouse and barn, was Underwood, if it still existed. You had to walk up a driveway to the back of the house to find it, and I was encouraged to see both the clock repair shop and the shop devoted to stained glass doodads still occupying the barn. Rounding the corner, I joyed to find the same weatherbeaten wooden sign, with the legend Underwood Books and Maps / Specializing in Maps and Cartography painted above a quaintly-rendered compass pointing north.

As a child with an over-fastidious sense of grammar, I was offended by the mild redundancy of this sign, to the point where I one day inquired of the owner—a gruff old man, presumably Underwood himself, though I was never clear on this point—why he permitted such flagrant error to stand. The owner plucked his pipe from his mouth and glared at me as though I’d committed the most tremendous impertinence, though my childish sincerity must have abated his fury, for in quick succession he laid his pipe on the counter, mopped his bald forehead with a vast handkerchief, snatched up one of several nearby cats, and began to stroke it rapidly. Then he vented a tremendous sigh, returned his pipe to its accustomed corner of his mouth, and resumed his usual gruffness. “My boy,” he began, “you are as yet inexperienced in life, but as you will one day learn, in the fields of commerce, more specifically publicity and advertising, subtlety does not pay. One is forced to be explicit even at the cost of rhetorical measures literate men”—and here he gestured with his pipe as if to say, “men such as we”—“find extremely painful. Naturally such a course is not to be pursued in literature and even less in life.” I admit I was puzzled at how this remark could apply to a sign invisible from the road, yet, while it was our sole exchange of any substance, he seemed more kindly disposed towards me afterwards, in his own gruff way. I found I was rather looking forward to seeing him, and was disappointed to discover a man behind the counter around my age, with spectacles, a thin moustacheless beard, and what looked like permed hair. I couldn’t help asking:

“Where’s the owner?”

“You’re looking at him,” the man said with a grin.

“I mean, the old owner?”

“Johnson?” the man said. “He moved to Florida about ten years ago, after he sold me the place.”

“Good for him.”

“He’s dead.”

“Ah.”

“Know him?”

“Not really. I used to come here.”

The man appeared to study me closely, as if he’d just caught sight of me. I found this scrutiny irritating.

“Mind if I poke around?”

“Help yourself,” he said, with a wave of the hand that took in the whole shop.

I felt myself resenting these proprietary airs, though, I had to admit, he was the proprietor, and therefore entitled. I went upstairs to the cramped second floor—an improvised mezzanine, really—where the poetry section was, passing a complete set of Emerson I recognized from childhood. It was almost as good as seeing the old man. The poetry shelves too contained familiar faces: Robert Lowell’s For the Union Dead, Robert Service’s Rhymes of a Red Cross Man, Robert Frost’s A Masque of Mercy—mainstays of poetry no one wants, recurring like emblems in used bookstores across the nation, but whose acquaintance I first made here. I remembered an ancient flower pressed between the pages of the red leatherette Service, and sure enough, there it was. I was tempted to buy the book until I saw the books surrounding it. Books by Weiners, Schuyler, Ashbery; collections of Clare, Beddoes, Young; even delightfully obscure titles like Honey & Gall by Francis Saltus. Surely the store wasn’t this good before, though, I reflected, I’d known little of poetry then. Most of the books were beyond my means, but then I came across an affordable copy of the original Sun & Moon edition of Jeff Clark’s The Little Door Slides Back. I knew the author, slightly, but only had the FSG reprint. It reminded me, too, I had a life to get back to, and after a cursory tour of the rest of the mezzanine, I decided to buy the book and get back on the road.

As I returned to the counter—cat-free, I noted—the man behind it resumed his intense scrutiny of my face. I was on the verge of saying something sharp, when an enlightenment dawned across his features, culminating in a particularly wide grin. This didn’t, however, prepare me for:

“Aren’t you Barrett O’Sullivan?”

Vanity immediately converted my profound irritation to serene delight. I hadn’t expected to be recognized.

“Why, yes! Have you read The Barrett O’Sullivan Reader?”

“No,” he said, immediately adding, “but I’d sure like to!”

I stared at the man in undisguised confusion, whereupon he offered his hand over the counter.

“Leo DiGiorgio,” he said. “You know, Deegz.”

I needed no second prompt. As we shook hands, I scanned his face, and sure enough, through the beard, behind the spectacles, and beneath the perm, the face of my old playmate emerged. Deegz, neighborhood bully, high school athlete, and—according to report; we’d long since parted ways—college drug dealer, after which I’d lost sight of him. What was he doing here, looking like this and owning Underwood Books? Deegz appeared to glean the gist of my thought, for he grinned again and took in the shop with a wave.

“It’s a long story. How long you in town?”

“Just passing through, really, and remembered the old bookstore.”

There was a short pause, before an impulse seized Deegz.

“How ‘bout dinner tonight?” he asked. “I’ve got some fresh swordfish at home, a couple of bottles of wine. I’ll cook us something to eat and we can catch up on old times.”

I hesitated. This was a detour I hadn’t planned and couldn’t afford. Yet, when I opened my mouth to refuse, out came flying:

“Yes.”

Outside with my purchase, I felt once more at a loss. Why I’d agreed to dinner with Deegz when my fiancée expected me in Jersey, I couldn’t quite say. I drifted downtown. It wasn’t a town where you could sit in your car for hours and not be conspicuous. Besides—I needed more than four hours! After a few blocks, I stood irresolute. I could hop in the car and go; I’d never see him again. At the same time, though wholly devoid of childhood nostalgia, I was intrigued by the metamorphosis of Deegz. I decided to drink on it. It was a bit early in the day for Julien’s, and I needed more than mimosa. Then I recalled The Bar & Grill, the town’s sole concession to daytime drinkers. I’d never gone in but I knew where it was and assumed social necessity underwrote its continued existence. Nor was I mistaken, though the bowling alley it hid behind looked long deserted. The bar—interior by Bud—was dark and sparsely peopled, so I set up shop in a corner booth with some degree of privacy.

Two Bushmills later, I found myself on my cellphone talking to my fiancée. Engine trouble; nothing serious, just a delay. A few hours, possibly overnight if they can’t get the part. No idea but they said it wasn’t expensive. Soon as I find out. Promise. I will.

My belly was warm from the whiskey, but my thoughts were nowise clearer. The effort of the call had left me befuddled. What’s more, even if I wanted to hit the road, I was obliged to dawdle a couple of hours for the sake of this absurd lie about the car. If you’d’ve told me yesterday I’d voluntarily confine myself here for any period, however brief, the next day, I’d’ve laughed in your face. Yet here I was, and I confess I came to the same conclusion you’d’ve come to, had you been able to see me then. I was a fool.

