The Star Attractions: A Pink and Blue Diaperfur Adventure Part 3
#9 of Pink and Blue
The Star Attractions: A Pink and Blue Diaperfur Episode in 9 Episodes
Conclusion: Part Three (Episodes 7-9)
This continues straight on from
[The Star Attractions: Part One](%5C)
[The Star Attractions: Part Two](%5C)
If you haven't read them, go there first.
Here is the usual long list of deadly side effects: This is a mature story so please be 18+ to read. It involves furs in diapers, ageplay, crossdressing, and boys on boys, among other things.
It is an adventure and romance story involving these elements, rather than a straight-out fetish regression/sissification piece, and thus has a lot of plot and character story in addition to the fetish elements.
And one special warning: This story revolves around Dex the raccoon, probably the most serious character in the Pink and Blue series because he does not use diapers or regress voluntarily. Thus, although it is still generally a silly fetish story, it will have some darker parts than the others. Back to lighter stuff next time.
Don't like any of that, don't blame me, I tried to warn you!
Plot recap: The heroic faction of boyish Baby Blue AB/DL furs defends the city's age playing scene from complete domination by the pink forces of sissification now headquartered at Empress Calliope's Academy for Special Boys. It's a non-stop battle until . . .
Spring break! The severely shortpawed blue and pink teams have called a break-long truce, and, with all the regular leaders on vacation, Dex the regression-prone raccoon is temporarily in charge of Baby Blue.
So when his friends Twitchy and Squeak go missing during their investigation of the boys' vanishing changing supplies, Dex sought help rescuing his friends from an unlikely source--the crack pink team agent and scheming panda girl Lin Lin. They tracked the bunny to a circus fairground, where he is being held prisoner by circus workers to conceal their massive thefts of fetish gear, including the boys' supplies.
Now, though, Dex has been taken prisoner and hypnotically regressed to a kit by the circus' magician/hypnotist! And Lin Lin, rather than trying to rescue him, has sold out the boys and challenged the circus ringmaster to a poker game for the boys' supplies.
Episodes in this part:
Episode 7. Into the Fire
Episode 8. Anger Management!
Episode 9. Secret Santa
Character recap:
Baby Blue Boys:
Dex, a sensitive raccoon martial artist, is Baby Blue's third-in-command and combat specialist. His best friend, Rian, recently began dating the sissy fox Serafina. Something has been eating him lately. Unlike the other BB boys, Dex does not wear diapers voluntarily; his incontinence is injury related. For reasons not yet understood even by him, Dex also regresses to a kit whenever he loses a fight. He got close to his missing friend, but has been caught and hypnotically regressed to a permanent kit by the circus' magician/hypnotist!
The nervous, goggle-wearing bunny Twitchy ordinarily makes up Baby Blue's tech and behind-the-scenes support team at Hideout #4 together with his partner, the pocket-sized mouse and gadget engineer Squeak. Twitchy has learned that the circus workers have been stealing Baby Blue's diapers--and loads of other fetish gear--but was captured when he disrupted Alphonse's magic show and is being held in a spare animal cage. Squeak is being held in a glass jar in the same room as Dex.
Ex-Boy Scouts Ace, a tough-talking trailblazing lynx, and Jax, a soulful tracking hound, double as members of Dex's Baby Blue strike team and leaders in their own right of the boys' wilderness patrols. They challenged Dex's plan to pull the whole team for a mission to rescue Twitchy and questioned the troubled coon's stability. Also a couple--a secret they have succeeded in keeping from no one except themselves.
Kyle the Dalmatian, a low-ranking member of Baby Blue who has been attempting to cover Twitchy's support duties in his absence.
Roger, a black Labrador, and Rian, his true blue wolf cub sidekick, are the regular leaders of Baby Blue, but are currently out of the country for spring break. Roger, Dex's daddy, found Dex apathetic and working in a coffee shop sometime after his tournament loss and gradually brought the coon out of his shell. Rian, Dex's best friend and sometime big brother, began dating the sissy princess fox Serafina after the boys' raid on the academy.
Empress Calliope's Academy for Special Boys (Pink Faction):
Empress Calliope, Princess Cassandra, and Princess Serafina are the regular leaders of the pink faction, but are out of town during spring break on a spa trip. Serafina recently began dating the boys' team's second-in-command Rian.
Lady Lin Lin, an undersized but overachieving, hypercompetitive, and perpetually scheming panda, set a trap to capture and sissify the entire boys' team in an attempt to steal Serafina's Princess crown--and nearly succeeded. Resentful that she has not been named a Princess and is outranked by Serafina. She lost a bet with Dex and is accompanying him on his mission to rescue Twitchy. Unlike the other sissies, Lin Lin is a real transsexual--a secret she has now confided in Dex. But it looks like she planned to double-cross him and steal the boys' missing changing supplies the whole time! Rather than trying to rescue the regressed coon kit, she's challenged Tony to a poker game for the boys' gear.
The Circus
Tony, the ringmaster, a Siberian tiger, is holding Twitchy captive in a spare animal cage and forcing him to work off the costs of the damage he did to Alphonse's magic show by repairing equipment. But really, he wants to make sure Twitchy does not blow the whistle on the circus worker's large-scale thefts of fetish equipment. And now, having heard about Dex and Lin Lin's amazing acrobatic skills during a fight with his performers, he wants the star athletes of the pink and blue teams as part of his circus--willing or not!
Alphonse, an unhappy weasel magician and clown, accidentally found Twitchy's evidence when the rabbit disrupted his magic show. Now he is going along with Twitch's imprisonment, but for some reason has been sneaking the bunny changing supplies, and seems to know why he needs them. A closeted AB, he noticed Dex's regressive weakness right away and hypnotized the fighting coon into a permanent kit and willing circus performer!
And now, the conclusion . . .
Episode 7. Into the Fire
Twitchy's head snapped up from the ground as the row of light bulbs in the top of the tractor trailer switched on. His foot was still handcuffed to far edge of the large animal cage where he had been being held for days. They had already brought him dinner. At this hour the only fur who came would probably be. . . "Alphonse," he called out cautiously. "Is that you? Come on . . ." he whimpered. "Take a stand. Help me."
"Good news, kid," announced the jaguar who stepped up into the trailer, wearing black leather pants and a sleeveless leather top that covered most of his upper body except for his brawny chest. A ring of keys jangled on his belt. "We brought your friend."
"Squeak!" Twitch cried, smiling. "Finally!"
"Nope," the jaguar shook his head as he hoisted up a petite prisoner in a purple windbreaker, her forepaws tied behind her back and locked in pink bondage mitts and her footpaws tied together and to her knees. "Your panda friend."
"My who?" the rabbit blurted in a mix of disbelief and terror at the sight of his most erstwhile--and dangerous--pink team rival.
The big cat carried Lin Lin, squirming helplessly and sputtering with a ball gag shoved in her mouth, over to the bars and dumped her on the floor as he shuffled through the keys, looking for the one that matched the padlock on Twitchy's cage.
He patted her on the head. "She's tricky all right. But I'm on to her; I emptied her pockets and tied her up good this time. No way she has any tricks left. Fair to warn you, though, in case she tries to pull anything: She already tried to sell you out for gear. I don't think she cares if you rot in there. So until we figure out better accommodations--Lin Lin here will be your bunkmate."
"Now I'm sure," the rabbit moaned. "They're trying to kill me."
