Two Weeks in Diapers

The first time I saw Kuba naked, I was nine years old and he was trying to fish a dead rat out of the creek behind our housing block with a stick he'd sharpened against the curb. He'd taken off his shirt because it was July and the air hung thick as wet wool, and his ribs showed through his skin like the bars of a birdcage. I remember thinking he looked like something the city had half-digested and spat out. That was before everything collapsed, of course. Before the scaffolds went up around the old hospital and never came down. Before we learned to trade in things that used to be free.

We're nineteen now. Both of us. Same birthday, actually, which is one of those coincidences that feels meaningful until you realize it's just math. His mother went into labor at the same party where my mother went into labor, two floors apart in the same crumbling apartment block, and we've been circling each other ever since like stray dogs who can't decide if they want to fight or share the same bone.

I'm getting ahead of myself.

The bet was stupid. I want to say that upfront because everything that follows is technically my fault, and I need you to understand that I knew it was stupid even as I shook on it. Kuba had found a bottle of actual vodka, not the bathtub stuff that tastes like gasoline and regret, and we were drinking it on the roof of the old textile factory, watching the sun go down over the eastern district. The sky was the color of a bruise, purple and yellow and angry, and the wind carried the smell of burning plastic from somewhere south.

"You won't do it," he said.

I hate when he says that. He knows I hate when he says that. That's why he says it.

"Try me."

He grinned. He has this grin that makes his whole face look like it's about to do something illegal. His teeth are crooked in the front, just slightly, and he's got a scar on his chin from when we were twelve and he tried to jump between two rooftops and didn't make it. His hair is dark and always looks like he just woke up, even when he's been awake for eighteen hours. He's got these long fingers, too, the kind that look like they should be playing piano or picking locks, and he's always drumming them on something. His thigh. The table. My shoulder, when he thinks I'm not paying attention.

"The old man in the market. The one with the cart." He took a swig from the bottle and passed it to me. "You go up to him and you ask, in your best little-girl voice, if he's got any of those special sweets from before. The ones in the gold wrapper."

"That's it?"

"That's it."

The old man in question was named Pan Nowak, and he'd been selling black market goods from that cart since before either of us was born. He had a face like crumpled paper and eyes that missed nothing. Everyone in the district knew him. Everyone owed him something, or he owed them, or both. Asking him for pre-collapse candy was like walking up to a police officer and asking if he'd like to buy some stolen goods. It wasn't dangerous, exactly. It was just stupid. Humiliating. The kind of thing that would get me laughed out of the market for a month.

"What do I get if I do it?"

"What do you want?"

I thought about it. The vodka was warm in my stomach, and the roof felt like it was swaying slightly, though that might have been the wind. Below us, the city spread out in patches of light and dark, generators humming in some buildings, others dark and silent as graves. I could see the river from up here, a black ribbon cutting through the ruins.

"If I win," I said, "you have to do whatever I say for two weeks. No arguments. No questions. Whatever I want."

His eyebrows went up. "That's a lot of trust you're putting in me."

"I'm not the one who's going to lose."

He laughed. He has this laugh that starts in his chest and works its way up, like he's surprised by it every time. "Fine. And if I win?"

"You won't."

"Humor me."

I took another drink. The vodka was starting to taste less like regret and more like possibility. "Same deal. Whatever you want for two weeks."

He was quiet for a moment, and when I looked over at him, he wasn't grinning anymore. He was looking at me with this expression I couldn't read, something careful and hungry all at once. It made my stomach do something complicated.

"Deal," he said.

We shook on it. His hand was warm and rough, calluses from hauling scrap metal and climbing fire escapes, and he held on a second longer than he needed to. I told myself I imagined it.

I didn't imagine it.

---

The market was held in the shell of an old shopping center, three floors of broken escalators and empty storefronts converted into a sprawling bazaar. You could find almost anything there if you knew who to ask. Batteries. Antibiotics. Coffee that wasn't made from roasted dandelion roots. I'd been coming here since I was old enough to carry a bag, trading salvaged copper wire and circuit boards for food and clothing and the occasional luxury, like the leather jacket I was wearing, which I'd gotten off a dead man three winters ago. He didn't need it anymore. I did.

