Kaeden's Commitment
by Draugr
Chapter IV: Fights and Battles Have Begun
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
That night was largely restless. Kaeden slept in fits and starts, and when he had no choice but to wet his diaper, it just made falling asleep all that much more uncomfortable. He managed to do it, though – and was awoken in the early morning by his tummy growling. Evidently his body didn't like being so backed up. He didn't feel as though he was about to lose any control, but it would be nice if he could figure out where the bathroom was in the house.
He stretched, ignoring how full he felt. Kaeden must have been making enough noise for his baby monitor to pick up, because Ashleigh came in the room moment's later.
“Good morning, pup! I hope you had a good night's sleep.” Just like before, Ashleigh undid the snaps around his crotch and the inside of his legs so she could check his diaper – which was pretty wet from having to relieve his bladder more than once. Ashleigh was keeping him well-hydrated.
“I could have told you I was... wet,” he said, plainly.
“You could have, but, you’re not to ask me for a change, Kaeden. I'll periodically check your diaper and change you as necessary.”
“But... why?” he complained.
“You know I can't answer that just yet, pup. I want to, I wish you could know what you have in store, but you can't. Please do yourself a favor and don't ask me about that anymore. I'll tell you more when I decide that you're ready to hear it. You'll have to change everything you are, and everything you were.”
Kaeden grunted in displeasure. That wasn't the answer he'd wanted.
Ashleigh just smiled. She pulled his sleeper up a bit, and pulled out the back of his diaper, and peered into the seat just like before. “Hmm... I'll give you one more chance to use your diaper like you should, Kaeden, or else I'm going to have to help you move your bowels.”
“No way. I'm not crapping myself. That's disgusting. Wetting is bad enough.”
“It's perfectly natural for puppies to do that, Kaeden. There's no reason to be embarrassed.”
“I'm not embarrassed, it's just sick! I won't do it!” Ashleigh sighed, picking him up out of his crib, and setting him on the changing table. She knew it was better to get this unpleasant task out of the way now, as it was clear her charge wasn’t going to cooperate.
Kaeden noticed something was amiss when he was rolled tummy-down onto the changing table before Ashleigh grabbed hold of the straps. He started struggling, trying to get up and back over.
“Do I need to call in Rashid, or will you behave?” Ashleigh asked.
“That depends on what the hell you think you're doing to me,” Kaeden replied with a hint of trepidation, ears falling back against his head.
Ashleigh signed, and hit a button on a pager, and the Rottweiler entered a few moments later.
“No, please, go away, I'll cooperate,” he protested at the sight of his nemesis.
“Somehow, I don't think you will, pup,” Rashid said. He grabbed his wrists and held them down, as Ashleigh loosed his tailtape, and pulled his diaper down below the curve of his bottom. She got something from under the table – Kaeden couldn't see what – and rolled it around in some sort of jar. It looked like petroleum.
Suddenly, the events began to click. Kaeden was getting a suppository forced up under his tail. Despite the multiple soapings, this was just too much. The sudden struggling, and expletive-laced shouting was enough to catch Rashid off-guard, and he got a paw loose – though it was quickly recaptured. The Shepherd was in no position to win this battle.
"It's just going in your bottom, dear. You'll feel a slight pinch," Ashleigh said, as though this were routine as washing dishes.
Kaeden whined, and went still, as he felt Ashleigh pull up on his tail, and a gentle pressure under there. He squealed, eyes going wide, as her finger slipped up under his tail, remaining there a few moments to make sure her puppy got his medicine. She eventually pulled her finger out, minus the pill, and cleaned it with a baby wipe. She pulled Kaeden's diaper back up, and re-fastened the tailtape, then removed his sleeper, leaving him in just his wet diaper and his collar.
Rashid finally let go of his wrists, and Kaeden shot up off the changing table, and ran into the corner.
“Get away from me, you sick freaks!” he said, eyes wide in terror.
“Kaiden, puppy, please,” Ashleigh said. “I'm trying to help you.”
“You stuck your finger up my butt!”
