The Exchange Student – Chapter 2

Anna nibbled her bottom lip, glancing around the airport deviously. This might be a silly decision, but she just couldn’t help herself… After all this time, she wanted to get into her diaper as soon as possible, and that was exactly what she was going to do.

She couldn’t hide her grin as she got closer and closer to the bathroom, fingers tightening around the handle of her carry-on bag, ready to rip it open, dig through it, get out her new underwear. It almost felt like that was what the world wanted for her, too, because once she got to her destination, she found it largely empty.

Not entirely, of course – in an airport, she hadn’t expected to have that much luck – but there were only a few other women that she could see in there, and plenty of stall doors open, including multiple ones where she could peer in and see changing tables folded into the wall. “Oh, my God,” she squealed, hardly able to believe her luck, though she hadn’t intended to say it out loud, earning herself a strange look from one of the few people there as she walked past, wiping off her hands, tossing the paper towel she was using in the trash can by the door.

Anna blushed, couldn’t quite bring herself to assure the woman that everything was okay, that it had been a happy, ‘Oh, my God,’ and not an upset one. Then again, she probably didn’t have to… There was definitely a giddiness to her voice that conveyed the first quite well in and of itself. It was, she assumed, why the woman hadn’t bothered to check to see if Anna was all right. Who knew what she thought had gotten Anna so excited… Anna didn’t even know what she would have answered if asked about what had caused her reaction.

Definitely not the truth, that was for sure. Stranger or not, she wasn’t about to start her trip out by immediately announcing that she was quivering in anticipation at the idea of not only getting to put herself in a diaper, but do so at a changing table. She doubted she was going to use the table; just having it there, next to her, however, was good enough for now.

She didn’t even have to feel guilty about it, since there were several others open, should any mothers need them to perform ‘normal’ diaper changes. If there had been one, she might have passed on it, or snatched it up and moved more quickly so she wouldn’t take it up for too long, and risk having whoever actually needed it see her walk out, question what she’d been doing in there. Now, unless a whole flight full of just young mothers touched down in the next few minutes, she’d likely be fine.

It made sense, she supposed, that there would be so many available. The bathroom itself was bigger than she’d expected… She hadn’t put too much thought into it, though, in the back of her mind, she’d been assuming it would look like the bathroom at the local grocery store, or something. Of course that wasn’t the case… With so many people coming and going at all times, they wanted to be able to accommodate as many of them as possible without making them wait and potentially be late for their flights.

Sliding into the furthest stall with a changing table, she pulled the door shut behind her, locked it, double checked it, then pulled the table down out of the wall, running her hand over the plastic surface, naughty fantasies overwhelming her for a moment or two, imagining being lifted up and set on there, having somebody else there to undress her, yanking off her pajama pants and panties and replacing them with a big, thick, fluffy diaper… A part of her wondered if there had been something she could say to that woman she’d passed to annoy her enough to prompt her to do that…

She probably shouldn’t involve strangers in her fantasies, she knew, but she couldn’t help how hot it was to her. It also, admittedly, would have been far more convenient… There was a chance the women knew how to change diapers, after all.

It wasn’t that Anna didn’t, not exactly… She’d done a bit of babysitting here and there, although very little for anyone small enough to still need diapers. She almost wished her mom had married Doug earlier, while Max was still a toddler, so she could have gotten more experience with him. He would have been cuter that way, too, and surely less annoying… Knowing Doug, however, she would have been expected to sit for Max for free, just because they were family.

So, she did know the basics, even if they might be a tad rusty by now. Doing that on herself was a whole other story. She regretted not practicing at home, but she knew that would have been a bad idea, and practically begging to be caught.

Now, though, she had to hope she remembered what she was doing, and could do it well enough to avoid any leaks. That was the last thing she wanted… Especially since she was going to be telling her host family that she needed her diapers, that she had to be in them at all times, which should have meant that she was used to this, that she was an old pro… If she had too much trouble, however, maybe she’d say it was a recent development.

She’d considered a few other possibilities, but this seemed the best. She could have attempted to keep them secret, and that would have been the safest strategy… She might as well be back home, then. She’d probably be a bit more daring, away from everyone she knew… She didn’t know what the living arrangements would be, exactly, if she’d have a good opportunity to wear on a regular basis without getting caught.

