The Vacant Years: Chapter 4
Matt turned over in his sleep, every muscle in his body protesting at the effort, and loosed a groan that filled the large room, echoing. "What the fuck... man?" He said, reaching up to his face and rubbing his drooping eyes with the sides of his hands, then blinking them open. His vision was blurry, but cleared eventually, and the German Shepard was practically blown away by what he saw.
This wasn't his room. This wasn't his house. This wasn't even his bed...
"What the hell is this...?” Matt said, eyes looking over the vaulted plaster ceiling and slowly coursing around the room, baffled by what he saw, so strange and unexpected was the image. There were bars at the head, end, and on the left side of the bed, all of which sat easily as tall as he did, or maybe just a tad taller. The bars on the right side, however, seemed to be able to slide down into the ground, and had been latched in place there, so he wasn't exactly caged. Nevertheless, if someone did decide to slide the bars up and lock it, he'd be trapped inside, and he kept that in mind. "W-what the hell is this? Some kind of joke?" Matt asked, dumbly, then tried to scramble to his feet. Again, as before, the Shepard's exhausted and heavy muscles complained at the exertion, but he managed to get to his feet, if only for a few seconds. Matt had counted on being dressed only in a pair of boxers, the way he usually dressed for bed, but that wasn't the case at all. He was naked, certainly, right down to the naked fur, except for one holdout garment. They were underwear, yes, but not any underwear he had ever worn. As though to intentionally mock him, the snug, elastic, slightly padded garment had 'size 6 Huggies pull-up' printed across the front, with a picture of a certain honey loving yellow bear underneath. Matt gasped, face going bright red, and grabbed at the pull-up with both hands, wresting it away to the point that the plastic waistband tore, and it fell away from his now naked crotch. 
The German Shepard kicked what was, to him, practically a diaper out of the semi-cage of his bed, then, shuddering all over with mingled fear and humiliation, stepped naked off of the mattress and onto the cool, easy wipe tiles below. He could see that only half of the room, practically the size of a small apartment, was done in the laminated tile floor. The rest was covered by colorful sweeps of carpet, the sort that one might see in a daycare or kindergarten, and that the rest of the room was likewise furnished. There was some sort of countertop along one wall that didn't serve any purpose he could deduce, a big dresser next to it, one thick, oak door with a mural of the rising sun painted onto it, an armchair, a book case, and a closet. Along the wall opposite counter was a wall-length window, but, given that the room was taller than he'd expect, he wouldn't be able to look out it without standing on something. 
Heart pounding with anxiety, Matt tried to calm his frantic breathing, "it’s okay Matt, it’s okay... relax." he told himself, over and over again, then perked his ears. He could hear footsteps, sensitive canine ears hearing the soft 'pat pat pat pat' of bare paws on linoleum tile or hardwood. They were getting closer, Matt realized, whoever it was coming his way, and he was butt naked! Without another thought towards who had taken him, where, when or why, Matt padded over to the dresser in the corner and, as quietly as he could, pulled open the top drawer. With any luck it would be full of... "Pull-ups!?" The German Shepard gasped, staring blankly at the rows of stacked, folded Huggies pull-ups sitting next to a motley assortment of kid's socks, though they seemed to be in an adult's size. Ignoring the padded underwear as much as he could, Matt grabbed the least adorned pair of socks he could find and tossed them onto the ground, then moved onto the next drawer: T-shirts. If finding the training pants and kid's socks had confused the dog, now red faced with humiliation and trying his best to keep calm and dress himself before he was caught naked, finding a drawer full of shirts, clearly intended for him, that were all printed with kid's cartoons on the front, everything from the Ninja Turtles to Disney Films, the latter of which he rejected out of hand, fully took him aback. "What the hell is going on here!?" Matt said, louder than he had intended, confusion starting to give way to anger, and grabbed the first shirt he could find that was acceptable: a green Power Ranger T that turned inside out and pulled over his head hastily. Next drawer was shorts, and was reasonably age appropriate. After all, how much kid's programming could you put on a pair of shorts? He picked a pair of light orange trunks at random, hoping the netting would compensate for a lack of underwear, then pulled them on, too, growling with frustration.