Outside the bar, the cold felt good on my face, which I’m sure was tinted a fine booze-red. The warmth from the whiskey dropped from my belly and settled around my knees, leaving my stomach raw and hungry. After the bar, the winter sun was blinding, so I slipped on my Audrey Hepburn stunna shades, an accessory finally made available to men—at least in the Bay Area—by the hyphy movement. Granted I was in New England, where such eyewear is eccentric even on a woman if she ranks below a Kennedy, but they were all I had. In this condition, I set off for the car, passing en route a CVS that encompassed the building it once shared with a local grocery. I doubled back and went inside. The aisles, formerly straight ahead, now flew off to the left through the old grocery, reviving the distorted, dreamlike ambience of earlier. I went to the store’s “grocery department” and grabbed some things to eat. Then I went the pharmacy side to get some adult diapers. The selection was poor—too Depend, too “disposable underwear”—so I quickly settled on store-brand overnights and made my way to checkout.

Checkout was staffed by a trio of twentysomething women, underemployed at this hour and clustered around the center register with an indolence only a chain in a well-heeled suburb could afford. I had no option but to approach and plop the sack of diapers on the counter in their midst. Bland professionalism wasn’t their strong suit; one’s eyes grew big as highly amused saucers, while another stifled a giggle with small success. The third, ringing me up, held a tremor of hilarity barely in check as she asked me cash or credit. I felt my cheeks burn deeper red. The saucer-eyed woman took on the role of bagger—largely as a pretext to observe—while the giggler retreated behind her own register to conceal an increasing mirth. As the door swung to behind me, I distinctly heard a muffled snort, and I had no doubt the three would burst into laughter once I disappeared from the store’s plate-glass purview. I doubled back just to be sure, quickly peeking around the corner of the window. I was not disappointed.

About 20 minutes later I’d checked into an Econolodge on the edge of town. Check-in was interesting. The CVS bag carrying the diapers was stretched transparent, leaving no doubt as to its contents. The woman behind the check-in counter noticed right as she was handing me the keycard for Room 13.

“One moment, sir,” she said, returning to her terminal and hitting a few keys. She opened the keycard drawer and exchanged the keycard for another.

“I’m sorry, sir, I’ve made a mistake. 13’s already booked for this evening. But 17’s the same price—and it has a bigger bed!” She supplied this last detail with an enthusiasm devoid of suggestiveness as she presented the keycard. It was all very professional and, if her eyebrows had arched involuntarily at the diapers, betraying a brief flash of knowing amusement, I could hardly blame her; she was only human.

17 was surprisingly clean for its class of accommodation, with a window looking out on a pleasant courtyard. I dropped my bags on the floor and sat on the bed, which responded with a vigorous crinkle. No mistake; the mattress was zipped inside a plastic cover. I went to the window and drew the blinds. Then I stripped myself naked, except for my socks, and opened the package of diapers. Through the open bag the white diapers smiled like a set of soft teeth. I extracted one with difficulty, due to the extreme compression of the package. Then I lay on the crinkling bed and opened the diaper. This requires more than unfolding, for you must let the diaper breathe like wine, counteracting the trauma of compression through careful stretching. This done, I arched my back and slid the diaper under my bum, then lowered my bum onto the diaper. I pulled the diaper between my legs and taped it up, then adjusted the tapes for an ideal fit. I flexed my cheeks a few times to hear the diaper’s plasticky outside rustle. This had the added bonus of making the mattress crinkle. The sounds made me semi-chubby. I began gently pinching my dick through the padding of the diaper. The padding was agreeably thick, given the thin disposables dominating the market. I pinched my dick some more as I sank back into the pillows and entered the glazed, dreamy palace of masturbation.

The CVS girls hove into view; they merged into the saucer-eyed girl, whose eyes grew wide as dinnerplates before she burst out laughing, flickering into the check-in girl, smiling at me, wagging her finger in an amused, patronizing way. I got hard. I stopped pinching and held the tip of my dick between thumb and fingers, like a large grape, a moderate strawberry, a small fig. Then, to my dick’s astonishment, I seized its length through the diaper and began pumping for all I was worth. The diaper rustled wildly like I was running through leaves in autumn, the mattress cover a breeze through the still-shedding trees, the squeaking of the bed a squawk not unlike the blue jay’s, while beneath my lids the images continued, the saucer-eyed girl becoming the check-in girl, whose hair turned auburn as her uniform blazer morphed into a green plaid schoolgirl outfit familiar from my youth at St. Patrick’s School, the whole bearing an uncanny resemblance to Molly Breed, a girl in my second-grade class who actually wore Pampers due to an underdeveloped bladder. A couple of my classmates frequently teased her at recess, and while I inwardly disapproved of the teasing itself—having sufficient empathy, even then, to feel bad for her plight—I invariably accompanied these expeditions because, for reasons I couldn’t fathom, I was obsessed with diapers, with Molly wearing Pampers at her advanced age, and as the topic so seldom arose in my experience, I couldn’t resist listening, even if I refrained from participation. Sometimes she’d get upset, sometimes she didn’t care. Sometimes she’d be demurely embarrassed, which was, I confess, my favorite. I suppose she went through moods with the whole thing, like anyone would. Fragments of these memories ran through my mind, and for awhile I slipped back and forth between watching Molly and being watched by the saucer-eyed girl and the check-in girl, the whole intercut with images of diapers and orchestrated by the rustle crinkle squeak of the diaper mattress bed. The moods alternated rapidly, until the check-in girl’s fingerwagging gradually gained the upper hand. I pumped my diapered dick in a fury of humiliated ecstasy.

A word to the men in the audience: I realize most of you tend not to explore your body beyond the sanctioned limits of the manroot, regarding the asshole-taint-sack region with the superstition accorded a tribal fetish, provided the mechanism’s up and running. This is a mistake, if you enjoy pleasure. In the case at hand—busting a nut (self-induced)—I picked up a little trick, quite by accident, which enhances the experience immeasurably—at least for me—and is no doubt good for you. I may have read about this in pornographic contexts as “squeezing the balls,” but I was never inclined to pursue an avenue of eroticism whose very name made me queasy. If I’m correct, the phrase is a misnomer, for the action it denotes is nobler by far. So, next time you come, if you have the balls, try this: after you get off the first two or three shots—you know, the good ones—take your free hand and grab, not your nuts, but rather the bottom of the nutsack or not quite 3/4 of the way around (above all avoiding squeezing your balls). Grab some empty sack right around there, gently squeeze and hold, then write me a letter thanking me. This light contraction of sack around balls adds a great deal of urgency to the secondary squirts, and converts many of the comparatively insipid tertiary squirts to secondary squirts of a less urgent though highly enjoyable nature. Keeps the pipes clean too, a lot less come dripping down after. I’ve gotten so good at this, the diaper’s no obstacle, and, because I hadn’t had a chance to nut in days, I was soon shooting off long streamers of come, conveniently captured by the diaper itself, followed by so fierce a secondary round twas no ammo left for the third. As I climaxed I roared like Michael McClure:

“uuuuuuuugggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhnnnnnkkkkkkkkkkk!”

