When the end of the school day on Monday came I was feeling more than a bit nervous. I knew what waited for me back at home, and while I was preoccupied about it, I knew that it was something that was long overdue. I understood that it was something that needed to be done.

"Dude?" Lee asked, running up to catch me in the hall. "What's up?"

"Nothing."

"Something wrong?"

"What do you mean?"

"You've been out there all day," he said, on the way to our bus. "Did something happen?"

"At school?"

"I don't know...at school...at home...something this weekend?"

I laughed. "Actually, quite a few things happened this weekend."

"Like what?"

I didn't want to go into it with him. I didn't know if he could be trusted anymore. I decided to just look at him and smile.

"What?" he asked.

"Nothing. Just drop it, dude."

"Is something wrong?"

"You aren't really the person I want to talk about this with, Lee. Sorry."

"What the hell does that mean?"

"I found out you told your buddy, Tom, about the video game," I whispered as we took our places on the bus. "I found out," I repeated for effect.

"Oh," he said quietly. "That."

"Yeah, that."

"Sorry, it just kind of slipped out," he tried to explain.

"I bet. It is so common for things just to slip out in an e-mail."

"I didn't think it was suppose to be some sort of secret," he tried to explain. "You didn't tell me NOT to tell Tom."

I looked at him again. Maybe the Matt from Junior High would have let that go, but I was no longer the dim bulb Lee thought I was. I didn't say anything, as I looked away.

"Sorry," he repeated.

"Uh-huh."

"Did Gavin find out?"

"Uh-huh."

"Dude, Tom swore he wouldn't say anything to Gavin about it."

"So you knew they WERE e-mailing each other, then?!"

"Ahhh, yeah," he said.

"And you thought you wouldn't tell me...because?"

"I promised Tom I wouldn't say anything."

"Just as Tom promised not to say anything to Gavin, huh?" I asked. "Well, at least now I know who your real friends are."

"Matt, dude, don't say that."

I shook my head. I was actually not upset or angry or even really hurt. I was probably too cool for Lee's taste.

"Tom swore he wasn't going to say anything," Lee said.

"Maybe he didn't, but he still found ways to tell Gavin without coming right out and doing so...never mind," I said, shaking my head.

"Matt, don't you think you are being a tad dramatic?"

I laughed. "Actually, no I'm not, Lee. I am just tired of me being more of a friend to you than you have ever been to me," I said, standing up.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

"I need to sit alone, Lee," I said, getting up to move to another seat. "Or at least find some seat I can think by myself."

I was hurt by Lee, thinking once again he was doing the "right thing" and trying to orchestrate how things should go, but I really wanted to sit by myself and think things out. It had been a hectic weekend and I still didn't have much time to properly process everything, including what was waiting for me when I got off the bus.

I sat in the back next to Carmen Yates, a sophomore girl with really pretty eyes, but a pretty hurting body. She didn't even look at me when I sat there, which was fine. My mind was back to Saturday evening, right after Gav and I got home from going to the shopping mall, when we both had just been spanked pretty hard by the manager of a software store.

That moment at home, though...that's what I was going back to...a moment when everything changed in my relationship with young Gavin. An endless moment where his mother revealed that she had just purchased diapers and was planning on putting him in them that evening.

One horrible moment!

And she had invited me over to observe...!

One wonderful moment!

And Gavin had insisted that I assist her...!

One wonderful, horrible moment!

We got out of the van, me and Gavin and Gavin's mother. Instantly I decided to pretend to ignore what I had just heard, or at the very least pretend that it wasn't a big deal.

"Mrs. Snyder," I said to Gavin's Mom when we got out. "I need to go home real quick." I was trying to be fast, and not make eye contact with either her or Gav. The revelation had actually turned my stomach, a reaction I'm kind of surprised at now.

"Is something wrong?" she said, getting out, and picking up the grocery bag with the diapers sticking out of the top.

"Ahhhh...no..."

"Are you sure?" she asked.

Before I could answer, Gavin came over to me and said, "Momma, I need to talk to Matt for a moment, ok?"

"Ok, bring in the rest of the groceries when you boys are done," she said, leaving us alone for another moment.

"Matt," he whispered when she got out of ear shot. "You need to help me out here!"

"Help you out?" I was beyond confused.

"She - she can't see my butt right now!" he said, crying again. "She - she will know what happened for sure if she sees my butt! It's still gotta still be red!"

"Gavin," I sighed. "I - I - I don't know what to say about this. About any of this."

"Please," he begged. "You, you understand that I, that I couldn't say anything to you."

"About the...about...ahhhh...about what was in the bag?"

"Yeah."

"Gav, dude, I said you could tell me everything." I looked away for a moment. "You could have told me about this and it would have been cool."

"I couldn't about this," he said, tears now dripping down his face again. "I wasn't sure. Please, man, I really need this, now. I will tell you everything, but you have to promise to help me out this one time."