"Are you up in there, Matt?" came a loud, female voice, oddly calm and factual for someone who had surely just kidnapped him. Matt went silent, frozen, and stared up at the door as he heard a lock being operated, then the large, hardwood door swung open, revealing the speaker. Matt's kidnapper was a tall, powerful looking female tigress with a staunch, muscular body. She didn't look threatening, and in fact smiled broad and warmly as she looked over the poorly dressed Shepard, snickering a bit at the sight of his inside out T-shirt and backwards shorts, all put on in haste. 
"H-who are you?" Matt said, taking a step backwards impulsively, and almost tripping on his dropped socks. The tiger giggled a bit, looking him up and down, then grinned.
"See? Now this is what happens when you let kids dress themselves," the tiger said, rolling her eyes and gently putting a paw on the Shepard's shoulder, "look at this mess. Shirt inside out, shorts backwards, and I see you completely forgot your pull-up, Matt." 
Matt stood there, dumbfounded, jaw hanging open as the tiger female looked him over, amused, but judging nonetheless. When he finally got his senses back, he retreated out of arms reach and growled, "Who the hell are you, and why did you bring me here?" he demanded, ready to fight if need be.
"Language, puppy," the tigress snarled, closing the distance between them in one fluid motion and slapping the back of Matt's hand hard, "I never want to hear that kind of talk from you again, now stay still and let me fix that mess of clothing you're wearing." 
"Get away from me, lady!" Matt said, clutching his stinging paw in one hand and trying to get something between himself and this clearly unstable tigress. What did she think he was, a cub? And PUPPY?! Who did she think she was, his mother?
The tigress glanced around the room, and caught sight of his tattered and torn pull-up, left lazily on the floor, "what did I tell you about taking these off, Matt?" she said, firm as a strict mother, "they're for your own good, and if I catch you out of them without permission again, it's right back to diapers for you."
"You're crazy, bitch!" Matt yelled, positively furious by now. She was much more muscular than him, sure, but she was also a girl, and the German Shepard wasn't afraid of a fight with a girl. He should have been. 
With feline speed and grace, and what probably amounted to years of martial arts experience, Matt's caretaker took two steps forward, weaved left to avoid a thrown plastic fur brush, then grabbed Matt's left wrist and bent him around backwards with it. "If I hear one more dirty word from the likes of you, puppy," she said, almost growling herself as the canine yipped and whimpered in pain and discomfort, "I might just have to wash that mouth out with soap. Now calm down, and let me fix your clothes."
Even Matt, known for his arrogance, couldn't deny that he had been totally taken apart by the tigress, who kept a firm grasp on his wrist she led him across the room, tail literally between his legs, and sat him up against the dresser, all the neatly stacked piles of clothes within either dumped out onto the carpet or messed up beyond recognition. "Look at this mess," she said, casting a scolding eye over Matt, who was blushing furiously, but not speaking. He didn't fight as the tigress wrapped her paws around his shirt at the hem and pulled it up and over his head, then cast it aside and reached for the waistband of his shorts.
"No," Matt said, and looked like he might try to run, "I'll do the shorts when you're out of the room." The Shepard's face was firm and unyielding, but his new caretaker only smiled, and rightfully called him out on it.
"Buddy," she said with a doubting grin, "I've already seen what you've got down there, and I can see why you'd want to hide it, but one way or another those shorts are coming off."
"Hey..." Matt said, the jab at his manhood clearly having hit home, "not cool..."
"Oh, it was just a joke," the tigress said, apparently in better humor now that, however temporary it might be, Matt was cooperating. While he was still squirming in embarrassment, she reached over and jerked the shorts down around his ankles, stepping on them so he couldn't try to pull the back up. "Besides," she said in the most conciliatory manner she could, getting a pang of pleasure at making the bratty canine squirm, "I'm going to be seeing you naked plenty, so you might as well get used to it."
"Who are you..." Matt groaned, clutching his boy bits in both hands, but didn't try to imbue authority into his words the way he usually did.
"My name is Telia," she said, giving the naked dog a warm, loving grin, "it's my job to clean you, cook for you, care for you, and assume all the responsibilities of a parent, fun or not, for someone who desperately needs one." 
The Shepard gave her a blank look, trying to understand what she meant, "you can't just kidnap me," he said certainly, "that's illegal. What you're doing is illegal..."
"It's only illegal if I get caught," she said, picking out a pair of training pants for Matt and handing them to him, "put on your pull-ups, and don't bother with the rest of your clothes. Since you've been so fussy this morning, they're all you get until after lunch."
