The Padded Palace Act III: Chapter 10

“Ellie, you in here?!” shouted Connor as he entered the nursery, his expression flatlining as he only found Stacy and Riri sitting apart from each other. After scouring the house for nearly twenty minutes, he was beginning to lose hope of finding the rambunctious Little on his own. He looked to Stacy, hoping to get this over with sooner than later, “I don’t suppose you’d at least tell me if she’s in here or not?”

Smirking, Stacy had no intention of telling Connor anything. “Sowwy Connow! Chus jus missed her. I fink she went dat way?...No! Dat way fo suwe,” she said as she sat atop the changing table folding herself into a new diaper, “Oh, I hope chus don mind, by da way. I wooda asked my cawegivew but he was noticeabwy missing for whadevew weason.”

Riri, on the other hand, was more than happy to help. She set down the doll she was playing with and jumped up from her seat before rushing over to tug on Connor’s sleeve. “I didn see her come in here,” she said, earning a glare from Stacy, “Buh I can hewp wook if chus wans.”

“Um…sure. Thank you, Riri,” said Connor, deciding that if he was going to deputize one of the Littles, at least Riri would be the best option, “You check around the living room and the kitchen while I take the bathroom and the basement.” With a plan now in motion, Connor and Riri fist-bumped, ready to regain control of the Palace.

Unfortunately, not all were pleased with the way the evening was developing. “I-I wanna hewp wook too!” shouted Stacy, leaping off the changing table and running over to stop Connor from leaving the nursery, “Ewwie wiww come out if she heaws me. Chus’ll lemme hewp, wight Connow?” She wiggled her phone in her hand, drawing Connor’s eye toward it.

Stopping as Stacy leaped in front of Connor at the nursery door, Connor groaned, his patience reaching its endpoint. “Riri, can you give Stacy and me a moment?” he said, his voice devoid of the typical, upbeat energy he possessed.

Reading the room, Riri cleared out without another word, not wanting to be caught in the crosshairs of what was sure to be an eventful face-off. “I’ww just go wook fo Ewwie,” she said, scampering off toward the kitchen.

Left alone with Stacy, Connor backed away from the door, linking his fingers together and draping his arms over his neck as he let out the world’s heaviest sigh. “This has to end, Stacy. For two months, I’ve let you take advantage of me. You were careful at first, but you’ve become a tyrant whenever Latasha isn’t around,” he said, his stoic tone causing Stacy’s smugness to melt away, leaving behind a sadistic scowl, “So…I’m going to tell Latasha what’s been happening when she gets home. The dirty diaper, the blackmail, all of it. The only reason I’m not telling her now is that I don’t want to ruin her trip.”

In the back of his mind, Connor wasn’t certain if he was bluffing or not; uncertain how Latasha might react to him keeping such a humiliating secret for months without telling her. Though it didn’t really matter if he chickened out in the end. So long as Stacy backed off, who cared if he was lying?

“Ugh! That’s so lame!” yelled Stacy, dropping her lisp as Connor’s declaration completely threw her out of character. Unless she thought of something fast, not only would the fun idea she had for this evening be down the drain but her control over the Padded Palace moving forward would be greatly lessened. Luckily, if Stacy was anything, she was quick on her feet. If Connor wanted to confess, there was no way she was going to let him stave it off until Monday, “W-Well, since you’re gonna tell her anyway, why don’t we just tell her right now together? And before you say it could ruin her weekend, I can assure you it won’t. If anything, being at CrissCon has probably only put her in a more dominant mood.” She began drafting up a text to Latasha, keeping an eye on Connor as she hoped this would scare him into bending the knee once again.

Falling into Stacy’s trap hook, line, and sinker, Connor’s eyes went wide as his heart skipped a beat. Having only just decided to potentially come clean to Latasha, the idea of confessing in the immediate future was enough to break him. Acting on pure instinct, his hands moved forward on their own. “D-Don’t!” he yelled, attempting to snatch Stacy’s phone from her hand and put an end to this once and for all. Sadly, Stacy’s reflexes, while not anything to write home about, were still fast enough to prevent him from fully grasping the phone. However, she was unable to stop him from impacting the phone entirely, his hand knocking it free from Stacy’s grip and sending it flying across the room.