Afterward, while I lay on the on the bed panting for breath in that rapid but peculiarly lucid post-orgasmic state of consciousness, I unleashed two Bushmills worth of piss into the diaper. Seldom does the word “whizz” so readily lend itself to pissing as when you’re wetting a diaper, for you can fairly hear the piss sizzle as its force encounters the unexpected resistance of the padding. Absorption, of course, isn’t immediate; as I lay back listening to the sound, I felt the warm piss eddy around my balls, then slowly sink into the padding beneath my bum. As it absorbed, the diaper began to swell and its outside grew warm. It’s best not to move under these conditions until you’re sure the diaper has completed its work—otherwise it’s like ringing out a sponge—so you can imagine how disconcerted I was to hear a short but urgent series of knocks at the door. I had no choice but to call out one sec, gingerly lift myself out of bed, and squelch over to the door in a manner most undignified. Even taking such pains as I did, I felt a few drops of piss roll down my leg as I peered through the door’s eyehole at a middle-aged Mexican maid with an anxious look on her face. I chained the door and cracked it wide enough to permit polite discourse, yet narrow enough to conceal my wet diaper.

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry, sir, but I heard a scream. I thought someone was being murdered.”

“I’m sorry; I was having a nightmare. I must have called out in my sleep.”

“That explains it. I’m so sorry to have disturbed you; can I get you anything?”

“No thanks. Sorry to have troubled you.”

“Not at all, sir. If you need anything, please let me know.”

“Will do. Thanks!”

I shut the door, quickly but gently because, though I didn’t want to offend, I saw no other escape from this endless round of sorrys and thank yous. And to be honest I didn’t trust myself. When a woman asks a man if he needs anything while he happens to be in wet diapers, his natural response is to request a change. How could it not cross my mind? Maybe she already knew about the diapers from the check-in woman. I was obviously housed in the bedwetter room, so maybe it was an offer. It’s easy to elaborate a logic on untrue premises, and rather than pursue such fantasies even in retrospect, I returned to the crinkling bed and slipped under the covers to luxuriate in the diaper—which had completed its absorption and remained comfortably warm and damp—and contemplate the metamorphosis of Deegz.

I’d hung out with Deegz when I was around 9 and he was 14. This circumstance resulted from geographic rather natural affinity, but the neighborhood kids, myself included, all admired Deegz for his athletic prowess during our semi-anarchic Nerf football games. He also could kick anyone’s ass, which seemed like a mark of high distinction, though none of us considered the fact that he was several years older and perhaps a bit of a loser pushing around a bunch of younger kids. Don’t get me wrong; he was good at high school football, but we were simply no competition. He was a lantern-jawed jock, invariably sporting athleticwear as well as a buzz cut, which made his present perm the most astonishing detail of his new incarnation. I didn’t necessarily like Deegz, yet, to take a leaf from Top Cat, he was the indisputable leader of the gang, and at his house I could watch MTV, which at my house was forbidden. But basically we were all forced to associate for lack of other prospects in our small and tedious town.

Yet, despite an all-American athleticism, a bullying swagger, and old school good looks, Deegz was not without idiosyncrasies. Sometimes his idea of horseplay was to have a couple of subordinates hold my face between his legs while he unleashed some of the nastiest rounds of farting I’ve ever withstood. It smelt like overboiled vegetables filtered through a shit machine. But Deegz had worse in store for me when he discovered that, despite perfectly normal bladder control under ordinary circumstances, I could be made to piss my pants through prolonged tickle torture. I had no idea; my parents weren’t the tickling type. Sometimes he tickled me in front of neighborhood girls, sometimes in front of the boys, but most often when we were alone. He seemed to get a real kick out of it, and to conceal my shame from my parents, I took up laundry duty as my permanent household chore. When we were alone, he would lie on top of me and tickle me mercilessly; I could hold out for awhile, but eventually exhaustion would set in, and, even if I didn’t have to go, I’d feel myself start to piss, sometimes enough to leave a big dark patch on my crotch and bum, other times, if I had to go, fully wetting my pants, past my knees and occasionally up my shirt, which was extra embarrassing. I’d noticed Deegz, when we were alone, was indifferent to the fact I often wound up wetting his own shirt or pants, though he managed to avoid this in the presence of others. I attributed his carelessness to the fact that we were in his backyard and he could retreat to his house unobserved, whereas I had to walk an interminable block and a half in obviously pissed-in pants. Yet, having long neglected these memories in favor of more urgent psychoanalytical needs, I now recalled Deegz’s palpable hard-on during our solo encounters, and the way his tickling gradually subsided after I’d wet myself now struck me as post-orgasmic. Back then, at the onset of puberty, the boner-as-such had only recently taken on a certain urgency, and since I got hard in the most random settings—math class, church, a spelling bee—I hardly gave his hard-on a second thought despite its vigorous grinding against my tightly clamped thighs.

Believe it or not, I endured this treatment some two years. Deegz, to his credit, didn’t indulge his obsession every time we hung out—he had others to torment in diverse ways—but frequently enough that I began to get a reputation around the neighborhood. What finally pushed me over my limit was when Deegz nicknamed me “Pampers,” which at school was one of our names for Molly. It made me feel like a girl, and, given the climate of ridicule surrounding Molly’s diapers, as well as the two girls who wet themselves in class and the one boy who shit himself during a recess farting contest, I could only thank god I went to Catholic school in the next town while Deegz was a public school Protestant. If it had gotten around St. Pat’s, where my real friends were, I would have died of mortification. But the neighborhood grew unbearable, particularly when Deegz decreed I really wore Pampers. Naturally his word was law and so everyone agreed I wore Pampers. I put up with this for about a month, and, as the joke gave no sign of petering out, I withdrew from the world of neighborhood play and began reading books. Perhaps it’s responsible for my becoming a writer, though I’d never made this connection before. Yet at the time I couldn’t help thinking I was a victim of what I’d now call karma, but back then considered divine justice meted out by a wrathful god to punish my pleasure in Molly’s predicament.