*************
Tony the ringmaster opened the door of Alphonse's trailer and stuck his head in. "Are you two almost ready for the big top? I sent the shift workers away early, and everyone full-time is in there already. This is the only time in your life, Alphonse, I'm likely to pay for a crew party, so don't miss any of it. We had a record take today thanks to that guy. And I want to make sure everyone is in a good mood when I explain who our new surprise star is and why we have to handle him--well--delicately."
He fidgeted and tugged at his belt, adding after a moment, "Good work finding Dex. And getting him to work for free. If you can keep him touring with us for this season that should cover the ten grand you still owe. Leave the panda to me. She'll come around; I speak her language."
"There there, Dexie," Alphonse was busy soothing the pouting kit, patting his head, as he waved a spoonful of baby food in front of his face. All four of Dex's limbs were fastened in leather restraints attached to the high chair and he wore a white and blue-trimmed bib with the word "CUBBY" spelled out in a cheerful print of wooden letter blocks with a rocking horse emblazoned beneath it.
"Unca is alweddy doing extra laundry for you. I don't know why the 'sposables bother you so much, l'il guy, but if our hewo thinks cloth is comfier on his little bottom, that's what he can have. He is on a hard hard mishy-wission after all." The weasel added with a grimace. "And I don't want to get kicked in the face changing you again. Now we're all out of the sweet potatoes and the peas you like so much, and Unca can't run to the grocery store this late. No, he can't. Be a good cubby."
Baby Dex bit his lip shut tight and shook his head energetically. The weasel moved the spoon back and forth. "Come on, spaghetti and meatballs," the mustelid offered enticingly. "Who doesn't like dat? It's on an airplane!" He moved the spoon in a wobbly circular motion around Dex's ears. "Best meal you'll get on one too!" The kit continued to pout and regarded the feeding spoon suspiciously out of the corner of his eyes.
The ringmaster shook his head. "Performers. There's not one of you who isn't a prima donna, is there?"
**********************************
"I'm not listening to you!" Twitchy protested insistently without raising his head from the floor.
The bound and gagged panda, lying on her side, sputtered again and thumped her tied-up feet thumped against the floor of the trailer, three times in rapid succession. The rabbit's ears flicked around.
"Wait a minute," he tilted his head up slowly and lowered his voice to a whisper. "Have you been banging . . . in Morse code?" He looked around left and right furtively.
The jaguar was on guard, but right outside the trailer. In actuality, although Twitchy couldn't have known it, he was not inclined to take his guard duty very seriously at the moment. He was rather upset about missing the cast party, and trying to take his mind off it by drinking from a bottle in a paper bag and conjuring various leather-based fantasies, his paw occasionally straying into his pants. Nor had he been entirely happy to find out about the captive rabbit after Alphonse and the ringmaster took him and the others involved in the sideshow tent fight into their confidence. The whole thing made him uncomfortable. It was one thing to clean out the larders of all the leather bars and dungeons he visited in the towns they passed through. None of those tops would ever report their missing stuff, he knew, and a gay bar would have some luck getting the police to investigate anything. But this thing with the bunny went beyond scene play and petty theft. Still, he had accidentally gotten involved too deep to back out and Tony had promised to make it worth his while.
Twitchy leaned as close to Lin Lin as he could. "What are you up to? Are you with the boys somehow? Did they get my signal?"
She shook her head in frustration and glared up at him out of the side of her eyes. He blushed. "Oh, right," he reached up as she scooted closer and unfastened the ball gag.
She spat it out and wrenched her face into a disgusted expression for a moment. Then the panda whispered, "I'll explain while you work. I can take the guard. There are three hairpins in my right sock. Is that enough for you to get out of those cuffs and open this cage?"
The rabbit's tail wiggled and his face lit up as he playfully whispered, "What are the other two for?"
**********************************
Dex stared vacantly at the floor as Alphonse, who had given up trying to feed him for the moment, talked with Tony outside. He was so small, and this place was so confusing and strange, he was in shutdown from sensory overload half the time. But he giggled involuntarily and opened his muzzle when he saw something familiar on the ground amid the sea of giant, garish objects and pawed at it--or rather he tried to, but his paws had been restrained.
It was a hat that had been left on the floor when they took the panda away after their card game. That hat reminded him of someone. It was a clue! That one of his big brothers was nearby!
Then kit Dex was sad. It reminded him of someone who wasn't coming. Someone who hadn't come for him after the battle in the academy, either.
He dimly remembered a bigger version of himself staring at the cowboy hat on his desk as he sat in the swivel chair in his apartment with one paw thrust into the soggy, no-longer warm front of his soft cloth diaper, stroking himself slowly. This was taking forever. Time to stop pulling his punches! He bit his tongue and thrust his other paw in, too, leaning back against the chair, and slowly spinning around in it.
As he spun to a halt, he found himself facing the hat on his desk again, and as he stared at it, the previously taut front of his diaper sagged.
Come on, he thought. At least he hadn't forgotten, but what a lazy birthday present. And Rian was the only one in Baby Blue besides Roger who even knew his birthday. It was close to the tournament date so he didn't like to make a big deal of it. He clearly threw that hat in at the last minute when he was shopping for himself. He might have even bought it for himself initially and pulled it off his shelf that morning. He'd been spending a lot on Serafina, Dex knew.
No, he told himself, closing his eyes and resuming his stroking. My big brother gave me that hat so it's still special. I'm just glad that he thought about me. Besides, he's my big brother. He knows about what's cool better than a kit like me. He kept working in his diaper. He wasn't good at pawing like Rian. He smiled thinking about that. There was some progress down there! Dex leaned back in the chair. The wolf always knew how to make him feel good. Covering for a few of his dates was the least he could do. They had a secret. He had lift off! Yeah. They still had a special bond.
It's only because of Rian that he liked the diapers he had to wear at all. And had any idea how to play in them. In this way and--other ways. He felt a dribble of precum on his fingers. Yeah, that was good. He'd do anything for his big brother. Dex put his footpaws up on his desk and leaned back further in his chair as he became increasingly excited and pumped more rapidly with both his paws.
The chair creaked as Dex rocked back and forth slightly. Yes, Rian also pawed with the others. But Dex would have let him do--he would have let the wolf take him. Under his tail. It would have hurt, but he totally would have. Why not? He could handle it. He was tough. If he thought that's what Rian really wanted. If he'd known he was so anxious to do more than paw each other. He'd take his big brother in his muzzle too. He would have. He totally would have. Why not? Is that what Rian liked? Would it make him feel the way he made Dex feel when he masturbated the raccoon? Or did things get a lot better than that and Dex just didn't know? He had never done anything besides paw and cuddle with anyone, but it was no secret, now, what Rian had been doing with his pink team girlfriend. He didn't have to go across enemy lines for that, did he? Surely Rian didn't. Everyone cared about him.
Dex cared about him.
That did it. Dex shuddered and sighed in relief as he spurted a warm, thick, sticky mess over his own paws. As he recovered, his right one, still sticky, maneuvered around his thigh into the rear of his diaper and poked into his tail hole experimentally with one, then two fingers. They didn't poke very far.
Yeah right, he thought as his breathing slowed down and he returned, gradually to reality. Like Rian would fit in there. Like anyfur would. I could have at least tried to get myself ready. I could start right now. He is still my big brother. But . . . how would I do that?
The raccoon was crestfallen as he came back to himself in another few minutes, the afterglow fading more rapidly than it usually did. He stared glumly at the cowboy hat and, without thinking, let his left paw, also still moist with the residue of his little burst, stray to his muzzle. He sucked on it gingerly and curiously for a moment, then gagged and yanked it away from his tongue by a violent reflex. Okay, so even taking Rian in his muzzle would have required actual work. It wasn't something he could just roll over and do. The girls only made it look easy, he guessed. The girls . . . Rian's whole face lit up whenever he told Dex where he was going with Serafina. Dex shook his head.
