The Bet - Chapter 42 (Friday – week 6 Part 7 of 8)

The Bet
by Karen Singer

Chapter 42 (Friday – week 6 Part 7 of 8)

Mel was silently fuming inside. This meeting wasn’t going at all like she had hoped it would. Nothing but problems, problems, problems! But her biggest problem was that it was hard to stay concentrated on the matters at hand when her mind was locked on her problems with Sissy. Robin was looking at wedding dresses? Who did that stupid tart think she was? She had hoped that this meeting would be over with long ago, instead it was dragging on and on and on!

Chad finally finished up the paper he was working on. It was stupid. Totally bogus. But he had finished it. He seriously doubted that Mel would accept the thing. But if she made him rewrite the darn paper then at least he would have the weekend to think up new material for it. Hopefully, better material than the dumb stuff he had included today. Glad to get the thing out of the way and off his desk, he hit the send button.
Now what was he going to do? He looked at the time. There was still over half an hour to go before he could go home and get changed. Robin was looking at wedding dresses for him. How dumb! He was tempted to go over to her desk to see what she thought would look good on him, but with the load in his diapers he decided to stay put right where he was. Wedding dresses? Why not? He typed the words into the search engine and happily started looking through the web pages that were found.

Mel finally “stole” a spare minute while Andrea was changing a few things in the paperwork before everything could get signed and finished. She hurried to her office where she picked up her phone. A quick glance at the clock showed her that it was time for him to be leaving work – already! She was running so late! And she had gotten nowhere with finding out what that stupid Robin woman had been talking about. She quickly dialed his number and listened impatiently as his phone rang.
Chad’s cell phone started ringing again as he was walking out to his car. It took him a moment to fish it out of his purse so he could talk. “Hello?” he said in his girly voice, knowing that the caller in all probability would be Mel.
“Sissy! Where have you been?”
“Um… I’m heading out to my car right now,” he replied.
“No, I mean earlier. I tried to reach you twice!”
“Oh, I had to go up to the HR office to pick up the paperwork approving my days off. I tried to return your calls. Andrea said she would tell you.”
Mel felt frustrated. She hadn’t had time to talk to Andrea about anything other than the client’s needs. “I haven’t had time,” she replied. She glanced at her clock. She had to get back. There was not enough time for details. “Call me after you get cleaned up and as soon as you put your one diaper on again. I’m running late tonight so you better be ready. We’ll talk later. Oh, and if you get the chance, drink another bottle before I get there. Just don’t be late!”
Chad suddenly found himself holding a disconnected phone. Don’t be late? He wasn’t late. And if he was supposed to wear only one diaper again, how was he supposed to make it leak if he had to be sitting in the nail salon for who knew how long? But then Mel didn’t always seem to care about details like that. Of course, that was probably why she wanted him to drink that one bottle before she got there. If he had time.

Mel partially ran a red light trying to hurry home. She glanced in her mirrors and all around hoping that no police had seen her. She was running late and stepped even harder on the gas pedal. She only hoped that Sissy was ready by now – he should be. He had called a little while ago and she had noted the time as he put on his single diaper. He had plenty of time to finish getting ready since then.
She had taken two minutes before she left the office to quickly read over the paper he had written and emailed. Most of it had been basically trash. But she had been caught off-guard by the final section of his paper. He “deserved” to be incontinent – because he was foolish enough to think he wanted it? Did that mean that he no longer wanted it? Did it mean that he was going to fight her even more now? She should never have assigned him that paper to write. She had originally thought that he might come up with reasons that would help to convince him to stop fighting it and just accept it. But instead just the opposite had happened. Now he had more reasons than ever to work against her! It was not a good situation!
Her tires squealed a bit as she turned into the apartment complex, warning her to slow down. Fortunately, she heeded the warning. She pulled into her parking space and automatically noted Chad’s old car where it should be. But was he ready? She turned the engine off and started to open her door when she saw him suddenly appear on the balcony above. Good! She restarted her car as he hurried down the steps toward her. Two minutes later, her tires squealed again as she turned out of the apartment complex back onto the road.
