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The lift itself was located after a very long hallway, and the two could not quite gauge how far they moved through the building until they found a gold gate seemingly floating in a mass of black. The air felt colder against their legs, which were completely naked thanks to their respective onesie and strait jacket.

Kioga wondered if this was how death felt: just a quiet drift-off into a cool and tranquil rest. He didn't want to dwell on it for too long, however--and become part of the attraction--and thus pushed quickly to this gate roughly one-and-a-half persons wide. The cart went right to it and Ceylon went around, searching up and down the side for a button, for anything. There wasn't much of anything--no features, no handles, just golden bars swooshing about to form its architecture.

Ceylon let his wings extend to either side, as they were longer than his arms. After letting them stretch for what seemed to be an eternity, however, he let them collapse back into themselves. He looked off, either side, into darkness, and when he caught his boyfriend's gaze, they shrugged at each other.

Kioga felt a chill run down his spine as he stood in emptiness. There was almost a vice about his head when he considered looking backward, almost like the story of Lut, or Lot, as he later found out from American Christian television.

"Bismillah," he chuckled, considering that most professional den of sodomy as run by Argos Arachnos. "You know, you didn't stretch your wings that far."

"I didn't?" asked the gryphon, turning about. His wings twitched again, but Kioga caught one of the stalks.

"I'm not sure what they're playing, here, but do you think it's a puzzle of ..." he paused, smirking. "Restraint?"

"Ah," said Ceylon, and then his hand darted into a side pocket of Kioga's diaper bag. Out came two pacifiers and he popped one into each of their mouths. The cheetah, nursing automatically on the plastic teat, asked a question with his eyebrows.

Ceylon nodded, then the two stood in silence before the golden door. As with the illusory, indeterminate width of the hall, so did they endure an unknown number of seconds, or was it minutes?

Logic within Kioga dictated that a customer experience, especially for a theme attraction, should be enough to vex a very average attention span. Even movies that faded to black only lingered for a few seconds before revealing their hand. But they stood here in silence, shifting their thighs to gauge the condition of their diapers--still very clean--and eventually took to standing completely still, as if there were some motion detectors waiting to see a specific state to compare them with their thermal counterparts.

To contemplate death is a fine basis of wisdom for any anthroid being, thought Kioga, but you wonder how much existential dread would assist in the purchase of pleasure paraphernalia. Maybe not death ... that's just an unfortunate final state ... maybe just silence. Maybe the opposite of death: trust in life. Acceptance of oneself in the moment: standing in the stream of time and letting its current babble past you.

Kioga found his shoulders sinking, or more appropriately, settling, and he reached out to stroke Ceylon's side. The gryphon jumped, at first, then his body settled as well. A quiet trickle teased Kioga's ears, and the cheetah wasn't sure which one of them was releasing their bladder. Kioga felt naturally warm, including his groin, so it could have easily been him.

It was a strange lock, and it clanked as surely as if someone had pulled a large, hard lever. As soon as Kioga and Ceylon's shoulders returned to rest, their clavicles seemed to be that lever, and the door immediately opened.

"Oh, that's much nicer than I was expecting," said the gryphon, finding a paw against the small of his back. He caught a subtly rounder profile to the pouch between his boyfriend's legs, and with a warm smirk was thankful the cheetah was properly hydrating.

"I guess that's the lesson," said Kioga, finding a slightly swollen resistance to his gait, "the nicety of life comes in many flavors. Even solemnity is pretty neat."

"Right," said Ceylon, turning back to catch a bead of light at the end of the infinite hallway. He quickly turned back before it turned red ... or something. All those horror games with their camera tricks. "The way that bondage can channel and embrace a body, not necessarily frustrate it. I'd hate to complicate Argos's metaphors further, but one could think of one's goals, values, pleasures, becoming aligned like you'd magnetize a piece of iron."

"It all flows, like liquid, thankfully," commented Kioga, then reached for the elevator panel to find nothing but the normal distress button.

The two pulled their cart tight into the car and the doors smoothly closed, then with a slight downward pressure they were whisked upwards in a smooth motion. The entirety of the car was made of glass, even the floor, and the wide atrium of the Mercatio Munerum unfolded before them like a small city block. Kioga squinted to see just how far up the ComfortABDL lounge was, but before he could gauge its height--easily two stories up--the elevator was surrounded in a soothing, pacifying blue sky with fluffy white clouds and a glowing golden sun.