"There is no way I'm wearing pull-ups," Matt said sternly, and tossed the padded underwear off to the side with a pouty, childish foot stomp. "Not a chance in h-" he caught himself right before he said hell, remembering what the tiger had threatened to do.
"Let me get something straight with you, Matt," she said, calmly taking another pull-up from the drawer, "there are two ways that this can work. Either you swallow your inflated pride, put on these training pants, and stop acting like a fussy toddler, or I'll bend you over my knee, spank that cute little bottom until it matches a stop sign, and then put you in the pull-ups anyway. You've got ten seconds before I go with the latter."
"You can't-" Matt started, mouth hanging open in shock and frustration. He'd never been spanked, NEVER! His father wouldn't allow it. What made this pompous overgrown housecat think she could just...
"Five... four... three... two..." Telia said, slowing down the count as she got closer and closer, and watched Matt pout harder and harder, "don't make me get to one, Matt..."
"Give me the stupid pull-ups..." Matt said, uncrossing his arms and taking the childish, padded underwear, and trying to ignore the fierce grin on Telia's face. Like the pair he had woken up in, the pull-up that Telia gave him had Whinnie the Pooh on it, which only served to make his hands quiver all the more as he stepped through the leg holes, trying desperately to pretend they were just normal underwear, then, with an exhibition of psychological weight lifting, pulled the pull-up around his waist, again covering his naked fur behind padded, plastic backed underwear. "This is humiliating..." Matt said, doing everything he could with his limited resources to look unsatisfied, "why are you doing this to me?"
"So many questions..." Telia mused, grinning at the otherwise naked Shepard, who abjectly writhed under her eye, "curious little tot. Now, if you're done fighting me, I've got a perfectly cooked plate of bacon and eggs waiting for you. I know you're hungry."
As if in spite of Matt's desire to look as fussy and uncooperative as possible, his stomach growled loud enough that anyone in the room might hear. "I hate this," he said, scowling, "let me go. You have no right to-"
"Are you done?" the tigress said, cutting him off in mid-sentence, "if you're having trouble keeping your mouth shut, I've got a muzzle you could wear until you learn." 
There was a long silence between them. Telia waited for the Shepard's answer, even though Matt obviously wasn't about to let himself be muzzled, but, despite being chastised, Matt still wanted answers. "Y-you said eggs and bacon?" He asked, looking up at her desperately, "I am kind of hungry..."
Telia smiled at him again, as though the simple act of finally submitting had washed away any bad blood between them, "Yup! I'm not an amazing chef, but I think you'll enjoy it," she said with a laugh, and gestured for him to exit the room first, so that he couldn't sneak up on her, he supposed.
"I'd be ready to eat tarmac..." Matt said, having ignored his hunger thus far that morning, more occupied with other concerns, and walked out of his nursery, dressed only in his juvenile pull-up, more fit for someone a fifth his age, but decided to play along for now, especially if it meant food.
Telia led Matt out of his nursery, which was apparently on the second floor of a two story house, then down a flight of carpeted spiral stairs. The bottom let out to a hallway out of which he could see a neatly furnished den, dining room, and modern looking kitchen. 
"Take a seat in the dining room, Matt," Telia ordered, giving his lightly padded bottom a pat.
"Stop that!" Matt said, batting her paws away with his hands and turning slightly, but the tigress only giggled a bit and walked past him, "This is so degrading..." Badly demoralized, the dog walked over to the dining room table, a reasonably nice rectangular surface made of laminated wood with room for six people, and sat down in a chair, trying to take in his surroundings. A glance out the front window, which he could just see from the living room/dining room combination, showed that he was in, of all places, a suburb. "You're kidding..." he whispered to himself, and considered bolting for the front door at once, but restrained himself. At the moment his options were either run out there in a pull-up and get laughed at by everything on two legs, or ditch the pull-up and have the police called. Neither option sounded good.
"Eat up, cutie," Telia said, now wearing an apron overtop of her white track pants and grey T-shirt, and set a square, plastic kid's plate onto his placemat, along with some utensils, but Matt didn't pay any attention to the plate, he was occupied with the food! There was a small mountain of scrambled eggs with ketchup obscuring whatever safety message had been printed onto the plastic, and a ring of perfectly seared bacon strips around it. A moment later, the tigress came back with a glass of orange juice, setting it before him and suddenly rising several notches in his estimation. Matt grabbed the fork and dug in, getting some bacon and egg onto it, then was about to put it into his mouth when Telia's hand closed around his wrist. "Don't you have something to say, first?" she said with a smile, but Matt, hungry as he was, could only focus on the food in front of him.