Reacting instantly, Stacy shoved Connor back before turning and making a break for the phone. Unfortunately, in her haste, she failed to spot the doll Riri was playing with lying motionless on the floor. As her foot made contact with the doll, it created an uneven terrain, sending her tumbling to the floor.

This gave Connor the opening he needed. He sprinted into action, racing toward the exposed cell phone. He wouldn’t make it far, though, feeling a pair of small hands latch onto his ankle as he ran past Stacy’s prone body. Soon, he found himself face-planting on the carpet much like Stacy did, his hand slapping the ground only a few inches from the edge of the phone.

Stretching his fingers toward the mobile device, Connor gritted his teeth as he wiggled his legs around in hopes of dislodging Stacy’s hand. This had the unpleasant side effect of causing his jeans to slide downward, exposing his pink pull-ups to the nursery air. He didn’t have time to care about that right now, though. If he could get to that phone before Stacy and delete the photo, this whole nightmare would be over.

Meanwhile, Stacy wasn’t about to give up her newfound control without a fight. She got up onto her hands and knees and began slowly crawling up his body, pinning him down with her body weight as she inched toward the phone. “Admit it! You-GAH! …You’re just like the last guy Latasha brought in. Just another pervert getting off on everyone here!” 

she said, climbing fully into Connor’s back which felt more like a mechanical bull with how hard he was trying to throw her off.

“I don’t know…what you’re talking about!” shouted Connor, his confusion over Stacy’s claim quickly being pushed to the wayside to attend to more pressing matters. Having barely made any progress toward reaching Stacy’s phone, he decided to switch tactics, twisting his waist right as Stacy’s head entered his peripheral view and attempting to push her back.

Since neither Connor nor Stacy were very good at physical confrontation, their brawl wasn’t impressive in the slightest. Between Stacy getting the upper hand by being on top and Connor’s slightly superior strength, the situation had left them stalemated. As a result, they both ended up tangled up in each other’s arms, unable to move in any direction without one of them giving in. And tragically, neither of them seemed like they were planning to give in any time soon.

“L-Let go of me, you dumb diaper baby! It’s not like a baby brain like you would even know how to use it!” said Stacy, hoping that she could throw Connor off with some vicious mockery.

Shaking off Stacy’s wholly ironic argument, he scoffed as Stacy’s words only compelled him to dig his heels in more. “That’s funny…last time I checked…you were the one wearing an actual diaper!” he said, struggling to verbalize his comeback thanks to being compressed by Stacy’s body.

“W-Wuh awe chus two doin?!”

Suddenly, both Stacy and Connor froze as they heard Riri’s voice from the other side of the nursery. They slowly turned their heads toward her, spotting both Riri and Ellie in the doorway. “H-Hey, you found Ellie…that’s…awesome…” said Stacy sarcastically, feeling the control she had over Connor slip away as his newly found diaper fetish was now on display for the whole Palace to see.

Unsure of where to look first, Ellie and Riri’s eyes shifted between Stacy and Connor’s in-progress scuffle, the exposed pull-up that was peeking out over Connor’s jeans, and the cellphone that was just out of reach with a very incriminating photo of Connor on it. Their jaws dropped as their brains worked overtime to process so much new information all at once. “Why…wuh…when…” stuttered Ellie, failing to come up with a proper question to help clear up her bewilderment.

“I think you left out where, how, and who,” said Stacy, making a light joke over the fact that Ellie was too stunned to formulate a full sentence, “Don’t worry, I’m sure Connor would love to explain. Right, Connor?”

Focusing his thousand-yard stare on the words “Skye was here” that Skye had lovingly written on the side of her crib in crayon, Connor was too in shock to even look at the other girls, much less say anything. He slowly lowered his head to the floor, knowing that the authority that he had worked so hard to cultivate as a caregiver over the past two months had evaporated in one cruel moment.

TO BE CONTINUED…