She’d also pondered, briefly, going all out, being totally open about her diapers, and pretending that was something that was totally normal back home. It had been a fun thought, one that could have given her the freedom to make up all sorts of things… It was, she’d decided, something that worked better in fantasy, rather than reality. If anyone got too curious about the customs of her homeland, and why they’d never heard of them before, a few Googles would reveal she was lying.

So going with a lie, but a smaller one, felt the most reasonable. She’d have the chance to wear all she wanted, and, unless somebody was dedicated enough to search through her medical history, they couldn’t easily disprove her. The school nurse might, though she hadn’t really planned on bothering the nurse with this if she could help it… And even if she did, she could fall back on the idea that this had started recently, and she hadn’t told the school, or just said those files must have gotten lost in the shuffle.

Either way, there was no nurse here, at least not that she knew how to get a hold of, or would have been willing to ask to diaper her. This was all her… As much as she loved having the changing table there, and being able to use it to set her bag on so she could rustle through it and pull out her diaper, she was pretty sure actually using it herself would be too hard for her first time. She was used to putting her underwear on when she was standing up now, after all.

But these weren’t underwear, were they? Not in the traditional sense, what she normally wore… She blushed, staring at the diaper as it sat on the changing table, with its generous padding, its babyish designs… This was really about to happen, at last… She almost couldn’t believe it, though there was no denying it now, seeing it there, all folded up, waiting, ready for whatever toddler happened to need it… Which was, in this case, her. She was the toddler.

She pulled off her pajama pants, heart pounding, draping them over the edge of the table, then glanced down at her panties. This was it… To bolster her decision to commit to her story, this was the only pair she had with her, or that was in any of her luggage. She’d have to buy more before she flew back, of course; she’d have to buy more diapers, too, since she only had the one pack’s worth tucked away, a few in her carry-on, the rest at the very bottom of her suitcase.

She’d chosen an old pair of underwear, ratty, a few holes developing where the cloth was starting to separate from the waistband, so she wouldn’t feel guilty about what she was going to do next. She slid them down, cheeks burning despite the privacy of her stall, tapped her toe on the button to open the garbage can there, wrinkling her nose at the odors that hit her when she did. It was no surprise that it had been used as a diaper pail – it was its main purpose, being placed in this stall specifically, no doubt, but that didn’t make it smell any better. All it did was ensure that once she did this, there was no way she was going to back out, no way she was going to fish through the contents of the garbage to get her panties back.

Was this a good idea? It had definitely felt like it, in the abstract, when it was a fantasy and not her life for the next few months. Maybe she’d taken it all too far… Maybe she should get rid of her diapers instead, have her host family take her to the store as soon as she touched down to buy some new, more appropriate, underwear… It was only in her mind, so far, that she’d committed to this plan. She could stop now.

The panties fluttered downward, landing among the folded up diapers, mostly on top of them… Until she moved her foot, letting the lid close before giving the side of the can a nudge or two, moving its contents around, surely burying her undies for good. She let out a giggle, both excited and nervous, and turned back to the changing table, to her diaper.

She unfolded it, feeling it crinkle, squeezing it between her fingertips to take in the bulk of it. It was so thick, so infantile… And now, it was what she was going to be wearing, what she supposedly needed. Her breath caught for a moment as she pulled it up between her legs, as the padding brushed against her privates, though it was short-lived when she realized she didn’t have enough hands to hold it there and open up the tapes at the same time, at least not in any way she could work out.

Had she screwed up? That was, of course, her first instinct, an instant regret at disposing of her underwear already, before confirming she knew what she was doing with the diaper. After a second, however, it dawned on her that there was an easy solution staring her in the face… And one that was so much better.

She nearly couldn’t contain herself as she spread the diaper out, climbing up on top of it and plopping herself down. She winced momentarily, terrified the changing table was going to break and send her tumbling to the ground, but it showed no signs of struggling to hold her, which she supposed, as petite as she was, was no big surprise. She’d thought the changing table would make it more difficult; instead, it was simpler, having something solid beneath her to hold the diaper in place. If she’d tried to diaper herself like she would a baby, lying down, then maybe it would have tripped her up. Sitting up, though, it wasn’t too bad figuring out how to pull the front and the back up and tape them together, now that she didn’t have to worry about gravity.

And, whether she’d used it ‘properly’ or not, flat on her back or sitting up, being able to use a changing table to put on her first diaper was still an extra thrill. She couldn’t stop giggling, sitting there when she was finished, looking down at herself in her shirt and diaper, feet swinging beneath her. She really was such a baby… And that was how she was going to stay, until she got back home, anyway.