I looked at him in silence for yet another moment, then I wiped his face. "You really want me to go in there and change your diaper?"

"Not change!" he snapped, before shaking that off. "I'm sorry, dude. I shouldn't have yelled. It's not changing, really," he said, explaining. "You'd be putting one on."

"Putting one on YOU?"

"Yeah."

"How is that not changing a diaper?"

"You're not going to be taking one off, just putting one on." He was so quiet and ashamed at having to reveal this horrible family secret to me.

"You're not wearing one now?" I asked.

He looked horrified. "No way, dude!" he said. "You saw what I had going on under my clothes back there at the store!"

"Ok..ok..."

"I only have to wear them around the house, and only when...when I sleep, and only when I wet the bed." He now looked away. "It's their idea of discipline. They are so sure I pee in the bed on purpose."

The light bulb went off - everything was now making sense. From the comments his mom made when we left to the mall, to all of the times he couldn't sleep over, to the instances he would get upset when I called him a "baby," to the safety pin I stepped on in his living room, to him not able to sleep in Atlantic City!

He was a bed wetter!!

Man! Maybe I was a dim bulb!

"You sure that's all I have to do?" I asked.

"Yeah," he said, clearing his throat. "Just take me up to my room and put me into one of those diapers. That's it. Nothing else. I just can't have her see my red bottom."

"Why can't you do it?" I asked. "Can't you put your own diaper on?"

"I can, but they won't let me," he said. "It's part of the punishment."

This made no sense - they refused to spank him, but had no problem diapering him?

"Don't they realize that you are getting too old for that?" I asked.

He shook his head.

"I don't know," I sighed.

"If - if you do this," he said. "I promise not to e-mail Tom ever again!"

I looked at him and shook my head. "How can I believe that? I don't have any interest in coming over and checking up on you to see if you haven't or not. I would just have to take your word."

"I swear I won't!"

"I don't know."

"Please!" he begged louder. "I also promise not to spank you again."

"What?" This one came out of no where. "What do you mean?"

"Sorry...I mean for the video game," he said, holding it up. _d_a_m_n_ - I had forgotten that he had promised me another spanking for that. "Remember that I said you had another one coming...we'll call it even, ok?"

"But you said back at the store..."

"I shouldn't have said that," he said. "I was being a jerk just because I could. Two spankings are more than enough."

I thought about it some more, then finally said, "No."

"What?"

"No, you will still give me the spanking, just not tonight," I said. "I don't care where or when, but you promised me one, and one of the main rules in spanking is you always follow through on a promised spanking."

"Even if is not fair?"

"Especially if it's not fair."

"I don't understand?"

"Don't worry," I said, promising, "One day you will."

"Ok."

"Let me go home and get my sleeping bag, ok?"

"You are coming over then?" he asked.

"Did you mean it not contacting Tom ever again?"

"Sure!" he quickly dried away his eyes.

"Ok, let me go get my sleeping bag."

"You can sleep in my bed with me," he said.

"You got plastic sheets?"

"Yeah," he said, looking down.

"No thank you," I said, smiling, as I went over and gave the brave little trooper a hug. What a day we had already had. "You get your sleeping bag and we can camp out on the floor, ok?"

"Great!"

"Let me go home and tell my Dad and get my sleeping bag."

"Ok."

"Don't forget, though, that I can't stay too long tomorrow. It's a Sunday!"

"Oh yeah," Gav said, with a smirk. "You need to watch Vincent."

"Watch it, mister!" I said, laughing. "No jealousy this evening, ok?"

"Ok."

"Cool," I said, as I limped home - my own bottom was still smoking. "Tell your Mom I will be over shortly."

When I got home I saw a note from Dad...he had already come home and gone back out. He had left some money for me to order a pizza. I wrote a note for him telling him that I would go to Gavin's for the night. Before I left the house I checked the messages on the voice mail and heard that Vincent's grandparent's had called - they were relaying a message from Vince telling me not to forget to bring over my baseball jersey over Sunday.

"Christ," I laughed to myself. "What kind of game is he thinking about this week?" I wondered, as I picked out my Cal Ripken jersey from the back of my closet.

Before I left I paused and looked at a print-out of a picture Dad took at my birthday. It was of Lee, Vince, me and Gavin. What a screwed up pack of children, I couldn't help thinking:

One of the boys has a recently shaved pubic region that no one knows anything about, except one 11 year old boy, who (it turns out) is made to be spanked every Sunday by his babysitter, who (it turns out) is disciplined by another boy four years younger, who (it turns out) is diapered on a regular basis as a form of punishment!

I swear if this crap wasn't real, someone with a really messed up sense of humor would have to invent it!

I showed up over at the Snyder's place, and they told me that Gavin was waiting for me upstairs. Before I left the kitchen, though, Gav's mother started talking to me.

"I don't like this, Matt," she said.

"You don't like what, 'mam?" I asked, putting the sleeping bag down.