She wanted to ask him questions, too many questions. Too many questions about too many different things. But now was not the time. They were close to being late for their nail appointment and she didn’t want to be late. If they were late they would probably have to wait a long time before one of the techs got around to them. And she knew how crowded the place usually was. As it turned out though, they got there with plenty of time to spare.
“Now don’t forget,” she said before they got out of the car, “you curtsey to absolutely everybody! And no more ‘girly’ voice. I’m tired of hearing that. Sissy voice instead. Only your sissy voice!”
“Yes Mistwess,” Chad replied in his sissy voice. He had noticed from the moment he got into the car that Mel had seemed… distracted by something. He figured it had to be something at work. Probably the reason she was running later than usual.
There were several women seated in the waiting area as then entered the nail salon. As they walked in, Chad heard one of them say to a friend, “See, I told you he would be here again!” Chad purposely didn’t acknowledge that comment.
Unfortunately, Mel had heard it too and she stopped to say hello. “Oh, you’ve seen Sissy here before?”
The woman laughed. “Sissy? That figures. Yes, we loved how sweet he curtseyed last week.”
“Sissy!” Mel called, “It’s not polite to ignore these nice people. Say hello them.”
Chad hated having to do it, but there would be no help for it. He dropped a nice curtsey for them and said in his sissy voice. “Hewwo. It’s nice to see you again.” Both women burst out laughing as Chad felt his face turning red.
Out of the corner of her eye, Mel noticed both their nail techs waiting on them. “Okay Sissy, we don’t want to hold up the works here. You can talk to them later.”
Chad was glad to go before things could get any worse. And most likely, he wouldn’t have to see either of those women when he got finished. He had to properly greet his usual nail tech too before she led him back to the chair where she removed his shoes for him. One of the best things about sitting down to have his nails done was that he couldn’t curtsey to anyone while he was seated!
“So what color today?” his tech asked as she started to remove the polish from his toes.
Chad looked at his lavender fingernails. “I don’t know. Something pretty I guess.”
“All colors pretty,” the tech replied. “You want me to make suggestions again?”
“Mel suggested earlier that I look at something in a reddish pink today.”
“That leaves a lot of selection. We have lots like that.”
Between the two of them, they decided on one that was mostly a light red, but not quite in the pink line. Chad watched as she put it on his toes. He held up his long purple fingernails again to look at them while she did it. He didn’t know how it had happened, but the odd lavender color had grown on him. He stared at the length of his nails. Should he cut them? Maybe. He did think they made his fingers look more feminine the way they were. “Do you think you can shorten these just a little bit?” he asked. “I like them long, but maybe it’s time to take a bit off the length.”
“No problem,” the tech said. “We fix you up just the way you like.”
By the time Chad got his toenails done and the tech had fussed getting his fingernails perfect again – in the new color and shorter length, Mel had been finished for a while. He found her waiting anxiously in one of the chairs out front until he finished. She stood up at his approach and said, “Let me see.” Chad held out his newly formed nails, now in red. “Perfect!” Mel declared. “They’re lovely. And I like the shorter length. They’re still really long, but not overly so.”
“Thank you, Mistwess,” Chad replied.
“Curtsey when you say anything!” Mel replied sternly.
Ugh! Chad didn’t think he would have to. He especially hated having to curtsey in front of other people. But he did so and repeated his thanks – much to the amusement of the other customers. Then he had to pay his nail tech and curtsey his thanks to her once again. Finally, they could leave and get something to eat. Chad only hoped that she wouldn’t make him drink so much tonight as she had last night. He still felt sick every time he thought about it!

The restaurant was again the same one they had gone to for the last few weeks now. Chad didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. At least it wasn’t the same restaurant where they had eaten last night. That had been a major embarrassment when his diaper had fallen off as they were walking out. Once again, Mel made no mention of his baby bottle as they got out of the car… and he wasn’t about to bring it up either. He just hoped he wouldn’t have to guzzle so many drinks again like he did last night.
The waiting area was crowded again as they walked in. Sometimes it was, sometimes it wasn’t too bad. Tonight was bad. Chad remembered several weeks ago when it had been crowded like this too. Mel had made him curtsey over and over again with two little girls in the waiting area too. That had been embarrassing.