“If you don't have a messy diaper soon you could make yourself very sick. I don't want to see that happen. Now come here.”
Kaeden gave a hard stare, decided to approach, thinking he was going to get changed. He'd been in the soaked thing for far too long, and was ready to be dry again.
Unfortunately, Kaeden's guess was wrong: Ashleigh got out the bar of soap, and Rashid the muzzle. After being soaped and muzzled, his collar was leashed to a hook anchored in the corner of the wall, forcing him to stay put.
“You'll be allowed out of the corner when you've got a messy diaper, okay?” Ashleigh explained.
Kaeden growled, but said nothing. Ashleigh was surprisingly strong and adept at physically manipulating him, too. With Rashid around as well, fighting back was just impossible. Both of them were taller and stronger than the small-framed Shepherd.
It wasn't too long before the Shepherd's tummy started growling and he started fidgeting. He tucked his tail between his legs, feeling annoyed when he felt his tail push up on the bulk of his swollen diaper. About thirty minutes after getting his ‘medicine,’ Kaeden couldn't resist anymore. His tail flagged, and he filled the seat of his diaper.
This was too much for the poor dog to deal with all at once, and a few sniffles turned into an outright cry. He felt dirty, humiliated, violated, and horrible. He was twenty-two years old, and instead of figuring out a career, or getting engaged to a wonderful woman, he was standing in the corner of his abductor's home, wearing nothing but a wet and now very messy diaper.
Ashleigh heard his wailing, and quickly came in. She picked him up, though almost dropped him when Kaeden lurched up as her paw pressed up on the seat of his diaper to support his weight. He didn't want any of that in his fur – though the way he was carried gave him little choice. Several baby wipes later, and a couple wipes to clean the tears from his muzzle, he was freshly re-diapered. This time, though, instead of sending him back to his crib, she slipped a t-shirt over his head – with a Tyrannosaurus Rex on the front. Kaeden, despite himself, couldn't help but be pleased. Most pups grow out of their dinosaur obsession, but he never really had.
She took his paw and led him through the house in just his shirt and diaper. She picked him up and set him in a tall chair, dropping a small table in front of him, and fastening a small built-in harness to keep him from moving around too much.
“No way,” he said, as she got out a jar of pureed green beans. He was not going to submit to eating puppy food. Ashleigh simply ignored him, unscrewing the lid, and getting a small spoonful.
As she brought it up, however, close to his muzzle, Kaeden lashed out, swiping the spoon of puppy food and knocking it to the floor, barely missing his caretaker in the process.
“Rashid, deal with him, please!” she said, going to clean up the mess. Kaeden stiffened as the Rottweiler got him up out of the high chair. He dragged him over to the living area, sat down, and laid Kaeden over his lap. After pulling down Kaeden's diaper, he brought his hand up and landed it with a resounding “smack” on the Shepherd's bare rump.
Kaeden couldn't believe what was going on. Was he actually getting a spanking? He couldn't think about it too much, though, as the repeated strikes were beginning to hurt. He wasn't sure how many he had gotten to each cheek before the end, but by the time his spanking was done, he couldn’t hold back his tears anymore. His bottom felt like it was on fire, even after Rashid pulled his diaper back up and refastened it.
Ashleigh finally came and took over, taking him back to his nursery and sitting in the cribside chair. She gently wiped the tears from the corners of her puppy’s eyes, something Kaeden was very fussy about. When she was satisfied, she offered him another bottle of formula.
“That was a very bad thing to do, Kaeden, you could have hurt me with your claws. Maybe that was my fault and you're just not ready for semi-solid food yet,” she explained as she offered him the nipple of the bottle.
With a freshly spanked bottom still smarting, the Shepherd felt quite compliant, and nursed the bottle without protest. When done, he was laid down for a nap – which was a “puppy thing” he appreciated for the first time. The day wasn't over, but he already felt exhausted. He couldn't sleep, though, as he heard Ashleigh and Rashid arguing outside his door. The voices were muffled, but he could understand enough of the conversation to fill in the blanks.