"Ah, here we are," said the cheetah with a smile, and when they opened the doors they were immediately suffused with the soft, beautiful scent of talcum powder.

Again, here was the trickery of creative architecture, for beyond a side area with a small shoe rack (and complimentary sock-booties), the store was a comfortable play-place with large plush animals and toys set out on a thick carpet. Its shelves and cases for merchandise were disguised as oversized toy chests and bedroom bookcases. The adult mind saw a large and well-organized gift shop, but the child mind, the relaxed mind, saw a vast space of endless play.

Coming from the secret entrance, they were not immediately greeted. Their shopping cart drifted to the side, for the carpet called to them. Kioga and Ceylon knelt, their diapers rustling against their frames, and got to playing with soft plastic toys of respective themes. For Kioga, he found a few race cars larger than his palm, impossible to swallow, and thrust them down a race track which curved and had a little electric booster on the other side to push the cars on their way. Ceylon found a space shuttle and a wide launching platform, which held a small plastic hook attached to a pulley, leading to a space station he had to stand fully to his knees to interact with.

The act of play was, itself, another method of channeling. Kioga found himself sent back to his childhood days which, growing up along the Kenyan Coast, was restricted more by privation than it was religion, as his toys were educative and fun: a sort of sugarcoating of the "harsh" reality of adulthood responsibility. Work was fun, therefore not wasteful. His own incontinence was, of course, excused by the paradigm of a child's responsibility: guided by parents, and left to his own devices otherwise. Atop the cushy carpet, which assuredly had a good chemical guard and/or excellent cleaning supplies, he knew that any excretory needs would be covered up until, and a little past, the seal around his loins growing a little wet.

Ceylon himself was more interested in the simplification, the streamlining, of all these astronautical concepts back into mere playthings. Naturally, the education of advanced science and technology was about how infinitely complex all these machines were, about the anthroid race channeling their infinite imagination through finite physical properties. Here in these little plastic toys, he thought, rustling and crinkling as he knelt upright to send the space shuttle to the station, was a sort of end marker by its creator. Here's the final product that works so perfectly, with of course the fuel and physics of imagination. Therefore the question: how can we foment the dirt, ore, and liquid of the planet to reach further and further out into space?

Childhood pastime was amusing in that aspect as well: parents and toy manufacturers reverse-engineered the vastness of existence into their core, precious, and most importantly inspiring elements. This is how past generations provided footholds to future generations, and with the help of infinite passion and drive, turned that foothold into a slingshot.

The gryphon felt his mind swaddled and safe, happy that his brain could swish around in a soft, cushy shell as did his loins and rump. A-chronological relaxation: just appreciating the moment.

"What do you think, something for the living room?" asked Kioga, sitting down with a swish and a rustle. Ceylon stood instead, getting a little vertigo as the plastic station whooshed downward and he towered above it.

"Ah, it is nice," he said, "but perhaps it might be best in a room unto itself. You know how jarringly disruptive it can be, existing in the same room as a cell phone, a computer, or even just a novel you'd been muddling through."

"But it is important to reset," Kioga said, getting up on his own feet. Suddenly he felt the subtle weight of the wet pouch surrounding his groin.

"It is, but I think that's what evenings, weekends, and vacations are for. We have many hobbies and opportunities for those."

"I'll take this," said Kioga, holding up a race car. "And that," he added, removing the shuttle from its hook. "These will be little monuments. Make sure the heart and mind is as diapered as we are."

"Very fair," Ceylon said with a stretch, letting his wings stretch out until one did, indeed, touch a shelf, "But as reminders. Symbols mean nothing without action."

"What about a symbol of what has happened? Like a keepsake?"

"Inspiration, I would suppose," answered Ceylon. "There are plenty of dead religions because their symbols do not currently provide anything. Therefore, symbols mean something as long as they cause action."

"What about symbolic gestures?" asked Kioga. "Thoughts and prayers."