“You know what to do,” Mel said as she stood back out of the way. “And I’ll be watching.”
Unfortunately, Chad did know what he had to do. He had to wait in line behind several other people before he could put his name on the list. He recognized the hostess as the same one he had seen there before… and he could tell by her smile that she recognized him. He curtseyed and was about to ask her to put his name on the list, but she beat him to it.
“Sissy, party of two?” she asked.
Chad could only nod. She giggled as she wrote the name down. “I’ll call you,” she said with a big smile on her face. Unfortunately, Chad knew she would do exactly that. She would call his name over the loudspeaker system, even if he was standing right next to her. He curtseyed once again and said “Thank you.”
It was a fairly long wait since there were so many people there. When a seat along the wall came open, Mel moved into it and sat down. Sissy remained standing – where he felt all too visible. There wasn’t a single person in the waiting area that didn’t seem to look him over carefully. Many of them seemed to watch him the entire time they were waiting.
After a long while, the hostess disappeared for a few minutes. When she finally came back, she looked up at Sissy and smiled. Chad thought that she was finally going to call his name, but she didn’t. She just went back to looking at her list, and when another table opened up, she called another name instead. He heard Mel make an odd sound that he interpreted as frustration. Actually, she had been more tight-lipped tonight than usual. He figured she must have a lot on her mind so he didn’t bother to say anything to her at all.
The hostess disappeared again, then came back a moment later. But still their name didn’t get called. There were still quite a few people in the waiting area but as far as Chad could tell, everyone who had been there before them had already been seated now. Then he noticed the waitress who had served them for the last few weeks. The waitress walked up and pulled a menu out of the pile, then she picked up a child’s menu from another pile along with a box of crayons. Then she turned directly toward them. “Sissy?” she called loudly. Chad was glad it was finally their turn. He was only surprised that the waitress had called them and not the hostess. They followed her back to the same table they had sat at last week.
The waitress set Mel’s menu on one side of the table and the child’s menu along with the crayons on the other side. Chad felt strange as he watched her doing that, she hadn’t even asked, she had just done it. And without having to ask, Chad slid into the seat in front of the child’s menu. The waitress looked around at the table, then briefly at Chad, then finally at Mel. “No bottle tonight?” she asked, sounding somewhat disappointed. Chad could tell that even Mel was startled by the question.
“Not tonight,” she replied. “Instead, you can bring her two large glasses of iced-tea, both right away. And… I think I’ll have one myself.”
The waitress was clearly a bit surprised. “So that’s three large glasses of tea right away?”
“Yes please,” Mel replied.
The waitress just nodded and left. Chad felt nothing but relief. Two glasses of tea was definitely no problem.
The moment the waitress was gone, Mel leaned forward with a stern look on her face. “What the heck is going on at your company? Did you finally tell someone about our bet? Is it all finally out in the open now? And what’s up with this sex change thing? And most importantly, what the heck are you and Robin up to together? Why is she looking at wedding dresses? What’s she got in that crazy mixed up head of hers?”
Chad was totally taken aback by Mel’s sudden string of questions. “Uh… Robin?”
“Yes! What’s going on between you two?”
“Going on? Like what?”
But Mel wasn’t about to let him play so innocent. “Like why is she suddenly so understanding about everything that she’s now looking for a wedding dress?”
“Wedding dress?” Chad had to think for a moment before everything finally clicked. “Oh! She was looking for wedding dresses for me. She thought that…” He paused and shook his head. “It’s a long story.”
“A long story?” Was that blonde-headed tart planning on both of them wearing wedding dresses when they got married? “I want to hear all of it!”
Chad tried to figure out where he needed to start, which turned out to be fairly easy. “It all started at break this morning…”
Mel listened carefully to every word that Chad said as he explained how one of the women suddenly decided that he was dressing like he was so that he could ‘get together’ with Derek. She had no trouble believing it when all the other women picked up on it. She even had to admit that it sounded a lot more plausible than the real reason – their bet. “And what about this sex change business?” she asked.
Chad grunted. “I have Robin to thank for that one! She suddenly got it into her head that the reason I’m taking off at the end of the month is to get a sex change. I mean, how stupid!”