Pan Nowak's cart was in the same spot it had always been, near the old fountain that no longer worked, surrounded by a halo of plastic crates and hanging scales. He was sitting on a stool, smoking a pipe that smelled like burnt sugar, watching the crowd with those sharp old eyes.

I'd dressed for the occasion. That was part of the bet, though Kuba hadn't specified it. I'd put on my most innocent face, the one I used when I needed to convince someone I wasn't a threat. I'd braided my hair neat and tight, and I'd left my utility belt at home, which made me feel naked. The scar through my eyebrow was a problem, though. It's hard to look innocent with a scar like that. I'd gotten it when I was fifteen, in a fight over a can of peaches, and I'd learned to live with it.

"Pan Nowak," I said, pitching my voice higher than normal. "Good afternoon."

He looked up. His eyes traveled over me, taking in the braid, the clean face, the lack of tools. I could see him cataloging me, filing me under some category I couldn't guess.

"Afternoon," he said. His voice was like gravel being poured into a bucket. "What do you want?"

"I was wondering," I said, and I made my eyes wide, "if you have any of those special sweets. The ones in the gold wrapper. From before."

He stared at me for a long moment. The pipe smoke curled up between us, sweet and cloying. I could feel people watching. The market had gone quiet around us, the way it does when something interesting is about to happen.

"Special sweets," he repeated.

"Yes. The ones with the caramel inside."

He set his pipe down on the cart. His hands were shaking slightly, the way old hands do, but his eyes were steady. "You're Maja Kuba's girl. The scavenger."

"I'm Maja," I said. "I'm not anyone's girl."

"You're Kuba's girl," he said. "Everyone knows that."

I felt my face go hot. "I'm not..."

"He was in here yesterday," Pan Nowak said. "Bought two of those sweets. Paid triple what they're worth. Told me you might be coming by."

The bottom dropped out of my stomach.

"He said," Pan Nowak continued, picking his pipe back up, "that if you came asking, I should give you one. And I should tell you that he's waiting for you on the roof."

I stood there, frozen, while the market slowly came back to life around me. Someone laughed. Someone else was arguing about the price of batteries. The world kept moving, and I was stuck in place, my face burning, my heart doing something that felt like falling.

He'd known. He'd known I would take the bet. He'd known I would come here. He'd set the whole thing up, and I'd walked right into it like a fish into a net.

I wanted to be angry. I was angry. But underneath the anger was something else, something warm and terrifying, something that felt like the moment before you jump off a high place.

I took the sweet. It was in a gold wrapper, just like he'd said, and the caramel inside was soft and sweet and tasted like a world that didn't exist anymore. I ate it on the walk back to the factory, and by the time I got to the roof, the sun was setting again, and Kuba was sitting on the edge, his legs dangling over the side, waiting for me.

"You cheated," I said.

"I won," he said.

"That's not the same thing."

He turned to look at me. The last of the light was catching his face, turning his eyes gold, and he wasn't grinning. He was looking at me the way he had on the roof two nights ago, careful and hungry.

"A bet's a bet," he said. "Two weeks. Whatever I want."

I should have argued. I should have pushed him off the roof, or at least threatened to. But I didn't. I sat down next to him, close enough that our shoulders touched, and I looked out at the city, at the lights flickering in the darkness, at the river winding through the ruins like a scar.

"Fine," I said. "What do you want?"

He was quiet for a long moment. The wind picked up, carrying the smell of rain and rust and something flowering in the ruins, something stubborn and alive.

"I want you to trust me," he said.

"That's it?"

"That's it."

I didn't believe him. I should have believed him. But I didn't, and that's how it started, really. Not with the bet, not with the sweets, but with that moment, with him asking for something I didn't know how to give.

---

The first thing he did was take my jacket.

We were in his apartment, which was really just a room in the old housing block, four walls and a mattress and a hot plate that worked when the generator was running. He'd cleaned it, which was suspicious. Kuba didn't clean. His clothes were usually in piles on the floor, his tools scattered across every surface, his dishes growing things in the sink. But today the floor was clear, the bed was made, and there was a candle burning on the windowsill, which was the most romantic thing I'd ever seen him do and also the most terrifying.