"Okay," chuckled Ceylon. "Symbols are worthless without action. Action being defined as a material effort which produces effective results. But anyway," he said, spinning the sleek spaceship between his talons. Kioga admired the gryphon's own smooth form: a lovely heart and mind encased safely in a nest of muscle and bones, and that lovely body ensheathed safely in a sturdy leather straitjacket and plush, soft diaper. "From scientists to industrialists to engineers to artists, while we may thoroughly enjoy piecing apart these different concepts and machines (which of course are the physical realizations of those concepts), it is also pleasant to enjoy the final, streamlined product."

He sat down on the cushy carpet with a plastic and padded whoosh, then ran his paw through its thick fibers. The beautiful, snow-white diaper clung around to the circumference of his legs, bending and wrinkling ably against his body. "Just like AB and DL play. There's the implicit complexity, and the explicit simplicity. Communication and execution brings the two together; it's a continuum of pleasure."

"You don't have to tear apart a diaper and appreciate its tapes, shell, absorbent core and its polymers, to love the brief as a whole," said Kioga, kneeling down to nuzzle Ceylon. The gryphon took his paw and stood back up; they proceeded through the shop with an arm each around the other's backs."But to deepen your knowledge can deepen your appreciation. In all things," he added, smiling. He rubbed under the gryphon's wing and he smiled back.

"Macro and micro," concluded Ceylon, and they pushed deeper into ComfortABDL. This little piece of the complex seemed to echo the BDSM and Lifestyle parts of the store with more soft plastic and thick fabric styles. There were changing tables just like in Life Furniture, with more plush buffers and built-in mobiles. There were timed toilet locks just like in L.F. and in Spinneret's Dungeon, but these had a grinning purple dragon waving its finger over the clock. Not unlike a normal theme park gift shop, it was laid out with a semi-clear idea of organization, so that one could have a general idea of what he or she wanted, but would have to wander through a few yards of plush, toe-tickling carpet in order to get there.

Kioga spotted a PassThru diffuser at one intersection of the colorful store, and he did have to admit that his intimate parts were much more relaxed: he wondered if it was the aesthetic, the carpet, the opportunity to wander about in full baby-garments with his boyfriend, or a sneaky waft of chemical persuasion that kept his lower pipelines open to his diaper. The seat of his testes were already moist in a patch of absorbed urine.

While there was a general divide of "Big" and "Little" in the AB community--of caretaker and caretaken--the store went to great lengths to interweave the products, such as higher shelves for Bigs and lower shelves for Littles, to make sure that an AB pair was not separated. Most of the products were of a very good quality, but Kioga did spot that their "Gentle Release Tot's Backpack" merely had a bouncy foam shell affixed around it, and the more "bland" product was likely listed in Medical Boutique, and a leathery one in the Dungeon.

"Heh," Ceylon said, picking up the backpack and holding up the special enema nozzle, "I'm not sure how you could swing this in the medical sector, but I could entertain an all-afternoon bowel flush, provided the electrolyte balance is maintained."

"And the diaper's big enough," said Kioga, taking a manual that was, of course, full of pictures and anthropomorphized objects. "I guess there's worse ways to rehydrate, as long as you don't mind intermittent, well..."

Ceylon patted the cheetah's shoulder, feeling a lump in his throat and front of his diaper. It'd be a while before there was a lump in the back--pending his body's rejection of the plug. Which in itself was a lovely feeling: the plug would transform from a gentle occupation to a thick, heavy imperative to eliminate, and the resulting push and burdensome stretch would provide a most gratifying struggle and a (hopefully) none-too-messy load. "Let us just say intermittent interruptions. And that is what the diaper is for."

"Indeed, just a difficult, pungent wet parcel to waddle around with until the gel takes over. Hard to immediately sit down with, but I suppose these backpacks want us on our knees, playing with cars and spaceships. Or supplicating ourselves to Master in BDSM, or meditating in medical recovery. Funny there's not a lot of nannies here. Y'know, customer service?"

"Seems they want us wandering through their little wonderland."