Stupid? Yes, that was how Mel saw Robin. She had plans for Robin, but things had gone so haywire today that she wasn’t sure she could make them happen as planned anymore. But there was one thing that Mel had to be sure about. “So Robin thought that you and Derek were going to get married?”
Chad shrugged. “I guess. Eventually anyway. And Robin even admitted later that she knew I wasn’t really getting a sex change this month.”
Something inside of Mel felt relief. She wasn’t planning on marrying him… that she knew of anyway. “But she still thought that you and Derek wanted to get married?”
“I guess. And that’s the strange thing. One of the women came back this afternoon and said that Derek had confirmed the whole thing. I can’t believe it! Why would he do such a thing? He’s even avoiding me right now just because of the kidding he’s getting about our date Sunday.”
Mel’s brain was turning. She knew for a fact that Derek hadn’t talked to Sissy. And she seriously doubted now that he had told anyone that he and Sissy wanted to get married someday. “Is it possible that someone else might have said it and not Derek?”
“Why? And why would the woman say that Derek had confirmed it if it wasn’t true? She seemed awfully excited about it when she told us.”
Mel had to admit that she didn’t know. “Is it possible she heard it from someone else?” It was all she could think of.
“I don’t know. I’m pretty sure she just said that Derek himself had confirmed it.”
Mel quickly saw the little flaw in that and pounced. “But that doesn’t mean that Derek himself talked to her. Isn’t it possible that someone else told her that Derek had confirmed it?”
Chad wasn’t so sure. “I guess it’s possible,” he admitted. “But she just seemed so sure of it.”
But Mel was past that point. She had no doubt now that Derek had nothing to do with it at all. “So who would do such a thing?” she asked. “Who would tell her that Derek had confirmed it?”
“I don’t know. There’s a lot of people in the company that are always teasing me – all the time. I think I’m their favorite sport.”
Mel was amused to hear that. She also had no doubt about it at all. “Okay, so let’s try to narrow it down a bit more. Who might want to tease not only you, but also Derek?”
“Derek?” Chad had to think about that one. “I don’t know. The only person that Derek really mentioned that was on his case over our date was Ray. But the woman said that Derek had confirmed it.”
More things suddenly clicked for Mel. “Ray? The Ray that was at the poker game? The same Ray who’s going to be my date Sunday night? That Ray?”
Chad nodded. “Yeah. So?”
“So that’s the same Ray that you told me cheats on his girlfriends while he’s engaged to marry them. The same Ray that obviously hits on every woman who crosses his path. The Ray who came across to me as a womanizing sleaze. The Ray that obviously can’t be trusted!”
“So you think that he… “ Chad had to think about it a bit. “I guess it’s possible.”
Mel shook her head. “I’d say more like very probable.”
“So what do we do about it?”
“Nothing! There’s nothing to do, and no reason to do anything.”
“Maybe it would be a good idea to cancel our date,” Chad suggested – hopefully.
“Not on your life!”
Chad wasn’t exactly happy to hear that. Especially since Mel seemed so adamant about it. That could only mean she had something awful planned for him.
Just then, the waitress came back with a tray full of large glasses of tea. She set them all out on the table, two in front of Chad and one for Mel. “Are you ready to order?” she asked. Chad realized that he hadn’t had time yet to look at the menu.
“The child’s steak for her and I’ll have the oriental chicken salad,” Mel replied for both of them.
The waitress soon left and Chad’s mouth was already watering. Steak! He was ready for a good meal.
“You haven’t touched your drink yet,” Mel said as she eyed the two large glasses in front of him. “Are you leaking yet?”
Chad hadn’t even been paying attention to whether he was wetting or not. But one thing he was certain of, he wasn’t leaking just then and wasn’t even close to it. And worse, he knew he had to be running out of time! He grabbed one of the large glasses of tea, with both hands like she had made him do last night, and started drinking.
“I read over that paper you wrote for me,” Mel said as he drank.
Uh oh! “I’ll do better next time,” he replied. “It was just hard to come up with things for something like that on such short notice.”
Mel mostly ignored what he had said though. “Tell me,” she said as she leaned forward toward him again, “what you said in the last part – the part about deserving to be incontinent just because you were dumb enough to think you wanted it – do you really feel that way?”