Throughout these meditations, I was stroking myself idly, almost unconsciously, through the wet diaper. I couldn’t help noticing, despite the brief lapse of time, I was hard again. I firmed up my grip on my dick and pulled on it with violence. The bed resumed crinkling, and, though silenced by its contents, the pleasantly swollen diaper atoned for its lack of rustle by wetly slapping my bum while I pumped. My balls, of course, only had enough time to whip up a small batch of jizz, so when I nutted, the orgasm was much less genital than bodily, and thankfully less audible, more like e. e. cummings, though I was literally gasping for air by the time it was over. I’d even forgotten the nut trick, though it probably wouldn’t’ve amounted to much at such low pressure. I rewet the diaper with a feeble stream of piss sufficient to unclog the pipes, thought a bit more about Deegz, then promptly fell asleep.

Dinner with Deegz was delightful. He lived in his parents’ old house, which aside from a few alterations in furnishings, was largely as I remembered. For dinner, he served up a delicious swordfish involtini messinese, which we put away with a couple of bottles of lightly chilled chinon and a robust log of sainte maure chèvre. I tasted the salad to be polite. Even it was superb, for salad. My contribution was to regale Deegz with tales of my life as a poet and all-around littérateur. I could see I had his admiration; he was impressed I’d published a book of poems, so naturally I exaggerated my achievements, implied I knew Jeff Clark better than I did, told him what dudes like Ashbery were like in person, and concluded with my set-piece about getting Creeley high at an art opening in NY. As I’d packed us a bowl, I asked Creeley if, being in his 70s, he got high much anymore. He turned to me with a pained expression and said, “No one ever offers—and I don’t know where to get it!” What was poetry coming to, I wondered, when no one was getting Creeley high? But he was delighted with the weed, good Cali O, and once we were high, he began talking rapidly on a variety of topics, especially the internet, which fascinated him. It was a hard to follow but amazing ride, fragments of which I retain. At this point in the story, I baited a little joke to test Deegz’s mettle as a bookseller.

“Then he says, ‘Olson and I had to wait three days to get replies from each other. Can you imagine if we had email?’”

“I’m not sure the market could handle 20 more volumes of Complete Correspondence,” Deegz laughed. “I still got a crate of Volume 9 I picked up when Black Sparrow folded.” He passed with flying colors, needless to say, and he was obviously charmed to take part, however remotely, in the greater literary world.

“Speaking of getting high,” Deegz said, opening his cold cabinet to stash the remaining chèvre and break out a baggie containing four or five neatly rolled joints, not exactly chops but respectable fatties nonetheless. Naturally it’s impossible to get Cali-level weed in Massachusetts, so, rather than fuck around, I reached for the bag and pulled out a joint for each of us, as though this were the custom among poets, and if his eyes widened slightly in surprise, he got into the spirit of the thing with perfect grace; we sat in his living room and blew great clouds of smoke like we were puffing after-dinner cigars, and pretty soon we were pretty high.

As we smoked I spoke of my journalistic adventures writing about hip hop for a great metropolitan newspaper. Deegz knew nothing about hip hop, but again was impressed with my adventures, my cover stories, and the fact that, coming from the same lily-white town as he, I knew so many black people from the ghetto. I steered the conversation towards drugs, via a discussion of high-end weed I’d smoked with various rappers: granddaddy with Dooby, kush with Badgate, catpiss with The Jakker. Idle pot talk perhaps—and smokers are far worse than fishermen with this one time, I smoked the best shit stories—but I was curious about Deegz’s alleged drug-dealing days, felt presumptuous asking, and wanted to draw him out. I baited another hook by telling him about Shugacue, a rapper and d-boy who drove me around Fairfield in his Cadillac for an hour dropping off bundles of crack before settling down to talk. I guess he was feeling me out, and I got a good interview since I didn’t get uptight, though I confess I inwardly hoped some sort of journalistic immunity covered all this. (I needn’t have worried; Shug was too good at what he did.) After this, I let the conversational thread dangle a few moments to see if Deegz would pick it up. I was not disappointed.

Course I was never a d-boy, but for a while there, I was moving weight. I started in college. I got a football scholarship to U Lowell, but how many guys from Lowell go to the pros? I saw the writing on the wall; I was good, but not that good. When I found out the scholarship itself wasn’t tied to football, I quit the team. I’d already started dealing pot, ’cause I knew where to get it, so I was hooking my friends up, and I figured since I’m doing all the work, I might as well buy in bulk and break it down, make a little money. I started making lots of money. College kids wanna smoke, and my dorm was on the 28th floor of a 29-floor tower. Security didn’t bother up there unless an alarm went off, so I had a pretty perch for a couple of years. Went to class in the morning when the heads were asleep, then hung in my dorm all day making money. It was like a store open noon to midnight, and I had to buy bigger and bigger amounts to keep it stocked. One of my customers on 26 said he could smell it down there, so I moved off-campus, fell off going to class, pretty much dropped out. I missed it. But business was good, I kept getting more customers, dudes not from campus, and then I started dealing coke. Never tried it myself; too scared to. But dudes kept asking for it and I had connections who handled it, so it wasn’t hard to get. Before I knew it, I was deep in the game.

Not sure why I did it, except I was so good at it and I felt like I’d failed at football. But football trained me for dope. I had a good build, a good poker face, and I was good at psyching my opponent out, which is useful. I started working my way up, bought a piece, had a beeper, then a cell. For awhile I was a big connection; I was the guy who bought from the guy who bought from the boat, then I sold to guys who broke it down and sold to guys who cooked it up and sold it on the corner. D-boys, I guess, we didn’t have a name for them, mostly Cambodian or Vietnamese kids. But Lowell was full of them—it was the crack capital of the country at the time—so I was making bank. Then I started arranging deliveries across the country. I was the synch man: made the deal, paid for it, coordinated everything, never had to touch it myself. I’d fly out there with a mule who’d drive the stuff back in a rental while I followed in another one. You had to look real executive, expensive suits, shoes, the whole wardrobe. You fly business. It’s fun. I was great at it, and I never got caught until someone somewhere in the pipe snitched. Never found out who. Outside Chicago one day, me and the mule both get pulled over, fingers on the hood, feet out and spread ’em; cop walks right up, pops the mule’s trunk, pulls five bricks outta the spare. Knew exactly where to look; they were taping the whole time. And it was a federal case, moving across state lines, heavy shit, but since I had no priors, and I never actually handled the dope, my lawyer bargained it down to 4 1/2 years.

