The Bet - Chapter 62 (Thursday – week 9 Part 4 of 5)

The Bet

By Karen Singer

Chapter 62 (Thursday – week 9 Part 4 of 5)

     The phone call Mel had made earlier that day was to the nail salon.  She had changed their appointment from Friday evening to today.  Actually, they told her to just come in anytime since they would be coming in the early afternoon when the salon wasn’t so busy. 

     When they arrived, Chad was a little surprised to find out where they were.  Why was she having his nails done again today?  Was she trying to humiliate him even more for the final few hours remaining?  Was she going to have them spell out “Sissy” on his nails once again for his last day?  That’s what it seemed like.  Dressed as he was, he now realized that Mel was going to make his last day as memorable as possible.  So what new horror did she have planned for his nails this time? 

     He was mildly surprised however when Mel didn’t get out of the car right away.  He turned and saw her looking at him.

      “I’ll wait till you finish that bottle before we go in,” she told him.  “Then you can just keep your pacifier in your mouth till we get out of there.”

     Chad wasn’t sure what would have been worse, drinking from his bottle or having his pacifier in his mouth the whole time.  He finally decided the pacifier would be worse.  It would be in his mouth the entire time he was in there, whereas with the bottle, he would have to put it down while they worked on his hands. 

     As he finished the last half of the bottle in his mouth, he reflected on how humiliating it was going to be for him to get out of the car dressed as he was.  For the last two months, it seemed like every single day had brought increasing levels of humiliation.  And now, this was quickly starting to look like it could be the worst day yet!  He had endured an incredible amount in the last two months.  Could he endure getting out of the car dressed as he was as well? Yes, he had done it before in what he had on, but that didn’t make it any easier at all.  Yet he knew he would do it again… just as he had done everything else Mel had made him do. 

     His bottle finally emptied, but his hand was slow to put it down.  Both hands were even slower as he opened his silly little purse and fished out his pacifier.  The silly thing went into his mouth easy enough, but looking up toward Mel to signify that he was ready was much harder.  This was going to be… embarrassing!  Getting out of the car in this dress – with his diaper fully on display… having to keep the pacifier in his mouth the whole time – was going to be major embarrassing!  And somewhere in the back of his mind, he wondered where they would be going after this… a thought he purposely tried not to think about.

     Chad was much slower getting out of the car than Mel was, only because he had to pause a moment to find the courage.  He left his diaper bag behind on the back seat.  He wouldn’t be needing it now anyway. 

     High heeled step after high heeled step, he followed Mel toward the door to the nail salon – and then inside with her.  The place wasn’t as busy as it usually was.  There was nobody in the waiting area, but as Chad looked around, he saw his usual nail tech working in the back on someone else’s hands.  Mel’s usual technician greeted them and Mel spoke to her for a moment before turning back to him.  “Looks like you’re going to have to wait here for a few minutes,” she told him.  “But your tech shouldn’t be too much longer.”

     Chad curtseyed, but didn’t say anything.  He took a seat in the waiting area as Mel followed her nail tech toward the back.  Sitting alone, he felt horribly and embarrassingly exposed since the waiting area was right in front of the large plate glass windows!  He felt like he was stuck in the window – on display.  He held his tiny purse in his lap, hoping that would be big enough to hide his already noticeably wet diaper.  It helped, but not by much.  His head didn’t turn much, but his eyes darted nervously back and forth, mostly looking out the large window that kept him on display to whoever might walk past.  He was so uncomfortable the whole time he sat there that he barely realized he was sucking nervously on his pacifier.

     He was so intent on worrying about who might see him through the large window, that he didn’t notice when the woman his nail tech had been working on came back to the front to pay her bill.  He didn’t notice her that is, until she let out a startled… “Oh my!”

     He turned his head quickly to see who had said it.  His face turned a bit redder as he saw the woman staring at him as if she was trying vainly to make sense of him… of which, he knew she probably couldn’t.

      “Goodness!” the woman exclaimed with a giggle.  “Don’t you look… precious.”  Then she giggled again. 