She loved it so much, she couldn’t resist pulling out her onesie, too, shedding her t-shirt and putting that on. She had to hop back off the changing table to snap it up around herself. There was no hint of looseness now, like there had been the first time she tried it on, the diaper filling it out nicely, the onesie, in turn, holding the diaper snugly against her in an incredibly comforting, babyish way.

She’d thought about putting her pajama pants back on over it, as weird as it might look as a combination, but once she got a glimpse of the onesie, of the adorable way she saw the diaper peeking out, she knew she had to keep going, to put the skirt on, too, then finish it all off by replacing her sneakers with another pair she’d bought and slipped into the bottom of her carry-on, ones that were pink, and fastened with Velcro.

It was almost a shock to open the stall door, to see her reflection in the mirrors over the bank of sinks facing her. There was no way the little girl toddling out of there could be her, could be a high school senior… And yet, she kept getting bigger in the reflection as Anna approached, her hand reaching out to touch Anna’s in disbelief, sending a pleasant shiver down her spine.

Stepping out of the bathroom was different, however, when suddenly there were a plethora of other people milling around, all of whom, she was certain, were staring at her, judging her, able to tell, immediately, how old she really was, and how strange she was to go out in public dressed this way. She ducked her head, tried to ignore it as she hurried to her gate and found a seat, diaper crinkling beneath her as she sat in a quiet corner by herself.

She was worried, at first, when she saw somebody sitting down close to her, but the smile the older woman gave her when Anna glanced up at her made her feel better. “Hello, dear,” the woman said. “Aren’t you sweet?” Anna blushed bashfully. “What are you doing here all on your own? You aren’t traveling by yourself, are you?”

A wave of relief washed over her. Maybe it had been her imagination before that everyone had been able to tell the truth about her. “Uh-huh,” she nodded.

“What a brave girl, going on such a long flight by herself,” the woman replied. “Your parents must be so proud.” Anna struggled to hold back a laugh at that, at what her mom and Doug would say if they could see her now. “How old are you, dear? What grade are you in?”

That, Anna thought, was a good question. It was another thing she’d pondered while thinking about what she wanted her time as an exchange student to be like. This was a perfect time to test it out, too… She could tell the truth, though it might make her seem less impressive to the woman, being on her own when she was an adult.

She’d also considered another lie, to go with her story about needing her diapers. She’d always thought it would be fun to be seen as a prodigy, someone younger who had skipped a few grades… She felt like that already, at times, given her size, except that most of her classmates had known her since they started school together. The students at her new school wouldn’t know any better, however…

Or, if she wanted to push it a little further, she could try to pass as someone even younger… It might take some fast talking, when she reached her destination, some explanations about how the grades didn’t line up perfectly, so there had been a misunderstanding… That, in reality, she belonged in a much lower grade than she was actually in. She didn’t know what she’d do when she got home, and her school wanted to see her transcripts, but she could try to blame that on the exchange program, too… How far could she go? How young of a student would the exchange program take?

But which should she do? Sitting there in her diaper and onesie, she was eager to try something else, to take some risks, though she knew she shouldn’t go too overboard, or she might regret it later. She didn’t have to stick with whatever she told this woman… Unless it went very badly, however, she probably would.

What should she say?

“I’m eighteen, and a senior!”

“I’m fifteen, and a senior!”

“I’m twelve, and I’m in seventh grade!”

Or, “I’m nine, and I’m in fourth grade!”

And should she…

Use her diaper as soon as she can?

Hold it as long as she can?

Or use the bathroom on the plane and wait until she touches down to try her diaper?

These decisions have already been made, but if you’d like to catch up on the story, and help decide where it goes next, you can find it, and other exclusive stories, at my Patreon!

Little Lucy

It had started out as a joke, a last-ditch effort. She still wasn’t sure how it had happened, how the mistake had been made initially, why the company had sent her the first pacifier, but, at that point, she’d had nothing else to do, nothing else to blog about. She’d considered making a rant about it, and in her opinion, she would have been totally justified in ripping the company apart.

Instead, she went in another direction. She still remembered how that video had gone, even though she’d improvised most of it in the moment. “Hey, guys, pals, and pals!” she’d waved to the camera. “I have something really special to show to you today!” She’d held out the box, decked out in a ribbon, trying her best to make it seem like something fancy, jewelry or lingerie. “I’ve been waiting on this for a long time! Trust me, I’ve tried out a lot like it, but this one promises to be the best ever!”