'It's already too late anyway,' he scolded himself as he collapsed back into the chair and, kicking his feet against his desk, rolled backwards in it across his tiny, one-room apartment, colliding with his bed and flopping over onto it. 'Why didn't,' he moaned, 'I ever just say something to him?'
A tear rolled down the eye of the little kit strapped in his high chair in the trailer. Rian definitely wasn't going to be spending an entire weekend with a fully regressed Dex again any time soon. Even after break. There was only Twitchy. The super smart one of his two big brothers. Not only did he know how to use the potty, he even knew how that frightening, noisy machine worked. Kit Dex had watched in amazement when he opened one up and fixed a problem with it during his stay with the bunny and Squeak. Well, not only Twitchy. He was away right now, but there was still his biggest caretaker, too. His daddy. Maybe he would come, eventually . . .
'Look at that,' the Labrador on the couch said, clapping his paws softly, 'he's dressed! And all by himself, too. I'm glad you could make it over for a belated b-day celebration before we took off. There's something I want to talk to you about before we go. My present will take--a little explaining. I've been thinking a lot about you lately, Dex.'
The coon blushed as he entered the room shyly in a pale blue footed sleeper, staring at the floor and moving one of his foot paws in a slow circle. 'If anyfur asks,' he said, quietly, 'Rian is with me at a double feature. He's really--'
Roger cut him off and patted beside him on the couch. 'I have a pretty good idea where Rian is. You're always welcome in my apartment, you know, Dex, if you need somewhere--private--to hang out.'
The coon's thumb strayed up to his muzzle and Roger beckoned to him again. 'Now, I know you don't like to go out anywhere once you get going. Don't worry, there's actually food in the fridge that hasn't expired. And I have enough Disney movies to last the night.'
The coon made his way carefully to the couch, and hoisted himself up onto it with both paws, sliding over to lean his head against the dog's chest and look up at his muzzle from underneath. 'It's funner to stay in. I'm sorry I'm not exciting like Rian,' he said apologetically. 'I'm just not a champ at this like he is.'
'Dex,' Roger stroked his head and put one arm around him. 'You keep bringing up Rian at shorter and shorter intervals.' The dog took a deep breath and Dex felt Roger's chest rise and fall as he pressed against it. 'It's probably my fault. I do spend the most time with him. He's the most like me. And probably the one who'll take this gig over when--well, whenever. Let's face it, neither of us is about to jet off to Stockholm to pick up a Nobel Prize for anything.'
Dex grabbed one of Roger's paws with both of his and whimpered. 'Don't talk like that. We all depend on you two. All of us.'
Roger scratched Dex's head behind his ears. 'It's time you heard it, buster. You in particular! Because if you don't end up doing something a little more important than me and Rian I'm going to be kind of . . . .' Roger paused for a long time before concluding anticlimactically, 'Disappointed.'
Then the lab smiled and assumed a more playful tone, his tail slowly wagging. "Hey. Do you want to know a secret?' The coon didn't answer, only hugging him and snuggling against him closer, but Roger continued anyway. 'If I ever have to explain what Baby Blue was really about, if anyone does ever ask me what I've actually done with my life, besides enjoy myself and fight with my sister,' the Labrador, still looking across the room, tussled the coon's ears with one paw and stroked the tip of his tail with the other. 'You're the boy I'll mention first. Do you know why?'
Dex nodded and licked at the underside of Roger's muzzle. 'Uh huh. Cuz you helped me remember that I'm a leader. Cuz in spite of,' he tugged at his diaper through his pajamas, 'everything--I'm still really strong.' He made gentle punching motions against Roger's arm with his paws.
Roger traced a circle around the top of the coon's head with the tip of his cold, wet nose, causing him to giggle. 'That's not the most important thing about you, Dex,' he added quietly.
'In all the incarnations of this club, I don't know if I've ever seen a mission leader who's as mindful of his teammates all the time as you are. You're a leader,' Roger tilted his head upside down to look into the coon's face with a smile, 'because in spite of,' he patted the coon's padded bottom gently, 'everything--you're still really kind.'
Kit Dex quivered, locked into his high chair, and more silent tears ran down his face. He squeezed his eyes shut. He felt like he was closer than he had been in years to something that frightened him. He was all alone. As long as he was with bigger furs in this state, he could hug it away. It floated in front of his eyes like a marble. A clear marble that was transparent except for a bright red spot at its center, a little red screen with a scene playing on it inside. He touched the marble, gingerly, with his nose.
Two years earlier. The U.S. Mixed Martial Arts Association National Tournament. Juniors. Third series of matches. Dex versus J. D.
Dex breathed deeply and slowly as he watched the cheetah coming toward him in a yellow, red and black-spotted blur. He would hit from the left--no, the right, it was a feint! One of his fists rammed into Dex's side. Dex winced and coughed reflexively as his heels slid an inch backward.
But the coon caught the cat's other arm by the wrist and spun, sending the lean predator stumbling backwards and into the ropes as Dex leapt toward him. The cheetah, wearing a red uniform as opposed to Dex's yellow one, widened his eyes for a moment and turned as though to get out of the way, gripping the ropes with one paw--Dex kept coming--but instead of moving to the side J. D. jabbed his elbow up and into the coon's chest. Dex saw it moving a split second before impact; he braced himself and calculated quickly; he could take the jab and land two punches on J. D. Maybe it would be enough to get him on his knees. He moved to hit--and the cheetah used the paw holding the ropes to push all his weight up against Dex and into his elbow; the raccoon's eyes widened as something hard slammed into him and the cat re-entered his adrenaline-driven sprint mode. Dex heard--or felt--something crack.
Was it one of his ribs? He opened his muzzle to say something and he could taste his own warm, salty blood; he wasn't down -- he punched -- once, then twice, he wasn't sure if he hit J. D. or just grazed him -- and felt his footpaws swept out from under him and a weight ram him hard, between his legs, more than once. He was in the air, then it hit again, his lower abdomen, and again, and again--the cheetah was so fast that at full speed his blows already carried far greater force than a normal fur's would. Dex heard shouting. It wasn't the level of pain he expected, even from full-on hits from a predator. He had a feeling something terrible was starting.
Dex thudded on to the ground on his back and slid backwards a good foot or so. He opened his mouth to say something, but he wheezed and blood dribbled out of the side of his muzzle. He couldn't hear a thing anyone was saying. His ears popped and his head swam. He hadn't felt so weak or confused since he was a kit. Everything was red. The whole world was painted in it.
From the ground he could see his coach and the referee and a third fur, who must have been J. D.'s coach, restraining the cheetah. The cat, slowly stopped moving and the adrenaline that fueled his bursts of speed began to wear off. Suddenly he looked panicked, seeing Dex flat on the ground, as though he had not quite realized, while moving at full speed, how far the pummeling had gone. His eyes were darting from the raccoon to the audience to his coach in concern. Dex's coach was shouting and the referee was also speaking, calmly, but no less sternly.
The cheetah hesitated for a long moment then rolled up one of his sleeves, followed by the other; something shiny, weighted, and metallic--a thick plate covered with small, dull knobs--was strapped to each of his elbows.