     Past the woman, Chad could see his usual nail tech looking on, trying to stifle her own laughter.  Slowly, Chad got to his feet.  Then he curtseyed and removed the pacifier from his mouth.  “Thank you,” he replied in his silly sissy voice before replacing his pacifier and curtseying again.”

     The woman broke out in a guffaw of laughter as she stared closer at the way he was dressed.  “I think someone has a wet diaper that needs changing!” she noted with some amusement.

     His face growing redder, Chad curtseyed again and removed his pacifier.  “It’s not too bad yet,” he replied before replacing his pacifier and curtseying again. 

     The woman only laughed harder.  Fortunately, she turned then and paid her bill.  Chad remained standing, knowing he would be going back in a moment to have his nails worked on.  The woman paid her bill and turned to go, but not before stopping to reach out and touch his dress, pulling on the hem of it just a bit so she could see it better.  “Absolutely precious!” she declared again before heading toward the door. 

     Even though her back was to him as she walked out, Chad curtseyed one more time, although he didn’t bother removing his pacifier or saying anything.

      “Ready?” his nail tech asked from behind the counter.

     Chad was more than ready.  At least heading toward the back he wouldn’t be quite so on-display as he was now.  He did note that not only was his nail tech giggling as he followed her back to one of the large chairs, but so was every other woman in the place – including Mel!  He was glad to finally sit down so his diaper wouldn’t be quite so visible.  However, after he sat down and his nail tech started to remove his shoes and socks for him, he realized that she would be looking almost straight at his wet diaper the entire time she was working on his feet.  As far as he could see, there was no way she couldn’t look at it – not to mention how wet it was slowly getting.  And he did see her glancing up at it – frequently as she started working on his toenails.  He said nothing though.  What could he say?  Besides, it was easier to remain silent with the pacifier in his mouth.

     He was long accustomed to having the nail polish removed from his toes first.  It was only routine.  What he wasn’t prepared for was after she removed the pale pink color, she immediately put his shoes and socks back on his feet and buckled the shoes in place – without putting any polish on his toes again.  He was so surprised that he asked without removing his pacifier, “No polish?”

      “Not today,” his tech replied.  “Mel tell me earlier, no polish today.  Just take off.”

     No polish!  And today was his last day!  Mel was letting him off easy after all!  If you could call being out in public dressed as ridiculously as he was – easy.

     His fingernails were next.  The color went quickly, but after that, the remaining length was cut back –  very short.  Chad figured that she cut them shorter than he usually did before the bet had started.  He thought that she was done then, but a minute later, she had him soaking his nails in a bowl of something that would loosen the glue from the acrylic nails that still topped his fingers.

      “Just let them soak,” his nail tech said.  “I be back later to check on you.”

     The wait was long and boring.  The only thing Chad really had to concentrate on was how wet his diaper was getting again – even though he knew it had a very long way to go before it would leak.  But when you don’t have much else to think about, little things like that can be big things.  The tech finally came back and began prying the acrylic nails off of his fingers.  It took a long time, but eventually, his real nails were exposed.  The tech took the time to clean and condition them and then she even buffed them a bit.  But she didn’t add any kind of polish or color to them at all.

     When she was done, Chad stared at his hands.  With no polish, they didn’t look very feminine anymore.  He thought that the short length of his nails made them look even worse.  Man hands!  Not lady hands.  He was surprised at how much he missed having his hands look “pretty.”  He knew it was going to take him a while to get used to them being “manly” again.  He was surprised at how much less feminine he suddenly felt.  No more pretty hands.  Mel had taken that away from him… and he already missed it.

     Mel was sitting alone in the waiting area when Chad came back to the front.  He looked – ridiculous.  Totally ridiculous!  In that darling little too-short dress, with his wet diaper on display, the sweet little ruffled socks on his feet with those pink high heeled shoes, the tiny little girl purse in his hand, and of course the pacifier in his mouth, there was simply no other way to describe him.  Ridiculous!  And she loved every little bit of it!