Prison’s a whole nother story; I don’t wanna get into it right now. It was the feds, so it was probably soft compared to state prison. But it’s still no fun, except you got a lotta free time on your hands, so I started reading a lot. I was already into it; when I was sitting around my dorm waiting for people to score, I’d get bored with TV and read things like Henry Miller, Burroughs, Bukowski, shit like that. But in jail I started reading all kinds of shit. My parents sent me whatever I wanted. I got real into Victorian novels but also Black Sparrow dudes like Clayton Eshleman and Weiners. Cultural Affairs in Boston. When I read that, I was like, this is what I’m interested in. I knew I’d never be able to teach with my record, and when I tried to write myself, I got nowhere near Weiners. It’s probably impossible to write like that on the inside. And really I enjoyed reading it more. When I got out, I moved back here to my parents’ house. I had money stashed away, so I didn’t work, just sat around reading, took a few lit classes at community college, a couple of computer classes. Didn’t know what to do with myself until Johnson put Underwood up for sale. I was already buying books there and really liked the place, so I bought it. Hardly anyone comes in; I sell almost everything online. But I’m good at it; the shop pays for itself at least, and I gradually moved the rest of my dope money into retirement accounts, stocks, all that shit. I feel a little guilty about the dope I suppose but 4 1/2 years is payment enough. Don’t see myself giving it all away, so....

He opened a fourth bottle to let it breathe. I helped myself to another joint and handed one to Deegz. It wasn’t so bad, this weed; I felt pretty high from the first joint and thought another would do the trick. Deegz gamely followed, but he was smoking way past his limit. He looked real high. We toked awhile in silence, blowing more smoke between us. I sipped my chinon. I hadn’t gone to the bathroom since I’d left the hotel, while Deegz had already been two or three times, so I had to go bad by now. But I didn’t go. I just sat there smoking while my bladder expanded to aching point. There was no danger immanent; my pee muscles can hold on indefinitely, and the tickling thing stopped working by the time I hit my teens. I’m not even ticklish anymore. So I sat there, the dull ache growing increasingly pleasurable as I got increasingly high. I felt like Deegz noticed I hadn’t gone but I wasn’t sure until I heard him snigger in a way that evoked his youthful persona. I smiled and raised an inquiring eyebrow, whereupon he blurted out:

“Remember the time you pissed your pants?” His red eyes shone in anticipation of my reply. Naturally I couldn’t disappoint him.

“Time?” I laughed. “I can’t count the times you made me!” My phrasing here was less than ideal—I feared he would take it as a reproach—so I laughed again and added, in tones most uncharacteristic:

“I was soooo embarrassed! But I think it’s funny now.”

Deegz was bright with interest. As he refilled our glasses—I hadn’t finished mine—I noticed a slight tremor in his hand. I guess his poker game was rusty. Despite abandoning athletic endeavors, and even developing a slight paunch, Deegz still gravitated towards nylon track pants, and as he sat back down, I saw his hard-on bulge through the thin material. I sat there languidly under the influence of my throbbing bladder finishing my joint, while Deegz clean forgot his in the ashtray. He was beside himself, crossing and uncrossing his legs, the quick swish of nylon pleasing to my ear as it evoked the divine rustle of disposable diapers. He was desperate to continue the conversation, yet didn’t seem to know how, so I decided to lend a hand.

“There’s nothing worse than wetting your pants,” I said, “especially in front of other kids.” I dropped my roach into the ashtray and let it smolder. “It wasn’t as bad when we were alone, except the walk home.”

Deegz’s sniggering threatened to devolve into outright giggles. His excitement had seemingly robbed him of speech, and I almost began to fear for his reason, until I recalled how stoned he was. His eyes looked like red pistachios. At length he calmed down enough to ask:

“Does it ever still happen?”

I pretended not to follow.

“Does what happen?”

“Do you still piss in your pants?” he asked. “I mean, when someone tickles you?”

I hesitated. I can’t make myself blush on cue, let alone on the spur of the moment, though I imagine my boozy flush provided a reasonable facsimile as I feigned demure embarrassment.

“Sometimes.”

Helpless giggles.

“Speaking of pissing my pants,” I said. “I better use your bathroom before I do.”

As soon as I stood up, Deegz shot to his feet. When I tried to walk past, he reached out and grabbed me by the waist. I tried to spin out of his grip, but he was suddenly behind me, pulling me against him. Even through my jeans I could feel his hard-on against my bum, and though he’d definitely softened around the edges since his physical peak, Deegz retained a solid core; his grip was tight and his paunch surprisingly firm against my lower back. He began digging his fingers into my sides. It didn’t tickle at all; it was closer to pain, though it didn’t actually hurt. But I squirmed ineffectually in his grasp, rubbing the cleft of my bum against his hard-on, which produced a dramatic swish of nylon, while I giggled and said things like “Don’t!” and “Cut it out!” The pitch of Deegz’s own giggles rose like a tea kettle. My swollen bladder protested under this rough handling, though I was nowhere near the brink; nevertheless, as soon as he upped the intensity of his tickling, I gasped “Oh god!” and let loose with a torrent of piss that penetrated my undies, shot down my left leg, and soaked my sock and shoe before the wetness even began to show. But a dark stain quickly appeared on my crotch and emerged down my pantleg like a photograph developing. I closed my legs and bent my knees to make sure I peed down both legs. I’d drunk so much my pants were soon shiny with unabsorbed piss; my cuffs were dripping, my bum was warm and wet, and my shoes were quite inundated. Thank god for New England hardwood floors; I was making a huge puddle.

As I finished pissing, Deegz stopped tickling, but still held me against him. After reaching the boiling point, his giggles subsided into hoarse, rapid breathing, though a lack of orgasm was evidenced by the pole-like rigidity of his dick. I wiggled my wet bum against it. At length Deegz released his hold and stepped back to admire the view. I minced around accordingly, turning to face him in a knock-kneed stance as though I’d tried but failed to keep from pissing my pants. I plucked at the wet denim daintily, like I found it uncomfortable, and I felt myself blushing. I actually was embarrassed. Even an old pro like me can feel embarrassed wetting his pants in front of a new audience. Just enough for fun. Deegz meanwhile had grown a pair of stoplight eyes, and his hard-on was tenting his nylon pants, which were wet with my piss. With the exception of his left hand, which, from time to time, as if of its own volition, wandered over to his hard-on and gave it a light squeeze, he was frozen in awe. I looked over my shoulder at my bum and plucked at the denim some more, as if assessing rear damage. I was pretty wet.

I wasn’t sure exactly what the next move was. I was tempted to curtsey with my hand on my mouth like Bettie Page, but this seemed absurdly mannered. Fortunately Deegz snapped out of his trance, as signified by his widening grin and the cruel lust which rose in his red eyes. In a hoarse whisper, he told me I pissed my pants. I protested, in the most petulant voice I could muster, it was his doing. He told me it wasn’t, that I’d had an accident like a baby. I insisted I hadn’t, as though indignant. He stepped forward and pulled me against him, then reached around and squeezed my wet bum. I felt his hard-on against my crotch.

“Yes you did,” he whispered. “You still need Pampers.”

He stuck his tongue in my mouth and we started kissing. As we kissed, I could hear muffled insults muttered into my mouth concerning my unmanly display, my lack of bladder control, my infantile need for diapers. I got rock hard.

