His shyness returned.

“—And what we’ve been doing.”

Nicole nodded. She gathered Ant in her arms and said, “Why don’t you get your diaper, little boy?”

“Are you sure?” Ant looked her in the eye. “We don’t have to.”

“I’m sure. Get it for me.”

“I can’t believe this is happening.” He disappeared into the bathroom.

A tiredness settled onto Nicole. A ripple that went down through her arms, clunked through her body all the way to the bottom. But it wasn’t hopelessness or despair or anything like that. It was finality, resignation. She waited on the bed, topless in her silver half-slip in the lamplight.

He returned wearing the diaper. It was big and kelly green. It was kind of beautifully made. There was an unobtrusive opening in the middle. It crinkled like it was made out of paper.

She rode him in his bed, and he stayed hard the whole time. She kept him gathered in her arms. He vibrated like a top. He was so warm. It was like his body might start smoking. Nicole’d never seen someone so hot for what was happening.

It made her love him, just a little.

Eventually, he came in her. She stroked his hair as he panted. “Shhhh,” she said. “Shhhh, that’s good, little boy.” She kissed him on the crown of his head. She folded her arms around him. They lay there, breathing with their eyes closed.

Then he got up. “Do you want another drink?”

“Sure.”

He left and she heard him take off his diaper. The tired feeling returned. Nicole gazed at the rumpled bed, the wrinkles in the sheets where they’d made love. She stood up and looked in his closet. Nothing interesting.

She knelt by her bag and pulled out the full slip she liked to sleep in.

Ant tramped back in with her drink, topless in his jeans. “Oh!” he said. “Do you want to sleep here tonight?”

She accepted the drink. “That’d be nice,” she said quietly. “Thank you. I’m so tired.”

Nicole was passed out in minutes. She woke in the morning to the sound of rain. Ant’s curtains let in no light from outside. She dressed slowly, accepted his coffee, and petted Sasha before she skedaddled.

She came over again a week later and they fucked hard, Ant screaming with Nicole’s hand over his mouth. And both before and after they fucked, he said he loved how tall she was, how small he felt with her, that “You’re so hot, Mommy,” that he loved being her little boy. He asked repeatedly if she wanted more drinks, and she unerringly said yes, and she lost touch with herself and the pulse of her wanting, which for Nicole was not common, and she woke the next day with a blue-moon hangover, excusing her way downstairs, leaning out of her car to puke on Crawford on the drive home, the guys in the body shop across the way hooting as the rain turned her hair into strings.