The referee waved his arm angrily, gestured toward Dex, and continued speaking, and the cheetah, looking increasingly cowed and glancing nervously at where the coon lay, shrugged and raised one foot to take off one of his heavily cushioned socks, revealing a brass knuckle-like device fitted around his toes. He pointed at his other foot and nodded, indicating it would be the same. The cheetah looked genuinely worried and shook his head apologetically.
Dex's coach was coming over to him. Everyone in the ring gasped. Dex was up on his knees, his face knotted with pain as he tried to get to his feet. The badger was waving his paws to indicate he shouldn't and talking, but Dex couldn't hear him. He couldn't hear anything.
Something misfired in the coon's brain. His thoughts were already fragmenting. Everything was silent. Everything was red. He was fighting his way to his feet, his eyes locked on the spotted cat. Dex wasn't down! He should be--his whole body felt battered--but somehow he wasn't.
And what scared him more than anything, he realized with a start, was that if he did stand up, no effort of will was going to stop him from trying to kill that kid.
He had to do something to switch himself off. He was raising one paw as though to shove his approaching coach out of the way. He would have hurt anyone who got in his way at that moment if he had the strength to--his coach, his parents, his friends, it didn't matter. He had to send his mind somewhere else. Somewhere safe from that kind of anger. Whenever it got close. Before he hurt anybody around him. Before he hurt his friends.
Dex fell back down on to his knees, and then backward on his back on to the floor of the tournament ring. And started to cry.
Like he had been crying just now. Like a kit.
His eyes were still squeezed shut. Bit by bit, they opened, and he surveyed the room around him out of their corners. Dimly, he became conscious of the restraints on the high chair.
"I know, Dexie," the weasel said, patting his back as he returned and picked up the feeding spoon. "It's okay. I'm sorry your panda friend had to go away. She just got upset. Dat's all. It happens to the best of us. But we'll take care of you. We're all your friends. It's okay for you to feel small and weak. That's what you have a safe place for," the magician patted his head. "To go to when you feel that way. To protect yourself."
Dex gradually began to breathe more steadily. For two years, he had thought that too. Every one of his friends assumed it. But being alone, as a kit, and under, for so long, had shaken another part of his memory loose. He hadn't started switching off to protect himself after all. He did it to protect the furs he cared about. But now, one of them was in trouble--and for real, not in a play battle with the girls.
His stomach growled. His nose wrinkled at the odor of the open container of spaghetti-and-meatball flavored baby food in front of him. He had been a vegetarian since middle school, and the thought of eating meat had long since become repulsive to him.
"Now there," the weasel continued, "everyone is waiting for you in the big top not far from here. Tony and all your new friends. We all want to help you get Twitchy free faster. I'm going to ask Tony there. I think we should bring you to visit the bunny after the party. It's only fair."
"You see," he patted the coon's head, "how much your unca cares? And really does want to help both of you? But first, you just need to have some supper to stop your tummy from being all rumbly. That's why you keep crying, isn't it?" The weasel flicked at his ears. "Cuz you're a hungry little guy. And you do need your strength! Now come on," he picked up the feeding spoon and renewed his efforts. "It won't be much of a party if you cry the whole time."
Dex, his eyes still narrowed to slits, opened his muzzle without protest. Somewhat surprised, Alphonse stuck in the feeding spoon. Dex gulped and swallowed, with visible reluctance. 'I'll plant a tree when I get back home,' he thought to himself. 'I swear.'
"Now," Alphonse said gleefully, "there's a good boy! I know it's not your favorite, I know, but it will make you big and strong," and wiped off Dex's muzzle with the bib tied around his neck.
Dex swallowed the next spoonful too.
"Squeak!" marveled the mouse in the opposite corner of the small trailer's living room, who had arisen from his funk and begun paying attention to the scene. His paws and nose were now pressed against the surface of his glass prison.
In the entire time he had been in Baby Blue, Squeak had never seen Dex, as real kit or play kit, eat meat, not even when he stayed with Twitchy and Squeak during his last extended regression. It was a well-known organization rule not to force it, or disposable diapers, on him. But he was eating it now. Was he sending Squeak a signal? "Squeak?" the mouse followed up questioningly.
Out of the edge of his narrowed eyes Dex, gulping down another spoonful of the distasteful puree, made contact with Squeak's beady ones and, so slightly as to be imperceptible to the fussing mustelid feeding him, nodded.
Next time: Anger Management!: Dex throws a tantrum.
Episode 8. Anger Management!
"You meant to say isn't it cute that I know kung fu and ballet," Lin Lin corrected the intoxicated, and now dazed jaguar as she strapped the ball gag around his head. Twitchy finished tying his arms behind his back and to the bars of the cage the two kids had just locked him in.
The two cubs hopped outside the trailer and blinked as they took a moment for their eyes to adjust to the dark. Twitchy's large, sensitive ears flicked. "Did you hear that?" He looked at the woods suspiciously. "Over the crickets chirping. It wasn't an owl. Why are there songbirds out at this hour?"
"Who cares?" Lin Lin answered him curtly, assuming an in-charge tone. "Let's move. We'll get Dex and your mouse, and then you'll take us to the supply cache so we can grab as much of your stuff as we can before we split."
She turned to make her way away from the parked tractor trailers--only to hear a loud clink and feel herself suddenly jerked backward by her wrist, toward the denim-clad, floppy-eared white rabbit.
"You idiot!" She turned her head to see him fastening on his own left wrist the other cuff of the handcuffs that had just clicked around her right one. "How am I supposed to fight handcuffed to you? What are you doing?"
Twitchy's whiskers moved skeptically. "You're lucky I need you to show me where Dex is or I would just have left you in that cage." He glared at her.
"Tell me again," he said seriously, his foot starting to tap, "your story about how Dex was captured in the sideshow tent and you conveniently escaped. Only this time, try the true version."
The panda groaned. "We don't have time for this! Is it that hard for you to believe I want to help him?"
"Yes," Twitchy answered without hesitating.
"All right," she stared down at her Velcro jogging shoes as she spoke, letting out a long, reluctant breath. "You're right. You got me. I did come on this mission intending to ditch the black belt in arresting development and make off with your missing supplies as soon as we found them. I never took that head case seriously."
"But, the truth is," she bit her lip, shifting her weight from one leg to the other uncertainly and paused for a long minute. "The truth is . . . that Dex and I already fought. In the woods not far from here. I was sure you were the only Blue boy I had to worry about. Your teammate, though, has . . . more moves than I realized. He caught me off guard."
Twitchy clapped his forepaws together, with the accidental effect of jerking the unsteady panda off balance and closer to him. She flashed him an annoyed glance, which he ignored.
"I knew it!" he exclaimed. "Dex took you prisoner. Ha!" His cottonball tail wiggled proudly. "That's my little brother! No wonder he got captured with you slowing him down. So you hightailed it out of there, but no, you couldn't leave empty-pawed, not Miss 'I can do anything better than you.' After all, you have to do something impressive while your teammates are gone to make up for your defeat at the academy, right? So you thought you'd find me and give the 'let's team up' trick one more try."
He adjusted the goggles on his forehead with his uncuffed paw and puffed himself up. "Well, it looks like Dex is a little too strong, and I'm a little too smart! I won't be showing you where the supplies are. All that matters is that we get out of here with Dex. I bet you feel foolish for misjudging the two of us now."
The undersized panda glared at him and narrowed her eyes.
"I'm starting to," she snapped.
*************************
Dex swallowed nearly the last spoonful of the spaghetti-and-meatball puree and the spoon began to slide out of his muzzle. Suddenly, he bit down, hard.