She’d taken her time untying the ribbon, opening the box’s lid, acting pleasantly surprised at what she saw inside, rather than annoyed, and a bit disgusted, the way she’d actually been the first time she’d seen it. “Oh. My. God. It’s perfect!” She picked it up, and, on a whim, slid it into her mouth, something she’d certainly never intended to do. “Oh, yeah, that’s just the right size,” she mumbled around it. “This ought to keep me from whining while I’m sitting on my potty!”

The video had cut off there, because she’d burst out laughing, and it didn’t feel worth it to bother with a second take. On a whim, when she uploaded it, she changed her channel name, since it wasn’t like she had that many fans anyway, leaning into the joke by making it Little Lucy, editing her About page to add in the line, ‘Days without an accident: 0.’ Nobody, she was positive, would ever see it.

And then, to her shock, views had taken off, and she started to get more products to unbox and show off. Given the way her pacifier video had ended, and what she’d put in her About page, she supposed she couldn’t be offended when one of the first was a pink, plastic potty chair. Most of the others had been cute clothes and accessories, that sort of thing, stuff she could actually use, and would… She should have stuck with those, ignored the potty, but it fit too well into her joke, and she couldn’t help herself.

“This is so much more comfy than my old one!” she’d claimed, sitting on the chair, fully clothed, of course. “With this, and my paci, I could sit here all day!” She’d smiled, bouncing in place, then widened her eyes. “Oh, no! I forgot to take my pants off! Oh, well… Guess I’ll just be in potty training a little longer! I don’t mind, as long as I have this potty!”

It was so stupid, but she couldn’t deny that it brought in an audience… She started slipping in more and more references to her potty training to other videos, changing her ‘Days without an accident’ line periodically. It was inevitable, probably, that she was eventually sent a pair of custom-made cloth training panties, ‘Little Lucy’ embroidered around the waistband, so thick and babyish compared to actual underwear…

She had to gush about them, pretend they were just as comfortable as the real thing. “And they hold so much!” she’d said. “I-I mean, not that I’ve tested it or anything… They’re so adorable, too! I wish I could show them off, but I’m a proper young lady who was taught never to flash her panties in public! Then again… This is only between us, right?” She’d given the camera a wink, lifting her skirt before acting shocked. “Oh, no! Have I been doing this whole vlog in wet pants?! I guess that shows how good they are, I didn’t even notice!”

She’d poured water into them before she’d started, obviously, and felt the wet cloth squelching between her thighs the whole time… A perfect escalation for her joke, she’d thought, and also the end of it, as far as she was concerned…

But not, apparently, anyone else. That was when the diapers had begun to arrive, far more brands than she’d ever imagined existed for adults, in so many prints and thicknesses. That was too far… She’d had to film a whole video to address it, taking a more serious, mature tone, up until she opened up the cabinet where she kept all the diapers she’d been sent.

“You have to stop sending these!” she’d demanded, stomping her foot. “I’ve told you, again and again, I am in potty training! I don’t wear diapers anymore, and I’m never gonna, so stop it!”

Pity

This was supposed to be the easiest job ever; it was so easy, Donna had been worried to tell her parents it was what she was doing, for fear they’d look down on her for taking it, would tell her that this was something meant for a ‘tweener, not an Amazon who had graduated college already, that she was wasting her gifts bothering with this.

To her surprise, they’d seemed fine with it, although they appeared to believe this was all a part of a plan. “Good thinking,” her mother had told her. “Get in on the ground floor, prove yourself, work your way up… They’ll respect you more that way.”

“That’s right,” her father had nodded along. “You’ll be running that place in no time.”

Was that really what Donna wanted? Not particularly… She was there because she needed something she could make some money at, at least temporarily, not as part of any grand plot. Still, if it kept them from breathing down her neck, lecturing her that she could, and should, be doing something bigger and better, she’d take it. “Yeah,” she’d agreed. “I’ll probably take it slow, though, just to be safe.”

But the job was fun. Taking care of littles was always a delight, and certainly no problem for someone her size. And, as the only Amazon working there, other than the owner, Miriam, she felt so grown up, so proud that the other daycare workers turned to her for help when they needed to reach something on the very top shelf, or when they weren’t quite strong enough to move something, or when one of the students needed an extra-hard spanking for being particularly naughty. She was perfectly happy with that… Or so she’d thought.

Then, one day, while she was straightening up some toys, she heard a small voice behind her. “Wow,” it said. “I feel sorry for you.”