Deegz’s bedroom was interesting. Though his parents had died and left him the house, he apparently eschewed the master bedroom in favor of his old room, whose walls remained adorned with high school pennants, posters of running backs, and other childhood ephemera. Still it was reasonably spacious as he was an only child, and the bed was big enough. Deegz stripped off his t-shirt, then dramatically ripped off his track pants with the tear-away suit effect of a basketball player before a game. His dick bulged through the white briefs he stepped out of, disclosing an impressive hard-on which bounced merrily to his movements like a toy clown on a spring. I kicked off my shoes and lay back on the bed with my legs in the air as Deegz pulled off my pissy socks, pants, and undies. I requested dry socks, which surprised him, though he instantly produced a pair while we pumped our respective dicks to keep hard during this interlude. Still his dick pointed due north as he pulled the socks on my feet with a gallantry worthy of an English king’s official dresser, whose title, I recalled, was once the Royal Diaperer, after a diamond-patterned fabric which was diaper’s primary signification at the time. The fact kept me hard. Then, as if to literalize my thought, Deegz reached under the bed and pulled out a diaper, an obvious plant, confirming my suspicions he’d planned this all along. I’d packed a few in my car, but his were way better. I was intrigued he still used the word Pampers, though usage of the brand name as a generic term for diaper is by no means unheard of in New England. And the diaper Deegz slid beneath my bum was amazingly thick and Pamper-like. I refer, of course, to the old bulky Pampers of the ’70s, whose rustley plastic backing was a plain, dignified white consistent with the derivation of diaper—from the Byzantine Greek meaning white throughout—and notably free of the corporate cartoons disfiguring today’s baby diapers.

Once it was under my bum, however, Deegz didn’t tape the diaper up, but instead grabbed my still pissy dick and began to suck it with authority. For a moment, he freed up his mouth, rubbing my hard-on against his cheek and beard as he said:

For I will go to Spoleto and blow them there

quoting my favorite Weiners line—from “Memories of You” (Cultural Affairs in Boston)—which when all’s said and done is funnier than anything in O’Hara. I considered asking Deegz his opinion, but he was already licking my frenulum and mouthing my head with groaning ecstasy, before wholly engulfing my dick. I couldn’t help wondering if he’d picked up his skill in prison, but I wasn’t about to ask. He held my dick at the base with one hand and sucked it up and down like a popsicle, while he slid his other hand under my bum and squeezed it through the diaper. I squirmed with pleasure. Finally I couldn’t resist; I ran my fingers through his perm. I even pushed his head down on my dick, which I’d never do to a woman but rather enjoyed doing to a man. Deegz had no objections, in fact redoubled his efforts, gobbling my dick like a pornstar and firmly gripping my bum through the sweat-dampened diaper.

Meanwhile, down in my nutsack, my balls were working overtime to whip up a new batch of jizz. Recall I’ve already nutted twice in this story, and, let’s face it, my balls aren’t exactly what they used to be. I’m already one of those dudes who can take awhile to nut, which I admit is sometimes useful, but sometimes a tremendous drag. Sometimes I give up. It can take too long; the bottle is there but the genii won’t decant. But there was little danger this evening. I was too hot, and Deegz seemed like he could blow men all night like Weiners in “Memories of You.” His dick was on rock, occasionally brushing my legs, leaving little dots of excitement behind. I’m not sure how long my nuts took to bust, but I’m pleased to report they came through thick under the circumstances, and lo and behold Deegz knew the nutsack maneuver, so I nutted far harder than a man in my state of hydration has any right to. Did I scream? I have no idea. The orgasm shot me somewhere above the scene, and as I was floating back down, I heard myself shouting “Fuck!” each time I exhaled, with a corresponding “O!” on intake. Deegz took it all to the throat, making noises like someone forced to answer the phone in the middle of a peanut butter sandwich. I swooned in abandon. He rubbed my balls gently and, using his thumb and mouth, milked my dick with patient zeal, like jizz was precious in his country and he couldn’t spare a drop. I farted, just to be playful. He signaled approbation with his tongue. The diaper rustled below. Drunk, high, uncorked, semi-pampered and semi-conscious, I might easily have passed out if left to my own devices.

But Deegz of course had no intention of leaving me unmolested, not while his big leaky hard-on was still big, leaky, and hard. I lay there passive, in the arms of the little death, unable to move, watching through half-open eyes as Deegz strapped on a condom, threw my legs up on his shoulders, and produced a jar of some mysterious substance only gay guys know about, warmer than KY, which he spread liberally over my asshole and environs. You can see where this is heading, and I admit I was not without trepidation, not that I was an anal virgin by any means, but my experience hitherto was limited to women with slim strap-ons of modest extent, whereas Deegz wielded a menacingly thick length of pipe. Being bumfucked, in all candor, is not my favorite sensation, yet the posture you must assume to be fucked on your back has a certain appeal insofar as it evokes a diaper change, particularly when there’s already a diaper beneath your bum. Plus I’m a firm believer every man should be fucked in the ass on his back at least once, if only to gain the tiniest insight into what it’s like to be opened up and penetrated like a woman. A stupid idea, perhaps, though I can’t help polishing it up from time to time before replacing it among my jewels of thought.

Outweighing all other considerations, however, was my drunk, stoned, post-orgasmic lassitude, which made a compelling case for simply laying back, come what may. My leisurely indecision was soon converted into assent by Deegz’s hard-on, which nudged my asshole like an old pal. He pushed his head in gently. Whatever unguent he’d slathered on me was doing its job: warm, seemingly analgesic, though this may have been a function of the wine. But Deegz was good at anal; for awhile he just kept his head in, maintaining a light pressure while he waited for my muscles to relax, before ever so gradually pushing deeper. His dick was unquestionably the largest thing ever introduced into my asshole, but I assuaged my fears with the reflection that my asshole had, on rare occasions, expelled things roughly as big. I remembered this one time backpacking through a remote and otherwise charming part of Greece where the public toilets were so riotously filthy I hadn’t shit in, like, five days. Finally I struck out for the hills where I found an abandoned guard tower whose gunslit looked out on a marvelous view of the Aegean. I hopped inside, squatted bareassed over a dirt floor strewn with old bullet casings, and eventually dropped, not a turd, but a hard, dry, baseball-sized ball of turd, which, for the cause of Greek Nationalism, should the country need to defend its shores at a future date, I picked up with tissues and lofted out of the tower like a hand grenade (albeit towards my own frontline, but it was either that or roll it down the hill like a boulder, crushing the town below). I wiped my ass: nothing! The inner workings of the body remain vague to me, but I thanked some pagan god for what seemed to me an improbable stroke of good fortune as I pulled up my pants and began my descent with step most lithesome.

