The smell of burning hair fills the air as the fluffy newly dubbed “Ashtray” wails like a banshee, a high, shrill tone that pierces into the night, echoing through the woods bouncing off the trees, scaring local wildlife. The cigarette butt, now extinguished fully, sticks to Ashtray’s back where John had put it out on him, caught in both flesh and fluff. John hadn’t taken into account how fragile fluffies really are, then again he didn’t give his cruelty much thought, acting in blind rage.
John puts on a record and sits down, the opening notes of “Playin’ by the Rules” off Michael McDonald’s 1982 album If That’s What It Takes" fill the room but he doesn’t pay much attention, in all honesty he’s just listening to hear I Keep Forgettin’ but any noise to drown out Ashtray’s incessant whining is a welcome relief. He lights another cigarette and puts his feet up.
“Ashtray, come here,” John speaks calmly, despite his anger, trying to relax.
“Nu! Munstah! Gib buwnie huwties!” He squeaks out between sobs.
“Quit being dramatic and get your ass over here now,” John loses patience with every word he speaks. Tired of the exchange he grabs Ashtray roughly by the scruff of the neck and plops him in his lap. Sit still for daddy.
“Nu! Nee wun way! Munstah! Munstah!” Ashtray writhes in John’s arms, trying desperately to get away, not understanding that a human toddler could overpower a fluffy, let alone a grown man.
“I’ve had enough of your shit, ashtray. You promised to be good before I took you home and you’ve been an asshole since I got you in the house. You’re going to sit here until you calm down,” John tries to explain himself, but of course ashtray won’t listen. He keeps screaming, sobbing, threatening, and eventually starts hitting John, giving him ‘wowstest sowwy hoofsies’ as he calls it, which isn’t very hard but from the grunts he made, John could tell Ashtray was trying to hurt him.
“Do you want to keep your ‘weggies’ Ashtray?” He asks
“Nu take weggies!” Ashtray screams and starts hitting him harder, which again, isn’t very hard.
“Then stop fucking hitting me,” John tells him, which he of course blatantly ignores, screaming louder, hitting harder and faster, kicking with his back legs trying to escape. “Well I warned you. This is on you now, Ashtray.”
John takes Ashtray to the kitchen and sets him in the sink, which is just deep enough for his legs to not touch the bottom while he’s too big to fit fully inside the sink, leaving him stuck. John takes out a cheap plastic cutting board, a sharp kitchen knife and sets them on the counter, turning to the stove where he ignites the burner and sets a spatula directly over the flame. He grabs ashtray out of the sink and forces his front left leg out to the side, dislocating it from its socket, as well as the right front leg.
“SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE”
“Oh can it, dumb fuck. You had your chance to stop this,” John stuffs a kitchen towel in his mouth.
Once the spatula on the stove starts glowing red, he slices through the legs right at the joint enduring he can’t use them to crawl, only to slide around pathetically, and cauterizes the fresh stumps with the red hot spatula. Once he’s done, he yanks out the towel roughly, taking a few teeth out in the process and pries open ashtray’s mouth to drop in the end of his burning cigarette.
“This is the only ‘nummies’ you get until you say you’re sorry, eat up,” John holds ashtray’s mouth shut as he tries to scream, not letting go until he feels ashtray start chewing and swallow."
“SKREEEEEE”
“Nope,” John stuffs the towel back in his mouth, “last time I give you a second chance.”
John carries him over, wrapped in a towel, back to the couch and sets him in his lap again.
“Ready to be a good fluffy for daddy?” John asks, and ashtray nods so fast John’s surprised he didn’t give himself brain damage. “Ready to tell daddy you’re sorry for being a bad fluffy?” He nods again. John pulls the towel out of his mouth again, gently this time.
“Huu huu huu, ashtway sowwy daddeh! Nu wan be bad fwuffy nu mowe! Huu huu huu!” He sobs between words.
“Well, good fluffies have all their ‘weggies’ but you only have two, maybe one day if you’re a super good fluffy, your ‘weggies’ will come back, how does that sound bud?”
“Miss weggies… huu huu huu”
“But… good fluffies have all their weggies. So that means bad fluffies don’t have all their weggies, so you’ll be a bad fluffy forever because you lost them.”
“Nu, be gud fwuffy, be gud fwuffy, wan weggies!”
“But you lost them for being bad, which makes you a bad fluffy, and since good fluffies have all their weggies, you’ll never be a good fluffy. All you’re good for is eating my cigarette butts. Bad fluffies don’t get toys, spaghetti, or fun playrooms, or anything. And if you’re bad again, no more back weggies either, got it?”
“Ashtway be gud! Ashtway be gud!”
“Time for bed, ashtray.” John sets him in the litter box, leaving the bed tantalizingly close.
“You’re a ‘dummy’ fluffy, I don’t trust you to make good poopies on your own, so you’ll sleep in the litter box.”
“Nu, wittewbox nu fow sweepin! Am fow poopies! Wan bed!”
“really, cause it sounds like you want to say goodbye to your other weggies. Don’t talk back.” John walks out, leaving him alone, in the dark, in the litter box only a foot away from a nice warm comfy bed.
“Dummeh daddeh, ashtway nu sweep in dummeh wittewbox.” Ashtray says aloud as he crawls slowly out of the litter box, kicking sand everywhere as he does, and tracks it all the way to his bed, but without his front legs he just pushes it across the floor, unable to get in on his own.
“Dummeh beddie, ashtway wan make gud sweepies, nu wun way fwom ashtway!”
He keeps chasing his bed around across the living room, unable to crawl in, getting more and more frustrated until he feels it.
“Nee make gud poopies! Gu way beddie!” He tries to push the bed out of the way to no avail on his way to the litter box where he encounters two new issues. He can’t get the bed out of his way, and he can’t climb into the litter box. He pushes the bed into the litter box, getting it unstuck from his front, and misses the mark trying to turn around, shitting all over his bed, the litter box, the floor, the wall, and himself.
In the morning John comes out to find the scene, ashtray still frozen to the spot in fear, knowing he fucked up.
“Ashtray! I told you, you sleep in the litter box now. You got out of the litter box, went to your bed, put your bed in the litter box and shit on it? Clearly I can’t trust you with legs. Say bye bye to your weggies ashtray.”
The process is identical to the time before, dislocate, amputate and cauterize. He sets ashtray on the coffee table in a diaper.
“Time to earn your keep,” John says as he finishes another cigarette, “open wide.”