"Hey!" Alphonse tugged gently. "Leggo. Leggo, l'il guy." Dex shook his head mightily, yanking the feeding spoon out of the weasel's grip.
"Umm. . ." the puzzled mustelid paused. "Heh. Okay. I guess you do like it after all. See, it wasn't that . . ."
Before he could finish the restrained raccoon flicked his head with all his force and sent the metal feeding spoon whirling across the room, where it collided with a loud twang with one of the thick elastics holding Squeak's jar prison in place and rebounded from it into another cord, knocking the second band loose from where it was fastened under the table with a loud snap. The mouse, who was pushing on the edge of the jar with all his tiny might, squeaked excitedly as it fell over on to its side and rolled toward the edge of the table. With the jar sideways and the elastics no longer stretched taut over the lid, he could unscrew it.
Alphonse's eyes flickered a moment too late across the room to see what was happening. He began to move in that direction, but Dex, even though he was still strapped in, leaned forward to one side and then back down again to bring one leg of the high chair down, hard on the weasel's footpaw. He yelped and scrambled backwards toward the trailer door, fumbling in a panic with the lock. Squeak darted down the table leg and across the floor with the speed of a mouse in full scamper and climbed up the leg of the high chair, struggling for a moment to unsnap the restraint on Dex's left leg.
The weasel opened the door and stepped outside. "Help!" he shouted waving his arms frantically. "Tony! Tom! Dave! Jack! Anybody! The kit's up! Code 2! Code 2! Get in here fast! Hold him down while I fix it!"
Squeak made it up on to the left arm of the high chair and freed Dex's left paw. The raccoon stretched it out in front of his face and grinned as the two strong bears from the sideshow tent dashed in. Both unleashed the whips from their belts and cracked them at him threateningly, but Dex whirled the right side of his body toward them, swinging the high chair into the path of the whips. Their coils wrapped around its frame.
Squeak, who had scampered down Dex's right pant leg, freed the coon's right leg at the same time that Dex unstrapped his own right paw. With the bears' whips tangled up in the high chair, and them trying to tug them free, Dex hurled its entire wooden frame at them.
They fell to the floor with a crash as he jumped over the whole mess and past them, through the open trailer door, Squeak riding along under his karate uniform.
Alphonse was running toward the big top as fast as he could waving his arms and shouting. Every crew member except the two bears and the jaguar conscripted for guard duty was already there. The bleechers had been removed for this one night and replaced with a buffet on one side, a small open bar on the other, and several tables for the crew to sit once they were finished mingling. A small platform stage stood at the far end of the pavilion; that was where Tony and Alphonse planned to speak and introduce Dex.
The weasel narrowly beat Dex into the big top, but none of the confused and milling acrobats and clowns around the buffet table near the entrance knew what he was shouting about. His panicked eyes darted around the crowd of the forty or fifty circus workers in various states of undress until he located Tony. The ringmaster, looking very pleased with himself at the opposite end of the tent near the stage, was shaking paws with the head clown and patting him on the back.
The green-aproned wolf who ran the row of game booths intercepted Alphonse and began asking him what was the matter just as Dex somersaulted over both of them and landed in the middle of the buffet table and started running down it, kicking over the food left and right.
The confused clowns began shouting at him and everyfur ran toward the buffet table in the center of the empty tent. With the entire crew all headed to one place, Dex leapt over the smaller crowd to his left and made for the perimeter of the tent, kicking anyone who tried to stop him to his right and karate-chopping furiously and seemingly at the air on his left as he raced around it toward the ringmaster--but he was taking the long way.
Squeak, as an engineer, peeking out of Dex's pant leg, saw what the raccoon was up to, and had scampered out of his karate uniform and slipped out the perimeter of the tent.
Working as quickly as he could, he ran around uprooting tent stakes as speedily as a pocket-sized mouse could manage.
Alphonse came up to the ringmaster's side and fumbled in his pockets for anything that might help. He produced a shiny quarter and a silver pocket watch, glancing between them quickly. He looked up to get a fix on Dex and his eyes widened. "Oh no," he whispered. He was the first crew member to realize what Dex had been chopping at.
Behind Dex, the tent began to give way. He had been chopping through its wooden support poles at any joints he could hit on them as he ran and fending off anyone who tried to grab him with his opposite arm and leg. His left paw bristled with splinters.
Tony opened his muzzle and reached for the whip on his belt, his eyes widening with fright as he began shouting. "Jack! Alphonse! Everybody! The kid's gone nuts! I knew this would happen sooner or later if I kept hiring you freaks! Stop him! Jack!" he turned to the strong bear near him and shoved him toward the side Dex was approaching from, backing away himself.
"Come on! You coward!" he shouted at the stumbling bear. "You fought this kid when he had help! Get out there! What's different now?"
The bear swung his paws around in confusion, but Dex somersaulted over him as three quarters or so of the under-supported tent behind him slowly gave way and creakily collapsed inward, sending the entire crew scrambling toward the falling exit in confusion, some overturning tables to make their way out faster and only adding to the chaos. The coon caught one of the remaining, high-up tent support beams with his right paw and used it to redirect himself in the air. He landed on the much-larger tiger's shoulders and wrapped his legs around the big cat's arms, squeezing as hard as he could to pin them to his body as Tony hopped around trying to shake him loose.
"Our contract is cancelled," Dex said with a low growl into the ringmaster's ear, "Every deal you make is rotten. Everything about this place is rigged."
"I run a circus!" the tiger, struggling against the grip of Dex's legs, protested in flustered disbelief. "That's just the way it works!"
"Then someone should have warned you," Dex explained calmly as he yanked the ringmaster's top hat down over his eyes with both paws.
"Cheating makes me angry."
***********************
Twitchy and Lin Lin raced as fast as they could handcuffed together in the direction of the crash. As they did, the rabbit heard a birdcall right behind him and stopped in his tracks as he felt a light touch on his shoulder.
He froze and jerked around in astonishment, sending Lin Lin stumbling toward him again. Her eyes stared daggers up at him. Just her luck, the way this mission had been going, to end it handcuffed to the most nervous fur she had ever met.
"Twitch!" whispered the black-and-brown mottled dog who stepped out of the shadows, tipping his park ranger's hat. He wore his Boy Scout sash above a khaki uniform, and a long, cylindrical bamboo whistle hung around his neck on a string. He wrinkled his nose. "And not a moment too soon. The front of that diaper must be about to burst. We'll get you changed right after we pull out."
"Jax!" the bunny exclaimed, hopping up and down on his large feet, then gesturing to the jostled panda. "Don't worry! She got away from Dex, but I recaptured her. She won't get the drop on me!"
Lin Lin rolled her eyes and snorted.
"Where's Dex?" the dog asked anxiously.
"That's what we're trying to figure out. But our best guess is," Twitchy said, as both the handcuffed furs pointed in the direction of the loud crash they had just heard and shouted in unison, "That way!"
The Plott hound wagged his tail and raised his whistle to his lips, indicating with his paw the rabbit should hold on for one second. "I'll pass it down the chain."
He blew the whistle carefully, mimicking the call of a blue jay.
*********************
"Now, Dex," the weasel magician, laying on his back, crawled backward into the last standing corner of the big top tent, looking up at the approaching raccoon who had left Tony wheezing on his knees behind him. "I'm your friend," he fumbled with his silver pocket watch unobtrusively in one paw, trying to flash the light off of it into Dex's eyes as inconspicuously as he could. "I understand you. I'm not like the others. Don't you at least want to hear--my side of all this?"
"No," Dex said icily. "Where's Twitchy? And where's Triple L?"