This remembrance of things passed was in due course interrupted by Deegz. During my reverie, he’d inched his way about half way in and was slowly moving in and out, careful to never fully withdraw. I appreciated his courtesy; he didn’t rush things, but instead imperceptibly escalated them to a higher pitch. My general experience of anal, from the other side of the dick, is that, if you proceed with sufficient caution, sullen resistance passes through resignation to ecstatic surrender; the asshole finally relaxes around its unexpected guest, and then you can seriously bang someone in the ass. Deegz began sliding in and out with a smooth, fluid motion which gradually increased in tempo to the point where he was fucking me at a steady clip. I was still rather shocked to think of the size of the dick penetrating me, and my bum was just taking it like a dump! I was more shocked, however, when, on achieving this pinnacle, Deegz suddenly pulled out, grabbed my hips, flipped me on my hands and knees, and shoved his dick balls deep in my bum, all in one deft maneuver I couldn’t help but admire. He began ramming me in the ass, resuming the campaign of insults he’d begun in the living room, each timed with a thrust and peppered with furious oaths. At first he played variations on you fucking baby. Then he reminded me I pissed my pants, called me a faggot, a goddamn faggot, a fucking fag, and informed me I needed diapers, over and over, all the while grabbing my hips and slamming me down on his dick. I felt his hips on my bum with every thrust; no question—he was all the way in. The terror was thrilling!

I’m not exactly sure when I started shitting on him—I could barely isolate one sensation from another—but in time evidence grew overwhelming: the smell, the substance oozing down the back of my thighs, and the new motifs Deegz introduced into his improvisations. I was a bitch, a dirty bitch, a dirty ass bitch, a fucking dirty ass bitch who shits his pants, etc., and the fury with which he embroidered this pattern made me fear for my rectum’s integrity. Whether or not this scatological outcome was his goal, his enthusiasm spoke for itself; I had terrifying visions of a frenzied Deegz slitting me open with a knife and coiling my entrails around himself, like the burglar-turned-manservant Cornaboeux in Apollinaire’s Les Onze Mille Verges. The coherence of his insults began to unravel—shitbitch is the one phrase I retain—and soon devolved altogether into a series of grunts recalling Deegz’s gridiron days. I could feel my legs grow shittier with each thrust of his dick, could feel more substantial chunks of shit rolling down my thighs. He may have withdrawn to let some pass, but I couldn’t tell. It felt like my asshole would never close, and the thought of becoming anally incontinent frightened me—how would I explain?—even as it revived my dick (not all the way). Deegz upped his tempo til he was shoving in and out like a piston. I half-expected train-whistles when he suddenly jammed all the way in and locked his hips against my bum. I felt his dick begin to pulse and prayed to the great god Latex the goddamn condom would hold. Deegz meanwhile was screaming like someone crept up behind him and started hacking away with an axe. I had nothing to say. When he began to calm down, I lifted my bum off his dick and shit all over his lap. I rolled over on the bed to see Deegz sitting on his haunches, back arched and paunch heaving, an intact if shitty condom perched on his still-hard dick. Good condom! Brave, noble condom! I collapsed in peace.

When I came to he asked me to fuck him in the ass, but I had to beg off; I wasn’t near hard enough. He took it in perfect good humor, and brought me to the master bedroom, which led to a surprisingly luxurious bathroom. We took a nice shower together; he soaped up my legs, bum, dick, and nuts, yet demanded no return, simply washing himself as I rinsed. I leaned against the tiled wall while Deegz examined the state of his balls. I noted with languid surprise the light hard-on I’d developed during his ministrations hadn’t rinsed away, but rather remained at half-mast. When Deegz turned around to rinse his bum, his eyes lit upon my dick and he broke into his characteristic grin as he knelt down to suck it. No way! I thought, feeling my dick gradually stiffen, if not all the way, then certainly enough to get off a shot, which I did in short order. I took a chance and pissed a little down his throat. He drank without protest, so I let it rip full force, quickly overflowing his mouth, though he swallowed as much as he could. I pulled out and sprayed his face with piss. This isn’t the sort of thing I fantasize about, but I can’t say it isn’t fun.

And afterward?

Afterward I lay on his parents’ bed in a diaper and socks, smoking the last joint, while Deegz laundered my clothes, stripped the bed in his bedroom, and soaked the sheets in the tub. After a few minutes, he returned in a diaper, mincing around the room, twirling even. He looked cute. If it weren’t for the ridiculous beard, he’d be downright adorable. He wiggled his diapered bum at me, and it was then I noticed the room’s subtle but strategic distribution of mirrors, allowing him to watch himself wiggle his diapered bum at me. I imagined the arrangement came in handy during what I surmised were long intervals between such encounters, if, indeed, he’d ever had any. I watched me watch him watch himself. I figured I’d let him play for awhile, when my reflected eye caught his own. I smiled. He blushed to the roots of his perm. He even covered his mouth with both hands. What a cutie! Then he turned around with a big goofy grin and an obvious hard-on bulging through the front of his diaper. The mere sight of the bulge made my asshole twinge for fear of a second assault, but fortunately Deegz was in the throes of a giddiness every diaper lover doubtless knows, the intoxication of wearing, here heightened immeasurably by the presence of a sympathetic observer. He crawled across the bed and grabbed my bum, then ran his hand along the diaper’s plasticky outside, patting my bum every so often in order to generate the divine rustle. I felt like making out again, so I rolled onto my side and we made out for a while. I got hard. Then I grabbed a handful of bum and squeezed it through his diaper. Then we did things only diaper lovers would do. We rubbed our dicks together through our diapers, then each of us rubbed our diapered dicks against the other’s diapered bum, then we stuck our diapered bums in each other’s faces and farted copiously. Judging by the depth of his grunts, Deegz was trying to shit himself, though he failed to do so, which, between you and me, was just fine. I sat on his lap facing him while we slapped each other’s bums. Then we rolled around on the bed touching each other’s diapers, then I jerked him off through his diaper. Then he wet himself and I changed his diaper. Finally we lay in each other’s arms and cuddled, kissing occasionally and patting each other’s bums to hear our diapers rustle.

And then?