"Like what?" the Shepard replied, eyes briefly blinking up to her face, which suddenly looked a lot less cheerful.
"They told me you're a brat," the tigress said, clearly unhappy with his answer, "but this? I do all this for you and you can't even remember to say two measly little words before digging in?"
Matt rolled his eyes with all the sarcasm of a pre-pubescent boy, "thank you your highness for this gift of sustenance to your-" was as far as he got before Telia slapped the back of his hand with her palm, making him drop the fork, then, by the time he looked up, his food was gone. "Hey!"
Standing up from his chair, Matt was prompted by Telia's return, this time carrying a plate of much less appetizing green mush, and dropping it down onto the table in front of him, "mashed peas," she explained, picking up his fork and sticking it into the pulpy vegetable, "since you proved yourself too immature for big boy food, this will have to suffice."
"You're kidding," Matt said, trying to look fierce and determined, "there's no way I'm eating that." 
"Sit down, Matt," Telia said, her entire feline face going red with color, "one way or another, every last crumb of this is going into your stomach. And I'll have my 'Thank You,' now."
Matt opened his mouth to shoot something back, he wasn't exactly sure what, but before he could so much as speak the tiger came around behind him, put one leg between him and the chair, and tripped him right on into it. "Ow! Hey! What the hell are y-" A spoonful of the green mush passed Matt's lips and teeth before he could finish his sentence, and dumped its contents before he could resist, the spoon coating his entire mouth with the taste and texture of goopy vegetable puree. He spat it out just as soon as she withdrew the spoon, and got green stuff all over her T-shirt and pants, but Telia paid him no mind, pinning the Shepard to the chair with one knee over his legs, and jabbing another spoonful of goop between his teeth when he opened his mouth next. Matt went to spit again, but the tigress's strong fingers closed around his muzzle, and no amount of struggling could remove them. As much by instinct as intention, he eventually swallowed the disgusting goop, if only to get it out of his mouth.
With that done and Matt gagging on mashed peas, she stopped, staring the fiercely resistant canine in the face.
"What are you waiting for?" Matt asked, making sure to keep his teeth together.
"My thank you," Telia replied, equally stubborn, "you're not getting another bite of food until I get it. I've already eaten, and I can keep you here all day if that's what it takes."
"You expect me to thank you for this?!" Matt squealed from between clenched teeth, looking down at the heaped blob of amorphous green food.
"I expect you to know what happens if you don't," the tigress replied, looking stubborn as ever, and the Shepard’s ears pressed flat against his head.
"I go hungry, don't I?" Matt asked, head hanging a bit, then sighed, exasperated, "fine... Thank you for the foo-" was as far as he got before another spoonful of the mush past his lips. Matt gagged on it, but eventually swallowed, and looked back up into Telia's smiling face.
"Why you're very welcome, sweetie. Really, was that so painful?" the tigress said, getting another spoonful ready to stick into Matt's scowling, pouty face.
"Not physically..." he said, remembering not to open his muzzle wide enough to admit a spoon, which hovered in front of his face menacingly.
"Matt," Telia said when the Shepard didn't immediately open for the airplane, "you're still not leaving this chair until you're done every last bite." The dog sighed, rolling his eyes, then slowly opened his mouth for another bite. The stuff tasted bad, but it wasn't intolerable, and the psychological sting of being force-fed baby food was leaps and bounds worse than the actual taste of the stuff.
With his resistance broken, Telia made sure that every glob of mashed peas disappeared down his gullet within about ten minutes, leaving Matt, squirming with discomfort and embarrassment, to wallow in his own misery for a few minutes. 
"How's that pull-up of yours faring, sweetie?" Telia said, taking Matt's hand and standing him up. What could she possibly mean by that? She couldn't mean to think... "Still dry?" she continued after a moment, and Matt's face instantly went bright red.
"Of course it is!" he practically shouted at her, looking down at the lightly padded pull-up that she had bullied him into, "what do I look like, a four year old?" 