"I don't like not being there to diaper him, to show you how it's done," she said, sighing, "But I did tell Gavin that, this just once, I would be flexible. Considering what I did today, it's only fair to him."

Only part of that made sense to me, but I thought I would go ahead and let it go. "I'll try and do a good job," I said.

"He never told you about this, had he?"

"No, he didn't."

She nodded. "I figured as much. You seemed surprised."

I laughed. "I was, 'mam."

"Do you think we are horrible people for doing this?" she came out and asked - WOW! This may have been the first time an adult came out and asked me such a thing!

"Ahhhh, no, I don't think so," I said, adding, "But to be honest, I haven't had much time to think about it. I guess, well, if it helps to keep his bed dry, and reminds him about it... I don't know." I shrugged.

She smiled. "You are a sweet, boy, Matt," she said. "We don't do it to be mean, but to be honest, we don't really do it to keep his bed dry. He does have plastic sheets."

"Yeah, he told me," I said. "I had a cousin who wet the bed, and she had plastic sheets."

"How old was she?"

"I don't remember," thinking back the last time Dad and I were over at Aunt Cara's house. "Five or six I think." Katy was actually my age, but the last time we saw my Aunt or her family was when Mother died, and we went to go see them in Maine. That was when she (my aunt) gave me the blanket / quilt she had made.

Gavin's mother nodded. "I am convinced this has more to do with his willfull disobedience and constantly looking for attention than an underdeveloped bladder."

I kind of looked away at that one; while I didn't know much about the subject, or Gavin's history, I found that really hard to swallow. "Maybe," was all I could say.

"Do you know that he recently asked his father if it would be all right if he, my husband, spanked him?"

"What?!" I was stunned! "Gavin asked to be spanked?"

"Yes," she said, laughing. "Isn't that the strangest thing you have ever heard?"

"I've heard stranger, but that does surprise me."

"We are convinced he's just looking for attention," she said. "And he's trying to punish us for not being here as often as we should."

I shook my head. "I really don't know about that, mam. Gav knows you and your husband are busy."

"We are never too busy for him, though. I am always home from the hospital in time for dinner. That's better than a lot of parents, right?"

"It's about on par for the course," I said, laughing.

"Do you play golf?" she asked, out of no where.

"Huh?"

"Nothing, it's just that comment seemed right out of the mouths of the doctors I work with," she laughed. "You know, I usually get my diapers from the hospital," she offered up, shifting the subject.

I didn't say anything... I didn't really have time to think of a response ...oh crap...!... tears were coming to her eyes.

"I try and be a good mommy...I do..."

"What's wrong, Mrs. Snyder?"

"We...we have plenty of diapers here," she said.

"Uh-huh, ok," I said. I had seen the bag in the van.

"No, we had plenty before I took you boys to the mall."

"You...you did?"

"Do you know why I had to get more?" she asked me, a tear going down her cheek.

I shook my head - maybe Gavin had grown or something. I didn't know.

"I knew you would see it sitting back there, and I knew it would embarrass him to know that you knew," she whispered.

"You...knew it would embarrass...embarrass Gavin?"

"I thought that...that if the element of real shame was brought more into it, then maybe... I don't know... I'm a horrible mother."

I was stunned...what the hell do you say to something like that? On one hand I had to agree with her: that is a pretty low thing to do, set your own son up like that, knowing how it would hurt him. Then, well, how was what she was doing any different from the other parents and grandparents that I knew, all of which seemed to use shame and embarrassment as their trump card of punishment?

"I need to go see Gav, 'mam," I finally said softly.

"Ok," she said, wiping her face.

"For what it's worth, I don't think you are perfect, but I don't think you are horrible," I said, as I left, adding, "I do think you are about par for the course, though."

She smiled. "What do you mean?"

"You are trying to do the right thing, and sometimes, in order to get there, you do the wrong thing. That's what most parents end up doing, or so I've seen."

"I'm sorry, Matt," she said, coming over to hug me.

"Don't worry about me," I said. "Worry about Gavin. Think about him. Punish him, ok. But you need to be consistent and you need to be fair."

She nodded her head but didn't say anything. I suddenly became very self aware, realizing that I was speaking way out of line.

"I'm sorry if I spoke out of line, Mrs. Snyder."

"Let's just pretend that...that none of this conversation happened," she said, smiling. "But, off the record, thank you."

I nodded and finally left the kitchen. I started shaking as I went up the stairs. This whole thing - this whole ordeal - going back to Atlantic City when that little brat swiped those quarters - it has been a life I did not make, and one I could not control. No matter how hard I tried...no matter how much I wanted it to...oh man...what was I in the middle of?

I walked upstairs and looked around. There were three closed doors and one open one. The open one was a bed room with the lights out. This was my first time up here...hmmm.. which door was a little 11 year old bed wetter?

"Gavin?" I said out. "Which room is yours?"

A moment later door number three opened. From the light of the room, Gavin stepped out.