Then he told me the story, parts of which I’d surmised: that he was a childhood bedwetter; that he, in fact, had worn Pampers at night until they no longer fit, whereupon he graduated to Depend; that he’d almost always jizzed in his pants when tickling me; that he used to fantasize about diapering me after he’d made me piss myself; that his mother diapered him for bed until he was 16 (!) and made him wear diapers on car-trips; that his father had routinely ridiculed him in front of relatives for needing diapers; that he’d been deeply ashamed but unutterably aroused when wearing them; that he used to come home from school sometimes and piss his pants in the bathtub; that he once miscalculated and wet himself a few blocks from home and then had to walk by his elderly neighbors in fully-peed pants; that he still wet the bed and wore diapers every night; that he’d had to wear diapers on his drug runs, in case he fell asleep on the plane; that they wouldn’t give him diapers in prison so he soaked his bunk every night and his cell stank of piss; that he hadn’t concluded he was gay until prison, even though he and Denny Baraille used to suck each other off well into senior year of high school (“Remember Denny?” “So that’s why his nickname was ‘Boner’!”); that once in a blue moon he’d been able to persuade a guy he picked up to put on a diaper, but it was inevitably disappointing and he generally stayed home at night and jacked off into his diapers. He was shocked to learn that I’d never been a bedwetter, or—tickle torture aside—even accident-prone, and that my interest in such matters not only predated our encounter, but also was present from the dawn of my consciousness; that I was no longer ticklish; that my metaphysical associations with diapers were largely feminine whereas his were largely masculine; that my own diaper sex experiences defied enumeration, though he was the first fellow fetishist I’d ever fooled with; that my previous diaper sex had been with women; that I’d only been fucked in the ass by women; that I’d only ever had sex with a guy a couple of times and was not, as he’d assumed when I entered Underwood Books, the biggest queen in the world (“I get that a lot”); that the reason I couldn’t extend my stay another day was because I had to drive to New Jersey tomorrow to get married (actually for the rehearsal dinner but it amounted to the same thing). He was disappointed but didn’t let it spoil the party as we finished off the doobie he’d let burn out some paragraphs earlier; he extended an open invitation to stay as long as I liked, and if I was ever in the area again—doubtful—I could stay there. I said I would and I was happy to spend the night; I could gather my things at the hotel in the morning. Deegz was pleased.

And finally?

Finally we lay together in bed, and talked about various things, mostly diapers and literature. He asked about San Francisco, and all I could tell him was the city’d gone downhill since I’d moved out there—more Republican, impossible rents and shabby redevelopment, people being hit by cars because everyone’s so frantic, though the progressive element raised admirable hell the day our country bombed Iraq, the Castro retained its gaiety, and there were one or two other cool spots—but my knowledge was limited since I lived in Oakland. Then we fiddled with each other’s diapers, and I got hard again, though there was no question of busting another nut, and we were having more fun playing by now. Deegz never really lost his hard-on, but this was unsurprising, as I’d experienced the same thing the first several times I had diaper sex, like my dick couldn’t believe it actually happened and had to stay up all night so it wouldn’t miss a thing. These were long, bow-like hard-ons, the extent of which I’ve never quite obtained since. Deegz was in an advanced state of bliss, and the pleasure of playing with someone who loved diapers the way I did had me pretty high myself. But finally exertion took its toll, and we shut out the light and snuggled under the covers, caressing each other’s diapers languidly, before I rolled on my side and Deegz spooned me from behind, and, once my asshole recovered from another involuntary spasm of fear, the pressure of his legs against my thickly-padded bum was exquisite, just as I knew from the way he rubbed his them against it, the diaper felt wonderful against his naked legs. Thus arrayed we began to fall asleep, yet even as I drifted off my mind was racing over the evening’s implications, though my anxiety about anal incontinence had largely died away and the temptation to linger was removed because I had a lot of shit to take care of tomorrow and a 5-hour drive ahead of me.

Did I want to stay? Hell no! I knew I could never deal with Deegz on a frequent basis, let alone in some more involved capacity, and my interest in the town had long since worn out, but most of all I did want to get married, though the relationship wasn’t perfect, and the diapers were a major issue, but let’s face it, a fetish alone is insufficient ground on which to build a relationship. Like sexual orientation, it guarantees nothing, and the fact that he still lived in this town indicated some fundamental incompatibility between our mental organizations. I could’ve killed another day in his company, but even Deegz’s above-average literary knowledge would provide little of the stimulus I need for prolonged contact. No, there was no temptation, and yet, how sweet to linger here in this room, in this bed, in these arms! I wedged my bum further into his lap, to which he responded with some half-asleep thrusting, no less delicious for being ineffectual, creating a rustle starkly audible in the eerie suburban night. I had to piss again, and this is dangerous on your side as you’re sure to leak, but I felt no desire to move, so I reached down, made sure my dick pointed into the padding, and attempted to wet the diaper gradually, which was difficult due to the volume of drink-induced piss my bladder desperately wanted to void; to trickle was impossible but my muscles managed to slow the flow to a steady stream as opposed to a hydrant-like rush. And while I pissed I thought of what she would say if she knew, because “bachelor party” definitely wouldn’t cover this, and though I suppose deep down the fact it was a man instead of a woman would make a difference, it’d hardly suffice to keep her from killing me or throwing me out or leaving me or just being plain devastated, which would have stopped me if I didn’t love myself more than anyone—and yet how I despise myself!—but my feelings are less guilt than emptiness, the abyss of utter nothingness I called my soul but now consider an orphaned idiot who in the absence of human contact fixed on what debris chance threw in his direction, which keeps me from feeling anything, save a few rivulets of piss rolling down my left hip, sneaking around the diaper’s unpadded side-panel, and seeping into the bedsheet below, though no doubt this bed was also protected since Deegz still wet the bed and his other bed had a rubber sheet beneath the sheet and I couldn’t stop at this point anyway because I was too tired and I didn’t really want to stop, so the piss was flowing freely into the already sodden diaper and spreading along the sheet under my thigh and what a hassle this’d be at home but here I’m just like fuck it because here I just don’t care—I’ll have to explain that hickey on my shoulder—because I’m the star of the goddamn movie tonight and everybody’s gotta deal with it but try telling her that and see where it gets you—I sound like my shrink—and she’s probably lying awake right now thinking what the fuck is his problem, and why can’t we be enough instead of me watching him make love to this stupid piece of plastic, and making me dwell on a period of life I’d really not rather revisit, so I’m not oppressing his childhood traumas as he says, I’m just insisting on my own, my right to come home after work and fuck like a normal person, and there he is running around the apartment like an orangutan in a diaper, I can’t help it if it’s a real turn-off sometimes having to piss myself just to make him hard enough, it’s old, and I imagine these thoughts are mixed in with thoughts about how cool, how goddamn creative I am, otherwise why the fuck is she marrying me—I think I ripped my cock—except—I definitely ripped my cock!—I have no idea what she really thinks so why fake it—this diaper is leaking—I just know she could do without the diapers and the bipolar disorder and so what the fuck am I supposed to do—I’m getting soaked, but who gives a shit—but I ain’t gonna work it out tonight, and I’m tired and need some sleep but I might get up and see if my clothes are dry and get the fuck outta here and I keep finding marks on my body so who knows how tomorrow will go and my cock hurts my cock is fine my cock hurts.