"Give me your jacket," he said.

"Why?"

"Because I asked."

I looked at him. He looked back. His face was calm, patient, like he had all the time in the world. I remembered the bet. Whatever I want. No arguments. No questions.

I took off my jacket and handed it to him. He folded it carefully, which was strange, and set it on a chair in the corner. Then he turned back to me.

"Your boots."

I kicked them off. He lined them up by the door.

"Your belt."

I unbuckled it and handed it over. He coiled it like a rope and hung it on a nail.

"Your socks."

I peeled them off. The floor was cold against my bare feet.

He knelt down in front of me. I don't know what I expected. Something sexual, maybe. Something rough. But he just picked up my foot and held it in his hands, warm and careful, and looked at it like it was something precious. His thumbs pressed into the arch, and I felt something release in my chest, a knot I hadn't known was there.

"You're tense," he said.

"I'm fine."

"You're lying."

I didn't answer. He worked his thumbs into my foot, slow and steady, and I had to close my eyes. It felt good. It felt too good. I wasn't used to being touched like this, like I was something to be taken care of. I was used to being touched in the dark, quick and desperate, both of us pretending it didn't mean anything. This was different. This was worse.

He did the other foot. Then he stood up and looked at me.

"Bed," he said.

I opened my mouth to argue, but the word died in my throat. His eyes were dark, and there was something in them I couldn't name. Not lust. Not quite. Something softer and more dangerous.

I went to the bed. I sat on the edge, and he sat next to me, and for a long moment neither of us said anything. The candle flickered. Somewhere outside, a dog was barking, and someone was playing music on a radio, something old and scratchy, a song from before.

"I'm going to take care of you," he said. "For two weeks. You're going to let me."

"I don't need to be taken care of."

"I know. That's why you're going to let me."

I didn't understand what he meant. I wouldn't understand for days. But I nodded, because I'd made a bet, and I wasn't going to lose twice.

---

The first time he put me in a diaper, I cried.

Not immediately. Not while he was doing it. I was quiet and still, lying on the mattress while he unfolded the thick white padding and slid it under me, his hands gentle and sure. He'd bought them from the market, from a woman who sold medical supplies and didn't ask questions. They were adult-sized, the kind they used in the hospitals before the hospitals ran out of everything. He'd also bought powder and cream and a package of wipes that smelled like lavender, which was so absurd I almost laughed.

"Is this what you want?" I asked. "To humiliate me?"

He looked up from what he was doing. His face was serious, no trace of the grin I knew so well. "No."

"Then why?"

"Because you're always in control," he said. "You're always the one with the plan, the one with the tools, the one who knows what to do. You don't let anyone help you. You don't let anyone close."

He taped the diaper snug around my hips. The sound of the tape peeling and pressing was loud in the quiet room. I felt the bulk of it between my legs, the softness of it against my skin, and something in my chest cracked open.

"For two weeks," he said, "you don't have to be in control. You don't have to make any decisions. You just have to let me take care of you."

"That's not the same as trust."

"No," he agreed. "But it's a start."

He pulled a shirt over my head, one of his, soft and worn and smelling like him. It hung past my thighs, covering the diaper, and he buttoned it up like I was a child. Then he pulled me into his arms and held me, and that's when I cried. Not because I was sad. Not because I was humiliated. Because I was tired. Because I'd been holding myself together for so long that I'd forgotten what it felt like to let go.

He didn't say anything. He just held me, one hand stroking my hair, the other pressed flat against my back. I could feel his heartbeat through his shirt, steady and slow, and I matched my breathing to it until the tears stopped.

"Good girl," he said.

I should have punched him. I should have pushed him away. But I didn't. I stayed there, in his arms, in his shirt, in the diaper he'd put me in, and I let myself be small.

---

The days that followed were strange and slow, like a fever dream.

He woke me in the morning with a hand on my shoulder and a voice in my ear. "Time to get up, little one." He checked my diaper, which was wet, and changed me with the same careful attention he'd used the first time. He cleaned me with the lavender wipes, powdered me, taped me into a fresh diaper. He dressed me in soft clothes, loose pants and oversized shirts, and he made me breakfast, oatmeal with honey and dried fruit, which was more than I usually ate in a week.