Donna turned, not even thinking, at first, that it was aimed at her, just curious to see what was going on, if an incident was happening to another student that she ought to step in on. She only saw one little there, however, all by herself, a tiny, curly-haired redhead with freckles in a frilly, green dress that came nowhere near hiding her diaper. She was absolutely adorable, to the point where Donna was baffled she’d never noticed her before.

“Are you new, sweetie?” she asked with a smile. She didn’t remember hearing about any new arrivals for the day, but maybe the news had missed her.

The girl ignored her. “It must be hard, doing all that work,” the girl observed.

“Not at all,” Donna chuckled. “I’m sure picking up toys seems tough to you – I bet that’s why none of you littles ever want to do it – but for big girls like me, it’s no big deal.”

“Oh, I don’t feel sorry for you because of that,” the girl giggled.

Donna tilted her head. “Then why?”

“Seriously?” the girl raised an eyebrow. “Soooo many reasons! Your life must be so hard!”

Donna was shocked to hear those words, especially from a little. They always seemed to think Amazons had it easy, that they were the ones who had been dealt a bad hand. “What do you mean?” she had to ask.

“Well, for one,” the girl replied, “look at those boring clothes you hafta wear. I can wear anything I want!”

“I could, too,” Donna shrugged. “I have more options than you, really, because I don’t have to worry about things going over my diaper. But I guess you aren’t too concerned about that, either.” She smirked, reaching over to grab the hem of the girl’s dress, lifting it slightly and letting it flutter back down.

The girl showed no sign of being bothered by it, didn’t pout and whine the way most littles would have. “You could never wear something this cute,” she sniffed instead.

“I couldn’t, huh?” Donna folded her arms. “We’ll see about that.”

She didn’t really have anything to prove to this little girl, but something about the interaction stuck in her mind, and she couldn’t help herself. She went out shopping that night, searching for cute outfits. It did, she had to admit, take longer than she’d expected, making her wonder if the girl had a point, though, at last, she found the perfect store.

The worker there, strangely enough, reminded Donna of the girl a bit, with the same red, curly hair and freckles, despite being a ‘tweener. She was more than happy to help, picking out lots of dresses and short sets and rompers for Donna to try on. Donna got so swept up in it, she wound up buying several, as opposed to the one she’d intended on purchasing. It was for the best, however, she told herself… It would hardly prove anything to do it once.

She chose one of the short sets to start, one with pink, green, and white stripes, and a Peter Pan collar, finishing off the look with a pair of hair ribbons. When she took a gander at herself in the mirror, it was undeniable that she was, indeed, cute.

It wasn’t until she stepped through the doors of the daycare that she began to question what she was doing, as the other workers filed in, giving her weird looks. Before any of the students had even arrived, while she was straightening up one of the playrooms, Miriam paid her a visit.

“Donna,” the woman said, “did you forget about our dress code?”

“No,” Donna lied. To be honest, she’d known it existed, though never bothered to read through it before signing her contract. “I just thought… Well, look at me.” She gestured to herself, feeling silly as she followed her own advice, noting the difference between her and Miriam, wearing a far more mature dress. “There’s no way anybody would mistake me for one of the students, not like some of the ‘tweeners here, so what does it matter?”

Miriam sighed, shook her head. “It matters because you agreed to dress a certain way when you took this job, young lady. Now, are you going to go home and change?”

Donna locked eyes with her. She could have, yes, and she was beginning to wonder if she should… But she’d already bought these clothes, and if she backed down now, it would mean the girl had been right. “No, I’m not,” she declared.

In a flash, she was over her boss’s knees, shorts and panties around her ankles. She gasped in shock, wriggling in place, hardly able to believe what was going on as Miriam delivered a hard swat to her bare bottom. “What did you say, young lady?!” the woman demanded.

She wasn’t sure what came over her, other than a desire to prove the little girl wrong. “I said,” she stuck her tongue out defiantly, “I can wear whatever I want!”

And, it turned out, she could… Just with a very sore backside under her shorts.

A Normal Rivalry

It wasn’t hard to tell what Mommy was up to. At least, not for Payton… Not for The Prodigy. The difficulty came with trying to convince the other heroes about it.

“You’re being overly suspicious,” Quicksand told her. “Look what she did with Aphrodite!”

“Sure,” she agreed. “But don’t you think it’s weird that so many heroes that have worked with her have vanished? And her new sidekick…”

“We’ve all heard the conspiracy theories,” Solar Flare rolled the two orbs of fire that approximated where their eyes would have been, if they still had human form. “You don’t honestly believe them, do you? Tempest was a boy, and Baby Girl… Well, it’s in the name, isn’t it?”

