Zeke and Lily: Dream Catching (“Dirty Laundry and Cartoon Napping”)

Dirty Laundry and Cartoon Napping

(Listen to this story instead. Click here.)

It was Saturday morning, March 5^th. Winter was almost over, just another two weeks of a chance of snow and then they would be in the clear.

The Pennsylvania winter had been brutally cold. When it snowed, it snowed heavily. It was one of those years when snow fell in January and the ground stayed covered until March. Chilly winds, chillier temperatures and ice had been the usual conditions for two months.

But there was light at the end of the tunnel. The first few days of March had brought the month in, like a lamb, as the saying went. This might have been an indication that March would then leave like a lion, but that was still weeks down the road.

For now, everyone was happy and glad to see winter coming to its end. Lily, however, could’ve done a few more months of winter. Zeke wasn’t crazy about the cold, but Lily loved it. She lost track of how many snow angels she had made in the snow.

On this particular Saturday morning, Zeke and Lily were headed to a Laundromat with a basket full of laundry. Their washer had broken down and for as much as Lily didn’t like taking her laundry into public to be cleaned, she had to succumb to at least one trip to do so.

But she insisted they didn’t go to a laundromat in Lancaster City. So, Zeke loaded her and the laundry in the car and drove down to Quarryville, PA, about 20 minutes south of Lancaster City. It seemed strange to her that Zeke chose that Laundromat until she remembered that his mother lived there. Perhaps they would meet her for lunch afterwards.

They pulled up to the Laundromat, a rather unimpressive building next to the Towns Edge Mall, a little strip of stores which included Zeke’s favorite Chinese Food Restaurant.

Lily got out of the car and glanced across the street at a black Labrador who was barking at a telephone pole (a most worthy adversary) and then to the teenagers who were practicing their skateboarding skills on the sidewalk.

Zeke grabbed the laundry basket from backseat and Lily followed him in, clutching her diaper bag tightly. The surroundings gave her rise for nervousness, but all seemed well so far.

They entered and Lily saw an older lady sitting on a chair by the door, doing some knitting. She waved at the lady in her usual bubbly, little girl way and the old lady smiled back at her.

At that moment, a little boy turned the corner and nearly knocked Lily over. She was so startled that she dropped the travel diaper bag in her hand and while picking it up, her morning bottle and three cups of apple juice caught up with her.

Unafraid of peeing, she relaxed herself and flooded a stream into her diaper. Not much went through her mind when she peed, other than how good it felt to freely let it go.

Zeke went straight to the washers and set the laundry basket down. He set the cloth knapsack next to him.

“Would you be so kind as to put these clothes in the next washer over?” he asked her.

As she finished peeing, a bounce returned to her step and she skipped over to Zeke, more than happy to help.

She opened the knapsack and saw he had placed all of her baby clothing in it. These were the more delicate laundry pieces, or so he always said, yet they were obviously more durable than a lot of his clothing for all the rough treatment she put them through.

She took out two of her Princess washcloths and placed them on the floor in front of the washer. Kneeling on them, she set the travel diaper bag to her side and she situated herself before beginning to pull the clothing out one at a time.

Each piece of clothing had a different stain on it and each stain produced a memory of how it got there. She decided to relive those memories, one at a time.

She took out the chocolate ice cream stained pink nightie from just last night. With a cheeky smile, she recalled how she promised him she could keep herself clean and said she didn’t need a bib or to have the nightie taken off.

Looking over at him, she smiled more widely when she realized he would never believe her when she said that again.

The bowl of chocolate ice cream was sitting on her lap when she leaned forward to pet Pretzel, covering her front in what was now a nice chocolaty brown stain.

Next, she pulled out a bib she had worn while eating spaghetti a few nights ago. She re-envisioned the high chair and how she was only wearing that bib, her diaper and her earrings when Taylor walked in off the elevator to visit with them.

Thankfully, her older sister didn’t post online any of the pictures she took of Lily. It had always seemed amazing that Taylor somehow knew when to have her digital camera with her.

She tossed the bib in the washer and picked up the next piece of baby clothing, her white onesie which showed evidence that her diaper had leaked in the middle of the night when she was snapped into it.

Quickly she tossed the onesie into the washer, not wanting to relive that soaking wet recollection.

Zeke loaded all the dark-colored clothing into one washer and started it. Then he stood up and began loading the light colors in the washer above it.

She piled in a collection of t-shirts with various stains on them, a small collection of socks (which she wouldn’t have much need for any time soon since winter was almost over), her baby blanket (in desperate need of washing) and her pink footed PJs which surprisingly had no stain on them, but had seen enough use to warrant a washing as well.

As she tossed the PJs into the washer, she heard a loud clanking noise. Turning her head to the side to match the confused look on her face, she leaned forward and then into the washer, discovering a pacifier that was attached to the collar of her PJs with a string.