And wander they did, for this section of the store demonstrated the same wandering sensibility of casinos and gift shops, though turned up even more. Ceylon and Kioga found plenty of little oases in this toy wonderland where they enjoyed languid rides on large rocking horses and swingsets, or enjoyed a curiously educational picture book on a plush padded mat. Even when they were parched, they found snacks and bottles. And, of course, when Ceylon saw that Kioga's waddle went a bit wide, there was a moderately hidden changing table among the stuffed animals for the gryphon to peel off the wet and dirty diaper and clean him up for a new one. Ceylon wiped around the base of Kioga's implanted plug, grinning as he watched the cheetah's ring dimple and twitch against the stalk.

Kioga checked his watch after he slid off the changing table and exchanged hugs with his partner. Time had not terribly elapsed in the store--it'd been a good forty-five minutes--but they were getting that pleasant fatigue of having enjoyed a full day.

"What do you say we get some colorful diapers from this section then head on home?"

"I was looking at the brands while we were wandering. Funny how well-disguised some of the information was, but maybe my eyes were turned to the Little section," Ceylon said. He brought out some brochures fashioned as flash cards. "And some terminology crossover. See, the word 'Active' in the Pendrael, Davis, & Co diapers means they're form-fitting and can hide under fairly normal clothes. But under Praetorian, Prae Pax, 'Active' means they're highly plush for an active toddler, rather hard to hide under anything but a onesie, but brag about 24-hour capacity. Those only fit seven to a bag."

"Oh!" the cheetah said with a spring in his ears, "We have to get some Pax, then!"

"And see if you can make it twenty-four hours," Ceylon said with a grin. "But they are a bit expensive, so let's not dull our palate, nor our sinuses, on a diaper that could necessitate us changing the height of our gaming monitors."

"I'm assuming you'd want something space-themed? Oh! Look at these," Kioga said, shuffling over in his fresh brief. "McKraken Special RGAB. With RGB lighting either all-over, or 'Light-Emitting Diaper' for your long sessions!"

"Hah, LED, fantastic ... and dynamic gel distribution for maximum absorbency and ... ah, that makes sense," said Ceylon, flipping the page. "Also helps you stand up every hour for circulation purposes. Since you have to shift to let the gel absorb properly.."

"Shoot," said Kioga, "I'd better make sure to keep some everydays around to keep me humble.

"Yes, but make sure they're the maxes because the world is not your litterbox."

"And hey, more opportunities for autographs."

"That's so gross," laughed Ceylon.

"Oh, so suddenly my body waste is gross?" snarked Kioga.

"You know what I mean. It is perfectly fine and natural, as well as a pleasant duty of dedication and compassion, for me to clean you, but you handing out your soiled and autographed diapers like Halloween treat bags can lead to unpleasant scenarios. Perhaps it's a mood of jealousy, but what if someone takes your diaper home and ..." The gryphon's claws tumbled over each other as he worked out his phrasing, but then after a bit he waved the theoretical situation away. "I suppose even if a fan were to copulate with your used diaper, that wouldn't take away from our intimacy, since you're not selling an interaction with you, such as a diaper change or something less messy but more physically involved. Less messy usually."

Kioga smiled, blushing at his boyfriend's use of euphemism. It was a lovely little palate cleanser, since there were indeed times that they made tender love ... and other times that they rutted like cats in heat. The cheetah drifted over to the gryphon and rubbed his chin, to which the gryphon responded with a smile, then magnetized back to the brochure.

"Oh, that's funny," Ceylon said, "The, ahem, RGABs also feature interior lighting for the most stylish and, sigh, '1337' of changes."

"Kids still use that word?"

"I'm guessing your Fred McKraken doesn't mind the chic of antiquity. Only need a trollface diaper and the circle will be complete. I'm unsure if the resurgence of Metal Gear memes would be too new for him, even for games a decade or two old. Ah, there it is!" he said, slapping the brochure. He'd picked up a Bigs copy, and so everything was tilted toward, "your Little gamer," or, "your bundle of joy." "'Custom printing, will take any image and print upon diapers, max forty per visit as long as the image is not copyrighted by another party. Options for mass-distribution are available for artists.' Ah, I could think of a few video game series I would love diapers of. The whole aesthetic of comfort; I do love it."

Kioga smirked. "I will agree. Sitting down with your favorite video game, diaper, and plushie is an immaculate way to round out the day."