Payton had to bite her tongue. She’d known the truth about the new Tempest from the moment they’d made their debut, but she’d chosen not to say anything to respect their privacy. Saying that now, however… That would only make it seem like she was pretending she’d known to make herself appear smarter.

Not that she needed any help with that, usually. The problem with your only power being hyper-intellect, though, was that it could be hard to prove, and, since it was less flashy than super strength, or being made of fire, or having the ability to liquify the ground beneath your enemies’ feet, even after you had, it was easy for your teammates to forget about it, to, perhaps, wonder why you were on the team.

“Besides,” The Piranha added, always more reasonable than her name would lead someone to think, “those missing heroes are why we need to team up with her… There’s something going on, and while I can’t imagine she’s responsible, she is at the center of it. So, if we’re working with her, maybe you can help solve it. If anyone can do it, you can.”

The Piranha was buttering her up, obviously… But it was working. “I mean, I could,” she shrugged, as meekly as she could manage. “Except, I already have, and it’s all her!”

They still wouldn’t listen; that was the curse of being so much smarter than everyone around you. Even when you were right, that didn’t mean you could make them understand. That was fine, though… She’d just have to take another approach.

It wasn’t difficult to track down her lair, despite how cagey she’d been about giving out the address before the team had made an official arrangement with her. Payton did her best to talk at least one of the others into joining her, but they all refused, telling her that they were afraid it would look like they didn’t trust Mommy if they showed up unannounced… Which, of course, Payton didn’t.

“Fine,” The Prodigy sniffed. “If anything happens to me, you know where I’m going, and you know who’s responsible.”

She marched right into the front door, staring down the nurses at the desk. “Do you have an appointment?” one asked.

The Prodigy reached into the pocket of her lab coat, finger on the button of one of her devices. She could tell straight away that these were robots, and, fortunately, she had a mini-EMP that would be able to take them out. If all of Mommy’s henchpeople were like that, she’d have no problem with this at all… So long as the battery didn’t wear out.

“No need for that,” Mommy swept in. “Hello, my dear, I’ve been expecting you… Right this way.”

“You… have?” The Prodigy frowned.

“Of course,” Mommy smiled. “I knew from the moment I approached your team that you wouldn’t dream of letting me on without examining my headquarters… It’s only fair! Right this way!”

She hadn’t anticipated this… It was what she wanted, however, and she had her EMP if Mommy sicced her robots on her… “All right,” she nodded. “Let’s see what you have.”

She saw Baby Girl first – she’d been there all along, in fact, hiding behind Mommy – and she gave a few shy, one-word answers when The Prodigy asked her if she was okay, if she liked being here, on their way to see Aphrodite, who was, indeed, every bit as babified as she’d appeared to be on television. There was no way she was secretly working with Mommy… Not that The Prodigy had really thought she was.

“And do you recognize her?” Mommy inquired at the next door.

“The Lioness,” The Prodigy blinked, hardly able to believe what she was seeing. One of the most infamous assassins in the world… Sitting here, in the middle of a nursery. She was dressed in a red onesie, playing with a plush lion, sucking away happily on a pacifier. “Is this where she’s been?!” She’d lost track of her months ago, had assumed that she’d finally been taken out.

“She has,” Mommy confirmed. “I didn’t want to advertise it, since she’s made an awful lot of shady enemies, and she’s in no condition to defend herself now.”

“Okay,” The Prodigy said, after stepping away from the nursery door. “Now, where are the others?”

The Exchange Student – Chapter 1

“Moooom,” Anna groaned, looking around herself self-consciously. “Please don’t make a scene…”

“Anna!” She flinched, a part of her wanting to snap back at her step-father, while the rest prevented her, reminding her to take her own advice. “Could you try to have a little empathy?”

“Could you?” she muttered under her breath. It was rich, coming from him… “It’s only a few months, mom,” she said more loudly, quickly moving on. “Think of it as a test run for next year.”

That just made her mother cry harder, Anna blushing, glancing over at the other students gathered around in the lobby, most sharing similar scenes, although that didn’t make her any less embarrassed about her own, or glad that she was getting on a different plane than the rest of them.