"In the second tractor trailer in the east parking lot, in an animal cage. There's one guard and one of the bunny's feet is handcuffed to a bar at the far end. The guard should have the keys to the cage and the cuffs. We've been feeding him and I've been slipping him . . . supplies, don't worry," the weasel said quickly. "The panda should be in there too. We only have one empty cage right now."
Alphonse reached into his pocket with his free hand and tossed Dex a key, which the coon snatched out of the air. "Dex--the stuff your friend had when we took him is in the only drawer that locks in the desk in my trailer. In return, Dex--" the weasel looked around the collapsed tent anxiously.
Half the crew was tangled in canvass, trying to crawl over each other, to escape from the ruins. Only ten of them, tops, knew the full extent of what had been going on, although rumors had been flying since Dex's first appearance. No one, however, who did manage to crawl free, was particularly inclined to interfere with the raccoon at the moment, or do anything other than slink off, lay low, or run into the shadows.
Alphonse eyed the ringmaster as Tony sank backward on to the ground, staring at the ruins of his big top in near-apoplectic shock. "In return," Alphonse whispered to Dex quickly, "somewhere Tony has pictures of me. I'm going to run to his office. If you could check his trailer for those too while you're there-- Better yet, you could tell him you just need one more thing . . ."
Dex stared stonily at the weasel. "Stand up to him yourself."
"Dex," Alphonse pleaded. "Please. I've been . . . stuck in this place. I . . . I tried to convince Tony to let your friend go."
The raccoon kicked the pocket watch out of Alphonse's paw. "Should have tried harder," he said over his shoulder as he stepped over the quivering magician and kicked a hole in the small section of the tent's wall that was still standing. "I know you can be more persuasive."
Next time: Secret Santa: As the dust settles on the battlefield, Dex gets--and gives--a few final surprises to set things right.
Episode 9. Secret Santa
Dex stepped out of the collapsed tent and found himself surrounded. Not by the circus crew--in fact, those who had crawled out were either running off in a panic, with weapons trained on them as they did, or standing around the collapsed tent with their hands fearfully raised behind their heads.
No, Dex was surrounded by a small ring of uniformed boys ranged in between the tents a couple yards back from the falling big top's perimeter, paintball guns, high-pressure water cannons, bow and suction-cup arrows, and Nerf weapons cocked and at the ready.
"Dex!" Twitchy shouted, hopping up and down and waving from behind them, shaking a by now very agitated and dizzy Lin Lin around. "It's so good to see you! Don't worry," he added holding up his left arm to display the handcuff. "I recaptured her! And did you find . . . "
"Squeak!" exclaimed the mouse still working on pulling up supports. He dropped the stake he had just uprooted and raced around the perimeter of the tent toward his usual, jubilant bunny partner.
The raccoon relaxed into a smile, visibly relieved. "Twitch! You're okay! What is all this?" He jerked his head at the circle of boys.
The rabbit fidgeted. "We're--umm--" the bunny shrugged, gesturing at the mostly collapsed tent behind the raccoon, and concluded uncertainly, "here to rescue you?"
Dex flicked his paw at the bunny in a mock salute. "Ditto," he said.
He scanned the rescue crew quickly. "Jax!" he added gratefully, sighting the hound dog. "This is almost everyone."
"It's everyone plus. Every paw who stayed on for break, plus any fur we could get who was taking it easy but lives in town," the dog corrected. "We're just the first wave. The rest of them are on the perimeter. We started not long after you hit the road, but it took a full day to pull the team together. Kyle is still at Hideout #4 trying to reach anyone else in driving distance. By the time we moved out, we couldn't get you on the radio. And we couldn't travel as fast on the trail as you and the panda did."
He jumped and waved both his paws in the air as a beam of light shined in their direction and fell across Dex and him, adding, "That's the others. I signalled them to move in a couple minutes ago."
The raccoon frowned for a moment. "But you don't have a walkie talkie. And that means the hideouts are--"
The Plott hound shook his head and pointed over the raccoon's shoulder eagerly, wagging his tail and blushing in anticipation. "I didn't order this op, Dex. I was as surprised as you."
Dex turned to see a second string of boys approaching behind a tall, heavyset, tough-looking lynx in a British explorer's tan safari outfit, complete with a safari hat.
Ace's eyes scanned the terrain warily. There was a long silver whistle on a cord around his neck, a canteen dangled from his shoulder strap, and a paintball gun hung on his belt.
One paw was carrying a small shaded lantern, and the other was behind his back resting on a throwing net in his open backpack that could entangle three or four average-sized furs if he cast it correctly.
"Some of the boys were concerned about leaving all our bases undefended to come after you, yeah," Ace completed Dex's thought with an apologetic shrug. "Especially with the panda's whereabouts unknown. I had to remind them that decisions about hideout defense are up to me."
He paused awkwardly, then added, "We're running the strike radio silent. We lost two radio contacts--" he released his net and shook his thumb at Dex, then at Twitchy--"in this fairground already. So Jax suggested we try something different."
Ace tugged at the bird whistle around his neck and seemed uncharacteristically bashful for a moment.
"Well," Dex took a deep breath, and moved to hug the lynx, but retreated when the tough cat backed away uncomfortably. "Since every fur is here--I'd hate for you to have wasted a trip. If our hideouts can keep for a little longer--I have an idea."
Ace looked down at his footpaws and saluted. "It's your call," he said to the raccoon. "Sir."
*****************************
"Hee! I'm a pony!" said one of the boys at their campsite in the woods, bending over and settling a riding saddle on his back, prancing experimentally and eyeing the bridle and rein that had lain alongside it. Another two were looking at enema equipment and exchanging confused shrugs, trying to figure out what it was for.
Ace was looking through a collection of leather chaps on one of the hand-drawn supply wagons they had borrowed from the circus parking lot with more than idle curiosity. Jax, standing next to him, was frowning and shaking his head emphatically.
There were fifteen boys all told and six overloaded carts' worth of stuff. It would be a slow trip back to Hideout #4, where they would coordinate what Dex had ordered as Operation Secret Santa.
Dex and Twitchy were conferring around a small campfire, with Dex's cowboy hat, recovered from Alphonse's trailer, on the ground between them. The rabbit was sitting cross-legged and the raccoon was lying on his legs and elbows. The other boys rifled through the boxes that had been opened, alternately amazed and horrified by what they found--from dildoes and vibrators of various sizes to spiky collars, chains, stainless steel dog bowls, padded animal beds and chew toys, to bondage gear and adult-sized baby outfits for both genders of varying degrees of embarrassment.
Not to mention, of course, a diverse collection of variously colored, variously layered diapers of designer quality, and changing supplies that ranged from the routine in bulk quantities--wipes and powder--to the more exotic, like concentrated castor oil and leather spanking paddles that said "BAD" on them on one paw, and jars of hand-made lavender baby oil on the other.
Lin Lin had been handcuffed to one of the carts. "I still think--" she started to say.
"For the last time," Twitchy snapped. "The academy is not getting a cut. And neither are we. We're only keeping what we can tell is Baby Blue's. Everything else goes back to the rightful owners, just as soon as we can find them, and if not, to thrift stores or to the LGBT community centers around here and at the colleges. Those were Dex's orders." He shook his head. "Jeez!" he added in exasperation. "You're supposed to be a prisoner!"
She shrugged and kicked at the dirt. "Fine. Run your organization into the ground. It's none of my concern. Not like any furs are really expecting to get this stuff back. They'd still be just as grateful if you kept a small finder's fee. If only to cover your own expenses."