"And it's very funny, in a white and, ahem, muddy yin-yang. Especially after a wholesome, cozy night behind our computers, and with the outlook of that marvelous hot-tub this complex put in. I have zero qualms about changing you, dirty diapers included. Sometimes I look forward to it in the same way one would look forward to a very cold day to try out one's winter gear. It makes the comfort real, because it keeps us warm and safe from even the muddiest of diapers. That we can weather your gastrointestinal storms the same way a house weathers a simple thunderstorm."

"Oh," Kioga said, feeling himself blush. "And you're not saying that because we have a large emotional bank account to draw from. Plenty of emergency funds."

"Hmm-mm," Ceylon said, "it's the confidence it inspires, since it's a guarantee that you will soil yourself. We will encounter 'hardship' as it were. So we go back to our discussion about symbols. Our little toy race car and the space shuttle, themselves symbols of ingenuity and progress. The diaper change, then: if you want to blow it up enormously, then the diaper change represents our ability to weather much any storm with very little stress and a modicum of effort: it just takes patience. So no: there is actually pleasure in the act, because of the reward."

"I guess we're getting a little philosophical in this giant baby playroom," Kioga said, his grin a little shy in the full, naked sunshine of earnestness.

"It is merely another vehicle for meditation: build upon the bedrock of childhood. Don't forget," Ceylon said, holding up their toys, "What is a toy but an adult concept brought down to a child? Between adult and child, it's a constant conversation. How do we, as adults, make the world as perfect, simple, and invigorating as a good video game, cartoon show, or fairytale fable? We're not abdicating the complex adult mind; we want to improve it."

"Gonna explain that to our robo-tripping drunk neighbors, who use chemicals to abdicate the mind?" Kioga smirked.

Ceylon sighed, as the gangbangers' raucous back-and-forth ribbing entered his ears. It was not that he did not like their slovenly crew--their circles of interaction were generally extremely limited--but it was that the gryphon held such precious concepts in his mind and paws, and he feared giving them over to those roustabouts would be like lending his childhood bike to an unruly kid. He feared for the abuse of his philosophical toys, spaceship and race car included.

King Scatfag and his Chamberpot Court was blustering through the ComfortABDL toy and nursery store with a cart filled to the brim with sundry goods from all corners of the grand marketplace complex. Moderately were Kioga and Ceylon impressed by the wealth of goods they were to claim, but the order and selection of said goods was as chaotic as a television stuck on four separate channels, all playing at the same time. It seemed to be an accumulation of stuff for stuff's sake.

All of them had forsaken their store bought or Contempla-issued onesies for t-shirts, and were sashaying about in only diapers for their bottoms. Some of the 'bangers had chosen more intense, fetish-based t-shirts from the Dungeon for the prestige of "cool," whereas Beatrice had chosen one from the appliance side for an appeal to cleanliness and order. Most surprising was Ricky Trevails himself, Scatfag, who had selected a white t-shirt from Medical with blue stripes in the corners for diaper tapes. Even his diaper was a simple, bright white one with impressively centered tapes at his hips. This made the two partners smile: maybe Ricky was seeing through the noise of fetish.

Two staff members, one male and one female, dressed in archetypal 1950's TV garb, were patiently and skillfully deflecting them away from the toy guns and swords on the shelves, and Kioga and Ceylon had mostly grown deaf to their juvenile bickering. The males used brutish insult bludgeons, and Beatrice used sharp, female stabs: a combination of high school and toxic domesticity. Kioga knew that most of it was "in good fun," in using insults to mask honest camaraderie, but just like a diaper, the anthroid ego could only take so much of a pounding.

"Perhaps another round in the Contempla Nursery would settle them," commented Ceylon.

Kioga's faith in them had flagged as well. "Ah, like any addict returning to their vices. If they continue to fall and hit rock bottom, you only hope it doesn't break their necks."

"I don't like it," Ceylon whispered, watching them fight and insult and jab at each other, but when Kioga reached to pull the lynx-osprey against him, his tufted ears sprang and the rest of him followed upright.

"Aww, little baby want his bottle?" snarked Mark, pushing a large rubber nipple at Mort's face.

"Just admit you two want each other because you're afraid of a real woman," growled Beatrice.

"Well if you're going to suck on something, maybe try this!" fought Mort back with an adult pacifier.

"Ah, cause it's bigger than you?" fired back Mark.

