Published: October 20th 2021, 2:00:06 pm
A short story, based on a previous month's Community Caption suggestion, commissioned by an anonymous Patron.
Miranda fidgeted in her seat, her bladder starting to ache. She knew she should have gone to the bathroom between classes, but there just wasn't time to run all the way back to her dorm...
There were, of course, plenty of bathrooms between her classroom building and her room, and yet, somehow, none of them were right. She had done her best to try to use them, and, if she was desperate enough where she would have had an accident either way, she had managed to use the toilets once or twice, but it wasn't consistent. She hadn't thought things were this bad as she made her way to this class, and yet, here she was...
She knew her mother blamed herself for it, and, to some degree, Miranda did, too; she was more than old enough that she could - and probably should - have solved this problem on her own. Her mom was a high school nurse, and moonlit at the local nursing home, so she was always very busy, and, way back when Miranda had been a toddler, she'd thought that when the girl had learned to use her training potty, she was all set. She was too little for the regular toilet anyway, so it was fine that she continued to use that.
Except, Miranda had never broken that habit... The feel of that plastic seat, the musical tones that greeted her as soon as she started going, encouraging her... That was how she thought of going to the bathroom, the only thing that seemed right to her. By the time her mom had realized how bad it was, it had been too late for Miranda to change her ways, try as she might.
It hadn't been that bad in elementary school, having her mother talk to the school nurse there, tell her about Miranda's issue, convince her to keep a spare potty chair there for her. And there was no way it would last until she was old enough for middle school... But it did. It was a little more awkward then, but her mom knew the nurse there a bit better, was able to get her to keep it up.
They came to an agreement that, by the time middle school was over, Miranda would start using a normal toilet, to the point of ceremoniously throwing away the spare potty seat after her last day there. That whole summer, Miranda did her best... By the first day of her freshman year, however, she still wasn't ready, and after a few failed attempts, and a tearful trip to see her mother in the nurse's office when she'd had an accident, her mom had begun to sneak the potty into her office for her every day.
If anything, that had only made Miranda more dependent on that particular chair, having it with her everywhere, from school to home, just like when she'd been too little for school. She considered herself lucky to have her mom as the nurse, since even in middle school, and even with someone her mom knew, and could explain things to, the nurse had seemed concerned by the end of Miranda's time there. Surely no other high school nurse would have put up with this!
And now, Miranda was in college, and, unfortunately, things hadn't changed. She could still remember her first day, being so humiliated when her mother opened up the car trunk, and the potty chair had been sitting there, in plain view...
"You promised me you'd put that in a box!" Miranda had whined, trying to close the trunk again.
Her mother had sighed, shrugged. "I'm sorry, sweetie... We used all the ones big enough for your other stuff. Don't worry, I'm sure nobody will even notice!"
Miranda had poutily forced her mother to carry it in anyway, not wanting to be seen doing it herself. There were so many people lugging so much stuff in and out of the building, she was probably right, but it was still mortifying, especially when she got to her room and found her roommate, Jodi, there. She was so pretty, so much cooler than Miranda, in a way that was obvious at first glance.
"What is that?" Jodi had giggled, spotting the potty right away.
"Well, young lady," Miranda's mother had said, setting the potty down on the floor, crossing her arms, "it's something we're going to have a little talk about..."
It had been one thing, having the other school nurses know; having someone her age, someone Miranda looked up to from the moment she'd first seen her - literally, since she was taller, like most everyone else on campus, and figuratively - was a different story altogether. Thankfully, whether it was her mother's explanation, or her kind heart, or just amusement at the whole silly affair, Jodi appeared to understand, and didn't make fun of Miranda, or, as far as Miranda knew, tell anyone else about it.
She even helped out, scouting out the common room for Miranda so she could scurry to the bathroom to empty and clean the potty when needed. It was a huge help that they were in a suite, with a trio of double bed rooms around one common room, and a bathroom shared between them. If they'd been in a more traditional dorm, where there was only one bathroom for the whole floor... Miranda shuddered to think of it.
As accommodating as Jodi was, however, there was only so much that could be done. Her classes were scattered around campus, and she barely had time to get from one to another, much less go from one to her room to the next... She had thought about getting an extra potty seat again, seeing if, somehow, she could talk the school nurse here into helping her out, since she was more centrally located...
She had no idea what her mother had said to the other nurses, though, and even if she had, she wasn't sure she'd have the confidence to pull it off. By now, by the time she was an adult, in college, she really shouldn't be having this problem, and she had little doubt the nurse would agree with that. Besides, as she discovered when she searched for it online, it didn't look like her particular potty seat was being made anymore.