“I really wish you wouldn't have done that, Rashid. I don't like spanking my charges unless as a last resort, and discipline is supposed to be my responsibility. You're here to make sure he's under control, nothing more.”
“Exactly. The brat needed a spanking. He tried to hit you, and we can't tolerate that.”
“I know but... ” Ashleigh sighed. “Maybe you're right. You've been doing this longer, and you're here to keep him under control, but... I don't like seeing him hurt. I hope the poor thing is okay.”
The two moved away, leaving Kaeden to contemplate what he'd heard in darkness and peace. The rest of the day proved just as difficult for Kaeden to deal with. He wasn’t outright violent, anymore, but he was hardly willing to play along, and his mouth got him into trouble more than a few times. Eventually that frustration came back to bite him in the form of a six o’clock bedtime.
Yeah, they are going to have quite the time with him, at this point, in his shoes(paws?), there would be no way I'd see /either/ of them as anything but enemies. Rashid also seems to be /much/ more active than Kaiser was, which strikes me as a mistake, as having the 'stick' constantly hovering there, with Kaeden knowing he could show up at any time, is more likely to keep him constantly defensive, not exactly conductive to getting him to open up.
Rashid also seems to be holding a grudge, which, if true, is anything but good, and likely to cause more problems down the road.
I don't know if Rashid is really holding much of a grudge, but it's not as though he doesn't enjoy seeing him put in his place - after all, he's been a real "piece of work," hehe.
His constant presence may work out in ways unforeseen, though :).
Also, having Rashid around like he is currently seems like it would taint any relationship she would try and build with Keaden, as while one hand is being held out in kindness, the other's holding basically a club, to be used when 'needed', and when people are presented with both a good, and a threat, pretty much everyone is going to focus more on the threat.
>but it's not as though he doesn't enjoy seeing him put in his place
Yeah, that mindset is very much not conductive to /helping/, enjoying seeing someone else humiliated and 'put in their place' when the goal is to /help/ seems all sorts of counter-productive.
Very different ways of handling things, with Aran, they seemed to be trying to 'guide' him into the puppy mindset, and go from there, here they seem to be more trying to break him, and it just seems that using force/violence against someone already defensive-minded and combative is just likely to make them /more/ defensive and combative, as they feel a threat to themselves and react accordingly.
Kaeden needs to learn, too, that Ashleigh is not just a pushover or nothing but a carrot from which only good things flow. She's serious and will back up her words with actions. She's not cruel, nor does she relish in his punishments, but she is firm. Consistency brings respect, even if he doesn't like it when he encounters the club-wielding hand. Rashid won't ever be able to leave if Kaeden believes he can get away with anything when only Ashleigh is around, because he thinks she has no level of disciplinarian in her. Ashleigh's role in his punishments are *necessary.* She can't be left out of it, not entirely.
Rashid is not consistent - but, there's a reason for that. Part of it, certainly, is just acting - he is the "stick" after all, as you have mentioned, but certainly some of it is the fact that he simply isn't a perfect person.
He's not supposed to be unflawed, or without his faults. None of my characters are. I don't like and will not write about "perfect" people (or rather, animal people). Ashleigh is not perfect, Kaeden is not perfect, nor are...others.
Taking pleasure in a particularly unruly charge's punishment or embarrassment, especially one that has personally given him a bit of grief, would be one of those faults. It's not the entire purpose or what he's focusing on, just a "as it happens..." sort of thing. Yes, he enjoys it - he'll also enjoy it more when Kaeden gets better and improves. That's his ultimate goal just as much as Ashleigh's.
Some charges need to be guided, some need to be broken. Like Vexxus said, Aran was scared and confused. Physical punishments would have only made him *more* frightened.
Kaeden, however, is furious and combative. Two different dogs, two different reactions. Kaeden is not ever going to willingly participate in this unless he's broken into it. There's no guiding him into it. He's in for a rough few days until he settles down and realizes that fighting back is getting him nowhere, and that playing along makes things pass much more smoothly.
He may not mentally accept it, but before that happens he has to at least physically accept his situation.