     He curtseyed for her, but he said nothing else to her as he turned to pay his bill before curtseying for the nail tech and thanking her… and curtseying again.  She watched it all silently.  She would have thought that he would look more elated to have the embarrassing nail polish removed from his fingers.  But oddly, he looked almost… disappointed.  Was he?  She led the way back out to the car where she immediately had him get another baby bottle to start working on. 

      “Are you glad to have your old nails back?” she asked as she drove out of the parking lot.

     His answer seemed to take a long time.  In fact, she was about to ask the question again when he finally answered.  “I’m not sure.”

     She looked at him quickly, then back at the road.  “You’re not sure?”

      “I think I miss my hands looking… pretty.”

     It wasn’t exactly the answer she was expecting, but it did bring a smile to her face.

     Now that they were back in the car and heading down the road, Chad began to worry all over again about where they were going next.  Yesterday she had kept him out in public at the mall for most of the day.  Where were they going now?  He knew she certainly wasn’t heading home.  Home was in the opposite direction!

     It was a fairly long drive to a part of the city that Chad wasn’t very familiar with.  He wasn’t aware of any malls or shopping centers where they were, but then he didn’t know the area that well.  Mel seemed to know where she was going though – naturally.  He was even more surprised when, instead of pulling into the parking lot of a store, she stopped at the gate of a large self-storage facility.  He watched as she punched a code into the box near the entrance and the gate in front of them opened and Mel drove through.

     Mel drove slowly back through the complex of garage doors, finally stopping in front of one of the larger doors.  Baby bottle still in his mouth, Chad saw her turn her head towards him, but she didn’t look particularly excited about anything.  If anything, the expression on her face looked more like something was bothering her instead.  His bottle emptied and the small noise brought a smile back to her face.  “Grab your pacifier,” she said, “and let’s go.”

     In the back of his mind, Chad suspected that this must be where she had taken all his male stuff… everything from his male life that she had totally denied him.  It only made sense that she would have to return it now… now that the bet was almost over.  There was nobody but Mel in sight, yet he still felt worried and embarrassed getting out of the car.  He watched as Mel walked over to one of the large doors and stuck a key into the padlock that held it secure.  The lock was opened and Mel grabbed the door handle and started lifting.  “Give me a hand,” she asked as the large door got only a few inches up.  Chad walked over and grabbed the handle with her and together they pulled the door completely open.  Inside, Chad saw a room stuffed to the gills with boxes and crates and furniture – most of it covered in blankets. 

      “I have three of these units,” Mel told him, referring to the storage room.  “This one was just… less full.”

     Chad looked around.  It certainly looked awfully full to him.  He wasn’t sure he wanted to see what her other rooms looked like.

     Mel walked back to the car where she opened up the trunk to her car as well as both back doors.  Then she came back to look over the boxes.  “This is all the furniture from my parent’s home… my old home,” she told him.  “The house I grew up in.  It’s everything I didn’t want to part with.”

     Chad tried to look closer at some of the furniture past the boxes, but he couldn’t see all that much since most of the furniture was covered.  Mel, on the other hand, ran her hand almost lovingly down the side of one of the large pieces near the entrance.  Chad couldn’t tell though what was under the heavy wrapping. 

     Mel suddenly backed away.  “Okay Sissy, let’s get your stuff into the car.”  She pointed at boxes and one by one, Chad loaded them into the car.  Most of the boxes he “sort-of” recognized as having been in his apartment when he moved in.  But a few of them were definitely new to him.  Most of the boxes were fairly heavy.  Some were large, some smaller.  But all of them were sealed shut with tape so he had no way of knowing what was in any of them. 

     By the time they finished, the trunk of her car was full and so was the back seat.  As he closed the rear doors to the car, Chad saw Mel back in the storage room again, looking at and touching more of the furniture that she hadn’t been able to reach while the boxes had been in the way.  When she turned back to the car, he couldn’t tell what she was thinking by the look on her face, but she wasn’t smiling. 