He didn't let me do anything. He didn't let me cook or clean or fix the generator when it sputtered. He didn't let me check my tools or count my supplies or plan my next scavenging run. He just took care of me, and I let him, and the strangest part was that I started to like it.

I started to like the way he checked on me, the way he asked if I needed to go, the way he took my hand when we walked to the market and didn't let go. I started to like the way he talked to me, soft and simple, like I was something precious and fragile. I started to like the way he held me at night, my head on his chest, his fingers in my hair, the bulk of the diaper pressed against him.

I started to like the way he made me feel safe.

That was the dangerous part. Safety was a lie. I'd learned that young, the same way I'd learned to fight and run and hide. People who felt safe got complacent. They got caught. They died.

But Kuba didn't feel dangerous. He felt like the opposite of danger. He felt like a place I could rest.

---

The first time he touched me while I was wearing the diaper, it was my fault.

We were on the bed, and he was reading to me from an old book he'd found, something about a girl who fell down a rabbit hole. I was lying with my head in his lap, and his free hand was resting on my stomach, under my shirt, warm and still. I don't know what came over me. I turned my head and pressed my face against his thigh, and I felt him go still.

"Maja," he said.

"Don't stop reading."

He didn't stop reading. But his hand moved, just slightly, his fingers tracing circles on my skin. I felt my breath catch. I felt something low in my belly tighten.

He read another page. His voice was steady, but his hand was not. It drifted lower, to the waistband of my pants, and paused there, a question.

"Yes," I said.

He set the book down. He looked at me, and his eyes were dark, darker than I'd ever seen them, and there was something in them that made my heart pound.

"Tell me what you want."

"I want you to touch me."

"Where?"

I couldn't say it. I'd never been good at asking for things. But he waited, patient, his hand still on my waistband, and I found the words somewhere in the wreckage of my pride.

"Between my legs. Under the diaper."

He didn't smile. He didn't say anything. He just slid his hand into my pants, under the plastic backing, under the padding, and his fingers found me wet and ready. I gasped. He watched my face as he touched me, slow and careful, learning what made me twitch and what made me moan. The diaper crinkled with every movement, a sound I'd come to associate with safety, with comfort, with him. Now it meant something else. Now it meant pleasure.

He slid one finger inside me and I arched my back, biting my lip to keep from crying out. He added another, and another, stretching me, filling me, while his thumb pressed circles against my clit. The diaper was still around my hips, still taped in place, and the feeling of being touched through it, under it, was strange and intimate and overwhelming.

"Kuba," I breathed.

"I'm here."

"I'm going to..."

"I know. Let go."

I did. I came with a cry that I couldn't hold back, my body clenching around his fingers, my vision going white. He held me through it, murmuring something I couldn't hear, and when I finally came back to myself, he was looking at me with an expression I'd never seen before.

"What?" I asked.

"Nothing," he said. "Just you."

He pulled his hand out and licked his fingers clean, which was the most obscene thing I'd ever seen him do and also the most intimate. Then he pulled me into his arms and held me, and I felt the diaper, wet and warm, pressed between us.

"We need to change you," he said.

"In a minute."

"In a minute," he agreed.

We stayed like that, tangled together, and I listened to his heartbeat and tried not to think about what was happening to me. I was supposed to be tough. I was supposed to be independent. I was supposed to be the girl who didn't need anyone.

But I was starting to think I'd been wrong about that. I was starting to think that needing someone wasn't the same as being weak. I was starting to think that maybe, just maybe, letting someone take care of you was its own kind of strength.

---

The second week was harder.

Not because he was cruel. He wasn't. He was patient and kind and attentive, and he never made me feel small in a way that hurt. But the more he took care of me, the more I felt myself changing. I stopped reaching for my tools. I stopped planning my next run. I stopped thinking about the future, about the scavenging, about the endless grind of survival. I just existed, in the moment, in his care, and it was the most peaceful I'd ever been.

That scared me more than anything.