Ricky was out of the picture on this one, having actually taken to flipping through the ComfortABDL literature while trailing behind them, all in his comfy white diaper and clean diaper-boutique t-shirt.

It was when Mark turned the pacifier back onto Mort, jamming it into the iguana's mouth, that Kioga saw a flash of spots in a store mirror and a distinct feline growl.

"All of the self-debasement; why are you polluting yourself?!" exclaimed Kioga. His sinewy, agile legs stabbed the carpet with every step.

It had been a great while since the cheetah roared; it froze everyone including the staff. Ricky looked up from his literature.

"These are not tools to demean yourself," stormed the cheetah, yanking the pacifier out of Mort's mouth and the bottle out of Mark's paw. "In fact, put it all back! No sale!" In demonstration, Kioga took the softest two items out of their cart and cast them on the floor. "You do not deserve any of this! Don't you ... why do you hate yourselves? Why the teasing, the juvenile, vandalistic tendency to knock each other down. Like that is as admirable as the person who built himself up. You are here in paradise! Find your hearts; find your peace!"

The mongoose's eyebrows were quite high at this point, and he tensely thumbed his brochure's pages with a claw.

"Oh, we are flawed beings and we make mistakes; nobody born on this planet has all the answers," Kioga ranted, his muzzle, eyes, and arms gesturing in turn as he struck at the dusty ruins of centuries of malice. "And it is reasonable to laugh at ourselves. But we don't laugh because we fall. We laugh because we are learning to walk. From age one to age thirty-five." He held up the adult pacifier by a blunt claw. "And onward."

"Dude, what the f-" Mort said, but Mark shushed him.

Kioga took a breath, feeling the sweet air fill his lungs. The buzz of his body radiated to his fingertips and toes. "I have seen many toilets," he said with a sigh, "Many of them smeared on my thighs. And filth is a part of life. It exists. But it exists to be cleaned. Wrapped up and thrown away. We literally wash our hands of it."

"Where were you when I was getting arrested?" Mark said, his voice bouncing with a humble laugh.

"Sitting on the sidelines, startled," said Kioga. "And don't think you're an aberration; some horrible person who's an election away from a dictatorship. Just ... we live in an age of wonder, as well as great strife. Since antediluvian times, most anthroids have. Can't we see the sunshine and bask in its warmth? Mort?"

The iguana had crossed his arms. He flicked his eyes at the cheetah, then cast his eyes back down.

"I do like me some sunshine."

"I don't know what the core defect is, in anthroid life," Kioga said, resigning himself to a meter-tall rocking horse and nestling his diapered groin in the saddle. The pleated plastic ruffles stuck out the sides of his onesie, and he rocked contentedly on his great steed, lungs full of cool air and a throat warm with his voice. "That it is shameful to be happy. That we sneer at fetishists and families alike. That we sneer at each other the moment the wind lifts one of us. Is it merely envy, that our neighbors have greener grass? Is it jealousy, that our own love life isn't as ribald and juicy with fluids natural and obscene? Cannot we turn the tables, that to be happy for another is to pay tribute to happiness itself?"

"Life's not always as glamorous as your rocking horse dreams," Ricky said, looking over the ridge of his brochure.

"We are our own harshest critics," the cheetah said, looking back over his shoulder as he galloped on his adorable mount, "but do we hate our flaws, or do we hate ourselves for having flaws? The latter is foolishness. The former is fertile soil for improvement."

He dismounted, then took the time to put a plastic carrot against the mouth of the stuffed horse. He stroked its mane, then turned fully to Ricky. "And I can go on and on about the double-edged blade of perfection, but I believe my soliloquy has run its course. We are afraid of failure: that is natural. But just like the diapers we enshroud ourselves within, cannot we diaper our hearts as well, and gain courage? Cannot we ... defend the beautiful, the profound, the pleasurable? That is why I got angry. That is why, half-continent, I thrashed in fury when doused with the clammy wetness of despair, shrouding itself in sarcasm."

Ceylon held his paws up to clap, but thought better and strode up alongside his boyfriend. Kioga accepted his arm across his shoulders and gave him a firm nuzzle, claiming it as a reward.