As far as Rashid: I can only see his reaction as realistic. Not all charges are as disruptive as Kaeden or even Aran were, and while I'm sure it brings Rashid great pleasure to see a "changed puppy" - in the meantime, while Kaeden is still determined to be a disruptive little shit, it's a bit of a personal victory to see him brought from being uppity and confident enough to spit in his face, to...well, face-down on his changing table with his diaper down. I know I'd enjoy the feeling, personally.
This has come up I believe twice now, so I figured I'd try and explain where I'm coming from. It's not that I expect Rashid to be 'perfect', rather it's a matter of him seeming to be a poor fit for his position. Someone who lets go of his emotional control that easily, when dealing with people they /know/ aren't stable or likely to respond well to what they're doing, just doesn't strike me as a good match, job-wise.
Much like it would probably be an un-wise decision to have a clinically diagnosed kleptomaniac in charge of a collection of small, shiny things, someone with poor emotional control doesn't seem like a good pick when dealing with other people who /also/ don't have the greatest emotional control.
>Kaeden, however, is furious and combative.
He was drugged, got in a wreck, kidnapped, woke up strapped to a chair and interrogated, drugged /again/, woke up in the 'care' of two (from his perspective) crazy people who seem to think he's a puppy and are willing to physically restrain him to keep him 'behaving'... I'd think something was very wrong with him if he /didn't/ react like this, assuming he didn't go the 'scared and confused' route.
A difference of opinion I suppose, just seems to me that making someone who is /already/ defensive feel /more/ threatened is just going to make him more, not less, angry and combative.
Everything he's done he'd do with or without having been spit on, or having a struggling Shepherd fighting against him, etc. He was going to drug him to knock him out regardless, he spanks him because his role is the stick. Doesn't matter what Kaeden did to him.
The worst thing he does is sneer at him after being spit on, and if that's a case of poor emotional control, I don't think there's a person alive today who can claim to have any level of emotional control. Now, if he'd backhanded him and launched into a tirade of swearing after he did that, sure. Poor emotional control. "You're going to regret that, puppy."? I'm just not seeing it.
If you're referring to spanking him, Rashid was going off what Ashleigh had literally just told him: "Deal with him." That's a pretty open-ended command. And although I guess I didn't describe Rashid as being calm during that, I didn't describe him as angry, either. I didn't describe his emotional state at all. It was just something that happened. Then Ashleigh later regrets allowing that to happen. "Keeping him under control" isn't exactly a very specific set of guidelines, either. Given how wishy-washy she is about spanking in their last conversation, it's not exactly a big leap of logic to assume any earlier discussions about Kaeden, before he was kidnapped, had the same amount of indecision from her.
Regardless, there's more reasons for this that I can't really reveal yet. All I can really say is: Rashid shows emotion, just like any good character should, but his emotions do not affect his ability to do his job.
As far as Kaeden, that's how they've determined the best approach is, based on their information about him. And it's not just Rashid or Ashleigh, either. There are...others. Total and absolute control is how to get him to the tipping point. Carrots don't work with puppies like Kaeden. At least not at this stage. He can't be angry and combative forever. It's too mentally and physically draining to keep up, especially when time after time again there is zero payoff for him. Inevitably, he'll hit his breaking point. There's no way around it. Of course, it's anyone's guess as to whether he'll cooperate wholly, or just cooperate on the surface, and make plans below.
He said he was going 'to regret' the spit to the face, but all he did afterwards was something he was /already/ going to do, that of drugging Keaden again, which implied(at least when I read it) that his actions in the future towards Keaden would be affected by it, and the cause of the 'regret'.
To quote Jennifer: "All will be revealed, in time." Let the story explain itself - I can tell you that Draugr wrote what he did for a reason. He doesn't 'just' write anything :)
Bad behavior warrants punishments. Spitting in his face indicates Kaeden has no intention of playing along or being nice - hence, he's going to regret it :).
Not a big problem, or really /a/ problem at all, certainly not enough to keep me from reading, just saying that's why my observations and comments might seem a little 'lacking' to those that have read the whole thing.