She'd searched for a while, trying to find one that was close enough, but nothing looked right. Maybe they would work... The familiarity of it was part of the appeal, however, and she could tell, just from the pictures, that they weren't going to be the same. And listening to the previews of the music that played when she peed, none of them even had the right tune, which would probably throw her off all the more!
So she had to try to hold it in through all of her classes, or hope she could make it to the toilet at just the right moment, when her bladder was letting go anyway. Speaking of which...
She gasped, pressing her hands to her crotch, eyes darting back and forth. The nice thing about college was she didn't have to raise her hand, ask permission to leave... Her professors knew she was an adult, trusted her to only excuse herself if it was an emergency... The sound that had escaped her mouth, however, unbidden, certainly hadn't sounded like one that many adults made, and she was worried her classmates had heard it, picked up on that, were staring at her...
She did get a side-eye, keeping her in her seat for an extra, critical second before she had to slip out of her desk, dash to the door. She'd sat at the back of the room, close to the exit, just in case... Would it be enough? Would she be able to make it?!
Not even close. She barely got out of the room before she felt the first spurt, her bladder having reached its breaking point. "No!" she squealed, feeling it soak into her panties, a damp spot appearing on the crotch of her jeans. Her breath quickened as she surveyed the damage, convincing herself it wasn't awful, that nobody would notice...
Unfortunately, once she'd felt it start, her legs had frozen, and now she had to make them start moving again, and by the time she'd gotten another step or two out of them, her bladder spasmed again, making the wet spot spread from her crotch down her legs. A moment later, the floodgates opened in earnest, and she stood there helplessly as she soaked her pants, a growing puddle appearing underneath her...
She was so horrified she ran back to her dorm, sobbing, to change. Of course, Jodi was there, shocked to see her at this time of day. "What's going on?" she looked up from her desk, seeing the answer right away. "Oh, Miranda... Again?"
"I-I didn't mean to!" Miranda sniffed.
Jodi smiled gently, getting to her feet, giving Miranda a hug with a soothing, "I know..." Since that first day, Miranda had learned that Jodi was a frequent babysitter... That was probably part of why she'd accepted Miranda's need of the potty chair relatively easily, and why she didn't get upset at her when she showed up in wet pants. Because she didn't see Miranda as an equal; she was just another charge, just another pitiful little girl who needed help with the potty.
"I-I didn't think I had to go that bad!" Miranda explained as she grabbed fresh clothes out of her dresser. "I-I thought I could wait until after class, and then I thought about going to use the bathroom, and remembered how icky and cold and gross public toilets are, and I couldn't make myself do it, and then..." She stopped, the end of the story obvious to both of them.
"You know," Jodi said, choosing her words carefully, "I've been thinking about this little problem of yours..." Of course she had, Miranda thought. She didn't want the whole campus to know that she was rooming with a pants-wetter! "I think I might have a solution for it."
"Really?" Miranda's eyes lit up. "At this point, I'm ready to try anything!"
"I was hoping you'd say that," Jodi smiled, walking over to her closet, kneeling down as she opened up a large box, pulling out...
"No!" Miranda shook her head, immediately contradicting what she'd just said. "No, Jodi! I don't need those! I'm potty trained!" Quite literally... A potty was all she could being herself to use in anything more than the most dire of circumstances. It was childish, yes, ridiculous for someone her age, and yet, miles better than this...
"But if you can't make it back here, and can't make yourself use the toilets... Aren't these better than wetting your pants?"
Miranda knew Jodi had a point, no matter how much she hated to admit it. "Isn't there something a little less drastic?"
"Sure," Jodi shrugged. "I bet you're small enough to fit into Pull-Ups, but they really don't hold that much, so I don't know that they'd be much better."
They didn't sound like much of am improvement anyway. Miranda groaned, staring at the awful thing... "I-I don't even know how to put those things on," she said quietly.
"Don't worry about that," Jodi told her. "I have plenty of experience..."
"I-I don't want to bother you with..." Miranda protested, as if their current arrangement was never an imposition, one final, desperate attempt to reason her way out of this.
"Honestly, I've been missing it a bit, so I don't mind," Jodi replied. "Why don't you go get cleaned up, and we can give it a shot?"
Miranda pouted, but she was all out of ideas. Reluctantly, she did as she was told, returning to the bedroom to find Jodi waiting, diaper spread out, open and waiting. Jodi was quick, clearly having done this many times before, stepping back when she was done with a satisfied nod. "Perfect," she declared. "And adorable! This is going to make things so much easier for you!"
"W-We'll see," Miranda frowned, looking down at the puffy, bulky garment. She'd only really need to wear them to class... The rest of the time, she'd be okay, just like she had been all along... As long as she could get to her potty, she wasn't a baby, didn't need diapers...
It was too bad, then, that she didn't know about the crack forming in the plastic of the potty's seat, its age starting to catch up with it, threatening to break any day now...