Story #195: Space for Ace

Story #195: Space for Ace (Content Tags: Slice of life, class warfare, messy diaper, messy undies, humiliation, bullying, degradation) The cheap disposable bulged with the simmering mass of stool; it was like a smoldering lump of coal, whose ember still burned warm. The bulge was as plain as day, a tenting, taunting knob that let everyone and anyone know that a steaming load had messily settled itself past his pale buttcheeks; either that, or he was smuggling a misshapen grapefruit back there. Even if he'd been savvy enough to flatten that bump, to mash that big, baked potato in his seat, that wouldn't have been enough to discount the generally swollen, stuffed nature of the padding; even if mashed flat, it would still have proved too much mush to keep hidden in any longterm capacity. And then there were the pungent fecal fumes that radiated off of his backside; earthy, fruity, and ill-contained by the thin layer of white padding that had trapped the pantload. If he'd been in a cartoon, then a sickly trail of visible stench would have been billowing off the back of his diaper like a toxic smokestack, and a swarm of eager flies would be buzzing around in circles around it. There was really no hiding what he'd done, especially without the dignifying shelter of pants to veil his infantile undergarment from view. No, his crinkly disposable was on full, unabashed display, and part of that exhibition involved showcasing that he indeed used the diaper for the intended purpose of its creation. It wasn't a fashion choice, it wasn't a piece of a costume, it wasn't a joke. It wasn't even simply a bedwetter's precaution, as it was the middle of the day, he was fully conscious, and he'd sullied the back instead of the front. This boy was no baby either, nor was he a toddler, or even a preschooler that was cutting it close with the deadline of his pottytraining. No, he was well past the age of it being socially acceptable to be in this scenario. Dumping in diapers should have been long outgrown for a kid his size. So by what circumstances had this come to be? For what possible reason was a supposed big kid wearing and befouling an oversized pair of Pampers? Did he suffer medical incontinence, or was he perhaps a drooling imbecile that was incapable of doing any differently? Getting to the heart of answering these big questions would require a trip to the past; it would mean turning back the pages of the book to many moons prior, whenever the prime movement of these machinations first came to be. The first piece of information would be to ask who this boy is, for one cannot truly understand the history of someone if they do not know who that someone is. This someone, the little boy in the smelly, stooly diaper, was a nine year old by the name of Ace. He was an otherwise normal looking kid, with a mop of corn silk hair and big blue eyes; he had a gap-toothed grin, where his adult teeth had yet to come in, and a thin layer of baby fat coating an otherwise wiry frame. If not for the steaming turdsack around his waist, then nothing would have seemed awry with such a normal kid. But that very turdsack, the flimsy disposable that he'd packed full of his own foul manure, was an undeniable emblem that he was in fact *not* normal. Normal kids in the fourth grade weren't defecating in their trousers, and they certainly didn't have garments specifically designed to catch said defecation. That was a pragmatic solution typically reserved for the mushbrained morons of the SPED hall, for whom bowel control was an intense struggle, if not an outright pipedream. But there was no drool coating the boy's lips and chin, there was no lack of wit that showed in his baby blues, and there was no shamelessly public nose picking or booger eating. Ace, at least on the face of things, didn't appear to be suffering any intellectual disability. Quite the opposite, actually. Ace, coincidentally true to his name, had a history of acing all his academic endeavors. He was naturally very intelligent and studious! It'd be too much to call him a genius, or even a prodigy, but he had a natural aptitude that put him above most of the kids in his class; he always turned in his homework on time, he always studied for his tests, and he always gave a serious effort to participate in group projects. But that didn't quite grok, now did it? Why would such a clever boy be straddling a putrid pile of poop in a pair of Pampers? What circumstance could possibly allow for that? The answer to that lied in a complex situation that he'd been forced to be a part of, regardless of whether or not it was fair to involve him in the first place. It linked to him for reasons that he'd had little to no control over, and since it had begun, there had been no obvious methodology available to pull himself out of the tailspin that his life had become. It all went back to David and Polly. They weren't classmates, nor were they neighbors; no, the pair was the set of siblings that he'd had the misfortune of getting to call his superiors. If Ace had to use one word to describe them, then he'd ignore the embarrassment of using a trite cliche, and simply call them 'evil'. And they were. Or at least they were evil in a juvenile sense, where their 'pranks' knew only cruelty and they'd never suffered real consequences for their actions. After how long Ace had been the focus of their torment, it was hard to simply call it a prank; a more accurate description would be that they enjoyed to abuse him: mentally, emotionally, physically, and verbally. Ace wasn't related to either of them, by blood or law, but he still lived in *their* home, or rather, on their property. His mother, whom he did love very much, was the live-in maid for a family called Beck. Ever since his father had walked out, when he was much too young to even know the man, his poor mother had done everything in her power to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads. He'd never begrudged her for the way that they lived, even after he realized how much better off so many of his