The ending felt a bit rushed as you went from him getting a nap to suddenly filling in about the rest of his day and early bedtime but thats just a minor quip to an otherwise excellent story. :3
I'm curious to know what happens next. ^.^
Can't wait till he gets to the point where he's that cute little princess pup we saw in that one pic. ^_^
I get a good 'cop' and bad 'cop' feeling from Ashleigh and Rashid and I wonder if their doing that intentionally and I wonder if they were talking by his door intentionally as well to be heard.
Food for thought. :3
There are a few places where I have to jump ahead and gloss over time passed. In the future, it should become more clear why that is. Not because of plot reasons, not directly, more because of...authorship reasons, I guess, heh.
You wanted to skip ahead to the next day because you were ultimately finished with the scene. I just think there are more organic ways to end such a scene and make it feel more natural. Although thats just my opinion and as I said even ending it the way you did is just a minor quip. (You asked for constructive criticism after all. :o )
And personally I can't wait till he's turned into Ashleigh's cute little princess pupper. ^.^
I know there's a lot your probably thinking of doing and I know your not going to share.
But I'm free to guess and hope about whats in store for the pup. ;3
Guessing is fun, and if you are anything like me when I was reading Vexxus' story, you will be just as pleased when you are right as you are when you are wrong :3.
I can honestly say that I'm always happy with whatever comes about so it's impossible for me to ever be disappointed. ^.^
Honestly reading this stuff is making me want to write again though. :o
It's been way to long since I wrote anything. (My muse always seems to get a quick hit to the gut from life and especially from the actions of my family, that I go for extremely long periods of time without doing anything creative out of depression and just not wanting to deal with it....)
It's also nice when a writer/artist has time to chat with people about their stories. So thank you for that. ^.^
Mmmm. Just as an interesting bit of food for thought what would you think have happened if you switched Rashid and Ashleigh's roles around? :3
Rashid being the stern but caring and loving, 'Daddy' and Ashleigh being the gruff disciplinarian? :3
(Though this would likely require a massive re-write of their personalities. :p)
I think, perhaps, that "Rashid" would be a lot less spanking-averse than Ashleigh is, though.
Kaeden would ultimately have a much more difficult time forming any kind of bond because of...reasons :3.
Kaeden might have fought back a bit more, perhaps? I don't know! Like I said, hard to picture.
I have a penchant for 'What If's' like this.
Though I'm now curious over the reasons and wonder if there's something your planning. :p
Now that I think of it, Kaeden was pretty quick to tell Rashid he didn't swing that way when the Rottie offered to get him a drink. ^.^
None of my character's sexualities are really mentioned; it's intended to be a non-sexual story at its core. I haven't really devoted any time nor thought to it, other than Kaeden, who, as it has been mentioned, was dumped by his girlfriend.
Taking the basic perception that sometimes the more loud and resolute a person is about their sexuality the...Well you probably get it. :p
I noticed the 'No Yiff' tag early on and realized the story was non-sexual, so sexuality probably would far be from the forefront. :p
Sorry if I wasn't clear. :o
If the point is to get Kaeden to trust and relax Ashleigh making her out to be his defender agaisnt Rashid would be a good first step. :p
It's hard to convey a proper joke via text after all that it's sometimes best to clarify.
I'm reading it now.
It's good so far. (At chapter VII)
I happen to love the hell out of that husky plush. ;3
I have one as well. A gift from a friend of mine as a birthday gift after a particularly rough year with my family. I didn't have many as a kid and the one of the very few I did have that happened to be my most cherished one my Mom gave to her pet dog and proceeded to ruin. :( (It was an old Simba Cub plushie from when the Lion King first came out.)
So when I got this one from my friend....
Also, don't be too shy to leave comments on the first installment ;)
Nice little addition. :3
I love plush animals so seeing Aran have one and instantly bond to it ticked off my, "Daaaaw" button. ^_^
Sorry about the personal info. :o (Not everyone wants to hear stuff like that. Sorry. >.<)
Might have been a lot but my plushie needs context. >.>
And no worries I will if there's anything to add. :3
Though I'm really behind and spamming comments in older chapters might not do much. :o