The Bet - Chapter 52 (Monday – week 8 part 5 of 8)

The Bet

by Karen Singer

Chapter 52 (Monday – week 8 part 5 of 8)

     Chad peered intently at his computer screen as he worked.  As so often happened when he was concentrating on something, he lost total track of everything around him.  The only thing that existed for him was the task he was working on.  He typed a bit more, then he clicked the save button.  Then he started testing what he had created.  His spirit soared briefly as it worked – perfectly. 

     He went back to his list of things he had to do, and discovered that he had already accomplished everything.  He needed Robin to let him do more now.  But first, since everything seemed to be quiet…  He opened his spreadsheet for tracking the bet.  He found today’s date and noticed that there were only eleven days left before his testing would start.  Still eleven days, but today it didn’t sound like all that much.  He briefly wondered what he would do after he had won the bet.  How would he come to work?  Would everyone accept him again?  Not wanting to dwell on depressing matters, he put that out of his mind.  He looked at the column were he needed to fill in how long he had held back.  But last Friday things had been so weird that he couldn’t remember how long – or if he had ever managed to get a decent timing. 

     That thought led him to thinking about today.  When he filled out the sheet tomorrow, what would he put down under today’s column?  He had nothing to put there yet, nothing at all.  With a groan, he closed the spreadsheet again without making any entry for last Friday.  What would he put down tomorrow?

     It was only as he sat there brooding about it that he realized he was peeing again – he thought anyway.  The feeling was so slight that sometimes it was hard to tell.  He knew his diapers were certainly very wet and heavy.  And he didn’t recall noticing that he had been peeing all that often.  Of course the extra bottles Robin was making him drink weren’t helping any.

     He had to fight back… somehow.  Somehow he had to regain his muscle control, despite all the liquids being pumped into his system.  With a conscious effort, he tried to tighten all his sphincter muscles.  But nothing happened at first. He had to work to even find those muscles, as if his brain had forgotten how to contact them.  But eventually, he felt his muscles give a tiny squeeze.  He tried again.  Now that his body had found the muscles again, it was much easier this time and he was able to hold them tight for a few seconds. 

     He relaxed again before giving it one more go.  He counted to ten while he held them as tightly as he possibly could.  Then he let go.  Definitely better.  He had made ten seconds like that, could he make fifteen?  Allowing himself to rest for a few seconds more, he then tightened everything as hard as he could again and started counting the seconds.  But his body was already tired from his previous exercise so that by the time he reached ten seconds he was struggling.  He gave up at fourteen seconds.  Close, but not quite.  Next time he would manage it for sure.  He just needed a little more rest first.

     Feeling a bit better about things, he turned his mind back to the tasks he needed to be doing… and remembered he didn’t have any.  Did he dare ask Robin about it?  He would be off all next week, and he knew he had to make sure he got as much done as possible before then.  Chancing it, he got up from his seat.  He paused before leaving his cubicle to try tightening his muscles one more time.  Sixteen seconds!  Next time he would make twenty or more, he was sure of it!  Or maybe he was simply trying to tighten them too much?  Holding them that tight wasn’t exactly normal.  Next time, he decided he would go a little easier with it.

     He headed for Robin’s cubicle.

     Robin was hard at work when she was interrupted by the sound of his high heels entering behind her.  She turned around, annoyed at the distraction.  “What now?” she asked.

     Chad curtseyed.  “I finished everything you needed me to do.  I just wanted to check to see if you were ready for me to do anything else yet.”  He curtseyed again.

     Robin rolled her eyes.  He was finished already.  That was quick.  Sort of.  But she was stuck on figuring things out for her part still so she wasn’t ready to move on yet.  But since he was finished…  She glanced at the clock it was just over an hour since they got back from lunch and she had given him a bottle to drink.  “Grab another bottle since you’re done.  You can celebrate by sitting there and drinking it.”  With him taken care of for the time being, she turned and went back to her work.

     Mel ran her hand over the expensive pin-striped fabric of the suit she was wearing – or what would eventually be a suit.  There were a lot of custom alterations that had to be made first.  Both the skirt and the jacket were full of pins and chalk marks.  The material was certainly right, but she could only take it on faith that the finished suit would be what she needed.  But Lilly had never done her wrong yet… her or her mother.  Two suits.  One dark gray, the other dark blue.  Just what the job required.

      “That should be it, for now,” Lilly finally declared.  “They should be ready for a final fitting on Wednesday.”

     Mel nodded.  “Thanks Lilly.  Just let me know.”  She went back to the changing room and changed into the clothes she had arrived in.  As she was grabbing her purse to leave, her phone rang.  She had ignored it several times earlier, but this time she picked it up.  “Hello?”

      “Mel,” Derek’s voice replied.  “You’re a hard one to reach sometimes.”

     Mel sighed.  “That’s usually the case with my line of work.  How is your day going, because so far mine has been… lousy.”

      “Lousy?  Need to talk about it?”

      “I’m not sure,” she replied.  “It’s mostly just business stuff.”

      “Well, we can stop somewhere for a pizza later and you can tell me all about it if you like.”

     Mel figured that the good news was that Derek wasn’t totally put off by what was going on with Sissy… yet.  “Derek, you know I can’t do anything without Sissy for a while.  This bet is too close to being over with.”