There was a lot she could have said; she might have pointed out that she could have chosen to stay for her entire senior year, and still could extend it, if things went well and she didn’t lose her scholarship, or she might have mentioned how they were going to have more space at home again, and how nice that would be. If she really was lacking in empathy, as Doug had suggested, she would have reminded them that she was eighteen, so she could have come here without them and avoided all this… Or that, if it were her step-brother getting on a plane, she would have been thrilled.

Max wasn’t awful, she supposed, or at least not as bad as she knew he could have been. She had plenty of friends with little brothers who were worse, in their own ways. That didn’t stop her from resenting him, however, or his presence in her house.

She couldn’t blame it all on him, as much as she might want to. The real villain of the story was timing, plain and simple. Two summers ago, she’d gotten her driver’s license, and had convinced her mother to let her get a job, while school was out, anyway. She’d hated it, but it had been worth it, scrimping and saving whatever she didn’t have to spend on gas, or maintaining the old clunker she’d inherited from her uncle so she could keep making it to the mall to sell pretzels to annoying Karens and their screaming children, all so she could finally buy something she’d been dreaming about for as long as she could remember…

And then, her mom had told her she was getting married again, to Doug, and that he and Max were moving in, and Anna’s hopes for getting to make that purchase, much less enjoy it in peace, crumbled. She knew exactly what she wanted, and she could only get it online. When it was just her and her mom, she could have timed it, ordered it so it would be likely to arrive at a time when she’d get home from school, or work, before her mother, take the box up to her room, and she would never know.

With two extra people in the house, that became exponentially more difficult, not least of all because Max didn’t have his license yet, so she had to drive him home from school most days, unless he decided to do something with a friend, but that was unpredictable… And she didn’t know if she could trust him not to bring up the box at the dinner table if he saw her retrieve it.

Doug had his own schedule for her to try to work around as well, along with a belief that Anna should be saving up her money for when she got to college. Any time she came home with a shopping bag, or an empty coffee cup, as rare as that was, he interrogated her, asking if that was really something she needed. If he’d seen her get a box that size in the mail, he would have gone ballistic, and she wouldn’t have put it past him to make her open it in front of her to see what she’d wasted her money on.

What a surprise that would have been to all of them, to watch her, at eighteen, slicing open the tape, pulling out a package of thick, crinkly, baby-printed diapers. She wondered what Doug would have said to that… But not nearly enough that she was going to risk it. She didn’t want to keep them in her room, either, for fear that Max would go snooping around and find them.

So, she’d resigned herself to waiting until college, and probably not until her second, or even third, year there, when she could get a private room. Until, one day, her guidance counselor had asked her if she’d considered studying abroad. “With your grades,” she’d said, “I bet you could get the whole thing covered, or the vast majority of it, anyway. It would be a wonderful opportunity for you.”

It certainly would… Though, not in the way the counselor thought. “I’m nowhere near good enough at any other language for that,” Anna had confessed.

“That’s fine!” her counselor had told her. “There are plenty of countries where most of the people speak English, and you might even pick up a bit of another language while you’re there! It would still be fascinating to experience a different culture, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, definitely,” Anna had nodded… But she was more interested in something else. This was a whole new start, and a temporary one at that. She could be anyone she wanted to be, and, as long as she went somewhere none of the other students at her school who were studying abroad were going, she could leave it all behind at the end of the trip. It was a silly reason to go through all this trouble, she knew… After having gotten so close to living out her fantasies at home, only to have them snatched away, it was hard to resist a possible second chance at them… And, perhaps, an even better version than what she’d envisioned.

She’d finally made that order, got her diapers, along with a few other things. Sure enough, just as she’d feared, it arrived on a day when Doug was off work. As soon as she got home and didn’t see the box waiting on the porch, she knew he’d seen it, prayed silently he hadn’t opened it.

Thankfully, he hadn’t, but it was sitting on the living room table. “What is this?” he’d demanded. “You know you need to be saving up for college, and now you have this trip, you can’t be…”

She should have waited a bit longer, let him hoist himself a little higher on his own petard, however, she couldn’t resist busting out the perfect counter she’d been preparing since before she’d convinced herself to pull the trigger on the purchase. “They’re from my new school,” she’d informed him. “They have uniforms there, so they had to send me some to bring with me.”

That had shut him up, for a moment. “Seems like a waste of money on their part,” he’d mumbled. “Why didn’t they send them to your host family?”

“Beats me,” Anna had shrugged innocently. “Can I take them up to my room now?”