Chad had to stop and think about it for a moment. “I guess… Sort of.”
Mel just looked at him for a moment. “What made you put that in the paper? It was so different from everything else that you wrote.”
Chad just shrugged. “I don’t know… yeah, I do, but …”
“But what?”
“Well… It’s just that… Those stupid suppositories you make me get all the time. Not only is it every day, but it’s twice a day! And there’s no way to stop them. I have no choice but to mess myself whenever they decide to go to work. Right then and there, no if ands or buts! And I hate it. Yes I like wetting my diapers, I always have. But I hate messing in them and those stupid things don’t give me any choice!”
“So you messed yourself again this afternoon?”
Chad rolled his eyes. “I mess myself every afternoon. I can’t help it. Those stupid pills make sure I can’t help it!”
Mel was silently applauding. He had gone last night and again this afternoon without really getting one. He only thought he had gotten them. But obviously the results were still the same. “Too bad,” she replied with absolutely no sympathy at all. “You know the rules of the bet.”
“Yeah. I know,” Chad replied sullenly. “But can’t you just skip them once in a while?”
“No. I’m not going to skip any – ever! Obviously they’re working and that’s all I care about.”
Chad wasn’t the least bit happy to hear that. He had no answer so he just grabbed his drink again and emptied a few more inches from the glass.
“So you got your vacation time approved?” Mel asked as he drank.
“Yeah,” Chad replied as he took a breath and set his glass back down again. “And it came through awfully fast. It usually takes a day or two, but this time it went through in just a few hours.”
That didn’t really surprise Mel, given the rumors that had been floating around the company, not to mention the way Chad himself was dressing all the time now… not to mention the arrangement she herself had made with Mr. Baxter the owner of the company. “I’m trying to rearrange my schedule for that week too,” she told him.
That was news to Chad. Why would she do that? For that matter why had she asked him to take the days off? Were they going somewhere after all? “What’s going on that week?” he asked as he picked up his glass of tea again.
“You’ll find out when the time comes.”
That answer scared Chad more than a bit. What did she have planned? One thing he was certain of though, it couldn’t be good. Not by a long shot!
“You’re not coloring today,” Mel noted as he set his glass back down again. The nice waitress went through all that trouble to remember to give you the crayons but you haven’t even touched them yet.”
Feeling foolish, Chad dumped out the few crayons from the box and opened the same coloring book menu he had colored last week.
“See if you can make it look more… like a toddler would do,” she suggested.
Like a toddler? What was the sense? Chad picked up a crayon at random and started scribbling around on the page, not paying a whole lot of attention to staying in the lines or even what part of the page he was coloring. Like a toddler. “So how was your day?” Chad asked as he colored, trying to get the subject away from him for a change. He was hoping that if Mel talked about herself, then she wouldn’t find more humiliating little things for him to do. “You must have been into something difficult this afternoon since it made you run late.”
“Difficult? I guess you could call it that.” While Mel couldn’t really tell him about any of the details, she could tell him about general things and how a simple routine matter turned into something that became a major problem – when it should never have been a problem at all.
Chad listened, and colored, and drank his tea. All the while making little comments to show that he was interested and still listening. Before he knew it, the waitress was back with their dinners. The smell of the steak made his mouth water again. Once again, Mel took his plate from him, along with his knife and fork, and cut his dinner up into tiny pieces. Fearing she would keep cutting it like she did last night, he hurried to finish his first glass of tea. He was very grateful when she pushed his steak back over to him so he could finally eat – with only his spoon – held in his left fist – like a toddler.
Mel finally grabbed her own knife and fork and dug into her salad. So good. She continued to tell him little things about her day which was mostly uninteresting – other than the part since she had talked with Robin. She found it nice to be able to talk about her day with someone who seemed interested. But the one thing she didn’t talk about was the one thing that was now weighing heavily on her mind. How was she going to deal with the Robin woman now? She had been wrong in the conclusions she had drawn over the silly things that Robin had told her earlier. She knew that now. But Robin still had to be dealt with – and soon. But she had failed to set things up the way she needed to for Operation Robin. Could it all still work? Maybe. She’d have to think about it.