She had to lean half her body into the washer to reach it, but finally got to it and detached it. She tossed the two Princess wash cloths that had served as kneeling pads into the washer as well before she closed the door and started it.

Zeke closed the second washer he was loading at the same time. She stood up and in a moment of silliness, attached the pacifier string to the collar of the sweatshirt she was wearing.

Suddenly, she felt his hand on the seat of her pink jogging pants. Her head raised up slowly as a panic took the color out of her face. She knew right then she had leaked and the sensation of wetness begin to roll down her thighs.

The flooding of her diaper had turned into an over-flooding of the dam.

She lowered her chin and began scanning the nearby Laundromat patrons, searching for any sign which would tell her that someone had seen her wet bottom when she leaned into the washer.

There were no looks of surprise, nor was there anyone staring at her. All seemed well. Now, onto the problem at hand…

They couldn’t leave the Laundromat since they had just started their laundry in the washer. His mother’s house, just a half mile down the road, which was a safe location from the public eye, was out of the question for the condition Lily was in. The backseat of the car, parked directly in front of the Laundromat was a no-go since there would be a constant stream of passers-by, not to mention the teenaged skateboarders who loitered their presence outside.

Zeke looked from side-to-side, in search of a solution. He wasn’t finding one either. Lily began to softly whimper at her situation.

“Shh, shh, shh,” he whispered as she embraced him, desperately needing him to protect her and solve her problem of the minute.

He returned the hug and then noticed the bathroom behind them. A sense of relief fell over him. Instead of taking the time to tell her and risk someone hearing his words of explanation, he simply inserted the pacifier dangling from her sweatshirt into her mouth.

Reaching down, he picked up the laundry basket, tossing the little diaper bag inside it. Leading her by the hand, he headed for the bathroom. Lily followed with a lowered chin, embarrassed that someone at that very moment may have discovered how wet the truth really was.

They walked into the bathroom, delighting in the sight of a changing table. He stripped her of her wet, pink jogging pants, and hoisted her up onto the table. Everything seemed better all ready. She was in a strange, new place for a diaper change, but she was there with him.

Lying down with the guidance of his hands, she got comfortable and then got silly. She put her legs up in the air and grabbed the toes of her sneakers. Every changing session was unique and he always made each one special for her, but the one thing that remained present in all of them was how little she felt.

She was an adult, a woman, yet there she lied on a changing table in a diaper she had soaked so thoroughly her pants got wet. There was no finer moment of feeling little than when he changed her diaper.

At one point in time, she would cover her face, embarrassed that she was diapered and wet. Further embarrassment would come from the fact that she enjoyed being a baby.

But she had long since gotten over that embarrassment, realizing there were far more important things to be embarrassed about and eventually get over as well.

She wiggled her waist, making her diaper crinkle as she giggled at herself.

“Yes, that’s a wet tushy you’ve got there,” Zeke said, lowering her legs back down and unfastening her diaper tapes.

It had begun and he had begun speaking his Daddy talk! She smiled behind her pacifier as he folded the front of her wet diaper down and began to wipe her skin.

She stared amorously into his eyes as a little soul delighting in the care she was receiving. His hands were so gentle in cleaning her and as always she hardly felt the wipe, but rather how clean it made her feel.

He took hold of her ankles and lifted her legs up, sliding the wet diaper away and continuing to clean her. She shivered at the cool rush of air on her backside and the even cooler initial touch of the wipe.

He had put her in such a little mood she was bursting at the seams. Had it not been for her obedience to his directions to always stay still when being changed, she might have wiggled all around and eventually crawled up into his arms, diaperless or not.

Sensing her playfulness of the moment, he made long, ticklish-worthy strokes with the wipe. It tickled indeed and she giggled behind her pacifier, trying hard to keeping from squirming.

While keeping her legs at full-mast in the air, he unfolded and slid her new diaper into place beneath her. She could hear the crinkle and smell the powder he now applied to her bottom. He never coated her heavily, just a light dusting which smelled as sweetly as it felt when he spread it around ever-so-gently with his hand.

Lowering her legs down, her bottom came to rest inside the new diaper. Ah, the feeling of a new Teddy Bear Bambino diaper which had fast become her favorite.

He took the same time and caressing care powdering her front and around to her hips. She had grown accustomed to getting a mixture of feelings when he touched her front. Some were little in nature while others were a bit more grown up and sexual. What was once a confusing scenario of feelings had grown together into one sensation which made her happy.

He paused from diapering her and leaned forward, touching the tips of their noses and wiggling them back and forth. She giggled at him and quickly rubbed the tip of her nose for the ticklishness it just received.