She’d almost gotten away with it scot-free, ready to stuff it all into her suitcase, but her mother had gotten home then, seen her with the box, Doug speaking up and explaining it all as if he’d known all along what was going on… Or, rather, what Anna had told him was going on.

“Uniforms, huh?” her mother had smiled. “Try one on for us! I want to see what they wear over there!”

“Mom!” Anna had whined. “I’m gonna have to wear them all the time already, I don’t…”

“You should try it on anyway,” Doug had, of course, sided with his wife. “Sizing might be different over there.”

Fortunately, Anna had foreseen this possibility. She’d been leaning towards the outfit she’d chosen to start with, but settling on that for a cover had pretty much made the decision for her, between that and a few other options. She took the box up to her room, opened it, resisting the urge to open the diapers immediately and give them a squeeze, instead unpacking the other items.

She’d been collecting some childish clothing where she could, trying to put together a completely new wardrobe for her trip, one more suited for a grade-schooler than someone less than a year away from graduating high school. This was the piece de resistance, the crown jewel of her juvenile attire… Besides the diapers themselves, obviously.

The main part was a onesie, mostly white, but with a sailor collar, decorated with a cheery pattern of hearts and bows and confetti, a large pink ribbon tied into a bow in the middle of the chest. She thought, a first, she’d ordered it a bit too large, the crotch hanging looser than she’d expected… And then she remembered that, of course, it was meant to be worn with diapers. And, if all went according to plan, if she didn’t chicken out, the next time she wore it after this, that was exactly how she would be wearing it, the idea sending a shiver of happiness up her spine.

There was a pleated skirt to go over it, in a pattern that matched the collar. It was short, shorter than she’d normally dream of wearing to school, especially with a diaper underneath… The onesie ought to keep that hidden, however, or, if not… Well, that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, depending on how daring she decided to be in her new identity. She didn’t even really have to wear it to school, regardless of what she’d told her family, though, after seeing how cute it was on her, giving a spin in the mirror, she definitely wanted to.

Max had burst out laughing as soon as she’d come down the stairs, and Doug had seemed skeptical. “This is what they wear to school?” he’d asked.

“It’s a different culture,” Anna had sniffed. “It’s not our place to judge them.”

“Well, I think it’s adorable,” her mother had said.

She wasn’t wearing it now, although she’d been tempted. She had it tucked away in her carry-on, along with a couple diapers. Whether she was going to work up the courage to put them on for the flight or not, to change out of the pajama pants she’d worn for the long flight, to get started early, she wasn’t sure, but she’d wanted to have the option. If she stayed out here, on the wrong side of security, forever, she definitely wouldn’t.

“I really need to get going,” she told her mom gently. “It’s going to be okay, I promise. I’ll be safe, and call, and all that.”

“Oh, Anna,” her mother sighed, giving her a big hug, then stepping back, looking her up and down. “So grown up…”

If only she knew, Anna thought, struggling to suppress a giggle at that choice of words, and what she had planned. She said her goodbyes and, finally, got into the security line. Her biggest fear now was that they were going to see her diapers, find them suspicious make her empty her bag out right there in the middle of everyone, with her other classmates filing by, seeing it, and her onesie, but, if they recognized the shape of her padding in the x-ray machine, they didn’t say anything about it, or anything else.

She could hardly believe her luck as she snatched her bag off the conveyor belt, not wanting to risk it somehow getting mixed up with anyone else’s, hurrying her way towards her gate. Her and the other students from her school had already compared notes, and the map of the terminal, and she knew both that she would be the only one headed there, and where the nearest restroom to it was…

And this was it. She was free, and alone, at last, ready to start a new adventure, craft a new life for herself, for at least a few months. She’d been dreaming of this for so long, and now it was here, and she wasn’t sure what to do, how she should begin. She’d have time to change on the plane, if she wanted to put on a diaper then, or she could wait until she got to the airport in her new home… Or she could do it now, but was she going to use it on the plane? She’d never changed herself before, and doing it for the first time in an airplane bathroom sounded difficult. After dreaming of it for so long, however, did she really want to put it off any longer than she had to?

Should Anna put on her diaper…

Now?
On the flight?
When she touches down?
Or wait until she’s at her host family’s home?

Should she change into her onesie as well?

Yes?
Or No?

And when she does arrive, should she…

Try to enjoy her diapers in secret?
Claim that she needs them?
Or pretend that wearing diapers is a custom in her country?

These decisions have already been made, but if you’d like to catch up on the story, and help decide where it goes next, you can find it, and other exclusive stories, at my Patreon!