     She didn’t say a single word as she pulled down the big garage door and locked it again.  And then the only thing she said before getting back into the car was, “Get another bottle.”  And it was said rather flatly, without much kindness or enthusiasm.  She was silent again as she drove out of the storage facility, and silent for a while afterwards.  During the drive, Chad had no idea where they were going since she didn’t seem to be going home… or anywhere else that he knew.

     She was silent enough that he was a bit startled when she suddenly spoke.  “This is the area I used to live in.”  Before he had time to really look around and take stock of the area, she turned down another street.  “This was where I grew up,” she said.

     This time, Chad had more of a chance to look around.  The homes were all large – very large to him.  But as nice as the houses all looked, he got the impression that it was all… old.  Many of the trees were enormous, their large branches reaching out to shade the entire street.  But as old as the area appeared, one word still reached into his mind to describe it – wealth!  Not fantastic wealth, but wealth never-the-less.

     The car slowed.  Mel’s eyes weren’t even watching the road now.  Instead she was looking at one of the houses – one that wasn’t much different than any of the other houses around it.  “That’s where I lived,” she said, bringing the car almost to a stop. 

     Chad wanted to say something, but there was something about Mel’s mood that made him remain silent.  He wasn’t sure what he would have said anyway.  He stared at the house, totally unmindful of the baby bottle still in his mouth.  Like all the rest of the houses on the street, it was an old brick house – this one with four white columns at the entryway.  The driveway seemed to extend around to the back of the house.  The grounds appeared to be professionally landscaped and maintained.  It looked… nice… like the home of someone who was fairly well off.  At least that’s the impression that Chad got from it. 

     With a start, Mel turned her head away and stepped hard on the gas.  She needed to get away from here.  She needed to get back where she belonged… back where it was safe… back where – there weren’t so many memories and emotions to deal with.  She had simply needed to see it again.  Not for Chad, but for herself. 

     Chad sucked harder on his bottle as the neighborhood seemed to whiz by – faster than he knew was legal.  She had shown him the house she had grown up in.  Why?  And all that furniture… three storage rooms full of it – according to her.  Why?  She was being silent again and he wasn’t sure of her mood.  He stayed silent as well, leaving her alone with her thoughts.

     To Mel, the house had looked… cold.  Once it had been her life – her warm and welcoming place of sanctuary and love.  But now someone else owned it, and to her it now seemed barren and cold.  No longer welcoming.  No longer holding – love.  She shouldn’t have come.  She had simply wanted to see it… to remember it.  All the furniture in the storage room had brought back so many memories of home… and family… and love.  But the house no longer did.  It was all gone now.  All gone.

     She purposely didn’t say anything as she drove back toward her apartment.  She was only glad that Sissy didn’t say anything either.  It had been a mistake to go there, and she really didn’t need to have Sissy see it either. 

     The sound of his bottle sucking air brought her somewhat back to life.  She quickly looked over at him.  His bottle was empty again – as it probably should be.  She would have told him to grab another bottle right away, but all his other bottles were in the back seat inside his diaper bag.  Oh well, it wouldn’t be too much longer till they were home anyway.  “Put your pacifier back in your mouth till we can get you another bottle,” she instructed.  A quick glance back at him a moment later showed that he had done just that. 

     So funny.  Just the thought of him having to ride around, in public, with that stupid thing in his mouth – because she told him to do it, brought a bit of a sexual tingle back to her body, and a smile back to her lips.  And the way he was dressed now – in public – in that outrageously silly excuse for a dress!  Just thinking about it added fresh excitement for her as well, enough that by the time their apartment complex came into sight, her spirits were once again lifted and she was again feeling like her old self – good – and ornery!

     The only good thing about having to carry each and every box up to his apartment, was that his apartment was the closer to the stairway than Mel’s apartment.  But having to make trip after trip, dressed as he was, carrying only one box at a time, was rather nerve-wracking.  People drove by, either coming in or going out of the complex, and they all slowed down to watch him.  But then, most of them had seen him in some silly state before, so this probably wasn’t all that much different. 

     And half-way through carrying up the boxes, not only did he start leaking, but the darn suppository she had put up inside of him earlier went to work and he managed to mess his diaper as well.

     And Mel merely laughed!