"You're a month shy of eight, if I remember correctly," Telia said with a wink, then closed the distance between him and, before he knew what she was about, popped a finger down the front of the Shepard's pull-up. Matt gasped.
"Get away from me!" he said, and swatted her hand away, expecting an immediate reprimand, but none came. Instead, she just giggled and turned away.
"Alright, puppy," Telia said with a chuckle, "but you'd better not have any accidents with that attitude. I might just need to put you into something thicker to make sure you don't ruin your clothes."
Matt positively squirmed at her words, face red as the dawn, and looked away to hide his blush, practically growling again, "I'm not going to have any accidents," he said, stern as stone. She could treat him like an eight year old all she wanted, that didn't make him one. But again, she just shrugged and pulled him away by the paw.
"Alright, I'll take your word for it," the tigress replied, slowly leading Matt back through the house and up the stairs. "Now, normally play time comes after breakfast," Telia said with a sly smirk, "but since you took the liberty of messing up your bedroom in that temper tantrum this morning, you're going to have to clean up after yourself before you get to have any fun." 
Matt stared, mouth open, right at the back of the tigress’s red and black striped head, grasping for a reply. Finally he settled on the default, "Isn't it your job to clean up after me?" he said with a smirk of his own, which Telia shortly wiped off his face.
"It's my job to raise you properly, and fix all your lazy, childish habits, Mathew," Telia replied, using the full form of the Shepard’s name, one of his most hated things to be called, and pulled him by the arm into his thoroughly trashed bedroom. In their scuffle that morning, the majority of his kids clothing had been dumped onto the floor, along with many of the furnishings, such as the things he had thrown at her. "Just look at this mess..." she said, shaking her head as she examined the room, then sighed, shutting the door behind them. “You’ve got one hour before naptime, Mathew," the tigress said, crossing her arms and looking stern as a statue, "those clothes need to be refolded and organized. Everything else needs to be tidied and returned to its proper place. I'll be back up here in half an hour to check up on you, and if I see anything that's not up to the standard it was at when you woke up, you're going to do it again and again until I'm satisfied. Understand?" She tapped her foot, and looked over Matt's horrified, dumbstruck face with a sort of sadistic smugness. Someone should have taught these lessons to the Shepard two decades earlier, but Telia was perfectly happy to pound them into his thick skull right now. She liked a good challenge. 
As Matt scrambled and stumbled for words, Telia turned on a dime, opened the door, and stepped outside, "W-wait!" he called, trying to intercept the quickly closing door, which stopped only a fist's width from the frame, "W-what if I need your help with something?" he asked desperately, hoping he might torment her with questions until she just gave up and did the work herself. 
The tigress opened the door again, grinning and giggling, then pointed to the four black lenses that had been mounted right into the molded ceiling vault. He looked dumbly, trying to figure out what she was pointing at, then looked back at her, eyes asking the question his lips wouldn't form. "Baby monitors," she said with a wink, then leaned in close, "smile for the camera, puppy. I'll answer any questions over the intercom." A second later, the door closed and locked from the outside, leaving the Shepard with a deep sense of dread, and a lump in his throat that simply wouldn't clear.
Matt simply stood there for a few minutes, staring at the door to his bedroom prison, and considered her words. She was watching him... even when she wasn't in the room, she was watching him... He glanced up at the four cameras, placed at different points in the room so that there was nowhere he could hide to avoid being observed. To make matters worse, they were all placed inside the molding, so he couldn't throw a shirt or something overtop of them for a bit of privacy. A cold sweat broke out along his neck, more out of fear than exertion, and he started to pant just looking at the huge job that awaited him. "This is bullshit..." he complained to himself, walking over and kicking the pile of clothes in frustration, "why should I clean this crap up? She kidnapped me..." he spent another five minutes walking around and muttering, when his deliberations were interrupted by something crinkly and padded under his foot. He looked down to see the torn up pull-up under his foot, then kicked it away and took off the one she had forced him into, too. She was probably watching him through the cameras, -he didn't want to call them baby monitors- but he was too pent up and pissed off to care. He made an obscene gesture towards one of the cameras, blushing fiercely in humiliation, then dug through the pile of clothes for a pair of shorts to wear, which he did, then stashed the worn but not used pull-ups behind the dresser where they wouldn't be found. Sure, his digging in the pile spread out the clothes, and mangled any that were still reasonably folded, but he still had no intention of cleaning this mess up, so why should he care?