classmates were; Ace had never doubted that she tried her hardest to provide for him. He hadn't ever been sent to school in dirty clothes, she'd never missed packing him a lunch, and she worked overtime to make sure his Christmas or birthday was worth looking forward to. But, one can never guess which way the economy will swing, and so they'd been on the verge of eviction from their apartment. His mother hadn't had the financial opportunity to finish secondary education at a university, so she only had an associate's degree from a community college to fall back on. That meant primarily retail jobs and side-hustles. Unfortunately, that just wasn't going to cut it any longer. Maid service wasn't completely new to her; the woman had done it sporadically as gig work over the years, but she'd never had the right clientele to make it worthwhile. Still, with the threat of eviction looming over their heads, she'd gotten back into the habit of putting her resume out there. A few impressive jobs for just the right people, and that'd miraculously opened up a big door for her to step up to. Enter Robert Beck: a venture capitalist from a long lineage of the upper-crust; a man with unsavory business practices, an over indulgent lifestyle, and political aspirations. He'd apparently been a friend of a friend to one of the woman's ritzy clients, and by word of mouth, he'd heard enough to want to hire her. Whether there were ulterior motives there, Ace was too ignorant to know, but it hardly mattered in the face of things. The salary was certainly more generous than any other job she'd had over the last decade, and it came both with benefits and lodging. Her and her son would live at the Beck estate, in a small guest house. She wouldn't have to pay for rent, utilities, or upkeep; in addition to that, she would have full access to a car that was paid for by the Beck family as well. In return, her duties were to clean the house and run whatever errands needed to be done for the family. She would be one of four other servants that worked on the property, but the only one to live technically outside of it. That would seem like a luxury, but the truth was that there were classist undertones at play: in contrast to the other servants that worked there, her and her son would be the only ones that came from quite an impoverished background. If she was aware of that, or offended by it, then she never let it show to Ace. Her chipper attitude didn't falter, even when it became more clear how awful the family she worked for was. All that mattered to her was securing a stable present and a prosperous future for her son. But it just wasn't meant to be. Things had been alright at first; Ace had kept to himself, keeping mostly in the quarters that they'd been given, except for when he went to school or when he wanted to kick around his soccer ball. There hadn't been much thought afforded to the client that his mother served, or the large estate that sat a couple hundred yards away from their new 'home'. He'd only seen the man who owned it once, whenever they'd first moved in, and the man hadn't seemed all that interested in getting to know his new maid's child. That was fine with Ace. He had no desire to get to know Robert Beck, or any desire to go around the man's house. He'd heard a little about him, and his kids, from his mother's comments during dinner, but it felt like a distant reality. He'd come to wish that it could have stayed that way, that he could have remained in blissful ignorance and never interacted with any members of the Beck family, but it simply wouldn't be an option for him. Even though he kept a decisive distance, he was still on their property, and thus it was impossible to avoid them if they didn't want to be avoided. That would first come up whenever he was sitting under a tree near their home, simply trying to get some homework done while the weather was pleasant. It was math, which he excelled at, and he'd been nose deep in his workbook whenever dull footsteps would come his way. It was the first time that he saw David, a boy around his own age or perhaps a year older; he was neatly groomed, with his hair coiffed and his clothes ironed. The boy had an air of smug superiority about him, the kind of attitude that came from a lifetime of being told that he was just plain better than most people; the dark-hearted aura of the wealthy, where the poor were little more than playthings to break. "And *who* are *you*?" The question had a snobbish edge to its every word, as if David had just come across a filthy beggar in the street. His scowl spoke volumes about how he felt seeing Ace, like the little boy was a blemish on the perfect face of the estate. Ace looked up from his book, not catching onto the other boy's disgust quite yet: "Uh, hi? I'm Ace. My mom works here." While he didn't know it then, that response had been the domino that started the chain reaction which would lead to the utter destruction of his dignity; that first impression, a thoughtless response to a kid that he'd never met, would be the prime mover that eventually led him to wallowing in his own putrid filth like a lowly piggy. It was funny how life worked out like that sometimes. Or maybe not funny, but frightening. How could he have known though? How could he have guessed that he would offend the uptight boy by not prostrating himself more plainly in his reply? Then again, perhaps it wouldn't have mattered; his supposed disrespect was but a pretense, after all, for David to give himself the permission to punish the poor wretch. If it hadn't been the first impression that did it, then it would have likely been some other inane social guffaw. "What are you doing?" "My math homework." Another scoff, this time to show incredulity to the answer. David, and his sister as well, had been socially sheltered from birth to think lesser of the working class, to which Ace effectively belonged to. They were fooled into thinking that only the rich could be intelligent, and that the dirty masses who languished in public schools were but mindless