"But if we're not diapered in sarcasm," said Ricky with a proud smirk, "aren't we naked to the world?"

"For its joys and its sorrows. The dry days ... and the messy ones."

Mort and Mark started looking at each other, with Beatrice off to the side clammed up with folded arms and a downward stare.

"Look, bud, and Bea," said Mark, the reformed trouser criminal. "I'm sorry. If I'm too frank to you, or too open around Beatrice, it's like I like you too much. And this city's pretty much past the point of hating homosexuality ... or diapers for that matter ... but I guess I was always nervous that if I praise either of you too much, then it's like you 'got' one on me."

"Y'know," said Mort, "back when I took all that cold medicine and got spooked by the ten-foot merchant--"

"Yeah, sorry about that," Kioga said.

"It was funny as fuck," said Mort, "I guess I was nervous in buying all that stuff. Not because every adult that wears diapers is some insulated man-baby, incompetent for the world, but I was afraid I'd like them. So I used the medicine to be in a good mood beforehand."

"About being honest with each other," Ricky interrupted, slapping his paw with his brochure and striding toward the group, glowing white in his diaper and diaper t-shirt, "Y'think part of that, as... yeah, that self-hatred. If you hate yourself, then you kinda feel bad for the people who like you? Since they like something bad. They've devalued theirselves. So as I see it, if there's nothing to like about any of us, then we've really trapped ourselves, and each other, in a poisonous swamp. If we're all better people, even just for ourselves, then we make each others' lives better by proxy. Let's be proud to keep each others' company. From now on, the messy lapdances and the hard-ons we get for each other will be in good faith."

"Do we still call you King Scatfag?" asked Mort Tisson, playing with his jeweled spines.

"Nah," Ricky Trevails said with a smile. "Filth's meant to be cleaned, wrapped up, and disposed of."

Mark Tarjay cleared his throat, the bunny's big teeth unable to be hidden under his smile. "Is it all right to say I love you guys?"

"Yeah," the mongoose said with a smile. "And it can be in a sex way or just as a comrade-in-arms. I'm changing that troublesome diaper either which way."

The gangbangers brought themselves in for a noisy hug, but soon discarded the hoots and hollers for a more genuine round of "Yeahs" and "Hell yeahs." They squeezed, then a fight nearly started when they all started pulling out their credit cards.

"I got it."

"No, I got it."

"This is going to be a few thousand dollars," said Kioga.

"Ooooh," they all said with a halting stutter.

"Let's buy it together," said Ricky, King of Diapers.

The staff, which at this point had grown to Argos, Lucio, Geneva, Melinda, Peggy, and a few others, breathed a sigh of relief. Melinda looked up at the ceiling, where eagles, moths, spiders, and bats with PassThru guns were hiding with their weapons cocked. Customers had gravitated, too, for Kioga's grand speech and the immensely wholesome reconciliation. It wasn't quite an 'everyone clapped' moment as postured on social media, but part of that was quite possibly everybody eyeballing each other and not wanting to start an even more awkward moment.

However, Bob and Louise Bertie, their cart stacked with self-hygiene DIY furniture for Bob to build and fresh linens and onesies for Louise to clean, make, and wear, couldn't help but comment,

"Aww, that's nice."

"Yeah, Bobby; that's real nice. Finally kids are behaving like they did back in Kaushkenau."

The French foursome and the Chinese/Japanese tourists were there, too, to round out the ridiculous crowd: it seemed that all paths of diaper enthusiasm led, eventually, to ComfortABDL. So while everyone was there, they did not clap.

"Dear," Ceylon whispered, seeing segments of the crowd pat themselves down for pens, and then Argos the spider helpfully pulling out a full box of crayons, "I think we're going to get mobbed for autographs soon."

"Ya rayyal; let's get out of here," Kioga said, and the two felines made their way to the exit with the relative grace afforded to their species, offset by their thick garments and bountiful merchandise. Ceylon took the front and Kioga fended them off by signing anything thrust at him with the skill of a fencer.

"Ah, shit; Duke dodged the deal," remarked Mark.

"Eh, he can buy the next round. We reinduct him to the new-and-improved Bro Table," said the King of Diapers.

"Not brown table?" asked Beatrice, reminding them of their old name.

"Not if you change me correctly."