Twitchy rolled his eyes and turned back to Dex. He fiddled with his pen-sized digital camera. Dex was looking by firelight through a ledger from a safe that Tony had--under duress--given him the key to. His left paw and wrist were still wrapped in gauze with a makeshift splint that Jax had rigged up after picking out as many of the splinters as he could. (The scout dog had a First Aid badge, of course.)
"I've never seen this much gear in one place. And I can't believe the prices they were getting for some of this junk. I'd like to call this in," the coon said, shaking his head. "But if the owners were too embarrassed to report it themselves, I think we should be considerate of their privacy. I just hope Tony and company learned their lesson. I think I can probably match partial addresses to maybe a third of the stuff out of the notes in here. That's a start anyway. And then we start looking through phonebooks and online. It's good the boxes were numbered and dated. Not so good that Tony started pulling the packing labels off after he caught you snooping around, Twitch. How does it look?"
Twitchy wiggled his tail and tapped his foot as he shook the pen-sized camera. "Erasing pictures by pressing the delete key a bunch of times." He chortled as though someone had offered him a ride to school on a horse and buggy. "Squeak got all the labels on the boxes that had them. As soon as I can plug this into a laptop I should be able to recover most, if not all, of the photos."
He looked at the ledger. "Squeak and I can take the ledger and Tony's papers too, Dex. You've already lost enough practice time for your black belt test."
Dex looked up at the rabbit out of the top of his eyes for a moment. "Twitch," he said, lowering his voice. "I've been meaning to ask you something. I haven't told anyone, but I took myself off the black belt test list for this go-round."
The rabbit's ears flicked and he looked up from his camera as the raccoon set the ledger down and reached over to his backpack, tugging on the strap so that it fell flat in front of him. "Come on, Dex," Twitchy protested. "I thought just to stop the brown belt jokes--" he started to say.
Dex unzipped the front compartment and shook his head, taking a deep breath as he withdrew a folder of papers. "Roger gave me this before he left town. I've been carrying it around all break thinking about what to do with it. It's a packet of student-athlete scholarship applications. With letters from the dojo and my high school coach attached. And . . . transfer applications. I don't want to tell the whole group if nothing is going to happen."
"You know it's kind of a fluke that I'm at City College. I almost went to--" The raccoon chewed on his lip and motioned with his bandaged paw dismissively. "Well, it doesn't matter. The point is, my athletics are good enough--again. I've been thinking about you--and well," he traced a circle in the dirt with his uninjured paw. "I know you're always on call and have your own stuff to do-- No, what I mean to say is, Don't take this the wrong way, but you were bad when you started combat training." He blinked, remembering the rabbit falling over--into a stream--when he threw a ball at him in a game of catch. "Really bad. But everyfur said you were amazing during the ambush in the gym. It's still--a bit of a blur to me. Sorry. So, just by your example, of, if you can do that, then I . . . . No, it's just-- well, look, the short version is, you know I'm a psych major. Statistics isn't going so great."
Twitchy blinked and smiled, tussling Dex's head with the front of one of his large feet. "About the gym: I had a good tutor. And so do you. Of course. You don't need to write me a speech about it. But, Dex, that means--"
He bit his lip and looked at the coon worriedly. "I don't know how many are in that packet, but that means at a minimum, not being in the same school as Rian any more. Maybe even--"
The raccoon nodded. "I know. Well," he blushed. "Yours is on the list. That wouldn't be bad."
The rabbit grinned. "What are you doing in statistics? I mean, you can do normal curves and stuff, right?"
"Umm," Dex's uninjured paw strayed up to his muzzle and three of his fingers found their way inside. "I can dwaw one if dat's what you mean."
Twitchy eyed him suspiciously. "Are strange things going to happen to you whenever your homework seems impossible?"
"Would that," Dex asked, sucking on his fingers, "bother you?"
The rabbit tussled Dex's head with his foot again. The coon looked up at him from the ground and his tail flicked against it.
Twitchy's cheeks flushed red as he admitted, "Not really."
Maybe they would end up at the same school, who knew? Dex mused as Twitchy's foot rubbed his head. That felt kind of good. The raccoon leaned his head into it and purred softly without thinking. There was nothing wrong with that, right, he told himself? Sure, sometimes Dex was older than the rabbit and outranked him, but sometimes Twitchy was his super smart big brother. And now he'd have to find a way to thank Twitch for his help.
He found his mind idly and curiously wandering over some of the fetish gear he'd been looking through against the entries in the ledger--in this case, leashes and collars of various kinds--he wondered, unprompted, as he sucked on his fingers, if his smart big brother liked pets. He bet he did. He probably wanted to have more company than just Squeak, but not the kind who would distract him from what he was doing on his computer. Dex could keep him company that way sometimes. He totally could. Maybe as a kitten. He had a feeling Twitch wouldn't like a lot of barking. He would want to play in ways that didn't take him away from his computer. Well, kittens did like . . . drinking milk a whole lot, he mused, biting his lip and listening to the rabbit crinkle as he shifted his weight back and forth fiddling with the camera. He could . . . probably manage that. For his big brother. And he probably liked foot massages. Dex could probably manage one of those. No, he totally could. He totally could do both those things. It was just a matter of practice. Three or four times. He would have it right after that. He totally would. He wondered what else Twitch might like. What else he might want to do.
Well, he didn't need to wonder, did he?, he reminded himself. He only had to ask him.
*****************************
Lin Lin awoke with a start sometime after midnight to see Dex crouching in front of her with his finger held to his lips as her handcuffs clicked loose. The fire had died out, and everyone else was fast asleep. He motioned for her to step behind the supply wagon, and she followed curiously.
"More trouble sleeping?" the panda whispered as she blinked the bleariness out of her own eyes.
The coon shook his head. "No. I got up for you." He jerked his head over his shoulder at the sleeping boys. "I'm following your lead, you know. I don't know what that performance you gave Twitchy was about."
Her eyes narrowed. "What performance? Everything I told him was true. I really did intend to make off with your stuff, Dexie. Period, the end. We both know I left you in the sideshow tent when I should have . . . when a friend would have stayed. The bunny's story is closer to the truth than whatever you're thinking. Your boys all have the right idea. It was your stupid plan to invite me along on this mission." She wagged her paw at him sternly. "You never should have trusted me. You're way too soft for your own good. And if someone doesn't correct it now, it will catch up with you eventually."
The raccoon shrugged. "Have it your way." He reached into the pocket of his undershirt and handed her a small box. "I found these cards when I took Twitchy's stuff back from the weasel's trailer. The box says 'For Li' on it. I thought you might know him."
She snatched it hastily and gulped. "I did," she answered.
Dex added softly, "Well, he cheats. There are six aces and five kings in that deck. And I have a hunch the cards are marked in a way devised by someone smarter than me."
"Then apparently," she answered, "he doesn't cheat very well."
"I'm sure he does fine," the coon replied, "when he's trying to win. I don't forget everything that happens during--episodes--you know. It's a lot of chunks. Bits and pieces. You losing a poker game, for instance. You could have just won and made off with the supplies if you wanted. At least tried to. Instead you saw I was useless and set out to get tossed in with Twitch. Something that was more likely to happen if you made it look like you hated us."
Lin Lin kicked at the dirt. "Assuming you're right for a moment, Dex, I wouldn't have trusted that tiger to keep his word if I had beat him. The same thing would have happened either way."
"But why bother making sure you lose, unless you're really that concerned about us?" The coon shook his head. "You're going to do this the hard way, aren't you?"