      “You mean you won’t get away for even just a few hours?”

     Mel sighed.  “As much as I’d like to, right now I’ve got way too much work to do, and I’ve been pretty much trying to avoid it all afternoon.”

      “That bad, huh?”

      “You wouldn’t believe!”

      “Sure you don’t want to talk about it tonight?”

     Mel considered it again.  “No.  Not tonight.  But…  Just not tonight,” she repeated.  “It’s just something new that’s come up, that’s all.  Business, you know.  And somehow I’ve got to get a handle on it.”   

      “I understand,” Derek replied with a hint of disappointment in his voice.  “Maybe tomorrow?”

      “Yeah, maybe tomorrow.”  Mel replied.  Then she added, “Hopefully tomorrow!”  She did want to see him again – especially since he now knew about Sissy, and he wasn’t scared off! 

     As soon as she had hung up her phone and put it away, she sighed.  She couldn’t put it off any longer.  She had to get back to the office and dive in once again.  Somehow she had to make sense out of the mountains of paperwork attached to the merger agreement.

     Chad stood up, set the now empty baby bottle on Robin’s desk, and curtseyed.  The sound of him moving had caught her attention and she turned around to look.  “I’ve finished now,” he said.  “Is there something else I can help with on this project?”  He paused a moment to wait for a reply, but she didn’t move till he curtseyed again to signify that he was done talking. 

      “Not yet,” Robin replied, frustrated that her own work was currently going so slowly. But art work was often like that.  Sometimes the little details took a long time.  But since she knew he was so childish now and needed to be kept occupied…  She glanced at her clock, it was earlier than she wanted to do this, but…  “Get undressed again,” she told him.  “Down to just your diapers and plastic pants!”

     Chad wasn’t totally surprised, but he wasn’t happy about it either.  Carefully, he started to pull his pantyhose off.

      “Wait a minute!” Robin stopped him suddenly.  “Pull them back up again.”

     Chad had no problem doing that, he just didn’t know why.  He saw Robin fishing in her big bag for a moment, and then she pulled out her cell phone.  “Just stand right there!” she told him as she aimed the camera in the phone at him.  A moment later, he heard a clicking sound from her phone as she took the picture.

      “Okay, now you can get undressed.”

     Carefully, Chad removed his pantyhose with the bow still attached. 

      “Give me those,” Robin said before he could go any further.  She peeled the tape and the bow off of the pantyhose while he removed the rest of his clothes.  She was happy to note that the tape hadn’t damaged the thicker material at the panty portion of his hose at all.  Not that she was really worried about it. 

     Once Chad was down to just his diapers and plastic panties again, Robin was about to start dressing him again, but she realized that he was missing one very important ingredient.  “Where’s your pacifier?” she asked.

      “It’s…”  Chad stopped himself and curtseyed.  “It’s in my purse.”  He curtseyed again.

      “Well hurry up and get it!” she said.  “And I can see that we need to still work on you remembering to curtsey all the time!”

     Chad curtseyed and turned toward the entrance to her cubicle.  Since he was only wearing his diapers, he carefully looked up and down the hallway before rushing over to his own cubicle.  He fished his pacifier out of his purse and stuck it straight into his mouth before checking the hallway one more time and hurrying back.

     When he returned, Robin gave him the same Baby t-shirt she had given him last week to wear.  And like last week, she had to tie the bottom of it up in a knot so that his diapers would be exposed.  Then, once again, she tied the bib around his neck.  She still hated that it covered up the word “Baby” on the shirt, but there was little she could do about that.  She knew it was there.  But a moment later, she removed the bib again.  She pointed at the floor.  “Sit!” she commanded.  And as soon as he was down, she took several more pictures of him with her phone.  Pictures showing the t-shirt with the word “Baby” and the arrow pointing down toward his diapers.

     Then she tied the bib back around his neck – and took more pictures.  “You’re not drooling!” she told him. 

     Ugh!  Chad wasn’t happy at all that she wanted him to drool again – like an idiot.  But a minute later, his chin was damp with slobber as he sat on the floor and let her take picture after picture with her phone.

     Robin laughed a bit to herself as she took more pictures, including close-ups of the drool dripping down off his chin.  Since Mel had been so kind as to send her all the pictures earlier, she figured she would return the kindness with pictures of her own. Especially since Mel had said she wished she could see what she did with him.  But first, she had to take care of him.  She had to keep him occupied.  She reached into her desk drawer and pulled out the big envelope that held his paper dolls.  She pulled some of it out and gave it to him.  Just like a child, you had to keep them busy.  She snapped a few more pictures of him playing with the dolls on the floor.

     Her eyes noticed the big colorful bow she had just removed from the front of his pantyhose.  Picking it up, she placed it directly on top of his head.  Then she tried holding it to the side of his head instead, then at the back of his head.  She opened the clip and fastened it to his hair directly on top where it would be most prominent.  And of course, she took more pictures. 

     Finally, she downloaded all the pictures to her computer and started on the email for Mel.  She attached a lot of the pictures she had taken.  When the email was finally sent, she briefly checked on Sissy again, then turned and went back to work.  But as she was getting busy again, something inside of her felt very satisfied about what she had just done.