He returned to the task at hand, folding the diaper up in the front and wrapping it snuggly around her hips.

As he began fastening it into place with the tapes, she elated in the sound of the tapes and the snugness which now enveloped her.

When he was done, she parted her legs and drew her knees up to her shoulders. Patting her freshly diapered bottom, he leaned in again towards her face, kissing her on the forehead ever-so-delicately.

Their eyes met and locked into a stare which spoke volumes about how each of them felt.

“I love you more than words can say,” he confessed, rolling his fingertips down her glowing cheeks. “And that is a difficult thing for an author to admit to. I will never let anything happen to you that is unpleasant or hurts you in any way. I am your world and I will keep you very, very happy inside it.”

Putting one hand behind her head and another behind her back, he sat her up on the changing table. She reached up and grabbed the back of his head while letting the pacifier fall from her lips.

Thrusting his head towards her, she planted her lips on his and opened his mouth with her tongue in a manner that was driven with a passion she couldn’t control, nor wanted to. Had they been at home, she would’ve kept the passion up until they both lost control and wound up in bed. This was the usual way their foreplay began, with a heated advance intended to reach one destination only: love.

They broke the kiss off, realizing that the bathroom of a laundromat was not the time or place for where they were headed.

But the sentiment was clear and the mood didn’t change.

That is, the mood didn’t change until Zeke picked up her pink jogging pants and discovered she couldn’t put them back on. They were drenched.

The look on Zeke’s face told Lily everything she needed to know.

All their laundry was being washed right now and the diaper bag was a simple travel sized one. It held only what was necessary to change her diaper, not cover it.

Zeke wore a button down shirt with no t-shirt under it, having decided to make a lazy day out of his wardrobe. So he couldn’t even give her the shirt off his back. Even if he could’ve, her bare legs would’ve drawn the attention they were trying to avoid anyway.

Lily was wearing her sneakers, socks, a sweatshirt and a completely exposed diaper. And all her options were gone.

Prior to exiting the bathroom, they embraced again. What a difficult thing that had to now be done. Lily became very little minded once again, knowing he had nothing to cover her diaper before they walked back out to the washers.

She was scared, petrified even. This little town had a lot of people in it who knew Zeke. Anything could happen and anyone could be standing on the other side of that bathroom door.

He put the diaper bag and the jogging pants in the laundry basket and picked it up. Taking her by the hand, he opened the door and they walked out of bathroom, uncertain of what to expect.

Her heart was pounding as she peeked out from behind him, taking the tiniest of steps she could in an effort to not crinkle. Her eyes looked left and right.

Zeke headed straight for the entrance door in an attempt to get her to the car as quickly as possible, but only a few steps into their journey they stopped.

Zeke’s mother had walked in through the entrance door and made her way over to them with a smile and cheerful greeting.

Zeke’s mother hugged him as a mother would do to a son she hadn’t seen in a little while. Lily was paralyzed with fear. She looked down at her waist and the obvious diaper she was wearing. She looked to the entrance door and considered making a quick, dashing escape. She could run out of the laundromat, but not without running past her. She watched as their embrace ended. She was doomed and conceded her discovery and defeat without much of a fight.

Shaking like a leaf, she extended her arms out to Zeke’s mother, trying hard to do so in her typical little girl fashion. There was no longer any need to hide things from her anymore. It was clear what Lily’s relationship to Zeke included.

“Lily, what’s the matter?” his mother asked. “You’re trembling. Sweetheart?”

His mother took Lily’s hands in her own.

“Lily? Lily?” she asked with concern.

And then Zeke’s mother’s voice changed into his voice. Lily stared, confusedly, at his mother who now spoke with her son’s tone of voice.

“Lily? Lily?” she continued to hear.

Her vision grew blurry and then went black.

“Lily? Lily?” she heard, slowly regaining her eyesight and senses.

She found herself on the couch in their apartment. Sitting up, she rubbed her eyes, trying to put together what had happened and how she got back there.

Zeke sat alongside her, touching his fingertips to her forehead and checking for a temperature.

“You were trembling like a leaf. Are you all right?” he asked. “Did you have a bad dream?”

Lily now sat up fully and looked around.

“Have we been to the laundromat yet?” Lily asked.

“Not yet, no,” Zeke replied. “But maybe we shouldn’t go if you’re not feeling up to it.”

Lily closed her eyes and smiled, hugging her teddy bear and blanket. A relief fell over her as she was finally able to put it all together.

It was just a dream.

“Lily?” Zeke asked with growing concern.

“I’m okay,” Lily replied. “We can go to the laundromat.”

“You’re sure?” he asked.

“Yes, I’m sure. It was just a dream,” Lily answered, curling up into a ball as she recalled how the inescapable discovery in her dream made her feel.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll gather up what we have to wash.”