chattel to later exploit. "Math, hmm? Figuring out how to count, are we? I guess you'll need that for whenever you're working a register." David laughed, his tone almost daring Ace to prove him wrong. "Pre-algebra." Ace hadn't taken the bait, nor had he even really seen it. The boy wasn't accustomed to being bullied in such a strange way, where his class was mocked, so he took David's words as earnest, if not a little rude. "Wait, what? Don't lie to me! You're too little to be learning anything like that." Was David's indignant response. Normally, that would have been true. Pre-algebra was usually reserved for fifth or sixth grade, and Ace was only now in fourth, but his academic success had placed him in an advanced program. David, who himself was a grade ahead and deeply struggling with the same subject, could not or would not stand for a worthless *poor* to best him here. "I'm in the gifted program, so I'm already doing stuff like this." Ace shrugged, not even bragging but explaining. "Gifted? You're a good-for-nothing parasite! My dad's tax dollars are the only reason you even get to go to school, and someone as broke as you can't be gifted at anything! Your mom is a *maid*, you're living in that gross shack out back!" Ace honestly hadn't been prepared for such a bitter explosion; he'd never really met someone with such a bloated, fragile ego, which could be popped as easily as a balloon with a needle. The younger boy froze, staring at the ranting socialite and wondering if he'd somehow made an error in choosing his words. "You're supposed to be a filthy, mindless *animal*. A wage-slave in training that'll pay for my dad to get an even bigger house. What, you think you're going to be the next Einstein or something?" It was tragically obvious that a boy like David was someone whose heart had already been darkened beyond repair by the soil he sprouted from; born rich, raised to look down on the less fortunate with extreme prejudice, and accustomed to being deluded by lies of grandeur that could simply never be. There was no doubt that he'd lived his life in such a way that he'd never known strife, or been forced to acknowledge his own shortcomings. Hearty donations to the private academy where he went to school kept his grades out of the failing range, whether or not he'd earned that, and he'd nary been made to socialize with anyone who wasn't committed to stroking his ego. Even his own classmates likely kept their true opinions to themselves, out of fear of reprisal. Ace wasn't one of those people though; Ace was a normal kid who had never had to rub elbows with the so-called elite, and at no point had he ever considered the need to intentionally lower himself to satisfy the craven ego of another person. To this end, Ace was utterly lost on how to proceed. "I, umm...No, not really, I guess... I'm just trying to finish my homework..." He quietly mewled, not willing to agree with the hurtful things being said, but also not looking to agitate the boy any further by quarreling with him. "I just said you're too stupid to be doing that. Stupid, dirty, and worthless. Are you saying that I'm lying?" David narrowed his eyes, no soul lurking beneath them. "I guess I have to be smart enough, since I'm doing it. I've been doing pretty good at it all semester so far...And I took a shower yesterday, so..." Ace had never been bullied by even a normal kid, let alone by some psychotic rich one. His tone was more confused than anything. David sneered and stepped closer, "You really don't get it, do you? Maybe I need to make things clearer. If I say that you're a moron, then you're dumb. If I say you're a filthy little rat, then you must stink, get it?" "...No, not really..." "Stand up and crap your pants. Prove to me that you're a smelly little retard that doesn't have a prayer of doing algebra." The boy sitting on the ground thought it must be a joke of some kind, or somehow rhetorical in nature, but David's glare was unwavering. "I...uh...No, I'm not gonna do that." Suddenly, the older boy grabbed Ace by the arm and began to force him to stand, without any concern for how the jerking movement might hurt the littler of the two. "You don't say no to me, understand? My father owns your pathetic little family, and that means you answer to me. You're just as much a servant as your mom. If you don't do what I tell you to, then I'll get her fired, and the two of you can go starve on the streets. Now crap your pants and admit to being a stupid little retard that doesn't know how to even add two plus two." Here is where his life had met an irrevocable change. If he'd chosen his words more cautiously, or if he'd just acquiesced sooner, then he wouldn't have later ended up in a shit-packed diaper every day. Maybe he could have even called David's bluff and avoided all the shame that would inevitably follow him. But he didn't. No, Ace was too loyal to his mother, and he knew that this was the first job in years that'd been compensated enough to keep her from working herself into an early grave. Unlike David, Ace's compassion was larger than his pride, and so he did what he had to do. Straining with rosy cheeks and closed eyes, much like an errant toddler behind the sofa, he followed the first of many marching orders. Denying all the instinct that his body had built up over the years, he was soiling his briefs as though they were the diapers that he'd soon find himself imprisoned in. David watched him with a sadistic smile on his face, catching every moment of the steamer making its way into the back of the boy's pants, inch by sticky inch. "Now, what are you?" "I-I umm... Mmph...A, uh, r-retard?" "That's right, and what can't you do?" "A-algebra..." David let out a wicked cackle, "That's what I thought. You're too stupid for that. You're too stupid to even use a toilet. Now, you're going to sit in that mess until your mother comes back, and you better remember who holds your leash." Ace wouldn't be forgetting that anytime soon, especially once events escalated to the point that he reached the stage of a diaper-filler.