"I never do anything the easy way," Lin Lin answered. "It would ruin my reputation."
Dex reached into the supply cart and gently tossed her one bag of diapers, then another, then a third. "Then we'd better make this look good. I'll say I woke up when I heard noises in the supply cart but by the time I got over there you'd already escaped with some of our diapers. Can you do me a favor though, while you're stealing stuff?"
He picked up something he had left on the ground for the night outside the ring of sleeping bags and tossed his cowboy hat to her. "Can you please take this stupid cowboy hat so that I don't have to tell Rian what I think of it? I'm more of an Indian, anyway."
"If you do one back for me, Dex," Lin Lin replied as she collected the things. "Get yourself and the bunny home in one piece. If you can manage to hold yourself together for that long. It will be a lot more satisfying kicking both your tails if neither of you has a debilitating handicap next time."
"Will do, Triple L," he answered.
"I meant two favors," she said over her shoulder. "Because you're also going to stop calling me that."
"Sorry," he whispered as she started to leave, "I meant to say Double L," and added, uncertain whether or not the vanishing panda could hear, "Princess."
***********************
"Mission . . . accomplished! You'll never guess what we've really been . . ." Rian burst through the trap door in the bottom of Hideout #4 as the bell jangled and concluded disappointedly, "up to," kicking his footpaw in the air as he met no response and surveyed the room. His discouragement was quickly overtaken by a mounting sense of horror.
"I can't believe this! I would never have left if I knew things would get this bad!" The shrimpy, twenty-something wolf, wearing a shiny white and black-visored airplane pilot's hat, exclaimed to the open trap door behind him, waving his paws over it energetically in warning. "Cover your eyes! Better yet, don't come up! It's too terrible!"
He darted around the room and continued to examine the damage, but his caution was too late. Roger poked his head through the trap door and, setting a paw down on either side, hoisted himself up to sit at its edge. "What's up?" the Labrador asked.
The three computer monitors in the hideout were each running a mail merge program, noisily printing pages of letters as text flickered illegibly across the screens.
Kyle the Dalmatian was collapsed on his back on the hideout changing mat with his used diaper still half-open, snoring loudly, with a trail of discarded instruction manuals in his wake that led from the desk to his current position on the floor, and a basic orienteering handbook suspended, open, on his nose. Dex and Twitchy were also sprawled across the floor next to him, a statistics textbook and a series of worksheets strewn around them, and Squeak was asleep on Twitchy's shoulder. Dex was sucking his thumb and Twitchy's forepaw rested on his head. Ace and Jax were there, too, lying across each other with a deck of half face up and half face down ornithology flash cards and Jax's dog-eared and highlighted copy of Birds of America open in front of them.
One of the other boys, a malamute, had fallen asleep over an open French dictionary and grammar textbook and a notebook filled with marked-up drafts of letters in French to the owners of several boxes of stuff Dex and Twitchy had traced to Quebec. Just in case, they would be sending bilingual versions of those--it was Dex's suggestion.
Rian spun around, held his arms wide to encompass the whole scene, and delivered his analysis.
"It looks like everyone's been doing schoolwork the whole time!" the horrified wolf exclaimed to his mentor, throwing his paws up in the air in agitation.
"I swear, Rog," the wolf cub shook his head despairingly. "These boys are hopeless without us!"
***********************
Back in her bed at the academy, Lin Lin breathed heavily, staring at the ceiling, one paw resting on her chest, the other quivering around a bottle of lubricant. The cowboy hat lay on the pillow alongside her head.
It was the second time she had had an orgasm that night. The first one wasn't the first orgasm she had pawing to thoughts of the smart but emotionally oblivious, diapered bunny. They were getting less intense, to be honest. But he still served the purpose well enough.
The second, though, which had wracked her whole body and from which she was still recovering, was the first she had ever had thinking about Dex. Who hadn't, she kept reminding herself, actually beat her, or saved her. So why couldn't she throw away the cruddy hat she'd put on her nightstand as soon as she came back?
Already, her paw was straying into her diaper a third time.
Why not finish this? One good flush could get both those boys out of her system for good. Yes--this would be the last time. And she would do it efficiently. There was no harm in fantasizing was there? So she let her mind wander freely for a minute.
You didn't always have to choose, did you? You could get vanilla and chocolate ice cream on one cone, right? That's what it would be like. They were friends, after all. Brothers, in a weird way. They certainly seemed close. They both needed their diapers changed. They both needed their bottoms wiped. Those were things she could do for both of them. But most of all they both needed discipline.
The bunny would take a bit more work than she had thought. Okay--a lot more work than she'd thought. But she had a hunch she could overpower him completely, in the end. Put whatever toppings on him she wanted. Dress him however she wanted. Gag him if she wanted. Tie a bow between his ears. He was not academy material--that was out as a possibility --emotionally oblivious. Could never handle pink team politics, or sense what a boy wanted him to do the way a real sissy could. But he would still make a cute baby toy for her girls. In a onesie, instead of those baggy denim outfits he always wore. With his footpaws and forepaws locked together so he couldn't help but crawl around. Regression was the way to go there. Much spanking--paddles definitely required. He needed a lot of help really regressing, she had a hunch, unlike . . . Dex.
She clutched the cowboy hat closer to her with her free left arm. Dex she hadn't thought much of at first. But now she was sure he would last longer. She wouldn't have to work as hard. He would get himself ready for her, tease her a little when she changed him. Maybe she'd humor him and beg once or twice. He was a sensitive little guy--who didn't look that bad in a dress. Or in a high chair. He would always want to please people, ultimately, so there was no harm in permitting him a little more freedom than the rabbit. No need for corporal punishment. A little castor oil now and then could probably keep him in line.
Who knew? Maybe she could still make him an academy student. He just might be sissy material after all; he was empathetic enough. It might just be a matter of convincing him one of his blue friends wanted to see him in a dress. Yes--that just might work. She could do a lot with him. There was definitely latent potential there. He just needed to relax and explore a little. She saw how those boys looked at the stuff they liberated from the circus. There were rooms in the academy they weren't ready to walk into just yet.
Vanilla and chocolate wasn't a bad comparison. That's probably what Dex and Twitchy would taste like. She moaned as her paw, slick with lubricant, kept working its way in and out. Except, of course, that she couldn't taste both of them at once. They'd have to take turns there. She could make a man out of Twitchy--or try to--that might be hopeless--and the raccoon could mount her. He was used to boys. Rumors swirled at the academy about what exactly happened during those Baby Blue initiations out in the woods. Mounting might be easier for him. And he was a sweet guy--she hadn't expected that. He would be careful enough. She would let them play with each other, too, of course. She wasn't that mean. They were brothers, after all. Sort of. And she could be maternal. They could be her little boys. It would be an odd household . . .
Oh, she shuddered, as she felt her whole body tremble and bursts of white behind her eyes momentarily clouded her vision. What am I thinking?
Then, after a moment of staring up at the ceiling quaking and breathing heavily, she thought, 'Is it really that crazy? I can set a very different sort of trap for those two the next time. They still have no idea what I can really do. Or what they really want.'
'Besides, that fox is only screwing one boy from the blue team. I could do better than that.'
Then again, she thought, biting her lips, maybe in the coon's case she didn't need the castor oil. Or the high chair.
Maybe Dex was even a boy--the first boy--who would just--spend time with her--without an elaborate scenario, and a tricky game plan, and special equipment, and a punishment scene.
She felt her paw reaching into her diaper again, already, and stopped it.
No, she corrected herself quickly. Now that was thinking crazy.
The End.
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