"What happens when this is over?" I asked one night. We were in bed, and I was wearing a fresh diaper, and his hand was resting on my hip.

"What do you mean?"

"When the two weeks are up. Do we go back to normal?"

He was quiet for a long time. The candle had burned down to a stub, and the room was mostly dark, just the faint glow of the city through the window.

"I don't think we can," he said.

"Why not?"

"Because I don't want to."

I turned to look at him. His face was half in shadow, but I could see his eyes, and they were steady and sure.

"What do you want?" I asked.

"I want you," he said. "Not just for two weeks. Not just like this. I want all of you. The tough parts and the soft parts. The scavenger and the girl who cries when I hold her. I want to take care of you, and I want you to take care of me. I want us to be something."

I didn't know what to say. I'd never been good at this, at feelings, at words. But I knew what I felt. I felt like I'd been walking a tightrope my whole life, and he was the net that had appeared below me, the thing that made falling okay.

"I don't know how to be something," I said.

"Neither do I."

"That's not reassuring."

He laughed. He has this laugh that starts in his chest and works its way up, and it made me smile despite myself.

"We'll figure it out," he said. "Together."

I wanted to believe him. I wanted to believe that we could be something, that this could last, that the world wouldn't find a way to tear us apart the way it had torn apart everything else.

But I'd learned long ago that wanting something didn't make it true.

---

The last day of the two weeks, he took me to the roof.

The sun was setting, the same bruise-colored sky, the same smell of burning plastic on the wind. He'd dressed me in a clean diaper and soft clothes, and he'd held my hand the whole way up the stairs. I didn't know what he was planning. I didn't ask.

"I have something for you," he said.

He pulled a small box out of his pocket. It was made of wood, smooth and dark, and when I opened it, there was a bracelet inside. Leather, braided, with a small silver charm in the shape of a bird.

"It's not much," he said. "But I wanted you to have something. Something that's yours."

I looked at the bracelet. I looked at him. I thought about the bet, about the sweets, about the way he'd set everything up just to get me here, to get me to trust him. I thought about the two weeks, about the diapers and the bottles and the way he'd held me while I cried. I thought about the way he touched me, the way he looked at me, the way he said my name like it was something holy.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because I love you," he said. "I've loved you since we were nine years old and you pushed me into the creek for calling you a coward. I've loved you through every stupid fight and every long winter and every time you almost died doing something reckless. I love you, Maja. I don't know how to stop."

I felt tears on my face. I hadn't even noticed them starting.

"I don't know how to do this," I said.

"I know. That's okay."

"I'm scared."

"I know. Me too."

He took the bracelet and fastened it around my wrist. The leather was soft and warm from his pocket, and the bird charm caught the last of the light.

"Two weeks is up," he said. "You don't have to do what I say anymore. You don't have to wear what I give you. You don't have to let me take care of you."

I looked at him. I looked at the bracelet. I looked at the city spread out below us, the ruins and the lights and the river winding through it all.

"What if I want to?" I asked.

He smiled. It was the same grin I'd known since childhood, the one that made his whole face look like it was about to do something illegal.

"Then we keep going," he said. "One day at a time."

I kissed him. It was the first time I'd kissed him, really kissed him, not a peck on the cheek or a joke, but a real kiss, deep and slow and full of everything I couldn't say. He kissed me back, his hands in my hair, his body pressed against mine, and I felt the diaper crinkle between us, and I didn't care.

I didn't care about anything except him.

---

We went back to his apartment. We didn't talk about the future. We didn't make any promises. We just held each other, and when I needed to go, he changed me, and when I was hungry, he fed me, and when I was tired, he held me until I slept.

And in the morning, when I woke up, I was still wearing the diaper. I was still wearing his shirt. I was still wearing the bracelet.

And I was still there.

That was the thing, I realized. That was the whole thing. I was still there, and he was still there, and we were still together. The bet was over, but we weren't. The two weeks were up, but we were just beginning.

I didn't know what came next. I didn't know if we'd survive the winter, or the year, or the next raid. I didn't know if the world would let us keep this, whatever this was.

But I knew I wanted to try.

That was enough. For now, that was enough.