⌚ New Experiences

15. Overlapping Interests

Another patron, another chapter. Thank you again, Jennie, for your support on Patreon, and for providing so much moral support.

Spanky played. Again, something he'd not even thought about. But he found that it came so naturally, to sprawl out on the floor and make piles of objects of different colours. Or to line ornaments up and pretend they were soldiers he could address prior to sending them into battle. Paper proved herself quite capable of finding things that could be pressed into service as toys for a cub. And of course, being an artist there were plenty of materials around that were perfectly suitable for making a mess.

"Why don't you try painting a picture of the three of us together?" Paper suggested, and he thought that was a great idea, with or without any hypnotic suggestions skewing his judgement. But of course, Lulu thought it might be funny to dangle her yo-yo in front of his face again, and he soon found that his coordination wasn't as good as it could have been. He could hold a pen, but clumsily enough that it was hard to draw anything like a straight line. After a couple more attempts, Paper had to reach past his shoulders and wrap her hand around his awkward fist just so that he could hold a paintbrush without dropping it, but he didn't mind. This was the most fun he's had drawing a picture ever since he started college.

The finished image looked nothing like them. Spanky drew himself with roughly triangular ears almost larger than his head, and Paper looked more like a mouse than a tiger with paws that didn't quite connect to the rest of her body, but both of them couldn't stop laughing as they drew it. And by the time it was finished, due the effort it had needed just to make a line on the page, Spanky couldn't have been more proud of a painting of blobby pink, white, and orange figures.

"What do you want to do next?" Paper asked, "Is it time for a little cub to have his dinner yet?" She was holding up the bib. Spanky couldn't believe she'd found it, he'd hoped it was well hidden before. But he realised soon enough that the arm of the chair wasn't that good a hiding place, when the three of them had been moving all around the room.

He did his best to speak, but the pacifier was still in his mouth. When he didn't think about it, it became just as comfortable as you might expect. He'd find himself sucking rhythmically, and it was so soothing that he could just let it fade into the background, something not worth thinking about, until he tried to talk again.

"You know," Lulu commented, "This isn't like a cub's bib, is it?" She was tapping her claws against a couple of narrow holes around the rim, maybe a kind of decorative pattern. They weren't in a place that would allow spilled food onto his lap, and were protected by a plastic lip in any case, so he hadn't really paid them any attention. Lulu seemed to be intrigued by the little slits, though, pushing her claws slowly through the gap.

"Apart from the size," Paper shrugged, "A real one wouldn't really keep him clean, if he's going to be as coordinated as a toddler."

"No, I think this has a completely different use," Lulu grinned, turning to size up Spanky again. "This gives me an idea, but I think maybe it would be a little less sweet and adorable. Want to see what you're apparently too innocent to notice?"

"I umm... What do you think, Spanky?"

"Want to keep on being a bouncy little cub, or think you need a little punishment too?"

Spanky's cheeks glowed again. Even when it was so easy to get lost in the little-kid mindset, he didn't have any trouble knowing what Lulu meant. She was offering him a choice now, of feeling safe and helpless (with just a dash of humiliation as the spice), or somehow combining her S&M skills with this new game. He had no idea if being spanked like a little kid would be different from the way she normally did it, and he found that his curiosity and excitement was rising even if he couldn't feel the arousal that normally accompanied it. He mumbled some incomprehensible words, maybe not even knowing what he was saying himself, and nodded just a little.

"What's that?" she asked, "Does the fox cub think he needs to feel humiliated, helpless, and sore?" Spanky took a deep breath, eliciting a low whistle as the air rushed past his panifier, and gave a slight nod. He was starting to feel nervous but excited already, the anticipation made all the more intense because he'd had the choice. He'd chosen pain, to liven up this adventure, and already he was wondering if he'd made the wise choice.

Lulu grinned as she came closer and secured the bib around his neck. He wanted to say he could do it himself, but of course he couldn't say anything right now, and he had no idea if his paws could actually move that well. It was tight, tighter than was really comfortable, and he reached up to his neck to adjust it a little. That was when he found that the top of this bib was a little wider than it needed to be, and not as flexible as the plastic scoop down below. He couldn't bend his shoulders forward at all without a couple of stiff plastic spurs digging into his collarbone, and that meant he couldn't raise his hands high enough to reach the back of his neck. He couldn't move the bib for the same reason: there was a rigid strip just below the collar, which forced it to sit flat in front of his chest and would undoubtedly make it a lot harder to use his hands for anything.

"I thought so," Lulu grinned, "Whoever made this thing designed it as a restraint. And that's why we've got these..." she reached down with a spool of ribbon, and looped it around and through the holes in the plastic at either edge of his chest. Spanky watched as best he could, looking through the bathroom door to a full length mirror, but he couldn't make out what purpose the bright rainbow strips could serve. Until, at last, Lulu threaded them deftly through his pacifier, where you might normally attach a clip or cord of some kind to stop it getting lost.

He immediately tried to spit out the pacifier, but found that it was just as immovable as it had been before. And as Lulu pulled the ribbons tight, he realised that his head was being dragged back dead centre. He tried to turn, and found that the ribbons connecting pacifier to both edges of the bib kept his head locked in place; turning in either direction would mean pulling one or other of the ribbons beyond its limit.

"Oh, that's clever," Paper nodded, "So what are you going to do with him now?"

"I'm not entirely sure. That depends how naughty he's been. I'm sure there must be a way to secure it onto something more solid, like the foot of the bed, so that he can't move at all. Then maybe we should have a little fun, and let the cub watch. Where he can't do anything about it, and he can't look away..."

"Ohh, I think I like the sound of that. It's way too long since I felt your claws, and your tongue..."

"It's probably about an hour," Lulu raised an eyebrow, "You miss my claws that quickly?"

"I meant before that, silly."

"Now, is that any way for a pet to speak? I have a good mind to put you over my knee for a spanking."

"That might upset the baby. If–"

"Think he'd be jealous?"

"I think he'd be panting and drooling now if there wasn't a pacifier in his mouth."

"Ah, good thing he got the bib then. We really shouldn't let him..."

He tried to keep listening, really he did. But the colours were so enthralling, it seemed so much more important to count the curves of the spiral, to try and work out if one was tighter than the other or if they were actual mirror images. It was so hard to tell when they were spinning like that, faster and slower as they went up and down, and just when he thought he had an answer the whole thing started turning the other way and he couldn't make it out again.